The Problem with Protecting the "Sacred"

Calc did say that attempting to sabotage the kid's academic career as an act of vengeance for failure to complete a Catholic ritual correctly is a reasonable response.

Even been the victim of that kind of sabotage? Because I'd rather just have my ass kicked. The scars would heal faster.

Calc considers his or her beliefs more important than those of other people, so that means if they come into conflict those who disagree should be punished. It's religious intolerance no matter how many times you repeat the word "desecrate."

Except for the fact that he already said that since the person in question returned the Host, he need not be punished.

This is why I love you.

As to the specific situation begin described, I would argue that the person taking the Host and mistreating it is not in the wrong for desecration, from a secular standpoint, but rather for theft, because he was given the Host under the pretense that he would do something very specific with it. As he did not—i.e. he broke the implicit contract—he is obliged to return it, and is otherwise doing something wrong (effectively, stealing).

Also, the idea that a secular society is implicitly atheist is rubbish. A secular society is (either implicitly or explicitly) agnostic, which is not the same thing by a very wide margin.

"Can ye fathom the ocean, dark and deep, where the mighty waves and the grandeur sweep?"

Not as an act of vengeance: as a punishment for a serious violation of the most elementary rules of courtesy and decency. And as I repeated so often in the previous posts that even Taoist (who is not precisely sympathetic to my position) pointed out that yes, I had made my point of view clear on this, please stop repeating: I would have asked exactly the same if the kid had defiled the sacred water in a Buddhist Temple, or entered a Mosque and refused to take off his shoes, or brought a hamburger into a Jain Temple, or — yes — started Bible-pushing inside of an atheist convention (meeting? anti-temple? )

By Cthulhu's Codpiece: I am the one who is saying that all religious viewpoints should be granted at least the basic courtesy of obeying their rules of conduit inside of their holy (or non-holy, in the case of atheists ) places; while you are the one who is saying that, since you are right and the others are wrong, your rules are the only ones that count. You are the one who said that would destroy a holy object in order to show me your displeasure with my beliefs (which apart from everything, is pretty redundant: I can read, you know.) And you are calling me intolerant.

I don't like to call other people hypocrites, because Heaven knows that I don't behave one tenth as well as I say that people should behave; but this is the most blatant display of hypocrisy that I ever saw.

Thanks

edited 15th Jun '12 11:39:43 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I don't know where you guys are getting this Calc thing when it's Carc.

Anyway, to do as that kid did was a dick move from both a religious and secular standpoint.

Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.

I'm probably nitpicking, but I would rather say that a secular society is ignostic: it does not assert that it does not know whether God exists or not, it outright refuses to deal with the question of whether God exists.

edited 15th Jun '12 11:43:05 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

This isn't a strawman; it would need more coherence and basis for that. This is a dirt-poor argument.

Carc, and nobody else here, is setting out to harm anybody. And as Derelict stated, he's stated at least three times that I read that punishing the kid isn't warranted in light of all the facts.

And more to the point, Carc is not upset that the kid doesn't agree with the holiness of the Eucharist or lack thereof. Carc, like me, is of that ilk of Christian *

who doesn't really give a shit if you, that kid, Gabe's professor, PZ Myers or anybody else believes as we believe. Our faith doesn't need anybody's approval or permission.

What he is upset is that this kid knowingly decided to tamper with a religious artifact for the express purpose of, to simplify, rubbing the Church's nose in it. In my day, we called that being an asshole.

The arrogance of thinking you get to ruin that which is personal to someone, and claim enlightened sensibility. I'm sure if I were so inclined, I could find something of personal significance to anybody here; which if destroyed, wouldn't injure them in any objective way, except to piss them off.

Pictures of family. A jersey from Little League. A poster of a favorite movie/band/team. The first Valentine's Day card from a significant other. All of these things have little objective empirical value. Some of them can be replaced. That wouldn't stop anyone from being upset if I pissed all over them.

I have no right to force you to share my religious faith. You likewise have no right to force me to share your contempt for it.

Edit; Carc this is one of the most awesome posts I've ever seen in an OTC discussion.

It was an honor

I am Heavy Topics Guy, and this is my topic. She contains over 422 posts and receives 200-word-plus highly-detailed messages at a rate of 10,000 characters per minute. It takes reading 400,000 words to follow this topic...for two pages.

AH HA HA HAHAHA!

Pykrete

My personal feeling is that a lot of the problems with religion are really expressions of universal flaws in human psychology. You wont see me say stuff like "all religion is evil", because I honestly feel that would be attacking the symptoms rather than the cause. By the same token, it's inevitable that some people will find a way to exercise those psychological biases outside of a religious context. Take football fans for instance. Hell, I don't even need to specify which "football" I mean by that!

Carcio

Why? You shouldn't. You didn't send any and you didn't endorse the threats.

This nonreligious standard of treating believers goes both ways. On one hand, when I hear "not true Christian" or "not true Muslim" or any such arguments, I throw up my hands in annoyance because it doesn't matter to me whether a member of this in-group is "true" or not. On the other hand, I'm not going to judge you by the acts of others who happen to hold sacred the same thing that you do, because you're not responsible for their actions, they are.

More for you later in this post, btw.

Starship

That's a great sentiment, but being clear-headed is not the same as being intolerant. It's good to be open-minded, but not so open-minded your brain falls out.

Back to Carcio

This is an interesting turn for the conversation, and I can see where we disagree. You're right in that a secular 'cease fire' of sorts is a much better M.O. than a bunch of religious states. I disagree with drawing the lines at words. I would draw the line at harmful actions - and I would require that the objective analysis of the evidence be what determines whether an action is harmful or not. (Yes, I'm fairly committed to empirical rationalism and methodological naturalism on this).

Let's take a previous example of some bureaucratic asshat who isn't letting Catholic chaplains serve the Sacrament to Catholic students on property the Church leased/rented from the university under the full right and understanding that they'd be able to serve the university's Catcholic community as their freedom of religion allows them. Some red tape over wine and crackers in the wrong building, or something. I'd protest with words. Better yet; I'd protest with a picnic blanket, some bottles of Niagara red, and a box of Ritz crackers indoors, preferably in the same building where said bureaucratic asshat works. All students, Catholic or otherwise, are happily invited.

It's nice to say that we should draw the line at words, but people ignore words. Actions matter.

Accordingly, if Myers spray painted graffiti inside a church, it'd be an outrage. My words would be something along the lines of demanding his resignation and charges for vandalism. I would also encourage students at his university to take the action of boycotting his courses, and for the academic committee to take the action of not selecting him as a reviewer on articles or inviting him to editorial boards or thesis defence committees. (I wouldn't go so far as to shut him out of ever publishing his research, as more academic careers than his own might depend on that.) As for the second example, I wouldn't apologize for atheists issuing death threats - I'd condemn them, and encourage law enforcement to arrest and charge those who harassed believers in such a way.

Bit of a cultural difference here, no?

When these problems happen regularly and the devoted are the only ones hurt, after a while you want to scream "stop hitting yourself!"

(I figure it goes without saying what my response is when these problems affect those outside of the devoted.)

If you want to play with touch rules whatever, but I'm in for a contact sport.

Aondeug

I'm a big fan of those gorgeous sand mandala images they make in Tibetan monasteries, that they then destroy immediately after finishing. That, that right there, is how to make a point on non-attachment.

edited 15th Jun '12 11:52:19 AM by RadicalTaoist

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

You can think a wafer is as holy as you want, I don't care. That's not why I want to destroy it.

It's when you start hurting people on the wafer's behalf that I feel a need to illustrate what happens to people's holy things when they turn them into battlegrounds.

You're not arguing for equality of all religions. You're arguing for undue respect to be given to the beliefs and traditions that you choose to acknowledge at the expense of those who disagree or hold positions you do not endorse.

Between the two of us, only one has advocated harming anybody. You are the intolerant one.

@rmctagg: Me, it's because I didn't get much sleep last night, and am not feeling all that fantastic. Typos as my fingers go on automatic spelling patterns are par for the course. That is, if I'm a spelling offender. Which I probably am.

Transcription errors? Malapropisms? Misplaced home-keys? Call Euodiachloris for your every need! Free additional commas and apostrophes, if you hurry now!

Eh? You... really haven't spent much time chatting to Carc, have you?

edited 15th Jun '12 11:53:34 AM by Euodiachloris

You want this to be about atheists versus Christians and how mean atheists are, but check your facts.

There's a lot of comparisons flying around like "how would you like it if some Catholics vandalized an atheist building?" and similar metaphors involving a group being attacked or harassed by outsiders. They are not applicable. This wasn't some outside launching an attack on your precious institution out of spite. This was someone within the institution disagreeing on what is the proper way to handle one of its rituals, and being victimized as a result.

The person getting hurt here, the guy who the atheists got so upset about the mistreatment of? Catholic. This isn't about atheists versus Catholics. This is secularism versus religious intolerance.

And while you may feel that your religion does not need validation from outside and that people's disagreement with it is no concern of yours, Carc has said that an organized campaign of slander and harassment against someone who observes a Catholic ritual incorrectly is justified.

So, let me get this clear: you say that you would destroy a Host to "illustrate what happens to people's holy things when they turn them into battlegrounds." And then you said that I am the only one who advocated "harming anybody" — when by "harming", you mean dismissing from college one person who committed an act of religious intolerance (and as I repeated stupidly often, I would do so even if the act had been committed against another religion).

I give up. It is evident that you are not writing in English, but in some other language that by pure coincidence reads exactly like English.

EDIT:

OK, this is getting ridiculous. What do I have to do? Make a youtube video of me wearing a tutu and dancing to Lady Gaga while singing "I do not endorse sacrilege against any religious tradition", and post the link?

Because if that continues, I will. And it will not be a nice view, I assure you.

edited 15th Jun '12 12:00:36 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Atheism (or anti-theism; the two seem to have become synonymous these days) is not really a unified religious movement in the traditional sense, and as such it doesn't really have any "holy" objects to accord respect.

I mean, I guess I wouldn't, say, stomp on a science book or a copy of The God Delusion or Letter to a Christian Nation (partially because I do not own a copy of either of the latter two, unfortunately), but I would refrain from such as a matter of course, not because I have any particular reverence for those novels. The problem with atheism versus organized religion in the sense of respect is that atheism has nothing to respect. It's just an collection of individuals, not a group, and it has no symbols or ideas as central to it in the same sense as Christianity, Islam, etc.

Very perplexing, I think. Not that atheism doesn't have these things, but how to deal with the problem of giving equal respect.

"Can ye fathom the ocean, dark and deep, where the mighty waves and the grandeur sweep?"

Carc... if the tutu turns out to be purple with yellow polka-dots, I might pay for that video...

Go the humanist approach: even if you don't agree with what anybody believes, them's is people, too. Understand that people fluff it, same as you. Understand that people can be awesome, same as you. Treat people like people, whatever the people believe. And, try to act with a modicum of sense. Tada!

edited 15th Jun '12 12:05:23 PM by Euodiachloris

Nope, pink only. A man has to maintain his dignity

The part that I bolded is what I feel is the problem with this proposal. "Objective" is little more than a buzzword meaning "OK, we have to get this right": and different people would have wildly different ideas about what actions are or are not harmful — we are seeing this in this very thread, and there are plenty of examples from history.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Surprisingly, I haven't skipped a single post in this thread, even if a few have started to blur a bit. Yup: I don't always post, but I often lurk. So... your point?

Have you actually read his words? Or, just what you wanted those words to be?

Argh: pink is so old school... I'm sure I can get the costumers on Strictly Come Dancing to back me up on this... <thinks about the amount of cerise they use> Uh... maybe not.

edited 15th Jun '12 12:13:34 PM by Euodiachloris

Hm. This opens up an unexpected avenue of business should I tire of my current career...

edited 15th Jun '12 12:13:36 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

Would it not make more sense for you to wear a Catholic schoolgirl outfit?

Maybe that joke only makes sense to Americans...

@Paul,

What kind of "harm" are you talking about? Are you defining harm as "getting this person fired," or "physical violence," or something else entirely? Also, I'm confused as to what specific person we're talking about. I thought the subject was PZ Meyers...

"Can ye fathom the ocean, dark and deep, where the mighty waves and the grandeur sweep?"

@Derelict: Yeah... we moved on to Meyers. Then, we meandered back to the lad for some reason.

edited 15th Jun '12 12:17:36 PM by Euodiachloris

That would be a sacrilege against Catholic schoolgirl costume fetishists.

Also, eyes would bleed, dogs would howl at the moon, all sources of water of Europe would turn into bad coffee, strange shapes would appear in the sky, and the bloated carcass of the Leviathan would surface somewhere near Papua New Guinea.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

<looks long and hard at the possible mental image garnered from that>

Still a better vision than most of what Revelation suggests for global melt-down, to be honest.

I'm going to try snoozing for a bit. I'm obviously a little whacked. o/

edited 15th Jun '12 12:24:57 PM by Euodiachloris

I don't intend to use it like that. When I say 'objective', I refer to the property of being verifiable independent of any single person's position, as dependence on an individual position or even multiple individual positions makes an item of knowledge subjective. When I say 'evidence', I refer to information that proves a specific hypothesis to the exclusion of competing hypotheses.

I can prove that CFCs destroying the ozone layer are harmful with objective evidence. Ditto the effects of second hand smoking. Any number of individuals who subjectively feel that we're better off not regulating CFCs or smoking cannot cite their feelings as counter-evidence.

edited 15th Jun '12 12:26:26 PM by RadicalTaoist

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Cool!

Oh, wait... was that supposed to be a list of bad things...?

"Can ye fathom the ocean, dark and deep, where the mighty waves and the grandeur sweep?"

There is no such thing. Whatever you claim, you are claiming it based on assumptions; and one can disagree on these assumptions, or choose to disagree on them after the fact rather than accepting whatever you have in mind.

You can prove that CFCs are destroying the Ozone layer? Cool. But you are certainly going to use statistical methods; what are you going to do when somebody states that they are not valid? Suppose that you prove them from scratch: they are going to say that Peano's Axioms of Arithmetic are inconsistent (which, truth to be told, could be the case, technically. And wouldn't it be fun if they were ). Or they are going to say that you made a measurement error. And so on. And so on. And so on.

And that's about something comparatively easy, something about which we at least have reasonably agreed-upon systems of measurement. But when we start talking about "harm"? No way. Have you not happened to read some of these interminable discussions on whether male circumcision (it's just a random example: please let's not debate this in this thread) constitutes harm?

EDIT:

That's not how it works, I think. If I knew who sent the threats, I would smack them in the head and then denounce them to the justice; but the fact remains that they are people who subscribe to my religion. We belong together: when a Catholic does something good, all of Catholicism is exalted, and when a Catholic does something bad, all of Catholicism is diminished. Incidentally, it is the same reason why I did apologize for the sex abuse scandals: obviously I had nothing whatsoever to do with them, nor did anybody I personally know, but the fact remain that Catholicism — to which I belong — behaved in a loathsome way in that case.

edited 15th Jun '12 12:51:55 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

There are such things as standards of proof and validity. Eventually at some point you can go back and argue the epistemology of what you can prove to be true or not, but I'm not David Hume and I happen to like being able to prove something to be the case or not and make predictions based on the results.

Of course, differences over what is factually true and how to determine this are kinda what makes atheists atheists, so I am not sure we can follow this line of discussion much longer before it becomes atheism vs. religion, which I don't think anyone wants, myself least of all.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.