When Does Sensitivity Override Outrage?
People either love PZ Myers or they think he is a jerk. Some wish that he would just go away, so they wouldn’t have to deal with the sensitive subjects he brings up in an insensitive matter.
I count myself among his friends, but this is not an automatic even for an atheist. Many atheists consider that he antagonizes the religious just to be a jerk, and refer to his followers as “Screechy Monkeys.” The perception is that we hate the religious and will use any excuse we possibly can to ridicule their beliefs. The truth is a bit more subtle.
I first ran into PZ Myers as a frequent contributor to the newsgroup talk.origns. Without giving a full history of talk.origins, the group was started in the effort to draw creationists out of serious biology and cosmology newsgroups to a place where the discussion would be a bit more “raucous” than the charter for the serious science groups allowed. It was moderated to elevate it slightly above the spamming that infested alt.talk.creationism.
Several scientists contributed frequently to the threads at talk.origins and PZ was among those whose topics lended clarity to complex explanations of evolution through all of its theories, and especially in the area of his specialty – evo/devo. Only rarely did he join the fray to engage in one-on-one threads with creationists and rarely did he attack them individually through a flamewar. Now that I think about it, I have trouble remembering any flamewars involving PZ.
I picked him up again at the original Pharyngula.org and at the Panda’s Thumb, while he was still only a mildly famous atheist. With his blog, he was a bit more free wtih his attacks on creationism, and more actively promoited his liberal politics and disdain for Intelligent design on scientific grounds was often very important. He also wrote more often of his views of religion and atheism. I never imagined that he would incite a firestorm such as the one that emerged when he referred to a communion host as a “frackin’ cracker.”
The post arose as a response to the threats that were aimed at a college student at the University of Central Florida, Webster Cook. PZ was incredulous that Catholics had treated a student so horribly; threatened bodily harm and called for the University to suspend or expel the student. The Catholic League accused Cook of kidnapping their Savior. I fail to understand how this could be, since Jesus and God are everywhere.
Here’s an excerpt from the “Frackin’ cracker” post:
Got that? If you don’t like what Webster Cook did, all you have to do is complain to the university, and they will do the dirty work for you of making his college experience miserable. And don’t assume the university would support Cook; the college is now having armed university police officers standing guard during mass.
I find this all utterly unbelievable. It’s like Dark Age superstition and malice, all thriving with the endorsement of secular institutions here in 21st century America. It is a culture of deluded lunatics calling the shots and making human beings dance to their mythical bunkum.
This is what we are used to with PZ; I agree with him btw. It’s ridiculous for a religion of “peace,” the religion in which I grew up and eventually discarded, to resort to armed guards to protect their religious concept of the transubsantiated host. It is reminiscent of the accusations against Jews that they would desecrate hosts and make them scream and bleed. These accusations were used as justifications for torture and murder. It is an example of the excess of religion and the intent to resort to the civil authority to enforce respect for a religious tenet.
That was not the segment that caused the stir, however. This was:
So, what to do. I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but 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. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart. If you can smuggle some out from under the armed guards and grim nuns hovering over your local communion ceremony, just write to me and I’ll send you my home address.
Just wait. Now there’ll be a team of Jesuits assigned to rifle through my mail every day.
I admit that even I was uncomfortable reading this. I often wonder if my own Catholic background lingers and causes guilt and anxiety when I read this. What came next hardly should surpise anyone. If I had written somethihg similar at Tangled Up in Blue Guy, few would have noticed. PZ, however, brings more hits to ScienceBlogs in one hour than I have brought to my own blog since it opened last year.
And The Catholic League took notice. And the Virginia Republican delegation took notice of the fact that PZ lives in Minnesota. They suggested that the local constabulary provide armed security for Masses during the RNC in September to protect their hosts from an attack by PZ and his hordes of catholic-hating pharynguloids. The Catholic League encouraged a write-in campaign to have PZ reprimanded or even fired. Its a big kerfuffle that is only now dying down.
So, How Much Harm Did it Cause?
I sympathize to a certain extent with people who were upset by what PZ suggested; as I said, my Catholic roots run pretty deep and the concept of desecrating a religious symbol that some hold more dear than they value people makes me a bit queasy, emotionally.
The rational part of my brain agrees that in reality, it is just a cracker. I certainly don’t accept the whole transubstantiation idea. To me it is unleavened bread and not the flesh of Jesus transformed. I have no attachment to the Host, as I have no attachment to any vestments, any chalices, crucifixes, etc. Yet, I understand that Catholics do.
Defacing a church, a synagogue or a mosque with a burning cross or a swastika is a crime because it implies a threat of religious violence on a cultural symbolic home to people of a specific religious or cultural heritage. Does a host deserve the same protected status because of the beliefs of a single religion? Just because it has no value for me, does that mean that it should hold no value for anyone?
Without inviting a huge discussion over whether PZ is a jerk, a bastard or a right-on dude, I am curious about whether or not all people should be held to respect the symbols and beliefs of one religion even when the religious concept seems to hold more value for some than do living people. Is dismissal of the host as a “cracker” a hate crime? (Is the freedom to burn a flag more important than the symbol of that freedom?)
PZ has not yet desecrated any hosts; it’s quite possible that what he has in mind wil be more humorous than anything else; meant to tweak sensitivities. I doubt that he will drop the host in urine. Whatever he has come up with, I hardly think it will merit death threats after all.
Group, what’s the consensus? Is the attack on a person more heinous than wafer-baiting?
“I am curious about whether or not all people should be held to respect the symbols and beliefs of one religion even when the religious concept seems to hold more value for some than do living people.”
Of course not. Should Jehovah’s Witness parents be able to refuse blood transfusions for their dying children? No.
Let’s say a religion comes along which demands that no crackers be consumed in lieu of God, by anyone anywhere. Shall we respect that? You can’t simultaneously respect that and the Catholics, can’t be done.
Demanding respects for beliefs is idiotic.
Hell, the ENTIRE CONCEPT OF FAITH is blatantly, in-your-face idiotic, and what’s more, it is inherently and inescapably dishonest. It is dishonest because it involves lying to yourself about how certain you should be. Read that last sentence again, and think about it. Faith is the artificial, willful suppression of doubt in excess of the evidence available. It is willfully deciding to be more certain about something than is warranted by the evidence. Faith is consequently utterly, completely and inescapably dishonest.
Respect? No. Ridicule, that is what is called for. Ridicule is called for in order to make the ridiculousness of the beliefs obvious even to children, so that they may be spared the brainwashing.
The price of ridiculousness is ridicule. If you don’t want your beliefs ridiculed, don’t hold inherently ridiculous, inherently dishonest beliefs.
The notion of the eucharist is so completely idiotic, all humans should be ashamed to admit ever having believed it, and any still believing it… well, what shall we do to help out the hopelessly brainwashed? Laugh, that’s what.
Pretty balanced post; however, this is not about his definition of what does or does not constitute a “cracker.”
Mr. Myers’ opinion of the host is inconsequential – it is the fact that others hold it as supremely sacred and that Myers, and his followers, are going out of their way to attack this what is essentially a private icon of the faith.
Myers, the second rate academic and attention whore that he is, is free to publish all of the insults to Catholics and their icons that he would like – cartoons, missives, academic papers etc.
What he has proposed, however, is unethical and an assault on the right to practice religion without fear of intimidation or violence threated upon the group.
Desecration of icons unethically take from a place of worship is a form of violence.
If the right to freedom of worship is not guaranteed, then we will live in an illiberal and conflict prone society.
Heh. The answer’s in the question, isn’t it?
There is more harm done to the world in everyday slaughterhouses than could ever be done to a cracker. It’s just a fracking cracker. End of story.
As for one of the methods of messing around with a consecrated host, one of the better ideas runs as follows:
1. Aquire consecrated host.
2. Aquire nine unconsecrated hosts.
3. Place a random number between one and ten onto a tag, and attach that tag to the consecrated host in some way as to not damage that host. Record this number.
4. Place the other numbers from one to ten on other tags, and attach those tags to the unconsecrated hosts.
5. Present the group of hosts to a priest, and determine if that priest can identify the consecrated host amongst the unconsecrated ones.
In this scenario, you’re not trying to desecrate the cracker. The cracker is unharmed. You’re desecrating the idea of transubstantiation – which is, in fact, the point.
As an added bonus, no crackers need be harmed in this act of sacriledge. 😛
Actually, it would be a good Randi challenge. Can you identify the consecrated host?
PZ is also tweaking the idea that religions are full of tolerance, light and airy with goodness. He’s busy proving that there’s no essential difference between suicide bombers in Gaza and Christians here in the US.
Bah, if anyone needed more proof that religion is child abuse, the ‘cracker reaction’ is it. Insanity like this starts with inculcation from birth.
Nick Milne provides a pretty good recap of what actually did … and did not … happen in the original event at http://nickmilne.wordpress.com/2008/07/14/prof-meyers-webster-cook-and-the-eucharist/
Its unclear if Webster Cook, the student who “stole” the consecrated host, actually received any death threats. It seems likely his intent was to generate controversy to bolster his demand that the school or student body no longer fund the campus Catholic organization. He evidently has not provided details of any “death threats” as PZ Meyers has done (Meyers posts any emails containing threats on his blog). Cook is now making a claim against the Catholic group based on food laws, that serving communion wine to underaged communicants is illegal. (It is not).
In any case, my concern with what Meyers is doing is that it alienates a large group of people who otherwise don’t have a “dog in the fight” when considering the issue of science and religion in the classroom. These people are every day Americans, who vote for their school board, and vote for initiatives to include “teaching the controversy” in their local elections. According to nationwide polling about 85% of them are nominally Christian, and they are swayed by reports of the anti-God atheists who want to “suppress any mention of God”. It polarizes a debate that should not be decided along the lines of the believer/non-believer debate, but only along the lines of the science/non-science debate.
As to the question, “Is the attack on a person more heinous than wafer-baiting?”, it loads the answers in favor of your own view by referring to the consecrated host as a “wafer”. But even more fairly stated, an attack against a particular person is usually more heinous than one against a group of people, so I would answer “yes”.
I appreciate your long agonizing post, going back and forth about what PZ did, and whether he is a “jerk” or not.
But really, this is not hard. PZ said something stupid, and he’s too arrogant and emotionally rigid to backtrack and apologize. It’s not about whether he’s a “jerk”—it’s whether, in this instance, he advocated something illiberal.
He is setting a poor example for his younger atheist readers. He’s sending them a signal that the heroic atheist is someone who stands his ground even when he is obviously wrong.
He’s teaching them authoritarian forms of bluster and bombast—much in the way that Limbaugh teaches his particular brand of authoritarianism to his ditto-heads.
Atheists and agnostics need to cut PZ loose until he apologizes and reaffirms liberal values.
He make us (by which I mean agnostics/atheists) out for fools if we defend him. It shows him that he can treat us with contempt and string our movement along with him, even as he walks us over a cliff. He’s like a narcissistic Hillary Clinton, dragging down her party.
Wow to your post, Mike. And wow to your comment, Che.
I have to admit that I am more than uncomfortable with what PZ said. I was raised Catholic, and respect the mysticism even if I don’t believe in its reality. I know that the idea of transsubstantiation is more than a little crazy, and letting people believe an alternate physical reality could possibly havenegative affects on their abilities to make decisions in this reality. Nonetheless, if helping people to make wise decisions in this reality is the goal, we aren’t going to get anywhere by insulting them.
I respect even the most silly rituals of all people, simply because it’s something they care about. Funny underwear for the Mormons? Chanting in an arbitrary direction three times a day for the Muslims? I will whole-heartedly defend their right to be weird and expect them to defend my right to do such strange things as dress up in a Batgirl costume and spend hours pretending to be an elven archer.
There are many different ways to go about “preaching” science and true critical thinking in our world, and I don’t think resorting to insults (even in satire or in jest) is ever appropriate. I suppose I’m generally PC, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all, especially if you are trying to get people to understand your point of view. If PZ’s just trying to get a laugh – that’s fine, but I think he’s wasting an opportunity to educate. I’m just so glad this blog has come about – hopefully we can achieve debates on the hard subjects without insulting anyone.
It’s really a question of basic respect, which is necessary for the social compact of tolerance to hold up at all. Here’s how one Catholic sees it (via an allegory):
http://cartagodelenda.blogspot.com/2008/07/allegory.html
I’ll never cut my friend loose, and I think you are being a bit self-righteous here and in your blog, santitafarella. You can do what you want, but PZ does a great deal more for atheists than people will admit. It’s just cool to be superior and above it all, isn’t it?
Sorry to disappoint you on this response, Anastasia, but I had specifically asked the commenters not to get into whether or not PZ is a jerk, but to approach the larger question.
The larger question–a life, or a cracker?–seems a bit loaded to me. A life, or a cracker that some hold as a (consumable) holy symbol? A life, or an object that is held to literally represent an aspect of a deity?
I think the real question to examine here is that of respect: respect that theists demand for themselves, but don’t feel obliged to offer others that don’t share their beliefs. There are very good reasons for people to be reluctant to self-identify as atheists. (Take, for example, my mother-in-law, who when told by my husband that we didn’t want to be married in a church because he was agnostic, asked if we were Satanists.)
There is a huge lack of understanding between theist and atheist. (I’m going to generalize a little bit here–this is based on my own observation and experience, and I fully acknowledge that this is not always the case–but I think it’s a useful generalization at the moment.)) Theists frequently regard the atheist as a wayward or rebellious child, or one who is simply ignorant of The One True Way(tm). Either way, the theist believes it is their responsibility to bring the prodigal back into the fold, one way or another. They literally *do not understand* how an athiest can *not* hold a religious belief, instead mistaking it for a faith/belief system in and of itself. Further, they actively *reject* the atheist worldview, and feel entitled (by virtue of their belief) to impose their belief on others (for their own good, of course).
The prejudice against atheists is very real: atheists who are open about their worldview face constant negative pressure from theists. Other atheists prefer not to be open about their lack of religious belief because they would suffer adverse consequences: loss of friends, family, jobs, etc. They are told that they are bad parents, bad people, that they are incapable of love, of morality, of participating in the social construct. They are treated as if their beliefs, their opinions, do not matter — as children at best, and as enemies at worst. They are proselytized and evangelized, regardless of their desire not to be. And until recently, they have had very little option other than to hide their beliefs or sit down and take it.
Thus the question: what gives theists the right to demand that their beliefs be respected by everyone without extending the same courtesy to those who do not share those beliefs? In true Enlightenment tradition, PZ’s answer to that is: nothing. Further, he is demonstrating the same respect to and for theists that they have so often demonstrated to and for atheists. The ultimate point to this whole kerfluffle is that theists are entitled to the same respect as non-theists: no more, and no less.
And the theists don’t get it.
To the question, obviously not after all a wafer is to a host what tap water is to Dasani, it’s the same thing but some overpaid schmuck was hired to convince us otherwise. And boy, he nailed it!
Anyways, even though I do concede to the idea that we should stop pretending to be tolerant and respectful to a bunch of stuff we think is rubbish, proving the stereotype that we’re a load of arrogant, lunatic and amoral mongrels isn’t really gonna cut it. Not if we want to keep bragging about being more rational beings and whatnot.
Besides, I’m not of the kind that wants rid religion from the face of the earth, just from public life and government. I assume that’s what the average atheist hopes to achieve, so it baffles me why someone wants to sabotage people practicing their faith in their privacy. If I ever get to meet this guy, I’ll buy him an Inquisitor robe with an Invisible Pink Unicorn printed on it. I’m sure he’ll love it.
Tah muchly. It’s always nice to be noticed. 😀
I agree with the sentiment in general terms. However, transubstantiation is one of the topics that I cannot discuss and be simultaneously respectful and honest. This is because transubstantiation is ridiculous, and the only honest response to the ridiculous is ridicule.
Should I respect ridiculous ideas because they are important to many other people? Why? If a billion people believe a foolish thing, it’s still a foolish thing.
Also, it is worth noting that in my time I have recieved four of the seven Catholic sacraments – Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, and Reconcilliation. It wasn’t entirely up to me: I had to recieve these sacraments in order to graduate from my primary school, and the capacity to stand up to authority is often underdeveloped in the mind of your average ten-year-old.
However, because I have recieved the sacrament of the Eucharist, it is impossible for me to ‘steal’ a consecrated host. All I have to do is rock up to a church service, and I’m entitled to my tasteless Jesus-cracker and sip of cheap Jesus-wine. It’s in the club handbook – they can’t turn me away unless I’ve been officially excommunicated.
I wouldn’t want anyone to break off with PZ. I think that excommunication is wrong no matter who does it. Well, OK, maybe it can be right, but jerk-like behaviour certainly isn’t enough to warrant it.
However, I think there’s a kind of a Courtier’s Reply thing going on here. It doesn’t matter how many specifics and details that you bring up, none of it changes the fact that PZ is acting like a jerk.
Suppose that PZ is drawing fire away from Webster Cook, because cook took a ride on a tiger and PZ saw this his own notoriety as a way to draw the heat from Cook?
I know PZ personally, and he is a nice guy and hardly the red-eyed monster that people are making him out to be. I think that the conciliatory approach is not the only way to handle the clash between religious and non-religious worldviews. Somehow, I get the idea that many people think that there is a one-size-fits-all approach. I think that this is also a mistake and to judge PZ based on one’s own approach is as damaging as any other sort of judgment (including my own judgment of other commenters here.
I don’t think that conflict is unavoidable, especially in a subject which is so personal as religion is. It is going to get heated. Now I am going to add in the question of a religious practice that we can or should probably not be so sanguine about. Actually, it is a practice which we should all be denouncing: ritual genital mutilation of young girls. Clitorectomy. Certain religions hold this to be as important as Catholics perceive the Eucharist. Should PZ respect this?
Or is he a jerk when he denounces this? How about self-immolation? Separation of castes? Hemant Mehta recently wrote of a boy who had been beat to death for sending a love letter to a girl in a higher caste.
It’s not easy to say that there is some sort of yellow line than can and can’t be crossed in terms of showing respect to someone else’s religious beliefs. Feel free to tell me if I am committing a logical fallacy, here, or answer the question in light of the PZ brouhaha.
Here’s a thought: Even if we accept for the point of argument that PZ is a jerk – so what?
Why is that important?
Would PZ’s being a jerk somehow make Bill Donahue & co. any more reasonable?
Just because someone’s a jerk, that doesn’t automatically mean that they’re wrong.
I think this Catholic funnin’ has already been done better has it not?
I apologize, Mike, for commenting overmuch on what I think of PZ in this case. I think I hit the question with my second paragraph, though;
“I respect even the most silly rituals of all people, simply because it’s something they care about. Funny underwear for the Mormons? Chanting in an arbitrary direction three times a day for the Muslims? I will whole-heartedly defend their right to be weird and expect them to defend my right to do such strange things as dress up in a Batgirl costume and spend hours pretending to be an elven archer.”
More plainly, attacking a person (or animal, or tree) is much more heinous than disgracing a symbol. However, the symbols do deserve respect. I suppose my views of religion are very Democratic. Do as you will, unless you encroach upon the rights of others. So, silly underpants are ok while refusing blood transfusions for your children are not. Similarly for secular activities. To me, any belief or custom that prevents people from receiving an education falls under the “do no harm” clause (hence my efforts to reconcile science and religion).
I definitely don’t agree with some of the commenters here. We should show respect to people and customs, even when we think they are ridiculous (as long as they don’t hurt people). Humanity is so diverse – who am I to dismiss one custom but keep another? We all do things that other cultures might find terribly silly, such as blogging!
As I suggested a couple of weeks ago, it would seem that we have begun a new age of intolerance, this time led by liberal voices (a rather nice change, if I may say so). And, as I commented on your blog, I tend to think PZ is a jerk, but he has the right to free speech (which I think includes the right to be intolerant), as do those who responded to him. As long as we can be equally intolerant, I’m all for it. And, we may as well have some fun while we’re at it… 😉
Here’s another take on the issue of intolerance.
There are a lot of different questions and answers mixed up here, and I’m not exactly sure what Mike is asking. Here is my re-wording of the question and my not-very-brief answer.
What’s worse, a death threat or a desecration threat? The answer is obvious, but the question is a lot more interesting than it appears, because (in this crowd, so far) the combination of transubstantiation and sanctification of mass-produced wafers is considered to be ludicrous. The first commenter’s rant seems harmless in the context of a “cracker,” and we all (reasonably) conclude that some atheists are more anti-religion than others. Nothing scary there, no offense to ‘scaryreasoner.’
But let’s change the sacred cow, and see what happens. Let’s try a picture of Dr. King, or an account of his legacy, or a transcript of the “I Have a Dream” speech, and let’s do our desecration on his birthday, on the spot where he was assassinated. Or let’s try a Holocaust memorial, or a Jewish graveyard in Poland. Don’t worry: we’ll use water-based spraypaint for the swastikas so the desecration will be temporary. And of course no one will be injured. Can you think of anything else? I sure can.
So, the breezy claim that “demanding respect for beliefs is idiotic” can’t be taken seriously, at least not by a person who holds fellow human beings to be worthy of basic respect. I think that rejecting that sort of careless disregard for other people is one of the main values of this blog.
Back to the question: when you consider the kind of message that would be sent by, say, the desecration of the grave of a Holocaust survivor, as opposed to, say, a lamely ranting email “death threat,” you might conclude (as I do) that the death threat, however unconvincing, is a more serious offense. But not by a hell of a lot.
Like Anastasia, I’m quite libertarian in my outlook, and I would second her “live and let live” approach. If PZ’s behavior is notable at all, it isn’t notable for being critical or dismissive of the beliefs of others. In fact, I would be opposed to an ethos that discouraged the critical appraisal of “beliefs” or that considered any kind of “desecration” to be somehow anti-social or hate-inspired. Some of the things I believe are nothing short of outrageous in the eyes of certain other kinds of believers. No, there’s nothing notable about attacking religious belief.
What would make PZ’s statements disturbing would be if it was apparent that he wasn’t aiming to attack or criticize ideas – or at least not solely intending such – but was plainly hoping to hurt people. I think that someone who designed a challenge like the one suggested by Ubiquitous Che might be viewed as a critic, even a hostile critic, but not necessarily as someone motivated by hate or spite. I’m afraid that I found PZ’s words to look too much like hate, too much like the kind of thing that is specifically and solely intended to cause harm. That the harm is not physical in nature is only relevant when comparing it to, say, a death threat, and I’ll deal with that in another comment.
Like Mike, I like PZ, though I’ve never met him personally. (Someday I hope that will change; we’re both developmental biologists with strong interest in evo-devo.) But I’m uncomfortable with Mike’s soft-pedaling of PZ’s persona. It’s a fact that PZ’s denunciations occasionally veer into territory that is reasonably construed as hate speech, and his lusty participation in the Culture War (TM) necessarily leads him into questionable conduct. Truth, after all, is the first casualty of war, and Crackergate is incomprehensible outside the framework of Total Culture War.
There are a lot of different questions and answers mixed up here, and I’m not exactly sure what Mike is asking. Here is my re-wording of the question and my not-very-brief answer.
What’s worse, a death threat or a desecration threat? The answer is obvious, but the question is a lot more interesting than it appears, because (in this crowd, so far) the combination of transubstantiation and sanctification of mass-produced wafers is considered to be ludicrous. The first commenter’s rant seems harmless in the context of a “cracker,” and perhaps many of us are relatively unconcerned about the consequences of ridiculing transubstantiation. Nothing scary there, no offense to ’scaryreasoner.’
But let’s change the sacred cow, and see what happens. Let’s try a picture of Dr. King, or an account of his legacy, or a transcript of the “I Have a Dream” speech, and let’s do our desecration on his birthday, on the spot where he was assassinated. Or let’s try a Holocaust memorial, or a Jewish graveyard in Poland. Don’t worry: we’ll use water-based spraypaint for the swastikas so the desecration will be temporary. And of course no one will be injured. Can you think of anything else? I sure can.
So, the breezy claim that “demanding respect for beliefs is idiotic” can’t be taken seriously, at least not by a person who holds fellow human beings to be worthy of basic respect. I think that rejecting that sort of careless disregard for other people is one of the main values of this blog.
Back to the question: when you consider the kind of message that would be sent by, say, the desecration of the grave of a Holocaust survivor, as opposed to, say, a lamely ranting email “death threat,” you might conclude (as I do) that the death threat, however unconvincing, is a more serious offense. But not by a hell of a lot.
Well, I am wondering which ideas deserve respect and which ones are okay to ridicule. It’s okay to ridicule, for instance, flat-earthers because their stance so squarely (even though Bob Schadewald befriended them.) It’s okay to ridicule moan-hoax believers, JFK assassination conspiracy buffs, 9/11 conspiracy mongers, Bobby Jindal for participating in an exorcism, people who buy into psychic readings and John Edward’s talking to the dead. It’s okay to ridicule moonies. It’s okay to ridicule the Ayatollah’s writings on the proper way to urinate in order to honor Allah.
And so, we are getting into a situation in which people are still having to decide based on cultural norms what practices and beliefs can be safely mocked without consternation and which should be roundly criticized.
I can come up with many examples to contradict Alden’s claim the new age of intolerance is liberal, especially in the United States. I think that intolerance is spread across the spectrum; conservatives judge people on whether or not they wear flag lapel pins, and more importantly it is the conservatives who are trying to write intolerance into the California constitution. I’ll accept that liberals have gone overboard in some situations, and I will accept that some people were hurt by what PZ wrote.
I’m ambivalent about what he wrote because I know how it can be perceived. I was very angry when I was a kid and my friend came back from camp and told me that Catholics are pagans because we believed in the power of the saints. But I also think that Bill Donohue needs to stop crying bigotry all the time, and trying to raise hysteria.
I’m trying to understand where the line in the sand is supposed to be drawn; and why it is the atheists who seem to be mostly accused of intolerance when there is a whole lot of it going around. (Maybe I am just feeling part of my own persecuted class.)
Mike, just to make my own point clearer: no idea, of any kind, is entitled to “respect” the way a person is entitled to respect. For PZ to say that he thinks that transubstantiation is utterly idiotic – complete goofy nonsense, codswallop, right up there with ayatollahs and piss – is completely legit in my view. Heck, it can invite rebuttal and discussion, and perhaps PZ would be all the more easily revealed to be ignorant and selectively critical. Or not.
No, my problem is with the occasional lapse into something more plainly destructive. PZ’s proposed desecration was not designed to “ridicule” an idea. It was meant to enrage, to hurt, to do damage. It wasn’t merciless criticism. It was hate. It wasn’t aimed at an idea. It was aimed at Catholics. People.
Now, for the record, I’m a Christian and I think transubstantiation is codswallop. I think it’s incorrect, and I could even explain why I think it might be a non-innocuous incorrect belief. If I had the time or inclination, I could write a lot of things about the Catholic eucharist that would be scandalous at best in the eyes of a good Catholic. If I was in a bad mood, I might ridicule the idea – I certainly don’t give it high regard.
None of those things, in my view, is even comparable to the stunt that PZ was discussing.
Mike, the vast majority of PZ’s brutal criticisms of religion are legit. They’re the kind of bare-knuckled roughing-up of ideas that I think is not just tolerable, but welcome. But every now and then, he steps in it. It’s one of the hazards of Culture War. The only way to win…is not to play.
Hey ‘Stasia. Sorry if it looks like I’m picking on you – I don’t mean to.
I understand and agree with the general sentiment here. But the simple fact is that we should respect that which we find to be ridiculous. That may be a lovely sentiment, but it’s still saying one thing when you really mean another. It’s still hypocrisy.
No amount of political correctness justifies hypocrisy. If I have good reason to think that something is ridiculous, I’m going to say so.
I’m not saying that we should be critical of cutural traits. Take women’s clothing, for example. I can see no reason to prefer either a dress or a sari over the other. A burkha, on the other hand, bears all the hallmarks of a leash and collar, so I reserve the right to my very strong opinon that burkhas are a mechanism of female subjugation by men via cultural control.
That said, there’s nothing in the act of wearing a burkha itself that is any worse than a sari or a dress. A muslim girl I know told me once that she only wore the burkha when she wanted to. When I rather oafishly dropped my jaw and askes why, she explained that some mornings she really couldn’t be bothered doing up her hair and her makeup, so she just had to throw on the burkha and she was all sorted – no fuss.
In that sense, there’s nothing wrong with a burkha. In a very similar sense, there’s nothing wrong with using a cracker as a part of a ceramony.
However, there is a large and powerful idea bound up in the symbol of the burkha. The girl I knew was living in a liberal society. She had the faculty of choice. Many other women don’t have that choice, and the burkha becomes a symbol of cuturally enforces sexism. In that sense, I have good reason to object to the cutural practice of women being forced – either explicitly via violence or implicitly via social discrimination – to wear a burkha.
In a similar sense, there is an idea bound up in the symbol of a consecrated host that I also object to. Admittedly, the idea behind the host isn’t quite as objectionable as the idea behind a burkha, so in that sense my analogy is a bit unfair, and for that I do beg your indulgence.
However, the idea behind the Eucharist is that – although the evidence of all our material senses tells us otherwise – a consecrated host is in reality the body of the man-god Jesus. Same with the wine. That in and of itself is ridiculous enough. However, if that was all it is I might be inclined to let the baby have it’s bottle.
But that’s not all it is. As all this uproar has shown, the idea behind the Eucharist is that some things are so sacred that respect for those things may be imposed on people for absolutely no good reason. The idea is that respect is something that can be enforced rather than earned through careful effort and adherence to reason and evidence.
That’s the chain of ideas – the symbol of the cracker, the idea of transubstantiation, and the concept that non-Christians should be forced to show respect to the idea of transubstantiation despite it’s utter absurdity.
If it was only as deep as the second layer, I’d still think it was ridiculous, but I wouldn’t mind so much. It’s the third step that really gets me worked up, though.
It’s just a fracking cracker.
Ubiquitous Che:
No, but it makes them seem wrong, and that’s just as bad.
Now I don’t read PZ’s blog. It’s too high-volume and low-SNR for my liking. However, on the topic of science, science education and so on, he’s on the same side as I’m on (as is, say, Ken Miller). At the very least, he’s the enemy of my enemy.
People on the other side can act as stupidly and unreasonably as they want. They’re welcome to. Actually, I’m pleased if they do. When someone on my side does it, I get more upset, because that’s my side of the argument that they’re spoiling.
Incidentally, apparently almost nobody listens to Bill Donahue. I’d never even heard of him before I saw his name mentioned on scienceblogs. (And yes, as a matter of fact I have been living on an island for the past few decades.) Why are we giving this man a platform?
What’s important here is that I hold my allies to a higher standard of conduct than my enemies.
Okay, pseudonym, thanks for your input. If I may, I’d like to bring in a tangential topic, then, which illustrates that there are not always clear lines as to when it is okay to do what PZ did and when it is not. At ScienceBlogs, back in 2006, Zuska had written a post about “puking on shoes” on the issue of women in academia. Here the issue of feminism and how careers are affected by the lack of real action on sexual harassment is a more clear case of response to injustices. In “Why I Am Not Polite” she writes
Perhaps in the 21st century no one is harmed by the doctrine of transubstantiation in the same way they are harmed by sexual harassment in the workplace, so perhaps PZ should back off and be nice about it. I doubt that anyone took Zuska as saying that she intends to kill sexual harassers, but that her anger over incidents such as the one in the post can’t be suppressed in favor of “reasonableness.”
We can’t ignore the history of the burning of “heretics” who didn’t agree with papal decrees on the issue of transubstantiation when we talk about whether or not other people’s beliefs harm disbelievers.
I, personally, don’t take the same approach to such issues as PZ does (and yes, Stephen, think that you and he would get along famously,) but neither will I “tut-tut” him on this issue.
Right, Mike, and I think you’ve essentially summed up why I think that PZ did a stupid thing (I won’t say “wrong thing”).
Sexual harassment in the workplace is, as you say, a real, important and serious issue that’s very much harming people. Bearing in mind that I haven’t read Zuska’s posts specifically, but speaking in general terms, a strong response seems in proportion to the scale of the issue.
PZ, on the other hand, got worked up over a fracking cracker. Or possibly it was over an undergraduate prank. Or possibly Bill Donahue.
On any other blog it would have rated maybe a passing mention at the most, a few people would have commented, and that’d be it. Very few newspapers would have picked up the story. Thanks to PZ, it’s now international news, and the story is not “dumb kid steals cracker”, or “Bill Donohue says stupid thing for the thousandth time”, it’s “atheist threatens to desecrate sacred object”.
For me, this isn’t about sensitivity. This is about unnecessarily raising the stupidity level of an already pretty stupid story to an unbelievable new level of stupidity, and making the rest of us look bad to boot.
It’s also about manufacturing controversy where in reality there is none. That’s what spin doctors do. That’s what Frank Luntz does. It’s what Karl Rove, Jenny McCarthy and Michael Behe do. It pains me to see an actual scientist slumming it with that sort of company.
To me, it matters not whether what PZ did was “right” or “wrong”. But it was incredibly stupid, and I hate it when smart people do that.
I’m all for having extremely long memories about such things, but I can’t really see how this is relevant to this case.
For the record, no death threats came from papal decrees or, indeed, anyone in any position of authority. Rather, they came from the usual random loonies that pop out of the woodwork whenever a controversial topic is discussed. They had no force or credibility behind them whatsoever, though I’m glad that at least one perpetrator was caught nonetheless.
(Of course, it’s a different set of loonies for every issue, religious or not. I hope we agree that there’s nothing special about religion when it comes to stupid loony death threats.)
Anastasia wrote
Sorry. Can’t do both. “Respecting” a custom while simultaneously believing it to be ridiculous requires too many cognitive contortions for me. I can respect people’s right to hold ridiculous beliefs, but that doesn’t translate into respecting those beliefs.
Moreover, when the larger belief system of which the particular belief is an integral part is an active participant in killing people (via opposing the use of condoms in AIDs-ridden Africa), respect for that belief system is purely immoral.
In this case the death threats may have been, in fact, trivial, but I beg to differ on your interpretation of whether or not death threats never came from papal decrees. Wars were fought over transubstantiation. Or are you being specific to this situation? In which case, your reaction would be sensible if we took this case to be unique.
I understand why Catholics are sensitive to this. But I don’t see your point about PZ being an actual scientist, and thereby should be above all this. Pharyngula is his outlet, and he clearly doesn’t use the same voice in academic or research matters. When you prick a scientist’s finger, does it not bleed?
Scientists are people, not unicorns. They work hard, they try to follow their career path like everyone else. They should also be allowed to vent their spleen when something strikes their ire.
As for stopping to the level of Luntz, Rove and Behe, well that will have to be a topic for “Tangled Up in Blue Guy” because it is hard for me to be too respectful to them; but I also think that liberals need to wake up to the tactics of politics and understand why they just may screw the pooch on this election.
Yes, I am.
PZ picked this fight. Not the kid, not the Catholic Church, and not even Bill Donahue.
Just to be clear on one thing: What PZ “should […] be allowed” to do is also a non-issue for everyone except Bill Donahue, and nothing he says is important, so we can ignore him.
Of course PZ should be allowed to say what he wants on his blog. There should be no law against what he said or, for that matter, what he proposes to do. And regardless of how many times he’s crossed the line of good taste and good judgement, as far as I know he hasn’t violated any site policy of scienceblogs.
I defend to the death his right to say it, but nobody apart from Bill Donahue is trying to censor him and, as we have already established, nothing he says is important.
None of this in any way changes the fact that he acted like a jerk. What he did was not clever. It proved nothing that wasn’t already proven. It was stupidity, plain and simple.
As for the “actual scientist” remark: Scienceblogs is the biggest item in the intersection of “science” and “blogs”, and PZ’s blog is the biggest fish in that pond. PZ’s blog therefore inevitably has a certain air of authority about it, whether he intended it or not. What he says is noticed, and some people interpret what he says as what scientists think. And today, many people have had it reinforced for them that scientists are evil atheists who want nothing more than to desecrate your sacred objects for no reason.
That’s a huge mess that PZ has left all over the floor, and we all know that it won’t be him offering to clean it up.
I’m not saying that PZ did the wrong thing. I’m not saying that PZ should have been, or should be in the future, prevented from saying it. All I’m saying is that he did a stupid thing.
For a second I misinterpreted your remark: “and nothing he says is important, so we can ignore him,” to be directed at PZ, but then I re-read it to be directed towards Donohue.
But, Donohue, for being a one-man army sure gets a lot of TV time, doesn’t he? As for PZ not wanting to help clean up, he has discussed this issue, amiably, with a priest.
As for Donohue, I don’t know how much TV time he gets. Having spent a grand total of one week in the US, my experience here is a bit limited. However, my impression of US media is that they thrive on controversies, whether real or imagined. Also, my few second-hand reports indicate that most Catholics in the US roll their eyes whenever he appears.
As for PZ discussing the issue amiably with a priest… I didn’t know that. Good on him. I hope he doesn’t apologise for saying what he thinks about religion, but I hope he does apologise for acting like a jerk.
As a former alter boy and trained protector of the Holy Eucharist, I find PZ Myers’ threats of desecration rather exciting, even titillating. I wish this sort of thing happened more often back when I was a Christian Soldier hungry for action. I was in that position during the lull in true persecution that occurred between the late Roman Empire and the beginning of the Age of PZ.
How boring it has been.
Ready The Brank, Master Greg, should PZ not denounce his words!
Wafer, human; human, wafer… I just can’t decide…
The logical conclusion of atheism is absurdity. The French existentialists knew this. Thus every thing, animate or inanimate, is ultimately meaningless. Why respect anything, including human life, which just happens to be highly organized, complex compositions of matter that resulted from chance. Whether something lives or dies or is willfully killed, has no ultimate meaning. It is not a heaven or hell choice to kill someone. Societies construct laws, and a killer will have a consequence, but upon his death, he rots in the grave, just as the judge and jury, and whether he killed or did not, does not matter. Good and evil are then mere human creations.
Elastico: I’m tempted to call Poe’s law.
The French existentialists were existentialists. Only moody teenagers think existentialism is deep anymore.
Uhh… Because life is better for everyone if we share the common value of respecting human life for its own sake. Duh.
If we can look forward to an eternal life after our deaths, then our mortal lives will be only the barest flicker of existence before the joys of heaven (presuming we do as we’re told). If that really was the case, why should we value our mortal lives at all? They become meaningless when measured against the depths of infinity?
No, it is the realization that this is the only life we get that makes that life the most fragile, beautiful, and precious. It hammers home the reality that every life is equally precious. It saves us from the temptation towards fatalism that is inherent in the eternal devine.
Yes it does.
If you kill a precious human life, that life will never come back. What’s done stays done. That’s about as ultimate as it gets. What we do really matters, because there’s no-one that can wash away the things we have done. If we do good, that good stays done. If we do evil, that evil stays done. Best to do good, methinks.
I take it you would prefer him to burn and twist and suffer for all eternity? If so, you are a sadistic monster and you disgust me.
Such a punishment would disproportionate to any crime, and would never be permitted by anyone who respects the concept of justice. Justice is not vengeance – justice is about as far from vengeance as you can get. Justice is the cure to vengance.
No.
Good and evil are created in tandem between the mortal (I try to include our animal cousins in my system of ethics wherever possible) and the eternal. Nature is the eternal – matter, energy, space, and information.
True – if there was only the mortal, we’d be stuck with the worst kind of moral relativism. However, all we mortals are subject to the same universe. It is this shared circumstance – the hardships and joys to be derived from an impersonal universe – that cement the bonds of mortal kinship and allow for the compassion and empathy and benevolence that can lead to a life of happiness.
The universe is not to be shunned. Embrace it. Dance with it. Love it. Live it, as hard as you can.
Better? Value? Respecting? Precious? Justice? Benevolence?Sources, please.
“Eternal life.” “Nature is eternal.” Confused thought. Time and possible energy began with the big bang. Hardly eternal.
“Embrace it. Dance with it. Love it. Live it, as hard as you can.” Uhh. Duh. Like wow, dude.
Sources? What exactly do you mean?
Are you asking me where they come from? Or are you asking me to reference them, like I was referencing an academic work?
Please be more constructive with your feedback.
Wrong.
If the question is: “Where did time and energy come from?” the only honest answer is “We don’t know yet, and maybe we never will.”
Read this.
Yes. ‘Duh’ indeed.
Since this is so obvious to you, I have to wonder at the bleak and grim tone of your last post where you implied quite directly that “The logical conclusion of atheism is absurdity,” and then proceeded to show that rather than ‘absurdity’ you actually meant ‘nihilism’.