Quote:
Originally posted by Honeykiss1974
Question for those that support the removal of the 10 commandments:
Would you feel the same if this building WAS NOT a courthouse, but some other type of state or federal building (I dunno, let's say the DMV  or Arlington National cemetary)?
And going forward, how do we reconcile this and where do you draw the line? If I am not comfortable going to a courthouse where the greek god of knowledge is displayed shouldn't that be removed as well? After all isn't that a violation of church (pagan religion) and state?
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I'd like to start with the second question first, and I'd like to start with the pagan/greek god thing. I'd first like to dispel the notion that all pagan worship greek gods, because that's simply not true. There is a branch (Hellenismo) which does in fact use the greek gods as it's basis, but it's rather different than the ancient greek religion.
However, I'd like to point out how our culture views greek gods -- how many of you had to read Edith Hamilton's Mythology in high school? Our culture looks upon ancient greek religion as a cultural fairy tale. We look to it for stories of wisdom, love, secrecy. Lets face it, our GLOs have basis in the mythos. We don't view it as a current religion, we view it as an ancient culture from which ours grew. Very different -- depictions of greek gods are not to say "We worship greek gods" but to say "look back to this past culture". I find it impossible to believe that the 10 commandments are doing the same.
On to other government buildings. No, religion does not belong in the DMV [unless you're watching a 16 year old boy get his license...then y'all better be prayin' he doesn't hit ya!] Off hand, there are only two places I can think of where I believe it should be welcome in government buildings: museums and cemeteries.
I think the reasoning is rather obvious. In neither case is the government presenting a religion, instead it is allowing the culture of the society to permeate into the building. Museums are like archives of our culture. Religion is part of our culture -- to remove it from a museum is to ignore the culture. Displaying a piece of work in a museum is *significantly* different from displaying a piece of work in a courtroom or DMV.
In the same vein, a cemetery that doesn't allow people to properly grieve is rather useless as a cemetery. I think it should be duly noted that at the time of construction, Christian beliefs were assumed [note honeychile's picture] -- which isn't a problem until you're a Jewish soldier being buried under a cross that means nothing. But going in and ripping out all religion defeats the purpose of the cemetery. I just think that we need to be able to account for different faiths -- it really shouldn't have to be all crosses in a row -- it should reflect what the person and their family need to mourn.