E Pluribus Unum – Restoring the U.S. Motto. A case against In God We Trust.

When the ancients marched into battle they took their war gods with them, Areas, Zeus, Thor, Apollo, Yahweh, Kon, etc..  Between the 4^th-Century and 1700’s the followers of one god in particular benefited from improved warfare technology to convert or kill out most of the competition.  The admirers of the Hebrew god won out this battle on a global scale.  That is until an upcoming country with a new vision for society announced a secular government, free from the influence of religion.  The war gods were replaced by a Constitution where humans come before mythology.   The U.S. remained this way for almost 200 years.

Then after a half-century of global war in the 1900s, and the new threat of nuclear weapons, the U.S. reverted to the ways of the ancients.  We replaced our human-based motto E Pluribus Unum [Out of Many one], with a battle cry of “In God We Trust” as a protector to our troops.  We turned the nation back to a god out of the fear of war.

This was in a time when over 90% of the adult population in the U.S. identified as Christian.  “Nones,” or people with a secular world view were in the single percentages.  However, since then, the Nones represent the largest growth % of any viewpoint, climbing into the double digits by the 2000s and growing ~1% a year.    

By the time of the 2020 election cycle, one-quarter of the voting population will be Nones.  During the last decade, the percentage of  U.S. adults identifying as Christian is dropping by about the same rate.  2020 will also be the first U.S. election were less than 75% of the voting population is Christian.

The trend tells us that when “In God We Trust” is 100 years old, less than 50% of the population will still believe in any of our ancient gods.

In a time when our nation is divided by many factions, let’s move forward and reunite all citizens.  Drop the gods of war and E Pluribus Unum once again.