Re: Conlang flag design; comments and proposals

On Sat, 4 Sep 2004 15:52:45 EDT, David Peterson <ThatBlueCat@...> wrote:

><<http://steen.free.fr/ib/flags/conlang4.png>>
>
>Again, I like the look of the flags, but I think the similarity to
>Christian symbolism is too striking.
It's originally Jewish symbolism, and I wonder: Since the Babel story
pre-dates Abraham, it may even be an accepted part of Muslim tradition.  Any
Muslims on the list who can chime in?

(So it could be a story that embraces the three widely adopted monotheistic
religions of our time.  I'm not polytheistic, but how do the polytheists on
the list feel about a monotheistic symbol?)

Again, for me the source of the story in religion is no more important than
the fact that Christian Thalmann's first name derives from Christianity or
that Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday derive their names from Norse
gods.  An interesting history but not something that has to exclude
atheists, agnostics, pantheists, etc.

And as Doug wrote, we're reversing the original meaning anyway, celebrating
a divine punishment, as it were.

(This is starting to remind me of the controversy about the New Mexico state
flag, which has a mission church to represent the Spanish settlement of New
Mexico.  That's a factual part of NM's history, whether you are in favor of
the mission work or not.  It also has a Greek goddess on it, but no one
(that I know) is advocating removing that.)

Best regards,

Jeffrey