A federal court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Atheists that could have affected the 9/11 remembrance display. They had
hoped to ban the steel beam cross taken from the rubble of the World
Trade Center on September 13, 2001 from being put in the museum as part of the memorial to the 9/11 victims.
Christians assume it is a victory for their beliefs at the federal level, but it is not. The decision does not mean Christian symbols need to be afforded special consideration, that Christianity trumps all other religions, or that
whatever Christians want should be deferred to. It’s because allowing the cross in the museum is a devastating indictment of their god. Without any evidence, Christians
have decided that the cross was god’s way of showing how much he loves us even in moments
of trial and tribulation, and they are desperate for acknowledgement of their religious beliefs. That is why they want the cross in the 9/11 memorial, not realizing that it shows that god, A) Didn’t
know what was going to happen, B) Didn’t care what happened, or C) Doesn’t
exist. (If they existed, what creator would be that ignorant, capricious or malevolent?) Some could argue that 9/11 shows the believers of Allah
triumphed over the believers in Jehovah since it was Muslim extremists who successfully brought the Towers
down. And what did Jehovah do? According to the Christians, he sought to console us with basically a scavenger hunt in the
debris. So inclusion of the cross at the memorial symbolizes: ‘Nothing protected the people who died here. A vivid
imagination doesn’t change what transpired. Only the gullible worshipers of a made up supreme being find this metal crossbar meaningful.’
As a side note, how hard is
it to find crossed steel beams in high rise structures? If the building didn’t contain any crossed members and the fallen
debris fused and formed a cross, that might be more interesting, but it wouldn’t prove anything. Christians so
want god and Jesus to be real, anything, even a human-constructed
cross beam, gives their beliefs validity.
Atheists pursued the lawsuit,
correctly perceiving that Christians would assume god was giving them a sign that in the middle of tragedy, all would be okay, that
death was not final, that the cross' presence in the ruins shows
we’re a Christian nation, and that all need to come to Christ through the cross. See, if you're from outside of the Christian faith; you're out of luck...god only favors
Christians.
If their god was real, Christians have to concede he watched over the destruction of the World Trade Centers, the strike on the Pentagon, and the deaths of
around 3000 people, did nothing to prevent any of it, and then showed his love - after the fact - by arranging one of the thousands of steel
crossbeams in the mountains of WTC rubble to be discovered looking vaguely like the cross Jesus was reputedly killed on. That way, all would be
inspired by its presence and know god loves us. Does this strike anyone else as absolute madness?
And yet the atheists are the
ones who are considered crazy and need to explain their irrational belief.
