Old Irritations Linger and Fester

I’m not unlike many of you who get various jokes, pictures, chain letters and what-not in emails on a daily basis. Today, someone on the long list of email buddies decided to send me this video. Turns out it’s an old email that has been going around for a while and just won’t die. Below is the email text, then the video is embedded below that for your enjoyment. After watching the painfully bad country song, please read my comments to the email buddy list.

This song was never released BUT PLEASE HEAR IT !!!!
> It's beautiful!
> > > Pump up the volume!!! Read this first and then 'play' the attachedsong
> & slide show.. The song you are about to listen to is from a Las Vegas
> Diamond Rio concert. They received an immediate resounding standing
> ovation, and continue to do so every time they perform it! Everyonewho
> loves America should be thrilled to hear this song! Although DiamondRio
> has never before done a statement song, they felt compelled to record
> 'In God We Still Trust.' But guess what? Sadly, major radio stations
> wouldn't play it because it was considered 'politically incorrect'.
> Consequently, the song was never released to the public. So America ,see
> what you think. If this offering speaks to your heart and you feel to
> share it with friends and loved ones, please do.
>
>>





Friends,

Over 200 years ago, our forefathers had the foresight and intelligence to exclude religion from the formation of a new government. They knew that to endorse any religious establishment would require choosing one religion, and not everyone would agree on the same one. The addition of the words ‘In God We Trust’ to our money happened almost 100 years after the country was founded and it wasn’t added to paper money until 1955. Source

The ‘Under God’ statement in our pledge of allegiance wasn’t added until 1954 after pressure from lobbyists warning that our pledge was too much like ‘those godless communists’. Source The following was written long before that:

"Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind....
The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this even an era in their history.
Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses..." 1788 John Adams – (emphasis added by me)

The lyrics of that song say ‘there are some who want to push Him out’. In reality there are some that wouldn’t mind going back to the original intent of the framers of the constitution. There ARE those who want to force their religious beliefs on others and that’s what I take issue with here. We don’t all want to be evangelical Baptists, it’s obvious by the number and diversity of churches in any given small town in America. Some of us don’t wish to be affiliated with any establishment of religion.

When the topic of separation of church and state comes up, I’m usually the unpopular one at the party. So I didn’t send this comment to everyone on the list, just you of the inner circle haha! But if you feel like forwarding this on, I don’t mind. I just don’t want to force my views on people I barely know.

Regards,

Rusko