This message came by a roundabout route—a reader sent me a link to an Italian blog (translated) that was discussing a protest petition of a ‘blasphemous’ play that is being put on at…the University of Minnesota! The petition is titled “Blasphemy is not education”:
I understand the University of Minnesota plans to stage an anti-Catholic play, “The Pope and the Witch” by Dario Fo, a communist playwright. … I believe this play is blasphemous and not a legitimate expression of academic freedom. I am deeply offended as a Catholic. Together with thousands of TFP Student Action members, I urge you to respect the Catholic Faith and cancel “The Pope and the Witch.”
I beg to differ. Blasphemy is highly educational, and I hope our university can do more of it. We are not here to reassure you that your ignorance and prejudices are alright, we’re supposed to shake up our students.
I’m also amused that all this indignant young person can say about Dario Fo is that he is a communist <gasp!> — right. Dario Fo, winner of the 1997 Nobel for literature. Religion does seem to make for a fine set of blinders, doesn’t it?
I don’t think the petition has had the slightest effect. I hadn’t heard a single word about it until it was mentioned in my email, and the play opens this week. I’m tempted to go, because it should be entertaining and being able to thumb my nose at religious bigots adds a little extra flavor to it. If only we weren’t expecting several more inches of snow later this week…
Anyway, if the Catholics wanted a better public image, they might have burned fewer people at the stake.
Or more. Burning playwrights might have helped.
I’d like to go see that! Wonder if there will fundies protesting. Would be interesting to chat with them.
PZ,
You’re so morbid. If the catholic church burned more playwrights, they’d have had to have burned less of another group, and this could have had drastic consequences. What if they were to have slacked off on scientists? Ever think about that?
Careful! The meanest thing the fundies ever did to me was boycotting The Last Temptation of Christ, which made me go to see it to support freedom of speech.
I suspect that making it was what took until last night for the Academy of Movie Arts & Sciences to forgive Scorsese for.
So what? We should all alter our behaviour just because you’re offended? Who the fuck are you that I or anyone else should care that you’re offended?
Pompous little twat. Argument from self-obsession.
I think calling Dario Fo a Communist is a bit simplistic, though he certainly is a Socialist. He has always had an on-off relationship with the Communist Party in Italy, and certainly didn’t get along with the Soviet Union (at least not after 1968).
Tsk tsk Dan. We don’t insult people by comparing them to female genitalia. We insult people by making derisive comments about their character and intelligence.
Well said Dan. These simpletons need to take their sensitivities and stuff them up their pucker.
“offended”….give me a break.
The last words of the petition are “Please let me know what you will do to avoid harming the good reputation of the Catholic Faith. Thank you.”
GOOD reputation????
Go see it, PZ.
If it’s only half as funny as Fo’s ‘We Can’t Pay, We Won’t Pay’, then you’ll enjoy it. The blasphemy will be a bonus.
I have a question regarding the petition, and it is rhetorical since I don’t expect that the creator will be reviewing Pharyngula:
How does he define academic freedom if he doesn’t expect anyone to be able to question the validity of a religious belief? And how is making fun of the Witches revenge an attack on God. If anything it maybe an attack on the Church, but the Church is kind of a man-made thing, so how can that be blasphemy?
I don’t get the whole blasphemy thing, anyway.
http://tuibguy.blog-city.com/gunderscored.htm
Maybe these Italian folk are still stuck in the mediaeval period where the only higher education available was getting a doctorate in theology.
Hooray for blasphemy! We should have a holiday based on blasphemy, like April Fools day but with blasphemy instead of pranks, as well as like St. Patricks Day with all the drinking – now that would be fun and educational.
We should schedule BLasphemy sometime between Dirt Face Wedensday and Messiah Slaughter Friday. Just because. Oh, and also if it was roaming like Messiah Slaughter Friday, it could randomly coincide with St Beer Binge Day and we could get even more sloshed.
I looked at the site that petition is out of and the site is tfp.org and they are based out of Pennsylvania. WTF are they doing worried about what we put on here in Minnesota?
Oh, wait. I think their Senator lost last fall, so they have nothing better to do.
I’m a recovering Catholic. I remember how often the phrase “anti-Catholic” was thrown around at home and in Catholic social circles. It’s amazing to me to reflect on the paranoia surrounding “anti-Catholicism” that seemed so normal. Every response like this that I read makes me wince, since just ten years ago I may have agreed with them. I wonder if they realize how much this victim mentality hurts their already weak position.
The church is being so defensive. I mean, maybe the play sucks. Right? Then they have nothing to worry about.
For example, I saw an explicitly “anti-Catholic” play with my aunt years ago, written by a man who declared that he wanted to be censored. The play was a one-dimensional diatribe by a priest who left the priesthood to his mother. It sucked. I was bored. The church took no notice and the play was not banned. (It was too boring to be banned.) Diatribes do not good literature make, whereas we all know that petitions and boycotts can lift even a mediocre play into a cultural phenom (and when are people going to figure that out)?
This is a real hoot… I just visited the TFP web site (The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property). Now excuse me, but defense of property? As I understand it, Jesus was against the ownership of property, although those nice Catholics always managed to ignore that part.
I also noted that all of their officers are male – so I guess that’s also in keeping with Good Catholic Traditions.
But the funniest part (before I got fed up with reading all that drivel), was the following appeal: Defend the Church in Delaware. Delaware is introducing legislation that would abolish the statute of limitations for two years in cases of sexual abuse, costing innocent Catholics millions of dollars. Doesn’t that just bring a big ol’ tear to your eye? I mean, to hell with all those little boys who had their lives ruined, just as long as those nice, innocent Catholics can hold on to all the money they’ve grabbed over the centuries.
Sheesh… and they claim to be good people?
Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether religion is making someone act like a horse’s ass, or whether it’s just a horse’s ass using religion as a vehicle. But when someone announces out of the blue that he’s offended as a [ . . . ] and therefore people he doesn’t like anyway are obliged to cater to his delicate feelings, I think you can go with the latter. Chiara Lalli wouldn’t sound much different if he were Southern Baptist.
This guy’s petition isn’t shocking. These religious people always get pissed off when you fail to show deference to their views.
Well, I made my contribution to their petition pointing out that they are in fact violating the spirit of academic freedom (which, unless I’ve missed something, is precisely all about being free to offend the beliefs of others). I’m sure they moderate these things so it’ll never see the light of day but it sure felt good to do it.
I love you, man.
“I’m tempted to go, because it should be entertaining and being able to thumb my nose at religious bigots adds a little extra flavor to it”
CASH is going as a group for precisely these reasons.
dang, how DARE they put on a play of that kind by some upstart modern socialist playwright!
I say let’s can that play entirely and get a classic on stage… Like Molière’s Tartuffe…
“You’re so morbid. If the catholic church burned more playwrights, they’d have had to have burned less of another group, and this could have had drastic consequences. What if they were to have slacked off on scientists? Ever think about that?”
Contrary to popular belief the catholic church never burnt any scientists for being scientists.
“Maybe these Italian folk are still stuck in the mediaeval period where the only higher education available was getting a doctorate in theology”
One could also get a doctorate in medicine or in law.
For both of you, if you are going to claim historical grounds for criticism then at least get your history right. If you don’t then those that you criticise can simple dismiss you for the babbling fools that you are.
I’m also amused that all this indignant young person can say about Dario Fo is that he is a communist
Maybe he got his information from Conservapedia.
Seriously, Ray at #18 is right. TFP is an extremely radical-right organisation; they are (quite literally) fascists, and make Ratzinger look like a secular liberal. The American version is an offshoot; the group originated in South America under the old military dictatorships. I have little time for Dario Fo, but it’s enormously pleasing to think that he psises these swine off.
Lighten up Tony C., I’m pretty sure Secularizer was just being humorous. Anyone would think you were a sour-faced Catholic!
Contrary to popular belief the catholic church never burnt any scientists for being scientists.
Giordano Bruno, scientist and friar, burned at the stake in 1600 by the Inquisition for supporting Copernicus’ heretical “sun centered” model.
I think you are mistaking “scientists being burned” for “falsley accused of traversing with the devil scientists” being burned. I’m sure the church will tell you that they never burned anybody who was innocent.
I suggest you take a closer look at the workings of the Inquisition (Spanish and otherwise).
there are a lot of decent books on the subject, IIRC.
“Lighten up Tony C., I’m pretty sure Secularizer was just being humorous. Anyone would think you were a sour-faced Catholic!”
I am neither sour faced nor catholic but I am a pissed off historian of science. Most of the visitors to these blogs are themselves scientists who correctly complain about the false and stupid statements about science made by creationists, intelligent design supporters and other anti-science wing nuts. They then procced to make statements about the history of science that are just as wrong as the anti-science statements that they themselves criticise. History is not a science but it is a serious academic discipline and to become a historian requires as much serious study as any science. To become a historian of science is even harder as one must be both a historian and a scientist. Unfortunately there are a lot of so called facts about the history of science that were put into circulation by people who did not know what they were talking about, I call them the mythology of science. These are the so called facts that constantly get quoted by people who have never bothered to really learn the history of their scientific disciplines. The situation is not helped by the fact that the authors of many popular books on the history of science do not read the work done in the last fifty years by the real historians of science but continue to recycle the myths most of which were created in the 19th century.A good example is the claim that the catholic church burnt scientists because of their scientific views.This is a completely unsubstantiated myth.
“Giordano Bruno, scientist and friar, burned at the stake in 1600 by the Inquisition for supporting Copernicus’ heretical “sun centered” model.”
When I made my original posting I wondered how long it would be till somebody brought up Bruno. Firstly to call Bruno a scientist is stretching a point even by the standards of what constitutes science in the Renaissance, very different to the modern concept. Bruno was a theologian and a purveyor of various kinds of fantastic woo amongst, which were his ideas on cosmology. These ideas were definitely not scientific and could charitably be called soft science fiction although science fantasy would be nearer to the truth. However he was not tried for holding cosmological views based on Copernicanism but for theological heresy. Copernicanism was not a heresy.
Yes there are some very good books on the subject and I have read a large number of them have you?
Thony,
I’ll assume you’re correct that the Roman Catholic church never burnt a scientist for being a scientist. (Lucky Galileo! He was only threatened with death for being a scientist.) Perhaps they didn’t burn scientists because they were far to busy burning people for truly important reasons, like being a “witch”, or believing that the wrong number of angels could dance on the head of a pin.
The fact remains that the RCC is a world-historical abomination, a blood-drenched monstrosity, and if the worst retribution it gets is that an Italian “communist” writes snarky plays about it, well then, it is getting off very lightly indeed.
I’m so jealous. Wonder when atheists will rate enough to get anti-atheist plays?
Dawkins and Harris inquisition of faith is a start though, seems many religious feels burned at the stake there. But “Dawkins and the Priest” hasn’t quite the same zest.
I’m so jealous. Wonder when atheists will rate enough to get anti-atheist plays?
Dawkins and Harris inquisition of faith is a start though, seems many religious feels burned at the stake there. But “Dawkins and the Priest” hasn’t quite the same zest.
“The fact remains that the RCC is a world-historical abomination, a blood-drenched monstrosity, and if the worst retribution it gets is that an Italian “communist” writes snarky plays about it, well then, it is getting off very lightly indeed.”
I wouldn’t argue with that at all. In fact I am well known amongst my friends and acquaintences for saying that if I had to say which was the worst criminal organisation the KGB, the Mafia or the RCC then the RCC would win hands down.
However the first part of your post contains another myth. Galileo was not threatened with death only torture!! Also again contary to popular belief he was not persecuted by the church primarily for his scientific opinions but in 1616 because he tried to tell the theologians how to interpret the bible, not an intelligent thing to do in what was effectively a theocracy and in 1633 becuse he duped the censor and insulted the Pope an even more stupid thing to do under the circumstances. These are naturally also things nobody should be persecuted for in a free and civilised society.
I’m so jealous. Wonder when atheists will rate enough to get anti-atheist plays?
Maybe I’ll write one just for fun. Under a false name.
Then when the Disco Institute and what’s-his-name on CNN Headline News praises me,
ta da! I, er, unveil myself.
The comments of the great majority of responders to the professor’s blog, article, report, screed, whatever… only serve to validate my concerns about the spreading of blasphemy… Thanks for the help, folks.
Cheers!
Preston
Preston:
The only people who are worried about “blasphemy” are those whose “beliefs” are so shaky, ill-conceived, shallow and insecure, and whose entire self-image is wrapped up in said shaky, ill-conceived, shallow and insecure beliefs, that they can’t stand to have them questioned.
“Blasphemy” is only a problem for people who have no identity of their own. Their beliefs are their identity.
Dan wrote:
The only people who are worried about “blasphemy” are those whose “beliefs” are so shaky, ill-conceived, shallow and insecure, and whose entire self-image is wrapped up in said shaky, ill-conceived, shallow and insecure beliefs, that they can’t stand to have them questioned.
“Blasphemy” is only a problem for people who have no identity of their own. Their beliefs are their identity.
Posted by: Dan | February 28, 2007 12:58 AM
My response:
How interesting. Perhaps Dan should visit the TFP’s website where he can read of “Bishops’ Support for TFP Protests Against The Da Vinci Code” http://tfp.org/davincicode/support/bishop_support.htm
Here is a list of those whose comments are reproduced there:
– Most Reverend Wilton D. Gregory, Archbishop of Atlanta
– Justin Cardinal Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia
– Most Reverend Robert W. Finn, Bishop of Kansas City – St. Joseph
– Luis Cardinal Aponte, Archbishop Emeritus of San Juan
– Most Reverend Robert M. Moskal, Bishop of St. Josaphat in Parma
– Most Reverend Anthony Apuron, Archbishop of Agana, GUAM
– Most Reverend John C. Nienstedt, Bishop of New Ulm, Minnesota
– Most Reverend Raymond L. Burke, Archbishop of St. Louis
– Most Reverend Michael J. Sheridan, Bishop of Colorado Springs
– Most Reverend Oscar H. Lipscomb, Archbishop of Mobile
– Most Reverend Raymond J. Peña, Bishop of Brownsville, Texas
These defenders of the faith certainly don’t agree with Dan’s narrowminded comments.
It seems like the author of this blog would be in favor of throwing anyone who is not an atheist to the lions in Roman fashion.
He is in favor of freedom, yes, but only when is suites his own agenda. Sorry case indeed.
After reading the anti-Catholic vitriol on this post, I was motivated to join TFP Student Action’s petition against the indecent play which starts today at the UMN, “The Pope and the Witch.”
http://tfp.org/student_action/activities/protests/univ_minnesota_blasphemy2.htm
Thank God there is at least one sane professor at the U of MN.
Liberal voices would like to claim that all students, professors and faculty members are leftist. They are wrong. J. Ernesto Molina, M.D., Ph. D., Professor of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Minnesota, states: “It is indeed a disgrace that every insult to the Catholic Church is accepted without any concerns about morality, respect or decency just to be ‘correct’ in not interfering with freedom of expression. I certainly hope that the play is cancelled but we all need to get involved and continue the battle.”
Thousands of students and parents are standing up for the Faith. For example, concerned Catholic Richard Bobnick said: “I am thoroughly nauseated at the proliferation of anti-Catholic literature, entertainment and related media. No one would dare criticize the Islamic faith or Muhammed.”
Show me any quote where PZ would punish with death someone for just believing in a god.
A question for PZ Myers:
For the record, what is your true opinion of Communism please?
Please respond.
We criticize all religions equally.
Catholics just seem to be bigger babies about it.
I deny the holy spirit. ;)
to Steve_C:
You have made your religion criticism.
These defenders of the faith certainly don’t agree with Dan’s … comments.
Well they wouldn’t, would they? The notion of blasphemy is part of their absurd faith.
By the way, what’s the difference between Most Reverend and merely Reverend?
I know. I got lots more too.
There’s no heaven or hell either. Oooo. I’m evil.
Christine… when you recieve Communion is it the actual “Body Of Christ” you’re swallowing?
Kristine said:
Sufferin’ Sokal-tash, you just might have a good idea! :-)
Blasphemy is highly educational, and I hope our university can do more of it. We are not here to reassure you that your ignorance and prejudices are alright, we’re supposed to shake up our students.
Gertrude Stein must have seen this post coming. Notwithstanding the obligatory liberal-professor incendiarism, the misspelling, and the comma splice, there’s no there there.
Seems like a great idea!
Seems like a great idea!
Wow. You would expect better criticism from a townhall fan.
Michael Medved? You have got to be kidding.
http://sadlyno.com/archives/5198.html
Medved uses the written word of the Lord Your God (Protestant/Jewish version, natch) in his continuing efforts to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that liberals are total hypocrites:
“I am the Lord Your God” This one makes liberals obviously and instantly uncomfortable … Secularists therefore resent the notion of an open, out-of-the-closet Deity who shows off in such a noisy, flashy way, staging the Exodus from Egypt with all its plagues and sea-splitting, then announcing himself in a voice from the mountaintop heard by hundreds of thousands of people.”
And now, in his most challenging performance yet, JM J. Bullock tackles the role of the Lord Your God!
“You shall not recognize the gods of others in My presence” Talk about intolerance and judgmentalism! This commandment denies the very essence of multiculturalism and diversity: by what right do we dismiss and disrespect the gods of others?”
Wait, didn’t Medved just accuse liberals of being religion-suppressing dickholes? Like, in the previous paragraph? And now he’s saying we’re polytheistic religious freaks who’ll bow down and pray to anything from pagan gods revered by ancient, and now dead, societies to statues of political leaders? That doesn’t even make any sense.
Apparently we didn’t burn enough at the stake!
Ahh the irony.
Do you think witchcraft is real or were you just attempting to be funny?
Giordano Bruno asked if Jesus had also died for the people on other “stars”. That was, apparently, too much.
——————–
Didaskalos (49), not that it matters, but I’m a geek — will you please explain the comma and spelling mistakes? I can’t find any in that sentence.
And remember: nobody forces you to watch that play. You can just not buy a ticket and not go there. You’re free to stand out of the kitchen if you can’t stand the heat.
Giordano Bruno asked if Jesus had also died for the people on other “stars”. That was, apparently, too much.
——————–
Didaskalos (49), not that it matters, but I’m a geek — will you please explain the comma and spelling mistakes? I can’t find any in that sentence.
And remember: nobody forces you to watch that play. You can just not buy a ticket and not go there. You’re free to stand out of the kitchen if you can’t stand the heat.
Thony C: But they did threaten one with torture, and burned many for independent thought. (Giordano Bruno is only one.)
A dear friend of mine and I saw Brecht’s Life of Galileo at McGill when we were undergraduates. I suspect that play and venue would have ticked off fundies, if there were any here in any great numbers …
One of those who would apparently go along wilth the author of this blog in his comments on how students at a university are supposed to be shaken up decribed a moment I found hilarious. It seems that part of this fraud on the notion of free speech featured actors in clerical gear giving drugs to “addicts” who then spread out in the audience and acted up moaning and carrying on. The writer of the review was made very uneasy by this and apparently did not think it should have been done. Right. This is all supposed to be abstract you see, and the audience is not allowed to have real reactions to attempts to “shake” them up so actual encounters parallel to the intellectual deg- radation produced on stage must not occur. It is all on a basis of do not touch the exhibits, please.
What image could more accurately, and comically, depict the corrupt intellectuals who hunger to see the values held to by their community savaged, provided they are not touched and no real blood is spilled. No wonder we have such trouble with a generation of Know Nothings who repudiate such models for social leadership. You suck, little man, you suck.