Here's the text of my statement to the Council on Sept 4th.

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In June, I spoke to you about the motto “In God We Trust”. At that time, I said as long as this motto remains in this room, I will return to provide specific examples of why this immoral god should not be trusted.

I see the motto is still here, so I’ll continue with my examples of why the Abrahamic god of the bible is immoral, and can’t be trusted.

I know what I am about to say may offend some of you, but everything I am about to say is the truth. You should not be offended by the truth, because as it is said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

You claim that we should trust in a god.

But for people like me, there are plenty of reasons why we shouldn’t trust in any god, particularly the Abrahamic god of the bible. I’ll start with the well-known examples.

The so-called moral god of the bible approves of slavery. Exodus 21 clearly explains the conditions for owning a slave, and how to treat them, even saying it’s ok for masters to beat their slaves as long as they don’t kill them.

There are details like the terms for selling your daughter, and that if she doesn’t please her master, he can bring her back. But he also has the option of marrying her or marrying her off to his son.

The approval of slavery isn’t just limited to the old testament. In First Timothy and Ephesians, slaves are told to obey and respect their masters.

I think you can agree this is not moral behavior. But god is ok with it. I certainly don’t think we should trust that god.

According to the bible god is also a child killer and seems to be ok with murder.

In the flood story, god kills everyone except for Noah and his family. It isn’t hard to figure out the people god killed included babies, children and pregnant women. That’s a steep price for innocent people to pay, just because a jealous, vengeful god can’t keep his temper under control.

During Passover, god killed the firstborn of everyone who didn’t use magic lamb’s blood on their doors. It isn’t difficult to imagine that first-born babies and young children were also killed, just because god wanted to prove a point to a pharaoh whose heart that same god had hardened himself. I mean, why kill innocent children, when this all-powerful god could just kill the pharaoh?

In the Book of Judges, there’s the story about Jephthah who kills his daughter, because of a promise he made to god. Did god try to stop him? Nope. Deed done, and god was pleased.

Of course, you don’t think slavery, child killing or filicide is moral behavior. None of us should.

And none of us should think such a horrible, immoral god should ever be trusted.

But any government body displaying that idiotic motto proclaiming we all should trust in this immoral god, is also displaying a complete ignorance or denial of the facts to the point of irrationality.

This moral dilemma with religion is why our founders wanted a clear separation between church and state and established an undeniable secular government in a time when church-approved kingdoms were the norm.

All truly patriotic Americans should understand that no religion shall reign supreme in this country, and neither shall belief reign supreme over non-belief.

I fully support everyone’s right to believe as they wish, but our founders intended for our government to remain completely neutral to all beliefs, or lack of belief.

As James Madison said, “I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”

Thank you for your time. As long as the motto remains in this room, I’ll return with more examples of why we should not trust any god, especially the immoral Abrahamic god.

Please remove it. Now. I’m willing to pay for removing it.