In case you’ve missed it, there is an ongoing battle between PZ Myers, biology prof at U Minn, and, well, the Catholic world. Very, very briefly, someone decided to walk off with a communion wafer during a Catholic mass; some Catholics got upset and went as far as death threats. yeah, doesn’t make sense to me, either. Anyway, Myers, a vocal opponant of Creationism, posted on his blog about the situation and called the wafers “crackers.” At which point some more Catholics went buggo and sent nastygrams. Myers, being a professional shit-stirrer, stepped it up a notch and threatened to desecrate a consecrated wafer. More nastygrams including threats. Wafer was then desecrated, along with pages from the Koran and Richard Dawkins “The God Delusion” (Myers being an equal-opportunity offender). Description of the desecration here.
Predictably, the people who were angered by the threats of desecration were incensed by the actual deed. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, and professional whiner and victim, has been trying to get Myers fired. His latest posting, where he complains that U. Minn. won’t fire Myers due to academic freedom issues, uses just about the worst arguement possible:
“Academic freedom is not the issue: academic malpractice is. For example, Section 10.21 (b) of UMN’s Tenure Code explicitly says that a tenured faculty member can be terminated or suspended for ‘unprofessional conduct which severely impairs a faculty member’s fitness in a professional capacity.’
“In 2001, this part of the Tenure Code was invoked against a professor at UMN because he had images of child porn on his computer. It should now be invoked against Myers, and that is why we will appeal to UMN’s Board of Regents to do just that. It strains credulity to maintain that Christian students can expect fair treatment by a faculty member who has publicly shown nothing but contempt for their religion.
Really? Child porn? That’s what you decide to compare tossing a wafer in the trash to? This arguement would be bad enough coming from most anybody, but from a defender of the Catholic Church, it just sounds kinda creepy.
I’ve nothing against the Catholic Church or Catholics, but people going insane over wafers is simply inconceivable to me. Of course, I also didn’t see what the big fricken’ deal was with cartoons about Mohammad, either.
5 Responses to “Catholic League president Bill Donohue chooses poorly”
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Having grown up Catholic, let me assure you those wafers are nothing to get excited about in the taste department either.
They are very bland and insubstantial, and it’s baffling that they are described as “bread” as they are unleavened, although that might have something to do with the Passover aspects of the Last Supper.
We were told not to chew them as they were parts of Jesus’ body, but rather stick them to the roof of our mouth and let them dissolve. Apparently Jesus melts in your mouth like a M&M…M&M…Mary Magdalene?
The plot thickens.
Also, no eating for a hour before Communion, as Jesus doesn’t want to be down there in your stomach with a hamburger or something.
Back when my dad was a kid, it was twelve hours.
If you took Communion every day, this could be a very neat way to diet while remaining very blessed.
As to the big upset about getting the consecrated wafer and doing bad things to it, the timing must have been very good, as IIRC it remains just a normal wafer till the priest blesses it during the mass, so somebody had to take the thing right during the Communion ceremony itself.
Ah, the joys of ritual cannibalism.
The Catholic League does not represent all Catholics. They certainly don’t represent me.
I guess Myers doesn’t know that the Catholic Church doesn’t like “Creationism” either? Now if he were attacking the creation museum…
As for Academic Freedom, is that the excuse used to act like an academic idiot? Sigh. If he yelled “theatre” in a croweded fire, would he use the same excuse?
> As for Academic Freedom, is that the excuse used to act like an academic idiot?
Yes, it is. Especially when Myers is not doing things on the schools dime. So long as he’s not breaking the law, it’s my understanding that a professor can do pretty much whatever the hell he likes on his own time.
> If he yelled “theatre” in a crowded fire, would he use the same excuse?
Not really sure how that’s relevant to throwing a cracker in the trash. And if I was in a crowded fire, I could think of better things to yell than “theater.”
Keep in mind that this all started when Myers commented on a news story… specifically about some college kid getting threats for having “kidnapped Jesus and held him hostage” and similar idiocy.
Some people really need to learn and accept that just because they consider something of no intrinsic value to b e sacred, not everybody else will… and that they don’t necessarily get to be treated as special just because they hold beliefs that cannot be rationally justified.
Having grown up Roman Catholic, let me assure you that anyone who would take the totality of the Roman Catholic religion as completely true would be as dangerous as any Islamic loon with explosives strapped around their waist.
The whole thing has a completely crazy world-view from the get-go.
“let me assure you that anyone who would take the totality of the religion as true would be…”
There is no such thing as a religion that is fully rationally supportable. One important distinction between religion and science is the concept of “faith.” And I’m fine with that… to certain limits.
You have faith that after you die your soul is going to go to Heaven, Hell, Nirvana, Valhalla, DisneyPlanet? Fine. I can’t logically argue with that, as I have no positive evidence to the contrary, nor do I have a way to test for or against.
You believe that such-and-such a religious practice has real-world applications (prayer healing the sick or turning bread into meat, frex)? You have just stepped into the realm of the verifiable/falsifiable.
You believe that the world is 6,000 years old and that evolution does not occur? You have just declared that centuries of research all pointing in one direction are false… based not on research and data of your own, but faith.