The Catholic League is preparing a stake for me. They’re going to go straight for the jugular and threaten my job — notice how they repeat that you can access my post from my faculty page, nicely avoiding the fact that the post they find so offensive is not hosted on any university server, and that they are urging everyone to harass the president of my university and the regents and the Minnesota legislature. Extortionists and witch hunters, that’s all these scumbags are.
Paul Zachary Myers, a professor at the University of Minnesota Morris, has pledged to desecrate the Eucharist. He is responding to what happened recently at the University of Central Florida when a student walked out of Mass with the Host, holding it hostage for several days. Myers was angry at the Catholic League for criticizing the student. His post can be accessed from his faculty page on the university’s website.
Here is an excerpt of his July 8 post, “It’s a Frackin’ Cracker!”:
“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.”
Catholic League president Bill Donohue responded as follows:
“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.
“It is hard to think of anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ. We look to those who have oversight responsibility to act quickly and decisively.”
When dealing with others, I must be respectful, fair and civil. Hmmm. Doesn’t seem to say anything about when dealing with crackers.
That last paragraph is marvelously blind. Hey, Bill! I can think of something more vile! How about intentionally desecrating the bodies of young altar boys who respect the position of trust held by Catholic priests? I think that is a lot more vile than mistreating a cracker. In fact, I can think of innumerable vile acts going on all around the world right now, and not all of them even involve Catholicism. It takes the moral vacuum of a purblind ideological bigot like Bill Donohue to think that goring his sacred cow is the worst thing in the world.
“It’s true. tea bagging the wine is a definite possibility”
No, if the food or wine is tainted (god, I love that pun) in any way and someone else consumes it, then you have committed a crime punishable by prison and/or hefty fines. You don’t want to get caught fucking with anyone elses’ food, eucharist or not. What you do to it for your own sole(soul?) consumption is no one elses’ business though.
Fr. J …
Criticizing someone’s ethnicity is bigotry. Criticizing someone’s gender is bigotry.
Criticizing an idea someone has can be wrong, it can be right, it can be a matter of opinion, it can be rude, it can be lots of things, but it can NEVER be bigotry.
Your religious beliefs are idiotic. They are insane. They are dangerous. Criticizing your beliefs is NOT bigotry, can never be bigotry. Your belief that it is is stupid and needs to be criticized.
But more importantly, your insane beliefs need to be criticized because delusional people like yourself have power over people’s lives.
You have a choice, FR. Wake up and lose your delusional beliefs, or learn to be able to live with and cherish your insanity while hearing it properly criticized.
We’re not going away.
Aric @ 324:
…the Professor is solely seeking to persuade to the truth of the proposition that “Catholic faith in the Eucharist is incorrect.”
Every journey begins with a single step.
The death threats. Right. Christian thugs are constantly threatening people. Their favorite target is biology teachers. I never noticed any atheist here threatening to murder or physically harm Christian morons, but Christians do this all the time. The Dover Judge and his family received many death threats from Christians. Imagine threatening a person who refused to eat a tiny piece of bread. Only a Christian asshole could do this.
Fr. J, #479: 100 million dead in the last century due to atheism.
Yeah, let’s count all the dead bodies by each side, and which ever one has a smaller pile is the good guy.
Is this really how your moral calculus works?
“I have suffered great disrespect from homosexuals and in Canada they use “human rights” to restrict the human rights of Christians, so I am unimpressed with your diatribe.”
In living memory, Fr. J, Canadian Catholics participated in genocidal acts against Indians… but I’m sure you’re up in arms because they’d interrupt Mass on account of it.
Right now, people are dying of Aids because missionaries from your Church told people not to use condoms and spread lies indicating condoms caused Aids.
Right now, an ex-Nazi who wrote official documents giving instructions on how to conceal pedophile priests sits as Pope.
That some gays gave you ‘sass’ is none of our concern. You’re the one who wears dresses, after all.
And as for starting Universities…
You burned Alexandria. You burned the books in the New World. Don’t pretend you’re “pro-knowledge.”
Those Arabs you seem to hate so much are the ones who saved the Ancient Greek texts… and they saved them from you. Funny how you squat atop the Roman Empire, but only in post-Arabic Madrid do we find preserved knowledge.
The idea of transubstantiation is ludicrious on the face of it and does not deserve any kind of respect.
It’s only ludicrous if you’re assuming a strictly materialistic universe. You have no grounds upon which to condemn transubstantiation apart from that assumption.
Ridicule if you’d like; the end result is that indifferent onlookers are going to wonder why PZ and company get their jollies from acting like prodigious pricks.
Wow! PZ Myers, this is cutting edge stuff you’re doing!
Engaging a bunch of……Catholics!!!!…..in an intellectual debate!!!!!
That’s mighty brave of you!
That’s almost as bold as shooting fish in a barrel!
What do you have in store for round II?
You gonna take on…….Mormons!?!?!?!?
Brilliant satire!!! You’re obviously the Galileo of our age!!!! A noble freedom fighter!!!! Why, you’re bolder than Galileo and Darwin combined!!!!!! Keep up the noble fight!!!!!
Comments comparing desecration of the host to eating beef or using a light on the Sabbath are ridiculous — Catholics don’t object to the desecration of crackers, only of the body of Christ. If you enter a Catholic Church and accept the host under false pretenses, that’s completely different from expressing opinions in an open forum or going about your life oblivious of others’ beliefs.
I doubt any of you atheists are inclined to attack the central religious symbols of Native Americans, Buddhists, Muslims, etc., because you don’t have the same weirdo hang-ups about them, and you know it’s wrong to express hatred for at least these politically correct groups.
Just signing this thread to say I’m supporting PZ Myers’ actions in this.
“I would think that a professor would show tolerance and respect for other people’s views. Why is it so necessary to show such vileness towards the Catholic religion? Are you afraid they may be right? Does all your science answer all your questions? I pity those who have no faith beyond their own intellect.”
Why would you think that ? Can you offer your justification for thinking that ? Merely stating that is what you think just tells us you don’t.
Can science answer all my questions ? No. It cannot tell me what to have for dinner. It has answered a whole load of questions I find fascinating, such as how did humans come be here. It is trying to answer even more fascinating questions, such as how did life begin. We have some pretty good ideas but also much still to learn. I find that to be something that gives me a great deal of intellectual and emoitional satisfaction. Looking up at the night sky and knowing about the stars, planets and galaxies is heady stuff.
What answers has religion given us ? None. At least none that stand up to scrutiny. The answers given by religion all lead back to one thing. God. And god is not the answer. God is something that were he to exist would need explaining.
“I simply ask Prof. Myers to respect my beliefs and refrain from his proposed action.”
Why should he respect your beliefs? They’re idiotic.
People get very confused over this issue. We’re supposed to respect your RIGHT to your beliefs, and we do, he does. You have every right to believe whatever you want.
But the beliefs themselves? If they’re delusional idiocy, they don’t deserve respect. You have ever right to belief wackadoodle bullshit, and we respect your right to believe your wackadoodle bullshit.
@AWMTI
Ridicule if you’d like; the end result is that indifferent onlookers are going to wonder why PZ and company get their jollies from acting like prodigious pricks.
I’m sorry, did you happen to miss the death threats over a cracker by catholic nutjobs?
Fr. J,
Forgot to ask you another question or two. Which has actually healed more people, extended their lifetimes, made them healthier and happier during their years here on Earth? Religion or scientists?
How many people did your religion protect against Polio? The Plague? Which would you rather have your child have, an MMR shot to keep him healthy, or that magic cracker of yours? You know the truth in your heart. You just are to weak to acknowledge it.
Fr. J #479 wrote:
The laws you cited had to do with trespassing into a church, committing vandalism towards property, or disrupting a service. As far as I can tell, PZ intends none of this.
What is it then you think he is going to do?
@507: The gentlemen in the room thank you for that complement.
As for the strictly materialist universe, it does happen to be the one that we live in, and can test, and it seems to run quite well, even if all of the participants in it don’t get along well. BTW, which version of the non-materialist universe are you saying is correct? The one with Zues, Ygrdrassil, Yahweh, Dreamtime,…..?
‘However, to take something we see as so holy and wantonly desecrate it, with the sole end of insulting us, is nothing short of bigotry.’
Think of it as proving you wrong, rather than bigotry. If you’re – for example, hypothetically, for sake of argument – being taught something that’s blithering rubbish, surely you’d want to know that? It may be painful to confront the truth, but in the stories about Them, God and Jesus are both big on truth.
If the consecrated wafer ‘is’ the body of Christ in any of the many ways ‘is’ can be defined, it should be easy enough for PZ to (a) prove it and (b) unify the Templeton and Nobel Prizes this year. Squid and crackers all round at the celebration luncheon.
If it ‘is’ in some obscure mystery cult pretend way that only Catholics believe and even they can’t understand let alone explain, then why worry what some non-Catholic tells you?
Respect the stupid believer, hate the stupid beliefs, I say.
Obviously, the best thing to do here is not to simply do something funny with the eucharist. That’d be funny but – why not learn something??
Personally, I’d enjoy getting one of the un-magicked wafers and doing some weight/composition analysis on it, then comparing it with the post-magicked version to see if there are signs of jesus present. You, know, a myth-busters style assessment of the jesusness of the eucharist. It might be interesting to see if a catholic priest could reliably determine a post-magicked “piece of jesus” from one of its un-magicked counterparts.
I’m guessing it wouldn’t be hard to get a catholic priest to participate in such an experiement – since some of the catholics here appear to be highly confident in the expected results. Right?
Besides, if it were true, we’d then have the DNA of jesus, and that’d be some pretty cool stuff to have. Or, it might just turn out that the whole thing is bullshit. See? Science and religion can co-exist!!!
“Comments comparing desecration of the host to eating beef or using a light on the Sabbath are ridiculous — Catholics don’t object to the desecration of crackers, only of the body of Christ. If you enter a Catholic Church and accept the host under false pretenses, that’s completely different from expressing opinions in an open forum or going about your life oblivious of others’ beliefs.”
There is NO body of Christ to desocrate. If you want to claim otherwise you need to provide evidence that the wafer really does turn into the body of Christ. If you can do that, it would be Nobel winning stuff. It would turn science on its head overnight. A wafer being turned into human flesh merely by having a few words of ritual recited ? That would revolutise science.
So go for it. Get that evidence.
Even as a long-time and reasonably vehement atheist I have to object to this. While the idea is kind of funny … in this case the situation is Catholics doing their crazy Catholic thing inside a church, not doing anything that impacts nonbelievers. We should let them eat their crackers in peace.
496, but YOU could be prosecuted if caught. Thus it will be your problem. PZ can visit you in jail.
499, he was an atheist as was Stalin and Mao. I have had this argument before and won. He hated the Church as much as you do. Atheists swim in an ever growing ocean of blood.
503, I disagree. You can disagree with our beliefs and that is not bigotry. But if you misrepresent those beliefs, lie about them, vilify those who hold them then that IS bigotry. This thread is replete with examples.
I think I have made my point and annoyed many with my posts. The central fact remains: PZ is a bigot and has acted unprofessionally. If he did this about any other group he would be sent for re-education. He needs to grow up and learn to debate beliefs intelligently. Thank you and God bless.
I know I’m late to this but, you mentioning “Bill Donohue” and “respecting other’s beliefs” in the same comment automatically gives you a big fat fail.
” You have no grounds upon which to condemn transubstantiation apart from that assumption.”
You mean, aside from the fact that it’s unmittigated bullshit?
“Ridicule if you’d like; the end result is that indifferent onlookers are going to wonder why PZ and company get their jollies from acting like prodigious pricks.”
Actually, the end result is that the religious make bigger fools of themselves, making the total absurdity and uselessness of their fairy tales more evident.
So . . . thanks!
So crackers do matter!
Man. If my ex had been willing to throw around the word ‘cunt’ like these people do, maybe we’d still be together. He was about as willing to engage in anything kinky and derogatory towards me as…
Actually, I think the Catholics have him beat.
That’s the goddamn Catholic League’s lies coming off your lips. The records say that FOUR PERCENT of your Clergy were Child Molesters who engaged in sex crimes against children (The John Jay Report commissioned by the US Catholic Conference of Bishops). Yet, because of the way your Church hid it, only 2/10ths of a percent were actually tried for their sex crimes.
You don’t get those high of numbers in the general public, never mind public (and private) educational institutions that do their best to make sure that crap is an aberration instead of a protected way of life.
And you sure don’t get the NEA making up phony stats to protect the perpetrators. Unlike the Catholic League, whose lies your forwarding.
Just because you’re a Franciscan doesn’t mean you’re honest, you gas-bag piece-of-shit. We don’t have to respect your medieval mindset as it has NO INHERENT RIGHT OF RESPECT.
Especially when you fuck-wit apologists STILL LIE about the sex scandal issue. Just this week I briefly read a recent scandal were one of Church’s Bishops (or a Cardinal perhaps) of Cockamamie was telling one (or a bunch of) boy(s) that they were the only person molested by this one particular priest. So, while the Church had “empathy” it was, basically, sod-off for any Church-level punative sanctions.
It was practically a form letter.
And while my details may not be perfect. It’s just one of thousands of examples of the depravity of the Catholic Church compared to some people making fun of the faux outrage of a FUCKING CRACKER THAT ISN’T GOD WHO DOESN’T EXIST you wanker.
So save your piteious outrage for sheep in church. You’ll get no play here, prick.
What the !$!@#$ are you going on about? Nowhere does PZ say that his act of sacrilege would involve disrupting anyone’s worship service.
And try exercising a little reading comprehension and put his statement in the context of the whole article. The point is the completely overblown reaction to some student walking out of church with a eucharist without consuming it. He did not jump up on the altar shouting “Here’s what I think of your stupid rituals” or some such, and yet he is being sent death threats and his university being solicited to expell him. So PZ is saying that if you want to see something really sacrilegious he will show you. The point being that what Woods did was hardly sacrilege and did not warrant the outrage shown by the Church.
As for hypocricy, I suppose you were equally suppotive of the outrage shown over the naming a teddy bear Mohammed where the teacher barely escaped the country with her life.
Ugh. This is so stupid. It really IS just a freakin’ cracker.
When I was in the 3rd grade, we went to mass (I went to a catholic school) and the priest gave me two of the crackers once. I handed one back to him, thinking he gave me two by accident. He told me, ‘No, I want you to have two!’ So I reached back in the bowl of crackers and grabbed one out. He couldn’t believe it, and I got yelled at mercilessly for it. I never understood what the big deal was. (Besides the germs that were probably on my hands that had more than likely been transferred to the bowl…that was the least of their concerns though.)
Oh well, I’m an atheist now, so all their yelling didn’t make me respect the ‘body of christ’ like they wanted it to.
How can people be so wacky??
Ted @ 509
BBBBZZZTTT…Wrong on so many levels.
We don’t think that any groups’ religious systems are sacred. Just a lot of us here happen to be in the US, which leaves us with Christianity providing us the most constant daily fodder. If we were in Saudi Arabia, or India, we would still be pointing out the logical fallacies of those religions as well. And, PZ had done so here in the past.
So long, thanks for playing, have a cracker on the way out as a consolation prize.
Be sure to notice that our charming little friend SFG hates women, too, or at least hates a distinctly female part of their anatomy, since he apparently thinks it’s some sort of dire insult to call someone a “cunt” and a “twat.” Prior observation of the type would also suggest some severe homophobia issues, since apparently they all assume every author function is male, and the worst thing a male can be is a female body part.
By the way PZ, I still don’t think you beat David Neiwert for crazy trolls (I’m still chuckling over one who said that Neiwert had a “fat, ethnically-Israeli forehead,” which is an odd thing to say about a scrawny white kid from the PacNW, but okay), but you’re getting there… I also have to congratulate you for making Donohue’s shit list. You’re in good company.
This is one you can all try:
Get a packet of wafers (they seem easy to come by).
Take them to your nearest Catholic church. Tell the bishop (or whatever they’re called) that one of them has been consecrated. The other ones have been transformed by people from other religions/cults into their own deities.
What he will want to do will be to take the Jesus cracker and stash it in the tabernacle. However, which one is it? If he picks the wrong one, he may end up giving a home to Vishnu or Cthulhu. If he doesn’t choose, he leaves the Jesus cracker with the heathen crackers, and because these have all been transubstantiated, he will be leaving Jesus with the other gods, which is surely a blasphemy (as would destroying them all, as he would be destroying Jesus). He can’t eat them all as he would be accepting Thor, Saturn, and Baal into his body (and presumably, into his ‘spirit’).
Hopefully, the metaphysical conundrum will make him see how silly all this really is.
No, in this case the situation is Catholics harrassing and making death threats against someone who put a communion wafer in a ziplock back. Now, do any of you concern trolls or Catholics want to tell me a little about this?
Ted @509 I doubt any of you atheists are inclined to attack the central religious symbols of Native Americans, Buddhists, Muslims, etc.
Number 4 with koran envy. Keep ‘m coming, why don’t you guys just convert and get it over with already. I’m sensing major shifts from Catholicism to Islam in the US.
Please check the archive before making yourself look stupid Ted, better luck next time.
RIGHT ON PZ!
Post some more funny stuff that will make their panties bunch up!
Thanks again for an awesome blog.
If they do somehow fire you, open a paypal account and I will send you money.
We should let them eat their crackers in peace.
This all started with the a [catholic] student who took his cracker home and was threatened with death until he returned the cracker. Obviously, they are not satisfied to just ‘eat their crackers in peace’.
” I have had this argument before and won.”
That hardly counts when your opponent was the bathroom mirror.
“Atheists swim in an ever growing ocean of blood. ”
because so many people strap bombs to themselves and blow up civilians in the name of atheism, right?
even if what you say is true (anyone with more than three brainc cells knows its not), our ocean is dwarfed by the mountain of people killed in the name of your god.
Fr. J, #521: I think I have made my point and annoyed many with my posts.
Your point being that PZ Myers’ “performance art” is worse than sending death threats and harassing some kid for a prank that harmed no one? You sure did! It seems a strange thing to brag about, though.
Well, if they do get you fired for this maybe you can get every church going christian in MN arrested for cannibalism. :D
This is one you can all try:
Get a packet of wafers (they seem easy to come by).
Take them to your nearest Catholic church. Tell the bishop (or whatever they’re called) that one of them has been consecrated. The other ones have been transformed by people from other religions/cults into their own deities.
What he will want to do will be to take the Jesus cracker and stash it in the tabernacle. However, which one is it? If he picks the wrong one, he may end up giving a home to Vishnu or Cthulhu. If he doesn’t choose, he leaves the Jesus cracker with the heathen crackers, and because these have all been transubstantiated, he will be leaving Jesus with the other gods, which is surely a blasphemy (as would destroying them all, as he would be destroying Jesus). He can’t eat them all as he would be accepting Thor, Saturn, and Baal into his body (and presumably, into his ‘spirit’).
Hopefully, the metaphysical conundrum will make him see how silly all this really is.
“100 million dead in the last century due to atheism.”
Fr. J.
I’ll wager more people (heretics) have been killed in the name of God than believers killed by those who recognise god/gods/elves/fairies as purely human constructs. The Protestants and Catholics have the blood from centuries of the wholesale slaughter of unbelievers on their hands. Don’t rewrite history to sugarcoat your view, Padre. Better check your facts next time, oh pious one.
“I think I have made my point and annoyed many with my posts.”
—I guess if you define “annoyed” as meaning “made them laugh uproariously at your primitive and ignorant superstitious beliefs” then you have annoyed me until my sides hurt.
#520: Hello, McFly! Anybody home? Death Threats! Did you miss that part?
#520: Hitlers real beliefs are known only to Hitler, but the record states that he was raised Catholic and the Nazi uniforms had God plastered all over the place.
Fr. J@479,
Does U.S. Code 247 apply if you don’t cross state lines to disrupt, deface, desecrate or whatever?
I’m not sure about the significance of (b)
By the way, I don’t think people here think it’s a good idea to intentionally disrupt church services. That is NOT what this is about.
Also, if a priest puts the Host in your mouth, is it still Church property, or is it your own property, or nobody’s, or what? Legally, I mean.
I’m curious whether you could make a good case, much less a winnable case, that taking communion and not swallowing the Host is theft or desecration or anything like that.
Also, 247 talks about damaging any religious real property, without explicitly saying that it’s the property of someone else. I would guess that doesn’t mean you can’t damage your own property just because it’s “religious” property. (Just curious; I own a fair number of religious artifacts, which I have no intention of damaging, but I’m wondering if it just might actually be illegal.)
“100 million dead in the last century due to atheism.”
Read the bible again and count God’s murders.
It has been repeated time and time again by those critising PZ that Catholics really do believe the wafer becomes the body of Christ.
Well that is an empirial claim. Human flesh has quite different characteristics from a communion wafer. It is easy to tell the two apart. So why not put the claim to the test ? If you are so sure that it really does become flesh then show us how confident you are in your belief. We would even get Jesus’s DNA from a sample, if it really has become flesh.
The Catholic Church has criticised Dawkins for “The God Delusion”. Well here is the chance to prove him wrong. Dawkins said god is a testable hypothesis that fails. If wafer really did become a bit of flesh then you have shown the hypothesis does not fail.
Of course what you will do is mutter something about assumptions of a materialistic universe. In otherwords you will simply retreat from your material claim and pretend you mean something different.
FR. J.
Gott Mitt Uns.
A. Hitler Mein Kampf
Fr J.
Oh… THAT stupid “argument” – again. Who made the race to invent the atom bomb necessary? Why, it was that German Catholic fellow who was trying to take over Europe and kill all the Jews. And us Slavs. And…
Face it, it’s a pathetic argument.
Even more pathetic is your incessant tu quoque “argument” in “defense” of the Catholic sex-abuse scandal. You just can’t admit how reprehensible the whole thing was – and is – and how contemptible the apologists are.
Of course, you are one of those apologists, so why, I ask myself, why would you be anxious to admit it? What’s your problem, Father? Got something to hide, hmmm? Is the best you can do is sputter that “teachers” and “parents” are worse? Well, how many of them are Christians, and how many of those Christians are Catholics? Do you even know? Of course not. Of course, in North America and Europe, a reasonably good guess in both cases would be “a substantial percentage” – don’t you agree?
It not, then why not?
Do you, or do you not agree that the history of decades, indeed centuries, of child molestation is more vile than a college student taking a consecrated cracker out of a church? Is it more vile than the threat of desecrating a consecrated cracker? Is it more vile than the threat of desecrating one thousand consecrated crackers? Is it more vile than the threat of desecrating one hundred million consecrated crackers?
Think carefully before answering.
John F:
Gee, another one I’ve never heard before. O_o
Thank you, Interrobang. I’m glad I’m not the only one in the room who called out the misogyny.
@465,
“The anti-Catholics posting here…”
We’re not anti-Catholic, we’re anti-religion you self-centric ass. Not everything about religion is about Catholicism. I know you have a hard time understanding that there are other religions out there, but it’s true! Furthermore, all of you have the same thing in common; no evidence that what you believe in is true. Which is why we don’t like it when you tell us what we can and can’t do because of what your magic book says.
I’ll let the others take down Father Asshead’s comments, but it should be a sin to attempt to teach anybody anything (even if it is a bunch of mytho-hooey ripped off from earlier cultures) when you’re so fucking ignorant of history.
@ Fr. J.
Talking about casualties. How many thriving cultures did the popes wipe out in Europe again?
Bullshit. Not observing one set of religious tenets is exactly the same as not observing a different set of religious tenets. Not eating a cracker given to you by a guy in a robe is exactly the same as eating a hamburger or working a light switch. It’s only different if you believe in one and not the others. Insisting that your beliefs deserve respect and not the others makes you a hypocrite.
You’d be wrong. And the fact that you think so shows precisely how little you know about atheism.
#324: I don’t know, Aric, with this post and ensuing comment thread, I think he’s taught me a lot about the true nature of some Catholics.
So, now the Catholic League (are there any actual members of this organization?) is taking a page from the whacko Muslim playbook. The poor babies have suffered “hurt” and “offense,” and the natural consequence is… off with your head!
Would someone please pass the crackers?
Stalin’s Russia was probably the most religious state that has ever existed on earth. As Hitchens has pointed out many times before, Stalin would have been mad not to have taken advantage of several hundred years of credulous worship of the Tsar (where he was seen as more than human), just waiting to be tapped in to.
Lysenko’s miracles, heresy hunts, anyone?
You may not call that secular, or skeptical, and I’d love to see someone defend the proposition that you can derive Stalin’s beliefs from simply not being a theist. Good luck with that.
No other topic is more important and explains better the demise of our society than the saga of ScienceBlogs. With this letter, I hope to strengthen our roots so we can weather the storms that threaten our foundation. But first, I would like to make the following introductory remark: ScienceBlogs always demands instant gratification. That’s all that is of concern to it; nothing else matters — except maybe to hasten the destruction of our civilization. I tell you this because if ScienceBlogs’s codices get any more smarmy, I expect they’ll grow legs and attack me in my sleep.
To pick an obvious but often overlooked example, we find among narrow and uneducated minds the belief that we should all bear the brunt of ScienceBlogs’s actions. This belief is due to a basic confusion that can be cleared up simply by stating that if anything will free us from the shackles of ScienceBlogs’s inane, mindless lamentations, it’s knowledge of the world as it really is. It’s knowledge that it would have us believe that children don’t need as much psychological attentiveness, protection, and obedience training as the treasured household pet. That, of course, is nonsense, total nonsense. But ScienceBlogs is surrounded by unambitious windbags who parrot the same nonsense, which is why I want to instill a sense of responsibility and maturity in those who suppress all news that portrays it in a bad light. But first, let me pose an abstract question. What will be the outcome of its quest for world hegemony? To turn that question around, has anyone ever seen it working instead of plundering, stealing, and living off the sweat of others? In classic sophist fashion, I ask another question in reply: How can it attack the fabric of this nation and then turn around and shed tears for those who got hurt as a result? I hardly know. But I will stake the immortality of my soul that it’s not the bogeyman that our children need to worry about. It’s ScienceBlogs. Not only is ScienceBlogs more sneaky and more hateful than any envisaged bogeyman or bugbear, but it has been brought to my attention that most conscienceless jabberers think, “credo, quia absurdum” when they hear ScienceBlogs say that ethical responsibility is merely a trammel of earthbound mortals and should not be required of a demigod like it. While this is decidedly true, it uses big words like “microcrystallography” to make itself sound important. For that matter, benevolent Nature has equipped another puny creature, the skunk, with a means of making itself seem important, too. Although ScienceBlogs’s outbursts may reek like a skunk, ScienceBlogs’s detestable machinations cater to the lowest common denominator. I won’t dwell on that except to direct your attention to the lazy manner in which it has been trying to require religious services around the world to begin with “ScienceBlogs is great; ScienceBlogs is good; we thank ScienceBlogs for our daily food”. The issue of what to do about the most ill-bred converts to cameralism you’ll ever see is a hopelessly tangled and complicated issue, impossible to discuss due to the intensity with which each side holds its beliefs. Period, finis, and Q.E.D.
I REFUSE TO HAVE OUR GREAT NATION CONDEMNED BY GOD ON THE BASIS OF A HOODLUM AND HIS ACOLYTES WHO HAVE FOUND ROOM TO SPREAD MESSAGE OF THIS DESECRATION AND VIOLATION. As such, I call on everyone to renounce this action. Innocent as it may seem, I am not prepared to bear the wrath of God’s Anger. We have seen the floods, we have seen the fires, what next shall we see if we allow this?
Mr. Penfold @543 (and others like him): The teaching is that the “nature” of the transubstantiated host becomes that of Christ himself, but that the accidents (all testable *physical* characteristics: appearance, smell, taste, etc.) remain those of bread. This is based on the primitive Aristotelian idea of a dichotomy between what something is (its nature) and its characteristics.
So sorry, your Mythbusters-like tests/examination of the consecrated wafer would not convince a true believin’ Catholic that the wafer really *ISN’T* the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ.
Fr.J @ #479:
“The courts have ruled that the right of people to worship in their church is greater then the free speech rights of those who would disrupt such worship (Church of Christ in Hollywood v. Lady Cage-Barile.)”
While PZ has declared his intention to acquire and desecrate a communion wafer, I have not yet read anything written by him declaring any intention to do so in a place of worship or in a way that disrupts a religious ceremony. If I have missed something, I encourage you to point it out to me; otherwise, I suggest you review his posts and re-evaluate your impression of his plans.
The US code you quote says anybody who “intentionally defaces, damages, or destroys any religious real property, because of the religious character of that property, or attempts to do so” may be prosecuted, but defines “religious real property” as “any church, synagogue, mosque, religious cemetery, or other religious real property, including fixtures or religious objects CONTAINED WITHIN A PLACE OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP [emphasis mine].” It seems to me that once the wafer is removed from the church (which I understand is step one of any plans PZ may have) it is not specifically protected by this law. Of course, I’m not a lawyer, so if you wish to correct my understanding of the law, please do.
Personally, I think we should go to Catholic churches in our area and ‘desecrate’ more Christ crackers as a show of solidarity with Mr. Cook and P.Z. Perhaps this Sunday mass? Bring a friend and take pictures!
Donahue has a problem with one sacrilege? I wonder how he’d like this.
Jacob @ 465:
Actually, it is you who should examine your own heart.
I was a Catholic once.
I reflected on what sort of a creature God is…
Look at all the evil the Church does in His name, and ask yourself… if such a being existed, would He even deserve to be worshiped?
Fr. J @ 521
“I think I have made my point and annoyed many with my posts. The central fact remains: PZ is a bigot and has acted unprofessionally.”
Actually I think this guy really is a priest. He exhibits the olympian patronization that lots of priests have.
“I AM THE SMARTEST GUY IN THE ROOM AND AM TELLING YOU THAT YOU ARE WRONG!! Now, worship me as I majestically sail away.”
No reason. Doesn’t understand the difference between death threats and cracker abuse. No sense of proportion. Just him and Jesus sailing through the world making it right.
Either that or Poe has just smacked me upside the head.
Point of order: I’m no magic cracker apologist (see my earlier comment) but I don’t believe any Priest would profess to being able to identify pre- and post-magic crackers.
As I commented previously, I too would rather see a set of comprehensive and controlled experiments carried out on magic and non-magic crackers, so that in the face of real, hard evidence, Christians will at least be forced to admit that either the transmogrification is symbolic, or that it is miraculous in every way except in the real physical world.
Fr J,
Stalin and Mao did not kill becuase they were atheists. They killed becuase of their political beliefs. Beliefs that actually had a lot in common with religions. Clearly they did not cover the concept of political religion at your seminary. It is a pity, because it would have stopped you saying stuff that makes you look like an idiot.
I thought it was a sin for you to lie ? Well lie you did, as I credit you with enough intelligence to have found out about political religion on your own. When a priest has to lie, it is game over for respect for his beliefs. Your beliefs are not worthy of respect, and since you see nothing wrong with lying, nor are you.
AWMTI says:
“The idea of transubstantiation is ludicrious on the face of it and does not deserve any kind of respect.”
It’s only ludicrous if you’re assuming a strictly materialistic universe. You have no grounds upon which to condemn transubstantiation apart from that assumption.
We assume nothing. We can prove we live in a strictly materialistic universe. It is you who assume that we do not. If you think the universe is not strictly materialistic then prove it.
Ridicule if you’d like; the end result is that indifferent onlookers are going to wonder why PZ and company get their jollies from acting like prodigious pricks.
That’s because we are prodigious pricks. But don’t tell your priests, they’ll only want to molest us.
I think I have made my point
Sorry, no you haven’t. Thanks for playing.
and annoyed many with my posts.
Well, stupidity IS annoying, but to be honest, most people on this board have seen the same arguments over and over again expressed by creationists and other religious nuts. It’s mostly boring.
FrJ, not being a lawyer, can you explain how “religious real property” covers a cracker that’s been given away? It was never real property in the first place, and I think you know that and are intentionally distorting the intent of the law. It surely wasn’t about protecting crackers from something, it was to prevent actual damage to actual property, like damage to pews, confessionals, crosses, talmuds, stained glass windows, organs, etc. It certainly wasn’t intended to include portable free props.
@554:
Good for you! I refuse to be condemned too! And just in case refusing alone doesn’t work, the fact that your god-in-a-cracker doesn’t exist will also keep us from getting condemned.
Snitzels,
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/qa/condom.htm
Hey, I hear Denyse O’Leary bakes a mean cracker!
“Innocent as it may seem, I am not prepared to bear the wrath of God’s Anger”
So, because you believe in an imaginary god, PZ can’t mess with some crackers?
Do you understand how absolutely derranged that is?
Really? Because the Catholic woodcuts of Jews torturing the host tells a different story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_desecration
Fr J
Why should we debate beliefs “intelligently”? They are insane and unprovable. They have no right to exert control over the rest of us. You cannot dictate to atheists that jokes about crackers are bad.
You have a number of beliefs that a percentage of the planet wants to use as a cudgel to the rest of us.
Sorry – NO.
You have guys have overpopulated the planet partly due to your stupid doctrines already. You don’t deserve any respect whatsoever. You say god created everything and all you have done is to screw it up.
We now have a planet that is on a path to self destruction and all you are worried about name calling crackers.
What a joke.
@521
Hitler was a christian. Even he admitted that was the basis for his anti-semitism.
Look it up.
“As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice”.–Hitler
This doesn’t mean he was a horrible person because he was a christian (plenty of other reasons, but he was indeed christian), but he certainly was no atheist.
Im in ur churzes, lickin’ ur Krist.
“Point of order: I’m no magic cracker apologist (see my earlier comment) but I don’t believe any Priest would profess to being able to identify pre- and post-magic crackers. ”
Sorry, but they have made just claims. There are catholics here who have said the cracker turns into the body of christ. How thick does a priest have to be not to be able to tell the difference between a cracker and a lump of human flesh ?
Oh, gee, the old “Hitler was an atheist” lie. Congratuations, “Father” J, your list of lies, misrepresentations, and fallacies is growing.
Tell me, how do you sleep?
You know, if you compare Hitler’s work with Stalin’s, in terms of unnecessary deaths per year in power, old Adolf made Joe look like a Sunday School teacher.
Perhaps that’s a poor choice of analogy…
I used to be catholic but now I’m an American. Absolutley ridiculous and embarrassing. Donohue needs to shut his cake hole. As altar boys, we used to steal those things all the time and take them home. I guess I’m going to hell. Now wait I’m going to hell for eating a salami sandwich on Friday during lent. The punishment for stealing wafers is a vestibule diddling, you know, Exodus 21:23-21:27 eye for an eye and all that.
Keep up the good work Professor.
554 has gotta be a poe!
I think PZ will have a nice cheese and wine party and he’ll serve the wafers with a nice age goat cheese or perhaps some pate. Anything to kill the taste.
Too bad I don’t know of any churches that do this on Fridays or Thursdays. If only we were meeting at Manuel’s on Sunday… I’d totally bring you a cracker then. We could even have drinks with our hostage Jesus-cracker! Ah, the fun that will not be.
This is such a dumb argument. 100 million dead because of Communism and Fascism is more correct.
You should really bone up on your history my confused friend. While atheism was a part of communism it paled in its significance to the idea of class struggle and most importantly, totalitarianism. The main reason that Stalin was responsible for so many deaths was not because of his atheism but because of his deep seated paranoia brought on by a horrible childhood and his thirst for absolute power.
@Pete Rooke: E… Excuse me, I can’t reply to you. The laughter hurts me too much.
PS: prove me your God exists and that he caused flood and fires? Please. I’d like to see you try.
Fr. J – Sigh. Now I have to deal with lies and/or ignorance as well persistent disingenuousness.
I will deal with only the last.
Look posters here have pointed out to you multiple times that PZ has no intention of entering a church or disrupting a service. So all of your quotes of criminal law are moot, mean nothing.
As to your charges of bigotry, again, they fall short. Bigotry is somehow stopping the victims from enjoying their lives violent means — such as refusing to hire you, let you live in certain places, deny you legal rights which others have, etc. PZ hasn’t advocated punching Catholics in the face, or burning their schools, or putting them in jail.
What he has advocated is calling them to task for their bullying, death threats, and interference in a secular organization (the school); and he is challenging Catholic organizations to give the lie to the separation of Church and State and the supremacy of the First Amendment (and the rule of law) by desecrating some religious symbols.
And if you’re not cognizant of meaning, “disingenous” means claiming one thing loudly while knowing the opposite is true. (cf. PZ intending to disrupt a church service).
You reveal yourself more every time you post, and it has become clear that, more than being a simple believer, you are ignorant, a liar, and a hypocrite. Scarcely recommendations for the efficacy and morality of religious teaching.
No one has disrupted a Catholic worship service nor advocated that anyone do so. Walking off with a wafer that a priest gave to you is not disruption.
I’m sorry, did you happen to miss the death threats over a cracker by catholic nutjobs?
I merely suggest that PZ’s actions are liable to exacerbate the conflict.
Further, you and I both know that PZ’s life is under no real threat. If it were, he would have been more careful about his actions. This is a convenient way for him to stand up to the “nutjobs” to prove to his minions that he’s a tough, er, cracker.
#519, Matt Penfold: “There is NO body of Christ to desocrate [sic]. If you want to claim otherwise you need to provide evidence that the wafer really does turn into the body of Christ.”
I have no need to convince you that my belief is true — it’s only reasonable for you to accept that my beliefs are mine to have. You might compare this situation to desecrating a picture of my (hypothetical) dead son. I don’t need to “prove” to you that the picture is more than an ordinary object to me for your desecrating of it to be hateful and vile.
Mao, Stalin and Hitler were all leading societies where the enlightenment reigned supreme through reason and evidence and there were no dogmas or unsupported facts taken as true at all, anywhere. Didn’t any of you guys learn that.
More stupid Mao/Stalin/Hitler comments please!
@Dustin #569:
And the opening line of that wiki article is “Host desecration is great fun and highly recommended.”? :P Someone added tee-hee stuff in the Wiki I believes!
Sorry for the double-post above.
I love the idea of making a sculpture of Jesus from consecrated communion wafers, that would actually be Jesus, but would all the wafers have to be consecrated? If you got one, and mixed it up with thousands more (with a little bit of water or wine), and then formed it into a sculpture, would it still be made of Jesus? There would be no way of determining where the bits of original cracker had gone, and if you processed it enough, there would likely be a bit of Jesus in each cubic centimeter. A Catholic would have to concede that the whole thing was Jesus.
What’s more, you could give it any pose you like (classic porn-star pose?). The Catholics couldn’t steal it from you, but they would want to get it back, so all they could do would be to offer to buy it; you could name what-ever price you like. What price Jesus? Even when they do get it back, they can’t destroy it, even if the sculpture is deemed blasphemous; because it IS Jesus.
So crackers do matter!
LOL Shadow #523 – I was wondering how long it would take before a Scaper brought that up!
#479:
Like it used to say on your Pope’s belt-buckle, back when he was a Nazi… “God is with us”
Those Nazis? Christians.
“I have no need to convince you that my belief is true — it’s only reasonable for you to accept that my beliefs are mine to have. You might compare this situation to desecrating a picture of my (hypothetical) dead son. I don’t need to “prove” to you that the picture is more than an ordinary object to me for your desecrating of it to be hateful and vile.”
You do if you want me to treat your beliefs as anything other stupid delusions. If you want to claim a wafer really does become the body of christ, and to be taken seriously, then sorry, you do need to prove it.
If fooling around with a communion host is a grave offense, then India will nuke us all rather soon, given what we do to cows every single day.
Amazing that followers of the religion of peace and grace need pointers on tolerance from a society with a caste system.
Fr. J,
You believe people are special magical creations of a sky fairy. You believe people have a soul that flies up to heaven if they’re stupid assholes like yourself. You believe Jesus was a god, got himself executed, decomposed into a pile of stinking shit, then became a zombie and flew up to the clouds. You’re batshit crazy and a disgrace to the human race.
I call Poe on Pete Rooke in #454. It looks like he’s taken a diatribe against something from some other source and inserted the word “Scienceblogs.”
What would have been the original text? From 19th century, I’m guessing?
(If he actually wrote that post as a sincere, honest, real warning against Scienceblogs, then I really hope the Seed Overlords have sufficient space on their office bulletin board, and a thumbtack)
I’d think that would be right up your alley. Hastening the second coming and all. You should be CHEERING for us heathens.
Dang! Are we Godwined already?
This is a natural for a South Park episode. Can’t you just see Cartman accidentally walking out of a service with the cracker, causing a commotion, then figuring out he can maybe make a buck by holding it hostage? Maybe enlisting Kyle and the rest to sneak out more hostages, then having BD and the Inquisition roll into town for the big showdown. It’s a natural.
It’s a shame Chef is no longer a regular character. He could have started an alternative religion, based on ritual consumption of his Chocolate Salty Balls.
I hear they’re coming out with a diet version of crackers. It’s called “I can’t believe it’s not Jesus…”
Dustin @569: Yes, really. Those things about the Host bleeding when stabbed, etc., or turning into a piece of bleeding flesh are considered miracles. Special events, not readily reproducible. The Catholic Church certainly does not teach that all hosts bleed when desecrated.
‘Hitler hated the Church as much as you do’
I’d prefer not to play this game. But if Catholics want to play a game of ‘who’s more Nazi, the Catholics or the atheists’ …
http://alamoministries.com/content/english/Antichrist/nazigallery/19hitlerwithmuller.jpg
Yeah, there’s some real hate going on there.
They must have hated him, though –
http://alamoministries.com/content/english/Antichrist/nazigallery/25priestsalutehitler.jpg
Hmmmm.
And, of course, any Catholic playing the Nazi card now has …
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article382076.ece
… that little problem.
Whatever Hitler was or wasn’t – and he started out Catholic, had a lot of Catholic friends and allies, was supported by millions of Catholics, including the then and the current Pope – the Nazis weren’t atheist. Nazism in its pure form involved a weird synthesis of Christian and pagan symbolism and belief, along with odd bits of folklore.
I can never see the logic of the argument that one must respect others’ beliefs. I don’t respect racism, xenophobia, sexism, anti-semitism, scientology, creationism (any religion), 9/11 conspiracy theories, holocaust denialism….In short, there is a long list of attitudes and beliefs that I don’t respect because they are nonsensical. As for Christianity, I don’t respect it because it makes silly claims unsupported by anything other than documents of questionable veracity.
Mark B @485,
“Serranos’ work was partially paid for by an NEA grant.”
Only in the most loose definition possible. Serrano recieved money from an institution at one point that recieved money from the NEA. The Far Right anti-arts and humanities crowd tidied that up a bit (lied) and stated he got a grant from the NEA. People are still believing it today.
Dude! Check out these Nazi belt buckles I found! They all say “God is just pretend”.
@554 Peter Rooke
I see Poe,
But Larry and Curly don’t come around much any more.
(With apologies to Guadalcanal Diary)
~OT: DaveScot predicts PZ’s assasination:
“Myers is playing Russian roulette. He just keeps pushing the envelope in seeing how many people he can possibly offend in the worst way. It’s just a matter of time before someone with a terminal disease, a month left to live, decides he hasn’t got anything to lose by taking out Myers along with him.”
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/louisiana-whats-the-big-deal/#comments
Such a multitide of inflamatory statements and hatred!
See how religion fucks people up?
On the bright side, much mirth provided for my viewing pleasure, carry on. :)
Pete Rooke: that was the biggest sack of incoherent windbag fail I have ever had the displeasure of laying my eyes on.
You are incapable of stringing two coherent sentences together, yet think you are in a position to judge anyone?
Get a grip, and get help.
So sorry, your Mythbusters-like tests/examination of the consecrated wafer would not convince a true believin’ Catholic that the wafer really *ISN’T* the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ.
Of course not. The entire point of such claims is for them to be systematically invulnerable to proof or disproof. They know it’s not true, in other words, but they will never have to admit that it isn’t nor that they know full well it isn’t. What a racket. About as respectable as ripping off little old ladies… oh, wait.
If there were a way to tell the difference (i.e., if it really worked) then every Priest on the planet would not only profess to be able to tell the difference, but they would actually be required to tell the difference in Seminary school. But because it doesn’t actually work, only the most fringe Priests are going to claim to be able to tell the difference. The rest either know better (I’d LOVE to know how many clergy are actually unbelievers) or have been brainwashed into believing that there’s some kind of duality between the dough and the spiritual nature, blahdy-blah-blah. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if entire books haven’t been written on why the host continues to look and act like a piece of bread even though it’s really filet-o-Christ.
Also, I don’t think SFG has had access to a lovely cunt in a while. Poor SFG.
The goal is not convince the ‘true believers’. It is to ratchet up the required sophistry another notch, weakening the faith of any doubting Catholics, causing them to wonder why they are going through all these motions. Recall all the people who claimed ‘but Dawkins’ book won’t convince the true believers’? Well, what did Dawkins write in the introduction: “If you have ever felt trapped by religion, this book is for you.”
Cunt power! Yeah!
HumanisticJones@577: Roman Catholic Churches distribute communion every day, every Mass, every day of the year except for Good Friday. So yes, you could get one on a Thursday or Friday.
Mr. Penfold@573: Read my last couple of comments. Nobody in the Catholic Church claims that the host takes on the characteristics of human flesh when transubstantiated. Just that the “nature” of the trans. wafer is now that of Jesus, while the “accidents” of the wafer (how it looks, smells, etc) remain those of bread. Yes, there are some claims of Eucharistic miracles involving bleeding wafers and wafers actually appearing to be flesh, but the party line is that it normally stays bread in every way that can be perceived by human senses (and tests).
Good point. I would hope the good Reverend and Mr. Donohue refrain from eating beef so as not to offend our Hindu brothers and sisters.
Someone’s already done a tally, Michelle. According to the Bible, the God of Love is responsible for at least 33,041,220 deaths, lots of those being children.
This total does not include, of course, the numbers killed during the witch hunts, crusades, and inquisitions of God’s self-appointed thought police, the Catholics and Protestants.
Sea of blood indeed.
ndt @ 581:
Walking off with a wafer that a priest gave to you is not disruption.
Not for people who aren’t drama queens or for people who don’t make a career out of being offended, no…
@406:
“I have suffered great disrespect from homosexuals”
AND YOU ARE SURPRISED BY THIS?!? Call me horrid names and I will disrespect you until you slink away.
William
a FAG in NYC!
Wow! Prior to these threads I wasn’t disrespectful of Catholics. Actually, I always admired the ability of those Catholics I have known to conveniently ignore their doctrines. Turns out a lot of them don’t. Damn shame, really.
To the riled-up visitors, this is about something very simple. Some poor kid in Florida walked off with a communion wafer and the wrath of god was brought down on him. He was assaulted, accused of hate crimes, of kidnapping Jesus, and threatened with death. All this for a trivial action that is apparently common among Catholics. The response was so out of proportion to the “crime” that the only way to describe it is psychotic.
It’s clear from the kids remarks that he hadn’t intended to disrespect anything.
Given the response this kid had to deal with, no, your beliefs deserve no respect whatsoever. I fully support your right to believe whatever you want, but respect it? You’re kidding, right?
As for PZ’s desecration of a host, I wouldn’t support him going into a church and disrupting a service. People do have a right to practice their religion. But assuming that he can get it through other means (and it’s pretty clear he can) no amount of desecration would be sufficient to communicate the level of disdain this absurd practice deserves.
Having taken catholic communion once when I was younger, a terrible thought just crossed my mind. When you eat the cracker(I think they called it a host), which part of jeebus are you eating? I hope it wasn’t any of the naughty bits!
Way down here on comment #608+. I would just like to point out that no one is going to read this far down. It appears everyone’s feeling cathartic today!
I was raised Catholic and am incredibly embarrassed that all the drool covering this thread is what these Catholics use their “faith” to defend.
What’s important? Peace? Compassion? Good works?
Nah, symbols are *IT*, baby! Let’s all lynch PZ over A FUCKING PIECE OF MAGIC BREAD! WE WILL NOT TOLERATE ANYONE LAUGHING AT OUR MAGIC BREAD!
If I ever get talked into stepping back into a Catholic church, may reason strike me dead.
I don’t have a problem with someone disagreeing with religious teachings…I don’t happen to believe that there are millions of gods like the Hindu faith believes. I might find that belief silly, but I’m not going to go out and spit on one of their statues either, or condone someone else doing it…
It seems that there is a lot of hate being spewed on this blog, all because someone was defending their faith. Would you expect any less? I would like to see Mr Zachary ridicule the Jewish faith or perhaps Muslim…or would that be politically incorrect? The Catholic Church is an easy target for people like you…its so common in American culture to ridicule what you don’t understand.
For the record, the numbers of sexual misconduct, rape, and molestation are similar if not higher in the Protestant faiths over the last 30 years or so, but that’s never mentioned because each denomination reports those separately…this also holds true for the Public Schools system in our country…but again, its more a more sensational story when it has to do with a religion.
If Mr. Zachary wants to desecrate a cracker…why doesn’t he just look in his pantry and get one? I guess that wouldn’t make a very good story and give him his 15 minutes of fame.
AWMTI, #582: I merely suggest that PZ’s actions are liable to exacerbate the conflict.
Huh? I realize that this is hard for nutjobs to understand, but the situation was exacerbated before PZ Myers got involved — when Webster Cook was being harassed and sent death threats. Are you on the Catholic websites asking them to quit acting like a bunch of fascist thugs? Of course you can rephrase that a little more politely, seeing how you dislike exacerbating situations and all.
Over 600 comments and counting in the first five hours since this post was published. It’s amazing how much resources we waste on myths.
I just can’t stop laughing about all of this. Free speech rules.
Which PART of jesus does the cracker become?
Are the catholics all fellating jesus?
Certainly not me…
Disrespect? DISRESPECT?!
Call us when one tortures you, ties you to a fence, and leaves you to die, you fucking murdering-by-proxy little whiner.
Everyone keeps insisting that it can’t be his foreskin but, man, that foreskin had to go somewhere.
Dear Adam Janke (@139),
If, as you claim, “What is at question is whether or not we should respect others beliefs”, I would humbly ask that my beliefs be honored by your organization. Specifically, I believe that truth is a moral value, and that it is OK for me to call “transubstantiation” language-immanent nonsense when it is language-immanent nonsense, according to any criteria that have dependably produced tenable conclusions from empirical investigations in the past. (For SFG’s benefit: language-immanent = made-up)
Further, I ask that you keep your language-immanent nonsense within the confines of your organization and do not interfere in the lives of those who do not share in your delusionary doctrines. For example, your organization’s delusion that a blastocyst is a person, does untold damage by hindering the development of cellular treatments for spinal cord damage, heart failure, insulin-dependent diabetes, and potentially a ‘host’ of other conditions that cause suffering.
I gathered that from reading the Wikipedia page. Amazing that I never knew it before.
Adam Janke, you are full of shit.
And there’s the proof. You’re a liar if you think it’s just about the molester priests and not the other priests and cardinals and bishops (including YOUR OWN POPE) who COVERED for them and are to this day STILL hindering the rooting out and elimination of them.
Also, you’re a disingenuous shithead for trying to blame society for this: ” And in a secular society that is completely obsessed with sex ” – Most secularists are NOT ‘obsessed’ with sex. We just don’t have the madonna-whore complex drilled into our brains like you theist fucktards do.
“It’s a fair cop, but society’s to blame.”
“Right, we’ll go arrest the lot of them, then…”
You just don’t want us to hit you with the molester thing because it’s the final nail in your theistic-shithead-apologist coffin. Billy-bob said he couldn’t think of anything more vile than ‘desecrating’ a cracker – while we just hit him with the knockout punch.
Evidently he, and you, just don’t think raping little children is that bad. You people are fucking sick.
I worked at SECCA as a volunteer during that indecent. Letes just say there was a LOT of things the right wingers distorted during that whole fiasco.
I glanced over the Scienceblogs homepage (which you can get to by clicking their logo on the top right side of the Pharyngula page), and they don’t seem to have any official motto.
Yet.
LOL this whole post/thread is GOLD! I’ve been reading PZ for a few months now but this is the first time I’ve laughed so hysterically that I felt it necessary to chime in.
I was literally in tears yesterday, reading the initial commentary about the Jesus cracker hostage.. but this is like.. the whipped cream on the chocolate dipped, almond centered, fudge brownie Eucharist waiting to be eaten off the soft, supple breast of a sexy Brazilian bombshell :O
Mmmmm.. blasphemy *drools*
Kelly @619
PZ has picked on many faiths before. You win the “Vacuous First Comment” prize. The general problem with “faith” is that there is no proof of whatever the “faith” is in forthcoming.
Sheesh I need to preview.
indecent, was how the right wingers acted, but I meant to say incident.
Letes = lets
SFG called us “nerds”. Seriously?
What’s next there Fonzie, you gonna kick our ass in a rumble outside of Arnold’s?
@Kelly: “I would like to see Mr Zachary ridicule the Jewish faith or perhaps Muslim…or would that be politically incorrect?”
Mr Zachary? That’s his middle name, no? Why not Mr. Myers, hon. :P
No I think he already did it, dear. Pointed out that he ates every religion there is.
But you know, christians are the ones that attack us the most… Cuz this is an US blog, and they’re the major religion.
“The Catholic Church is an easy target for people like you…its so common in American culture to ridicule what you don’t understand.”
A lot of atheists know the catholic faith more than most catholics. They can name all the commandments, read the bible more than them, and follow lots of religious news. The fact that it is an easy target isn’t deniable… Cuz… well, you make it just so easy.
The reason why he wants to desecrate a church cracker is because of the principle of the thing. A guy was threatened to DEATH over one. TO DEATH! Over a cracker! That’s not very christiany, at least from common knowledge (cuz your God just digs violence.)
BGT wrote: Kelly @619
PZ has picked on many faiths before. You win the “Vacuous First Comment” prize.
______
Not everybody can be a cunt, and poor Kelly can dream and pray all she wants, but I can tell that cuntdom will always elude her. So very sad.
Cunt power! Yeah!!!
I can picture it now, the little white wafer tied to a chair while PZ dances around it to the tune of “Stuck in the Middle with You”.
@ Kelly #619:
For the record, the numbers of sexual misconduct, rape, and molestation are similar if not higher in the Protestant faiths over the last 30 years or so
Well, that makes me feel better.
Fr.J-
You seem to have a muisunderstanding. Bigotry is when one assumes evil of a set of people based on a cultural, racial, or other common identity. Most of the criticism here is directed either at people who made death threats for an act of disprespect or against the church who threatened said disrespecter (while condoning a variety of unloving acts, including many against its own members, and of course, choosing an ex-Nazi to be its earthly representative). You don’t get a free pass for being Catholic – if you act like a hateful hypocrite, you should expect to be criticized for it (particularly when what you claim to believe and claim moral credit for opposes the acts you and your church have performed).
Put another way: I can criticize my country for having done evil without being a bigot – that only comes when I assume that being a resident of my country is cause for hate. Why can’t the Catholic Church be criticized for its actions separate from any aspersions on its members? Or is that your point – in that case, wouldn’t you be effectively using your members as human shields to pretect your status and policies from criticism? That seems awfully loving of you.
Wrong. There is a lot of outrage on this blog all because some members of a particular faith issued death threats for someone not believing a cracker is sacred the way they do.
More Koran envy. He has. So have I. And you would know that if you actually looked instead of making assumptions, but that would require a desire to know rather than just believing what you want to.
Why do you assume that we only ridicule it because we don’t understand it? I have news for you, I’ve heard it before. I do understand it. It’s still ridiculous. It is sheer arrogance to assume the only reason we don’t believe what you do is because we don’t understand it. I don’t believe what you do because it is unbelievable.
I bet I’ve served more masses than you, fuckhead.
Recall these words from the original article:
“We just expect the University to take this seriously,” she added “To send a message to not just Mr. Cook but the whole community that this kind of really complete sacrilege will not be tolerated.”
Sacrilege will not be tolerated? The appropriate response to anyone who says this is, “Fuck off, asshole”. In any rational society, sacrilege MUST be tolerated. Catholics, you’re the ones not getting the message here.
Yes, you own your beliefs, but the jurisdiction of your beliefs extends exactly as far as there is evidence to support them. They do NOT magically extend to what a student does with a wafer you gave him, so long as other’s rights to worship were not violated. And you don’t have a monopoly on sacrilege. Your entire theology is sacrilege to a great many people, yet you still expect them to tolerate your right to believe it.
Wake up and realize how bloody stupid your double standards sound.
Kelly:
Let’s see —
It seems that there is a lot of hate being spewed on this blog, all because someone was defending their faith.
Hate? Umm no, ridicule. The hate is coming from good Christians (as always).
So… complete misunderstanding of the situation, and projection to boot?
Check.
Would you expect any less?
Anything less than assault and death threats for making off with a magic cookie?
Oh yes, how unreasonable to expect less than that.
So… complete disconnect from reality?
Check.
I would like to see Mr Zachary ridicule the Jewish faith or perhaps Muslim…or would that be politically incorrect?
So… not just misspelling the bloggers name, but actually calling him by his middle name? Epic.
And yes, check.
So… Muslim envy?
Check. That makes what, 7 on this thread alone?
So… Christian persecution complex and nicely framed disparaging of political correctness?
Check.
The Catholic Church is an easy target for people like you… its so common in American culture to ridicule what you don’t understand.
We understand that death threats are being made over a cookie. Sorry, that is fucking ridiculous.
And yes, the Catholic Church is an easy target for ridicule. Why do you think that is?
I don’t even know what to call this type of argument, but…
Check.
For the record, the numbers of sexual misconduct, rape, and molestation are similar if not higher in the Protestant faiths
Which makes it okay?
Tu quoque fallacy OVER RAPE for crying out loud?!
Check.
but again, its more a more sensational story when it has to do with a religion.
Yep, because religions pretend to be “moral”. And it becomes even more sensational if such a religion covers it up.
Anyway, escalating persecution complex?
Check.
Ah, screw it. Failboat, Kelly is thy name.
RE # 496
Aha, notice the stipulation about the religious object *being* in the place of religious worship. If we PZ fans send PZ the consecrated host wafers we’ve spirited away from Masses in our own various parts of the country, then they are effectively removed from “places of religious worship”. He can desecrate away. Problem solved!
Posted by: Adrienne | July 10, 2008 2:25 PM
Not necessarily so, for very much the same reason that absconding with food from an all you can eat for $9.99 buffet, destined for your refrigerator and later eating, violates the very purpose of the buffet to which one, arguably, can be contractually obliged; absconding with the host, or the food per my example, could be viewed as theft.
As the Catholic Church holds the host to be much much more than just the cost of the cracker, this could potentially, though I personally find it doubtful, pan out quite differently than a buffet merely saying don’t come back.
Why are Catholics such martyrs?
Sir, you will gain (and deserve) my respect when you take a similar tone to the Muslims of Minneapolis who refuse to take passengers in their taxicabs accompanied by seeing eye dogs and who refuse to serve customers purchasing pork products. The Catholic Church is an easy target because you know that any retribution will be legal and fair, no matter what you may say about “threats” to your job. Take on Muhammed and jihad and a few examples like the Danish cartoon controversy. Show some courage, if you have any. You know that the Catholic Church is no danger to you. Let’s see what you’ll do with the jihadis.
Nothing, of course. That might hurt.
Man, I can’t believe I’m still reading this. I have work to do.
Everyone stop being funny! Now! Go home! Stop this! I mean *you*!
…
Anyway. My take home messages from this discussion:
1) Messin’ with someone’s sacred cracker is rilly, rilly baad. Rilly. ‘Gainst the law. Rilly.
2) Well, okay, that’s actually probably only if you throw down the altar, set fire to the church, and beat up the priest to get it. But still. It’s bad. Illegal. Don’t do it! Don’t even go sneaking out of the church surreptitiously with the thing under yer tongue or some damned thing! Why, that’s just as bad as knocking over the altar and burning down the church! Or almost! Really! Don’t you dare!
3) Well, anyway, it’s way worse than threatening the life of and trying to get expelled a kid who *did* mess with one, clearly. That stuff, we’re cool with. Who was talking about *that*, anyway? Erm…. Hey! Look! Over there! Someone’s desecrating a flag! Get ’em!
Valuable corollaries:
4) You really don’t want a canon law guy for your lawyer.
and,
5) Catholics are funny when they’re mad.
(…okay, a little scary, and a little sad, yes, too. But mostly just funny.)
Put on proof. Because, on more than one occasion, the Christianistas have claimed persecution (and send us some money) because it’s NOT.
Who made the death threats over a cracker? Oh, wait, it’s coming to me… The Muslims…. Nope, that’s not it… The Jews! Noo… I know, it was the Catholics!
Imagine that. An atheist points out the religious wackery of the exact faith engaging in public religious wackery!
Funny, but he’s not the one hiding behind a pseudonym, now is he?
Why should he? I’m sure he’d find it ludicrous to do so. Just as he’s expressed his opinion that it’s ludicrous for Muslims to issue death threats for comics in a newspaper.
Despite the lies of the DI (1) ID is religion and (2) people don’t go around making death threats to the DI or the proponents of ID (well, except some possible sock-puppetry).
Projection for this ludicrousness? I suspect the students don’t bring it up and I doubt PZ does either. It’s just not important or germane to leaning the basic and advanced concepts in the biological sciences.
Asinine? You mean pointing out the bad behavior of the Catholic Church and some of its members? Nothing asinine about pointing out the truth.
Some kid took a cracker from a service. Some over-heated nut-bags tried to make it a federal case. Others made DEATH THREATS.
Over a fucking cracker!!!!
Have you NO perspective at all?
Some Christard wrote:
Well, given from the death threats he’s already started receiving, it appears the Catholic Church is indeed a threat to him, isn’t it?
As the Catholic Church holds the host to be much much more than just the cost of the cracker, this could potentially, though I personally find it doubtful, pan out quite differently than a buffet merely saying don’t come back.
LOL
“Sir, you will gain (and deserve) my respect when you take a similar tone to the Muslims of Minneapolis who refuse to take passengers in their taxicabs accompanied by seeing eye dogs and who refuse to serve customers purchasing pork products. The Catholic Church is an easy target because you know that any retribution will be legal and fair, no matter what you may say about “threats” to your job.”
That’s more complicated. These taxi guys you have to take to court. Which is more costly. As for the pork dudes, it’s simpler since you can bitch at the manager. But odds are you might have to take this to court as well. This has to be against some law. The taxi part is, at least. The other one is just a slacker not doing his fucking job (wait, aren’t I at work here? O_O)
But I gotta say… This is absolutely retarded moves by muslims and I despise them a lot for it.
We should certainly respect the beliefs of others, but only as much as we respect their belief that their spouse is beautiful, and their children intelligent…
I won’t disclose how I finagled a small batch of consecrated (trans-substantiated, transmogrified, corpsised?) wafers, but I’ve had great fun with them. They make a great garnish for a wonderfully louched glass of absinthe. (though less dramatically so, now that it’s legally purchasable here)
It adds a nice brimstone-y balance to Uigeadail…
“Sacrilicious”
Troll: “I’m no “intellectual””
Someone owes me a new keyboard now.
one must concoct a strictly naturalist explantion for the continued existence, through two thousand years, of the Catholic Church. AWMTI
Theft, lies and terror. Hm, that was easy.
You’re not even a good pretend Internet lawyer. Besides, if your theory was correct in its applicability, then virtually all Christian denominations practice hate speech to a greater or lesser extent and should be banned.
“That is why the Englishman’s belief that his home is his castle and that the king cannot enter it, like the American’s conviction that he must be able to look any man in the eye and tell him to go to hell, are the very essence of the free man’s way of life.”
Walter Lippmann 1889-
Mike K, #647 Take on Muhammed and jihad and a few examples like the Danish cartoon controversy.
Speaking of which, can you provide some copies of where you castigated those Danish papers for their blasphemy? You know, just so that no one can accuse you of hypocrisy.
Re: Mike K @ 647:
You are an ignorant twit aren’t you?
[who was keeping the “Koran envy” count? here’s another one]
Rev. BigDumbChimp (although you are clearly no kind or Reverend of the Lord – perhaps Satan?), Sastra, StuV, Michelle, BGT, Steve_C and others you have all misunderstood me. I did not literally mean to attribute those aims or goals to ScienceBlogs itself [#554]. Rather the underlying ideology of the community as a whole. You mock the most spiritual of experiences, the communion, and feel free to do it with impunity. Have you ever opened your heart the experience rather than mock and jibe with hate filled bodies (I hesitate to impugn your souls). Of course I agree with the commentator that said the second coming is to be desired – its has been a long time waiting. That will come about in the Middle East and though we can aid – and we are aiding the process – we must protect our own nation and for now we must content ourselves in building the ranks of the Heaven-bound souls that I wish you most of you were a part of.
If anybody tells my wife that I’ve wasted the better part of a day on a blog about a cracker, I’m gonna be in the doghouse for sure!.
One more. Come on, one more “the Catholic Church is an easy target” / “you wouldn’t do this to Muslims”.
site:scienceblogs.com pharyngula muslim
Hey, to the sane people here – do comments like MikeK (647) smack of racism or bigotry to you? I mean, some people here have responded to those ‘you wouldn’t insult islam like that because you’re afraid they’d kill you’ comments as ‘Koran envy’, and while that’s true (I really think they wish they could commit violence on that scale for their god), doesn’t it smack of racism in that they automatically think that most/all/enough muslims WOULD actually seek PZ out to behead him if he insulted islam like that?
The subtext pricks like that have seems to me to be “them thar ragheads would kill him over that, but *I* wouldn’t because I’m a CHRISTIAN(TM)! (and still I wish I could do it anyway….)”
I know that PZ said he closed this thread, but I’m hoping to get it up to 666 comments. It’s only appropriate.
***************************
LET’S TRY TO GET THIS ON DIGG!
I submitted this to Digg. So go ahead and Digg it.
http://digg.com/comedy/Pissing_off_Catholic_League_president_Bill_Donohue
I’m sorry were you saying something?
The anti-Catholics posting here should examine their own hearts – Jacob
If I want my heart examined, I consult a cardiologist. If you really believe a man in a dress mumbling a few words turns a cracker into flesh and blood – you should consult a psychiatrist.
Yep, Pete Rook sure smelled like an end-times loon…
Which reminds me. Why is it legal for people to actively seek to end the world because of their fantasies? Isn’t that at least 6,000,000,000 counts of conspiracy to commit murder?
RIGHT ON PZ!
Post some more funny stuff that will make their panties bunch up!
Thanks again for an awesome blog.
If they do somehow cause you to get fired, open a paypal account and I will send you some money.
Ooh, newsflash: Vox Day has posted on this, calling PZ “sociopathic” for wanting to desecrate sacred crackers. And he pulled the “he’s a publicly employee, our tax dollahs shouldn’t pay for this outrage!” bit too. Yay!
I tried once, but I couldn’t get my brain out of my head, so it didn’t take.
Seriously, did you never once think about how ridiculous some of the claims your religion makes are? Let me put it this way, have you ever looked at another religion’s beliefs and said, “well, that’s just silly”? That’s how I feel when I look at yours. The fact is there is no way to discern the “right” religion from the huge number of “wrong” ones without just blindly choosing one, or having one chosen for you. They are all equally unfounded.
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” – Stephen F. Roberts
This is entire incident so Catholic-centrist in tone. (duh)
In the Southern Baptist Church there is so much misinformation and yes, disinformation about catholicism.
Mention the Church of Christ and Baptists will chuckle and shake their heads (and tell a joke or two illustrating how wrong these Brethren are); mention the Holy Rollers and they’ll roll their eyes heavenward with a look of pity on their faces. Mention Catholics and you’ll get an earful that a more progressive mind would dismiss as overwrought bias from Evangelicals. In a Baptist seminary, Catholicism is rarely addressed formally; informally, though, Bill D. would lose his ever lovin’ mind over all the Cath’lic bashing. I couldn’t seperate fact from fiction, so I withheld judgement over Papist issues. I had other fish to fry.
When your entire knowledge of catholicism is from films starring Bing Crosby or Sydney Portier, or even The Exorcist, you don’t have much to go on. Father Damien in The Exorcist was the one hold out to rational thinking, so perhaps the old very superstitious ways were becoming more rational, focusing on the symbolic rather than literal use belief in the supernatural, I thought. Pope JPII even accepted evolution (to a point), something most Baptists would never do.
However, the only Jesuit I ever knew was a quasi-closeted gay priest who was head of the Bridwell Library over twenty years ago. His take on religion didn’t seem outlandish by my myopic standards, in fact, he was somewhat liberal on many viewpoints. He hated for anyone who purported visions of Mary or Jesus on Toast etc, or displayed stigmata, to be taken seriously as a miracle of the Church.
I know many wonderful people who are catholic but we never discuss religion – just sex and politics.
So now to know that there is a huge majority of Catholic clergy and administrators that view transubstantiation as actual and literal and are willing to commit violence over any percieved “desecration”, well that’s just fucked up.
No matter what anyone says, the rational person understands that the wafer is purely symbolic; an act of imagination. I can understand, to a point, that they may get angry because someone didn’t play by their rules and marred a service, but for it to merit death threats and assault? It gives credence to what the evangelicals were saying. And that’s just pitiful.
No, that would be *your* lot that likes to stamp out dissent. Jews, gays, homosexuals, Gallileo, et al.
Um, it’s *y’all* who are screaming bloody murder about someone doing something bad to a FUCKING CRACKER, because it’s THE BODY OF CHRIST. If you dislike the cannibalism thing, maybe you shouldn’t defend it so…religiously. When you make it sound like cannibalism, you lose the moral high ground to call other people asinine for making fun of it. Also, it’s funny how it’s the Catholics trying to get PZ censured. Makes your spouting off about “differing points of view” ring a tad hollow. No, not hollow, hypocritical. For an organization that has, for millennia, worked hard to stamp out dissent, with everything from political influence to genocide and war, to suddenly bitch that someone else said something mean is the new definition of hypocrisy.
Only after losing multiple lawsuits and court cases. Had they not been forced to, they’d have admitted nothing. Sorry, that’s not “doing the right thing” because it was the right thing. That’s more like Rhett Butler’s line to Scarlett: You’re like the thief who is not sorry they stole, but is terribly, terribly sorry they got caught. The Church got caught, and *had* to fess up.
REALLY. Of course, you have valid studies and data to prove this.
Funny how you find it is in societies where sex and the human body are feared, that you get the spikes in child molestation and abuse. Look at the numbers of children killed because “God told me to”. The Church encourages repression and blind obedience via the infallibility of the Pope doctrine, and yet they were all surprised at all the abuse going on.
No, in this case, it has everything to do with the debate, in fact, it is the central point. Were it “just a cracker” then no one would care. It is the mythology surrounding transubstantiation that makes it so unbearably vile.
Well, maybe Bill and his group should try that themselves. They have no problems crapping on any viewpoint that isn’t a perfect parroting of their own. Yet you lecture others about the mote in their eyes and ignore the beam in thine own. Funny that.
BAAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. Oh my god, that is the most ridiculously full of shit statement I’ve ever read. Christians are only SLIGHTLY less sensitive to slights, imagined and real, than fundamentalist muslims, and based on some of the threats in this article from people who “don’t care”, I’d say the difference is small indeed. Apathy: U R Doin It Rong.
you want to put money on that? I have a copy I’ll send PZ just to see what happens.
Again, you’re confused. The reflexive impulse to destroy other religions is a Catholic characteristic, as your rich history shows. Atheists just point and laugh.
Because you whine like bad brakes anytime someone points out how stupid you are. And again, a CATHOLIC bitching about DISRESPECT OF RELIGION…I thought you were afraid of hell.
The Catholic Church has such a historical record of violent intolerance, that I must acknowledge your expertise in the area.
Isn’t not judging, lest ye be judged a mantra of Christians?
Wow, guess I also made it to the big time. Had someone come on my blog and tell me I will be able to see my wife again when I go to hell as well. I deleted the comment, thanks for caring. (rolls eyes)
Dear Pete @661,
Actually Pete, I was Catholic, but the gentlemen of Fratres Scholarum Christianarum did something wonderful for me in high school and college. They helped me to learn to reason on my own. (Un)fortunately, a side effect of that is that I find all religions to be based on wishful thinking rather than any “truth”. And while I don’t mind people believing whatever they may wish to, they don’t have the right to attempt to impose those beliefs on others (like the Religious Right), nor do they have the right act like idiots over a cracker (in this case the Catholics upset about the host). This whole reaction over a piece of cooked flour is pretty childish, especially for a religion that should have learned to grow up a bit over 2000 years.
QED
Oh I get it… You’re a doomcryer!
Pete, if you allow me I’d like to return on this line.
“Innocent as it may seem, I am not prepared to bear the wrath of God’s Anger. We have seen the floods, we have seen the fires, what next shall we see if we allow this?”
Why are you worried? I thought God would save the pious. Why aren’t you not prepared? You fear you will be left behind? You are obviously not pious enough. Go pray.
Also, like someone else said here… You think your belief is the best, and the true one, but you have no proof that it is better than someone else’s. You are lacking respect towards the hindus by eating a hamburger, the flesh of the sacred Cow.
The priest gives the host cracker thingie. Gives. Once it’s in my hand or mouth (depending what church you go to), it’s mine. I do whatever I want with it. Since I’m an atheist, I can keep it and put it on a birthday cake by adding sparkles and a nice little message on it. Or I can put cheese on it. Or put it on display cuz I think it’s a fine piece of stuff. I can leave it there and never eat it, then ditch it in the garbage. It’s a sacrilege to you, but it’s not to me. I don’t care. Just like I won’t care when I will eat that gorgeous piece of steak I have waiting at home.
May God forgive you all – I will pray for you.
God Bless,
linda
Hmm. The delicious body of christ! I’m hungry now! Pass me the cheese,plz.
Persecution is traditionally what atheists have done. 100 million dead in the last century due to atheism. – Fr. J
Even if that wasn’t a lie, we’d still have a long way to go to catch up with the Catholic Church. As soon as the Church gained state power, it started murdering anyone who questioned its dogmas or its power, and continued doing so as long as it was able. What a record: heresy-hunting from the Arians to the Albigensians, two millennia of anti-semitism, the Crusades, witch-burnings, the religious wars following the Reformation, the slaughter and enslavement of millions of Native Americans, support for slavery, destruction of thousands of cultures with the resulting despair and deaths, support for Franco, Mussolini, Hitler and other fascist dictators, and now the lies about condoms spreading AIDS!
Immediate argument failure.
Mentioning “Bill Donohue” and “respecting other beliefs” in the same comment is auto-fail.
Linda… Don’t say that. It’s just another line for “I can’t win this argument so I’ll try to look pious and speak to myself.”
Actually, the numbers of children abused by people claiming to be part of some sect of Christianity is higher than both. Aren’t you a christian? Hmm…
Unless you’re a prepubescent boy, or dare to speak against the Church in public. Then your ass is in some serious danger.
Well, for PZ to defend ID would be just a tad hypocritical. I know that Catholics are used to hypocrisy as a way of life, but some of us actually try to avoid it.
Not as much as an athiest at a Baptist convention.
“Cast out the beam in thine own eye before thou pointest out the mote in mine”
Oh, and I forgot the millions of women dead from backstreet abortions and from too many pregnancies, and the children dying of malnutrition because their parents were told it was wicked to use contraception. Don’t you bloody well dare get on your moral high horse, “Father”.
Wow, you guys should do a blog search on google and see some of the blog reactions this is getting. So much outrage over the threatened purloining of a cracker!
linda, #679: May God forgive you all – I will pray for you.
And the fascist thugs threatening poor Webster Cook, don’t forget to ask God to forgive them, too. I think they probably need it more than we wankers commenting on a blog.
Amazing how that Father J fellow @243 twisted a comment on the stupidity of people behaving so preciously about a prank involving a bit of synthetic cracker into an anti catholic hate crime. He was surely aware that this is a blog with a strong concern for the protection of rational thought in an age of obfuscation, not the ranting of a religious bigot. Because that’s the funny thing really, genuine anti catholic bigotry almost always comes from co-religionists. Not many atheists killing prods and tims in NI in the recent troubles.
Interesting comment about nukes. Designed by scientists at a time when it was believed essential, most of those scientists worked in the belief that the most evil power in the World, bent on global military conquest, might get there first. Since then these weapons have been in the hands of the military which is heavily infiltrated by extremist fundamentalist christians. As recently discussed on another thread.
Humanity must grow up. We have got to advance socially and morally as far and as rapidly as we have technologically. This means moving beyond the religious mentality globally. Ignorant priests and their hangers on have way too much power and influence, a power that is dependant upon ignorance. That o’donohue should be dependant on welfare. That way he would be doing no harm. Unless he can find something useful to do of course. So there can be no respect for religious beliefs or any opinions that are not reasoned out.
Authority that is based on superstitious notions about the authorship of old writings has to be undermined and superseded by something better. So if there are any christians or other supernaturally inclined people reading this, please for the sake of humanity, your children, everyone, for the whole World, for the continuation of ‘intelligent’ cognisant self reflective life, wise up and get real. Educate yourself about this wonderful universe we live in. Ponder its size and its richness and variety, consider its age and reflect upon how we are learning as a species, with difficulty, about our place in it.
Maybe there is a god behind it all, maybe not. But if there is then it is not likely to bear much resemblance to the pictures painted by rabbis mullahs pastors or priests.
Oh how I love the “you only attack us because it’s safe. Try taking on a muslim!” argument. Why do people instantly assume that muslims want to blow people up?
Do people really think that muslims just go around calling jihad on everyone and anyone that doesn’t think the way they do or desecrates a bit of holy ground?
Surely not. We have words for these types (no matter the faith or motivation): zealot and extremist come to mind.
To my experience:
The muslims I know (which, admitandtly, is few) seem to agree that people whom strap on bombs and blow up cafes are complete loonies.
The christians I’m related to think the whole creationism in science classes “debate” is a load of rubbish. They seem to agree that everyone should just stop arguing and be nice.
The catholics in my family, whom I’ve spoken to about the cracker incident, don’t get why the cracker thief was even in the church. They do all agree that death threats aren’t in line with what they’ve been told is right and wrong.
As I see it the problem isn’t religion or a lack of religion. It’s those extreme views of a select few that give entire groups a bad reputation. Blowing up a cafe is extreme. Sending someone a death threat because they nicked a cracker is extreme.
I’m an atheist. I’m friends with christians, muslims, buddhists, catholics, jewish folks, lutherans, a few “new age” types, other athiests and even one scientologist. We all get along just fine and no one wants to kill/main/explode or even disparage one another because they think differently.
Someone thinks differently then you? So what? They might even be vocal about it…so what? We all have the right to think differently, it comes with the territory. Saying “I think your faith is total rubbish” doesn’t infringe on your right to think that way, it’s just one persons opinion.
Stop whining and just deal with it. Life would be a lot less interesting if we were all robots to one mindset.
Oh yeah, lots of Koran envy in the indignant blog posts too. PZ, you’ve been dared to get a Koran and wrap it in bacon, just to see if doing that gets you fired.
“Nobody in the Catholic Church claims that the host takes on the characteristics of human flesh when transubstantiated. Just that the “nature” of the trans. wafer is now that of Jesus, while the “accidents” of the wafer (how it looks, smells, etc) remain those of bread. Yes, there are some claims of Eucharistic miracles involving bleeding wafers and wafers actually appearing to be flesh, but the party line is that it normally stays bread in every way that can be perceived by human senses (and tests).”
Adrienne, Read some of the comments here. The ones from Catholics demanding we respect their view the wafer does become the body of Christ.
And as for “nature”, you clearly do not understand what words mean. If something takes on the “nature” of human flesh then it is identifiable as human flesh. Putting the word in quotes is just a foolish attempt to avoid having to deal with what is actually claimed. Why do you need to lie ? You must know you well get caught out.
You’re a barefaced, brazen, outright liar, “Father” J. Hitler was not an atheist, as a brief perusal of Mein Kampf shows: he states that in opposing the Jews, he is “doing the Lord’s work”. Throughout his life he referred to “God” and “Providence” inspiring his work. Moreover, your loathsome Pope “Pius” signed a concordat with him, as with Mussolini, and never spoke out against his genocide. So stuff that up your cassock, “Father”.
Hey Linda – thanks for nothing.
Michelle: Ah, but what you fail to realize is that God granted us dominion of all the animals.
BGT: “piece of cooked flour” – You appear fail to grasp the concept of transubstantiation. We surely agree (as above) that you may eat of the animals but, as I’m sure you will agree, the flesh of Christ does not fall into that category, and we clearly do not have dominion over His body.
Wow! Aren’t they idolaters? It’s just a piece of some cheap edible (yet insipid) thing that they pretend it’s “bread”. You could buy a lot of those for a few pences. What are they angry at?
And personal applause for the mischievous angel… I mean student. Some people should learn to take things less seriously, really. You can’t go to heaven (or to any other party) if you don’t have sense of humor. Please, relax: it’s just an icon.
Wrap a Koran in bacon? Why does that seem terribly mild to me?
Libel. In print, even on the internet, it’s libel. Libel, Liber. You’d think you’d know that.
The Catholic League claims to speak for Catholics. Its purpose is to “defend” you from bad people. Since it chose to take a representational position for the entire religion, and is publicly complimented by Church representatives for this, well, as ye reap, etc. yadda.
Such ego…”if he understood what this is, then of COURSE he couldn’t criticize it”. How wonderful it all is. Crapola. That’s what it is. Crapola. It couldn’t possibly occur to you that someone could know what your little mumbo-jumbo is about, call it crap, and not back down from that. Isn’t Pride a sin?
I’ll make you a deal. you get the Church to stop fighting, *tooth and nail* to bury lawsuits regarding child abuse by its appointed representatives, stop with baldfaced lies, (oh look, another commandment broken by the Church. Is there any of those you clowns haven’t shat upon?) about how you don’t have the money to pay, (the Catholic Church…poor…BAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA), and maybe we’ll take your pontificating about “professionalism” et al seriously.
So can we talk about the Church openly encouraging exorcisms? Because I’m missing the “Reason” in that.
Maybe you should stop assuming we’re all to stupid to know what your little rituals are all about.
“Why are Catholics such martyrs?”
I guess it started with a bloke that got nailed to a couple of planks of wood. If the lead character in your group played the martyr card then it might become second nature to start screaming about being persecuted because people will no longer take your bullshit.
sam green @ #370:
Yes, it is an act of disrespect to those who regard it as sacred, and a rather childish one at that. But you seem to have missed the fact that “those who regard it as sacred” MADE DEATH THREATS OVER A FUCKING CRACKER! When they did that, they destroyed any reason to respect them.
The request for crackers seemed like a stupid throwaway joke to me the first time I read it, but now that the insane are up in arms about it I’m starting to wonder if it might be a good idea. You’ve got people willing to commit MURDER over a fucking piece of bread! These people are insane. It’s probably only a matter of time before they start deciding that their imaginary friend wants them to go on killing sprees.
Why is it so difficult for these nuts to realize that respect has to be EARNED? You aren’t entitled to have everyone on the planet bow down to you simply because you demand it. You don’t get to act like a moron and then whine when people call you a moron. You don’t get to have people fired, arrested or murdered for questioning your beliefs, at least not in a sane country. Though whether or not this qualifies as a sane country is sadly becoming debatable.
Fr. J @ #406:
Well then why are YOU doing it, asshat?
Really, who here is demanding that their precious magic biscuit be completely immune from criticism, while making death threats against actual human beings who dare disagree with them? That would be YOUR fellow cultists.
But then, it’s already clear you’ll excuse anything your cult does, including rape and murder.
Randy Stimpson @ #422:
Oh, so in your alternate universe, “acting like a jerk” is a capital crime worthy of death threats.
In that case, I declare that you are “acting like a jerk” and therefore you must shoot yourself in the head. :P
Snitzels @ #446:
No, this is not common knowledge. This is a lie. Your teachers were lying to you, probably at the behest of religious fanatics (who may or may not have been catholic).
@694
/Dan Ackroyd voice/
Pete, you ignorant slut!
/close Dan Ackroyd voice/
Actually, I was confirmed in the Catholic Church, so yes, I am a tiny bit familiar with the concept of transubstantiation. I grasp the concept, at one point believed it, then I got better.
Don’t you know who the FSC are?
Pete Rooke @ #494 says-
“I am not prepared to bear the wrath of God’s Anger. We have seen the floods, we have seen the fires, what next shall we see if we allow this?”
Um, Ken Ham clones dropping from the sky, or locusts. I forget which.
“You appear fail to grasp the concept of transubstantiation. We surely agree (as above) that you may eat of the animals but, as I’m sure you will agree, the flesh of Christ does not fall into that category, and we clearly do not have dominion over His body.”
No, it is cannabilism. Well what other term is there a human eating human flesh ? Since you really do seem to believe it is the flesh of Christ can you offer any reason why you are not a cannibal ?
Mr. Penfold @691 wrote:
Yes, Mr. Penfold, I have written several times that this is the Catholic belief: the trans. host becomes the actual body of Christ (in its nature) but not in its accidents/physical characteristics. Duh.
No, you arrogant prick (or is that “prodigious prick”), the problem is that YOU don’t understand Aristotelian/Thomistic philosophy on this point. Note I’m not defending the belief itself. In fact, I think it’s a pile of horseshit.
Looks like I’m a little bit late to the SFG bashing party, but I thought I might chime in:
I don’t think anybody disputes that people are free to believe whatever they wish. That doesn’t mean that we can’t make fun of them for believing really stupid shit.
@Pete Rooke: Oh I know the dominion story. But your religion does not have priority over another, or my lack of religion. All religions hold the ultimate truth, or so they believe. None of them have the big proof that THEY are the right one. Therefore. If you decide that other people should not eat your blessed crackers, then you should not eat their blessed cows. It’s how it works.
By the way, the bible forbids you to eat pork. It’s not just the jews and the muslims. I hope you follow that.
Leviticus 11:7 And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.
I know a lot of christians that does not follow most of what is written in the Bible.
“May God forgive you all – I will pray for you.
God Bless,
linda”
You know to a non-believer that sounds as dumb to us as it would to you if we said:
“May the Giant Flying Norbitz from the sixth moon of Krakat fogive you. We’ll dance around in a circle with a funny wig and parkas on for you.
Giant Flying Norbitz Bless.”
Really, it does.
you know that crackers are not the importance right? its not that it IS a cracker its what the cracker represents to them. I think you would be just as upset if some random person came into your home and took a big dump on a picture of your parents holding your kids. they didn’t take a dump on your kids and parents, but they did take a dump on something that represents them, at least to you.
so when you are going all out making fun of their cracker, just remember, if they are wrong about God and religion then it doesn’t matter… but if you are wrong about God and religion everything matters.
#707:
And the thread prize for most insipidly vacuous presentation of “Pascal’s Wager” goes to…..some random fella!
This is how the Catholic Church dealt with child sex abuse accusations:
You will find the documents from the link, as well.
@Some Random Fella: “so when you are going all out making fun of their cracker, just remember, if they are wrong about God and religion then it doesn’t matter… but if you are wrong about God and religion everything matters.”
Yet another dude with Pascal’s Wager. Useless cowardice that is easily rebuted.
Hmm, how many Jebus crackers are eaten on any given Sunday within a 8 hour time zone? So how many Jebuses, assuming a direct proportion of cracker to flesh, would it take to become all those transubstantiated wafers each and every Sunday? And there’s the wine/blood thing, too. OMG, there must be an army of Jebus skeletons in heaven!!!
Michelle: “By the way, the bible forbids you to eat pork. It’s not just the jews and the muslims. I hope you follow that.”
I didn’t know that but you appear to be right. Thank you and I will mention it at mass.
I didn’t know you were a Hindi and I will try not to eat meat in front of any of them.
BGT: “then I got better”. I would prefer to say worse and will allow for the fact that you could get better again.
Matt Penfold: “Well what other term is there a human eating human flesh ?” I don’t consider Christ human but I am not a theologian and I will consult one on the matter for you.
“Won’t somebody please think of the
childrencrackers?”@ 707
Invoking Pascal’s Gambit will get you nowhere.
Your obviously new here, that’s fine, we all have to start somewhere.
some random fella,
“I think you would be just as upset if some random person came into your home and took a big dump on a picture of your parents holding your kids.”
Bad analogy. If, instead, you offered to give a pic of your wife and kids to anyone who wanted one, expecting them to look on with adoration and instead, someone took it home with them so you threatened to kill them, THEN you’d have a good analogy.
And PLEASE! FOR FUCK’S SAKE! WE ALL KNOW ABOUT PASCAL’S WAGER!!!
We’ve heard it hundreds of times, it still doesn’t make sense, and if you don’t know why then go look it up. We’re all tired of having to explain it to every idiot who shows up here thinking they’re the first one to come up with it.
“What a sad, hateful man you are.
Posted by: Matilda | July 10, 2008 11:01 AM ”
Matilda. Darling. The premise is bollocks. Everything that derives from it is bollocks.
Transubstatiation was agreed upon by the Council of Trent. God did not part the clouds and make this announcement to humanity. This is man’s creations. As such, it’s perfectly fair game.
I’m hoping I misunderstood you, and you were calling Donahue a sad, hateful man, which he is, and not Paul Zachary… he’s an observer.
If what is being observed is absurd, then expect in-kind absurdity.
I recall reading about a university math department who had a form letter they sent to a certain type of correspondent. It read:
“Dear ______:
WE have received your proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. The first mistake is on page _____, line ____ …”
The filling-in of the blanks would be delegated to some fortunate grad student.
Perhaps UM should work up a form letter for the assorted dingbats who demand PZ’s head for being such a smartass atheist meanie.
“Dear demented fuckwit:
We have received and decontaminated your spittle-flecked screed. Your first mistake is in thinking that we bear any responsibility for or even give a shit about what Professor Myers has to say on his personal, non-UM blog. Your second mistake is in thinking that you have some sort of inalienable right to prevent others from saying things which you choose to be offended by. You have no such right.
Now piss the fucking Hell off..”
Simple, time-saving, and there’s no need to torture some poor grad student with finding the stupid mistakes.
BTW, I suggest reading “Fr. J”‘s second screed with a view to discerning the grade level of the writing. The ineptness it displays appears utterly incompatible with a seminary education. Either the RCC’s educational institutions have deteriorated very badly or “Fr. J”‘s claim to be a priest is a lie.
To ammend my #716 post:
it’s all fair game.
@689:
How are those views “extreme”? In what sense? I’ll tell you: religious extremists are extreme in faith. Religious moderates have made concessions to modernity and secularism; god is not a moderate.
All of this also ignores the blatently obvious point that what religious moderates (yes, your granny who goes to church every Sunday is included, too) are really do is normalizing faith; making belief without evidence one of the core virtues of western society. The fires of fundamentalism are stoked by the religious moderate. By requiring that we “respect” their beliefs, they are providing epistemolgical cover for the suicide-bombers and abortion doctor murderers who, truth be told, are merely better at doing what their chosen holy book tells them to do.
“I didn’t know that but you appear to be right. Thank you and I will mention it at mass.”
…wait a sec. Mention it at the mass? Uh, are you a father? A minister? Or just a faithful attending?
Cuz if you’re a big shot…Aren’t you supposed to know the big book from a cover to the next? After all, you ARE preaching it.
Of course you know, if you ate just a tiny bit of pork you’re unclean. And I do hope that you like your stuff well cooked…
Leviticus 7:27 Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
PS: I’m not hindi. I said I’m atheist. And I think I mentioned twice that I love my steak very much. And very bloody. And just because you eat the cow in secret doesn’t make it right. I can smuggle the host out of the church, or spit it out and never tell a soul, and by your standards I’m still committing a terrible sin.
Fr. J:
Here is from the California penal code and I am sure Minnesota has something similar
But somehow you, a canon “lawyer,” fail to cite the relevant section of the MN code. Making vague, empty threats is what your sort does best. I call bullshit.
I also note with contempt that you didn’t cite any case law indicating that the CA or US laws had indeed been upheld. Shallow legal scholarship.
Also, you were challenged earlier in the thread to provide hard numbers on child abuse by RC priests versus teachers. You have not done this.
Adding my voice to those who have called you a lying sack of shit.
For the benefit of other Pharyngulites a “canon lawyer” is a person who acts as a lawyer in the private “legal” procedings of the church. Some of these are real lawyers with JD degrees from accredited law schools and members of the bar who happen to also practice church “law.” Others, not so much. Rather like the difference between a naturopath and a real MD.
IANAL (BIPOTV)
@707
Wow! Pascal’s Wager! THAT must be the sophisticated theology we always hear about!
He was repeating Catholic League lies. The pedophile rate in Catholic Priests, from 1950 through 2002 was FOUR-PERCENT (John Jay Report by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops).
This FOUR-PERCENT rate of misconduct simply dwarfs the rate of misconduct by teachers. No matter how much Donahue tries to conflate this issue by comparing the absolute numbers the misdeeds of a profession that includes 3,000,000 members with one approaching just 100,000.
The second problem is the Catholic League deliberately conflates two statistical measurements in it’s lies. The stats that teachers are held to are “sexual misconduct” which is a very broadly interpreted to include salacious notes, off-color comments, and suggestive or lewd behavior made toward students.
In fact, the category is so broad that it includes “sexual misconduct” that the misconduct does not actually include children (31% of all cases). This, btw, includes urinating in public, getting caught with an adult prostitute in a sting, otherwise lawful (past age of consent, including legal adults still in HS) conduct between teachers and students, and many other acts that have no bearing on a teacher’s sexual conduct toward his/her students.
Actual child-raping, like the Catholic Priests, is very rare. And, unlike the child-raping Catholic Priests, these teachers typically aren’t hidden by administrators, including teaching positions in non-extraditable countries where they can continue to practice the pedophilia on children.
This is not to excuse these teachers. They acted wrongly and were punished, losing jobs, careers, freedom and self-respect.
But “sexual misconduct” by a teacher is not equivalent to “child raping” in the vast majority of the cases. Even though the Catholic League has done a marvelous job of muddying the waters to make it seem over-blown.
In summary, the CL does two “stat lies.” One is to use an absolute number when “rate” is the actual number to be used in order to marginalize the issue. The second is to artificially inflate the conduct of one of the two comparative groups.
Four percent of Catholic Priests were child rapists. Far less than that of school teachers were child rapists.
One group was protected and sheltered in a vast, world-wide conspiracy. The other cast-out and destroyed.
Not equivalent at all.
So Room 101 for (all/most/many?) Catholics would be the desecration of a magicked cracker? Who knew?! Since the Catholics have been in charge of selectively revising the pseudohistory of their religion, you’d think they might have thought to include that item in their fictional account too. No need for more inventive alleged martyrdoms at all (apart from the Jesus one, I suppose, under the circumstances).
It might explain why some were willing to die for their faith, if they had been brainwashed to believe they were worthless and the only thing which really mattered was the sacred cracker. It doesn’t cover Catholic willingness and ability to torture other people, non-believers, in other ways of course. Those believers must have had some inkling of things which were genuinely worse (rather than persistently assuming everyone agreed with their ridiculous beliefs).
Perhaps it’s just Bill Donohue though. Maybe the others could easily think of lots of worse things than cracker abuse after all. It could even be “cunning” disinformation – in the hope of persuading anyone who captures a Catholic (in any sort of war or hostage situation) to attempt to extract information from them by molesting a suitably prepared communion wafer at them rather than doing any of the bad things they’d do to other people.
So all the catlick concern trolls think that we should all respect thier beliefs and not do anything to a little cracker that they eat?
So, they’ll respect muslim (sorry, can’t think of a funny variation on that spelling) prohibition against alcohol and not drink the sacramental wine, right?
*watches as the concern trolls spin enough to generate power and eliminate the energy crisis* I foresee a Nobel prize coming my way. =P
Cheers.
Sorry, but someone is lying to you. Even in secular schools many educators violate their oaths and job requirements to espouse their religiously motivated beliefs, including condoms don’t work to prevent the spread of aids, because they lying for Jesus doesn’t seem to be a “sin” when they’re being all high-and-mighty in their inappropriate urges to control the “sin” of premarital sex among youth.
@722 Mike wrote:
“Wow! Pascal’s Wager! THAT must be the sophisticated theology we always hear about!”
Mike: Witty come back – but don’t loose track of the key point – Pascal was a major scientist and believer in God. While you disagree with Pascal on the God issue, you also disagree with Einstein and Stephen Hawking – and other more scientific minds than yours and mine.
Michelle: “just a faithful attending?” Yes, and searching around the web it does seem there is some ambiguity surrounding the issue. As it happens I am actually an ethical vegetarian as a result of the general suffering modern farming practices inflict on animals.
Fr.J@479
I think someone may have touched on this, but for clarity’s sake: the general legal definition of real property is land and the things attached to land (like fixtures). Therefore, the section of U.S. code that you quoted does NOT cover wafers.
bill:
Yeah… about that:
@ #645
Salt, your example of an all-you-can-eat buffet doesn’t work. Most restaurants have a posted (either by sign or on the menu) agreement with their patrons that “all-you-can-eat” means “all-you-can-eat-in-a-single-visit-no-doggie-bags-allowed.” This situation is more akin to my going to a restaurant and having the chef send out a complimentary appetizer. I don’t choose to eat it at the time and wrap it up to take it home. If the chef then chased me out while screaming at me, followed by fans of the chef sending me death threats, you’d think he and his buddies were, excuse the expression, crackers. But by the standards being argued in favor of the treatment the young man is getting, it’d be perfectly proper. I mean, the chef gifted him with something of value (his artistry), it was obviously meant to be eaten at the time, I chose not to and attempted to leave the premises with it. Oops.
A trip to the church? Free. Value of one (1) host? A couple of pennies. Absconding with the transubstantiated essence of a third of a triumvirate god? Priceless.
Pete Rooke:
Vegetarian eh? I have mildly bad news for you.
Romans 14:2 For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs.
Timothy 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
4:2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
4:3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
4:4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
4:5 For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
Pete:
Michelle: “By the way, the bible forbids you to eat pork. It’s not just the jews and the muslims. I hope you follow that.”
I didn’t know that but you appear to be right. Thank you and I will mention it at mass.
You come in here preaching and haven’t even read the Bible. How typical.
Jebus Tapdancing Cripes.
No. A good lawyer would laugh at you and send you on your way.
A cracker isn’t “real property” which has a specific meaning within the law. A cracker is called “personalty” or “personal property.”
Really short: A HOUSE is “real property.” A CAR is “personalty.”
A “threat of force” has a specific meaning, too.
Really, the law is more than copying and pasting code on the Internet. You need some type of education to actually understand what the hell it is saying. An education you clearly lack from your dimwitted assertion a case could be made by palming a cracker and the nun gets her britches in an uproar.
bill @727:
I will ignore the fluff about Pascal being a “scientist” at the level of Einstein or Hawking, since that statement doesn’t contain much more than a weak argument from authority.
I do have one question for you though regarding Pascal’s wager: Which god(s)?
@ Pete Rooke: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…
Dear Matt (@ 272),
Of course, you are entitled to your own opinions and beliefs, but why would you think you are not responsible for what you believe? Why should anyone respect your or anyone else’s unsupported beliefs? Why should it not be considered immoral for Catholics to threaten harm to Webster Cook, based on beliefs that are made up?
“While you disagree with Pascal on the God issue, you also disagree with Einstein and Stephen Hawking – and other more scientific minds than yours and mine.”
Well, you seem confused at best.
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
Albert Einstein
Stephen Hawkin has said similar many times.
“Hawking told the attentive reporters that he did believe in God, but not in a personal God.” He calls the universe “god” and claims to want to read its mind.
Got it?
bill:
but don’t loose track of the key point
Oh, you were making one. Sorry, missed that part.
Pascal was a major scientist and believer in God.
No, he was a scientist, became a believer, and stopped being a scientist.
you also disagree with Einstein and Stephen Hawking
Einstein:
“The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.
Letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind, January 3, 1954”
Stephen Hawking:
“What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. In that case, it would not be necessary to appeal to God to decide how the universe began. This doesn’t prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary. [Stephen W. Hawking, Der Spiegel, 1989]”
and other more scientific minds than yours and mine.
Speak for yourself, you uninformed Ray Comfort drone.
Anyway, what the hell does any of it have to do with the price of tea in China? Not only do you make a point incorrectly and pathetically badly, you pick to make a totally irrelevant one.
The failboat is filling fast.
Michelle: I’m sure there is some room for manoeuvre otherwise it would be a bit unreasonable and unfair. I don’t refuse to eat meat outright and would necessarily abstain from mussels or prawns and might, in the right circumstances, eat meat reared in the wild and killed painlessly. It has been 2000 years and we should surely allow for increased dietary awareness.
StuV: “You come in here preaching and haven’t even read the Bible. How typical.”
I do concede my knowledge of the old testament could be improved and I am no preacher.
In any event surely even if you allow for the fact that there isn’t a God – as you seem to claim – what Dr. Myers advocates and what the student did was at the very least mean and incendiary.
Bill @ #727
You are dead wrong on the Pascal-Einstein issue.
Einstein, when asked if he beleived in immortality, said “NO, And one life is enough for me”.
Check your facts, or if you don’t want to, post only at Ray Comfort’s blog”
I call Poe on Pete Rooke: even in this thread the idiocy of his comments shines out like a stream of bat’s piss, but he can’t quite keep in character – that stuff about pork, for example.
@49,
2girls1cracker.com
Maybe??>/i>
HAHA WIN! Thread ended at 49!
When I heard PZ’s desecration threat, my first thought was “man boob”.. I don’t know why or how it would involve a church cracker…
#675 – Jeffery D – Cyber hug. Sorry it’s all I can do. :)
Myers, you’re a hate filled idiot, lashing out at what you fail to understand!
I’d like to complain about Mr. Peter Rooke.
Dear Sir/Madame,
I would like to take advantage of a rare opportunity to tell it like it is. It may help if I begin my discussion by relating an innocuous story in order to illustrate my point: A few days ago I was arguing with a particularly meddlesome tax cheat who was insisting that everything Mr. Peter Rooke says is absolutely and completely true. I tried to convince this high-handed polemic that Mr. Rooke’s unsavory smear tactics condemn children to a life of drugs, gangs, drinking, rape, incest, verbal abuse, physical abuse, and a number of other horrors. News of this deviousness must spread like wildfire if we are ever to expose every officious practice of every officious storyteller. If the people generally are relying on false information sown by deranged radicals, then correcting that situation becomes a priority for the defense of our nation. Mr. Rooke’s patter is smooth and quite practiced. He can fast-talk you into believing you’d be better off if you participated in his effort to subvert existing lines of power and information. However, his ploys fall apart upon reflection. The recent outrage at Mr. Peter Rooke’s arguments may point to a brighter future. For now, however, I must leave you knowing that he rather grandiloquently refers to me and everyone else he dislikes as a deplorable knuckle-dragger.
I have no idea what to do with that. Laughing first for sure.
It has been 2000 years and we should surely allow for increased dietary awareness.
What else should we allow for? If you get to be wishy-washy about that, what else do you get to flake on?
I do concede my knowledge of the old testament could be improved and I am no preacher.
Oh, you are just going to LOVE Leviticus. It’ll put quite a crimp on your lifestyle.
what Dr. Myers advocates and what the student did was at the very least mean and incendiary.
I’d call it rude at the most. So what? That justifies death threats?
@ Tadhg #744
No, we understand, we just don’t believe….
AND that ladies and germs is why Kseniya has a molly.
……..humm
Even if it was auto generated I and clicked the link AFTER….
grumble
lol @ 744.
It’s not hard to understand. Some people just think it’s stupid. (and it is)
I just think it’s hilarious that so many people take their faith with such utter seriousness that death threats ensue whenever somebody (usually an athiest) points out some bit of stupidity or ignorance on the part of their community or leadership.
It’s like a bunch of Microsoft fanboys flying off the handle when you mention that Halo just isn’t a lot to play.
There are more important things to worry about, folks! One guy doesn’t agree with your point of view. Must he be burned at the stake? What are you so afraid of?
Michelle @ #696 – Wrap a Koran in bacon? Why does that seem terribly mild to me?
Seems smoky and delicious to me.
I think we’ve all been dancing around the real issue here, the proverbial elephant in the room…the disgusting, nigh-flavorless tragedy that is the communion wafer. Wholly unidentifable as an actual bread product, these thin, tiny rounds of what appears to be off-white polystyrene are an absolute abomination and an affront to my tastebuds. I’d have thought that the transubstantiated body of the Savior of Man would be full-bodied, rich, and flavorful.
I don’t blame a guy for having one of these gastronomical horrors hit his tongue and then not be able to bring himself to swallow it, but instead flee the scene looking for a safe place to spit it out and possibly bury it, lest some other poor sod happen upon it.
At least the hole-in-the-wall fundie Baptist church I was dragged to as a kid used Ritz crackers. Buttery and delicious, like Jesus should be.
Until the Catholic Church comes to its senses and reforms to the point of allowing some melted cheese, green onion, maybe a little hard salami on those vile little poker chips they call communion wafers, then we simply have nothing to say to one another.
Re #743: Thanks Patricia darling. In an odd way I took it as a compliment – someone hated my words so bad that they had to go out of their way to be hateful. I mean, he or she actually scanned the whole blog to pick out specifics – I feel I am almost famous. (grin) It is funny, and I wish now I had saved the comment so I could share it. Gotta love xtain charity and love as displayed on these threads.
Pax Nabisco
Brownian, OM, writes:
According to the Bible, the God of Love is responsible for at least 33,041,220 deaths, lots of those being children.
That’s just the bible. Remember, the god of love is also the god of smallpox, HIV, and the bubonic plague.* He’s also the god of tsunamis, earthquakes, and – well – you can see the impact craters from god’s love all over Mars and The Moon. That’s the god of love that created us with a sun that’s going to start failing in a measly hundred million years or so. Jesus’d better come back soon before it’s too late!
* Unless, of course, you’re willing to grant that abiogenesis and evilution was what created those?
“Myers, you’re a hate filled idiot, lashing out at what you fail to understand!”
Far be it from me to presume to talk for PZ, but I think probably “annoyed/angry” would fit better than “hate filled”. He’s certainly not an idiot. Remember, just because people don’t agree with you doesn’t mean their idiots. They may be, but not necessarily. Finally, as has been stated here before a few times. It’s really incredibly vain of you to think that PZ or the rest of us just can’t grasp the amazingly simple beliefs you hold on to. It’s not like Catholicism is so complicated that it’s equivalent to trying to understand string theory or quantum field theory.
For Godsake everybody, please… IT-WAS-JUST-A-CRACKER!!!!!
Josh West,
It wasn’t a death you dopey prick. I would like him (and all of you) to die painfully and slowly, but I certainly wouldn’t waste any valuable ammo doing it. Why don’t you learn to read you cunt.
As I have a busy life teaching I will not be commenting on what was said about my post except for two and I will comment on what was said in an earlier post:
#547, Mr. Dahan, “self-centric ass” is the example of unprofessionalism I was talking about. If those fine people who normally reads Professor Myer’s blog are anti-relgious, fine. I have sworn an other to “support and defend the Constitution” to preserve such views, however, since all the attacks are geared towards Catholics, it tells me that this is an Anti-Catholic blog. “Looks, like a fish, smells, like a fish…” (to borrow some Douglas Adams). Dialogue, Mr. Dahan, dialogue not ranting will get you far in life.
#697, Mr John C. Welch of http://www.bynkii.com who has issues with Adobe: Same to you, maintain professionalism. My Archdioceses had no allegations of abuse, the current one I live in had a low number and they were dealt with, not moved. Do I study theology, I hold an S.T.M., which is one level higher than a Doctoral Degree in the American system, I also hold a Doctoral in Science as well. I have read Professor, er, Dr. Myer’s work and I do hold respect for him. I wish others here would demonstrate that in their posts, makes this whole thing sound like YouTube. Enough said, you make fine points in your posts, keep the slander and rude words out.
As far as the Catholic League’s claim that this blog is part of the University site. Ok, they made a mistake. However, I was able to get here through a link from the University. Although that does not mean this is part of the University website, their Faculty Handbook does require that their Faculty place somewhere on their webpages or blogs that the “views and opinions written on this site do not reflect the views of the Univeristy of Minnesota, Morris, or its faculty, students, and Board of Directors.” This prevents the school from getting into trouble legally. Catholic League was in error, however, as it stands, the University can be libel per the legal gurus I work with.
Anyway, it has been fun. Heading out the door to the desert for awhile.
I think Eddie put it well in his Jesus and the Dinosaurs bit. He has to explain to his dad about what he told the humans on his second trip down there.
Eamon:
“I mean, assuming there’s a God, what real harm does he suffer if a few puny mortals say insulting things about him, or do nasty things to his earthly symbols?”
It makes much more sense when you realize that rules on blasphemy and such don’t really have anything to do with any god, but rather, mind control on the part of the religious authorities.
Jacob:
“I find it humorous that a college professor employed by a respected state institution would publicly use such insulting and juvenile language towards Catholics.”
I do too. Keep it up, PZ!
“”the intelligent, educated atheist PZ Myers responds with name-calling: “extortionists”, “witch hunters”, “purblind ideological bigot”.””
Can you demonstrate these names to be untrue?
“”The anti-Catholics posting here should examine their own hearts rather than accusing the church of traits they themselves possess in abundance.””
‘Scuse me? I never fucked any children. Have you?
Schnitzel:
“I fully agree. I never understood the religious position of preventing protection… ”
See above, re: mind control. Or maybe body control.
AWMTI:
“It’s only ludicrous if you’re assuming a strictly materialistic universe. You have no grounds upon which to condemn transubstantiation apart from that assumption.”
Yes, what an absurd thing to assume that the universe is as we observe it. And that things don’t happen just because some people say they do. And in a way that is completely untestable (the wafer is physically exactly the same but the Jesus is invisible!)
Kelly:
If Mr. Zachary wants to desecrate a cracker…why doesn’t he just look in his pantry and get one? I guess that wouldn’t make a very good story and give him his 15 minutes of fame.
File under “M” for “Missing the Point”.
Adrienne:
“Ooh, newsflash: Vox Day has posted on this, calling PZ “sociopathic” for wanting to desecrate sacred crackers. And he pulled the “he’s a publicly employee, our tax dollahs shouldn’t pay for this outrage!” bit too. Yay!”
How depressingly predictable.
Peter Rooke:
You mock the most spiritual of experiences, the communion, and feel free to do it with impunity.
As we should, in this free country of ours.
“Have you ever opened your heart the experience rather than mock and jibe with hate filled bodies (I hesitate to impugn your souls).”
Oh thank heaven for that.
Tadhg:
“Myers, you’re a hate filled idiot, lashing out at what you fail to understand!”
So explain it to him. Really this whole “you don’t understand” thing is really tiresome and a total cop-out.
I think Bill Donohue (and other like-minded dogmatists) may be a lost cause:
Could Webster Cook’s devious plan be to clone the Body of Christ and ultimately repopulate the Earth with clones of Jesus Christ? And thus destroy the catholic church?
How christian of you.
Now I think it’s time for you to run off to bed. You’ve done a fine job proving your level of intellect and I know it’s got you all tuckered out. I’m sure your mommy has some nice warm milk and a cookie.
Perhaps you need to get a copy of this because you obviously have a hard time identifying what a fish looks like.
Rev BDC,
LOL, what a fucking retard you are. Amazing. If you’ve read the whole thread, you would have held back saying “how Christian of you” when I have already written that I am NOT!
BTW, I fucked your Mum and she was shit.
Dipshit, if you had read the whole thread and the other ones you’d know that DEATH THREATS had been made against the kid. Whether you are or aren’t a christian you are acting like them. Hence my comment. Idiot.
Time for bed kid. Maybe you can get a priest to snuggle up with you.
Hey, Sexually Frustrated Guy is back!
“I would just like to point out that our troll here “sfg” may read too much of that comic “The Punisher”. That is the only other place I have ever heard the term “shower of cunts”.”
Probably you could find it in just about any comic written by the esteemed Garth Ennis. I can’t pretend to know why the word “shower” is used as a collective verb in the Isles, though.
“And surely you know that desecrating it is an act of disrespect to those who regard it as sacred.”
All I can say is that I’m glad I’m not so easy to disrespect. No cracker hangups here, you gotta at least insult my Mommma.
** an atheist’s unapologetic apology **
“Theology is the subject without an object.”
Don’t forget big-4 monotheistic belief is not only magical nonsense; it’s really unfit for human intellectual consumption.
RCs, there is no supernatural realm. There are not two worlds – the *spiritual* one superordinate to nature – Eternity is a fiction, No god whatsoever exists.
Xianity, like its murderous near eastern brother islam, its mysoginst father judaism, and its hate-filled grandfather zoroastrianism, arose late in recorded history and it has been decaying at an increasing rate since 1600 CE.
Enough of this heresy born of Paul’s perverse twist on hellenistic judaism and overlaid with rites and symbols gleaned from the back alleys of slums in the eastern roman empire. Batman is more real than “Christ” ever was . . .
Enough xian intellectual nihilism and perversion of sexuality and hatred of women and self-righteous revenge seeking. (1Cor1 1:end)
“God’s only excuse is that he does not exist.” — Stendahl
What a relief!
bipolar2
© 2008
One more little note: Guys who post using just an initial, please stop. We got the J that most of us know, we got the J who claims to NOT be J, and then there’s someone else posting as a lower-case j and well, it’s a bit confusing. Just add another letter or two, that’s all I ask.
And one more little thing: When I first saw the title of this post, I thought it was going to be another “Let’s all insult X” post, like the Ray Comfort one a while ago. So…who’s up for pushing this thread into the 1,000s? >;)
To: Mr Bill and other Catholics
Once more into the breach …
“It is hard to think of anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ.”
I can think of many things more vile than desecrating a wheat wafer, but let’s not distract ourselves from the real issues. Most do not accept your claim of these wafers transubstantiating into your deity. I certainly don’t anymore. I don’t accept yours or the church’s assertions on the existence of a deity. But the issue here isn’t whether the “Eucharist” is God either. The issue here is freedom of expression and freedom of religion.
I respect your right to hold whatever beliefs you want and your right to practice those beliefs. But I am under NO obligation to respect those beliefs or ideas. Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion, and your demand that I respect your beliefs is tantamount to asking me to hold those beliefs also. I do not and will not believe what you want me to believe. Your concept of sacred, or what constitutes your god does not extend to everyone. I do not hold sacred what you do. Nothing is sacred. Forcing me to accept what you consider sacred is tantamount to forcing me to subscribe to you religion. I have a right to NOT BELIEVE, and so does Dr. Myers.
Dr Myers is free to express his opinion on his personal blog which I understand does not reside on University computers. I’m sure you can reach many off-university websites via links on the University’s web site: will you hold the University and related faculty accountable for those links also? I think not.
So why don’t you deal with reality? Why do you hold onto thousand year old superstitions? I think it’s time you and the church fathers stop propagating such vile nonsense and do something good for the world.
And personally, when I attend Mass this weekend and the church freely hands me a wafer, I will palm it and send it to Dr Myers so he can do what he pleases to it. Or maybe not, since I do not want to be bored to tears on a nice Sunday morning, just to grab a little wafer thin mint.
Whew. For a minute there I was worried you’d actually go waste a couple hours. I personally won’t think a second about this on sunday morning. I’ll get up for the sunrise on the beach, take some photos, walk the dogs, maybe roll around in the bed with the wife and generally enjoy the day. Going to church even for such a prank seems like a boring way to spend one of the few days off I have.
And now the immaturity comes in from Rev BigDumbChimp. However, he proved my point, despite that fact he missed the humorous reference. Speaking of fish…
No I caught it. I thought you were off to the desert?
If you base your judgment on this blog of a few posts dealing with one subject that has put Catholics in bad light (death threats over a cracker? really?), then it highlights the fact you’ve failed to do anything buy a cursory glance.
I could say you are a pompous windbag who likes the smell of his own farts, but that would just on the brief time I’ve read your comments.
“Doesn’t seem to say anything about when dealing with crackers.”
Speaking of crackers … by that logic, if you were to bring a noose to a NAACP meeting, we’d have no right to call you on racism because, well, its just a piece of rope.
I scrolled past a lot of comments. I hope someone didn’t already say this.
PZ said I’ve got two messages from good Catholics who want to send me communion wafers laced with arsenic or rat poison.
PZ, you need to send Bill Donohue the email addresses of those Catholics so he can start a witch hunt on them too. Because it seems to me they would be intentionally desecrating the Body of Christ!!!11!!!
Damn, man. Back in the day, a thread 50 posts long meant CalTard was down there trolling.
Why do people still comment when there are hundreds of comments? No one reads through all these; it’s a waste of time.
I’d like to see that holy wafer shoved up the arse of Chocolate Jesus.
Um, no.
They are nothing alike.
Actually it’s hard for me to think of something less vile than bringing home a cracker someone has given you. Now if you bring home an STD that someone has given you, well, that’s another thing.
I used to be an altar boy (seems like one of the fortunate few who never had a priest try to molest them)and one day, out of pure curiosity, my fellow altar boy and I decided to try some of the communion wafers before mass. We ate half the bag before realizing how dry our mouths were and then promptly went to the cabinet where the wine was kept. We ended up drinking wayyyyy too much of that so we had to sneak it out of the dressing room/storage area to a water fountain (this mass was for our parochial school Friday mass so we weren’t actually in a church)where we refilled it a bit to make sure nobody, especially the bishop who was giving the special mass that day!, noticed.
I think in Bill Donahues eyes I am much worse than you, PZ, so if you want I will go ahead and be burned at the stake for you.
One quick little note, the bishop who presided over the mass that day didn’t seem to really be interested in the altar boys beyond punching them when their backs were turned and squeezing their hands to the point of pain when he offered to shake hands. He was one sadistic turd, as most are in the catholic hierarchy.
I don’t care so much that loons like those ones think it’s okay to desecrate perfectly good food with concentrated stupid, but why on earth expect anyone else to treat it as mysterious and wonderful, rather than with all the nommy respect due to snacks?
Bill Donohue: It is hard to think.
Cheezus H. Crackers, hundreds of comments and still such juicy low-hanging fruit waiting untouched…
sfg, I know I said I wouldn’t be in touch, but I’m really worried about you. After you deleted your Facebook page I was frantic. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE talk to me. I know you must be confused after the weekend. I know how angry and upset you were when you told me about everything that happened to you there, and I want you to know that Cal, Jon and I will ALWAYS be your friend. The only antidote to hate is love, I’m sorry if you feel that the love we showed to each other is something you won’t respect. Please don’t let the terrible things you went through poison the beautiful, shining soul I held in my arms. I understand the terrible pain you are going through. You know your secrets will go with me to the grave. If you can’t face phoning me, at least let L know you’re alright.
It would break my heart never to see you smile again, darling.
U NO WHO
-beaureguard
Well, I did read ’em all. Funny stuff still coming in.
—
My summary of the typical concern troll:
Troll: “You’re being rude calling it like it is!”
Appropriate responses: “1. So what? 2. How exactly is that worthy of comment instead of all the death threats?”
Rey,
How can you confuse j with J or with J(not J) {me}?… Ok, Ok.
I started out as Jsn and then some asswipe troll used Jsn too. It was very frustrating to be confused with that bastard. So I guess I’ll sign off as E.V. from now on…
Guys,Ive got to say,after reading most of the 2ooo or so posts about a cracker and seeing what collection of ugly hateful murderous christofascists propped up here in the last few days,I am more than a lil scared and worried about your country,and at the same time glad im not living in it.
If what we have experienced here in the last few days is anything to go by,there are plenty of people in your country that are not only totally unhinged from rational thought and reality,but at the same time ready to grab a gun and kill for their delusions.Truly scary.
Has anyone suggested that you might do something similar to a copy of the Quran?
“It is hard to think of anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ.”
What about eating it? Not to mention frinking his blood. That’s freaky shit.
At a rate of about once a post, yes. And it’s still totally irrelevant.
You know what PZ? I ordered a box of those crackers, and I’m going to desecrate them also. These Christian whackjobs need to be stopped.
That lousy cracker did lead me to atheism. I remember this stupid song the nuns taught us. Key phrase –
“eat his body, drink his blood and we’ll sing a song of love”
That phrase was so remarkably stupid that I had to think about this religion which was supposed to be the core of my life. It did not take a lot of thought before I abandoned it.
Be careful, PZ. These people are fucking nuts. Also, Bill Donohue can drink my ball juice.
HJ
I just composed an email to President Bruininks declaring my support of PZ. I urge others to do the same and take the time to make it meaningful and appropriate. On that note, I urge all of us to stop using inappropriate and vile language in the comments here. We need to be mindful of the image we are creating.
Way back at #265, James wrote:
I think if he (and all who reads this) sees what the Catholic Church really teaches on Faith and Reason
You must be using a different definition of “reason” than the one most of us use, the one the defines reason as ideas or beliefs that are logical, rational, sane, sound.
I know quite a bit about the teachings of the Catholic Church, and really, most (all?) of its most sacred and significant teachings and beliefs are based on Faith and Irrationality.
SFG the moron said in comment #221,
“That’s spelled r-e-l-i-g-I-o-n. Sorry, but there’s no E in that word. See what I mean about the IQ on here.”
Congratulations…. in pointing out a simple typo in an attempt to make a person look foolish you made an even bigger error than they did and came across as the bigger fool.
Oh? What does that transubstantiate into?
PZ@276: “3. In a few weeks, I’ll commit sacrilege on items from a couple of faiths, just so they don’t feel left out (this was part of the plan all along, actually).”
I see that at least a couple of commenters suggested something involving the Koran. The Eucharist and Koran, representing the two largest religions on this planet. What a challenge! I dare you. No, I triple-dog dare you! Nawww, I take it back, that would be TOO irrational, TOO stupid. Ever heard of the Darwin Awards?
SFG, also congratulations on being my first quote submission to Fundies Say the Darndest Things! I think that quote is up there with : “I can sum it all up in three words: Evolution is a lie”
Will Catholic churches everywhere (but mostly in the US) see a noticeable and “mysterious” upsurge in attendance this weekend? You would-be cracker palmers should know that you’ll be making the management delusionally happy. ;-)
The Jesus character was supposed to be a prophet, ie have knowledge of the future. So was the whole cracker thing just a simple misunderstanding of his attempt to use modern idiom and what he really said to his followers was “Bite me!”?
This is pathetic. Rather sad too, all this over a soggy cracker that is only a SYMBOL of something that did not exist in the first place.
“I don’t have a problem with someone disagreeing with religious teachings…I don’t happen to believe that there are millions of gods like the Hindu faith believes. I might find that belief silly, but I’m not going to go out and spit on one of their statues either, or condone someone else doing it…”
Each time you eat Beef, you are spitting on the beliefs of hundreds millions of Hindus. Each time you cut your hair, you’re mocking the beliefs of the Sikhs. Each time you kill an insect, or eat root vegetables, you’re mocking the beliefs of the Jains.
Of course, it doesn’t bother you that you’re insulting the faith of Hindus by eating meat, does it? Because, you think those beliefs are silly. The same way, the rest of the rational world thinks you’re beliefs are insanely silly, especially when there are death threats against a person who took a cracker home.
Perspective – it’s a powerful idea.
It’s obvious that there is a lot of emotion on either side, but the most prevaling characteristics of the posts here is the lack of respect given to Catholics who believe this stuff. Either the Eucharist *is* the Body of Christ, or the Eucharist *isn’t* the Body of Christ. And since Catholics believe that it *is.* (read the Last Supper accounts and John 6 to know why), that explains their outrage (but not necessarily their lack of charity). Why are agnostics and atheists so quick to ridicule someone else’s beliefs? Why do you even care? PZ, if you have any sense, you would pull the offending posts and apologize for offending the beliefs of these people. This guy Donahue is a pitbull, and this situation is going to get messier and more public the longer you dig in. Donahue will hang on until the end, and he will kick your butt in the national media. On the other hand, he’s magnanimous in victory and quick to call off the dogs.
“. Why are agnostics and atheists so quick to ridicule someone else’s beliefs?”
Because, it is is bloody silly to believe that the “nature” of a piece of cracker turns into the flesh and blood of just because some old guy said some magic words.
This is simply not consistent with science and reality, irrespective of what John 6 says.
It’s exactly like believing cows are sacred and shouldn’t be eaten.
Why do you even care?
Because, the poor person who took the cracker home received *death threats* and threats of *expulsion* from school. This reprehensible and vile act (ie, the threats) deserves scorn and ridicule, and one way to do that is publicity via a popular blog.
This guy Donahue is a pitbull, and this situation is going to get messier and more public the longer you dig in. Donahue will hang on until the end, and he will kick your butt in the national media. On the other hand, he’s magnanimous in victory and quick to call off the dogs.
So, you’re essentially saying “Shut up, or else …”. Wow, that’s so considerate of you. Any rational person realizes what a nutjob Donahue is
Donahue squeaks and out come the freaks.
Body of ChristTM wafer-eating, Sunday best-wearing, rosary-praying, virgin Mary of the breakfast toast-worshiping cultists are deserving of ridicule as much as black long-sleeved shirt-, black sweat pant-, and black-and-white Nike tennis shoe-wearing zombies. Religions, or as I like to call them, cults, are for pussies.
I cringe when I think back that, when receiving the cardboard-flavored jesus disc, the priest was actually putting his filthy hands in my mouth (I won’t say what else he may have been thinking of putting in my mouth).
This “crackergate” scandal is all just so mind-bottling.
AWMTI (Comment #441):
Power, politics and patronage, for a start. Are you really so naive that you can’t see how the church would survive as an institution given the social and political niche it carved out for itself?
John F. (Comment #484):
As a not-entirely-humourless response to the over-the-top (and rather more vile) behaviour of certain Catholics. Or haven’t you been paying attention to the back-story?
No, of course it doesn’t. However, it doesn’t follow from this that religion has any answers at all.
Why? Because we don’t get to have the fun of making up silly claims about magic wafers and then issuing threats against people who don’t treat said wafers with the same degree of respect? I can see why you might think our lives a little empty …
SGF the troll spouted in #759 (and forgot to proof-read):
So you want us to die a horrible death, but you’re too much of a coward to want to get your own hands dirty? My my, aren’t you an admirable specimen of the human race. Do you really think that makes you a better person than somebody sending actual death threats? How much lower can you sink?
Hey Beo,
Don’t be a pussy. Want my address? Want to come and prove what a tough guy you are? Cock smoking retard
AWMTI (Comment #507):
Nope, it’s ludicrous because it involves asserting that an object X mysteriously becomes a different kind of object Y, despite the fact that it continues to possess all the properties of an X, and shows no sign at all of any of the properties of a Y.
Nothing to do with materialism, and everything to do with the principles by which we categorise objects on the basis of their properties.
SFG:
Don’t be a pussy. Want my address? Want to come and prove what a tough guy you are? Cock smoking retard
Wait, so do you want him to be a pussy, a tough guy, a cock smoker or a retard when he comes over?
You realize you’re not very good at this, right?
Why continue to post? It’s called An Ongoing Conversation. Nobody’s obligated to read hundreds of posts if they don’t want to, but most of the people commenting don’t need to – they’ve been following along from the beginning.
SFG, either post your full name and your address immediately, or quit being an idiotic wanker with all this “tough guy” nonsense. What a waste of paint.
I’ll come see you, if you like. You don’t mind if I bring my stack of Watchtowers withe me, do you?
“Then its clear that PZ has to stick the cracker in his mouth and then desecrate it.”
Desecrate the body of Christ in your mouth?
Yeah, baby!
StuV, that just cracked me up, thanks :)
And SFG, wow, that convinced me you’re so not a coward. You’re sooo brave to challenge someone to go through all the trouble of traveling half-way across the world (for all you know) to come have a fight with some loser troll from the internet. Right. Instead, I now think you’re a lazy, dishonest, projecting, sexually insecure, bullying moron. If you want to pick a fight, at least offer to do the effort yourself.
But if you’re looking for a brawl, you’ll have to look elsewhere. I don’t fight with children.
“so when you are going all out making fun of their cracker, just remember, if they are wrong about God and religion then it doesn’t matter… but if you are wrong about God and religion everything matters.”
Can we call this Pascal’s Wafer??
“When dealing with others, I must be respectful, fair and civil. Hmmm. Doesn’t seem to say anything about when dealing with crackers.”
By this logic, there’s no problem spray-painting swastikas on the gravestones of Jews, right?
On that note, I urge all of us to stop using inappropriate and vile language in the comments here. We need to be mindful of the image we are creating.
Posted by: Rob | July 11, 2008 1:19 AM
Have created, Rob. The Pharyngula archives would tend to support a past tense.
Sigh..
A cracker is not a dead person. How can something so simple be so difficult to understand?
This religious fanatics are so funny it brings me to tears I’m laughing so much.
You people in the US “are well served” with that lot. And I thought that were only the “bible belters” of sorts that acted this way but I now I see I was wrong.
And it’s almost as sad as it worrying that this religious nut jobs are taking over further and further up the positions of power among the military, government, finance and the media channels.
I’m aware a cracker isn’t a dead person (but thanks SO much for reminding me). I’ll return the favor and point out that a gravestone isn’t, either.
If “it’s only a fracking cracker” is a valid defense, then so is “it’s only a fracking gravestone”.
Civility obliges us to respect others and their customs, regardless as to how odd they (and them) appear to us.
Dav, one is defacing property that is not yours, the other is doing something other than intended with something given to you.
That was an idea I’d prepared this morning (UK time zone) and never got round to posting! Here’s the text so far, but I wasn’t really happy with it.
Pascal’s Wafer:
Are they still crackers?
• If the magic ritual has changed the wheat cracker and you eat the cracker, then you get to be a cannibal and cannibals go to cannibal heaven to be with their victim.
• If you don’t eat the magic cracker, then you’ve missed out on being a cannibal and going to a cannibal heaven populated by rather nasty beings.
• If the magic ritual has done nothing and you eat the cracker, then you get to be (or act as) a delusional fool of poor morality – reinforcing the behaviour in yourself and others.
• If you don’t eat the perfectly normal but not very nice cracker, then you get to assert your rationality and better morality (in this one respect) for yourself and others.
So which of those is really the best bet?
“If you grain, you grain all; if you lose crackers beliefs, you lose nothing”
To Dav Laurel, #823:
To be fair, the concept of gravestones is a bit irrational too, and indeed, if you think about it, they are just a slab of stone. That doesn’t mean that your comment about spraying Nazi symbols on Jewish gravestones has much merit though. Let me show you why:
False analogy 1: Gravestones are expensive, and owned by the relatives of the deceased. Wafers are cheap, and owned by you once they are given to you.
False analogy 2: Gravestones are a commemoration to a person who actually existed, but can’t defend themselves anymore. A wafer is a symbol for Jezus, who either didn’t exist, and therefore doesn’t need defense, or is an aspect of an all-powerful supernatural being, who, if he isn’t above petty insults, should certainly be able to defend itself.
False analogy 3: Jews are a minority group that has historically been persecuted by Nazis, and is still facing discrimination from the white majority. Therefore, using Nazi symbols on Jewish property can be taken as a clear threat. On the other hand, there is no prior history of biology professors persecuting wafers, and Catholics are not a minority group that is under threat from a majority of atheist bloggers.
I could probably come up with more reasons, but it’s quite clear already, you’re argument crumbles.
And your argument about respecting customs no matter how odd, is easily taken apart too, by a simple reduction to absurdity: should we respect people who use their religion to defend slavery? Some beliefs are odd, and people are generally quite willing to leave those beliefs alone. Others are just plain wrong. Those beliefs don’t deserve civility, they deserve to be fought tooth and nail.
Expulsion threats and death threats for not eating a wafer is closer to the “wrong” end of the spectrum than to the “odd” end in my book, wouldn’t you agree?
“[O]ne is defacing property that is not yours, the other is doing something other than intended with something given to you.”
Such are the hazards of argument by analogy. Legally, it isn’t against the law to abuse a communion wafer, but let there be no mistake: the gravestone vandal and PZ have in common the intent to offend a specific religious group by way of attacking an inanimate object. And to assert as PZ does that it’s “just a cracker” is flat-out disingenuous. It’s “just a cracker” to HIM, not to THEM.
I acknowledge, Beowulff, that the analogy isn’t perfect. For instance a communion wafer isn’t property in the sense a gravestone is. Evidently one isn’t allowed to leave the premises once one receives one, one is expected to consume it on the spot.
Obviously civility has its limits, we don’t condone honor killings. If a group wishes to fetishize a particular object it need not concern us, we may cock an eyebrow and comment on how strange some people are…but PZ went beyond that.
(I believe abolitionists employed the Bible to promote their anti-slavery views as well, and did so without attacking the Bible itself.)
Okay Dav, I’ll bite. What about what you put on your OWN gravestone?
Are you asking me what I’d put on my gravestone? I’m leaning towards WHEN IS THAT FRACKING BASTARD GOING TO DIE?
No, Dav, I’m not going to let you get away with ignoring my last question, because it’s not about Catholics “fetishizing” a wafer. Ridiculous as it may seem, it’s indeed harmless enough. No, it’s about Catholics trying to get a student expelled and issuing death threats to him for not eating the wafer that gets criticized. Tell me: is this behavior in the name of Catholicism just odd, or is it wrong? Answer the question, please.
I don’t see that expulsion is being insisted on, only that “all options should be on the table”, including that one. That would plainly be going too far, as are the death threats (particularly in view of the fact Webster returned the wafer (which was the issue, not that he didn’t eat it)). There’s no question this is overblown and silly…to us…but is it wrong for Catholics to feel this way about what they consider blasphemy? Is it really our place to say?
Myers’ provocation and absurd “just a cracker” defense, on the other hand, was plainly wrong. And dumb.
By the way, I can’t help remembering a line from the Louis Malle film Murmur of the Heart, which concerns a youth who serves as an altar boy. Seeing him surreptitiously pop a communion wafer in his mouth, another altar boy mildly observes “to blaspheme means you still believe”.
Dav, the street you live on is Holy to me. It is the flattened body of my Lord and Savior. Walking on it is desecration.
Stu, Lord Cthulhu assures me I’m in no danger, as long as I wear the Sacred Sandals.
Dav, read what you are writing: you say the Catholics are going too far with the death threats, but it’s not our place to say something about it? What the…? Do they have to actually kill someone first before anyone can speak up?
No, I meant it’s not our place to say how Catholics ought to feel about what they consider blasphemy.
I’m home and just looked up something I read years ago in Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism by Prager and Telushkin. Page 103 describes “host desecration”. In 1243, the entire Jewish population of Berlitz, near Berlin, was burned alive for allegedly “torturing a wafer”. So it didn’t surprise me that someone would get in trouble for removing one, or even receving death threats over it. What’s remarkable is the fact that Cook was apparently unaware of how seriously his fellow Catholics (I presume he is in fact Catholic) would react to his act.
But even more remarkable is the fact that PZ, having just read about all this, has the brilliant idea of publicly soliciting for a wafer in order to desecrate it himself. I suppose he’s pleased with the uproar he’s generated, but all I can say is: Jeebus Crow.
Paul Burnett wrote in post#38:
“But they EAT the Body of Christ – after the priest drinks his blood! How is that ritual cannibalism less desecratory than sneaking a cracker out of the building?”
I’d say the young man who smuggled that cracker out of the church, should be looked upon as a hero. He was trying to SAVE that cracker from the ignominious fate of being eaten by one of the Catholic hordes.
Dav Laurel wrote:
Since when? I mean, do I now need a permission slip to point out that people are overreacting?
Not if it’s someone else who is making the claim of blasphemy about the act. The original person committing the act might not believe it to be blasphemy at all if they don’t (still) believe in the crackers religion in question.
Dav Laurel wrote in #837
You still don’t get it, do you? Nothing should be so sacred that insulting it should result in threats of physical violence or even threats to one’s career. Also, I don’t see you actually condemning the burning of the Jewish population of Berlitz in 1243 over a wafer. What does it take for you to condemn violent actions based on religious ideas of what is sacred?
I also assume you are equally supportive of the Muslim riots and death threats after the Muhammad cartoons were published? Or of the murder of a movie maker just because he made a movie critical of the Islam? Not our place to say they’re overreacting, it’s holy to them, right?
Well, I’m sure the lives that were ended in both cases were pretty darn holy to the people who lived them. Doesn’t that count?
You don’t seem to understand that the very idea of declaring a belief so sacred and untouchable that any insult warrants threats to career and life is wrong, wrong, wrong. There’s a host of problems with the concept. Who gets to decide what is sacred? Can I declare something sacred, just because I feel like it? Or simply because I want to be able to get away with just about anything when people do something to my new sacred thing that I don’t like?
Another problem: if I do something bad to someone in reaction to a desecration of my sacred belief, how does the law then judge whether it was justified? Was the deed in proportion to the desecration? Then how do you measure sacredness? By the severeness of the reaction to the desecration, as you seem to suggest? But that’s a circular reasoning that will allow any reaction to desecration. Then maybe there is a minimum number of worshipers sharing my belief? Or a minimum age of my holy book? Or should the judge simply respect my beliefs, in order to avoid being labeled an intolerant bigot? What a way to run a free society that would be.
So, with this in mind, please explain to me why we should put Catholic ideas of sacredness in particular, and any idea of sacredness in general, above criticism, simply because they think it’s sacred?
Don’t make assumptions, Beowulff, it’s stupid and annoying.
There are laws regarding murder, riot and the issuing of death threats, and no one is immune from investigation or prosecution. My mention of honor killings should have given you a clue as to where I stand.
We need to separate what Cook did from what PZ intends to do. The offense in the former case was apparently inadvertent, while PZ’s would be intentional. The reaction to the former case is certainly open to crititicism but as I have endeavored to explain, the state is in no position to determine what is and isn’t “blasphemy”.
There certainly is a place in society for criticism of religious beliefs and practices, as Mormons for one are well-aware. Crapping on a communion wafer, or whatever the hell Myers intends to do to one if he gets one, does not fall in that category. Do you disagree?
I do disagree. Don’t forget, PZ hasn’t done anything yet, and is already receiving threats to his career and his life. So as far as I’m concerned, any wafer that is legally his is free game to whatever he wants to do to it. It’s not like it’ll hurt anybody. And if he manages to do it in a way that highlights the silliness of the outrage over a wafer, then it would be a valid act of criticism – and an act of free speech. It may be rude, but it doesn’t deserve death threats, and is certainly legal. I hope you’ll at least agree with that.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to leave this thread, there are many more interesting threads up by now to keep an eye on.
There’s no law against stepping on a communion wafer that I know of, just as there’s none against pissing on a yarmule. Or dipping a crucifix in a vat of urine.
PZ may think he’s a latter-day Lenny Bruce, but he’s just a Michael Richards.
In post #796 Rob said – “I urge all of us to stop using inappropriate and vile language in the comments here. We need to be mindful of the image we are creating.”
ROTFLMU*UO!
Don’t you think it’s just a tad late for that cautionary admonition Rob? Let’s face it, the “image” of atheists that Professor Paul Zachary Myers is “creating” in his original blog posts here is hardly an exemplary one is it? (Well, come to think of it. . . PZ Myers is being quite *exemplary* here but in a rather negative way) It seems that PZ Myers seems to be doing his damnedest to make his Atheist Supremacist pal Professor Richard Dawkins look like a sweet little pussycat. . . Too bad PZ doesn’t know the meaning of of the acronym PR.
For the record I am neither a Catholic nor a Christian but I can see anti-Catholic and anti-Christian bigotry as well as anyone else can. With any luck Professor Myers will get a dressing down from the University since he has clearly broken both the letter and the Spirit of its Code of Ethics.
While I’m all for a good scrap, blatantly trying to get yourself fired is a pretty stupid move.
Even I have to agree with a lot of the commentators.
While pointing out that there’s something wrong with the Roman Catholics as a whole is already a very unpleasant job to do, actively making it worse is pretty stupid. In fact, it just validates the fundies’ misconception about atheists, therefore hampering any sort of meaningful conversation.
I’m just calling a spade a spade… Don’t shoot me.
The Lord loves you, just as he loved those who crucified him. “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” His love is profound and boundless in mercy. May He shower you with mercy and love.
The Lord loves you, just as he loved those who crucified him. “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” His love is profound and boundless in mercy. May He shower you with mercy and love.
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
May He shower you with mercy and love.
Is a god-shower like a golden shower? ‘Cause I’m not into that sort of thing.
Anyone who doesn’t understand why this is such a scandal to us who believe is not Catholic, not Christian and is certainly not intellectually honest. You would likely be outraged at anyone who reads the first chapter of the book of Romans on the street corner and demand that they be jailed for hate speech. You probably won’t desecrate the Koran for fear that Muslims will kill you, but you will cowardly retort that it is only because you believe in toooooolerance. But to mock what we know and believe is the flesh and blood, soul and divinity of the word made flesh…somehow that is fair game. If the body of Christ really meant nothing to you, you would not be giving it any attention. You are clearly threatened by its power and rightfully so. A power you cannot understand, but despise nonetheless. Why is that?
Paul,
If you STOP for a moment and look deep within you, you will know the TRUTH and it will make you restless. When you acknowledge this restlessness, you will have a chance for PEACE. Then I would challenge you to talk to JESUS through the consecrated HOST you have … He will answer you in LOVE.
We are praying for you.
We are praying for you.
And a big ol’ “fuck you” right back at ya!
“With any luck Professor Myers will get a dressing down from the University since he has clearly broken both the letter and the Spirit of its Code of Ethics.”
Or the U will not do anything because PZ ain’t on the clock. So kindly take your “PR” and…
An atheist was walking through the woods.
“What majestic trees”!
“What powerful rivers”!
“What beautiful animals”!
He said to himself.
As he was walking alongside the river, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look. He saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him.
He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder & saw that the bear was closing in on him.
He looked over his shoulder again, & the bear was even closer. He tripped & fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw that the bear was right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw & raising his right paw to strike him.
At that instant the Atheist cried out, “Oh my God!”
Time Stopped.
The bear froze.
The forest was silent.
As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky. “You deny my existence for all these years, teach others I don’t exist and even credit creation to cosmic accident.” “Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer”?
The atheist looked directly into the light, “It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian”?
“Very Well,” said the voice.
The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed. And the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together, bowed his head & spoke:
“Lord bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen.”
I love doing that: String people along until they’re in a situation where I know that they’re going to die, and then, and only then, I Speak for Myself.
It doesn’t matter if they’re believers or not. They plead, and they beg, and they scream, and they come up with various ways that I might help them.
And none of it matters: I let them die anyway.
Too funny!
I think this is very disrespectful to Catholics. This should be obvious. You can argue the existence of god &etc but the facts on the ground are that Catholics exist even if you think god does not.
However, yes, as others have mentioned, respect and tolerance for religious expression has a limit. We can’t just respect everything because then we’ll have Thuggees running around ripping people’s hearts out.
The last thing to say about this is that it doesn’t take a seminarian to determine that the only christian response to this incident is forgiveness.
Paul,
You’re missing the point, by saying you’re only mistreating a -“cracker.” You’re mistreating millions of people by desecrating one of their beliefs. Catholics believe that a consecrated host is the Body of Jesus Christ. They love Jesus. One way they worship Him is by participating in the Eucharistic rite. By mocking their belief, and taking what they physically believe to be Jesus Christ, and treating it disrespectfully, you’re disrespecting them. It’s not rocket science. And as a tenured scientist, I find it hard to believe that you don’t see that. You need to call all of this off, and apologize, because whether you believe the host is Jesus or not, it is a -fact- that you have deeply offended a large group of -people- who have never done anything to you.
As a matter of fact, I’d like for you to apologize to me, personally. I’m a 36 year old pregnant first-time mom. I’ve made a career in the media. I have a degree in communications. My husband has a PhD in mathematics. What you’re doing personally offends me and my family and friends, and the people in all the 100-plus Catholic churches in just this area.
There is a way for you to have a discussion about ideas, theology, the nature of God, without being hurtful to me, and to others who share my beliefs.
I ask that you return the Eucharist that you have to a local church, and start an intelligent discussion on the subject. You may want to explore the merits of respecting others by respecting their beliefs. Right now, your methods and your arguments on this subject have no merit.
You owe us an apology.
In Christ,
Della S.
Della,
PZ has done nothing to apologise for. He comically said “you call that desecration, I’ll show you desecration” to point out how stupid the over-reaction to the UoF student incident was. For that, he’s received death threats from your coreligionists.
You, as a human being, are due respect for the integrity of your person, but your bizarre beliefs are due no respect whatsoever. If you believe a lot of ridiculously stupid shit, you ought to have a thicker skin when people make fun of it.
PZ doesn’t owe you a damn thing. Grow up and don’t be such a whiny cry-baby.
Yours in the Flying Spaghetti Monster: may you be touched by His Noodly Appendage,
Emmet.
Emmit,
I saw what you wrote to Della and you come off very disrespectful. How dare you call her beliefs “bizarre”? Then you go point out “ridiculously stupid shit”. What in the hell is wrong with you?
As a Christian it is an insult for anyone to call my beliefs stupid shit. I have respected every religion and every idea for years. I’m assuming you are an atheist and I’m sure you are all about scientific proof. Look buddy, I don’t think that scientific proof is bad. I like thinking about different ways to enhance my beliefs and that’s by taking other things into consideration such as scientific proof.
It pains me though, for you to call our beliefs ridiculous and stupid. I would never call your beliefs such a thing nor even think it. Part of what is wrong with this human race is the inability to respect others ideas and faith. I for one will tell you that I live on faith. I’ve read the Bible and I know that not everything sounds legit (hence why I live on faith). I just ask you not to disrespect my faith and I won’t disrespect your proofs.
To PZ, I’m sorry you feel so harshly towards this subject. Yes, I believe the Catholic church took it a bit far (as well as whoever sent dead threats, that was just uncalled for), but there should be no reason you should desire to also disrespect the church. The story left a bad taste in my mouth as well (do to the overreaction), but then you proceeded to go ahead and try to provoke the church and that also left a bad taste in my mouth.
God Bless,
Isaac
I’ve read the Bible and I know that not everything sounds legit (hence why I live on faith). I just ask you not to disrespect my faith and I won’t disrespect your proofs.
babble babble babble
Well, there’s your problem right there. Your brain is leaking like a sieve.
Listen guys, it might be harder than you think to sneak out a consecrated Host. I’ve seen people try to walk away with it and the priest chases after them, instructing them to either consume it or give it back. And if you get caught and try something then and there, you’ll probably only make an ass out of yourself in front of the congregation. But don’t let me dissuade you from trying. I know, some people got away with it, but maybe they were lucky. Try hiding it in your mouth (if the Host doesn’t dissolve or stick to the roof of your mouth). Better yet, just try it at my church, St. Leo’s, in Fairfax, VA. Or whatever parish of your choosing. Happy hunting!
Lrg prdcts whlsl sl, prvds cstmrs dmnd