CPU: The “God” debate
Tuesday, November 29 marked the second and final CPU debate this semester, with Columbia Democrats and Republicans gathering to discuss the ‘God’ issue. Representing the Democrats were Quitzé Valenzuela-Stookey, CC’15, and Swara Salih, CC’14, while Jamie Boothe, CC’15, and Taylor Thompson, CC’14 represented the Republicans. During this heated debate, Democrats argued that God should not be mentioned in anything produced by the government, while the Republicans… well, the Republicans managed to stagnate the most of the debate at determining the definition of ‘God’. Each side gave a two-minute opening statement followed by a one-minute rebuttal, before the debate was opened up to audience participation. A coin toss determined that the Republicans would be first up.
Jamie Boothe, R: “In god we trust” is our government’s motto, and it only makes sense to put our government’s motto on our currency. The Federal Government has the first amendment right to put the letters G-O-D on its coin. Doing so does not prevent free practice of religion.
Valenzuela-Stookey, D: Clearly, you misread the first amendment. It says ‘no law respecting the establishment of religion’, not the exact opposite.
Swara Salih, D: As a government that tolerates all religions and ethnicities, the U.S. should not put the word ‘God’ on any currency. The term ‘God’ gives the impression that the whole country believes in a monotheistic god. All belief systems should be respected, and this means the government should be neutral. We must be careful not to drown out the non-Christian population of the United States.
Valenzuela-Stookey, D: Most people agree that ‘God’ implies Christianity, not religion alone.
Boothe, R: I’m sure that the Koran and many other religious texts say the word ‘God’ too.
[Valenzuela-Stookey responded by slowly shaking his head back and forth, wide-eyed in disbelief.]
Question for Democrats: The Supreme Court consistently strikes down religious activities such as prayers at school, so why doesn’t it disapprove of the Chief Justices asking for God’s blessings before commencing?
Valenzuela-Stookey, D: Look up the case of Engel vs. Vitale (Which states that a NY law requiring students to recite a prayer before class is unconstitutional, because it infringes upon the separation of church and state.) Clearly, the God being referred to was the Christian one, and God is being used as a normative and conclusive term.
Thompson, R: But Democrats, you didn’t answer the question. How does the gathering of Supreme Court justices asking for the blessings of God count as religious in nature?
Valenzuela-Stookey, D: Well, if you were sitting in a court as an atheist, how would you feel if the justices were reciting ‘may God help us’, if you don’t believe in that Judeo-Christian God yourself?
Question for the Republicans: ‘In God We Trust’ was added in 1954 during the cold war under the U.S. Treasury Secretary Samuel Chase’s belief that ‘no nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins’. Do we still need this phrase as our motto in present day?
Boothe, R: We won the Cold War because we had a superior military, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need God in this government anymore.
Question for Democrats: Around 80% of the American population subscribes to a religion. Shouldn’t there be some sort of expression in the Pledge of Allegiance or in our currency to reflect this?
Salih, D: We don’t think the term should be used at all. In Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, a father rallied for the right of his daughter not to say ‘Under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance, and he won. ‘Under God’ implies that God is the universal belief throughout American, and that just isn’t true.
Valenzuela-Stookey, D: If the primary effect of a religious institution being funded by the government isn’t solely to promote the religion, then it’s okay. For example, sending a chaplain to an army base is okay, because a person is free to visit him only if he wishes. But you can’t put a religious term on a piece of currency representing our government and reflecting our population. We’re not going to get far if you can’t establish this distinction.
[At this point, audience members were encouraged to pose questions to the debaters.]
Question: Let’s look at the Calendar. The calendar clearly uses the terms B.C. and A.D., and these terms imply Christianity. Should the government not be allowed to use dates anymore?
Salih, D: The government changed the terms B.C. to B.C.E. and A.D. to C.E, which stand for ‘Before Common Era’ And ‘Common Era’. We aren’t denying that the birth of Christ influenced how we chose these dates.
[The republicans jump in to attempt to prove that the Democrat’s unwillingness to advocate the entire calendar being re-written is hypocritical]
Thompson, R: But if you set these two sets of dates equal, you are basically tiptoeing around the fact that these dates were chosen with religion in mind at some point.
Boothe, R: You are choosing the life and death of a religious person to set a calendar with.
Valenzuela-Stookey, D: Through this movement, we are recognizing that we want to remove religious terms in the calendar, but do not want to rewrite every single date. You’re aware that the rest of the world would not be willing to follow us if we were to make this change, right?
Question for the Democrats: What is the definition of ‘respect’? What do you interpret respect to mean in terms of the constitution?
Valenzuela-Stookey, D: It’s not promoting one religion above another.
Question for Democrats: By not allowing religious activity in schools, doesn’t the government promote atheism?
Salih, D: It promotes secularism. We basically let people believe what they want to belief without interference.
The Offensive One-Liner:
Thompson, R: You’re a moron if you think that removing the word ‘God’ fixes all the problems.
I really haven’t been to many debates, but I’m pretty sure that ‘moron’ is not debate terminology. Correct me if I’m wrong, Republicans!
[I began to notice at this point is that the Republican debater’s voices tend to peak when using $1000 phrases like ‘face value’, as if they were hiding behind these fancy phrases to make up for their lack of cogent arguments. The Republican’s debating revolved around negative the opposition, not presenting their ideas in organized and researched facts. Most of Boothe and Thompson’s arguments were anecdotes and ‘what-if’ situations, not documented court cases or empirical evidence. The Democrats, on the other hand, remained calm throughout the debate and allowed their words to speak for themselves.]
Closing Statements:
Thompson, R: God isn’t the same as religion; and if you take the resolution of removing God from all prints from the government to its logical conclusion, then you’d have to remove anything relating to God. That’s not acceptable, nor is it possible. What if God, to me, were the word ‘liberty’? Shouldn’t the word ‘liberty’ be banned, too?
-One slow clap from the back.-Valenzuela-Stookey, D: ‘God’, when expressed by the Federal Government, is a normative term, and by repeating it in the public sphere, with the force of the government behind it, you are condemning anything that contracts that the U.S. population as a whole believes in the Christian God. When you choose one God to mention, you are mentioning it above others. And that is a power above an individual.
Maybe the Republicans were using fancy phrases to hide their lack of convincing arguments, as you claim, but the transcript you provide doesn’t support that idea. Other than the Republican “moron” comment, which was a dumb thing to say, most of the smug insubstantial responses seem to have come from the D’s:
“Clearly, you misread the First Amendment.” <– Smug, doesn't explain how what the Republican said is "the exact opposite" of the first amendment (which is also a pretty smug thing to say).
"responded by slowly shaking his head back and forth, wide-eyed in disbelief" <– How did the R's remark not deserve an actual answer? Many, many religions besides Christianity do refer to "God." Even if you think that's a weak argument (and I do, btw – I'm not really on either side of this since it seems like a pointless discussion, but if I had to pick I'd go with the D's side), it deserves a response.
Their initial supreme court answer was not an answer.
"You’re aware that the rest of the world would not be willing to follow us if we were to make this change, right?" <– Once again, smug and condescending. Their answer was actually reasonably nuanced on this issue but why do they insist on always taking things one step further and treating their opponents like some sort of lower life form?
How would people who agreed with the Democrats on this resolution answer the calendar question? The BCE/CE thing seems like a cop-out, as they still pretty obviously refer to the birth of Christ as the momentous event for the calendar.
The Republicans wanted to debate the general role of religion in the government and the public sphere, but the Democrats wanted to narrow it to the word “God” because they knew they couldn’t defend cases where students were suspended for saying a prayer independently in school. This blogger (obviously biased, by the way) also didn’t address the main point of the Republicans argument – God is not any particular god or gods in this context. It is the idea that we have the conviction of our beliefs, no matter what they are, and that is what makes America exceptional. Taking quotes out of context doesn’t make you a good reported Sandya. It makes you a moron – and that’s not an insult, it’s a fact.
I am disappointed in Spec today. Reporting generally infers an unbiased source of information, but clearly they have failed.
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
“we have the conviction of our beliefs, no matter what they are, and that is what makes America exceptional.”
holy shit how can people debate with you when you’re practically brainwashed?
If possible, next time you should include a link to a YouTube video of the debate itself (or a full transcript of the debate), so that people who were not able to attend the debate are able to form their own opinions on what was actually discussed instead of only having edited snippets of the debate to work with.
Some bracketed insertions were biased against the Republican group, and were rather disparaging. This is fine for an opinion piece, but it doesn’t seem that this piece has been placed under that category. Hence, this article does not seem like sound reporting.
Also, ‘face value’ is not a fancy phrase.
And how exactly did they prove that God represents this idea that we have the conviction of our beliefs? I don’t find any evidence of them supporting such claim – and no historical or philosophical evidence supporting this either. God assumes some metaphysical belief which is not universally shared, and is therefore unsuitable in a context that seeks to represent America as a whole.
Oh, and please, who still believes in American exceptionalism? Study abroad and grow up.
You didn’t find any evidence of it because the quotes in this article are taken out of context and are only small bits of a larger argument and point that the Republicans were trying to make. Sandya did a great job of disseminating fake “facts,” though.
A lot of people still believe in American exceptionalism. We are the freest country on Earth, and that makes us exceptional. If you don’t think that or don’t like it, why don’t you try moving to Iran or China and voicing your opinion. That’s why we’re exceptional.
boothe
I am an atheist. I am a leftist. I find the democratic party to be cut from the same cloth as the republicans
Surely there are more urgent questions to be addressed. As a freethinker, I have no problem with the religious. I am not offended by public displays as long as they don’t impede my right not to believe. Diversity must be accepted as much on this question as it is on racial and gender issues.
The world is a mess. People are hungry and homeless in Morningside Heights and everywhere else one looks. There is no social contract. America, as an ideal, has become passe. Our economy, based on greed and selfishness, is in shambles. Our government is ineffective. Our leaders are unimaginative, seeking only to be reelected.
On this issue I find the democrats downright snarky and the republicans overbearing. Get over yourselves.
This article is one of the most left wing-biased articles that I have seen here at my time at Columbia. It practically verges on libel against the Republicans. If this is the author’s personal opinion, that it one thing. The author is entitled to their beliefs. But posting this as if it is an unbiased analysis is a farce, and I think it only reinforces the point that the liberals here at Columbia only wish to complain and criticize conservatives instead of actually having an honest and respectful dialogue.
Well said!
boothe, v2.0
Absolutely LOVE the journalistic integrity and unbiased viewpoint in this post
It may not have the most journalistic form, but everything the writer said is 100% true. The Democrats really did come off looking about a hundred times better than the Republicans.
Maybe here on this far-left campus, but this student body is in no way representative of America.