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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
 Posted - 07/20/2008 : 20:11:01
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Poll Question:
Now that things have calmed down a tiny bit, what do you think should happen to PZ Myers if he ever does publicly "desecrate" a communion wafer (and/or Koran)?
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 07/20/2008 : 23:23:38 [Permalink]
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I would hope that Myers would be able to successfully desecrate the cracker with wide general publicity. The ensuing furor would significantly exacerbate (for a short time) the internecine conflict already present in the Christian community - the longstanding friction between Protestants and Catholics about nonsensical differences within their shared nonsensical belief system.
This would be a good thing and would help in a small way to hasten the day when superstition truly begins to wane and die - at least a great many more people would be exposed to the stubbornly ineducable mentality of large numbers of otherwise generally sensible people - practicing Catholics.
I strongly disagree with those who feel that such an act is "a stupid over-reaction", or "it's a childish response"; as much as I disagree with those who feel it's an overreaction to forcefully and publicly disagree with Bush's neocon's desecrations of our Constitution. Ignoring those who are doing harm to reason and rationality will not make them go away!
I also think it would be a good thing for Myers or someone of his testicular girth to perform a similar act with respect to demonstrating the idiocy of the Jewish dietary laws. This inanity should be shown up for the preposterous submission to dogma that it represents; it is just as stupid as the Catholic's deranged devotion to their delusions of Eucharistic "transubstantiation" (a hideously contrived word if I ever saw one!)
Many death threats will ensue.
As to shitting on the Koran, if Myers is up to it, I'm for him 100%! However, these crazies are a great many rungs higher on the ladder of insanity than most Christians or Jews. Witness Theo Van Gogh and Salman Rushdie.
PJ will definitely be putting himself in danger of big harm in a big way if he fucks around with the imbecilic totems of the hebephrenic Islamic lunatics.
I say, if you've got the gonies; go for it! But I would surely hope he would have full knowledge of and be prepared with adequate protection for what he was about to subject himself to!
Many death attempts will ensue! |
| Edited by - bngbuck on 07/21/2008 13:25:42 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
 Posted - 07/21/2008 : 01:14:34 [Permalink]
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Bill:
I also think it would be a good thing for Myers or someone of his testicular girth to perform a similar act with respect to demonstrating the idiocy of the Jewish dietary laws. |
You mean like the majority of Jewish people who already ignore those laws? Or do you actually think that any orthodox Jew gives a rats ass about what you, me or Myers eats? Or are you proposing to force feed an orthodox Jew a ham sandwich?
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 07:19:23 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Bill:
I also think it would be a good thing for Myers or someone of his testicular girth to perform a similar act with respect to demonstrating the idiocy of the Jewish dietary laws. |
You mean like the majority of Jewish people who already ignore those laws? Or do you actually think that any orthodox Jew gives a rats ass about what you, me or Myers eats? Or are you proposing to force feed an orthodox Jew a ham sandwich? 
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I would force-feed him maws & chittlings. If you must piss someone off, do it in spades!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 08:18:39 [Permalink]
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| I believe its a bad idea to intentionally antagonize people via their most cherished beliefs. And expressing your own opinion of those beliefs is not, IMO, antagonism. But going into a church and desecrating whatever it is they hold sacred certainly is and no good can come out of it. |
-Chaloobi
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 10:40:23 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
But going into a church and desecrating whatever it is they hold sacred certainly is and no good can come out of it. |
Please note that PZ most certainly is not "going into a church" and doing any desecrating of anything inside one.
And if simply accepting a wafer while intending to not eat it is a desecration, then PZ might do something rude to already-desecrated wafers. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 11:13:44 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by chaloobi
But going into a church and desecrating whatever it is they hold sacred certainly is and no good can come out of it. |
Please note that PZ most certainly is not "going into a church" and doing any desecrating of anything inside one.
And if simply accepting a wafer while intending to not eat it is a desecration, then PZ might do something rude to already-desecrated wafers.
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Whatever the particulars, nothing good will come of it and a whole lot of upset is likely. Why do it? |
-Chaloobi
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| Edited by - chaloobi on 07/21/2008 11:14:12 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 11:23:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
But going into a church and desecrating whatever it is they hold sacred certainly is and no good can come out of it. |
Yes, it could get you busted for malicious mischief, or even vandalism, if nothing else.
Cook is just a kid and kids do stupid things, it goes with the territory, and still, in the final anyalsis, it's just an unlevened, cracker with no priest-inspired, magical powers at all.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 11:59:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
Whatever the particulars, nothing good will come of it and a whole lot of upset is likely. Why do it? |
Getting a whole lot of people upset is the point. Being nice to them has gotten us nowhere, but getting some people into a frothing rage can polarize the internal structure of the church and maybe even cause schism (recall that over the last seven years, when someone suggested that all Muslims are terrorists, the moderate Muslims came to the fore and said, "oh, we're not like them").
We can use the data gathered to establish priorities. Everyone who calls for PZ's head on a spike is a friggin' dangerous lunatic, and we should pay most attention to them and getting them marginalized. Next would come that much larger group that does nothing more than fail to condemn the un-Jesus-like behavior of the first group. Last, there will be a tiny group within the church that actually will come to PZ's defense (or at least question the Christianity of the first group). That last group, even though they're still believers in a magic sky fairy, they need to be encouraged and supported.
And by ensuring that the rabid nutcases continue to get more and more worked up (if we could arrange for wafergate-level affronts every week, that'd be something), we could guarantee that more people in the second group join the third group, further marginalizing the first group.
Along those lines, simply declaring one's desire to desecrate a cracker is working. One doesn't even have to do the deed. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 12:26:12 [Permalink]
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By pushing the envelope, by becoming more controversial, we make the norm seem less controversal. The entertainment industry did it with the constant sexual displays you see on TV, and it worked damn fine for them.
With PZ Myers desecrating a cracker, the fundamentalist Christian is no longer saying, "There's an atheist working at my office." He's instead saying, "There's atheists out there desecrating what I hold sacred." Eventually (hopefully), the "working at my office" bit won't seem so bad. Perhaps even the same Christian will think, "Ok, I'm fine being your coworker and friends and all, just don't disrespect my beliefs like that nutjob Myers."
Sometimes we need to show what we can be like, just so people realize we're not that bad. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
| Edited by - Ricky on 07/21/2008 12:26:40 |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 13:03:55 [Permalink]
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Kil.....
| Or are you proposing to force feed an orthodox Jew a ham sandwich? |
No, surreptitiously!
Hopefully, a whole barbecued pig stuffed with lobster, disguised as a roast lamb stuffed with gefilte fish - to be served to a huge picnic of meshumodim celebrating hannukah!
With plenty of press coverage, the story should be a hit!
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 13:04:16 [Permalink]
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| And yes, there's the Overton Window aspect to all of this, as Ricky points out. That's a real example of "framing," unlike the unevidenced nonsense coming from the likes of Mooney and Nesbit. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 13:09:05 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Kil.....
| Or are you proposing to force feed an orthodox Jew a ham sandwich? |
No, surreptitiously!
Hopefully, a whole barbecued pig stuffed with lobster, disguised as a roast lamb stuffed with gefilte fish - to be served to a huge picnic of meshumodim celebrating hannukah!
With plenty of press coverage, the story should be a hit! |
It'd be back-pages stuff, as it's derivative of a Seinfeld episode where George laces the omelets with lobster, in order to surreptitiously force a Jewish girl to eat the unpure things. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 13:21:39 [Permalink]
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Dave.....
| Getting a whole lot of people upset is the point. Being nice to them has gotten us nowhere, but getting some people into a frothing rage can polarize the internal structure of the church and maybe even cause schism |
This time, I couldn't agree with you more. The more publicity, the more that public attention can be focused on the irrational stupidity of the rituals and idiotic beliefs and behavior of the various Abrahamic religious sects; the more those of undecided religious conviction can be dissuaded from buying in to any of that pernicious fairytale bullshit! And the fewer Christian, Orthodox Jews, and devout Muslims that this world has, the better it becomes! |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 14:23:40 [Permalink]
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I suspect that the last thing PZ would want to do is to desecrate a church. I imagine PZ at home, putting a wafer on an anvil, raising a hammer, and saying, "Where is your God the Father now?"
No, more seriously, this might be seen as a "scientific" experiment for public edification, simply demonstrating the non-magical nature of cookies, and the lack of any Godly smiting as a consequence of cookie desecration. PZ is merely being the little boy who notices that the Emperor is wearing no clothes.
And isn't "desecration" a ridiculously pretentious word or anything that could possibly be done to a cookie?
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 07/21/2008 14:24:27 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 07/21/2008 : 14:23:45 [Permalink]
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| Have fun storming the castle, boys... |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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The wages of sin
