I get email


You think you’re tired of these? Boy, am I tired of them. The irony is relentless, the cluelessness indefatigable, the obliviousness all-encompassing. Fortunately, I’m down to only 5-10 emails and an average of less than 1 written letter from outraged Catholics now…but still, they’re just so looney. Here’s one from Richard Riley of Oregon who does an exceptional job of hitting several common themes all in one place.

Professor Myers: Your intentional desecration of the Eucharist is the most dispicable act that i have ever witnessed or learned of in my 70 years. You act is far more deplorable than Hitlers’ Holocaust or the terriorists on 9-11 . You sure showed those Catholics, huh ? Now why don’t you go after others such as the Muslims , or the Jews, perhaps the Mormans while you are at it. I am sure you can find something to desecrate along the way.

Shame on the University of Minnesota for allowing you on campus much less on staff . Their failure to act on your despicable act is a clear failure on their part and a horrible reflection on the administration at the U.O.M.

You will answer to a higher authority some day for your despicable desecration of the body of Christ, and your suffering will be for eternity and so will those that allowed you to do so.

How about that? Throwing a cracker in the garbage is more deplorable than murdering 6 million Jews.

Comments

  1. JoJo says

    Dear Mr. Riley,

    I doubt that too many Jews, or too many Christians, would agree that what Dr. Myers did to the cracker was worse than killing 6 million Jews and 4 million other folks. Show some concern for your fellow human beings.

    But then you hardly show much Christian love, with your hope that Dr. Myers will spend eternity in Hell. Of course, if your god is such a sadist as to invent Hell and send people there for eternity, then he doesn’t seem to be a god worth worshipping.

    Love,
    JoJo

  2. Bride of Shrek OM says

    Sure likes to use the word “despicable” a lot. I can just imagine him banging away furiously on his keyboard, spittle flying in his overpowering rage and anger and muttering despicable, despicable… in a Daffy Duck lispy kind of way.

  3. says

    Wow, he’s 70 years old, which means he was 2 during WWII. I hardly think that he was a good judge of events.

    If it’s any consolation, PZ, my grandmother is a Holocaust survivor (lost her first husband to the death squads) and she didn’t have an issue with what you did.

    She just finished the Selfish Gene, and said she agreed with it. She’s now starting on the God Delusion.

    I periodically send her posts from here, when they’re relevant, and she finds you very funny.

  4. says

    I think this is a second time one of these guys spells despicable that way. What is wrong with these people.

    May Webster help them and Roget guide them.

    Yea for I shall walk through the valley of typos,
    I shall fear no idioms: for thou art with me,
    Thy tense and thy punctuation comfort me.

  5. says

    You act is far more deplorable than Hitlers’ Holocaust or the terriorists on 9-11 .

    It takes a lot of effort to reach 70, live through ww2, korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Stalin, Disco, and 90210 and be so fucking dumb to think that a cracker is worse than the Holocaust or 9-11.

  6. says

    How about that? Throwing a cracker in the garbage is more deplorable than murdering 6 million Jews.

    Hmm. Perhaps he’s some sort of baker from a land where flour is the rarest, most expensive thing there is.

    No.

    Nope, there’s no reasonable explanation for why he should think that.

  7. says

    “Throwing a cracker in the garbage is more deplorable than murdering 6 million Jews.”

    Of course you would say that, Dr Meyers, you jew!

    [/sarcasm]

    these people really are unbelievable… just like their religion.

  8. Bryan says

    “It takes a lot of effort to reach 70, live through ww2, korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Stalin, Disco, and 90210 and be so fucking dumb to think that a cracker is worse than the Holocaust or 9-11.”

    Beverly Hills and non.

  9. dhequa says

    “Now why don’t you go after others such as the Muslims , or the Jews, perhaps the Mormans while you are at it. I am sure you can find something to desecrate along the way.” – He seems not to have realized the simultaneous desecration of the qua ran!

  10. Dianne says

    Now why don’t you go after others such as the Muslims

    But, but…didn’t you also toss a Koran and a copy of The God Delusion in the trash as well. So you’ve gone after Catholics, Muslims and nonbelievers. An all around desecrator, IMHO. Quite apart from the more obvious lunacy of equating the killing of 6 million with the tossing in the trash of one cracker.

  11. says

    Keep in mind, this man has probably bred. Multiple times. So unless you all want director of Idiocracy to be viewed as prophet greater than Edgar Cayce, encourage all the hot woman you know to have my children.

    Man, I am genuine American Hero ™.

  12. Dangerous Bacon says

    “Wow, he’s 70 years old, which means he was 2 during WWII. I hardly think that he was a good judge of events.”

    Actually he could have been 7 years old during the events in question. Or a student of history…nah, not possible.

  13. says

    You act is far more deplorable than Hitlers’ Holocaust

    Even if that is hyperbole, it’s a pretty sick analogy. So destroying a cracker is worse than the holocaust? I wonder how the Jews feel about being considered as lower than a communion wafer :P

  14. Jeanette Garcia says

    The delusion knows no bounds. I’m so glad to be an ex catholic, and a born again atheist.

  15. N.K. says

    Crackers are serious business.

    Fuck humans. A bit of food is more important than a few million jews any day.

    It’s amazing that somebody could be this stupid and have such warped values.

  16. Shadow Boxer says

    Yikes! You think that’s bad!? I threw out an entire box of crackers just last night!! No wonder the neighbours were glaring at me! :)

  17. says

    It takes a lot of effort to reach 70, live through ww2, korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Stalin, Disco, and 90210 and be so fucking dumb to think that a cracker is worse than the Holocaust or 9-11.

    I wouldn’t say it’s dumb so much as it’s utterly morally depraved. Anyone who’d say trashing a fucking cracker is worse than the deaths of millions and millions of innocent people… the poor stupid ass better be praying we’re right…

    Mr. Riley is a walking, talking advertisement for all the reasons why American Christianity has jumped the shark.

  18. Qwerty says

    He probably received a diatribe from Bill Donohue about the infamous cracker kidnapping (of Mr. Cook) and your subsequent desecration of same with the obligatory request for funds to help the Eucharists maintain their civil rights!

    p.s. – We should be grateful you only hammered one cracker if each cracker equals 6 million Jews.

  19. Jason Dick says

    You think you’re tired of these?

    Nope, PZ, sorry, but I can’t say that I am. This one is absolutely priceless.

  20. Owlmirror says

    Of course, it was deluded and angry thinking like this that resulted in the massacres of Jews for host desecration: the very lives of real people were less important than the outrage Catholics felt over hearing that a host had been desecrated by the Jews (never mind whether the Jews had actually done it).

    The sacrifice of the sense of justice and reason is necessary before atrocities can occur. And people are all too willing to make those sacrifices…

  21. Kaerion says

    After reading that, there are so many thoughts running through my head, but I just don’t think any of them are needed to explain why Mr. Riley is a horrible human being. That email stands on it’s own, as a symbol of the dangers of religion, IMO.

    Anyone who thinks and believes that any human being, least of all an innocent victim of the Holocaust, is worth less than a 6 millionth of a cracker, should immediately self-combust in a conflagration of embarrassment.

  22. says

    Sadly, becoming an atheist has me using the word “retard” more than I ever had before. Anyone who gives a crap about a cracker is a retard.

  23. Feynmaniac says

    This sounds so dumb I have to wonder whether he sent it using his wife’s work email account.

  24. Darth Wader says

    This is way off topic but is anyone watching the RNC? Its like listening to an airport, lots of noise that doesn’t have any meaning.
    The words coming out of Rudy’s head is hurting mine.

  25. says

    Yes. Mitt, Gulliani and Huckabee were terrible. Typical right winger bullshit. But whoever that woman between them was making me want to slit my wrists. She was soul stealingly boring. I swear I saw fangs.

  26. Julian says

    People who write stuff like this are heretics. Church doctrine is clear; its a Trinity not a Quartet. It ain’t the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, and the Divine Nabisco, buddy! Someone should alert the pope of this dangerous outbreak of heresy the U.S. is experiencing.

    All kidding aside, what can you say about a person who venerates a saltine more than human life? The mind spins, logic quails. If anyone needs to be convinced of the necessity to stand against the attempts to banish honest instruction from our schools this should provide it; our species cannot continue for long with this sort of thinking at the helm.

  27. Michelle says

    Yet another proof that some people are totally disconnected from reality. That man is full of hatred. He thinks that by putting his god ahead of everything else dreadful HE will be blessed.

    But I admit… His god is a monster. He made a big point of that in his big book. The big guy thinks he’s wayyyyy more important than a few million deaths.

    70 years that man was on this earth… who knows how much pain and brainwashing he caused.

  28. says

    You act is far more deplorable than Hitlers’ Holocaust or the terriorists on 9-11.

    I am bookmarking this so that I can show it to anyone who asks why I am critical of religion. It leaves huge numbers of people unable to put things in proportion, think critically, or make good ethical decisions. Honestly, this is absurd.

  29. Newfie says

    would they care if it was the body of some other non existent god son, like Thor, Baldur, and Váli?
    Oh right… Norse mythology didn’t really try to make their gods actual persons, like Christian mythology does… and the Egyptians did with their Pharaohs.

  30. Scote says

    So, if he went back in time and could save either a communion wafer or 6 million jews, he’d save the communion wafer…sigh. Religion really can screw up people’s priorities…

  31. says

    I can’t believe no one else has pointed this out:

    You act is far more deplorable than Hitlers’ Holocaust or the terriorists on 9-11

    Hitlers’? There was more than one Hitler?

  32. says

    Even taking into account that the Eucharist is supposed to represent the flesh of Our Lord, placing a value on it higher than the lives and souls of 6-7 million + murder victims is an act of monstrous dehumanization worthy of being bitchslapped into another timezone.

    Hell, I’d bitchslap this monstrously stupid old fart, myself, but, then I’d get moron-cooties.

    I wonder if anyone has asked Mr Donohue if he, too, believes that a Eucharist has a value inherently greater than 6-7 million + murder victims.

  33. Darth Wader says

    How dare you call the holy one a saltine. Jesus is a ritz. Your blasphemy will not stand.

    Jesus, your low sodium messiah.

  34. says

    I can see where the guy is coming from. In 9/11 and the holocaust, they broke commandment #6. PZ Myers broke commandment #3. So no matter how many are killed, PZ broke the 3rd highest commandment.

    Worse still, PZ Myers doesn’t believe in God. So he breaks the #1 commandment! He’s sinning worse than Hitler just by being alive! Just like all of you heretics.

  35. says

    If PZ is demonized, villainized, hated,
    Beyond even Hitler, the worst of the worst,
    Imagine how horrible God is, who fated
    His son to be crucified (He did it first).

    If Jesus, who knew that He would not outlive them,
    (Because He was dying, but also was God)
    Could say of His torturers “Father, forgive them”,
    It seems Richard Riley’s reaction is odd.

    In two thousand years, how those words are distorted–
    A message of love and forgiveness? Oh, well….
    A nail through a cracker is what was reported;
    Now Myers is Hitler… and so, burns in Hell.

  36. Quiet Desperation says

    I mean whoever sent it did it as a prank, hitting all the right notes, not that PZ is faking it. :-)

  37. Moopheus says

    “Now why don’t you go after others such as the Jews,”

    Go ahead and throw a matzoh into the trash and see if anybody cares. Throw them all in! Please! Except the chocolate covered ones. Those are good.

  38. says

    Hitlers’? There was more than one Hitler?

    Well of course. You can’t eat the souls of 6 million dead jews on your own. Not even Super-Hitler (Hitler’s alterego) would have been able to eat that many.

  39. Steve says

    So basically – his beliefs are totally contradictory, eh? He must really believe that PZ hurt the actual body of Jesus to think it’s worse than terroristic acts and the Holacaust…and at the same time he is thinking that Jesus is all powerful and can certainly defend himself… At the most, he should be thinking that PZ is a fool for himself thinking that he could hurt the all powerful loving Jeebus… Even a religious fanatic should be able to apply a little bit O’ logic now and again… Alas, no.

  40. says

    Hitlers’? There was more than one Hitler?

    Or course. It’s a family name, after all.

    (I sometimes wonder if there are still people in the world named Hitler, or if they’ve all changed their names by now. It probably wouldn’t be that hard to find out, but it’s more fun to wonder.)

  41. Becca says

    Duh! Jews deserved the Holocaust for killing Jesus the first time around, the US deserved 9/11 for harboring Teh Gayz, and PZ is worse than Hitler and the Terroists (in fact, he’s the antichrist!) for killing Jesus AGAIN.

  42. DingoDave says

    A great deal is made about the Jewish holocaust at the hands of the Nazis, (that’s not to say that it wasn’t horrific by any standards), but what often seems to be lost in these discussions is the total death toll among all the other ethnic and cultural sections of the world’s communities as a direct result of this horrible war.

    ‘World War II casualties’

    World War II was humanity’s deadliest war, causing tens of millions of deaths.

    Total human losses
    The total estimated human loss of life caused by World War II was roughly 72 million people, making it the deadliest and most destructive war in human history. The civilian toll was around 47 million, including 20 million deaths due to war-related famine and disease. The military toll was about 25 million, including the deaths of about 4 million prisoners of war in captivity. The Allies lost approximately 61 million people, and the Axis powers lost 11 million.

    Recent historical scholarship
    World War II casualty statistics vary to a great extent. Estimates of the death toll range from 50 million to over 70 million. Recent historical scholarship has shed new light on the casualties of World War II. Research in Russia since the fall of communism has revised the estimate of Soviet war dead. Losses of the USSR, within postwar borders, are now estimated at 26.6 million. Historians in post-communist Poland now estimate the losses of Polish citizens at between 4.9 and 5.1 million in German hands. The German Army historian Dr. Rüdiger Overmans published a study in 2000 that estimated German military dead and missing at 5.3 million… The casualties listed here include about 12 million war related famine deaths in China, Indonesia, French Indochina and India that are often omitted from other compilations of World War II casualties.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

    Oh, and what about all the Jews who were killed by this guy’s mother church, based upon false accusations about doing exactly the same thing that PZ Myers did?
    And one more thing. According to his holy mother church, all those poor Jews who were murdered by the Nazi regime are supposedly frying in his Christian Hell as we speak.
    Which makes his god is infinitely worse than any Nazi who ever lived.

    Ghost of Minnesota wrote:
    -“”Mormans?” I’m pretty sure the plural of Morman is Mormen.”

    Considering that Joseph Smith’s revelations supposedly came from the angel Moroni, wouldn’t that make them morons?

  43. Aquaria says

    Exhibit A in how there’s something screwy about a religion that thinks it’s a good thing not only to sacrifice but also eat a deity.

  44. says

    It could be a prank. But then, I’ve got a few thousand similar letters, which would imply that there are an awful lot of pranksters. I’d have dubious too if I hadn’t been deluged with comparable stupidity for so long.

  45. Aquaria says

    Go ahead and throw a matzoh into the trash and see if anybody cares. Throw them all in! Please! Except the chocolate covered ones. Those are good.

    Okay, but you have to throw in Gefilte fish, too. There’s some nasty stuff. But no latkes. I can’t eat potatoes anymore, but latkes were awesome.

    The sacred food of Mormons I’d throw away is green jello with carrots. What is it with the Mormons and always having that around? Does it add secret powers to the magic underwear?

  46. says

    I’m pretty sure this is fake. “You act is far more deplorable than Hitlers’ Holocaust or the terriorists on 9-11 .” :|

  47. Richbank says

    @54:
    They’re all cardboard. Fun for a couple of days, torture for the next 6. Even matzah pancakes get boring :(. I don’t think they’d take a nail though, they’re too brittle.

  48. says

    As someone who was raised Catholic (schools all the way, folks: elementary, high school, and college), and who later converted to Judaism, and now is an atheist (although I strongly prefer the term materialist), what is most fundamentally annoying about Catholicism is that they feel their singular and exclusive view of How The Universe Is ought to be respected. This gets personal for me.

    Recently, alas, I attended the funerals (separately) of my dad and my mom, both Catholic. The liturgy of the funeral service is littered in its Gospel choices and intimations with insults at Judaism, while all along the way, in vestments and recipe and words, they STEAL unabashedly from Jewish sources. Of course, theirs is the PERFECTION of the tradition!

    Anyway, it all shows how such a tradition, with an investment in The Unreal can go so terribly wrong and distort perceptions of evidence.

    Hey, we’re savannah monkeys, fearful of cat predators and raptors. I think the same thing that makes us lousy “out of the box” statisticians also means we embrace the extreme and make it the typical, whether lottery or miracle. To get in touch with reality, we need to be trained, that is educated. From my perspective and trying lots of religious flavors along the way to my emancipation in Sagan-esque atheism, I can only see that fallbacks to theism are simply failures, and make a mockery of otherwise good lives.

    No, sorry, I don’t buy the E.O.Wilson accomodationist slant. My taste is more along the lines of Jewish Atheist, but even that is a compromise.

  49. Ragutis says

    Has a single one of these gumbys exhibited any indication that they actually read PZ’s post about the “Great Desecration”?

    A styrofoam flavored wheat paste wafer is more valuable than millions and millions of Jews, Gypsies, gays, and other innocents? What kind of sick mind can believe such a thing?

  50. Patricia says

    Christ on a cracker! I buzz off to YouTube to indulge in an orgy of Canada’s greatest gift to the world – Leon Redbone, and while my back is turned PZ out ranks the Holocaust.
    Cute. I really don’t know how you stand it PZ. America is the Dumbfuckastan of the world.

  51. Holbach says

    This senile religious cretin will never be able to answer just why his imaginary god permitted the Holocaust and so many innocent deaths to happen.

  52. Mark A. Siefert says

    Your intentional desecration of the Eucharist is the most dispicable act that i have ever witnessed or learned of in my 70 years.

    So, in all your 70 years you haven’t been able to develop a sense of perspective?

  53. 386sx says

    You will answer to a higher authority some day for your despicable desecration of the body of Christ, and your suffering will be for eternity and so will those that allowed you to do so.

    Why doesn’t Jesus just jump out of the cracker and fly away like a birdie to avoid being desecrated if he doesn’t like it so much!

    Throwing cracker into trash = despicable.

    Throwing people into hell = love.

  54. Holbach says

    Patricia @ 71

    Wow, Patricia, you like Leon Redbone too? I went to bed early at 8:30 PM because I was beat, and woke up at 11:45 to watch him sing “Melancholy Baby” and several more nice selections. That is one talented and worthwhile individual.

  55. says

    I should say, in acknowledgement of the primary post and responses to it, that perhaps the singularly most offensive feature of a Catholic Mass to a Jew is the very idea or contemplation that an Infinite Deity can be contained within a mere assemblage of carbohydrates. Talk about idol worship!

    Worse is the reverence with which believers approach the thing! Now, surely, the attitude of Jews towards the Torah scroll is comparable, and equally worthy of critique. But it’s That Adoration of a Thing, whether wafer or LSD, which is equintessentially arational and counter-scientific.

  56. Patricia says

    Holbach – We are like the Staler & Waldorf of Leon!
    Have you seen:

    My regret is that I can’t find him doing Champagne Charlie, or Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now.
    Praise be to Canada for sending us Leon! :)

  57. Patricia says

    Chemist – I can’t send much in aide. Ding it.
    How about a big ol’ cyber
    *SMOOCH*
    Will that make ya feel better?

  58. Holbach says

    Patricia @ 80

    Wow, I remember Leon Redbone on the Johnny Carson Show doing Diddy-Wah-Diddy! Heck, I couldn’t find Champagne Charlie or Big Bad Bill Is Sweet william Now. As W C Fields would say: “Drats!” At least we can have him on YouTube! Off to bed again, 1:30 AM on the East Coast.

  59. BobC says

    Throwing a cracker in the garbage is more deplorable than murdering 6 million Jews.

    PZ, you killed Jebus, the Son of God, when you tossed that cracker. The penalty is eternal torture. Not to worry, all you got to do is repent, become a Catholic, confess your horrible crime to a priest, and you can get a get-out-of-hell-free card. Just to be on the safe side, you might want to give up that evolutionary biology thing.

  60. John C. Randolph says

    they STEAL unabashedly from Jewish sources

    Well, to be fair, Jews don’t really care much about what the goyim do in their own places of worship, and the copyrights on all of that stuff expired many centuries ago.

    -jcr

  61. John C. Randolph says

    perhaps the singularly most offensive feature of a Catholic Mass to a Jew is the very idea or contemplation that an Infinite Deity can be contained within a mere assemblage of carbohydrates.

    I think that would come rather far down on the list, actually. Let’s start with the “son o’god” thing. Judaism is a monotheist religion.

    -jcr

  62. says

    Not to worry, all you got to do is repent, become a Catholic, confess your horrible crime to a priest, and you can get a get-out-of-hell-free card. Just to be on the safe side, you might want to give up that evolutionary biology thing.

    Except the Church has decried that evolution happened, so by giving up evolution that’s going against the church. And you know how in Catholicism the church is inerrant.

  63. Peter Ashby says

    May Webster help them and Roget guide them.

    Yea for I shall walk through the valley of typos,
    I shall fear no idioms: for thou art with me,
    Thy tense and thy punctuation comfort me.

    And may their Strunk and White make it pleasing to read

    I still have my extremely dogeared copy of Strunk and White around somewhere. Courtesy of English 101.

  64. Pikemann Urge says

    He probably never hugged his children. Or was told by his parents that hugging people is bad, because life has to be harsh. Or something that would make a Puritan’s head spin.

  65. ngong says

    You act is far more deplorable than Hitlers’ Holocaust or the terriorists on 9-11.

    Maybe some of the fundies are right…Satan has indeed done a fine job of befuddling moral priorities.

  66. Timelord says

    Hitlers’ Holocaust

    How many Hitlers were there? Perhaps he thinks they came in six-packs.

  67. Frederik Rosenkjær says

    It does raise some interesting questions:

    What do they do if the priest drops a cracker by accident? We’ve all seen this happen on the Funniest Home Videos – right down the cleavage of some woman. Whooops – there goes something more important than 10^7 human lives.

    Or if it falls on the floor. Must have happened a million times. “You better eat it!!!”.

  68. melior says

    What do they do if the priest drops a cracker by accident?

    As a former altar boy, I can guarantee that they really don’t want to know more about how the sausage is made.

    Let me just add from experience that there isn’t any special prayer you’re supposed to say when pouring the leftover wine from the chalice back into the screwtop bottle after mass and putting it back into the fridge for later.

  69. says

    Professor, the only problem I had with your treatment of the wafer was that it was so uncreative. Surely there was some way you could’ve made it gloriously overwrought. I mean, if the Rileys of the world get to drama queen their way through life, why not you?

    Seeing as I am the self-proclaimed Pope of a self-announced Discordian Church — The Most Unnecessary Order of Lowered Expectations in Candidates for Sanctification, were I to perform a general all-purpose consecration on the saltines of the world — other Popes get to be infallible, I get to perform universal saltine consecrations; I’d say I got the better of the deal — do you think you could do a better job of desecrating one this time around?

  70. Christian Ridley says

    Anyone else have the most hilarious image of crazed gun-toting dogs?

    No? Just me then..

  71. Scooby1967 says

    There’s an expression here in England: “cream crackered” (knackered) and that’s clearly what this idiot is in the mental department…

    It’s a cracker/wafer/whatever…unlike 6 million Jews and the thousands murdered in 9/11 it is a non-sentient and inanimate object that does not experience pain and fear. Unless of course there is a “Royal Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Eucharist” that I am unaware of :-)

    Hey, my first post here and the grammar seems to make sense…

  72. Muffin says

    6 million jews *and* 3 million POWs *and* 2 million poles *and* half a million gypsies and and and…

    (Sorry, pet peeve of mine. I would’ve been sent off for at least three reasons myself – for being gay, for being disabled and for my political leanings -, and I think it’s important to not forget anyone who was murdered.)

  73. young european says

    Please don’t be so harsh on Riley. Assuming it isn’t a prank letter, Mr. Riley clearly is mentally and emotionally incapacitated in some way. Maybe he has some kind of toy-soldier perspective on what the Holocaust was – he clearly doesn’t have a proper understanding.

    Nevertheless, this hints at one of the basic problems with the monotheistic religions – if one truly thinks that a God exists, then that God, in whatever form it manifests itself, is axiomatically always more important than anything else, which makes humanism irrelevant …

  74. Tired and Frustrated says

    How about that? Throwing a cracker in the garbage is more deplorable than murdering 6 million Jews.

    Feel the Christian love! Makes you warm and fuzzy inside, doesn’t it? And they wonder why we wouldn’t worship their mentally unstable god even if he existed!

  75. young european says

    On second reading of “You[r] act is far more deplorable than Hitlers’ Holocaust or the terriorists on 9-11″, this got to be a prank letter. I hope.

  76. Dancaban says

    If this is true then the man needs to spend some serious reflective time. Proof positive if ever it was needed of just how insular these people are. Here’s hoping he gets trampled by a flock of passing Rabbis. What’s the collective noun for Rabbis?

  77. LazyJones says

    Always wondered why those kooks even bother to write these if “You will answer to a higher authority some day” anyway.

  78. Tired and Frustrated says

    #103 LazyJones

    There’s a reason why they need to do that; their God does not exist and therefore there will be no final judgement. So someone needs to pass judgement on people. Same reason why fanatics once burned witches and other people at the stake, I suppose. They knew deep inside there really is no hell and that it’s all fiction. So the burning had to take place somewhere, if not in a fictional dimension.

  79. John C. Randolph says

    Same reason why fanatics once burned witches and other people at the stake, I suppose

    Seems to me that the main reason they did that was to dispose of political opponents, deter uppity peasants, and provide entertainment, much like the Romans did. They may or may not have actually believed their theocratic rationalizations.

    -jcr

  80. John C. Randolph says

    What’s the collective noun for Rabbis?

    “Rabbis” is correct in English. In Hewbrew or Yiddish, it would be “Rabbinim”.

    -jcr

  81. Alcari says

    I have the perfect solution to your problem PZ.
    Just promise to post every single e-mail adres on this blog, I’m sure that would reduce the ammount of spam to a trickle. It would also make us readers feel a lot better about it, and it would teach people to stop spamming you.

    Also, you would get a sense of satisfaction from knowing your faithfull minions will stand with you at every turn.

  82. negentropyeater says

    Mr Richard Riley,

    how about sending an email to all jews :

    for your information, I would like you to know that I consider that the life of a Jew is worth less than 1/6,000,000 th of a Catholic Eucharist.
    Kind regards.
    Richard Riley
    Oregon, USA

    cc: Anti-Defamation League

  83. Matt7895 says

    Death count was much higher than 6 million Jews. Millions of gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, communists, POWs and the disabled were put to death by the Nazis too, which pushed up the total to 9-12 million. I wish people would stop saying the holocaust only killed 6 million Jews. It killed more than that.

  84. Wayne Robinson says

    Alcari, I suppose it would be a pleasant change to get a religious kook email, instead of the Nigerian scam emails, I get everyday. You know, the ones that start “I am completely honest, and I have just embezzled 26.2 million dollars from the Nigerian Petroleum Ministry, and I need a overseas bank account to deposit the money…”. Let’s see now, Hitler was not a common name. Alois, Hitler’s father, himself illegitimate, wanted to adopt his father’s name Hiedler, but some official misspelt it as Hitler. Anyone around now with the name of Hitler has probably reverted to Hiedler. The senile old kook, sorry charming mature gentleman, was probably also including Mrs Hitler too. There should be a way of assessing the relative sinning of PZ and AH. If we say that breaking the 1st commandment is 10 points, the 3rd is 8 points and the 6th 5 points, then PZ gets 18 points and AH gets 5 points times 6 million plus. I think AH wins narrowly. I can’t believe only 70 million were killed in WWII. The Japanese managed to knock off 30 million Chinese after all.

  85. says

    “You act is far more deplorable than Hitlers’ Holocaust or the terriorists on 9-11″ — Shriek Shriek Shriek! etc…”

    I love it when fundies become a parody of themselves. (especially when it’s not intentional).

  86. says

    At #102: “Here’s hoping he gets trampled by a flock of passing Rabbis.”

    Hm: a congregation of Christians, a cloud of canons, a dive of deacons, a gaggle of cardinals, a pride of Popes, an ickiness of imams, a gasp of gurus, a mess of messiahs, a flock of rabbis.

    Okay.

    (Okay, and a wedge of creationists, and a disaster of ID cretins. And a cat-herd of atheists.)

  87. David Marjanović, OM says

    That’s it. This is not funny anymore. Écrasez l’infâme !

    —————————–

    Yes. Mitt, Gulliani and Huckabee were terrible.

    You misspelled Giuliani 9iu11ani.

    his father’s name Hiedler

    I didn’t know this name existed. Must be extremely rare.

    Allegedly a few relatives are still alive (or at least were 10 or 20 years ago), live in the USA, and have made a contract to let the family die out by not having children.

    “I am completely honest, and I have just embezzled 26.2 million dollars from the Nigerian Petroleum Ministry, and I need a overseas bank account to deposit the money…”

    BUT CAN YOU BE TRUSTED?.

    (That’s an actual quote.)

  88. Wayne Walker says

    “Now why don’t you go after others such as the Muslims , or the Jews, perhaps the Mormans while you are at it.”

    Get a brain! Mormans!

  89. Matt v says

    “You will answer to a higher authority some day for your despicable desecration of the body of Christ”

    Hmm. Surely, he means a lower authority…
    and warmer.

  90. Master Mahan says

    So, a chunk of the flesh of one Jew is more important than the lives of six million Jews? Huh. I’d thought that if there was an important lesson to be taken from the whole Jesus story, it was that torturing and killing people was bad.

    I swear, the only way this sort of thing makes sense is if it’s photoshopped onto a picture of a cat.

  91. faux mulder says

    huh, sorry, what? sorry, i was distracted with my doodle of mohammed wiping his bum with a eucharist.

  92. johannes says

    > or the terriorists on 9-11

    Terriorists, LOL! My late grandfather’s terrier did indeed spread terror among small terrestrial fauna (small meant less than 30kg in this context). In spite – or because – of this it is still fondly remembered as the best dog that ever lived by my family. Working terriers are an efficient, human and ecological way to deal with vermin, they are also loving and adorable pets, don’t smear their good name by associating them with Djihadist fucktards ;).

  93. DiscoveredJoys says

    I’ve always wondered. How long is an Eternity?

    I mean if it starts at The Beginning(TM) and ends at The End(TM) then presumably any recent sinners would be condemned to a shorter Eternity than ones condemned previously?

    Of course I could be trying to use rational thought on an irrational myth of mumbo jumbo…

  94. Seamus says

    “How about that? Throwing a cracker in the garbage is more deplorable than murdering 6 million Jews.”

    Catholic anti-semitism rears it’s ugly head…no suprises here.

  95. Scott says

    This is the kind of people who don’t understand why Charlton Heston’s character was so upset at the end of Soylent Green. After all, they were eating (Reduce! Reuse! Recycle!) the dead bodies instead of desecrating them by throwing them into the trash.

  96. Longtime Lurker says

    I wonder if Mr. Riley subscribes to the fundiloon branch of Catholicism that Mel Gibson and his Holocaust-denying dad espouse.

  97. Rich says

    I think the important thing here is that this was not just an ordinary cracker. This was an enchanted cracker. It was imbued with the magic of an at least level 1 Priest. You all better watch out because if some high level Bishops, Templars, Paladins, or Crusaders discover this, they might cast Continual Light in your eyes to blind you while they start the Doom incantations. Then you will only have a few turns to live before you go to hell.

  98. Sastra says

    It’s as if we’re speaking different languages:

    “Desecrating a eucharist cracker is a serious offense!”

    “Not really. That’s my point. You’re overreacting.”

    “Yes it is! It’s worse than murder! So now are you sorry?”

    “Huh? No, it’s not.”

    “Alright then, it’s worse than multiple murders! Sorry yet?”

    “Are you kidding?”

    “Ok, let me clarify it for you. It’s worse than every crime that’s ever been committed. I would rather be tortured to death, than have a consecrated cracker desecrated. Are you finally starting to feel apologetic?”

    “On the contrary. You’re just making me realise you’re out of control, and shouldn’t have your religious sensibilities encouraged or pandered to in any way. Our culture has gone too far in giving approval to this sort of irrationality.”

    “Ok, I’ll give it one more try. I would rather watch all my children be raped and disemboweled before my eyes, than have you do what you did. Do you still think I’m ‘blowing things out of proportion?’ Or, are you finally starting to get the idea that YOU did something out of proportion? YOU’RE the one who is out of control. A madman, with no regard or respect for human life!”

    We’re obviously talking past each other.

  99. Sven DiMilo says

    What’s the collective noun for Rabbis?
    “Rabbis” is correct in English. In Hebrew or Yiddish, it would be “Rabbinim”.

    JC, “collective noun” != “plural.” #114 had the right idea. Typo corrected, no extra charge
    So lessee…
    A genizah of rabbis?
    nah, I got nothin’

  100. Owlmirror says

    Given that if you ask two rabbanim a question about halacha, you get three opinions, the obviously correct collective term is a machloket.

  101. JoJo says

    John C. Randolph wrote:

    Seems to me that the main reason they did that [burning witches] was to dispose of political opponents, deter uppity peasants, and provide entertainment, much like the Romans did. They may or may not have actually believed their theocratic rationalizations.

    In 16th and 17th Century Europe, one popular target for accusations of witchcraft were prosperous farmers and merchants. The entire family would be accused and, after the trial and execution, a common split of the witches’ property was 1/3 to the accuser, 1/3 to the civil authorities and 1/3 to the church. One thing that Cardinal Richelieu did was to ensure the property went to the surviving next of kin. The number of French witchcraft trials plummeted after that law was enacted.

  102. Trish says

    PZ. Cracker killer. Aweful man. Someone pass the cheese spread? These wafers need some flavor.

  103. Ragutis says

    Posted by: Masks of Eris | September 4, 2008 8:16 AM

    Hm: a congregation of Christians, a cloud of canons, a dive of deacons, a gaggle of cardinals, a pride of Popes, an ickiness of imams, a gasp of gurus, a mess of messiahs, a flock of rabbis.

    FIVE GOL-DEN RIIIIIIIIINGS!

    Eh? What? Oh.

    Sorry.

  104. John C. Randolph says

    In 16th and 17th Century Europe, one popular target for accusations of witchcraft were prosperous farmers and merchants.

    Yeah, that was a hazard if they didn’t take care to bribe the right people. Jews got a lot of that kind of attention in Europe, and the Chinese often got the same treatment in southeast Asia.

    One thing that Cardinal Richelieu did was to ensure the property went to the surviving next of kin.

    Interesting. That’s one of the very few redeeming acts I’ve ever heard attributed to him. On a related note, did you know that J. Edgar Hoover was the highest-ranking government official to object to interring the Japanese-Americans on FDRs orders?

    -jcr

  105. Sean says

    He would be a good candidate as a donor if ever brain transplants become viable…his has never been used.

    Just how deluded do you have to be as a Christian?

  106. Doctorb says

    Also, suggesting that 9/11 and the Holocaust are on the same sort of level is pretty screwed up in itself, never mind the comparison to a ritual observance.

    On the other hand, not washing your hands the right way is only just as bad as the Great Leap Forward or the execution of Spartacus.