An atheist group is protesting the retention at the site of the World Trade Center of a steel beam in the symmetrical shape of a cross that had been found in the wreckage. They are considering bringing suit on the grounds that “[m]any people who died on September 11 weren’t Christian … This is a Christian religious advertisement, and allowing it to stay there is an insult to everyone who doesn’t believe in that particular religion.”
It’s a puzzling point. Should everything that expresses anything whatever be banned from public spaces, on the grounds that otherwise people who reject whatever is expressed will be insulted? And if that’s done, will people who find the exclusion of everything expressive from public spaces to be itself expressive of official nihilism have a legitimate complaint on which they can bring suit? Where does it all stop?
It should be obvious that every society and every government is based on some understanding of man and the world, and such understandings are essentially religious. The atheists want public spaces to reflect atheism. Assuming that’s legitimate, why should the law give them a leg up? And why is official atheism less divisive than official Christianity?
“Should everything that
“Should everything that expresses anything whatever be banned from public spaces, on the grounds that otherwise people who reject whatever is expressed will be insulted? And if that’s done, will people who find the exclusion of everything expressive from public spaces to be itself expressive of official nihilism have a legitimate complaint on which they can bring suit?”
Those of us who identify ourselves as Christians are the one group everyone else can agree to hate, and not care if we’re offended… Whether it’s atheists not wanting one iota of recognition by the state that Christianity exists; whether it’s Jews protesting Mel Gibson’s new movie for faithfully portraying what the Gospel teaches (i.e. protesting the Bible, indirectly, and more generally attacking Christianity, of course), or whether it’s gays campaigning to trivialize marriage into nothing by making it open to them, it’s all the same battle. Recent events are making it more clear than ever; the non-Christians (or rather anti-Christians) don’t merely just disagree with us; they hate us, and consider it their duty to offend us, and verbally attack us as they please.
(Well, obviously not *all* of them hate us, but more and more do, it would seem, and are becoming more vocal about it, even if they hide it behind denunciations of us as the bigoted ones, “anti-Semitic”, “homophobic”, blah blah blah. It’s open season on Christians, everybody; fire at will…)
“And if that’s done, will
“And if that’s done, will people who find the exclusion of everything expressive from public spaces to be itself expressive of official nihilism have a legitimate complaint on which they can bring suit? Where does it all stop?”
Ever thought of private property rights?
I’ve thought of private
I’ve thought of private property rights on a number of occasions in connection with various issues. The issue here though was how to understand what’s proper in public spaces. How do private property rights help on that point?