I have no words.

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by Figment

Oi that's the dutch flag.



Let them Americans feel dutch!

(would be funnier if he used the Yugoslavian or Russian order of colours though)

Using the Russian order he can always pretend to be Slovenian.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by NewSith

Using the Russian order he can always pretend to be Slovenian.

It's said the Russian flag is derived from dutch naval flags and the pan-slavic flags are derived from Russia, so meh. >.>

Now if he wanted to be trully american he should make words , or better yet, individual letters, white blue white blue and do line by line in red and white.

Would be totally unreadable and too much work, but funsies.

[Quovatis]

Originally Posted by NewSith

Because where one's freedom begins, other's freedom ends. Resizing your freedom would be nice.

I'd like to point out that your sig actually takes up more space than his. Just saying.

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by Figment

It's said the Russian flag is derived from dutch naval flags and the pan-slavic flags are derived from Russia, so meh. >.>

Now if he wanted to be trully american he should make words , or better yet, individual letters, white blue white blue and do line by line in red and white.

Would be totally unreadable and too much work, but funsies.

Not much of a challenge. He should totally go for the confederate flag, now that's some hard work! I mean placing white and blue letters so they form a diagonal is somewhat great amusement...

Originally Posted by Quovatis

I'd like to point out that your sig actually takes up more space than his. Just saying.

Yes, but mine is separated by a picture, so people can see where the bottom line is...


/LETTHERAILSGOBACK!

[Figment]

[Zulthus]

Those are not atheists. Atheists are people who reject the belief of a deity. I very much respect Atheist's opinions. However, the people mentioned in this article are a group of anti-religion dicks who should just keep their damn opinions to themselves.

I wish I'd see the day where people could believe in whatever the hell they want to without one group of people thinking they're better. Sadly, this day will never come.

[Vash02]

Originally Posted by Zulthus

Those are not atheists. Atheists are people who reject the belief of a deity. I very much respect Atheist's opinions. However, the people mentioned in this article are a group of anti-religion dicks who should just keep their damn opinions to themselves.

I wish I'd see the day where people could believe in whatever the hell they want to without one group of people thinking they're better. Sadly, this day will never come.

How about Christians keep their damned opinions and symbols to themselves and stop trying to use tax payer money to spread their religion?
And yes they are athiests. They, by the very definition you just gave, disbelieve in god.
They are also not anti-religion but anti-theocracy. they dont want the establishment of a national religion and are prepared to fight in the courts to protect the constitution.

[Zulthus]

Originally Posted by Vash02

How about Christians keep their damned opinions and symbols to themselves and stop trying to use tax payer money to spread their religion?
And yes they are athiests. They, by the very definition you just gave, disbelieve in god.
They are also not anti-religion but anti-theocracy. they dont want the establishment of a national religion and are prepared to fight in the courts to protect the constitution.

I'm not Christian. I don't believe in anything but I don't care about religion at all, so I can't really classify myself as anything.

I'm against Christians who do the same thing just as much as Atheists. However, this article was not about Christians, therefore I am opposed to these anti-religion dicks.

This doesn't have anything to do with preventing the establishment of a national religion. It's just a bunch of people crying "there is no god, THERE IS NO GOD!!!!" because they want to be better than them.

Honestly, I wish either everyone respected each other's opinions or any concept of religion/atheism is just erased from everyone's minds. It's just a source of useless hate, whining, and bitching.

[Vash02]

Yes, it does have something to do with the establishment of a religion. Its a christian symbol on public land, paid for by the taxpayer, maintained by the taxpayer and being used to represent everyone who died. That is 100% an establishment issue.

[Red Beard]

Originally Posted by Vash02

Yes, it does have something to do with the establishment of a religion. Its a christian symbol on public land, paid for by the taxpayer, maintained by the taxpayer and being used to represent everyone who died. That is 100% an establishment issue.

The public is for the free expression of all ideas, and the suppression of none, Vash.

Going any further is trampling on the free expression of others.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by elfailo

Even if I was a soldier I wouldn't mind the prospect of rotting away under a cross that I attribute no sensible value to whatsoever. I wouldn't be there to consciously experience my own indignation anyway.

Dude, the athiest gravestone is totally bitchin! It looks like the symbol for some super hero, like Atomic Man!

Originally Posted by NewSith

Because where one's freedom begins, other's freedom ends. Resizing your freedom would be nice.

Your 'freedoms' take up more space than his do. Though I do grant yours is easier on the eyes.



Right then. Those people are quacks, just like the Westboro Baptist Church(Not to that degree of course, WBC was just the first thing that came to mind when it comes to distasteful religious activism).


I've had athiests correct me about using B.C. for dates before, saying I should instead use the nondenominational B.C.E. Of course then I ask if they still worship Woden on Wodin's Day(Wednesday). Its pointless. Artifacts of religion permeate most every culture on the planet. Its in our speech, in our art, in our entertainment. I didn't have to be a catholic to appreciate the wondrous beauty of the Sistine Chapel as I stood there looking up at it.

Live and let live I say. Regardless of your beliefs, or the beliefs of the soldiers that memorial is dedicated to, the sentiment is nice. Hell I've had people say they will pray for me. I don't debate them about their god, or point out flaws in the concept of prayer, nor the complete lack of empirical evidence regarding the efficacy of prayer(yes, there have actually been studies on this). I just say thank you. What they believe in doesn't bother me, and I appreciate the sentiment even if I doubt the results.

[Effective]

Originally Posted by Red Beard

The public is for the free expression of all ideas, and the suppression of none, Vash.

Going any further is trampling on the free expression of others.

Then why is there only a christian symbol? There should be a symbol for EVERY religion there then.

It's just a lot easier to make monuments secular in nature, honoring their sacrifice doesn't require a religious symbol.

Also, love it when people use pascal's wager as a reason we should believe in god. Dumb concept is dumb.

[WildGunsTomcat]

Originally Posted by Effective

Then why is there only a christian symbol? There should be a symbol for EVERY religion there then.

It's just a lot easier to make monuments secular in nature, honoring their sacrifice doesn't require a religious symbol.

Also, love it when people use pascal's wager as a reason we should believe in god. Dumb concept is dumb.

Yeah. Let's change 90 years of tradition because we're not including everyone in this new day and age....because everyone is a special little snowflake.

It's about respect. The damn thing has been there 90 years...and now a group of asshole walk by and decide they don't like it because a cross honors the Christian God.

This isn't about fairness, and those of you that say it's about fairness are frankly assholes. This is about "OMG a Christian symbol...let's cover it up because we don't like those people and their ways."

Same thing radical Christians do....so I have zero respect for this so called "Atheist movement". They should change the name to "Asshole Prick Movement"

[Figment]

I just like to think of crusifiction sized crosses as commemorating 6.000 dead slaves crusified along the Via Appia. Everyone's a Spartacus!


Though I understand the sentiment to put a cross on there, at the same time it does not represent everyone else.

The question here is, is it about respect for the religion of the makers of the monument or is the monument there to respect the religion of all those who have fallen?

Considering the goal of the monument is the latter, paying your respects by planting your religious symbol on everyone's grave to some is like confiscating and monopolising the memorial in the name of one religion.

If the graveyard is exclusively christian, I'd have no problem with it in the least. If it's shared by others, it's not a... very good choice to put on top. It's more or less saying these are the fallen (heroes) of a crusade. There are a lot of neutral things you can put up there that respect every fallen regardless of religion without at the same time promoting/worshipping a specific god or a specific variant of said god. I mean, if there's any Orthodox Christians in there, they're not represented either.

That may not concern the ones who are represented and they might feel it's impacting their freedom of expression or religion, they may even feel it's not respectful to them. Especially because it's been there for a while, but that's a rather arrogant position to take as well as they forego thinking of anyone else. Does it really matter in the end? Meh. If religious symbolism being present is enough to indoctrinate, you don't have much of a strong will of your own anyway. If it's a private community, it should stay. If it's a public memorial and graveyard, it's far less appropriate.




Still, the best war monuments look like this:



But, as you can see, there's unfortunately a misplaced statue on top.

Ancient coins indicate preliminary plans to top the column with a statue of a bird, probably an eagle, but after construction a statue of Trajan was put in place; this statue disappeared in the Middle Ages. On December 4, 1587, the top was crowned by Pope Sixtus V with a bronze figure of St. Peter, which remains to this day.

I'd be in favour of restoring the monument with a statue of emperor Trajanus up there and putting the St. Peter statue somewhere in the Vatican. After all, it was emperor Trajanus who conquered Dacia for the then pantheon gods worshipping Roman Empire. Though an eagle would do as well being a symbol of the Roman Empire.

[ItsTheSheppy]

I'd like to take a moment to reflect on how nice it is that there are groups of people who can make demands like "remove that cross from public land" and the worst people like Tomcat can do is complain right back at them.

Because it wasn't very long ago when people much like Tomcat could have those people tortured to death. But the religiously devoted lost that power long ago, and are steadily losing more and more every day. I find it hard seeing that as anything other than a bad thing.

Little by little we as a species crawl our way out of the dark ages. We here just have the good fortune of being alive at around the time where we are finally almost free of that stupidity entirely.

P.S. I am still personally against the removal of the statue. I certainly wouldn't be in favor of erecting any new ones, at least not on taxpayer property. But if they're already there, and have been for a while, then I fail to see the harm.