…and a knife-fight did not break out. Heads were spinning on necks and there was some pea-soup vomiting, but since it’s on radio you don’t get to see that. Anyway, you can listen to the interview on Catholic Radio International, or you can download the mp3 directly.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Listening now. Go figure: A Christian radio station using public airwaves to push religious conservative “it’s a republic” positions…
Listening now; I have to say that by the intros I am not particularly enthused – I’ll take your word PZ that this is worth it.
I’m listenting now too. If the “it’s a republic” bit is any indication I’m going to need a new computer before this is over.
Ugh, the priest’s opening statements are so weak. This might be hard to finish.
Wait until you get to the part where he starts contradicting everything he said before.
You are all required to commend me on my restraint, too.
The mp3 is actually here:
http://www.catholicradiointernational.com/heartofmatter/mp3/hom_071808.mp3
PZ,
Apparently, you (and I) have rejected the “presentation” of god. So really, what we have here is a failure of marketing and nothing more. In other words, EVERYONE is ready to accept to god but sometimes the message has not been crafted to reach all of them, yet.
I’m an atheist myself and work in the IT field. Perhaps I’d respond better to an online god (in blog form?) with associated PDF files containing various literature.
Haven’t listened yet. What’s with the logo? It’s freakin’ me out.
Wow, I wasn’t sure the host would ever let the guests speak. Then when the priest started in I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to hear him at all. Ugh. ‘Atheists reject the idea of god that has been presented to them’? Why not just admit that you haven’t really been following the discussion at all and bow out?
I have to say that I’m impressed by how cordial this whole conversation is going. I expected the god-folk to be more rude and interrupting. At the same time, I DO commend you on your restraint Dr Myers. As far as discussions between atheists and christians go, this one might actually be productive!
Yeah Wow! I felt sorry for that priest. Clearly he’s found himself into quite an electrically charged, flaming pickle.
Father Loya is coming across as a second-rate obscurantist. Very poor.
host: “that’s well said, father”
err… no it isn’t.
The first sentence of this post instantly made me think of a song my daughter currently has on her iPod, Knife Fight, which begins with a bunch of hyperaggressive posturing about an upcoming (you guessed it) knife fight… until the protagonist realizes that a knife fight might turn out to be dangerous… at which point he proposes a tickle fight instead! The lyrics are here, but you won’t get the full effect unless you hunt down the audio. (I’m somewhat limited in hunting for media links by the filtering software on my work computer, or I’d post a link.)
Wow PZ, I hate talking about religion with people who are religious because it seems you run in circles and it gets frustrating…”You know more about something by not knowing about it”??? WHAT??? Bullshitting for Bullshits sake? Now hes trying to make you seem religious lol. I am proud of you for sitting through this and talking to them. I heart you, you did much better than what I would have restraint wise!!! <3
I’m 18 minutes in, and wishing there were thumb screws… masterful handling from PZ, but this is ping-pong with one party’s hands tied and a partial ref.
I gotta say, this is spot on. Every idea of “God” that’s been presented to me has been both internally contradictory and completely lacking evidence supporting its existence.
My question is “Why haven’t you, Father Godbot, rejected the idea of God?” Slapping a ‘mysterious’ sticker across it does not make it internally consistent, and a bucket of ‘faith’ is not evidence.
“theological anthropology”
{head-desk}
@# 12 MH
Agreed. I also note his constant, almost irritating, reference to “real scholarship” etc. Loya’s idea of science is severely warped. For example, medicine based science doesn’t consider, to paraphrase, “alternative” ideas. He apparently has no idea of the scientific process which does look at alternative areas but finds them lacking.
PZ – your restaint was saintly.
Off Topic and Self Promotion ALERT!!
Catholics Hijacked by Christo-Fascists AGAIN!!
KPFT Houston, Pacifica Radio
PZ Myers debacle escalates,
http://acksisofevil.org/audio/inner188.mp3
or download from http://acksisofevil.org/innerside.html
Music by Tom Lehrer
spoken word, Sam Harris
————————-
you tube eucharist Challenge
Nice guy, for the most part. He’s not too great on the logic front. It sure is nice that the host finally gave PZ a chance to speak, because there are so MANY fallacious statements that it’s hard to address them all. In fact, I find this the hardest part of speaking to the religious. They say SO MANY poorly formed arguments in such a short time that it’s difficult to address them cogently.
Father Loya a global-warming denier! Who’d have thunk it!
And the host knew it too, because he immediately rephrased his opening question to Fr.
LiarLoya, to wit: ‘Can we affirm the existence of god, and why?’ (I note he didn’t bother to add ‘or why not’ :)Feh. PZ, your restraint is indeed commendable. I wouldn’t have been able to let Loya blather on like that without at least a chortle escaping down the telephone line.
I may or may not get around to listening when I’m at home, but: yeah, I reject the gods (plural: there have been several versions) that have been presented to me — including the ones I used to believe in. Well, except for the gods that seemed to be just irrelevant to anything — there wasn’t any *point* in believing in them.
Now if someone has a god I haven’t yet heard of, I’m happy to listen (if I don’t have anything better to do).
Aegis #20 “They say SO MANY poorly formed arguments in such a short time that it’s difficult to address them cogently.”
That’ll be the Gish Gallop. It’s an old tactic.
Obscurantism, no true scotsman BS (“true catholicism” galore); zomg love!=material, hence materialism=wrong… really I’m amazed that PZ can sit through that drivel. Shit, I can’t put entropy or EM waves in your hand either, maybe they are now religious concepts too eh? Or maybe you just don’t have a clue about what empirical science actually implies.
And then they whine when we call them ignorant. Really, it’s an offense to ignorant people. At least some of them aren’t impeded by their pompousness and might learn something one day.
What’s with “True Catholicism” and “True Science”. Then there was the part about Catholicism not being a religion? This guy is way out of his league.
I’ve heard better arguments from 5 year olds.
I had to give up about 20 minutes in. You handled yourself very well, PZ. It helps that you are somebody a person can listen to; the host’s vocal affectations were so clumsy and distracting. I too thought he would never let you speak.
So, where can I buy a Frakkin’ Cracker t-shirt?
you showed outstanding restraint, Professer Myers. but maybe too much … did you really wait until the very end to bring up the death threats you’d received?
I love how Father Loya takes 10 minutes to explain his point, all the while the moderator is going “mmm-hmmm,” agreeing with him, and when you respond, he interrupts within 20 seconds.
and did i really just write “professer”?
*hangs head in shame*
“Real Catholicism…” “Real scholarship…”
No true Scotsman, eh Father?
They needed a Social Psychologist on with you–there are several who have made careers out of studying Love. They wasted about 10 minutes on that misconception.
“Apparently, you (and I) have rejected the “presentation” of god. So really, what we have here is a failure of marketing and nothing more”
Perhaps theists need some lessons in framing.
Ungh. I’ve heard this same pablum from the genial priest/pastor/imam before. The go on and on about the “real” faith then do whatever they can to confuse the definitions of empirical to mean whatever anyone thinks they experience. Most of what the priest said was about as coherent as randomly flipping through the dictionary and writing down the first word on the given page to make a sentence.
The host asks the real question. Can we know the god exists? And how can we know? What does the father do? Well he deftly AVOIDS the question and instead veers off into a horrible epistemological discussion. Here merely deflects the question because he know the real answers are “No” and “There’s no evidence to reference”.
He does actually give up the game at one point when he’s discussing how he would love for the entire world to believe the Catholic faith because of the “joy” it provides him. But the existence or non-existence of anything, be it god or otherwise, has nothing whatsoever to do with what provides the Father with joy, happiness, sadness, frustration, anger or any other emotion. That was his only real moment of candor in the entire interview.
You present a great deal, PZ! I hope the Catholic Church takes you up on it. It’ll be a good way to end this cracker nonsense.
With regard to Loya’s closing statement: Where can I get what he’s smoking?
I could he say that there is nothing in his catholic beliefs that is not “undergird” by empirical evidence ?
“Science undergirds EVERYTHING that the REAL catholic faith proposes !”
So then you said that for example transsubtantiation was not supported in any way by any kind of science, and that was it ?
Why did you let him go away with it ?
I found you were sooo reserved, why didn’t you tell him that he wouldn’t himself be able to tell the difference with a cracker ? That it was absolutely impossible.
That even the catholic church recognizes this for a fact, ie, that it is impossible to recognize transubstantiation with empirical evidence, but only with faith, as it is written in their own catechism :
It’s a pitty you didn’t quote him that line from St Thomas, that would have completely caught him by surprise, that poor father with his coldswallop.
What a pitty.
Perhaps it was due to Satan’s minions buzzing in my ear, but whenever the priest spoke, all I heard was “blah, blah, blah, empirical evidence, blah, blah ,blah, love, blah, blah, blah”, . Did he ever attempt to make a statement which wasn’t meaningless, dogmatic BS? His arguments were very, weak, and I was amused at listening to the Father chase his tail on science. How the hell does science “undergurd” his religion when centuries of scientific advancement have stripped religion and god of their place in understanding the universe. PZ, are you sure weren’t being pranked by Hannity and Combs hepped up on lithium?
And I loved the insistence on understanding “true” Catholicism. Ohh, that makes me feel SO much better. All-in-all, PZ was a light of reason in a theological fog.
Lastly, the host’s insistence on making light of the Webster Cook deaths threats to the point of doubting them was pathetic. We here Christians asking why Muslims don’t take extremists to task. I’m still waiting for Christians to practice what they preach.
…and a knife-fight did not break out.
C’mon now – who would dare to pull a knife on someone known to be armed with a cyberpistol?
Just started listening… Well… I started listening a while back, but this host just keeps rattling on and on and on and on…
Does anyone other than this retard get a chance to speak?
“We hear Christians”, I mean. I promise i got me some of dat book lernin’.
I lasted until about 20 minutes as well. I just could not take it. I wanted to get mad but the father was so nice. Not smart, not logical but nice.
Whens the follow up “real” discussion – the one with PZ not invited? :)
As per instructions, “nice restraint”; Though I would have preferred it if you were a little less restrained in places – especially after the “there’s no part of my beliefs not undergirded by science” (owtte) remark.
Oh yeah. Nailed him on the contradiction. Get move.
You win this debate, PZ.
It is quite simple though: I don’t see how a shaman in magic robes can pronounce magic words over a biscuit and turn it into the body of a 2000 old dead preacher.
I must say, though, that Catholics are way more articulate than your typical fundie.
Restraint? They barely let you speak!
(I want a Frackin’ Cracker t-shirt, too!)
I’m finishing this up right now. They need to do some “real science” to find out whether or not its really the flesh of christ. Bring me evidence of that and I will not longer look at it like its just a crappily made, tasteless cracker. I’ve noticed a lot of the hosts on these radio shows including your debate with Simmons they say “To be fair”…well….to be fair its just a frackin cracker!
I got pretty far into it before I realized there weren’t going to be any “An atheist and a priest walk into a bar” jokes.
Would anyone like to help me out? Extra points for working crackers into it somewhere.
I would love for the entire world to like pepperoni the way I do because of the joy it provides me.
Doesn’t that convince you to like pepperoni?
That was painful! I couldn’t get through half of it. That priest just droned on and on. I may try to listen to the rest of it later if I have trouble getting to sleep.
And I want a Frackin Cracker shirt too!
The fun we have with special words–
Like saying Science “undergirds”
One form of superstition;
The science that we label “real”
Is only that which lets me feel
I’m right in my position.
We use our scientific doubt
To throw the cheating bastards out
Who disagree with me;
The benefit from all these pains?
Just see the data that remains–
It’s proof I’m right, you see!
That was terrible, I couldn’t even last fifteen minutes. I wish people would just let you speak and let you set all the groundwork instead of talking over you.
It’s not an argument, it just a turn of phrase! (on the “you can’t measure love” argument).
Sign me up for a Frackin’ Cracker shirt, as long as I’m at it.
“I wanted to get mad but the father was so nice. Not smart, not logical but nice.”
When I come from (England), the priest would have doubtless gone into the Church of England which is the religious equivalent of sugar free, caffeine free, transparent, colorless, odorless vitamin water.
Am I the only one who giggled when he said “That pickle’s like people who are Christians”, and on the right side of the screen that little device he had looked suspiciously like a gallows?
Oh yes, and:
I WANT A ‘FRACKIN’ CRACKER’ T-SHIRT TOO.
The worst part at is frankly the end. He essentially disavows the culpability that the church has for falsely teaching that a cracker is the literal god of their religion.
Oddly, when members of PZ’s side got out of hand, he directly admonished and condemned the behavior and took action to stop it. But the Catholic league (referred to amazingly by the host as a secular organization) and Catholics threatening PZ with death are given the pass of the untrue Scotsman. Sickening, even though addressed in polite words by the priest.
It’s apparent from this talk why groups like Bill D and evangelical churches are growing. The Catholic church has mellowed in its old age, and is no longer mean spirited and vengeful enough for many of its members.
You all should listen after about 35 minutes, because they get into the wafer controversy.
Eh, commented on the wrong story. Damn you to hell, tabbed browsing!
It seemed to me that the speaking time wasn’t really fairly divided though, I felt that the priest got way more talking time. But maybe that’s just because it was so much more painful to listen to him…
I’m sorry but I gave up before hearing PZ speak. It’s just too mind-numbing for a lte friday night.
And has anyone else noticed that religious people have real trouble with the concept of an “analogy”? Walking into a mosque and taking the Qur’an is not the same as accepting the gift of a cracker and mailing it to someone. A suitable analogy would be going to a friend’s barbecue, being given a hot-dog, and instead of eating it there, wrapping it in a napkin and taking it home. If someone did that to me, I might think it a bit strange, but I wouldn’t condone wrestling it off him, or threats of job-loss or death.
(oh, and another example of Qur’an envy!)
Wow, PZ your restraint was admirable. Especially when you pointed out his outright contradiction (“You can’t measure love”…”all the science I know undergirds my faith”). That was in the first few minutes too. Amazing.
That was not at all ‘cordial’. Whatever PZ said, Loya came back directly contradicting him, splitting the argument into two parts, one that is misguided, but one that is something else, implying that PZ was uninformed and needed only explanations to get his misconceptions corrected. Whenever Loya said ‘science undergirds’ something, he meant it figuratively speaking, not literally, in the sense that something in the real world reminds Loya of some idea in the invented world. The fact that he played with metaphors while disguising them as literal statements means his lying is deliberate.
You did completely win this debate though, especially because of the second part, and when you suggested that the catholic church should disavowe Bill Donohue which didn’t seem to be rejected by the father nor the interviewer.
Let’s get Donohue fired !
“They don’t hand out the Eucharist, either. Maybe, physically, that’s what happens…”
In other words, that’s what happens.
Not to mention, as you (PZ) said, people already go to church — probably in every mass, in every town, on every Sunday — who take the Eucharist without properly confessing, or believing in transubstantiation, or Jesus, or God. So they’re already “offending the Host,” and nobody knows about it, and there’s no way for the Church to stop it. What difference does it make, then, if they palm it rather than letting it dissolve in their mouth?
Either you religion do “faith” or religion do “evidence.” You religion “faith” sometimes and “evidence” sometimes, *squish* just like grape.
These guys threw a thousand points of nonsense at PZ and gave him only seconds to respond before interrupting him again and again. No wonder they “enjoyed the conversation,” they were mostly talking to themselves and unable to bear to hear the fullness of the contradictory view. There are so many really amazing secular answers to all of those questions and points that they raised and, unfortunately, they’ll never hear them.
But, in the end, it all boils down to just one thing: just because Catholics imagine that there’s more going on with the Communion than just eating a wafer on their knees doesn’t make it true unless they can empirically prove it. End of story.
I have thought about this in the most un-biased way I can, and viewed it in the “they have the right to believe this, i have the right to not believe it”
And I have decided the Catholics are in the right on this. Let me explain before you get worked up.
You are free to buy the wafers from outlets, or take one from the church with permission, and eat it, deface it, or do whatever you want with it. At that point it is just a cracker.
But once you *participate in their ceremony* which in their eyes blesses that wafer with some mystical properties, and you do something with that wafer other than what they intend, then you are actively violating their ceremony and their beliefs.
Pre-blessing: its just a wafer
Post-blessing, it’s in their “domain”
By the way, I was raised in a half-catholic home, and we weren’t allowed to take communion until we had become Official Catholics, via a few weeks of classes teaching the proper behaviors and ceremonies and such.
They don’t let non-catholics handle the crackers. If you do, and you take it outside the church, that’s violating their intent.
That was a great interview. Good close, PZ.
The priest implied the student was lying about the death threats. PZ did a good job correcting the priest about that.
The priest, when he briefly talked about evolution, sounded a lot like a creationist. The priest also talked about a ‘created order’, which is more evidence he’s an everything-is-magic creationist.
I wish he was asked ‘do you agree jebus shares an ancestor with chimps?’
If he said no, then I would know he’s a creationist. If he said yes, I would ask him ‘why do you worship a cousin of a chimp?’
It was a friendly conversation and worth the time to listen to it. PZ again proved he’s damn good and deserves to be called the most prominent atheist voice in America.
The Catholic host just kept on talking and talking, I don’t see why he invited PZ Myers onto the show at all. They could have just read quotations from this site and commented on them, which is essentially what they were doing. PZ wasn’t allowed to respond to much of what was said. Not much of a “debate” at all.
But I thought PZ made some excellent points. Lets hear the catholic church denounce these threats.
I was pleased to find the debate fairly civilized, especially on behalf of the mediator. It makes you remember that religious people aren’t necessarily the “enemy” and that we’re all just human beings (sappy?). It’s hard to watch/listen to debates where people are always so arrogant and just being complete idiots (VenomFangX, Kent Hovinds).
1. Amazing restraint.
2. Sign me up for a FRACKIN’ CRACKER! shirt please.
3. Also a squid hat.
4. Um, he was a UCF student, not a Miami student. Stupid host.
5. I’m listening to this on a half hour of sleep after a graveyard shift. I deserve a goddamn medal. Or a hat/shirt combo pack.
Loved his counter to your “last point”… I know the right way, not them. I’m a real Catholic – those folks who were mean to you, not real Catholics.
I’m just starting. That guy is barely concealing his contempt for PZ. I think I’m hearing real Freudian slips here.
Science or empirical evidence ‘undergirds’ transubstantiation??
PZ, why didn’t you challenge him to say how??!!
I just can’t imagine what on earth he is talking about.
Good so far.
Still with you.
Nope. To me, it’s still just a cracker. Insisting otherwise is completely contradictory to “I have the right to not believe it.”
No, they don’t want non-Catholics to handle the crackers. That isn’t the same as not letting them.
If their intent is that everyone treat these crackers as sacred, then I have no problem violating their intent. Their intent flies in the face of “I have the right to not believe”.
Right, in the same way that is done by the taking of communion by all those divorced Catholics, and those Catholics who are having pre-marital sex, and those Catholics who masturbate or who have other unconfessed sins.
I thought the funniest part was when the priest was claiming that their Eucharist is so sacred, they’d rather give it to a suspected non-believer than cause a scene… Huh?
Oh, this is funny. PZ explains why he’s an atheist, and the priest guy just contradicts him and starts talking about why *he* thinks people become atheists.
Ooh, I’ve just thought of a way of ending Crackergate and putting the Catholics in a metaphysical pickle.
Before you desecrate the wafers you’ve been sent, cast your own transubstantiation spell over them, in order to ‘reset’ the substance back to its original wheaty self. The Catholics can’t say that it’s impossible (because that would be an admission that they can’t change its substance), and they can’t ask you for evidence that the spell worked (because they can’t provide evidence that, their spells work).
Alternatively, buy a packet of wafers, invite a priest over, and display the crakers next to each other, not telling him which are which. Tell the priest that he can take his bits-o-jesus away with him, but that you don’t give him permission to take your crackers (which you will subsequently destroy). If he says that he can’t tell which ones are Jesus, it’s an admission that the consecrated wafers are identical to the un-consecrated ones. The best he can do it choose blindly, thus ending the whole debacle.
At The Defenestrator, #83:
Not to mention trying to lecture a scientist on what science considers evidence.
This was most interesting :
CRI host : who is it that’s demanding that you acknowledge the real presence`[of the body of christ], and whoever they might be, what authority do they have within the catholic church ? I mean Donohue… certainly has no authority within the church to demand that anybody believe this or that, he’s not even a theologian, so who is it that’s demanding that you offer respect ? … So has anybody from the catholic church that holds the authority of the magisterium come forward and said that you must acknowledge the real presence ?
PZ : That’s actually a very good point, no actually there has been no official response from the catholic church and I would make a deal here that I would return these wafers to the nearest catholic church if the church could come forward and disavowe the tactics of Bill Donohue and the people who have threatened my job and my life.
You definitely scored points with that one.
Beowolf #82 “I thought the funniest part was when the priest was claiming that their Eucharist is so sacred, they’d rather give it to a suspected non-believer than cause a scene… Huh?”
Yeah, it was a pretty obvious admission that the ceremony is more important to them than the cracker. D’oh!
Other than the few moments of inanity, this was a far easier and more engaging hour to listen to than that “debate” the Twin Cities Christian station had between PZ and what’s-his-name.
As for the priest that commented from the Catholic perspective, I just could not help rolling my eyes about the anti-GW, anti-evolution stuff. Denialism != debate. He otherwise sounded like a perfectly nice guy. But I don’t think for a second that the way he practices his faith is anything remotely close to what many other Catholics practice. Magisterium? Mystical tradition? And the old religion invented science line? Come on. And the way he described how Catholics should practice…I gotta say, as someone who grew up Catholic, his version of it sounds nothing like what I was taught. Not that I think he’s being a bad one, I just don’t think many people practice like he says he does. But that’s beside the point.
The host of the show seemed pretty willing to keep things real and not beat about many bushes. He seemed to be a fine moderator.
Nah, mate, God only calls those he likes.
WOW PZ is a first class Catholic Mystic after all.
QUOTE MINE:
The wonderment of it ALL!!!
Transcendent Reality?
Faith is a Gift.
His understanding of how science understands the uses of Empiricism.
Real Catholicism, no true scotsmen.
A broader definition of empirical evidence.
Biblical Scholarship.
I’m losing track of the dorkiness.
That PZ character has the patience of Jobe
Catholics trashed by Wingnuts
that was hilarious when the Father made the distinction between Catholics and “True” Catholics–‘No true Scottsman Fallacy’ all the way! No wonder all religion splinters off into sects, given enough time…and science starts out fragmented and picks the pieces together
Sorry PZ, I couldn’t take it. I just couldn’t take it.
The host is a dumbass.
Still they don’t get it.
Why does he keep having to qualify things as “real”? “Real” Catholicism, “Real” Scholarship, “Real” Science. It sounds like a lot of special pleading and accusations of corruption of his ideals.
Well answered, btw, on the question of what science is.
There’s just such a disproportionate level of intellect on the part of the interlocutors intellectual atheists have to deal with… (which is not to say that there aren’t intellectual theists who may have to deal with dumb atheists… that may indeed happen), but it’s just painful.
Masquerading arm-chair philosophy as cogent, coherent, salient argumentation is just ridiculous… a waste of time…
Sheesh, the first commercial is an anti-American screed.
Oh, this is just terrible. It’s the same old bullshit and word-weasling that I dealt with in high school theology. Ugh.
You definitely came out on top here, PZ.
Don’t they teach you in broadcasting school not to constantly say “uh huh” while interviewing people? The man got on my nerves!
Well played, PZ. They were probably expecting you to be frothing at the mouth and flinging expletives at them.
Sign me up for a shirt too!
# 36 Todd
Good luck since Phish retired
I love it how quickly Christians disavow their own by saying they are not ‘real’ Christians when they give embarrassing testament — such as death threats — against a guy who threatened a cracker.
#46
yup.
On my way home tonight, I saw some guys raping some nuns. I would have said something, but I didn’t want to make a scene.
Nice slide there from insisting that Catholicism isn’t a religion, he’s not religious, it’s about mysticism and Invisible Transcendent Realities, etc., to defending the alleged sanctity of a specific religious ritual.
The only good analogy with this situation is what we do with “sacred objects” from other cultures.
That is, if we have a statue that is not supposed to be seen, we display it, generally. We don’t observe the taboos, iow. But we’d treat the statue with more respect if we were in the presence of those who think it is sacred.
This situation is different, of course, because the intent is to violate (and is not in an area where such violations would be improper, like a Catholic church). And it’s within a culture that considers taboos to be open to violation.
So while the more credulous Catholic will not like it if the cracker is part of mosaic that makes the “anarchy” symbol, well, that’s sort of the point.
I was at a Catholic university (as an unbeliever) for a couple years. While there, it was reported that a crucifix was smeared with feces.
That, of course, is simply disgusting, to most non-Catholics as well as to Catholics (and would be whether or not it was the crucifix, or if it were a “non-sacred” public object). Any number of fates of the “host” could be considered right out of bounds, according to the social rules. Yet it is truly absurd for Catholics to think that non-Catholics should observe the same taboos that they do (I wouldn’t bother to “violate”, but that doesn’t mean I’d trouble one who does).
A tasteful “violation” done by PZ is simply a more-public “violation” of the type that happens constantly and without (hardly) anyone caring much. And when all is said and done, little will have changed, except that some religious folk will be a little less squeamish about something happening that is occurring all the time anyhow.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I made it as far as when the priest said that we can have directly knowledge of god, just like we can know we are in love, even though neither can be put into a test tube.
ARGH! Those two things are not the same! You can know you are in love, because that’s a subjective piece of knowledge, it’s about yourself. That isn’t the same as intuiting an objective piece of knowledge, such as whether or not god exists in reality. At best all the priest can “know” is that he believes in god, not whether that god actually exists or not. In all his years in seminary such a distinction was never made clear to him? Really? It never once crossed the mind of this learn-ed theologian that comparing knowledge of god to subjective self-knowledge isn’t in any way, shape, or form a logically coherent argument?
Damn but I hate stupid apologetics. And they are all stupid.
The correct analogy would be that I can know that Ishtar exists because I know that “I love her”.
Sure, I might be right that “I love her”, but I don’t thereby know that she exists. That is, certainly I know my brain state, but knowing that brings me no true knowledge about the world. Only “intersubjective” evidence does that.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
re: #49, let’s see…
Atheist and a priest walk into a bar; bartender sez “What’ll it be?”
Atheist sez “gimme a shot of Cuervo, beer chaser…is that Sierra Nevada on tap? Pint of that, please.”
Priest sez “Glass of Our Blessed Savior’s Holy Blood…merlot would be nice…and a cracker.”
Atheist sez “What’s the cracker for?”
Priest replies “What cracker? (mumble, mumble, Domineus Hocus Pocus, mumble) You mean this Consecrated Host, the Transubstantiated Flesh of the Holy Body of Our Blessed Savior (in Sacred Essence if not actual Physical Matter, but That Too, sort of)? I’m just hungry, that’s all” (eats).
Athiest: “Wait, wasn’ that just the most Holy of Holy Sacraments to you guys? And you’re doing it here, in McGinty’s, for, like, a Happy Hour snack? What’s up with that?”
Priest: Relax, it’s just a frackin’ cracker. Kick your ass at 8-ball?
yeah, OK, it needs work.
To bad you ignore the FUCKING DEATH THREATS the kid was sent. Too bad you ignore Catholics trying to RUIN HIS LIFE AND HIS EDUCATION.
So, fuck that. When some religion decides HUMAN LIFE is WORTH LESS than a mystic ritual the STOLE from a different religion, they can shove up their collective asses.
We clear here:
1. Human life
2. Cracker
One is not equal to the other. No MATTER WHAT some of the deluded believe to the contrary.
MH # 64
I was thinking of going to a Ray Comfort video shoot and being given a banana and taking it home to an amorphous gathering of horny speed freaks and seeing how many orifices prove the existence of God, but I’m weird like that.
Catholics hijacked by Christo-fascists AGAIN!!
I’m currently listeing to the thing. And already the priest spilled out the very reason he believes in god : there is things like thoughts, love, ideas, that we don’t understand completely at the moment. Wow, now that’s a really good one.
Ok, i will help those poor christians and help them : you can say “i believe in god, because we don’t know how it is inside a black hole” or “I believe in god, because we don’t know any algorithms to fold proteins in a short time”. That could even makes some kind of game, “name the stupidest reason one may believe in god”
I’m not bright everyday of my life, but that’s one of the lamest explanation i heard.
Oooh! Ooooh! Mr. Kotter! Mr. Kotter!
Is it okay to masturbate if you’re MARRIED? Especially if your wife is pregnant? I’ve wondered about the Catholic answer to that. You know? Anyone here?
Yikes… I find this whole “image problem” of god thing so frustrating… that and the absurd need to stick with the same old labels regardless of what one thinks the image is… in fact, i can’t stop blogging about it… http://truthisawoman.wordpress.com… sorry for the self-promotion (kind of)…
I will say the assertion on the part of the host and/or the Priest that we “don’t know” the UCF guy got death threats or not is really grasping at straws. People have gotten death threats for much less than taking a cracker from a church. Whether proof is there or not, this is one of those things that you can be damn near 100% safe in assuming happened, especially since PZ got them too. They can’t reasonbly argue the perpetrator did not get them, when someone calling attention to the craziness of the situation plainly did. That said, I’m guessing the UCF guy got AT LEAST as many threats as PZ did.
PZ, you were talking/arguing with persons who have swiss cheese for brains – good luck and sorry for ya…
Funny, I’d always thought Catholics had not generally bought into the whole anti global warming, right wing nonsense, but the hints by the other guest of a global warming “agenda” (you mean you hadn’t heard Communists invented global warming to destroy capitalism?) really made me wonder if the anti-intellectualism in the Evangelical world is spilling into Catholicism.
(Then again, the guest describes himself as an “Eastern Catholic” who is “not religious” so perhaps he’s not representative of other Catholics, or anyone else.)
“Soooo, Father Loya, was Pope Innocent III a ‘Real’ Catholic? What about the chaps who put Galileo under lifetime imprisonment in his home (after threatening him with torture) for the crime of asserting that the Earth moves around the Sun?”
For Boston Pharyngulites who would like to hear a Catholic who thoroughly understands evolution (OK, that’s an attempt to keep on topic – just got this from NCSE and I haven’t seen it anywhere on Scienceblogs):
Ken Miller will be speaking at the Newton Free Library on Tuesday, July 22, at 7:30 PM. He will discuss his new book, Only a Theory: Evolution and the Fight for America’s Soul, and no doubt will lay the usual smackdown on ID.
God must really suck at PowerPoint. Maybe he should have used Flash or something.
Sweet baby cracker Jesus. I’ve never heard someone talk so much but say as little as this show’s host. PZ is very patient.
Ok, can anyone tell me if this is worth listening to? From a few of the comments I’m afraid it’s the same old “religious person get’s away with anything” debate that just turns frustrating for the “enlightened” listener. Is it anything akin to the Simmons debate? Now that was worth listening to; PZ didn’t let him get away with anything, and actually laughed in his face one or two times!
Bostonian #115 “(Then again, the guest describes himself as an “Eastern Catholic” who is “not religious” so perhaps he’s not representative of other Catholics, or anyone else.)”
Yeah, he’s not a True Catholic. ;-)
BTW, can we start calling them Crackerlics? It works on multiple levels.
Re: 120
I’m about 1/3 of the way in and so far PZ has talked for about three seconds amid several minutes of masturbation by the host and the priest. If you’ve been arguing with the apologists here for any length of time, you’ve heard everything that comes up in the show.
At least someone in the Catholic church is willing to talk about this overblown incident of Mr. Cook’s and PZ Myers subsequent ramblings on it.
Anyhow, my impressions after listening: The father seemed to be in denial over global warming and evolution which may just be his personal ignorance on the subjects, but I am sure even some athiests would agree that the science used by the pharmaceutical companies is often “agenda driven.” (I would use “profit driven.”) And, not mentioned, but the science of big tobacco (health denial) & big oil & energy (global warming denial) maybe the same.
Both the host and the priest also seemed in denial over anything said by Webster Cook. I guess they don’t want to believe that there are rabid Catholics out there.
I don’t know about all the claptrap about the church believing in science. I remember when I belonged to Dignity (a glbt Catholic group that doesn’t have church approval) and a nun (unofficially) addressed us and said that the church would have to readdress homosexuality it light of the fact that science has shown we cannot change our orientation. Well, the Catholic Bishops published a letter in which they said that the homosexual may not be able to change, but the letter still calls homosexuality “intrinsically evil.”
It was nice to hear someone from the church saying that Bill Donohue’s Catholic League isn’t an official church orgnization but a secular one.
Finally, to be a skeptic, if PZ does show that a crackcer (or a wafer) has no power, how can one prove that it was consecrated to begin with? Another question: How can one desecrate something (the Catholic’s concern) when the person, in this case PZ Myers, doesn’t believe in the consecration of the cracker?
That said, I also have friends in Dignity who were spat upon when receiving the Eucharist. The reason they were spat upon is that they were wearing a rainbow sash in defiance of the church. If you want to see more insensitivity on the part of Catholics, google “rainbow sash” and Catholic Church.
(As a side note: I quit going to church and Dignity when I begin to feel I was only going for the social aspects and didn’t believe in a god or gods.)
So, when it comes to communion, I guess you can be damned if you do (eat the wafer) and damned if you don’t (eat the wafer.)
Two immediate observations. The way this discussion is being portrayed on here is completely different then on a catholic radio show I just heard. On here, it’s arrogance and insulting. The interview I just heard with Father Loya was completely the opposite. Seriously people, get over yourselves. The way all you carry on….it’s just funny.
Secondly, why is every discussion = a debate with you? This was not a debate. It was meant to be an informal discussion. Set up a real debate with someone on the level of William Lane Craig or any of the well known Catholic apologists. Then you would have my attention. Right now, it looks more like a little child saying things about someone behind their back. You call it restraint…I’m sure many would call it cowardice. If you are so confident about your position and you sure do like to argue and insult people…set up a debate with a legitimate Catholic apologist. Until then, it’s the ramblings of a second rate Dawkins wannabe.
BTW, you should post this quote (taken completely out of context, of course :) to every Catholic you meet on this blog:
“You are a gift to us.” — Father Thomas Loya, speaking to PZ Myers.
Now you are a gift to the Catholics and 100% correct as the good father said. Miraculous turnaround there! :) It only took about four days.
I really enjoyed the part about the impending cracker desecration not being totally tasteless, unlike the crackers themselves, just before the host pleaded with you to call the Host something besides a cracker.
“What about the chaps who put Galileo under lifetime imprisonment in his home (after threatening him with torture) for the crime of asserting that the Earth moves around the Sun?”
Lifetime imprisonment? Huh? Galileo was not the first to make this assertion. The Church had no problem with the assertion that the earth moved around the sun well before Galileo came along. Take off the atheist glasses for a few minutes and look it up.
teh insane. transcendent reality?
This guy sounds friendly, and even coherent at times, but if you give him an inch…
He still believes the most fantastical things, without evidence, and is involved in passing it on to children. You have no obligation to take even his most polite request re: the wafer seriously.
He doesn’t want “honesty” or “truth”, at all, despite his asserting it.
Boo hoo. URL. We “debate” and dress down believers like the Priest, all the time. His logical shortfalls and lapses in rationality are humdrum. We get agitated that they can’t seem to recognize it themselves.
I wish that PZ was more assertive and aggressive in his condemnation of (in this case Catholic) religion and the priest’s ‘arguments’. He sounded kind of shy and passive, as if he just woke up or was getting ready to go to sleep…
When the moderator asked for an empirical definition of what a smart person is, the best answer would have been “someone who knows it’s just a frackin cracker.” Unfortunately PZ had already made the statement that there are smart religious people and probably didn’t want to appear to contradict himself.
url/lur @ 124 & 127
PZ has had many formal debates with various religious proponents. This wasn’t one of them, and no one is presenting it as such. The title of this blog entry says ‘conversation’, not debate. We’re now deconstructing the *discussion*, as is our wont. Feel free to stop reading at any time if you find it offensive.
Re: Galileo, it is a well documented historical fact that he was forced by the church to recant his heliocentric beliefs under threat of a heresy trial. He did, in fact, spend the last two years of his life under house arrest. The church admits this, in that several popes have expressed regret or formally apologized for the treatment Galileo received.
You are correct that heliocentrism was not Galileo’s idea. He was, in fact, testing the hypotheses predicted by Copernicus’ heliocentric model of the solar system. However, assertion that the church had ‘no problem’ with heliocentrism is patently and demonstrably false.
I just listened to the whole thing. A couple of observations:
(1) The priest was given considerably (twice as much?) time as PZ, and the moderator was not neutral.
(2) PZ was too easy on the priest’s repeated claims that science “undergirds” Catholic dogma. (Or rather he didn’t have the time to do so…) Science “undergirds” transubstantiation, the resurrection, life after death, virgin birth, walking on water, etc., etc? Give me a break!
(3) PZ was brilliant in pointing out, in response to the priest’s assertion that people like Donohue don’t speak for the Catholic church, that no official spokesperson of the church has disavowed them either.
duh, that was one more than “a couple” of observations…
Somehow, I have trouble getting beyond (1).
PZ! You restraint is not good enough goddamnit! I wanna see ( hear) you whip out that cyber pistol and lay waste to the bastard! Woot! Atheist jihad! Whos with me?!!!
Uh, sorry. I got a bit excited. Just a bit.
…and a knife-fight did not break out.
The first rule of Christ Club is, everyone talks about Christ Club…
PZ, you were TOO restrained! They probably still went away with that with smug smiles on their faces. You need to leave them licking their wounds. lol
I love when the priest, about 45 minutes in, starts having trouble rationalizing how the wafer is freely given away, but not really freely given away:
“[The eucharist] is about something given and something received. And presumably, by its very nature — I mean just because people violate it, that doesn’t change the nature of it — presumably by those who assent to what it represents. And only by those who assent to what it represents. So, it’s not freely given — it’s a freely given gift to god, but it must be freely accepted in it’s entirety in terms of what it is.”
So, basically, they give it away…but not really…well, sort of…in a certain sense…I mean, they do, but they don’t…but they really do…
And what about that “freely given gift to god” comment? Who’s giving what to whom? I’m so confused right now.
Anyway, PZ, I don’t know how you stayed so calm and even-keeled the whole time. It was really impressive.
Um…right.
He is covering his arse (or trying) by preempting everything with “real”. “real catholicism”, “real science”, “real scholarship”…
lol
Never takes long for cultists to start lying. Sure Giordano Bruno preceded Galileo. Unlike Galileo, he didn’t recant under torture and was burned at the stake. The source for what he was burned at the stake for is in the Vatican archives, accessible from wikipedia. It says he claimed the earth orbited the sun.
The Vatican itself says Galileo was almost torched for heliocentrism. They’ve been apologizing ever since, most recently in …..2008.
Seems like it is impossible to be a fanatic without lying continuously. Not surprising.
These are the same people that claim no real priest could rape a little kid. My friend, while in Catholic school, walked in on a priest doing that to a homeless kid. Who later committed suicide by jumping in front of a subway train. The priests name was Paul Shanley and he has been convicted and is now in prison. Look it up if you aren’t afraid of the truth (but you won’t).
#122
If you’ve been arguing with the apologists here for any length of time, you’ve heard everything that comes up in the show
You only need to skim the cracker threads to get most of it.
Host: We only have 60 minutes, so I’ll speak for 57 of them. What does the hell-bound blasphemer and desecrator have to say for himself?
PZ: It’s a CRACKER. Show me some evidence for your claims to the contrary.
Priest: I completely agree with everything you said! Praise Gob for what a gift you are, except that I know squat about science, and reject it, especially global warming and evolution, while simultaneously claiming science undergirds every fatuous phoneme of this long meaningless stretch of bafflegab that the host will only interrupt to agree with and praise me for.
Ahh got it now…good science undergirds Catholicism…
Of course it does…as long as that science undergirds the delusion…now bad science is science that does not undergird the delusion…easy when you know the game…
Apart from the ju ju man contradicting himself on most of his opening gambits throughout the rest of the show…which they all do sooner or later anyway…and apart from a rather unbalanced presentation…Pz handled it well…as is his won’t …
Danio, I’d like to buy you a beverage of your choice. Your husband too, if he wants to come. Do you go to SICB meetings?
Hey, that reminds me, SICB in Boston next January…Pharyngulafest?!
“url” or “lur” . . .I little history class might help you quite a bit. You obviously are unaware of the trial of Galileo, or what the church did to him.
Read some history before you make a fool of yourself again.
If you don’t like it here, the door’s right over there . . .
Things may have changed, but as I understand it, no. If you’re a man, to ejaculate anywhere other than into the unprotected vagina of a potentially fertile woman is to commit the sin of Onanism. All forms of contraception other than the Billings method are prohibited. I’m sure it’s probably even considered sinful to have sex with your wife when she’s pregnant, since she cannot possibly conceive as a result. I’m not sure how the RCC figures that female masturbation is sinful (other than that it’s enjoyable and sexual), but I’m sure they do (since those are the real criteria). All forms of sex other than penetrative vaginal intercourse are sodomy, so no blow-jobs or anal sex for Catholics either.
OK:
It seems this atheist and this priest walk into a bar. Bartender sez “What’ll it be?;” atheist orders a Guiness and disappears from the joke. Priest orders a glass of Red Red
BloodWIne. Bartender sez “Would you care for a cracker?” Priest sez “No, I don’t want a crack at ‘er, but if you’ve got any rosy-cheeked little boys back there, I’ll rape one of them.”yeah, pretty bad, but come on, nobody else is playin’
There’s actually an incredible hilarity to URL suggesting that PZ’s being respectful and restrained in this conversation was actually cowardice. Well, there are a number of hilarious things about it, but the one that immediately struck me was how much URL and his ilk rail against the arrogance and confrontational style of Richard Dawkins, yet turn around and call a more restrained approach, while espousing the same ideas, cowardice. I sincerely do not think there is any approach one could take that they wouldn’t attack, if you were disagreeing with them on the jerry garcia in the sky.
I listened to the interview at work, so I was only half paying attention, but whenever I tuned in at all, all I heard were inarticulate rephrasings of all the same old tired crap.
Ugh, that interviewer was painfully biased and disgustingly rude.
He never just sat back and let the conversation go, never let PZ finish his points, kept changing course randomly, and was constantly “clarifying”.
For a really good example of what this guy should have done, look at how Steve Novella handled the proposed psychic detective Jan Helen McGee in Skeptic’s guide to the universe episode 23
@Sven @146
Moi? I’ve no idea what I’ve said to deserve such a treat, but I’ll take it! I’ve not yet been to SICB, but there’s always a first time–my current research may yet take me in that direction.
Are you on the Atheist Nexus, by any chance? I’ve taken the bold step of establishing myself over there under my *real name*: Jen Phillips, so please feel free to look me up :)
Back to the
debateconversation, I finally finished listening, and was most disappointed that there wasn’t a stronger condemnation by either the priest or the host (not the cracker, but the meal(y)-mouthed radio dude) of their poison-penned brethren. Spineless gits.I like the good cop/bad cop at the beginning from the priest.
“Well, I reject most of that too.”
This tactic must be identified and routed out. Give me a break.
Well poke me with a sharp stick. I’m half way through this discussion and I can scarcely believe my ears. This Catholic priest sounds like a complete intellectual defective. He doesn’t even have a clue what “empirical evidence” is. And the notion that science “undergirds” transubstantiation? What kind of nonsense is that? This just verifies for me the notion that you can’t have a rational discussion with the believer. Whackaloon. That’s what they are. As I’ve said here before. They believe, and that trumps everything for them. They are immune to rational argument. PZ missed some very good ways to counter this priest’s arguments. It’s easier to formulate them when one is not the person at the mike, but still, there were better ways to bury this person’s arguments.
Wow. I got about halfway through and had to pause the recording. Now I don’t think I have the stomach to press “play” again. How do you have the psychic fortitude to engage in these exchanges, when the stupid burns those of us merely listening after the fact? Don’t you feel like your time and attention are just being shat on when these cretins and apologists talk over you and ignore every point you raise?
While I don’t think that the priest meant to do it, he went on quite a Gish Gallop. There were so many things that he presented that PZ didn’t have nearly the time to try and tackle them. Especially near the end.
If the host had such a good time, maybe he should have let PZ talk more.
The most difficult part of listening to this was the loud MMMM-HMMMMMs every 10 seconds. I wish he would stop that. Very distracting.
Science is a pattern recognition system. All advances bring “reality” into sharper focus. We don’t have the ultimate pattern yet – there’s a hell of a lot to know – but it’s self-correcting and it gets sharper with each incremental advance. Religion is the opposite. No evidence, no advance, no sharper focus, no nothing. You have faith in some mythological sky buddy, or you don’t. It’s utter crap.
PZ IS ROSA PARKS!
Sit down on that bus, exercise your civil liberty. I hear talk of “exclusivity”, “offense”, “don’t make a scene”, “intrusive”, “being abusive to sensibility”. Its all the same bigotry, with the same justifications.
The anchorman’s opening statement is so boring and long winded.
Similarly the father’s opening ramblings were so bereft of facts or evidence.. I am out of it…
The problem with the No True Scotsman argument is that “Catholics” are not an abstract idea or ideal. They are the sum total of the real people who profess to be Catholic. There are a disturbingly large number of Catholics who are prone to outrageous behavior like death threats, and that is something that the Church should be looking at far more seriously than a single vociferous atheist threatening to desecrate a wafer.
SICB is a great meeting…I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it this year, but I’ll try to keep my calendar open for those dates, anyway.
Survived listening to the entire discussion. The priest is a total mind fuck. Good sentence structure, decent vocabulary, totally incomprehensible gibberish. His closing remarks were as insubstantial as anything I’ve heard. I don’t think you could penetrate that mind with anything approaching reason or logic. Lost. Lost unto his death. That’s one we’ll never change.
zOMG. Just listening to the priest’s opening statement, my head is practically spinning around on my neck. And it just keeps going on and on and on… Tell me he’s going to shut up at some point in here.
Ha ha ha! Yes, very funny! I digress. Where do you work by the way? Have you got your bosses email address handy? I’m an old friend of his (or hers), we go back a long long way, but my old address book was destroyed in a bizarre praying incident which tragically backfired. Does my old friend, “Bossie”, know that you are using electicity from work to oppress catholics?
Man, you guys are demanding. Really, I do have some tactical sense. With gibbering creationists who are throwing out lies nonstop, like Geoffrey Simmons, the appropriate response is to come on breathing fire and wake the audience up to the patent nonsense the guy is spewing. With someone like this priest who is just muddling along with that kind of vacuous blather, more patience is called for.
By the way, our local Christian radio station asked me to do another debate in December/January. I told them sure, and named a large sum for my speaking fee. We’ll see how that goes.
Catholicism is supported by science: many, many people have been observed believing in stupid shit for which there is no evidence; ergo, science.
What catholics believe, on the other hand…
I can still get him for free
I think
the PZ thing just gets more weird, Catholics embarrassed Worldwide
Where can I get a Frackin Cracker shirt? [Not really a question; a statement like “Who’s John Gault?”] Here’s a question “Where can I get a ‘Where can I get a Frackin Cracker Shirt?’ bumper sticker?”. I’d really like to have one.
PZ Myers said:
“I told them sure, and named a large sum for my speaking fee. We’ll see how that goes.”
You mean that you can actually convince people to pay you money for acting like a dick?
BTW, can we start calling them Crackerlics?
Hmm.. Has a nice ring to it, but “cracker” already is a pejorative term for white southerners.
-jcr
I had to punt about 20 minutes in. The gibberish was so deep, I felt I was drowning, and even the breaths of fresh air PZ put out, couldn’t keep me afloat. Maybe I’ll try again later. Anyone know where I could get a good shit snorkel?
@ 157
Yes. Isn’t it?
Nice bit of restraint PZ, oh and go fuck yourself Ron in Houston.
Jesus haploid christ, that host really loves the sound of his own voice, doesn’t he? He spends about ten minutes saying that he’s going to let his guests talk, and then spends another three freaking minutes just asking the first question in the most long-winded way possible.
Oh, and fuck the priest, too. That “you’re just rejecting the packaging” line of bullshit is some of the most patronizing tripe those puffed-up frauds have ever come up with.
-jcr
Ron in Houston, wrote:
Just ’cause you do it for free, Ron, doesn’t mean everyone should.
DavidH
Yes, those irrational Catholics issue death threats and you take such a high minded rational approach to life.
I’ll give you email address if you want to issue a death threat.
Wowbagger
Seriously dude get a life. You’re obviously don’t have anything to do other than hang around here and act ignorant.
Ron in Houston : Apart acting haugthy, do you have anything to say that’s useful? develop what you reproach to PZ?
But it seems you prefer one or two-liner, with the least content possible, and the most arrogance.
PZ Myers wrote:
So, this whole cracker desecration thing is turning out to be rather profitable… and you haven’t even desecrated a cracker yet. Imagine how profitable it might become if you do.
Remember, when you do the video, the cracker talks like Mr. Bill: “Eat Me! Eat Me! I’m your savory Lard — Ohhh Noooo!”
@178 This from the turd who pokes his head in to call PZ a dick. Go fuck yourself, Ron. Hugs and kisses!
I’ll do you one better, asshat.
I’m in Houston and REALLY easy to find, via website, on the air whatever.
I like motorcycles, guns, chicks with big tits and assfucking loudmouth cyberpunks, lets make a date, gur.
How about tomorrow night at
http://www.geekradio.com/2007/07/30/anniversary-party
I’ll be there around nine.
Ask for scooter and I will hand your nuts on a plate in realtime, bitch.
put up or shut up. and if you are too big a pussy to show, stop with the ‘from Houston’ tag.
You are embarrassing the rednecks. little ronBitch-pussy
see you tomorrow.
-scooter
Ron in Houston wrote:
Project much?
PS ‘you’re obviously don’t’? – good spelling/grammar there, dumbass.
Hmmm, scooter
So now those rational atheists are so attached to their beliefs that they’re issuing death treats?
Pot meet kettle.
PZ, want to reign in your hordes?
Hey #178
you’re going to show aren’t you?
or is realtime to frightening?
I’m already afraid that you are going to type me to death with your awesome wire ready laptop.
PZ
I demand that you forward the IP address of scooter to the Harris County Sheriff’s department as evidence for the terroristic threat that he made.
Did anyone else notice how often the host mentioned creationism and ID,can someone explain to me what denomination the creationists belong to? Is there catholic creationists? Or are they mostly protestants?
Ive always wondered about this,maybe someone here can explain it to me.
Give it up, Ron. All you’re doing is adding food to a massive rat-bin loaded with trolls and Pharyngulite sycophants; give food to rats and they multiply and then get in your face all the faster. Starve the beast, and I would say that it would die, but in this case, mutual backslapping seems to keep them alive, if not thriving. YOU on the other hand are giving them fresh meat.
Ron, let this be a lesson to you: maybe you shouldn’t let your mouth write cheques your butt can’t cash.
Nobody
In a way the point has been made. PZ acts like an asshat and somebody calls him a cunt and threatens bodily harm to him
I come on Pharyangula and call PZ a “dick” and somebody threatens to “hand your nuts on a plate in realtime, bitch.”
You high minded rational folks want my email address? If so, I’ll be happy to provide it.
Wowbagger
You issuing a terrorist threat also? I’ll come visit you in the Harris County jail.
Ron, you’re not listening, and the thunder of idiocy is sure to follow.
Nobody
Seriously, I welcome it. You guys think you’re different from those asshat Catholics. You’re really no different.
What’s wrong little gurl?
afraid to strut your little stuff in person?
I won’t slam your face into mush if you you kneel before me and denounce all gods before me.
As far as asking PZ Myers to call me off. good luck with that, gurl
See you tomorrow or not, bitch?
Father Loya says that priests shouldn’t “make a scene” during communion. You should have pointed out the scene that the parishioners made when Webster Cook tried to take the Host back to his seat. Why isn’t the Church outraged over that? That act in itself offended the Host by Loya’s own admission.
I’ll save you the trouble
I live at
723 Romaine Lane
Houston TX
77090
and my phone number is 281 444 2372
give me a call
Scooter
Thanks to you gurl, you’ve made PZ a witness to a terroristic threat.
Thank you. Now obviously I’m under a Pharyngula fatwa.
you could have just asked your mother.
Scooter
Seriously dude, I’m not coming to an insane person’s house. However, I’ll be happy to forward that info to the Harris County DA’s office. Your next visit might be from the Harris County Sheriff’s department.
Little Ronnie, cry terrorist all you want, but I think it unlikely the invitation to go somewhere and discuss something in person can be considered a ‘terrorist threat’. Nor practical advice about not saying stupid things.
Harris County? Hmm, got some bad news for you there, Little Ronnie; the spelling of ‘cheque’ rather than ‘check’ should have been a giveaway – I’m a long, long way from the USA. Yes, Texas is big, but it’s not the whole world.
Er, there is at least one key difference, namely we don’t believe in god.
Logic: ur doing it wrong!
I propose that Ron in Houston and Scooter both be banned.
Wowbagger
You’ve got me there. You’re obviously far outside the jurisdiction of Harris County, Texas. It doesn’t change the fact that you’re an asshat though.
I’ll second that, Norman. It’s not my choice, of course, but I think the bullshit threats of violence are taking it too far. Sure there’s a disagreement, but c’mon, are these two _that_ willing to make fools of themselves?
Our vibrations were getting nasty. But why? Was there no communication in this car? Had we deteriorated to the level of dumb beasts?
Norman Doering
How dare you attempt to suppress my right to free speech!!!
I’ll be the first to support your right, as Abby Hoffman said, to shout “theater” in a crowded fire.
You’re new to this internets thing huh ron.
You have my home address and phone number, are you going to show up tomorrow night or what?
I’ll bet your mommy would freak out if you put your houston address on the internets.
At least that was my take on her, she always seemed a bit skittish, until she was in bed, and then she was a fucking total maniac.
I have scars on my back to prove it, and a hovel of lawyers to back me up.
-s
So, I really hate to do this, but I have to say that “Ron” has a pretty good point here. It’s ridiculous for anyone on here to be threatening other people with bodily harm, and when numerous people did the same to PZ, we were all or almost all outraged. It’s really embarrassing to those of us who are, in fact, sane and rational to see someone on here responding to someone who doesn’t agree with them in such a childish and frankly, icky manner.
That said, Ron? You’re an idiot. Clearly. And I’d like you to go somewhere that is away. But let me make this clear: I’m not threatening you in any way, and I’m not from Houston.
Eh, I’m okay with being an asshat. There are worse things in the world.
Seriously, though – stop blowing in and making stupid drive-by troll comments. If you’ve got a point to make, make it. If you need me to start the conversation, fine. Here goes:
What do you think PZ should have done when he first read about what happened with Webster Cook? Where exactly did he make the wrong choice and why?
To be absolutely fair, while I was slightly irritated by the fact that it was essentially 2 vs. 1, and that Father Thomas was allowed to speak at length, unabated, while the host seemed desperate to jump in every time PZ spoke, I’m glad that you took part in it, anyway.
I am not at all confident that it is even possible for Father Thomas to live up to the ideals that he espoused, but we would hopefully all agree that if religious believers were to at least aspire to a level of skepticism and evidentialism, atheists would do a whole lot less complaining, and it is also my own opinion that we would live in a far better world as a consequence.
The trouble is — and I don’t intend to absolve blame, here — it is highly unlikely that it will ever happen. There is far too great a risk of losing members, which means both money and power. If it were truly “profitable” to encourage skepticism, non-literal thinking, and evidentialism, we would be aware of it happening all over the US in terms of science advocacy, etc.
But as we have seen in large parts of Europe, once it becomes the official church position that the vast bulk of dogmas are to no longer be thought of as literal, or even that the scientific process has proven to be outstandingly effective and should be embraced by all believers, the evidence suggests that many people see no reason to continue believing at all.
In other words, it is likely to set off a chain reaction that will lead to a sizable decrease in membership, and thus, it requires courage to take that risk. It is well known that many theologians and otherwise intelligent members of religious organizations are essentially atheists. While I can appreciate the dilemma, I cannot have anything but contempt for the intellectual dishonesty of those who are “mature” in their faith [relatively speaking], while doing little to encourage others to be the same.
I cannot sympathize with people who would rather maintain their position of power, and as a consequence, mentally imprison millions of people, than to risk losing membership by setting those people free [again, relatively speaking].
Ron in Houston said:
I say:
I’ve been trying to stay out of this overgrown trainwreck of a discussion, but I can’t help noticing a certain pot/kettle issue in this quote right here.
——–
Unrelatedly, in regard to the substance of Ron-in-Houston’s complaint, which I think I can most charitably describe as a call for civility, I’d certainly agree that civility has an important place in this discussion, as witness Prof. Myers’ completely civil appearance on the above-mentioned horrible radio program. (I’m genuinely impressed that he was able to refrain from baring his fangs and tearing out the priest’s throat and capering madly through the fountaining blood after the first tedious, nonsensical day or so of that opening statement.) In the contrary direction, I could talk Overton windows, or rallying cries, or shock treatment, or any one of a number of other points that have been made a zillion times over in this discussion (and others) to defend the use of incivility.
But I think the real bottom line on the topic of rudeness to wheat-based saviors is this: sometimes incivility is just a hell of a lot more satisfying and fun than civility. It’s not gonna make much difference in what the religious think of atheists anyway (half of them already think we worship some nebulously-defined forces of evil, and the other half of them view us with the same kind of lofty, ignorant condescension Ron shows), and no actual humans (or sentient non-humans or natural resources or substantive products of human endeavor or etc.) are being harmed, and no actual Catholic ceremonies are being disrupted, so why the hell shouldn’t we have our fun now and save the civility for something that requires it?
In truth, this whole endeavor has seemed to me to be a joyous bursting forth of harmless irreverence, a tearing down of the walls built by ignorance and superstition. We need more of this, not less, more puncturing of the puffed-up pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-humble gibberish spouted by priests who use words to bedazzle rather than enlighten. We need more striving to push the world towards a reality-based footing. More (figurative) tearing down of sacred idols, more breaking of mental shackles and dancing wildly on the graves of the organizations that shackled us in the first place. More incivility, less silent deference to inanity and insanity.
So sorry, Ron. As a former Catholic myself, there’s no way in hell I’m going to be perpetually respectful toward the organization that tried to put my mind in prison just because you can’t hack a bit of irreverence. And I don’t think anyone else here is going to change their tune either.
Scooter
Seriously dude, do you need me to goad you further so that you make a much clearer case against yourself? I’ve already told you that I’m not going to show up at your place. However, I am going to forward this whole mess to the Harris County DA’s office.
Yes, I’ll love the Houston Chronicle article, “atheist makes threat to fellow atheist.”
Way to go dude.
I propose that Ron and Scooter not drive tonight. IMO, they have both had too much to drink on a friday night.
I don’t know about Texas but out here, a DUI carries a stiff penalty. Plus it really is dumb to drink and drive.
I’m pretty sure it was proven ron in houston’s not even an atheist and hes just trolling. Unless someone else with that exact moniker has a blog going on about godless commies.
Hey Ron, stop pretending you want to discuss. You insult people, you spout nonsense here and there with “Nobody”, or is that just a way to discuss with yourself?
Once again, do you have anything useful to say? if not, please just go away.
pcarini wrote:
Hunter S. Thompson, “Fear and Lothing in Las Vegas”?
um… in the time I wrote that it appears ron has lost his FUCKING MIND
Ron in Houston @ #204
You perhaps didn’t read the rule-type section of this blog. You’d fit the “Concern Troll” category (and, IMHO, “Insipidity”). Scooter should be tossed just on principle.
That’s all I’ve got to say about the matter. I’ve already made an ass of myself by saying that much and my opinion doesn’t really carry any weight here, but I’m all for the immediate plonking of the both of you.
Raven
You have a great sense of humor. Ever thought of being a mediator?
Also, scooter, please don’t try to feminize Ron-in-Houston like it’s an insult to suggest that somebody might be female. You want to rip him a new virtual orifice, that’s fine. He rather deserves it. But don’t demean 50+% of the human population in the process.
# 199
I did not invite to my house, I invited you to a party tomorrow night in Hyooston, you asked PZ Myers for my contact information, and I saved him the trouble.
Yet my phone is not ringing and no scary ‘ron from Houston’ is at the door.
If ‘ron from houston’ was at the door I would have my 14 year old daughter take care of my lite work, and slap the shit out of him.
please alert the Harris County Law enforcement officials. They might remember me, we’re old friends
On a related note, today (July 18) is Hunter S Thompson’s birthday.
Yes, the quote was from Fear and Loathing.
And most of the denizens in here -long ago- deteriorated to the level of dumb beasts.
Norman Doering @ # 214
Yes sir. I’ve always loved that quote, but this is the first real excuse I’ve had to use it.
Did ron just invoke freedom of speech on someone’s blog?
first amendment: ur doin it rong
Fear and Loathing quotes are the only happy thing in this thread. I like to think that most of the posters around these here parts are intelligent enough to know that this sort of thing makes everyone look bad.
NanuNanu
Seriuosly PZ Myers says:
PZ Myers said:
“I told them sure, and named a large sum for my speaking fee. We’ll see how that goes.”
Then I respond:
You mean that you can actually convince people to pay you money for acting like a dick?
OMG. It was just free speech. It was just a fracking comment.
Instead I get this:
Ask for scooter and I will hand your nuts on a plate in realtime, bitch.
Where’s the proportionality? I just made a simple comment and I get a threat to hand my nuts on a plate??? I’m shocked. Obviously non-religious belief is the source of great suffering in our society. We need to immediately stamp out atheism because it’s a threat to civilized society.
Ron, you were given the chance to make a point. You chose to be a tool.
Go play elsewhere.
Silly Ron, no. No no no no no. One person behaving badly in one thread in one blog =/= massive outrage and death threats over comments made about a cracker.
That’s just one example that can be used to illustrate that you’re being silly.
Just to summarize :
Scooter should be banned for trolling and issuing threats
Ron should be banned for trolling, insipidity, stupidity
Nobody should be banned for trolling and insipidity too, imho, and he may well be just another avatar of Ron, in fact.
and as said intelekshual (#206) Scooter’s behaviour is inacceptable
I propose that Ron in Houston and Scooter both be banned.
I propose that proposals of banning be grounds for banning.
Er, don’t make me think about what I just said.
Scooter has kindly offered Ron what he’s been begging for on these threads, while Ron doesn’t deserve a fraction of such a generous offer (and he won’t get better).
Scooter, I’ve been listening to your hell montage, and loving it. It’s every bit as good as, and to the degree that, that quantum woo crap I used to believe in overnight on KPFK in the 60s and 70s, before I grew a brain (although the Alan Watts was useful), sucked ass.
Ban Scooter? For every bit of noise from Ron “Moobs” Houston, Scooter has the signal. And Ron is too hilarious to ban. I’ve got to give him credit for quoting a dead Hoffman, but having known both the late Anita and their son America, you’re not their kind of people–you’re not even the sort that could pass the Turing Test, even if you tried to do it in person.
http://ronlawhouston.blogspot.com/
I’m pretty sure it’s him but whoever is posting there is a worthless scumbag. Just look for the word cancer and you’ll know what I mean
Scooter said:
“please alert the Harris County Law enforcement officials. They might remember me, we’re old friends”
Seriously dude, the fact that you have a criminal record is not something to brag about.
NanuNanu
Yep that’s me. I welcome your death threats.
Anne #218 you are right to be offended.
But I was referring to ‘ron in Hyooston’ as my bitch in prison terms.
I’ve done a little time, but if I referred to my wife as my bitch, she would kick my ass.
I hope this clears things up, because I know better than to get the women riled.
I can handle turkeys like ‘ron from houston’ but I try to steer clear of strong women.
forgiven?
How embarrassing. Any threats of violence should be dealt with accordingly. It doesn’t matter how annoyingly insipid Ron in Houston is. It has been clear from his first post that he wasn’t interested in a rational discussion. That is why I have ignored him ever since.
I am going to have to agree with pcarini and Norman Doering. There is no place for this nonsense in any “discussion”. It makes us all look bad, which I do not appreciate.
I wholeheartedly agree, NanuNanu, that he’s clearly worthless, a troll, and not worth the flesh he’s printed on. But that still doesn’t make sinking to the level of those we condemn, as Scooter has done, okey-kosher.
death threats?
what the hell, you accuse someone offering to fight your dumb ass of terroristic threats and now you are claiming I’ll send you death threats because I pointed out you’re a scum bag?
Persecution complex much?
Ken
I agree, I’m not a brave enough soul to compare myself to Abby Hoffman. The fact that I quote him does not mean that I put myself in the same league.
Ron in Houston:
Scooter is probably just sick of you coming in here spouting the same vacuous, pointless shit every fucking post. I know I sure as hell am. But, he’s taking it way too far by making threats like that. Yes, it’s just as bad as the “come down to Florida, we’ve got guns” threat that PZ received. We will continue to look immensely hypocritical for as long as we allow scooter to keep on saying that shit, and I for one say it’s flat out fucking wrong of him.
I second said proposal and instead propose a stoning or maybe a stern scolding from your 10th grade math teacher.
I’m listening to it right now, but I don’t know if I’m going to have the stamina to make it to the end. Lots of bobbing and weaving by the priest, but that doesn’t surprise me. And the words are subject to the Humpty Dumpty dictum (whatever the speaker wants them to mean at the time), so that they can say that PZ doesn’t understand where they’re coming from, or why he doesn’t understand what they mean when they use a word like evidence.
But there is a priceless comment by the emcee, near the beginning (after describing what pharyngula means and before asking PZ whether he denies the existence of God): “You are known around the scientific community as someone that pushes back against intelligent design or other forms of religion that might creep into what you see as the empirical sphere.”
Nice, huh? Right there on Catholic radio’s “The Heart of the Matter,” testimony that ID is religion. Of course, we already knew that.
Damian
You concern troll. What are you the high priest of atheistm?
Seriously, tongue in cheek. However, the point of my particular asshattery is to draw attention to the fact that we’re not much different than those theistic “demented fuckwits” (those are PZ’s words there folks)
Instead of a horse, this priest was beating a dead Scotsman. I don’t think that this guy met a logical fallacy that he didn’t like!
Anyway the priest was full of wordy non-answers. And of course cherrypicked scientific evidence supports your beliefs. Just ask the conspiracy nuts.
Life inside of a bubble may be comfortable, but you stagnate intellectually.
And the commercials are dreadful. Talk about tedious!
Too tedious to listen to in its entirety, but I do have a few comments:
1. The moderator at the beginning tries to define “a democracy” as rule by majority and “a republic” as rule by law. This is not quite right. A republic is rule thru representatives of the people rather than by the people themselves. Both a democracy and a republic are based on laws.
2. The moderator was very boring and droned on too long. He did come thru very clearly, as did Rev. Loya. PZ sounded like he was talking from the bottom of a well.
3. The moderator was quick to interrupt PZ, yet let Rev. Loya drone on. I shut the thing down about a third of the way thru.
Stephanurus
Ron in Houston wrote:
If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up.
Damian,
This whole ‘making us look bad’ thing is something that’s been leveled – at PZ and others – throughout this whole business, and I don’t think it serves us well to think along those lines.
Atheists are people who don’t believe in god – it shouldn’t be about looking ‘good’ or ‘bad’. That people who don’t believe in god can also be angry, rude and insensitive is just a reminder that we’re human – without the excuse of ‘sin’, or the option of forgiveness.
If we decide we’re going to start choosing who can or can’t be called an atheist then that’s when we become as bad as the religulous.
That being said, if when you say ‘us’ you mean Pharyngulites and not atheists in general then you’re probably right. I wouldn’t come here if it was just a neverending back-and-forth of abuse and insults.
Not make a scene? Then what’s all this about the catholic church denying communion to politicans that are pro-life. For example I remember a big scne was made when the church debated whether to deny John Kerry communion during an election year. I remember one catholic Bishop said that denying Kerry Communion would be a great way to draw attention to issues of life.(< -I pretty quoted him verbatim there) --------- Anyway I'm so sick of all of this anti-pharmaceutical propaganda. It started out among liberals and those trying to promote universal healthcare... where it was incorrect but i let it pass because I thought they were on my side. Like PZ said the reason why this happens is because pharmaceuticals are applied materialist science. Healing crystals, free range soybeans, fear of genetic engineering and organic tampons are all woo.. as is the healing power of prayer. If we are to create a good society we must make decisions based on the material evidence presented to us--- but never be afraid to say "we don't know yet…
It is not acceptable to go from the premise “Quantum physics show that small particles can behave sometimes like waves and sometimes particles”
What Deepak Chopra does then is say “Therefore Jesus has risen” Total non-sequitor
As someone who also said we were all being made to look bad, I can say that *I* meant Pharyngulites. As opposed to atheists in general.
Pricilla goodbody at #228
(#206) Scooter’s behaviour is inacceptable
your spelling is somewhat suspect, are you a ferner?
Scooter should be banned for trolling and issuing threats
You just threatened me with banning, you need to atone for that, you should be punished by ramming crackers down your throat, the punishment for not getting the joke.
I am actually a thirteen year old girl, and have spoofed you all with the mighty text editor
You should also kiss my ass you goddam pedophile.
Very OT, but over on Making Light there’s an interesting and amusing discussion on the question of whether an omnipotent god can make a rock so heavy s/he cannot lift it.
I can’t do the clever tags: the url is
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010435.html#010435
Comment #33 wins the thread.
From Comment #36: “Gnosticism is the belief that creation was an act of Mary-Sue fan fiction” – The Gospel according to St Jude.
-becca
This whole discussion reminded me of a quote from Robert Heinlein;
“Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.”
It was kinda hard to listen to his gibberish. “You know more about something by not knowing about it”, his complete misunderanding about what empirical evidence actually is, and “No true Scotsman” over and over.
Honestly, crackergate is beginning to bore me. PZ, please desecrate some other religious object, like magical Mormon underwear. Morons are alot kookier, the jokes would be alot better and I might actually be able to read 6000+ comments about underwear desecration. Or how about a Scientologist E-meter. Scientologist are off-the-wall kooky and we can make jokes about Tom Cruise being in the closet. I’d say desecrate some Muslim object, but I think you’ve already gotten that suggestion a few thousand times.
Norman
Really crazyness deserves to be repaid in kind? I suppose that you’d include in that statement the crazy belief in holy crackers?
# 220 wowbanger
my tribute to the master
http://acksisofevil.org/audio/inner157.mp3
Although I think everyone’s (except ron’s) concern is legitimate, from scooter’s previous posts I took scooter’s comments as satirical or at the very least joking.
I do agree, however that threats of violence are unacceptable, and I think that everyone here agrees on that matter. As for banning I think ron’s posts, while quite idiotic, dont deserve a banning yet. They do seem to be spiraling out of control though.
As someone before me stated PZ’s blog, I have no say, my opinion on banning doesn’t matter etc.
I propose that everything Scooter and/or Ron posts from here on out be translated into something easier and more entertaining to read, such as leet or chatspeak.
N0rman,
R3ally crazyn3ss d3s3rv3s 2 b r3paid in kind? I supp0se that u’d includ3 n that stat3m3nt th3 crazy b3li3f in h0ly crack3rs?
OK, so I’m not good at that and even that much took me too long. Someone else should do this, though. Much better than reading what they’ve actually posted.
Ron in Houston said:
Sorry, Ron, you are going to have to find yourself a new set of tricks, because it isn’t going to work with me. You can call me anything you like, just as I can continue to maintain that you insipidly poison each and every thread that you “contribute” to.
I couldn’t care less what the “point of my [your] particular asshattery” is. It is still asshattery, nevertheless, and you have only proven yourself to be a massive hypocrite — on the one hand, accosting everyone here for not meeting some mythical standard of behavior, while at the same time, and as you have acknowledged yourself, behaving like an asshat. Congratulations.
This will be the second and final time that I reply to anything that you have to say. You really aren’t worth the effort.
NanuNanu
Yeah, satirical, right! We’re not assholes, we’re just misunderstood!
Yeah, right.
Wow, I just listened to the “interview” and man was that effin’ painful! What a bunch of freakin’ babble and sideways speak.
I have not read all the posts above but I was wondering if anyone has taken the time to add up how much of the “interview” was PZ and how much was the other two? It seemed PZ let them babble on and on, and as soon as he would begin to speak they would cut him off and babble some more.
#256:
That didn’t even make any sense.
The exchange between scooter and Ron in Houston is starting to get disturbing.
That said, the level of menace is much different between a statement like “meet me here and I will beat you up,” and one like “I’m going to find you and beat you up.” The first is an invitation and requires reciprocation. The power dynamic remains with the target because he can simply decline to show up. In the second case, the threat is explicit, and the target is helpless to avert it.
I have no idea whether or not the two would be equivalent under the law.
Nevertheless, scooter, after several 1000+ post threads decrying the sending of death-threats, we should strive to be better than this.
Ron in Houston wrote:
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they have always not worked for Ron in Houston.
How dare you people. I just exercised my right to free speech and was threatened. It’s just a fracking speaking fee. You demented fuckwits threaten my life over fracking words. Atheism is a dangerous meme and needs to be stamped out from civilized society.
Your life was not threatened you ridiculous drama queen. Ask PZ about death threats, he gets ACTUAL ones. Also none of us have free speech on this blog, its PZ’s blog for gosh sakes. You want free speech just blabber on your own blog.
Ooh, apparently there’s a translator that’ll do it for me! I think Ron’s comments make much more sense now!
|-|0// d4R3 j00Z p30PL3. 1 jU57 3><3R(153D //’/ r19|-|7 70 PhR33 5P33(|-| 4||D //45 7|-|R3473||3D. 17’5 jU57 4 PhR4(|<1||9 5P34|<1||9 Ph33. j00Z d3//3||73D PhU(|
Aw, it cut it off. I assure you it really was more comprehensible this way.
I know one “presentation” of god that would be acceptable to me, and maybe many others here. One that came with some credible evidence!
Although at that point, it wouldn’t really be god anymore, unless you change the definition of god.
At least the drive-by catholic trolls appear to have found something better to do with their time. I now know far more than I ever needed to about the sort of sophistry that results from nearly 2000 years of attempting to justify a set of loopy superstitions from the threat of rationality.
Ron in Houston,
I don’t see how you were threatened. Scooter said nothing of finding your place of work, or where you live. He told you where you could go if you wanted to get in a fight with him, and I don’t quite see how that’s being threatened. You’d have to go out of your way, after all, to allow him to do violence upon you.
That said, scooter, you’re an immature ass. Shut up already.
# 257
disappointed in PZ interviews
try this one:
http://acksisofevil.org/audio/inner187.mp3
and follow up
http://acksisofevil.org/audio/inner188.mp3
Your life wasn’t threatened, Ron. Just your manhood. There is a difference you know.
And like I said before, scooter doesn’t know where or even who you are. You know where HE lives, because he told you. You can find him, but HE CAN’T FIND YOU. In your little dynamic, you are the one who is in total control, and scooter was the one who gave you that control. That doesn’t even really qualify as a threat.
There is one consequence of speech that freedom of speech does NOT protect anyone from, and that is ridicule.
Well, I dunno that I’m totally comfortable with the whole ass-kicking direction your remarks are taking, scooter (I prefer the whole new-orifice-ripping thing to be strictly and clearly virtual), but I’ll accept that you weren’t trying to be sexist in the process.
In any case, taking a look at that ronlawhouston blog definitely confirms that “Ron in Houston” is an asshat of the highest order (as if his comments here weren’t evidence enough). The rest of the posts on the front page aren’t so bad, but his description of PZ’s passionate appeal for support of science and rational thinking (in reference to his sister-in-law’s death from cancer) as a “fratboy stunt” is just beyond insane. Certainly it’s possible to argue about the contributions of the “Judeo-Christian” worldview to the development and humane application of medical science (as does the other blogger to whom Ron links). I’d say those arguments are a pile of nonsense, but they’re at least semi-rational arguments. But I don’t see how it’s a “fratboy stunt” to simply have a strong opinion on the value of religion to medicine and express it forthrightly, as PZ did in his post. The post in question is a fairly straightforward call to positive action, with no cursing, no mockery, no nothing that anybody could possibly find objectionable except that it’s casually dismissive of the “benefits” of religion.
If Ron doesn’t consider even such a comparatively mild disdain for religion as acceptable discourse, it’s no wonder he’s lost his shit over the discussion of wafer desecration. And it’s not clear to me, given his stance on the cancer post, what he expects atheists to do other than just put up and shut up in the face of the religious insanity that dominates so much of our culture. I find myself wondering why he thinks such a message would be well-received by anyone who has even the least bit of self-respect. Maybe he’ll deign to explain, in order to enlighten us poor benighted fools with his vast wisdom?
Sheesh,
Between that priest and the interviewer, I couldn’t tell who was more full of himself.
The priest sounds like most of the smug churchly know-it-alls. He’s so accustomed to listening to himself sermonize that he doesn’t know how to have a conversation and doesn’t realize he’s going in circles, biting his own tail.
Both the priest and the interviewer are wanna be sophists. Which seems to be the highest level of thought these sorts ever aspire to.
Oh, and since no one else has mentioned it, the Eucharist wafer is a cracker. Really. The interviewer is smugly wrong about what constitutes a cracker. Flour and water, those are the only ingredients necessary for a cracker. The original cracker (hardtack) had only flour and water. Same with many water cracker recipes. Salt and leavening are not required.
“Wafer” refers only to the approximate thickness or thinness of the cracker, it’s not a magical property or standardized measure. I’ve had wafers that are as thick as waffles, just crispier. So what, they are all FRACKIN’ CRACKERZ!
You’re not the first to point that out.
I’m an attention whore.
Anyway, I hope my dad doesn’t find about
‘ron from houston’
and our meeting tomorrow night.
He seems pretty hot and awesome hunky.
amphiox
I understand there’s a difference; however, I still reserve the right to maintain my attachment to my nuts.
I don’t know if what’s going on with Ron in Houston and scooter is some sort of Texas macho thing or something, but internet debates should not lead to physical violence. Yeah Ron in Houston in an idiot, but that should not lead to someone offering to fight him. It wasn’t a death threat or terrorist threat (stop exaggerating Ron), but there was a challenge to a physical confrontation.
Whatever consequences these two should face is up to PZ to decide, but I don’t come here to see numbskulls challenge each other to a fight. I come here to see what’s gonna happen to those damn crackers!
Anne #270
Eloquent articulation, but should I kick his ass or not?
Ugh, I gave up when PZ challenged Fr. Loya on his embarrassing misuse of the term ’empirical evidence’ and the MC actually defended it.
Fr. Loya: “blah blah… what I was doing was I was actually using what my understanding of how science understands empiricism… blah blah”
MC: “right and I think you’re using it as a turn of phrase”
Gee PZ, guess your precious Science never taught you the colloquial definition of ’empiricism’. It seems like theologians spend so much time talking in empty metaphors to fool each other they forget that words can have literal meaning.
Also is anyone else really sick of that lame attention-starved troll Ron in Houston? He really is one of the more pathetic specimen I’ve seen here lately. To the dungeon, I say.
awwwwwww. And on Hunter’s birthday too.
Enough Texas testosterone. I’ll stop this thread right here! I mean it! You two behave yourselves back there, or I’ll turn this whole thing around!
Oh, christ on a cracker. Scooter is speaking true ‘trash’. What part of the handle ‘Scooter’ didn’t y’ll get? I’ve heard this jargon & dialect for years. Try Fossil, Cow Chip Boogie, Independence Run, Sturgis, Rolling Thunder… Ron on the other hand is a little sissy, that shoots off his mouth ad nauseum, thread after thread and then runs to mommie.
I do agree with Ann that I wish Scooter would upgrade his vocabulary & drop the sexist ‘p’ word. If you want to call Ron a sniveling little diaper wearing coward – hey call him a coward.
I raise PZ Meyer’s “lame attention-starved troll” and raise him two “pathetic specimen.”
PZ
When you call enough, then enough. It’s your blog. I respect your right to say “shut up.”
Who is this PZ Meyer you speak of?
The priest seems to be following some sort of made up Catholicism. He uses this ruse to separate himself from the people who actually BELIEVE the Bible is something other than a fairy tale of prehistory.
You did good considering the staging going on around you. I don’t think I have the patience for such ‘debate’ anymore.
Enjoy.
reading comments and their owners: ur doin it rong
spelling myer’s name: doin it ronger
Don’t ban Scooter! I love Scooter! Scooter is highly energetic and amusing.
But I’m all for banning “Ron in Houston.” He’s a boring troll who keeps trying to make the same stupid “point” over and over.
No comparison.
Ron,
You will make the case easier for those saying you shouldn’t get your ass kicked if you simply stop posting your inanity. (No this is not a death threat or a threat to your first amendment rights, just a suggestion).
All you kids! That’s it! No ice cream for ANY of you!
Now everyone needs to put down the spitwads and peashooters and calm down.
But but but… I was just pulling back the rubber band on my paper clip shooter..
:[
i wanted ice cream
thanks a lot guys you ruined it for us. vacation is ruined.
“God is like love”
I am so sick of hearing religious people argue that. We know love exists because we can objectively measure the behavioural patterns it exhibits. That is hugely different to an intelligent being in the sky.
God damn believers can talk out of their arse at times.
I appreciate the compliment, but I think you’re gonna have to count me as opposed to ass-kicking in this case. Ron’s obnoxious, and probably deserving, but I don’t generally favor hurting (or threatening to hurt) even deserving people unless there’s no reasonable alternative. I mean, if he shows up at your door (now that he’s got your address) and starts menacing you, I guess you’d probably have no choice, but I wouldn’t want to encourage you to go out of your way to start a fight.
On the other hand, it’s hard not to laugh at all this over-the-top trash talk you guys have been pulling. Seems appropriate to a Friday night.
This “discussion” was certainly painful, mainly because it felt that the whenever PZ spoke, the host couldn’t wait for him to finish talking and attack his points himself. Hasn’t this guy ever heard of objectivity?
PZ, maybe the next time you are on radio, you could speak a little faster? These shows are time limited and yet you speak slowly and calmly (as though you’re sitting in the yard with a martini in your hand) and make host interrupt you.
Also I realize that I failed real hard with the “myer’s” comment
just putting it out there
Ron in Houston wrote:
Then you better not talk down to black people in front of Jesse Jackson.
PZ, I’m hoping you find that Ron in Houston has met the criteria to be sent to the dungeon.
Is there any way Scooter’s personal info can be redacted? Poor judgement in the heat of the moment, not the way to go Scooter. You’re a good guy, but never ever put your personal info on a thread no matter how pissed you get.
Scooter, I feel your pain but RiH is simply looking to provoke anyone who will engage with him. He typifies the asshattery that gives all Texans a bad reputation and I can say that since I’m a fourth generation Texan. Ron acts like he’s a shit kicker but he’s just a pussy in a punk suit.
Ron I loved how you revealed you have bitch tits; we knew you had the tiny prick to go with your outsized mouth. Your inability to comprehend that no one here values your redundant mewling is truly amazing. You voiced your opinion against PZ, ok, we got it; but you’ve entered into Trolldom with your incessant one-note harangue. I still suspect that your motives are fraudulent. If not, you have major control issues and should seek professional help.
So a priest, a mullah, a rabbi and Jesse Helms walk into a bar…
The comparison of god to love always gets me also. So what, is god really just a function of our neurochemistry? If not how does your god differ from our emotions? Oh shit, are we really back to square one again?
Off topic, how many people have been keeping up with Thunderf00t’s excellent “Beauty in the universe” youtube channel? Thunderf00t is the same guy who does the “Why do people laugh at creationists” videos, but now he’s trekking through the national parks in the Western U.S. with an RC plane that he shoots video from.
This one is really good (aerial shots start about a min. in) and several others in the channel are worthwhile, IMHO.
*Sigh*
You were too nice to the bastards PZ. I love the way you are sticking up for a student, but really, you got death threats!
Good night sweethearts, I gotta go peddle herbs & eggs in the morning.
That reminds me. I need to make some bacon. Its been a while and I’m all out.
I blogged about this conversation just a bit in an attempt to expand on your point regarding empirical evidence for love versus empirical evidence for God.
I hope you find yourself in agreement with my evaluation.
The bottom line to all of this is that “little paul” is clueless and doesn’t know it.
BTW – There are no atheists in hell!
Phew, I’m totally off the hook, then.
Well, I put my foot in it, didn’t I Scooter? You publish your # readily. Was your part of this spectacle just a publicity stunt? Hmm, just goes to show no good deed goes unpunished. Goodnight.
I’ve just listened to it, notepad at hand.
Best as I can make out:
00.00.01 Intro
and host asks PZ.
00.09.43 PZ answers (host interjects in there).
00.10.17 Host asks Fr.
00.10.28 Fr. “answers”
00.14.56 Host asks again
00.15.20 Fr. answers again
00.16.33 Host follow-ups
00.17.15 PZ alludes to the nature of the question; host says it’s what it is
00.17.28 PZ answers question
00.18.20 bewilderment ensues
00.18.47 Host impatiently asks PZ to move on (to the Prime Mover)
00.18.54 Host interrupts PZ to apologise for earlier interrupting PZ
00.19.45 Host
00.19.50 Host asks follow-up question for clarification, PZ answers
00.20.26 Host opines before asking PZ a question
00.21.14 PZ begins to answer
00.21.34 Hosts interrupts PZ to say “let me pin you down” (about empiricism
00.22.05 PZ resumes answering
00.22.47 Host dismisses PZ and hands over to Fr.
00.22.49 Fr. talks
00.24.58 Host asks PZ to respond
00.25.04 PZ responds and mentions transubstanciation
00.25.47 Fr. explains his interpretation of empirical, but adds that “[transubstanciation] lies beyond any kind of total empiricism”
00.26.58 Host asks PZ a question
00.27.30 PZ answers
00.30.30 Host: “m-hm”. Mentions “expelled” and asks question.
00.31.58 PZ answers. Host occasionally interjects.
00.35.04 Host interjects (claiming to speak for Fr.)
00.36.08 PZ responds and Host switches topics to PZ’s “gross insensitivity”
00.38.30 PZ responds
00.38.56 Host is indignant PZ calls it a cracker, interrupts to say it’s a wafer
00.39.09 PZ exercises restraint and resumes
00.40.10 Host hands over to Fr. to be offended and make his plea
00.43.12 PZ begins to respond
00.44.17 Host interrupts PZ and quibbles
00.45.42 PZ seems bemused about being not approached by the Magisterium and makes an offer
00.46.07 Host interrupts PZ “in fairness”
00.46.14 PZ tries to resume
00.46.18 Host interrupts and goes on to next question
00.46.43 Fr. talks. Fatwa envy briefly manifests.
00.48.02 Host interrupts: “I think the point you’re trying to make, Fr. […]” (cf. Dorothy Dixer)
00.48.25 Fr resumes (it’s a form of abuse)
00.49.53 Host takes a deep breath and continues
00.50.27 PZ offers last words
00.51.04 Host interrupts to acknowledge death threats against PZ
00.51.09 PZ resumes
00.52.06 Host offers Fr. last words
00.52.12 Fr speaks and smarmily says PZ is “absolutely right”
00.54.24 Host closes
00.55.03 End.
Phew, I’m totally off the hook, then.
I guess I gave you more credit for understanding the meaning than you deserve! Think about it!
Guess I gave you too much credit in thinking you had a sense of humor.
Guess I gave you too much credit in thinking you had a sense of humor.
You didn’t get that right either.
Fatuous godbot @306. Yes, yes, we understand your intended meaning. What you need to understand is that dire warnings of this nature are about as substantial as a fart in a mesh bag around here. Pascal’s wager is passe. Try harder! Bring the heat! (see how I totally set you up for more hell-talk there?) Bring it!
So… hard… to… listen to…
I noticed about halfway through I was gritting my teeth and wiggling my toes in frustration, I wanted to reply to everything the priest said out loud.
Don’t take it too hard, some people just don’t have the knack.
As my physics professor was fond of saying, msh is “trivially correct”. There are no atheists in hell; just as there are no shriners, accountants, or Austrians there.
Try harder! Bring the heat! (see how I totally set you up for more hell-talk there?) Bring it!
…or about as substantial as your blather!
Is it just me or is that guy a walking talking True Scotsman fallacy?
“Real Catholicism”
“Real Science”
“Real Scholarship”
There are no atheists in hell; just as there are no shriners, accountants, or Austrians there.
I think the comparison is just a tad off the mark.
msh: Do you actually have anything of substance to say?
msh:
Wow, that one just zoomed right over msh’s head. We obviously aren’t dealing w/ the smartest knife in the drawer here ;)
“God is like love”
If God is like love, he’s like love in the form of a jealous ex with a violent temper and borderline personality disorder.
@314 I can’t believe that PZ didn’t call him on that(Well no-one would get him talk ever)
msh: Do you actually have anything of substance to say?
No less substantial than anything else I’ve read on this blog.
Is it just me or is that guy a walking talking True Scotsman fallacy?
When in doubt pull out the NTSF theory.
We obviously aren’t dealing w/ the smartest knife in the drawer here ;)
I think you meant to say you weren’t the “sharpest” knife. :)
“Atheism is a dangerous meme and needs to be stamped out from civilized society.”
Well gee Ron, you kept saying the other day you were an atheist… but you’ve lied about other things constantly, so it’s not surprise that you would lie about that too.
You don’t have a point, Ron… you lie and contradict yourself constantly. All you are is a troll.
And you criticize PZ as wanting attention… all you want is attention.
I see msh is a etiolated excuse for a troll of the insipid variety.
I’d mock it, but I’ve already done my civic duty this cycle.
For an actual demonstration of how religion is “undergirded” by science, scroll down to the interview about Expelled with Mark Mathis. I’m used to seeing Mathis embarrass himself by now (and he outdoes himself here), but to see Catholic Radio International fawn over him like some heroic phoenix rising from the ashes of the broken innocents whose lives were destroyed by the “academic elite”, well, it’s no secret that Catholic Radio International is infected by the same disease.
Oh yes, that Ben Stein is SO intelligent, and Expelled, along with Mathis, finally has all those evolutionists on the run, along with all those who gave the film scathing reviews “because they were afraid to do otherwise”. But equally irritating is the host, taking every opportunity to throw his snarky jabs at science with a valiant but failed attempt to play O’Reilly’s little brother. So these are real Catholics. Well, so much for honesty.
I’d just like to say @84 that I’m still chuckling over the mental picture of two clergymen locked in an epic battle of incantation, trying to reset the other guy’s woo on a cracker — ~that fight scene between wizards in LOTR.
Or maybe, “Duck season!” “Wabbit theathon!”
It works either way for me.
Otherwise, I don’t know what happened in this thread, but what’s with all the ass-kissing around here? oh wait. nevermind.
Ron in Houston has mastered the art of what is called “psyops” It has been used for centuries in all forms of insurgency. This is simply it’s latest manifestation. It’s proponents rely upon the mental weaknesses of the individuals in the target group, which is why Ron is finding it so difficult to make any progress here at Pharyngula.
The only way to defeat Epic Troll, is to ignore the epic troll.
(or just throw it in the dungeon, what a fitting name for “troll storage”)
PZ,
Wow, I don’t know how you do it. Exacerbation, I believe is the word. I commend you good sir.
Looks like msh has learned how to play, “I know you are, but what am I?” That’s adorable! Maybe next he, she, or it will learn about the facts of life! Or fractions! Isn’t growing up fun?
(Poor quoting style altered for legibility.)
able. That you are unwilling or unable to express yourself there in a like manner as here should be some presupposed occasion of adulation. Don’t get me wrong, I like when opposing viewpoints discuss. It is a very important thing. But this does not extend itself to congratulating one on discussing what they would normally vilify. Where intellect is considered a virtue, intellectual dishonesty is no vice. If you can’t be there what you are here you need to consider if you should be there what you are there or if you should be here what you are here, but that you cannot be what you are here while there or are there while here is no cause for celebration or congratulations.
Also it was not hard to note that when pressed on the Koran question you fell back to saying that taking a Koran from a mosque would be an intrusive theft that while taking a freely offered wafer was nothing of the kind. It’s a pretty transparent dodge. The issue or question is not really about how the object you intend to desecrate was obtained but the question was more about that you would promise to desecrate what you felt safe in desecrating while not so comfortable with that which might draw an even harsher reaction. You don’t have to steal from a mosque to “score” a Koran. You can walk into any Barnes & Noble. No consecrati0on required. If a couple of bucks makes or breaks you bank you can certainly rely on us. Certainly if you could ask us to score you some consecrated crackers you can ask us to core you a book readily available online or through any major retail outlet. Artifice and dodge as to why you might readily offend one religious point of view while not another is transparent. Where can we send our easily obtainable Koran to? Noting is more simple. That desecration of the Koran is different from desecration of a Roman Catholic wafer in that we would need to steal a book is very silly and very weak. Can we get it on?
Finally the bit near the end about the Catholic League or Donahue was nonsense. You offered that you would give the wafers to the church should the church repudiate the Catholic League. That was just plain stupid. Donahue is not the church and the church is not Donahue. But more importantly it is sort of self defeating to offer that if he Roman Catholic Church should repudiate Donahue then you would give them back their wafer. You started with some supposed desecration in a probably over the top reaction to the reception of the actions of a kid in Florida and are at the same point as the kid. How did that happen? A kid blunders into a situation where he hostages that which is important to others for an apology for perceived wrongs and PZ’s answer is to do the same.
The absolute last part where you hold that the absolute negativity of some portion of your responses is silly. Lots offer inane promises of prayer but others violence. Every person on earth, you and I and he and she, is whatever. Catholic or Protestant or Atheist or Jew or whatever is a person and will exhibit the same tendencies. You received many emails from people that said they would pray for you and in truth there were probably ten times as much that never emailed you. You received emails from some that in some way shape or form wanted to hurt an in truth for each there were another ten as well. In any population you have your nuts and they are that. Do you follow your own blog? Folks on it eager to offer violence and other ready to decry it.
PZ, this may or may not have been what was intended but it needs to be wrapped up and you may not be able to do that here alone.
Odd, partial post. Try again I guess.
#305. PZ got mugged. The priest could speak to whatever he wanted to, PZ could offer a little and be shut down or contradicted by the host who would then hand it back to the priest.
Also if you are going to speak of crackers speak of them or if you are going to speak of wafers of unleavened bread speak of them. As it was you spoke of crackers and got taken to task by the moderator and immediately acquiesced. Instead of defining your tone and sticking to it you started like you were blogging took the slap back. You might have well said “yes sir” when slapped with the ruler.
On the same note in your opening post you offer that all must commend you on your restraint in the radio piece. Offering big talk on your public blog only to tone it down on some radio piece is not in itself commendable. That you are unwilling or unable to express yourself there in a like manner as here should be some presupposed occasion of adulation. Don’t get me wrong, I like when opposing viewpoints discuss. It is a very important thing. But this does not extend itself to congratulating one on discussing what they would normally vilify. Where intellect is considered a virtue, intellectual dishonesty is no vice. If you can’t be there what you are here you need to consider if you should be there what you are there or if you should be here what you are here, but that you cannot be what you are here while there or are there while here is no cause for celebration or congratulations.
Also it was not hard to note that when pressed on the Koran question you fell back to saying that taking a Koran from a mosque would be an intrusive theft that while taking a freely offered wafer was nothing of the kind. It’s a pretty transparent dodge. The issue or question is not really about how the object you intend to desecrate was obtained but the question was more about that you would promise to desecrate what you felt safe in desecrating while not so comfortable with that which might draw an even harsher reaction. You don’t have to steal from a mosque to “score” a Koran. You can walk into any Barnes & Noble. No consecrati0on required. If a couple of bucks makes or breaks you bank you can certainly rely on us. Certainly if you could ask us to score you some consecrated crackers you can ask us to core you a book readily available online or through any major retail outlet. Artifice and dodge as to why you might readily offend one religious point of view while not another is transparent. Where can we send our easily obtainable Koran to? Noting is more simple. That desecration of the Koran is different from desecration of a Roman Catholic wafer in that we would need to steal a book is very silly and very weak. Can we get it on?
Finally the bit near the end about the Catholic League or Donahue was nonsense. You offered that you would give the wafers to the church should the church repudiate the Catholic League. That was just plain stupid. Donahue is not the church and the church is not Donahue. But more importantly it is sort of self defeating to offer that if he Roman Catholic Church should repudiate Donahue then you would give them back their wafer. You started with some supposed desecration in a probably over the top reaction to the reception of the actions of a kid in Florida and are at the same point as the kid. How did that happen? A kid blunders into a situation where he hostages that which is important to others for an apology for perceived wrongs and PZ’s answer is to do the same.
The absolute last part where you hold that the absolute negativity of some portion of your responses is silly. Lots offer inane promises of prayer but others violence. Every person on earth, you and I and he and she, is whatever. Catholic or Protestant or Atheist or Jew or whatever is a person and will exhibit the same tendencies. You received many emails from people that said they would pray for you and in truth there were probably ten times as much that never emailed you. You received emails from some that in some way shape or form wanted to hurt an in truth for each there were another ten as well. In any population you have your nuts and they are that. Do you follow your own blog? Folks on it eager to offer violence and other ready to decry it.
PZ, this may or may not have been what was intended but it needs to be wrapped up and you may not be able to do that here alon
You really need to have a listen to these guys, John Safran and Father Bob Maguire have a Radio show on every Sunday night on Triple J (Australian youth radio station) and its podcast and live streamed over the intertubes. Yes, Father Bob is a real Catholic Priest and John Safran is a Godless Jew.
Well worth a listen at http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/safran/
Patrick (#328), In my opinion you are nitpicking about minor things. PZ did an excellent job, and I doubt anyone could have done better. What I got out of the conversation was PZ has an excellent understanding of science and the priest has a very poor understanding of science. Any intelligent person listening to the conversation could figure out the priest and the host were full of it, and PZ was by far the most knowledgeable person there.
Patrick @328
That’s called civility. Why does it seem to surprise you?
When PZ posts here, he’s the host. When he does an interview, he’s the guest.
And, by the way, what toning down was there? Because I listened to the whole thing and didn’t find any.
I have had enough.
It is time for Crackergate to end now. Every flippin’ thread, every blog, every minute of every day since this thing started. Where are we at, maybe 12k plus comments? I can’t even go to the Friday Cephalopod without some nimnome mentioning a cracker. Just wait, next week on some far off little blog about knitting, some nit will post a comment saying “…it’s only a cracker!!”
I don’t know how you can take it, PZ. I am so far out of the battle that I can’t be seen with the Hubble, and I am already sick of it. But it won’t matter…the thread that refuses to die. No matter what the topic, no matter who the players are, no matter who gets fired, or banned, or called out in a bar…it will never end. I don’t care anymore.
Crackergate must die.
Selah
BobbyEarle (#332), PZ still hasn’t abused a Jebus cracker. After he completes that task, I expect mobs of rioting Catholics, and several thousand more comments. Crackergate has a long life ahead of it.
BobC…
I happen to agree with PZ, and his stance on the original Cook incident. I also appreciate knowing that death threats came.
There is a point, however, where overkill is just not the word for all of this. I visit MarkC. Chu-Carrol’s blog for a good dose of computer science and some maths; do I really need to see yet another post about the cracker incident, and the 3 figure comment thread? On a computer science blog?
My word of the day (week, month, etc.) is enough.
John Morales at #331 said:
“That’s called civility. Why does it seem to surprise you?”
I think the point Patrick was making is that there appear to be two people named PZ Myers. One is a mild-mannered college prof and the other is a guy who uses the F word to insult those he disagrees with on his personal blog. Why didn’t PZ call the priests “stupid”, “frauds”, and everything else he uses here on his blog?
“When PZ posts here, he’s the host. When he does an interview, he’s the guest.”
You mean that it matters somehow? When PZ is the guest, he must be polite but when he is the host, all bets are off and the let the curses fly, right? I missed something here.
“And, by the way, what toning down was there? Because I listened to the whole thing and didn’t find any.”
Did he use curse words like he does on his blog, yes or no? Did he tell the priests they were stupid? I’d say he “toned” it down a bit.
gleaner63 (#335), even though I thought the host and priest were deluded and wrong about everything, they seemed like nice people. It was a friendly conversation and that’s one of the reasons I enjoyed it. Are you suggesting PZ should have called them stupid? That would have just made him look bad. I thought everything PZ said was very appropriate and effective.
gleaner63:
I already answered that, but it seems to have gone over your head. That was PZ being interviewed on a Catholic radio show, not PZ posting on his blog. If you can’t tell the difference, it’s your own fault – willful or otherwise.
No shit Sherlock.
First of all, they’re “vulgarities” or “coarse language”, not “curse” words. Secondly, it’s the message that matters, not the terminology.
Are you here to defend concern trolls or what?
Patrick #328,
“If you can’t be there what you are here you need to consider if you should be there what you are there or if you should be here what you are here, but that you cannot be what you are here while there or are there while here is no cause for celebration or congratulations.”
So, who’s on first?
“You offered that you would give the wafers to the church should the church repudiate the Catholic League. That was just plain stupid.”
I like the idea of getting the Church to denounce Donahue. A lot of Catholics say Donahue doesn’t represent their views. I doubt the Church likes anyone getting followers who are not directly under their control. Donahue tried to get PZ fired, so this would be an appropriate response.
Although PZ said he wouldn’t trade desecrating crackers for seeing the Pope kick Bill Donahue in the nuts I think that would be MUCH more entertaining.
There were many points made in there by the theists that I expected PZ to jump on top of and tear to shreds, I think I understand why he didn’t. Almost all of the listeners of that show have probably only heard the Catholic side of the story, and were expecting PZ to be Satan himself. What they got instead was someone who was polite and didn’t interrupt or disrespect those that he was disagreeing with.
Shaun, Catholics are good at interruptus.
It (ahem) spills over in conversation.
“Did he use curse words like he does on his blog, yes or no? Did he tell the priests they were stupid? I’d say he “toned” it down a bit.”
Well considering he was on a Catholic radio show with a priest I expect they didn’t want him to swear. When he blogs here it’s his house and his rules. When you go to someone else’s house you follow their (reasonable) rules.
Feynmaniac, it seems apparent that, being unfamiliar with civil discourse, most of the subtext went right over Pat’s and gleaner63’s heads.
“If you believe in love without empirical evidence then you fit the definition of a stalker.”
19’55”
Brilliant – just brilliant.
Z
John at #337,
Maybe it went over *your* head. I was suggesting that if PZ calls people names on this blog, why not do it in another setting? Sorry, but your idea about being the host or the guest is silly. And, if it’s the message and not the terminology that really matters, then *any* terminology, vulgar or otherwise, is okay, right?
Yes, good answer.
And it might help in the future to recall why theists think that question will stump us — because it stumped Jody Foster’s character in the movie “Contact.”
They’ve been stealing it.
I know what you were suggesting, but you’re obviously clueless about what I’ve been saying. Rephrasing it with plenty of circumlocution and analogy so as render my point amenable to your level of comprehension is not something I feel inclined to do.
Look at #343.
Nicely played, PZ, you gave them plenty of rope to hang themselves. They built you up as a ferocious atheist – then ended up disowning Donohue and the “not true Catholics” issuing death threats, falling over themselves to agree with the pleasant mild mannered professor PZ. The description they give the show actually implies they weren’t going to let you say much – “Father Loya sits down with PZ Myers, biology professor and notorious atheist, to talk about God, the Catholic Faith and the Blessed Sacrament.” Nothing there about PZ getting to talk, Loya was meant to be the only one doing the talking ;)
I’ve only listened to the first minute or so and this sounds like a track on a talk radio station from Grand Theft Auto.
/Hmmm, I still haven’t finished GTA: San Andreas
Bobbyearle,
if Crackergate stops without mutating into something else, it will have been a failure.
It’s strange afterall, some American freethinkers seem to believe that their cause will be further improved by rapidly ending this kind of conflict. Let’s not make too much noise about it, this is annoying, I’m fed up, and this just after a few weeks…
What do they think we had to endure in the 60s and the 70s in countries such as France for instance ? Or what about Sweden ?
Yes, they want progress, they want a society which is more tolerant of non believers, but without having to deal with conflicts.
Well, you’ll have to give me an example of civil liberties that have been gained in a nice gentle polite fashion.
This is just the very beginning, and if it stops there, and the bandwaggon doesn’t catch on, you’ll have failed once again.
Why do you refuse to see the absolutely obvious which is that over the last 25 years, despite the fact that non religious people have doubled and gained critical mass of approximately 15% of the American population, this has not SO FAR reduced the share of the religionists, which have remained stable at approx. 80%. Now starts the real conflictual time, when any further progress will necessarily be achieved at the expense of the religionists, who let’s not forget, do see religion as a business, and will not tolerate to loose market share to a new competitor who is only armed with cyberpistols and rational thoughts, isn’t even interested with making money, and that they have absolutely no fucking clue how to deal with.
Remember “you don’t arrest Voltaire !”.
Patrick said:
Is this supposed to be a criticism? If so, it’s just about the lamest, most nitpicking criticism that I have ever encountered……possibly.
You might as well have suggested that PZ was wearing the wrong tie for radio.
Patrick said:
Christ on a motorbike! Arrrrrrrrggggghhhhhhhh!
“The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men.
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up;
And when they were down, they were down.
But when they were only halfway up,
They were neither up nor down!”
Is that what you were trying to say?
What PZ actually said was, “You are all required to commend me on my restraint, too”, in reference to the fact that Father Thomas had first suggested that there are many things that are not open to scientific inquiry, only to contradict himself by later saying that there is nothing about his Catholicism that is not underpinned by evidence. So the obvious question to ask was, which is it: there is evidence for everything that you believe, or there are some things for which no evidence exists?”
And for your “criticism” to have any validity, whatsoever, you would have to show that PZ never acts with restraint on this blog, which is, of course, utter nonsense. He regularly corrects idiocy with the utmost restraint, and when asked a question by a polite creationist, he responds in kind.
Patrick said:
PZ has never said that he wouldn’t desecrate a Koran. He would need a reason to, first and foremost, however. And if you honestly believe that your own Fatwa envy, which we do not thankfully share, is a reason to desecrate a Koran, don’t worry, you are not the first to suggest that, or to suggest that PZ is afraid to piss off Muslims, which is empirically false.
Surprisingly, or perhaps not, he hasn’t received death threats from Muslims, as yet, so your argument fails hopelessly on that point alone.
Patrick said:
What? The point, which seems to have completely gone over your head, was that while many Catholics have been apoplectic about a threat of cracker desecration, there has been little or no criticism of the initial overreaction to Webster Cook, the hysteria from Donahue in attempting to incite letter campaigns to have both PZ and Webster Cook repudiated, censored, or even removed from their positions, and even worse, no condemnation of what is now several death threats.
And it was a clever move on PZ’s part, in my opinion. It was an attempt to “reward” sensible, rational, proportional behavior, while at the same time, isolate Donahue. PZ couldn’t really lose, either, as the dismissal of his offer simply suggests that they too are not willing to criticize one of their own, even though Donahue’s behavior is immeasurably more damaging, in real terms, than anything that PZ or Webster Cook have done, or threatened to do.
Think of it as a wedge strategy, if you will.
Think of it as a wedge strategy, if you will.
I’d prefer the wedgie strategy.
Damian,
I diagree slightly here, and the way I interpret this exchange between the CRI host and PZ is that the host seemed to be actually quite conscient of the damage that Bill Donohue is doing to the reputation of the Catholic Church, and that what he was suggesting was rather critical of him;
And BTW, I think Father Loya also, if hard pressed, wouldn’t have had much problems criticizing Donohue.
I mean it’s quite obvious that because of many other issues, the Catholic hierarchy is going through a lot of internal battles between the hardliners and the softliners, and allthough it would probably be difficult to find someone in the catholic hierarchy who would openly admit that it is acceptable to desecrate the “body of christ”, I wouldn’t surprised if many wouldn’t be ready to speak very negatively of Bill Donohue’s overreaction and smear tactics.
“Posted 305 by: John Morales | July 19, 2008 1:12 AM
I’ve just listened to it, notepad at hand.
Best as I can make out:
00.00.01 Intro
and host asks PZ.
00.55.03 End.”
Thank you John. I did a rough calculation of time allotted to PZM and found it was less than 16 minutes out of 55.(I listened for the first 15 minutes and gave up after finding it so much one sided already). Was the time allocation proportional to Catholics vs. Athiests on Earth I wonder..
Yeah, that Ron’s blog sure is popular. I scrolled down and eventually found two comments on the PZ entry he wrote. And one comment was from Ron himself. Pretty sad. He writes, but nobody seems to care. Maybe he has blog traffic envy?
Neg @349…
My role as a non-believer is to keep whatever the religion de jour is out of public schools, and politics…and I will do anything possible to that end.
My role as a non-believer is not to convert the faithful. No amount of bickering about the Cook case will make the Catholics change their belief system regarding the cracker, and no amount of posturing will make some of them stop making death threats. If I learned nothing else from the ID/creation vs. evolution/critical thought battle, I learned that the IDiots will not change their minds, or beliefs. Same thing here: we say “it’s a cracker”, they say “it’s not a cracker”. What will change? What will the outcome of this be? In the end, it will be business as usual: the cracker will be a cracker, and the cracker will be something other than a cracker.
I guess the futility of it all is what I am annoyed with.
Shorter BobbyEarle: I am a naysayer. This achieves nothing.
Exactly. Just like the expelled saga achieved nothing.
Freudian slip of the day: I initially read the title as “An atheist and an evil Catholic priest have a conversation” Too bad that wasn’t the conversation that really happened: I’d like to see what an admittedly evil Catholic priest had to say about the world.
BobbyEarle is probably a lost cause but what we’re looking for here is not an heroic and blood-spattered “victory.” We leave that to the religious and their god of love – the one who only seems to be interested in the kill rate.
I look back to the development of my own thinking – small village, back of beyond, only religious controversy the rarely articulated but heartfelt struggle between the Primitive Methodists, Wesleyan Methodists and low-church Anglicans about who really had the truth.
Perhaps listening to Bertrand Russell and Jacob Bronowski – yes, we had them on the telly – was not decisive but it was an acknowledgment that there were other ways of thinking and a hint about where such ideas might be found. Just like the links on this blog.
I, for one, will be satisfied if a handful of thinking youngsters is empowered to check out more than one idea before committing themselves on the basis of very limited information. Or if a handful of religious moderates is in future less willing to provide cover for the loonies.
The ideas to which I subscribe will stand or fall on their own merits and I am happy that it should be that way.
Hello, John @356…
I am not sure what “naysayer” means in this context.
The Expelled saga revealed to a lot of people what a horrendous piece of garbage the movie was, and it died a miserable death. But, I don’t think anyone’s beliefs were changed by it. It was good to ridicule the movie, and Stein, and the people who put the whole shebang together.
It is very important to show just how the religibots act when their sacred cows are shown to be the shams that they are. I am not apathetic to any of this, not at all. My annoyance is the constant “it’s just a cracker” no matter where I look. Of course it’s just a cracker, so what? I laughed when I saw the first “hey, I like my cracker with salsa, guacamole, peanut butter, etc.” After seeing it for the 11,000 time, it just got a bit tedious.
Wearing a “It’s just a cracker!” T-shirt will do just what exactly?
Shorter BobbyEarle
BobbyEarle:
Well, you wrote this
What’s the right word, then? Pessimist? Defeatist? Negativist?
BobbyEarle:
then
Right. You’re annoyed because you think it’s futile and you’re annoyed because you find this affair tedious, even though you claim it’s very important to show how “religibots” act when their sacred cows are exposed.
<headshake>
John…
Perhaps realist might be the right word.
I think maybe our wires got crossed. I think the behavior the Catholics in this deal is reprehensible, and I am all for any effort to reveal that to the onlooking public. PZ did the right thing for revealing the threats he received, and the treatment of Cook that started all this.
Out of all that has been said here, and other blogs, there has been a lack of some kind of tangible action that should be taken. Tracking back the Kroll threat was the right thing to do. I am not sure what else should be done to make this sort of thing not happen, i.e. threats, death or otherwise. I am saying, mostly, that debating the “crackeriness” of the snack in question will not change anyone’s belief. I really don’t know what we should do to make this not happen, but I am pretty sure that I know what won’t work. Maybe I shouldn’t have voiced my opinion.
BobbyEarle,
but you’re right, this is clearly not about “converting the faithful”. If some people here think that someone who is as deluded as to be absolutely convinced that a blessed Eucharist is the true “body of Christ”, is going to change his belief because of this, then they are as deluded as he is.
This is about letting the American public opinion know that from now on, there is a significant minority of non believers in this country, who will not stop to express their opinions and will refuse to respect religious beliefs when the religious folks can’t even respect their basic right to disbelieve, their right to express their profound dissatisfaction with the systematic incursion of religion in all matters of public life, their right to be extemely offended by those who maintain that this is a Christian nation, and the level of intolerance manifested by the religionists.
This is about civil liberties, about creating network effects, about influencing public opinion, not about “converting the faithful”.
This is about pulling the overton window on the other side, for once. Because even if you stop them from pulling it further on their side, by as you say, “keeping whatever the religion du jour is out of public schools, and politics”, I’m afraid that they have pulled on that damned Overton window for so many years now that if you don’t pull back, you are simply accepting the status quo.
John…
I don’t think the affair is tedious, I think seeing basically the same comments over and over is. It is important to reveal the actions of the faithful in this matter…to the public at large. That is what I said.
Telling the True Believer that it is just a cracker is futile.
No matter what, to him/her the cracker is not a cracker.
I find it hard to drink my root beer when I shake my head. ;)
This has been incredibly painful to listen to, I could only imagine how painful it was to be a part of. Well done PZ, your resolve is a lesson for us all.
Though for Catholics, they sure went on about ID a lot.
Neg @363…
Thanks for that. You are right on this. Maybe I have been numbed by the Egnors, the Kennys, et al to not recognize this. I guess my problem here is that, to me, the masses who’s beliefs and prejudices are represented by the above mentioned ilk are so vast, that it almost seems that anything we do just won’t matter. That is a sucky way to think, and I know that makes me look like a defeatist. But what else would be the right thing to do, since we will never change their way of thinking?
I am at loss.
Thanks again, Neg.
BobbyEarle #362
What kind of tangible action were you expecting? Mobs rising, knocking off the tops of crosses on steeples, and singing: “Ford’s in his flivver, all’s well with the world.”?
That sort of dramatic happening is so rare that instances are remembered for years. However, getting one or two theists to say “Bill Donohue is a jerk who doesn’t speak for me” or to think “atheists do have the right to not believe” is probably the best we can hope for.
JoJo…
Oh, I don’t know…the mobs rising thing struck a chord!
Writing to UMM in support of PZ is tangible. Contacting the 1800Flowers people about the Kroll threat is tangible.
Damn, the steeple mangling…naa, better not.
for Catholics, they sure went on about ID a lot.
Indeed. One can only conclude that they’re not very good catholics, since the church’s hierarchy has taken the official position that evolution happens, and god wants it that way.
The men in funny hats seem to have realized that what they did to Gallileo cost them something in the PR department, so now they affect the pseudo-sophistication of saying that if the physical world doesn’t gybe with what’s in their written mythology, then you’re just not understanding the mythology. Never mind that many things in the written mythology are demonstrably, laughably, flat-out wrong.
-jcr
Actually, the cracker debate is a good one to keep going. Plenty of Catholics don’t really think about transubstantiation. They just go through the rituals, from habit. Making them think about how idiotic it is can water seeds of doubt that may be trying to sprout. Shakes up the cognitive dissonance.
Look, why do most people not join the Moonies, Mormons or Scientology? Because enough people make fun of, or show contempt for, their beliefs/practices. Transubstantiation isn’t any more or less believable than the Magic Underwear of Mormons. But dragging it onto the same level of obviously crazy makes it impossible to say that Catholicism is any better than the Moonies, the Mormons, whoever. As I said to a Catholic, “You’re making fun of the Mormons for their magic underwear, and you think that a cracker turns into your deity when a guy in a skirt says some mumbo jumbo over it–and then you eat your deity? And this isn’t silly, creepy and crazy, how?”
You have to start getting that “enough people” thing going somehow. “Civilized discourse” won’t do it. Dragging out the belief, and having valid reasons for pointing and laughing at it–LOUDLY–is what will do it. It’s the same thing we do to people who believe the earth is flat. 20-1, most people don’t know for sure that the earth isn’t flat, much less how to prove it. But they’ll be damned if they make themselves look like an idiot by even hinting at any suggestion that they might think the earth is flat.
I’ve just finished listening to the mp3 of the interview, and I just wanted to comment on something that happens right at the very start of the mp3,which quite frankly shocks me as an Australian, and yet, judging by the lack of comment on it so far by others on this blog, is apparently normal in the US.
The whole mp3 kicks off with an by Father Frank Provone, director of Priests for Life (I’m guessing an anti-abortion group of some sort – can’t be bothered googling it). Anyhow, e goes on to quote Adams, saying that democracies always commit suicide, so the founding fathers created a republic, because a republic is based on the rule of law, not the rule of the majority, and then – here’s the bait and switch – that the highest law is the word of Gawd. So you should all get out there and elect officials that understand this.
Come again!?!? I thought you were supposed to have separation of church and state over there – what are priests doing running political ads????
Is this sort of thing so common in the US that it passes without comment, even on blogs like Pharyngula?
The priest, Donohue, Behe, Catholic Bigot radio, and a few others are out of step with their own religion.
Catholism doesn’t have a problem with evolution and the last 4 popes said it was Ok. Pope Pius said, “one Galileo in 2,000 years was enough.” And evolutionary biology is taught at Catholic schools and Notre Dame and other Catholic universities. They have learned that burning scientists at the stake who turn out to be right is bad PR.
It isn’t even particularly antiscience outside of reproductive biology sciences.
The average number of kids/family of US Catholics is identical to the national average. I guess everyone from the priests on down just ignores doctrine and dogma and makes up their own as they go along. Way it should be IMO.
One of the things I found interesting is that the host seems to have a pretty in depth knowledge of this blog’s contents… makes me wonder if he’s been a commenter on any of these “cracker-gate” threads… anyone wanna venture a guess as to whom he might have been on these discussions? Richard? Laughin_Guy?
PZ, congratulations on the performance. Especially on challenging the Catholic church to make an official repudiation of death threats. To bad you didn’t carry that a bit further and challenge them to officially repudiate Bill Donahue (something many Catholics I suspect would secretly thank you for).
To those saying the debate was ‘civil’ … yes, it had the illusion of civility, but the host gave the father about 2.5 times as much air time as PZ – despite the fact that the father was filling up his time with crap generated by something from Sokal Software Inc. Although I must say the father was (if the goal was to inform listeners) very smart to go straight for your essay on the atheist outlook. (But for the father it was a sure loser as a debate strategy.)
PZ did something extremely clever here. He offered to give the Catholics his motly collection of dubious crackers sent to him by anonymous internet denizens if they would disavow Donohue and the troll Death Threaters.
That is entirely within their power and they already partially have by claiming Donohue’s play toy is a secular organization. They can’t stop him but they can point out that Donohue speaks only for himself and the voices in his head.
This would be a win-win situation. PZ puts crackergate behind, which is getting old and boring. A few less morons lose their jobs for sending death threats to PZ and find someone else to sent threats to and lose their jobs that way.
The Catholic church gets a motley collection of anonymous crackers that may include Jesus. God ought to be worth a few sentences about what an idiot Donohue is, since it is true anyway.
The result: Dead silence. Obviously no one cares about Jesus, God, or even the crackers. This is simply an opportunity for several fringe groups to rant and rave about issues they probably don’t even care about. As McCluhan said, “the ranting and raving is the message.”
demallien
a) this is CATHOLIC radio international what would you expect ?
b) even with separation of church and state, nothing stops anybody from placing such stupid advertisments
c) yes, it’s very common in the US, when even G.W.Bush managed to say :
“I don’t know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God”
or
“There is no such thing as separation of church and state in the Constitution. It is a lie of the Left and we are not going to take it anymore.” –Pat Robertson, November 1993 during an address to the American Center for Law and Justice
one of my favourites…
“How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy money changers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top?”–Pat Robertson, The New World Order, p.227
You have one mighty thick hide, PZ. Man.
These so-called “interviews” are unbearably frustrating to listen to – especially when the ‘moderator’ is anything BUT moderate. Or remotely objective. Or even slightly intelligent.
It’s like listening to a conversation bogged down in mollasses.
I hereby tender my commendation to you for your remarkable restraint (duly witnessed by an offical notary at my side).
#369…
“. One can only conclude that they’re not very good catholics, since the church’s hierarchy has taken the official position that evolution happens, and god wants it that way.”
Been a tad of Jesuit backsliding since JP2 went to meet his maker…
Benny baby is flirting with IDiocy in a pragmatic way..and has been since he managed to back stab his way to the top doggy spot…
The old dogma is a tad moth(science) eaten at the edges…he is looking for new cloth to blind his flock with…IDiocy looks fair enough…it sounded like a perfect tool to bash ‘ real’ science with cos it boasted it was a science and used sciency sounding arguments(platitudes) and it was modern and fresh…just the thing to foist on a slightly more clued…not quite so ignorant… public….but he had to fire the Vatican observatory boss at the time…about a couple of months into his tenure as Pope… because the Astronemer publicly poured scorn and ‘real’ science on Id…suddenly ill health and family commitments required him to re-evaluate his priorities…Hmmm!
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=18503
A link to the story back then…
There are also a few….more then several less then all… Cardinals and assorted hangers on… that are creeping along the ID alley…
Cardinal Schonborn
Archbishop of Perth, Barry Hickey
Archbishop Naumann
Archbishop Donald Wuerl.
And a cast of probably hundreds…
It does seem that ID is the favoured abomination these clowns are looking at as a successor to traditional RC ancient dogma…cos like the arc the dogma is holed below the reality line and sinking like a stone…
And the smoking gun…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/aug/28/religion.pope
Benny baby is going IDiotic…read it and weep…cos evolutionary theory is definitely not on the agenda…
#350 Sorry but it wasn’t fun watching our side get stepped on. It just wasn’t smart.
Priest stars coming off as a crank I more or less tuned out at that time. I like all the qualifying he does. Very ‘theologist’ type talk. Real science, science itself, real faith, real catholicism, not what you think of as catholicism, etc. /yawn.
demallien #371: “Is this sort of thing so common in the US that it passes without comment…?”
Yes.
Just finished it. The priest is full of shit. The Catholic reality that PZ has encountered is the unreality? Nice, so now he doesn’t have to deal with it. He’ll only respond if you hit on something he considers the ‘real’ religion, which is whatever doesn’t make him uncomfortable. The sex scandals were committed by unreal priests to unreal victims, I’m sure.
the strangest brew,
actually this is a more detailed interview with Dominique Dassot who is a french scientist who heads the “Center for Studies and Prospectives on Science” or CEP, a group
of 700 European Catholic scientists and intellectuals based in France, which is now what it is fair to call the European equivallent to the Discovery Institute.
They are trying to gain influence in competition with the pontifical academy of sciences, and also trying to bring their anti-evolutionist message to the European parlementarians (so far without much success).
http://ncronline.org/mainpage/specialdocuments/tassot_interview.pdf
http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/site/content/view/199/63/
And of course, an article the pope will not have read:
“The Curious Case of the One-Man Band
The work of Guy Berthault: Revolutionary Geology or xtravagant Hubris?”
http://www.evolutionpages.com/berthault_critique.htm
demallien #371
As I’m sure you know, the two main political parties in the U.S. are the Democratic Party (more or less liberal) and the Republican Party (rather conservative). One of the Republican’s favorite sneers towards the Democrats is that the U.S. isn’t a democracy, it’s a republic. Therefore the Democratic Party doesn’t apply to America and Democrats aren’t real Americans. The Democrat’s response is that the U.S. is a representative democratic republic.
By making the anti-democracy comments Provone is just announcing that he’s a political conservative by uttering a meaningless conservative slogan. The democracy he and Adams were denouncing is mob rule, not representative democracy as found in every Western country.
Separation of church and state is rather murky. As long as the priest isn’t saying “Vote for John Smith because Jesus loves him, don’t vote for Tom Brown because he’s a tool of Satan,” religious figures can get away with almost any political utterance. Provone’s statements were so generic that, as I said before, he was just establishing his position in the political spectrum.
Yes. To paraphrase Shakespeare, it was a statement full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
JoJo,
If one really wanted to upset Republicans one could point out the US is still, despite Dubya’s best efforts, a liberal democracy. Now I imagine the concept of a liberal democracy will be something alien to them, so one then explains a liberal democracy is a state where the right of the government to enact whatever legislation it likes is restricted by the human rights of the populace. Thus in a liberal democracy one cannot pass legislation that restricts the rights of a minority. For example liberal democracies do not allow restrictions of rights based on skin colour, religion, sexuality etc.
Should anyone attempt to explain all that to a Republican (or Tory in the UK) I do suggest standing well back. That way you will not get covered in gunge when their head explodes.
#383
Thanks for that link…that was quite interesting if not completely depressing.. ;-)
Then I looked at the link again and recognised it…
‘truth …(or actually lies)…in science’ was a group of disaffected morons that got into a bath of mildly warm water a year or so ago in Blighty…
They assembled a pack of lies and tried distributing the nonsense to every school in the country…they were addressed to the science departments and posed the view that their ‘message’ was completely in tune with the current curriculum as presented by the department for education and skills…the government dept supposedly in charge of education…
It was attempting to play the ‘balance’ agenda..i.e…it is only fair to teach in science the alternative possibilities regarding origins and the subsequent creation of the earth and it’s denizens…
One of the morons involved with this group..actually a founder member if I remember rightly…is a so called head of the science dep at one of the creationist mills in Blighty…one of the ‘City Academies’ actually …a generic term for private initiatives…meaning civic minded rich folks could literally buy a school and run it as they see fit…as long as certain national curriculum guidelines were followed…the government would pick up the rest of the tab from then on…this stricture does not prevent anyone from teaching there own agenda…as in…”this evilution theory has to be taught so we do a cursory outline…but here is the real story kiddies…”
This link gives a background to the scandal…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4371165,00.html
Anyway the Titular head of science Mr Stephen Layfield
made a speech …the import of which was the promotion of creationism over evolutionary theory…it caused a shit storm…the speech was once freely available on the net before it was removed quite sharpish after the furore erupted …but not sharpish enough…a copy still remains out there…here it is…it is the real truth in their lies…
http://www.darwinwars.com/lunatic/liars/layfield.html
He has since decided to add his delusional skills to TinS…but they are not having a lot of impact …as yet…but they are still trying…
The problem with the Father’s arguments is that his “proofs” for god were rhetorical flourishes about “love”, “beauty” etc.
But then the Catholic church officially makes positive empirical assertions like the cracker literally becomes the creator of the Universe.
But compare this moderator with the guys at KKMS – I thought this one was much less annoying.
As a priest I have been insulted and called all kinds of foul names on this blog. I think when PZ is face to face with someone he finds it harder to be rude. That may be hypocritical, but it is human. Perhaps he will try such civilized behavior here…?
Firstly, what the hell was that republic shit at the start? They are deliberately trying to patronise their audience.
Secondly, the ‘Father’ didn’t have a single argument to give, let alone a good one.
Thirdly, the host seemed very rude to PZ. He kept interrupting PZ seconds after asking him a question (Fox News style) and didn’t give him anything like the time he gave the ‘Father’.
Aquaria #370
Look, why do most people not join the Moonies, Mormons or Scientology? Because enough people make fun of, or show contempt for, their beliefs/practices.
Most people accept the religion of their parents. There are about the same number of Catholics, Protestants, Mormons and Moonies in each generation.
“Civility” is overrated.
#389
“As a priest I have been insulted and called all kinds of foul names on this blog.”
Unfortunately Priests…of any cult …do seem to have a rather bad name…maybe if they tried a little more honesty in their delusions they might gain a little more respect…
“I think when PZ is face to face with someone he finds it harder to be rude.”
Unlike some religiously motivated bunnies that prefer death threats to dialogue…
“That may be hypocritical,”
But not when it is a priest waffling pseudo claptrap and monumentally failing to understand the role of science especially when it does not agree with a particular delusion…
Then proceeding to contradict himself on almost every point…it hardly needed PZ there to point it out to the listeners… it was blatantly obvious that the priest and the so called presenter was just blathering to eat up air time…rather then face the evidence of reason and Science…
“but it is human.”
Yep nothing to do with superfluous supernatural sky fairies..
“Perhaps he will try such civilized behavior here…?
Bit rich demanding civility coming from a representative of an organisation that is anything except civilised…given their attitude to sexual abuse of young kids by their own bunnies…and their typically uncivilised attitude towards gays and women…
You’ve been insulted because you’ve acted in a way that deserves to be ridiculed.
I can’t wait until J starts citing Horowitz.
oops…wrong thread.
MM..HMM!
I’m halfway through and I commend PZ’s restraint. I’m gagging… too much woo woo talk…
Assuming anyone’s going to take notice of comments this far down the thread, I think it’s at least worth going on record as an atheist as being opposed to taking these crackers under false pretenses on the grounds that it is apparently disruptive to the ceremony and is therefore rude.
The Catholics have made the comparison with going into a mosque, taking a copy of the Qur’an and defacing it. The response presented by PZ and parroted by his readers (it distresses me how many soi -disant “rationalists” merely parrot arguments of high-profile atheists rather than doing the hard work of independent thought) is that Qur’ans aren’t just handed out by Mullahs to anyone who asks for one.
I have a feeling if I were to go to the nearest Mosque and ask a Mullah for a copy of the Qur’an, he would probably give me one under the assumption I’m going to read it rather than desecrating it on YouTube. I doubt it would occur to him to even ask.
For me to then do so would violate his trust, offend Muslims for the sake of proving it’s only ink and paper, and lower my status as a civil, level-headed homosapian.
So at the risk of having some cdesign proponentsist interpret my dissent as proof that the issue of whether crackers are magic is controversial and should therefore be taught in public schools, I’d like to encourage my fellow atheists not to obtain any more crackers.
Let the Catholics have their ceremony. To make off with their magic crackers is much the same as going to a knitting circle and taking their needles away.
@ the strangest brew: Please stop using ellipses dots as a hint that you’re trailing off to make the reader think!
#400
I use the three dots to indicate a pause in speech or text flow…
But if that is not the usual protocol that folks are used to I can easily leave them out…tis no biggy…
“I can easily leave them out…tis no biggy…”
Shazzbat, difficult to break certain habits.
You seem uninformed.
Did you read what actually transpired?
I love the fact that P.Z. simply asked for someone from the Catholic church to disavow what Donohue and other Catholics are doing, and he’d turn over the wafers, and the response was in the negative. Why? Because “we don’t control Donahue”, and then he quickly changed the subject.
They have no problem with disavowing the actions of others that they certainly don’t control. So what the difference? In the absence of any other explanation, we must conclude it is because they do not want to, that they certainly do agree with their behaviour.
And of course the nauseating amount of the no true Scotsman fallacy.
Peter Vesuwalla, Comment #399:
“I have a feeling if I were to go to the nearest Mosque and ask a Mullah for a copy of the Qur’an, he would probably give me one under the assumption I’m going to read it rather than desecrating it on YouTube. I doubt it would occur to him to even ask.
For me to then do so would violate his trust, offend Muslims for the sake of proving it’s only ink and paper”.
The question has never been whether or not it would violate someones trust, or be offensive. The question has been whether or not it is illegal. If a Qur’an is given to someone without an obligation to return it then they can do whatever they want with it.
Think of it as a form of martyrdom, “Father”. As a self-satisfied, condescending, pompous prig, a bit of suffering would be good for your soul. Maybe it’ll teach you to treat others with respect before whining that they’re not respecting you.
I hit 113 comments and the slider is about 1/4 way down – Holy Crackers!
bobbyearle:
This is an open forum and the host is uncommonly generous in his tolerance of commenters, many of whom are opinionated.
Thing is, the moment you express your opinion, others can express their opinion of your opinion.
Ron — you’re an asshole, and I really hate doing this but…..I agree with you regarding Scooter. He’s wrong for threatening you bodily harm just because you’re an insufferable unhygienic coprophagic prick. (Seriously, dude — a shower wouldn’t kill you. The funk of cornchips and sour milk is oozing off you so fiercely I can smell it over the intartubes. It’s scary. Soap is your friend.)
Scooter — cut it out. You don’t need to prove to us the size of your penis; pictures of it are the leading link on “aintitpathetic.com” under the heading “There’s not enough of this tallywhacker to tally”. Take your testosterone addled pate and go outback and bang it against a tree a few times until your head clears, will you?
Oh, and for Fr. Loya — Scooter is “no true atheist”. Yeah, that’s the ticket. ;)
horse-pheathers, you’d be referring to this?
If you’d been following the threads, Ron made much of his being a red-neck. Scooter just out-red-necked him.
Ron’s reaction?
PZ
Bah. Wonder if he peed himself?
Posted by: Ron in Houston | July 18, 2008 9:48 PM
Threatening to kick your ass and hand you your nuts on a plate – esppecially since scooter was not seeking to stalk you, but instead invited you to his (or her) house as the venue for the beating and castration – is most definitely not a “terroristic threat.” As was recently said to me by truth machine after my admittedly snarky and specious attempt to ridicule someone by twisting the intent behind their words (hey, we all have our moments), “congratulations on joining the ranks of the intellectually dishonest.” (This offense, however, is especially ridiculous, because it is the very same one that the current administration has used to great effect in getting us bogged down in a nonsensical conflict that has seriously damaged both this country’s well-being and its standing in the world, and also because it explicitly states that the person making the threat of is a criminal of the worst connotation in today’s society.) If you truly think that was a terrorist-style threat, I suggest that you go find out for yourself – as I have – exactly what that word means when it comes to threats – and acts – of violence. Until then, keep your ridiculous conflation of simple aggression with terrorism out of everyone’s face. Seriously, it only shows your ignorance on the subject.
hey brokenSoldier, I tried posting a comment on your blog (nothing important though) and it disappeared – do you moderate comments or could there be a glitch?
brokenSoldier, presumably Ron thinks this is typical terrorist M.O.
Yeah, that will terrorise the populace!
Windy,
There has to be a glitch, because I definitely don’t have any objection to anyone posting comments – its actually quite the opposite. I just thought no one had popped around to even offer a comment. Either that, or I have somehow screwed up the setup – which is entirely possible, because I’m an idiot when it comes to complex HTML and managing a blog site. The only reason that thing looks halfway organized is because blogsome offers pre-packaged themes! I’ll try to fix it, and I hope you come back again and try to repost – I’d appreciate any commentary or criticism you have to offer.
Windy,
Upon further examination, I am indeed an idiot. I was looking for the problem, which I was guessing to be that I hadn’t selected the ‘automatically approve comments’ option, when I found the page that holds all comments pending approval. Before just now, I didn’t even know that page was on there, and had never even seen it! (What is strange, though this may be another of my idiot moments – is that there doesn’t even seem to be an option on blogsome to allow comments to post unmoderated.)
Your comment is now approved and posted. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope I can keep it interesting enough to keep ya coming back.
There are about the same number of Catholics, Protestants, Mormons and Moonies in each generation.
If that’s correct (a citation wouldn’t hurt), can we now call evangelism, and the missionaries so enamored with it, the failures that they are and move on?
…and would the damn religionauts who keep trying to convince us their nonsense has some relevance please just shut the hell up already?
In the absence of any other explanation, we must conclude it is because they do not want to, that they certainly do agree with their behaviour.
Nobody wants to admit having trained their own personal attack dog, especially when it goes after things indiscriminately.
OTOH, even junkyard dogs have their value…
As a
priesttroll I have been insulted and called all kinds of foul names on this blog.fixed.
Posted by: John Morales | July 20, 2008 1:42 AM
I’d offer to him that just because he’s terrified of actually having to answer to his comments to someone’s face does not mean that the aggressive reaction to those comments are terrorism – it simply means that he has a logically flawed and hilariously unreasonable bark, while possessing a pathetically nonexistent bite.
It’s funny how they just jump in and out, not allowing PZ to reply.
Windy,
I just corrected another one of my moments of idiocy! All comments are now able to post without my approval. Man, I feel like I’m getting the hang of it, but then again, I’m sure there are plenty of stops left for my idiot train to stop at in the future…
@421: Glad I could help in solving the mystery, I did think it was strange that there were no comments on your blog yet :)
Hey brokenSoldier, hope you get to the point you have to enable moderation again ;)
Good luck!
Posted by: John Morales | July 20, 2008 4:39 AM
Haha, I can only aspire to achieve PZ’s current level of inpiring ire among the ranks of the irrational. Here’s hoping, though!
ah, damn it…
*inspiring ire…
I think I understand now! “Real Science” is whatever supports the priest believes in and “Real Catholicism” doesn’t exist outside of the priest’s mind.
I listened to PZ debating that papist priest and I think he was much too easy with him. I would have been a lot more forceful with his illogical reasons of belief and my questions would be put to make the papist stutter and offer nothing but obsequious crap. When the papist ranted on with the nonsense about the transformation of that cracker, I would have retorted with, “Just because you and millions of deluded dolts believe that insanity does not make it so.” Simple as that. After the priests make the transformation to blood and guts, let’s test the cracker for DNA. And if he states that it is through faith and the miracle of transubstantiation and not verifiable by physical means, then I will counter that it is only changing in your unstable mind and nowhere else. Prove it.
All forms of contraception other than the Billings method are prohibited. – Emmet Caulfield
Otherwise known as the rhythm method, or Roman roulette.
Otherwise known as the rhythm method, or Roman roulette.
Whose practitioners are otherwise known as parents.
For those that didn’t listen to the whole thing here is my synopsis:
Total time approx 55min
Talk Times (approx):
Host: 22:30
PZ: 13:00
Loya: 19:00
The host monopolized the interview and seemed to enjoy the sound of his own voice. He didn’t contrbute much of anything and was mostly a distraction (“uh huh, uh huh”).
PZ didn’t get to talk very long without being interrupted but was usually able to make his points. This was a good lesson in being prepared to state your case and to respond within a 30 second time frame.
I learned the most from Father Loya such as:
Not knowing god is to know god which is (of course) proof of god.
We can’t prove god – but we CAN “know” god. (say this in a smug, vaguely mysterious tone of voice)
Science “undergirds” everything regarding the catholic faith. (say this with a straight face – very serious)
JerryFLA, I paused and jotted down times and a brief note as I listened. See #305.