PZ Myers - Transubstantiating from Scientist to New Atheist Activist

FYI: This is the other essay that I wrote before PZ Myers - The Desecration Delusion and in relation to PZ Myers Complements Christianity, but in typical dyslexic (and procrastinative) form am posting now - after the fact, and after the act.

Prof. PZ Myers made the point that "When the Buddhas of Bamyan were dynamited, it wasn't an atheist who lit the fuse…We aren't out to eradicate the world of ideas or obliterate the vestiges of our religious history in art and architecture." I wonder what he means by "We"? Of course, it could be pointed out that, to name one such example, from 1917 to 1969, the Communists destroyed 41,000 of Russia's 48,000 churches. But my point in mentioning his statements is that I infer that he is stating that there was something wrong with destroying the statues. He appears to think that it is wrong to defame other people's objects of worship.

With this in mind, we come to Prof. PZ Myers' statements, which he posted as "IT'S A FRACKIN' CRACKER!" about a college student who, as Prof. PZ Myers did not bother pointing out, walked away from a Roman Catholic Mass with a consecrated communion wafer, or Eucharist as a protest against student fees for religious services. Prof. PZ Myers refers to the Eucharist as, "a god****ed cracker." (I placed asterisks here and will do so again below for the sake of congeniality).

Prof. PZ Myers wrote:

"There are days when it is agony to read the news, because people are so god****ed stupid. Petty and stupid. Hateful and stupid. Just plain stupid. And nothing makes them stupider than religion…He [the student] walked off with a cracker that was put in his mouth, and people in the church fought with him to get it back. It is just a cracker! Catholics worldwide became furious. Would you believe this isn't hyperbole? People around the world are actually extremely angry about this - [the student] has been sent death threats over his cracker. Those are just kooks, you might say…Crazy Christian fanatics right here in our own country have been threatening to kill a young man over a cracker. This is insane. These people are demented ****wits…It is a culture of deluded lunatics calling the shots and making human beings dance to their mythical bunkum."

Of interest may be that Prof. PZ Myers ripped a page out of a Bible (see here).
Allow me to agree at this point that "Crazy Christian fanatics" are contradicting the tenets of their faith for making death threats against the student. Although, the fact of this contradiction calls into question whether they can logically be referred to as "Christian." Moreover, it is sad but true that there are these sorts of fanatics at the bottom of every worldview. I do not know any anti-atheism blogger who have not experienced harassment of all sorts from various kinds of cyber-hacking to death threats and threats of violence against spouses and even children. This proves that this is not a Christian issue nor a "religion" issue but an issue of prejudice in all of its facets.

He continues thusly:

"So, what to do. I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers?... 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…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."

At this point I would like to state that I, being a Christian who partakes in communion, do not believe in the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. One may not be able to talk the faithful out of such doctrines although Prof. PZ Myers' childish and malicious statements and plans are less likely to succeed than other courses of action. In fact, I have devoted a blog to this specific topic where I deal with the issue from the stand point of logic, history and biblical statements. I have done this with regards to Roman Catholicism's Doctrine of Eucharist, Roman Catholic Maryology and Roman Catholicism's Doctrine of Purgatory. There are ways to handle these issues: death threats are not the way and neither are childish and malicious plans to insult people even further.

After his own malicious contribution to the Eucharist fiasco, Prof. PZ Myers further wrote the following:

"So far today, I have received 39 pieces of personal hate mail of varying degrees of literacy, all because I was rude to a cracker. Four of them have included death threats, a personal one day record. Thirty-four of them have demanded that I be fired. Twenty-five of them have told me to desecrate a copy of the Koran, instead, or in some similar way offend Muslims, because - in a multiplicity of ironic cluelessness - apparently only some religious icons must be protected, and I would only offend Catholics because they are all so nice that none of them would wish me harm. I even have one email that says I should be fired, that the author would like to kill me, and that I only criticize because Catholics are so gentle and kind."

He then asks his screeching monkeys to write the President of the University of Minnesota in order to assure him that Prof. PZ Myers is not so bad after all.
Can Prof. PZ Myers really be so clueless? I find myself forced to answer in the affirmative. Let us review his statements:
"I have received 39 pieces of personal hate mail"
He had previously stated that "Catholics worldwide became furious," statistically speaking if "Catholics worldwide became furious" and he got 39 pieces of mail we are talking about fractions of a fraction of a fraction of a miniscule fraction of "Catholics worldwide."

"because I was rude to a cracker"
Simply read his original statements and it will become self-evident that this was not about being rude to a cracker but about being foul and malicious.

"Four of them have included death threats"
Unquestionably condemnable and contradictory to Christian tenets. Note that I can say that based on absolute Christian morality. But what if an atheist made death threats and even, God forbid, carry them out? On what basis would another atheist condemn their actions? If you know atheism then you know that the answer is personal preference or arguments from outrage. Dennis Prager has rightly stated, "Unhappy, let alone angry, religious people provide more persuasive arguments for atheism and secularism than do all the arguments of atheists."

"Thirty-four of them have demanded that I be fired."
What is wrong with people demanded that he be fired? The fact is that Prof. PZ Myers cannot take it yet, he can dish it out. With regards to science teachers and state science standards that do not infer atheism from biology Prof. PZ Myers demanded "the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many schoolboard members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians."

"Twenty-five of them have told me to desecrate a copy of the Koran, instead, or in some similar way offend Muslims, because - in a multiplicity of ironic cluelessness - apparently only some religious icons must be protected."
I also thought that it would be a fascinating experiment to see if Prof. PZ Myers had the chutzpa to desecrate a copy of the Koran (aka "Qur'an") but not, as he erroneously thinks, because only some religious icons must be protected. Rather, because he is obviously being selective. And no, he did not answer as to why he will not desecrate a Koran.

Oh, but he did explain that Catholics are not "all so nice that none of them would wish me harm" because he received a grand total of four death threats out of all "Catholics worldwide" who "became furious." This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Catholics are so nice that they do not wish him harm." Ok, we could not say "all so nice that none of them would wish me harm" because "all" means "all" and "none" means "none." Thus, Prof. PZ Myers would have to state, "all Catholics are not so nice after all and my proof is that out of all the furious Catholics worldwide a grand total of four of them are not so nice." Of course, this presupposes that the writers were Catholics, or were Christians, or were theists at all. Prof. PZ Myers does not know who they were and I do not either however, I do have an anti-atheism blogger friend who had many, many problems with certain personages claiming to be him while stirring up a ruckus on various websites.

Lastly, we come to a very telling statement that came at the end of his please woo the President post:

"…unlike the religious screeds I'm seeing, you take the time to proofread and send him something that at least looks like a high school graduate wrote it, which will put you way above the level of the hate mail. Be polite and rational, too!"

The fact that he has to make this statement tells you something, tells you quite a bit, in fact. He knows that his monkeys are rabid and as willing to express their prejudice as maliciously and he and so he attempts to pull their reins. Prof. Richard Dawkins also got into the act by begging his readers to Please "WRITE IN SUPPORT OF PZ MYERS":

"Please take care to write in a good, literate, adult style, in order to increase the contrast between the letters of support and the incoherent, juvenile flaming that will doubtless characterise the letters from the Catholics."

This is iron sharpening irony. Both of these Profs know that their readership consists, to some large extent, of rabid expressers of malice. Thus, they both have to beg their readers to not behave, or write, as they generally do.

Yet, the ultimate irony is that they are begging their readers, and note this carefully, not to, here it is, not to write as Prof. PZ Myers and Prof. Richard Dawkins are infamous for doing. They have become celebrities, made quite a few shekels and based entire books and lectures on expressing screed, hate, being impolite, irrational, in a non-adult style, incoherent, and juvenile. When this is your modis operandi it only encourages your admirers to act likewise and, sadly, also encourages those who disagree with you to do likewise (at least a statistically insignificant minority of them).