Because performance all over scienceblogs starts to suffer when a comment thread gets too long, I’m closing the thread in which I grievously insult a cracker…but if you must, you can continue here.
Fresh crackers!
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This kind of insanity will never go away until God comes down to earth and CONFIRMS that he doesn’t freaking exist.
CCM is responsible for the conduct of the attendants (including Mr. Cook) according to the SAFE document that each organization holding an event at the UCF Student Union has to sign:
“VI. Applicant Signature and Agreement:
By signing below, the applicant understands and agrees to each of the following statements:
• To conform to the provisions of UCF Rule 6C7-4.0292 (Potentially Hazardous Events)
• To save and Hold Harmless the University of Central Florida from any injury or damage arising from this event except where applicant is a UCF employee or agent (acting within the scope of his/her employment or agency or is an individual who also falls under Florida Statutes 768.28.
• For student organizations:
– To reimburse UCF in advance for any costs to the university arising out of the above.
– That the University may withdraw its permission to hold this event at any time before or during the event if the applicant does not comply with all conditions or statements made in this application, by mutual consent, or in case of disruptive or unsafe situations.
– That the organization is responsible for the conduct of all members, guests, visitors, etc. during the course of the event.
– That the conduct of the organization it is under the purview of the Golden Rule and other applicable University policies. ”
I don’t think CCM called the UCF police in that incident. Why does anyone demand that UCF takes any action against this student?
“Yes, because as we all know … if one person of a group acts like a dimwit, you should treat the rest of the group as if they’re dimwits too. Brilliant line of thinking there Michelle. Brilliant.”
Well Ellen did demonstate she is not exactly the brighest bulb around. When she says she respects all views I question either her honesty or her sanity.
I don’t see how we need to respect someone else’s belief? They weren’t born this way like skin color. It’s like me saying, “hey i think your ideas are stupid and i think you’re stupid for believing them… also if i have the chance i’m going to show you how stupid your ideas are i’m going to do it.”
i’m not ever going to show respect to religion because to me it’s like believing in santa clause… i generally don’t go out of my way to insult people’s beliefs, but i WILL support people who do it, and if asked about it i WILL tell them how retarded i think they are
btw don’t you have to sit for like… 2 hours before the cracker part of the crackpot-fest comes up?… i think this man should be considered a hero just because he had to sit there and listen to mythology for 2 hours
While I find all this absolutely hilarious (OMFG HE TOOK OUR CRACKER HOSTAGE!1111!!!), I am also severely pissed off by this.
When will we finally get rid of these cults… I mean religions, influencing our governments and media?
Getting absolutely sick by the stupidity of cultists. Oh did I say cultists? I of course mean religious bastards.
The only thing religions are good for are extra holidays.
I also appreciate your honesty in admitting that for the materialist, “responsibility” is just a matter of semantics. – Fletch
Fletch, you are responsible for something if your actions or decisions predictably led to it. It’s that simple. No need for gods or even free will.
Oh, and pretending to misunderstand someone is not, in general, clever. Only if it’s done in a way that makes people laugh with you, rather than at you.
Catdance said:
Hi Catdance, while what you have said is essentially true, are you prepared to follow your own reasoning to its logical conclusion? Should everything, no matter how absurd or unpopular (as in a minority) a belief, be taken seriously, be afforded equal respect?
How much more absurd can a belief be than in this particular instance? And are you serious about the fact that you would treat all beliefs of equal absurdity (on the absurdity scale, of course) consistently? Or is this really about the fact that Catholics are so numerous (it’s a relevant question)?
And I notice that you haven’t mentioned even once in your post that the reaction to both Webster Cook, as well as PZ Myers, has been a litany of hate mail and several death threats. Is the sensitivity of Catholics more important to you than the threat of death? Of course, I don’t believe that for a second, but it really pisses me off when that isn’t mentioned, while at the same time berating PZ and the young man for such trivial acts by comparison. I realize that is not the impression that you were aiming to create.
There are so many things that religious believers should be irate about, as well; so much poverty, so much needless death and suffering — it angers me when they time and again provide ample evidence that they have lost all perspective, and would rather focus on silly little issues like this. And there is nothing that you or anyone else can say that would convince me that, by comparison, this is anything but ridiculous. I am sure that you would agree.
It is also my opinion that offending people from time to time does not have to be bad thing. As I’ve said elsewhere, if we are to live peacefully on this ever changing, ever more culturally diverse planet, there are plenty of groups that are simply going to have to grow a thicker skin, and learn to deal with it. I don’t mind helping that process along, if I’m honest. I dream of the day when nobody is offended by mere words, except in circumstances where the overwhelming majority would be in full agreement of the real and tangible offense.
After all, if we never challenge sacred ideals, never present people with anything but the comfortably familiar, then nothing is ever likely to change. And while I would never, and have never, purposely offend anyone, someone has to be provocative, to risk making enemies of others, and yes, at times, whether purposely or not, offend others without first making the cost-benefit analysis, which would surely come down in favor of doing nothing at all.
We can sit in our comfortable seats and remark, whether in support or not, but we will never be at the forefront of affecting change in society, because we neither have the courage nor the conviction to simply say, “to hell with all of this, its a Goddamned cracker.”
I think Myers is lying about receiving “threats”. – BenYachov
I think BenYachov is lying about thinking Myers is lying about receiving “threats”.
Is Fletch still going on about morality and the like ?
A few thousand posts ago I pointed to him towards where he could find out more information about the evolution of morality. It would seem he could not be bothered to go away and learn.
Hypothetical:
So if I walked into your house, stole your dead mother’s ashes, and flushed the down the toilet, you’d be ok with that, right?
Because those ashes are only a mass of calcium phosphates.
“So if I walked into your house, stole your dead mother’s ashes, and flushed the down the toilet, you’d be ok with that, right?
Because those ashes are only a mass of calcium phosphates.”
Those ashes are the remains of a human being. A wafer remains a wafer no matter what manner of words are spoken over it.
Can you not see the difference ? The claim that wafer become the body of Christ during a Catholic Mass is an example of how religion allows a large number of people to delude themselves.
“I would actually bet that most Catholics don’t know a lot of the dogma they are required to believe.”
Yeah, they really keep the cannibalism thing well under wraps. Like, how at every mass, when, during the consecration, the priest repeats Christ’s words about the bread and wine being his body and blood, and to take and eat it in memory of him, the priest’s assistant conveniently coughs, thereby obscuring the potentially embarrassing facts of the Catholic faith.
Thank god you guys are here to set the 1 billion mass going Catholics straight! We’d never of figured it out without you!
If the Eucharist was just a cracker no one would care – no one would receive it, no one would protect it, no one would steal it, and no one would threaten to abuse it. Even for the atheist, its way more than a cracker.
Thinking, feeling, and empathy are (to the materialist) illusions. – Fletch
You are either a liar or an ignoramus. Go and actually read some materialist thinkers before making a further fool of yourself.
Beep wrote: So if I walked into your house, stole your dead mother’s ashes, and flushed the down the toilet, you’d be ok with that, right?
The important difference, all the relative values of such things as crackers and ashes aside (i’ve learned that lesson on another thread), is that my house is a private residence and that my (hypothetically) dead mother’s ashes weren’t freely given to you.
If I invited you into my house and gave you my mother’s ashes and you flushed them down the toilet I’d probably be a annoyed (though i’m not really the sort of person who’d keep them lying around, but i’ll play along) – but I wouldn’t call all of my friends and have them make death threats against you.
Well it is a bit more than a cracker. There
is the sybolism behind it, but the masses are
over reacting. Okay terrible pun.
Death threats, now how flippen
Catholic is that?
As a recovering Catholic I am once again ashamed of
the faith my parents pushed upon me, when I was to
young to choose.
I once did the same thing when a teenager, so that I could show a Jewish friend what the host looked like.
No one called me down for it, and when the parish priest
found out about it, he gave me a unblessed host, so my friend could actually taste one. Never once did he throw a fit over what I did. Instead Father Earnest praised me for sharing my faith, while I in turn learned about my friend’s faith.
I left the church because I wanted to live my life without
having guilt piled on me by my parents in the name of the church. Never once have a I regreted it, and this story just confirms my belief that certain organised religions are nothing more than trouble. Their members simply CAN NOT pratice what they preach.
We should start a youtube campaign that shows people NOT eating eucharists during church and then carrying them around during their daily business. Riding the bus with them, sitting at work with them, in the bathroom, you know whatever comes to mind.
I think the best way to show a group of people that their fanatacism and ignorance is not welcome is to run their stupid idol right into the ground.
“Those ashes are the remains of a human being. A wafer remains a wafer no matter what manner of words are spoken over it.
Can you not see the difference ? The claim that wafer become the body of Christ during a Catholic Mass is an example of how religion allows a large number of people to delude themselves.”
Continuing the hypothetical:
Those ashes are, to you, the remains of a human being, and therefore have certain meaning attached to them. If I believe that they represent nothing more than ashes, and, further, give no respect to your irrational regard for a box of burnt organic material, then why shouldn’t I flush them? From exactly what scientific rationale can you claim that I should have any respect for these ashes which now, by any rational/scientific analysis, bear zero actual relation to your living mother?
As for whether or not the consecrated host becomes Christ, I agree with you that there’s no more sense to being attached to a piece of bread than a pile of ashes. But you can’t have it both ways. However, I do know that for somewhere close to 1 billion people, the host represents something exceedingly precious. As precious as the ink blotted pieced of paper known as the US Constitution, as the black box known as the Kaaba, or the hole in the ground known as Ground Zero.
Mary Herboth, #513, wrote:
You don’t have to believe in something in order to understand that someone else believes in it. Any ‘threats’ made against the crackers relates to the impact those threats will have on the people who believe there is something special about them – not that what they’re threatening to do to the cracker will have any impact whatsoever apart from that.
My friend used to do some accounting for a Catholic church. It was a great gig because she could come in part time during the days when the church was empty and bring her small kids with her. When I spoke with her on the phone she was always distracted because she was trying to keep a eye on he kids and often times she’d say thing like, “Just a second, HEY! I TOLD YOU TO STAY OUT OF THE HOLY WATER! Ok, where were we?”
One time her 2 year old daughter walks by eating what mom at first thinks is potato chips, then in a moment of panic realizes she’s eating the body of christ like they were cookies. Of course they weren’t blessed yet, but I was laughing so hard over the phone. It started a whole bunch of questions about them, because she told me these ones were made of “whole wheat because they are better for you”. I thought that was hilarious that saving your soul isn’t good enough, you should also have some fiber! She joked that maybe next they’ll have a “low fat non-carb” version.
To which I replied, “Yes, and they can call it – I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT JESUS!”
“Those ashes are, to you, the remains of a human being, and therefore have certain meaning attached to them. If I believe that they represent nothing more than ashes, and, further, give no respect to your irrational regard for a box of burnt organic material, then why shouldn’t I flush them? From exactly what scientific rationale can you claim that I should have any respect for these ashes which now, by any rational/scientific analysis, bear zero actual relation to your living mother?”
No, those ashes are actually the remains of a human being.
The wafer NEVER becomes the body of Christ.
Can you not see the difference ? This is the second time I have had to point it out to you, since twice you seem to have missed it. If you fail again I will just write you off as being to stupid to understand.
In addition you seem unaware of the concept of theft. The ashes are not yours to take, and were you to do so you would be committing a crime. A wafer is GIVEN to the communicant.
It seems your value system is broken. Your whole hypothetical scenario is a false one that I presume you intend to be analogous to the taking of the wafer by Webster Cook. If so you have failed miserably. It is nothing of the sort. The wafer had become Cook’s property. Unless they are given to you, the ashes of someone’s mother are not. Likewise I cannot destroy the US Constitution, (or rather the bit of paper it is written on as the Constitution is an idea not an object) since it is not mine to destroy.
“The important difference, all the relative values of such things as crackers and ashes aside (i’ve learned that lesson on another thread), is that my house is a private residence and that my (hypothetically) dead mother’s ashes weren’t freely given to you.
If I invited you into my house and gave you my mother’s ashes and you flushed them down the toilet I’d probably be a annoyed (though i’m not really the sort of person who’d keep them lying around, but i’ll play along) – but I wouldn’t call all of my friends and have them make death threats against you.”
This is incorrect from it’s base assumption that the host is freely given to anyone that wants it. There is literature in the Church which makes it clear that non-Catholics are not to receive Communion. The host is not handed out in a willy-nilly fashion. It takes a conscious series of actions to get it (standing up, waiting in line, taking it from a person ordained to hand it out) and a clear and conscious rejection of the activities of everyone else who engages in the same activity: i.e., immediately, and reverently consuming it.
Yes, it can be “take” home out of ignorance, but any reasonably intelligent or perceptive person would be hard-pressed to find a reason to go up and take the host.
It would be like going up to receive a diploma from a graduation ceremony “by accident.”
Mary:
Even for the atheist, its way more than a cracker.
No it is not. That’s the entire point.
Oh, and don’t ever pretend to speak for me again. Thank you.
ChrisKG @ #312:
Ummm… not according to my experiments.
“If the Eucharist was just a cracker no one would care – no one would receive it, no one would protect it, no one would steal it, and no one would threaten to abuse it. Even for the atheist, its way more than a cracker.”
Mary, what a stupid thing to say. It was a cracker, it remains a cracker and has never been anything other than a cracker. Just because some people choose to believe it has additional properties does not mean we are all required to go along with their claims.
What if a person is on a gluten-free diet? Can the Holy Spirit infuse itself into a non-wheat cracker? Could I add gluten-free Peanut Butter (straight from Wal-Mart), just in case? When will Domino’s offer this deal: Buy a Jesus-laden, non-gluten crust pizza & get a second sacred pizza free?
“Jesus of Nabisco”… hilarious. That reminds me of the classic joke store from Wisconsin, “Cheeses of Nazareth”.
“No, those ashes are actually the remains of a human being.
The wafer NEVER becomes the body of Christ.
Can you not see the difference ? This is the second time I have had to point it out to you, since twice you seem to have missed it. If you fail again I will just write you off as being to stupid to understand.”
Sorry that you are so philosophically naive.
The host and the ash are both proxies for dead people (at the very least.)
Don’t be stupid.
“It seems your value system is broken. Your whole hypothetical scenario is a false one that I presume you intend to be analogous to the taking of the wafer by Webster Cook. If so you have failed miserably. It is nothing of the sort. The wafer had become Cook’s property. Unless they are given to you, the ashes of someone’s mother are not. Likewise I cannot destroy the US Constitution, (or rather the bit of paper it is written on as the Constitution is an idea not an object) since it is not mine to destroy.”
The Eucharist is a contract. The host is given under the expectation that the person receiving it meets certain criteria. These include: being a properly baptized and confirmed Catholic who believes that the Host is actually the body and blood of Christ. It is also to be immediately consumed.
These rules are readily available, both in the Church and without. Anyone in the Church would happily illuminate the confused.
A ticket to a concert is just a piece of paper, but symbolically it represents everything from currency to nostalgia.
Webster broke the contract, either wittingly or out of ignorance.
No, one is the remains of a dead person. Quite literally the burnt remains of a dead person.
The other is made from wheat and never has the attributes associated with human remains, dead or otherwise.
It is a simple question of fact. One is a wafer, one is burtn remains of a dead person. To think the two are in anyway equivalent is bizzare.
Hi, Joe Catholic here. Listen, the consecrated host is special to us and we’d appreciate it if you respect that. Don’t take communion if you’re not Catholic. And if you are Catholic, please follow the ritual.
If you don’t show respect during Mass that’s going to cause some upset. But I’m in favor of trying to understand why a person might say or do something disrespectful. I’m not in favor of using threats or force to scare people into pretending a respect they don’t feel.
The death threats against that kid in FL and against Dr. Myers are wrong. Jesus would never advocate for that kind of behavior.
As an American, I appreciate the First Amendment. Trying to get PZ Myers fired for expressing an opinion in his own blog isn’t right.
Sincerely,
Joe Catholic
****************
OK, I made all that up. But surely my imagined Mr. Catholic exists, no? Where’s he hiding?
Perhaps he’s having lunch with the moderate Muslims.
What actions exactly would these ARMED GUARDS the church now has guarding the mass ceremonies take should someone decide they do not wish to swallow the cracker?
Swallow that cracker OR I’LL SHOOT? Seeing as it’s florida, and a university, perhaps there would be tasering involved?
“No, one is the remains of a dead person. Quite literally the burnt remains of a dead person.
The other is made from wheat and never has the attributes associated with human remains, dead or otherwise.
It is a simple question of fact. One is a wafer, one is burtn remains of a dead person. To think the two are in anyway equivalent is bizzare.”
To give meaning to “burnt remains of a dead person” is bizarre.
Since those burnt remains have no physical or chemical relationship to the formerly living person.
The bread has just as much physical relationship to the dead Christ as the chemically-altered ashes do to the dead Mother. It’s just a question of proximity of time.
Where’s he hiding?
He’s probably not here because he got disgusted by P.Z. Myers antics/rantings about his beliefs a long time ago.
Oh, my goodness. Stop with the crackers already. What would you do for humor if Catholics stopped supplying you with ammo? Admit it. You need religion to supply your atheist hate.
You’re all missing the point, this Catholic intolerance is totally different from Muslim intolerance because Muslims have darker skin than the good Catholics do, so they’d actually kill him, whereas the Catholics just hide behind their screens and their Bibles and pray for his soul.
My arse.
Hi, Joe Atheist here. Listen, the consecrated host is special to Catholics and I’d appreciate it if you, my fellow atheists and non-Christians, respect that. Don’t take communion if you’re not Catholic. And if you are Catholic, please follow the ritual.
If you don’t show respect during Mass that’s going to cause some upset. But I’m in favor of trying to understand why a person might say or do something disrespectful. I’m not in favor of using threats or force, either physical or pseudo-intellectual, to scare or shame people into disrespecting their sacred traditions, even if I don’t get or believe them.
The constant bigoted berating of people of faith does little to advance science or knowledge.
Sincerely,
Joe Atheist
I can understand how incomprehensible the reverence we Catholics give to Christ in the consecrated host must appear to the non-believer. And I don’t think any reasonable Catholic would expect those outside of the faith to treat the Eucharist as we do.
What I don’t understand is the lack of civility in a ‘gleeful’ act of desecration of what others hold dear. I think Islam is a crock of sh*t, but I wouldn’t ‘delight’ in desecrating a Koran. Or to move outside the realm of religion, I wouldn’t delight in desecrating what the non-religious holds as sacred just for the sadistic fun of injury– wiping myself with the Constitution, say, just to agitate the patriotic or torturing animals outside of PETA headquarters. Mutual respect for each other and what we hold as sacred is all that holds civilization together. If you’re suggesting that we chuck civilization and get back to the down-and-dirty of the state of nature, then, with all due respect, you’re a heck of a lot crazier than I am, my worship of ‘a cracker’ not withstanding. Delight in desecrating the Eucharist FEELS TO ME no different than my hurting of a member of the Myers family, say, just because I knew it would infuriate you, would feel to you. [That’s not a threat, by the way– just a point of comparison]. Your disregard for the people with whom you share your community and country is not, after all, a form of dialogue or dissent. Its an act of profound injury and provocation and it severely damanges the dynamics of peaceful, civilized society.
“The bread has just as much physical relationship to the dead Christ as the chemically-altered ashes do to the dead Mother. It’s just a question of proximity of time.”
Huh ?
Do you really mean that ? Only it is so breath-takingly stupid it really is incredible to think you did.
Were it necessary it would be quite possible to establish a chain of evidence that shows the ashes in a urn really are are ashes of a particular person.
Can you do the same with a consecrated wafer ? Can you actually provide evidence that it really has become the body of Christ ?
Why is everyone getting so upset about this one guy who took it home, when millions of Catholics all over the world regularly immerse the Eucharist in strong acid for several hours, then flush the remnants down the toilet?
Re #536:
Thanks, Joe Athiest, for a reasoned and compassionate post.
Re #537:
I agree with your post to a large extent. Thank you for a reasoned and respectful post.
This is a wonderful example of what one can expect from liberals! When I grow up, I want to be just like you: respectful of others’ beliefs, tolerant of others who differ from you, and willing to celebrate the diversity that makes all of us special!
Poor Paul, you are indeed an example of the old dictum: God puts limits on intelligence but not on stupidity!
Wow, the fun is still going on.
I used to think of Catholics as the “reasonable” Christians, relatively speaking. This thread and the others before it have sure disabused me of that notion.
So you actually have to ingest God in order for his magic to work. Who knew? If you think about it, that’s some seriously primitive mumbo-jumbo, there. I mean, he’s omnipotent and all, so why does he need to get eaten in order for the communicants to receive the salvific effect?
Then there’s the whole matter of him knocking up a virgin by means of a ghost, so he can sacrifice himself to himself in order to appease his own anger at his imperfect creations, which he himself made the way they were, by reanimating his zombie corpse and wafting up into the sky. All of this folderol made necessary because somebody ate an apple and the blame for this alleged dietary faux pas was somehow passed down the generations (is original sin encoded in our DNA, somehow?). Yep, makes sense.
Almost makes the magical snack foods seem the most rational part of it.
The reaction of Bill Donahue to Mr. Myers is not about Mr. Myers refusing to believe in the Eucharist as the real presence of Jesus Christ. It is about his disrespect toward those who hold this belief. As a professor at a University his demeanor should be professional and respectful of others. If Catholics believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, is it professional and respectful to hurl insults and profanities toward them about beliefs they hold to be sacred?
Mr. Myers is displaying a seriously offensive attitude of religious intolerance and using his position at the University as a platform for this bigotry.
If the University has any sense at all it will realize the behavior of Mr. Myers has been destructive to the credibility of the University as a respectful institution and it will feel the need to repair the damage Mr. Myers has done to its reputation.
Whether or not Mr. Myers agrees with the Catholic Church about the real presence is irrelevent.
I am shocked at the level of disrespect that has been displayed in these postings by commenters. The insensitivity revealed here is huge and I hope it is not an accurate representation of the University itself.
Carl from Atlantic City,
Can we now expect the Catholic church to start supporting gay rights ? After all the continued opposition of the Church to gay marriage is a continued source of hurt to gay people. Since you have stated you do not want to hurt people, you clearly would not be a member of a church that does exactly that. I do trust it will be soon, as I would kind of like to know if you are just silly, or silly and hypocritical.
“It is about his disrespect toward those who hold this belief. As a professor at a University his demeanor should be professional and respectful of others. If Catholics believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, is it professional and respectful to hurl insults and profanities toward them about beliefs they hold to be sacred?”
Why should belief that a wafer becomes the body of Christ be respected ? It is an idiotic belief, that anyone with even the most basic of science educations will know is false.
I doubt you treat all beliefs with equal respect Priscilla. In fact I would be amazed if you do. So cut out the false demand for respect, it just makes you look dishonest.
“Huh ?
Do you really mean that ? Only it is so breath-takingly stupid it really is incredible to think you did.
Were it necessary it would be quite possible to establish a chain of evidence that shows the ashes in a urn really are are ashes of a particular person.
Can you do the same with a consecrated wafer ? Can you actually provide evidence that it really has become the body of Christ ? ”
OK, here’s a test. Take your mother, burn her up, and then put her back together again.
Do you understand what the process of combustion does?
The chain of evidence could at best prove that the body of the woman who once was your mother has now been chemically altered into a completely new substance, one that has absolutely zero relation to the living woman other than that her rotting body was the fuel for the fire.
Very simply: this new substance bears as much physical relationship to the body of your living mother as does a toaster, a star, an amoeba, or a pile of dog shit.
You attach meaning to it because you choose to.
Just as Catholics (and more importantly, many protestants, who don’t believe in transubstantiation) choose to memorialize their dead loved one through a piece of bread.
You can’t honestly claim that one act is rational and that the other one isn’t. So which is it?
“Why should belief that a wafer becomes the body of Christ be respected ? It is an idiotic belief, that anyone with even the most basic of science educations will know is false.”
Matt: Back to the kiddie pool for you. Come back when you evolve some flippers so you can swim.
It is sad to see a community that presumes to have God’s given truth on morality and ethics attack the free speech rights of others it someone is critical of their superstitions.
I’m just glad that the Catholic Church no longer has the secular authority to imprison, torture, and murder people.
Keep up the good fight PZ!
“Matt: Back to the kiddie pool for you. Come back when you evolve some flippers so you can swim.”
Ah Beep, I see you have finally reached the depths of your intellectual paucity.
Hi beep. Joe Atheist need free speech to fight death threats and such. As a peace loving chap, he prefers words to violence.
****
Perhaps the Internet will take note of crackergate. It holds lulzy promise.
My proposal to the Anonymous powers-that-be: the Internets make the crackers an offer they can’t refuse. To wit:
1. No bad stuff happens to that FL kid or Myers. No accidents. No hassles. No bad luck. It rains, they have an umbrella handy. Capiche?
2. If anything unfortunate befalls Myers or the kid, some cracker gets it. Each and every time. Someone cuts ’em off in traffic, a cracker dies. Painful hangnail, cracker takes a dirt nap. House pre-empted by American Idol, sayonara Mr. Cracker.
The Internets, being everywhere, can strike without warning and at anytime. The ‘licks can hire all the ninja nuns they want.
The Tubes of Web cannot be stopped.
Just over from Jesse…
Hang in. !!
Got to wondering if:
you transubstantiated a bit of dry biscuit to
say, Alabama….would it be a cracker’s cracker?
And if…then?
The possibilities, the potentialities are mind-boggling.
Matt,
First of all, if we’re actually going to have a discussion, let’s try to be civil and not beat each other over the head with name-calling instead of genuine point-counterpoint. That’s reasonable, right?
First of all, there is a difference between the Church’s teaching ‘offending you’ and my physical desecration of something you hold sacred–like a helpless young gay kid being mistreated at the hands of bigots. I think its totally reasonable to disagree and completely understandable for Myers to think we’re out of minds. It’s the proactive injury of Eucharistic desecration that I am objecting to.
As to your point about gay rights, I actually agree. I think the Church’s heavy-handed involvement in this issue is completely inappropriate. I don’t see any substantial or reasonable argument against civil equality for gays and straights, though I defend the Church’s right to teach to its voluntary membership on the nature and function of sexuality. But the truth is, gays run no more aground of Catholic teaching on sex than the vast majority straights in modern American society.
does this comment thread break a record?
given the historical nature of this thread, i want to be fully on the record here.
[UPDATE: in the time it’s taken me to compose my comment, the original thread passed the tipping point, so i don’t get bragging rights to posting comment number 1101, but hey, maybe i’ll hit 666 in the encore!]
i’m a sporadic but consistent reader and sometimes commenter here, so when i read the post over at Sadly, No! about the cracker blowback (oh, man, you got some on my clean shorts!), i rushed right over to see what professor myers has done now to cause catholic, and other christianist, heads to explode.
as i read all the background material here and elsewhere, i kept thinking about the story sally quinn told about how she “took communion” at tim russert’s funeral service, despite not being catholic AND a “founder” of the “on faith” blog published by newsweek and the washington post, a position which apparently erroneously presupposes that she would speak, write and behave in an informed way with regard to traditions of the various religions.
it turns out that the response to quinn’s faux pas by donahue (http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1453) does not reflect his current sense of outrage. he does not even demand that sally quinn apologize, much less lose her job or her blogger duties at “on faith.”
this is simply an excuse to go after professor myers.
donahue and the rest of the hysterics should take a deep breath and review the long honored use of satire.
as part of my review of background materials here, i also went over to youtube and reviewed some of the blasphemy challenge videos. egads! there’s bunches of them! and not a peep about it at the catholic league website (at least as far as i can determine by googling “catholic league statement blasphemy challenge youtube” — i’ve clicked through to their site too many times today already and i’m not willing to contribute to their site traffic and so enable them to make the false equivalency that they’re getting traffic ’cause they’re so awesome), much less a demand that youtube remove all the pointed challenges to catholicism.
going after professor myers on this is simply a ploy to get their base to donate cash to “the cause,” and if it has the added benefit of sidelining someone whose words they fear, so much the better.
fortunately, we are not yet quite that far gone, but good for donahue and the catholic league for at least trying to turn their otherwise embarrassing behavior into what they hope to be an enriching experience! (“hey, you hungry people, get out of here, this money is to buy ornaments for the baby jesus, and maybe a jacuzzi for the annointed, you’ll get something to eat if god wills it.”)
i sent a politely worded email to president bruininks advocating on behalf of professor myers.
there are plenty of left, democratic, progressive blogs whose comment threads are deeply embarrassing and shocking. my response is usually to simply read the posts and not bother reading the comments because they contribute nothing useful to the conversation. i stop visiting a blog altogether if i get a sense that the poster in any way encourages dialogue rendolent of ignorance.
sure, hijinks ensue sometimes in pharyngula comment threads, as with the thread to the original cracker post, but generally the threads, as the posts, are highly entertaining, LITERATE, and enlightening.
(one memorable and lengthy thread involved geology puns which left me gasping for breath and in awe of the knowledge base of the community here)
thank you, professor myers, for your willingness to stand up front to point out and refute the dangerous ignorance which too many religious advocates work hard every day to increase.
to close, i will just say that the catholic league and bill donahue are proof positive that god does not exist because no all-powerful, all-knowing and vengeful god would tolerate being hijacked by a mere mortal.
“NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
The chain of evidence could at best prove that the body of the woman who once was your mother has now been chemically altered into a completely new substance, one that has absolutely zero relation to the living woman other than that her rotting body was the fuel for the fire.
Are you telling me alchemy is real?!
“Are you telling me alchemy is real?!”
Yeah, here’s the forumla.
Fuel + Oxygen –> Heat + Water + Carbon dioxide
Shh, don’t tell anyone.
Dear Matt,
Calling BEEP stupid diminishes you and your argument.
Regarding what I think in the basic point, It does not really matter if the ashes are really human or not, or if the wafer is not a symbolic Christ to a non-believer. It does not matter if the ashes were given or taken. It does not matter if the host was given or not. These all are incidental to the main argument. The crux of the matter is respect or lack of respect for something a person holds dear, or important, or sacred.
Catholics hold the beliefs in the importance and sacredness of the host that have already been mentioned. If you had ashes of your mother on the mantle in your house, who would I be to make fun of that? Regardless of the chemical nature of the ashes, the ashes would be important to YOU. I might think your reasons for holding those ashes as a repository of value might be foolish and superstitious. But it would not be my place to destroy your beliefs in a mean spirit. It is the same with the host. If Catholics find the host sacred, who are many of you to make scurrilous fun of the that?
As a former Catholic, I can appreciate anti-Catholic satire and humor (Tom Lehrer) as well as anyone. It is the mean spiritedness and coarseness, especially on a list of supposedly well-educated science students and teachers, that is dismaying. Calling people “fuckwits” and engaging in vicious vituperation reflects a poverty of mind and thinking. This brings me to my final point. To those of you who have responded so cavalierly and heartlessly to this issue;
What are you afraid of?
On that “Mass supplies” website you can order “gluten-free” communion wafers. But since the wafer turns into the flesh of Christ there won’t be any problem with gluten! Somebody should complain to the Pope; that supply company is conning poor gluten-intolerant Catholics.
If somebody DID have a problem with gluten intolerance it would prove that the wafer DOES NOT turn into the body of Christ. Thank God that will never happen — it would destroy the whole basis of Christianity. Phew!!
To both “Joe Atheist” and “Carl from Atlantic City” (wow, an atheist and a Catholic – together!):
The point is not that the fellow who walked out with the communion cracker wasn’t rude. He was. What was disturbing was the over-reaction of Donahue (no surprise there) and the church’s leaders. If they had basically responded, “that was a rude thing to do and we’d appreciate it in the future if people didn’t do that,” there wouldn’t be a problem from a typical atheist’s POV. But the reaction was vastly disproportionate to the “crime”. It is not a “profound injury”, it was simply rude. Being rude is not grounds for death threats and calls for a college professor to be fired.
There are people – the FLDS church comes to mind – who think that women exposing their ankles is a profound injury and provocation. But it is not attendant on another citizen of a secular society to acquiesce to demands that all women, even those who are not FLDS, to wear floor length dresses just because the sight of a female leg causes them discomfort.
Your rules of religious comportment are only applicable TO YOU as followers of that religion. If the student, or PZ, were Catholics, then it would be within the rights of the Church to excommunicate them or otherwise punish them as the Church sees fit. (So long as they don’t violate secular laws – sorry, no iron maidens or thumbscrews.)
If we follow your logic, we as a society would have to refrain from ANY activity in public that offends ANY given set of religious beliefs, whether we subscribe to them or not. Can you imagine a society where no one could do anything that offends anyone? We can’t play favorites and refrain from offending Catholics but are free to offend Muslims, FLDSers or worshipers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. What it seems to me here is that the Catholics want special treatment because, well, because they are Catholics.
The dynamics of a peaceful civilized society are damaged not by rudeness, but by intolerance. PZ hasn’t made calls for Catholics to be thrown out of their jobs or threatened them with death. That is a crucial difference you don’t seem to understand. To live in a secular society where all cisitzens are free to believe in any religion they wish means that some of them are going to believe in things you find offensive. Too bad. That’s the price we pay for religious freedom, and I think the benefits are worth the price.
Close, but not quite.
The crux of the matter is the inappropriate sense of entitlement to respect that many believers seem to feel. People may give respect. But one cannot demand it.
What are you afraid of?
Theocracy, frothing religious insanity, anti-science campaigns, death threats over baked goods, vicious and evil attempts to get students expelled and professors fired for exercising their First Amendment rights.
The disrespect for crazy beliefs on display here came AFTER the death threats, etc.
“The crux of the matter is the inappropriate sense of entitlement to respect that many believers seem to feel. People may give respect. But one cannot demand it.”
Who decides who’s entitled?
You?
sociopath |ˈsōsēōˌpaθ|
noun
a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.
just to clear something up…
according to catholics, he did not steal a cracker. he stole the body of christ. priests have the ability to turn the cracker not into a symbol of the body of christ, but into an actual piece of the body of christ.
i know that sounds crazy. maybe because it is. but that’s the entire reason why the protestant revolution happened. regular, sane people back in the freaking 1500s realized that the cracker probably wasn’t actually part of christ’s body. lutherans took it upon themselves to say that the cracker “symbolized” the body of christ instead of actually being the body of christ. catholics, even today, insist that a priest has the ability to actually turn a cracker into a real piece of christ… it’s as crazy now as it was back then.
and that is what we’ve been fighting over for the past 500 years.
“just to clear something up…
according to catholics, he did not steal a cracker. he stole the body of christ. priests have the ability to turn the cracker not into a symbol of the body of christ, but into an actual piece of the body of christ.
i know that sounds crazy. maybe because it is. but that’s the entire reason why the protestant revolution happened. regular, sane people back in the freaking 1500s realized that the cracker probably wasn’t actually part of christ’s body. lutherans took it upon themselves to say that the cracker “symbolized” the body of christ instead of actually being the body of christ. catholics, even today, insist that a priest has the ability to actually turn a cracker into a real piece of christ… it’s as crazy now as it was back then.
and that is what we’ve been fighting over for the past 500 years.”
How many minutes of study and copy and pasting did it take for you to come up with this completely and woefully inaccurate survey?
One last thing, if I might.
This is actually off the central topic of mutual-respect for traditions that aren’t your own as fundamental to a healthy, functioning, civil society, but the repeated failure on the part of the nay-sayers here to acknowledge the distinction between physical and spiritual change is troubling me.
No one is claiming that the host undergoes any sort of alteration to its chemical or physical properties as a result of transubstantiation– that would be absurd. We’re talking about the ‘Platonic form’ of thing– its essence– all of its characteristics that cannot be measured scientifically. ‘How convenient’ many of you are no doubt saying, and if your experience of existence is limited only to what you can quantify then I understand that talking about the spiritual properties of something is entirely nonsense language to you. But there are those of us who engage the universe on multiple, complicated, sometime contradictory levels and who aren’t limited to an understanding of a thing on the basis of its measurable properties alone. Whether or not the host has gluten it, for goodness sake, is obviously beside the point. So the ongoing discussion about ashes, urns, alchemy and communion has missed the point entirely.
sociopath |ˈsōsēōˌpaθ|
noun
a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.
Like threatening to murder someone over a fucking biscuit?
So you’d have no problem distinguishing a consecrated host from an unconsecrated one based on its spiritual properties?
That’s fine with me. Just as long as you’re using ‘spiritual’ to describe some meaningful aspect of the universe as opposed to ‘stuff I make up and can’t be ascribed a truth value because I’ve defined it so’. Because if its the latter, you’re saying nothing, no matter how hard you wave your hands.
Joe Max,
“To live in a secular society where all cisitzens are free to believe in any religion they wish means that some of them are going to believe in things you find offensive. Too bad. That’s the price we pay for religious freedom, and I think the benefits are worth the price.”
Point taken and largely agreed with. That anyone of any faith should impose on any other free person in a free society values that reflect their personal faith (or lack of) tradition I find extremely offensive. Here’s the rub in this case, though. We’re not talking about exposed ankles. We’re talking about a person IN A CATHOLIC CHURCH– not out in the world at large– in the midst of our sacred ritual committing an act that is extremely painful for and offensive to us with the materials of our own tradition. If Myers smuggles out the Eucharist from our own private space– our community’s sacred property and profanes it, that’s very different than a FLDS member getting all pissy about an exposed leg. That’s a proactive, premeditiated act of injury that one can only achieve by forcibly entering and violating the sacred space of our community. That’s not us overreacting to something that’s happening in the community at large [as is the case, as I have said, with the gay-marriage issue, in which I condemn the Church’s overreach].
Biscuit means ‘twice baked’… which if four times ‘half-baked’. Does this mean four blessed crackers make a biscuit.
Catholics are cannibals!!!
Atheism is a psychological condition, not a rational conclusion.
The fact that the universe is comprehensible is proof that a higher intelligence is behind the cosmos.If you pound your fists on a keyboard and type a strings of random letter arrangements it would be incomprehensible. You can comprehend what you read this instant because you understand the “code” we call “English Language”. In order to comprehend the universe you need high degrees in mathematics to begin to comprehend its workings. The DNA code is comprehensible.
Atheism is a waste of existence, simply because the purpose of human existence is to know God–our Creator. In the natural order, the law of communion governs all living things. In order to live you must eat. No food means no life.
Living things are dependent upon nourishment from without. Humans are both body and spirit. Jesus Christ spoke about the food which leads to eternal life: “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you will not have life in you”
What you mock and disparage today will some day come to haunt you… Just watch this video:
As a human being I’m happy to respect the customs and rituals of others, just as a general rule of thumb.
It’s the death threats and the threat to get PZ Myers fired that rankle. That’s where my respect vanishes and my heart felt disrespect begins.
When I’m told I’m wrong or sociopathic for expressing my disrespect in an Internet forum where such opinions are often discussed and debated, my disrespect seems to increase.
When the sense of disrespect becomes strong enough, people generally will say things to let you know that they do not respect you.
I’m off to eat a cracker or two, violently.
Brownian,
“So you’d have no problem distinguishing a consecrated host from an unconsecrated one based on its spiritual properties?”
I’m not sure how else a person could distinguish them– the Church certainly doesn’t claim a chemical distinction. I think anyone expecting that the host is going to turn green and be emblazened with ‘Christ was here’ is a nut. But my experience of the Eucharist– of that spiritual distinction– has been profound and life-altering.
“That’s fine with me. Just as long as you’re using ‘spiritual’ to describe some meaningful aspect of the universe as opposed to ‘stuff I make up and can’t be ascribed a truth value because I’ve defined it so’. Because if its the latter, you’re saying nothing, no matter how hard you wave your hands.”
It’s an extremely meaningful aspect of the universe to me. I’m not sure what I’d gain by ‘stuff I make up and can’t [ascribe to a truth value]’.
and the systematic attempt to sow fear in all members of that population.
OK, I’ll accept that definition of hate crime.
However, if that’s the reason, then the onus should be on the prosecution to PROVE beyond a reasonable doubt that the perpetrator was systematically attempting to sow fear in all members of that population. If that proof can be made, then perhaps there is ground for different sentencing.
That onus of proof is much greater than “the perp said he wanted to beat up a fag.”
I don’t believe, nor have I seen evidence for, the idea that the overwhelming majority of *-bashings have anything to do with an overarching attempt to instill fear in an identifiable population. Indeed, it seems that most of the *-bashings are committed by jackasses with too much free time on their hands who pick on someone because it is convenient to do so.
Carl, you can distinguish a consecrated host from one not yet consecrated? Wow! I see a Nobel Prize in your future.
Atheism is a psychological condition, not a rational conclusion.
Wrong. THEISM is a PSYCHOTIC condition, not a rational conclusion, without a shred of evidence to back it up.
And threatening non-believers with eternal torture because we find no compelling evidence to subscribe to your fairy tales will not convince us of their truth. In fact, that egregious overreaction on the part of your deity to his creatures using their (supposedly God-given) intelligence to think for themselves, is a big reason why I began to reject your mythology in the first place.
FAIL.
“It’s the death threats and the threat to get PZ Myers fired that rankle. That’s where my respect vanishes and my heart felt disrespect begins.”
To use childish behavior as an excuse to act childishly is a pretty piss-poor rationale.
Has the pope called down vengeance on the cracker-defiler?
Does Bill Donohue have any actual relation to the Catholic Church? No, of course not. He’s just a loudmouth.
The level of ignorance here is astonishing.
Those saying PZ is “sick” are wrong.
He just isn’t very smart.
What a monstrous thread. Folks, don’t get so worked up over the work of a mediocre thinker. My first visit to the place, and reading his work shows the guy just ain’t worth it.
PZ’s best posts don’t reach the below-average mark.
“As a human being I’m happy to respect the customs and rituals of others, just as a general rule of thumb.”
…Good to hear.
“It’s the death threats and the threat to get PZ Myers fired that rankle. That’s where my respect vanishes and my heart felt disrespect begins. When I’m told I’m wrong or sociopathic for expressing my disrespect in an Internet forum where such opinions are often discussed and debated, my disrespect seems to increase. When the sense of disrespect becomes strong enough, people generally will say things to let you know that they do not respect you.”
…Understandable. No reasonable Christian could ever threaten the life or well-being of another person. In fact, when met with physical harm we are commanded to ‘turn the other cheek’. A person can call themselves whatever they like but if they do not conform to the espoused bedrock-philosophy of the group with which they identify, they are not the thing they claim to be, no matter how much they believe they are. Christianity ain’t easy and lots of times– particularly when we are hurt– and I speak from experience on this – we screw it up. So I don’t blame you for being offended. Just remember, we’re a big tent and lots of us are reasonable people.
“I’m off to eat a cracker or two, violently.”
…Not constructive to dialogue, but I suppose I’ll just get that other cheek primed.
beep, where is the Joe Catholic I described? His silence is deafening. It’s his silence that incriminates all Catholics.
“And threatening non-believers with eternal torture because we find no compelling evidence to subscribe to your fairy tales will not convince us of their truth. In fact, that egregious overreaction on the part of your deity to his creatures using their (supposedly God-given) intelligence to think for themselves, is a big reason why I began to reject your mythology in the first place.”
Well, since the Catholic Church doesn’t teach that non-believers are to be subjected to everlasting hellfire, your reason for rejecting the Catholic mythology is moot.
Dr. Benway,
Who are you directing your disrespect toward? Catholics? Or only toward those persons who have personally threatened Mr. Mears? Your comments about violently receiving the Eucharist seem to be directed toward the Catholic Community since you would be directly offending them as a whole by your behavior and comments.
Dr. Benway:
As a Catholic, I’m happy to step into your Interzone:
Hi, Beep here. Listen, the consecrated host is special to us and we’d appreciate it if you respect that. Don’t take communion if you’re not Catholic. And if you are Catholic, please follow the ritual.
If you don’t show respect during Mass that’s going to cause some upset. But I’m in favor of trying to understand why a person might say or do something disrespectful. I’m not in favor of using threats or force to scare people into pretending a respect they don’t feel.
The death threats against that kid in FL and against Dr. Myers are wrong. Jesus would never advocate for that kind of behavior.
As an American, I appreciate the First Amendment. Trying to get PZ Myers fired for expressing an opinion in his own blog isn’t right.
Sincerely,
Beep
And I mean it.
However, the same standard should be applied to all, believer and non-believer alike.
I read nearly every comment in the last post (it’s been a slow day), and honestly, I’ve never seen anything quite so demented, hysterical, underhanded and insubstantial as the reaction of catholics the world over to a man with a beard and a web page telling it like it is.
Yet they continue with their outraged persecution complex, never having even an inkling that they’re doing nothing but fuel the fire.
May this incident be blown ever further out of proportion until catholics are rightly ashamed to admit their faith. It’s a monstrous nugget of comedy gold, the biggest I’ve ever seen in these ‘ere mountains.
I’m a Catholic woman convert with a science background who happened upon this discussion. I was raised to believe that all thoughts, beliefs, and hypotheses were to be scrutinized and certainly not belittled. To a Catholic the belief of Transubstantiation is core to our faith. This belief started at the beginning of Christianity with Jesus at the Last Supper. We believe that through the Priest, the host (not cracker) is changed through divine means (Consecration) to the flesh of Jesus. There is nothing worse to a Catholic than to desecrate a Consecrated host for you are violating Jesus himself. There is great power in a Consecrated host this is why Satanists try to take these from our churches and why we are so cautious about anyone doing this. This is not something to trivialize. To make fun of someone because of their different thoughts or beliefs is certainly not something I would expect out of the science community and certainly not out of an educator.
Gabrielle, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
PZ, it may be a “cracker” to you, but to religious people, it represents something very sacred. I am an atheist, but I was raised Catholic and know full well the importance of the Eucharist in the Catholic church. So do you! You lost me when you threatened to deface something that other people revere. There is plenty of room on the planet for all of us, it is important to respect the beliefs of others whether you share them or not, and there are far greater challenges facing us as human beings than this petty little tempest. Your simple-minded threats only exacerbated the situation. Shame on you.
“Carl, you can distinguish a consecrated host from one not yet consecrated? Wow! I see a Nobel Prize in your future.”
If I told you that I could distinguish between them, would you believe me? Would I just be a nut? Would it matter? Is it at all pertinent to our discussion of the necessity for mutual-respect for differing beliefs in a reasonable, peaceful society?
It would look good on my resume. What would I be up for? Peace? Physiology and Medicine? I doubt highly that the good folks in Oslo are the ‘engage the universe in multiple, complicated, sometimes contradictory fashion’ type anyhow.
it is important to respect the beliefs of others whether you share them or not
No, no it is not. That’s the entire everloving point.
it is important to respect the beliefs of others whether you share them or not
No, no it is not. That’s the entire everloving point.
***
So who decides who gets to believe what?
Thanks, beep, for opposing the threats to kill that FL kid or to get PZ fired.
People like Donahue aren’t going to listen to atheists. But they’ll listen to a fellow Catholic. The more Catholics who speak out against the extreme reaction to that FL kid’s rude behavior, the better.
That’s a slippery frickin’ slope, StuV. Millions of European Jews ‘believed’ their lives were sacred and, of course, the Nazis disagreed and didn’t feel particularly compelled to respect that belief.
“Thanks, beep, for opposing the threats to kill that FL kid or to get PZ fired.
People like Donahue aren’t going to listen to atheists. But they’ll listen to a fellow Catholic. The more Catholics who speak out against the extreme reaction to that FL kid’s rude behavior, the better.”
And the more atheists who condemn PZ Meyers ignorant, baiting hate speech and FL kid’s wanton act of disrespect will do much to bring peace and order to the universe.
I’m sure that’ll happen soon.
*Crickets*
Beep: everyone is free to believe whatever the hell they want. The entire point is that I am not obligated to respect those beliefs.
But you knew that, and are just trolling now.
Hi beep.
Beliefs come in three flavors: yours, mine, and ours.
You decide what goes in the “yours” category. I decide what goes in “mine.” If I propose some claim about the world for the “ours” set, I extend to you the right to double-check what I say. I expect you to return the favor.
Social policies ought to rest upon facts in the “ours” set.
Well, since the Catholic Church doesn’t teach that non-believers are to be subjected to everlasting hellfire, your reason for rejecting the Catholic mythology is moot.
That’s good to know. So the Dantean First Circle for enightened pagans is still official Church doctrine? I thought that was only for distinguished philosophers and savants, though. PZ Myers might make it there, but an ordinary schlub like me is probably not famous enough.
All kidding aside, I thought all the stuff about a “lake of fire” and “wailing and gnashing of teeth” was pretty bedrock scriptural belief for all Christians, including Catholics. So what kind of deal do we hardcore unbelievers get?
“Beep: everyone is free to believe whatever the hell they want. The entire point is that I am not obligated to respect those beliefs.
But you knew that, and are just trolling now.”
Your accusing me of trolling leads me to believe that you’re getting backed into a corner. I’ll push a little harder.
Let’s define our terms.
Respect: Second Definition from my onboard apple dictionary.
• due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others : respect for human rights.
So, which noun (feelings, wishes, rights, traditions) do you deny the need to respect?
All of them?
Because at the moment your statement above
“everyone is free to believe whatever the hell they want” stands in total contradiction to the completing statement:
“The entire point is that I am not obligated to respect those beliefs.”
beep, you must appreciate the sequence of events:
1. A boy disrespected the Mass.
2. Some Catholics over-reacted and threatened to make the boy’s life miserable and even threatened to hurt him bodily.
3. PZ said, effectively, “You’re gonna kill that boy? Well two can play that game: I’m gonna kill yer cracker! Hahaha!”
His response was humerous and harmless.
Matt:
“Lake of fire” and “wailing and gnashing of teeth” was pretty bedrock scriptural belief for all Christians, including Catholics. So what kind of deal do we hardcore unbelievers get?”
As best has been explained to me and from what I’ve read, Hell is only a reality for those to whom the truth of Christ has been revealed, and who make a conscious decision to reject what they know to be true.
What happens to those souls? Eternal separation from God, which feels shitty for ever.
That’s a slippery frickin’ slope, StuV. Millions of European Jews ‘believed’ their lives were sacred and, of course, the Nazis disagreed and didn’t feel particularly compelled to respect that belief.
That is the dumbest Godwin yet. Congratulations, moron.
I admire your intellectual rigor and random biological ejaculations.
This is why the University of Minnesota, Morris is one of the most esteemed academic institutions in the world.
Carl from AC: Is it at all pertinent to our discussion of the necessity for mutual-respect for differing beliefs in a reasonable, peaceful society?
So is calling Islam a crock of shit (as you did in #537) part of your mutual-respect for differing beliefs?
And how is a wafer being transformed into the Body of Christ (or any other New Testament miracle) any less of a crock of shit than anything in the Koran?
Or are we into special pleading territory here yet?
And while we’re on #537 how can you possibly equate torturing living animals or harming people to treating a wafer with disrespect?
If anything is a threat to civilised peaceful society, it’s the idea that religious symbols are more important than human beings.
Dr. Benway:
“beep, you must appreciate the sequence of events:
1. A boy disrespected the Mass.
2. Some Catholics over-reacted and threatened to make the boy’s life miserable and even threatened to hurt him bodily.
3. PZ said, effectively, “You’re gonna kill that boy? Well two can play that game: I’m gonna kill yer cracker! Hahaha!”
His response was humerous and harmless.”
You have to understand that I am personally angry over the kid who stole the wafer, and that I was pretty pissed by PZs tasteless (ho ho ho) and really crassly insensitive rebuke of those who believe in the “cracker.”
PZ was neither insightful, witty, or humerous, just crude and cruel.
Sorry.
We can still go fuck a mugwamp if you like sometime, but let’s leave religion out of it.
In honor of George Carlin,
“The new nabisco host, with garlic jesus, sesame jesus and stoneground cinniman jesus”.
The religious nuts need to go on a serious cracker diet.
Excuse me Dr. Benway but as a practicing Catholic who holds the Eucharist as the source and summit of the Christian life, I have not threatened anyone nor do I condone such behavior, but I am deeply offended by these remarks which I do not find to be humorous or harmless but incredibly insensitive toward Catholics!
“Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers?” Myers continued by saying, “if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web.”
This is extremely hateful language by Mr. Mears and I am offended.
Carl from Atlantaic City pined @564:
It’s up to you to provide something more than an assertion that there are any properties that cannot be measured scientifically. As you’ve been asked before, you need to demonstrate some reliable means of selecting consecrated wafers from a pile also containing unconsecrated ones. I don’t think you can do that, and neither does the invisible dragon in my garage.
I don’t really care what religious rituals you want to do, but don’t expect any automatic respect for them. Contrary to what some comments on this thread have claimed, I’ve never seen any signs or documents in any of the Catholic churches I’ve visited explaining any of the so called obvious rules surrounding communion.
And since several have tried the dead mother approach here, Beep being the latest, let me once again state that there is nothing you can do to desecrate the remains of my dead loved ones. I do not attach any special significance whatsoever to them.
[i]That’s good to know. So the Dantean First Circle for enightened pagans is still official Church doctrine? I thought that was only for distinguished philosophers and savants, though. PZ Myers might make it there, but an ordinary schlub like me is probably not famous enough.
All kidding aside, I thought all the stuff about a “lake of fire” and “wailing and gnashing of teeth” was pretty bedrock scriptural belief for all Christians, including Catholics. So what kind of deal do we hardcore unbelievers get? [/i]
Dante’s poetic depiction of the afterlife has nothing to do with Church doctrine. Never did. His circles of hell are his own invention, however popularly engrained in the imagination of the Christian world.
The answer to your question is extremely complicated and I can point you to a number of online sources for an extended answer if you like, but here’s the truncated version: God judges each individual perfectly in the context of their own lives, experiences, knowledge and moment in history. We don’t tend to advertise it but the Church holds that unbelievers CAN be saved outside of the Church. The more you understand the more you are expected to bring your will into union with the will of God. But the law of God is written on the human heart first and foremost and the Godly life is possible even without immediate knowledge of Christ. So pigmees and even atheists can be saved. It all depends upon their choices in life and encounter with Christ at the hour of Judgement. [Someone with an advanced degree in Theology feel free to ammend or correct me here.]
Hell is only a reality for those to whom the truth of Christ has been revealed, and who make a conscious decision to reject what they know to be true.
So if you have heard the fable all your life, but find it an affront to logic and common sense, and without the least bit of independent historical evidence to back it up, and cannot in good conscience accept Pascal’s wager and pretend to believe something which you consider absurd, you get to spend eternity strolling about the Elysian Fields with Plato, Aristotle, Avicenna, Saladdin and assorted Neanderthals and Australopithecines? Cool. I guess it beats the imagined afterlife of the fundies, which they so delight in. But I thought part of the fun of Heaven was getting to watch the unbelievers turn on a spit for all time.
Of course it would matter.
Humans have tried to study a number of supernatural claims under conditions that rule-out fraud or self-deception. So far, we’ve learned a few things about brain idiosyncracies that can lead to unusual feeling states, illusions, false memories, and beliefs. But we’ve learned nothing about any non-physical realm of spiritual beings or forces.
If you can tell the difference between a consecrated host and one not yet consecrated soley through some inner, spiritual sense, you may win the world for Christ.
“So if you have heard the fable all your life, but find it an affront to logic and common sense, and without the least bit of independent historical evidence to back it up, and cannot in good conscience accept Pascal’s wager and pretend to believe something which you consider absurd, you get to spend eternity strolling about the Elysian Fields with Plato, Aristotle, Avicenna, Saladdin and assorted Neanderthals and Australopithecines? Cool. I guess it beats the imagined afterlife of the fundies, which they so delight in. But I thought part of the fun of Heaven was getting to watch the unbelievers turn on a spit for all time.”
I think it comes down to: if you’re a total arrogant, ignorant dick about everything, you might get roasted. Not sure though.
Pricilla @ #604 “Excuse me Dr. Benway but as a practicing Catholic who holds the Eucharist as the source and summit of the Christian life, I have not threatened anyone nor do I condone such behavior, but I am deeply offended by these remarks which I do not find to be humorous or harmless but incredibly insensitive toward Catholics!…This is extremely hateful language by Mr. Mears and I am offended. “
And that’s entirely your right in a free society and your offence is duly noted.
However, as America is a free society, it’s also Prof Myers’s right to express his opinion about religion – yours or anyone else’s. Though your mileage no doubt varies, simple offence does not hate speech make.
Living in a free society means that you will hear opinions that will offend you. I find most Catholic doctrine on contraception, abortion and homosexually deeply offensive. However, I don’t see there being much chance of the Catholic Church respecting my sensibilities in the way that you seem to demand us to respect yours.
[i] So is calling Islam a crock of shit (as you did in #537) part of your mutual-respect for differing beliefs?
And how is a wafer being transformed into the Body of Christ (or any other New Testament miracle) any less of a crock of shit than anything in the Koran?
Or are we into special pleading territory here yet?
And while we’re on #537 how can you possibly equate torturing living animals or harming people to treating a wafer with disrespect?
If anything is a threat to civilised peaceful society, it’s the idea that religious symbols are more important than human beings. [/i]
NC Paul,
Go back and read all my posts. I never said we couldn’t disagree and debate and hold differing views of each others beliefs. I have said REPEATEDLY throughout this conversation that I can entirely see why people think we Catholics are full of sh*t and have no problems with that. And I explicitly said in #537 that despite my feelings about Islam I respect their faith in that I would NEVER dream of desecrating what they hold sacred. When we’re talking about Myers gleefully, intentionally profaning what is sacred to me and my objection not to his views but to his intended actions, yes, that is exactly what I mean by mutual respect for differing beliefs. I don’t have the time or inclination to get into a theological debate on Catholicism and Islam.
As to the rest of your question, the point is simply this: everyone holds something sacred and anyone can profane what anyone else holds sacred. To intentionally hurt anyone by mistreating what is held sacred– animate or inanimate– is destructive and uncivil and so undesirable in a healthy society. To me the Eucharist is not a religious symbol– it is God himself embodied. You think that’s nuts, more power to you. But it’s no less important to me (and many others) than your own family is to you and we all have to treat with a certain amount of respect those things held sacred by the other. That’s all I was saying.
This is extremely hateful language by Mr. Mears and I am offended.
What the hell is it with you kooks unable to spell? Myers. It’s not hard.
Oh, about your being offended: you’re more then welcome to be offended. We are more then welcome to not give a crap that you are.
While I appreciate the ecumenicalism, universalism, and apokatastasis, I’m pretty sure that the Church holds no such thing.
If you doubt this is possible, how is it there are PYGMIES + DWARFS?
Sorry, little joke there.
I’m an atheist: all my life.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Myers. This is disgusting. Hitchens was right: “Those who persecute religion are to be avoided at all costs. Antigone taught us to trust the instinct that is revolted by desecration.”
(“Letters To A Young Contrarian”, 2001, p. 65)
You’re as wrong as you can be.
I just cannot resist:
There are Jews in the world.
There are Buddhists.
There are Hindus and Mormons, and then
There are those that follow Mohammed, but
I’ve never been one of them.
I’m a Roman Catholic,
And have been since before I was born,
And the one thing they say about Catholics is:
They’ll take you as soon as you’re warm.
You don’t have to be a six-footer.
You don’t have to have a great brain.
You don’t have to have any clothes on. You’re
A Catholic the moment Dad came,
Because
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.
CHILDREN:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.
GIRL:
Let the heathen spill theirs
On the dusty ground.
God shall make them pay for
Each sperm that can’t be found.
CHILDREN:
Every sperm is wanted.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.
MUM:
Hindu, Taoist, Mormon,
Spill theirs just anywhere,
But God loves those who treat their
Semen with more care.
MEN:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
WOMEN:
If a sperm is wasted,…
CHILDREN:
…God get quite irate.
PRIEST:
Every sperm is sacred.
BRIDE and GROOM:
Every sperm is good.
NANNIES:
Every sperm is needed…
CARDINALS:
…In your neighbourhood!
CHILDREN:
Every sperm is useful.
Every sperm is fine.
FUNERAL CORTEGE:
God needs everybody’s.
MOURNER #1:
Mine!
MOURNER #2:
And mine!
CORPSE:
And mine!
NUN:
Let the Pagan spill theirs
O’er mountain, hill, and plain.
HOLY STATUES:
God shall strike them down for
Each sperm that’s spilt in vain.
EVERYONE:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite iraaaaaate!
I raised the issue of Pygmies [thank you for the spelling correction there Owl] only as a demonstration of those unexposed to the western world and the Christian faith– not as a suggestion that they are somehow particularly unsuited to salvation or some such insanity that might be ascribed to me.
I have to bail, but Owlmirror the Church in fact holds that very thing. If you want me to point you to sources that affirm this, mail me: theatre_dynamics@yahoo.com and I will be happy to point you to reputable sources backing up this assertion.
Just building on my astonishment of the ignorance here:
To PZ and friends, the cracker is just a cracker.
But to many people (myself included,) the cracker is the BODY OF GOD.
And to people of particularly reactionary constitution (not me… I’m more on a academic pussy like you all), disrespecting the BODY OF GOD is worth killing over. Or at the very least, kicking some disrepectin’ bitches ass over.
Yes, this ass-kicking, although well-deserved, is probably contrary to the moral precepts put forth by the God-man whose body is supposed to be represented/housed in the cracker.
But to be so PITIFULLY STUPID to not realize that antagonizing 1 BILLION PEOPLE who believe that the cracker is actually the BODY OF GOD might stir up a hornets nest is actually the funniest bit of irony in the whole mess.
You guys rail on and on about how religion causes violence, and then are SHOCKED when you get blowback for actually antagonizing/goading 1 BILLION people into kicking your ass?
Why not go dance on a fire ant mound, or fist a beehive, or hug a baby rhino?
I think it comes down to: if you’re a total arrogant, ignorant dick about everything, you might get roasted. Not sure though.
So using your mind to think about things, and summarizing the case of the opposing side in a somewhat irreverent manner makes one a “total” arrogant, ignorant dick? Also good to know. If your faith can’t stand up to a little skepticism, it’s not very powerful, is it?
Would you summarize Muhammad’s night flight to heaven on the back of Buraq in a totally respectful manner? Or Ganesh’s auspicious effect on new enterprises? Or the “discovery” by Joseph Smith of the magic plates whereon the Book of Mormon was inscribed? I thought so.
StuV
“I just cannot resist:”
Being not funny?
Any right you claim for yourself you extend to everyone else.
If you are entitled to claim something is sacred to God without any evidence that independent parties can corroborate, then so is Osama Bin Laden.
If you are entitled to kill others in defense of objects you claim are sacred to God, so is Osama Bin Laden or any other religious leader.
Our only real defense against the madness of crazy leaders and mass killings are the rules of evidence we use in court, in science, and in solving the ordinary, daily problems we all face.
And yet, this is saying that hurting a thing, an object, something with no senses, nervous system, thoughts, feelings, intentions, no mind, no brain, no awareness is exactly the same as hurting a human being with all of those things.
This is insane.
And while you sound reasonable and intelligent, this sort of thinking is exactly what leads reasonable and intelligent people directly to do all of the evil done in the name of religion.
This is why I have come to agree with Professor Myers: I realize that people can indeed be strongly invested emotionally in their religious beliefs. But it is important and necessary to show, by all means, sometimes by reasoned argument, sometimes by mocking and scoffing, that it is the placing of beliefs as being on the same level as real things that is itself wrong: This leads to real cruelty, and real evil, against real people. And therefore religious beliefs must be constantly criticized.
Even if the truth hurts.
So, I used to go to a Catholic church which had schismed from the Roman Catholic Church (we had a gay/married/female etc. pastoral team and no priest, among other things). Instead of wafers for Communion, one of the congregation members baked this amazingly good molasses wheat bread with sunflower seeds (and personally, I always found that bread more of a spiritual experience than mass-produced cardboard wafers).
After the service, we’d take the leftover Communion bread–blessed, mind you–back for Hospitality, where people (mostly children) would descend upon it and eat the leftover “Jesus bread” along with cheese plates and brownies and so on.
Oh, the horror!
…I’ve got to bake some of that bread soon. So good.
Shocked? No.
Disappointed? Yes.
But religion is a constant source of disappointment to the rational.
I think it comes down to: if you’re a total arrogant, ignorant dick about everything, you might get roasted. Not sure though.
So using your mind to think about things, and summarizing the case of the opposing side in a somewhat irreverent manner makes one a “total” arrogant, ignorant dick?
No, not at all. But until you’ve read as much theology and philosophy as you have Darwin and PZ Meyers, I’d be a bit careful about making major proclamations about the validity of religion.
“Also good to know. If your faith can’t stand up to a little skepticism, it’s not very powerful, is it?”
The Faith is based on 4000 years of scholarship, philosophy, debate, and, yes, doubt. It shan’t be shaken by a blog. I’m as skeptical as anyone, and I guarantee you that my philosophical inquiries have taken me to places that you’d run away screaming from. So spare me your recycled skepticism. I’d rather read Voltaire than “Heathen Matt.”
“Would you summarize Muhammad’s night flight to heaven on the back of Buraq in a totally respectful manner? Or Ganesh’s auspicious effect on new enterprises? Or the “discovery” by Joseph Smith of the magic plates whereon the Book of Mormon was inscribed? I thought so.”
You don’t know me, I don’t know you. But for the record, I have great respect for Islam, having read the Koran and spent some time in the Middle East, and I’m in constant awe-filled study of Hinduism, especially it’s cycling cosmology. As for Mormonism, I find it interesting as a uniquely American religion, but I don’t find it’s history or theology very convincing.
So what did you think, exactly? Oh, you didn’t think? You projected your reactionary bullshit onto someone you don’t know?
That’s what I thought.
WHAT A BUNCH OF CANNIBALS!
1- The collage should be sued by the student.
2- The church should be disbanded for being cannibals!
3- Support freedom of expression – or we’re all doomed to religious censorship.
4- I’m off to Iran to convert to a bigoted, female/homo hating Faither terrorist religion.
5- Nuke ’em all…..
Why not go dance on a fire ant mound, or fist a beehive, or hug a baby rhino?
So, you basically just admitted that religion makes people as amoral and incapable of rational thought as “lower” animals.
I seem to recall outrage from some rightwing Christians when Muslims used this excuse for rioting over the Danish cartoons: “look what you made us do! We had no choice but to go apeshit!”
It’s said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That’s false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.
— Jacob Bronowski
Nazism is applied biology
– Rudolph Hess
As a general rule of thumb, I don’t like to offend people. But some people do need a slap. Much as it pains any of us, sometimes duty calls.
Take, for example, murderers. I might say to a murderer, “Hey asshole, don’t kill people! Fucker!” or something like that.
Take, for example, Catholics who threaten to kill a boy in FL for quietly walking back to his seat with the host in his hand and not in his mouth… That’s criminal threatening and deserving of at least a slap, if not some time in jail.
Take, for example, Catholics with a strange sense of proportion – e.g., Catholics who are more upset over jokey cracker-abuse talk on a blog than they are about fellow Catholics threatening to kill a college boy in FL.
Slap!
As others have pointed out it strange that the religious bring up Stalin and Mao and (often) Hitler as `proof’ that atheism causes murder.
All of these people followed and were central to faith-based ideologies.
Catholicism, Stalinism, Maoism, Pentecostalism, Islam etc. are all ideologies that are based on meritless beliefs and have one or more central figures that are venerated as gods or in a god-like manner.
They have all resulted in needless suffering and death.
Atheism is the non-belief in gods and it is not an ideology.
Even if we reject the idea that some or all of these cults involve gods most of the people here have a scientific worldview. We are thinking, feeling people who reject faith-based ideologies, supernaturalism and magical thinking.
Many of us go even further and assert that faith-based living is demonstrably foolish and unethical.
Heathen Matt:
“Why not go dance on a fire ant mound, or fist a beehive, or hug a baby rhino?
So, you basically just admitted that religion makes people as amoral and incapable of rational thought as “lower” animals.
I seem to recall outrage from some rightwing Christians when Muslims used this excuse for rioting over the Danish cartoons: “look what you made us do! We had no choice but to go apeshit!”
Matt, a good rule is to think before typing. You make a terrible debater. I hope you’re not considering politics.
Religion, like football, vodka, and women, can make people predisposed to violence act violently.
Religion, especially religions of peace, are supposed to help curtail those instincts. But sometimes people use the very thing that is supposed to curb their violent ways as an excuse for more violence.
Religion, like football, vodka, and women, can make people predisposed to violence act violently.
Carl in AC @ #611
Your post here illustrates the crux of this whole problem. One thing that I, as an atheist, can’t grasp is how you can so easily dismiss Islam, while holding such faith in Catholicism that you’ll regard a piece of wafer as an embodiment of a supreme being. There no more evidence for one set of beliefs than the other and the inconsistency in positions is baffling.
I won’t pretend to speak to Prof. Myers’s motive here, but as I see it, in the case at hand, making a stand to show that a wafer is just wafer is a perfectly reasonable thing to do in the face of a truly incomprehensible conviction that this wafer is somehow so important that will drive people to wish harm on someone who doesn’t treat it with the respect a particular religious tradition demands.
To give you some idea of how ridiculous this whole situation is – imagine a Hindu struck a holy cow at a ceremony and was threatened with harm by his fellow Hindus. Hearing of this, a professor declares that the situation to be so ridiculous that he will eat a steak in protest. Would it be right for the head of a notional Hindu League to try to harry the professor from his job in that case?
To put it more succinctly, where do you draw the line on respect for other ideas? To the point where it limits the freedom of others?
That the Eucharist embodies the essence f Christ is an idea – a deeply held and, for you, important idea – but an idea nonetheless. It seems to me that you think that your ideas should have the power to restrict PZ’s freedom of speech and expression simply because you believe your idea springs from a supreme being (a belief that’s entirely unsupported by evidence).
In a free society, all ideas are fair game, even if criticism of them causes offence.
You are in my prayers and the prayers of many other Catholics on this day. May the God you don’t believe in bless and keep you.
OK, now…
…the Eucharist is the core of the catholic church (or words to that effect)???!!!
So, if the last supper wasn’t in the gospels then no one would have created the church. This blows me away. I thought the teachings of Jesus were the core of the church. I kinda figured the reason for the central position of the ritual in the catholic service was just because it was the easiest thing in the gospels to make a ritual out of. Not so easy to do a faith healing daily on demand, although I guess some churches do that, and 3 times on a Sunday would be harder.
It seems weird to me that this causes more offense than PZ regularly telling them that there no god. Like god isn’t as important than the ritual (and the magic contained therein).
BTW, I liked the story in #622 about the non-roman catholic church using the left over bread with cheese after the service. “Blessed are the cheesemakers (or manufacturers of dairy products in general)”
“As others have pointed out it strange that the religious bring up Stalin and Mao and (often) Hitler as `proof’ that atheism causes murder.
All of these people followed and were central to faith-based ideologies.
Catholicism, Stalinism, Maoism, Pentecostalism, Islam etc. are all ideologies that are based on meritless beliefs and have one or more central figures that are venerated as gods or in a god-like manner.
They have all resulted in needless suffering and death.”
Wow, two more spins of the old brain and you might have been able to put 1 and 3 together and realize that:
– Mao, Hitler, Stalin, etc., were atheists (although Hitler was more of a pagan.)
– The atheist societies that they attempted to create, when divested of god(s), naturally enshrined human leaders as god because
– Humans are naturally predisposed to worship/venerate something “greater than themselves”
be it
a powerful man, a powerful state, a powerful idea, a powerful process
and finally, that the scales (i.e., death rate) of religious states versus secular states (in the last 100 years) is weighted in 25 million or so skulls in favor of atheist and post-atheist states.
“Your post here illustrates the crux of this whole problem. One thing that I, as an atheist, can’t grasp is how you can so easily dismiss Islam, while holding such faith in Catholicism that you’ll regard a piece of wafer as an embodiment of a supreme being. There no more evidence for one set of beliefs than the other and the inconsistency in positions is baffling.”
I can see why your baffled. It’s not like there are thousands of years of scholarship and theological texts explaining the different faith traditions, or that they are readily available at your local library or anything.
Beep @#636: Courtier’s Reply.
NC Paul:
My ass.
the DISEASE of LIBERALISM has become diarrhea of the mouth for the author and most of those posting here… I am ashamed to even tell anyone I was born in Minnesota… I always thought Minnesotans were salt of the earth people that would never think of torturing or making fun of someone’s belief (you idiots voted in Osama’s cousin as your representative – ellison)… SHAME ON ALL OF YOU
Myers and a lot of the people on this forum are pretty disgusting and hateful of Catholic people.
Okay, so you don’t understand the sanctity of the Eucharist, and think any one who believes in this thing you do not understand are stupid “and petty and hateful.” As a Catholic who does understand the Eucharist and its primacy to the Mass, I also find the attack on this disrespectful idiot who took it out of the church a way over the top reaction.
So there. Can I still be considered a reasonable, level-headed guy who believes in science too? Can I join the cool kids’ club? Or do I have to get my kicks ridiculing every one of the millions of Catholic across the globe, and its clergy, to prove my bona fides?
I particularly find hateful – and ignorant – Myers’ attack on those “grim nuns,” who supposedly, in his world, guard the Eucharist.
My mother recently passed away at a ripe old age. She was old and infirmed, and as people get at that point, totally dependent and stinky and difficult to be around. My mother was brought in by the Carmelite nuns, a Catholic order dedicated to healthcare, particularly for the aged and infirmed. Our family could not have dreamed of more devoted, kind, competent care for my mother in her last years.
These nuns, who have given everything away in their lives to dedicate themselves to some of the most unpraised but important work, treated my mother with respect, dignity, compassion and love. They were there to comfort her from the difficult moment she left her own home and independence and were there to comfort her at her bedside.
These nuns are anything but “grim,” and instead are joyful and loving and kind. Some of them have a great sense of humor too. And they would never act hatefully even to Myers or others who go out of their way to be as hateful and hurtful to them as he and so many on this forum have. They would draw on their own well of compassion for you, and say a prayer for you sad, shallow people.
#634 — Well, it wasn’t always cheese–whatever people brought, really. But it was usually a pretty good potluck (better than donuts and coffee).
I miss the community of that church a whole lot more than I miss religion (anyone was welcome to Communion, also, not just people who’d been baptized Catholic).
#633 — Personally, despite being agnostic, I always welcome the prayers and positive energy of others. But I’m not sure that prayer offered in a condescending “See, we’re better people than you” tone qualifies as positive energy. Plus I kind of think it’s polite to ask if people not of your faith mind before you go praying for them, but I suppose that “respecting other beliefs” the way you want yours respected is just too much to ask.
Everyone in my family is Catholic. I’m the only infidel. And although I can imagine any of them explaining why we treat the consecrated host as something special, I can’t imagine any of them being so literal-minded as to threaten to kill someone for a lack of reverence.
A bus is about to hit a puppy. You’re holding a sacred host in your hand. Do you drop it to rescue the puppy or not?
The Catholics I know would drop the cracker and save the dog. They’d figure God would understand. They’re fecking humans.
I don’t recognize the Catholics here, srsly. These guys are more like Falwell and his ilk.
Vince–I’m with you on the nun-stereotyping. The nuns at my high school were some of the most awesome, funny people I’ve known, and clearly it agreed with them, because they were also freakishly youthful. And they were open-minded enough to let the theatre department have basically free reign–even to Greek tragedy–which cannot be said for most public schools.
But I confess–and perhaps it’s that my background was not Roman and I’m used to bread (which doesn’t keep until next week, and which I can’t see the holiness in wasting)–I don’t quite see why taking the Eucharist out of the church is so offensive. What is done with all the blessed wafers not given out? Must they be specially destroyed? Are they reused?
Beep wrote:
O RLY?
and:
I’m as skeptical as anyone…
[I seriously doubt that…after all you believe in a magical snack food]
…and I guarantee you that my philosophical inquiries have taken me to places that you’d run away screaming from.
Why do the religiosos always assume that skeptics haven’t read widely in their favorite mythology, and are just as much familiar with the texts as they are (if not more so). I’ll put my knowledge of comparative mythology (including that of the Christians) up against your allegedly deep and wide erudition in a pissing match any day, “Beep”. Have you read the Gospels in the original Greek? Have you learned Arabic and read the Qur’an in the original? I have. What “philosophical inquiries” do you think I’d be afraid of? Wanker.]
So spare me your recycled skepticism.
[What makes you think your alleged reading and inquiries are so deep and original, and mine are just second-hand? Talk about arrogant. I could just as easily say “spare me your recycled orthodox bullshit”, and I’d be far more justified in doing so: I don’t see any evidence in anything you’ve dumped here of any exposure to facts or theories that would in any way challenge your received convictions.]
I’d rather read Voltaire than “Heathen Matt.”
[So would I if it came to that, and I’d certainly rather read him or G.K. Chesterton than you. But neither of them are posting comments here, are they? You certainly seem engaged in responding to everyone who ridicules you here, though. If we’re so boring, please, go away. Nobody will miss you.]
Matt, a good rule is to think before typing. You make a terrible debater. I hope you’re not considering politics.
[You, on the other hand, are a Master Debater.]
Religion, especially religions of peace, are supposed to help curtail those instincts. But sometimes people use the very thing that is supposed to curb their violent ways as an excuse for more violence.
You just repeated my point, only more stupidly and with more words.
#638 Well, you can’t argue with that. I’m overthrown by your knowledge, wit and gluteal expansiveness, and I withdraw to weep, gnash teeth etc.
For years I have wanted to make a video in the style of one of those 1950’s education films (with the narrator, corny music and bad writing) about how communion wafers are made. I’ve gotten as far as the title: “A Visit to the Cracker Factory.” I think it would be marvelous to watch these “special” wafers be manufactured by the thousands, ingredients mixed by machines in huge batches, dough rolled and stamped, crackers sent down conveyor belts, packaged and boxed automatically and boxes moved around by forklift, soon to be shipped to A CHURCH NEAR YOU.
Nothing turns something special into something ordinary like watching it be mass produced. Plus, I love just about every “visit to the factory” segment of just about any show I’ve ever watched. Wallboard, ice cream sandwiches, bread, baseball bats, or whatever else they want to show me. I love it all.
I believe that both sides of this issue have completely and totally lost their minds. I am catholic. Desecration of the Eucharist to a catholic is equal to someone burning the American Flag. It may be your belief that what the flag stands for is not just but Americans are going to defend our flag and country because it is ours and expect all others to respect it. You do not have to believe in the Eucharist but there is no reason to desecrate it. Catholics should uphold it’s holiness, but for such a commotion over it like this; do we not have more important things to waste our time on? Have all of you; both sides; gone completely mad?
Dr. Glen, I reject your “both sides” statement. One side went nuts and issued death threats. The other side threatened a cracker in response.
Failure to proofread. I was going to make a different comment related to that quote, decided it was dumb, and accidentally included it in that post.
You mean like calling liberalism a disease, and diarrhea, and lying about who a particular Representative is related to?
Yes, please don’t tell anyone that you’re from Minnesota. In fact, don’t tell anyone that you’re a sane human being.
Quit calling it a cracker, its a wafer, a fucking flat, dry wafer. And to us Catholics, its the actual, honest to God, body of Christ. Of course, for all the years I went to mass, and for all the times I went to Communion, many were the times when my young mind couldn’t help but wonder, what actual part of Christ’s body was I given to eat. Maybe that’s why I had such a hard time swallowing the Eucharist on any given day.
(emphasis mine)
I always enjoy the juxtaposition of true belief and the most physically crude obscenity.
It’s like people almost know that it isn’t something to be taken seriously. They’re just right there at the border, and it just slips out unconsciously…
And then they pull back, and say “No, no, it’s not make-believe. It’s the most important thing in the world! Really!”
Come on. Take the plunge. Admit it’s all just pretend.
The Voltaire who was fond of saying “Écraser l’infâme!”? Hmm, I wonder what he meant by that? Probably nothing as rude and disrespectful as “Crush the crackers!”
(Seriously. Invoking Voltaire while arguing that we should not ridicule Catholic dogma: HISTORIC FAIL)
“Atheism is a waste of existence, simply because the purpose of human existence is to know God–our Creator.”
How about: Mono-theism is a waste of existence, simply because to know one God would not fulfill the human need to know that there is a party of gods in heaven. Like anything on earth, things are created by a team of people, so why would the world not be created by a team of Gods? Zeus, Thor, Oden, Yaweh, Allah and of course GOD.
Another brainwashed dumb dogmatic idiot.
Use your brain and read: http://www.godisimaginary.com/
Hopefully I have saved you from wasting your life and snapped you out of you holy trace.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=christ+died+for+our+dunkin+donuts
This is all I could think of when your story came out.
“Écrasez l’infâme!”
Dr.Benway appears to be slapping a strawman. I don’t think he felt anything!
Are there any Catholics here who feel physical threats are legitimate and be overlooked when dealing with the Eucharist?
That would be opposing the Eucharist they are protecting!
Nobody is condoning physical threats!
My argument isn’t whether or not the Eucharist is more important then another human beings protection.
It is about the blatant disrespect Mr Myers (I spelled it correctly this time even though nobody here seem to be able to spell my name) has shown to the Catholic Community by proposing his intention to take what they consider to be God present to us, from OUR Church and publish his desecration. This is hateful. To deny this is insane.
It doesn’t matter what he believes about the Eucharist. Who cares! Any threats to him or the person in Florida should be legally addressed, but they do not justify Mr Myers behavior toward the Catholic Community.
If you choose to try to slap me Dr. Benway, I shall turn the other cheek.
If it’s true that he is getting death threats, that is way out of line. But I don’t really understand where the vitriol is coming from. Religion is important to people. For many, of us is the very center of our lives, and it’s deeply distressing when we see that which is sacred to us profaned. Maybe we’re simple people, maybe we’re fooling ourselves, maybe we’re just plain stupid…but perhaps you could have some pity on us?
“But will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web.”
I’m not sure I understand what this would accomplish, other than making fun of us.
If you choose to try to slap me Dr. Benway, I shall turn the other cheek.
Paging Dr. Freud…. paging Dr. Freud…
More à propos Voltaire quotes:
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
“Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one”
“To pray to God is to flatter oneself that with words one can alter nature.”
“It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.”
Seriously people. Show some respect.
PZ is one of the leading biologists in the entire University of Minnesota, Morris.
The mockery does arise from pity.
It is a pity to see people fooling themselves.
It is a pity to see people thinking that beliefs indistinguishable from superstition are “sacred”.
It is a pity that people become emotionally invested in their beliefs to the point where they feel distress when those beliefs are called nonsense and are publicly mocked.
It is a pity that people make believe that they know something, and then make believe that they’re not making believe.
Desecrating a Consecrated host is worse than rape torture murder…
Is there some reason Jesus(tm) can’t protect himself?
If there is such “great power” in a biscuit, wouldn’t it harm the “Satanist” to even touch it?
Biscuit Worship(tm) should be trivialized.
My email to President Bruininks:
=======================
I am dismayed with the flippant and disrespectful attitude that Mr. Myers displays in his post regarding the smuggling of the Eucharist. I respect his disbelief in God and consequent position that the Eucharist is, well, just a cracker. As it turns out, I agree with him. But that’s not the point; I also respect the belief of others, even when I disagree with them. Mr. Myers would benefit from learning that the path to understanding is lined with courtesy.
That said, I think that disciplinary action is unwarranted. Yes, his words were disrespectful, but they were honest and provocative. Frightening ideas are thought provoking, but because they are scary they are instead dismissed as provocative. Fearless devotion to ideas is the paragon of science, and Mr. Myers has shown himself above everything else to be an unapologetic scientist.
You should be proud to have him on your staff.
The insane threats, basically. Without the threats, I’d have been sympathetic to the Catholics rather than the kid.
Freaking out about satire and ridicule –orders of magnitude less damaging than trying to get someone fired or killed –kinda reinforces the above.
What do you guys want, fake respect for all religious beliefs and practices, no matter what?
Beware what you wish for.
Seriously people. Show some respect.
PZ is one of the leading biologists in the entire University of Minnesota, Morris.
And TheoMobius is Who the Fuck, Exactly? (And why should we care?)
Pharyngula is only one of the most visited science blogs on the planet, that’s all…
Fuck with my cat, and I’ll cut out your liver and feed it to the raccoons.
So you and Myers agree: threatening the Eucharist is not nearly so outrageous as threatening a human being.
Glad there’s now a meeting of the minds.
PZ and the rest of you, I say this as an atheist who loathes the Christian right: you are way the fuck out of line. I don’t give a goddamn where you teach, where you blog or how many degrees you have. It is disrespectful assholes like you that give the right all the fuel it needs to play the persecution card.
The point isn’t and never was to destroy religion, though it will be a fine day when it’s finally gone the way of the dodo. The point is to maintain a secular state and a respectfully “secular” society. That’s it. When you stand up for secularism in the political/scientific/educational, it’s the battle of the righteous. But you when start mocking the religious for their beliefs in their own homes, churches, you’re taking the battle outside the public sphere – and you’re asking for a swift and richly-deserved kick in the nuts from Dobson and whoever else. You’re saying, “Fuck civility.” Well, fuck you too then.
Does this garbage represent the peak of science-minded opinion? Christ, it’s blog posts like this that almost make me hope the Christianists win.
Ah, I love the smell of concern troll in the morning.
Callahan: who the hell died and made you the judge?
Nobody needed to die to make me the judge. As a sentient rational actor, I judge out of my own volition. As do the rest of you.
Out of all the things one could do to a eucharist if one wanted to insult the Catholic church, smuggling one hardly seems to be the worst.
And what will they do with the recovered eucharist anyway???
So this is what the grand atheist cause has been reduced to? Isn’t burning/stabbing/urinating/[enter desecration of choice] a consecrated communion wafer on camera to post on the internet something you would expect of a petulant, rebel-without-a-clue teenager instead of a doctor of science at a major research university?
Perhaps Dr. Myers will enjoy himself, but does he really think he is enhancing his status in discussions of matters of faith and science among people of good will? Or is that the point, that there can be no good will of atheists toward religious people? Or that there can only be good will toward religious people as long as they a) keep their faith in the tiny little box that secularism allows, b) not let that faith be a factor in any decision that atheists don’t agree with, and c) keep their mouths shut when atheists insult, belittle, misrepresent, and slander them and their beliefs, in public, up to and including this childish little exercise by Dr. Myers?
Wow, PZ. You’re an asshole. You’re an unmitigated, condescending asshole.
I’m an atheist, raised Catholic, and it doesn’t bother me in the least that Catholics place such importance on the communion wafer. Why does it bother you? Why does it concern you? The punk you’re defending went into a religious service and did his best to cheapen it. Like you, he is a condescending asshole.
He’s not a victim of anything: if he hadn’t gone looking for trouble, it wouldn’t have found him. You’re not a victim, you self-absorbed clown, you’ve deliberately poked people in the eye and they responded in kind.
Mind your own business. Don’t be a jerk.
I thought it went more like the Catholic League et al. saying “Fuck civility”, and PZ saying “Well, alrighty then!”
[i]I thought it went more like the Catholic League et al. saying “Fuck civility”, and PZ saying “Well, alrighty then!”[/i]
So Myers, man of science, is no different from the Catholic League. Is that really what you want to argue?
I can only be fair. If you want me to respect your religious beliefs, I feel I must accord the same level of respect to anyone’s beliefs. Unfortunately that leads to paralysis as there is little anymore that doesn’t offend someone. Do you really expect anyone to respect Catholicism the same as Fred Phelps (or vice versa)? Is there no religion out there that you don’t find a least a little crazy? If not, why do you stay in the one you’re in? Is it just convenience or possibly emotional baggage?
Since the respect everything plan won’t work, you can expect me to mock anything that comes along that I find worthy of mocking. I’ll happily mock Scientology, Islam, Judaism or anything else that presents itself. A few Catholics are up right now, but somebody else will rate a turn soon. And I say a few because despite claims to the contrary, I don’t think all Catholics are really in solidarity over the level of outrage shown. Death threats seem a bit extreme don’t they? If not, surely you think the Muslims should have executed the young teacher for her heinous crime of misnaming a teddy bear, right?
Point is: you’re free to be an asshole, but you’re helping no one by doing so. Enjoy your little blog.
Actually Dr. Benway we do not agree! I consider physical threats to be atrocious. Unlike you and Mr. Myers I also consider attacking what I, and billions of other Catholics, believe to be God, by public threat of desecration to be just as atrocious!
There is no meeting of the minds here. Just blatant disrespectful intolerance. To come into our territory, take what we consider sacred for the purpose of hurting our community is hateful behavior that demands condemnation. Instead you criticize those whom Mr Meyers has hurt. If you hurt me does that mean I have the right to hurt your whole family? You would justify that?
Never!
Don’t be a hypocrite. If your criticizing those who threatened Mr. Meyers, then should also criticize Mr. Meyers threatening our Catholic Community! It is unjustifiable!
No. That’s what you want to argue.
WITH Mary Immaculate, let us Adore, thank, implore and console the Most Beloved and Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
O DIVINE JESUS! lonely tonight in so many Tabernacles, without visitor or worshipper . . . I offer Thee my poor heart. May its every throb be an act of Love for Thee! Thou art always watching beneath the Sacramental Veils, in Thy Love Thou dost never sleep and Thou art never weary of Thy vigil for sinners. O lonely Jesus! May the flame of my heart burn and beam always in company with Thee. O Sacrament most Holy! O Sacrament Divine! All praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine!
Praise be Jesus Christ. Ever present in all the Catholic tabernacles of the world!
And that is insane.
Threatening a person is evil, because people are real.
Threatening a God is not evil, because God is not real.
And, just on the off chance that God were real, threatening God would be literally impossible. It would be like threatening the Local Group of galaxies. It’s completely absurd.
He didn’t threaten your community.
He threatened a cracker.
Blessed art thou among women
And blessed is the Fruit of the Loom
Callahan, we’re supposed to be civil, timid, meek and mild, and take whatever shit the Christian Right dishes out to us, smile and say, “more, please”? Granted, that would make us more ‘Christian’ than the Christianists, but that actually is the way most atheists have historically behaved. Believers are welcome to get in our faces as much as they like, but ‘Heaven’ forfend if we respond in kind.
Unbelievers have been reviled and discriminated against for a long time. Your strategy would gain nothing but more contempt and the conviction that we won’t stand up for ourselves. Well, no more.
“He didn’t threaten your community.
He threatened a cracker.”
Thank you for reiterating my point Owlmirror.
Mr. Meyers doesn’t consider the Eucharist to be God but a cracker, so his threats are not directed at God or at a cracker, but at hurting the community! A direct attack on the Catholic Church and all believers including me.
One heathen Matt to another Heathen Matt: honestly, all you and Myers are doing is making us all look like shrill little pricks to reasonable people. I am guessing you believe that we’ll be reviled no matter how we behave – so why try to maintain a modicum of civility? How about for the sake of pluralism, decency, and self-respect, eh?
Priscilla – Apologies on behalf of my less-than-enlightened brethren. Please don’t think that all atheists are disrespectful punks and whiny little children. I’ve got no quarrel with your faith.
No, his threats are directed at the cracker.
The community needs to understand that God cannot be hurt, and therefore the community should not be hurt.
If even one Catholic sees the cracker being smooshed and has the sudden insight that God can’t possibly be in that cracker to be hurt, it will be worth it as a teaching experience.
Owlmirror it really doesn’t matter what you believe about the Eucharist and you should not care what I believe.
What right do you have to force your beliefs down my throat? You don’t want anyone doing that to you, so please show the same respect for others.
I realize this is not the behavior of all non-believers and no apology is necessary from Callahan although I do appreciate the good gesture. To bad Mr. Meyers does not have your ability to respect others!
Other Heathen Matt (Callahan),
We actually don’t go around being deliberately hurtful to others; I have Catholic friends who are wonderful, kind, thoughtful people, and I don’t go out of my way to force my beliefs on them (one big difference with the Unco-Religious, right there–they tend to proselytize, we generally don’t), or to belittle their faith. I get along with people of all different beliefs; it’s only when I’m attacked or discriminated against that I get riled up. If someone’s beliefs are infringing my rights, I stand up for myself; otherwise, I really don’t care what they believe. The Christian Right is working day and night to make this a theocracy, though, and it is our duty to oppose them. Making nicey-nice with them will not stop them; already the military has been largely taken over by fundamentalist Christianists. (Don’t believe me, head over to Ed Brayton’s blog, Dispatches from the Culture Wars; he keeps close tabs on developments like that.)
I am guessing you believe that we’ll be reviled no matter how we behave – so why try to maintain a modicum of civility? How about for the sake of pluralism, decency, and self-respect, eh?
Sounds good. I’m all for pluralism. (See paragraph #1, above.) When we’re threatened with death, injury and the loss of livelihood, though it’s hard keep smiling and nodding. We didn’t start this culture war, and there are some out there who resent our very existence.
Heathen Matt,
I would like to clarify that I am not out proselytizing. If you want to be an atheist thats your choice. Its a free country.
I’m only voicing my opinion because the Catholic Community has been threatened by Mr. Meyers who want to take what we consider to be God, from our Churches and publicly desecrate it.
I don’t know about the culture war your referring to, I respect your rights to believe as you wish. But this attack on my faith demands my attention as a Catholic. I was just minding my own business when Mr. Meyers made these public threats.
Yet you are shoving your beliefs down other people’s throats.
If you weren’t, you would not be demanding that Professor Myers (and everyone else) show respect to the cracker.
Where is your respect for atheism?
Donahue tried to downplay the abuse of alter boys. And I wonder how many of those “decent, upstanding” Catholic parishioners are secretly drug addicts or alcoholics, cheat on their wives or abuse their children. But, somebody steals the communion “cracker”, an act that hurts no one and everybody gets so bent out of shape. We, as a species, put way too much emphasis on “sacred” artifacts.
Getting death threats over something like this is no different than those than the outrage over desecrating the Koran.
I’ve never been militant in my non-belief, but this makes my blood boil.
07/11/08
profiles.yahoo.com/curiousgemini25
Are you for real Owlmirror?
How am I demanding Mr. Myers show respect for the Eucharist by asking him to retract threats to come and desecrate it? I’m asking Mr. Myers to respect my right and the Catholic Communities right to belief what we choose about the Eucharist and keep his hands off.
Your statements are ridiculous. I’m not the one forcing my way into his business trying to take things from a community he belongs to in order to teach him a lesson or force my beliefs on him.
Footprint in the Sand
I said “Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you would walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only one set of footprints in the sand. I don’t understand why when I needed you most you would leave me.”
And Jesus replied, “Didn’t you see the crumbs? There’s cracker crumbs all over the friggin’ place.”
By doing exactly that.
Look, if some Jews pointed out that you’re desecrating the Sabbath by driving a car or cooking on Saturday, they’re pointing out a difference in religious beliefs.
However, if they ask you to stop driving and cooking on Saturday, they’re demanding that you respect the Sabbath.
See? Just like you’re asking that the Eucharist not be desecrated.
He’s not going to grab the Eucharist from your hands, you know.
And you do indeed have the right to your belief about the Eucharist, and to demonstrate that right in your churches.
And he has the right to believe that your belief about the Eucharist is insane, and while you can keep on believing it, he’s asserting that he has the right to demonstrate his lack of belief about the Eucharist, on his own property or in public.
Yes, you are. You’re doing it right now with these very comments.
LOL @ University of Minnesota, Morris.
Why don’t we ask the ESL teacher at the local community college to weigh in too?
Beliefs or claims about the world fall into three categories: yours, mine, and ours. You decide yours; I decide mine. For any claim that I want to be “ours” I extend to your the right to double what I say. I expect you to return the favor.
Claims that are merely “yours” or “mine” cannot be given the same level of shared confidence as “ours.” They are more like matters of personal preference or taste than facts.
You claim a cracker becomes God. Yet you cannot provide me with a means to corroborate this claim. Thus it is not “ours.” It’s yours alone.
I only need to respect your personal preferences to a certain degree – the same degree to which you ought to respect my taste in hot sauce, perhaps.
Me typos much.
I meant to say, “For any claim that I want to be ‘ours’, I extend to you the right to double-check what I say.”
I completely agree with you about your beliefs, my beliefs and our beliefs being different. I do not care what others wish to believe. We will not have shared beliefs in some areas.
But to come into my church with a disrespect for what I believe, take what my community has in communion for the purpose of desecrating it to make fun of my community for what we hold to be sacred is an outright attack on my faith. If you want to smash crackers at home that is your perogative, but to take something sacred from us to hurt us with is disrespectful no matter how hard you try to sugarcoat it.
Believe its a cracker for all I care but keep your beliefs outside our doors. Don’t come in and try to force it on us.
Thats the difference. Thats the problem with Mr. Myers.
IA direct attack on the Catholic Church and all believers including me.
no, it literally IS an “attack” on a cracker.
It’s YOU who choose to interpret it as an attack on yourself and your fellow delusionauts.
which is the point, actually.
you’re delusional for transferring an attack on a cracker to yourself.
Dr. Benway,
This sounds clever when you say it:
“I only need to respect your personal preferences to a certain degree – the same degree to which you ought to respect my taste in hot sauce, perhaps.”
But do you really think that’s true? I think the key difference between hot sauce and religion is that people feel much stronger emotions about religion than they do about hot sauce (most people I mean — personally I hate hot sauce and have no opinion about religion). In fact, most religious people I know love their religion and most of the religious people I know who are Christians love Jesus.
I think a better comparison than hot sauce, then, would be something else that inspires love in people. Ugly babies, perhaps. I can see my best friend’s baby. I know it’s ugly as shit. Yet I also know he loves the baby so I figure, what the hell, why point out the obvious if it’s going to hurt his feelings and cost me a friend? Similarly, why point out the obvious about Jesus and crackers when someone clearly loves Jesus and believes Jesus is a cracker?
What I mean to say is, who gives a fuck?
Why go out of your way to hurt someone’s feelings when they haven’t done anything to hurt yours?
The only explanation I can come up with is that there isn’t an awful lot of actual science being done at the esteemed University of Minnesota, Morris and most people who end up as Associate Professors of Biology there probably wish they were Associate Professors of Biology somewhere else. Hence the chip on the shoulder and the exaggerated need to look like standard-bearers for rationalism.
Believe its a cracker for all I care but keep your beliefs outside our doors.
Show me where Myers intends to “invade” your church, and proselytize atheism within it. I’ll save you the trouble:
nowhere.
or do you think your “doors” enclose the whole world?
again, that’s rather the problem with delusionauts such as yourself.
you project your delusions outwards from yourselves, and fail to realize you are doing so.
as for Catholics who actually recognize that holding a cracker as sacred is more than a bit delusional, I give you another of your fellow catholics, who posted to the first thread on this whole affair:
so, will you try and have Josh excommunicated because he realizes your, and the position of Donowhore, is in fact delusional?
Why go out of your way to hurt someone’s feelings when they haven’t done anything to hurt yours?
the question really is:
WHY are your “feelings” hurt by someone laughing about a cracker?
again, I refer you to another catholic (posted just above), whose own opinions on the issue are pretty clear.
it matters not whether someone has personally vested themselves in something completely irrational. It shouldn’t stop someone from pointing that out.
what if you had decided, personally, that food without hotsauce simply shouldn’t be eaten.
If someone laughed at you for that, and demonstrated the silliness of it by eating food with hotsauce all over it, should we all really be concerned if that hurts your feelings?
I think not.
correction:
what if you had decided, personally, that food with
outhotsauce simply shouldn’t be eaten.Why go out of your way to hurt someone’s feelings when they haven’t done anything to hurt yours?
I also think you are missing something here:
this response was prompted by someone literally being assaulted, and having threats leveled their way because they took a cracker home.
MOST Americans find that kind of response completely offensive, and intolerable in normal society.
so tell me, who went out of their way to hurt whos feelings again?
you’re projecting.
stop it.
I don’t think you understood my point, Ichthyic. I’m not offended by it. I don’t care. Make fun of crackers all you want. Make fund of Jesus all you want. Jesus is a big dumb cracker. See, I can do it too.
My point is, the hotsauce analogy is not a good one. The ugly children analogy is better. Technically, a parent is wrong to think his ugly child is beautiful. Do you point that out too when you see it? Why not?
to clarify, by “this response”, I of course meant PZ’s.
Mr. Myers needs a consecrated host from our church in order to desecrate it. He asked for someone to get him one. He wants somebody to go into our community with disrespect for our beliefs and our purpose of the Eucharist and take the Eucharist from our church back to his in order to desecrate it so that he can hurt our community.
If its just a cracker and he doesn’t have the intent to hurt our community then why not consecrate his own cracker and then do what he want to it. But no, Mr. Myers want to take it from us so that we know it is from us because he wants to hurt our community.
That is an attack. Shouldn’t religions in our country feel free to exercise their beliefs without having to be concerned someone who doesn’t like our beliefs is going to come in the midst of our community and take what we hold sacred to make fun of us and hurt us? Isn’t that what freedom of religion is all about? Don’t you want the same respect for your own beliefs?
MOST Americans find that kind of response completely offensive, and intolerable in normal society.
and by “that” I meant the response to Cook, consisting of assaults and threats.
My point is, the hotsauce analogy is not a good one.
actually it, is, but you’re being dishonest in saying that what I was addressing out of your post (twice, no less) is even related to that analogy.
Technically, a parent is wrong to think his ugly child is beautiful.
nope. not technically. you appear to not understand what “technically” means. In fact, it is suppositional and entirely dependent. which makes it a very poor analogy to use.
not that, again, it has any relevance to the issue of:
Why go out of your way to hurt someone’s feelings when they haven’t done anything to hurt yours?
which is what I addressed in responding to your post.
People are passionate about many things. I know people who become hurt if you roll your eyes over their taste in music.
But only with religion are we required to respect that which we do not feel, experience, or believe. This can’t be justified. Our understanding of the world has come to far for this kind of argument from authority.
For claims to be real and compelling, they must be corroborated. This holds true for all claims, religious or otherwise.
We are under no obligation to take seriously any claim that cannot be corroborated.
If its just a cracker and he doesn’t have the intent to hurt our community then why not consecrate his own cracker and then do what he want to it.
because that wouldn’t make the point now, would it?
that belief in transubstantiation of a cracker is ludicrous.
Don’t you want the same respect for your own beliefs?
yes, actually. In fact, we demand it. That respect taking the form of someone notifying us when it becomes obvious that any particular belief is based on nothing more than superstition and delusion, combined with peer pressure reinforcement.
seriously, we consider it doing a favor.
Well, Icthyic, I suppose I gave you too much credit when I thought you had simply missed the point.
Instead of asking questions that depend on you answering thoughtfully and sensitively, I’ll just make an assertion:
It is childish and silly to devote this much energy to insulting something that some people feel very strongly and deeply about. You make yourself look like a mean-spirited asshole.
As I said before, the best explanation for this anger that I can think of is that professors at the University of Minnesota, Morris are frustrated that their academic careers haven’t taken them anywhere worth going. So they grab the banner of rationalism and wave it as loudly and obnoxiously as they can.
The sad thing is, in about 24 hours no one will care anymore. And you’ll still be stuck in Morris.
Its almost as if people have hearing problems here. Nobody expects anybody to take seriously or believe in the Eucharist. This is about respecting individuals. What right to any of us have to go out of our way to make fun of or hurt others for our own enjoyment. Why would anyone even want to do such a thing unless they lacked compassion for their fellow human beings? Something is seriously wrong with an individual who takes satisfaction in hurting others. Something is also seriously wrong with individuals who promote or support others who engage in this type of behaviors and attitudes.
It’s a tit for tat: members of your community have said they’d like to kill a boy in FL for taking a communion wafer home. PZ Myers has said he’d like to kill the would-be murderers’ cracker.
Your strange sense of proportion is concerning.
I agree you’re not under any obligation to take their claims seriously, Dr. Benway. And I think your music analogy is fairer than the hot sauce one because, yeah, music can stir something deep in the human whatever and there are people who feel quite strongly about their tastes in music. Still, I don’t roll my eyes at other people’s music either. And I think people who do are assholes and snobs.
Well, it was so lovely to see the tolerance and respect expressed in this article and among these comments.
Catholics believe the host (the “cracker”) becomes the body of Christ and remains so when consumed. This is indeed a big deal for Catholics, and this was indeed an attack on what Catholics hold most sacred. Whether or not you think it’s silly, aren’t others entitled to the same respect and tolerance for their religious beliefs (or lack of religious belief) that you expect others to show you? No one is forcing any of you to believe that this “cracker” is anything but a “cracker”; but wouldn’t it be the right thing to do to show enough respect for those who do believe that by avoiding making fun of them and of the “cracker”?
because that wouldn’t make the point now, would it?
that belief in transubstantiation of a cracker is ludicrous.
actually, I’m going to add on to that.
It’s not JUST that belief in transubstantiation of a cracker is ludicrous, it’s also that when challenged on such a ludicrous claim, it evidently has become such an irrational delusion that people are apparently willing to kill for it.
so there are TWO things that make it entirely needful of direct challenge:
one – it’s entirely irrational on the face of it
two – that evidently, clinging to this bit of irrationality can cause one to utilize physical violence it defense of it.
It is for the benefit of ALL society that such claims to belief, that foment irrational violence, are not only called out, but marginalized.
just like racism.
Shouldn’t a dr. know better?
So if you hurt me, then I can justify hurting your entire family even though they have never hurt me nor have they ever desired to.
Posted by: Priscilla | July 11, 2008 9:26 PM
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Please Ichthyic with that rationality any atheist who gets angry and threatens another individual while protecting his belief would be guilty of believing in a system which causes hatred and should be abolished.
Please Ichthyic with that rationality any atheist who gets angry and threatens another individual while protecting his belief would be guilty of believing in a system which causes hatred and should be abolished.
hello?
talk about missing the point.
what, exactly, do you really think PZ is angry about?
go back and look again.
…and when you do, make sure you take off those glasses you are wearing, as the prescription must be WAY off.
Shouldn’t a dr. know better?
I dunno, why don’t you ask “Dr.” Kent Hovind?
now, will you stop bleating, Mrs. sheep?
Well, it was so lovely to see the tolerance and respect expressed in this article and among these comments.
Catholics believe the host (the “cracker”) becomes the body of Christ and remains so when consumed. This is indeed a big deal for Catholics, and this was indeed an attack on what Catholics hold most sacred. Whether or not you think it’s silly, aren’t others entitled to the same respect and tolerance for their religious beliefs (or lack of religious belief) that you expect others to show you? No one is forcing any of you to believe that this “cracker” is anything but a “cracker”; but wouldn’t it be the right thing to do to show enough respect for those who do believe that by avoiding making fun of them and of the “cracker”?
why is it Jeff always says what I actually feel like saying?
:p
…and typically, he responds such where any rational argument inevitably ends up being wasted (at least on the poster it was directed at).
Oh I see. Mustn’t hurt the wanna-be murderer’s widda feewings.
seriously, when people like Priscilla and Reine can completely ignore the entire basis for the arguments presented, even it’s FUCKING RIGHT ABOVE their own post, it’s hopeless to continue.
there is little left but to point and laugh.
“Ridicule is the only weapon that can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.”
-Thomas Jefferson
“When enough people share a delusion, it loses its status as a psychosis and gets a religious tax exemption instead.”
– anonymous
I’m happy to show respect to people. But I have some standards.
ANY DEATH THREATS AND YOU LOSE MY RESPECT, YOU TWATS!
Mebbe shouting works?
“Oh I see. Mustn’t hurt the wanna-be murderer’s widda feewings.”
Oh come on. Do you really thing they actually intend to kill the guy? I will give you my left nut (for keeps!!) if that happens.
Your whole team’s reaction just reeks of this science-envy I’m talking about. You seize on “death threats” that you know are not serious because you WISH the counterreformation was still on so you could fulfill your fantasy of being Galileo standing up for truth and empiricism. But the sad fact is, PZ Myers (and the rest of you I assume) are nothing like Galileo and never will be. You’re third-rate science teachers at a third rate institution. Every single thing you do will be forgotten by everyone, including specialists in your field and your own students, within about 30 years.
The battle between religion and secularism is over and secularism won. You can relax now. Just treat the religious people like harmless village idiots. You don’t have to respect them, much less agree with them. But at least be nice to them.
Priscilla said @714
Is it at all compassionate to be willing to help a stranger rid themselves of a stupid delusion?
Maybe if one more different person says it you can get a grip on it. Prof. Myers never suggested he would enter a church to obtain a cracker. He only offered to desecrate one if it was sent to him., and then only in response to death threats sent to a teenager after an ill advised prank.
Ray said: “Is it at all compassionate to be willing to help a stranger rid themselves of a stupid delusion?”
It could be. But does anyone think compassion is what motivates Myers here?
Doesn’t pass the smell test, in my opinion.
Hmmm…let me see. Catholocism brought us Mother Teresa. Materialism brought us Professor Myers. Gosh, let me think. Which one of these humans is the better model for life? Which showed tolerance and understanding for others? Which spoke with gentleness and gentility? Which engendered life and love, and which spawned profanity, hate, and ignorance? Tough call. Might have to think about that one for a nanosecond or two.
Do you really thing they actually intend to kill the guy?
who else’s head do you think you’re in, I wonder?
Hmmm.
Materialism brought us Charles Darwin and one of the most amazingly elegant ideas in human history, and the Catholic Church brought us Bernard Cardinal Law and Humberto Sousa Cardinal Medeiros, who protected child rapists and ensured they would have a steady supply of victims.
Gonna have to think about which is the greater contribution.
who else’s head do you think you’re in, I wonder?
LOL. Is that really the best you’ve got?
If anyone of those self righteous christian catholics actually ever read the Bible, they would know that Jesus professed love. All he said was ‘love one another and all is cool’.
It is the one’s that came after him that started all the wars (can anyone say Crusade?) that killed lots of people. If Christ does come back today, he would be kicking alot of holy righteous ass, like he did in the temple to the money changer tables….
It is the one’s that came after him that started all the wars (can anyone say Crusade?) that killed lots of people.
OH! OH! I can! I can!
Kroo-Saaaah-Day
Materialism brought us Charles Darwin
…and electronics, cars, airplanes, washing machines, and air conditioning (yes i live in the frackin desert).
It never ceases to amaze me how stupid people manage, in near perfect denial, to claim all good things fall under the purview of their superstitious nonsense.
In fact, it was xians who were first responsible for burning the library of Alexandria. It was the CC that was most responsible as a single organization for inhibiting the enlightenment.
…and didn’t mother Teresa claim to NOT believe at one point?
anywho, for those thinking Teresa deserved sainthood by CC standards…
http://www.konformist.com/blasphemy/mothert.htm
You mean if there is a murder?
I cannot speculate regarding the seriousness of someone’s intent to kill the boy in FL. The evidence available suggests:
1. The boy has received threats sufficient to convince him that his life might be in some danger.
2. The suggestion in the news article that people might complain about him to school authorities is a further intimidation
Given the provocation – a Catholic boy quietly trying to take the host with him to his seat rather than put it in his mouth – the response from the Catholic community is out of proportion. It’s bullying. I can’t respect it. In fact, I feel it’s my duty to disrespect it.
It’s bullying. I can’t respect it. In fact, I feel it’s my duty to disrespect it.
Funny. I can almost hear the organ strike up and your voice fall to a hush as you reach the serious part of the sermon. Whatever. Your concern is phony and overwrought and you’re still a mean-spirited asshole who simply can’t leave others’ beliefs alone because you WISH you lived in a world where they gave enough of a shit to persecute you. But no one does. You’re a glorified high school science teacher.
Actually, my concern is genuine. I am not mean-spirited. I do not wish to be persecuted. And I am not a science teacher.
In contrast to most assholes, I try to keep straight claims supported by evidence verses speculation and wishful thinking.
TheoMobius: Your concern is phony and overwrought and you’re still a mean-spirited asshole who simply can’t leave others’ beliefs alone
let me quote a great thinker in response:
“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
seriously, it’s by far the best response to your concern trolling.
and yes, being an asshole is sometimes entirely relevant AND useful.
All right. Well, whatever. Let’s all be friends then. I’m about out of steam here.
Just want you to know I agree with you on Scientology though. Screw those guys.
I mean Dr. Benway.
Not you, Ichthyic. You’re a big dummy, and everything you said was boring.
Drama llamas are best appreciated from a safe distance.
How to spot them: “I like you but I can’t stand him” is typical -aka “let’s you and him fight.”
To the offended people:
1. Everyone knows about the doctrine of the real presence. We know that Roman Catholics say the consecrated host is literally the Body of Christ. So you can stop bringing this to our attention.
2. Please stop assuming that all beliefs should be respected. That is exactly what is at issue. We think that truly ridiculous beliefs should sometimes be made fun of. You’re asking us to live in a world where no one makes fun of Scientology’s belief in brainwashed extraterrestrial spirits attached to your body, where no one makes fun of Joseph Smith ‘translating’ the Golden Plates with a seer stone while looking into a hat, where we can’t laugh at Fred Phelps’ obsession with feces and anal blood or at Martin Luther claiming that he could scare away the devil with a fart. A world without the Provincial Letters or A Tale of a Tub or Candide or The Life of Brian. Fuck that.
2b. Beep’s rhetorical question “So who decides who gets to believe what?” has zero force. Here’s a parallel case: it’s okay to criticize people for being immoral. If someone asks the rhetorical question “but who decides what counts as immoral?” that in no way changes the fact that there’s nothing wrong with criticizing immoral behavior. Likewise, there’s nothing wrong with making fun of ridiculous beliefs, rhetorical question notwithstanding.
2c. Gain some familiarity with the word ‘respect’. Carl from Atlantic City thinks disrespect is kind of like what the Nazis did to European Jewry. That would be news to Rodney Dangerfield.
3. Start recognizing the difference between disrespectful behavior and criminal behavior, and start acknowledging that desecrating what is held sacred is not at all like physical violence. If atheists gang up and burn down your church or start putting Christians into camps, that’s one thing. But if atheists gang up and make fun of you, that’s another thing. If they burn the flag, use bacon as a bookmark in the Qur’an, or make a Hasidic gay porn movie, that’s not even close to a slap in the face. It’s protected speech, and hurt feelings aren’t the same thing as bruises.
4. Notice that our willingness to desecrate what you hold sacred is not primarily a response to how ridiculous your beliefs are. No, it is a response to how ridiculous your offense/anger/indignation/outcry is. You should be able to laugh this shit off. If somebody desecrates something you hold sacred, then of course you won’t like it very much, but you don’t have to turn into a reactionary humorless prick. Most of us are willing to say “Hey, come on, man, what did the Catholics do to you, why do you have to pick on them and fuck with their Eucharist?”. But when the Catholics get all jacked up on “how dare you” juice, then fuck that, now I’m gonna stick a consecrated host up my ass and let a dog lick it out. Holding patently ridiculous beliefs to be sacred is one thing, but acting like a furious ape when someone disrespects those beliefs is just crying out and asking for it.
How to spot them: “I like you but I can’t stand him” is typical -aka “let’s you and him fight.”
By all means, maintain a unified front. The last thing I want to do is provoke disharmony within the ranks of the defenders of rationalism.
He just happened to post while I was writing my post and I didn’t want him to think that my response to you referred to him.
If they burn the flag, use bacon as a bookmark in the Qur’an, or make a Hasidic gay porn movie, that’s not even close to a slap in the face. It’s protected speech, and hurt feelings aren’t the same thing as bruises.
I’m not saying your speech shouldn’t be protected. I’m just saying you’re an asshole.
TheoMobius wrote:
I would agree on the asshole point if it was just desecration out of the blue, just to fuck with people. But if it’s in response to a lunatic overreaction, then it’s a matter of principle, like reprinting the Muhammad cartoons after the lunatic overreaction.
I’ve no problem with “you’re an asshole.” The bit that’s over the line for me: “you’re an asshole and you better look behind you” or “you’re an asshole and my organization will make sure you lose your job.”
Fair nuff. I still think that if you would actually go to the extent of putting a cracker up your ass and letting a dog lick it out, then you’re probably a little overly involved in this issue and might legitimately be thought of as an asshole. UNLESS you’re doing it strictly because it feels good, in which case … I mean, hey, we’ve all be THERE before and who am I to judge?
Watch out for those penguins- they carry rulers. And they know how to use em’.
You’re a big dummy, and everything you said was boring.
why, I never!
you done given me the vapors!
LOL
what next, will you call me a poopy-head?
Yeah, well, I’m not on the same team as people who would threaten your job. I’m on the team of people who think you’re an asshole.
Totally different teams. We wear the pinstripes.
Poopy-head.
I certainly have not read everyone’s comments, but I have to write something on this topic:
Just to put this comment into perspective: I just got back from receiving Communion. It has been a profound source of grace for me over the past year, since my return to the Catholic Church. To read something like this is incredibly disheartening.
I am a physics student at a secular university. I can understand the strangeness and intellectual objections to my Catholic faith from outsiders. Heck, I used to be one who persecuted the Christians at my school. But I have (thankfully) come to know Christ through the Eucharist in a most unexpected way.
I have two points I want to put out for consideration:
1. To those scientists who have never actually tried to seek a Christian spirituality and who object to the idea based on its absurdity: I claim their objections to the faith are intellectually dishonest. How can you make a judgment call without every truly engaging your subject? For anybody trying to perform true experimental work, one must actively engage in learning the intricacies of the experiment at hand. Certainly PZ Myers has not done this with the Catholic faith. That fact in and of itself makes him unqualified to speak on the topic.
Additionally, there are centuries upon centuries of incredible scholarship from some of the smartest people to walk this Earth that I’m certain could convince even the hardest skeptic that engaging a Christian faith is not a bad idea–if at the very least just to try it out. Throwing out all these writing, especially on the Eucharist for example, would be akin to dismissing all of Einstein and Darwin’s work–only because you didn’t like the explanations for it based on third-hand accounts from armchair scientists–without ever looking into it further. The Catholic church certainly does not dismiss science in general in the same way Myers so conveniently dismisses the Church (granted it took them awhile with Galileo, but we’ve at least learned from that). I mean, a Jesuit priest was the one who proposed the Big Bang!
2. To those who dismiss the Catholic church based on the isolated conduct of its members: I cannot argue for the ills that have occurred. I only will offer this: no single Church on Earth is perfect. Man is not perfect, and thus cannot lead a perfect Church. However, I like to believe that it’s in a (hopefully) constant state of refinement. I do think, though, that it is also intellectually dishonest to dismiss the Church based on these incidents. Whether or not a truth is disseminated by proper means has no bearing on the validity of that truth. I’ll just leave you with a quote from a Fr. Greeley by ways of William F. Buckley:
“Search for the perfect church if you will; when you find it, join it, and realize that on that day it becomes something less than perfect.”
As an ex-Catholic, I find this all very stupid. It’s a frigging wafer and a bad tasting one at that.
Any powers given to the host are imaginary. And I personally believe that it is an idol for the Church. It isn’t healthy to venerate a piece of bread.
Even if you believe that a consecrated host is Jesus, certainly you must have faith that the holy spirit will strike/smite/whatever a person that uses the host improperly. A deity does not need protection from its earthly followers.
And if it does, then it’s time to rethink the whole thing.
Anyway from what I’ve gathered, the young man did not act maliciously and the parish handled the matter poorly. The church gave him the host and it was his to do with as he pleased.
The more the Church freaks out, the more people will be tempted to secret away hosts out of spite. Nobody likes a bully even if the bully wears a religious dress.
And of course Bill O’Donahue is a self-important publicity-loving useless windbag so naturally he inserts himself into this scuffle.
Oh and I loved the ‘Reservoir Dogs’ reference in the other thread. It’s hard to keep track of who posted what where. All you would have to do is play the song with a host ‘tied’ to a doll chair.
TheoMobius wrote:
Well, if you know a better way to get an NEA grant, I’d like to hear it!
David wrote:
Wow, who was your dean, Nero?
Well, if you know a better way to get an NEA grant, I’d like to hear it!
LOL. Good one :)
My better half suggested the rogue kidnapper photograph himself with the wafer and the current day’s newspaper, just to prove the wafer is still safe. After all anything could have happened by now….. ;-)
Heck, I used to be one who persecuted the Christians at my school.
dishonest debate tactic #19:
well, aside from the fact that we don’t persecute people, just irrational concepts.
Ichthyic: Ok, then read the rest of my post assuming that I’m not a part of “your group.”
I simply added my background because I felt it would be dishonest not to claim I’m a Catholic.
Dave2: Haha! Surprisingly, he’s not.
You both are reading one tiny minutia of my post, and in addition, you are reading into the literal words with perfect knowledge of my idea. That’s the same as many fundamentalists, who you are attacking ardently. Please consider the rest of the post. That’s all I ask.
David @ 755 writes:
And of course if you haven’t fully researched all 26,000+ Christian sects, not to mention all the non-Christian faiths you’re not qualified to dismiss them either. I also suspect you have no idea how much PZ knows about Catholicism.
When you start to try an analogy to Einstein, you miss one major difference, one i find suspicious for one who claims to be a scientist in training: Einstein, like all scientists, deals in objective evidence. When you’ve got some objective evidence the cracker becomes something more than a cracker, get back to us. I’ll carry your luggage for you at the Nobel ceremony.
I wish I had a dime for every theist who claimed that atheists had never researched the sublime subtleties of their theology, and that if they just had done so, they would be persuaded. It’s a cheap argument that makes you look intellectually lazy, not the other way round. Courtier’s Reply.
crackers are sacred, sperm are sacred – I think we should send apologies to Donahue complete with pictures of hostage crackers covered in semen.
Wow, I didn’t realize that PZ was actually encouraging someone(s) to steal a host so PZ could desecrate it.
That’s at the very least unethical.
As such, I join in the chorus of calls for PZ to apologize or to be fired.
Out.
The simple fact is you are an asshole. You should be called an asshole, repeatedly, directly to your face. Which you’ll of course blow off because, hey, that’s what assholes do. But it doesn’t mitigate the fact that you’re an asshole. Hopefully, you can just accept that. I know a lot of people can live with the fact that they are just assholes, so hopefully that’s how you feel. But don’t pretend there’s anything noble about your shtick, because there isn’t. It’s shallow in multiple ways, and basically, you’re just an asshole. It’s not complicated.
Ray S:
1. You are correct, I haven’t “researched” all 26,000 sects of Christianity. But,I do not dismiss them, since most, I would say, are closer to “right” than many other things.
2. Catholicism has never claimed that “knowing” leads to conversion. It’s “doing” that leads to conversion. You could be the most learned man on the topic of Christianity, but have never actually engaged Christianity. From the blog post, it is obviously that Myers has not engaged Catholicism in the sense I’m talking about. Again, it’s like reading up on an experiment without ever actually doing it!
I sometimes think of theology as an inverse problem. You disturb your status in an intentional and known way and observe the results. However, you only have the ability to observe the boundary of your system. Then you reconstruct what’s going on in the interior. This no less objective a pursuit.
Granted the results often take the form of an interior sensation or peace. But these are what I have objectively experienced. These are what have been predicted by centuries of theologians. I did the experiment and I came up with the results. Now, I also think the experiment is repeatable. Those who do the experiment correctly (i.e. seek with an honest, unbiased heart) will come to the same conclusion as I did. But there’s also numerous documented happenings that are probably miracles. Just for one: look at the Miracle of the Sun from Fatima. In particular, Stanley Jaki’s ideas are convincing in my mind.
This is not to reduce religion to a science, because it is not–at least it’s not in a strictly positivist sense. If you only ascribe to a strict positivist/reductionist viewpoint, I understand how the idea of God is troubling or unbelievable. But, I don’t think it’s totally out of the question to say theology has scientific elements to it. This is why I do believe my analogy is pertinent.
I’m not trying to convert; I am only trying to point out that there are common grounds in both pursuits. We are certainly not the “demented fuckwits” abhorrently generalized in the post. My only wish is that the polarization that is evident in the blog post would cease to exist. We are not crippling hopes for a reasonable world. It is the intolerance that Myers is advocating that is truly destroying those hopes.
Beep wrote:
Beep, are you seriously saying that if I go through a Eucharistic Liturgy and use smooth sleight-of-hand so that I end up receiving an unconsecrated host I’ve brought myself and pocketing the consecrated one, which I manage to sneak out with no one the wiser, then I’ve done something unethical? You think it’s ‘stealing’? And that if someone encourages me to do it, they should lose their job if they don’t apologize?
I mean, really?
Kirk out.
David, by your principles none of us are in a position to dismiss the pantheon of ancient Greece or ancient Egypt. After all, since we live thousands of years too late, we’ve never really participated in the religious ceremonies and rituals of ancient Greece or ancient Egypt. We’ve never really had a chance to “engage the subject”, as you put it.
But anyone reluctant to dismiss those pantheons is out of their mind. Therefore your principles are indeed fuckwitted.
Also, if you think that your ‘honest heart / feeling peaceful’ “experiment” is best explained by invoking supernatural beings, maybe you should spend some time telling us why.
Uh-huh.
And how do you distinguish Catholic inner peace from Protestant inner peace from Coptic inner peace from Buddhist inner peace from Jewish inner peace from Hindu inner peace from Sikh inner peace from Muslim inner peace from [and so on] from the inner peace of an atheist who has just has really great sex from the inner peace of an atheist who has just had a really good beer from the inner peace of an atheist who is just lying on the grass thinking of nothing in particular besides the changing shapes of the clouds?
Pax Zymurgia.
Andrew:
Very, very well said.
Andrew:
Very, very well said.
O RLY?
YA RLY
Quote taken from:
http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1459
“The Myers blog can be accessed from the university’s website. The university has a policy statement on this issue which says that the ‘Contents of all electronic pages must be consistent with University of Minnesota policies, local, state and federal laws.’ One of the school’s policies, ‘Code of Conduct,’ says that ‘When dealing with others,’ faculty et al. must be ‘respectful, fair and civil.’ Accordingly, we are contacting the President and the Board of Regents to see what they are going to do about this matter. Because the university is a state institution, we are also contacting the Minnesota legislature.”
Really?! REALLY?! This is what it comes down to? People are trying to get a well educated man fired for threatening a cracker?! This country has gone mad. I think it’s time for Professor Myers to take his level of intelligence over to England and join Dawkins, I’ll follow. The U.S. may claim the land of the free until it’s blue in the face. I think England should be called the land of the intelligent and the home of the sane.
Haven’t had time to read all the posts so forgive me if this has already been said:
If the cracker is “transubstantiated” and is now the “body of Christ” its time for a DNA test
Haha I can’t possibly read all of these but was linked here from Platitude of the Day, a wonderfully observant and amusing secular website from the UK.
Well Done!! More experiments please. How about chemical analysis of holy water next time? (if you haven’t done it already), I’m sure that will reveal something spiritual and transcendent – Sacred Steam maybe? Holy Hydrogen? I’m on the edge of my chair in anticipation of a prodigous revelation… halleluyah & amen.
Sorry Owlmirror, but I can’t be bothered getting into a flame war with you. Just re-read all the comments above where I repeatedly pwn Ichthyic and Dr. Benway and you can bask in the vicarious fail.
Afterwards, if you want, you can still work yourself up into a seething rage because some people you don’t know believe in some shit you don’t care about.
I’m disappointed to see some Catholics here actually calling for people to condem PZ Myers, in some cases as a deal for them to condem Bill Donahue. Don’t make deals with terrorists! These simple minded folk obviously can’t see that it would be pointless to condem Ayatollah Donahue if PZ Myers is condemmed, since the Ayatollah will have acheived his anti-constitutional aims already.
Any Catholic that cannot see how uttely unreasonable the Catholic League are being, given the death threats and threats to Prof. Myers job, are themselves unreasonable and thus not worth engaging with.
What on earth is the Catholic League anyway? This looks like a seedling empire being led by its own implicitly ordained pope. Of course he is not recognised by the Intergalactic Republic unlike the real pope. Chuckle…..
I did however see a Catholic person say that he agreed with PZ Myers on his point on crackers, which was pleasing to see. Perhaps this should demonstrate to us that we should not be tempted to tar all Catholics with the same brush and a reminder that if we don’t generalise about a religion then we may find support on specific points amongst that religion’s adherents. i.e. Don’t condem all Catholics when a subset are misbehaving.
Unfortunately the UK has its own share of religious nutters being given unmerited privileges and being allowed to take money under false pretences (for jobs at which they’ve rendered themselves incompetent because they aren’t honest enough to leave them to their betters and, in this case, do the religious version instead).
It’s mostly that the US, being bigger overall, has a greater number of more extreme religious nutters. Just like it gets more gold medals in the olympics than the UK does. The UK also panders to its religious nutters in slightly different ways than the US does (but then the UK also panders to the US – which it shouldn’t).
England (and Britain in general) is more traditionally known as the home of the eccentric anyway, rather than the sane.
SEF,
You stated:
Don’t depair, things are significantly better in the UK than the US on the religion front as indicated by the Guardian/ICM poll. The trend is in the right direction even if it is two steps forward and one step back (a reference to the import of idiologies from 3rd world nations).
David @ 767 says:
I’m disappointed to find that you think this is actually an experiment in any scientific sense. I’m further disappointed to see that you cannot distinguish between objective and subjective observations. This does not bode well for your future career. Maybe you could look into being a UFO researcher, where your credulity would be an asset instead of a hindrance.
I do not know how to seek with an unbiased heart. I’m not aware that my heart could have biases at all. I did have a problem with my mitral valve but that’s been repaired thanks to technology and a good surgeon. Perhaps you can explain how your heart can be biased and how you’re sure whatever seeking you did was truly unbiased. I ask because I’ve had a sense of inner peace myself since I realized gods were make-believe and I no longer lie to myself. Though if you feel more inner peace by lying to yourself you’re welcome to continue to do it.
I’m still waiting for some real evidence that there’s a difference in the consecrated and unconsecrated crackers so I can accompany you to Sweden to pick up your Nobel.
This is approaching the inanity of the expulsion incident.
Here’s my favorite post so far… from Sauceress.
Is one required to kneel when accepting *Jesus* into their mouth?
Does the priest say:
“Please kneel,open your mouth and it’s imperative that you swallow that which you are about to receive”?
To which I’ll add…
Jesus is coming and he doesn’t pull out.
FYI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharistic_Minister
We are ordinary folk, laity, or sometimes a religious who volunteer for this ministry, for which the Bishop gives permission lastin a few years. As Laity, or as any person with responsibility, we keep on eye on things, and, evidently, this fellow was making our job harder. The above link describes what we do.
I happen to know, as a family genealogist, that some of our distant cousins helped populate the state of Minnesota, as Luxembourgers who brought the Roman Catholic Faith with them and built parishes there!
As a citizen of Minnesota, and an employee of Minnesota, you should have respect for your fellows, your neighbors. We had a Minnesotan Catholic as our neighbor, who is now from Ohio, and she kindly keeps in touch wherever they live.
The beautiful experience of Holy Communion and of being in Communion can be explained to you, perhaps, as being a great leveler. We are all one with God, and feel his presence. The young adult who acted as if he was not in Communion, had to tax the ministers with his behavior. Having to keep an eye on someone who receives the Blessed Sacrament, but, carries it off, and to continue with ministering the Eucharist which is consecrated, not blessed! … the article was not written by a person who is Catholic … is a terrible way to treat your neighbor, myself. You do not have to be a believer to understand that. Who saw this besides the Minister, I cannot imagine. Must have been those sitting next to him. One wonders how peaceful that person was, who could upset his neighbors.
Sharon,
Do you condone members of the congregation assaulting people ? Is violence not worse that what this kid did ? Only to go by the reaction of the Catholic Church, we must conclude it is. Some very silly people even said it was hate crime, and Donohue said he had trouble thinking of anything more vile.
No problem. ANY city of more than about 15,000 has a religious supply store. Visit yours, and purchase any religious supplies you might need, including your communion wafers. You’re welcome.
If an older person grabs you on the elbow, it could be for any reason, and it may seem harsh at the time, but you give them some leeway don’t you? I have no idea why you consider that assault, but that you must live by yourself. Assault may be a choke hold, or it may be words. Jesus Christ is the founder of Western Civilization through the Church, the Roman Catholic Church. The Body of Christ, which is the Church is nutured with the Bread of Life, throughout all of these ages. What are you possibly going on about? Obviously Christians will fight for what they believe in. Your idea of Christ as being some kind of push-over, is wrong. See how He was upset with the money-changers in the Temple. Even so, Jesus loves us so much, that he is merciful.
The beautiful experience of Holy Communion and of being in Communion can be explained to you, perhaps, as being a great leveler. We are all one with God, and feel his presence.
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah
If an older person grabs you on the elbow, it could be for any reason, and it may seem harsh at the time, but you give them some leeway don’t you? I have no idea why you consider that assault, but that you must live by yourself. Assault may be a choke hold, or it may be words, but hardly an elbow pull. Thankfully someone helped because the Eucharistic Minister, if it wasn’t him or her, is hampered a bit … and often waits until after Mass to confront. You are going against the foundations of Western Civilization, the Roman Catholic Church.
Sharon,
So the simple answer is yes, you think it was OK for Webster Cook to be assaulted. A woman tried to prise the wafer out his hand. It is telling you are OK with that. And you wonder why people think the Catholic Church is fucked up ? You have just given us the reason. It is also telling there has not been one single comment from the Catholic Church condemning the death threats Webster Cook and PZ have received.
And as for you claim the foundation of Western Civilisation is the Roman Catholic Church: what rubbish. Have you never heard of the Roman and Greek civilisations that pre-date Catholicism ? I imagine you have, and I also imagine you know the contribution they made to civilisation.
Still since you claim to have an official position with the Catholic Church it is nice to have confirmation that assaulting a person you think has fail to swallow a wafer is OK. I suggest you look elsewhere than your church for your morals in future, as currently they have you condoning violence.
I was thinking… buying “normal” wafers (as in the ones that are not yet blessed) is relatively easy, but to commit the actual sacrilege you need the blessed ones… so here’s how you do it:
1- Buy a tub of wafers.
2- Wait for one of those festivities where people go to the church to bless the most craziest things (like, in the day of Saint Francis of Assisi, you can have any domestic animal blessed, or Saint Christopher, where people bless their cars. If I’m not mistaken the last one is on 25th july).
3- Hide the tub of wafers in the object/animal to be blessed
4- Et voila! Both the object/animal AND the wafers will receive the holy water and become blessed!
Notice the lack of ideas, the anger and the hatred in this thread. I thought atheists were evidence-based, objective and rational? Question: What’s the rational basis for your calumny against Christians? How does insulting remarks and mockery that advance your position that you people represent a reasoned alternative against the Catholic worldview?
Jolele Cassa,
No, atheism is simply the lack of belief in god or gods.
It is true that many atheists do value evidence, objectivity and rationality but they do not define atheism. It is quite possible to be an atheist and reject those concepts.
Where did you get misguided idea of what atheism is ?
A lack of belief in god or gods because of…..a perceived lack of scientific evidence, right? I have yet to meet an atheist who doesn’t base their atheism on the idea that humankind sprang spontaneously from the primordial muck. Every atheist I’ve met or read, believes some form of this random chance “gospel” and bases it on evolutionary theory. They also tend to revere Dawkins, Hitchens, Darwin et al as saint-like figures.
I just find it ironic that atheists have such irrational emotional outbursts in their dialogues with believers. Catholics, for example are much more level-headed and mannered.
Jolene:
No, you’re still not getting it. Though the few atheists you may have met may have claimed their atheism stems from a sense of where the evidence leads them (and I am one of those), it is not the only way someone may consider themselves an atheist. Further, since atheism is only a lack of belief in gods, it is not a worldview, an ideology or a religion. It has no dogma, no canon and no central authority. Some Buddhists are considered atheists.
Your description of the origin of mankind does not correspond with my understanding of evolutionary theory. The fact that you described it in terms more common to theological discussion (for example gospel, revere, saint) leads me to think you don’t have a very good grasp of evolutionary theory. It is not simple random chance. Since you don’t seem to understand it, I doubt you’re a good judge as to whether or not it describes reality, which is all scientists are really trying to do.
Irony is indeed where you find it. I can’t recall any comments on this thread (I’ve read them all) made by an atheist that came anywhere close to the level of irrational required to believe a cracker can be transformed into the flesh of a 2000 year old dead guy.
“A lack of belief in god or gods because of…..a perceived lack of scientific evidence, right?”
Neope, Someone has lied to you about what atheism is.
Atheism is simply the lack of belief in god or gods. Nothing more. I have no idea why you persist in saying it is. Either you are ignorant or you are not honest.
“Catholics, for example are much more level-headed and mannered.”
Ah, like when they assaulted Webster Cook ? Or made death threats to him and PZ ? I think you may have a problem with the meaning of words, since I do not find making death threats, or attacking people, to be a sign of being level-headed and mannered. Maybe you are using those words in a specific meaning.
All these comments just prove people are weak. In history we see the same acts over and over again. All good men suffer. Guess what? In-spite of education people as a species never change. PEOPLE CHOOSE TO HATE. It is a choice and no matter your color, shape, religion or nationality hate seems to just GROW. If you hate a particular person , place or thing, ask yourself, why? I am tired of people on soap boxes telling me they can solve all the problems if the can just get rid of ” ” you fill in the blank. We need to stop. Why are we so interested in telling people what they believe is wrong???? Why not appreciate and REPECT that they are just like us. They feel just like us. They are different yet the same. Why not look for the good in people and stop the constant tearing down of faith. All religions have people who hate. Individual choice. Hate is not the motive of FAITH its a flaw in people. People hate out of fear and pride. What is wrong with being KIND? Everyone is angry. You see it everywhere. What is it getting any of us? I don’t see any of this as positive. People need to think. Hate and anger do not improve the world period. An act of kindness is a blessing to EVERYONE.
“Why are we so interested in telling people what they believe is wrong???? ”
Maybe because so many of them refuse to stop at just belief. Have you not noticed how the Catholic church tries to influence legislation on things such as abortion and gay rights ? If they just stuck to believing there would not be a problem, but there is when the religious think the rest of us should also be made to follow laws based on their beliefs.
We should save up about 180 pounds of blessed crackers, assemble the entire body of Christ and ask him what we should do with the evil offender.
Is there a way to tell what part of Christ the cracker has become? Wouldnt want to get the eyeball cracker crossed with the anus cracker.
Mocking Holy scripture may have consequences folks even those who “trash” the New Testament!
Matthew 26: 26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”
Maybe He was kidding-huh?
Also, how about this–1 Corinthians 11:29 “For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.”
BTW-for those of you who believe there is no God-then accept the fact that your mom,dad,relatives,spouse and children are nothing more than “grasshoppers”. Smart ones for sure but “just grasshoppers”.
Maybe you are more than that and the word for this concept is “Hope”.
Jolene Cassa asks:
Jolene, There are 3 courses of action one can take in pursuit of concurrence with a view, right or wrong:
1. Reason and debate
2. Riddicule
3. Force
Point 1 is free and fair and requires little certainy on any point to partake in.
Point 2 is an appeal to reason with those that surround the individual with which you are in disagreement. One should be carefully sure of one’s position to take this course otherwise one risks riddiculing themself.
Point 3 is the least desireable course of action for obvious reasons of liberty, but when one’s own liberty is threatenned by not taking such action there is little other choice.
Ayatollah Donahue with his Fatwa against PX Myers is clearly beyond reason, so we are at point 2, not by our choosing but by Bill Donahue forcing the matter with his attempts to discredit and ruin PZ Myers’ life simply because he is offended. This is clearly unreasonable and disproportionate behaviour. Arguably we should be at point 3 because that is where Bill Donahue is with his actions and words.
So please don’t complain at people riddiculing the Catholic league here when the Catholic League have already gone well past this point.
Bill Robberson says:
Maybe, but also maybe not. Have you considered that the texts you refer to as scripture might be fiction? We don’t have any Christian texts that can be reliably dated to the first century. Frankly I’m not worried about any divine retribution. The only danger I see is from some religious wingnut trying to do their god’s dirty work for him.
It is a reflection of how low the atheist community has gone. Every post is a clear example of the atheist world-view; ridicule and treat anyone with disrespect who doesn’t believe that God is a fairy tale. Someone will refute my comment and disrespect me, but that will just be further proof of how disrespectful you all are.
Practically every comment was nothing more than sophomoric, disrespectful rhetoric. But that’s clearly what happens when you remove God from your life, you no-longer have the capability to treat others with common respect. And don’t give me that “earn it” crap, you don’t even know any of these people – so what do you know what they’ve earned? And don’t bother commenting back to me, I won’t return here again, why would I? There’s nothing of interest here for me. You’re all rather crude and I wouldn’t waste my time among you. Try this; try and find one comment that agrees with Mr. Meyers, and see if it has even a shred of decency or respect. I doubt you’ll find one. But hey, if that’s for you, then you’re at the right place.
One last point; you all think you’re so smart – the person I quoted above had a point to make and nobody got it. Instead you all made ridiculous arguments about Hitler and Jack the Ripper. That too was quite telling about the atheist world-view.
#799
“Also, how about this–1 Corinthians 11:29 ‘For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.'”
IF!! this is what you believe, then why is it necessary to further condemn either Myers or Cook for not treating the wafer properly? Why is it, that these Christians must take the “Lord’s” work into your own hands and attempt to get Cook expelled, or Myers fired? Isn’t God powerful enough on his own, to have this done with no interference?
Bill Robberson @ 800 says:
Sorry Bill but this doesn’t make any sense to me, even if I take away the scare quotes around the word grasshopper. Perhaps you’re a fan of an old David Carradine TV show? Or is English not your native language?
But though I see no reason to believe in the exisstence of gods, I still have hopes. One is that you get a clue.
Well, it’s not as though the Catholic’s response to this is sane in any respect, but it hardly seems helpful to keep going on about how a communion wafer is just a cracker. I mean, to any non-Catholics that’s exactly what it is, but to a Catholic it’s the flesh of their lord and savior. I’m not saying that makes any sense, but it is how they see it.
RE: Ray S. #805
“BTW-for those of you who believe there is no God-then accept the fact that your mom,dad,relatives,spouse and children are nothing more than “grasshoppers”. Smart ones for sure but “just grasshoppers”.
Maybe you are more than that and the word for this concept is “Hope”.
Sorry Bill but this doesn’t make any sense to me, even if I take away the scare quotes around the word grasshopper. Perhaps you’re a fan of an old David Carradine TV show? Or is English not your native language?
But though I see no reason to believe in the exisstence of gods, I still have hopes. One is that you get a clue.”
I agree, this is an illogical arguement. We, Athiests, don’t believe we are grasshoppers. I don’t even find this statement offensive. I believe I’m a monkey! Just a more evolved version. So it doesn’t hurt my feelings to be called a grasshopper.
Also, just because we do not believe a God exists, doesn’t mean members of are families believe the same. Are you saying that because one member of a family is an Athiest, it nullifies the beliefs of everyone in that family?
You should be arrested for solicitation of larceny.
And no, not because you’ve insulted Catholicism or threatened desecration or acted like a jerk. Simply because you committed the crime. Yes, it is a crime to ask others to commit a crime.
Although it won’t happen, it’d be fun to see you prosecuted for it. You’d get a hotshot 1st Amendment lawyer with dreams of the Supreme Court, which would merely land you all the glory of a stiff fine and maybe even 30 days in jail, because criminal solicitation is completely unprotected.
What crime would that be?
Taking a cracker that someone gives to you?
junk, You are a moron.
Jennie-I’m not saying ANYTHING about what your relatives or friends believe about you. I’m saying that as an atheist that you believe that about them. i.e. If you believe you are a cricket/grasshopper/monkey then how can you not believe your family is as well.
It is a culture of deluded lunatics calling the shots and making human beings dance to their mythical bunkum.
How is this a statement of scientific objectivity or cultural tolerance?
The dictatorship of relativism, as expressed by the author of this blog, will brook no dissent.
It’s interesting to note that a belief being described as “patently ridiculous” on this blog was held in esteem / fascinated Albert Einstein.
Story here. Excerpt:
Father Groeschel recounted the story of a young priest who knocked on Einstein’s door without an appointment, just to pay a visit to the great professor. Einstein welcomed the priest stranger and insisted he tell him everything he knew about the Eucharist. Einstein was known to ask several priests to recommend all the books they could on the Eucharist, because of his fascination and respect for such an immense mystery.
Really? Does the taking of the wafer permanently deprive the Church of the body of Jesus? Interesting, veeery interesting…
Your Einstein story is not at all interesting.
I would not be surprised if it was a bald faced lie.
Your Einstein story is not at all interesting.
I would not be surprised if it was a bald faced lie.
Hey, you’re entitled to your opinion. However, you might want to prove I am lying, rather than just asserting it, if science is something of interest to you.
Research counts as respect?
Given that Einstein is on the record as not having any belief in a personal God, he was much more likely curious about the strange superstitions that humans can have.
Like your link is any kind of proof?
What a joke.
Given that Einstein is on the record as not having any belief in a personal God, he was much more likely curious about the strange superstitions that humans can have.
But note that he had the personal decency not to attack religious beliefs. He was a fair-minded scientist.
Why exactly would anyone care what Einstein thought about it?
It is just a stupid argument from authority.
Even if he did respect it in no way makes it more deserving of respect.
Spurge:
Like your link is any kind of proof?
No, never claimed to be providing proof, only evidence. I don’t think you have provided any evidence that my story is false. Wishing a thing does not make it so.
What evidence?
It is pure assertion.
“The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.”
Interesting quote. Hadn’t seen it before. Thanks for surfacing it.
Still, notice: He wasn’t agitating for others to hold what was simply an opinion for him, nor was he mocking believers and their rituals. And he knew the difference between a personal opinion and scientific fact.
No one can prove that God does not exist. It is outside the domain of empirical science to do so. To claim that one can prove — scientifically — that God does not exist is to engage in the most blind faith in scientism. Not scientific at all.
Spurge,
You wrote: What evidence? It is pure assertion.
OK – not evidence. Whatever. At least my assertion was based in a source that I know to be reliable, and I linked to it. Could you at least do the same, in support of your assertion?
You can either back up what you said with a reliable source or you can’t.
The burden of proof is on you. Not me.
Bill- your response is much clearer now. You’re right, I do believe my family are monkies, and not sarcastically either! They, like myself have evolved over time from monkies. Yes you are correct. I believe that. I also believe you are a monkey. And as you’ve splendidly pointed out, yes, we are relatives of grasshoppers. Distant relatives.
Don’t be so offensive Bill, just make your statements more clearly. Then, this kind of misunderstanding wouldn’t happen.
Coming late to the party, as usual, I see. Well, still my 2 cents worth..
Some have argued that this kind of argumentation on the part of atheists is childish, silly and pointless, and might even hinder the acceptability of atheists in the society. Even disregarding the obvious failure of “polite atheism” to be taken seriously and gain acceptance, there is also another viewpoint to all this besides the immediately necessary defence of freedom of speech and belief and the demonstration of the growing visibility and relevance of the reality-based community.
In my mind the point of this exercise is also to desensitize people, to force them to either grow a thicker skin and tolerate dissenting viewpoints and actions or examine and re-evaluate their beliefs. In effect, to get them used to being challenged.
Hopefully, one day this kind of furore simply won’t happen. The reaction of everyone touched by something like this will be a derisive snort or a sigh and a rolling of the eyes, nothing more. No apoplectic fury and threats to people’s wellbeing and livelihood. No expectations that one’s religion is automatically entitled to be “respected” and never to be exposed to criticism. People need to grow accustomed to being criticized and disagreed with, that is the only way to make a decent, pluralistic society. Differences need to be tolerated, but not mindlessly respected. One’s ideas must be robust enough to withstand ridicule. One must be humble enough to accept that one may by wrong. “I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken,” said Cromwell. Not a person I would normally quote, but well said and appropriate. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me. Nor will “disrespecting” a wafer, a book or any other unfeeling object.
And to Bill Robberson @ 800: “Isn’t it enough that the garden is beautiful that you have see fairies at the bottom of it too?” I’m quite happy to be “just a grasshopper”, if you mean by that that when we die, we will rot and nothing of our being will remain, save the genes we have passed on to our children.
It can indeed be proven that the God of all religions cannot exist because it is logically contradictory.
The only sort of Gods that cannot be proven to not exist are those Gods who, as defined, have no power or desire to make themselves known, which contradicts the definitions of all religions. Or as the Epicurian argument runs, “Why then call him ‘God’?”
About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church. As long as I can remember, I have resented mass indoctrination. I do not believe in the fear of life, in the fear of death, in blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil.
Thanks, Owlmirror. Another great quote, I assume from Einstein.
Notice: the speaker makes lots of “I” statements. All of them fair. They state what he believes. No mockery of those who believe otherwise. In marked contrast to many on this blog, including the blog’s author.
Those who mock others leave the impression of being insecure in their unbelief. It’s fine to have doubts, to have questions, to identify oneself as a non-believer. But why attack those who do believe?
Here’s a quote from a modern-day believer you may have encountered before:
No one can lay God and is Kingdom on the table before another man; even the believer cannot do it for himself. But however strongly unbelief may feel itself thereby justified it cannot forget the eerie feeling induced by the words “Yet perhaps it is true”. The “perhaps” is the unavoidable temptation which it cannot elude, the temptation in which it too, in the very act of rejection, has to experience the unrejectability of belief. In other words, both the believer and the unbeliever share, each in his own way, doubt and belief, if they do not hide away from themselves and from the truth of their being. Neither can quite escape either doubt or belief; for the one, faith is present against doubt, for the other through doubt and in the form of doubt. It is the basic pattern of man’s destiny only to be allowed to find the finality of his existence in this unceasing rivalry between doubt and belief, temptation and certainty. Perhaps in precisely this way doubt, which saves both sides from being shut up in their own worlds, could become the avenue of communication. It prevents both from enjoying complete self-satisfaction; it opens up the believer to the doubter and the doubter to the believer; for one it is his share in the fate of the unbeliever, for the other the form in which belief remains nevertheless a challenge to him.
(Source)
Anyone else interested in opening an avenue of communication between believer and unbeliever?
Jennie, It would be more accurate to call us all apes.
Feh! Can’t write… What I meant to say was: “Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” And that was of course Douglas Adams.
Spurge: You can either back up what you said with a reliable source or you can’t.
The burden of proof is on you. Not me.
I can’t make you believe anything, nor would I want to try to coerce you to do so. I simply wanted to provide an alternate point-of-view as worthy of consideration.
In response, you told me that my contribution was not worthy of consideration, and suggested that, in fact, it was based on a lie. Not a very civil or fair-minded way to communicate. I don’t find drive-by slander to be compelling.
“Yet perhaps it is true” is no different from “Once there was, once there wasn’t”, and other formulaic openings of maerchen and folktales.
All stories have, necessarily, a real component and an imaginary component. Certainly the stories of the bible are no different.
The problem with religion is not the make-believe. It is the making believe that it is not make-believe. It is in becoming so emotionally invested in a story that one becomes willing to deny all reason and all evidence in insisting that the story is true.
“Atheism is simply the lack of belief in god or gods. Nothing more.”
I understand what your saying, Ray, but history begs to differ.
Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennet et al. represent the new wave of atheism, a religio-political movement with huge scientific pretentions. The science-lite this quartet spoon out the credulous serves no other purpose than to induce and deepen the faith in a Godless, determinist universe. The more you buy, the greater their aggrandizement. There’s a reason pride is considered the ultimate source of all sin.
Besides, didn’t the Supreme Court already rule that a religion need not be based on a belief in the existence of a “supreme being?” In Torcaso v. Watkins, (1961) the court described “secular humanism” as a religion. The atheistic worldview is your version of Romans 8: A “Hope in things unseen” … Personally I find it a pretty childish view of our origin and destiny, the human condition and the iniquity of evil. As your best hope for justice, peace, and salvation, its failed every historical test. It’s a mythology.
I keep looking for reason and compassion in atheist circles but I rarely find it. Just look at this thread. Myopia, bombast and smirking contempt. How reasoned. How compassionate and practical a guide for humanity.
What I find most disturbing is that practitioners of today’s atheism suffer such historical amnesia regarding the wholesale horrors of their progenitors. You suffer the curse of the autodidact: you’ll only read what confirms your prejudices. The broad, objective view is this: Your experiment was tried, and it failed. While the control group of believers fed the hungry, cared for the wretched, built hospitals and universities, your experimental group of rational men ran amok with gulags, concentrations camps and eugenics. The purpose of atheism is as it always was: A demonic arrow aimed straight at the heart of the Christian trinity.
Those who mock others leave the impression of being insecure in their unbelief. It’s fine to have doubts, to have questions, to identify oneself as a non-believer. But why attack those who do believe?
This kind of pop-psychologizing, with no real basis, is hilarious.
did it ever occur to you that we ridicule your beliefs because they’re ridiculous?
How about a discussion over wine and some crackers?
Posted by: Jolene Cassa | July 12, 2008 6:21 PM
Another “persecuted” delusional fuckwit.
They sure like to play martyr, don’t they.
Einsteins view on it has no more worth than yours or mine.
He is entirely irrelevant.
An argument from authority is a logical fallacy.
People with nothing to bolster their position often resort to it.
What slander? I stated my opinion. I did not even state it as a fact.
How about a discussion over wine and some crackers?
Beats a whine over crackers.
MAJeff:
You wrote:
This kind of pop-psychologizing, with no real basis, is hilarious. Did it ever occur to you that we ridicule your beliefs because they’re ridiculous?
Sure I considered it. But the problem here is that an appeal to ridicule is not compelling. So you find something to be ridiculous. Fine. Why should others feel the same way? You’re simply making an appeal to your opinion as something that should be compelling to others. And, in this case, it is not.
An appeal to ridicule is a common type of logical fallacy. Being able to spot it in arguments will help you defend yourself, and avoiding it will make you a much stronger communicator and debater.
None of my beliefs were handed down from Stalin. Can Christians say the same of their more unsavoury progenitors?
So you find something to be ridiculous. Fine. Why should others feel the same way?
Because we’re on a site where I know other people will feel the same way?
Then again, it’s impossible for us nasy non-human(e) atheists to form any community where we share jokes. Nope, all about us having a psychological problem. Of course, it all makes sense now. It’s not even a magic cracker anymore. I see the light!
How about a discussion over wine and some crackers?
Absolutely. I’m all for wine and crackers. Everything in its place.
This discussion would proceed much differently in person, over a meal. Cyber-disinhibition often causes people to communicate in a comments box in ways they would never communicate in person.
That does sure sound like religion to me.
Fixed.
Also fixed.
So, instead of counseling believers to turn the other cheek, Donohue asks why aren’t you hitting my neighbors’ cheeks instead? Real courage there, Bill.
MAJeff:
it’s impossible for us nasy non-human(e) atheists to form any community where we share jokes. Nope, all about us having a psychological problem. Of course, it all makes sense now. It’s not even a magic cracker anymore. I see the light!
That’s fine that you want to form community. I assumed, perhaps mistakenly, that the blog might also be a place for discussion with others who think differently.
And as regards the “psychological problem”… note that I simply stated that mockery gave the impression of insecurity. I did not say that you or others are, in fact, insecure. So let’s lighten up. You get the wine, I’ll get the crackers. And maybe someone could provide a pipe to smoke?
“I assumed, perhaps mistakenly, that the blog might also be a place for discussion with others who think differently.”
What exactly do you think has been going on here?
Owlmirror –
You wrote:
The problem with religion is not the make-believe. It is the making believe that it is not make-believe. It is in becoming so emotionally invested in a story that one becomes willing to deny all reason and all evidence in insisting that the story is true.
Most religion is not, technically speaking, make-believe. Scientology, based on a deliberate fiction by L Ron Hubbard, would be an exception. Most religion makes its claims precisely on what is received rather than what is made… The distinction may be lost on the unbeliever, but it’s a real distinction. See, for instance, the Catholic Church’s position on revelation: there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers: the order of divine Revelation.
I can understand the concern about those who throw reason / evidence to the wind. That is a dangerous thing to do. But it is not what all believers do (example here, cf. paragraph 159).
Posted by: Owlmirror
QED!
oooooo….revelation
woooooooooooooo
Spurge:
You asked: What exactly do you think has been going on here?
There has been some discussion. I applaud that. But there has also been a good deal of ad hominem attacks, mockery, and dismissive comments. It happens on every blog.
Personally, I think blogs are overrated when it comes to actual dialogue. Live, in-person communication is a better forum, I think.
But I appreciate the chance to interact here. Thanks for the discussion, everyone. Time for my wine and cheese.
Have a good day Clayton.
RE: Spurge Post #832
You are correct! We could be accurately described as apes. Also we can be described as crickets and grasshoppers as bill pointed out. My point was this. I’m not offended. People can call me an animal/insect of any description, and I don’t mind. I can be corrected and told I’m not a monkey, I’m more accurately an ape. I still don’t mind. Anyone else got an animal they can add to the list? I’ll continue agreeing with you, I promise.
I see your point Jennie. I can’t disagree. Sorry to be so dense.
Have you read “Your Inner Fish”?
Is PZ 14? I know biologists are the dumbest scientists, but are they the biggest twerps as well?
None of my beliefs were handed down from Stalin. Can Christians say the same of their more unsavoury progenitors?
Posted by: windy | July 12, 2008 6:30 PM
No one suggested they were. My point is that the natural ends of atheism in virtually every historical case, is the objectification of the human person. All countries following an atheist worldview, practice slavery, murder and genocide to maintain the state. We’ve all seen the horrors of atheism played out in the last century. There were more Christian martyrs in the 20th century than in all the previous centuries of the faith, and most were due to mass political movements with their basis in atheism.
The top eight deadliest wars in human history originated in mainland Asia or the near east. They are:
1) Tianbao Rebellion-62 million killed Ethos: political/economic
2) Mongol Conquests-40 million killed Ethos: political/economic
3) WWI- 15 million killed ethos: political
4) WWII-55 million killed. ethos: atheism
5) Russian Civil War 9 million killed. ethos: atheism
6) Maoist Cultural Revolution-40 million killed. ethos: atheism
7) Stalinist famine and pogroms 51 million killed. ethos atheism
There are no Christian progenitors anywhere close to matching Atheism”s trail of blood, my friend.
It’s amazing to my mind that average people will recoil at the idea of joining neo-nazi or klu-klux klan groups and yet the same people PROUDLY declare their atheist affiliations-a belief system that has spawned such untold misery and death on humanity.
Look at what our Catholic contributors are saying in this forum! Isn’t it incredible?
They are far more concerned about the riddicule and scorn being poured on them for childish anti-social behaviour than the fact that their own fellow Catholics are making death threats to PZ Myers and Mr Cook….and they consider atheists to be morally challenged! It is no wonder that Catholicism is virtually a dead religion in the UK and a minority in the US.
Jolene Cassa said:
A “religio-political” political movement? I would agree that part of the aim is to encourage atheists to become more politically organized, so I guess that you are partly correct, but only partly. There is nothing wrong in wanting to provide a push back against the increasingly politicized religious organizations in the US, particularly.
And the reason that it is “science-lite” is because any discussion about God is necessarily so. If you want to claim that God is not detectable using the tools of science — a point with which there is much disagreement, depending on the God that you posit — then don’t expect there to be much science involved.
It is fairly obvious that the supposed “new atheists” were not looking to produce groundbreaking philosophical tracts, in any case. You can’t seem to get your story straight, here. If you have correctly identified their intentions are largely political, why on earth are you expecting them to produce scientific and philosophical masterpieces? That seems rather disingenuous on your part.
I have said many times that the “new atheists” haven’t produced anything that is particularly earth-shattering. Once you understand that, though, you can start to see what it was that they were aiming for. If you want to read a serious philosophical exploration of the God hypothesis, read something by Michael Martin, Theodore Drange, J.L Mackie, or any other serious atheist author.
I am sure that it hasn’t escaped your attention that the “new atheists” have had more of an impact, publicly, than any of those authors, and while what that says about the general public is disappointing, the general public is all that we have to work with. Indeed, you only have to look at all of the books that have been produced in reply to the “new atheists”, and particularly Dawkins, to realize that many religionists understand all too well the danger of popularization, as opposed to good argument.
If you can derive anything that could reasonably be called a religion from: “not a theist”, not only will that do more harm to religion than atheism, but you have just made religions out of every other activity that you don’t engage in. Congratulations.
And this nonsense about it being a “pretty childish view of our origin and destiny, the human condition and the iniquity of evil”, is just typical religionist speak for, “I can’t live without the comfort blanket of mythology and the belief that the cosmos loves me, so it’s better that we make stuff up so that we can all feel warm inside”. In other words, it’s bollocks.
Excuse me. You don’t even know me. And this is all a reaction to the death threats and attempts to destroy the careers of Webster Cook and PZ Myers. And as you are yet another religious individual who has stormed in here and not even mentioned, nevermind condemned, that disgraceful behavior, I won’t be looking to you for any advice on “reason and compassion”, thank you very much.
Non sequitur, from start to finish. How does anything logically follow from the rejection of supernatural beliefs?
Nazism, was in no way atheistic, and in many ways an extension of the Catholic right.
Stalinism “is the political regime named after Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from 1929-1953. It includes an extensive use of propaganda to establish a personality cult around an absolute dictator, as well as extensive use of the secret police to maintain social submission and silence political dissent.”
In other words, a political religion.
Eugenics was supported by the religious and non-religious, alike.
None of that logically flows from atheism, so you simply haven’t made your case.
Let me fix those for you, at least while trying to stick to your very cute method of boiling down national and international conflicts to a single word:
4) WWII-55 million killed. ethos: Nazism, Catholic-sponsored fascism
5) Russian Civil War 9 million killed. ethos: Communism
6) Maoist Cultural Revolution-40 million killed. ethos: Communism
7) Stalinist famine and pogroms 51 million killed. ethos: Communism
Also keep in mind that the above cases of totalitarian communism were essentially the state trying to make a religion out of itself. Repeat after me: Atheism does not equal communism. Atheists occupy every place on the political spectrum. All you have to do is not believe in gods.
Also, Hitler was a Christian.
Another point to chew over: piles of bodies really have nothing to do with whether there is a god or not. Or even what we’re supposed to do with his “body”.
You don’t read much, do you Jolene?
1. Atheism isn’t a worldview. It’s a conclusion on ONE fact.
2. This crowd of atheists would risk execution at the hands of most of those evil people you mention. Stalin, for example, banned evolutionary research and executed biologists.
3. Hitler was a Christian. Maybe one of the weirder ones, but he was no atheist.
4. Objectification of people is one of my main complaints about religion.
5. This whole thing is about PZ and us condemning violence and terrorism. Are you saying that rejecting violence and respecting other people’s right to live safely will somehow lead us into mass murder? Are pacifism and peace roads to bloodshed?
6. Ever heard of modern Sweden?
Hitler was a Catholic.
The Nazi party was voted in by a large Protestant majority.
The soldiers of the Wehrmacht were Catholic and Protestant.
The soldiers of the Gestapo were Catholic and Protestant.
The bureaucrats who implemented the racial purity laws were Catholic and Protestant.
The soldiers who arrested people and put them on trains were Catholic and Protestant.
The workers who designed and built the death camps were Catholic and Protestant.
The guards who used the prisoners as slave labor were Catholic and Protestant.
The guards who pulled out prisoners too weak to work for “delousing” in the “showers” were Catholic and Protestant.
The Holocaust was the biggest, most well organized pogrom ever launched by Christians against those that they hated.
Jennie, I like you and respect you!
Thanks to you all for the chance to “see the other side”, I’ve learned lots.
From: Bill the grasshopper/cricket guy.
Hitler and the Nazi’s utterly despised religion.
Owlmirror,
P.S. The majority of the USSR was and is Catholic and Muslim.
RE: Spurge #856
No, I haven’t read your inner fish, but I jotted it down for future reading. I’m currently in the middle of Hitchens’ God is not great.
What is particularly interesting on the ‘crimes of the 20th century’ question is that the vast majority of atheists utterly condemn the behaviour of these people regardles of whether they were Christian or atheist, yet when you mention the behaviour of Christianity for the last 1800 years all we hear from it adherents are excuses and lies.
RE: Bill post #864
Thanks.
Shorter summary of what’s going on in terms of ‘objectifying people’:
Catholic trolls: You should die for even thinking about defiling a cracker! Death threats? Who cares?
PZ’s stance.
Owlmirror,
If Hitler and the Nazis were such exemplery Christians, why did Hitler’s nazis order the extermination of 145,000 Catholics in Auschwitz including virtually every Polish priest, nun and religious brother? The truth is that Nazi Germany advocated a ethos of “Positives Christentum” (Positive Christianity) an invented non-biblical ethic of external signs and an internal agenda controlled by the state which advanced goals consistent with National Socialism.
Pius XII was instrumental in saving at least 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands. And all things considered, in the end, the world didn’t witness a “Bishop’s trial” at Nuremberg, it witnessed a Doctors Trial. These were your natural allies–men of reason, science and advocates of social Dawinism. History taught the world a harsh lesson and still the naive believe in Science without the guidance of Faith.
RE: Jolene post #871
“… it witnessed a Doctors Trial. These were your natural allies–men of reason, science and advocates of social Dawinism.”
I’m not sure where you live, but in the U.S. doctors are required to take the Hippocratic oath stating the ETHICAL use of medicine. The use of medicine for the good of the patient.
The fact that you consider these “Doctors” to be men of reason is kind of scary. Unless you are implying that everyone that doesn’t believe in a God see those individuals as men of reason, in that case, you are very misguided.
How about something analogous to the situation of Communion. How about the mail. You leave your house to take a walk. You see the mailman, and offer to take your mail from him. How does he know if you are the person living at that address! He gives you the mail, and, what do you do? Return to your home with it! But, what if you took the mail and walked away with it! He might well wonder. He may even be substituting for the regular postman! Are there postal rules that cover this situation?! What happens if you find mail that comes to your house, but belong to someone else?! What happens if you find mail that has fallen in between homes! All returned to the right home! That’s what we do, no matter what we may think about the envelope itself, we believe that what is inside may be important to the addressee! So, the analogy between the Holy Eucharist and mail, between the postman and the Eucharistic Minister! Yes, the message contained in the Eucharist reaches our hearts. He has our names, from when we are baptized. We love receiving Him. We await his Word and, desire to act on it. We are grateful and we pray, and He knows who we are because we are in Communion with Him. The Parish lists the main life events that we have, which are celebrated as Sacraments too. God knows us entirely, and He always knows where each of us is at any given moment, physically and in our hearts.
RE: Sharon Z. post #873
Forget about the mailman and his letters, and your eucharists for a moment. As a good Christian, shouldn’t you be pleading on behalf of Cook? He was threatened his LIFE for taking the eucharist? Is that treatment you approve of? WHAT happened to your “peaceful” religion? Why not just say “hey, that brat took the eucharist, and he’ll get his, when he has to answer to God?” Why must you condemn him for his actions? The same logic applies to Meyers. Let your Lord deal with them. Why don’t you people stand up against those making threats to a human life? I was sure one of the commandments was Thou shalt not kill, but apparently there must have been an ammendment to that.
“Thou shalt NOT kill, unless the eucharist is threatened.”
” I’m not sure where you live, but in the U.S. doctors are required to take the Hippocratic oath stating the ETHICAL use of medicine. The use of medicine for the good of the patient.”
Dr. George Tiller (aka Tiller the Killer) is an American physician who took the hippocratic oath, just like every nazi doctor at Nuremburg. What about Bernhard Nathanson, the co-founder of planned parenthood? Before he repented and converted to Catholicism, he was an abortionist who personally killed 30,000 babies (including his own grandchild in utero).
If human beings act as if there’s no eternal consequences for immorality and evil, then morality is an illusion. Atheism provides the justification for many evil acts. Atheists act out of historical destiny, personal conviction or misguided utopian ideals. At any rate rate, no matter how you twist or turn it. atheism is an incredible naive and dangerous not to mention false, worldview. An idea concerning mans origin and destiny ALWAYS comes with a worldview.
RE: Jolene post #875
SO what you are saying is it’s better for me to be of a religion than an athiest?
“Atheism provides the justification for many evil acts. ”
How?
Just because you are only moral out of fear does not mean others are.
Spurge! good to see you!
Hi Jennie.
Yeah, all you guys go ahead and sneer all you want at Catholic belief.
I just got done reading part of this thread, and I got one thing to say: forget about fatwas. We don’t need them. If any of you retards come to my parish and tries to steal a consecrated host, you’ll have my fists up side your asinine “freethinking” skull. A few times in quick succession.
That’s a promise, Dr. Myers & Company. Go ahead. I won’t hesitate to defend the chalice in any Catholic or Orthodox church. This is one Catholic who won’t simper and whimper before your insults.
Just Try Me. I’ll enjoy it. And believe me, I’m not alone.
And by the way, there are plenty of Eucharistic miracles that testify to our faith. Be careful of what you do. You’ll have more than just my fist in your ignorant gob to worry about.
Spurge is correct in stating: “Just because you are only moral out of fear does not mean others are.”
as an athiest, I personally don’t believe in abortions. BUT that is my PERSONAL view. Not because I’m afraid of how GOD will react. Inspite of my personal view, I think abortion should remain an option for those that believe in choosing that route. Because my personal views should not dictate the options in someone else’s life.
Thanks for proving our point Charles.
Only the religious care more about a cracker than real people and become violent over nothing.
RE: Curtis post #880
Another shining example of the peaceful Catholic religion. Kudos!
My point is that atheistic views are fatal to charity, to love and to human justice. Their anti-Christian hubris blinds them to reason and to history. They too endeavor to impose their worldview on government and legislation-the very thing they accuse the Church of. They actuallly believe they have a better way despite their abysmal track record.
need another example? How about the Spanish Civil War.? In the summer of 1936, 7,937 Catholic priests, bishops, and 283 nuns, (many whom were raped first) were shot, burned, buried alive, thrown down mineshafts, and otherwise murdered in Red Spain. Their atheist captors gave them an ultimatum: “Join the peoples militias or die,” Most made the sign of the cross and immediately forgave their killers. They were immediately executed. Marxism/atheism in action, folks.
We’ve all had the unfortunate experience of an obnoxious houseguest raiding our fridge, throwing dirty laundry around, lying on our sofa and boring us with their imagined acheivements. PZ Myers is just such a guest, although in this case the he’s entrenched himself in the house called Christendom. The house that provides for his every want and need, and paradoxically the house he never ceases to whine and complain about. Time to move on Pee Zee…I hear Cuba is nice this time of year.
“In the Florida incident, student senator Webster Cook presented himself at Sunday Mass to receive the Eucharist. According to wftv.com, Cook said he intended to take the consecrated Host back to his seat to show a curious friend. After being stopped on his return to his seat, he put the Host in his mouth but removed it upon sitting down.
“He said a church leader grabbed his hands and tried to retrieve the Eucharist, after which he left with the Host. Cook filed an official abuse complaint with the UCF student court, while Catholic students filed other complaints alleging Cook engaged in disruptive conduct.”
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=13208
It doesn’t say whether he was registered at the Parish. Communicants say “Amen” to the words “Body of Christ” at reception of the Eucharist and we take Christ into our hearts by ingesting the Eucharist. It is alike to a Protestant who “comes to the altar” to affirm his Faith in Jesus Christ. Catholics go to the altar every Sunday, or more.
Catholics are family which each other. Sometimes family members have disagreements. I don’t know, nor do you know, if the young man is Catholic. Sometimes Protestants will ask for permission from the Priest to receive. I, personally recognize many Parishioners. Just as the Pastors and other Religious certainly make an effort to do. One takes it upon oneself to get to know the other Parishioners and the Pastor, etc. Now, you must realize that this person was evidently unknown to and acted in a suspicious manner. Go to a Parish yourself, even without making an incident, and you will likely have someone approach you and start up a conversation to determine who you are! You must register, sooner rather than later.
Jolene, you’re logic is compelling! I’ve decided to become a religious person after all. I shall join the Islamic faith as soon as possible. Their God can provide me with the morals I need to be a good human. I can never thank you enough for showing me the light!
“My point is that atheistic views are fatal to charity, to love and to human justice.”
Your point is that of a bigot.
“We’ve all had the unfortunate experience of an obnoxious houseguest raiding our fridge, throwing dirty laundry around, lying on our sofa and boring us with their imagined acheivements. PZ Myers is just such a guest, although in this case the he’s entrenched himself in the house called Christendom.”
Who is on whose blog calling them evil.
Fucking hypocrite.
“They actuallly believe they have a better way despite their abysmal track record.”
What track record?
We are not communists or Nazis.
Sharon Z. post #885
“Go to a Parish yourself, even without making an incident, and you will likely have someone approach you and start up a conversation to determine who you are! You must register, sooner rather than later.”
Actually, no, I have NEVER been baptized in any religion, and yet I have attended over 50 Masses in 5 different Catholic Churches. NOT once has anyone inquired who I was or why I was there. soooo.. no. You dont have to register. No one has ever bothered to say anything more to me than “Peace be with you”
Islam is not a religion, Jennie, it’s a Christian heresy. Suggested reading: Hilaire Belloc’s “The Great Heresies.”
I call poe on Jolene.
You are a liar, Jolene. If anything, I’ve become more charitable since becoming an atheist, and that link was one example I chipped in for.
You are an amoral, nihilistic bigot. Do your religion a favor and repent your deceitful ways before talking again.
I take a hard line against violence and censorship. How exactly is that going to lead to the Christian-like religious cult of personality and tyranny of Stalin? I hate Stalin and Hitler for the same reason I hate these Catholic terrorists who try to answer criticism with violence.
Oh, and nice move bringing up abortion. Way to define people by DNA, rather than mental processes like emotion and thought. Am I nothing but a pile of amino acids to you? It’s that objectification by religion I am so vehemently opposed to.
I’m so sorry Jolene! I apologize! I miss understood your previous statement regarding morals coming from religion. I assumed Islam was included in that category. Thank You again for showing me the light! I shall become a Buddhist!!
Um…Spurge… Whose in who’s civilization?
You wouldn’t take real estate advice from some lamer living in his parent’s basement, would you? Well, that’s the situation here with PZ. First move out and make something for yourself, Myers. i.e. Build a viable civilization with no belief in God. Oh, and without the personality cult and inevitable horror show. Then maybe we’ll sit up and listen.
“Um…Spurge… Whose in who’s civilization? ”
What exactly is that supposed to mean?
I live in a secular nation founded on the principles of the enlightenment.
Where do you live?
It’s not that hard to understand. The priest says to the communicant “The Body of Christ” and holds up the Eucharist.
The communicant replies “Amen”, meaning “Yes, I believe that this is the body of Christ”. The priest then gives the Eucharist to the communicant who immediately eats it.
If you don’t believe in it, simply stay out of the line and spend you time on something else.
Jennie, if you are really looking for a faith, please consider The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. You see the Catholic faith is not the true church, but an apostate religion. Joseph Smith restored the true church to this world. Thank god for the United States, where the founding fathers fled from Europe from the tyranny of the Catholic church in order for the true church to be restored.
If you want, I can have some missionaries come and visit you with a free Book of Mormon that’s yours to keep.
Peace in Christ,
T
Run Jenni run!
Jolene, have you never heard of Sweden?
Also, again, we hate cults of personality because they’re exactly the same as religion. The only difference between the two is that you try to use the meaningless word “supernatural” in your identical to justify violence, censorship, and depravity. I hate Stalinism, all forms of Communism practiced to date, Nazism, radical Islam, flying saucer cults, Scientology for all the same reasons I hate the current spat of Catholic terrorism. They’re all the same.
My philosophy is antithetical to all of those things. You avoid looking at the substance and whine and whine and whine about the coat of paint, and how your paint is different. My hard line against terrorism and censorship is what separates me from all of those evil groups. I reject their foundations, not their paint, like you do.
The Christian church I went to when I was young asked me to condone torture against those who believe differently. They asked me to be complacent in the face of an omnipotent cosmic Stalin sending people to an eternally burning gulag. Until you can tell me you reject belief in Hell, I have a hard time seeing what makes you any different. Paint doesn’t count.
I shall not run! Jolene said “If human beings act as if there’s no eternal consequences for immorality and evil, then morality is an illusion”
so I need to find a religion to be a good and decent person! Islam is NOT the answer according to Jolene, it’s not even a religion! It’s “Christian heresy”. Mormons may be the answer! Jolene I need your help on deciding, as I’ve been godless for 27 years! Is Mormonism a good choice?! or should I go with Buddhism?!
Perhaps older religions are better.
Shall we be Jews Jolene?
Honestly Jolene, you are giving a very good impression of a person with an addled brain.
Roughly 10% of US citizens don’t believe in God. That same category of people make up only 0.22% of the prison population. Atheists are vastly under-represented in prisons.
The most atheistic countries in the world — Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, France, Japan, etc — come at the top of nearly all well-being charts that are related to, I would hope, issues of morality, including: education, health care, child happiness, crime rate, treatment of the elderly, teenage pregnancy, etc, etc.
So, not only do your delusions have no basis in philosophy (nothing logically follows from atheism), but they have no basis in reality, either.
And I won’t go over it again, but I think that you should check this out: Euthyphro dilemma, to find out why basing your morality on anything like the divine command theory is not philosophically justifiable.
Spurge, I have eaten a lot of pork in life. Do you think the Jews will still accept me into their religion?
lol just a thought.. now that we’ve brought up the Jewish faith.. Why aren’t THEY eating the blood and flesh of Christ? Seems like something you’d do to an enemy, not a Savior.
Christianity isn’t a religion either, it’s a Jewish heresy.
mmmMMMM savor the Savior!!
Muslims are not big on the whole pork thing either.
Perhaps Buddhism is the way to go?
Although we should really take it further back and point out that Judaism is a Canaanite heresy.
Did Jolene leave? She’s really bad at this converting people thing. She had me ready to join a religion then left without pointing the way for me. *sigh* I’m godless after all.
Jennie, that is a decision only you should make. I suggest that you pray to heavenly father and ask for the holy spirit come down on you. Then you will see the answer. I recommend that you visit http://www.mormon.org/bookofmormon
And learn about the worldwide apostasy, how the catholic church has been misguided, and all the other faiths as well.
The LDS is the real true church.
Oh man! I’m gonna be up all night trying to decide.. Buddhism, Moronism, or Canaanite…. hmmmm..
Or do I mean an Egyptian heresy? Or a Babylonian heresy?
There’s so many original religions to choose from.
Did all the Christians leave?! Really?! There’s noone here to call us evil cracker violating apes?!
Clayton wrote:
This is horseshit. First of all, we’re not in a fucking parliamentary debate 24-7. There aren’t any judges keeping score, we don’t have a topic (“Resolved: …”), and we don’t have sides with alloted speaking times. This is a comment thread where people have whatever discussion they feel like having.
Second, making fun of something is not a logical fallacy. Insults are not logical fallacies. Logic concerns inferential relations holding between propositions. Logic has nothing to say about calling someone a shit-head or laughing your ass off at something stupid. If you don’t like when someone calls you a shit-head, then just say so. But don’t act like the rules of logic care about your feelings.
Maybe she was inspired by Charles Curtis’ example, and decided to convert to a more Positive Christianity.
I mean, doesn’t he sound Positive to you? I can certainly see him taking up truncheon and rifle and bayonet against the the enemies of Christ, and turning people into sticky red lumps for the greater glory of God.
I will call you an “evil cracker violating ape” if it makes you feel better.
Jolene I need your help on deciding, as I’ve been godless for 27 years!
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Joleeeene
I had to have this talk with you
My happiness depends on you…
Charles Curtis wrote:
Oh my god, everyone, look out! It’s an Internet Tough Guy! He’s taking time out from building enormous muscles and carrying around huge logs to teach us a lesson!
Hey Charles, how much could Jesus bench?
He sounds exceptionally positive! As an athiest, I know now that I could never aspire to such compassion as Charles Curtis has. He obviously upholds and nurtures Jolene’s ideas of charity, love and to human justice.
RE: Windy #918
Obviously you haven’t read anything more than that statement or you’d realize that JOLENE was emphasizing my lack of morals based on my lack of religion. I was hoping she’d show me the way to finding religion.
I’m assuming you also will not help me in this aspect. Athough a nice individual by the name of T was willing to send Mormon missionaries to my door, to help save me from my godless beliefs.
Spurge! You are so kind to offer to call me a evil cracker violating ape! But I don’t want you to say it if you don’t mean it.
First I have to ask….
Have you violated a cracker?
Jennie, the young man in question should be registered at the Parish in question, if he is Catholic. Of course you may go to Mass, as a visitor, without being registered. Everyone has their home Parish, where one is known. God knows you are there, of course, but the Church is made up of people. People make up the Body of Christ, the Church. There is usually a greeter at the door, a lay volunteer, or a religious person, the Pastor even, who greets you upon entering the Church. After Mass, there is often Fellowship. There are many ways to be involved, and that is how one gets to know fellow Parishioners. Even so, you will recognize them in the community, just from regular attendance at Mass. But, if you were to go to Church, except for during a service, which has prayer as the focus, and, as you said the greeting of peace which is lively, you will likely be approached by some Parishioner, often representing a certain group in the Parish that would like to invite you to something, or just out of friendliness, talk, or tell you about their faith journey. It is rather interesting the attention that one gets as a member of a parish. IMO. Of course I’m from a small town, too, not real small, but, small. I think Protestant folk are amazed at our cohesiveness. We all know each other, and, when they gossip unwittingly, about us, we often we may think, hmmm … is this persecution, for, we know each other.
Well let’s at least give Jolene credit for admitting in #895 that she wasn’t listening.
Maybe Charles Curtis will figure out he threatened us with violence.
Perhaps it’s just me, but these theists we get here don’t seem to be particularly perceptive.
Jennie, sometimes I tell people I’m a reformed Druid. I find it really helps in my woodworking hobby. Maybe you should consider that.
No spurge, I have not violated a cracker.. I had a ritz earlier today, but I don’t think that applies cause it’s the body of Nabisco, not Christ..
RE: Sharon Z. #924
Oh man, this is why I don’t understand religion.
“People make up the Body of Christ”
so is it the people that are the body of Christ or is the Eucharist the body of Christ.
Should you be eating the Eucharist? or your fellow Catholics?
Jennie, I did follow your back and forth with Jolene (with amusement) and that comment was meant to be a joke about Jolene being such a tease ;)
Then I can’t in good conscience call you a cracker violator now can I?
I like Rays idea. You could become a druish princess.
RE: Ray S. #925
A Druid?! How do our Christian visitors feel about me becoming a Druid. They seem to know a lot about what religions are real and what are heresy.
My apologies to Windy, I find it’s hard to determine people’s intended meaning when there are no facial expressions included. Thanks for correcting me! :D
Spurge! A Druidish Princess! Flattering, but I don’t think I know enough about it to be a princess!
My point is that atheistic views are fatal to charity, to love and to human justice. Their anti-Christian hubris blinds them to reason and to history. They too endeavor to impose their worldview on government and legislation-the very thing they accuse the Church of
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Ah, did Jolene leave? I was working on pointing out her lack of scholarship as in claiming WWI & II started in Asia or the Near East. Or pointing out that the Nazi’s killed Polish Catholics because they were Poles and in the Reich’s way, not because they were CC.
Well, guess I will just try to sum up Jolene’s arguments in one succinct phrase…hmmm. Ah, I have it:
“All your base are belong to us”
Pax Nabisco
Time for sleep.
Gnight
RE: Jeffery D post #934
You think you’re bummed out?! She was supposed to tell me which religion to choose so I could be a decent human being with morals!!
G’nite Spurge. Remember to say your prayers to the Flying Spaghetti Monster before you go to sleep!!
Regarding #936, Jennie my dear, come over for a cracker, I can help you meet god. (lascivious leer)
Oh my, I heartily apologize Jennie. (smile)
Pax Nabisco
And bed does sound good. I will “pray for you” but will have to pray with myself all alone. (sigh)
(See elsewhere for the true meaning of “pray for you”.)
Pax Nabisco
Maybe she’s not as committed as she first appeared.
David,
In comment #915, you wrote: Making fun of something is not a logical fallacy. Insults are not logical fallacies. Logic concerns inferential relations holding between propositions. Logic has nothing to say about calling someone a shit-head or laughing your ass off at something stupid.
Ridicule is an attempt to persuade by intimidation… rather than through the use of logic. That was my point. There’s no intellectual substance to ridicule. Parody has intellectual content, but ridicule has none.
Jennie:
How dare you desecrate such a holy symbol of the Riztian church! Once placed in to those lovely boxes, those crackers change form and become our dear leader, Jacob.
You have committed a terrible hate crime if you did not follow the instructions from the Ritzian Bible:
“RITZ CRACKER STUFFING
1 box Ritz crackers
2 med, onions
6 cloves garlic
6 stalks celery
3 carrotts
5 lg mushrooms
2 eggs
salt pepper to taste
1/8 cup olive oil
1/2 cup water or chicken broth
Our Father, which art in cracker heaven, in a skillet, add to hot oil diced onions, celery, and carrots. Cook until onions are brown.
Add us this day our daily diced mushrooms, minced garlic and cook 2 minutes, covered.
In a bowl, as it is in cracker heaven, crush by hand Ritz crackers. Add browned veggies, salt, pepper, and eggs, and then fold until mixture is combined. Mix in 1/2 cup water or chicken broth. Pray for it to bind.
And lead us to use as stuffing for turkey / chicken, pork chops, fish fillet, or cook in a buttered pan in oven at 350 for 40 minutes.
Human”
Well, did you?
k8 (more than twice the intolerence)@#71
Remember how they got Capone – on tax evasion….
Hey wasn’t Capone a catholic?
“I live in a secular nation founded on the principles of the enlightenment.”
Sublime Liberal stereotype alert!
Well, you can’t be American since 90% of us believe in God. As to the founding of America…54.7% of the founding fathers were Episcopalian; 18.6% were Presbyterian; 16.8% were congregationalist; 4.3% were Quaker; 3.7% were Dutch reformed; 3.1% were Lutheran and 3.1% were catholic. ZERO percent were atheist.
Are you Russian? Marx is a product of the enlightenment for sure…
Oh my! I didn’t realize I was eating the precious body of your Ritzian Leader! I shall immediately follow the instructions of your Ritzian Bible!!
RE: Jolene post #944
Your ignorant statements cease to amaze me!!
“Well, you can’t be American since 90% of us believe in God.”
That statement could only be true if 100% of Americans believe in God.
I know Math is a hard subject, but if 90% of Americans believe in God, then 10% Don’t believe in God. So obviously he’s part of that 10%.
Ridicule can combine several levels of disagreement, including a full refutation buried in the mockery.
http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
Communion is stupid. (That’s name calling)
Of course Catholic fanatics say that the Eucharist is holy; they’re indoctrinated brainwashed morons. (Name calling + ad hominem)
The Eucharist is one of the dumbest religious rituals ever brought forth because it is the pathetically contradictory idea that the Almighty Eternal Omnipotent Omniscient God can somehow be forced to go into a wafer to be eaten, swallowed, digested, and shat out, and only a brainwashed moron would believe such obvious nonsense (Name calling + contradiction + ad hominem + refutation)
Jolene, I’d like to ammend your comment regarding the 90% of Americans believing in God.
Accurately it should say “90% of Americans believe in A God.”
Not just YOUR God, there are many faiths in this Country.
Because you have magical mind-reading belief-checking powers that can read the minds of the dead, and determine who exactly believed what and how much?
“Question with boldness even the existence of a God”
— Thomas Jefferson
(who also is famous for cutting all of the miracles and other nonsense out of the bible)
“People make up the Body of Christ, the Church.”
What a nice, humanist idea. Way better than all that idolatry about wafers, don’t you think?
“Well, you can’t be American since 90% of us believe in God.”
Here that, Bronze Dog? Unless you’re 90% theist, you’re not an American! Better check your levels.
“As to the founding of America…54.7% of the founding fathers were Episcopalian; 18.6% were Presbyterian; 16.8% were congregationalist; 4.3% were Quaker; 3.7% were Dutch reformed; 3.1% were Lutheran and 3.1% were catholic. ZERO percent were atheist.”
And yet they were all able to sit down and create a nation for all of them, as well as those not in the room who represented other faiths. They had a good way of doing it, too. Examine the Constitution some time. Not one single mention of God or Jesus. Or Allah. Or Brahma. Secular nation. This land is my land, this land is your land.
If 90% of Americans respect a god then tell me why this country is so morally corrupt.
Speaking of the beliefs of the early Americans, I found out that the original Blue Laws of the New England colonies had gems like these:
Gee, those religious folk had such wonderful morals, didn’t they.
Oh, and the death penalty was definitely carried out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaker_history#Persecution_in_the_New_World
Yeah, those religious folk had such great morals.
Oh, and how about the wonderful custom of burning the Pope in effigy? Yeah, great stuff, that religion. Guaranteed to bring about love and harmony everywhere.
Except for the past few thousand years of religious war. Gosh, huh, go figure.
Getting back to the wafer: The church wants ten percent of your earnings and what do you get for it? A fucking wafer. Just about the cheapest thing you could give someone who you supposedly love. Why doesn’t the church give a free prime rib or lobster dinner for communion? If you say the church can’t afford it, you’re wrong. They are one of the largest land-owners in this country. A little payback wouldn’t hurt their image.
Communion is stupid. (That’s name calling)
I’d like to add an addendum and point out that it’s not, however, an ad-hominem, for all the pseudo-intellectuals (and complete morons) who misuse the term so regularly.
Just to be clear, an ad-hominem utilizing this kind of thing would look like this:
All of X’s arguments are stupid, because he believes in communion.
THAT would be an ad-hominem attack.
Calling communion stupid, or X stupid, are just insults, whether they are factual or not.
for example, the idiot (b7) incorrectly accusing others of ad-hominem in #206:
Have you read the 500 posts by angry atheists? Ad hominem + hate-speech + a dash of rebellious juvenile sentiment…
is actually guilty of utilizing an ad-hominem attack.
kudos PZ! way to stand up and speak out(despite those seeing and projecting cowardice). 5th horseman, anyone?
two words: cracker enema
-a proudly godless, Wow-playing, religion-slaying bigot-hater.
Clayton wrote:
Again, I think you’re making the mistake of seeing everything as a debate. Ridicule needn’t be an attempt to persuade anybody, by intimidation or otherwise. I can have a grand old time ridiculing the beliefs of Scientologists without having any Scientologists around that I’m trying to persuade. And I’m not sure what you have in mind by intellectual content or substance, but if you’re trying to tell me there’s something logically wrong with having a good belly laugh at the beliefs of Scientologists, then you’re out of your mind.
Ridicule works!
as a tactic for reinforcing issues of social and intellectual marginalization, it has been proven historically to be valuable.
It often is the only tactic available when the use of logic or reason really has little to apply to (as in the case of trying to logically convince someone of the silliness of the transubstantiation of a cracker).
I say:
ridicule away!
Well! Since the Christian community is so unwilling to say this, I’ll take it upon myself to be the first, and hope it causes a chain reaction.
Mr Cook and Mr Myers, As a human being, I apologize for my fellow human beings threatening your life. It is wrong for those individuals to cause you to fear for your own safety. I hope that both of you are able to look past this ignorant response my fellow humans have chosen to take. I hope your opinion of the human species is not effected by the violent responses that a few humans have exhibited in this matter.
Jolene Cassa wrote:
Jolene, it might interest you to know that the Soviet Union no longer exists.
It also might interest you to know that the nominal Anglicans Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin were highly unorthodox Christians who denied all the holy mysteries (transubstantiation, Virgin Birth, Incarnation, Resurrection, the Trinity) and that Adams and his son were both out-and-out Unitarians. They were all part of the Deist movement that developed among educated (often radical Whig) Protestants and the French philosophes.
To a Catholic it is not just a cracker. Once consecrated by the Priest it becomes the actual body of Christ. If you went into a jewish temple and ripped apart a scroll are you still innocently playing a prank on the religion or are you showing some disrespect to it. If the young man did not no this was a sin and he gave the waffer back to the Church there should be no problem with it, just one big misunderstanding. However, if he is not a Catholic and took it just to be a jerk knowing full well what he did wasnt right, i still think nothing should be done to him but lets not call him completely innocent for stealing just a cracker.
Matthew 26: 26 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”
Maybe He was kidding-huh?
Have you considered that it might be a metaphor?
James wrote:
But the thing is, it doesn’t become the actual body of Christ. It is just a cracker. I know some people like to claim otherwise, but that doesn’t change the facts.
Morons.
Ridicule is not hate speech. I’ve been the subject of hate speech and hate action and damn well better believe there’s a BIG difference between ridicule and hate speech.
Don’t you DARE play the oppression game. It doesn’t work between feminists and blacks and Asians…did you really think it’d work with THIS??
This is incredible. PZ Myers and Mr Cook are receiving death threats from Catholics and all that the Catholics here can think to do is complain about the way their beliefs are being riddiculed.
Come on Catholics show some morality. Even atheists can be Christian! What happened to ‘turn the other cheek’? Obviously Catholics are above actually behaving like Christ. This is not exactly a tough call. All they have to do is condemn the violent suggestions of their bretherin.
I don’t expect to see a genuine flood of condemnation against the violent suggestions of Catholics by Catholics anytime soon. Let’s face it, it took them several hundred years to face up to their treatment of Gallileo (I don’t know if they actually appologised though….anyone?).
Jolene Cassa wrote:
HAHAHAHHAHHHHHAAAAAHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!
Karl Marx was German!
EPIC FAIL!
The same theology that says this cracker is the body of Christ, also says that this same Christ will have my athiest soul tortured for all eternity. So Catholics, if your theology is worth a damn, then moral outrage is the least you’re directing at me. Your god intends to subject me to abject agony, and you want me to respect his CRACKER?
Either I’m right and your cracker is meaningless, or you’re right and your god wants me to suffer unimaginable torment. Either way, why should I respect your beliefs?
I’m christian and this whole thing is retarded. It’s a fucking cracker, why would you steal it? On the other hand, it’s a fucking cracker, they have like three thousand in the back, just let him take it. I’m so disappointed in the things the catholic church does.
Though, to be fair, I think it’s hilarious that you’re all sitting around and just getting pissed about religion and then ass-patting everyone who has something negative to say about a church.
For me, this whole issue is proof that the world is overpopulated – people squabbling over a bit of wheat and ignorant mysticism. There are more important things going on in the world.
This is the 21st century. We are poised to answer some great mysteries of the universe with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. We should focus on moving forward to enlightenment, not backward to the Dark Ages.
This is all truly, truly sad. Especially the self-righteous here who think they know what the Eucharist (aka “the cracker” really is.
The fact is, as a Catholic, I don’t care what you think it is, I KNOW what it is and I recieve it with great joy. But, it is nice to know that in academia, tolerance applies only to those who agree with the elite.
Funny, if he was offering to desecrate a Qu’ran or a statue of Krishna, he probably would have been fired and charged with a “hate crime” by now.
I will pray for all of you. God bless you all.
James @ 960 bleats:
Until you can tell the difference between consecrated ones and unconsecrated ones, you cannot convince me it’s any thing other than what it was before the consecration.
Your analogy might make more sense if the temple gave out free scrolls to everyone who got in line, but that’s not Jewish custom. To be sure, the Jews have some funny regulations regarding their scrolls, but they’re not at issue here.
As a matter of fact (though many of the purported Catholics posting here seem to have little interest in them) Cook did return the wafer (or waffer if you prefer, maybe the extra ‘f’ is indicative of the presence of flesh). What most of us have been protesting here is the disproportional outrage and threats directed to Cook, when a more measured response is appropriate. You seem to be suggesting such; will you join us in denouncing those whose reaction is over the top?
Posted by: kmerian | July 13, 2008 1:24 PM
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Oh, go pray for yourself.
Though MAJeff probably already has the best reply
kmerian @969 drones:
It seems you’re using the word ‘know’ in a different way than I do. Until you can find the consecrated cracker in a pile of unconsecrated ones, it hasn’t changed. This has nothing to do with tolerance, since I’ve done absolutely nothing to stop you from performing your fictional ritual. Please continue to do it should you feel the urge. But don’t expect me to respect you for it in the morning.
Maybe that is true, but it wouldn’t be right.
Feel free to do so, though I think you’re wasting your time (not for the reasons you might think). Perhaps someday you’ll understand that your seemingly innocuous parting shot is similar to my responding ‘fuck you very much’. Fortunately I’m a more tolerant sort than to actually do that.
“I don’t care what you think it is, I KNOW what it is”
Sure you do, honey.
RE: Beshpin post #967
“On the other hand, it’s a fucking cracker, they have like three thousand in the back, just let him take it. I’m so disappointed in the things the catholic church does.”
Beshpin! You are the first logical Christian to visit this blog and your presence is welcome. Thank You for having the intelligence to realize what this arguement is about. I hope your fellow Christians follow your example, as you have exhibited true compassionate toward your fellow humans.
When the Priest blesses the bread, it literally becomes the body of Christ.
The same for the wine, when the Priest blesses it, it becomes Jesus’s blood.
The same blood and body Jesus told us to eat during The Last Supper.
This is extremely sacred to me, and other Catholic people.
I don’t agree with death threats or any kind of organized violence against him but, stealing the body of Christ is an extremely sacriligeous act.
I’m sure any religion would be angry if you stole their Messiah’s/Idol’s/God’s body for a joke.
Yes, We do participate in ritulized cannabilism.
but we don’t see it that way.
RE: Joey Weber #976
Your religion also participates in ritual death threats. You forgot to mention that.
Yes, We do participate in ritulized cannabilism.
but we don’t see it that way.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!
RE: Joey Weber #976
I apologize for my previous comment as I now see you did address the death threats. I mere sentence amoungst a paragraph defending the cracker.
Those who steal the Eucharist will get there punishment in the end according to your religion. When will your religion start allowing God to do his job and stop doing it for him?
RE: kmerian post #969
“I will pray for all of you. God bless you all.”
I’m melting!! I’m MEELLLTTING!!! ARRRGH!!!!
Just because one congregation out of the millions of Catholics is giving death threats to a guy, doesn’t mean all Catholics are bat-shit insane.
I also agree that they should just let God decide for him in the end.
I also know a way this could have been all avoided too, don’t steal the freaking wafer.
I’m not saying any kind of violence on their part is justified but why would he steal the wafer in the first place?
“Karl Marx was German!”
EPIC FAIL!
Epic failure at logic 101 Wowbagger…
Marx was borne in Germany, lived in France and England, was a product of the enlightenment, and became the ideological father of the Soviet State. A person or thing can have more than one quality, you know…
I also know a way this could have been all avoided too, don’t steal the freaking wafer.
Or, don’t go batshit insane over a fucking cracker.
RE: Joey #981
“why would he steal the wafer in the first place?”
I’m sure you’ve seen television shows like Jerry Springer. This is a live version. He stole the wafer just to watch people LIKE YOU show up and explain your “bat-shit insane” theories to us. You can’t claim that “doesn’t mean all Catholics are bat-shit insane.” in one post. But tell us some “bat-shit insane” story about:
“When the Priest blesses the bread, it literally becomes the body of Christ.
The same for the wine, when the Priest blesses it, it becomes Jesus’s blood.”
in a previous one, and expect us NOT to think you are “bat-shit insane”
The Catholic Church teaches that the consecrated host IS the Body of Christ. And Christ is God, part of the Trinity. These are central teaching of the faith. So desecrating a consecrated host is like pissing on Allah, forget Mohammad.
Criricizing or ridiculing Catholic beliefs is one thing, being ticked off at Mr. Donohue is your right, but desecrating the Eucharist is way beyond civil behavior. It is hate, pure and simple.
The Catholic Church teaches that the consecrated host IS the Body of Christ. And Christ is God, part of the Trinity. These are central teaching of the faith. So desecrating a consecrated host is like pissing on Allah, forget Mohammad.
Criricizing or ridiculing Catholic beliefs is one thing, being ticked off at Mr. Donohue is your right, but desecrating the Eucharist is way beyond civil behavior. It is hate, pure and simple.
The Catholic Church teaches that the consecrated host IS the Body of Christ.
Not the least bit insane. Not one bit. Getting all upset over a cracker isn’t the least bit nonsensical.
Kind of like how Jesus was a Jew, born in Roman-occupied Judea, was a product of the conflict between Hellenistic liberal intellectualism and Judean monotheistic fanaticism, was turned into the “Son of God” by a communistic cult, and became the ideological father of the Crusades, the Inquisition, the progroms, and all of the other religious war and bloodshed carried out in his name.
Gotcha. Makes perfect sense.
RE: Jolene post #982
Hey! You’re back! You left last night, and I had all sorts of questions for you! The last post you left said Islam was Christian Heresy, so it’s not a religion. I still am a godless lost soul. Other athiests and I debated a lot last night as to what religion was gong to give me the morals I need in life.
I suggested Buddhism, and some on here agreed it seemed like a good enough religion to obtain morals from. One guy suggested I become a Druid. Another Individual offered to send Mormon missionaries to my door and I’d get a free Book of Mormon, mine to keep. I thought that was a great deal! A free book! I haven’t made a decision yet as to which religion to become affiliated with, as I wanted your advice on which ones are real religions.
You know, I came up with an excellent theological proof that the desecration of the host is in fact logically impossible.
I’d post it, but somehow I don’t think logic works too well with religion.
This wafer thing is fucking played. And we all know that Islam is totally fucked up. The only religious group that hasn’t taken a few pops but deserves them are the Jew-Tards. At least the Christers shelter the homeless and feed the poor. While the racist Heebs circle their own rich little wagons and shit over Palestinians because they can.
Is Myers a displaced member of the tribe? If he is, then what he should do is sneak into a big New York City synogogue on the “High Fucking Holydays” and right when the service gets going, whip out a cold pork chop and a glass of milk and have lunch. Man! Now that would be wild.
“Real religions”? Is that kind of like saying “authentic fantasy”? : )
I classify modern religions as the Myths Du Jour: the only things differentiating them from the legends of Zeus and Odin are (a) current adherents and (b) the passage of time. In a few thousand years… who knows?
It seems many of our visitors have totally missed the idea of Myers getting involved in this whole mess. Myers was defending Cook’s right to bear wafers. Catholic or not, the wafer was GIVEN to Cook during Communion. Maybe the Catholics should start burning marks into the hands of the registered members that are allowed to take Communion. That way this problem would not occur in the future.
RE: Bobber post #992
Are you saying, contrary to Jolene’s statements, that I don’t need to become part of a religion to have morals? That I should remain an atheist?
this obsession with PZ and us ilk “invading” their spaces and causing disruptions reminds me that the bigger issue is that there have been larger disruptions happening in the public sphere. How dare not everyone agree to the silliness that the crackers are inherently special, that they’re mere crackers?! How dare religious belief not be granted automatic respect?! How dare we not uphold the American mythos that religious people are, by definition, better humans and citizens?!
RE: mephisto post #991
“The only religious group that hasn’t taken a few pops but deserves them are the Jew-Tards.”
what do you mean by a few “pops”? Do you mean soda pops? Corn pops?
If you mean attacks, you are not following Christian history very closely. As the Jews have been persecuted by the Christians since Christ was hung on the Cross. Ask Mel Gibson! He has a lot of “pops” for the members of the Jewish faith
Hey, maybe mephisto @# 991 and Charles Curtis @#880 could meet up and pray for each other.
real religions are ones that get money from the state
Could we please stop ridiculing other religions?
People will always belive what they want to no matter what you say.
You think Catholiscism is insane?
I believe in Evoloution and Science and the Big Bang and all kinds of other “heretical” ideas.
Why can’t Religon and Science co-exist?
Why can’t Evoloution be where God wanted to make us better?
Why can’t Science be where God wanted us to better ourselves? Make us understand his beautiful creations more?
Why can’t the Big bang be where God created the universe in the biggest explosion ever?
Not meaning to contradict my first statement but, if we really are evolved from other organisms, back and back, again and again. What was the first organism we were evolved from? What kind of bacteria just comes to life?
We had to be created by something, even if that something is not like God, or some spirit.
It still applies as our creator.
our “God”.
Ridiculing Transubstiation(sp?) is not going to make people stop believing in it, it will just increase their faith in it.
We need to stop hate, stop ridiculing people for dfferent beliefs.
Its their life, their mind!
What if everybody ridiculed Science instead of Religion?
What if ideas in the Scientific community were ridiculed so much that the only thing left was your faith, or your trust in Science.
Imagine a place where you could think what you want, believe in what you want and not be persecuted for it!
Its time to start living, and loving.
Jennie:
Perish the thought! After all, according to so many learned theologians over the last several days, atheism leads to such things as Communism, Nazism, Fascism, genocide, immorality, cruelty, Satanism, phrenology, public drunkeness, lewdness, homosexuality, bisexuality, ANY sexuality (a bad thing), rape, pillaging, pirating, halitosis, socialism, bimetalism, racism, scabies, baldness, aggression, Darth Vader-ism, slavery, abortion, clowning, global warming scares, liberalism, feminism, and now BCT (Blessed Cracker Theft).
On the other hand… I’m an atheist, and I only exhibit a few of the above-mentioned symptoms of damnation. And they aren’t really so bad, in the real world – unlike the fantasy-land of the religious/credulous/terminally-in-need-of-a-vengeful-skyfather types… ; )