Rant By Proxy

[bloodyrosemccoy]

I love PZ Myers,* I gotta say. He’s bombastic, aggressive, hyperbolic and can at times be a colossal douche.

He can also tear your logical fallacies up one side and down the other.

Every once in a while I get really steamed and want to point out some of the errors people are making in what we will generously call their thinking. But dear Jesus Prime in a tasteless magic cracker, it’s hard to keep up with this relentless pile of stupid. So I link to PZ because he says everything I’d have said, except perhaps with a bit more hyperbole.

There. I’m glad I got that off my chest.


*Yes, you’ve heard the name in the news recently: he’s getting mentioned along with the news that the Vatican has released its list of the worst sins EVARZ. And according to the Vatican, PZ Myers made news as one of the worst sinners in all of history—worse even than, to borrow a phrase from Eddie Izzard, genocidal fuckheads. What is this heinous crime, you ask? Well, PZ tossed a cracker in the trash. And not even a very tasty cracker, at that.

The backlash is enormous.

Comments

[shadowofdoubt.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll agree that genocidal fuckheads are probably worse than people who chuck the Eucharist in the garbage. But I can kind of understand the thinking, in a curious way. I mean, for someone who's convinced (rightly or wrongly) that cracker is, quite literally, the body of Christ . . . I guess I can see how they'd be rather upset, and how they might count it up there even with genocidal fuckheads.

Personally, I support the idea of questioning everything. But you don't need to deface someone else's religion and belief system just to make your point. Saying that he thinks it's "just a cracker" is fine. Making a spectacle out of throwing it in the garbage (the banana peel was a particularly petulant addition, LOL) is just being spiteful.

Does God mind if he tosses the Eucharist in the garbage? If God is in that cracker, I'm sure he bloody well does. Does chucking the Eucharist in the garbage do anything other than make this guy feel vindicated in some way? Probably not. But either way, at least he's using his free will. :D

/devil's advocate
//wait . . .

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not saying it wasn't incisive, and it damn sure wasn't respectful to the beliefs involved, but consider the context.

The spark for the incident was Webster Cook, a Catholic student who unintentionally did something wrong with the Eucharist--namely, brought it home to show his friend what the Eucharist meant. They quickly learned what it meant when this became a major issue, with the kid receiving death threats, hysterical demands that he free the cracker, and a call from Bill Donahue that he be expelled from the school. They attacked him because of their--let's face it--patently ridiculous belief that this cracker was somehow God, and that furthermore they had some personal investment in its fate. Which, on a small scale, pretty much shows how seemingly harmless beliefs can be pretty harmful, indeed.

Myers wrote a stunned post that there would be such a crazy reaction and that people could have such messed up priorities. So he pulled this stunt--took five minutes to push a nail into a cracker and toss it out, along with another holy book and a book by his own hero--a nice touch. (I actually thought the coffee grounds and banana peel were pretty funny.) Even though it was silly and pointless, the shitstorm it caused was astronomical. But one thing I found most interesting about the post was the beginning, where he tells us that he has investigated exactly why the cracker is such a Big Hairy Deal. If you read the first part of it, he will tell you how the Fourth Lateran Council declared bread to be holy because then they could easily inflame mobs by saying that Jews had threatened their bread.

The point is, most of the hysterical people sending in the death threats did not actually question what the priests told them about the cracker's holiness and history, and thus had no idea that the Eucharist is partially a tool to inflame mobs to send in death threats.

So, yes, a dramatic demonstration, but one that gets you thinking.

*grin* Perhaps we're BOTH devil's advocates!

[shadowofdoubt.livejournal.com]

Ah, context. I wasn't aware of the backstory although now that you've mentioned it I do recall hearing something about it. Poor Webster. Death threats . . . wow. How very Christian of them.

Although I was sort of under the impression that the Eucharist was holy because Jesus said "this is my body." The Lateran Council didn't make that cracker holy, Jesus did. If I am recalling correctly, the Lateran Council was the first to label it transubstantiation, though. Not to mention his definition of Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus is a bit . . . off. But hell, Latin just sounds cool in an argument, doesn't it? Why mention that it actually means "there is no salvation outside the Church," and doesn't necessarily have to do with the Eucharist?

As for it being a tool to inflame mobs . . . fuck, anything that people feel strongly about is a tool to inflame mobs. So sure, they went off the deep end and made themselves look like ignorant assholes. I'm not going to disagree about that.

But I still think this dude is a dick. :)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

You're right. I always thought Jesus was being Symbolic, though--I am guessing it was once again people's tendency to misinterpret things and go wild. ("What else did you say that could potentially fuck up this religion forever and ever, Jesus?" "I said, 'Eat of this bread? It is ... my ... favorite?") It always takes me a while to realize that people take these stories so very literally.

And what amazes me here is how calculated the mob-inflammation aspect was.

And you're absolutely right on one other item--PZ can really be a dick sometimes. ;)

[shadowofdoubt.livejournal.com]

Well, he could have been. But if he was being symbolic, you'd think he would have said something when a bunch of his followers left because they thought he was taking things a bit too far with the body and blood thing. "No, wait, I didn't mean it literally!" But he didn't. So there's something to chew on. (Pun intended? I am not sure. :D)

[lookingforwater.livejournal.com]

Maybe he was trying to weed out the ones stupid enough to take it literally?

[beccastareyes]

I think Phil Plait (another science blogger who has a friendly rivalry with Dr. Meyers) discussed the issue as well. I like the quote he gave:

I understand that if you are a devout Catholic, you truly and fervently believe the cracker has become the actual body of Christ. But honestly, is spitting it out — an example specifically stated in the article — or even driving a rusty nail through it a worse sin than actually murdering millions of living people? I’ve read the Bible, and from the Sermon on the Mount it doesn’t sound to me that Jesus was someone who would think that way.

I guess the argument is that a god most known for putting a part of himself through a rather painful death for the good of humanity would be more willing to have people commit sins against himself than sins against their fellow humans.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I love Phil Plait even more than I love PZ! He's so cuddly.

And yes, that's a pretty damn good point--yours especially. I kinda thought Jesus was more worried about people who weren't part-God, myself ...

[neintales.livejournal.com]

Oddly, I used to like the taste of the communion wafers. And the wine. That actually kept me going to church as a child longer than other things did. (Well that and the fact I was afraid my family would freak out if I stopped going.)

I liked them so much that when I was 6 or 7 or so I found where the church we went to at the time stored the wafers, and, well, stole and ate a bunch of them. Unconsecrated, if I recall right.

Of course, now I'll probably get declared a terrible sinner or such by wingnuts ^^

THough srsly, I was a huge church-goer and properly Catholic Unworthy for much of my childhood. Until I started realizing how shittily two-faced, reactionistic, and just plain hypocritical so much of the church was.

The nail through the eucharist for me was the nun/principal at my final Catholic school who called me in one day to tell me that I was FORCING the other kids to bully me, because I was an Agent Of Satan.

Oh, and my parents were also EVIL. (Because before they met and fell in love my dad had been a priest, and my mom was a nun. Leaving the service of God for love was a TERRIBLE CRIME. Etcetera.)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Of course, now I'll probably get declared a terrible sinner or such by wingnuts ^^

Nah, apparently you only get in trouble after you put Jesus in the cracker. ;)

Man, that principal's accusation is so far from logic that I doubt it can see logic from its locale. So, what were you doing that made you such an Agent of Satan, anyway? ARE YOU LEFT-HANDED??

Of course it is a terrible crime! God's a real petty, controlling bastard in a relationship, doncha know.

My parents are both recovering Catholics, too--although I don't think any one thing really set them off the path; just some generalized disillusionment. So from them to you ... HIGH FIVE!

[neintales.livejournal.com]

Not even left handed!

I was just smart, and artistic and sensitive, and taller, with bigger boobs than any of the other kids. Thusly I was bullied relentlessly, until I often was locking myself in the girl's restroom to cry and was thinking of suicide by the age of 11 or so.

The "YOU ARE SATAN'S CHILD, YOUR FATHER WAS A TRAITOR TO GOD AND YOUR MOM IS A DIRTY JEZEBEL" thing happened a bit after my dad died, around 13ish or 14ish.

I think I maybe went to church three more months after that (different church than the school was affiliated with) and then quit for good.

[shadowofdoubt.livejournal.com]

The nail through the eucharist for me was the nun/principal at my final Catholic school who called me in one day to tell me that I was FORCING the other kids to bully me, because I was an Agent Of Satan.

WHAT.

Jumping in because that's how I got the hell out of the Protestant church (Methodists, to be specific) - a woman teaching one of my classes when I was a kid told me that people who did what I did (misbehaving, talking during class, something? too young to remember) went to hell. I still dislike that haughty bitch.

[neintales.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I have several teachers and other authority figures from my childhood that I'd love to see again and flip the V at, possibly even punch in the face.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

I like a bit of peanut butter and a banana slice on my Jesus.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_wastrel/]

4 years out of this crowd now and counting. Hopefully after a whole other 22 I'll be done getting back what I lost during the first 22.

I'm sure I remember bananas being used as offerings to gods, although I'd have to look up exactly which ones - I think Ganesh was on the list, and possibly a Chinese or Voodoo god or two. A shaman might say what we feel as we drink coffee is the spirit of the coffee plant speaking with our minds to rouse them from sleep. I don't think I could accept a religion that says a cracker is any more or less sacred than bananas, coffee or the humans who consume all three.