Religion and Science
There’s an interesting essay over at Salon by a Christian physicist discussing the relationship between religion and science. The essay is framed around a discussion of atheistic zealotry of the Dawkins/Hitchens variety, including a description of the recent hateful antics of University of Minnesota biologist PZ Myers. Here’s a (provocative) taste:
Currently, Myers is under fire from his university and an army of righteous Catholics over his self-proclaimed “Great Desecration” caper. On July 24, he pierced a Communion wafer with a rusty nail (“I hope Jesus’ tetanus shots are up to date,” he quipped) and threw it in the trash with coffee grounds and a banana peel. The nail also cut through pages of the Quran and Dawkins’ “The God Delusion.” He featured a photo of the “desecration” on his blog, and wrote, “Nothing must be held sacred. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet.”
Religion is dangerous, he wrote; it breeds hatred and idiocy. It is our job to advance humanity’s knowledge “by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality.” There is no wisdom in our dogmas, Myers warned, just “self-satisfied ignorance.” We find truth only in science, looking at the world “with fresh eyes and a questioning mind.”
If (as I do) we want to criticize the folks who are pushing intelligent design nonsense and who (erroneously) want to stop teaching evolution in public schools, we need to condemn this sort of religio-scientistic trash as well. It is equally harmful and, however fancy the credentials of the people pedaling it, just as ignorant.
UPDATE: The question came up in the comments whether the host that Myers desacrated had been consecrated. I suppose there’s no way to know for sure, but here is what he asked of his readers in the July 8 blog post that got the ball rolling (I won’t link to him):
So, what to do. I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but 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. 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. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart. If you can smuggle some out from under the armed guards and grim nuns hovering over your local communion ceremony, just write to me and I’ll send you my home address.
Tight, Eduardo.
Unfortunately, idiocy begets idiocy, begets idiocy…
I’m happy to see this ugly incident being discussed critically from a scientific point of view. I’ve hesitated to respond myself, or to encourage others’ responses, because any response coming from a Catholic perspective would seem motivated by hurt feelings, and that seems to me like feeding the troll. After all, I can’t imagine what else Myers could have hoped to achieve: He obviously hasn’t disproved the doctrine of the Real Presence (he may have been under the impression that that doctrine implies instant, dramatic doom for anyone who violates it, but if so, he should have asked a real Catholic to verify that before undertaking his unnecessary experiment). No one needed him to point out that it is a “hard teaching”; no one needed him to prove his own disbelief; proof of his personal disbelief is not proof that those who do believe are wrong. The response he has provoked does demonstrate that many people take the notion of the Real Presence quite seriously, but again, that wasn’t in question. And demonstrating how little he holds certain things sacred does not demonstrate that the holding-sacred-of-anything is wrong. So I don’t see how he can claim to have had any real scientific motivation for his actions; it seems his only intention was to offend — which is more than a little immature, and hardly bodes well for the society he imagines would result if everyone who believed in God suddenly became as “rational” as he.
I think the most interesting point in that Salon article is this: “After all, if religion fills a genuine human need, something has to fill the hole created by its passing — something that appeals to billions of people.” I don’t think there’s any “if” about it — religion does fill a genuine human need, one that can’t be argued (or insulted) away. Myers et al. want to insist they don’t have that need, or that they’ve overcome their impulse to “hold things sacred,” but this incident suggests to me that they’re fooling themselves.
I note “an army of righteous Catholics”.
If Jews were to condemn the painting of a swastika on a synagogue. would they be “an army of righteous Jews’?
“If Jews were to condemn the painting of a swastika on a synagogue. would they be “an army of righteous Jews’?”
Yes. But it would be insulting if they were referred to as “self-righteous”.
I fear I do not find the comments by physicist Karl Giberson very interesting at all, at all. Most of the points he raises were answered long ago by the physicist Stanley Jaki.
I am bemused by the cliche about the number of abortionists killed by anti-abortionists. [I forebear referring to the number of children killed by abortionists. There is no numerical equivalency in evil].
PZ Meyers is awesome.
We shouldn’t condemn a scientist for crumpling a cracker, but rather, we need to condemn an organization that protected child rapists, that punished no one for it, and who’s members now make death threats over crackers.
People, it’s a cracker.
P. Z. Myers may be right that religion breeds hatred and idiocy, but he seems to be acting out of hatred himself. Almost as bad are the people who cheer him on with comments (like Sasha’s, above, if it isn’t deleted) on his blog, and somewhere not terribly far behind are the simpleminded critics of his actions who say things like, “Why did you want to hurt Jesus?” It is appalling that someone would want to desecrate a consecrated host, but isn’t it playing into the hands of people like Myers to suggest he was “hurting Jesus”? Even believers in the Real Presence should find that silly.
I do lament that it is very difficult to find respectable, rational critiques of religious topics. They either don’t get published at all, or they get published by obscure publishing houses. But for those who want to make a rational case against religion and actually influence people, rather than merely delight the people who agree with them anyway, Myers is no example to follow.
“People, it’s a cracker.”
Possibly it was; the article doesn’t make clear whether or not the cracker was consecrated.
“PZ Meyers is awesome.”
Perhaps he is, but so far no evidence has been advanced to support that contention. It would seem he is making himself vulnerable to the things that happen to folks who insult other people’s race, or their mothers. “Childish” is the first adjective that springs to mind.
P.Z. Myers called the host a cracker in response to people threatening a college student with various penalties including expulsion when he didn’t “consume” the host like he was supposed to. Myers one-upped the bullies and redirected their anger away from someone who was relatively vulnerable. Why is it so important for us to pretend that his comments occurred in a vacuum?
Why is it so important for us to pretend that his comments occurred in a vacuum?
I can only speak for myself, but I don’t think most people are “pretending” — I think most people who’ve reacted to this, appropriately or not, aren’t aware of that backstory. I didn’t hear about that incident until after I heard about this one, and without knowing much about the student’s case I can’t comment on it or evaluate Myers’s actions in relation to it. It sounds to me like it was the student he was one-upping, though — sacrilege? I’ll show you sacrilege! And I agree with Jim, that’s “childish” at best.
The “It’s just a cracker!” retort is both amusing and dismaying to me — as if Catholics’ faith in the real presence can’t possibly exist alongside a knowledge that what we’re claiming is extremely unlikely. We know it’s only wheat and water; most of us learned about substance and accidentals when we were 7 or 8. We are not now going to say, “By Jove, he’s right! It is a rather farfetched claim!” just because the host didn’t bleed or Myers wasn’t struck by lightning or whatever they think we think should have happened.
Fool’s names and fool’s faces will ALWAYS be found in public places.
Mr.Myers has forgotten that Science has also proved as confirmed by Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music that:
“Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could”
oops, Science has proved, as confirmed by Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music, that:
“Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.”
David Nickol
Why is it bad to cheer PZ Myers on? It is not a “consecrated host,” it’s a cracker. What I find it appalling is that people would want to limit PZ Myers free speech to protect a cracker, which was about to get eaten anyway. Even if all that Myers has done is to prompted a theist to question “Why did you want to hurt Jesus?,” Myers has, in many ways, has succeeded.
Jim Pauwels
There is plenty of evidence PZ Myers is awesome, visit his blog and read his bio. He’s not insulting other people’s race or mother’s, he trashed a cracker. No evidence has been advanced to support the contention what he did was “childish.”
No, thanks, Sasha, I’ve given him more attention than is merited already.
Barbara–
I don’t know the context of Myers’s first use of the term “cracker,” but in at least one post on his website he asked, if I remember correctly, that if someone could obtain a consecrated “cracker” for him, he would commit an act of sacrilege to it while videotaping the act. That post prompted a score of offensive comments about the Eucharist from individuals of like mind with Myers. Even if Myers’s first use of “cracker” had some redeeming value, and I don’t concede that, his later request that he be supplied with a consecrated host, and his promise to commit an act with the consecrated host that would be offensive to Catholics, went far beyond the pale.
“P.Z. Myers called the host a cracker in response to people threatening a college student with various penalties including expulsion when he didn’t “consume” the host like he was supposed to. Myers one-upped the bullies and redirected their anger away from someone who was relatively vulnerable. Why is it so important for us to pretend that his comments occurred in a vacuum?”
Barbara: Therefore desecrating the host was justified? Sasha: Still want to say “childish” isn’t applicable?
I neither know nor am acquainted with PZ Myers.
That said, his behavior comes across as childish from a guy with perhaps too much time on his hands. It also reinforces the popular notion that college professors aren’t worth their pay because they like to provoke ordinary folks with stupid comments and outrageous behaviors.
Let this fella revel in his academic playpen. At least I worked for a living.
(Anyone have a bottle of “Mr. Clean?”)
Barbara,
No, Myer’s comments didn’t occur in a vacuum. The whole thing started with a college student named Webster Cook pretending to receive communion and pocketing the consecrated communion wafer. It’s difficult to piece together the whole story, but here’s a fairly comprehensive account:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_education_edblog/2008/07/ucf-student-who.html
Also, if you go here (and scroll down a bit), you will see a written response to news coverage from Webster Cook himself. The video on the page is not available.
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/community_ucf_area/2008/07/ucf-catholics-m.html
I can’t figure out whether Cook took the communion wafer because he is opposed to government funding for the Catholic Campus Ministry, or whether he is just venting because he feels he was mistreated. In any case, he took the wafer, got into a scuffle with others at the Mass who were trying to prevent him from leaving with it, and then declared he would not return it until the bishop would agree to meet with him and he got an apology. He claimed to have received threats, including death threats. Subsequently, he did return the wafer. Now he has been impeached (he was a senator in student government) and an investigation into his actions is ongoing.
Here is P Z Myer’s own account
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/its_a_goddamned_cracker.php#more
In it he says the following (partly expurgated by me):
It would be one thing if Webster Cook had merely made offensive statements. However, he took an object Catholics consider to be most sacred and treated it with disrespect. I don’t usually buy the argument that anti-Catholicism is the last respectable prejudice, but I think there would be little sympathy for him if he had removed something from a Mosque or a Synagogue that was as sacred to Muslims or Jews as a consecrated host is to Catholics.
And if P Z Myers had merely defended him, I would merely have disagreed with him, but instead, he invited others to steal consecrated wafers so he could desecrate them. You write as if Myers did this in some way to protect Cook, but I don’t see where you get that. I am quite skeptical about most religious claims, but I hate to see things trashed that people hold sacred, be they Jewish Scrolls, the Koran, communion wafers, or sacred lands of the American Indians.
William and David, thanks for the research and explanations.
I think Myers was childish, but I think his mission was, correctly, to draw attention to the overreaction to the student’s actions (also childish). As I understand it, the student’s beef was that activities funded by the university are supposed to be open to all students and, therefore, he ought to be able to fully participate in the Catholic mass funded by the university regardless of whether he was “eligible” to receive. I am not someone who puts great store in symbolic actions and I find this to be an eye rolling event, but I certainly don’t think someone deserves to be expelled from a public university for pulling this kind of stunt.
I am sure Myers wanted to provoke this kind of reaction and I am sure he finds it very amusing and self-validating. Why give him the satisfaction?
“However, he took an object Catholics consider to be most sacred and treated it with disrespect”
The problem is that Myers is not seeking a discussion he is making a statement and willing to ridicule a belief of others. That is not justifiable in or out of religion whether it is in context or not.
Yet we really should examine our theology of the Eucharist which has become dogmatic rather than spiritual and rote rather than embracing. What Jesus means most of all is that we are so united to each other in this communion with his body that we are one body, together, in love, caring and unity. That is truly sacred.
Barbara,
Webster Cook’s statement is not altogether clear as to whether this motivated him or not, but claims it is illegal for public funds going to support a Catholic students’ group, and he is apparently wrong about what is legal and not legal in terms of officially recognized student groups at public universities. As a member of student government, one would think there are other ways to approach the matter. By the way, he is Catholic, and he says he got the communion wafer to show to a friend, who was not Catholic (but was with him at Mass) and therefore couldn’t get it himself.
As far as I can determine, the university is not taking action against him, so some may have called for him to be expelled (and I am sure a lot worse), but there is no reason to suspect he will be. However, he is a senator in student government, and he has been impeached by his fellow senators, but not removed from office. There will be an investigation to determine if he violated senate ethics rules. Then he could be removed from office.
No one has commented on this, but I personally don’t think it was wrong for those who saw him stealing the host to attempt to physically restrain him. He calls it violence and filed a complaint with the university, which they found no cause to pursue.
If this had been an item held sacred by Jews in a Synagogue, or Muslims in a Mosque, would you be defending him? I think it’s more than childish to put out the word that you want people to steal consecrated communion wafers and send them to you to desecrate. Things like this can turn into fads, like the kids who go to drive-through food places, order drinks, and throw them back in the faces of the workers, all so they can make hilarious videos to post on the web.
David, I am not endorsing what Cook did, just his right to do it without being subject to punishment by his publicly funded university. If he had stolen the chalice, I wouldn’t be defending him at all. Heck, if he had stolen a box of wafers, consecrated or not, I wouldn’t be defending him either. The difference between a chalice and a host that has been handed to an individual at the rail is pretty clear to me — in terms of the value of the object, and the intent of the owner that it would or would not be given away. The anger here is that Cook didn’t complete the implied bargain when one goes up for communion that you should ingest the wafer, not that he purloined a valuable church object. But in reality, there are many people who take communion out of practice with the Church’s teachings. The difference is that this guy was a lot more obvious about it, not that his intent was necessarily worse.
Think of it this way: there are many people (Sally Quinn comes to mind) who take communion without having the right to it, and whatever offense we feel, it doesn’t relate to the fact that she stole something of monetary value under false pretenses. Do you think that, after realizing that she had ingested the wafer, it would have been appropriate for someone to hold her down and pump her stomach so that she would cough it up?
What is the principled difference between her actions and Cook’s? That she did it to impress her celebrity friends whereas he’s just an unknown boor with an axe to grind for some not entirely coherent reason?
David says:
“Things like this can turn into fads”
It already has. Do a search for “Eucharist Challenge” on YouTube. It’s a whole genre now.
Here:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22eucharist+challenge%22&search_type=&aq=f
All sorts of folks are gleefully getting into the act. Putting Hosts in a blender, burning them, etc.
We certainly need to relax about this and not feed the fad. All sorts of inanities can be involved like supposing a priest recites the “words of consecration” over a bakery, bread factory, worrying about particles falling, etc.
Turn to the serious things like garbage for the Haitians, no food nor medicine for millions in the world, butcherin people, lust for oil and property, abusing children, ……
Barbara – I don’t think the issue with Cook has anything to do with whether he had a “right” to present himself for Communion. (After all, the Eucharist isn’t something any of us can claim to deserve.) The problem was not his getting in line for Communion — none of us can say whether or not he was “worthy” or “eligible”; all of those rules and guidelines are necessarily matters of personal conscience, and as far as I can see, he was allowed to participate without impediment. The problem was that he didn’t eat the host — he didn’t participate. If I am serving as a Eucharistic minister, I don’t think I have the right to refuse the host or cup to anyone on the basis of what I might know or assume about them. But if they pocket the host, or take the cup and begin to dump out its contents, I can and should try to stop them, just as you would stop anyone from treating anything you value with outright disrespect.
Right, I get it. The guy is a clown. But there are different ways of looking at this:
1. In the story Wise Blood, the protagonist makes it his special mission to start the church of Christ without Christ where the blind don’t see, the lame don’t walk and things that are dead stay that way — Yes, the man is taunted and threatened by those around him, but the import of the story is that this is a man who is haunted by Christ’s power and can’t reconcile it to what else he has experienced in life. Affirmation comes through denial. When confronted with such people we too often seize on the clash with what we view as sacred, the symbols, the objects, the blasphemous speech and never, not once, put the human being in the center of our attention. Now imagine: someone going up to this man and saying: “my friend, where are you going? are you all right?”
2. And perhaps my favorite, which is the story of Zacchaeus, despised and ridiculous as a tax collector, confronted by Jesus with the possibility of redemption and changed in his ridiculousness.
I have difficulty believing that Jesus would have seen protecting the eucharist as more important than this man, however insolent. If we see our mission as changing this man’s heart even if we can’t change his belief, we are a whole lot more likely to generate respect for the eucharist. And even if we don’t, we are better witnesses for having tried.
That’s what bugs me. The monotonous drone of outrage that drowns out goodwill and compassion.
Barbara,
I do think that if you survey the Catholic blogs that have posted on this, you do find a great deal of compassion and concern poured out for Myers and his friends. There is outrage, but it is muted by the realization that this kind of viciousness comes from…someplace.
But the trouble is – well, perhaps it is not trouble, for it is expected – that if you read the comments at Myers’ blogs – and I believe that really understanding this situation requires immersing oneself in that for a while to see what these people are really saying – is that even Christians who express compassion are met with withering contempt.
I would also register skepticism (in the Myers tradition) of the whole business claiming that scads of outraged “Catholics” have attempted to make Myers’ life miserable, to the extent of sending him death threats. I’ve been reading that blog very closely over the past few weeks, and these claims of outrageous Catholic behavior and statements are unsubstantiated in the way that anything on the internet can be unsubstantiated. Myers can say, “I’ve received death threats” – but should we believe him? Even if he reprints an email with the IP reproduced – what reason do we have to believe that this idiotic statement purporting to be from an outraged Catholic really is from an outraged Catholic? The whole thing reeks of theater to me from beginning to end and I agree that we all would be better off ignoring it, Bill Donohue included.
I’m not really talking about Myers, but about the underlying incident that spawned the Myers reaction. That was the point at which the exercise of a more judicious reaction could have made a difference. It’s too late now. Now it is simply fodder for the culture wars and the noise machine.
“Now imagine: someone going up to this man and saying: “my friend, where are you going? are you all right?”
2. And perhaps my favorite, which is the story of Zacchaeus, despised and ridiculous as a tax collector, confronted by Jesus with the possibility of redemption and changed in his ridiculousness. ”
Barbara is appealing to our Christian roots. it is hard to break habits of 1700 years where we have learned to persecute and imprison those who disagree with us. Get the soldiers to enforce our religion. Those forced will thank us for our compelling them. Better still draw up a Concordat and put it into law. Whoever said Christianity was voluntary and a decision of the heart?
Webster Cook’s allegations of “violence” are preposterous even from his own account, which I think we can assume is not entirely objective.
http://www.wftv.com/download/2008/0714/16880943.pdf
He goes on to charge the Catholic Campus Ministry of violating the university’s anti-hazing policies, which forbid forced eating, and he accuses them of serving alcohol (communion wine) to minors.
Is he worse than Saul?
When Saul was knocked off his horse and struck blind, he changed his ways. He didn’t file a complaint.
My only point is that Cook did something very wrong, which he must have known to be very wrong (having gone to Catholic school), and even if he didn’t, the reaction of the people there would have made it crystal clear to him he was doing something very wrong. And so his reaction was to do something worse and claim to be a victim. And your reaction is to criticize those present who were taken by surprise, shocked, and offended, and acted not unreasonably under the circumstances.
This is a very simple issue. Don’t let Myers status as a university professor draped with prestige obscure the fact that he is a punk. If it looks like a punk, walks like a punk, talks like a punk – it’s a punk.
I have worked close to the street and do not come across very many punks because usually they are straightened out in adolescence. Pull a stunt like that and you get a good smack in the chops. We don’t need to go on and on. He went over the line. Period. End of discussion. I also work in more genteel professional circles and can appear that way as well but in this instance, quite seriously, I would ‘talk’ to him privately or with someone who would provide a witness should he falsely claim that he was physically assaulted. And that is that. No litigation, no law suits. He can rail against the Church, write what he wants, say what he wants…but this is over the line.
You can all judge me if you want but you all know in your heart that this is the right approach. I am just saying it out loud.
PS
Sasha, you’re a woman so a different approach is required
…step off….I already don’t like you and on’t want to like you.
When I think of the people I admire most, I usually come back to this: they are better than they need to be in most circumstances, but especially in trying circumstances. I am not necessarily criticizing the reaction to Cook per se, just trying to imagine one that could have possibly been a lot more fruitful. You apparently have concluded that Cook is the enemy and view the reaction of those around him only in that context. You have the satisfaction of being right, but there is no (or a lot less) potential left in this situation to change anyone’s heart. Just consider the possibility that there is something more important at stake than having been the party who wasn’t in the wrong.