To the question why do I give a shit?  Would Christian like it if a big statue of Buddha, or Muhammad, Krishna, or the spaghetti monster was in the museum?  People see through the tactic of placing the Cross in public places to promote Christianity; just like teaching Intelligent  Design.  Give them an inch, they'll take a mile.

This is not part of the history of 9-11. If the a book of Quran was
found in the rubble, would you like it to be in the museum? At least
that would have been authentically be part of the history. It's not
some man-made, man-edited, man-imaging icon, that was “inserted” into
9-11.

People think God is every where. Yes, he is everywhere.
Even with Jacee Lee Dugard who was kidnapped, raped and torture for 18
years. So God was with her all that time, while she prayed to be back
home with her parents. He was there when the planes were heading for
the towers and with them when people were jumping off the building. Yet
nothing was done. It’s amazing how people’s logic are. Thousands of
people die in a disaster, one girl lives and it’s a miracle thanks to
God. Please take a moment to think about this, instead of brushing it
off.

Personally I think it's ironic that there is such a push for religion at a site that was destroyed by... religion.  People who argue 'it's just wreckage' are nuts, this was blessed by holy man, and sat at a church for the past couple of years, yes, it's a holy symbol.  Personally I don't think we should have any sort of religious symbol there.  After all, do you see crosses and all of that at the Vietnam memorial?  How about the Gettysburg memorial? No... yeah didn't think so.

This is not a place for worship or prayer, but for reflection and mourning, keep the cross at St. Peter's, it was fine there. 

There were no atheist groups at ground zero on 911 trying to help people and comfort them. Only Christian, Jewish, Catholic and other non-profit groups were there offering a bit of peace in a confusing time. In fact there are no atheists organizations that I know of that help anyone. I wonder if Madalyn Murray O'Hair ever prayed and cried out to God before she was killed and stuffed in an oil drum and buried in Texas by her crazy friends who stold all that money. Atheist beliefs offer no hope, no comfort, no peace, but yet some of them believe in Love and Love comes from God, some believe in Marriage and Marriage started in the Garden of Eden, and some believe that murder is wrong, one of the Ten Commandments. All from God denie that you atheist people.  Only God Our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ who died for the sins of the world can do this.

You posted this unverified hunch twice?!

Hit button twice, but hey if you don't like it then don't read it.

That's not how it works. If you don't like an idea, argue against it. That's what I'm doing. Do a Google search for "atheist charities." If you're going to make claims like the one you made, you should have the common courtesy to do three seconds of research.

Eric, get over it and get a life. Leave me alone.

If you can't handle someone someone pointing out what's wrong with your claims, don't post them on the internet.  You may not like atheists, but you can't just make things up about us and expect us to say nothing about it. If I had said that the Christians helping out on 9/11 would only help non-Christians if they converted first, you would be justified in ripping into me for posting hateful lies.
You said that there are no atheist charities, which is just wrong. You said that there were no atheist groups helping on 9/11, which I'm pretty sure you just pulled out of thin air.
Either defend what you said or retract it.

There were no atheist groups at ground zero on 911 trying to help people and comfort them. Only Christian, Jewish, Catholic and other non-profit groups were there offering a bit of peace in a confusing time.  In fact there are no atheists organizations that I know of that help anyone.  I wonder if Madalyn Murray O'Hair ever prayed and cried out to God before she was killed and stuffed in an oil drum and buried in Texas by her crazy friends who stold all that money.  Atheist beliefs offer no hope, no comfort, no peace.  Only God Our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ who died for the sins of the world can do this. I BELIEVE.

I'm an atheist (and the fact that I said that without apologizing would make me a militant atheist according to some), but I agree with Jon Stewart. This is a ridiculous lawsuit.

Eric, you think it's petty, but you ‘re not looking at the
big picture.  Christian are slowly inserting religious icon in an attempt
to spread Christianity, i.e. the pledge, the US currency , "in God we
trust", and teaching Intelligent Design in school.  Have you ever notice all the religious reference
in 90% of all Hollywood movies?  Zooming
in on a Cross, preying, quote scripture, etc.  That’s not coincidence. Give them an inch and
they will take a mile.

I agree. They will take everything they can. And we can stop them in the courts when they violate the law, but not just whenever they piss us off. Intelligent Design in public schools? Stop them in the courts! Religious references in Hollywood movies and on news reports about 9/11? Suck it up and fight back, but not in the courtroom.
This isn't Christians telling the story of 9/11; it's the government telling the story of 9/11. They can't build a cross and put it in the museum, but they should be able to include the cross that was on all of our TV screens that year. They can put a plaque next to it saying that Christians took comfort in what they saw as a sign from God, but it can't say that God comforted anyone. They can't put an altar in front of it. They can't hang a steel Jesus on it because there was no steel Jesus on it on 9/11.
The government cannot impose a religious narrative on this piece of history, but it shouldn't be redacting history just because some of the people involved were religious.

eric i was happy to read your comeback to maymae, but not so happy here. i understand your reaction, but i think it comes more from a desire to be "good" than "radical" (which i mostly concur with), but the lawsuit isn't ridiculous if you really look at it. its like excluding prayer from schools. how can a religious symbol be allowed in a publicly funded museum? don't you think it will become a site of worship and prayer? like chiharu said above, the cross was perfectly fine at st. peter's where its been for many years. if anything should be included, i think a pictorial exhibit about it would be fine, pointing out that the actual "cross" was at the church a couple of blocks away.

If the cross had been constructed or extracted from the wreckage by the government, then I would oppose it. But it was part of the story. I found no comfort in the cross. I thought it was a bunch of superstition. But that doesn't matter. The government didn't have anything to do with that cross. This isn't like excluding prayer from public schools; this is like refusing to allow public school history teachers to tell students that there used to be prayer in public schools.
I will admit that the idea of the cross's presence in the museum does make me nervous. Would it be placed in the museum in such a way that it looks like the visitor is being invited to worship it? Would it be the centerpiece of the museum? Would it be centerpiece of the narrative? If any of these were true, then I would say it's time for a lawsuit, but we can't forbid the government from acknowledging a small piece of history because of how some people MIGHT react. If the cross were placed in the museum, it probably would become a site of worship and prayer for many. That's fine, as long as the government isn't suggesting that people do so. The point isn't to keep people from practicing their religions. The point is to keep government secular. If a Christian mutters a prayer in the White House, that doesn't make the government less secular. If the President does the same thing, that's doesn't make the government less secular. When the President calls for a day of prayer or opens a meeting with a prayer, that DOES make the government less secular.
What we CAN forbid government from doing is endorsing the idea that God sent the cross. For example, I would be fine with the government saying, "Many people took comfort in the idea that this cross was a symbol of comfort sent from God." I would not be fine with the government saying, "God comforted many believers with this cross at Ground Zero."

I have to say militant athiests are as bad as bible beaters. So much anger here.

maybe the movement needs militants, like every fight for rights? what it also needs is reasoned voices as well. maybe that's what's missing from the "cross" controversy, are clear reasoned voices that state why things are being done. sometimes its the militants are the ones that have the "fire" to stand up.

But we don't say "militant feminists" when we're talking about feminists who stand up, file lawsuits, and get things done. It's a word that we either use literally (guns, grenades, and such) or metaphorically to mean "excessive." I do think that that atheists need to stand up more, but it's because too many are in the closet. I would LOVE to see a big lawsuit against President Obama's call for prayer on Memorial Day. I would support any lawsuit against true government support of religion. The problem with this lawsuit isn't that it's too fiery, it's that it's wrong.

Those militant atheist with their deadly lawsuits! It's like shooting kids in the woods!

The idea that somehow the Christian god allowed the 9/11 attacks to happen so that that an i-beam in the form of a cross could appear out of the rubble and prove that Jesus and the Christian message are true is a really sick idea.  Humans have evolved brains that seek patterns.  That is all this is.  I don't have a problem with this being put in a museum as one more example of how delusional religion makes otherwise normal people.