Clemens Bittlinger wrote and performed a song that mildly rebuked the Pope … and you can guess what happened. Death threats! Wild accusations! Now he needs police protection! It’s insane, but familiar.
“When a newspaper prints a Mohammed cartoon, entire cities burn,” read another. “But when the Holy Father is ridiculed in blasphemy, we are supposed to just accept that? No, not like that Mr. Bittlinger – you will surely receive the justice you deserve.”
I suppose it was inevitable that while the vast majority of Christians condemned the outpourings of violence after the Mohammed cartoon polemic, some found such determination to respond to perceived offence something to admire.
Fatwah envy is going mainstream. I think at this point the Catholics can stop protesting that they are harmless, while Muslims are murderous monsters. The Catholics certainly seem to be louder blusterers and equivalent haters.
(via Tony Sidaway)
Oh wow, this is even more insane than you let on. He’s a Pastor. Granted wrong sect of the cult, but still part of the cult.
The way things are going, the meme will be in the general public in a matter of months.
If the Telegraph article is correct, then Bittlinger is asking some quite reasonable questions about the Pope’s stands on several topics.
Although I had heard that the Catholic Church had officially abandoned limbo. [Insert joke about bad backs and “how low can you go?”]
Anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the intellectual
– Buchanan
I love vapid quotes.
No. No, they aren’t. Both are stupid, but one is obviously worse. Why does PZ feel like he needs to conflate the two? Surely it undermines his credibility at least a little.
sigh, blockquote not my friend
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” — Karl Marx
“…one is obviously worse”? No. No, it isn’t.
sigh, blockquote not my friend
You reap what you sow, KoT
Bill DonohuePete Rooke #4Poor, suffering catlicks. Everybody hates them, nobody loves, them, they’re gonna eat a worm.
When the Catholic Church has some quite obviously insane views, then Catholics should not whine when people point out the insanity.
Tell me, Pete, do you seriously believe that condoms don’t prevent the spread of AIDS? Because Pope Benny has spouted such nonsense. And how do you feel about protecting pedophile priests? Because the numero uno of the church thinks that’s just a dandy thing to do.
Whilst this is O/T for this thread, it will be of general interest to many readers here, who may have yet to pick up on this (which I saw in Greg’s ‘Culture Wars’ blog but was first posted on Kos).
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/16/12054/5933/804/600245
Palin has had a vid of herself in a flight suit added to the Alaska NG homepage (which cost her like “one more star” to do), to show how good a C’in’C she looks.
Is Russia afraid yet?? (And – are we???)
You mean the pope who was involved in the systematic cover up of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic preists? I can’t imagine why anybody would want to poke fun at him.
As far as the reaction by some of the Catholic crowd, it’s not terribly surprising. I don’t believe it was the Muslims who initiated the Inquistion or threatened to murder Galileo. Those little crackers aren’t the only thing they get worked up about.
I love vapid quotes.
BTW Pete, that you won’t impress too many people at this blog by quoting Patrick Buchanan.
One threat said “I shit on you and your dirty song.”
I can’t get the image of John Cleese out of my head. ” I fart in your general direction.”
Pete is a very vapid person who should be banhammered.
Just my opinion.
“Anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the intellectual” — Buchanan
Anti-semitism has nothing to do with arguing against Jewish theology, or the political tactics of its rabbis, synagogues, and followers. If Jews were sending death threats to people who “insulted the faith,” then we’d condemn them just as heartily — and no, that would not be anti-semitism.
The fact that “intellectuals” are fighting positions with intellectual arguments — and not heaving bricks and tossing off threats of violence — is rather crucial here. The Church is being criticized for its policies and beliefs. If Buchanan really fails to see the distinction between this and the racial and blood purification plans of the Nazis, then he’s not thinking clearly.
pedophile priests
Rapists. It’s an international criminal conspiracy to harbor and shelter from justice serial child rapists.
The quoted term is magnitudes too soft for these monsters.
Yes your god is so angered and powerful that she took out her wrath and caused me to mistype the blockquote tag.
OH NOES WHATEVER WILL I DO. I think I’ll conve..
fart
Totally off topic. Just saw this in a story about the Wall Street turmoil:
Lunacy.
A god mongerer insulting another god mongerer. So is the same imaginary god going to avenge insults against the other’s god? Ludicrous, as only insane religion can demonstrate! Will the insanity ever cease?
In an unrelated incident, I just emailed the cable news station in Texas (TXCN) concerning an on air comment against atheists made by a Galveston resident:
It had nothing to do with the piece being aired. So why wasn’t it edited out?
I made no sabre-rattling threats, no wishing the the man who made the comment any harm; just asking whether a non-religious news station should take a religious ideological stand in a pluralist society.
Imagine if Tom Lehrer were still performing “The Vatican Rag”!
Every religion is going to have its share of mean-spirited people, and I assume Catholicism is not exempt.
@Pete Rooke: How does the quote apply to the given situation?
I now return you to your regularly scheduled
pogromprogram.AAhhh, the Petey troll is out tonight.
What a catchy song! Any of you German speaking Pharyngulites want to type up the lyrics? My google search came up with nothing using the German and English titles.
Petey the troll has been very obnoxious today. Maybe we can prevail upon PZ to disemvowel him for a couple of days. Maybe he will go back to his post and run tactics.
Reformation!!! Sectarian Warfare!!!! Get the guns ready and fire up the tanks!!!
It is time to play Sunni-Shiite again or Whose Side Is God On?
It is also about time Xians stop picking on scientists and do what they do so well. Killing each other.
The Reformation wars were bloody. Tens of millions were killed. IIRC, somewhere around 25-33% of the German population disappeared. They also lasted 400 years and finally ran down in NI a whole 8 years ago.
Today some Catholics and Protestants still hate each other. In some parts of the world, it is most of each sect. The Pope claims to be the One True Church with a hotline to god and the Protestants claim that the Pope is the servant of the Antichrist in the Church of Satan.
Because you see, Xianity is a religion of peace, love, and tolerance.
And FWIW, In reality I hope they don’t start shooting each other again. Its been 400 years, time enough to grow up a little.
Thanks Peter, Mind if i just call you Dick?
So, I’m guessing none of the fatwa-envious have ever heard Nuclear Assault’s classic romantic ballad “Hang the pope” then?
It has an interesting metre, styled after Keats I think. Anyway, here are the lyrics just in case:
I’m guessing someone might have been an altar boy at some point…
The catholic church is an international organization that has systematically aided and abetted the rape of children for centuries.
I wish i knew who to acknowledge for this quote.
@5, RevBigDumbChimp
Unfortunately, your quote of it corrected the quote in my mind. I originally misread it as
That is much more amusing, and correct, than the original.
Can you even blaspheme the pope? He’s not divine. I think some people don’t know their own religion all that well.
Psh. Extremists and fanatics are all the same. No matter the religion…
Wait, are there extremist, death threatening raelians?
Yes, good ol’ Petey has been quite vexing today. Especially trying to pick a fight in front of all the nice lurker Ilk. Coward!
Ran from your statement about believing in the gawd of the bible too, huh Pete. Compared to the other troll of today Pete isn’t even a fart in a whirl-wind.
Yes; yes, you ARE supposed to just accept that:
a) you claim you’re a peaceful, loving religion (well, the Muslims do too, I suppose).
b) Matthew 5:39 says something about turning the other cheek, doesn’t it?
… why can’t you religious whacknuts follow the rules in your own stupid dopey damn book?
And AlanWCan@32… could you seriously make out the lyrics in that song? Wow. I don’t think there’s enough caffeine on the continent to make my brain receptive enough to pick that out of that… um… sound sample.
Michelle,Psh. Extremists and fanatics are all the same. No matter the religion…
or lack of religion. There are Anti Mormons on this blog and there are anti Catholics on this blog and anti any religion on this blog. You atheists are just as bad as the theists you condemn. You may want to look at the Catholic League newsletter and read some of the hate mail from the PZ Myers friends. Get real.
Llauraa,
Native Americans and Israelites.
Snap to it.
I can’t believe that people are this idiotic. They are LOOKING for things to offend them. It is almost as if they are addicted to rage and indignation. This has gone far, far beyond “I don’t agree with what you’ve done or said and I am offended by you” to foaming at the mouth, bulging eyes, tearing out your own hair rage induced insanity.
I mean. . . they’ve had what, 2,000 or so years to grow the hell up and get over things. Why do people seem more irrational about religion now than then did 20-30 years ago?
@ Llauraa
Please familiarise yourself with one or two of the tag functions. Your incoherent ramblings leave much to be desired.
LLuridd:
Be useful and go quote mine for us, why don’t you. I’d love to read all the death threats from those who don’t buy into what Bill Donahue’s selling.
Pete @ #11
Does that mean your garden sprouts bullshit and fantasy?
Llauraa @ 39
I don’t read anything from the Catholic League for the same reason I don’t read anything from James Dobson or David Duke…because too much stupid fucks up your ability to think correctly. As a friend of a friend once said:
“There’s only so much stupidity you can compensate for; there comes a point where you compensate for so much stupidity that it starts to cause problems for the people who actually think in a normal way.”
That’s why so few people raised with the stupid escape…their brains no longer work correctly.
#33 – quedpro – I have a pile of notes on that, I’ll go look for it.
There is however the case of Sabrina Guzzanti, facing five years in prison for “offending the honor of the sacred and inviolable person” of Benedict XVI, from Dawkins website for you to chew on.
Rev. BigDumbChip, surely an intellectually advanced scientist as yourself can research what the Mormon position is on Native Americans and Israelites. You may want to look at the BYU website, go to the theology section and do your research.
You may also want to investigate and do a compare and contrast essay on the historical and theological points of the issue. How does the historical impact on the theological and how does the theological impact and the historical. Does it? Doesn’t it. What are the Mormon theologians saying about the DNA issues involved? This should be an interesting reseach project for you.
Theology is the philosophy of the intellectual coward.
– SC
Petey’s getting testy with Lluridd. (credulously) Is he on our side now? I, for one, am sold! You betcha!!! (Where is that Comic Sans font…)
Rev. BigDumbChip, surely an intellectually advanced scientist as yourself can research what the Mormon position is on Native Americans and Israelites.
are you guys still going with the “hidden golden tablet” meme?
just curious.
what do you think of scientology?
cult, or religion?
Speaking of fatwa-envy: I’m a fan of PZ. HOWEVER, he selectively desecrated a Catholic sacred symbol but not a Muslim one. (Translations of the Koran are not sacred to Muslims, only the original Arabic text. PZ is no fool.) This gives credibility to the pernicious idea that religions can get respect (or respectful treatment) by means of plausible threats. It promotes fatwas and fatwa-envy. Bad move.
Petey’s getting testy with Lluridd.
It’s like watching Larry get testy with Curly.
…and still in Black and White, too.
Llauraa @ 39
There are Anti Mormons on this blog and there are anti Catholics on this blog and anti any religion on this blog. You atheists are just as bad as the theists you condemn. You may want to look at the Catholic League newsletter and read some of the hate mail from the PZ Myers friends. Get real. —
Get real….. hmmm, like Reality, real? As in pointing out the foolishness of believing in fairies, holy ghosts and zombie saviors and dozens of virgins for suicidal/homicidal idiots – type of real?
As other comments have said over and over again. Challenging someone’s beliefs is not the same as harming a physical body. I have every right to call out a person on any belief or opinion I can refute with evidence. I do NOT have the right to physically assault, or call for others to harm that person.
LEARN THE DIFFERENCE.
Amen brother.
flame821 @52,
Well said!
“Anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the intellectual” — Buchanan
leave it to the insipid right to ever equate anything they want to attack with Nazism.
I think Expelled took it to the ultimate extension, though.
OTOH, I’ve often said to myself, “boy, there is NO way they could top THAT bit of stupidity!”, and quickly have had to eat those words.
He’s a sanctimonious Catholic. She’s a bad-tempered Mormon.
Together, they
fight crimetroll Pharyngula and bicker.They’ll probably elope together and convert to Zoroastrianism.
#11
“You reap what you sow, KoT”
Yeah, I guess trouble with block quotes isn’t as dramatic as a good smiting, but considering the impotence of your god, it’s impressive it can work up the mystical power to fudge around with the comments on a blog.
Our god is an awesome god.
Time for popcorn and libation.
I’m a fan of PZ. HOWEVER…
HOWEVER… haven’t you said the same inane thing in 3 or 4 threads now?
give it a rest, we ain’t buying.
Why has no one suggested the obvious, that the entire Roman Catholic clergy should be castrated forthwith?
Llauraa #46,
Nope, it doesn’t work that way. If someone asks you a question you’re supposed to give them as concise an answer as possible. You don’t sort of wave in the general direction of Provo and tell them to dig the answer out themselves.
Answer this question. The Book of
Joseph SmithMormon tells of two waves of immigrants from Israel to the Americas. Why is there ZERO archaeological, anthropological, linguistic, or DNA evidence supporting these claims?BTW, those BYU guys believe that there might be some possible suppositions that vaguely support the possibility that maybe there’s some slight connection between Indian DNA and Hebrew DNA, perhaps, if they’re lucky, and the wind’s blowing in the right direction, and they squint very hard, and talk really fast.
Shorter Lluaraa
Ichthyic – Just in case I should ever (!) get another personal troll like that thing you bit in half today – what did you use to clean your teeth? ;o)
the entire Roman Catholic clergy should be castrated forthwith?
great idea. Who will you be applying to for funding?
Will this be general castration, chemical, or more like a vasectomy?
will you castrate priests as a requirement of entering the priesthood, or just catch up with them at some later date?
devil’s in the details.
Oy. Just another example of the Catholic Church’s most significant contribution to modern life–inspiring deconversion.
I am I registered before I plunge in?
Lucyjane, you’re in.
what did you use to clean your teeth?
oh, I have no need. My teeth are in multiple rows that constantly replace themselves, and never need sharpening, either.
If one gets really dirty, I just break it off and the one behind it takes its place.
Yes there ARE advantages to Dagon worship.
(tell your friends!)
There’s no reactionary like a Catholic reactionary, but most Catholics aren’t fixing to burn any heretics at the stake. Meanwhile from the perspective of educated lay Catholics, Protestant hostility is not a joke. The vast bulk of the Irish were disenfranchised for a couple of hundred years because no Catholics could vote or serve in Parliament, for example; and anti-Papist bigotry in England regularly led to popular violence like the huge Gordon riots of 1790 that left almost 300 people dead. Hatred of Catholics was a regular feature of anti-immigrant agitation in the U.S. also. And German Catholics remember Bismark’s Kulturkampf, which was the Prussian version of this sort of thing. Inter-denominational strife isn’t just an argument about theological niceties: it’s often really about the social rights of minorities and ethnicities. That doesn’t mean that institutions like the papacy or individuals like the pope ought to be immune from criticism–lord knows they often deserve it–but I think we ought to bear in mind that more is at stake that the fate of souls in limbo. What’s ancient history to secular folks or vanilla, sorta Protestant Americans isn’t academic to many Catholics.
The funny thing here is that the German pastor who sings the song sounds remarkably much like the Jesuits priests I met back in grad school. Indeed, they made many of the same complaints about Catholic doctrine and practice that he makes. And those guys were very smart as witness the fact that all of them ended up marrying well.
Ok I am logged in so I want everyone to Please click on this link, it says alot about the shaping of Sarah Palin as in Revelations in the beast of babylon with her alure as a beauty but not pure in any sense of the word “bejeweled”
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2008/9/13/1538/09770
#33 – Here you go – this is from my notes posting to El Herring don’t know the date (damn) the document is ‘Asinus Asinum fricat Crimen Sollicitationis by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’, 1962. Imposes an oath of secrecy on the child victim, the priest, and any witnesses. Breaking the oath means excommunication.
The catholic cover up – child molesters is at:
Perhaps El Herring knows more specifically about that exact quote, or it may be in the video.
Is someone seriously buying into the made-up mormon fantasy trip? Seriously? Smith made it up. Cripes – you may want to do a little research into archaeology, or the genetics testing that shows no israelite genes in native americans (oh, wait, they backpedaled and now say that the genes would have been lost over time). Pretty handy, that. I do have to wonder about the lost tribes that have no record existing anywhere (that I am aware of) other than in the mormon fantasy land. It’s bad enough that the bible has distorted real history in favor of fantasy tales, but the mormons had to pile more onto it.
For the record, my brother, his wife, and my 7 nephews all follow that brand of idiocy.
Is someone seriously buying into the made-up mormon fantasy trip?
that’s like asking if there are any real Scientologists out there.
oh, that just kindled a desire to show my favorite small clip of one well known scientologist…
Absolutely right. The Christians have learned from Muslim indignation and are now attempting their own brand of intimidation.
There is talk in Italy of prosecuting a comedian, Sabina Guzzanti, because she made a joke at a Rome rally about the Pope in hell being worked over by gay demons (on account of the Catholic condemnation of gay lifestyle). She’s in good company. Dante, in the Divine Comedy, condemned Pope Boniface the third to the inferno. Along with fingerprinting of the Roma, burning of gypsy camps and the revival of Mussolini affection, there is a new appetite in some quarters for going after apostates.
Christians are also following the Muslim example when it comes rage-against-art. The Canadian artist Terence Koh was recently sued by an irate Christian gallery goer because he showed a plastic figure of Jesus with a penis. To call it a penis is pushing it – more like a tube stuck in an anatomically incorrect spot – the mid thigh region. Nonetheless it was projectile thingy sticking out in threatening fashion and the patron, a Ms Mapfuwa (sic) was deeply scandalized.
OK, granted… but he didn’t call for sanctions against Catholics; he mocked the pope, and some rather obvious Catholic doctrines (rather mildly, too — and as you note, many Catholics have no strong adherence to the doctrines).
Given that some still burn the pope in effigy, the action is mild, and the reaction is disproportionately angry, I think.
Do Catholics really remember the historical incidents you list? Or is there something more general going on, something inherent in religious indoctrination and factionalism?
Swingin’ Amiss # 60
I’ve suggested castrating all Chatholics before puberty so as to save billions of innocent sperm from sensless death. I can’t understand why they didn’t go for it.
The funny thing about all this is that the song and throwing the cracker into the garbage don’t accomplish what the angry Catholics are complaining about. These actions don’t promote hate towards them. I don’t dislike or disrespect Catholics because someone wrote a song about them, or someone threw a cracker in the trash. Their insane reactions to these trivial gestures is what really makes me think they are nuts.
They are bringing it on themselves.
Life Lesson #1: If you don’t want to be called crazy, or be mocked, don’t act crazy, and don’t do something that is so easily mocked. Even if someone does or says something you find offensive, don’t became a raving, threatening lunatic.
O/T sorry.
# 13 “Palin has had a vid of herself in a flight suit added to the Alaska NG homepage”
OK, someone with video editing skillz has got to do something with this. It ranks right up there with that picture of Bush in a flight suit.
Let’s see, she’s a mom, a governor, and a combat pilot in heels. Geez, what’s next, neurosurgeon, astronaut?
PlaydoPlato (formerly the other Richard)
Criticizing the pope is not “anti-Catholicism”, so I’m not sure why you posted this quote under this article. Did you mean to post it somewhere else?
They are bringing it on themselves.
Of course, that was one of the primary points of those exercises, to show how easy it is to get them to shoot themselves in the head.
It was like a Pavlovian response.
Ichthyic – Well, I’ll be swozzled and dipped in chocolate! I thought that was you troll chomping in the Boom de Ah Dah! video we had several weeks back. *chuckle*
Since all of my friends are pagans they know who Dagon is actually. :)
Let’s see, she’s a mom, a governor, and a combat pilot in heels. Geez, what’s next, neurosurgeon, astronaut?
Johnny #77
You win the thread.
Llurra & Pete Rook – You are both frauds, totally without the conviction of gawdliness. You will not defend your position, or your gawd. Merry-go-round riding is something you do in a park. Not here. Put up or shut up.
I agree, Buchanan is batshit insane. Has a severe case of Christian Persecution Complex, for which there is no cure. Christian Persecution Complex (or CPC) has been treated throughout history though various means:
* slaughtering pagans
* destroying places of worship
* burning books
* crusades
* inquisitions
* imprisonment and torture of non-believers
All techniques that are now barbaric in a liberal democracy.
The complex has evolved from it’s original form, it now is contracted by people at the slightest glance. Before it was being fed to the lions or crucifying apostles, now it’s making Christmas secular and keeping prayer out of public schools. Even the slightest hint of a non-golem origin sends many christians deep into persecution complex. Modern psychologists recognise that through secularism, tolerance and integration (as opposed to segregation) they hope that one day a Christian can feel free to worship in his own church without having to worry about the gay brothel next door being a direct personal attack on their beliefs.
All religious beliefs are cognitive disorders. You’re all fucking nuts!
I had the fortune (misfortune?) to spend a year of High School in one run by the Christian Brothers (yep, the brandy guys) – While not raised in the catholic church (we were nominally Presbyterians) the experience of catholic school taught me one important lesson about the church (in fact all churches when I think about it): It’s all about the theater. Pageantry and petty outrage – it’s all theater to keep the sheeple in line …
I actually just went to go look at the hate mail LLaura would have everyone check out on the Catholic League website. While there may be some cussing and ridicule, I don’t believe I found one death threat. Not one. People do not have the right to be offended. I would add, esp. when what is being ridiculed is true and horrific by anyone’s standards.
From Constantine to present, one strategy for the Church Militant: “In hoc signo vinces.” How quickly the persecuted became the persecutors.
Well, I’ll be swozzled and dipped in chocolate! I thought that was you troll chomping in the Boom de Ah Dah! video we had several weeks back.
Didn’t I mention that I make my money in professional photography these days?
I suppose you thought I meant I was behind the camera, instead of in front of it…
here’s a pic of me before I had my plastic surgery so I could fit in with you mammalian-types.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3125/2863577741_ba78a4aa7f_o.jpg
:P
“You atheists are just as bad as the theists you condemn.”
Oh I don’t think so, I don’t know any atheists who try to take away womens’ rights over their own bodies or take rights away from gay people because of what they do in their private lives. Those pathologies seem to be confined to non-reality-based thinking.
“You may also want to investigate and do a compare and contrast essay”
Who are you, BDC’s sixth grade teacher?
” on the historical and theological points of the issue. How does the historical impact on the theological and how does the theological impact and the historical.”
Hey, you’re the Mormon, you’re supposed to know about these things. You’re supposed to know what the church says, and then say whether you agree or disagree, and why. But your intellectual cowardice doesn’t really surprise me.
Mrs. Rash is that you?
On this day, September 16, 1498
Tomas de Torquemada, Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, dies in Avila, Spain. More than 2,000 heretics were burned to death and 9,654 otherwise tortured under his aegis before all the Jews were expelled in 1492. In 1836, vandals break into Torquemada’s tomb, cremate the bones, and scatter his ashes upon the winds.
And they got pissed over what you did to a cracker…
People do not have the right to be offended.
sure they do. They can be offended all they wish, for any reason they so choose.
however, they simply don’t have SPECIAL rights NOT to be offended. IOW, they have no right to silence others because what they are saying, or even doing, offends them.
or is that what you meant?
patricia, I’m not sure you answered Qedpro’s question, exactly.
Still, Crimen Sollicitationis is a fascinating document. Wikipedia is a good place to start to learn something of it.
Well, there you are, all cute and singing the ‘Ahhhh’ part of the song. ;o)
all the Jews were expelled in 1492. In 1836, vandals break into Torquemada’s tomb, cremate the bones, and scatter his ashes upon the winds.
that was one loooonnnngggg revenge plan!
Translation of the song (my friend has a degree in German):
Man Benedict, I would love to walk a while with you
I’d have a few questions and a lot I haven’t understood
You are boss of one of the churches that belongs to christianity
So now I’m wondering, what do the following have to do with Christianity:
You were indeed with the indians in latin america
You know the missions’ history, and the great christian delusion
how can someone like you stand in front of the indians
and claim they’re fat if christ had been silently standing there
[jay didn’t understand that last line, his german might be rusty, but it’s probably an idiom. the pope isn’t exactly a slice of beefcake either]
why do you hurt the christians, why do you often start fights
and say “you are not a church, because you sometimes make mistakes”
a glass house in which you throw stones quickly ends in shards
and indeed many catholics don’t buy this stuff anymore
Man Benedict, I would love to walk a while with you
I’d have a few questions and a lot I haven’t understood
I’d have a few questions and a lot I haven’t understood
You are boss of one of the churches that belongs to christianity
So now I’m wondering, what do the following have to do with christ
you forbid condoms to the poor people of the world
spreading aids in the world, even though you don’t like that either
you give purgatory to unbaptized babies
[German word is Vorhoelle=pre-hell]
do you really believe that father god believes this?
take advantage of how little the poor understand
that’s why we hear latin when we go to mass
Man Benedict, I would love to walk a while with you
I’d have a few questions and a lot I haven’t understood
I’d have a few questions and a lot I haven’t understood
You are boss of one of the churches that belongs to christianity
So now I’m wondering, what do the following have to do with christ
jesus said he would bring the kingdom of heaven to earth
Unfortunately all we got was churches, which were created by violence
any priest that admits this would be excommunicated
and in rome and elsewhere, nobody’s easily exposed
[This was translated over IM. Sorry about the lack of punctuation and capitalization. All I can say is that it doesn’t have a nice beat and I can’t dance to it, but I wouldn’t be motivated to kill the songwriter. I’m just saying that it won’t be a hit on the disco scene.]
My German’s really rusty. Anyone got a link to an English translation of the lyric?
-jcr
#100:
See post #99. That was the best my buddy could do until we get a real German to explain the idioms. Not sure why the Pope would call Indians fat.
#99: Ask and I shall receive!
-jcr
“I think at this point the Catholics can stop protesting that they are harmless, while Muslims are murderous monsters. The Catholics certainly seem to be louder blusterers and equivalent haters.”
Right. Talk about the fallacy of hasty generalization!
Oh, I suppose that this wasn’t directed at all Catholics either.
OKAY PZ,
You have OFFICIALLY crossed a line with me.
You need to seriously reconsider your blogging habits. You have grated on my nerves and my patience has worn thin:
You need to stop using comic sans. EVERYBODY need to stop.
STOP THE MADNESS!
Oh and the pope thing is seriously fucked up. I’m kind of suffering from outrage fatigue though.
#96 – You are correct. That wasn’t the exact name of the person he wanted… but I sort of have this sangria fogged inkling that the quote is somewhere either in that document, or in the video. Could be from some news report on the document as well. Also, El Herring may read this thread and remember it in much better detail. :) If nothing else this teaches me to stamp the date on my notes so we could go back into the archives and find the thread.
So you are back Eric. Are you still under the delusion that any attack on beliefs is one attacking you personally?
Scientists invented the Atomic Bomb (oh, nooooo…the Christians did it!!). Other great inventions: The machine gun, poison gas, the tank, the proximity fuse, artillery shells, the fighter, the bomber, napalm, barbed wire, hand grenades, automatic weapons, trench warfare, the Blitzkreig, pesticide warfare,anthrax, ricin, nerve gas, dirty bombs,the neutron bomb….(oh, nooooooo, whine, whine, whine, scientists didn’t do it….Christians did it!!) Scientists have killed billions through their amplification of warfare. You had best get off your “we’re so perfect and ethical” stance, “Scientists”, because you aren’t. You’re just as tainted as the rest of mankind. So please end your moral posturing will you? The point is, we are all failed humans, including you, and it is through Jesus that we are all saved, yes, even you.
My dad’s went to a Christian Brothers school and the experience led to him keeping his 3 kids away from the Catholic religion all together once we were baptised to keep the family quiet.
Calling Catholics ‘haters’ is now defined as an attack on their beliefs?
Other great inventions:
how many of those were inspired by inquisitorial devices, I wonder?
Hey, Fuller was right! religion really does inspire invention…
What about the little boy in the amazon who has never heard of Jesus. Is he saved too? Or does Jesus only save those who grovel to his feet?
Tom, any point to your post? Try declarative sentences. It helps with communication.
I don’t know any atheists who try to take away womens’ rights over their own bodies or take rights away from gay people because of what they do in their private lives.
I don’t know any of them personally, but there have been officially atheist regimes at times who have banned abortion (or made it mandatory), and imprisoned gays.
I would contend that their atheism was orthogonal to those policies, though.
-jcr
Of course. Revenge is best served kosher.
:|
I would contend that their atheism was orthogonal to those policies, though.
it’s a good thing you at least added that qualifier, John.
Tom,
The only failed human beings are the ones cowering in fear of imaginary creatures.
Suck it Jesus.
Is this bad news?
UK’s first official sharia courts
ISLAMIC law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.
The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.
Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4749183.ece
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
No, I was carrying on from your last thread here were you said that desecrating the eucharist was a personal attack on all Catholics.
@troy
I always love the irony of someone complaining about the negative nature of science when using a computer. It’s so delicious. Science is a tool artard, not a worldview.
Rev., sounds like good steaks, but you forgot the chips.
@Joel,
It’s not really going to make much of difference. In most cases this was already in place through private contractual obligations, now it’s simply cutting out middlemen. As it was pointed out in the article, orthodox Jews have been running the same deal without incident.
It’s about as insidious as Judge Judy.
CadicusTheDamned, thanks for posting.
Wow, great lyrics. He got just about everything. Now if he had only worked the massive cover-up of sex offenders into there, that would have topped it off.
#99: how can someone like you stand in front of the indians
and claim they’re fat if christ had been silently standing there
Wee bit rusty myself but I do believe
“Wie kann einer da wie du vor den Indios stehn und behaupten ihre Väter hätten Christus still ersehnt.”
is
“claim their fathers quietly longed for Christ”
ie. claim that the (fore)fathers of the Indians were willing/eager converts, as vs. being coerced into converting.
@CadicusTheDamned, #101:
Actually, that’s not an idiom, but a wrong translation. :P
The sentence should be more like: “How can someone like you stand before the Indians and claim their fathers craved Christ in silence.”.
“No, I was carrying on from your last thread here were you said that desecrating the eucharist was a personal attack on all Catholics.”
I notice that you failed to comment upon his calling Catholics ‘haters.’ Remarks like this, which are littered throughout this blog — and which are obviously not directed at beliefs alone — support my previous contention, and vitiate yours. After all, we were talking about ‘intention’; surely, comments such as the one I quoted in #103 do nothing to help your contention with respect to PZ’s intentions (which we can never have direct access to, and which we must infer from the data, including circumstantial data such as this) while adding support to my contention (which was only that it is reasonable to interpret his act as bigoted).
…And got beaten to it, too…
Anti-intellectualism is the catholicism of the anti-Semite.
(Note: Lowercase “catholicism”, used in the sense of “universally-held belief”.)
[Well justified] remarks like this, which are littered throughout this blog
there, fixed.
tom #107 Scientists invented the Atomic Bomb … it is through Jesus that we are all saved, yes, even you.
Fuck your Jesus if he couldn’t get off his lazy ass and keep a 100,000 Japanese civilians, men, women and children, from being obliterating. Fuck his salvation if it won’t stop infants from dying painfully of radiation burns.
Fucking useless piece-of-shit god worried about the afterlife, while he creates humans to suffer.
Jesus has killed billion because he’s too fucking narcissistic to do anything than demand worship. At least Feynmann was just a naive and irresponsible young person – your god should know better. Your Jesus/Yahweh creep makes Hitler look like a sweet guy – at least some level of human ignorance is attributable to the latter.
Nah, we don’t need Jesus to save us. Jesus needs us to save him, teach him a bit about morality and responsibility.
Leaving you early tonight. I have two wash tubs full of cukes and dill. The spiced vinegar is ready too – so in the morning it’s pickle making day.
You can throw ol’ Pigsfeet Pete over the fence if you want him pickled too. But slice him down into five gallon crock sized pieces. Special orders for Pete or Lluraa pickled with beets, green beans, corn or eggs will not be taken.
Good night sweethearts!
Eric, you came in with a conclusion and tried to find some rhetoric that would get us to agree with your conclusion. You are still trying. Didn’t happen then, won’t happen now.
I find fatwa envy hilarious, considering that I know many Christians who hate on all of Islam for being “radical.”
Nerd of Redhead, and you’re obviously still not getting the importance of the whole ‘presenting an argument’ thingy.
Silly people. Don’t you realize Christians have an Absolute Moral Code and thus never hurt anyone?
Eric, you aren’t getting the fact that your premise is wrong.
#118 Rev:
Thanks for that. I hadn’t heard of this phrase, or the James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher one. It was a great little excursion into Wikipedia and back, and well worth it.
Catholicism is the Semitism of the anti-intellectual.
No, you fool. You contended that the attack on the eucharist was clearly aimed at all Catholics, which is nothing of the sort. Him calling them haters now is irrelevant to his actions then. He’s received thousands of pieces of hate mail, several deaeth threats and had a campaign run against him to get him fired.
Though even with that now, I can call Catholics a bunch of racist deathcultists, yet it still won’t make a bit of difference to me destroying a eucharist. It’s not an attack on all catholics, it never was, it never will be. It’s just personal indignation ascertaining the moral high-ground. Eric, whether PZ hates catholics or not doesn’t make your point any more right or wrong. You’ve made a logical fallacy, why don’t you have the intellectual honesty to acknowledge it?
Best joke of the thread! s1mplex for the win!!
Science also made the singing Billy Bass possible.
Fucking science.
I thought AMC was a movie theater. They don’t have much of a “code” per se, but they do have Raisinets.
The point is, we are all failed humans,
This is the essential misanthropic premise of christianity and several other popular superstitions: that we all are evil, and must beg for forgiveness from the entity that, when you get right down to it, is responsible for everything, including evil itself.
Well Tom,
I reject your premise, and I don’t seek forgiveness for imperfection.
-jcr
Oh and to comment on the “Catholic haters”, clearly it’s contextualised by the references to muslims in terms of fatwa envy. Way to quotemine the blog there Eric, surely you can see that it’s in reference to all those people who use muslims as a foil for their own personal incredulity. But no, just quotemine it and use it to back your logically flawed point.
In other news, an Italian comedienne made a mild joke about the pope and is facing possible prison time. There’s a law against it in Italy. I guess they don’t like their women getting uppity. Too bad suppressing evidence of child rape isn’t treated that seriously. Instead, it’s official Church policy.
Eric? Um, presenting an argument? You’re doing it wrong.
Actually the machine gun was invented by a lawyer. The military use of poison gas predates the modern scientific method (and so, scientists) by about eighteen centuries. The tank was the product of engineers. Shall I continue or will we just agree that you’re talking out of your ass about things you ignorantly consider “sciency”?
I mean, “scientists invented trench warfare”, does that even sound slightly reasonable to you?
Further, science doesn’t pretend to be an ethical system and is therefore not subject to the same criticism as religion (which does pretend to be not only an ethical system but the basis of all ethical systems).
I mean, “scientists invented trench warfare”, does that even sound slightly reasonable to you?
of course it sounds reasonable to HIM.
that’s the crux of the problem, right?
religion allows people to rationalize the completely unreasonable as somehow rational and logical.
Just needed to vent. The problem ain’t that Christians are bad – everybody has fucks ups. The problem is that the Christian gods are just about as evil as the Aztec gods, letting those folks/fucks get off scott-free as they get “forgiven” for just kissing ass to Cthulhu.
The folks at Trinity (what irony) have to come to face their own consciences. But these tom-assholes, they refuse to have a conscience whatsoever. Sweet Jesus, ask forgiveness from me – I wont ask for just a few Hail Marys!
he selectively desecrated a Catholic sacred symbol but not a Muslim one.
He trashed stuff he’d been sent. It’s not PZ’s fault nobody sent him an untranslated Koran. Do you seriously think that religious fanatics are going to worry about little details like that, anyway? A good chunk of the published hate mail didn’t seem to care if that cracker was consecrated, for instance.
Posted by: Ichthyic | September 16, 2008 8:26 PM
“Anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the intellectual” — Buchanan
leave it to the insipid right to ever equate anything they want to attack with Nazism.
I believe the insipid right stole it from the insipid left, who stole it from the socialists and the communists.
Posted by: John C. Randolph | September 16, 2008 10:10 PM
“I don’t know any atheists who try to take away womens’ rights over their own bodies or take rights away from gay people because of what they do in their private lives.”
I don’t know any of them personally, but there have been officially atheist regimes at times who have banned abortion (or made it mandatory), and imprisoned gays.
I would contend that their atheism was orthogonal to those policies, though.
-jcr
Indeed, the common thread is a denial of self-ownership or self-sovereignty, a feature which the most prevalent theologies and the worst tyrannical states share alike.
“You contended that the attack on the eucharist was clearly aimed at all Catholics, which is nothing of the sort.”
No, you’ve forgotten the facts. When I said it was directed at all Catholics, I was responding to an argument which had as its premise that it was directed at all religion. All I did was perform a reductio on the notion that it could be directed at all religion and not at all Catholics.
Remember what I did in fact contend: it was evidence of bigotry.
“Him calling them haters now is irrelevant to his actions then.”
Since this ‘haters’ remark provides me with yet more evidence, it is indeed relevant. You’re getting the claims and the arguments totally confused. It may not be the mark of a fool, though perhaps it’s the mark of a sloppy thought process.
“He’s received thousands of pieces of hate mail, several deaeth threats and had a campaign run against him to get him fired.”
I wonder how much of that hate mail consists simply of the sorts of insults that are bandied about with regularity on this blog, and how much is genuine hate mail (the standards seem to change depending on who’s doing the insulting). Not only that, but how can you verify that each and every piece of mail came from Catholics? How many kids on the web regularly send out the most vile e-mails without understanding the issues, and without caring a bit about the issues? But suppose each e-mail was from a Catholic. Further suppose that there were ten thousand e-mails, each from a unique source. Does it follow that Catholics are haters? Add to that some death threats (how many — will five hundred be fair?) and a campaign by a few highly motivated Catholics to get him fired. I ask again: does it follow that Catholics are haters? You know it doesn’t, just as it doesn’t follow from Muslim violence that Muslims are ‘haters.’
Now, let’s see how this ties in to the fundamental issue: isn’t an essential element of bigotry that one attribute the same negative characteristic to an entire category of people without sufficient evidence? Why, I believe it is. So, we’re left with two conclusions: either it’s reasonable to conclude that PZ’s words and acts could be interpreted as evidence of bigotry, or PZ doesn’t know how to evaluate evidence properly.
Which is it?
Still trying to move the goalposts to your flawed premise. Yawn.
letting those folks/fucks get off scott-free as they get “forgiven” for just kissing ass to Cthulhu.
if by “getting off” you mean “eaten first”, then yeah.
;)
oh, and may you and yours be eaten first!
This seems as good a thread as any to drop this link into:
“Egzorcyzmy Anneliese Michel” – The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel
It’s part one of six, and it’s in polish with really bad subtitles, but I think it’s worth watching to remind us of just how much madness religion can inflict. The documentary chronicles a familys descent into church-abetted insanity from a blood-curdlingly uncritical perspective. It will make your brain hurt.
Yawn.
ditto.
eric->killfile.
ahhh.
“family’s” I shoulda writ. oops.
This has probably been said here many times, but it bears repeating:
The quintessential belief of every religion that claims exclusive knowledge of the supernatural is that every one else is a priori wrong.
What right do followers of such religions have to expect any respect from outsiders?
Icthyic: oh, and may you and yours be eaten first!
Azathoth blotted me out long ago (or tomorrow)… But may Yog-Sototh open the gate for thee!
It seems like there is a lot of wacky Catholic stuff going around. Either that or I’ve become primed to see it.
Just yesterday there was an article in one of the local free papers about how the Catholic church is refusing to allow Catholics who divorced and remarried without getting a religious annulment to take communion. Which, for a Catholic, is like being denied entrance to heaven and they might as well be ex-communicated, or so I hear. However, two paragraphs later they were saying that the Pope has decided that Catholic traditionalists should be allowed to say mass in Latin if they want to, because “Everyone has a place in the church. Every person, without exception, should be able to feel at home and never rejected”.
My first thought was something like, “Hmm… I love a good dose of hypocrisy with my morning coffee…”
Article can be found here: http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/499266
Now can you spot the logical difference between directing something at religion and at the followers of a religion?
He attacked a Catholic tradition, but it’s an attack on Catholicism; not on Catholics. By saying it’s a personal attack on Catholics, that is indeed using it as an excuse to take personal offence. Of course it’s an attack on religion, it’s an attack on the idea that religious belief is above the rights of the of individuals. It is not, however, an attack on the followers of that religion. No matter how you phrase this, you are still using an indiscriminate attack on an idea to take personal offence.
He didn’t say that, you’ve QUOTEMINED him.
I think at this point the Catholics can stop protesting that they are harmless, while Muslims are murderous monsters.
It’s a response to those who have been using the “you wouldn’t attack a muslim sacrament” line of argument. It’s not him saying all catholics are haters, just that Catholics can’t take a moral high-ground over muslims for their reaction.
Posted by: CW | September 16, 2008 10:43 PM
“‘Other great inventions: The machine gun, poison gas, the tank, the proximity fuse, artillery shells, the fighter, the bomber, napalm, barbed wire, hand grenades, automatic weapons, trench warfare, the Blitzkreig, pesticide warfare,anthrax, ricin, nerve gas, dirty bombs,the neutron bomb’
Actually the machine gun was invented by a lawyer. The military use of poison gas predates the modern scientific method (and so, scientists) by about eighteen centuries. The tank was the product of engineers. Shall I continue or will we just agree that you’re talking out of your ass about things you ignorantly consider “sciency”?”
The working definition for “scientist” here seems to be “person successfully manipulating the elements of reality to achieve a goal.” In which case, his argument is in fact iron-clad, since no person who unsuccessfully interacts with reality to achieve the goal of murder actually commits or abets a murder.
My foolproof plan for ending all murder ever: don’t exist!
Not for nothing, but it’s been a couple of days now since they tested the supercollider…
anyone being pestered by any micro-singularities?
er, except for our banks, that is?
You are implying a causal relationship where none exists. That a regime is “officially atheist” does not mean that any particular policy of theirs is derived from atheism.
Can we say the same about “officially religious” regimes?
You are implying a causal relationship where none exists.
yes, he baited you with that line, but qualified it in the end.
he’s tricksy, that one.
;)
Nasikabatrachus,
Bingo. The real danger to humanity is the demand for obedience over individual conscience. What all tyrants have in common is their disregard for individuals, claiming that it’s OK to sacrifice us for the “greater” cause.
Individual psychopaths can kill a handful of people. To murder people on an industrial scale, you need a large group of obedient followers.
-jcr
I did notice 3 of my beers were gone when I go home today.
Though I bet it was the father in law hiding out again.
“He didn’t say that, you’ve QUOTEMINED him. I think at this point the Catholics can stop protesting that they are harmless, while Muslims are murderous monsters.”
Talk about quote-mining!! Try following that up with the next sentence: “The Catholics certainly seem to be louder blusterers and equivalent haters.”
He didn’t say ‘some Catholics,’ but ‘the Catholics.’ He said that they *certainly* seem to be equivalent ‘haters.’ Man, talk about special pleading.
Your biases are exposed, Eric.
Yes, the Catholics are equivalent haters to the Muslims. Do you think all Muslims, or even a majority of Muslims, are haters? All you’ve accomplished here is to equate my impression of many Catholics to your stereotype about all Muslims.
CW,
Read the last line in the post you were complaining about.
My point was, that virtue and religion (or atheism) aren’t necessarily bound together.
-jcr
It was context. Does he have to write out “Now not all muslims are terrorists and this kind of stereotyping is wrong. Rather the stereotypical reaction people use as a fear response in order to push for conformity to their views (in this case, it’s Catholic guilt) is quite abhorred. It’s with that the reaction of some Catholics are the equivalent to the muslims and any claims pertaining to fatwa envy are just showing the same nature of fear.”? I shouldn’t think so because anyone with half a brain should be able to read that paragraph and draw out that obvious conclusion.
He’s not sating Catholics are haters any more than Muslims are violent. He’s commenting on the perception in the community and the reaction that’s happening. It’s out of context, it’s a quotemine.
Shorter Eric,
– I contend with bigotous certainty that my evaluation of events and facts is a certain contention of bigotry* evaluated certainly which no one can counter-factually contend. Ever.
*Except I never learned that intolerance of violence and vile musings isn’t the same as unprovoked intolerance. I just like the word. Makes me feel superior.
@ Zetetic
“there was an article in one of the local free papers about how the Catholic church is refusing to allow Catholics who divorced and remarried without getting a religious annulment to take communion”
This is something that has not been changed in centuries. Nothing new, except that each day more catholic do not care about it.
A religious annulment is something very hard to get. It must be shown that the previous marriage was not acomplished… which ussually results in some of the silliest legal arguments that have existed.. or to pay enough in the right (uhhh) hands.
While always there are extremist, most catholics i know do not care… and some of the jokes about jesus told today in Mexico (by catholics) , would have warrantly a painfull death some centuries ago…
“Now can you spot the logical difference between directing something at religion and at the followers of a religion?”
As I said before, it depends. If I say that belief x is ridiculous, am I not necessarily saying at least about people who believe x? From ‘belief x is ridiculous’ we can deduce, ‘If S believes x, S has at least one belief that’s ridiculous.’ Now, let’s further suppose that belief x is extremely important to S; indeed, suppose that belief x is, both directly and through ties to other beliefs, at the very heart of S’s view of the world. Now, it follows that ‘If S believes x, and if x is at the heart of S’s view of the world, and if x is ridiculous, then it follows that the center of S’s view of the world is ridiculous.’ It gets worse, however. When you say, ‘It’s just a such and such!’ you’re clearly supposing that it’s *obvious* that it’s just a such and such. So, now we get, ‘If S believes x, and if x is at the heart of S’s view of the world, and if x is not just ridiculous, but obviously ridiculous, then the center of S’s view of the world is obviously ridiculous.’ Now, do you honestly think that you can say something about ‘obviously ridiculous central belief x’ while implying nothing about those who hold this belief? I haven’t even gotten in to the notion that belief x is in addition harmful, in which case it would be central, obviously ridiculous and harmful. Now we’re clearly not just confining ourselves to a discussion about beliefs. When you add this the ‘haters’ remark, and countless others, there’s a very strong cumulative case to be made in favor of bigotry.
“If I say that belief x is ridiculous, am I not necessarily saying at least *one thing* about people who believe x?”
A religious annulment is something very hard to get.
Indeed.
IIRC, wasn’t that one of the primary motivations for a certain King of old to form the Anglican church?
There’s no possible way that “the Catholics” meant in–yanno–context, the subset of Catholics PZ had been discussing throughout the post, right?
Pete Rooke @ # 4: Anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the intellectual – Buchanan [Motormouth Pat B, I assume]
So if the Culture Warrior ever reaches “intellectual” status, he’ll switch to anti-Catholicism?
Jim Harrison @ # 69: Weren’t the Gordon Riots June 4-9, 1780?
Sure enough, but the last line of my post stands.
“All you’ve accomplished here is to equate my impression of many Catholics to your stereotype about all Muslims.”
This is blatantly false. Read what I wrote above (post #151):
“You know it doesn’t, just as it *doesn’t* follow from Muslim violence that Muslims are ‘haters.'”
Note, I said it *doesn’t* follow from Muslim violence that all Muslims are haters.
So, what exactly is my ‘stereotype’ about all Muslims?
I will also note that you didn’t initially say ‘many Catholics,’ but ‘the Catholics.’
So you do support bigotry, eh?
Then, what’s the problem?
My opinion is that S belief in x (which is central to his world view) is ridiculous or harmful
It is not bigotry to think the person holding such views is wrong, ignorant, ridiculous, stupid or even dangerous. I can still tolerate the person and be harshly critical of their worldview.
If what you are suggesting is true, I can’t comment on any opinion in fear that I am directly being a bigot.
Bad logic eric.
@frog
“The problem is that the Christian gods are just about as evil as the Aztec gods”
mhh.. Sounds strange, may i say better that “gods” are not evil. (after all, they do not exists), but are created to satify some necesities.
The gods of the nahua panteon were reformed by the mexica in order to have a strong state.
Most of the dogmas created by the church to suport a central power. Ussually the pope and the goverments that suport the pope.
Probably to understand religions, we must relay more in Maquiavelo, than in theology…
I’ll make this personal so I’m not being indiscriminate and I’ll pick on the beliefs of someone that I love. My Mum is into all that new age bullcrap. Watches John Edward, goes to psychics, performs meditations, she’s even a spiritual healer. As you can probably tell, I’m an empirical rationalist so all that stuff drives me crazy. Now when I comment on how rediculous psychics are, is it an insult to my Mum even though she strongly believes in it? Of course not. Just as it’s not an attack on her to deride the practice of spiritual healing. She holds her convictions about the duality of life just as strong as any Christian I’ve met (even more so), but it’s never a personal insult to her when I criticise said beliefs.
She could take offence to that, but it’s a different issue. Just because she can find it insulting, doesn’t mean that it’s meant to be insulting to her. Just as I could attack the practice of alternative medicine, it’s not an attack on her despite her using it at times (she thankfully uses real medication for most things), but that wouldn’t be attacking her.
There’s no personal malice in it at all, just as there is no personal malice in destroying a catholic belief towards catholics. You are just looking for excuses to keep your personal indignation.
Rev, that’s not what I said. The point of post #173 is that it’s not that easy to distinguish ‘the belief’ from ‘the believer’ in cases similar to the one I laid out.
Ryan, yes, that was poorly put. Shame on me!
Nanahuatzin @ 172
Yeah, the Catholic church has always held that opinion regarding divorce and re-marriage. (Which is why so many people have been trapped in loveless and abusive marriages over the centuries.) I am merely pointing out the hypocrisy of on one hand rejecting certain Catholics and denying them fellowship while on the other hand saying that no one should feel rejected. Of course, since they reject a lot of people – homosexuals being the obvious example – the hypocrisy would exist in any case.
You didn’t answer the question.
You’re just making excuses.
I contend that the facts show you clearly want people to support bigotry, and since belief is not easily removed from the believer, that clearly makes you a bigot.
This is why you need to read context.
I think at this point the Catholics can stop protesting that they are harmless, while Muslims are murderous monsters. The Catholics certainly seem to be louder blusterers and equivalent haters.
Because the final sentence (the one you are getting up in arms over) follows on from the previous sentence, the inferrences you make about the final sentence must be applied to the previous sentence.
Eric you have no clue. So many here are trying to give you one, but you’ll need to get off your high horse to claim it.
Kel, as I’ve said before, I have no problem with criticism. I want more debate, more criticism, more discourse, not less. But I also want us to be clear about the implications of what we say. As I said, if a belief is ridiculous, and someone holds that belief, it at the very least follows that that person holds a ridiculous belief. Now, there’s nothing wrong with pointing that out, and there’s nothing wrong with pointing it out vigorously, or even derisively. That’s not the point. This is where you’re mixing the arguments up again. The only point here is that it’s not as simple as you suggest to separate ‘criticism of the belief’ with ‘criticism of the person holding the belief.’ Still, there’s nothing wrong with such a criticism: if someone obstinately holds an obviously ridiculous belief, you may be warranted in concluding that he’s not very bright, and thus moving from his belief to his qualities or attributes. The problem arises when you make the move from one person to a category of people, and when the move is unjustified. This is where we get, minimally, to ‘evidence’ of bigotry. Again, there are a variety of arguments at play here, and you seem to be confusing and conflating them.
Yes, but so what? EVERYONE holds rediculous beliefs. It doesn’t mean attacking the beliefs should be considered a personal attack on all those who hold the belief. That’s the point, and it’s a simple point you are failing to grasp.
“I contend that the facts show you clearly want people to support bigotry, and since belief is not easily removed from the believer, that clearly makes you a bigot.”
Nonsense. That’s simply a non sequitur. Whether it’s ‘bigotry’ or not depends on the nature of the belief, and not on the relationship between beliefs and those who hold them. As I said, if you say anything about belief x — say, that it’s ‘silly’ — you’re necessarily saying, at the very least, that whoever holds belief x holds at least one silly belief. Now, this bare bones relationship between beliefs and those who hold them in no way entails the bigotry you assert it does.
I’m sorry eric but it is. Maybe not to people who hold those beliefs so strongly but it’s easy. My brother in law is a ultra right wing catholic with whom I can not under any circumstances get into political or religious discussion because they usually turn out bad. I’m talking Bill Donohue style insanity to the point that it is an unwritten rule that no topics of the sort are brought up around him when we all get together for family gatherings. He is one of the people you could be describing above.
I fucking hate his options and his beliefs to the point of anger when I get into it with him.
But I love hanging out with the guy as long as we do not talk about those things. We play golf, drink, watch sports shoot the shit. He’s a great guy aside from his fantastically stupid and ridiculous beliefs.
I can separate him from his worldview, in part because his actions mostly keep him in the tolerable range. Now if he started imposing some antiquated view on his wife (my sister) that would change. When his actions based on his religion start to cause harm, it is a problem. That’s when the line from hating a belief to hating an individual with a belief is crossed.
Actions matter. If someone is a crazy terrorist who uses his religion to justify terrible deeds, it’s gone beyond just holding a belief. It is directly acting on those beliefs to harm others. Same with the insanity displayed by the Catholics who overreacted well beyond a measured response to the Cook and then Myers crackergate incident.
I don’t hate Catholics. I find their beliefs frankly unhinged and childish but I’d go have a beer with anyone that seems like an interesting or fun person to hang out with. That doesn’t change my opinion that they are off the deep end in some of the stuff they believe in.
My thinking they are off the deep end but tolerating them is in no way bigotry. It’s called holding an opinion.
Eric @ # 173: Now, do you honestly think that you can say something about ‘obviously ridiculous central belief x’ while implying nothing about those who hold this belief? I haven’t even gotten in to the notion that belief x is in addition harmful, in which case it would be central, obviously ridiculous and harmful. … there’s a very strong cumulative case to be made in favor of bigotry.
Only if the central belief x is not demonstrably ridiculous and harmful – which, in present context, is itself ridiculous (and harmful, to the standing and reputation of the person making the above claim).
As I said, I contend that the relationships of your one ‘silly’ belief (that a strong case can be made for bigotry) to your other beliefs shows that you are replying with repetition alone and cannot support anything other than a contention of relation of beliefs which can also be worded thusly as a belief in the relation of beliefs which is a very interesting theory that is very interesting to you because it is yours.
“Yes, but so what? EVERYONE holds rediculous beliefs. It doesn’t mean attacking the beliefs should be considered a personal attack on all those who hold the belief. That’s the point, and it’s a simple point you are failing to grasp.”
No, you’re getting the arguments mixed up again.
1. There’s the argument that shows the minimal relationship between a belief and anyone who holds it. This is the one you’re focusing on here.
2. Then there’s the argument that shows that as the beliefs we’re discussing get closer to the heart of a person’s view of the world, the tie between the belief and the believer gets closer.
3. Then there’s the argument about the nature of those central beliefs. As they get more obviously false, and more potentially dangerous, the relationship between the belief and the believer overlaps even more.
4. Then there’s the argument about the nature of a belief, and whether it is directed at a category of people without sufficient warrant.
5. Then there’s the argument that when you’re criticizing a belief of the type described in 2 (i.e. it’s central), and saying that it has obvious characteristics of the type described in 3 (i.e. it’s obviously false and potentially dangerous), and then move *without adequate justification* to 4 (that everyone who holds this belief has some negative characteristic or attribute), you’re at least providing evidence of bigotry.
Zetetic @ 185
sight….
you are right, my point is rather that slowly, the Catholic church is becoming obsolete for most chatolics.
Of course on one hand we have extremist groups, in Mexico we have “el yunque” (an extreme right movement that trys to get into the goverment) and in other we have “catolicas por el derecho a decidir” a pro choice catholic group.
Last year abortion laws were upheld in the capital city. The church said that all the congresmen that upheld the law, were ex-communicated.
Guess what.. nobody cared.. Times (slowly) are changing
I’m going to bed, I’ve got a bunch of meeting bullshit tomorrow afternoon I need to prepare for in the Morning. I’ll pick up at some point tomorrow..
Here’s a smoother translation:
Chorus:
Man, Benedict, I would like to walk a while with you,
Because I have two or three questions and much I don’t understand:
You are the head of one of the churches; you belong to the Christianity;
Now I ask myself what the following have to do with Christ?
You were with the Indians in Latin America;
You know the history of the missions and the megalomania of the Christians.
How can someone like you stand there before the Indians
And say their fathers quietly desired Christ?
Why do you defame other Christians? Why you look for open conflict and say:
“You’re no church, because you are incorrect?”
He who throws stones in a glass house soon ends up in a sea of broken glass,
And many Catholics do not agree with this style anymore.
(Chorus)
You forbid the condoms even to the poor of this world,
Thereby promoting the spread of AIDS, even if that does not please you.
And meanwhile you got rid of Limbo for unbaptized babies –
Before that, did you seriously believe that the Lord God had such a place?
Bridge:
And then we poor laymen, who hardly understand anything as it is,
Are shortly going to start hearing Latin when we go to mass.
Jesus said: “The kingdom of God on earth is at hand!”
“Only the churches unfortunately came along” and the fight for power began.
That priest, who said that, was excommunicated,
Because they don’t like to be unmasked in Rome or anywhere else.
(Chorus)
#123 & #124:
I emailed the correction to my buddy. There may be egg on his face.
Still, it would have been funnier if the Pope had called the Indians fat. Instead, he tells them that a cracker and wine are the blood and flesh of a god. That’s actually a bit more absurd.
I meant “belong to Christianity”, not “belong to the Christianity”.
Eric,
Here’s how I think you are missing the point:
You can tell me my ideas and beliefs (or lack thereof) are bad or wrong. I can then think about what you’ve said and (here’s the important part) choose whether or not I want to retain or discard those ideas.
Bigotry, on the other hand, is you pointing out there’s something bad or wrong with some quality about myself – race or sexual orientation, for example – something which I have (once again, the important part) no choice whether I retain or discard.
You can argue PZ’s mean, horrible, nasty, insulting and unpleasant in his generalisations about catholics and other religious believers. But none of those things a bigot makes. All the sophistry in the world isn’t going to change that.
They’ve been going after Dario Fo for decades.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles_of_faith/2008/09/dario_fo_and_th.html
(Note to Bostonians: Fo play currently being performed in Cambridge.)
*headdesk*
You are dead wrong on this. There’s still a gaping difference between attacking a belief and attacking those who hold a belief. You say you want a debate, but it’s impossible to have a debate with someone who is tying their person in with the subject at hand. Quite simply, you are trying to maintain the moral highground and that is not a method to debate. Remove yourself from the offensive material if you want to engage others about it.
Again, no. Attacking the belief still has nothing to do with those who hold it. You are still very wrong.
Eric, your posts are the equivalent of a logical abortion. You are just trying to justify your personal indignation and giving yourself an excuse to take personal offence at PZ’s behaviour. Just another unforgiving hypocrite. Does the bible not say to bless those who curse you, to love those who wronged you? So forgive PZ and begone for that’s what the J-Man instructed.
Eric, your posts are the equivalent of a logical abortion.
perfect.
Wow @ 200
Have you heard Julia Sweeny’s letting go of God CD? It is wonderful stuff, she’s the ultimate slow learner having tried every flavor of woo available befaor arriving a Occam’s Razor, with us.
.
When she was staying with real Buddhists, who live next to the Scotsman in India, they were caring for a horribly deformed young child in some sort of Buddhist Charity Hospital.
She commented on the terrible state of the poor child, but her Buddhist co-worker stated simply’ He must have done something terrible in a former life to come back like That
That stuck in my head because it’s funny, but is also a cosmic trump of any misfortune one may have no control of, it is bigotry elevated to a fundamental underpinning of a belief system, and here we thought those Buddhists were so mellow.
Richard Gere maybe, the rank and file in the hood, apparently not.
Has Ichthyic posted this lately?:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/07/desecration_its_a_fun_hobby.php
When I was at school I was in a punk metal band, we had a song that went like this:
Nothing’s going well at the Vatican
The Arch-Bishop’s dead and the Pope’s got a gun
A thousand people there and only three alive
Aint it bout time someone realised
The Pope’s on dope
The Pope’s on dope
The Pope’s a c**t
Now THAT was a rebuke. (Albeit a made-up, totally fictitious one. Obviously.)
I just had an idea.
The Catholic Church is a hierarchically ordered business in a way, and they are based in Rome. If child abuse (rape) is occurring in American churches (or anywhere else in the world) and the “chain of command” is complicit in covering up the abuses, then at least an investigation by Interpol of an international pedophile ring should be started.
DJ@207
Bill Maher touched on that when he said that if the head of a multinational corporation was found to have covered up pedophilia, the reaction would have been very different indeed.
Holy Father?
Holy?
…
… Father?
…
…
Fuhrer?
Well at least they haven’t made threats against Bittlinger’s man-boobs.
The lyrics to “Mensch, Benedikt” can be found on
http://www.sound7.de/article.php?channel=37&article=6092
I don’t seem to be able to paste them.
The translation in comment #99 isn’t bad (it’s pretty good actually). I think the 8th line should read: “and claim their forefathers had quietly yearned for Christ”
Vorhoelle is Limbo (Julius Caesar would be there because he was BCE, Brutus would be in Hell because killing a ruler is a sin regardless) not Purgatory (I should know, I did manage to get through the first volume of Dante’s Divine Comedy. The 2nd volume Purgatory seemed tedious. I hope there isn’t a “Paradise”. By extrapolation, spending an eternity there would be dreadful.”
Via Andrew Sullivan, see this story about a comediene that’s facing jail time for insulting the pope: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/09/11/italian-comedienne-faces-possible-prosecution-for-insulting-pope/
Christianity looks more and more like Islam every day.
Wish I knew what he was saying.
I’ve corrected the translation appearing in #99 a bit:
Man Benedict, I would love to walk a while with you
I’d have a few questions and a lot I haven’t understood
You are boss of one of the churches, you belong to christianity
So now I’m wondering, what do the following have to do with christ:
You were indeed with the indians in latin america
You know the missions’ history, and the christian megalomania
how can someone like you stand in front of the indians
and claim they’re fathers yearned silently for Jesus
why do you hurt other christians, why do you openly search for a fight
and say “you are not a church, because you are faulty”
who throws stones in a glass house, ends swiftly in a sea of shards
and indeed many catholics don’t cover this stile anymore
Man Benedict, I would love to walk a while with you
I’d have a few questions and a lot I haven’t understood
You are boss of one of the churches, you belong to christianity
So now I’m wondering, what do the following have to do with christ:
you forbid condoms to the poor people of the world
spreading aids in the world, even though you don’t like that either
meanwhile you abolish the limbo for unbaptized babies
did you really believe, that god had something like this?
and because we poor laity anyway don’t understand much
will we hear latin when we go to mass
Man Benedict, I would love to walk a while with you
I’d have a few questions and a lot I haven’t understood
You are boss of one of the churches, you belong to christianity
So now I’m wondering, what do the following have to do with christ:
jesus said the kingdom of heaven would soon appear
Unfortunately all we got was churches, and the fight for power begun
any priest that admits this got excommunicated
and in rome and elsewhere, nobody likes to be exposed
Man Benedict, I would love to walk a while with you
I’d have a few questions and a lot I haven’t understood
You are boss of one of the churches, you belong to christianity
Please tell me, how have things like this and more anything common with christ?
I was raised a catholic and have long since broken all personal ties with the church and religion in general. I continue to find it oh so surprising that the people that I’ve always seen as belonging to the most apathetic brance of christianity out there can get so worked up! Where do these psychos come from? Most of the other kids that went through my communion and confirmation classes with me claim to be atheist now as well. I was alwas so sure catholicism was on the way out and I fing hte animosity the responded to these events utterly surprising…
Since this is ScienceBlogs … can I say something positive about the Catholic church – AND science related??
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0804713.htm
EXPELLED! ;-)
Back OT … IMO crazy people are just crazy. People from any religion are capable of making death threats.
> and claim they’re fat if christ had been silently standing > there
## 99, 101
its “Väter” = fathers, not “fett” = fat
the translation should be:
How can someone like you stand before the Indians
and claim that their fathers (= their precolumbian ancestors)
had been silently waiting for Christus (to come to them)
“The problem arises when you make the move from one person to a category of people, and when the move is unjustified.” – eric
Catholics are not a category of people, they are members of a political organization. When you join an organization you are responsible for the actions of that organization, at least to the extent that you are responsible for supporting their ongoing campaigns. This isn’t the case with atheists, or people of various skin colours, or short people, or mouth-breathers, or even non-sectarian believers, or any other category of people who aren’t able to chose to be otherwise.
When is it unjustified to hold Catholics responsible for the actions of the Catholic church? Never. It’s always justified. The only issue is sentencing. In this case, I think condemnation is a pretty lenient sentence.
Now, if the Enlightenment- based on secular principles-never happened, does anyone think we would be even be half as advanced as we are ? The canard that Christianity is the basis of modern science is tiring. Look at this Middle age rhetoric.
“Eric,
Here’s how I think you are missing the point:
You can tell me my ideas and beliefs (or lack thereof) are bad or wrong. I can then think about what you’ve said and (here’s the important part) choose whether or not I want to retain or discard those ideas.
Bigotry, on the other hand, is you pointing out there’s something bad or wrong with some quality about myself – race or sexual orientation, for example – something which I have (once again, the important part) no choice whether I retain or discard.”
Wowbagger, I only have a moment, so I’ll be very brief. Given your premises, it follows that atheists can never be subjected to bigotry (since atheism is either believing that there is no god, or not believing that there is a god). This seems to me to be absurd. How many of you called George H. W. Bush a bigot when he said that atheists cannot be good citizens (roughly)? However, atheism isn’t ‘a quality about yourself about which you have no choice.’ Again, it follows from your premises that atheists, qua atheists, can never be subjected to bigotry. Doesn’t this strike you as ridiculous?
Patricia #105 – just come across your post. Thanks for remembering me! (You can call me Elwood)
This is the text of my original post, complete with BBC link.
Nobody has successfully rebutted that post yet, and I’m not holding my breath. Good old “Fr.J” had a half-hearted stab at it, but then buggered off before I had a chance to cross-examine him, showing what a coward he really was.
Good morning Elwood! Thanks for scrolling along long enough to find the question. I had totally forgotten it was yourself that made that wonderful quote. My memory is like a steel trap with a broken spring.
I think Fr. J was a fraud as well as a coward. Thanks for the answer! ;o)
Hi Patricia. (It’s early evening here in the UK!)
I don’t know how anybody can keep up with all the posts here. I’m already spending far too much of my time trying to read them all.
I wonder if Llauraa or any of her sightly differently spelt doppelgangers are around at the moment; maybe one of them would like to have a stab at my comment?
The problem here is that, in your zeal to make the accusation of bigotry stick, you’ve set the bar so low as to remove all meaning from that term, to the point where any difference of opinion could be evidence of bigotry.
If I am an A’s fan, and I say “the Giants suck,” am I not necessarily saying at least one thing about Giant’s fans? From ‘baseball team x sucks’ we can deduce ‘if G roots for x, G necessarily holds in esteem an organization that sucks.’ Now lets further suppose that Giants fandom is very important to G (season tickets, banners all over the place, exclusiively orange and black wardrobe). Now, it follows that ‘If G roots for x, and if x is at the heart of G’s view of the world, and if x sucks, then it follows that the center of G’s view of the world sucks.’ It gets worse, however. When you say, ‘They suck!’ you’re clearly supposing that it’s *obvious* that they suck. So, now we get, ‘If G roots for x, and if x is at the heart of G’s view of the world, and if x doesn’t just suck, but obviously sucks, then the center of G’s view of the world obviously sucks.’ Now, do you honestly think that you can say something about ‘obviously sucky baseball team x’ while implying nothing about the fans of that team?
eric you’re really not helping your argument with that. Bush was being incredible ignorant but I wouldn’t call that bigotry.
He was the most powerful man in the world at the time and says we can’t be citizens or patriots two things that have 100% nothing to do with a belief in god. The fact he follows up with “this is one nation under god” further demonstrates his ignorance. That is not bigotry, that is stupidity.
Eric,
I’ll fill in here for MAJeff:
Shorter Eric: blah blahblah blah blah blah blahblah
Tom at #107:
Spare me from your supercilious sanctimony. I am not a failed human; I am a regulation standard human. Jesus is an invented character who never existed. And no, I do not need saving except from arrogant sky-pixiests like you. Oh, and BTW, that “original sin,” invented by that nasty piece of work Augustine, has got to rank as one of the most demented, perverted, evil doctrines ever invented in the mind of man. So be a good little god-whore: Fuck off and die – preferably in a gutter somewhere.
I would have to say that the two are by no means mutually exclusive. In fact, the former would necessitate the latter.
I don’t disagree. Bu that still doesn’t make what Bush said bigotry.
Apparently, PZ himself disagrees with the notion that bigotry can only be directed toward unchosen characteristics:
“Now here’s a problem: MySpace is run by religious bigots. They selectively censor atheist groups wholesale; this makes me rather dislike the place.”
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/01/should_i_go_or_should_i_stay.php#more
Atheism isn’t an unchangeable characteristic, yet PZ clearly calls the religious people running MySpace ‘bigots.’ Seems as if PZ agrees with me on this one.
“Insane but familiar.”
Kinda describes clerics in general, PZ.
“All great truths begin as blasphemies”
~George Bernard Shaw
Did anybody look at the info to the video? It says there
“Clemens Bittlinger hat diesen Song am 22. Mai 2008 beim Deutschen Katholikentag in Osnabrück erstmalig live präsentiert! Die Konzert-Besucher zeigten sich begeistert und spendeten Standing Ovations. ”
Which I translate (somewhat freely but in spirit) to
“Clemens B. sang this song live on May 22, 2008 at the annual gathering of German Catholics in Osnabrueck. The visitors loved it and gave a standing ovation”
So the German Catholic masses who make it to such a gathering – presumably at least somewhat proud and firm in their beliefs – LIKE the song and the message.
Ah, the argumentum ad armas nucleares again.
“If you want to do evil, science provides the most powerful weapons to do evil; but equally, if you want to do good, science puts into your hands the most powerful tools to do so. The trick is to want the right things, then science will provide you with the most effective methods of achieving them.”
— Richard Dawkins
The problem isn’t Robert Oppenheimer who figured out how to build nukes. The problem are McPain/Failin — who want to use nukes.