BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
So there was this cross found in the 9/11 wreckage, yeah? A lot of people placed a lot of meaning upon this object. In fact, priests and what not blessed the cross. It had been sitting on the grounds of a church near WTC for many years, but a while back the 9/11 Museum has moved it into their space. American Atheists opposed putting the cross into the Museum on the grounds that using government funds to display it somehow promotes Christianity.
They raised this case some time ago, July 2011, and it has finally come down from the courts that the purpose of the cross was historic and secular and that it should be displayed. American Atheists have promised to appeal.
What do you think?
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Theres a broader issue here as well. American Atheists wants the cross banned from the museum because they believe placing the cross in the museum would promote a certain religion system over others, something disallowed by the First Amendment.
What would happen, hypothetically, had they prevailed? Wouldnt then make sense to say that museums could not spend funds from the government to sponsor or show religious pieces of all sorts? Wouldnt that bar showing everything from Ganesh statutes, to The Last Supper, to The Thinker? What about using governmental funds to support religious pieces of architecture, such as giving St. Patricks Cathedral historic landmark status or permitting aid to the Egyptian government to restore and maintain the pyramids?
Of course American Atheists say they want to bar the promotion of religion so they might say their goals are more narrow than the issues outlined above. That may be the case, but a museums board may simply not want to take the chance that a retrospective of Hieronymus Boschs work may be viewed as a promotion of Christianity and would just take a pass on showing it.
Bonus bit: So American Atheists offered, as an alternative to not displaying the cross, the idea that equal representation should be allowed. When asked what sort of thing should the atheists would want represented, Silverman suggest that they use the atom because we all came from atoms.
Now regardless of where else you may fall on the issues brought up here, I think one might have to accept that a symbolic representation of the atom has jack all to do with 9/11. I mean, thats just absurd idea.
What would you want to be the atheist symbol in the 9/11 museum if you had to pick?
Read all about it:
Atheists Sue to Block Display of Cross-Shaped Beam in 9/11 Museum
Judge Dismisses Suit Over Steel Cross at 9/11 Museum
They raised this case some time ago, July 2011, and it has finally come down from the courts that the purpose of the cross was historic and secular and that it should be displayed. American Atheists have promised to appeal.
What do you think?
--
Theres a broader issue here as well. American Atheists wants the cross banned from the museum because they believe placing the cross in the museum would promote a certain religion system over others, something disallowed by the First Amendment.
What would happen, hypothetically, had they prevailed? Wouldnt then make sense to say that museums could not spend funds from the government to sponsor or show religious pieces of all sorts? Wouldnt that bar showing everything from Ganesh statutes, to The Last Supper, to The Thinker? What about using governmental funds to support religious pieces of architecture, such as giving St. Patricks Cathedral historic landmark status or permitting aid to the Egyptian government to restore and maintain the pyramids?
Of course American Atheists say they want to bar the promotion of religion so they might say their goals are more narrow than the issues outlined above. That may be the case, but a museums board may simply not want to take the chance that a retrospective of Hieronymus Boschs work may be viewed as a promotion of Christianity and would just take a pass on showing it.
Bonus bit: So American Atheists offered, as an alternative to not displaying the cross, the idea that equal representation should be allowed. When asked what sort of thing should the atheists would want represented, Silverman suggest that they use the atom because we all came from atoms.
Now regardless of where else you may fall on the issues brought up here, I think one might have to accept that a symbolic representation of the atom has jack all to do with 9/11. I mean, thats just absurd idea.
What would you want to be the atheist symbol in the 9/11 museum if you had to pick?
Read all about it:
Atheists Sue to Block Display of Cross-Shaped Beam in 9/11 Museum
Judge Dismisses Suit Over Steel Cross at 9/11 Museum
