Dio, what’s the difference between this and the pastor in Florida mentioned by Spark240? The Koran is just paper, after all. It’s not the pastor’s fault if the Muslims are upset about it.
The point is the Koran, the Eucharist, the Flag, etc are imortant symbols - maybe not to you, but they are important so some people. And those people are justifiably upset when someone takes a shit on them.
This guy IMO has every legal right to do what he did, just like Pastor Terry would have, but that doesn’t make them not assholes.
I never said they wouldn’t do it. When I said “the image is ridiculous,” I didn’t mean that the premise was ridiculous, I mean that the act would be ridiculous. I believe someone has done it, I’m just saying I find the act to be so silly and petulant and childish (that is, if they do it with the idea that it actually has some kind of supernatural or metaphysical significance) that it should be beneath any Catholic to get upset about it.
Most people agree he had a right to do it. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a jerk for doing it.
Same as wiping my ass with the flag of a country not my own - it’s an expression of deliberate contempt for others. A person has every right to express contempt for others, but they are still a jerk for doing it.
Those religionists insulted by attacks on their books and crackers should probably not turn around and insult other people by telling them that terrible things will happen to them if they don’t consider the books and crackers to be holy. Insulting an entire belief system (or lack of one) seems much worse than insulting a thing.
I have no problem with this either - or with somebody doing it with the American flag. I can’t see why any cares what other people do with their own property or what they think or say. Why is it so important to Bill Donohue for PZ Myers to like Catholics? Why is PZ Myers’ good opinion so valuable to him?
I feel the same way about the Phelps clan. Why does anyone give a rat’s ass what they think? all of these things are just expressions of thoughts. Getting upset about it just gives it power.
Even if someone sincerely thinks the Host is literally the body of Christ, do they think that desecrating it actually hurts Jesus?
It is possible to “be a jerk” without “hurt[ing] anybody”.
Indeed, this very website has a “don’t be a jerk” rule, yet it is impossible to “hurt anybody” by merely typing stuff on a chat site.
Whether someone ought to care about an insult is a different issue from whether one is given.
I suppose the reason one may care is that bigotry directed at some group of persons makes those persons worse off, if unscorned; if the Phelpses of this world can parade their hate without even being considered jerks, we are all worse off.
I don’t see how that Pastor did anything jerkish to anyone. Nobody had to go see it. He did not affect anone else’s life unless they wanted to be affected.
Bigotry is only meaningful if it causes some kind of tangible harm - violence, discrimination, harrassment, etc. I think it’s a stretch to call not believing in magic bread “bigotry,” but even if it is, it intrudes on no one else’s life, property, freedom or peace.
And my point is, he did insult Catholics. You can say that he shouldn’t care that they were insulted, but the fact is, they were insulted; he did insult them. And he knew that they’d be insulted when he did it.
Now, like I said, that might be ok. You have the right to insult people in this country. But don’t say he didn’t insult them, unless you really believe that all the people who say they’re feeling insulted or offended by his actions are lying.
That’s true of any insult. It does not absolve the person doing the insulting from being a jerk.
That line is easy to cross. I’d say that the Phelps clan crosses it when they picket funerals - I’d classify that as a kind of harassment. This guy with the wafer is obviously not as big a jerk as Phelps - but he’s still being a jerk.
In his case, how exactly did this person obtain the magic bread? Normally, those are handed out in religious ceremonies, and only to believers. Intruding on someone elses’ religious ceremonies to take their holy symbols is definitely “intruding”.
Hmm…glancing through those…
[ul]
[li]artifacts stolen in Islamabad[/li][li]many sites destroyed to build a highway[/li][li]a road being placed between two sites (no mention of actual damage though)[/li][li]destroyed to expand a quarry[/li][li]April 1st prank[/li][li]damaged on a Christian holiday, but reportedly as an objection over government efforts to stop poaching[/li][li]desecrated as a protest against GM crops[/li][li]damaged by neo-pagans[/li][/ul]
So, that would be a no, then?
The gist of my experience is the caring or importance isn’t really about the other person at all. Religious dogmatists are about power. Most of them would prefer, of course, that everyone come to their great truth. But few actually expect that to happen. What really gets to them is that “non-believers” don’t always feel required to kneel in “respect” to their beliefs. Often, they expect all traditional religions to get that same respect, even though they are “false” or at least incomplete, inferior, etc. There is obviously strength in a united approach.
There is the failure to realize that the freedom to beliefs not only includes freedom of “unbelief” and that includes the free opinion that a religion or religion in general is just stupid and has no ordained right to be respected.
(There is the need to distinguish crossing over to harassment of individuals, destruction of someone else’s property, and hate crimes, of course.)
"One man’s religion is another man’s belly-laugh." - Robert Henlein
I say the Phelps don’t harrass anybody as long as they keep the required distance.
How should I know? If he stole it, then he shouldn’t have stolen it. If he posed as a Catholic and took Communion, then he shouldn’t have done that either.