IT'S A FRACKIN’ CRACKER!
PZ Myers blog was noticed by Bill Donohue and the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights:
MINNESOTA PROF PLEDGES TO DESECRATE EUCHARIST
Bill Donohue has asked his followers to harass Myers and the University of Minnesota President. Myers' reaction to this harassment can be found here:
Now I've got Bill Donohue's attention
Earlier today, Myers reported the following response to his criticism of the religious over-reaction from Donohue and the Catholic League:
Fight back against Bill Donohue!
Instead of "turning the other cheek," Myers blog commentary on the "cracker" incident has earned the following reaction:
So far today, I have received 39 pieces of personal hate mail of varying degrees of literacy, all because I was rude to a cracker. Four of them have included death threats, a personal one day record. Thirty-four of them have demanded that I be fired. Twenty-five of them have told me to desecrate a copy of the Koran, instead, or in some similar way offend Muslims, because — in a multiplicity of ironic cluelessness — apparently only some religious icons must be protected, and I would only offend Catholics because they are all so nice that none of them would wish me harm. I even have one email that says I should be fired, that the author would like to kill me, and that I only criticize because Catholics are so gentle and kind.Myers has also received death threats in the comments on his blog:
If God doesn't get you, I will
You're a fucking giant sized scumbag. I hope you die slowly and painfully. Cunt.And it's starting to get noticed outside the blogosphere and in the mainstream media:
Communion wafer held 'hostage' raises holy heck
And we're still waiting for the moderate religious voices to condemn threats of violence and economic harm over a cracker that wasn't eaten and the subsequent commentary about this uneaten cracker.
10 comments:
Rev Jackson said he would cut Obama's balls off, and made the gesture of doing it... (and I share Jackson's disgust with Obama's sermonizing on stuff not really a US Senator's biz... we elected him to legislate, not pontificate)
... so sometimes Christians get carried away.
When they start shooting video of actually chopping people's heads, I'll take them as seriously as I do AQ... but right now they're just buffoons.
Myers and the Catholic League are peas in a pod. Pot, meet kettle. They deserve each other.
But what's your point, Steve? That anyone with any powers of discernment should confess PZ Myers as a latter-day revelator of self-evident, absolute Truth? That Catholics are in fact only a subhuman tribe of violent, superstitious, hypocritical, reptilian-brained nitwits? That every sullen "eat shit and die" or "I'd kill you if I could" ever muttered should be construed seriously as an intent to murder?That despite our historical rejection of Puritanism, we UUs nevertheless remain an elect few, who thanks to our embrace of Humanism have now achieved a Nietzschian, superhuman control over our base emotions, while the great mass of lesser beings still wallow in an inescapable state of moral depravity? That bigotry, condescension and provocative taunts are righteous and commendable, as long as they're based on religious grounds rather than age/class/gender/race/sexual preference/ability/etc., and practiced only by really, really smart people whose beliefs you happen to share against ignorant boors whose beliefs you don't? That the moral high ground should presumptively be granted to adolescent dissemblers and thieves as long as their self-absorbed antics provoke enough of an angry overreaction from said boors?
Because you seem to be saying all of those things very, very clearly in this and your previous post, even if they're not what you really mean. If so, I think your take on this whole unfortunate situation is unbelievable offensive, and unbelievably contrary to the things most of us understand UUism to value. So if you don't mean them, you should figure out a more careful way to express yourself that doesn't imply any of them.
I hope you don't mean them. I'm afraid that you do, and just don't realize that that's what your position sounds like to the reason-based community.
Word, Fausto.
There are certianly objects in this world that evoke a sense of the reverent in me. If someone decided to, say, destroy a Ross Bleckner painting, I might personally feel moved to threaten lives over it, but I would certianly feel sympathy to those who did.
I've never understood the apparently fairly common human impulse to stomp all over other people's sources of reverence. Whether is this guy and his garbage about crackers or the Guantanamo guards peeing on the Koran, the people who do these things show a depressing lack of soul.
IMHO, there's not enough reverence in this world and when people aren't hurting anybody else or forcing their beliefs on us we should just leave them alone.
CC
Sigh. I intended to write that I might NOT personally feel moved to threaten lives over a destroyed Ross Bleckner painting, but I seemed to have left out the "not."
I'd like to think that it would take at least a destroyed Picasso to move me to actual threats of violence, but maybe my subconscious is more sensitive on the issue than I'd realized.
CC
Fausto wrote:
-snip-
"That bigotry, condescension and provocative taunts are righteous and commendable, as long as they're based on religious grounds rather than age/class/gender/race/sexual preference/ability/etc"
Fausto,
I think you're confusing critical comments about an ideology with bigotry towards people. They are not the same.
An ideology shouldn't be exempt from criticism simply because it's religious in nature.
So are you suggesting that it is perfectly OK to engage in bigotry, condescension and provocative taunts as long as one does so towards an ideology rather than people? Because that's what you seem to be saying Steve. . . There is no shortage of condescension, provocative taunts and outright anti-Christian intolerance and bigotry on the PZ Myers blog post and comments that you have linked to. You seem to be aligned with PZ Myers et al, if not allied with them, considering that you have no qualms about referring to the communion wafer as a "cracker" yourself. I dare say that as a White Anglo Saxon U*U hailing from South Carolina you might want to think twice about indiscriminately throwing around the term "cracker". Some U*Us have an altogether different interpretation of the truth and meaning of that loaded word.
Fausto -- I never said the things that you think I said.
I do think it's interesting that William Donohue said the following about the recent news stories:
"It is hard to think of anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ."
Personally, I would rank past religious endorsement of genocide and clergy sexual abuse of minors as greater evils. But what do I know about theology. Apparently a minor disruption of a religious ritual is a greater evil than sexual abuse or genocide.
My take of Myers' comments were that he was condemning the hyperbole of Donohue's comments.
PZ Myers' response on his blog is really no different than the response one would get from South Park or Bill Maher.
By putting religious ideology on a different plane that makes it exempt from criticism, one is engaging in a form of idolatry.
Robin wrote:
-snip-
"So are you suggesting that it is perfectly OK to engage in bigotry, condescension and provocative taunts as long as one does so towards an ideology rather than people?
Robin,
I think you're confusing criticism with bigotry.
Keep in mind that I've had my religious views related to social justice issues criticized over the years by other Unitarian Universalists. And some of these criticisms have been very mocking in tone.
I'm glad to know that's a form of religious bigotry. I'll keep that in mind the next time it happens.
:^)
The student Webster Cook has stated that he was manhandled by ?a woman I believe? who was intent upon yanking the wafer out of his hand. That does bear looking into. Perhaps if Webster Cook was taken aside after the Mass, this whole fiasco could have been avoided.
But things are what they are. Part of the risk of freedom of speech is running into expressed ideas that one objects to. I was brought up Roman Catholic so fellow commenters please don't bother telling me that I am bigoted against Catholics.
It is unfortunate when name-calling occurs during a debate regardless of who is engaging in it.
spike
:I think you're confusing criticism with bigotry.
I don't think so Steve. Criticism comes in a variety of forms and most certainly can descend into intolerance and outright bigotry. Some of the "criticism" is presented on PZ Myers' blog reeks of anti-Christian intolerance if not outright bigotry and you seem to be condoning it if not engaging in it yourself when you refer to the communion host as a "cracker". You seem to be parroting Richard Dawkins in pretending that obvious anti-religious intolerance is just "criticism". Two can play at that game. . .
:Keep in mind that I've had my religious views related to social justice issues criticized over the years by other Unitarian Universalists. And some of these criticisms have been very mocking in tone. . . I'm glad to know that's a form of religious bigotry. I'll keep that in mind the next time it happens.
If U*Us have outright mocked your religious views it may well be a form of intolerance or outright bigotry. You have not specified what was said or how it was said so I am not in a position to judge but I can and will judge what I see on PZ Myers' blog and I see plenty of anti-Christian bigotry expressed on it. Calling a communion wafer a "cracker" conveys deep disrespect, if not outright contempt, for Christian religious beliefs about the Eucharist. Both Fausto and CC have called you on your condoning of anti-Christian intolerance and bigotry, if not your actual participation in it, based on the evidence of what is said in your posts here. I am doing likewise. To reinforce what Fausto said, you should figure out a more careful (and civil) way to express yourself if you do not want people to think that you are condoning or engaging in anti-Christian intolerance and bigotry. So should Rev. Matt Tittle for that matter, to say nothing of a fair number of other U*Us I know of who have engaged in flagrantly obvious, or more subtle and veiled, forms of anti-Christian or more broadly anti-religious intolerance and bigotry.
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