Posted by Hemant Mehta in ***Update***: The Florida student didn’t steal the wafer. He just took it out of the service after it had been given to him. A few changes below reflect that.
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You’ve heard more than enough on Wafergate. But I wanted to add one more (one last?) comment.
To briefly recap the story: PZ Myers made fun of the Catholic Church’s overreaction to a kid taking a communion wafer from a service. Then PZ (tongue-in-cheek) requested a real consecrated communion wafer to have his way with — just to ridicule the idea even more. Then Bill Donohue got pissed off. Then everyone and their mother took sides in the story — either supporting PZ or thinking he was just being rude and offensive.
There are some nuances to this story, so I’ll try to break it down.
I’m glad PZ pointed out that belief in transubstantiation — that consecrated communion wafers are literally the body of Christ — is absurd. It is. That belief deserves to be ridiculed.
At the same time, trying to obtain a consecrated communion wafer for the sole purpose of destroying it serves absolutely no positive purpose. Now, you’re just trying to piss off Catholics.
Why bother? What good does it do to rub this in their face?
Does anyone really think that this act will cause any Catholic to say, “Oh! You are right! That is a crazy belief! Thanks, PZ!”
Of course Donohue and his Catholic League went overboard. That’s what they do. As reader John pointed out, “Some people are just professional ‘offendees’.” I’m not excusing any of those people making threats against PZ. To those writing hate mail or calling for his head and trying to get him fired — you’re taking the wrong approach. Even if PZ had actually posted a video of him destroying the wafer, trying to threaten or annoy him (or his boss) is only going to make him stronger.
What should be the proper response to the initial story of the Florida boy who took the communion wafer?
If you want to go after the ritual of communion, go for it. It’s a worthy target.
But while doing it, ask yourself what you hope to accomplish.
I imagine the goal of most people doing that would be to get Catholics to think rationally and see that no wafer is literally the body of anyone.
What’s the least persuasive way to do this? By suggesting that you will destroy a wafer for all to see if someone can just swipe one for you.
Similarly, you’re got going to win any Christian converts by burning a Bible while roasting marshmallows over it.
Nor are you going to convert Hindus by eating a steak in front of them and making pleasurable noises while doing it.
Nor are you going to change the minds of Muslims by drawing “blasphemous” images of their prophet Mohammad.
You have the freedom, of course, to do whatever you want. But remember: There’s a fine line between making a point and just being a dick.
Obviously, the “sacred cows” mean nothing to you. Everyone knows that. But proving this point by going out of your way to mock those beliefs just irritates the opposition and makes their superstitious beliefs even more meaningful to them.
There are better — more productive — ways to show people how ludicrous it is to believe these absurdities. Why not take these approaches? It wouldn’t make you “anti-Catholic.” Rather, it would make you anti-irrationality.
Reader Tim made a clever suggestion:
I think a better thing would to do a blind taste test. Challenge a bishop or any catholic to tell the difference between a common wafer and a consecrated one. I bet they would do no better than chance. in fact I would be willing to wager $10,000 that the pope himself could not tell the difference…
Let me reiterate: I’m not saying we should stop PZ from doing whatever he wants to do. He has the right to get some communion wafers (preferably without getting a minion to steal some from a church) and do whatever he wants to them.
I just question the efficacy of it.
It’d be an even worse idea for others to join him and videotape themselves destroying the communion wafers.
Ask yourself: Are you in this to change religious minds or to make religious people angry?
[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]
We have no idea what PZ plans(ed) with the wafer. He would be offensive simply by putting it in a bag of unconsecrated wafers just as the student was offensive by putting it in a baggie for a week. Any action would have to be really minor to emphasis the irrationality of the response.
For what it’s worth, this entire episode probably woke up a lot of catholics as to what they are supposed to believe and if this makes them examine their faith (whether they become more or less committeed) it would be a good thing.
Thank you. Atheists need to defend the right to talk about religious idiocy, but what PZ did was just stupid, wrong headed, and abusive.
If we want to claim that we’re more rational by not believing in religion, then really folks we need to act rational and not like a bunch of angry raving anti-religionists.
I basically agree with those who say that this whole thing was absurd and unnecessary, but there is a third option missing from the question and the end of your post: I don’t think that PZ intended to convert Catholics by mocking The Cracker, nor was it for the kicks of offending people. The main agenda of the New Atheists is to raise peoples’ awareness that religion has been given an undeserved free ride and that they deserve respect for their beliefs a priori, simply because they believe it. If this whole thing has achieved anything it is that hopefully some Catholics are made aware that not everybody approves or even agrees with their point of view. The conventional wisdom (and I agree with it) is that the only reason believers are around 80% of the population is that these beliefs are never publicly confronted because it is impolite to do so.
To me the whole idea was to expose that Christians can be easily provoked into making death threats over absurd things. That is commonly thought of as a quality that is limited to muslims. If a few people realized that all religions are prone to caricature/wafer violence, the whole thing served a noble cause, imo.
You’re still saying that the silly fucking belief in the magical transformation of a cracker into human flesh is worthy of respect.
It’s not.
At first I agreed - Myers didn’t have to go out of his way to purposely defile one of the Catholics beliefs. It’s one thing to write about how ridiculous it is - another to actually ritually defile a cracker.
But then, I thought, we’re talking about a religion for whom more than half the human race is a walking, talking abomination. Women, just by virtue of being alive, are unclean and inferior, need to be ritually separated from the community and cleansed, can’t consecrate communion because they are so vile, and can’t minister the gospel as a man does. The Catholic church treats women as cow like creatures too stupid to manage their own health issues. Don’t think for a minute that this kind of foul doctrine doesn’t bleed over into our culture 24/7.
So as far as I’m concerned, PZ Myers, you defile those crackers all you want - at least until the Catholic church stops holding women hostage to a crumbling old book written by a bunch of superstitious perverts.
Ridicule is one of the best weapons available to show the inanity of superstition.
It is true that the believer will not change their minds if we desecrate a cracker, but it is also true that they will not change their minds either if we show undue respect to their make believe magic.
I totally agree with spork.
Hemant, I strongly disagree with you on one point:
“First, to condemn him for taking something that wasn’t his.”
It was his! He attended church, stood in line, and was given a wafer. At that point he was *expected* to eat the cracker, but chose not to. Instead he left the church with it. Once freely given, it’s his to do with what he pleases. As far as I’m aware, they don’t make you sign a Wafer End-User License Agreement that stipulates that the wafer may only be used for its intended purpose.
Analogous situation: if the Gideons give you a Bible and expect you to read it, have you “stolen” the Bible if you instead take it home, shred it up, and use it to line a bird cage?
> Now, you’re just trying to piss off Catholics.
And why not. There has been no meaningful change in society that hasn’t been accomplished without a portion of that movement doing something just to piss off the establishment.
Do you think that Gay Pride marches are only about pride? No, there are a certain number of people involved doing it just to piss off the straights. Critical Mass, a cycling parade that demand equal rights to the use of the street, has a lot of people there just to piss off motorists. Do you think when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door, he wasn’t doing it, at least in part, to piss off the church?
I think people who are saying that this shouldn’t be done, that it’s crossing a line, are in essence saying the same thing the theists are: STFU.
Well, don’t. For atheism to gain its equal place in American society, this sort of agitation MUST be done. It’s not pretty, but history has shown that it is required. And those who put themselves out in front like that should be applauded for their courage because they will be reviled by friend and foe alike.
Great post. I left a comment on PZ’s original post saying something to this effect, and A just wrote about it on our blog. It was pretty upsetting to see atheist advocates turning a perfectly reasonable position into something excessively antagonistic. I’m glad to see that, with the exception of the commenters on Pharyngula, the atheist community is showing itself to be mature and reasonable about this.
Sorry but that sounds like a false dichotomy to me.
Spork
It’s one thing to talk about the irrationality of belief, it’s a whole other thing to destroy the object of belief.
Desecration is just being a dick. We can go piss on the wailing wall. We can grill hamburgers in front of a Hindu temple. While we can do these things, the real question is whether we should.
I support PZ in pointing out that it’s just a fracking cracker. He crossed some vague line when he asked people to get him a consecrated host to desecrate.
It’s not really about them and their irrational beliefs. It’s about us and our irrational behavior.
Woah, are you saying these inanae fairy tales deserve respect? As far as I know, it’s not against to law to use communion wafer to wipe your ass, and if the catholics choose to be offended by that, it’s their problem not mine.
Sure people deserve at least a modicum of respect, at least until they show they’re not worth that either, but I don’t see any reason to respect any religion, seeing how they’re all made up. Nobody respects the fictional belief that lawn gnomes deserve to stand in the middle of the road either.
The second a religion can show they’re right, offer some proof, I’ll respect them. Lacking that. I’m bringing a sponge to church tomorrow, to see if holy water absorbs just as well as regular water.
I’m with Matt; you’ve presented us with a false dichotomy. As Sam Harris so ably pointed out, there is no changing the religious mind due to the mind-paralysis called faith. The religious are impervious to reason, and that is what makes them so dangerous.
The belief doesn’t deserve respect. The people who believe it deserve respect.
You should weigh what’s gained by a particular way of questioning a belief against the harm it would cause to question it in that way. If someone believes lawn gnomes should stand in the road, they’re putting passing traffic in danger, so it would be reasonable to ask them to move the gnome to the curb or, if they refuse, to move it there yourself. It would not be reasonable to smash the gnome with a sledgehammer and throw the broken shards at the person who put it there.
PZ is in this to amuse himself. I’m amused by the fact that, even among some atheists, the idea of destroying a communion wafer does not elicit conversation and devolves into a “No don’t do it!!” thing.
Geis
The rights gays have today haven’t come about by going around and pissing off heterosexuals. They have come about by stating their case, marching to bring attention to their case, and using our judicial system to force the majority to treat them like everyone else.
Intentionally trying to piss people off is really juvenile.
thoughcounts z
Smashing it with a sledgehammer and throwing the shards is an angry irrational response.
The rational response is to just move it out of the road.
I agree with Colin M. The cracker was his. It was given to him to eat. Can’t get much more “his” than that.
And I disagree with the claim that “desecrating” (what a ridiculous concept) a “sacred” object is a worthless gesture. On the contrary, it’s a bold and powerful demonstration that a cracker is just a frackin’ cracker, and the god it represents is either powerless or non-existent (and what’s the difference?). It’s really just a bolder version of something I do often when debating theists: Looking up at the sky and exclaiming, “If there is a God, may He strike me down where I stand!”
(And keep in mind that PZ never specifically said what he’d do with the cracker. He just said he’d desecrate it. That might mean he’s going to frame it and put in on the wall of his Evil Atheist Biology office.)
I think it’s awesome how many non-Catholic people are aware of the Catholic practice of transubstantiation now–hopefully more than a few of them will find it utterly and completely ridiculous and therefore may start to be more skeptical of their own religious beliefs.
The problem is not desecration per se. The proposed act of desecration by PZ involved invading the Catholic space. If you read his post, he asks for someone to get him a wafer because the church’s in his area have “stakes” for him
So, he’s talking about invading a Catholic church to get a consecrated communion wafer. Sorry folks, that’s just wrong. Being the angry, irrational small minded person that he is, he asks for someone to do that in his stead. He’s saying, “My minons, go into a Catholic church and get me a wafer.”
That’s not some bold act of free speech. Down here in Texas we call that cowardly chicken shit behavior.
If you believe that transsubstantiation is stupid say it. Going into a Catholic church and try to pick fights with people over it is just stupid, juvenile, and possibly criminal.
Dude when someone places a cracker in your mouth they don’t own it anymore, you do.
PZ is often sarcastic and joking. Has anyone ever procured a baby for him to boil and eat? Why are you acting like he has already made videos attacking communion or called upon people to protest and disrupt mass? You’re (over)reacting to a single paragraph which starts by saying that there are guards around local churches preventing him from entering. Hello! Catch a clue that he’s not totally serious?
What did he accomplish? He brought a lot of attention to this issue, kept it in people’s minds for a week now, illustrated very clearly how the public intellectual apologists are delusional or out of touch with real people or are outright lying to us. The next time one pompous theist from Ivory Tower University says that Dawkins is attacking a strawman and is out of touch with the real, sophisticated belief of common people, we can whack him over the head with this example. When he talks about how religion brings love and peace to people, we have perfect examples of how even moderate-sounding Catholics can turn into frothing-at-the-mouth loonies, all because of their superstitions.
I’d say he accomplished a lot.
I hate to say it, but his version of firebrand blogging (along with that of Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris) have had a huge impact where soft-spoken, conciliatory and inoffensive writing has not. It’s great that there are Friendly Atheists, but I don’t think you understand how much of a debt you owe to those who are willing and able to push the boundaries. No major civil rights progress has ever been made by people being friendly - you need the work of PZ and others to make progress so that you can step in behind and be the kind, friendly face.
These bullies need to understand that they have a right to be offended but when they try to cause harm to people for offending them that’s where people will push back.
PZ is basically saying to these Catholic bullies you want to attack someone, attack me.
Catholics need to learn how to deal with being offended in a peaceful and non-attacking way and PZ and the rest of the interwebs will help teach them with the Cracker Challenge. Catholics are going to see people doing all kinds of crazy stuff to crackers in the near future so they will either have to attack all these people or learn to STFU and deal with it like most people do when they don’t like something.
“Down here in Texas we call that cowardly chicken shit behavior.”
Oh, sorry, I forgot that anything said in Texas is automatically true. Thanks for setting me straight, Your Infallible Texasness.
I think this whole thing is silly.
I know lots of Catholics, none of whom actually believe the cracker is anything more than a cracker. At least, not magically. They believe the cracker is a symbol, certainly. They might even use the word metaphor. And I’m in Oklahoma, which is not a mecca of educated sophistication like everyone thinks it is…
I’m totally behind Dawkins’ idea that religious attitudes do not deserve respect. However, when atheists spend any time at all on outdated interpretations of religious ritual it makes us look stupid, not them.
I agree with Colin M, the wafer was his. It was given to him, and he planned to eat it as soon as he got to his seat, but got manhandled before he could do so. The physical attack (which you left out as well) was what made him decide to take it home, which, as I see it, was completely legal for him to do.
And I think there definitely is a place for provocation. Think of forcing a lawsuit to show that a law is inappropriate. I thought Geis’ example of gay parades was a pretty good example as well. Provocation is a finicky tool to use, though, as it’s all too easy to go too far and alienate people, and should not be used lightly.
Note that provocation is not mutually exclusive with reason and dialog: sometimes you just need several different, simultaneous angles of attack to change opinions.
Sometimes you have to get people angry first before they’ll listen to you.
I do think PZ went overboard. But I think that that is part of his point here. He can say something that is obviously hugely offensive, but yet he has not even begun to approach the level of offensiveness of catholics making death threats to a teenager over a cracker.
As much as I personally dislike making a fuss, I think that once in awhile somebody needs to shine a light on religious hypocracy, such as putting a higher value on crackers than on human beings.
But personally, I’d like to see James Randi get his hands on a few, and do an experiment where he lets priests and psychics have a go at seeing if they can tell a consecrated host from, say 100 unconsecrated ones.
I take issue that you say we should condemn the Florida boy for taking what isn’t his. It seems to me that after a priest GIVES YOU THE CRACKER TO EAT it is thereafter yours. It would be kind of difficult to characterize that as theft or whatever. Had the boy run up, toppled the priest, and taken the cracker by force, you may have a point, but that is not what happened. So he does not deserve to be condemned at all. All he did was take what was GIVEN TO HIM and use it in a manner that the others did not find agreeable. For instance, if mormons came to my door and gave me a free copy of their Bible, and then I proceeded to light it afire, they can’t really call that theft, as it had already been given to me.
I also think many people are missing the rhetorical point of PZ’s remarks. I don’t think there is any reason to think he is being serious when he states that he wants shipments of crackers to violate. Rather, I think he is trying to communicate that the Catholics have misjudged what real desecration is if they consider the act of the original boy to be a violation. Hence he rhetorically offers to “show” them what real desecration would look like, as it would not look like a boy taking a wafer to show his friend and then returning it unviolated. If anything I think this is best interpreted as meaning “The Catholics don’t know what they are talking about” rather than “I am seriously going to take a dump on a bunch of crackers on Youtube”.
Also, I think you are wrong to think the point of the act is to convert Catholics. Of course it won’t cause them to reconsider their beliefs, any more than pointing out the evidence for evolution sways creationists. The point is that those who are undecided or on the edge or doubting will be swayed by how ridiculous the Catholic belief is, or that atheists who are more meek may be encouraged to speak up and defend themselves, etc.
Being friendly to someone won’t change their mind if their minds are already made up by dogmas completely lacking in evidence and that are seemingly nonsense. I think the problem is that you characterize this as an effort to convert people who probably can’t be converted, when PZ probably has no such intention.
So while you are correct that this will not change anyone’s mind on the religious side who is a true believer, you don’t take into account the people that can be swayed to become more vocal on OUR side, or the people with doubts who can be swayed, etc. I also fail to see how being polite and respecting such obviously ridiculous beliefs would change anyone’s mind. This isn’t about changing the current generations’ minds; it’s about making public and vocal atheism more acceptable for future generations, which will encourage future generations to become atheists by seeing it right out in the open rather than only being exposed to it in sermons that refer to them as “fools” or “devil worshippers”. In the end both you and PZ are being equally effective by exposing atheism to the masses, regardless of whether you will change anyone’s mind on the other side.
After reading this I wanted to share this sort of related (wafer wise) story … I was doing the video switching audio visual portion of a huge Lutheren Pastors Conference being held at the hotel I used to do audio visual at in Palm Springs last year … the guy doing the audio and I were constantly giving each other shocked looks every time they talked about communion ’cause we felt like we were at a canniblism conference … the audio guy and I are both Atheists so we found just about everything they said bizarre but the whole body of christ thing was really freaky … well, after their service was over I was on the stage collecting the microphones … one of the pastors had the bowl of communion wafers and was eating them like you would a bag of potato chips … I was so tempted to ask, “So, is that STILL the body of christ???”
It seems like this move by PZ is first and foremost meant to stand up for the kid who originally took the wafer home. It’s a form of protest against the Catholics who label this incident and “worse than a hate crime”. This kid has been harassed by Donahue and, I’m sure, many others, and PZ stood up to show the Catholic Church that we are not going to play by their rules. It’s not right to so strongly chastise someone for such a meaningless act, and just because a small subset of people are offended does not give others the right to treat him the way they have.
In fact, I think a protest in front of Catholic Churches doing the same thing would be a strong message. Imagine if a large number of people received the wafer, took it outside, and dropped it on the ground in protest of what the Catholics have done to this kid. What a powerful message that sends! And, this isn’t just a meaningless “Fuck you” to the church. Churches are continually overstepping their bounds in many ways, and this shows that there are others who are willing to stand up and publicly criticize them.
Some may say that what this kid did with the wafer was stupid and uncalled for. It’s possible that all he wanted to do was piss people off, and of course he has the right to do that. However, it’s also possible that he was doing what many do when they first start thinking about atheism: testing God. I’m sure many of us, when we first became atheists, did pretty irrational things, which many religious people would find offensive, to test God when we began to think for ourselves. I know I said some pretty mean and explicit things in prayer to a God I no longer believed in to test my beliefs and my new freedom from superstition. Obviously, I also have the rational reasons why I no longer believe in a god, but this irrational, individual protest is a rite of passage for many atheists.
The Catholic League could have taken the high road here. Donahue could have come out and said that he was disappointed by the situation, because Catholic’s hold this symbol to be very important, regardless of what other people believe, and left it at that. I would have gained some respect back for the Catholic Church if a more rational response was made. Instead, he is practically burning this kid, and now PZ, at the stake because of a silly superstition.
No and no. I’m in this to be left alone, for the most part. And being left alone often requires making people angry first. One could make the same objection to gay pride marches: and indeed they did make some people angry at first, but then most of those people grew tired of being angry and settled into apathy.
This particular issue I don’t care so much about, since it only affects those who choose to go to Communion. However, as long as jokingly threatening to damage a cracker leads to where it led this time, I’ll stand by PZ. Similarly, an anti-flag-burning amendment is one of the few things that would probably get me to burn a flag in protest.
Symbols are great. But when they start demanding a change in behavior to those who don’t hold them, something is seriously wrong.
The positive good that can obviously come out of “desecrating” a fucking cracker is simple and easy: They accused the boy of kidnapping and sedition — if somebody can be provoked into trying to sue and they fail, perhaps American kkkatholics could be forced into seeing the further absurdity of accusing one person of cruelty for just holding a cracker, when they themselves consume it. Could a case be successfully litigated concerning somebody refusing to eat a piece of food? Is food subject to being returned to the giver because the person who gave it doesn’t like how it’s being used?
Hardly.
They’ll have to convince a judge that in fact, the Eucharist is the body of Christ before it’s eaten. I don’t think they can do it. Not only do I think that argument would be too stupided for even one of our conservative judges, but it would force Catholics into a blaring contradiction they’ll have to face from that day out — they defend the dogma of transfiguration by claiming it becomes teh Jesus somewhere between the mouth and stomach, but will need to argue the opposite in order to truly charge somebody for kidnapping the Eucharist, as they have threatened.
What you mean it’s not true because they say it in Texas? I’m shocked.
Actually Ghost, in may ways I’d much rather live in your state. It seems to have a lot fewer idiots than down here.
Though I will admit there is occasionally something to be said for pissing off religious people on a small scale if they’re being annoying, someone as visible as PZ is probably harming the cause of atheist activism by making us appear to be radicals, etc.
Sam Harris had an article where he suggested that the way to gain credence in mainstream discourse and fight extremism is to ally yourself with moderates rather than setting yourself up in an adversarial position to those in power.
Of course, he was kidding, and it was pretty funny.
Right on, Hemant. As I said on my blog…
There is a word for something that does not efficiently accomplish one’s own goal. That word is “unethical”.
On the other hand, maybe his goal isn’t to show the Catholics up at all. Maybe he’s just doing it so atheists and other freethinkers realize how ridiculous it is.
@ miller
That’s not what unethical means… Ethics has nothing to do with efficiency, it has to do with the desired ends and the means by which to achieve those ends.
What’s unethical about standing up for a kid who is being ostracized by a religious group for taking home a cracker that was given to him, by writing about taking a similar cracker, to point out how ridiculous all of this is? I don’t see how either the means or the ends are even close to unethical.
Well, Hemant…I thought you were cool…but I find this morning that you are criticizing PZ and passively supporting the Cat-lick league (as another blogger so eloquently put it). You suck Hemant.
I was a reader…
A public demonstration that belief in nonsense is dangerous, and can lead to death and violence - particularly if said nonsense explicitly calls for violence. More importantly, a public demonstration that supposedly ‘milquetoast’, or ‘normal American’ religions are dangerous. This is what PZ has achieved; he is knocking holes in the belief that normal American religions are harmless.
The student was given the wafer. It’s not his acceptance of the wafer given him violated Catholic dogma. It’s what he didn’t do with it after he accepted it. This is not an ownership issue; he did not ’steal’ the wafer; that is a an attempt to hijack the cultural opprobrium against theft, and re-direct it against someone who violated dogma, not personal property. When you participate in the thief meme, you look like you don’t know anything about it.
Think back to the teddy bear that got named Mohammad. The woman who named it had no idea people would deliver death threats as a result of this. Yet they got angry anyway.
Since the anger is a direct result of a demonstrably false belief, the implied notion that it will always be possible to avoid making them angry is false. The cracker is not Jesus, it is not going to be treated as holy by everyone; if neither PZ Myers nor Webster Cook had never been born, somebody, as likely due to ignorance as not, would violate the rules and provoke religious people. Furthermore, consider the history of the Catholic church: right up to the 1950s, many influential Catholics claimed, without a shred of evidence, that Jews would ’steal’ consecrated crackers, and ‘torture’ them, making them ‘bleed’. The notion that the cracker was sacred was used to make people hate non-Catholics - and there is still no evidence whatsoever that Jews actively tried to obtain consecrated crackers at all. The dogma Bill Donohue is using to attack PZ is capable of enabling attacks on anyone the Catholic league is angry with - regardless of whether they threatened a cracker.
There’s this widespread belief that you can’t change minds by making people angry. It’s a belief that ignores the fact that there are observers - who will judge beliefs by the behavior of the believers. When a few religious people get angry over something nonsensical, like a non-eaten cracker, or a teddy bear named after a colorful historical character, observers who aren’t welded to their dogma will realize that (a) religion really does make some people crazy, and some of those people are genuinely dangerous due to religion; i.e., religion is not safe.
Ron in Houston said that “The rights gays have today haven’t come about by going around and pissing off heterosexuals. They have come about by stating their case, marching to bring attention to their case, and using our judicial system to force the majority to treat them like everyone else.”
I have one word: Stonewall.
Miss Poppy Hussein Dixon had it right above. Here is a church that contributes to tens of thousands of deaths annually via its opposition to the use of condoms in AIDS-ridden Africa, and yet its adherents are up in arms (literally, to judge from the death threats to both Cook and Myers) over the fate of a cracker. To be blunt, that is pure insanity and terminally immoral to boot. Those kinds beliefs deserve no respect whatsoever, and in fact deserve all the ridicule that can be heaped on them.
If people want to believe insane things that’s OK, but when those insane beliefs are the basis for actions that kill people then they are an active menace and ought to be resisted in every possible way. Catholics (and atheists) whose delicate sensibilities are offended when someone pushes back hard against insane and lethal beliefs are merely enablers of the death cult extreme. Let a river of ridicule flow deep and wide over them.
Ron…
Homosexuals have not come as far as you think. Also, the mere existance of homosexuals is enough to piss off a lot of religious heterosexuals.
I do not think that is a good example.
Notes on the Catholic Communion: (someone correct me if I make any errors)
1. Everyone is invited to the Catholic church; however, only Catholics can receive communion.
2. Catholics are not to take communion until they have been instructed. Normally this happens as a teenager and is a right of passage called someones “first communion.”
3. You are to immediately consume the consecrated wafer. Many people do not even want to touch it and open their mouths to have the priest put it into their mouths.
When you violate 1, 2, or 3, you are disrupting their mass in their church.
When the UCF student did that he committed a crime. You don’t have a right to go into a Catholic church and disrupt their service.
Any asshat atheist who thinks it would be funny to do what PZ suggested would be also guilty of a crime. In many states such a crime would be a hate crime. It is also a violation of many state’s laws to incite someone to perform the act PZ suggested.
The people who issued death threats were lunatics. There are lunatics in every group. Right now to a lot of people think PZ Myers looks like a lunatic.
If the Catholics had wanted to get pissy they would have had the kid arrested for disrupting their mass.
I support anyone’s right to blaspheme their belief in crackers. What the UCF student did was wrong. What PZ suggested (whether in satire or not) was wrong. It was wrong because to this date PZ had not made it quite clear to all the sycophants who hang on his every word, that he wasn’t truly advocating them to try to go into a Catholic church and disrupt their mass to get him consecrated communion wafers.
Whether you agree with them or not the Catholics have an absolute first amendment right to practice their communion free from intrusion by asshat atheists. Post all you want. Make all the cracker jokes you want.
Stay out of their churches. People have civil rights whether you like their beliefs or not.
The marching you refer to made many heterosexuals so ‘pissed off’ they went out and murdered gays. If gays were not willing to make people angry, they’d still be in closet, a despised and hidden minority, discriminated against in thousands of both intentional and unintentional ways.
Think about Carl Sagan. He went to a great deal of trouble to be polite - but he received thousands of death threats nonetheless. Why? In part because he marched to a nuclear weapons test site in Nevada, with many others, made speeches, and led protests. And he knew beforehand that these actions would make many people very, very angry. Anger was an unavoidable side effect of what he wanted to achieve.
Riiiiight.
The mere presence of homosexuals pisses off a lot of homophobic heteros. They didn’t try to be friendly, didn’t try to persuade bigots that they were wrong, didn’t try to find common ground with bigots. No, they demanded respect as individuals and managed to raise our consciousness to the point that we can now all spot bigottry and see it for what it is. As Geis pointed out, that sometimes resulted in violent confrontations. People don’t change their minds easily.
Yes, it helped that there were lawyers who did (and still do) their part, activists who aren’t confrontational and a growing population of visibly gay people who are polite and friendly but without the work done to confront injustice and intentionally upset those who need to be upset, these friendly and polite homosexuals would have to remain closeted as they were for thousands of years, lest they risk beatings and overt prejudice.
You’re making a big mistake if you think any significant social movement has ever made progress without pissing off a lot of people.
Then someone needs to do what PZ suggested so they can challenge this unjust law in court.
Hate crimes serve a useful purpose when they deal with those deviant people who beat or kill others due solely to their religion, race or sexual orientation. When “hate crime” gets mangled and perverted to protect superstitions, then it has gone much too far.
Charge them with trespassing if you like. “Hate crime” is insane.
For what it’s worth, I’ve criticized PZ before.
I guess I’ll retire my “cool” card now.
Because of the whole co-author situation, there has been some confusion in the past over who was posting what on my blog. For the record, “Piss Off the Catholics Month” was Thrawn’s idea, not mine.
I believe that it is our right to offend people, however, I think that in this case offense should be caused indirectly. Instead of actively trying to insult Catholics directly we should just do what Atheists normally do and if that offends them then that’s their problem.
I do support the idea of obtaining communion wafers and not eating them if only to assert the fact that we do not have to bow to their dogma. During the Civil Rights movement, blacks had to go out of their way to break segregation laws to make a point about them. We may need to go out of our way to break laws which claim that taking a cracker and not eating it is a hate crime. If Atheists continue receiving death threats for that then our point is simply being made for us.
I think these quasi-legal arguments about whom the wafer belongs to after it’s given without a written contract are far beside the point. Communion is an orderly ritual; it’s not like there’s just a Jesus dispenser in a back room that anyone can wander in and use at their leisure. After sitting (and sometimes standing) through the service for the better part of an hour, everyone finally lines up, and when they get to the front of the room, a clergyman or volunteer hands them a wafer that they immediately eat and say “Amen” before they walk back to their pew. If a stranger pockets the Eucharist and runs away, the main issue isn’t property rights or breach of contract; the problem is that he’s intentionally infiltrated and then visibly disrupted a private religious service.
A lot of people raised other red herrings too. As Hemant reminded everyone, the question was about what PZ should do, not what he should be allowed to do. Likewise, what Bill Donohue says or does has no bearing on what PZ Myers should do to ordinary people who aren’t Donohue and may not even like him. In fact, that just perpetuates the misconception that self-appointed public figures speak for their entire denomination whether they claim to, like Donohue, or not, like Myers.
[...] 13, 2008 This is just a comment which I left on Friendly Atheist which I feel summarizes my personal feelings about Thrawn’s “Piss Off the Catholics [...]
Adrian
I admire your spirit. We need to challenge stupid laws. However, as a lawyer I can tell you that the defense of free speech in criminal proceedings only goes so far.
Your chance of getting a jury of 12 radical atheists is pretty much an impossibility.
Most D.A’s don’t charge with the least crime. They go for the maximum crime they can charge you with. Sure, you could maybe plea it down to a trespass, but you’d still have a criminal record following you.
Not a smart move in my book.
Those saying all atheists should be nice and avoid conflict with theists and established religion are basically saying we should all just go back into the closet. You can’t get anywhere without challenging the establishment. Where would gay rights be without the Stonewall Riots? Should they all have backed down, been nice, or tried to have a nice discussion with the police? No, they would have been ignored. Theists do all they can to ignore atheists, that’s how religion works, ignore all opposition. They need to be shown that death threats and the like won’t make atheists stop. Not everyone has to be loud, rude, or angry, but someone has to or no one is going to listen. We need both the PZ’s and Hemants to get atheism recognized. PZ’s actions may not have turned anyone towards atheism, but at least it’s gotten some of them to look it up.
llewelly
There’s a big difference between doing something that has an indirect effect of pissing people off and doing something just to piss people off.
A whole lot of people are pissy and get pissed off by the slightest thing. However, doing something just to piss someone off is really pretty pointless.
[...] there’s this mini-hoopla occurin’ in the blogosphere regarding blogger, terminal atheist, and biologist P.Z. Meyers and his declaration of war against [...]
I completely agree with you. This is the reason why I switched from PZ’s blog to yours. While he’s funny and posts interesting stuff, he frequently goes way too far. He crosses the line between being funny by poking fun of others beliefs, and just being rude for shock value. When someone takes pride in offending people, something is just wrong.
You’re not going to change any minds by acting like an asshole. I wish he could understand that, because he’s starting to make all atheists look bad.
Geis
Sure it brought a lot of attention to their cause. However, if you really apply a cost/benefit analysis did it really accomplish much?
The rights gays have obtained have been lobbying and litigating not through riots.
Goldfishflakes
I admire Hemant for taking a stand.
I’ve also a la George Carlin starting praying to Hemant. He seems like a guy who can get things done.
I prayed to Hemant and this morning I got laid. What more proof do you need?
Ron in Houston said:
If nobody notices, you’re not disrupting anything. You may violate the church rules, but those have no legal power. Violating church rules might lead to excommunication, but is not in itself a crime.
Besides, how would you enforce such a stupid rule anyway? Like your points 1 and 2: How are you supposed to know if someone’s a Catholic? Or a True Believer Catholic, instead of a Gotta-please-the-parents Catholic? Or even a Used-to-be Catholic? Is it enough to behave like a Catholic to be a Catholic? And your point 3: How are you going to enforce that the wafer is actually eaten at the spot? Frisk everyone to make sure they aren’t hiding it? Hold their mouth and nose closed till they swallow?
Your post is only making me think this might be one of those rules that deserve a good dose of civil disobedience to show just how ridiculous it is…
Beowulf
Sure you could do it without disrupting their mass. However, do you really want to be associated with such stupid, juvenile behavior to just make a point?
To me it also crosses an ethical line. I don’t want someone coming into my house under false pretenses. You’re doing nothing better than that.
[...] cracker, gets flack, P. Z. Myers writes an article and gets flack from some Catholic fundies) but Friendly Atheist does a good job with it and presents more or less what I feel and think. So there is no need for me to reinvent the wheel [...]
@ Ron
Just a minor correction: First communion happens at about 7 years old. Age 13 is about the time of First confession, and Confirmation is at about age 15.
Hemant, for what it’s worth, I’ve questioned the wisdom of what PZ’s doing as well. I don’t know that it will accomplish anything positive, and it may harm atheists in the long term.
On the other hand, Donoghue becomes apoplectic at the drop of a hat, so I imagine it’s hard to resist. I mean, it’s just so damn easy …
Hemant said…
For what it’s worth, I’ve criticized PZ before.
I guess I’ll retire my “cool” card now.
___________________________________________
That must have been before I began reading your blog.
PZ has my respect as a Biology professor. I’m a Biology student…so maybe that’s it. :shrug: Also, I tend to give more weight to people with age on their side. I just think it is poor taste to criticize someone in your own “camp” when that person is getting death threats, etc because of their opinion. Isn’t this exactly what *we* as atheists are against?! The blatant anti-free speech that religious people propose.
Now, I am against and sneer at some idiocies of *some* “atheists” for retarded actions…such as the Rational Response Squad. But, then again they are made up of mostly high school graduates (at best) that do not know their elbows from their arses.
PZ is an educated man with life experience…I just think he deserves more respect from the younger atheist crowd like yourself.
Even Richard Dawkins is in support of him: See here
By the way, Hemant, I could use a new car…
It took riots and action to get people to take notice, had this not happened gays would have been ignored and furthered marginalized. Without taking a stand it would still be illegal for gays to even hold hands, there would be no lobbying or litigating because no one would stand up for a group that won’t stand up for itself. No group has gotten anywhere without upsetting the authority.
#
Ron in Houston said,
July 13, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Goldfishflakes
I admire Hemant for taking a stand.
I’ve also a la George Carlin starting praying to Hemant. He seems like a guy who can get things done.
I prayed to Hemant and this morning I got laid. What more proof do you need?
_________________________________________________________
LOL about praying to Hemant.
But, IMO he is not “taking a stand” he is sitting back in his cozy desk chair criticizing someone when they are getting death threats for merely an opinion given on a blog. Whether he agrees with PZ or not he shouldn’t he harping on where they cross on the issue, he (Hemant) should be supporting him (as they stand for similar things) as the “issue” is over a f*cking cracker! PZ is getting DEATH threats and harassment from the Catholic League over an opinion on the dumbest news story to make headlines this year!
Ron, sometimes juvenile behavior is exactly what is needed to show that some people take themselves way too seriously.
goldfishflakes
While it’s no defense to the Catholic league attempt to get PZ fired, they didn’t try to squelch his right to free speech until after he advocated violating their first amendment right to free exercise of religion.
OK, I have to make a commentary on this, even though I was determined not to…hehe.
I think what PZ said was…who cares? Really. He did not DO anything. He made some tongue in cheeck threats (on a cracker!!!)…that made catholics publically defend crackers as flesh of their savior. I think that his WORDS were very clever, in that they did show everyone, including catholics, that there is a major belief system that actually believes that a cracker literraly becomes human (and part god) flesh. How can what he said compare to their reaction?
Again…nothing was done. What was said was far far less threatening and hateful than what those very catholics have said and felt towards atheists for centuries and still today. We are talking about a stupid carcker. I think if anyone gets bent out of shape because of the way a person threatens a small baked good…well, the people being ofened need the critisism, and yes…ridicule.
Lets be clear, it is harsh ridicule that is required sometimes to shoot down those things that have been a hinderance to our societal evolution or reason. It is never popular with the group supporting the susperstition or outdated viewpoint…but that can hardly be the concern when having this kind of a discussion. This is what the new atheist movement is all about. Nothing bad was done…mere words were phrased, and it brought a completely irrational response from catholics. What better way to shed light on such nonsense than to let the irrational protests of the offended speak.
PJ can say whatever he wants. He did not threaten a person, he threatened a cracker. The ones to worry about are the ones who equate the two.
goldfishflakes
People of reason everywhere need good scientists to speak out against the creationist/ID crowd.
Atheists need calm reasoned people to take their cause to the theistic majority. It doesn’t need angry puerile associate professors from some small satellite campus of the University of Minnesota.
He didn’t get death threats because he’s an atheist; he got death threats because he’s either angry, stupid, or a poor communicator.
If I had a vote for spokesperson for atheism, I’d take Hemant over PZ Myers anytime.
#
Ron in Houston said,
July 13, 2008 at 2:55 pm
goldfishflakes
While it’s no defense to the Catholic league attempt to get PZ fired, they didn’t try to squelch his right to free speech until after he advocated violating their first amendment right to free exercise of religion.
______________________________________________________________
How is what PZ said a violation of their right to free exercise of religion?
Did you read what the Catholics done that poor student who walked out of the service with the cracker? Poor kid!!!! No matter his intentions…good or bad.
Religion is mythological BS and to persecute someone over it is ridiculous. Furthermore, religion should be shown for the ridiculous BS it is. I applaud PZ for saying for what he did. And please please show me how PZ saying that stifled their “rights”! Please! Enlighten me!
#
Ron in Houston said,
July 13, 2008 at 2:59 pm
goldfishflakes
People of reason everywhere need good scientists to speak out against the creationist/ID crowd.
Atheists need calm reasoned people to take their cause to the theistic majority. It doesn’t need angry puerile associate professors from some small satellite campus of the University of Minnesota.
He didn’t get death threats because he’s an atheist; he got death threats because he’s either angry, stupid, or a poor communicator.
________________________________________________________
I agree that we need calm reasonable people speaking up for the “atheist cause”…it is what aggravates the sh*t out of me about the RRS.
But, just because PZ is loud about stupid things such as this cracker incident doesn’t make him any less educated. IMO, because of what the Catholics did to that student they deserve great criticism! I’m sure that student’s little life has been turned upside down because of this. And that is a shame! This is the reason I support what PZ said.
goldfishflakes
He said he couldn’t go into a Catholic church to obtain a consecrated communion wafer because they had “stakes” for him
Immediately following that he asked for someone else to go into a Catholic church and get him a consecrated wafer to desecrate.
It’s almost impossible to get a consecrated wafer without going into a Catholic church. Oh, hypothetically you could maybe get one some other way, but it wouldn’t be very easy.
Sending people into the Catholic church to subvert their mass is to me a clear violation of their first amendment right to practice their religion without interference. Granted it’s not the government doing it, but I’m sorry, it’s just wrong.
Ron,
You read that far too seriously…PZ was joking about someone else going to obtain him a cracker! It was sarcastic. That’s how I read it anyways. PZ is very sarcastic in his posts.
So is persecuting that student for innocently taking that cracker to show a friend. From what the student said, he did not have ill intentions…he was simply satisfying a friend’s curiosity and it got out of control because of the Catholics.
The Catholics are the ones violating rights here.
goldfishflakes
As an ex-Episcopalian cracker eater, I don’t think the official Catholic reaction isn’t really over the top. In every group their are lunatics, and the Catholics have theirs who have issued death threats.
I can understand the UCF student because he’s young and probably didn’t appreciate what he was doing. However, whether rational or not, what he did was a big deal and a major affront to Catholics.
I also believe PZ was engaging in criticism and satire. He confirmed as much to a local Minnesota newspaper. However, his internet position has been “oh, look at the crazy theists.” The fact of the matter is that he deserved scorn and derision. It wasn’t clear from his internet post that he was just engaging in criticism and satire. Obviously, a whole lot of folks honestly wonder if he’s serious or not. Until he clears the air on a wider basis, I say he deserves scorn and derision. And frankly, I intent to take every opportunity to exercise my first amendment rights to heap scorn and derision on him.
He could have easily cleared the air by saying on his blog. “Hey folks, it was satire, please don’t try to go into your local Catholic church and get consecrated wafers.” For some reason (whether pandering to his minions, pride, or whatever,) he has chosen not to do so.
He might be a great and esteemed biologist, but he’s an embarrassment as an atheist.
Their is also a deeper unlying message here. So, are you (or anyone defending the Catholic League’s actions) saying that the Catholic church should be able to ruin lives under the guise of “religious freedom”?
About PZ being an embarrassment as an atheist. Well, we are all entitled to our opinions̷