Florida is a state of contrasts. A news story from the Associated Press highlights that divergence. On the lawn of the Bradford County courthouse is a monument to the Ten Commandments that American Atheists sued, unsuccessfully, to have removed. In response to their legal defeat, they have placed their own monument to atheism alongside it. Well, what’ fair’s fair. Local reaction, according to the story, has been anything but positive. Nevertheless, I wonder what a monument to atheism must look like. The partial photographs reveal the atomic symbol-based American Atheists logo on top, and words on the sides. The monument, the story indicates, bears quotes from Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the last of whom was gruesomely murdered as an early martyr to the atheist cause. There are those who suggest that the atomism of Democritus in the fifth century BCE already tolled the death knell of the gods. Deities and very small particles, however, have continued to get along for the past 2500 years.
David Silverman, the current president of American Atheists, is quoted as saying the monument is an attack on Christian privilege, not Christianity. This may seem a fine point, but it is valid. Most reasonable atheists have no difficulty granting freedom of religious belief to anyone (only the more radical members of the atheist camp suggest religion ought to be stamped out). Does that mean governments should not display monuments to Moses’s magnum opus but not to, say, that of Lao Tzu? Or, perhaps in this instance, Lucretius? It might appear to be over-protesting, but what would a Hindu’s thoughts be, should s/he be ushered past the statutes of a foreign god on the way to court?
One of the most difficult things for a person to do is envision their normal as another person’s weird. Religions that seem perfectly logical to those raised within them have a way of seeming unbelievable to those who encounter them as a part of an exotic culture. To me it is difficult to suppose anyone would see American culture as “exotic.” I mean, we’re talking Wal-Mart and MacDonald’s here. It seems pretty ordinary to me. When I take a mental step back a little further, however, I begin to see a nation of widely varying traditions. Little pockets of true culture punch through the plastic here and there, and the light that shines through can be brilliant at times. And if you happen to run afoul of the law while visiting, you might end up in a courthouse that not only advertises the Ten Commandments, but also has a monument to humanistic spirit as well.
