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To sane people, this may not seem like a big deal. Apparently, it is. This kid, Webster Cook, is receiving death threats over this. A lot of them. So is PZ Myers for supporting him.
I don't expect to receive death threats for a few reasons. Primarily, I'm not popular. Secondly, though, is that I actually do not support this kid.
The death threats are ridiculous and those people do need to be smacked. However, this was fairly disrespectful and rude. This is an attempt to irritate Catholics just for the sake of irritating them to show that we can. I do believe that, within the privacy of their churches, they have a right to practice their goofy little rituals undisturbed. That means that we unbelievers should stay out of their business and not try to do things like steal their Christ Chex and swapping out their communion wine for pig's blood.
This may separate me from some of the other atheist groups, who are suggesting that more people go through steps to steal The Holy Ritz. Most of them are specifically stating that they don't want church services disturbed, stating that subtlety is the first priority in these games, but I think the whole practice is really unnecessary.
While, yes, we do need to inform morons like Bill Donohue that he doesn't get to have people fired to supporting the theft of crackers, we don't need to go out of our way to mock the stupid things people do in private. What concerns us is the influence they have on the rest of society. They can privately cannibalize all the crackers they want for all I care.
Of course, when someone says something like this about it:
"It is hurtful. Imagine if they kidnapped somebody and you make a plea for that individual to please return that loved one to the family." -Father Miguel Gonzalez
Well, that does sort of give me that old cracker-thievery urge. Some people need a serious, serious reality check.
And it does make me wonder why, if stealing the cracker is kidnapping, eating it isn't murder. One might suspect that, given enough Sun(ofGod)Chips, you could rebuild the Messiah. Maybe that's why he hasn't shown up for that Second Coming yet.
2 comments:
Those crackers are a BIG deal to them. They used to kill people SOLELY on the suspicion that they had stolen the eucharist and were 'torturing' it.
Yes, they used to kill people for just ALLEGEDLY torturing a cracker.
I'm not even sure I can express a fair opinion about their right to do goofy things or believe goofy things about their crackers in private. I believe in individual freedoms, and the rights of adults to do pretty much what they want while in a private situation, HOWEVER, people frequently go to insane asylums or psychiatric counseling for good reasons.
When their private beliefs about their magical crackers start extending to death threats in the public forum, that is when it has gone too far. I don't care if someone has snuck into their service and stolen their cracker, that will NEVER be an excuse to KILL the thief.
Especially when they freely gave the person the cracker, if you go to costco and the woman hands you a cheese covered ritz cracker to try out, if you then go out back and throw it away, that's really not her business, even if she believes it to be a magical ritz.
If they post signs or something saying that people not of our faith aren't welcome, then that might be a different story, since he would have been trespassing on their private rituals, but most churches welcome the public in, and invite people to participate. If you are going to do those things, you must then be tolerant about how your invited guests feel. You can ask them to leave if you don't like what they think, heck, you can even ask for your cracker back. But they invited the person in, and freely gave him the cracker.
If they believe it's magical and are upset by what he did...
Tough Shit.
Holy crap, that's a blog post within a post!
I should have just summarized all that with:
a. If your in your own private religious secret hideout, and the public isn't welcome, do what you want as long as you do no harm.
b. If you're open to the public and 'welcoming' you have to cope with the antics of the public as long as they are doing no harm (real harm, not imaginary cracker harm).
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