A Whole Lot About Mostly Nothing

Oh my. Lovely.

You get the feeling that they are genuinely surprised to find that Catholics are attaching far more importance to the descration of the Eucharist than, say, the desecration of a Rosary. They seem to have reeled a bit at the volcanic response. Now they are getting their footing and realizing this *really* ticks off Catholics and so, like eight year olds, they are enjoying being in (they think) the position of saying, “Take one step closer and I’ll torture your cat!”

I won’t mince words. Myers is an evil man. (I won’t go that far, but he is an asshat of the first water and engaging in evil acts.-ed) And as evil men, particularly evil intellectuals, tend to be, he is also a mad man as are most of his acolytes and followers. One need only read Pharyngula to know this. Not all atheists are driven mad by their atheism. Many are quite respectable human beings. But those who make it their raison d’etre tend to be made crazy by it. That’s the tragedy of sins of the intellect. They don’t just make you stupid. If you persist in them, and particularly if you persist in them to this degree, they make you crazy.

(snip)

The hatred breeds lies like, “I’m just exercising freedom of expression”.

No. You are committing theft, vandalism, and incitement.

Or else you lie and say, “Unless Catholics can prove the Eucharist is actually the Body and Blood of Christ and not a worthless cracker, I’m just guilty of being rude.”

No. Catholics are under no obligation to prove that in order to show that you are guilty of theft, vandalism and incitement.

(snip)
Yet another demented lie to cover up your naked act of aggression is to play the victim:

It’s just so darned weird that they’re demanding that I offer this respect to a symbol that means nothing to me.

The answer to this lie is that *nobody* is demanding Myers offer respect to the Eucharist. He’s blasphemed the Eucharist on his blog off and on since forever. Catholics are free to disagree with him, just has he is free to disagree with them. That’s the first amendment in action and I, for one, am glad to live in the land that is not Canada where even demented professors whose careers are stuck in Wilbur Weed Boxtop Diploma Mill can have a voice in the public square, if only to serve as a warning to normal people of what hatred of God can do to the human mind.

(snip)

Myers’ logic is that of Kristallnacht, punish all Catholics everywhere with theft, vandalism and incitement because of the (alleged) actions of a couple.

OoohWEE!! Read it all. Wonderful.

ALSO, a a great round-up at The Daily Kraken.

Kevin Jones also thinks PZ is an asshat and deserves reprimand, at least.

UPDATE: Somewhat interesting combox exchange at Mark’s with some of the more lucid Pharyngulites.

It is instructive to note that even these calmer people toss out “challenging” questions -as if no one has ever thought of them before- and are then directed to consult proper Gospel commentaries.  And guess what?  All they do is re-phrase the question, and suggest that our lack of actual response indicates sure evidence that the Church is bogus.

In part cause he says that he absolutely intends to follow through on his desecration.

The man reminds me of a rabid homophobe who has secret homosexual tendencies.  The more he raves at the object of his secret obsession, the safer he feels.

Minnesota Indy interview (full of softball questions.  The comments are typical, though tjswift is hilarious.

Anchoress.

Cartago Delenda Est.

Frances Beckwith here and here.

Catholic League news release.

Fox News on the original foofaraw that got PZ’s panties all in a bunch.

Washington Times.

Fr. James Martin in America.

Then PZ went and posted all the public information on a couple of lintheads who sent him evil threatening e-mails.  PZ ended up taking them down, because his sycophants went crazy on the lintheads.  PZ re-wrote the post, with this classic quote:

It is most definitely not intended to incite harassment. I do not want you to be dunning these people with email, threatening them back, signing them up for spam, or otherwise being a jerk. For one thing, we can’t be certain that an innocent’s account hasn’t been hijacked; for another, we’re supposed to be better than that.

Res Ipsa Loquitur.  They cannot be better; philosophically, logically, they are acting exactly as they should; with malice and venom.  PZ knew that was going to happen, and he simply didn’t care.  Orac, another ScienceBlogs writer, took PZ to task on this idiotic action of his with great charity:

What on earth did you expect, P.Z., posting the e-mails and the entire headers?

Clearly you didn’t think things through.

Posted by: Orac | July 14, 2008 4:57 PM

But he did.  PZ is a sanctimonious, hypocritical asshat, a fundamentalist prophet of the Church of Atheism, but he is not stupid.  He knew what would happen.

Anyway, there is more, much more, more than one could possibly care to stomach over at Pharyngula, but those can be searched for by others.

I for one, am very curious to see exactly what he does to commit sacrilege to the Eucharist.  Not for any real harm that can come to Christ; I am confident that He can take care of Himself.  No, I am more curious to see how it further illustrates PZ’s consistent, pathological hatred (that word is used carefully) of religion, particularly Christianity.

(link). . .and Dawkins runs to his aid. (Beckwith claims that Pharyngula has been taken down, but as of the time stamp on this post, that is incorrect. PZ is still blathering full bile ahead.)

Mark Shea says it best:

The guy’s a bag lady screaming at the traffic–on the Minnesota taxpayer’s dime. Tell me again what the hell any of this has to do with science?

All this has spurred on a perfect storm of imbecilic comments (from BOTH sides) all over Myers’ pestiferous blog.  More than I have ever seen.  Illiterate commentary espousing violence from putative Catholics makes for a lousy witness (not that PZ would ever actually pay attention to a witness example, but that doesn’t absolve us from the responsibility to try), and the sanctimonious responses from Myers’ Sycophantic Horde is no better.

And that’s all I’m going to say on this. Res ipsa loquitur.

Politically, the man is a disaster. As a public figure, he is one of the worst models known to man. As a Catholic, he would normally be laughable.

But as a human being, he is being forced to live out a great terror now. Despite his myriad flaws -and we all have our own to wrestle with-, and to their great shame the fact that the press is pimping his unfortunate situation, he is in dire need of our prayers and our sincere hope that he might recover.

Lapsed Catholic has a great reflection on this.

Lord have mercy on me and bless Teddy Kennedy and his family in this dark time for them.

I have very little to say.  I’ve been following a bit on the Internets.  Much of the expected stuff comes floating up.  Democrats don’t want to endorse Benedict as he is so relentlessly Pro-Life:

(Senator Barbara) Boxer(D, Cal) put that on display once again today, when she temporarily blocked the passage of a Senate resolution honoring the visit of Pope Benedict XVI.  The resolution, offered by Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, was deemed offensive to Boxer in two areas, and wouldn’t allow the measure to move forward until the language was removed.  One of the clauses dealt with religious expression in public places.  Boxer certainly can’t have that.

But the line in the sand clause to Boxer was this one, which you can read at Politico.com.

“Whereas Pope Benedict XVI has spoken out for the weak and vulnerable, witnessing to the value of each and every human life;”

Boxer can’t handle that.  Big surprise.

And that B16 is getting all kinds of stuff about the abuse scandal.  Mark Shea and Anchoress have fine comments on that.

In the end, I have little to add, as I’ve mentioned earlier due in part to the fact that I am busier than I have perhaps ever been.  Ever.

Sad, in that so much of how I identify myself is through my Catholicism, and this Pope is doing bang-up job of continuing and amplifying the legacy of JPII.  I was excited when he was elected, and I’ve never lost that excitement.

But that’s all I have to add.

Great overall round-up to be found at the Anchoress here.

via The Anchoress.

My wife is not of the blogging sort, but being a devoted Catholic, I have directed her to The Anchoress as she is one of the rare few on the Internet that has her head on straight with regards to almost everything (save her fondness for the Yankees).

Her meditation provided for today has two points that I wished to catalog here:  One is her quote from St. John of the Cross:

In order to arrive at having pleasure in everything, Desire to have pleasure in nothing.
In order to arrive at possessing everything, Desire to possess nothing.
In order to arrive at being everything, Desire to be nothing.
In order to arrive at knowing everything, Desire to know nothing.

- — St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, book I chapter 13, section 11

The second is the video meditation upon graveyards that she attached to it.  The images are striking, but when combined with An Ending (Ascent) from Brian Eno’s seminal ambient work, Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks it makes for a breathtaking and vivid visual meditation.

I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Why do you keep looking in here?  Everyday, my little stat monitor keeps telling me that a handful of you poke you little noses in here everyday.

Why?

Assuming you are part of Myers’ Sycophantic Horde (MSH, pat. pend), you already have the kool-aid truth as you would have it for your libations regularly.  Near as I can tell (I’m spending less and less time there myself.  The theme never varies, it has no beat, and you cannot dance to it) neither his lessons nor his tiresome pedagogy have altered one iota.  He still has utter faith in the fact that faith serves no purpose in the pursuit of truth.

Which is highly ironic, if you can actually take a moment to consider it.

Now there are only two sorts of people who think Scripture is supposed to be The Big Book of Everything: New Atheists and Fundamentalists (who are more alike than either realizes).

(That last courtesy of Mark Shea.  I suggest you check it out.  Helps get the taste of bad Kool-Aid out of your mouth)

The above quote gives a small indication of the irony.  The Prophet Myers is loaded with faith.  And he encourages His Horde to have that same faith.

And since your local faith claims that I am an idiot, why keep looking in here?

What?

May 23 (Bloomberg) — Philanthropist and retired hedge-fund manager Robert W. Wilson said he is giving $22.5 million to the Archdiocese of New York to fund a scholarship program for needy inner-city students attending Roman Catholic schools.

Wilson, 80, said in a phone interview today that although he is an atheist, he has no problem donating money to a fund linked to Catholic schools.

“Let’s face it, without the Roman Catholic Church, there would be no Western civilization,” Wilson said. “Shunning religious organizations would be abhorrent. Keep in mind, I’m helping to pay tuition. The money isn’t going directly to the schools.”

Wilson’s donation is the largest the archdiocese has ever received. The money will be used to fund the Cardinal’s Scholarship Program, which was started in 2005 to give disadvantaged students attending the archdiocese’s inner-city schools partial or full tuition grants, Jacqueline LoFaro, the archdiocese’s associate superintendent of schools, said in a phone interview today.

“It was a chance for a very modest amount of money to get kids out of a lousy school system and into a good school system,” Wilson said.

Apparently, the man is a walking contradiction. He is atheist, yet fails to hew the Party Dawkobot Line that All of Christianity is Forever Evil and Contributed Nothing to Civilization. I expect Myers will rescind Wilson’s membership in the Almighty Church of the Great Dawkins any day now.

Ladies and gentlemen, the inimitable Mark Shea:

Shallow, Materialist, Consumerist Members of Generation Narcissus Pretend to Embrace Buddhism

I’ll bet the Dalai Lama is driven crazy by these people. This is the man who observed that the West will always be Christian. He didn’t mean “devout”. He meant that even in apostasy, it is *Christianity* from which the West apostasizes. The rankest atheist in the West owes almost all his basic thought categories–from the notion that being a self is good to the notion that freedom is real and good to the notion that desire and property and attachments to real Good is good–to the Christian tradition. The Christian philosophical and theological tradition affords him all the arms he uses in his revolt. And so, we find shallow Baby Boomers adopting Buddhism because it suits their individual preferences, oblivious to the fact that the whole point of Buddhism is the extinction of desire and of the self.

These people aren’t Buddhists. They’re just apostates who have chosen a particularly stupid way to try to hide from God.

I post this for my own future uses, esp. in the classroom. Mark, if you are offended by moe copying the whole post, drop a comment and I’ll find some other way.

. . .only because I spend so much time doing the Don Quixote in here to the Pharyngulite/Kraken windmill, this post requires studious attention from (limited) admirers and (probably even more limited) critics.

Shea hits the nail on the head -as usual-: (more…)