Crackers and Crackpots – In Defense of PZ Myers against stupid fanatical bastards

There is a process here at MoU. But because this can not wait, I feel it imperitave that we alert as many people to the stupidity that runs like a cold stream beneath our feet. Not being in the States, I have a distinct handicap when it comes to hearing of news across the seas. Let me alert you to the current series of events that begun on the 5 July.

It appears that a UCF student, Webster Cook, upset some Catholics during his attendance of Mass, on Sunday 29 June. Is he a raging anti-religious activist like yours truly? No, on the contrary. He is in fact… Catholic. Did he decide to spraypaint a dancing Jesus/Mary Magdelene/funny God picture on the walls? Did he rip off posters? Did he spit or kick or punch religious believers? No. You might say they did it to him. Then what did he do to warrant such a tirade of abuse, scorn and controversy?

He stole a small savoury biscuit. To be more precise, a cracker. To add the brush of religious nonsense: the Eucharist. This little piece of biscuit-thing is so “holy”, Catholics consider it to be the Body of Christ. The mordant application of cannibalism is far too cliche to warrant notice (adding the drinking of wine which they consider… you guessed it: the Blood of Christ). If Jews commit deicide, are Catholics commiting deiphagia?

Cook attended mass that Sunday with the goal to teach a friend about his faith. His friend was interested in seeing what this whole business about eating wafers was about. Cook says:

“When I received the Eucharist, my intention was to bring it back to my seat to show him,” Cook said. “I took about three steps from the woman distributing the Eucharist and someone grabbed the inside of my elbow and blocked the path in front of me. At that point I put it in my mouth so they’d leave me alone and I went back to my seat and I removed it from my mouth.”

Already the waters were stirred because the stupid fucking biscuit wasn’t eaten (excuse my expletives, but I am angry and am bypassing the usual writing procedure to let everyone know).

He was apparently monitored by a Church leader, who then came up to him and

grabbed my wrist with her right hand, with her left hand grabbed my fingers and was trying to pry them open to get the Eucharist out of my hand,” Cook said, adding she wouldn’t immediately take her hands off him despite several requests.

He then filed a complaint. The Catholics filed their own complaint. Yes an official complaint which could see Cook, a UCF Student Senator, suspended and/or expelled (a word Myers knows all too well). In his anger at this nonsense, Cook had taken the Eucharist home. It was apparently kept in a plastic bag. And because of this, the Catholic League was brought in, he received death-threats and was, of course, in danger of losing his position as a student.

For a cracker!

But here’s the most bizarre part. And it is maybe the crossing of world-views, namely reason and absurdity, that it remains bizarre to me.

“It is hurtful,” said Father Migeul Gonzalez with the [Catholic] Diocese. “Imagine if they kidnapped somebody and you make a plea for that individual to please return that loved one to the family.”

Gonzalez said the Diocese is willing to meet with Cook and help him understand the importance of the Eucharist in hopes of him returning it. The Diocese is dispatching a nun to UCF’s campus to oversee the next mass, protect the Eucharist and in hopes Cook will return it.

Cook said he’d consider returning the Eucharist if he gets an apology and a meeting with the Bishop’s office to discuss the Diocese’s policy on physical force.

Gonzalez said intentionally abusing the Eucharist is classified as a mortal sin in the Catholic church, the most severe possible. If it’s not returned, the community of faith will have to ask for forgiveness.

“We have to make acts of reparation,” Gonzalez said. “The whole community is going to turn to prayer. We’ll ask the Lord for pardon, forgiveness, peace, not only for the whole community affected by it, but also for [Cook], we offer prayers for him as well.” 

That’s right. Apparently keeping a piece of wafer in a plastic bag is worse than kidnapping and torturing a child. Oh of course! In that case, I would understand – except for the fact that it is a biscuit. And the fact that more people get angry and emotional over Cook stealing a piece of waver than they do about child- and sex-trafficking that happens EVERYDAY. And why would such a great omnipotenet and omniscienct God care about this piece of wafer? By showing so much vitriol, “in the Name of God”, the Catholics are only making their powerful God look more and more like an angry child – who, er, wants the biggest biscuit. Gee, could it be because their God is a projection and a nice-buffer for their insecurities about death, meaning, truth and uncertainty? No that couldn’t possibly be it.

Gonzalez is, if anything, one arrogant bastard to think he can pray for Cook who just wanted all the controversy to go away. But then, these fantatical Catholics (those who attacked Cook in some way) are all arrogant, egotistical if they think they speak for a god who is worried about a bit of savoury.

But here’s the rub: it is no longer Cook who is the focus but the great PZ Myers. His blog, Pharyngula, is there alongside with other links. Please visit it and give him your support.

What did Prof. Myers do?

You’ve probably noticed a trend here: the reactions from the religious in these matters almost constitute events of such gravity that you would be forgiven for thinking a child was murdered, tortured, a church burnt or some such. But no – it is all around the CRACKER! Yes, the holy cracker. If God’s divinity can rest within the folds of a not particularly tasty savoury biscuit, how incredible can his divinity be?

But this is not an article to Godbash - I do that in other ones. Myers has challenged the absurdity of it all by saying he would gladly do the same. As Myers has said:

I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web.”

To the Catholics raging above, this is blasphemous naturally.

Myers has incited the Catholic League – as he says “they have prepared a stake for me”. In response, that strange man Bill Donahue, president of the CL, has said:

“It is hard to think of anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ. We look to those who have oversight responsibility to act quickly and decisively.”

Actually its not that hard: how about the millions dying of viruses that could be prevented by contraception? How about fathers locking their daughters up and raping them for decades? How about gencide? How about Jehovah’s Witness children dying because their parents won’t allow blood transfusions? Those appear to be “more vile” than keeping a piece of wafer in a packet, away from Church for a few days.

Pray tell: who gets hurt? Is anyone bleeding copiously when the wafer was away? Did hearts stop? Did children lose their parents? No! No one was hurt – only “feelings”. Pull the feelings card, pull the faith card, and the house of cards that is religious belief comes falling down to reveal a naked, scared child hiding beneath.

As Myers himself said similarly in response to Donahue: ”Hey, Bill! I can think of something more vile! How about intentionally desecrating the bodies of young altar boys who respect the position of trust held by Catholic priests? I think that is a lot more vile than mistreating a cracker.”

The cracker here is no longer the biscuit, but Donahue, I wager.

Myers reported:

“So far today, I have received 39 pieces of personal hate mail of varying degrees of literacy… Four of them have included death threats… Oh, and of course, the university president’s office has also received lots of mail demanding my immediate ouster (keep in mind, though…Catholics are no threat to anyone at all.) I don’t know how much, but since Donohue published the president’s email address and not mine, I imagine it’s much greater than what I’ve seen. Those lovely Dark Age fanatics at the Catholic League have started a write-in campaign to start up an inquisition.So no poll-crashing today. Instead, I would appreciate it if you would write a short note to President Robert Bruininks in support (he’s going to hate me for this). I have to ask for a few constraints, though: only do so if you are willing to sign a real name to it – most of the complaint mail I’m getting uses fake names, making it much less persuasive – and that, 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!

 I wrote to Bruininks the following:

Dear President Bruininks

I hope to add my defense of Prof Myers amidst the ridiculous storm of outrage that has burst above his head. I find it offensive to what Prof. Myers stands for and all that he has done to promote reason and open-mindedness to his readers. In defending Webster Cook he was defending reason. Ignore the stupidity that comes crawling like some rough beast into your field of responses, they have nothing but nonsensical reasoning to carry them forward.

I proudly put my name in his support and do not care what any one person or group thinks. If they begin assaulting those of us who do find belief systems as nonsensical, how are they dispelling this notion by inciting violence, bigotry and hatred? How are PZ Myers, myself and Prof. Myers’ other readers supposed to find sense if they give us nothing but irrational emotional responses to something that is in fact reasonable. This is the Rushdie Affair again and the American Taliban are moving amidst the shifting sands of bullshit.

I am writing about this in my blog too and I welcome all the hate mail and hate speech and death-threats they have. I want those fatwas. I hope you support Prof. Myers and all those who fight for reason – because it IS a battle. And Prof. Myers is definitely one of the leaders against Unreason. Please help him and us President Bruininks.

Thank you for reading this.

Regards

Tauriq Moosa

Spokesperson for the Atheist & Agnostic Society, University of Cape Town, South Africa

I hope everyone who reads this does the same, or at least spreads word about the ludicrous nature of this whole spectacle. To think that the Catholics involved in this, those who are asking for Myers resignation and sending him death-threats, are promoting themselves as being meek and mild-mannered, not in any danger of harming anyone. They then have the nerve to blame Myers for inciting this, enough to warrant extra security at a recent Catholic convention. The convention took place “in his backyard”, therefore they were worried he would obviously steal their biscuits. Of course, Myers lives “150 miles” away but we are not dealing with reason here, so apparently that means in your backyard. (The image I have is Myers as a Grinch stealing the wafers).

I have seen this before in terms of who is to be blamed – the Rushdie Affair. Western apologists for Islam constantly said Rushdie brought it on himself, various politicians were dancing at the feet and quivering before the mullahs. I’m sorry – its such bullshit. Myers is not attacking god, Cook was not attacking god. It is the absurdity surrounding it all – death threats, the threat of losing his job, and so on because OF A BISCUIT!

I think that Myers and myself probably have more “faith” in humanity than these stupid religious fanatics, with their conceptions of abortion and gay-rights and any other obsession that delves into other people’s private lives. People so insecure with their own, they only find validation in scorning someone else’s. Let no one marry another of the same sex! Let no one abort a “baby” according to Rev. Donald Spitz from his comment on my article! And worst of all, according to Bill Donahue et al, let no one defile a biscuit!

Myers I’d like to note, did not at the time perform any of these “atrocities” agaisnt the biscuit. He only threatened to, using rhetoric to galvanise the religious in their lake of absurdity. And waters were stirred.

The reactions against Webster Cook, and PZ Myers are uncalled for, dangerous and plain stupid. Trust religion to cite the ordinary CHURCH-GOER into phyically harassing ANOTHER church-goer, of THE SAME FAITH; to then bring this to the attention of the university to oust the student; to be on the net, to FIND Myer’s page and read his anger and scorn; to read about people and actions Myers rightly called “goddamned stupid. Petty and stupid. Hateful and stupid. Just plain stupid. And nothing makes them stupider than religion.”These people then rally up the Catholic League to being a witch-hunt to have Myers sacked. These people send a little University Professor death-threats. These people are “increasing their security” to fight off the Grinch of wafers who lives um 150 miles away.

This stupidity has to stop. And the scariest part is not that it is fanatics but that there are so many of them. And that they all are serious. I have stressed this a lot and I will do so again – it doesnt matter what you believe, or what I believe, but the person with the intent, motive and opportunity to deal pain, suffering or damage to you. If we live in a world where a storm of controversy open up over the “kidnapping” of biscuit and it is seriously viewed as the worst thing imaginable, we have a lot of reconstructing to do in our reality.

Wake up, you stupid bastards. If you are so worried about biscuits, just pray for more. I’m pretty sure that a being that made a universe would have little trouble making a slightly sour-tasting wafer.