Friday, August 17, 2012

Seeing signs of no signs of a lack of deity everywhere I look

The American Atheists have decided, once again, that they are the final arbiters of truth for all, and have filed a suit to remove the large 9/11 artifact in the shape of a 17-foot-tall cross from its place of display at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.  The complaint is that, by displaying this giant cross, the government-supported museum is therefore a government agency endorsing a religion, and is violating the First Amendment.  On FOX News this afternoon I listened as their spokesman stated that there were no symbols for their own set of beliefs, so none could be displayed at the museum, thus nobody else's beliefs could be promoted there, either.

Not to throw a wet blanket on his smoldering religious fervor, but, has he bothered to look around?  if it's signs of no sign of a deity he's looking for, they're all over the place.  I mean, a blank wall says nothing so much as it says "nothing."  Open spaces in courtyards,  open walkways, empty hallways, traffic-free streets, deserted beaches, echoing staircases, rubble piles, airport runways, hovercrafts, dented automobile bumpers, abandoned spare tires... there's no signs or symbols of a lack of higher power, there, either.  In fact, everywhere you look, if you look closely enough, you can find an absence of presence, if that's what you seek.  

Heck, if he really wants to get serious, he can take a close look at that big, giant piece of scrap metal and interpret it to mean that there is no god of any sort behind it, in it, above it, or around it at all.  When you're steeped in a lack of faith, you can easily find no deeper meaning in anything you see.  

So, what is he complaining about? He's got his lack of symbols every G0dforsaken place he goes, and he still wants to limit the placement of others' to even fewer spaces than the little ground they ask for. It seems to me, with all the signs he doesn't have, he can share the space with a few believers in a different kind of universe.  He and his fellow-believers in the sanctity of Nothing could afford to let somebody else hold sacred a few feet at Ground Zero.

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