http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/the_…

It

He claims the student in Florida was the reason behind his current crusade to 'set things straight'. He claims he's outraged by the abuse this idiot has received, when it's apparent to anyone that the punk wasn't 'Catholic', and his intent all along was to do something that he knew, full well, would likely get him into serious trouble. In simple English, he wanted to get some kicks at the expense of a religious service (protected under our Constitution). This isn't 'freedom of speech', by any stretch, but a violation of this Catholic campus group to have the integrity of it's service protected from assholes.

Not much more than ~ 150 yrs ago, there were churches in many places in the US which, when built, had to take into account likely distances and trajectories of rocks thrown, whose targets were stained glass.

Any attempt at desecration of the Eucharist (like skipping out of a church with it for some campus show-and-tell, or doing what Myers has been contemplating with his 'protest') would have been met, in any place and at any time, with a forceful, and if necessary, physical response: check your history.

This isn't about 'fundamentalism', worldwide religious turmoil, or any of the other canards cited above.

Myers can exercise his choice to remain an aetheist, to think what he wishes.

He has no right, by any standard, to use his position as an academic, to exhort similar idiots to perfrom further mindless acts. Acts considered amazingly offensive to Catholics.

He doesn't like Catholics? He should check his employer's antidiscrimination guidelines before he opens his mouth again.

LOL!

If any of you PZians are still harboring some hope, let me put an end to your angst. Yes, children, you've all been punk'd.

PZ will set fire to his own hair before he so much as looks at those hosts cross-eyed. Why, you wonder?

Well it's simple, children.

PZ would lose his job. And the pickin's for extremely untalented, big mouthed kooks looking to land comfy teaching jobs are, well, very limited these days.

But don't despair PZians…let not your hearts be troubled! Just as sure as PZ will never desecrate an article of anyone's faith (yes, you can stop sending him Korans too), he will always keep his portal to lunacy open for business…it's his lifeline, his single claim to fame, and it's a lot cheaper than the intense psychoanalysis he'd need to settle down to anything approaching normalcy.

So by all means continue to post your spittle flecked amphigory, your artfully crafted photoshop renditions of your hearts desire, let your hatred pour forth from that evacuated space between your ears as the waters poured from Lake Delton.

PZ's playhouse is open for business.

Hahaaa!

Your quotations and explanations of the inner workings of the Catholic faith and sacraments are interesting, but aren't really the point here. PZ Myers originally objected to the entire notion that stealing a cracker could be considered a 'hate crime' or on par with 'kidnapping'. The student responsible has been threatened for a 'crime' that really only affects a cracker. Myers real thrust with his stated desire to commit cracker abuse was to stick a finger in the eye of the entire notion that there is a victim in cracker crime. After all, he's not a student who is at the mercy of the SGA or university authorities, who can be cowed into submission. He is an adult who in his personal life answers to no one, and has the freedom to make a statement…hence him asking someone to bring him a consecrated cracker, so he can demonstrate some real cracker abuse. The fact that no one has been able to score such a cracker yet is not all that surprising. Most of us atheists don't spend much time hanging around /any/ church, and considering the fervor and hysteria surrounding the Eucharist, it seems that even taking a few extra seconds to swallow it is viewed with suspicion and hostility (as happened in the original case that got this whole ball rolling). Soon as one of us gets our hands on one, I think a new wave of outrage will be pending.

I don't beleve in any of the things you posted. I'm in no way obligated to consider your beliefs sacred any more than you are required to consider the 69 virgins doctrine of Islam to be sacred, or that cows are sacred. In this country, you get to believe whatever you want (or nothing at all). Freedom /from/ religion is as much guaranteed as freedom /of/ religion. Atheists have a saying, “We're the same as you are, except we believe in one less god than you do.”

Until such time as Catholicism is the state religion, none of us are under any obligation to share your outrage over crimes committed against a snack food, nor should we ever be so ridiculous as to compare such a 'crime' to kidnapping or torture.

@tjswift: This is the only time I will address you directly, as judging by other posts of yours you are a professional troll on this site, spending most of your time during the day making childish posts that do nothing but attempt to glorify your own ego. I understand that you are upset by what Myers has threatened to do, and I understand your tactic. He's a professor, so you might as well attack his professional achievements and insult the UofM Morris as the only way you can conceive of to hurt his feelings as much as he has hurt yours. The desperation evident in your daily reminders that he still hasn't desecrated a cracker illustrates this plainly. No one believes you've actually researched his work, but no one really cares if you have. You've discredited your intelligence so many times in this thread alone that there is simply no point debating with you. It's like debating with a 2-year-old when the only thing you have to offer is a “Nyah nyah!” coupled with your fingers jammed in your ears. Some people might be drawn into that kind of frustrating, unproductive 'discussion', but not me.

The “Cracker”: 10

PZ Meyers and his flying monkeys: ZERO

This is what comes when you put your faith in a crackpot that after a career of corn-ball quackery can't even earn enough respect to attain full Professorship at a corn-field extension college.

Kind of sad…heh, not really.

TRUTH: The Eucharist (communion) is handed out not “freely” as you state, but on the honor system. By walking up the the Priest or the Eucharistic Minister, hearing the words “The Body of Christ”, and returning the response, “Amen” is the same as saying, “I am a Catholic Christian who has been properly prepared for the reception of what I do believe to be the Body Blood Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in Sacramental form under the species of bread.” Anyone who goes up to and receives the Eucharist with any other intention or under any other condition violates the honor system = violates their honor, and commits a sacrilege in the least. Someone with hostile intentions, especially if they involve other's in their dirty work violates their honor, the honor of the other, and certainly commits more than a sacrilege, aka, complete disrespect and dishonesty with regard to the sacred and divine.

Myers: “It won't be totally tasteless, but yeah, I'll do something that shows this cracker has no power.”

UNDERSTANDING: First of all, it's too late for trying not to be tasteless, the entire intention is beyond good taste, and completely uncreative. But Myers, you miss the point entirely. The power in the Eucharist is not something that can be measured in some sort of lab or by some sort of gesture. It is the power of grace and mercy at work. Consider an analogy which gets to the idea a little but even this does not speak fully of the reality. If you hold in your hand a seed, it appears to have no power, and indeed it is helpless in your hand and depends entirely on your good will to plant it in fertile soil, and water it. But once you do plant it in fertile soil, and nurture and water it, the power is released from the seed and it grows into a plant. Like this, the Eucharist, Christ himself in Sacramental form places Himself in your hands, and like a seed the power is unleashed wen planed in to the fertile soil, which is a person receiving the Eucharist with a heart of Faith. In this fertile soil the grace present in the Eucharist grows and strengthens the believer, as the believer nurtures this gift which he or she has received.

When you hold the Eucharist in your hand, you are holding the Sacramental (not simply Symbolic) presence of the Christ who willingly gave himself into the hands of those who hated him and were afraid of him. You can choose to do as they did insulting him and desecrating his body, and taking advantage of his meekness out of their hatred born of insecurity. Or you can act as Veronica did, wiping his face and holding the body of this one sacred whom all others where then despising.

Consider again this analogy. Is it not true that a Baby, held in your hands has no power over you? Rather, the child is completely at your disposal, and again helplessly dependent on your good intention. But if you do what is unthinkable and abuse this child's haplessness, and show that it has no 'power' over you, does it's personhood somehow disappear. Governor Schwarzenegger was a baby once, with complete dependency on his family, yet we all know that power was contained in him (for good of for ill, this is not a political statement).

Your intentions and potential actions will show nothing new about the power of the Eucharist. It will only show that you have missed the point entirely in the first place. And those who agree with you have a very limited view of power. Power itself, though fully present in the Eucharist, is not the point. If Jesus wanted to boast of his Omnipotence, he would have come in the form of a hammer, not food, not the form of bread. It speaks of the nature of this power.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9

Does bread itself have might? It does when if is metabolized in the body of a strong person. Thus the Eucharist only has power when it is received by a person of faith, without faith the Eucharist can not be 'metabolized.' You cannot feed bread to a rock and expect the rock to split. Feed bread to a person with a hammer, and you will see the rock split. Feed the Eucharist to a person of Faith and you will see mountains moved, if you have eyes to see.