It’s happened: craven YouTube has pulled all of the eucharist desecration videos. Click on one and you’ll just get the message, “This video has been removed due to terms of use violation.” FSMdude’s account has also been suspended. There is no description of what rule was violated; I guess we must presume that YouTube is now in the business of defending religious dogma.
Catholicism seems to breed natural censors and cowards, doesn’t it?
We need a Eucharist challenge like the one the RRS did recently.
You could always put it up on Rapidshare.com… since YOU own the copyright, no one else would have the right to try having it removed. It might be worth a try.
I do hope that YouTube is fair and pulls every video that is critical of any religion.
Wow, that’s appalling. I was afraid they might do it, but I thought that was an irrational fear. I bit like my fear of leaning on unlocked car doors.
Very, very annoying.
Maybe they will replace it with some of the lovely and “insightful” shit on GodTube.
I guess I am going to have to start complaining about how offended I am about all the religious crap I see there. There is so much of it, where to begin?
I am deeply offended by YouTube’s capitulation to the crybabies.
Let’s see, what’s my congressman’s phone number . . . oh, he’s Catholic. Never mind.
I think it’s time we started a campaign of identifying all the videos we find offensive.
Like, I don’t know, every single one.
Maybe they will replace it with some of the lovely and “insightful” shit on GodTube.
Those puling, despicable cowards! Surely there’s worse things in their collection.
A bit* (preview, girl. Preview)
Now I must go and send an angry email to Youtube about all those religious videos. (Except the Pastafarian ones, obviously. I have a right to be as biased as the rest of them, don’t I?)
here in germany it is still available – there is no problem.
Now, now. It offended someone. It had to go… Surely, on this principle, I can now count on the television networks of the world taking all the televangelists off the air… Hell, the way they dress is offensive, never mind what they’re actually saying and doing…
Oh. And every preacher that ever called secular humanism an evil. Oh, especially the current pope. Gone. Shut ’em up. Offensive. Oh yeah, and all mullahs who’ve said anything remotely similar. I’m offended. They can zip it, too…
Yep. We’re making a better world here…
Presumably the rule it was held to break was hate speech. It didn’t break that rule (unless damaging ANY kind of object is attacking or demeaning fans of that object) but that’s the only one I can even imagine an argument being made for.
Probably this rule: “We encourage free speech and defend everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view. But we don’t permit hate speech (speech which attacks or demeans a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity).”
I don’t buy their interpretation of their own rule, but it is not hard to see why they yanked it under this proviso.
Brian
P.S.
The predictable responses to this will be cheerfully ignored.
I heard that the reason it was banned was because a packet of wafers objected to being referred to as Christian, and if I were a wafer, I’d feel exactly the same.
Queequeg ,
No, they are going after religious videos too, at least some. They pulled the creepy, cult-like “Obama youth singing for Glorious Leader” Praise and Worship video.
I’m really annoyed because I took out time to write them over the eucharist desecration, & thank them for keeping the videos.
Does anyone know who there has the say on applying censorship, & what their email address is? If so, maybe we could Pharyngulize them.
You know, as ridiculous as I find the whole idea of transubstantiation, and the desecration of these crackers, the constant public harping on this inanity is hardly going to help with the dialog between scientist and religios. This is going to get worse before it gets better if people’s beliefs are constantly being attacked by atheists. The same goes for the ridiculous war of words between the political right and left. This pissing contest has turned a silly situation into a farce.
I’m not sure what we as atheists hope to accomplish by constantly attacking people’s beliefs. They are their beliefs and they are entitled to them, the same as we are entitled to our non-belief. If I were you, I think I would declare a truce and try to engage some reasonable catholics in dialogue and agree to disagree on the issue.
The funny thing is every believer who partakes of a Krispy Korpus™ dumps it out the other end eventually. How’s that for desecration?
I was up in Cape Cod over the weekend (so was Hurricane Kyle), had a nice big bowl o’ chowdah, and I started worrying that one of the oyster crackers I so rashly dunked might have been Ineffably Holy or something, and that some incensed Catholic was going to demand that my soup be censored. It didn’t happen, but What If???????
This seems to be the one:
J. YouTube reserves the right to discontinue any aspect of the YouTube Website at any time.
They also have something about hate speech that *may* be applicable depending on what was said in the videos. But if they pulled all of the host desecration videos, I doubt that applies to all of them…
Jacques (#19): Your concern is noted.
Colour me intrigued… What do you think will happen?
I think we need to follow the “christian value” of an eye for an eye…..someone neeeds to pick uout a selection of pro-catholic videos on you tube, list them on here, so we can “pharyngulize” them and get them removed too. Seems like a fair response to me.
Rog
Jacques, They are their beliefs and they are entitled to them…
You’re missing the point. The religious nutjobs want to inflict their crazy god-bothering on everyone else. They want to take away some fairly basic human rights that we’ve achieved.
The problem is that YouTube is beholden to no one in the public. It is a private enterprise whose purpose is not to be a medium for any form of public debate. It’s a way for its owners to make money. It’s been MSM’ed.
If we want to have a real public debate, then I seriously think that places like Youtube, by virtue of their size and the role they play in public discourse, should be considered “common carriers” and their ability to decide what gets on and what gets booted off should be in the hands of an ombudsman who is unaffiliated with YouTube. The criteria upon which what gets taken off should be well documented, and all decisions to remove anything should be well documented and transparent, and should cite the specific transgression. And, of course, it should be open to appeal.
Inefficient? Ya. But what we see happening here is the alternative. YouTube asked to be the global go-to place for video sharing. They can’t still think they should be able to behave like they’re just a fringe pop-culture service.
See what happens when you mess with Jesus H. Cracker?
Anyway, I guess YouTurd has a new policy against harming snackfoods.
And in a somewhat related note; Facebook just hired one of Alberto Gonzales’ fixers as their general counsel. Now that’s a heckuva hiring.
OT except that it’s relevant to religious censorship. The office of publisher Gibson House, which is also the home of its owner Martin Rynja, has been firebombed. Gibson House is about to publish The Jewel of Medina in the UK. Fortunately no-one was hurt, and damage was limited. Three people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act. I wasn’t intending to buy the novel, but I will now.
I am on some a hell of a lot of Catholic e-newsletters (I… am not exactly sure why, but I think my friends have something to do with it it), and the sent out emails en masse like every five minutes with a petition to have them removed. I’m willing to bet YT got thousands and thousands of emails.
HOWEVER, STUFF LIKE THIS STILL FLIES: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSyKtiYUegU
I love hypocrisy. It’s funny except for when it’s totally not.
Oh but beliefs and ideas are there to be attacked. Rarely they will survive the attack unharmed, whatever results is a better idea.
One way to attack them is ridicule, and for that freedom of expression is vital. When you destroy freedom of expression, like youtube has done now, you destroy the only chance for ideas to get attacked and thus improved.
I will attack ideas my entire life, with my last breath I hope I am attacking someone’s ideas (mine included).
It is people I will respect. Not their ideas or their beliefs, unless they can defend them with reason and evidence.
It’s time for the Knights of Nee to start asserting their right never to hear the word…. never mind, suffice to say it is one of the words the Knights of Nee must never hear.
And no, it’s not “IS”, you wouldn’t get very far in life not saying “IS”.
@heddle #17. Ah, ok. I hadn’t heard about that. I usually avoid watching the over the top religious stuff, so I wouldn’t have noticed if it got pulled.
Phaedrus, what is it?
Cowards!
Jacques @ 19
…reasonable catholics…
See, there’s your problem right there – catholics actually *believe* that the cracker in question has been magically transformed into the body of Jebus. Ergo, no catholic can ever be construed as being “reasonable”.
Oh, and as already been stated, concern troll is concerned. Thanks for your input.
As a founding member of the Church of Rick Astley, I find this recent stand against mockery of religion very reassuring. In that vein, I’ll be writing Youtube to let them know that videos of Our Dear Father Rick being used to mock people in public (so-called ‘Rick-rolling) constitutes a Blasphemy of Blasphemies and should be removed immediately if they wish to avoid offending the worldwide Astleyite community.
Can’t we just fight fire with fire? We should start a petition to either complain about what Youtube has done OR
Complain to Youtube all the Catholic stuff that is on there that is insulting to: Atheists, Jews, Muslims, other sects of religion. I think that would be fair.
Queequeg #34
I saw it here where, at least for now, you can still read the uplifting lyrics.
My effort still flies. I wonder how long it will last?
.
@ #27. Yahweh-Tube is part of Google, and therefore if you want to be speak to the powers that be, and have them listen… buy some stock.
That’s supposedly how it’s supposed to work, companies who sell stock are beholden to their stockholders. Yeah I know it’s niave and idealistic… but…
And with our goverment trying to convert public institutions trying to go private (social security, parts of the welfare system, toll roads in certain states, lotteries in same states, etc…) Why should You-Tube be the shining example of transparency and going to public scrunity when our government is moving in the other direction?
And this is from someone who does believe that they’re doing a knee jerk reaction and caving in to some supidly vocal opponents. The old addage needs amended – “The squeeky wheel gets the grease, or replaced.”
James
Suggest they move to rutube.ru
Slightly OT, I was on travel last week and one of the guys had recently joined AA. He told me he had been sober for X months, and now only had the communion wine on Sunday, since it transmogrified into blood and didn’t count. *eye roll* I didn’t debate it, because he really needs support right now, but FFS!
Just shameful cowardice and pandering to a bullying mass by YouTube. I think they need to change their name now to “OnlyIfAnAngryMobIsn’tOffendedByYouTube”.
An oldie but a goodie:
“We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.” – John Stuart Mill, 1859.
To Jacque #19:
“I’m not sure what we as atheists hope to accomplish by constantly attacking people’s beliefs. They are their beliefs and they are entitled to them, the same as we are entitled to our non-belief. If I were you, I think I would declare a truce and try to engage some reasonable catholics in dialogue and agree to disagree on the issue.”
People are not entitled to disbelieve demonstrable facts. The cracker turning into actual living flesh when consecrated is a lie. It’s not even a harmless lie, because as we’ve seen, some believers of this lie are willing to attack, slander, and threaten the lives of people who point out reality.
Silence implies consent, as any abuse survivor knows. Whatever community, ceremonies, and personal beliefs people may engage in privately, they have no right to be respected when their beliefs about the world they share with the rest of us are flat out wrong.
Is it to early to nominate Alfonso Armenta @ #32 for an October Molly?
I agree with previous comment – The videos need to be re-hosted someplace else!
Does anyone know where the original videos reside? I’d like a copy of each so I can submit them to Youtube. It’s an automatic process no? I’ve never youtubed before.
Don’t these fools know it’ll only encourage this sort of thing? I repeat, it’s only a matter of time before we get Eucharist porn (not that you want ME starring in such a production, trust me…)
And I hate to sound nit-picky, but did the Catholic League even bother to find out whether those hosts were consecrated? The one video I watched involved him feeding ducks in the park out of a plastic bag full of hosts. That suggests to me that he just bought them, or took them out of the sacristy.
No matter. These assholes should be humiliated in verse.
CONCERN TROLL TEMPLATE
I find the entire idea of ____________ ridiculous too. I am a ______________ too, just like you, but I feel you go too far. This situation is going to get worse before it gets better if ________ are constantly being attacked by __________.
I’m not sure what we as __________ hope to accomplish by constantly attacking _______. They have their beliefs and they are entitled to them, the same as we are entitled to our __________. If I were you, I think I would declare a truce and try to engage some reasonable members on their side in dialogue and agree to disagree on the issue. I fear you may be part of the problem, not the solution. It’s not nice to hurt peoples’ feelings. What if someone approached you the same way? You have no right to offend people. Why can’t you just leave __________ alone? You’re being dickish. You’re just trying to piss people off. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, just don’t make yours public if you disagree with the status quo. You people make me sick. You’re going to ruin it for everyone else, you selfish bastards. WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?!! But no – really, I’m one of you…. really.
I feel like a little panic spreader, but I’m starting to think that this is a genuine element of religious persecution. Seriously.
It’s a violation of the first amendment.
Dumb ass Catholics. Always so sure that their beliefs supercede our rights.
Minnesota professor endorses YouTube videos of Eucharistic desecrations
When I was a small child, my mother had an old baby blue boat of a car, whose rear doors would come open, if they were unlocked, and a small child leaned on them from the inside.
This can be exciting when the vehicle is on the freeway moving at 70 miles per hour.
I’ve never since encountered a car whose doors open so easily from the inside.
Chickens. I’m pretty dissappointed in Youtube.
Are they gonna remove all the videos praising God? They offend me too.
@heddle #40. Mm, that was rather creepy. A lot of political campaigning is creepy, but like the commenters there said: leave the kids out of it, please.
It’s amazing how misguided people can be, when it comes to what they think would improve a candidate’s ratings. Seriously, would that make anyone want to vote for Obama? Anyways, I’m seeing this as an outsider, so I don’t really want to comment too decisively on American politics.
I cannot believe YouTube would do this. This is absolutely appalling. And YouTube is one of those sites that is really hard to boycott too… :-)
We need a huge group of people to complain about videos featuring hamburgers or other beef products, claiming that they believe the cow is sacred and that the videos are personal attacks on their beliefs.
This one goes out to #19
http://www.spunk.org/texts/cartoons/wildcat/sp000585.gif
Think at least one generation ahead; we must plant the seeds of doubt now, no matter who gets offended or what gets “polarized” in the meantime.
Hey PZ-
Its October – whatever happened to the Molly for August?
Just askin’
Jacques,
The problem is that religion has been the bully on the playground of humanity for way too long. The pissing contest has always been going on except now they can’t burn us at the stake. They want to but they can’t. The bullied are making progress. The bully is getting upset and whining and complaining. The bully is starting to get worried about losing their status on the playground. Accelerating that process is the farce. No real violence just a little prodding – sort of like a squirtgun with some soapy water to the eyes (it works wonders). We really don’t expect the bully to die a horrible death. We only want the bully to shut up and sit down so we can get on with playing. Then all the littlest kids who have been too afraid to approach the playground because they didn’t want to get pushed off the swings and the slides will be free to do what they always wanted to do all these centuries.
You may feel like declaring a truce with the bully but that is only going to prolong the misery on the playground.
There are traces of alcohol in freshly baked bread, some food colourings (vegetable dyes) and flavourings (vanilla, peppermint), fruit and, of course, various over-the-counter medicines.
I smell the malodorous ratstench of a Bill Donohue press release behind this madness.
Pteryxx @ 46
It’s not even a harmless lie, because as we’ve seen, some believers of this lie are willing to attack, slander, and threaten the lives of people who point out reality.
But that is the main point… just because some believers are extremist, i do not see the point in atacking a whole comunity.
Most catholics usually they do not care much about this things, but like any normal human being they will join toguether if they fell theatened… and will give voice to the extremist, since most of then do not understand why is this happening.
I find a slight diference between demostrate a lie, and atack som people beliefs. Yo can argue, and demostrate it is a lie, or you can mock and atack their beliefs. You will have diferent reactions…
Hello!
I am a Christain. For me the little piece of bread for you is Christ in first person for me. So what?
You are an atheist and you belive in NO God. So what?
Don’t you think that freedom is also a freedom to have faith or to have no faith?
You have faith only in yourself and your knowledge. So what… it is fine with me…
I have faith in God and I also use my reason and knowledge.
…
For example – I like to wear red hat and you do not like it cause YOU think it makes me look stupid… You are to tear it apart?
I would be glad that we talk about hat but when you take my hat from me and hate me because of my hat… what does that make OF YOU? A good man?
So I say:
– talk about religion
– ask people about it
– read and ask again
– give a provocative questions
– talk about me about Church and it’s reletion towards different aspects of life…
– talk about dilemas that are real – living good Christian life – how do you see it…
BUT BE respectful…
I hope me and you will come to the end of our lives knowing that we did our best to live in peace with others… no matter how different we are…
And – ofcourse we have to talk together about different possibilites and aspects of our life in a way that respects each life as unique… but respect also community needs…
All good…
I wish you a nice day from Slovenia!
Janja
If God is on YouTube’s side… is that proof that there is a God? I’m so confused now. ;-)
I have send a mail to youtube, a complaint about an abusive user, being youtube itself. For censoring our right for eating crackers in public and upload the resulting video.
What a bunch of pancakes.
llewelly @ 54:
Thanks. I was picturing someone leaning on an unlocked car door from the outside (with the car standing still of course), and wondering why that would evoke fear. Must be a left-brain, right-brain thing.
Why do you care so much what a non-Christian does to a cracker?
That should be the most absolutely cherished right in a civilized place… Every person should have the right to offend anyone they choose. No person should ever even get the idea for a split second that they have some kind of providence to never be offended.
But, unfortunately, the pendulum has swung far in favour of the overly sensitive… the onus for protecting their fragile mindsets has been placed on everyone else (at least here in Canada).
It’s a sad state of affairs.
What I really wonder about, though, is why the religions don’t go after each other. Surely Jewish heresy must be as offensive to True Catholics ™ as any cracker desecration? Where are the lawsuits, the threats, the harassment? Why do atheists get centred out for this treatment?
YouTube, you gutless wimps, scared shitless of religion, an imaginary apparition only made material by the mass of irrational hordes. Are you afraid of ghosts, or the power of demented religionists to withdraw support? You should rename it CrapTube.
Janja (#65), that was an awful metaphor.
Ideas are not hats and criticizing/rejecting/making fun of them is not like taking your hat nor is it like ripping it up.
Criticizing and rejecting bad ideas is more like….criticizing and rejecting bad metaphors, except far more precise (as even really good metaphors are still fuzzy [like some hats, incidentally] and have no logical value)
Yet another reason for why people should be sceptical of Google’s power and why you should start using distributed alternatives that are harder to censor.
“For example – I like to wear red hat and you do not like it cause YOU think it makes me look stupid… You are to tear it apart?
I would be glad that we talk about hat but when you take my hat from me and hate me because of my hat… what does that make OF YOU? A good man?”
First, I don’t think we hate anybody. Except the actively harmful ones, of course. But go on, wear your silly red hat! It’s yours. Will we take it from your head and tear it into pieces? No way!!! You’re entitled to the hat of your choice, however silly it may look. But we have the right to buy the same one, put it on our own head and parade in front of you, doing our best impersonation. Perhaps you will laugh at this mirror image of yourself… And what if we take OUR hat from our head and tear it apart, just to show that no Divine Protector of Hats will descend from the skies to prevent us from doing so… ?
Janja @ 65
So you “have faith in a god and I also use my reason and knowledge.” What a bunch of senseless crap. If you had written that you only have faith in an imaginary god and have no need of reason and knowledge, then you would have spoken the truth. You don’t have to use reason and knowledge to believe in an imaginary god; this only takes a brain devoid of reason and knowledge to believe in anything irrational and to couch it in the manner you stated. Your god is as imaginary as is your power to reason.
@ #2:
Ichthyic has already started a special site, for hosting the cracker videos and other stuff related to the cracker incident, in anticipation of YouTube being craven and caving under the dishonest Catholic onslaught.
re the video of Dawkins’ funeral, as referenced by Felicia @31:
I think it would be legitimate to flag that video as inappropriate, either hate speech or violence. In the video, there is a picture of Dawkins sitting in a chair being consumed by flames and then screaming in terror as he is tortured in Hell. Surely burning someone in effigy is an act of hate.
Quoth Pteryxx @46
People are not entitled to disbelieve demonstrable facts. The cracker turning into actual living flesh when consecrated is a lie.
People are *entitled* to believe/disbelieve whatever they choose, regardless of the facts, but when beliefs contradict facts, they can legitimately be called delusions. (But the Catholic theological weasel to address that objection is that the wafer retains its original “accidents” (ie it still looks, smells, tastes, sounds, and feels like bread), while assuming the “essence” of God (ie it is due all the reverence* that one is expected to render to the Supreme Being).
* What’s that? You don’t think that the Supreme Being is due any reverence at all? And that your communications with him/her/it/them should be kept between you and him/her/it/them? Quit being so logical and reasonable.
@Jacques:
There is no need for dialog. Keep your religion private, that’s all there is to it. Not in government, not in science, not in public education. There can not, must not, be a compromise here.
@janja:
As ye sow, so shall ye reap.
We’re tired of your crap. We’re not putting up with it any more. If you dealt with us respectfully, there would be no need for the rancor. We’re not the doormats we’ve been treated as for centuries.
I saw the video of his nailgunning of a cracker (before removal, of course) and concluded that either his nailgun was a weak piece of shit or that the cracker was tough as leather (as he put ~7 nails in before it shattered).
The only way forward now is to start desecrating things from every religion. Desecrate Buddhas and Korans and statues of Zeus and edifices of Odin and then put them on YouTube. And then complain, at the same time.
Find every video with some middle class white numpty with a dream catcher and complain about the co-opting of native american sacred rituals. Find every video of a Christian saying that Jesus was the Messiah (in flagrant opposition to sacredly held Jewish beliefs) and have them taken off. Since the position is now that we cannot offend anybody, we must not offend anybody.
I wonder how many letters from Catholics it took to get those videos down? I wonder how many letters people can generate about beefburgers and rapture videos?
The point is that the rest of the “community” (ie Catholics in this case, but Christians or even religious people in general for some wider groupings on wider issues) are enablers for the extremists. The alleged moderate Catholics either believe in the crazy stuff themselves or have been completely failing to put an end to it within their religion (but also aren’t brave or honest enough to leave the religion themselves or they wouldn’t be claiming to be Catholics).
They have remained sufficiently silent on issues such as crackers not really becoming zombie Jesus-the-Jew when magic latin (ie Roman!) spells are cast over them that the extremists are allowed to go on spreading the lie of the eucharist to further generations of nutters. The Catholic church hasn’t been excommunicating its extremists, its terrorists and mass murderers or its paedophile priests. Instead it has policies variously of condoning, forgiving, praising and covering up for them.
They suspended Extantdod…again. Damn those fundies and damn Kent Hovind and his idiotic family and their followers!
Why do you consider it an attack? I know English isn’t my first language, but I’m fairly sure an attack is an act of aggression. As opposed to say re-enacting the crucifixion of Jesus, with actual honest to God, pieces of little Jesus.
Oh absolutely, and if that was all there was to it, that would be fine. Unfortunately Catholics do not share your Protestant views that faith is between you and God, and if they do they aren’t good Catholics.
If *you* don’t want a blood transfusion, abortion, hot anal sex, because your God says no, that’s just fine and dandy with me, provided you’re willing to assume personal responsibility for those choices. So please die when you get that otherwise curable disease, support your own children financially, and stop sexually abusing altar boys.
You’re not really dealing with reasonable Catholics here tho’. You have a bunch of people so offended by the idea of Eucharist desecration, it makes them physically ill. Right? I’m no Catholic, but something I find offensive are graphics pictures of maimed or murdered people, like say a child in Iraq that’s been a little too close to a previously undetonated cluster bomb. Because I find these things so traumatizing, it’s never occurred to me (until just now) that I could type in “Child maimed by Cluster Bomb” in Google, and have access to probably hundreds of rather disturbing images. The thought just never crossed my mind.
Yet here are a bunch of “reasonable Catholics” who on a daily basis search the Interwebs for traumatizing material, so they can write angry letters to invoke censorship. And your best idea is to engage them in debate? People who voluntarily traumatize themselves every day?
Here’s the real deal. These Catholics aren’t the least bit traumatized by seeing Eucharist desecration, they realize it’s ludicrous. What they’re offended about isn’t that you would dare defile the body of Jesus Christ, they’re offended that you’re pointing out the ridiculous charade they put on every Sunday.
“But FlameDuck”, I hear you say, “that’s like making fun of retarded kids”. Except it’s not because being a Catholic is a choice, retardation not so much.
is Pat Condell next? Yikes! he could be yanked using the same criteria. Where can you go to tell YouTube to fucking buck up and do the right thing.
Repost! There’s always Google Video, Vimeo, sock puppet Youtube accounts until your IP gets banned or They get bored and start picking on someone else…
Looks like a guy named “Onetruechurch” and others has had a campaign of flagging all of fsmdude’s videos.
According to this nutter the videos are violent because he has to stand up for the defenseless wafers. Apparently desecrating wafers is a hate crime, about the same as burning a cross on a Black family’s lawn, beating a gay kid to death, etc. Catholics are just a bunch of cowardly whiners continuing their tradition of censorship and persecution of others.
It’s a very interesting bit of blasphemy, isn’t it, to say that an infinite and ineffable being can be not only offended but even harmed by mere mortals armed only with nailguns and an antimagical agenda, or so these catholics claim.
Luckily their deity is apparently extremely forgiving, so I don’t suppose they’ll suffer too much for it. I would offer up an atheistic prayer on their behalf just in case, but considering the circumstances it would probably do more harm than good.
You could always set up your own web form for emailing Youtube so non-catholics could protest the removal of these videos by clicking a single button.
You know, like americaneedsfatima.org did for sending their complaints to youtube. Make sure to include several youtube.com addresses so that you annoy the largest number of people over there as possible and inflate the email count wildly. It’s sooooo easy to protest something when someone else has done all the work for you.
What’s the best email address for sending complaints to YouTube? I’m no longer convinced that press@youtube.com is the correct address, because their site says it’s for press contacts. I worry that they’d ignore complaints sent there.
on saturday i’ll be buying me a video camera.
on sunday i’ll be at mass.
and on sunday afternoon i’ll be on youtube.
So true FlameDuck.I had never really though about that either. There is SO much fucked up shit out there that I’m never tempted to check out. It just never occurs to me.
Maybe YouTube should also censor any political critisim as well…same damn thing.
And, astonishingly, that is exactly what Catholics are claiming the cracker videos record, the maiming of a real person.
Crazy, huh?
I’m with #80, McDuff.
It will be just like poll crashing. Myers can create a sidebar with youtube videos that we should complain to youtube about. Start with the ones bashing athiests, but include videos that would offend any religion – I like the idea about dream catchers.
Let’s see how far YouTube will get pushed with this.
Is there a PETA for people?
janja-
Censorship is intolerance. It is time to stop being tolerant of intolerance.
That includes being tolerant of people who are offended by others who think transubstantiation is pure bunk.
It also includes being tolerant of Muslims who are offended by co-workers having a pig on their desks.
It also includes being tolerant of Muslim cab drivers who won’t transport a fare carrying a bottle of wine.
It also includes being tolerant of people who wear t-shirts that say “god hates gays”.
Nanahuatzin @64:
“But that is the main point… just because some believers are extremist, i do not see the point in atacking a whole comunity.”
Actually that isn’t the point. The point is that criticism, satire, and disagreement are not “attacks” and certainly are not threats. Even mocking is not a threat.
The only “threat” posed by disagreement is to the target’s sense of reality. They may have to seriously consider where they stand and confront their own beliefs. Terrifying as that prospect may be, they have no right to demand that other people’s actions and speech conform to their view of reality.
Reality just happens to *feel* like an attack to a person who is in denial.
Now, when a community (generalizing from the calls to action from prominent members of the community, and a large organized response) reacts to being offended by calling for censorship, violence, and criminal charges, then there is a problem. If they’re reacting not to mere offense, but because they think a cracker is literally feeling pain and they have to save it, then they REALLY have a problem.
Janja @ 65
Hello, I am a christian!
I am totally devoid of reason. I believe in all irrational nonsense taught to me as a child, and still hold these same senseless ideas of gods and angels and all sorts of demented crap as an adult because my brain has not developed into a rational state to think otherwise. I have never seen or heard this imaginary god, but speak to it regularly in my most demented state which is daily, and use all the advances and conveniences of science and modern society because they come from this god which is lodged as a tumor in my brain and will forever be there until I die and which will die with me.
im glad they did it, im not religious either but ripping off someone else beliefs is just wrong… now go do something more constructive dickheads
If it had been a video insulting Mohammed it wouldn’t have lasted this long. That said, it’s good to see Google recognizing common sense.
“just because some believers are extremist, I do not see the point in attacking a whole community”
Ah, a classic defense. Let’s look at the Bible, shall we?
The vast majority of it is the Old Testament, long lineages and a lot of smitey smitey for unusually bad and oftentimes suspiciously sexual reasons.
Then, tacked garishly onto the end, a Hellanistic Hippy who, when not otherwise toppling tables or strangling small fruit bearing trees, preaches peace, love, and brotherhood, not to mention faith healing and immunity to poisons.
The difference between the two halves would be considered a symptom of dissociative disorder if found in an single individual, but present in a religion, it makes all things possible.
The Bible justifies the wars of the powerful, the hate of the bigoted, and, yes, the quietly pro-social lives of millions of men and women just trying to get through the day, through their lives, and on up to heaven when they die.
The real trick is that, because the Bible can be used to justify mass slaughter and meek morality at one and the same time, it puts on the same side people who, by all reasonable standards, should be opposing each other.
Like paintings and sculptures of a bleeding man slowly suffocating from being stretched on a couple of wood planks?
In a rush Jay, or are you fundamentally illiterate? Dickhead.
this means of course that the mailbox of PZ’s boss gonna turn into a mail sack again.
http://catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=13942
It also includes being tolerant of Muslims who are offended by co-workers having a pig on their desks.
I’m no Muslim, but I’d be offended by a co-worker having a pig on their desk! I mean, consider the noise, let alone the smell…
There are about 38,000 videos tagged “burger” on YouTube. I imagine that the vast majority involve beef. How about we all pretend to be “disgusted Hindus” and ask for their removal? Surely the making and eating of food out of such a sacred animal is hate-speech? The video makers message is obviously “we’re going to grind you up next”.
Think of the children!
Well, it looks like Onetruechurch has been suspended as well – I just went to flag him and got that message. Who’s next?
Yep, that about covers it.
jay @ 98
Stating that you are not religious is couched bullshit to divert your obvious irritation at religious desecration. All religions should be so ridiculed, and if they cannot get their imaginary gods to smite the offenders, then this only proves that they are all irrational bullshit and stated as such. No tolerance for demented bullshit, nor for phonies who pathetically defend them.
Christians are natural censors, yes. They practice by censoring their own thoughts as much as they try to censor ours.
I wonder if Pete Rooke will keep posting even long after he’s learned that pretty much everyone has dropped him into -> killfile.
From http://catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=13942:
Oooh, important distinction CNA. Guess you got him good on that one :rolleyes:
The point is that nothing is sacred, dumbasses. Sacrilege is a flawed concept from the very start. That is the heresy.
Catholics are natural censors and cowards, aren’t they?
In society we accept that there must will always be limits that a minority will be offended by in order to protect the majority. Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes used the example of falsely shouting fire in a crowded theatre. In this day and age child pornography, sodomy or any other perversion might be a more appropriate example. The actual picture (or other medium) doesn’t physically harm anyone once it has been recorded. Despite this we accept that, in the case of child pornography, it encourages the illicit activity and increases the danger to other children.
You could say the same about the desecration of the scared Host. The actual video merely documents an offence. It is the effect of the video that is so corrosive and this is why it is rightly banned.
“To Hell with your imaginary Judeo/Christian god.”
Is this sacrilege, blasphemy or heresy?
I think we have this tardfuck to thank:
Flame on.
Did someone just compare stepping on a cracker to raping children? I’d go back and read it again, but my eyes went crossed after I tried to imagine what it’s like to be that deluded.
I can only hope that the videos were automatically removed because of a flagging campaign.
If not, how is it possible to single out one specific offence like cracker desecration, from all the things that are held holy by all the religions in the world?
Fundamentalists are always argumenting that evolution is a religion, how come they’re allowed to mock evolution on Youtube then?
Come to think of it, almost anything could be considered as a religion by someone, therefore criticism towards any subject whatsoever is probably blasphemous to some, and in reverse favoring a certain subject can also be interpreted as an act of discriminating against those who oppose the subject in question.
Therefore I suggest that all videos currently available on Youtube should be removed as offensive material.
…
Posted by: Pete Rooke | October 1, 2008 11:54 AM
That’s a Yes from Rooke, then.
Still hoping against hope that these posts are some sort of experimental-art project.
Youtube will usually ban videos they get complaints about without really caring, and it takes a while to restore.
I’m not sure if this is the same as what happened with scientology recently as that was for false copyright claims, but it does show how quickly and willingly youtube reacts. I think it actually may be automated.
Youtube pulling videos because some religious group argued it was discriminatory, harassment, or some kind of “hate crime” towards their religion is pretty old hat, they have been doing it for years. The Catholics just figured out what Kent Hovind and Muslims already knew.. Youtube caves.
Pete Rooke (#112),
What?
So, the effect of these perfectly legal actions may be to promote similar perfectly legal actions, and therefore should be banned?
I’m sorry, Janja (#65), your metaphor really wasn’t so bad, at least when compared to Pete’s callous comparison of heresy to kiddie porn.
And who in their right mind would bring up child sexual abuse in defense of Catholicism? That’s really, really not a topic you want to bring up.
It’s always nice to keep clauses like this in your terms of service. Basically they can remove anyone and any thing for any reason at any time.
7. Account Termination Policy
A. YouTube will terminate a User’s access to its Website if, under appropriate circumstances, they are determined to be a repeat infringer.
B. YouTube reserves the right to decide whether Content or a User Submission is appropriate and complies with these Terms of Service for violations other than copyright infringement, such as, but not limited to, pornography, obscene or defamatory material, or excessive length. YouTube may remove such User Submissions and/or terminate a User’s access for uploading such material in violation of these Terms of Service at any time, without prior notice and at its sole discretion.
Janja (#65):
I’m afraid that the first of these two statements does not appear to be compatible with the second. You may find it helpful to apply your reason and knowledge a little more consistently to all your beliefs.
YouTube’s community guidelines: I editted out those relating to copyright, and only kept content specific guidelines.
It could be considered shocking under #4, but it’s a bit of a stretch. I think they were going for the “hate speech” from #5. Luckily, they give examples of each later on the page.
Hate Speech
Eucharist desecration certainly does not promote hatred against Catholics. It shows a blatant disrespect of their beliefs, but that should be allowed. There are millions of beliefs that I do not respect, and that is my right. This really doesn’t fit the hate speech requirement laid out by YouTube.
Shocking and Disgusting
It could still fit as shocking or disrespectful, but it still seems like a stretch because this rule appears to cover violence and gore, not sacrilege.
I see pointless Pete is back for comic relief with his inane posts. Pete, time to either prove your god or go home.
I’m trying to understand this from the perspective of the Catholics. The closest I could come up with is “how would I feel if someone devoted a website to the desecration of my countries’ flag?” Personally, if I didnt’t find the site very interesting I would most likely move on. Can anyone else (other than Pete) come closer than?
Well, see, that’s because it was only some isolated incidents and you can’t condemn a whole group of people on the actions of a few, right?
Now, all you atheists, stop being dickheads.*
*GREAT BIG FREAKIN’ SARCASM TAG
Why do I feel that Pete has one impressively twisted porn stash?
I guess we must presume that YouTube is now in the business of defending religious dogma.
WTF!!! The owner of YouTube, Google, is my favorite company, and now I find out they use censorship to defend religious insanity.
Google has a filthy record of bowing down to religious pressure and dogma. Take Orkut or YouTube for instance. In Orkut they basically shut down any anti-islam community where all they did was to discuss. They also banned users over and over again purely because of mob pressure. Some of the communities that were banned even had HUGE disclaimer that “This is not a community to bash Islam” or “We are only looking for dialogue” and there also heavily moderated *against* islamophobia. But at the end, it didn’t really matter. As soon as the angry muslim mob decided to flag the community as “offensive” Orkut simply removed it.
The same thing happened with YouTube. Muslim mob pressure caused removal of various videos and now I guess it is time for Christian mob pressure. In a few years, we’ll only have “cute cats” running around in YouTube only.
The typical crackerhead argument is a picture of your mother. I keep telling them I’ll send them one.
Given the lengths Pete Rooke will go to, to find the most absurd, irrelevant and inane analogies over and over again, I’m now convinced that he’s really only in it for the reactions at this point. I truly think he just wants to see people respond to his comments. And so with that… as I said before, killfile is your friend. I suggest you use it where Pete Rooke is concerned until PZ finally has enough of the morbid and creepy analogies and bans the creepy nut-job for good.
@ Celtic_Evolution
You seem slightly obsessed. Please refrain from misrepresenting me.
RePete is useful for one thing, at least: whenever someone says “nobody really believes that”, Petey is the perfect counter-example.
It’s kind of a corollary to a well known law (the name of which I can’t remember at the moment): there is no position so ridiculous that Pete Rooke doesn’t believe it.
Pete, you’re confusing obsessed with creeped out. You’re creepy, Pete. Plain and simple.
And as soon as I misrepresent you, I’ll consider refraining from it.
#128 “WTF!!! The owner of YouTube, Google, is my favorite company, and now I find out they use censorship to defend religious insanity.”
http://www.google.com/explanation.html
google refuses to handle jew hating red-necks by not censoring the jewwatch site in some way.
there is a difference between supplying potentially inciting and false material and laughing really hard at silly catholics for thinking that a cracker is REALLY the body of a dead jew.
why do they act on the latter and not the former?
@ E.V. #94:
As in “People Eating Tasty Atheists”? ;-)
stfu jason # 120
Those priests have a privileged connect with God. It’s obvious that He allowed those children to be sexually abused so that he would get the glory when, after years of counseling, they finally emerge triumphant as quasi normal citizens. Anyone not clouded by your atheistic religiosity could see that. The ways of God need not conform to the understanding of man. He works in mysterious ways… and sometimes in the butt.
to #112
Sodomy is like yelling fire in a crowded theater? Are you sure you’re doing it right?
BTW, fsmdudes account and videos are back online.
From UTube:
Look at that list.
One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong…
A person’s religion is not like race, nationality, disability, gender, etc. It is like their politics, or scientific conclusions, or views on economics. Or, perhaps, you could place religion in the category of taste or hobbies. In which case it’s like knitting, or the style of music you like.
All those things can be criticized and mocked, because people can and do change those things. They’re viewpoints. It’s not unreasonable or unfair to say a viewpoint is wrong, or, perhaps, stupid. That’s not squashing diversity — it’s part of the discourse of diversity.
I don’t see how the religious can keep insisting that theirs is a rational faith, one which they arrive at through deep thought and consideration; that atheism “makes no sense,” because ultimate supernatural and transcendent explanations do a better job at explanation than natural explanations — and then suddenly shove religion into the same category as skin color or where you were born.
When’s the last time you read something trying to convince people to change their race or national origin?
But they can and do try to get people to change their religious views, persuasion through reason and argument — which as far as I can tell means that religion can’t be considered a “protected class.” As long as you’re attacking the ideas behind X, and not just saying that all X’s are evil and wicked for reasons that have nothing to do with the direct consequences of their beliefs — then you’re not guilty of “hate crime.”
Bad decision on UTube’s part. Atheists are no longer content to allow religious people to have it both ways: they’re a rational viewpoint when it comes to critiquing what they see as the absurdity or weakness of atheism — but an unchangeable identity when the tables are turned, and their views are being scrutinized.
Did they put some back? I checked a random sample (searching on YouTube for “eucharist challenge”) and saw every one I tried to look at. There WERE only 23 hits to the search though – perhaps those who place those vids are just resetting them?
I was also able to view at least one if FSMDude’s videos, though sseveral DID return “Video not available”
JC
“BTW, fsmdudes account and videos are back online.”
oh, so it was just the work of a retarded zealot and not official?
@Abbie [#114],
That was entertaining, especially this part (at 1:18):
“…these…[*flaps lips around in silence, looking for perfect word*]… _heathens_ like fsmdude…”
Ichthyic,
Janja @ #65 has another suggestion – looks like CrackerGate.com will also need a red hat or two.
Janja,
Following your recommendations:
– talk about religion. Why is religion like a strait jacket?
– ask people about it. Why is your religion so silly?
– read and ask again. Why does your religious book say so many silly things?
– give a provocative questions. Where is your god?
– talk about me about Church and it’s reletion towards different aspects of life. Why does religion stifle people’s intelligence?
– talk about dilemas that are real – living good Christian life – how do you see it. How is your religion any better than a witch doctor? Why did that good Christian kill those innocent people?
I have a sneaking suspicion that may not have been what you were looking for but it’s the best I can come up with right now.
I too hope that at the end of my life I can look back on living in peace with others. Not sure I can say the same for religions.
Thank you for your submission. However, due to the sheer volume of clueless concern trolling on this site, we have implemented a template for submissions of this nature(thanks, EV!). As your recent illiterate maunderings were not formatted even to the normative standards of American English syntax, much less to this template, we cannot consider your concern troll at this time. Thank you for your insincere interest in this site and we hope you will enjoy screaming into the ether after most regular users have added you to their killfile.
Greetings to tsg.
“Why do you care so much what a non-Christian does to a cracker?”
WELL… that is really a thing of my faith – it is true.
In a short:
If you take a cracker for you and Jesus for me it is like that…
If you have something that is really special to you and means a world to you – would not you like others to behave with respect (ofcourse you do not have to believe same as I… I do not think you have to have faith)?
I don’t say that it is forbiden to say – “well dear Christians you are really ODD… how can you belive something like that…” I am not bothered in that way;)
Maybe this is a difficult example still… because we Christians believe that “the cracker” is Jesus himself… not just the symbol for his presence;)
So if I take it in my point of you – dor mi it is like you would take my friend and would do something bad to him simply because he is “this and that”…
I hope I explained my feelings a little bit…
Janja
Quoted from the (cancelled) television show Sports Night, episode entitled “Ordnance Tactics” written by Aaron Sorkin and Paul Redford, directed by Alex Graves, 1999. Scene participants are discussing a threat made to the building where they work.
Casey McCall: “What was it about?”
J.J.: “Denny Denton.”
Casey McCall: “What about him?”
J.J.: “They don’t like his radio show.”
Dan Rydell: “I don’t like his radio show either. You know what I do?”
J.J.: “What?”
Dan Rydell: “Change the station.”
J.J.: “Would that the world were as enlightened as you, Dan.”
Dan Rydell: “Oh, were that it would.”
Casey McCall: “Were.”
Dan Rydell: “What?”
Casey McCall: “Never mind.”
No kings,
Robert
The videos are back up
Jacques @ #19 – …declare a truce..NEVER. From hell’s heart I spit at thee. (Khan)
So Thomas Serafin, president of International Crusade for Holy Relics states that it’s the catholic’s duty to evangelize the Internet. Another hobbit skips a rock into the pool.
@Janja #146
But that’s really the point. Not everyone believes the cracker is Jesus. Do you think they should? If so, isn’t that being disrespectful of their beliefs? If not, then why do think they should treat it as if they did?
“The videos are back up”
Yes they are and so is his channel. Perhaps, Youtube’s lawyers put some sense into their initial decision. FSMdude was abusing crackers. That in no way is a hate crime as some of the more hysterical Catholics claimed.
Hopefully free speech wins out.
POE @ #137
Greetings to WRMartin!
“Why is religion like a strait jacket?”
There is no life without a way you live it. You have it too (jacket I mean). Your jacket is “God does not exist”, mine is “God exist”. And we live our believes (we should)… I am trying to.
“Why is your religion so silly?”
What about? I like it. I do not say you have. Please ask more specific;)
“Why does your religious book say so many silly things?”
Have you read the Bible? I know the New Testament more than the Old… but I still have not read the whole – sentence by sentence. I will do that now. But I do not have second thoughts abour it. Ask specifics;)
“Where is your God?”
All around me;) That is a good thing to talk about…
I belive there is ONE God but people are parted. I think you do not have to be Christian to get heaven;)
“Why does religion stifle people’s intelligence?”
I am studying, teaching on University, working with kids in school, trying to read a lot… my husband is mathematician an doctor of science – a good one… We have friends that are Christians and friends that do not believe in God… is our inteligence stifle?
“How is your religion any better than a witch doctor?”
You know – if we, Christians would lead a good life as we should – as we are thought… you would notice the good things about it. I am ashamed…. I should and I will pray more…;)))
“Why did that good Christian kill those innocent people?”
I do not know… I am so sorry and that does not help…I hope you do not think if there is one “madman” than it is sure that all the others are?
Maybe it is not because he was a Christain… mybe he was simply mentally ill… do YOU know?
Greetings…
Janja
Well, I can still see them (here in Germany).
And they do pull videos critical of other religions too, I guess you only have to have enough whiners. They pulled my video (both english and german versions) about Mohammad and his childwife from my channel. No reason to what rule was broken was given, no reaction to my e-mails either. What the hell, Dhimmi Tube isn’t the only site I can upload my videos. :P LiveLeak and Veoh are alternatives.
Btw, you can see the english version of my deleted video here:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7a7_1218296170
Patricia at #149 posted:
From hell’s heart I spit at thee. (Khan)
By way of Melville . . . .
Sorry. Turning off pedantic mode now.
No kings,
Robert
Well I sent off my letter of disappointment to YouTube. Since I don’t think anyone else has posted it try support@youtube.com
To tsg:
“But that’s really the point. Not everyone believes the cracker is Jesus. Do you think they should? If so, isn’t that being disrespectful of their beliefs? If not, then why do think they should treat it as if they did?”
I understand your point of you. It is true.
But I DO NOT expect you have to believe it…
I expect other people to have respect towards my way of life nothing else… so if you have respect… you do not do something that hurts others feelings… I jnow that we Christians are not perfect about it…
Example:
If my husband likes to look F1 on TV I will not mock about it or shut it down because I maybe do not like it…
Greetings
Janja
@152
Poe Indeed.
Never mind, my email was just returned to me as an invalid address. YouTube definitely makes it hard to contact them directly, I hunted all over to try and find an email and the only one I find doesn’t work.
Hunted around some more and actually found their contact form after about 5-6 pages of clicking that they weren’t answering my question. http://help.youtube.com/support/youtube/bin/request.py?contact_type=general
“Well I sent off my letter of disappointment to YouTube.”
“Never mind, my email was just returned to me as an invalid address.”
Several people have confirmed that youtube has reinstated the account and all of the videos are back.
Perhaps a letter of thanks should be sent.
I am bummed that they took the videos down, but I don’t blame youtube.
Youtube is just a business, guys. We don’t live in a world where businesses stay open by putting themselves in a negative spotlight, businesses don’t dress up in superhero outfits after hours and save old ladies whose purses have been stolen- businesses are just a way for people to make money. Do I want the social responsibility of businesses and our expectations to change? Sure. Do I think news media has even a remotely sympathetic ear or voice concerning atheism? No.
Let’s not expect too much from businesses. Rather, let’s expect exactly their typical behavior- that they cave in to pressure.
Thus, with enough public outcry against videos defaming atheists and non-xtian religions, they’ll have to pull those, too.
He is back ! At least in French version of YouTube. Wow !
I’m watching one of FSMdude’s videos as I type. I guess they un-caved. :>
@Janja #157
I didn’t say you expected others to believe it. But you expect others to treat this cracker as sacred simply because you do. Isn’t that disrespecting their beliefs?
Obviously Janja is intelligent and bilingual. (I feel sorry for anyone who struggles to learn the clusterfuck of verbiage that is English for a second language. You have my profound respect for that, Janja)
Janja, your indoctrination into religion is so compartmentalized that you can’t or aren’t willing to comprehend the irrationality of it all.
At the risk of sounding like a condescending bastard, this forum is not the place for you. Your argument has been rehashed several times in the archives. You might want to do a little research there first.
For a moment, step out of your belief in mysticism and the supernatural and then look hard at it with all the reason and rationality you possess. When you understand the disconnect between religion/magic and reality/physics, write back to us.
@Janja:
That is a positive claim. Prove it.
We have no reason to believe it is, it is a cracker. Why should we respect a cracker?
I just checked:
http://www.youtube.com/user/fsmdude
It’s back, complete with all the videos. You can hold off on sending complaints to YouTube now.
If Google’s YouTube thinks sucking up to religious retards is going to help their business, they are wrong. Nobody is going to boycott YouTube just because they are disturbed by a few videos they don’t like. This is censorship and there’s no excuse for it. What are they going to censor next, Pat Condell’s videos?
That’s good news. Perhaps enough people complained. It’s too bad this was ever a problem. I used to think Google was the best company in the world.
I guess the people behind the flagging campaigns are happy now that their campaign is probably doubling the viewing rates of fsmdude’s videos. :)
Haven’t they already learned that
Censorship attempt = Instant fame
I’m glad that I got in last night and managed to watch a couple of those videos before they were taken down. I can’t believe youtube caved. This saddens me.
The account being suspended didn’t probably have anything to do with the staff of Youtube, as was mentioned before.
They do though have some concerning practices. One example of this is the limited admin rights they give to users who complain and whine enough, At least I’ve heard that this is done in some cases. One of these alleged cases was when an insane evangelical miracle preacher from Finland, named Veli Saarikalle, complained about parody videos which contained clips of Saarikalle’s video and audio clips. Youtube removed the videos, but they kept on coming back, so eventually Saarikalle was given limited adming rights, so he can personally remove any videos he finds to be insulting.
I’m not sure if there’s any validity to these claims, the was reported in a news site though.
I wonder if they’re going to pull all videos of barbeques and beef roasts? After all, they’re blasphemous to Hindus.
I wonder if Nick Gisbourne . com would host the videos for FSMdude. Nick had to set up his own shop after YouTube booted him.
Speaking of offensive videos: don’t forget papal pronouncements.
And every single video that says someone will roast in Hell.
Posted by: E.V.
I am not here to prove anything to anybody.
I BELIEVE in Chirst. I do not have SCIENTIFIC PROOF for you. But I have my experiances. Do you rally think… that I have not struggled and searched and read… and prayed and so on and so on…
Question for all:
Don’t you think that you all have the thightiest jacket of all – believeing and knowing just science – just the things that you see, touch, smell… Even in phylosphy, psychology… there is a concept of MORE than that to a human beeing… (we are NOT just that)… or read maybe some antropology…
To E.V:
I do not speak just English.There is:
Slovenian, Croatian, German, a little bit of Latin and English… right now I would like to start Italian…
Greetings…
Janja
Sorter Janja: Can’t you see that no jacket is the tightest jacket of all?
Complete rubbish, but we thank you for your ongoing politeness.
Account still works for me. Maybe Youtube came to its senses.
Your ignorance is shocking. Was it really too much trouble to type in “Geert Wilders” or “Fitna” into the YouTube search field? It would have made you look much less like a moron, but clearly that’s not really one of your priorities.
Yes. I’ve often wondered why the disciples of Christ would choose to use the cross as their holy symbol (and even more absurd why the St. Peters Cross is considered unholy). I doubt Jackie Onassis carries a little bullet pendant around to remind her of her late husband. Also I’ve never really understood why so many Christians are against abortion, but in favor of capital punishment. Why these people’s skulls haven’t imploded is a big mystery, my current hypothesis is Silly Putty.
“God does not exist” is not a “jacket”. Not buying into religion is not a faith, and does not arbitrarily dictate behavior.
Janja #157 wrote:
I think you are confusing different ways of applying the concept of “respect.”
I once wrote about what I call “Dinner Table Diplomacy.” This is the kind of respect you pay to other people in a personal situation. You may think your Aunt Edna is silly when she claims that her poodle can read her mind, or that Cousin Bob doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to foreign policy, but, for the sake of harmony, you either say nothing, or state your point of view gently and kindly, acknowledging that they have a “right” to disagree. There is no need to hurt feelings, because this is a family, a group you’re part of — and you have to get along. If anyone starts to get upset, apologize, and move on. It’s not worth the fuss and heartache.
The advantage of this approach is that people may end up feeling charitable towards each other — on the surface, at least. You can all eat.
The disadvantage of this approach is that the ideas — the views themselves — never really get addressed. People will never change, or improve, or progress towards real agreement. Instead, a superficial politeness is capable of masking everything from misunderstanding, to bewilderment, to amusement, to scorn, to outright contempt.
Whether animals can really communicate through telepathy or the problems in the Mideast can be solved with some serious butt-kicking on the part of the good ol’ USA takes a back seat to being nice and respectful to each other. Truth doesn’t matter as much as people’s feelings do. It doesn’t really matter at all.
But what works fine on an individual, personal, temporary basis at the dinner table may be disastrous as the general policy of a diverse society. Dissent, criticism, and critique are absolutely necessary if ideas and views are going to be taken seriously in a culture. And this includes mockery, and saying things that may upset people. It includes violating what people consider sacred and holy.
You can readily see this in politics: herding protesters into isolated “Free Speech Zones” so that politicians and their followers are not exposed to harsh disagreement which may bother them is not a happy way of promoting “free speech.” Satire and ridicule shouldn’t be shut off in the name of diplomacy. Sometimes it’s the best way to bite.
I think you need to be sensitive to the fact that we feel that religious views need to undergo the same harsh, messy, and free spirited criticism as political views. Being Catholic or Christian or theistic is not someone’s identity in the same way their race is. As we see it, religion is making truth claims which appeal to reason, argument, and evidence — and then seeking a “free ride” from criticism by invoking a need for special respect, as if believers were all simply different versions of dear, sweet Aunt Edna and her poodle Fluffy, misguided but harmless, and therefore requiring the kid-glove treatment, the deference given to the old and weak. Don’t harm the sacred, because those are the things that are untouchable.
No. In society at large, people who believe in God (or Christ or the miracle of the eucharist) are smart, strong, and intelligent enough to be told that they’re full of shit, if need be. And being told that these views are full of it may be overdue — for without that, people get smug and sure of themselves, and real discourse is shut down, in favor of a “respect” which dances on the top of issues.
Thanks Desert Son! I knew Khan was quoting from somewhere, but just couldn’t get the ol’ noggin’ to remember where. ;o)
“We Christians“? Hardly — the vast majority of Protestant faiths see communion as a merely symbolic event. It is really only Catholicism and its affiliated sects (like Eastern Orthodox) that believe in full transubstantiation. And I am willing to bet that significant proportion of everyday Catholics, when pressed, wouldn’t accept the notion of the literal change of bread and wine to Jesus’ body and blood. So, contrary to the claim of “We Christians”, only a small minority of Christians in the US actually think that the cracker is Jesus himself.
(And the fact that I have to explain your religion’s own theological history and its relation to other faiths speaks volumes about how much you actually understand of this issue.)
@Janja #175
You didn’t answer my question.
Uhh…at least one of the videos is working for me, right now.
Nice use of a nailgun, too.
Janja—
Hindus believe that the cow is a sacred animal and that its flesh should not be eaten. Should people abstain from beef out of respect for Hinduism? Would you? If not, then why should anyone treat your religion with a particular respect.
One of the commandments is, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Isn’t that inherently disrespectful of all other religions by putting them down and considering them inferior? Disrespect for other faiths is an enormous part of your religion! So why should an atheist respect your beliefs?
Janja #175 wrote:
You’re mistaken: we don’t confine everything to science. We apply philosophy, ethics, art, sensuality — just like you do. Not all questions are science questions.
The difference I think is that we filter out the cultural aspects and analyze and classify specific religious claims as fact claims, and don’t treat them as if they were meaning claims, or emotional expressions. Science is therefore relevant. Presumably, God only has meaning because it is a real thing that exists, and has an impact. It’s not just a poetic symbol which stands for values (that would be atheism btw.)
Question for Janja:
If you have struggled and searched and read on the subject of God’s existence — then what would it now take to change your mind, and realize that, while believing there is a God may be useful, there really isn’t one after all?
Of course, if your struggle, search, and study has all been about trying to find out the nature of God — what God is like — then you may be unprepared for that question.
And unprepared for the prospect of being wrong.
Not perfect about it? Assault of, and later death threats, towards someone that only “intended” to delay eating a cracker, until they showed it to a friend, is not “not perfect”, is batshit insane. We protest the passive support given to such people by Catholics and others that **refuse** to either speak up against such things, or worse, allow such people to remain members of their religion, as though having hate filled crazy people among you, who only get more hate filled over time, not less, says nothing about the supposed ability, or complete lack, of religion to make people moral (or even promote their being so).
As for straight jackets. A better example might be someone locked in a room for most of their life. If their lucky, it happens when they are old enough to have “had” some social interactions and learning to speak, so despite being scared out of their wits at having to “deal” with a world they haven’t had contact with for 10+ years, you “can” have a somewhat normal life later. Some figure out how to open the window, and sneak out while mom and dad are asleep, so they never suffer from the trauma of being locked in their for years. Others.. have been stuck in there since before they could speak, and may “never” be able to comprehend the way they could have, if allowed to learn normally, will never have a normal life, devoid of the feeling of “safety” that comes from being in a locked room, and a few will hide in the damn corner, swing their arms around wildly and scream, if you try to make them come out of the room, even if you leave the door open, and try to let them come out on their own.
Everyone on this site is someone who where either never locked in such a room, found a way to sneak out, or got locked in it later in life, then got back out again, relatively unscathed. I think you can kind of tell which are which, by how likely they are to say, “Well, ‘that’ locked room doesn’t look so bad, at least they put a TV and a soft chair in it, and its really *big*. Maybe we should be nice to ‘this’ group, since they are not as bad as the ones that want to lock people in broom closets!” You can also tell which people that come here from the religion side tend to be the “locked in the room from birth” types, since they won’t look at anything that wasn’t in the room they where locked in, can’t or won’t understand it if they do, and do nothing but constantly whine about how *open* the real world is, how scary they think it is to deal with it, and how they “need” the comfort of a locked closet to run to, when ever they find themselves confronted with something that challenges their past experiences. They are basically religious shut ins, who have managed to find the courage to get as far as the front walk, to pick up the mail, but hide under the bed, the moment the news paper, a neighbor, or a passing car that they don’t recognize, or says something, or does something, they don’t comprehend “spooks” them.
The only straight jackets here are yours Janja, and like most believers, the idea of not being in one scares you so badly that you can’t even imagine everyone else not having one to hide in when scared by something.
Janja @ 175
Like all insanities, the brain is the seat of them all. Your imaginary god is in your head, where it emanates from. If your head was cut off, your imaginary god, with all the other mental defects, will cease to exist. Simple isn’t it, but ever so realistic.
Perhaps we can get some religious videos that attack atheism pulled from youtube?
BobC – you do know that Google has been censoring search results in China for several years now, right? They dropped “Do no evil” a long time ago.
There’s new policy afoot. I happened across an account of pulling depictions of illegal drug use here
Posted by: Kagehi
Death threat is also a sin in Christian life.
You should look at what religion teaches and not about stupid “public manifesttations” of unrespectful “Christians”…
I see that religious life of Christians in USA is different…
For example – the theory of Darwin is interesting and totally corresponds to the plane of God (that is official state of the Church too)… but Christians in your country are talking nonsense about theory of how it all began – creationism… If you look at CHURCH and its perspective you clerly see that they are doing it on their own hand… not the official Christian point of view…
One more thing… than I have to go to sleep;)
Christian religion is not about talking or preaching to other. It is about living it. Thoughts of everybody here clearly indicate that we Christian do not live good enough. Cause Christian life should be: to believe in God, to love your neigbour, to pray, to work unselfishly…
I have to say that I see that like a contribution (of different kind) to a wellbeing of all people… If we Christians (I said we reffereing just to Christians… I do not think we are majority so I appologize for previous mistake)…
I see where you feel the pain when religion “comes” in politics and so on…
About that I think:
– abortion – I will always see it as a murder (not just as a Christian – a moral view shared by many nonChristians).
– marriage – should be a place of unselfish love and place where you come to peace…
– faith – I feel accepted… in our country it is nothing wrong with expressing religious feelings (I do it with respect to others – in a way that they are not embarrassed…)
– first I try to be a good person.
Have to go…
If anyone is coming to Slovenia – a most beautiful conutry… let me know ;)))
ADIJO (bye)
Janja
Umm, all the videos seem to be working for me… Have they been returned? Or not removed yet?
It is a only a piece of bread, not your imaginary despot/friend.
You are free to believe whatever crazy bullshit you like. As long as you’re doing no harm, nobody can, or wants to, stop you.
If you do enough of the latter, the former goes away.
Silly analogy. Nobody’s stolen anything. I can buy a red hat identical to yours and burn it if I want. If you don’t like it, that’s your problem.
Nobody hates you because of your hat or your beliefs, however stupid and childish they might be.
To persons, yes; to ideas, no.
If you don’t like your beliefs being ridiculed, you should avoid believing ridiculous things.
I wish you a nice day from Sweden.
God damn it! FSMdude just added me as a friend yesterday!
Janja, the concept of our brain being somehow special is just bogus.
Why should there be more to us than the sum of our parts?
It is comfortable to believe otherwise, but I have yet to see some kind of evidence.
It’s hard to admit, that we are not special, that we are a fairly intelligent animal, with huge parts of the brain dedicated to making stuff up :)
If that is true, then what somebody on YouTube does to a cracker shouldn’t bother you.
The FSMDude videos are back on youtube!
For example:
The videos all seem to be running at the moment though.
They must have seen the light and restored them since they are all back up. Perhaps it was a disgruntled Catholic employee who blocked them in the name of . . . well, you know.
I’m thinking they got auto-suspended after people flagged them as inappropriate (there are anti-FSMDude flagging campaigns). However, once YouTube reviewed the videos, they put them back on because they’re just videos of crackers.
However, YouTube is not off the hook yet. Pat Condell’s recent video has been removed and they notified him with a warning.
http://www.youtube.com/patcondell
This is a good quote:
“At Cambridge University I was taught a laudable method of argument: you never personalise, but you have absolutely no respect for people’s opinions. You are never rude to the person, but you can be savagely rude about what the person thinks. That seems to me a crucial distinction: people must be protected from discrimination by virtue of their race, but you cannot ring-fence their ideas. The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.” (Salman Rushdie)
If anyone wants to hit the elusive Youtube help form, it’s here;
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/request.py#
Videos seem fine to me. But anyway to hell with all religion if you’ll forgive the paradox.
Is that like “God bless the Holy Trinity”?
Actually, I’m a bit surprised you-tube has any rules at all. I think eucharist desecration falls into the “no disgusting and shocking” rule with a wee bit of overlap with the hate crime rule.
I can see how eucharist desecration can be seen by some as “disgusting and shocking” and some would find it as egregious as a video of someone smearing shit on a wall. Thing is, I wouldn’t have thought you-tube would ban videos of smearing shit. The FCC would of course…
I’m disappointed that you-tube has a “disgusting and shocking” rule but then again I’m disgusted you-tube has a “no porn and nudity for the sake of nudity” rule as well.
I guess I can understand both but I I feel that, yes, you-tube is craven and caving.
On the other hand, the concern troll in me is a *weeee* bit disappointed Myers and the posters here claiming “it’s just a cracker” aren’t being entirely honest in not acknowledging that, to some, flushing a wafer down a toilet is as a egregious as smearing shit on a wall. I’d prefer if we’d be honest and say “Yes, I know these actions are as disgusting as smearing shit on a wall to you, and, yes, I *am* trying to disgust you. Now here is *why* I am smearing shit on the wall and why I am trying to disgust you…”
hey I can see his youtube page and ALL of his videos ! What’s up ?
4:39 PM EDT. I can access all of FSMDude’s videos as well.
In the US, Christian religion seems to be about forcing its own morality on others through the power of the State, by outlawing things it doesn’t like (e.g., abortion, same-sex marriage, sex education) and legalizing things it does like (e.g., creationism). If Christians were happy not preaching to others, there would be no real problem, but that’s simply not the case in the US.
Working for me too… Tried a bunch at FSMDude’s youtube page… http://www.youtube.com/user/fsmdude – I love the cute ducks eating jesus!
I’m not a youtube geek so I don’t know how to tell if an account is suspended, but his page comes up and all the videos I tried worked fine.
Did youtube grow a pair and reverse their decision or did their site hiccup and it just looked like it was pulled when in fact it was just a bug?
Looks like all his videos are up again :D
I was meaning to write to youtube with congratulations, but unfortunately your utter lack of cajones in the face of medieval censor-thugs has changed the plan. I am immensely disappointed with you for your cowardice and your failure to stand up against censorship, especially since I had thought youtube to be superior to myspace in the area of defending free speech. I sincerely doubt if you would be so accommodating to atheists such as myself with such complaints, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that such complaints about hatred toward atheists on youtube are suspiciously lacking. That is because we do not make attempts to smash people and opinions with which we do not agree unless they threaten to invade our personal space. Speaking as a former Catholic, these people have no tolerance for any view outside of their own, and if you give them an inch they will try to take a mile. The only way to stop their religious tyranny from taking effect is to stand strong. You are utterly spineless.
Congratulations, though, for doing your part in sending our country and the world a little further back into the Dark Ages. Perhaps you’d like to provide the matches when they eventually come to burn the likes of me at the stake–might be a great PR opportunity. I’m thinking something like “youtube.com–champion of fatwa envy”.
———————-
I suppose I could have done better on that slogan, but dammit, I was pist. :D
Sure they’re private, but they cave to bullying by people who can’t stand any form of criticism whatever.
Damn, I was away on business without a connection for a few days, try to catch up on posts here and on other blogs, and find I’m too late to write to them. Catholic fatwas are still fatwas, I guess…
I don’t think anyone here is saying some don’t perceive it as disgusting: obviously they do. The point is they shouldn’t. They are expecting non-Catholics to abide by Catholic rules, and that is unreasonable and disrespectful of the right of others to believe what they wish. A right they demand for themselves and don’t want to have to extend to others. It’s deliberate defiance of an unreasonable demand: a form of civil disobedience as a means of protest. In other words, people wouldn’t even think of doing it if there hadn’t first been a large contingent of people saying “you can’t”.
So, yes, it is deliberately offensive but only in response to, and to draw attention to, their offensive and intolerant behavior. And they can solve the problem of their offense all by themselves: stop being offended. If they would stop expecting others to abide by their religious rules, it wouldn’t bother them when they didn’t, and people would stop violating those rules on purpose.
Yeah, that may be part of your problem. You can’t have a change of paradigm if your premise is that prayer actually works. I also never demanded proof in my post above.
Many of us grew up believing just as you do, and some of us intended to join the clergy and a few actually were ordained.
I doubt anyone here had a single “eureka” moment and went instantly from belief to disbelief, if I may be so presumptuous. For me, it was more akin to Gould’s punctuated equilibrium theory. I began to reject certain dogmatic points but still held onto “God” as a given. The more I examined the lack of tangible evidence and the sophistry used to explain that lack of evidence, my faith, or more appropriately an allegiance to a culturally sanctioned ideology, waned until I realized that religion is a form of theatre. Not just the props and pageantry, but the psychological aspect of inducing emotional responses, fear being the prime motivator.
The dread of being singled out, of being admonished or rejected by family, friends and those in Authority. The horror of the unthinkable: that this world was not specifically created for mankind and that no magical being exists to intervene when we are in danger and that there is nothing beyond our material lives – no heaven, no hell, no “afterlife”. The tragedy of children dying too soon, of people born into extreme poverty and suffering never to experience pleasure or freedom; existence has only the meaning we give it, nothing more.
Hard to face but the delusion of magical deities is harder to stomach in the cold light of reason. “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is the simplest and best analogy I can think of when it comes to religion.
Every damn believer comes to this site assuming we’re all just ignorant of faith and scripture. They can’t understand that at one time we too looked out from that same paradigm of belief. But faith (the belief in supernatural powers) by it’s definition is irrational and once one understand that, it’s only a matter of time before one starts letting go of gods and mysticism. The hard part of reconciling the culture of deception and lies that promotes religion, is determining what is misguided altruism and what is overarching paternalism.
Yes, I’m disregarding the comfort of community and charitable acts for now. I am not implying that religion is completely useless or worthless, but it can become corrupt and immoral ironically. Don’t like “moral” as a descriptor? Then try “unethical”. Somehow in most churches’ preoccupation with sin, the concept of ethics is roundly neglected. Ultimately deities and the supernatural are abstract constructs of the human brain. They only exist if you believe they do, but you are fighting a lot of years of brainwashing and an enormous cultural/societal bias to reject that conclusion. I wish you well.
I was meaning to write to youtube with congratulations, but unfortunately your utter lack of cajones in the face of medieval censor-thugs has changed the plan. I am immensely disappointed with you for your cowardice and your failure to stand up against censorship, especially since I had thought youtube to be superior to myspace in the area of defending free speech. I sincerely doubt if you would be so accommodating to atheists such as myself with such complaints, but I’m sure you’ve noticed that such complaints about hatred toward atheists on youtube are suspiciously lacking. That is because we do not make attempts to smash people and opinions with which we do not agree unless they threaten to invade our personal space. Speaking as a former Catholic, these people have no tolerance for any view outside of their own, and if you give them an inch they will try to take a mile. The only way to stop their religious tyranny from taking effect is to stand strong. You are utterly spineless.
Congratulations, though, for doing your part in sending our country and the world a little further back into the Dark Ages. Perhaps you’d like to provide the matches when they eventually come to burn the likes of me at the stake–might be a great PR opportunity. I’m thinking something like “youtube.com–champion of fatwa envy”.
———————-
I suppose I could have done better on that slogan, but dammit, I was pist. :D
Sure they’re private, but they cave to bullying by people who can’t stand any form of criticism whatever.
What did Jesus sacrifice, exactly?
For those who still don’t understand:
You have a crazy belief. The belief is that when a certain recitation is spoken over a cracker, it literally becomes the body of your deity.
You expect me to respect this crazy belief. In other words, you expect me to treat a cracker like a deity – to respect a cracker.
I’m not going to do it, because a cracker doesn’t deserve my respect any more than a piece of pumpkin pie does.
Let’s say that I was a member of a religion which believes that a piece of toast, when certain magical words have been recited, becomes the body of Zeus. Just because I hold this crazy belief doesn’t make it true. The toast is not Zeus, and I should not expect anyone else to respect my delusion because it is… a DELUSION.
Love in Christ,
Kyle
I bet Catholicism would be more popular if they used pie instead of crackers.
Ummm….pie….
tsg:
Or the old favorite “you wouldn’t put your dead grandma out with the trash!!!”
Hmm, what did Jesus say about proper respect to the remains of loved ones?
“And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.”
“I bet Catholicism would be more popular if they used pie instead of crackers.
Ummm….pie….”
That’s a great idea, who would ever even think of desecrating a delicious pie! :)
Pete Rooke @ #112, yet again showing he hasn’t got the slightest idea what the fuck he’s talking about:
No, the problem with child pornography is that making it actually harms real, living children, and posessing it, presumably after purchase, supports and condones that harm, harm that actually happened, not just some idiotic analogy about baked goods. Allowing child porn creates a market for more of a product that harms children when it’s made. The issue is harm to real people, not offending your sensibilities, not encouraging pedophiles, but about shutting down a business that actually does real harm to real living people.
More of Rooke’s total failure at analogies:
You could, but you’d be an idiot. You don’t seem to grasp that there’s a difference between real living people and baked goods. The host isn’t a real person. It’s a piece of bread. It does not feel pain.
Rooke gets the vapors:
What offense? Not worshipping a piece of bread? Why is that an “offense”? Because you and the rest of your cult insist on believing some bullshit about an imaginary ghost inhabiting baked goods? Who is actually harmed by this “offense”? Is there a single person who actually suffers anything other than a self-inflicted case of the vapors because someone dares to be mean to baked goods? Of course, there are all those death threats from your fellow cultists, but you can’t bring yourself to realize there’s anything wrong with threatening the life of an actual living human being, can you? No, all your outrage is reserved for disrespect to crackers.
I don’t think anyone here is saying some don’t perceive it as disgusting: obviously they do. The point is they shouldn’t.
I don’t agree with this. I think everyone has a right to their beliefs and that they have a right to be offended. They even have a right to be justifiably offended. What they *don’t* have is the right *not* to be justifiably offended. (i.e. they don’t have a right to be protected from offence.)
They are expecting non-Catholics to abide by Catholic rules, and that is unreasonable and disrespectful of the right of others to believe what they wish.
Errr…. not quite. They are expecting us not to grab *their* body of christ and flush it down the toilet. When I’m burying my grandmother, I expect my neighbors not to burst down my wall and grab her corpse and piss in her eye-socket.
Of course, you will note a few differences between the two examples. (We’ll assume for the moment that it is reasonable and acceptable to react as though the cracker is the body of Christ and it is reasonable and acceptable to react as though the body of my grandmother is sacred to me in my duty to honor her memory and put her at peace and also that it is not reasonable to force either of these beliefs to the other.) There’s only one corpse of my grandmother and they interupted and prevented *my* funeral. Not so with the wafer. But they *are* witnessing the body of Christ being desecrated.
The question is to what right do they have to react to this offense and to what extent *is* this egregious. If someone dug up the bones of *his* grandmother and pissed in her eye… well, so what. But if it was the bones of say …. Thomas Jefferson … well, our laws recognize the bones of TJ differently than crackers. I kinda think if one is going to encounter blasphemy in one’s life one can’t really respond with a stuttering “wha… wha… wha…they can’t *do* that” because, of course, they can, have and will. (This summer with the wild-fires if Big Sur, there was a possibility of them bulldozing up the remains of my grandmother by the way. This was upsetting to me emotionally. Oddly enough having a friend tell me that after twenty-five years in the soil there are no physical parts of her ashes remaining at all was somehow comforting although that is utterly irrational. But I digress.) What one has to do is ask oneself what the ‘blasphemy’ means to them and what is reasonable to do.
So, yes, it is deliberately offensive but only in response to, and to draw attention to, their offensive and intolerant behavior.
I agree but I think we/you are being dishonest to say “We are ruining a cracker and it’s only a cracker to mock your beliefs and draw attention to your intolerance”. I think it’d be more honest to say “You issued death threats to someone for mocking your beliefs. This is intolerable and barbaric and I feel I must protest. As a form of disobedience and an act of solidarity to Cook, I am going to commit his offence in sympathy. Thus, I am taking this cracker, *WHICH I KNOW IS THE BODY OF CHRIST TO YOU* and I will desecrate it. Out of respect for your beliefs I will do so in as respectful a manner as one might reasonably expect a non-believer to disagree. I will not pee on it. I will not flush it down the toilet. I will not laugh at it saying ‘Where’s your god now, Jebus!’ But I will treat it in a way that displays my disbelief in it. I will stick a nail through it as a mock replication of the cruxifiction. Then I will treat it as though it were an ordinary object by placing it in the trash. It will have the company of objects of other beliefs, including my own, to demonstrate that there will always be people who believe our ideas, mine included, are trash but we must tolerate such. Again, I *KNOW* this object is holy to you and I regret having to rub my non-belief in your face. But what you must know ask yourself is how can you react to someone believing it is not holy. Death threats is an intolerant and unacceptable reaction.”
=====
Anyhoo…. It looks like either
1) YouTube changed their mind and the videos are up again!!!!
or
2) There’s a technical glitch and some servers are still showing them but that’ll go away when youtube finds the glitch and fixes it.
I’m hoping the former.
Crustians – pie whorship.
Gosh, a few key misspellings and that starts to get funny. To me.
As a worshipper of Bastet, I am gravely offended by all those people who post videos of cats on YouTube because they think it’s “funny” or “cute”. As for the “funny” part, it often involves cats falling, being frightened, or shown in ridiculous situations. Very offensive. As for the “cute”… well, what would your girlfriend think if you posted a video of her rolling across the bed, naked (well, some of the cats wear a collar, but most don’t)? Very, very offensive. I’m going to ask for all those exploitive clips to be pulled off. May Bastet have mercy.
Kyle W. I see where you are coming from but I can’t quite agree with it. My basic, er, bases of my disagreement follow from my opinion that everyone is entitled to their beliefs and to have their belief (that is, their act of believing; not their belief themselves) respected. My disagreement is as follows:
You have a crazy belief. The belief is that when a certain recitation is spoken over a cracker, it literally becomes the body of your deity.
Crazy or not, I believe they are entitled to this belief and even entitled to have their belief in it respected.
You expect me to respect this crazy belief. In other words, you expect me to treat a cracker like a deity – to respect a cracker.
Er… not quite. They expect (… well, actually they *do* expect you to treat a cracker like a deity– and for that matter to treat a deity like a deity– which they don’t have a right to expect; but however they do, in my opinion, have a right to expect …) you to treat their belief in the deity of the cracker respectfully. Just as we expect one not to toss pork in a mosque, burn down a synagogue at night, or have sex on a pew during a sermon, we expect one not to steal the crackers that have gone through the consecration ritual and feed them to the ducks.
Let’s say that I was a member of a religion which believes that a piece of toast, when certain magical words have been recited, becomes the body of Zeus. Just because I hold this crazy belief doesn’t make it true.
No but you have every right to believe it and act upon it.
The toast is not Zeus, and I should not expect anyone else to respect my delusion because it is… a DELUSION.
You should not expect anyone else to *believe* your delusion but you have every right to expect people to respect *your* right to believe your delusion.
Of course, if someone decides to anally rape Zeus by stealing your toast and masturbating with it, you have the right to be very irate and seriously upset. You even have the right to be *justifiably* horrified and disgusted. But, hey …. whaddya gonna do? Issue death threats? Ah, c’mon…. What *can* you do? Just gotta roll with the punches.
Is it only in America? I just looked at the start of one and it’s still working in Australia.
Vids are back up!
Just watched the cracker get fed to a duck!
I’m in Canada, it still works here as well. I guess Catholic bigotry only extends to the edges of American soil.
My condolences guys :(
Vids are back up? I’ll have to check on that, and if true, write another letter telling them that they do indeed have both spines and cajones and both are of them are very strong and potent. Or something like that.
Use a proxy server – signing in from the UK, these videos are viewable.
They are back up. I’m in Seattle, WA and was able to see the entire list. Especially the FSMDude’s duck video.
They missed a lot of us, check it out.
http://www.youtube.com/user/skutre
Perhaps my own personal blessing of hors Duerve water crackers wasn’t good enough for the censors, only REAL EUCHARIST Desecration will be censored.
Fucking Bigots, how dare they not censor me.
Posted by: Queequeg @ 56:
like the commenters there said: leave the kids out of it, please.
Naaaaahhh, let’s leave them in, it’s fun.
Pitching with Satan and Caitlin
http://acksisofevil.org/audio/C-D/PWS.mp3
more
http://acksisofevil.org/Caitlin-Daddy.html
You need to realise that respecting the right to believe is not the same as respecting the belief itself or respecting the believer
Of course we respect the right to believe whatever you want.
We don’t have to respect the belief itself.
And respect for the belief itself is exactly what is being demanded here, with menaces, by Catholics (and concern trolls).
woozy:
whoops, re-reading your post i think you already get that.
it’s a bit early in the morning over here.
Hey, scooter!
I wonder if you want to help contribute to crackergate.com (look close at the vids)?
send an email to IchthyicATcrackergateDOTcom so I can set you up with a login.
cheers
I have a firmly held belief that insane idea should be loudly mocked in public.
Why can’t Catholics respect my beliefs?
As OJ noted, Pat Condell’s latest was pulled from YouTube
And respect for the belief itself is exactly what is being demanded here, with menaces, by Catholics (and concern trolls).
Hey, watch it, Oz! My eyes flash fire when I’m angry you know!
It’s a fine line between “hate speech” and sensible debate. It’s a subtle difference between “Gad, you guys believe in totally wacked stuff!” (Hate speech) and “Gad, these beliefs expressed in your doctrines which you believe are totally wacked stuff!” (respectful discourse)
I see it more as the Catholics are saying “Please, respect us enough not to flush the body of Christ down the toilet and taunt us by grabbing our crucifixes and playing keep away”. And … you shouldn’t do that stuff. But then they go on and say “if you do, a reasonable response is to threaten to kill you and you should be expelled from the university and everyone who thinks its funny to flush the body of Christ down the toilet and to play keep away with our crucifixes should be censured and everyone should behave like we think they should because we think that is the right way to be”.
Woozy, we have been through your whole argument with 30,000+ posts on the subject. You will change no minds because you are wrong. Please take your concern elsewhere.
@106:
Who’s next to flag? I vote for these guys.
This has already been answered but when someone says:
“They are their beliefs and they are entitled to them, the same as we are entitled to our non-belief.”
I just have to say something.
Hey, sure, everybody is entitled to their beliefs but I’m also entitled to point out bullshit when I see it.
I have my beliefs too (atheism). But I don’t shy away from debating my beliefs because I know they can stand up to scrutiny — that’s why I chose to believe them in the first place.
On the other hand, the beliefs of Catholics don’t stand up to scrutiny and the only recourse they have when somebody protests or points out the obvious flaws in their upside-down, house of cards ideology is to fall back on this false notion that they’re being discriminated against and demand censorship to “make the big bad people who are making me feel dumb go away.”
Catholics, you want this stuff to stop? Okay. Prove to me right now that when I put a communion wafer in my mouth — and I was raised a catholic, it *should* work for me under your own rules — that stale piece of bread (why not just give me crouton and be done with it?) becomes the body of a 2,000 year old messianic prophet. Do that and I’ll admit my beliefs are wrong. If you can’t (and don’t give me this “faith” bullshit. I want proof), then you need to admit the same.
Remember, you’re the ones the making the claim about God and Jesus and the like. It’s on you to prove it. It’s not on me to disprove it.
They seem to be working now.
Let me put it another way: they have no just cause to be upset at a non-Catholic not treating the eucharist as sacred.
They are demanding that we behave as if it is the body of christ when we don’t believe it is.
A few?
That assumption is at the very heart of the argument. No, it is not reasonable to expect, or especially to demand, someone who doesn’t believe the cracker is the body of christ to behave as if it is.
No, they believe they are. It’s not the same thing. And demanding that I behave as if it is simply because they believe it is is violating my right to believe.
The level of egregiousness is entirely within their own control. The second they stop expecting non-believers to behave as if they do believe, the offense vanishes.
I’ll make this analogy since it seems to be popular with others who are outraged by the desecrations: what if it were a picture of my mother? After all, it’s just a piece of paper. My answer is, that is correct, it is just a piece of paper. And I will send you one to dececrate on YouTube all you like. Wipe your ass with it. Call her a crusty old cunt if you like. Blow your nose and masturbate all over it. I don’t care. Why? Because there is nothing you can do to that picture that would harm my mother. And it can only harm me if I value your opinion of her. I don’t, especially because I know you’re only doing it to piss me off. I can completely disarm you by not caring what you think. See how easy that is? By a simple act of thought I make you powerless to harm me.
Now, if I were to claim that I believe, wholeheartedly and without question, that a photo of my mother was actually my mother, in body and mind, everyone would think I was nuts. And if I were to insist that the picture of my mother be treated as if it was actually her, I’d be told I was being unreasonable. And no one, but no one, would be suggesting that people actually treat that picture as if it were really my mother simply because I believe it is. But I’m supposed to treat a cracker as the body of Christ because they believe the equally ridiculous claim that it is.
The point of saying “We are ruining a cracker and it’s only a cracker” is that it is only a cracker to us. As much as they believe it is the body of christ, we believe it is just a cracker and we are just as entitled to that belief as they are to theirs. To suggest otherwise is to say they have more right to their beliefs than I do to mine. And to say that I have to behave as if it is the body of christ is to deny me my right to my beliefs. And to do so under the guise of respecting their right to their beliefs is, in short, sheer hypocrisy.
I do not regret rubbing my non-belief in their faces because they have no problem rubbing their belief, to the point of actually expecting me to obey it, in mine. And I will do anything I can to that cracker to get that point across, because it is just a cracker and insisting that I behave as if it is not is totally unreasonable and completely unacceptable.
I will clarify having just made that point in another argument. I agree that everyone is entitled to their right to believe whatever they want and I respect that right. I do not, however, have to respect the belief. In the same way, I respect everyone’s right to make their own decisions, but that doesn’t mean I have to think all their decisions are good ones. When I say a belief is silly or wrong, I’m saying that you shouldn’t believe it, not that you shouldn’t be allowed to. Nor do I expect you to behave as if you don’t, with one exception: when the your actions as a result of that belief are harmful to others.
Re: my #244
I just want to add one thing. The YouTube eucharist desecrations are people, very publicly, exercising their right to not believe in direct defiance of those who think they shouldn’t have that right. And the only reason for anyone to be offended by that kind of behavior is because they think they shouldn’t have that right.
woozy:
What? “You believe dumb things” is bad, but “the things you believe are dumb” is OK?
That line’s pretty friggen subtle, eh?
So you respect Hindus enough to give up beef?
Or Muslims / Jews enough to give up pork?
Obviously you sweep the path of ants as you walk to avoid offending any Buddhists.
No? Why, you disrespectful bastard!
Unfortunately the evidence shows religious nutters are all too ready to leap straight to the threats, and religious “moderates” are all to ready to stand behind them.
You know. Its interesting, but, the argument being made about respect is “valid” within the confines of their own property. I.e., one might reasonably expect you to “respect” their view, within the boundaries of their own church, their own 100% Catholic community, or, like any other “anthropological” event, within the boundaries of **their** specific group, as an observer. The problem here is “fundamentally” that they demand that we presume that their “community”, “land”, “property”, or, “scope of control”, lies like a blanket over the entire world. That what we might respect sufficiently to tolerate within the *narrow* confines of their own holdings, somehow ***must*** automatically extend to what “we hold and control”, to “our” communities, or to “our” borders, is the thing that is not reasonable. They want us to hold our tongue in among our “own”, the same way we might, out of general tolerance and respect, while among a group made up almost exclusively of them.
Well… Sorry, but while I am happy to respect the native tribes use of wooden idols, and ritual magic drinks, I am in no way obligated to later demand everyone else accept the premises of the ritual, only serve such things within the confines of the proper ritual, not post recipes for it online, or state, in some paper on the subject, “The ritual is insane, the drink horrible tasting, the bread worse, the entire premise absurd, and all the fools that I sent bottles and containers of same, before I realized how bad it was, should throw them out, flush them down a toilet, etc.” Even more so, should it turn out that some aspect of the belief tied to them, or some part of the ritual, or some action they take “against” someone that didn’t follow it properly, was barbaric, unethical, or immoral from my perspective.
What I do in “my” community, with my crackers, for what ever “my” reason are, even if those reasons are to protest the barbaric rituals or actions of the group, fall “outside” the bounds of where, when and how I am “required” to show any false respect, or tolerance for them.
I don’t know why the folks that have had there videos removed don’t just create a new account and reload the videos. They might take them down again, but that’s fine, just keep uploading them under new accounts. Eventually they will give up. If fact, they usually just do one sweep so they can say they have done something, then stop looking. I’ll bet that if you were to upload them again right now, they would not get pulled down. I know plenty of people that have done this in other youtube banning situations.
I’m disappointed that you guys would give up so easy.
Oh, and before you tell me that they track your IP, remember, the TOR router is your friend.
Right, but they’re the ones who are trying to make some of their beliefs into laws all of us have to follow. I don’t recollect Catholics being all that concerned about respecting the belief that two people in love should be able to marry regardless of gender, or that a woman should have control over her own body. So remind me again why Catholic beliefs have to be respected?
A further issue with the whole notion of “respecting beliefs” is that we really only grant religious beliefs such a “sacred” quality. If I video myself wiping my butt with an Alex Rodriguez jersey, that will piss off plenty of Yankees fans, but no one would say I should “respect” their belief that A-Rod is a superstar. If I post a video of me peeing on a Ford, that might be gross, but I doubt that anyone would say I should “respect” Ford owners. It is only religious beliefs that apparently get the kid-glove treatment, for reasons which are rather opaque to me.
(In the US, beliefs around patriotism and patriotic displays, such as the flag, seem to get similar deference, but in the US, patriotism is close to a civic religion anyway.)
The videos and the account seem to have been restored. Crisis seems to be averted for now.
Yup – I had no problem checking out FSMdude’s ‘body’ of work just now (did ya see what I did there?)
So, ironically, FSMdude will be receiving even more views despite some catliks trying to ‘censer’ him. (there’s another one!)
Oz and TSG:
You really do seem to be missing my point don’t you? Especially as I’m your side.
Actually, I am serious about the pissing in the eye-socket of my grandmother argument. They know my grandmother’s corpse is nothing but dead meat and has no significance or any purpose so why shouldn’t they piss in her eye-socket?
As to the “what if it’s a picture of your mother” that is analogous. It’d have to be “what if it was your mother” (*not* a picture but your actual mother.)
Anyway, clarification.
What? “You believe dumb things” is bad, but “the things you believe are dumb” is OK?
I was attempting to be humorous but yes. Tossing pork into a mosque is hate speach and not discourse. Likewise judgemental statements like “You muslims are stupid for believing in whack ideas” is “disrespectful to their belief in their beliefs” and thus “hate speech” whereas the utterly equivalent statement. “Your ideas are stupid and whack” is “disrespectful to the beliefs themselves” and thus “respectful discourse”.
Me: I see it more as the Catholics are saying “Please, respect us enough not to flush the body of Christ down the toilet and taunt us by grabbing our crucifixes and playing keep away”. And … you shouldn’t do that stuff.
You: So you respect Hindus enough to give up beef? Or Muslims / Jews enough to give up pork? Obviously you sweep the path of ants as you walk to avoid offending any Buddhists. No? Why, you disrespectful bastard!
Three clarifications. I’m respectful enough to not force-feed a Jew and Muslim to eat pork. (Although I did once trick an obnoxious self-righteous vegetarian into eating bacon fat. He was *really* obnoxious and I was duly provoked. I actually did feel bad and asked people how wrong I was for doing it. I was a bit surprised almost no0one thought it was wrong at all. But I digress.) It is *hugely* different to not believe their beliefs nor to act on them then to flaunt a disbelief solely to provoke. How *is* flushing a communion wafer down a toilet any different than pissing in my grandmother’s eyesocket? Of having sex in on the church floor during mass. The fact that we know a wafer is just a cracker, we know a corpse is just meat, and sex is just fun doesn’t matter.
Second. I am *not* saying we shouldn’t be able to be disresptful. We absolutely should be able to be disrespectful. I should be able flush a communion wafer down the toilet. I should be able to wave a raw pork chop under the nose of a muslim in a street. However, I shouldn’t actually do any of these things simply because it’s not *nice*. It’s … disrepectful. (Back to the mother; you shouldn’t take a picture of my mother and masturbate one it. That’s mean. But, by God, you shouldn’t be prevented from doing it.)
Thirdly. I’m talking about being voluntarly respectful under normal instances. When a guy steals a communion wafer, which “wasn’t nice”, the catholic community has a right to be offended. But they don’t have the right to be protected from this offense. Thus when they respond with unreasonable death threats and petitions for expulsion from his university they have gone too far and protest *is* reasonable. As I said in the beginning I’m a weee bit uneasy that a rather easy and comfortable stance “I’m not doing anything bad because its only a cracker”. I’d prefer we take a more honest and stronger stance that “Yes, I *am* doing something bad and I *am* doing it to offend you and here is why”.
Unfortunately the evidence shows religious nutters are all too ready to leap straight to the threats, and religious “moderates” are all to ready to stand behind them.
And I ever said otherwise?
And TSG:
They are demanding that we behave as if it is the body of christ when we don’t believe it is.
How does our not believing it is the body of Christ compell us that we must flush it down a toilet or do anything with it at all? They are not demanding that we behave as though it is the body of christ. What they are demanding is that we not be allowed to behave as though it is might be the body of Christ. In other words that we not be allowed to offend them. That *is* an unreasonable demand. They don’t have the right not to be offended. And we have the right to not have our behavior restricted merely in that it may offend. But that doesn’t mean our behavior is therefore not capable of being offensive.
I just don’t think we should shy away from admitting our actions are offensive.
And if I were to insist that the picture of my mother be treated as if it was actually her, I’d be told I was being unreasonable.
Yes, but I don’t think anyone would deny your right to be as offended as though it were your mother. I also don’t think anyone would deny the other guy is a dispicable shit.
We *are* deliberately provoking catholics solely for the sake of provoking them. This may or may not be a reasonable thing to do (in this case I think it is but I think this is an exception), and under no circumstances should we *not* be allowed to deliberately provoke catholics solely for the sake of provoking (even if it’s an unreasonable thing to do), but we shouldn’t pretend that we *aren’t* deliberately provoking solely for the soke of provoking.
And to say that I have to behave as if it is the body of christ is to deny me my right to my beliefs. And to do so under the guise of respecting their right to their beliefs is, in short, sheer hypocrisy.
I’m *not* saying you should have to behave to their standards. I’m not saying you have to be respectful to their beliefs. (Although you should. I mean, just to be *nice*.) I’m just saying that when we are being disrespectful to their belief we should be honest with ourselves.
I do not regret rubbing my non-belief in their faces because they have no problem rubbing their belief, to the point of actually expecting me to obey it, in mine.
Well, yeah. but I was being excessively polite. I mean, we can rub our belief that a corpse is just meat into other’s faces in other ways than pissing in an eyesocket or tossing pork into a mosque.
The way I see this is that this is a protest and should be viewed as such. Provoking for the sake of provoking is simply bad form. Provoking for the sake of illuminating anothers offense is reasonable. But it’s good form to explain oneself.
Hmmm, the ED videos may have been re-instated, but now Pat Condell’s latest video has been removed !! (http://rogalert.blogspot.com/2008/10/you-tube-switches-religious-alliegence.html)
The Video was exhorting people to sign a petition against Sharia law in the UK, and has been removed for criticising Islam….
Yes, most of us have. It says kill unbelievers:
“But these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence.”
Luke 19:27
Or were you referring to the parts where it describes women as inferior, promotes slavery, or advocates the death penalty for uppity teenagers?
But without Genesis, the Christian story makes no sense, well, even less sense.
What,an ahistorical Jesus had to die for the metaphoric sin of a legendary Adam?
Then can I just write a short story about accepting Jesus into my heart to get into heaven?
You use quotes around “Christian” to indicate that they are not True Christian and you have the purer faith.
Well, regardless of your differences, that’s one thing you seem to have in common with every other Christian who has ever posted here.
However, given that you reject Genesis and Luke, more extreme Christians would seem to have more right to call you a scarequote-“Christian”, rather than the reverse.
Again, sorry if this is painful. You are both civil and kind, but your ideas are unsupported and false. I hope it does not pain you too much to lose them, which will almost certainly happen if you hang around science blogs long enough.
Woozy is another catolick concern troll. We’ve heard all her arguments before. YAWN!
Woozy, do you have any physical proof for your alleged god? Something that would pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers as being divine? If not, how do you know you and your belief in god isn’t a delusion on your part. After all, no god = no bible = no theology.
Summary:
“Your beliefs are whacky.” = opinion.
“Hey, he said our beliefs are whacky; let’s beat him up.” = hate speech.
Look, you can do whatever you want to my dead grandmother. I don’t care.
This couldn’t be more wrong. The cracker is not a human being despite that many believe it is.
So, in other words, I’m allowed to do them so long as I never do?
It’s not more honest because it’s still pandering to their belief. Mistreating a cracker is not bad simply because they believe it is the body of christ.
Nobody’s arguing that it isn’t offensive. It shouldn’t be. That’s the point. I’ve asked this question a dozen times and have yet to receive an answer: why should a Catholic care what a non-Catholic does to a cracker?
As for the rest of your comment, I have no idea what you are arguing against. It is offensive. We know it’s offensive. No one’s pretending it isn’t. What we are saying is that it shouldn’t be because we shouldn’t have to treat this cracker as anything but a cracker no matter who believes it’s the body of Christ. Of course it’s not nice. We’re not trying to be nice. We’re being deliberately nasty in protest to their unreasonable demands.
So what is your point?
HOWEVER, STUFF LIKE THIS STILL FLIES: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSyKtiYUegU
OK, I just flagged that one in retaliation.
Maybe I’m a bad person, but it made me feel good.
Respect for privacy? (Unlike crackers, privacy is something we can respect.) Nobody’s talking about “bursting down walls” to get the crackers!
For this analogy to hold you would have to cut your grandmother to little pieces and ask hundreds of people to come to your house and share the grandma shishkebab. Then you would get upset if someone happened to mistreat one of those little pieces of meat.
I don’t understand how you can use the “you wouldn’t treat your GRANDMOTHER that way” argument and not see the glaring contradiction. I wouldn’t EAT my grandmother, either!
We’re being deliberately nasty in protest to their unreasonable demands.
So what is your point?
woozy’s point seems to be that being deliberately nasty in protest to their unreasonable demands is being deliberately nasty in protest to their unreasonable demands.
A better question is why did it take umpteen posts of hundreds of words each to make this blindingly obvious equation?
If you’ve got something better to do, go do it. I’m not forcing you to read it.
I know I’m late to the party, but Sastra is awesome (#140, #179).
Woozy is another catolick concern troll. We’ve heard all her arguments before. YAWN!
Um, I’m male.
Woozy, do you have any physical proof for your alleged god?
Um, I’m an atheist.
So, in other words, I’m allowed to do them so long as I never do?
No, you are allowed to do. Just admit that you are doing.
It’s not more honest because it’s still pandering to their belief. Mistreating a cracker is not bad simply because they believe it is the body of christ.
It’s not pandering to their belief because you do not believe it is the body of Christ (and if you did you wouldn’t care).
why should a Catholic care what a non-Catholic does to a cracker?
Why should a non-jihadist care what a jihadist does to an infidel? Just because the non-jihadist thinks the infidel deserves life and compassion doesn’t make it so.
We know it’s offensive. No one’s pretending it isn’t. What we are saying is that it shouldn’t be
No. It should be offensive. Mowing your lawn should be offensive if I wish to be offended by it. And yes by saying “it’s only a cracker” you are pretending it isn’t offensive at all (which it isn’t to you or me).
So what is your point?
My point was a minor one very early on and merely that I was a *weeee* bit concerned that we might be might be self-rationalizing to ourselves. Bear in mind, the context of this protest has not been mentioned in any of the recent posts so gleefully yacking it up about collecting all the videos of deliberate “desecration” and then going on about the inevetiable babbling “you’re going to roast in hell” posts sort of seems like tossing a dead pig into the local mosque simply “because I can” and laughing at the resulting irrate death threats with “big deal; it’s just a pig”. Thus, I was a *weee* bit concerned we were provoking just for the sake of provoking and then self-righteously pretending the provoked were utterly irrational for being provoked. That’s all.
Respect for privacy? (Unlike crackers, privacy is something we can respect.)
Why should we be entitled to privacy? And is privacy the only issue? If I discovered my neighbor was spying on me I’d be mad but not indignant. If I discovered my neighbor was … hmmm, what do I believe is unconscionable but is subjective … well, murdering children I’d be horrified. I now, I now, murdering children is *objective* and real harm and a communion wafer they only *think* the wafer is the body of christ. Obviously I don’t have an analogy because everything I think is truly harmful and horrifying would be viewed as “really” harmful and horrifying as well (as opposed to *not* really harmful like what those whacky catholics revere). I just think we are self-deceiving when we get into the “hey, we’re not disrespectful. It’s their problem if they are so thin-skinned to think their grandma shouldn’t be pissed on”-mode and that makes me “a weee bit uneasy”.
For this analogy to hold you would have to cut your grandmother to little pieces and ask hundreds of people to come to your house and share the grandma shishkebab. Then you would get upset if someone happened to mistreat one of those little pieces of meat.
Well, I’ve never invited people to eat my grandmother but I have invited people to eat my food. I never expected anyone to piss on my rug. If I invite people to view my frabergie egg, I don’t expect them to smash it and say it was only raw material.
I don’t understand how you can use the “you wouldn’t treat your GRANDMOTHER that way” argument and not see the glaring contradiction.
I’m not using the *your* grandmother argument and … uh, what contradiction? … I’m not using the “imagine it was you” and treat others as you would yourself argument. I’m using the “see it through their eyes” argument. Imagine that the cracker really *were* the body of Christ. Not that they have any right to expect others to see the light. … Okay, here’s a better analogy. Suppose GreenPeace or PETA (idiots!) lynched and killed a women for wearing baby harbor seal fur. Needless to say this would be outrageous. Suppose in protest we organized groups to go out and club any baby seals we ever see to vocalize that fur is not as important as human life. You’d see how I’d be uneasy about that. Well, actually, that’s not a very good analogy.
But my point is, to a believer, whether deluded, wrong, or correct in his belief, the offense is real whether or not the belief is. It’s a bit … shocking … to deliberately parade the offense in front of a believer, who will feel the offence in a real manner, just because we can. Of course we can not, and should not, and should not want to, protect every believer from offenses they but no one else believes. And, yes, if the believer has an unreasonable response to the offense we should protest and, yes, in protest we can even recommit the offense simply to show the believer that he has to accept that it will occur. But we aren’t being honest with ourselves if we pretend we don’t understand the the believer’s offense or that his felling of the offense isn’t real.
Each time we desecrate a cracker, the catholic sees it as murdering the lord. Yes, they have to live with it. No, they can not respond to it with death threats. Yes, we can do it and should be allowed to do it. Yes, we can and should tell the Catholics they are nuts to believe that. Yes, taking away our right to do it is a travesty. But we shouldn’t pretend that we don’t know that is what the catholic sees. That makes me a weeee bit uneasy.
Woozy, you are still a concern troll. Your concern is noted and has been rejected. If you wish to stay and play you need to get off this subject. We have heard ALL the arguments. Also, make your posts about one page on a screen. If they go too long, people don’t read them.
tsg, the squirrely HTML bug that failed to close my italics at the right spot made it seem as if I was referring to your posts. I was referring to woozy’s in my #262.
But you want me to treat that cracker differently because they believe it is the body of christ. How is that not pandering?
Don’t answer my question with another question. Give me an answer.
What?
It isn’t offensive to me. That’s the fucking point.
They are. It is irrational to believe a cracker is a person and unreasonable to expect everyone else to behave as if it is. I don’t know how else I can say this to make you understand.
Real has nothing to do with it. Whether it is justified is the entire point. It’s not.
No one’s saying it isn’t real. We’re saying it isn’t justified. Stop expecting others to treat your symbols as holy and you won’t be offended. Very simple.
No one is pretending the Catholics aren’t offended. Really, I don’t know where you got this idea, but let it go, alright? We know they are offended. They have no just cause to be offended. The source of their offense is their expectation that we behave as if this cracker is Christ. It’s unreasonable, intolerant and unacceptable.
If you can’t understand that, then I don’t know what else to tell you, and frankly I’m getting tired of repeating myself.
But you want me to treat that cracker differently because they believe it is the body of christ. How is that not pandering?
You normally videotape yourself flushing crackers down the toilet? I’m not saying you shouldn’t videotape yourself flushing crackers down the toilet. I’m not saying you shouldn’t toss a dead pig into a mosque. I’m just saying that when you do, you shouldn’t disenginously pretend to be puzzled when it is viewed as murdering the lord and defling a temple.
Don’t answer my question with another question. Give me an answer.
The answer to why should a Catholic care how a non-catholic treats a cracker should be obvious. A Catholic believes the cracker is the body of Christ and that you are deluded in thinking it is not and that is desecrating the eucharist you are blaspheming and condemning your soul to hell which the catholic believes should be his concern as a compassionate being and that you are turning God just a bit further against humanity and so on and so on.
Now as to whether the Catholic should *do* anything about his concern is another question. He shouldn’t. He can’t. That is he can’t in a diverse society which is the common ground we’ve all agreed to.
What?
If I believed some whacko idea that mowing your lawn was offensive I have the right to be offended. I don’t have a right to be protected from the offense but I have the right to find it offensive. You seem to be saying, and you’ve said it a lot, that catholics shouldn’t be offended. I think they should be offended. That is if they want to be offended. They shouldn’t have the right to be protected from the offense but they should have the right to be offended.
Real has nothing to do with it. Whether it is justified is the entire point. It’s not.
You seem to have the idea that real *does* have everything to do with it in your insistance that the cracker *isn’t* Christ and they are deluded in thinking it is. I don’t think their delusion has anything to do with it. If they believe the cracker is christ that’s fine. But if they believe the cracker is christ then their horror and offense at our flushing it down a toilet makes perfect sense and is totally reasonable. However as they live in a diverse society they *have* to accept that sometimes people are going to flush Christ down a toilet and they just have to live with it. But when we flush Christ down the toilet we aren’t being honest if we pretend that they aren’t going to experience Christ being flushed or that their offense isn’t allowed.
They have no just cause to be offended.
Of course they have cause to be offended. They just don’t have a right to be protected from the offense.
The source of their offense is their expectation that we behave as if this cracker is Christ. It’s unreasonable, intolerant and unacceptable.
I agree. But what had (emphasis had past tense) me a weee bit concerned was the sense of self-righteous self-deception that they didn’t have right or cause to be upset because it was a cracker and they have to accept it is a cracker. They have to accept there will be (horrors) people who think it is a cracker and these people will do horrifying and unspeakable things to the wafer in this belief, and they (catholics) have to accept there is nothing they can do about it, but the *don’t* have accept that it is just a cracker and they *don’t* have to realize these things aren’t horrifying and unspeakable.
“The answer to why should a Catholic care how a non-catholic has sex should be obvious. A Catholic believes that homosexuality is immoral and that you are deluded in thinking it is not and that by supporting gay rights and same-sex marriage you are blaspheming and condemning your soul to hell which the catholic believes should be his concern as a compassionate being and that you are turning God just a bit further against humanity and so on and so on.”
So we should obviously all respect the Catholic position on same-sex marriage and not oppose their fight against it.
“The answer to why should a Catholic care how a non-catholic terminates pregnancies should be obvious. A Catholic believes life begins at conception and that you are deluded in thinking it is not and that by having an abortion you are blaspheming and condemning your soul to hell which the catholic believes should be his concern as a compassionate being and that you are turning God just a bit further against humanity and so on and so on.”
So we should obviously all respect the Catholic position on abortion and not oppose their fight against it.
Who’s pretending to be puzzled?
If it was I wouldn’t be asking the question.
So, in short, because he thinks the cracker is Christ, he thinks I should behave as if it is even though I don’t share that belief. This is what I have been saying all along. It’s intolerant.
When the source of their offense is their intolerance to other belief systems, no they should not be offended. Period. To say otherwise is to say they have a right to be intolerant. They don’t.
You said we don’t think their offense is real. I said we know it’s real, it’s unjustified. Don’t put words in my mouth.
No, they don’t. [Yet again]The source of their offense is their intolerance. They do not have the right to be intolerant.
Where are you getting this? They don’t have to accept it is just a cracker. They have to accept that I think it’s just a cracker. How many times do I have to say it?
If they think non-Catholics not following Catholic rules is horrifying and unspeakable then they are intolerant.
The only appropriate response to this news: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiPnSP8p5Qg
#53
A comment from the link:
Published by: Edward J. Ditzel
Hanover,PA,USA 02/10/2008 09:20 AM EST
A sad sad soul,and youtube should stop this deployable information.
—————–
Gosh DARN that deployable info!
;-)
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
Everyone has a “right” to be offended by what ever the damned well please and the “cause” can be whatever they damned well please.
… and …
Look. There’s no dictim that says anyone has to respect another person, has to be tolerant of another person, believe another person have any rights whatsoever much less to belief. We’re just arguing price as to what we believe “respectful” behavior should be if we are both attempting to live by our self-professed dictims of “everyone has a right to their own belief”, and “it is good behavior, but not law, that we be respectful in discourse”. We can’t convince anyone that these *are* true dictums (dictii?) and there’ll always be folks who think its okay to kill folks who disagree with them or to burn down churches or illegalize atheists.
We’re just arguing price among ourselves about what “respectful” behavior is and if we are being consistant in our self-applied dictum that “it is good behavior, but not law, that we be respectful in discourse”, okay?
Now… deep breath …
In none of these posts (posts, not comments) in the past week has there been any reference to the initial event bringing these on. So, there is a post where PZ posts some babbling complaints about his “desecration” and refers to videos showing more desecration and encourages everyone to keep it up. Out of context my first thought is “Well, you *can* desecrate the communion wafer but, um, why?” (This was quickly answered so don’t bother answering.)
Now, a statement of objective observation: A Catholic believes the wafer is the Body of Christ so when they view a desecration they see you violating the body and the spirit of Jesus. … Now, now. sit down… I’m not defending that… i’m not saying the are right to believe it … I’m not saying you are expected to behave as though you do to … I’m not saying you should respect that … yet. … At this point it’s just an observation. When a catholic sees you feeding a wafer to a duck they see it as you taunting and retortuing the body and soul of a man named Jesus.
…okay…. deep breath….
Why does that matter? Well, there is a difference in expressing an opinion and doing an act. It is legal and always will be legal to say “I think marijuana is good and I think I should get high”. However it is illegal to smoke marijuana … nhhn… nhhn… sit down. No … I’m *not* saying the law should cater to what catholics believe… It’s one thing to say “Reverend Moon should be shot” or “His church is a dangerous cult” and quite another to actually shoot him or burn one of his centers. Okay, not so heavy handed. … um, it’s one thing for a pro abortion grand-daughter to argue with her anti-abortion grandmother (“oh, honey don’t you see its wicked”) and its an entirely different situation for the grand-daughter to have an abortion. (“oh, honey! You didn’t!”)
…phew…
okay, now about “respect”, what the heck does it mean? Okay, I am in complete agreement with you and PZ that it has been corrupted and twisted too far so that many people thing that it means that its desrespectful to question or criticize a belief. I’m with you. That is not what respect is. And I’m with Shastra; when you meet a coworker it’s a bit … rude … to immediately ask “Hey, what’s your religion? Catholic, eh? Ah, c’mon! How can you trust those guys in a dress who bugger boys? And that transubstantiation mumbo-jumbo. Man, those sure are some whacko ideas!” But I’m with you; we can’t base our laws and behavoirs simply because it make religious people uncomfortable. And I’m with you that we all have a right to express our opinions and if our opinion is that catholicism is whacked, we should be able to express it.
So I’m going down to my neighborhood church and am going to pee in the holy water. Or I’m going to go to the local mosque and toss a dead pig over the walls.
Okay, what is “respect”? Well, to get to the point… filming a desecration and boasting about it is, to a catholic, a bit like filming a snuff film and forcing them to acknowledge it.
Is this “respectful”? Well… eh… it makes me uneasy. If you have a snuff film (assuming you had no part in making it) and like to watch it… eh, so what. And you post it on the internet. Well, cool. I believe in free speech. But if I’m sitting here minding my own business and you are standing on a corner shouting “Hey! I got a snuff film and there’s nothing you mother-fuckers can do about it!” Well, I figure you are forcefully subjecting me to something I really don’t want to be forced to. Yes, you have a right to do that and yes, I have no recourse and *shouldn’t* have any recourse but … well, you’re still a disrespectful prick.
Well, anyhow. That’s not what the situation is. It’s more like this: A college student sat in a park and read a porno magazine. The community freaked and thought he should be expelled and all media featuring nudity should be banned. ZP Ymers, a professor elsewhere was appalled, at these blatent intolerance and protested by showing snuff films in his university quad. zoowy, a wannabe blogger who admires Ymers’ rants about Ozian vs. Evian politics, wanders by and sees ZP is showing a snuff film on his campus quad and shouting “yeah, folks. I want you all to bring out whatever you have and show everyone that they have to accept that we have a right to view these films”. zoowy doesn’t know *why* ZP is doing this. “Gee”, says zoowy, “I kinda like the sentiment but that attitude of forcing snuff films down others throats… kinda makes me uneasy…”
Basically, that’s my point.
=====
The answer to why should a Catholic care how a non-catholic has sex should be obvious. …”
So we should obviously all respect the Catholic position on same-sex marriage and not oppose their fight against it.
Noooo. But if someone asks “why should a Catholic care how a non-catholic has sex” the answer is “A Catholic believes that homosexuality is immoral and that you are deluded in thinking it is not and that by supporting gay rights and same-sex marriage you are blaspheming and condemning your soul to hell which the catholic believes should be his concern as a compassionate being and that you are turning God just a bit further against humanity and so on and so on”.
What? That is the answer isn’t it?
I never said we should all respect the Catholic position on transubstaniation and never feed a cracker to a duck. He asked why a catholic would care if a non-catholic desecrated a cracker and I think the reason why a cathoic would care is obvious. So I answered it.
OK, tsg / woozy.
You both seem to be making detailed and articulate posts in furious agreement with each other.
Is there any part of the following that either of you disagree with?
1. Catholics see crackers as chunks of god.
2. Crackers are not, in fact, godchunks.
3. Seeing crackers flushed offends them.
4. That offense has no basis in reality (outside their delusion)
I think the argument is about whether:
(woozy) taking offense makes sense to them and is thus justifiable, but too damn bad, they need to get the fuck over it, or
(tsg) taking offense is based on delusion not reality and is thus unjustifiable, so too damn bad, they need to get the fuck over it.
I think that whether their offense is justifiable (to them) or unjustifiable (to sane people) is irrelevant.
I also heartily approve of pork sausages at the muslim barbecue, ham and cheese pizza at rosh hashanah, hamburgers in front of hindus and carbonara in front of pastafarians.
Reinforcing delusions is a bad thing, even when done out of politeness.
If they think non-Catholics not following Catholic rules is horrifying and unspeakable then they are intolerant.
They’re intolerant if they think they shouldn’t have to live with it and are entitled to stop these horriying and unspeakable acts.
If they realize this is the price they must endure for freedom, then they are tolerant and enlightened, but they can still find the acts horrifying and unspeakable.
And on the third hand, everyone has a right to be intolerant. They just don’t have a right to expect their intolerance to be tolerated.
Oh for fuck’s sake. We’ve been over these kinds of inept analogies hundreds of times. A Fabergé egg is a priceless object, not something you mass produce in the millions and give away. Are you being deliberately obtuse?
Right, but presumably you don’t think people shouldn’t stop having gay sex or abortions because Catholics object, yes? So why should crackers be any different? (And I ask as an ex-Catholic.)
Oh for fuck’s sake. We’ve been over these kinds of inept analogies hundreds of times. A Fabergé egg is a priceless object, not something you mass produce in the millions and give away. Are you being deliberately obtuse?
Obtuse? No. A consecrated wafer *is* the body of christ to a catholic. It doesn’t matter if they are bat-shit insane in thinking that; that’s what it *is* to theme. Thus we *are* commiting a true sin in their eyes. I don’t care if it really is or isn’t a true sin but forcing something down anothers throat, in and of itself, is obnoxious.
Honestly, I felt terrible after I tricked that vegitarian into eating bacon fat. He was obnoxious, I was provoked, and it was either that or hit him with a shovel, but I *did* feel terrible. I kinda think tricking a vegitarian into eating meat simply because *I* don’t think (in fact, I *know*) meat isn’t bad for you is like forcing a catholic to watch you flush a wafer, or mailing a rival a videotape of you having sex with his wife. Obnoxious. (That is, in and of itself. Sometimes it’s appropriate.)
Is there any part of the following that either of you disagree with?
2. Crackers are not, in fact, godchunks.
I don’t think it’s relevent in evaluating offence/respect/entitle to protection/”niceness”.
4. That offense has no basis in reality (outside their delusion)
ditto.
(woozy) taking offense makes sense to them and is thus justifiable, but too damn bad, they need to get the fuck over it,
Yeah, that’s pretty much it.
I also heartily approve of pork sausages at the muslim barbecue, ham and cheese pizza at rosh hashanah, hamburgers in front of hindus and carbonara in front of pastafarians.
Gosh. I find that kinda obnoxious…
Reinforcing delusions is a bad thing, even when done out of politeness.
Ah! well, there we go. I kind of feel if I respect a person’s right to his/her beliefs (which, by the way, is *not* a given; just my personal belief) than it follows I have to accept their right to be deluded when politeness, free speech, etc. calls upon it and there’s nothing I “can” do about. (Well, I *could* always toss a pig in mosque and pee on a communion wafer but I don’t think I’d be being respectful then. Not that there’d be any reason why you would think I should…)
woozy:
tsg:
woozy:
STAN: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me ‘Loretta’.
REG: What?!
LORETTA: It’s my right as a man.
JUDITH: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?
LORETTA: I want to have babies.
REG: You want to have babies?!
LORETTA: It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.
REG: But… you can’t have babies.
LORETTA: Don’t you oppress me.
REG: I’m not oppressing you, Stan. You haven’t got a womb! Where’s the foetus going to gestate?! You going to keep it in a box?!
LORETTA: [crying]
JUDITH: Here! I– I’ve got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can’t actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody’s fault, not even the Romans’, but that he can have the right to have babies.
FRANCIS: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister. Sorry.
REG: What’s the point?
FRANCIS: What?
REG: What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies when he can’t have babies?!
FRANCIS: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.
REG: Symbolic of his struggle against reality.
[trumpets]
[clap clap clap]
Woozy, you live on a street with an orthodox jew who keeps a kosher house, a hindu who doesn’t eat beef, and a vegan. Based on your postings, one could conclude that you must keep a kosher, vegan, no beef house in order not to offend anybody. Personally, I find this ludicrous. Halfway to my house, all need to consider offense to all these groups goes away. I can cook a cheeseburger without offending anybody. I should also be able to cook said cheeseburger outdoors without offending anybody. Why? My property, my rules. This is the only way a pluralistic society can operate. All neighbors must respect this principal.
Using the mirror principal, that also means that I knew one of my neighbors had a death in the family, that if I tried to take them something that I would take their beliefs into account. Their house, their rules. So no beef dish to the hindus, no meat dish to the vegans, and a dish that avoids the meat/dairy issue to the orthodox Jews. Likewise, if they visit my house, they cannot expect me to fully comply with their needs, but as a civil host, I should make enough food of the acceptable type is available to cover their needs.
Now to the descration. This happened at PZ’s house (his rules) with nobody else present. No direct offense was given so no direct offense can be taken by any neighbor who understands the pluralistic society principals. So if somebody on the next block has problems with his actions, they need to deal with their feelings, not PZ. So you need to drop the concern. PZ was right to do what he did.
Right, but presumably you don’t think people shouldn’t stop having gay sex or abortions because Catholics object, yes? So why should crackers be any different? (And I ask as an ex-Catholic.)
I don’t think people should stop flushing crackers down a toilet. I just think that it is, in and of itself, is rude. Having gay sex in the front pew of a catholic church during mass, and plopping your aborted fetus into the church’s holy water are also rude.
(Actually, I’m giggling a bit at the image of plopping an aborted fetus into holy water and watching it bob about like a martini olive. …. giggle … er, but !no! it’s rude and disrespectful! … yeah, that’s right. …. giggle … *!Plop!* …)
Based on your postings, one could conclude that you must keep a kosher, vegan, no beef house in order not to offend anybody. …
… Now to the descration. This happened at PZ’s house (his rules) with nobody else present.
He posted it, thus the world was present. I can eat what I damned well please. I can tell my neighbors that I can eat what I damned well please. I can send the neighbors photos of me eating the forbidden food and wave my steaming taboo food under their noses saying nyah, nyah, nyah. That last one is obnoxious though. If my catholic neighbor came to me and said “Um, can I ask you not to steal a consecrated wafer from mass and desecrate it? I just hate the thought of my lord’s body suffering and I’d rather the situation come up. Do you mind?” I wouldn’t think that was an unreasonable request. I’d be under no obligation other than politeness to obey it though. If he went on and said “I think you have to. And if you do I think you should be killed” I’d have no compunction for doing it just out of spite.
All I’m saying is 1) I am aware that Catholics think I’m defiling their lord when I pee on their cracker and 2) I think its kind of rude to force it upon them unprovoked.
And, yes, I know PZ “desecration” was provoked and an act of protest for free speech, and yes, good on him. I simply think the “gosh, gee, shucks… it’s only a cracker” act isn’t completely honest and makes me a wee bit, just a weee bit, nervous.
woozy:
Right, the world was present in his house. He wasn’t present in theirs, so they’re subject to his rules. If they don’t like it they should all just fuck right off (as I’m sure you’ll agree)
I think its kind of rude to force it upon them unprovoked.
Which never happened…
And, yes, I know PZ “desecration” was provoked and an act of protest for free speech, and yes, good on him.
OK then.
I simply think the “gosh, gee, shucks… it’s only a cracker” act isn’t completely honest and makes me a wee bit, just a weee bit, nervous.
Except that it is only a damn cracker.
It’s not that we don’t realise they believe it’s Jesus’ earlobe, it’s that their belief is insane and without basis in reality, and thus undeserving of respect.
I know you think it’s impolite to point that out. Hell, I usually let things slide to avoid an argument too.
But it’s not just being polite. It’s also feeding the delusion and insulating their beliefs from reality.
Ultimately, not plopping the aborted fetus in the holy water is doing them a dis-service. (snicker)
Woozy the deluded concern troll, any act of desecration in his own home is a private matter. His posting of the act occurred on his own blog. It wasn’t broadcast over TV nor did he seek any media for the act. Your concern goes to far. What gives you the right to make the decision for us? You have expressed your concern, which is your right. We collectively reject your concern. Now what? Are you going to get in our face to try to bully us? Or will you behave in a civil manner and realize you have had your say, but we don’t agree, an let it go?
I disagree. I think it does matter. It’s rather a large part of the point. That and the way their being traditionally allowed to get away with habitual craziness appears to lead to them also being habitually hateful of others and violent and especially to them holding the notion that they ought to be allowed to get away with that too because of their religion saying they’re right*. They need the corners knocked off them by reality (eg by obliging them to notice the non-sacredness of crackers and the impotence of their imaginary gods) a lot more than currently happens.
* NB It typically also says they’re wrong too, when different parts of the same holy text are selected, but that inability to tell a straight story is in the very nature of religious nonsense and lies.
He posted it, thus the world was present.
Curse McDonalds for advertising their burgers!
bloody anti-hindu bigots!
*rolleyes*
All I’m saying is 1) I am aware that Catholics think I’m defiling their lord when I pee on their cracker and 2) I think its kind of rude to force it upon them unprovoked.
you’re saying that about a group of people that historically have been very good at sticking their fingers in their ears.
it’s obvious they WANTED to be offended by this, so they could raise their hackles and howl.
Right, the world was present in his house. He wasn’t present in theirs, so they’re subject to his rules.
I’m not sure I’m getting this “house” business. I’m guessing it’s something to do with privacy but I don’t think that really is the issue. If it is a matter of “houses” then the kid *did* steal a wafer from their house and by their house rules the wafer is sacred and the kid refuses to give it back and … well, if the house rules that the theft should be death are you saying the kid *should* be killed.
If they don’t like it they should all just fuck right off (as I’m sure you’ll agree)
They *have* to just fuck off. It’s the only option. That’s the only way we can live in a place where we have diversity. I’m just saying they don’t have to like it.
But it’s not just being polite. It’s also feeding the delusion and insulating their beliefs from reality.
But don’t we have to live with that and suck it up as part of the price of living in a diverse society?
Ultimately, not plopping the aborted fetus in the holy water is doing them a dis-service.
Well, I wouldn’t mind lobotimizing them all. But I *can’t*. At least not without compromising my principals. My principals are I, like them, have to suck it up and should just fuck off. I can stand on a corner shouting “It’s just a cracker” and peeing on said corner, and they can stand fifty feet from a planned-parenthood entrance and harass emotionally distraught sixteen year olds with photos of bloody aborted fetus. (what? The photos *are* real photos of bloody fetuses and the girl *is* killing a fetus if she aborts and all they are doing is legal and constitutional so why should we object to this behavoir?) So I can do that and they can the other, but neither are “respectful”.
I think we should *both* call each other on the tactics and respond.
Back to the subject on hand. You tube chickening out (and later flip-flipping or coming to their senses). I hadn’t realized that you-tube had rules. I was a bit distressed they had a no porn and nudity for the sake of nudity rules. If I want to watch a naked woman pour canola oil on her breasts I ought to be able to. It’s not a matter that canola oil soaked breasts have merit; it’s that that’s what I want that’s what I want. It makes me a troglodyte knuckle dragger, but hey… Likewise I was a bit distressed they had a “disgust and shock” value rule. If someone wants to see someone smear shit on a wall, well, just don’t force me to watch. But given the subjective rule of no disgust and shock, I see how wafer wasting could qualify as “shocking and disgusting”. It is shocking and disgusting to a lot of people. (What’s shocking or disgusting about smearing shit; it’s just feces.) And it’s not entirely inconcievable how this might be considered bordering on hate speech. (Another rule) !!!However!!! and its a HUGE however, to ban these they’d have to, to be fair, been those athiests go to hell, allah is not god, etc. etc. as well.
Any way, that’s all I was saying. Whatever standard we use to judge our behavior and what is “allowed” to be consistant we need to recognize that wafer flushing is as “shocking and disgusting” and “hate speech” as Dawkin’s funeral, Proving Allah is Satan in 15 seconds, etc. Frankly I want *all* of them to remain but I don’t think we can say our wafer flushing is more “respectful” and less “shocking” than the others. “It’s just a cracker so I peed on it”, “it’s just feces”, “I just wanted to warn Dawkin’s he’s going to roast in hell; I said I didn’t want him to, didn’t I?”, “I’m just saying Allah is Satan because he is Satan, ya know” all kind of seem the same to me.
What gives you the right to make the decision for us?
In what sense in the world can it possibly be claimed I am trying to make a decision for you? Are you saying anyone disagreeing with you is the equivalent to trying to force your decisions for you? Do you have any idea how hypocritical that is?
Now what? Are you going to get in our face to try to bully us? Or will you behave in a civil manner and realize you have had your say, but we don’t agree, an let it go?
I stated an opinion. It was responded. I responded to the response. I was misinterpreted. I corrected. Points were nitpicked. I nitpicked back. You responded. I respond. That’s all.
Woozy, so will you drop your concern or not? You haven’t given a definitive answer.
That and the way their being traditionally allowed to get away with habitual craziness appears to lead to them also being habitually hateful of others and violent and especially to them holding the notion that they ought to be allowed to get away with that too because of their religion saying they’re right*.
That, I must admit, is very relevent to the point.
Ichthyic: (The great Ichthyic disagress with me! Cool! I must really actually be a concern troll!)
it’s obvious they WANTED to be offended by this, so they could raise their hackles and howl.
That’s certainly true.
Look. All I’m saying is it’s not beyond the realm of rationality to consider that maybe considering encouraging these videos might be a bit over the top is not a suprisingly irrational response. Surely that‘s not that irrational an opinion.
Or will you behave in a civil manner
Um, no offense, but other than expressing an unpopular opinion have I been at all uncivil?
Woozy, if you continue to harp on this subject you will become uncivil by trying to bully us. Time for you to let the matter drop.
If it is a matter of “houses” then the kid *did* steal a wafer from their house
wrong again. It was given to him. They only wanted it back after he refused to eat it.
NOT stealing.
I don’t understand why you want to push this point so far off base, but it’s already getting boring, and I’ve only been watching you push this boulder uphill for an hour.
(The great Ichthyic disagress with me! Cool! I must really actually be a concern troll!)
hey, don’t let me stop you from painting your own wagon.
just be clear I’m not supplying the paint here.
Surely that’s not that irrational an opinion.
I never said it was. I’m implying it’s entirely pointless. I’ll let others debate the rationality of it.
Woozy, so will you drop your concern or not?
No.
Folks still seem to have fresh responses to my comment and I will respond to them in kind.
I’m a bit intrigued by the idea that we are responsible of disuading illusions. I can’t really buy it in that I can’t really feel we can simultaneously claim 1) everyone’s entitled to their belief and 2) I can claim I am right and know it and thus am responsible for dispelling illusions. To me these seem incompatible and I’m curios how this can be reconciled. (I’m not saying I have to consider that the other person may be right. I’m saying I have no choice but to fuck off if I think he’s bat-shit insane.)
Also, I truly *don’t* understand the “his house; his rules” argument.
I’m not going to “bully” my concern but I’m going to maintain my position as long as people respond.
But I won’t interpret lack of response as a win. Just an end to interest. But until then, responses will generate responses.
I never said it was. I’m implying it’s entirely pointless.
That’s true. But I just think we should obey our own rules of objectivity. I’m not entirely 100% sure we are. I should probably give up but I get obsessive over my own ideals just like everyone else here.
Also, this is the way I find out if I actually believe what I think I believe. I’m kind of hoping someone will convince me that we should drop faetuses in holy water, but I think I’m discovering that I really do believe we shouldn’t. I *really* want to be convinced I like these desecration videos because I *love* ranting against religiosity. I’m just a bit scared that I’m discovering that maybe I really *do* believe they are cheap shots. Pity.
I’m sorry if I’m going on too long.
This is hard? Really? Claim 1 is about basic freedoms in a liberal democracy, and Claim 2 is about a) rationality and b) trying to enhance said liberal democracy with said rationality. How are the claims incompatible?
Claim 1 does not entail some sort of radical relativism — people can be entitled to their beliefs and those beliefs can be objectively wrong. And just because people are entitled to hold whatever beliefs they want does not mean that others can’t try to convince them of the objective falsity of their beliefs. And some people who are concerned about promoting a rational society and a functioning liberal secular democracy do indeed see it as their responsibility to do such convincing.
Honestly, the argument is pretty simple.
Do you think that it’s incompatible to 1) say that anyone’s entitled to vote according to their political views and 2) try to get them to change their political views and vote for your guy?
wrong again. It was given to him.
*with* stipulation.
They only wanted it back after he refused to eat it.
*That* was the stipulation.
NOT stealing.
According the the “his house/his rule” argument. It is stealing as he didn’t fulfill the required stipulation.
But I don’t get the his house his rules argument. To my mind he did nothing as he didn’t *do* anything with the wafer afterward. He wanted to keep Christ with him forever? Um, okay. Odd. But not desecration in my *or* the catholic mind. So yes, you are spot on in your observation that they did want to get their hackles up.
I don’t understand why you want to push this point so far off base, but it’s already getting boring, and I’ve only been watching you push this boulder uphill for an hour.
Because people keep responding. I’m obsessive-compulsive about debating.
Presented without comment.
Do you think that it’s incompatible to 1) say that anyone’s entitled to vote according to their political views and 2) try to get them to change their political views and vote for your guy?
Noooo…. But I don’t think religious folks have should try to keep trying to convert me with lies, scare tactics, smary self-righteousness, and cheap shots, and staged events. etc. Honestly, they really have to just fuck off. I reject their god and *that’s that*. Soooo, I guess I *don’t* think its fair for me to do the same to them. They are not responsible for saving my soul, but by the same reasoning I am not responsible for freeing them of delusion. The fact that I’m right and they are bat-shit insane makes the situation sad, but my ideals that keep me from shaking the first premise, makes me *have* to ignore that. Okay, “their delusions hurt other people and ultimately the world”. Fair ’nuff but that seems a bit too *all for the glory of the revolution* for my taste. Also, my darned ideals again, I kind of feel compromising correct principals even for a greater good is still wrong.
Okay, I guess I’m done. I empathize that cracker desecration, dead pig tossing, mohemed depiction can be “shocking and disgusting”. I empathize and can’t allow myself to pretend I don’t. Bugs me when other people do. Rational conclussion: protest intolerance. I just don’t like the … glee … people get in a righteous bloodhunt. Makes me uneasy.
I’ll try not to respond any more but I can’t make any promises.
Oh, shit. Here’s something we can all agree on. Inapropriate address with a woman in a short skirt. Kee-rap. Is flirting with Sarah Palin worth risking your life?
Presented without comment.
Ha Ha Ha. That’s *very* funny. But doesn’t it apply to all of us….
Something for you to read
Something for you to read
On first glance it seems to be a tract on the need to inquiry. I agree. But on first glance it seems to be on the need of the individual to inquiry. I can’t make another person open his mind. I can publish my beliefs and make sure she sees them but I can’t make her think for herself. And if he does inquire and come to a conclusion but its not mine … well, that’s that. She had her doubt, she inquired, she read alternate viewpoints, and then she reached the conclusion that Jesus was God and died to save her through the consumption of his body. Well, that’s it then, isn’t it? I admit, I want to shake my head and shout “How? How? Can *any* inquiring mind come to that conclussion?” but … well, they can. My obligation is over. In fact, any right I had to interfer with his belief is over.
Um, do you really want me to discuss this with you? I will read this further.
Ah, but… As more than a few Catholics that came to the blog later stated, this is “not” always a stipulation. Unless stated otherwise, it can only be presumed to be an “implied” stipulation, which can be ignored under undefined circumstances. Its a bit unclear to me why assaulting someone on the “presumption” that they are *going to* break a “presumed” stipulation, should be considered reasonable.
They can’t even all agree if what he did **before** being assaulted and, at that point, opted to leave with the cracker, was wrong, yet you want us to presume that he “did” something wrong when first attacked, and not “later” after he escaped the original encounter.
Seriously, do we need like a historical time line for this or something. Some people just are not following along…
absolute, unadulterated, bullshit.
If I give you a paper with the stipulation you not burn it, and you burn it, there is no court in the land I’m going to be able to convince that you stole that paper from me.
your entire argument is based on bullshit.
which is why I said it was pointless.
If you’re having fun arguing BS, that’s fine, but I refuse to take you seriously.
bye
Ichthyic, I am not arguing bullshit. I’m stating what I think. And, as I said I don’t understand this “his house/his rule” argument. But if we *do* apply this “his house/his rules” argument, isn’t it breaking an tacit contract and wouldn’t *every* court in the country convict him. If you gave me a piece of paper on the stipulation that I don’t burn it and I agreed and I then burnt it, wouldn’t *every* court concede that I broke an oral contract and I’m obliged to replace it? Of course you have to prove that there was an oral contract but surely the case you state *would* be theft. Wouldn’t it? How on earth is this bullshit?
Seriously, do we need like a historical time line for this or something. Some people just are not following along…
Uh, guess we do. I didn’t hear a darned thing about any assaults. Just that he took the cracker home and then got death threats and the church recommended he be expelled from the university (I didn’t even hear whether it was a university church which I assume it must becuase otherwise I can’t see why the church could possibly think it had any say with the university; then agian if its a university church it must be a private university). He was assaulted *in* the church during communion?
woozy:
The “his house, his rules thing” is just a politeness rule of thumb: when you’re invited around to someone else’s house you try not to offend them, and they do the same for you.
Obviously breaking the law doesn’t count. It’s just about etiquette.
The point being that if you go out of your house into the real world, you can’t expect people to bend over backwards to avoid offending you, and if you do get offended, tough luck.
In this case PZ was obviously not going into someone’s house and pissing in their fishtank, he just posted a pic of some trash on his blog, which they have the option to not visit.
In Webster Cook’s case, after accepting the communion, he took the wafer out of his mouth (Catholics have admitted in comments here that there’s nothing so unusual about that) to show his friend.
He was then grabbed (unlawful), and attempts were made to stop him leaving (unlawful).
Hitler!
(Does this mean the thread is dead now?)
You know what? I tried. I really did. But I’m afraid it’s going to come down to what I should have said a long time ago:
Your concern is noted.
I’ll second that motion.
The “his house, his rules thing” is just a politeness rule of thumb: when you’re invited around to someone else’s house you try not to offend them, and they do the same for you.
Well, I don’t get the “his house, his rules” thing. I don’t agree with the “his house, his rules” thing. And the “his house, his rules” thing doesn’t apply because my “concern” was that what he was doing could have been over the top. I never said he shouldn’t be allowed to do it.
Why I don’t agree with the “house/rules” thing is that means we should tolerate and respect whatever the catholic church does in its own house. Nitpicking the the poor kid obeyed the letter of law doesn’t matter because “house/rules” implies the rules can be as absurd, obtuse, and medevil if they want. Had Cook deliberated crumbled the wafer and *did* break the “rules” I don’t see why we should tolerate the response. I don’t the “his rules/his house” applies to the catholic church, to me, to you, or to any one.
“house/rules” doesn’t apply here as we *are* talking ettiquette, respect, and whether something is over the top, not whether something should be disallowed. If the Klan burns an effigy in their “house” I don’t think any of us believe they should not be allowed to do so, but I don’t think any of us wouldn’t think it was distasteful and “over the top”.
The main reason I wrote so much in the beginning was that my comment was misinterpretted as we shouldn’t be allowed to desecrate crackers ’cause it offends Catholics. I believe no such thing so of course I wanted to clear it up.
Now I’m responding because there are some interesting arguments comming up. In particular, I’m interested in the “it *is* a cracker” (right make might?) pertainence to argue desecration videos are not over the top. And the “obligition to dispell” illusion (“its a political ad”) so being “over the top” can never be a concern. I’m not sure I can agree with these but they are interesting arguments.
A few, even managed to point out that why being “over the top” in this case was justified which is the real point.
OK, Woozy. This is my house, and I find you tedious, rude, and obtuse.
So what are you going to do about it?
How are the claims incompatible? … And just because people are entitled to hold whatever beliefs they want does not mean that others can’t try to convince them of the objective falsity of their beliefs.
I think it’s bit like leading a horse to water but not making him think. We’ve all faced the fire-and-brimstone out to convert us with the argument “If your house were on fire, wouldn’t you want, nay, wouldn’t you *demand* you’re neighbor tell you?” and we’ve all come to the conclussion that this guy is a class-A asshole. I don’t think he’s a class-A asshole because he’s wrong. He’d be a class-A asshole in my mind even if he were right. I don’t think he’s a class-A asshole because it’s none of his business. If my house *were* on fire I *would* want my neighbor to tell me. If a friend were killing himself with alcohol it may or may not be any of my business but I certainly think I wouldn’t be remiss in confronting him on it. He’s a class-A asshole because… well, because he wouldn’t accept that I have made my choice and that’s that; he has no choice *but* to watch me walk into eternal hellfire because I have made that choice.
I also really don’t like the idea of emphatically claiming one person knows he is right and the other is emphatically and in all certainty is wrong. But maybe that’s just me. I know you see it as “respecting the person but not the belief” but it just doesn’t seem … respectful … to me to say “You are insanely deluded”. Saying “I believe you are insanely deluded” maybe… Also it doesn’t seem very “respectful” to say “I *am* right and I am in a position to know I am right. But you aren’t because your believes are insane and therefore you’ve proven you’re not.” That’s whay I don’t feel comfortable with the point “but it *is* a cracker so we aren’t over the top”.
I mean, a catholic is absolutely certain there is a god and we are bat-shit insane not to feel it and no it in every fiber of our being. And the catholic knows matter of the spirit are totally in a different realm then matter of world and that athiest are bat-shit insane to believe that matters of the spirit don’t exist and to believe only the world and its appearance exist. And this insanity makes athiests insane so that they can never see that the substance of our savior can have the appearance of a cracker, and they could in blind delusion kill and murder our savior without even recognizing it. Thus the catholic could feel obligated to break every law of man and ignore any respect due to the bat-shit insane athiest belief to prevent this. I personally never want to live in a world where people think this and act on this. Yes, I know, I *do* live in such a world, but …. nnnnggghhh … I don’t want to do the same with the only difference being that I am right. I guess I really *don’t* believe that right makes might.
OK, Woozy. This is my house, and I find you tedious, rude, and obtuse.
So what are you going to do about it?
Well, not much I can do, really. That’s part of my point.
Sorry.
Um, tedious and obtuse. I can understand. But, um, how am I rude exactly? I *will* apologize for it when I know what it was.
holy crap, you’re THAT bored?
with all the other threads out there, you’re still playing in this sandbox?
wow.
woozy #317 wrote:
I just read the last 40 posts or so, and I don’t think woozy was any more tedious or obtuse than anyone else who’s dissected the ramifications and subtleties of the cracker incident to death (which probably includes a majority of the regulars.) He’s longwinded, but making fine distinctions, and responding to those who responded to him. Nothing wrong with letting him have the last word.
I don’t think you were rude. Not sure where that came from.
About the only possible rude thing I can think of is this. Most regulars who objected to the desecration gave their loud and clear opinions, but after 1-5 posts on the subject dropped the matter. PZ’s blog, his rules. Woozy voiced his opinion, but then didn’t let the matter drop even after repeated invites to do so.
“Didn’t let the matter drop?”
This is Pharyngula. That’s not a bug; that’s a feature. :D
holy crap, you’re THAT bored?
Yes, appearantly I am. Kinda sad, isn’t it?
with all the other threads out there, you’re still playing in this sandbox?
I told you. I’m obsessive compulsive. And I’m tenacious.
I had one point to make: I don’t think a tautological “It’s only a cracker” is completely honest.
I probably should have just made it and then stopped. But … I’m tenacious. When it seemed folks misunderstood it or gave counter arguments or responded, I continued to respond. I’m obsessive. I’m sure all of us have fallen into that trap once or twice in their lives.
Anyway, I’m sorry for that. I don’t want to be tedious or obtuse. I still don’t think “It’s only a cracker” is as honest as we’d like it to be and I’d still like to get folks who don’t understand just what I meant what I actually did mean (I don’t care if they *agree* but I’m willing to debate my view) but I guess it’d be best if I just give up. After all, it was an *exceedingly* minor and not very important point.
So, I’m sorry of my obsessive tenacity. It *did* go on too far.
But, I don’t think I was ever rude to anyone.
He’s longwinded, but making fine distinctions, and responding to those who responded to him. Nothing wrong with letting him have the last word.
Thank you. I don’t need to have the last word. I’ll *try* to let the next person have the next word but I’m not sure I’ll be able to control myself. I’m *very* tenacious about debating and it’s very hard for me *not* to dissect arguments to atoms.
I don’t think you were rude. Not sure where that came from.
Thank you. I appreciate that. I’m a long time reader of these blogs and think PZ is awesome. I hate to think I’ve really pissed off folks I admire. (The ‘great ichthyic’ was sincere. I think he is awesome. You are too by the way)
So, I am sorry everyone.
But I still think, for various reasons, the “it’s only a cracker” isn’t entirely forthright and honest. That’s my opinion. Sorry, I failed in really explaining what I meant.
Woozy voiced his opinion, but then didn’t let the matter drop even after repeated invites to do so.
See. I’m going to let Nerd have the last word and …
….oh, crap….
The Pete Rooke-style analogies were really getting tedious. And I think this is obtuse:
“Thus the catholic could feel obligated to break every law of man and ignore any respect due to the bat-shit insane athiest belief to prevent this.”
See where we go off the rails? Who advocates breaking the law, let alone every law, to desecrate things?
I’m not telling woozy to stop posting or anything, but there is such a thing as being obtuse.
I’ve defended woozy against troll charges in the past, and I’ll do it again now. Concern, explicitly; troll: no. woozy is sincere and, my opinion, not wtong.
By the way, I read Ick’s “sandox” comment as directed to PZ. Works both ways, IMO.
See where we go off the rails? Who advocates breaking the law, let alone every law, to desecrate things?
…sigh…
I’m sorry everyone.
You misunderstood me. I believe one *should* break laws for right causes. Civil disobedience and all that. Resist the totalitarian regimes and so on. I was trying to illustrate how assuming one has a “right to be right” can be incompatible with a diverse society. “It *is* the body of Christ” is an unacceptable tenet to live by. “It *is* a cracker” *is* an acceptable tenet to live by but it’s unacceptable to give a “right to be right” for one and not the other and as we *can’t* give it to “It *is* the body of Christ” I don’t see how we can accept it ourselves.
I use these extreme examples to try to fine tune. Through an extreme example I (and I debate for myself as well as for others to discover what I actually believe; I believe in objectivity and honesty and if I’m deluding myself or forcing false arguments on myself I want to find out) am trying to force us to find out just what are the differences if the analogy is inapt, and if the analogy *is* apt then do we still believe what we believe.
For example, if a pro-lifer used the extreme heavy-handed and “obtuse” example that if he *really* believed fetuses were unborn babies (not an unreasonable opinion; far more rational than crackers being human flesh) then how is fire-bombing an abortion clinic any different than rescuing a concentration camp with deadly force. (There’s our Hitler reference.) Sure its extreme heavy-handed and ultimate false but in considering it we *do* fine-tune what exactly we *do* believe and why.
Actually, do *all* of you feel the answer is “we *are* right and a fetus isn’t a baby”? Am I the only one who thinks we don’t have the “right to be right”? …. Or do none of you have any idea what I’m trying to say? … sigh …
Anyway, sorry you find these obtuse.
Oh, and, yes, sorry for posting more.