Comments by "" (@jmitterii2) on "The American Flag is a Religious Symbol" video.

  1. It's symbolic to quickly identify a nation with patterns of shapes and images, sometimes slogans and other words. From an atheist point of view, I would need to modify the concept of sacred. I don't believe in any particular god or gods or magical "sacred" things. But I can imagine important items, like cherished pictures taken of loved ones, a slogan for some activism, a person's name, a moral principle being very important to them. For instance I think the rights of man include all available implementable technology which includes sewers, drink-able water, irrigation, food, healthcare, education, liberty to the extent it doesn't harm others more than just annoyance, etc. Those things I would use the word sacred. But even if someone made a poster full of these principles and burned them, I wouldn't care. Those ideas are beyond symbolic representation. They're simply the way we ought to treat and love each regardless of any other factors. Under your argument, my sacred items would need to be honored too, making a list of my principles and talking against them or symbolically burning them would be bad, you should honor my sacred object. Then you would have no disagreements. Everyone's ideas not matter how contradictory are sacred. We're all right and we must honor each other that way. If only we could live in a state of quantum entanglement and chose the states we like best.
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  2. It's a code of should or ought: recommendation. It is not a must law. Must means you have to follow to the letter. Such action described if not followed is a breach in law. Should/ought means this is a recommended way of doing something, doing otherwise may be more inefficient or unsafe or lesser quality, or even lead doing something that is a breach in some other law; for government workers carrying out a government operations generally are required to perform the "should/ought" in laws and regulations. Civilian it is just recommendation. May/permitted to just means you can do something usually in addendum to the should/ought. Usually in regulatory laws to reduce the number of inquires if something is permitted or not at their agency. Stops the phone ringing regarding the same question over and over again.
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