It actually feels kind of good, considering that my job is secure, and that these critics are looking increasingly rabidly insane. I just sit back and watch their hysteria grow. Case in point: Rod Dreher, who seems to be crawling the walls and screaming right now. In his ‘review’ of the desecration issue, nowhere does he mention the cause: the violent over-reaction of Catholics to a student in Florida walking away from Mass with a communion wafer, and the subsequent uproar calling for expulsion and punishment from Bill Donohue.
His parting shot to believers: “Nothing must be held sacred.”
He doesn’t believe that, of course. The hateful Dr. Myers and his spittle-flecked supporters insist that their right to profane symbols that Catholics and Muslims hold most sacred is absolute and sacrosanct. To be sure, there’s little doubt that what he did – obtaining a consecrated Host and a copy of the Quran and defiling them – violates no criminal statute.
No, actually, I do believe that. Nothing is sacred; nothing receives its value from an imaginary connection to a deity or supernatural force. Objects and people gain importance to us from their human connections. But yes, I insist that no one can be forced to bow down to the symbols and dogma of a religion, especially a religion to which they do not belong. Jews cannot tell Catholics that they can’t eat ham, Catholics can’t tell Muslims to worship their cracker, Muslims can’t tell me to pray 5 times a day. When a religion oversteps its bounds and starts ordering people to respect their foolish rituals, it’s time for people to step up and demonstrate that no, they can’t do that. You can believe your god is a cracker in your church, Mr Dreher, but you can’t tell me that I must honor your crackers in my home.
Dreher thinks this is the first step in the destruction of society.
But his audacious act of sacrilege crossed an important moral, social and psychological line, one that calls up metaphorical demons that, once summoned, are difficult to control. It is one thing to say that belief in God is foolish and wicked and that Catholicism and Islam deserve scorn. It is quite another to physically desecrate the artifacts believers hold sacred.
Talk about hyperbole…this is a classic religious defense. Why, if we don’t keep cutting the hearts out of sacrificial victims, the sun won’t rise tomorrow. You want the sun to rise, don’t you? Throw a cracker in the trash (an act I did not consider audacious at all, but entirely trivial), and the entire social fabric will crumble! We must stop him!
It’s also supremely hypocritical. Only a few weeks ago, what was Dreher saying?
If P.Z. Myers had any guts, he would put out a call for someone to send him a Koran so he could blow his nose and wrap fish in it. After all, it’s nothing but frackin’ ink on paper, right? So what’s stopping you, Big Man? It’s easy to shit on what Catholics regard as sacred. But just try doing the same thing to what Muslims regard as sacred. Let’s see what you’re made of.
What? Mr Dreher! I thought that physically desecrating the artifacts believers hold sacred would cross “an important moral, social and psychological line, one that calls up metaphorical demons that, once summoned, are difficult to control”. Apparently, this is only true of the artifacts Dreher reveres.
Dreher is not alone. I’ve got way over 10,000 emails from devout Catholics shrieking the same old message — that Eucharist is literally the body of my god! You hurt me when you hurt that cracker! Here’s a Koran — destroy it instead! I want you to lose your job! I want you to die! You’re going to burn in hell! The monster from the id is out and exposed, and it isn’t the atheists who have crossed the line.
Here’s another example of an obsessed Catholic kook who has spotted a witch. He actually went through all of my posts from Spring term and noted the date and time.
When considering only the days UMM was in session for the spring semester of 2008 and cross-referencing these with standard university hours (8a.m. to 4 p.m.), during this time Myers posted 334 times to his blog. That is Three-Hundred Thirty-Four Posts! He averaged close to five posts a day to his blog during university hours. Note to the chancellor: This information was there for the taking. I did not even have easy access to his Internet records as the university does.
Now, this gets a little more interesting when looking at Myers’ class assignments. Many times Myers posts just before class as well as in-between classes. Frequently there are posts during a three-hour biology lab that Myers was in charge of. Sort of, “I’ll keep the students busy and post on my blog.” His professional duties obvious were secondary to supporting his hobby and hate-mongering.
Oh, my. What a remarkable exercise in futility. As I’m sure all of you other university faculty know, there is no such thing as 8-4, 5-days-a-week schedule for us. I’ve spent many weekends and late nights with my head buried in papers; even more time in prep work for lectures, which, when you’ve got 8am classes, gets done at all hours of the day; and as a developmental biologist, I am at the beck and call of embryos that develop on their own schedule that isn’t always in sync with mine. The university is not going to want to open the can of worms that would involve defining exactly when their salaried employees are on the clock and when they’re not — if professors could bill for overtime, universities would go bankrupt.
And, I’m sorry to say, I’m apparently much, much smarter than a certain devout Roman Catholic and social conservative. I know the stats on traffic to blogs: they peak in the early afternoon, my time. I know that to maintain interest it’s a good idea to have new posts up when people are looking in. And I also know how to use the post scheduling feature in MovableType to have articles magically appear without my immediate intervention at times when I am not online, such as when I’m in a lecture or lab.
I’m sorry to disillusion everyone who noticed the occasional nod to Oceania with posts appearing at 1 or 2 or 5am my time, and thought I was the Sleepless Brain, but those are scheduled, too.
Oh, well. They can keep on exposing their ignorance with their rants. I’m having a grand time, while they stare at the kerning in my articles.
Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub also has an opinion.
@ Frog #483: the quote actually predates MLK. It’s taken from a mid 19th century song writer by the name of J W Work, a quote which nearly everyone at that fateful speech recognized.
Said song was a negro spiritual.
Just for accuracy’s sake. I doubt Pete understood who/what he was quoting…
The ultimate irony is the people who worship a man who was condemned to death for blasphemy condemning another man for blasphemy.
@rmp, #492: I’m on the same boat.
As someone with an autism spectrum disorder, it’s Dreher’s casual bigotry towards “autists” rather than his boring and nonsensical tirades against PZ and other atheists that gets me.
Kim,
“I see no evidence for God; therefore, I believe that the simplest explanation is that he does not exist” is a perfectly valid and logical position to hold. Your claim is technically true, but by the same logic, I cannot prove that little men with the ability to turn invisible don’t live in my refrigerator. I cannot prove that I am not a sophisticated construct being controlled by beings from a distant planet. I cannot prove that unicorns do not exist.
Does that mean I should avoid saying “I don’t believe in unicorns?”
Kim, that’s one of the most common and, I’m afraid, stupidest “objections” to atheism. We can’t “prove” that phlogiston and Santa Claus don’t exist either. Science simply doesn’t and can’t work by seriously considering the possibility that things exist for whose existence there is no good evidence.
Agnosticism is therefore just as irrational as religious belief. Its seeming reasonableness is a fig leaf. In practice, “agnostics” really leave open the possibility of existence only for the god(s) of the religion in which they happen to have been indoctrinated as a child. Just occasionally you find one who claims to be agnostic about Thor and Athena, but nobody believes them, nor should they.
To me:
The psychological linch-pin (lynch-pin???) of the radical right is projection. Everything they do and say is an attempt to invert reality – they’re constantly accusing minorities of being racist, women of being domineering, of atheists being intolerant.
It’s whine, whine, whine from them. Once you get it, interpreting their language becomes very easy. From listening to them, you’d think white christian males were 2% of the population being denied access to education, being held in slavery, with wives who keep them barefoot and pregnant.
It’s like the CEO who goes to the dominatrix to be spanked while he’s in a diaper. Paging Dr. Freud…
Wow. What a pathetic attempt to draw an equivalence between your experience and theirs. Have you no shame?
Maaaaaaaannnn! I’ll give ya a hunnert bucks. Do it dude!! do-it do-it do-it do-it DO-IT DO-IT DO-IT. AWRIGHT!(makes index/pinkie rock sign)Woohoo!!!
Ahem. Perhaps that’s not the best possible way to convey your sense of pique – especially since those bastards would pepper your pasty ass with rocksalt. (I’d still pay to see it, man)
And we don’t know if there’s angels and demons and satan and…
Yeah. I’m not agnostic about those either. Get a grip. There’s plenty of crap that religious people believe. Where does is the line between plausible and preposterous anyway?
Hint: There is no line.
I hear the thundering of Pink Unicorns, and clanking of celestial teapots in the distance.
Wish i could stay but have to go to work and batton down the hatches for this friggin hurricane.
You do realize that Hyooston has the third largest Gay population in the US after NYC and San Francisco.
Don’t be surprised if we get a good flattening tomorrow. God is such a jealous drama queen attention whore.
gotta go
blub blub
That’s a more appropos description of yourself, but thanks for dropping by, anyway. Don’t hurt yourself putting yourself on the back (we call that the Pharisee tear….)
Hey,
Are there any Catholics here reading PZ’s blog? I just wanted to let you know that there are a couple of posters over at Florida Citizens for Science saying things like
The nerve! And this from a youth minister at that! Are you going to stand for that? He is right and you are wrong!!
Sheesh!
You wouldn’t believe all of the anti-catholoicism down here. I thought all Christians were supposed to stick together but apparently the Pope is a tool of Satan according to them!
@Steve #506: it seems to me you’re discussing agnostic theists, not just “agnostics” as a whole.
Certainly, the essential unknowable (and therefore moot) concept of god isn’t merely fig-leaf reasonability. It’s pragmatism at best. To choose to not decide which God to believe in is a very real answer to the conflict generated by religion.
If the 4 years I spent debating in alt.atheism taught me one thing, it’s that word definitions are the key to understanding (and defeating) your opponent!
Wow, Came here to check out the comments, just spent 15 minutes reading. Cannot even imagine the level of ignorance I see here. Would not have thought it possible. You people are simply without depth. Very scary to know you may be in my country. Not going to engage you intellectually on this since I realize the amount of education required to be transmitted to you is simply beyond the scope of one lifetime. Pete and Nate, why do you engage these things. Not worth your time, and why am I writing, cannot say, just sitting here with my mouth open. You all have much, much to learn. Wow, wow, wow, immaturity oozes from these pages. All of you are just juveniles, no maybe that is too advanced. Good heavens…
I thought that the rather atheistic Lincoln freed the slaves?
Or do you actually contend, like many of your fellow irrationalists, that when a good thing is done, that makes it a religious thing, and when a bad thing happens, that’s the work of evil secularists?
Every time I hear the question “Is nothing sacred?” I can’t help but think of Gahan Wilson. I cut this one
http://discardedlies.com/images/35sm%5B1%5D.jpg
out of an old playboy; I think I still have it somewhere.
Beyond @515:
Why is it people who declare themselves intellectually superior while refusing to back it up are always so bad at it? Seriously–writing well is not that difficult. If you’re going to proclaim your erudition and education, writing at a seventh-grade level only serves to make you look ridiculous.
Test.
Even fellow “science”bloggers decry PZ Myers’ actions:
1)
What alarms me the most about the incident, however, is the major perceptual hit that the scienceblogs.com community and brand continues to take because of PZ’s antics. The Seed sponsored blog portal is supposed to be a place that attracts new audiences to science, but in fact, it has turned into the Web’s leading echo chamber of anti-religious rants and sophomoric discussions of atheism, what the physicist Chad Orzel refers to as the “screechy monkey” problem.
2)
He’s Just a F******* Adolescent Ass
3)
Desecration, blasphemy in public, and manners
4)
The mere fact that it is legal (or at least not illegal) to do something says very little about the morality involved. It’s not nice to destroy something that you know has a great deal of emotional significance for someone else, and it’s particularly jerky to threaten to make a public display of destroying it. This is true for items of religious significance, but it’s also equally true for non-religious items that someone finds significant. It may be intended to demonstrate disrespect for their beliefs, but it will be felt as a lack of respect for them as people.
5)
I think that people have an obligation to behave in certain ways for civil society to function and survive. People who deliberately provoke others for no purpose beyond the malicious joy of provocation should be recognized as the obnoxious assholes that they are.
And still there has not been even a hint of apology. He will look back on the with the regret when his time comes that’s for sure. Why is it that in the face of all this criticism his flock cannot comprehend the enormity of what he’s done?
-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-__-_
Dies Irae, Ben Stein, Dawkins
Wow. Bring up the cracker flap and the maggots do come crawling out of the woodwork, don’t they?
I hate commenting in these overlong threads, but I just have to say that any group that makes it a point to denigrate, disrespect, and just generally shit upon certain groups (such as gays, women, molested kids, etc.)…
…and then turns around and demands nobody disrespect its Sacred Snack Foods …
…would, in any truly civilized society, be laughed out of existence.
The hypocrisy is BLINDING.
Aww, Scooter, Houston wouldn’t be destroyed for having a large gay population, it would be destroyed because it blows.(that’s a joke, son) It’s okay if you guys get wiped out, just as long as we get rain in Big D. (I keeeeeed, I keeeeeed)*
*Triumph, the insult comic dog
I love arguments which come in the form of “I can’t express my ideas, so I’m just going to quote a bunch of people, and then claim victory”.
Maybe Beyond Amazing was going to go beyond logic.
Ignorance? Really? Ignorant of what?
Three or more links in a single comment will cause a it to get snagged by the moderation filter. No, you’re not being censored. Kudos for not jumping to the usual conclusion.
(My #525 was to Mr. Rooke)
whateverman, it is a gross abuse of language to describe as “pragmatism” a willingness to seriously entertain the possibility that things exist for which there is no credible evidence whatsoever. Moreover, in practice this supposed suspension of judgment is never really of the “equal-opportunity” variety that you’re trying to espouse; that pose always crumbles under any real questioning, in my experience. People with an emotional attachment to their childhood religion are “agnostic” about the god(s) of their youth. People who espouse a fashionably vague “but there might be something out there” “spirituality” do not in practice take the idea of anthropomorphic gods seriously. And so on. “Wishful thinking” is the correct name for this phenomenon.
sheesh pete, have you came out the closet already?
Whateverman #501:
@ Frog #483: the quote actually predates MLK. It’s taken from a mid 19th century song writer by the name of J W Work, a quote which nearly everyone at that fateful speech recognized.
Said song was a negro spiritual.
Just for accuracy’s sake. I doubt Pete understood who/what he was quoting…
You’re referring to the original song, correct? But the “in the words of the old negro spiritual” is from MLK — he wasn’t quoting those words. The recursive quotation is a quotation of MLK, with an embedded quotation.
I doubt that Pete didn’t know — that particular clip is always over the airways. The rookster is really a piece of work – as Kseniya said, shameless. So completely self-absorbed that it is impossible for him to fully recognize the offensiveness of his statement.
Hey Pete, Why do you you persecute Me? Is it because I’m an oreo? (Oh so tasty!)
@445 Steve LaBonne
I think you are right on. The RCC is still far too powerful.
As we type, DHHS is drafting regs that re-define contraception as abortion, and R&D of embyonic stem cell-derived therapies is held hostage to pseudo-ethical concerns about “souls” that got lost on the way from fertilization to stem cell banks.
The doctrine of ensoulment is as ludicrous and purely made up as the transubstantiation doctrine, but far more insidious in its consequences.
How can anyone take Dreher seriously when he is not serious about religion. He grew up a methodist. He later became a roman catholic and then two years ago he switched to orthodoxy. He writes about his latest change here:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2006/10/orthodoxy-and-me.html
Back in 2002, he was already complaining about the “lavender mafia” running the catholic church:
http://www.nationalreview.com/dreher/dreher031302.shtml
If he is so concerned about sexual abuse, why go to orthodoxy. They have their own problems in this area, including a notable one in Dallas. Check out this website:
http://orthodoxreform.org/
He is not a serious person. He is simply trying to find the supernatural cause that best suits his needs. Maybe he will move on to astrology.
Wow, this one is hard to keep up with!
Can we have a fashion show when all the hoo haa is over with?
We have leather thongs, viking helmets, men in kilts (love ’em!!) sheer minskirts, something to please everyone!
I am a Jeans and T shirt woman these days; wore a bankers grey or navy suit for too many years to be interested in that again, but you all have been inspiring. Wonder what I could do to perk things up in this laid back cube farm I work in.
Inspiring bunch you all are!
Thank you kindly
Pete @520:
Yes, there are people who consider Dr. Myers’ decision a poor one. I’m one of them. Again, though: that doesn’t excuse or justify the response. I can disagree with him and say “I think that was a bad move” without insulting him or threatening him or seeking to have him punished.
Steve, it seems to me we’re both using different definitions of the term.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic
Of the 6 described there, only 2 of them (Strong Agnostic and Agnostic Theism) allow for an agnostic claiming that the God concept may have merit.
I am using the term similar to the other 4 – that in essence, the question of God’s existence is moot at this point in time. And as such, there’s no wishful thinking, no spirituality, no suspension of judgement.
I maintain you’re using the term in reference to agnostic theism.
Let’s be clear – the books did NOT receive the same treatment as the body of christ.
The body of christ also received the (symbolically Jewish) nail through it, which must be why all those anti-semites, er, I mean good christians, started calling the professor a Christ Killer.
Can you imagine the uproar from the professor’s minions had he actually had the temerity to put a nail into The God Delusion!?!
Even the not really omnimpotent PZ Myers is not THAT foolhardy. Just a cracker indeed!
By the way, maybe a smart atheist can tell me the proper way to dispose of a cracker and a koran? Burn them? Don’t they live forever somehow, being sacred and all?
@ frog:
Hey Pete, Why do you you persecute Me? Is it because I’m an oreo? (Oh so tasty!)
I don’t know what you’re implying.
_-___-___-___-___-___-___-___-___-___-___-___-___-___-___-__
Dies Irae, Ben Stein, Dawkins
Oh yesss, Peter, your great day of reckoning!!!! As you play Cassandra at the gate (oops, wrong mythos) we atheists await our doom for stirring the wrath of the GREAT CRACKER WORSHIPPERS. But you tried to warn us You toted out every macabre analogy you could think of to save our immortal sou- oh, wait, the concept of soul is a human contruct -oops, our bad.
But the tattoo cadences of irate believers are crescendoing. The faggots will be kept lit to burn the heretics who dare point out all the gaps have become so infinitesimal there is no place for a god to hide and that a communion wafer is only symbolically Jesus and never actually Jesus. And that GLBT people have rights, and that disallowing condoms for PROPHYLACTIC purposes is ridiculous and wrong and using your people’s term –evil.
You did your best Peter. But you won’t get the satisfaction you so desperately want. So ta-ta Pete, we’ll miss ya!
@Frog: I actually thought MLK was in fact quoting from the song. However, I have no sources for this. And in reality, my communte home is about to begin :)
Cheers
I am spittle-flecked RIGHT NOW, but it’s because I am being served waffles.
Cubefarmed @403
“What really convinced me that there is no God? People like you. If God created ‘man in his own image’ and we wound up with you, that’s no god worth worshipping even if he did exist. You, sir, are proof that Intelligent Design is a bunch of hogwash.”
Game, set, match! Wins the thread!
You are assuming he doesn’t already believe in astrology.
Things? Oh, my! This may be an example of how religionists tend to view people who don’t share their beliefs as “things” that can be discarded and destroyed like old
crackersshoes.Or maybe it’s just terrible diction. I dunno.
Pete Rooke == Larry Fafarman?
Dunno about that, but he appears to be a regular rape apologist to me.
#536
@ frog:
Hey Pete, Why do you you persecute Me? Is it because I’m an oreo? (Oh so tasty!)
@ Pete: I don’t know what you’re implying.
Not so good at recontextualizing, are we Pete? I won’t explain — it’ll ruin the joke for those who work at multiple levels.
Has anyone bishop or above made a comment denouncing Donahue? Has anyone condemned the catholic death threats without condemning PZ in exactly the same way? If so, please provide a link. I think the problem isn’t that you don’t believe violence is wrong so much as that you believe violence and blasphemy are morally equal.
(+)
” FREE AT LAST”
from ” American Negro Songs ” by J. W. Work
Free at last, free at last
I thank God I’m free at last
Free at last, free at last
I thank God I’m free at last
Way down yonder in the graveyard walk
I thank God I’m free at last
Me and my Jesus going to meet and talk
I thank God I’m free at last
On my knees when the light pass’d by
I thank God I’m free at last
Tho’t my soul would rise and fly
I thank God I’m free at last
Some of these mornings, bright and fair
I thank God I’m free at last
Goin’ meet King Jesus in the air
I thank God I’m free at last
Pete, is it better to be dead than under this horrendous atheist domination? Will you only be released from bondage to PZ in the grave?
Or are you just a rape-apologist whiner?
You’re kidding…
… right?
@Sam
Ah, yea, sure. Like that crackpot Thomas Aquinas, eh? Now there’s someone who never heard of reason, never had the capacity to make his ideas distinct or create an intelligible proposition.
Oh, by all means, let’s talk about Aquinas – whom I have read. Aquinas’ entire schtick was to look at a whole lot of very useful and attractive intellectual achievements of other (non-Christian) cultures and come up with rationalizations by which the leaders of his day need not feel threatened by the intellectual vibrancy of non-Christians. Simply put, he was a pandering bullshit artist.
Hey neato.
“Pastor Pete Rooke” on communion:
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/stchadsomegachurch/
Saint Chad’s Omega Church!
Again it’s a value judgement. Perhaps some people do not believe that dressing like a whore is a problem. I for one do.
I’m more interested in being a whore.
Read the original “Desecration” post again. Look at the picture. The nail in fact pierces the cracker, the Koran pages, and the God Delusion pages, in that order. We don’t care. It’s a few pieces of frickin paper. Some of the ideas expressed by some of the words that are printed in some of the ink on those pages are important…the paper, no.
How is Ben Stein dressing these days?
MAJeff,
Forgive my impudence but I’m assuming you have excellent gaydar.
What’s your take on Dreher? Self loathing closeted Log Cabin Republican or an uptight, pompous, zealous, homophobic prick? Oh wait, sorry – I was redundant.
MAJeff,
Forgive my impudence but I’m assuming you have excellent gaydar.
What’s your take on Dreher? Self loathing closeted Log Cabin Republican or an uptight, pompous, zealous, homophobic prick? Oh wait, sorry – I was redundant.
No clue. Don’t read him. Never looked at him. Not worth my time.
Sven… you mean… TGD isn’t a sacred text?!
Kim @497:
Invisible pink unicorns. Flying Spaghetti Monsters. Great-tasting, low-fat, low-cal chocolate.
low-fat, low-cal chocolate.
Now that’s a violation of the sacred.
@515:
So true that, when confronted with oozing immaturity, pronouns are often the first casualty. Is tragic, really.
K @556:
You haven’t been paying attention.
Nothing is text.
From the link in # 550:
So that’s where Pete’s coming from: Holy Christian Life Synod Southern Evangelical Buzzword Buzzword Ministries. Explains a lot.
@ Sam #464
Sam, sometimes I wish Aquinas could be resurrected. He’d have a thing or two to say about, eg the contemporary doctrinal equivalence of blastocyst and developed human. As best I remember, he believed in “ensoulment” well after conception. That would change the abortion wedge debate and would be compatible with hESC research. He, too, made stuff up, but at least he’d have the excuse of not knowing what we know today.
Holy Shit Sven, that’s one LONG fucking NAIL! It’s long enough to pierce your savior’s body AND make it through the sacred texts, too! That’s a miracle!!! Perhaps they should be praying to PZ as a saint, not condemning him!
When I saw the picture I thought your savior was protecting the sacred texts with his transubstantiated body. (You do realize he’s your savior, even if you don’t believe in him? Just as evolution is still a fact, even if you don’t believe in the process. Since they’re both part of religions and all.)
What ideas were you referencing from those pages as important that cannot be found elsewhere?
And DO you know the authorized way to dispose of sacred text and crackers – or must it all be eaten?
At least Kseniya asked if I’m batshit crazy -:).
That’s it! Hold it right there!
Pronoun trouble.
It’s not “he didn’t have to trash your cracker”, it’s “he didn’t have to trash his cracker”.
And he did trash his own cracker.
(Do classic cartoons ooze immaturity? Clearly, science needs to investigate this important question.)
Oh noes – another 500+ post thread for me to read!
And yes I admit I’m often spittle-flecked – and my monitor is frequently tea-flecked (Earl grey, hot) as a result of intentional or unintentional hilarity that regularly surfaces hereabouts.
PZ is better than TV any day!
Actually I’m just declining to engage in that kind of pointless word-chopping.
Pete’s only racked up a couple of thousand hits. Let’s not boost his meter to 3000. (there is nothing to see there anyway, really; lot’s of money requests though)
MB@563: You talking to me? If so..uh…what are you trying to say?
Are you batshit crazy?
Pete (ooops Rev. Pete) is Poe. If not for his comments here then definitely (oops again, this is the Internet, that should be ‘definately’) for the misspellings on his church web pages.
Typos.
Random capitalization. Not capitalizing that which he thinks is oh so important for us to respect. Hey Pete, capitalize your Lord for Christsakes! See? Even a non-believer can do it.
Poe. Definitely Poe.
Psst Pete, you might want to keep your fantasies hidden from your flock. That is some seriously disturbing wank bank material.
And now I have this disturbing image of Pete and his disciples in the basement with the lights turned down low staring at PZ’s latest desecration while grunting at each other and whacking off like bonobos on MDMA.
Ask and ye shall recieve. With a wave of my magical witchy wand *Ting* – MAJeff you are now a whore. :)
Don’t hold your breath.
More sanctimonious threats of retribution….
BECAUSE NOT EVERYONE BELIEVES THE CRACKER IS ANYTHING BUT A CRACKER.
Because what he did was trivial. No enormity to it. That’s all in your head, with the little birds that sing “cuckoo”.
Dear Sir/Madam,
I wish to complain about about inappropriate sexual language used on this blog. I have included the full quote above. I would appreciate your attention on this matter as I consider this deeply offensive.
This is Pharyngula!
We do not have any whores at all.
We have sluts.
Thank you,
Tizzy von Vapors
Ol Peetie is a Southern Evangelical?
HAAAAAAA!!! Ha ha ha ha he-haw!
Hey Pete – I have a snake left over I’ll sell REAL cheap.
Haaaaa! HA!
There went the clean underwear. ;)
If our Pete Rooke is the same as that Pete Rooke, he doesn’t HAVE a flock.
The Omega 3 Church is a web-only imaginary church.
When the RCC PROVES transubstantiation occurs in a consecrated wafer (their assertion) then I will be the first to apologize and convert to Catholicism. In fact I will become celebate and enter the priesthood.I will carry the Catholic banner. I am sincere in this, but there has to be empirical data that the wafers become Jesus of Nazareth.
Until then they are fair game for ridicule when they threaten someone over a wafer.
whore…slut…as long as there’s a lot of good sex, labels matter not.
*Takes a deep breath*
Okay, Raving Catholic Commenters, we can go over this one more time but you’ll really need to catch up with the rest of the class.
It it just a cracker to me. If I stick a nail through it, it’s still just a cracker. As a lifelong atheist, someone who has never believed in any deity, it can’t be anything but a cracker. They aren’t even *good* crackers. They’re tasteless and dry.
Even your badly edited, horribly redacted often revised holy book as well as your own Church say that if I touch it, eat it, molest it, or have anything to do with it, it’s just a cracker. My lack of belief renders all your sky-daddy magic mumbled by the guy in the black dress completely moot. (Pretty cool, huh? My atheism trumps your imaginary friend’s PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS, and I don’t even have to wear a funny hat!)
It’s only the body of Christ of you believe it to be. I don’t. Therefore, it… is… just… a… cracker…
Unless, of course, that’s one of the parts you guys ignore. It’s difficult to keep track of which group ignores what portion to suit their own needs and desires.
What?! *gasp* a complaint against the Wish Witch! Oh sure, right after Craig and Sven made me soil myself.
OK – thats it –
*Ting* – MAJeff – you are no longer a whore.
Shortest career ever. ;)
I know it’s way back in the thread count – I only just got here and it’s up to #571 alreadyt – but I have to put it in while it’s fresh in my head.
PZ Myers wrote:
I’d have been tempted to ask the radio guy if he felt that maybe (just maybe) the fact that churches are on fire is perhaps damn good evidence that god either doesn’t exist or, if he does, he doesn’t give a crap about either churches or crackers!
Pete Rooke is only allowed on the computer when he’s had his meds and they don’t have art&crafts that day in the asylum.
Funny, I’m only spittle-flecked when I’m having a REAL good time.
Jews cannot tell Catholics that they can’t eat ham,
Jews can’t tell other Jews they can’t eat ham. I hate to break it to ya’ but not all Jews are Kosher these days. I don’t even think a majority are.
And, even more surprising, there are many Jews who do not believe the fullest expression of their religion is stealing land, murdering and oppressing others.
And there is no central Jewish athourity who can send out bulls claiming Zionism is God’s plan. There is no Jewish Pope.
Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of Jewish Bill Donaho’s these days. Lox vobiscum, baby.
*Ting* – MAJeff – you are no longer a whore.
Shortest career ever. ;)
I’m still getting sex though
(although spending a weekend with tons of sociologists didn’t offer very many opportunities–not an attractive group, collectively)
I’m just another concern troll.
I’ll take the E.V. pledge too.
Still waiting to hear El Herrings question re: Crimen Sollicitationis, 1962 answered. All of the religotards are afraid to comment.
Come on catlicks, I’ve put down my scary wand, lets hear it.
Actually, I think, regarding the Rod Dreher post about the Qur’an, it’s important to note that he specifically disclaimed trying to incite anyone to desecrate the Qur’an:
“I should underscore here that I am not advocating intentional desecration of anybody’s religion. I’m using sarcasm to make a point about the selective bigotry of P.Z. Myers.“
Pete Rooke!
So, managed to take some more time out from your busy masturbating-to-snuff-films-with-a-voiceover-of-someone-reading-the-bible schedule to nauseate us with your disturbing fantasies?
Go back to your gimp suit and cram your pathetic, warped analogies in your jesus-hole, you sick misogynistic fuck.
Wowbagger, they always say the first impression is the most important. Looks like Pete done hisself proud!
Makes it even funnier that PZ did select the Qur’an and the God Delusion too.
Natalie: Throwing a communion wafer in the trash is not a gesture of respect.
I spoke with my wife, a lapsed Catholic, and she assured me that once given, the wafer is to be consumed on the spot. It is not “property” as that term is commonly understood. Cook was therefor not within his rights to have taken it with him.
I spoke with my wife, a lapsed Catholic, and she assured me that once given, the wafer is to be consumed on the spot. It is not “property” as that term is commonly understood. Cook was therefor not within his rights to have taken it with him.
Your wife is a lawyer? No she’s a Catholic. I’m sorry to break this to you – but whether or not it is within his rights is NOT up to what Catholics or the Catholic church think… it’s up to the LAW. And your religion does not get to mandate what is and what is not legal.
We know you’d like it to – that’s what we’re fighting against.
Psst, MH: I haven’t seen communion wafers in my grocery store. And until it’s blessed by a priest (or whatever it is he does), it is, indeed, nothing but a cracker.
We know what’s SUPPOSED to happen. But once it was in Cook’s possession, it’s his. You can’t give something to someone and then demand they do something with it.
Dav, #591
No-one is disputing the church was completely within its rights to chastise Webster Cook for what he did.
However, the people at the event had no right to assault him or demand he be punished by his college for what he did.
If someone from the church had gone to visit him afterwards and told him they were upset and disappointed and requested he give it back, none of this would have happened.
They did not do this. They went to the media instead, which was equivalent to pushing the start button on a fan and inviting the world to start throwing shit.
Jeezus, you people have never met a point you can’t miss entirely have you?
By whose authority is it to be consumed on the spot? Not any that I recognize. Nor any that has legal recourse. Thus the battery –the only effective or compelling thing anyone could do about his perfectly legal action was an illegal action. Why is this so hard to understand?
Individual eensy weensy crackers are not protected by any secular authority. Deal with it.
Dav,
As I understand it, Cook didn’t intend to abscond with the cracker. He wanted to show it to his non-catholic friend, then consume it. Plenty of catholics (my wife included) have indicated this is not unusual – consuming the wafer after getting back to the warm pew.
And after he consecrates it, it is still nothing but a cracker.
Dav. A blessed cracker is no different than an non blessed one.
Who is ordering you to adore the Blessed Sacrament? Catholics recognize your free will. Just as you would recognize the free will of a Catholic to believe, through the exercise of faith and reason, that the Blessed Sacrament is the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. You are working from the premise that it is not God; a Catholic starts with a different premise. For a Catholic adoration is a cause of much joy. I would not expect that the Blessed Sacrament would be taken out of a church to cause injury. I can’t see how that is an act of charity. You appear to claim it is on behalf of the Florida student – it certainly wasn’t a propotional action.
Posted by: James the Less | August 4, 2008 7:42 PM
blah blah blah blah blah
And until it’s blessed by a priest (or whatever it is he does), it is, indeed, nothing but a cracker.
And after he blesses it, it’s STILL nothing but a cracker.
I can say magic words over a pound of pimento loaf, and it’s still going to be nothing more than cold cuts.
Faith. Delusion. Blah blah blah, Cracker. Blah blah blah. Body of Christ. Blah blah blah. Boo hoo.
Fixed that for you.
Since taking the cracker out of the church injures no one, then no, I don’t see why you would expect that.
“So, no one should be allowed to drive a nail through a cracker?”
You are a troll, tsg. I’ll waste no further time with you.
Pete said, “And still there has not been even a hint of apology. He will look back on the with the regret when his time comes that’s for sure. Why is it that in the face of all this criticism his flock cannot comprehend the enormity of what he’s done?”
Because he hasn’t done anything enormous.
Not too bright, are ya, Pete? But you’ve got the idiot-control freak-theist-demand that everyone live according to your narrow-minded rules thing down really well. Beautifully played, old sport.
You appear to claim it is on behalf of the Florida student – it certainly wasn’t a propotional action.
That’s certainly true. The student and his friend were threatened and had their scholastic careers put into jeopardy.
The response was the throwing into the trash of a cracker. Absolutely not proportional.
I guess we atheists need to come up with a bigger response.
James, your comment wrt proportional response leaves me flabbergasted. Who or what is harmed by discarding a cracker? What are you trying to protect? Your god surely needs no protection. The Vatican hasn’t chimed in, presumably because the crackermania was less important than the Pope’s Wunnerful World Victory Lap.
So who are you to judge?
James the Less wrote:
Don’t be an ass. If that’s true then why do they spend so much time and effort decrying (and attempting to prevent people from choosing) abortion, homosexuality, premarital sex and contraception?
Re: Pete Rooke == Larry Fafar MILK man?
There now, that looks better.
I believe that not only have I explained my ethical vegetarianism on this blog before but that I have actually had the conversation with you.
Yeah, Pete subsists largely on milk.
Re: Do you think an anonymous nut threatening to beat his brains in is benign?
Anonymous nut? The wonder of it all is that the nut was far from anonymous, being the passionate Chuck Kroll: husband of Melanie Kroll, dumbest man in the history of “Teh Tubes”.
Looking to be another thousand-comment thread…
Actually, the accidents of the wafer are property, and the accidents are given away. Clearly, everyone who receives one takes it with them, albeit inside their digestive system.
And as for the “substance”, well, show that the “substance” even exists, let alone that it can be removed from the church.
Who is ordering you to adore the Blessed Sacrament? Catholics recognize your free will.
Catholics definitely ARE demanding the adoration of the cracker, and definitely ARE refuse to recognize the free will of others.
PZ exercised his free will in throwing a cracker in the trash. Catholics are DEMANDING he treat the cracker with the level of respect they feel for it, demanding that he NOT exercise his free will in treating it with the respect HE feels it’s due.
They are demanding he treat it with more respect than he feels for it, and they are trying to get him FIRED if he won’t.
Stop lying.
Minneapolitian: You can respect the religious practices without respecting Church policies regarding homosexuality.
We live in a time when the influence of religion on society is waning. This is to be encouraged; the question is whether acts like thhose of Myers’ serve any useful purpose (beyond ego-gratification, that is).
As odious as you find the Catholic Church, be thankful they don’t want to hang gays.
This is like stepping into the Way-Back Machine. We’ve heard every one of their arguments at least five times over. head/desk
As odious as you find the Catholic Church, be thankful they don’t want to hang gays.
Wow. I should be grateful that an institution that despises me only wants me to suffer for eternity, but not to kill me.
I’m soooooo thankful. I can’t tell you how wonderful my life is because the RCC no longer desires my murder.
“We live in a time when the influence of religion on society is waning. This is to be encouraged; the question is whether acts like thhose of Myers’ serve any useful purpose (beyond ego-gratification, that is).
As odious as you find the Catholic Church, be thankful they don’t want to hang gays.
So your argument is that confronting irrational beliefs is not productive, but accepting them and simply being glad they aren’t worse or even more dangerous IS an effective strategy?
Sorry, your way has been tried. Didn’t work.
MAJeff, I think they’d still be happy with your murder.
Craig,
A Catholic will not force you to enter a Church and bow before the Blessed Sacrament. So, why is is that a Catholic cannot have the expectation that the Blessed Sacrament (distributed for one purpose only – communion with Christ) will not be taken out of the Church with the intent to cause injury to it.
MAJeff, Forgive my impudence but I’m assuming you have excellent gaydar. What’s your take on Dreher? Self loathing closeted Log Cabin Republican or an uptight, pompous, zealous, homophobic prick? Oh wait, sorry – I was redundant.
If you read his blog long enough and have known some unmedicated bipolar people, it’s pretty obvious what’s up with him.
True Bob,
I have no doubt. Nazinger, (and JPII) pretty much declared war on us.
In the documentary, “Indiana Jones and the last crusade”, our intrepid hero happened upon some magic cup that was apparently used by Christ at the last supper. However, they dun some magic on it and he couldn’t take it past some seal without triggering some special effects and exciting music, forcing him to flee empty handed.
Anyways, why don’t the catholic church just modify the incantation so that the magic bread becomes deactivated once it leaves the church? or make non-believers who take or eat the bread go all crumbly and then disintegrate? It sounds cruel but those guys are probly going to hell anyway – no offense, but it is true-
This would solve this problem once and for all and believers would no longer have to resort to robbery with violence or obtaining property by threats to steal the freely given bread back.
/sarks
@ Nate W. # 415
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA…
snort…
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…
You appear to have an overly developed sense of what constitutes a threat. What exactly would a respectful discussion look like? Is it the gospels and homilies decrying the foolishness of those who don’t believe or believe differently? Is it Anselm’s politely worded ontological argument? Is it the declarations that those who don’t believe as the church directs shall suffer for all eternity? I know exactly what goes on in those pointy buildings. I spent 18 years of my life as a catholic and received 4 of the 7 sacraments. So you can claim that the side of the theists is the perfectly respectable one, but it’s a lie… and remember you go to hell for lying as surely as you do for stealing. ;p
@ John # 426
Make sure you twirl your moustache and laugh menacingly when you do that. Then swirl your cape as you leave the room.
James the Less wrote:
Again, James, no-one is saying they aren’t allowed to get upset – as long as that reaction does not include assault, death-threats and trying to get someone who did that kicked out of school.
They can ask someone nicely to give it back. If that doesn’t happen then they can ask that person to leave and not return. Maybe even send them a stern letter.
Nothing more. Doing anything else is crossing over into forcing others into adhering to their beliefs, and any secularist worth his/her salt is going to stand up and decry that.
“Craig,
A Catholic will not force you to enter a Church and bow before the Blessed Sacrament. So, why is is that a Catholic cannot have the expectation that the Blessed Sacrament (distributed for one purpose only – communion with Christ) will not be taken out of the Church with the intent to cause injury to it. “
You have every right to hope that it won’t be. You have every right to be unhappy if it is.
The crackers are handed out freely to anyone who kneels to receive it. Tens of millions of them a year. Maybe even millions a day.
If by “expect” you mean simply the state of your mind, the hopefulness you have that the gift will be received favorably, yes you have a right to “expect” that in the same way everyone has a right to have an idea of their choosing in their head. And, by exercising your right to have feelings of expectation, you run the risk of seeing your expectations fail.
However, if by “expect” you mean the right to see someone punished, the right to stop others from behaving in ways you don’t like – hell NO, you do not have that right. If you mean “expect” in that way, then you’re demanding the right to control the intent and behavior of millions of people despite their actions NOT BEING ILLEGAL.
I can expect you to receive a gift I give you graciously. If instead you sneer at my gift, I do NOT have a right to see you punished for dashing my expectations.
You have a right to dislike what PZ did, and you have a right to say that you dislike it.
THATS ALL.
Wowbagger,
Even if all that is true, the appropriate response is to thrust a nail (an instrument of the Crucifixion) into what Catholics believe is the Blessed Sacrament?
… Finally caught up with this thread (while drinking my tea which I dunk my suppertime crackers in), now it’s time for bed.
Oh well, time to close the porch window which I’d wedged open with a handful of pages torn out of the bible that some Jehova’s witness forced into my godless hands last week, then I have to screw in my earplugs so I won’t be woken up by the church bells or the damn yelling from that new bloody great mosque up the road, and maybe get some shuteye. No peace for the wicked, you know!
‘night all. It’s been a good read this evening – sorry I didn’t get to participate much this time.
@ Kim # 497
Indeed, and since we can’t prove that the Chaos Gods do not exist either we must tenatively accept that Tzeentch, Slaanesh, Nurgle, and Khorne are as real as Yahweh.
Blood for the blood god!
Skulls for the skull throne!
But their figures are much more expensive…
Why oh why, did that Drucker(sp) woman not just say, “You gonna eat dat”?
James, I understand you really, truly, believe that the Host is a real mystery of faith. How does one ‘injure’ it? I really don’t understand this part, that you or other catholics feel they must stand up for it.
If it’s a real mystery, can’t your god escape (or suffer) it? Can’t he take action, in his good time, if PZ needs straightening out? Didn’t your god know he was to be crucified? Why would you think he knew about that, but was blindsided by this entire flail?
But since he knew, he let it happen.*
*Do I mean His original crucifixion, dying for all our sins, or do I mean PZ throwing a cracker in a trash bin?
Nite, nite El Herring! No worries, they still haven’t answered you. ;)
So has a uniform been decided on yet? You can’t be a militant without a uniform.
I hope we have some awesome tactical looking web gear with boots and jaunty berets. Will our cyber pistols be issued to us or do I have to buy my own?
James the Less #626
Sure, why not? If Catholics get their panties in a twist because Webster Cook didn’t consume his cracker immediately upon receipt, then it’s perfectly reasonable for PZ Myers to show that’s IT’S JUST A FRACKIN’ CRACKER!
Yeah, we understand that you and your fellow cultists have some superstition about it becoming a magic zombie cracker when a guy in a dress mumbles an incantation over it. We even recognize that, in and of itself, this particular superstition isn’t actively anti-social, unlike some of your cult’s other superstitions (like the one that says professional virgins are competent to make pronouncements about contraception). Unfortunately, because Mr. Cook didn’t conform to the letter of the ritual, at least as interpreted by some busybody, the superstition has become the cause of anti-social behavior.
Sorry if you’re upset by Myers’ response to certain Catholics’ anti-social activities. Please be aware that some of us are upset that your fellow cultists fail to act in a reasonable and responsible manner.
It’s also what Catholics accused Jews of doing, and used as a pretext to massacre them.
You ask about “appropriate response”. The point is that it is Catholics who have been responding inappropriately.
As soon as Catholics go beyond expressing their unhappiness, disappointment, or even outrage as such to threatening someone’s school career, or someone’s job, or someone’s life, property, and/or family, they are not just acting inappropriately, they are acting illegally. They are offering disproportionate harm for the violation of a purely religious proscription.
Do you think that it is “appropriate” for Catholics to behave like savages whose primitive taboos about a fetish have been violated?
You have the freedom to worship how you see fit. No one is stopping you. But you do also have to put up with not having your religious ideas respected. Including the religious idea that pushing a nail through a cracker somehow causes any real injury.
James the Less, #626, wrote:
No, not at all – if you mean in regards to happened to just Webster Cook.
But it was, however, an appropriate response by PZ to the death threats he received, and the subsequent posts implying he’d be too scared to do anything to one if he got it.
I’m burned out so I will make replies with this one post.
First off, I assumed my wife is a lapsed Catholic because her mother is Catholic. She’s actually a lapsed Episcopalian, and assured me the same rules apply with regard to Communion. For what it’s worth, she’s now an atheist.
Someone has posted the link to Cook’s Incident Report, which contains the astonishing assertion that alcohol was ofered to “an entire group of students, the majority of whom are under twenty-one years of age”. Cook thus attended an event during which he knew wine would be served (if “served” is the right word), then complains that wine was served. Words fail me. This effectively destroys whatever sympathy he was entitled to (and my wife informs me that children as young as 8 participate in Communion).
Someone else chides me for not following the timeline carefully enough. Here’s Myer’s initial post:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/its_a_goddamned_cracker.php
See, sacrilege was on his mind from the very beginning (and note that in the url it’s a “goddamned” rather than s “frackin'” cracker).
Someone asks if I…whoops, brains shorting out. More tomorrow.
See, sacrilege was on his mind from the very beginning (and note that in the url it’s a “goddamned” rather than s “frackin'” cracker).
so?
Dav… you’re trying to tell atheists how a proper atheist should act, and you refer to things as sacrilege? You complain that an atheist was thinking of sacrilege? You seem to see some validity in the very concept of sacrilege?
I’m sorry… what? You are telling atheists not to be sacrilegous?
No. Your argument is worthless. It’s specious. You’re saying that the most “productive” behavior for an atheist is so respect the sacred – to in essence be religious.
You’re either religious yourself or a total fucking coward. You’re an enabler. You’re arguing that calling the cops on the child abuser “will only make him more mad.”
Worthless. Completely worthless.
Do not criticize non-cowards for being insufficiently cowardly.
That’s good, because, as a human being, I have an inalienable human right of freedom of religion, recognised in EU and UN Declarations, Constitutions, treaties, laws, etc.
You can have that expectation. You can have any expectation you want, reasonable or otherwise. The real question is “what happens when these expectations are violated?”
In your first example, a human rights violation is committed against a person. In the second case, a cracker is removed from a building. A cracker, no matter what arcane name you give it, or however “Holy” or “Sacred” you consider it, does not have rights. It cannot be “injured” and, frankly, I find that particular anthropomorphism disturbing.
Also in the second case, you and some other people are upset. Tough shit. You don’t have the right to go through life without ever being upset. So grow a pair. Your God and your faith are supposed to be bigger than that.
A lot of what your Church says and does upsets me, but in most cases, it’s their right. Of course, some of what your Church does is criminal and for that the responsible persons should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
So where were these ignorant cracker eating catholics when kids were getting raped by their priests? I don’t recall Donahue on a witch hunt during that time? Is a fucking cracker more important than child rape? To these child hating nuts, obviously so. Where were the thousands of hate emails to the preists that were raping kids? Ironic isn’t it? All the hate…from moral christians? What ever happened to turn the other cheek? Keep up the good work Dr. Myers…you rock.
Words fail me.
It is you who fail them, Dav.
In other words, I’ve backed you into a corner you can’t get out of, so you’re going to bail on the argument. Gotcha.
And this is supposed to make me feel better about them?
Mother of pearl! This Dav person didn’t know what religion his own wife had “lapsed” from? And still he presumes to lecture a group of perfect strangers about “respect” and appropriateness and manners? I think my dear J and I knew those things about each other before we grabbed each other for some casual sex two weeks after we met. oddly enough, after 35 years we still haven’t run out of things to talk about; really, you needn’t fret about wearing each other out if you’re both even a little bit interesting.
If Dav wants to split hairs, however, he might first learn that, whatever Episcopalians may do, Catholics in fact sometimes take the crackers in their hands back to their seats to contemplate and then consume it. This is a fairly recent development, well post-Vatican II, and like similar developments (altar girls, e.g.) it’s OK in some jurisdictions and not in others.
Speaking of expectations: not all Masses include Communion via “both species,” as Catholics refer to the bread and the wine. No reason to expect it, really, before going into the service. So bag that, too. Also see why young Mr. Cook countered the charged being called against him with the one about alcohol. That might be customary among churchgoers “as young as 8” (7, actually; got that wrong too) but it’s not strictly legal.
Might research why the “goddamned” got changed to “frackin” while you’re at it. Courtesy, basically.
But what I logged on to note, before astonishment got the betters of me, was this: Have these frothers carrying on about “militant types” really forgotten they’re officially part of the Church Militant?
“So this guy hears there’s going to be a ceremony where they’re going to behead a baby. He attends the ceremony and then complains that they beheaded a baby. Words fail me.”
Oh that is rich, Dav. I hope you appreciate the (pseudo?)irony of you accusing someone else of being a troll.
Your concern is noted and stupid.
♫♪one of these things is not like the other, one of these things does not belong♫♪
Rev. BigDumbChimp #647
Genius. I’m now singing the song in my head.
@ Wowbagger – Aauurrgghh! Me too!!
For the most part, the average Catholic didn’t know about it until the recent revelations. Under Crimen Sollicitationis (Vatican policy from 1962 to 2001), bishops were instructed to swear complainants, witnesses, and victims to secrecy on pain of excommunication. When the revelations happened, they were carefully stage-managed by the Church. During the recent revelations, their media management went into overdrive: they skillfully created the appearance of “addressing the issue”, with a lot of apologies and “statements of regret” and suchlike bullshit, without actually changing any policy or substantially cooperating with law enforcement. The policy document issued by Ratzinger in 2001 makes the cover-up worse by requiring bishops to report allegations of child-abuse to the Vatican only.
That’s because he wasn’t: Donohue is the Pope’s skinhead. Like a jackbooted thug, he spouts the most bilious version of the party line but at far enough remove that he can be disavowed. Out of self-interest, he’ll say nothing grossly at odds with the Church line.
To the average Catholic, no, but to the Church Hierarchy, both children and the truth are irrelevant. The real issue is public perception. Up to the mid 19th century, the Church simply defrocked and handed over such criminals to the civil authorities. Had they continued that policy, there would never have been any scandal, but the Church thought that priests being prosecuted was unseemly, so they instituted a policy of cover-up. Not having learned their lesson, they are now so uptight about further damaging allegations, that they continue with a similar policy. Ironically, the same policy that got them into this fix in the first place if only they could see that.
No, they don’t hate children, they merely consider their welfare irrelevant and unimportant. The important issues for the Church are preserving their money and reputation. Destroying the lives of children, or adults, is a perfectly acceptable price to pay for them, since they don’t value people, only the “Eternal Magisterium”.
Well, the Church has been covering up child-rape since long before there was ever email. The real scandal is that Catholics continue to support a Church which continues to enable child-rape, rather than withdrawing support from them. Anyone who puts a penny in a collection plate in a Catholic church is enabling child-rape.
Yes, indeed it is. But ever has the line of religious men been “Do as I say, not as I do.” Hypocrisy is a prerequisite.
They continue to pay lip-service to it, and to expect it from others (e.g. their victims), but it’s clear from their actions that they don’t actually believe it should guide their own actions.
Rev. BigDumbChimp (KoT):
How do you get the little notes into your post?
Emmet Caulfield wrote:
Don’t forget power and influence. That’s a biggie for the individuals involved – they’ve got to get their thrills somehow; remember, they aren’t meant to be having sex.
Is it just me, or did the catholick trolls seem a bit stupider than normal today? I think Pete needs some professional help.
http://www.danshort.com/HTMLentities/index.php?w=music
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
I’m coming to this way late, but I’ve seen that “stolen host” line once too often.
If a cafeteria has a sign up saying “All food must be consumed on premises”, and you sneak your double-choc cookie out in your handbag, the worst you’ve done is break their rules — they can choose to kick you out or ban your return, but you haven’t broken any laws.
Taking a communion wafer (that was freely given) out of a church without eating it is not stealing.
It is simply food not consumed on premises.
Maybe churches need to get some of those signs…
Go to the character map in your system tools (assuming you are on a Windows OS). There it lists all the symbols etc.. in your fonts for your computer. You can chose from there.
Or copy and paste from the link that Owlmirror posted above.
Re: Pete Rooke, #436:
“Free at last, free at last,
thankfrom God almighty we are free at last.”My version’s better.
Now I’m humming, too. I suppose you can guess which TV show I grew up on, huh?
Bullshit. Irish-American comedians have been making jokes about priest rape for the vast bulk of my life. If dumb-shit Catholics were too insular to wake up and smell the open secret, that’s their problem.
They also consider them irredeemably hellbound from the instant of conception. They do hate children. As a subset of the entire human race whom they hate, yes, but they do hate children.
How is that different from money? I think the Catholic Church can actually be pretty well-understood as the massive corporation that it is with Razi as CEO. Like a powerful corporation, they have lobbyists (paid and unpaid) to glean power/influence for them. I agree that, in principle, the money-making activity and having more power/influence are (for a Church) notionally means and ends, respectively, and that it’s the opposite way around for a corporation, but the two go hand-in-hand to such a degree that it really makes very little difference in practice. The Church may lack shareholders, but they’re somewhat superfluous to some corporations too, which operate, like the Church, for the benefit of senior management.
It’s a fantastic business. Selling an intangible (life after death), that will never have to be delivered, at a price that’s always a bit more than anyone can ever pay: for the barefoot peasant in Brazil, it’s always wishing he could put more than a few pennies in the collection plate; for the millionaire, it’s wondering whether ten thousand dollars for the new roof fund is enough.
All the bell, book and candle shite is really just advertising material and window-dressing. In fairness to Catholicism, their window-dressing is absolutely first class, but they’ve had nearly 2000 years to iron it out. Magic ceremonies. Arcane languages. Candles, incense, spiffy robes. One god for the monotheists, a pantheon of saints for the polytheists, a goddess figure for those so inclined. A trinity, twelve apostles, seven sacraments: more superstitious numerological bullshit than you could shake a stick at.
Patently nonsensical when viewed impartially, but what a fantastic scam! If you invented it today, it would be considered more ridiculous than Scientology and be outlawed faster than pyramid schemes.
Unless you’ve lived since the mid 19th century, which I doubt, that doesn’t tell us much. The church has been enabling child-rape for 150 years or more. The recent revelations have been leaking out for perhaps 20 years now. Yes, there was probably some innuendo before that, but I doubt anyone would have suspected either the vast scale of the problem or how high up the enablement/facilitation conspiracy went. As it happens, it goes all the way to the top. Razi was the coordinator from 1981 until 2005.
I wrote:
Emmet Caulfield replied:
I was going more for the ability to influence politicians by getting them to vote for or against things that they themselves prefer – whether or not that is for the benefit of the church – by threatening to denounce them from the pulpit and favour the opposition in, say, the next election.
I have to suspect that at least a few of the hierarchy do believe some of what they preach and consider manipulation of governments a perfectly acceptable way to increase and/or maintain the interests of the church in regards to things like contraception, equal rights etc. – things which doesn’t really involve them making money per se.
Jebus ✟, ➪ Owlmirror!
☞ You ☚ have ✄ unbound a ☠ monster!
Sure. Like the people who work for Microsoft and think they make great software and it’s great value, etc., and the people who work for Ford and think their cars are just the best. I’ve never worked in a corporation that didn’t have its “true believers”.
But at the top? The College of Cardinals (Board of Directors)? TBH, I find it hard to believe that someone can be smart enough to become Chairman/CEO/Pope of a corporation that size and still be so stupid/naïve as to believe arrant nonsense like transubstantiation.
I don’t disagree with you, BTW. Individual motivations are just that: individual. Collectively, I don’t think they even understand what their corporate objectives are. What chance do we have of grokking their ultimate collective motivation? All we can say with certainty is that they don’t give a flying fuck about what they preach, since their behaviour is so radically at odds with it.
@644:
That might be customary among churchgoers “as young as 8” (7, actually; got that wrong too) but it’s not strictly legal.
Actually, I think there are religious exemptions to those laws. I don’t think there *should* be, of course, but that is, as I understand it, the state of things.
Wow, I got #666! Yay! :-P And it was only at 647 when I started my comment.
Emmet Caulfield – I see what you mean: the difference between an individual’s goals and those of the church.
Yeah, it does seem weird that someone who could be intelligent (and devious and political) enough to get to top of the church – and, from what I’ve read, it’s a cut-throat organisation – would actually buy into the transubstantiation party-trick.
I was stunned by the number of posters who came here to tell us they believed it. I’m far too optimistic about people – and I never thought I’d hear myself say that.
Another group with a claim against the RC Church: Knights Templar to Vatican: Give us back our assets. This could get interesting…
|–(+)–
@James the Lesser #618:
“So, why is is that a Catholic cannot have the expectation that the Blessed Sacrament (distributed for one purpose only – communion with Christ) will not be taken out of the Church with the intent to cause injury to it.”
–remind me again how it is that you “commune” with a 2000-year-old corpse? kthxbye.
Oops, my comment at 621 should contain spoiler warnings or better still not have mentioned the title of the film (I’m sure most people would recognise the scene.) Sorry about that, feel free to edit.
What I hadn’t realised from the subset of characters that were visible on my much older computer (when I prepared my own reference pages long long ago) is that there’s an inbuilt pre-desecrated cracker! ;-)
⟴
At #600, James the less wrote:
For a Catholic adoration is a cause of much joy.
I didn’t feel anything remotely like joy when I was a practicing Catholic.
I felt self-loathing. I felt stressed, depressed, repressed, and oppressed. I felt fearful and intellectually dishonest.
When I tried to be a good Catholic and tried to believe, I was utterly miserable.
I cannot think of one moment of joy that I felt in church, even when I partook of the sacraments or prayed.
And, even worse, the church sucked the joy out of my life outside the church too.
It was only when I left the church and turned my back on its teachings that I felt real joy and at peace.
Perhaps you already know, but you also made it to the Dutch newspapers. :-) And I even found a Dutch PZ Myers hyve.
Dav Laurel (#126):
No, they don’t – well, most of them don’t. Correct. But since you’ve obviously missed the point of PZ’s post, it’s a bit embarrassing to watch you call him “retarded” (nice ad hom. by the way).
Let me requote the relevant passage:
These are examples of religion-specific practices, whose practitioners do not insist that adherents of other religions also carry them out. Since you made this point, I may assume that you accept it.
If so, it then follows that Jews may not claim to be offended by Catholics eating ham, Catholics may not claim to be offended by Muslims not worshipping their Communion wafer, and Muslims may not claim to be offended by an atheist not praying five times a day.
If you’re then going to get all offended by PZ’s desecration of a Communion wafer, you’ll have to explain why an atheist should respect the sacred nature of a religious practice while adherents of other religions are exempted.
Of course, the degree of one’s indignation is no guide to the validity of one’s opinions. Mistaking the two is an extremely common phenomenon in religion.
@ bunnycatch3r #496
Like a ferengi? ;-)
#675
I read about it in Spitsnieuws. The Catholic protest was reported in a most uncomplimentary manner.
A typical comment:
“En nu de foto’s van doorboorde kleine jongetjes.
meedenker | 31-07-08 | 10:54”
(translation: “And now the pictures of pierced small boys.”)
“Paul Myers is een held in de strijd tegen religie in het algemeen”
Which I think needs no translation.
When it comes right down to it, you have to admit that the Church of Mumbling Words Over a Bread Product is no different from (or better than) the Society for Putting Things On Top Of Other Things.
At least they evetually came to the conclusion that “the whole thing’s a bit silly”!
Suppose someone down loaded a picture of Myer’s wife and deficated on it, or placed some other body fluid on it, and did this on the internet, there would be nothing wrong with that because it is only paper with a picture anyone could have downloaded.
Poor Jimmy. No one likes his cracker.
Jimmy the brain-dead death cultist @ #681:
Surprisingly, you hit on the truth without realizing it. It is not a crime to download a picture or defecate on it or do anything you damn well please with it. It does no real harm to any living person. It isn’t worth murdering people over. The same is true of the baked goods your fellow cultists mistake for divine flesh. Why, then, are your fellow cultists making death threats?
The situation you describe is a pretty poor analogy to what actually happened, but then it seems poor analogies are all you and your fellow cultists can manage. If someone did as you describe, it would be rude, crude, and stupid. It would also be ignored. The idiot who did it wouldn’t get death threats. He wouldn’t be the target of an organized campaign to get him fired. There would be no thousand-comment threads with nutcases talking about cankerous milkmen and the Necronomicon and random scatological bullshit. He’d probably just be laughed at.
Suppose Myers were to GIVE someone a free picture of his wife, and tell them they had to eat it, and instead they took it home and did whatever they damn well pleased with it? Would Myers then be within his rights to THREATEN THAT PERSON WITH MURDER???
Sane people know a picture of something is not the thing. Sane people know a cracker is not the flesh of an imaginary god. But the actions of your fellow cultists show they are not sane people.
Imagine a kid was given a piece of bread, and didn’t eat it that very second. Would the people who gave him the bread be within their rights to physically assault him? What if he took that bread, which was freely given to him, home? Would an appropriate response be to SEND HIM DEATH THREATS, try to get him expelled from college, and make the same threats to a friend of his who never even touched the bread? You don’t need to imagine this insanity. It actually happened. It’s what this whole mess is in response to. And it was YOUR fellow cultists issuing the death threats. Are you really so stupid that you don’t notice these things? Are you really so insane that you value a hunk of wheat paste more than human beings?
Apparently, he is.
Oh, and Jimmy: It’s “defecated”.
I think it does: “Paul Myers is a hero in the fight against religion in general”
Jeff,
Catholics believe in the resurrection, so to a Catholic it’s not a corpse.
“Suppose someone down loaded a picture of Myer’s wife and deficated on it, or placed some other body fluid on it, and did this on the internet, there would be nothing wrong with that because it is only paper with a picture anyone could have downloaded.”
Correct. There would be nothing wrong with it. PZ would probably just think the person doing it was stupid, others in that situation might be insulted. But there’s no such thing as a right to not be insulted.
You stupid fuck.
“Surprisingly, you hit on the truth without realizing it…”
When they’re not getting pwn3d, they’re pwn1ng themselves. With such consistency on that point, one is liable to think they enjoy it.
“Catholics believe in the resurrection, so to a Catholic it’s not a corpse.”
Ah. So your cracker is an actual live person… who you then eat while they are still alive.
That makes much more sense and is far less creepy then.
“Catholics believe in the resurrection, so to a Catholic it’s not a corpse.
so?
Catholics believe in the resurrection, so to a Catholic it’s not a corpse.
Posted by: James the Less | August 5, 2008 10:56 AM
BRAINS!
No it’s still a corpse whether you believe it to be or not.
James the Less: “Jeff,
Catholics believe in the resurrection, so to a Catholic it’s not a corpse.”
Doesn’t matter, old sport. Catholics believe it’s the body of Christ. The good doctor doesn’t. All your comments are based on the assumption that he must believe as you believe about the cracker. He doesn’t. It’s a free country – founded by deists and Christians and atheists TO BE free. That freedom guarantees that the doc can regard your cracker anyway he likes.
Second point – the only reason he did this was to protest the INSANE and disproportionate reaction of stupid, rabid, radical Catholics to the original incident.
If there hadn’t been stupid Catholics, there would have been no crackergate.
Think these things through, laddie.
I would like to nominate Emmet Caulfield for the OM. Outstanding posts here by him: 639, 650, 661, 662, 665.
#694 El Herring, Yes.
And for Emmet Caulfield, thanks. Good reasoning and admirable writing style.
Whoops. It would have had much more numerological significance to some people if you had just posted one fewer time. That would have been 333 times, which is, of course, half of 666, the Number of the Beast (well, unless that’s really 616).
No, craig, the atheist should respect the religious beliefs of their fellow citizens, which doesn’t mean they can’t debate them.
Atheists believe that the human community is all we have, yes? Nothing beyond the grave, right? So it behooves us all to make the best of what we have, here on Earth, correct?
Religion has been part of the human experience for thousands of years, and if the Soviets couldn’t eradicate it, there’s not much chance anyone else can. I think therefore it’s far more prudent to diminish the influence religion has on the unbeliever.
It is counter-productive to insist that Catholics agree that “it’s nothing but a frackin’ cracker”. The attempt to do so is futile, presumptuous, and leads to nothing good.
Holy shit I agree with Dav.
And I agree here but not really the way I think Dav means. I don’t think we’ll ever change the belief of the the devout catholic that a cracker is merely a cracker with some emotions attached to it. Nothing more. I do however think that it is not without ridicule when they start saying we should respect their demonstratively ridiculous belief that a cracker is actually the body of a 2000 year old dead guy. People who hold such ridiculous beliefs shouldn’t be shocked when someone points and laughs.
It is counter-productive to insist that Catholics agree that “it’s nothing but a frackin’ cracker”. The attempt to do so is futile, presumptuous, and leads to nothing good.
No one is asking them to agree on that. When did PZ ask for declarations of apostasy from Catholics? What is asked is simply that they accept the reality of the public shpere in a secular society: that their beliefs carry no force outside the church, and that no one else can be made to regard it as anything but a frackin’ cracker. See the difference?
it’s far more prudent to diminish the influence religion has on the unbeliever.
And, it seems to me, one good way to do that is to publicly protest untoward attempts by religionists to influence the behavior of unbelievers.
If ridicule of religious beliefs and practices was effective, Mormons would have stopped wearing their “special undergarments” years ago.
Yeah but their church only expands through rampant inbreeding and polygamy. How’s that workin’ out for them?
Owlmirror and Rev. BDC KoT, thanks for the ♫ info; I promise to use this knowledge only for good.
And, Emmet Caulfield @ 661 FTW.
the atheist should respect the religious beliefs of their fellow citizens,
So, I should respect the Catholic belief that I am objectively disordered and engaging in evil. I should respect Fred Phelps’s belief that 9-11 is because of me. I should respect the belief of Reconstructionists who want to reinstate the death penalty for me.
Yeah, sure.
I already said that the devout are unlikely to be deconverted. The point is to keep reminding people that silly beliefs should not hold an elevated position in the public discourse. If something is ridiculous, then pointing it out should not be taboo.
And, let us not forget, that the beliefs like those of the World Church of the Creator–which hold that people of color are subhumans-are, by definition, respectable. After all, they are the religious beliefs of our fellow citizens.
I remember when I was young I used to believe that lamp posts could explode. No seriously. Hear me out. This is absolutely true (I’m slightly ashamed to admit this, but it makes a good point.)
Street lights nowadays are controlled by photo-electric cells (I think), but back in the 60’s in England they had clockwork timers inside the bases that would switch the lights on at preset times. Sometimes you could hear these timers making whirring noises when you walked past. Now somebody must have put the idea in my head that when you could hear the whirring noise it meant that the whole lamp post was about to explode. Probably another kid at school said it as a joke, but the point is that I believed it. For years. I didn’t consciously think about it, but the idea stuck in my head somehow until I was way into my teens, and I developed an unconscious habit of crossing the road whenever I heard a whirring ticking lamp post, or even “just in case”.
My point is that I just didn’t think about it, it had become a silly quirk of mine avoiding lamp posts – until someone called me out on it. Of course when I falteringly explained my silly delusion and got the roar of laughter I soundly deserved, ONLY THEN did I take a good long hard look at my delusion, and see it for the utter silliness it was. I mean, had I ever exactly SEEN a lamp post explode? Had I even heard of such a thing happening? Of course not. But I had lived with that particular piece of silliness in the back of my mind for probably ten years, and just accepted it without question. Until that day when I was forced to examine it closely.
Now, this is where I agree with what PZ Myers did with the cracker. Hopefully it’s made a whole lot of people see their delusions for what they really are. I’m willing to bet that there are far more people who have shaken off their silly belief because of Crackergate than have protested about PZ’s actions. Sometimes being on the wrong end of a good dose of laughter can have a positive effect.
Of course, if you still want to believe that the cracker really IS Jebus or whatever, then that’s fine, go on with your delusion. But don’t expect to be safe from ridicule.
True Bob #149
But, but in all the skool plays I’ve ever seen, surely absolutely everybody wore dresses ? In one even the sheep, although, to be fair, he was quite a big dog and without the skirt it would have been obvious that he weren’t no ewe. Tsk.
watercat,
I’ve now read read several lawyers confidently arguing the opposite. (As well as several agreeing.)
I don’t think it’s entirely clear that handing out a communion wafer is best analyzed as a simple gifting situation.
The more I learn about the law, the confuseder I get, but I still think OMH’s analysis may be right. Then again, it may not.
Unfortunately, none of the lawyers I’ve been reading addresses the others’ points thoroughly and decisively.
El Herring #706
Actually, I think it will strengthen belief in Real Presence and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. It is an act of pride to call it a delusion. Certainly not words of charity.
Of course PZ is a wiseass! That’s what makes this blog so much fun!! He wouldn’t be half as popular if he was boring. People who don’t like wiseasses need to get a sense of humour transplant.
Actually, I think it will strengthen belief in Real Presence and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. It is an act of pride to call it a delusion. Certainly not words of charity.
blah blah blah blah blah
Paul W. #708
Canon Law 935 states that no one is permitted to keep the Eucharist on one’s person or to carry it around.
So the distinction between desecrating a grave (illegitimate) and walking out with the Blessed Sacrament (legitimate according the Mr. Myers)is illogical. The conclusion is that secular interests (wanting to abscond with the Blessed Sacrament to desecrate it) trump religious interests – respect for the religious dictates (acting within the confines of the Church) of a particular faith. Yet the argument made here repeatedly is the religion cannot invade the secular.
Paul W. #708
Canon Law 935 states that no one is permitted to keep the Eucharist on one’s person or to carry it around.
So the distinction between desecrating a grave (illegitimate) and walking out with the Blessed Sacrament (legitimate according the Mr. Myers)is illogical. The conclusion is that secular interests (wanting to abscond with the Blessed Sacrament to desecrate it) trump religious interests – respect for the religious dictates (acting within the confines of the Church) of a particular faith. Yet the argument made here repeatedly is the religion cannot invade the secular.
#709,
Whether it’s an act of pride or not, it’s also a simple statement of fact. It’s just a cracker, and the belief that a man in a dress muttering a few words over it turns it invisibly into flesh is, if held seriously at the present day, simply insane.
I don’t think that’s very relevant to the point I was making about the legalities. Canon law is not legally binding.
If it’s relevant to the situation, I would expect it’d mostly be in assigning blame to the priest, rather than the person receiving the wafer. A random person receiving a wafer can’t be expected to know the relevant canon law, but the priest can, and could be held accountable for failure to make non-gift situations sufficiently clear.
Canon Law 935 states that no one is permitted to keep the Eucharist on one’s person or to carry it around.
So?
It has absolutely no legitimacy and no standing when it comes to my life. The worthless ramblings of a bunch of hateful old men.
#716
Right. It is inappropriate to desecrate at item of religious worship within a church or synagogue, but it is appropriate to do so if the item is taken outside the church knowing that you had no right to do so.
Canon law 935? Is that so?
How many of these “canon laws” are there then? I must assume that there are at least 935 of them. And are we supposed to know them all? How many true god-fearing Catholics know them all, or even a few of them?
They are about as relevant to the general public as the Ferengi Rules of Aquisition – and probably just as funny.
Pierce R. Butler |#233
Pete Rooke @ # 177 said:
The first two words are the ones that matter.
So long as Pete Rooke believes it, you (and I and professors and everybody) are not allowed to question or debate it.
I believe – The favourite words of the war criminal Tony Blair,aaarrgh, words fail me, my words fail me, “Faster and faster, in the ever widening gyre, the falcon heeds not the falconer”…
Veni, vermi, depressi – (HT – TelBoy)
Crivens !
James,
the rules of your hate group are not binding on me.
First, get your facts straight.
Second I find it funny how you Catholics are all up in arms about a cracker that you admittedly place a lot of emotion on, and fail to condone your church’s stance on doing everything they can to stifle the rights of Homosexuals.
someone doesn’t seem to have their priorities straight.
Second I find it funny how you Catholics are all up in arms about a cracker that you admittedly place a lot of emotion on, and fail to condone your church’s stance on doing everything they can to stifle the rights of Homosexuals.
Why would they condemn such treatment of gay folks?
We’re not fully human. We’re evil. We deserve earthly and eternal torture. That’s directly from the hateful monster they worship. Why should their attitudes be any different? Why should they do anything to make our lives better?
Of course a cracker is more important than gay people.
And of course, they love AIDS.
And Rev,
don’t forget the deep hatred of women.
And the love of children.
six7s |#269
You’re going down for threeee days, not twoooo, neither shalt thee have fooouur.
That’s an awful lot of hate and love practiced the wrong way.
Catholics:
Love / hate, You are doing it wrong.
Although this will quickly be swallowed up and forgotten in the voluminous and ridiculous banter of this site, might I suggest a “novel” idea: RESPECT.
Sometimes I wonder if anyone can see past their own self-righteousness and egos to recognize the pain and devastation that ensues when we ridicule people’s beliefs. When we see hatred in the world, perhaps hatred is not the most effective response. Better yet, why not work to promote tolerance, acceptance, and respect by practicing it yourself.
DS. You’re obviously confused.
Not respecting a person’s beliefs does not mean you hate that person. I don’t respect any religion. It’s all nonsense. Do I therefor hate 90%+ of the population?
No.
If people can’t handle their superstitions being ridiculed, I’m sorry, but that’s just too bad. Part of being an atheist, for me anyway, is not giving your pet god/s in the sky a pass. I won’t do it. Suck it up.
That’s right DS. Ridiculing beliefs is wrong. Now who’s up next to be sacrificed on the altar so the sun will rise tomorrow?
That’s right DS. Ridiculing beliefs is wrong. Now who’s up next to be sacrificed on the altar so the sun will rise tomorrow?
I’m guessing an unmarried, sexually active woman.
Huh. This last character did not display properly for me until I checked the fileformat page for the character:
http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/27f4/index.htm
and then downloaded the Dejavu fonts (and configured my browser to to use them).
http://dejavu.sourceforge.net/
Just in case anyone else sees a box that says “27f4”, as I did at first.
No, because a grave is real property. It is bought and paid for by the same people who held the funeral in the first place. Neither is it given away to “destroy” in particular way (using sacred garden spades, perhaps? Holy tablespoons?) as opposed to some other way (a jackhammer, perhaps?).
A secular person would not see it as a desecration in the first place. PZ did not actually “desecrate” the “Blessed Sacrament”, since he never thought of it as sacred in the first place. He put a nail through a cracker.
But now I think of it, it’s been mentioned that some people believe that Satanists take holy crackers for the specific purpose of desecrating them. In that case, it is indeed a matter of religious freedom: The (putative) Satanic rite requires a cracker that has been blessed by a Catholic priest. As long as the Satanist does not break any secular laws in acquiring said cracker, why not?
Who are you to scoff and scorn at the religion of Satanists? Why do you deny them their religious freedom?
NB: As best I understand it, real-world Satanists do not actually do any such thing (or maybe some do and some don’t; how the hell would I know?). But it’s a hypothetical question for a hypothetical scenario.
“And I thank God I live in a nation that mandates my right to practice Catholicism.” – Pete Rooke
Well, there’s your problem: the very core of your life revolves around an outright lie – one you have suppressed in order to eke out some self-esteem.
For as a vegetarian, you can’t consume the “body of Christ”. You can eat a wheat cracker, though, and lie to others right there in the church about what you’re doing and how you live.
Practice what you want. Threaten others, or back those who do, and I’ll see you locked up.
Looks like PZ is messing with the comment code. That or I’m having an acid flashback.
Owlmirror: The ⟴ looked fine the first time for me, and still does (I use Opera btw). Gave me a chuckle.
Rev: some of us suggested to PZ that names at the top of posts might work better. Stops us having to scroll to the bottom of a long-winded post to check who the poster is.
DS: I don’t hate anyone for their beliefs. I respect anybody’s right to believe whatever they want. What I don’t feel the need to respect is the belief itself. You can believe that six foot runcible apricots called George steal your teaspoons every night at 6 AM if you like. I respect your right to believe that, but don’t expect me to keep a straight face when you go on about the apricot smell in your pantry.
(I feel quite confident that the phrase “six foot runcible apricots” has never been used before in the whole history of human civiliation. Thank you Stephen Fry for giving me the courage to express myself in such grandiose convoluted verbal acrobatics!)
Clearly Stephen Fry is a mighty and omniscient
Godcomplementary moist lemon-scented cleansing square!Let us worship together:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHQ2756cyD8
I’ve dealt with you militant types before, so I should have known better. None of you has the slightest concern for the opinions or cares any human being who doesn’t dwell in your narrow, pathetic little world.
Shorter Nate W: “WAAAH! You didn’t throw yourself at my feet and PRAISE MY SUPERIOR INTELLECT in thanks for exposing the error of your ways!”
Even shorter Nate W: I’ve dealt with you militantZZZzzzzzzzzz
Hmm… I don’t have any DejaVu fonts. What I do have now though is whatever’s standard with WinVista as well as the font stuff I had added to WinNT and, before that, Win 3.1 (none of which should therefore be relevant to suddenly being able to see extra characters which I didn’t have on those previous machines). I’d already decided I need to stick to my old reference pages on the whole, as being representative of the characters most people could see, though.
Posted by six7s @ #269:
“What sort of death threats would Jeebus make?”
Luke.19
[27] But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them before me.'”
Posted by Pete Rooke:
“You might as well declare the monthly town hall meeting that begins with the pledge of allegiance and has a shared and stated code of behaviour/judgement a cult.
Your pledge of allegience IS creepy and cultlike.
Dingo Dave, Luke 19.27 doesn’t tell what Jesus asked for his own enemies. It’s part of a parable Jesus told. It’s another guy asking his enemies be slain, a hard-nosed capitalist as it happens.
Don’t do to the scriptures what the creationists do. No use sharing their swamp with them.
Yes, I am aware that it was a parable Ed.
It was parable about his supposed second coming, and what he was going to do to non-believers who didn’t worship him.
Read it carefully and you’ll see what I mean. Here is an exerpt.
[11] As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.
[12] He said therefore, “A nobleman went into a far country to receive a kingdom and then return.
[13] Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten pounds, and said to them, `Trade with these till I come.’
[14] But his citizens hated him and sent an embassy after him, saying, `We do not want this man to reign over us.’
[15] When he returned, having received the kingdom, he commanded these servants, to whom he had given the money, to be called to him, that he might know what they had gained by trading.
The parable was also about what he expected his followers to do as regards prostletising, and converting non-believers to the cult.
Of course I don’t believe that any of this ever really happened. It’s nothing more than a literary device which the gospel author wrote, after the fact. But the message is clear.
DS @ #727:
Thanks for this post, DS. It’s a valuable insight into the thought processes of the batshit insane.
You speak of “the pain and devastation that ensues when we ridicule people’s beliefs”. Yet you completely ignore the death threats made by your fellow cultists. You completely ignore the actual harm done to real people in the name of these idiotic beliefs. To you, there is nothing wrong with valuing a cracker over human life, and defending that cracker by violence against actual living people. No, what you can’t stand is laughing at idiots for worshipping baked goods. Really shows how totally disconnected from reality you are.
Respect isn’t just given away for free. It has to be earned. If you want people to respect your beliefs, then you need beliefs that are worthy of respect. The belief that a cracker is more important than a human being is not worthy of respect. The belief that child molesters should be shielded from justice is not worthy of respect. The belief that it’s okay to murder people over a cartoon, or baked goods, or for the color of their skin, or because they don’t bow down to your imaginary friend is not worthy of respect. The belief that all of science is a vast Satanic conspiracy is not worthy of respect. The belief that an all-powerful, all-knowing, conveniently invisible tyrant is going to torture everyone who disagrees with you for eternity is not worthy of respect. The belief that the creator of the universe has a deep, prurient interest in the sex lives of humans is not worthy of respect.
And yet you demand respect for your delusions, while willfully ignoring reality.
El Herring @735
“every night at 6 AM”
El Herring @736
“Thank you Stephen Fry for giving me the courage to express myself in such grandiose convoluted verbal acrobatics!”
Convoluted is the word, especially last thing at night, in the morning.
What Fr. Gregor Mendel would have made of an academic like you, Mr. Myers, is an interesting question.
Please know that many of us are praying for the salvation of your soul:
Sancte Michael Archangele,
defende nos in proelio;
contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium.
Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur:
tuque, Princeps militiae caelestis,
Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos,
qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo,
divina virtute in infernum detrude. Amen.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.
What Fr. Gregor Mendel would have made of an academic like you, Mr. Myers, is an interesting question. – Florentius
No, it isn’t.
Please know that many of us are praying for the salvation of your soul:
And a big ol’ “fuck you” right back at ya.
Paul Harvey and O’Reilly???
Ouch.
Wow.Such…Hmm.. Passion.
Ok. I’m technically Catholic. Not Militant, and not deeply religious. This whole garbage with the sacrament, really didn’t bother me. It happened, oh well. It doesn’t affect my life.
What DOES bother me are people who claim to be Catholic making death threats against others. Placing judgment and declaring what they feel punishment to be. And lo, did I and my wife take another step away from the cruelty, and hate that is religion.
Nothing that anyone did here is deserving of death, or punishment of what so many Catholic Fundamentalists are advocating. The actions of the religious here are blowing this incredibly out of proportion. Get a grip, get a life, and move on people!
What IS the appropriate response? “I’m sorry you did that, and I do not agree with what you did. But I forgive you anyways.” Ta Da! Not: “I want you to LOSE YZOUR JOB AND DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!!!!”
Now.. Where did I leave my box of crackers?
And in return, we’ll do the thinking for all of you, since you’ve apparently abdicated any responsibility for rational thought in favour of wishful non-thinking.
So far the results from the reality-based community on behalf of the fantasy-based community include (but are not limited to):
• the cracker is just a cracker;
• magic spells don’t work;
• cracker + magic spell = still just a cracker.
Meanwhile, how’s that prayer thing going for y’all?
What would he do if he discovered that I started a consecrated wafer desecration series on youtube?
So if desecrating something another faith holds sacred is so wrong, why isn’t there a Hindu movement against the beef industry?
Looks like the party has moved on, so I’ll just say perhaps instead of respecting the religious beliefs of others, it would suffice to simply ignore them. After all, it’s not as if any of us will ever come in contact with a communion wafer, unless we actively sought one out. And why would we do that?
As strange as transubstantiation may seem, after all, when all is said and done, it can’t be disproven. And the belief that there’s no God? Can’t be proven. Ever.
#753
Stealing and theft are wrong, aren’t they? As well as encouraging others to steal?
#604
Taking the Blessed Sacrament out of Church without permission is stealing. It is kept under lock and key and distributed to the faithful for one reason only and is not to leave the Church.
It would be, James – but no-one has advocated that.
Once the priest gives it to the person it’s theirs. To not eat it is disrespectful to the church, but it’s not ‘theft’ in any sense of the word.
“it’s not ‘theft’ in any sense of the word.”
Misappropriation, perhaps.
There is no evidence for any gods. There’s nothing to disprove.
“There is no evidence for any gods.”
No evidence that we are able to detect, you mean.
No evidence that we are able to detect, you mean.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
But the cracker does leave the Church, inside the digestive systems of the people who eat it.
Whether the “blessed sacrament” leaves the church is a different question. First show that a blessed sacrament exists, then show how it attaches to a cracker, then show how it can be pulled along with the cracker outside of the church.
Not even misappropriation. The cracker leaves the church no matter what, inside the bowels of the believers.
MAJeff, if you have evidence that absolutely disproves the existence of a God or gods, let’s have it…
Perhaps the problem is not so much zombie-Jesus as vampire-Jesus. Unless he exits the building inside the bowels of believers, they’re afraid there’s a risk the magical invisible essence of him will burn up in the light of day outside. (Hence also having stained glass for windows.)
“The cracker leaves the church no matter what, inside the bowels of the believers.”
That’s the Officially Approved method.
And we have been informed of the Official Disapproval so many, many times.
Now I want to see all of the Officially Disapproved methods (preferably illustrated, with some high church official doing a facepalm)…
(in the palm of the hand… on the back of the hand… between the fingers… balanced on the elbow… balanced on the shoulder… under the armpit… inside the underwear (scratchy!)… clenched between the buttocks… inside a purse and/or pocket… between the breasts (large cleavage, obviously)… on top of the breasts (also large cleavage, obviously)… on top of the head… balanced on the nose… behind the ear… between the lips… between the teeth… under the tongue… and of course, inside the stomach of someone who has committed the mortal sin of blasphemy and not confessed it nor repented of it.)
Owl:
Blah blah blah.
Still waiting for someone to demonstrate the non-existence of God. Aren’t you scientific types big on evidence and proof?
#764,
No, the Blessed Sacrament is brought outside of churches in a monstrance as part of a Eucharistic Procession, especially on the Feast of Corpus Christi. No worries about that really.
“in a monstrance” – condemned in their own words! :-D
You’re just jealous that I’m more humourous than you are.
Well, more humourous on purpose, anyway.
O RLY?
Let statement G equal “God does not exist.”
Now find or present the evidence to show that the above statement is incorrect.
If you have no evidence, then obviously the best inference is that the statement is indeed correct.
QED.
Dav Laurel,
Once you’ve proved the non-existence of leprechauns, I’m sure I can adapt the proof to prove the non-existence of gods.
Inference ain’t proof. You can state you believe there’s no God (your opinion), but you can’t really state as a fact there’s no God.
When I was first told atheism is a religion, I snorted, but if religion is defined as a belief in what cannot be proven, then yes, it IS a religion. One that ultimately can never be proved correct.
if religion is defined as a belief in what cannot be proven – Dav Laurel
Only an idiot would define it in such a stupid way.
I hate to bash a D’Orc, but…
Dav, Dav, Dav.
Logic: ur doin it rong.
Burden of proof is on the positive claim. Thus, you must provide proof that gods exist. Failure to do so maintains the null hypothesis…that is, atheism. Attempts to shift the burden are an automatic Epic Fail.
Thanks for playing. Now why don’t you and Saint Jimmy go somewhere else where the big bad atheist types won’t ruffle your feathers?
The MadPanda, FCD
Why not?
However, I’m not stating it as an opinion. I’m not even stating it as a belief.
I am stating “God does not exist” as a logical proposition. And it is indeed a fact that you cannot prove that the proposition is false.
Or can you? Well, I am more than willing to see you try. What have you got?
No, it isn’t – at least not from the logic point of view (ie the direction of provability). Theoretically a god could turn up at some point, thus falsifying it. However, in practice that doesn’t seem very plausible – given the apparent abject failure of any gods to be bothered with existing so far.
The believer asserts something he cannot prove, but which conceivably could be proven, if God chooses to reveal himself.
The atheist asserts something he can’t prove either, and never can (if he’s correct). In this sense at least, atheism be classed a religion.
It goes without saying that if there is a God, he can surely manipulate the evidence.
I’ll stick with agnosticism.
Still waiting for someone to demonstrate the non-existence of God. Aren’t you scientific types big on evidence and proof?
Who’s making the extraordinary claim that something exists? Upon whom does the burden exist? You’re not even arguing in good faith; all you’ve got is hand-waving, jumping from “the believer believes” to “if god wants” without ever demonstrating that there’s a basis for the second statement.
Not if the assertion is that there are apparently no beings around worthy of the term “god”, let alone worth worshipping (and certainly not doing so in some prescribed-on-no-evidence-whatsoever religious manner). For that, any gods would have to be visibly doing something useful.
Only if you wilfully abuse the term religion so badly that it has been mangled beyond recognition even by its loving mother or linguistic-DNA testing.
Dav Laurel wrote:
So you’re a fan of Pascal’s Wager? There might be a god so I’ll claim to believe in him because it’ll go worse for me if he turns out to be real and I haven’t fawned and groveled and licked his holy toes.
In short, moral and intellectual cowardice.
Yep, he’s a D’Orc. A point-dodging, evidence-evading, logic misunderstanding D’Orc.
Dav, atheism is a religion in the same way that riding a bicycle is a form of undersea travel. You are simply wrong, as wrong as you would be if you claimed that the Declaration of Independence was written by Jimmy Carter and Barry Goldwater at a meeting of the Algonquin Round Table over gin and tonic.
Let it go, man, and find another blog to haunt. You’re not going to achieve anything around here but your own frustration.
The MadPanda, FCD
You’re saying you don’t believe in any proposed gods so far, but maybe perhaps there’s one, because the concept makes sense? Wow.
Hm. I think this comes back to the issue of the definition of “god”.
Does god just mean “some entity more powerful than any human”? Or perhaps “some entity that created the universe”?
If so, then sure, one might show up.
However, the general definition of the “god” of the various monotheist religions is “an eternal entity, responsible for the creation of the universe, that is the most powerful, most knowing and most benevolent” (I don’t want to get into the inherent contradictions of omnipotence vs. omniscience, so I’m willing to weaken those slightly to mean “the greatest amount of power and knowing that is not inherently contradictory”).
By that definition, any entity that “turned up” would have to have some excuse for not having shown up before, and I think it can be shown that all possible excuses would directly contradict one or more of the various portions of the definition. Thus, the god that turned up would not be the god as defined by the monotheist religions.
OK, now prove me wrong.
(*smrk*)
No, I’m saying you cannot assert as fact that God does not exist. It’s a statement of belief no different from one asserting he does exist. The question–does God exist?–is thus a closed one for both the believer and the atheist. For the agnostic, it remains open.
Both assert what neither can prove. Humility would seem to be called for, but atheists here have certainly proven they can be as arrogant and obnoxious as any Bible-thumper.
Dav Laurel:
Actually, as a strong atheist I’m quite sure no conceptually incoherent gods exist, as Owlmirror said above.
You mean a conclusion is no different to an assertion?
Indeed. Show some of the intellectual variety and prove us wrong.
PS You haven’t addressed me @782. Scared to?
#783,
He “showed up” at the Incarnation. That’s the Catholic claim. A claim supported by witnesses and history. Numerous instances of private revelation.
Still waiting for someone to demonstrate the non-existence of trolls, elves, faeries, invisible pink unicorns, and that teapot thing in orbit around Uranus.
Oddly enough, he managed to avoid demonstrating much in the way of anything of an eternal nature, or great creativity, or great benevolence, or great knowledge.
Now, he did allegedly demonstrate some power, but the problem with that is that it’s easy to see the alleged demonstrations of power as being merely tricks, or just made-up stories.
Especially when, for his final trick, he just flat-out lied.
Another word for “claim” is “pretension”, or something made up, mostly out of imagination.
Nonsense. As if a real eternal, knowing, and powerful god would even need “witnesses” and “history”, instead of simply demonstrating his eternal power and knowledge directly.
Yawn. Private revelation is a shitty way for an alleged god to do anything, precisely because humans can become insane.
If there’s no way to distinguish “private revelation” from paranoia, hallucination, epilepsy, schizophrenia, psychosis, and so on, then god had damn well better provide something that can be demonstrated outside of the revelatee’s head.
When faced with the ‘personal revelation’ attempt at an argument I tend to reply with, ‘well, I once had an owl project thoughts into my head – does that mean owls have psychic powers?’
This, of course, had more to do with my having taken some particularly good blotter acid several hours beforehand; the psychic owl was one of the least weird things I experienced that evening. But at the time I thought it was real – it’s only my knowledge of the effects of LSD that allows me to know it wasn’t.
In short, brains do weird shit and, therefore, subjective experiences cannot be considered evidence in this situation.
“It goes without saying that if there is a God, he can surely manipulate the evidence.”
I think this is the problem I have with agnosticism; this undeserved deference toward the idea of the Christian 3O god (agnostics never hem and haw over the existence of Brahma and Shiva, I’ve noticed). Sure, God can wriggle out of evidence problems if you just make up his attributes as you go along. We cannot know if God exists, because he could just be fucking with us, because he’s all-powerful and all that jazz.
Too wishy-washy for me. I’m an atheist, and that only takes as much a leap of “faith” and “arrogance” as it does to not believe in Russell’s Teapot. As I like to put it, God is Bollocks.
And, I see that I forgot to mention, in addition to drug-induced temporary delusions, as mentioned by Wowbagger, some people do just lie. They make shit up. They tell stories, for their own amusement, or so as to manipulate people.
And very often they tell stories to themselves, because everyone around them is telling the same story to each other.
That’s Dishonest Mind-Fucker Tyrant God. I have to admit, I am indeed agnostic about Dishonest Mind-Fucker Tyrant God. If there is a God who is actively dishonest, and goes out of his way to fuck with people’s minds, there would be no way to know one way or the other.
However, note that Dishonest Mind-Fucker Tyrant God not only has no benevolence, he’s actively malevolent. Which means that he’s not the god of the monotheistic religions, as posited above @#783.
Although, reading the actual bible, the god described therein does look more like Dishonest Mind-Fucker Tyrant God than the essentialist god that religions claim he is.
Hey, here’s Dishonest Mind-Fucker Tyrant God, in living colour:
http://grimbles.comicgenesis.com/d/20030103.html
The 70,000 witnesses to the Miracle of the Sun included atheists. The press reports at the time establish that what they saw was “outside their head.” Odd that it occurred when it was predicted to occur.
#788
The raising of Lazarus from the dead was “benevolent.” “Jesus wept” at Mary’s deep grief and the sobs and wailing of those present.
That was also a demonstration of divine power. It happened to be witnessed also. Nothing inconsistent about that.
#789
What the Church calls miracles go beyond the subjective experience – they are material and objective, even if you doubt their supernatural origin.
Ah, that somewhat variable and often ever increasing number as the fairy story gets retold.
Which ones? Were they really C.S.Lewis types and what did they actually claim?
How does a press report in itself do that?
Not odd that people primed for hysteria at a specific time might have behaved hysterically at that time. Not even particularly odd that they might have started noticing a quite natural phenomenon which they had previously been too wrapped up in themselves to notice but then misattributed to something else because of their pre-conditioning.
… in a fairy story.
Name some and provide the evidence for them being material and objective – and miraculous.
Of course it’s possible for a god who a) hides all evidence of his existence, and b) creates a lot of evidence to support his non-existence. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it is possible. In fact, if there is a god it’s the only way he could operate.
But this isn’t the god of any of the major world religions – in fact, it’s the antithesis of the loving, benevolent god espoused by christianity. In times not that far gone saying so would have seen you charged with heresy. At least one religion supports the idea that what gets called god is in fact an evil supplanter – but,those guys weren’t too popular with mainstream christianity (heresy, as I mentioned before) and got themselves wiped out as a result.
Of course, we get to the question of why would god, who (supposedly) wants us to be happy and use our free will and love and worship him so we can go to heaven lie about things that would allow us to do just that?
It just don’t add up!
Well, it certainly looks like they might have seen something. Was it an unusual atmospheric or meteorological phenomenon, was it a bunch of people becoming so excited over an unusual atmospheric or meteorological phenomenon that they thought more was going on than really happened, or was it god himself warping the sky? Can we ask god to do it again? Huh, I guess we can ask, but god keeps on not saying or doing anything..
Odder still that it only occurred then, and never since. Did god’s light-show machine run out of juice?
Not that benevolent. Lazarus was the brother of Jesus’ disciples, Martha and Mary. And in the more likely case that it was a trick or a story, it wasn’t benevolent at all.
Eh. As a trick, that’s just good showmanship. As a story, it merely lends some touching pathos to the plot.
Of course. You want witnesses who are not in on the trick to witness the trick; their credulity lends versimilitude.
Utter nonsense. Why, just look a the alleged “miracles” that kicked off this whole foofaraw: The cracker becomes the flesh of Jesus and yet does not change in any material and objective form from being a cracker. Woooo-ooh!
“Material and objective miracles”, my arse.
Really, the god you describe as having performed these alleged miracles is pretty much the Dishonest Mind-Fucker Tyrant. No thanks.
#795
The Miracle of the Sun was material and objective. You have yourself described it as a natural phenomenon – an occurrence that is observable in reality.
You miss the point that “natural” is opposed to “supernatural”. That is, a natural phenomenon is not caused by a supernatural wossname like god.
A natural phenomenon is therefore not a “miracle”, just as a rainbow or a sundog are not “miracles”.
No, I got that point. I said one could question whether it was a supernatural cause as long as you acknowledge that it was an objective reality, not a delusion confined to the boundaries of one’s mind. Otherwise, the sun dog theorists would have nothing to theorize about.
One would have to ask (in thinking about the supernatural question) how did a humble 10-year-old shepherd girl know that a sundog was going to appear on October 13, 1917?
Whateley family bloodline, most likely. Eeeeeerie!
She doesn’t have to know at all. There wasn’t even a specific prediction to match. So barely any luck was required either. It was merely necessary that anything at all happen with which ignorant people were unfamiliar – which is not exactly hard and appears even to include seeing the moon for some! Having them hang around actually looking for once in their lives made it far more likely that eventually someone would spot something onto which they could all latch and claim that that was the intended thing.