(1010 WINS) (TRENTON, N.J.) A steel beam in the shape of a cross from the World Trade Center wreckage has drawn criticism from an atheist group. The American Atheists objects to the cross at ground zero because they say it’s a religious emblem. Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists based in New Jersey, told The Trentonian newspaper that the cross is – in her words – a Christian religious advertisement.'' Johnson said allowing the cross to remain, is -- in her words -- an insult to everyone who doesn’t believe in that particular religion.’’
The beam was discovered two days after the attacks by construction worker Frank Silecchia as he searched for survivors. The cross was used for months as a gathering place to celebrate Sunday Mass for ground zero workers and family members. The names of fallen police officers and firefighters were also scribbled on the cross, along with the message ``May God forgive their evil.’’ The 20-foot cross stands on Church Street, on the edge of the 16-acre site. Many ground zero workers have petitioned to make it a part of a permanent memorial.
—OK, as an atheist, I’m torn on this one. On the one hand, a lot of Christians died there, and if this comforts their families, great. On the other hand, a lot of non-Christians died there, too, and this is just one more stab through the heart for them.
The entire place is considered a memorial ground, not that much different from a cemetery (except none of the dead are actually burried there). Tombstones at cemeteries can be shaped as crosses, even though there might be athiests & agnostics burried in adjacent plots.
So as long as athiests & other religious groups are allowed to erect symbols of their particular faith (or lack thereof), no biggie for me.
As a fellow atheist, I disagree. From what I gather, a large portion of the site is going to be used as a memorial for the fallen people. This cross will be on display as only a small part of that memorial. It’s not like they plan on putting up a cross and nothing else. The impression I got is that the vast majority of the memorial is paradigm-neutral, to reflect the insane variety of the victims.
Don’t take it so personally. Noone purposely meant to slight anyone. They were trying to memorialize their freinds and family. Just cause they didn’t think to make that memorial reflect everyone elses friends and family doesn’t mean they were ‘stabbing them through the heart’.
Who has jurisdiction over the site?
The Port Authority? The leaseholder?
If it is - as I suspect - private property, then they can put up whatever they want.
While I don’t really care too much one way or the other about this hunk of steel, I’m glad there are people out there willing to remind folk that not everyone believes in Christianity, and that public displays of a religious nature are neither inocuous nor universally appreciated.
I pretty much agree with this. As long as they don’t exclude a religion that wants to be represented (because a person died of that religion), I don’t have a problem with it.
In some ways I can’t comment, since I’m not an American and simply didn’t go through what you people did (mind you, I’m from the UK and we’ve had our fair share over the years, but that’s by-the-by).
As an atheist, I can’t say that the sight of a Christian cross stabs me much of anywhere. I can see where you’re coming from (I think) - in that there’s part of me which thinks it would be more fair if there was provision for a non-religious memorial [sub]there might be, for all I know[/sub], but it’s also true that atheism isn’t a religion and so doesn’t have a central, defining image (like the cross).
I’m rambling. For me I think the bottom line is that I wouldn’t object to a cross, on the grounds that a) there is already so much tragedy associated with that place, that even if I was remotely offended (and as I’ve said, I’m not) I’d let it go for the sake of those who could derive some comfort from it and b) there is the very small chance that I’m wrong, and that in fact there is a deity. I don’t want to be the one who answers to him for that.
shrug As an athiest, I can see it being somewhat offensive.
However, most of the people who died were christians. If a building in one of NYC’s Hasidic Jewish communities burned down would we be offended by a star of David at the site, even if not all of the victims were Jews?
I also think that it’s stuff like this that makes the general public wary of Athiests in general.
Stab through the heart, shmab through the shmeart. In a country with a mostly-nominal-Christian population, the cultural traditions are such that a cross says “Cemetery or memorial to the dead” like nothing else. Ms Johnson wants to get down off the, what am I saying, ought to be a little less eager to be a martyr-by-proxy.
I think, if I were to croak in a disaster in a Muslim country, my shade would not be overly offended by my being laid to rest beside my fellow sufferers under the symbol of a religion I do not profess. Nor even if I were buried by atheists (and if I were one, I’d learn to spell it) under no religious symbol whatever. And even in circumstances in which I might hypothetically object, I would want my next of kin to consider the impossibility of extracting my mortal remains from out of the wreckage and the unreasonableness of letting my wishes overshadow the vast majority of those I was buried with.
IMO, seeing as how the “girder cross” is an actual artifact of the incident; and although objectively really nothing extraordinary (there were probably thousands of cruciform girder joints of various sizes in the structures, one HAD to survive in this recognizable shape) it was significant to people involved first-hand in the disaster and cleanup, I say it has relevancy. If treated as one artifact among others, and not made into some sort of centerpiece, it would be petty to seek to “edit it out”, IF the memorial is generally inclusive. Heck, go dig thru that dump where all the debris is piled up, call up all the families and ask for interesting or significant relics they want to offer, have many other tokens of the events and cleanup in permanent or rotating display.
But let’s go further: Let the memorial include a public space where Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Jains, Santeros, Buddhists, Wiccans and yes, Humanists and Atheists, can carry out their preferred memorial/comemorative events, including if they so wish having the latter groups loudly point out that irrational beliefs may be conducive to fanatical acts. THEN we would know it’s a monument against extremism, and who cares if you can see a cross. At least that’s how I would place a challenge to those asking for the memorial to demonstrate they wish to be inclusive.
Ms. Johnson of the NJ Atheists, OTOH, is displaying an extraordinary disregard for the principles of good PR. Not very “bright” on her part, if I may say so.
I remember reading somewhere that the girder cross was moved to its current location from somewhere else on the site. (Am I remembering this correctly?)
If so, then I say – if you want to keep the cross, move it back to where it was originally found, and at the orientation it was originally found in.
American politicised atheism is based primarily upon what you reject and who you hate. In that regard, it’s very much like the majority of American political pressure groups. It stands for nothing, only against something. See also the Moral Majority/Religious Reich for essentially identical attitudes.
Groups like the one mentioned by the OP are the “I can’t believe they call themselves by the same name I use.” sort, an embarassment to the reasonable people who also happen to be of that persuasion.
Not only should this “cross” be seen as one of many memorials for the people who perished, but it may have meant a lot more to those people (living) who saw it as a sign of strength to continue searching for survivors and cleaning up the site with the constant smell of death and dust. To have an atheist group (curious thought: how many of this group were at the site looking for survivors or cleaning up?) try to deny a symbol that had a positive impact on those workers to press on is more of “an insult” than what they claim.
A few posters here stated that there are groups who oppose other groups for what they do. Maybe the group should identify themselves for what they are by picking some sort of debris from the site that identifies with their own beliefs/non-beliefs and ask that to be displayed. Question is, what would it be? I’m pretty sure that there had to be some workers who are atheist; what drove them on during the this tragedy?
And that, more than the comfort of the relatives, is why the cross became important. It was succor to the rescue workers during their grim, harmful (to themselves) task.
Because it is facually correct that the cross did in fact provide inspiration to so many of those workers, it is, ironically, a secular relic – it has no religious power of it’s own, its symbolism is part of the factual history of the recovery efforts. To fail to make it part of a memorial would be to distort history.
In fairness and in answer to your curious thought, I know that at least some activist atheists were part of the “Hero’s Highway” installation at Christopher and West St. I do not, of course, have an “atheist count” from the site itself.
As for a symbol of their own, a problem (such is it is) with being an atheist is that we can never agree on a symbol. We don’t have a unifying theme that lends itself to one, unless there were some unicorn-shaped fasteners or something.
You remeber correctly. However, since it was found (more or less erect, as I recall – that was part of its charm) on top of ~70 MM tons of debris that has since been removed from the site and that there may or may not be a building scheduled to be built where it was found, I’d venture that your proposal is impractical.
I’m an atheist, and I’d have to say I’m much more offended by the atheist group than by the idea of having a cross displayed at the site. They’re just making the rest of us look intolerant.
I have no objection to a cross at the site, as long as it’s not the only religious symbol displayed there, and as long as there is some memorial to the non-religious as well.
The symbolism of a cross over the grave or site-of-death of a Christian (or someone believed by his/her mourners to have been one) is an old tradition. There’s a longstanding custom down here, which I saw occasionally in upstate New York but is quite common here, of the family of someone killed in an auto accident mounting a cross at the edge of the right of way as near as practicable to the point where he/she was killed.
The symbolism of a cross formed fortuitously by fallen girders of the WTC was something that deeply touched Christians grieving after 9/11, and deserves to be preserved – whether at the actual site it fell or at an appropriate point on the Ground Zero site, should not make a whole lot of difference.
So much for the cross’s appropraiteness.
Now to the other issue. Nothing would say better that we are a nation united in honoring each other’s differences than a series of symbols, including most especially a Star of David or mesuzah and a crescent, made from some of the wreckage of the building, displayed alongside the cross, in memory of the Jewish and Muslim dead. I do not know what exists as a symbol for the non-religious humanists of good will who perished on 9/11, but whatever might be appropriate should be displayed alongside the above.
I usually don’t object to the concerns of atheists about religious objects intruding on common space – they have a point; too many Christians act like nobody else’s feelings are worth taking into account. This is one occasion where I say otherwise. Ground Zero is where over 3,000 Americans died – some Christian, some of other faiths, some of no faith. It’s “hallowed ground” to all of us. And a symbol meaningful to a large group of us – the Christians – is entirely appropriate. At the same time, the “this is a Christian nation” brigade should not be allowed to make it the only acceptable symbol on Ground Zero. Northing could say better that we are united in mourning the tragedy and saying “Never again!” than to have it a site for all the dead of 9/11 and the aspirations that fell there then and were built again.
Oh, and Yeticus? When smeone is doing an act of bravery, e.g., the rescue workers and the folks who searched the site for survivors and the remains of those who died, I’m not much interested in what beliefs or ideals motivate them – all I want to do is applaud them and shake their hands, if they deem me worthy to do so.
