John, it doesn't affect me as a symbol of theism, or as a symbol of the event it was meant to honor. What affects me is judging it now is to say that man is thinking he can reset the past. The point of the past is to take from it what will make the future better. That's also kind of trite because today's idea of a better future is who's to determine? But, dismantling the past to reassemble it to meet today's sense of morality is not only insane, it can't be done.

Your (linked) memorial and an entire nation of people of its period stand together in our historicity, for a specific moment, leaving behind a legacy that no prodigy is privilege to judge. I might be an atheist but I'm also a realist knowing full well that man does not flourish as a singular notion of himself. He's as broad thinking as there are horizons to give him space for it. What we're witnessing is a very small-minded minority thinking itself the beautiful people for all mankind to model itself after.

The small mindedness of creating a single will and way for all men to conduct themselves by is a liberal vanity. It's quite a compulsive obsession and fun to observe as they wage a war of defamation against those who do not comply with their notions of good. And, these are the people who would erase the past to make a better present, and then stipulate how future man should conduct himself. Not exactly a lot of reality associated with that perspective but, well, you'll have that. Man is certainly fallible and this is another shade of that color.

All that man has done in his past and left for future generations is a treasure no one should have the privilege to judge. It's done and man did it collectively as a good relative to that time, and relative to the cultures if combatants. That's why I bring to mind that today's man can in no modest or immodest manner dictate good for his prodigy because there's a very good chance he will, by their measure as we measure him now in our own time, be judged the villain of his time.