[Noisebridge-discuss] [Build] 2169 shrine

[Ceren Ercen]

FWIW, these statues of divinity, godhood, or any celestial aspects of 
Buddhist "shrines" can easily be mistaken to mean actual religious 
worship. A large chunk of the Confucian and Buddhist schools hold 
figures like this simply as archetypes, a concept of human existence 
personified, and not as Gods. Al would have to expound on this, but it 
need not be a religious totem at all, and honestly, I think it's kinda 
neat and speaks to us being from SF.

tl;dr: This "god" isn't necessarily "divine", it's more a focal point to 
   illustrate a facet of human existence.

There is such a thing as disrespectful Cultural Appropriation, but the 
flexibility inherent in Buddhist historical figures ends up giving us a 
character that I find amusingly appropriate to our "be excellent" 
philosophy. (There's probably even a different historical figure who's 
more appropriate, but, whatev.)

And I wouldn't mind dressing up the shrine with more... uh, relevant 
decorations.

It's not like we're all being douchebags and going out and getting 
"Noisebridge Rules!" Kanji tattoos.

- Ceren

Rachel McConnell wrote:
> I don't want it because it is a religious object, which I feel has no
> place at Noisebridge.  Even if it's Cute and Historical and Adds
> Character.  Noisebridge ought to be entirely orthogonal to religion;
> having a shrine is either promoting or disrespecting (of course in a
> totally cute and funny way, those wacky Chinese, gosh that's neat!) some
> religion or other.  We should do neither.
> 
> That said, I care about this issue about as much as I care about most
> detail, which is, enough to mention it but not enough to insist.
> 
> That is all.
> 
> Rachel
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