In fact, he’s never fully explained why he took it in the first place.

How about this:

“When I received the Eucharist, my intention was to bring it back to my seat to show him,” Cook said. “I took about three steps from the woman distributing the Eucharist and someone grabbed the inside of my elbow and blocked the path in front of me. At that point I put it in my mouth so they’d leave me alone and I went back to my seat and I removed it from my mouth.”

A church leader was watching, confronted Cook and tried to recover the sacred bread. Cook said she crossed the line and that’s why he brought it home with him.

“She came up behind me, grabbed my wrist with her right hand, with her left hand grabbed my fingers and was trying to pry them open to get the Eucharist out of my hand,” Cook said, adding she wouldn’t immediately take her hands off him despite several requests.

Quoted from here, one of the very first links PZ posted on the topic. I’d almost think you are purposely trying to distort the story – you don’t happen to be a lawyer of 23 years too, I hope?

So even if Cook did “violate private church property”, members of the church violated his private body, which I take far more seriously. Similarly, the threats towards Cook’s life are way out of proportion for a simple “invasion of sacred space”, and it should be quite clear that this is what PZ Myers is protesting at. So even if you were right that Cook did something fundamentally wrong, it wouldn’t change the fact that there is a serious issue there for PZ to protest.

We can of course still disagree about whether PZ chose the best method to do so. He’s been called “juvenile” and accused to not “respect their beliefs” (and it’s perfectly fine with me if he were both). This is what the last part of my previous comment was about; Gloff clearly was acting juvenile and clearly didn’t respect the protesters beliefs either (which is perfectly fine with me as well), yet he didn’t get any of those reactions. That’s where the double standard is. You seem to have completely ignored that part. Any comments on this?

And as to your arguments that the communion is only open to Catholics, all I want to say is: define “Catholic”.

And as PZ said with regard to the threatening e-mail sent by his supporters to his detractors, we’re supposed to be better than that.

And we are: PZ openly called his readers out for it. I have not yet heard Donahue call out against the threats to Cook’s and PZ’s careers or lives.

Well, here’s news for you: it’s just a fracking cracker!

You can get any old cracker and just say it’s the body of Jesus! Catholics get driven insane by the clash of superstition and reality and no churches need to be invaded.

Seriously. I can understand why Catholics buy into this whole affair, but what excuse do these atheists have?

To encourage people, as PZ did, to deliberately enter a place of worship we’d normally avoid for the sole purpose of acquiring an object others consider sacred in order to desecrate it strikes me as exactly the sort of bigoted, unconscionable behaviour we accuse the believers of every day.

Webster Cook took something he was given with a specific purpose and turned it to a totally different purpose. If it’d been a rental car he’d be paying some big bills.

Furthermore, it’s not his. Communion is a Catholic sacrament not open to just anyone. He was given it as a member of the church, a member of “the body of Christ”. It’s community property, and a communal symbol. Instead, he behaved as someone who was not of that community. That’s fine, but in that case he had no business being in line for it in the first place. Open services are one thing. Queueing to snatch a wafer is another.

Another metaphor: If he’d taken a kick board from the local pool he’d have been stopped and made to give it back.

And as PZ said with regard to the threatening e-mail sent by his supporters to his detractors, we’re supposed to be better than that.

In the Gloff case, these people came to a space generally considered gay-friendly territory. They didn’t enter it, they didn’t take anything. They just annoyed patrons passing by.

Webster Cook could have stood outside that chapel all day with a signboard, and I’d regard it as entirely his right to do so.

But he went into their house, participated in their ritual. And when he was asked to give the host back as he snuck out with it, he refused. Had he eaten and swallowed it, there would have been no problem.

He could have written a scathing article blasting the silliness of transubstantiation, and I’ve have probably cheered him on.

But he stole, or if you really can’t get behind that word, abused, a piece of community property. And here’s where it gets really weird for me:

He has yet to explain why he kept it for a week before returning it. In fact, he’s never fully explained why he took it in the first place. I also don’t have any clear picture of either what his relationship to the church is, nor or how he communicated with them for the week he held the host “hostage” (news report word, not mine–but was it Cook’s?).

So there you have it. One violates sacred space, or private church property if you prefer, to steal something he knows is sacred to that community.

The other stands outside with annoying placards.

No double standard. Simply different actions.

I’ll agree that what Jeremy Gloff did was funnier than PZ’s response so far, and as I said before, I agree there’s a clear difference in the degree of provocation and sacredness between the two cases, and I can even somewhat understand the concern over “stealing wafers” and “invading churches”, even though I clearly think those concerns are overreactions and, for the most part, distractions.

However, I still don’t get why arguments like “it’s juvenile” and (to a lesser degree) “you have to respect their beliefs” were made against PZ Myers, but not against Jeremy Gloff. I also didn’t see any calls here to “see it from the Christian point of view” or “why didn’t he just start a reasonable dialog”. Not that I think these would be valid arguments in Gloff’s case, mind you; I’m just puzzled why they were considered to be valid against PZ Myers. It just smells like a double standard to me, and I have yet to hear a plausible explanation of why it’s not a double standard. Anyone?

I think it high time that atheists get together and protest a catholic church with signs reading ‘Stop molesting our children’ and ‘Quit protecting pedophiles’ and see how they like it.

I LOVE that. Count me in!

Go Jeremy Gloff.

Cook was daft
Meyers was out of line in encouraging people to steal hosts from inside a church so he could desecrate them.
Donahue was his usual stupid self.

It’s their house. Their rules. You go inside, you dance the Vatican Rag. That includes gobbling crackers, sipping wine from the communal cup, and getting grease smeared on your head twice yearly. You don’t have to believe it, nor take it seriously, but you do have to behave respectfully in their house.

I cannot come to your house, take a picture of your grandma (it’s just some old lady), and rip that up for fun.

From outside, you can do what you like.

Which is where this video comes in. The protestors could have stayed where they were, exercising their democratic right to peaceful protest.

They were “confronted” by a man dancing. Hell, I get worse from street mimes. There was no physical threat (unless you count music blaring at top volume–Manuel Noriega might have something to say about that tactic).

Faced with music, liveliness, and good humour, they shoved off. They didn’t threaten, they didn’t bluster. They went away. Totally different behaviour on both sides.

If the protestors had come into the club it would be different. They might have been expected to behave themselves and at least order a drink. Oh–and refrain from stealing the Cher CDs.

It’s one thing to encourage people to go out and eat crackers in front of a Catholic church. It’s a whole other thing, whether through satire or not, to (at least to me) appear to encourage them to enter Catholic churches.

Great idea! Have a picnic lunch outside a Catholic church, and just call your food “the body of Jim” “the body of Emily” “the blood of Mike” etc.