♫anna♫
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Jul 28, 2011 0:52:10 GMT
July 23: The World Trade Center Cross, made of intersecting steel beams found in the rubble of buildings destroyed in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, is raised by a crane before being transported and lowered into an opening in the World Trade Center site below ground level where it will become part of the permanent installation exhibit in the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/27/atheist-group-files-lawsuit-against-display-wtc-cross-at-11-memorial/ QUOTE: Atheist Group Files Lawsuit Against Display of WTC Cross at 9/11 MemorialA group of atheists has filed a lawsuit claiming the display of the World Trade Center cross at the 9/11 memorial in lower Manhattan is unconstitutional, calling it a "mingling of church and state." The American Atheists, which advocates an "absolute separation" of government and religion, filed the lawsuit Monday to stop the display of the cross, arguing that it should not be included if "no other religions or philosophies will be honored," according to a statement on the group's website. The cross, which consists of two intersecting steel beams that were found intact in the rubble at Ground Zero, was initially constructed on a side of a church in lower Manhattan. The cross was then placed inside the 9/11 Memorial Museum during a ceremony over the weekend. "The WTC cross has become a Christian icon. It has been blessed by so-called holy men and presented as a reminder that their god, who couldn't be bothered to stop the Muslim terrorists or prevent 3,000 people from being killed in his name, cared only enough to bestow upon us some rubble that resembles a cross," the group's president, Dave Silverman, said in a press release. "It's a truly ridiculous assertion." The National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center Foundation, Inc., is exempt from federal income tax. The organization's revenue in 2010 totaled nearly $90 million, of which $70 million was provided by government grants. But museum organizers say the cross, which is a symbol of hope for many, should have a place at the memorial. The cross is "an important part of our commitment to bring back the authentic physical reminders that tell the history of 9/11 in a way nothing else could," 9/11 Memorial president Joe Daniels said Saturday, the Christian Post reports. "Its return is a symbol of the progress on the Memorial and Museum that we feel rather than see, reminding us that commemoration is at the heart of our mission," Daniels reportedly said.
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Post by june on Jul 28, 2011 16:11:54 GMT
And what do you think about that article Anna?
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Post by sadie1263 on Jul 28, 2011 21:28:53 GMT
Well....my first thought was good grief....who are these people that all they have time for are lawsuits???
Next thought....how many times have I seen things fall and end up in a cross pattern.....I trim my trees all the time.....it happens a bunch.....never once did I think it was a religious moment.
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Post by trubble on Jul 31, 2011 18:49:01 GMT
Just to add to Anna's piece, there's a piece here in the Guardian putting the American Atheists' case:
The World Trade Centre cross, at Ground Zero, now subject to a lawsuit by American Atheists objecting to the inclusion of a specifically Christian icon at the 9/11 memorial in New York City.
Special treatment for the Christian icon at the memorial denies the equal rights of atheist and other theist victims of 9/11.
On Wednesday 27 July, we at American Atheists filed a difficult case. We began a suit against the inclusion of the Christian cross at the World Trade Centre memorial. We knew this would potentially paint us as "unpatriotic"; we filed it anyway, because we are patriotic.
Our main concern here is equality: 9/11 was a faith-based American tragedy that affected everyone. However, the Christian community rallied around a T-joint they found in the rubble and secured what is, in effect, a sole representation in the memorial, for itself, to the exclusion of all other religions and philosophies. This is unfair to the hundreds of secular people who died on 9/11, as well as the hundreds more non-Christian theistic victims. We all deserve equal representation.
US and New York laws mandate that all people should be treated equally when public land or public money is used. Specifically, the New York Civil Rights Act states:
All persons within the jurisdiction of this state shall be entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any places of public accommodations, resort or amusement.
What we seek is any remedy that honours everyone equally, be they Christian, Muslim, Jew or atheist. This can either be done with a totally neutral memorial that concentrates on the tragedy and not religion, or one that allows everyone to put up a display of equal size and prominence. In the latter case, we have offered to pay for a display ourselves. If everyone is provided equal treatment, we will drop our lawsuit, because fair is fair.
The one thing we won't tolerate is Christianity getting a special treatment not afforded to us or anyone else. Christians can love and rally around whatever they wish, and if they wish to deify a piece of rubble, that's up to them, but that doesn't mean they get sole representation in the WTC memorial.
On Thursday, it was disclosed that a Star of David made (by humans, after the event) of rubble from the wreckage would also be included in the memorial. We see this as progress, because it acknowledges that these symbols are religious in nature (they had originally claimed the cross was "secular" – an argument that now seems to have been dropped). More inclusion is better than less, but this certainly underscores the need for a display representing the atheists, who far outnumber the Jews who died in the attack.
According to the law, all citizens would have the right to an equally sized memorial for their specific faith. This includes Muslims, who would undoubtedly want a representation, since their religion was involved, as well as Buddhists, Mormons, Wiccans and so on.
Of course, the easiest way to do this is simply to remove the religious artifacts and stick with the memorial that respects everyone equally by not singling any religion out for special treatment at all. The cross should be given to a church (via sale or lottery) and the memorial should be completely non-discriminatory.
We at American Atheists fight the unpopular fights because they are necessary. We seek equality and demand it when refused. Religious discrimination from the government is not allowed and must be contested, even when the majority is favoured. Indeed, especially so.
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♫anna♫
Global Moderator
Aug 18 2017 - Always In Our Hearts
The Federal Reserve Act is the Betrayal of the American Revolution!
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karma:
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Post by ♫anna♫ on Aug 2, 2011 23:22:04 GMT
I like this solution better Trubble! If there were any members of an atheist organisation among the victims I suppose it could be argued that the American Atheist symbol above could be put on the site in memory of that/those atheist 911 victim/s.
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Post by Liberator on Aug 3, 2011 4:01:35 GMT
It's a kind of incentive for all religions and none to devize a common memorial symbol. It was done for VietNam and for the Nazi death camps with simple listing of the victims. Maybe that would be a solution: erect a wall bearing their names. To put the symbol of each religion somehow looks quite daft, more emphasising their separation than their unity in death.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2011 6:45:09 GMT
. To put the symbol of each religion somehow looks quite daft, more emphasising their separation than their unity in death. Good point. Religion isn't always someone's defining point - especially if they are atheists or agnostics. I'd rather see a symbol depicting their common humanity.
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Post by sadie1263 on Aug 4, 2011 1:38:52 GMT
Oh.....I think that is ideal.....and put a stop to all this money wasting, time consuming lawsuits that just seem to divide people more!!!
Absolutely brilliant!!!
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♫anna♫
Global Moderator
Aug 18 2017 - Always In Our Hearts
The Federal Reserve Act is the Betrayal of the American Revolution!
e x a l t | s m i t e
karma:
Posts: 11,769
|
Post by ♫anna♫ on Aug 4, 2011 2:08:57 GMT
. To put the symbol of each religion somehow looks quite daft, more emphasising their separation than their unity in death. Good point. Religion isn't always someone's defining point - especially if they are atheists or agnostics. I'd rather see a symbol depicting their common humanity. If we let Americans vote for a "symbol depicting their common humanity" I know which symbol would be chosen!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2011 7:43:16 GMT
Well yes, the cross might be chosen because most Americans are Christian. But that would be an example of the tyranny of the majority, and that's surely why you have constitutional rules!
Christ's messages of love and peace are shared by other religions. I'm not quite sure what symbol a Buddhist would choose, for example, but as a code for living it must rival Christianity.
A dove? Or is that too Abrahamic?
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Post by trubble on Aug 4, 2011 19:03:07 GMT
A universal symbol, especially devised for the occasion, would be ideal.
However, we are still left with the actual history of 9/11 which includes the cross, whatever way you look at it, it is history and in my opinion it should not be written out of the story.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2011 20:44:55 GMT
Trubble, you've lost me. Why does is the cross any more part of the history of 9/11 than any other religious symbol? If you are talking about the T-shaped steel beams - well they still had to be made into a cross.
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Post by trubble on Aug 6, 2011 11:49:18 GMT
I thought it was an organic process (in that, the cross was found very early on and people individually began to gravitate towards it as a symbol of hope). Wait, I'll look that up. Other religious symbols derived from 9/11 appear to have been consciously created. wiki: Discovery Following the attacks, a massive operation was launched to clear the site and attempt to find any survivors amongst the rubble. On September 13 one of the workers at the site, Frank Silecchia discovered a 20 feet (6.1 m)[5] cross of two steel beams amongst the debris of 6 World Trade Center.[6] Those with access to the site used the cross as a shrine of sorts, leaving messages on it or praying before it.[7][8]
After a few weeks within the cleanup site the cross was an impediment to nearby work, so Silecchia and others working on the project received an expedited approval from the office of New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to erect it on a pedestal on a portion of the former plaza on Church Street near Liberty. It was moved by crane on October 3 and installed on October 4,[9][10] where it continued as a shrine and tourist attraction.[2] The cross has remained during reconstruction, but in the 2004 and 2005 filings of its site plan, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey indicated that "additional remnants" of the original World Trade Center might require removal and storage during construction of the World Trade Center Transportation Hub.[11]
[edit] Cultural responseSome saw the crossed metal as a Christian cross and felt its survival was symbolic. Fr. Brian Jordan OFM, a Roman Catholic Franciscan priest, spoke over it and declared it to be a "symbol of hope... symbol of faith... symbol of healing".[7] One minister at the site says that when a family of a man who died in the attacks came to the cross shrine and left personal effects there, "It was as if the cross took in the grief and loss. I never felt Jesus more."[12]
A replica has been installed at the gravesite of Father Mychal Judge, a New York Fire Department chaplain who was killed in the collapse of WTC 1 on September 11.[13] Other surviving crossbeams were salvaged from the rubble; one was given to a Far Rockaway, New York chapter of the Knights of Columbus in 2004.[14] Another replica cross was fashioned by ironworkers from Trade Center steel and installed at Graymoor, the Upper West Side headquarters of the Society of the Atonement, a religious order of Franciscan friars.[15]
The nearby St. Paul's Chapel, which survived the destruction and was a refuge for survivors and site laborers, sells various replicas of the cross including lapel pins and rosaries.[16] The cross even inspired laborers on "The Pile" to get tattoos.[17See, to me, the cross has happened. It's aprt of the story. It's a piece of 9/11 rather than a memorial to it. It's not about the religion, it's about people seeking hope.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 6, 2011 16:42:05 GMT
Okay;I had not realised it was a cross because one report seemed to say it was a T shape.
Even so, it wouldn't have been singled out had the cross not been a Christian symbol, would it?
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