You've probably heard about the Great Catholic Cracker Caper by now: a young man named Webster Cook "smuggled" a Eucharist wafer out of a church instead of eating it, and his actions were quickly denounced as a hate crime by the Catholic League. PZ Myers then rightly ridiculed those who made such a big fuss over a "frackin' cracker", and asked his readers to send him consecrated communion wafers so that he could "treat them with profound disrespect".
Now the great desecration has occurred: PZ has taken a communion wafer, a few pages from the Koran and - to show that he holds nothing sacred - a few pages from The God Delusion, pierced them with a rusty nail, and thrown the whole lot into the bin (the trash), followed by some old coffeegrounds and a banana peel.
While I agree with PZ in principle - I am an athiest, and I think that religious beliefs are ridiculous - I do think that he's being very immature, and I don't believe that courting controversy by deliberately offending people and insulting their beliefs is too clever. His original threats of wafer abuse provoked death threats from crazed Catholics, and if he'd left it at that, maybe the whole affair would have blown over with no consequence. But now that he's actually done it, who knows what might happen?
What PZ has done doesn't offend me one bit, and normally, I wouldn't bother to mention all this nonsense. But I just came across this old bible in my feed reader - the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, dated to the 4th Century - and wondered what PZ would do with it if he had it in his possession. Would he be tempted to rip pages out of it and throw them in the trash, or would he admire it?
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
Are you being serious here?
You make him sound like the Taliban faced with the Buddhas at Bamiyan.
While I do think he's being a little immature in this whole issue and
clearly has an ego the size of Canada, its rather silly of yourself to
suggest that he would destroy an academically valuable and historical piece
of religious culture.
Posted by: Sigmund | July 25, 2008 5:03 PM
Short answer...don't lend it to PZ.
Really though, one of the main points actually about the whole thing was
that people were being silly over common bread material. Imbuing it with
symbol infinitely far beyond it's merits.
Rare books they are not.
Posted by: Richard Eis | July 25, 2008 5:05 PM
As the above have already said, this is a somewhat silly question.
In order to be a useful comparison, you need to either use a recently
printed-out copy of said book or try to claim that the cracker used was the
oldest surviving cracker in the world.
The answer to the first I suspect would be "sure" and the second is just
ridiculous.
Posted by: Andrew | July 25, 2008 5:07 PM
What Sigmund said. Even if Constantine Simonides had forged it the Codex
Sinaiticus would still have some historical and cultural value. There is a
lot of difference between historical artifacts and mass produced books and
crackers. To insinuate that PZ can't differentiate between them is a wee
bit hyperbolic.
Posted by: df | July 25, 2008 5:09 PM
I agree with Sigmund and df. To equate a 10-cent cracker with a priceless
1600 year manuscript of profound historical and cultural signifigance would
seem pretty ridiculous to just about anyone, I hope.
Posted by: Mick | July 25, 2008 5:13 PM
"Would he rip pages out of it and throw them in the trash, or would he
admire it?"
Well, it has more value than a "frackin cracker", so I'd guess no.
Posted by: Pete | July 25, 2008 5:16 PM
I kind of think of PZ's antics as equivalent to religious rituals, designed
to propagate and solidify his own beliefs - which are obviously quite
strong and he would like to convert others to his way of thinking.
I would think that as a scientist he would not destroy a unique historical
artifact. But as an activist? Nothing surprises me about the lengths some
people will go to, to foist their beliefs and opinions on others.
Posted by: BGG | July 25, 2008 5:17 PM
Of course I don't seriously think that PZ would damage a priceless ancient bible.
I've been extremely bored with his anti-religious rants for some time now. My point - which I should have made clearer - is that he's gone too far this time.
Posted by: Mo | July 25, 2008 5:24 PM
PZ's answer:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/06/we_stand_awed_at_the_heights_o.php
Posted by: leo | July 25, 2008 5:27 PM
PZ Myers gave an absolutely brilliant response. If I were not an antitheist, I would be this kind of atheist. Seeing such an answer bolsters my small amount of respect for atheists as a whole.
Posted by: Jonathon | July 25, 2008 8:13 PM
Like ya, Mo. Really, I do. But here you miss the point. The copy of the Codex in your picture is as valuable as the artifacts destroyed in the pillage of Iraq following the sack of Saddam.
What PZ "desecrated" had no such historical value. It was a symbol, sure. But what of Kenewick man? The anthropological interest is great, and yet Native Americans decided the bones of their ancestors were sacred even when they were shown to be wrong and that the skeleton was clearly not an ancestor of theirs. It was an affront to their belief in ancestor worship.
In PZ's post, he made the very clear point that people have been murdered for their disbelief in the consecration of the host. How is what he has done so bad in comparison? Who decides what is "sacred?"
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | July 26, 2008 2:50 AM
Zoom. Your statements just flew over the heads of many of your commentors.
Posted by: Ron in Houston | July 26, 2008 8:35 AM
PZ was making a point that we should hold none of our beliefs as sacred and we should be allowed to question all ideas. The very reason he had torn pages of the God Delusion nailed with the cracker, Koran, and banana. The point was to rile up some more True Believers™.
In other words I'm not sure it's a fair question.
Posted by: Webs | July 26, 2008 6:03 PM