Chamblee54

Last week, there was a golf tournament. Before the telecast of the final round, there was a film of children reciting the pledge of allegiance to the United States flag. For some reason, the words “under G-d” were left out. This sparked a controversy.
A reasonable first question is, who watches the introduction to the telecast of a golf tournament? With all the things you can do on a sunday afternoon, why would you want to waste this time on something this trivial? This is aside from spending your emotions, getting upset because a “pledge of allegiance” did not have a reference to your favorite sacred name.
One of the players in this bilefest is a Republican congressman named Todd Akin. He saw a chance to make political hay out of this incident. The money quote : “NBC has a long record of being very liberal and at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for G-d and a belief that government should replace G-d.”
The third commandment says “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy G-d in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” This is a bit of a contradiction. The word Lord ( with or without all caps) is reportedly a term for an English nobleman, that does not accurately represent the phrase in the original Hebrew text. The key word here is G-d, and this is the sacred name at the heart of this controversy.
This commandment is about the proper use of a sacred name. In a perfect world (which does not include PG), this word would only be used for respectful discussion and worship. It would not be part of the dozens of sayings, many hurtful, that currently involve the G word. And the word G-d would not be part of a “pledge of allegiance”, to a symbol of a political entity.
Mr. Akin is using a sacred name to trash those who disagree with him. He combines use of this sacred name with name calling. He forgets that “Liberals” are G-d’s children just as much as “Conservatives”. This is not the proper use of a sacred name.
Update There is a proposal in Georgia to add In G-d We Trust, without the hyphen, to automobile license tags. This is not an appropriate use of a sacred name.