…and this is a 
I get email
Category: Kooks
Posted on: July 26, 2008 3:15 PM, by PZ Myers
Good news! While I still get flooded with email every time Bill Donohue puts my address in a press release, I'm getting 90% fewer death threats! I think that maybe the example of Ms Kroll and her trollish husband has made people thinking twice before explicitly spelling out their gruesome plans, so that's an improvement.
I'm still getting way too much repetitive crap, though. Yes, people, I know you're offended. You don't all need to tell me. If I had time to reply to each one of you individually, I'd simply tell you to tough it out — I'm offended by you, but none of us have a right to not be offended. So let me just tell you collectively: I've heard that message, and the message that you'll pray for me, and the message that I'll be going to hell, and the message that you think I need to be sent to jail or an asylum, and I don't care what you think, so put a sock in it already. OK? OK. I've now got a bunch of filters in place that trash mail that mentions certain common keywords (hint to people legitimately attempting to contact me: try not to sound too Catholic), so there's not even the point of harassment to your continued volleys. You can all stop now.
Anyway, in the hopes that at least a few of these loons will notice how silly their protestations look, I've put a semi-random sampling below the fold. Or, at least, I hope it will at least induce them to proofread before they send their whines into my trash folder.
Bryan Stikeleather is a Ph.D. student at the University of Pittsburgh, and this is the way his mind works. Actually, a lot of Catholics have been sending me email along these lines — do you all fantasize about raping and murdering people? Please stop reading the Old Testament!
Just wanted to send you a note to say that if someone publicized that they were going to kidnap your wife, Mary, and your kids Alaric, Connlann, and Skatje, rape them brutally, kill them, throw them in a trashcan, and then laugh and brag about it, then you just might have just a hint of the outrage that you have caused many good people.
Hoss Gardner wants to hurt the educational system of some mysterious state I've never heard of in retaliation. Read further and you'll discover the irony of that.
You have put y our education institution in the middle of this. So every agency, public and private, that gives to Minnisota University will be informed of your actions and letters of protest will be going to halt all funding. The bureau of Minnisota Tourism and Chamber of Commerce will be notified and a boycot started against the state of minnisota. We will hit you economically every way we can.
And there's more! Hoss keeps sending me email.
I work at a school working with high school students. If I did anything like this and publized it I would be fired for unprofessional behavior.
But beyond that, it seems to me that you are afraid. I noticed on your site that there is a small insert about violent attacks be reported. So its true that the Christian martyrs have and had more guts than atheists. After all you are afraid that now you have insult the Catholics and the Muslims, you might be hurt.
Mainly I'm afraid of the Catholics. The Muslims haven't threatened me at all. But…Hoss works in a school? That is the most frightful thing I've read yet.
This one just calls himself "Al. G.".
hey jew if you got balls say somthing about your jewish backround fag.or the moslems
Well, gosh, I don't think I have any Jewish background — at least not anywhere in the last few centuries. Why are so many of these letter writers calling me Jewish?
At least Ron Peplau is a little more imaginative in his queries.
Your actions are irrational. You must have done this before. Are you a wiccan.
Why, no, Ron! I'm an atheist! Wiccans are kind of silly, don't you think?
I read this one with some concern — I'm happily married, and anyway, I don't really swing that way. Jason really needs to find his own teddy bear and bottom.
Hello, my name is jason Larrimore, I am a 35 year old mechanic from Thomasville, AL. I am a Catholic Christian, I would like to desacrate your fat ass. I know that I shouldn't feel that way, but you are truly ther worst kind of ignorant.Give me a call {if you are man enough} and I will come to you to deliver your ass whipping. 334-410-0611. I'm sure that you won't call, I'm sure that you will know the truth eventually, hopefully sooner than too late. I will pray for you, even though I would really enjoy kicking your ass.
If nothing else, he has a future writing copy for the classified ads section of your local city weekly.
Rick DeLano is more representative — he sends his demands to both me and President Bruininks (who must be heartily sick of all this).
Please be advised that there is a limit beyond which gratuitous, evil and demonic hatred expressed toward Catholics will either be dealt with by the appropriate authorities, as it should have been long ago in this instant case, or else the victims of these hate crimes will have no choice but to defend themselves against the unopposed spread of this blatant, bigoted, Nazi-like hatred.
I strongly urge, advise, and recommend that you fire this bigot and hate criminal NOW, because if you do not, you will have opened the door to something terrible indeed, a return to the religious persecutions and ugly anti-Catholic vandalism for which this country has had plenty of occasion to be ashamed in the past.
If that particular Pandora's Box is opened up how very sorry those authorities will be, who could have intervened with a decent application of existing authoritative guidelines against such evil and vile contempt and bias.
Stop the bigots and haters NOW.
Fire this grotesque blasphemer Myers NOW.
Stop the desecrators of the Catholic eucharist RIGHT NOW.
Or we will have no choice but to conclude that our defense will have to rely upon our own resources.
Most sincerely,
Rick DeLano
Right…Surrender Dorothy, or we'll send in the flying monkeys!
Mr S. K. Kutai is very, very Catholic. And very, very stupid.
so you are a biologist, huh. I presume you are quite acquainted with amoeba; you know the thing that divides and divides and divides without doing the thing that you and your wife do as a bedtime pastime.. no, you don't know why it divides and divides and divides apart from appropriating it some kind of 'intelligence'which it has not. so you see, you are quite stupid on that. Is that all you can be, a stupid biologist? you can't even stop aging. look at your tummy!!!why didn't you learn to be a philosopher? so at least you can understand the associations of words and their effect on society. how much do you love your son. myers? or are you looking at him just as a big blob - a collection of amoeba-like entities? a blob you could abuse to satisfy your animal instinct? given your state of biology-based stupidity, i presume it's not immoral for you to fondle your son to satisfy your penis' needs, huh? afterall you are not on any moral code; you are just a plain professor of biology, someone the world can survive without....just a blob of amoeba - a blob that is hell-bound until your 9th generation..Have you heard of the candle fire at the stadium biblicum ofm in hongkong , myers? I presume not. well that fire is from Jerusalem. it is especially transmitted. do you know about the words of consecration for the consecrated hosts, myers? they are the same words used by Jesus and handed over to Catholic priests through the ages through apostolic succession. and what Jesus wants done, it goes. many martyred their lives to get His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity to the present. don't think a desecration of the Eucharist by you will go unabated. what you did was sacrilegious. you can laugh at what you did, but you have also brought abomination to yourself and your generations to come. you are hell-bound, myers!!! I can only advise you to repent. go to a Catholic priest and confess....or hell shall be your rightful dues. we'll see each other but from oppossite sides of the great divide...I'll raise my hand to remind you, and you'll raise your clenched hand with a grotesque face to acknowledge me but you'll be naked and burning all eaten up by your generations of cursed posterity.
Yeah, my brain hurts too. I hope you didn't strain yourself actually trying to make sense of that.
Dorothy Westermann of Eau Claire is a bit peeved.
Your actions described below indicate you are not fit to be a professor at any institution of learning. Your immature and irrational actions are not only hateful, hurtful and destructive, you should not be allowed access to young people. Your intentional harm to both Christians and Muslims should be punished by jail time, firing from the University staff and social ostracism.
You have used the education, position and privileges you have received in life to spew your bile from a high podium. This makes you also an ingrate and a disgrace to the University of Minnesota.
I other words, I hope you rot. You are not worthy to be called human.
What? I'm not human, but I bet she thinks a blastocyst is!
Just to be fair, let me mention the current tally: somewhere well above 12,000 hate mail messages from religious people, mostly Catholic; two reasonable messages from Catholics who said that while they are unshaken in their faith, they approve of my opposition to cracker idolatry; and zero comments of any kind from admitted Muslims.
I'm afraid that I won't be able to estimate the numbers in the future, now that they're being automatically trashed, but I think it's safe to say that the Catholics have run the scoreboard.
Comments
Posted by: Dustin | July 26, 2008 3:27 PM
A grad student writes something like this, but it's Webster Cook and the guy who did nothing but warm the pew beside him who deserve to be expelled? http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=hitchens%20hate%20speech&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#Posted by: fhge | July 26, 2008 3:27 PM
hmm a telephon number. i wonder what you could do with that...
Posted by: Dustin | July 26, 2008 3:30 PM
Leave the phone number alone. I thought you guys learned your lesson in the Krollateral damage episode.Posted by: Jim RL | July 26, 2008 3:30 PM
As someone who was raised Catholic I have to say I am really surprised at how crazy these people are. I always thought when we were told the host "really is" Jesus it was just Clintonian word play. Even as a child I remember teachers fumbling through explanations, and I just accepted it "really is" even though it obviously isn't. Sigh, I suppose we aren't as removed from the dark ages as we thought.
I also find it weird that the religious automatically think about rape and murder when they think of a world without god. I have to think most of these people are decent human beings, but do they really want to rape and murder people? Are they constantly thinking "Oh boy, I'd love to rape and kill so-and-so. Too bad god would be pissed"? Is there really no other reason not to rape and kill people?
Posted by: Christian Ridley | July 26, 2008 3:31 PM
Such unabated ignorance!
The only thing I can do to attempt to maintain some sanity is laugh. And boy is this making me laugh.
Posted by: JoJo | July 26, 2008 3:31 PM
How long before you close that email account and start another?
Posted by: Jim RL | July 26, 2008 3:34 PM
Dustin, I couldn't agree more. Can Bryan Stikeleather really not differentiate between a communion wafer and four very real people!? Besides, do these people not realize you fucking chew, swallow, digest, and eliminate the host? This is not a very dignified fate is it? Let it decompose in a landfill. Hopefully they have methane capture and utilization at the Morris landfill. The wafer could create renewable energy.
Posted by: firemancarl | July 26, 2008 3:35 PM
Congrats PZ. I am glad that the nutties have been "turned off" by your unwillingness to back down. I suppose we should not be surprised at the absolute breathtaking stupidity shown by the fundagelicals. Thanks, above all, for being a voice of reason in a sea of stupidity.
Posted by: kerovon | July 26, 2008 3:38 PM
I just glanced at the latest press release on the Catholic Leagues website, and in it they seem to be comparing PZ's cracker desecration with a professor who was fired for having child porn on his computer.
That says something about Catholic mentality that the consider wasting food (if it can be called that, I'd never eat one) to be as severe as a crime as child porn.
Posted by: Fabulously in the City | July 26, 2008 3:41 PM
That guy didn't even spell Minnesota right...nor did he even mention your University right!!! He referred to it as "Minisota University"...
Honey, it's the University of Minnesota!!!
Ha, these people are HILARIOUS
Posted by: Logicel | July 26, 2008 3:42 PM
Jason Larrimore's missive is cracking me up so much I am now purblind.
Seriously, if this pathetic show of confused thinking and warped emotional reaction occurs while these people are supposedly under the positive influence of religion, what would they be like without such a benign influence? Would they be the same, better, or worse?
I have always kept a personal distance from Catholics, even the moderates, because they are just so boring and droningly trite, but now I am entertaining the notion that maybe I should run in the opposite direction as fast as my little atheist legs can carry me the next time I encounter one.
For you Catholics reading this thread, have no fear from me, as I will avoid you folks like the plague.
Posted by: Dscott | July 26, 2008 3:47 PM
What is Bryan Stikeleather's email address? I have to ask him something.
Posted by: me | July 26, 2008 3:47 PM
"All I said to my wife was, that piece of halibut is good enough for Jehovah!"Posted by: SEF | July 26, 2008 3:48 PM
Leaving aside the issue of Jesus being a fictional character, claiming Jesus muttered magic spells in Roman Catholic Latin rather than some local language of his era is still very much along the lines of those crackers people who declaim about the Bible having to be in the original English (eg KJV).Posted by: Cheezits | July 26, 2008 3:49 PM
There is something seriously deranged about a belief that puts maltreatment of a WAFER on a par with doing the same to someone's family. Not that there aren't sickos in every sector of society but the Catholic church actually encourages this insanity.
I can't figure out what these people want when they complain you don't respect their beliefs. I saw people on the other threads condemning the great desecration on the grounds that it was like taking a security blanket from a little kid. Is that the sort of repect they want? Because to me that is more insulting to them as individuals than any trashing of a piece of bread, or even speaking up and saying that how STUPID that part of Catholic doctrine is. At least you give them credit for potentially being able to see the stupidity; I know I do. It rubs me the wrong way when people in these discussions talk about devout Catholics like they were five years old. I'd rather be insulted than patronized. But maybe that's just me.
Posted by: Sunn O))) | July 26, 2008 3:50 PM
These emails remind me of a chapter in the Marylin Manson auto-bio where he published all the false affidavits filed against him for all these horrible things he was supposedly doing on stage.
And who filed all these bogus affidavits? Decent, young christians, and the unbelievably sick and disgusting things they claimed that happened on stage (none of which actually did) truly shows who the sick minded people really are.
They claimed he mutilated live animals on stage, then had sex with them, etc etc etc. Really depraved acts, but then again, these little liars are the ones who wrote this stuff so that really says it all about who is the greater evil.
I've been watching from afar the whole cracker-gate thing, and I just can't stop laughing at the emails. In one breath, they pray for your soul, and in the next they want to kick your ass.
Good upstanding christians. Full of love and compassion.
Posted by: Jason | July 26, 2008 3:50 PM
"Just to be fair, let me mention the current tally: somewhere well above 12,000 hate mail messages from religious people, mostly Catholic; two reasonable messages from Catholics who said that while they are unshaken in their faith, they approve of my opposition to cracker idolatry; and zero comments of any kind from admitted Muslims."
I just wondered, do you have a total for supportive messages?
Do you have any idea how many emails President Bruininks received, either in total or in support?
Posted by: Andrés Diplotti | July 26, 2008 3:50 PM
I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that this people really believe that the cracker is their god, just because they were told so. And not just believe it, but assume it's an obvious and unmissable fact, to the point of thinking that only a murderous person could abuse that particular piece of confectionery. It boggles the mind.
Posted by: mr-zero | July 26, 2008 3:50 PM
Is that a legitimate telephone number? Does it really belong to who it claims it belongs too. Perhaps not wise to post it after the MKroll incidents.
Z
Posted by: OctoberMermaid | July 26, 2008 3:52 PM
Poor wittle babies got their feewings hurt.
Good thing they have sky daddy to comfort them.
Doesn't seem to be helping much...
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 3:54 PM
Absolutely terrible! Is nothing sacred?
Posted by: Lysa | July 26, 2008 3:54 PM
Christians continue to amuse me to no end. How a vast population of people who claim to live by the teachings of Jesus in a brotherhood of love and tolerance can become so enraged by something so meaningless that they threaten violence is just hilarious. Yet us godless heathens are able to have tolerance and compassion in our hearts for all people, without the vital guidance of God and his bible.
Posted by: PZ Myers | July 26, 2008 3:56 PM
I'm not giving out their email addresses, sorry.
As for Larrimore's phone number, please don't call it unless you really, seriously definitely desire him to desecrate your ass. And if you are MAN ENOUGH.
Posted by: anthropic | July 26, 2008 3:56 PM
Wow. What scares me is these types of wackos are all around us. We were sold the "war on terror" line a few years ago. But the biggest dangers lurk among us in the the form of unfathomable stupidity.
Unfortunately, these idiots will never change. Ever. As a whole, they are too ignorant and fearful to consider rational thinking (unless it serves their own greed or need for self-preservation).
I have zero respect or tolerance for people who refuse to rise above their stupidity. I no longer associate with anyone who openly pushes their beliefs on me. There's no point in debating them. It leads nowhere. Calling them on it feels more gratifying.
Thus, I have no trouble calling religious wackos or conspiracy theorists "morons", "cretins","wackjobs", or worse. It's like squeezing a painful zit :-)
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 3:58 PM
Thank God for that!! Amen.
Posted by: Arnaud | July 26, 2008 3:58 PM
"He said it again!!"
Posted by: OrneryPest | July 26, 2008 3:59 PM
But professor, you gotta realize these Catholics have got big money tied up in their Fracken-crackers! They cost $8.99 for a box of 1000. A major part of the gadzillion megabuck church budget, you know!
Posted by: True Bob | July 26, 2008 3:59 PM
Do you mean PZ is still "desecrating" frackers? Damn, I thought we were in the denouement.
Posted by: Todd | July 26, 2008 4:01 PM
Baba @ # 21:
Absolutely terrible! Is nothing sacred?
Nope.
Posted by: OctoberMermaid | July 26, 2008 4:01 PM
You know, really, though, I'm amazed they keep sending you emails.
Makes me sleepy.
Counting sheep tends to do that.
Posted by: Ferrous Patella | July 26, 2008 4:01 PM
"...your kids Alaric, Connlann, and Skatje..."
Yeah they make threats at your kids, but can any of these loons pronunciate your kids' names?
Posted by: Catholics, stop being so hysterical! | July 26, 2008 4:06 PM
"In 2001, this part of the Tenure Code was invoked against a professor at UMN because he had images of child porn on his computer. It should now be invoked against Myers, and that is why we will appeal to UMN's Board of Regents to do just that. It strains credulity to maintain that Christian students can expect fair treatment by a faculty member who has publicly shown nothing but contempt for their religion."
Myers hasn't been fired for showing contempt for creationism (which is the same as showing contempt for certain versions of Christianity), so one wonders what makes Donohue think Myers is going to be fired for this.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 4:07 PM
That's why re-education camps are so handy. Bring back the Gulag.
Posted by: wjv | July 26, 2008 4:07 PM
"Unabated"? Now for some reason, that made me laugh.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | July 26, 2008 4:09 PM
The inestimable Rick DeLano is kind enough to warn, "Please be advised that there is a limit beyond which gratuitous, evil and demonic hatred expressed toward Catholics will either be dealt with by the appropriate authorities, as it should have been long ago in this instant case . . ."
I'm just guessing here, but wouldn't the "appropriate authorities" be the being he calls by a name that is forbidden to be spoken as well as this being's minions, who seem to be legion? And are not these agents the very ones that Rick and his congregation not only pray to faithfully and earnestly, but in whom the average Catholic will claim complete trust? So why invoke something as lame as vague threats issued at long distance by mere humans?
Just thinking out loud here . . .
Posted by: katie | July 26, 2008 4:09 PM
At my small liberal arts alma mater, a tenured prof was recently fired for having a consenual affair with someone he met over the internet...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080721.LPERSONAL21/TPStory/?query=acadia
I get the impression tenure isn't as tenured as I thought?
Posted by: Ross | July 26, 2008 4:09 PM
"how much do you love your son. myers? or are you looking at him just as a big blob - a collection of amoeba-like entities"
But surely Catholics are meant to love all gods creatures? It saddens me to think there is a group of people who have it in for single cell organisms.
Posted by: brandon | July 26, 2008 4:09 PM
Jebus, there used to be a time when Catholic schools actually taught people how to write. I see that time is long gone.
Larrimore's 334-410-0611 phone number needs to be dispersed across the net.
Posted by: Sandi | July 26, 2008 4:09 PM
Myers: You shouldn't complain about proofreading when you have such a poor command of the English language yourself. To wit: "I'm offended by you, but none of us have a right to not be offended." None of us implies "not one of us." Hence, you should say, "None of us has..." (Incidentally, you also have a split infinitive.) You see, its only a smart idea to pontificate when you know what the hell you're talking about.
Posted by: Svetogorsk | July 26, 2008 4:12 PM
You see, its only a smart idea to pontificate when you know what the hell you're talking about.
If you're the same Sandi who posted reams of demented gibberish in the recent 2000-plus comments thread, how on earth are you in any position to judge?
Posted by: craig | July 26, 2008 4:15 PM
Personally, I think it's going to get worse, not better.
As society advances technologically, I think we're going to end up with more, crazier fundamentalists rather that fewer... because only a small percentage of the populace actually understand technology. To the rest it's essentially "magic." Ad the magic gets more and more confusing, a large segment of the population will become more and more estranged from the technologically literate ones. Tension, anxiety, misunderstanding and a general feeling of lack of control is going to manifest itself in crazier and crazier cultish behavior.
Just think of the distrust and ignorance behind the "moon landings were faked," the "government hiding aliens" and other nutty concepts, and magnify that by a thousand as people are less and less able to understand and deal with the technology around them.
I swear, 100 years from now there will be churches worshiping nanotech.
Posted by: Jim RL | July 26, 2008 4:15 PM
Hey, Sandi shouldn't that be "...it's only a smart idea...".
You see, "its" is the possessive form of "it", and you wish to use the contraction of "it is". Well done.
Posted by: SC | July 26, 2008 4:15 PM
Too late.
Posted by: Ken Mareld | July 26, 2008 4:16 PM
PZ,
You must be a demon of the time warping type. To handle all of what is on your plate MUST require Supernatural effort. This is TRUE PROOF that you are only a faux atheist.
OUT with you demon! OUT with you demon! Oh, the exorcism didn't work. WTF? I paid 666.00 dollars for the internet exorcism kit and you are still on my darned bookmarks.
I want my money back.
Ken
Posted by: hyperdeath | July 26, 2008 4:17 PM
If I was you, I'd reply to all the hate-mail with just three words:
"I forgive you"
Posted by: Ben Stein | July 26, 2008 4:18 PM
#'s 39 and 41
Come on you guys, don't be such grammar nazis.
Posted by: Sandi | July 26, 2008 4:18 PM
Myers: As for your rant the other day against Catholics ("The Great Desecration"), let me make the following observation: you're like Rip Van Winkle. Most of your rant involved the year 1310 and the Middle Ages. We are now in the year 2008--perhaps you didn't get the memo? Talk about holding a long grudge! Maybe you're compensating for your, ahem, shortcomings in other areas.
Posted by: LisaJ | July 26, 2008 4:20 PM
"You can't even stop again. Look at your tummy!!!"
haha, this was my favourite. OK, I really don't get the tummy part, but it's hilarious. I love how idiots seem to think that as biologists we should be basically superhuman and know how to cure JUST OURSELVES from all diseases. Priceless.
I'm kinda sad that you're trashing your messages now, because these are so entertaining. But I'm glad for you that things seem to be lightening up a bit.
Posted by: OctoberMermaid | July 26, 2008 4:20 PM
"We are now in the year 2008--perhaps you didn't get the memo?"
And yet here you still are worshiping a cracker and treating a book of fairy tales as a history textbook.
Posted by: Sandi | July 26, 2008 4:21 PM
Jim RL at #41 is quite right. I really should have proofread before posting. Oh, well, at least I had fewer errors than Myers.
Posted by: Ken Mareld | July 26, 2008 4:22 PM
Oooops,
Sorry about the exorcism. It turns out that someone is actually selling a book about internet exorcism. Who knew?
Ken
Posted by: Tulse | July 26, 2008 4:22 PM
Because using a split infinitive is just as bad as not being able to spell one of the fifty US states.
Posted by: Ben Stein | July 26, 2008 4:22 PM
I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw grammarians telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed.Posted by: Jim RL | July 26, 2008 4:23 PM
I'm generally not a grammar nazi because I tend to make numerous errors when posting comments. My point was that repeatedly misspelling the name of a US state is not the same as using the wrong verb tense in a convoluted sentence. PZ wasn't being a grammar nazi. He was just pointing out blatant and repeated spelling and grammar mistakes. Such systemic abuse of the English language does reflect poorly on the writer. Sandi's missing character and PZ's verb tenses are not systemic errors.
Posted by: James | July 26, 2008 4:23 PM
That split infinitive thing is a pet peeve of mine. The rule comes from Victorian-era grammarians who thought that Latin was a "perfect language" or whatever. Just like modern descendants of Latin like Spanish, the infinitive tense of a verb is a single word and cannot be split. They decided that that also made sense for Germanic languages. Splitting infinitives in English is not "bad grammar", and doing it can often make a sentence more clear.
Posted by: scooter | July 26, 2008 4:24 PM
HOLY CRAP!!!! It's the BLOB !!!!!
Hurry, somebody call Steve McQueen
Posted by: Ben Stein | July 26, 2008 4:24 PM
#53
Language leads to killing.
Posted by: JonathanL | July 26, 2008 4:25 PM
Sandi, I only wish you could appreciate how monumentally stupid that sounds coming from someone who practices a religion based on a 2000 year old book.
Posted by: WA | July 26, 2008 4:27 PM
I wonder how many of these whack-jobs will now turn around and join in the "Official Pray for PZ Myers Month.
And if they do, will they be praying that he converts, or will they be praying that he will finally see the beauty of ass desecration and give them a call?
Posted by: anthropic | July 26, 2008 4:28 PM
Sandi@#39,
That's the best you have? An attack on grammar? Wow, what an impressive intellect. I quiver.
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | July 26, 2008 4:29 PM
@ Sandi...
Get over it. Seriously.
That is all.
Posted by: geru | July 26, 2008 4:29 PM
Poor Minnisota, I'm sure their tourism is going to suffer from all the boycotting.
Hang in there PZ, maybe the kook mails will begin to decrease after a few months. :)
Posted by: Jim RL | July 26, 2008 4:29 PM
Sandi, the whole point is that it is 2008. In the 21st century people shouldn't make death threats over the well-being of a small piece of unleavened bread. It is absolutely ridiculous. In a rational society, PZ's actions would be eccentric, but not offensive. Putting a nail through some bread should not be a big deal.
Posted by: Duvenoy | July 26, 2008 4:30 PM
What a bunch of mooks!
But to anyone who reads history, particularly that of religions in general and the Catholic Church in particular, it should come as small suprise. Vicious attacks on anyone who who disagrees and is less than silent about it was SOP. It was only a very few centuries ago that this idiotic cracker business would have resulted in heresy charges for everyone concerned including thee & me. Someone else's heresy was taken very seriously and, evidently, it still is with some of the more loosely-wrapped faithful. They grieve that they don't live in a place where Church law is THE law. I suggest that they immigrate to Saudi Arabia or Iran. They'd have to change their faith, but what the hell; it's all the same thing.
I think it's about over, although I'm sure that these maroons will find some new quasi-outrage to knot up their delicate knickers and provide me, at least, with more amusement. Thanks, Catholic blatherers! I enjoyed the ride!
doov
Posted by: acj | July 26, 2008 4:30 PM
English isn't my native language, and if someone told me my English sucked badly, I'd be the last one to contradict - but hey, some of the folks emailing PZ are even worse than me, and they are f'ing native speakers! That kind of restores my trust in my English teachers.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | July 26, 2008 4:31 PM
Sandi,
Catholic apologists are forever boasting about the long and glorious history of the Church. you don't get to do that, then trurn round and say "but that was a long time ago" when it comes to the nastier parts of that history - which are very, very nasty indeed.
Posted by: OctoberMermaid | July 26, 2008 4:32 PM
"I wonder how many of these whack-jobs will now turn around and join in the "Official Pray for PZ Myers Month."
I like the comments where they can't figure out PZ motives, assume it's unknowable, and decide that he's just full of hate and only wanted to do it to offend and hurt Christians.
Things are so much easier when you don't have to think.
I'm sure if they bothered getting the facts or looking at the context, they'd just be disappointed that things aren't as black and white as in their version. Who wants to find that out? Better not to even find out at all!
Posted by: WA | July 26, 2008 4:34 PM
Geru (#62), I'm sure their tourism is suffering already from the fact that no one seems to be able to find Minnisota on a map!
Posted by: jorge666 | July 26, 2008 4:34 PM
Dr. Myers,
You should not filter off of the e-mails. Instead you should gather the worst and most inane into a compendium and dedicate it the hate-monger Donahue. Call it "The Whackaloon Tales or Adventures of a Cracker Fracker" or something like that. In this country these missives plus some of your adroit commentary should contribute to a blockbuster best seller. You know how the American public eats up tales of mystery, persecution, violence, etc. Just look at the sales from the "Da Vinci Code". I would suggest the profits be used to create a scholarship for the two CFU students being viciously persecuted by the catholics and to fund research into religious whackaloonery. Perhaps as a #1 on the NY Times Book List, there may be enough money generated to establish several foundations and support several research projects.
Now THAT would really frost their fracken crackers, eh?
Posted by: Ben Stein | July 26, 2008 4:34 PM
Grammar, as taught by English teachers, has nothing - nothing - to say about how life originated. Has nothing to say about how the governing principles in the universe - gravity, thermodynamics, motion, fluid motion - how any of those originated. It's...it's got some gigantic missing pieces.Posted by: Doug S. | July 26, 2008 4:36 PM
Mr. Meyers, have you read the criticism posted on Alonzo Fyfe's Atheist Ethicist blog?
He's sent you several emails, but they might have gotten lost in with the spam and the death threats.
Posted by: Techskeptic | July 26, 2008 4:37 PM
Craig #42,
"I swear, 100 years from now there will be churches worshiping nanotech."
no there won't its immoral.
Posted by: J Myers | July 26, 2008 4:40 PM
It strains credulity...
*blink*
When did Catholics become concerned about that?
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 26, 2008 4:41 PM
Nope. If pluralizing "none" is good enough for the King James, it's good enough for PZ. He's respectful like that. Jeez, now you're disagreeing with Star Trek. Is nothing sacred?The SAT writers do not define the English language. Read more books!
"People have been splitting infinitives since the 14th century, and some of the most noteworthy splitters include John Donne, Samuel Pepys, Daniel Defoe, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Johnson, William Wordsworth, Abraham Lincoln, George Eliot, Henry James, and Willa Cather."
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 4:41 PM
Kind of like atheists denying the atheist atrocities of the 20th century as "not true atheism". Admit it - Stalin was just as capable rational thought as you.
Posted by: Kryth | July 26, 2008 4:42 PM
Ah, Catholic love. Can you feel the love? Brought to you by the ministry of peace.
They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.
Posted by: Alcari | July 26, 2008 4:44 PM
Hmm something's wrong here.
Google says this:
Jason Larrimore (334)636-1328 1097 W 3rd St S, Thomasville, AL 36784
And he says his phone number is (334)410-0611, which is actually located in Selma, AL. 55 miles away.
I'm willing to bet giving mr. Larrimore a call at the first, not mentioned, number is a lot more effective. He might have been dumb enough to post his information only, but whatever you do, don't supply him with a few free korans and shipping boxes.
nudge nudge, wink wink.
Posted by: scooter | July 26, 2008 4:45 PM
It's handy to have around for those special moments around three AM, when I'm too drunk to type, but I still feel like having a dialog.
Posted by: Andrés Diplotti | July 26, 2008 4:45 PM
As it is readily apparent in the outfit and general demeanor of this people. It's a remarkable thing how things have changed, right?
Posted by: BobC | July 26, 2008 4:46 PM
I bet nice little old ladies who are Catholics, who wouldn't dream of saying an unkind word to anyone, believe atheists go to hell and deserve to go there.
Posted by: Andrew | July 26, 2008 4:47 PM
My roommates and I prank called poor Jason. He's a dumb instinctive dude, but one of us did a chat with him and he's a bit remorseful and feels kinda stupid for what he did.
I'm pissed at my roommate for letting him know his phone number had been posted - I was gonna call as a collections agent.
Posted by: Neural T | July 26, 2008 4:47 PM
Jim RL #4
Wow, that's one of the most rational responses from a Catholic that I've heard since this ordeal started.
Posted by: thickslab | July 26, 2008 4:47 PM
Cn smn pls pnch Snd n th cnt?
[misogyny makes me angry. No more, please.]
Posted by: Dawn | July 26, 2008 4:47 PM
I have found all this very amusing. Back in my religious days, I worked from 8am-4pm every Saturday and Sunday. This meant that I could not attend my Lutheran church with my family. In a discussion, we decided I would attend the local Catholic church with my Catholic aunt for Saturday night mass. I was not Catholic; I was never baptized into the Catholic church, but for well over a year I attended mass and took communion, without EVER going to confession or anything. The priest, who knew my aunt well, also knew I was not Catholic. Never stopped him from giving me communion. He never said anything about it.
In fact, at the wedding of my aunt and uncle, held in the local Catholic church, the mass/service was co-performed by the priest and a Lutheran minister; both gave communion to whomever came up to the alter rail, Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, whomever. No one asked what religion you were (if ANY...)
To me, that was TRUE Christianity. All were welcome to the alter, and all were treated the same. As an atheist now, I wouldn't go up for communion. But then, I recognized true love for all people (and no one got into trouble for taking a host back to their seat and eating it there, either...)
Wonder what these rampant writers would have done at the wedding?
Posted by: Justin T. | July 26, 2008 4:49 PM
would like to desacrate your fat ass.
You desecrated the eucharist by putting a nail through it. So does that mean that he wants to... Oh my.
Posted by: Bunk | July 26, 2008 4:51 PM
From what I could find out (for free), that is an unpublished phone number in the Montgomery, AL area. Thomasville is 85 miles SW of Montgomery. The phone number probably belongs to an innocent party.
Posted by: OctoberMermaid | July 26, 2008 4:51 PM
"Oh my."
I can't help but imagine George Takei saying that.
Posted by: Andrés Diplotti | July 26, 2008 4:52 PM
"The individual human mind. In a child's power to master the multiplication table, there is more sanctity than in all your shouted 'amens' and 'holy holies' and 'hosannas.' An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man's knowledge is a greater miracle than all the sticks turned to snakes or the parting of the waters."
Posted by: Jon H | July 26, 2008 4:53 PM
PZ wrote: "As for Larrimore's phone number, please don't call it unless you really, seriously definitely desire him to desecrate your ass. "
Oh yeah, that'll work, PZ.
You don't learn very quickly, do you?
Posted by: SC | July 26, 2008 4:55 PM
Can someone please punch Sandi in the cunt?
Take it somewhere else.
Posted by: waldteufel | July 26, 2008 4:56 PM
Thanks for posting some of the Catholic hate mail. They
illustrate beautifully how religion kills the brain and strips away morality in order to replace it with blind obedience to utter bullshit.
There can be no doubt of the strong correlation between rabid religiosity and the inability to form a rational sentence with properly spelled words.
Posted by: OctoberMermaid | July 26, 2008 4:56 PM
"Take it somewhere else."
Like the balls?
Posted by: black wolf | July 26, 2008 4:56 PM
Hi Ben!
Nice to have you here so that we may share your unsurpassed wisdom. I heard an English teacher was fired for teaching early modern English in a modern literature course. I hope on behalf of all of us that you'll look into that. I look forward to your next project.
Posted by: szqc | July 26, 2008 4:57 PM
Hey! Rick DeLano sent you a missive? He is a well known defender of geocentrism even on the Catholic blogs; thinks Galileo still should be on the Pope's shit list because there's no scientific evidence for heliocentrism - even today. Surprise, surprise...
Posted by: craig | July 26, 2008 4:57 PM
"Kind of like atheists denying the atheist atrocities of the 20th century as "not true atheism". Admit it - Stalin was just as capable rational thought as you."
uh, no. Stalin was quite possibly, actually probably truly an atheist. The point is, he didn't use atheism as a REASON for killing people.
Many people have been killed FOR god or Allah. The people Staling had killed he had killed simply to stay in power. If he could have had a better hold on power by proclaiming himself Pope, that;s what he would have done.
Posted by: SEF | July 26, 2008 4:58 PM
To boldly split infinitives which no man has split before - or even if someone has, I'm still very much in favour of it myself. It's one of the things which makes English better than those other languages - along with the bolt-together-a-tense kit which makes convoluted Doctor Who scenarios possible to describe.Posted by: Jim RL | July 26, 2008 4:59 PM
Neural T, I said I was raised Catholic. I've since become an atheist. I really started supporting PZ in this when I saw it as standing in solidarity with Cook. The whole Cook ordeal could fly under the radar with little media attention. He could get expelled or suspended and no one would remember next week. I see what PZ is doing as using his soap box to shed some light on this lunacy. Reading the responses in this post, it is easy to see which side I'd rather be on.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 5:00 PM
How super-intellectually rational!!
Posted by: BobC | July 26, 2008 5:00 PM
Jim RL said "As someone who was raised Catholic". He didn't say whether or not he's still a Catholic. I'm betting he's no longer a Catholic, but perhaps he will let me know I'm wrong.
Posted by: kerovon | July 26, 2008 5:00 PM
You should exercise some discretion in calling Jason Larrimore. For all we know, he could have just given the information of an atheist in his neighborhood to try to get us to spam them. Don't do spamming unless you actually have confirmation that Jason Larrimore is the one who sent the email.
Posted by: Todd | July 26, 2008 5:01 PM
Oh, well, at least I had fewer errors than Myers.
Sandi, grammatical errors are one thing, logical errors are another. In that regard you win.
Hey Baba - "atheist atrocities"? Really? I don't recall Stalin doing anything in the name of atheism. Let's not forget that Stalin was educated in a monestery. Hmm, I wonder where he got all his good atrocity ideas from.
Posted by: Capital Dan | July 26, 2008 5:02 PM
Long ago in this instant case?!?
I... umm... They... How... err...
I can't even try to make sense of this nozzle's gibberish. Really, man. With writing such as that, they should ALL be called "Hoss."
It's a bloody miracle these knuckle-draggers don't step on their own tongues when they try to negotiate a flight of stairs.
Posted by: jorge666 | July 26, 2008 5:02 PM
#86
Google shouldn't be relied on too heavily.
The cell phone number of a person who lives in Thomasville can be a Selma number (or possibly vice versa). My son who lives down the street has a cell phone number from a small town in Texas. We are living about 1,200 miles away from that town. When that Texas town comes up on the caller ID, I know it is him though.
It's a miracle!
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 5:03 PM
How super-intellectually rational!!
Posted by: blf | July 26, 2008 5:04 PM
You might want to send a friendly note to the Gmail admins warning them that there's an arkful of toxic waste going into the bit bucket and to exercise proper precautions when emptying it.
Posted by: Rayven Alandria | July 26, 2008 5:04 PM
They sure do have a fascination with sex. I guess that's what happens when you turn it into something evil. I find so strange that they accuse someone else of being a child molester. You'd think they might want to avoid the subject. Maybe they secretly like the subject. Vicarious enjoyment?
This is what I find hilarious. In regard to the woman, (I think it was a woman, I'm not going to bother reading that shite again), who claims PZ's descendants down to the ninth generation will suffer for his evil.
Here's a bite off my Bit-o-Logic bar you moron, if you believe that PZ's descendants are doomed, you have to believe that it is highly likely; no, it is absolutely certain, that one of your ancestors has done something naughty enough that it damned you to hell. If there's a loophole, (there's always a loophole with these Catholics), that gets you out of eternal damnation, then that same loophole is there for PZ's poor descendants. The Catholics writing you and posting here seem to have no ability to think rationally. Whatever bullshit fits their rage at the moment will do for them, no matter how stupid it is.
Posted by: Bob Vogel | July 26, 2008 5:04 PM
#52, Tulse, I'm glad you had a chance to watch that Randy Pausch video before they apparently took it down. References to Captain Kirk and all... It was one of the most inspiring messages I've ever heard.
Posted by: unclejeffie | July 26, 2008 5:05 PM
There have been a number of interesting posts by Alonzo Fyle on his blog Atheist Ethicist (atheistethicist.blogspot.com)concerning Dr. Myers and Mr. Donohue and the "cracker". I think it would be appropriate for Dr. Myers to post his thoughts about what Alonzo has written (Mr. Donohue certainly won't). Let us know if you will be saying anything about these posts Dr. Myers.
unclejeffie
Posted by: Jim RL | July 26, 2008 5:05 PM
Good call BobC. I did accurately describe my feeling on the Eucharist, though. I was quite devout, but I never thought the host really was Jesus. I knew as a Catholic I believed it "really was", but like I said, I thought it was all word play.
Posted by: the strangest brew | July 26, 2008 5:06 PM
The Catholic Church could stop this if they wanted to, but they obviously do not...
They are quite happy to let the barking classes fight the good fight and the clergy do not even get their hands dirty being the consummate cowards that they are...they know the point is untenable...evil cretinous clowns that they are.
But they are aware that to pontificate on this nonsense will either injure the catholic supremacy of dogma or leave themselves wide open to the charge of ....
'What kind of sicko religion covers up child abuse but gets all spluttering and waffling about a cracker...?'
So they leave that to 'donkeyhue' to rile up the clones.
Handy having a ignorant delusional like him to do their dirty work...nothing can be traced back to them...cos apparently the CL and 'donkeyhue' in particular does not represent the RC's in the states...very convenient though.
As for trying to get the kid and his mate expelled that is just the ancient catholic hatred of education in the masses as classically practised by the sexually inadequate...they would be far happier if only their own anointed acolytes could be educated...
They are frightened simple like so, the overreaction has met the meltdown criteria because these idiots are aware that their religion is failing, they are more irrelevant now then they have ever been, they see people laughing at them, and they want to strike out and hurt, and regain past glories of being an RC clone...so now they are acting like homicidal village idiots in their panic.
Their dogma is falling apart in front of their eyes, there was no lightning strike on the kid for taking their invisible fairy hostage, there has been no natural disaster to cull the Atheist's that are mocking their stupidity, and the four riders of the apocalypse are keeping their gee gee's at home and kicking back with a six-pack.
They fear the anti-christ because they will be the first to the wall come the revolution, and jebus is nowhere to be found except in some dodgy cracker.
The prob being that even the delusional secretly know it is just a cracker. and that is the problem, nobody believes them now when they say otherwise, they have lost the element of fear that they love to wield so much.
Maybe it is dawning slowly on them that they are really a laughing stock, even calls and appeals to other religions are falling on deaf ears, the Catholics are shaken and very frightened...it was not supposed to be like this...being in a religion and get laughed at...and not taken seriously...except by their own infected.
oh dear!...how sad!...never mind!...
Posted by: Dianne | July 26, 2008 5:06 PM
we were told the host "really is" Jesus
Let's think this through. If the host really is Jesus then shouldn't it really be pretty tough? Tough enough to deal with PZ Myers without resorting to deranged followers to get revenge? So either the cracker isn't really Jesus or Jesus approves of Myers' actions (or at least doesn't mind them or thinks that the issue should be dealt with in the afterlife...at any rate, doesn't plan to smite him any time soon.) Alternately, if the cracker is Jesus but isn't able to deal with Myers, why should he/it be worshipped?
Posted by: Dustin | July 26, 2008 5:07 PM
Also, as an example, my full name is not particularly common, but there are four people in this state who share it nonetheless.Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 5:08 PM
You should do more reading then.
Also,that should be m-o-n-a-s-t-e-r-y.
Posted by: Jim RL | July 26, 2008 5:08 PM
I thought the Old Testament god only punished to the 4th generation, which was merciful at the time. I also thought Jesus did away with the whole punished for your ancestors' sins thing.
Posted by: Rayven Alandria | July 26, 2008 5:11 PM
As I have stated about 5 billion times already, Atheism has no church, no creed, no bylaws, no philosophy. No Atheist has anything to do with any other Atheist. I have no more to do with Stalin than I have to do with some random green eyed lady from days gone by. It is so utterly bizarre that you people cannot escape the concept of group thinking.
Whether or not Stalin was an Atheist is irrelevant. He was an evil human. By your logic we are all responsible for him because we are all humans, or perhaps only men who shared his physical traits are responsible, or people who were of a certain height he was, or weighed exactly the same amount he did, or, or, or.....
Why is that so frikkin' hard for you to grasp?
Posted by: SC | July 26, 2008 5:12 PM
Like the balls?
Like an ultra-Catholic blog, maybe - fantasies of sexually-charged violence really seem to be their cup of blood.
Posted by: Neural T | July 26, 2008 5:12 PM
WA #59
I wonder how many of these whack-jobs will now turn around and join in the "Official Pray for PZ Myers Month."
The more the better, as it will mount the falsifying evidence for prayer.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 5:18 PM
If I became an atheist can I become as pretentious as you? Please?
Posted by: Bryant | July 26, 2008 5:20 PM
Hyperdeath #45:
Kudos for the Doctor Who quote (Even if it was unintentional).
Also, Meyers, this is my first time commenting during this entire thing, but I just want to say that it's truly inspiring that you didn't give in to the threats of the insane loons. Well, that said, why would you, their just idiots with no brain-mouth filter.
Posted by: jorge666 | July 26, 2008 5:20 PM
Right now www.catholic.org is giving out FREE e-mail accounts/addresses with fairly complete e-mail services. Be the first one on your block! Just think of impressing your friends and neighbors by using n@cathoic.org, one of the most violent and hateful organizations known to man. Only those coveted e-mail addresses from the KKK or Stormfront impress people more.
I wouldn't send any e-mail to PZ from here though....
Posted by: Todd | July 26, 2008 5:20 PM
You should do more reading then.
So should you.
Also,that should be m-o-n-a-s-t-e-r-y.
Yes it should. Thanks for the red herring.
Posted by: jorge666 | July 26, 2008 5:22 PM
#120
Oops, I guess it should be n@catholic.org....
Oh Well.
Posted by: black wolf | July 26, 2008 5:22 PM
#69
Good idea. The perfect book to show someone who claims that no Catholics believe in Hellish torture anymore, that their faith removes all hate, that Jesus inspires to love and all that.
I know that it's not a representative elicitation, but it definitely disproves the first claim, and will give pause to all those who have a naively benign view of their peers in faith. It is very dangerous having a huge, global organization concerned primarily with morality, highly respected for their traditional role in history and scholarship, subsidized by many governments - and extremely overrating the education level and more importantly the ethical standard of behavior and manners of expression of its average members.
On one hand, it may be that the 12,000 hate mails you received were from the dregs of Catholicism. But on the other, as people familiar with the use of the internet and email procedures still tend to be more than averagely educated, I think it probable that a large portion were from people regarded as normal, friendly and moral members of their church, in unawareness of how they change character when in private.
It wouldn't surprise me if you found that whole congregations had written hate mail en bloc, given how effectively Donohue directed their herd mentality.
Speaking of whom, has Donohue challenged PZ to a written, personal or public discussion of the cracker incident? Or is he merely exhibiting the typical passive-aggressive mode of behavior by letting his minions do the outraging and complaining?
PZ, would you let Donohue punch you in public for the cause? ;)
Posted by: Nick Gotts | July 26, 2008 5:23 PM
Kind of like atheists denying the atheist atrocities of the 20th century as "not true atheism". - Baba
How many times does it need to be pointed out that there is no atheist organisation to which you must belong to be an atheist, no authority to which all atheists defer? There is no church of atheism or atheist party.
The opposite is true of Catholics: no-one is a Catholic unless the Church accepts them as such, and they proudly proclaim the historical continuity, unified authority structure and achievements of the Church, using them as justification for their claims for respect. The Catholic Church, like all organisations, must take responsibility for everything in its own history; the corresponding body in Stalin's case is presumably the Communist Party of Russia, the main heir to the Soviet Communist Party. Take your justified horror of Stalin out on them.
Admit it - Stalin was just as capable rational thought as you.
On the contrary, I admit no such thing. Stalin was severely damaged psychologically by a dreadful childhood, part of which was "education" in a brutal and obscurantist Orthodox seminary. He emerged from this as intensely ambitious, apparently conscienceless, and particularly liable to paranoia. He was thus drawn to the most ruthless of the Russian opposition factions, the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks were atheists, but so were most of the rest of the opposition, who were persecuted under Stalin - as indeed were almost all the original Bolsheviks. Once in power, Stalin was surrounded by yes-men, and like all long-term political leaders, especially dictators, became detached from reality because no-one dared tell him uncomfortable truths. Although Stalin was clever and cunning, that he was frequently far from capable of rational thought is shown by the immense damage he did to Soviet agriculture and society by forced collectivisation, to the Red Army by his purges of senior offices in the 1930s, and to Soviet science by his support of Lysenko's nonsense; by his failure to heed the abundant warnings that Hitler was about to attack the USSR in 1941; and by the manufactured "doctors' plot" of his last year.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 5:24 PM
Then guys like this must belong to the 21% of dis-believers who believe in a higher power.
Posted by: WA | July 26, 2008 5:24 PM
Neural T, #117 - that's pretty much what I wrote in my own blog response to it. :) I completely agree.
Posted by: Anton Mates | July 26, 2008 5:25 PM
Quoting Inherit the Wind is pretentious? Damn, you guys set the "high culture" bar low these days, don't you?
Posted by: Rayven Alandria | July 26, 2008 5:25 PM
Oh, I forgot to add...
PZ, I think they keep calling you a Jew because they can't imagine any under six foot 3 inch tall white man with a beard as anything other than a Jew.
But they aren't a bunch of frikkin' racists or nothin'
*rolls eyes*
Posted by: Alcari | July 26, 2008 5:26 PM
@ 103
True, but his home phonenumber is bound to have more effect then a cellphone.
For those with slightly more malicious intent, mr. Larrimore has left quite a trail online.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 5:28 PM
Why do you believe in fantasies?
Posted by: John C. Welch | July 26, 2008 5:29 PM
She can't stop, can she?
Not if we're talking on a cumulative basis. That sentence had an extraneous comma. Unless you were caught by surprise, and were desperately trying to come up with a distraction, I think you really wanted to say:
"Oh well, at least I had fewer errors than Myers."
See? Remove the comma, the meaning changes. I'm also unsure about your claim to "fewer errors" than P.Z.
Parentheses are unnecessary here. Simply enclose the quotation in commas. In addition, on the internet, when referencing another posting, it is considered correct to properly link to the referenced posting. So the first part should be:
Myers: As for your rant the other day against Catholics, "The Great Desecration",
See? It's more clean, and properly references the named post.
You're now up to two colons in the same sentence. Sentences, like people, should have no more than one colon. I realize that due to your life's calling two colons, one each for web and toilet, seem like a godsend, but really, do try to only use one. In fact, you could have rewritten that initial sentence as:
"Myers: As for your rant the other day against Catholics, "The Great Desecration", you come off sounding like Rip Van Winkle."
See? Same meaning, but only one colon, no extraneous parentheses, shorter, and more to the point. However, I'm unsure as to the validity of Rip Van Winkle. PZ is not unaware of the passage of time since the Middle Ages, and the attendent changes in human behavior. You would perhaps be better off to use a simile that compares him to someone who instead, insists on living in the past, never able to come to terms with things as they are now. I know! The Pope! Perfect example of someone unable to deal with modern reality!
Of course, the irony in a Catholic, whose religion has created a booming tourist industry off of living in the past, castigating someone else for supposedly doing so is rich. But then, hypocrisy and Catholicism are old friends.
Double dashes? Really? Allow me to borrow from your overfull cup of wit: We are well out of the typewriter era. There is this lurvely concept known as the em dash. Do try to keep up with things, or you look as hopelessly stuck in the past as you accuse PZ of being. In addition, I question the use of even an em dash here. I realize you wanted to accentuate 2008, but there are better ways to do that, perhaps with the use of our good friend, the bold tag:
"We are now in the year 2008, perhaps you didn't get the memo?"
You drive home the point of the sentence, and it now flows better. No overlong pauses to stumble over.
A Catholic bitching about holding a long grudge? Wow...that's amazing. I know you're afraid of hell, so your boldness in openly courting it here is astounding.
However, penis insults? That's so inane, I feel forced to ask: What are you, 12?
I think it's clear though, that if you're trying to claim some high moral ground vs. P.Z., perhaps spelling and grammar are not the best tactics for you. I recommend something better suited to your background. Maybe sitting in a closet, with your eyes closed, index fingers firmly in ears, shouting "LALALALALALAICAN'THEARYOU".
Posted by: BobC | July 26, 2008 5:32 PM
Jim RL (#109),
I think we share a similar history. I was Catholic, and I mostly believed all the myths, but I don't think I took it as seriously as some other Catholics. For example in Catholic grammar school, after a nun spent one hour telling us we're all going to hell, I thought the nun was nuts, and I had to reassure a friend of mine he wasn't going to hell, even though he was the sort of person the nun was talking about.
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip | July 26, 2008 5:32 PM
I used to think it was bizarre that Catholics oppose abortion because they can't tell the difference between a baby and an embryo. But now that I discover they can't tell the difference between a person and a piece of bread, I guess it's not quite as bizarre.
Posted by: JHJEFFERY | July 26, 2008 5:33 PM
STOP IT, PEOPLE!
I TOLD YOU BEFORE, WAIT TILL THE THREE DAYS RUNS TO SEE IF IT COMES BACK TO LIFE. NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING! YOU'RE PLAYING WITH FIRE!
Posted by: Neural T | July 26, 2008 5:35 PM
Kind of like atheists denying the atheist atrocities of the 20th century as "not true atheism". - Baba
Atheists generally hold critical thought, open inquiry, and skepticism as ideals. The secular dictatorships and totalitarian regimes of the 20th Century, so often cited as examples of "atheist atrocity," share the following features: dogmatism, uncritical allegiance to a leader or group, lack of inquiry, a controlled press, strict laws, strong punishment against transgressors, and so on. In other words, the same features that extreme forms of religion have in common. Those despotic regimes had a lot more in common with religion, from Muslim Sharia law to Middle Age Catholicism, than the democratic humanist philosophy espoused by most atheists.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 5:35 PM
And anyone who disagrees with your historically inaccurate assertions will not be tolerated.
Actually, it's your logic.
Posted by: Rey Fox | July 26, 2008 5:35 PM
"I wonder how many of these whack-jobs will now turn around and join in the "Official Pray for PZ Myers Month."
If I were PZ, I'd be worried about the upcoming month. I mean, we all know how those intercessionary prayer studies turned out.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | July 26, 2008 5:36 PM
Baba@130,
How much have you read about Stalin? You're clearly an expert, where do you derive your expertise from?
Posted by: craig | July 26, 2008 5:37 PM
"If I became an atheist can I become as pretentious as you? Please? "
What's more pretentious than thinking the universe was created for you? And that the magical guy who created it created you in his image? And that unlike all other life forms, when YOU die, you won't actually die - because you're just too special to be like the other life forms?
Man created religion so that they could pretend to have godlike powers themselves.
Posted by: Neural T | July 26, 2008 5:37 PM
In other words, in the despotic secular regimes of the 20th Century, there were sacred things. We open, democratic, humanistic atheists rail against sacred things.
Posted by: blf | July 26, 2008 5:38 PM
James@55, I agree, the split infinitive nonsense is one of the alleged english "mistakes" which not only isn't one, its origin is, as you say, a language that has, at best, a very indirect relationship to english. There's a number of other "rules" with the same bullshite origin (as I recall, the double negative is another?), but for some reason, it's the claim that split infinitives are bad that really gets my goat.
(Apologies for any spelling errors. For some reason the spellchecker thinks all words are mispelt ( ;-) ) ... sighs--ah, wait a moment, I see why, for some reason my default dictionary is Deutsch! Hum... debugging time!
Posted by: Michael X | July 26, 2008 5:41 PM
A favorite logical fallacy of mine is when someone appeals to authority, and decides to make that authority themselves. Saves you from citing evidence, and makes you forever and automatically right.
I have yet to see any evidence that Stalin did anything out of the principles of Atheism. Mainly, because there are none. It is a negation. Atheism is not prescriptive. I get so tired of educating the religious on the simplest of ideas.
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip | July 26, 2008 5:42 PM
I thought you guys learned your lesson in the Krollateral damage episode.
The lesson, as it turned out, is that a hateful liar got fired from her job for letting her equally hateful husband send death threats through her work email account.
That said, there is no way I'd call that number. Using a false phone number/website/email address if the oldest griefing trick in the book.
Posted by: Jors | July 26, 2008 5:42 PM
From Carl Sagan's 1994 keynote address to CSICOP:
This is taken from around the 1:36 mark in the recording found here: http://www.pointofinquiry.org/ann_druyan_science_wonder_and_spirituality/
I recommend listening to the whole speech before disagreeing with Sagan.
Posted by: kryptonic | July 26, 2008 5:43 PM
thickslab #83
Like this?Posted by: Colin | July 26, 2008 5:43 PM
None of us implies "not one of us." Hence, you should say, "None of us has..."
Haha. So apparently it's also correct to say "None of the strawberries is ripe"? I mean seriously, it takes about three seconds of thought to realize that this "none of us"=singular rule makes no sense.
Posted by: Evolving Squid | July 26, 2008 5:44 PM
I am a Catholic Christian, I would like to desacrate your fat ass. I know that I shouldn't feel that way,
No homoerotica there. Could he be repressing something?
Posted by: anthropic | July 26, 2008 5:45 PM
A challenge to the religious:
Just try this. Take a sabbatical for a decent period of time (maybe 6 months to a year) and truly try to open you mind to rational thought. You're not going to the dark side. You're just being a rational human being willing to look at facts. And hold yourself to that. Really examine evidence as if your life depended on it.
When faced with something you'd ordinarily say "goddunit" to, dig a bit deeper. Ask yourself if there could possibly be other expalantions. Keep Occam's razor in mind throughout.
Read a physics book. A book on chemistry. A book on cosmology. And certainly, a really good book on evolutionary biology (such as The Ancestors Tale). Just do it as an earnest experiment.
Then, wite down questions about things you don't understand. And rather than drawing conclusions, talk about it with folks who understand the area.
Just try it. How could t possibly hurt?
BTW, I tried the religious route early in life, all the way through a Catholic University. I found no answers there, only ancient dogma and mindless gibberish. But I tried. I really, really tried.
Posted by: craig | July 26, 2008 5:45 PM
"Why do you believe in fantasies?"
I believe in the existence of fantasies because I see plenty of evidence that other people have them, and I have them myself. My fantasies are pretty mundane though, just your run of the mill sexual fantasies, and daydreams of writing better music than I'm currently capable of writing.
I certainly don't have "I'm important to the whole universe and I will never die" fantasies.
Most importantly, I know that my fantasies are fantasies. Having fantasies is healthy and sane.
Having fantasies and thinking they're real, making religions out of them and demanding that nobody nurst your bubble - that's insane.
Posted by: scooter | July 26, 2008 5:47 PM
I know I am inviting some flame but seriously, I find this rather touching. Pray for PZ Myers Month
Yeah I know it's goofy and superstitious, but it is nevertheless a positive sentiment, and more in line with the Catholics I have worked with, who are certainly a small minority.
I have worked with Catholics and Mary Knolls, and Catholic Workers Party people doing war resistance work, and they are very, very impressive people, and really work their asses off, and get arrested a lot, too.
There are Catholics and Christians out there who actually walk the walk.
When I interviewed PZ he pointed out that it was important for all progressives and liberals of all faiths or not to unite behind humanistic ideals.
Just my two cents of the moment
----------
PZ Interview
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 5:48 PM
More like a low pretentious tolerance. Plus I haven't seen much evidence that men's (or women's) minds are being advanced much around here.
Hey #121 Wikipedia is the Truth, the Light and the Way. We should all bow to the authority of the Great Wiki.
Posted by: mary 77 | July 26, 2008 5:48 PM
This has been a heck of an education in hate. PZ, you are such the mensch to deal with this and to post. I am a sephard jew, and I recognize the rape, fires, burning in hell threats with which I grew up in SW OH--for having a family history & artifact. Not good press for catholic pr considering their priest problem of recent years. For the thoughtful, we learn, don't we?
Posted by: Capital Dan | July 26, 2008 5:50 PM
I do so very much love the embarrassment Christianity has suffered as a result of all this cracker nonsense. It's astounding that they can sit there demanding we respect them in one breath while barking out such vile, bat-shit insanity in another.
Seriously, religious addiction is clearly a very destructive thing. These people actually think those emails are perfectly fine and dandy. They kiss their kids in the morning, and sit down to spew such vicious, hate-filled, intolerant nonsense in defense of a fucking cracker.
I love how you hit a nerve with this all, PZ. You showed them that, in the minds of rational human beings, their beliefs are to be held no higher or lower than any others. And, as a result, they are terrified and struggling to make sense of it all.
Posted by: jorge666 | July 26, 2008 5:50 PM
#129 Alcari
For those with slightly more malicious intent, mr. Larrimore has left quite a trail online.
Just like the Krolls. A family that preys together stays together, right?
**See MKroll's post in support of her looney tunes spouse. Although just to be fair many observers just saw the symptoms of the battered spouse syndrome.
Posted by: wookerist | July 26, 2008 5:50 PM
(+)
Posted by: Pygmy Loris | July 26, 2008 5:51 PM
I haven't read the whole thread, so I'm sure someone else already said this, but what is with all these Catholics accusing PZ of pedophilia? Is fear of Hell the only reason they're not molesting children?
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 5:51 PM
Wikipedia.
Posted by: Rayven Alandria | July 26, 2008 5:52 PM
And anyone who disagrees with your historically inaccurate assertions will not be tolerated.
__________________________________
Written by Rayven: Whether or not Stalin was an Atheist is irrelevant. He was an evil human. By your logic we are all responsible for him because we are all humans, or perhaps only men who shared his physical traits are responsible, or people who were of a certain height he was, or weighed exactly the same amount he did, or, or, or.....
___________________
Actually, it's your logic.
________________________
Posted by: Baba
Then prove it. Prove we Atheists have a creed or philosophy. Prove to me what all Atheist believe beyond the obvious (there is no god). Other than that tell me what all Atheist believe, and prove it. Prove to me I am responsible for Stalin.
I'm waiting.
Posted by: Jay | July 26, 2008 5:53 PM
I'd love to see a study showing a correlation between one's religiosity and one's ability to spell correctly.
Posted by: arensb | July 26, 2008 5:54 PM
If I may toot my own horn, a friend of mine points out that if you google "Rick Delano troll", my site comes up as the #2 hit. (It's the #1 hit if you google "Rick Delano twatwaffle".)
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 5:55 PM
You sound boring.
Posted by: Rayven Alandria | July 26, 2008 5:56 PM
Hey, my quote tags messed up again. I know I put them in the right spots. Odd.
Maybe I'd better slow down and stop listening to a radio talk show while typing.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 5:59 PM
I'm skeptical.
Posted by: Christophe Thill | July 26, 2008 6:03 PM
So, PZ, you have a Jewish ascendency you've never heard of? OK, so maybe you'll be interested in the story I've managed to gather. It goes like this:
Back in the end of the 13th century, there was a Jew called Jonathas who lived rue des Billettes, in Paris, where he worked as a moneylender (not a lot of other activities were allowed to Jews). One day, a woman came to him: she wished to recover a gown she had left with him, but had no money to get it back. So in exchange, he asked her to bring him a consecrated communion wafer. She accepted ("like Judas", the old text says). She put the wafer under her tongue, came back to his house and gave it to him.
Jonathas took the wafer and started to stab it with his knife, and blood began to flow. His wife and children came and begged him to stop, but he carried on. He tried to break the wafer in pieces, but he could not; it only bled some more. Seeing he could not destroy it, he threw it in a cauldron full of boiling water, but the wafer rose above the water, and Jesus appeared.
Meanwhile, Jonathas' son was in the street, and he saw groups of people passing by. He asked them where they were going, and they said they were going to church to adore God. The child replied that it wasn't worth it, because he must surely be dead by now, seeing how his father was stabbing him hard. A woman heard the conversation and went to the house carrying a wooden platter, so she could pretend she came to ask for something for her cooking. When she entered the kitchen, she saw the flying wafer; she made the sign of the cross, and the wafer came to rest in her platter. She took it with her and brought it to a church.
Jonathas was denounced and sentenced to death. Before his execution, he asked for a book that was supposed to help him escape death. But he and his book burned very quickly. After that, his house was destroyed, a church was built at its place, and years later, the knife and the wooden platter were still shown as relics. People familiarly called nicknamed the street "the one where God was boiled". A passion play called "The mystery of the holy host" was written and often represented; the text still exists.
Now, the story was undoubtably told and repeated around these basic events. But it is very difficult to know what really happened. A Jew stealing a host and trying to destroy it is a ridiculous tale with zero credibility, but at the time, people believed it happened regularly.
The good thing is that, while the church exists, and while it it said that it was built on the site of a house belonging to a Jew, it doesn't seem that such a man was actually put to death. My personal opinion, as a non-historian and non-specialist, is that the details of the story were cooked up by the Church in order to impress the faithful.
Posted by: Rayven Alandria | July 26, 2008 6:05 PM
Like I said Baba, prove it. Prove we Atheists have a creed or philosophy. Prove to me what all Atheist believe beyond the obvious (there is no god). Other than that tell me what all Atheist believe, and prove it. Prove to me I am responsible for Stalin.
We are still waiting for the evidence. If you have none, then perhaps the conversation is over.
Posted by: gb | July 26, 2008 6:06 PM
Perhaps batch forward the 12000 emails(and what the subsequent filters capture) to the vatican website, a local bishop or one of those red cardinal guys? Perhaps somebody there might notice the state of catholicism that Bill Donahue and his minions practice? Will the papal bull slap Donahue upside the head, condemn the posters who's actions run contrary to teachings or will they say nothing, and in doing so, reveal the hypocrisy of their ineffective authority.
Posted by: Logicel | July 26, 2008 6:06 PM
Doov, #64, Ah, yes, the delectably descriptive mook. Oh my, how I missed using that one! Thanks for jogging my memory and here's that hysterically funny mook scene from Mean Streets: http://youtube.com/watch?v=JmrQ70gJUJI
Sandi, It seems that it is you who have not received the memo that we are at present in 2008. Try reading books that at least have been written last century.
Posted by: Pete M. | July 26, 2008 6:08 PM
@144
So, I like Sagan. How can you not like Sagan? The quote you've put up also reflects a fine sentiment: let's not blame the victims.
However, I keep laughing to myself because it strikes me as a kind of reverse concern-trolling. Sagan was always ahead of his time.
So, who wants to go frequent some religious sites with me and let them know how very sorry we are that they aren't capable of thinking rationally, through no fault of their own, but because they've been indoctrinated into ancient mystical cults. *sighs beautifically*
Posted by: horse-pheathers | July 26, 2008 6:08 PM
I just posted the following over at the "month of prayer" blog (mentioned in WA's post, #59):
Let's see how long it lasts.
Posted by: Felicia | July 26, 2008 6:09 PM
Oh man, I actually feel sort of bad for the guy who gave out his phone number. The Internet is a merciless place, afterall.
So, should I plan my wardrobe for the brunch tomorrow around body armor? :)
Posted by: IceFarmer | July 26, 2008 6:12 PM
My aunt yelled about me about all this. She is a very staunch Sunday Catholic mother. She gets even angrier when she decides to "discuss" her beliefs with my and I disagree. My stepfather (great guy) told her that she should get the scientist guy (PZ) and Bishop Humpachild (member of Catholic clergy) together to discuss this issue on TV. You think PZ has had some hateful things sent his way? Wow. She is certain that everyone, except her, will rot in hell. Funny how that seems to work.
I love coming here and reading stuff about science & kooks. Especially when I'm having a slow ass day at work. I almost sh*t myself laughing at my desk! Keep it up PZ. They keep showing their true colors.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 26, 2008 6:12 PM
@170 Oh man, I actually feel sort of bad for the guy who gave out his phone number. The Internet is a merciless place, afterall.
Should anyone be interested in some information on Mr Larrimore, send a mail to:
DoxOnLarrimore@mailinator.com
Or do your own digging, it's not that hard.
Posted by: craig | July 26, 2008 6:15 PM
"You sound boring."
Better boring than delusional.
Posted by: AJ Milne | July 26, 2008 6:15 PM
I'm skeptical.
Vapid.
Posted by: WA | July 26, 2008 6:17 PM
Scooter, #150:
This is not meant as flame, because you're entitled to your opinion, and I can understand why it would appear touching, kind and generous.
I would agree, except for the fact that these Christians who are walking the walk are not taking the time to understand the message PZ was trying to get out. Instead of trying to have a discussion with the other side, they chalk "The Great Desecration" and its supporters up to hate, Satan, whatever. Then they turn to the man in the sky to make it all go away. They may do it out of a perceived love for fellow man, but a true love would be to understand opposing viewpoints instead of wishing for some miraculous turn of everyone's thought to match their own.
For those of you who want to argue this, I'll just say now: no, I don't think PZ's actions are analogous to what I'm saying about Christians. He used reason and logic to make a point, and engage their minds, so they might consider something from a new perspective and decide for themselves. Obviously, many have made the decision to continue believing what they choose. The Christians who will devote their prayer time to PZ would rather have a supernatural being just change his mind, just flip it right over to their side. Whether or not it can actually be done is irrelevant. They believe it can, and they're employing a dirty technique.
That's just how I see it...
Posted by: craig | July 26, 2008 6:18 PM
It's looking like the Baba troll is running out of steam.
Posted by: Matt Pickard | July 26, 2008 6:21 PM
Well, think of it this way, PZ - all of this will make for an interesting chapter in a book - if you ever decide to write one.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | July 26, 2008 6:21 PM
You are the one you doesn't know what they're talking about.*
"None" is both singular and plural. It can be used as the literal translation of both aucun/aucune (sg.) and aucuns/aucunes (French), keiner/keine/kein and keine (German), and so on.
The ability, not to mention the occasional necessity, to "split infinitives" is what sets English apart from, say, German. ("To boldly go" translates into German as kühn dorthinzugehen, literally "boldly there-to-go".) Be sure to follow the link in comment 52.
Where did you little know-it-all learn linguistics? Did you ever learn linguistics? (Is that a rhetorical question?)
* And, yes, singular they is another English peculiarity that appears in Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the King James Bible. Well, it's less peculiar than split infinitives, because it also occurs in Biblical Greek and Biblical Hebrew, but you get the idea.
No, this is not Sandi's own fault. As I'm sure you know, the Bierce-Hartman-McKean-Skitt Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation states that any article or statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one eror. :-)
The first half of this sentence is sort of like Homer Simpson's famous saying "To alcohol -- the origin and the solution of all of life's problems" (warning: I'm retranslating from German here, I don't know the original). Sure, there are situations where (see above) splitting infinitives is necessary in English, but that doesn't mean that other languages can't deal with that in other ways, just that English can't.
The second half also applies (at the very least) to German, which (see above) doesn't split infinitives, and by "doesn't" I mean that no native speaker would ever get the idea of trying it, no matter how uneducated.
Incidentally, Jim RL (comment 54), the infinitive is not a tense. (I don't know where the word tense comes from; other languages just use "time", and while that's an oversimplification, it does make people get the fact that present, past, future and the like are tenses, while infinitive, passive and so on are not.)
-----------------------------------
Capable? He was clinically paranoid... his atrocities were motivated by that paranoia combined with communism. Communism behaved like a religion: holy infallible scriptures, infallible prophets, belief in supernatural forces (inevitable march of progress and the like)... and we know what religions do to each other when they are allowed to.
Posted by: scooter | July 26, 2008 6:22 PM
#108 In reference to the call for Donahue's resignation.
Putting together last week program with an extended Hit peice on BillyBoy I ran across some hysterically funny material from Kathy Griffin, another recent victim of Donahue.
Quote: 'Then I discovered that the CATHOLIC LEAGUE is one guy and a computer'
It's probably Bill Donahue, a webmaster and maybe an intern.
Knowing this, reading Catholic League press releases are particularly hysterical. But also calling for Donahue's resignation is equally humorous.
---------------------------
Bill Donahue pwn3d
Posted by: craig | July 26, 2008 6:22 PM
Personally I think it's pretty dumb to call the number, etc.
Just because one person's an asshole harasser doesn't mean we have to do it back... and also, it's entirely possible for someone to pull a prank by sending nasty emails to people using their enemies' names and/or phone numbers.
I sure wouldn't like to start getting bunches of upset phone calls and emails and reports to police or whatever because my neighbor decided to get back at me for complaining that he was burning leaves or something.
Posted by: Jeb, FCD | July 26, 2008 6:23 PM
Maybe he (Baba) is kissing Sandi when the other guy wanted to punch her.
Posted by: wildlifer | July 26, 2008 6:23 PM
These folks give a whole new meaning to the phrase "crackerhead".
Posted by: Jeb, FCD | July 26, 2008 6:24 PM
That should read "...where the other guy..."
Posted by: WA | July 26, 2008 6:25 PM
Nice to see that the Alex McRae tactic is really starting to pick up steam. It's really oh-so-effective in proving any point.
Posted by: JoJo | July 26, 2008 6:28 PM
Leave poor Larrimore alone. The guy has enough problems dealing with homoerotic impulses that his church tells him are sinful.
Posted by: Michael X | July 26, 2008 6:29 PM
Baba is a troll. Enough posts have been made to make this clear. His opinions may be relegated to the rubbish bin. Maybe if Baba really wished to challenge us he'd be kind enough to send us someone who actually engaged in conversation. Much less someone who kept from stating outdated and tired arguments like they were some coup de grace.
Posted by: Jim RL | July 26, 2008 6:32 PM
BobC, that sounds pretty similiar. As I got older I really tried to get skeptical side and my faith side to co-exist. I would seriously ponder questions like "when did the soul evolve?" I wanted to live in a rational universe that also supported the myths I was taught.
I may not have been as rational as you because our 6th grade teacher scared the hell out of me. She told us that people could seriously sell their souls to the devil and go to hell for it. My parents were going through a rough patch, and there was talk of divorce. They worked things out, and I remember laying in bed scared that I had sold my soul to get them to stay together. I didn't remember selling my soul, but the devil could make me forget. I would have probably requested it. What would he care?
Posted by: Sili | July 26, 2008 6:37 PM
I guess it's a small blessing that Kerry didn't reach the Whitehouse. Otherwise the poor fellow'd likely be asked to comment on this tempest in a teapot (scirocco in a chalice?).
Posted by: the strangest brew | July 26, 2008 6:38 PM
By attacking Atheism with what they regard as wit and sarcasm they are attempting to distract and gloss over the point that has so well been illustrated recently...that Roman Catholicism is the most blood thirstiest and evil of all Magisteriums.
A quick glance at the messages these little heroes leave behind like dog shit just stinks of fear and basic ignorance.
It is more then enough to classify them as hate lovers, they just love to hate and threaten, bullies and sycophantic sexually inadequate cowards always like to pretend moral superiority, and when that fails they try to blame and accuse their protagonists of exhibiting precisely the same traits as they have.
But it is the way that they have been taught and grilled in the cult...lie, distort and lie again, if that fails claim religious intolerance, and pretend hurt innocence.
Posted by: Breakfast | July 26, 2008 6:40 PM
Ahaha. I laughed myself silly at the amoeba guy, but PZ's reply at #23 really sent me over the edge.
Posted by: Rayven Alandria | July 26, 2008 6:41 PM
Take note minions, the next time a troll starts the Stalin/Hitler.etc...shit, just ask them to do this. *points up*
They cannot comply. They will ignore our demand, but if we keep posting it over and over and refuse further dialog, they will go away.
.....or mention tacos. They seem to calm down and start being peaceful if you mention tacos. It must be their favorite food. (and they like to trade recipes, that's kind of cool, so they aren't all bad)
Posted by: deadman_932 | July 26, 2008 6:43 PM
Odd. I typed in "Jason Larrimore Thomasville, AL" into Google and got an entirely different phone number.
** Not that I would ever harass poor dim Jason, or his family **
Instead, a less direct approach:
St. Joseph Parish
West Front Street
Thomasville, AL 36784
Mailing Address: PO Box 70 Grove Hill, AL 36451
Phone: 251-275-3665
Might want to know if a parishoner is threatening other human beings.
Nothing like the wrath/guilt of their own "god" and all that. Jason is a recent convert (apparently wife-driven) -- and we all know about recent converts and their fanaticism
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | July 26, 2008 6:50 PM
It strains credulity...
And this coming from people with some of the biggest, densest, most thoroughly reinforced credulity on the planet!
The email tally given by Prof. Myers seems a bit crudely categorized, in that the Christian section includes only "hate mail" and "reasonable". Surely there were abundant messages speaking only of pity and prayer: those clearly don't belong in the "reason" box, but while condescending to the point of insult, don't quite qualify as "hate mail" either.
However, I'm not volunteering to conduct the recount, and am a bit skeptical that our esteemed (ahem) host will do so either. The question of proper classification will have to wait until some aspiring scholar chronicles the christ-cracker crusade crisis for a thesis or dissertation.
Posted by: Breakfast | July 26, 2008 6:51 PM
Rayven, #191 -- I don't have time to get into an actual conversation about it, but being in the Christian worldview, you might be more inclined to expect people who reject it to have some sort of unified creed. To them the world is populated entirely by two groups: the saved and the unsaved. If you have somehow come to be a non-Christian then they have to expect there's some reason for it, and furthermore that that reason is your fault, or the whole free-will-salvation-theodicy falls apart. Atheists are people who have rejected God and furthermore don't even accept any other Christianity-esque creed like most other groups, so they must have some kind of big problem with him.
Ok, it still doesn't really make perfect sense to view atheists as a unified group from that angle, but you can at least see how they don't grok atheism as a sort of neutral epistemic starting position in the way we'd be inclined to.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 6:55 PM
I'll do no such thing! Don't let others do your thinking for you, you must have a questioning mind.
Apologies. I wasn't ignoring you, I had to pray over supper.
Posted by: craig | July 26, 2008 6:56 PM
"Ok, it still doesn't really make perfect sense to view atheists as a unified group from that angle, but you can at least see how they don't grok atheism as a sort of neutral epistemic starting position in the way we'd be inclined to."
Well I learned from fstdt.com that the latest research indicates that atheists are actually a different sect of Muslims.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:00 PM
An example of the sophisticated advancing of the "the minds of men".
Glad to see that we can agree on some things.
Posted by: Michael X | July 26, 2008 7:02 PM
Don't feed the troll.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:04 PM
Don't forget the fouls and offsides.
Posted by: craig | July 26, 2008 7:04 PM
Yep. Game over. 100% Troll.
Posted by: AJ Milne | July 26, 2008 7:05 PM
Glad to see that we can agree on some things.
Look. Almost a sentence.
(Yet still not a thought.)
Posted by: KevinB | July 26, 2008 7:07 PM
#131 reminds me of http://xkcd.com/406/
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:08 PM
Prove it!
Posted by: Rayven Alandria | July 26, 2008 7:09 PM
Awwwww...Isn't it cute how they try to excuse why they don't answer direct questions? The troll claims he doesn't have time? LOL, too funny. He has time to post message after message of the same tired nonsense but he doesn't have time for an original thought.
How many times has Wowbanger asked the trolls to answer the direct question he keeps asking them about the policy of the church in regards to sex crimes? They refuse to answer.
Perhaps we should ask them direct questions which they refuse to answer and refuse further discussion.
Posted by: scooter | July 26, 2008 7:10 PM
What, then, am I to do with this bag of Bits 'n' Bytes Troll Food ?
It keeps their coats shiny and fights troublesome Troll Breath.
I paid alot of Pay Pals for this stuff, and it tastes terrible so I can't eat it.
Posted by: craig | July 26, 2008 7:10 PM
"Prove it!"
You already did.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:10 PM
Look. Almost a sentence.
(Yet still not a thought.)
Where?! Where?!
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:12 PM
Yawwwwn!!!!
Posted by: Michael X | July 26, 2008 7:13 PM
Our current troll has, despite himself, led me to a recurring thought. It is one that has shown itself quite commonly among those who repudiate PZ. Why when someone thinks "I hate 'X' type of behavior" do they then go on to react to it by behaving like 'X'?
I hate smarmy know-it-alls for example. How is it best to deal with them? Most of the people in opposition to PZ would apparently choose to act like a smarmy know-it-all.
It really blows my mind. I know this is a blog heavy on biology, but I bet MAJeff (or any other qualified person) could take a crack at explaining the psychosis that underlies such contradictory, and morally stunted behavior. I really do wonder about it.
Posted by: Jim Lippard | July 26, 2008 7:16 PM
#179: scooter, the Catholic League is not just one guy and a computer, I'm afraid:
http://www.catholicleague.org/about.php
It has a board of directors, a chairman, and a vice president, and probably some additional staffers. There's also a (probably powerless) board of advisors that includes some other well-known nutters like Brent Bozell III, Dinesh D'Souza, Alan Keyes, Thomas Monaghan, and Paul Vitz.
Posted by: El Herring | July 26, 2008 7:17 PM
I'm a bit late to this thread but craig #42 has it exactly right, in my opinion. Look at the big picture - the loftier and more complex the science, the less the general public will understand it. The divide between science and pseudo-science (and by extension, woo) is only going to get wider and wider as I see it. We have an ever harder task ahead of us to keep the depressing effects of this widening chasm to a minimum. PZ, Dawkins, Dennett and their ilk are doing an absolutely essential job, and deserve all the backing we can give them.
And I'm not even a scientist. I'm a composer.
Posted by: Michael X | July 26, 2008 7:18 PM
Bits 'n' Bytes Troll Food?!?! Ok, you can feed the troll. But only one tiny bit at a time. it doesn't seem to do well with more than that.
Posted by: Benjamin Franklin | July 26, 2008 7:18 PM
David Marjanović, OM @#178
Thank you, David. None of us would have been able to explain it as well as you did. (Was that right?)
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:19 PM
I hate that. I refuse to answer, you can torture me, pierce me with a nail and throw me in the Gulag, I will not talk.
Dastardly!! Yet characteristically uncreative of the atheists on this site.
Posted by: Jim Lippard | July 26, 2008 7:19 PM
If somebody starts up an "Atheist League" headed by someone who foams at the mouth in "defense" of atheism as much as Bill Donohue does in "defense" of Catholicism, will they get as much press coverage?
Posted by: DingoDave | July 26, 2008 7:19 PM
If anyone still hasn't listened to the Webster Cook radio interview, you can find it at the Freedom From Religion Foundation's, 'Freethought Radio & Podcast' - July 19, 2008
here;
http://ffrf.org/radio/podcast/
The Webster Cook interview starts at about 18:30 minutes into the show.
For those of you who either can't, or don't wish to listen to the interview, then here is a brief summary of Webster Cook's version of events.
But first, a little background information.
As a condition for receiving funding from the student union, any religious organisations receiving such funding must allow any student to attend any of their events free of charge.
Another condition for receiving funding is that any students attending any such events are in no way obliged to participate in the event, but may attend purely as observers.
Students must also permitted to leave the event any time they wish.
It appears that the person who really started this whole kerfuffle is a girl named Michelle Ducker (not sure about the spelling). During the mass she was bickering with, and chastising Webster Cook and his friend Bernie Collar for not standing and kneeling at the appropriate times during the service, and was annoyed and hostile about the questions which Bernie was asking Webster, and Webster's answers to him. She insisted that if Cook and his friend did not participate in all the standing and kneeling rituals, then they would need to leave the service (in clear violation of one of the conditions for receiving funding from the student union).
She also whispered something to the cracker dispenser just prior to Webster receiving his cracker.
After receiving his cracker, Webster was accosted by Michelle Ducker, both in front of the congregation, and again after he had returned to his seat.
After Webster had returned to his seat, Michelle Ducker ran around behind Webster, then proceeded to reach over and attempt to manhandle the cracker from Webster's grasp, while yelling at Webster to give her the cracker and "screaming" for his friend Bernie to help her.
After all this self-created mayhem she then proceeded to summon the help of a large usher named Joshua Swallows ( an appropriate name considering the circumstances : D ), who asked Webster and Bernie to accompany him outside into the hallway, where he proceeded to explain to them that the reason why he and Michelle were concerned about Cook not eating his cracker, was that he might attempt to practice witchcraft or black magic with it. After this, Webster Cook and his friend left the building.
That in a nutshell, is how this whole debacle got started. It all came about because of a stupid, superstitious, intolerant religious fanatic called Michell Ducker, and her deluded superstitious mate.
How paranoid are these people, to suspect that a university student would be purloining a communion cracker in order to perform witchcraft or black magic with it?
But I guess anyone who can convince themselves that a priest mumbling an incantation over a cracker can somehow mysteriously change it into some kind of demi-god, can convince themselves of just about anything. These people really are deluded nutters, who's minds appear to be stuck somewhere back in the dark ages.
Does anyone have any other information about this Michelle Ducker loon?
Posted by: black wolf | July 26, 2008 7:20 PM
I'm not telling anyone what to think, so to make up your own minds, look up delusion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusion) and delusional disorder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusional_disorder) to see what fits whom.
Posted by: Sandi | July 26, 2008 7:20 PM
So...have I mentioned lately that Myers is a bigot? Imagine a professor bashing Jews on his blog. Imagine a professor bashing Blacks on his website. Everyone would be shocked. Oh, but that's different, you cry. Those people aren't Catholics, so of course we shouldn't bash them. We're not being bigots if we trash Catholics, though. It's only bigotry if Jews, Blacks, or homosexuals are involved. You folks couldn't analogize if your lives depended on it; absolutely no logic at all. Myers thinks it's perfectly fine to intentionally insult and bait Catholics and bend over backwards to publicly desecrate whatever they hold to be sacred. The "intention" to insult is the main point. Not only does it demonstrate intolerance and bigotry, but it also shows great immaturity and incivility as well. Sort of like a teenager who hates his father, the government, and all authority figures. Yeah, sort of like a hippie. You know, Bishop Sheen was acquainted with a man who used to bash Catholics whenever possible. Sheen met the man and said, "What is your sin?" After talking and listening quite a bit, he learned that the man had stolen a great deal of money in the past. The man had turned his guilt into anger at the Church for its position that stealing was a sin. Obviously, Myers is hate-filled and angry at the Church. My question to Myers is: what is your sin? Marital infidelity? Anger at God for the death of a loved one? Plagiarism? I don't know, but he's obviously feeling very guilty about some sin and has inverted his guilt into anger. Enough psychoanalyzing the psycho. Hey, how many atheists does it take to change a lightbulb? It doesn't matter; they never see the light anyway! P.S. Don't bother replying; I've got a Red Sox game to watch. GO SOX!!
Posted by: Zeno | July 26, 2008 7:20 PM
I have a question for Bryan, too. When did his family lose the "r" in its last name? I'll bet it used to be "Strikeleather" and no one noticed when they started to misspell it.
Posted by: Tor A | July 26, 2008 7:21 PM
This is freaking me out. I wonder what the people writing in with threats are like in real life. They could be your neighbour.
Has the pope said anything about the cracker incident or PZ Myers yet? I bet he'll promise it will never happen again like he usually does.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:21 PM
I nominate Rayven!! Rayven! Rayven! Rayven! He sounds intolerant!
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:25 PM
Don't tell us what to look up - we can think for ourselves, we're Bright!!!
Posted by: JonathanL | July 26, 2008 7:26 PM
I was wondering if Sandi = Baba, but it seems Baba takes lots of little craps on the thread while Sandi takes the occasional large crap on the thread.
Posted by: jagannath | July 26, 2008 7:26 PM
Baba Yaga, is catholic church innocent of wrong doings?
Posted by: Zeno | July 26, 2008 7:26 PM
So now it's a sin to be angry at God over the death of a loved one? I think Sandi thinks the Vatican is too easygoing and decided to make up some new sins on her own. That might be considered heresy. Is Sandi going to stone herself?By the way, the Red Sox lost. Why is God so cruel to you? (Careful! Don't get angry with him!)
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:27 PM
That Pope - what a character!!
Posted by: Trolleyfish | July 26, 2008 7:28 PM
According to The Blue Banner, Mr. Stikeleather (with a name like that, I assume it's the same person) hasn't been a Catholic for long:
Well, Mr. Stikeleather, color me confused. You don't care for "America's go-go consumer society," and yet you don't mind fantasizing about America's kidnapping, raping, murdering, and illegal dumping society or studying for a degree that's driven by consumption.
You became a Catholic in freaking 2005, yet you're "outraged" now that the precious religion that you've been practicing for no more than 3 years has been questioned. Why don't you share your outrage with the children, and their families, who've been porked by the Catholic clergy over the last 50 years?
Here's a tip on something to sacrifice for 40 days for the next Lent: freebasing crack.
Well, sir, you apparently haven't been checking in often enough.
Posted by: AJ Milne | July 26, 2008 7:29 PM
Dastardly!! Yet characteristically uncreative of the atheists on this site.
Ooh. An insinuation. Not especially specific. Will not be defended.
Who are you, and what have you done with the real Baba?
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:29 PM
What amazing critical thinking skills!! But I'm still skeptical.
Posted by: DrFrank | July 26, 2008 7:30 PM
Sandi, you really need to learn the difference between hating people and criticising a belief. For example, many Catholic beliefs are silly and deserve to be ridiculed. However, the vast majority of Catholics are just decent people getting on with their lives like everyone else.
Do you see now why it's inappropriate to compare this to racism?
Posted by: Sandi | July 26, 2008 7:31 PM
"Has the pope said anything about the cracker incident or PZ Myers yet? I bet he'll promise it will never happen again like he usually does (Tor A #220)."
Believe me Tor A, the Pope doesn't even knows Myers exists. Myers is like an insignificant speck of dust on the carpet of life. (Hey, that's pretty good!). I think of myself as the carpet-cleaner.
As for your not-so-subtle dig at "The Scandal," I can only say that a few handfuls of homosexual priests broke their vows and an even smaller handful of bishops covered for them. The VAST majority of priests and bishops in the world have remained faithful to their vows of celibacy and have sacrificed their lives to help people. By the way, did you know the Catholic Church was the single largest charitable provider in the WORLD? For "bad guys" they sure do a lot of good for people. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, you bigots.
Posted by: Rayven Alandria | July 26, 2008 7:31 PM
One thought I find a bit interesting is the idea that all the trolls may be the same person. I would love to track the IP's. Wouldn't it be absolutely hilarious if they all turned out to be Donahooey?
That would be something almost worthy of making a youtube video about.
Trolls have always fascinated me, but only from a clinical point of view. It takes a very strange person to do what they do. Now, in truth, there are some people who are branded trolls, but they aren't really trolls, just annoying.
Then there are those kinds of trolls who are messed up but do actually believe what they are spouting. Maybe I will call them almost-trolls, mini-trolls, trollimps, or troll-ets from now on.
Then there are the fully evolved (de-evolved?)trolls, the ones who behave the way they do for no reason except attention. The views they express are meaningless, even to themselves. They say different things in different company. Those are the really strange ones. They post huge text walls, "you must have small penis" lines, and stupid crap like that. They are actually easier to ignore than the trollimps.
We need cyber tacos with some kind of secret sauce to feed to them so they will retreat off the web and go back to poking gerbils or whatever it is they do in real life. Yeah, secret sauce. Kind of like the secret sauce we sprinkle on ant mounds.
MMMMM....tacos. Here you go little trollimp, here's a taco for you.
Yummy it is.
Posted by: Son of a Nonymous | July 26, 2008 7:31 PM
@196:
That reminds me, we should probably think about introducing them to baba's particular brand of stupidity.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:32 PM
I refuse to answer direct questions! What are you insinuating anyway?
Posted by: JonathanL | July 26, 2008 7:33 PM
...as the second troll in question has demonstrated in it's last few posts. Just a heads up there is not discussing things with this troll it just feebly tries to come up with something glib to say to keep the trolling going.
Posted by: Benjamin Franklin | July 26, 2008 7:34 PM
Jim Lippard @#210
If I recall correctly, someone posted some info on the Catholic League in a recent thread and it indicated that they have 8 employees, according to recent disclosures.
The fact that they have the likes of Keyes and Bozell on their board of advisors, is more an indication that it is really just a front for a conservative political organization, rather than a religious organization dedicated to preserving civil rights.
When I was looking at the list of their board of advisors the other day and saw Keyes on it, the thought occurred to me that there does'nt seem to be a large African American component of Catholicism.
Anybody have any thoughts on why that is?
Posted by: Carlie | July 26, 2008 7:34 PM
For all of these whackos, I wish they would run through a little thought exercise: their spouses and children on one side of a line, a consecrated cracker on the other. Depending on which side of the line they stand on, whatever is on the other will be destroyed. Wonder how many of them would stand with the cracker?
Posted by: Michael X | July 26, 2008 7:35 PM
Thank you Sandi, your opinion has been noted.
Posted by: Joe Cracker | July 26, 2008 7:36 PM
Prof. Myers, like I said before, instead of trashing the emails, you should also forward them all to Bill Donahues inbox. Let him have a taste of his Catholic folk.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:36 PM
I un-nominate you. You sound too irational.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:38 PM
Sieg Heil!!! Let's set up gas chambers too! What fun!
Posted by: Joe Cracker | July 26, 2008 7:39 PM
Catholic priest to his altar boy:
"It is a sacrilege to spit, my son, just swallow."
Posted by: Nibien | July 26, 2008 7:40 PM
"If I became an atheist can I become as pretentious as you? Please?"
No.
You still wouldn't even be nearly as intelligent as us.
Posted by: black wolf | July 26, 2008 7:42 PM
Sandi,
I'm sure that this has explained to you before. Catholicism or any other eligious belief, any belief at all, is not an innate trait. It's nobody else's fault that a person chooses something ridiculous to believe (except the people who smothered his critical thinking ability), and believing in it or having faith in it doesn't make it one iota less ridiculous. It is a disturbance to mock someone's faith inside a building or room dedicated to that faith, and there are laws to protect that place and the people practicing their faith therein. It is not a disturbance outside of a place of worship, no matter how many people feel offended by it. For one simple reason: if anything offending anyone who claims to be offended was persecutable, nothing would be allowed. You'd be surprised how many things offend other people.
Cook did not disturb the service. He didn't attack anyone, he merely didn't fully participate, which was and still is anyone's right. The wafer was a gift freely given and accepted, and nobody but the recipient has any property rights to it. Only future gifts may be revoked by the donor.
Your anecdote is pointless and irrelevant. All of your claims and accusations are false, fallacious and/or hyperbolic.
Emigrate to a country where theocratic law overrules secular law if you love oppression so much.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:42 PM
Cock-blocker!
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | July 26, 2008 7:43 PM
wookerist (comment 155) for Molly.
-------------------------
I doubt it. There are other Language Log readers here, too...
-------------------------
Ladies and gentlemen, a self-confessed troll.
Another self-confessed troll -- makes a big logical mistake* so people will be outraged and will be motivated to reply, and then tells them she won't read any of the frenzy she hopes to generate.
* People who don't believe God exists are by definition incapable of being angry at him. Are you angry at Zeus because he kidnapped Europa and chained Prometheus to the Caucasus? Are you angry at Zeus because he sends all those hurricanes? Are you angry at Poseidon because he made the earthquake in Sichuan? Eat that, troll.
Posted by: AJ Milne | July 26, 2008 7:43 PM
What are you insinuating anyway?
That's a direct question. Your foul. My serve.
Posted by: Zeno | July 26, 2008 7:44 PM
This is not a very tricky question, Ben. Consider where most of the black people lived in the U.S. With the exception of Louisiana, southern states do not have a lot of Roman Catholics (and had even fewer in the past). Thus the Christianity which was drilled into the slaves was of the Protestant variety. Their descendants may be scattered more widely through the nation today, but the number of Catholics in their ranks is still small.
Posted by: Sandi | July 26, 2008 7:44 PM
I bet Joe Cracker (#242) knows all about that kind of thing. I guess he can't come up with any rationale arguments in this debate so he has to share his lifestyle with us.
Posted by: Lily | July 26, 2008 7:45 PM
I am having a hard time understanding the difference between the hatred expressed by the atheists here and the hate mail you say you have been getting from Catholics. There are 63 million Catholics in the US alone. Even allowing for those who are nominal or no longer Catholic or those who are children so young, they cannot yet read, how large a percentage of all Catholics do your death-threatening correspondents comprise? Mathematically, is it even measurable? Are they really more than an angry and, perhaps, lunatic fringe?
On the other side, we have you and your atheist followers spewing hatred and contempt for most of humankind, all served up with a heaping helping of self-righteous fatuity and self-congratulation. But are you representative of all non-believers? Are all non-believers bad neighbors and bad citizens? Do all of them wish to live at odds with the rest of the community? Or are you some fringe, sociopathic minority spewing impotently on the Internet?
Quite frankly, I don't see any significant differences here. A pox on both your houses.
Posted by: craig | July 26, 2008 7:45 PM
Sandi, have I mentioned lately that you're an idiot?
ALL IDEAS ARE FAIR GAME FOR CRITICISM.
Claiming that criticism of your ideas is bigotry exposes you as a craven coward who can't defend her ideas and demands that her ideas be given a pass as being "special."
It also exposes you as a disgusting pig of a person, appropriating the suffering of true victims of bigotry, people with innate characteristics that others mistreat them for, and using it as a shield for your ideas.
And we KNOW that you know you're misusing the term bigotry.
It's a pattern, straight from Donahue on down - a deliberate and calculated design to use a concept you know liberals ahbor, bigotry, to get liberals to shield you from due criticism.
Craven and disgusting because you know its a lie.
Craven and disgusting because you appropriate the suffering of others.
Craven and disgusting because you attempt to curry liberal favor when in fact you despise liberals - its an attempt merely to use them.
Craven and disgusting because the true victims of bigotry whose suffering you are appropriating have often been and STILL often are experiencing that bigotry at the hands of Catholics.
You must be a fool.
Every time you post here you expose yourself as a delusional person.
Every time you intentionally misappropriate the word bigotry you expose yourself as at the best a very stupid person, and at the worst, vile immoral scum using the suffering of others to shield your fantasies from the scrutiny they deserve.
Yet you continue to post here. Please, keep it up.
Every post is proof of the fact that religion short-ciruits rational thinking, and every post is proof of religious penchant... no, make that lust - for the exploitation and oppression of others.
Religious ideas make you delusional.
Claiming that criticism of religious ideas is bigotry make you immoral and disgusting.
Posted by: Michael X | July 26, 2008 7:46 PM
That's a really good question Ben. Why arn't their more African Americans in the Catholic church? I suppose they may have lost a great deal of recruiting time with their staunch defense and practice of slavery. But protestants are guilty of the same thing and they haven't had as much of a problem comparatively. Is it the simplicity of modern charismatic beliefs that make it easier to follow as opposed to the centuries of dogma and obscure rituals that the Catholic proclaim? I think that may have something to do with it. Possibly once African Americans were acceptable enough to be preached to, they went with the religion that sounded more natural. This is all speculation of course.
Posted by: Joe Cracker | July 26, 2008 7:46 PM
Sandi, I was talking about the Eucharist. Do you spit, or swallow - it ?
What were u talking about?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | July 26, 2008 7:46 PM
Verily, I say unto you, there is a Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Posted by: John Morales | July 26, 2008 7:46 PM
Apropos of nothing, I note baba is Spanish for drool (slobber, drivel).
Posted by: Jason | July 26, 2008 7:46 PM
BRB, scribbling "for a sexy time, call 334-410-0611" on all of the public bathrooms I can find.
Posted by: Mondo | July 26, 2008 7:47 PM
Holy shit those are some fucked up emails.
Posted by: DingoDave | July 26, 2008 7:47 PM
Craig wrote @ #139:
"Man created religion so that they could pretend to have godlike powers themselves."
Touche'!
"Alacazam, Alacazoo,
I'll change this cracker in front of you,
Hubble, Bubble, and boil in a pot,
I'll convince you this cracker is something it's not."
It appears that things haven't changed much during the last several thousand years.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:47 PM
Scathing!! An impressive display of rapier wit!!!
Posted by: Fr. J | July 26, 2008 7:48 PM
There is an organization called American Atheists. Their founder Madelyn Murray O'Hair was the one who got prayer out of public schools. She is a great hero to atheists. She also was a thief. Once she tried to defect to the Soviet Union and even they wouldn't take her. Her son, a Christian convert said:
"My mother was an evil person... Not for removing prayer from America's schools... No, she was just evil. She stole huge amounts of money. She misused the trust of people. She cheated children out of their parents' inheritance. She cheated on her taxes and even stole from her own organizations. She once printed up phony stock certificates on her own printing press to try to take over another atheist publishing company."
She was murdered by a fellow atheist. "Police concluded that Waters and his accomplices had kidnapped all three O'Hairs, forced them to withdraw the missing funds, went on several huge shopping sprees with the O'Hairs' money and credit cards, and then murdered all three people. Danny Fry, an accomplice, was murdered a few days after the O'Hairs; his body was found with its head and hands severed on a riverbed, but his remains were unidentified for three and a half years. Waters eventually pled guilty to reduced charges."
So you atheists have a fine organization to belong too with a wonderful history. It has everything: theft, deception, fraud, and murder. Atheism at its best.
Posted by: JonathanL | July 26, 2008 7:49 PM
I usually think of trolling as more how they post and what they hope to accomplish than whether they believe it. Trolling is usually an attempt to control the conversation, regardless of whether it makes them look good or bad they just want to be the focus. Sometimes just for personal reasons and some just to try to disrupt the discussions.
Posted by: Fr. J | July 26, 2008 7:49 PM
Michael, ever hear of the Abolitionists?
Posted by: Michael X | July 26, 2008 7:49 PM
And I see Zeno actually knows what he's talking about. See, that? That's why I read this blog.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:50 PM
Theist!
Posted by: Michael X | July 26, 2008 7:50 PM
Fr. J, ever hear of a minority nor representative of the church?
Posted by: Sandi | July 26, 2008 7:51 PM
Black Wolf (#245). You're absolutely right, so let's start attacking Jewish beliefs. Have somebody steal a Jewish Torah and hand it to Myers. Myers can then rip the Torah and place it in a trash bin with a side of ham. Of course, he should also wear an insulting tee shirt at the time, such as one emblazoned with the logo "Jews Suck!" or "The Holocaust Never Happened!" Then, post the photo on the website. No bigotry there, right pal? Let's go for it! I can hardly await your response. Let me guess...Catholics aren't the same as Jews. It's not bigotry to bash Catholics, but it is to bash Jews. No logic.
Posted by: craig | July 26, 2008 7:51 PM
"I am having a hard time understanding the difference between the hatred expressed by the atheists here and the hate mail you say you have been getting from Catholics."
Let me spell it out for you then.
Atheists are NOT attempting to get anyone fired. Atheists are NOT sending people threats and death threats. Atheists are NOT trying to get people expelled from school.
Atheists are NOT attacking anyone physically.
Atheists are NOT attempt to silence criticism of atheism in any way, nor are they making the claim that criticism of atheism is bigotry, nor making the claim that criticism of atheism on a personal forum such as a blog is grounds for for being fired.
Catholics are doing ALL of those things against atheists.
All atheists are doing is using their freedom of speech to express their disagreement with what the Catholics are doing - often vociferously, even rudely and profanely, but just speech.
No threats, no attempts to ruin others' lives, no attempts to get others to stop saying what they want or believing what they want.
THAT'S the difference.
Posted by: Baba | July 26, 2008 7:55 PM
I disagree. I still say Stalin offered the best of atheism followed by Mao. Just an opinion.
Posted by: Michael X | July 26, 2008 7:56 PM
Sandi, this whole episode was a reaction to Catholic insanity. Did a jewish woman assault a young man holding a cracker? Wouldn't it then be non-sequitur to react by criticizing the Jewish religion? But, don't worry. They'll commit some oppressive act soon enough and we'll be there to criticize it. Then your bloodlust will be satisfied (well probably not).
Posted by: KM | July 26, 2008 7:57 PM
Lily:
Compare the Catholic sentiments expressed in the emails Prof. Myers has posted above and elsewhere -- emails that express hatred for Prof. Myers, atheists in general, Muslims, Jews, and gays -- with the following, resposted from Prof. Myers' response to BobC in the "Write to UCF" thread (post #84):
"We don't have to condemn a whole diverse collection of people, we need to focus on the absurdity of certain beliefs, and protest the execution of specific actions.
Catholics aren't the problem. Some individual Catholics are, and they are enabled by the foolishness of Catholicism."
Prof. Myers -- along with most of the atheists posting here -- is not spewing hatred for any, let alone most, of humankind. The problem is not Catholics (or Jews, or Muslims, or Hindus, etc.) in general but religious belief. I repeat: it's not a question of believers (except for the very few particularly vile ones), but of belief.
Posted by: AJ Milne | July 26, 2008 7:57 PM
Theist!
Don't hate the player. Hate the game.
Posted by: Jim RL | July 26, 2008 7:57 PM
Lily, the difference is obvious, but you won't admit it. The atheist side is not threatening to do bodily harm to anyone. We also are not spewing hate at anyone. We are are expressing our disdain for certain ideas. Destroying communion wafers and criticizing ideas is completely different than threatening people's lives and trying to get them fired from their jobs. If you can't see the difference you are blind.
Posted by: craig | July 26, 2008 7:59 PM
"When I was looking at the list of their board of advisors the other day and saw Keyes on it, the thought occurred to me that there does'nt seem to be a large African American component of Catholicism.
Anybody have any thoughts on why that is?
Well, I worked for a Catholic organization. My sister worked for it, and my father is on the board of directors. Odd, since we're all atheists.
And I never once heard any one of the Catholics use the words "African-American."
No, every single time any words were used it was "the coloreds." And the words were not used in very flattering terms.
The organization moved from the city and it's historic building, it's home for over 100 years, in part to escape "the coloreds."
Posted by: Rayven Alandria | July 26, 2008 8:00 PM
Not necessarily. Some trolls use one persona to convince themselves they are rational and the other one to have the juvenile freak-outs through. They could be the same person, just as many of our recent trolls could be the same person, or a collection of just a few people.
At one Atheist board we once had a troll who actually started a war with her other persona, it was a huge flame war with so much drama I could not begin to explain it ....and in the end we found out they were both her. This strange troll episode went on for many months. There was more than one invented persona, a poor,(fake), dead child, and all kinds of crazy shit. She cozied up to many people and invented all kinds of drama. Her *nice* persona was a regular poster. (I think her main persona's name was Adrianne if I remember correctly.) I and another person got suspicious when she slipped and said something that directly conflicted with something she had said months prior to that, and we began questioning her. Slowly the charade unraveled. It was one of the most bizarre things I have ever witnessed online. We tracked IP's and nailed her. She logged in the different persona's from the same place. When first confronted she claimed her evil cousin did it to make her look bad and to frame her, that is was not her. We finally got her to admit the truth, but it took s while.
After we found out the truth about her, she begged us to forgive her and stay friends with her.
She turned out to be a high school aged fundy girl who began the fiasco by coming there to troll because she thought she could make Atheists look like scum. When it didn't work, she created a fake Atheist persona and stuck around milking everyone with fake sob-stories. The troll persona still came by to cause trouble and her *nice* persona fought with it regularly.
I'm telling you, some of these religious people are so whacked it's unbelievable. If you saw the character in a movie you'd be thinking that no one could possibly be THAT strange. Sadly, you'd be mistaken.
Posted by: KM | July 26, 2008 8:01 PM
And, PS, Lily:
What craig said.
(Well said, craig!)
Posted by: Joe Cracker | July 26, 2008 8:02 PM
Fr. J, I belong to NO organization.
Not the same can be said about Catholics, who belong and support an organization that has recently protected pedophile priests, and has a history of centuries of murder all in the NAME of CATHOLICISM.
Posted by: gsj | July 26, 2008 8:03 PM
If they really believe that the host is the "real" body of Jesus, does this make it a cannibalistic ritual?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | July 26, 2008 8:03 PM
There is no organization.
Your ignorance is the most embarrassing I've seen in months, and on the Internet that means something!
There is no Atheist Un-Church. There is no organization. Atheists have nothing in common except that they agree that "there almost certainly is no deity" -- what could they build a church around?!?
1) When you say "Jews", nobody knows if you mean the religion or the people. You choose if you belong to the former, but not if you belong to the latter.
2) The Holocaust really happened. Just like the Crusades happened, and just like Diocletian persecuted Christians. You are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | July 26, 2008 8:04 PM
Sandi@266
Yeuch, holocaust envy. I preferred fatwa envy.
Posted by: black wolf | July 26, 2008 8:06 PM
Sandi,
thanks for proving your memory span is less than half an hour. Remember me mentioning innate traits? Words too big for you?
You know what? We can talk about desecrating a Torah when Jews harass and threaten a student with physical harm and expulsion from university who didn't wear a yarmulke in a synagogue.
And don't project your blood-libel-driven desires onto people who had nothing to do with inventing, perpetrating or denying the Holocaust. A Jew posted in this thread supporting PZ's action. If you can't deal with your cognitive dissonance, that's nobody else's problem. Except when you try to deal with it by harassing other people. And that's exactly why all this started.
Posted by: DingoDave | July 26, 2008 8:09 PM
I concur with Nick Gotts @ #124.
Lysenkoism, and the Soviet collective agricultural policies, probably contributed more than anything else towards the total suffering experienced by the Russian people under Stalin and his regime.
Posted by: jagannath | July 26, 2008 8:10 PM
Baba, FrJ, Sandi
Is catholic church innocent of wrong doings?
Posted by: KM | July 26, 2008 8:11 PM
gsj:
No. The doctrine of transubstantiation allows for Catholics to move the goal-posts around as much as they want. It's not cannibalism if you eat it, but it is kidnapping or hostage-taking (as opposed to theft) if you receive but don't eat it. See a multitude of posts on this topic in the other cracker threads for further explanation.
Posted by: teh07h3r0n3 | July 26, 2008 8:11 PM
I think the only respectable thing to do now is to get a web site up with user-submitted host desecrations.
Sort of like ratemypoo.com, but with eucharist desecrations instead of shit. Oh...wait...
I'm willing to help out if anyone has the know-how!
Posted by: Larry | July 26, 2008 8:11 PM
What amazes me about these nutjobs is their belief in an all-powerful cracker god who is apparently totally incapable of taking care of itself. A truly omnipotent ritz cracker should be able to take down PZ without lifting a finger, a mere thought being all that is required. And yet, he continues to live. This fact alone keeps these saltine-freaks absolutely vibrating with rage. Their meek little animal cracker is refusing to get involved so they must take action upon themselves.
What a pathetic group of losers.
Posted by: John | July 26, 2008 8:12 PM
Sandi
The actual sexual attacks are the smaller of the two issues. The greater issue is the fact that your Pope ordered every member of the clergy to help cover up these attacks. The whole of the church, as policyu, tried to hide evidence and prevent reports of these attacks, and as a normal part of the process, moved the attackers to areas where their past actions were unknown.
Any body can have a few bad apples, but when that body help hide these apples and even help them continue their sexual assualts and help them to evade the law, then that body, and everyone who continues to claim membership in or support of that group must also carry responsability for the rapes.
Sandi, it is just a cracker, your church is rotten to it's core, and while it dose massive ammounts in the way of assistance, it does this for itself it is simply an effort to convert members.
Posted by: omnot | July 26, 2008 8:14 PM
"Minnisota"? Is that like "Mini-me", only for a state?
Posted by: The MadPanda | July 26, 2008 8:15 PM
Sorry, I'm still laughing from that post way back there (#157) in which Baba proudly claims to have gotten this all-sweeping knowledge of ol' Uncle Joe from wikipedia. (Just one calorie--not skeptical enough.)
Sorry, amigo, you might as well claim that Communism is a Jewish conspiracy because of all the Jewish Russians who joined the various groups responsible for the February (March) Revolution. But something tells me that you wouldn't know the Leftist SRs from the Mensheviki from the Bolsheviki from the Nihilists...
(shakes head sadly)
It would probably be too much to ask for you to actually research the sad state of China between the Boxer Rebellion and the Great Leap Forward to add a little perspective to your understanding.
Or are you only interested in tarring atheists with the broadest brush possible?
You, Sandi, and the Good Friar are still only worth 845 XP apiece, divided by the size of the attacking party.
The MadPanda, FCD
Posted by: KM | July 26, 2008 8:16 PM
gsj:
Just keep in mind that the explanations you'll find will not be consistent or, by even the lowest of standards, even close to rational. But, hey, we probably shouldn't expect too much by way of consistency or rationality in religious delusion.
Posted by: eyelessgame | July 26, 2008 8:17 PM
To pile on just a bit, Sandi, "about" is a preposition. Ending sentences with prepositions is the sort of grammatical abuse up with which a proper grammar nazi knows better than to put.
Posted by: JeffreyD | July 26, 2008 8:18 PM
Lily meet Sandi, Sandi meet Lily. I think you two will like each other. Sandi has a crush on PZ, but has turned bitter because he ignores her emails. I hope you two do not get into a fight over this. Have fun.
Ciao
Posted by: craig | July 26, 2008 8:18 PM
Cute little smear of gays there, Sandi.
Pedophilia is NOT the same as homosexuality, even when the victim is of the same sex.
Sexual abusers don't always target victims of the gender that they personally feel sexually oriented towards. "Straight" abusers might target little boys, etc.
There can, of course, be gay pedophiles, but to generalize as you did was obviously a deliberate attempt to smear homosexuality as being immoral, to smear all homosexuals are being innately likely to be sexual predators.
Slimy fucking sleazy tactic - and YOU'RE calling OTHER people bigots?
Posted by: Benjamin Franklin | July 26, 2008 8:20 PM
David Marjanović, OM @#246
Thanks for your response & thanks for the Molly nomination.
I am wookerist.
If you would be so kind as to refresh the nomination when they are called for, hopefully within the next few days, I would be honored, and highly appreciative.
(+) = :)
Benjamin Franklin/wookerist
Posted by: craig | July 26, 2008 8:21 PM
And of course I left out... your smear was a way of trying to pin the church's problems on "homosexuals."
As if the whole thing wouldn't have happened if it weren't for those horrible homosexuals.
Posted by: True Bob | July 26, 2008 8:21 PM
Fr J,
There was this bunch of folks who believed in god. They made a compound and everything, so that they could all be together. Then one day the leader and his enforcers made everyone drink poisoned kool-aid, and they all DIED.
Ergo, all god believers are megalomaniacal killers.
No complaints from you, it's the same logic you used to implicate all atheists as evil.
How can you stand to look at yourself in the mirror, knowing how you lie?
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | July 26, 2008 8:22 PM
And why did Stalin adopt Lysenkoism as dogma?
Because it was deemed more compatible with
ScriptureMarxism-Leninism than the science of genetics ("Mendelism-Morganism-Weissmanism" as Lysenko called it).Unsurprisingly, the Nazis did exactly that.
I notice, though, that you don't let perfectly good XP go to waste... :-)
Posted by: Rayven Alandria | July 26, 2008 8:23 PM
My husband just asked if am STiiiiiiLL reading that cracker-stuff. I have been reading this all day. I have got to make myself step away from the CRACKer.
It's just so fascinating to watch the crazy catholics in action.
I'm going to go watch a movie. Carry on good people (and crazy catholics).
It sure would be nice if a few of the non-crazy catholics would show up and dialog. I keep telling myself that they exist, but I know that's just me having faith in something I can't prove. I hope someone gives me some proof soon or I will have to become a non-believer.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | July 26, 2008 8:27 PM
Almost certainly impossible. I'll be digging for Triassic fossils for the next two weeks. In fact, I'll leave tomorrow morning, so I should have gone to bed long ago instead of staying up till half past 2 at night. Just nominate yourself, or should I say "each other"... :o)
Posted by: El Herring | July 26, 2008 8:27 PM
Fr. J. has declared his final post here.
I wonder if he'll stick to his promise.
Posted by: Rick B. | July 26, 2008 8:29 PM
@ 288
To be fair Baba the troll was referencing a prior post.
Posted by: Carlie | July 26, 2008 8:32 PM
Sieg Heil!!! Let's set up gas chambers too! What fun!
Way to totally miss the point, moron. The point was that if something important was really on the line, as all of those Catholic fucknecks sending threatening emails like to make analogies about, they would suddenly realize the cracker was, indeed, only a cracker.
Posted by: Cheezits | July 26, 2008 8:32 PM
So you atheists have a fine organization to belong too with a wonderful history.
So? I'm not a member.
Posted by: John Morales | July 26, 2008 8:32 PM
The MadPanda, you sure those level 1 monsters are worth that much? I concede the Fr may be a level 2 monster.
Posted by: Danon | July 26, 2008 8:35 PM
Fuck the Catholic God.
Fuck Jesus.
Fuck the Eucharist.
Fuck the Holy Ghost.
Fuck it all.
Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.
Posted by: John | July 26, 2008 8:37 PM
The Fr. is a compulsive liar, which should be clear to everyone by now.
Posted by: zy | July 26, 2008 8:45 PM
I love the people who claim to be persecuted and in the next breath call for the same treatment of some other group. Like Jesus said, if someone strikes you on the cheek, offer your neighbor's cheek as well. ::rolleyes::
Posted by: Jors | July 26, 2008 8:46 PM
PZ, I would be especially interested in what you have to say about the Carl Sagan quote in #144 http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/i_get_email_20.php#comment-1013949
Posted by: Anne | July 26, 2008 8:47 PM
I am a Catholic. I think that to be an Atheist requires the same degree of faith as to be religious.
If there is no scientific evidence for God, as you say, then you are quite correct that He cannot be proven. However, the theory that there is no God is equally without merit. Just because you cannot now observe or quantify Him does not mean that you might not one day. In the middle ages, early scientists could never conceive of Atoms. They were as sure that the world was composed of four elements as you are that there is no God.
Therefore, by your criteria, the only intellectually honest position would be Agnosticism.
Earlier in these posts someone challenged Christians to read a biology book, an astomnomy book, one on Evolution, and to take "6-months out" from religion to look at the world rationally. I ask the same favor of Atheists- only read "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis. This is no right-wing ignorant rant, but a classic piece of literature that backs up its claims with good thought and good science.
Posted by: Dianne | July 26, 2008 8:47 PM
Fuck the Catholic God.
Bad plan. Look what happened to Mary when she tried it.
Posted by: GeoffI | July 26, 2008 8:49 PM
I could not stop laughing! Those people are so stupid it's hysterical.
Thanks for the laugh PZ.
Posted by: Lily | July 26, 2008 8:50 PM
I am, unfortunately, not surprised that you don't see your own hatred and its implications. All this impotent fist-waving and fiery rhetoric has led PZ to do something incredibly childish that, after the initial reaction of disbelief and shock, has actually started to provoke derisive laugher among the people who aren't likely to write any sort of threats. I think that you will come to see that this stunt has been a public relations disaster.
I told my own priest what was going on -- he has never heard of Webster Cook or Myers. His reaction? He burst out laughing and then shook his head in disbelief-- disbelief that an adult could suppose that there was some value in such a meaningless, stupid gesture. As predicted, you got an emotional response-- and what else? God is still in his heaven and all is right with the world.
Our world in any case. Yours seems to be hopelessly lacking in love, good manners, compassion, humor and plain, old-fashioned, neighborliness.
Posted by: The MadPanda | July 26, 2008 8:50 PM
Rick B. (#300) Yes, I know. He was asked for the basis of his wide-ranging expertise on ol' Joe and responded thusly. That's a bit like me claiming to be an expert on cephalopods because I read Phyrangula. :)
John Morales (#303) and David Marjanovic, OM (#296)
Gentles, at our collective level, even the 6d+6 HD Troll is as the lowly Kobald and humble Goblin...barely worth the time to slay even for a generous bounty. And at our betentacled host's level, nothing short of a Class VI is worth so much as a sneer.
The MadPanda, FCD
Posted by: Wanderer | July 26, 2008 8:51 PM
Wishing you all a very good day, nice times with your family, and no ass-desecrating moments (unless you like it).
Thanks for the blog and the lively comments !
Keep it going !
Still looking for crackers to surface on Ebay.
Posted by: KM | July 26, 2008 8:55 PM
Lily wrote:
"[Your world] seems to be hopelessly lacking in love, good manners, compassion, humor and plain, old-fashioned, neighborliness."
You did read the emails PZ received, right? This is called projection.
PS: Way to ignore the many substantive respnses you received to your previous post! Your intellectual honesty knows no bounds.
Posted by: John | July 26, 2008 8:57 PM
But why should they study your god and not the god of Islam or the Norse? While we are at it don't forget the gods of Rome and Greece in addition to those of Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica as other viable options. A person could spend years their life devoting 6 months at a time in the effort of accepting one type of a god and once through the list on what basis is a decision made.
It is a fool's errand
Posted by: JeffreyD | July 26, 2008 8:59 PM
Lily, meet Anne. Anne, meet Lily. Anne, Lily appears to have a crush on PZ, but is apparently pissed at him so has been spreading her bile. Probably best if you do not try to move in on Lily, Sandi has already set her cap for PZ and three of you at once is probably a bad idea.
Wow, this making stuff up is fun. Hmmm, how about this, it is a well known fact that 79.25689% of Catholic priests have to kill a Jewish baby when they are promoted to Bishop. I read that on Conservapedia. Now, if I can just come up with one more big lie I might be able to be a Cardinal - can't say I care for red, though.
Ciao
Posted by: Lily | July 26, 2008 9:00 PM
What substantive responses? I saw none.
Frankly, what is left to say that hasn't been said by now? I have nothing more to add. So, unless one of you can come up with something new, I won't repeat myself.
Posted by: KM | July 26, 2008 9:02 PM
Anne wrote:
"I think that to be an Atheist requires the same degree of faith as to be religious."
That you think it doesn't make it so.
Instead of advising the atheists here to familiarize themselves with Christianity -- something many, if not most, of us have already done -- do a little research on atheism, something of which you've kindly demonstrated that you have very little understanding. The little pearl of wisdom you've offered here today has been proposed and debunked ad nauseum. Go. Read. Once you know what you're talking about, come back and try again.
Best of luck with your research,
KM.
Posted by: El Herring | July 26, 2008 9:02 PM
Anne #308: Thank you for a rational and well-reasoned post. Personally, I have to say that I have not read the C.S. Lewis book you mention (although I have read several of his others), but when I can get hold of a copy, I will.
As for the difference between the terms "agnostic" and "atheist", it all comes down to semantics in the end. Richard Dawkins has covered this argument already in some detail in "The God Delusion" I believe. Even he will not commit to calling himself a "strong atheist", and neither will I. It all comes down to evidence, and the evidence for a divine all-powerful being is simply not there - at least there is no more evidence for the Christian god than there is for any other proposed deity, or for fairies, the Flying Spaghett Monster, etc.
And that, as I see it, is the defining factor. Even if there IS some sort of god, who is to say that it is the god you want him/her/it to be? Where is the evidence?
And (anticipating any complaints from any side), please don't castigate me for not capitalising the word "god" - for me the word denotes a job description, not a name. And as far as I can determine, that position is currently vacant.
And to all other trolls (who I refuse to name or converse with), please note: Anne was polite, so I was too. See - it can be done.
Posted by: SC | July 26, 2008 9:04 PM
I'm curious: Has there ever been a government friendly toward the Catholic Church but at the same time heinous enough to be denounced by it? The Vatican climbed into bed with the most bloodthirsty regimes of the 20th century, turning away from them only when they began to lose their grip on power.
http://www.concordatwatch.org/showtopic.php?org_id=871&kb_header_id=31871
The primary, possibly the sole, criterion for the Vatican's support of a regime appears to be its non-hostility to the Church's power or ambitions. Are there any examples of regimes that have been accommodating to Catholicism and yet despicable enough that the Vatican has refused to support them? Of course, a few exceptions would do nothing to erase the long and sordid history of collaboration with dictatorships, but I'm wondering if there are any at all.
Posted by: Jim1138 | July 26, 2008 9:05 PM
PZ: If you just add a filter "I deny God" You might get rid of 99% of the emails you don't want to read.
Posted by: JeffreyD | July 26, 2008 9:09 PM
Evening SC. Interesting question at #320. Heading out for dinner soon, but that is worth a little research tomorrow. A dim memory wants me to say yes, there has been a regime accommodating to Catholicism and yet despicable enough that the Vatican has refused to support them, but I cannot dredge it up right now. Maybe it is just wishful thinking on my part.
Ciao, Bella (I have such a crush on your mind)(smile)
Posted by: KM | July 26, 2008 9:09 PM
Lily:
Posts 270 and 271, for starters.
(I'm not sure why we have to come up with something "new" in order to respond to you. Your problem seems to be an inability to understand the things that have already been said -- and they've been said quite plainly. The onus isn't on us, it's on you.)
Posted by: Rick B. | July 26, 2008 9:12 PM
@ Mad Panda
Although I think Baba is an insipid troll, in this instance he was referring to the link in post 121. I believe he was being facetious.
Posted by: Molly, NYC | July 26, 2008 9:12 PM
Professor Myers--Just out of curiosity, have you heard anything about this from Catholics you actually know? Or is this crapola all coming from whackjobs from afar?
Posted by: Keith B | July 26, 2008 9:15 PM
You know, after this whole episode, I think I have finally reached some sort of conclusion about how I should conduct myself in one miniature part of my life when it comes to religious and non-religious issues. Up until now, I have said nothing when the girl behind the counter at my local coffee shop tells me to "have a very blessed day" with a special wink, a dangling silver dead Jesus cross and a smile, as if I should accept her supernatural premise no matter what my personal beliefs are on the subject. From now on, I'm going to tell her that I don't believe in her blessings, but that I appreciate her sentiment nonetheless! Har har!
Posted by: Anne | July 26, 2008 9:18 PM
KM and John- If you had read "Mere Christianity" you would know that C.S Lewis first establishes the existence of a God before expouding on the reasons why He believes the Christian God is the most true to reality.
El, It is good to see reasonable people on the other side of the fence. This blog has been for the most part, a treatise of mud-slinging by both sides.
I think it is right to point out that if there is a God, there are many people vying for the right to call their God the real God. This is where C.S. Lewis could defend Christianity better than I.
In the end, it comes down to evidence of faith, an altogether differnt thing that cannot be proven. I reasonable, rational and a responsible member of society. I am also a "Troll" because I really do believe that what you slam as a "cracker" is the true and living presence of Christ.
Posted by: Anne | July 26, 2008 9:20 PM
And since I asked the Atheist to read "mere Christianity", I will read "The God Delusion". :)
Posted by: The MadPanda | July 26, 2008 9:23 PM
Rick B. (#324)
Well, gawrsh, I been near-Poe'd?
(laugh)
My answer must stand potentially adjusted for sarcasm in the event that Baba was being funny, because my facetiousness meter completely failed to register any such readings. Alas, my inner historian can be cranky when grave and complex matters are reduced to simplistic binary soundbites (which is why I avoid certain news programs like the plague).
The MadPanda, FCD
Posted by: John | July 26, 2008 9:26 PM
You can believe in God or Thor or Zeus or Unicorns or 100,000 Angels dancing on the head of a pin. Aside from cultural molding there is no reason to accept one over the other, they all demand acceptance with zero evidence.
So when you say you ' C.S Lewis first establishes the existence of a God' you mean he first convinces himself to accept a fantasy as reality. That is the step that most of the regulars here quite reasonably refuse to take, for it is at its base a silly base for a person of evidenc and reason to build a world view on.
Posted by: Paper Hand | July 26, 2008 9:29 PM
"I think that to be an Atheist requires the same degree of faith as to be religious."
"I think that to be a Gentile requires the same degree of faith as to be a Jew"
Sounds pretty absurd, doesn't it? And yet, it's the same logic. Atheist is a term like Gentile - one defined not by what you ARE, but by what you are NOT.
Posted by: KM | July 26, 2008 9:29 PM
Anne:
I don't really care that CS Lewis "established the existence of God" to your satisfaction at the beginning of his book. That you and CS Lewis both believe that his version of reality is the best is in no way a compelling reason for me to believe that it is so. I will, however, pick up a copy of the book at my uni library when I get a chance. Thank you for the recommendation.
I wasn't trying to sling mud when I suggested you research atheism -- just as I'm sure your invitation to research Christianity was not mud-slinging. If you think that atheism is a matter of faith, you simply do not understand what atheism is all about. The book El mentioned -- Dawkins' God Delusion -- is by no means the best book on atheism, but it's a good place to start.
Posted by: dkew | July 26, 2008 9:30 PM
If PZ nailed an actual priest-blessed Eucharist cracker, how come it didn't spurt AB blood all over him? Did the Koran pages nullify its powers? Or was it St Dawkins?
That was facetious, but since that bleeding-on-PZ scenario hasn't been part of actual postings (that I've read), maybe it shows most Catholics don't really believe their own mythology.
Posted by: The MadPanda | July 26, 2008 9:32 PM
Lewis is no more convincing than Augustine or Aquinas, I'm afraid. Unlike those two, however, he did also give us some fun kids' novels with swashbuckling mice.
Oh, and the Screwtape Letters, which were a fun read.
The MadPanda, FCD
Posted by: El Herring | July 26, 2008 9:33 PM
Anne: you say "evidence of faith" which to me doesn't make sense. You have evidence, or you have faith. If you have evidence there is no need for faith. Faith only thrives where there is no evidence. And for people who consider themselves atheist or agnostic (note I use the terms as adjectives, NOT nouns. I am NOT "an atheist". I am "atheist" or "atheistic". Small point, but it matters to me), faith is simply not an option.
And there is always that niggling problem of which god. Are you aware of the now quite famous remark made by Stephen Roberts? I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Posted by: JeffreyD | July 26, 2008 9:34 PM
Before I head out, did a little research. Nothing yet on SC's question but found a new, to me, site. Much enjoyed
http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm
I literally laughed out loud at several of them.
Nite all
Posted by: bgbaysjr | July 26, 2008 9:36 PM
This is not for Fr. J, or Baba, or anyone else who claims that there is an atheist organization or orthodoxy that has any authority over any or all atheists. They are lost to us. This is for someone who is still does not understand what an atheist believes...
First, don't believe any atheist who says, "this is what all atheists believe." Our beliefs and opinions are as diverse as any other random sample of humans. Some of us are liberal, some of us are conservative: there are libertarian atheists, republican atheists, democratic atheists, marxist atheists. Some of us are straight, some of us are gay. Some of us are polyamorous, some of us are fiercely monogamous.
The only unifying opinion is that there are no gods. Theists in our society seem unperturbed by our lack of devotion to Amun, or Ahura Mazda, or Thor, or Quetzalcoatl, or Amaterasu. We believe in none of them. And we don't believe in Elohim (adba YHWH or Yahweh, adba Jehovah, adba Allah) or his alter ego, the Christ. There are diverse opinions as to the historical evidence for the rabbi Yeshua -- or whatever his name really was -- aka "Jesus."
That is it. There are self-styled groups that use "atheist" in their names, but they have no authority over anyone who does not belong to their organization, nor do most claim it (and, given my experience with other freethinkers, they probably have very little authority over their members, either).
Anyone who says otherwise is either mistaken (we can be charitable) or they are actively lying.
It seems that many fundamentalists or literalists have a profound difficulty believing that the world is not composed of polar opposites. They seem to think that if you don't belong to a religious organization, you must belong to an anti-religious organization. But our lack of belief in any gods does not unite us any more than most adults' lack of belief in the Tooth Fairy. Beyond that, you may as well be herding cats.
By the way, very few of us were raised atheist, and many of us used to be theists of one brand or another. Many, if not most, of us have read the Bible or C.S. Lewis. Thanks, but we remain unconvinced. (A lot of us have also read the Qur'an, the Diamond Sutra, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Same result...)
I do not know that there are no gods. Athena may, at this moment, be wondering why there are so few sacrifices anymore. But I do know that there is no more evidence that Yahweh Elohim is real than there is that she is real. The fact that there really was a city called "Jericho" does not mean that the entire Old Testament is accurate or true any more that the fact that there was a city called "Troy" is proof that the rest of the Iliad is accurate or true.
To this atheist, there is as much evidence that Yahweh Elohim knocked down Jericho's walls as there is that Poseidon knocked down Troy's. And that is the Alpha and the Omega of what I "believe."
Posted by: SC | July 26, 2008 9:37 PM
Ciao, Bella (I have such a crush on your mind)(smile)
Evening, JeffreyD.
That's actually a super nice thing for a woman to hear (this one, at least - and not just because I've grown tired of all the real-world crushes ;)). It's mutual, but to be honest you're not alone - this blog is a cornucopia of intellectual-crush possibilities for those prone to them.
Posted by: gegesgalore | July 26, 2008 9:40 PM
the united states would do well to remove the tax exempt status of institutions that practice delusion.
Posted by: Anne | July 26, 2008 9:41 PM
John- It is ignorant to comment on something you have not read. You don't know what C.S. Lewis writes. If you are sure of your position then exposure to another should not be threatening.
Paper Hand- It is not the same. Atheism is a belief system, the belief that there is nothing worthy of belief. Notice I say "belief" since I have already said that it is Atheism is as unsubstantiated as religion.
KM- I did not have you in mind when I wrote "mud-slinging". I had just read the previous 200 posts. Thank you for accepting my recommendation. Knowing the opposing side makes for better discussion.
Posted by: El Herring | July 26, 2008 9:41 PM
I have to log off now too; it's 2:30 AM here in the UK. All the best posters seem to come online way after my bedtime!
And just for the record, I've been posting here for some time now, except that my username was Elwood Herring. I decided to de-woo my name a couple of weeks ago for obvious reasons. "El" suits me fine. Call me either.
Posted by: KM | July 26, 2008 9:44 PM
bgbaysjr:
Yes! What you've just said cannot be said enough, especially since our critics seem not to be able to grasp it.
There are various nuanced forumlations of it, but they all come down to this: atheism means lack of belief in god(s). Nothing more. Attempts to load atheism with all kinds of political (and other) baggage with the aim of criticizing it on those counts are, quite simply, exercises in intellectual dishonesty.
Posted by: Anne | July 26, 2008 9:44 PM
El- Good to talk with you.
Posted by: bgbays | July 26, 2008 9:46 PM
KM:
Thanks! And El Herring said it so much more succinctly -- bravo, El, and pleasant dreams...
Posted by: Anne | July 26, 2008 9:46 PM
Thank you all for hearing my point of view. I hope that everyone on this blog can be civil as I, John, El and KM (with others) have managed. I have to tuck my kids in bed. Good night to all. I wish you the best.
Posted by: SC | July 26, 2008 9:46 PM
I love that site, JeffreyD! I can't wait to read them all. Seems to have the makings of a drinking game...
Posted by: Paper Hand | July 26, 2008 9:48 PM
Sorry, you're wrong. I don't "believe" that there is no God. What I believe in is what I see evidence of. I see no evidence of Yahweh, Zeus, Thor, Odin, Amaterasu, Buddha, Brahmin, Allah, etc.
Why should I believe in something with no evidence?
I have read various theologians. I haven't read Mere Christianity, admittedly. I've also read the entire Bible. I grew up Christian, but I came to realize that Christianity conflicted with the evidence available (as well as being based on belief in a being who, if he existed and was as the Bible describes him, would be horrifically evil, and a being who no moral person should praise). As a result, I rejected it.
Posted by: bgbays | July 26, 2008 9:48 PM
Pleasant dreams to you too, Anne, and yours...
Posted by: genesgalore | July 26, 2008 9:49 PM
lol, rotffl. atheism is not a belief system. we know that there is no god. just like we know that a prehensile, opposable thumb and a bad back that is verticle is advantageous as opposed to not have them. monotheism is a joke but then again what can one expect from peeps who accept messages whispered in the ears of the chosen few.
Posted by: SC | July 26, 2008 9:49 PM
PS: Sweet dreams!
Posted by: Longtime Lurker | July 26, 2008 9:49 PM
I left the Church for good when the College of Cardinals elected Razti pope instead of this guy:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BRpzkpyr6RM&feature=related
David, be sure to keep us informed of all the Triassic goodness you unearth!
Posted by: Paper Hand | July 26, 2008 9:49 PM
Er, #347 was directed to Anne. Sorry, forgot to specify
Posted by: Muse142 | July 26, 2008 9:51 PM
Zomg I am so sorry... as a Pitt student myself, I'd like to let you know that we're not all murderous rapists.
Ack to the extreme. =(
Posted by: yoeruek | July 26, 2008 9:54 PM
Ben Stein @ 70
That for sure was a molly!
Posted by: bgbaysjr | July 26, 2008 9:54 PM
Paper Hand @ 347:
Yes! Everyone remembers to not believe in Thor, but hardly anyone remembers to not believe in poor Amaterasu...
Posted by: John | July 26, 2008 9:55 PM
I honestly do not know if I have or have not read it. Much earlier in my life I read a more than a little of CS Lewis (religious Mother) and none of it has stuck with me. Of the dozen or so of his books I have read I can remember the name of only one, and not much of the content of that one. I cannot say if the argument in you recommended CS Lewis book would have any profound effect. For all I know have already read it and dismissed it. At this point all I can say is all the Lewis works I have read were not compelling in any way.
What you will find if you stay here and continue you discussions is that almost everyone here knows far more about Christianity, Islam and other faiths that most people of faith know about atheism. Most of the posters I have seen have moved to atheism only after careful study of their and other faith systems. It is not a lack of understanding but a well reasoned reaction to careful study that has led them to accept that there is no god.
Posted by: Neural T | July 26, 2008 9:56 PM
I am a Catholic. I think that to be an Atheist requires the same degree of faith as to be religious.
Nonsense. It takes zero faith to reject a proposition. Faith is belief without evidence. Rejecting a belief is not the same as a believing the negative. Simply:
believe ~A != ~believe A
The weak atheist takes the latter position. So without a positive belief (without evidence), that position can't be based on faith.
Posted by: Nelson .M | July 26, 2008 9:56 PM
Wow, as sick of this whole crackergate thing that I am, it still amazes me how much fear there is on the Catholic side of the fence. Seriously, if they don't feel threatened by the postings of P.Z. and the others who support him, why is there such a defensive attitude about them. They "know" that they're right and that God will do Goddy things to their enemies. If they were truly secure in their beliefs, and honestly angry at Prof. Myers, they would simply wait for their god to do what it is best at: Punishing people.
Posted by: BT Murtagh | July 26, 2008 9:56 PM
"Let's be completely clear about this. No one is to throw any stones until I blow this whistle, even if they do say Jehovah."Posted by: Lily | July 26, 2008 9:57 PM
KM said I'm not sure why we have to come up with something "new" in order to respond to you. Your problem seems to be an inability to understand the things that have already been said... Hmm. You seem to share it. I said quite plainly that I had nothing to add (to what I have already said) and would not write any further unless you had something new to say (that I might wish to respond to). This doesn't seem like an exceptionally demanding bit of prose but, clearly, you had trouble with it. I am so sorry. I will try to write more slowly, if there is a next time.
Craig wrote: All atheists are doing is using their freedom of speech to express their disagreement with what the Catholics are doing - often vociferously, even rudely and profanely, but just speech.
Uh, no. Myers crossed the line when he asked his readers to steal consecrated wafers for him. At a minimum, it is disorderly conduct to come into a Mass with the intention of profaning the Eurcharist, which the Eucharistic ministers are obligated to try and stop; in states with strong hate crime laws (which I disapprove of, by the way), he has incited his readers to commit crimes. Still, since it is safe to bash Catholics, they aren't likely to be applied in this sort of case, even if a given parish decides to press charges which is unlikely.
No threats, no attempts to ruin others' lives, no attempts to get others to stop saying what they want or believing what they want.
Of course it is an attempt to get others to stop believing! Myers' belief that he has somehow shown that nothing is sacred is preposterous on its face but it was an attempt to do just that. While I am disgusted with threats of violence and death, what did you all think you were playig at? When you deliberately arouse strong emotions, why are you surprised by the reaction? Do you understand that little about human nature?
As far as trying to ruin his life? Frankly, he is ruining his own life. Even if UMM resists the pressure to fire him, they will have to watch him like a hawk. Every class he teaches from now on will be, potentially, a hostile environment for believers. How many Christian and Muslim students are going to avoid his classes, if they can, because they don't feel safe? How many will refuse to have him as an advisor, if they can?
If a complaint about harrassment is lodged in the future, the university is going to have a heck of a time mounting a defense, since they know he is toxic but have allowed him to continue teaching. Really, there is no good way out of this mess for either Myers or the UMM.
Posted by: genesgalore | July 26, 2008 9:57 PM
sure wish god would get a PR guy so that his press releases would follow the same story line. you'd think a bloke so powerful and almighty could at least get his story straight.
Posted by: Paper Hand | July 26, 2008 10:00 PM
Lily @ #360: How is accepting a mass-produced piece of cheap bread given away for free "theft"?
Posted by: Canuck | July 26, 2008 10:01 PM
I will pray for you, even though I would really enjoy kicking your ass.
Okay, that made me laugh uncontrollably. Too funny.
Posted by: Damian with an a | July 26, 2008 10:01 PM
Anne:
Thanks for posting.
I do not believe that it is possible to be an atheist without also being an agnostic, and vice-versa. It is entirely dependent on the particular god that is posited. So for instance, a god that has made sure that you never have any reason to believe that it exists would necessitate agnosticism [since a-gnostikos means "without knowledge"]. On the other hand, a god that made sure that there is tons of clear and undeniable evidence would necessitate atheism [a-theismos, without theism, i.e. without a belief in god], and that would hopefully be the case for theists, as well! Indeed, the absence of evidence in this case is not only highly predictive of its non-existence, it virtually entails its non-existence. It would therefore be patently irrational not to actively disbelieve in this god, given that no such evidence exists.
All other gods should fall on a continuum between these two, and we are left to argue about which gods we deny and which ones we merely disbelieve.
In my opinion, it is important we live, insofar as is possible, according to the very best evidence that is available. When you say that I cannot prove that god doesn't exist, you are of course correct, but you need to be aware of the dismaying trapdoor that is about to open up right in front of you. That excuse can be used to justify literally anything! And there is also the fact that even believers do not accept this line of reasoning in almost any other aspect of their lives. It is essentially a case of special pleading.
That is why I do not accept that any belief in god is justifiable. Once you allow one group of people to not only believe things for which there is little or no evidence, but to celebrate and venerate that mode of thought, how do you then argue against others who wish to do the same?
Posted by: SteveM | July 26, 2008 10:02 PM
lilly wrote:
Yes, that is exactly the response PZ hoped to get. That you (all Catholics) would be rational enough to realize that yes it is a stupid and pointless exercise to "desecrate" a wafer. Instead he gets thousands of e-hate-mail, hundreds of death threats, calls for his expulsion etc. Did you by any chance also tell your priest about this? Did you tell him of all the Catholics damning PZ to hell and threatening him with bodily harm? What was his reaction to members of his flock dispensing such un-Christian "charity"?
Posted by: genesgalore | July 26, 2008 10:02 PM
lily, when you the email from jesus, pass it on to us. until you have, you have nothing but delusion to suck on.
Posted by: Jim RL | July 26, 2008 10:04 PM
Lily, you did read where he said that some of the wafers were really old. Many good Catholics have left mass with consecrated wafers. Children have also been known to do it. Also, is it really disorderly conduct to take something that is being given away freely? It's like stopping by a giant luncheon for a group you don't belong to and walking out with a cookie. How is that disorderly conduct? How is that a hate crime?
Why do you flip out at the notion that he is trying to get people to stop believing? If that is a hate crime then I've had tons of people commit hate crimes against me on campus and even at my own home.
Posted by: Ferrous Patella | July 26, 2008 10:05 PM
Lily @#311 wrote,
This is exact what PZ wants! He wants the entire Catholic community to see the act a Eucharist desacration as "a meaningless, stupid gesture." That so many Catholics get their knickers in a knot over it is exactly what Mehers wanst to call attention too. Too bad not all follow your priest's example.
Posted by: Nibien | July 26, 2008 10:08 PM
"Paper Hand- It is not the same. Atheism is a belief system, the belief that there is nothing worthy of belief."
/facepalm
Let the religious ignorance come to light.
Protip: Not believing in something is not the same as denying its existence.
I have no evidence aliens have ever visited Earth. This means it would be foolish to believe they have; however, it does not mean I am affirming they have never done so.
Significant difference.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | July 26, 2008 10:09 PM
C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity is the tome that originally concocted that god-awful "lunatic, liar or Lord" argument, for those who want a preview.
Posted by: Andrew | July 26, 2008 10:10 PM
Holy shit! I'm from Eau Claire!
To help balance things out: there are at least two people here who think you're right on. (One of them is me.)
PZ, if you ever come to give a talk at the university, I'll be first in line.
Posted by: MartinDH | July 26, 2008 10:12 PM
Baba @#138:
I don't know if it's possible for anyone to lose that amount of pretentiousness. You can but try...go for it!!
Martin
Posted by: genesgalore | July 26, 2008 10:13 PM
i can think, i think!!! i believe in space aliens!!! i know that they exist. i also believe they have never visited earth. hey, ya know what??? i'm probably right.
Posted by: KM | July 26, 2008 10:14 PM
Lly:
One of the major aspects of this whole situation that you just can't seem to grasp -- see, e.g., your own comments on PZ's supposed hatred of Catholics and his classroom becoming an unsafe place for believers -- is precisely what I explained at 270. It's not about believers, it's about beliefs. That's all I'm interested in having you (and the other Catholic fundamentalists and apologists that have been lurking arond Pharyngula lately) understand. Alas, none of you seem capable of differentiating between the beliefs and the believers.
Until you can understand the issues at stake in this discussion, please don't bother to add anything new.
Posted by: Joe Cracker | July 26, 2008 10:16 PM
We should contact the Pope and ask him whether death threats and threats to lose jobs, over the Eucharist is Catholic policy, or whether these Middle Age practices are really history.
I suspect that this could be a replay of South Park with Bill Donahue ...
Posted by: jagannath | July 26, 2008 10:17 PM
Sandi, Lily, FrJ, Baba
Is catholic church innocent of wrong doings?
Posted by: Ktesibios | July 26, 2008 10:21 PM
The Gumby background is showing up nicely without damaging the readability of the Comic Sans. This is a definite improvement over the old look.
Posted by: dubiquiabs | July 26, 2008 10:28 PM
Hx: Baba sounds like "Fr." J, with similar tactics, except less loquacious.
Posted by: Longtime Lurker | July 26, 2008 10:31 PM
How many Christian and Muslim students are going to avoid his classes, if they can, because they don't feel safe? How many will refuse to have him as an advisor, if they can?
Lily, how many 18 year olds even know of Bill Donohue's existence? Do you really think the incoming freshmen would even be aware of this kerfuffle?
Posted by: genesgalore | July 26, 2008 10:31 PM
christianity you got to love it. the manifest destiny folks, you know, the same guys that gave us ethnic slavery, child labor, genocide, wife beatings and on and on and on.
Posted by: Talen Lee | July 26, 2008 10:34 PM
My god.
What a collection of stupid, stupid people, with such a tiny, helpless god that needs such feeble and weak thoughts to protect him.
Posted by: genesgalore | July 26, 2008 10:42 PM
they're not stupid Talen Lee, they are just brainwashed. and guess who doesn't know it???
Posted by: Chris P | July 26, 2008 10:43 PM
I'm still waiting for the Lily's, Father J etc to announce that it wrong for churches to be bigoted in their hiring practices by eliminating gays and atheists from employment.
Why do they forget this? Surprised that Dobson hasn't jumped on the bandwagon - he of the "Christian affirmation required" for employment.
And WHEN are they going to start paying taxes.
Chris P
Posted by: catta | July 26, 2008 10:43 PM
And you're absolutely sure that he wasn't laughing at the realisation that you really do believe in transubstantiation? That would've been my first guess...
Posted by: yoyo | July 26, 2008 10:47 PM
Anne I'm sorry but lewis' proof has been totally discredited by most readers, it has so many logical falws that it would take me too long to record you may want to look at http://www.daylightatheism.org/ for greater detail.
anyway bigbagsjr has said it better than me, thnks. At least anne you tried to avoid lying unlike the other apologists who do troll here.
Posted by: lily | July 26, 2008 10:51 PM
Paper Hand: I don't believe that I used the word theft. However, there is an explicit, printed instruction in every missalette in every Catholic Church, multiple copies of which are available in every pew. It states in plain English that only faithful Catholics may participate in the Eucharist and there are strict protocols in place as to how it is to be consumed.
Therefore, Eucharistic ministers are obligated to