yayyyyyy God

[Thorgnor]

http://www.yorku.ca/mediar/archive/Release.php?Release=1663

[Kanada Kev]

That looks interesting. You planning on going?

[Thorgnor]

can't make it... there's an awful lot of neat stuff coming to York soon though.

next year I'll be on campus more often.

[Kanada Kev]

You gotta be kidding me ....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/28/jesus-license-plate-in-fl_n_192565.html

Wonder if the governor would approve other religions' icons/logos? Betcha no!

[Kanada Kev]

[Birdy]

Wonder if the governor would approve other religions' icons/logos? Betcha no!

So if someone wants to have the Jesus fish on their license plate, they shouldn't be allowed to? I totally agree with the Governor on this one. If you don't want one, don't buy one.

Edited April 29, 2009 by Guest

[Thorgnor]

I bet it's a little white skinned Jesus too.

[Birdy]

Do you guys think we should register our bumper stickers too then?

[Kanada Kev]

Birdy,

Bumper stickers, Jesus/Darwin fish, etc. are all personal that are placed on your private property. A license plate is owned and controlled by the State. Different.

I could care less ONLY if they are allowing other religions to be depicted as well. Do you think that Florida would create plates with Stars of David, Wicca imagery, Islam Crescent, etc?

Simon, of the ACLU, said approval of the plate could prompt many other groups to seek their own designs, and they could claim discrimination if their plans were rejected. That could even allow the Ku Klux Klan to get a plate, Simon said.

Bullard, the plate's sponsor, isn't sure all groups should be able to express their preference. If atheists came up with an "I Don't Believe" plate, for example, he would probably oppose it.

Nothing like a blue, ripped, dead Jesus with a bald spot in front of an orange that makes me think SUNSHINE!!!

Think they'll allow any of these on Jesus Vanity Plates (isn't that in itself wrong? Vanity?)

FRM APE

MYT H01

SAT AN

666 666

GOD RIP

MAD MAN

GOD LES

MOS LEM

BUT HED

SUN TAN

BIG DIK

OLD FRT

LIL SHT

GR8 LAY

HAF OFF

HUN GUP

THS HRT

IMA FAG

FCK YOU

NOT GOD

OWW CHE

They should have added his whole arms and hands and had the hands positioned over the holes where you screw the plate in place on your vehicle.

Edited April 29, 2009 by Guest

[Birdy]

Nothing like a blue, ripped, dead Jesus with a bald spot in front of an orange that makes me think SUNSHINE!!!

Hahaha... you make me laugh.

I think we've had this chat... oh, i don't know.. like 10 times already, but i've been four months free of this stuff and i'm missing it. I even sent D-rawk a facebook message asking him to log in and argue politics with me. Haha.

I hear what you're saying Kev - it comes down to where we draw the line. But something in me screams out to never settle for the 'since we can't have all, we must have nothing' camp. It's dull, it's boring, it lacks expression, it robs people of their right to express. It's a sticky situation (as you pointed out with your reference to the KKK), one that i don't have the slightest clue of how to get around. But I'm not one of those people who would take offense if such a license plate were stopped ahead of me at a red light, and am certainly a person who would try to talk the offended out of being offended. Sometimes I think the only way to actually ever stop being offended by such things is to gain exposure to them, and through that exposure - become accepting. And through that acceptance, maybe be one step closer to Rodney King's dream of 'just getting along'.

Baby steps.

[Birdy]

And at other times, i sit and wonder if perhaps i'm the most naive girl in the world.

[Thorgnor]

I'm actually not offended by the idea... I'm offended by bumper stickers like "keep honking, I'm reloading!" somehow it makes me feel, I don't know, threatened. They fuck up and it's my life in danger? makes me angry

jesus plates just make me kinda sad... isn't it against the christian code to "idolize" images?

[Birdy]

What about them makes you sad?

I'm a little sad, but not offended, when i see bumper stickers that read "Bambi makes cute sandwiches".

The Catholics are hardcore about their imagery... i think.

[Thorgnor]

The public need to express one's religious righteousness relates somehow imo to a need to justify one's behaviour, and conversley to remain ignorant and oblivious to one's contrary actions by a ppresupposed justification of religious righteousness... it's a circular logic that refuses to recognize it's self-reference in order to remain psychologically viable, it seems to me... which kinda bums me out.

[Birdy]

I'm having a bit of a hard time translating that...

and i've typed and re-typed here what i think you might be saying, and i'm still a little unsure.

[Thorgnor]

That telling everybody you're right about god in this context is about making yourself look good, not being good as Christianity would require. To put a picture of "god" on your car, although entirely the choice of the individual, suggests to me that they've got something to proove. Some reason to say that god is on their side, and therefore probably not on mine, especially if I disagree. So putting god on your bumper not only means that your a good christian, but that you're better than me, and if I speak up, it's only proof of "how wrong I am, and how disconnected from god"...

I want to emphasize that obviously not everyone who puts a pic on their bumper does it consciously, or to be a dick. But it's in the refusal to really consider why they want to show off how much they are close to god that makes me kinda sad... why do they have so much to proove, and is it really that there's something to hide?

[Birdy]

Well that's perhaps a bit of a presupposition on your part, no? I started reading your second paragraph and thought 'okay, there we go' when you wanted to emphasize 'not everyone', but then what followed was that obviously not everyone does it 'consciously', but that they do still do it. Which i don't agree with.

I'm sure some people throw up dead jesus in front of an orange, or idolize images because it brings them closer and/or makes them feel more connected with their god. I'm sure not every jesus bumper-sticker implies a malicious-intent, consciously or not.

I don't disagree with you in that this could apply to some, but I don't think it applies to most. People express themselves to project themselves, because they want to share themselves, to perhaps feel more connected with what is around them.

This form of expression is no different than that of a musician or a painter or a writer. It's the medium and the subject that make some feel uncomfortable. I think.

Edited April 30, 2009 by Guest

[SaggyBalls]

Birdy,

Bumper stickers, Jesus/Darwin fish, etc. are all personal that are placed on your private property. A license plate is owned and controlled by the State. Different.

I could care less ONLY if they are allowing other religions to be depicted as well. Do you think that Florida would create plates with Stars of David, Wicca imagery, Islam Crescent, etc?

Since the Islam cross is a common police/shriner symbol across the USA and the fact that it's Florida, I don't think Islam crescents and Stars of David would be just as important to put on license plates as an emaciated and writhing (or rotting) crucified Jesus Christ.

There are already pro-life, family values, and family first plates. Religious plates aren't too far off.

(Religious) piety is a stereotypically American trait that isn't politically incorrect - though touchy to some. There's something about personal liberty that Americans hold near and dear to their hearts and, to many, their souls.

To assert that people should NOT behave a certain way pertaining to their religious freedoms is akin to asserting that someone SHOULD behave a certain way in which they are not accustomed.

It would seem to me that an individual's religious/spiritual experience is incredibly important to hoist in support as long as it doesn't infringe on the basic human rights or personal well being of others...and a license plate certainly fits within the acceptable range.

Since the personal nature of one's religious experience has been guarded and supported for so long, open discussion is often unfathomable for people - so religious imagery (like christ) is much easier to manage non-discussion with an overall assumed connection (thanks, Birdy)

I really wish that people everywhere could and would put into words what they feel and experience, as there could be far more overall societal unity.

Imagine a world where more people could understand and accept God openly and with varying perspective.

I can. Can you?

[Birdy]

I can.

If i could go in and edit your post YT, i'd bold this part:

To assert that people should NOT behave a certain way pertaining to their religious freedoms is akin to asserting that someone SHOULD behave a certain way in which they are not accustomed.

Thank you!

You know what makes me sad? Sometimes i equate some secularists to the same kind of people that Kevin Bacon stood up to in the movie 'Footloose'. The people who didn't care to 'understand', because they already 'knew'. What makes me even more sad, is that they sometimes claim a superiority over non-secularists and consider themselves more open-minded, when in fact, they're the exact opposite. To live in fear of allowing a person or group to express themselves, because 'who knows who's going to express themselves next?' is not the kind of living i want to do, nor would want my friends to do.

[Thorgnor]

I'm actually not offended by the idea...

isn't it against the christian code to "idolize" images?

BTW, I never said, ALL or everytime, I said "seems"...

Religion is politics, imo, so there's always lot's of reasons to display religious imagery, art is politics too, again imo.

has anyone here considered that "evangelism" is authoritarian and totalitarian in it's goals and methods? well of course you have, because there's an element of truth to the idea that religion is yet another "avenue" of social control...

but to answer the suggestion that I'm employing secularism to avoid resisting understanding people's religous ideas is ridiculous and proof that this format is weak, religion isn't always bad or trying to control us in negative ways, but this is the exact reason why I want a seperation of church and state, not belief and state, because when people justify political ideals through religion they create a circular logic, one that suggests that what they think should be done, and should be done because it is morally right, not because it is right for the situation.

that said,

I think there could be a distinction made between communities of believers who emphasize "religio-fascist" methods versus cooperative/constructive approaches to community.

doctrine, it's a bummer for me, but I am allowed to feel that way, at least as much as people are entitled to believe in their Gods and force me to look at images of the dead.

[Thorgnor]

I don't disagree with you in that this could apply to some, but I don't think it applies to most. People express themselves to project themselves, because they want to share themselves, to perhaps feel more connected with what is around them.

This form of expression is no different than that of a musician or a painter or a writer. It's the medium and the subject that make some feel uncomfortable. I think.

I would agree that the topic matter is touchy, it's about moraility, and moralizing can be dangerous in the least.

connection is about building community, religious discourse is a framework for negotiating the rules of community, religion is coercive. it's not a moral judgement of religion, it a logical imperative to consider every time a religous claim is made, vocally or through image, imo.

Edited May 1, 2009 by Guest

[bradm]

To live in fear of allowing a person or group to express themselves, because 'who knows who's going to express themselves next?' is not the kind of living i want to do, nor would want my friends to do.

I don't think I've ever heard a secularist (or hard-core "separation of church and state" adherent) express a desire to limit individuals' or groups' abilities to express things like religion or belief (up to and including Christmas decorations and Jesus bumper stickers), or talk about living in fear of what group or individuals will express themselves next.

But the government is not just "a person or group", it's a special group, representing the whole of society, and is also granted authority over society (by society itself).

So when the government expresses a religious belief (whether it's putting Jesus on license plates or setting up a nativity scene at city hall), that expression necessarily carries along with it the weight of the government's authority, and that's what people object to.

Aloha,

Brad

[Thorgnor]

word.

thanks bud.

[hamilton]

It's like bradm tapped into my brain and said what I wanted to more eloquently and diplomatically than I would have. Especially considering that I am eight beers into my Friday night.

[Birdy]

It is not that I don't understand the ramifications of a city hall constructing a nativity scene on their front lawn. It is that I think the secularist reach borders on the ridiculous, and that the public reaction to these issues also borders on the ridiculous.

I could quote Simon of the ACLU who said 'approval of the plate could prompt many other groups to seek their own designs... That could even allow the Ku Klux Klan to get a plate', which to me, while not expressly showing fear, depicts fear in it's reference to the KKK.

Or I could quote Thorgnor (and I'm sorry Thorgnor, i think you are a very nice, intelligent person, but we're in a debate) who said the existence of religious imagery 'suggests to [him] that they've got something to prove. Some reason to say that god is on their side, and therefore probably not on [his]'.

And while I agree with you that government is a special group, I do not agree with you in saying they are representative of society. In fact, through secularism, they are the furthest thing from being representative. The only groups getting represented by them are atheists.

I ask then, not that we erect a gigantic cross on top of parliament hill, but that we seek some kind of middle ground, where things like license plates are deemed okay to depict the virgin mary, or the star of David, or whatever it is a person wants. They are license plates!! And then i would hope that one day, people won't feel the need to express their own fears or insecurities over what should be to them, such a trivial thing.