You won't find that from me. I am an atheist, not an anti-theist. My atheism is a personal choice, not a politicial one. I don't care at all that we celebrate Christmas in this country (I really enjoy the Christmas holiday, myself), have "In God we trust" on our money, have people swear oaths to God in court, etc.
Are you saying we should or we should not pander to religious groups?
(And by pander I mean change things to suit their particular religious beliefs?)
Who is "we"? Private organizations can (with some exceptions, such as allowing some religious symbols, but excluding one, just to suit anti-semites) do whatever they damned well please. I don't care. Have my own life to live.
Sorry for any confusion - I was using "we" as a generic third person pronoun.
Ah. Overall, I don't care too much about religious groups getting little minor things, like a "Christmas" holiday", or "In god we trust" on our money. That is WAY down the list of things I spend my time worrying about. I'm not on a crusade (no pun intended) against religion. I have my personal beliefs, others have theirs. Until someone starts proposing something that would really harm me ("You must go to church on Sunday, or be put in jail."), I think there are much more significant concerns for me to spend my energy on.
They're not excluding one, they're excluding all, with two named exceptions that were used by national and international organizations prior to the formalization of the symbol(s).
The Jews are excluded. So are the Buddhists, the Hindus, the Rastafarians, the Daoists, the Shintoists, the Scientologists, and the devotees of the IPU (BBHHH).
Why is it anti-Semitic to hold Israel to the same rules as the rest of the world? What's antisemitic about NOT making a special exception for the Jews?
It was my impression from reading this thread that a Muslim symbol was allowed, and that the primary drivers behind denying the Star of David were the middle eastern countries. I admit I haven't put too much effort into this issue, because, as I said, this is very low on my priority list.
It completely addresses it, because your statement is (according to my impression from this thread) incorrect. A muslim symbol has been allowed. I realize that happened a long time ago, and the rules changed after that. But one was allowed, correct?
Mycroft
High Priest of Ed
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I believe the issue was addressed.
I also believe it's self-evident that it's possible to use non-racist arguments to advance a racist agenda.
Mycroft
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I think saying something isn't necessarily correct just because it is politically correct is a valid argument, but I disagree with the assertion that something is incorrect simply because it is also politically correct.
Even if you are personally anti-religion it’s still true that religion is an important part of culture, and there is no valid reason (as far as I know) for any one culture to be denied the use of a symbol that has meaning to them.
Further, I suspect in the long run this will lead to Red Cross organizations voluntarily using fewer religious symbols. Realistically, it’s because the cross is a Christian symbol that Islamic countries adopted the alternative crescent, and it’s because the cross and the crescent were used that Israel adopted the alternative star of david.
If all symbols are allowed, then non-religious symbols would be too. It’s easy to imagine, for example, an Irish Red Cross adopting a harp or a clover as their symbol to put inside the diamond, or the Canadian Red Cross adopting a maple leaf, and so on. This could even lead to even smaller communities adopting their own symbols, imagine an ambulance that services a Native American community using a symbol specific to their traditions. Maybe some hospitals or ambulance companies will even place their corporate logos inside the diamond.
Ultimately the importance is shifted away from the cross, crescent or star and onto the neutral diamond as the recognizable symbol. Whatever happens to be placed inside become irrelevant.
Yes,. and that's the central point. The Muslim symbol was allowed before the rules changed.
The rules have since changed.
Why do you want the rules to have changed for everyone except the Israelis?
I want them to either allow all religious symbols, or change the rules back, and tell all religious groups that they can't have their religious symbols anymore. "Sorry, things change. We made a mistake then. We are correcting it now."
a_unique_person said:
There are more religions, yes. But I don't see why two religious symbols were allowed, and not the third.
For the record, it never even occurred to me that the Red Cross was a Christian symbol, until I saw the Red Crescent. The four arms of equal length in red, on a white background, just always seemed like a medical symbol to me.
gtc said:
I would hope that everyone would be using the red diamond, but I think they plan on using all three.
Mycroft said:
I'm just astounded that countries would object to a RELIEF organization using the symbol of the country/religion they come from.
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
Okay, you definitely should have made the top ten list. I was way out of line.
Damned rights!
Mycroft
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Can you cite any examples where this has been a problem?
You should have left it at the part I bolded- you don't know one way or the other, except then you throw in that Indians are "reasonable" and "sensitive" to choose something else. Why don't you explain how it's "reasonable" and "sensitive" for some people to discard their ancient religious symbols in the Red Cross for politics, but anti-semitic for others to do so as well? The Nazis have been gone for a three generations, yet you still say here:
that using the swastika as a red cross symbol would be offensive to Jews.
Is the cause of this double standard Euro-centrism? It can't be Occident-centrism as the swastika is ancient in the Americas as well.
http://news.indiainfo.com/2005/01/19/1901hindus.html