Look: I am not oblivious to the argument that in a vacuum there is something to the atheists’ case. As I’ve argued before, the 9th circuit’s decision wasn’t loony given the precedents of the last thirty years. Again, my basic objection is pragmatic and small-c conservative. It’s not worth changing. Active, politicized atheists in this country — and many sympathetic liberals — have bought into a bogus narrative. They seem to believe that religion is the source of American history’s great evils. That’s an argument for another day, but suffice it to say that for every bad thing done in religion’s name in American history it’s just as easy to find many good things (like, um, the Reverend Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement).

But while that part of the narrative is simply inaccurate another part of the narrative is flatly illogical. They seem to believe that the role of religion in American life is increasing and that is the source of the problems today. This is nonsense. Never mind that the “under God” line was inserted half a century ago and could never get in there today were it not already there. But our political leaders invoked religion and used religion as a guide for our law so, so, sooo much more in the past than they do today. The idea that the Founders would be horrified by the “under God” passage is laughable. President George Washington declared national days of prayer and fasting. States had their own established Churches. Lincoln got jiggy with the God references. Our civic arhcitecture is drenched in allusions and mentions of God and the Bible. Look at our money for Pete’s sake.

The problem with this narrative is not that it is false, though that’s bad enough. The problem is that once you believe it you are never satisfied until every last part-per-billion of Godness is purged from public life. That is not a great position for the atheists to take because it demands a couner-reaction that will be far worse than the “harm” caused by the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.

It reminds me of Jesse Jackson’s insistence years ago that the most pressing civil rights issue in America was DC statehood. Well, if that’s the most pressing civil rights issue in America, then the civil rights problem has been solved! It’s like saying the most pressing public health problem is the continued headaches of glue sniffers. If atheists truly see this as their biggest problem then most Americans will see atheists as kooks and zealots. For their own sake, atheists should drop it.