Posted on 06/18/2002 2:52:56 AM PDT by Bad~Rodeo
Decry plan to use symbol as part of 9-11 memorial
:
The organization American Atheists is protesting a proposal to use a large steel cross found in the rubble of the World Trade Center in a memorial to victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Describing itself as a "nationwide movement which defends the civil rights of nonbelievers," the group said in a statement yesterday that use of the cross in a government-funded monument "would violate the separation of church and state, be insensitive to those victims who had no religious beliefs and would incredibly pay homage to religion – the prime motivating factor in the faith-based attack of Sept. 11."
The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is the local agency in charge of planning for the rebuilding of the site.
Ed Malloy, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council and a board member of the agency, has asked that the cross be made a permanent part of any future memorial.
According to the New York Daily News, construction workers, firefighters, police officers and family members have held weekly Sunday services at the site of the cross since Sept. 11.
"We're hoping it will stay right where it is and become part of any permanent memorial," Malloy was quoted as saying in the Daily News.
Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists objects to the possibility that the cross might be used in a taxpayer-supported project.
"This is an inappropriate use of taxpayer money," she said in the statement, "You can't take government funds to promote religion, especially sectarian religion in the form of a cross or any other religious symbol."
Johnson added that any memorial to the victims of the attacks "should bring Americans together, not divide them on the basis or religion or anything else."
Ron Barrier, national spokesman for the group, stressed that Muslims, Hindus and other non-Christians were killed in the attacks as well.
What about them? he asked. "Are we going to turn the site of the WTC into a religious shrine with competing religious slogans, symbols and displays? Any monument to the victims, and those who helped in the aftermath of Sept. 11 should be tasteful, as well as a unifying statement about America and humanity.
"Christian symbols are as inappropriate as a Muslim crescent or some other religious label," Barrier said.
Construction worker Frank Silecchia happened upon the perfectly symmetrical cross in the midst of the WTC wreckage just a few days after the attacks. It was standing straight, 20-feet high, surrounded by many smaller crosses.
"When I first saw it, it took my heart," Silecchia said. "It helped me heal the burden of my despair, and gave me closure on the whole catastrophe."
Said WorldNetDaily columnist Ann Coulter in an October column : "The cross at Ground Zero was not simply the cross beams remaining from an existing building. It was formed out of beams from Building One plunging, splitting and crashing into Building Six."
"There's no symmetry to anything down there," an FBI chaplain said at the time, "except those crosses."
Johnson said that her group would go to court if necessary to challenge the use of government money for the placement of any religious symbol at the WTC site.
I can't satisify your reasoning, that truly is between you and the Lord :-)
but in answer to your question...I don't see how this at all flows from your previous statement. In what way do I "worship" myself?
Your above statement points to your understanding and reasoning being the ultimate source of trust for your life and answers for the creation around you. I will quote from an article that sums up better than I can this moment...
"As a fallen sinner, man denies his knowledge of the Creator, takes to himself the prerogative of the deity and makes himself little gods, convenient manipulable idols, that allow him to indulge his lusts without fear of retribution."
But you make a valid point. Which makes this conversation between us valleys apart. You deny The Breath, Bread of Life and I depend on Him for my daily survival.
May God grant you the wisdom, knowledge and understanding to see Him and may you humbly submit to His Lordship over His creation.
Not going to ignore you but I am out of town for the next several weeks without internet.
So you are left then with either space aliens or some type of extra dimensional being or beings, are you not?
It's equivalent to rewriting the premise as such:
P1. If God exists, then only God can raise people from the dead.
P2. People have been raised from the dead.
C1. Therefore, God exists.
And this is affirming the consequent of the conditional statement in P1, not the antecedent. Keep in mind that the ultimate conclusion is supposed to be that God exists.
It's identical in form to the following syllogism:
P1. Only general_re, if general_re can fly, can stand on the roof of his house.
P2. General_re can stand on the roof of his house.
C1. Therefore, general_re can fly.
The flaws of such an argument are obvious ;)
No, actually it's a formal flaw of the logic - it's a matter of form, rather than of the truth of the premisses. I gave an example above, but here's one more, a classic example:
P1. If Francis Bacon wrote Hamlet, then Bacon was a great writer.
P2. Bacon was a great writer.
C1. Therefore, Bacon wrote Hamlet
Both the premises are strictly true, but the argument is invalid because the second premise affirms the consequent of the first, not the antecedent. The argument is valid if it's rewritten like this:
P1. If Francis Bacon wrote Hamlet, then Bacon was a great writer.
P2. Bacon wrote Hamlet.
C2. Therefore, Bacon was a great writer.
This argument is valid, even though the second premise is false.
No, you are spiritually dead and incapable of accepting Christ (There is a difference between Christianity and Christ).
Only God can reveal himself to us and he does so as he see's fit.
However, backing up, I admit that I had assumed that you would accept my first premise for both syllogism, if not my second. And it seems that you do so in the people rising from the dead syllogism, although you are questioning the minor premise there.
At any rate, this goes to the larger point. You are incapable of accepting a logical proof for Christianity because you are not willing to accept the premises any such proof is or could be based on. But the premises themselves are not necessarily internally incoherent or lacking in any evidentiary support, you for whatever reason have chosen not to accept them. Thus, I would submit that it is not rationality or logic per se which is why you are not capable of accepting Christianity, but your own presuppositions.
Anyway, after this round of posts I am out of here for the evening. God bless you.
It is true that there are counterarguments to each of the traditional philosophical arguments for the existence of God, but that doesn't mean that they have necessarily been refuted.
Which, since we are bandying about logical fallacies here, would make you guilty of a straw man argument.
Which, since we are bandying about logical fallacies here, would make you guilty of a straw man argument.
Only the particulars have changed - the form is identical. I am sorry, but validity is a formal quality of deductive logic. If your syllogism is valid, then my syllogism of identical form must be valid. And if mine is invalid, then your syllogism of identical form must be invalid.
Unfortunately, what you have done is taken a conditional statement of the form "if x, then y,", or more formally, x implies y, and from it inferred that y implies x. Needless to say, this does not follow. This is not a straw man argument, I am sorry to say.
What I am doing in the major premise is combining two separate propositions, neither of which are conditional upon the other. The first is that there are no other possible causes for resurrection other than God. The second is saying that in addition to the first proposition, in order to be able to cause resurrection, God must exist. It logically follows from the fact of the resurrection, that God exists.
Thus, as Dimensio put it, the major premise combines these two thoughts and the syllogism is in the form of: If and only if X, then Y. Y. Therefore X.
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