Out of Many, One: The Motto We Should NEVER Have Replaced

Sixty-nine years ago today...

Small things over time become big things. Small changes can lead to large consequences, and a four-word phrase added to our money in 1957 has grown into a tool for telling Americans who belongs. 

What was slipped in quietly should be able to come out the same way. 

But today, Trump and sadly, his, HIS Republican Party would ridiculously sell its removal as a war on Christianity, proof that the left wants God erased from American life. 

That reaction is itself the argument: a motto that cannot be questioned without being called an attack on faith has stopped being a motto and become a loyalty test.

On October 1, 1957, the first American paper money carrying the words "In God We Trust" that didn't seem then as divisional and divisive as we now know they have been, went into circulation: the Series 1957 one-dollar silver certificate. 

Sixty-nine years later, the phrase is on every bill in your wallet. Hanging in our courts and government offices. This was not the America we created originally, or wanted, and for good reason.

It has also become something more than a slogan. 

Christian nationalism has moved from the fringe into statehouses, school boards, and the White House. 

Donald Trump learned that religion is a loyalty test he can sell, and he has used it to regain power and hold it. 

A national motto that ties American identity to one idea of God is the perfect tool for that project.

So on this anniversary, a modest proposal: 

retire "In God We Trust" and restore the motto that held this country together for its first 180 years. 

E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. Our best and original national motto. 

How God got on the money

The phrase is not a founding principle. It is a product of two wars, one hot and one cold.

1. 1864. During the Civil War, after a minister petitioned Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase to recognize God on the coinage, "In God We Trust" first appeared on the two-cent piece.
2. 1907. Theodore Roosevelt, a devout Christian, approved new gold coins without the phrase. He argued that putting God's name on money came close to sacrilege, cheapening something sacred by stamping it on what people spend. Congress overruled him in 1908 and put it back.
3. 1955. At the height of the Red Scare, Congress required the phrase on all U.S. currency, paper included. One year earlier it had added "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.
4. July 30, 1956. President Eisenhower signed the law making "In God We Trust" the official national motto, a deliberate contrast with "godless" Soviet communism.
5. October 1, 1957. The first bills bearing the motto reached the public.

The Soviet Union has been gone for 35 years. The Cold War branding outlived the Cold War, and a new movement found it waiting.

The motto we already had

E Pluribus Unum turns 250 this year, alongside the country itself. 

In August 1776, weeks after the Declaration, Congress asked Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams to design a seal for the new nation. Their committee proposed the phrase, and it went onto the Great Seal of the United States in 1782, where it remains.

It was never written into law as the national motto. It didn't need to be. It should have been. Our Founders also didn't imagine they would need many laws to protect us from someone like Donald Trump, or that we'd ever elect such a vapid, malignant narcissist career criminal as POTUS.

It just couldn't enter than patriotic mind back then, or even in 2016.

For 180 years it served as our nation's motto in practice, on the seal, on coins, and in the civic imagination. It described what the founders were actually attempting: thirteen quarrelling colonies, many faiths, many origins, one republic.

Notice what it does not say. 

It does not say what you must believe. 

It says what we are building together.

Why it matters so very much now

A motto is not harmless just because it is old. Courts have upheld "In God We Trust" by calling it "ceremonial deism," a phrase so worn by repetition that it supposedly means nothing. 

Christian nationalists treat it as the opposite: proof that this is a Christian nation and a legal foothold for the next step.

It aids the putrid Christian accelerationism too many of them support and desire.

You can watch that step being taken. 

Several states now require "In God We Trust" posters in public school classrooms. Louisiana and Texas have passed laws ordering the Ten Commandments posted there too. In Washington, the administration has opened a White House Faith Office, launched a task force on "anti-Christian bias," and created a Religious Liberty Commission, while the president who hawked $60 Bibles casts himself as Christianity's defender.

The pattern is old and well documented. Strongmen wrap themselves in faith because faith converts political opposition into heresy. 

If the nation officially trusts in God, and the leader claims God's favor, then dissent becomes a sin. 

The motto on the money is a small piece of that machinery, but it is the piece every American carries in their pocket.

Look at the illiberal, autocratic, corruptive direction this Donald Trump administration, his Republican (Maga) Party are taking us. These tools in their war chest seem harmless, certainly to their supporters. But are far less harmless than they seem, then they proclaim, than seems obvious to many, but painfully obvious once you see it and can no longer not see it.

The case for Out of Many, One

It includes everyone. Tens of millions of Americans are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, pagan, agnostic, atheist, or simply unaffiliated. "In God We Trust" speaks for some citizens about all of them. E Pluribus Unum speaks for all of them about each other.

It matches the Constitution. 

The First Amendment bars the government from establishing religion. A government that declares, in its official motto, whom the nation trusts has taken a side. E Pluribus Unum takes no side on belief. It takes the side of the Union.

It ends the insider test. "In God We Trust" has become a quiet way of sorting real Americans from suspect ones. A motto about unity leaves no room for that sorting. You cannot be outside of "one."

It is civic, not sectarian. Believers lose nothing. Their faith does not depend on the Treasury's endorsement, and many would argue it is better off without it, as Roosevelt did. What the country gains is a shared identity built on citizenship rather than creed.

It is the original. Restoring E Pluribus Unum is not a radical change. It is a return to the founders' choice, made in the year of independence, after a 70-year Cold War detour.

Before God, there was "Mind Your Business"

The first coin authorized by the United States government carried no reference to God at all. The 1787 Fugio cent, approved by the Confederation Congress, used a design traced to Benjamin Franklin's 1776 Continental Currency.

One side shows a blazing sun over a sundial, the Latin word FUGIO ("I fly," as in time flies), and the motto MIND YOUR BUSINESS. In Franklin's day that meant attend to your work and use your hours well, not "stay out of my affairs." The other side shows thirteen linked rings, one for each state, around the words WE ARE ONE.

Franklin was a Freemason (I am one myself) and a Grand Master of Pennsylvania's Masons, and the coin speaks a language any Mason will recognize: the sun as light and reason, the dial as time and discipline, the linked rings as a chain of union. 

No record says the coin was designed as a Masonic piece, and it should not be sold as one. But its values are plainly Enlightenment values, the same ones that run through the Craft.

Read the whole coin as a sentence and you get the best civic creed this country ever minted: Time flies. Mind your business. We are one.

Sixty-nine years is long enough

The national motto lives in a single line of federal law, 36 U.S.C. § 302, and the currency requirement in two more. Congress put them there. Congress can take them out.

That will not happen this year or next. But mottos change when people stop treating them as untouchable, and that starts with saying plainly what this one has become: 

a Cold War slogan now serving a movement that wants citizenship to depend on belief.

On this anniversary, tell your representatives you want the founders' motto back. 

Share the Fugio cent with someone who has never seen it. 

And the next time someone tells you this is a Christian nation, hand them a dollar and ask them to read the seal on the back. 

It is still there, in the eagle's beak, where Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams put it 250 years ago.

E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. 

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of  Claude AI 

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JZ Murdock is a retired Senior Technical Writer/IT administrator, and an active award-winning author/ filmmaker, documentarian, and writer based in Bremerton, Washington. 

He publishes commentary on the state of things here at Murdockinations.com and on his creative works over at Substack. He also posts on Slasher.com on the horror genre.

If this work means something to you, you can support it at Ko-fi. Tips are always welcome and go directly toward keeping independent documentary work possible.

How We Let It Slip: The Long Unraveling of American Conservatism

We didn’t arrive here overnight.

No, We didn’t arrive here overnight.

What’s happening today—the unrest, the corrosion of truth, the rise of an openly autocratic movement led by Donald Trump—wasn’t an abrupt descent. It was a slow drift, decades in the making, made possible because too many of us assumed America’s institutions would simply hold.

We trusted the system.
And for generations, that seemed reasonable. The United States was designed with checks, balances, and enough friction to resist tyrants. But those mechanisms rely on a culture of honesty, restraint, and civic responsibility—qualities that can’t be legislated. They depend on us. And we let them erode, one cynical spin at a time.

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From “Spin” to Systemic Deception

The Republican Party didn’t start out this way. Yet beginning in the latter half of the 20th century, as the party rebuilt itself in opposition to the New Deal and civil rights gains, its strategists learned that control of narrative could outmatch control of facts.
Spin became a political art form—so effective that truth itself became negotiable.

By the time talk radio, cable news, and digital media matured, that same “spin” had metastasized into disinformation. Each distortion fed a grievance, each grievance fed an identity, and soon whole communities were living inside alternate realities curated by political and corporate interests.

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When Religion and Power Became Indistinguishable

One of the most corrosive fusions along the way was between religion and politics.
Faith—something that should live in the personal and moral sphere—was rebranded as a political weapon. The “Moral Majority” of the 1980s, evangelical media empires, and later Christian nationalist movements helped the GOP wrap its political ambitions in divine justification.

We let it happen because it seemed too absurd to take seriously. We assumed no one could truly blend statecraft with scripture in a secular nation built on freedom of religion. But it worked—slowly, subtly, stupidly. The idea that “real Americans” are Christian and “true patriots” must defend their version of God seeped into everything from school boards to Supreme Court nominations.
Now we see politicians preaching from pulpits, courts citing “religious freedom” to curtail others’ freedoms, and an entire movement convinced that democracy itself must serve theology.

This was never what America was meant to be.
And yet, we shrugged, thinking it would come to nothing.

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The NRA and the Normalization of Militancy

Few institutions show the same pattern of creeping distortion more clearly than the NRA. Once a sportsman’s group, it transformed into a political weapon—claiming divine and constitutional authority all at once.
Its rhetoric of “God-given rights” became a bridge between fundamentalism and armed militancy. That marriage of faith, fear, and firepower created a dangerous illusion: that violence in defense of ideology is virtue.

And the GOP learned to ride it—to harness paranoia as political energy.

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Erosion of Norms, One Violation at a Time

Every democracy depends on invisible lines: the things you can do but don’t. Over the decades, those lines blurred.
Gerrymandering, voter suppression, dark money, judicial manipulation—each step justified as “fighting the good fight.” Each one chipped away at legitimacy.
By the time Donald Trump appeared, the ground had already been prepared. He didn’t invent the tactics; he simply tore away the pretense and weaponized the rot.

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Trump: The Inevitability of the Path We Ignored

Trump didn’t conquer the GOP; he revealed what it had become. A party that for decades rewarded outrage over ethics, theater over policy, and tribal loyalty over truth was primed for takeover.
He didn’t need a coup to capture it—he just spoke its language louder, meaner, and with fewer restraints.

And now, faced with criminal trials, open contempt for law, and an agenda rooted in revenge and control, he pushes the country toward an authoritarian edge. What was once unthinkable has become plausible. That’s not because our Constitution failed—it’s because we failed to defend it in spirit while hiding behind the illusion that its words were enough.

Freedom and Power

Healthy individuals want freedom and power in life.

Unhealthy ones want power and freedom.

The difference lies in sequence and intent.

The healthy seek freedom first — autonomy, moral agency, the ability to create without coercion. Power follows as a tool for expression, service, or protection.

The unhealthy seek power first — dominance, control, insulation from consequence — believing it will grant them freedom. But what they gain isn’t freedom; it’s license without responsibility.

Donald Trump seeks power, not freedom.

And when freedom takes a back seat for someone like him, it’s not just his freedom that’s lost — it’s everyone else’s that becomes negotiable. His kind of “freedom” exists only for those who obey.

The healthy use power to extend freedom.

The unhealthy use power to escape it.

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Where We Go From Here

The hard truth is that we let this slip. Through distraction, apathy, misplaced faith, and the normalization of lies, we allowed power to accumulate in bad faith.
We dismissed early warnings as fringe, ridiculous, too stupid to succeed. But stupidity doesn’t make an idea harmless—it often makes it contagious.

Still, awareness is the first act of resistance. What’s remarkable about America is that our institutions, however battered, still give us a path back—if we choose to take it.

The question isn’t whether Trump will change. He won’t.
The question is whether we, as citizens, can finally recognize that democracy isn’t self-sustaining. It’s an active verb. It requires engagement, integrity, and a refusal to confuse manipulation with leadership.

We can’t rewind the decades that brought us here.
But we can stop pretending this is politics as usual.
It’s not. It’s the consequence of everything we ignored—and the test of whether we still have the courage to repair it.

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Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT

One Motto, One People: Reclaiming E Pluribus Unum to Heal America

E Pluribus Unum, "Out of Many, One."

With the concern of Christian Nationalism and the recent orientation of forcing "God" into our government, we have to start looking at what the problem is, where it started, why it started, and how to end it. Another concern is how Donald Trump has weaponized things like religion to regain power and get re-elected.

Worries over him and his desires for autocracy, power, greed, and kleptocracy with people like Elon Musk are a serious concern now more than ever.

From the Center for Religion in Public Life - Why E Pluribus Unum Is a Better Motto for Today than “In God We Trust”

1. Embracing True Diversity and Unity

The motto E Pluribus Unum was chosen by the Founding Fathers as an ideal that would unify a country of people from various places, backgrounds, and beliefs. The phrase encapsulates the American experiment: a diverse group of individuals coming together to form a stronger whole. It tells us that every American, no matter where they come from or what they believe, is part of that “One.”

Today, with even greater diversity in the United States than in the past, the meaning behind E Pluribus Unum is as relevant as ever. It serves as a reminder that our differences don’t divide us but make us stronger when they’re harnessed for a common purpose.

In contrast, In God We Trust doesn’t convey the same inclusivity. It implies a shared faith in a single religious concept, which isn’t true for everyone. America is home to a wide array of faiths, as well as people who don’t adhere to any faith at all. While “God” has different meanings for different people, In God We Trust is often interpreted as favoring a specific monotheistic view, alienating those who don’t share that view. In short, E Pluribus Unum brings people together, while In God We Trust can unintentionally create distance between them.

2. Reflecting the Constitution’s Religious Neutrality

One of the cornerstones of American identity is the freedom of religion enshrined in the First Amendment. This amendment ensures that individuals are free to practice any religion or none at all, and that the government doesn’t endorse any particular faith. By choosing In God We Trust as the national motto, the government has unintentionally aligned itself with a specific religious sentiment, creating tension with the very freedoms our Constitution is built to protect.

E Pluribus Unum, on the other hand, doesn’t favor any one religious belief. It’s a motto that respects both religious and secular viewpoints equally, making it a better fit for a country founded on the principle of religious freedom. Returning to E Pluribus Unum would reaffirm our commitment to a government that serves all its citizens, regardless of their personal beliefs.

3. Avoiding Division and “Othering”

Sadly, In God We Trust has sometimes been used to define what it means to be a “real” American, creating an “us vs. them” mentality. This mentality has led to a pattern of "othering" fellow citizens who don’t identify with that phrase—whether they are atheists, people of minority faiths, or those who interpret “God” differently. This approach risks dividing us along lines of belief when what we need, especially now, is unity.

The language of E Pluribus Unum shifts us away from viewing people as “insiders” and “outsiders.” It reminds us that we’re all part of one nation, and even when we disagree, we still share a commitment to one another. As a motto, it leaves no room for creating enemies out of fellow citizens. Instead, it creates a sense of common purpose that helps bring people together.

4. A Return to American Values

E Pluribus Unum has deep historical roots, representing the original vision of the Founding Fathers. It reminds us of what they hoped America would be—a united country formed by people of all backgrounds. Adopting In God We Trust as the motto in 1956 was a Cold War move to distinguish the U.S. from the atheistic Soviet Union. While it served a purpose at the time, the Cold War is over, and today we face different challenges that call for a more inclusive approach.

By returning to E Pluribus Unum, we can return to a motto that reflects the diversity and openness our country was built upon. It’s a step back toward the founding principles that united people from all walks of life in the first place, and it can help us create a national identity that’s positive, inclusive, and forward-thinking.

5. Promoting a Motto for All Americans

In a nation that prides itself on democracy, a motto should be for everyone. A motto that only reflects the values of certain groups isn’t fully representative. While In God We Trust speaks to a large portion of Americans, it does not speak to everyone. There are millions of Americans who don’t connect with it and may feel left out or excluded from the national identity it represents. This isn’t just a minor concern; feeling excluded can lead to greater disillusionment with government, less civic engagement, and a more fractured society overall.

In contrast, E Pluribus Unum speaks to every American. It focuses on our common humanity and the shared commitment to creating a unified nation from many backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives. This kind of unity is essential to strengthening our democracy and ensuring that all citizens feel valued and included.

6. Focusing on Civic Values Over Religious Identity

E Pluribus Unum emphasizes civic unity, not religious unity. It doesn’t ask us to believe the same things or see the world the same way, but it does ask us to work together as one people. In times when polarization is high and public trust is low, a national motto that focuses on our civic values rather than our religious identity could help to bring people back together.

It would encourage Americans to see themselves, first and foremost, as citizens who are in this together—not as people divided by religion, politics, or ideology. At a time when we need less division and more common purpose, E Pluribus Unum offers an ideal that transcends our differences.

Did you know the first U.S. coin said “Mind Your Business”?

Before “In God We Trust,” America’s very first official coin — the 1787 Fugio cent — carried Benjamin Franklin’s motto:

 “Mind Your Business.”

Franklin designed it himself.

At the top is a sun and sundial with the Latin word “Fugio” (“I fly”) — meaning time flies.

Together it reminds us to use our time wisely and tend to our own affairs — a classic Franklin virtue.

But look closer and you’ll see what’s really interesting…

The design is filled with Freemason-style symbolism:

•  The radiant Sun — light, truth, and reason.
•  The Sundial — time, discipline, and industriousness.
•  The 13 linked rings — unity and brotherhood of the original states.
•  The phrase “We Are One” — a Masonic echo of fraternity and unity.

While not officially a Masonic coin, it reflects Franklin’s dual passions for Enlightenment ideals and Masonic philosophy:

Light, time, virtue, and self-mastery.

A far cry from “In God We Trust,” the first American coin told us something simpler and more timeless:

“Time flies. Mind your business. We are one.”

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In sum, returning to E Pluribus Unum would help us refocus on the importance of unity across diversity, respect religious freedom, avoid divisive “othering,” and foster a civic identity that includes all Americans. It reminds us that no matter who we are or what we believe, we’re stronger when we’re working together as “One.”

Compiled with the aid of ChatGPT

Allow The God Fearing to Rule the Day?

First off, Happy Labor Day! For more on that, see the link from my 2014 blog article on Labor Day.

Now, let's get to it!


Through the course of human endeavors,
before there was God there were Gods.
Before there were Gods there was Heaven.
Before there was Heaven there was the Sun.
Before there was the Sun there was darkness.
In that darkness there was no language.
There was no way to store and convey information
to any, to all.
But then there was language, then there was writing,
then there was, reading. But only to the few.
The few who had seen a book, who had a book, who learned to read.
This was magical. Words were magical.
It was unbelievable. It was powerful. It was Holy.
It was sacred. it was God like.
The Word became God.
Those who held the Word, became God like.
God has power. God IS power.
Those who serve God, have power.
To protect themselves from those they read to, the had to say they served.
Those who the servers served, they ruled over.
The servers became the served.
Their word becomes the Word.
Those who now serve Them, find themselves believing things.
Things not originally intended.
Things not currently intended.
Things that were never intended.
Those who believed, altered the Word of those who once served
and are now being served.
Then the nothing became the something.
And so the word was broken.

This is the problem in treating the modern day extremist God Fearing respectfully. Just as it is with the other extremists (and some even not so extreme) of the right wing politically conservative and Republican crowd. We should treat people respectfully to be sure, though not so much their beliefs, if respect for those beliefs are reasonably undeserved.

The trouble is in showing them respect, and therefore their beliefs, respect in discourse and debate tends also to lend a respectability overall. One they simply do not deserve. Religion has a lot of pretty (and not so pretty) words.

The trouble is, every religion breaks down because no philosophy answers all questions in every instance. A closed system such as any religion is, cannot answer all things in an ever changing universe. Which gives us a clue. ANY religion that seems to have ALL the answers, is a broken religion, a defective form of deity worship with a set of rules designed to subvert reality. Because there is no such thing as a philosophy that can answer all questions all the time.

It's like any form of government, not pure form is fully functional, only hybrids. It's why in part, Churchill said: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

It's an uneven playing field right from the start. Which explains so much of the current situation in our dealing with true God Fearers. Both those politically in general as well as in Congress. If one treats them as derisively as they may well deserve, then it becomes the rational people who are seen as rude and illegitimate. Rather than simply taking an appropriate stand against utter silliness. Dangerous, silliness.

If on the other hand they are treated with respect, they receive a perceived legitimacy they have failed to prove deserving of. Other than a general respectful right to believe in any delusion they choose to come up with. Delusions that are typically supported by some ancient book of "wisdom" recorded over time, founded in antiquity and conjecture, based on imperfect observations, conflated histories and your basic magical thinking.

Such is our world today. It will change though. It has to.

Not because it's wanted, rather because in the end the Truth typically wins out. It is nature's course. It's the balance in history that sooner or later incorrect but accepted beliefs will be superseded from improperly recorded histories. Reality tends to win out in the end. Something that is becoming more and more prevalent as technology allows us anymore to record nearly everything, nearly anywhere.

The question as usual is, will these more accurate public appraisals of history happen within our lifetime?

As a friend once said to me in reply to this question:

"But who is the arbiter of silliness? To a devout evangelical, my atheism is just as silly."

I guess what I'm saying is that it's not so much what is on their side of the equation that is at issue. Some might even say that is a lost cause anyway. It is on our side, the side of those of us who might put up with it all, to ignore, to allow delusions to continue unabated. Out of good manners, ill conceived political correctness.

As a general rule we must all agree upon at very least a general baseline of belief. And in America it is and always has been through a government without religion. While now that seems to many load voices to be the outlier position. Something that grew out of fear that back in the origins of the post WWII cold war. A belief we allowed insidiously to creep into our national mindset, even into our pledge of allegiance, and onto our money.

It is not "In God We Trust" that we need to proclaim on a national basis, but "In Ourselves". To do what is right regardless of God, or whoever's God, or whatever religion, or even...no religion at all.

Our option needs to be government devoid of deity, and a government's belief based in Science. Reality as best our minds can fathom to use in our decision making. Since we cannot choose one religion over all others in a country where all religions are welcome (anyway those who don't go out and kill people over religion or some antiquated medieval view of God), then we simply have to choose... no religion.

To find order in no religion requires science. It's not a big leap in logic. Science that we need to be protected from through our government and if you will, moderated by our mindsets of Liberté, égalité, fraternité ("liberty, equality, fraternity"). Moderated by an individual's own beliefs even in religion and through ethics and morals.

The Grammarist defines Morals as the principles on which one’s judgments of right and wrong are based. Ethics are principles of right conduct. So the two nouns are closely related and are often interchangeable.

The main difference is that morals are more abstract, subjective, and often personal or religion-based, while ethics are more practical, conceived as shared principles promoting fairness in social and business interactions.

We need more of the practical and less of the ethereal.

In order to govern people, we need beliefs founded in what is real and functional. If prayer worked every time, I'd say fine, we can use that. But it is not fine, it does not work every time, if it even works at all, ever. And I'd argue that it never works. It merely buffers our reality. It is simply coincidental on any real results from its use and is pretty dysfunctional in any kind of way in governing people.

Here's the really important thing... to all theists, all believers, all religious types. In order to have all religions for all people, none must govern.

It is on us all to stop this madness. To allow those who wish to continue to believe in the ethereal as real, is fine in their personal lives, just not in their public lives. Especially if it affects others. including those of the rest of us who use the rational and real in our own daily lives.

Allowing the God Fearing to Rule the day couldn't be a bigger mistake. Shying away form this fact is only going to make everything worse. We need to speak up, speak out, stand our ground, Politely but firmly state our case and if necessary, bulldoze our public ways right over top of them if not straight through them if need be.

For our protection. For their own protection. For all of our protection.