The objections to "under God" and "in God we trust" are often swept aside, by both believers and nonbelievers, as petty arguments made by amateur nitpickers. As is often the case with people not taught to think in concepts, the objects in question are not taken as representative of values. In the case of the second motto, that is saying money represents no value. The easy-nitpicking excuse is employed by the side actually failing to see the point. However, in the case of the Pledge of Allegiance, I myself see no point. Not only no point for that one line, but for the pledge at all. Are patriotism and religion ideas that should or even can be truly learned by rote? Children are supposed to be gathering the knowledge by which to make decisions about belief, not having beliefs drilled in.

Now to "in God we trust" on our money. First, a fun bit of history. In 1861, the Secretary of the Treasury received what history labels the first in a campaign of letters which pointed out a shortcoming of the established monetary system. This oversight, the writers informed the Secretary, was the absence of deity on American coinage. The author of the first letter also made free to assume- after a suggestion of coin design he was certain everyone would find acceptable- that the recipient was a Christian. Further elaboration on the case for melting God with money asserted that this move would protect from the shame of godlessness and, in doing that, even ease the tensions of the ongoing Civil War. Quite a claim.

This letter, and its brothers and sisters, achieved their desired effect. However, because of a previous act detailing the look of money, the Treasury required new legislation. So came the Act of April 22, 1864, which changed the design of one- and two-cent coins. "In God we trust" made its debut on the 1864 two-cent piece. This was followed by the Act of March 3, 1865, which allowed the Mint Director to stamp the new saying on any gold and silver piece with enough room for it., and finally by the Coinage Act of February 12, 1875, which covered basically the same thing, except for extending the rule to all coins. Though the motto has disappeared from some coins since its introduction, it has always, obviously, found its way back. In 1956, the President signed on a resolution declaring this phrase the official one of the United States, and the next year it began its career on paper money as well.

Money is an entirely earthbound trade symbol. It must be produced, and can be produced by no means other than human ones (and properly through honest human ones). All the possible manipulations to money can only be made by people. Some may use external influences to rationalize the abuse of money, but that does not change the intrinsic honesty of the money (or dishonesty of the abuser). In such a case, the money itself does not become soiled, but it is forced to represent what it does not actually stand for (interesting comparison there, isn't it?). Money is the simplified way of stating "someone has worked and made something, and now that person may attain other things because of his or her work"- that is total honesty. That cleared, what is the reasoning for stamping every piece of currency with a personal bias? Money should be clean as law should be clean, which means removing from them all traces of the unprovable and unobjective.

The loudest objectors to doing away with these religious fixatives are often those who fully adhere to the abstractions of an afterlife and the superiority of the spiritual to the material. It reasons to follow, then, that they should leave the rightfully treasured and beloved symbol of this earth to us mortal materialists who believe we must pay our debts now.