Just Because the Steel Girders Form Into a Well-Known Symbol…

Kind of misses the point, but funny anyways.

Unlikely. It was in the Onion.

All parody aside, This ‘Cross’ was deeply, and  powerfully symbolic to many Americans struggling to find meaning in a time of despair. I concede to them their symbolism, and back away slowly.

A cross is a divisive symbol of faith.

Faith caused the disaster in the first place.

What about next time? And after that? And after that? You see you gotta stand up now otherwise christians and everyone else will continue to throw their religion at everyone and expect us all to “concede.” Assome people view the law suit as extreme I understand their point! Seperation of church and state is not to be ignored! We were founded upon it by atheist then as modern atheist its up to us to make sure we don’t start going backwards (fyi that’s exactly what’s happening)

I have a movie recommendation for Larry Meredith, the documentary Constantine’s Sword by Oren Jacoby and James Carroll (based on Carroll’s book).

Lame “Slippery Slope” argument alert.

why does that even matter? If atheists were all rallying around something that gave them hope during 9/11 I’d say that deserved to be in the museum too.

I suspect the point is that it was a notable event in history. Even if all the people it affected were of one religion, and even if the only reason it had any meaning to them was because of idiocy, it certainly did have an effect on a lot of people. Therefore there is some historic significance.

The historic significance could be debated, but if it has significance, it has such regardless of any religious affiliation. The question then becomes, are they including it due to historical significance, or to pander to Christians? That point, I think, is debatable.

I agree. We need to pick and choose our battles carefully. Any perceived benefit that may have come from raising a stink over this cross has been negated by the ill will generated towards the secular community as a direct result of this whining.

I still disagree even from the view of someone from another religion this is wrong. We are openly saying that christianity is the better religion. Remember how upset everyone got about the idea of putting a mosque at the site? Why is this any different? If we allow this then again I ask what about next time. That’s the issue with atheist we are so ready to concede rather than argue and try to get people to understand. We need to start telling religious people no more! Seperation of church and state!

The difference here is that an atheist symbol of hope would NEVER be let into the museum, as it would be too “offensive”.

However, this is not a battle worth fighting, as it would just put off a lot of people. Let them have their cross, as long as we’re winning the real battles.

The problem here is that the 9/11 memorial was largely funded with government dollars and run by government appointees, likely making it a separation issue.  If it were private enterprise, I wouldn’t have an issue.

You can be darned sure if there’d been a piece of metal deformed into a crescent it wouldn’t have seen the light of day.

The Onion is genius! 😀

Actually, the bulk of the funds for the memorial (two thirds of $530 million) was raised through private donations. Only a fraction has been provided by taxes and other public funds.

Not a right lot if it takes place in a Christian-dominated culture; and nothing at all if he attaches no meaning to it beyond noting the chance resemblance in a large randomised set of data to a pattern well-known to him.  Now, if an atheist who had been raised in, for example, a predominantly Buddhist or Islamic society and had never heard of Christianity looked at a right-angled joint in a pile of wreckage and the first thing he thought of was Jesus, that would be remarkable.

The phrase “We see only what we want to see” is inaccurate, but it would be too unwieldy to include all the qualifications, which would probably make it something along the lines of “When faced with random data, we try to fit previously encountered patterns to it, and the order of preference for attempting to fit those patterns is likely influenced by, amongst other things, the frequency with which we have encountered them, our disposition towards them and our general emotional state.”