How sad. I no longer have the lead headline at Spirit Daily: I’ve been bumped by WORRIES ON POTTER BEAR OUT IN AN EXPLOSION OF TEEN WITCHCRAFT. How fickle these Catholics are, and how easily they are frightened by imaginary concerns.
(By the way, Spirit Daily is one of the best places to go if you want to see spiritual wackaloonery — they glean the web for the craziest stuff.)
Those poor scaredy-catlicks!
When I read that link, I first had a mental image of a bear at a pottery wheel. Ew, clay under those long claws? (Yes, it’s time for my nap. Why do you ask?)
Wow, that site is like a horseshit catalogue.
My first time to be first!
Wow, that was really terrible. Getting bumped off by something so meek must be insulting.
Sigh.. I remember once a local preacher in PA had people burning Harry Potter books outside Borders. Hey, maybe I should start carrying a wand to scare away Christian wack-jobs… Magic or not, at least it’ll keep the Jehovah’s witnesses off my lawn.
hmm… your one smart one there PZ. PZ= Phull of Zhit
Crazy Catholics? Maybe.. I think one day when your soul is seperating from your body and you see all the filthy things you have said.. you will come to realize that the host that you so eagerly thrust the rusty nail threw will be there smiling back at you as you take your one way trip to hell. Now, I am not condeming you and I hope to God that you do not go there, but I think you are preparing such a trip yourself, bye your pride and self love. Your a sad little angry man, who has been drenched in self pity and victimhood for so many years, not even your little pitiful acolytes can dig you out of the hole that you have dug for yourself.
Yes, PZ.. You need more than any help I or the world can offer you. You need an exorcism.
Vade Retro Satana, Ipse Venena Bibas!
>< )))*>
In all fairness, the witchcraft article does have a catchy title: Heresy in the Hood II: Witchcraft among Children and Teens in America
I imagine only Bill Donohue is the only person capable of staying angry about the cracker deal for more than a few hours, anyway.
Saint Michael,
There’s no such thing as God, just like there’s no such thing as the Tooth Fairy.
How sad it is that you base your life on the contents of an ancient myth.
Begone troll.
PZ, you shouldn’t goad me to read such concentrated stupidity. I still need a working brain for my career in science.
To: The Adamant Atheist
You too will be singing a whole new tune right before you die, in fact I can guarantee you that before you die you will think of God, you will call his name, and you will wish secretly that you had been a believer. In your fear, as your lungs rasp for that last dying breath and you look out into an unfocused world.. You will call out G-O-D.
So do whatever you want. Put your dunce hat back on and dance your little jig here in front of your audience.. The Storm is coming for ya.
Saint Michael the Archangel (really, with that grammar and spelling?) @ #6:
PZ: Maybe some of you ilk could perform one for you at the next Pharyngufest? Granted, it wouldn’t be the official Roman Catholic version, but it would involve beer and be a lot more fun… just a thought.
How do you know the Muslims aren’t right? Or the Hindus?
You have no evidence for your claims, just outlandish assertions.
To pcarin:
I think you will be pleasently surprised.. the backlash of this hasn’t even started and it will go on for years, most likely until the day that PZ finally kicks the bucket and stops wasting good clean air on his pompous and pride filled theories.
Yes. The party is just getting started. I think most ppl will not rest until PZ gets fired and loses all academic qualifications that he has left.. it really doesn’t matter, as of right now he is just a washed up, boring, and diseased professor that wouldn’t know the true meaning of evolution if it smacked him in the face.
I really couldn’t read much more than the opening paragraphs….
Are they scared of the competition, or that the brainwashing of their youth was being undone.
The link between Harry Potter (The literary and Film phenomenia) and Wicca (The religion) is tenuous at best.
They’re terrified of (and will turn on) anything that threatens the control they wish to exercise over their, (and anyone elses) children.
To #11:
Yes I saw the typos it’s late here and I am tired. Really I don’t give a jack since I am posting on a POS blog like this. Seriously does it really matter? =D NOPE.
Your all unintelligible beings and most likely evolved from a rock.. so the point is moot.
Dear Saint Michael the Archangel,
1) Learn to spell.
2) Take a grammar class.
3) I.E. Learn proper comma, hyphen and pronoun usage.
It is painful to read your comments, not because of how hateful they are but because you write like a child.
@ #13:
You asshats are tireless, I’ll give you that.
(also, #11 should say “Maybe some of your ilk”)
To Stefan:
Seriously? Your actually trying to insult me on my grammer? LOL! You are truly a waste of time, go crawl back into that little hole from whence you came.
Saint Michael the Archangel @ 15
me @ #13
Oops :)
St. Michael .. etc. etc.:
Nope it doesn’t matter, if you’re cool with looking like a semi-literate moron.
What a ridiculously shrill article. Essentially, she’s afraid her made-up religion is being threatened by someone else’s made-up religion.
Saint Michael,
:sigh: Since I’ve come to this site, I’ve been desperate to have a legitimate argument with people of faith. I doubt I’ll get one from you, an obvious troll and a bad one at that, but I’ll try anyway.
Why do you think your ideas are correct? What makes you think Christianity is any truer than any of the countless other mythical traditions that have emerged over the years?
St Michael, can you offer any proof of God? The bible cannot prove God as it assumes he exists (in the beggining). Surely you have some reason for believing that isn’t based on the bible or personal feeling?
Saint Michael the Archangel,
Your poor grammar is the sign of a weak and uneducated mind, but I guess you’re too tired (poor bigoted baby) to understand that.
Arrr, you too will be sin’in’ a whole new tune right before you die, in fact I can guarantee you that before you die you will think o’ God, you will call his name, and you will wish secretly that you had been a belie’er. In your fear, as your lungs rasp for that last dyin’ breath and you look out int’ an unfocused world.. You will call out G-o-d.
So do whate’er you want. Put your dunce hat back on and dance your little jig har in front o’ your audience.. The Storm is comin’ for ya. Aye, me parrot concurs.
Don’t worry St. Michael, if PZ dies without begging Crackers the Deity for forgiveness, you Christians can always make up a story about his deathbed conversion. It certainly won’t be the first time you’ve done that.
@St Michael –
You really are an insufferable bore, did you know that? Nobody here is afraid of your dreary, predictable, my-skydaddy’s-gonna-belt-you-up threats. Nobody. You’re repetitious and dull. Please go mutter your malevolence to some invisible friends on streetcorners, will ya?
in fact I can guarantee you that before you die you will think o’ God, you will call his name, and you will wish secretly that you had been a belie’er.
How can you guarantee this? You can’t even show that god exists.
Adamant Atheist:
Tell ya what, if you really want to have an intelligible discussion on this, I am open to it. Please visit: http://www.new.facebook.com/board.php?uid=5584629838 and start up a discussion post. I will reply to you and we’ll go from there. Honestly, I don’t think that your interested in anything that I truly believe in, or you wouldn’t be on this sadistically wackjob of a blog.
Ciao,
St. Michael
@Brian English #22
You are asking for too much. The great St. Michael cannot even be bothered with the correct use of the english language.
#28–
You’re right, I’m actually not terribly interested in what you believe in, nor do I expect you to care much for what I believe in. The issue is, what does the evidence show? I’m interested in a truly dispassionate examination of what is real in the universe. Personal beliefs are of little importance. Sorry.
That english you trying to speak?
Aw, damn! Did I get here too late for an apparition of the divine archangel Michael? Rats! I was going to teach him the difference between possessive “your” and contractive “you’re” (because it totally screws up your credibility as an ethereal superbeing if you can’t handle basic English).
Adamant:
Exactly, come into the site and we’ll take it from there. I do not have the time or the patience to post via an unreliable message board such as this.
Posted by: Saint Michael the Antichrist | July 25, 2008 1:53 AM
Really, why do you have so much trouble with your (belonging to you) and you’re (the contraction of “you are”)?? You’ve messed it up twice that I noticed, and I wasn’t even really looking.
But let’s not let that matter. You really are a hate filled individual, aren’t you? Telling us all that we are going to go to hell, a completely unsubstantiated viewpoint, unless you (a) can prove God / hell actually exists, and (b) know what decision God will choose to make.
Seriously, are you telling me that you, a Christian, knows the mind of God? Especially when the bible says that the mind of God is ineffable?
Perhaps you’d like to think your (notice the spelling) viewpoint through more fully before you post again. And perhaps some anger management classes might help (might help a few of the atheists here too, though).
#33–
I don’t share your assessment of this blog. If you wish to have an exchange, we do it here.
At any rate, I’m off for the night. Someone else please take up the skeptical torch.
TO Louis Irving:
You obviously didn’t read my post. I did not condemn anyone to hell. First learn how to read and then you can correct others on their gramatical mistakes.
Nor did I judge anyone, in fact I said “I hope you do not go to hell” and that is true, I wouldn’t wish that on PZ or anyone else, I know what kind of place that is, I have had my own experiences.
Well, after reading that article, I expect there will be an uptick in child abuse incidents among the families of those who read that tripe.
Back to the article, the author blames Scooby Doo, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Pokemon (wtf?) with leading the children to witchcraft. Seriously, does the author have any idea how absurd it would be to get one’s beliefs from a children’s story or a television show? I guess that’s likely how she came across her beliefs, so she may have a point there.
To The Adamant Atheist:
Ya that is b/c you have a whole legion of followers here to back you up, insult, and heckle anyone that actually poses a threat to you. That is fine, if you are not willing to meet at a nuetral place where each of us could have some room to move, then any discussion we could have had, is now over.
The lack of knowledge here burns. First of all what are fairy tales? King Arthur? Alice in Wonderland? The Victorians loved all things magical and mystical and there was a huge resurgence in interest for those things at the turn of the 20th century. So no this is not the first time.
Humans enjoy fantasy stories, we like hearing/reading of fantastic things that couldn’t exist but kind of hope they did. I guess some people who can’t separate fantasy from reality when it come to religion also can’t understand how to do so with fiction? However most people regardless of if they are religious or not seem to be able to grasp the concept that fiction isn’t real.
Who is like unto God @13,
he is just a … diseased professor
Some free legal advice for you, popelicker. Before you write this sort of thing publicly in future, you might wish to bone up on what is deemed per se defamatory. Unlikely as it might seem, you might have assets one day, and if you go on doing this sort of thing you’ll risk losing them.
Now get back in your mother’s basement, kneel before one of her idols and pray for us to burn in hell like a good little papist.
gdlchmst @ #29:
Don’t be too hard on him. Being an archangel, he’s probably translating from Aramaic or Enochian or some shit.
Hunestly, ah dun’t theenk thet yuore interested in unytheeng thet ah trooly beleeefe-a in, ore yuoo vuooldn’t be-a oon thees sedeesticelly veckjub ooff a blug, acco’din’ t’ th’ code o’ th’ heells! Bawk Bawk Bawk! Fry mah hide!
To Mrs Tilton:
HAHAHAHAHA!!!! Are you kidding me?
//Before you write this sort of thing publicly in future, you might wish to bone up on what is deemed per se defamatory.//
Oh I believe and fully support all of what I said. I will not rest until he is fired. I will not rest until he has lost everything that he holds dear, if that is his wicked heart actually knows and understands love. I will not rest until this piece of filth suffers for every insult, every action, and every thing that he did to insult Christ, his church, and all of the Christians in the world.
No I will not rest.. and neither will the other 1.1 billion Catholics when they learn what this little worm has done.
Must be rough being Catholic. They seem to see enemies everywhere, and constantly either chase or run from shadows.
LOL, I do check in to see what they are promoting there on a regular basis. Not that they in any way define what is hugely topical from an RC standpoint, but to see what they are trying to drive. They are sort of the “Drudge Report” of Catholicism and the site even borrows Drudge’s format and web skin which is to say the intentionally copy his layout. And they do tend to go for the craziest stuff,
That you got “bumped” over witchcraft concerns is dishonest. The deal about kids enamored by pop culture fiction embracing Wicca is sort of old news, I’ve read about the same from prominent Wiccans (and why this should be embraced and fostered) in books published near a decade ago.
The PZ Myers side show is off to the right and in the same spot it has held. You weren’t bumped by magic (or magik for those who prefer), This carnival sideshow is off to the right in the same place as where it began and where it will ultimately fall from as all sensationalism does. You were never their headline.
Sorry Dude. You have this weird ego thing going on. But why post that you have been bumped from the headlines from a site where you have recently been a sidebar and never more than that? Spirit Daily is definitely gauged toward the right wing of Catholicism with a traditional leaning (i.e. folk still grappling with Vatican II although it does not speak to their readership in whole).
You may achieve headline status there and that may or may not work out well for you. That is to be seen. I love fun and I love anticipation and your carnival offers it all. Heralding that sites that never headlined you no longer headline you is …. well….. odd.
Maybe somebody told you that you were the lead there but no more. You weren’t. or maybe you misunderstood what they said. How would I know. Your mistake or theirs, either way. But you’re posting about being bounced from the top of what you never were, poking at them in the process. You’re off to the right where you have been at least as long as this recent sideshow allowed. This is getting to the point that you are drawing attention to your losing top billing on sites that you never had in the first place and you would not have wanted anyway. Somewhere in that chaim you ran away with yourself. Send a note when you get back.
When I was growing up in the 1980s, I had many friends whose parents forbid them from playing Dungeons & Dragons and any computer role-playing games of a similar nature. Their parents said it was the equivalent of witchcraft and devil worship. There was also a Dungeons & Dragons cartoon on TV in 1983 that some self-righteous do-gooders tried to get pulled off the air.
I can’t believe people still use the word “heresy.” The only time I’ve ever heard it used is in fantasy/sci-fi.
Yessooh eh ser th’ typus it’s lete-a hyer un’ eh’s tured, cooss it ell t’ terneshun. Reelly eh duesn’t geefe-a a jeck oon eccuoont oo’ eh’s pusteen’ oon a POS blug leeke-a thees. Um gesh dee bork, bork! Sereeuoosly dues it poo’ffool metter? =D NOPE. Yer ell uneentellygible-a beeen’s un’ must leekely ifulfed foom a ruck. Shet meh muoot!. su th’ pueent is muut. Um de hur de hur de hur.
Wow…Catholics are insane, they obsess over little things, and now we have a troll here? I am ashamed I was once one of you people.
I like how dated the references are — it might as well have mentioned I Dream of Genie, Francis the Talking Mule, and My Mother the Car. What next, that demon music, jazz?
And did you know Buffy, Charmed and Sabrina the Teenage Witch are part of a recent flurry of television shows depicting witchcraft.
Recent?!
Oh yeh, it’s a religion of love and forgiveness alright. Do Christians get a different dictionary than the rest of us? They really don’t seem to understand either term.
Haha, Tulse (#51) that’s spot on! The eternal problem with any sort of “this is what the kids are into” article is that it’s bound to be several years behind the curve. The article even mentions some horridly stupid witchcraft-themed movie that I say when I was a teen.
It still beats trying to get children to learn about religion from their science teacher.
I, Jesus, tell you to back off, because I’m not insulted.
How many more people have to die and/or have their lives ruined because hate-filled fanatics like you think you know how I feel?
At least they’ve finally made it to the 20th century. Most of the time their arguments are 19th century or earlier.
To Venger:
Oh ya.. ya’ll got the right book.. lets see here pg 666 reads “If you really want to piss off Catholics, take their most holy blody and blood of Christ in the holy Eucharist and stab it with a rusty nail, then post it on the internet”.
Then on to pg. 666
A. When you have acquired the right response from the Catholics, turn their righteous anger back on them and tell them their book is supposed to teach love and not hate or anger.
—————-
Your a real bright one, aren’t ya?
Gotta love this headline:
“Prayer defeats Ohio abortion center”
What I can never fathom is how these people always draw distinctions between things like Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings. While HP stuff is CORRUPTING EVIL, LotR is a great story about good vs. evil that every good Christian should read.
Similar with the Chronicles of Narnia. What the heck is the difference???
… mostly as an excuse to ditch school. But every “in-depth” report I’ve seen about The Drug Culture or The Gang Culture among the kids is exactly the same; staggeringly stupid, alarmist bullshit. With all of these horrible dangers it’s amazing that most kids manage to grow up – into normal adults, even.
Venger,
The problem is that they don’t have any dictionaries, or textbooks, or any books, except for that paperweight they call the bible.
St. Michael wrote:
My response:
And how do you plan to exact this suffering, may I ask?
St. Michael also wrote:
My response:
Do tell.
The funny part is that you don’t even understand what the funny part is.
Or maybe you do, in which case, hats off to you.
But if you don’t, well… Trust me. Everyone else here does.
I don’t know how people can remain Catholics. This whole cracker thing is the most experience I’ve had with them and I’m already completely bored with them. We got a couple of interesting people who came here who actually wanted to debate and were open to it, but then we got a lot more gibbering idiots. I don’t know about anyone else, but I think from now on, I’m just going to completely ignore the more blatant or abrasive Catholic trolls. If they were really interested in the truth or in context, they would do research and look at all sides of the issue with an open mind.
But a lot of the idiots we have coming here are not willing to do that. They want to get all righteously indignant without really thinking things through because it’s easier. So why should I waste time on them?
I’m sure a lot of you are way more patient than me and if you think it’ll help, keep dealing with the dipshits, but I just don’t have the energy anymore. We can’t keep spoonfeeding them the facts every single time. They’ve got to learn to think for themselves.
So you do indeed assert that the bible is supposed to teach hate and anger, and not love?
Excellent. I quite agree.
To castlesnob,
//And how do you plan to exact this suffering, may I ask? //
I will pray for him. Prayer will be the key to his locked heart. Prayer will liberate him from the chains that are binding him. Prayer will also help settle the score that he owes Christians and if he repents of his evil deeds publicly, I will rescind my call for his firing, but if he doesn’t (which is likely), I will still pray for him and pray for his conversion. But it is evident that in today’s world, our universities do not need crack pots like this loon teaching our students. If he cannot behave like an academic doctor, professor, and adult, then he should not be allowed to teach.
Hmm, praying for PZ? So in other words, you’re not going to do jack shit except for talking to yourself. Yeah, that’ll work.
To Richard Wolford:
Besides experiencing hell first hand, I have also seen and experienced the power of prayer directly. So go ahead and laugh, but I know it is real and I know that it does work.
Sure you have, in your own little mind. Prayer does not work, at all, and there is no hell. Sorry, none at all. Move along.
Religion is interesting. Religious people are not. I teach a World Religions class, and I have a lot more fun when the students are more interested in exploring the topics than in confirming their beliefs.
Emo moment…
So you have empirical evidence to support this claim of a “hell”?
# 36; St Michael the Blasphemist said
“You obviously didn’t read my post. I did not condemn anyone to hell.”
You also said, at post #6.
“the rusty nail threw will be there smiling back at you as you take your one way trip to hell. Now, I am not condeming you and I hope to God that you do not go there, but I think you are preparing such a trip yourself, bye your pride and self love.”
You specifically said in your post, number 6, that PZ was going to hell. You specifically stated that you KNOW he will be going to hell. You then contradict yourself by saying that you are not condemning (note the spelling) him, when, in fact, you just did. You judged him, and let’s remember what ol’ Jebus had to say about that. You ready to cast that stone, sonny-jim?
#67
Oh no! Not that! Really?
Run, PZ! He’s gonna pray!
I’m having a very difficult time following you, St. Michael.
I asked how you would make PZ suffer, and you say you will pray for him. How does this work, exactly?
You also mention you will pray for his conversion. To what do you hope he will convert?
Can you offer any objective evidence that prayer is effective?
Hanna,
The article about witchcraft is from 2002, so ‘recent’ may be one of the only statements in there that is not insane.
I think I’ve experienced hell first-hand also… at least reading your posts makes me think of something Sartre had to say on the matter. Anyway, you just keep on praying – it’s a great way to avoid actually doing something to solve your problems.
Prayer is the best thing they can do. It doesn’t accomplish anything except taking up their time.
In other words, you will do something which even according to your own theology will have no effect whatsoever.
Look, why don’t you just give up and go to bed? In the morning, put this whole silly business behind you.
Too many sharks, not enough chum …
“Yet Potter fans will never hear about God’s real, omnipotent power by reading the Christ-less Rowling books or seeing the Potter movies. One of the biggest and most artificial aspects of these stories is this pretense. In this sense, they truly are fantasies.”
What are the odds? A religious believer has difficulty telling the difference between a fictional and non-fictional book?
Being seriously concerned about your children reading spells out of a book from barnes and noble really helps put crazy into perspective. The whole god thing seems almost believable in comparison.
I do get a hoot from all the kind christian people who couldn’t be more delighted than when talking about the possibility of someone suffering greatly in every way they can imagine. Keep the S&M consensual kids.
Actually, you did not.
That site is frightening. Kind of like the whackaloons who have descended on PZ’s blog.
The Catholics I have known were not so crazy. Then again they were the kind of Catholics who called themselves a Catholic out of tradition and never went to Mass. I had no idea the more devout followers of the cult were so batshit crazy.
Scary.
I read most of that heresy in the hood article and it blew my mind into a thousand tiny pieces! I had no idea about this epidemic! The sad part is that if there really are yound people who believe in “witchcraft” then they are just as deluded as the ignorant fundies who clearly don’t suffer any muthafucking witches to live! Fo shizzle
Please, let’s all just ignore this silly angel pretender, okay? He’s clearly mentally disturbed.
“Humans enjoy fantasy stories, we like hearing/reading of fantastic things that couldn’t exist but kind of hope they did.”
And for some of the kids doubtlessly being discussed in this article, fantasy lit is a welcome respite from the suffocating world of monotheistic religion.
I’m going to bed now, St. Michael. I look forward to reading your response in the morning…er, later this morning, if I can find it buried in what is usually an avalanche of comments.
The Big Bang theory that the universe originated in an extremely dense and hot space and expanded was developed by a Belgian priest. It’s interesting to note that those people, the first scientists, were all monks, they were all clerics!
People today aren’t even aware of this fact!
Here are some examples of scientists who were Catholic clergy:
1. Mendel, a monk, first established the laws of heredity, which gave the final blow to the theory of natural selection.
2. Copernicus, a priest, expounded the Copernican system.
3. Steensen, a Bishop, was the father of geology.
4. Regiomontanus, a Bishop and Papal astronomer; was the father of modern astronomy.
5. Theodoric, a Bishop, discovered anesthesia in the 13th century.
6. Kircher, a priest, made the first definite statement of the germ theory of disease.
7. Cassiodorus, a priest, invented the watch.
8. Picard, a priest, was the first to measure accurately a degree of the meridian.
The conflict between evolutionary science and creationism in the United States comes from the Protestant tradition, not the Catholic one.
American Catholicism is in a Protestant culture. We borrow a lot of our attitudes, along with a lot of our hymns, and not always the best of either.
Unfortunate, but true.
List of Catholic Scientists
Algue, a priest, invented the barocyclonometer, to detect approach of cyclones.
Ampere was founder of the science of electrodynamics, and investigator of the laws of electro-magnetism.
Becquerel, Antoine Cesar, was the founder of electro-chemistry.
Becquerel, Antoine Henri, was the discoverer of radio-activity.
Binet, mathematician and astronomer, set forth the principle, “Binet’s Theorem.”
Braille invented the Braille system for the blind.
Buffon wrote the first work on natural history.
Carrell, Nobel prize winner in medicine and physiology, is renowned for his work in surgical technique.
Caesalpinus, a Papal physician, was the first to construct a system of botany.
Cassiodorus, a priest, invented the watch.
Columbo discovered the pulmonary circulation of the blood.
Copernicus, a priest, expounded the Copernican system.
Coulomb established the fundamental laws of static electricity.
De Chauliac, a Papal physician, was the father of modern surgery and hospitals.
De Vico, a priest, discovered six comets. Descartes founded analytical geometry.
Dumas invented a method of ascertaining vapor densities.
Endlicher, botanist and historian, established a new system of classifying plants.
Eustachius, for whom the Eustachian tube was named, was one of the founders of modern anatomy.
Fabricius discovered the valvular system of the veins.
Fallopius, for whom the Fallopian tube was named, was an eminent physiologist.
Fizeau was the first to determine experimentally the velocity of light.
Foucault invented the first practical electric arc lamp; he refuted the corpuscular theory of light; he invented the gyroscope.
Fraunhofer was initiator of spectrum analysis; he established laws of diffraction.
Fresnel contributed more to the science of optics than any other man.
Galilei, a great astronomer, is the father of experimental science.
Galvani, one of the pioneers of electricity, was also an anatomist and physiologist.
Gioja, father of scientific navigation, invented the mariner’s compass.
Gramme invented the Gramme dynamo.
Guttenberg invented printing.
Herzog discovered a cure for infantile paralysis.
Holland invented the first practical sub marine.
Kircher, a priest, made the first definite statement of the germ theory of disease.
Laennec invented the stethoscope.
Lancist, a Papal physician, was the father of clinical medicine.
Latreille was pioneer in entomology.
Lavoisier is called Father of Modern Chemistry.
Leverrier discovered the planet Neptune.
Lully is said to have been the first to employ chemical symbols.
Malpighi, a Papal physician, was a botanist, and the father of comparative physiology.
Marconi’s place in radio is unsurpassed. Mariotte discovered Mariotte’s law of gases.
Mendel, a monk, first established the laws of heredity, which gave the final blow to the theory of natural selection.
Morgagni, founder of modern pathology; made important studies in aneurisms.
Muller was the greatest biologist of the 19th century, founder of modern physiology.
Pashcal demonstrated practically that a column of air has weight.
Pasteur, called the “Father of Bacteriology,” and inventor of bio-therapeutics, was the leading scientist of the 19th century.
Picard, a priest, was the first to measure accurately a degree of the meridian.
Regiomontanus, a Bishop and Papal astronomer; was the father of modern astronomy.
Scheiner, a priest, invented the pantograph, and made a telescope that permitted the first systematic investigation of sun spots.
Secchi invented the meteorograph. Steensen, a Bishop, was the father of geology.
Theodoric, a Bishop, discovered anesthesia in the 13th century.
Torricelli invented the barometer.
Vesalius was the founder of modern anatomical science.
Volta invented the first; complete galvanic battery; the “volt” is named after him.
Other scientists: Agricola, Albertus Magnus, Bacon, Bartholomeus, Bayma, Beccaria, Behalm, Bernard, Biondo, Biot, Bolzano, Borrus, Boscovitch, Bosio, Bourgeois, Branly, Caldani, Cambou, Camel, Cardan, Carnoy, Cassini, Cauchy, Cavaliere, Caxton, Champollion, Chevreul, Clavius, De Rossi, Divisch, Dulong, Dwight, Eckhel, Epee, Fabre, Fabri, Faye, Ferrari, Gassendi, Gay-Lussac, Gordon, Grimaldi, Hauy, Heis, Helmont, Hengler, Heude, Hilgard, Jussieu, Kelly, Lamarck, Laplace, Linacre, Malus, Mersenne, Monge, Muller, Murphy, Murray, Nelston, Nieuwland, Nobili, Nollet, Ortelius, Ozaman, Pelouze, Piazzi, Pitra, Plumier, Pouget, Provancher, Regnault, Riccioli, Sahagun, Santorini, Schwann, Schwarz, Secchi, Semmelweis, Spallanzani, Takamine, Tieffentaller, Toscanelli, Tulasne, Valentine, Vernier, Vieta, Da Vinci, Waldseemuller, Wincklemann, Windle, and a host of others, too many to mention.
“Prayer defeats Ohio abortion center”
So they rolled a d20 with modifier?
Did anyone notice that one of the people speaking on behalf of Catholics in “Anti-Catholicism still alive and well in U.S.” is referred to as Professor Boys? That sounds like a child molester only Batman can take care of. Was sticking with Sister Mary C. Boys so bad?
While one of your Catholic posters, when did P.Z. become a Catholic magnet, actually did have something reasonable to say about Catholicism and science, listing all those Catholic thinkers, but failing to point out that the reason all those scientists where Priests or Monks is that they were the only ones with leisure time to develop intellectual theories prior to the advent of industrial processing in Europe since Catholic-inspired and supported feudalism had set everyone back.
Furthermore, many of the first “Western” scientists after the Classical period where the Muslims and Jews in Spain.
Does that have ANYTHING to do with the truth of a religious claim? No.
Does believing something irrational make one irrational in all walks of life? No. (I can think of many religious thinkers I respect, although many of them died consider heretics; I can think of many Communist thinkers I respect. And there are many scientists who essentially deluded political opinions. That doesn’t matter to the truth of a particular scientific claim).
A good scientist could be a good Catholic, but that really doesn’t have a thing to do with if a the claims of Catholicism of right.
Ugh, I should have hit the preview instead of post button and corrected my syntax, because it got botched trying to say something when flustered.
She turned me into a newt!
Am i the only one here,is it because Im an ex-catholic(til the age of 8 or so anyway),am I naive?
I just cannot believe that what we are seeing and hearing in the comments is the best that catholics can do? Please tell me its the fault of the Internet,the relative anonymity and protection it gives people?
Dont tell me 95% of all catholics are mentally ill or suffer from severe cognitive dissonance,from utter lack of moral integrity,a total inability to compute any concept outside their belief system,a profound lack of intelligence,and a tendency towards violence ,uncontrolled rage,hate and murder?
It is certainly looking that way.
Trolls, why oh why do you insist on coming here? You aren’t going to change anyone’s minds, and saying you’ll “pray for us” when you know perfectly well that we know prayer does absolutely nothing is just patently silly. You’re using your (notice proper grammar) weird little rituals as talismans to ward off the people who hit spots in your consciousness that you can’t ignore. Please understand that no matter what you say or do, your beliefs are quite silly, and demanding that those absent a belief system suddenly adopt a system of conspicuously affirmed belief is not merely Sisyphean but downright bizarre.
Atheism, as has been exhaustively explained on this site and hundreds of others (including, might I add, in the ever handy dictionary), is a lack of belief in gods. Not just the Christian “God,” but Kali, Allah, Odin and every other god that humans have developed throughout the years. Your god is no different than any of these others, it is just the most recent.
So, let’s not mince words here: you aren’t going to convert us. Nor will the Pagans, Wiccans, Druids, Hindus, Muslims, Jews or Zoroastrians. No religion is going to. Religion is inherently a silly affair. And coming here demanding that those absent beliefs adopt your beliefs is downright rude.
Secondly, atheists, just ignore these people. They are poor examples of mainstream Christianity. I think their beliefs should qualify as retardation, but even I recognize that on the internet only the most committed, nasty and usually uninformed of partisans will make the journey to an enemy board. Such is the way it is when atheists invade Christian whacko boards, and such it is with these fools.
Overall, I support what PZ Myers did. Whether he teaches at an 8th-tier school, whether he was chased away from Temple or whether he disliked the Dark Knight, he did what was right. It is necessary to take on uninformed beliefs head on, otherwise they may win the day.
There was also a Dungeons & Dragons cartoon on TV in 1983 that some self-righteous do-gooders tried to get pulled off the air.
I wish they had been successful. It was a truly awful cartoon, and the only alternative was Kids Incorporated. That half hour has forever tainted my memories of Saturday mornings.
I would just like to say, that contrary to the accusation on the above web page, Spike is not Buffy’s “love interest.”
Just as sort of an analogue for the Catholic trolls:
God is Santa Claus. I’m not saying this to be mean or to inflame you, but rather because the comparison is apt. Santa Claus supposedly rewards you for being good all year with toys; God rewards you for being good your whole life with Heaven. Santa Claus keeps a list of everyone who is bad or good; God is omniscient. Santa Claus is a big white guy with a beard; God ditto. Santa Claus is used as a kind of carrot/stick approach to control children; ditto God with adults. A lot of kids write to Santa on behalf of other, “bad” kids; apparently a lot of people praying for PZ. And finally, kids who are told that Santa isn’t real usually get very upset and deny its true, citing all those kids who have actually seen Santa; I think this entire message board is ample parallel evidence.
The main difference between God and Santa, then, is that if a grown man told you he believed in Santa Claus, you wouldn’t think twice about laughing in his face.
Atheists just remove the difference.
Dear Saint Michael the Full of Shit,
You are so full of bile and venom. Honestly, I can only aspire to your level of misanthropy.
“You[re] a sad little angry man, who has been drenched in self pity and victimhood for so many years” (Fixed that pesky grammar for ya!)
Pot. Kettle. Black.
I hope his desecration of the wafer has helped you satisfy your martyr complex. And yes, I’m sure he’ll cry like a baby when your invisible friend kicks the shit out of him. You’re a depressing, pathetic, contemptible little individual.
Unfortunately, there’s no cosmic justice. So you’ll simply live out the remainder of your life, shitting on everybody, and then die like the rest of us. In your case, probably with a smug expression on your face. That, or at some point you’ll grow up and pull your head out of your ass. Could go either way. I did it.
Scrabcake, might have to confiscate your geek card but Spike was Buffy’s love interest… well lust interest… same thing…
I wish Christians would do a little genuine research into things like Wicca. If they realized how silly it is, they’d sleep better at night. Who cares if people play dress up and pretend to posses some ancient knowledge? “Oh God! Our teens are making charms and casting fake spells!”
It appears that desecrating the Koran didn’t do much of anything. Maybe it really has to be in Arabic for it to count. Desecrating “The God Delusion” did result in an infestation of atheist loons, which is to say the people who hang out here all the time.
I wouldn’t advocate desecrating something the neo-pagans hold holy, even though an infestation of pagans might prove amusing, since we have in common a profound adoration of nature, and, presumably, a vast appetite for sex. It simply wouldn’t be nice, since their adherents are so few.
Actually, one problem with atheism is the lack of holy days. Since pagans tend to celebrate real events like equinoxes and solstices, we have reasons to make common cause with them. Those of us past middle age ought perhaps to decline to dance skyclad under a full moon, and those of us without resort to public transportation need a designated driver, but there is something to be said for seasonal debauchery.
What is truly tragic about this is that there is *REAL* pain and suffering and evil in the world. People in Sudan are killing each other, people in the entire damn middle east are trying to annihilate each other. Soldiers can’t get proper health care. Women from Russia go to Turkey to get au pair jobs and end up getting sold into slavery. The rate of depression in America has skyrocketed, and the gap between rich and poor is widening.
And these “moral” people are concerned about crackers and witchcraft? And it’s not just that they think about these things, but that they obviously spend crazy amounts of time obsessing over them.
If ignoring real evil for the sake of imaginary evil isn’t, well, EVIL, I don’t know what is. This is “the banality of evil.” Evil, injustice, stupidity and laziness of the highest order.
St Micky says he will not rest until PZ is fired, etc.
If you think he’s cranky now, just wait a few decades.
Harry Potter is a johnny-come-lately. It was the Wendy the Witch comics that started it all. Or maybe it was the Wizard of Oz with that good witch/bad witch crap. Or maybe it was when they took prayer out of school in 1962 and substituted Harry Potter. Oh, I don’t know any more.
Really? I guess I’ve only watched through season 3, but it seems like she hates him with a passion. I mean, the guy gets totally thrashed every time he crosses her path. <>
Video idea: Point a stick at a cracker, mutter “Avada Kedavra!” and then use Adobe Premier to add a green light effect.
I have a confession to make to the non-believers on this board, and I would like some honest (please non-nasty, if possible) responses to it:
I have experimented with things far darker than mere Wicca, and I have legitimately seen things I can’t entirely explain. I am willing to allow that there is a natural explanation for everything, but some of what I experienced felt very far outside the bounds of the material world. I find blind faith to be utterly ridiculous, and demand evidence to back up claims, but I am also willing to believe in something greater than myself.
Does this make me a fool? Perhaps. I certainly think that invoking God into a cracker makes one a fool. But all I can say is that I started as a mere goofy Wiccan and then strayed from white magic into black magic, and I participated in things that made me question pure materialism.
I suppose my question comes down to this: Is it possible to both be a rational person and think that it is conceivable that there is something we aren’t meant to see just yet?
Either way, though, organized religion is a load of tosh.
From post #69
“Besides experiencing hell first hand”
Um, Mikey? That wasn’t hell man. What happened was you just got into a nasty head-space while you were smoking your eponymous dust.
If ‘experiencing hell’ left you waking up with burns on your face and/or hands, its because you suck at free-basing to the same degree you suck at expressing yourself in english.
Also, isn’t posting as “St Michael blah blah” like posting as “SUPERMAN” on a comics blog?
As to the OP, I love it when they get their hate up for children’s entertainment featuring magic – because it suggests that these people believe in spells and potions. How sad/awesome is that? An earliar poster mentioned keeping a wand by the door to scare off Jehova’s Witnesses, and I think that is bloody fantastic.
Next time I see god botherers shouting some protest, I’ll be sure to curse them in the names of the Daedra of Tamriel.
What’s the purpose of having a faith based newspaper, don’t they have an all knowing oracle they can consult with for the latest in world faith affairs?
Sigh.
Trolls trolls go away…
To The Adamant Atheist:
I am both glad and sad to see you actually trying to engage a religidiot in an intelligent debate.
Glad to see such fire, sad to see it so wasted.
After 40 years of doing the same, now I simply snark, mock and insult because not one, I repeat, not one of the thousands I interacted with could answer the very first question I presented:
“Where is your proof that any, let alone, your god, exists?”
From full blown PhDs of Divinity down to the gap-toothed, inbred minions of Billy Graham; from Orthodox Jews to crystal rubbing new agers; from friendly conversations to full-blown moderated debates,not one could answer the first question.
And no one ever will, A.A., no one ever will. Because, in addition to the fact that there is no god and contrary to the late great Gould, there is NO common ground between religion and reason, PERIOD.
So now I work with the groups that actively fight these disgusting wastes of carbon atoms in courts. Better to ensure these evolutionary ativisms’ weapons are capped by law than to waste precious life attempting to perform a scientifically impossible task: force a living proto-human to evolve into a full homo sapien.
Damien:
In practice, no. You need to keep a skeptical attitude towards your personal experience, just as you do towards everything you read or hear.
The supernatural is certainly conceivable, and there is no shortage of testimony in support of it, but there is, so far, no reason to take it seriously. It’s useless. Fairies can’t be photographed. Leprechauns disappear at dawn. Ghosts, demons and angels alike refuse to reveal themselves to skeptics. What is to be done with such reclusive creatures?
Actually, Mendel’s discoveries support the idea of natural selection.
I am undecided on how I should see this resurgence of “spirituality” and alls kinds of “pagan” or “wiccan” traditions in Western (i.e. still largely Christian majority) society.
On the one hand it is to be welcomed if it results in a weakening of Christianity’s hold on society, on the other hand it is just another variety of supernatural and mystical beliefs – this time a mixture of pre-Christian traditions and modern new-agey feel-good spirituality.
Right now these neo-pagan traditions seem to be somewhat or even a lot more benign and inclusive than Christian orthodoxy, but in the final analysis ANY supernatural belief system that promotes mysticism and obscurantism will lead to a rejection of reason, scepticism and science: it will bring a resurgence of “healers” and other quacks and frauds who will promise some poor fool that real-world problems can be solved with “magick”.
Again, in the short term neo-paganism might weaken Christianity which I welcome, but in the long run we should keep a VERY watchful eye on it.
bad Jim,
I do strongly try to keep a skeptical head about me in all matters. Cynicism has served me well. But when I refer to that thing we aren’t meant to see just yet, I’m not talking about elves or fairies or what have you; I’m talking about when you have a very distinct premonition that comes true far after you’ve woken up and those sorts of things. When I was at my deepest point of experimenting with the dark arts, I was able to sleep and clearly predict things a few days into the future. Not levitation or pyrokinesis I know, but it was accurate all the same.
The skeptical me wants to point to the “powers” I believe I exercised and call me a fool who just isn’t evolved enough to understand the materialistic answer for their occurrence, but there were so many things I learned and did that part of me wonders how much can be chalked up to coincidence.
I hope I’ve demonstrated that I am far from a credulous believer in the supernatural, but a part of me thinks back to the things I’ve done (and, sadly, people I hurt) and questions whether it is possible that the supernatural exists in a way we haven’t come to grasp yet, and that it’s awaiting discovery and experimentation.
I hope you don’t consider me a fool for suggesting the possibility that there’s something more that we as human beings haven’t quite grappled with yet.
A follow-up to my previous comment:
I don’t wish to make it seem that I believe in a lot of rubbish about “spirituality” and all that; I’ve always been a skeptic, and only pursued Wicca and then further into the dark arts because I felt I was seeing tangible returns on the power that I was expelling. Keep in mind I was 13 when I began Wicca and 18 when I stopped, so my ability to set up solidly scientific tests was limited.
I will never go to a “healer” over a doctor. Whatever I may be, I am first and foremost a believer in the rules of evidence.
..an exorcism… Isn’t that like… murder? http://whatstheharm.net/exorcisms.html
I always like it btw when people claim god will do something, and then when claim they don’t know will do because his ways are unknown. Isn’t it just easier if they admit that they just want someone else to die in terrible ways, instead of saying “godwilldoit”? Makes their hate speech much more obvious.
@Damien:
It is always difficult for strangers to answer an “argument from personal experience”.
Nobody here has any way of understanding or judging your claim of having experienced something that
“felt very far outside the bounds of the material world”
whatever that may be.
Oh, I am sure you had this experience – not unlike countless other people throughout the history of mankin, all of whom have probably interpreted these experiences quite differently, depending on their preexisting beliefs and convictions.
In the final analysis you had some kind of experience that you don’t understand, that you cannot reconcile with the world that you see around you.
The only thing this proves is that there is a lot that we do not yet understand about ourselves and the world we live in, i.e. both the inner workings of our brain and the yet unresolved mysteries of the universe.
Yes, it is even possible that some kind of beings exist that we do not know yet – but whatever there is still to know and discover, it will by definition exist in THIS wolrd, be part of the same universe that we exist in. Even if there were some part of reality that we do not yet understand – whatever can impact us can also be reached by us and is thus part of nature.
The only thing we can and should do is to continuously strive for a better and ever more complete understanding of the world we live in. All potential benefits for humanity are consequences of this endeavour – as it has been the case in the pastl.
#108 Damien
The Homo-Sapiens evolved as a hunter and gatherer on planet Earth. That is the job our brain evolved to manage.
Now, there are lots of things in our universe that our brains are just not “designed” to understand. They sort of where not in the evolutionary spec needed for that hunter and gatherer job… Quantum mechanics and the relativity theory are just two of these. But also everything we cant instantly explain.
Then that same brain is also “wired” in such a way, that thinking and storing information is fast and efficient. But under the premiss, that its job is to help you with your hunter and gatherer function. If we get information / input that don’t “fit” into any system our brain knows, it makes assumptions and invents solutions.
Naturally this leads to some minor errors: Sightings of ghosts, UFOs, holy things (Jesus in toast…. or Jesus as a cracker ;-) ) etc.
I suppose, that most of what you experienced as a “supernatural experience” was such a mental glitch where your brain tried to squash the input into its badly fitting, evolutionary filing system (if you would excuse my attempt at putting it simply)
Marc
I agree, it’s very difficult to answer an argument from personal experience. It is by far the most difficult fallacy to come undone. I can’t provide much evidence, as I haven’t pursued the black arts for almost a decade. It is unfortunate that all I can do is to come to you from the same place as many of these Christian fools who claim to see God in toast, because I am extremely skeptical and more cynical than it comes across via this board.
I also agree that whether or not we as a species are able to pierce the next veil and find something new, whatever we discover will exist in this universe and be a part of the same space that we inhabit.
I think perhaps I should try to get back into some witchcraft. I’ve matured now, and I feel I’ll be able to recognize coincidence and separate it from whatever might actually happen. And there is nothing sexier to ladies than getting invited to a moonlit power ritual. :P
Finally, I want to thank both you, Marc and you, bad Jim, for not reacting in a knee-jerk manner. I have always felt, reading these boards, that those who claim to see hatred here ignore the comments which invite it. I hope that you both feel (and all feel, to those who I haven’t interacted with) that I am not among the credulous horde who accept and mindlessly parrot beliefs without challenge or skepticism. There is little I find more tiresome.
“Mendel, a monk, first established the laws of heredity, which gave the final blow to the theory of natural selection.
Actually, Mendel’s discoveries support the idea of natural selection. ”
Plus, only an idiot could argue that Mendel made his discoveries because he was a monk. Well, it helped him in some way, because he had a garden he could tend, and the time to do it. But none of his researches were inspired by religion. Same thing for most of the scientists in the boring list that gets posted everywhere, it seems.
“I prefer to think that God is not dead, just drunk.” –John Huston.
It just hit me… These people (the worried Catholics) think hocus-pocus witchcraft really works! OMG as they say.
I always knew the implication intellectually, but it took a really long time to sink in apparently ;)
Damien, your account doesn’t fall far outside what Carl Sagan described in “The Demon-Haunted World”. Sleep paralysis especially, but also premonitory dreams and the like muck up our perception of cause and effect, and they tend to be a hell of a lot more convincing than ratiocination.
But they tend not to work. You can experience all kinds of wondrous things, but you can’t depend upon them. It could be that the leprechauns are simply capricious – it could be that the angels are actually demonic – it could be that the fairies at the bottom of your garden, like mine, are merely rats – but it tends to be characteristic of supernatural experiences that they are shy and flighty, rarely repeatable and never permit permanent recording.
In other words, even if they exist, they refuse to do any work, so the hell with them!
Nino@119,
I can understand what you’re saying, and I think that perhaps we’re saying the same thing. I don’t want to believe that the experiences and things that I did are un-natural (not supernatural, because that word has bad connotations), and I suspect that my brain is attempting to do what you’re describing.
That would certainly be a nice, neat explanation. :P
John Huston may have said it first, but Tom Waits says it best.
“don’t you know there ain’t no devil, there’s just god when he’s drunk” – Heart Attack and Vine
I should add… I know several people who do a version of the Wiccan thing. Some are very annoying new-agey idiots, but several do some of the rituals as, well, rituals… not as some stupid call upon a non-existent whatever. The symbolism of the Yule / midwinter one I tagged along for is actually pretty cool. Good warm up (getting in the proper frame of mind) for a nice party.
Reminds me, I really should drop by the local Unitarian “church” sometime.
Wait a second. In the common, believers view of such things isn’t {angels} intersect {saints} the empty set? The angels are considered never to have been human?
I’m calling “Poe” (or at least “heretic”) on this “Saint Michael the Archangel” chappy.
Witchcraft, black magic n such stuff is a serious problem in places like Pakistan for Russeled or Dawkined youngsters. When I told my father I don’t wanna get into this medical school and study philosophy instead he said someone’s doing black magic on me to destroy my future. :(
(I’m not joking)
From what I can understand of Mendel he became a monk because it would give him the chance to pursue his interest in science. He did not come from a rich family, and needed to earn a living.
Surely casting a spell over a cracker to change it into
a newtJesus is magic akin to witch-craft?@ Damien,
If you say you have personal experience, there’s really no way to press it much further. I believe that you believe you have had an experience. However, I find it much more likely that you had an experience wherein you either-
A. Engaged in extremely creative after-the-predicted-events dream interpretation.
B. Were fooled by someone else.
C. Decided to attempt to fool others.
D. Got lucky.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you have had a premonition, and can predict the future after engaging in black magic. If so, and you can do it again, act now, because your million dollars will soon no longer be available.
Thanks for this bit of crazyness PZ.
I found it funny at first, and when i understood they were serious, i started to find it scary.
You need an exorcism.
Ghosts and spirits! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!
Damien,
The personal experience thing is notoriously unreliable. Witnesses to the same event recall it differently, all the time.
And as was mentioned, the mind is quite a trickster. We see patterns where there are none, we have wide varieties of hallucinations or illusory experiences, etc.
It sounds to me like you were enthralled when you were young, and probably saw some of what you thought you would see. Expectations make a difference in observations. It sounds like you may have some latent guilty feelings (and who knows if that’s justified), but I think you seem to be “properly” skeptical, at least as you post.
You aren’t coming off as too credulous in my reading, nor impolite.
Party on, Garth!
Parody trolls need to be lined up against a wall and shot.
Is it me or does Ms Harvey look like Bellatrix Lestrange? (Helena Bonham Carter’s character from Harry Potter)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Eater#Bellatrix_Lestrange
Perhaps she should seek some help! :)
@Damien
Is it possible to both be a rational person and think that it is conceivable that there is something we aren’t meant to see just yet?
I would say it is possible in the same way a very rational person can have an irrational fear of spiders. What is not possible is that you are right. I say that because Wicca is a religion that only pretends to have ancient roots. The reality is that Wicca and other neo pagan religions are very young. Take Druidry as an example. It’s a religion that overlaps heavily with Wicca. Real druids certainly existed in pre Christian Europe, but we know almost nothing about their religion. We do know they strangled people to death and threw them into bogs, possibly as some sort if ritual. They may have burned people in wicker men (Awesome. If I ever have to be burned alive, I hope it’s in a wicker man). We really don’t known much more than that though. Yet a whole religion as been created based on what people thought druidism should have been like. The same goes for Wicca, only in this case there’s no evidence of Wicca ever having existed before 1930. Because of this, the magic of neo pagan religions has no more validity than anything I or anyone else could make up.
Spike had one of the best lines in the whole Buffy the Vampire series:
“If every vampire who said he was at the Crucifixion was actually there, it would have been like Woodstock.”
That makes two of us.
What really makes me angry in those types of writings is when a Christian asserts that Christians somehow “behave” better than Pagans, Atheists, etc. Yeah, right, atheists and pagans live for the moment and just party wild. Christian teens stay at home and read the bible together. HAH. Obviously the person writing that has never been to college.
I rather like paganism, although I think it’s just as silly as all the rest. The people who practice it tend to be gentle and- oh- there’s that whole lack of proselytizing and dogma…
my favorite passage from the article has to be:
…sigh…
“.. you will come to realize that the host that you so eagerly thrust the rusty nail threw will be there smiling back at you as you take your one way trip to hell.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that suggesting the host can *smile* is, in itself, heresy.
Just trying to spare you the hellfire, my friend.
“.. you will come to realize that the host that you so eagerly thrust the rusty nail threw will be there smiling back at you as you take your one way trip to hell.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that suggesting the host can *smile* is, in itself, heresy.
Just trying to spare you the hellfire, my friend.
I actually wrote a post on how rationalists and wiccans can make common cause a couple of months ago (which, because of my rate of posts, means it’s the post one down from the top)
Damien: There are, obviously, some things science can’t measure yet, and it’s possible that in there is the supernatural. My family has a weird ghost-seeing spiritual side and I’d like to see more research done into what actually causes that. I don’t think the current psychological explanations cover everything, but they do cover a lot. Mostly I think it’s fine-tuning we need.
“What I can never fathom is how these people always draw distinctions between things like Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings. While HP stuff is CORRUPTING EVIL, LotR is a great story about good vs. evil that every good Christian should read.
“Similar with the Chronicles of Narnia. What the heck is the difference???”
Actually, a lot of American fundamentalist Christians hate those books, too, and think Tolkein and Lewis are burning in hell. (I mean, please – Lewis believed in *evolution.* You know what Jesus said about *that.*)
The Koran and Bible
are petty and tribal
and neither one’s worth a damn.
Thank Odin we’re able
to say both are fables
the same as Green Eggs and Ham.
The Bible and Koran
both written by man
not an ounce of truth between ’em.
They don’t find it odd
to make claims about god
though nobody’s ever seen him.
Our Hero PZ
(and his science degree)
defended young Webster Cook.
He vowed to offend
and the Catholics bought in
line, sinker, and hook.
The popified masses
with heads up their asses
called for his head and his job
But our Hero stood firm
and never once squirmed
no matter the size of the mob.
With hammer and nail
he set out to impale
the cracker they worshipped as lord.
And just as with Christ
The point went in nice
as the pathetic wafer was gored.
“But PZ,” they dared,
“We know you’d be scared
to upset the patrons of Allah.”
So the Koran soon headed
To our Hero’s to be shredded
Amongst grinds, peels, and challah.
When the dust finally settles
I hope they give medals
To our Hero, to Cook, and to me.
‘Cause I don’t get one
though the writing’s been fun
they’ll reward two, not three.
–Traffic Beamon
Lyrical Assassin
I’ve been popping in every now and then to peruse the antics in the cracker/wafer-thread and one thing has really struck me. Neglecting for a moment the intellectual and rational basis (whether or not there is one) for the religious beliefs these people hold, I am struck by the emotional investment that these people have in their belief system.
When I think of the things that cause strong emotions in me I find the privilege in the trust of a gibbon who had been ill treated by humans and the enjoyment she would have in trying to figure out where you hid an ice cube; the anger at those who mistreated her; the silence and beauty experienced standing on the shores of a lake in Antarctica; the beauty of an elegant theory and the thrill of a new discovery.
I find it almost impossible to conceive of how someone could make such an enormous emotional investment in a cracker. It makes no sense to me. Even if someone were to present conclusive evidence destroying a theory I accept, I cannot see myself acting in a similar fashion. If someone were to put a rusty nail through a copy of “Gravitation” by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler, I cannot see myself having coniption fits. However, if someone deliberately distorts a verifiable truth, mistreats a fellow human (and I don’t mean calling them names), abuses animals etc., then my ire rises.
The only rationale I have for this type of behaviour is “the security blanket” idea. Some people can face neither reality nor themselves; they cannot do it alone, and they cannot do it in the company of friends and family. They need something bigger than themselves, something to tell them that it’ll be alright in the end.
I feel sure that for some who have expressed great umbrage at PZ(ed)’s demonstration do so because deep-down they sense a strong cognitive dissonance – they have depended on the security blanket for many years but understand at some deep level that that is all it is. So when someone shines a light on their blanket, they react with horror and outrage, thereby concealing to themselves the cracks of doubt that appear.
Maybe everyone else here realizes this, but reading the raw rage in the reactions of the religious really brought that point home to me.
What I think I’m getting at is that these people have the same emotional investment in a cracker/wafer than others do in their loved ones. Bizarre. Strange.
Adrian
To be fair, one of the sites mentioned in this article is even wackier – and highly entertaining.
http://teenwitch.com/
J. D.
Whoa! You’ve been to hell and back?! That’s gotta be worth some serious mula in talk show appearances, if I were you I’d go cash that chip. Oprah interviews Saint Michael the Archangel about his personal first hand experience in hell. I watch that!
On a side note; from that Spirit Daily site:
http://www.pilgrimages.com 206 Tours offers 1,000 departures!
Is was almost hoping this might be a travel agency for the Rapture.
Hmmm. All I can say is Wiiizzzzaaard!!!!!!
God #84:
Not yet.
Wow, I just want to say thank you to the person who suggested Grease Monkey last night.
Kill file up and running, and what a relief it is!
Good bye Michael, Father wossisname, and other assorted idiots.
Thank you kindly!
This witchcraft epidemic is tricking good americans into buying T-Mobile and becoming empowered women. This has to stop!
I didn’t know bears threw clay. If that’s the case, shouldn’t it be Hairy Potter? Then again, I’m probably one of the few posters who haven’t read those books. This is the first time I didn’t grasp the gist of PZ’s post by reading his writeup.
The woman who wrote the works so hard and starts so many publishing companies. She should be so proud of what she has accomplished as a woman, but no, she, like Phyllis Schlafly, thinks that her success in a world of Men is not something that other women should aspire to.
Come to think of it:
Satanism is just another Christian sect….
After all, the satanism they condemm is based on Abrahamic god, the christian bible, cross etc.The strange and twisted thing is, that some Christians like to equate atheism with satanism, whereas theism and satanism are actually based on the same belive….
Arn’t they fun :-)
I have a couple of pennies here, but I can’t seem to find the troll-food dispenser. Can someone point me to it?
On second thought, it just isn’t worth the walk.
JC
Why should hocus-pocus be restricted to the altar? Once people abandon evidence and reason, as prerequisites for belief, they can believe anything at all.
Now come on Emmet, that kind of talk can get you excommunicated for that.
My grandfather got a letter from the Bishop threatening him with just that after he was overhead in the Catholic working men’s club telling a friend that you can be just a close to god in a desert as you can in church.
I couldn’t finish that crap.
The Onion already covered this.
Oh Michael, Michael, Michael. Rest assured son…we are laughing! We are laughing our collective asses off. You and yours and your ancient superstitions provide everlasting entertainment. Laugh? We can’t stop to catch our breath!
We are laughing. We are mocking. Snickering and pointing our fingers at you. We are sitting in the back of your church trying desperately to hold it in, not draw too much attention to ourselves for fear of ruining the moment. The standing, the sitting, the kneeling, then the standing and sitting and kneeling all over again…and again! The chanting. The sheepish behavior. Drinking the shitty wine and eating the cardboard crackers. Ho, ho, ho! Yes indeed, we are laughing! Uproariously!
So, thanks for the permission and everything…but dude, we’re way ahead of you! You crack us right the hell up!
And a great big “thanks!” for all that, too.
With much love and peace and not a small amount of jocularity, (heh-heh-heh-heh!)
mk
I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that. I’ve incurred dozens upon dozens of latæ sententiæ excommunications, many reserved to the Apostolic See, over the last 20 years or so. That happens when you stop believing in the bullshit of Catholic Dogma.
I’m somewhat jealous of your grandfather. I’d actually quite like to be ferendæ sententiæ excommunicated (being anathematised would be even better!), but the RCC never convenes ecclesiastical courts to “formally” excommunicate heretics any more, relying on the automatic sentences (latæ sententiæ) of Canon Law instead. One of the nice things about thought crimes: you can be convicted and sentenced without any need for formality.
In modern times, the Church has distanced itself from medieval-sounding terms like “excommunication”. There have even been a few cases where they’ve said that people had “automatically excluded themselves from communion” but “were not excommunicated”, which is a bit like being a large grey quadruped with a long trunk, tusks, and big ears, but not being an elephant.
“Saint Michael the Archangel”
There is a certain phrase in a certain book. What is it again? Oh yeah “Thou shalt not lie”
You are claiming with your nym to be something you’re not. In other words, lying.
Damien, here’s my two-cents’ worth: I think that if something works, it tends to get perfected over time. Crude wheels lead to carts which lead to automobiles, alchemy becomes chemistry, astrology becomes astronomy, etc. If it were possible to communicate with the spirit world, to get demons or saints to do us favors, etc., then intelligent people would work at those endeavours and make sciences out of them.
When you find out that magnets can do work, it’s exciting; you try to make them do MORE work. It would be the same with demons, ghosts, etc. – IF there were something to it. The fact that after at least 100 000 years of human existence, we don’t have really smart people exploiting supernatural energy in any sort of provably useful way, the way electricity is exploited, is pretty good prima facie evidence, I would say, that there’s nothing to it.
I think Harry Potter is guilty of being the lamest, most boring story I’ve ever seen and being one of the most overrated books in the history of mankind.
But witchcraft in kids? Yea, sure. It’ll be pretty much the same as them kids that thought they could pull a Kamehameha back when Dragonball Z was popular. *SO WHAT.* It’s not as if they have any power, genius.
At post 36:
At post 44:
Is it just me or does 44 sound a tad umm, judgemental?
How many strictures of his religion can this moron break in one thread? We have lying, judging, making death threats, have I missed anything?
Taling about Buffy the Vampire Slayer…
Holy shit, that is one crazy looking site! What really caught my eye was the link ‘Responding to blasphemy with love’. I guess I didn’t realize, you know since I’m an evil angry atheist, that those nice catholics were expressing their love to you and us (your ‘minions’) in the desecration post. Well, they’ve sure proven to me that only love can heal – they’ve certainly made me a believer! I’m feeling those warm fuzzies in my heart already.
I think with a little more of their love, PZ, they’ll save your soul and an ‘enemy of god’ you’ll be no more. Just open up your heart – god and his kid would feel just terrible if he had to condemn your soul to a fiery basement for all eternity. Just think of how the baby jesus will feel.
oriole #167,
Sure, but it’s actually even worse than that. In 3000 years (or so) of recorded history and probably 100,000 years or more before that, charlatans (priests, etc.) have claimed to know things by “revelation” of some kind and it never produced a single tangible artifact of any use whatsoever: Yahweh did not deliver the 10 Commandments to Moses on a laptop with lots of other useful information on it. On the other hand, just 300 years of science have produced antibiotics, painkillers, computers, MRI scanners, SatNav, and an innumerably large number of other useful and (mostly) beneficial tangible things. The jury is in and it is abundantly clear to all but the most willfully ignorant hypocrites and retards that, in practice, science is how you find out the truth and religion is how you pretend to know useless bullshit.
Yep. It’s pretty much a ‘our ooga-booga is good; yours is bad’ situation. We were discussing scientology at work and someone said they felt the concepts were ridiculous, and I had to bite my tongue (several were christians) and not say what I was thinking.
Bear in mind the christians I work with are the some of the least knowledgeable about their own religion of anyone i’ve ever encountered. One was quite sure that Christianity and Buddhism were, in her words, pretty much the same thing.
Does anyone else find the structure of Harvey’s argument interesting? It begins with the whole “if my e-mail is any reflection of the state of the entire world” card. I wonder if we can name a new logical fallacy after this. Possibly argumentum ad selectivus? It’s selection bias, that’s all it is.
Also, this quote reminds me of one of the major themes during the cracker debate: “young people are somewhere learning that serious debate about the issue of witchcraft is a form of hate.” Personally, I don’t think it’s serious debate that is the problem. I think it’s how people engage in serious debate. Debate isn’t name calling or damning or blaming. Debate is about facts right?
Debate is about facts but how can you debate with someone who denies them all?
You’re wrong
No you’re wrong, God’s gonna give it to ya some day…
yadda yadda.. It’s a waste of comment space.
I guess the only appropriate magic is jesus magic. Anyone who claims they can do a spell that can unlock a door or find a nest of demons must be evil and punished for it.
Bollocks, I may have to change my name now that there are two of us. I had hoped that it would be sufficiently unusual [if that it what it is?]. I should have realized that it was unlikely to be.
And with all due respect, Damien, I wouldn’t want to be associated with the kind woo that you have been talking about, even if they are personal experiences.
I have experienced some strange happenings in my life, but I have never considered them to be anything but natural.
It’s a shame that Ms Harvey left out a couple of important points:
1. There is no such thing as witchcraft, magic, sourcery, or whatever you wish to call it (honest).
2. The kids that read HP or watch Buffy know it’s fiction, yet Catholics haven’t quite worked that the bible is too.
Personally, I think the problem is that young people are learning that witchcraft is non-fiction.
How can you have a “serious debate” about witchcraft any more than about leprechauns? What would you debate? Whether there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Whither they vanish if you take your eye off them? You can’t have a serious debate about fictitious subjects and unfalsifiable assertions, it’s just not possible. You can have pretend debates, as theologians do, but they can’t be regarded as serious unless you’re so deranged that you believe that “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” is a “serious question”.
That’s why I favour scorn and ridicule as rhetorical tools for dealing with demented fuckwittery, whether organised religion or new-age woo.
As Cheech once said, “man that’s some good shit!”
Amazing that in the this day and age beliefs like this still exist.
Spirit Daily is really great. I love the title “Same-sex abortions?”!!
One SNAFU in the article: they omitted “She is batshit insane.” from the author’s bio.
I’ve just posted a running commentary on the article here, if anyone’s interested.
Lucky you, PZ! You have a “Eucharistic Adoration Site” right there in Morris, MN, only 4 blocks from campus, at 209 E 3rd St (the corner of South California Ave and East 3rd).http://www.therealpresence.org/chap_fr.htm
Saint Michael reads a lot like Peter Rooke. Both are obviously severely mentally ill and one might be a sockpuppet for the other.
But there is no cause for alarm. They are just your local serial killers or Zombies or something.
So I added greasemonky to my firefox 3.o.
How do I add the killfile script to purge trolls from my view?
There is no such thing as witchcraft. That works anyway.
This was known 300 years ago. Part of the reason why the Catholic church stopped burning witches, after 60,000 went up in flames.
There are some superstitious Catholics that are still stuck in the Dark Ages mentally. Not too suprising, some of the ones from Eastern Europe still believe in vampires, Hex signs, werewolves, and so on. What we call light fiction, they call a good reason to stay in at night with a few silver crucifixes and some garlic.
Speaking of spirits, I can see the spirits of Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov giving PZ the atheist salute. What was that salute again. Oh yes, we don’t have one. And ghosts don’t exist? Snap! That being the case I’ll have to lift some spirits another way tonight.
4 blocks from campus, but only 3 blocks from my house.
Emmet @177
Good points. I agree that that’s the problem, but I think we can have a serious debate about why young people are learning that witchcraft is non-fiction. Or more broadly, why anyone thinks witchcraft is non-fiction. We need to be able to demonstrate these things objectively before we resort to scorn and ridicule. Of course, those are perfect for forums like this. So keep up the good work.
But you’re right that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to have a serious debate with someone who doesn’t have the need to make sense.
From the linkage:
Buffy fans can purchase not just novels featuring the show characters, but DVD’s of three seasons of programs, scripts, and other novelties like calendars and school planners.
I resent that! It’s seven seasons now. Get your facts straight, Ms. Harvey. Also, you forgot about the singing birthday cards which are very important. Very, very important. I know they’re integral to the Buffy shrine in MY closet. Hell, I don’t know what I’d do without the spinoff comics for my satanic rituals.
Similar with the Chronicles of Narnia. What the heck is the difference???
Did you ever make it to the last book? It’s a great way to freak out an 11 year old. I felt like I imagine I’d feel if I saw my entire family killed in a car accident. It’s basically what revelations would be like if it made any sense.
These should hopefully demonstrate precisely how offensive the desecration was –
1) Suppose you were a milkman with rotting teeth and cankerous lips. Before delivering each milk bottle you would take a swig and place it on the doorstep. You continued to abuse you privileged access to other people’s milk for years. Then one day you decide to retire. Before you leave however, you let all of your customers know what you’ve been engaged in by letter while also leaving a picture of your cankerous mouth under each bottle. You have gleefully proclaimed your actions to all who will listen. No one was physically harmed and yet every customer (read: Catholic) affected feels deeply violated and abused. PZ Myers is effectively that milkman.
2) Suppose your are an embalmer. You are busy embalming a person for an open coffin ceremony and you decide to pilfer there lush locks of blonde hair for the construction of high class wigs (a business you have going on the side).
This person happens to be a Sikh. In order to hide the fact you have stolen their hair you then purchase a cheap synthetic wig and replace it. In the small print of the contract (which the distraught family don’t read carefully enough) you make mention of this.
After the event you then decide to publicize this gleefully on a blog. No physical harm has been done to either person and yet I would argue that this is equivalent to PZ Myer’s theft and subsequent desecration of the Eucharist publicized on his blog (of which extra web traffic generates money).
3) Young ladies like to wear an item of clothing called a mini-skirt these days. The material is often sheer and by its definition does not even come close to covering the knee roll.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniskirt)
Now if someone chooses to wear such an item it does not in the least bit make rape and sexual abuse permissible despite the fact that the odds increase exponentially. In both the eyes of the secular law and of my religion the assailants are still just as culpable.
So merely because Catholicism may seem like a remarkably soft target for PZ Myers (he has since been roped into desecrating the Koran) he is still as culpable as someone who chooses to attack say the more benign and watered down religions of Quakerism/Unitarian-Universalism.
4) Suppose you had a very sacred book outlining your philosophy on life. This book also happened to be stitched together and bound in the skin and flesh of a loved one who had recently passed away.
Now desecrating the Eucharist would have the same effect as desecrating that book and posting the evidence in glee.
A new and more watertight 5th analogy as requested:
5) I am a KKK leader. I burn gigantic crosses into the wilderness surrounding various suburbs. These crosses happen to appear behind a larger predominately black community. A history of the town is compiled and various aerial shots are taken at great expense. These are then placed in a time capsule. After burial I gleefully proclaim what I have done. No physical harm or damage has been caused and the documents in the time capsule are correctly historical. Nevertheless, the people of the community have been violated and abused. It is a hate crime. This is perfectly comparable to what PZ Myers has engaged in.
Woohoo! Pete’s back with the embalming rapist milkman!
This had to be known :
http://smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=949#comic
“The truth is that witchcraft is real, and so is the unchanging Christian prohibition against it.”
What’s hilarious about this is that, in the middle ages, the catholic church’s official position was that believing in the efficacy of witchcraft was itself heresy. So catholics were supposed to just laugh it off instead of persecuting it. I believe it wasn’t until the reformation and counter-reformation that they started to take witchcraft seriously and hunt “witches”.
All those paintings of Baby Jesus were done way back when the Jews were all blonde and blue-eyed.
That’s before they let all the illegal immigrants in.
I think they waited a little too long to build that wall.
————-
Bill Donahue pwn3d, Sam Harris critiqued, New Atheists
for Dummies pt 6
Are we going to be stuck with these idiot trolls forever now?
Steve_C:
Go here and click on the little black box with “install this script” in the top right-hand corner.
You may have to restart firefox for it to work. I installed it several hours ago and it made reading through that desecration thread a lot easier. After killing that nutcase, Ed, I kept experiencing a strange impulse to read what his latest piece of lunacy was!
It makes a huge difference in long threads, though, as you can hide comments that don’t really saying anything of note [like this one, for instance], as well as kill individuals that only spout nonsense.
You will too rest. Most likely in jail. Stalking and cyberstalking are felonies. People routinely get arrested, convicted, and sent to prison for these crimes.
Also a sign of mental illness but you already knew that. Take your medication, get a good night’s sleep, and grab your shopping cart and go down to the park tomorrow and hang out with all the other “angels”.
The Dark Arts?
Wicca?
Satanic rituals?
Witches?
Catholicism?
Ghosts?
Hell?
Heaven?
God?
Prayers?
Exorcism?
Jesus?
Priests?
Trolls?
Saints?
Demons?
Ouija?
Santa?
Tooth Fairy?
Gnomes?
When I was younger we simply called it Make Believe
and we didn’t get our panties in a bunch over it if someone wanted to play something else.
And when it was time for dinner we put it all away and weren’t confined by mental shackles at the end of the day.
Rooke is a Kooke!
It’s over… the cracker, koran and god delusion as well as the rest of the days refuse have been taken out.
Get over it. It’s not like he does this everyday. He’s not going to stop pointing out how pointless and goofy religion is. Especially when trolls like you keep showing up demanding respect for your goofy wafer revering superstitions.
PZ won’t get fired. No Catholics were harmed only offended.
Let’s talk about Demons and Possessions instead! That is fun stuff.
Anyone seen that show “Paranormal State”? It’s a riot.
Pete Rooke, please let me know if you’re ever in the UK. I want to book you as a stand-up comedian. Genius material!
Maybe the more accurate term cretin ( http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-cretin.html ) should be more commonly used about these deranged people (xians) who still cling to the belief that some very old desert tribe’s god have any real world relevance other than for making life miserable??
Reminds me of when, back in the 80’s, my parents got truly terrified that I was playing Dungeons and Dragons and would become a satanist. They offered to buy all my books and dice from me at face value so they could burn them. I said no.
Still got em, but haven’t played in well over 15 years.
Must be a fun life to live in fear and ignorance constantly…
WOW! Look at that… [kill] and [hide comment] on every comment! Awesome. Worked instantly.
#89 Considering the span of time that Christians have disrupted the gene pool, 2000 years, that list is astonishingly short.
2000 years and less than 100 Christians who were not retarded.
Not too impressive
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Bill Donahue pwn3d, Sam Harris critiqued, New Atheists
for Dummies pt 6
What if your pointy white hat, mini skirt wearing embalmer decided to use milk instead of embalming fluid and also made a book out of your loved ones skin stitched together with their own hair. Pete Rooke is effectively that rapist.
I call Bullshit on Linda P Harvey-
She refers to them as “the Christ-less Rowling books”, but in most of the Harry Potter books, the Hogwarts students celebrate Christmas. Just shows she hasn’t even read what she is so vehemently criticizing. Not surprised, there’s an awful lot of that going on.
Equally hilarious: ceremonial magic in the Middle Ages was entirely predicated on the using power of God to control various “dark spirits” (it wasn’t until 18th century France that Satan got dragged into it). The whole idea was that if you were sufficiently pure and Godly, you could command spirits to bring you nubile young women and pots of gold. (Source: A.E Waite, The Book of Black Magic)
This shit has never made any sense.
Ugh. Another “argument from dead religious scientists”. Plenty of names on that list — Albertus Magnus, Gassendi, Helmont, Regiomontanus, etc. — weren’t even “modern scientists” to the extent that Archimedes was. They were mystics, alchemists and astrologers. Check a few biographies before dumping a list of names on your audience.
Whether science is compatible with any given religion now depends on the scientific knowledge we have now, not what they knew then — and guess what, we know an awful lot more than any of them.
Saint Michael the Archangel:
When you lie on your deathbed, you, too, will call upon the Invisible Pink Unicorn. Fearing the eternal death by trampling under Her Holy Hoofiness, you will repent your heresies at the last minute. There are no ahippoists in foxholes, nor on the deathbed. You will admit the fears that you have hidden from yourself, lo! these many years.
It’s true, I admit that as an atheist I fear the god of Abraham every bit as much as I fear Zeus and leprechauns. I am not as confrontational as some, but I do not appreciate being told that I will believe anything, that I will grasp at straws, simply because I know I will die. I would do much in order to live longer, but believing in imaginary entities is not an option; it is not a possibility. And thinking that I will be compelled to do so will not make your imaginary life after death any more real.
They are also packed with sexual innuendo and activity; alternative dress [Emphasis mine]
Ooooh, save us all from the demons of “alternative dress”. From those girls who wear black clothing… oops, sorry, those are nuns…
The Church Lady has clearly not researched the history of fantasy fiction if she thinks it’s a brand new “threat” to her belief system. Nor did she pick up on the crosses-and-holy-water-are-defences against/fatal-to-vampires cliche that runs through Buffy and other shows/novels of that ilk – seems to me that that should bolster her side, not lead unwary innocents into OMG! witchcraft.
I’m going to go out now and sacrifice a goat, er, Diet Coke and some Rice Krispies to a demonic entity, er player to be named later. Gotta stop reading those fantasy books…
# 115
Hey me too. I could accurately predict that I would be sitting around in my basement, with a black light, some pot, and a Black Sabbath record doing bong hits, and reading Hustler for the articles.
Amazing how often I was right.
Did you watch game shows while playing ozzie, and every so often the lips match the audio perfectly.
Fucking awesome.
—————————–
Bill Donahue pwn3d, Sam Harris critiqued, New Atheists
for Dummies pt 6
Saint Michael the Archangel: When I die (or rather just before), I will be wondering why idiots like you get some sort of free pass to talk shit. And then I will be dead and it wont matter to me.
SMtA:
And yet you say,
You not only have judged, you are taking it upon yourself to pass and carry out sentence. Is that really your place? Can your god not do these things for himself?
“Lucky you, PZ! You have a “Eucharistic Adoration Site” right there in Morris, MN, only 4 blocks from campus, at 209 E 3rd St (the corner of South California Ave and East 3rd). http://www.therealpresence.org/chap_fr.htm”
I looked up my town, and much to my shock and dismay I found out they’re doing it here! In my town! What is this world coming to? What about the children!!!!
People are still obsessed with the whole Harry Potter witchcraft thing? Wow, human stupidity IS infinite. I thought that all this crazy would end after the last book was released. I guess I was wrong.
Strak @111:
“Where is your proof that any, let alone, your god, exists?”
Proof implies a certainty unwarranted by mere claims about the nature of reality. I am satisfied with merely asking them “Where is your persuasive evidence that there are any gods?” They can’t seem to answer *that, either, and it’s a much simpler question. (More correctly, it is a less demanding question which asks for a much easier answer.)
The more sophisticated theists (i.e., those who do not normally post here) will admit that their reasons for believing are personal, usually emotional, and wouldn’t persuade anyone who doesn’t really already believe.
You know, mate, if you time it just right, you can be a whorin’ and a idolertin’ and just havin’ a boooodacious ol’ time of it. Then, right at the last minute:Repent! and you get all the heavenly cookies too.
Says so right in the Bible. It’s one of the parables. Where the farmer pays each the same reward, though some worked all day and others the last hour.
Just can’t remember the citation right now.
So, all your foolish “living the pure life” is wasted. All you’ve got to do is time it right.
If it were true, that is.
Which it is not.
Oh look, the dimwitted trolls from the other thread haven’t had enough punishment.
A fine example of why the Catholic church is dying, it only attracts moronic fucktards.
Posted by: Saint Michael the Archangel | July 25, 2008 1:26 AM
“Vade Retro Satana, Ipse Venena Bibas!”
Hey. Wait. Did the Romans have exclamation marks too? Goddamn they were clever.
You are not though fuckwit.
#148 Lyrical Assassin
You scoff with your verse
of Myers’ foul curse
but wait three more days
it’s not over
or worse
Sam #189,
I’m in complete agreement with you.
As Hitchens says, “some arguments cannot be refuted, only underlined”, and those arguments often commence with “witchcraft is real”, or similar demented fantasies, as an axiom. Here we underline such “arguments”, and have a little fun at the same time, by pouring upon them all the scorn and ridicule we can muster.
Story headline: Responding to blasphemy with love.
Comment: Rod is right of course.2008-07-24 15:06:46
But there is part of me that, to paraphrase “Pulp Fiction”,would like to go all Medieval on the excerable Professor Myers. We don’t do Fatwas, but there are times when it is rather tempting. What a gutless jerk !
Add that to my list for Confession
Written by Chris B
———————-
Aw, they’re making up violent fantasies about stomping PZ. Arent’ they just the cutest little bunch of psychos.
Peter Rooke “These should hopefully demonstrate precisely how offensive the desecration was – ” etc.
In Thailand a few years back, a stand up comedian was performing on stage, and a member of the audience put his feet up on the empty chair in front of him. The comedian leapt off the stage and attacked that man, killing him. Apparently showing the bottom of your feet to a person, especially “aiming” them at his face, is an insult in Thailand.
Looks pretty silly, doesn’t it, when you don’t share the sensibilities of the offended person?
my favorite quote from the witch article.
after the article presents a few insulting emails sent to the author by alleged pagans and wiccans, it goes on to say:
“Borrowing from the ‘gay rights’ playbook, these young people are somewhere learning that serious debate about the issue of witchcraft is a form of hate.”
what a laugh! substitute “witchcraft” with “catholicism,” and that pretty much sums up the whole eucharist kerfuffle…
@103:
Well, the trick is the “holy” day part. Since really, no day is holy; and while the equinoxes and solstices are actual observable events, they really don’t have any noticeable effect on your day.
So, my solution is that atheists should just be able to take off on a particularly nice day. Say, sunny, breezy and in the mid 70’s. Just take off, go outside, and enjoy the closest thing to “sacred”: life. Maybe grab Harry Potter for some light reading…
I heart the embalming rapist milkman. He’s nearly as evil YHWH.
The worst part for me is that there are legitimate complaints to be made about what the Harry Potter books are teaching our children. J.K. Rowling seems to confuse poor sportsmanship and cheating with cleverness. There’s no need to make up complaints.
“Arrr, you too will be sin’in’ a whole new tune right before you die, in fact I can guarantee you that before you die you will think o’ God, you will call his name, and you will wish secretly that you had been a belie’er. In your fear, as your lungs rasp for that last dyin’ breath and you look out int’ an unfocused world.. You will call out G-o-d.
So do whate’er you want. Put your dunce hat back on and dance your little jig har in front o’ your audience.. The Storm is comin’ for ya. Aye, me parrot concurs.”
WTF is that? Hey, Mikey old boy, you can’t talk like that unless you’re a devotee of FSM.
Some people just don’t know their place.
Murder. Mayhem. Pirates! arrrrr.
Nice to see the new generation of Hitler’s Youth is going strong. PZ, you should be proud! You are doing a fine job with these young impressionable minds. Nice mob mentality! belief or no belief in God, read these post, these are the people that your son are going to live with. You’re wife must truly be proud that she married such a inspirational person as yourself. Just what does make you different from the White Power groups or other hate groups. Please answer, though your usual mode is writing a blob here and there, all the while enjoying the show. Perhaps you will actually respond to this post. Maybe some of your worker bees will tell me. What makes you different? What makes your little group different than other hate groups. And don’t respond that you just think that religious peoples views are nuts. Because your post are full of hate. You aren’t out to give a point of view, you are out to offend and hate. Obviously, when you people have different views from one another this is your reaction. Then you wonder how a shooting at Virginia Tech can happen. Thank you for showing everyone how you cope with other peoples opinions different than your own. Do you treat fellow students this way. Oh wait, only the one’s that are religious right? So what makes you different? You are a great representation of your school little worker bees, you are also PZ. Your mentality is no different from the Nazis, I bet you think all us religious should be gone with. Perhaps, the world would better off without people like ourselves.
kermit: that must have been a real killer of a punchline.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist!)
Posted by: Dave | July 25, 2008 12:37 PM
Blah, blah, blah, PZ = Nazis, blah, blah.
Jesus you tards are BORING!
Dave,
Hitler Youth = Catholics
White Power groups = Catholics
The difference? Are you kidding?
#232 – Young? Wow, thanks. I thought at 56 I was middle-aged. Very cool.
Yes, Dave, giving you the consideration you deserve and it is mostly laughter, just a little gagging. I know your type, you would have been a Nazi in Germany, a rabid Stalinist in the 1930’s Soviet Union, waving a little red book during the Cultural Revolution. Whoever is in power and allow you to spread the hatred borne of your fear and self-loathing is ok with you.
I do owe you one piece of thanks, you and a few others and made me get off my butt and install the blocking software so I will, sadly, not read any reply or other posts you make. Oh, you are welcome to post to my blog, I know you haters need somewhere to go. I will post any attacks there on line here for others to enjoy, assuming it is not just more nonsense. You have to be clever or I just will not bother. I have already had plenty of truly crude and vulgar posts on my blog you from self professed Xtians and I usually just erase them as they are not well done.
Ciao
We don’t hate people. We have no respect for their religion. Any religion. That’s it. Nothing is sacred. Period. No hate required. Just a lack of respect. We’re all willing to tolerate religion as long as it doesn’t make people do dumb shit, like threaten someone over a cracker.
I heart the embalming rapist milkman…
Your Imdb.com search results on ‘The embalming rapist milkman’: 0 results.
Your Imdb.com search results on ‘Embalming rapist milkmen in miniskirts’: 0 results.
… Denied. Is it from the Hammer Horror catalogue? Sounds truly awesome, in that ‘too cheesy to have come from anywhere but the sixties’ way.
How dare you classify Harry Potter as fiction!!! I’ll tell you all now, once and for all, that wizards ARE real, I’ve seen them first hand on the subway in London! All you nonbelievers on this message board might deny it, but some day those wizards will cast awful, nasty spells on you for all eternity as a punishment for doubting their existence!!!
You really think we came from monkeys?! Everyone knows that Dumbeldore created the universe, and if you want to deny this you can just go spend eternity with Voldemort!
Moreover, I’ll have you know that glasses are sacred to us wizard-believers, and that any defilation and desecration of sunglasses, reading glasses, etc, is considered to be an assault on the holy son, Harry Potter himself- and we’ll charge you for kidnapping!
Finally, I’ll close by letting you all know that I hope you and your souls come around. I’ll be solemnly casting level 4 spells for you tonight.
PZ ain’t no nazi; being a nazi takes too much commitment. Better to compare him to a somewhat more casual bigot, someone like Fred Phelps for instance. That’s not a bad analogy actually:
PZ Myers is to Atheism as Fred Phelps is to Christianity.
Discuss!
Has anyone else noticed how much the Christian’s cuss? back when I was a Christian I didn’t cuss. My eldest son was 21 before he heard a cuss word escape my mouth, and at that point I’d been an Atheist for about a decade.
I don’t know whether to be amused or creeped out by the language all these high-and-mighty Christians are using in PZ’s blogs. I cuss a lot when I’m online these days, much less in person (I don’t cuss in front of children or in public.) It strikes me as very odd that Christians these days cuss so much and say such twisted sexual things. I’m sure we could psychoanalyze that to death and it would be quite fun.
And yet you failed to win the lottery… You failed to make a killing in the stock market… You failed to win at the sports books…
I actually hope that more kids try to take up witchcraft. Here’s my reasoning:
* Kid starts believing that one can do one’s will by casting spells.
* Kid tries it.
* It doesn’t work.
* Kid repeats experiment until the realization comes: It will NEVER work. It’s FICTION.
* Kid extrapolates results to other supernatural belief systems.
* Q.E.D.
(Sorry about the “fiction” part, Jason.) :-)
@ 197, who wrote: Are we going to be stuck with these idiot trolls forever now?
The trolls you will always have with you. (with apologies to Matthew 26:11)
PZ Myers is to Atheism as Fred Phelps is to Christianity. Discuss!
Okay. You’re a dipshit. End of discussion.
That’s about half right. While the medieval Catholic Church officially scoffed at some forms of witchcraft belief, it also always taught, following the Bible and the church fathers, that evil people could work supernatural feats with the help demons.
Witch trials in the familiar form began in the 15th century; before that witchcraft was generally treated as a secular crime, killing a man with sword or a spell being seen as much the same.
“Explosion of Teen Witchcraft” would be a good name for a rock band.
I have to say, Saint Michael’s Facebook group/discussion thing is just priceless. ‘100,000,000 Christians Worship God!’ shows the level of ‘proof’ and rational thought embodied by such people. So of the 1.5 billion Christians (using the bare minimum number I’ve heard) in the world, less than 7% actually do the thing that defines their belief system? Pretty lousy numbers…
Dave @ 232:
Sir, I name you poltroon and cad.
*smack*
Julie Stahlhut@243
Brilliant!
So, is it our duty as atheists to set up as new age charlatans, and hasten the process of disillusionment by ruthlessly exploiting our young dupes? ;-)
Ummmm, Dave (#232), didn’t the Virginia Tech shooter liken himself to Jesus Christ?
And I just love the way you casually toss the word “Nazi” around. Please tell us, exactly when did PZ or any pro-PZ commenters here advocate exclusion or expulsion of Catholics (or any other believers)?
Here’s a quick history lesson for you: the real Nazis didn’t merely critcicize or ridicule their opponents’ beliefs, they threw their opponents into camps and gassed them or worked them to death. Bit of a difference there, don’t you think?
You are truly an idiot.
You are confusing hatred with “pointing, and laughing hysterically.” There is a difference. A person has a right to hold a personal belief, and a right to free expression. You don’t have any rights never to be offended, when someone mocks your beliefs in public.
Religionists want to toss around words like “hate speech” and “bigot” when it’s just simple mockery. It’s the one thing they can’t handle, because it goes to the core of whether there is anything actually THERE at the root of their belief systems.
Okay, back to the show (munching popcorn).
Pete Rooke the deranged godbot @ #192:
No, your astonishingly bad analogies only demonstrate that you’re a demented fuckwit.
Pete Rooke’s first amazingly bad analogy:
This is idiotic. PZ was not delivering food. He did not contaminate anything, or expose anyone to disease. He did not steal or deface anyone else’s property. He simply disposed of items which were freely given to him, in his own home. If you feel violated or abused as a result of his actions, you should consider what is wrong with your sense of priorities that makes you obsess over a piece of bread.
Amazingly bad analogy #2:
What the fuck is wrong with you? Get it through your thick skull, a cracker is not a body, it is not a person, it is a baked good.
The situation you describe would be theft and fraud. PZ did not do anything remotely similar to what you’re talking about. The fact that you can’t see how bad your own analogies are suggests some severe mental defect on your part.
Amazingly bad analogy #3:
First of all, you have already been informed that it is not true that wearing a miniskirt increases the odds of sexual assault. The fact that you continue to repeat this makes you a liar, and also reveals a very creepy obsession with miniskirts.
It is irrelevant whether catholicism is a “soft target”, though you seem to have forgotten the DEATH THREATS made by your fellow catholics. What are you even trying to say here? Are you demanding that PZ spend every waking moment seeking out new holy symbols to desecrate?
You seem to have gotten the idea that religion is something special and eternally immune to criticism. It isn’t. Religious beliefs can be, and are, wrong. It isn’t a crime to point out that they’re wrong, as much as you’d like it to be (though I doubt you’d extend such protection beyond your own irrational dogmas).
Amazingly bad analogy #4:
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Kalatu Barada Nikto? You’re really talking about desecrating the Necronomicon? Well, you’ve already provided ample evidence that you’re batshit insane.
First of all, this is extremely creepy. It would in fact be a crime in many places to manufacture such a book, bound in human skin. But even if you had such a thing, it has no bearing on the actual events under discussion.
PZ did not steal anything, he only disposed of things that were freely given to him. There was no human flesh involved. You seem unable to grasp that fact. If you still claim the host is actually human flesh, explain why it is absolutely indistinguishable from bread by any means known to man.
And you seem to have also missed the fact that the evidence was posted on his own blog, behind the fold, where you have to make a conscious effort to find it. But I guess you just have to manufacture some imaginary slight to feed your persecution complex.
And the final, new, yet still astonishingly idiotic analogy:
No, it isn’t, but thanks for admitting you’re a KKK leader. :P
You seem to be missing one of the basic elements of what constitutes a “hate crime”. In order to be a hate crime, something actually has to be a crime. Nothing PZ did was in violation of any law. Nothing he did caused any real harm to any person, damaged public property, or endangered anyone’s life (though your fellow cultists have certainly been eager to threaten actual crimes). He disposed of his own property, in his own home. The pictures were behind the fold, so in order to even see them you’d have to LOOK for them, you’d have to go out of your way to find something to be offended by.
Your analogy fails, as always. You don’t have the slightest fucking idea what you’re talking about.
The Catholics love these scapegoats and witch hunts because it draws their attention away from the fact that they are their church’s own worst enemy. Catholic schools are very good at making ex-Catholics, and I’m sure the current pope isn’t helping with their retention, either.
foldedpath @ #252: “You are confusing hatred with “pointing, and laughing hysterically.” There is a difference…Religionists want to toss around words like “hate speech” and “bigot” when it’s just simple mockery.”
This isn’t hatred?
“What effort I put into it was not in response to the reality of your silly deity, but in response to the reality of your dangerous delusions. Those are real, all right, and they need to be belittled and weakened. But don’t confuse the fact that I find you and your church petty, foolish, twisted, and hateful to be a testimonial to the existence of your petty, foolish, twisted, hateful god.”
I don’t think the man should be fired, nor do I think he’s anywhere close to being a nazi or a skinhead. But he certainly is an anti-catholic bigot.
I didn’t read the whole thread, but I just wanted to note that Catholics (if I recall correctly, having been one in a previous existence) count as “saints” those angels who are mentioned by name in the Bible. If I recall, there are only three: Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel. It is quite correct (providing you hold to the whole insane belief system) to refer to Michael the Archangel as “Saint Michael.”
AdamK @ #256: “I didn’t read the whole thread, but I just wanted to note that Catholics (if I recall correctly, having been one in a previous existence) count as “saints” those angels who are mentioned by name in the Bible. If I recall, there are only three: Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel. It is quite correct (providing you hold to the whole insane belief system) to refer to Michael the Archangel as “Saint Michael.””
You forgot Raphael. Sorry to hear of your apostasy; the door is always open my friend.
Dan, don’t worry. We aren’t all anti-Catholic bigots. I, for one, genuinely respect your opinions. I respect your faith. I respect your respect. I respect your respect for people who have respect because, god DAMN it, I’m just oozing with respect, because I’m very respectful. I especially respect the Catholics and their belief that condoms shouldn’t be distributed to AIDS ravaged countries, and I’m nothing but tolerant and respectful of the fact that all of these people were tortured and burned alive. I respect the Catholic appeasement and endorsement of fascism in the last century, and your longstanding commitment to geocentrism. Hypatia was a total bitch, so I respect what you guys did to her. And if there’s one thing I respect above all else, it’s the Catholics and their near 2000 year history of genocide and conquest.
^
|
|
QED
What can men do against such reckless hate?
These are not sane people with prayers like this.
From Exorcism Prayer page on Spirit Daily.
PRAYER AGAINST EVERY EVIL
Spirit of our God, Father, Son , and Holy Spirit, Most Holy Trinity, Immaculate Virgin Mary, angels, archangels, and saints of Heaven, descend upon me. Please purify me, Lord, mold me, fill me with Yourself, use me. Banish all the forces of evil from me, destroy them, vanquish them, so that I can be healthy and do good deeds. Banish from me all spells, witchcraft, black magic, malefice, ties, maledictions, and the evil eye; diabolic infestations, oppressions, possessions; all that is evil and sinful, jealousy, perfidy, envy; physical, psychological, moral, spiritual, diabolical ailments. Burn all these evils in hell, that they may never again touch me or any other creature in the entire world. I command and bid all the powers who molest me — by the power of God all powerful, in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior, through the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary — to leave me forever, and to be consigned into the everlasting hell, where they will be bound by Saint Michael the archangel, Saint Gabriel, Saint Raphael, our guardian angels, and where they will be crushed under the heel of the Immaculate Virgin Mary.
There’s endless entertainment on that site. Thanks PZ for the link.
Yes, Dan, after all, if people point at your Dark Age Mafia and call it for the genocidal, authoritarian and utterly perverted and cynical institution it really is, they’re just being unreasonable and hateful.
If you want reasonable people to stop sneering at you, you should probably drop the pious bullshit and find a club with a little less blood on its hands.
Don’t worry, though. I’ll pray for you. =)
Dan @255:
Nope. It’s amusement. Often with a side of exasperation, frustration, or boredom at the essential unoriginality of whatever the recipient of the pointing and hysterical laughter has just favored us with.
Nope.
No, it’s not hatred. This is what hatred and bigotry actually look like:
http://agitprop.typepad.com/agitprop/images/lynching.jpg
What PZ did was mock the idea that Jesus inhabits a cracker, as well as poking fun at the sacredness of the Koran, Dawkins as authority figure for atheists, and the banana-hand theory of intelligent design… all in one fell swoop. Get some perspective, will ‘ya?
Oh yes that hateful PZ Myers. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and… satire. He was vicious.
Other good depictions of hatred and bigotry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pedro_Berruguete_-_Saint_Dominic_Presiding_over_an_Auto-da-fe_%281475%29.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/11/Host_desecration1.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa_Inquisition
Wow. Those Catholics sure are respectful, tolerant and peace-loving!
Dan. It’s anti-religion. All of em. There’s nothing special about Catholicism other than it’s arcane rituals and mythology. It’s really not that hard to understand.
regarding St. Michael the Archangel of Bad Spelling and Grammar:
LOL. Okay. I’m getting this image of a cracker with a cheese wiz smile draw on it.
It’s “by,” you idjit. “Bye” is what we say to trolls around here.
A bit of projection to say the least. And it’s “you’re,” you mental midget.
Since priests are the entities that conduct exorcisms, then P.Z. is in need of worldly help. I.e., you can’t even form a coherent thought, you jibbering twit.
Really? You “guarantee?” And how do you propose to back up that guarantee?
Ah, let us all bask in your Christian forgiveness.
Oy vey, again with the projection. And it’s “you’re,” you postule on the genome of humankind. “Your” is possessive; “you’re” is the contraction of “you” and “are.” Perhaps you should spend less time boring us evil atheists and more time watching Sesame Street or Between the Lions.
Really? You died and went to hell…and somehow returned. Are you…Jesus?
Huh. You won’t rest, eh? Spend all your time on this, eh? Funny, the Christians I know–I work at a Christian church–spend their time helping the poor. You know, like that guy Jesus kinda suggested Christians do?
Dustin @262: “Don’t worry, though. I’ll pray for you. =)”
And I for you my friend. This is probably pointless, but perhaps if you have any free time you might want to do a little research and cross-reference “Catholicism” with say “art” or “music” or “literature” or “philosophy” or even “science.” While you clearly show yourself to be a well-read & highly educated human being, you might yet discover that your indictment of the Church of Rome is just a teensy bit one-sided. Just sayin’.
S’aint Mickey is an anti-atheist bigot.
I prefer sanity to anything you have to offer. PZ you are a madman and your “followers” are merely deluded self-absorbed, insecure idiots.
http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4140&Itemid=48
Dan again, this time @260:
If, in your mind, to disagree with you and point out specific examples of the reasons for disagreeing for you is to hate you, this says something not-too-savory about your own mindset. And the (very respectful) Dustin didn’t even call you rude names, let alone threaten you.
This is not about you. It’s about ideas, and their validity.
Jack Picknell is a shrill baby.
And a fucktard.
Love the killfile!
Wikipedia: Bigot is often used as a pejorative term against a person who is obstinately devoted to prejudices even when these views are challenged or proven to be false or not universally applicable or acceptable.
So who’s the bigot?
Nice vocabulary Steve C. Are you a graduate of PZ’s school of idiocy?
That’s okay, though, because atheists don’t count as people.
You call us… “deluded self-absorbed, insecure idiots.”
I call you a fucktard. It’s quicker and to the point.
Steve_C @#268: “Dan. It’s anti-religion. All of em. There’s nothing special about Catholicism other than it’s arcane rituals and mythology. It’s really not that hard to understand.”
Oh, I’m sure Mr. Myers despises any & all affirmations of the divine; it just seems as though he has a special hard-on for the Church of Rome (if his last few posts & comments are to be taken seriously). I would imagine that most people w/o faith don’t have extremely strong views about the RCC; they take it simply as a human institution, one that (like any human institution that’s been around for a very long time) has its share of good & bad. Mr. Myers (& most people on this blog) seem only to be able to see the negative side; that’s fine, some people just can’t help their irrational prejudices.
Um, death threats over a cracker. Did you forget about that part?
Dr. Myers (and yes, it is Dr. Myers, not Mr. Myers) didn’t single out Catholics for ridicule. They singled themselves out by acting ridiculous.
Steve C.
It is not surprising that you simply prove my point. You deluded, self-absorbed, insecure, idiots are always doing that. You are ridiculously predictable.
There is no need to mock your ilk; you always wind up making a mockery of yourselves. I’d love to enjoy more of your zany self-defeating antics, but I have a real life.
Oh, I almost forgot to chime in with my respect for the Chruch’s acute and fair sense of morality.
As for cross-referencing the Church with science, I will happily do that. Here’s one: Oops. Uh-oh. Hmm.. it might take a while to find one that works out favorably for you guys. I’ll get back to you when I do.
Irrational predjuces?
The following was posted (by me) on the cracker thread and now repeated here for Dan’s perusal:
Regardless of anything else, this is the bottom line:
Any organisation that protects child molesters within its ranks as a matter of documented policy deserves absolutely no respect regardless of anyone’s faith, and should be brought crashing down and destroyed by any means possible, and the perpetrators and protectors of these crimes should be brought to justice with all the weight of international law.
Go ahead and refute that.
The funniest part is that you’re probably not even aware of the irony.
Religion is based on superstition, mythology and dogma. It doesn’t matter how innocuous it is, that fact still holds true, there are no gods. Period. As atheists, what your favorite flavor of delusion is, doesn’t matter to us. It’s inconsequential and deserving of no special respect.
The idea of the DIVINE is ludicrous. I don’t really care what people do in their temples. But it’s a problem for me when they go after students and professors because they’ve been offended.
And then you come to PZ’s blog to whine like little hurt children and babble absurd shit, quote meaningless scripture, threaten us and call us Nazi’s.
You just can’t handle that we’re completely dismissive of the importance of your wafer. It doesn’t take hate to think the ritual and beliefs that Catholics attribute to it are goofy.
All it takes is a smidge of rationality.
I think you guys have been had by Mikey The Seraphic Poultry (thank you Micheal Onfray for that wonderful description of the various winged demi-gods supposedly fluttering around us). I think Mikey actually writes for the Onion and his supervisor is Pete Rooke. No one, not even a catlick bigot is that stupid.
Cicely @273:”…This is not about you. It’s about ideas, and their validity.”
Is desecrating a Host part of a civil debate played out on the level of ideas? You sound like a reasonable person, which makes one wonder what on earth you’re doing here, defending a man who engages in such behavior. I’m all for reasonable debate, but such a debate can only begin when we start to treat each other with a modicum of respect. Just as one can’t expect to have a meaningful debate about homosexual marriage with a man shouting and holding up signs that say “God Hates Fags!”, neither can one expect to have a meaningful debate on the merits of the RCC with a person who holds tenaciously to a caricatured version of her history & who spits derisively on its symbols. This just seems like common sense, no?
Well, Dan – how about it?
I’m being reasonable. I’m not throwing tantrums or calling anyone names. I just want you to comment on my last post please.
What is your take on condoning the crimes of the organiation you obviously hold in such high regard?
Well if life hands you 15,000 + comments make 15,000+ commentade,…err…that’s to say take the bitter, most hilarious comments, pile them together and make a sweet award show. I present to you…..
The 2008 Kennys *
The Kennys celebrate those who excel in the Stupid arts. While many Poes can pose as religious nuts there are many real ones out there whose irrational comments (filled with spelling errors) are not some joke but a genuine attempt at thought. Expect many of the recipients to thank God when accepting their awards.
*Thank MAJeff for the name.
Most Fundie
Turzovka
“If there ever were any so-called UFO appartions that really took place and were seen by humans — those I believe to be demonic apparitions in order to deceive those more readily open to decption.”
It takes balls to reject a crazy UFO conspiracy theory and replace it with an even crazier “demonic apparitions” theory, but Turzovka shows he has those balls, all three of them.
Creepiest Commenter Award
Pete Rooke
“Here is an analogy you might understand. Suppose you had a very sacred book outlining your philosophy on life. This book also happened to be stitched together and bound in the skin and flesh of a loved one who had recently passed away.
Now desecrating the Eucharist would have the same effect as desecrating that book and posting the evidence in glee.”
He later goes to the analogy of a milkman with rotten teeth, a girl in a mini-skirt getting raped and an embalmer stealing a corpse’s “lush locks of blonde hair”. A very disturbed mind is at work here. Please get profession psychiatric help.
Most Incompetent Death Threat
Chuck Kroll
Most death threats are meant to cause harm and distress to the recipient. However, most death threats aren’t sent from a 1-800-flowers.com email account. Yes, Kroll sent a death threat using his wife’s work email. He claimed he just clicked on Myers’ email and started writing while on his wife’s computer. It wasn’t long before the email was traced, complaints were registered, and his wife was fired. I think he wanted to file a lawsuit on behalf of his wife, but she stopped him fearing he would end up burning down the house in his efforts.
Most Split Personality
k8
Aka, Naz, promo, baker, PZ is a fool, Burns, rumrunner, Dobbs, NYTs, KKKAthiest, Andy, CDV, BradJ, Brett, b7, PCD, NVFU, Your daddy, facebock, and baker. Perhaps k8 was simply giving a name to each voice in his head?
The Just Plain Stupid Award
SFG
On someone spelling “religeons”,
“Zan,
That’s spelled r-e-l-i-g-I-o-n. Sorry, but there’s no E in that word. See what I mean about the IQ on here.”
While attempting to make someone look dumb, by pointing out a spelling error, he showed that he was not even able to count the number of e’s in a word he just spelt. He would definitely be happy about winning this award because he has said:”I’m no “intellectual” (the thought of those people makes me violently sick)”
Life Time Achievement in the Acting Offended Arts
Bill Donahue
Rarely does one see a persecution complex take over a person’s life, but it has for Bill Donahue. Using the Catholic League he gets a high whining about the manufactured controversies he creates. Though he would have been much happier as a torturer during the Spanish Inquisition he had the misfortune of being born during less religiously fanatical times. This has not stopped him though. Nor has the fact that even many Catholics find him to be an annoying windbag. He does not even let the laws of consistency stop him. Not one week after publishing a release entitled MYERS STILL WANTS TO ABUSE EUCHARIST; SHOWS DEFERENCE TO ISLAM where he criticizes Myers for not attacking Islam he releases a statement entitled MYERS TO DESECRATE EUCHARIST AND KORAN where pretends to offended about Koran desecration and tries to release the Muslims on Myers. So far that effort has been, just like his life, a complete failure.
Like most award shows this comment post was too long. Hopefully Crackergate is over and I won’t have to add new awards.
Ghost@#280:”Um, death threats over a cracker. Did you forget about that part?”
Um, logic? Forget about that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasty_generalization
The debate lost its civility when your zealots decided to send Webster Cook death threats and make his college life miserable when he put one of your crackers in a ziplock bag. What sort of reasonable response would you have liked? Would you have liked us to say, “Gosh, Bill, we don’t agree, but we respect your right to harass and bully someone who has done nothing of any consequence to you” or, “Gee, we sure think that you’re probably being less than sincere in your outrage and using this as an excuse to conduct what, for your church is business as usual, but we’ll just stand idly by while you conduct your witch hunt.”
The response given here is the only reasonable one which could be given, and it would be unreasonable and cowardly to simply cave to you sanctimonious bullies as so many institutions generally do when they fear that, perhaps, they have committed the grave crime of offending you.
El (Red) Herring,
Every bishop, priest or layman who knowingly participated in such crimes or their cover-up should be tried & punished accordingly. Good enough for you?
Calling someone a “fag” (like Fred Phelps does) is different than damaging an inaminate object.
And yes, the merits of the RCC can be discussed regardless of one’s beliefs. The historical facts are there for anyone to examine.
The statement that Catholics sent death threats to a student for putting a cracker in a ziplock bag is a matter of fact, and quite specific. No hasty generalization, or generalization of any kind, is being made when someone says, “Webster Cook and PZ Myers received death threats from Catholics”. You’re an idiot.
Dan: in a word, no.
Do you subscribe to this religion? Do you worship at its churches? If you do, and you do not speak out or leave the faith then you are condoning its actions by your very inaction and/or silence.
And from what you’ve been posting here, you are actively promoting this very same faith. The blood is also on your hands.
Not good enough. Try again.
But they haven’t been. Why are you part of an organization which is using its clout to protect its own when you think they should be tried and punished?
Talk is cheap, motherfucker.
Oh – and nice little pretend insult, calling me “red”.
Now who’s (trying to be) insulting? I didn’t start it this time.
@ 260 wrote, “What can men do against such reckless hate?”
Ride out with me. Ride out and meet them.
Going out to saddle up Brego now.
#249 – Bonefish – for use of the word poltroon in my presence – more grog & swill, and I up your bar tab by 20 ducats. Carry on me Hearty!
Herring,
I wasn’t calling you “red”, I meant that the issue itself is a “red herring.” If a small percentage of the members of American Atheists are found to be pedophiles, that has no bearing on the truth value of atheism as a metaphysical position. The same goes for the Catholic Faith.
Including Joseph Ratzinger, AKA Pope Benedict, who enforced the Vatican’s official cover-up policy for 20 years?
This is not a few bad apples within the organization. This is a systemic problem within the organization itself. They had an official policy in place to protect pedophile priests and silence their victims, for fuck’s sake.
Pretending Crimen Sollicitationis document doesn’t exist won’t make it go away, and explaining and/or justifying its existence is a pretty tall order.
Dan: point taken, but I don’t see it as a red herring at all, in fact it is my main complaint against the Catholic church. As an organisation it is indefensible, so why are you defending it?
As many have stated before me, and as I stated in my very carefully worded post #283, it is not the fact that there are pedophiles in the church, but the the church itself protects them and even goes as far as having an official document stating so: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/5389684.stm
THAT is what is totally indefensible, and THAT is no red herring.
Refute it or shut up.
What can men do against such reckless hate?
Posted by: Dan | July 25, 2008 2:32 PM
Stop trolling and go the fuck home? Try it, it just might work.
Dustin @#294:”No hasty generalization, or generalization of any kind, is being made when someone says, “Webster Cook and PZ Myers received death threats from Catholics”.”
Let’s make this a bit simpler: assuming the statement “some catholics made death threats”, which of the following conclusions can be drawn?
1) The Catholic Faith is false.
2) Transubstantiation is false.
3) All/Most Catholics are homicidal maniacs.
4) None of the above.
Get this back to me by the end of the day.
I’d love to enjoy more of your zany self-defeating antics, but I have a real life.
Posted by: Jack Picknell | July 25, 2008 3:13 PM
But you insist on trolling here anyway asshat. Pimping your blog for more hits or are you just a simple-minded fucktard?
It depends on the level of escalation in the debate, and this escalted way outside the level of “ideas” very early on. Remember, what started this whole Cracker Kerfluffle was a kid who took a communion wafer back to a pew to show a friend. He was assaulted for attempting to leave the altar with the wafer, demands were made that he be expelled from his university, and he received death threats.
All this occurred before PZ got involved with his little conceptual art piece (and the subsequent death threats and threats to career aimed at him). The intent is to demonstrate that no religion has the right to demand that its beliefs not be ridiculed.. “or else.”
And I’d say it’s been a pretty effective demonstration, so far.
@Feynmaniac (#289),
Beautiful work there.
I think one thing’s missing: most prayerful commentator.
Might be hard to count all the times ‘pray for you/all/your son’ showed up in those threads, though….
Ooh,
multiple choicefalse polychotomy!1) Transubstantiation is the doctrine that God becomes bread
2) Communion is the ritual of eating God-as-bread, and supposedly taking God into themselves.
3) All Catholics take communion at some point in their lives
4) Some catholics make death threats of threats to God-as-bread
5) Other catholics murdered those that they claimed desecrated God-as-bread.
Conclusion: Either god does not become bread, or else god, even after joining with catholics in the form of bread, allows, or even encourages, murder and/or death threats.
Therefore, either the catholic religion is false, or god is an accessory to murder.
QED.
Dan could still fall back on the old argument that however wicked a given Pope may happen to be, just as long as he’s not a heretic, everything’s fine and dandy – the appointments of bishops and cardinals remain valid, the flow of woo is not interrupted; this came in very useful during some historical periods, I assure you. However, if the Pope were to be a heretic, his appointments to the cardinalate would be void, the conclave electing his successor would be invalid – whoops, the woo-pipe would have sprung a leak. So consider the awkward case of John XXII, who in a battle with the Franciscan order condemned the doctrine of the poverty of Christ as heretical, although it had been supported by his predecessors. So if his predecessors were heretics, he was not Pope, and the Chair of Peter hasd been vacant ever since; but if they were not, he was, and his successor was not validly elected, with the same end result.
*sigh* This was a very interesting thread in regard to the discussion Damien’s question brought up. Now here come the crackerbaters, touching their keyboards instead of themselves.
Since you want an answer, at least some are.
We’ll have to wait on a poll to see if it’s “most”, but if one were to judge that based on the reactions on this site, I’d say it’s hard to see that as an extremely minor phenomenon.
A word of advice Dan: damage control only works when you don’t have readily available evidence.
Wow. You got bumped by a six-year-old article? That’s just *rude*! :)
UMM won’t discipline Myers. Bill Donohue complacent. NOT:
http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1467
The Chancellor of the University of Minnesota, Morris (UMN) released a statement today regarding the intentional desecration of the Eucharist by Professor Paul Z. Myers. “I believe that behaviors that discriminate against or harass individuals or groups on the basis of their religious beliefs are reprehensible,” said Jacqueline Johnson. Importantly, she added that the school’s Code of Conduct prohibits such behavior. However, she also stressed that academic freedom allows faculty members “to speak or write as a public citizen without institutional discipline or restraint….” Nowhere did she say Myers would be disciplined.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue responded as follows:
“This is classic: Johnson admits that Myers has violated the UMN’s Code of Conduct and then proceeds to tell us why he is being allowed to do so with impunity–it’s a matter of academic freedom.
“Academic freedom is not the issue: academic malpractice is. For example, Section 10.21 (b) of UMN’s Tenure Code explicitly says that a tenured faculty member can be terminated or suspended for ‘unprofessional conduct which severely impairs a faculty member’s fitness in a professional capacity.’
“In 2001, this part of the Tenure Code was invoked against a professor at UMN because he had images of child porn on his computer. It should now be invoked against Myers, and that is why we will appeal to UMN’s Board of Regents to do just that. It strains credulity to maintain that Christian students can expect fair treatment by a faculty member who has publicly shown nothing but contempt for their religion.
“It is a sure bet that UMN would not tolerate a white professor who worked a comedy club on weekends trashing blacks. Indeed, it would say that such behavior disqualifies his ability to be objective. In many respects Myers is worse, and that is why sanctions are warranted.”
Dan @287,
What am I doing here? Well, you know how it is; come for the science, stay for the abuse. :D
And cephalopods are quite interesting. And frequently pleasant to look at.
Moving on.
First you have to keep in mind that all atheists are not cookie-cutter identical in thoughts and motives, and do not constitute a monolithic group-mind, any more than all Catholics, all (insert specific denomination) Christians, all Muslims….all gays, all blacks, all women, or all pretty much any group that identifies as a group.
For me, the idea (actually, more like a series of ideas) under contention is the unevidenced belief that one group’s deity, by use of ritual, is transubstantiated irremovably into a cracker/wafer/bread; that this group requires that everyone else treat that cracker as if this were literally true; that dissent on this belief is grounds for threats and violence (and threats of violence); and that the destruction of such a cracker is anything but the destruction of a cracker, just as important as the destruction of any other cracker.
Mind you I can see why, believing that the cracker is something divine instead of being just like any other cracker, people holding to that belief system are upset; but I don’t see that their distress is more valid than the distress experienced by believers in some other unevidenced idea….for example, that it is blasphemous to make a portraiture of a long-dead man. I don’t recall any great non-Islamic sense of outrage that someone else’s religious sensibilities had been assaulted; in fact, I recall more of a “get a grip, people; it’s just a cartoon!” reaction.
In any case, outrage doesn’t validate the unevidenced belief at the base of the reaction.
As for whether Dr. Myers “has a special hard-on for the Church of Rome” or not, I suspect….not. It’s just that the cracker incident is current and local, and his recent posts are a reaction to that. It’s before my time here, but I understand that he has also lambasted non-Catholic religious views, in the past. Were Catholics in general so vehemently anti-Myers before this all hit the news? Not that I recall.
What stands out from the crowd, gets all the attention.
Herring,
The policy as practiced was obviously terrible and indefensible; no one looking back upon it now can disagree with that. Though it can certainly be said that this “old boy network” mentality is something you’ll find any long-standing hierarchical institution. Does that mean that all hierarchies are bad? You can run with that idea if you want; I think it just means that we need a greater degree of openness on these issues. My overarching point however is that if we’re going to be reasonable & fair human beings, ought we not take the bad with the good? At the very least the Church’s grand musical/artistic & educational legacy should be given due attention. My intuition is though that most people on this blog have no desire to look at the good side of the Church, not because of “Russell’s teapot” or the scandal du jour, but because they find its moral teachings at odds with their own desires. “No God=No Guilt” as they say! One can have such an opinion if one wishes, just don’t pretend that it’s rationally motivated.
Seems like their Big Gun is accusing us of being hateful. “You guys are hateful! You hate stuff!” And that’s supposed to be an automatic win for them. I think a little hatred is healthy. I hate lies. I hate unfairness. I hate using force to suppress legitimate criticism. Yes, I do indeed, hate. We all hate some things. And I’m not one of those namby-pambies who says “hate” is too strong a word. It’s a perfectly useful word. It’s the opposite of like, not necessarily love. If I say I hate Scientology, it doesn’t automatically mean that I want to burn all their temples and send their membership to a gulag. It’s only well-poisoners who think things like this.
So when you call me “hateful” or “full of hate”, then while it’s not exactly true (my fullness includes other stuff too, such as a deep abiding love for 6-pound bags of mini-pretzels from Costco), I won’t take it as an insult. And certainly not as an argument. It just means that I have the critical mental faculties to separate good things from bad things. What you call “hate” is merely a consequence of being able to have a spectrum of views towards things.
Donohue definitely has some anger problems. He is trying a “Gish Gallop” of charges hoping one would stick. He also does not understand the difference between criminal behavior and just offending people. It just shows what a mean, petty man he is.
Dan said, “No God=No Guilt”
Bullshit. Care to back that up with some evidence?
Now who’s stereotyping?
Your hypocrisy is showing.
The funny thing is, if Donohue had never weighed in on this, the threat of desecration probably would have remained just that: an empty threat, a rhetorical device, a joke.
And if PZ had gone through with it, nobody would have noticed. It would have happened and been forgotten. It’s Donohue who made this an issue. It’s Donohue who brought this to the attention of so many people, and even got one person fired — unfortunately for him, PZ was not the one who lost his job. God has bad aim.
You’re right, Dan. I’m addicted to the crazy moral hedonism of working on Sundays and eating meat on Fridays and having sexual relations without the purpose of making a baby.
What’s classic is Donohue’s bluster: I have not discriminated against or harassed any group on the basis of their religion, so I have not violated any university codes. Sorry, Bill.
And no, I don’t have any particular dislike of Catholics, Muslims, or members of any religious group. I have contempt for most religious beliefs. There is a difference.
Your moral relativism is pathetic.
You’re right, Dan. I’m addicted to the crazy moral hedonism of working on Sundays and eating meat on Fridays and having sexual relations without the purpose of making a baby.
Even more than that. As you’ve rejected God, you’ve also rejected all notions of right and wrong, and are incapable of feeling guilt over doing wrong because there is no wrong. Of course, as atheists, we are all without a moral compass….blah blah blah.
Scooter @ #222
I had a good laugh
when you called out The Traf
thinking you could take me.
But little you knew
how completely screwed
you’d be if e’er you’d wake me.
I’ll save my big guns
’cause it’ll be enough fun
breaking you piece by piece.
I’ll start with your balls
they’re ever so small
even for ducks or for geese.
Your chin sports a beard
more properly geared
to adorn not your face but your sack.
And your needle-thin dick
would not do the trick
To please any but girls of wax.
Your eleventh toe and
your hook for a hand
make for a revolting sight.
But we might be assumin’
you resembled a human
if seen on the blackest of nights.
The warts on your nose,
your pointed elbows,
and your unkempt mess of a brow
They serve to distract
from the charisma you lack
and that vaguely you smell of a cow.
The ladies abhorred,
and midgets ignored,
you in your worst times of need
Perhaps it’s your voice,
To be like, your choice,
Was to sound like Gilbert Gottfried.
You talk of PZ
As though he should be
Afraid of your mythical captain.
Fortunately though,
The wise of us know,
The only true god is Clapton.
–Traf E. Traf
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball
Dan: Now who’s piling on the red herrings?
I am well aware of the church’s influence in producing great art works. My first thought on that was; how do we know that all the great artists of the past wouldn’t have produced great art anyway? But that point is irrelevant. The art exists regardless of the circumstances of its origin. (And besides, where do you think the church got all their great wealth from, in order to commission these works? Look it up sometime.)
No, I’m sorry but the Crimen Sollicitationis trumps all arguments for any “good” done by or in the name of the Catholic church. It is simply unforgivable, irrefutable and indefensible. I think this needs to be brought to the attention of as many people as possible. I even intend to contact the BBC to find out what they’ve done about their story in the two years since they reported it.
And I urge everyone here who agrees with me to also report on it, blog it, shout it from the rooftops, whatever. In the words of Richard Dawkins, let’s do some “consciousness raising” on this issue, until the Catholic church or the Pope himself responds and apologises.
Dan’s obviously.
Religites seem to have problems with being emotional animals. Though they are extremely emotional with their adoration, worship, submission of their gods, they seem to crumble under the weight of simple, everyday emotions, like love (oooh, it’s really lust!), hate (ooooh, the devil is possessing me!), anger (ooooh, the devil again!), and envy (oooh the devil yet again).
Religites are arrested in their emotional development. If you ever want to get rid of a religite who has knocked on your door, just run through the gamut of emotions, be happy, sad, angry, loving, and they will experience an emotional short-circuit and run away.
Perhaps they may be intellectually impoverished also, but they are almost to the last one, emotionally challenged individuals.
The university code of conduct includes this statement:
“Expressions of disrespectful bias, hate, harassment or hostility against an individual, group or their property because of the individual or group’s actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion…can be forms of discrimination.”
I think what it means, though, is that if you burn a cross or desecrate a Eucharist because you hate Catholics, that is discrimination. If you hate Catholic beliefs, that’s another matter.
I’d say there’s nothing wrong with discriminating between and against beliefs. We do it all the time. I think the idea that “killing babies is fun” is reprehensible. I don’t have to respect it.
Likewise, the idea that a processed wheat product is imbued with magical properties, and that even those who reject such a claim should “respect” the wheat product, is absurd.
“but in most of the Harry Potter books, the Hogwarts students celebrate Christmas.”
But you see, that makes it all the worse. Seducing the younglings into their witch cult by incorporating, nay, absorbing, Christian traditions. Very insidious, that.
“Woohoo! Pete’s back with the embalming rapist milkman!”
I hate you, Embalming Rapist Milkman Dan.
“Explosion of Teen Witchcraft” would be a good name for a rock band.”
Or perhaps “Teen Witchcraft Explosion”.
I’m not Herring, but this is another one that keeps coming up.
Dan @315:
I can’t speak to the value of the Catholic Church’s educational legacy, not having experienced it personally; but for a long, long time, in Christian Europe, it was the only game in town. This, in my opinion, puts it on the same footing as a political system with only one party. I do value the role the Church played in preserving a (selected) part of the knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and most people I know, who think about such things at all, do too.
And I have a lot of appreciation for the visual arts and music of Medieval and Renaissance Europe; I study it to the best of my admittedly limited capacity. But. The thing is. I think we have to attribute them not to the Church (though the Church, as well as kings, and private individuals, gave them their patronage and support; props there, though I’m aware of the propaganda and educational use of the visual arts, and I’m sure the Church was, too), but to the same human creative impulses that also were behind the arts (and music, though less of that survives; curse the lack of a good system of musical notation!) created by people who worshipped the Greek gods, or the Egyptian gods, or the Chinese gods….etc. Or, for that matter, by the people who painted the caves of Lascaux, whose beliefs we have no way of knowing.
I’d better post this before I get even wordier! :)
Oh yes, I forgot. Silly me. He’s already apologised, hasn’t he?
Except that a half-hearted “oops, sorry” in Australia this week doesn’t even come close to the kind of apology I’m asking for. All the names of all the abusing priests should be immediately handed over to the police, along with all church documents detailing their massive systematic cover-up. That will do for a start.
It’s funny to see religious people take such things seriously. If you want to keep people follow the faith, you cannot let individuals dissent with outside fairytale.
It’s like keeping Battleaxe elements from interfering with a game of Dungeons and Dragons.
It’s also strange that they actually take it so seriously like it’s just as valid as their own faith.
I wonder if they dismiss wizardry and horoscopes as make believe fun, would that get them to actually question their own beliefs?
I’ve dealt with those kinds of prohibitions as a kid and it did indeed encourage me to check that stuff out more only to find that it’s just make-believe. Over time it just ruined the credibility of my parents in my own eyes regarding these things.
ADULTS: Quit acting like fools in front of the kids! They will have no respect for you.
Assertions one and two are true, and people in this thread have said as much. But if you have mistaken the meaning of those posts to be that the falsehood of your religion and its VooDoo follows from the atrocious (but typical, for the Church) behavior of your brothers in faith, then you’re even more brain damaged than I originally suspected. I don’t harbor any illusions that your church wouldn’t go right back to their more typical behavior of persecution and suppression if it weren’t for the rise of social pressures which prevent them from doing it, and my reasons for saying so are, in fact, the way you precious little assholes have been acting over a god damned cracker, and your Church’s very violent history.
In any case, nobody has constructed arguments of the kind you’ve suggested are fallacious. You know that, and are being a mendacious little prick. So, regarding logic, you might want to have a look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Sadly, your false polychotomy doesn’t yet have an article devoted to it.
I’ve discovered that there is a torrent file available of the BBC Panorama programme in question. I won’t post the link here as I don’t know whether PZ would approve and I don’t want to incur his wrath, but I’m sure anyone who wants to get hold of it will know how.
I still think that the title track of the debut album of the death metal band “Atheist Noise Machine” should be “Desecrating the Host”.
PZ said- What’s classic is Donohue’s bluster: I have not discriminated against or harassed any group on the basis of their religion, so I have not violated any university codes. Sorry, Bill.
And no, I don’t have any particular dislike of Catholics, Muslims, or members of any religious group. I have contempt for most religious beliefs. There is a difference.
Posted by: PZ Myers | July 25, 2008 4:59 PM
You won’t be there this time next year idiot- they may wait before getting rid of you, but you’re gone. If you don’t think so, you’re as naive as these kids are. You’ve spent too much time in Po-dunk Minnesota
Kids??? HAHAHA. I’m 40.
The have delusions of grandeur too, don’t they?
Most religions have a need of an antithesis.
For the christians, it’s satan, and anything deemed satanic.
This conveniently allows their witch-doctors to control what their followers read, hear or view, which in turn allows for greater control of the followers. Nothing much new in that.
“How sad. I no longer have the lead headline at Spirit Daily” -PZ
Curious. A check of the daily archives at the site shows that PZ never had the lead headline there, at least going back to June 15th. Although, there was a link to this blog posted on July 23rd in the stack of stories.
More playing fast and loose with the facts at this blog. It is pathetic – no other word to describe it.
dave,
Go pray or something. I’d much rather you waste your time than ours.
Hey dave, you fucktard, PZ had had a blog for years and his message isn’t any different than when he started, but he does have a ton more readers. If they were going to let him go they would of done it a while ago. They know he’s controversial, and they’re not worried about a few upset Catholics.
Thanks for commenting on my blog.
Steve C- You’re 40 …and you still haven’t moved? ….How sad
Back on topic, Wicca is for pansies. After years of playing Dungeons and Dragons made me lust for netherworldly power, I converted to Wicca and realized that it’s all incense and love. Plus, my coven leader and Priestess of Isis wanted me to change my name to Honeysuckle Moonflower.
That’s when I converted to LaVeyan Satanism.
@Picknell,
Isn’t “Madman goes Beserk” a tad redundant?
It’d be like if I said, “Self-absorbed whiner promotes own blog”
No, I moved. I was raised Catholic. I gave up childish things when I was about 19.
TG, Try learning to use google.
Spirit Daily Headline
Now, do you want to talk about who has been playing fast and loose with the truth ? Only it seems it is you. And as you said, it is pathetic.
Isn’t it past your bedtime Ryan?
That site is so ugly I can’t tell which story is on top. Maybe they should let the nuns hit the webmaster with rulers?
Posted by: TG | July 25, 2008 5:39 PM
Trolling along, singing his song…
Nick Gotts: “the woo-pipe would have sprung a leak.”
LOL – I hate when that happens! I recommend duct tape.
Dustin,
If you follow the link I gave above you will find the front page as cached by Google on 19th July. The headline is highlighted in yellow, in the right hand column about a third of way down and reads “Newly ordained priest on desecration threat: professor is teaching hate”.
Somehow TG managed to miss that.
Thanks for commenting on my blog.
Posted by: Jack Picknell | July 25, 2008 5:44 PM
Like I said before, blog attention whoring.
“You won’t be there this time next year idiot- they may wait before getting rid of you, but you’re gone. If you don’t think so, you’re as naive as these kids are. You’ve spent too much time in Po-dunk Minnesota”
Dave, why are you so hateful and full of hate? Quit hating.
whew… smells like Troll in here…
Dave is obviously a bigot to all citizens of “Po-dunk Minnesota.”
# 346- moving into your mothers basement or dorm room doesn’t count.
“TG, Try learning to use google.
Spirit Daily Headline
Now, do you want to talk about who has been playing fast and loose with the truth ? Only it seems it is you. And as you said, it is pathetic. ”
How sad. I no longer have the lead headline at Spirit Daily – PZ
Lead headline at your link:
POPE APOLOGIZES FOR CLERGY ABUSE, SAYS ‘EVIL’ ACTS SHOULD BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE
dave, if anyone is acting like a child. It is you. Now scurry off and get to praying (or preying?).
PZ! Hurry and put the lab coat on, TG the Anal is here!
What are you going on about? I got a BFA 17 years ago. I make 6 figures, and I have a pretty nice loft apartment in Brooklyn.
But go right ahead with your little fairy tale if it makes you feel better. Drinking might be a better course of action. It looks like that’s what Donohue does to cope.
whew… smells like Troll in here…
Posted by: Snitzels | July 25, 2008 6:02 PM
PZ! Hurry and put the lab coat on, TG the Anal is here!
Posted by: Rey Fox | July 25, 2008 6:08 PM
That explains the smell…poopy.
I’m not full of hate, I just think people who live in po-dunk towns I don’t hate people. I have no respect for people who chose to live in po-dunk towns. Any po-dunk town. That’s it. Period. No hate required. Just a lack of respect.
Hey, all you Catholics who are making reparations for PZ assaulting some wheat! You should make a pilgrimage to the most recent Marian apparition and get on your knees and pray for all us atheists! I read about in on Spirit Daily! I think it’s in a sewer in California. Here it is!
http://www.ksbw.com/news/16978549/detail.html
I’m not full of hate, I just don’t respect people who live in po-dunk towns. I don’t hate people. I have no respect for people who chose to live in po-dunk towns. Any po-dunk town. That’s it. Period. No hate required. Just a lack of respect.
Sean, I believe akshelby has found the source… ;)
Hahaha! Thanks for making my point for me Dave. You still don’t get it. Keep trying though, you’ll figure it out.
“I have no respect for people who chose to live in po-dunk towns. Any po-dunk town. ”
Well, that settles it, then. You’re a populationist. And your crude slurs are hate speech. I hope you enjoy unemployment.
No-Steve you don’t get it. Have go now though, enjoy your day at the general store…do you have one of those yet? ha,ha,ha,ha
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the level of intelligence and logic of a flea, dave.
dave, that may be the dumbest thing written on the internet today.
whew… smells like Troll in here…
Posted by: Snitzels | July 25, 2008 6:02 PM
PZ! Hurry and put the lab coat on, TG the Anal is here!
Posted by: Rey Fox | July 25, 2008 6:08 PM
That explains the smell…poopy.
++++++++++++
Once again when checked, there apparently is no evidence to back up a PZ statement. Don’t you guys ever wonder about why?
Posted by: TG | July 25, 2008 6:20 PM
You really need to stop mumbling.
TeeHee.
Jack Picknell has a grand total of *ONE* reader comment on his entire blog.
Just you and the crickets, Jack. Have a cracker.
Hehe. Yup. Brooklyn has a general store. Park your pick-up truck anytime you want dave.
From the article that the Spirit Daily Headline links to:
http://www.islandpacket.com/world/story/553373.html
As I said already, a simple “sorry folks” doesn’t cut it. Ratzinger himself is the man responsible for the Crimen Sollicitationis. He authorized the updated version of it before he became Pope. So this corruption goes right to the top. And the irony of the whole sordid story is that the Catholic Church is supposed to be an organisation of trust.
This is just piling irony on top of misplaced trust, on top of scandal and cover-up, on top of gross systematic sexual abuse. A quivering, revolting, reeking tower of injustice and downright ugliness. Now, for an organised RELIGION that demands respect and adoration, just how much more evil can you get?
There’s been a lot of fatwa envy in these threads but, as near as I can tell, the Muslims still have about a thousand years worth of catching up to do before they even begin to match the atrocities carried out by the Catholics. The Catholic Church is still #1 in the evil department.
That might be because some of don’t give a crap whether the cracker was a *real* jebus cracker or a fake.
I for one could care less. The whole cracker thing bothers me not because of PZ and what he did, or did not do, to a cracker. It bothers me because many Catholics care more about an idolatrous item than they do people. It makes me ill. Whether he *harmed* a real Eucharist or a fake, is irrelevant, The insight into the minds of catholics is what I take away from this. It is deeply disturbing.
I think that was the point to the whole escapade, PZ shone(sp?) a spotlight on the evil empire called Catholism. He pulled back the curtain and the rest of the world now sees how evil the mindset is, and how dangerous Catholicism can be.
Do I think all Catholics are evil? No, not at all. I think many have no idea just how evil their religion is. Perhaps they too needed to see.
In the beginning of this I kind of thought what PZ did was rude. Now I am glad he did it and I applaud him. I used to think that only the leaders of Catholicism were evil, now I think that many of the followers are just as bad. I will not judge every catholic who crosses my path with prejudice, but I will admit that I will probably back way off if they admit to being devout. There is no way to be devout without being a complete whackjob.
Dan “My intuition is though that most people on this blog have no desire to look at the good side of the Church, not because of “Russell’s teapot” or the scandal du jour, but because they find its moral teachings at odds with their own desires. “No God=No Guilt” as they say! One can have such an opinion if one wishes, just don’t pretend that it’s rationally motivated.”
The problem with your intuition is that you don’t check it against reality. This is a bad habit acquired by your indulging in religion, and is only part of the damage it leads to. In Western societies, atheists have a lower incidence of arrests and of convictions. This illustrates another harm from religion: false beliefs. False beliefs in human and non-human nature can lead to disastrous decisions, both individually and collectively. Adults do not need fear of eternal torture to avoid behaving badly. Internalizing childhood moral teachings and a fairly stable society are enough for that.
The mythic god of Abraham is an abusive paternalistic figure, and most theists are in denial of it. Acts of God inflict great pain on people (that is, some natural events are catastrophic from our point of view), and the Christian response is to thank God if they survive. (“Thank you, Daddy, for not whipping me with that coat hanger. Again.”) Children of abusive parents are often *very defensive of said parents, and fiercely deny that they have been abused, even with the scars to prove it.
Sorry, Dan, but I go to work, pay my bills, grow a garden, pursue my path of discipline (not religion!) and have two fine adult kids. I love my wife and my cat, and go for hikes on Sunday morning. I don’t need a belief in gods to behave like an adult.
Thank you Rayven for using the phrase “could care less” in its correct context (as in “I DO care”)
“Shone” is right too, btw.
I’m what you might call a “reverse Grammar Nazi” – I like to point out when something is right!
As for the rest of your post – spot on. I heartily agree.
*yawn* – I think I’ll get out my book of shadows and cast a troll weinie whacker spell. Damn, I’ll have to wait till my familiar gets done laying an egg…
Nasssty smell that troll!
… meant to add:
Of course not all Catlicks are evil. But the religion they hold so dear and follow so blindly is, and they need to be told. Over and over again for as long as necessary.
As I keep trying to point out, any Catholic who doesn’t know what goes on in their chosen religion is merely ignorant and deluded. Anyone who DOES know is a hypocrite of the worst order (pun intended). And also just as deluded, of course.
No, no, you’re in there. You are referred to directly in the article:
“Satan and his army of demonic spirits are genuine and referenced frequently in the Bible. His main goal is to separate humans forever from fellowship and eternal life with God through Christ. “
Posted by: Rayven Alandria
When substantiation of facts (even “minor” ones) means nothing, then any opinion can pass for truth. Yours for example.
If somebody tries to pass an empirical fact to me, I expect evidence that substantiates it if I ask for it. That attitude seems to be quite rare around here at this [i]science[/i] blog. You’d think it would be otherwise.
Well, perhaps it would be if the peanut gallery were populated by real scientists/objective thinkers and the moderator didn’t turn every event having to do with himself into a pump to inflate his ego.
This place is just the site for an internet cult. That’s all.
Say, TG, since you (unlike the other Catholic trolls) have taken the entirely commendable step of devoting yourself to evidential inquiry, perhaps you can give us a rigorous examination of the empirical evidence for transubstantiation. I’ve been waiting for this since the cracker fiasco began!
Just because you have nothing better to do with your life than dis my blog…
http://yasik.kiev.ua/Blogging2.jpg
Peace and have a great weekend.
“Say, TG, since you (unlike the other Catholic trolls) have taken the entirely commendable step of devoting yourself to evidential inquiry, perhaps you can give us a rigorous examination of the empirical evidence for transubstantiation. I’ve been waiting for this since the cracker fiasco began!”
Sure.
It is not an empirical event.
How’s that?
for PZ with luv
http://yasik.kiev.ua/Fail_at_Failing.jpg
We ask for evidence all the time. The theists rarely present any. They usually don’t seem to understand what constitutes evidence.
Good enough for me, since you’ve as much as admitted that it doesn’t happen.
‘Cause touting a blog with a handful of comments is winning.
You Catholics and your rampant redefinitions!
Heres your evidence heathen!
http://yasik.kiev.ua/Thread_Tornado.jpg
My God.
PZ Meyers doesn’t even know the difference between Catholics and Protestants.
Of all the Posters here, this one is by far the geekiest.
http://yasik.kiev.ua/Starships_Comparison.gif
Jack has gotta be a POE. I call POE!
Evidence must be relevant to that for which the evidence is requested. By insisting on evidence in the physical realm, you miss the mark as to what it is you want to see evidence of.
You are always trying to get us to frame spiritual and supernatural reality into your little “naturalist” paradigm.
What you are insisting on is the same as insisting that we must turn over rocks in order to prove to you that birds exist. You guys are unequipped when it comes to meta physics. God is Spirit.
Oh mighty Eris, I summon and conjure thee! Fly from lofty Olympus! Oh mighty goddess, I beg you to give your fullest attention to the sparse contents of the underpants of every troll on this thread. In token and sacrifice I give this fresh, virgin egg. Pox scrotum!
I get it. I get it. God is make believe. Tell us something we don’t know.
What is a POE pray-tell?
Either two different people are posting as Saint Michael the Archangel, or else Charlie Wagner’s turned really mean lately.
No I haven’t. You claim the miracle is real. I want to see real evidence of it, then. Shuffling the transubstantiation away from physicality to avoid the need to put forward physical evidence of its existence is, very literally, claiming that it doesn’t exist.
“Pox scrotum!”
That is another thing I have noticed at this internet cult site. There seems to be a whole lot of peanut gallery dwellers who must make references to human reproductive and excretory parts. And not just that, but in ways that use references to those parts as insults.
So, we now have two characteristics of this cult on the list:
1. A facts don’t matter attitude when it comes to cult members’ opinions
2. An obsession (more like a disgust) with the existence and operations of the lower half of human anatomy.
Pretty sick, this collection of votaries PZ has collected for himself. But not surprising, given what the cult is based on.
I never understood the thanking of godfairies for things like that. It is irrational to a bizarre degree. After Hurricane Katrina so many people were thanking their godfairy for not killing them etc…and claimed their prayers saved them. It left me baffled. I wonder why they don’t ask themselves why a godfairy sent the frikkin’ hurricane in the first place, or why he wiped out most of the Coast, (including all those churches). What about people who died, (or die in any disaster or from diseases)? They didn’t pray hard enough, they weren’t special enough? To the people who think their prayers saved them, I say “fuck you. You’re an arrogant, stupid jerk”. To think that some little kid was not good enough for a godfairy to save but you were. Fuck you.
I often tell people that godfairy sent the most devastating hurricane he could muster but he still missed me. He’s a stupid godfairy, with bad aim. (Imaginary godfairy Wiped out preacher-dude’s house down the block but mine took minimal damage.)
Actually, all you’re doing is grasping for something to argue about so you can dodge the real issue. It’s called an avoidance technique and misdirection. You can’t win on the important issue so you’re desperately looking for some way to be “right”. Since it’s after the fact, there may be no way to prove conclusively the jebus cracker was consecrated, so you can feel *right*. It’s rather pathetic.
If PZ were making some kind of scientific claim about an object, Such as “The cracker turned into flesh”. We’d be all over his ass demanding verifiable proof. What PZ did was use a cracker to make a social statement. Then some catholics went crazy and sent him death threats, came here to argue with us etc….the result of the cracker *harming* is a fact we can see ourselves. Cause and affect.
Whether the cracker was blessed or was not blessed is irrelevant. You and your kind reacted, that is a fact. Period. One you cannot dispute.
It is a fact we have verified because we see it happening with our own eyes. The reaction of Catholics is what concerns me (trying not to speak for other Atheists) Whether the object that sent you into a frenzy is a *real* jebus cracker or a Nabisco fraud is utterly and absolutely irrelevant.
I will give you one cookie though…In truth, I cannot verify that all of you crazed Catholics are not fakes. You could all be PZ, and this could be a total charade. If evidence ever surfaces to reveal that, I will change my mind about the whole situation.
I presume that’s why you haven’t made good on presenting the empirical evidence supporting transubstantiation.
Where’s the rapture when you really need it? Of course wouldn’t it be a proper bit of irony if it already happened and these catlicks missed the boat?
Marc #114 wrote:
I agree. I’m a bit more personally familiar with the New-Agey, neopagan, “spiritual” forms of theism than with Christianity, and, although atheists and New Agers can get along very well on political grounds (they tend to be very accepting of diversity, we’re usually both in favor of separation of church and state, and, in general,the same people that hate us, hate them) they are NOT pro-science or pro-reason.
On the contrary. In some cases they can actually be more hostile to both science and secular humanism than more traditional theists are. Science is a hegemonic dogma suppressing the rights of other cultures and other “ways of knowing” — and it dares to be judgmental. Atheists are therefore classified with Fundamentalists, because both extremes have the temerity to think their views are “right” and other views are “wrong.” How judgmental. And how wrong.
On one of the other scienceblogs, a commenter mentioned that he had a t-shirt that read “Just for the record, Wicca is bullshit too.” He said he usually avoided wearing that one to his Renaissance Faire board meetings. Heh.
That said, the Potter books are, of course, fiction, and don’t encourage the reader, either overtly or subtly, to think that some of it might be true. You have to import that in from an existing philosophy.
That might be because some of don’t give a crap whether the cracker was a *real* jebus cracker or a fake.
I for one could care less. The whole cracker thing bothers me not because of PZ and what he did, or did not do, to a cracker. It bothers me because many Catholics care more about an idolatrous item than they do people. It makes me ill. Whether he *harmed* a real Eucharist or a fake, is irrelevant, The insight into the minds of catholics is what I take away from this. It is deeply disturbing.
I think that was the point to the whole escapade, PZ shone(sp?) a spotlight on the evil empire called Catholism. He pulled back the curtain and the rest of the world now sees how evil the mindset is, and how dangerous Catholicism can be.
Do I think all Catholics are evil? No, not at all. I think many have no idea just how evil their religion is. Perhaps they too needed to see.
In the beginning of this I kind of thought what PZ did was rude. Now I am glad he did it and I applaud him. I used to think that only the leaders of Catholicism were evil, now I think that many of the followers are just as bad. I will not judge every catholic who crosses my path with prejudice, but I will admit that I will probably back way off if they admit to being devout. There is no way to be devout without being a complete whackjob.
I never understood the thanking of godfairies for things like that. It is irrational to a bizarre degree. After Hurricane Katrina so many people were thanking their godfairy for not killing them etc…and claimed their prayers saved them. It left me baffled. I wonder why they don’t ask themselves why a godfairy sent the frikkin’ hurricane in the first place, or why he wiped out most of the Coast, (including all those churches). What about people who died, (or die in any disaster or from diseases)? They didn’t pray hard enough, they weren’t special enough? I to those people I say “fuck you. You’re an arrogant, stupid jerk”. To think that some little kid was not good enough for a godfairy to save but you were. Fuck you.
I often tell people that godfairy sent the most devastating hurricane he could muster but he still missed me. He’s a stupid godfairy, with bad aim. (Imaginary godfairy Wiped out preacher-dudes house down the block but mine took minimal damage.)
Actually, all you’re doing is grasping for something to argue about so you can dodge the real issue. If PZ were making some kind of scientific claim about an object, Such as “The cracker turned into flesh”. We’d be all over his ass demanding verifiable proof. What PZ did was use a cracker to make a social statement. Then some catholics went crazy and sent him death threats, came here to argue with us etc….the result of the cracker *harming* is a fact we can see ourselves. Cause and affect. We require no further proof because what we see, and what we give a shit about, has been proven. By you.
Whether the cracker was blessed or was not blessed is irrelevant. You and your kind reacted, that is a fact. Period. One you cannot dispute.
It is a fact we have verified because we see it happening with our own eyes. The reaction of Catholics is what concerns me (trying not to speak for other Atheists) Whether the object that sent you into a frenzy is a *real* jebus cracker or a Nabisco fraud is utterly and absolutely irrelevant.
I will give you one cookie though…In truth, I cannot verify that all of you crazed Catholics are not fakes. You could all be PZ, and this could be a total charade. If evidence ever surfaces to reveal that, I will change my mind about the whole situation.
Shorter TG: Wank, wank, wank.
oops. Sorry about reposting my other comment. My connection went down and when I refreshed the page and clicked “post” I didn’t realize it had placed my last post back in the post block and not the one I had been working on when I crashed. How odd. Please ignore or delete the copy.
405: Please stop calling papists “catlicks”. Catlicks are a sign that one’s feline owner finds one nommy. They should not be associated with godbothering.
#411
You’re right, my bad ;-)
oops again, I just realized I messed up my quote tags in the last post and it posted more than once as well. I’m on roll today. LOL
I’m not drinking, I swear! Maybe I need to go have one so I can post properly…hahahaha
Sorry to make the post hard to decipher. It’s hard enough reading all these posts without someone goofing up so badly and confusing everyone. I tried quoting TG in post 384, please reference that to see where I should have put the quote box in my response.
Come on, Rayven, you’re not that dumb.
The entire point of PZ’s stunt depended upon the object of desecration being a consecrated host. It was a here’s-a-stick-in-your-eye to Catholics and their faith.
Without a consecrated host, PZ’s display would have been nothing more than an everyday event like poking a toothpick with an olive on it into a finger sandwich for a friends gathering.
He produced no evidence that what he claims he pierced with a rusty nail and tossed in the trash was a consecrated host. The whole thing was probably a hoax and the pic, Photo Shopped.
So, the upshot is what? Catholics can be brought to arms by a lie, or that PZ is a liar and a fraud? The latter, of course, and it SHOULD matter to you if you have worked at least a bit to have independence of thought.
Nothing was gained for anybody by PZ’s stunt, except him for the time being.
Wake up. He is a cult leader and you, like many among his minions here, are drinking his Kool Aid.
This is for Jack Picknell.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Poe
TG posited,
Now, now TG.
Just because the people you trust lie to you on a regular basis doesn’t mean just any old person does.
Try turning down the paranoia. Makes you look kinda schizo.
315:At the very least the Church’s grand musical/artistic & educational legacy should be given due attention.
Especially the removal of the dreaded penes from those statues in Vatican City…
“Now, now TG.
Just because the people you trust lie to you on a regular basis doesn’t mean just any old person does.
Try turning down the paranoia. Makes you look kinda schizo.”
Not expecting better evidence makes you look like you’re drunk on the Kool Aid.
Perhaps you need a designated thinker tonight, eh?
TG posited,
Now, now TG.
Just because the people you trust lie to you on a regular basis doesn’t mean just any old person does.
Try turning down the paranoia. Makes you look kinda schizo.
What’s this talk of evidence?
Seems you have me confused with someone else.
Like I said: schizo.
What evidence is TG dying for? Proof that the wafer was consecrated?
TG,
Regardless of the “validity” of the cracker, the result is showing the hypocrisy inherit in religion (Catholicism specifically in this case). People have threatened, prayed, scolded, accused and condemned based on the very thought that some mythical being is changed into a piece of pastry at the whim of some bejeweled cleric.
You said it yourself, “Catholics can be brought to arms by a lie”. By your very statement you make it clear that a militant christian organization can brought to bear on a single man based on what? the assumption of guilt? the possibility that he might be right? You can either “Love thy neighbor” or “Put them to the sword”, you can’t have it both ways and still call it a religion of peace.
TG, there’s something very wrong with the way your mind works.
The truth of the cracker being consecrated may matter to you, but it doesn’t mean shit to me. I was observing the reactions of the catholics who came here and made death threats. Why they made threats and whether the item they made death threats over was *real* doesn’t alter the outcome. It MAY have altered the outcome for some catholics who chose NOT to freak out, but for the ones who DID freak out, they why of that freak out doesn’t matter to the observer.(me)
I am studying YOU and your behavior. Not the cracker. It’s possible more catholics would have freaked out if there were indisputable proof that the jebus cracker had been blessed before it was trashed.
Perhaps some catholics comforted themselves by deciding,(without evidence),that is was a fake jebus cracker. See my post buried way back on the desecration thread about why some catholics would do that. It’s called denial and escapism, they may not want to face what they cannot deal with.
Like I said though, I am observing YOU and your reaction, not a cracker. The cracker’s *blessedness* is irrelevant to me. It would have been interesting if there were absolute proof of it’s consecration so as to make more catholics freak out and act stupid, but the little band of whackos who descended upon PZ’s blog have been sufficient to keep me interested, and have been sufficient enough for me to form an opinion of catholicism, or at least devout catholicism.
Now, a note to others….
In my opinion, TG is the kind of person who CANNOT deal with being wrong. To him it equates death. He will not stop this idiocy regardless of how much logic we place in front of him. He is not in touch with reality. There will be a point where we just have to stop responding to him and allow him to think he’s *right* just to get him to shut up an go away.
Yep. So, where’s that evidence that transubstantiation actually happens?
And, for that matter, suppose we put a consecrated cracker in a pile of normal ones. How would you tell us which one was magical?
UMM won’t discipline Myers. Bill Donohue complacent. NOT:
http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1467
The Chancellor of the University of Minnesota, Morris (UMN) released a statement today regarding the intentional desecration of the Eucharist by Professor Paul Z. Myers. “I believe that behaviors that discriminate against or harass individuals or groups on the basis of their religious beliefs are reprehensible,” said Jacqueline Johnson. Importantly, she added that the school’s Code of Conduct prohibits such behavior. However, she also stressed that academic freedom allows faculty members “to speak or write as a public citizen without institutional discipline or restraint….” Nowhere did she say Myers would be disciplined.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue responded as follows:
“This is classic: Johnson admits that Myers has violated the UMN’s Code of Conduct and then proceeds to tell us why he is being allowed to do so with impunity–it’s a matter of academic freedom.
“Academic freedom is not the issue: academic malpractice is. For example, Section 10.21 (b) of UMN’s Tenure Code explicitly says that a tenured faculty member can be terminated or suspended for ‘unprofessional conduct which severely impairs a faculty member’s fitness in a professional capacity.’
“In 2001, this part of the Tenure Code was invoked against a professor at UMN because he had images of child porn on his computer. It should now be invoked against Myers, and that is why we will appeal to UMN’s Board of Regents to do just that. It strains credulity to maintain that Christian students can expect fair treatment by a faculty member who has publicly shown nothing but contempt for their religion.
“It is a sure bet that UMN would not tolerate a white professor who worked a comedy club on weekends trashing blacks. Indeed, it would say that such behavior disqualifies his ability to be objective. In many respects Myers is worse, and that is why sanctions are warranted.”
++++++++++++
While the academic freedom policy protects a faculty member from university retaliation based on his spoken and written words, it is silent on his ACTIONS.
Want to bet against that being the noose they will hang PZ with? How about a dollar to a donut?
The chancellor was simply covering her behind against mass insurrection by radicals on the faculty. She passed the buck upstairs to let them do the dirty work.
Hehe. Keep prayin. It’s pretty clear from the statement that it’s not going anywhere. PZ didn’t break their rules and he won’t be disciplined.
UMM is not afraid of the Catholic League. Who is?
Hilarious. You cannot read well.
She does NOT state that was PZ falls under this category. Missed that, didn’t ya?
That was a crime. Stabbing a cracker is NOT a crime.
Try again.
Troll (for) God: Why do you insist on lame ad Hominim attacks on us cultists. I consider myself a rationalist and do not see any reason to respect anyone else’s religion. Just as you are entitled to have any old silly superstitious belief, I’m not required to give them any respect. A cracker is just a cracker. They come in all different sizes and shapes, and many flavors; they are all just snacks, albeit a bit boring without dip or a topping.
Youtube. And Reason, wise foundress of the system of the world, who has been chained to folly’s unbridled steed.
I meant to say “She does NOT state that what PZ did falls under this category. Missed that, didn’t ya?”
If anything happens to Prof. Myers, Bill Donahue will pay for it.
Apparently, and that’s what’s so hilarious about all this. Irony meters are exploding left and right around here.
Either it was unconsecrated and not the literal Body of Christ, or it actually was. But either way, without an ironclad chain of custody, the religiots wouldn’t be able to empirically demonstrate which state the cracker was in, even if PZ had handed back the “hostage.” And that’s why it doesn’t matter.
Sorry, Rayven. You are as dumb as words make you seem.
Provocateurs are a dime a dozen. And the provoked even cheaper and more numerous. Just look at the responses at this cult site among PZ’s disciples when a simple contradiction of facts regarding what he states is pointed out.
How many more people have to die and/or have their lives ruined because hate-filled fanatics like you think you know how I feel?
That’s nice, TG.
Posted by: TG | July 25, 2008 8:51 PM
Where is your empirical evidence for that, Mister I’m-a-Good-Scientist?
If anything happens to Prof. Myers, Bill Donahue will pay for it.
That’s nice, TG.
Posted by: Dustin | July 25, 2008 9:15 PM
++++++++++++
I didn’t write that. You did.
Actually, I’m making tacos while I watch the blog, so I’m only half-assed paying attention, as opposed to whole-assed paying attention, which I only do half the time anyway if the subject bores me, which you do.
I know you think you’ve pointed out an error in fact, but you haven’t. You just keep following that delusion though and I’ll keep sitting here watching. (when I’m not making tacos…because tacos are much more interesting and tasty than you are)
To dkw@60
What I can never fathom is how these people always draw distinctions between things like Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings. While HP stuff is CORRUPTING EVIL, LotR is a great story about good vs. evil that every good Christian should read.
Similar with the Chronicles of Narnia. What the heck is the difference???
Ms Harvey (P.J.’s uncool sister) answers this one herself in her piece:
The Potter series also uses real names of sorcerers and mythological monsters, according to some experts. Medieval alchemist Nicholas Flamel is a figure in the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. He actually did exist, born in 1330.
The thing that unhinges fundies about Harry Potter is that Rowling threw in a lot of “real-world” occult terminology when she wrote the books.
I have to confess that the Harry Potter movies led me to some ee-vil thoughts… even when the first movie came out, I said to myself, “That girl who plays Hermione is gonna be HAWT.”
Also, as far as I can tell, “Charmed” is more about Alyssa Milano’s rack than it is about witchcraft.
Rayven, post your taco recipe. My family is tired of mine and I could use the help. Too much cilantro or cumin I think. Just don’t give me something without fresh crushed garlic, OK?
Eww garlic in tacos. See, now I know you’re just trolling.
Cilantro is for pico de giao.
I don’t like cumin, although I like Cum’in. Is that what you eat in your tacos, TG? You’re a bad catholic.
Longtime Lurker – Yes, you’re right Rowlings actually did do some research. As an herb & egg peddler, I can vouch for her use of the ointment Dittany of Crete for burns. Magical wand burns, can’t verify that. Dittany of Crete has a log history as a remedy. (Culpeppers Herbal, etc)
The tortilleria I go to cooks three cow heads a day, their “taco de cabeza” is fan-friggin’-tastic, plus I love to say to the counter-girl “Da me cabeza, por favor!” Their horchata is the best I’ve ever had. They don’t do goat tacos, though, and another place has better tacos al pastor (Mexican shwarma!)
*long* – sheesh, need sangria & limes!
Eww, cow heads. They may be delicious though, look at all the weird things we eat that we think are normal. Maybe someday I will try a cow head.
My husband loves Menudo. Blaa. Yucky stuff. I can’t get past the smell.
We don’t eat them on Fridays. On that day we have fish tacos if we have tacos. Yum!
Here’s what I do –
1. Cook crumbled hamburger halfway through and then rinse the fat off of it in a strainer (healthier) in the sink.
2. HB back into the skillet with chopped onions, peppers (many to choose from, hot or mild). Sprinkle in the seasonings, seasonings (dry cumin, chili powder, a little salt), and cook until almost done. Add the crushed garlic. Stir, of course.
3. Then, to hold it all together at the last few minutes, corn starch suspended in water (only what you need!) into the pan. Then chopped fresh cilantro and chopped fresh tomatoes dumped on top. A squirt or two from a freshly cut lime, too. Lid goes on for a few minutes to wilt and bring it all together.
4. Serve on quality flour tortillas or in corn taco shells. Monterey jack cheese and salsa on the side.
5. Drinks of choice (I like ice tea with this one).
5. Lime or pineapple sherbert for desert.
What do you nthink?
If enough teens learn witchcraft maybe they can do something good with it like eliminate global warming or find a Republican with a brain.
“Serve on quality flour tortillas or in corn taco shells. Monterey jack cheese and salsa on the side.”
Sory rRayven. I left out the freshly chopped avacados, or guacamole if you prefer. Having both at the table is better, of course.
TG #446
Sounds delicious. I’m surprised your family is tired of it. Mine never got tired of the Ortega all-in-one box.
Well, TG, I am not into cooking so all I do is brown meat and throw in Taco Bell powdered seasoning. I love really good food but have never cared enough about food to learn to cook like a gourmet. If it’s edible and doesn’t make us sick, my family’s happy, so we’re good. (I admit it would be pretty cool if I had a friend who loved to cook and asked to come over and cook for us on occasion though).
#446 – TG – Finally, a good post from you. :)
TG: Why would PZ fake it? I mean why wouldn’t he use a consecrated host? Are you suggesting that no one sent him any? Any evidence or reason to believe that? He *did* ask people to send some to him. Why is it so unlikely that at least one person complied? If he did receive a host in the mail (he says he received several) how would he know if it was consecrated or not? If he was acting in um good faith that the host was consecrated what difference would it make? If he genuinely believed it was consecrated that should be all that matters. The point is that there is no motive for faking it.
If he did receive more than one host, and you have no reason other than animus for suggesting he didn’t, how can you be sure that *none* of them were consecrated? What do you think he did with the rest? What do you think was under the pages of the Kuran and TGD?
You have to admit that this is brilliant. You usually don’t get to read satire this amusing outside of The Onion.
TG #446
Sounds delicious. I’m surprised your family is tired of it. Mine never got tired of the Ortega all-in-one box.
+++++++++++++
Thanks, Try it.
Anybody up four tortilla soup? I have a recipe that will knock your taste buds off, and it is low fat to boot.
“Well, TG, I am not into cooking so all I do is brown meat and throw in Taco Bell powdered seasoning. I love really good food but have never cared enough about food to learn to cook like a gourmet. If it’s edible and doesn’t make us sick, my family’s happy, so we’re good. (I admit it would be pretty cool if I had a friend who loved to cook and asked to come over and cook for us on occasion though).”
-Rayven
All you have to do, Rayven, is experiment a little with fresh ingerdients and let your mental taste buds be your guide. It doesn’t always work out, but hey! Hungry kids will try almost anything. Hungry adults, too. That is the key to success with any meal you serve. Not hungry, they will pick and choose. Hungry, they will praise you to the ends of the earth if the food was good,
Feed somebody something good. Make them happy. It a common value most of us share as human beings.
Goodnight.
The entire point of PZ’s stunt depended upon the object of desecration being a consecrated host. It was a here’s-a-stick-in-your-eye to Catholics and their faith.
So f*cking what? Free speech and all that. There’s no rider to the first amendment that says “free speech allowed, expect for that which pisses off Catholics.” He’s free to mock your childish faith, you’re free to respond by saying you were offended, etc. Grow up and deal.
He is a cult leader and you, like many among his minions here, are drinking his Kool Aid.
No, he’s a biology professor, and you, like many among your Catholic brethren here, have a tenuous relationship to reality and a psychological need to project that borders on mania. If you want to watch out for scary cult leaders, I’d suggest casting a wary eye at the guys in the robes behind the pulpits you’ve been genuflecting to all your life.
I have to load up the truck for Farmers Market in the morning – but before I go I’ll share a treat that is in season now. Lavender potatoes!
2 lbs. or so of either small Yukon Gold, fingerling, or baby red potatoes. Sliced 3/4 inch thick. Parboil in water in a sauce pan with 6 fresh lavender sprigs about 12 to 15 minutes.
Remove from saucepan. Melt about three TBLSP. butter in a large skillet over med. heat. Add potatoes, 4 teaspns. finely chopped lavender buds, 2 tspns. finely chopped rosemary, 1/2 tsp. salt – stir occasionally so flavors will join – about 5 to 8 minutes.
This recipe tastes so “earthy” you will close your eyes in joy! I make it on the grill too, in a tin foil jacket.
Egad – PZ will probably ship me to Martha Stewart’s website.
“She is graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio”
AND
She addresses the issues of feminism. Why do I think she is not on “female” side of the issues?
My head just exploded.
Shoot. I’m still looking for some good tortilla soup. The best I’ve ever had is at a place in Dallas called Two Rows. I think it was cream based, so it’s probably not low fat ;)
From The Human Stain by Philip Roth.
I have to load up the truck for Farmers Market in the morning – but before I go I’ll share a treat that is in season now. Lavender potatoes!
2 lbs. or so of either small Yukon Gold, fingerling, or baby red potatoes. Sliced 3/4 inch thick. Parboil in water in a sauce pan with 6 fresh lavender sprigs about 12 to 15 minutes.
Remove from saucepan. Melt about three TBLSP. butter in a large skillet over med. heat. Add potatoes, 4 teaspns. finely chopped lavender buds, 2 tspns. finely chopped rosemary, 1/2 tsp. salt – stir occasionally so flavors will join – about 5 to 8 minutes.
This recipe tastes so “earthy” you will close your eyes in joy! I make it on the grill too, in a tin foil jacket.
Egad – PZ will probably ship me to Martha Stewart’s website.
++++++++++++\
I have no experience with lavender, but I will definitely look for it and try your recipe. It sounds great!
Tortilla soup sounds good. Low fat is also good. I need to learn to cook healthy.
I will have to try out those lavender potatoes.
I think I like talking about recipes more than Jebus crackers.
I am going to go listen to some cosmology videos on youtube made by AndromedasWake. He has such a sexy voice, and a sexy brain.
I’ll pop back in here later to check the blogs.
How can Harry Potter piss off the Catholics? Alan Rickman *is* the voice of god after all. If the Metatron isn’t good enough for then, what is!?
#460 – Dustin – Oh, thank Ceres you posted that. Finally, something where PZ’s Ilk can shine.
Boobism – we got an expert – wOO+.
Dominatrix – Janine ID and Naked Bunny With a Whip.
Virtue-mongering – Bride of Shrek, slut.
America’s core values – Patricia, strumpet – keeper of bar tabs, slinger of grog & swill.
Public rhetoric – MAJeff – blah blah blah.
Wholesome guidelines – Ken Cope, Judge of Asses.
God Only Knows – Holbach. *grin*
Comfortable – Rev. BigDumbChimp…
and now I’m exhausted.
Classical Greek Drama will have to be dubbed by someone else.
Good night sweethearts!
“I think I like talking about recipes more than Jebus crackers.”
Well, there you go, Rayven. Hatred and prejudice hurts everybody. I’d rather talk about cooking, too.
An asshole. Surrounded by other assholes.
Doesn’t anyone notice a strange odor here?
Most of my adult life, I’ve regarded Catholics as reasonable, moderate people who had a belief system that I found . . . well . . comical. But, hey, whatever. Live and let live.
The recent crackergate bullshit and this “Spirit Daily” website has caused me to re-think all this. This “Spirit Daily” website is creepy beyond belief. People who really believe this shit in the 21st century. Turns my blood to wee-wee. Yikes!
Oh, but the rapture did already happen. It was on August 16, 1977. Only one soul got sent up to the majors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presley
Cicely@#314: “For me, the idea (actually, more like a series of ideas) under contention is the unevidenced belief that one group’s deity, by use of ritual, is transubstantiated irremovably into a cracker/wafer/bread; that this group requires that everyone else treat that cracker as if this were literally true; that dissent on this belief is grounds for threats and violence (and threats of violence); and that the destruction of such a cracker is anything but the destruction of a cracker, just as important as the destruction of any other cracker.
Mind you I can see why, believing that the cracker is something divine instead of being just like any other cracker, people holding to that belief system are upset; but I don’t see that their distress is more valid than the distress experienced by believers in some other unevidenced idea….for example, that it is blasphemous to make a portraiture of a long-dead man. I don’t recall any great non-Islamic sense of outrage that someone else’s religious sensibilities had been assaulted; in fact, I recall more of a “get a grip, people; it’s just a cartoon!” reaction.
In any case, outrage doesn’t validate the unevidenced belief at the base of the reaction.”
——-
I appreciate your thoughtful response to my question. I myself think that it is reasonable to draw a line btwn a recognized & appropriate act of free expression, such as drawing a satirical cartoon (which is in itself morally neutral outside of some particular religious tradition), & a gratuitous and deliberate public act aimed at defiling something held to be sacred by others. A cartoonist who is not Muslim obviously should not be held to their stricture against drawing graven images when he’s attempting to make some larger political point; however, I would say someone who deliberately stuffed a Qur’an down a toilet and took pictures of it would be acting just as irresponsibly & bigotedly as Mr. Myers did. Obviously neither act should be subject to criminal prosecution in a free & open society, but acts of the later variety should be rebuked by all sane & tolerant people; pluralism does demand a certain level of decency, does it not?
…& with that my trolling will cease. Hope you all enjoyed my stay; & don’t forget your daily mantra:
“There is No Cracker-God, & PZ is His Prophet!”
That site is like the Drudge Report and Weekly World News for Catholics all rolled up in one. All it’s missing is Brother Bat Boy.
LMFAO @ the Mary in a drain story. With stories such as these, you don’t need outsiders ridiculing Catholicism. Lots of stuff in Catholicism is borderline, if not outright, polytheism.
And is it me or does Jesus on that book cover resemble Charlie Manson?! Yikes!
Frankly there is no difference between someone using magick in a Wicca ritual and a priest casting a spell for the Holy Spirit to go into a cracker. It’s all the same woo, just done in different ways using different words.
And the whole reparation prayer nonsense for the descrated host is ridiculous. It’s a piece of food, not a god. Magic words do not change it one iota. Tangent I know, but I just got finished reading some stuff at Catholic sites.
I can’t believe people were begging for the safe return of a bread wafer and are angry/crying because it was tossed in the trash. This is something I’d expect out of a Greek myth, not an event in the 21st century. Insane.
Catholics may disparage Pagans, but at least Pagans don’t whine, cry, and threaten over a frigging piece of food. Or at least I’m not aware of any that do.
PZ’s stunt may not convert any Catholics, but it will cause some of them to think. And I know firsthand that critical thinking about religion usually leads to leaving religion.
Shoot this cracker nonsense makes me embarassed to even acknowledge that I was Catholic at one point.
And there is nothing wrong with fantasy. Don’t live your life perpetually afraid of an imaginary boogeyman. The devil and demons are just a grown-up versions of a monster in the closet.
Wicca is dumb, but it’s not harmful.
Anyway Sex, Crimes, and the Vatican is up on Google video. I’m not posting the link because I don’t want it to be easy for the apologists to take down.
Not only is the Vatican disgusting for protecting predators, but so are the enablers that defend the Church. It’s one thing for an institution to have an odd predator that is brought to justice, but it’s quite another for an institution to protect the perps as policy.
Just following the squabbles between the trolls and the regulars and I only have an observation, not an argument in favor of or against theism.
If I had to guess, it seems that the posters here are between 20 and 50 years of age. So in roughly 40-70 years (a blink of an eye in the grand evolutionary scheme of things) 99% of us will be dead. Atheists, if you are correct that there is no God or hereafter, your destiny is to rot in the ground, and lacking consciousness, you will not have the chance (which I’m sure most here would relish) to savor your “I told you so’s”. Seems like only the theists, if correct, will get to enjoy vindication. But that’s just a little observation and not a full-throated articulation of Pascal’s wager.
Perhaps what matters more for the atheist is the ability to change the future and remake it; to make a better, more enlightened world. Well, aside from the fact that we’ll all be dead in 50 or so years, I’ve got some more unwelcome news. As any biologist will acknowledge, the future belongs to the fertile. Enlightened westerners are simply not reproducing at high enough rates. For your perusal, from the March, 2006 Foreign Policy, by noted demographer Phillip Longman:
“…do you find soft drugs, homosexuality, and euthanasia acceptable? Do you seldom, if ever, attend church? For whatever reason, people answering affirmatively to such questions are far more likely to live alone, or in childless, cohabitating unions, than those who answer negatively. The great difference in fertility rates between secular individualists and religious or cultural conservatives augurs a vast, demographically driven change in modern societies. Consider the demographics of France, for example. Among French women born in the early 1960s, less than a third have three or more children. But this distinct minority of French women (most of them presumably practicing Catholics and Muslims) produced more than 50 percent of all children born to their generation, in large measure because so many of their contemporaries had one child or none at all…
Advanced societies are growing more patriarchal, whether they like it or not. In addition to the greater fertility of conservative segments of society, the rollback of the welfare state forced by population aging and decline will give these elements an additional survival advantage, and therefore spur even higher fertility…The absolute population of Europe and Japan may fall dramatically, but the remaining population will, by a process similar to survival of the fittest, be adapted to a new environment in which no one can rely on government to replace the family, and in which a patriarchal God commands family members to suppress their individualism and submit to father.”
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/2006/the_return_of_patriarchy
So, you may spend hours scoffing at “irrational” theists and fighting the trolls on PZ’s blog, but I do wonder how it feels to know you’re ultimately devoting your short life to fighting a losing battle (in terms of your own imminent demise and that of your ideology)?
“Vengeance is Mine, and retribution, In due time their foot will slip; For the day of their calamity is near, And the impending things are hastening upon them.” (Deut 32:35)
“PZ’s stunt may not convert any Catholics, but it will cause some of them to think. And I know firsthand that critical thinking about religion usually leads to leaving religion.”
Actually, typically, persecuted minorities grow more cohesive. So, thanks PZ for doing Catholics a solid. Now, more than before, Catholics are reawakening to the truth of the Real Presence and are even standing up to defend it (indeed, in the most unfriendly of forums…) Oops, more unintended consequences.
Also, I know firsthand very intelligent and honest atheists who have engaged in critical thinking and found God.
This site has an interesting cartoon take on all the Cafflick Ranting we have seen here.
STB #472 – Fighting a losing battle? It seems that many of these fundies -Catholics included- are looking forward to the Rapture. Not only that, they want to encourage the end of times: i.e. war in the middle east.
“You can stop it!” — Anan 7, Leader of the High Council of Eminiar VII, describing the horrors of the impending war to a hostage Kirk * “Stop it? I’m counting on it!” — Kirk (A Taste of Armegedon)
Do you really think that there will be anything left over for right or left? Overpopulation, famine, pandemic, and war? The US is divided. Right vs. left. Religious vs. religious. And of course the atheists get the blame (after Harry Potter).
About the only way it can be stopped is to get people to think. Few are doing any thinking.
“Not only is the Vatican disgusting for protecting predators, but so are the enablers that defend the Church.”
I’m pondering the implications. So, Catholics should leave their Church because of the evil deeds of some members of the presbyterate and hierarchy. They are simply supporting/enabling such evil by staying. Hmmm… Perhaps…Well, you have me thinking critically now…
You know, aren’t you guys about fed up with this evil country? Look at the U.S.’s disgusting history of slavery and racism. By 1860 there were 4 MILLION human beings being held captive and thought of as property, simply because of the color of their skin. This was followed by decades of segregation and Jim Crow laws. And you know what? It only took the U.S. Congress 135 years to apologize for slavery. Yet, no one will put their money where their mouth is; reparations have yet to be paid to the descendants of slaves. What about the Trail of Tears (4k died in the Cherokee relocation alone) and the abominable treatment of Native Americans (small pox blanket, anyone?). How about a contrived war with Mexico in order to steal much of her most fertile territory? What about the internment of innocent Japanese-Americans during WWII? That was pure racism. And there’s this death penalty that administers “justice” disproportionately to minorities and the socioeconomically disadvantaged. Then, as if all this wasn’t enough, there’s this completely unjustified war (a war based on lies and formulated by big oil) which has not only taken 4k+ American lives, but tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians. This country is EVIL, perhaps one of the most evil in history! It was built on a grave injustice and continues to do injustice to the most disadvantaged at home and abroad. It’s time to get out of America…or do you want to be an enabler?
STD: you are full of shit.
BTW: No evidence for “Smallpox blankets”
STB,
Thing is, if you got rid of all the atheists alive today, more atheists will appear, since people can always deconvert – all it takes is the realisation that there is/are no god/s.
All religions have eventually had those who disbelieve. No matter how much effort theists put into wiping out unbelievers, they just keep popping up – kind of like weeds, really. Probably of the thistle variety, because they do tend to be a thorn in the side of things like theocracies.
Of course, I know that the converse is also true: if all religions were gotten rid of, new ones would form. It’s not surprising (and a bit sad) that there are people who want to believe in a higher power; that doesn’t, however, mean that they’re correct in doing so.
But what I also know is that any the new religion would, most likely, only have marginal – if any – similarities to any we’re used to today.
How do I know this? Because it’s happening all the time. What is scientology but a newer made-up religion? Mormonism is a bastardisation of mainstream christianity; as protestantism is to catholicism and catholicism to greek orthodox and christianity to judaism and judaism to whatever it was that came before – that’s as far as my knowledge stretches.
This, of course, is the best argument for there being no god/s – at least as defined by any religion I know of – since, based on their definitions, they can’t all be right. But they can all be wrong.
So, STB, despite the fact i’m not going to breed myself a new flock of atheists, I don’t worry too much about the ‘demise of my ideology’ – because it’s one that can never die as long as people continue to think, challenge and experiment.
And if humans stop thinking, challenge and experiment enough to allow themselves to be freed from religion, then they’re going to have far bigger problems than ideology to deal with.
Yes, the bizarre “We’re going to outbreed you” threat is quite odd isn’t it?
So religious people think they win by outbreeding each other?
It is mandated in the bible to “go forth and multiply”, but just as it did not work then, it will not work now.
Like Wowbanger pointed out there’s a fundamental flaw with that idea.
Most Atheists came from religious parents. All it takes to become an Atheist is the ability and desire to be honest. Those who are honest and rational will become Atheists.
You could wipe out every Atheist on the planet and in a hundred years there would be just as many.
We don’t have to outbreed you, you fool. All we have to do is wait for more of you to open your eyes to reality and release yourselves from irrational fear. The more information that is available for your abused and brainwashed children to find, the more of them will walk away from your cults.
Now that information can be accessed by the click of a keyboard from any place on the planet, people who in days gone by would have been unable to escape oppression to seek information, will be able to. They will research, they will search for truth. They will examine all sides and perspectives…AND THEY WILL HAVE THE FREEDOM TO THINK ON THEIR OWN AND MAKE UP THEIR OWN MINDS.
I predict that the world will be much less religious in a few hundred years. Religions of all kinds will be looked on as a bunch of silliness. It’ll take a while because many parts of the world are still primitive, but it will happen.
Most Atheists came from religious parents. All it takes is the ability and the desire to be honest.
This “non-breeding” of new atheists is a wonderful argument. Almost as successful as, “Don’t worry about the Gays – they will non-breed themselves out of existence in a single generation”. Hasn’t happened with Gays, won’t happen with atheists. Now it looks like society is about to put a stop to the only lure the Church had for hooking new priests. Since paedophilia is a learned trait, there will be no new little paedophiles to train up in the priesthood. No wonder the Catholics are so insecure.
FAG OF SHIT
You old asshole, where are the kippas in your attack against religions ??
:-( ho it’s just, you are a pooooor little “persecuted” of a certain kind of persons ..
DESTROY ISRAEL AND FREEMASONERY !!! LONG LIVE TO HOLY CHURCH AND HOLY FATHER !!!
Actually, typically, persecuted minorities grow more cohesive. So, thanks PZ for doing Catholics a solid. Now, more than before, Catholics are reawakening to the truth of the Real Presence and are even standing up to defend it (indeed, in the most unfriendly of forums…) Oops, more unintended consequences.
Persecution. Right.
You crazy fuckers sure do get off on the idea of being oppressed.
Witchcraft??
(What else is there to say?)
STB – I’m not American. The Catholic Church is a worldwide racket, er organisation.
Your point please?
And this mornings award for Most Incoherent Ramblings Demonstrating Ill-concealed Projection Issues, Tiny Genitals, and No Clue Whatsoever goes to to John, for comment #480.
Seriously, dude – put the can of furniture polish down and step away from the keyboard.
Yeah, it’s amazing how the richest and largest single religion in the world is oppressed by tiny minorities, isn’t it? All you have to do is throw a little round cracker out.
I think I’ve found the de facto prerequisite for joining the Catholic Church.
STB #475:
No, Catholics should leave their Church because of the ongoing international criminal child-rape enablement conspiracy that pervades the institution from the Pope down to the bishops.
Leaving a country is not equivalent to leaving a religion. Americans switch religion all the time for relatively minor reasons. Statistically, Americans are more loyal to their cell-phone provider than their religion. And, no, you shouldn’t leave America, but you damn well should vote out the corrupt cabal of warmongers who are currently running it: the people get the government they deserve.
A problem I have with the Catholic church is they claim they set the highest morality standards and then proceed to set the bar for the highest hypocritical standard. Catholics are no better than anyone else at best.
Jim, you’re right. Catholics are no better than anyone else. And yes, we do set a high moral standard. I doubt that I will ever attain the standards set by my faith, but I do try. And I will keep trying until my last breath. So, when you see my failing, I would appreciate it if you tell me– but please be kind about it.
God bless you.