This is Just Pathetic

Mark Shea:

Yesterday, Googling "Sarah Palin" and "retard" got you 126,000 hits.

As of this post, the same search now gets you 1,090,000 hits. [NB: When I do this search, I get 135,000 hits.]

In light of recent discussions about the connection between violence and disrespect, note that today in America, more than 90% of babies prenatally diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted. May God have mercy...

PZ Myers Follows Through on His Threat to Desecrate the Eucharist

Well, he did it:

I wasn't going to make any major investment of time, money, or effort in treating these dabs of unpleasantness as they deserve, because all they deserve is casual disposal. However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus's tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel. My apologies to those who hoped for more, but the worst I can do is show my unconcerned contempt....

By the way, I didn't want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur'an and The God Delusion. They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred.

As I said at the beginning, I agree with his insistence that disrespect for a communion wafer ought to be a much smaller matter than disrespect for a person, but his little stunt in fact disrespects both. Still, I can hardly blame him. Though plenty of valid objections have been raised against this kind of iconoclasm, they have been almost completely overwhelmed by the flood of semi-literate hate-mail he has received. In the face of such seemingly irrational hatred, it cannot surprise that he felt that drastic measures were needed.

In truth, his actual desecration was surprisingly understated, but that will not stop Bill Donohue and the Catholic League from doing everything in their power to make his life miserable. In the end, as a Protestant who does not believe in transubstantiation, all I can say is that PZ Myers has not in fact done any harm to Jesus, but those who have responded with hatred and death threats have certainly done so. They have proven his point for him, by making Christianity appear to be little more than irrational superstition, and seriously damaged the reputation of Christ in the world.

But to me the most interesting aspect of this incident arises from the fact that he also chose to destroy copies of the Koran and Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. On the one hand, adding a second form of blasphemy does nothing to diminish the disrespect of the first, but it does at least clarify his point: that to PZ Myers, "Nothing must be held sacred."

If cooler heads were to prevail, this ought to be the take-away lesson: To view a deeply cherished religious symbol as no more than baked bread, a book as no more than ink and paper, indeed a human being as no more than chemicals and electricity, this is not a mark of sophistication. It is, rather, proof of a sadly impoverished worldview. It is rational to condemn the atrocities committed in the name of a flag; it is mere childishness to desecrate and discard such a flag as "just" a piece of cloth. With this stunt, Myers has proven precisely nothing about the meaning of the symbol, he has only proven his own distaste for the sacred.

But I’m afraid that point will be missed in the rush to condemn his blasphemy, as many of those who should recognize the sacred value, not just of a Eucharistic wafer, but of a human being—made in the image of God—will instead treat him with "profound disrespect." And that is the real tragedy in this situation.