"In God We Trust" was adopted as the official motto of the United States in 1956. “In God We Trust” has appeared sporadically on U.S. coins since 1864 and on paper currency since 1957.

It is also the motto of the U.S. state of Florida, not “Bananas Are King” as some believe .

Aspirations for the motto arose surrounding the turmoil and heightened religious sentiment that existed during the Civil War. The Reverend M. R. Watkinson, as part of a campaign initiated by eleven northern Protestant Christian denominations in a letter dated November 13, 1861, petitioned the Treasury Department to add a statement recognizing "Almighty God in some form in our coins." At least part of the motivation was to declare that God was on the Union side of the Civil War.

In 1956, the nation was suffering through the height of the cold war, and the McCarthy communist witch hunt. Partly in reaction to these factors, the 84th Congress passed a joint resolution to replace the existing motto with "In God we Trust". The change was partly motivated by a desire to differentiate between communism, which promotes atheism, and Western capitalistic democracies, which were at least nominally Christian. The law was signed by President Eisenhower on July 30, 1956, and the motto was progressively added to paper money over a period from 1957 to 1966. The United States Code at 36 U.S.C. § 302, now states: "'In God we trust' is the national motto."

In 2006, on the 50th anniversary of its adoption, the Senate reaffirmed "In God We Trust" as the official national motto of the United States of America. In 2011 the House of Representatives passed an additional resolution reaffirming "In God We Trust" as the official motto of the United States, in a 396-9 vote. According to a 2003 joint poll by USA Today, CNN, and Gallup, 90% of Americans support the inscription "In God We Trust" on U.S. coins.

The motto was first challenged in Aronow v. United States in 1970, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled: "It is quite obvious that the national motto and the slogan on coinage and currency 'In God We Trust' has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion. Its use is of patriotic or ceremonial character and bears no true resemblance to a governmental sponsorship of a religious exercise.

" The decision was cited in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, a 2004 case on the Pledge of Allegiance. These acts of "ceremonial deism" are "protected from Establishment Clause scrutiny chiefly because they have lost through rote repetition any significant religious content." In Zorach v. Clauson (1952), the Supreme Court also held that the nation's "institutions presuppose a Supreme Being" and that government recognition of God does not constitute the establishment of a state church as the Constitution's authors intended to prohibit.

Despite the court's finding that the phrase is essentially non-religious or religiously meaningless, most Americans do recognize the phrase to be religious. A 1994 survey conducted by the Freedom From Religion Foundation found that "In God We Trust" was regarded as religious by an overwhelming percentage of U.S. citizens.

The court's finding of Constitutionality for the phrase, as well as the justifications noted above, have made it more difficult for US separationists to challenge other constitutionally questionable practices, such as tax exemption of churches, legislative and military chaplaincies, national holidays based on religious commemorations, the "Pray for Peace" postmark, and, in classrooms, required singing of the fourth stanza of America and the Star-Spangled Banner, both of which include religious phrases, and the required recitation at government events of the US Pledge of Allegiance, modified by an Act of Congress of June 14, 1954, to include the words "under God", especially since each of these instances are regularly used by accommodationists to justify the other instances. Atheists object to sworn judiciaries employing historical context in what they believe ought to be a raw textual interpretation.

Outside of constitutional objections, President Theodore Roosevelt took issue with placing the motto on coinage as he considered it sacrilegious to put the name of God on money.

A few Celebrity Atheist:

Woody Allen
Lance Armstrong
Richard Branson
George Carlin
Fidel Castro
Larry Flynt
Bill Gates
Bill Maher
George Soros
Howard Stern