Mike has brought up the question of “respect” for religion again, this time drawing some interesting parallels between a fictionalization of the life of Muhammad and the desecration of a Eucharistic wafer by atheist blogger PZ Myers. We had an interesting discussion of the desecration a month ago, and I emphasized my view that there is a very important difference between respecting beliefs or ideas and respecting people. It seems to me that this distinction is being missed in the comparison of PZ’s stunt and the Muhammad novel, and I’d like to try again to put issues of respect into a more complete context.
Here’s the section of Mike’s post that got my attention:
When we recoil in fear from offending the beliefs of another group, we give religion a power it doesn’t deserve. We let it control even those of us who don’t share the religion. The people who bugged me the most in the crackergate fiasco were not so much the rabid catholics who wanted to see him destroyed and humiliated, the people who made me most angry were the equivocating atheists who said we should excoriate him because he wasn’t showing the proper respect to a religion he didn’t believe.
Now, I don’t know who these “equivocating atheists” are, but if they are bashing Myers for not “showing the proper respect to a religion he didn’t believe,” then Mike is right to be annoyed by them. I’m not an atheist, and I’m sure annoyed by that kind of talk, because I want to reserve the right to be critical of beliefs, ideas and religions, without being harassed by bogus accusations of intolerance.
I’m not sure, though, that this is the issue. Specifically, I don’t think Myers is being excoriated for merely failing to show “respect to a religion,” and I sure don’t think that this captures the reason why I and others found his stunt repugnant. Let me offer a few case studies to illustrate why I don’t buy the juxtaposition of Crackergate and the effective censorship of a historical novel about Muhammad and his marriage bed.
1. Suppose a friend of mine in Minnesota – we’ll call him Mike – ran a website that regularly criticized, in the most dismissive of terms, my religion. The usual stuff: comparisons of God to fairies or the FSM, baldly dismissive descriptions of Jesus of Nazareth, regular updates on the most embarrassing and outrageous antics of my fellow believers. Then suppose one day that his website featured a picture of the church I attend, digitally altered to look like a crematorium and emblazoned with swastikas. Or suppose that when Mike and I eventually met in person, he continually used the name of Jesus as an expletive and ignored my requests to stop.
In my opinion, Mike’s website is appropriate criticism of ideas and religion, but his personal smear of my church (even if it reflects his honestly-held beliefs about Christian complicity in the Holocaust) and his contemptuous attitude toward my personal convictions (even if he thinks ‘Jesus’ is just another collection of phonemes) represent something else. Treating religion or tradition with complete disrespect – even contempt – is just not the same as treating a person that way. I think that should be obvious, even if the finer demarcations in practice can get tricky.
2. One protester burns an American flag at a public rally against American policy. Another burns an American flag in front of a graveyard during the funeral of a WWII veteran who was murdered in front of his wife. Is there a difference? Why?
3. Cultures have various traditions and rules pertaining to “respect for the dead.” I happen to think that corpses are morally insignificant chunks of meat, ripe for biochemical recycling, and I don’t have a particularly high regard for practices that seek to provide comfort or preservation to corpses. If I nevertheless choose not to, say, walk on graves while people are watching, am I “recoiling from offending the beliefs of another group,” and thereby giving “respect for the dead” a power it doesn’t deserve? Or am I taking steps to show respect for other people?
And this final case study is the one I want to hear PZ’s defenders discuss.
4. Once there was an outspoken critic of Catholicism and many other religions who was well known for his bare-knuckled attacks on beliefs he considered ridiculous. He ran a website that was known throughout cyberspace and was occasionally the subject of mainstream news reports. One day he desecrated a religious worship service, specifically to protest what he perceived to be the outrageous nature of the beliefs of those present at the service (which was held in a public place). Those in attendance at the service were outraged, and began a campaign against the critic, hoping to destroy his organization and his livelihood. The critic insisted that he didn’t intend to hurt people, and pointed out that no one had been injured in any significant way. His position is clear: he doesn’t accept or respect the religious beliefs of nearly all of the people in world. Although most of those close to him defend him vigorously, he is regularly excoriated for his behavior, and many people are angered by the fact that he wasn’t showing the proper respect to a religion he didn’t believe.
His name is Fred Phelps, and in my opinion he’s the guy to look at when trying to put PZ’s stunt into a moral context. He and his sick followers believe that homosexuality has doomed the inhabitants of the planet to damnation, and he feels compelled to raise the nation’s consciousness regarding this moral tragedy. So he applauds the deaths of soldiers, at their funerals, holding signs that say stuff like “Thank God for dead soldiers.” I won’t desecrate our blog with links to his hate speech.
In my opinion, thinking about Fred Phelps and his obscenely misnamed church helps bring into focus the reason why respect, in the context of religion, does make sense. It’s not because any set of beliefs should be respected. It’s because people should be respected. I’m not saying that the distinction is always easy to make. But I think it’s a mistake to continue portraying behavior like PZ’s as merely disrespectful toward religion. At least give some thought to the ways in which decent people continually show respect for others who hold divergent – even wildly, irrationally divergent – beliefs.
Lets see, Phelps makes a special trip in order to harass people in person, and PZ does what?
Writes, and posts pictures of a cracker in a trash can in his own home, on a blog.
Yeah, those two things are the exactly the same.
Sorry, but if PZ’s actions are offensive, then the person who is offended is automatically an idiot.
Ah, it’s the “special trip” that makes all the difference. Now why didn’t I think of that?
I gather that you don’t value the notion of respect for other people. Thanks for sharing!
I hope I don’t read like a one-note blogger on this subject, and I certainly hope that you meet this hypothetical “Mike in Minnesota” some day ( thanks for the nice words.)
I can recognize that there is a case to be made based on whose “ox is being gored” and bringing in Fred Phelps creates an interesting angle.
I’m not going to name a specific equivocating atheist, because I don’t want to “Frame” anyone. I am going to have to think about how to further this discussion because it is obviously a bit more complex than so far presented and you have pointed out why.
“Lets see, Phelps makes a special trip in order to harass people in person, and PZ does what?”
Well, assuming the communion host was, in fact, consecrated, it pretty much had to be obtained by someone, certainly not an observant Catholic, making a special trip to a Catholic church and surreptitiously joining a religious rite that is supposed to be restricted to observant Catholics. That person or persons then carried away an object that is given only with the intent that it be consummed then and there with the other celebrants as part of the rite (which is why it is called “communion”).
PZ specifically sent that person or persons with the knowledge and intent that they would engage in this “undercover” activity and obtain property that was given with the implicit condition that it be used only in that rite. The purpose of this was to “show” Catholics who were already upset at what they saw as disrespect towards the Eucharist that it was only a “cracker.” The completion of the disrespect did not occur in the church but on the web in front of many more people than could have fit into the church. That sounds a lot like intentional harrassment to me and I’m not really seeing a lot of difference with the Phelps. After all, they’re only showing disrespect to “meat”.
In addition to showing disrespect for a belief/idea and showing disrespect for a person (who holds that belief), perhaps we also need a further category of showing disrespect toward an object, like the communion wafer, a koran, or a flag.
Generally speaking, what people do with their own property is their own business, even if an object has symbolic value to someone else (leaving aside the issue of subterfuge in how the consecrated cracker was acquired).
I see a couple of differences between PZ’s action and, say, Fred Phelps’ behaviour. First of all, much of the Catholic objection to desecrating the wafer was based on the claim that doing so was an act of disrespect toward the wafer, which supposedly was really Jesus. Since inanimate objects can’t have their feelings hurt, whatever delusions some people may hold to the contrary, communion wafers, consecrated or otherwise, don’t warrant respect. If the Catholic objections had all been along the lines of, please don’t do this because it upsets me, it might well be churlish to proceed. As it would be to continue using “god” or “jesus” as expletives in a conversation with someone who asked you, as a favour and accepting your right to both believe differently and to act on your belief, to stop.
No time for more at the moment. Got to get to my goddamn job,
.
Per the previous comment, I would prefer we not use “god” or “jesus” as expletives in our conversation on this blog. The point is, however, well made.
Thanks!
I think that the big difference between Phelps and Myers is that Phelps’ crowd holds signs at funerals that tell the bereaved that the deceased is going to hell; and not because of anything that the deceased may or may not have done, not because of any knowledge of the deceased’s “state of grace,” but solely based on the fact that the deceased was defending a country that God hates because we don’t do enough to stop homosexuality. The bereaved are all ready in a state of emotional distress before the WBC come to protest, and the WBC is adding to their existing grief, with malice aforethought.
And nobody really knows what the WBC want when they protest.
Does that help?
First off, let me make it clear that I do not mean to compare PZ with Phelps. The comparison is between the wafer stunt and a typical WBC stunt. For the record, I hold PZ Myers in far higher regard than Phelps, and since that’s not giving PZ any credit I’ll note that in my book he comes in ahead of Bill Dembski, too.
There are differences, to be sure, between the WBC’s twisted “protests” and PZ’s desecration. I find those differences to be subtle and irrelevant to the issue I’m raising. The point of the Phelps case study, and all of the others I outlined, was to focus on the reasons why we can’t account for the complete moral context of PZ’s actions by labeling them a refusal to “respect religion.” Phelps accounts for his actions in exactly the same way: he believes that pretty much everything about America is utterly corrupt and unworthy of respect. Moreover, he claims to be motivated by love, hoping to broadcast an effective warning to misguided souls who risk destruction. Yes, he would say, I disrespect American religion and government. I think he would say something like this: “When we recoil in fear from offending the beliefs of another group, we give religion a power it doesn’t deserve. We let it control even those of us who don’t share the religion.”
What do all people find so profoundly outrageous about Phelps? Is it the fact that he thinks that homosexuality is an unforgivable sin, and that those who fail to join his crusade against it are damned alongside gays? Those are just his beliefs – they suck, big time, but they’re just beliefs. Or is it the fact that his actions in support of his agenda are recklessly disrespectful of other people, seemingly malicious in their intent, despite his protestations to the contrary?
Like Stephen, I hold PZ in much, much greater respect than the Phelps and, if I didn’t make it clear, it was the nature of the “harrassment” that I found similar, not the underlying beliefs that motivate them. As for the Phelps targeting people “solely based on the fact that the deceased was defending a country that God hates because we don’t do enough to stop homosexuality,” PZ targeted some unknown church, the members of which probably (given that there are some 77 million Catholics in the US) had nothing to do with the complaints about and threats against Webster Cook. I can’t say that the randomness of the Phelps’ harrassment impresses me as much of a distinction.
Stephen wrote
Several issues/questions twine through this.
First, what’s the ‘ignorance’ default — respect people, disrespect people, or neutrality if we know nothing about them? I’d guess the norm is mild respect, or at least toleration, with the pointer moving one way or the other as one gains experience with particular people.
Second, what are the variables that move the pointer away from the default, either in the more respect direction or disrespect direction? That’s clearly not a single-variable situation — a number of variables can lead one to move away from the default.
Third, to what degree does collateral damage play into the analysis? For example, PZ did his thing (a) to illustrate the complete inappropriateness of the Catholic and University responses to Cook’s behavior, and (b) to redress the extreme power imbalance in Florida. Now, clearly not all Catholics were implicated in the Florida situation, and not all pusillanimous academic administrators were implicated there, but there was institutional Catholic reactions — Bill Donohue, for better or worse, represents a Catholic institution. With PZ acting to expose the lunacy of Donohue’s behavior with respect to the Florida situation, ‘moderate’ Catholics were caught in the cross fire.
Fourth, you (Stephen) conflate holding beliefs and acting on beliefs. I frankly don’t give a damn what beliefs people hold, no matter how irrational or loony they may be. But I do care about how they behave based on those beliefs. If their behavior earns – and that’s exactly the word: “earns” – disrespect, then that’s what they get. IF their beliefs entail genitally mutilating young girls and they act on the belief, they get no respect and a whole lot of criticism. If their beliefs entail flying airplanes into office buildings, then they get no respect. If their beliefs are loony but lead to helping less fortunate folks, then they get respect (or at least toleration) even though their beliefs do not if, say, they entail denying reality.
If their beliefs entail behavior that would coerce me or other people, then they get no respect and elicit active opposition. And in the current instance, if their beliefs require me to respect a symbol that has meaning only to them, then that’s no more than tolerable unless and until they require that I behave toward that symbol as they require. Then they get push-back. The Catholics at the church acted to coerce Cook to behave toward the cracker as they do, physically laying hands on him to enforce that requirement, and that stepped past the line. Doing so forfeited their claim to respect.
The smilie in that preceding comment is due to a typo; it was supposed to merely close the parens.
Thanks for the clarification. I changed your original comment to use dashes rather than parentheses. -Thomas
RBH, thanks for the comment and the excellent additions to the mix. Your fourth point is, I think, completely wrong in its claim that I’ve conflated belief and action. The last paragraph of my previous comment made that pretty clear, didn’t it?
Stephen wrote
I was riffing on the last sentence of the OP, and must have read right past your comment when I zoomed down here. You do make what I’d see as an appropriate distinction there. Sorry I missed it.
Hi. I want to say that I’m not one of PZ’s “defenders;” Though I’m an atheist, I will sometimes find myself repelled by what he does. Also, I find the distinction you discuss between respect for ideas and respect for people to be pertinent and important. But on the other hand, I don’t think your comparison of Myers to Phelps is fair.
To use the examples that you provide, Phelps shows up at funerals, to which he was not invited, and holds up offensive signs where mourners can see him. PZ, on the other hand, hosts a blog in cyberspace which religious people can either decide to read, or not to read. Also, the desecration of the Eucharist (and, by the way, a copy of Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion) was done in the privacy of his home, and the photos were posted on his personal blog.
I think a more fitting illustration of disrespect for people on PZ’s blog can perhaps be found in the comments section, when occasionally a well-meaning religious person will appear and attempt to have a conversation (most often the religious people who post messages are trolls, but once in awhile I see someone there who appears very genuine and polite). In this case, you sometimes see the most enthusiastic of PZs followers treat this person very rudely. But that’s not PZ, that’s just some rude people on the internets and hey, that’s life on the internets.
Hi kl,
Thanks for the insightful comment, and thanks for being respectful. I see your point, in that the public nature of Phelps’ offenses isn’t quite on the same level as the more private nature of what Myers has done. However, I’m not entirely certain the comparison is entirely unfair–I would say that Myers’ transgression has an undertone of deceitfulness that makes it as distasteful as Phelps’ stunts, albeit in a different way.
In the case of Fred Phelps, even though he gets up in people’s faces and goes where he’s not wanted, he’s at least honest and up-front about his intentions and actions. It’s not as if he’s asked his followers to surreptitiously infiltrate any pro-gay organizations in order to undermine them or steal from them–in fact, as far as I know, he’s never asked any of his cronies to do anything besides picket.
Now, Myers hasn’t done anything as confrontational. All he’s done is “desecrate” a cracker and put pictures of it up on his blog, right? However, think of what he had to do in to obtain that cracker. As he asked,
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..
This doesn’t sound so bad at first glance. After all, as many of Myers’ supporters have pointed out, the Eucharist is “freely given,” so ostensibly, his followers would just be mailing him their own personal property after a priest gave it to them, right? But consider the circumstances under which the ‘consecrated’ crackers are handed out. The priest gives them out assuming that the recipient intends to eat it and the recipient is a believing Catholic.
So really, Dr. Myers essentially asked his thousands of supporters (far more than the <100 followers Mr. Phelps can claim) to lie. Pretending to be Catholics when they’re really not, his fans were to “score” some of these crackers by masquerading as communicants in good faith, intending to send the Hosts they received to Dr. Myers for desecration rather than personal consumption, which the priest giving the things out thought they would be used for. I highly doubt any of Myers’ buddies succeeded in their mission by wandering into a church and declaring “I am a proud, open atheist – though I’d much rather be called a “Bright” – and I think the concept of the Eucharist is bullshit. Thus, I want one of these consecrated hosts so I can send it to a professor of biology in Minnesota to desecrate.” Say what you will about Phelps, but at least he and his followers have never made any secret of their beliefs and intentions. Myers, on the other hand, essentially asked his followers to conceal their true (lack of) beliefs and pretend to be Catholics for just a short while so that they could obtain these little crackers under false premises.
Again, Phelps has hurt people publicly, which Myers has not done. But at the very least, all Phelps has asked his cronies to do is stand around holding signs and annoy people. He’s never asked them to lie. The fact that Myers has, even if not openly, does not elevate him too far above Phelps, at least in my view.
Whew! Sorry for the long-winded comment. But your point was interesting enough that I thought it deserved a lengthy response. Hope I didn’t bore you to death!
er, pardon me, that winky face was supposed to be a parentheses. The smiley face is real, though
Thanks, I just replaced the parentheses with dashes. –Thomas
PZ compared to Phelps feels a little hamfisted I have to say. PZ having followers? PZ has readers not followers. Phelps has 100 or so people brain washed into abandoning reason and a sense of wider community (including future community) for the sake of self-righteous ranting and no doubt his own enormous ego. PZ asked for a cracker and for someone to mail it to him to illustrate a point in his ‘own backyard’ not in the churches of believers or at their funerals. This distinction is more than geography, just as swearing blue murder when I hit my thumb with a hammer in the workshop is different to swearing when I visit my grandmother.
PZ’s ‘people’ obtaining them through deception … hmmm. If I were a undercover journalist doing an expose on a deluded damaging cult with immense influence over children and I obtained my information through deception would this make me on a par with Phelps or would it inspire accolades of bravery? Or perhaps I’m a practicing Catholic who’s long had doubts yet still persisting over many years in the taking of communion out of habit rather than belief. Is this deception? The question here seems to be one of actual harm versus righteous outrage. Genuine psychological harm can be done to people in mourning by causing them greater stress. No doubt harm can be done to deluded people who actually believe that a cracker is actually Christ’s flesh, but is this type of harm negative or positive? I don’t know for sure but my sense is that creating the conversation seems to be great way to start. Disabusing a person or group of false beliefs or at least challenging them whilst certainly psychologically difficult for some is only superficially similar at best to directed abuse at specific people when they are vulnerable and in pain. And it loses all similarity when children are also recruited and trained to do the same task.
As for being repelled by some of PZ’s statements, I can only find this baffling. Repelled? Has PZ said anything repulsive? Whilst I don’t always agree, I generally always find him informative and interesting (yes even when I don’t agree with him).
I would also have to take issue with Phelps being honest. Whilst he may be consistent this surely can’t be taken as honesty? Documentaries of Phelps have shown a man and group that is capable of spectacular self and group deception and the perpetuation of this deception and behavior through their children – surely honesty must start there?
At best there’s an argument here over tactics in the battle for reason’s hold in minds and hearts of the community. It seems to me that the comparisons with Phelps or simplistic claims of deception don’t hold up to scrutiny or contribute much to arriving at better methods.
Hi Mr. B,
Thanks for your comment. Forgive me for yet another long reply, but again, I don’t want to give the impression being too flippant or overly dismissive of good ideas and reasoned arguments
PZ asked for a cracker and for someone to mail it to him to illustrate a point in his ‘own backyard’ not in the churches of believers or at their funerals.
Yes, but again, where did that “someone” get the cracker? From someone else’s church. While I agree with you in that the desecration itself isn’t as publically offensive as Phelps’ stunts, the fact remains that to do what he wanted, he essentially asked people to, *at least,* acquire a gift from someone else under false pretenses in order to use it for a purpose completely opposite to what the giver intended it.
I would happily defend PZ’s right to do whatever he wants in the privacy of his own home and his own blog, but not when it involves asking other people to lie.
PZ having followers? PZ has readers not followers
I suppose. Not everyone who reads what Dr. Myers has to say would be a “follower,” of course–many, such as Dr. Matheson, disagree with him fervently on some matters–but I would say that any of PZ’s readers who would actually be willing to go out of their way and through the trouble to “score” him a cracker would not be that far off from a ‘follower.’ And it was to those kinds of people I was referring. Pardon me if you thought I was referring to you, specifically, much less to other PZ readers such as Dr. Matheson, I really do apologize if I tarred you with a brush that didn’t apply to you–indeed, I should have been more specific.
If I were a undercover journalist doing an expose on a deluded damaging cult with immense influence over children and I obtained my information through deception would this make me on a par with Phelps or would it inspire accolades of bravery?
I’m not certain this comparison is wholly apt, though. Dr. Myers hasn’t performed an “expose” on anything–all he’s done is stick a nail through a wafer (and deface a Koran and a copy of the God Delusion, which I assume he or at least someone else actually paid for). An undercover journalist, in your example, would be informing both the government and the public at large of previously unknown malfeasance. Myers, on the other hand, has simply proven that you can stick a nail through a cracker without anything bad happening to you. People have been saying this for years–Jews, many Protestants, Muslims, and non-Christians don’t believe in the Eucharist any more than Dr. Myers does, and it’s not as they’ve been quiet about their beliefs on that matter. So I don’t believe Dr. Myers is performing the same sort of service that would justify the deception of a muckraking journalist.
Or perhaps I’m a practicing Catholic who’s long had doubts yet still persisting over many years in the taking of communion out of habit rather than belief. Is this deception?
This analogy isn’t really apt either–the deception of an unbelieving but habitual Catholic isn’t quite as great as the deception of an unbeliever who intends to desecrate the Eucharist. In the habitual Catholic’s case, even if he’s implicitly lying to the priest about the depth of his belief, he’s still being honest about what he intends to do–he’s going to eat the wafer along with everyone else. In the case of one of Myers’ ‘readers,’ as you would prefer me to refer to them, the atheist is being dishonest about *both* his belief *and* his intent–he’s not going to eat the cracker, he’s going to send it off to be desecrated.
Genuine psychological harm can be done to people in mourning by causing them greater stress. No doubt harm can be done to deluded people who actually believe that a cracker is actually Christ’s flesh, but is this type of harm negative or positive? I don’t know for sure but my sense is that creating the conversation seems to be great way to start. Disabusing a person or group of false beliefs or at least challenging them whilst certainly psychologically difficult for some is only superficially similar at best to directed abuse at specific people when they are vulnerable and in pain.
I sympathize with you here, my friend. Unfortunately, I wonder if Phelps–and people like him–would use a similar sort of reasoning to defend their own actions. If one were to ask a member of the Westboro Baptist church why they do what they do, Forgive me for linking to their faq, but Phelps and his underlings don’t see themselves are specifically out to cause pain to vulnerable people. As he claims when asked about why he pickets funerals,
To warn the people who are still living that unless they repent, they will likewise perish. When people go to funerals, they have thoughts of mortality, heaven, hell, eternity, etc., on their minds. It’s the perfect time to warn them of things to come. Is it mean, hateful, uncompassionate, etc.? I’m sure it is, according to your standards. However, according to my standards, it would be infinitely more mean, hateful, uncompassionate, etc., to keep my mouth shut and not warn you that you, too, will soon have to face God.
In a twisted sort of way, you can see a similarity between Mr. Phelps and Dr. Myers–both are doing something they consider to be altruistic, regardless of the perceived pain others say they are causing. I could very imagine PZ Myers replying, when asked why he decided to violate a little cracker that had never harmed anybody,
To warn Catholics who still believe that their false, stupid superstitions are not only untrue but harmful. When Catholics think of the Eucharist, they think of something “sacred” and representative of all their ludicrous fairy-nonsense. Thus, desecrating their tasteless little wafer would be the perfect way to disabuse them of their silly superstitions by proving it’s absoluetly powerless. Would that be mean, hateful, uncompassionate, etc.? Maybe by your standards. However, according to my standards, it would be infinitely more mean, hateful, uncompassionate, etc., to keep my mouth shut and not inform you that your beliefs are false, stupid, and harmful.
Now, you could say that Myers isn’t hurting Catholics as much as Phelps is hurting grieving families (although I’m not entirely sure about that, given how seriously I’ve seen many of my Catholic friends take their ritual). The point is, however, that while you say the harm done to “deluded people” by abusing their cracker is justified because it might possibly divest them of their false beliefs, Phelps would say that the harm done to mourners is justified because he might possibly convince them to repent.
Now, in this regard,
And it loses all similarity when children are also recruited and trained to do the same task.
I agree with you. As far as I know, Pharyngula’s readership is composed of adults and is not directed towards children. So at the very least, even if Dr. Myers is implicitly encouraging his readers to lie on his behalf, they are old enough to make that decision for themselves, which puts the professor on a higher moral level than the preacher, to at least some extent.
I would also have to take issue with Phelps being honest. Whilst he may be consistent this surely can’t be taken as honesty? Documentaries of Phelps have shown a man and group that is capable of spectacular self and group deception and the perpetuation of this deception and behavior through their children – surely honesty must start there?
Hmm. You may be right there–I’m not a member of the WBC, and I don’t live in Topeka, so I’m personally largely unfamiliar with their organization; most of what I’ve heard of them comes from the news. Which documentaries are you referring to, and in what ways is he dishonest? I looked him up on Wikipedia and noticed he was disbarred for perjury and that two of his children and a local Baptist priest claim he’s abusive and domineering, but obviously, Wikipedia isn’t the most reliable of sources
So if I may ask, which documentaries or reports would you recommend for a layman wishing to get acquainted with Mr. Phelps’ deceptions? After looking them over, I might very well agree with your assessment.
However, I would also add that when I claimed Mr. Phelps was being “honest,” I didn’t mean he never told a lie in his life, or even that he was generally honest. Rather, in regards to the actions he is most notorious for–protesting and picketing funerals–he seems to be honest. As far as I know, he has never shown up anywhere unannounced (he always plans his pickets publically on his website) and has never ordered members of his flock to “infiltrate” other people’s organizations. Again, though, perhaps I’m wrong and he actually has lied about some of that stuff, I’ll look for some of the documentaries on his church that might mention things like that. By the same token, when I posited that Myers was being deceptive, I was not claiming he was a habitual lyer or even a particularly bad person (As far as I know, he has been nothing but an honest scientist and a good husband and father), but rather, *in this case,* by asking his readers to conceal their beliefs in order to fool someone into giving them communion, Myers has momentarily lowered himself down to Phelp’s level. If, as a scientist, he has nobly pursued the truth with sincerity and conviction up to this point, making him a far better man than Phelps could ever be, I see it as shameful that for this one moment, he has turned his back on those ideals and encouraged his readers to lie. Thus, in the end, I agree with Dr. Matheson when he says,
Fred Phelps…in my opinion…is the guy to look at when trying to put PZ’s stunt into a moral context.
Can Dr. Myers and Mr. Phelps, as whole people, be compared? No. But can Dr. Myers’ single stunt–the desecration of a little cracker acquired by one of his supporters under false pretenses–be fairly compared to some of the stunts Mr. Phelps has pulled off? I believe so.