…and this is a 
Your daily exercise in the free expression of your opinion, i.e., poll crashing
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Posted on: May 7, 2008 11:29 AM, by PZ Myers
The Catholic church is always ripely ridiculous, and it's a fine fillip on the rococo elaborations of their dogma when some silly news organization tries to turn them into a poll. Here you go, two, count 'em, two polls at once on the absurd entity called the Virgin Mary. You get to vote on "Do you believe the Virgin Mary has appeared as an apparition?", which is silly as it stands, but then there's also this ambiguous question, "Are you surprised the church officially recognized the Virgin Mary sightings from the 1600s?". So we've got "do you believe in ghosts with hymens?" and "are you really surprised at how stupid religion can be?".
I had to vote no on both. Vote according to your reason now!
(By the way, don't expect dramatic shifts in the results on this one — they've got over 150,000 votes each right now.)
Comments
Oh ye of little faith.
Posted by: Greg Esres | May 7, 2008 11:35 AM
That's the point, isn't it?
Posted by: Ted D | May 7, 2008 11:40 AM
I'm not sure what's meant by the first question.
I mean, obviously yes, plenty of people have seen things, some of which even did exist, which they thought were Our Lady. Those are "apparitions" in the literal sense of the term. But, equally obviously, I don't believe any of those apparitions involved the actual presense of a supernatural being.
Posted by: Andreas Johansson | May 7, 2008 11:40 AM
Are you serious... "Do you believe the Virgin Mary has appeared as an apparition?" - 71% yes. Almost 3 out of 4 people who visit that site... but I don't understand... how stupid can you... it's a freaking story from 2000 years ago... *sigh*. I give up.
Posted by: Eric | May 7, 2008 11:42 AM
Isn't this where the whole 'reach exceeding grasp' concept comes into play?
Posted by: Ben | May 7, 2008 11:42 AM
I have a better question: what kind of moron uses "appeared as an apparition"? Haven't these people learned anything about not using noun/verb forms of the same word together?
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 7, 2008 11:48 AM
Etha: have you voted as a voter?
Posted by: Colin M | May 7, 2008 11:49 AM
I would like to recommend that whenever it's suggested that we add our opinion to a poll we don't click on a live link to get there.
Instead we copy and paste the link into our web browser.
That way, when the poll site views their web stats they will have no idea where we all came from and be left scratching their heads in befuddlement.
Posted by: Harry Bathwater | May 7, 2008 11:50 AM
Etha, your nitpicking is nothing more than mere pettifoggery.
Posted by: Mikey M | May 7, 2008 11:52 AM
The 2nd question is so ambiguous that it's meaningless to ask it. Feckin' edjits - but what should we expect?
Posted by: Richard Harris | May 7, 2008 11:53 AM
The Virgin Mary appeared to me as an apparition after a Grateful Dead show in Pittsburgh in 1981. But before I could ask any good questions or receive any wisdom or anything, she disappeared. As a disapparition.
Posted by: Sven DiMIlo | May 7, 2008 11:53 AM
Trust me PZ, Mary is not a virgin!
Posted by: firemancarl | May 7, 2008 11:55 AM
71/29 and 36/64 (yes/no) now - I'll be looking forward to returning later and see when they've been PZed off.
Plenty of people have 'seen' the virgin to good effect. I re'd a very nice book a while back by one of the fairly big names (the title escapes me, though) that spun a nice yarn over the issue. It was set in Spain and wove in the Don Quixote in a coupla chapters. The young woman 'seeing' her certainly got a head start on life out of it.
Posted by: Sili | May 7, 2008 12:00 PM
What the FUCK is an apparition?! I mean any dumb-shit has an idea of what the term is trying to describe, but I mean come ON! It's not like they have one in a cage to give us some kind of exemplar! WTF?! I hate that the bat-shit crazy fucks are so good at using language to give their moronic notions a sense of credibility. Most of their "special" words, like spirit, holy, angel, demon, heaven, etc. can be replaced by "figment of imagination".
And 3/4ths of people voting (as of 9:00 am PST) think that the "apparition" is a real things. Morons.
Posted by: Alex | May 7, 2008 12:00 PM
The running joke in our Campus Freethought Alliance is that there's an image of the virgin mary in the wood paneling.
Posted by: Lee | May 7, 2008 12:01 PM
Well, sure I'd believe in ghosts with hymens, if I believed in ghosts. And I believed ghosts had hymens. They probably wouldn't be women who'd given birth, though. If ghosts were women who'd... Well.
Come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure I believe in hymens. I never have figured out what happened to mine. Not that I'm complaining, of course; don't miss it a bit and never thought the world needed more laundry to wash.
Posted by: Ron Sullivan | May 7, 2008 12:05 PM
What a coincidence! The Virgin appeared to me just yesterday in the guise of a deformed Tootsie Roll. She was delicious!
Posted by: Eximious Jones | May 7, 2008 12:08 PM
With 170,000 votes cast, that one is going to be difficult to reverse.
Posted by: Martin07 | May 7, 2008 12:08 PM
"I never have figured out what happened to mine."
I suppose that's why they call it "losing" your virginity. Check under the couch cushions.
Posted by: craig | May 7, 2008 12:11 PM
I didn't notice this the first time around, but at least they had the sense to post this disclaimer:
"NOTE: Poll results are not scientific and reflect the opinions of only those users who chose to participate. Poll results are not reflected in real time."
#19-
Man, I must've blanked out in Ballet, I know that's where I lost it, but man... I lost my virginity in seventh grade! What's this world coming to.
Posted by: Lee | May 7, 2008 12:15 PM
Half of the "no" answers are probably just baptists or something. :(
But me no know.
Posted by: Bobby | May 7, 2008 12:16 PM
The first question was a no brainer, the second one I debated until I said 'No' based on an assumption that if the RCC is lagging so much, the best way to pretend to be relevant is to make some obscure figure a saint....or declare mystical truthiness in something that can't be easily verified and cross-referenced.
Posted by: Ryan F Stello | May 7, 2008 12:16 PM
Whenever you sit on the toilet at my house, the glare hits the bathroom door facing you, which reveals a wood grain pattern that looks an awful lot like Jesus.
It's unsettling having a solemn bearded fellow watch you poop. One of these days, I'm going to sell it on eBay.
Posted by: Karley | May 7, 2008 12:19 PM
I must confess to having enjoyed the odd Marian apparition in my properly misspent youth.
Posted by: Ken Cope | May 7, 2008 12:21 PM
That's like asking, do you believe that someone believes that he actually saw the Virgin Mary in some supernatural manner?
The only reasonable way to ask what I think they mean (or hope to be taken as meaning, depending on their angle) is, "Do you believe that God purposefully produced in 3D space the phenomena behind any of the reported apparitions of Mary?"
And that would garner a good deal fewer votes, I would wager, which perhaps is why they didn't ask the specific question. As the question stands, it might be construed as asking if pious people are able in some fashion to see what the church tells them is a miraculous sight.
How dull does one have to be to be unaware of "Our Lady of Guadalupe"? Since she's basically a Xianized form of an earlier non-Xian deity, she practically is the religion of Mexico.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 7, 2008 12:23 PM
We definitely have our qork cut out for us on the first one.
The 'No' on the second one can also be interpreted as, Of course not, since they are valid! Maybe no-vote there is a better option, if the No votes on the first poll outweigh the TOTAL votes on the second, we make our point better.
Posted by: David | May 7, 2008 12:25 PM
#23
You're going to sell your poop on eBay? I'm not sure that will be a big hit.....unless you can get some cool color-effects or striping in there, or something.
Posted by: Alex | May 7, 2008 12:26 PM
'are you surprised the church [blabla]?'
no, not in the least.
Posted by: toomanytribbles | May 7, 2008 12:26 PM
By the way, someone has to say it: Web polls are worse than useless.
Poll crashing demonstrates this fact, but then, why even bother with that?
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 7, 2008 12:26 PM
Last night I was eating a plate of spaghetti and meatballs and then I realized the FSM appeared as apparition before me.
Posted by: MikeB | May 7, 2008 12:26 PM
Just to pick a nit, the question seemed based solely on the recently recognized 'sightings' from one French girl.
But if you're argument was that the pollster wasn't accounting for other officially beatified cases, yeah, I agree.
Posted by: Ryan F Stello | May 7, 2008 12:30 PM
Yesss, my massster.
Posted by: A. Minion | May 7, 2008 12:35 PM
Colin@#7: Are you commenting as a commenter or enquiring as an enquirer?
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | May 7, 2008 12:35 PM
Pharyngula needs to have its own polls. That would be fun.
Posted by: craig | May 7, 2008 12:37 PM
At this moment, it's yes/no 70/30 for the first one, and 64/36 for the second one. Which prompts to me: as only Catholics (and Orthodoxes) should answer yes to the first question, is AOL news only read by Catholics? I thought America was a Protestant(-sect) country... (well, of course, with Latin American immigration, Catholics are a plurality now. But certainly not 70%).
Or maybe the Protestants who answered are just as much at odds with their own theology as most Catholics (remember, all of them should believe firmly in transsubstantiation, and this is the easy part compared to the Trinity).
Or maybe the poll is already being crashed from Vatican City.
Posted by: Jérôme ^ | May 7, 2008 12:39 PM
#35
Clearly there is divine manipulation occurring at AOL.
Posted by: Alex | May 7, 2008 12:41 PM
Glen, the Virgin of Guadelupe is a "christianized" mother goddess, Tonantzin. Funny, each Catholic country has its own version of the Virgin- por ejemplo, the patroness of Puerto Rico is "Our Lady of the Divine Providence". As el barrio, aka Spanish Harlem, which is centered on East 116th St, is changing demographically, from a largely Puerto Rican neighborhood to increasingly Mexican one, there are now "dueling Virgins" in the local church. One Puerto Rican woman I know was somewhat upset that a small Virgin of Guadelupe statue "materialized" in the back of the nave of her church.
Either way, you can get good tacos or good cuchifritos in the neighborhood, although the best "foodie" destination is Morrone & Sons Bakery, which is a throwback (along with Rao's) to the days when the neighborhood was Italian (and "Our Lady of Perpetual Help" would have been venerated).
What would Lou Dobbs make of all this mariolatry?
Posted by: Longtime Lurker | May 7, 2008 12:43 PM
Veracity by popularity contest. Sigh....
Posted by: Tom L | May 7, 2008 12:55 PM
I thought that the Virgin Mary wasn't really a virgin, but a mistranslation of a greek word meaning "young woman". That kind of changes the scope of things, and if true seems a little funny that people will still hold onto the virgin birth.
Posted by: Chris | May 7, 2008 12:56 PM
I watch Jesus camp today I thought it would be funny (in a laugh at the Christiain's sort of way)
But it wasn't it was just very sad and upsetting
I am glad I live in the UK Sorry
P.S. Haggard was funny
Posted by: Adam | May 7, 2008 12:56 PM
Posted by: Who Cares | May 7, 2008 12:57 PM
The ambiguous phrasing of these questions brought to mind the Pope's works relevant to the recent flap at La Sapienza:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7188860.stm
Both this from 1990
http://ncrcafe.org/node/1541
and the statement released following the La Sapienza controversy are masterworks of obfuscation and doubletalk. Is he merely quoting Bloch and Feyerabend? Is he agreeing with them? About what, exactly? Is it supposed to be an impartial analysis of modern views on science, or a scathing indictment of science? It seems clear to an intelligent reader what he's getting at, but the writing offers a hundred different loopholes. It's really quite amazing.
And then there's this:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/science-bows-to-theology-as-the-pope-dismantles-vatican-observatory-768080.html
Posted by: SC | May 7, 2008 1:01 PM
Speaking of poll crashing, I've got a new hobby: AFA letter campaign crashing. They're trying to stop the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) from passing in the senate. ENDA would stop employers from discriminating against curent or potential employees on the basis of sexual orientation. So, of course, the AFA is against it. I used the AFA mechanism to let my senators know how I feel about anti-gay discrimination in the work place. More here.
Posted by: Jackal | May 7, 2008 1:11 PM
Remember those sites prevent multiple voting by using cookies. So just delete those from aol, and setup your browser to reject all cookies; then you can vote as many times you want :-)
Posted by: Michel.ricart@makalumedia.com | May 7, 2008 1:18 PM
Excellent suggestion at #8.
I thought I saw the Virgin Mary but it turned out to be Terry Jones.
Posted by: Big Dave | May 7, 2008 1:19 PM
The reason why the pope dismantled the telescope is that, while looking at the stars, he saw Jesus and Jesus said : "sell all what you have, give it to poors and follow me".
Posted by: Daniel R | May 7, 2008 1:20 PM
No, you're thinking of something else, namely the notorious passage in Isaiah chapter 7, which Matthew makes out to be a prediction of the virgin birth of Jesus. It's the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament which is a mistranslation of the Hebrew. Of course if you take the trouble to read all of Isaiah chapters 7 and 8 it's obvious that the passage has nothing to do with Jesus at all, but details like that never worry a fundamentalist.
Posted by: Stephen | May 7, 2008 1:21 PM
Do not mock the virginity of Mary, you heathens, or beware the wrath of Ignatius de Loyola!
From Catholic World News:
You have been warned!
Posted by: Arnaud | May 7, 2008 1:21 PM
Posted by: Andreas Johansson | May 7, 2008 1:23 PM
Dammit, the blockquote was supposed to end after "... virgin birth".
Posted by: Andreas Johansson | May 7, 2008 1:25 PM
I have done your bidding, master.
I answered no to both, of course, because it doesn't surprise me in the least that the Catholic church believes a good ghost story. I mean, that's at the root of it all, isn't it?
Lore likes ghost stories too. Make sure you check out the picture of the crowd demons.
By the way, Expelled.
Posted by: MikeM | May 7, 2008 1:26 PM
Excuse my ignorance of ancient languages but I thought that the Latin virgo just meant maiden and not virgin
Posted by: Who Cares | May 7, 2008 1:31 PM
My sister used to be a virgin Mary, but she decided she liked sex with her husband. (They have two kids now. I'm pretty certain there was no immaculate conception.)
Posted by: PixelFish | May 7, 2008 1:41 PM
Maybe it's just me, but doesn't the BVM kind of resemble a hymen anyway?
Posted by: Libby | May 7, 2008 1:43 PM
@#52 PixelFish --
Theological nitpick: immaculate conception refers to the bizarre Catholic doctrine that Mary was conceived by her mother without the stain of original sin. You're thinking of the virginal conception.
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 7, 2008 1:44 PM
Try voting here every week
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?c=RADIO&CFID=1956209&CFTOKEN=373565f22881b6ed-B5F73126-9287-9FC8-8FFEAE1345F74D54
Posted by: RonH | May 7, 2008 1:50 PM
Yah... I think the no won't win on question #1. But I still voted for it!
Posted by: Michelle | May 7, 2008 1:52 PM
Etha Williams:
Right. They should have asked, "Do you believe the virgin Mary has apparitted?" Conciseness is next to godliness. Or something.
Posted by: Epikt | May 7, 2008 2:00 PM
@#57 Epikt --
What about, "Do you believe in Marian apparitions?"
The way the question is currently worded is confusing anyway; as others have pointed out, it could be simply read as, "Do you believe that people have seen things they perceive as images of the V. Mary?" In which case the answer is probably yes.
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 7, 2008 2:06 PM
What am I supposed to answer, as an atheist, to the question: "Should the church in America be active in racial reconciliation"?.
Posted by: Daniel R | May 7, 2008 2:06 PM
Etha: answer as if it was: "do you think that Mary really appears to people?"
Posted by: Daniel R | May 7, 2008 2:26 PM
I like the posts declaring us as "hate-filled PZ zombies" - that's rich. I'm certainly not "hate-filled" and I am no zombie either - I have a mind of my own and I use it. Also, I obviously can't speak for everybody here but I don't remember seeing any hate-filled speeches on this blog - at least not from this side of the fence. I know who's company I would rather be with.
Posted by: Elwood Herring | May 7, 2008 2:30 PM
Posted by: Dustin | May 7, 2008 2:33 PM
"I don't remember seeing any hate-filled speeches on this blog" (quoting myself) - okay, after reading some of the posts here, I admit they do creep in occasionally. I won't name names, but certain people are not helping our cause by ranting, are they?
Let's keep it civil, please. Calling the other side names is merely stooping to their level, and I for one will never descend to that. It merely gives them the excuse to call us "hate-filled" etc. and we're back where we started.
Posted by: Elwood Herring | May 7, 2008 2:41 PM
PZ, i appreciate your hostility to faith and genuinely respect your willingness to combat anti-rationality and anti-reason forces in the US, especially with regards to science.
nevertheless, i can't help but think that this is a little ridiculous.
*of course* catholics believe things you find silly if you view religion and revealed truth as delusion (i do to a large degree). nevertheless, we need to recognize that religion won't be disappearing anytime soon, and battles must be chosen. disparaging the catholic church for tenets of faith peculiar to it doesn't seem like a battle worth choosing.
rather, consider that the church is the largest christian sect and it has virtually no quarrel with evolution or natural history as defined by science. none. hell, the church has an observatory run by jesuit priests! i guarantee you they're not attempting to disprove comsoological observations for creationist purposes; rather, they're engaging in legitimate science building on the existing knowledge base.
i remember being in 5th grade in catholic school in central PA circa 1990, and having my science teacher do an exercise where we all got long tapes of paper and made timelines of the history of the earth on them. the point of the exercise was to show us kids how old the earth is, how long life has existed, and how recent humans and human history are.
is that the indoctrination of a religious group worth opposing vis a vis the genuine creationism and anti-rationality of the evangelical movement?
i think not. we have to pick our battles, you know?
Posted by: notsobad | May 7, 2008 2:42 PM
Dustin: it means that her parents didn't fuck.
Posted by: Daniel R | May 7, 2008 2:42 PM
"Wow, Mom, this tastes great! But I thought we were trying to lead better, healthier lives."
"We are, Jr. I've started to cook with new I Can't Believe It's Not the Stain of Original Sin. It's got ½ the calories of the stain of original sin, ¼ the fat, but all the great taste you know and love. And it's made with Divine Grace™!"
"I love you Mom!"
"Save it for confession, Jr."
Posted by: Brownian, OM | May 7, 2008 2:45 PM
Posted by: Dustin | May 7, 2008 2:51 PM
Dustin: it means that her parents didn't fuck.
No, Mary's parents fucked to make her. However, they did it so as to not inflict original sin upon her, and she never sinned thereafter. It's all right here. Read the 'theological' discussion of the difference between 'sanctifying grace' and 'divine grace' for a real treat.
I'm beginning to see the real value of religion: it keeps theologians occupied and off the streets.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | May 7, 2008 2:53 PM
I don't know: I was not there.
Posted by: Daniel R | May 7, 2008 2:59 PM
@65 Daniel --
No, they still fucked, or, in the words of the Catholic Encyclopedia:
Gotta love the language RC sex.
The doctrine, as laid out by Pope Pius IX in 1854, is simply:
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 7, 2008 2:59 PM
There's a joke about the immaculate conception that I like, but is unfortunately lost on most people due to the confusion over the immaculate conception vs the virginal conception:
Jesus is walking down the streets of Galilee when he notices a group of people surrounding a sinner, ready to stone him for some OT violation or another.
Appalled, he cries out to the crowd, "Stop! Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a stone fly and hit the man. He turns around to see who it was and sighs.
"Mom, you can be a real bitch sometimes."
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 7, 2008 3:07 PM
"Are you surprised the church officially recognized the Virgin Mary sightings from the 1600s?"
No, I'm not at all surprised that the Church is engaging in their usual pointless wankery. The only thing I'm a little surprised about is that it showed up on my MSNBC news ticker a few days ago as if it were actual news.
Posted by: Rey Fox | May 7, 2008 3:12 PM
Ah? Ok. Generative activity... interesting... I should know that, I was raised as catholic. Thanks for the explanations...
Posted by: Daniel R | May 7, 2008 3:13 PM
Did anyone else notice they mapped the genome of the platypus?
Posted by: Dennis N | May 7, 2008 3:14 PM
Dennis N @#74: you dawg, you. I was just going to paste in this "off topic" link, and ya beat me to it.
Yeah, way cool for science, another nail in the coffin for the anti-evo's.
Hey, I just spotted the V.M. in my potato salad I'm making!
She's delicious.... mmmmmmm.....
Posted by: Forrest Prince | May 7, 2008 3:18 PM
Posted by: Dustin | May 7, 2008 3:18 PM
<count>One absurd poll, two absurd polls. Two! TWO ABSURD POLLS! AHAHAHAHA!</count>
Seriously, though... Yes/70%/118,944 vs. No/30%/51,712 for the first poll so far. Can people really be that stupid?
Posted by: Muffin | May 7, 2008 3:19 PM
Did they find any original sin in the platypus genome? How about derivative sin?
Posted by: Andreas Johansson | May 7, 2008 3:20 PM
The Catholic Encyclopedia is hilarious.
In their article on the IC, they have a section of "Proof from Scripture," "Proof from Tradition," and "Proof from Reason." Because Church tradition has been anything but constant on the IC, they have this preface to the "Proof from Tradition" section:
...right...
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 7, 2008 3:22 PM
What a coincidence! That's where I found Jesus!
Posted by: noncarborundum | May 7, 2008 3:24 PM
@#78 Andreas Johansson --
Nope, but there was a a definite limited amount of integral sin. It was very improper.
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 7, 2008 3:25 PM
70/30
60/40
Posted by: Coyote | May 7, 2008 3:29 PM
Right, Mary (who was conceived without sin) hadn't "known" a man - no sex, no penetration, no... nookie.
In that light, even more amazing is the concept of The Virgin Birth - the idea that Mary remained a virgin even after the birth of Jesus. That's quite a stretch (*cough*) considering that she'd just had an entire human male body traverse her vagina...
Posted by: Kseniya | May 7, 2008 3:32 PM
When we see that animal, I am pretty sure that it comes from a generative activity between a mamal and a bird. If it is not a sin... But PZ told us some days ago that animals often do non-catholic things...
Posted by: Daniel R | May 7, 2008 3:33 PM
Did they find any original sin in the platypus genome?
As Elvis Costello sang in I'm Not Angry: 'There's no such thing as an original sin.'
Posted by: Mark B | May 7, 2008 3:34 PM
When a group of people actually believe something this stupid it's not a battle but a laugh fest.
Fair enough but when the same body endorses such woo-woo and other equally odious policies they don't get a free pass on their obvious stupidity.
This is a false dilemma. Both the RCC and the evangelicals are irrational. One is just more so on science than the other. In many ways the evangelical are MORE rational than the RCC. It just depends on which subject we're talking about.
Posted by: JImC | May 7, 2008 3:43 PM
Wow. Talk about freaky... I just voted No to the Virgin Mary, and then I saw a picture of Madonna on the InterTubes!
I can't wait for my next grilled cheese sandwich!
Posted by: J-Dog | May 7, 2008 3:45 PM
According to the Lewis & Short dictionary, virgo could be used to mean "a young woman, a girl", but this was a transferred meaning; the primary meaning was "maiden, maid, virgin". And don't be fooled: these three words (virgin, maid and maiden) were more or less interchangeable at the time L&S was published (1879). For example, Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition, defines maiden as:
and virgin as:
In neither case did Webster's find it necessary to draw a distinction between virgin on the one hand and maid or maiden on the other by, for example, treating them as separate numbered definitions.
In any event, it doesn't really matter what virgo meant because the Bible was not written in Latin, it was written in Hebrew and Greek. The relevant question is what almah and parthenos meant.
Posted by: noncarborundum | May 7, 2008 3:46 PM
Where I get on my high horse...
For all I care the Catholic church could believe that the Virgin Mary was a space-girl from Mars. Well, maybe the Mormons believe that.
I know that attacking the Catholic church isn't a zero-sum game, but this sort of post is a bit like a satirist who makes fun of Bush for being stupid. *We* already know that all religions are ludicrous and that Bush has the intellectual curiosity of a brick.
I don't think we should laugh at Catholics. No. Rage and horror are much more appropriate emotions when dealing with a group who consistently lobby across the world to deny women their reproductive rights.
Let's learn to associate Catholics with deaths of people in third world countries from AIDS because they have been forbidden access to contraception.
Let's recognize the fact that women in Catholic countries are dying daily from self-induced abortions as a direct result of Catholic lobbying to prevent women from obtaining legal abortions (a simple and safe medical procedure).
Let's recall that their Church suffers from *institutionalized* child-abuse and also their shameful attempts to protect the abusers.
Finally, and this I don't care about so much- Let's recognize that the Catholic church does not believe in evolution. They may say they do, but in their scheme God still makes all the key decisions and also implants humans with souls. Their views on evolution are not all that different from those of intelligent design proponents.
"I don't want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them." Tom Lehrer.
---------------------------------
Of course I recognize that PZ has done more than his fair share of substantial criticism of religion in tandem with his more playful satirical pieces. But I'm on my high horse right now, which requires me to feel more indignant than usual.
Posted by: Christianjb | May 7, 2008 3:54 PM
jimb and others,
i do not intend to give the church a pass on policies that have socially deleterious effects, nor do i believe that roman catholicism is explicitly more rational than evangelical christianity.
what i am suggesting however, is that there are wiser battles to be fought with the church than picking on them for maintaining the divinity of mary, immaculate conceptions, and so forth.
church proscriptions on condoms or whathaveyou might derive from theology, but these views can be combatted on rational grounds with someone of faith (if they're reasonable about it, we all know there are those who are not) as to their intent and effect.
however, the divinity of mary is not a policy ground for catholics. it is a tenet of faith. mock, freely, if you will but this will not stop hundreds of millions from believing it, and will only turn many towards the truly irrational and unreasonable hucksters in religious communities. just my opinion.
Posted by: notsobad | May 7, 2008 4:00 PM
Well, from the current ranking, I think we need at least 5000 votes to change the stats to 71% Yes.
On the flipside, we can downgrade the importance of the story right before the comments, but hey, don't think I'm saying to do it......
...do it!
Posted by: Ryan F Stello | May 7, 2008 4:01 PM