"It's just a cracker."
Well. So P. Z. Meyers finally got hold of a consecrated host, nailed it to some torn out pages from the Qur'an, threw some coffee grounds and a banana peel on top, and announced that his long-awaited "great desecration" is "finished."
Or so he claims. Personally, I think the pic looks distinctly photo-shopped.
Anyway, be that as it may, the one thing that really tires me out about this whole sorry episode is Prof. Meyers' repeated insistence that "it's just a cracker" - something that he himself quite obviously doesn't believe for a split second.
I mean, is Prof. Meyers in the habit of nailing wheat-thins to pages torn from the holy books of other cultures?
No. The consecrated host is, at the very least, even for an unbeliever like me, a symbol. And Prof. Meyers' act of desecration is a symbolic act. And what does it symbolize? It symbolizes naked hatred and contempt for believing Catholics, and for Catholicism itself.
So, under the going rules of multicultural sensitivity, how can P. Z. Meyers possibly be considered fit to teach at any public institution of "higher learning?"
--
God help the while, a bad world I say.
- vinteuil's blog
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…but I will be perhaps a little contrarian.
I think it's important to not make the same mistake Meyers makes and conflate the sins…err… the foibles of individuals within an institution with the institution itself. The old "religion is full of hypocrites" chestnut is on the same branch as "the academy is full of wingtards", and in both cases I think a lot of decent people are smeared by the actions of a few.
So, a couple points. One, it is just a cracker – to him – and it will always be just a cracker – to him. That he doesn't even appear to fathom that point or why that is important makes his whole discretion act, just that; an act. Secondly, what might disqualify him isn't his sophomoric act, but his obvious personal issues and their expression into open hatred. Did a frat guy from Boston College steal some girl he had a crush on? Did the Catholic Athletic League Pee Wee team crush his hoop dreams? Come on, don't toss any Molotov Cocktails around the Reichstag if this guy is in charge or some nuns are going to the camps (how's that for stirring and shaking historical clichés?).
Finally, did anyone else notice that for all his bloviating about death threats and that he didn't seem shy about quoting 'damning' emails, the only threat he produces is this:
That's it? I don't buy into 'sins of the father' dogma, but some people do, so it could as easily be someone who does buy into that, and not all a death threat. I suppose someone could find "I'll pray for you" threatening, and I kind of imagine Meyers might, but his whole shtick seems… well, so childish that I can only feel sorry for him.
He's probably not fit to teach, but that only says something about Meyers, it doesn't say very much about the academy.
--“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
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)I have read PZ for a while, and I also share his annoyance at the general willing suspension of reason of the believing crew - of whichever religion. As Nietzsche says - what was excusable in the past is not excusable any longer
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| parent )Thomas E. Foley, VA delegate to the RNC, cracks wise about this story.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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)Meyers is attacking an idea -- viz. holding objects sacred -- not a people.
Whether it's the right way to go about making his pt., I dunno.
Potential upsides:
-- some religious folk -- esp. those attempting to codify their religious beliefs into public policy -- could stand the reminder that their beliefs are as frankly rejected as their rejection of others' beliefs.
-- Meyers's act might push the boundaries of acceptable expression. Currently they're unfavorably drawn for atheists, who are welcome to privately hold their views but discouraged from publicly expressing even mild forms of irreverence. Call this the 'jolt method'.
-- sometimes exercising a right is an important element in preserving it.
... i don't know whether these factors are plausible/outweigh the negatives/etc. but they deserve to be considered.
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)..."whether it's the right way to go about making his point" is pretty much the whole issue, here, isn't it?
And what does the distinction between attacking an *idea* and a *people* matter, when the "people" in question is more or less defined by its dedication to a particular instantiation of the "idea" in question?
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )pretty much the whole issue, here, isn't it?
that I hadn't decided if the pros outweighed the cons, but hadn't really seen the pros given a fair shake.
what does the distinction between attacking an *idea* and a *people* matter
objecting to commentary on an idea w. 'that's insulting to those who believe it' should be a last resort. There are other resorts in this instance IMO.
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| parent )Satire against hypocrisy in the Church is as old as...hypocrisy in the Church. How many popes did Dante have in the circles of hell?
Myers' satire isn't satire of hypocrisy. He isn't criticizing something wrong with the Church or its officials, he's attacking its most basic symbolism. Myers is attacking what's "good" about the Church. And doing it in a really silly, juvenile, scatological manner you'd expect from teenagers wearing black lipstick.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )if you read why he's doing it, to protest the actions taken against a student who left a church with a consecrated eucharist in his pocket, the specific method of his protest makes more sense. I'm not endorsing his method of protest (I don't think it will be very productive), but it didn't come out of nowhere.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )I can think of half a dozen more adult ways of criticizing what was itself an overblown move by the student senate and Catholic League.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )of defiling a cracker would have to be pixellated before being posted on the Forvm.
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| parent )to film the lambada scene for Weekend At Bernie's IX: Old Broads Shake It Loose.
I should not take offense, argues the director, because there is no such thing as a soul, and this is just a sack of calcium carbonate with dried bits of meat. Not your great grandma. Besides, she's perfect for the part.
Good way to get his point across?
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )to leave with a consecrated eucharist in your gullet, but not in your pocket. Outrage is a funny thing, unless you're facing the brunt of it.
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| parent )the irrational as the foundation of your philosophy, anything is possible.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )... then there would be no prickish behavior, no manufactured indignation, no in-group/out-group hysterics - all of it, gone.
Hogwash.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )undraped by the garment of morality.
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| parent )I imagine we can't quite do without the moral self-justification. Maybe less in the way of ritual and the otherworldly, though.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )for prickish behaviour? Come on. ( A very apt description of certain behaviours, btw)
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| parent )It's maybe not until the "in-group/out-group hysterics" level that the moral justification really becomes necessary.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )...my friend.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )... but thanks! ;^D
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )individual bad behavior, but to organize it into a culture wide homicidal mania seems to require organized religion or something like it.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )I think you'll either have to define that vague little phrase so broadly as to render your claim trivial, or you're just plain wrong.
But I'm not sure this is a profitable discussion to have.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )Yes, indeed.
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| parent )I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )and through much of history the possible involved pitchforks and torches.
Now we've got lawyers, expulsion and threatening letters also... and some other stuff as well, like marks on your credit record. Still no thunderbolts from heaven, though.
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| parent )PZ Myers as a goth - someone break out the Photoshop!
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )Push them where, catchy?
And let's not overstate things: there are plenty of places in this country where, indeed, to be 'out' as an atheist is to court ostracism; there are plenty of other places where it's quite the opposite.
It is remarkable, and more than a little unfortunate, that to be an atheist or an agnostic is an automatic de facto disqualification from holding office (at a national level, anyway); I'd hardly think Myers is helping on that front.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )there are plenty of places in this country where, indeed, to be 'out' as an atheist is to court ostracism
would ideally shift society's sensibilities more in favor of atheists.
of course you could also argue that Meyers is likely to create a backlash.
but maybe repetition of controversial Meyers-esque acts would change people's (unconscious) sense of what's 'normal'.
kind of like how conservatives have managed to push the US's sense of the center to the right over the past few decades.
the thought is that a merely 'out' atheist wouldn't seem so radical if people contrasted her w. someone like myers. I suspect Chris Hitchens and others have something like this in mind in producing their latests.
... anyway, society's sense of acceptability strike me as malleable and inconsistent; how did society's sense of 'acceptable' come to encompass public pronouncements of 'people who disagree with me will suffer eternal damnation'? some pushing and pulling has to be part of the process.
OK, just to answer a rhetorical question:
Push them where, catchy?
ideally fringe acts like Meyers's wouldn't be necessary once a better balance is in place. recall that the acct was in response to some obnoxious expressions of entitlement by religious folk.
again i don't know whether it was best all things considered, but i's considerin the potential benefits.
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| parent )... of something like this, so I can't rule out the possibility that Myers' antics will have the results you think they might. I guess I'm suspicious, though, that it would have the desired results - or, really, any results past the usual flare-ups among the chattering class.
The question of how it is that the bounds of acceptability have been widened is a pretty big one, I think, but I'd hazard a guess that any answer is going to have to go well beyond the level of conflicts among ideas.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )skepticism about achieving the "desired results" is based on prior personal experience when, in your early teens, and applying the same "Myers Methodology" to enlighten your parents, you were met with abject failure.
--I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine
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| parent )But those files are sealed.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent ). . .comes to mind:
Our answer to the Great Question is the only logical one. Our Science is great. Let us not forget the great Richard Dawkins who finally freed the world of religion long ago. Dawkins knew that logic and reason were the way of the future. But it wasn't until he met his beautiful wife that he learned using logic and reason isn't enough. You have to be a d**k to everyone who doesn't think like you. Prepare all the troops! We will level the United Atheist Alliance to the ground!
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| parent )The episode shown last night on Comedy Central?
The Fantastic Easter Special
It's like they lurk here...
--Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. - W. Somerset Maugham
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| parent )the same as the "random biological ejaculations" advertised on Meyers' website? Because I just got my car back from the mechanic with a huge bill (there was fluid coming out of the exhaust pipe) and am wondering what the term means, and whether $376.22 was reasonable to cure it.
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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)a joint aspirational time horizon with someone, it might become clearer.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )If you guys really want some theological clarity, here it is.
(ok, I admit, I was just looking for an excuse to post this hilarious video since I saw it last night)
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)I guess this is what I get for bitching about your hair and your clothes.
But I was only funnin' you!
And, besides, at the time, I thought that you were Dionysus, and that Jordan was you!
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Hey, I'm glad to take constructive criticism about my hair, clothes, whatever (as long as it's something I really can change). And by the way, I don't deliberately cover my receding hairline; my hair just flops down. I don't want to use gel or hair spray or whatever if it's going to look or smell odd (i.e., look artificially stiff or smell like a cheap whore*), but sometimes for a meeting with client or prospective client or for some networking occasions I want to look neater so I use hair spray. Any suggestions, QE?
* By the way, one time at a networking event I had hair spray in my hair, and I told a buddy of mine who was there "Hey, if I smell like a cheap whore it's because I used hair spray...well, that plus I just got off a cheap whore."
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| parent )I couldn't see any sign of a receding hairline.
However. Were you ever to appear on QE4theSG, I suspect that among the first things the assembled dearies might tell you would be that you must never, ever, permit your hair to fall forward over your forehead.
It only arouses suspicion.
Oh, and one doesn't part longish hair in the middle, any more. One risks reminding people of the Bee-gees.
Or worse.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )My part isn't in the middle; it's kinda half-way between side and middle, and THAT I confess I do to hide my receding hairline.
So, any products you recommend for my hair-flopping problem?
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| parent )It's at most 10 degrees off center.
As for anti-hair-flopping products, you're on your own.
But sooner or later, you're going to have to cut it short. Very short.
Mark my words.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Well, your geometry is off, but yeah, cutting it short is what I usually do before particularly important business events. I'm disappointed that you have no recos for anti-hair-flopping products. Are you sure you're a QG? Or do QGs not use anti-hair-flopping products?
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| parent )...all true QG's would spurn them.
You may rest assured, on that particular point.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Brylcreem it straight back to the collar. Only way to go, if you've got the hair to go that way.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )...suggesting a mullet.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Helpful examples here:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/nations_slicked_back_hair_men
Here:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/ex_girlfriend_dont_want_to_speak
Or, what the hell, here:
http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozi...
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )Dear, dear me.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )If it was good enough for The Mick...
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| parent )Then again, I haven't had use for any for some years now...
--Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. - W. Somerset Maugham
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| parent )"They're all hemophiliacs"?
I'm almost positive that's Amiri Baraka.
Timely in terms of his insight into the Germans' national characteristics, though. Thanks for sharing.
--In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
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| parent )That's the part that throws me. Questioning everything must get tiring.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )When I heard that, my guess was (and is) that he was challenging the association of the word "white" -- often associated with things good and pure -- with caucasions.
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| parent )he was the only one who'd called the cameraman a white man, he was being self-reflexively ironic.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )by the hemophiliacs accusation myself. But then I replayed it and noted he was saying necrophiliacs.
So I'm better. I mean c'mon; what's not to like about jewelry?
--Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. - W. Somerset Maugham
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| parent )Did you guys REALLY think he said "hemophiliacs"? I realize that guy may not have come across as the most rational guy in the world, but come on, "hemophiliacs" would have been one heck of a non sequitur, plus the guy filming it made that great joke about his brother.
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| parent )... even if that were what he said, that would only be maybe the 50th weirdest thing that comes out of his mouth.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )yet another euphemism is born!
--Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. - W. Somerset Maugham
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| parent )I guess Germans don't eat much lasagna.
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| parent )Vinteuil's diary title new meaning.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )LOL!!
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| parent )"I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater. (She just wrote that book, 'A Charmed Life.') She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a Big Intellectual. We went at eight and at one, I hadn't opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in such company to say...Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them.
"Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the most portable person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it
"That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable."
--From The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor
Well, I suppose Prof. Meyers would see Flannery O'Connor as a superstitious fool and an obstacle to human progress.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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)The Qu'ran does not describe a Triune God.
Dr. Meyers works in a profession where fundamentalists who happen to be Christian* seek to make his work impossible. His frustration is palpable, and I share it. But you dismiss the value of this art too quickly -- recall that, for example, to a Protestant who does not believe in Transubstantiation, that in fact the Catholic host and the Qu'ran genuinely are both a cracker and book. Indeed, they are a cracker and a book the primary purpose of which is to damn others to hell for eternity through the expression of a false faith. It is the height of foolishness for persons who belong to that community to find the image anything other than entirely appropriate. But they do not, and that is interesting and worthy of discussion.
The point is to raise hackles. Then to discuss which hackles were raised, and why.
I suppose, also, the point is to see which methods by which the message is dismissed unheard are the least rational or intellectually consistent.
*Fundamentalism is fundamentalism; it looks the same whether it is Christian, Hindu, Muslim, or Buddhist. It is the same terrified reaction to modernity and sex, with hatred of women, in every place.
--It's impossible to debate if people simply hold beliefs that have no grounding in reality.
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)... is to damn others to hell for eternity? The Catholic Church wishes to make Myers' work impossible? All forms fundamentalism are just the same?
I'm glad you decided to drop the facade of academic equanimity - this kind of lazy nonsense is much more your style.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )Seems to me that PM was saying that the purpose of religion is to enforce conformity by damning non-followers to hell.
He also didn't say that "the Catholic Church wishes to make Myers' work impossible." PM wrote that fundamentalists (who happen to be Christian) seek that, which is true, since the ID people are mostly fundamentalists.
"All forms fundamentalism are just the same?" Technically that's true -- fundamentalism in general throws away all reason in favor of faith in the literal word of its myths. PM didn't say that it's all expressed in the same way, which is what I assume that you're assuming. He does say that "it is the same terrified reaction to modernity and sex, with hatred of women, in every place." This is debatable.
Your last paragraph doesn't merit a response other than a reminder that this website shouldn't be a venue for people to take out their frustrations, etc.
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| parent )Fundamentalism, when stripped from its concrete roots in modern American Protestantism, can be useful as an analogy in understanding otherwise disparate religious phenomena, but the hypostasis it undergoes in your hands (or PM's, or Myers', or whomever's) renders it into an empty generalization. What content it might appear to have is likely a surreptitious import from some "New Atheist" screed or other.
I think "debatable" is a charitable way to characterize PM's armchair-Freudian interpretation of modernity's discontents; you employ more charity, in any case, than that interpretation itself can be bothered to summon.
"Your last paragraph doesn't merit a response other than a reminder that this website shouldn't be a venue for people to take out their frustrations, etc."
So, what - it should be a venue for bravely standing up for rationality in the face of the gibbering hordes of yokels? Or just a convenient place to practice backhanded condescension?
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )--
--I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine
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| parent )...better than I can, but I think you're missing the point of his rhetorical question: "The Catholic Church wishes to make Myers' work impossible?"
Myers' act of desecration is, obviously, aimed *not* at the "fundamentalists" who supposedly wish to make his work "impossible," but at the *Catholic Church*. So why does PM bring up the former in trying to explain Myers' animus against the latter?
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )Suffice it to say, this was exactly my point - PM's evocation of the anti-Darwin crowd just doesn't make any sense with respect to the specifically Catholic focus of Myers' sophomoric little stunt. Hank's complaints about the Church's behavior are at least on point.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )about why Myers did what he did, you'd see that just like with the pederast priests, the church isn't willing to clean up it's own messes.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )...whether or not that's responsive to my point - which is that sticking it to the RC's doesn't seem to make much sense as a response to "fundamentalist" attacks on teaching evolutionary theory in the public schools, as PM seemed to suggest.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )however, let's not forget what started this whole thing in the first place. Myers actions didn't occur in a vacuum. Myers was reacting to the ridiculous demands of the church representatives in condemning Webster Cook. The church did not tell the school to let it go, they didn't say to ignore it, they pushed for actions which the school, to it's immense discredit, went along with. If the church won't clean up it's problems, people like Myers will hold them at fault for what their representatives do.
--I blame it all on the Internet
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| parent )~At times like these I am reminded of the immortal words of Socrates when he said...."I drank what?"
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| parent )...to PM's post.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )An unexpected first. Do you realize what this means? If even you are getting dragged into the flame fiesta, this place is going to look like 28 Days Later come November.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )...get lost in the usual shuffle over rules.
When PM writes: "...to a Protestant who does not believe in Transubstantiation...the Catholic host and the Qu'ran...are a cracker and a book the primary purpose of which is to damn others to hell for eternity through the expression of a false faith..." - well, what can one say about such a COMMENT, except that it (the COMMENT, I mean) is "lazy nonsense?"
I mean, please. It just doesn't even parse.
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )to find "lazy nonsense" to respond to? I don't, either. There's plenty wrong with PM's comment that can be addressed without the ad hom.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )...but sometimes I hunt through comments on my own diaries!
--God help the while, a bad world I say.
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| parent )I'm not trying to defend PM's comment, just pointing out it can be replied to within the bounds of our lovingly codified local system of laws. :)
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )Just try to avoid it. I dare ya.
--“I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.”
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| parent )Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )contiguous letters resulting in Recent Comments right margin crossing by comment title violation.
--Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. - W. Somerset Maugham
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| parent )the overacting. Seems...de rigeur in zombie roles.
--Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH
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| parent )Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )a direct McCain quote? Got a link to back it up? Huh?
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| parent )There are two categories of atheists. There are the folks who after a legitimate examination of the world around them, have come to a conclusion that there is no evidence for what theists call "God" or a "creator." Then, there are those "atheists" who hate the Triune God and His followers.
I've long suspected that Meyers actually belongs in category two, but his recent antics prove it.
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)I would say the difference between them is that the second group treat science as though it were a religion. They even have their own dogmatic version of history resplendent with oft repeated hero stories and a list of martyrs dying for the "cause". And convincing themselves, that without their constant vigilance and sacrifice the "godded" hordes would be storming the gates.
--I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine
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| parent )people falling within the definition of category two couldn't be atheist.
--Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. - W. Somerset Maugham
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| parent )I always get a chuckle out of the "atheists hate God" posts. Almost as funny as Pascal's Wager.
There are two groups of people, all right. Those who genuinely don't understand how anyone can't believe in their God, and those who genuinely don't understand how anyone can. The solution to this problem, long arrived at and well-understood, is not enforced silence, but enforced tolerance. Myers is not helping with his provocations, but Catholics are not helping by allowing themselves to be provoked -- and to the extent there is a burden of self-control here, it is (under our system of government) firmly on the Catholics.
Why don't they content themselves with making snarky comments about evolutionary biology or something? That way everyone gets a laugh.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )The "Catholics" only made a motion to begin impeachment proceedings against the student senator. I mean, c'mon, SNK, the guy's into student government?! Weeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnissssss!!! Getting out of student government is going to be the best thing that ever happened to him ...
--I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine
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| parent )Someone like a Hitchens, a Meyers, or a Dawkins is less about the lack of a First Cause in explaining the universe and more about their own anger. Which leads me to say that I think that they don't so much disbelieve in God as intensely dislike Him. No, I can't peer into their heads, but they've got way, way too much hostility to be explained away by simply being angry at the political antics of believers.
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| parent )And with that proof, Sean Hannity vanished in a puff of logic.
I think you are underestimating the impact of living in a country that treats one's (well-established and respectable) academic discipline as controversial at best, and Satanic at worst. I'm not even a professional biologist, but I have felt frustrated enough to desecrate a dozen assorted holy symbols on more than one occasion. (And I can assure you that I do not take the idea of gods seriously at all.)
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )... that Catholics, of all denominations, have a problem with evolutionary biology? It's as if "the brights" are content to heap all Christian sects - hell, all religions period, if it's convenient - into the same shapeless conceptual lump.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )who believed that evolutionary biology could be a fully adequate explanation of human origins. I didn't mean to lump them in with Jack Chick, obviously (is there anything Jack Chick hates more than a Catholic?), but the Catholic Church took a very long time to make even a pro forma acknowledgment of the validity of evolutionary theory, and "Truth Cannot Contradict Truth" was full of mumbo-jumbo about "moments of transition to the spiritual".
In short, I give the Catholic Church more credit than I give Jack Chick, which is like saying I think McCain would be a better President than Bush. Happy? And btw, I am not and never have been one of "the brights".
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )But the tendency to conflate the proximate cause of Myers' shenanigans with boilerplate rumblings about Christians on the warpath against science is, I confess, a little annoying.
I'll leave it to any Catholics here to defend their Church's position on what it means to have "a fully adequate explanation of human origins," but I thought it worth noting the wide gulf between that kind of dispute - however much it strikes your ears as "mumbo jumbo" - and the sort pursued by the Discovery Institute and its ilk.
The "brights" crack was a low-blow - my apologies.
--Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.
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| parent )but the root problem is the same, a discomfort with materialism that manifests as a desperate latching-on to ideas that are frankly ludicrous. The DI folks are clowns; someone like Teilhard is arguably more dangerous to scientific inquiry in the long run.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )The Jesuits are, well, the educators. I came to know quite a few of them at Notre Dame University, when I was writing a system for Moreau Seminary years ago. The Jesuits are quietly putting the kibosh on the Church's anti-scientific stances. It's a lasting embarrassment, says an old Jesuit of my acquaintance, that the Church has tolerated theologians acting like scientists. Notre Dame does good science, and turns out first-rate engineers and biologists.
And Gregor Mendel was an Augustinian, heh heh.
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| parent )I consider Pascal's Wager the dumbest thing he ever said. It contains several begged questions:
1. That God is incomprehensible.
2. That God has no affinity to us.
3. That reason cannot be applied to the problem.
4. That the matter can be resolved to a coin toss.
5. That mere belief in God constitutes salvation.
6. That damnation awaits all who do not believe.
Speaking as a Christian, none of the above are necessarily true.
The Pensées were merely a collection of personal notes. Pascal never published them and likely never intended them to be published.
To his credit, Pascal said: "If I saw no signs of a divinity, I would fix myself in denial. If I saw everywhere the marks of a Creator, I would repose peacefully in faith. But seeing too much to deny Him, and too little to assure me, I am in a pitiful state, and I would wish a hundred times that if a God sustains nature it would reveal Him without ambiguity"
Atheists don't hate God. Artists don't hate him either. PZ is just trying to get a rise out of the rubes. Look at all the crackpots he quotes, that's what he wants, and the rubes are stupid enough to give it to him, like little whiny babies who run off to the teacher every time someone teases them.
God doesn't fit into anyone's box. That's what atheists never seem to understand about Believers. It's utterly contemptible, if you were some sort of superior being, say if you arrived on a planet of lower life forms, what would you say if those creatures started worshipping you and erecting little shrines and paying little priests to interpret your wishes as if they had any clue? Trust me, Jesus of Nazareth urged us to love each other, to love our enemies, and thus are we known as his disciples. Christ never said anything condemning anyone's faith but he had plenty to say about the horrors of the organized religion in his own society, and he had plenty to say about hell. Plenty of people who believe in God are going to hell.
There's a wonderful bit just before his most famous sermon on hell, in Mark 9, where a man ask Christ if it is possible to heal his son. Christ says "Everything is possible to those who believe." The man cries out, "Lord, I believe, help me overcome my unbelief"
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| parent )yeah, Pascal's wager is dumb, but my personal favorite dumb argument is "There are no atheists in foxholes". As an agnostic, I've heard that a lot, actually presented as an argument for not just belief in god, but for the existence of god, as if to say that those who do not feel god's presence and know it exists are not thinking clearly. So, this absurd argument goes, if one is in a foxhole and presumably scared out of his mind, that's when he would be thinking most clearly. Yeah, extreme fear and rational thought go hand in hand.
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| parent )The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao. IOW, the idea of a "God" that is separate from human beings and wants something from us is literally nonsense.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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| parent )....that at least seemed to touch of the fact that this is just...."Bad Art."
The only reason people are talking about it at all is because it is bad...not in content...just bad, poorly done, badly thought out.
I do rather like the idea of Christ's nail and that of the nailing of the Host....but because there is one element in any work that...is thoughtful....still doesn't make it good art.
It's shocking, it was designed to shock....it imparts no aesthetic pleasure.
I don't even give it much thought.
Bad art is just bad...and it says more about the people complaining about it than any worth of the piece itself.
Traveller
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)Prof. Myers can do whatever he wants with it. Is he being a jerk? Yeah, definitely. But didn't we settle this way back when the First Amendment was drafted? Americans are allowed to be jerks.
The comparison made downthread to cross-burning is just silly. Cross-burning, given its history, is not a mere symbolic act but a direct threat. As a liberal, I am 100% opposed to hate-speech (and hate-crime) laws, but even I can see the need for a law against cross-burning, just like I can see the need for a law that prohibits exhorting a crowd to rise up and kill whitey. Who was Myers trying to threaten, intimidate, or incite?
As far as the political angle goes, all I can say is that Myers should have stuck to desecrating only the Quran. I suspect the tenor of the right-wing blogosphere would be a bit different if he had. The words "American hero" would have been used at least once.
--The other day I heard that ignorance and apathy are sweeping the country. I didn't know that, but I don't really care.
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)I would say that he's being more of a "retard"* than a "jerk"--but that's just me ...
*mainly because I know that such a derogatory phrase would,no doubt, appeal to his intellect. :) Heh, if he wants to push people's buttons he has to play with the big boys...
--I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine
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| parent )The cross-burning analogy is silly. I'd say PZ's actions don't even measure up to the mean-spirited adult puncturing the innocence of a child's belief in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.
--Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just
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| parent )or noose or any other such symbol you care to think of is no real threat in the example I gave. It is, though, incredibly offensive and likely to get any professor that tried that stunt fired from his job.
Hence my question, why is this acceptable but the other insults not?
--This place is my vacation.
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| parent )There's no such thing as a "symbolic cross-burning" unless the context is such that it's obviously a joke. A picture of a cross-burning is a death threat; if not literally in itself, then at least it is an expression of support for someone else's.
The notion that something should be forbidden merely because it is offensive is anathema to the liberal tradition. Causing offense is not the same thing as causing harm. I ask again, who was PZ Myers actually harming with his action?
Of course vin's question was more to do with what the reaction of the university should be. I can only say that I'd leave it up to them, and whatever contractual discretion they have regarding the terms of his employment. I wouldn't fault them if they decided to fire him over this. What r