Comments about ‘Atheist messages displace California park nativity scenes’

There's nothing wrong with atheists bidding and fairly getting spots with the lottery system. There's no requirement that the Christian groups get all 14 they want for their nativity scene set. There's no freedom of expression being restricted.

However, taking 14 spots and using only 3 of them shows that it was never about wanting the spots but was only about taking them away from others like a pre-schooler who didn't want the other kid to play with a certain toy... but didn't want to play with it himself. These few atheists do a disservice to their lack of religion. They only look obnoxious.

just for the record happy solstice was probably placed by a pagan,, the people that celebrate solstice in december, not atheist. Having said that I think the lottery system is the fairest way to resolve these types of issues I have seen. As an atheist though I wish that other atheist when allotted a spot would not use it to mock religions because it gives us all a bad name.

Way to go Damon Vix!

As an atheist I would've preferred they use all the spots with a message to promote harmony, peace, and brotherhood within the community while still getting their message out in some way. However, I can also see why it is often difficult to NOT offend religious people with atheist displays no matter what message is displayed or how tactfully it is presented. It is rather difficult to create an atheist display without religion feeling they are somehow being mocked even unintentionally. Religion gets offended about atheist displays yet it seems to be unacceptable for atheists to be offended by nativity scenes or other religious symbolism that tends to be_dominant. That reflects a "it's okay for us, but not okay for you attitude". I agree that atheists may have been working together to push out the nativity scenes from the park, rather than erecting a full display of their own, but sometimes less religious display is good since for the past 57 years, the committee has erected 14 displays depicting nativity scenes. So what if the atheist didn't use the display spots to display atheist messages. Religious people would have been even more offended if they had used all of them!

sounds like the municipality is using a lottery system to decide which religion(s) it will establish.

@lost in DC

your right of course but following that logic the municipality should ban all the groups which they have not done in the past.

oops, your\'re not your, sorry