Guest blogger Sastra:
When I log into Pharyngula, as a matter of habit I usually glance at the little Recent Comment bar on the side, to see who has just responded to what. It helps to show which threads are particularly lively at the moment. Every now and then there’s someone responding to an “old” post – one that’s been otherwise inactive for days, weeks, months, or, in very rare cases, years. Given the recent major fuss caused by “Crackergate,” we can still notice the occasional newcomer weighing in on the contents of PZ’s kitchen garbage can. Presumably they’ve followed one of the many links still hanging around out there. The cracker threads are not quite ready to die.
I don’t think the issue and its moral ramifications (or the interest in them) are quite finished and over yet, either, so – here ya go — I’m going to bring it up again. Those who are sick and tired of the topic may lightly skip to the next post.
I have, like most (though not all) of the regular Pharyngulites, been – by and large – supportive of PZ’s action, and the rationale behind it. However, I think it’s simplistic to see this as a simple issue, which is easy to explain or defend. There are some good, hard, and reasonable points on the other side, as well as arguments which sound reasonable, but are only superficially plausible. But, judging by the continued reactions, our replies and responses are not always getting through, and we can’t just assume it’s because the other guys aren’t listening. I don’t know — maybe a new approach might help.
So I thought it might be interesting then to take another stab at trying to explain the why behind it, by coming at it from a different perspective.
Context is crucial, and, as most of us have noticed, PZ’s critics often leave out the context, the whole Cook/Donahue thing that started it off. They seem to have this image of PZ standing up in class one day, poking a hole in the cracker, and thence declaring that there is no God after all – just like in the infamous “atheist professor and the chalk” story, but without the happy ending where God interferes and keeps the chalk from breaking, or, in this case, I guess, makes the wafer start bleeding. A few of the atheists appear to be framing it this way as well, as a refutation of the existence of God (approvingly, or disapprovingly.) No, it’s not that. At least, that’s not how I see it.
One of the most common methods of trying to convince someone they’ve made a moral error is through analogy: how would YOU feel in a similar situation, one that was only slightly altered to fit into your own feelings and prejudices? If you would not want it done to you, then you should not do it to others. This is usually a pretty reasonable approach which most people intuitively relate to. Unless you can put yourself in someone else’s place, you’re not going to understand why their reasons are reasonable, for you as well as them. And, of course, Pharyngula has seen more than its share of analogies from the Catholic side – some of them downright bizarre (cough*cough*Rooke*cough) and some of them simply inapplicable. Many of them miss the point by leaving out the context.
So I’m going to try out a new analogy – a hypothetical — which both focuses on the context, and takes the situation out of the comfort zone of the typical Pharyngulite. No, it’s not the same situation in many respects – there are significant differences – but it’s a similar situation with altered variables; in this case, a different sacred cow, and a different offended group. I’m curious as to whether the people here think it works, and agree with my conclusion. It would be especially interesting to see if anyone who was and is offended by the desecration now sees a commonality where they didn’t see it before.
What if it had been this way:
A devout Christian student at a public university named Winslow Cork goes to an on-campus meeting of the Gay-Lesbian Support Group. He accepts the rainbow pin they give him, and then, when they ask him to tell his story, he announces that he is a Christian, and he is going to support them by warning them that homosexuality is a sin, and that those who don’t repent will burn in hell. He contemptuously turns the pin upside down, puts it on, and leaves.
Reaction is swift – and intense. This particular gay support group doesn’t just call him a snot and yell at him to never come back. They swing into action. Cork’s name is publicized, and he is accused of being a bigot, and worse. His actions are compared to the murder of Matthew Shepard, and what the Nazis did. The argument is that people who are often victimized have been attacked, and therefore it should be treated as a serious attack. The campus gay rights activists demand that Cork be charged with a hate crime, and expelled from the university. After all, he violated the sanctuary of those who are understandably sensitive to such violations. Cork is inundated with hate mail, starts getting death threats, and returns the rainbow pin, hoping things will calm down.
Instead, a nationally syndicated gay rights columnist joins in, and, rather than expressing horror over the death threats, only escalates the matter. This kid and his disrespectful, hate-filled religious viewpoint should not be expressed in an America where all citizens respect each other. Religion should be a purely private matter, kept behind closed doors. Speaking out and hurting the feelings of those who prefer the same sex by telling them they’re damned to hell is un-American. It violates their rights. This incident will be used to send a message, and hopefully get the law involved.
In another university, a humanities professor named XY Nyers reads about this, and is appalled. He’s a Christian, and is furious at the over-reaction. Enough is enough. There is no right to not be offended by religion. Whether Cork should have gone into that room or not, informing gay people that the Bible condemns them should not be considered criminal hate speech, or treated like an act of violence. This point needs be made, and forcefully. He then vows on his popular website to film himself reading Leviticus out loud while he breaks apart a Gay-Lesbian Support Group rainbow pin – and he does it.
Cue more hysterical reaction from the same faction of the gay rights crowd. This professor clearly should not be teaching – how could he possibly be fair to his gay students? He needs to respect others, no matter what their sexual orientation – and that means keeping his offensive opinions private, both in class and in his personal life. There are death threats and brow-beating and people asking why, WHY this professor would do this? It’s gratuitously insulting, and only makes him look like a kook, and Christians look like bigots. He knew damn well it would hurt others, and piss people off, and result in death threats. Is pissing that many people off to make his point worthwhile?
I say yes. In this case, under these circumstances, it would be worth it. And I am an atheist who is in favor of gay rights, and want people to be sensitive and respectful to different sexual orientations. But I deliberately chose a protagonist and story I have less sympathy for, to illustrate that it’s not simply about rooting for a “side.” You have to take context into account.
If I didn’t think the over-reaction to Cork’s rudeness was unjustified, and if I could not support, understand, and even respect Prof. Nyers’ actions IN CONTEXT — then I would not be doing the same for PZ Myers. And if I accept that Myers can still be a fair and respectful teacher, then I would accept the same with Nyers. Absent other evidence, and given the situation, there is no reason to think otherwise.
And it should apply both ways.
As I see it, the fundamental matter is not simply a clash of “world views.” Professor Myers and Professor Nyers could theoretically both be Unitarians, with beliefs unknown – and still do the same thing, and still be right to do so. It should not be about which side is getting their ox gored, or who is getting their panties in a twist. The real issue at stake isn’t crackers, or gay rights, or religion, or the importance of showing ‘respect.’
It’s about the importance of not always showing kid-glove respect, and of keeping our sense of proportion, and knowing the difference between someone attacking what you do or believe, and someone attacking you. And I think that’s worthwhile, from every vantage point.
Great news:
No expulsion for UCF student who stole Eucharist wafer
To make the analogy even closer, Winslow Cork would be gay himself, and would have been part of the gay community for a long time.
Nice little story about a Christian & a gay-lesbian support group. You Americans are so lucky that you have a Bill of Rights, especially the Freedom of Speech. Having the Right to say out what’s on one’s mind without fearing of risk of going to jail or even losing own life is truly a gift most valued.
And of course I agreed whole-heartedly on the last paragraph.
I just wonder of PZ could have handled it in a more thoughtful manner. Whatever his intentions of showing the silliness of treating a bread product as an object to be worshiped as a God, his actions allowed a lot of people to claim he was intentionally trying to offend them.
I don’t have an obvious alternative – my first thoughts were to do a DNA test on the cracker and to announce it couldn’t have been a consecrated one as it failed to show Jesus’ DNA.
That probably wouldn’t have worked either but the objective here should have been to demonstrate to catholics the ridiculousness of the transubstantiation story, to at least force them to think about what it predicts regarding the cracker. OK, maybe the way he did it worked as well as any other way but I still have a feeling that it could have been done in a less heavy handed way and put the onus on the superstitious to make the case that the bread was God.
Although I essentially agree with your point, I think your analogy fails in one crucial regard in so far as having those of a religious bent accept it as valid.
LBGT groups do not believe that their pins have metaphysical characteristics that make them more than a mere physical entity. Oh, they believe it is symbolic of certain beliefs, but they do not, as far as I know, ascribe any inherant properties other than symbolism. I’m sure LGBT people might feel hurt by the lack of respect but they wouldn’t claim there was some great woo-powered difference that elevated the offence above an act of disrespect to desecration. They would probably think you were a kingsized fuckwit, but they wouldn’t think more than that.
I suspect this is the objection that will be raised.
There will also be some people who are horrified at the notion that they and a gay person could possibly be considered similar in any regard whatsoever, but then, they’re just kingsized fuckwits.
OMFSM! Nyers stole the rainbow pin! It is not just given away, you know — you are supposed to wear it. By giving it other use, Nyers broke the implicit contract and that is actionable. Nyers should restitute the pin immediately and apologize for his insensitive behavior.
I’ll organize a Gay Pride Parade for him.
BaldySlaphead @ #5:
Hey now! As a kingsized fuckwit, I resent being compared to homophobes!
Nice analogy. No one has a right not to be offended.
There is one small point I’d like to make, however, and that is that there is a fundamental difference between crazy beliefs in an invisible god (and his manifestation as a cracker) and sexual orientation (or, for that matter, gender, physical or mental handicap, etc).
Making fun of someone’s beliefs is not in any way comparable with making fun of someone’s intrinsic characteristics. The homophobes in your analogy are bigots because sexual orientation is not a belief; it is an intrinsic component of a person’s real physical makeup. Being Catholic is not.
MH @ #1: That’s excellent news. And you know what? If it wasn’t for PZ’ publicizing the matter, Webster Cook likely would have been expelled, because up until PZ got hold of the matter, UCF was hearing almost exclusively from people who wanted to fry Cook alive.
Another analogy, and I apologize if it’s been used, is burning a flag. A flag is a colored piece of cloth. The only reason it’s important is the its symbolic meaning. Certain Americans get quite enraged when they see a piece of colored cloth being burned that has the same design as their flag. Change the design, nobody cares.
As for the Catholics, to us it’s a piece of bread, or a cracker as PZ calls it. To them it’s more than a symbol but it’s their actual God. I don’t agree with it but I respect their right to believe it.
I thought PZ went over the line in this latest action. As Atheists we have to show we’re better than the religious community.
I do like your analogy, Sastra – it at least gets close to what I suspect some (or even most) christians would have felt about the scenario. I, for one, would consider the person (in your story) rude – but in no way deserving of the vicious attacks – and I would not support the action taken against him. He physically harmed no-one nor broke any laws, and the only action the gay rights group have the right to take is to choose not to invite him to any further functions.
However, as an analogy to the cracker incident it only deals with some of what we saw here and elsewhere.
Really, I don’t think I’ve ever seen more analogies that completely missed the point (other than those of the über-sicko Pete Rooke; that man has some issues) than those put forward by the crackerites in the wake of the Webster Cook incident – even before the Great Desecration™.
And this isn’t necessarily their fault – I think that it’s such an alien concept for anyone vaguely rational that there just isn’t an appropriate analogy to put it into perspective for non-believers.
It wasn’t the mocking of their beliefs or the fear their
antiquated ooga-boogasolemn religious ceremony would be interrupted by cracker-grabbing atheists; it was that many of them believed that both PZ and Webster Cook were capable of actually hurting jesus by taking the eucharist.The papist blogs reflected the strange desperation; one of them expressed a desire to get some hardass Opus Dei monks (like the one in The Da Vinci Code) to ‘kick down the door to go rescue Our Lord’.
Mindboggling isn’t a strong enough word.
In that sense your analogy – and every analogy we can come up with – is going to fall short. Because, when it comes down to it, we can’t make up shit as crazy as what those people believe and have it make any sense at all.
Oh Nooooes, Sastra, yer analigy idn’t purrfeck enuff!! (heh.)
It was great and helpful and I enjoyed it very much.
BaldySlaphead #5 wrote:
Right — that’s one of the “significant differences.” On the other side, though, Catholics in the US usually don’t have to talk about “being in the closet” or hiding their Catholicism lest they be assaulted or not hired for a job.
I think there were several rationales behind PZ’s actions: it doesn’t just reduce to this one. But it seems that too many of his critics fail to recognize that the ‘protest of the protest’ aspect was the catalyst, and it’s one that they themselves may be able to respect and relate to, when put into another context.
That was beautifully done, Sastra – an excellent parallel case. Of course, as you undoubtedly know, it won’t make a dent in the dense armour plate surrounding the minds of the Bill Donohues of the world but we can hope that it will help other, more thoughtful, people.
Sigmund – I think the problem with your DNA test idea is that it’s testing a strawman. Catholics do not believe that the cracker becomes meat – it is acknowledged among catholics that the cracker is still a cracker in all physical aspects. It is the essence that becomes one with the essence of God. Of course, exactly what the fuck that actually means I have yet to hear – it’s a fairly cool bit of untestable, irrefutable-by-design doublethink that can only seem plausible to people already prepared to find it so. I thinks it’s a great example of the fact that just because an idea or concept can be stated in a grammatically correct sentence it does not necessarily follow that the concept actually makes sense.
Personally, I think PZ’s response was as measured as necessary given the appalling behaviour of the catholics involved in the Cook incident.
MS – thanks for the link (even if I do have to wash my internet connection after visiting a Faux News site). Good to see that sense (and possibly the fear of very well publicised and expensive lawsuits?) have prevailed in the US. Would it be too cheeky for a non-US citizen to note that this seems to be an increasingly rare occurence? ;)
Sastra, again I agree entirely with what you’re saying, but I suspect that people will use the small point about these alleged trancendent, homeopathic properties of their crackers to disregard all the rest of your very sensible words.
I hope I’m wrong.
A very thoughtful, and constructive, response. Thank you!
Good news about Cork, er Cook, too ;)
Stephen Fry summed this up in a debate with Christopher Hitchens a couple of years ago – this was after speaking of his distress at finding his great-grandparents’ graves had been desecrated by anti-semites – ‘It’s now very common to hear people say, “I’m rather offended by that”, as if that gives them certain rights. It’s no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. “I’m offended by that.” Well, so fucking what?’
Wow. I am very impressed. This is a very good and very intelligent look at just how we view these things.
My only comment would be that an action like that probably wouldn’t provoke quite the same amount of outrage purely because the rainbow pin is, even to the people who wear it, probably not much more than a pin. Some of the people who sent the … oddest of the hate mail to PZ actually were adament in believing that the thing he’s put a nail through actually was a bit of the bosy of their god.
To be honest though, if gods body can cope with the average persons entire digestive tract then a small rusty nail should not really be a problem.
I do agree with your conclusions though. Over-reaction against either the Pin-attacking christian of your analogy or the actual cracker-desacrating person in real life is distinctly over the top.
Hmm. Crackergate must be winding down. I actually get in on one of the first 100 comments.
Even better, PZ could have saved the cracker and tested it for tetanus after having used a rusty nail to pierce it.
Nice analogy, Sastra.
And yes, UCF showed some good sense.
I think this paraphrased statement of Lee Harrison’s would make a great signature line.
I think another analogy (imperfect as it is) is with the notion of “blaspheming the name of God.” In a similar way as how the host is not just a piece of bread for Catholics, “God” is not just a word for many religious people, and should not be used in casual conversation. Many even avoid to write it, using “G-d” or some circumlocution instead. Sure enough, they don’t like it when other people toss “oh my God”s around. But there’s a difference between not liking it and accusing those other people of being bigoted and gulilty of hate crimes, and demanding that they should not be allowed to teach.
I think the analogy is useful, but while I would tend to agree with mike @ #8, in that no one has the right not to be offended, and about the lack of history or attributes for the Rainbow flag (Maybe a Pink triangle would be better?)
I think the main failing of the analogy is that the action of the professor in reading Leviticus and breaking badges would be neither original, shocking or even novel, and so just wouldn’t cause the same level of offence or shock, we see Pulpit-screamers and politicians doing the metaphorical badge breaking on TV none stop, think the Phelps family “god hates” protests, linguistics of “gay for bad” etc.
Maybe If we were all to get ourselves consecrated crackers and play with them in our own special way, the focus of attention on each individual act of cracker abuse would be reduced, in the same way the actions of any one Preacher/teacher/politician being a screaming homophobe is.
As I re-read, I think the analogy is interesting, but no matter what it is wrong to issue any sort of physical threat. There can be no circumstance I can imagine which could Justify them!
I hope some of that made sense, Im new to Pharyngula but i’m loving the reading matter.
Dan
A generally sound analogy, as analogies go, but it doesn’t really ring true for me. Gays are an oppressed minority barely beginning to flex a bit of political muscle and gain a bit of social acceptance. The Church, despite the Christian propensity for crying persecution at the drop of a wafer, is anything but an oppressed minority. There is a huge disparity in the power relationship between the gay community and society at large and the Church and society at large. I also think that far fewer, and a much smaller proportion, of gays would react in such an ill-tempered way to “desecration” of a symbol.
On another note, the Faux news headline that Cook “stole” the cracker implies that some sort of crime was committed. He “stole” nothing. It’s that sort of mischaracterization that keeps people wrongly informed of what really happened.
Michael #10 wrote:
But what I’m curious about is whether you think Professor Nyers also went over the line, in the story? He also caused great offense, to some people (although there was no emotional investment in a symbol per se.)
The flag analogy you bring up is a good one, but with one significant difference, I think. PZ’s act was more similar to burning a flag to protest a “Flag Protection Amendment,” which makes burning or otherwise desecrating an American flag a criminal act. Would causing offense in that more direct protest situation be evaluated differently by you, than if someone were to offend the patriotic by burning a flag to, say, protest the war?
Thanks, MH @ #1 – hopping good news about Cook and Collard.
As much as I support PZ in his actions, I do think it was better when he was only threatening to desecrate it – because that way their threats and protestations and stupid analogies and cries of bigotry were made even more ludicrous because nothing had actually happened. By doing it he gave them a level of validity they didn’t have before.
It was the Gays’ fault all along!!!
I told YOU!!!
God HaTES Them.
–Fred Phelps
To them it’s more than a symbol but it’s their actual God. I don’t agree with it but I respect their right to believe it.
I don’t respect that one bit. If you have to worship something, at least do yourself a favor and worship something that deserves it, like a transcendant God or even Jesus, not some piece of bread that any idiot can just toss in the dumpster. Christians are supposed to glorify God. How is reducing God to a cracker supposed to do that? My first thought when I saw the picture of the so-called desecration was “That’s IT??” That little thing? That’s their God?
People go on and on and on about how PZ “hates Catholics”. He isn’t the one who painted that big target on their souls, who made them believe something that is literally *unbelievable* in every sense of the word. He didn’t make them so dependant on a twisted religious doctrine that we have to “respect” their beliefs lest they fall apart. If anyone hates Catholics, it’s the church itself.
Maybe instead of just breaking up the pin, if XY Nyers had encouraged people to go to LGBT meetings, take pins, carve pentagrams on them, and then display them it would be better?
I was wondering, are you guys competing for who can start the thread that gets the most comments while PZ is gone?
I think an analogy of flag burning would bring your point across even more efficiently, though I still disagree with you. Flag burning is really something that everybody can relate to, and it can really piss people off.
Even if I see someone burning my nations flag, I really don’t care, though I might not especially like it. It is their right to burn it. It’s a freaking piece of cloth. Any value or emotions attributed to it, is subjective, and should not offend me.
I agree with you (as I believe does the law in most if not all of the western world), but would Bill Donohue? :)
This was a smart and measured post. I completely agree that this is a complicated issue. I understand PZ’s motivation, and yes, context is very important.
Politeness is a civic virtue, and PZ’s actions were impolite in the extreme. The virtue of politeness is not always supreme, however. Many times in the past he has made clear his extreme dislike of superstition, and it’s pretty clear to me that PZ’s beliefs are to him no less important than that windbag Bill Donahue’s beliefs are to him.
At the end of the day, the contents of PZ’s message were serious and the motivation was serious. This was not a sectarian attack. Back to your point about context, I’ve asked myself more than once, what if it were the Star of David he had desecrated – how would I feel then? But the context is different, majorities are not minorities, and motivation matters. A Christian or Muslim professor desecrating a Jewish symbol would certainly motivate me to have him fired, because the history of antisemitism demonstrates that such acts are dangerous in and of themselves, and because an implied act of violence against a small minority is a much more dire thing than an act of desecration made by a member of a minority (an atheist) against the overwhelming majority (Christians).
Nothing about this is black and white, but I do come down on PZ’s side…and I hope and expect he won’t do it again.
It’s about the importance of not always showing kid-glove respect, and of keeping our sense of proportion, and knowing the difference between someone attacking what you do or believe, and someone attacking you.
Hmmm. Maybe I am what I do or believe.
Unless…
“You do a fraction of what you are, you suffer a dreary ooze of your being into doing.” – Samuel Beckett.
Nice analogy!
Unfortunately your link to snopes.com got me sidetracked to a further link to Chick publications, and that caused me to waste most of my day reading tracts. Crazy stuff. But he does have one commenting on the entire eucharist issue. Not exactly full of brotherly love, but that’s standard for Chick tracts I guess: The Death Cookie
Making fun of someone’s beliefs is not in any way comparable with making fun of someone’s intrinsic characteristics. The homophobes in your analogy are bigots because sexual orientation is not a belief; it is an intrinsic component of a person’s real physical makeup. Being Catholic is not.
Would you argue that people have a choice in what they believe? Anyone can choose to convert to any religion for any reason, e.g. potential politicians converting to Chrisitianity, but can people choose what to actually believe in the same way? I don’t really think so; the closest people get is probably selecting what information to expose themselves to and confirmation bias.
I am making up commemorative buttons, Eucharist with protruding nail, and will be bartering them for drinks and whatever else in Long Beach, end of Sept.
I will have 2 versions.
Eucharist pierced by nail, and for agnostics: Eucharist pierced by nail, with tiny blood droplet at entrance wound.
If you’re going, bring something cool to trade.
-scooter
BTW:
on the war thread:
Georgia decided to go west with their OIL, and were building a pipeline directly west from the oilfields in Ossetia, thereby cutting Russia out of the loop.
Russia staged a fake breakaway revolution, then rolled in to quell it.
I think it was somewhat naive of the Georgians for two reasons
1. To think they might get away with it, and not simply paying Russia their cut, aka corporate extortion racket reference planet Earth.
2. Assuming the West would not end up fucking them over worse than Russia in petroleum trading.
Well written.
I hope the people who really need it, read it.
it’s a piece of bread, or a cracker as PZ calls it. To them it’s more than a symbol but it’s their actual God. I don’t agree with it but I respect their right to believe it.
And the swastika is a revered symbol with actual mystical implications for US neo nazis. So you would disagree with somebody desecrating a Nazi Flag as a an act of public protest?
You think if a Jewish person did that they would be going too far?
I like the analogy. But I disagree with the conclusion.
The moment Nyers went for his public pin-desecration it was a foregone conclusion that the action itself would entirely eclipse the preceding events in the public mind. So I don’t have much sympathy with the shouts of “remember the context, remember the context”.
Whether it was his intent of not, it was inevitable that he would be seen as having made a public display of gay-hatred… and even if he’s not a gay-hater, you gotta say that’s not a clever position to put yourself in.
If we add into the mix that Nyers is a traditional Christian with old-school views on homosexuality (less than full-blown hatred but a long, long way short of approving of gay marriage), and if he runs a blog which is very popular with genuine gay-haters who are only too happy to interpret his acts in that way, then that only adds to the suggestion that maybe his choice of protest wasn’t the right one.
Put it this way: the question for me is not whether his actions were justified, but whether they were sensible or useful. I’m all for campaigning against injustice, but there are different ways of doing it, and some of them have significant down-sides.
Scooter, PZ’s point was was serious and important – hold nothing sacred. And he didn’t just take after the cracker, he desecrated a Koran and destroyed a Dawkins book. He was making a legitimate point.
But what you’re doing – if you’re serious – is just infantile provokation. It is not an ecumenical assault on the idea of sacredness, but a sectarian assault on the beliefs of a specific group of people.
Grow up.
Keep the hate alive, sista!
Don’t just let it die, stir it up now and again!
Damn Catholics, jews, black, gays, whatever you don’t like…
No, sorry, the analogy is fundamentally flawed. You have tried to apply rational analogy to an essentially irrational situation. As others have pointed out, no one believes a pin is a living thing and therefore, no one believes it can be kidnapped or held hostage.
Despite the fact that billions of wafers are transmogrified, devoured, digested and defecated every year, people believe that borrowing just one of them amounts to abduction. Is there really any rational analogy you can use to explain away the consequences of such abduction?
The only people you’ll convince are those who already agree with “your side”.
#40
It’s just a futtin’ Button
It’s a good analogy, I think, and Sastra is right. Anyone who is honest with themself would agree… but I somehow doubt any of the screechers are going to change their minds.
Of course it’s silly that Catholics worship a cracker or that some Americans venerate a piece of colored cloth. I find the beliefs bizarre, but in a free society I must respect their right to believe it.
But Atheists must not use cheap theatrics to make their point. Why not try to ask leading Catholic politicians if they think that a piece of bread is their God and the creator of the universe. Put them on the spot and show their beliefs as the nonsense they are. (And of course it’s not just Catholics).
By staging such theatrics it polarizes people, alienates potential converts to rationalism and re-inforces believers preconceptions about atheists.
As Atheists our most important action is to state clearly and rationally to anyone who will listen that there is no God (or Gods) and that it’s perfectly acceptable and rational to acknowledge that. Stunts have no part in that discourse.
I think the real objection here is that a cracker isn’t a symbol of anything since it’s just a cracker. A pin with a certain coloration and form on the other hand is a symbol.
There just isn’t anything special with a cracker. A flag is something special. Both in the fact that it symbolizes something in the real world and in the fact that it is distinguishable from other pieces of cloth. A pin also symbolizes something real, in the example, a group of people. It is also distinguishable from other pieces of pin-shaped metals.
The analogy would be better if it wasn’t a pin but say a bucket of water that the people at the meating saw as “blessed” because some certain homosexual had touched it. There just is now way to distinguish that certain bucket of water and any other bucket of water. It’s impossible to distinguish because the symbolism lies in the superstitious delusion that this bucket of water is special.
Of course we can now argue about the Quaran bit of Myers act. This is kind of bad style whichever book you take. Not because this book is “holy” or “special” in any other way than The God Delusion, but because books often stand for a set of ideas that should be kept intact, although we should always meet them with scepticism. Destroying books isn’t bad because it’s insulting, it’s bad because we just don’t burn books.
Destroying books isn’t bad because it’s insulting, it’s bad because we just don’t burn books.
Is it ok to put them in the recycling bin? I’ve had old versions of textbooks, water damaged books and others that weren’t re-sellable, not very useful, and that I certainly wasn’t going to be keeping as I moved from one apartment to the other. I tossed ’em in the recycling bin; I threw them away. Enough with the fetishism.
I have an analogy: suppose a particular cult gets started that believes chunky peanut butter, when spread with a silver butter knife that a priest has chanted magical words over, becomes more than just chunky peanut butter; it becomes the golden, nuggety life essence of one’s ancestors. When consumed with pure, whole milk, (that has also been chanted over) this magical nuttiness imbues one with the wisdom of the ancients. (And if not properly eaten, the ancestral spirits will writhe in pain.)
The ceremony of Sacred Chunkiness is purposely violated by an uninitiated heathen, and outrage and death threats follow.
What actions would be taken to put a lid on such obvious nonsense and keep it from spreading? Heh
You don’t want to actually hurt them; they are deluded and not thinking straight. They have fallen prey to charismatic charlatans. But if left unchecked, the “Nutters” will try to infiltrate science and teach peanut butter instead of physics. They will try to get us into a war with those who think smooth peanut butter is more sacred. Something has to be done, but what?
One way is to poke the beliefs with a stick–without harming anybody real, or threatening harm in any way. Throw some Sacred Chunky Peanut Butter in a garbage can and let the cult’s ensuing reaction speak for itself, so that all can see how ugly and silly and medieval the whole thing is.
Michael @10,
To [RCs the wafer is] more than a symbol but it’s their actual God. I don’t agree with it but I respect their right to believe it
You’re entirely right, and Cheezits @28 has misread you. But have you thought through what your words imply? They aren’t really an argument against sticking pins through wafers.
What you haven’t said is that you respect RC beliefs about their wafers. You’ve said that you respect their right to believe those things. Very different proposals altogether.
Respecting the right of others to believe (or not believe) as they see fit is fundamental to a liberal, pluralist political order. There are few institutions I detest more than the RC church, but in the extremely unlikely event that a government tried to enact laws (say) denying the vote to people who refused to renounce RCism, I would object very strongly, and I hope everybody else here would as well.
Respecting the beliefs themselves is another matter. To respect another’s beliefs, one must share them, or at least think them a sort of “honourable error”. There are some religious beliefs I’d class in the latter category. For example, Christians (or at least some of them) believe that by working self-sacrificingly to allevate the plight of the poor and sick, they participate in Jesus’s love for mankind. I think that belief wrong, because I don’t believe that Jesus has any love for mankind or anything else, though possibly he did before he died a couple of millennia ago. But, though I think the belief wrong, I can see that it is motivated by a desire for the good, and that it can inspire objectively good acts. So yes, it merits some respect.
By contrast, believing a wafer turns into God Almighty Himself — and in a way that by definition can never, in any way, be observed or verified empirically to boot! — is just plain stupid. (Indeed, it’s not only unworthy of respect from a non-religious perspective, it’s off the reservation even from the perspective of almost all non-catholic Christians.) It is a belief on par with the conviction that stepping on a crack will break your mama’s back, and worthy of exactly as much respect.
The more difficult question is the one that falls in between those two. Can we respect people who hold beliefs that we can’t respect? I don’t think there’s a single answer here. It comes down to whether the respect-worthy stuff outweighs the ludicrous stuff. But in any case, one doesn’t respect the ludicrous stuff itself, whilst one does respect the person’s right to believe that sort of thing if they want to.
I’ll admit I went to UCF. When I was there we had a tradition, “speaking on the green”. In the front of the school, near the admin building and big fountains, anybody could set up shop, and scream whatever they wanted at the top of their lungs. To a kid getting out in the world for the first time it was quite exciting. You got to here all kinds of different extreme views.
Needless to say I sat through many a diatribe about how, “gays are looking to infect you.”, etc… One day there was a group with aborted baby fetus pictures 6+ feet tall. Several of them. I heard many dialogs about how we were all going to hell, etc. Satan wanted us to use condoms, masterbation is a deadly sin. You name it, some preacher would go to the green and say it.
What I’m getting at is they loudly professed all kinds of “evils” of gays/lesbians. Most the students just stood around giggling at the stupidity pouring from these people, but I never saw any real reaction.
I think your analogy is only apt in that it shows how over the top ridiculous the religious are being. They already do the exact thing they are insinuating this kid *MAY* have been doing. When it’s their bigotry, they are fine with it. It’s only bigotry against them that they have issue with.
Parts of this conversation – especially Scooter’s – reflect little more than a deliberate embrace of ignorance. That’s a trait I usually associate with conservatives.
Scooter, and PZ actually, are you denying that human beings engage in abstract thought and think symbolically? Do you deny that symbols exist? Does it surprise you that a discrete thing can come to represent a large and complex set of views?
Look, you cannot have it both ways. You can use the power of symbols to make your point – abusing a cracker, making juvenile buttons of the eucharist – and then, when somebody objects, pretend to be surprised and say, hey, it’s just a cracker or a button.
Don’t be coy. You know exactly what you’re doing.
I’m an atheist too. PZ was right that sacred thinking is dangerous, and it ought to be countered. But this deliberate embrace of ignorance, where we’re all supposed to pretend that only fundamentalists think symbolically or attach importance to certain objects, is just retarded.
I visited a former slave shack in South Carolina a few years ago. The shackles were still attached to the walls – that’s an image I will never forget, and it’s hard to describe the impact those objects had on my psyche, but trusts me. And I saw some teenagers goofing around with them, and I wanted to deck them. Physical violence was not justified and I didn’t do anything of the kind, but the reaction I felt was profound – it was because those dumb kids were disrespecting an important symbol, sacred in a human sense if not a supernatural sense.
I’m not talking about whether they had a right to do what they did, I’m talking about whether you’re too dense to understand that symbols matter. You apparently are.
Nicely done, Sastra, although I would add that your story provides a lower bound rather than an analogy – at every step, the actions of Webster Cook and PZ Myers were at least as justified as the actions of Winslow Cork and XY Nyers, and most of them were more justified. I could argue every detail of that with confidence, but I don’t want to preach to the choir here.
I brought up the analogy with gay rights early on, at the end of this post, but from a different perspective. The point I was making was that it is unacceptable to argue that an act can be unethical because some people get upset (or even pained) by mere knowledge/awareness of it:
This goes to the heart of the “I am offended” argument, to which a lot of liberals are unfortunately very receptive.
BTW, I wrote several other posts on the Wafergate issue, and I would be very interested in your comments.
Michael (#10):
There’s respect, and then there’s respect. Catholics may have a right to believe as they do, and I imagine that most of us here would defend that right (and also the right to practice the rituals that revolve around their beliefs, where said practice does not infringe on the rights of others). That’s one form of respect, and one to which they are entitled.
But they’re not entitled to respect for their beliefs if “respect” is meant to entail exemption of those beliefs from criticism. Nor are they entitled to “respect” for their beliefs if that is meant to entail that their beliefs be taken seriously – that kind of respect needs to be earned, by showing that those beliefs are at least vaguely reasonable.
One could argue for civility even when criticising unreasonable beliefs, if only to maintain an atmosphere in which reasoned discourse is possible, and there’s certainly something to be said for that. But in a situation (e.g., Crackergate) when one’s opponents have no apparent desire to engage in reasoned discourse, then it’s not clear that civility is always going to remain one’s best option for making one’s point, or even for getting heard.
That was my initial reaction during the early stages of the affair. But then came the real outpourings of sanctimonious, hysterical, knee-jerk Catholic group-think (not to mention the threats), and when PZ did get round to The Great Desecration, it wasn’t gratuitous or desecration for the sake of desecration – he used it to underline a worthwhile point. So in my book, PZ comes out well ahead.
Per-Erik Svenson @46
I have to disagree – anything can be a symbol. You say later that a flag is a symbol because it symbolises something special – is this because people have taken the time and effort to design and colour it, as with the pin? If so, what about a white flag? Its symbolism is well known but no one had to make it special – it’s a symbol of surrender or parlay because enough people have agreed that it is so to make it generally recognisable as such.
The issue isn’t whether a cracker is a symbol or not because it clearly is for a lot of people wether we share that symbolism with them or not. The question is – so what if it’s a symbol?
There’s one deal-breaker in the analogy: People don’t choose to be gay (or black or any other oppressed racial/gender group based solely on the accident of birth). Now, maybe if you used the Young Republicans, or Communists, or Libertarians it might of worked out better. After all, being a one of those is a choice.
But once you equate matter of choice with matters of birth, you’re going to fall flat on your face.
The question; “Could PZ have been more thoughtful” invites an irrelevant truism. Of course he could have been more thoughtful, more sensitive, gentler, kinder, etc. It is to insist that he be someone else, that he do what I would do, that there is one, single right answer to the question of “how to protest?”
But protest is by nature disruptive, confrontational, offensive. To be effective protest has to cross lines. Lots of good people won’t “get it” but it carves out space for people who are afraid to express their doubts. It lets the worst offenders know they don’t have a free pass. You don’t hack a road through the jungle with a nail file; you use chainsaws. Somebody else will pave it later.
(Less ecologically harmful analogies than the jungle road one are welcome.)
@35
Yes. One is free to choose what god(s) one believes in. One is not free to choose skin colour, physical or mental handicap, gender, or sexual orientation. They are not comparable.
Belief in a particular god or gods is no different than support for a particular political party or sports team (actually, it’s LESS consequential because political parties and sports teams actually exist!). I am not expected to cherish other people’s political views; no one would call me a bigot for ridiculing someone’s fiscal policy, for example. But for some reason, calling a cracker a cracker is “offensive”? Give me a break.
I disagree with the analogy, because the ‘Christian’ character carried it farther than Cook did. If it were a bit closer of an analogy (Goes in, takes the pin, doesn’t don it, and is kicked out because people think he might be a bigot, blah blah blah), then sure, I’d support “Nyers” for demonstrating the ridiculousness of the entire affair.
Michael:
There is a big difference between respecting the right to believe something and respecting the belief itself. I agree with you that we must respect their right, but that in no way implies that we shouldn’t ridicule their beliefs. Respecting the right to believe simply means that we don’t discriminate against the people who hold those beliefs or treat them worse for those beliefs outside the context pertinent for the discussion of those beliefs.
I think analogies don’t help in this situation. It should be simple. Death threats are several orders of magnitude worse than mere rudeness or insult. To criticize the insult and ignore the threats is absurd. Particularly when the insult was a response to the threats.
You left out the part where they physically assault Cork to try and get the pin back. That helps with context because you see how both how important the symbol is to them, and the initial boundaries of civility they crossed to enforce their views.
…this whole incident has got me thinking. How would they respond if you asked them to reccomend a good cheese to go with the cracker?
I have to agree with moses on this one. I like the analogy but I think it has issues in that choice to believe vs. born “that way” makes a big difference.
Maybe not to the people being offended, but to reality.
I understand this “other side” analysis of Crackergate. I would say that given such a situation where a GLBT group came down hard on someone like that, and tried to get them exposed and expelled would be an overreach. A person who did such would not be someone I’d necessarily trust given his/her actions, but it’s not like he/she was committing violence. And the disruption, though unfortunate and insensitive, would be just one of those unfortunate things that many a group has to deal with.
We see this in many facets of political debate. The “Nazi” argument has become the debate strategy de jour for many people, and the “communist/socialist” charge is nearly as common. Other words that are thrown around with abandon are “anti-semite”, “bigot”, and a few obvious others. These are all seemingly easy things to throw around. I’m not sure why it is this way, but I’m inclined to take stock in the explanation that says it’s partly due to a lack of civics instruction in school. The stratification of the political landscape in America that’s been happening since the mid 60s has a lot to do with it.
Another way of looking at this scenario would be, what would you do if someone called your mother a whore/slut/fill-in-the-blank to your face? Would you get violent? Would you say “whatever” and walk away? Would you laugh and point? What would be your response? If someone created effigies of historical figures you admired, what would be your reaction? I think it’s rather easy to consider other forms of this scenario, and make a reasonable determination on our individual reactions, and what responses would be/not be warranted.
I appreciate the effort of trying to bring out the context as important. but I found the analogy of gay rights group vs christian not so good flags maybe . It seemed to unlikely the reaction of the gay community would be that extreme and maybe a little insulting to imply that they would react that way.
it is picking and choosing which details you want to consider that causes the biggest problems and that I think is what you were trying to get at we must look at the whole thing including the history. I would not have used a nail myself but might have included some worms and snails or roaches to bring it down to earth.
a further thought on religious images and confusion.
In the ancient days the teachers used riddles to teach religious truth more. people were more unfamiliar with them . Modern “americans” do not use riddles to teach or to play with much at all the abramic religions seems particularly maladapt and rely on the literal meaning and mystery with out using reason to try and solve the riddles
#51
That would be language
is that a trick question ?
Yeah, Does it surprise you that a discrete thing can come to represent a large and complex set of views?
No, a symbol is an abbreviation, I see the Olympic symbol I know what it references, same with the NASA Logo and the cross w/ jeusus=Catholic, cross, no-jesus = protestant.
You really missed the point on that one, not the least bit surprising to me. An act of protest always draws objections. We always hung the American Flag upside down during the Vietnam War, until everybody did it, then it was pointless.
As to your foray into the shackle story, you’re confusing imagery with symbols.
Feeling:
a. weepy
b violent
over inanimate objects doesn’t change anything does it?
My reaction to that particular ongoing struggle is to.
Infiltrate the Klan meeting in Tomball Texas wearing a wire then playing the tape on the radio and ridiculing the bastards.
And becoming active in the anti-death penalty movement primarily for it’s racist applications.
DOING something about it.
Guess what, you can get on the always frisk and fly list, and get shot at have loons break into your organization with a knife (last week) and not even HAVE any symbols.
Action is not symbolic, symbols are symbolic, and no I don’t get all weepy if the kids are watching Sesame Street when it is brought to you by the letter A.
Death threats are several orders of magnitude worse than mere rudeness or insult.
Well, yeah. I’ve been critical of PZ in this business – but obviously the assholes throwing death-threats around are incomparably worse.
But I’d have thought we’d take that as a given.
“I pledge allegiance to the flag….” I find this very offensive and wish it wasn’t enshrined in the public school system. There shouldn’t be any laws requiring me or anyone else to respect any symbol (witht he exception of a competing historical or monetary value). One thing that has been strengthened for me in all of this is that anyone should be fee to ‘desecrate’ whatever symbol they wish including those that are special to me. It appears that some of the arguments here are implying that it should be otherwise.
There are several different issues being discussed in this thread. The respect one and the tactics one have been addressed extensively but free speech/symbology is a little fresher imho.
It’s a nice attempt, but you do have to ask whether that situation would actually occur. A gay support group is i think unlikely to do this. We really couldn’t be seen dead shouting “you stole my rainbow” and writing hate speech against christians.
Really, if we stood up against or wrote about every bit of hate speech against us from the christian right… well, I couldn’t keep a full time job too.
Thanks for saying what I was about to, Citizen Z.
I had at first felt similar to several of the thoughts expressed here, that PZ’s actions were regrettable. But once the death threats began, the need for “propriety” and “respect” was erased.
Nyers and Myers were both 100% justified in their actions, even if said actions “insulted” people not personally involved in the respective situations. If you want to wear membership in some group as a badge of honor/superiority/whatever, you need criticize fellow group-members when they go beyond the boundaries of acceptable behavior in your club’s name. Failing to do so makes your subsequent complaint that your views aren’t being respected laughable.
If someone has the right not to be offended by my actions, that implies I have a duty not to offend. And that just isn’t true.
As a Fordham instructor, Robert O’Malley SJ, said, “there are no atheists, just people who have doubts about God.” To all the bloggers who think the Eucharist is a cracker, explain to me the miracles of the Eucharist. It is the actual body and blood of christ. There is a monstrance in Rome and yes they did DNA testing on it. This particularly beautiful monstrance had a host put in it and was put away for many many years. When the priest discovered the monstrance there was no host, but actual flesh where the host was supposed to be and in the base of the monstrance it was blood red. Not only there are miracles like this involving the Eucharist, but explain to me the many faith communities who have perpetual adoration and many miracles occur from that. All it takes is faith, you only need to have a little faith, just as small as a mustard seed. As for the author calling people out for having faith, I am one of the people he called out and offended. Yes, I am a Catholic and very proud to be Catholic.
I think the analogy is pitch perfect – it set off all my liberal athiestic tendencies, but I agree whole-heartedly with it’s conclusion.
Mike @ #8 – the point of the analogy is for the Xians to understand the context of PZs actions, and most of them don’t see being gay as something you can’t change.
Mrs. Tiller @ #49 – of course you can respect somebody that has beliefs you don’t respect. I have a ton of friends that I argue with all the time over such points (I live in Los Angeles, and the woo factor here is unbelievable). That is why they are friends, because you can have such conversations with them and still hang out.
Another context of this debate is also that of majority opinion vs. minority opinion. A free society must protect the rights of minority or unpopular speech, perhaps more vigorously, than popular speech. Popular speech, by definition, doesn’t need protection.
Part of this post’s analogy, I suspect, is not solely aimed at the Xians who are so vehemently anti-Myers, but at PZ’s defenders as well. That is why it works.
As a Fordham instructor, Robert O’Malley SJ, said, “there are no atheists, just people who have doubts about God.”
blah blah blah
As a member of the LGBT community, I’d react very critically to the actions of the gay support group where it all started, but I wouldn’t approve of the actions of Prof.Nyers. Wouldn’t send him hate mail or whatever, but I’d probably send him an email as a homosexual who clearly condemns the actions of the gay support group and of the nationally syndicated gay rights columnist, but still would tell him that I think his actions were ridiculous and that he’s an anti-homosexual bigot.
And I don’t mind if catholics had done the same to PZ, but they didn’t. They never condemned the actions of their fellow catholics who started it.
I’d expect anyway reactions to both Prof.Nyers and Myers, that’s why they are doing it anyways.
I supported PZ because I thought he was courageous and for once trying to move the Overton Window on the other side, to make the cause of non religious people in this country better known.
So there’s an issue here of minority vs majority which I miss in the analogy. Civil liberties causes are for minorities to gain better acceptance. There’s none of this in Prof.Nyers’ actions. Ths was key with PZ’s actions.
So your analogy works to demonstrate your last point, with which I agree, but I don’t think it captures the issue of civil liberties, which for me, was the most important one.
Bob, can you please provide links to this supposed miracle where DNA testing was done?
@73
And they are wrong. I’ve never once made the choice to be heterosexual; I am heterosexual. This is in no way comparable to someone saying “I am a Catholic” or “I am Muslim”. No, you believe in Catholicism; you believe in Islam.
I suppose that Professor ‘XY’ was a man.
nobi yuno @ #51: “I’m an atheist too. PZ was right that sacred thinking is dangerous, and it ought to be countered. But this deliberate embrace of ignorance, where we’re all supposed to pretend that only fundamentalists think symbolically or attach importance to certain objects, is just retarded.”
I don’t think that was the point; I think we can ALL agree that some object hold symbolic significance of some sort, and in some cases (as in the shackles example you cite) a degree of respect and seriousness is called for.
The point is that the failure to properly respect such symbols shouldn’t be an excuse for character assassination or threats of physical violence. There’s a difference between believing in symbolic significance and valuing symbolic significance over the lives or livelihoods of others, and I think the fact that some people apparently value the former over the latter is a side effect of certain kinds of religious belief that should be acknowledged.
In other words, the point, I think, was not that symbolism doesn’t or shouldn’t exist, it’s that it should be put in proper perspective.
“People don’t choose to be gay (or black or any other oppressed racial/gender group based solely on the accident of birth).”
I’m not at all convinced that homosexuals do not have a choice. They certainly have a choice as to whether they commit sodomy (as do I) which is more important than any innate tendencies.
I would also dispute your analogy because the Christian may feel morally obligated to offer his advice and to take a public stand. Any offence was merely a by-product of his action and not the primary function.
For a different perspective I would consider my analogies more thoroughly:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/one_goofy_site.php
(comment #192)
Some of the analogies I offer may seem, at first appraisal, extreme but this is an effort in conscience raising, as Dawkins likes to call it.
_________________________________________________________
Dies Irae, Down in the River
The other point might be that LGBT have been dealing with these kind of moral brow beatings for decades… if not longer. So somebody swiping a pin and then breaking is small potatoes. I don’t think anyone would be too surprised or bothered by it.
So while the analogy might be spot on. The described reaction isn’t believable. Unless, the Cork fellow made threats or called people names, which would probably violate school policies and then they would be uproar from the gay/lesbian community.
The truth is that Catholics don’t like their irrational beliefs questioned or mocked. Being gay isn’t a belief system, it’s a biological fact for the most part.
@72
ONG, the Vatican has a machine that makes monsters ?
ewwwww
yucky, how do you control the flies?
#51
The point is that catholics do not see the cracker as a symbol, as symbolically god, but *literally* as god. It becomes god. It is the flesh and blood of god. It is god. Not a symbol for god. If it was a symbol only, you would have a point, but that is exactly what it is not.
And there wasn’t any surprise there was a reaction. The surprise was in the massive overreaction. Not at all what one would expect from throwing a symbol in the trash.
I am shocked, shocked, by how many people seem to have completely missed the point, both of the original Myers “desecration event”, and Sastra’s analogy. Nitpicking Sastra’s analogy misses the point completely. It was not meant to be a perfect mirror-image of PZ’s controversy, but to illustrate PZ’s motivation for it.
For example, this comment (#4):
The point was not to “prove” that the wafer is just bread. DNA tests would be completely pointless, Catholics recognize that the wafer remains indistinguishible from bread, just that it is now the “essense” of Christ. The point PZ was trying to make is that Catholics have a right to believe their nonsense and non-Catholics have a right to not believe it. The second point was to illustrate the odd priorities Donohue was placing on the original event, that nothing could be more horrific than not eating the wafer once consecrated. And thirdly, yes, I think he did want to offend Catholics to express his anger at the Catholic response to the original event.
Again, like Sastra pointed out at the start of her posting, PZ didn’t just decide one day to take on the Catholic church and disprove their miracle of transubstantiation. No, he read about an outrageous attack on a student for a minor slip in ritual procedures. He protested this with the equivalent of a flag burning. Yes, it was meant to offend, to get people riled up, to maybe get them actually to think about what was really going on. But predictably, too many see only the flag burning and do not ask why the protester is burning it. It is not to show that the flag is only cloth, it is to demonstrate that the government (or the people) behind that flag are doing something offensive.
@80
Perhaps we should ask someone who would know best: a homosexual person.
Only if you believe that the desire for sexual intercourse, of any kind, if a ‘choice’. If it is not a choice, but rather an innate component of what makes us human, then you cannot fault homosexuals for ‘sodomy’ (i.e. sex) any more than I can fault you for your particular sexual preferences.
Moreover, this whole notion of choice is, I think, a bit beside the point. The fact is that even if homosexuality were 100% chosen (which seems unlikely, given that homosexuality is common in non-human animals, and given that I have never ‘chosen’ to be heterosexual), the analogy is still bad; the fact is that people have a sexual orientation (chosen or not) which is real. Yahweh is not; and that cracker is not Jesus.
Ah, maybe here’s the place to deliver a tidbit which fell on stony ground in Danio’s “Giving Up the Ghost” thread:
OT (somewhat): Let PZ into a country, and …
“It’s about the importance of not always showing kid-glove respect, and of keeping our sense of proportion, and knowing the difference between someone attacking what you do or believe, and someone attacking you.”
Exactly! It’s about understanding the difference between respecting a person and respecting an idea. I may respect a person whose idea(s) I do not respect.
Unless they are purely aesthetic and harmless, why would ideas deserve respect beyond the extent to which they are supported by evidence?
I see our happy rape and torture fetishist is back.
SASTRA
I think you blew it by calling your story an ‘analogy’ and a ‘hypothetical’ judging from the literalist interpretations in the comments section.
You are not really suggesting that Gay Rights organizations would ACTUALLY behave like fringe loon Catholics, that was clear to me.
Therefore, your short piece is not a hypothetical, nor an analogy nor even a metaphor. What you have written is a parody I got it right away, but I think many of the commenters are reading it as an analogy, you did call it that..
#80
Sodomy is awesome. You should try it!
Reminds me of an episode of Seinfeld, Kramer signs up to walk in a “Walk to Cure AIDS”, but refuses to wear the ribbon. He thinks that walking in the event itself demonstrates his support. At some point during the walk he gets attacked by a couple of gay characters for not wearing it and “crashing” the event.
Nice post, Sastra, and thought-provoking. Indeed, in such a case, I would still support the student’s right to free speech, and condemn threats against him. I’d also support “Nyers'” right to dispose of a pin in protest at the threats. Put like this, it appears to be mostly a free speech issue, and a clear message that you should not let free speech be blocked by threats.
However, my support for Nyers would not be the same as my support for Myers, and it’s not because I think rainbow pins are a “different sacred cow” that I just happen to agree with.
As you already indicated, no analogy is perfect, and I think there is one very important difference between your hypothetical case of “Cork and Nyers Vs. Gays” and the case of “Cook and Myers Vs Catholics”, and that is that the positions of power and privilege are reversed between the cases.
That is, as Christians, Cork and Nyers would be confronting gays from a position of power and privilege. The confrontation can therefore only serve to reinforce their position of privilege over gays, even if it was intended as a pure protest for free speech – which isn’t a very impressive protest to begin with, as it’s only demonstrating that a dominant group has free speech against a minority. So while I would support their right to free speech, and applaud them from speaking out against the threats, I see little other reason to applaud their actions.
Cook and Myers, on the other hand, confronted the Catholic Church against the Church’s position of power and privilege. In fact, a large part of PZ’s motivation was to protest against this very position of privilege, and to question whether the Catholic Church should be entitled to it just for being a religion. PZ’s demonstration shows you also have free speech when a minority speaks against a privileged group. It even showed that such a group will try to do just about anything in its power to protect their privileges.
As such, PZ’s demonstration has tremendously more educational value than Nyers’ demonstration ever will. This is why I think PZ deserves more support and respect for his actions than the hypothetical “Nyers”.
The last paragraph from the news article MH linked to in #1 – No expulsion for UCF student who stole Eucharist wafer:
It took 7 hours? It should have taken one minute to throw the whole thing out. Now there’s going to be an impeachment hearing for cracker abuse. The students at this university are idiots.
Faith is a disease that ruins people’s lives and it would be immoral to not try to eradicate it. That’s why I’d like to see some more cracker abuse, and much more ridicule of religious stupidity.
Other people might prefer to gently and politely try to persuade religious morons to give up their medieval beliefs. Unfortunately that method rarely works. It’s not possible to reason with the batshit insane. I think it’s better to treat religious people the same way as racists are treated, with contempt.
Given the topic of the original post, plus some people’s inability to understand that the word ‘analogy’ does not equate to Mary Poppins’ “practically perfect in every way”, and the fact that Rooke has just shown up, I’m guessing this thread is heading for around 400 comments. Off to bed, I think – I’ll see if I’m right tomorrow.
OH, sometimes I feel like beating a dead horse, beating a dead horse.
Posted by Bob Suszka #72:
I don’t just have doubts about the magic fairy you believe in. I’m 100% certain there is no such thing, except in the imaginations of insane gullible morons like yourself.
Posted by Bob Suszka #72:
Let me fix that for you.
Bob Suszka is a brainwashed idiot and he’s very proud to be a brainwashed idiot.
No Pete, your analogies are not conscience raising. All they are raising is the level of inanity.
Meta-discussion: The analogy is not a congruent match for the actual chain of events, nor can it be. Analogies in science are models. We can test attributes of the models to gain information about the real world and develop concepts as to how the real world functions from such models. Outside of a scientific construct, analogies fail because the situations they are meant to describe are complex with many attributes, many uncontrolled variables and we have no evaluative method, acceptable to all, whereby ludacris social behaviors (or imperfect analogies) can be recognized as such and discarded.
Sastra,
You’re right, this matter is nowhere near dead. I have to agree with most of the other commenters who have pointed out the faults in your analogy. When I was reading your post though, for a second I thought you were going to go in another direction with the ‘sacred cow’ analogy that I thought would apply to this situation quite well. Then you didn’t.
Actually, when you think about it, blasphemy and “cracker” desecration happens everyday, everywhere, to anybody that holds any object sacred. But going back to the ‘sacred cow’, could you imagine if a group of Hindu’s were to protest at a slaughterhouse, or a steakhouse? You’re sitting eating your dinner when a Hindu approaches you and takes your steak away, offended that you would treat one of their sacred animals in this way. The christians would be up in arms! How dare they try to force their religious beliefs on me! (i get really annoyed when firefox wants to capitalize ‘christians’)
First off, I would like to ask the catholics if god is everywhere. That is what I was taught when I was young. If god is everywhere, then wouldnt he have already been in the cracker, in the nail and in the trash can? Think about it, wouldnt god have been in that tree you cut down last year and burned as firewood? Is that sacralige too?
Must be a hard life defending an all powerful god against mere mortals…
Second, I would like to ask Rooke @80 how old he was when he decided his sexual orientation (i’m going to assume straight), how much research he put into the decision and if it is a decision he has to reaffirm every so often.
Mr P
This is easily the craziest thing I’ve read today.
Seek help.
Truth is strange than fiction which is my polite way of saying I think your analogy misses the point. A rainbow pin is a symbol but no one would attach any sacrilege to its destruction. The thing that made the Cook story unique was the Catholic belief of transubstantiation in which the wafer (or cracker as PZ called it) changes. Nothing changes in your analogy.
Also, many Christians think the rainbow itself is a symbol that the flood won’t return. (You know, that big flood that Christians claim covered the earth.) I use to attend an MCC church which serves mostly glbt people but we had an attendee at ours who was a gay-friendly neighbor. One day she told us that she didn’t like gays using the rainbow as a symbol.
Janet Parshall, a right-wing commentator, claimed a few years ago that gays stole the rainbow symbol. Because she was sooo serious, she did sound downright silly. The impetus for her comments was the fact that the University of Hawaii was changing its nickname from “Rainbow Warriors” to just “Warriors.” Hmmm, homophobic Hawaiians, who knew.
Perhaps we have stolen the rainbow. I have friends that belong to Rainbow Sash which is a group of Catholics who wear a rainbow sash to church to make it clear they are receiving the Eucharist as open homosexuals. (Another Catholic NO NO.) Sometimes they receive the wafer; other times, they haven’t. Also, other parishioners have castigated or spat upon them.
Posted by Bob Suszka #72: As a Fordham instructor, Robert O’Malley SJ, said, “there are no atheists, just people who have doubts about God.”
I wish I could say “There are no theists, just people who have doubts about reality.” Unfortunately there really are people who are certain there’s an invisible man hiding in the clouds watching over the human apes, who performs magic tricks like turning crackers into the blood of the dead decomposed Jebus. There is no word strong enough to describe the insanity of theists.
And before somebody tells me not all theists are insane, I would like to know what’s sane about believing in a magical fairy. God is just another word for magic. A belief in magic is not sane.
I don’t know if anyone else has addressed this yet, but your analogy has at least one big flaw: people choose their religions, but not their sexuality.
How this impacts the remainder of your thought exercise is certainly open to debate.
Steve_C wrote:
Which comes around to PZ’s point — the reaction itself to Cook and then PZ’s own actions were simply crazy. No one would claim that the rainbow pin is a sacred, magical object. While the analogy works up to a point, no one believes that gays would over react in the same way and that just reinforces how crazy the Catholic reaction was.
Maybe an analogy that involved flag burning might make for a more believable over reaction?
Great post Sastra, you really need to get your own blog, it’s rare to read such a clear and critical thinker. Still as you yourself obviously understand there are a few things that don’t match up, which is inevitable.
I have two main problems with the analogy, as I guess some people already pointed out. On one side that the gay community doesn’t put the same level of mystical meaning on the pin that catholics do on the cracker. That was part of PZ’s point though I guess – I’m guessing there is no simple material object that the gay community or most other non-religious communities would value as highly as a person. And I see that as a good thing.
And of course the fact that gays have been prosecuted, pretty much all the time by almost everyone. Catholics on the flip side haven’t been seriously prosecuted since Rome made them the state church, and they only recently stopped prosecuting other people. I think this is the bigger problem with the analogy. It’s related to the reason that I support affirmative action even though it is technically reverse racism. The historical context of the groups involved matters, alot.
However, I don’t find this whole argument that gays don’t have a choice whereas catholics do relevant. Personally I don’t think being gay is something you choose. But how does it really matter? If people chose to be gay would it then be fine to force them to stop being gay? I don’t think so.
Even with all those caveats, great analogy ;).
Don’t worry. Rooke will say something even crazier eventually. I don’t even bother. He’s not even amusingly crazy. Just twisted.
#48 RamblinDude
Dude, I’m busy right now, but I’m going to try that in a Jif.
Sastra, I’m not entirely sure your analogy works, because I just don’t see how wearing a pin upside-down would be sufficient to generate the necessary outrage. You’re still relegating the host to the status of a symbol, while the Catholics can not.
So I see the crux of this problem as stemming from the Catholics’ delusion that a wafer actually becomes Jesus Christ. There just isn’t any secular alternative to that insane idea, and ones that are offered (it would be like killing your child) sound absurdly hyperbolic to our ears. Far from believing we should to try to empathize with such a belief, I find it extremely dangerous to entertain such an idea. The host isn’t Jesus. It’s a frickin’ cracker. And thus the conflict is nothing short of a battle over reality itself.
Their “outrage” stems from a (dangerous?) delusion. To what degree are we obligated to oblige them? To what degree are we obligated to resist? Those, to me, are the main issues.
I’m gay and am pretty certain that if someone openly, publicly with a large audience, smashed a rainbow pin to show contempt for homosexuality there would be a firestorm of outrage. Death threats are not out of the question either. This ourage tends to carry ‘discussion’ of the moral issues far and wide. This is without considering the justification of anger or whether some other response is more appropriate.
In the long run when people like Rev. Phelps protest, their postion loses ground because the underlying fundamental morality is deficient. Not so for PZ.
I like the Nyer-analogoy (and I’m a lesbian). I guess one should mark the difference that sexual orientation is likely not a matter of choice, though, while I am very certain religion is despite childhood indoctrination.
However, calling the dessecration or abuse of a free gay pin a ‘hate crime’ is what makes the point for me. It’s not. It’s intolerant (in ways I would clearly mark different from intolerance against religion because of the choice-matter), but it doesn’t warrant expulsion, massive attacks and a witch hunt of any sort – not unless the person’s intolerance shows itself in ways that are directly discriminating against people. XY Nyers might very well make a mockery out of the uproar because it is ludicrous.
In the end, you might even have exaggarated your analogy (not meant as criticism). The cracker that was stolen, as far as I understood it, to mock Christianity or dissecrate it. It was quietly taken away, for purposes nobody knows, but probably nothing big at all.
Well, that little example made no sense, because the kid that started it all did NOT disrespect the Eucherest in any way. Nor did he get up in front of everybody telling them that their religion was wrong.
Regarding monstrance-
Looks to me like it could be used as a little circumcision guillotine, maybe thats where the flesh came from.
Joke for today-
What do you pay a rabbi for perfoming a circumcision?
Nothing, he works for tips.
Barump bump, phst, AYIII!
The problem is, whether PZ ever intended to offend these people or not, there is no right whatsoever not to be offended and frankly, I think they deserve it. There seems to be no other way to make these fools accept reality, certainly rational thinking and logical discourse have failed, Catholics have shown time and time again that logic is a foreign concept to them. Maybe a good solid kick in the head and a few million people pointing and laughing at them and saying “You believe Jesus is a cracker? Are you out of your mind?” might help some?
I have no problem with offending Catholics or Muslims or Christians or Jews or anyone else. For most, their ridiculous beliefs are offensive enough to me, why should they be immune to having their faults pointed out?
Bob Suszka wrote:
See, this is the level of insanity you can’t get from a gay organization.
Suszka, can you prove your claims?
And do you also believe in talking snakes?
What you haven’t said is that you respect RC beliefs about their wafers. You’ve said that you respect their right to believe those things.
Oh! I see what you mean. Yes, people do have the right to believe stupid things. Just so I have the right to remind them how stupid it is. *smirk*
Roorke,
So, there’s another hole that my boyfriend and I can use, without inviting a third party, where we won’t be committing sodomy? I never knew!!
Oh, wait, you meant that I could choose to have sex with a woman, instead. Except, tried that and the equipment didn’t work. Unless, of course, Satan was deliberately deflating my tallywhacker.
There seems to be no other way to make these fools accept reality, certainly rational thinking and logical discourse have failed, Catholics have shown time and time again that logic is a foreign concept to them.
A better question would be: Did PZ’s desecration yield a net positive effect for us?
I doubt that any true believers changed their minds as a result, but am willing to be persuaded otherwise by data. My suspicion is that the dead-enders just dug in harder.
Then there’s the effect of this act on the more moderate believers who believe that the host is merely a symbol. Did PZ’s actions cause significant numbers of those folks to realize how deluded and dangerous the true believers are?
I hate to take debating points from pop culture, however good, but I can’t help but by reminded of a quite from C. J. Craig (The West Wing):
“In this sort of thing, there are no victims, just volunteers.”
As a Fordham instructor, Robert O’Malley SJ, said, “there are no atheists, just people who have doubts about God.”
And as atheist blog commentator, Cheezits, said “Bullshit.”
Yes. A couple things. One, I’ve laughed my ass off at some of the comments. But that is minor.
Two, exposing the sheer insanity and unmeasured response from the Catholics was worth it.
But what we are really dealing with is a violation of our secular culture.
In the real world and your hypothetical – the attention whores violated the good faith extended to them by both groups. There were no loyalty tests required to attend those functions, both groups welcomed the attention whores with open arms. With the understanding that in their space, there would be a respect for the norms of the group.
Instead they violated the social contract – take advantage of the groups openness. If that attention whore down in Florida just ate the cracker like everybody else at the mass, There wouldn’t have been any problems. Even if he wrote in the school newspaper the next day about the fast one he pull over those Catholics. But he decided to taut them. And the problem is when you decide to taunt people, you never know how they are going to react.
And the Catholics decided to treat the attention whores with the same amount of respect, that was shown to them.
I have long thought one benefit of “crackergate” is what it showed the Catholic Church to be what is actually is. Too many people seem to regard the Catholic Church as being moderate. When we have a Church official physically attacking Webster Cook and a spokesperson for the dioceses calling what he did a “hate crime” then I would hope some people who might have thought Catholics were allies in the fight against creationists would have cause to re-think.
The right to believe includes the right to not believe, and that includes not having to behave as if you do. The Catholics who were offended by the desecration of a cracker want everyone to hold their symbol in the same high regard they do and are intolerant of those who don’t.
Because the point was not that they believe the cracker is god, it’s that they are completely intolerant of those who don’t.
Concern noted. Zzzzzzzzz.
Yes, they do. You probably would have told Rosa Parks she should have sat in the back of the bus and not made a scene. Your way doesn’t work.
Why shocked? People believe things, and generally take poorly to having their beliefs questioned.
sarcasm
What I believe is right; what those other crazy people believe is wrong. Why should I even attempt to view the issue from their perspective? They’re *wrong*!
What, PZ and Sastra are making important philosophical points? Bah, too busy bashing those “crazy people” and supporting my right (and very imporant!) point of view to pay attention to something so trivial!
/sarcasm
;)
I’m not sure you have your facts straight.
Bob Suszka (#72):
Never got round to posting the following during Crackergate itself, but since Bob has been kind enough to show up to defend the silliness of transubstantiation, I’ll do so now. Apologies in advance for the length.
Why Transubstantiation is Nonsense
The basic idea of the doctrine is that the host transforms into the flesh of Christ, despite the fact that it retains all the discernible properties of a small round piece of bread. The metaphysical justification for this is that it becomes the substance or essence (i.e., the thing as it really is) of Christ’s flesh, and that this substantial or essential nature is something distinct from the discernible properties, which are mere “accidents”. (Accidental properties are those which something can gain or lose while still remaining the same thing – e.g., being red is an accidental property of a ball, since a ball is still a ball whether it is red or not.)
This leads to a problem. Firstly, it entails that there is no necessary logical connection between something being X (where X is a wafer, wine, flesh, blood or whatever) and any particular set of discernible properties (since we have a counter example here – something which has all the discernible properties of a piece of bread, but which is really something else which is not a piece of bread). This initially presents what looks like an epistemological problem – if discernible properties are all we have to go on, then how can we tell if anything is really the kind of thing we think it is? How do I know that my cat, despite its cat-like properties, isn’t really (in essence) a sewing machine, despite its lack of sewing machine-like properties?
But it gets worse. One can’t even speak of cat-like properties, because there is no basis for associating any set of discernible properties with any essential cat-ness (or wafer-ness, or flesh of Christ-ness). Not only can I not know that my cat is really a cat, I can’t even know what a cat really is. The term “cat” ceases to have any meaningful application.
Basically, if the term “cat” (or “wafer”, or “flesh”) is supposed to refer to anything, then presumably it must refer to the essential cat, wafer etc, rather than to any congruent bundle of accidental properties (if it did refer to the properties, then transubstantiation must be false, since the accidental properties of the host are still those of a wafer). However, if the term “X” refers to the essential X, then that term is of no use whatsoever in picking out objects of experience. It could refer to anything, and so effectively refers to nothing.
The upshot is that if transubstantiation is possible, then universal terms like “wafer”, “wine”, “flesh” or “blood” are of no use at all in categorising the world around us. They are empty concepts which we have no idea how to apply. And if that is the case, we cannot meaningfully speak of a wafer actually turning into flesh, or wine actually turning into blood, because we have no conceptual basis for identifying any of those things in the world of experience in the first place.
The problem with transubstantiation isn’t simply that it’s untestable. The problem is that it is incoherent.
(Fortunately, outside the muddy conceptual realm of Roman Catholic theology, the application of universal concepts is logically dependent on the presence or absence of certain discernible properties – wafers are wafers in virtue of having one set of properties, flesh is flesh in virtue of having another, distinct set of properties. Ditto wine and blood, cats and sewing machines. The essential nature of an X lies in its having a particular set of discernible properties, and if if something lacks those properties, then it logically follows that it is not an X. That’s how we – including Catholics when they’re not at mass – make sense of the world.)
I’ve seen some comments about equivalent offenses which refer to desecrating a Star of David. That’s not going to cut it – the star isn’t a religious symbol. The closest readily available equivalent way to offend Jews is to desecrate “shaymot” – writings that contain some of the holy names of God. You don’t need to steal any – you can just buy prayer books or bibles in any Judaica store, or even more easily, make your own by photocopying or printing. The web site http://bible.ort.org/books/torahd5.asp is a good place to get some. In normal Orthodox Jewish practice, old worn-out books and papers like these are collected and buried in special sections of cemeteries so as to accord them the respect they deserve.
This is OT other than the fact that it relates to Christian wackaloonery: Focus on the Patriarchy wants God to rain out Obama’s acceptance speech!
Personally, I hope their prayers are answered: If it does rain, the pictures of 75,000 people screaming “yes we can!!” into the teeth of the storm will be incredibly powerful.
Atheism is a big but marginalized idea. It is penetrating western culture at a certain rate. The primary value of things like crakergate are at the margins. Big blocks of the religious aren’t going to convert to atheism but that’s not the issue.
A second value of these types of actions is that they raise awareness that we believe the big idea is really big enough to be strenuously defended. We start to get street cred. :)
Were the Catholics going door-to-door forcing people to take the Eucharist?
How did Cook get the cracker?
By going to the Catholic Mass. By getting out of his chair, walking towards the priest and taking the communion.
Nobody forced him to attend the mass.
Nobody forced him to get out of his chair.
Nobody forced him to put the cracker in his pocket.
He chose to enter the Catholic space and he chose to violate their trust.
Pete Rooke wrote:
“they commit sodomy (as do I)”
That is the most believeable thing you have ever posted here. How does your dad like it, up or down?
Actually, I found it to be a lousy analogy.
PZ’s whole POINT was “Treat NOTHING SACRED”. The religious nutjobs in your analogy are deliberately going in and starting crap with a GLBT group because said group GOES AGAINST THEIR SACRED RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. They are not mocking their belief system, but their very right to exist. Everything that follows is moot.
No religio-crazies insisting that gays will burn in hell, and your analogy falls apart.
Talk about missing the point.
Heck yes it did. It demonstrated just how crazy, irrational, and violent religious people are as a matter of course. Fence-sitters, take notice: do you really want to send frothing death threats over a misused cracker? I thought not. Perhaps it’s better to stay away from religion if that’s the sort of crazy violent thing it gets up to.
Heeeeeeeeeeeeere we go again.
You seem to be leaving out a few important parts of the events.
Mike @ #73 – Of course they’re wrong, but the point of the analogy is to try and reach past that. That is what I was trying to say.
SteveM @ #84 – Bravo. Well said.
Scooter @ #89 – Oh, there elements of ANY group that would behave exactly like that.
Then why didn’t Christ turn PZ and Cook into frogs or something? Or at least dial 911 or get a lawyer?
According to the stories, the last time god/Christ got really mad at humans, he flooded the earth with miles of water and killed everyone but 8 people. This is the Alzheimer old dude model of god, the one in a wheelchair these days down at the nursing home.
Transubstantiation is a belief of some people. It isn’t a fact even to the majority of xians.
Oh, Jody, for you to be philosophically pure “their very right to exist” should be open to questioning.
Flag-burning might indeed be a better analogy… but only for Americans. Other people just don’t tend to get so exercised about it. Check out this quote from a Dan Gardner piece…
Dervin #131: He chose to enter the Catholic space and he chose to violate their trust.
If I remember correctly he just wanted to show his friend the cracker. I think he was surprised anyone noticed him. I think he was even more surprised somebody grabbed his arm, and tried to pry his fingers open, and continued to do this after being asked to let go. The Catholic idiot who assaulted Cook broke the law. What Cook did, not eat a cracker, is nothing compared to the reaction of the batshit insane Catholic thugs.
Cephus #114: Maybe a good solid kick in the head and a few million people pointing and laughing at them and saying “You believe Jesus is a cracker? Are you out of your mind?” might help some?
I agree. These people need to be kicked in the head. I’m not suggesting violence, but somebody has to tell them they’re sick. If they think they’re normal they will never be able to recover from their disease.
Such as?
@141
Blockquote is your friend….
I’ll assume you were referring to my point above. BobC has touched on a few of those.
I would include that Cook was raised catholic (if I’m not mistaken) and that after he was assaulted was when he decided to leave the campus building (note: not church) with the cracker. Once he was threatened outside of the service with death and other unpleasantness did the publicity increase and then subsequently he returned the cracker.
Assuming I haven’t screwed up any of the details, your point is pretty much moot because your description of the incident isn’t how it happened.
If it is just a cracker, why did he want to show it to his friend? They have crackers in Florida, don’t they?
In a secular society, when you go into another group’s space, you are implicitly agreeing to follow their rules and traditions as long as you are in their space.
Amar @ #99 started to hit on the idea that came to my mind when reading Sastra’s article. The analogy (parody?) was ok but had the problems many have listed above, the major one being that it is difficult to compare any sort of reality based situation with religious foolishness. But Sastra had already used the key phrase… “sacred cow”. Christians, especially Catholic, who have ever eaten beef cannot logically complain about a non-christian who does something with a consecrated cracker besides swallow it. We violate Hindu sensibilities every day and don’t think twice about it. Christians violate taboos of other cultures all of the time and even violate taboos of other Christian sects. That they get hot and bothered when someone violates one of their own taboos is just another one of their hypocracies. Threats of violence should be dealt with in a normal secular way.
Eat well, stay fit, Die Anyway.
A dumb question from a dumb Catholic: “If it is just a cracker, why did he want to show it to his friend? They have crackers in Florida, don’t they?”
It’s not that easy to buy a communion wafer. I have never seen one for sale in any bakery.
You could say Cook didn’t follow the normal Catholic ritual of eating the tasteless cracker right away, but like I said earlier, what he did was nothing compared to the reaction of the Catholic thugs. Those insane thugs proved beyond any doubt Catholics are assholes, but of course everyone already knew that.
“Were the Catholics going door-to-door forcing people to take the Eucharist?
How did Cook get the cracker?
By going to the Catholic Mass. By getting out of his chair, walking towards the priest and taking the communion.
Nobody forced him to attend the mass.
Nobody forced him to get out of his chair.
Nobody forced him to put the cracker in his pocket.
He chose to enter the Catholic space and he chose to violate their trust. ”
Cook is a Catholic. He attended the mass as an act of worship.
A friend of his, who was not a Catholic, had expressed an interest in Catholicism. Cook invited to go to the mass with him.
When Cook went to the alter rail to take communion he decided to take the wafer back to his seat to show his friend. Taking the wafer back the your seat is not unknown in Catholic Masses.
As Cook was going back to his seat, with the wafer in his hand, he was assaulted by someone officiating at the service when they tried to pry the wafer out of his hand. Under Florida that constitutes a criminal act. Rather than use reasonable force to subdue the attacker (which by law he was entitled to do) he chose to leave the building.
It is not at all clear how he can then be considered to have committed both theft and a hate crime. And if the Catholic Church was so worried about upholding the law why did it fail to report the assault it committed (as the result of an official it appointed acting in her capacity as an official) to the authorities.
Unless and until that official is reprimanded by the Church they are as guilty as the individual is of assault.
Dervin are you being intentionally dense?
Webster Cook did. As has been pointed out many times, and you can only be wilfully unaware of, it is not uncommon for Catholics to return to their seats with their wafer. Thus he did not break that tradition, and your implication that he did is both slanderous and dishonest. On the way back to his seat Cook was physically attacked. I am not totally conversant with Catholic ritual, but I am pretty sure it is not traditional for Church officials to attack communicants.
Can you explain to us why you have chosen to ignore these facts ? Given how much has been said on the subject ignorance will not be a very good defence.
@131
You are mistaken. He entered a public space, paid for by taxpayers, that was being used by religious freeloaders who weren’t even compensating the University for the use of the space.
Mr Cook happened to be a member of a student congress, and he was opposed to the prescence of the Catholics (even though he was one) on Campus using their facilities.
He correctly pointed out that the State is not supposed to subsidize religious practices, which is what was going on.
Technically, the Catholics invaded Mr. Cooks’ space, by illegally occupying Public, State-owned property to conduct a ritual.
The trust of the students at the University and the State of Florida were violated, even before the cracker-napping set things in motion.
IIRC, the main complaints against PZ were these:
1) We had give as much respect to cracker as the catholics did. This allows me to demand that they must respect certain of my beliefs to the same degree. That means the catholic church must get out of politics. Otherwise, respect the believer, but not the belief.
2) PZ, or a group of atheists was/were personally going to disrupt a mass and steal the cracker. PZ stated he wasn’t going to do that.
3) That catholic had to immediately eat the cracker. Many posters indicated that pious catholics often took the cracker back to their seats before eating it.
I see pointless Pete is back. He has nothing say, but takes quite a while saying it.
Dervin, let’s just cut to the chase. You are going to lay out your (non)argument about 16 more times (if you’re really obtuse).
The other commenters here will rip you a new one repeatedly for misrepresenting the facts of the incident and your generally logic-free contention that we just aren’t UNDERSTANDING the gravity of the insult, the heinousness of the crime.
Eventually, you will post that we are all a bunch of intolerant atheist bigots and you will storm off in a huff.
It’s tired. Can you just cut to the conclusion? Please?
Your version of events is disturbing in that it is completely lacking any real connection to reality:
Cook is a Catholic. Cook didn’t take the Eucharist to do anything but consume after his non-Catholic friend saw it. Cook instructed his non-Catholic friend to NOT TAKE COMMUNION because it would be wrong of him to do so.
In short, Cook was showing proper respect for the Eucharist even if he was adlibing a bit with the ceremony.
The kerfuffle then came about after he was ASSULTED by the priests assistant because he delayed in eating the Eucharist. Then, being upset, he didn’t eat the Eucharist and demanded an apology.
Then idiots, probably like you, made DEATH THREATS to Cook. Then your excessively medieval mindset was given a good, and deserved, mocking.
It’s just another irrational reaction to the maltreatment of a symbol.
Somebody burning a flag is either expressing an opinion about the country or they’re trying to piss you off deliberately. The solution in both cases is: don’t care.
When the symbol is more important than what it stands for, someone has their priorities way backwards.
Bullshit. Your arbitrary rules have no authority over anyone except those who choose to follow them.
I would just like to call for a moments silence.
There is a Catholic Mass taking place somewhere (I do not know exactly where, but there are enough happening to ensure on is happening right now).
I would ask we all remain silent in respect of the Catholic tradition of having officials at the communion attack their congregation.
I do have right I take it ? Dervin said Cook failed to respect Catholic traditions, and he was assaulted and failed to appreciate the fact.
Cook violated the secular laws that allow a multicultural society to function smoothly. He provoked an reaction – but as PZ pointed out, it was all just hot air. His life was never really in danger.
But you have to look at what you and all his supporters are saying: If you have a disagreement with a group, you can disrupt their meetings.
Cook violated the social secular laws, the people who sent him “death” threats violated social secular laws.
Re 125:
I said, “shocked, shocked,…”, referring to a line in Casablanca where the Chief of Police is “shocked, shocked I tell you…” to discover that gambling is taking place on the premises (which is no secret, of which he is very well aware and even participates). ;-)
It wasn’t their space. It was University space. Which, considering what Universities are… They should have NOT ASSULTED COOK for wanting to show his friend the cracker before he ate it.
And, in a civilized society, you don’t ASSULT someone because they make a trivial error with your sacred cow. And you don’t send him death threats. And you don’t try to ruin his life.
Unless, of course, you’re a medieval fuckwit. At which point you scream, cry and beat people over bronze-age fairy tales.
How ? By being the victim of assault ?
You are one sick puppy. Blame the victim why not.
Cook was the one who was attacked. Do you not understand that ?
I support Paul’s thoughts about the subject, but I would have done it a bit differently than he did. Hindsight is 20/20 they say. I would have turned comments off with a post that was so likely to generate such controversy. With thousands of replys to the post, I think it became too hard to keep things in context. The subject swayed to all manor of off topic speech. And frankly some of the minions forgot to conduct themselves with anything resembling class. The irony is that I don’t think anyone has change their mind about their belief system over the incident. A golden opportunity missed.
You are being deliberately dense. Cook did not disrupt the Mass. The person that assaulted him did. If you ever have kids, just wait till you get the “I hit him because he was staring at me” defense. Who are you going to reprimand, the kid that hit or the one that was staring?
tsg & Matt Penfold,
If you don’t want to follow the rules at a Catholic Mass, don’t go to a Catholic Mass.
But if you attend a Catholic Mass, you have to follow the rules.
#161- Personally, I couldn’t give a flying fuck if anyone took this opportunity to rethink their religious beliefs. The good that came out of this was a resounding reminder to the religious that in a secular society, they can believe any bullshit they want, but the minute they try to exert power that extends past their church doors (for the ‘crime’ of not respecting their beliefs), there will be a sizable push BACK.
I’m gay, and as a gay man, I understood from the start that the goal of the gay rights movement was never about making people like you, it was to point up that even if people don’t like you, that doesn’t make civil inequality OK.
Dervin. Cook is a practicing Catholic apparently
How did Cook not follow the rules ?
He took his wafer back to his seat it is true. But then we know that is not an unknown practice at Catholic mass.
He did then leave with it, but only after he was physically attacked. I think it is fair to say that when something like that happens normal practice can be disregarded.
If you want to persist in the rule following claim you need to spell out what rules were broken. Your inability to do so thus far is telling.
Oh yeah? Well then you had better never come into my space, because my rules and traditions involve my having sex with your wife, and you’d be implicitly agreeing to let me if you crossed my threshold.
Your claim sounds a little stupid now, doesn’t it?
I’m an atheist and I’m gay (and as you might have guessed a passionate supporter of gay rights), but I see the fictional gay rights supporters in Winslow Cork’s scenario as horrifying, disgraceful lunatics. I also see Winslow Cork’s actions as absolutely irrelevant and inconsequential. I can also understand and even support XY Nyers’ actions since it is damn well anyone’s right to break any pin they like, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.
Says Dervin specifically ignoring the numerous posts bringing to his attention the point he doesn’t have his facts straight.
Cook was attacked? You people are bigger bed wetters than Republicans.
A girl grabbed his hand.
I think the issue here being unexploited is the vileness of the death threats.
The very raional statement — “Religion causes violent reactions in people” can be demonstrated with more internet flooding of the threats recieved. Perhaps placing the Catholic threats next to some Islamic Jihad nasties will make the Athiest’s complaint about religion in general come to life for those religious folks who claim religion makes them more moral than one without “faith”?
“Look how easy it is to get a religious person ready to kill?” the storyboard reads…
Dervin: A girl tried to take something freely given from him, then called over her big friend to try to keep him from leaving, breaking protocol and their agreement with the school.
Dervin- “A girl grabbed his hand.”
PZ took out the trash. Now who’s a bedwetter?
Dervin, I’m not particularly interested in being philosophically pure. I’m just pointing out that the analogy is inaccurate and proceeds from a false assumption to create false parity.
The religious right has, for decades now, insisted on everyone respecting their views while reserving the right to crap all over everyone else’s. That was part of what got Mr. Myers so worked up in the first place, although I make no presumptions about speaking for him.
A religious kook going into a LGBT center to start crap is nothing like what happened in the cracker flap. It was a bad, bad, BAD analogy and it has once again inflamed things in one of my favorite blogs just as things had died down.
Gah.
“Cook was attacked? You people are bigger bed wetters than Republicans.
A girl grabbed his hand.”
Which is an assault. It is a crime under Florida law. To make matters worse the “girl” was officiating at the service.
I have noted the possible sexist use of the term “girl”. No one yet has suggested she was not an adult. If you have evidence she was not yet 18 let us hear it. If you do not, please explain why you labelled her “girl”.
Ric – see, that’s ok – you are giving me enough information to make an informed decision. Some mutually agreed upon authority, makes a case that an area is “yours.” You mark the space as clearly yours. And you inform all the people who enter into that space what is expected of them. Any male who refuses to let you have sex with his wife is showing a complete lack of respect. Him and his wife have been sufficiently warned.
Dervin, it’s hard to take you seriously when you completely ignore the facts of the situation and when they are brought up to you you dismiss them as inconsequential. What bridge do you live under?
You find what I said reasonable? Ummm… that makes you retarded. Plus, I imagine you don’t live on earth, because that’s not how society works.
Says who? Your guy in a funny hat? The guy in the dress? Some other fuckwit who has no authority over me in any way whatsoever?
Wow Dervin. You’re really not good at the logic thing are you.
Excellent work Sastra. I wish there were more like you on the left side of the spectrum.
A lot of people have serious trouble understanding how analogies work. Could we please teach Critical Thinking in Kindergarten, so this idiocy might end?
#72: Yes, I am a Catholic and very proud to be Catholic.
Well, then, your soul is toast. Pride is a deadly sin.
“In a secular society, when you go into another group’s space, you are implicitly agreeing to follow their rules and traditions as long as you are in their space.”
So if I walk into a church not knowing it’s one of those snake-charming excorcism-performing ones, and they hold me down and perform an excorcism on me, I have to accept it?
“Cook violated the secular laws that allow a multicultural society to function smoothly. He provoked an reaction – but as PZ pointed out, it was all just hot air. His life was never really in danger.”
OK so what would you think if someone right here on this blog issued a death threat on you? You’re telling me you’re going to ignore it? What if it was a threat against a member of your family? Viuolating “secular laws that allow a multicultural society to function”? By your logic, the Danish cartoonist that was murdered for his illustration of a bomb-carrying Allah violated laws too. What are you talking about? Cook violated nothing other than sensibilities about the supernatural powers for unleavened bread. I submit you cannot find a law on the books that assigns civil punishment for this.
Sure they did. Jesus is blood type O and haplotype A2B3 with 5 copies of the alpha amylase gene.
And the crackers have been known to get up and run away on their little feet if someone unworthy tries to eat them.
PZ and Cook are now frogs but they are happily swimming in their new home at the zoo. These are after all, very large frogs.
I can say it’s definitely brightened up an otherwise crappy month for me.
@ Iain (#127)
This is sounding suspiciously like an article I read the other day. Does this make the transubstantiated cracker a p-zombie cracker?
Ok, these are the facts as I understand them.
1) Cook went to Mass of his own free will.
2) Cook went up to get communion of his own free will.
3) Cook violated the Catholic procedure by bringing the cracker back to his friend.
4) Cook then pretended to eat the cracker -when somebody pointed out his violation of church procedure.
5) Cook then took the cracker out of his mouth and showed it to his friend.
6) a girl grab his elbow and tries to get the cracker away from him.
7) Cook then runs out of the Mass like a scared little girl.
8) A few other people stand in front of him. Asking for the cracker.
9) They let him go without any harm.
10) Cook then uses the attention the incident brought him to voice his objections to student religious groups receiving student funds, And refuses to return the cracker until he receives an apology.
11) Cook claims to have received death threats and returns the cracker.
12) Cook files a formal complaint against the girl
13) Cook files a formal complaint claiming he was the victim of Hazing.
14) The complaint against the girl is dismissed.
15) The Hazing charge is dismissed.
16) The Student Senate vote 33-2 to begin impeachment proceedings against Cook.
17) Because of the serious nature of the death threats, cook is working with campus and local police.
18) Cook and his friend weren’t expelled.
19) the decision on the impeachment is due at the End of August.
Amar @ 99:
Yet you don’t complain about capitalizing Hindu?
I would tend to capitalize them all, as I would treat it (grammatically) like a club. I wouldn’t capitalize “atheist”, not because of importance, but because there is no official group. I think people are confusing capital letters with assigning importance to something.
The capital/lowercase thing has some merit when applied to the word “God/god” because it creates a distinction between a specific usage (capital) vs the generic term (lowercase).
Being capitalized doesn’t make it real. I would not capitalize “data” (the concept), but would definitely capitalize “Data” (the fictional Star Trek character). Making it capital doesn’t make him any less make believe, it just means it is a specific name.
@163
Are there no “rules” duing a Catholic mass that say “don’t assault someone”?
Displaying such a blatant double-standard does nothing to butress your argument.
@187
Asshole.
“A girl grabbed his hand.”
You can get taken to court for giving the wrong look to a coworker. Grabbing someone’s hand and violating their personal space can most definitely be construed as assault, whether or not your personal assignment of the violent connotation of the word is assigned.
The Catholic community’s use of the property argument in the Cook affair is also telling. If the bread is Christ, one can logicadly assume the wafer at the very least is not property, since humans are not considered property, let alone a mythical supernatural being. Further, nobody signs a EULA when they go up for Communion; it is absurd to make the argument that people are taking church property, and then extend the absurdity by saying they are agreeing to certain rules by taking the wafer. It’s also unenforceable for another reason: Catholic tradition says you cannot take communion if you have sins on your soul that are unaccounted for. But if you are a Catholic and receive Communion anyways, how does anybody really know whether or not you have sins on your soul? Answer: Nobody can, and nobody can stop you going up there and taking “the body of Christ” “against the rules”. Where am I going with this? I’m going down the road of reality that shows there’s no real way they can control unleavened wafers once they’re handed out, and are unable legally to assign value of any kind beyond their beliefs to these edible objects.
What Cook did may have offended them, but the response was unwarranted, period.
@ Dervin #187
Well, the problem really is in your understanding of the “facts”… in that, you don’t.
Bullshit. There are no rules I can impose in my house that makes it legal for me to assault you if I invite you in and you disobey them.
Not only does he not understand them, he’s really not interested in doing so.
BlueIndependent – you are thinking of Theo Van Gogh. The Danish cartoons didn’t publish his work in an Islamic paper. He did not distribute his papers in a mosque or in an Islamic center. He distributed in a secular publication sold in secular newstands across Denmark. And secular society says it’s OK to draw pictures of anything you want, it falls under freedom of speech. The same freedom of speech that allows Muslims to preach in the streets about whatever they want.
But what Cook did was to go into a meeting of self-selected participants and choose to actively violate the rules of the meeting. When you go to any organized meeting, you are agreeing to follow the rules of the group. Now in the case of the surprise Pentecostal meeting, you don’t draw attention to yourself – stand up when everybody else stands up, sit down when everybody sits down and try to find an appropriate time to leave. That’s how our society works. Robert’s rules of order for student council. The Bylaws for the elks club. And the catechism for the Catholic Mass. And if you violate those rules you will be asked to leave, if you refuse to leave the group has a right to physically remove you from the meeting.
Secular society depends on the right for groups to have their own spaces. Because first it’s the Catholics, then it’ll be the Biology Students Association.
And I’ve been on the internet for so long, if I had a dollar for every time somebody threaten to hurt/kill/rape me – I wouldn’t have to worry about my job. But if somebody really threatened me, I’d go to the cops – which Cook has yet to do.
If Cook was assaulted like everybody claims, the University Disciplinary Committee would have expelled the girl.
He’s only interested in inventing reasons to justify his intolerance towards anyone who doesn’t treat his cracker is sacred the way he does. Everything else is just attempting to rationalize it.
Cook may have violated a religious taboo, but he violated zero secular laws. The people making death threats certainly did, despite your personal and utterly empty assurance that no one intended to follow through with them. You have no valid point. You lose.
Two ridiculous misconceptions that can be easily cleared up:
– PZ never “pretended to be surprised” (#51) at the hysterical reaction of the most insane fundies. From all the frothing at Cook, PZ surely suspected that one or two of the screwiest screwballs would probably scream amusingly at the Great Desecration. I expect he also intended that would serve as an instructive demonstration to moderate Catholics of the risks of hanging out with the truly insane — allowing them to speak for you makes your group look goofy.
– There is no “hating” on the Catholics (#41) involved in what Dr. Myers did. Please try to stretch your head around this. The only “hating” is coming from the deranged few (loving, forgiving) Christians who sent death threats and prayers of eternal damnation.
What’s going on here is mocking (i.e. laughing uproariously at) the hilarious delusions of those most detached from reality, so detached that they literally can’t tell a crunchy wheat snack from a bloody flesh gibbet. If I go see a clown or a comedy show and I laugh, I am not “hating” on the clown.
Please, give these two tired canards a well deserved rest. No one believes you when you repeat them to try to make yourselves feel better.
As SC said, I will reason for you all.
A right that you want for yourself but don’t want to have to extend to anyone else.
Jody #174 wrote:
Yes, I know it’s not equivalent in that sense. But I was trying something else. The atheists are saying that the ‘sacred’ deserves no special consideration — if it makes no sense, you can say so, and there is no requirement to ‘respect it’ as true in the secular arena. Christians were coming in and trying to find examples of things that are ‘sacred’ to atheists, so that we might realize that other people’s sacred things should also be respected, whether you think they’re stupid or not. They were failing, because stomping on the Origin of Species isn’t going to provoke the same sense of outrage: we disagree with the whole idea of the “sacred.” It is confined to religion.
What I was trying to do then was find something which Christians might regard as a secular ‘sacred’ stance which they think makes no sense, and which they would have no problem violating, because they think it needs to be countered and disputed.
True or false, a lot of Christians think that the politically correct view that “homosexuality is not sinful” has become sacred: you are not allowed to say otherwise. In Canada, a minister who paid for an ad which called gay people “abominations” was fined for hate speech. I consider that a violation of his civil right to speak his mind, even if it is offensive and rude to others (and wrong and stupid, too.) So do many other atheists. The ministers right to free speech outweighs any presumption on our part that we have a right to not be offended.
That is a situation we can agree on, and a ground we might have in common with the Catholics, and I was trying to use it. But yes, there are a lot of significant ways the analogy differs, and you found a good one. Also the power differential. And several other things.
One thing that didn’t differ, though, is that I made Cork’s original choice to bother his hosts a bit morally dicey. I can grant for the sake of argument that Cook likewise shouldn’t have taken the cracker — and still support Myers’ and Nyers’ actions. So I don’t think Dervin’s argument (that Cook was wrong) is that critical in evaluating later developments. Cork was wrong, too.
Pete Rooke #80 wrote:
Well, I think empirical rationalists can also make a case that there is a moral obligation to offer advice and take a public stand against superstition and irrationality, with offense a mere by-product of a more noble goal. So I don’t think the analogy falls off for that reason.
I looked at them again, and still don’t think your own analogies are really relevant, because it seems to me that all they are really saying is “we’re really, really bothered and disgusted.” In the Cork story, I made the hypothetical (and yes, rather unbelievable) gay rights activists really, really bothered too, throwing around comparisons to Hitler and lynchings and — if you want — having their corpse raped or whatever. Being called sinners bothered them to the point of hysteria. Tough toenails.
That’s what was being addressed. If I think people are too upset, having them explain that no, they’re even MORE upset than I THINK they are isn’t going to clear anything up and solve the problem.
Dervin #187:
Dervin #195:
Care to rethink that last part?
Gnerally speaking, when you attend a voluntary meeting made up of voluntary attendees, you generally adhere to the rules of that meeting (if you’re interested in attending in the future).
Not adhering to those rules, especially in a way that is not uncommon amongst other attendees, is not justification for assault. Having left the meeting, it is also not justification for death threats.
It’s not rocket surgery
H.H. – if there were death threats why didn’t cook go to the police? If somebody threatened my life to the point that I was honestly scared – I’d be calling everybody. But he didn’t bring those threats up to the University. He didn’t bring those threats up to local law enforcement. He didn’t bring those threats up to the FBI.
Cook didn’t violate any secular laws, but neither does the Westboro Baptist Church.
Dervin:
Dervin:
Short attention span? Or just an idiot?
Dervin.
Give it a rest. You love your Jesus cracker. We get it.
Sastra,
Here’s a different thought experiment that also puts the shoe on the other foot. It takes a bit more setting up than yours, but addresses some of the disanalogies people have pointed out.
Suppose we lived in a society with an overtly religious government, mixed with widespread respect for science and some constitutional protection for the practice of science.
(This would be rather like mid-17th century England in some ways, but with the ruling class’s respect for science enshrined in the constitution.)
In this bizzaro world, the government generally caters to religious sensibilities, but there’s a First Amendment right to the free exercise of science.
Suppose also that the dominant view of animals is like Descartes’—humans have souls and can feel pain, but lower animals such as frogs do not. They’re just little biological machines with no legal or moral rights or interests. Also, by hypothesis, frogs in our bizarro world are very cheap; they have very small but nonzero economic value. (The frogs used for dissection are too small to make good frog legs, and you can just take a net to a pond at certain times and scoop a bunch of them up.)
Now suppose that there are organized groups of scientists, such as Biologists and Chemists, who get together and practice their sciences. The public is invited to their demonstrations, and in some cases, gets to participate in hands-on labs.
Suppose a regular feature of Biology practice is to have public labs where some people get to pith live frogs and dissect them alive—but brain-dead, so that they won’t feel pain. Only Biologists are allowed to do the actual brain-deadening (“pithing”) and dissection of frogs, but anybody is allowed to come and observe.
(That’s not nearly as far-fetched as some people here thought last time a frog analogy was used. My older sister’s U.S. public high school biology class dissected pithed frogs in the 1960’s. The teacher pithed the frogs to make sure it was done right and that they were brain-dead before dissection.)
Now suppose a non-Biologist comes to one of the Biologists’ demonstrations and pretends to be a Biologist to obtain a frog. He pockets the frog and leaves with it, then gives it to another non-Biologist, who puts a nail through the living frog and publicly announces that he’s done it.
To many non-Biologists, this would be no big deal; remember that most people in our bizarro world thing frogs are just machines without souls, and that a soul is necessary in order to actually suffer.
So when the frog-nailing non-Biologist announces that he’s nailed a live frog, he says “it’s just a goddamned frog!” and many of his supporters agree, and jeer anyone who disagrees. They make theological arguments that a frog can’t possibly have a soul or feel pain, etc., and most people believe it. They also make the argument that the frog-nailer is simply exercising his right to free speech.
(Many Biologists believe it too—they don’t really believe the official Biologist view that souls are unnecessary and and that vertebrates in general can probably feel pain much as we do.)
Now there’s a furor, of course, with some incensed Biologists being horrified that anybody would steal a live frog from a Biology demo, or nail a live frog without pithing it first. Some are truly upset that a frog has been made to suffer cruelly. Many other Biologists are not really upset about that—they don’t really believe the official frogs-feel-pain line—but are incensed that anybody would screw around with a Biology demonstration like that. It seems like an extremely provocative attack on the Biology community as a whole, and they close ranks with the true believers.
Some Biologists make the argument that frognapping and frognailing are an infringement on Biologists right to free exercise of science—if people are going to go around stealing and abusing frogs, that will inhibit the practice of frog-dissecting demonstrations by Biologists. Either they’ll have to stop inviting the public, or institute drastic security measures to minimize the number of filched and/or abused frogs. Even if a lot of Biologists don’t really think that frogs feel pain, it’ll inhibit their free exercise because some do and they’ll be very motivated to put a stop to frognapping and frognailing, at the expense of all Biologists’ traditional exercise of science.
Some non-Biologists object that legally and morally, a frog is just a frackin’ frog. You can nail a frog if you want to, and it’s up to the Biologists to prove that the stolen frogs have souls and can feel pain, or that they can somehow feel pain without souls. By the standards of the larger society, the Biologists clearly lose there—they can’t (yet) prove that frogs really feel pain to non-Biologists’ satisfaction.
Still, the Biologists claim that whether it’s true or not that frogs feel pain, within the context of a Biology demo, they have the right not just to believe that frogs feel pain, but to act like it, and to require that anyone participating acts like it too.
(Some other Scientists who disagree with the Biologists about frog pain take the Biologists side, too. Maybe the Chemists generally don’t believe that frogs feel pain—they think they’re just chemical machines, unlike humans—but they don’t think anybody ought to be interfering with Scientists’ free exercise of science. Science is a constitutional protected activity, and you shouldn’t interfere with any scientists public demonstrations by violating their trust and messing with their stuff in any way they wouldn’t approve of.)
I think the Biologists have a point. You shouldn’t go to a biology demo and take a frog if you’re not going to properly pith it and dissect it. It’s obviously not just a free frog, and most people (in our bizarro world) would know that Biologists have some peculiar ideas about the proper treatment of frogs.
It’s a violation of trust—and maybe legally petty theft by deception—to pretend to be a Biologist just to get a frog, knowing that the Biologists would not give it to you for the purposes you have in mind.
It also crosses a line, by interfering in a small way with the practice of science. Biologists can institute safeguards to prevent frog theft and frog nailing, but it will cost them something. It raises an obstacle to their practice of science.
We end up with a situation where two first-amendment rights are in conflict. A frog-nailer may have the legal right to nail frogs in order to express his confidence that frogs don’t feel pain. But Biologists arguably have the right to practice Biology under the assumption that frogs do (or may) feel pain, and to require anyone participating not to steal or abuse the frogs they supply specifically for the purpose of pithing and dissection in the context of a biology demonstration.
A right that you want for yourself but don’t want to have to extend to anyone else.
Are you retarded? I justified Ric’s decision to make his house a “if you enter my house, i get to have sex with your wife” zone. If I’m giving that to Ric, then I think I could probably logically accommodate any meeting you would want to join, assuming it follows the principle of informed consent.
Mary doesn’t have any cats, but then Frank is a plumber.
Ad hominem.
Bullshit.
melior – #17 was a joke, as anybody who has been following the case knows Cook has taken no action on the “death threats.”
Hell, you got to give PZ credit for at least getting that woman fired.
From Post 163:
“But if you attend a Catholic Mass, you have to follow the rules.”
You’re right, but it still does not justify the treatment that Webster Cook received. If I go to a meeting of the campus Sierra Club, accept some token or brochure freely given to me, then behave in a loud and obnoxious manner while advocating environmental destruction, the club is within their rights to ask me to leave. However, they cannot assault me (even if assault in this case means ‘grab’), they cannot demand their brochure back, and they sure as hell cannot threaten my life. Also, I cannot be expelled from school, unless the incident is part of an established pattern of disruptive behavior. The thing that the ‘other’ side just does not seem to be able to GET in this case is that, in the legal context of our society, the Eucharist wafer is nothing more than a piece of bread. It has the same status as the pile of pencils that are often used by interest groups to advertise themselves. It is not a sacred relic, regardless of how much the Catholics might believe that it is. Belief in something, even sincere and ardent belief, does not make it true.
@201
100% agree. Canada’s laws against promoting hatred against particular groups of people are a bit wonky, I think. It is one thing to incite a group of people to kill Jews, or blacks, or gays, or women, or the physically or mentally handicapped. It is quite another to say “I hate fags”; or even to have “we hate fags” (or, yes, “God hates fags”) as the motto of an organization. Westboro Baptist should be able to come to Canada and state that they think homosexuals will burn in hell; so long as the line is not crossed, we all have to grin and bear it. If that was the only point of the original analogy, then I wholeheartedly agree. We don’t have a right to not be offended. We do, however, have a right to be free from the threat of violence.
Paul W. #206
Um, I’m going to have to think about this one. I have to set it up in my brain, and that may take awhile. There may be too many new factors to make a good analogy — even if it is a very good analogy.
Dervin #157:
Dervin #203:
You really are working at being dense, aren’t you…
(+)
Dervin @ #210
Really? It was? Hmmm… intresting of you to point that out now that you’ve been caught in your own contradiction. So what other of your original points was “just a joke”? Or will you wait till you contradict them before revealing their obvious humor?
And nice job quickly trying to change the subject with the “PZ getting the girl fired” quip. Typical.
Wrong. It has been made very clear, by Catholics and former Catholics that this is NOT a violation of Catholic “procedure” and that it is not uncommon for people to return to their seat with the wafer.
I am sorry you had to be dishonest about this. Shall we add lying to sexism in the list of your sins ?
Dervin, you even fail at trolling. At #195 you said:
But back at #187 you wrote:
You should at least stay self-consistent in your trolling. Or are you so busy in ignoring other people’s responses that you’ve now started ignoring your own posts too?
Der-bot.
If the incident began and ended with the furor at the UCF campus, this would have been newsworthy, but largely just another example of religious idiocy.
What you leave out of your summary of events (disengenously, BTW), is the fanning-of-the-flames by Bill Donohue. This is what pushed it over the top and this is what prompted the Great Desecration.
I think both Cook and the campus Catholic organization were guilty of silly behaviour. But when the Catholic League starts a vilification campaign and a drive to have Cook expelled, when they have no standing in the matter, it’s the religious who have crossed the line into provocation. Don’t bother holding Cook to a standard of civility while allowing the other side their batshit insanity. You’ve done nothing but justify and minimize the Catholic over-response.
Your “understanding” of this issue is incomplete and based on how you conduct yourself in these comments, that’s probably deliberate.
drgeox –
The Sierra Club can demand their brochure back. You took it under false pretenses – legally known as stealing.
Cook presented his claim of being a victim of assault to the University, the University rejected that claim outright. Cook presented his case, the girl presented her case – the University said “That’s not assault.” And it’s the same University committee that said, Cook doesn’t deserve to be expelled or suspended for his actions.
Cook also has yet to provide any evidence of the threats – but it seems to be an article of faith (HA! get it I’m claiming you guys have faith) here that there were death threats made.
What you and other seem to miss, is the cracker in secular space is just a cracker.
But Cook went into the Catholic space where it’s not just a cracker, but something of importance to those who go to Catholic Mass. And he did this because he objected to student funds going to student religious groups – instead of bringing the debate to the Student Council where it belongs – he choose to bring the debate into their space. Cook violated the social contract – the Catholics didn’t go to the Student Council meeting and sprinkle people with holy water. They didn’t slip the cracker into the soup. They went into the University assigned space, did some chants, sang a few songs, engaged in ritualistic cannibalism, stood up, sat down, and cleaned up after themselves.
Dervin, why do you believe in the invisible magic man? Are you nuts or something?
Er, the University does not get to define what is and what is not assault. The Florida legislator and the courts do that. Not universities, not schools, not anyone else. The university is not a court, and you are being honest in claiming it is.
Dervin,
How old is this “girl ? Only you keep calling her that, a “girl”, which suggests someone under 18. Is she, or you are simply being sexist in calling an adult woman a girl in order to make her actions seem less important ? Why the sexist language ?
Matt Penfold Wrong. It has been made very clear, by Catholics and former Catholics that this is NOT a violation of Catholic “procedure” and that it is not uncommon for people to return to their seat with the wafer.
The custom varies from Church to Church. There’s a lot a variation in the Mass, for example during the sign of Peace Hispanic Services have everybody running around exchanging the sign of peace. In white services, it’s a turn to your left, turn to your right.
If carrying the Eucharist back to the seat was standard practice for this service, then nobody would have noticed him carrying it back to his seat. Come on know, we all know basic perception theory – we only notice what is out of place.
To use your own logic against you: if the Catholics didn’t report Cook to the police, then it wasn’t stealing.
QED.
“The Sierra Club can demand their brochure back. You took it under false pretenses – legally known as stealing.”
No I didn’t, they gave it to me.
“But Cook went into the Catholic space where it’s not just a cracker, but something of importance to those who go to Catholic Mass.”
My point exactly, and thank you for making it for me. It’s only important to Catholics, not to the society in general. As I said, the Catholics were well within their rights to ask Mr. Cook to leave, and to call the cops if he did not. That’s where their rights ended. Catholicism, like all other special interests, has no special status under the law.
“the University rejected that claim outright”
The university cannot determine what is or isn’t assault, only the legal system can do that. I doubt it will go that far (I hope not), but this proves nothing. The university does have the right to determine whether student behavior warrants suspension, and in this case they correctly ruled that it didn’t. This whole thing is a dead issue. No laws were broken, no damage was done to any party with legal standing. It’s over. Let it go.
The story is good but some basic background maybe should be noted too.
Everyone and especially young students are required to endure and at times pledge allegiance to one nation under the Gay Rainbow. Everyone is obliged to conduct casual business using script acknowledging that they put their trust in the Gay Rainbow. The government officials need to pledge devotion to the special quality of the Gay Rainbow. It is common and accepted for gays to criticize and shun those who don’t maintain at least minimal gay relationships, for one cannot be a complete person without experiencing a gay relationship. And there are other social norms that would require at least a silent acceptance of the special and preferred qualities of a gay lifestyle, of course, others could have better qualities but they wouldn’t be permitted to effectively attain the special status of gays. The christian is always aware that their life is only even grudgingly spared because of the grace of the gay rainbow.
Christians have much to do before they can be considered civilized. I am not gay but am willing to accept their non violet choice and desire. I am a strong atheist and I will not stop mocking christians until they accept and acknowledge the peaceful rights and lives of others.
Suck it, Jesus christ!
So in fact when you claimed Cook violated procedure in fact he did not. Taking the wafer back to your seat is not unknown in some Churches.
Well given this was a service being held at a university there would be communicants from all over, all used to slightly different customs and practices. Thus it should be expected not all would know the expected practice at that Church.
It seems you are backtracking on your original claims.
You still need to explain your use of sexist language. Calling an adult female a girl is not acceptable anymore where I come from. Why do you feel the need to violate my standards ?
Quoting Sastra “The real issue at stake isn’t crackers, or gay rights, or religion, or the importance of showing ‘respect.'”
I think PZ hit the nail on the head about the “real issue” in the whole desecration stunt. See the following comment from his “Am I Still Crashing IE?” post, keeping in mind the whole cracker event runs roughly from July 8th to July 24th.
“Posted by: PZ Myers | August 2, 2008 11:17 AM
Yes, a lot of readers are using IE, almost 30%. It’s a demographic we can’t throw away.
Now I’m kind of peeved, speaking of round numbers. Sitemeter shows I came a whisker shy of getting an even 2 million visitors for the month of July. If I’d caught this earlier, maybe we would have hit that magic number.”
Is the issue ultimately about the number of visitors to Pharyngula? What outlandish thing will PZ have to say or do next to get those numbers back?
This site may or may not be intended to be funny or ironic, but either way, it may give you and idea of with whom you are trying to have a sensible dialogue.
I accidentally found this funny place called “Lark News”.
First story;
False prophecy victim sues for pain and suffering
ST. PAUL — Larry Batters has become the unlikely victim of what some are calling prophecy abuse. Batters, a self-described “reserved fellow” and St. Paul-area plumber, finally gave in to his wife’s requests to visit the charismatic church she attends on Sunday morning. That morning the church had invited a visiting evangelist, Thomas Kline, to speak. Kline, who claims to have the gift of prophecy, singled Larry out of the crowd of 330 and told him he would have “a worldwide ministry that would touch nations for God.” Larry was deeply moved and began preparing for his career transition, storing money away in a savings account and selling his business.
Three years later, the prophecy has “fizzled,” and he feels cheated, he says.
“I put my life on hold because I was convinced this ‘word’ was true,” he says. “Now I think it’s hooey. I’m just a plumber. Plumbers don’t touch the world.”
He’s suing Kline and the church for $1 million, to regain his dignity and try to keep it from happening to someone else.
Witnesses say Batters should have known better. They say Kline told at least 50 people that day something similar: that they would have a far-reaching ministry with global impact, and that their true calling would soon become evident. He told many of them to prepare to “be launched into the stratosphere of God’s blessing.”
“Guys like that blow in, make you feel good, then blow out and it’s back to normal,” said one church member who asked not to be identified. “You almost get used to it. It’s like a carnival ride. I’m surprised someone actually believed it.”
Larry says he fell for it “hook, line and sinker.”
“I must have been going through a mid-life crisis or something,” he says. “I’m a sucker. I admit it.” He has vowed to stick with the Lutheran place near his house for his religious needs.
Kline’s secretary said he was traveling and was unavailable for comment, but that “many people have benefited from changed lives due to Prophet Kline’s world-changing ministry.” •
Second story;
MySpace gives pastor ‘prophetic’ edge
PEORIA, Ariz. — Last Sunday, pastor Irwin Alton, 62, preached against several specific sins during his sermon. Some people in the audience gasped with recognition.
“When he talked about skipping mid-week service to go to the lake, and buying a new boat when you haven’t tithed, I felt nailed to my pew,” said one man. “It was like the Holy Spirit was speaking right to me.”
But it wasn’t the Holy Spirit — it was the man’s own blog where he had posted photos of himself and his buddies on his new boat on a Wednesday evening.
Third story;
After 50 years in pulpit, retired pastor finally has a beer WATERVILLE, Maine — After stepping down from the pastorate last month after fifty years in ministry, Albert Finley did something no one expected: he had his first beer.
“I was curious what it actually tasted like, after all these years of preaching against it,” he says.
The results?
“What a marvelous drink,” he says. “It tastes much better than it smells.”
“I actually said ‘Praise God’ right in the middle of it,” he says.
But people in his former congregation are not happy.
“He’s tarnishing the reputation of himself and this church,” says one woman. “I always pointed to the pastor and told my kids, ‘See? There’s a man who has chosen not to drink.’ This puts a big question mark after everything he has preached.”
Another says Finley reminds her of Noah, “a righteous man who ended up a worthless drunk,” she says.
But Finley says he no longer has to be an example. He is also upset that he has held misconceptions about beer for so long.
“My dad always told me you could get drunk off of one sip, and I preached that for decades,” he says. “I thought that’s why people on beer commercials were having such fun. But that’s completely untrue. I’ve had one, even two beers with no effect.”
Finley says he relishes the flavor of hops and barley, and favors darker stouts and the more robust ales to the pale lagers. He always thought post-ministry life would be “sort of puttering around the house, praying for the world and so forth.” But beer has changed his mind.
“I subscribe to a beer of the month club, so every week I have a new bottle in my fridge to try. Sometimes that’s my main reason for waking up,” he says.
He has been emboldened to make other lifestyle changes as well.
“This weekend I might just see a movie in an actual theater,” he says. “I understand it’s quite an experience.”•
#4
Man, 91, dies waiting for will of God
TUPELO — Walter Houston, described by family members as a devoted Christian, died Monday after waiting 70 years for God to give him clear direction about what to do with his life.
“He hung around the house and prayed a lot, but just never got that confirmation,” his wife Ruby said. “Sometimes he thought he heard God’s voice, but then he wouldn’t be sure, and he’d start the process all over again.”
Houston, she says, never really figured out what his life was about, but felt content to pray continuously about what he might do for the Lord. Whenever he was about to take action, he would pull back “because he didn’t want to disappoint God or go against him in any way,” Ruby says. “He was very sensitive to always remain in God’s will. That was primary to him.”
Friends say they liked Walter though he seemed not to capitalize on his talents.
“Walter had a number of skills he never got around to using,” says longtime friend Timothy Burns. “He worked very well with wood and had a storyteller side to him, too. I always told him, ‘Take a risk. Try something new if you’re not happy,’ but he was too afraid of letting the Lord down.”
To his credit, they say, Houston, who worked mostly as a handyman, was able to pay off the mortgage on the couple’s modest home. •
And finally – I love this;
Hoping to speed Second Coming, some Christians invest in ‘anti-christ’ companies
MANCHESTER, Mass. — Laney Thompson believes the Rapture of the church is imminent, and she is so eager to get to her heavenly abode that last week she bought 215 shares of a bio-metrics company, Lazer-I.
“The company is pure evil,” she says gleefully while perusing her online trading account. Lazer-I makes equipment which scans fingerprints and eyes, which vendors have begun using in place of credit cards.
Like a growing number of market-savvy Christians, Thompson hopes to speed Christ’s appearing by investing in technologies she associates with the Last Days: micro-chip implants, international banks, bio-metrics, even GPS tracking devices.
One mutual fund company has created Last Days Funds, or LDFs, which group together companies whose “products are likely to foster conditions consistent with the Last Days, as described in the Bible.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with helping the world to get worse,” says Alison Chambers of Pittsburgh, a mother of two who checks her family’s LDF investments daily. When shares tick up in price she says she “can almost feel the Rapture coming on.”
Even some non-believers are adding LDFs to their portfolios, just in case the biblical scenario turns out to be true.
“I’m not a Christian,” says one financial investor, “but if the End Times happen like these people believe, I want to be wealthy enough to hide out in the Bahamas.” •
I should point out that, despite the claims of “hate crime” “kidnapping” and “theft”, the Catholics involved have not gone to the police with these charges.
Interesting, isn’t it…
“But what Cook did was to go into a meeting of self-selected participants and choose to actively violate the rules of the meeting.”
Cook went in as a self-selected member. Cook is Catholic, not some random dude that decided to go in and piss people off by taking Communion wafers. Your point remains moot, because you are either ignoring or do not know the facts of the situation.
Further, there are no rules anyone is required to abide by, other than simple rules of behavior, i.e. not intentionally disrupting the event or vandalizing property, etc. If as an atheist I go into a Catholic church and behave as they do (I know how to attend mass, having been raised Catholic), they’d be none the wiser. There’s no way to stop me from doing that. There’s also no way to stop other non-Catholics from going in and attending, even if they don’t partcipate. You can force someone to stand on cue, kneel, go for Communion, go to confession, etc. It’s not possible.
Conversely, there are exactly zero rules enforeable through the legal system that prohibit people from taking communion wafers outside the church. And in no place is it expressly outlined that you can’t take a communion wafer out. You are making up rules for and giving legal powers to a group you apparently don’t even belong to. Do you afford other groups such things?
It still boils down to a bunch of people getting hysterical over a cracker. And I don’t think the gay rights analogy fits at all.
Matt Penfold, because I went to college during the height of the PC revolution and the proper term is “person with vagina” (pwv) and “person with penis.” (pwp)
But I choose to use the term girl for “anybody who’s far to young for me to date.” And that rule is 1/2(age) + 7 = 26 years old. If you are under the age of 26, the drawback is I’m going to refer to you as a girl, but the advantage is I’m not going to hit on you. So really, I think the womyn/girls/women/pwv/grrls come out ahead on this.
In these cases (crackergate and the OP) the use and abuse of symbols has been able to offend people.
What some of the offended people forget is that a symbol only has power over them if they give it that power. Perhaps others understand this and delibritly overinflated the power to show a greater degree of hurt.
In the end it is only a hollow symbolic gesture which a fool suffers while a wise person simply ignors it.
I see. Belief that cracker is sacred should be held by all no matter how irrational it is. Belief that “girl” is sexist can be dismissed because it is irrational. Nice double standard, hypocrite.
Dervin, You come here to defend Catholic thugs and you blame their victim. Why don’t you just admit that the Catholics who attacked and/or threatened Cook are idiots.
Also, I would like an answer to the question I asked earlier. Why do you believe in the invisible magic man? Don’t you think it’s childish to believe in a magical fairy?
It’s interesting that the same people who are stupid enough to worship an imaginary sky fairy are also stupid enough to try to get a student expelled for not showing enough respect for a cracker. I’m never going to stop reminding Catholics they proved they are no better than Muslim terrorists.
And if you violate those rules you will be asked to leave, if you refuse to leave the group has a right to physically remove you from the meeting.
Can you just not help yourself? This is blatantly false. No civilian has the right to take physical action against a person unless they have a reasonable belief that the person is an immediate threat to the safety of others. It’s called “self-defense,” and it does not extend to defending crackers. If you refuse to leave a meeting where you are not welcome, they have the right to call the cops.
While this is actually a bit entertaining, I have to point out that you seem to have backed away from nearly everything you’ve posted here. So I guess my question is this:
What’s your point?
How about this for the analogy: The kid and his friend enter a church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. During their meeting, they give each loyal pastafarian a blessed strand of spaghetti. The kid, instead of slurping down the noodly appendage, brings it back to his friend. And so on…
This sort of analogy is just what the FSM came “into existence” for.
Sastra, nice job on the analogy. I was uneasy with PZ’s actions and was attempting an analogy, but none are exact. Flag burning is probably better, but it does not resonate with me and probably not with many of us here. In the end I do believe that PZ’s actions were justified by context. Perhaps not so much by what actually happened in the church/student center/ whatever it was – but by Bill Donoughes (sp?) subsequent crazy overreaction.
On Dervin’s comments. We cannot get away with criticizing him for ad hom attacks for calling someone retarded, then calling him nuts. Unlike the earlier catholic who just brought out the same tired old rants Dervin is attempting a reasoned debate. I really want to find a forum where theists and atheists (which includes me) can have a reasoned discussion without name calling. I hope that Pharyngula is that forum.
I like it. Still utilizes the turnaround, but this time more accurately represents the presence of the “sacred symbol”
SASnSA, the difference is the people who worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster are not likely to attack a student, threaten him with death, and try to get him expelled, just because the student did not follow their spaghetti rituals. Only Catholic terrorists would do that.
Dervin,
Many people get upset when women are called girls. Given that in a patriarchal society the term is often used of women to demean them I can understand that upset.
Given you think there is a duty to follow the rules of whatever community you happen to be in, why do not feel you have to follow the rules (well not really a rule, more an expectation) to avoid the use of sexist language ?
If you are under the age of 26, the drawback is I’m going to refer to you as a girl, but the advantage is I’m not going to hit on you.
So you are unable to deal with women without hitting on them?
Why am I not surprised.
You come here to defend Catholic thugs and you blame their victim. Why don’t you just admit that the Catholics who attacked and/or threatened Cook are idiots.
There’s no evidence of threats or Attacks on Cook. If you can show any evidence except for the word of Cook, I’d be more than happy to do so.
Also, I would like an answer to the question I asked earlier. Why do you believe in the invisible magic man? Don’t you think it’s childish to believe in a magical fairy?
What do my beliefs have to do with the Cook’s violation of the social contract.
…stupid enough to try to get a student expelled for not showing enough respect for a cracker.
They didn’t try to expel him for not showing enough respect to the cracker, they tried to expel him for being a jerk. And the fact of the matter is, you can’t get expelled from college for being a jerk.
Michael,
People died and made huge sacrifices for the ideas behind that flag which is a piece of cloth.
What disturbs me is that a lot of the Atheists on here have no respect for people other than themselves and they how moral they are.
I am not Catholic, but to be honest its like the bottom of the barrel here in terms of humanity. If I had to show how horrible people could be, I would just have to show them this forum and they would get it.
#241: Dervin is attempting a reasoned debate.
Does anyone else here think Dervin is attempting a reasoned debate? He’s been defending thugs and blaming their victim. He has contradicted himself numerous times. I don’t know what motivates him, but I don’t think he’s interested in having a reasoned debate. I think he’s an idiot and I think he came here to show how proud he is to be an idiot.
But if you, Tim G, want to have a polite reasoned debate with an idiot, you go ahead and do that. Just don’t expect to accomplish anything.
Who’s “we”?
No, he isn’t. He’s only interested in defending the severe overreaction to what amounts to a slight breach of etiquette.
When the very tenets of a religion insist that you don’t question those tenets, you’ll find reasoned debate about them fairly lacking.
StuV, Matt Penfold, tsg – I find it funny, see you are telling Catholics to get over somebody violating their symbols – but then you are going bed wetting crazy when somebody slaughters your sacred cow. Good thing you don’t have to worry about cognitive dissonance.
I’ll tell you what, I’ll start calling all persons with vagina’s over the age of 18 women, you admit going into a Catholic Mass and disrespecting their symbols was a bad thing to do.
See, I’m willing to compromise.
Tim G (#241) wants censorship of any criticism of a Catholic asshole so he can have a reasoned debate.
Regarding returning to ones seat/pew with a “host”. I have seen it on a number of occasions. Perfectly normal I thought. They then do the kneel thing, pop it into their mouth and say a prayer.
Anyways…
Speaking of pews; Confucius say, “Man who fart in church, sitting in his own pew”
Dervin, I willing to stop calling you a stupid asshole if you admit assaulting a person is wrong. You actually said the assault against Cook was justified. That makes you a world-class asshole, also known as a typical Catholic.
Dervin,
I will admit I do not care for you sexist attitude.
However I am not going to physically assault you, claim you are committing a hate crime, issue death threats against or try to have you sacked from your job.
I will merely content myself will calling you a rather stupid individual. What is more I doubt I will be alone in holding that opinion of you.
Dervin:
If I had to show how horrible people could be, I would just have to show them this forum and they would get it.
Yeah, I know, it’s awful, with all the death threats, attempts to get people fired, and…
Oh, wait.
What sacred cow would that be? I never said it was sexist. I never complained about you using the word. And if I did think it was wrong, I’d be willing to discuss it with you. You, on the other hand, want us to unconditionally respect Catholic beliefs but don’t want to extend that right to anyone else (ie. “girl” is a sexist term). That makes you a hypocrite.
Typical projection.
Dervin is attempting a reasoned debate.
I doubt it. But if so, wow, he really sucks at it.
I’m not a lawyer, and could well be wrong, but I’ve been reading up on what constitutes an outright gift or theft by deception, and it appears to me that there’s a gray area here.
In my actually humble opinion, from what I’ve gathered so far, I’m inclined to think that wafernapping is actually ridiculously petty theft by deception.
Here’s an example that addresses some objections that have been raised repeatedly: taking the “free peanuts” from a bar.
Many bars/pubs have bowls of peanuts out for the customers to eat, while they’re in the bar.
If you take the peanuts, put them in your pocket, and walk out, my understanding is that it’s petty theft. You don’t have to sign a contract, or even make any kind of signal that you understand the terms of use—it’s simply understood by reasonable people that you’re not supposed to take the peanuts “to go.” (Or for “take away,” for Brits.)
That kind of petty theft would (almost?) never be prosecuted, but AFAIK it is technically theft under law.
For somebody ignorant of the “free”-peanuts-in-a-bar convention, it would be understandable if they took some peanuts home, rather than eating them there. They might figure “they’re giving them away free” and take a “reasonable” quantity, and think that the bar people wouldn’t care where they ate their free peanuts, so it must be okay and perfectly legal.
They would be wrong. Legally, it would be theft, as I understand it. Nobody would care much, and any criminal or civil charges would be thrown out as the kind of “trifle” that courts don’t bother with, but it would technically be theft.
I think that could matter to the law’s interpretation of other events stemming from the ridiculously petty theft.
For example, suppose the unwitting thief puts the bowl up on the bar for the bartender to fill, and the bartender does. Then the unwitting thief pulls out a baggie left over from his lunch, and starts to pour the peanuts into it.
At that point, the bartender says “HEY!” and makes a face, expressing disapproval of the apparent intention to bag the peanuts “to go.”
Then the unwitting thief proceeds to pour the peanuts in the bag and turns to leave. (Maybe because he doesn’t understand what the bartender is objecting to, or maybe because he mistakenly thinks that the bartender doesn’t have the right to object and enforce his objection.)
Now the bartender runs around the bar and grabs the unwitting would be thief’s wrist, to prevent the theft.
Is that illegal assault and/or battery? (Battery is the actual touching.)
I’m not sure, but I don’t think so. I think that the bartender has the legal right to use reasonable force to prevent a crime against the bar’s property—restraining the unwitting would-be thief’s bag-holding hand.
Or if it is illegal assault and/or battery, I think it’s similar to the unwitting theft in the first place—the bartender may be going too far, but if there’s no significant injury, the case would be thrown out as a trivial misunderstanding with no significant damage done.
(The unwitting thief was unwittingly “asking for” the battery, and the unwittingly unjustified batterer was not behaving so unreasonably as to justify prosecution.)
I suspect that Webster Cook is like the unwitting peanut thief. He may have understood the wafer-giving as legally a simple gift, but I don’t think it is. (Or it’s a debatable gray area, anyway.)
When confronted by the eucharistic minister, he should have given up the wafer, in much the same way that the peanut thief should have relinquished his ill-gotten peanuts. If you’re not absolutely and rightly sure what you’re doing is legal, you should defer to the local institutional authority—it’s their house and their rules, and the law may well be on their side.
(Legally speaking, that is. I’m not saying it isn’t justified civil disobedience, and morally worth it even if it’s technically illegal—just that it may in fact be illegal civil disobedience, however justified.)
When the eucharistic minister battered him by trying to get the wafer back, I think that she either was within her rights, defending church property, or was similarly unwittingly committing a trivial almost-justified crime.
If it were not for possible First Amendment issues being raised on both sides, I’d say this is the sort of shit that just happens sometimes, and that trivial crimes may have been committed on one or both sides, but nobody’d have a case that a court would bother to hear.
Again, I’m not a lawyer. Actually informed legal opinion would be very welcome.
I’m really surprised to find people saying “a flag is something special.” No it is not. It’s a bit of cloth.
You might say “it represents the country”. Well all the more reason to use flag-burning as a protest against foreign policy.
Or against stupid attempts to exempt flag burning laws from the First Amendment.
Dervin: What do my beliefs have to do with the Cook’s violation of the social contract.
Your dishonest defense of thugs has everything to do with your belief in a magical sky fairy. People who are stupid enough to believe the things you believe are very likely to be assholes, just like you are.
So why don’t you answer the question. Why do you believe in a sky fairy? Are you nuts? Brainwashed? Stupid? All of the above?
Whateverman,
What’s your point?
Good question.
My points are as Follows.
1) Cook is unreliable – he’s offered no evidence of the death threats. He’s taken no action consistent with a person who would have been the recipient of death threats.
2) Cook was not assaulted – A independent university committee, looked at all the evidence and concluded the Catholics did nothing wrong. The only one at UCF who claims Cook was assaulted was Cook. (unless you believe there’s this big conspiracy against Cook).
3) For a multicultural society to function correctly, boundaries must be established and respected. Cook violated those boundaries. His actions were disrespectful to the Catholics attending mass.
4) We should be careful about what transgressions against the secular order we celebrate because it’s a matter of time before somebody finds a way to violate our beliefs. (witness the power of calling a young woman a girl).
re #251
Where do I want any censorship? I would just prefer a forum with a rational level of debate, but have not requested that any non spam contributions be censored.
Re # 230
Reverend Finley – This Bud’s for You!
I find it funny, see you are telling Catholics to get over somebody violating their symbols – but then you are going bed wetting crazy when somebody slaughters your sacred cow.
You will find that for most people here, no viewpoint is “sacred”. That loud whooshing sound above your head is the everloving point. Go find it. We’ll wait.
Good thing you don’t have to worry about cognitive dissonance.
You owe me a new irony meter.
I’ll tell you what, I’ll start calling all persons with vagina’s over the age of 18 women, you admit going into a Catholic Mass and disrespecting their symbols was a bad thing to do.
You can call them whatever the hell you like, just as we can call you a misogynistic douchebag for doing so.
As for disrespecting symbols being “bad”? No. Rude? Yes. “Bad”? I thought you were 38 years old? Did you spend 26 of it in a coma or something?
Great news that Cook is not to be expelled or suspended.
Whether or not taking the communion wafer is technically theft is a red herring. It is only brought up by those wishing to justify the perceived mistreatment of a sacred symbol.
Actually, a closer analogy would be the bartender handing out a single peanut to each and every customer and then responding with force because one patron decided to save his for later instead of eating it now. And then the president of the bar owner’s association issuing a press release calling for the firing of the patron from his job, and bar customers all over the country sending death threats if he doesn’t return the peanut.
Dervin, and others, will tell you this is a completely rational and justified reaction.
I think that the bartender has the legal right to use reasonable force to prevent a crime against the bar’s property
And you would be wrong.
You can simply NOT stop flogging this dead horse, can you?
That should be “justify the reaction to a perceived mistreatment”.
The only one at UCF who claims Cook was assaulted was Cook.
I’m almost certain you’re a liar or don’t know what you’re talking about.
Do you really think Cook would make up a story like that, when there were dozens of people there who witnessed everything.
You’re definitely being dishonest. You’re lying to defend the indefensible behavior of Catholic thugs.
About the death threats – I bet PZ has lost count of the number of death threats he’s received. And you are claiming Cook received zero death threats. You are trying to dishonestly defend Catholic terrorists.
“They didn’t try to expel him for not showing enough respect to the cracker, they tried to expel him for being a jerk. And the fact of the matter is, you can’t get expelled from college for being a jerk.”
Surely you must be kidding. That, or you really don’t get it. You are separating Cook’s perceived disrespect for a cracker from Cook’s supposed “being a jerk”, thereby inadvertently/advertently making the assumption he’s a jerk by default. Are you really this much a novice at debate? Do you not realize the association you just made?
Whether Cook is or is not an actual “jerk” is open to question, but the fact of the matter is the Catholic community got on him for perceived cracker disrespect, not for Cook’s supposed “jerkiness”. Are you seriously going to try and argue otherwise? Because the obvious implication of what you’re saying is the Catholic community would be right in trying to get anyone perceived as a “jerk” expelled from college, and/or be sent threats.
You keep arguing yourself into a corner, and attempt to move the goal posts when someone calls you on it.
1) Cook is unreliable – he’s offered no evidence of the death threats. He’s taken no action consistent with a person who would have been the recipient of death threats.
And you are the judge of that? Holy Presumptuous Windbag, Batman!
Any opinion on the death threats against PZ?
2) Cook was not assaulted – A independent university committee, looked at all the evidence and concluded the Catholics did nothing wrong.
They touched him. Intentionally and against his will. Technically, that’s assault. That it was mild enough to not warrant further action is another matter entirely.
3) For a multicultural society to function correctly, boundaries must be established and respected. Cook violated those boundaries.
These boundaries have a name. They are called “laws”. There are “courts” and “police” who patrol these boundaries. If Cook crossed them, why isn’t he in jail?
Or are you talking about different boundaries? Who defines those? Let me guess, you?
His actions were disrespectful to the Catholics attending mass.
So the fuck what? Being disrespectful is not a crime.
4) We should be careful about what transgressions against the secular order we celebrate because it’s a matter of time before somebody finds a way to violate our beliefs. (witness the power of calling a young woman a girl).
Delusions of grandeur are very unbecoming.
Let Catholics argue theft til they’re blue in the face.
According to their beliefs PZ put a rusty nail through Jesus literally. Consistency demands accusations of abduction, kidnapping, torture and. in PZ’s case, conspiracy to commit the above.
For a two cent misdemeanor they lose their god.
Be that as it may, Sastra, it is still a regurgitation of the old “the left is intolerant of my intolerance” trope that the bigots and religionists on the right have been trumpeting for the past couple of decades. That’s not the kind of middle ground we should be meeting them on.
What’s more, it still won’t work because their view is wholly subjective. Death threats over stealing a cracker are justified in the defense of their sacred traditions, and death threats over proselytizing at a LGBT event unwarranted acts of aggression towards their spreading the word of love.
You can not make someone understand who does not want to understand, and Dervin has demonstrated so aptly in this thread. Trying to meet them halfway only drags us closer to them, and as the past forty years in the US has shown us, that can only lead to ruin.
With regard to the last paragraph of your post (your belief/person distinction), a Catholic sees it as an attack (using your words) on the person of Christ, not just an attack upon Catholic beliefs. That damage has to be repaired through prayer, devotion and sacrifice. That’s why you saw Catholics asking for a day of prayer and reparation – this is offered by Catholics themselves and not asked of anyone else.
If you love someone, you don’t want to see them mistreated. It does create a sense of injustice when they are harmed. The Catholic belief is that the person of Christ is in the Blessed Sacrament – Real Presence. So, it is really an attack on a person not a belief.
Jesus is dead. Get over it.
Uh, no, it is an attack on the belief that a cracker can become a person. No amount of belief makes something a fact.
This Jesus guy is a real wimp. I thought that GOD was omnipotent and various other omnis. Now it appears that Jesus needs massive, concentrated care to recover from an ouchie. Couldn’t Mary just kiss it all better? That’s what my mommy did when I got an ouchie.
#277
From your point of view. That’s the whole point.
No, the whole point is that their belief the cracker is a person doesn’t obligate anyone else to treat it as one.
No, reality is not a “point of view.” That’s the point.
Nope. It either does or it doesn’t, no point of view matters.
It’s a cracker.
#281
It is reality – Catholics call it Real Presence.
tsg:
Are you talking about me? (Seriously, I’m not clear if you mean me as “bringing it up.”) If you are, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’m an ex-Catholic militant atheist who thinks cracker desecration is a great thing—in principle, anyway—and I have very good militant atheist reasons for being concerned with the details of the legalities. Details on request.
I’m in no way defending kooks like Donohue or the death threat dopes. Really. No way.
The fact that those guys are out there (and really out there) isn’t really relevant to what I’m saying.
I’m not Dervin, and I’m not saying that. I do have some things to say about how it’s an understandable or even predictable reaction—but not “understandable” in any sense of being rationally justified. More like “it’s understandable if a rattlesnake bites you when you come up to it suddenly in the dark.”
Calling it “reality” doesn’t make it so.
I remember that one. “He was looking at me…” And, another favorite, he crossed the line… (The invisible line separating my side of the backseat from my brother’s.)
James the Less
When someone takes a consecrated host out of the Church and puts a rusty nail through it should that person be brought up on criminal charges for torture? Please explain your reasons one way or the other.
No, Dervin, you’e not. And that’s why you continously fail in your fact-contrary fight.
It is reality – Catholics call it Real Presence.
They can call it Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-PTANG, Zoom-Boing, Z’nourrwringmm and it would make as much sense and deserve as much respect.
The turd you stepped in last Friday is the body of my Lord. We call it the Holy Excrement. You have desecrated it, disrespected my sacred beliefs and therefore deserve to DIE.
But we will pray for you.
#287
There is no civil or criminal law that I know of that defines the Blessed Sacrament as a person or gives the Blessed Sacrament legal status as a person.
An obsessive-compulsive sees a spot of dirt as something that has to be repaired through hours and hours of handwashings. Does that mean you and everyone else must treat that belief as legitimate?
Derwood,
Don’t go to law school. You’ll never make it. And if, by some miracle you do, please for the love of the Baby Cracker, do not practice law. You will end up getting someone innocent thrown in jail.
There is no civil or criminal law that I know of that defines the Blessed Sacrament as a person or gives the Blessed Sacrament legal status as a person.
No shit. Do you draw any conclusions from this glaringly obvious fact?
James the Less (#287)
“There is no civil or criminal law….”
That isn’t what I asked you. I asked you what you beleived to be ethical and moral. IN YOUR OPINION, is putting a rusty nail through a consecrated host an act torture DESERVING legal punishment?
#291
No one is asking you to. I certainly haven’t.
No, I’m not and didn’t mean to imply that I was. My point was that the whole argument of “cracker theft” goes away if you turn the object of the theft into something that isn’t held sacred by anyone. It’s a red herring in an attempt to rationalize the reaction to what would otherwise be a petty, non-newsworthy, completely ignorable incident except that some put an irrational value to the object that was “stolen” and an unreasonable demand that others do as well.
My other problem with the analogy is that Cook didn’t deprive anyone of anything, which is the real, actual, if trivial, harm in taking a bowl of peanuts from a bar. If the patron had spent a couple of hours and fifty dollars in the bar and took a handful of peanuts on his way out the door, is he doing anything wrong? I don’t think so. If he sits there all day, not buying a single thing and eating bowl after bowl of peanuts, is he doing anything wrong? Sure. And that’s what this whole argument is about and why the “cracker theft” argument fails: there is no harm. No one is being deprived of anything. If everyone who walks in the bar is going to get one peanut, what does the bartender care where he eats it? He doesn’t. And if the bartender responded with force for one patron saving it for later, everyone would think he was nuts. Make it a holy peanut, however, and suddenly some say the rules are different. They aren’t, and that’s the real point.
If the people arguing “cracker theft” can’t point to an actual, real, harm that doesn’t depend on the sacredness of the cracker, then they have no argument and it is pointless to discuss whether or not it was technically theft. The church isn’t out anything they wouldn’t have been if Cook did what they thought was acceptable with the cracker instead of taking it home.
Dervin #262 wrote:
You could be right, though given PZ’s email, it’s not an extraordinary claim. I don’t know enough to say with certainty, either way.
I can go along with this, for reasons similar to what Paul W. said with the bartender and the peanuts.
I can go along with this, too. The Catholics were using the space for their church. Politeness requires that one should refrain from causing gratuitous offense when visiting (if there’s a case being made for civil disobedience, then the case has to be made.)
Yes, we should be careful. I agree. Which is why I think it important to place PZ’s act of desecration in context. As for Cook’s act, in my opinion he shouldn’t have done it. If he had been sitting next to me, and asked, I would have leaned over and whispered “oh, please don’t.”
Which is fine. PZ wasn’t celebrating Cook taking a cracker. I think we can grant your argument on the original cause, and it makes little to no difference to subsequent events.
BobC Do you really think Cook would make up a story like that, when there were dozens of people there who witnessed everything.
You care to show me any witness testimony saying he was assaulted? The University held a hearing and found all his charges baseless.
BobCAbout the death threats – I bet PZ has lost count of the number of death threats he’s received. And you are claiming Cook received zero death threats.
But unlike Cook, PZ has published the death threats with explicit verifiable details, notified the company of one of the people who threatened and got his wife fired. That’s what we in the real world consider evidence. This kid has provided nothing but his word – and you are choosing to believe him because he did something you don’t have the balls to do.
But you keep on believing what you want to believe despite the lack of objective evidence.
James the Less:
What, exactly, is your point?
Like killing all the indians… Like attacking Mexico and starting the Mexican-American war… Like slavery and the 3/5ths person compromise… Like instigating the Spanish-American war… Like overthrowing MULTIPLE DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED GOVERMENTS…
Remember, not all those ideas were good ideas… And many of those sacrifices were for evil acts…
No matter how you wrap yourself in the flag…
If Jesus can’t defend himself from a middle aged professor wielding a rusty nail, why bother worshipping him. You would be better off putting him in an assisted living home.
I guess gods get old and feeble too. His dad got mildly annoyed 4,000 years ago and nearly destroyed the earth, everything on it, and all but 8 people.
James the Less (#295)
Why won’t you address my question?
#294
You asked me if it’s criminal torture, I told you why it wasn’t criminal torture.
“But unlike Cook, PZ has published the death threats with explicit verifiable details, notified the company of one of the people who threatened and got his wife fired. That’s what we in the real world consider evidence. This kid has provided nothing but his word – and you are choosing to believe him because he did something you don’t have the balls to do.
But you keep on believing what you want to believe despite the lack of objective evidence.”
People have gotten death threats for far less than taking a cracker from a church. Hollywood celebrities get death threats simply for existing. So do politicians. Your assumption that Cook got no threats is playing against the odds pretty heavily. You’re also partially assuming that Cook has an online presence similar to that of PZ, or that he views the situation in the same way that you do and sees fit to sift through and post such tripe on the internet.
This is a case where assuming the negative is actually more of a stretch than assuming the positive. Is it entirely possible that he did not get threats? Of course. But PZ got threats from the group complaining about Cook’s actions, and that was AFTER what Cook did in a comment on the situation. So you’re telling me that PZ gets threats for commenting on the situation (even before he nailed the cracker), and Cook *DIDN’T* get threats for actually taking the cracker? And you’re further assuming this while also arguing that the consecrated cracker means so much to them that they deserve to be outraged?
Surely you jest.
James the Less (294)
We all know there is no statute on the books concerning this question. I didn’t ask you about the history of criminal law but what you believe should be the case. IN YOUR OPINION, should someone who puts a rusty nail through a consecrated wafer be charged with torture? I am also asking you to explain your reasoning on the question involved.
Dervin, can we agree that Rosa Parks, in sitting somewhere other than the place assumed for people with her skin color, was ‘breaking a social contract’?
Some social contracts are worth breaking.
No. There really isn’t in this case, nor so much in your reading as you would believe. This is a black-law theft by deception statute:
Something to help you understand “intent:”
SCIENTER – Knowingly. Having the requisite knowledge of the wrongness/illegality of an act or conduct; guilty knowledge; knowing the impropriety/illegality associated with doing certain acts. This is often an element of liability or guilt that must be proven before a judgement or conviction can be obtained.
In other words, you’ve got to have the evil intent. If you borrow your neighbors lawnmower and fail to return it, it’s not theft. If you lose it, it’s still not theft. If you refuse to give it back (for whatever reason), though you really had intended to do so, then you have a Theft by Conversion issue because the intent to steal happened in the future from the act of borrowing.
Only if you intend, prior to the borrowing of the mower, to obtain the property and not return it do we have “Theft by Deception.”
Which makes much of your example moot. Another issue is mooting much of your analysis is that when something is freely given to the public, it’s given. And you don’t get to cry theft because you don’t like what they did with it later.
When my daughter was five, we were looking for some Unicorn pictures to print out. My daughter ran into a picture of a girl riding a horse with a bridle that had a “horn” affixed to it.
“Daddy, Daddy, they’re real! Daddy, they’re real!” she exclamied.
I said “What?”
“Unicorns, Daddy, they’re real… They’re really real!”
After a few hours of explaining she decided they weren’t real after. Now that she’s almost 12, she’s still embarrassed. I tell her she shouldn’t be. It was a very realistic looking faux horn and she was, after all, just five.
Would that you could be as rational as a five-year-old child. Because calling it “reality” doesn’t make it the Baby Jesus.
No, they shouldn’t be charged with torture. The reason: it would require civil authority to recognize Real Presence, which is the province of theology. No Catholic is forcing you to believe in Real Presence. However, in many states, there are laws against damaging property inside a church. So, walking inside a church at Eucharistic Adoration and driving a nail into a consecrated host inside a monstrance would be institutional vandalism.
#308
Calling Real Presence a delusion doesn’t make it so either.
And now for something completely different.
http://www.cracked.com/article_16546_6-raunchiest-most-depraved-sex-acts-from-bible.html
James. It’s a testable claim. Believing it’s the “body of christ” despite what the evidence tell you is a delusion.
We’ve been through this before. There are laws against damaging REAL PROPERTY (real-estate). There are no laws against damaging a cracker.
Had PZ gone into a Catholic Church with a hammer and smashed the Alter, he’d have committed a crime. He didn’t. Neither did Cook. End of story.
Thank you for playing, please try again.
James the Less (309)
So driving a rusty nail through a consecrated host is an act of torture but not prosecutable by civil authorities? Some tortures are outside the bounds of criminal law?
James the Less #309 wrote:
Yes, it would. And I think it would be vandalism even if they snuck in at night, and the host wasn’t consecrated. This isn’t getting into blasphemy.
Anri, Rosa Parks wasn’t violating the social contract. It was the South which was violating the social contract. Rosa Parks was enforcing the Social Contract. If you can tell me what great social injustice Cook was fighting against, I’d be glad to hear it.
BlueIndependent, If Cook isn’t taking those threats seriously, why should we?
He was willing to charge the Catholic Center with violating the Hazing rules – because they were going to force him to eat the cracker. He brought up assault charges against the Young Woman. This boy has a hair trigger when it comes to filing formal complaints. He’s got a pattern of behavior and suddenly he’s doing nothing on death threats?
He had a chance to provide evidence of those threats to the University and have the students brought up on disciplinary charges (because people who are dumb enough to make threats are dumb enough to use their personal accounts to make those threats). For the off campus assholes who made those threats, you contact the local police, the ISP and the FBI.
I think arguing over whether Cook committed a crime is a huge waste of time. There is no evidence of a wish to deprive anyone permanently of anything, or indeed to do any harm at all. Cook was subject to some humiliation, and a minor assault, and left the church with a wafer. Whatever it was Cook did that merited the assault, nobody seems to have made clear.
I think PZ Myers’ timely, and quite risky, action, made a good thing out of a very bad situation. It may perhaps have contributed towards saving Cook’s university career. It certainly demonstrated the failure of organized religion to get its way by bullying. Against a united opposition, it was unable to score a hit in this case.
You can count me as one who is both surprised and relieved at that.
Moses, Cook actually did go into a church, if he didn’t go into the Church, PZ would have had to find some other way to draw attention to himself.
@Dervin:
If the South was the one violating the contract, and not Rosa, then the church is violating the social contract of not spreading insanity.
Iain @127
Thanks for posting that, it was a fun read.
It also reminded me to feed the sewing machine.
cheers
BobC @ #248
Yes. I do.
Dervin has tried to get the facts of the matter – as far as they are known – which is what any good scientist should do. And this is a science blog written by a professional scientist, isn’t it? If those facts are not consistent with the first reports of what happened, do you pretend that they aren’t true or do you accept that maybe this wasn’t quite as black-and-white as it seemed at first.
Dervin,
If Cook’s actions “violated the social contract”, how do you describe the actions of Bill Donohue?
It’s, yanno, part of the context of this whole affair. You’re not “getting at the facts” unless you consider the complete reactions of both sides.
dervin: What do my beliefs have to do with the Cook’s violation of the social contract.
Dervin, social contracts are quite often neither social nor contracts.
Do you have any legal argument to back up your claims? Or are you just making up “rules” to enforce something the law can’t enforce?
Dervin isn’t attempting a reasoned debate. He has his mind made up (Cook and PZ are wrong), and is flinging shit the best he can to see what will stick. With this group, nothing much. So he keeps fling in hopes we will see his vapid point–whatever it is. At the end of the day, he has presented no new evidence, and no new argument.
By the way, PZ does not go out of his way to insult people just for the sake of attention. His target in this case was Bill Donohue, who does just that.
I noticed Dervin has tried to deny the facts of the matter including the fact Cook was assaulted and the fact that Cook was threatened. These facts are well known. I think this is the most documented story in Pharyngula history.
I also noticed Dervin said the assault against Cook (an assault he denied) was justified.
I do not think a person who justifies an assault (for not eating a cracker) is a reasonable person. In fact if I wanted to be honest I would have to call him an asshole.
So the net result is; the jesus thing has ended up being one cracker short of a full package? I suppose that might be less than satisfactory the next time it intends to impregnate its mom to be. I will gladly send it the best cracker I can find if a fully qualified christ rep. will provide the correct mailing address. Please?
Does anyone else here think Dervin is attempting a reasoned debate?
I do. I don’t think his point is particularly relevant to the larger issue, but he’s making a reasonable case for doubting that Cook is completely reliable, or a well-behaved guest.
Now Dervin is starting to piss me off. Dervin said “Cook actually did go into a church, if he didn’t go into the Church, PZ would have had to find some other way to draw attention to himself.”
You think PZ abused a cracker just to draw attention to himself? I thought the cracker abuse was to demonstrate the idiocy and hopeless stupidity of people like you Dervin. The breathtaking stupidity of people who believe a cracker can be sacred. So sacred that defending it requires death threats.
Dervin,
PZ has already been in a movie. He didn’t need to do this to get attention he already gets plenty.
Quit being a putz. Although it’s obvious you can’t help it.
So, it is really an attack on a person not a belief.
Give me a break. Are you telling me that there are actually mentally competent people over the age of four, not locked up in an insane asylum, who really, truly BELIEVE this crap? That believing really hard makes a cracker turn into Jesus?
My opinion of Catholics is taking a beating. I don’t think I’ll ever again be able to look at one without laughing. :-D
Dervin:
You asked what social injustice Cook was fighting against.
The answer is:
The concept that a piece of bread be given greater deference than a human being. The idea that a mass-produced, utterly mundane inanimate object has, because someone spoke ritual words over it, gained importance even approaching that of the rights of a thinking person.
This is part of the social contract in a Catholic mass – that the bread is somehow more important now that it has been intoned at. Just as is was (and still, to a disturbing extent, is) the social contract below the Mason-Dixon line to assume that blacks are unfit company for whites.
Both are asinine, and both are worth bucking.
Even at the cost of rudeness.
My Cavanagh Altar Bread crackers finally arrived last week. “Made from only pure wheat flour and water.” 1,000 of them. 100 per cellophane stack. I took a stack out and showed it to my wife (who was confirmed) and it “creeped her out”! The power of early conditioning.
What am I going to do with these things?
I’m thinking… Video camera, Chipmunks, Cavanaghs, CGI halos after eating. YouTube here I come.
Love the post Sastra!!!!! Love most of the rest of the posts here too. You all give me hope.
Nonsense. It’s the same insinuations we’ve heard a thousand times, that Cook somehow chose to enter Mass under false pretenses. While it’s possible, there’s no reason to assume that. In addition Dervin implies that Cook isn’t Catholic (to be fair, your analogy in the original post did that too).
“A confession of atheism is simply an honest confession of ignorance of any realities that transcend the human ego, nothing more, nothing less. And why argue with a man who not only clings to ignorance, but is proud of the fact?”
“..For reason is only a faculty of knowing something indirectly in the absence of direct vision, while God is known directly, the same way one knows one is alive, perceives reality, or is aware of free will. In order to see something, it is not necessary to logically prove the existence of sight. Many of the most important truths are known simply by their “superabundance of clarity,” by pure intellect, not by the reason which is its servant. Reason is not Intelligence in itself, only an instrument of intelligence. Few things create more mischief than reason in the hands of an unintelligent or immoral wonker. .[..] Not for nothing did Richard Weaver say that “every attack upon religion is inevitably an attack upon mind.” Naturally there are many forms of stupid religion, for there is nothing touched by humans wonkers that cannot be made stupid. But at least religion as such does not exclude the possibility and priority of Intelligence, and therefore, Truth. …” ~ Gagdad Bob The Absolute Science of the Center and the Darwinist Religion of the Periphery
Imo, Dervin doesn’t have to be right in order to be ‘making a reasonable case.’ He could be completely wrong. It’s just that he’s not trolling. There’s evidence, and argument, and response.
So to summarize my discussion with James the Less:
While within the jurisdiction of Minnesota and the US of A PZ Myers conspired to abduct and imprison one Jesus and further, PZ Myers did willfully drive a rusty nail through said Jesus and then abandoned him in a trash can. However, no prosecution is possible since this was all done in the province of Theology.
…or possibly the Province of the Bermuda Triange.
Fortunately, I’m not relying on simply calling it one when I say it is one. That is, the evidence is on my side.
Matchett PI #334 wrote:
No. Unless you’re going to concede the atheist’s argument that God is a feeling, it’s still an indirect inference made from certain feelings and intuitions. Since there are alternate inferences which are simpler (ie God is the feeling itself), it needs to be justified.
(My gut feeling here is that this is a drive-by troll, and will thus illustrate my point re Dervin, who is trying to make a reasoned argument. Presuppositionalism is the insistence that there is no need for reasoned argument, because it’s self-evident.)
Not quite. Dervin has gone from claiming the reactions of the Catholics were justified and right, to claiming they didn’t happen. That’s called “moving the goalposts”[1] and is precisely what any scientist, good or otherwise, should not do.
[1] To the point that I wonder if he doesn’t buy them with wheels on to save time.
One More Time…
If Cook were to file charges against the woman who grabbed him, she ‘might’ be charged with a misdameanor battery charge, which is nothing. ‘Assault’ is an aggressive verbal threat, battery is physical contact , felony battery is physical contact with injury.
The woman grabbed Cook’s hand, tried to pry his fingers open and retrieve the Cracker. Cook put it in his mouth, the confrontation ended, he went back to his seat, took it out of his mouth, was spotted, hilarity ensued, maybe even an assault, it’s unclear.
Dervin:
Perhaps, but it probably wouldn’t have been desecrating a Catholic communion wafer. The particular action was a response to the absurd responses to the Webster Cook affair, by Bill Donohue and other kooks.
PZ only crossed the particular line that he crossed because of the outrageous hammering that Webster Cook got.
PZ might be what you’d consider an asshole, but he does have some sincere and valid points to make with his particular choices of lines to cross.
I personally wouldn’t cross that particular line—but not because it’s not justified in a big picture sense.
I think the Catholic Church deserves to have its lines crossed. It crosses my lines all the damned time, messing with people’s substantive civil rights, etc. (Fighting gay rights and birth control, supporting various archaic “morality” laws, fostering child molesters, brainwashing innocent children, etc.)
That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s worth stooping to cross its lines, in my view, but I do understand where PZ is coming from and why he does the particular things he does. That’s part of the context.
I also do think that what PZ did was a “stunt” partly to “get publicity.” I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. If you have something to say and think it’s worth hearing, it often makes sense to draw attention to it one way or another. I don’t think PZ is particularly self-serving; I think he sincerely wants to get his points across. Certain points became topical with the Webster Cook affair—which PZ did not initiate—and he leveraged that. So what? (Do you think the Pope doesn’t seek publicity, and comment on current events?)
I’m nominating the following comments for “Most insane comments of this thread”:
This sentence was my favorite: That damage has to be repaired through prayer, devotion and sacrifice.
I have never seen stronger evidence for the idea that Catholics are the most insane people in human history.
Posted by James the Less:
With regard to the last paragraph of your post (your belief/person distinction), a Catholic sees it as an attack (using your words) on the person of Christ, not just an attack upon Catholic beliefs. That damage has to be repaired through prayer, devotion and sacrifice. That’s why you saw Catholics asking for a day of prayer and reparation – this is offered by Catholics themselves and not asked of anyone else.
If you love someone, you don’t want to see them mistreated. It does create a sense of injustice when they are harmed. The Catholic belief is that the person of Christ is in the Blessed Sacrament – Real Presence. So, it is really an attack on a person not a belief.
windy, 333, although the argument of “false pretenses” is often raised in this case, it may be irrelevant. Because of the law regarding false pretenses, whatever Mr. Cook’s pretenses were may not matter.
Using Wiki as a commonly available reference, at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_pretenses, the misrepresentation must be affirmative – i.e. the pretenses must actually be presented to the person passing title of the cracker. If he kept his pretenses to himself, and the cracker was still provided, then the law of false prtenses quite likely does not apply.
OK, I think I interpreted “reasonable” as something stronger than what you meant. I agree that Dervin is attempting to make a reasoned case, but he’s not doing it entirely in good faith.
Thanks for listening.
Pax vobiscum
Re: Sastra #338
My post #334 went over your head.
BobC @ # 325
I see Dervin listing facts. Which were omitted that you think should have been there?
I see that the girl is supposed to have grabbed his elbow – which I believe is technically a battery. As far as I can see, Dervin has simply pointed out that we only have Cook’s word for this. I don’t see Dervin arguing anywhere that such an assault was justified.
That analogy was really interesting because a lot of the discussions I had with christians (especially catholics) who disagreed with me on this veered into the realm of perceptive bias – that is, they genuinely believed that the rule of the land was secular atheism and that christians (sometimes their own denomination in particular) are shamelessly persecuted, and they would often try to make their point by demanding, “Well, if Prof. Myers had symbolically attacked gays, would he have been allowed to get away with it then”, the implication being, “Of course not!”
I think perhaps it’s just a major part of so much of western religion, a teaching of so many Abrahamic faiths that god is “Separate” and “Other” from “the World” and that the World is in cahoots on the issue of god and his people. It’s a wonderful strategy for motivating partisanship and activism, but it also has these nasty side-effects in at least some cases, where believers actually dip right off into conspiratorial imaginings that somebody like PZ Myers is just this frothing hate-monger, pathologically obsessing over them, who requires immediate restraint and censure for the safety of believers.
Q wrote:
I agree that it may not matter legally, but it’s unfair to Cook personally to imply it.
BTW if you want to get a nice graphical idea of the “Expelled effect” and the “Crackergate effect”, look at this :
http://www.google.com/trends?q=PZ+Myers%2C+Sam+Harris%2C+Christopher+Hitchens%2C+daniel+dennett&ctab=0&geo=all&date=2008&sort=1
Google trends comparison of PZ, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett since beginng of the year.
(I didn’t put Richard Dawkins, he’s still way above…)
Remember, PZ hasn’t published a book, yet !
Off topic, but as this is just another cracker thread, who really cares that it’s off topic-
PZ must really be enjoying himself, as he is too busy to give us an update, but you can get a Galopagos update from Phil Plait at
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/08/13/galapagos-update/
Incidentally, Host-Stealing Student Walks! Bwaaah-Fuck! Douse the flames, he’s not going on!
windy, 349, “I agree that it may not matter legally, but it’s unfair to Cook personally to imply it.”
I’m unsure of your response, and what Cook’s implication has to do with anything. There is a strong argument being made that Cook stole the cracker, reiterated with the claim of “false pretenses.” (I realize you didn’t start the argument. Dervin used it earlier back at 220, along with the accusation that it was stealing.)
If it wasn’t theft, then the arguments of unfair implications and of violating social contracts as Dervin used have no merit in terms of finding Cook wrong of anything except generating offense. Which, in America, is not really wrong.
Sastra,
I don’t fully understand the difference in actions between what Cook did and what Dervin is doing. The value of the cracker is frivolous, so any difference is in faith vs. rational thought. Cook entered a faith place and challenged their belief. Dervin is challenging our rational thought. Why does Dervin get a pass and doubt about Cook.
I see it differently.
It’s extraordinarily difficult to engage in reasoned debate with Atheists, scientific materialists, and their fellow travelers who deny reality and engage in magical thinking because, in word, they are stupid. But as an act of Christian charity in the desire to bring ye drooling monkeys, paste eaters and turd throwers to a level of intellectual enlightenment that might allow you to be present among members of polite society, here it goes:
1. Many of the Jesus-haters above seem to think that the prejudice they exhibit is not bigotry because Catholics choose to be Catholics. Idiot meet dictionary.
2. Matt Penfold, who does not appear to be Catholic, likely knows no pious Catholics, and likely does not want to know a pious Catholics avers that he read somewhere on the Intertubes that many pious Catholics return to their seat with the Host. Matt Penfold, let me assure you that this information is false. Most pious Catholics receive the Host on their tongue rather than in their palm and in the event they do receive the Host in their palm they certainly do not walk around church with the Host in hand. Repeating this bizarre claim doesn’t make it true. No doubt someone represented to you that this was true, but they were wrong. Two types of people receive the Host in their palm and return to their seats without consuming the Host: (1) freaky Satanists desirous of performing bizarre black magic rituals, and (2) shitheads.
3. There are a number of bizarre defenses of the legal definition of assault intended to make it clear that when a little girl touches your arm said little girl should go to jail and PZ Myers should desecrate a Host. Even if unsolicited arm touching is a technical instance of battery, continually trotting it out as an assault is an intellectual assault on the concept of wrongful and offensive touching. A reasonable man could not have been put in fear of his safety or otherwise have been offended by a little girl touching his arm. Frankly I don’t think a reasonable man would be put in fear of his safety or otherwise offended by a much bigger man requesting that he return the Host. When the PZian horde cries out “PZ had to do something Sacrilegious because the Christians are crazy and violent,” rational people cock their head and think: “WTF?” Some girl puts her hand on some guy (who happens to be by any objective standard a shithead) and the shithead later reports that he “received death threats” (which, to a man who feels threatened by the hand of little girl probably means a cat meowed in his general direction). That’s evidence of a crazy, violent horde of Christians intent on preventing you dirty monkeys from being dirty? I’m not saying you don’t really feel that way. You’re irrational crazy people who may in fact think that your lives are and your way of living is in danger. But that’s just further evidence that you are irrational and crazy. Please stop projecting. We know that if the reigns of power were in your hands you would burn and eat all persons of faith. But that’s because you’re scary and evil. Christians aren’t so you don’t have anything to worry about. On a related point, there are people in the world who believe every person has intrinsic dignity from the moment of conception to natural death. They believe that life is a precious gift that must be protected and cherished at each point of that continuum. They are Roman Catholics. There are other people who believe each person is little more than an animated meat puppet. They are atheists. Which should we be afraid of?
4. Another point frequently raised is that Cook is a Catholic so it’s ok if he absconds with the Eucharist. The very act of thinking “Hey, maybe I’ll abscond with the Eucharist to make the point that Catholics shouldn’t be receiving University funding” revokes the invitation to participate in Communion. Whether or not Cook came up with this idea after he was touched by a little girl or before he went up to Communion is, perhaps, an open question. But there is evidence to suggest it was before. In any event, as soon as this idea popped into his head, the invitation is revoked. He is no longer welcome to participate in Communion. I’m a bit surprised that the reaction of the extraordinary ministers was that he consume the Host. Given that he had already shown himself to be a shithead, consuming the Host would only exacerbate his grievous sin. If Cook is a practicing Catholic he would no this so I’m not sure why he got so bent out of shape in the first place. Reasonable minds could conclude that Cook is not a practicing Catholic, was not a practicing Catholic when he approached the altar to receive the Eucharist, and that he never intended to receive the Host and was only attending Mass in the first place to disrupt it. The feverish desire of the PZian horde to defend this guy is further evidence of their bigotry.
5. Finally, does anyone really doubt that if a student walked into the meeting of a GLBT university group (that is, a university group full of college kids who by nature are not mature, prudent and wise) and did something as offensive as Cook’s actions (which isn’t possible, but maybe he could stand up and start spouting off a number of offensive slurs) that some buff sodomite would punch him in the mouth? And while in polite society we might wag a finger at the puncher and say that violence is not an appropriate response to asshattery, normal people would think (1) the punchee is an idiot and (2) sometimes when idiots do stupid things they get punched in the mouth. Would PZ point and shout “This just shows that gays are violent and if you don’t agree with them they’ll punch you and then turn your kids gay!!!!” Well, probably, but I think we’ve already established that he’s an idiot.
As are most of you.
Peace out.
Matchett-PI #346
Your boy, Gagdad Bob, did some tapdancing to try to show that belief in God is, in some way, shape or form, reasonable. He says things like “Many of the most important truths are known simply by their ‘superabundance of clarity,’ by pure intellect, not by the reason which is its servant.” In other words, if you wish really, really, really hard, then Tinkerbelle will live and God will exist. In fact, Ol’ Gagdad is saying that reason cannot be used to show God’s existence. Which is something that rational atheists have been saying for years.
Loudon is a Fool,
I see the true nature of christianity is strong in you. All filled with piss and venom.
Loudon is a Fool #355
Rarely have I read such sanctimonious, priggish, condescending pomposity. To write that, one has to be either a learnéd, erudite rhetorician or a complete asshole.
LiaF # 355
Ok, if you can show me one shred of physical evidence, like Moses’ burning bush, which can be examined by scientists, debunkers, and magicians, and they all agree it is an example of god, you have a point. Otherwise, you believe in fairy tales. Who is the idiot in that case?
Loudon
Thanks so much for enlightening us about polite society.
Prrrwwackk!! Polly wants a cracker. I’ll have mine with chive, warmed gouda and cayenne, and a bit of the bubbly.
Obviously, it has to do with Dervin’s implications and Sastra’s original post.
You’re right, but some people here are arguing as if Cook intended offense, I’m saying that this is unfair to him, equivalent to spreading false rumors. Nothing to do with the legal aspect. OK?
Re: JoJo #356
Post #334 went over your head, too. :)
Re: JoJo #356
Post #334 went over your head, too. :)
Sastra: “One of the most common methods of trying to convince someone they’ve made a mistake is through analogy:…”
Well, then, lets try this one: What if the Eucharist were a Muslim high sacrament which Muslims believed was the actual body and blood of Mohammed? Would weeks of snarky commentary entailing several thousand comments toward offended and irate Muslims have ensued? Or, would cooler heads among the Pharyangula community have prevailed in the interest of a perceived threat to PZ’s safety?
The vast majority of bloggers here who use pseudonyms would have felt relatively safe. But would they have felt the same confidence where it pertained to PZ?
BobC,
I’m not claiming that the assault on Cook is justified. I”m claiming the assault on Cook never happened. Cook made two complaints to the University Committee, the committee heard both sides of the story, listened to all of Cook’s witnesses and said Cook’s complaints were completely unfounded.
You guys have taken Cook’s word as gospel (HA!)
“Dervin has tried to get the facts of the matter – as far as they are known – which is what any good scientist should do. And this is a science blog written by a professional scientist, isn’t it? If those facts are not consistent with the first reports of what happened, do you pretend that they aren’t true or do you accept that maybe this wasn’t quite as black-and-white as it seemed at first.”
Looking for facts does not make one a scientist, unless the pursuit is understanding natural phenomena. If Dervin was so forthright, why is he coming only here for the information? Why doesn’t he go look up the news stories himself, rather than relying on us to exposition it for him? The fact is the guy has to be filled in on the facts of the situation every time he posts, and yet when we fill him in, he persists in his original position, and keeps harping on meaningless details. He’s argued himself into a corner, is resting his case on the minor point about threats directed at Cook, and is calling it a game in his favor.
That’s not how it works.
The difference is, we were blogging on this weeks ago when it was happening, and now Dervin is coming in here trying to tell us how it went. He’s wrong and won’t admit it. He didn’t do his homework, and is basically content to write everyone off because we’ve pointed out how incorrect he is.
I don’t think this is a good analogy. I’m think burning an effigy of Harvey Milk would be a better analogy.
Windy, 362, “You’re right, but some people here are arguing as if Cook intended offense, I’m saying that this is unfair to him, equivalent to spreading false rumors. ”
Thanks for the explanation. I agree with you.
That’s what I thought I remembered Dervin said. However, just to make sure I just spent quite a bit of time reading all of Dervin’s comments, and now I’m certain I was wrong. Thanks for the correction.
Maybe Dervin would like to comment about this. Dervin, you deny the woman grabbed Cook’s arm, and tried to pry open his fingers. You also deny she refused to release his arm after Cook asked her to let go of him. (I suppose Cook is not in the habit of whacking ladies in churches, and she took advantage of that fact.) Anyway, my question is, Dervin, do you think the lady, whether she did it or not, was justified to do this? (I think she did it. I also think she was a batshit crazy asshole, but that’s another topic.)
For the record here Dervin seems to be justifying assault.
#195: And if you violate those rules you will be asked to leave, if you refuse to leave the group has a right to physically remove you from the meeting.
It wasn’t a complete waste of time reading all of Dervin’s comments. He seems to have a tendency to say one thing, and later say something that contradicts what he said before. I’m not the first person to notice this. Here’s an example.
#187: Because of the serious nature of the death threats, cook is working with campus and local police.
#195: But if somebody really threatened me, I’d go to the cops – which Cook has yet to do.
Here Dervin, who has been denying the death threats against Cook, said in #157: “Cook violated the social secular laws, the people who sent him “death” threats violated social secular laws.”
Here Dervin shows what a real Catholic asshole he really is. He insults Cook, and dishonestly says Cook wanted to draw attention to himself. More likely Cook wanted to do what he said he wanted to do, show the wafer to his friend, and THEN eat it. I noticed Cook was careful to tell his friend he was not allowed to participate in the Communion ceremony, proving Cook was really just a Catholic like everyone else. He was just a victim of other Catholics who take their death cult way too seriously.
From Dervin’s comment #122: Instead they violated the social contract – take advantage of the groups openness. If that attention whore down in Florida just ate the cracker like everybody else at the mass, There wouldn’t have been any problems. Even if he wrote in the school newspaper the next day about the fast one he pull over those Catholics. But he decided to taut them. And the problem is when you decide to taunt people, you never know how they are going to react.
While I haven’t read any transcript, I do know enough of how things work that probably what happened is that the committee did not feel that the offense was sufficient to warrant any action on their part–on the part of either claimant. They are use to dealing with true fights where blows are exchanged and bruises and scrapes results.
I never took Cook’s word as gospel, but he is much more of a truth teller than Bill Donohue. Try to justify his intervention in the whole affair.
@ 355
Yeah, because a 61 year-old man screaming “That varmint Cook had our Lord kidnapped in a Ziploc bag over yon the water tower! Let’s saddle up boys…” is the epitome of rationality.
Anri…
Both are asinine, and both are worth bucking.
Even at the cost of rudeness.
So what you are saying,is if an individual feels a particular group is asinine, He is then morally justified in invading the meetings of this group and disrupting it as he sees fit.
I’m assuming we all know he’s a strict constitutionalist who claims that it’s illegal for state universities to fund religious groups. And that no campus group should receive any student funds.
But of course he was really serious about going to a Mass he believes is breaking the law.
Enough. Please. Stop with the “Cracker-gate” already!
Enough with the stupid analogies, enough with examining the minutiae of each persons actions, down to the quarter second, enough with the Madden-esque play-by-plays.
Some Catholics got their feelings hurt, they got offended, and we all learned they aren’t big enough boys and girls to play well with all the other children in the sandbox…
So what? Who really gives a flying f*** at a rolling doughnut what one man did with a piece of baked flour and water that, to the majority of the world, universe, existence is just that: Flour and water… and nothing more.
I’d remind everyone, yet again, what the bible says about the host and unbelievers, but it keeps falling on deaf ears. Instead, I will say this:
The shark has been jumped, ladies and gentlemen. It’s time to just give it up and move on to more interesting, intellectually “greener” pastures. Please.
Cook didn’t disturb the mass. The overzealous “girl” trying to pry the wafer from his hands did. A rational person would of realized “it’s a cracker, he can do whatever he wants with it.”
He went to Mass because he’s a Catholic, Dervin.
Did you read #370? Did you notice why I called you an asshole? It’s because you’re a liar. Your “But he decided to taut them” is lying.
There were several threads about the cracker incident and each thread was over 1,000 comments. You have contributed nothing new. All we got from you was the usual lying I have learned to expect from Catholic morons like yourself.
Dervin,
Even if you prove Cook did something wrong (still unproven as there is no smoking gun), you have to justify Bill Donohue and the Catholic League getting involved in what should have been slight brouhaha handled at the school where it happened without any outside interference. PZ did not do anything until Donohue got involved. Can you justify Donohue getting involved?
Kate
I’m puzzled. If you are so frustrated that this thread goes on and on, and crackergate goes on and on, why are you not in some greener pasture?
Really, what is it to you that some people are still interested?
Loudon is a Fool #355 wrote:
As you say, we would agree “that violence is not an appropriate response.” Neither, I think, is charging the person who damns homosexuals to hell with a “hate crime” and trying to get him expelled from school (as in my hypothetical.) I think we’re getting side-tracked on Cook and whether or not he was man(or woman) handled. Let’s say for the sake of argument he wasn’t. The major issue still remains. We need to distinguish between criticism and violence.
Bob Evans #365 wrote:
Probably. PZ desecrated a Quran, and there was no reaction. And there’s a lot of sharp criticism of Islam (both beliefs and tactics) on Pharyngula.
But if there had been physical retaliation, are you suggesting that the proper reaction to violent extremists is deference, and refraining from criticism so they aren’t “set off?” If the Catholics were even more vicious, more dangerous, and more lethal in their reactions, would this be more satisfactory, because they would be “better” at dealing with mockery and scorn, as it deserves? Careful.
We coined a term, “fatwah envy.” I’m not sure if that applies to you — or if you’re just really very, very concerned for PZ’s safety.
BobC, Have you read anybody else’s account of the Cook’s behavior at the mass? You are aware that he’s on record claiming the student funding of all student religious groups is illegal under the US Constitution – well before his outburst. But yeah, the intentions of strict constitutionalists are as pure as the driven snow. RON PAUL!!!
Nerd of Redhead- Donahue is an attention whore as well. They tend to follow in each other’s wake. Cook begot Donahue who begot PZ.
LMR # 188
I was wondering if / when someone would catch that. i noticed it right before i posted it, and decided not to change it. And you are right, capitalizing a word does not necessarily make it more important, but I have to admit that it sometimes does for me. I have to think that the only reason that i (subconsicously i should add) didn’t have a problem capitalizing hindus is that i have never had the experience of a hindu trying to force their beliefs on me. I only wish i could say the same for christians.
Dervin, sounds like you have a problem with Donohue. Why don’t you post your true feelings about his involvement with the whole episode. If he is an attention whore, we would love to hear why he is one, and what he should do in the future to become less of one.
Dervin,
It doesn’t matter what Cook’s motivation was, or whether he’s a jerk, an asshole, a libertarian, an anarchist – or a phrenologist, for that matter. Even if he had ‘disturbed tha mass’ (debatable) or ‘broken the social contract’ (impossible, considering number of catholics who take their hosts back to their seats – or put them in their pockets) the people there had no right to do anything other than ask him to leave and reserve the right to not invite him back again.
No matter how you try to interpret (or misinterpret) what he did or why he did it, or bring up that he has since changed his story to make himself out to be less of an assclown for doing it doesn’t change that.
His motivation – unimportant; their (over)reaction – all-important.
Steve_C
Cook didn’t disturb the mass.
According to who? Cook?
The overzealous “girl” trying to pry the wafer from his hands did. A rational person would of realized “it’s a cracker, he can do whatever he wants with it.”
He can do whatever he wants to the cracker outside of the mass, but inside the mass, he has to respect the traditions of the church. If you don’t want to respect the mass, if you don’t want to respect the cracker – DON’T GO TO A CATHOLIC MASS!!! If you go to a Catholic mass, if you go receive communion you are saying “I believe this is the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” If you don’t believe that, then don’t go to mass. How fucking hard is it not to go to mass?
How fucking thick are you people? Are you in the least bit aware of the philosophical and moral framework you are providing to undermine secular society!?
The Strength of secular society is based on the belief that if you don’t like the groups ideas – you don’t have to participate in that group’s practices. If you participate in a group practice, you have to respect the group’s ideas. It’s worked quite well for a few hundred years, but now you want to throw that away in the name of science.
well before his outburst.
You continue to get everything backwards Dervin.
Cook did not want any attention. The asshole Catholic woman who grabbed him and refused to let go is the person who caused all the trouble.
Your constant lying is getting boring Dervin. It’s especially boring because your lies have already been refuted a long time ago.
Dervin, why don’t you tell us why you think a tasteless cracker could have any value. That’s what this is all about. Catholics believe the cracker becomes sacred after a priest says some magic words. Non-Catholics, including atheists and Christians, think you Catholics are out of your minds. I agree. I think Catholics are way beyond insane, and I should know, because I went to Catholic grammar school from Kindergarten thru 8th grade. I know every Catholic belief. It’s all batshit insanity. Anyone who grows up and still believes any of it is a total moron. So what’s your problem Dervin? Why didn’t you grow up? Are you afraid of reality? Are you so gullible you’re willing to believe any nonsense, no matter how insane it is? I’m really interested. Why do you still have the mental illness called Catholicism?
Dervin: “The Strength of secular society is based on the belief that if you don’t like the groups ideas – you don’t have to participate in that group’s practices. If you participate in a group practice, you have to respect the group’s ideas. It’s worked quite well for a few hundred years, but now you want to throw that away in the name of science.”
We’re a damn sight smarter than you are if you think that what Cook or PZ did was an attempt to overthrow social behavior like participating in group activities in the name of science.
One would have to be pretty much an idiot to think that. Why choose to be an idiot? Why not try reading what people have written?
BobC has a good point, Derwin.
Why do you keep lying? Why do you keep misrepresenting?
Being a troll must be rather dull, my child. Trying playing in the grown-up league: stop lying.
Nerd of Redhead – I have so many problems with Donahue, I would have to start my own blog. (and I’ve got to go to bed, so all mistakes are unintentional)
1) He placed the blame for the sexual assaults scandal on Gay & Liberal – not the true villains the Church Hierarchy.
2) He minimized the sexual abuse by saying it was gay sex, not pedophilia
3) The Hollywood-Jews-anal-sex bit.
4) The Mel Gibson movie.
5) He cries like a little girl. Fuck that we are Irish Catholic, do you know what my people did? Survive a famine, traveled in steerage to the USA, beat the hell out of the south, beat the hell out of NYC, beat the hell out of each other, stared down the Russians, and can take a dump, send the used toliet paper to a publisher and win the Booker Prize in literature. And this twit is on Fox news crying about every god damn inconsequential thing.
Dervin wrote:
Kind of what I posted upthread, but I’ll write it again.
Indeed, I feel he should respect the traditions of the church if he’s chosen to go there. But that he didn’t isn’t the issue – it’s how they reacted. If they’d asked him to leave and told him never to come back then no-one here would have a problem with that.
Unfortunately, they chose to make a big song-and-dance about it, and drag in the media and grade-A asshat Bill Donohue, who blew it out of proportion.
I believe the expression is ‘you reap what you sow’ – is that from the bible?
Dervin@385,
Firstly, what exactly did Cook do that violates Catholic beliefs? From where I stand, there was a minor breach of protocol, followed by an overreaction.
… but now you want to throw that away in the name of science.
Not in the name of science – in the name of reality. Get real.
Dervin: “Nerd of Redhead – I have so many problems with Donahue, I would have to start my own blog. (and I’ve got to go to bed, so all mistakes are unintentional)
1) He placed the blame for the sexual assaults scandal on Gay & Liberal – not the true villains the Church Hierarchy.
2) He minimized the sexual abuse by saying it was gay sex, not pedophilia
3) The Hollywood-Jews-anal-sex bit.
4) The Mel Gibson movie.
5) He cries like a little girl. Fuck that we are Irish Catholic, do you know what my people did? Survive a famine, traveled in steerage to the USA, beat the hell out of the south, beat the hell out of NYC, beat the hell out of each other, stared down the Russians, and can take a dump, send the used toliet paper to a publisher and win the Booker Prize in literature. And this twit is on Fox news crying about every god damn inconsequential thing.”
In other words, you refuse to stop lying, and you don’t acknowledge that you are utterly wrong about your assertions.
What an idiot you are, to be sure, my child. And yes – the young need to go to bed early. Have pleasant dreams, my mendacious moron, and may flights of angels drop thee into the briar patch.
What a dolt.
Where can christ on a cracker be purchased? I’m going to a party in a couple of weeks and I’d like to bring some chips and dip. Anyone know how to make our own christ crackers? I hear the actual ones taste awful so I was thinking of making some ranch or nacho-cheese flavored crackers. Advice is welcome, thank you.
Dervin:
I’ve been reading your posts over many hours now and I don’t really get your argument. Maybe I’m one of the dumb ones. Your focus is on Cook, a minor protagonist in a much larger tableau. You have stated that he “invaded” the service yet if I understand correctly, any student who was a member of any club had the right to attend. You have stated that he “disrupted” the service by not consuming the wafer and going back to his seat. How can this be understood as a normative use of the term? Was he yelling or pushing people around? Obviously, any “disruption” that might have taken place happened when church officials got involved. At the very least, the kerfuffle was a result of that intersection. Right? I understand that you believe taking a wafer back to one’s seat is wrong but there are many other types of direspect for the doctrine (taking it unworthily for instance or sending consecrated hosts to loved ones at Christmas) that need to be given comparable weight imo.
Whether or not Cook broke some social contract (of which I am not yet convinced) is irrelevant. Where are all these atheists breaking your social contract? As far as I know, there is only one atheist in this who has taken physical action. PZ threw a host in the trash. I’m puzzled as to why his actions are not the focus of your indignation.
Dervin:
See, Dervin supported The Great Desecration all along. He was “just joking”, y’all.
Moses,
A quick note re Webster Cook:
I was sloppy in #259 and shifted from what I’d call plain wafernapping to discussing the Webster Cook case, which I shouldn’t have done.
I entirely agree that Webster Cook doesn’t seem to have accepted the wafer with the intent of napping it, so his case would not be theft by deception.
I was thinking mainly of cases where people go to church with the intent of obtaining a wafer, knowing that the people handing out the wafers would not give the wafer to them if they realized they weren’t Catholic and/or had no intention of treating the wafer “appropriately” by their standards. (Like the guy who obtained the famous ill-fated wafer for PZ, if I understand that story correctly.)
I’m not sure what all points you’re making about intent. In that kind of plain wafernapping case, I’d think the wafernapper had the kind of intent necessary for it to be theft—intentionally tricking somebody into giving up their property—even if they didn’t realize it was actually illegal.
(And even if they thought it was a justified transgression of a norm, if not a law. They’d have the requisite kind of “guilty mind” and ignorance of the law would be no excuse.)
If what Webster Cook did was illegal, assuming we’ve got the story right, I’d agree it would be criminal conversion, not theft by deception. And since he gave the wafer back, it would be an especially ridiculous thing to prosecute if the other requirements for criminality were met. (Like the wafer being a non-gift of some sort.)
My legal concerns aren’t really about Webster Cook; they’re about people intentionally obtaining consecrated wafers and desecrating them.
But as you remember as you were frog marched to mass as a young child, you’ll have to try to work out the scenario that would allow an Eucharistic minister to notice somebody not eating the cracker after 3 steps. Really, why would she watch him like a hawk? Or are you basing your view of this story only on Cook’s testimony?
Really, you seem to want it both ways, first the defends of Cook claim that he’s a Practicing Catholic – that’s why he went to mass, then you claim that he can treat it like a cracker. But if he thinks it’s only a cracker – then he’s not a Catholic. A Catholic is defined as a set of beliefs and a set of practices. The core belief is the cracker is the body of Jesus Christ.
If you don’t want to believe that, I don’t care – you have that right. If somebody knocks on your door and says “this cracker is holy…” you have the moral justification to take that cracker and throw it on the ground. If somebody goes up to you at lunch and says “Take this cracker for everylasting life…” and you throw it out, your actions are morally justified. Why? Because you didn’t ask for it, you were in a common/private space minding your own damn business and somebody went up to you to push their ideas on you.
But if you go to a Catholic space, sit through the mass, stand up and walk up the aisle to get communion, you’re deliberate actions show to everybody that you are a Catholic, you believe in the Eucharist and that you’ll treat it with respect. If you don’t want to treat the cracker with respect, don’t go to a Catholic Mass. The Cracker didn’t “assault” Cook, so why if he’s supposedly a Catholic did he take it out on that and not the young woman? Really, if she was assaulting him, he would have been legally and morally justified in giving her a couple of punches to protect himself and still treat the Cracker with respect.
Now think! If you are willing to say It’s OK to go to a Catholic Mass and disrespect the participants. Then where do you draw the line? What meetings (and not just religious) will be protected and what meetings will be Open Season on?
Dervin, honey? It’s past your bedtime. Your arguments are getting stupider.
“Really, you seem to want it both ways, first the defends of Cook claim that he’s a Practicing Catholic – that’s why he went to mass, then you claim that he can treat it like a cracker. But if he thinks it’s only a cracker – then he’s not a Catholic. A Catholic is defined as a set of beliefs and a set of practices. The core belief is the cracker is the body of Jesus Christ.”
– I don’t believe Cook has claimed it was just a cracker.
“If you don’t want to believe that, I don’t care – you have that right. If somebody knocks on your door and says “this cracker is holy…” you have the moral justification to take that cracker and throw it on the ground. If somebody goes up to you at lunch and says “Take this cracker for everylasting life…” and you throw it out, your actions are morally justified. Why? Because you didn’t ask for it, you were in a common/private space minding your own damn business and somebody went up to you to push their ideas on you.”
– So what?
“But if you go to a Catholic space, sit through the mass, stand up and walk up the aisle to get communion, you’re deliberate actions show to everybody that you are a Catholic, you believe in the Eucharist and that you’ll treat it with respect. If you don’t want to treat the cracker with respect, don’t go to a Catholic Mass. The Cracker didn’t “assault” Cook, so why if he’s supposedly a Catholic did he take it out on that and not the young woman? Really, if she was assaulting him, he would have been legally and morally justified in giving her a couple of punches to protect himself and still treat the Cracker with respect.”
– He didn’t take it out on the young woman. Stop lying. Cook was assaulted by her. Gentlemen don’t hit women. Apparently you’re rude as well as dumb.
“Now think! If you are willing to say It’s OK to go to a Catholic Mass and disrespect the participants. Then where do you draw the line? What meetings (and not just religious) will be protected and what meetings will be Open Season on?”
– Sigh. Do try to present an actual ARGUMENT next time – one based on actual facts and using valid logic. But that’s for playing, child, and please take your teddy bear with you on the way to get your milk & cookies.
Nighty-night, liar.
echidna@391: “Dervin@385,
Firstly, what exactly did Cook do that violates Catholic beliefs? From where I stand, there was a minor breach of protocol, followed by an overreaction.
… but now you want to throw that away in the name of science.
Not in the name of science – in the name of reality. Get real.”
Dervin’s not real. He’s just a troll. And not a very imaginative one, either. Repetition of lies.
Dervin
I believe that your whole argument rests on the intent of Cook, that he preplanned to go to that service and publicly disrupt it. I have read some implied arguments to this point by you but have not seen any evidence for it. Simply that he is a strict constitutionalist or that he doesn’t believe in public money for religious orgs. is not evidence of his intent. It’s innuendo.
In any event, his intent has no bearing on the unfolding timeline since his intent was unknown at the time (as it still appears to be).
Dervin@397,
Cook is a Catholic. That means you can’t say that he is disrespectful of the beliefs of others.
Most bloggers here are atheist, and have the right to assert that the wafer is a cracker.
No atheist has asserted that Cook considered the wafer to be a mere cracker.
I have not seen any account that indicates that he showed disrespect to the Host; what I have seen is an indication that he did not consume the Host at the altar. This breach of protocol should have been handled with a quiet word – and nothing more should have come of it.
What are you referring to when you say that Cook “took it out” on the cracker?
Dervin,
My impression is that in many Catholic churches, you are expected to eat the wafer without taking even ONE step, or even rising from your kneeling position. And they DO watch you. If you stand up and take a step without eating the wafer, somebody WILL likely notice and WILL care. (I’d expect the priest or minister to notice while giving the next person their wafer.)
The story I was told about receiving the wafer in your hands was that it was a concession to some people’s hygiene concerns. Otherwise the priest would put it straight into your mouth, and the only point of putting it in your hand would be for you to put it straight into your mouth. (I was taught never to touch the wafer with my hands at all.)
I was very suprised to hear that some churches don’t do it that way, and allow people to pray over the wafer and even take it back to their pews before eating it. I’d never heard of such a thing, but then I haven’t been to mass in a while.
Rilke’s Granddaughter@399,
you are most probably right that Derwin is a troll. But given the death threats to PZ and the fact that the issue has not blown over yet from the university perspective, and ridiculous as Derwin might be, how can you be so sure?
His slippery evasion of anything remotely to do with the facts reminds me of a face-to-face conversation I once had with Ken Ham (then relatively unknown), who at the time seemed to be a real-life troll, but I suspect now was in earnest.
Paul W
There have been many, many apparent Catholics who posted that their parish is much more lenient with the host. And that many parishoners see the host as purly sybolic. Further, there are strict ‘rules’ about this and that that needs to be done before one recieves but that many don’t follow the rules and the officials know it and don’t seem to care. I guess you know more about these things than I do since I have never be Catholic. There seems to be some significant differences between the traditionalists and the liberals.
AgnoAtheist,
I was intrigued to read about many churches being more liberal about the handling of the Host, and I have no doubt it’s true.
I was just pointing out to Dervin that many other Catholics are not liberal about it, so it is entirely plausible that somebody’d grab Webster Cook three steps from the communion rail. That’s likely what would have happened in my old church, and it all depends on who’s running the show.
RE: Loudon is a Fool.
Everyone – Don’t bother engaging this borderline sociopath (this is not slander, he has admitted he has difficultly understanding other peoples emotions or viewpoints.) He spends a lot of his time hanging around Rod Dreher’s “Cruncy Con” site, mostly when there is a discussion about Atheism. His main contentions are that atheists are all men,have bad body odour and don’t engage in rational discussions which is short hand,I suppose, for not agreeing with him. He is a troll don’t waste your time.
Speaking of Rob Dreher, Dervin ‘s bleating about breach of the “social contract” has very similar points to Dreher’s last blog entry about Crackergate.
Linky
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2008/08/pz-myers-fans-intellectual-aut.html
On second thoughts, I apologise for the link for Dreher’s site. Life is too short to waste on his drivel. Don’t bother reading it.
echidna@403 “you are most probably right that Derwin is a troll. But given the death threats to PZ and the fact that the issue has not blown over yet from the university perspective, and ridiculous as Derwin might be, how can you be so sure?
His slippery evasion of anything remotely to do with the facts reminds me of a face-to-face conversation I once had with Ken Ham (then relatively unknown), who at the time seemed to be a real-life troll, but I suspect now was in earnest.”
– You’re right, of course – he could be dangerous. But given the paucity of his arguments, his blatant falsehoods, his sloopy and sophomoric snarkiness, I’m puttin’ my Swiss francs on “troll”.
There’s no need to assume intentional malice when stupidity suffices. Derwin is clearly upset and not thinking clearly. Not eating a host is not a “disruption.” If the other mass participants would have let Cook return to his seat and not worried about him, none of this would have happened. Derwin refuses to belief Cook’s account of the incident, yet he offers no other. In his need to feel persecuted, he’s forced to make up his own reality. Troll? Maybe, but I think it’s much more likely that he’s just angry and not very bright.
Dervin- “The Strength of secular society is based on the belief that if you don’t like the groups ideas – you don’t have to participate in that group’s practices. If you participate in a group practice, you have to respect the group’s ideas. It’s worked quite well for a few hundred years, but now you want to throw that away in the name of science.”
WTF?? What planet are you living on?
If you really believe this, then kindly explain Focus on the Family, The AFA, the Discovery Institute and the Catholic League, to name only a handful. How are they handling the respect for this social contract of yours, and how should we rationalists respond?
Interesting post, Sastra. :D
It’s important for everyone to remember that respect is earned and nothing is sacred.
Moses@307
The bar peanuts example was meant mainly to establish that some things that are given out for free are not “free gifts” that you’re free to do whatever you want with. Context matters.
I’m not sure if you agree or disagree with that—is it possible to steal “free” peanuts? My understanding is that it is.
I think that’s a bit question begging. In these cracker threads we’ve repeatedly seen a couple of claims:
1. there are no strings on the cracker, therefore it’s just a gift, and
2. the cracker is just a gift, therefore there can be no strings attached
That’s circular.
It seems to me that there may be strings attached to the physical transfer of possession of the cracker, such that it’s not a gift.
Is there a clear standard of what is or is not the giving of a gift that applies to this case?
My impression is that there are situations in which you can transfer physical possession of an object for particular purposes without transferring ownership.
One example is letting somebody use your old car, with no real expectation of getting it back—say, it’s on its last legs and you assume it will die—but you do not transfer the title. It’s your car, but you’re letting them use it until it’s used up. And because it’s not a gift—you did not transfer the title—the usual rule against imposing restrictions on the use of a gift would not apply. If you don’t like the way they’re using it, you can tell them to do what you want with it, or give it back. If things go as you expect, you don’t expect to get it back, but it’s not a gift.
Or consider a single-use prop in a volunteer stage production, such as a sparkler or one of those faux glass (sugar) bottles.
You may hand somebody a faux beer bottle and say “bash this over somebody’s head during the fight scene.” If they do, they’ll ruin it, but that’s what it’s for. And if they just pocket it and walk out, that seems like it’s theft. You gave them possession of the bottle to use for a purpose, not ownership of the bottle to keep as a souvenir.
It seems reasonable to view a communion wafer like that. It’s not something you’re given as property, but something you’re given temporary possession of for a specific purpose. The fact that it will be destroyed if things go as planned doesn’t change that.
Notice that that’s a secular argument—in secular terms, a religious ritual is just a kind of play with an audience participation part. In this case, Catholics taking communion are bit players, and are expected to use single-use props for their intended purpose.
Theology may be relevant in determining the right use of the prop, however. Not for any specially religious reason, but because it’s clarifies the point of the play, and makes it clearer which parts of the play are scripted and which can be ad libbed.
So when Catholics are “given” a wafer, what’s it for? The play is about ritual sacrifice, and it’s relevant who is being sacrificed by whom and to whom.
At first glance, the wafer representing Jesus seems to be a gift to the people taking communion. But theologically, the wafer is Jesus being sacrificed to God. The bit players’ role is to give Jesus back to God. It’s batshit crazy, but that’s the script.
Now think! If you are willing to say It’s OK to go to a Catholic Mass and disrespect the participants. Then where do you draw the line? What meetings (and not just religious) will be protected and what meetings will be Open Season on?
Anything sacred is “Open Season”.
You have to expect that there will still be hatemail flowing in for quite a while yet. PZ’s Great Desecration was the blooging equivalent of slapping someone with a glove and throwing it on the ground. Yet it was completely justified.
Just like dogs, Rights need daily exercise lest they get sick and die. Metaphorically speaking.
#412
The difference between your examples and the communion is that in a theatre play the actors are bound by contract and are members of the cast. They are not the public. Handing a bottle to a member of the cast is like handing a tool to an employee; it is not a gift but something to use in the line of work.
A communion is not work nor under contract so it doesn’t follow the same laws. If a free theatre play is in progress, I walk in to take a peek and someone hands me a bottle, I am free to walk out with it – I am not a member of the cast, and I have not agreed to anything about the bottle. All they can do is ask me to hand it back, but they gave it to me freely which makes it mine.
Same with a cracker in communion. It is handed to me, and is then mine. I can do what I want with it, and all anyone can do is ask me not to do it. I may or may not honor this request as I see fit.
Comparing the cracker to a car is also misleading since there is paperwork determining who owns a car and active transfer is required. This is the exception rather than the rule, and even this is not ironclad. Squatter’s rights come to mind – the paperwork says one person owns the building, but by virtue of living there someone else can gain the right to live there. If anything, the laws surrounding transfer of property support that the actual transfer is generally irrevocable unless there is explicit contract specifying otherwise.
It is most certainly not reasonable to view a communion cracker handed to a congregant as magically still belonging to the church (or anyone but the person possessing it) anymore than it is reasonable to view it as actually consisting of flesh and blood.
415 floggers of the dead horse,YAY !
I just wanted to say I refuse to comment on the cracker anymore,thank you.Have fun.
I was talking about volunteer (unpaid) productions. No employees, no contract. None of the plays that my wife or I have been in ever involved signing a contract, but I do think it would still be theft to walk off with the props we were handed.
If that’s all there is to the situation—you just walk in to take a peek and somebody just hands you a bottle—you might be right. But if you recognize that there are roles being played and intentionally deceive somebody into thinking you’re playing one of the roles—so that they will hand you a bottle they would not knowingly hand to a random person off the street—I think that’s theft by deception under the kind of law Moses posted in #307:
(That’s a pretty standard law, even if certain details vary by jurisdiction.)
Note that the law doesn’t say anything about contracts. It just says if you use deception to obtain somebody else’s property, that’s theft. And the description of deception is very broad—it can be intentionally creating a misimpression, or intentionally failing to correct one.
So if you think somebody’s handing you a prop to use in a play, because they think you’re playing certain role—paid or not, contracted or not—and you don’t bother to disabuse them, in order to get the prop to take home, that’s theft by deception.
Or so it seems to me, a non-lawyer.
Majeff @#47
“Is it ok to put them in the recycling bin?”
Point taken. But I do still feel that there is a difference between throwing books away or spilling water on them to deliberatly destroying them to challange the ideas carried by them. It’s a cheap way of challanging the ideas. We might come up with other ways to rebut the Quaran. Aren’t we supposed to be the reasonable guys?
Lee Harrison #54 and the white flag.
Yes a white flag is a contextual symbol. Now please don’t argue that someone would be offended if i burned a white piece of cloth in the streets. In that context, it no longer carries a special meaning. It is in a very precise context that a white “flag” symbolizes surrender. Battlefields. And not even here would it carry any significance until someone decided to hoist it in the air while lowering their weapons and showing that they give up.
The point that anything could be a symbol is what I object to. The symbol must contain something that differentiates it from other [pieces of something]. Context can sure do just that. In a church, two pieces of wood crossing each other becomes, well, a cross. In some arbitrary forest, the same two pieces of wood might be just two pieces of wood.
Concerning your question about “so what if it is a symbol”. Yes? It is clearly a rethoric question but please remember that I do not know how you view the world – I can’t answer rethoric questions, just make assumptions about them. So with the risk of creating a straw man, you’re ok with flag burning?
Yes, a flag is a piece of cloth. But it represent ideas. The only thing you do when you burn a flag or rip out same pages from a book is to challange these ideas with unsubstantiated, non-rational acts. How is anyone going to take up a challange that carries no argument whatsoever.
Finally, there is more than one dimension to this. We can’t just dismiss the problem with “it’s just a piece of cloth/paper/random object”. A blank piece of paper is exactly that, nothing more nothing less. But if you’re on the battlefield and hoist it up in the air it is a sign of surrender. If you print some ideas on it, it becomes a carrier of those ideas. Destroying any of those is like saying “I am right and I’m going to show it by being destructive”. Without substance or even the slightest hint of a real argument.
And please remember that “burning a flag” or “destroying a book” must be put into context. If it’s done inside your house, while no one is watching and just because you want to get rid of it or need to keep warm or whatever, well then it’s not an act that … makes a symbolic statement. Also, if PZ Myers destroys a Quaran here and a The God Delusion there, it’s not that big of a deal. But he’s not just doing that. He’s acctually asking you all to do the same. So, can’t we all gather at 12pm (Whatever timezone) in our respective cities and destroy a specific book. Which book is irrelevant, but we should destroy it while showing disgust, strong dislike or even hate. Let’s take the bill of rights, including the first amendment. Not really a book, but whatever. It’s just a piece of paper. Now, contrast this with us all going out in the streets and stomp on crackers – with fullblown hate. This last act would only serve as being a parody on “flag burning”. It could probably be a great Monty Python sketch.
Also, I agree @84. The crackers are just crackers, they are not the body of god and people who believe this don’t get upset because the cracker is a symbol. They get upset because they veiw the cracker as the actual object, not a symbol for the object. I do not feel obliged to “respect” this more than they would respect me if I told them that they can no longer eat noodles because they are all part of the FSP.
The Swede:
Like a lot of other people here, you seem to think it’s obvious when something’s a gift, and that if it’s a gift, that’s that.
I don’t think so. Whether something is a gift depends on whether it’s freely given—not just whether it’s given for free.
The question of whether something is freely given depends on whether the giver was tricked into giving it. If you trick somebody into giving you something, you might think it’s a gift, and they might think it’s a gift, but it’s not.
In the case of an object with a title, the title is voidable if the seller was defrauded. In the case of an object with no title, I think the same idea applies—that’s the whole point of the “theft by deception” law. There doesn’t have to be a contract involved, or a title, or a consideration. Actively or passively deceiving somebody into giving you their stuff is theft.
There may be some legal principle that invalidates that very general rule in these cases, but if so, I’d like to know exactly what it is.
On the Cook affair, there are two opinions here, one based on the assumpton that Cook is a liar, the other that he’s not. In the absence of any objective evidence to assertain, beyond reasonable doubt, which one is correct, I will refrain from commenting on this affair.
It doesn’t change a iota my support for what PZ did, and even if what he did was an overreaction and he exploited it to gain attention, I still support him.
We need people like PZ who have the courage to draw attention to the cause of improvng the acceptance of non believers in this country. Even if it may look counter-productive and too conflictual to some people, even if they have good reasons to see it that way, they need to accept that many don’t, and that this cause will not be further improved without conflicts of opinions.
And that’s always better than doing nothing. That’s all.
A free theatre which does not have contracts, waivers and liability paperwork is acting with negligibility and is a disaster (and probably lawsuit) waiting to happen. When I was taking part in plays of various kinds in the US paperwork and clear rules were very important, and without it you weren’t allowed to take part. That makes such a work vastly different from a catholic mass.
If the priest gives you a cracker, it is freely given. That’s the whole point of communion – to give crackers to people. I don’t even see how trickery *can* come into play when one is simply following procedure and being handed a cracker. The intent of the person receiving communion is to get a cracker – how *can* that be theft? I fail to see the logic which leads to that.
The constant theme coming from most of the catholic posters is that they feel something is wrong about the whole affair, but they really can’t quite put their finger on what is wrong. So they lie, change goalposts, and try to anything to throw the blame onto somebody, usually Cook or PZ. It causes them to miss the two things that I consider wrong with the whole situation. The one question the catholics never ask is, “why was the church using school money and school property to run a mass?” The universities I have attended have always had a student parish, but it always off campus. It should be here too. This is the first wrong. The second is the threats and bullying done by Donohue. They never seem to answer why he was involved at all, and take him to task for acting like an idiot.
It’s not just Catholics. There’s also Nesbit.
He’s as virulently and one-sidedly anti-PZ as most of them.
Wrong, if you correctly think he’s only giving you the cracker because he assumes anybody coming to the communion rail and kneeling is Catholic (or at least sympathetic).
That’s intentionally creating a false impression to get somebody’s property, so it’s theft by deception. Property that you deceive somebody into is not freely given, even if it’s really easy to deceive them, by just standing in the right line and letting them draw a bad inference.
If you honestly do not understand that priests tend to see communion lines that way, you might be off the hook, but I think most people here understand at least that much about Catholic communion by now.
Mr.Pendent (#186):
Hmm. A common argument against p-zombies is that if our criteria for ascribing psychological states to an entity have all been fulfilled, then it makes no sense to turn round and assert that the entity is, regardless, not a subject of psychological states. One could simply deny the validity of those criteria, but that leaves you in the position of having no basis at all for ascribing psychological states to anything, in which case you also have no basis for defining p-zombies as a category (since the required distinction is between genuine subjects of psychological states, and entities which only appear to be subjects of psychological states). Consequently, the hypothesis “There may be p-zombies” ends up defeating itself.
So I suppose the argument against p-zombies has a parallel to #127 – both are reductio ad absurdum type arguments attempting to show that the assumptions required to defend a particular claim actually render the claim unintelligible.
Wrong, if you correctly think he’s only giving you the cracker because he assumes anybody coming to the communion rail and kneeling is Catholic (or at least sympathetic).
He is giving me communion because I want communion. That is what he wants to do, and what I want to receive. You have no case that this is deceptive, and I don’t see how you can think you do.
He gives the cracker freely to someone who wants a cracker. That CANNOT be theft. Nor can it be deception. Unless the person he hands the cracker to does NOT want a cracker, I suppose.
I’m going to take a stab at this. I’ll regret it.
I think the problem is that a lot of people — PZ included, sometimes, confuse two things.
First., showing respect is not the same as showing deference. I am not Catholic, and don’t believe in their doctrine. But I don’t go to the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral (the one on 5th Ave) and stomp on eucharists (is that the right term?) just to show people that their beliefs are irrational. Now, I realize that the whole brouhaha started over something pretty silly. But the right answer was (in my estimation) to just say “This is dumb.” end of story.
Does this mean I am going to bow down to Catholics demanding deference? No. But I don’t get on them for what they do either.
Second, I know it’s popular to congratulate ourselves on thinking that we’re atheists because were just so smart and all the religious people are irrational. And stupid.
But we all behave arationally all day long. Your favorite color is not your favorite color for any rational reason whatsoever. Your fave band is your fave because (insert here). I bet that insert is far from rational or scientific. You chose Amstel Light over Becks with lunch today because … you liked one better today. No real reason, you know? But it’s not an irrational choice.
Does PZ have the right to do what he did? Yup. Does that make it a good idea? Not necessarily.
I could demonstrate that the belief of the Zuni that leaving their war god statues to rot in the sun as an offering is completely irrational. I could go and destroy one, reduce it to sawdust, or whatever. I hope that nobody here would advocate doing such a thing, even if the Zunis threatened people who came near the things. (They have, because they are a big seller on the art market).
There is a difference between A-theist and ANTI-theist.
A-rational /= IR-rational /= ANTI-rational.
I think a lot of people who are the Dawkins-style (or even Arthur C Clarke-style) atheists assume that everyone who walks into a church or synagogue is some kind of robot. That they are IRrational or ANTIrational. That isn’t always the case.
The relation of religion to people is a complicated one. It brings up all kinds of emotions that are not always logical. I can disagree with them without, as it were, poking the bear. I used to do that kind of stuff a lot. It isn’t fun anymore. Instead I asked myself why people go to church, even though some of those same people would say they don’t believe Jesus is lord or whatever. I’ve gotten some interesting answers, and none of them have been stupid (yet).
By the way, none of this should be construed as saying that religion has better answers than science on some things (though science isn’t a whole lot of help either on ethical questions, for instance). Please read the first part of that again. And again.
I just can’t get into poking the bear. I’d rather engage folks in a different way. It’s gotten me more friends and a much nicer life than before, and goes a long way towards helping defuse religious intolerance, believe it or not. See Dave Neiwert’s blog for why that is.
Paul W,
still have a problem with your concept of theft by deception.
If I see a beggar in the street, and tell him, here’s a 10$ note, I’ll give it you, but please promiss me that you won’t buy alcohol with it. He says sure, and later on, buys 2 bottles of wine. I can rightfully consider that he has deceived me, but not that he has stolen the money from me.
If a beggar comes to me and says : please give me a 10$ note, I need it to buy a bus ticket to go back to my shelter, and I tell him, Ok, but you have to agree to the condition that if I found that you have used it for any other purpose, you will have to return the money to me, otherwise I will consider it stolen, and he agrees, then if he buys two bottles of wine with it and I ask him, return the money to me as you had agreed, and he refuses, then I can rightfully consider that he has stolen the money from me.
For there to be a theft wether by deception or not, when I’m giving him the “object” for a specific purpose, there needs to be a prior agreement that if it’s not used for that purpose and not returned, it would be a theft.
#427
Did PX stomp on eucharists on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral?
No?
Then why, if I may be so bold as to ask, are you using that as an explanation of what he did?
James the Last (#310):
No, but one can put forward an argument that the belief is delusional. For example, if you can tell me why the argument at #127 fails to cast doubt on the intelligibility of the doctrine of Real Presence, I’d be most interested.
Greg Laden just posted a statement by Benjamin Collard on his blog.
Loudon is a Fool (#355):
Ah, Loudon. You had me going for a while, but you gave yourself away with that one. Nice parody.
Nice to see crackergate doesn’t stir up much discussion now :-)
Derwin::
Damn fucking straight, so why the hell do the Catholics keep trying to impose their views on the bedrooms and wombs and medical research facilities of the US? They can believe all they want that gay marriage is evil, abortion is murder, and stem cell research is immoral, but they violate the boundaries of a multicultural society when they try to shove those views down the throats of the rest of the US.
Here’s a deal — keep your hands off same-sex marriage, abortion, and stem cell research, and we’ll keep our hands off your cracker.
(And I say this as an ex-Catholic.)
As an ex-Roman Catholic, I find it hilarious that we are now discdussing the mechanics of the reception of Communion. Maybe some Catholic churches still have the kneel bar, but I can tell you I maybe took Communion once while kneeling. Catholic churches have not been doing the kneeling thing for quite some time, at least since I was four years old, and they probably started changing the practice as far back as Vatican II. I also note that the mass drinking of the “Blood of Christ” is also newer phenomenon; whereas before it was relegated to priests and other leaders of mass, not the congregation.
All this argument about having to eat the cracker before taking a step is frankly quite funny, because you are assuming it’s true for Catholic services in general, and it just isn’t. I’ve been to Catholic services in more than one state and more than one Catholic church, and know this isn’t true. It’s really quite easy to discover it’s not common anymore. But please, keep discussing the mechanics of the practice under the assumption every muscle movement is policed for proper form by the priests; the apologetics of trying to justify the Catholic community’s reaction to Cook are really quite funny to read. You’re trying to make to story where there is none, and splitting hairs that don’t exist in real life.
Just one observation: If you own the item, or if it was given to you, it is yours to dispose of as you choose.
So, burning your OWN flag/pin/book is protected free speech.
Burning SOMEONE ELSE’S flag/pin/book is vandalism, at best.
So go nuts with your own property, people! Those crackers are, what, $3 for a box of 500? That’s a lot of desecration, people, and a good value!
What happens if I penetrate the host with my penis after it’s been blessed…am I fucking Jesus?
Actually, I have a problem with it, too… I just don’t know how to resolve it.
That may be true, but I would like to know the specific legal doctrines that make it true.
My impression is that the legal system has certain biases against making various obligations legally binding, so that the courts are not clogged with criminal and civil cases in gray areas.
So, for example, if something is a gift, you can’t generally impose constraints on how it’s used. (At least not after the fact; if they change their minds as to what to do with it after it’s theirs, you have no say.)
But in the general case, it seems like it has to be true that whether something is a gift in the first place depends on whether it’s freely given vs. obtained by deception. At least some kinds of deception would invalidate the gift-ness of the “gift.”
There may be some specific legal doctrine that biases things toward the former and away from the latter—e.g., that even if there’s some deception affecting the decision to give, it’s still a gift.
If so, I’d like to know what that legal doctrine is and where the lines actually end up.
So far, I haven’t heard a convincing explanation in terms of specific laws legal doctrines. I’ve only heard reasonable-seeming but unconvincing assertions.
This was a nice post, thank you. I have to admit I harbor some anti-religous feelings based on my past, so I really enjoyed the whole crackergate experience exposing more religous rediculousness. The LGBT analogy stimulated a completely different emotional response. It reminded me to consider a different perspective. I think that was the purpose. Very effective.
My liberal, gay, Catholic partner was only mildly offended by the whole kerfuffle. But what was served by offending her and the many others like her? Bill Donohue and the Bishops do not speak for all the Catholics in the pews, many of whom “get it” just fine and do not mindlessly vote the party line.
I am an atheist, but I find it much more conducive to my partnership to accept that my partner believes differently. It’s called mutual respect. It’s how we live in a diverse society (let alone a diverse household). While I consisder religion to be a human construct and complete fiction, I do not find it necessary to make my own religion out of anti-religion, or to color all religionists as fundy wack-jobs. Atheism need not be anti-theism, or we become no different than the fundies we oppose.
I don’t think any point was served by the action. The threat was sufficient to let the screaming hoardes render themselves ridiculous.
That said, of course I will fully defend PZ’s rights to free speech, no matter how offensive some may find it. Of course that means we must defend the free speech rights of fundy wack-jobs too.
Pointing out their offense is rooted in their own intolerance for others not seeing their crackers as sacred as they do. Because, if they don’t expect anyone to treat their crackers as sacred, why would they be offended that someone didn’t?
If they truly “get it”, then they wouldn’t have a problem with someone else not believing the cracker is sacred.
The action was in response to the intolerance to people who don’t offer that respect to others but demand it for themselves. Context. It’s kind of the point of the whole thread.
Dervin,
I asked the question to Benjamin Collard, Webster Cook’s friend over at Greg Laden’s blog if there were witness accounts to the assault made by these two women on W. Cook.
You might be interested to read his reply :
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/08/benjamin_collard_speaks_out_on.php#comment-1051881
Please from now on, stop spreading false information.
IT,
Anyone who is even mildly offended by someone throwing a cracker in the trash quite evidently do not “get it”, and demonstrating that is the purpose served.
Calling Real Presence a delusion doesn’t make it so either.
No kidding. Being divorced from reality is what makes it a delusion. :-D
Good work, negentropyeater. Maybe now Dervin will stfu. But of course we know he won’t. He’s never been interested in the truth to begin with.
And BTW Dervin,
you wrote #246
Can we get your admission now ?
Or is Benjamin Collard’s reply still not enough for you ?
From the link in #442: He also mentioned that the reason that the catholic church takes this issue seriously is because they are worried that people will use the wafer for black magic and witchcraft.
That’s priceless. Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly have any more contempt for Catholics, I read that Catholics are afraid of witchcraft in the 21st century.
I know some Catholics are only mildly insane, but that’s no excuse for being a Catholic. Any Catholic who had any decency and any common sense would throw out their medieval death cult immediately. What sane person would want to be a member of an organization that fears black magic tricks performed on a Jebus cracker?
To all Catholics reading this, I don’t care how moderate you think you are, you should be ashamed of yourself. For goodness sakes grow up and throw out your insane religion.
You want to remain a Catholic anyway? That’s fine, just don’t be surprised if everyone laughs at your hopeless stupidity. Catholics are so way beyond insane even the brain-dead Christian fundies laugh at them.
It is important to highlight the context, but I think the LGBT group analogy doesn’t remotely reflect the magnitude of the ignorance behind the Catholic reaction.
No LGBT group would respond so irrationally, but even if they did go overboard, they would still be reacting to something real, actual bigotry versus a ridiculous ritual involving a magic cracker. And they would be the minority reacting against someone representing the majority Christian view that’s been persecuting LGBT people for centuries, they would have damn good reason to be upset.
No LGBT group comes anywhere close, or ever will, to being a vastly powerful international religious organization that has dominated Western culture, enslaved minds and spilled blood for centuries.
And regardless of size, LGBT groups don’t promote supernatural beliefs that are not supported by scientific evidence.
No matter how crazy you make your hypothetical LGBT group and supporters, there really isn’t a way to frame the scenario so they are as nutty as the Catholics who came down on Webster.
Actually I think it was pretty fucking lazy on your part to choose an obvious bogeyman for Christians in your analogy. Pitting gays against Christians is a cheap Fox News tactic, I would have expected better from a science blog.
Interesting perspective and of course, many people who responded decided to slam peoples religious perspective. I have mentioned before, proper dialogue is what should be happening and, although I felt Dr. Myers was incorrect in his approach to the whole Eucharist debacle, he gave a proper example of dialogue with his interview on Relativent Radio and his scientific posts that are in fact, a fundamental Catholic belief.
Yes, I disagree with Dr. Myers’ treatment of the whole situation and his actions. Not because I am a Catholic, but because as a Academic, his actions were unprofessional. When you recieve an advanced degree (Master, License, Doctrate, Magisteriate-even Bachelors at some universities), you are called upon by you Alma Mater to be open and to represent the Alma Mater through proper behavior and respect to others beliefs or views. Universities have in the past stripped degrees and titles from alumni who have violated this and I DO NOT call upon Dr. Myers Alma Mater to do this! However, there is a sense of professionalism that is to be followed that I wished he did. That goes for the Catholics and so-called “catholics” who sumbmitted threats or rude comments. I was able to tell who were the Catholics who truly were and were trying to dialogue and those catholics (notice the captalization) who are either not catholics or have no clue. I call on them to get their facts correct. That goes to many on the scienctific or atheist side who think they know what the Church teaches and uses the opportunity to slam religion. Yes, I understand that happens here but I call on you to at least get the facts correct. The Catholic Church has come a long way from the uncorrect popular view of the Galileo situation. The Catholic Church has not supported creationism, does not take scripture literally, and does support most elements of the theory of evolution. Many of Dr. Myers work has been cited by the Catholic Church and some of his works have been part of the dialogue in faith and reason. I do not expect converts or changes of heart, I understand that I am in a blog that contains many athiests and gnostics. I respect your viewpoints wholeheartedly. On both sides, lets be respectful to eachother so real and professional dialogue can begin. This is the example I see of Dr. Myers, so let us all follow this–on both sides. And my apologies for any spelling mistakes, writing this from my cell phone as I am on the road again!
Dervin,
whilst you’re at it, you might as well admit that all these statements were based on pure inventions of yours;
Gee, that’s quite a lot of bullshit you wrote on one thread, how are you going to make up for it now ?
From the link in #442:
Oran, he did not intend to leave with the wafer. He was physically attacked by 2 women after he accepted but did not immediately consume the wafer. The women were worried that Webster was going to steal the wafer for black magic or witchcraft. He was simply going to return to his seat and eat the wafer. If these women did not assume that he was going to use the wafer for black magic/witchcraft and then proceed to attack him, this incident would not have occured and you never would have heard about this.
That should be enough to shut Dervin up.
I’m saving this quote from Benjamin Collard and I plan to shove it into the face of every Catholic I meet.
Catholic violence to defend a Jebus cracker from black magic and witchcraft. Even Muslim terrorists aren’t that stupid.
Me too !
An open question to the “appeal to civility” proponents: at what point do you consider reasoning with the unreasonable to have failed and stronger measures to be required?
PaulW “That’s intentionally creating a false impression to get somebody’s property, so it’s theft by deception. Property that you deceive somebody into is not freely given, even if it’s really easy to deceive them, by just standing in the right line and letting them draw a bad inference.”
Giving a false impression to get somebody’s property is not quite sufficient to be considered as theft by deception (i.e. under false pretenses.) References are available on the web, like under the wiki entry for false pretenses, that illustrate that the deception must be affirmative. It cannot simply be passive. That is, a person would probably have to assert that they are Catholic, and not simply be hanging out with the Catholics, to count as providing an affirmative deception. If the gathering of Catholics (whether in a church or school building) do not require the people receiving the cracker to assert that they are following the “rules”, then there quite likely may be no legal basis for asserting theft.
Even if he intended to deceive the people when he went into the ceremony, a passive deception is not quite sufficient to support an assertion that he stole from them.
“An open question to the “appeal to civility” proponents: at what point do you consider reasoning with the unreasonable to have failed and stronger measures to be required?”
When reason fails, there is nothing left. My guess is that reason will not fail and that you are willing to surrender it to quickly.
Where do you draw the line? Not at reason? At insult? At physical attack? At killing? When do you stop? Me, I will not leave my steadfast companion of reason. Or at least, I shall do my very best not to. If I’m proven wrong, if reason fails, well – what can I do? Myers hasn’t really achieved something not achievable with reason.
@ BaldySlaphead, #5
yeah, no doubt. Sastra does not get an A for effort in her analogy. More like if a gravestone of an atheist was turned over. Or a congressional medal of honor burned.
Pretty weak.
/an atheist
@Eshto #448
2k-odd years ago, would anyone in the dominant culture of the time have done anything but laugh if you told them that executing one trivial religious leader from a minor province would have become the justification for … all this?
Couldn’t you simply be rejecting the analogy/satire/whateveryahcallit out of hand because of an existing belief system?
I’m still waiting for Dervin to acknowledge his errors. Or will he run away?
What would Jesus do, Dervin.
How much light does what Benjamin Collard wrote on Greg Laden’s blog actually shed on what happened in the Wafergate incident? There are only two passages where he writes anything of substance about this “attack”.
This claims that an attack occurred without providing any further details about the nature of the attack. We don’t know any more about who laid hands on who or the degree of force involved.
It also makes claims about the motives of both Cook and the women who allegedly attacked him but gives us no reason to believe he had any special knowledge of either.
Again, these are all unsubstantiated claims. They may well all be true but, of themselves, they are hardly conclusive. We need to see all those statements in order to get a clearer idea of what actually happened.
As for the legality of what Cook did or of the alleged attack or of PZ’s desecration let me refer you to Thoughts in a Haystack,the blog of John Pieret who is a lawyer and three posts in particular: one entitled “Crackerjack Prize” on Aug. 13th, one entitled “Amateurs” on Aug. 2nd and one entitled “Judgments” on Jul. 25th.
I didn’t think the different lens proposed in this post was all that great and just about as impossible to believe as theism. Gays and lesbians take much worse kinds of violations every day than a pin being stolen or a meeting being interrupted or a vile threat against their life being broadcast publicly (remember the GOP 2004 platform was essentially anti-gay). What do LGBTQ people really do when faced with Fred Phelps at a gay pride parade (the moral equivalent of a Catholic cracker)? They walk right by it with pride. However, threats of violence against people are taken very seriously. I mean, LGBTQ people are supremely capable of distinguishing between silly beliefs and real threats. Catholics, at least of Donohue’s persuasion, are not so capable.
I don’t think context needs to be considered at all for what PZ did. It is no different than what The New Yorker did when it put the Obama’s dressed in terrorist and Muslim garb on cover of the magazine. To an ignoramus, that magazine cover did nothing but reminisce on irrational beliefs and victim mentality. To the rest of us, we had a good laugh that anyone could be so dumb. With regards to Crackergate, PZ merely let the cat out of the bag that there are people warped enough to think a cracker (and billions like it) can actually be desecrated.
Well, it seems that someone on youtube started a Eucharist desecration serie. Go on youtube and look for “fsmdude”. He post a video of himself desecrating a host each day in a different way. Last time I checked he was frying a wafer in butter with a frying pan and added whipped cream before eating it. He also feeded venus flytrap with hosts.
http://fr.youtube.com/user/fsmdude
I’m amazed that some people still don’t get the point: It’s not about what Cook did, it’s about the reaction from Donahue and the Catholic group. PZ’s actions merely served to highlight the death threats and attempts to have Cook expelled. All over something as insignificant as failing to eat a cracker.
Malcom
I’m amazed that some do believe that this is a good way of showing those [arbitrary insult] that they are [arbitrary insult]s.
It’s not as if they’re going to see Myers blog and realize “Hell, we’re dumb. Myers is right, this is just stupid”.
There’s hundreds of thousands of ex-Catholics. I’m one of them. I think it’s very likely a little ridicule is all that’s needed to convince at least some Catholics their religion really is stupid. When some friends of mine laughed at the idiocy of the Catholic beliefs I was explaining to them, that was the first step towards my escaping from the Catholic death cult. Sometimes pointing and laughing at stupidity is very effective.
If I’m wrong, and if abuse of a sacred cracker didn’t accomplish anything, at least it was fun to watch insane Catholics make fools out of themselves.
BobC,
Ok, if that works on you: You’re a stupid moron and your ideas are twisted and fucked up. Now, join my worldview!
Did it work? ;)
Seriously, I do believe that you are wrong and I also believe that it’s only fun if you’re not the one being mocked.
But don’t get me wrong. I am amused and I absolutely believe in anyones right to express an opinion. But that’s completely besides the point. There are better ways to get opinions across.
Per-Erik Svensson, I suggest saying “Your beliefs are insane, but believe what you want.”
I also suggest any sensible Catholics watching the overreaction to cracker abuse just might notice the other Catholics are wackos. That might make them wonder if they really want to share a church with crazy dangerous people.
If they want to remain Catholics despite the insanity of Catholic extremists, that’s fine with me. Their lives are being wasted, not mine.
Cartoons of Mohammed showed the world how insane some Muslims are. Now cracker abuse has proven the insanity of some Catholics. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
Per-Erik Svensson, I don’t think you get what people are saying. I agree that calling people names won’t get them to change their minds. But your mistake is in assuming the goal is to change their minds. It isn’t. It’s to convince other people that the people we are calling names have lost their minds. Get it? This is a PR battle, not educational outreach.
You don’t try to reason with the loons, you just warn everyone else to stay the fuck away from them.
You don’t try to reason with the loons, you just warn everyone else to stay the fuck away from them.
Sound advice.
Everyone, stay away from BobC.
OK. So when is PZ gonna tape himself spitting on, pissing on or setting fire to the Torah, if someone can “score him” a scroll? As a Catholic, I would of course be horrified by such an act in relation to what I too regard as the Word of God. But I have no fear whatever that he would do such a thing, since he knows as well as I do that his atheistic, materialist ass would be tossed out of the Grove of Academe in a heartbeat for such an act. All religions are equal, it seems, including atheism, but some are more equal than others. Anti-Catholicism, it has been observed, is the Anti-Semitism of the intellectual.
PZ has said himself that he would not damage an object of value. A cracker has no inherent value.
Anti-semitism diatribes are aimed at people, and the Church (starting with Paul) is responsible for much of it. Throwing a cracker in the rubbish is no threat to anyone – it’s a mockery of a strange idea.
joem #469 wrote:
*Sigh* You didn’t read the post, did you? Nor, I suspect, have you read what PZ has written — other than excerpts taken out of context. The point was that PZ’s act can only be properly understood in context, as a protest against a protest. It was not so much against Catholicism itself as it was against making blasphemy a secular crime. Any religion. Or any “sacred cow,” including secular ones that atheists might be fond of.
So now you want us to attack the Jews, so that we get what’s coming to us. I thought it was the Muslims. Everybody is just so much meaner than the Catholics, and gets so much more respect because of it.
Ummm… Joem. Try checking out the post “The Great Desecration”…
The cracker wasn’t the only thing he threw out with the coffee grounds and banana peel.
Do try to keep up. Oh and The Catholic League tried to provoke the Muslims… they didn’t bite.
Loudon is a Fool, earlier today I saw your disgusting comments on another blog. It’s obvious you’re a Catholic wacko who worships Jebus crackers.
473 comments and counting. I guess we’re not quite finished working through our Crackergate issues yet :D
Joem,
Thank you for illustration my point.
PZ has no reason to do anything to a torah.
One more time: PZ didn’t start this.
There is a difference between what PZ did and your hypothetical. In reading Leviticus, Nyers would be advocating the killing of homosexuals, and his treatment of the pin would only serve to clarify his feelings. PZ poked a hole in a cracker that Catholics feel is important. He didn’t say “nuke the Vatican” while he did it. And even if he did say that, it wouldn’t carry any weight with other atheists; most of us would look at him funny and say “What the fuck are you talking about?,” rather than proclaim that his words are unquestionable, as a sizable number of Christians would for Nyers.
BobC @466
Fair enough. But what I would like is a substantiated, at least semi-reasonable, response to the catholics. More in the lines of “Oh, come on you people. That Cork-kid just believe in god and even though you may not like it he must be able to express his opinions about homosexuality.” to make use of the analogy. This isn’t just name calling or cold “factualized” opinion like “Your ideas are crazy”.
H.H. @467
First of BobC wrote: “I think it’s very likely a little ridicule is all that’s needed to convince at least some Catholics their religion really is stupid.”
Now you said something about not wanting to change peoples minds which I do get. But Bob clearly see a convincing point in all this. That is what I responded to.
Then, no, I do get what others are saying too. But I think you miss my point though. I’ll try again.
There are better ways to advertise an opinion than that which Myers presented.
Not because it’s blasphemous but because just as many people who thaught that the catholics where loons will think that Myers is a loon. It really doesn’t matter if they see him as less of a loon, he will stil be a loon.
And in any case, the catholics showed that they where loons all well by themself. They really didn’t need help now did they? Any reasonable human being (the once you are trying to appeal to) would see them as loons before Myers’ act and after – no difference. The only difference is the risk of making Myers seem like a loon and of course the unlikely event that someone acctually tries to “marginalize” this demon.
If we want to win people over to the “look-their-ideas-are-retarded”-side we can’t do anything that could make us seem retarded. Again, it doesn’t matter if we are the less retarded, the lesser of two evil isn’t a good choice for anyone. Instead, most people will, I believe, go with something like: “Oh, those fundy catholics and their weird atheist counterparts. When will they ever give it a rest. Oh well, of to my sane church now.”
Whilst we’re on the subject of analogies, let’s try this one :
Hi, I’m Bill. I work in this office somewhere. I worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I’m actually an accredited High Priest of the Order of the FSM.
All my colleagues know that and they don’t really say anything, they just seem to think I’m nuts, especially when I keep telling them over lunch the intricate details of the strict rituals I have to adhere to.
Every evening for dinner, I have to consecrate my Spaghettis first (regular Spaghettis are fine, as long as they are not gluten free) : after I’ve cooked them for a very precise duration of 666 seconds (I use a stop watch), I strain them, then put on by special robe and special cap of the Order of the FSM, I pronounce the words, “Noodle doodle doo”, and that’s it, they are now consecrated spaghettis and I believe they are now transsubstantiated into the one and only God, the FSM !
Then I have to eat them with the right hand only (no metal), with taking extreme care to never cut any of the consecrated spaghettis. This is extremely important, as we all know, the FSM cannot be cut.
Anyway, tonight, I’m having them over for dinner, and of course I have to eat consecrated Spaghettis, and I’ll serve unconsecrated ones to my colleagues. One of them, Zachary, has asked if I could serve him consecrated Spaghettis and witness the ritual, as he says he’s curious about the whole thing. I’m really happy he’s asked me this, it shows people are willing to learn more about my beliefs and are ready to open up ther mind and try to understand what’s going on here. I think Zachary is ready to become a convert, so I’ve agreed to this.
Here we are, with my colleagues, at my home, I’ve dressed up as high priest of the OFSM, I’ve done the ritual, they actually all seemed pleased to have witnessed it. They all said I’m nuts, but I don’t care, it’s my faith. At least there’s Zachary who seems to have kept quiet and this looks to me as if he’s more interested about the whole idea, that’s a plus for me.
So I’ve served Zachary and myself some consecrated ones, and the rest just regular spaghettis. Now that I look at it, it’s true that they do look the same in every plate, but as we all know, they’re actually completely dfferent. One is a God, the other one just a regular common noodle.
So now we’re about to eat, and Zachary does the unthinkable, he takes out a fork from his pocket and goes : “Bill, you’re nuts, do you really think I was going to believe in your lunacy ? This is ridiculous, look nothing is going to happen : and he cuts the FSM with his fork and eats it in front of everybody, with the metal fork ! Gasp ! I almost fainted when I saw this. How could you do this to me and my God ? Then I get extremely angry and I really want to throw him out of the door. The rest of the colleagues keep quiet, they don’t want to get involved.
Then Zachary says, look Bill, I never said I believed in your fucking lunacies, I only asked you to serve me consecrated ones and to witness the ritual, you’ve assumed all the way that that meant I believed in that shit, which is already crazy enough, and now, you want me to respect your fracking spaghettis, why should I ? Everybody here thinks you’re nuts about this anyway. Do you think they were all looking at you and thinking, hmmm, this is really interesting, or that they were thinking it was ridiculous ?
I just couldn’t handle this anymore, I lost my temper and threw Zachary out of the door and told him he was an asshole and that he’d never ever be allowed back in my home and that I won’t speak to him anymore.
The rest of my colleagues stayed there, quiet, they just didn’t know what to say. But I’m quite certain they all felt Zachary was an asshole.
A few months later, the dust has settled, I don’t speak with Zachary no more, I’m still really angry about what he did to the FSM, how could he do something like this ?
But I’ve noticed one thing though, everybody at work keeps pulling my leg about this affair, they all seem to have remembered that I threw Zachary out of the door and nobody wants to come over for dinner anymore.
Do they really think I’m nuts or what ?
negentropyeater (#478), that was brilliant! It’s wasted on the Catholics, though. They still won’t see that their beliefs are as ridiculous as those of Bill OFSM.
MH,
and the point I’m trying to make, is that, when the dust settles about all this, people who don’t share these beliefs, even f they might have felt that Zachary was beng obnoxious, tend to only remember the overreaction of the nutter.
That’s why I agree with what BobC said in comment #466, after the dust has settled, what do non-muslim remember of the Mahomet Cartoon Affair ? The overreactions of the muslim extremists.
It’ll be the same here, of course, “in the heat of the action”, still now, many non catholics may think that PZ was being disrespectful, obnoxious, asshole, whatever, counter-productive, childish, etc…
But in the end, non catholics will remember this affair principally for the over-reactions of the Catholics, and that Muslims didn’t even react, despite the great desecration. And that’s bad for their reputation, as it is for Bill, and not Zachary.
Thinking about it, one could make the FSM analogy even stronger by changing these two paragraphs :
“I just couldn’t handle this anymore, I lost my temper and threw Zachary out of the door and sweared to the FSM that next time I see him, I’d kill him.”
“But I’ve noticed one thing though, everybody at work keeps pulling my leg about this affair, they all seem to have remembered that I threw Zachary out of the door and sweared I’d kill him, nobody wants to come over for dinner anymore.”
BTW, I’m just writing this comment because I thought it’d be nice if we could show PZ that we can still manage over 500 comments on the crackergate, even in his absence…
Come on Pharyngulites, only 18 to go !
negentropyeater @478
Like the analogy, mostly because it’s fun.
negentropyeater @480
I don’t think this is the answer you’re expecting but – exactly my point. Believers will not see the stupidity of Bill and Bills other colleagues already saw him as a nutjob. As you say, non-believers will remember the overreaction of the nutter (Bill). I guess we also agree that no believer will be convinced of their nuttyty so… The only thing that has changed is that some believers now see Zachary as a nutjob too.
Also, it is now harder for Zachary and others to reason with Bill. Few people take reason from bullies.
Jyllands-postens actions where similar but I don’t agree that the issue is the same. The main discussion there is free speach versus respect. Here it is proving a point without substance versus substantiating a point.
I do believe that it had been more effectful to challange the loons without them feeling insulted. In that way, next time around they might think twice which is what we ultimately want. We don’t want this to happen again, now do we.
Or, do we state our opinions just for the fun of it? Don’t we want some change in the behaviour of the nutjobs?
Per-Erik,
what has changed, is that all those who don’t believe that consecrated Spaghettis are Gods, consider those who do as even more crazy and dangerous than before.
That’s why worshippers of the FSM loose ground, their reputation sucks even more than before. Sure, Bill now thinks Zachary is an asshole, and noone can reason with him about it, but it doesn’t really matter.
There will now be less people who are attracted to the worship of the consecrated Spaghettis than before, and that’s what matters.
Of course it’s conflictual, of course it may look counter-productive but progress won’t be achieved without these conflicts of opinions. You can never reason about these things, it doesn’t work ! Of course I’d rather use reason, but what about if it doesn’t work ? Do you just do nothing ?
The fact that the only thing that works is provocation and ridicule is not from our own liking, but because the other side rejects reason absolutely.
If one is convinced, which I am, that the world will be a better place with gradually less nutters who try to impose their ridiculous ideas on others, there’s really no alternative.
Although I can see that some people will believe no matter what, and others might consider PZ throwing a cracker in the bin as offensive, I think PZ issued a challenge to everyone to reflect on transubstantiation, and the inherent meaning, if any, of symbols.
I would think that some ex-catholics might find their views about the Eucharist being challenged, as the last vestiges of indoctrination get examined.
Have you noticed that the comments from outraged people don’t focus on what PZ or Webster Cook actually did, they focus instead on the offense caused to believers? The actions that led to the offense are trivial; the offense taken is out of all proportion.
Believers are challenged to evaluate the situation with reference to an outside perspective.
I don’t think that PZ wasted his time; you never know what will happen if you get people to start thinking, and sometimes that takes a jolt to get going.
This offense reminds me of lèse majesté.
negentropyeater,
I like the analogy, but I don’t agree with your conclusion. FSMism is not dominant in our culture, nor is Islam. I would bet that in Muslim countries, they primarily remember the cartoon controversy as evidence that the west is the Great Satan, out to hurt them whenever possible.
Similarly, it is possible that most people in our country will remember this as evidence of the “godless liberal war on Christianity” or whatever it is. That is probably also the message evangelicals would choose to promote, rather than “look at those crazy Catholics”.
I guess that makes more of an argument to keep having threads like this, even though the event is over, to keep promoting the message of the immoral behavior caused by religion.
negentropyeater:
“There will now be less people who are attracted to the worship of the consecrated Spaghettis than before, and that’s what matters.”
Ok. What you are basically saying now is that you do believe that Myers has convinced some people that they were wrong all along? Let’s just disagree on that.
Wait, that might be a misinterpretation! Are you saying that you believe that there are “could’ve-been-catholics” that now no longer shows interest in the religion? In that case, there are better ways of doing this!
“You can never reason about these things, it doesn’t work ! Of course I’d rather use reason, but what about if it doesn’t work ?”
Trust the Force young padawan. So, for how long have we tried reason? Honestly? A couple of hundreds of years at the very most. And it has acctually gotten us further than any provocation would have ever. We can’t be serious in saying that fundamentalists, who has historically fought each other, eventually will stop fighting us if we fight them with their means? Today we view these people as nutty. Say, about 3,4,500 years ago they would have been perfectly normal.
More importantly, to whom does reason not work?
– The nutjobs? Well, neither does insults.
– The non-believers? Well, Myers wasn’t trying to impress us, was he?
– The potential believers? Sure it will! Reason might be the thing that works best against potential believers. Look only at what education has accomplished this far.
Everyone seems to aviod the question at hand. Reason would do the exact same thing that Myers did but without Myers being a loon in anyones eyes. Everytime I say this someone says that “Yes, well reason will not work on these loons” implying that you believe that insults will. I don’t believe insults will convince anyone.
Finally, the catholics already acted like turds. This is actually what Myers responded to. So, he just put a gallon of gasoline on an exploding star. What he could’ve done was to explain that the exploding star really should not explode but rather become the black hole we all suspect religion will eventually become. Yes, that analogy sucked and didn’t make any sense what so ever. Point taken.
echidna @485
“The actions that led to the offense are trivial; the offense taken is out of all proportion.”
Agreed. But did you expect anything else? Myers knew this and that is, alegedly, why he did it. To show the world that these guys are nuts. In fact, they were already showing it by treating Cork, Zachary, I’m sorry, Cook the way they where.
What we wan’t to do is to minimize the number of Cooks and Zacharys – not inflame the opposition to create more of them.
Agreed. But did you expect anything else?
Myers did, and stated as much. Claiming he should have realized people would bombard him with death threats for wanting to toss out a stale cracker is absurd; it is not reasonable to expect that kind of reaction from anyone. Least of all from people belonging to an organization which they claim is based in love and benevolence.
Clever post.
If someone gets way upset by someone else not eating a cracker, you cant symbolically “drive the beast out of” said cracker and expect a calm day.
Don’t get me all wrong now. I do not think that the catholics have any right to act as they do or that they even should be slightly offended. But they did get offended by Cook and you are now trying to convince me that Myers do not have the brains to figure out what will happen if he does the same, or worse?
I honestly think this is an act out of emotion from Myers. As such, it is inspiring. But I also think we all need to justify the means not only by looking at our goal.
Furthermore I wrote “alegedly”, because some commenters said that Myers did this because he wanted to stir things up. The question I’m asking you now is: Why did he do it? What’s your interpretation? I bet that whatever you come up with, there will be a reasonable way to approach this, that is more effective than the “cracker-way”.
But they did get offended by Cook and you are now trying to convince me that Myers do not have the brains to figure out what will happen if he does the same, or worse?
Did you read his reactions in this blog? Apparently not. I won’t bother discussing this with you until you at least are familiar with the trivially available facts. Right now you’re doing nothing but wasting my time.
I’m sorry you feel that way. If you are more informed than I, no need to be dismissive about it. Are you talking about the post linked to in this post, yes I’ve read it. Of course I haven’t read all 2300 comments to it. (I’ve only read Myers concluding last comment.)
I really don’t see why you would get angry at me. If I’m missing something contextual, if I’m being a moron not seeing something you do, enlighten me. (Which is what I’m suggesting that we all do next time fundies miss a point.) I’m not here to spew down this blog with wasteful comments. I’m here to learn what other atheists worldviews are. If we disagree, fine! Still, no need to be dismissive if I don’t carry your insights.
I’m not angry; I’m considering it a waste of time that you ask me to speculate about the intents of Myers when he has posted them plain as day on this blog. It serves no purpose except to further some agenda of yours, which I do not agree with nor see the point of. If you lack insight about the intent of Myers, READ THE BLOG. It’s not like it would take you longer than writing these comments does.
As to your views that this could have been done better; how have YOU done it? Link me your more effective response to the treatment of Cook, and the positive feedback it has received from catholics, please.
Ian Spedding @ 459,
Thanks for the pointer to John Pieret’s blog (Thoughts in a Haystack).
For anybody interested in the legalities, here’s a specific link:
http://dododreams.blogspot.com/2008/07/irrationality-squared.html
He further defends his position on Scott Hatfield, OM’s blog (Monkey Trials):
http://monkeytrials.blogspot.com/2008/07/is-whole-world-crackers.html
He’s making essentially the same argument as (fellow lawyer) OMH (and me) in this thread here on Pharyngula:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/fresh_thread_dont_fill_this_on.php
On the other side, we have (another lawyer) Eugene Volokh over at Volokh Conspiracy. He doesn’t give any legal reasoning about why it’s not theft by deception, but a commenter (Dilan Esper) does. I don’t find him persuasive, and unfortunately the comment period ended before some objections were addressed. (Such as the bar peanuts example, which seems to undermine his generalizations.)
http://www.volokh.com/posts/1217529598.shtml
OK. So when is PZ gonna tape himself spitting on, pissing on or setting fire to the Torah, if someone can “score him” a scroll?
Kora– er, Torah envy!
Really? So when a drug-crazed psychopath is coming at you with a machete, are you still going to try to reason with him? If your reason fails, will you just allow him to kill you or will you fight for your life?
You can roll over and die if you want, but I’m not going to.
Q:
You are right that the deception must be affirmative, not completely passive. My mistake.
However, the affirmation needn’t be verbal (like asserting that you’re Catholic). It can be an action intended to maintain a false impression that you didn’t create.
The first footnote on the Wikipedia “false pretenses” page is interesting. The relevant sense of “pretense” is archaic, not the modern vernacular sense which is pretty close to lying—it can be pretty mmuch any false belief or false claim.
A false pretense isn’t necessarily a lie—it can be any misconception that you wittingly leverage to make a false claim to something.
A couple of examples:
One guy got nailed for behaving the same way after his mother died as he did before, so that workmen would finish some work on their house that was predicated on his mother still being alive. By failing to act in the expected way given his mother’s death, he maintained the misimpression that she was alive.
If you wear a uniform that gives the wrong impression that you’re entitled to something, and you take it, that’s false pretenses. I think that’s true even if you’re entitled to wear that uniform—it’s false pretenses if you knowingly exploit others’ misinterpretation of your being in that uniform to get them to give you something.
Given those things, I think going to the communion rail and saying “amen” after the priest says “body of christ” would probably count as an affirmation of a false belief. It would be an affirmation that you’re Catholic or (if you don’t know the Catholic rules) that you’re taking Christian communion, not just taking a free cracker.
For somebody really ignorant of the situation, that might not be false pretenses. Maybe they think it’s okay for, say, tourists to participate in the ritual and take the cracker, and keep it as a souvenir—but don’t think that would apply to anybody we’re talking about.
Your colleague was pretty rude, but your still fucking nuts for worshiping a plate of spaghetti, and intolerant for getting upset because your colleague doesn’t.