<rolls eyes> It's a cracker, people

Heck, going into the kitchen right now and fixing myself a sandwich for lunch has higher priority. After I've cleared the deck of my work this week, then I might take a moment to casually demolish a sacred cow.

Have one in your sandwich!

PZ
"fixing myself a sandwich for lunch"

How about a cracker with ham?

The one thing that is completely off the table is eating one, or feeding it to any other animal. Some have been in people's mouths, at least one is several years old, and I've received threats from Catholics to send me unconsecrated crackers that have been poisoned.

You think the Magic-Baked-Goods worshippers were bad? Just wait until the Bagged-Magic-Beans worshippers get going...

A cracker with ham using the Koran as a plate!

I meant, have a cow in your sandwich.

I wouldn't eat 'em either. They'd all end up with the superfluous Q'uran (yes I have one already, right next to a Bible, a Tao Te Ching, and Why I am Not a Christian) in the garbage, and/or recycling bin.

Be sure and give it an Irish Wake before its burial, preferably with lots of braying.

Of course you're not going to eat the damned thing--any self-respecting trophy wifeTM would throw you out of bed for eating crackers.

"2) Since I now own one entirely superfluous copy of the Koran, it will meet the very same fate as the crackers. Thanks to all who have demanded that I treat that silly book with disrespect, I'll have to treat both equally."

LOL, you've opened up a whole new can of worms with this one.

Keep at 'em PZ! We need more people like you in this world.

MAJeff, why ruin a perfectly good sandwich? Why mix in a stale, tasteless wafer, even one with amazing transformative properties allowing for metaphysical cannibalism? That's one yuck for the real world properties and another yuck for the fanciful religious properties.

If you end up with some extra Korans you could sell them on ebay and give the money to a secular charity.

"and I've received threats from Catholics to send me unconsecrated crackers that have been poisoned."

So if you DID get them consecrated, would that be like poisoning Jesus? Maybe that's the trick to defeating him.

And considering how vengeful their god apparently is, he'll pour a whole cup of wrath all over whoever did the poisoning, as well. He's got an itchy trigger finger, that guy.

Heck, going into the kitchen right now and fixing myself a sandwich for lunch has higher priority.

You do realize, of course that you could combine the two. Ask your spouse or daughter about that .. females are pretty good at multitasking.

Lucite. Verily and truly I say unto you: Lucite. Embed the Koran, embellished with a communion wafer, in a block of Lucite. The result is a useful doorstop or heavy-duty paperweight and (this is the best part!) preserves the ever-so-holy sacred stuff in an inert block. It's like a reliquary! Of course it's not encrusted with gems and festooned with gold leaf like a proper Catholic one, but it's way more efficient and cheaper.

And then the religious types can argue among themselves exactly how their objects of veneration have been grossly insulted. It'll be a head-scratcher.

How about sending a cracker to the Catholic that threatens you to poison, saying that it is a smuggled cracker saved from your evil hands. I wonder what will that person do with that cracker!

Are you sure you want to desecrate a Koran? I mean, Christian crazies are one thing, but Muslims have their own unique and amazing form of crazy that I wouldn't want to mess with.

And if this turns into another thousand comment thread, I shall be very, very cranky.

You're probably the only blogger ever to complain of too many comments! What next? Too many readers?

PZ,

you want to actually treat a copy of the Koran with disprespect? That should lead to quite a larger number of death threats, which will surely be more serious than the ones you received from catholics. Although I surely wish you a huge load of luck.

Let's see what effect this will have. I hope it will contribute in some way to enlightenment.

You surely deserve respect for your enormous, almost shocking courage.

Admit it...you're afraid of crackers. You're afraid that you'll find out that everything tastes better with a little bit o' Jesus on it. Trisket? Cheez-its? None can compare to the fine flavor of a Savoir wafer.

Actually, they don't taste like much. One of my in-laws' customs for Christmas Eve is that everyone shares a little bit of the unconsecrated stuff as part of well-wishing for the coming year. It really doesn't taste like much. Of course, maybe it's missing something since it wasn't blessed or anything.

Lucite. Verily and truly I say unto you: Lucite. Embed the Koran, embellished with a communion wafer, in a block of Lucite. The result is a useful doorstop or heavy-duty paperweight and (this is the best part!) preserves the ever-so-holy sacred stuff in an inert block. It's like a reliquary! Of course it's not encrusted with gems and festooned with gold leaf like a proper Catholic one, but it's way more efficient and cheaper.

Or, if there are any fashion design folks around, you could make some shoes .

Faiths seem to go through phases. They generally calm down over time. 500 years ago a LOT of Xtians would have been willing to immolate you for cracker dissin'. 1200 years ago and a ham sandwich might have gotten you stoned (not in the fun way). Now, though they are out there, Xtians and Jews willing to kill for the faith are a lot more rare.

At this moment in history, Koran abuse probably has a statistically better chance than does pastry abuse of earning you a fatwa that someone might actually take a shot at fulfilling (some pun intended).

You may want to acquire some Groucho specs if you decide to go that route....

And if this turns into another thousand comment thread, I shall be very, very cranky.

...

Posted by: PZ Myers | July 20, 2008 1:40 PM

Hmm...

@Arnaud (#16):
Over something as stupid as this? I was laughing my ass of at first, but this whole cracker mess has gone long enough IMHO. Besides, I feel bad for PZ having to moderate so much. Not in the sense of clicking through to approve comments, but in the sense of having to track down and ban trolls all the time. I'm sure he has better things do to. Like making a sandwich. Mmmmm... sammwich.

And if this turns into another thousand comment thread, I shall be very, very cranky.

Oh Noes! He's going to desecrate a comment thread!

Any what do you have against Koreans anyway?

What?

Oh....
Never mind.

So the magic cracker turns into the body of Jeebus immediately after the priest does his mumbo jumbo bit in Latin, right?

Well then, why not subject the cracker to a DNA test and publish the results.

Just throw them in the trash. It's just garbage and useless. Now, the sandwich, that's something of value. As for the copies of the Koran, free books. Donate them to a Christian school.

Your greatest sin sir is to so baselessly apply the crass term cracker to the divinely-inspired communion wafer. Its divinity is self-evident in its unbearable whiteness of being, its pallid shine filling the eyes with heart-rending anticipation of its blandness upon your tongue. Once the divinely delicate non-confection alights upon said organ, its consistency of a slightly heavy patch of air, convinces even the not so finely-refined palate of the slack-jawed rube of its waferly holiness. It melts, nay sublimates within one's oral cavity, seemingly into nothingness, providing more proof of its divine creation. But, for those persistent doubters, one only need see that once consumed, the fortunate soul having done so gains nary an ounce. Cracker indeed - what a crude comparison - shame on you sir, shame.

Nooooooo.....Don't do it on a Sunday. That would be sacrilege!

You're right c-serpent, the crackers taste like shit. Maybe with some BBQ sauce Jesus flesh would be a better treat.

I'm sick of the cracker too. Except the Bacon Kips, which seem to be in South Africa. Damn!

PZ,

I agree with Andy and Bevans.

I really think you shouldn't desecrate that Koran in public. We have proof that Muslims are crazy enough to react very badly to that. It takes only one, and once you've publicised it, you can't take it back. Some Imam who wants to get publicity might put a fatwa on you, and you'll have to live in hiding. It happened to Salman Rushdie.

Seriously, PZ, it would be great to watch, but please don't do it.

Just throw them in the trash. It's just garbage and useless. Now, the sandwich, that's something of value. As for the copies of the Koran, free books. Donate them to a Christian school.

Exactly. Throw 'em in the trash (and the book in the recycling), take a picture, post it, and be done. It really is so insignificant that the photo is the only extraordinary action I would even see as worthwhile.

Just throw them in the trash. Quick, easy, and sure to ruffle some feathers.

I really think the catholics have fatwa envy.
You know they're just totally pissed that they just can't kill us anymore.

P.S I just thought i'd post so that we could get to that 1000 comment limit and see if PZ turns into the Hulk or something equally cool. I love it when Dad gets mad at us.

Or compost them.

"then I might take a moment to casually demolish a sacred cow."

Hey, PZ, & why not pick on the Hindus too, eh? They're just as crazy as the followers of the Abrahamic religions. Feckin' edjits, the lot of them.

Please, please annihilate the cracker with the biggest hammer you can find. There are several advantages: it will take less of your valuable time than pretty much anything else, and the brutal lack of subtlety will amuse and satisfy everyone worth caring about.

The only disadvantage is that it won't sate Catholic Quran envy, as hammering a book into oblivion would take a LOT of effort.

Since religious belief is for bird-brains, why not crumble up the cracker and cast it on the ground for the local pigeons? That way, if there is poison, you've "merely" killed a rat-with-wings. And you'd be giving Jesus an opportunity to enact a miracle.

I agree about the Koran though. Desecrating ANY book is real sacrilege, even fairy tales and other fantasies.

Get a sharpie and draw a little suit and tie on the cracker.

...Oh my goodness, that would be adorable. A little suit and tie! :3

PZ, do not desecrate a Koran. Don't be stupid. Just don't go there.

DOOOO IT.......DOOOO IT.......DOOOO IT.
Are you scared?

PZ already offered to deliver the crackers to a priest if the church would disavow Donohue's mindless ranting and the death threaters. Not stop them since they are short on heavy weapons and troops since the enlightenment and couldn't anyway.

A quid pro quo.

The result so far has been a refusal and dead silence.

Proof that they really don't really care about the crackers. As McCluhan said, "the ranting is the message."

you want to actually treat a copy of the Koran with disprespect? That should lead to quite a larger number of death threats, which will surely be more serious than the ones you received from catholics.

People keep saying that. It's baloney. I have received a torrent of threats to my life and my livelihood from Catholics, and the impression they're making is that they are just as fanatical and dangerous as Muslims. I'm more worried about the Catholics, because there is one major difference: the media, the police, the government in general in the United States will be more sympathetic to Christian terrorism than they will be to Muslim terrorism.Don't be misled. Bill Donohue is just another hate-mongering extortionist mullah, no different than the ones in the Middle East.

PZ, I agree with you 100%, but I'm finding this very scary. I don't know what you plan to do with your Koran, but please remember what kind of a life Salman Rushdie has to lead nowadays.

Please think carefully about what you are doing. We need you.

I think it's in poor taste to desecrate the koran while our country is fighting a war it started against a muslim country. Mocking religion is fun, but not if it becomes a proxy for racism. I realize you are not racist, but this action will surely be taken out of context.

The greatest desecration that can come to the host is for it to be used in science. I vote for what I believe has been mentioned before: a holy Petri dish. You're a biologist; set it up in the appropriate conditions and take pictures over time.

I agree with #38. While I want to see the Koran desecrated, I am very obsessive about books: I can't stand it when even they get worn in. I was going to suggest crushing the host between the pages of the Koran and making it all crummy inside but that was too much for me to handle. Couldn't you do something more humane? Say, take a piss on the Kaaba?

A Squid pro quo.

There, fixed that for ya.

As ridiculous as this cracker affair has been, it hasn't come close to the Danish cartoon controversy, during which over 100 people were killed. The Islamic fundamentalists have a proven track record. They don't just send idle death threats; they really do kill people. Desecrate a Koran and you'll be playing with dynamite.

Donohue is a loon, but unlike many Muslim leaders, he has never issued any fatwas.

So some Catholics have sent you unconsecrated, poisoned crackers, and other Catholics demand that you turn all the crackers you receive over to a priest, so he can properly dispose of them by consumption? Sounds like a slight coordination problem...

in b4 1000 comments.

Okay, seriously, just drop the crackers into a beaker filled with Hydrochloric acid and post it on Youtube.

#50: Forgot to add this:

If the Catholics have an outcry, kindly point out that eating the crackers would have the same effect and therefore they are stupid.

Dearest PZ,
I hope your sandwich was fulfilling and delicious. Please, do take care of your personal needs and responsibilities before engaging in Operation Desecration. I patiently await whatever your ideas for the holy cows will bring. Have you considered this:

Put the cracker and the Koran in their own individual jars in a tank with an octopus and see which jar it chooses to open.

Of course, you'd have to score yourself an actual octopus for this. All the better!

PZ Myers:

I have received a torrent of threats to my life and my livelihood from Catholics, and the impression they're making is that they are just as fanatical and dangerous as Muslims. I'm more worried about the Catholics..

So how many death threats have you received? I'm estimating around a hundred, 10 or 20 per day but the actual number could be much higher.

Of course the xian terrorist wannabes like Donohue and the fanatic segment of the Catholics are no different from Moslem terrorists. Terrorism is terrorism. But both are dangerous killers. You should be careful.

The 3,000 people in the World Trade Center were innocent bystanders occupying the moral high ground. Look what happened to them. Right or wrong doesn't mean anything to terrorists.

I have nothing but contempt for Bill Donohue, and I'll defend (not to the death, but to any reasonable extent) your right to say and do whatever you want with a communion wafer or a Quran, but . . .

for goodness' sake, going out of your way to wound (in the most drastic manner possible) the sensibilities of the pious, carries absolutely no conviction for anyone who isn't already on your side. Since it won't convince, it has, then, as far as I can see, no legitimate justification. Deliberately maltreating a host, or a Quran, could only be the act of an infantile jerk (to steal a page from Mark Kleinert).

You're free to be a jerk, of course, and to be applauded by other jerks. Please excuse me, though, if I sit out this round of mutual congratulation.

Wrap up each cracker in a little burial cloth made out of a different page of the Koran, and nuke them individually in the microwave. Unfold each page of the Koran and see if what afterimages show up in each crumbly scripty Shroud of Turin. If you need something with some water for the microwaves to agitage, try a slice of Black Forest Ham from the local deli (Black Forest in honor of the German Pope.

Get an art grant for it and make it a performance piece.

I'll have to treat both equally.

Uh... I guess that means you won't eat the Koran?

I still insist that a project to memorialize those massacred for committing host desecration is the way to go.

Hm. Are there instances of murder done because of Koran desecration?

Huh. This article says that you, PZ, desecrate the Qur'an merely by touching it.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qur%27an_desecration

Say: The Koran, being a heretical work, is naturally unholy to Christianity, while the wafers, being idolatry against the unity of Allah, are also unholy to Islam.

So if you simply took the wafers and just put them into the Koran, wouldn't that desecrate them both at the same time?

for goodness' sake, going out of your way to wound (in the most drastic manner possible) the sensibilities of the pious

IT'S JUST A CRACKER! This is drastic? What's the matter with you people?

Do what you will with the cracker, but keep in mind what the Pope said when in his opening address at World Youth Day in Sydney earlier this week:

Atheist, the following is the eighth man of the inning as a result. Was CS safe as a youth? Think of that.

I think we all know what he meant by that. If you hurt that cracker, the Twins are going to lose bigtime.

Besides, you're a mad scientist, shouldn't you be out trying to destroy muscle bound heroes?

PZ should just hold onto the crackers for a year or two. It isn't like there is a schedule or anything.

And wait for some Catholic priest or diocese to disavow Donohue's ranting and the death threaters in return for some stale crackers of dubious origin. Not stop them, just explain that death threaters and general Donohue class lunacy don't represent them.

He's made his point hundreds of times over. Catholic terrorists=Moslem terrorists. Sort of redundant, fanatics are all the same.

Have a public ceremomy in front of the media on the announced day, make a statement that you will not degrade your dignity and intelligence by mocking these two symbols of abject insanity, but will consign them to one who will render to them what they and related objects of irrationality should be so recognized, and then hand them to- Santa Claus!

Oh, by the way... if the Korans you received have an English translation, they weren't sacred in the first place. The Koran is never supposed to be translated, and if its translated its not really a Koran anymore. To be a Koran, it can only be in Arabic.

What's all this about eating Jesus anyway? He was eating me, and that was OK, but when I blew him, he just kept going on about his father ... bit of a turn off if you ask me.

Besides, you're a mad scientist, shouldn't you be out trying to destroy muscle bound heroes?

Don't destroy them! Send them to my room!

Also, as Aaron points out (#54), there's simply no need for doing this. PZ will be going out of his way to offend the religious, just for the sake of offending them. This is an unpleasant, mean-spirited thing to do.

It's comparable to approaching fat people in the street and telling them they're fat. Who cares if you're right? It's gratuitous, senseless and uncalled for.

PZ Myers:

And if this turns into another thousand comment thread, I shall be very, very cranky.

Pfft! there are plenty of online forums that have been coping with 1000+ comment threads for years (web forums) or even decades (usenet). You need to encourage the Sb staff to upgrade their lame-ass technology. One cheap improvement would be to display comments in chunks of 100 comments by default, and only display all comments on one page for those crazy enough to want it.

Obviously, it's not just a cracker for devout Catholics. Come on, P.Z., you're smarter than that.

[blockquote]IT'S JUST A CRACKER! This is drastic? What's the matter with you people?[/blockquote]

Exactly. Sorry, PZ, but this is stupid.

Dear PZ,

the question remains who is actually going to try to murder you and not only threaten to do so: The fanatical Catholics or the fanatical Muslims? In the case of the Muslims we know the fate of Theo Van Gogh and all the others they have indeed murdered for merely critizising Islam, whilst desecregating the Koran is even worse in their deluded eyes.

In the case of the Catholics, even for their worst elements, the time of the Inquisition seems to be over.

But alright. I'll support you as a journalist. After all, it's not just about atheism versus religion, it is mainly about the right to live (and not to be threatened with death) versus sheer barbarism.

Best wishes,
Andy

PZ is not a true mad scientist. Everybody knows that real mad scientists have to be bald. You can't get into the union until you're head's shaven clean and proper, Mr. Dr. Science Guy.

I still insist that a project to memorialize those massacred for committing host desecration is the way to go.

I like that idea. Something similar with the Koran would be a good idea as well.

PZ Myers, #43:

I have received a torrent of threats to my life and my livelihood from Catholics, and the impression they're making is that they are just as fanatical and dangerous as Muslims.

Please post! (without identifying information - we don't need any more Melanie Kroll firings.)

if this turns into another thousand comment thread, I shall be very, very cranky.

Here's a testable prediction: one cranky PZ in the near future.

In wafer-related news, this week's TIME (July 28) has a couple letters to the editor criticizing them for ending a "Catholic Voters" article with the line "Come November, that priest may be holding on to a very full bowl of wafers." A Rita Healy from Charlotte responds testily that it "is the body of Jesus Christ." Not symbolizes, not represents, just is. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg, methinks.

Later that same issue was 12 pages about Mark Twain, including how he loved to skewer the pious. Maybe Rita should have read the whole issue and done some thinking before responding in high dudgeon.

This ongoing episode brings to mind the classic Far Side cartoon - one amoeba to another: "Stimulus, response, stimulus, response. Don't you ever THINK?"

(Sorry if this double-posts. Preview issues.)

It is just a cracker for devout Catholics, too. That they believe it has magic powers does not mean that it does.

"If you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs would the dog have?"

If you claim 5, you're missing the point.

"No, dogs have four legs, and merely calling the tail another leg does not make it so."

Oh, and you might also want to include the theological justification that God is perfectly capable of de-transubstantiating out of the cracker, or of not transubstantiating into the cracker in the first place.

So there's nothing there to desecrate anyway.

Quoting from the "Qur'an desecration article": 'Intentionally insulting the Qur'an is regarded as a form of blasphemy.'

So you could just hold up the Koran (that is, touching it), and point to it with your other hand and say "This book is filled with silly nonsense, stories, lies, and garbage". Poof! Desecration and blasphemy, all at the same time.

Turn the crackers into little octopus sandwiches, and send the copies of the Koran off to Andrew Schlafly. And MAKE him read it - in Arabic.

Seriously, though, my advice to you is don't be stupid.

Also, as Aaron points out (#54), there's simply no need for doing this. PZ will be going out of his way to offend the religious, just for the sake of offending them. This is an unpleasant, mean-spirited thing to do.

No, PZ is going out of his way to do things to objects.

The people giving themselves offense about this are mean-spirited.

PZ will be going out of his way to offend the religious, just for the sake of offending them.

If you really believe this, you are unfathomably stupid.

I say just toss it all in the dumpster with the rest of the garbage.

#58

PZ

It's just a cracker. To you, to me, and to millions of atheists, and billions of non-Catholics. But to many Catholics, it has deep symbolism, even if a significant number find it difficult to believe it is actually Jesus-flesh in any sense(*).

You have probably heard this kind of argument hundreds of times, but here goes anyway.

To some people, it would be like burning a book. Even if a book was freely given, book-burning has symbolism, and is offensive to some people, even though it would be entirely right to say "it's just ink on paper, people!"

I have been deeply shocked by the threats and crazy over-reaction, and I condemn them utterly. But I can understand why millions of Catholics would feel offended by "desecration" of the "host".

*(I was a Catholic decades ago. I never quite managed the mental gymnastics to understand transubstantiation)

I've given the matter some more thought, and at the risk of being called a concern troll (hey, if the shoe fits...) I am going to ask Professor Myers to reconsider the planned desecrations of both the wafers and the Koran.

I am an atheist. I have in the past been critical of Catholic dogma and child abuse, Islamist religious fanaticism etc.

The wafer: As has been pointed out by others, there is no way to obtain a consecrated host for these purposes without bad faith. It would be like getting a free newspaper out of a bin and turning it into paper mache instead of reading it. Actually, it's much worse. The consecrated wafers are not disseminated by the church so they can be objects of desecration. End of story.

The Koran: Here the same problem of 'obtained by bad faith' does not present itself. But just because something can be done doesn't mean it should. You know who desecrates Korans? Muslim fanatics. In Darfur, Janjaweed have destroyed and defecated on the Korans of the villagers they are annihilating.

In fact, through the ages it is always religious fanatics who destroy and desecrate the holy relics of rival faiths. There is absolutely nothing novel about it, and it's only "transgressive" as an attack on a particular faith rather than faith itself. Desecration is historically not associated with the absence of faith but a rivalry of faith. To engage in it plays the notion that atheism is a kind of faith itself.

I know that I sound like a self-aggrandizing sanctimonious ass, but I don't think a lot of you realize how this kind of thing looks to the non-atheist world. How do you suppose Barack Obama would react if asked about this? I bet he'd be appalled.

PZ Myers:

And if this turns into another thousand comment thread, I shall be very, very cranky.

I'd say prepare to be very, very cranky.

llewelly @ #67

You need to encourage the Sb staff to upgrade their lame-ass technology. One cheap improvement would be to display comments in chunks of 100 comments by default, and only display all comments on one page for those crazy enough to want it.

As huge of a difference as paginating the comments would make, I really prefer the current format. It encourages a different sort of interaction, imho, than a forum or other threaded method. Plus I like being able to search for a phrase or someone's name and find the post in a single page.

They aren't going to get mad a PZ for bringing in this many hits, after all ;)

Speaking of 1000+ comment threads, you might want to cap off "Fresh Crackers", since it has hit 1518 comments.

Patricia at #30, go to
http://www.africanhut.com/shopexd.asp?id=97

Shop till you drop, dear lady.

Pax Nabisco

Do people realize that Muslim reaction to blasphemy is irrelevant to Catholics reaction to blasphemy? That the fact that Muslims rioted when those papers printed those cartoons in no way changes the fact that Bill Donahue is insane?

IT WOULD BE SO ADORABLE IF YOU TOOK THE CRACKER, AND USED RED AND BLACK SHARPIES TO DRAW A LITTLE SUIT AND TIE ON IT.

...

PZ.

I'M GOING TO HAVE TO INSIST.

Obviously nailing the wafer to a cross (probably needs some moisturizing to prevent it from breaking into pieces) putting a crown of thorns on it, torturing it with a sharp instrument and then burning the whole thing should get your point across in the most direct manner.

Bonus effect: Make it appear as if blood is dripping from its "wounds".

What you don't seem to realize is that people actually like to see you cranky.

And do you read all this stuff? I'd stop reading after the first two comments or so, quite frankly. Who am I kidding? I do stop reading after the first two.

"then I might take a moment to casually demolish a sacred cow."

Hey, PZ, & why not pick on the Hindus too, eh? They're just as crazy as the followers of the Abrahamic religions. Feckin' edjits, the lot of them.

Actually I have collaborated extensively with Hindus, and the ones I've worked with, even those who consider themselves devout, are extremely tolerant of my atheism. In fact, "tolerance" is not entirely accurate; they do not tolerate my atheism - they accept it.

That's not to say that there aren't rigid fundamentalist Hindu wackjobs running around; there are a lot of them. But we do ourselves no favors with gratuitous generalizations.

Here's a story of a bunch of churchies blocking a public boat ramp in order to perform baptisms without a parade permit, expecting other people to kiss their asses by waiting until they have amused themselves enough.

http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_131778.asp

Hey PZ,

How are you going to desecrate Judaism? We're all waiting, and so are the anti-defamation boys and girls. Be very, very careful!

Crackers and Koran and Sacred Cow... will it blend?

Bible, Quran, religious symbol - unless they have historical significance none of them mean a thing to me.

Speaking as a member of The Abimelech Society - do what amuses you with these items. Well, in a socially responsible way. I assume you'll not litter.

Tossing them into the recycle bin would be great.

Actually I have collaborated extensively with Hindus, and the ones I've worked with, even those who consider themselves devout, are extremely tolerant of my atheism. In fact, "tolerance" is not entirely accurate; they do not tolerate my atheism - they accept it.

That's not to say that there aren't rigid fundamentalist Hindu wackjobs running around; there are a lot of them. But we do ourselves no favors with gratuitous generalizations.

I wanted to second that. Atheism is actually a valid position within Hinduism. Look up the carvaka.

Yes and ignorance can indeed make an asshole out to otherwise smart people.

Sure, it is just a cracker and, it is just a book. But is worries me, the reaction. I think your possession of the crackers and books should symbolically be desecration enough.
You don't have to publicly announce the actual deed. And if you must, you don't have to announce your method. You will face criticism either way then. Those who don't like that you did it, and those who merely object to how you did it.
You have my support whatever you do. Just be safe.

All you people who say that PZ shouldn't do this because it is insulting to the devout, all of you should just fuck off.

But wait -- let me put that into a more nuanced form.

You people don't seem to know what it means to live in a civilized society. What it means is that your PERSONAL beliefs will be TOLERATED to the extent they do not harm other persons, or the public good. In return for being able to practice whatever Godswalloping you want, you will have to TOLERATE other persons who disrespect you and think and say that you are irrational loons. After all, we atheists and agnostics have to listen to you drone and mutter over our souls, or worse, watch you salivate over our impeding everlasting torture in the afterlife.

Remember, all of this started because some religious wackaloons decided to destroy a young man's life because of "disrespect" to a cracker.

PZ's subsequent sacrilege, desecration, and blasphemy is as potent and as important a demonstration of an advanced society as is voting. And you people would never expect anyone else to refrain from voting, or from practicing any of the other freedoms civilization gives just because they offend you? Would you? (um, fornication, interracial marriage, apostasy, etc.)

If PZ backs off that will prove that the religious are authoritarian, jackbooted thugs at heart, despite their mewling about love and peace, and that the atheists who counsel retreat and "non-jerkiness" are cowards and quislings. A freedom which cannot be exercised does not exist, official pronouncements and documents to the contrary.

Civilization, ironically, is less about being civil and more about being tolerant of the people you live with whom you can't stand.

many typos above (#95). Meant to say not doing sufficient research can make you look like an ignorant asshole.

No Jews have threatened me over my beliefs or what I choose to do in my own home. Neither have any Hindus or Buddhists. If someone tries to tell me that I can't throw away any bagel and lox I can't finish, then, well, it'll be time to desecrate rather than nosh.

#97

RAmen.

paul lurquin

Why do you expect PZ to desecrate Judaism? You think he's an equal-opportunity religion defiler? C'mon, there's only so many hours in the day! He's got a family and a job.

Desecrating the tens of thousands of human religions isn't a hobby, its an obsession. An obsession that PZ doesn't have.

But hey, if you want to help...

Bad analogy, #81. A book is a purveyor of ideas, of knowledge and thus a threat to those whose worldview cannot cope with said knowledge. A magical cracker is just...a farking cracker. Other than the fact it's not a very tasty snack, it's nothing but a symbol of medieval ignorance. That pretty well sums up the Roman Catholic faith in its entirety.

You wrote:

"It is just a cracker for devout Catholics, too. That they believe it has magic powers does not mean that it does.

Now you're being willfully obtuse. If I say, "For John Jones, Mrs. Jones is the most beautiful woman in the world," no one will mistake me for saying that Mrs. Jones REALLY is the most beautiful woman in the world. I'm talking of course about nothing but someone's subjective take on a part of the exterior world. To continue with the example: you and I could agree, amongst ourselves, that Mrs. Jones wasn't the most beautiful woman in the world, or even close; but if you went to John Jones and said: "Good Lord, you must be kidding; she's got acne, a double chin, and a hairy mole on her nose," and he punched you in the face, I think most would agree, as a matter of objective fact, that you were in part the cause of that result. Much more subjective, of course, would be the ensuing lively argument about whether you should have said such a thing, and whether you deserved what happened to you. I think that "Why in the world did he open his mouth in the first place?" would be my perfectly reasonable take on the whole business.

We are all the result of our genes and our environment. So are each believer. They are believers because they were surronded by lot´s of other believers or because they met more influencal believers than influencal atheists. Many of those believers are intelligent enough to grasp that they believe in fairytales but they do not grasp it...because they didn´t get the right inputs from their environment. Making something like spoiling the Koran or a "holly" cracker will not be a useful input as this act bears in itself no explanatory power. The only thing it will do is hurting/upseting the believers that will take it as an insult. I am not going to eat a sacred cow in India just for the fun of it. If it appends accidentally, fine. if it is deliberatly to hurt people, I don´t see the interest. Those believers are not 100% responsible for their faith. Let´s keep explaining the world as it is and convert people this way...not by hurting their feelings.

Oh, and in my first post I should have written "Mark Kleiman," not "Kleinert."

I think you should put the cracker and the Koran in a jar and see if they fight.

Aaron #103:

The question of whether the Eucharist wafer is the body of Jesus is not a subjective one. Your analogy is inapt.

#102

You are missing the point. One can be entirely factually correct about the nature of an object, but neglect its symbolic value.

No amount of declaring "it's just a cracker" will remove its symbolic value for millions of Catholics, even if one could get them to forget about the supposedly supernatural aspect.

Dorky lil' me decided to consecrate some crackers for the FSM. It didn't quite go as planned...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cUmhmg5cZjU

Let me join the faint chorus advising against the public defamation of a koran -needlessly dangerous; it could even endanger your family.

Actually, do them both at the same time. Or heck - throw in a torah, a book of mormon, and an e-meter in as well too. Your original point of defending that kid that took the cracker will still be made, and it might defuse the murderous rage of each of the offendees; they really hate it when they feel they are being singled out.

Just to put this "it's offensive" thing in perspective, there is a lot of people out there who find the idea of being descended from apes horribly offensive too.

About Three-Fitty @ 91 Isn't amazing and ironic how these religious retard dunkers are so choosy about the water they use to cleanse and baptise the unwashed brains of the afflicted? Why can't they do it over a toilet bowl? Morons.

PZ,

You are gonna get a host-like wafer in the mail, prob. from Donohue. Maybe Freddy Phelps. It will have tiny writing on it to encourage you to lean over, whereupon it will spring onto your face, gripping tightly with its arthropoidy legs and sinking a probe deep into your stomach, while rendering you unconscious.

A few days later your grad students and post-docs will be chasing a crazed monster with long hair and robes all over campus with radar guns and flame throwers.

#110

Excellent point. I guess a simultaneous blaspheme of all the cults would express the point more, at the same time preventing singling-out and offending a particular one. Still, be careful :)

PZ,

Your post indicates you're aware of a bit of a Catch-22. To go out of your way to "deface" either the crackers or the books is to acknowledge their symbolic value. As rationalists we might point out the absurdity of treating either object as "holy" (although I personally think any work of literature ought to be treated with a certain amount of reverence), but in going out of your way to deface such objects, you're behaving just as irrationally.

The fact that you're now keeping old food around the house, some of which has been in other people's mouths, is just plain weird - possibly even weirder than participating in a religious ritual. Why not just throw them in the garbage, right now, without any ceremony?

As for the extra Qur'an, I suggest donating it to the next book drive, along with any other old books you don't intend to read again. To do anything else with it is to suggest that the words on its pages have more importance than the works of not only Hawking and Dawkins, but Shakespeare and Twain.

PZ that is seriously dumb!
How many bloggers complain when they recieve too many comments?
If you keep breaking the internet, I'm sure among your legions of followers there must be an IT girl or two who can hook you up.

Also, I forbid you from throwing out any bagels and lox you don't finish! That is totally offensive...

That's a waste of good Jewfood! You know there's people starving right? If I were there, I'd be happy to eat any leftovers for you. As it is, there's always foodbanks and whatnot.

Also, @ Mike O'Risal- you do not need to be bald to be a mad scientist. The definitive text (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MadScientist) on the matter says no such thing. You do, however, need a Mad Scientist Laboratory. I've seen Zebrafish labs, and they're pretty boring. So I'm pretty sure PZ needs to work on that.

Do zebrafish like crackers? Well, I suppose it would be awful to feed a posioned one to a poor wittle fishy, so it's moot. Now giving wittle fishies mutations and seeing aberant fin patterning, that's perfectly resonable!

do them both at the same time

Eg doing one with the other for mutually assured desecration? Perhaps by putting the available "consecrated" Catholic crackers between the leaves of the surplus "sacred" Koran and then closing the book on the crackers altogether?

Were the people who sent you copies of the Koran Catholic? When I read that you got sent copies my cynicism took over and thought that they sent it to you hoping that the Muslims would go after you. It's cowardly and hypocritical, saying while I won't shoot you I will give a pistol to someone who will.

I don't know if desecrating a Koran is such a good idea. Yeah Catholics are loony, but they are only a century or two behind. Much of the Muslim world are living in the dark ages, but with modern weaponry. Look at what happened to Salmon Rushdie and what happened after those Danish cartoons got published. Don't mean to be a drama queen, but people might actually die from this.

The Koran is just a book like the wafer is just a cracker. However the reaction, I expect, would be much worse. That's the irony in the "why don't you desecrate something Islamic" argument. Catholics should be proud that they aren't behaving like the Muslims did with the Danish cartoons. Instead they got Fatwa envy, also known as Koran envy.

Or...

chew on the crackers, spit out the half masticated remains, put them on the quran, put both of them on the floor... then...

STEP ON THEM. WITH YOUR FOOT.

Guaranteed offense for all.

That's the amazing thing: my two copies of the Koran were sent to me by Catholics, not Muslims, with letters telling me to desecrate them. Weird, I know.

All I can say is, fair enough. Just whatever I do to the book, I'll also do to the cracker.

I'm considering desecrating the FSM by cooking pasta tonight and adding ketchup to it. Mwahahaha!

Imback: Great idea! I'm actually kind of hungry for spaghetti tonight. Think I should youtube it?

Hey #92, I'll give it a shot.

Judaism is nothing more than the patriarchal power trip of a bunch of Semitic sheepherders. Its primary function was tribal unity. Keeping the rank and file under the thumb of the powers that be. I mean, seriously, how are you going to keep the boys down on the farm after they've seen Tyre and Sidon, unless of course one scares the bajebus out of them! It also came in rather handy in counteracting that wave of Hellenistic influence. Jehovah forbid those people actually started THINKING for a change.

But of course those idiots took that "tribal unity", nationalistic BS a bit too far and got kicked out of their own country by the Romans. Don't fault the various Arab tribes that make up what we now call the Palestinians. They merely took advantage of the situation presented them, due to the fact that the local landowners couldn't get over their idiotic, bronze-age superstitions. Seriously, what did the Romans ever do for Judea ........? I'll tell you what Judaism did for us Gentiles, an offshoot of their idiocy farked up western civilization for nearly 2,000 years and we're still dealing with the aftermath. Thanks a lot guys.

P.Z treat that cracker with the respect it deserves.Re-cycle that Koran.

Aaron Baker @ 103 Reminds me of the quote by H L Mencken along similiar lines: "We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his childrenn smart."

PZ, whether you consider it important or not, this is going to turn into a massive deal if you go ahead. And what is the point of it, exactly? To prove that it's just a cracker? (As if there's any doubt about that?) Or simply to antagonize Catholics?

If the latter, then there's something very important you're missing: the Donahue-brigade thrive off grievance mongering, and offense-taking. Getting their supporters really riled and angry is their primary tactic - and you're promising to do it for them! You may think you're protesting against them. Please have the wisdom to see that in fact you'd be playing straight into their hands.

Why not just let it go, eh? And instead, how about a return to the days when rationalists were content to occupy the intellectual and moral high-ground. Rather than making doomed attempts to play the Christian Right at their own dirty game.

anonymous wrote:

"The question of whether the Eucharist wafer is the body of Jesus is not a subjective one. Your analogy is inapt."

Fair enough, that question isn't subjective. Unbeliever that I am, I beg the question and assume that when a Catholic says "it's the body and blood of Jesus," he's just telling me something about his state of mind--like Jones and his notions of his wife's beauty. Warned of Jones's state of mind, I'm cautious in sharing with him clearly subjective notions of my own ("No, she's not beautiful at all") or (arguably) objectively-based observations, such as "she has a hairy mole in the middle of her face." I may think Jones is delusional, but all the following are true: I don't want to hurt his feelings; I don't think it's worth discussing because he's hopelessly smitten and won't change his mind no matter what I say; a harsh attack from me may cause him to withdraw even further into impenenetrably dogmatic thinking; I don't want to be assaulted and battered; and so on.

In other words, I think the analogy is apt, for (that use of "for" again!) someone with my prejudices.

"And if this turns into another thousand comment thread, I shall be very, very cranky."

Is that a challenge? c.c But seriously, I agree with what's been said before - the scienceblogs.com guys need to fix up their software to actually handle this.

Much more amusing would be to mail the Qur'an to Rev. Phelps at the Westboro Baptist Church and mail the crackers to Sheik Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais at al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca. I'm both crackers and book would be treated, em, "appropriately" by their religious recipients.

if this turns into another thousand comment thread, I shall be very, very cranky

127 comments in 134 minutes.
Linear model: #comments=0.948(#minutes)
Extrapolation predicts 1000 comments in 1055 minutes; that's 17.6 hours: tomorrow morning at 7:15 or so.
You read it here first. Corollary prediction: a cranky morning for PZ!

PZ, I've been thinking about this whole mess for a while, and when I listened to your discussion on that catholic radio show, I think you did yourself a disservice in at least appearing to suggest that there is nothing wrong with someone taking the cracker out of the church. While we don't accept the idea of blasphemy, we can at least agree that this is rude, and trying to argue otherwise detracts from the heart of the matter. The point to emphasize is why this act of rudeness is necessary.

Maybe an analogy would help here.

Imagine that we see someone littering. Under normal circumstances, we would not condone this behavior. We would feel justified in objecting verbally. We might point the offender out to the police, and if they were given a ticket, we would feel that justice had been served.

But if the cop beat the litterer to a pulp, or a mob of vigilanties strung them up in the town square, that would be a different thing all together. In that case, the punishment is a far greater injustice than the original offense. In this case, we would feel justified in littering ourselves, and encouraging others to litter, as a way of exposing and fighting the greater injustice.

In this case, crushing the cracker or burning the book is rude, and if the offended parties responded moderately, we should be ashamed to do it. But since they respond with death threats, we should be ashamed not to.

The priest in that interview tried to say that the problem wasn't that Catholics were demanding the same veneration for the Host from non-Catholics, but that it would require "stealing" the wafer from a Catholic place of worship.

So I have a question. If PZ desecrated the Host in the privacy of his own home, without publishing the results, and without even telling anyone, would they be ok with him doing it? Of course not. The whole point is that they want non-Catholics to have the same veneration for their superstitions.

In this case, crushing the cracker or burning the book is rude, and if the offended parties responded moderately, we should be ashamed to do it. But since they respond with death threats, we should be ashamed not to.

I think generalising is a problem. I am pretty sure that whatever PZ does, almost the entire Catholic population will respond moderately. There are clearly some very nasty people who label themselves Catholics. But my feeling is that the numerical difference between "the offended parties" and those who respond in this disgusting way is going to be very considerable.

Doesn't this mean you're going to have to desecrate a Bible as well? It seems like you're giving Protestants and Jews a free ride.

Koran and Crackers: Will it Blend?

Please ignore this farm post, I'm only doing my part to help ensure PZ's crankiness.

Live. Love. Traf
We are not the Huns

Actually, given the numerous and elaborate processes of desecration, PZ's mystical approach is probably the most exasperating as well as the most thorough. Not acting immediately, not acting publicly, and not acting with any hint of concern allows braying nutjobs to imagine, probably with vivid details most stimulating to themselves, what is being done to the objects.

Also, the zen (or perhaps quantum) approach to desecration allows the object to be desecrated and not desecrated at the same time, putting fundie legalists in a quandary.

Good luck explaining their concern to anyone else.

And if this turns into another thousand comment thread, I shall be very, very cranky.

I'll do my part not to make this an overly-long thread.

Oh. Damn.

If you have a cranky morning tomorrow, will you take it out on the cracker?

Some things are just not worth doing, even if you think it's just a small thing.

Like would you wear red in a crip neighbourhood? You can if you want to make some point about freedom (I am free to do whatever). Just don't be surprised if you find yourself in an unmarked grave some hours later.

Actions have consenquences. Even if you think religion is stupid, some people do consider it an important part of their lives and will do something if you insult thier beliefs. It's just not worth it for you, for them, for everyone. This guy is a dumbass, and no matter how you justify it behind some disregard for "superstition and religion" and a thin vaneer of internet bravado, what he did was absolutly pointless. If he had an intelectual basis, a rational reason to do it...instead of just hate baiting Catholics, well then I may be able to understand it. As it is, he deblibratly set out to incite anger. And I feel the anger now directed at him is completly justifiable; he got what he sought for. And if you continue doing the assinine, pointless things that you are doing on this blog, very soon, you will also get what you seek.

#137: So he's going to fire electrons through a double-slit wall that has a cracker behind one of the slits?

Wow! 140 posts in less than 3 hours time. It really is time to let go the wafer and return to real issues once again. PZ will accomplish said desecration on his own good time and it is his own business now. Carpe Diem folk.

PZ, how many crackers have you received so far?

Why are so many people telling PZ to cower in fear? Fear is terror. Terror is the goal of terrorism. The shock and awe you're experiencing over a completely mundane and inconsequential action is precisely what these evil minds want. This action is a form of protest AGAINST that fear. PZ is fighting terrorism in the most effective way possible: by not being afraid.

I'm with you, PZ. If you're any radical nutjob so much as lays a hand on you for this, I'll desecrate every "sacred" object I can get my hands on.

#145:
[PZ is fighting terrorism in the most effective way possible: by not being afraid.]
This! Seriously.

Enough posting for me!

Give it a physical.
Do a Biochemical analysis including a basic metabolic panel which will measure the sodium, potassium, chloride, bicarbonate, blood urea nitrogen , magnesium, creatinine, and glucose and calcium.
Do an electrocardiogram.
Do an MRI.
DO a DNA test

Do a background check
Drug test, Employment records, Financial Information, Credit check, Birth certificate, legal status, and don't forget a polygraph test.

If that cracker won't cooperate. Waterboarding may be useful to coerce a confession. Detain that cracker indefinately in solitary confinement. Until Catholics Admit, 'That PZ is Crazy. It's just an F'ing Cracker'!

I find the demands to deface the Koran to be really bizarre. What is the motivation there? Why are people demanding that PZ disrespect more religions than one? Do they think that PZ is secretly a Muslim?

Actually, I think the truth is simpler. The people who think PZ is afraid of upsetting Muslims are themselves afraid of Muslims. Perhaps even terrified.

Religions do a good job of not only creating walls between people of different cultural backgrounds, but also of feeding exaggerated fears.

This is in response to all the nonreligious people who say this is dumb on PZ's part because it does nothing but tweek the Catholics. You probably haven't read any of the previous threads on crackergate and if so you may want to do some backfill.

No marginalized social movement has gained an acceptable place in (American) society without direct acts of polarization. Stonewall will not be remembered as a riot. Rosa Parks was right to offend the cultured southern whites. Etc.

That is not to say that PZ needs to take very dangerous steps to exercize his free speech rights. That is up to him and I back him all the way.

In any event, other people are watching and learning.

You should have asked people to send you enough consecrated crackers to equal the weight of an adult male. That way you'd be holding Jesus hostage.

Failing that, I suggest putting both the crackers and the Koran in a blender and mixing them up, that would be a blow to all the Catholics that wanted you to "offend" Islam instead. Imagine bits of Jesus all blended up with the Koran!

@The Rational Skeptic

"If he had an intelectual basis, a rational reason to do it...instead of just hate baiting Catholics, well then I may be able to understand it."

Social taboos kept black people from sitting where they wanted to on buses. Acts of social protest broke these stigmas. Protesters deliberately violated social norms to directly challenging what the public accepted as normal. The ugly side of the social taboo was exposed for what it was. This drew people's attention to the issue and forced everyone to pick a side.

The tactic here is exactly the same. It's nonviolent resistance.

Hey PZ! Your Lutheran upbringing is showing!
Do you post comments from anyone other than mindless sycophants?

Heh, I think you should know better by now PZ, outraged e-mails and comments from religiots are a given, even for the slightest "offence". I'm actually pretty happy that that travesty of a book that is the Koran will get a similar treatment to that travesty of a piece of bread that is the holy host, it should make it clear that you're not just picking on those poor, persecuted Christians but on the whole idiotic Religion concept.

Can't wait for the desecration to begin!

"The tactic here is exactly the same. It's nonviolent resistance."

Uh huh.

Way to compare yourself to MLK and kin, you know, a rightful civil rights movement. Are you guys all oppressed? How cute. Maybe you can watch the Rodney King beatings and the statistical data about the rightful glass ceiling that permeates America, then you'd think twice about comparing your pushy "cracker-holding" movement to Rosa Parks sitting in the front of the bus.

Just in extension, seeing you comparing your movement to MLK makes it seem even more useless. I don't get the point. You're not oppressed. Nobody is bringing you down. If you want to ACTIVLY incite anger and hate on a topic, don't be surprsied if you all bring that upon yourselves, but seriously, I'm saying it's not worth it.

"Do you post comments from anyone other than mindless sycophants?"

Why do you think all those other threads had 1,000+ comments? Idiot.

My suggestion: just film yourself casually throwing the cracker and the Koran in the trash, then closing the trash bag and taking it to the dumpster. Any involved ceremony of sacrilege would just attach way too much importance to meaningless objects. Casually tossing them would give the right message: you don't hate the cracker or the Koran, you just find them unimportant, and you think students shouldn't be thrown out of school, filmmakers stabbed, professors fired, etc., because they show disrespect to something which doesn't deserve any respect.

It's a frackin' cracker! And a plagiarized, boring book.

To add as a sidenote, freedom of speech does not need defending from people like you. Your abuse of it to thinly insult people's cherished beliefs constitutes less of a defense of freedom of speech then a reason for some crazy, dictorial figure in some dystopian empire to outlaw it.

The Rational Skeptic (154)

This isn't about oppression. It's about the marketplace of ideas. Whenever the issues get out there, rationality wins. Look at Europe. When we are afraid of making waves, we lose.

"Why do you think all those other threads had 1,000+ comments? Idiot."

Sorry, this idiot just landed on this particular thread, and it seemed overrun by disciples. My comment was a knee-jerk reaction to the "we need you" comment in post #44.

Much more amusing would be to mail the Qur'an to Rev. Phelps at the Westboro Baptist Church and mail the crackers to Sheik Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais at al-Masjid al-Haram in Mecca. I'm both crackers and book would be treated, em, "appropriately" by their religious recipients.

Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | July 20, 2008 3:57 PM
____

First suggestion that I really like. And, I too, think it is quite zen of the great tentacled one to focus on more important matters than actually desecrating crackers.

"Since I now own one entirely superfluous copy of the Koran, it will meet the very same fate as the crackers."

There should be no problem. The terrorist wackos (Muslims, not Catholics) don't even know where your small town is. You live in Montana, right? They will probably just burn down a few buildings somewhere. Nothing to worry about.

I suggest while you're desecrating crackers and the holy book of Islam, why not also abuse a Bible. And just to be fair, why not also abuse a Torah. That would please the Muslim wackos so much, they might burn down less buildings. Lives might be saved. Just a suggestion.

@The Rational Skeptic
Way to compare yourself to MLK and kin, you know, a rightful civil rights movement.
That would be biting sarcasm, if I'd ever said anything so patently stupid. In no way did I imply the scope of the problem or the level of discrimination was remotely close those experienced by blacks during the Civil Rights Movement. I deliberately avoided saying anything of the sort, because that would be insane. I explicitly said the tactics are the same, and outlined why.

You're not so good at the whole "reading", are you?

Are you guys all oppressed?
By troglodytes making death threats because we won't conform to their superstition? YES! That's the whole point of this exercise! If the kid in Florida hadn't been treated so disgracefully, none of the rest of this episode would've happened.

If you want to ACTIVLY incite anger and hate on a topic, don't be surprsied if you all bring that upon yourselves, but seriously, I'm saying it's not worth it.
In the words of Edward R. Murrow:
"We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we ... remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were, for the moment, unpopular."
Sometimes, you just have to draw a line in the sand. There's nothing magic about communion wafers. Forcing another human to live in fear over an inanimate objects is wrong.

AgnoAtheist

This level of insult is pointless for advocating rationality/science/ideas etc. A system can only accomodate change at certain speeds; tap your head against a brick wall. Nothing will happen. Now imagine your head hurtling towards that same brick wall at 100 MPH...splat. I understand that people are frustrated that an insitution like the Catholic Church still exists, but Rome wasn't built, or ruined in a day. Patience is a virtue.

Think about it, how is this doing anything? You pose Europe as a good example; not only are the Paris race riots and religious extremism on the rise, the cartoons only served to create controversy and nothing more. Do you see any triumph for science and freedom in the hatred and anger raised within those who still believe?

Do you see any triumph for rational people, in using irrationality to combat those who are fervent extremists? Seems like fighting fire with fire for me.

Be sure and give it an Irish Wake before its burial, preferably with lots of braying.

I thought one uses brandy and whiskey at an Irish Wake.

How about you use the koran to make a fire to fry some bacon over for your lunch? Mmmmm, Bacon...

Your abuse of it to thinly insult people's cherished beliefs constitutes less of a defense of freedom of speech then a reason for some crazy, dictorial figure in some dystopian empire to outlaw it.

Wow. Now that's some sophisticated concern trolling, there.

PZ's not defending freedom of speech - he's exercising it. What you're arguing, Mr. Self-Described Rational Skeptic, is theat the actual exercise of free speech to express an unpopular or provocative idea is nothing more than abuse of free speech, and paves the way to totalitarian suppression of free speech. Come, now. Is that really what you meant to say?

Whenever the issues get out there, rationality wins.

It does? The issue of evolution vs. creationism has been around for centuries, and look at how many in the USA still believe in a young earth.

I am not entirely sure what issue is being raised here. Those who think the cracker is just a cracker will continue to think that, and those who think the cracker is more will continue to think that too.

I could be wrong, but I doubt many will change their minds because someone messes with a wafer, even if it is someone as well-known and respected as PZ.

Rational Skeptic #154

. Maybe you can watch the Rodney King beatings and the statistical data about the rightful glass ceiling that permeates America, then you'd think twice about comparing your pushy "cracker-holding" movement to Rosa Parks sitting in the front of the bus.

Speaking of glass ceilings, polls show that the public is less likely to vote an atheist for president than any other minority, including gays.

We are definitely the most hated group in America, if not the most oppressed.

It really was a stroke of genius to pick up on this. A bit like peeing in the "holy" water. I remember Homer Simpson commenting that if the sacramental wine was Jesus' blood, that guy must have been drunk all the time. Religion is generally pretty absurd.

Kudos to you. Now maybe they can talk about cannabalism, since they eat their messiah and drink his blood. Sigh.

Great blog.

Steve

We are definitely the most hated group in America

And THIS is the way to change that, right? Hilarious!

Easy. Use the cracker as a bookmark in the Quran. Problem solved.

How do you suppose Barack Obama would react if asked about this? I bet he'd be appalled. - Colugo

And we should care about this - why?

You mention France - Acceptance of Catholocism there in my lifetime has gone from around 90% to 45%. The change was accomplanied by vigorous public resistence from intellectuals.

Again, rolling over quietly may ease the self inflicted distraughtness of believers but they are not the target audience.

Dutch absurdist comedian Hans Teeuwen has some hilarious sacrilegious lines in his singing tribute to his islamicided friend, filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

One of the references in the song made some local Muslim women talk-show hosts angry, so they had him on their show (the youtube clip sometimes being subtittled, "Bimbos in Burkas"). He makes some great comments - though he is barely allowed to do so by the insufferably pompous women. His genuine and rational response throughtout deftly shows them to be as utterly ridiculous as they really are. Some good quotes are:

An insult is for some people a truth they do not wish to hear.

You are pretending that sensitivity and aggrievedness is a religious privilege...

Long Live Irreverence!

"And if this turns into another thousand comment thread, I shall be very, very cranky."

After you abuse crackers and holy books, there's going to be another overreaction from religious assholes, then there's going to be more thousand comment threads.

I am starting to look forward to the end of this insanity. I'm more interested in Christian attacks against science education, which is a much worse problem than the Catholic belief in Jebus crackers.

Regarding some atheists concern about hurting other people's feelings, geesh, what a meddling, offensive attitude! You are not that person. Why do you think that mere empathy forms a solid basis for being so sure that these people are going to be irreparably hurt or even hurt for a few seconds. You got a crystal ball?

Before you criticize some atheists, why not work on the remnants of revolting Christian cultural mindset that you have internalized and which remains within you? The bits that rely on intuition, passivity, and downright misconception of personal freedoms.

People do have the right to offend, and others have the right to be offended, but neither have the right to break the law outright.

Are they after Dane Cook also?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1S21LFw-O8&feature=related

As an addendum to post #173 - it's the True Believers who are not the target. There are many Catholics who doubt this crazy Crusty Holiness stuff.

Seems like fighting fire with fire for me. - The Rational Skeptic

Seems like you don't think about your similes to me. Fighting fire with fire is often the best strategy; look up the word "firebreak".

Maybe using fire to fight fire is not the best policy much of the time, although as Nick points out it can be. It sure does beat sitting there waiting to be burnt to death though.

Easy. Use the cracker as a bookmark in the Quran. Problem solved.

Posted by: Sili | July 20, 2008 5:19 PM

_________

Oooooh, another good one!

Hi, I'm just here to add my 2 cents. I don't have anything special to say but, hell, if we want to reach the 1,000 comments, everybody must bring their own little stone...

I'm seeing this tired trope about how "if he threatened to abuse a Koran, he'd be fired" or "he would never threaten a Koran" and so forth.

If you're saying this, please stop being ignorant for five seconds :

Desecration : It's a fun hobby!

BobC said:

I am starting to look forward to the end of this insanity. I'm more interested in Christian attacks against science education, which is a much worse problem than the Catholic belief in Jebus crackers.

And in your mind, there's absolutely no relation between the two, I'm sure.

Fighting fire with fire is often the best strategy; look up the word "firebreak".

Provided the wind is with you.

Ohh... Oh...

Koran Wraps:

Thin Beef (Jainians, hindus, some devout buddists, also plays off the kosher laws later)
Port Wine Cheese (violating kosher and getting at the Mormons at the same time)
Bacon (multiples here)
Drizzled with an Olive Oil-mustard dressing containing the crushed wafer (consuming on an Eastern Orthodox Fast day to get the EO's)

All wrapped in an edible paper wrapper printed with squid ink with verses from the Koran.

I know some of it is a bit Molecular Gastronomy for the head-up-their-ass purists, but it'd be fucking awesome. And taste dam good if you put in some seasoning work with the sauce.

My turtle spit out the cracker.

"Provided the wind is with you. "

Do crackers have that effect on people ?

Steve: I remember Homer Simpson commenting that if the sacramental wine was Jesus' blood, that guy must have been drunk all the time. Religion is generally pretty absurd.

Speaking as an erudite and self-taught expert on all matters religious, I think that's Peter Griffin you're remembering. Perhaps the folks over at The Simpsons are right when they regard Family Guy as a shallow rip-off of their program (although I confess a certain fondness for Stewie).

Why do I get the feeling that actually threatening to treat the cracker like a cracker that has these people in arms. It is the explicit lack of deference that irks them. When we offer our personal views, but don't act on them the crazies are free to imagine this as being 'implicit respect'. Tearing down this fantasy is costing them. PZ publicly announcing he would desecrate the Eucharist is worse than him actually doing it in private.

Check out the size of this cracker! (under video)

Millions of dollars spent so that grown men in pretty dresses and pointy hats could conduct public voodoo rituals to call up spirits?

How many of the worlds starving and sick could have been helped with the money spent on this weeks circus of pompous pageantry?

It was the size of the cracker on the news front page that caught my eye. Couldn't get past the first few minutes of the video. Honestly, I kept thinking of those tribal voodoo witch doctor rituals from old movies.
The only thing missing was the blood
sacrifice! (though there were plenty of those in the OT!)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/

There are many Catholics who doubt this crazy Crusty Holiness stuff

And how would some act of desecration help change their minds?

And by the way, a good way to desecrate the Koran is to translate it into pig latin, isn't it?

#190

Tearing down this fantasy is costing them.

This is the thing I don't get. How is desecrating a cracker supposed to tear down anyone's fantasy?

Mind you, I have no idea how to change such views.

Come to think of it, wouldn't the mere possession of the cracker by PZ count as desecrating it? If that's the case, he has already made good of his promise.

H.H. #184: "And in your mind, there's absolutely no relation between the two, I'm sure."

No, there is a relationship between attacks against science education and the belief in Jebus crackers. All religious beliefs, including creationism, sacred crackers, heaven, and hell, are symptoms of the god disease.

So I strongly support the ridicule of all religious beliefs. If the world has any hope of getting rid of creationism, the world must rid itself of religions first.

However for some strange reason I'm still looking forward to the end of cracker threads, even though I plan to never let Catholics forget their violent overreaction to cracker abuse.

Everyone knows about Catholic guilt. When the cracker is abused they will blame themselves because God is love and the message of love isn't getting through since PZ does not love the cracker. "Oh why, PZ do you not love the cracker? Do you not realize you are harming our very identity of love?" The opposite of love is indifference. Demonstrating indifference to the cracker must entail a callous lack of regard to the sanctity of the cracker in the minds of the cracker worshipers/consumers. The less evolved Catholics will experience anger but this truly is self-blame and guilt at not being able to defend the cracker. It may inspire the urge to VENGANCE but how silly is that. The Koran is even more fraught with significance but in the end is no more or less a symbolic prop standing for the submission to Allah in the minds of Muslims as the cracker. Some see books as sacred things, even books of lies but in the age of mass production thats pretty silly too. Symbols are only important to people who invest their identity in them. So in dissing the symbol lets PZ diss billions of peoples strange attachment to nothingness simultaneously with no real effort. And they let him do it to themselves, priceless! If they later attempt to do violence well that's what the police are for. Personally I would worry more about a civil lawsuit accusing PZ of some sort of intentional mental harm. It would be thrown out but expensive. In conclusion PZ get all cranky and grouchy, it will improve the effect.

OK, ok, this whole cracker talk was fun but I'd rather not have you stabbed with a knife with a note attached to your corpse. Just sayin'.

We are definitely the most hated group in America

And THIS is the way to change that, right? Hilarious!

Posted by: Ally McBeelzebub | July 20, 2008 5:19 PM

Yes, actually, it is the best way to change it. History tells us that.

Just as history tells us Catholicism is just pure bull-shit, along with the rest of the religions.

We don't live in the 1800's where archaeology's purpose was to confirm bible stories. At least western archeology. There was a shift, and now most quality archeology either totally destroys entire swaths of the bible, or shows just how fucking insignificant the Jews and Christians really were back in those days.

And how Christianity is, for all intensive purposes, the Scientology of its day, just made respectable by dark age princes and pontiffs. Give Scientology 2000 years and they may be a significant, if entirely crazy, force. Kind of like the trinitarians and most other branches of Christianity.

RationalSkeptic wrote:

"Your abuse of it to thinly insult people's cherished beliefs constitutes less of a defense of freedom of speech then a reason for some crazy, dictorial figure in some dystopian empire to outlaw it."

There is no such thing as abuse of free speech, there is only the exercise of it. Yes, whether it's temperate or to your taste or not.

And if I have to read the phrases, "cherished" or "deeply held" beliefs one more time I'm going to projectile vomit. I don't even believe most of those who claim to have "cherished" or "deeply held" beliefs really cherish or hold them very deeply at all. I think these phrases are just code for [cue puppy dog eyes and sniffling] "Don't you dare force me to examine anything I profess to believe, and don't you dare hold my tribal allegiances and their consequences up to the light of public scrutiny. That makes me *uncomfortable*, and I'm going to shut you down by turning on the crocodile tears and blubbering about my "deeply held" beliefs."

What, do you think this is some discursive get-out-of-jail-free card? Can I play the same game by claiming anything you say that I disagree with politically wounds my "cherished" beliefs? I'm not advocating random spite, but I must ask - just who is supposed to care that someone claims their views are "deeply held?" So what? I have some too, but that doesn't mean you're not allowed to critique them.

Oh, and I do think there's a place for tactical, deliberate insult. As others here have noted, social problems and attitudes don't change unless someone is willing to deliberately mock and offend entrenched positions. It's not "out of bounds," it's sometimes a civic duty.

Just keep on using those crackers for target practice with your cyberpistol PZ. :)

@ Steve Zara (#108) and several others who are so concerned about the sensitivities of believers:

What PZ Myers has done very successfully IMHO, is to point the finger (not saying which) at special pleadings of religious/political pressure groups that want their idiosyncratic truth claims to be more highly respected than other truth claims, eg those of scientists.

Provided they do so in their heads, homes and churches, it's the believers' business if they claim that priests can turn wheat wafers into the real flesh and blood of their God, or of my friend Harvey for that matter. But when believers insist that I respect claims like this as truthful, it is my business to apply the same common sense, criteria for bullshit, scientific methods, etc. that I would apply to any other claims for truths.

If it were only about this 'transsubstantiatio' nonsense, we could simply have a more or less pleasant discussion and all go home.

But it IS about more than the mythology around a wheat wafer. If you grant the demand to suspend your faculty of thinking in this case, why would you not cave in to unreason when the bullies demand that you honour other, more insidious nonsense, like the insidious nonsense that a blastocyst has the moral standing of a person?

My exegesis of St. PZ's ministrations is that he is trying to break the spell under which Zara and other Concerned ones appear to labour, a spell that grants one class of ideas special privileges, like deference to language-immanent bullshit and dispensation from demands for evidence.

#192 Steve Zara

Why do you call it "desecrating"?

And I give up.

Well I was one of the ones who (facetiously) suggested that you desecrate a Koran.

He that seeks trouble never misses.

It does need to be noted that when it comes to offending sensibilities the Catholic Church is not exactly backward.

I don't suppose that all those Catholics who are so offended by PZ will stop their church offending gays by their opposition to extending them the same rights the rest of us have.

BobC, ok, fair enough.

@200 "Don't you dare force me to examine anything I profess to believe..."

Does anyone here really think that this sort of stunt will encourage any Catholics to examine their beliefs? Know your enemies, folks. It'll do the EXACT opposite, by playing straight into their siege mentality. We win by propagating ideas and rational debate. They win by drowning out everything else with shrieks of outrage, and uniting their disparate herds into one angry mob. You're playing the game on their terms, guys.

And Bob @196...

If the world has any hope of getting rid of creationism, the world must rid itself of religions first.

Way to make the war unwinnable, fella. Worst. Idea. Ever.

I don't suppose that all those Catholics who are so offended by PZ will stop their church offending gays by their opposition to extending them the same rights the rest of us have.

Silly Matt. Magic crackers are far more important than gay people. We're not even really human, after all.

@Rational Skeptic
Seems like fighting fire with fire for me.
Has anyone here threatened violence? No. There's a big moral difference between threatening violence and sacrilege. That's the whole point of this exercise.

This is the thing I don't get. How is desecrating a cracker supposed to tear down anyone's fantasy?

Steve Zara, I believe H.L. Mencken said it best:

The iconoclast proves enough when he proves by his blasphemy that this or that idol is defectively convincing - that at least one visitor to the shrine is left full of doubts. The liberation of the human mind has been best furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safe - that the god in the sanctuary was a fraud. One horse-laugh is worth ten-thousand syllogisms.

Steve Zara,

I have a lot of time for your comments on Dawkins' site, even though (or perhaps because) your softer approach is very different from mine. But I have to say there are times when you appear to get lost in a sort of fit of handwringing about people not being nice enough or sensitive enough to other people. Although you don't mean it this way, your protestions of "concern" can often start to make you look really sanctimonious, and worried about just the wrong things.

You asked above:

"And how would some act of desecration help change their minds?"

I can think of at least two responses to this:

1. It's a plausible hypothesis that confronting the devout in a way *they have never been publicly confronted before* really might wake some of them up. Most of the faithful have never had to justify (or question in their own minds) the validity of their claims in public as they have to today, thanks to the rabblerousers that so concern you. You seem to have dismissed this possibility out of hand. This is odd, considering I don't see any data to show that the "softly, softly" approach we've been using forever has made a bit of difference. Do you know of such evidence?

2. Whether it directly causes the faithful to change their minds may be irrelevant. The broader social impact of direct ridicule and mockery of religious delusion will likely serve to *shift societal acceptance* of the idea that religion is privileged, and that the faithful can act with impunity. It could well make the behavior of the faithful more and more socially unacceptable, and more embarrassing for them. They'd actually have to think twice before spouting off in public about their silly beliefs and demanding that others "respect" them, because they'd be seen as increasingly irrational and antisocial. That result would be just fine with me, even if not one religious person lost his faith.

At the kaaba, the black stone has a frame of silver. Does the shape of that frame remind you of something anatomical?

http://www.toursaudiarabia.com/kaaba.html

Ally McBeelzebub (207)

Have you read any of the 12,000 or so posts before the two you've just posted?

@213. Yes.

Ally, #207, please see my #211, above. Oh, and will you tell us what your prescription for changing the privileged place of religion might be? You'll have to do a little better than "respect their beliefs" - we've been doing that all along until recently, and I don't see the situation changing one bit. So, what's our next move?

My exegesis of St. PZ's ministrations is that he is trying to break the spell under which Zara and other Concerned ones appear to labour, a spell that grants one class of ideas special privileges, like deference to language-immanent bullshit and dispensation from demands for evidence.

That is absolutely not my position at all. Anyone who follows my posts on RD.net, or my debates with theists, knows I will attack religious ideas with vigour. I certainly do not believe such ideas should have special privileges.

What I will defend is the rights of people to believe bullshit without being pestered if they do it quietly. The majority of Catholics do do it quietly. Yet, they are being targeted because a thoroughly nasty minority are being thoroughly nasty.

I don't give religion any more respect than any other belief. I would be equally defensive of people's rights to believe in fairies, or that their baseball team was the best in the world.

I am also after effective techniques for making societies more rational. PZ helps in this area considerably with his excellent teaching and writing skills.

There are some people who truly deserve to be offended, like the death-and-violence threateners and the awful Bill Donohue. I would have hoped some protest would be targeted at them.

Jebus Frackin' Christ, this horse has been beaten so relentlessly it's now soup. Yeeeeech.

You know, this eventual two-way sacrilege is shaping up to be the Internet Event of the Year. I think PZ should get in touch with John Rogers at Kung Fu Monkey and get some real Hollywood talent involved. Bring in some talented writers/directors/editors and really make this thing sing. HD on Vimeo, lo-fi on YouTube.

I think this calls for some real production values.

Ally McBeelzebub (213)

They why to you ask, "Do you really think that this sort of stunt..." when it's been addressed innumerable times and about 50 times in this thread alone?

Man, as I write this I'm the 218th comment. PZ said he won't be a happy camper if this gets to 1000 comments.

It's just not right to be insensitive and intentionally piss off PZ. He's not the sort of fellow that would do that to anyone else, right?

#207: And Bob @196... If the world has any hope of getting rid of creationism, the world must rid itself of religions first.

Way to make the war unwinnable, fella. Worst. Idea. Ever.
Posted by: Ally McBeelzebub

Ally, I noticed the Christians are winning their war against science education. They always lose in court, but they've been doing a good job of intimidating biology teachers, and brainwashing their own children.

It's important to understand creationism is just a symptom of a disease. The disease is religion. Trying to cure a symptom of a disease, without trying to cure the disease itself, makes no sense. Some way must be found to eradicate all religions. That sounds like an impossible task, but that's no reason to give up trying. In my opinion, ridicule of religious beliefs can be very effective. The ridicule must be relentless and must come from millions of people. Nothing can be done for the adults who are brainwashed beyond any hope, but younger people will notice the ridicule and some of them might realize their parents are wackos.

I saw this:

It's a plausible hypothesis that confronting the devout in a way *they have never been publicly confronted before* really might wake some of them up.

No it isn't, at all.

So, what's our next move?

Too big a question, but some thoughts as to why it's not this. Well who's your target audience? You're not going ot have any impact on the real headbanging true believers - it's the floating voters you want, the "I kinda don't know if I really believe it any more" types. So as well as establishing that the facts are on your side, you also need to lure them over and convince them that there's nothing wrong or disgraceful in atheism. Atheists can be nice, intelligent, amusing people - in contrast to what religions say: that atheism=pure evil.

And I just have this hunch that this sort of stunt might not really help do that.

Jebus Frackin' Christ, this horse has been beaten so relentlessly it's now soup. Yeeeeech.

Posted by: E.V. | July 20, 2008 6:09 PM

Hmmm.... While I was thinking Koran wraps, horse soup could be done... We'd have to do it along the lines of a solid french onion.

We'd have the beef, the cheese, the crouton (cracker), most is fortified with some type of alcoholic beverage (wine, port, sherry, etc.) to fortify the depth and flavor... We toast-up the cracker in a little EVOO and inscribe it with Koran versus and garnish it with some bacon crumbs and we can insult everyone.

I thought I'd just comment on the amusing fact that atheist/agnostic people are concerned about offending the religious.

#211
Although you don't mean it this way, your protestions of "concern" can often start to make you look really sanctimonious, and worried about just the wrong things.

I am after discussions of facts, I don't care what people think of me.

Also, I certainly haven't dismissed the point you made. My concern is that certain types of protest don't challenge things at all - they simply harden opinion and encourage people to close ranks.

If this "protest" does change minds, I will be happy. I just can't see it doing that.

Also, we do know of a "softly" approach that is very effective. Improved education.

Posted by: Moses | July 20, 2008 6:19 PM

Where are the fetuses?! There must be fetuses!

Just make sure the Koran's remains are properly recycled. At least that way it has a chance of coming back in a new incarnation as something useful.

It's important to understand creationism is just a symptom of a disease. The disease is religion. Trying to cure a symptom of a disease, without trying to cure the disease itself, makes no sense. Some way must be found to eradicate all religions. That sounds like an impossible task, but that's no reason to give up trying. In my opinion, ridicule of religious beliefs can be very effective. The ridicule must be relentless and must come from millions of people. Nothing can be done for the adults who are brainwashed beyond any hope, but younger people will notice the ridicule and some of them might realize their parents are wackos.

Posted by: BobC | July 20, 2008 6:15 PM

I've said in the past and I'll say it again, being nice to religion is like trying to cure an infection with aspirin. The fever may go down, but it doesn't cure the patient.

I'll stop now, as I don't want to contribute too much to the volume. Don't want PZ riled...

Goodbye from this sanctimonious concern troll :)

#197 charlie

Personally I would worry more about a civil lawsuit accusing PZ of some sort of intentional mental harm.

If that were possible, wouldn't we have already seen thousands of lawsuits bought about by recovering and deconverted religionists?

Moses:
You certainly know how to turn lemons into lemonade. The Rachel Ray reference was a nice touch.

Ron in Houston: Play nice. You don't have to agree, just don't be offensive and I will return the favor. Consider the hatchet buried. Hell, I'll even buy you a beer or three when I am in Houston next weekend.

Where are the fetuses?! There must be fetuses!

Posted by: MAJeff, OM | July 20, 2008 6:21 PM

But only STRAIGHT, WHITE fetuses from middle-class, non-Jewish families, catholics preferred. Anything else wouldn't further the homosexual/minority agenda or properly persecute the catholics...

I wonder if this gets troll-mined by idiots too stupid to see the blatant sarcasm at their hysteria? It's not like they don't troll-mine everything else...

Ally, #222 wrote,

"I saw this:

It's a plausible hypothesis that confronting the devout in a way *they have never been publicly confronted before* really might wake some of them up.

No it isn't, at all."

I'm trying to be patient and credit you with just not considering my idea, but I have to say it seems you just viscerally don't like it, and then extrapolated that it's wrong. It's not even a little bit plausible? So, all the people who wrote in to the Convert's Corner at Dawkins' site were making it up when they related that direct unstinting criticism of their faith jolted them into thinking about it? Will you acknowledge that?

I'm not saying this will be the case for most of them - it probably won't. But your terse "No it isn't" is just not a reasonable response.

How about my second point about shifting the societal perception of religious claims?

You also wrote:

"So as well as establishing that the facts are on your side, you also need to lure them over and convince them that there's nothing wrong or disgraceful in atheism. Atheists can be nice, intelligent, amusing people - in contrast to what religions say: that atheism=pure evil"

I know you don't mean this, but I need you to understand how this sounds. I remember when I came out of the closet as a gay guy at the age of 12, in public school, hearing just the same sort of thing. Mostly from criminally apathetic straight people, but often from the hand-wringing Mattachine Society types:

1. "Don't be so confrontational" - Confrontational, of course, was defined as refusing to pretend I wasn't gay if someone in the room might be "uncomfortable."

2. "Don't be so obsessed with sex - people need to know you have other interests" - Obsessed with sex, of course, being defined as having the gall to hold another boy's hand.

See where I'm going? People will see and hear what they want to a large degree. I mean, really, anyone who fails to notice that atheists or gay people pay taxes, don't step on other peoples toes in grocery queues, etc., and don't eat babies is deliberately maintaining an irrational, bigoted perspective. Telling the target of this bigotry that it's his job to go out of his way to show that he doesn't eat babies - as if living his normal, unassuming life wasn't enough - is offensive. And to that I say, fuck no.

Bigots and the deluded bear the responsibility to stop sticking their fingers in their ears and gouging out their own eyes to avoid seeing the dull truth: atheists or gays or whoever are normal people like everyone else. It's not our job to kiss their asses and deferently beg them to notice we're nice people.

You certainly know how to turn lemons into lemonade. The Rachel Ray reference was a nice touch.

I had to buy olive oil today, and was so sad to see her face smiling at me from the grocery store shelf.

That and Dustin Pedroia's salsa. (WTF?)

#224: "I thought I'd just comment on the amusing fact that atheist/agnostic people are concerned about offending the religious." Posted by: Andrés Diplotti

Yes, it is amusing. Perhaps the appeasers haven't noticed religious attacks against atheists.

Relentless ridicule is the only correct way to deal with religious insanity.

Steve Zara's idea, improved education, is also effective. The more people understand science, the more likely they will throw out their religious myths.

...
766 comments on the wall
766 comments
Take one down, pass it arround
765 comments on the wall
...

Josh #233: "So, all the people who wrote in to the Convert's Corner at Dawkins' site were making it up when they related that direct unstinting criticism of their faith jolted them into thinking about it?"

You reminded me why I threw out the Catholic religion. In high school I was explaining the Catholic beliefs to my friends and I noticed they were laughing at me. They thought I was nuts, and it didn't take me long to realize they were right.

"atheists or gays or whoever are normal people like everyone else. It's not our job to kiss their asses and deferently beg them to notice we're nice people."

Damn right. Bigots are responsible for their own beliefs and actions.

And if history is any judge, there's no reason whatsoever to think that even if gays, atheists or whoever try REALLY hard to play nice with a bigot, that bigot will suddenly say "Oh my god, I was so wrong about you, let's be friends".

They aren't logical to begin with. That's what makes them bigots.

And if this turns into another thousand comment thread, I shall be very, very cranky.

And we'll be able to distinguish that from your ordinary self how?

Crackers and Koran and Sacred Cow...

Oh my!

Hmmmmmm.....somehow "Crackers and Koran and Sacred Cow" just doesn't work as well as "Lions and Tigers and Bears."

I'm considering desecrating the FSM by cooking pasta tonight and adding ketchup to it.

Ketchup on pasta?!?! Simultaneously sacrilegious and YUCKY! =8-O Permissible only for very young children who have not yet reached the age of accountability (or appreciation of good food).

Something just occurred to me: Since the fish is an ancient symbol for Christianity, wouldn't feeding the cracker to a fish be a symbolic way of returning it to whence it came?

Just asking.

Vanity of Vanities, sayeth the Preacher's Kid: all is Vanity.

I think you should get together with Dumbldore have have him teach you that transubstantiating trick before you desecrate the Jeez-it.

the Danish cartoon controversy, during which over 100 people were killed

Those were rioters, mostly Muslims themselves. In Nigeria. Where the Christians and Muslims don't need much of an excuse to start butchering each other.

Five hours, 236 comments? That's only 0.787 comments per minute. Back here the rate was 0.948 comments/min.
You are SLACKING, people! Do you want PZ to be "very, very cranky" tomorrow, or NOT?

Doin' my bit to see what happens when PZ gets angry...

Be patient, godless ones...

It's our society, y'see. Kids these days, they got no time, no patience. It's all about instant gratification, instant service, just in time delivery. We've got fast food, instant coffee, instant credit, instant banking, high-speed internet, even drive-thru wedding chapels... So where's our while-u-wait desecration service, dammit? So many sacred cows, so little time... Look, I've just got two minutes on the way home; can you do sumpin' creative with this copy of the Watchtower for me in time for me get my car in for its oil change? Time's a wastin'.

Possibly the most alarming suggestions made here have urged Prof. Myers to subject the crackers now being held hostage to various forms of scientific analysis.

It's one thing to tick off the claimed 1 billion Catholics on the planet (and perhaps a bit more of the same thing to defy those approximately 1.5B Muslims).

But the use of University of Minnesota lab equipment for personal purposes - that would be downright dangerous!

Has anyone asked P.J. to defile some spaghetti to offend the Pastafarians? Maybe, by using inferior sauce, or turkey mean balls or something. Well, I will step up to the place.

I challenge you, P.J. to dare to defile a holy plate of spaghetti! Do it, and I think that His Noddley Appendage will not be so gentle when it touches you!

Back when, high muckymucks sacrificed virgins on a spike to appease the gods of harvest. Some guys got the bright idea that they didn't have to sacrifice their daughters but could sacrifice a dumb cow instead. Alot of these guys weren't very nice but they had a good idea.

They some time later some other guys got the idea that you don't have to do all that bloody, messy stuff because god himself was the sacrifice and when we drink the special wine we get all that good stuff and it tastes better. Again, these guys (like Constantine) weren't something to write home about but what works, works.

In the future the nice atheist organizations will be getting all the government financing and us assholes won't be getting any more death threats. Fair enough?

Like Master Shake said, it's all about planting the seed of doubt. Also, what Josh said.

Jeez, Josh @233, you could point-miss for the Olympics!

direct unstinting criticism of their faith is fine by me. Have I suggested otherwise? But get this: desecrating a cracker isn't "criticism".

Next. I was talking about what's a good tactic for luring non-believers to atheism, and your response is to fume "It's not our job to kiss their asses". Well fine, you can kick them up the ass instead, as hard you can, by all means. Just don't act all surprised when it doesn't help your cause a whole lot.

By the way, your atheist/gay analogy sucks. Have I suggested atheists should stay in the closet, or quietly accept any bigotry directed their way? Nope. All that I'm doing is discussing tactics. And this is a really misguided, bad one.

PZ will be going out of his way to offend the religious, just for the sake of offending them. This is an unpleasant, mean-spirited thing to do.

Like would you wear red in a crip neighbourhood? You can if you want to make some point about freedom (I am free to do whatever). Just don't be surprised if you find yourself in an unmarked grave some hours later.

Huh. See, I wouldn't know not to wear red in a crip neighborhood. More relevant, though, is that I can expect to wear red in my own neighborhood and be perfectly safe doing so.

Both of the comments above seem to imply that PZ's own blog is a Catholic neighborhood. It is not. If he were going "out of his way" to antagonize Catholics, he would go seek out a Catholic forum. He hasn't. This is his home turf, and they have come here, seeking him.

PZ's readers are primarily atheists, rationalists, and skeptics. He is not going out of his way to offend anybody -- we are the choir. Support him or don't, but let's not pretend that he's taking out a full-page ad in the New York Times saying "Fuck off, Ratzy." He's not. He's doing what he's doing (or not) in his own home, and writing about it on his own blog. If anyone would like to not be offended, by all means, DON'T VISIT.

Ally, #249-

Do you know how to argue your point without treating other people like they're complete dicks? Disagree with my argument all you want, but stick your high school level sarcasm up your smug ass. And you have the nerve to criticize me for not taking a tactical, nice approach to convince my opponents?

Good grief.

Posted by: D. Duke | July 20, 2008 7:20 PM

Fail.

@Steve Zara #133

It may be true that the majority of catholics will respond moderately to whatever PZ does, but the excessive reaction is not limited to a small group of nut cases who are renounced by that majority. We may realize Donahue is a loon, but he has enough followers and influence to cause some real damage. Furthermore, has the catholic church made any effort to stop him? Simply saying "he's not a real catholic" is a flimsy dodge. I recall that the catholic church has a long list of actions they are willing to take against members who act or say things of which the church does not approve.

I'm becoming convinced that Satan has eaten out your brains.

I had such a fun time yesterday re-watching Shaun of the Dead. So you're saying the zombies are Catholics?

MAJeff: Who in their right mind would trust you for a minute with a musclebound superhero?

I think I might actually believe in transubstantiation. Hear me out: my senses of smell, feeling, hearing, sight, and taste (Ugh!) say that Bill Donohue is a human being. Those are his accidents. His substance is dogshit. You can't hear, see, feel, smell, or taste (Ugh!!!) the dogshit but it is dogshit.

MAJeff: Who in their right mind would trust you for a minute with a musclebound superhero?

I'd need far more than a minute.

#245:

Why would PZ need University equipment to do an experiment? You can do an experiment butt-naked in your home with a pencil.

All you need is a question, a working brain, and at least one functional sense.

(The pencil's only role is to record the result)

"Subject to various forms of scientific analysis" =/= "do an experiment."

Ally, have you ever been a theist? Where are you getting all of your expertise on what helps them decide to keep or toss religious beliefs? Here's how it looks from my side: giving them deference automatically gives those beliefs status. If you act as though they might have any justifiable reason for what they believe, they will latch onto it and say "See? Even those evil people have respect for the word of God, because it's so powerful and true." Doesn't. Work. However, be as disrespectful as possible and still don't get struck down by lightning, and sound rational in the process? That's what makes people think twice about their beliefs.

And the atheist/gay analogy doesn't suck, it's fairly robust and has been made many, many times. (with the caveat that gay is not a choice and religion is)

@224, atheists hold to the contention that god does not exist.

Religion on the other hand most assuredly does exist.

The religious also have a very real and demonstrable existence, and some of them, when offended, are decidedly dangerous.

Some level of concern is legitimate, I would say.

PZ says

I'd suggest that you not write to me unless you've got something intelligent to say, but Gary Silis probably thinks he's made a brilliant, ingenious, knock-dead argument instead of the exercise in insipidity that this is:

I've seen Silis's ridiculous cut and paste used many times on various forums. So stooopid!

OK, I am going to add yet another post here...

We may realize Donahue is a loon, but he has enough followers and influence to cause some real damage. Furthermore, has the catholic church made any effort to stop him? Simply saying "he's not a real catholic" is a flimsy dodge. I recall that the catholic church has a long list of actions they are willing to take against members who act or say things of which the church does not approve.

Now that is the kind of argument that starts to change my mind. There has been plenty of opportunity for senior Catholics to denounce what Donohue has said, as he positions himself as a Catholic spokesperson. Your point about the actions that the church is willing to take is also a good one.

You have changed my view.

Well fine, you can kick them up the ass instead, as hard you can, by all means.

If I can have one wish granted by the godless critics on these threads, it is that you get a sense of perspective. No one's ass is being kicked.IT'S A CRACKER.A cracker. A wafer. A small piece of bread leavened with nothing but superstition. I can demolish it, and Catholics will still be going to mass, priests will still be screwing little boys, Bill Donohue will still be doing his noisy 'tard act. No one will be dead because of it. No one will be in the hospital. No one will even need a little bactine and a band-aid. The only people being threatened with material harm are those who refuse to bow down to their tiny little tasteless idol.And there's one place where the analogy to gay rights is right on. Have you ever heard the frequently made claim that letting gay people marry threatens heterosexual marriage? That's similar to the argument made here: that if PZ Myers treats a cracker like he does any other piece of garbage, the whole edifice of Catholicism is threatened. God will be harmed! Jesus will weep in pain!Screw that. If religion is that fragile, I shall take great joy in destroying it this Wednesday, when the crackers get it. Keep that in mind. Check your local church on Thursday morning — think it will be a vacant lot full of rubble?

as we are all irrational about something, i was wondering what YOUR cracker is.

My suggestion:

Take a piece of pigskin leather, attach the wafer to it (I guess with book binding glue), write on the wafer, "There is only one god, allah, and muhammed is his prophet", attach a piece of dog hair (clipped -- don't want to hurt the dog)to the pigskin (like a tassle) and use it a bookmark for the koran.

Maybe write "Praise Jesus", "Ave Maria", and something nice about the Trinity in the Koran too.

Very little defacement, of anything, but it would make any one of the psychos howl.

The only thing better is to get a small mezuza and tie it to the other end of the dog hair to the pigskin side of the bookmark.

Unfortunately it sounds like an elementary school project...probably take too much time for a meaningless gesture.

Sven @ 130

Beat me to it but I don't think your rate is going to be constant. Need something in there like the coeficient of imflammatory comment/Trolls^n.

Posted by: D. Duke | July 20, 2008 7:54 PM

Re-fail.

Posted by: D. Duke | July 20, 2008 7:54 PM

It wasn't funny the first time, either, and my guess is that this iteration is going to magically disappear as well. Idiot.

Oh, and by Silis's blind tunnel vision *logic*, every bit of good luck an atheist experiences must be taken as proof that there is no god!

D.Duke@266. Get lost, you anti-semitic scumbag.

Gt t y, ddn't ?

cn tll y r pssd!

Bhhhh!!!!!!!!

(Hy, ts jst JW jk, ftr ll!)

[Scratch a fundie, find an anti-semitic Nazi beneath the veneer. This is one of a string of deleted messages from our Kansas troll, a rather despicable character. -- pzm]

D. Duke (266)

If religious Jews call out a team of Rabbis to protect and defend the Yarmaluke while ignoring death threats made to one of their children who wore one inappropriate (to tradition), then I would have no problem giving them disrespect. Would you?

Think of the message Catholics should take from the Christian martyrs! I've read that stuff -- people suffered amazingly grisly deaths over their belief in a god.

Posted by: D. Duke | July 20, 2008 7:59 PM

Fail yet again.

Krubozumo Nyankoye@266 - Sorry, my #270 was not aimed at you! The offending comment has been removed.

AgnoAtheist,

Don't forget the difference between receiving a cracker in the mail and assaulting a person to take something off their body.

Oh, I keep forgetting (value of magic cracker) > (value of human)

Krubozumo Nyankoye:
In fact, the rate of commenting is already slowing down; see here for the update. You're right; a linear model is far too simplistic. Adjustments for troll density, stupidity, and perserverence should be made, as well as the proportion of potential commenters asleep at time t...

Are you sure you want to desecrate a Koran? I mean, Christian crazies are one thing, but Muslims have their own unique and amazing form of crazy that I wouldn't want to mess with.

The danger only makes my penis harder.

Sauceress @230 People who are leaving their faiths are not well regarded and generally alone thus unlikely to sue, while the faiths themselves can act on the behalf of individuals within their congregations whom have been harmed by the blasphemy of desecration. It is a loosing strategy but it would take a pile of money to defend against.

"as we are all irrational about something, i was wondering what YOUR cracker is."

Ummmm, let's see... reification of superstition? Willful ignorance? No, wait, it'll come to me...

"i was wondering what YOUR cracker is."

My friends and family. And I'm proud of it.

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This has nothing to do with desecration and bruised catholic sensibilities.

Why do I say this? Because many of us could have, (and may have), already defiled the Jebus crackers and the whacko Catholics don't seem to care. Maybe we all got together on stickam and had a *defile the cracker-fest*. They are raising hell, (I made a funny), about PZ, and only about PZ. Why is this?

Publicity.

Plain and simple. They want attention.

This is about egos and attention, not religious feelings or the (pretend) holiness of Jebus crackers. They only want to bask in the spotlight. They worship themselves.

charlie #279

the faiths themselves can act on the behalf of individuals within their congregations whom have been harmed by the blasphemy of desecration.

So the scientologists would have a legal case,on behalf of their followers, against those who denigrate their beliefs?

"No one will be dead because of it"

You'll be the only one at risk, PZ, if those threats of poison should turn out to be real.

Please use full contact precautions when handling them.

(I'm in paranoid mode right now.)

People who are leaving their faiths are not well regarded and generally alone thus unlikely to sue, while the faiths themselves can act on the behalf of individuals within their congregations whom have been harmed by the blasphemy of desecration.

How exactly does "the blasphemy of desecration" harm anyone? The worst is can do is hurt somebody's feelings, and that's not exactly actionable.

People who are not insanely poor and still cry, flail and issue death-threats about some small piece of dry bread, like they were quite brain-damaged. Are idiots, simple as that.

Just pulling My straw to the 1K thread. :)

I'm going to do my laundry now, and not even GOD can stop me! Muahahaha!

You should just make a general policy of desecrating all religious artifacts sent to you. Bible, Koran, Torah, Black Bible, Crackers, whatever. That way its all equal.

I'm sorry PZ, but you don't know much about Islam and Muslims if you think desecrating a Qur'an and desecrating a Catholic cracker will have similar consequences. Muslims and Catholics will both send death threats, but Muslims might actually act on them. Christianity and Islam are equally false and equally ridiculous, but they are not equally dangerous.

"If religion is that fragile, I shall take great joy in destroying it this Wednesday, when the crackers get it."

This will be an historic day, 7/23/2008, the day the crackers got it. I look forward to watching the Catholic retards go batshit crazy again.

It would be bad experimental practice to desecrate the wafers and the Koran at the same time. This affair demonstrates that Catholics can be just as hateful as Muslims, and riling up the Muslims dilutes the message.

Moreover, if there are any attempts at violence, it would make it harder to determine their source. Either group could plausibly blame the other.

Fellow Catholics,

Why continue to waste your time on here? You are not going to engage in productive and reasonable discussion. What you are going to get on here is a grade school mentality of attack and pile on. You are getting suckered into trying to answer strawman after strawman argument.

We don't worship the atheists perverted version God. We don't belong to the atheists distorted version of the Catholic Church. There doesn't seem to be much "free thinking" (whatever that means lol) on here because you all sound the same. You all seem to share in the same pool of misinformation when it comes to Catholic teaching. Your understanding of God has no resemblance to what Catholics believe. So, Catholics why waste your time arguing with people who really only want to insult you and have no intention of having a reasonable discussion? You can spend your time praying for those on here who seem to have a lot of hurt and anger in their lives. You can spen time with your families or offer your time at your parish.

For those atheists who want to have a mature discussion about the CAtholic faith, we welcome you to join in on the many forums that are available. There are plenty of great CAtholic websites and apologists who will engage your arguments politely. Catholic.com, Jimmy Aiken, Mark Shea, John Martignoni, Dr. Scott Hahn (who happens to have just co-authored a book refuting many of Dawkins arguments). There's also Dr. William Lane Craig. He loves debating atheists. If you are confident enough to step outside of your little secure atheist world, then join in. We welcome you.

Catholics, leave PZ alone, just deny him the attention him and the others here are craving.

PZ do what you want, I could care less.

Catholics, threatening anyone is a sin, regardless of whether you are serious or not.

PZ, so you are now going to desecrate a Quran too? Now you can take the death threats seriously. You might also consider prayer despite your atheism. It can't hurt.

If you want this to end then how about some of that "civility" that you folks always demand? You could decide not to offend anyone or desecrate anything. Instead you could concentrate on biology instead of topics that you know little about like religion. Then everyone will be happy. It might even be a start in rehabilitating your reputation as a professional. C'mon, shock us with some maturity.

Rayven Alandria, wrote:

Plain and simple. They want attention.

Spot on. In the US especially, the fundies get all the publicity - the papists are just jealous because no-one cares what they think anymore.

I am not a demographer, but isn't the only reason they're even vaguely relevant is because it's the delusion of choice for the increasing Latino population?. If they ever deconvert en masse then they'll be about as significant as Quakers.

The whole thing reminds me of the outcry about the Harry Potter books. First thing I thought was, 'oh-ho, looks like somebody wants some attention'.

Oh, and has the Pope said anything about this yet? For all the outcry on teh internetz about how much this is hurting catholics, I've still heard nothing about His Holy Hatness having an opinion on the matter.

those who think the cracker is more will continue to think that too.

don't be so sure.

even in the first thread, there were a few Catholics who shared sentiments similar to the first one I noted:

Ok, this is craziness. I'm Catholic, and when I first read the story, I thought "Yeah, that guy was a bit rude for just taking the Eucharist like that", and that was it. No death threats. No calls for people to be fired. No demands to have the host back (for what reason?? There are stacks and stacks of them in any church!!). Just a bit of a headshake, and that's it. Why people are making such a huge deal about this, I have no idea. They've got nothing else on the go I suppose. It stories like this that don't make me feel great about my beliefs at all. I don't always agree with what your blog says when it comes to religion, but this time, I do.

Posted by: Josh | July 10, 2008 5:14 PM

emphasis mine.

mission accomplished.

The reason PZ hasn't actually "desecrated" (as if one COULD) any of the "sacred" (as if that made sense) objects, is simply that he really doesn't need to. It's more of an afterthought.

The main mission itself has already been accomplished.

It's the moronic Catholics and concern trolls endlessly writing him that are damn near forcing his hand to go ahead with the physical act.

In the end, the act itself will end up having little significance.

If you want this to end then how about some of that "civility" that you folks always demand?

where? unlike yourself, most of us who are sane realize that reason /= reasonable.

projecting again, fake father troll?

You're a hypocrite, Fr. J. You said,

Likewise, everyone, including PZ, knows that if he in fact did desecrate a Quran he would be in fear of his life.

You were indulging in fatwah envy yourself...you don't get to moan now that the Catholic threats weren't serious, and the nonexistent Muslim threats are.I am not in fear of my life. I just see deluded nuts whining everywhere, you among them. Now please, go away.

A date has been set. Here they come.

Nice to see you, Fr. J - good that you can take time out from your busy scourging/hair-shirt-wearing schedule to remind us just how clueless you really are.

...topics you know little about like religion

Is that the first Courtier's Reply of the evening?

Your right P.Z. I remember the pope before last calling homosexuality evil.How many people were offended with that bullshit?But you get the same cat-licks so concerned about a fucking cracker!Looking forward to Wednesday myself!

You all seem to share in the same pool of misinformation when it comes to Catholic teaching. Your understanding of God has no resemblance to what Catholics believe.

We think that the Catholic church teaches that a consecrated cracker undergoes a process called "transubstantiation" by which the cracker turns into the body of Christ, then called the "host". Care to elaborate on what's incorrect about that?

No, no, no... This Wednesday is WAY too soon.

This thing needs more time to build into a major media event. Get some "people" who can get you on Oprah. Debate Donohue on FOX News. Try to get McCain to denounce you. THEN the cracker gets it.

Carlie wrote:

We think that the Catholic church teaches...

.

The 'thinking' part is what they're likely to have a problem with. They're not fond of thinking at all - unless it's to come up with elaborate explanations (with important-sounding buzz-words like 'accident') and justifications for their sacred rituals ooga-booga.

Just use magic re-trans-substantiation to change the host from the body of Jesus to the body of Elvis, and then do your worst.

Then the Catholics really can't complain, can they?

Friar J:
Please demonstrate the civility and maturity in your responses. I can see your smugness, pretention and arrogance but the other is not apparent, Padre.
I, however, never claimed to be civil. It's late, don't you have altar boys to bugger or futile sermons to prepare, oh Great Windbag?

bad Jim #292

It would be bad experimental practice to desecrate the wafers and the Koran at the same time.

Good point!

If as Dr. Dennett purportedly says "... taking the wine out of the holy context would surely untransubstantiate it, turning it back into ordinary wine." (and I don't know he does, I got that from here: http://mycaseagainstgod.blogspot.com/2007/02/scattered-reflections.html ) and if Catholics really do believe in auto-de-transubstantiation for communion wine, then surely the same applies to communion wafers. So what's all their fussing and fuming about? Would they pitch the same fits if the wafer had never been "transubstantiated"? BTW, how does one differentiate between a T-wafer and a non-T-wafer? Do I deserve punishment if I abuse a non-T-wafer which I claim is a T-wafer? If so, what am I being punished for - Wafer abuse or wafer fraud?

John Lennon died in 1980, he said that whole jesus thing in 1966. That's fourteen years later. lol god works in incredibley slow ways/

Hey PZ,

One way to get them to back down on the fact that it is not actually Jesus, but rather a mere cracker would be to try and bring charges against the Catholic church on grounds of cannibalism.

In most countries, cannibalism is illegal, and I doubt even invoking freedom to worship would outstrip that. If they truly believe it to be transmuted into human flesh (and can prove those claims) they are committing cannabalism, if they can't prove the claims then they lose the right to call it the flesh of Christ, and if they want to win the case they have to accept it as a mere cracker.

Amplexus wrote:

god works in incredibley slow ways

god was waiting until Lennon didn't expect it - mainly so he could then shout 'no-one expects the Spanish Inquisition wrath of god!'

Fr J @ 295 Does "Fr J" stand for "freaking jeebus'? And we concentrate on biology instead of topics that we know little about, like religion? You have the freaking gall to compare Biology with insane religion, let alone use it in the same sentence? Biology is a living and worthwhile discipline of Science. Religion is a demented cesspit of irrational muck that is ascribed to by the weak minded and deranged rabble whose every idea makes rational thought as far removed as their imaginary god is. No, you c'mon and shock us with your imaginaty shit god! Bring it down and beat the crap out of us. Your papist pope is incapable of bringing forth your phony god before all the insane rabble; how are you going to bring it down and smite us here on this blog? Let's see this god of your insane rantings. I'll wait right here. In the meantime, have a cracker, or perhaps many to while away the time necessary for your shit god to appear to kick my ass. You have better to clean out the houses of insane worship to stock in a vast supply of nonsense crackers while waiting for your god. Munch those crackers; maybe they will give you the guts that your god lacks.

This may have already been mentioned already, but since this thread is already past the 300 mark, I'll make it relatively short.

PZ, you have to collect all the symbols of religion and do a mass desecration. Collect those Korans, Bibles, Talmuds, Crackers, Bhagavagitas, Yarmulkes, etc., and desecrate them all in one glorious cephalopodian spectacle worthy of only the lowest denominator of human achievement. These are all worthless items that belong in the trash heap of human accomplishment (or lack of it). That way, you can be an equal opportunist religio-skeptic, and you won't be accused of favoritism.

Hire a lawyer.

I say maybe you should sue the Catholic League, Donohue (sp), et al, and take the idea of desecration of religious objects to court, all the way to the supreme court if you have to, to find out what the judges think about John Q. Public's right to do with them what they will. Maybe the judges can draw a thicker bolder line between religious ideas and society at large.

PZ, you _can't_ out-sacrilege the original ceremony; it's already an over-the-top self-satire. I mean, Jesus said 'eat me', and they take him literally!

I think the only way you can top this is by playing it straight. After all, if you got a gobbet of human flesh, you wouldn't eat it, you'd bury it. Or better yet, cremate it and scatter the ashes.

So that's what I suggest you do. Very respectfully, of course, and with a straight face. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

"And if this turns into another thousand comment thread, I shall be very, very cranky."

I'm sure that I am in good and hearty company by declining to post a comment just now.

PZ,

You should copy text from your new Koran onto each cracker you get. Kill two idiotic taboos with one stone...er...pen.

Nick @275
No offense taken (gasp! how original). But thanks for correcting.

Sven @277
Quite true, I was grappling with the time t aspect in as much as there is a large area west of the IDL where it is Monday morning, but with the exception of Oz mostly no one is paying any attention. Then I realized spending 5 minutes thinking about it would push my comment so far down the thread that you would never see it.

Thanks PZ for juicing the inflammatory coeficient, Wednesday? Hummm, I'll probably miss all the fun. Pity.

To cite the title of the post:

*rolls eyes* It's a cracker, people

All the folks coming up with grand schemes of mass desacration are kind of missing the point and giving in to the religionists by making a big deal. It's a cracker. What do you do with old, uneaten, or inedible crackers? You put them in the trash, garbage disposal, or composting. What do you do with an old book? Give it away, sell it, or put it in the bin with other paper recycling. Anything more is, well, wasteful.

The point is not to make a big deal, particularly since it's only a cracker. Indeed, PZ's point all along has been that it's only a cracker. Massive displays of "desecration" make it into more than a cracker.

Interesting.
How many different Catholics (or should I say usernames?) are regular contributors to this topic? 5 or 6?
And then three of them post consecutively (currently 293-295), with exactly enough time between the posts to log off and onto another account.
Either they gang up from one other site to come here with their tremendous weight of numbers, or they are one and the same person (not that that's ever happened before, eh?).
Should I be wrong on both speculations, I apologize. A little.

PZ:

Find cave.
Insert crackers.
Roll rock in front of cave.
After three days, remove rock, see if crackers are still there.

Speaking of things, Fr.J, you speak of maturity? What respectfully mature human being believes in an imaginary omnipotent deity rules over ones life, interfering when it pleases, looks over ones every actions, and may help when it feels like, pretends to be benign when all it wants is to jealously be worshiped and ultimately will determine the fate of mankind? Well, if you don't buy into this, then you can buy into a whole host of other bullshit that's slung in the name of maturity.

Look, just because you seek some form of comfort from an apathetic universe doesn't make you mature. You can't find it within you, partly due to your ignorance, partly to your stupidity, and mostly to your credulous behavior, to actually understand the natural processes that govern the universe. You struggle to explain your culturally derived idea of an imaginary deity, when there is no proof or evidence of any kind. Thousands of years, and all you see is your imaginary immature beliefs shrinking in light of scientific evidence. Your time on earth as morons is coming to an end soon, and you know it. No matter how hard you try, and how hard you fight, faith will ultimately lose out to evidence. You are merely wasting your life in a belief that goes beyond wrong.

Steve @ 262

(Doffs imaginary hat) Kudos to you sir.

Helioprogenus wrote:

Collect those Korans, Bibles, Talmuds, Crackers, Bhagavagitas, Yarmulkes, etc., and desecrate them all

Er, can we just limit it to crackers and cheap, mass-produced versions of the books? I have a problem with destroying something that has an actual artistic value - like an beautifully illuminated bible that's also a historical record of the history of publishing - as opposed to something that only has symbolic value.

Just because an item that has other, worthwhile value happens to have religious significance doesn't mean it should be destroyed. Of course, if you want to maul a few tacky plastic dashboard jesuses then go nuts; that's doing the world two favours in one go.

Aaron Baker |03,

To continue with the example: you and I could agree, amongst ourselves, that Mrs. Jones wasn't the most beautiful woman in the world, or even close; but if you went to John Jones and said: "Good Lord, you must be kidding; she's got acne, a double chin, and a hairy mole on her nose," and he punched you in the face, I think most would agree, as a matter of objective fact, that you were in part the cause of that result. Much more subjective, of course, would be the ensuing lively argument about whether you should have said such a thing, and whether you deserved what happened to you. I think that "Why in the world did he open his mouth in the first place?" would be my perfectly reasonable take on the whole business.

Well, if John Jones was permanently criticizing both of you for how extremely ugly both your wives were, maybe you wouldn't be asking that question...

And don't tell me that Mr Jones doesn't find Atheist's wives ugly. Atheists don't have morals, just a bunch of communists, drug abusers, sex maniacs, homosexuals and their admirers, shouldn't be allowed to be called citizens as this is a Christian nation...etc

How many conservative catholics, who seem so easily offended by PZ's threat of desecrating a cracker, have continued to vehiculate amongst themselves, variations of the following types of "typical good Christian love and tolerance argument" such as :

"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."-- George W. Bush

"How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy money changers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top?"--Pat Robertson, The New World Order, p.227

No need to go very far, you can find these arguments on every good catholic blog parrotted in any variation thereof thousands of times, including here on Pharyngula.

BTW, generally, those catholics who are the most easily "offended" and who react the most to PZ's "offense", are not the liberal catholics, but the most conservative nutcases, who are also anti-homosexuals, anti-abortionists, misogynists, etc...

As far as being offensive, it's clearly not Atheists who started first.
And at least, Atheists are, you will agree, using objectivity and rationality in their attacks, unlike the religionists.

Did you hear about the conceptual artist Serrano's new piece, Piss Cracker?

Neither have I...

PZ - thank you for being such an incredibly illuminating voice of reason. Reading blogs such as yours has been inspirational to me in seeing that there actually ARE some sane, reasonably people out there. Coupled with your courage in the face of disapproval by many religious nutters, I am in awe of scientists like yourself. I don't know if you ever get disillusioned, but I just wanted to say what an amazing job I think you do, and how clever you are. Thank you.

PZ, you have to collect all the symbols of religion and do a mass desecration. Collect those Korans, Bibles, Talmuds, Crackers, Bhagavagitas, Yarmulkes, etc., and desecrate them all in one glorious cephalopodian spectacle worthy of only the lowest denominator of human achievement.

The Bonfire of the Anti-Vanities?

"And if this turns into another thousand comment thread, I shall be very, very cranky."

On the other hand, think of all the new people who are enjoying your other posts here who never did before!

'I don't need your Jesus'.

Well said, Marilyn!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2256/2051649819_af236f54ac.jpg?v=0

Holy-Dancin'-Frackin'-Jebus'-Tits-on-Ritz.

Teh stupid is burning the crackerz to crispy cinderz!

Oh, teh humanity.

The Bonfire of the Anti-Vanities?

actually, adding the "anti" kinda deflates it.

these symbols really ARE vanities.

Well, obviously I have no patience for those of the pious who want to verbally abuse me or others for disagreeing with them. When harassed by such, I'll cut them off at the knees as fast as anyone else here.

There's said to be a taboo in America against discussing religion in any but the most anodyne ways. It's my experience as well as yours that the very pious are much more likely to disregard this taboo than anyone else. I have mixed feelings about a taboo of this kind; but I'd like it a lot better if EVERYONE observed it.

I _would_ encourage you to desecrate the Qur'an, but I would also like to continue having sex with my girlfriend, which won't happen if I diss her religion too much. So, for the sake of my continued sex life, stick to stomping crackers. :-)

Bonfire of the inanities?

Just Prove it's nothing more than a cracker:
-Try to extract DNA from it with a conventional extraction protocol.
-Try to get RNA from it by tossing it in TRIzol and homogenizing it.
-See if you can find any human proteins in the cracker.
-Burn the cracker in a calorimeter.

Rather than actively trying to 'desecrate' it, just show how silly this transubstantiation dreck it. You have every right to do what you want with it but actively trying to offend catholics, IMO, lends some credence to the notion that 'atheists hate god'. I think just carrying out some objective assays demonstrate the silliness without intentionally trying to offend.

As for the Koran, it's just a book, so donate it to a library.

Do what you'd like. I'm interested to see the outcome and, likely, the hypocrisy from the catholics.

This Wednesday, July 23, 2008, shall forever be known as:

Wafer Wednesday!

Ok, so I'm thinkin' you can draw a little Jesus on the cracker and carefully nail (pin) it to a cross, then put a little cheese in just the right places, where the stigmata would normally be. Except in this case they are smegmata.

Just doin' my part for the 1000 goal.

MAJeff,

The point is not to make a big deal, particularly since it's only a cracker...Massive displays of "desecration" make it into more than a cracker."

Well maybe then he should simply say that he's backing off from what he proposed initially :

but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I'll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won't be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart.

@322: Nice! Simple and elegant, the way an experiment should be.

@PZ: "Check your local church on Thursday morning -- think it will be a vacant lot full of rubble?"

A girl can dream, can't she?

negentropyeater (#326): "BTW, generally, those catholics who are the most easily 'offended' and who react the most to PZ's 'offense', are not the liberal catholics, but the most conservative nutcases, who are also anti-homosexuals, anti-abortionists, misogynists, etc..."

I would add creationists to your list. I bet the retarded Catholics who are so worried about cracker abuse are also evolution-deniers, also known as flat-earthers.

which won't happen if I diss her religion too much.

so, uh, don't.

I doubt PZ has designs on your girl himself, but do you mind if he goes on ahead and does her a favor?

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

MAJeff, OM wrote:

The point is not to make a big deal, particularly since it's only a cracker. Indeed, PZ's point all along has been that it's only a cracker. Massive displays of "desecration" make it into more than a cracker.

Exactly. The act of "sacrilege" that would most infuriate worshipers of the Holy Bread would probably be if PZ simply lost or misplaced it. Perhaps he could just keep it on a shelf beside a voodoo mask, a fertility sculpture, and other religious curios.

Well maybe then he should simply say that he's backing off from what he proposed initially :

maybe you shouldn't interpret what he's going to do to be anything more theatrical than dumping the lot in the trashcan?

negentroypeater,

Wouldn't treating a sacred object as an everyday object of no value be one of the greatest insults to it? Wouldn't that be a vile act of breaching the boundary between sacred and profane?

Toss it in the trash and take a picture of it, post it with an all-bold title and some music...or shit, make a video using the Dies Irae as you carry the bag containing the crackers to the trash can.

As PZ has acknowledged, it's a cracker. Treating it as such while wearing a smile is a gleeful act of "desecration" But all of these proposals for grand actions do turn it into something more than a cracker. The point has been that it's merely a cracker and that it's the religious treating it as more than such. Making a big deal is treating it as more than such.

Ichthyic,

Exactly. All PZ has said is he's going to do exactly the same thing to the koran as he is to the crackers, and that he isn't going to eat either.

Don't count your chickens until they're desecrated...

If this thread gets to a thousand posts, I promise you it won't be my fault. I refuse to have anything whatsoever to to with it. Can't blame me.

maybe you shouldn't interpret what he's going to do to be anything more theatrical than dumping the lot in the trashcan?

Well, I would hope the koran will go in the paper recycling. It would be more environmentally sound.

Just as--if they can be composted and PZ does so--I'd hope he'd compost the wafers. (At least the one's he's fairly sure aren't poisoned. Even if the ones claimed to be aren't, I'd probably put them into some kind of biohazard thing or see if poison control or law enforcement would take them.)

Delurking: If a ritual wafer is just a cracker, is a corpse just meat?

Nobody deludes themselves that a corpse is a person (even if they delude themselves that deceased person lives on on another plane). By any strictly literal rational measure, disregarding ritual or sentimental value, a corpse is just a pile of unsanitary flesh.

Still, if I deliberately desecrated a corpse and somebody got mad, I would consider them within their rights to be offended. Not to make death threats; just to feel violated and hostile. It seems like a bad thing to do. Even if a relative of the deceased gave me a good reason to try to offend them (like a death threat), I wouldn't do it. You can't really target that kind of desecration against one person and not against another. It's offensive to a whole group of people, not just the stupid death-threats crowd.

A corpse might sound like a more personal thing to get upset about than a cracker, but I don't think it is. Most of us are offended by disrespectful treatment of *any* corpse, so the analogy seems apt. The only difference is that the cracker is *made* special by some agreed-upon ritual, whereas respect for the dead is probably more or less innate. I don't think that's a meaningful distinction, though I realize it's being actively debated here.

(I've skimmed these threads and seen lots of people and trolls make this general point, but I haven't seen corpse desecration mentioned. Relurking now ...)

There's something incredibly disturbing about Catholic's who are trying to get PZ to not desecrate their deified bread willingly sending the sacred text of another religion to get desecrated. It's disturbing on a few fronts:
* That they think that if someone should offend them, they must offend others.
* this is a huge case of fatwa envy (as has been pointed out several times)
* it's an incredibly offensive act to Muslims, something by even suggesting it is just as offensive as suggesting the desecration of the Eucharist.

It's sad that Catholics by doing this have shown they have no regard at all for the beliefs on others, and by sending The Koran they have shown themselves to be hypocritical. That's really sickening, and it comes from the people using being offended to gain the moral highground.

How pathetic.

Just as--if they can be composted and PZ does so--I'd hope he'd compost the wafers. (At least the one's he's fairly sure aren't poisoned. Even if the ones claimed to be aren't, I'd probably put them into some kind of biohazard thing or see if poison control or law enforcement would take them.)

meh, I find myself really caring little what PZ decides to do with the junk in the end.

As I said; in my mind, the mission is already accomplished.

We have the records to point back to: the endless inane arguments in favor of cracker-deities as well as the records of the criminally insane, and those of the few who actually did get the point and are now rethinking exactly what it means to "believe as a Catholic", which in the end, is more than I would have ever aspired to if I myself had decided to don the firesuit on this topic. Whatever is decided on to end this act, the story has already pretty much been told.

The Overton Window has been moved, and in our favor.

IMO, it's already time to move on to the next thing that will work to move it even further.

Delurking: If a ritual wafer is just a cracker, is a corpse just meat?

The corpse is just a corpse. If people were claiming the corpse turned into a butterfly, then it would be an apt comparison. The cracker remains a cracker despite the ritual, that's the whole point. It was a cracker, and it will remain a cracker. The line of being offended that it wasn't stomping on a ritual or something they hold dear, it was that it's desecrating Jesus. And on that, it's the Catholics who are claiming the cracker is more than a cracker.

Wow, sadoctopusface! You've really made me think! That's a wholly original analogy, which absolutely no one has put forth in all of the several thousand previous comments on the subject. What a brilliant contribution to the discussion. Well done!

BTW, PZ, here's a Movable Type plugin for threaded comments:

http://akosut.com/software/mtthreadedcomments.html

Now that you're consistently getting hundreds of comments to your blog posts, this would be really helpful.

Just a suggestion.

(Well, I'm in around 1K/3)

Back a few months ago during the "Jesus Family" kerfluffle (remember the limestone box that had supposedly contained the remains of JXC?) someone, tongue planted firmly in cheek, suggested that the box be used as a source of DNA with which to determine God's origin, and thus test Evolution.

I suggest that PZ use the wafers to perform a similar test, and thus to prove that JXC (and therefore his father, g_d) is in fact a grain closely aligned to wheat. Should be good for a peer-reviewable paper, maybe a couple!

Then we enlightened ones, (maybe we should call ourselves the Church of the Grain of Truth (informally, the "wheaties"), backed by unimpeachable evidence, can start a PETA-like movement to ban the "desecration" of grain by cutting it (harvesting) and by beating the h--l out of it (threshing.)

Between PETA and us Wheaties, we could probably determine, with the highest religious reasoning, that everything grown, (except for what might grow in the Garden of Eatin') is too holy to consume, and thus we will ensure that we and one more generation will quickly meet for everlasting loafing in the great granary in the sky.

Nobody deludes themselves that a corpse is a person

hmm I keep thinking about preserved saints being paraded at WYD as I write this...
and then wondering if you're sure about that?

http://fivepublicopinions.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/sydney-world-youth-d…

hmm I keep thinking about preserved saints being paraded at WYD as I write this...

they brought some box with a heart in it here to Boston a year or so ago. There's some bizarre death fetishism going on with those folks.

#351
If it can be verified scientifically that a transubstantiated wafer is a corpse I'll buy your analogy. Until then, it's just a cracker.
The Catholic Church falls back on the sophistry of the accident/essence excuse to cover their ass when there is no molecular chang detected by scientific means. Scrutinizing a Jesus wafer in the lab would result in zero gain of reason and rationality among RCC god believers but it would sure be interesting as a social experiment.

Since religious belief is for bird-brains, why not crumble up the cracker and cast it on the ground for the local pigeons?

It's not against any religion to want to dispose of a pigeon!

I'm not so sure you have to do *anything* now; just having the wafers is already desecration, isn't it?

Now, moving things toward 1000...

I've got the Jonny Depp version of Willy Wonka on TV tonight. I stick with my first assessment that the original Oompa Loompas were far superior to their more recent incarnation.

Still torn on Gene Wilder vs. Jonny Depp because they're really such different characters.

Late to the party.Since everything that could possibly be said pro and con the cracker has already been said,I only want to say this :

PZ,you are dealing with dangerously,murderously deluded people,esp.if you start pissing the Koran folks.You have a family and kids that need a father.This may all be well-meaning to make a point about the absurdity of religion,but this is putting your life in danger.
IMO : Not worth it !!

" Gene Wilder vs. Jonny Depp"

I vote Gene Wilder. Johnny Depp's Wonka was a little too MJ, for me.

The cracker is a symbol, as is the act of desecrating it. Symbols are given power by people. Alone, a symbol is meaningless, but with enough people, desecrating a cracker can change the world.

And right now, this world needs more than a cracker. It needs hope.

Ghost of Minnesota,

It needs reason. It needs an end to faith and superstition.

they brought some box with a heart in it here to Boston a year or so ago. There's some bizarre death fetishism going on with those folks.

I think it goes beyond "fetish".

It's that they would threaten to kill me if I even considered pissing on a SACRED corpse (like the dead "saint" currently being dragged around Australia), that otherwise holds no logical attachment for them whatsoever (nobody they ever knew, nor ever related to them in any way).
It is authority attaching relevance that simply doesn't exist outside of the rationalizations generated by the authority itself. As such, the logic behind criticizing it is exactly the same as that behind criticizing the "sacredness" of a cracker.

It's not the emotional attachment to symbols or items that are being criticized here (humans will be humans)... it's the rationalizations BEHIND those attachments that are being criticized.

Nobody is ever taught a biscuit is sacred and inviolable outside of the CC, or that a corpse being dragged around in a box should have some personal significance or intercessionary value (what, is it a fucking blarney stone?).

there simply is no basis for attaching significance to items outside of pure authoritarian vanity.

hence, why i rather thought the comment on "bonfire of the vanities" was actually pretty appropriate without the "anti". The CC is anything but anti-vanity.

thinking a cracker is sacred is a vanity.

thinking a corpse has value if dragged around on a roadtrip is a vanity.

yes, make a bonfire of it all.

PZ, I *heart* you.

I dunno about this koran thing. I don't think it's really a good idea to treat one in the same way you treat a cracker.
Not that you shouldn't "desecrate" it, but it just seems to me that an interesting and instructive way to desecrate a cracker might not be an interesting and instructive way to treat a koran.

Like, you might do an experiment where you test consecrated crackers and unconsecrated ones and show that there's no difference, but what would the point be with showing the koran is just a book?

Artistically it just seems to me that they cry out for different forms of desecration.

Neural T @ 366 My sentiments exactly, but with no forseeable change. Your comment is so wasted on Max, who deserves nothing more but tainted crackers.

"communion wafer, in a block of Lucite"

Wow... that would be, like, the Catholic version of Han Solo in carbonite. Cool.

just having the wafers is already desecration, isn't it?

ayup.

likewise for the Qu'ran, IIRC (PZ being an infidel and all).

Even if there were an alternate reality in which Gary Silis's logic in his diatribe against god-deniers and their fate could be valid, all it proves is that his god's modus operandi pertaining to the treatment of others is absolutely no different from that of a terrorist (to use a popular modern comparison), because he is basically saying that as a matter of policy, he murders those that do not capitulate to him. Quite moral beacon of light, if you ask me.

they brought some box with a heart in it here to Boston a year or so ago.

From the folds of her gown, she lifted a green metal cube about fifteen centimeters on a side. She turned it and Paul saw that one side was open - black and oddly frightening. Paul slowly put his hand into the box. He first felt a sense of cold as the blackness closed around his hand, then slick metal against his fingers and a prickling as though his hand were asleep...

"What's in the box?"

"Pain."

he murders those that do not capitulate to him.

just culling the herd...

:P

Hey, Mike, if real mad scientists have to be bald, I guess I fit in nicely to that club... How do I join?

Hey Ichthyic @ 367

Long time no see, remember the fish pictures I put on the web?
I never had time to set up anything for a response so maybe you could give me some names in this thread (and boost the count closer to 1000) and I might see it. I have to go back to work in 6-8 hrs depending on the promptness of the crews and then will be back to no comms mode. If its too much trouble, its not a problem but I am still curious. If you have any rocks you want to identify, I could reciprocate!

Cheers,

Wait... here we go. Set a box on fire.
Inside the box is either crackers or a koran. Challenge people to find out from their god which it was.

"And right now, this world needs more than a cracker. It needs hope."

What the world needs now is love. Sweet love.
That's the only thing that there's just too little of.

just culling the herd...
:P

Posted by: Ichthyic | July 20, 2008 11:00 PM

{hits the nail on the head}

And that is exactly the best way to ensure that the population remains submissive to your tyrannical and intolerant system of beliefs - eliminate the ones who have developed enough intellectual independence to attempt to understand the world in terms that seem reasonable to them. Get rid of these people, and you not only remove the immediate threat, but you diminish their prevalence in the gene pool. Agents of organized religion may be irrational in their beliefs, but they are painfully pragmatic in their pursuit of hegemony.

"Set a box on fire. Inside the box is either crackers or a koran. Challenge people to find out from their god which it was."

Hmm. Schrödinger desecration... I kind of like it.

I was going to propose a "will it blend" experiment, but I see that three other people have already done it. Still, a video of this should be enough to get PZ on CNN. Which may or may not be a good thing.

You're a fucking coward. Grow some balls and walk into a Mosque and desecrate their Koran. If you were really the tough guy you're acting like you would do that. After all 'it's only a book'. You could also encourage people to walk into a mosque and grab one for you so you can abuse it on the web. Of course you won't do that because you're a pussy. You know Catholics won't hurt you so you are picking a fight with them. If you had any balls you would go after the people that will really fight back.

Con,

You're a week too late and a fool to boot. Go peddle your ignorance, hypocrisy and fatwa envy somewhere else.

You're a fucking coward. Grow some balls and walk into a Mosque and desecrate their Koran.

More fatwa envy...

Con:
Bravo!
I'm so glad you are the first to suggest this.
It must make you feel so manly and smart.
Watch your blood pressure, tough guy, or you might have an aneurysm.

Con (#392)

Since you want PZ to go into a mosque and desecrate a Koran is it okay then for him to go into a Catholic eucharistic service and desecrate that or are you just bigoted against muslims?

Long time no see, remember the fish pictures I put on the web?

sure do. I posted my best guesses in that thread. should still be there if you still have the link to it.

if not, I think I could dig it up for you.

how are you?

still in SA?

If you have any rocks you want to identify, I could reciprocate!

actually, yes I do. I have a large mineral collection, and lost the tags for many specimens years ago. Most I can still recall straight from memory, some I cannot.

shoot me an email here:

fisheyephotosAThotmailDOTcom and I'll forward some pics along to you, along with that list of fish ID's.

cheers

"Of course you won't do that because you're a pussy."

Juvenile taunts from an infantile mind.

""Set a box on fire. Inside the box is either crackers or a koran. Challenge people to find out from their god which it was."

Hmm. Schrödinger desecration... I kind of like it.

Yes. And don't reveal the answer. And those Catholics who said he should desecrate a Koran? Sit back and watch their heads explode as they can't figure out whether to be outraged or celebratory.

Ichthyic:
Your mom called, your sister called twice, and you have a dental appointment Thursday. Want us to forward the rest of your messages?

You're a fucking coward. Grow some balls and walk into a Mosque and desecrate their Koran. If you were really the tough guy you're acting like you would do that. After all 'it's only a book'. You could also encourage people to walk into a mosque and grab one for you so you can abuse it on the web. Of course you won't do that because you're a pussy. You know Catholics won't hurt you so you are picking a fight with them. If you had any balls you would go after the people that will really fight back.

Hello dumb dumb

Ooh. Dune reference!

Con:

PZ has already clearly stated that he's going to give the Koran the same treatment as the cracker. No, he's not going to walk into a mosque when he does it, but he's not going to walk into into a Catholic church, either. The desecration of both objects will occur in the comfort of his own home. Or office. Or wherever.

Ichthyic:
Your mom called, your sister called twice, and you have a dental appointment Thursday. Want us to forward the rest of your messages?

naw, they were auto-texted to me already. you can clear the machine now.

don't forget to dust the furniture, though.

;)

Yet Another Wafer Project

(This is a sort of followup to this:
  http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/wide_open_thread_for_anythin…

Note that this could be done in addition to the project linked back to. If video is taken, it could be interspliced with video from the previous project described
)

Things you will need:

1) Books (or websites) that are listed as references in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_desecration
(Don't want to get messed up by any potential Wiki vandalism or typos)

2) Take from (1) above, the exact statistics of those massacred because of host desecration

3) Many, many wafers (see statistics from step 2). They can be bought in bulk here, among other places:

  http://moroneys.com/gds20.htm

4) Largish area of land, to hold rectangle of wafers. I am not sure if manicured lawn or bare earth is better; the latter might contrast better with the pale white wafers.

5) Cameras, still and video. You might need the help of a professional/high-end amateur photographer/videographer.

Procedure:

1) Push wafers vertically in ground, stopping halfway, such that they look like half-circle tombstones.

2) Say: "This is the number of people killed because people thought that harming a piece of baked dough was a capital crime. These were real human beings whose lives were deemed less important than a cracker." Emphasize that while most of the wafers were bought in bulk, some were consecrated. Again, no-one can tell the difference.

3) Take photographs.

4) Take video, panning over crackers.

Alternative:

Separate rectangles of plots for each incident, with the dates and locations written out. Point out how number diminishes towards the present. "Please note that so far, no people have been murdered for injuring crackers in the 21st century. Is it too much to ask to keep it that way?"

Again with the quotes from first link above.

I realize that anything I post here is just more noise, but I want to post this anyway.

I was raised Catholic. I do not know what the official Catholic Church position is about transubstantiation, but here is what I was taught by my priest. He said that the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ was a metaphysical transformation, and that if you analyzed the bread and wine after being blessed, it would still appear to be bread and wine. Maybe some Catholics believe they are taking part in literal cannibalism, but I never did, nor did anyone at my church that I know of.

J. D.

You're a fucking coward. Grow some balls and walk into a Mosque and desecrate their Koran... If you had any balls you would go after the people that will really fight back.

Posted by: Con | July 20, 2008 11:36 PM

And you're a fucking hypocrite. How about you walk into a mosque and tell them that they are all apostates and heretics for recognizing a false prophet in Mohammad, and that because of that they have strayed from your god's intended path. Oh, and if you truly don't believe such things in the comfort of your own circles, be so kind as to post on here why you don't agree with the assertions of the leaders of Christian faith. If you had any brains, you'd realize your diatribe was wholly idiotic.

J.D.:
So did you feel your priest was lying to you? That he was relating myth because it was expected of him but he didn't buy into it - just toeing the company line?
Was it normal for the congregation to pick and choose as to the validity of what priests taught? "I'll believe this but I refuse to believe that."
So, it's just theater evidently.

Ooh. Dune reference!

*bing*

I couldn't help but post it after Jeff described "the Box".

J.D.

Apparently that's not the official teaching. Even so, were you then participating in metaphysical cannibalism? Exactly how were you taking the body and blood of Christ? If it's just symbolic then why all the humbug? I'm not picking on you, just the foolishness.

So, it's just theater evidently.

or, to be more precise according to William Dembski...

Street Theater*.

* a reference I doubt but a few who recall how Will likes to cover up his foibles in public speaking and blogging would get, but I felt the urge.

Some religions persist for the same reason that gangs persist. When you initiate into some gangs, the only way out is death (either by natural causes, getting killed by a rival gang, or your own gang if you try to leave). That type of ruthless meme has high fitness (for itself).

Likewise, it's not surprising the most violent religions (Islam today and Christianity in the past) grew so rapidly. Memes have differential survival and reproductive success, too.

I agree with Ichthyic's #353 comment that the Overton window has been moved. Hopefully some people will rethink the irrational attachment they place on symbols, and how crazy it is to have people making death threats over such symbols. I envision more and more people lifting the Overton window as it keeps moving to the side of reason. I wonder what the next thing will be that moves the window. Any ideas?

He said that the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ was a metaphysical transformation, and that if you analyzed the bread and wine after being blessed, it would still appear to be bread and wine.

Posted by: J. D. Mack | July 21, 2008 12:01 AM

I had a priest tell me something strikingly similar, but after stating that here and being called on it, I did the research that confirmed that Catholic doctrine asserts that though the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ may be metaphysical in nature, that in no way means that they believe the transformation to be anything less that reality. So while you took his explanation to mean that the transformation was an act of reverent symbolism (as I did, as well), what such explanations actually intend to convey is that while scientific examination will prove no physical transformation has taken place, they claim that the transformation is on a metaphysical level - meaning not that it isn't real, but instead that there will never be any tangible method of proving it wrong. It is, quite plainly, an evasion used in order to prevent the possibility of refuting their irrational claim.

BrokenSoldier

Con's conments are more than idiotic. They are mean spirited. The unspoken wish is for terrible harm to come to PZ.

* a reference I doubt but a few who recall how Will likes to cover up his foibles in public speaking and blogging would get, but I felt the urge.

How could anyone who saw his antics forget?

No I wasn't wrong. I WAS ACTING!!

/John Lovitz Master Thespian voice

Just my HO here but for what its worth.

It has been shown clearly and unambiguously in these several threads and the thousands of posts to them that religion per se can generate irrational and despicable response on a purely emotional level if it is challenged. Based on history alone it is not unreasonable to conclude that this is a dangerous delusion. It can also be applied across the board, hindus will in fact murder muslims if they are offended, muslims will murder christians if they are offended, christians will murder hindus if they are offended, etc. etc. All of them will willingly murder atheists just because they are offended that anyone can have a decent and productive life without sucking on the teat of belief for its duration. It offends them because it reveals how cowardly and tenuous their hold on life really is. I feel sorry for them, I have empathy, but not much.

Why not? Well, because it is a well known fact that all the
praying, sacrificing, and juju you can muster will not in any way, alter the circumstances, the reality of what we face as individuals, as nations, or as a species. Science has opened our eyes to the fact that we do indeed have a kind of dominion, and that it is without any supernatural guidance. We are running down a tightrope into the abyss of extinction because we are too deluded by con men and swindlers to realize that in the immortal words of Pogo, we have met the enemy and they are us.

The fact is for all of those preoccupied with revering a bait and switch scam called the Eucharist, and all those others, clinging to tawdry myths, that we are already into deep deficit. Name any resource you want, we are using more of it than we can replace with new sources. The top two are oxygen and water.

The RCC has a set of policies that are deliberately intended to increase the population of humans on this planet. So do the muslims, perhaps other religions have similar tenants. They are all obscenely wrong.

To the others in this thread who have said eductaion is a cure for this, I agree to the theory, but the evidence is not encouraging. Education can be as easily subverted as discourse by those who parasitically exploit the poor, the weak, and the uninformed.

This is not an argument over philosophys, we are being tested by natural selection. Evolution is a fact, and so is extinction.

Those few of us with a vision of the true potential of huaman intellect, must choose whether it is worth the risk to confront and challenge the ignorant masses. They are not iginorant by choice, but by the design and desire of those who grow rich from their blood sweat and tears.

E.V.

Damn you. You've found my weakness. I'm a beer whore. Buy me a beer and I'll follow you anywhere.

MAJeff,

whatever treatment he will give to these crackers as long as he wants to add much fanfare to it and treat them with heinous cracker abuse, I don't really understand how the point can be not to make it a big deal.

I actually think he should postpone from doing this as long as he can and leverage the fact that he has only so far threatened to do it to gain more share of voice and try to get the attention of the mainstream media and refocus his message as he has done recently on civil liberties and to expose the intolerance of many religionists towards non believers. His proposal to give back these Eucharists if the catholic church would disavowe Bill Donohue seemed such an intelligent proposal that it would be a pitty not to continue along those lines.

As soon as he will place pictures, wether they are in a trashcan or whatever, it will still be a public act of desecration, and if he does it too early, it might not even get the attention of the mainstream media. It might as well just stop there and be a flop from a public relations perspective.

How could anyone who saw his antics forget?
No I wasn't wrong. I WAS ACTING!!
/John Lovitz Master Thespian voice

one of these days I should revisit ATBC.

con the moronic troll:

You're a fucking coward. Grow some balls and walk into a Mosque and desecrate their Koran. If you were really the tough guy you're acting like you would do that. After all 'it's only a book'. You could also encourage people to walk into a mosque and grab one for you so you can abuse it on the web. Of course you won't do that because you're a pussy. You know Catholics won't hurt you so you are picking a fight with them. If you had any balls you would go after the people that will really fight back.

Since it is your idea, why don't you do it?Oh that is right, you are only brave when babbling anonymously on the internet using an alias.

Trying to hide behind a 50 something college professor and using an alias is the ultimate in cowardice. Like all trolls you are real brave behind a keyboard posting incoherent nonsense but, wisely, afraid to cross the street without your caretaker.

I'm a beer whore. Buy me a beer and I'll follow you anywhere.

there's free beer just outside, Ron.

Don't mind the door, we promise we'll keep it unlocked.

*snicker*

I second OwlMirror in the endeavor. To think we spent the whole 20th century without a death due to Host desecration only to have that record stand on shaky ground in the 21st.

I don't remember whose idea it was, but I thought it was a brilliant one:

Simulate the digestive process with the Cracker Jesus, mortar, pestle, saliva, and something approximating stomach acids.

god, this is a great way to pass a lazy Sunday afternoon after mowing my lawn...

Go PZ

Stick the wafer on a doll and get some crackpot voodoo chick to stab the shit out of it.

This is insane. Have you learned nothing? We will not let up, shut up, or go away until disciplinary action is attained. By the way, go ahead and send me to the dungeon and show how much you REALLY believe in free speech. You liberals are all the same. An old professor I had a few years ago once said "Behind every liberal there lies hidden a tyrant." You and your followers have proven him right. Anyway, the point is this will not go away any time soon and you continue to be an embarrassment to your profession and university.

You liberals are all the same.

blah blah blah.

apologies to Jeff's toes.

We will not let up, shut up, or go away until disciplinary action is attained.

That's never going to happen. And buddy, I bet you and yours will get bored of whining eventually. If not, hey, screech until your throat is sore, and see who gives a shit.

John, #417 (at this point), bleated:

This is insane. Have you learned nothing?

The hypocrisy! It burns!

Not having yet read all the comments, I don't suppose anyone has suggested a very special Will It Blend on YouTube yet? You could throw the Jes-it and the Koran in there together, even toss in a Yarmulke just to round out the big 3.

By the way, go ahead and send me to the dungeon and show how much you REALLY believe in free speech.

"Shoot me in the head and show how much you REALLY believe in there being no second amendment right to bear arms, you liberals!"

By the way, go ahead and send me to the dungeon and show how much you REALLY believe in free speech.

Posted by: john | July 21, 2008 12:45 AM

What an idiot - you're entitled to speak freely, but should you violate the posted rules of conduct PZ outlined for this blog, he can ensure that you won't do so again by preventing you from commenting here anymore (which is all explicity stated on this blog before you ever showed up). That doesn't mean you're not free to continue being an irrational apologist - it just means you won't be able to do it here anymore, since you've already proven you can't follow simple instructions.

#379: Quoting Jackie DeShannon? Well, actually Bert Bacharach. That is low.
Out of nowhere: In 1979 I won 25 lbs of fudge in a radio contest because I knew Jackie's real name.

Trying to hide behind a 50 something college professor and using an alias is the ultimate in cowardice.

Posted by: raven | July 21, 2008 12:28 AM

And does anyone else find it as funny as I do that an irrational nutcase that defends religious faith through implicity threatening statements chose "Con" as his alias?

BORING.

Enough with crackergate. I vote for just forgetting the whole event ever happened at all. By Thor's Mighty Hammer, It's just a silly cracker!

John @ 417:

Who's being tyrannical? It's your side that's making ridiculous demands that PZ refrain from being mean to crackers. We're not trying to stop you and your ilk from doing anything, nor are we trying to force you to do anything. We'd just prefer if you'd leave us to be mean to crackers in peace.

What an idiot - you're entitled to speak freely, but should you violate the posted rules of conduct PZ outlined for this blog, he can ensure that you won't do so again by preventing you from commenting here anymore (which is all explicity stated on this blog before you ever showed up). That doesn't mean you're not free to continue being an irrational apologist - it just means you won't be able to do it here anymore, since you've already proven you can't follow simple instructions.

Oh, brokensoldier, john can't understand you anyway. Conservatives are generally incapable of parsing the First Amendment. Hilariously, they tend to hold absolutist views of property, with metaphors of kings, castles and domains, and all the absolute rule that imagery entails. He'd shoot you for walking into his house uninvited, but john demands that also he be allowed to use PZ's space for whatever he pleases. He couldn't tell you how this is hypocritical, either.

John the homeless insane street person:

An old professor I had a few years ago once said "Behind every liberal there lies hidden a tyrant." You and your followers have proven him right. , the point is this will not go away any time soon and you continue to be an embarrassment to your profession and university.

Well, we believe "this" will not go away soon. You obviously are mentally ill and those diseases are notoriously hard to treat.

Do you really think while you wheel your shopping cart around the park, drinking cheap wine, and ranting and raving, that anyone gives a damn what the voices in your head are saying?

Remember, in between bottles to gather lots of cardboard for the winter. And keep your eyes open for recyclable bottles and cans.

Eric's probably right. I'm actually surprised the fundies haven't realised no-one's paying attention to them and done something stupid to try and get some press.

Or maybe they're happy someone else's patently stupid ideas - those that they don't share - are being hammered for a change.

PZ:

The reason that you are getting the response that you observe is that your original 'cracker' post is correctly classified as hateful and bigoted. That's simply an accurate analysis, and that was my immediate observation when you originally posted. People who are the victims of the kind of denigration that you express do not really know how to respond - and indeed it is difficult to respond to.

What is very clear is that you and your followers are blinding yourself to your bigotry by retreating to an oversimplified position of science vs. superstition. The expression of bigotry that you 'cracker' post manifests has nothing to do with belief or non-belief in a god, Nor is your position a meaningful protest against what you perceive as superstitious beliefs.

If instead of a church, the story had been that an individual walked into a small town bank, took some money, and then left, it would not be a cogent argument to belittle the townsfolk for getting all worked up over someone stealing 'just some printed paper'. While money is in a certain sense just a piece of printed paper, it is also much more. It is a physical representation of a widespread and deeply held set of beliefs, customs, and accepted agreements that are part of our present civilization's culture.

Catholics are long standing subculture of people who define themselves by customs, beliefs, and traditions, like many many other subcultures. The traditions of Catholics include rituals, and the ritual of the eucharist appears to be a highly cherished one. Saying 'it's just a cracker' is an obvious falsehood due to the item's role in the tradition. Therefore the way this falsehood is going to be implicitly interpreted is as you expressing the view that Catholics, as a people, culture, and tradition, are so beneath you as to not exist. That is; The only way 'it's just a cracker' can be a truth is for Catholics to not exist. And so you have implicitly stated that Catholics are of such worthlessness that they so much as do not exist.

The reality is that you have expressed a particularly severe bigotry, worse than a simple slur. That is the reason for the emotional response. You no doubt attempt justification of your expressions on the grounds that Catholics are promulgating what you view as superstition. However, that matter is not relevant to determining whether or not you are expressing bigotry.

And, a reading of the additional posts and extensive commentary does indeed reveal a combined attitude that is best described as 'hateful'.

By Thor's Mighty Hammer, It's just a silly cracker!

next up:

hammergate.

somebody get me a bag of hammers.

I have the perfect solution for both crackers and Korans: papier mâché. Use 'em both to make a piñata then bash the hell out of it!

your original 'cracker' post is correctly classified as [a response to] hateful and bigotedry.

fixed that for you.

Well, we believe "this" will not go away soon. You obviously are mentally ill and those diseases are notoriously hard to treat.

Do you really think while you wheel your shopping cart around the park, drinking cheap wine, and ranting and raving, that anyone gives a damn what the voices in your head are saying?

All the homeless people I've known, including the mentally ill ones, have been much more friendly than john. Most were more creative, too.

And, a reading of the additional posts and extensive commentary [from religious zealots] does indeed reveal a combined attitude that is best described as 'hateful'.

fixed that too.

just combine your corrected first and last sentence, and dump the rest.

then you might start making some sense.

This is insane.

Yes, you are.

Have you learned nothing?

I've learned that trolls are frequently rude and stupid. You're certainly an example of both.

We will not let up, shut up, or go away until disciplinary action is attained.

How dull. Have you nothing better to do with your lives?

By the way, go ahead and send me to the dungeon and show how much you REALLY believe in free speech.

So do you believe in free speech or not? Either you do, in which case PZ is doing nothing wrong, or you don't, which explains your case of the vapors. Which is it?

You liberals are all the same.

Yes, "liberal" does usually mean "believes in freedom".

An old professor I had a few years ago once said "Behind every liberal there lies hidden a tyrant."

And I'm sorry to see that he was becoming senile. What do you think he was trying to say?

You and your followers have proven him right.

You can't prove a contradiction in terms "right".

Anyway, the point is this will not go away any time soon and you continue to be an embarrassment to your profession and university.

Eh. You're just addicted to outrage. Eventually you'll find something else to point at and shriek like a neurotic maiden aunt who has just seen a spider squid in the toilet.

"By the way, go ahead and send me to the dungeon and show how much you REALLY believe in free speech."

Go ahead and try to get a tenured professor fired and show how much YOU really believe in free speech. Crackerhead.

Knight of the Sethi,

Interesting post, but I have a few questions for you. First, everyone agrees that money is money because we agree that's what we agree it is, right? Surely you don't intend to put the Holy Eucharist on the same level, do you? I mean, it's supposed literally to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ, not merely deemed so by common agreement. I think that's where the problem lies. Second, no one denies that money, while it is money because we say it is so, is not also just a piece of paper. The same cannot be said for a consecrated wafer.

I'm certainly not authorized to speak for PZ, but I'd imagine that the real issue comes from the claim that the wafer transubstantiates into the flesh of a living god. PZ, being a materialist (a good thing in my book), demands evidence, and it is not forthcoming. This is why some non-believers say that faith is belief despite the evidence.

You might not like PZ's style. As an atheist, I sometimes find his way of putting this counter-productive for the goal of communicating with people who believe things despite the evidence to the contrary, but if your goal is to keep people in the fold, he's actually helping you in. When confronted in a blunt manner, people just get angry, dig in their heels and stop thinking about anything other than being insulted. That helps your side more than it does PZ's own cause.

somebody get me a bag of hammers.

That's just dumb.

(ba-dum-KSH!)

Oh, brokensoldier, john can't understand you anyway.

Posted by: Grammar RWA | July 21, 2008 1:08 AM

I know, I know - I shouldn't indulge his ilk...I'd stop trying to be rational to these types, but damn is it hard not to respond to idiocy of that caliber!

"People who are the victims of the kind of denigration that you express do not really know how to respond - and indeed it is difficult to respond to."

Yeah, I agree, Webster Cook has had a really rough time lately.

All the homeless people I've known, including the mentally ill ones, have been much more friendly than john. Most were more creative, too.

Agreed. John is most likely in a supervised living situation or locked up somewhere.

What isn't in doubt is that he is stark raving crazy.

It saddens me that I actually fear for the safety of Dr. Myers because of his intention to desecrate the Quran.

However, the fact that these religious fanatics have us so terrified is only more of a reason for PZ to stand up to them.

If we continue to bow down to threats of violence, we may lose our ability to criticism the Quran at all.

"People who are the victims of the kind of denigration that you express do not really know how to respond - and indeed it is difficult to respond to."

No, it's actually pretty easy. They can just say to themselves, "Not everybody in the world holds sacred the same things I hold sacred, and it doesn't make much sense to expect them to behave as though they do," and then get on with their lives, not concerning themselves with what Dr. Myers does to crackers.

You can consider Elvis's underwear sacred if you want to, but don't expect the rest of us to tiptoe around your delicate sensibilities.

This comment will probably be lost in the crowd. The count is already at 416.
PZ, I'm really concerned for your safety. There seems to be some crazy people out there who I think will take violent action against you if you carry out your "desecration" rather than just threaten you. I think it's time to back off.

I'll echo #446 and say:

PZ, please be careful. All it takes is one psycopathic nutcase. And there's plenty of them you've enraged...

Standing up for free speech and atheist rights is a noble endeavour; however, personal safety is a prerequisite for that quest. It'll be better if we all contribute a little rather than prominent figures doing drastic things and risking their lives...

It seems like your generation is bearing the grunt of this madness; but you don't have to. We too are angry, and we too will stand up when able to do so. Leave some of the fight to us, for your own sake!

Take care,

---Yana---

I don't believe in Jeebus and I find most Catholic beliefs laughable, but I find this whole thing reflects worse on you than on them. They come across as idiots, sure, but you come across as an arsehole. Who are you trying to convince? The converted, who fill your comments with shit-talking Christians? Or the Christians themselves? Or is it just small boy with fly, pulling the wings off because you can?

I daresay there are many Catholics who can happily accept that you do not share their beliefs, and simply shrug it off, but are mystified why it is so important to you to disrespect them. I don't think they're worthy of special treatment, but I'd rather hope you're not this shit about the fond beliefs of everyone you meet.

"You can consider Elvis's underwear sacred if you want to, but don't expect the rest of us to tiptoe around your delicate sensibilities."

Way to just not get it. No one says you have to "tiptoe" round someone's sensibilities who thinks Elvis's underwear is sacred, but mocking the person is not the only alternative.

And lol at the all the brave brave Sir Robin of the Religionhaters who are all for giving shit to the Catholics but want to "RUN AWAY" when it comes to people who will hurt you for mocking their beliefs.

Knight of Sethi #431,
"Saying 'it's just a cracker' is an obvious falsehood due to the item's role in the tradition. Therefore the way this falsehood is going to be implicitly interpreted is as you expressing the view that Catholics, as a people, culture, and tradition, are so beneath you as to not exist. That is; The [sic] only way 'it's just a cracker' can be a truth is for Catholics to not exist. And so you have implicitly stated that Catholics are of such worthlessness that they so much as do not exist."
Sigh. It was a Catholic tradition to say that the sun revolved around the Earth. By your logic Galileo was spreading an "obvious falsehood". Merely having a tradition saying something doesn't make it so. Also, there have been many interpretations of the desecration of a cracker in the 10,000+ comments here but this is the first time I heard that doing it implies Catholics don't exist. I think Catholics would even acknowledge that even if PZ desecrated the cracker doesn't mean he thinks they don't exist.
I may be wrong here, but that post sounds like a postmodernist scrutinizing blaspheme. The postmodern-fundamentalist alliance, as seen in the Dover trial, has always baffled me. This isn't just strange bedfellows; it's bestiality.

No one says you have to "tiptoe" round someone's sensibilities who thinks Elvis's underwear is sacred, but mocking the person is not the only alternative.

oh?

let's explore the alternatives, shall we?

did you expect some sort of evidentiary debate on the issue?

no?

hmm, what alternatives exactly would you suggest besides ridicule for arguments that have no basis in reason?

comparative religion?

but want to "RUN AWAY" when it comes to people who will hurt you for mocking their beliefs.

says the black knight.

Ichthyic,

The Overton Window has been moved, and in our favor.

IMO, it's already time to move on to the next thing that will work to move it even further.

Got any evidence for that ?

What is the % of the American population who is even aware of this crackergate ? Any idea ? More than 1% ? Have you seen any mention in the mainstream national TV and press of this affair ?

Do you have any idea what it takes to move the Overton window ? In order to make new fringe ideas worthy of consideration by the public and increase their public acceptance, you have to talk about them repeatedly, maximize awareness, and leverage network effects.

Yes, we have attempted to move it, but it's far too early to say that it's moved.

For once this is a story that is interesting, that really has potential for moving the window in our favour, and you suggest we stop now, just after a bit more than a week, and before it's even had national TV and press coverage ?

We certainly don't need to blog about it every single day of the week, that's why many people are starting to find this "boring", but I do think that it still has a lot of potential.

Dr Zen wrote:

I daresay there are many Catholics who can happily accept that you do not share their beliefs, and simply shrug it off, but are mystified why it is so important to you to disrespect them

I wondered about that too, but a number of deconverts (ex-believers) cite (here and elsewhere) experience of having the sanctity of their beliefs mocked and challenged as a major reason for their eventual decision to dispense with their faiths.

H.H. posted HL Mencken upthread:

The iconoclast proves enough when he proves by his blasphemy that this or that idol is defectively convincing - that at least one visitor to the shrine is left full of doubts. The liberation of the human mind has been best furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safe - that the god in the sanctuary was a fraud. One horse-laugh is worth ten-thousand syllogisms.

Does that help?

I know, I know - I shouldn't indulge his ilk...I'd stop trying to be rational to these types, but damn is it hard not to respond to idiocy of that caliber!

I know the sickening feeling. I repeat the mantra, "my reply is for the other readers, my reply is for the other readers," while I close my eyes and press "Post".

PZ, I'm really concerned for your safety. There seems to be some crazy people out there who I think will take violent action against you if you carry out your "desecration" rather than just threaten you. I think it's time to back off.

Posted by: B43 | July 21, 2008 1:35 AM

While I understand the pragmatic concern for what might happen to PZ, there is another pragmatic concern that is of greater importance at work. PZ has made it quite clear that his actions will not be out of unadulterated hate, but instead he will do this in order to show people - however bluntly - the silliness of valuing a religious object over even one human life.

If he were to back off, whatever reason he gives - however justifiable and sensible - will be ignored by these very same people who are imploring him to back down and threatening him with violence - even mortal violence - if he does not. Regradless of the reason PZ might state, they will shift gears and frame him as someone who "finally recognized his error and ultimately respected and submitted to the will of God, whether he knows it or not." That is a guess, but should he not go through with it, I'm willing to put money on the fact that such a spin would be put on it by the likes of Bill Donahue.

So while continuing may endanger his own safety, I think there is a greater concern for PZ. I could be entirely errant in my approximation of PZ and his motives, but I see him as considering that his actions might actually turn a few minds on to his point, and if it could, a tradition responsible for a great deal of repressive pain and submissive suffering would continue without contest. While I don't think he is the "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" type when it comes to valuing others' health and safety over his own (and his family's) no matter what (I mean, how many of us truly are? Usually we are definitely that way in defending our family and close friends, but not with those we don't have a connection with), I do estimate him to be somone that has weighed the two considerations, and given a little extra weight to the fact that his actions could possibly allow some - if not many - religious believers who were struggling with doubt to see an argument against religion with intelligent motivations and goals, despite the overt nature of the methods. And before discrediting that argument based on the allegedly insulting method used, remember that it is common knowledge that one thing that certainly gets widespread coverage in today's media is controversy, especially contentious religious controversy.

Some have suggested that he communicate his objections in a more "proper" manner, yet they ignore the fact that he - and many, many others - have already been doing that for years, just in the context of recent history. The one religious argument (not war, conceptual argument) that received the most media coverage, by far, in recent memory was the controversy over the Dutch newspaper cartoon that showed an image of the Prophet Mohammed. Controversy over the supposedly sacreligious treatment of a sacred belief. In that case, the tenet of their faith that states that there can be no picture or other like depiction of the prophet. In this case, the tenet of faith being questioned is the Catholic belief that says upon consecration by a priest, the communion wafer actually becomes the body and blood of Christ, therefore it is sacreligious to disrespect it.

Not only will backing off provide a benefit possibly less important, but it will also result in providing ammunition, however faulty it may be, for a concerted backlash against not just Dr. Myers, but against anything and anyone that seeks to contradict their faith.

They come across as idiots, sure, but you come across as an arsehole.

Posted by: Dr Zen | July 21, 2008 1:53 AM

So threatneing to "mistreat" an object is being an asshole, but threatening someone's life is merely being idiotic?

While that would be true in the sense that being an idiot would mean being stupid enough to break the law on written record (as a few of PZ's religious detractors have done), it is most certainly not true in the benign sense that you used the word, evidenced by the fact that you casually dismissed them as being assholes, while chiding him for being idiotic and conveying the opinion that he was somehow the worse of the two sides.

What is the % of the American population who is even aware of this crackergate ? Any idea ? More than 1% ? Have you seen any mention in the mainstream national TV and press of this affair ?

it got the attention of phil donowhore, and PZ went on the radio to debate the issue. did it get the attention of the press? yes, it did. did it make the nightly news with "Tom Brokaw"? *shrug* no, but that doesn't mean it had no effect.

that's all that was needed from PZ, IMO, and that's basically what I am referring to when I say this part is done, and we need to move on to the next thing.

Do you have any idea what it takes to move the Overton window ?

yes, otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned it.

and you suggest we stop now

there was never anything to do beyond what has already been done.

the actual "effort" has all been on the part of the religionauts, and, as has been typical, they simply cannot resist shooting themselves in the head. they outnumber us tremendously, why not use THEM to advertise the message we want them to? did it work? Well, according to several Catholics who posted here, it most certainly did.

PZ need do nothing more on this particular issue; Donowhore will engender all the effort required to boost the issue as far as needed, with just minor pokes (so long as he thinks he is getting attention for it).

More than 1%

that would be huge, and not necessary IMO.

still...

Yes, we have attempted to move it, but it's far too early to say that it's moved.

I might be jumping the gun, but I don't think so wrt to this particular effort.

It sounds like what you are talking about is the "next" step.

suggestions?

an army of youtube vids showing creative ways of doing things to crackers?

or moving on to the next religious inanity? It's not like transubstantiation is the only nutty thing the CC indoctrinates.

As to Cook, I don't think he wants to participate in pushing it any farther than he already did, so trying to ask him to do more than he did seems a bit unfair (I'm sure he'd mostly just like to get back to studying for exams at this point).

I personally would not "desecrate" a cracker or a Koran or anything else, at least not deliberately, simply as a matter of politeness. If I were somehow in a position where a witchdoctor offered me one a voodoo wafer (a frackin cracker), I would politely decline. Of course, if he tried to force it on me, I would crush it underfoot, even if surrounded by a horde of voodoo worshipers ready to burn me at the stake for sacrilege.
That said, I can think of one strong reason to support Prof. Myers that I have not seen mentioned (I have not read all posts by any means). All over the country, especially here in the Deep South, Christian public officials open government meetings with voodoo incantations. They force everyone to listen to their obscene rantings. When a Wiccan objected to voodoo rites "In Christ's name" in Great Falls, S.C., in 2000-2001, she was insulted, even threatened by both officials and attendees at a council meeting. Likewise, a Wiccan in Chesterfield Co., Va., was insulted by the board of supervisors when she complained about blatantly Christian prayers in 2002. One board member said "I hope she's a good witch like Glinda" and "There's always Halloween." Worse, while the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Great Falls had violated the 1st Amendment, the 4th Circuit incredibly allowed the Va. theo-Nazis to continue holding Christian voodoo rituals!
If Christians don't want their rites and beliefs mocked, then they should respect other people's rights not to be forced to participate in said rites, not to have an obscene Christian slogan on public money, not to be forced to pray to the Christian voodoo spirit in pledging allegiance to the U.S., and not being harassed or threatened for refusing to participate in or for objecting to these violations of the 1st Amendment.

For fuck's sake, just throw the cracker into a urinal in some overcrowded mall somewhere, and let thousands of other unsuspecting people take care of the desecration for you.

I can not believe that a cracker actually caused all this havoc! Its just unbelievable.

But I should not be saying so after the recent incident here.

In Bangalore (India), there was an incident a week back where the carcass of a pig was thrown into the local mosque premises and that caused large scale communal riots and took two people's lives in that area!I heard that the carcass was just in fact near the outer wall and not even inside the mosque per say

[blockquote style="gumby"]
"the car could not be recognized what type of car it had been, but surprisingly, the trunk was intact.
The police said there was no way the trunk could have remained intact. To their surprise, inside the trunk was a crate of eggs, none was broken"

And on the trunk handle...they found......A HOOK!

"because he is basically saying that as a matter of policy, he murders those that do not capitulate to him. Quite moral beacon of light, if you ask me."

Careful there, brokenSoldier, Big G isn't a big fan of sarcasm either.

They come across as idiots, sure, but you come across as an arsehole.

Guess how you come across.

All this cracker talk is making me hungary

Christian public officials open government meetings with voodoo incantations.

If you were looking for connections, the church that Cook "absconded" with the wafer from is funded by UCF, which was noted very vocally by Cook after the shit hit the fan.

Careful there, brokenSoldier, Big G isn't a big fan of sarcasm either.

Posted by: Rey Fox | July 21, 2008 2:40 AM

Haha, yeah - but if there somehow was a big G, he'd most certainly have way more serious things to fry me about, so I'm not too worried either way on this one. ;)

In Bangalore (India)

wasn't there also a recent event where an Indian paper published a "poor"(?) picture of Jesus, and the local xians basically tried to burn down the building where the paper was published?

I think this refers to it:

http://www.dailynews365.com/national-news/attack-on-sakshi-newspapers-o…

and:

http://vyoma108.blogspot.com/2008/07/indian-christians-smash-newspaper…

#212, I don't know if that was especially apropos, but the answer is 'yes, a bit'. I also noticed in a caption on that linked site a quote from a medieval Haji:

The stone, when one kisses it, has a softness and freshness which delights the mouth, so much so that he who places his lips upon it wishes never to remove them.

There does seem to be an oral/genital thing going on there. There's only one black stone though, so it isn't anything like the Xtian communion 'meal'.

MAJeff: Who in their right mind would trust you for a minute with a musclebound superhero?

I'd need far more than a minute.

Ooooooohhhhhhhh, have mercy on a poor lonely middle-aged fruitfly! ;-)

and the local xians basically tried to burn down the building where the paper was published?

correction:

attacked building and lit fires... not necessarily in the same place.

Dr. Myers, I suggest you filter your email by using the word "hell". I suppose that will help you get rid of 99% of the catholic junk email.

#81 "How do you suppose Barack Obama would react if asked about this? I bet he'd be appalled."

WWBD? Obama is either a religious nut listening to the likes of Pfleger or plays one for votes. Who cares what he thinks?

hrrrm

test

test

test

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I don't think it works, Rey Fox

negentropyeater @409
whatever treatment he will give to these crackers as long as he wants to add much fanfare to it and treat them with heinous cracker abuse, I don't really understand how the point can be not to make it a big deal.

Neg, I know English isn't your first language, so you may not be picking up on one of the interpretations of phrases such as "heinous cracker abuse", and "profound disrespect".
The trick is to recognise that in these phrases PZ is talking about the cracker as though it is conscious, self-aware. Taken in the context of PZ's repeated insistence that it is, in fact, just a cracker, they sound more like a more like hyperbolic satire than anything else - I mean, how on Earth can you be profoundly disrespectful to a cracker? By calling it names? Suggesting you slept with it's mother? The cracker doesn't care, it's just a cracker.

PZ is a good enough writer that if he had actually meant "show disrespect to Catholics", that's what he would have written. He didn't do that, he said he'd be disrespectful to the cracker. See the difference?

having

one

more

go

Find cave.

Insert crackers.

Roll rock in front of cave.

After three days, remove rock, see if crackers are still there.

ubi dubius (#322) iz win htis thred. srsly.

rolling

out

the

Comic

Sans

don't mind me. sorry

For those who thought they were clever in using graveyards or corpse desecration as an analogy for cracker abuse, go look up the Zoroastrians - I think someone mentioned it on one of the many cracker-related threads but I'm far too slothful to find out which and guide you there, so here's a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism#Death_rituals

After four days they leave the corpses of their dead out for vultures and the weather to deal with and then throw the bones into a hole.

Burying the dead is offensive to them; perhaps we should respect their beliefs too, huh?

Honestly, I'm bored with the cracker thing. At first, I found the outrage from easily offended people amusing, but I just ate half a package of Ritz with cheddar and I'm bored of them now. I don't care if a cracker gets smashed anymore. Can we get back to refining our models of how the universe works? Is it too early to start hyping the startup of the LHC?

last

one

i

swear.

the

LHC

will

kill us all!

So, does the Priest's magic abilities allow him to turn anything into the Lv. 99 Zombie Christ? Or can he only target unleavened bread? Baked goods in general? Can he trick a Wandering Jew into eating a matzoh ball and then cast Transubstantiate on the crumbs in his opponent's stomach?

It saddens me that I actually fear for the safety of Dr. Myers because of his intention to desecrate the Quran.

No excuses for muslim religious nutcases, but I wonder how much of this concern it based not on reality but instead on carefully cultivated fear. I mean, sure muslim nutcases did kill americans on 9/11, and they quite frequently kill people in the middle east... but is there really an individual threat from them here in the US?

Were any of the newspapers that reprinted the cartoons in the US subject to death threats? Was there rioting here?
Have ANY prominent americans received death threats for saying bad things about Islam? I mean - it happens every few minutes on nationwide radio.

Has PZ received hate mail and death threats over his ridicule of the Muslim religion?

PZ has called out that religion for its stupidity and barbarousness many times in the past. Was there ever a brouhaha over them? NO. Have we had Muslim trolls here constantly? NO. Has a Muslim group made press releases and tried to get him fired? NO. Has he received death threats from Muslims? No, or at least not that he has revealed.

ALL of those things have been done on the part of Christians - and not just now - in the past also.

If there is a danger to PZ, it is from Christians.
Stop playing up this muslimphobia that lets these christians off the hook.

Christians threatened PZs life. Christians tried to get him fired. Christians have gone batshit over this. Christians constantly troll the site and harass him.

We have religious fanatics and terrorists in this country, and they are Christians.

I find it amusing that people are saying not to desecrate the book because muslims will do something.

Isn't that then an even better reason to do so. If we run and hide every time someone gets their panties in a twist, they will simply do it again, only bigger and more violent.

You people may as well bend over now, since thats what people did over the cartoons...and don't forget the teddy bear...

last

one

i

swear.

the

LHC

will

kill us all!

Not.

PZ is going to show the world how he can get Catholics and Muslims angry. I can see it now, riots in the streets of Pakistan in protest of Meyers handling of the Quran. More angry letters from Catholics in protest in Meyers conduct in regards to the wafer. PZ thumps his chest, and says; "it's just a wafer, and it's just a "silly book" no big deal and I will show the world!!!" Boy, that will surely convince them...lol

I wouldn't be surprise if something like that would happen in regards to PZ protest of so-called holy items concerning religious groups. Stirring up people on purpose because you disagree, is not right.

while smoking his cigarette, he puffed out some smoke into the air and said:'God, that's for you.'
He died at the age of 32 of LUNG CANCER in a horrible manner.

A smoker died of lung cancer? Obviously this must have been the wrath of god.

Does that mean warning labels will be added on bibles? Something like "God may cause lung cancer"

RWA:

-you don't need to use blockquote with inline style tags (just "p" will do).

-preview is your friend (even works with style tags).

-specify no-repeat, and the exact size of the image you want to use as a background.

sample:

p style="background: transparent url(link) no-repeat scroll 0%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; width: 666px; height: 666px;

put the right link in and the right measurements for the pic, bracket it up and you should be good to go.

Remind me again how "desecrating" a cracker or a book is helping the Atheist cause? It's just plain childish. What are you trying to prove? That you're better than other people, because NOTHING is "sacred" to you?

It seems to me you're getting suckered into this now, regardless that it started out as outrage against a few nuts in a catholic church.

"All I can say is, fair enough. Just whatever I do to the book, I'll also do to the cracker."

Okay, so here's a thought. Bring the Qurans to a local mosque and bring the Hosts to the Assumption Catholic Church. I'm sure someone would even come pick them up from you if you gave them a call. Both would be treated equally and you could prove you're a decent human being. You could prove that you're an educated, civilized adult.

Stirring up people on purpose because you disagree, is not right.

NOT challenging superstitious nonsense is orders of magnitude worse, let alone NOT challenging those who hold such nonsense so dear they would kill for it, or even threaten to.

or would you prefer we accepted the original Catholic dogma on geocentrism, because some Catholics would have been willing to burn you at the stake for your heresy at the time?

I swear, it is almost amusing to see the endless parade of the clueless.

And if this turns into another thousand comment thread, I shall be very, very cranky.

If you're cranky will that make your act towards the cracker and book more creative and disgusting? If so, I may be moved to comment another 500 times just to see what you can come up with.

I still believe that a scientific examination of some of these crackers is the most appropriate thing for a biology professor to do to them.

PZ could dissect a couple under a microscope to see whether any structural changes had taken place within them, then he could put the pieces into a blender in order to homogenise them, after which he could run a simple test on the homogenised remains to discover whether there were any traces of animal protein in them.
It would be a simple, dignified, and elegant way to desecrate a wafer or two. And it could also be viewed as advancing the cause of science. At least it would achieve the goal of clearly demonstrating to the transubstantiationist nutters out there that they're still just 'frackin crackers'.(TM)

"Okay, so here's a thought. Bring the Qurans to a local mosque and bring the Hosts to the Assumption Catholic Church. I'm sure someone would even come pick them up from you if you gave them a call. Both would be treated equally and you could prove you're a decent human being. You could prove that you're an educated, civilized adult."

Yeah, because bending over backwards to avoid offending the religious or their silly beliefs has worked out so well for everyone in the past. They're just a fun-loving, live and let live bunch who would seek to offend or push their beliefs on us. If anything, we should give them more respect and not challenge them at all. If all goes well, they can get into a position of great power and I'm sure we'll all be in an age of great enlightenment.

Bring the Qurans to a local mosque and bring the Hosts to the Assumption Catholic Church. I'm sure someone would even come pick them up from you if you gave them a call. Both would be treated equally and you could prove you're a decent human being.

I wouldn't. Remember the poisoning threat? What if the local church thought that it was a good idea to use the crackers? (There may even be some rule about it being immoral to throw out excess consecrated hosts, though I'm not sure, not being a Catholic. But it would be consistent with the reaction to the idea that someone wanted to take one home.)

And I'm sure the nearest mosque probably has plenty of copies of the Quran. Now I, on the other hand, have no copies of the Quran whatsoever and would be glad to receive one if PZ would think that a proper way to dispose of it. I could promise to snicker at least once and treat it with no more reverence than any other book, if that would satisfy everyone who wants him to treat it ill.

Cracker,yawn,Quran,yawn,catholic,yawn,unfair,yawn,stupid,yawn,hateful,yawn,
transgrottomortomogriciation,yawn,envy,yawn,amendment,yawn,bigot,yawn....

In other news,the holy Pedonazi has left Australia "rejuvenated".

I still believe that a scientific examination of some of these crackers is the most appropriate thing for a biology professor to do to them.

DNA analysis! If they're the body of Christ then they must contain the DNA of Christ...he could settle the 2000 year old mystery of who Jesus' father really was! Maybe a mitochondrial analysis too to check out his maternal lineage...and since he has more than one wafer he could do repeat testing to confirm the result...I think you're onto something here.

Ichthyic, thanks

Ichthyic, thanks

np.

I've known how to use style tags in comments for years, but for some odd reason, it never clicked to me to utilize them to post background images in comments before Kobra mentioned it a few days back.

I wrote to sciblogs to poke around and see if they had objections to images in comments (which would be the reason they disabled standard image tags to begin with?), but never heard back.

I figured they might have some bandwidth concerns, or rights issues, but what the hell, if they aren't gonna complain, I'm not gonna.

a few pictures here and there should spice up the place.

gary silis makes his god sound like a serial killer.