Your thoughts on Satanism and the petition for a Satanic statue.

[Kingpin]

Here's the thing: if you have to limit your statue-building to just "those statues that won't offend anybody," then you would never ever build a religious monument at all. Every religion has those members that find the existence and practices of other religions to be offensive in and of themselves, and American christianity in particular is so used to unchallenged cultural dominance that it's very oversensitive to any intimation that they might not be the norm in every single household in the country. I mean, it's baked into the religion at a foundational level anyway, with that "thou shall have no other gods before me," commandment, but even if it weren't that obvious, has anyone here not heard a sputtering, oblivious christian going all red faced about their "christian nation," being slowly filled by other people "shoving their religion down our throats."?

Hell, it's gotten to the point that people can't even erect little information stations celebrating reason beside a christian installation without the christians getting offended. If you're asking that we not build any monuments that might offend people then I need you to know that that is an impossible task, because conservative christians think that even the existence of non-christian viewpoints is a deliberate, personal attack against them. We couldn't build anything that challenges them, in that case.

But that's kinda the point too, that American christians never seem to grasp in the midst of their top to bottom special pleading. The offense that they get isn't unique to them, people of other religions get that too, but in their case it's also coupled with a pervasive sense of being the outsider, of being unwelcome here, because so much of the country is so willing to pretend that christianity is the ground state of being for Americans. When a christian looks upon a statue for another religion and feels alienated, they should start to understand that this is how every other person feels when they look at all the christian iconography all over the place, and there's so much more of that than the single Baphomet statue, and you goddamn christians can't even be bothered to name that thing right. You want to talk about disrespect and offense? What's really offensive is seeing this nationwide conversation about how christians should get special dispensation to just plaster the landscape with their religious iconography, while being happy to deny others that same right, because of malevolent motivations they've proscribed to practitioners of other religions without their consent, when they can't even be bothered to get the name of the religious figure they're objecting to right.

Esq, I actually agree with everything you are saying here.  Christian groups in this country seem to forget that while the country was formed by a large number of Christians/Deists, it itself is NOT a Christian nation.  The Constitution is at best Deistic in nature with reference to "the Creator", but the First amendment and Article VI expressly prohibit establishing a state religion while allowing the free exercise thereof.  There is and should be a separation of church and state and when the government allow displays of any religious symbolism, they MUST open it to all.  This does get in to murky areas, because what signifies as a "religious symbol", etc.  Which of the 300+ million of the Hindu Gods do they allow?  

Christian groups can fight to have crosses, ten commandments, etc displayed on public grounds, but should not fight against other groups having what they want displayed.  I understand the point of this statue is not that this group wants the statue for their display of religion, but for the intent to show that all religions or practices should have that same right that Christians fight for as US CITIZENS!  Do I want to see a satanic statue?  No!  This is exactly why the government should not allow religious symbols of any kind on government property, since allowing it can be interpreted as an endorsement (violating first amendment) unless they allow ALL, which is the point this group is trying to make.