Student Kidnaps the Eucharist... PZ Myers to the Rescue!

[Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup]

@Shirley

He didn’t interrupt anything. He tried to go quietly back to his seat, just like everyone else. If noone had noticed him there would have been no interruption at all.

That’s it. You can’t READ.

I’m sorry. Really, I am. I had no idea,

@Shirley

Aaaand we’re right back to the fancy lawyer bullshit. You’re always on, aren’t you? Well, counselor, it is standard business practice for theists to talk to the people that attend their church for 18 years, so I have proven that I talked to theists.

You’re missing the point. I believe that you have talked to these people- how could you not have? I don’t believe that you learned anything from them, besides which, talking to one fundamentalist congregation is not in any way proof that you know about theists, which is why you were offering it up.

@Shirley

I dislike you because you are a dishonest, ambulance chasing con man.

Cite?

@Shirley

Ah yes, and now we finally come to the real crux of it. If they disagree with you, they don’t know anything. If they call out a lawyer on a breach of ethics, they are stupid. Yes, it’s completely impossible that someone could study about Catholicism and still think that it is silly. Nope, if they don’t agree with it 100% they obviously don’t know what they are talking about.

Wow, you really CAN’T read. My issue with George Kaplin is that, in this case, his issue with the doctrine of transubstantiation is based on a misunderstanding of the doctrine, not in his belief.

If, after it’s explained to him, he still chooses not to believe in it, fine. But if his belief or derision is based on inaccuracy, the least I can do is clear that up for him.

@Shirley

If a lawyer that I have never spoken to in my life files a motion saying that they spoke to me and I did not object to a continuance, the problem must be with me, I’m in the wrong because the lawyer has these ethics that he has to follow, see, and you’re sure he followed them, even though you’ve never met him.

What the fuck are you on about?

Try to stay on point man. Whatever this is, it’s just embarrassing.

@George Kaplin

A little part of me always cringes whenever I hear some sportsman or musician saying “Jesus was behind me when I made that play/wrote that album/whatever”. It always makes me think, “Well, doesn’t Jesus have more important things to worry about? After all, we’ve got famines and earthquakes happening all over the place. What makes you so important?”

There was a great thread about this right after Zach Johnson won the Masters. “Great” meaning frothy atheists, incredulous theists, lawn chairs, the works.

Simple answer- “Jesus was with me” means “inspiration,” not “Jesus told me to go with a pitching wedge,” or “Jesus tripped the cornerback.”
As far as transubstantiation goes, the cracker both is and is not a cracker. As far as famines and starvation and why Jesus lets Madonna still seem sexually relevant after all these years- well, the world is as it is and man has free will.

I’d be happy to give you my own perspective on either of these in a different thread in a different forum; mind you, my studies and my post-bar cross-country baseball excursion will preclude thoroughly researched answers until mid-August.

[Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup]

@Shirley

Your viewpoint is that if some guy says a few words over a cracker, it magically turns into the flesh of a guy who died 2000 years ago.

I’m willing to bet that’s not Miller’s position.

[Boyo_Jim]

@Don't Call Me Shirley

OK. My viewpoint is that if some guy says a few words over a cracker, it’s still a cracker. Your viewpoint is that if some guy says a few words over a cracker, it magically turns into the flesh of a guy who died 2000 years ago. I would be happy to engage in a dialogue with you about our respective viewpoints, and why they are different. I’m all ears.

It’s not a cracker. It’s a WAFER, dammit! Poor little wafers… always getting misidentified as crackers, and cookies, and tiny frisbees… it’s enough to give a wafer lover a complex, I tells ya!

[Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley]

@Boyo Jim

It’s not a cracker. It’s a WAFER, dammit! Poor little wafers… always getting misidentified as crackers, and cookies, and tiny frisbees… it’s enough to give a wafer lover a complex, I tells ya!

At my church they were crackers. Saltines, to be exact. Maybe a Ritz once in a while for special occasions.

At my aunt’s Episcopal church where I went a few times they had wafers. Those things were disgusting- they stuck to the roof of my mouth and dissolved slowly with a really horrible bland taste.

[Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley]

@Happy Scrappy Hero Pup

I’m willing to bet that’s not Miller’s position.

Well then I am all ears, as I said, to hear what it really is.

[Boyo_Jim]

@Don't Call Me Shirley

…At my aunt’s Episcopal church where I went a few times they had wafers. Those things were disgusting- they stuck to the roof of my mouth and dissolved slowly with a really horrible bland taste.

Excuse me… sacred disgusting, horrible, bland, stick to the roof of your mouth, wafers.

[Terrifel]

@George Kaplin

A little part of me always cringes whenever I hear some sportsman or musician saying “Jesus was behind me when I made that play/wrote that album/whatever”. It always makes me think, “Well, doesn’t Jesus have more important things to worry about? After all, we’ve got famines and earthquakes happening all over the place. What makes you so important?”

I feel the same way when people talk about transubstantiation. There are really terrible things happening all over the world that aren’t anybody’s fault. And there’s God, sitting on his celestial throne overseeing all of this, not deigning to intervene in the slightest, except when a Catholic priest says the right Latin words over a bag of crackers and his favourite Burgundy. Again, I think “Couldn’t God be using his time more wisely?”

I’m pretty sure that’s not what Catholics are thinking, though. The point of transubstantiation is faith that a miracle occurs, even though it is explicitly undetectable by any physical means. Obviously the Host itself doesn’t perceptibly alter into a wafer of oozing flesh (if anything, this would probably make it more delicious). The Catholic Church isn’t worried that government agents will steal the Host and clone a Jesus army from the transmogrified wheat. (The government only ever tried it once, but all records of the ill-fated “Project Doughboy” remain classified to this day.)

Similarly, I think Catholics might reasonably argue that God is performing miracles all the time on everyone’s behalf, even though these miracles are not apparent. This still leaves them with the existence of suffering to contend with, but they’re no different from any other religion in that regard. God just eschews the really obvious flashy miracles, unless He wants to recognize a new saint-- and THAT’S how we know Catholicism is the true faith!

So transubstantiation would be more like an athlete thanking God for a performance that wasn’t visibly remarkable in any way. “Jesus was behind me when I hit that grounder and was tagged out at second base.”

[Find_Friends]

@Happy Scrappy Hero Pup

Cite?

Now hear this, deluded one.

You have already been sentenced to an everl-burning hell. I don’t mean an irrevocable future doom. You are now in it, and have been since you died two years and seventeen days ago.

You see, Mrs. Gahhd, in Her Infinite Unfathomable Wisdom, has decided for some (once again) unknowable reason to be diabolically ironic in your case, and has created the illusion that you are still alive and in no particular discomfort. Said illusion will persist until several years from now in which you will seem to experience “death” but of course will have already have been long dead.

…

What’s that you say? I need proof to say that or I should not say it?!

Nay, oh doomed deluded non-believer in hell.

It is YOU who need a cite to counter my One-True-Belief! So there!

• Officially signed, TRUE Blue Jack for Mrs. Gahhd. +

[Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup]

@True Blue Jack

You have already been sentenced to an everl-burning hell. I don’t mean an irrevocable future doom. You are now in it, and have been since you died two years and seventeen days ago.

Crap! My everls are burning! I was wondering what that smell was.

Two years and seventeen days? Does this… does this mean I DIDN’T actually get seven (seven being a number holy unto the Lord) different kinds of freaky with Name Redacted while her girlfriend was in New Zealand?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
[wailing]
[gnashing of teeth]

Eli, eli, lama sabach-thani?!?!!?!?!?

[/wailing]
[/gnashing of teeth]

[Gorsnak]

@Happy Scrappy Hero Pup

Crap! My everls are burning! I was wondering what that smell was.

Two years and seventeen days? Does this… does this mean I DIDN’T actually get seven (seven being a number holy unto the Lord) different kinds of freaky with Name Redacted while her girlfriend was in New Zealand?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
[wailing]
[gnashing of teeth]

Eli, eli, lama sabach-thani?!?!!?!?!?

[/wailing]
[/gnashing of teeth]

Yes, that’s exactly how seriously I and many others take transubstantiation. Now do you get it?

[Find_Friends]

@Gorsnak

Yes, that’s exactly how seriously I and many others take transubstantiation. Now do you get it?

Thank you. Even millions of “co-believers” cannot enable him to reverse the burden of proof.

• TBJ

[Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup]

@Gorsnak

Yes, that’s exactly how seriously I and many others take transubstantiation. Now do you get it?

I’ve always gotten it.

And I’ve never cared unless someone decided that the fact that they didn’t take transubstantiation seriously was a valid reason to disrupt my worship or otherwise get in my face.
If you wouldn’t do it because you don’t like my brand of chips, don’t do it because you think my God is funny or nonexistent. Then we won’t have a problem.

[FriarTed]

@Boyo Jim

It’s not a cracker. It’s a WAFER, dammit! Poor little wafers… always getting misidentified as crackers, and cookies, and tiny frisbees… it’s enough to give a wafer lover a complex, I tells ya!

I gotta say it- and I’m amazed it took me or anyone this long to think of it…
“It’s wafer-thin!”

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Bryan Ekers

I dunno why them being armed is significant. Maybe UCF security is always armed (not surprising in light of recent school shootings) and the school wanted security on hand to prevent wiseguy practical-joking troublemakers (as Cook could reasonably be classified) from trollishly re-antagonizing the Catholic staff and students. Imagine these shock headlines:

Armed UCF officers watch doorway to campus.
Armed UCF officers oversee parking facility.
Armed UCF officers check student IDs at bookstore.
Armed UCF officers joke while sipping coffee at campus Starbuck’s.

Unless you have some objection to armed campus security officers in themselves, there’s no reason to think the school did anything unusual by assigning its security as it saw fit.

UCF doesn’t have armed security; it has its own police department. Being (American) police officers, they’re armed as a matter of course.

“Campus security” patrols the areas around the dorms late at night and is armed with nothing more deadly than mace.

@George Kaplin

A little part of me always cringes whenever I hear some sportsman or musician saying “Jesus was behind me when I made that play/wrote that album/whatever”. It always makes me think, “Well, doesn’t Jesus have more important things to worry about? After all, we’ve got famines and earthquakes happening all over the place. What makes you so important?”

Well, assuming you believe in an omnipotent deity (which I don’t), you believe that while He/She/It was helping you catch that touchdown pass He was *also * feeding the starving children in Africa and the beaten wife in Des Moines and the typhoon victims in the Phillippines and so on.

[Sampiro]

@tomndebb

Given the belief regarding the Eucharist, you do realize that no one in the church is going to offer it up for probable desecration merely to tempt someone into being disrespectful.

Not tempt, allow. It is what Jesus would have done- “Love those who mock you” “turn the other cheek” “give him your coat also”. He gave his body to be tortured, they can surely spare flour and water to show that “we are the bigger people, whatever you do is not going to hurt us, we forgive you because you know not what you do, stop acting silly”.

[newcrasher]

I am late to this thread, and I am not going to read the whole thing. Please allow me to just jump in.

If you are a follower of Jesus and someone improperly handles a communion wafer, I suggest you do the following:

-Be kind.

-If he is in need of anything, share what you have with him.

You can do whatever else you want, as long as you don’t run afoul of these two things.

[Sampiro]

@newcrasher

I am late to this thread, and I am not going to read the whole thing. Please allow me to just jump in.

If you are a follower of Jesus and someone improperly handles a communion wafer, I suggest you do the following:

-Be kind.

-If he is in need of anything, share what you have with him.

You can do whatever else you want, as long as you don’t run afoul of these two things.

That’s exactly the same sentiment I’m going for, but you put it more clearly and concisely.

[Happy_Scrappy_Hero_Pup]

@newcrasher

If you are a follower of Jesus and someone improperly handles a communion wafer, I suggest you do the following:

Should have read the thread, dude.

This is not what happened.

[Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley]

@Happy Scrappy Hero Pup

post-bar

And suddenly, many things fall into place. I get it now.

[newcrasher]

@Happy Scrappy Hero Pup

Should have read the thread, dude.

This is not what happened.

Oh I see. I thought he had handled a communion wafer innapropriately. If he didn’t, isn’t this much ado about nothing?

Even so, how would my suggested response go counter to the teachings of Jesus, who I assume these folks revere and wish to emulate to the best of their ability?