After a pleasant period of my mailbox cooling down a bit, I’ve recently seen a significant surge of howling mad Catholics shrieking at me. I was wondering what prompted the resurgence, and here it is: apparently I made the cover of the Catholic League’s newsletter, The Catalyst, and am even the subject of a frothing mad editorial by Billy Donohue, a complete timeline of the Great Desecration, and various requests for the faithful to howl for my job.
It’s kind of cool, in a perverse way. Cry, babies, cry.
Heeeeeeeeeeeeere we go.
How long until the first Fatwa Envy comment?
thankfully Bill decided to print one of his most insane comments ever in that article on the great desecration.
Pretty much shows what a giant scumbag Donohue is. I can think a a billion things worse than throwing a cracker in the trash with a nail.
Lets start with child molestation.
Six pages devoted to you.
I’m envious.
Does anyone believe that the University of Minnesota would do absolutely nothing about a white professor who packed them in at a local comedy club on weekends doing his racist rendition of “Little Black Sambo”? Would the very same administrators plead helplessness about a professor who spoke to community groups off-campus about the mythology of the Holocaust?
Yes, throwing a piece of food in the garbage is exactly the same as Jim Crow and the Holocaust.
Jesus Tap Dancing Christ.
When I worked at Northwestern University’s bookstore, there was a professor who wrote a few books denying the holocaust. There was also a professor at a predominantly black college in Mississippi that was a member of the CCC. So Donohue isn’t just wrong, he’s wrong.
After a read through the hate mail section, it seems that the Catholic League has yet to receive a single death threat over this issue. I feel totally vindicated!
Does anyone believe that the University of Minnesota would do absolutely nothing about a white professor who packed them in at a local comedy club on weekends doing his racist rendition of “Little Black Sambo”? Would the very same administrators plead helplessness about a professor who spoke to community groups off-campus about the mythology of the Holocaust?
Yes, throwing a piece of food in the garbage is exactly the same as Jim Crow and the Holocaust.
Jesus Tap Dancing Christ.
When I worked at Northwestern University’s bookstore, there was a professor who wrote a few books denying the holocaust. There was also a professor at a predominantly black college in Mississippi that was a member of the CCC. So Donohue isn’t just wrong, he’s wrong.
This story is like Jesus, but even better. Every time you think it’s dead, it comes back to life.
OT: get this http://www.democraticstuff.com/Science-for-Obama-Photo-Button-p/bt23766.htm
Professor Myers, I do think Bill has a man crush on you. Perhaps it’s time for a mandate?
I didn’t read the article, but it’s got a great title:
It’s almost as if there isn’t a God raining down divine retribution. Or something.
I am very sorry for the double post. The devil made me do it.
What business does the Catholic League have stealing a word from chemistry? I AM OFFENDED.
This again? How tiresome. Isn’t there any good octopus news this week?
..or missing apostrophes. Missing apostrophes are way worse than cracker abuse.
Front cover I could cope with. Its when they start using you as a centrefold when you really want to start worrying.
Rock Me Sexy Jesus
Constant claims that their beliefs must be defended; sacrosanct, but still no good reason why their beliefs must be defended. Anybody see a good reason for them to be defended?
Keep up the good work PZ, this does at least show that you’re getting the message across!
PZ’s like the Richard Dawkins of America! All of the religious people are mad because you have job security and you exercise your first amendment rights on a regular basis.
Keep up the good work, PZ.
If you’re not pissing people off, you’re not doing it right.
I guess they saw this
http://happysphere.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/the-atheists/
Oh, and I did enjoy the tagline for the Catholic League’s website:
Surely one of the most important civil rights, and for that matter religious rights, is freedom of/from religion?
WATB’s!!!!!!
Donohue never would let a sleeping dog lie, if he thought he could gain anything by barking and growling.
It still looks kind of sad to have to dredge up that old incident again, though. Poor guy, he needs some way to get the limelight.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Damn! They devoted close to an entire newsletter to you! Quite impressive.
I laugh out loud every time I read about someone seriously irate about someone who “held a cracker hostage”. I just can’t wrap my brain around the outrage!
I can just visualize Donahue frothing at the mouth as he wrote those articles. Kudos to your University PZ for not giving the an inch to these lunatics.
I like the part where Donohue says that PZ has been “showing deference to Islam.” It suggests that Donohue can’t read.
They must be pretty insecure in their beliefs if they have to harp on and on and on about that stupid fucking cracker. What a freaky bunch of beliefs.
But, but … I get the impression that the Catholic League is sort of a fringe organization, not really representative of mainstream Catholic thinking. Am I wrong about this? Or if I’m right, who cares what they say?
They put PZ on the cover? Feh. I bet they don’t have the cojones to put Mohammed on the cover.
“It suggests that Donohue can’t read.”
Actually, to me it suggests what we already knew. He’s a liar.
Donahue likens the ‘desecration’ with a Professor inciting racism. He’s a fucking lunatic.
It’s not quite “fringe.”
The organization is endorsed by the Archbishops of NY, LA, Denver, Baltimore and Boston, who are the stalwarts of mainline Vatican conformity.
Mad Catholic: “You made fun of me! Whaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
PZ, I wish you would invite Donohue over to your office for a nice chat. You could hang a big picture poster of Oliver O’Grady on the wall. I would love to get a photo of Donohue sitting there, as I am betting he would be oblivious.
From the article Militant Atheism Unleashed:
For fifteen years I have been president of the Catholic League, and never have I seen such a series of assaults on the Eucharist. What’s going on?
More to the point, who cares? Why throw a tantrum just because people are making fun of you? (And you have to admit, the beliefs they are making fun of are a bit silly.) Just grow up already. Got to church and take your Eucharist and don’t worry about what people are doing outside of your church.
I’m not at all surprised that the time line leaves off the whole reason you stabbed the cracker in the first place. Donohue and the rest seem to have completely forgotten about poor Webster Cook in their mad rush to feed the persecution complex the majority of Christians seem to nurse.
Dr. Myers, thanks for all that you do for science and humanity. The sooner we are rid of silly superstitious religious nonsense, the better life will be for all humanity.
Wow! It only took 30 seconds to find the above. Couldn’t keep reading as I felt the lies were going to make my head explode.
PZ, your awesomeness just keeps on increasing.
Dear Catholics: CRY SOME MORE!
Zebrafish? Your speciality is the Zebrafish? I guess I don’t watch enough Discovery Channel.
Or pay attention here…
The goofier the belief, e.g. transubstantiation, the louder the howls of protest when it is challenged. Could it be that Bill Donahue in his heart of hearts knows that the idea of transubstantiation is bullshit?
Methinks the laddie doth protest too much!
And in further news about religious frauds:
I like that one!
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Donohue’s omnipotent god/s need ineffectual wankers like him to defend them? LOL
What do you expect from a group that can’t think of a thing that’s “more vile” than throwing a host with a nail in it in the garbage?
Among the things I think are more vile:
Rape.
Murder.
Burglary.
The Crusades.
Salem witch burnings.
Sorry, your blog’s going to get pretty full if I list everything I can think of, but crimes that are being committed EVERY DAY are more vile than throwing away a host.
And I just betcha their Jesus fellow would completely agree.
“Aw, come on, Peter, that rape you witnessed was way worse than throwing away a consecrated host!”
Think, people. Use your brains!
#34: This has to have been brought up a fair amount, but I would assume they do stuff like this because they want people to respect and fear them, so that they can use the fear and respect to argue for the existence of the thing they believe in (or claim to). In that case, they are not certain of what they (absolutely, positively) believe in and can’t deal with their doubts openly without a loss of face. The irony of threatening others with death over beliefs in which one may not entirely believe (and their inability to perceive the harm in doing so) is apparently lost on them.
Of course, there’s also the alternative view – that the fear and respect are the only point of it to people such as Donohue and such people believe in nothing other than themselves and their right to power (else they wouldn’t act as they do). After eight years of it from our President, I am less inclined to be generous towards his ilkXXXminionsXXXXXXXzombies.
The ‘PZ Myers Hatemail’ section is hilarious. Listen to this vile death threat included in their list:
“In the past, the Catholic Church has also been accused (with a great deal of historical evidence) of doing violence against those that disagree with them…Please note that this is not a hate letter or one that could even remotely be classified as one.”
Outrageous!
Oh come on. For how long can ANYONE be upset at a stupid cracker? Even if you really do believe it’s the body of some kind of god…gods are quite capable of taking care of themselves, that’s why they’re gods, so to me it seems obvious that whatever PZ had wasn’t the body of any god, as he hasn’t been reduced to a smoldering pile of ash, or something along those lines.
Wow. I thought The Watchtower was the low point of human discourse, but I’m now forced to revise that opinion. What a bunch of maroons.
“The Catholic League appealed to UMN’s Board of Regents citing a previous incident wherein a faculty member was brought up on charges of violating the Tenure Code for possessing images of child porn on his computer.”
So pinning a cracker and putting it in the bin is the same as child porn? Sexual abuse of a minor?
Bless Bill, I really hope the home he’s gonna get put into is very understanding about his problems.
Among the things I think are more vile:
double-dipping
cutting in line
removing tags from mattresses
failure to use turn-signal
wearing white after labor day
Cry all you want, you demented catholic morons. Yet you will not call your imaginary god down in one mass of assimilated deranged praying to come down and beat the crap out of us. We beat the spiritual crap out of you every time we blast your insane rituals, make mockery and fun of your ridiculous idols and practices, and constantly try to get your god to wipe the earth with us. And you wonder why we laugh and mock uncontrolably. Damn, get the insane crap out of your brains and realize you have no god to appeal to. We are the omnipotent ones; we are the rational ones, and you are the demented morons.
‘From the President’s desk’.
What a self important tool.
Each time ‘frakin cracker’ raises it’s head on Pharyngula, I’m reminded of one of my favourite Bertrand Russell quotes (from “Why I am not a Christian”)
“One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.”
Whenever a Catholic drinks tea they should pay homage to the mighty “Celestial Teapot” before drinking a single drop. Anyone knows if a “sacred cracker” tastes any good dunked in a nice cup of char? If it is truly “divine” then surely it won’t drop into the cup the way those sodding chocolate biscuits always do just as you prepare to sacrifice them to the taste buds!!!
Oh goodie, goodie!!! *bouncing in chair* More troll, more troll!
Let’s see, so in addition to jihad envy and progrom envy, we also now have racism envy. Lovely.
I wonder if he’s trying to implicitly reference the KKK, which did after all have as part of its original charter a strong anti-Catholic sentiment (as well as being anti-Black, anti-Jew, and anti-Northerner, of course). Eh, maybe.
am i missing something or is most of that hate mail not particularly, ermm hateful.
I mean:
Uh oh, better increase security! A biology professor in Minnesota said he would do bad things to a cracker
doesnt really cut it as hate filled in my book and even the less polite stuff doesnt quite have the same hatred that has come the other way (strange he misses that off his timeline).
Well you know what Oscar Wilde said:
“There’s only one thing worse than being talked about…”
In other news:
PARENTS DISOBEYED; CHILDREN NOT SENTENCED TO DEATH
CONTRACEPTION USED; NO IMPRISONMENT FOR FORNICATORS
I love the article by Donohue, where he calls militant atheists ‘zealots’ and that we force it in their face. As opposed to the shy, meek, retiring Catholic Church? As opposed to the pope, who wants the European union to be Christian. At least he is correct in his assessment of our feelings about religion – hate for what they teach, for what they value (generally) and for their unaccountable authority.
From the rant:
So … Bill’s openly admitting that this is all about posturing, and a power grab, for his silly cracker cult.
Particularly galling is the fact that his fleeced flock won’t even notice anything’s wrong with that sentence.
I’m still not sure why Bill makes a big deal out of this. A true believer ‘knows’ that PZ will burn for eternity. What more satisfaction is there than that?
Hmmm…maybe Bill isn’t a true believer…
Speaking as a religious person, I don’t understand why this movement of outrage over this has lasted so long, particularly since it was somewhat lacking in the style department. I mean, if I were an irascible atheist with access to communion wafers, I would have coated them with acrylic and strung them on a necklace, like the teeth of a fallen enemy.
“The bulls-eye, of course, is Roman Catholicism. I’ll give them this much: At least the religion bashers are smart enough to know who’s on top.”
Wow.
I knew he was arrogant, but I didn’t know, you know?
MikeM
The salem mass. witch trials consisted of hangings and one crushing. Burnings were commited earlier in european history up until around the enligtenment. Good point none the less
News flash for all Catholics:
The symbol is not the thing. Even if the symbol were the thing, the cracker does not stand for Catholics. That even follows from your own theology: The cracker stands for, or is, God.
God, as defined by Catholics, does not exist.
However, even if the Catholic God did exist, then even by your own theology, that God is eternal and omnipotent and omniscient.
So in other words, even by your own theology, God is big enough and powerful enough to take care of his own
goddamfrackin’ self.Find something else to do with your time, will you?
Assbucket. I see you are back to your arrogant idiocies. Too bad, but I knew that betting on two consecutive rational posts was too much to ask.
Can someone explain this last sentence to me?
“Some have put videos of themselves up on the Internet. They all go after me big time, and that is as it should be. They know who the enemy is, and for that I am eternally grateful.”
I also loved the part about knowing the Catholic church is on top.
My favorite part of Glen D’s Scientology story above…
…a woman who joined the church after she was recruited at a subway station.
Stories like that one always leave me conflicted. On the one hand, I like to see smackdown laid on the
religious organizationcult doing the fleecing. On the other hand, if you’re stupid enough to join up with a bunch of crack-pots peddling their wares at subway stops, you deserve to lose a buck or two. She should have gone to the 3-card monty table instead. They’re more honest.Turcano has given me a beautiful idea. It’s going to be a new fashion craze.
Congratulations, You’ve been Donahued!
Although….
Now I think about it, precious few of the Catholics who posted here were that concerned about God. They were all huffy and offended on their own behalf, just like “Blowhard” Bill. They really do see the desecration, not as harming God, but as being an attack at their own selves.
Which implies that they don’t even believe that transubstantiation is real; it’s just something they identify with culturally. So PZ is seen as attacking them, via their culture, not as attacking God.
Hm.
Maybe we should print a picture of the American flag onto a piece of paper, and then set that on fire…
Oh Bill, you totally need to find a real job. Professional victim is just not a very dignified career path. Yes, I don’t know what god or jesus would ever do without you there to protect them, but sit back, retype your resume, and have a snack. You’ll be much better off. The stress has apparently taken a bit of a toll on you.
Last night I watched the South Park episode where Bill Donohue conspires to become pope. So funny…
Oh how exciting for you PZ! You’re such a celebrity.
I am also amused by the ‘PZ Myers hatemail’ section. This one made me laugh:
“Several crackers met an untimely death in my bowl of vegetable soup today.” haha, how hateful.
Talking to yourself again?
From “poor oppressed us” to “we’re on top” in 5.3 seconds. Wanker of the highest order.
“From the President’s Desk?” So Jesus is embodied in a cracker and Bill is embodied in George Bush’s desk?
Damn but this cracker is a friggin’ zombie.
Just a historical note here: an earlier poster referenced the Salem Trials, noting there were several hangings, and one crushing. Therein lies a tale.
The crushing was formally known as “pressing”. The pressee was laid down on flat ground and a large sheet of wood placed on top of him (or her). Then rocks were placed on the sheet, one at a time, and as the weight slowly increased the pressee began to feel suffocation from not being able to fill his lungs, the “judges” would bend down ask for a “confession”.
Now in the case before the Salem judges, there was an extra wrinkle. If the accused confessed, then all of his property was forfeited to . . . (can you guess?) . . . why, the incorruptible judges, of course! So the judges accused the man of witchcraft and he refused to confess, and so he was placed under the board, and in front of his family and the other members of the community, rocks were placed on the board and he was asked to confess.
Think now of his poor family, watching husband, father, brother slowly tortured and killed before their eyes, and they also having to worry selfishly that if he did confess, they would not only be shunned, they would be homeless and penniless and likely to die of starvation! (In that village of God-fearing Christians.)
But the man was a tough old New Englander. The court transcripts quote his last words as, “More rocks!”
And may I say with all sincerity, fuck Mr. Donohue.
Sideways.
With walnuts.
Twice on Sundays.
What, no trolls yet? Patricia wants some troll meat for dinner. Here trolls, here trolls, fresh blog available.
Must be scared of PZ.
So now it’s the “Cover Boy” Professor and his “Trophy Wife”?
Oh, yeah, they’ve got the “Precocious Children” too.
Seems like a pretty good home team.
Nerd, nobody is a troll. Just check the droppings it left. Just keep in mind, it is addressed to PZ.
Teh Bill. Teh Bill.
Th real question remains: will there ever be a boy that could swim faster than a shark?
the deluded are as the deluded do.
Some examples of the “hate-filled messages” exhibited by Bill Donohue:
Its clear from this that Donohue considers “desecrating the Eucharist” a crime of far greater magnitude compared to the trivial, slap-on-wrist worthy incidents involving priests molesting children. So much so that he considers it hateful to even suggest otherwise. Since he has no qualms admitting it openly and repeatedly, its also clear that he expects his public – which I presume is all lay catholics – to agree with him whole-heartedly.
So here’s my question to any Catholics who might wander in hereabout, especially those who weren’t directed here from Donohue’s site – Do you agree with Bill Donohoue on this? Do you consider “desecration of the Eucharist” the greater wrong or misdeed compared to the molestation of (needless to say catholic) children by Priests?
If you consider child molestation to be the greater crime, how can you stand to belong to an organization which clearly thinks otherwise?
Janine, sorry, I did missed nobody (very apt screen name) who leaves his flatus everywhere, but still no catholic trolls, unless the poor deluded Mr. Rooke counts.
Poor Bill!
This clip will cheer him up…I think it’s one of his favourites..
PZ gets death threats and he doesn’t even own or operate a Large Hadron Collider!
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=lhc-to-switch-on-early-tomorrow-ami-2008-09-09
All points will be moot tomorrow when we’re all sucked into a black hole, or turned into lifeless strangelets ; )
Bill Donohue is completely incapable of anything other than bluster and weak threats as he demonstrated in his debate with Christopher Hitchens.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/09/02/bill-donohue-asks-christopher-hitchens-you-want-take-it-outside
The man finds it easy to be brave from a distance methinks.
It is to be expected from those incapable of defending their position through rational discussion and ,of course, Bill is far out of his league in such a forum. It handily explains why you never see him have the balls to drop in here from time to time.
More goodness from Donohue’s list of “hate-mail”:
I guess its hateful to remind him of historical events that he’d rather ignore or deny. Come to think of it, his bar for what constitutes “hate-speech” is rather low. His criterion seems to be “anything I disagree with”.
All hail the sacred beauty of the cracker!
I was browsing thru a copy of a biography of James Dickey (author of “Deliverance”) by Henry Hart: “James Dickey: The World as a Lie”. This was found on page 763 of the hardcover edition:
“Keeping some of the wafer and wine from communion in her mouth, she had kissed Dickey on the lips
in order to pass on the symbolic body and blood of Christ.” The woman who did this as Dickey lay dying was Carolee Guilds, a close lady friend, who was aware of his resistance to religious ministrations.
To do this to a dying man who did not want it and was unaware it was being done to him is absurd and meaningless, if it had meaning to begin with.
Stephanurus
Poor Bill was afraid we’d forgotten about him. He’s just flinging poo so he’ll get some attention.
When was his last guest stint at Fox?
OMG PZ! You’re such a celebrity! I think this means you can be President!!
PZ for prez!!
(+)
PZ-
Here’s that horror movie you were looking for-
“The Cracker That Wouldn’t Die”
…now at a theater near your home and family.
I was just thinking about this…When you criticize Christianity, people complain that you’d never go after Islam that way because you’re A Pansy Liberal (or scared of Teh Fatwa). If you criticize Islam, they complain that you’d never go after Christianity like that because you’re A Colonialist Bigot. It’s as if they’re using each other as red herrings.
Lol – I’ve been reading your blog ever since I was brought here by ‘The Cracker Debate’…I was reading the so called ‘PZ Myers Hate Mail’ on the CL site..not one death threat among them!
Atheists 1 – Catholics 0
Well done PZ – keep up the good work :)
A few more comments like that, and you get a Molly nomination.
You think? When I get e-mail from someone’s desk, that someone is usally a barrister, or sometimes a senator, who has a few tens of megabucks left over from an inflated contract involving the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation or an inheritance that would fall to the government and wants me to help him get that cash out of the country.
(I still haven’t bothered looking up what “barrister” actually means. Some kind of attorney, right?)
Nope. A barrister is a lawyer, but not an attorney. Now look em up.
Is this a witch-hunt, or what?
Bill D. seems to be frothing at the mouth. If he doesn’t watch it, he’ll soon have spittle-flecked minion, too!
Pete Rooke #85,
I know that what you’re really thinking about is if you will be able to eat your own shoes if you are ever stranded on a desert island.
Bah – nobody is tater tot. Ol’ frog hooked a pelvis cracker on the church thread. Whew the stink is dreadful! ;o)
You are up to five (at my last count) press releases regarding the great cracker controversy and the fact Bill Donohue’s panties are in a bind. I think other posters are correct. You’re giving him hot flashes!
Bill does have to protect Eucharistic Rights. There has to be something in the constitution about them!
Amen!
PZ rules, – the scourge of the
CatlickerPedophile League!Donahue:
Because of the hate-filled milieu that Myers and his ilk have created…
Best hate-filled milieu and ilk on the Web.
Time for a Myers-Donahue debate!
I hope that when the CLers get their copy of Catalyst and see all the reasoned “hate mail” from atheists, they’ll figure out that we’re not so bad even when we’re irked.
Maybe?
You held the Host hostage. What a clever play on words.
#80- Hairhead – The poor mans name was Giles Corey. I know this story very well, for my 8th great auntie Mary AYER Parker was the last woman hanged. She was a neighbor to the Corey’s and rode in the back of a wagon passed poor old Giles on her way to the hanging tree. Her case is also thoroughly despicable.
NoR:
‘Fresh’ and ‘troll meat’ oxymoron makes.
Troll meat is putrid. That’s why they (trolls) have some problems attracting the fair sex humans, and why they are not all that attracted to their own.
Much like sleazy pedophile priests (and yes, – pedophile and priests is tautology if we talk about the catlicking variety).
And I think it should have been ‘PZ RULEZ’ in a previous post, -right?
Several people wrote to say that host desecration was less vile than sexual abuse of minors by priests (and the Church’s response as an institution, which demonstrably resulted in more minors being abused by the same priests). Mr Donohue is entirely correct in calling them “hate-filled messages”.
Where he errs, I think, is in failing to recognize that the hate with which they are filled is entirely appropriate. Mr Donohue’s claim is as odious as it is ridiculous, and he himself is a douche for saying it.
Donahue:
“It is hard to think of anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ,” we said to the press.
Well, I can think of lot’s of stuff.
How about utterly wasting one’s intellectual life pimping for Catholicism and its idiotic sky fairies and idiotic con-artist priesthood?
How about having a job that involves lying your ass off 24/7 for the Pope?
Try a little harder, Bill. I know, it’s tough, working your brain into a state called “thinking,” but give it another shot.
We’re going to a bad party
And who knows what damage we’ll do
We’re going to a bad party
Gonna wind up on Bill Donohue!
PZ – You need a grand finale.
Here’s an idea. Start a rumor that PZ is going to stream a mock crucifixion of himself over the internet. The crowds would certainly gather for the show. Instead of the intended show, PZ would give a lecture on evolutionary biology.
You know, each time I read a new article in this worthless piece of tripe (The Catalyst), I keep discovering more references to Billy Donohue and the various “indignities” being visited upon his character, and it occurs to me that, as far as Donohue is concerned, God be damned: The real crime is this libelous conduct directed at Donohue. This whole thing might actually be funny if it wasn’t for the fact that Donohue not only takes himself seriously, but so do thousands of others; these people are completely blind to Donohue’s batshit lunacy.
I mean, honest to f*ck, what sick bastard would use, “Mr. Bill Donohue stated ‘It is hard to think of anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ.’ Really? Perhaps he is forgetful of the sexual abuse of thousands of children worldwide by ordained Catholic priests, and the consequent exercise in covering-up this abuse?” as an example of “hate mail” directed at those who would defend a goddamn cracker?
#92:
Actually, I’m pretty sure the definition is “anything that makes me hate the speaker”. Not a big difference in Donohue’s case, mind.
Bill Donohue – the american pope. Blaspheming against him is like blaspheming against the holy spirit: it shall not be forgiven.
Poor ol’ Blowhard Bill, the Palin thread has some real high smellers goin’. Suppose PZ really has scared all the pope posse off?
Don’t worry about that fresh troll bein’ a might ‘ripe’, I can take it.
Hey! How come Dawkins and PZ get to be “militant” atheists and I am just a plain old atheist? I get to be a militant too.
I sure wish I had known how low the threshold is for militancy when I was a kid.
I often desecrated crackers, broccoli, cooked carrots, whatever. My parents thought I was just an obnoxious kid.
All this time I was a militant. My past is now painted in a rosy glow!
Jag @116
I would not bet on this! Hell, Donahue and his insane morons just might be goaded into staging a real crucifixon! And then moron Donahue can rally gloat over the real thing, just like PZ’s demonstration. Not a good idea Jag, to prod these demented idiots into carrying out the real mckoy. “We avenged you, sweet jeebus!” Then what do we do?
Clicked over.
I will never be so drunk to read that screed.
Holbach – Save your money on the Price book. Those reviewers are full of horse apples. The whole thing is dripping woo. I wasted my money and time. Phooey.
Dan Barkers book arrives in the morning. Hopefully it’s better.
Joel Grant,
You’re a militant and had nil a hint.
(You know – I’m a poet and I didn’t… Sorry.)
“The atheist professor, who was raised Lutheran, suffered no penalty for his behavior. ”
Kinda sums the whole thing up, doesn’t it? No wrath from God. No lightning bolt from a blue sky. Not even a nasty hang nail. God is either impotent or His aim really really sucks.
Patricia @ 124
Thanks for the obvious review and my retention of brain cells for not having to read that dreck. Would rather exercise them here, currently Lluraa and her religion stricken brain.
It seems most trolls, like Lluraa do a hit and run versus sticking around and battling it out. They just don’t make trolls like they used to. :-)
I think of it like an RPG. We were level 1 when we started out fighting trolls. So the trolls were tough to kill. Soon though we levelled up and now it’s the trolls who are the weak ones. We can dispatch a troll with the greatest of ease these days, and there is a whole army of trollkillers on this board. A young troll doesn’t stand a chance.
From my perspective, the Catholics are as whacked as Palin’s group. We had some “ethicist” from Christ the King give us a lecture Sunday before last…
Holy Crap Lady – it’s a UNITARIAN-UNIVERSALIST church. Speak to your audience.
Anyway, she gave me the heebie jeebies.
What we need is another influx of angry Dilbert fans. Ah, those were the days. . . .
That’s what the Catholic Church needs, a Large Host Collider! Maybe if they smash them together with enough velocity they’ll prove transubstantiation by detecting the God particle.
Yeah, we must have pulled a Palin and shot down all the best ones.
I twitted Llurra again with more scripture, daring her to answer Holbach.
It’s supper time here, so no tasty troll for me tonight. Just golden fried chicken.
Good night sweethearts!
Nooooo! Not the Dilbonians! They’re so smug and stupid … hmmm. Just like the Catholic fanatics.
That’s one of my favorite videos…
“And in further news about religious frauds:”
“French court to try Church of Scientology ”
They shouldn’t. It sucks as a judicial system.
“What we need is another influx of angry Dilbert fans.”
I remember when that hoarde descended on that one thread and ran it up to over 500 comments, and I thought it was just the craziest thing. Simpler times.
They were about the most smug and annoying trolls out there though. Rebels without a clue.
“The atheist professor… suffered no penalty for his behavior.”
What about that nasty bug after returning from his pagan pilgrimage to the ‘pagos?
Wow, almost half that news letter is dedicated to you and Eucharists. Congrats ( I think? ).
Also, I chuckle a little bit every time they refer to a cracker being held “hostage.”
PZ, did you notice their two-fold disgust tactic at the bottom of the article? The “atheist professor, who was raised Lutheran(…)”
I wonder if that signifies soreness from the Reformation? I couldn’t help but chuckle.
That’s what the Catholic Church needs, a Large Host Collider! Maybe if they smash them together with enough velocity they’ll prove transubstantiation by detecting the God particle.
Well some creationists do equate Jesus with the strong nuclear force. At least that’s what Jack Chick says.
spam spam bacon spam @136
[i]”French court to try Church of Scientology ”
They shouldn’t. It sucks as a judicial system.[/i]
I award you the internets. My Depends are full and I haven’t stopped yet.
PZ – this is a Molly!!!@
“The bulls-eye, of course, is Roman Catholicism. I’ll give them this much: At least the religion bashers are smart enough to know who’s on top.”
LOL!
Best line ever.
Jesus causes cancer?
But my timeline is so much more _interesting_ than Bill’s ;-)
http://vood00.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/timeline-the-great-desecration/
I’ve seen evidence that the Holocaust is an actual historical event; I missed the bit in Donohue’s editorial where he provides proof that the Eucharist is literally the body of Christ. It seems to be the missing link in his assertion that desecrating the host and denying the holocaust are both heinous and should both call a professor’s competence (sanity, even) into question.
I look forward to the next issue of catalyst where he can expand his argument.
#87
Life-long (now recovering) Catholic. Honestly, I hadn’t even heard of him before reading about crackergate here. My personal opinion is that he is a self-serving tool. PZ did not start this fight. It was the good, peaceful Catholics who went ape-shit when a college student failed to eat the cracker.
As we know where all the loonies are going to be on Sundays how about getting a load of padlocks and just locking them in for good??? Plenty of stuff for a wine and cracker party to keep them going for a while…
How stupid is it to take PZs action, and turn it into something that can be used against him, by sending the catholic league a missive about jerking off over a consecrated cracker.
Go read the comments they post. Some are described as hate mail, and are just pointing out the truth, some are described as hate mail and are just that.
Hi Pz! I see that you detroyed “the” eucharist — not just “a” eucharist. I guess we should see no more of that eucharist nonsense from now on. What’s next?? Anything else religious dogma only made one of??
The gift that keeps on giving.
Note that Jimmy Akin’s blog entry P.Z. Myers Must Be Fired, dated July 24, is still open and the latest comment is dated just two days ago. The web page weighs in at around 2 Gigabytes,
Raised a Lutheran? Goodness, that explains the nail. :)
All in all, I’d say the Catholic Church got off more lightly than last time around.
Stephanurus | September 9, 2008 7:32 PM #94
“Keeping some of the wafer and wine from communion in her mouth, she had kissed Dickey on the lips in order to pass on the symbolic body and blood of Christ.”
Me want Jebus cumswap!
Actually i am surprised at the lukewarm response of the catholics to the incidents.
I grew as a catholic child in Mexico city, and remember the tales of people who had died defending “the body of christ”, while we attend to our classes of “Doctrina”.
Because of a catholic the “hostia” (as we call in spanish) is considered the real body of Christ. We were even teach that it could actually bleed if desecrated by an infidel.
While i considere myself and atheist since i was 13, i try to have some respect of other people beliefs.
Yes i consider it is a superstition, but you can not attack other people beliefs and expect they would do nothing.
So i found all this very irresponsible. Is like you were anoying a nest of bees. Most bees are domesticated, but yet, they can sting… and you can not say you did nothing to provoke them.
I you wan´t to attack catholic beliefs. Do it properly, it would be much less dangerous than mocking one of their most sacred beliefs, even it that belief does not mean much to us, remember that for them, is more sacred that life…
Sorry, at work now, so not enough time to read all umpteen-hundred comments – hopefully somebody hasn’t pointed out either of these.
So, let me get this straight: PZ crucified the body of the lord savory jc, is that what they’re saying? Doesn’t that mean they got more sacrifice for their sins or something? I would think the crisschins of the world would be ecstatic that somebody took the bullet for them yet again. And even better, that the bad guy was an atheist. PZ should also have the Jews thanking him for that.
But, I really have to wonder how few frothing fundies have come to the realization that the more they squawk about totally ludicrous things, the more they hammer the nails into the coffin of religion. Even the moderates, such as people who support evolution but still believe in their deity, can’t seem to understand that they’re directly associated with these chuckleheads, and will remain so as long as they hold their tongues.
And all we have to do is point out simple illogic, and laugh. Gotta love it, really. If I knew where to get petards, I’d grow rich selling them to religious folk.
What?! Still no tastey troll to spread on our crackers? Awww, I’m getting tired of cheezus. <:(
“The atheist professor, who was raised Lutheran, suffered no penalty for his behavior.” Divine or earthly? :)
What punishment were they expecting you to receive?? Is cracker desecration a crime? Why doesn’t their god smite you down with some cool running sores or a lightning bolt?
Bill Donohue is a mindless rabble-rouser. The only thing I would worry about is one of his idiot readers trying to shoot you.
I wonder who’s supposed to be bottom?
So i found all this very irresponsible. Is like you were anoying a nest of bees. Most bees are domesticated, but yet, they can sting… and you can not say you did nothing to provoke them.
So Catholics have as much control over their own behavior as a swarm of insects. That also explains a lot.
Re- Hairhead #80: Crushing was also known as “Peine Fort et Dur” and was used in reformation England to encourage those accused of being Catholics to plead guilty or otherwise. Catholic/Protestant: same basic silliness/ same basic inhumanity I suppose?
Aren’t there some independents running for President? Maybe one of them should choose Donohue as running mate!
Donohue is a Top? Damn, I would have sworn he’s a bottom.
So Catholics have as much control over their own behavior as a swarm of insects. That also explains a lot.
Well as i said…most of them are fairly domesticated.
In Mexico 85% of the people is considered catholic, of them about 65% favour the use of condoms, contraceptives, and abortion. They do not question evolution and are ok with a laicist schooling system.
Since catholics do not favour reading the bible if it is not under supervision, most of them never read it.
But still there are some with stings…
we have an old saying “they are more papist than the pope”. they usually appear when they fell threatened, most of the time they prefer to work withouth being seen.
I am not shure about the catholics in the US, but i think they are not very diferent.
Anyway. I still think they need to be respected… in both ways. (you can respect other ideas and you can respect the sting of a bee)
And if the point Nanahuatzin is precisely that placing such a high value on it, while abandoning all morals, ideals of peace, principles of fairness, or anything else ethical/moral/humane ***is*** what we find offensive, what precisely do we do about it? They placed the host over the life, education, and future of one of their own children, for no other reason than the lunatics that started this objected to him “delaying” eating it, then objected even more when he ran away with it, because he was scared to death what they would do to him if he didn’t. We protest this how? By agreeing with them that the object is so sacred that their paranoia, fear, hatred, anger and insanity is *justified*? Or, by showing that we think their is no value at all in some stupid cracker, and that they are immoral, insane and dangerous for thinking otherwise?
I am not real clear what exactly your asking here. Because any concession over the original event and our own stance on the *real* value of the cracker, would support their claims that its is more valuable than life, and undermine our, that they where mad to attack the kid.
Anyway. I still think they need to be respected… in both ways. (you can respect other ideas and you can respect the sting of a bee)
The wnole point is, their ideas have no “sting.” No force in the secular world. The whole sorry incident was a product of their attempts –and here we see that these attempts are ongoing– to bluff, acting as if their ideas carry a force that they do not have. I don’t respect their bluster, which in the case of Donohue and the rabble he’s roused is completely unhinged, and I don’t respect their ideas in the first place, though I do respect their right to hold them, given that others have the right to criticize them.
You seem to be taking the position that since the response could have been anticipated, therefore it is right. The logic escapes me.
“I wonder who’s supposed to be bottom?” – #159
Alterboys of course…
The wnole point is, their ideas have no “sting.”
When i speak of sting. I am not refering to their ideas. But to their actions.
Faith is a strong force in the human societies. When people is attacked or belives it is being atacked in their faith, they can do illogical things, no matter what their religion says. I think this is not hard to understand.
I doubt the kid had really NO idea that catholics put some importance to the “cracker”. He simply had little respect for the tought of people diferent than him.
So is like a comedy of errors.
He could have asked, first error.
The people in the church should have explainded it was important to them. second error.
And so on. Each step making worse a simple action. Which a simple… “sorry, i did not know this “thing” is so important to you” would have stopped it.
Pobably since i was raised as a catholic, i have idea of how important is tho them. And while i discus, and debate with them, i try no to insult them. They deserve the same respect of any religion, no matteer if it´s wicca, or evangelics, or shamanism or budishm. Ussualy if you listem to them, they may be able to listen to you.
I even have a neighborg that is from: “la iglesia de la santa muerte”. One of the wackiest cult that have existed, yet i have manged to talk with him and make him listen, and managed to put some doubt on his beliefs, since he did not had an idea of what is science, what can do and what it is no, and maybe… i would be able to convince him that magic does not exists…
If i had taken some of his talismans and insult them, i would have an enemy instead of curious man.
Or simply.. maybe i am looking at all this from a diferent culturla point.
By agreeing with them that the object is so sacred that their paranoia, fear, hatred, anger and insanity is *justified*
The problem is that attacking them in on of their most precious beliefs, you are justifiying their “paranoia, fear, hatred, anger and insanity”.
Just think that for catholic, the ritual of the Eucaristy represents all what is moral, just, fair, and humane. To them defending it, is to defend their children and families from the evil…
Just think on it, and maybe you will undestand their reaction.
And maybe be a little forgiving on their maddness. At least you will have the advantange of the understanding.
Which will scalate the conflict on step more.
sorry… please erase the last line of my las post…
it is in the wrong place…
One would get the impression that Mr Donohue and all of the various Catholic hoohahs harassing Professor Myers worship the wafer Eucharist, and not Jesus Christ.
Ok, first, the kid was, last I checked, also Catholic, second, **numerous** Catholics have said that what he did initially is “normal” in most cases, so claiming that the reaction of the original group made sense doesn’t, its not Catholic doctrine it only “some” Catholics get unhinged over that. And as for the rest. Sorry, but thinking about how they see the thing just makes them more crazy. I understand quite when their viewpoint. I also understand quite well the viewpoint of some loony that some nut from the dark ages would have had in defending the right of someone to put people accused of witchcraft to death. Understanding in such cases can garner pity, it can engender a desire to see the insanity end, and it can promote the idea that some ideas are just **bad**. But, it can only do so if you are willing to stand up and say, “What you are doing is absurd, and this is why.” Sometimes that takes something more extreme than just saying they are crazy. And, seriously, as someone else described, it takes courage to be the guy saying, “More rocks”, while some lunatic is trying to prove the superiority of their view by either whining ineffectually in news articles about how hateful “you” are, like Donahue, or actually killing you for their cause. If they are willing to do “anything” to support their ideology, then anyone that isn’t willing to do damn near anything to expose how crazy it is, deserves what ever legal system, government or ethical system the lunatics implement while *we* where playing nice and not abusing their cherished beliefs. You can’t have it both ways. If you try, they slander, lie about, and degrade you anyway, and, since they never have to show just how unhinged they really are, they win by default when other people have to pick between the nice religious fanatic, and the scary unbeliever.
Only by given them opportunity to show just how absurd, unhinged and dangerous they can act, do you get the people that “would have” supported them over you to see which side is making jokes, and which side it going batshit insane and threatening to kill people that piss them off. I would think this would be a huge, “Duh!”.
Actually… for a catholic is the same thing…
According to the Roman Catholic Church, when the bread (i.e cracker or waffer) and wine are consecrated in the Eucharist, they cease to be bread and wine, and become instead the real body and blood of Christ.. no more, no less!!!!
It is called “”transubstantiation””, since the eleven century.
And yes… they are conscient of the canibalistic implications…
To touch a consecrated waffer is to touch the body of god, no less!!! So it can only be touched after going through the ritual of confession and repent. Otherwise is a “mortal sin”.
It is the central purpose of the mass.
Supertition?. Maddness? faith? or all the above…
Maybe. But it is one of their most precious dogmas. Deny it, denounce it, or decry it… but do not make fun of it. It have survived centuries, they will not give it easily.
Don’t flatter yourself, bitch. Being aggressively stupid in PZ’s echo chamber is no mark of prowess.
Aggressively stupid? Actually hearing the same argument from “every” person that shows up to defend which ever pet religion they think it better than atheism, and getting basic facts wrong all the time, thus “learning” both what to expect, and what the real facts are is stupid… Well, nice to know that. Mind, if you mean the way a few people just get tired of seeing the same lame arguments, over and over and over for the 5,995,294th time, so get really irritated about it, then yeah. It would be nice if everyone was like some sort of Vulcan here and never lashed out. Well, guess what? We either won’t ever be like that, or its going to take a few million years without people like you around clouding the waters with even more irrational emotional drivel. And I don’t see that starting to happen real soon either.
Yes. Is that too polysyllabic for you to parse? Pharyngulites are worthless pos. I wish I could buy the lot of you for what you are worth, and then sell you all for what you think you are worth; I would be filthy f’ing rich!
Ostiarius @173 and 175
I believe you are suffering from delusions of adequacy!
@Ostiarius
Who are you calling bitch? I’m a guy.
Hi Pharyngulans
I had just gotten into a stimulating discussion about ‘Crackergate’ over on the Richard Dawkins Forum when I was rudely banned on grounds of preaching (a trumped-up charge if ever there was one)!
Anyhoo, I had been meaning to post a question there and since you folks seem to be of the same mind, I’ll try it here instead.
At the top of his blog, Prof Myers describes himself as a “godless liberal”. To me, “liberal” suggests someone who values tolerance, peaceableness, mutual respect, diversity of opinion and a general “live and let live” attitude.
How should secular, “godless” liberals treat religion in a pluralistic society? Should they be allowed to publicly argue that a particular religion is false? Of course – just as religious folk are free to argue that atheism is false. Should they be allowed to publicly ridicule Roman Catholics as deluded morons in thrall to a superstitious cracker-worshipping fantasy? Of course – just as Catholics are free to ridicule atheists as deluded morons most likely in thrall to Asperger’s Syndrome. All of this is just the rough-and-tumble of a democratic society where everyone can speak his mind.
But over and beyond this, surely liberals would concede religious people have an inalienable right to practice their religion in peace, provided they don’t try to impose it on everyone else. I hope you would all agree with that.
Is it consistent with liberal values to deceitfully acquire and physically desecrate an object regarded as sacred by religious people? I would say this is a step beyond mockery, satire or ridicule and violates liberal principles of “live and let live”. By effectively declaring “your crackers are not safe!” one is in fact interfering with Catholics’ right to practice their rituals in peace. Someone who does that is no longer a secular liberal but a secular zealot, a Jacobin.
If that’s what Prof Myers wants to be he really should alter his blog heading to “Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless militant”. Otherwise he’s just a godless hypocrite.
Piltdown Man…. cough erhmmm
Um
deceitfully how?
Yet not regarded as so by PZ. Do you eat hamburger? Do you celebrate the Sabbath? Do you kneel and pray 5 times a day facing Mecca?
Maybe one of the dumbest statements about this event so far. Catholics are allowed to practice all they want. PZ did not effectively declare anything of the sort about all the crackers. PZ putting a nail through a cracker in no way keeps Catholics from continuing to practice their faith. Catholics do not have the right to demand that PZ or I anyone believe that that cracker is anything other than a cracker, which is all that it is unless you can provide evidence to the contrary.
Um no. Someone who does what PZ did, is merely taking out the trash.
Consecrated hosts are given out on the understanding that they are to be consumed, not smuggled out of the church and desecrated.
The issue isn’t what PZ does or does not believe, it’s how PZ treats other people. I don’t believe cows are sacred – but nor would I incite people over the internet to kidnap a sacred cow from a Hindu temple (or wherever they keep them) and send it to me so I could slaughter it and post pictures of its carcass on my website.
He incited people to go out and steal consecrated hosts from Catholic churches. It doesn’t “prevent” Catholics practising their faith, but it certainly interferes with it in a pretty direct way. It’s not mockery from a distance. Would PZ piss on a Torah scroll?
Catholics aren’t demanding that, BigDumbChimp.
Such a remark reveals an deeply illiberal streak. Personally, I’m glad atheism’s liberal mask is slipping – it’s good to know where we stand.
In order to avoid being a hypocrit, make sure to talk about how Bill Donohue treats people. You have to criticize him before you can criticize PZ, since PZ’s actions were in response to Donohue trying to get a FCU student expelled. Donohue later tried to get PZ fired for responding to his overbearing treatment. Donohue needs to be taken down several notches, and PZ started the process by showing what an impotent loudmouth he is.
Boy are you naive. Many Catholics posted about their treatment and theft of hosts over the years. The host that was desecrated was stolen years ago. I didn’t read about any mass being disrupted.
Piltdown, you need to decide where to draw the line about respecting other people’s views. For example, by your logic toward the catholic church, if a couple down the street maintains a kosher kitchen based on bibical text, you would have to keep a kosher kitchen too or you would needlessly insult them. A little thinking, and backing off of the attitude, and “my house, my rules” comes into play. If the couple visits your house, they can’t expect kosher preparation of food. Likewise, if you take something to their house, you make “neutral” to avoid problems.
Being liberal does not mean one is meek. Get over that.
“Yes. Is that too polysyllabic for you to parse? Pharyngulites are worthless pos. I wish I could buy the lot of you for what you are worth, and then sell you all for what you think you are worth; I would be filthy f’ing rich!”
Yes, it’s too bad you can’t do that. Sigh. I guess it’s back to Mom’s basement and “Would you like fries with that?” for you.
Keep dreaming big, though, little guy.
You only speak to what you know, I realize, but unlike the average pharyngulite, some of us have advanced degrees, live on our own, are not socially inept, and are not sorely lacking in native intelligence.
If PZ were interested in taking out the trash, then he would stuff each and everyone of his followers in the garbage can, then jump in himself; I sincerely doubt it’s that big. (Unless it opens into an alternate universe. Perhaps one where rabid atheists are valued, instead of scorned as fetid pos)
You just described most Pharyngulites.
Piltdown Man (#178):
Depends on the context. In the case of Crackergate, the answer would seem to be “yes”.
Firstly, the action was not gratuitous, but a response to the intolerant posturings of certain Catholic extremists, and it was deliberately used to illustrate a perfectly valid point about the negative consequences of the idea of imbuing inanimate objects with “sacredness”.
Secondly, no actual harm was done. The object in question is not a rare or unique cultural artefact, but a mass-produced wafer of negligible intrinsic value. Nobody was deprived by the object’s acquisition, materially or culturally, to any significant extent.
As such, the action is a perfectly legitimate act of protest in defense of liberal values – it protested certain illiberal actions, it strove to make a positive point, and it had negligible impact on the rights of others.
Not all acts of desecration of religion objects would be defensible by the criteria of liberal values, but that doesn’t mean that all such actions are indefensible.
How about raping and murdering a 14 year old? How about torturing people because you think they might have information you want? How about throwing your McDonald’s bag out of your car window? It’s hard for me to think of things less vile that throwing a piece of stale bread away.
Piltdown Man (#180):
Poor analogy. Cruelty to crackers and cruelty to animals really aren’t in the same league.
You are completely ignoring the context of the “Great Desecration” as a response to the incident in Florida. This was a response to the insane actions of the people on the Catholic side.
No it does not in any way interfere. If someone went in and stole the all the crackers out of the priest hand as he was passing them out yes. This however would go wholly unnoticed if not for a public posting. And even with that it does not interfere. I’m not going to rehash the lengthy arguments made about someone given an item and how they use it. You can read the other posts to see all that.
You’ll have to ask him but I assume yes he would depending on the circumstances, which are important. Just like in this case. If he had a Torah of his own I don’t think he’d give two shits about it other than it being a piece of literature. There are other Torahs out there. It can be replaced.
Bullshit. That is exactly what they are doing. They expect us to treat a cracker with some sort of reverence that only they believe in. That is exactly what they are doing.
Was that an attempt to try and guilt me into agreeing with you? Um, no, nothing illiberal about it. It’s a silly belief that neither I nor anyone has any responsibility to believe in. In fact it is a responsibility of rational people to questions that belief and to respond when that belief causes it’s subscribers to act in a way that threatens the liberty and well being of others.
Exactly what PZ did.
I’m perfectly happy to defend one’s right to believe in whatever sillyness they choose to believe in. But when those beliefs start to interfere with others then it becomes an issue. Putting a nail in a cracker did nothing but make a point. It was still just a cracker and religious beliefs should not hold a special place above criticism.
Its amazing. Almost as though the people like Piltdown Man (Which is an odd choice in name, since it represents a fake) have been reading the version of events that Donahue has falsely presented, while completely missing both every fact of what PZ was protesting, and why, as well as every single discussion and argument made about why this specific protest was necessary.
So, lets put it in perspective. Lets say some new group cropped up, based on Hindu belief, and they **demanded** that everyone in the world stop killing cattle, or else they or their god will do some really bad things to people, only, its glaringly obvious that the groups violence consists of nothing but making threats, posting libelous articles, shouting about how evil everyone was, and occasionally trying to get people expelled from colleges in their own country, for ordering at McDonald’s. They happen to buy cattle, from some crazy reason, from a group that sells to everyone. Would it be “bad” to get cattle from that source, or even to happen to get one from some disgruntled member, and have a BBQ in protest of their insane ranting and attempted to destroy people’s lives over it, or would intentionally posting pictures of your BBQ on the internet be “wrong”, even if there is no evidence that one of *their* Cattle was stolen, or that they didn’t give it to the person that gave it to you, or that you didn’t pick it up at the local farm market?
I am sorry, but seriously, even a significant number of Catholics thought this was reasonable protest, meaningless, or just funnier than hell, because they think Donahue is a fracking blowhard too. And, last I checked, the Pope, who is **supposedly** actually the head of the church, not Donahoe, didn’t go ballistic over it either. Maybe he was actually paying attention to why it happened, or maybe he figured there was more fracking important stuff to worry about…
bah
typos, extra apostrophes, etc..
par for KoT.
Pos?
Nerd of Redhead:
The difference is, I don’t claim to be a liberal. Neither, as far as I know, does Bill Donohue. And the Catholic Church is not known for its liberal views – in fact it has officially condemned liberalism. So when St Boniface chopped down the pagan Saxons’ sacred Oak of Thor, he was certainly being intolerant but not hypocritical. PZ, by contrast, claims to be a liberal yet acts in an illiberal way.
How is that relevant? There will always be bad Catholics.
Neither fact makes PZ’s actions any less monstrous from a Catholic perspective.
If an observant Jewish couple were to eat at my house, I would do my best to obtain kosher food, but that’s beside the point. If you take “my house, my rules” seriously, you don’t abscond from a Catholic church with the Blessed Sacrament because that’s against the rules of the house.
Liberalism, like atheism, is a passing phenomenon. (As someone once put it, it’s the transient moment between exhaling Christianity and inhaling something else.) The immediate future lies with the smart, aggressive and ruthless. As for the meek …
Iain Walker (186)
Nobody was burnt at the stake, you know.
But if, say, a fabulously beautiful or valuable Torah scroll were wantonly destroyed, religious Jews wouldn’t be upset that a beautiful or valuable artefact had been destroyed – not primarily. Primarily, they would be upset that something they regard as holy (the Torah) had been desecrated. For a Catholic, a consecrated Host is worth more – infinitely more – than Chartres Cathedral.
but…but that’s stupid!
Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT: (#189)
What “actions”? No one was stoned to death. Webster Cooke wasn’t hauled off to a subterranean dungeon by cowled Inquisitors for a session with the thumbscrews. Let’s keep a sense of proportion here.
I guess it all comes down to where a liberal draws the line.
Once you’re prepared to destroy the most important thing in someone else’s life, you’ve stepped outside the Western liberal humanist tradition. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing …
Piltdown, yes lets keep a sense of proportion here. Nothing is sacred. Deal with it. Catlicks keep trying to make respect of their host sacred to non-believers. Yes, I draw the line there. I do not have to hold anything catlick sacred since I am not one. Period. End of story. No discussion on that point. That is where the liberal line is drawn. If the host is the most important thing for a catlick, I feel sorry for his/her family and friends. This does not mean I would try to steal a host, or if I attended a catholic ritual, I would try to partake of the host.
Kagehi (#190)
A significant number of Catholics are cowards or traitors. So what’s new?
(Actually, I think it’s a pity Donohue and certain Catholic commentators are complaining about hate crimes, etc. After all, Jesus warned us to expect nothing less. From a proper Catholic perspective, the fact that PZ offended Catholic churchgoers’ sensibilities isn’t important – it’s the fact he insulted God that’s the problem, objectively speaking.)
It’s true. Popes aren’t what they used to be …
Piltdown, please show me evidence (not just blather) that what PZ did had a direct effect on your life. I’ll bet in perspective, the desecraation had no effect.
Nerd of Redhead:
Donohue & co aren’t asking you to regard the Host as sacred, they’re asking you to respect the sensibilities of Catholics who do regard it as sacred. As I say, I personally think that’s a misguided approach but I would have thought it might have struck a chord with self-proclaimed liberals. Obviously not!
It had no direct effect on my life. Obviously I was saddened that a fellow human being could be so lost in error as to imperil his immortal soul by insulting his Creator, but that’s not ultimately my problem. I was just curious – from a sociological point of view – at what seemed to be a cultural mutation from the old secular liberal humanism (that had a degree of respect for the religious sensibilities that built Western civilization) to a new aggressive secularism (which by insisting that ‘nothing is sacred’ could well end up destroying liberal humanism itself).
Die Revolution ist wie Saturn, sie frißt ihre eignen Kinder.
Wow. That’s the biggest mushroom cloud yet from an irony meter.
Physical assault, death threats, threats and attempts to have him kicked out of school and a successful campaign to have him removed from the student council vs. the pocketing of a cracker that he wasn’t going to take from the building until he was assaulted.
Who needs a sense of proportion again?
You make that statement again but please back that up. Show me the grand list of western liberal humanist traditions and then show me where it says that throwing a replaceable cracker or replaceable torah in the trash violates them.
No. They’re demanding that everyone respect the cracker as being sacred, and demanding (and sometimes inflicting) real-world punishment for not having that respect.
Where’s their respect for atheism, anyway? They sure have not had any so far…
Exactly. As soon as they stop eating the sacred animal of the Hindus out of regard for the sacredness of cows, then they might have a point. But they aren’t asking for all religious traditions to be sacred, they just think theirs should be held as sacred by all.
Being liberal does not mean one has to give in to religious bigots. Wishful think on your part. Nothing is sacred. Deal with it.
So… you’re pragmatist cynic who asserts that Jesus Christ of Nazareth was wrong?
Interesting. In what other ways do you differ from the Catholics that you defend so vehemently?
No, I’m just guessing that the rise of a smart, aggressive and ruthless ‘warrior caste’ will be the immediate consequence of liberalism’s passing. The meek are blessed.
What a load of tripe even for a Godbot.
Gays, blacks and women now have more rights than ever before. There is far more sexual freedom than ever before, there is religious pluralism, a secular society, universal healthcare in almost every western country, a strong education system, social welfare. Yep, liberalism is dead alright…
The meek are not blessed. If they where Christianity would have never over ran, killed, tortured and wiped out of existence dozens of “meek” religions and their believers during its rise. Nothing the religious right does it meek, humble, or directed towards respect of their fellow man. Its 100% directed at aggressively undermining beliefs or ideas they don’t agree with, disrespecting everyone that isn’t one of them, and, when they can get by with it, using brain washing, lies, torture, or even murder, to get what they want. Liberal churches, in a society where people like Bill Donahue was powerful, instead of just loud and stupid, would be wiped out **for** being meek and unwilling to fight back. There is a reason why Jesus talks about the meek inheriting the earth, its because at the time Rome was still fighting Jewish rebels, and the last thing *Rome* needed is a messiah with “real” Biblical credentials, going around telling people to fight back. Its oddly convenient how he said **exactly** what Rome wanted desperately for Jews to believe, so they didn’t have to fight 3/4s of a bloody continent, led by the **military** leader that the old testament said was *supposed* to show up instead.
Seriously though, even if the convenience of him all but telling his followers to be nice to the Romans, while pissing off the real Jews in the process, who wanted to keep fighting, so they wouldn’t become Rome’s new conquests and slaves, your claim that the meek are somehow blessed, doesn’t stand the test of “any” point in history. The meek get slaughtered. The insane war mongers do the slaughtering, and the ***only*** time this has ever not been true was when people where willing to fight for the right to *pretend* to be meek, while still keeping their claws sharpened, against the next idiot that came along to disturb their peace.
Try actually paying attention in history class, or if you somehow managed to graduate, try reading something about it, instead of taking something so blindingly absurd at face value. You can’t create justice by ignoring other people’s injustice and/or insanity. All you do it give them the time they need to convince other people that their way is better, because of how *afraid* you are to appose them, and how powerful and rich they can get by thinking like them, and then the meek people, who where so ever nice about it all, are the first ones to die in the next fracking witch hunt.
Hint: People like Donahue think that liberals, Christians that are not Catholics, and even Catholics that don’t follow **his** version, are all atheists anyway. He and others like him have said as much. To them, meek Christians, who don’t believe in hard line BS, and try to force that view on others, are the ***same thing*** as atheists. And you think being meek will win against these people?
You need to join them in the rubber room.
Oh, and to be even clearer. 200 years ago “most” people where a bit uncertain of religion. A bit farther along, nearly everyone loved Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), but more than half of them thought a lot of his ideas on mans place in the world and slavery where just odd. A bit farther along, groups like the KKK where common, but “most” people didn’t like them, yet, oddly, at the same time Clemens books where among a small set of near #1 listed books banned by lunatics. Today, if he wasn’t simply fracking lynched, his books would be sold in the same places as Richard Dawkins, and half the fracking Republican party would be calling for his head, calling him a traitor and immoral, and whining about how he personally persecuted them in some of his comments on religion, just like Dawkins, and others. We are the most liberal we have ever been on one hand, while having some of the largest group of illiberal idiots imaginable, trying to undo that. And there there are people like you, who defend the lunatics, and call us radicals for fighting back… Things got this way “precisely” because of 150+ years of “meek” liberals “hoping” things got better, and not doing a damn thing about it, while the real radicals and loonies got more and more clever and gaining political offices and power. Now you want us to surrender everything, because fighting back isn’t “nice”. Arrrggghh!
So, you’re a fan of the Spartans, the Mongols, the Schutzstaffel? Fascinating.
Because the warrior caste will kill them all, as they have always done throughout history, sending them straight to heaven?
Oh, do go on…
Piltdown Man (#194):
Didn’t say they were. Not everything that falls under the description of “intolerant posturings of certain Catholic extremists” has to involve an auto da fe. Making threats, screaming about “kidnapping” and “hate crimes” and trying to curtail a student’s education still fall quite comfortably into this category.
Maybe not. But the wanton destruction of such a scroll would be much, much harder to justify than the (in this case unwanton) destruction of an ephemeral wheat product.
As a generalisation, I doubt that. It may be true of some Catholics, but I suspect that many more would be more upset by the destruction of a cathedral, and rightly so.
Piltdown Man (#200):
I make it three hopelessly unjustified assumptions contained in this statement:
That there is a creator
That human beings have immortal souls
That the above creator is insulted by PZ’s actions
Anybody count any others?
Kagehi (#209)
Those mean ol’ Christians, wiping out the meek religions of the peace-loving Saxons and the peace-loving Aztecs. And it gets worse – if it hadn’t been for the Christians’ warlike ways, England would have been colonised by the peace-loving Vikings and Europe would have been colonised by the peace-loving Mohammedans. Talk about a missed opportunity.
In the space of a single paragraph, you’ve gone from blaming the followers of Jesus for being excessively warlike to blaming them for being insufficiently warlike. Brilliant.
Your theory that Christianity was a Roman conspiracy to undermine the Jews’ martial qualities is one I hadn’t heard before. It seems to come from the Dan Brown school of history. The funny thing is, Nietzsche thought Christianity was a Jewish conspiracy to undermine the Romans’ martial qualities. Who is one to believe? So many conspiracy theories, so little time …
Here’s something even funnier – after Jesus’ crucifixion, the Jews got the warrior messiah they were looking for, in the person of a certain Simon bar-Kochba. Once the Jewish religious authorities had confirmed bar-Kochba’s messianic credentials, he led a great uprising against the Romans (and still found time to persecute the Jewish followers of Jesus, who naturally enough wouldn’t recognize him as the messiah). The rest, as they say, is history – the greatest catastrophe in Jewish history until the Shoah. Jerusalem destroyed, the temple razed to the ground, the priesthood wiped out, the Jews scattered to the four corners of the world.
And the cringing Christians? Well after a couple of centuries of fierce persecution at the hands of the Romans, their meek and mild faith became the official religion of the mighty Roman Empire. An unbiased observer might conclude that the “real Jews” had backed the wrong horse. Perhaps they should have paid more attention to their own scriptures: “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong …”
Actually I hold a BA (Oxon.) in History. If I hadn’t been such a lazy bugger and had studied a bit harder, I might have even got a First, but instead had to settle for a measly 2.1. C’est la vie!
after a couple of centuries of fierce persecution at the hands of the Romans – Piltdown Man
Absolute tosh, as is indeed appropriate to your chosen handle. There may have been a few deaths under Nero, and there was significant persecution of Christians in the third century, particularly under Diocletian, but these were nothing to the persecutions Christians inflicted on Jews, pagans, philosophers, and indeed, each other, as soon as they gained the power to do so. To a first approximation, they’ve been at it ever since.
Kel (#208):
Don’t forget endemic underclass crime and drug addiction, political corruption, an increasingly intrusive state control apparatus, countless children growing up in broken homes, an ultra-violent and pornographic entertainment industry, interracial strife and some rather alarming demographics – while the West is aborting and contracepting itself out of existence, the Muslims are having lots of very large families. Better start learning the shahada.
Shorter Piltdown Man:
“Oh NOES! The ragheads are outbreeding us!”
Yet more cynicism and pragmatism.
One might well point out that the Roman empire is dead, Christianity is fragmented and weakening, and the “race” is not yet over.
Of course, even back then, the Christians were as “meek and mild” as Scientologists (or any other cult) is today. The New Testament implicitly sanctions the murder of those who might try to leave the cult, and the genocide of those who are not members of the cult.
So that’s the horse you’ve decided to back? Inshallah.
Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT (#201):
Physical assault? Chyeah right. He wasn’t exactly beaten up.
Only a big girl’s blouse would call that ‘assault’.
Death threats? Alleged death threats you mean. We’ve only got his word for it.
Attempts to have him kicked out of school? Bill Donohue said was “All options should be on the table, including expulsion.”
Owlmirror (#218):
No, no, I was just being cynical. I’m actually Catholic.
Owlmirror (#218):
No, no, I was just being cynical. I’m actually Catholic.
Still trying to get special dispensation for your religion. We do not have to give any religion the type of tolerance you seem to think yours deserves. Nothing is sacred. Deal with it.
Right. The law would call it assault and battery.
784.011 Assault.
(1) An “assault” is an intentional, unlawful threat by word or act to do violence to the person of another, coupled with an apparent ability to do so, and doing some act which creates a well-founded fear in such other person that such violence is imminent.
784.03 Battery; felony battery
(1)(a) The offense of battery occurs when a person:
1. Actually and intentionally touches or strikes another person against the will of the other; or
2. Intentionally causes bodily harm to another person.
(b) Except as provided in subsection (2), a person who commits battery commits a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.
(2) A person who has one prior conviction for battery, aggravated battery, or felony battery and who commits any second or subsequent battery commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084. For purposes of this subsection, “conviction” means a determination of guilt that is the result of a plea or a trial, regardless of whether adjudication is withheld or a plea of nolo contendere is entered.
And we’ve only got your word that you aren’t a child molester.
your point?
And yet you imply that you think that Islam will win. Why not back that horse?
Piltdown Man, #214: Those mean ol’ Christians, wiping out the meek religions of the peace-loving Saxons and the peace-loving Aztecs. And it gets worse – if it hadn’t been for the Christians’ warlike ways, England would have been colonised by the peace-loving Vikings and Europe would have been colonised by the peace-loving Mohammedans.
Aside from the fact no one is claiming that Vikings, Aztecs, or “Mohammedans” were peace-loving, I don’t understand your point. Are you agreeing with Kagehi that Christians have historically ignored the part where Jesus’ followers are expected to be meeK?
Umm, England was colonized by the Vikings.
Well, as he said, he only got a BA in history.
I find it hard to believe that Danelaw isn’t covered before the graduate level at Oxford :)
It’s also interesting that he blames the razing of Jerusalem and the temple (70 AD) on bar-Kochba’s revolt in 132 AD. (OK, I admit that I had to look that one up) Those damn time traveling Jews again.
Only comment I am going to make on the issue of trying to defang Jewish people with Christianity is that I said it was intended to defang ***Jewish*** people. Fact is, the first people to adopt the **official** version in Rome where not Jews, but the Flavians, whose members including current military leaders trying to defeat those Jewish forces, the son of the current Emperor, and the first official pope, who was one of former’s close cousins. None of *these* people even attempted to be less warlike, they just wanted their enemies to stop fighting back. They would still be the leaders of the church today if invaders, who didn’t believe in Christianity, and a great many of which where paid mercenaries or slaves for those militant leaders, hadn’t sent all the lower rank priests, who had none of the wealth, the power, the royal bloodlines, or the political connections of the “first family”, running to obscure corners of the world with what ever copies of the Bible they had with them. The current faith is derived from “those” people, who actually believed it, and not from those that found it so convenient to embrace it in the middle of a war with the people it told to, “be nice, pay your taxes, obey your king/emperor, and if they fine you for something, kiss their ass even more, by paying back double.”
Its only a contraction if you presume that the same people who invented it to control a group **ever** did, or intended to, follow anything it said. And, any grasp of the history of that period will show that the churches #1 role was, and continued to be, for hundred of years after, to support the kings, make demands as to who needed to be conquered next, and keep everyone who wasn’t “royal” quiet, so they didn’t upset the *important* people.
It certainly looks like the cynical and pragmatic Piltdown Man would be entirely in favor of such a Realpolitik religion. See above his calling for the death of liberalism to give rise to a “smart, aggressive and ruthless ‘warrior caste'”.
I suspect that he would be a glad convert to “Positive Christianity”.
windy, OM (#226/228):
Not completely though, thanks to King Alfred’s military achievements. Christianity wasn’t supplanted by paganism and eventually the Vikings became Christian.
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, I conflated revolts. However, that doesn’t affect my main point – that the militaristic, messianic Judaism that Kagehi seems to be calling for hasn’t done the Jews much good historically.
Owlmirror (#211):
(#230):
A complete distortion (or misreading) of what I wrote. I didn’t “call” for the death of liberalism, I just said I thought it was dying. Nor did I express any relish at the prospect of the rise of a violent warrior class – I merely said I thought it a likely consequence of liberalism’s demise.
(#224):
I implied Islam might very well win against a decadent liberalism, I didn’t say anything about its contest with Christianity. Perhaps the Church will be able to convert the warriors of the new barbarism into the knights of the new Christendom. That would give the West a fighting chance.
But whatever happens – even if the West becomes part of a new caliphate; or disintegrates into a welter of neopagan tribalism; or morphs into an atheistic totalitarian technocracy – the Church will still survive in some form. It may never regain any degree of temporal hegemony, but then that was never really expected to endure – it was always ever going to be a period of grace before the final persecution.
(#218):
Very true, lol!
Chiroptera (#225):
Jesus said the meek were blessed; He didn’t say only the meek could be His followers.
Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT (#223):
Then the law is a big girl’s blouse.
Difference is, he’s the one making allegations. Therefore the burden of proof lies with him.
Simply that saying expulsion should be an option is not the same thing as calling for expulsion.
Oh, gee, thanks for putting words in my mouth. I don’t advocate military anything. Historically, any time crusades have happened, the people that win tend to destroy everything they don’t like, and civilization ends up spending the next 100+ years crawling back out of what ever delusional hell hole the winners put them in. They end up having to regain the right to question blind authority, and they have to regain justice, ethics, etc. along with it. In the interim, it hasn’t mattered if the winning force was Muslim, Christian, or some cult of personality, like Stalinism or Maoism. Every one of them basically stagnated, until sufficient liberal views took over to allow questioning of the supposed wisdom of the ancients, and personal choice made invention and discovery something done by everyone, instead of a few privileged people, and then only if the result “conformed” to the prevailing dogma.
The west, in terms of Europe, isn’t decadent, and the US.. The US is, by European standards, so conservative it makes people in Europe think the whole country is insane. Our “decadence” is nothing of the sort. Its, in reality, a reactionary, purely self centered, delusional perception that anything that falls too far outside right wing dogma is, “going to destroy the nation”, when there is a) no evidence of any of the paranoid things they are “certain” will happen if someone is allowed to do X, and dozens of countries that have “already” done so, and, for some damn reason, have less crime, less murder, less, everything that the right *insists* is caused by freedom, instead of by paranoia and fear.
Your someone for whom wheat bread with butter is “normal”, complaining that some people around you want to put, ‘oh the horrors!’, jam on it, while either completely ignorant of, or institutionally blind to the contradiction, that someone some place is serving pancakes with blueberries in it, coated in maple syrup, and, for some strange reason, the unimaginable horrors you think are caused by serving jam on bread are “somehow” not having the slightest effect on either the people buying jam, or the even more horrible people daring to eat something other than wheat toast.
I am willing to bet that you can’t find “one” single scrap of evidence for the downfall of civilization via liberalism, never mind “aggressive” liberalism, which isn’t either made up by people with an agenda, *paid for* by people with an agenda, via hired conservative think tanks or biased researchers (with the result of glaringly obviously bad statistics, analysis and science), and/or refuted 100 times over by hundreds of millions of people that have “somehow” managed to not collapse under the weight of being even more liberal, far more aggressive about it, and thinking you are an even bigger nut than we do.
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be right, and have dozens of countries, with hundreds of millions, or even billions, of people, that make liberalism in the US look like a fracking conservative book club, who fundamentally contradict every assertion you make about the “dangers” of not being theocratic, traditional, or obsessive to the point of insanity over other people’s lives and choices, enough. One could even argue, rightly, that you have had decades of the most recent list of pet theories about how civilization will end by not being dogmatic enough, and 2,000 years prior, to prove your point, and the only point you have managed to make is that every time some nut case got power, and decided to “force” everyone of conform to their ideology, their civilization was invaded, raised to the ground, or overthrown. It doesn’t bode well for people like you, who think that being “too” liberal, or fighting “too hard” for liberalism, or daring to think some of the rules made up by paranoid freaks, who have never gotten anything right yet, save by accident, will end civilization.
As other people have said here before. The only things Christianity ever got right are those things that “everyone” agrees on. Unfortunately, its got two things dead wrong – 1. The belief that those things are unique to itself, and 2. The belief that the only way to understand any of those things is to buy in to a crap load of intolerance, self flagellation, and faith that only via ***this*** religion can you understand anything. Only, that’s what ever other fracking religions believes, and they are as, or more, willing to *force* you to to conform to what ever list of idiotic bullshit “they” have tacked on over top of the universal concepts, to justify “their” intolerance, self abuse and justification for telling everyone that they are doomed if they don’t buy the whole fracking stinking pile of feces they dropped on top of the ideals they “insist” are the “core” of their faith.
You know what else hasn’t done the Jews much good historically? Starts with a C…
Piltdown Man, #233: Jesus said the meek were blessed; He didn’t say only the meek could be His followers.
Well, this doesn’t seem to be the point you were trying to make in the post to which I was replying. In fact, since you were sarcastically describing vikings, Aztecs, and “Mohammedan” as “peaceful” it does appear that you were trying to make an entirely different point altogether. Are you having troubling staying to the point, or are you communication skills poor?
Well I’m convinced. Great argument.
Judging by the amount of death threats that PZ received, I’m going to tend to believe that it is possible that it’s probably that he did receive them.
Riiiight.
Your phrasing certainly was vary easy to misread, and indeed, is rather incoherent. Even this clarification is muddy and confused. But your thinking often seems to be that way; you seem to prefer bizarre religious fantasies to straightforward, evidence-based argument. But perhaps I should not be surprised.
Historically, Christianity has not done well in the contest with Islam. The only lasting victory that I can think of is the Reconquista, and even that took several centuries. Nor was the resulting Christian kingdom particularly successful; even after raping and massacring the population of two continents and stealing boatloads of gold, they still lost influence and power.
More fantasising. Just out of curiosity, where do you think these “new barbarians”; this “smart, aggressive and ruthless ‘warrior caste'” will come from? China? India? Outer space? The fourth dimension?
Regardless of the fantastic scenarios you pull out of nowhere, this is probably true. Christianity has generally done better under non-Christian regimes than non-Christians have done under Christian regimes.
You know, the Jews would probably argue almost exactly the same thing.
Isn’t The Catholic League just one guy, the same guy who condemned Kathy Griffin for her Emmy acceptance speech, “Suck it Jesus, this award is my god now!”?
Gosh, you’re a CELEBRITY. Heh.
Kagehi (#235):
Then I apologize for misreading you.
Well that just shows how decadent Europe has become. The US has its roots in Enlightenment/Masonic ideology with a dash of Puritanism – both equally facets of the revolution that undermined Christendom. You can’t get less “conservative” than that.
I disagree.
That’s a frivolous analogy. How can you possibly compare fundamental moral disagreements with tastes in food? Only by refusing to comprehend or accept that intelligent people COULD actually differ from your liberal world-view.
Tricky one, that. What would you accept as “evidence”? What I see every day with my own eyes can be brushed aside as “anecdotal”, while statistics can’t tell us if a society is disintegrating. There’s also the further problem that there are areas where a lack of shared premises make rational debate difficult – for example, you would (I presume) see legalized abortion as a sign of progress, whereas I see it as a sign that civilization has to all intents and purposes collapsed already.
You seem to have a very distorted view of Christianity.
windy, OM (#236):
Well they started it.
Chiroptera (#236):
What’s difficult to understand? Kagehi made the standard-issue accusation that warlike Christians routinely trampled on peaceful indigenous religions. My sarcasm was intended to highlight the fact that at least some of those indigenous religions were such that the world is better off without them. I don’t see how that conflicts with my remark that Jesus did not command all his followers to be wholly meek all the time.
Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT (#238):
Sometimes mocking assertion is more appropriate than argument – PZ obviously thought so when it came to transubstantiation.
Fair enough. I’m going to tend to believe that it is possible that it’s probable that he didn’t. And if he did, why assume that those who made such threats are representative? Why gratuitously offend all Catholics everywhere because of the actions (or words) of a few hotheads?
A fine distinction but a real one nonetheless.
I admit my original comment was somewhat gnomic. I honestly don’t see anything muddy or confused about the clarification.
It’s true Christendom has generally been on the defensive against the Islamic steamroller, but it’s put up a pretty good defence – the Battle of Tours, the Battle of Lepanto, the Battle of Vienna … Let’s see how liberal democracy fares.
Now who’s the cynical pragmatist? (A crude and one-sided account, BTW.)
I’m guessing it will emerge from the semi-savage underclass of the decaying cities.
You may choose to regard them as fantastic scenarios, I prefer to see them as speculative but plausible extrapolations from discernible societal trends.
Questionable.
I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean here. Could you clarify?
Oops – forgot to add the above was in reply to Owlmirror (#239).
It’s fascinating reading these notes from the Twilight Zone. Please, do expand on this.
Religious wars and conflicts are always about the most absurd and trivial things.
Actually, they’re even more trivial than tastes in food: at least two people can see, smell, and taste the food, even if one says “yuck” and the other “yum”.
But God? God never talks, so people are free to claim whatever they want about God — including that he wants those people over there dead for not performing the exact same rituals in the exact same way as the people over here.
Underneath a Catholic, an antisemite. How unsurprising.
And the world would be better off without your religion, too, for the exact same reasons: Your religious leaders and adherents deliberately committed rape, murder, and destruction of lives, property and knowledge, all in the name of your God.
The “peaceful indigenous religions” destroyed by Christianity included, among others, the Hellenistic libraries and academies dedicated to rational philosophy. Remember those, O BA in History?
Bullshit. Look, do we need to make it personal before you get it?
“The commenter calling himself ‘Piltdown Man’ should be punished for his ridiculous wicked nonsense. All options should be on the table, including tracking him down and setting him on fire.”
If someone were to make a public announcement of that, would you consider that to be a threat to your life, or not?
I’m not the one who thinks that Christianity confers any advantage whatsoever. God does not exist, all religions are false. The only social advantages are those conferred by real-world social systems that provide the greatest opportunity for the greatest number, and consider real-world consequences, not those that claim that some undefinable spook tells them what to do.
And, yes: The totalitarian piety of Spain was very crude and one-sided indeed.
In other words, from the Twilight Zone.
Do you write fiction, by any chance? I mean, things that even you would acknowledge are fiction?
Pulled from the nether region of your imagination, with no basis in reality…
Messianic eschatology did not start with Jesus, nor did it end with Jesus.
Owlmirror (#246):
Well you could try this for starters (I trust you’ll find the source unimpeachable).
Those who fight them would disagree with you.
As Agent Scully once put it, “maybe God is speaking but no one’s listening.”
Don’t be silly.
Ain’t going to happen though, is it?
And people have also done all those horrible things in the name of liberty, equality and fraternity. Welcome to the human race.
Can you give me some examples?
If it was a rabble-rousing call to mob vengeance on the part of a powerful demagogue, then certainly. But if it was an appeal by an individual or organization – which itself had no power – made to a legitimately constituted authority with the power to enforce a capital sentence on me – then no, I wouldn’t see it as a ‘threat to my life’, even though my death could be the result of that due legal process.
Owlmirror (#247):
If you say so.
Islam. Neopaganism. Totalitarian technocracy.
True, although I’m given to understand that the Jews’ ‘messianic kingdom’ is expected to be of this world …
Too long; it will have to wait.
Their disagreement does not make them correct.
If God does not speak in language that is anything even vaguely understandable as even being speech by his listeners, then it is exactly equivalent to him not speaking at all.
It would work out just as well if your religion became nothing more than a hobby. Like knitting.
Ah, there’s that cynicism again.
But I will most certainly acknowledge that those horrible things done in the name of liberty, equality and fraternity were all wrong and evil.
Will you say the same about the centuries-long list of crimes committed in the name of Christianity?
Come now, do I really have to point to the burning of the library of Alexandria, and the murder of Hypatia? The closing of the Neoplatonic Academy of Athens and the Stoic schools by Justinian? The suppression of Epicurianism? The persecution of Manicheanism?
Where’s that BA in history?
Why the hell is it not a threat to your life in the latter case? Death would happen either way…
I’m sorry, that is your smart ‘warrior caste’, your ‘new barbarian’?
So… there’s a mosque in Dublin. And? What’s your point?
Burning Man? You’ve got your panties in a wad over Burning Man???
It’s kind of amusing that it was the technocratic CCTV system in the UK that caught the *cough*warrior*cough* being … really smart, there.
There was a phrase you used before… what was that again? Oh, yes.
Your prognostications are those of a complete big girl’s blouse.
Hey, I was given to understand that Jesus was going to rule a kingdom “of this world” before the whole shebang ended in a big kablooie.
But then, I was also given to understand that Jesus was supposed to return before the end of the first century. What happened with that, anyway? Is the Celestial bureaucracy just taking an extra long time to process schedule 616.b31.a1? Are the cherubim on a perpetual smoke break?
Owlmirror (#251):
No, he’s one example of the necessary precondition for the rise of such a class – the breakdown of civil society. I don’t know in what heathen land you currently reside, but I can remember a time when Kalashnikov-toting youths were not a common sight on the streets of Britain. I can remember when your friendly neighbourhood bobby wasn’t obliged to waddle about in plastic body armour, when schools didn’t require metal detectors to stop pupils taking knives into the classroom, when young boys were unlikely to be shot dead on their way home from football practice, and where scenes such as this would have been considered the stuff of dystopian nightmares.
If that makes me a big girl’s blouse, well, I can only suggest you (or better yet, Prof Myers) pay a visit to one of the UK’s vibrant and diverse inner-city estates . You’ll soon be disabused of your Panglossian notions of human society – and be able to experience natural selection at first hand.
I think an abandoned church turned into a mosque in once-Catholic Ireland is a pretty good symbol of the West’s psychological capitulation to an ever-more assertive Islam. One can see the same process at work in the belated recognition that sharia law is becoming entrenched in the UK, as well as in the proposal to let the ‘dreaming spires’ of Oxford reverberate to the amplified wail of muezzins.
You might see this as further evidence of cynicism on my part, but then I’ve never been a follower of the Gospel according to Gene Roddenberry.
Never trust a hippy. The ‘Burning Man’ may not hug a virginal Queen of the May or King for a Day in its fiery embrace (yet!). But any ritualized celebration of paganism – and that is what Burning Man basically is – is conjuring with irrational, atavistic forces which can easily spin out of control. It didn’t take long for this to mutate into this.
(And of course there are plenty of pagans who take a rather less herbivorous approach to their religion than the Burning Man folks.)
Yeah, well, once upon a time it wasn’t thought necessary to have forests of CCTV cameras on every street corner (let alone comically sinister talking ones). But that’s the technocratic mindset at work – the naive belief that there are mechanical or procedural solutions to moral problems.
Some Protestant whackaloons entertain that notion. The true Church doesn’t:
In recent times on several occasions this Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office has been asked what must be thought of the system of mitigated Millenarianism, which teaches, for example, that Christ the Lord before the final judgment, whether or not preceded by the resurrection of the many just, will come visibly to rule over this world. The answer is: The system of mitigated Millenarianism cannot be taught safely.
[Decree of the Holy Office, July 21, 1944 – Concerning Millenarianism (Chiliasm)]
Nope.
Like the various Crusades, the Huguenot massacre, riots over host desecration and blood libel &c?
One incident is not “common”.
And what of your “Panglossian” notions of Catholicism?
Reading the horror stories of Irish Catholic education, replete with obvious child abuse, it is highly likely that Catholicism is reaping in indifference what it sowed with cruelty: children repelled by abuse become irreligious adults.
And, actually, I would bet the same will happen to Islam. That mosque will become something else in a few generations. Perhaps a library, or a theatre.
Heh. Ironic, given that you called the (secular) law in the US “a big girl’s blouse”. So you have contempt for the stringent and straightforward definitions of secular law, and hysterical fear of Islamic law (only applied to Muslims who agree to the courts’ decisions). I assume that the only law you would recognize as right and proper would be the pronouncements of the Church?
Heh. Jesus was a hippy. Yet another reason to become an atheist…
Just like Carnival and/or Fasnacht!!!
Bwahahahaha!!!! Rock and Roll is Satanic!! Oh, too funny.
You really are like a caricature of a crotchety old man. Do go on.
Just like the Catholic schools that were quite certain that a good, hard, smacking around was the solution for anything the nuns and headmasters didn’t like.
And of course, the true Church could not possibly be equally whackaloon.
Say, what’s this? Why, some of the early church fathers were indeed what you called whackaloons!
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10307a.htm
Guess you agree that the bible is false, then.
Matthew 23:36
Matthew 26:64
Luke 9:27
John 5:25
Romans 13:11-12
1 Corinthians 7:29
1 Corinthians 10:11
Philippians 4:5
James 5:8
1 John 2:28
1 John 3:2
Revelation 3:11
Revelation 22:7
Revelation 22:12
Revelation 22:20
So what exactly do you believe, anyway? You disbelieve in the plain language of the bible; everything you despise has been done by the Church (or by Catholics with the sanction of the Church)…
You might as well just become a crotchety old atheist, and be internally consistent, as be a crotchety old hypocritical Catholic. But I suppose you’re just too old to change.
Owlmirror (#253):
The Crusades were wars directed against an external enemy of Christendom, the other examples were violence directed toward internal enemies. Whether one deplores or defends them, they do not constitute a state of anarchy.
Gun and knife crime are endemic in the UK.
I am a Catholic because I believe the Church teaches the truth about God and provides the necessary means to save my soul. At the end of the day that is the Church’s function. And while I do believe a society founded on solid Catholic principles is likely to be far healthier than its secular counterpart, I certainly do not take a utopian view of Christian history, nor do I regard nominal national Catholicism as some kind of instant panacaea for society’s problems.
Do you mean corporal punishment?
Perhaps. I’m more inclined to think the Church hierarchy lost respect when they tried to reach an accommodation with modernity at Vatican II.
Who knows? One day it might even become a church again.
A particular instance of modern secular law happened to strike me as silly. The presence of Islam in Europe alarms me not because I’m concerned for the future of secular democracy but because I value what remains of the West’s Christian heritage. It could be providential – secular governments’ politically correct grovelling before the Religion of Peace™ may be just what’s needed to spark a grassroots revival of militant Christianity. Hope springs eternal.
(Sharia update.)
“Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword.”
I don’t think so. Carnival is essentially a phenomenon of Catholic Europe and Latin America. It can be seen as an example of Catholicism’s cultural wisdom in dealing with fallen humanity – providing a ‘safety valve’ for the Old Adam to express himself now and again, while simultaneously reintegrating such impulses back into the normative Christian culture. By contrast, the dionysiac shenanigans at Burning Man occur in a cultural vacuum with no enduring normative values.
I never made any comment about rock music being ‘satanic’. I just linked to a video of a well-known rock concert descending into mayhem and murder. (“The music speaks to you every day, but you are too deaf, dumb, and blind to even listen to the music. … It is not my conspiracy. It is not my music. I hear what it relates. It says ‘Rise!’ It says ‘Kill! Why blame it on me? I didn’t write the music. I am not the person who projected it into your social consciousness.'”)
Corporal punishment was not limited to Catholic schools and is necessary to keep order. It differs from the technocratic mindset in that the physical chastisement is, or should be, explicitly set in an moral context of transgression and retribution.
Certainly not, the Bible is inerrant.
May I ask if you read all those passages in context before citing them? Did you take the trouble to read any orthodox Christian exegesis?
You mean, the local Jews, and the nearby Eastern Orthodox Christians, and, incidentally, the distant Muslims? And anyone else who they thought needed killing, of course.
First time I’ve ever seen “riots” described as not being a state of anarchy.
Hey, maybe your Kalashnikov-toter was actually a devout Catholic looking to restore Catholicism to power, just like Guy Fawkes. That would mean he’s a good guy, right? As long as he only kills Protestants, of course. And Catholics who don’t support the revolution. Oh, and Jews and Muslims, of course.
Just like they always have been. Especially between Catholics and Protestants. Ah, but Protestants are “an internal enemy”, so they deserve it, right?
And well indoctrinated, too. No one could ask for better brainwashing than that provided by the Church.
“Perhaps the Church will be able to convert the warriors of the new barbarism into the knights of the new Christendom. ”
Your own words, from #232.
Looks like on you, it affected your brain. Well, I didn’t say the rejection was universal. Sometimes the abused incorporate abuse into their psyches.
So they should have declared war? Maybe started setting people on fire again?
Right, because it wasn’t a Catholic law. And it was being cited against a Catholic — and of course, a Catholic committing assault in the name of religion could not possibly be a bad thing, so the law must be silly.
I bet you wouldn’t be so blasé if a Muslim had been the one committing the assault, under similar circumstances (See? I can do jihad envy, too!).
Looks like you do want war. Have you tried writing the Pope and suggesting that not setting people on fire is, in fact, a bad idea?
Right. That’s what Jesus, the hippy, said. So? As you pointed out, not all hippies are “herbivorous”.
“I hear what it relates. It says ‘Rise!’ It says ‘Kill! ” , to quote your quotation.
Which is a fancy way of saying that they’re both “ritualized celebrations of paganism”, but one is Catholic, and therefore must be good.
Of course, if it was a Catholic concert that had descended into mayhem and murder, that would just be “violence against an internal enemy”, right?
Oh, indeed? Well, I supposed that’s a necessary aspect of indoctrination: The methods of indoctrination are “necessary”.
Gobbledegook. Not that I should be surprised. Abuse incorporated in your psyche, and festering away for decades, has warped your thinking.
“Orthodox Christian exegesis” is just a fancy way of saying that the bible does not really say what it most clearly does say.
Looks like it’s far too late for you to become an atheist. The Christian hypocrisy is much too indelibly etched in your aged brain…
Wow, you guys are still at this? :)
Or Midsummer Eve. Or even Christmas.
pwnage.
Also weren’t there like 4 deaths at Altamont out 300,000 people? Totally the most horrible orgy of violence ever and a harbinger of complete breakdown of society by hippies. Whereas considering, for example, all the deaths from intersect violence in Northern Ireland post-Altamont, that was just Christian civilization reasserting itself.
So which came first, humans or the land animals?
Actually, I was reading the Catholic Encyclopedia on various topics, and the amid the copious verbiage on the topics of “exegesis” and “hermeneutics”, they explain that “inerrant” does not mean “literally true”. As best as I can understand it, it means that “if there are errors, or anything that looks like an error, we politely infer that it was just a copyist/scribal error, or we pretend that it doesn’t exist, or someone was just being allegorical, or some other excuse exists, and it’s evil to question the holy book, so shut up.”
Or words to that effect.
I notice that he skipped over answering my question above:
pfft, those Catholics and their loopholes. :P
One of my favorite bits of Catholic truthiness is this from the Catholic News Service:
“If Christ had not risen from the dead, we never would have thought of original sin,” because no one would have needed to explain why absolutely every human needed Christ’s salvation.
Owlmirror (#255):
If I recall correctly, the origin of the Crusades lay in the Eastern Emperor’s call for military assistance from the Latin West against the Turks. The deplorable mob violence against the Jews that accompanied the launch of the First Crusade was never sanctioned by the clergy, who did their best to curb it.
Riots are not anarchy if there is a central authority able to reassert the rule of law.
(BTW, since you mentioned the ‘blood libel’, this is from the Jewish Encyclopedia: Popes: See “Die Päpstlichen Bullen über die Blutbeschuldigung,” Berlin, 1893, and Munich (Aug. Schupp), 1900, contains the bulls of Innocent IV., Gregory X., Martin V., Paul III., and the opinion of Lorenzo Ganganelli (later Clement XIV.). Many popes have either directly or indirectly condemned the blood accusation; no pope has ever sanctioned it.)
Wow, I never thought of that. ¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Where’s the contradiction between my two statements? I would like to see a new Christendom but I don’t expect it to be a utopia.
I take it you don’t approve of corporal punishment, then …
(I also note you display the curious liberal inability to grasp that anyone rational could disagree with you – any disagreement can only be explained in terms of obscure & involuntary psychological mechanisms, “incorporate abuse into their psyches” and suchlike hocus-pocus.)
I think time will show the earlier counter-revolutionary stance to have been more prophetic – you know, stuff like the Syllabus of Errors (“Error No. 80: The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.”)
I take you don’t approve of capital punishment either. No surprises there. I don’t see that burning someone is any worse than electrocuting them – the method of execution pioneered by enlightened democratic secular America.
Actually I said not all pagans were herbivorous. “Hippy” and “pagan” are not synonyms. And as for Jesus being a hippy, I don’t recall those parts of the Gospels where He preaches salvation through ingesting mind-altering drugs and indulging in ‘free love’. (I guess that’s what comes of being a Bible-ignorant Catholic!)
Can you show me where, in the passages you cite, it indicates “that Jesus was supposed to return before the end of the first century”?
Two points about Bible interpretation:
Firstly, where the Church has made no definitive pronouncement about a particular passage of Scripture, one is free to interpret it as one pleases – provided, of course, one’s interpretation does not run counter to Catholic doctrine! So if, for example, I choose to understand the First Beast of the Apocalypse as a symbol of the Roman Empire, the United States of America or both, that’s fine. It’s just my interpretation, permitted insofar as it contradicts no Church dogma, and conversely of zero doctrinal weight. In the unlikely event that the Church were to issue a definitive ruling that the apocalyptic Beast is in fact solely a symbol of the European Union, I would be obliged to abandon my private interpretation, which I now see was erroneous.
Secondly, while there is indeed a long tradition of interpreting passages of Scripture in an allegorical or typological sense, such are a ‘bonus’, over and above the literal meaning, not in place of it. So one is free to see the Israelites’ escape from the tyranny of Pharaoh as a prophetic foreshadowing of the Christian faithful’s liberation from the tyranny of the Devil. But one is not thereby free to deny the historical truth of the Exodus narrative.
Something like the creation account in Genesis is more problematical as it is arguably unclear from the text itself how much of it is intended to be understood as literal history, how much as mythopoeia. This is where we need the Church to step in and clarify matters, as it did in the following statements by the Pontifical Biblical Commission:
I: Do the various exegetical systems excogitated and defended under the guise of science to exclude the literal historical sense of the first three chapters of Genesis rest on a solid foundation?
Answer: In the negative.
II: Notwithstanding the historical character and form of Genesis, the special connection of the first three chapters with one another and with the following chapters, the manifold testimonies of the Scriptures both of the Old and of the New Testaments, the almost unanimous opinion of the holy Fathers and the traditional view which the people of Israel also has handed on and the Church has always held, may it be taught that: the aforesaid three chapters of Genesis Contain not accounts of actual events, accounts, that is, which correspond to objective reality and historical truth, but, either fables derived from the mythologies and cosmogonies of ancient peoples and accommodated by the sacred writer to monotheistic doctrine after the expurgation of any polytheistic error; or allegories and symbols without any foundation in objective reality proposed under the form of history to inculcate religious and philosophical truths; or finally legends in part historical and in part fictitious freely composed with a view to instruction and edification?
Answer: In the negative to both parts.
III: In particular may the literal historical sense be called in doubt in the case of facts narrated in the same chapters which touch the foundations of the Christian religion: as are, among others, the creation of all things by God in the beginning of time; the special creation of man; the formation of the first woman from the first man; the unity of the human race; the original felicity of our first parents in the state of justice, integrity, and immortality; the command given by God to man to test his obedience; the transgression of the divine command at the instigation of the devil under the form of a serpent; the degradation of our first parents from that primeval state of innocence; and the promise of a future Redeemer?
Answer: In the negative.
IV: In the interpretation of those passages in these chapters which the Fathers and Doctors understood in different manners without proposing anything certain and definite, is it lawful, without prejudice to the judgement of the Church and with attention to the analogy of faith, to follow and defend the opinion that commends itself to each one?
Answer: In the affirmative.
V: Must each and every word and phrase occurring in the aforesaid chapters always and necessarily be understood in its literal sense, so that it is never lawful to deviate from it, even when it appears obvious that the diction is employed in an applied sense, either metaphorical or anthropomorphical, and either reason forbids the retention or necessity imposes the abandonment of the literal sense?
Answer: In the negative.
VI: Provided that the literal and historical sense is presupposed, may certain passages in the same chapters, in the light of the example of the holy Fathers and of the Church itself, be wisely and profitably interpreted in an allegorical and prophetic sense?
Answer: In the affirmative.
VII: As it was not the mind of the sacred author in the composition of the first chapter of Genesis to give scientific teaching about the internal Constitution of visible things and the entire order of creation, but rather to communicate to his people a popular notion in accord with the current speech of the time and suited to the understanding and capacity of men, must the exactness of scientific language be always meticulously sought for in the interpretation of these matters?
Answer: In the negative.
VIII : In the designation and distinction of the six days mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis may the word Yom (day) be taken either in the literal sense for the natural day or in an applied sense for a certain space of time, and may this question be the subject of free discussion among exegetes?
Answer: In the affirmative.
Owlmirror (#259):
Of course I condemn any evil actions by Christians, a fortiori evil actions committed in the name of Christ or His Church. I reject the implication that the history of Christian civilization is one long catalogue of such acts. I also suspect certain actions you would regard as evil wouldn’t strike me as such, and vice versa.
Kel (#257):
Um …. land animals!
Piltdown Man:
Would you care to answer my query upthread in #87?
Stagyar zil Doggo (#265):
OK, I’ll do my best.
– First, let me unequivocally say (in case you were in any doubt) that I regard the sexual abuse of children by priests as a monstrous evil. Ditto for those bishops who covered up their crimes. In a sane world these scumbags would be publicly whipped, castrated or executed according to the serious of the offence.
– Second, I don’t see any reason other than malice to think Mr Donohue regards such abuse as “trivial, slap-on-wrist worthy incidents”. I imagine the reason he objected to the quoted messages was that they were using a wholly unrelated issue as a stick with which to bash Catholics.
– Thirdly, I suspect there is a further reason why Mr Donohue saw the raising of the clergy sex abuse issue as an example of unprincipled anti-Catholicism – namely, that while the Catholic laity have every reason to be appalled at the behaviour of some of the Catholic hierarchy, Catholics in general have every reason to be disgusted at the media’s often ignorant and distorted coverage of the aforementioned scandals.
– Finally, to address your main query (“Do you consider “desecration of the Eucharist” the greater wrong or misdeed compared to the molestation of … children by Priests? “) – I would say no. It is true that, objectively speaking, there can be no greater sin than to knowingly blaspheme God. On the other hand, PZ Myers’ actions were not motivated by a desire to blaspheme God since he doesn’t believe in God. His motive was simply a childish desire to offend pious Catholics – or if you prefer, to make a principled stand against superstition. Even in the case of an old-school satanist who would desecrate the Host as a deliberate affront against God (and there are still a few of them about), one must bear in mind that their actions cannot harm Jesus in any way, whereas child abuse does harm the child. And we all know what Jesus said about those who scandalize the little ones.
(As it happens, there tends to be quite an overlap between paedophiles/ephebophiles and occultists – not least among the Catholic clergy – so when the Inquisition is finally up and running again, we can kill two birds with one stone.)
Piltdown Man (#266):
It is good to hear you say so, but yes, I did harbour that doubt. You’ve shown up at this thread to defend Donohue, a plain reading of whose words shows that he considers host desecration to be the greater crime by far – notwithstanding the weak justifications you’ve offered on his behalf. You’ve trivialized unprovoked violent acts committed on your church’s behalf on grounds that the various victims were violent too or ‘started it’ (centuries earlier!). Given all you’ve said in this thread, I didn’t think it unreasonable to conclude that you’d consider almost any evil permissible so long as it leads to the greater glory of your church.
Do you include the Pope in your list of potential castratees? Cos there’s no way he is uninvolved at the very least in keeping the guilty bishops and cardinals in place and continuing to obstruct justice in various ways.
Situations of crisis disclose what organizations (and people) are truly made of and this particular scandal demonstrates the depth of the rot which is the RCC.
The various dioceses entangled in civil suits are behaving exactly as you’d expect a cult to – attempts at concealment followed by fobbing off the victims with empty statements of apology, while the perpetrators thrive in the church unpunished, all justified by a circle jerk of ‘forgiveness’ (from each other) at the highest levels of the hierarchy, cos you know – the RCC has a monopoly on forgiveness. The suffering of the victims of course has no value to the RCC.
I don’t know what Donohue thinks about this abuse but base my assumptions on the fact that he is a virulent defender of collaborators in these acts – the RCC hierarchy. The RCC of course does consider these incidents to be “trivial slap-on-wrist worthy incidents” as amply illustrated by its past and continuing treatment of the perpetrators and victims. Donohue incidentally operates as you just did, by conflating criticisms of the Catholic church with criticism of “all Catholics”. In the present instance, his statements imply that harm to a stale piece of bread is a far worse action than damage done to actual human beings – so much so that it is “hateful” to imply otherwise. I never could figure out who he thinks its hateful to? Jebus? the Church? ‘all Catholics’? The correct answer is probably ‘himself’.
So arguing in favor of justice for the victims, who happen to all be Catholics, is an example of “unprincipled anti-Catholicsm”.
So its all between laity and church to you, is it? The secular justice system has no role to play? You seem to have time-travelled a bit here to after your desired inquisition.
Some of the things I’ve read in the press are that the RCC heirarchy (in a pattern repeated many times in multiple states and countries) shifted abusive priests from parish to parish providing them with fresh access to new abuse victims; obfuscated and concealed their actions from those victims who came forward while using emotional and legal blackmail to make them shut up and go away; delayed action against the perpetrators until the last moment when concealment became impossible; limited any action to just the lowest level priest abusers while the rest of the hierarchy complicit in the concealment and obstruction remained unscathed; used ridiculous arguments like ‘confessional privilege’ to conceal church administrative documents from court proceedings; and reorganized parts of its corporate structure with the explicit intention of concealing funds from those victims who did succeed in winning court verdicts. Which of these do you consider ignorant and distorted?
So if PZ Myers were an ‘old-school satanist’, committing the exact same actions that he did would be worse than child abuse?
Piltdown Man (#266):
Funnily enough, here’s Bill Donohue himself on the subject
You seem to be overflowing with more outrage at “anti-Catholicism” compared even to the king of faux-outrage. You should consider setting up your own competing organization.
¡Viva Cristo Rey! – Piltdown Man
For those who don’t happen to know, this was the slogan of the Spanish falangists, mass murderers and totalitarians. Adding this to Piltdown Man’s deep interest in and evident approval of beating, torture and execution, and eager anticipation of the return of the Inquisition, I think we can safely say he is a thoroughly nasty piece of work – quite probably a psychopathic sexual sadist.
Nick Gotts (#269):
Actually it was the battle-cry of the Mexican Cristeros in their uprising against the anticlerical masonic government of Plutarco Calles.
Nick Gotts (#269):
I don’t have a ‘deep interest’ in any of those things. I just said I believe the sanctions of corporal and capital punishment are necessary to maintain order in school and society. If you think lots of sex education and planetariums will do the job, good luck.
A much-maligned institution.
Translation: “He thinks life is all about this, when everyone knows it’s really all about this.”
I don’t have a ‘deep interest’ in any of those things. – Piltdown Man
Liar.
A much-maligned institution. – Piltdown Man [Of the Inquisition]
Tell that to the thousands they tortured and murdered, you fascist scumbag.
Actually it was the battle-cry of the Mexican Cristeros – Piltdown Man
My mistake. The Cristeros, famous for their terrorist tactics (blowing up a passenger train, murdering teachers who supported the elected government)
Nick, before you choke to death on your own self-righteousness, you should consider the possibility that everything you know is wrong.
Piltdown Man:
I misread you earlier in #267, when I surmised that “…you’d consider almost any evil permissible so long as it leads to the greater glory of your church.”
Perhaps a more accurate estimation would be that you’d consider almost any evil perpetrated against non-Catholics permissible so long as it leads to the greater glory of your church?
Piltdown Man,
Fuck off and die.
And incidentally, since one can only know things that are true, it is not logically possible that anything I know is false. Halfwit.
Stagyar zil Doggo:
NEWSFLASH: The Inquisition had no judicial authority over non-Catholics.
NEWSFLASH: The Inquisition had no judicial authority over non-Catholics.
Only because The Church no longer has the same political power it had centuries ago. I would say that is a huge improvement.
The Inquisition had no judicial authority over non-Catholics. – Piltdown Scumbag
This meant, of course, baptised Catholics. So if you’de been baptised, then even if you decided you weren’t a Catholic any more, they could still have you tortured and murdered. Anyone who has any doubt about my characterization of Piltdown Scumbag as such should spend a while reading up on their ingenious methods of producing agony, and reflect that this is what he’d like to subject us to.
Seriously, Nick, do yourself a favour and remove the blindfold. (You could start with this.)
Nick, just keep in mind that the joker named himself after a hoax. I think he is showing what he thinks of people of a more scientific leaning.
This line left me stunned.
I just said I believe the sanctions of corporal and capital punishment are necessary to maintain order in school and society. If you think lots of sex education and planetariums will do the job, good luck.
I am glad that capital punishment was not part of my public school education. I have to wonder haw many of us never have lived to graduate. Also, I think this will be the only time I will see corporal and capital punishment compared to sex education and planetariums. But I think it is safe to say that this joker values pain over education.
This week on The Bold and the Biological, the role of MAJeff will be played by Patricia, with Nick Gotts in the part of truth machine.
Um, person who named himself after a hoax, there was Western Civilization long before there was Catholicism. And I think it would have became more humane sooner without the Church forcing it’s bloody claw on everything.
Janine ID AKA The Lone Drinker (#282):
Forgive me, I should have inserted a “respectively” after “society” …
SC, Nick Gotts cannot be the truth machine until he calls me a liar.
But it does seem that Patricia is as much of a foodie as MAJeff. But are they interested in the same type of men?
An obvious and blatant lie.
“Those of them who refused to accept baptism were immediately slain…”
Practical, wasn’t it?
I think it’s technically true. But then you find things like the head of Inquisition lobbying to get non-converted Jews expelled from Spain.
“How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization”
What a fucking crock. Reading a book like that isn’t taking off a blindfold, it’s more like subjecting oneself to a cepahalectomy.
So, corporal punishment guy, when did they start building Western Civilization? Was that right after they essentially tried to bury the whole of the pagan tradition (some real lightweights there, like Homer, Euclid, Plato, Sophocles, Aeschulus), leaving it to the Islamic world to carry the scraps inadvertantly spared by proudly illiterate (and Catholic!) mobs through the Dark Ages, only to claim it back as their own when it was politically expedient (or even allowable) to do so? Delusional asswipe. Western Civilization was built against the wishes of the authoritarian oppressors of the medieval world, y’know, the Catholic Church. If ever there was a more hidebound, repressive, venal, arrogant and criminal bunch of cultural elites than the medieval clerics, I’d like to hear about it.
Na, MAJeff is more refined than a common strumpet.
Patricia, you are not merely a common strumpet. You are the lead strumpet!
Arrrrr, ya tryin’ to flatter me? *wink* In that case I’ll have to hitch my petticoats a tad higher to be leader.
The Queen of Sluts is lurking around somewhere. ;)
Piltdown – Do you really want to defend the Catholic Church? There is no amount of misery in history that can be laid on any other group of humans that adds up to what has been dealt out by the church. Do you really approve of torture? Pete Rook is a puppy compared to you.
I’ll happily settle for being a slutty handmaiden, picking up all the tips I can from my betters ;)
Piltdown: Pray off*. Idiot.
*as in the ‘Christian” version of “Fuck off”; not to be confused with a ‘Pray-off’, which would presumably involve some kind of penitence competition in which I have no interest in participating.
Seriously, Nick, do yourself a favour and remove the blindfold.
Score another projection entry in my xian database.
The Inquisition had no judicial authority over non-Catholics.
yeah, of course that stopped ’em.
*rolleyes*
NickPD, before you choke to death on your ownself-righteousnessvomit, you should consider the possibility that everything youknowsay iswrongbullshit.…and really, really, childish bullshit to boot.
i ♥ cephalosluts ☻
Check my reasoning:
1) The Inquisition was created “for combating or suppressing heresy”
2) Heresy means… pretty much whatever the Catholic Church wants it to mean ( c.f. the Catholic Encyclopedia article on heresy ), but it can be boiled down to “holding to ideas that the Catholic Church rejects”, (including the idea that the Catholic Church is not necessary to worship God (or in other words, Protestantism))
3) A heretic is therefore someone who does not want to be a Catholic as defined be the Church, and the Church itself defines heretics as not being properly of the Church.
4) Thus, a willful heretic is by definition a non-Catholic.
QED.
Damn Nick, I’ll bet you had no idea you’d actually hook something when you baited up the anchor of the Titanic. Piltdown is about the biggest Dungfish I’ve ever seen.
Sloppy wording on my part; I meant “the idea that the Catholic Church is not necessary to worship God as a Christian (which of course includes Protestantism in its various forms)”
You win Nick. Piltdown bravely turned and ran away.
I had to go get the bacon & white corn chowder simmering away. Finding a good pimento out in the garden this time of year is pretty dicey.
Oh well, another Dungfish will slither in.
Patricia (#301):
Beats being a passenger on the Titanic.
Dominus vobiscum.
Piltdown Man:
Alas it seems that you’ve decided not to respond to my #267. I was quite curious as to whether your castration and execution fantasies include the current pope and the one prior to him. Or do you (like Donohue) blind yourself to the degree to which this malady is widespread in your church, and believe that responsibility for the coverups is limited to some low and mid-level church Apparatchiks?
How do you account for the fact that JPII shielded and promoted cardinal Bernard Law instead of dismissing him and putting him up on charges of aiding and abetting and obstruction (amongst others) in the US?
On the question of child versus cracker abuse, your answer appears to be that according to the Catholic faith cracker abuse is the greater sin in general, subject to a rider that beliefs and thoughts of the bread-nailer during the act can be extenuating.
This devaluing of human life and human suffering, mostly of others, in comparison to inane beliefs is what separates RWAs such as yourself from Liberals. And no, the value that Liberals place on tolerance and diversity of opinion does not extend to letting such ridiculous beliefs – and the whiny bully tactics adopted to claim special privilege for them in the public sphere – remain unchallenged.
Piltdown Scumbag,
You can spare yourself the trouble of posting any more links. I haven’t followed any of them, but I gather from others’ responses they are to Catholic propaganda. I am quite well-versed in medieval history, including the facts about the complex role played by the Catholic Church with respect to philosophical, mathematical, scientific and technological advance – sometimes assisting, sometimes impeding. The only way you could be an intellectual in medieval Europe was to be a cleric, monk or friar, so of course such people contributed a great deal. Monasteries, the Cistercians in particular, pioneered many technical advances. On the other side we have the destruction of the library at Alexandria and many other sources of ancient learning, the distortion of what remained to support orthodoxy, the heresy-hunting, the opposition to the growth of literacy among the lay population. You might like to reflect on the fact that it was in those areas that had escaped the Church’s grip that the key innovation of moveable-type printing occurred, and modern science and the industrial revolution took off. Moreover, other key innovations came into western Europe from or via the Islamic world (paper, clear glass, “Arabic” numerals, much philosophy, astronomy, chemistry, optics and mathematics); western Europe was always part of a larger network of civilisations, and gained a lead over China and Islam because it escaped the depredations of nomad powers such as the Seljuks, the Almoravids and above all the Mongols. Even if the Catholic Church had been an unambiguously positive influence intellectually, that would in no way justify its long, long record of exploitation, oppression, torture and murder – which you are so evidently keen to reinstate.
Do you have any examples of the Inquisition actually putting non-baptised people on trial? I think the reality was bad enough (people were forced or coerced to convert and then the Inquisition was free to inquisit them) without needing to invent theoretical scenarios about what the Inquisition might have done.
By gawd Nick you’re on fire today! Two poles bent over the side.
No, no, no.
I am rejecting the very idea that baptism is a legitimate metric for determining whether or not a person is a member of a given religious group. Religion is a set of beliefs; of ideas, not just the external signs or rituals that a religious person may have or have undergone.
Granted that it may well be part of the religious beliefs that those signs and/or rituals are necessary and/or significant. But I would argue that those beliefs are themselves essentialist doublethink, or compartmentalized mental constructs.
Consider: a Catholic determining whether some someone is a Catholic, would use two compartments: in one compartment, [holds Catholic beliefs], and in another compartment, [has been baptized]. If both are true, there is no problem: that person is clearly a Catholic.
And for that Catholic to determine whether some someone is not a Catholic, they would still use two compartments: in one compartment, [does not hold Catholic beliefs], and in another compartment, [has not been baptized]. If both are false, there is still no problem: that person is clearly not a Catholic.
Now they consider the example of a heretic. In that case: in one compartment, [does not hold Catholic beliefs], and in the other compartment is still: [has been baptized].
Yet [has been baptized] is obviously not enough to makes someone Catholic, even in their own minds — otherwise, the very idea of heresy would not be a problem. Therefore, “holds Catholic beliefs” is of equal or greater importance — and the individual who does not hold those ideas must not be a Catholic.
Or in yet different words: Catholicism, like all religion, is a state of mind. Someone who chooses (hairein, the root of “heresy”) a different state of mind is therefore not a Catholic.
Patricia,
Why thank you kindly! It’s the particularly malevolent quality of the current crop of stupid, I think.
Two poles bent over the side.
An Oregonian figure of speech? Unfamiliar to me, anyway, and googling doesn’t help – can you explain?
Ah, I see. But in that case, I don’t think Piltdown’s assertion was an obvious lie, it’s a sneaky one ;)
“How group X was singlehandedly responsible for good thing Y” genre, a sure sign of balanced scholarship. I heard it was the Scots who invented the modern world and everything in it! Teach the controversy!
Here’s an interesting review of the “How the Catholics…” book: “In all, the lack of historical evenhandedness in places reminds one of a Jack Chick tract.”
Nyet! As everyone knows, Russians invented Scots!
</Pavel Chekov>
(Say, where is Kseniya?)
Copying and pasting my rant from another thread, with a few edits:
Why would Christianity deserve any credit at all for any of the achievements of Western Civ?
Christianity has been called a death cult, and I am not so sure that this is wrong. Christianity is concerned with the individual preparing for his or her own death, and with the death of the world itself. There is almost nothing in the New Testament that speaks approvingly of knowledge, or learning, or curiosity, or of improving the world for future generations.
Instead, much of the bible is devoted to submissiveness and passivity, of doing nothing in the face of that which is not understood. The Lord’s Prayer says “Thy will by done” to God, not “Allow us to learn more of thy creation, for our sake, and for our children, and for our children’s children”.
Martin Luther spoke with scornful rage against reason; in this, he was echoing 1st Corinthians, which asserts that God deliberately chose to perform an act of salvation which would implicitly lead to the damnation of most of the Jews and Gentiles, for whom the act made no sense whatsoever.
This is not a God who encourages learning and wisdom. This is a God who is insane.
The principle course of action that Christianity took upon the philosophical works of the Hellenic world was either control or destruction — and mostly the latter. Again, Christianity was against learning and wisdom, not in favor of it.
All of the advances in Western civilization can be seen as deliberate or implicit disobedience of the basic Christian principles: hospitals, doctors, and medicine are rejections of faith-based prayers for healing; advanced architecture is a rejection of the biblical commands for humility; capitalism is a rejection of the biblical commands against greed, pride, and usury.
And of course, science is a rejection of the idea that the “wisdom of the world” is “foolishness”.
Stagyar zil Doggo (#267):
Which is it – is Donohue plainly stating or merely implying?
The people whom Donohue quoted weren’t “arguing in favour of justice for the victims” – they were merely using profanity-laden references to the sex abuse scandal as a crude way of attacking the Church in the wholly unrelated case of the eucharistic desecration.
What I consider ignorant and distorted is the following:-
– The tendency of the media to portray the guilty priests as paedophiles as opposed to predatory homo- or bisexual ephebophiles.
– The tendency of the media to imply the majority of priests abuse children. The vast majority do not.
– The tendency of the media to imply child abuse is a peculiarly Catholic problem. Cases of sex abuse in secular or non-Catholic religious contexts were not used as launching pads for attacks on the secular state or non-catholic religions.
– The tendency of the media to imply that clerical abuse and the tendency to downplay its seriousness are the products of an authoritarian ecclesiastical culture which emphasizes celibacy. On the contrary, the vast majority of abuse cases occurred after the widespread collapse of discipline in Roman Catholic seminaries following the liberalizing reforms of Vatican II. Overnight, sin, the horror of sin & the importance of mortification were out and the Sixties mantra of “do your own thing” was in. Among the inevitable results was the infiltration into the priesthood of an organized criminal network of predatory homosexuals commonly known as the “lavender mafia”.
Why did you cut off my sentence at the point you did?
+++
Regarding your question about the Pope, I can assure you I am quite prepared to believe the rot goes right to the top, at least in the case of “JPII”, a scandalous individual whose ultra-liberal pontificate may well go down as one of the most disastrous in the history of the Church.
(I honestly don’t know what if any provision canon law makes for dealing with a pope who commits a criminal act. I’ll try to find out.)
+++
In my experience, what separates RWAs from liberals is that the former tend to think in a logical sequence from established premises, whereas the latter tend to ‘think’ in a series of emotionally charged pictures which are typically articulated as slogans and abuse.
There is no shortage of examples in this thread: “… psychopathic sexual sadist … fascist scumbag … Fuck off and die … Halfwit … Scumbag … Delusional asswipe … Idiot … Fuck off … Dungfish ..”
I remember reading somewhere that a disproportionate percentage of atheists were also Asperger’s Syndrome sufferers. Perhaps the same is true of Tourette’s Syndrome? (The alternative explanation would probably offend against Christian charity.)
Owlmirror (#313):
Jejune pop psychology & warmed-over Nietzsche.
It’s true that Christianity has always had an ‘otherworldly’ aspect that stresses the transitoriness of the suffering world compared to the eternal bliss of Heaven.
It’s also true that Christianity has always had a powerful ascetic current which stressed the dangers posed to one’s soul by the world, the flesh and the devil.
It’s also true that Christianity believes everything that happens is ultimately in accordance with God’s Will and providential Plan.
However, I don’t believe these attitudes lead to a dull fatalism – rather, I think they encourage a healthy awareness of human limitations and a scepticism in the face of the megalomaniac schemes of utopian social engineering so typical of secular societies. They also encourage a sober realization of the seriousness of the choices we face as free moral agents, as well as often acting as a spur to heroic feats of action – in contrast to the frivolity, hedonism and technocratic micromanagement of secular societies.
Or an acceptance of the faith-based obligation known as charity. Google ‘Seven Corporal Works of Mercy’ and ask yourself why the British ambulance service is known to this day as the St John Ambulance Brigade & has a Maltese Cross as its logo. Ask yourself why until fairly recently nurses in Britain used to be called ‘Sister’ …
Or an acceptance of the biblical command to glorify God. I imagine that’s what the builders of the Gothic cathedrals thought they were doing.
I won’t argue with that.
No, rather scientism is a rejection of the idea that it is better to be good than to be clever. Scientism is a form of gnosticism – the notion that salvation is a form of knowledge.
Owlmirror (#309):
If you are born in a particular country, you are legally a citizen of that country without your consent ever having been sought. When you reach the age of maturity, you may indeed decide to change your nationality. But if you work to undermine and subvert your country of birth, you are committing treason.
I direct abuse only at those indifferent to, or as in your case, Piltdown Scumbag, in favour of, oppression and human suffering; not at decent human beings. Still, perhaps I should stop calling you a scumbag – it’s an insult to scum everywhere.
The tendency of the media to portray the guilty priests as paedophiles as opposed to predatory homo- or bisexual ephebophiles. – PS
How wicked of the media. They call Gary Glitter a pedophile too, although his taste appears to be for just post-pubertal girls, so in your terms he’s an “ephebophile”. I’m sure everyone would say “Oh that OK then, carry on” if they thought the Catholic Church was only covering up the abuse of adolescent boys. Which, by the way, it isn’t: both sexes and ages from 5 upwards have been victims.
On the contrary, the vast majority of abuse cases occurred after the widespread collapse of discipline in Roman Catholic seminaries following the liberalizing reforms of Vatican II.
The vast majority of discovered abuse cases. There is no reason at all to think this abuse has not been going on for centuries, and plenty of reasons to think it has. The notorious secret Vatican document Crimen Sollicitationis – which laid down the Vatican’s strict instructions for covering up sexual scandals – was issued in 1962 – the year Vatican II began. What necessity for a cover-up if no abuse had been going on?
When you reach the age of maturity, you may indeed decide to change your nationality. But if you work to undermine and subvert your country of birth, you are committing treason.
Yet another bare-faced lie. You cannot commit treason against a country if you have renounced your nationality of that country. Even if this were not so, nationality is not a matter of belief, so the comparison is otiose. We know from what you have said that you are opposed to religious liberty, and can deduce from your praise of the Inquisition that you support the torture and murder of any who attempt to leave Catholicism.
the British ambulance service is known to this day as the St John Ambulance Brigade – PS
It isn’t. St john Ambulance is a first-aid charity. Are you lying again, or just ignorant? In this case, I suspect it’s the latter.
Piltdown Scumbag considers JPII an “ultra-liberal”. That tells us where he’s coming from: my characterisation of him as a fascist is clearly no exaggeration, as his sneers at “liberal democracy” also indicate. Regimes with significant Catholic-fascist elements ruled in Spain, Portugal, Austria, Croatia, Slovakia and Brazil during the 20th century. The Catholic far right is now represented by two main strains, “sedevacantists”, who hold that Pius XII was the last real Pope, and “traditionalist Catholics”, to which Piltdown Scumbag appears to belong, who recognise the subsequent Popes, but denounce Vatican II in exactly the way he has done. Their main organisation is the “Society of St. Pius X” founded by the French fascist Cardinal Marcel Lefebvre in 1970. Lefebvre was excommunicated by JPII for appointing bishops to continue his work, which would account for Piltdown Scumbag’s particular hostility. So, Scumbag, are you a member of the SSPX? Before you deny it, remember the example of Peter.
Archbishop, not Cardinal. (To err is human.)
Depends on the locale and era. Some were fatalistic, some were not.
… “megalomaniac schemes of utopian social engineering” — you mean like the Catholic Church?
Is that what you’ve decided to call torture and murder?
You mean, “megalomaniac schemes of utopian social engineering”.
You mean, yet more “megalomaniac schemes of utopian social engineering”.
What horseshit you do blather on about. I wrote “science”.
Of course, your own religion appears to be a rejection of the idea that it is better to be good than to be pious.
Of course you would frame the pursuit of knowledge as some form of heresy. In this, you simply prove my point.
No wonder you have nothing but scorn; you no doubt agree with Martin Luther on the topic of reason, despite your obvious other theological differences.
Although… Luther did start out as a Catholic, of course. Who knows, maybe you’ll join him. You certainly seem to have the same seething free-floating contempt that fueled him.
If “change your nationality” means “change your religious beliefs”, by your analogy, then what’s the problem? “Heresy” just means making that very choice.
But “undermining and subverting” is not what Inquisition charged people with. Simply choosing to believe differently was the crime itself.
No, your analogy fails on its face.
Although… if “undermining and subverting” is indeed a matter of holding, and propagating, different beliefs…. then wasn’t Jesus just such a traitor, in his own context?
And aren’t you one as well?
Which reminds me… I was distracted before responding to #262:
Anti-Judaism has been a part of Christianity since the beginning of the Church. It is hardly surprising that the seeds of hatred sown by the Church sprouted in crops of mob violence. That same anti-Semitism lead to the the blood libels and host desecration accusaions, and to the pogroms, and finally, the Holocaust.
Well, you can’t have it both ways. Nowhere in your paranoid fantasies about the modern British Isles do you show that the central authority is in any danger of not being able to re-assert the rule of law.
Of course, anti-Judaism was never 100% endorsed by the Church, but it was never 100% rejected from Christianity, either.
And I assume you supported the IRA as well?
You certainly seem to think that it will be a “panacaea” for the problems of your hypothetical new barbarians…
Hm. “In the wake of the controversy following the document’s release, Pius IX referred to it as “raw meat needing to be cooked.””
Heh. You certainly do like your meat raw, don’t you?
I see that more than a few Catholics, though, turned up their noses at it, even back when it was released, 144 years ago.
Since the only “crimes” that the Church had people set on fire for were religious ones…. obviously not.
I take it that if you ran the Church, you would have Jews, Muslims, pagans, non-Catholic Christians, and atheists like me burned to death?
Oh? What’s the difference? That is, what’s the difference as you use the terms?
My point, after all, is that if there is a spectrum of counter-culture mindsets, it doesn’t matter if some are called “hippie” or “pagan” or whatever. Jesus was definitely counter-culture in his own time period, and, translating him and his actions into the present, he would obviously fit in the counter-cultural spectrum somewhere.
By-the-by, what indicates that Charles Manson, whose words you quoted, was a pagan? Or was he a hippie? And how would you distinguish his words from Jesus’ about “bringing a sword”, and his other demands for hatred and violence?
Luke 22:20 – “In like manner the chalice also, after he had supped, saying: This is the chalice, the new testament in my blood, which shall be shed for you.”
1 Corithians 11:25 – “In like manner also the chalice, after he had supped, saying: This chalice is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of me.”
John 6:54 – “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. ”
Or did you forget that alcohol was a mind-altering drug?
Speaking of which, that reminds me:
1st Corinthians 11:28-30 – 28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.
30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep.
And additional translations indicate that “sleep” was here used as an euphemism for “are dead”.
Hm, why should bread and wine cause death? I wonder if Mark 16:18 is relevant… were they deliberately putting themselves through trials by ordeal by putting drugs or poison in the wine? Or were they just poisoning each other off in rivalries (and inferring from their rival succumbing to poison that God approved)?
Just a side speculation, there.
Oh, too easy…
John 15:17 – These things I command you, that you love one another.
And so on and so forth.
Let’s see, some of them are a bit vague. But how about this one:
Luke 9:27 – “But I tell you of a truth: There are some standing here that shall not taste death, till they see the kingdom of God.”
or John 5:25 – “Amen, amen I say unto you, that the hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live”
or James 5:8 – “Be you therefore also patient, and strengthen your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand.”
How about in light of clear archaeological evidence that no such event occurred?
I see where the word “pontificate” comes from. blah blah blah blah. What a bloody soporific stretch of stultifying stilted silted sticky sacerdotal stupefacient.
Pfft. You think that setting people on fire is not evil.
I assume that among other things, you fault the Church for not killing more non-Catholics.
Piltdown Scumbag@318,
I admit I inadventently over-promoted your fascist mentor. I take it that is the only inaccuracy you were able to find.
Owlmirror (#319):
The Catholic social order is not utopian because it doesn’t aim at achieving heaven on earth.
I know you did. I wrote “scientism” to make it clear that Christianity has no problem with scientific enquiry provided it doesn’t attempt to exceed its remit.
I wish you would respond to my actual words rather than what you would like to think I meant. I never said “the pursuit of knowledge” was a heresy; I said the idea that knowledge could bring salvation was heresy.
I don’t know why you assume I’m some kind of foam-flecked misanthropist. I’m a mild-mannered chap who likes cats, flowers and small children. I just believe liberalism has done terrible damage to society.
In a society defined by religious belief, heresy is necessarily subversive of the social order. Surely any society that is based on defined principles must necessarily exclude opposing principles … ?
I don’t know why you assume I’m some kind of foam-flecked misanthropist. – Piltdown Scumbag
Possibly your enthusiasm for torture and setting fire to people has something to do with it.
I’m a mild-mannered chap who likes cats, flowers and small children. – Piltdown Scumbag
Boiled or fried?
Surely any society that is based on defined principles must necessarily exclude opposing principles … ? – Piltdown Scumbag
Hitler and Stalin would of course endorse your view. The idea that a society should be based on “defining principles” that cannot be challenged without risking being imprisoned, tortured and murdered is totalitarian.
Nick – Two poles bent over the side, that’s a fishing reference – meaning you have two fishing poles on the boat and a fish on each one. Boiling down to you being the best fisherman. :o)
And damned if that Dungfish you got isn’t a scrapper! I had to peddle eggs, so missed all the bible quotin’.
Patricia,
Thanks very much – Owlmirror’s handling the Bible stuff, while I attend to the name-caling, and the research into Catholic fascism!
Hum, aside from hating the church for all of it’s child molesting, genocide and fraud, I could throw in a more personal reason to utterly despise Catholic policies.
My ancestor’s Alice Nutter and Katherine Hewitt were hanged as witches on 27 July 1612 at the Lancaster gaol. Which I have read was of the Cistercian Abbey. The people of Pendle remained staunch catholics despite Henry’s robbing the joint.
Nick Gotts (#323):
Suppose the secular, democratic USA executed a bunch of Nazi spies during WWII or communist spies during the Cold War — would you say those executions were acts of murder committed by a totalitarian state?
Nick Gotts (#325):
I must say your repertoire seems a bit on the limited side. So far you’ve managed to come up with “fascist”, “scumbag” and “fascist scumbag”. Anything else?
The fact that you consider the FSSPX to be an example of ‘Catholic fascism’ doesn’t instil much confidence in your abilities as a researcher.
O RLY?
“The Church”
(and so on and so forth — there’s even a section that boasts: “The Church, a perfect society” )
and also:
“Kingdom of God” (which is where “Messianic Kingdom” redirects to)
Theology FAIL.
And since “heaven” is a theological concept anyway, why on earth would it be a goal of a secular, liberal, science-based society? I realize you hate “secular and liberal”, but really, don’t project your theology on that which rejects theology.
Which means what, exactly? Science examines the natural world.
O hypocrite of double standards that you are….
If you don’t want to be misunderstood, communicate better. Clarify. Elucidate. Didn’t that BA in History include any writing classes?
Again, “salvation” is a theological concept; what on earth does it have to do a secular liberal social order?
As were (and are) many sociopaths. And yet, even if you are not clinically sociopathic… I can easily see in you your Italian, Spanish and German fascist counterparts, going from pleasant sun-drenched gardens with cats asleep under the bushes and children running around, then putting on jackboots and going to a blood-drenched killing field with corpses stacked like cordwood, then going to Church to remove any twinge of remorse that might be felt with confession and absolution — and then returning to those gardens for rest and relaxation.
All for the greater glory of God, of course.
“When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave.”
You have made it so very clear that as far as you are concerned, any cruelty; any monstrosity; any torture; any murder; any terrorism is right, justified, and correct if it is performed by Catholics for the benefit of the Church.
Your hypocritical concern is noted, and stupid.
Which is why a secular and pluralistic society is therefore objectively definitively better than one defined by religious belief.
“Exclude” how? A secular and pluralistic society excludes religious definition; it does not necessarily thereby exclude religious believers.
It’s pretty ironic that you defend religious totalitarianism and absolutism when Christianity was originally a heresy, and you yourself both benefit from the religious pluralism of your own society, and are terrified of a different religion gaining control — hypocrite that you are.
Pfft. You think that setting people on fire is not evil.
Of course not.
Light a fire for a man, and he’ll be warm for a night.
Light a man ON fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.
Suppose the secular, democratic USA executed a bunch of Nazi spies during WWII or communist spies during the Cold War — would you say those executions were acts of murder committed by a totalitarian state? – Piltdown Scumbag
You do specialise in false analogies, don’t you? Differences in belief and spying are not the same. It seems you need a dictionary: a totalitarian state is, precisely, one which demands total adherence, in deed, word, and thought; so the answer is “no”. In fact, however, I oppose the death penalty under all circumstances.
“Fascist scumbag” seems to describe you quite exactly – when one has found les mots justes, why look further?
The fact that you consider the FSSPX to be an example of ‘Catholic fascism’ doesn’t instil much confidence in your abilities as a researcher.
Lefebvre, the Fuehrer of the SSPX, is on record as supporting Franco, Salazar, Le Pen, Pinochet and Videla. He approved of the Vichy regime, which collaborated with Hitler and energetically persecuted Jews. He was fascist, anti-semitic filth, like you. He appointed those who now rule the SSPX.
Catholics hanging innocent old ladies, and committing sadistic sexual tortures on young ones is probably OK too.
Oh, and one more postscriptum, from above.
“objectively”.
You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
Patricia,
Of course! Provided it’s done in order to prevent “subversion of the social order”!
Actually, I’m very much of the opinion that PS doesn’t support the Catholic Church and the Inquisition despite their responsibility for such things, but precisely because of this. He fools himslef that this is for the greater good, but in fact it’s just the way he gets his jollies. Let’s hope he never takes it beyond fantasy – but I wouldn’t bank on it.
Owlmirror (#320):
There’s a great deal in that paragraph & it deserves a considered reply. For now, I would be interested to know if you feel any meaningful distinction can be drawn between “anti-Judaism” and “anti-Semitism”.
Why? Was the IRA working to establish the social reign of Christ the King?
What I actually wrote was: “Perhaps the Church will be able to convert the warriors of the new barbarism into the knights of the new Christendom. That would give the West a fighting chance.” “Perhaps … fighting chance …” – a bit more modest than a panacaea.
“More than a few Catholics” probably turned their noses up at this too. It’s a safe bet that “more than a few Catholics” will go to Hell.
Uh-huh. Well, traditionalist Catholicism is about as ‘counter-cultural’ as it gets these days, so I guess by that logic Archbishop Lefebvre was a hippy.
The fact he spouts crap like this:
“There’s only one soul; there’s little bits and pieces of it. There’s only one Sun. We all come from the Sun, all the energy, every molecule, everything we’ve got comes from the Sun. The Sun’s god. Thats why the swastika was always on the Sun.
Who knows? As one of the Lyman Family put it: “The Manson Family preached peace and love and went around killing people. We don’t preach peace and love and we haven’t killed anybody, yet.”
You have difficulty distinguishing between the words of Jesus and the ravings of a madman? Seriously?
But Jesus doesn’t say salvation comes through drinking ‘alcohol’; He says it comes through drinking His Precious Blood.
I think it’s a warning against communicating in a state of mortal sin.
By ‘free love’ I meant, of course, promiscuous sexual intercourse.
“And it came to pass about eight days after these words …”
“But of this one thing be not ignorant, my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance.”
If you wish to put your faith in the shifting sands of “archaeological evidence”, you’re welcome to do so.
It seems we must add ADHD to the growing list of atheists’ ailments …
In the historical context of Europe? Not really.
What? You mean being Catholic isn’t enough?
Oho, so you’re allowed to pick and choose which parts of the Church doctrines are true and correct, and no other Catholics are? Who died and made you the pope of popes?
Sounds like a recipe for schizophrenia.
Yup, that’s crap all right.
Come on. “Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword.”
Words of a psychopath. A different psychopath than Manson, but still a psychopath.
The only reason you’re so incredulous is because he’s your psychopath. I suppose there’s an affinity.
Weak, very weak. Come on, even your own dogma says the accidents stay the same. “Blood”==wine==alcohol.
Of course you do. Despite the fact that the accidents are supposed to stay the same.
Still, I do wonder if it is possible to perform a forensic analysis for toxins on 2000-year-old remains. Hm. I wonder if the early Christians used lead cups?
Sigh. I knew what you meant. But I also know what the text says.
Doesn’t say they saw the kingdom of God, does it?
Yes, that’s the sort of excuse-making that I figured you would pull out at some point. Still, it doesn’t explain the texts I cited, it simply contradicts them.
I note the implicit threat, there, “not willing that any should perish”. I can just see it as a great mafioso conman’s excuse:
“Uh… the boss just can’t keep track of time; he’s just bad at it. And besides, he’s holding off for your sake; if he came around now, while you still owe him money, he’d have to break your fuckin’ legs and put a knife in your eye, just on the general principle of things. See, he’s tryin’ to be nice.”
Oh, well. God can’t be bothered to show up, or even send a note at least, and we do not question God’s 2000-year tardiness.
Weak, very weak.
But I suppose it results from your being against modernism. Can’t have that dual-personality of believer and historian, nope, nosiree.
Because otherwise you would go to Hell. And burn, burn, burn. And you wouldn’t want that.
In case you decide to, I don’t know, grow a pair, here’s a recent review of the “shifting sands”.
http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/otarch.html
OT- PZ from Commie Central, L.A.
http://acksisofevil.org/pz-la.html
Sastra Memorial Page:
http://acksisofevil.org/sastra.html
-scooter reporting from L.A.
No… I think the word you want here is “heretic“.
Piltdown man @314:
They were expressing astonishment and disgust at a system of thought and an organization which values stale bread higher than the suffering of children. These commenters were also responding to Donohue’s statement that –
– by specifying an instance of something which is indeed more vile by any rational metric. Your whingeing about how the two are unrelated is quite ridiculous.
I can only echo Nick Gotts’ response in #317 to this risible distinction of yours. So does the molestation of post-pubertal children warrant just a “a slap on the wrist” ?
How could you possibly know that? The recent shenanigans in Australia show that the RCC’s propensity to play hide the pedophile is undiminished. Until this stops, the extent of criminal activity cannot be estimated.
Even assuming your statement is correct and the proportion of abusive priests is somewhat less than a majority, a much simpler explanation than ‘anti-Catholic bias’ exists for overestimates. The church’s attempts at concealment easily fits most people’s definition of “acting guilty”. Its prior propaganda as to how good and honest preachers are also works against it. People who bought into it can’t conceive of any explanation for concealment other than complicity. Its primarily Atheists, who regard organized religion to be a venal and corrupt enterprise, that consider other explanations like money and control over adherents.
You also don’t seem to get that even one abusive priest is sufficient to taint the whole organization if they work systematically to conceal his crimes. Each RCC building effectively has a sign outside saying “Sanctuary for Child Rapists”. People, being unable to distinguish who in there is and who isn’t a pedophiles (and the RCC certainly does not help), find it safer to conclude that everyone is. Running around screaming “anti-Catholic bias” instead of cleaning house does not help.
Again, it is the systematic and widespread concealment of crimes which taints the Catholic organization, not just the instances of abuse discovered.
Again, Nick Gotts’ response is Germane. I’ll only add that an authoritarian culture that values its serfs so little, is known for defending its members against these serfs no matter what, and additionally provides widespread and easy access to children will certainly be a beacon of invitation to any predators. Its just the common knowledge of clergy abuse which is a recent phomenon. How long they’ve been doing this will only be known when the church finally self-destructs (probably many many years from today) and the secret Vatican archives become open; and perhaps not even then.
Um, because that was all my argument needed. Although you devalue the wrong assigned to PZ’s specific act, your premise of “no greater sin than to knowingly blaspheme God” leads to the conclusion that if it was an ‘old-school satanist’, who ‘really meant it’ committing the act, molestation of children would indeed be trivial in comparison. So be a good little RWA, “think in a logical sequence from established premises”, and stop equivovating.
Good luck. Given the many many popes whose criminal acts were at best open secrets even in their own lifetimes, I’ll bet you a dollar that one or more of them put down an encyclical – or whatever you call documents certified as the word of God – that says the best way of dealing with a pope’s criminal activity is to help him commit and conceal it. Of course it’ll be worded in the usual doublespeak and include an exhortation to pray for him.
By the way, this criticism of the Pope surely counts as Heresy. I assume you’ve thought “in a logical sequence from established premises” like a good RWA and given your admiration for the methods of the Inquisition, plan to go burn yourself.
With very little value for human life or suffering when it comes in conflict with those premises. I’m sure the trains will run right on time during your Inquisition.
ROFL. You have to have a greatly exaggerated sense of self-importance to conclude that casual insults thrown your way prove anything about the writer’s ability to think logically. You also share the propensity of many christians who venture hereabout to use insults thrown their way as a fig leaf to hide their inability to counter agruments that came with those insults.
Given the ridiculous Catholic propoganda you’ve provided as references so far in this thread, your memory or ‘reading something somewhere’ likely came from a similar dungpit. Come back when you can quote any actual science.
Nah. He’s a complete hypocrite. Like all religious fanatics, he privileges his own religious beliefs. It’s not himself who is a heretic, it’s the current establishment. I’m sure that he thinks that it’s the current liberal Pope and the corrupt hierarchy who deserve to burn.
It would be kinda funny if the hard-line old-school Catholics decided to schism and create their own Holy See (where? Avignon is now too liberal… Maybe somewhere in Africa?), and elect their own pope, and start calling the current pope an antipope.
Pope fight! Pope fight!
Ramen! That I would buy tickets for.
But schisming with a new See in Africa? And give up on the whole ‘primacy of the Bishop of Rome’ schtick? Naah! They’ll have to stick it out in Rome and make competing claims of “I’m the real pope and I excommunicate you” versus “No! I’m the real pope and I excommunicate you”
Besides, would that be enough, given Piltdown Man’s professed Inquisition nostalgia? I mean the man would have liked to take a scalpel to JPII’s family jewels. Ratzi would probably be let off with just a whipping or ten – after all at least he was a Nazi once.
Some of the extremist Catholics have actually set up their own Pope, seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conclavism . Others hold that there is no legitimate Pope at present:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sedevacantism .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_St._Pius_X , to which I deduce PS owes allegiance.
Piltdown Scumbag belongs to the third, and I think largest tendency, who grudgingly admit that the generally recognised Popes are technically legit, but say they have fallen into grave error. The most significant subgroup of these are the SSPX, founded by the fascist Archbishop Lefebvre:
Of course, Benny Ratfinger has to be particularly careful not to come into physical contact with an anti-Pope: far more dangerous than the LHC!
Patricia (#324):
He’s going to need a bigger boat …
Nick Gotts (#331):
Pah. The atheists over at the Dawkins forum had a far more fertile imagination. One of them even called me a “fascist, sexist little prick”, lol!!
Now that’s more like it! Keep ’em coming.
(By the way, I’m not affiliated with the FSSPX. I’m a free-floating fascist.)
Piltdown Scumbag,
Since you’re a liar, your statement about whether you’re actually affiliated to a particular fascist group means nothing. But at least you admit to fascism. Now, I’m bored with you, arguing with a putrid mass of corruption like you is neither instructive nor, after a certain point, amusing. I’m adding you to my killfile, and will therefore not be reading any response.
Wait, don’t go – I was just jerking your chain! I’m not really a fascist at all, I’m a monarchist!
+++
Owlmirror (#329):
Absolutely. The Church is a “perfect society” in the sense that God has endowed it with everything it needs to fulfill its primary function on Earth — the salvation of souls. Read that passage you quoted again:
The kingdom of god means, then, the ruling of God in our hearts; it means those principles which separate us off from the kingdom of the world and the devil; it means the benign sway of grace; it means the Church as that Divine institution whereby we may make sure of attaining the spirit of Christ and so win that ultimate kingdom … ”
From the section on The Church:
… it aims at the spiritual welfare, the eternal felicity, of man.
Or this from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism. … The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy
Whatever else that is, it is not secular utopianism.
I assumed you were familiar with the expression ‘heaven on earth’, which refers not to the literal Heaven but to the notion of a secular ‘paradise’.
And insofar as it does that there isn’t a problem. Problems arise when science makes claims regarding the non-existence of the supernatural world; or to put it another way, when it claims scientific knowledge is the only kind of knowledge there is.
Suppose scientists subject the circumstances surrounding an alleged miracle to a rigorous analysis and produce a convincing naturalistic explanation. That would be a legitimate exercise of scientific method. But if a scientist declares that miracles could not happen — then he is not speaking as a scientist but as an amateur philosopher or dogmatic atheist.
(What I find particularly interesting is when camouflaged metaphysical notions sneak back into science through the back door — eg bizarre concepts like gravity.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanentize_the_eschaton
Whoa, hold it right there! You make me sound like this guy.
Although he presumably wouldn’t see any need for absolution.
“Nothing is true. Everything is permitted.”
Don’t believe that, never said it, never implied it.
It does if it judges those believers to be a threat to the ruling secular order.
I’m not defending “religious totalitarianism and absolutism” against “heresy” or “pluralism” in some generic, abstract sense. I’m specifically advocating Catholicism against everything else, whether that be secular pluralism or Islamic theocracy.
Given that the current monarch is, (ironically) Fidei defensor of what you consider a heresy, I find that unlikely.
Or do you mean that you are a Jacobite?
Yet it obviously is not, given the number of schisms over what exactly necessary to save souls, and who gets to claim to be able to do so.
Right: the kingdom of heaven on earth. It’s all very well to speak of separating from the “kingdom of the world”, in the sense of worldly desires, yet this is obviously taking place on earth — because if it weren’t, it would be in the literal heaven of God, where the whole idea of “separation” from “the kingdom of the world” would be automatic and moot.
Yet this paragraph appears to be in direct contradiction to the above paragraph about the kingdom of god. Clearly, theology once again contradicts itself.
I wonder what “beyond history” even means? Oh, right, time is supposed to end when Gabriel toots his horn. Speaking of which, have you seen The Prophecy?
I know the expression exists. I also know that it is hyperbole. If you read something along the lines of “Joseph married his beloved Mary, and their life together in their quiet cottage was heaven on earth”… do you really think it means anything more than that they were very happy?
What is with this “secular ‘paradise'” of which you speak? Again, if it’s not a literal Heaven, it cannot possibly be a theological concept. And it’s certainly not something I can recall ever hearing about as the goal of secular liberalism.
I’m only aware of that as being part of metaphysical naturalism. Yet, nevertheless, the burden of proof is on the religious to show that there is any other kind of knowledge — that is distinguishable from imagination; from make-believe.
Or even a professional philosopher. Or a dogmatic monist.
I’m a dogmatic monist myself: I assert that ‘supernatural’ is a meaningless term; if some phenomenon is capable of causing some reaction in the physical world, that phenomenon is part of nature.
And I reject the idea of miracles, not just because I’m a monist, but because rationally, for a hypothetical God to use one-shot miracles to demonstrate his existence is stupid. All rational beings that wish to demonstrate their existence simply speak for themselves; if God wishes to demonstrate his existence, then he too should speak for himself, clearly and unmistakably, to everyone.
Last I heard, gravity was a falsifiable physical phenomenon. I realize that you’re a paranoid dualist, but using ‘metaphysical’ to describe gravity is fractally wrong.
Which entirely fails to answer the question. Everything in the article emphasizes that “immanentize the eschaton” is still most definitely a religious concept.
You can call Milleniarist Christianity a heresy of the Antichrist if you like; I don’t care (although it’s amusingly ironic, given Christianity’s origin as a Jewish eschatological heresy, and the fact that many Protestants characterize the pope as the Antichrist). But what does that have to do with a secular liberal social order?
Yes, that sounds about right.
Exactly the sort of sentiment you would espouse — as long as it was phrased as “Nothing is true… except Catholicism. Everything is permitted… to serve Catholicism.”
Describe a real-world example, please. Which religious believers who were not actually threats to the “ruling secular order” were excluded from which real-world secular and pluralistic society?
But that is almost exactly what I wrote: Catholic religious totalitarianism and absolutism. Are you really quibbling just because I left off the word “Catholic”? It still makes you a hypocrite.
You are almost exactly like the most radical Islamists there are … after translating “Islam” into “Catholicism” in that extremist ideology.
Pilty sure is a typical godbot. Quotes all type of church literature as if that impresses us (not!), quotes the bible as is it impresses us (not!), and never, ever, shows any physical evidence for his alleged god, which might actually impress us. Pilty, time to quit talking. Put up the physical evidence for your god, that can be proven after inspection by scientists, magicians and professional debunkers, or shut up. To do anything else means you are a con man.
Piltdown Man, Unlike you, idiot, Nick would need a boat since he doesn’t believe that anyone could live for three days in the belly of a fish.
Catholics are some of the worst scum of the earth known to mankind. The atrocities committed by you people in the name of gawd are sickening.
Bring out your god. Let’s see him. Put up or shut up.
Owlmirror (#336):
Would you accept that the Church has never taught racial antisemistism, whether pseudo-biological or pseudo-mystical? No Nazi-style denial of the unity of the human race? Nothing like this?
All parts of Church doctrine are correct. Since I don’t reject the Syllabus, I’m not the one doing the picking and choosing, am I?
Not just any old crap — incontrovertibly pagan crap. He also said in an interview that “the altars of the Druids” existed long before Christ and would outlast Him. I suspect Charlie would feel right at home at the Burning Man festival.
You’ll have to show me those Gospel passages where Jesus urges his followers to rise up and murder wealthy, pregnant Roman matrons.
The accidents stay the same. And the substance changes. Ergo it isn’t alcohol any longer, it just retains the sensible properties of alcohol. If those were sufficient for salvation, why bother with transubstantiation at all? Blood ≠ wine. Blood = blood.
Are you telling me that John 15:17 is a command to indulge in promiscuous sex?
Sure it does.
I would say it explains them insofar as it makes the point that God’s idea of “soon” is not necessarily identical to ours.
Thank you for the link, I will take a look at it. The rest of the site looks quite interesting as well.
Owlmirror (#347):
I simply mean I endorse the concept of Catholic sacral monarchy. The current vestigial Anglican monarchy in the UK has some unacceptable connections.
Of course the Church is in the world (well, the Church Militant is; the Church Suffering and Church Triumphant are in Purgatory and Heaven respectively); but that doesn’t mean the Church is of the world, any more than a deep-sea diver is a sea creature.
Caught in on late-night TV many moons ago. Entertaining film.
How many secular politicians, ideologues, economists and futurists haven’t promised to wipe away all tears from our eyes and make all things new?
You can call a particular phenomenon of attraction ‘gravity’, that’s fine. It you say gravity is (caused by) a ‘force’, I say metaphysics.
Obviously I detest the sentiment as expressed; I used it to question Bronowski’s simplistic thesis that the root of atrocity is the claim to absolute truth. I find Orwell more persuasive: “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” When truth becomes malleable, then we are in trouble. “And if the Party says that it is not four but five … ?” (Everything is certainly NOT permitted to “serve Catholicism”.)
You imply heretics were no threat to the ruling religious order?
Pilty, are you ready to show your physical evidence for your god yet? Time to put up the proof or shut up (quit posting here). If you can’t put up or shut up, we will assume you are a con man, a professional liar and bullshitter. Make up your mind.
Nerd of Redhead (#348):
I don’t quote ecclesiastical or scriptural texts to “impress” you, as if quoting them will somehow make you believe they are true. I only quote them to clarify points of Christian doctrine that arise in the course of discussion. I can’t point to the Bible or a papal encyclical and then say to an atheist “you must believe this!” — but I can legitimately point to them if an atheist makes an inaccurate statement about what Catholics believe.
What kind of “physical evidence” did you have in mind? God isn’t some kind of particle that can be discovered in a LHC.
This is going to be a bit piecemeal, because I have work that needs doing. So, to begin:
Mm. I was pondering whether to concede this… and then I remembered this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chrysostom#Antisemitism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_deicide
You cannot have an accusation of what you consider to be the greatest evil ever performed being slammed against every single member of a people without it being racial.
The only thing I am willing to concede is that it was never dogma; and that some church leaders did try to prevent attacks on the Jews. Yet other church leaders did their best to stir up hatred…
As noted elsewhere, the Church attitude towards the Jews was extremely inconsistent, to the point of schizophrenia. But Nazi antisemitism would not have arisen without the church’s heritage of inflammatory anti-Jewish rhetoric. Others have pointed to Martin Luther’s vituperative diatribe, and Chrysostom’s vicious attacks on them are part of Roman Catholicism’s heritage.
Say, I note that Vatican II included Nostra Aetate, “which in part repudiated the traditional belief in the collective Jewish guilt for the Crucifixion”. And you did say that you reject Vatican II…
You’re hardly the first to make such a comparison; I recall that Hector Avalos in Fighting Words points out the similarities between the racial essentialism of the bible and that of the Nazis. But then, he also points out that Christianity is in some ways as bad or worse… Oh, and he also points out the violence in Islam, going from the primary sources. You’d probably like that part.
Once again, your argument reeks of hypocrisy. On the one hand, your church claims, among other things, that Jesus arose from the kingly lineage of God’s Chosen People. On the other hand, you complain about how the Jews try to explain the spiritual consequences of being God’s Chosen People?
You can’t have it both ways: Either Jesus was just one member of a minor Middle-Eastern people who had a cult arise around him which turned into a major religion… or the Jews really are as special as they claim.
Of course it is all nonsense. But so is Catholicism and its nonsense about God killing-himself-only-not-really and wanting people to eat his body, or having a dab of water splashed on your head making you one of God’s Chosen People, only better…
It you say gravity is (caused by) a ‘force’, I say metaphysics.
In general relativity, of course, it’s not a force but a consequence of the (lumpy) geometry of spacetime. I don’t see where metaphysics enters into it.
I would say it explains them insofar as it makes the point that God’s idea of “soon” is not necessarily identical to ours.
What an obvious and cowardly dodge! The point is, the apostles are taken in scripture to have privileged access to god’s ideas. THEY thought the eschaton was imminent; what “our” idea of soon is matters not at all. The coming of the christ didn’t happen on schedule, even allowing for a generous margin of error, so, either the apostles had a wrong conception of theological matters, in which case I see no reason to trust them on any other theological matters, or there’s no god at all, no divine savior, and the eschaton is a childish fantasy of retribution and communal justification. Take your pick.
Another partial response:
Even the parts that contradict other parts?
Your words: “I’m more inclined to think the Church hierarchy lost respect when they tried to reach an accommodation with modernity at Vatican II.”
If Vatican II was in contradiction to the Syllabus, and you reject it, then clearly you are indeed the one doing the picking and choosing. Hypocrite.
Pilty, show god exists first. Show any physical evidence you have for god. Otherwise, no god = no bible = no theology = nothing to discuss.
Another response:
And Manson also hung out with prostitutes, I see. Just like the founder of your Church…
“But as for these my enemies, who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and slay them.”
Doesn’t say anything about excluding pregnant matrons. It says “Kill”.
And don’t tell me you’ve never read the parts of the bible that condemn the wealthy.
Which means that it stays alcohol for all practical purposes. Including the purpose of causing drunkenness, ergo, altering the mind.
Why bother, indeed?
I note that pagan drug-taking often involves ceremonies and rituals. If the drug-taking is sufficient, why bother with the ceremonies and rituals?
“Blood”==wine==alcohol.
Sigh. No. I was being facetious.
Although… Why could it not be interpreted in that way, the use of the term “ἀγαπᾶτε” notwithstanding?
I note that the Greek translation of the Song of Solomon contains what certainly looks like cognates of “agape” (and cognates of “philos”) for the attraction felt by and for the respective subjects, who quite obviously want to sex each others’ brains out…
Another one…
A fanatic Catholic citing an Eastern Orthodox Hierarch! Will wonders never cease… Aren’t those guys heretics too?
“It is possible to understand the Lord’s promise “that there were some standing there that would not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom,” as being fulfilled precisely in the Transfiguration.”
I note that even he does not say that it is certain; he of course gets that “possibility” by twisting the literal into the metaphorical…
Shiny Jesus ≠ kingdom of God.
Oh, and one more:
And if that were really the case, Jesus and the prophets should not have used the term “soon”. You don’t use the word appropriate for yourself when speaking to someone else, and doing so is tantamount to lying. Especially when the difference between the two values is many, many lifetimes — and the speaker knows that…
Or in other words, what I see CJO said @#355
So… You mean anyone the Church approves of, basically?
Your analogy fails. The Church is indeed in the world; it tithes real money; it builds real palaces for the upper members of its hierarchy; it demanded real authority over real-world rulers (the Church crowning the emperor/king); it owned real-world lands (and still does to an extent) and fielded real-world armies (and still does, despite the Swiss Guard being largely ceremonial); it had real-world problems with corruption, bribery, various sex-related scandals, and of course, mass-murder. The Church actually demands the right to meddle in the politics of other countries, going by your Syllabus.
So you are obviously entirely wrong.
Got any examples?
And how is promising improvement the same thing as promising “paradise”?
I have no idea what this means, and I suspect that you don’t either. If I say things one way it’s physics and if I say it another way it’s metaphysics?
Are you even capable of discussing science without descending into incoherent gobbledegook?
Bronowski’s point is valid, though, precisely because Nazi ideas about race were held as being absolute truth, with no test in reality. And again, Nazi beliefs arose ultimately from Christian ones.
But if not Bronowski, how about Voltaire, then?
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
That applies well to Catholicism, Nazism, and the Assassins.
Given that it is religion that demands the right to make truth “malleable”, it sure sounds like you’re being a hypocrite again. I also assume you support the Church’s right to censor and ban, for example.
And Orwell certainly sounds like he’s defending the right to assert logically coherent and/or empirically verifiable truths…. such as “it’s a frackin cracker!”, for example.
Given that you support setting people on fire, you offer no sense whatsoever of what limits you think there actually are.
Can you answer the question that I actually asked?
And can you explain clearly and simply what threat a different religious belief (that is, one with no secular impact), in and of itself, makes towards a “ruling religious order” such that the holder of the belief deserves incineration?
Owlmirror (#356):
Some would argue that the documents of Vatican II themselves contain nothing that can’t be harmonized with traditional teaching (albeit with a few mental gymnastics). However, their often ambiguous wording has allowed liberal prelates in high places to push through their agenda.
+++
And they both had beards and long hair. I think I dig where you’re coming from here – like I can really relate to where your head’s at right now. Manson … Son of Man – wow man, it all makes sense! Far out!
Now that’s what I call a quotemine.
Except that causing drunkenness isn’t the “purpose” of the Eucharist, is it?
It’s not always easy to tell.
Well Ecclesia is the Bride of Christ …
+++
No, just schismatics.
There was rather more to the Transfiguration than a “shiny Jesus”. ( Just as there’s more to the Song of Songs than sex.)
Owlmirror (#356):
Some would argue that the documents of Vatican II themselves contain nothing that can’t be harmonized with traditional teaching (albeit with a few mental gymnastics). However, their often ambiguous wording has allowed liberal prelates in high places to push through their agenda.
+++
And they both had beards and long hair. I think I dig where you’re coming from here – like I can really relate to where your head’s at right now. Manson … Son of Man – wow man, it all makes sense! Far out!
Now that’s what I call a quotemine.
Except that causing drunkenness isn’t the “purpose” of the Eucharist, is it?
It’s not always easy to tell.
Well Ecclesia is the Bride of Christ …
+++
No, just schismatics.
There was rather more to the Transfiguration than a “shiny Jesus”. ( Just as there’s more to the Song of Songs than sex.)
Oops, double post …
Pilty, your double post is relevant. There should have never been a single post, since you didn’t bring any physical evidence for you alleged god even after repeated asking. No god, no theology. You should know that.
Seriously, on the god issue, time to put up or shut up (which means go away and don’t post here again).
Nerd of Redhead (#365):
You haven’t responded to my request for clarification of what you mean by “physical evidence” for the existence of a spiritual being. Do you expect to find a residue of God at the bottom of a test-tube?
What would convince you God exists?
Nerd of Redhead (#365):
You haven’t responded to my request for clarification of what you mean by “physical evidence” for the existence of a spiritual being. Do you expect to find a residue of God at the bottom of a test-tube?
What would convince you God exists?
Erm… do you not understand what evidence is???
Geeze.
Pilty, you are a very deluded person.
First of all you come to an atheist blog to endlessly discuss religion? What is wrong with that picture? You should be at a blog for theists to properly discuss religion.
Second, a spiritual being cannot be proven and it has no effect on the natural world. It is a null idea. Therefore any thoughts of these spiritual beings are fiction, the equivalent of mental masturbation. You can indulge in that if you wish, but we don’t have to. We use Occam’s razor and say no proof, no gods. And why is your god any different than any of the other gods imagined by humankind over the years? We see no need to discuss such idiocy. We just reject one more god than you do.
Third, I do mean physical evidence that can be examined and shown be of divine origin by scientists, magicians, and profession debunkers. If you can’t prove your god, you have no theology, and no need to try to profess it here. You know that. Why are you being so dense about this?
Nerd of Redhead:
I could just as well ask why an atheist blog supposedly dedicated to science should spend so much time ranting about religion. It’s a stupid question. Atheism defines itself as the absence of religion. And Prof. Myers believes that religion is not merely false but an actual social evil. So naturally he comments on it – and equally naturally religious folk take advantage of his blog to comment back.
If you think their arguments are erroneous, engage them in debate and try to refute their errors. If you think they’re merely tiresome or obnoxious, ignore them. If they cross Prof. Myers’ line in the sand, no doubt they’ll end up banned. What’s the problem? If you think a blog should be an echo chamber or fan club, that doesn’t say much for atheism’s much-vaunted ‘free thought’.
That’s just an assertion of materialist dogma. Why shouldn’t a supernatural/spiritual being be able to act on the natural/material world?
Well, that’s where apologetics and theological discussion come in – which you’ve just said have no place here.
So why ask the question?
You mean a miracle that cannot be explained by science?
That’s some pretty ambiguous wording you have going there yourself…
Of course. “Never trust a hippy”, as someone said. Especially not if he speaks blasphemous crap, very much like a pagan.
Uh-huh, Mister “Not peace, but the sword”. You worship a psychopath, you repeat the psychopath’s own psychopathic words, and you bridle when the extremity of his psychopathy is demonstrated?
Hypocrite.
How do you know? Jesus could have stuck with the bread, if that were the case, but nope, he had to include the “blood” that just so happens to cause drunkenness?
Hey, the hippies you hate didn’t drop acid because they wanted to see hallucinations; they dropped acid so as to be one with the ultimate. Exactly like the sacrament…
Hey, if the same words are used for sacred love as for profane love, then it does make sense to interpret John 15:17 as a command for lots of sex. As long as everyone involved loves each other in a non-sexual sense as well… And isn’t that what the hippies meant? It is “free love”, after all, not “free sex”.
And the difference is…?
So says the schismatic, and rather tentatively, too… Are schismatics to be trusted on matters of theology?
The text itself says nothing about the kingdom of god. And, y’know, if that whole mushroom dream was supposed to be the fulfillment of the prophecy about the kingdom of God, maybe the text should have said so to begin with?
God speaking for himself, instead of thousands of years worth of flawed, pathetic, and hypocritical wholly human apologists.
If such a being could do so, it should be a pathetically simple matter for it to do so by simply… talking. And being able to demonstrate its reality and omniscience as it spoke, so as to distinguish itself from a hallucination or brain damage.
Alleged miracles that can’t be examined in the first place are worthless in this regard, as are alleged miracles where the ones alleging will not allow examination.
And alleged miracles in general are worthless because they are impossible to interpret unambiguously. If a statue weeps, is it because more people aren’t religious, or because so many people who are religious are doing it wrong? Or both? Or neither?
Plain, unambiguous communication is terribly underrated.
Pilty,
The statue tears business seems to have two things in common. First, a church that is losing members. Second, a priest who does something like drilling a small hole in the back of a statue and adding vegetable oil to it daily. There is film footage of this happening.
No miracle involved. Just human deception, like all such alleged miracles. What is need is greater skepticism on the part of people like yourself. Read a few years of Skeptical Inquirer.
Just out of curiosity, how would you explain the miracle of the sun at Fatima? Not that I’m putting it forward as a scepticism-shattering miracle for the purpose of atheist consumption, mind you …
Well, besides the obvious point about its ambiguity, and the point that it cannot be investigated, and the point that there is an explanation involving natural phenomena, which is a good approximate match for what was observed….
If you heard of an analogous “miracle” happening to Protestants, Muslims, Jews, or Hindus, would you be sufficiently impressed so as to be convinced, and convert immediately?
And is there a naturalistic explanation for the fact that the solar phenomena occurred at the precise place, time and date predicted by the young seers?
Of course not — praeternatural phenomena associated with a particular religion do not in themselves constitute proof of that religion’s truth. On the other hand, if no convincing naturalistic explanation were forthcoming, I would see no reason not to believe some form of praeternatural agency was indeed involved. If I was an atheist and witnessed, say, a milk-drinking Hindu statue for which there was no plausible scientific explanation, then I probably wouldn’t rush to become a Hindu – but I suspect I would find it hard to remain an atheist.
Besides coincidence, and to some extent, psychology (that is, the persons present confabulating more to the phenomenon being observed at the apparent correct time)?
How easily you would let yourself be defrauded…
Ah. Ganesh drinks milk, therefore…. what, people should become Catholic? That doesn’t even begin to make sense.
(although I note with amusement that the site quotes a Catholic defense of mumbo-jumbo)
But at least the behavior of fluids can be investigated.
First, tell me how you explain the miracles of Sathya Sai Baba; then, I’ll apply your explanation to Fatima.