First of all, there is the immature individual who fueled it all via his sophomoric actions. Of course, the individual thought it would be cool to attend a Catholic service and do something he knew would be seen as disrespectful and highly inflammatory to those who adhere to this belief system. You do not have to disrespect others to get your point across.
Of course, people will jump in on me and go ballistic about free speech and stuff but, come on folks -- this type of stuff is for kids. We are supposed to be better than that, right? How is disrespecting the beliefs of others going to do anything at all to open their ears to what any agnostic or atheist has to say? It makes the job even harder. We don't need this childish approach.
What was his point? From the article I read, he supposedly took the wafer to show it to a friend.
quote:
Webster’s friend, who didn’t want to show his face, said he took the Eucharist, to show him what it meant to Catholics.
Webster gave the wafer back, but the Catholic League, a national watchdog organization for Catholic rights claims that is not enough.
“We don’t know 100% what Mr. Cooks motivation was,” said Susan Fani a spokesperson with the local Catholic diocese. “However, if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it.”
Student Who Took Religious Icon Getting Death Threats
I don't see a sign of anything intentionally disrespectful on the part of the young man. I see a Catholic woman making absurd comments about the severity of the offense.
Do you know something about this story that I don't?
What I want to know is how Catholics worldwide even found about this. Who found out it even happened and decided to tell others about it?
If your goal is to get people to take you seriously and listen to the atheist side of the issue when it comes to the atheist/theist/evolution debate, why inflame others with such polemic when it does nothing but further lower the view of atheists in the eyes of the believers? What can you possibly gain by fueling the flames with such sophomoric polemic? Sorry, but this is the last kind of rhetoric the atheist or agnostic needs to be associated with.
You can bring attention to the fact that people are apparently making death threats over someone taking a cracker from a church. If people are out in the world acting that irrationally, then bringing it to the attention of the rational people in the world is what should be done. Such ridiculous and cruel behavior needs to be exposed.
As far as the death threats- -we all know many religious folks can act and behave irrationally. This is not exactly news, is it? What did you expect? Just let them rant and look like mad men. Let them look like the ones shouting insults back and forth on the playground. You don't have to pull yourself down to the sophomoric level by taking the bait and engaging in a schoolhouse spat. You said your piece, drop it. Let them look like the immature ranting fools spewing polemic.
I don't think it's a good idea to let them rave like mad men. This type of thing needs to be addressed. People are (supposedly) actually threatening the life of some young man because he took a cracker from a church! I'm not ok with this! The idea of people threatening someone's life because they feel disrespected is a repugnant idea to me and not something I think a society who wants all people to be treated fairly should condone. Calling people out for their disproportionately hostile behavor isn't sophmoric, it's the decent thing to do for those who don't feel what's reportedly going on is fair.
Maybe you don't agree with Myers' specific tactics, and I guess I can undertand that, but he's clearly exposed some hostile, irrational, untenable, and downright mean behavior on the part of some Christians. If I was receiving death threats over something so trivial, I'd expect (and hope or) rational people to step up and say that what was going on was wrong.