Very well put Mary Anne,

I love it when you get on a roll!

In San Diego several atheists sued the city for having the cross on Mount Soledad on government land. You couldn't miss it every time one entered La Jolla by freeway. (Which is the one of two ways to enter La Jolla, the other being Pacific Coast Highway)

Religious services were held at the foot of the cross for decades. You could see it from miles away.

Well, nobody wanted to be the politician that took down the cross. Not a one!

So the city fought the atheists tooth and nail - spending taxpayer money like it was toilet paper. First they claimed it wasn't a cross! Then they said it was a monument to fallen war veterans! They pulled out every stop and said the people who met on Easter were really just paying tribute to veterans. The city lost in local and state courts and it was finally taken all the way to the Supreme court - and they lost!

Did the cross come down?

Guess. (answer below)
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NO!
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The city consulted their lawyers and donated the land to a religious group to maintain. So the cross and a circular patch of land twenty feet was given by the taxpayers to preserve the government sanctioned cross at all costs!

The cross didn't/doesn't bother me. It is just one of many pagan relics people worship and seeing a cross standing on the highest point in San Diego doesn't oppress me - but rather, if anything, it saddens me.

I was irritated in seeing my elected politicians spend my money like toilet paper when the potholes around town were becoming annoying and needed the money much more than the effort to preserve an illegal cross.

Many churches offered to take the cross off the cities hands. But Nooooooo....a lot of folks loved waking up and looking up to the top of Mount Soledad and see a crucifix staring back.

(Sarcasm)
(I think they should paint red splotches on it to add more realism and remind them of the agony all those who gutted and were left to die on crucifixes felt.)

While I dont' make fun of peoples faiths..the cross is a particularly ridiculous one and reminds me of Abraham's bloody little altars, set up everywhere they would go, and where he would smash some birds brains out and offer the carcass to his god.

If I ever met a god that liked to see blood spilled - I would expect him to look like Hitler or worse - like some ignorant cannibal. Jesus, of all people, who railed against these bloody practices - would find people staring at crucifixes repugnant and greatly disturbing. He would probably be suing right alongside the atheists to get the things torn down.

If people need to be reminded of human savagery - they need look no farther than the mirror.

Apologies to all the folks this post has greatly offended (and I am sure its offended a few)

Like Mark Twain's discussion with Dan Beard after reading his War Prayer...

Dan:
"You're going to publish it are you not?"

Twain:
"No," he said,"I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead men can tell the truth in this world.

It can be published after I am dead."

Well after a century I am not as timid as Twain had to be....so I say,

"Post away!"

SDAI-Tech1