PZ Myers has gone and gotten himself embroiled in another one of those imbroglios. For those of you who don’t trouble to read any other blogs, the story began with the report of a student in Florida who smuggled a Communion wafer — the Body of Christ, to Catholics — out of Mass. This led to something of an overreaction on the part of some local believers, who referred to the stunt as a “hate crime,” and the student even received death threats. (You remember the part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says “Blessed are those who exterminate those who insult Me,” right?)
PZ was roused to indignation by the incident, and wrote a provocative post in which he volunteered to do grievous harm to Communion wafers, if he could just get his hands on any.
Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — 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 … 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. If you can smuggle some out from under the armed guards and grim nuns hovering over your local communion ceremony, just write to me and I’ll send you my home address.
But the thing that took the whole mess to another level was the intervention of Bill Donohue, whose Catholic League represents the very most lunatic fringe of the Church. Donohue, who specializes in being outraged, contacted the administration at the University of Minnesota, as well as the state legislature. Later deciding that this level of dudgeon wasn’t quite high enough, Donohue soon after upped the ante, prompting a delegate to the Republican National Convention to demand additional security, as the delegates felt physically threatened by PZ and his assembled hordes. (The Republican convention will be held in the Twin Cities, about 150 miles away from PZ’s university in Morris, Minnesota.)
There is a lot of craziness here. People are sending death threats and attacking someone’s employment because of hypothetical (not even actual) violence to a wafer. Even for someone who is a literal believer in transubstantiation, threatening violence against someone who mocks your beliefs doesn’t seem like a very Christian attitude. Donohue and his friends are acting like buffoons, giving free ammunition to people who think that all religious believers are nutjobs. But it gets him on TV, so he’s unlikely to desist.
However.
We should hold our friends to a much higher standards than we hold our adversaries. There is no way in which PZ is comparable to the folks sending him death threats. I completely agree with him on the substantive question — it’s just a cracker. It doesn’t turn into anyone’s body, and there’s nothing different about a “consecrated” wafer than an unconsecrated one — the laws of physics have something to say about that.
But I thought his original post was severely misguided. It’s not a matter of freedom of speech — PZ has every right to post whatever opinions he wants on his blog, and I admire him immensely for his passionate advocacy for the cause of godlessness. But just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. And there’s a huge difference between arguing passionately that God doesn’t exist, and taking joy in doing things that disturb religious people.
Let me explain this position by way of a parable, which I understand is the preferred device in these situations. Alice and Bob have been friends for a long time. Several years ago, Alice gave birth to a son, who was unfortunately critically ill from the start; after being in intensive care for a few months, he ultimately passed away. Alice’s most prized possession is a tiny baby rattle, which was her son’s only toy for the short time he was alive.
Bob, however, happens to be an expert on rattles. (A childhood hobby — let’s not dig into that.) And he knows for a fact that this rattle can’t be the one that Alice’s son had — this particular model wasn’t even produced until two years after the baby was born. Who knows what mistake happened, but Bob is completely certain that Alice is factually incorrect about the provenance of this rattle.
And Bob, being devoted to the truth above all other things, tries his best to convince Alice that she is mistaken about the rattle. But she won’t be swayed; to her, the rattle is a sentimental token of her attachment to her son, and it means the world to her. Frankly, she is being completely irrational about this.
So, striking a brave blow for truth, Bob steals the rattle when Alice isn’t looking. And then he smashes it into many little pieces, and flushes them all down the toilet.
Surprisingly to Bob, Alice is not impressed with this gesture. Neither, in fact, are many of his friends among the rattle-collecting cognoscenti; rather than appreciating his respect for the truth, they seem to think he was just being “an asshole.”
I think there is some similarity here. It’s an unfortunate feature of a certain strand of contemporary atheism that it doesn’t treat religious believers as fellow humans with whom we disagree, but as tards who function primarily as objects of ridicule. And ridicule has its place. But sometimes it’s gratuitous. Sure, there are stupid/crazy religious people; there are also stupid/crazy atheists, and black people, and white people, and gays, and straights, and Republicans, and Democrats, and Sixers fans, and Celtics fans, and so on. Focusing on stupidest among those with whom you disagree is a sign of weakness, not of strength.
It seems to me that the default stance of a proud secular humanist should be to respect other people as human beings, even if we definitively and unambiguously think they are wrong. There will always be a lunatic fringe (and it may be a big one) that is impervious to reason, and there some good old-fashioned mockery is perfectly called for. But I don’t see the point in going out of one’s way to insult and offend wide swaths of people for no particular purpose, and to do so joyfully and with laughter in your heart. (Apparently the litmus test for integrity vs. hypocrisy on this issue is how you felt about the Mohammed cartoons published in a Danish newspaper a couple of years ago; so you can read my take on that here, and scour the text for inconsistencies.)
Actually, I do see the point in the gratuitous insults, I just don’t like it. Like any other controversial stance, belief in God or not divides people into camps. And once the camps are formed, the temptations of tribalism are difficult to resist. We are smart and courageous and wise; the people who disagree with us are stupid and cowardly and irrational. And it’s easy enough to find plenty of examples of every combination, on any particular side. There is nothing more satisfying than getting together and patting ourselves on the back for how wonderful we are, and snorting with derision at the shambling oafishness of that other tribe over there.
My hope is that humanists can not only patiently explain why God and any accompanying metaphysical superstructure is unnecessary and unsupported by the facts, but also provide compelling role models for living a life of reason, which includes the capacity for respectful disagreement.
I say all this with a certain amount of care, as there is nothing more annoying than people who think that professions of atheism or careful arguments against the existence of God are automatically offensive. Respectful dialogue cuts both ways; people should be able to explain why they don’t believe in the supernatural or why they believe. Even if both atheists and believers are susceptible to the temptations of tribalism, that doesn’t make them equivalent; the atheists have the advantage of being right on the substance. Richard Dawkins and his friends have done a great service to our modern discourse, by letting atheism get a foot in the door of respectable stances that one has to admit are held by a nontrivial fraction of people — even if they stepped on a few toes to do it. But stepping on toes should be a means to an end; it shouldn’t be an end in itself.
Other Sean,
Not to keep harping on this, but bigotry is the official teaching of the Catholic Church. It as an institution is officially opposed to gay marriage, and quite a number of priests and bishops and the Pope himself have publicly campaigned against marriage rights for same-sex couples. And why, exactly? Since references to homosexuality are so thin on the ground in the Bible, why on Earth does the Church feel a need to campaign so stridently for the oppression of millions of otherwise-inoffensive people? If that isn’t bigotry then what is it?
I think we’ve probably said everything about this particular subtopic that can usefully be said. I don’t want to try to tar you with the same brush I’m using on the Church, as many religious believers disagree with these rather nasty sentiments, but Catholicism is not just a shared set of cultural touchstones minding its own business. It is an active and organised force in the world which does not respect the basic human rights of others and does a great deal of harm. If people choose to associate themselves with the Church and accept the authority of its leaders, they’re lending their tacit approval to homophobic oppression. For them to then turn around and demand that the rest of society show respect for the quirks of their rituals is…disingenuous, to say the least. Am I to respect their feelings when they don’t even respect my right to fall in love?
What’s in it for me? There’s no value in promoting a respectful civil society if I’m going to do all the respecting and others are still free to demonise me and deny me equal rights under the law. If the Catholic Church kept itself entirely out of the political sphere, then I’d be more sympathetic. Until then…
I appreciate the tone of Sean’s post. Each human being deserves a measure of respect and there is a fundamental reason for that It is because each human being is a special creation of God, created in his image for a purpose. When you disrespect another person, that disrespect is ultimately directed at God who created that person.
Jesus Christ boiled down all commandments into just two: love God and love people. Sometimes that means showing love to the unlovable, and showing respect is part of that.
Excellent post. HOWEVER,
“Frankly, she is being completely irrational about this.”
I think I understand how you meant this (I can be impressively dense); nevertheless…I have 2 boys, both in their 20’s. You have a long way to go (and congrats; it’s a great ride). If you can remain rational all the time where your kids are concerned, then you are a far better person than I am.
Very nice — not the position I would have expected you to take, but one I completely agree with.
bob on Jul 16th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
As a child, George Gamow swiped a communion wafer and brought it home to examine it under a microscope. Finding it identical to a common cracker, and not at all like human tissue, he immediately rejected his religion.
I’m not a Catholic so don’t take this as the definite word, however in all the comments here no one has questioned the assertion that Catholics believe bread literally turns into skin. They don’t.
The technical description of this is that the RC church believes that the bread retains the “accidents” of bread (ie, it retains all the physical characteristics of bread) while actually becoming the body of Christ in some deeper sense.
Think of it as a certified copy of a birth certificate. Physically it’s not changed into the original birth certificate, but legally it is the same as the original birth certificate.
“When a theory is transformed into an ideology, it begins to destroy the self and self-knowledge. No one can tell it anything new. It is annoyed by any detail which does not fit its world view. Begun as a way to restore one’s sense of reality, now it attempts to discipline real people, to remake natural beings after its own image.”
– Susan Griffin,”The Way of all Ideology,”
I read that somewhere recently, and it’s incredibly accurate to this. I read PZ’s blog (often), and even enjoy the comments below the fold most of the time. However, many, many people there take lack of theology as an ideology in the above sense.
Actually, I think it’s no secret that PZ’s ‘lack of theology” is really anti-theology. I’d expect him to readily explain it as such. All the same, I’m afraid I’ve been watching this business as an outside viewing two warring ideologies, rather than a correct vs incorrect (even if the latter is somewhat true.
Aloysius,
> … bigotry is the official teaching of the Catholic Church. It as an institution is >officially opposed to gay marriage, and quite a number of priests and bishops >and the Pope himself have publicly campaigned against marriage rights for >same-sex couples… If that isn’t bigotry then what is it?
It is opposition to gay marriage. Marriage in Catholic understanding has as a necessary component the transmission of life, which for basic reasons of biology implies it is restricted to a man and a woman.
You may be awfully brainy and all that, but it is not bigotry to disagree with you, and it is a form of bullying to insist that it is.
>if I’m going to do all the respecting and others are still free to demonise me >and deny me equal rights under the law.
So far in this thread you have explained that Catholics (with a gracious exception for those who disassociate themselves from the church) deserve to be `shunned and treated with a certain amount of outright contempt’. You have also implied that Catholics (with the same gracious exception) are evil and despicable.
I do not know your definitions of `to respect’ and ‘to demonise’, but they seem to differ somewhat from mine.
piscator
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Piscator, let’s play a very simple game. Suppose the Catholic Church publicly came out opposing marriage between people of different races on theological grounds. Would that be bigotry? If you agree that it would, I can’t see how you could turn around and claim that opposing same-sex marriage is not: in what way are they not the same?
If you don’t think that would be bigotry, then your ethical compass is so far off from my own that I don’t think we can usefully converse.
Aloysius,
The basic difference is that people of different skin pigmentation can have babies together and people of the same sex can’t.
piscator
Sean,
It is not simply a matter of intellectual disagreement. In the case of fundamentalists (which this is aimed at, no?), they are people who actually believe that people like us deserve to spend an eternity in Hell just because we don’t believe the same as they do. I see little difference between this and other radical totalitarian systems, such as Stalinism or Nazism. The only difference is that we are somehow supposed to be tolerant and respectful towards religious beliefs, whereas secular beliefs can be ridiculed however much we want. But just as the Christian or Muslim can find it deeply meaningful to obey a God which wants to torture non-believers in Hell, I am sure a nazist finds it similarly meaningful to worship Hitler’s ideas. Yet no one would raise the kinds of points you are raising if it was a matter of burning flags of swastikas instead of doing harm to crackers.
piscator,
Do you seriously believe that once we have the technology to fuse the chromosomes of two eggs or two sperm and form a baby that the Catholic church will revise its stance on homosexuality? Of course not. Homosexuality, in the view of the Church, is a sin. It it not just impractical for making children, it is morally wrong to engage in such activities, and the Old Testament goes so far as to say we should stone homosexuals. Believing such a book is holy is, for sure, bigotry.
invicit,
I don’t accept the relevance of the analogy; such hypothetical technology would not affect the biology of the sexual act.
>It it not just impractical for making children, it is morally wrong to engage in >such activities,
The view of the Church is that the act is morally wrong in part because it is impractical for making children: the sexual act should not be divorced from the procreative function. In a similar vein the Church also regards masturbation and fornication as morally wrong, however these beliefs do not receive the same opprobrium. Of course, these teachings are hard and maybe impossible to live up to. But that’s not the point: being part of the Church is a statement that I sin and screw up in all manner of ways, not a statement of moral virtue.
The teaching of the Catholic church is that the Old Testament is holy and that homosexuals must be accepted with respect and compassion, and that every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.
As it may need emphasising: in terms of moral gravity sexual sins come way down: traditional catechesis is that the deadliest of all sins is pride.
piscator
@Neil B.
It isn’t really that simple except to a breathtakingly arrogant figure who appoints him or herself to apportion moral worth and basic respect on the basis of his own prejudices
Well, I am talking of my respect towards those people. It is no one’s business to tell me who should I respect and who not. I choose who I respect, and that’s (one of) my criteria. It is obvious that subjective things like “respect” depend on your personal worldview and not much more else. Speaking for myself, respect is something I value a lot, and that’s why I don’t give it to anyone. If I am going to respect everyone, my respect is worthless.
What algorithm do you use for appointing basic respect, instead? Is there someone else telling you who do you respect and who not? And why the judgment of this someone else is better than yours?
I don’t get it.
You’ve gotten mixed up about the current focus of “multiple worlds” anyway: not the old quantum splitting idea (which involves the same laws of physics, but alternative paths of “wave function collapse.” Current focus on MUs is more about variation in laws of physics (mostly in order to pretend to explain away why the physical constants are finely tuned for the existence of life) for which there is no rigorous, demonstrated basis whatsoever (or show me.)
It’s you getting mixed up.
One thing is the Everett many worlds interpretation of quantum physics. This is something that, as far as I know (I am not a physicist myself), seems to have a pretty strong background, even if it is far from proven “right”.
Another thing is the hypothesis of a multiverse with different “universes” with different laws of physics (i.e. constants) sprouting from one other, endlessly (this is an Andrei Linde idea, IIRC). This is an interesting theory, but of course it is just a theory. At least, however, it is a physical theory, no matter how wild, and that’s different from being a supernatural theory based on late Bronze Age narrative.
As far as I know, these are two different theories however, that do not contradict -they talk of different “levels” of multiverses. You should read the stuff from Max Tegmark on this subject.
Like many others, you talk about evidence for a First Cause/Creator but there’s no evidence one way or the other
Oh please. Do I really need to bring here the Russell teapot?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_teapot
Come on.
That means you have to think about questions like why is there anything at all, why this possible world and not others
I think about those questions. I think we simply have not enough data to find an answer.
It is ambiguous even whether the natural/supernatural distinction makes sense when we wonder “how much exists totally”, since there’s no reason for other worlds to be like ours, or even to be “worlds” instead of say, “beings” quite independent of our physics etc. What is the basis for a dismissive (versus simply the moderate skeptic saying, I can’t find any so I’ll be an agnostic) of “the supernatural” in such a context? IOW, not specific entities dwelling in our world but of different nature, but rather something completely outside and causally responsible.
This surely may be. But again, it is such a wild hypothesis that I would like some math and/or some evidence backing it up. I know there is a (pretty weak IMHO, but there is) probabilistic argument for our universe being a simulation – Nick Bostrom is the author, IIRC. That’s the most we’ve got on the subject.
When you have some evidence, even some hint, or when this comes naturally from developments of theoretical physics, let me know. I’m open to change my mind.
Finally, the sentiment that you can separate ridicule of persons from ridicule of beliefs is faulty, since such persons define themselves so deeply by their beliefs that the two issues become the same.
This is something I have never said, I think. I agree completely the two issues are the same, and in fact I do not respect the persons.
Is this universe, its properties, and other things we already know in conjunction with conceptual justification, evidence that the universe would need to be created? Or, can it be “self-existent” etc. as Bertrand Russell, Sean here and others believe? It’s debatable, not a slam-dunk for there having to be a God, but that implies of course that the “no” answer has no particular higher standing.
Huh, why no higher standing?
The “no” answer is the best according to the Occam’s razor. There is no reason to think “self-existence”, as you call it, is not an intrinsic property of the universe. Of course, there is also no reason to dismiss the contrary. However the “self-existence” theory requires no other entities apart from the Universe itself, so it is way simpler, and the opposite theory would require self-existence of the first cause, as it is too well known, just pushing the problem back. Therefore, until novel evidence is brought to the table, the self-existence of the Universe (or multiverse 🙂 ) is the most sensible theory.
However thank you for the link on modal realism. Interesting philosophical stuff, I’ll read it.
@piscator:
It is opposition to gay marriage. Marriage in Catholic understanding has as a necessary component the transmission of life, which for basic reasons of biology implies it is restricted to a man and a woman.
I think Catholics allow sterile people to marry. If it’s so (I am not 100% sure – I know that not having sexual intercourse at all can make the marriage void, but I don’t know about sterility), your argument is moot.
Hey, I know a lot of you people are basing your attacks on religion on science. Do you ever consider looking at homosexuality from a scientific point of view? If evolution programmed the brains of most humans to be sexually attracted to the opposite sex for the purpose of reproduction, what function does homosexuality serve? Looking at it this way, you could consider homosexuality to be a sort of brain disorder. In fact, it was considered a mental illness less than 40 years ago.
When it comes to the whole gay issue, science and religion may not be in conflict as much as you think. Of course, it more research needs to be done to figure out what is going on in those gay brains.
“Even for someone who is a literal believer in transubstantiation, threatening violence against someone who mocks your beliefs doesn’t seem like a very Christian attitude. ”
Wow — it’s like someone, let’s call him Ahmed, in some country, let’s call it Iran, getting upset about a cartoon mocking his religion. Fancy that.
Of course the one case is an example of the fundamental islamofascism of one billion people, whereas the other case is a nuanced, complicated situation that deserves respect and, god forbid, certainly does not require us to throw about words like terrorism.
Since Catholic priests are supposed to be celibate, I guess they are also suffering from a brain disorder. (Of course, as Rabelais pointed out long ago, the biological real is different than the theological ideal. Well, what he actually said was that even the even shadow of a monastery church steeple can knock up your daughter.)
By the way, a gene can jolly well promote sterility in some of its carriers if it increases overall fitness. There is some evidence, for example, that some of the genes related to homosexuality may have the phenotypical effect of increasing the sexual attractiveness of men so that they increase fertility in women who possess ’em at the same time that they decrease fertility in men. Moreover, these genes seem to occur on the X chromosome, which means that the female children of male homosexuals with the trait are as likely to say “Hello sailor!’ as their gay fathers since all the daughters are guaranteed to inherit the trait.
(I am not vouching for this research, by the way. I only mention it because it point out one of many, many ways that genes for homosexuality could be favorable from a natural selection point of view.)
“Do you ever consider looking at homosexuality from a scientific point of view? If evolution programmed the brains of most humans to be sexually attracted to the opposite sex for the purpose of reproduction, what function does homosexuality serve? Looking at it this way, you could consider homosexuality to be a sort of brain disorder. ”
So Luke, please explain and clarify for us, oh wise one, the many documented cases of homosexual behavior in a wide variety of species.
Well, gee, homosexual behavior in other species could be considered a disorder just as it might be in humans.
My point, though, goes back to evolution. According to theory, natural selection would select against gay genes. Why would there so many gays around? How could there be, as Jim mentions in post # 141, “female children of male homosexuals”? One possibility is that cultures around the world have compelled gays to marry and have children. The Catholics should actually support gay marriage, gays in the army, etc. Get all the gays out of the closet. Don’t force them to be pretend to be straight. They may all die off in a few generations.
These are just some idea. As I wrote previously, nobody seems to understand the phenomenon well. More research is required.
I guess I don’t understand what you are trying to say. If by particular merit, you mean there is good evidence for the existence of some specific hypothetical, then I don’t see why you think the preference for non-existence of such hypotheticals is wide-spread.
If on the other hand you are saying that when we have no good evidence for or against any of several competing hypotheses, there is no good reason to prefer one of them (provisionally) over the others, then William of Occam and I disagree with you, as it only makes sense to me to start with the one with the fewest unknown parameters, until more evidence shows the need for more parameters. For example, it could be the case that all of the known laws of physics, such as Maxwell’s equations, actually contain further unknown terms which are too small to show up in current experiments – but I see no reason to give credence to this until effects attributable to unknown terms show up.
The First Cause and fine-tuning arguments are in the same category as that to me. The first gives me no explanatory bang for its buck, as I still have to explain where the hypothetical creator came from. The second seems like circular reasoning: life exists, therefore it is special, and since it is special it must have been the reason the universe was created. It is like being dealt a poker hand without knowing anything about poker, and assuming the hand must be a royal flush. Who knows what amazing creatures might have existed in another universe, perphaps composed of self-replicating electro-magnetic fields?
I don’t. All I know is that this universe exists. I don’t see the point of assuming anything beyond that until evidence points to some other conclusion.
However, I do accept it as an emprical fact that some smarter people than myself do seem to give such arguments credence, and agree that there is no point in calling them idiots.
Mark me down as in full agreement with Sean’s post, by the way. As I have said elsewhere, I blame evolution, for making us territorial (even when the territory may be symbolic).
One problem with this analogy: Alice’s rattle is not merely one among, say, thousands of generic rattles that she keeps in a bin ritualistically to dispose of once a week with her friends.
Destroying one of those rattles? Rude to be sure.
But stealing the one rattle Alice reasonably believed to be her lost son’s would be evil.
What PZ did was rude, not evil.
“Well, gee, homosexual behavior in other species could be considered a disorder just as it might be in humans.”
But it can hardly then be a sin, an affront to god and all that, can it? In which case why is it a matter of interest to religion? Does religion have useful things to say about diabetes or cancer? Do we consult priests when we design new drugs?
You might want to look at a book titled “Exhuberant Life,” which gives a lot of examples of homosexual and transgendered behavior in a wide range of animals. I watched an episode of PBS “Nature” the other day about how so called transvestite male cuttlefish, since they mimic females, managed to be more reproductively successful than the ordinary males. These behaviors seem to be sexual strategies akin to a sneeker strategy. A male elk that plays the role of a female lives with the females and manages to pass on his genes under the nose of the dominant male who rules over the harem of females. These behaviors occur in mammals and birds, and probably there were bisexual, homosexual or transgender behaving dinosaurs.
The Mosaic law against homosexuality existed for two reasons. It probably in part had to do with a sense that males need to increase the size of the tribe. The other is in line with the Judaic sense of separation, where this law made the ancient Hebrews distinct from the other cultures around them where homosexuality was common. The story of Lot and Abram in Sodom is also an admonishment against homosexuality, and if you have never read this little bit it is worth a read. It is an amusing tale where Lot in order to keep the “angels” from the crowd throws his daughter to them, and then later in a drunken stupor Lot is seduced by his daughters.
Lawrence B. Crowell
Piscator,
Thank you for demonstrating pretty much every point I ever wanted to make. Your distinction is not something that should be taken seriously as a real point worth considering, and I hope that one day you’ll realise that and stop wasting the world’s time with this frivolity. All you have to do is think about sterile heterosexuals for a moment and you’ll see how inherently implausible your procreative restriction on marriage is. There’s no procreative difference between a same-sex couple and a sterile heterosexual one, so to keep denying marriage rights to same-sex couples would just be an act of bigotry, a completely unfounded and offensive assumption that same-sex couples just aren’t as good as opposite-sex ones. At least I certainly find it offensive. If you don’t, I don’t see how you can claim Catholics have any legitimate cause to be offended by Crackergate when much worse is acceptable when directed at homosexuals.
Lawence, that book might worth checking out. However, you didn’t mention the act of sodomy itself in the two examples that you wrote about, the cuttlefish and the elk. The gay males that I’ve known and read about are not sexually attracted to women at all.
It seems to me that the whole phenomenon of homosexuality would be much less common if gays hadn’t been forced to marry and reproduce. That leads back to my earlier point. It’s been the religions of this planet that have a played a major role in forcing the gays to reproduce!