Cross as Two Sticks
From today's NY Daily News letters to the editor:
Church and state
Manhattan: How dare they put a Christian religious symbol in the WTC memorial? The victims hailed from almost all the world's religions. If they include a cross, they should include symbols for Jews and Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs. They should even include a bowl of marijuana for Rastafarians. What was the miracle this cross represented, anyway? It was one of hundreds of crossbeams used to build the towers. After it "miraculously" appeared, were people suddenly rescued from the rubble? Was Osama suddenly caught? It has been there for more than four years; have the toxins disappeared from the Deutsche Bank? The people who venerate the cross as a miracle are weak-minded, and the people who acquiesced to religious threats and pressure are even weaker.
Steven Davies
How absolutely correct, and props to Mr. Davies for mentioning it. My only quibble with his sentiment is that he didn't include Witches and Pagans, as we know that some of us, too, died at the Trade Center.
Contray to popular belief, this is NOT a Christian country (it was founded by Deists, boys and girls...go look it up if you don't know what that means). It is also a country that is home to freedom of religion, a multiplicity of beliefs of equal weight and grace, though I'm beginning to think not so much lately, with the fundie shift doing such damage. (May I remind you all that the root word of "fundamentalism", means, in the original Latin, roughly "ass." Not the braying kind---well, yes, they DO bray, true enough---but the kind you sit yourself down on. Or are.
I get so sick of this sort of thing: it's on a par with people seeing Jesus on a grilled-cheese sandwich or the Virgin Mary in a detergent smear on a newly washed window. I'm all for faith and miracles, but I also believe such things can happily co-exist with common sense and some degree of intelligence and sophistication. Instead, we get credulous hayseeds seeing all sorts of things in common household objects and memorial planners imposing their narrow view of Deity on us all.
Maybe I'll start seeing Thor in a plate of Swedish meatballs, just so I don't feel left out and unreligious...but, you know, I wouldn't want to so insult a god.
Church and state
Manhattan: How dare they put a Christian religious symbol in the WTC memorial? The victims hailed from almost all the world's religions. If they include a cross, they should include symbols for Jews and Hindus and Muslims and Sikhs. They should even include a bowl of marijuana for Rastafarians. What was the miracle this cross represented, anyway? It was one of hundreds of crossbeams used to build the towers. After it "miraculously" appeared, were people suddenly rescued from the rubble? Was Osama suddenly caught? It has been there for more than four years; have the toxins disappeared from the Deutsche Bank? The people who venerate the cross as a miracle are weak-minded, and the people who acquiesced to religious threats and pressure are even weaker.
Steven Davies
How absolutely correct, and props to Mr. Davies for mentioning it. My only quibble with his sentiment is that he didn't include Witches and Pagans, as we know that some of us, too, died at the Trade Center.
Contray to popular belief, this is NOT a Christian country (it was founded by Deists, boys and girls...go look it up if you don't know what that means). It is also a country that is home to freedom of religion, a multiplicity of beliefs of equal weight and grace, though I'm beginning to think not so much lately, with the fundie shift doing such damage. (May I remind you all that the root word of "fundamentalism", means, in the original Latin, roughly "ass." Not the braying kind---well, yes, they DO bray, true enough---but the kind you sit yourself down on. Or are.
I get so sick of this sort of thing: it's on a par with people seeing Jesus on a grilled-cheese sandwich or the Virgin Mary in a detergent smear on a newly washed window. I'm all for faith and miracles, but I also believe such things can happily co-exist with common sense and some degree of intelligence and sophistication. Instead, we get credulous hayseeds seeing all sorts of things in common household objects and memorial planners imposing their narrow view of Deity on us all.
Maybe I'll start seeing Thor in a plate of Swedish meatballs, just so I don't feel left out and unreligious...but, you know, I wouldn't want to so insult a god.
posted by Patricia Kennealy Morrison | 12:41 PM
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