Support freedom of expression
Wow. Just… wow.
I don’t know where to begin.
A few days ago, a student at the University of Central Florida attended mass at his Church. During communion, when the wafer was placed into his mouth, instead of eating it, he took it and walked out. Catholics went nuts; even after he gave it back, the Catholic League (more on them in a moment,) said
We don’t know 100% what Mr. Cooks motivation was. However, if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it.
We just expect the University to take this seriously. To send a message to not just Mr. Cook but the whole community that this kind of really complete sacrilege will not be tolerated.
Overreacting much? Actually, that kind of sacrilege will be tolerated, especially in America, where freedom of religion (and from religious persecution) is guaranteed by the constitution. Of course, the fanatics don’t quite see it that way, and the poor kid has been getting death threats. Because that’s what turning the other cheek means in America.
Oh, and just so we’re clear: stealing a cracker is a hate crime, but sending death threats? Oh, that’s perfectly acceptable, rational behaviour. If you don’t like the person. And if he’s stolen your magic lunch.
Enter PZ Myers, who, as usual, wrote about it the way it is, in a piece entitled It’s a Frackin’ Cracker. As usual, he pulled no punches in describing the mob as what they are: well… a mob. He also offered to desecrate a communion wafer, if anyone would send him one. Cue a rapid switch of target on the part of the Catholic League; they’re now engaged in a full-on offensive on PZ. Not for anything he’s done, but for something he said he’d do. To a cracker. Apparently conspiracy to wound a biscuit is a cardinal sin if you’re an insane Catholic — and Bill Donohue, the leader of the Catholic League, certainly counts.
So — to get to the point — the Catholic League are trying to stir up a good ol’ fashioned witch hunt, and are inundating PZ with hate mail and death threats, and his employer with demands that he be fired. This is, to be frank, unacceptable. All PZ has done is exercise his right to freedom of expression, and he’s being targeted by a hate campaign. So what to do? Start up a support campaign, that’s what.
PZ is asking that people write a short note of support to President Robert Bruininks of his University — the University of Minnesota, Morris — and I second his request. PZ is one of the more outspoken voices of reason on the internet, and it would be a shame if he were made to suffer unduly for something as simple as expressing his opinion. If you’re a rational person, even if you’re religious, and don’t agree with PZ, please consider writing a note in support of his right to express himself without fear of being victimised.
I already have. Here’s what I wrote:
Dear Sir,
I’d like to take this chance to add a note to the probably hundreds you’ve already received in support of PZ. He’s a great writer, a great educator, and a credit to your institution.
It’s true that he’s outspoken, and that he pulls no punches in expressing his opinions. That is not a crime, and if Bill Donohue and his supporters restrained themselves to responding in kind then there would be no problem. The fact that they have not, that they have resorted to a campaign of mass harassment, of death threats, and trying to cost PZ his job — in short, a campaign of terrorism — merely underlines why it is so important that we have people like PZ who are unafraid to call these people out on their hypocrisy, and to criticise their unacceptable behaviour in public.
I hope that the incoherent screaming of the mob will not prejudice you against PZ in any way, and that he will be allowed to continue to bring credit to your institution amongst free-thinkers and rationalists across the globe.
Sincerely,
Will Goring,
Reading,
United Kingdom.
I agree this kind of behaviour is not acceptable in modern society.
The history of host desecration is even more sordid and bloody with it being used as an excuse to burn people, and in some case as an excuse to burn all the people of the same religion in a area (seemingly this tactic was mostly used against Jewish people).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_desecration
By the looks of it Catholics have not gotten much better over the years.
Imagine if Copernicus wasn’t silenced. This is another example of where religeon is getting out of hand.
There seems to be the odd assumption (especially among the religious) that any and all religious stuff must be respected and given an extra degree of freedom.
It’s in all the tv reports you get in the states were the father whoever gets introduced as a man of god and the reporter says something along the lines of “As a man of faith we hold you in the greatest respect” and then they ignore the token atheist or other faith, why should people from one particular subset of religion get automatic credit for doing bugger all, so they became a priest big deal I can do that on the internet if I pay 30 quid and complete a questionnaire. They are no more worthy of respect than anyone else. It irks me that religion has some sort of special consideration in these things.
Like this case where they have a cracker that they pretend is the body of Jebus, it is still just a fracking cracker and to quote farscape crackers don’t matter! They tired the same trick with drink driving laws in Ireland where a load of priests were drinking “the blood of christ” and getting wasted then driving home after mass over the limit, they wanted special dispensation because it wasn’t really wine it was actually the blood of a dead god it just happened to have the same properties as alcohol in the blood stream.
I couldn’t get away with that shit if I was saying “yes officer that beer was actually the blood of Cthulhu and I have to drink 8 pints for religious reasons but it’s not really alcohol it’s mystical gunge from the dark ones tentacles” I’d be locked up and probably sectioned.
if anyone wants me I’ll be in the angry dome
Oh, tell me about it. Not much in the world annoys me more than the idea that somehow disabling your facility for critical thinking is a virtue and makes you worthy of respect. I’ve ranted about it at length on here before.
Actualy, The Black Sun Journal has an interesting take on this, in relation to something that happened recently in Indonesia.
I have to say that even though the two events are clearly the same kind of thing, there is still a slight difference in scale.
I guess you can look at that two ways
1) The Catholic League [of evil] are only trying to get someone fired this guy killed 42 women
2) This is where the thinking that dominates people like the Catholic League [of doom] can lead to.
Haha, it gets worse!
Now they’re accusing PZ of being the rabble-rouser and are asking in for increased security at a convention 150 miles away, in case PZ’s mob decides to go lynch them some Cath’lics.
Madness.
Being raised Roman Catholic, and having a mother who is still a member of that church has perhaps coloured my view of this whole affair,but even after some consideration I find PZ Meyers’ incitement of people to smuggle consecrated wafers out of churches, so that he can photograph himself desecrating them “joyfully and with laughter in his heart” to be in very poor taste, and harmful both to his reputation as a rationalist, and to the secular “cause”.
Admittedly his comments were in response to the gross overreaction by the local congregation, not to mention all the religious nutjobs worldwide who leapt on the story, but planning to consciously offend people through a wordless act of contempt is not for me a worthy counterargument.
I’ve asked myself whether my reaction is an example of the ingrained, automatic respect which we are culturally conditioned to show towards religious sensibilities, but I don’t think so. Religion aside, it’s still incredibly boorish behaviour to encourage people to crash someone else’s party and steal something they value, so that you can ridicule them by destroying it.
At the heart of the matter is the intellectually dishonest assertion that it’s just a “frackin’ cracker”. This reductionist argument may be true in a material sense, but it ignores the equally true fact that the communion wafer is an icon of huge significance to all Catholics, even the nice sensible ones like my mum. A photograph of your wife is just a piece of glossy paper, but you’d still be offended if I spat on it. A flag is simply a piece of coloured cloth, but flag-burning remains a hugely provocative act. Humans constantly, even habitually, attach meaning to objects that transcend their physical worth. To deride this as “silly” is to deny something that unites us all.
You don’t have to believe that the Host is the transubstantiated body of Christ. You just have to accept that it holds real meaning to people. Desecrating or destroying it goes beyond a criticism of beliefs and becomes a personal attack, of the sort which enlightened critics of religion should consider beneath them. Even the acerbic Christopher Hitchens takes his shoes off when he enters a mosque, and once offered to wear a yarmulke when debating in a synagogue. I think it is this standard of basic courtesy which PZ Meyers has fallen short of, and justifying his behaviour by comparing to the reactionary mob who blew the original incident out of all proportion is a paltry defense.
Does Meyers deserve to lose his job though? Of course not. If the catholic response had limited itself to publicly censuring him and expressing their contempt for his blatantly provocative remarks they may even have gained the upper hand in the argument, but of course people are taking it further and trying to ruin him. Which means that in the end my sympathies lie with him. In this instance I didn’t like what he had to say, yet I’m aware I ought to defend to the death his right to say it.
NTM, I’d be interested to know how you feel when comparing this situation to similar ones that don’t sit quite so close to home for you.
Do you, for example, feel that Jyllands-Posten should have restrained itself from publishing cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad? Muslims take their religion just as seriously as Catholics, and depictions of Muhammad are highly offensive to them; especially satirical ones. Should the paper have apologised, backed down and begged for forgiveness?
What about the other publications across Europe that showed their support for freedom of expression by publishing the same cartoons in response to the outrage? Should they instead have capitulated, and promised never to do anything that might offend Muslim religious sensibilities again?
Personally, I say no; they did exactly the right thing; they stood up and effectively said “no, your stupid rules don’t apply to us, we’re secular publications in the free-world, and we can ridicule whomever we like. If you don’t like it then, by all means, be offended, boycott our publications if you like, but you won’t stop us with threats and violent rhetoric.”
As I see it, this is exactly what PZ is doing. He didn’t start this; some poor kid accidentally attracted the ire of the Catholic church and was harassed and threatened for it, even after he’d returned the wafer. PZ is doing nothing more than metaphorically standing up next to the victim, looking his assailants in the eye and saying “No, your stupid rules don’t apply to us. This man did nothing illegal according to the law of the land, and he is not a lone, easy target. There are more of us — many more — and if you attack him, you attack us all. By all means, be offended, excommunicate us from your little club if it makes you feel any better, but we will not be cowed by threats or violent rhetoric.”
Maybe it’s a bit aggressive to go out of his way to commit sacrilege, but it’s the best way of demonstrating solidarity with the kid, and — more than that — it’s absolutely the best way to show that he does not acknowledge the Catholic Church’s self-granted right to apply it’s rules to everyone in the world, regardless of what those people might, personally, believe.
You hit the nail on the head when you said the heart of the matter is the assertion that it’s just a cracker, but I think you’re looking at it the wrong way round. Certainly, it’s true that to some people it’s an icon of huge significance, but I think it’s imperative for those people to realise that to the rest of us, it isn’t. Why should it be our responsibility to respect their beliefs and pussyfoot around their world-view, when they offer no such concessions? They’re the one’s making incredible claims about the properties of a wafer. To put it succinctly, if I hold some weird belief about the way people should behave, then it is not suddenly everyone else’s responsibility to respect that belief; it’s mine to acknowledge that they won’t, and to try not to get too worked up when they don’t act the way I’d like.
I think the key here is that respect has to be earned. This kid smuggled the wafer out and they totally over reacted they tried to physically hurt him, threatened him with all sorts of torture, and then tried (and may succeed) to ruin his future by having him kicked out of university. That is a gross over reaction, if they’d given him a slap on the wrist we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation.
PZ is making a stand and saying this is stupid it’s just a cracker, and it only has any meaning to a subgroup of society. This is a religious symbol of relevance to one particular cult none of the rest of society has to see it as anything less than a cracker. Sure if we are being respectful we probably leave the magic crackers alone but there is nothing in this incident that makes this sacred cow worthy of that respect. This is not quite like the example of spitting on a picture of a wife it’s not a personal attack it is a statement against the belief of a single group which non-members of the group cannot be compelled to believe.
While I can see where you are coming from about the symbolic nature of the cracker they have gone too far. This is not the first time these people overstep the bounds and try and curtail the freedom of others and it won’t be the last.
Denialism has a nice, balanced (i.e. A bit less ranty than me,) take on this too.
I was just watching the bloging heads video with PZ and ERV and it’s quite clear in that why they fear PZ
he is quaffing human blood!
or it could be wine or possibly ribena
still better not to take that chance
http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/12740
But… they’re Catholics… they drink human blood all the time. And eat human flesh. Remember that this whole furore was started by someone not eating human flesh, so I can’t see why they’d be scared of PZ for it. ;D
One of the death threats has led to a woman being fired though it seems she didn’t send the death threat her husband did using her work account. Seems a shame that she should be punished for something her husband did.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/the_cost_of_delusional_derange.php
Have you read the guy’s confession? It’s a hoot; he tries to make out that, even though he used his wife’s email account to send a threatening email, it’s still somehow PZ’s fault that she lost her job.
Oh, and he accuses PZ of having a soft-spot for Islam. Apparently “we know this from his spirited defence of Islam in the past.” He really wrote that. :D
yeah it is quite amusing.
These peoples impressions of PZ are weird like he’s some monster spewing bile and foul language as he does unspeakable things to a statue of the virgin mary. From the videos I’ve seen of him speaking or in interviews he seems one of the most level headed calm polite people you might care to meet.
Yet they characterize him as some sort of vitriolic preacher type a sort of Ian Paisley on steroids
They do the same thing with dawkins but then he does have a bite to him
I suppose they have to demonise him to get the right level of hate and fear
http://savethecracker.blogspot.com/
chilling stuff from a man on the edge
Strangely this had been flagged as spam… I have no idea why.
oh and now someones done given PZ a cyber pistol
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/me_and_my_cyberpistol.php
it’s loaded cocked and on the table
No the confraternity of Catholics are demanding PZ’s head on a plater
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/the_confraternity_of_catholic.php
I love the picture at the end