Jamie_L

Someone involved in the WTC rebuilding project wants to include the "Ground Zero Cross" in any potential memorial. American Atheists is fighting the inclusion of the cross in any government-funded memorial. Details here:

<a href="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27989" target="_blank">http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27989</a>

Now, I'm normally pretty extremist when it comes to my views on church-state separation. I'm all about fighting "God Bless America" on school marquees and the Ten Commandments in courtrooms. On this, however, I'm not as fired up.

Any other atheists or church-state advocates luke-warm about this?

Although I understand where American Atheists is coming from on this, I also see this cross as - for better or worse - a historical part of the WTC aftermath. It WAS there. It WAS used as inspiration by many workers. If the someone were to write a detailed description of all the major events that occurred during the ground-zero clean-up, the finding of this cross would have to be included - it was a big deal for many people involved.

So I'm thinking, maybe it's not a big deal to have this in a memorial - especially if the cross is left where it originally stood. That's part of the history of the place.

Now the memorial SHOULD NOT make any claims as to the objective significance of the cross. That is, the memorial should not say "this cross was a sign from God". However, it would be okay to me if the memorial said Christians working at ground zero took strength from this cross. That's what happened.

Early American churches throughout the U.S. are preserved by government agencies as structures of historical significance. No one (to my knowledge) is complaining that this is a church-state violation. It's all in the presentation.

At least, that's how I feel today. Any thoughts?

Jamie

Mecha_Dude

The problem is that if you let them put it up, they WILL say it's a "sign from gawd"

tragic_pizza

A few might. Not all of us.

Most of us will see it for what it is -- a memorial.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...

The Other Michael

Hi Jamie,

and should the memorial also say that atheists/non-Christians working at ground zero derived no comfort or strength from this object, and in fact some of them may have been disturbed by the religious "meaning" given to it by their coworkers?

If I ever try to whomp up a religion to sell to people I'll make a point of coming up with a symbol that commonly occurs in nature. Maybe a circle or sphere - that is pretty common. Then I could claim that every instance of a circle is sign of divine action. Or maybe hexagons - all bee's honeycombs and all hexagonal crystals are obviously a sign that the Six-fold Diety is at work in the neighborhood.

How far off of 90 degrees can a couple of crossed sticks get before a Christian won't claim it is a religious cross?

cheers,
Michael

PopeInTheWoods

Don't forget to make it resemble an execution device (maybe the circle as part of a noose?) so that your adherents can feel properly persecuted.
<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Andy

[ June 19, 2002: Message edited by: PopeInTheWoods ]</p>

simian

I thought about this over lunch.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, other times it is a big, brown dick (to quote/paraphrase George Carlin).

What about when some group decides to put up a replica of it on every courthouse lawn in the US? After all, if it is "just" a memorial, what possible objection could people have to it?

I can't get over the fact that the granite 10 Commandment monuments on courthouse lawns started out as a promotion for a movie. I think the potential for this is even worse....

It will be easiest to have this cross moved to private property now, rather than allowing this icon to be on pubic property and becoming an excuse to put up more.

Simian

ashibaka

But it doesn't even fit the proportions! The lengthwise side is too long, and the heightwise side is too short below the cross' intersection.

There's no stopping those crazy humans. They find patterns in everything.

vagrant

The most surreal part is these doofii take this as some sort of symbol from their 'loving' god who, by their own belief system, allowed the extremists to hijack the planes, crash them, and kill ~3000 innocent people, and throwing the lives of countless others into chaos.

"Hey! But he put this nifty cross here..."

Toto

Hi tragic - last time I looked you were a Christian. This topic asked if atheists were bothered - have you switched sides?

As I recall, we had a long thread on the WTC Cross when it was first discovered. One of our local theists tried to claim that it was just "inspirational" and wasn't that a good thing. The rest of us thought it was pretty pathetic that people would ascribe supernatural meaning to something you could expect to find in the rubble from a building that contained many, many instances of straight things meeting at right angles.

daemon

If you don't let them put it up, they'll claim that's also a sign from god, so it really doesn't matter. Why should we care about what Christians will say about the memorial having or lacking the "WTC cross?"

Having no strong feelings against Christianity, the inclusion of such a thing has no real impact on me one way or another. Further, in a way, including it would increase the secularization of the symbol, towards a "mere" sign of mortality and remembrance. I'm inclinded to agree with Jamie_L--as long as there isn't any overtly religious propaganda along with it, it's fine with me.