Religious Symbols as War Memorials
September 24, 2012 at 10:50 am
(This post was last modified: September 24, 2012 at 10:51 am by festive1.)
There's been a hoopla recently regarding a WWI monument in Maryland. The issue is that the monument is a giant cross, and some non-believer complained about feeling uncomfortable having to drive by it all the time and that it is on state owned land.
Here's an article by an Iraq veteran defending the monument:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/w...story.html
The problem I have is that it's A) on state land and B) why does a monument have to be religious in nature? Granted this was erected in 1925, so they probably weren't thinking about non-believers. But why is it such a big deal to modify or replace the monument to something not religious? This opinion piece tries to say that atheists are unpatriotic and don't want to commemorate our fallen heroes. Which is an inaccurate idea that I've seen a lot recently.
This situation was interestingly juxtaposed by this article which appeared in the Post today:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/resi...story.html
Basically, what this second story says is they put up a plaque to commemorate the cremated remains of US soldiers that were dumped into a local Virginia landfill... Evidently, there was a shady funeral home behind this illegal dumping of cremated human remains. This plaque is non-religious in nature.
More importantly, the question I'm posing is:
Should older monuments that are religious in nature be changed/replaced to reflect our current sensibilities?
-or- Should atheists accept that our country's history is deeply religious, and tolerate such monuments?
Here's an article by an Iraq veteran defending the monument:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/w...story.html
The problem I have is that it's A) on state land and B) why does a monument have to be religious in nature? Granted this was erected in 1925, so they probably weren't thinking about non-believers. But why is it such a big deal to modify or replace the monument to something not religious? This opinion piece tries to say that atheists are unpatriotic and don't want to commemorate our fallen heroes. Which is an inaccurate idea that I've seen a lot recently.
This situation was interestingly juxtaposed by this article which appeared in the Post today:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/resi...story.html
Basically, what this second story says is they put up a plaque to commemorate the cremated remains of US soldiers that were dumped into a local Virginia landfill... Evidently, there was a shady funeral home behind this illegal dumping of cremated human remains. This plaque is non-religious in nature.
More importantly, the question I'm posing is:
Should older monuments that are religious in nature be changed/replaced to reflect our current sensibilities?
-or- Should atheists accept that our country's history is deeply religious, and tolerate such monuments?
