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The Great Desecration [Professor boasts of desecrating Eucharist and Koran]
Pharyngula Blog ^ | 7/24/08 | PZ Myers

Posted on 07/24/2008 8:01:47 PM PDT by AHerald

I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus's tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel. My apologies to those who hoped for more, but the worst I can do is show my unconcerned contempt.

By the way, I didn't want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur'an and The God Delusion. They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet. You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanity's knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality. You will not find wisdom in rituals and sacraments and dogma, which build only self-satisfied ignorance, but you can find truth by looking at your world with fresh eyes and a questioning mind.

(Excerpt) Read more at scienceblogs.com ...


TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events; Islam; Worship
KEYWORDS: atheist; catholic; desecration; eucharist; flourh2osalt; flowerh2osalt; particularjudgment
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To: LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget

Anyone who sees a conflict between Intelligen Design and Darwinism, does not understand the concept of a genetic algorithm.


21 posted on 07/24/2008 8:37:16 PM PDT by patton (cuiquam in sua arte credendum)
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To: Clemenza

Technically, it’s not a cracker, it’s a wafer...but why should I expect a scientist would know that...


22 posted on 07/24/2008 8:39:55 PM PDT by Boagenes (I'm your huckleberry, that's just my game.)
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To: LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget

ok, man-made global warming is a farce; evolution is a design feature.

Having said all that, were I a better Catholic, I would pray for the misguided professor. But, I am a sinner, and a bad catholic, so I will let God deal with him.

The Muslims, on the other hand, will probably kill him.


23 posted on 07/24/2008 8:40:36 PM PDT by patton (cuiquam in sua arte credendum)
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To: patton

Or sees more. This is not an argument to have. I will not excogitate your faith if you do not question my grasp.


24 posted on 07/24/2008 8:42:26 PM PDT by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget (Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes)
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To: Boagenes
Thanks for the correction. I've always heard that all wafers were crackers, but not all crackers were wafers (many actually being "biscuits"). I'll have to defer to the good folks at the National Biscuit Company, I guess.

Nevertheless, most of the American population doesn't fetishize the so called "eucharist." Hocus pocus by any other name:

"The origins of the term remain obscure. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term originates from hax pax max Deus adimax, a pseudo-Latin phrase used as a magic formula by conjurors[1]. Some believe it originates from a parody of the Roman Catholic liturgy of the eucharist, which contains the phrase 'Hoc est enim corpus meum.'"

25 posted on 07/24/2008 8:44:35 PM PDT by Clemenza (No Comment)
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To: patton

Rushdie lonely no longer, and as a bonus, a catoonist in their midst. ;-)


26 posted on 07/24/2008 8:45:22 PM PDT by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget (Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes)
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To: LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget

Excogitate away. When did you run out of thoughts, anyway?


27 posted on 07/24/2008 8:45:50 PM PDT by patton (cuiquam in sua arte credendum)
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To: Clemenza
A man rips up pieces of paper, and defiles a cracker.Why should a rational human being such as myself care?

Maybe you should have put that human reason to work before you chose to post your snide, dismissive public insult.

To think that your reason could have led you to chose, in an act of charity and respect for the deeply held beliefs of others, not to hit the Post button ...

28 posted on 07/24/2008 8:47:19 PM PDT by AHerald ("Be faithful to God ... do not bother about the ridicule of the foolish." - St. Pio of Pietrelcina)
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To: AHerald
I myself do not steal communion wafers, fly the swastika, flush the koran, etc. because I have no reason to, and such acts would agitate folks who I really have no desire to offend (including members of my own family).

Nevertheless, I will call a wafer/cracker what it is, and remind you that while your faith may believe that it is magically transformed into the body of Christ, most of us on this planet see it as just a flour-based food product, nothing more, nothing less. I respect your right to believe in what you believe, but don't think I have any obligation to genuflect towards Rome, Mecca, or Jerusalem.

29 posted on 07/24/2008 8:51:23 PM PDT by Clemenza (No Comment)
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To: AHerald

Don’t be so fast to take insult - he may have honest doubts. Many people do.

Why don’t you try reason, instead?


30 posted on 07/24/2008 8:52:00 PM PDT by patton (cuiquam in sua arte credendum)
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To: patton

Fine.... Darwinian evolution is a fact. Some point of generation of life is not known.

Intelligent Design (ID) is a joke. It is based upon failed beliefs shifting to allow the paradigm not to shift.

Some people or groups or beliefs think they know more than God. God knows. They don’t. They learn and adjust. Some kick in their heels and get to make up new rationalizations as to why they were wrong.


31 posted on 07/24/2008 8:52:17 PM PDT by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget (Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes)
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To: LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget

Now, if you or I can write code to evolve, why can’t God?

Do you presume to know more than God?

And wouldn’t a piece of genetic code, that sucessfully evolved for a billion years or so, be considered a very intelligent design?

I don’t see a conflict. God wrote code, things evolved.


32 posted on 07/24/2008 8:57:27 PM PDT by patton (cuiquam in sua arte credendum)
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To: mbraynard

That post was full of things extremely well said. Thank you for those well chosen and logical words.


33 posted on 07/24/2008 9:00:02 PM PDT by blackd77
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To: Clemenza

You have no obligation to perform any religious observation that you do not believe in, and you are smart to avoid offending others.

I agree 100%.

Do you hold any religious beliefs, if I may ask?


34 posted on 07/24/2008 9:00:35 PM PDT by patton (cuiquam in sua arte credendum)
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To: patton

no... actually God set constants.

Constants defined reality.

Reality allowed matter.

Matter allowed energy and mass to be available.

mass and energy and that thing we can describe but dont understand .... you know.... gravity..... allowed it to stick together and get energetic

etc.


35 posted on 07/24/2008 9:02:36 PM PDT by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget (Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes)
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To: patton

I am open to the idea of a creator, in the sense of Aquinas’s “prime mover” (although I find several flaws in Tommasso’s actual theory), but can neither prove nor disprove it. I do not believe in a god/gods that “intervene” in the affairs of men.


36 posted on 07/24/2008 9:04:02 PM PDT by Clemenza (No Comment)
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To: AHerald

It must be really special to know everything and, at the same time, know that every one else is a fool.


37 posted on 07/24/2008 9:04:36 PM PDT by Rembrandt (We would have won Viet Nam w/o Dim interference.)
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To: AHerald; informavoracious; larose; RJR_fan; Prospero; Conservative Vermont Vet; ...
+

Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:

Add me / Remove me

Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.

38 posted on 07/24/2008 9:07:09 PM PDT by narses (...the spirit of Trent is abroad once more.)
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To: Clemenza
I respect your right to believe in what you believe, but don't think I have any obligation to genuflect towards Rome, Mecca, or Jerusalem.

Straw man. No one's asking you to genuflect to anything. I've no interest in your assent to Catholic teaching on the Eucharist. The issue at hand is not whether or not the Eucharist is what Catholics say that it is. The issue is the intentional public desecration of that which others hold to be sacred. Stripped away from any debate about the merits of religious beliefs, what Myer's has done here is a gross violation of simple common civility in the public arena. And that, to answer your initial question is why this issue should matter to "rational human beings" like yourself.

39 posted on 07/24/2008 9:09:02 PM PDT by AHerald ("Be faithful to God ... do not bother about the ridicule of the foolish." - St. Pio of Pietrelcina)
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To: Clemenza

there is a constant in the universe which is escaping me right now that has 16,000,000 digits to the right of the decimal or so, and one to the right or left and the universe would be impossible and there is no known reason for it for it can vary hugely in the math models. All the others we have discovered can vary as much as 3% to 5% and things would still be as they are.

Prime mover indeed.


40 posted on 07/24/2008 9:09:03 PM PDT by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget (Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes)
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