Catholic League Targets PZ Myers for Threatening to Desecrate Eucharist Wafer

[BurtWorm]

For real. :eyes:

Try reading the first paragraph without cracking (so to speak) a smile at least.


http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1459

MINNESOTA PROF PLEDGES TO DESECRATE EUCHARIST

July 10, 2008

Paul Zachary Myers, a professor at the University of Minnesota Morris, has pledged to desecrate the Eucharist. He is responding to what happened recently at the University of Central Florida when a student walked out of Mass with the Host, holding it hostage for several days. Myers was angry at the Catholic League for criticizing the student. His post can be accessed from his faculty page on the university’s website.

Here is an excerpt of his July 8 post, “It’s a Frackin’ Cracker!”:

“Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers?” Myers continued by saying, “if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web.”

Catholic League president Bill Donohue responded as follows:

“The Myers blog can be accessed from the university’s website. The university has a policy statement on this issue which says that the ‘Contents of all electronic pages must be consistent with University of Minnesota policies, local, state and federal laws.’ One of the school’s policies, ‘Code of Conduct,’ says that ‘When dealing with others,’ faculty et al. must be ‘respectful, fair and civil.’ Accordingly, we are contacting the President and the Board of Regents to see what they are going to do about this matter. Because the university is a state institution, we are also contacting the Minnesota legislature.

“It is hard to think of anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ. We look to those who have oversight responsibility to act quickly and decisively.”

[trotsky]

1. LMAO

Priests raping children? Meh.
Some guy is gonna do funny things to a communion wafer? RALLY THE TROOPS! DESTROY THE INFIDEL!

[SCantiGOP]

2. excellent blog

I read it every day. Here's the address and more on the above story:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula

[BurtWorm]

3. I do too. Several times a day, actually.

Always good for a laugh or an eye-opening.

[SCantiGOP]

4. I'll make a confession

(pun intended) I like to refer to myself as a Recovering Catholic. First seven years in Catholic school and Mass every Sunday until I got out of High School. Haven't been back in a church since except to see people get married or buried.

[sshan2525]

5. As a recovered Catholic...

let me say to the Catholic League. Fuck you. Spend more time trying to keep priests from buggering children and less on nonsense like this.

[Occam Bandage]

6. So...he's being a jackass just to be a jackass, then?

Because he's irritated that the Catholic League was irritated when someone else was a jackass just to be a jackass? I don't see what is gained by desecrating a symbol others respect deeply.

[DeSwiss]

10. "I don't see what is gained by desecrating a symbol others respect deeply."

Yeah, like when people's children get "desecrated."

- That's almost as bad..... :sarcasm:

[Occam Bandage]

17. If this was done as specifically as a protest against abuses by the Catholic church,

then perhaps that would be a good point--something along the lines of "this church is by its actions profane, so how could I desecrate its symbols?" However, that is not what he is saying. He's simply desecrating for the sake of desecration. Why go out of your way to be a jackass? Most people outgrow that by their late teens.

[pegleg]

69. For those who think this kind of thing is to be applauded, it reminds me

of the comic indifference of Nazis desecrating Jewish sites or the Chinese in Tibet,or burning black churches in Alabama. Sometimes it just seems like the fun thing to do.

[Realityhack]

71. Disagree entirely.

There is no desecration of physical sites or intimidation of blacks. Never mind burning of buildings.

The closest analogy is the comics of the prophet Mohamed that caused such a stir. At worst he is poking fun at a group for massively over reacting to a person's treatment of a 'holy' cracker.

[pegleg]

82. You are rationalizing.

[cyborg_jim]

85. Yep -he is rationalising that killing people and eating wafers don't have the same ethical quandries

[Realityhack]

106. So tell me...

how do you feel about the publishing of the comic featuring Muhamed?

Do you see any difference between:

a: Destroying churches and religious sites
b: Disrespecting a blessed cracker

Do you think PZ would agree with the idea of destroying religious sites?
Do you think I would?

[uberllama42]

18. The kid wasn't being a jackass.

He was a practicing Catholic. His friend wanted to see a communion wafer, so instead of eating his he brought it home to show. The other kid was just curious. He had no idea all hell would break loose over something stupid like a goddman cracker.

[Realityhack]

63. Stop confusing people with the facts n/t

[Realityhack]

64. Not quite.

He is pointing out in a not to subtle way that what they are doing is insanity.

It's the same as printing a cartoon in your newspaper or on your website to protest the stupidity that resulted from it's initial publishing.

I have to go with P.Z. on this. Especially when the Catholic league has been far from honest in its reports about the subject.

[beam me up scottie]

7. LOL! PZ's response:

The Catholic League is preparing a stake for me. They're going to go straight for the jugular and threaten my job — notice how they repeat that you can access my post from my faculty page, nicely avoiding the fact that the post they find so offensive is not hosted on any university server, and that they are urging everyone to harass the president of my university and the regents and the Minnesota legislature. Extortionists and witch hunters, that's all these scumbags are.

and as for thinking of "anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ"...

That last paragraph is marvelously blind. Hey, Bill! I can think of something more vile! How about intentionally desecrating the bodies of young altar boys who respect the position of trust held by Catholic priests? I think that is a lot more vile than mistreating a cracker. In fact, I can think of innumerable vile acts going on all around the world right now, and not all of them even involve Catholicism. It takes the moral vacuum of a purblind ideological bigot like Bill Donohue to think that goring his sacred cow is the worst thing in the world.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/now_ive_got_bill_donohues_atte.php">It's on!
:popcorn:

[varkam]

8. Hey, stranger.

Good to see you :toast:

[beam me up scottie]

9. Hey there, friend.

I ignored the advice in your sig line and am glad I did. Nice. :headbang:

[DeSwiss]

12. Hey Scottie!!!

Good to see ya!!!!

[beam me up scottie]

13. Hey De!!!

Love ta see ya still gorin' them sacurred oxes 'n stuff...:spank:

[beam me up scottie]

11. A little perspective:

If you too want something more vile in order to get your panties in a wad, here's a blast from the past from the BBC:

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/5389684.stm">Sex crimes and the Vatican

A secret document which sets out a procedure for dealing with child sex abuse scandals within the Catholic Church is examined by Panorama.

Crimen Sollicitationis was enforced for 20 years by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he became the Pope.

It instructs bishops on how to deal with allegations of child abuse against priests and has been seen by few outsiders.
Critics say the document has been used to evade prosecution for sex crimes.

Lots more where that came from in my journal for those not swayed by whitewashed history and this latest manufactured scandal.

[knitter4democracy]

14. It's only desecration if you believe it is.

To him, it would be just a cracker, so what's the problem? Oh, that's right, Catholocs keep the blessed host in pretty houses and venerate it more than almost anything else. *sigh*

I think the Catholic League needs to rethink this one. They're giving him too much power over the Mystery and not listening to what he's really upset about.

[beam me up scottie]

15. Isn't only a cracker up until you put it in your mouth?

I thought that was precisely when it changed into the host.

Kudos, btw, I admire your pluck, you're not a bit intimidated by our evil atheist cadre! :)

[knitter4democracy]

16. I'm a bit unclear on the Catholic theology, actually.

We Orthodox mix the bread and wine in the chalice and so get both. From the masses I've been to (used to teach in Catholic school), the priest prays over the Host and asks that it be changed into the true body and then that the wine be changed into the true blood. The wine isn't kept, but the extra bread is. I've never understood that, actually. Maybe a Catholic can answer that, as I'm pretty rusty on Catholic theology.

In our faith, the bread and wine are changed on the altar before being carried to the congregation, so it would be more than the bread and wine even before being put in our mouths. We don't tend to venerate it to the same extent, though, as the Catholics do.

Oh, and why would an atheist cadre intimidate me? We're all Dems here, and I love everyone on this board as brothers and sisters. I've learned so much from my brothers and sisters here and grown so much in my faith since coming and hanging out here. Doubt and questioning are always good for the mind and soul, I think. I need to hear other points of view in order to grow and change, and this is one of the best places I've found yet. :hug:

[beam me up scottie]

19. You rock, k4d!

:toast:
Thanks for the info, I grew up in a mostly catholic area, even went to mass with my friends occasionally but I don't think any of them understood it either.

And of course you shouldn't be intimidated by us! A few disgruntled believers try to claim that we bully and harass them in this forum. I call bullshit, you guys can more than handle your own. I know you need a thick skin to play in here and I hope you realize my skepticism and hostility is not in any way directed at liberal believers. I can dis religion (okay, okay, so it's become a hobby - but please understand I live in fundieville) without dissing my friends.

Being a liberal is all about agreeing to disagree on things like religious beliefs as long as we agree everyone is free to have them or not.

[knitter4democracy]

22. I can handle it most of the time.

Occasionally, I'll get my hackles up, but I try to always remember that this is about having a safe place for all of us to vent and talk and debate.

Oh, and I don't know anyone who bullies and harrasses believers more than believers. You should've heard the ongoing quiet comments at our college's required chapel services. Whenever our chaplain preached, we'd bet on the exact time he'd start crying (no money, though, in case we were ever caught--gambling's against the rules, as was most everything else). If we didn't like a preacher, we were particularly viscious.

I haven't read much here that I haven't heard before, you're right. Maybe it's because some of the believers here have never really been tested in their faith? I often wonder why the same few get so hot and bothered over such tame stuff.

[Book Lover]

20. No

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm#section3 (tedious and technical, but from the Catholic Encyclopedia)

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism... (Item 1413)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation

[beam me up scottie]

21. Egad.

That's clear as mud. How do they expect kids to understand this?

[Book Lover]

24. Egad indeed :-)

When an institution has to come up with a legalistic (as opposed to mystic) explaination for everything they assert ... well, you see the results.

[knitter4democracy]

23. All post-Schism. That's why it seems odd to me.

The Orthodox aren't quite so logical or scientific about it. It was fun to read the Catholic Encyclopedia entry to hear the differences, thanks. :)

[Book Lover]

25. Of course

As I said above, when you have to come up with a logical argument for transubstantiation, it just doesn't work. When I was preparing for my first communion, and was given the simple explanation, "The priest says the eucharistic prayers and that's when the bread and wine become God," I could totally get that. That CE article is quite ... something, eh?

[knitter4democracy]

26. It really is.

It reminds me of the Nazarene theology we had to study in college. After awhile, I just couldn't wrap my head around the weird need to be completely rational and logical about something so irrational and illogical. That was a main reason I converted to the Orthodox church--we're more about the mystery than the logic.

[Critters2]

35. No, to those who believe it--I don't--the host becomes the body of Christ

when the priest elevates it and says "this is my body". In Latin, it's "hoc est corpus meus". When people no longer understood Latin, and before there were sound systems, people misheard this magical phrase. It is from this that we get "hocu pocus".

[beam me up scottie]

37. Okay, thanks.

[BurtWorm]

39. Psst, bmus...

:hi:

[beam me up scottie]

40. !

:hug:

[BurtWorm]

41. Always a pleasant surprise to see you!

Wish we could see a lot more of you.

:loveya:

[beam me up scottie]

42. I think I'll be taking refuge here more often now that the primaries are over.

It's going to be a long nasty road to November and I need to be among friends.

Like you

[skepticscott]

60. Unless you have a wheat gluten allergy

then a cracker is just a cracker...funny how it knows that...

WB, btw :-)

[beam me up scottie]

61. Lol!

once you swallow, the magic is gone...

It's nice to be back, thank you. :hug:

[LeftyMom]

86. There's an ongoing fight about how to handle communion for people with celiac

Apparently the church has dug it's heels in and decided that there has to be wheat in the wafer for it to count, but even a small exposure to wheat and other glutenous grains can induce autoimmune havoc in people with celiac, and long-term exposure raises their risk of cancer.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/04/12/a_first_communion_dream_in_doubt/

[skepticscott]

88. If transubstantiation were real

there would be no need to "handle" anything. But everyone with a brain wave knows that it isn't, and they just wink and smile at the church's solemn insistence that the wafers become the true flesh of Christ. Of course, the whole notion that there has to be wheat in the wafers is pretty whacked too, although I'm sure it keeps a few theologians employed trying to justify it.

[LeftyMom]

89. Of course. If transubstantiation works, the wafers can be made of wheat, rice, or Buick uphoslstery

Of course literal transubstantiation is bull (I was raised catholic, and unless god tastes like packing peanuts he isn't there- then again if he is I've personally digested and shat a deity, which is probably more blasphemous?) but whether it's literal as the church insists or metaphorical as pretty much every member of the laity seems to believe, why would it matter to an omnipotent being what the original material was?

I think I'm getting one of those Church-logic induced headaches. I suspect these are the reasons why countries that are heavily Catholic and countries known for heavy drinking tend to overlap.

[skepticscott]

90. It's what theologians do...

I'm sure there are theologians out there who have spilled a lot of ink and gone through all kinds of intellectual contortions writing solemn and (it probably seemed to them) irrefutable arguments about why there must be wheat in the crackers. And I'm sure they at least tried to make it sound like they were reasoning from first principles, rather than crafting their arguments to arrive at a conclusion they had already decided beforehand. Sadly, I have neither the time nor the inclination to seek these tomes out, not even for my own amusement, so I'll leave that task to others...

[moggie]

94. I don't support what PZ's doing, FWIW

From his point of view, the original story (before he got involved) was useful. The church, and its supporters who threatened the student, did not come out of it looking good. But before the story could get much traction, PZ hijacked it in a rather lurid way, and the story changed to "atheist college professor behaves like teenage jackass". So far, I think it looks like a tactical blunder.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Evoman]

29. You believe a cracker turns into people.

I mean....really.

Edit: I wish we could keep toys like you around, but I'm guessing you are going to be banned. I want to understand your mind.

[cosmik debris]

30. They are not satisfied with mere ritual cannibalism

They have to pretend that it is the real thing.

I wonder if cannibalism is illegal? Do we have first amendment protection for the practice of cannibalism?

[knitter4democracy]

34. That was one of the reasons the Romans persecuted the Church.

We were accused of cannibalism. You want to bring that back?

[cosmik debris]

36. Oh, of course not.

I was just enjoying the weirdness of the paradox.

If it is a cracker, it is just a symbolic ritual.

But, if it is a human body, it is cannibalism, a crime and a major taboo in many cultures.

A lot of things about Catholicism make me laugh, but none so much as the transubstantiation and cannibalism issue. Even the virgin sacrifice thing doesn't tickle my funny bone the way a joke about eating human flesh does. :)

[moggie]

58. ...

[beam me up scottie]

59. !

:spray::rofl:

[uberllama42]

32. If a middle school music teacher boinks 12-year-old boys, he goes to jail

We don't have to demand accountability because there already is accountability in a reasonable majority of cases. The public education system has many failings, but protecting pedophilia is not one of them.

You can call me immoral all day long, but at the end of that day I am not a member of an organization that protects child molestors from prosecution. And before you throw another ignorant smear at the ACLU, you should understand the difference between providing legal counsel as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment and obstructing justice.

[knitter4democracy]

33. I don't believe God can be desecrated.

I think He's bigger than that. What's the guy going to do, burn it? Well, God created fire and has used it in the past, so no big deal. Mud? He used mud to make us. Bodily fluids? He made those, too. Anything this guy uses won't actually desecrate God. I'm also not sure it's the Body for him since he doesn't believe it. I think God is in charge of where His essence is and isn't, so how do we know that He'll stay in it while the guy's messing with it?

I'm a liberal Democrat because I'm a Christian. You might want to re-read the Seven Woes and see if you can find yourself in them and then pray for mercy.

[moggie]

44. Perhaps you should tell the Catholics making a fuss about this

The student who sparked all this off by taking the wafer out of church has received death threats, the church in question now has armed guards present during mass in case anyone else tries to steal Jesus, and the kid may still find his academic career blighted if the college receives a lot of complaints.

I'm not sure who you're suggesting should "pray for mercy": Bill Donahue? You can't mean an atheist, because that would make no sense!

ETA: Ah, I guess you were referring to our deleted friend. That makes more sense!

[knitter4democracy]

46. I'll add the wackos and Donohue to that prayer list, though.

It's just plain crazy to go after someone for desecrating God when how can anything He made desecrate Him?

[Evoman]

54. It's plain crazy to think that a cracker IS god, I think.

Lot crazier than the idea of desecrating god is the idea that a cracker can turn into god.

[knitter4democracy]

55. To each their own.

:shrug:

For those of us who do believe that the bread and wine become the body and blood, though, the idea that God can be desecrated makes no sense to me.

[Evoman]

56. Can I ask you why you believe that the bread and wine become the body and blood?

I am not trying to offend you, I just want to understand why...and how...you believe that.

[knitter4democracy]

75. I believe it's a central mystery of faith.

Not the most important part, mind you, but still pretty important.

It's the one ritual Jesus told us to do. We say that He blessed weddings and baptisms by going to a wedding and being baptized, but the only thing He actually told us to do was have Communion ("this do in remembrance of Me"). In taking the bread and wine, He said that they were His body and blood. Now, it definitely could've been metaphorical, sure, but then why was it the only ritual He told His disciples to do? The Lord's Prayer is another thing He said to do, along with several others, like leaving judgement to God and loving our neighbors as ourselves, but He didn't mandate any other ritual. Because of that, I think the early Church had it right when it decided that Communion mystically becomes the body and blood of Christ.

I don't try to explain it logically--there's too much in the faith that doesn't make logical sense anyway. Instead, I embrace the mystery and leave it at that. I know that path's not for everyone, though.

[cyborg_jim]

77. Huh?

Now, it definitely could've been metaphorical, sure, but then why was it the only ritual He told His disciples to do?

I do not see how that follows - at all.

If Jesus had passed on The Bumper Book of Ways of Remembering Me - By Jesus of Nazareth then when he says "Take, eat: this is my body," then it wouldn't really be his body but because he didn't write this book it really is his body.

Huh?

[knitter4democracy]

79. In other words, why would He speak metaphorically there?

It was obviously important, and He put a lot of emphasis on it, so it doesn't make much sense that He'd do that just for a metaphor.

[cyborg_jim]

81. "just for a metaphor" - what do you think ritual is exactly?

I simply don't see how you can say "He put a lot of emphasis on it," either. The argument is that it is vacuously emphatic by lack of alternatives isn't very strong at all.

Plus look at the context - he isn't simply eating a last supper with his disciples, it's passover. It is hardly inconsistent with the rest of the flow of the NT to have Jesus associate himself with an old ritual and establishing a new one upon it. Remember - the whole thing is all about how Jesus is establishing a New Covenant for the Jews.

Passover is one of the most important rituals for the Jews - so it's perfectly logical that Communion would be established upon it. That to me is a far more powerful argument for emphasis because it relates to something that is not vacuously emphatic.

ETA: Also there is more symbolic linkage with passover - not just the bread but the blood. Blood was used to mark the doors that God would "passover" as he killed all the first-born in Egypt (sidenote: why does God need to be told anyway?). It was the blood of a "spring lamb". Hmm, Jesus is associated with lambs too isn't he? And what does Jesus say of the wine? "This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many." Now given that the story of Jesus is all about saving the Jews/Humanity if you are so inclined isn't it mightily appropriate that blood would be used to show God who to "passover" in his judgement?

I think there's a lot of mileage that can be gotten out of the symbolism here but the argument you are putting forth is really very weak.

[knitter4democracy]

91. That's fine.

To me, it's not about having a logical argument. I'm not trying to convince anyone why they should believe what I believe or that they need to be my kind of Christian to go to Heaven or anything like that. I'm just trying to explain, from my point of view, why I believe what I do. My personal beliefs do not have to be logical or rational.

Of course there's all the symbolism of the blood and all. That's another layer of meaning that lies within Communion. There are layers upon layers of symbols and archetypes within Communion, and those speak to me as well, but the reason I believe it really is the true body and blood of Christ is because He said it was. That's me, though, and not everyone goes along with it, which is fine.

[cyborg_jim]

93. Well here is the problem:

I'm just trying to explain, from my point of view, why I believe what I do. My personal beliefs do not have to be logical or rational.

By definition providing a rationale makes it "rational." A purely irrational belief has no meaning to it at all. So when you provide reasons and explanations you are at least tacitly saying you aren't simply plucking beliefs out of the air for absolutely no reason - that would be purely irrational.

Now when we use the phrase, "your aren't being logical/rational," in an informal way what we generally mean is, "the rationale you are providing is flawed in some way," not that there is no reasoning provided.

You have provided reasoning for your belief.

The reasons you are providing for your belief are flawed and despite admitting that having these reasons is still important to you isn't it?

I think most people realise intuitively that believing something for truly irrational reasons doesn't make sense - so having some rationale even if it is flawed is essential.

I believe it really is the true body and blood of Christ is because He said it was.

Well no, actually. That is the point of my analysis. This cannot be the reason you believe it is "really is the true body and blood of Christ."

What are the words? The only thing we have to work off? The Bible:

Matthew:

26:26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.
26:27 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;
26:28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
26:29 But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.

Mark:

14:22 And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body.
14:24 And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.
14:25 Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God.

Luke:

22:15 And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer:
22:16 For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
22:17 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves:
22:18 For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come.
22:19 And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
22:20 Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

John does not contain this scene.

Does t talk of being "truly" his body and blood? Nope. If the bread and wine trans-mutates into parts of the actual physical Jesus does that mean bits of him were disappearing as they ate and drank? Do you think this is what they would have thought in this position? If someone gives you some bread and tells you it's their body you would make the assessment that they mean some physical part of them like a finger or leg?

What he does say however is "This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me... This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you." It's screaming metaphor at me: I have given my body and blood to save you! Remember this!

I mean you can dispute all these points all you want and it really isn't relevant to me - what's important to me is not what you believe but that you truly understand why you believe it. And I think I've made it adequately clear that: "I believe it really is the true body and blood of Christ is because He said it was," just does not fly.

So why do you really believe it is the "true" body and blood of Christ - and what does it being his "true" body even mean in this context?

[knitter4democracy]

95. How Western of you.

;)

I'm an Eastern Orthodox Christian. We're not to enamored of rational explanations of the faith. We believe that you cannot define God except by what He is not and that the main tenets of our faith are mysteries that we cannot fully explain. As I said, not everyone's comfortable with that, but it works for me personally.

Look at the Catholic Encyclopedia explanation of transubstantiation. It's the perfect example of the difference between the Western Church and the Eastern. We would never try to explain what happens on the altar like that. The reality is, we cannot fully explain it, and so we don't even try. It's a mystery.

I believe that the bread and wine mystically (as we sing while the priest prays over the chalice) become the body and blood of Christ. I believe it because the Church teaches it and because Jesus said "this is my body . . . this is my blood". I know in my heart that it's true but that it's a mystery that cannot be explained away.

[cyborg_jim]

96. Now that's irrationality!

I believe it because the Church teaches it

You're not any different to the Catholics in this regard.

and because Jesus said "this is my body . . . this is my blood".

But one assumes that when he is called the Lamb of God you do not believe Jesus has four legs and wool?

Besides, whatever happened to "no explanation required"? You might as well dump what Jesus said here too.

it's a mystery that cannot be explained away.

No, it's a mystery you don't want explained away: "I know in my heart that it's true" = I want it to be true.

[knitter4democracy]

97. Sure. Why does faith have to be rational?

I have my language studies and Hubby's med journals when I want rationality, and I have my faith that I don't try to explain. It's all good. :)

[cyborg_jim]

99. I didn't say anything about what it does or does not need to be

The point here is that once you have accepted that you know something is "true" and there's nothing that can be said to dissuade you of that truth it might as well apply to any number of beliefs - not just that a cracker is a piece of Jesus' flesh. It's about how you approach "truth" and what "truth" means to you. When you say it's "true" that the cracker is Jesus it raises questions of the physicality of such an arrangement in the curious mind. Apparently such curiosity is downplayed in Orthodoxy by saying, "don't think too hard about that - your brain will melt."

And I'm glad you mention medicine, here's what one piece of the Bible has to say on the matter:

Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up. --James 5:14-15

As far as I'm aware oil anointing and prayer don't come as standard treatments for any diagnosis you're likely to find in a medical journal. But it says what it says, just like Jesus says, "this is my body... this is my blood."

Hey, but it's all a big mystery right? Let's just be happy to believe because... because... because... because of the wonderful things he does! (Jesus that is!)

(I happen to think it's anything but "all good" - downright disturbing how unquestioning people can be of authority is what I think it is).

[knitter4democracy]

100. Thanks for the giggle!

:)

I work very hard here not to judge anyone on their faith/non-faith. It's not for me to tell anyone what they should think or believe, since I haven't walked in their shoes and haven't seen what they've seen.

I find your judgemental attitude very interesting. You don't know me at all (I mean, it's just a series of tubes, right?), and yet you've figured me all out, haven't you? Considering I have a broken arm right now, it's hard for me to type my usual longer answers that might clear things up, but I have a feeling you're not interested in any real answer from me. You asked me why I believe it, not to understand my point of view or to see things from another perspective, but instead to basically tell me how wrong I am. I find that odd.

You haven't seen what I've seen, experienced what I've experienced, or lived through what I've lived through. My arm's hurting, so I don't have time to get into my opinions on the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese here in America and how poorly it's run, how religion majors need more screening, and how the faithful need to hold their leaders to account.

As for anointing, I've been anointed and healed before, so I'm not a good person to ask. No, it didn't heal my kidney tumor, my ten-year-long appendicitis, or my chronic health issues now, but it healed my back in the past. My husband doesn't tell his patients to get anointed, but if they mention it, he doesn't tell them not to.

[cyborg_jim]

101. You haven't lived through what I've experience, seen what I've seen

So what? No one has experienced the same thing as anyone else. This in and of itself isn't cause for remark and it's always a poor way to communicate.

Communication means "to make common" - when you shut up shop by saying, "I cannot make this common with you," you are tacitly saying you don't want to talk about it.

I find your judgemental attitude very interesting.

What's judgmental and what's interesting about it?

You don't know me at all (I mean, it's just a series of tubes, right?), and yet you've figured me all out, haven't you?

I'm responding to what you say - anything else you infer from that is entirely your creation.

But here we are with you not responding directly to what I say but instead going around the houses to point out just how much I can't say about you because of my ignorance of you...

No, it didn't heal my kidney tumor, my ten-year-long appendicitis, or my chronic health issues now, but it healed my back in the past.

And how do you know it healed your back?

I presume you know because you anointed yourself with oil and your back got better?

And so is myth born - correlation is not causation. Just because you kissed a stone, rubbed an idol or poured some oil before the fact does not mean that the after fact was caused by this act.

You can refuse to recognise this feature of human cognition if you wish but it remains there all the same.

And before you think it NO I do not think I am somehow immune to it. I simply recognise the phenomena as existing and am therefore aware that in applying to me I am just as liable to make false associations between actions I perform and consequences I perceive as arising form those actions.

[knitter4democracy]

102. I know it healed my back.

It's a long story and hard to type mostly one-handed, but the preacher laid hands on me, my skin felt like it was on fire, and the heat went right to the pinched nerve in my spine. When the heat went away, so did the pain. It was the darndest thing. Nothing else had touched the pain, and my doctor had told me there was nothing they could do other than surgery that didn't have the best success rates. So, yeah, I know it was healed.

I'm not a huge fan of reader's response critical theory, but it does seem to explain message boards--the reader helps to create the text, which often leads to miscommunication. The tone I've seen in your posts is a touch on the superior side, especially when you accuse me of refusing to see what's supposedly true or not knowing what certain terms mean--and that's what I find odd. Why choose that tone? Why try to convince me of something while making it sound like I'm stupid? Do you assume that I'm stupid merely because I'm an Eastern Orthodox Christian? Do you assume that I don't know the meaning of the word "communication" because I believe in mystery and am not enamored of logic? Why is that? What has happened in your life that you assume anyone like me is automatically a lover of authoritarian regimes (per an earlier post) and has no idea what science is or what words mean?

I laugh because I'm rarely talked down to like this. I'm not trying to shut down communication--I'm just saying that's what I believe, and yeah, if it's a reader's response kind of position, I'm fine with that. It's my faith, not yours, not anyone else's. I'm not trying to convince you to become my kind of Christian and don't want to. Why is that a problem?

[cyborg_jim]

103. Obviously can't say anything to that

Since I have no way of knowing whether or not your story is true or accurately recalled nor have access to your medical history and the whole realm of mystical healing is way off topic.

The tone I've seen in your posts is a touch on the superior side, especially when you accuse me of refusing to see what's supposedly true or not knowing what certain terms mean--and that's what I find odd.

Yet again I'm going to have to say you've created that view entirely by yourself.

For example:

"Do you assume that I don't know the meaning of the word "communication" because I believe in mystery and am not enamored of logic?"

This is about as far away from the point I was making as you could get - namely that I found you dismissive.

And again:

"What has happened in your life that you assume anyone like me is automatically a lover of authoritarian regimes "

Where I said nothing about loving regimes authoritarian or otherwise - I pointed out that people are far too ready to accept something on the basis that an authority said it.

Why is that a problem?

Why do you think it's a problem?

[knitter4democracy]

105. Are you asking for my medical files?

I think that's a bit too far, don't you? I have posted on DU before about that as well as my other health problems as well as on my blog, but I will not post my medical files or PM them to you just so you can verify my point or not. Ridiculous. I really hope you're kidding. It may be off topic, but that's such an odd thing to say to someone.

I'm not trying to be dismissive but instead honest. To me, faith can't be logical in human terms. I refuse to define God, and I'm seriously uncomfortable with defining the mysteries of the faith. As soon as we define something as humans, we've tamed it in a way and constrained it to fit into our understanding. I am uncomfortable with constraining God to fit into my understanding or some logical theorem. I beleive God to be bigger than human logic or understanding, though not everyone would agree with that belief.

I do not dismiss anyone's faith/non-faith. I do my best never to judge, and I think that, if you did a search on my posts, you'd find that I often try to speak up for those of faiths different than mine and non-faith. I have always tried to be respectful, and I apologize if you read that tone in my posts here. I was initially enjoying our exchange but then couldn't understand why you kept after me, trying to show me why what I believe is wrong in your sight. Perhaps my frustration and defensiveness were too sharp or appeared dismissive and respectful, and if that's the case, I'm sorry. I never meant that.

[beam me up scottie]

109. I'm looking at this conversation and I think I've come up with a parallel that I can relate to.

I love animals - so much so I stopped eating them a long time ago. I believe that they deserve their own bill of rights similar to ours.

Obviously I have very well defined ideas when it comes to how animals should be treated (even if humans continue to enslave them for food).

I'm sure that if I tried to explain why I feel this way, cyborg_jim could dissect every sentence and prove that my reasoning was totally illogical and that I was a bloody hypocrite.

But he wouldn't change my mind and would probably just piss me off.

That's why I never discuss animal rights on DU.

I imagine your faith is probably stronger than my resolution to do no harm to our fellow earthlings, so I have to give you props for being brave enough to put it out there.
I guess you were hoping that atheists would have a better understanding of something that will probably always remain a mystery to many of us.

I'll say it again, k4d, you totally rock. :headbang:

[knitter4democracy]

110. That's a really good analogy.

:hug:

I used to be vegetarian for health reasons, so I can totally relate to this analogy. I've never understood why some people get all upset over what other people eat, but I've seen some horrible flame wars over it.

To me, it's like the debates in knitting, especially over acrylic v. wool. Oh my, those can get nasty, which is just silly. It's just yarn, and if we're all knitting and happy, what's the problem? You'd be amazed at how much acrylic lovers can get attacked on knitting message boards, though. Ugh.

[beam me up scottie]

111. To parrot Dave Barry, "Zombie Prom Date Knitters" would be a good name for a rock band!

I don't know what causes more hostility, admitting that I'm an atheist or that I'm a vegetarian.

My decision was made for moral reasons and it's personal, it is in no way meant to be a judgment of people who eat animals.

Those damn acrylic lovers and their enablers though, they're a different story...:D

[knitter4democracy]

112. We Zombie Prom Date Knitters have a lot of fun.

We're even nice to the acrylic lovers. ;)

[Silent3]

113. I don't know if I'd pursue the conversation in the same way...

...but I do understand where CJ is coming from. What you need to understand is that some of the things you're saying can be very frustrating to others, even if you're being nice and pleasant, even if you aren't judgmental of the beliefs (or lack thereof) of others, even if you profess not to care if others believe what you say or not. In fact, that nonchalance can add to the frustration.

Imagine someone insisting that 2+2=5 (maybe adding, "for me", the magic words which are apparently supposed to make all sorts of craziness more acceptable). They're pleasant and cheerful about it, they claim it "works for me", they aren't trying to make anyone else believe it, they have a great story about how their life was saved or how they met the love of their life based on 2+2=5.

That would bother me. Nostrums like "live and let live" or "well, as long as they aren't harming anyone" aren't going to make that bother go away for me. Now, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. I'm not going to get violent over it. If this bad arithmetic comes up in conversation, however, I will argue against it, and I might even be dogged about it. I may try to be diplomatic about how I argue against this absurdity, but inside my own head, frankly, I'm going think the person making this claim is an idiot.

I'm not saying you or any other believer is an idiot. But I do believe that much of what goes under the monikers of "religion" and "faith" simply doesn't make sense, in the same way that 2+2=5 doesn't make sense, with the main difference being that the fundamental flaws aren't quite so stark because it's too easy to put up mountains of slippery words and evasion and fuzzy thinking to prevent those flaws from being dragged out into the light.

To me, faith can't be logical in human terms.

There's plenty of stuff I feel and act upon that isn't logical. One doesn't need to drag "faith" into the discussion to get there. But for all that stuff we do or believe that isn't logical, there's an important distinction to be made between non-logical and illogical.

Logic is not a source of values. Logic is not a source of motivation. There's no strictly, purely logical reason to do anything. One might say that it's "logical" to eat rather than starve, but eating is only logical in the context of an assumed desire to live. Desires for life, happiness, justice, beauty -- all of that is non-logical. Desire for knowledge can be logical in the context of some stated goal for which the knowledge will be applied, but that desire can also be a non-logical goal in and of itself.

The question I'd have about your faith is whether it is merely non-logical, or if it's a flat-out embrace of illogicality. I'd also like to know what latitude the disclaimer "in human terms" is supposed to buy.

I refuse to define God, and I'm seriously uncomfortable with defining the mysteries of the faith.

I refuse to define Blarf. Blarf is very important to me however. I don't care if you accept Blarf or not, but I do wish everyone could understand the beauty and truth of Blarf.

As soon as we define something as humans, we've tamed it in a way and constrained it to fit into our understanding.

That's simply untrue. You're confusing defining a thing with completely explicating a thing. I don't need a complete parts and materials list to define what a "car" is. I don't need to completely understand how a car works to define what a car is. All I need is a definition sufficient to lend the word a degree of utility.

When I say "car" and you say "car", we know we're talking about more or less the same thing. If you want to borrow my iPod, and I say I left my iPod in my "car", and we both understand English, I have good reason to think I've communicated the location of my iPod well enough that you won't go looking for it in my desk or my closet instead. Clear communication is accomplished while still leaving the definition of "car" very wide open to a variety of shapes, colors, sizes, weights, energy sources, engine designs, etc., and with no need for either of us to pretend that we understand everything about cars before this communication is accomplished.

If you can't define "God" and better than "Blarf", you can't reasonably put that failure to provide a definition off to some sort of noble desire to avoid constraining God. In fact, even if you find yourself incapable or unwilling to express what you mean by "God" in words typed on an online forum, I contend that you must have some sort of rough, unspoken definition of "God" inside your mind, because if you didn't, the concept couldn't possibly be any more important or meaningful to you than "Blarf" is.

[beam me up scottie]

114. The point is that k4d did not agree to having her faith nitpicked to death on DU.

She tried to answer a question from one poster and has been much more polite in her exchange with another than I would have been under similar circumstances.

I'm an atheist, I agree with c_jim and you for the most part, and I'll willingly participate in a knock-down, dragged-out, OK Corral shootout in R/T any day, but I don't usually interrogate my friends in order to show them how illogical their faith is.

I try to aim my anti-theism at the people who challenge me.

Just my .02

[trotsky]

115. Damn.

That is one well-written post.

[knitter4democracy]

120. Two problems:

Normally, I can do long posts with all the explanations. Since I have a broken arm right now, typing's a bit much for me and hurts after not too long, so that constrains my posts.

Second, definitions work only if everyone knows what everyone's talking about. Take your car example. What if I'd never seen a car and had no idea what you were talking about? You could describe it for hours, and I still wouldn't get it. I'd try to apply your words to stuff I know, but it still wouldn't make sense. A thing with four wheels sounds like a cart or wagon or carriage or phaeton, but now you're saying it has an engine? Where do the horses go? What are cupholders? Etc., etc. Definitions only work so far, especially with concepts that the two conversants don't share. I could define God for hours, knowing I'm doing a crappy job as something as huge as God really can't be defined, and someone who doesn't believe in God wouldn't get it. All that definition would do is make someone who doesn't believe think I'm totally crazy, just as defining a car to someone who's never seen it would make that person think the car owner is nuts. If we don't have a shared concept, and it's obvious we don't, then what does my definition help in the conversation at all?

The reality is, I could be the best theologian in the world, and most people here would still think I'm an illogical insane idiot. How could I be so intellectually daft to believe in God in the first place, and so on and so forth. I'm fine with them thinking that, actually, as I don't come here for validation but instead to hear and understand other viewpoints. I just think it's weird that someone who doesn't believe in God would act like he wants to know why and then can't respect my answer but instead has to pick it apart and try to show me how illogical or whatever I am.

[Silent3]

127. I don't agree that a car is so hard to explain...

...to someone who's never seen or heard of a car before, so your analogy doesn't work for me. Perhaps a person unfamiliar with modern technology might think I was making up tall tales or had gone crazy if I tried to explain the notion of a "car", but making what I'm talking about clear and making it believable are two different things.

As for "Definitions only work so far, especially with concepts that the two conversants don't share.", one of the big things words are good at is communicating new knowledge and new ideas. Since people have believed in God or gods in many cultures all across the world throughout recorded human history, the general idea of a deity can't really be so abstruse and difficult a thing to communicate. If words are difficult to find for a particular explanatory challenge (like trying to describe a specific animal or plant), one can always show a picture or point.

I can easily imagine going back in time to medieval Europe with a car, taking it to London. (Better make it something with real off-road capability to deal with the roads of the time. :) ) Presuming I can keep myself from being burned as a witch long enough, and I go no further than London for a few months, I would contend that it's highly likely I could suddenly drive out of the city one day to an outlying village, and there would be shouting in fear or delight that the fabled "car" thing, of which they'd heard so many stories, had arrived.

We obviously can't perform this experiment in reality, but if I were to go by your apparent standards of what words and definitions are capable of, and incapable of, I'd have to presume that, no matter how long I allowed for rumors to spread, the car would be a total and complete unknown wherever I went, with all rumors fizzling out before word could escape London, as each person who tried to spread the tale of what he'd seen in London failed utterly to convey any usable meaning whatsoever to those who hadn't directly seen what he'd seen.

I certainly don't think you mean to say anything bad about people who don't believe in God. If anything, you've gone out of your way to be kind and understanding, and I appreciate it. But there's a subtext to your stance on God and defining God that's hard to avoid.

I've seen people do amazing verbal backflips to insist that their belief is a humble thing, that it doesn't make them "better" than someone who doesn't believe, etc. Nevertheless, if this idea of God is SOOOOO very difficult to explain or define to someone who doesn't already believe it, it's hard to avoid the implication that you believe yourself to be in possession of special or particularly demanding knowledge, or of some special sensory capability, such that you become the sighted person trying to define "red" to someone who is blind, that you're the person who knows how to build a nuclear reactor trying to explain fission to a primitive who hasn't even discovered fire.

Do you believe the world is divided into those who "get it" and those who don't, and if you don't, it's pretty much hopeless? Do you believe that it's not completely hopeless, but that understanding this Special Thing you yourself understand requires such "openness" to the idea that the person you try to explain God to essentially has to be nearly at the point of belief first before he can even begin to understand what he's trying to understand? Do you believe that what you know of God requires direct experience, and if you someone isn't "granted" that experience, or don't make himself "open" to the experience, well, then words are not only utterly incapable of explaining or defining this God, but even of conveying any good reason to seek the experience of God and be "open" to it?

I think I can define your God pretty well. I might not get every detail right of your particular version of God right, but here's a go at it:

This God is some sort of "being", a disembodied personality, something with will and intent and emotion. Something powerful, very wise and knowledgeable, possibly "all knowing". Something that created the universe. Something that cares about human lives and human well-being, even if all of the horror and suffering in the world means that its way of "caring" is difficult for "mere humans" to understand, and all the hurt and pain be must be ascribed to some sort of "plan" beyond our feeble human comprehension. Maybe you'd thrown in something for emotional flavor, like "God is the sound of a child's laughter", or something both emotional and mystically self-reflexive like, "God is the feeling of Knowing God". And of course, part of this definition of God is the definition's built-in declaration of its own sad insufficiency to define its subject.

[knitter4democracy]

130. I don't think belief makes anyone special.

I think some of us are born with the need to believe in something and some of us aren't. Just like having blue v. brown eyes, it's just who we are, nothing weird or special. For those who need to believe, that doesn't make them weak or stupid, and for those who don't, that doesn't make them bad or stupid. It's just who we are.

Your definition of God is a start, but how can we really define something like God? The words fall short, so all that's left is the feeling, icons, holy texts, and whatever else a believer uses. Someone who does not believe would not agree with that definition, and someone who does would say that it is incomplete and/or wrong, so how does defining help matters?

As for the car, have you read on how they were first viewed when first invented? People were convinced they were evil, those who hadn't seen them but only read of them thought they were hoaxes at first, and many thought they'd kill everything around them. It's funny to read literature of the time and see how people were very uncomfortable with the new technology. Same with steam engine locomotives--even worse with those, actually. Cars were accepted faster than trains were. We may assimilate technology quickly today, but that wasn't the case at the beginning of the Industrial Rev.

One of my favorite parts of my linguistics class in college was when we covered theories on connotation, definition, and how a word acquired those. It's a wonder anyone can communicate at all, really.

[Silent3]

133. I'd say there's a pretty big difference...

...between eye color and being aware of, or not, and sensitive to, or not, a powerful, universal force responsible for the existence of the universe. It's much more like the difference between being born blind or not. It may not have a moral dimension, so it's not a matter of being "good" or "bad", but it's still a whole lot better to be born with eyesight than without it.

Your definition of God is a start, but how can we really define something like God? The words fall short...

Again, this sounds to me like a confusion between definition and complete explication. A definition doesn't need to completely define every aspect of a thing, it doesn't need to convey total and complete understanding. It merely has to make one concept or thing distinct from another.

Even in what you say about the way people reacted to the first cars, the idea of the car was defined well enough that the thing that was feared, or considered a hoax, was clearly the same thing. The person who hears about cars and thinks they're a hoax isn't suffering from an insufficient definition of a car, they're suffering from an insufficient understanding of mechanics. Perhaps it's a well-intentioned form of diplomacy, but what you're trying to do is say that when a person defines God and another person finds a God by that definition unbelievable, the fault must lie in an insufficient or inaccurate definition of God provided by the believer, rather than a lack of understanding of the appropriate metaphysics by the skeptic.

What I think is happening here is a desire for God to be vaguely defined so the idea is safer from assault or even personal doubt. After all, how can you doubt something that has the power (by lack of definition) to conveniently be something other than that which is doubted or disbelieved?

I don't think this is a conscious ploy or deliberate trick, but I do think the end result of insistence on the undefinability of God has the same end result deliberate evasiveness would have.

[knitter4democracy]

136. So, you think I never doubt?

That's patently ridiculous. Of course I have doubts. I'm human, aren't I? When the doctors told me I might be dead in three years, I definitely had doubts. I still do, even though the doctors changed their minds later.

Sometimes, I think that some here have these images in their minds of what all believers are like. I'm not sure how those images are formed, but they come out in these kinds of discussions. Believers are stupid, mindless robots who never doubt but march in lockstep until they die or something like that. It's completely inaccurate, but that doesn't seem to bother many here. I don't know if you're like that, but your argument is entirely false.

If you want to know where I'm coming from, read Bishop Ware's "The Orthodox Way." He's much better at explaining Eastern Orthodox theology than I am.

[Silent3]

137. Where did I say you never doubt?

And when you say, "your argument is entirely false", which argument of mine (I presented a range of different points), and how is it false? Was I wrong about the difference between definition and complete explication? Was I wrong somewhere in the car analogy? Was I wrong to interpret certain argumentative tactics as diplomacy or evasion?

My talk about doubt was generic, not specific or directed at you personally, and was about how being vague about definitions can help avoid or allay doubt. One only needs to avoid or allay doubt if one does indeed experience doubt, yet is uncomfortable with doubting, not if one never doubts at all. Rather than having no doubts at all, a generic caricature of believers you seem to think I might be laboring under, I imagine that most believers, even the most strident, even whether they admit to doubt or not, have plenty of doubts. What these believers also have are plenty of coping mechanisms to set those doubts aside or to put them to rest, at least for a time, so the doubts don't interfere with the state of belief they prefer to experience.

To get back to the point at which I entered this thread, all I'm asking you to do is to see better what someone like cyborg_jim might be objecting to and arguing against in what you've said about your own faith and the way you say it. Personally I think CJ was being a bit of an ass in the tone he was using, and I hope I'm not committing the same error, but I do sympathize with the kind of skepticism he's trying to express.

If you want to know where I'm coming from, read Bishop Ware's "The Orthodox Way." He's much better at explaining Eastern Orthodox theology than I am.

The specifics of Eastern Orthodoxy aren't at issue here. The idea of an undefinable God, or other undefinable mysteries, is generic to many supernatural beliefs. I'm not asking you to change your mind about your beliefs, I'm asking you to see how others can see the way you avoid definition as suspect, as a rhetorical tactic if done deliberately, or as a projection of an unacknowledged coping mechanism when done "in good faith".

[knitter4democracy]

139. It was in your last paragraph of your previous post.

Why do you assume that believers have coping skills to deny their doubts? I know some who do, to be honest, but I figure life's crap will take care of that. Most Christians I know live seriously examined lives and constantly work on being honest with themselves. That means that we fight against those coping skills.

For example, if I think God is leading me to a certain decision, I don't automatically act on it. I analyze it. What if it's just feelings? What if it's because it's an easy way out that really isn't going to help me or those I love? What if it's really my subconscious or whatever? I go through every possible answer and test it as best I can. If everything comes back that it's still the right decision, then I act on it, but I still don't assume God had anything to do with it unless something happens out of the blue to confirm it (which, to be honest, is pretty rare). When I was younger, I thought God was everywhere in my life and prompting me in every decision, but as I've gotten lived through more, I'm a lot more cynical about those feelings and test everything a lot more thoroughly. The vast majority of the time, it's just me, not God.

As for Eastern Orthodox theology, that is exactly what I'm talking about. That's where I'm coming from. I'm not a Western Christian, so I don't believe things the same way. Eastern theology isn't based on logic and rhetoric the same way Western theology is, and the reality is, there's a huge disconnect between the two forms of Christianity. Since I cannot argue from another point of view (I'm not Jewish or Muslim or Wiccan or Hindi, etc.), all I can debate from is my version of the faith. I can see how those who come from the rational/reasonable/Western version of thought could be frustrated, just as I've been frustrated in trying to communicate across the many barriers we're dealing with.

Thank you for being respectful, though. I do appreciate it. At least you're not accusing me of believing in fairies (not sure on those ;) ) or in a big silly Sky Daddy. Thanks. :hug:

[Silent3]

142. That last paragraph doesn't say what you seem to think it says

Again, the paragraph you refer to talks about what people who DO have doubts do to deal with those doubt, to try to reduce them or set them aside, not about having no doubts at all to deal with. And although I didn't say anything either way about this before, I think doubts are going to keep cropping up in a believer's mind, that no coping mechanism is very likely to totally eliminate doubts.

For example, if I think God is leading me to a certain decision, I don't automatically act on it. I analyze it. What if it's just feelings?

This is a doubt within a context where it's accepted that there is a God who might or might not be involved in a particular decision of yours. Avoiding defining God relates to doubts about the existence of God Himself, and while perhaps you have such doubts too, your example doesn't make your point.

Why do you assume that believers have coping skills to deny their doubts?

Because that's how a lot of what believers do and say comes across to me. The fact that you turned a question that dealt with the very existence of God into a question of whether or not an assumed-to-exist God is intervening in a particular personal decision is one of the kinds of things that makes me suspicious. Not enough by itself to raise much suspicion, but when such responses become part of an overall pattern, I do suspect coping mechanisms to be at work.

[knitter4democracy]

144. Okay, here's a better example.

Almost two years ago, my husband was worried that my odd symptoms and nagging pain were an infection from the laparoscopy I'd had earlier that year. So, he talked me and my doctor into my getting a CT scan (I did it mostly to shut him up--he was quite insistent). That's how they found I had a huge tumor that had taken over my right kidney. That started the darkest, worst time in my life.

A week after the radiology results, I was wheeled into surgery for the second time in 7 months. At that point, I was just plain scared (you know you're up shit creek when the surgeon can't make eye contact with you after looking at the films), so I kept praying the Jesus Prayer over and over and over again, trying to calm down. When I woke up from the surgery with no pain control at all (that's how we found out that opiates don't work on me at all, not even morphine right into my spine), it was the worst moment of my entire life (and I know pain--that lap was to find out why I'd had horrible abdominal pain for ten years that turned out to be chronic appendicitis). I couldn't do anything, not scream, not cry, nothing. I was frozen in pain, and I will never forget that damn x-ray they rolled me over for in recovery. The surgeon had spent three hours cutting out a pound of flesh and three inches of rib, leaving a 10" scar--and I had no pain control at all.

I was numb with pain at first and couldn't really process anything, but after a week of waiting for the pathology report, I was getting really scared again. The surgeon was so nervous that he came in on the weekend when he wasn't on-call, and I was so scared I couldn't even pray at all.

Three weeks of waiting for pathology later, I finally called the lead pathologist on my case (he'd talked with my husband, so I figured it was okay, even though path guys hate talking to actual people). That's when he told me that the kidney pathology specialist still couldn't make up his mind whether it had been cancer or not. The cancer he thought it might have been was extremely rare (I'd have been case number 5 in the med journals) and extremely deadly. When I asked him how long I'd have, he told me three years or less.

I don't remember much of the conversation after that. All I could think of was three years. I remember saying good-bye and hanging up and then walking out onto our back deck. The kids were in school, so I was alone in the house, and I just wandered out onto the back deck, numb.

For the first time in my life, I wondered whether God even existed. Oh, I've been mad at God before, but this time was different. I had two small children and a loving husband who were going to lose me in three years or less, and it just seemed so damn unfair. How could a loving God do such a thing? Was God at all what I'd been led to believe? Did he even exist at all? Three years was such a short time. Too damn short. Why would He answer my prayers to have children only to have me die a few years after that?

I just stood there, wondering, for an hour (I think--time seemed to stop). Then I felt the wind on my face, the wind in fall that's my favorite that always has made me feel the Divine in life. It swirled around me, and all of a sudden, I felt a shadow of love. That's the best I can describe it. That wind blowing on my face felt like love.

I was numb for days, caught in deep despair. I felt a bit guilty that I wasn't all happy that I'd be in heaven sooner, but I was more angry that all this was happening anyway. My husband had that haunted look he gets when he's really worried about me, and the kids weren't doing too great with Mommy still in so much pain and crying a lot. I knew that they loved me, though, and I felt that love through the swirling darkness of fear and despair.

A week later, the pathologist called to say that the specialist changed his mind and said it didn't have enough cancer cells in it to meet the definition of cancer. All that for nothing, I thought, but that's when I realized it hadn't entirely been for nothing. I learned a lot about myself in that week, and I learned that, even when facing death and more suffering, I still felt love and still felt the Divine in the wind.

I know many people who have walked away from their faith in just such a moment, but I couldn't, even when I tried. I still felt it. I'm still a bit miffed at God for all that suffering, but there's nothing I can do about that. I can't erase the pain, and it's definitely changed me.

Since then, my health has sucked. I could look at it like there's no God and I'm suffering for nothing, and there are days when I do wonder about all that, but then I feel His presence, and honestly, I don't care if that's my brain all messed up and playing tricks on me or actually real. That presence has helped me get through some amazingly awful times, and I'm thankful for it. If that makes me a weak person, so be it.

[Silent3]

146. You're illustrating just what skeptics have a problem with.

I could look at it like there's no God and I'm suffering for nothing, and there are days when I do wonder about all that, but then I feel His presence, and honestly, I don't care if that's my brain all messed up and playing tricks on me or actually real. That presence has helped me get through some amazingly awful times, and I'm thankful for it. If that makes me a weak person, so be it.

A skeptic does care about the difference between tricks our minds can play on us and what's real. A skeptic measures how truthful a thing is by how close it comes to verifiable facts, or how well it fits into a larger, consistent explanatory scheme, not by how well it "get(s one) through some amazingly awful times". I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, I'm just pointing out what prompts skeptics like cyborg_jim and myself to challenge some of things people say in religious discussions.

I don't think this is really an Eastern/Western difference. Western religions (and, just as an aside, it seems to me Eastern Orthodoxy is still a lot closer to Western culture than, say, Buddhism) may go through a lot of "left brain" formal, sometimes legalistic, theology to get to the beliefs and doctrines that they preach, but there's still mysticism at the core, and mystical vs. skeptical is to me a very different divide than Eastern vs. Western.

[knitter4democracy]

147. I think I understand better now, thank you.

I'm not a skeptic. My dad sure tried to raise me that way, but it never took. I tried when I was a kid as a way to please him, but I couldn't ignore my own experiences or toss them off as bad brain chemistry. It helps in trying to understand here, though. Thank you. :hug:

[cyborg_jim]

116. Yes - I'm REALLY asking for your medical files (for REALLY read REALLY NOT)

Yet again I feel my previous point about you taking away things I'm not just putting in is apt - even if I did have your medical files I doubt I'd have the training necessary to interpret them correctly since I'm not a medical doctor.

trying to show me why what I believe is wrong in your sight

Not trying to prove it "wrong" - just showing that there is an inconsistency between why you say you have a belief and why you actually have a belief. Once you have decided that the "mystery" is sufficient and no belief needs any actual explanation then you actually saying anything in explication of that belief is quite meaningless. So why even try to "justify" it partially?

[knitter4democracy]

121. Why should you care?

My faith is mine, flawed and all. If I'm okay with it, why should you care? I'm not going around telling everyone how what they believe or don't is wrong and inconsistent or whatever. What do you get out of this conversation?

As for the medical record thing--it was in response to your point that you couldn't believe what I said without evidence. You want hard and fast evidence for something I've experienced in order to believe me. In other words, you can't believe what I wrote at all because it goes so against anything you've experienced or studied. Why even ask, then? Why ask me about it and then dismiss my answer?

[cyborg_jim]

123. That was not my point

As for the medical record thing--it was in response to your point that you couldn't believe what I said without evidence. You want hard and fast evidence for something I've experienced in order to believe me.

Just no - my point was that we couldn't discuss it because there's nothing but your say-so to go on.

In other words, you can't believe what I wrote at all because it goes so against anything you've experienced or studied.

Hardly - I've certainly read up on many claims of miraculous healing and I'm doubtful any of them really occur as people remember them but I'm not exactly going to be able to debunk you in an informal conversation now am I?

What do you get out of this conversation?

What do you get out of this conversation?

[knitter4democracy]

125. Why can't you answer the question?

Answering with a question is something most people on this forum detest. I asked first.

[cyborg_jim]

148. Why does it matter what I "get out of it"?

For someone who doesn't seem to be bothered by pragmatic concerns in belief it doesn't seem to be a matter of concern why I am conversing to you.

[beam me up scottie]

104. What exactly is it that you want from k4d, c_?

Evoman asked the original question and she has done her best to answer.

Do you expect her to renounce her faith and become a skeptic and atheist because you've convinced her that her beliefs are illogical?

[cyborg_jim]

117. I don't want anything - I'm simply replying to the posts

If one feels compelled to reply they reply. When two people feel compelled to reply a conversation occurs. I don't necessarily need to feel like I have achieved conversion in conversation.

[Evoman]

129. He is asking very good questions. Nobody is make her answer them.

I am actually not that satisfied with her answers. Not that she hasn't tried her hardest, or that she owes me answers. She does not. And I didn't think before hand that I would be.

However, I found her dialogue with Cyborg Jim very intersting. I don't see antogonsim between them...maybe just some frustration. I think exposing our thoughts and belief to rigourous questions is important in ordering are minds and finding inconsistencies. I'm thinking of maybe challenging CJ just to get him to beat on some of my issues...he is pretty freakin good at it.

[beam me up scottie]

132. I saw something different.

Maybe it's just because I like k4d so much, but she seemed to be frustrated because she had been backed into a corner.

[Evoman]

134. There are no corners on the internets.

Just back and forth until someone leaves.

God knows I've had a go at people I really like on here. I'm not about to tell Cyborg Jim not do something I tend to do.

[beam me up scottie]

135. "An ye harm none, do what thou wilt"

bmus out.

[Evoman]

119. Hey, welcome back.

Haven't seen you around these parts for awhile.

[cyborg_jim]

138. I've been around - just haven't found anything interesting to respond to recently

[Evoman]

118. I still don't get it.

The cracker tastes the same after you eat it as it does before it's blessed. The cracker hasn't changed in any significant way...taste, smell, sight. If I analyzed in chemically, or I analyzed the energy in it, it is the same.

There is no magic in the world. Magic, apparently, died a long time ago. Jesus could supposedly walk on water. Disciples saw him heal the sick. God used to talk through a burning bush. Zeus used to turn into an oxen and impregnate females. Thor used to do funky things with a hammer.

These beliefs are relics of the past. A cracker can no more be turned into flesh than a man can be turned into a rabbit. Hogworts is fiction, Jesus is fiction.

It all seems so obvious to me.

[knitter4democracy]

122. If it's fiction to you, then no explanation will work, will it?

Magic isn't dead. I've seen miracles happen, and I've experienced things that just couldn't be explained away (my first response is to be skeptical and try to explain it). But because you haven't seen what I have and gone through what I have, all of my explanations will just convince you that I'm crazy. And who knows, maybe I am. ;)

[Evoman]

124. I'm 30 years old and I have never seen a miracle.

Not even close. How can I believe you have? And having one "magic" thing happen to you...does it mean you have to accept other magic things? You say you have experienced magic....have you seen of felt a cracker turn into something else? Why accept that?

There is a reason anecdotal "evidence" doesn't count for anything.

There is no magic.

[knitter4democracy]

126. Anecdotal evidence from my own life is fine for me.

I'm not a case study or a specimen under a microscope, so I'm okay with my life not being entirely logical.

I've actually been healed (referred to it upthread). I've seen visions that couldn't be explained medically. I've prayed for something only to have it come true at the same time I was praying (long story about how my husband and I got together). I'm not saying miracles happen every day, but I have had them happen to me, and I've seen them happen to others.

I'm not a great Christian apologist. After going to an evangelical Christian college, I almost walked away from the faith entirely. I was so sickened by the evil done in the name of the faith that I was almost convinced that there was no God. Instead, I found a new church home, and in studying Eastern Orthodox theology and history, I found that it's a better match for me and how I believe. The church is far from perfect (too damn much homophobia for me to be comfortable, let alone a history of pogroms and other crap), but I find peace in the liturgy and prayers, and peace is important to me.

I believe the bread and wine become the body and blood because that's what Jesus said. I don't feel a need to question that right now in my faith walk.

[Evoman]

128. I hope you don't think I am trying to pick you apart.

Well,maybe I am, but it is not personal, nor am I trying to change your mind. I just want to see if there is "anything there". But I find no answers in your answers.

First of all, I find nothing extraordinary with believing you are "healed", nor am I convinced by visions. To be honest, I think those things are merely brain issues. That may make them interesting, in a neurological sense*, but not in a "magic actually exists" sort of way. That is why anecdotal evidence is unconvincing. As to the prayer thing...well, you'll excuse me for thinking, with my limited knowledge of the situation, that the whole thing was probably a coincidence.

In regards to my question before....why do you believe in the magic cracker....well, in order to find Jesus convincing, and take his word about the blood and body, you have to find the bible convincing. And in order to find the bible convincing, you have to already believe in magic. And then comes the ultimate issue....why does magic happen to one person, and not to others? You can argue, I suppose, that magic does happen to me but I don't see it because I don't believe it. But if you believe in magic before it even happens to you, wouldn't that mean that your not a very skeptical person at all and that it's possible your seeing magic where there is none because you WANT to?

*I hope you don't think I'm implying you have a neurological disease or something. I'm not. I just think human beings have a common tendency to fool themselves when it comes to their desires.

[knitter4democracy]

131. Many long stories.

I can't type out all the long stories, and I have a feeling you wouldn't believe me anyway. Maybe if we could meet face to face so I could talk as opposed to type with my bum arm . . .

In the church I grew up in, we were to question any miracle, look for confirmation of some sort, and dismiss anything that was easily explained. Strong feelings weren't God's guidance but just strong feelings. Visions were rarely believed, as were prophecies. It's hard for me to believe anything straight out, especially since my mom's bipolar incident that had massive religious overtones, but those miracles I mentioned were ones I couldn't explain away. Again, hard to explain without a lot more typing.

I'm not a skeptic, though. I can be pretty darn cynical, especially when it comes to faith, but I'm just not a skeptic. I've tried in the past, but it's not who I am. My dad is and did his darndest to beat it into me, but it never took. I've always gone with the magic in the end.

The problem with discussing faith is that it's so hard to talk about. We use the same words to mean different things, we disagree about the basics, and we're all coming from such different backgrounds here in R/T. I'm sorry my answers aren't better, but something tells me that I could be the best explainer in the world and still not satisfy. Humph.

[pegleg]

65. Actually this is nothing but bigotry against Catholicism.

That is not to say that what some priests did is to be excused. But if this sort of incident would have happened in a mosque, and something valuable to muslims would have been desecrated members of DU would have been all over the one who did the deed. DU is clearly bigoted against Christianity and Judaism.

[cyborg_jim]

66. Right... and you base this behaviour on what?

No matter how many times this nonsense is said it does not become more true.

[pegleg]

67. Not sure exactly what you are telling me here, but the democratic party never used to stand for bigo

of any kind. There are very few things more sleazy than desecration of holy places and that's exact what happened here, irregardless of one's personal views on religion.

[cyborg_jim]

68. Right.... so again I ask what you base your assertion that "if it were some other X of holy orign"

That no one would dare speak about it being silly?

And a wafer is not a place.

[Realityhack]

73. So what would the GPS coordinates of that holly place be?

Oh right. It's a cracker.
Actually it's currently a hypothetical cracker.
It hasn't been desecrated yet.
The catholics where going to bite the cracker and swallow it. It's not like they where preserving it for future generations in a glass bubble.

You think I or others here would support PZ stomping into a church and smashing something? PZ wouldn't even support PZ doing that.

You seem to be having difficulty making distinctions between entirely different things.

[Realityhack]

74. On second thought, another analogy.

Do you support a constitutional ban on flag burning?

Some people view the flag as practically sacred. Others think it is just free speak to burn it in protest.

Is 'desecrating' a cracker any different than burning a flag?

[pegleg]

83. And the noose hanging in Jenna was just a piece of rope,

What's the big deal there?

[cyborg_jim]

84. Someone desecrated a noose?

The fuckers!

[Realityhack]

107. um... it represents a direct threat?

I think some people here are having a very hard time making simple distinctions.

PZ - Decicrating a blessed cracker
reason - Satirical point about taking things way the fuck too far

Noose Incident - threat of physical violence
presumed reason - intimidation and fear

See any differences yet?
Tell me, do you think it is unethical to publish a picture of the 'profit' Muhamed?

[Realityhack]

145. Chirp n/t

[Realityhack]

72. Bullshit! - I for one AGREED with printing the cartoons of Mohamed.

That is the absolute closest parallel I can currently think of.

To Muslims that is sacrilege.
To Christians this is.

In both cases the groups vastly over-react, because of faith based bullshit, to what is in essence completely innocent.

Drawing/publishing a picture.
Doing 'bad' things to a cracker.

Is it 'insensitive'? Sure. But I don't want to have a society that is THAT sensitive to peoples made up bullshit.

[knitter4democracy]

76. No, it's not.

I've seen many DUers get upset about people of all faiths getting hurt. Those here who question believers are right to do so, and questioning and even mocking aren't going to hurt us. I'm fine until people start getting out the lions and sharpening the knives.

[Realityhack]

78. In addition...

I think you would find those mocking religion here on DU would be at the forefront of opposing any actual violence towards a particular religious group.

[knitter4democracy]

80. I agree.

I don't know why some people get so upset about the debates that go on here. I haven't heard all that much that's worse than what I heard in the pews in college chapel.

[Evoman]

28. Religion. I don't get it. For the life of me, I will never, ever get it.

A cracker.

Honestly?

I wish I had a spaceship...I wish I could leave this planet. I don't belong here.

[BurtWorm]

45. A Catholic Leaguer will try to explain it to you.

This is from the comments to a post from today on Pharyngula:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/fight_back_against_bill_donohu.php#comment-973900


Well, of course, if we believed it was a cracker, we wouldn't be so upset. Why is it that the supposed champions of tolerance don't extend tolerance to those that disagree with them? In fact, what good IS tolerance if not extended to those that disagree with you?

I used to be an atheist so I understand your science-alone tunnel vision, but some of us don't believe that everything can be explained by science.

So, since many people believe that the consecrated host is the very Body of Christ, why can you not be civil to us? Threatening to profane the Body of Christ is basically worse to us than threatening to kill us, so you really shouldn't be surprised to get some serious anger directed towards you.

Atheists don't hold much sacred, so it is probably hard for you to understand, but someone threatening to kill your family is probably something you'd get a bit upset and angry about, I assume? Well, that's about how we Catholics feel when you threaten to profane the Body of Christ.


:wtf:

[Evoman]

48. ...................

"Well, of course, if we believed it was a cracker, we wouldn't be so upset. Why is it that the supposed champions of tolerance don't extend tolerance to those that disagree with them? In fact, what good IS tolerance if not extended to those that disagree with you?"

I tolerate you just fine. I'm not threatening, or going out of my way to make life difficult, anybody who eats crackers. It's just absolutely ridiculous....and the fact that people are getting death threats for doing things with cracker is what I find intolerant. I also think, strongly, that I don't belong in a world where people believe in talking snakes, crackers turning into flesh, or people coming back to life in three days.

"I used to be an atheist so I understand your science-alone tunnel vision, but some of us don't believe that everything can be explained by science."

Anything that can't be explained by science FOR SURE can't be explained by religion. My god man...cracker into flesh. If dropping my science tunnel vision makes me believe in stupid shit like that, then I don't ever want to lose my tunnel vision.

"So, since many people believe that the consecrated host is the very Body of Christ, why can you not be civil to us? Threatening to profane the Body of Christ is basically worse to us than threatening to kill us, so you really shouldn't be surprised to get some serious anger directed towards you."

That's the problem isn't it, and why religion sometimes goes from being just a nuisance to actually dangerous. Only religion could cause people to get angry, fight, and kill, over absolutely ridiculous crap.


"Atheists don't hold much sacred, so it is probably hard for you to understand, but someone threatening to kill your family is probably something you'd get a bit upset and angry about, I assume? Well, that's about how we Catholics feel when you threaten to profane the Body of Christ."

That's why I wrote my original post. I will never understand you. I know now that I am incapable of it.

[beam me up scottie]

50. "why religion sometimes goes from being just a nuisance to actually dangerous"

ding ding ding!

That sentence also illustrates the difference between a liberal believer and a fundamentalist, one would spare the lives of infidels to honor their saviour and the other would take them.

[spoony]

49. For the life of me, I can't understand what impulse drives

someone to throw their career and (whatever little) status in order to stomp on something they obsess about like a fucking mental case even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with them.

[Evoman]

52. Are you talking to me?

What career? What status? What the hell are you talking about?

Oh well...at least I don't believe in magic crackers.

On edit: Now I understand your post. You meant Myers. I think it's amazing that you can actually put your career at risk by doing stuff to a cracker. Yeah, it's kinda stupid for him to do it, but not as stupid as making death threats or career threats. We need more adults in this world I think.

[beam me up scottie]

53. I think he's helping to pound that stake into PZ's heart.

He's the third villager on the left, the one with the really short pitchfork. :evilgrin:

[moggie]

31. The Catholic League ought to be scarier

With a name like that, I picture something like the Justice League, but with nuns, ready to leap into action with their super nun powers to defend magic crackers, horny priests etc. Instead, it seems to consist of one perpetually angry fat wingnut. That's not much of a league.

[beam me up scottie]

38. Anybody else remember the scene in Angela's Ashes when Frankie threw up his first communion?

We ran to the church. My mother panted along behind with Michael in her arms. We arrived at the church just in time to see the last of the boys leaving the altar rail where the priest stood with the chalice and the host, glaring at me. Then he placed on my tongue the wafer, the body and blood of Jesus. At last, at last.

It's on my tongue. I draw it back.
It stuck.

I had God glued to the roof of my mouth. I could hear the master's voice, Don't let that host touch your teeth for if you bite God in two you'll roast in hell for eternity. I tried to get God down with my tongue but the priest hissed at me, Stop that clucking and get back to your seat. God was good. He melted and I swallowed Him and now, at last, I was a member of the True Church, an official sinner.

When the Mass ended there they were at the door of the church, my mother with Michael in her arms, my grandmother. They each hugged me to their bosoms. They each told me it was the happiest day of my life. They each cried all over my head and after my grandmother's contribution that morning my head was a swamp.

Mam, can I go now and make The Collection?
She said, After you have a little breakfast.
No, said Grandma.You're not making no collection till you have a proper First Communion breakfast at my house. Come on.

We followed her. She banged pots and rattled pans and complained that the whole world expected her to be at their beck and call. I ate the egg, I ate the sausage, and when I reached for more sugar for my tea she slapped my hand away.

Go aisy with that sugar. Is it a millionaire you think I am? An American? Is it bedecked in glitterin' jewelry you think I am? Smothered in fancy furs?

The food churned in my stomach. I gagged. I ran to her backyard and threw it all up. Out she came.

Look at what he did. Thrun up his First Communion breakfast. Thrun up the body and blood of Jesus. I have God in me backyard. What am I goin' to do? I'll take him to the Jesuits for they know the sins of the Pope himself.

She dragged me through the streets of Limerick. She told the neighbors and passing strangers about God in her backyard. She pushed me into the confession box.

In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's a day since my last confession.

A day? And what sins have you committed in a day, my child?

I overslept. I nearly missed my First Communion. My grandmother said I have standing up, North of Ireland, Presbyterian hair. I threw up my First Communion breakfast. Now Grandma says she has God in her backyard and what should she do.

The priest is like the First Confession priest. He has the heavy breathing and the choking sounds.

Ah...ah...tell your grandmother to wash God away with a little water and for your penance say one Hail Mary and one Our Father. Say a prayer for me and God bless you, my child.

Grandma and Mam were waiting close to the confession box. Grandma said, Were you telling jokes to that priest in the confession box? If 'tis a thing I ever find out you were telling jokes to Jesuits I'll tear the bloody kidneys outayou. Now what did he say about God in my backyard?

He said wash Him away with a little water, Grandma.

Holy water or ordinary water?

He didn't say, Grandma.

Well, go back and ask him.

But, Grandma...

She pushed me back into the confessional.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, it's a minute since my last confession.

A minute! Are you the boy that was just here?

I am, Father.

What is it now?

My grandma says, Holy water or ordinary water?

Ordinary water, and tell your grandmother not to be bothering me again.

I told her, Ordinary water, Grandma, and he said don't be bothering him again.

Don't be bothering him again. That bloody ignorant bogtrotter.

From Chapter IV http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Angelas-Ashes/Frank-McCourt/e/9780684842677

[knitter4democracy]

47. I'd forgotten that scene.

I can just imagine the priest doing his darndest not to laugh.

[beam me up scottie]

51. It was priceless, wasn't it?

Frankie is like the catholics I grew up with, they poked fun at their religion constantly.

[TZ]

43. Sometimes a cracker is just a cracker.

Jeez. If these idiots only realized who much worse they are making themselves look by paying attention to them..Which is really what PZ is after...and they are obliging.
Me..I'm gonna go home and see if I have any spare matzo that I can send PZ to "profane"....:evilgrin:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

57. PZ Meyers and the Catholic League deserve each other

n/t

[struggle4progress]

62. Reminds one o'that ole lawyer joke

Frontier town had only one lawyer f'several years. He sorta scraped by and did odd jobs on th'side t'make ends meet. Finally, another lawyer put up his shingle across th'street. Few months later, the lawyers were the two richest men in town

[Realityhack]

70. Important Note: The catholic league is highly dishonest here:

“The Myers blog can be accessed from the university’s website. The university has a policy statement on this issue which says that the ‘Contents of all electronic pages..."

The have carefully worded their statement so they clearly know full well that the blog is NOT on a university server but are trying to drag the university into the issue.

[struggle4progress]

87. Of course: Donohue's "Catholic League" is a rightwing noisemaker

[varkam]

92. The Catholic League...

is engaging in prevarication in order to stir up shit? I don't believe it :eyes:

[Az]

98. When you stop and consider some of the horrors done because of these crackers

Much of the Jewish persecution and death at the hands of Christians of the past was due to claims they had contaminated the holy wafers. People were killed or expelled in the past because of this. Host desecration was considered a severe crime at one time. Worthy of death. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_desecration

Isn't it a bit frightening that here in the 21st century someone can be getting death threats for stealing a cracker. And even worse someone else is receiving death threats for commenting on the cracker incident?

[Feron]

108. I agree with this comment:

Wafergate is nonsense. The issue is a student receiving death threats for taking the cracker. Even if you find it offensive, the response is “you know, that is really offensive to our beliefs. Please, don’t do it again.” Anyone who says “you punk I hope you receive hell on this earth and will pray you feel pain” deserves a “I’ll do worse to the cracker you irrational fool.”

http://minnesotaindependent.com/view/mnindy-interview

There's also an interview with Professor Myers and the link above regarding Wafergate.

It really is just a cracker after all...a few magic words does not make it anything else. I can say hocus pocus over a cheeto, but it will never be anything more than a cheeto.

When I was a Catholic, I treated communion symbolically anyway. And certainly these fanatics have no faith in their god to leave the host if someone plans to do something unholy to it. If god needs human protection, then it is an impotent god indeed.

Why not focus on the message of Jesus instead of worrying about idols?! When I was a fundie, my areligious brother asked me if I would disown him if he burned a bible. I thought that was a stupid question because no contest, my brother is more important than a book.

Here we have people who think that assault, trying to ruin a person's academic career, death threats, and more are perfectly okay when someone disrespects their special piece of bread. It goes to prove that Christianity is no more evolved than Islam. The only difference is power.

And what's even funnier are the comments in PZ's blog advocating trashing Islamic religious things, but at the same time these presumed Catholics think that their insane behavior is off limits to critcism.

On PZ's blog they're calling it 'fatwa envy'.

Even better is that windbag Donohue saying that dissing a cracker is worse than rape, assisting the spread of disease through disinformation, murder, and giving pedophiles safe harbor. Hell don't the Magdelene laundries rate just a little more important and vile than taking a cracker out of church?!

[HamdenRice]

140. That guy has a bright future career in Guantanamo pissing on Korans nt

[TZ]

143. Yeah a sarcastic blogger is much MORE dangerous

than people who are giving DEATH THREATS in order to protect their precious "cracker".
Yeah. PZ Meyers is gonna destroy religion single handedly!

You are just like the fundies...playing to sterotype.

[struggle4progress]

141. Death threat florist fired over email: Say it with flowers

By Nick Farrell: Thursday, 17 July 2008, 7:24 AM

... The email gave Myers until the first of the month to resign from his position at the University, "for the good of the children… or you can get your brains beat in".

The next day, Kroll sent Myers an email which said that, while the threat was sent from her computer, she didn't write it. She said she was sorry and will look into it.

However after an internal investigation, 1-800-Flowers.com decided to fire her on the grounds that she 'misused company systems or equipment for personal purposes' ...
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/17/flower-seller-fired-email

[struggle4progress]

149. UCF student senator impeached, but not for taking Mass wafer

Luis Zaragoza | Sentinel Staff Writer
July 19, 2008

... the Student Senate decided late Thursday night to impeach .. the student senator .... The impeachment .... centers on allegations that he abused his position as a student government official during a confrontation with Catholic Campus Ministry officials at the Mass they sponsored June 29 in the Student Union ... Senate leaders cut short attempts to bring up the wafer, saying their vote was about whether the ethics-rules allegations deserved to be investigated ...

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/community/news/ucf/orl-wafer1908jul19,0,4279608.story

[Goblinmonger]

150. Yeah, it's not about the cracker.

*wink wink* And when someone comes out as gay and it fired, it's never about the gay, either.