City Council Nixes National Prayer

[Gun Nut]

Well then the song needs an update...

Orange Orangutan, in the gold tower
tweet me a tale, to usurp the power
When there's a vote, the dictator will fall
and down with the traitors, royal family and all

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It was not a prayer until it was given the words under god. Then it became a prayer.

I don't think adding 'under god' made it a prayer. It's not addressed to a deity, nor does it require any deity perform some act of patronage over the nation.

I think it does resemble a prayer in that it's taught by rote, memorized and repeated without being understood. Authority figures tell you to repeat the sounds and get upset if you question the contents or the very ritual itself. Participation is mandatory, but engaging the brain is actually contraindicated.

But then, that also resembles a nursery rhyme. I was singing 'rock a by baby' for years before I was brought up short by FINALLY noticing the lyrics. 'Wait, the branch breaks and BABY TUMBLES DOWN!?!? What's the deal? Who put baby to bed at THE TOP OF A TREE, GOD DAMN IT!?!?!'
Or "If I should die before I wake? Who writes this shit!?!?"

It definitely made the POA into a prayer. You can read all about it:

Under god was added for religious reasons and to exclude atheists

“To omit the words ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance is to omit the definitive factor in the American way of life,” Docherty said from the pulpit. He felt that “under God” was broad enough to include Jews and Muslims, although he discounted atheists.

“An atheistic American is a contradiction in terms,” Docherty said in his sermon. “If you deny the Christian ethic, you fall short of the American ideal of life.”

The week of Docherty’s sermon, bills were introduced in Congress to add the phrase, and Eisenhower signed the act into law on Flag Day — June 14, 1954.

So it was definitely all about religion.

[Keith&Co.]

So it was definitely all about religion.

So you define prayer as 'being about religion?' Sounds more political, to me. The Conservatives effort to position themselves as true Americans, welding religion and patriotism together.

But not a prayer.

[bilby]

It seems to me that large parts of America have trouble understanding that 'atheist', 'communist', and 'criminal' are not synonyms.

I can recall being slightly confused and taken aback by the scene in The Cannonball Run (1981), where Bert Reynold's character asks "Do you take your law and order seriously in this town", and the response is to point to a banner across the High Street that says 'Re-elect Sean "Kill a Commie" O'Scanlan; God, Guns and Guts Keep Us Safe from the Hippy Nuts', implying that they take law and order very seriously indeed.

It's obviously a satirical joke (and in hindsight a pretty good one), but to a naïve teenager, having not been previously exposed to this aspect of US "thinking" about communism, the idea that advocating murdering people for their political views was a pro- (and not an anti-) law and order position was really jarring.

This kind of moral inversion, I now understand, is characteristic of Bible Belt evangelical culture - they get pretty much all moralistic issues completely backwards. People can't be allowed to just do as they please, because that would undermine freedom.