World Trade Center Belongs to All Americans

"As a result, you wish that seculars get preferential representation by excluding non-secular symbols."

How do secularists get preferential treatment by not using sectarian symbols? You would have a valid argument if we replaced "In God We Trust" with "In No Gods We Trust" or if you replaced a cross with an atheist symbol, but having NO symbols at all is neutral to all positions.

"For millions of Christians, a symbol of a cross forged from two beams fused together is the strongest emotional touchstone representing the anguish and grief they felt. If you deny this as part of a memorial, you tell them that they may not share their own version of grief with the world. That they can approach their own pain privately, whilst the secular world may share their pain publicly."

Rubbish!

No, I mean literally rubbish, as in garbage, is what they're attracted to for their grief? The WTC towers were comprised of thousands of t-joints. So the fact that one of those survived intact is nothing miraculous. To make a lower case t, which is common in construction, out to be a holy symbol is just bizarre, at best.

If your argument is valid, and it's not, then by putting the cross up you are denying millions of non-Christians from sharing their own version of grief with the world. It's a two-way street, which is why the memorial should be secular. Secular does not mean atheistic or putting up atheist or humanist symbols. Secular just means "non-religious," as in neutral toward all religions and views. Christians aren't the only ones that died in those buildings and it is an insult to all non-Christians to put that cross up. It is better to remain neutral and give no preference to any religion or non-religion.

"Tolerance is inclusion not exclusion."

Indeed. And yet here we are arguing over including Christians at the exclusion of all other religions. Tolerance also means giving no preference to any one group over another, especially when it comes to the government. We don't care if people are bigots: they have a right to be arses. But the government should not and should remain neutral on the most divisive ideas of humanity.

"A mangled cross representing how millions of Christians felt is a good thing. Forbidding it is flawed logic."

Then put it on the front lawn of a church if it's so good. But it doesn't belong at a memorial where it will insult all non-Christians who died and who participated in the rescue of survivors and are fighting in Afghanistan to revenge 9/11.

Speaking as a life long atheist, THIS IS STUPID! If you don't believe, then shut up and don't believe. A cross will not not burn your eyes out and corrupt your children. To true atheists, religion is a non subject. It's for others to debate. NO religion offends me, just as my own beliefs (or lack of) should not offend others. Things like this make us no better than evagelists, or other crusader types, telling others what they should or should not do.

Irrelevant to the issue, but total skepticism fail.

"we will not allow the many Christians who died to get preferential representation"

As a result, you wish that seculars get preferential representation by excluding non-secular symbols.

911 affected us all, and we internalize it in our own personal ways. For millions of Christians, a symbol of a cross forged from two beams fused together is the strongest emotional touchstone representing the anguish and grief they felt. If you deny this as part of a memorial, you tell them that they may not share their own version of grief with the world. That they can approach their own pain privately, whilst the secular world may share their pain publicly.

Tolerance is inclusion not exclusion. The argument shouldn't be about excluding a particular religious touchstone, but about including significant touchstones. A mangled cross representing how millions of Christians felt is a good thing. Forbidding it is flawed logic.

So the buildings were made of thousands of crosses, people probably prayed that they wouldn't collapse when they were hit by aircraft, but they fell anyway. I would support the inclusion of the cross in the monument if they put a caption explaining the futility of believing in fairy tales.

I work in the environmental field and although I know the dangers of asbestos to the human body if it is inhaled, I maintain that collapse may not have occurred if the support structure of the building was coated with asbestos fireproofing. I'm not a structural engineer, so I may be wrong.

9/11 conspiracy theories hardly seem topical. This issue can be discussed just fine without dragging that nonsense into it.

I completely agree that the WTC memorial should not include any religious symbols functioning as religious symbols*, but the second paragraph of this post seriously undermines the effort to keep the memorial secular. Big political fights in polarized political climates tend to get collapsed into a single oversimplified argument. If the argument is about what the constitution says about the separation of church and state and about being respectful of everybody's beliefs, we have a real shot at winning; if it's an argument about whether Christianity is ridiculous, we will lose _spectacularly_. It's almost impossible to change people's religious beliefs, and it's even harder to do it with rhetoric that will put them on the defensive. Because of the religious demographics of the country, almost any pro-secular agenda needs the support of Christians to succeed--and in fact, many Christians do want a secular government, so by insulting their beliefs you alienate our natural allies. Plus, you play right into the hands of the people who believe (or claim for political reasons to believe) that atheists are out to destroy religion rather than to protect our own rights.

Basically, the question of whether religion is ridiculous is _completely_irrelevant_ to the question of the separation of church and state, but the anti-secularists would much rather have that fight because it's a political winner for them. Every time American Atheists engages in religion-bashing it's that much harder to actually achieve the secular government promised by the constitution.

*The cross probably should be somewhere in the memorial, but as a museum artifact rather than as component of a shrine. I would urge American Atheists to position itself as recognizing the social and historical importance of the cross and supporting its inclusion in the museum. This would help illustrate the important distinction between government behavior that recognizes the important role of religion in our society and government behavior that actually engages in religion.

Absolutely!

One thing we must remember about 9/11 is that it is yet unclear who demolished these three buildings. They could not have fallen the way they did. This must be understood.
I too am an Atheist and I must agree that a cross is certainly not appropriate since all the prayers failed to save the people from dying most horrid deaths. Perhaps their 'god' was on the other side this time.

"The site is not public domain. This is a display on private property."

Wrong. Over 50% of the memorial and museum were funded by tax-payers dollars and the property is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey: a government entity.

I am not a Christian, I don't follow any type of organized religion, and I don't worship a god. However, I am a realist and I realize that this country was founded on reliquous freedom. All of the founding fathers were "god fearing" men and worked to create a country based on 'loving thy neighbor' as well as other admirable ideals of a love based religion.

Being Americans, we all have a freedom of choice; to believe or not to believe, to worship or not to worship. It is when people start fighting just to fight that brings negativity and unnecessary hatred into things that can be beautiful. Who cares if there is cross at the memorial? If you don't like it, don't look at it. Don't desecrate it, don't waste energy on hating it, just let it be and ignore it.

The purpose and focus of the memorial is to pay tribute to the thousands of people who lost their lives; the cross will absolutely not overshadow the trajedy, nothing can. As Americans we need to be unified, not separated by ideas. Our country was built on freedom of religion and it was built to last.

WTC belongs to all Americans, and no one can take it away from anyone. It is a choice to be insulted by a cross and let that negativity overshadow the unity. If atheism was as wide spread and accepted as Chrisianity I would expect to see more representation of it, but that is not the case. As one non-believer to another: I implore you to allow others the freedom of choice and expression. If it doesn't physically hurt you, let it be.

"He made a very logical point…"

No he didn't.

"Therefore, the symbols associated with religion, in this case the cross, should hold no sort of meaning for them."

And they don't. Which is why we refer to is as a "cross" (in quotes) and "a t-shaped junction among thousands used in the construction of the WTC."

It's meaning to us is irrelevant to the separation of church and state. The Ten Commandments don't mean a thing to us either, but that doesn't mean we should ignore them in a courthouse.

Logic fail on your part.

Good for you. I fully support this endeavor. The more religion we can extricate from public domain the better.

I don't get it. I'm an atheist and think it's just a piece of metal and couldn't care less about it being put on display.
It wasn't created by anyone as a memorial art piece. It's not going to do any harm being on display at a museum. It'll be like any other piece of debris put on display.
But, if someone had intentionally made a cross of out the debris to be put on display, that would be different and I would not support it.

It's disturbing to think that Christians want to honor the death of so many Americans with a cross that is in every way a symbol of death. To start, the cross was a torture device that the Romans (amongst other civilizations) used frequently as a tool to inflict extreme pain upon people and yet it's the same symbol of death that Christians use to represent themselves. Its fine if Christians want to worship this symbol of death but it is an absolute abomination to the rest of us. I'm tired of Christians thinking they can just subliminally and intentionally implement their beliefs into our way of life. It's got to stop and we must keep fighting these unconstitutional representations that are continually being thrust upon us.

Hello all! I firmly believe that ALL religions should be represented at the WTC. The world is full of interesting and diverse people who all believe differently. But after reading the article, I felt the need to point out a very obvious fact that the writer has chosen to ignore.

"......This was an attack against America, not Christianity, and Christianity’s does not deserve special placement just because THEY think the girders look like their religious symbol..........."

9/11 WAS an attack on Christianity. I have spent years in the Middle East and around people of many different faiths and religions. There is a deep-seated hatred against both Jews and Christians by the muslim extremeists. These people believe it is their job to have us all following the adhan or to kill us. To many people who live in the Middle East the Christian and American lifestyles are synonymous. Many there do not understand the great melting pot that the USA is because it is beyond their realm of comprehension. The majourity of Middle Easterners are undereducated and living by antiquated laws that they blindly follow and they would not hesitate to kill even an Athiest who chose not to convert to islam. The Christian Cross resurrected at the top of the 9/11 Memorial would show the muslim extremeists that they did NOT win that horrible day and that they NEVER WILL.

I hope that in the musuem each and every religion is represented but PLEASE do not stop the cross from being erected. It is a symbol to the muslim extremeists that we are still standing strong and that they will NEVER win. Please do not help the extremeists by doing their dirty work for them.

This is the type of attitude that gives atheism a bad name. This is a zero tolerance knee-jerk reaction. I am the first to scream about the seperation of church and state, but this isn't the same. The memorial is there to be a record of the events and aftermath. If someone saw the cross and it gave them comfort,so be it. If we continue down this path, do we remove every cross someone has on display about D-Day, all the crosses in Arlinton Cemetary,the Star of David in Holocaust museums, Where do we stop ? Religion is part of the history of this country and the world. We can't irradicate the symbols without cutting out part of who we are. I would like the world to be more reasonable, this is not the course to reason. This is abject intolerance and bigotry. The memorial isn't a religious building or to be used in worship, the cross is there because it was part of what happened. The motive behind the attacks were in part religious, we remove religion, then in the future, we may forget the evil. To dismiss part of the memorial is to dismiss part of the emotions of those effected. I don't care how the grave stone is shaped, I grieve for those lost. What is important is dealing with the loss, not the shape of the memorial.
We can't become as theocratic countries have, total intolerant of those who think different. They have a right to their religion and where appropiate, their symbols.
To demand the removal of the cross from the memorial makes atheist no better than the Muslims extremists that attacked this country.

If you want to be an enabler of theocracy, that’s fine. We’ll take up your slack in the fight.

Emotions do not trump the Constitution.

Dear blair scott,

Why do you take snippets of a post in an attempt to warp and twist it into your point of view? If I was prone to tit-for-tat then I could go thru all your posts, take a few words here and there, and then completely misrepresent your ideas but I will refrain because I am above that. Now, regarding your remark:

"“It is a symbol to the muslim extremeists that we are still standing strong and that they will NEVER win....... So we should exacerbate religious hatred? That’s your argument?"

How on Earth did you derive at the above statement?! How is standing proud and refusing to change your beliefs to appease terrorists in any way, shape or form considered 'religious hatred'?

I have read all the above posts on this matter and can agree as well as disogree with allot these posts. The one thing that does not sit well with me is the this part of the above statement "be intolerant and bigoted". To do this would not be a good plan of action. I'm not saying to take anything lying down either. Question everything and then form a good plan of action that you feel is nessisary. The reason I say this is because while I was growing up, my family moved around the "United States" as I was a teen ager, and allot of young adults had that as thier therory towards me. The problem is that they didn't know me and or understand me because I was considered an outsider to there would. Because they decided to "be intolerant and bigoted" towards me, even though I had not made a single threat towards anyone or acted in an unnormal manor to create an issue with anyone. This accured in serveral towns/cities that we moved to. Now what I am getting at. I grew up in the burbs of Chicago with a only a single parrent (mom) and all 4 grand parrents. Both of my Grand fathers were Special Opps in the Army and Navy, and both of them showed me how to handle a bad situation at a very young age. There were many times that I could have serriosly hurt some one just because, if I were "be intolerant and bigoted". Isn't that statement kinda how 911 came to be. I tollerated untilled someone "school bully" decided to physicaly touch me in a harmfull manor. Needless to say that King lost his crown that day. To be an athiest means that the two pieces of steel laid together forming a joint is no more than just that.

"Blair Scott says:
July 27, 2011 at 12:49
If you want to be an enabler of theocracy, that’s fine. We’ll take up your slack in the fight.

Emotions do not trump the Constitution."

You are smarter than that statement. The Constitution was wrote based on emotions and your statement only invites negativity or like some one stated "evil" if their is such a thing, being atheisist.

I treat life like a chess game, in order to beat your opponent, you first have to know your opponent. If you act with agression towards anyone expect them to react to you.

"How on Earth did you derive at the above statement?! How is standing proud and refusing to change your beliefs to appease terrorists in any way, shape or form considered ‘religious hatred’?"

Because it is not peace.

Oh yea, I just remembered. My beliefs don't allow me to have beliefs.

Peace! Figure it out or you lose.

To all who don't want the cross,

If you guys believe your not being represented at the memorial why not ask for representation? Why are you guys against having the cross there? If your answer is that your feelings are hurt how do you think those that want the cross there feel? If you don't like it then don't look at it. I see many things I don't like on a daily basis but I just choose to ignore them and understand that some people may enjoy them. I just think there's a million other things we can be worried about that could take up our time of day.

Dear 'MyCountry',

Your statement makes absolutely no sense at all.

.....“How on Earth did you derive at the above statement?! How is standing proud and refusing to change your beliefs to appease terrorists in any way, shape or form considered ‘religious hatred’?”

-------Because it is not peace.-------...........

Because it is not peace. So are you stating that Christians should cower down in a corner so that we do not upset anyone? Or perhaps we should all (and this includes athiests) simply convert to islam in order to be peaceful? I am very confused about your statement because it simply does not make sense in the context of this thread.

Also, is this lawsuit not 'religious hatred' against Christians? Athiests are not 'being peaceful' about a Cross at the WTC Memorial. This Cross was not commissioned and requested by anyone. It is part of the building that survived in the shape of a Cross then gave hope and comfort to millions of people. If there had been a symbol for the athiest religion that had survived the site and had comforted people then I would expect it to be included just as the Cross should be included.