P.Z. Myers hates Christians exclusively

I dunno. Reading that post leaves me with the impression that Meyers is an equal-opportunity religion-hater.

"Myers is, of course, perfectly within his legal rights to undertake such a stunt."

Beg to differ. It's theft. The county prosecutor's office is reachable by contact information at web address below. Please encourage that Myers be prosecuted if he carries out his crime. http://www.co.stevens.mn.us/docs/departments/attorney/default.html

Sheesh, you'd think Prof. Myers were Salman Rushdie around here. Over on Myer's blog these calls for his head are being called "fatwa envy".

Jillian, How is Mr Myers's 'head being called for'? (And in the context of a world where the actual beheaders--these days, yes, yes, these days--are Muslims, perhaps you might, just on that account, want to think about use of a different figure of speech.)

What a sad man.

But it's okay to solicit someone to steal the most precious thing to tens of millions of American Christians -- what they (we) believe to be God in the flesh -- for the sake of publicly desecrating it.

A serious question - if in any sort of 'lifeboat situation' where the choice is between an innocent person's life/health/wellbeing and that of a Host, the person who made the choice chose the Host over the person and then justified his choice by saying that the Host was the precious Body of God and thus more valuable than the person, what would your reaction be?

Cosimano - the First Amendment does not protect speech constituting criminal solicitation. Asking someone to commit a crime is itself a crime.

Not that we should expect to see Myers prosecuted. It's very unlikely. But I think it's of interest to note, in this thread, that the law makes the same distinction that many of Myers' detractors have made: that criticizing someone's beliefs is perfectly licit, whereas resorting to theft or vandalism to make the same "point" is completely illicit. You can tell me I'm nuts to believe in transubstantiation, but you can't come to my church and steal the res of the sacrament to try to shake me from my delusions.

Oh, good grief, John E. What sort of lifeboat situation are we talking about, here? The Blessed Sacrament is quite small, and can be carried in a pocket (as an acquaintance of mine once did--this good Louisiana Catholic boy found the Sacrament discarded in a church parking lot, probably by someone contemplating Myers-esqe idiocy [or actual Satanism, Franklin, not mere nature worship] who then got scared and dropped It; my friend, unable to receive at the time and wanting to be sure things were done properly in regard to the outrage, called a priest and kept the Sacrament protected for several hours until the priest was free to come over).

There is no circumstance I can think of where the situation would be either/or instead of both/and; if you're speaking of a burning church building scenario one would be expected to rescue people first, especially since one probably wouldn't have the Tabernacle keys and wouldn't be able to get to the reserved Sacrament anyway. In all other circumstances I see no reason why one would have to choose between the Sacramental Presence and another person.

I mean, a lifeboat? Why couldn't the Catholic simply consume the Sacrament? He wouldn't be required to have gone to Confession, even, in so dire a circumstance (unless the boat's other occupant was a priest, of course) provided he was sorry for his sins and firmly intended to confess them as soon as the opportunity became available.

So unless you're positing a celiac-allergic Catholic in a lifeboat with one other person where the added wait of fractions of an ounce of the Host was causing the boat to sink...which is pretty darned silly, don't you think?

I agree with junk mail man. Just because the Church gives the Eucharist freely doesn't mean the communicant is licensed to treat the Host in any manner he or she chooses.

The Church is in effect the trustee of the Eucharist, and properly requires communicants to assert their belief in the Real Presence
and immediately consume the Host. PZ Myers is inciting others to fraudulently obtain (ie, steal) something of incommensurable value to the Church. Certainly this act could be punished under secular law, even without appeal to the concept of hate crimes.

Goodness Erin, did I touch a nerve?

The metaphor I used gets at the question - is the safety of a consecrated Host more or less important than the safety of a human life?

elm, okay here's an improbable scenario - only three people in the church, no cell phones, etc.

Person A breaks into the tabernacle and steals the conscrated Hosts and runs out the door to his car.

Person B runs after Person A, trips, falls, suffers a compound fracture and will bleed to death unless a torniquet is immediately applied.

Person C sees the situation and decides to run after person A to save the Hosts knowing that Person B will bleed to death before he can get back.

Did Person C act rightly or wrongly?

John E: First, your scenario is highly unrealistic.

By the time Person C stops and examines Person B long enough to deduce that a tourniquet must be applied (which I don't think is wise with a compound fracture anyway, but that is beside the point), he is so far behind Person A and the hosts that they will have been long gone in the car by the time he gets to the parking lot. So, the question is not whether Person C acted rightly or wrongly by going after Person A, but whether that person acted prudently in the few seconds he had to decide, to choose to abandon the second guy in order to go after the thief who has had quite a head start by this time.

Even if he did go after the thief, by the time he realized that the chase was over and was futile, for the average person, would be only in a matter of seconds, once the cold hard reality of seeing the car he was driving speed away hit him. People don't bleed to death that quickly. So, another reason your scenario is unlikely.

I don't think it is probable that the second person would choose to go after the thief at this point given the lack of possibility of catching up to him and the life and death situation right in front of him.

But if he did, no it wouldn't be the wrong thing to do.

And if he chose to save the bleeding person, that wouldn't be wrong either.

The guy has a few seconds to make a life/death decision. He decides the best he can. Probably most of us would save the bleeding man but some would chase down the thief. We do what we can.

Sheesh, you'd think Prof. Myers were Salman Rushdie around here. Over on Myer's blog these calls for his head are being called "fatwa envy".

See, this is what the game is all about:

1. Sophomoric A-hole calls for desecrating Eucharist.
2. Catholics and others naturally object and criticize the man.
3. Sophomoric A-hole will then try to prance around as if he were a "victim" of "fatwas" and "oppression" by the groups he deliberately provoked -- for no apparent reason other than the pleasure he derived from antagonizing them.

There is no place for a man like P.Z. Myers at any genuine university, much less a state-funded one. But, of course, any attempt to sanction or remove him would result in screams from his hate-filled acolytes about what a poor victim he is.

The entire exercise is morally and intellectually bankrupt in the extreme. Men like P.Z. Myers, if they had their way, would make civil society and social peace quite literally impossible. It's appalling that there are so-called "rationalists" who do not grasp that.

One thing that I haven't heard anybody mention yet (granted, I barely skimmed the 250-comment thread earlier) is, perhaps, a silver lining: Myers' creepy display of the opposite of reasonable discourse can only help to further undermine the institution of tenure in higher ed. Why in the world should he be able to do this stuff from a position of guaranteed lifetime employment?

You're trying to shift the discussion to a judgment of the character of Person C instead of Person A.
Posted by: Scrappy | July 14, 2008 2:29 PM

Actually I'm trying to examine the question of what Rod means when he calls the consecrated Host 'the most precious thing'.

How precious is it? More precious than a human life?

The only nerve you touched, John E., is that I happen to think "lifeboat" scenarios are extremely stupid, and I find it tiresome that they're pulled out so often to justify certain types of moral relativism.

People who are really in life and death, spur of the moment situations make quick decisions under duress which have no bearing on abstract moral reasoning (other than the extent to which one's moral formation will likely impact the sort of decision one will make). In addition, the ability to act logically in the sort of theft/pursuit circumstance you describe will vary a lot, as will the logical decision to make: if a small young woman fails to pursue the thief, for instance, that's not an "Aha! You Catholics don't really think the Sacrament is precious!" moment; it's just an "Aha! Small young women are generally less likely to pursue thieves whatever the circumstances!" moment.

So you start having to make all sorts of qualifiers: the thief is average sized, the thief may have a knife but is known not to have a gun, the thief is a runner of average speed, person B is known to be a hemophiliac, person C is a swift runner but faints at the sight of blood....and on and on, into the depths of ridiculousness. The decision made in such a circumstance is going to be so much driven by individual characteristics that its use as a moral example is meaningless--which is my whole objection about *all* "lifeboat" scenarios.

Re: Myers' depravity debunks the value of tenure.

Not at all. Tenure does nothing but require good cause for termination. Criminal or sociopathic behavior (or both, as is likely the case with Myers), is good cause.

That doesn't mean Myers will, or should, be fired. It just means that tenure isn't the guarantee you said it was before you said it was bunk.

Tenure has been good for the academy on the whole. It has been abused and timorous administrators have allowed that abuse. But there's nothing wrong with it in principle.

that's not an "Aha! You Catholics don't really think the Sacrament is precious!" moment;
Posted by: Erin Manning | July 14, 2008 2:47 PM

Erin, I never doubted whether or not Sacramentalists think the Sacrament is precious - I know they do. What I wanted to know was whether or not the Sacrament is more precious than a human life.

John E didn't you forget to add the dragon swooping in on Person B before a tourniquet could be applied? And a time machine snatches Person C before Person A catches up with him?

Ok you're not going to ask what happens to the host in a time machine are you?

The more interesting dilemma you could have posed is "Now omit Person B. Is it defensible for Person C to kill Person A in the process of retrieving the host?"
No need to thank me.
Posted by: Scrappy | July 14, 2008 2:56 PM

Ah, but I will anyway - thanks for your suggested scenario.

I'd say that killing person A is not defensible. Anyone disagree?

Erin, I am an orthodox Catholic who believes in the real presence and I agree that you sound a little testy in response to John E's questions. I think that his thought problems are reasonable. As a Catholic, I don't actually know how to answer him. As I said above, I am sure some Doctor of the Church has asked and answered a similar hypothetical. Can't someone look it up?

"Is there a Thomist in the house?"

I'm no professional Thomist, but I expect that Aquinas would urge us to look after the bleeding-to-death neighbor at the expense of the Eucharist, in a true triage situation. That doesn't make human life "more precious" or "less precious" than the Eucharist; both are infinitely precious. Performing corporal works of mercy to our neighbors is, as Christ said, a work of mercy towards Him. The choice is illusory.

No need to attack John E's hypothetical. Sure it's unrealistic, but that's why it's a hypothetical. It has value if it stirs the Catholic conscience and pricks us awake enough to consider our beliefs. No harm in that.

John E,

There was that Mike Myers character--you know, the one who would describe some silly moral dilemma and follow it up with "...dicuss." Your Host dilemma scenarios might make for a good skit with that Mike Myers character, but it's hard to see their relevance to this situation. Are you saying that it's OK for PZ Myers to issue a fatwa on the eucharist because it is better to save a human being than a consecrated Host? I suppose that one must be an atheist to be able to follow that leap of logic.

It's only a gotcha game if it gets ya.

But I agree with you Erin that often these questions are used to confuse rather than to enlighten.

I've told this story before, but I'm going to keep telling it. I had a good friend who grew up in difficult circumstances--an abusive alcoholic father, a learning disability that left him unable to read until late in his high school career. Not too surprisingly, he professed himself an atheist. One day, a Christian fellow student approached him. "I hear you don't believe in God," he said. "That's right, I don't," said my friend. A group of Christians waited for him after school and beat him to the ground. As he lay there bleeding and bereft of breath, they gave him a few parting kicks. "NOW do you believe in God?" they shouted triumphantly. Strangely, he still didn't.

All of these discussions Christians have about how meeeean atheists are seem to start from the premise that Christians are the baby seals in the story--cute, big-eyed, lovable creatures just minding their business on the ice floe when the bad, angry, selfish atheists come along and start clubbing defenseless innocents. In this version, Bill Donohue and his kind are just noble Greenpeace rescuers. Who wouldn't cheer on their efforts to save a dying, exploited breed!

If only this were true. In fact, if you talk to atheists, you often find that they are angry with Christians for a reason--one that makes sense to them, at any rate, and might to you too, if you'd heard the whole story. People often resent being bullied and marginalized by representatives of the dominant religion. People often resent being indoctrinated through fear and shame at an age when they are too young to put up a rational defense. People resent being lied to, or forced to give lip service to things that don't make sense to them. You might feel that if they leave the faith, they should walk away quietly and be forgiving. Sometimes, however, they feel the need to do things that don't make sense to you, in an effort to clear their minds of lingering compulsions that they never asked to have installed in the first place.

One of the first principles of communication is to seek to understand the other person, before leaping to conclusions and reflexive reactions.

Rod: Can someone correct my 3:59 pm comment. The second paragraph under "Now, P.Z. Myers" should be indented as well.

Frank

I also don't think he's a hater - except that he does hate religion.

An exquisitely ironical statement if ever there were one.

btw2, he's getting death threats, insults to his mother, etc., from supposed "Christians." (And his initial exreme blog post was in response to some Catholic prelate who ordered a fatwa against a guy who stole a sanctified wafer.)

Nonsense.

1. He CLAIMS he has received 39 pieces of "hate mail" including four death threats. There are 1 billion Catholics in the world and 60 million in this country, so four threatening letters is a surprisingly low number. But we don't even know that the real number is that high, unless we're just taking Myers' word for it.

2. Myers' behavior has rightly been condemned by decent people everywhere. Only a paranoid hysteric would describe such condemnations as "fatwas."

3. Bill Donoghue is a layman, just like most of the Catholic commentators on this blog. He isn't a "prelate."

junk mail man--

I know what tenure is, and I think it's outlived its usefulness at this point. But whether I'm right or wrong in that, my point is that it's under attack, and spectacular outrages like the one Myers proposes--even if he doesn't do it--help to undermine it in the eyes of the public, lawmakers, alums, etc.

For that reason, I would think that those in the academy who do value the traditional ideals of reasoned, civil, and open discourse, and believe that tenure helps protect them, would want to see some kind of clampdown on Myers. In general he is, like Ward Churchill, aiding the enemies of the academy and embarrassing its friends.

"3. Bill Donoghue is a layman, just like most of the Catholic commentators on this blog. He isn't a "prelate.""

He's not even a primate!

"Hey, now there's a question - a priest time-travels back to a time before the birth of Christ. Can he perform valid act of transubstantiation, seeing as how the Original Sacrificial Act has not yet taken place?"

No, people would be frightened of his DeLorean appearing out of nowhere.

Ok, we can agree that Myers, if he goes through with this act, is behaving childishly, possibly criminally, and isn't doing anything remotely worthy of his academic credentials.

But who cares if he has a bone to pick with christians in particular. He lives in a christian nation, has successfully fought christian wackos in the creo-ID Dover, PA debacle, and doesn't live nor have any experience of living in an Islamic society. SO is there any big surprise he has a bone to pick with christians. Focusing on his lack of Islamic baiting is a non sequitur.

I was a big admirer of Myers through the Dover shenanigans, but this is just pure infantile behavior on his part, but who cares what group he hates the most so long as he's not doing them any bodily harm. File trespassing charges or theft or whatever, but I don't care if he thinks Catholics are more stupid than Quakers.

For what it's worth, you may want to look at the original incident that provoked PZ Myers' comments.

The University of Central Florida apparently violated the university's anti-hazing rules for student groups as listed in the student handbook:

" ... forced consumption of any food, liquid, liquor, drug, or other substances ... "
http://www.osc.sdes.ucf.edu/?id=rulesofconduct

Of course, one could say that Webster Cook's actions were both disruptive and a violation of the campus rules.

Perhaps it's time for both sides to apologize and move on.

Related news coverage:
"UCF Catholic Group Faces Hazing Charges For Protecting 'Body Of Christ'"
http://www.wftv.com/irresistible/16872192/detail.html

Yes, because the Sacrifice has taken place in the future, and its eternal efficacy may be instantiated at any point in time.
Posted by: Francis Beckwith | July 14, 2008 6:26 PM

Well that's good information to have - you never know when it might come in handy. I think we have the elements of a TV action - adventure series. A humble Father Mulcahy type teams up with a wisecracking MacGyver type to fight time-traveling vampires.

Scenario #3: Omit Person B. Person C chases Person A and knows Person A is armed and dangerous. Person C knows that suicide is wrong, yet risks and realizes martyrdom in his attempt to rescue the host.
Moral or immoral?
Posted by: Scrappy | July 14, 2008 6:48 PM

Oh, oh, I think I know this one - If the end willed by Person C was the recovery of the Host, then the action was moral even though it ended in his death. However if Person C willed that his attempt to recover the Host would end i, his death at the hands of Person A, then the action was immoral. Am I right?

According the UCF student handbook, student groups are prohibited from forcing students to consume anything as a requirement to participate in a student group.

The text from the student handbook is " ... forced consumption of any food, liquid, liquor, drug, or other substances ... " -- the context for this rule is to prevent fraternity/sorority initiations where pledges are forced to eat unpleasant things during their initiation.

However, this rule technically applies to all student groups -- not just the Greek system at UCF.

Here's the Reuters news coverage of this story:

Hazing alleged in Catholic church case
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/07/14/Hazing_alleged_in_Catholic_church_case/UPI-28221216072362/

If they're both in violation of student rules, I would again suggest that they both drop their respective charges, mutually apologize, and move on.

For the wee folk who thrive on ridicule and hate, a short passage from a social thinker of the last century.

It is Christianity, above all others, which teaches the full truth, real justice, and that divine charity which drives away hatred, ill will, and enmity. Christianity has been given charge of these virtues by the Divine Redeemer, who is the way, the truth, and the life, and she must do all in her power to put them to use. Anyone, therefore, who knowingly ignores Christianity - the Catholic Church - or tries to hinder, demean, or undo her, either weakens thereby the very bases of society, or tries to replace them with props not strong enough to support the edifice of human worth, freedom, and well-being.

As Rod says, read the whole thing.

Friends, ignore "weemaryanne." She/he has proven herself/himself to be a troll on numerous occasions.

"Friends, ignore "weemaryanne." She/he has proven herself/himself to be a troll on numerous occasions."

Yep. In fact, I think weemaryquitecontrary is really the long banished ~tv come back to troll again.

Dear Sir Bad:

You're comparing the two PZs at the wrong level of abstraction. It isn't the permissibility of ridicule that is being disputed, but rather, the permissibility of outrage. According to PZ, Catholic outrage is unwarranted, but Muslim outrage is, though the latter hurt their cause because they resort to violence. Muslims are portrayed as victims, albeit irrational and misguided, who harm their cause by overreacting. Catholics are told by PZ to remain completely silent and speak only when spoken to as they sit in the back of the secular bus.

BTW, hypocrisy not merely not practicing what you preach. It's not really believing what you preach. One may act consistently with what one preaches, but not really believe it. That person is a "hyporcrite," since he is "acting." Mere weakness of will is not hypocrisy; it is weakness of will. A person may sincerely believe that something is wrong but give into temptation and is deeply sorrowful for it. That person is not a "hypocrite." That person is a human being who realizes that it is only by God's grace and power that real virtue is possible.

It seems to me that "hypocrisy" has become a useful term of derision directed at the weak-willed so that the bad-willed can feel better about themselves.

Did Dreher actually read Myers' piece, as Bad notes above? I hope not. If you didn't read Myers' piece on the cartoons, then you're just ignorant of the fact that Myers doesn't think that the religious nature of the cartoons is the reason he has a problem with them.

Myers though that they were racist, which is a different can of worms. Later on, Myers writes:

"So on the one hand I see a social problem being mocked, but on the other—and here comes the smug godless finger-wagging—I see a foolish superstition used as a prod to mock people, and a people so muddled by the phony blandishments of religion that they scream "Blasphemy!" and falsely pin the problem on a ridiculous insult to a non-existent god, rather than on the affront to their dignity as human beings and citizens. Religion in this case has accomplished two things, neither one productive: it's distracted people away from the real problems, which have nothing at all to do with the camera-shy nature of their imaginary deity, and it's also amplified the hatred."

So, Mr. Dreher, did you not do your homework and look up the source material, or are you a liar? Either way, you and Mr. Sullivan owe Myers an apology.

hoo boy, dreher, did you even read the blog post or just the bit that will get the mouthbreather hordes going? there's that louisiana state "university" education going for you. god bless the south - where stupidest is always best. now whine about "the fall" some more, propagandist.

Norman:

You're defending the indefensible. It is clear that in one case--Catholics--Myers believes that they should sit still and take it, and if they object, they are bad folks. In the other case--Muslims--Myers believes that they have a right to object, but no such harshly, for it will hurt the way their just objection is perceived. Everything else Myers says about the rationality of Islam is beside the point, since it is the right of the offended to object to being offended that is the question at hand.

As for the quote mining charge, one can turn the tables and point out the metaphysics-mining on the part of Myers and his ilk. They frequently appeal to the ignorance of their opponents, and yet ignorance as a defect in human intellectual virtue only makes sense if human beings have an intrinsic purpose to know that they violate when they intentionally impede that purpose. But Myers, Dawkins, etc., believe that such intrinsic purposes are illusory. The best they can do is show that there is apparent purpose that has survival value. But that does not provide a grounding for the principle--one ought always follow one's apparent purpose.

So, stop metaphysics mining from the worldview--rational theism--that you believe is false.

You promiscuously spend the inherited intellectual capital of a worldview you claim is bankrupt.

I think you've done a disservice to your readers by not linking to the original Pharyngula article so folks can read what Dr. Myers wrote. Your link shows a longer excerpt from his post not the entire entry (but if you keep following links you'll get to the original).

I had to read the orignal to understand that when he wrote "Muslims represent a poor and oppressed underclass" he was talking about the Muslims in Denmark, not the worldwide population. Also, missing from either of these quotes are his last two paragraphs which make it clear that he is no fan of Islam. If you read Dr. Myers other writing, it doesn't take long to discover that he has no more respect for Islam than he does for Christianity, Judaism, Zeusism, astrology, or dowsing.

Nice thread. Lots of people talking past eachother (which is normal on these com boxes) but I learned some things about logic, theology, academia, and a great deal about some of the commenters.

"You promiscuously spend the inherited intellectual capital of a worldview you claim is bankrupt."

I wish I'd have said that! Nicely put, Dr. B.

One thing I haven't seen anyone do is present any solid evidence that a consecrated eucharist is anything more than a piece of bread. Absent such evidence, Catholics' assertion that it's a piece of Jesus is nothing more than opinion.

So why are people calling for Myers to be fired for disagreeing with someone's opinion?

Well I'm convinced. Militant atheists either have some sort of OCD or they're just not very bright. See saying the word "cracker" 8 billion times does not prove anything. I've ignored this, but I'm finally going to just tell you it's not even like a cracker. Just look up "unleavened bread" at Wikipedia and you'll find it's more like a flatbread. Flatbreads include things like tortillas and pitas. The "cracker" thing is also clearly just you parrotting someone, which implies a lack of independent thinking on your part.

Anyway there is no need to "prove" anything to you. I mean do you need proof of every emotional relationship before you respect or tolerate it? If someone is very attached to a certain dime their father gave them do you need to get out a coin book to check its value? Or test it for DNA traces to prove it's the same coin the father actually gave him? Do you need to do hardness tests on diamond wedding rings to determine they're valuable to someone?

If you really need solid proof before you believe or care about anything I pity you and your emotionally stunted lives.

As a note, the title of the article is quite wrong. While he did criticize the publishing of the Danish cartoons, he has no qualms about taking action himself. As can be found at this post: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/07/desecration_its_a_fun_hobby.php

Myers is quite happy to "work" with a Koran or any other religious text or item.

Remember, your argument always carries more weight when it adheres to easily attainable fact.

Thomas R, a piece of unsolicited advice -- change for my two cents gladly accepted:

If the post is less than 50 words, and the vast majority of it is ad hominem or simply a bald criticism without context or reference, then chances are excellent you are being trolled.

If you feel better by posting a response, by all means do so. But I can well imagine arensb chuckling over getting a rise out of you.

BTW, I'm a pagan, so there's little theologically on this thread where you and I agree, but I do want to express my admiration of your contributions here. :-)

Franklin Evans:
Where have I engaged in ad hominem? I'm simply asking for evidence that the Catholic belief that a consecrated eucharist is the body of Christ is, in fact, likely to be a true statement about the world.

I've asked several times, in multiple fora, for this evidence, but no one seems able to provide any. If there isn't any, then please say so, and stop acting as if others should act as though transubstantiation is real.

"I'm simply asking for evidence that the Catholic belief that a consecrated eucharist is the body of Christ is, in fact, likely to be a true statement about the world." arsenb

TR: And I'm telling you, again, it doesn't matter. Although there are cases where the Eucharist turned to body or blood, in an obvious way, you can just dismiss those as hagiography.

However as I said it's not important. What's important is respecting other peoples feelings and humanity. If you really feel we are delusional than I'll ask again "would you treat a delusional person like this?" And I really don't think you would.

Besides which there are many things without evidence that I think you'd respect more. There's no evidence for string theory so I can go to Brian Greene's lab and erase anything I find? The Higgs boson is still not found. Can I go take pieces away from particle accelerators?

Franklin Evans:

The beliefs about the Eucharist are matters of spiritual faith, doctrine and dogma. Asking for "evidence", something I take to mean scientific, is ridiculous.

What I'm saying is that when Catholics claim that a consecrated host is literally the body of Christ (or when Hindus say that a cow might be their reincarnated great-grandmother, or when Scientologists say that Xenu threw a bunch of aliens into volcanoes, or when astrologers say that Virgos are artistic, or...), they're making factual statements about the universe, statements that are closer to "grass is green" than to "Casablanca is the best movie ever".

If, in fact, a consecrated eucharist were not the body of Christ, how would we be able to tell? And if the answer is "we can't" (and Thomas R. has even said that "it doesn't matter"), then how is it different from opinion?

arensb:

I see now what is annoying me about your posts. You do not seem to get the logical argument being made, as opposed to the topic rebuttals being offered.

Allow me to reiterate, and choose to be blunt with it not out of that annoyance, but to avoid ambiguity.

Matters of religious belief and faith are not rational. They are based on some combination of upbringing, experience, study of holy text and what pagans like to call unsubstantiated personal gnosis (UPG) to cover those things that straddle or blend experience and study.

You may have noticed that I did not include the descriptive "subjective" in there. I believe at this point that this is where you are getting stuck, at least judging from the way you are phrasing your questions and challenges.

Faith is subjective, but it is also shared. Ask any converted Christian, but especially someone who has gone through the "born again" experience, and you will find some ubiquitous terms used by that person with others present nodding in understanding. What you will not find is "evidence".

I suggest, change for my two cents accepted, that you focus on the semantic and applied differences between assertions of faith and assertions of fact. The former is not capable of rational rebuttal. One either believes or doesn't. The latter contains opinion as a subset, is both less intense and more rational than the former, and in the end -- because it is based in rationality -- will fail every time in the attempt to rebut faith.

For those who insist that my use of "not rational" makes me a religion basher who sees believers as "irrational", I'll just gently remind you that I am devoutly spiritual, and I know what I see when I look in the mirror. You might try that. ;-)

Franklin Evans:

Faith is subjective, but it is also shared. Ask any converted Christian, but especially someone who has gone through the "born again" experience, and you will find some ubiquitous terms used by that person with others present nodding in understanding. What you will not find is "evidence".

On the contrary. Why else would Thomas R. have brought up eucharistic miracles? Those are exactly the sort of thing that, if they held up under scrutiny, would convince me that Catholics are on to something.

Watch Kent Hovind's creationism videos some time, and see him display a parade of photos of "fossilized" modern objects, graphs showing a correlation between crime and the teaching of evolution, and so forth. Or poke around answersingenesis.org for a bit.

Look around Focus on the Family or the American Family Association's web site, and you'll find studies attempting to buttress their religious opinion that homosexuality is evil. Chuck Colson has been touting a study purporting to show that his prison ministry program does society good. Watch any number of faith healers on Sunday morning TV, allegedly demonstrating the healing power of the holy spirit?

I recently received a Jehovah's Witnesses book on the subject of creationism. In the chapter "Is the Bible reliable?", it cited various archeological findings showing that such-and-such king, or city, or battle, providing external confirmation of Biblical claims.

What are these, if not attempts to provide objective evidence for religious claims?

The problem lies not in people trying to provide evidence for their religious beliefs. That part is good. The problem is that time and time again, the evidence presented doesn't stand up to scrutiny; and yet, religious people try to affect others' lives on the basis of their unsupported beliefs. E.g., opposing the teaching of evolution in schools, denying gays the right to marry or serve openly in the military, opposition to stem cell research, and so on, and so forth.

It sounds like you're one of those people who openly admit that you have no empirical evidence for your religious beliefs, but don't expect anyone to share your beliefs; nor do you ask for anything more than to be left alone to practice your religion as you see fit, as long as it doesn't get in anyone's way. If that's the case, then you and I should be able to get along splendidly. And if more people were that way, we'd be living in a very different world. Unfortunately, they don't.

arensb, all that you are doing here is engaging in the same futile search for rational rebuttal that you cite in your last post. I have answered the basic question -- that rational argument is not valid in matters of religious faith -- and you insist on saying that it is just before crowing over the fact that people try and consistently fail to do it.

If you refuse to see the logic circle you are stuck upon, then I will stop trying to show it to you. Have fun asking the same question over and over again while expecting a different answer.

p.z. myers hates Christians excusively, because he is a jew. Period.

Aha....

Found the ENTIRE quote... it is so much different when you get the whole thing in context. That is some really dishonest editing there.

I'll let it speak for itself.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/02/poxridden_houses.php

Houghton writes: "Those who think of themselves as "brights" will now start behaving in increasingly nakedly aggressive ways in America and the rest of the West. There won't be a need to "spiritualize" at that point, because the snarling rage and violent attacks we'll witness will be quite open for all to see."

But it's not Myers who has promoted violence or criminal activity, it's the Catholics who have been sending him death threats and threats of violence against his children, yet where is your condemnation of that?

A "Fr. J", posting at Pharyngula, made a similar remark to the above, and tried to claim that the recent attempted attack on a Christian radio station on College Station, PA was by an atheist--when in fact the man was a mentally ill Christian off his meds. Similarly, the attack on the Unitarian Universalist church in Tennessee was a Christian who thought the UU's were "too liberal" and because they aren't anti-gay. And the FBI's primary suspect for the 2001 anthrax attacks who just killed himself was a Catholic.

Francis Beckwith: "According to PZ, Catholic outrage is unwarranted, but Muslim outrage is, though the latter hurt their cause because they resort to violence. Muslims are portrayed as victims, albeit irrational and misguided, who harm their cause by overreacting. Catholics are told by PZ to remain completely silent and speak only when spoken to as they sit in the back of the secular bus."

Where has P.Z. Myers criticized Catholics for being outraged, as opposed to criticizing them for issuing death threats, threatening the lives of his children, trying to get him fired from his job, trying to get Webster Cook and his friend expelled from the University of Central Florida, and for saying things that are idiotic, like the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy's laughably absurd statement about the meaning of the First Amendment. You should give that statement a read.

Indeed, FULL CONTEXT", Scotth.

Let's see here:

Pox-ridden houses
Category: Godlessness • Politics
Posted on: February 4, 2006 2:25 PM, by PZ Myers

I haven't commented on those Muslim cartoons so far. I'm conflicted.

Why, you might ask? It's a clear-cut case of religious insanity, exactly the sort of thing I ought to relish wagging an arrogantly atheistical finger at. And of course I will, in just a moment…but the difficult part is that there are actually at least two issues here, and religion is only one of them.

There are some things a cartoonist would be rightly excoriated for publishing: imagine that one had drawn an African-American figure as thick-lipped, low-browed, smirking clown with a watermelon in one hand and a fried chicken drumstick in the other. Feeding bigotry and flaunting racist stereotypes would be something that would drive me to protest any newspaper that endorsed it—of course, my protests would involve writing letters and canceling subscriptions, not rioting and burning down buildings. There is a genuine social concern here, I think. Muslims represent a poor and oppressed underclass, and those cartoons represent a ruling establishment intentionally taunting them and basically flipping them off. They have cause to be furious!

I've seen the cartoons, and they are crude and uninteresting—they are more about perpetuating stereotypes of Muslims as bomb-throwing terrorists than seriously illuminating a problem. They lack artistic or social or even comedic merit, and are only presented as an insult to inflame a poor minority. I don't have any sympathy for a newspaper carrying out an exercise in pointless provocation.

So on the one hand I see a social problem being mocked, but on the other—and here comes the smug godless finger-wagging—I see a foolish superstition used as a prod to mock people, and a people so muddled by the phony blandishments of religion that they scream "Blasphemy!" and falsely pin the problem on a ridiculous insult to a non-existent god, rather than on the affront to their dignity as human beings and citizens. Religion in this case has accomplished two things, neither one productive: it's distracted people away from the real problems, which have nothing at all to do with the camera-shy nature of their imaginary deity, and it's also amplified the hatred.

It also doesn't help that their riots are confirming the caricatures rather than opposing them. Once again, religiosity turns people into mindless frenzied zombies, and once again it interferes with progress.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Somehow, people are assuming from this that I'm "sympathetic to Islam". How, I don't know; I thought I'd always been quite clear in my contempt for all religion, and I thought the last two paragraphs above were plain enough. I am sympathetic to the problem of being a minority immigrant; that's one issue that is being ignored too much. As I said, the real problem is being exacerbated by bad religion that amplifies the hate.

I really don't think a Muslim would find me to be a friend to their religion.

Perhaps not a friend, but certainly given to PC mush and slush of the variety where this is what we call a "distinction without a difference."

So let's see here. Per PZ, he has disdain for ALL religion, and makes much mockery of Christianity when ever he gets to tap out yet more on an almost daily basis. On one occasion accusing Christian religion in the military for fostering a level of violence to the point where he'd have to do a double take on the whole Separation of Church and State issue, since obviously hateful Christians make the Pentagon's machinery of death work so well...

And YET, we are NOT to mock Islam, or make it's many adherents uncomfortable, or risk dissing them. These mostly mild representations of the Prophet are responsible for murder and mayhem and burn downs, and yet PZ takes the line that we need to toe the line here and watch out, lest we become insensitive to the needs of minority immigrants. How nice. Pay homage to Muslim psychoses all the while saying nothing about one more NEA sponsored Piss Christ art exhibit paid for by the public dime.

Thanks for saying nothing, Scotth.

I'll take Lippard on his word, and in turn PZ Myers', that some Catholics have threatened him. But Myers' actions in taunting are actually worse than what he critiques as bad journalism in regards to the Danish cartoons. Certainly they are no better than those editors. I call hypocrisy. While PZ's not advocating any violence that I can tell, I must first point out his hatred of Christianity is palpable and noteworthy, whereas his PC sidestep of saying we dare not goad some other religion smacks of grotesque hypocrisy.

Is this charge of hypocrisy avoided if one is an immigrant supposedly langusing in a new society and not getting along to well with the local folks? Does the occasional suspicion of the religion of Mohammed sometimes earn its billing in the disdain department?

Just maybe?

Muslims represent a poor and oppressed underclass, and those cartoons represent a ruling establishment intentionally taunting them and basically flipping them off. They have cause to be furious!

What an asinine statement....Dr. Myers...