Monday, February 4, 2013

More Silliness: In Whom Do We Trust?

First, let's start with where I'm coming from. Back in junior high, I came across a bumper sticker I kept for decades: "In God we trust. All others pay cash." That's my kind of sense of humor.

Lately there's been way too much attention to whether and where those first four words appear. A couple years back, there was a big bruhaha about the new dollar coins. Email chains were going around posing a boycott because those words didn't appear on the coins. Of course, the idiots proposing said boycott didn't seem to realize that the rim of the coins, where the words did actually appear, were actually a part of the coins!

Last night, prior to the Super Bowl, another idiotic chain proposing a boycott was going around. Rich and Brenda were sitting there with me, in preparation for watching a commercial blitz - who cared about the game? - and got the chain a couple times. Was this another government-related item? Oh no, this time it was about... wait for it... Pepsi!

Yup, it seems that Pepsi has had the audacity to put a new can out with the pledge of allegiance on it, but missing the words "under God".  One nation indivisible. They didn't want to offend anybody, and went back to the pre-1950's wording. Of course, there is a segment of the population with nothing much to do that's more important than taking offense at imaginary slights, and somehow confuse Pepsi, a mega-million dollar world-wide company, interested in the bottom line rather than anybody's souls, with their own version of government-sponsored church.

C'mon, guys, really? Pepsi? You need them to endorse God? That's the bedrock of your faith, or the cause of it crumbling, what Pepsi prints on a can? It's not like any Muslims, animists, or atheists might drink it, eh?

The boycott message concludes that we should all quit bringing our US government money which states "In God We Trust" to spend on something which lacks that phrase. Gimme a break! Name one other thing at the same grocery store with those words! Just one! You need your bananas stamped? How about those disposable diapers, about to be filled with something as sacred as baby poop? You need that phrase there?

For that matter, when I hit the grocery store, my money is grey, plastic, and much more likely to say "Master Card."

1 comment:

Douglas McClean said...

"Ceremonial deism" indeed. These folks don't seem to think it's merely ceremonial.