P.Z. Myers in the news (the catholic church communion wafer incident)

Being angry makes his actions understandable but it does not excuse them.He's completely dropped off from behaving in a reasonable and tolerant manner on this one. Clearly he's not as bad as the crazies opposed against him; but that is a pretty low bar to jump.

It's not a question of being tolerant of intolerance or not. Nor is it a case of criticism or debate.His piece on torturing the Eucharist is cheap, tacky and rude. It's being offensive for the sake of it, and targeted not just at those who deserve rebuke but all who feel strongly about their superstitions and traditions.I strongly believe in a secular and tolerant society; but tolerance is not a simple matter, and those on the rational side have no less a burden of responsibility to it than those on the side of superstition.

I'm not offering them special privalege, nor have I said anything about satire. This is simple being rude, for rudeness sake, and that is bad behaviour. It's petty, and it's pathetic. Wrong+wrong != right

Hi Artemis,If you use the little reply buttons on each post rather than the general reply button at the bottom, it creates a link showing which post you are replying to. This makes it much easier to follow the thread of the discussion.Thank you.

I have no objection him to calling the cracker a cracker. It's the bit about someone sourcing him one so he can torture it that is crossing the line into bad behaviour.

No, I'm not. I think everyone should be treated with a basic level of respect. Once again: anger does may explain bad behaviour but it does not excuse it and wrong+wrong != right.

Well, of course they're not.I take "two wrongs don't make a right" to mean that bad behaviour by others in not a justification for bad behaviour by oneself. Myers has behaved badly; what members of the Catholic Church have or haven't done, doesn't make any difference to that.

And, once again, I'm not talking about him ridiculing ridiculous beliefs - I'm talking about him being deliberately offensive. Calling a cracker a cracker - fair enough. The bit about torturing the cracker - not fair enough. No shit, Sherlock.

Imagine for a moment that the spiritual/physical duality that the Catholic church believes in is real - yes, I know that duality doesn't really exist, but just pretend for a moment that it does - the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation states that the spiritual existence of the wafer is transformed into the spiritual being of Jesus; while the physical existence is unchanged. This, if you accept the duality, makes perfect sense.

Aye, god forbid that we treat the irrational foibles of people as important. Instead we should simply assume that everyone is a rational, emotionless box who's emotional attachments to symbols and ideas is utterly irrelevant to everything.Really, it'll make the world a better place.And, once again, there is no special privilege for religion here. I also think we should respect people's irrational emotional attachment to, say, their home, their school, the flag of their country, a certain band or their local football team with respect. Because, quite fundamentally, a society in which people's foibles are treated with respect is a better society to live in.I'm honestly amazed that the principles of Tolerance and a Secular society are so completely lost on you.Edited by Mr Jack, : No reason given.

It's a difficult question. There is, I think, a divide between actions taken by the Catholic church as an organisation, the typical Catholic in the street and the crazed lunies within the Catholic church. The problem with Myers is that his actions are in no way targetted towards the problematic elements.As for "intolerant by nature", yes, the Catholic church has a massively bad track record on that front, but that doesn't mean that all Catholics fall into that category (q.v. Quest) or that there isn't potential for change.Tolerance isn't about organisations; it's about people. I did not "take sides". I said Myers behaved badly. This does not mean I think the "other side" has behaved well. The world does not consist of simple binary categories like that.

No, they are the actual body of Christ. The Spritual is not less actual than the Physical.That's as I understand it.

Humans are both spiritual and physical.I don't believe the rest of your post is a serious question.

The most recent Point of Inquiry (podcast) interviews Joe Nickell, who puts forward pretty much the views I hold. Aggressive rationalism is unhelpful in convincing people that they're right and, instead, there exists a better middle way between credulity and confrontation.