<<I wish to thank Tee & Xo for demonstrating again the point being made, that of multiple names of cities and towns named for Saints and Angels, predominantly by Christian Missionaries & Priests. Somehow there's no outcry or outrage that such cities & their governments could be offensive to Muslims, Atheists, & non-Christians . . . >>
History's a bitch, eh, sirs? Yes, the city of San Francisco, and many other Californian cities were founded by Franciscan monks. And, yes, they named the cities they founded after saints. What a surprise! Who did you expect them to name their cities after? Heretics? Perverts? Criminals?
Now, of course, here's the rub: apparently NOBODY is offended by that. Possibly because people have a reverence for history and the idea of roots in the land that transcends their feelings about religion. People might like to be reminded that the bustling city of concrete, steel, asphalt and glass didn't always exist, that it goes back in time to a little mission village. Just as people living in cities with Indian names (Toronto, Mississauga, Chicago) like to think that the history of the land they inhabit also goes back many centuries, way before Columbus, and that many people with many stories to tell lived there before them. Even when you change a geographical name by law, the inhabitants will stubbornly resist, calling it by the name they know because whatever their origin, that name has become a part of their own background, their own histories. How many New Yorkers refer even today to "The Avenue of the Americas?"
The name of one's city is everywhere - - on public property, on private property, in the name of the school district you and your children attended, in the fabric of your own identity - - whether you are a Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, etc., you are nevertheless a San Franciscan and that is how you identify yourself to the people you meet in your travels anywhere in the world. On the contrary, the objectionable Nativity Scene is NOT a part of your identity, your school system or anything else, and it occurs annually or otherwise on only the property of YOUR government - - there's nothing inevitable about it, your folks maybe took you every year to see it or maybe you never saw it in your life.
Of course, YOU are fundamentally unable to appreciate the distinction between place names, which do not result from the actions of any living legislators, and active, present-day religious actions such as building a Nativity Scene. Sadly, by failing to recognize the feelings of actual people in real-life situations, by drawing the parallel you did, you have demonstrated yet again how ideology blinds you to reality and to common sense - - the reality in this case being that people do not feel any religious significance based on the religious history of name-places and that despite the historical origins of the name being rooted in religion, the names are just not in fact seen as religious symbols by any significant number of the citizens.
Of course there are exceptions - - when a name is changed under very contentious circumstances, (think of the change from St. Petersburg to Leningrad,) the old feelings don't die down so fast, and the name DOES have both religious and political potency. It WILL be changed as one faction or the other gains the upper hand.
