European Court of Human Rights rules that crucifixes in classrooms okay

mikhail

The European Court of Human Rights on Friday ruled that displaying crucifixes in classrooms does not breach the rights of non-Catholic families.

The case was brought to the court by an atheist mother whose two sons attend a public school in the Italian city of Abano Terme.

Link.

Shenshen

mikhail wrote: »

Link.

Was there any explanation given by the court regarding this decision?

Galvasean

While I agree with the ruling this bit jumped out at me:

dismissing claims that they violate the rights of non-Christian and atheist students.

Atheists are separate from non-Christians now? :pac:

mikhail

Shenshen wrote: »

Was there any explanation given by the court regarding this decision?

From AP:

The final decision by the court’s Grand Chamber said it found no evidence “that the display of such a symbol on classroom walls might have an influence on pupils”.

Pygmalion

Galvasean wrote: »

Atheists are separate from non-Christians now? :pac:

Well we can still love and follow the teachings of Jesus, right?

mikhail

Pygmalion wrote: »

Well we can still love and follow the teachings of Jesus, right?

I'm reminded of a very nice quote from one of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide books. Adams, I should note, was quite publicly atheist.

And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.
Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass, and so the idea was lost, seemingly for ever.

Dades

Galvasean wrote: »

Atheists are separate from non-Christians now? :pac:

Well they are if the non-Christians are Jews or Scientologists!

Rev Hellfire

Galvasean wrote: »

While I agree with the ruling this bit jumped out at me:

Atheists are separate from non-Christians now? :pac:

It's divided on those with souls and those without... naturally all gingers are atheists.

ShooterSF

A minor issue but still think it's the wrong decision. Hang up a swastika in a school and it wouldn't influence kids either but it would disturb their parents.

Also if a school teaches about multiple religions and yet promotes one through imagery in the school how could that be seen as impartial? And if not how can it been as not influential?

mikhail

I kind of agree with the ruling. A catholic school should be allowed put up catholic icons. The bigger issue is of access - people shouldn't be obliged to send their kids to such a school.

I do find it amusing though that the ECHR has now ruled that the crucifix, one of the most potent symbols in Catholicism, has no influence. Yes, the Vatican has expressed happiness at a ruling which calls one of their most important symbols completely impotent.

Galvasean

mikhail wrote: »

I do find it amusing though that the ECHR has now ruled that the crucifix, one of the most potent symbols in Catholicism, has no influence. Yes, the Vatican has expressed happiness at a ruling which calls one of their most important symbols completely impotent.

It only works if you believe in it?

Stercus Accidit

Will students be allowed hang up stars of david and so on now or is it the school that decides what religion gets to decorate the walls?

Tin Foil Hat

Are there any other torture scenes that it's acceptable to put up on classroom walls?

Galvasean

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

Will students be allowed hang up stars of david and so on now or is it the school that decides what religion gets to decorate the walls?

Y'know I'm thinking of becoming a teacher so I can hang up this on my classroom wall.

liamw

Galvasean wrote: »

Atheists are separate from non-Christians now? :pac:

Any person of a religion other than Christianity no?

Michael Nugent

The ruling is much more secular than it seems at first glance.

In effect, it says that the display of crucifixes are okay in a secular State school environment such as Italy's, because it is not accompanied by compulsory Christian teaching and in that context can be viewed as a passive symbol.

The situation in Irish primary schools is quite different. The State provides for (not provides) schools with a religious ethos, in which the crucifix would not be viewed as a passive symbol as it is in practice accompanied by compulsory Christian teaching.

There's a brief analysis on the Atheist Ireland site at http://atheist.ie

We'll have a more detailed analysis sometime next week.

Choochtown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17lNs9EFOYI

yammycat

The good news is the ruling doesn't mention orientation.

Inverted crucifixes, inverted crucifixes everywhere.

Improbable

yammycat wrote: »

The good news is the ruling doesn't mention orientation.

Inverted crucifixes, inverted crucifixes everywhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_St._Peter

robindch

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

Will students be allowed hang up stars of david and so on now or is it the school that decides what religion gets to decorate the walls?

Seems that if you're in Italy, where this case was taken, you probably wouldn't be allowed to put the menorah beside the cross, despite a lot of chatter from the religious about "judeo-christian values" and such like.

The case of Luigi Tosti hasn't had showed up here very much, but, as an Italian judge some years ago, he insisted on the right to put jewish symbols beside christian symbols in his Italian courtroom. The italians didn't like this, so they ultimately sacked him from the judiciary, stopped his pay, jailed him, released him, upheld the sacking and announced that having non-christian religious symbols in italian courtrooms would cause "ethical problems and religious headaches".

http://www.lifeinitaly.com/news/top-court-upholds-sacking-anti-cross-judge
http://marcalandimartino.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/judeo-christian-roots-theres-no-such-thing/

Meanwhile, here's an Italian lawyer's take on the EHCR ruling:

http://marcalandimartino.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/the-crucifix-post-strasbourg/

Again, the same thing -- christians have won the right to continue displaying their symbols in secular schools, but at the heretical expense of having to admit that the cross has no religious significance.

What would Jesus say? :eek:

getz

robindch wrote: »

Seems that if you're in Italy, where this case was taken, you probably wouldn't be allowed to put the menorah beside the cross, despite a lot of chatter from the religious about "judeo-christian values" and such like.

The case of Luigi Tosti hasn't had showed up here very much, but, as an Italian judge some years ago, he insisted on the right to put jewish symbols beside christian symbols in his Italian courtroom. The italians didn't like this, so they ultimately sacked him from the judiciary, stopped his pay, jailed him, released him, upheld the sacking and announced that having non-christian religious symbols in italian courtrooms would cause "ethical problems and religious headaches".

http://www.lifeinitaly.com/news/top-court-upholds-sacking-anti-cross-judge
http://marcalandimartino.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/judeo-christian-roots-theres-no-such-thing/

Meanwhile, here's an Italian lawyer's take on the EHCR ruling:

http://marcalandimartino.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/the-crucifix-post-strasbourg/

Again, the same thing -- christians have won the right to continue displaying their symbols in secular schools, but at the heretical expense of having to admit that the cross has no religious significance.

What would Jesus say? :eek:

i think jesus would say,i was not crucified on a cross,try putting up a few fishes on the wall

Peregrinus

robindch wrote: »

. . . christians have won the right to continue displaying their symbols in secular schools, but at the heretical expense of having to admit that the cross has no religious significance.

Actually, that’s not quite right. The court explicitly held that the cross "undoubtedly" does have a religious significance. But they also held that Lautsi had not shown that the display of the cross infringed her religious freedom (or that of her children).

The court did say that:

“There is no evidence before the Court that the display of a religious symbol on classroom walls may have an influence on pupils and so it cannot reasonably be asserted that it does or does not have an effect on young persons whose convictions are still in the process of being formed.”

But when you read this in context it is clear that what they mean is that Lautsi didn’t produce any evidence to show that the cross influencedpupils. Indeed, it seems that she may not even have argued this: ” . . . the applicants did not assert that the presence of the crucifix in classrooms had encouraged the development of teaching practices with a proselytising tendency, or claim that the second and third applicants had ever experienced a tendentious reference to that presence by a teacher in the exercise of his or her functions.”

The judgment essentially turned on the notion of the state’s “margin of appreciation”; the idea that in the first instance it is for the state to determine how to give effect to the Convention guarantee on freedom of religion, and that they are allowed a fair degree of latitude in deciding how to do this. The court noted that different European countries have distinctly different policies in relation to this particular issue. It is not the business of the court to get them all to adopt a uniform policy.

You can’t get the ECHR to overturn a government’s decisions merely by showing that the government could have made different decisions, or even by persuading the court that, if it were the government it would make a different decision. You need to show that the decision you are challenging is not consistent with the Convention guarantee of (in this case) freedom of religion, and showing that requires some evidence. Lautsi doesn’t seem to have produced any. The court said that it was “understandable” that she might find the display of the crucifix disrespectful and offensive, but her subjective perception was not enough to establish a breach of the Convention guarantee. Showwing that the state was giving one particular religious tradition “preponderant visibility in the school environment” was not, in itself, enough to establish a breach of Convention rights.

All of this raises the tantalizing prospect that, if Lautsi had conducted her case differently, and adduced the necessary evidence, she might have won it. And that might give some encouragement to others (such as Signor Tosti) who are contemplating similar cases.

Less encouraging, though, will be the comments in the judgment about secularity. When Lautsi was pursuing this matter through the Italian courts (which she had to do before going to the ECHR) she relied in part on Italian legal guarantees of the secularity of the state. The Italian courts found that the display of the crucifix in the classroom was compatible with state secularity. I find that a surprising conclusion, and perhaps the European Court did too, but they had nothing to say about it; they have no brief to make the Italian state a secular state. The European Convention contains no guarantee of the secularity of the state; it only guarantees freedom of religion.

In the arguments put to the court, a fundamental disagreement about the nature of secularism emerged. The Italian Government argued that there was a distinction to be maintained between neutrality on the one hand, and secularism on the other. The duty of the state was to be neutral not only between different religious viewpoints, but between religious and secular viewpoints. (They were supported in this by half-a-dozen or so other European governments, who made submissions to the court). Lautsi, by contrast, argued that the only way the state could be neutral was by adopting a secular stance.

The court accepted that secularism is a philosophical conviction, worthy of respect in a democratic society. While that may look cheering, it was not in the long run helpful, since all this did was to put secularism on a par with the view which the court takes of religion. That is not a good position from which to have to argue that the state has a duty to adopt a secular stance.

In short, the court seems to have accepted the view that secularism is not some kind of neutral detachment from competing religious views, but merely stands, alongside various religious views, as one member of a broad class of philosophical convictions, all of which enjoy the same degree of protection under the Convention whether they are religious or a-religious. That seems to imply an acceptance of the government’s position over Lautsi’s.

JimiTime

getz wrote: »

i think jesus would say,i was not crucified on a cross,try putting up a few fishes on the wall

He was impaled on a fish?

Peregrinus

JimiTime wrote: »

He was impaled on a fish?

Food poisoning. He ate a dodgy flounder.

getz

JimiTime wrote: »

He was impaled on a fish?

the cross does not accure on any christian monument of the first four centuries,the new testament uses the word stake[stauros] and crucify[stauros] 74 times, and in five places it uses the word xylon [tree]...acts 5:30,10:39,13:29...gal 3:13..ipe 2:24,the cross thing was believed to have been picked up from a god in egypt ,the romans never used crosses the crucify they just stuck up a piece of wood and nailed people to it,

Galvasean

getz wrote: »

the romans never used crosses the crucify they just stuck up a piece of wood and nailed people to it,

Simple, but effective.

getz

Galvasean wrote: »

Simple, but effective.

the romans liked to recycle,for religion ,hanging up a stick on a school wall doesent have the same effect

JimiTime

getz wrote: »

the cross does not accure on any christian monument of the first four centuries,the new testament uses the word stake[stauros] and crucify[stauros] 74 times, and in five places it uses the word xylon [tree]...acts 5:30,10:39,13:29...gal 3:13..ipe 2:24,the cross thing was believed to have been picked up from a god in egypt ,the romans never used crosses the crucify they just stuck up a piece of wood and nailed people to it,

Yeah, I knew what you were getting at:)

krudler

Its a good thing Jesus wasnt hung,drawn and quartered or some other ancient punishment, someone clearly saw the marketing value in a cross symbol. Plus rapper's medallions would be friggin massive altogether if they had to depict an entire punishment scene.

Peregrinus

getz wrote: »

the cross does not accure on any christian monument of the first four centuries,the new testament uses the word stake[stauros] and crucify[stauros] 74 times, and in five places it uses the word xylon [tree]...acts 5:30,10:39,13:29...gal 3:13..ipe 2:24,the cross thing was believed to have been picked up from a god in egypt ,the romans never used crosses the crucify they just stuck up a piece of wood and nailed people to it,

As I understand it, the Romans used a variety of crosses for crucifixion - the Latin cross (of the kind we see in the majority of crucifixes), the Greek cross, the Tau cross (like a capital ‘T’), X-shaped crosses, Y-shaped crosses, simple stakes. Furthermore crucifixion could be implemented by nailing the subject to the cross, lashing him to the cross, or simply impaling him upon it. The Romans were nothing if not inventive when it came to inflicting humiliating pain.

The Greek stauros originally referred to a stake or paling; by the time of the New Testament, however (and for some centuries before that) it was used to refer to an instrument of crucifixion of any shape. Monos stauros was used where it was desired to specify a simple stake.

It’s true that early Christian art doesn’t depict the Latin cross, but it doesn’t depict the simple stake either. For a long time the early Christians produced no images of Christ at all and, when they started to do so, they were always symbolic, not literal. The very earliest Christian-produced images of Christ we have show him as a lamb. The earliest which portray him as a human figure show in Roman style - beardless, with trimmed curled hair, and wearing Roman dress. In short, it’s a big mistake to look to early Christian imagery for any kind of realistic, as opposed to symbolic, representation of anything.

What kind of cross was Jesus crucified on? None of the gospel-writers say. Presumably they either did not know or did not care enough to mention the detail. But we do have three pieces of (not very compelling) evidence.

- The gospels describe Jesus as carrying his cross to the place of execution. In general, prisoners to be executed carried a cross-beam, which in due course was fixed to a permanently-implanted upright. Where prisoners were executed on a simple stake, there was no cross-beam to be carried. If Jesus carried a stake, that would suggest that there was no permanently-implanted stake in Jerusalem, which is very unlikely. The infernence is that Jesus was crucified on a cross which employed a cross-beam.

- Non-scriptural Christian writers from about AD 100 suggest that Jesus was executed on either a Tau-cross or a Latin cross. That is sufficient distant from the event for them to be wrong, of course, but for what it’s worth none of them suggest a simple stake.

- Although Christians did not produce images of Christ, non-Christians did. The earliest image of Christ that we have is in fact an offensive caricature scratched on the wall of a guardroom in a barracks at Rome. It shows a soldier venerating a crucified man with the head of a donkey, and is captioned “Alexamenos worships his god”. It seems to be a jibe aimed by soldiers at a Christian colleague. For what it’s worth, it depicts crucifixion on a Latin cross.

None of this is authoritative, and the only honest answer is that we have no idea what kind of cross Jesus was crucified on. I can’t take that seriously as an objection to the use of the Latin cross in the conventional crucifix; whatever the crucifix is supposed to point to and call to mind, it is not the design aspects of the cross. Objecting to the crucifix on this ground seems to me like the most simplistic literalism.

JimiTime

Peregrinus wrote: »

As I understand it, the Romans used a variety of crosses for crucifixion - the Latin cross (of the kind we see in the majority of crucifixes), the Greek cross, the Tau cross (like a capital ‘T’), X-shaped crosses, Y-shaped crosses, simple stakes. Furthermore crucifixion could be implemented by nailing the subject to the cross, lashing him to the cross, or simply impaling him upon it. The Romans were nothing if not inventive when it came to inflicting humiliating pain.

The Greek stauros originally referred to a stake or paling; by the time of the New Testament, however (and for some centuries before that) it was used to refer to an instrument of crucifixion of any shape. Monos stauros was used where it was desired to specify a simple stake.

It’s true that early Christian art doesn’t depict the Latin cross, but it doesn’t depict the simple stake either. For a long time the early Christians produced no images of Christ at all and, when they started to do so, they were always symbolic, not literal. The very earliest Christian-produced images of Christ we have show him as a lamb. The earliest which portray him as a human figure show in Roman style - beardless, with trimmed curled hair, and wearing Roman dress. In short, it’s a big mistake to look to early Christian imagery for any kind of realistic, as opposed to symbolic, representation of anything.

What kind of cross was Jesus crucified on? None of the gospel-writers say. Presumably they either did not know or did not care enough to mention the detail. But we do have three pieces of (not very compelling) evidence.

- The gospels describe Jesus as carrying his cross to the place of execution. In general, prisoners to be executed carried a cross-beam, which in due course was fixed to a permanently-implanted upright. Where prisoners were executed on a simple stake, there was no cross-beam to be carried. If Jesus carried a stake, that would suggest that there was no permanently-implanted stake in Jerusalem, which is very unlikely. The infernence is that Jesus was crucified on a cross which employed a cross-beam.

- Non-scriptural Christian writers from about AD 100 suggest that Jesus was executed on either a Tau-cross or a Latin cross. That is sufficient distant from the event for them to be wrong, of course, but for what it’s worth none of them suggest a simple stake.

- Although Christians did not produce images of Christ, non-Christians did. The earliest image of Christ that we have is in fact an offensive caricature scratched on the wall of a guardroom in a barracks at Rome. It shows a soldier venerating a crucified man with the head of a donkey, and is captioned “Alexamenos worships his god”. It seems to be a jibe aimed by soldiers at a Christian colleague. For what it’s worth, it depicts crucifixion on a Latin cross.

None of this is authoritative, and the only honest answer is that we have no idea what kind of cross Jesus was crucified on. I can’t take that seriously as an objection to the use of the Latin cross in the conventional crucifix; whatever the crucifix is supposed to point to and call to mind, it is not the design aspects of the cross. Objecting to the crucifix on this ground seems to me like the most simplistic literalism.

Very informative. Would you have any links to details about that caricature you referred to?

Peregrinus

Here you go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexamenos_graffito

http://www.religionfacts.com/jesus/image_gallery/200_alexamanos_graffito.htm

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/gladiators/graffito.html

getz

it was not untill christianity began to be paganized ,that the cross came to be thought as a christian symbol about 431AD, in the catacomes in rome christ is never represented as hanging on a cross,but the romans used the cross symbol for many of their gods. ie god jupiter is dipicted holding a cross,the cross was also suspended from the necklesses of romes vestal virgins[ just like nuns of to-day] so its easy to understand how the cross in christianity came about. as the new church excepted many pagan symbols to convert,the celts also found their cross absorbed by this new religion.

Peregrinus

getz wrote: »

it was not untill christianity began to be paganized ,that the cross came to be thought as a christian symbol about 431AD . . .

Nonsense. Although the earliest Christian symbols were the fish and the Chi-Rho sign, the cross was certainly in use by the second century. If nothing else the Alexemenos graffito, referred to in my earlier post, shows that the cross was associated with Christians, even by their opponents; the cross is in fact the only thing in the graffito which shows that the religion being parodied is Christianity. But we have plenty of other evidence . By the time of Clement of Alexandria, writing some time before 216, the cross was so well-established that he could refer to it simply as "the Lord's sign", confident that his readers would understand that this was the cross, rather than something else. At about the same period Tertullian records (with approval) Christians making the sign of the cross on their foreheads. Tertullian, in fact, found it necessary to defend Christians against the charge that they worshipped the cross.

getz

Peregrinus wrote: »

Nonsense. Although the earliest Christian symbols were the fish and the Chi-Rho sign, the cross was certainly in use by the second century. If nothing else the Alexemenos graffito, referred to in my earlier post, shows that the cross was associated with Christians, even by their opponents; the cross is in fact the only thing in the graffito which shows that the religion being parodied is Christianity. But we have plenty of other evidence . By the time of Clement of Alexandria, writing some time before 216, the cross was so well-established that he could refer to it simply as "the Lord's sign", confident that his readers would understand that this was the cross, rather than something else. At about the same period Tertullian records (with approval) Christians making the sign of the cross on their foreheads. Tertullian, in fact, found it necessary to defend Christians against the charge that they worshipped the cross.

paul, ref to deut 21:22,23 at gatalians 3:13,;hence the jewish christians would hold as accursed and hatefull the STAKE upon which jesus had been executed: the sign of the cross on the forehead,was used by constantine who was a sun worshupper,crosses were used as symbols of the babylonian sun god,constantine only converted to christianity on his death bed

Peregrinus

getz wrote: »

paul, ref to deut 21:22,23 at gatalians 3:13,;hence the jewish christians would hold as accursed and hatefull the STAKE upon which jesus had been executed: the sign of the cross on the forehead,was used by constantine who was a sun worshupper,crosses were used as symbols of the babylonian sun god,constantine only converted to christianity on his death bed

The word translated as "stake" here is stauros, which in Koine Greek applies to any instrument of crucifixion, of any shape. The sign of the cross, as I have alrealy pointed out, long predates Constantine; Tertullian writes about it. (Constantine, for what it is worth, favoured the Chi-Rho, and this may well have been because it was suggestive of a sunburst.)

Peregrinus

barfizz wrote: »

I am not surprised that an Italian court would make such a decision.

My experience of the general Italian attitude (not all) to non-catholics (or Christians) is very dismissive, it is as if their beliefs are a non-entity.

Respect for other forms of faith or non faith are not considered to be important.

(The European Court of Human Rights is not an Italian court.)

magicbastarder

is it just me who reckons that a cross with a lengthy disclaimer is far better than no cross?

barfizz

Peregrinus wrote: »

(The European Court of Human Rights is not an Italian court.)

You are correct, I was wrong.

Thanks