I am off to a fun start here in Ireland, with a busy day yesterday. I was on the Tom McGurk radio show, which is summarized by a listener. Basically, it was the cracker incident compressed into less than 10 minutes, with McGurk barking at me and an amazingly clueless and pompous senator, Ronan Mullen, brought in to wax indignant at my affront to Catholicism. It was not a good format to actually address the issues — Mullen actually dared me to blaspheme against Muslims, for instance, and all I had time to do was laugh at the hilarity of yet another instance of fatwah envy before they both went gallumphing over me with outrage — but that was OK, the point was to stir up some argument and maybe get a few more people to show up at my talks where I can actually make a reasonable case.
Last night I also shared a table with Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland to discuss the blasphemy laws with an overfull room. Michael was the real star there — he’s very knowledgeable about Irish politics, much more so than me, obviously. One of the great points he made was that Mullen’s indignation about an atheist committing blasphemy was profoundly hypocritical. Apparently, Mullen voted against the blasphemy law at first, for an interesting reason: it didn’t provide for allowing religious people to blaspheme against other religions than their own.
Hey PZ. was at the atheist ireland event last night ( I was the devilishly handsome one at the back) Was a good talk. I never expected such a turnout. I and the GF agreed it was an enjoyable experience (that is excluding standing for 2 hours ha ha)
hope to catch you tonight at UCD as well.
Mullen reminds me of way too many American politicians and religious leaders. Too bad that religious followers don’t seem to get that they are being played.
Hey, PZ, it looks like Dublin may have provided you with a new head-shot photo that will take some of the pressure off Larry Moran’s London pic.
Yes, apparently I must always fly to Europe to have my portraiture done right.
That was a fun evening. I’m going to try to get to Belfast on Saturday too.
TRiG.
St. Patrick was the scourge of the Irish. Revel in the sickbed of Cú Chulainn!
It seems the standard greeting for atheists in Ireland is to wheel out someone from the Iona Institute or Opus Dei who dutifully sets forth a torrent of verbal abuse as soon as the guest opens his mouth.
The same thing happened to Dawkins and Hitchens some time back. A hazard peculiar to our rain drenched island, I dare say.
Tom McGurk was an ass. Somehow he thinks that because something is old and venerable, it should never be subjected to criticism, and to criticise religion is tantamount to racism.
PZ’s happy smile has gotta be from sinkin’ a few draught Guinness! I guess it could also be because Eire is a really nice wee country. Or it could be all those rationalists he’s mixin’ with. It sure as hell ain’t the weather, (although it does look like he’s in the sun there).
you can listen to PZ at the McGurk show on
http://www.4fm.ie/profile.asp?id=1
PZ appears at Minute 77 in the Monday show.
Finally PZ some good Catholics put you in your proper place and show you for what you really are.
The brilliance of their logic, the eloquence of their articulation, their grasp of Western law, traditions transformations, history, and reformation objectives, and their magnanimity and graciousness as hosts of a foreign guest in their Country serve as templates for us to live by.
Their stunning counterpoint to your brand of vacuous arm waving vicious hurtful illogical spiel was refreshing – and should make all Irish people proud wherever they roam. Aye!
Stupid question time. Is there any way to avoid listening to the first 76 minutes? I don’t seem to be able to scroll forwards.
@SteveN – let it play for a minute or two, then a black dot appears that allows you to fast forward (badly) to the point.
PZ’s interview is just after the second news bulletin and traffic report and “My Girl”.
“Apparently, Mullen voted against the blasphemy law at first, for an interesting reason: it didn’t provide for allowing religious people to blaspheme against other religions than their own.”
You can tell they are Christians by their hate.
ConcernedJoe, please tell me you didn’t mean any of that, or else go take your meds.
And talking of Catholics, their head honcho is visiting the UK in September, so Pharyngulites, please sign the petition requesting that the old bugger or his employer pay for it. You’ll find it here:
http://www.secularism.org.uk/petition-the-pm.html?all=yes
I hope Peter Thatchell tries to arrest him like he when Mugabe visted the UK.
As I understand it, the country is only called ‘Eire’ in Irish. In English it’s ‘The Republic of Ireland’. Had that dinned into me by a Dublin-born colleague a few years ago…
LOL vanharris – LOL
Of course I meant it ! Or did I?
LOL
Pop quiz people – John McCormick’s or Mario Lanza’s Danny Boy — and don’t any of you say Dennis Day who though pleasant was not in their class.
CocernedPoe
Yeahhhhhh! And John McCormack’s rendition of The Kerry Dance has gotta be the most evocative Irish ballad.
And i couldn’t even buy a cd of John McCormack’s rendition of The Kerry Dance in Dublin. The young lasses in the record shops had no idea what i was talking about!
I’m pretty sure that ConcernedJoe is being sarcastic. And funny. Good one.
If you can blaspheme against religions other than your own, what’s the point of a blasphemy law? And since other religion’s gods don’t exist or aren’t the One True GodTM, how is it blasphemy anyway? By acknowledging blasphemy toward other religions, he is conceding their validity.
@Chris Hughes : Your Dublin Born friends were half right. From the Irish Constitution Article 4:
The name of the State is Éire, or, in the English language, Ireland.
Éire is perfectly acceptable as an offical name of the country, in the offical language of the country.
I emailed the show to complain, here’s what I got back….
“Dear Gordon,
Thank you for your two emails about Tom’s interview with PZ Myers. I’m sorry that you feel that Senator Ronan Mullen was idiot caller but we did feel that it was important to balance the conversation. There are many people who would be offended by the act of throwing the Communion into a bin and we did think it was only fair to give those people a voice in the conversation.
Thank you for telling us what you thought about the item, I’ll pass it on to the rest of the production team.
Kind regards,
Helen”
vanharris – WOW – sort of sad isn’t it — now McCormick is a tradition WORTH keeping (and I am Italian) yet they cling to –oh well .. need I say.
If these guys were born in Ireland 3000 years ago they’d no doubt be shouting at you about the sanctity of beliefs in Dagda and Morrigan.
They’re also real behind the times. This happened over a year ago. News travels slow to the Emerald Isle I guess.
It sounds rather like it would if Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly ganging up on someone on Faux Noise. McGurk comes right out and says PZ’s not allowed to talk about the host (why not?) and neither of the attackers qualify why it’s an “intellectually weak” thing to do. What do they even mean by that? And the senator doesn’t counter PZ when he tells him right out that the senator doesn’t respect other faiths and he doesn’t counter it at all! Senator Ronan Mullen doesn’t respect Hinduism, Islam, Dagdaism, Buddhism, Pastafarianism, or any other faith than Christianity! I’m sure his opponents will like to know that.
…má bhionn tú ag labhair i nGaeilge.* But if you’re speaking English, you call it Ireland, for the same reason that you don’t say that Helsinki is the capital of Suomi.
* As with most of my compatriots, my grasp of the First National Language is not warranted to be error-free.
The mp3 file is here. Someone with audio editing/cutting skills might cut out the relevant bits?
It starts at 1:37 (1 hours 37 minutes)
http://www.4fm-media.com/data/01monday/mcgurkon4mon.mp3
Those are some lovely specs!
(They look like my old pair – that unfortunately broke. Titanium apparently suffers metal fatigue, too.)
As a Dubliner I can confirm that Chris is right, while “Eire” is technically correct people in Ireland almost always prefer “Ireland” when using the official name of the state, unless of course they are speaking in Irish. Think of it as similar to hearing somebody refer to “Deutschland” rather than “Germany” when speaking in English…sounds a bit silly.
Oddly enough in my experience the term “Eire” is most often used by Conservative or Unionist British commentators who wish use an official title to refer to the Irish state but don’t want to use “Ireland” since that name is also applied in a geographical sense to the whole island including the 6 counties of Northern Ireland (aka the North) that are part of the United Kingdom.
“The Republic of Ireland” or simply “The republic” is often used by Irish people when they want to stress that they are talking about Eire/Ireland rather than the whole island of Ireland, and is used to describe the state in official documents but is not an official name (except for the foolball team) People in Northern Ireland and the UK often use the term “Southern Ireland” or “The South” to refer to Eire/Ireland/Republic of Ireland but that meaning isn’t used much south of the border in Ireland itself where “Southern Ireland” usually refers to the provence of Munster.
Confused yet?
Ironically, you could stab all the crackers you liked and pour truckloads of them in the bin and that wouldn’t be covered by the Defamation Bill.
You have to publish it or utter it.
Paul55,
So use Eire! No confusion.
ConcernedJoe @ 23, i agree, but there are forces we just can’t resist.
There’s a quite incredible contrast between PZ’s urbane, calm approach and the others’ snide, knee-jerk intolerance.
One point of fact. The presenter throws at PZ the apparent reason for the Irish Constitution ‘requiring’ the new Blasphemy Law, claiming it was to stop anti-semitism in the 1930s. (PZ was momentarily thrown, as most people would be by this tactic.)
Perhaps someone more expert in Irish history can confirm, but as I understand it, state recognition of Judaism was a side effect of the constitution changing to further entrench religion. It certainly wasn’t the first thing on De Valera’s mind when he drafted the Constitution. Ignorance goes hand in hand with rudeness, I guess.
Nasty pieces of work, both of them.
Thanks to Paul55 for showing us the Eire of our ways..
Paul55 is spot on there, at least as perceived by this ex-pat Yank who has been living here for 25 years.
We normally use ‘Ireland’, but if you want to remove all doubt that it’s the bit that excludes the 6 northern counties you’re talking about, then it’s ‘Republic of Ireland’ (which is how the football/soccer team is represented).
For the same purposes, the 6 northern counties are designated as ‘Northern Ireland’.
@ MikeB – De Valera apparently did deliberately put protection for Jewish congregations into the 1937 Constitution. it seems he was a good friend of Isaac Hertzog, the chief rabbi of Ireland (link).
However, this protection was put into the since amended Article 44.1.3, which named out a series of faiths offered Constitutional recognition and protection. However, the blasphemy provision is in Article 40 and makes no such specific reference to Judaism or any other faith.
So McGurk is talking out his arse.
I think the singlemost worst thing about laws protecting religion from defamation is how these laws are drafted in utter ignorance of the fact that you can’t even state the tenets of one religion without defaming other religions. And part of the law is that people get to say whatever bullshit they like so long as it’s backed up by religion. So basically the laws don’t prevent defamation of religion – they just set it up so that the religious are the only ones allowed to defame, all the while blatantly lying to themselves about the fact that this is the situation.
And here in the States, when an American of Irish descent refers to “Ireland”, he generally is referring to both the nation-state and the entire island, which they consider the same thing.
A serious objection. “Jesus is Lord” is blasphemy to a Muslim.
But, but, but. . . .
Didn’t you nail that cracker to a copy of the Koran?
Or did the accompanying presence of ‘The God Delusion’ dilute the holiness of the already-diluted-by-english-translation holy book to below the blasphemy threshold? (Would that be 2 or 1.51523345 standard deviations below the sacramental mean. . . ?)
Now that I think of it “God has no son” (this is a quote from the Koran), is blasphemy to a Christian. Furthermore it is in origin a repudiation of Christianity.
Re Éire/Ireland – I don’t really care as long as it is used to refer to the whole country, not just the Republic. People often refer to the Republic as “The South” which is a bit inaccurate as it actually extends north of “The North”, in Donegal. What I really hate is when people use the jarring phrase “Ireland and Northern Ireland”, which RTE seems particularly fond of.
Stupid question time. Is there any way to avoid listening to the first 76 minutes? I don’t seem to be able to scroll forwards.
youtube…
Part 1…
Part 2…
Confused yet?
If not, consider the following:
IMPORTANT NOTE
The Scots (originally Irish but by now Scotch) were at this time inhabiting Ireland, having driven the Irish (Picts) out of Scotland; while the Picts (originally Scots) were now Irish (living in brackets) and vice versa. It is essential to keep these distinctions clearly in mind (and verce visa).
– W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman 1066 And All That, Ch.2: “Britain Conquered Again”.
Has there every been a religious defamation law that seriously protected minority religions? As far as I can tell, the general purpose is to protect the status quo against critics, cynics and skeptics.
Utter rubbish. In the first place, anti-semitism is not blasphemy, it’s an invidious prejudice. It can give rise to blashemous acts, but it causes non-blasphemous ones just as easily.
Secondly, what anti-semitism there was in Ireland in the 1930s was low-grade and generally uninfluential, certainly nothing like what you saw on the continent, and by no means a political issue.
Thirdly, it’s hard to see the Constitution defending against what anti-semitism there was, when Judge Gavan-Duffy was able to decide in a High Court case (Schlegel v Corcoran [1942] IR) that a landlord’s antisemitism was ‘reasonable’ grounds for his objecting to his tenant sub-letting (or maybe assigning) his lease to a Jewish dentist.
The constitutional declaration that blasphemy is a crime was a cost-free sop to general religious sensibilities of the day.
(Interestingly, the Vatican were a bit annoyed that Catholicism wasn’t enshrined as the State religion and declared ‘the One True Christianity’. The Pope let it be known that he ‘neither approved nor disapproved’ of it, and the Papal Nuncio cheerfully told de Valera that, for failing to enact a truly Catholic constitution, he was ‘a heretic’.)
Or something… I’ve two Titanium frames, both assumingly enough purchased in Dublin, which broke after I moved to France. Maybe Ti’s allergic to frogs?
PZ,
If you’re still in Ireland, hoist a Murphy’s or two. It’s mellower & somewhat richer than Guinness.
…and goes well with cheeses (Cheeses, Murphy!)
Does Ireland have a separation of Church and State? If so, then how can these laws be considered a separation of Church and State if you’re literally governing what your religion can do or state?
Next, has anyone ever been prosecuted for blasphemy under these laws? I understand recently several people have purposely attempted to break the laws to show how ridiculous they are, but did it “succeed”?
Wait… did you not get chance to tell those idiots that you included a few pages out of the Koran in your “Great Desecration”?
No, Ireland does not have full separation of Church and State. Our constitution has numerous references to God, and the education system is largely owned by the churches, primarily the Catholic Church. The same goes with much of the health system, where one of the first questions you are asked when you enter hospital is your religion.
Nobody has yet been prosecuted, but give it time! The effort to publish the blasphemous quotes was unlikely to lead to prosecution by anyone, but it was aimed at making the Irish Government an international laughing stock, an aim it achieved quite well, I think.
Seemed like that interview was mostly an indignant tirade from McGurk and Mullen, with fairly little time for PZ to respond.
The amount of stupid being poured from Ronan Mullen’s mouth to my ear was hard to take. The guy splutters about magical crackers being a misconception, yet he’s obviously offended by host desecration, which is inoffensive unless one considers the cracker to be magical. Guh!
@Steve, # 35 and @Abdul, #37 and #39, have hit the nail on the head. Everything that a religious person believes and voices about their religion is blasphemy to other religions. But no religious person is going to pursue a case against another religious person on that score, because it would bring down the entire house of cards. So the end effect of these laws is to stop non-believers saying things that the religious are offended by. Shame an atheist can’t bring a case against a Catholic priest for saying that non-believers are all going to burn in hell (for example). I find that pretty offensive, but then we would have all sorts of issues about then defining atheism as a religion (it is not) etc.
Colm @ 50
The Act is designed so that nobody can ever be prosecuted under it, because of the defences for political or cultural comment. That way, our esteemed (?) Min for Justice can say he’s fulfilled the ‘constitutional imperative’ to have a blasphemy law while being able to say that it’s not going to affect anyone.
An Irish solution to an Irish problem. Typical feckin Fianna Fáil.
Blondin,
I would go for some Double Gloucester or Stilton on rye toast or whole wheat crackers/biscuits! If I weren’t on a retirement income, I might weight 20 stone!
Between McGurk and Mullen one is again transfixed by the ageless and provocative mystery of what comes first – brain damage or religion?
The relevant 13’39”:
http://rapidshare.com/files/345045447/TomMcGurk_PZMyers_4fm-20100201.mp3
Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth the trouble going into a radio studio just to be ranted at. (And they say PZ is militant!)
PaulJ
A grown senator worried about obtaining a cracker under false pretenses…
Seemed like that interview was mostly an indignant tirade from McGurk and Mullen, with fairly little time for PZ to respond.
I think in some circles that might be referred to as the “Gish gallop”.
Since Rapidshare is painful, I’m uploading that to my own site. I’d post a link, but my computer is being slow, so I’m waiting till it’s fully uploaded.
I’ll post a link at some stage.
TRiG.
http://timothy.green.name/docs/Radio/4FM/TomMcGurk/20100201_PZMyers.mp3. (This is the same file psjenkins provided on Rapidshare.)
starfart @ #55
Could that possibly be you?
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/01/looking_for_grant_money_for_yo.php#comment-2219170
If so, welcome back, and it’s great to see you’re taking the meds again. OTOH, if it’s not the real starfart, better watch out ’cause PZed doesn’t take too kindly to people usurping handles around here. Just sayin’…
BTW, went along to PZed’s talk tonight at UCD, and indeed it was good. Was mostly interested in the Q & A, and the questions were insightful save for the obligatory pre-rehearsed one from some arsehole concerning the big bang. But PZed duly told the guy to go fuck himself and ask a physicist instead. Well played.
Afterwards, we retired to the student union for a few much-deserved scoops. All in all, a very nice evening, and I wish PZed the best of luck on the remainder of his Irish tour.
I find it interesting that one can almost tell who the rational, logical, intelligent side of an argument simply by seeing who is presenting their arguments in a calm, concise manner, who lets their opponent speak (tantamount to giving them enough rope to hang themselves), and typically does not resort to insults or exaggerations.
Is it not a sign of weakness to express ANGER and INDIGNATION at someone’s points? Is it not a sign of weakness to accuse someone of “intellectually weak” arguments?
I’m still trying to figure out why they find PZ’s position “intellectually weak.” Is that just code for “I don’t agree but I can’t form a cogent reason why?” Seems that way for these two lads. Typically when I find fault in an argument (as I did with the latest IDiot whose letter was printed in Chem and Engineering News this week), I say why (this guy was begging the question, imagine an IDiot doing that).
My first ever post here, finaly after ages trying to work out how to sign up.
After listening to the youtube recordeing I have to say I admire you PZ for going day in day out year in year out battleing for rationality, secuerlisam and Atheisim. Thankyou.
Arguably, so are statements of “There is no God but Allah” or “Thou shalt have no gods before me” to a Hindu.
Does nobody think of this shit at all?
“the point was to stir up some argument”
Of course it was, PZ! Didn’t anyone warn you about the Irish? It’s not rugby, or hurling, or Gaelic football, but ARGUING that is the true national sport of Ireland!
An Irishman will claim that grass is blue and the sky is green if he thinks he can get a good 30 minute argument out of it! They love nothing better than taking contrary opinions and then defending them in verbal fencing matches.
I don’t think I’m being racist in saying this; I think many Irish people wouild agree that this is an accurate characterization of their race. And I have had many an entertaining argument with my Irish friends, and find their stubborn tenacity and wily semantic slipperiness quite admirable :o)
Just be warned, though – it can occasionally be quite infuriating, when you know you’ve won the argument but they just refuse to concede (they don’t accept defeat gracefully, in my experience…)
This, the hypocrisy of Mullen’s first vote, and a lot of the discussion in this thread reminds me of a thought I had a while ago on why it is religionists seem so very, very pissed at atheists, specically…
And that is: they’re so tetchy about us essentially because they know too damned well we don’t have the same vulnerabilities they do…
This following also from my long suspicions that most (or all) believers know too well at some level they’re completely full of shit–you can’t spend your life working on such bizarre rationalizations as they do and not notice…
Anyway, extending the notion, part of their compensation for that is: they figure, sure, they’re living in a house of cards, but so is (almost) everyone else. A Christian knows if a Moslem makes a joke about the number of virgin births announced in inner city fertility clinics daily, they can always come back with somethin’ zippy on flying donkeys going to heaven… And then Hindus can see you a cosmic elephant and raise you a talking snake… And so there’s almost some sorta solidarity about the whole thing at an interfaith level, parallel to the intrafaith contract they make (wherein, in your own church, we’ve all already agreed to avow to the same stupid shit, so in a sense, we’ve all got that on each other, so we’re all in this together, see)…
Whereas the atheists, I figure it must seem to the religionists like we’re cheating or some damned thing. It’s like, listen, everyone else agrees to play the game, so what the hell’s wrong with you lot? You’re like the one guy at the damned LAN party who shows up with a system like fifty times faster than everyone else’s. Jerk. Sure, you can do that, but it’s so bloody antisocial… The rest of us, we’re all getting along just fine with these unspoken rules. Stop pissing us off by ignoring ’em.
(/And thus, by the way, the continual attempts to claim somehow atheism is somehow a religion, or to muddle around with epistemology sufficiently to somehow demonstrate that having confidence in the physical laws we use daily to build things is exactly like believing in magical sky people in the business of answering prayers and smiting stuff at random, honest. Anything, however silly, to try to get the playing field back to where they figure it should be again.)
Just listened to the first half and that was a horrible
interviewmobbing. Christopher Hitchens knows how to deal with such assholes: don’t let them interrupt, talk over them (you will be heard by listeners if not the assholes), and don’t hesitate to interrupt them or correct them if they get too wild. Actually, you seemed to get the hang of it after the fatwa envy came up. Nice.I LOLed. How long will the cracker caper continue to provide us with comedy?