Why not capitalize the word?

Maybe it's because I'm a WASP; maybe it's because I go to the most conservative university in the nation, a school that values tradition above just about everything else, but I think that some things deserve to be continued and protected.

The line "In God We Trust" first appeared on our coinage over 140 years ago and if I recall correctly the law that authorized it was one of the last laws signed by Abraham Lincoln. About 40 years later T. Roosevelt felt much the same way as you do but for different reasons. He wasn't able to kill it and the phrase made it on to the lincoln cent that he helped push for.

Now? The phrase has been present on our money off and on with various denominations for over half the time our country has existed as an independent nation. Something with that much history from a time when the country was overwhelmingly christian shouldn't be cast away readily. The saying of prayers and the swearing of oaths to a Christian God has been defended in the Supreme Court in much the same way I would expect this phrase to be protected. I believe the saying is that it "has become 'wrote.'" The phrase has been minted so many times, the prayers said so many times, and the oaths sworn so many times that they've lost almost all of their original meaning. Now they are simply a part of how things are done. They are part of the national tradition.