For the life of me, I cannot understand how "under God" can be considered non-religious or inclusive of all beliefs. The concept of God is, by definition, religious, and the invocation of God clearly excludes anyone who does not believe in God.
And the argument that "it's common in this country and therefore it's okay" is just ridiculous. Slavery used to be commonplace, too. Plus, being exposed to something is very different from being pressured to say something.
While I'm a childless skeptical agnostic who doesn't give a damn whether "under God" appears, I would like to discredit the "flow" argument, Kirk. The fact that most people say the pledge as though it has some 7-10 commas in it, it really doesn't. I strongly suspect the reason people say it as much is that it's easier to keep people in unison with frequent pauses and also easier to indoctr^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hteach young children the short pieces instead of the entire length. Arguably the only punctuation that belongs inside the sentence would be a colon or semi- after "which it stands" and after "God." Frankly removing "under God" would improve the sentence a bit.
Also a wacky bit of history. Did you know that, up until the rise of Hitler, children and others speaking the pledge would extend their right arms and, with a flattened hand, point at the flag? Seems a similar gesture caught on among zealous politicos in Germany in the '30s, so the Americans dropped the gesture tout de suite.
I had indeed heard that last bit of trivia.
So, you say removing "under God" would improve the sentence? I think that's kinda what I mean by flow. Also, giving the whole civil war thing, "one nation, indivisible" is kind of cooler than "one nation, under God, indivisible", which is just too may modifiers for one nation.
Oh, I mis-parsed your entry and thought you meant that "under God" was an improvement. doh! Yeah, I agree that removing it helps the sentence.
We could take it out and, later, those who want can just add it at the beginning: "Under God, I pledge allegiance &c."