Reality.
I rather think the side making the extraordinary claims should be the ones stumping up the proof in this case.
The onus is on the people making the extraordinary claim to back up their claim. I think saying that a cracker is a cracker is less extraordinary than saying a cracker is the flesh of the son of god, perhaps you don’t agree?
Reality. All of modern scientific knowledge. Magic doesn’t work.
You are the one making, or at least insisting in respect for an extraordinary claim - that words and rituals can give poor quality crackers the essence of a multi-millennium dead man. I’m simply claiming that reality is as science understands it to be. And that the people who are claiming otherwise are fools with zero evidence for their claim. I won’t bother asking YOU for a cite; it is the nature of religion that it has none, since it’s garbage.
Get outta my head, you.
I love Catholicism. Lots of other religions would be pissed if someone were to craft a baked effigy of their deity and eat it in public. Catholics are shocked when someone doesn’t take a bite out of Jesus.
Can we all just agree that any religion that ceremonially cannibalizes its own God is TOTALLY HARD CORE AND BADASS? Come on in and munch on the holy flesh of our Savior! Don’t forget to wash it down with a swig of blood! It’s like theology invented by a biker gang.
Rationalists: don’t screw with the Host, please. The doctrine of transubstantiation is one of the genuinely awesome features of the Catholic Church, along with nun garments. Think what a better place the world would be, if we could all just agree to leave each other in peace to eat the God of our choice.
Your statement does not refute mine.
I didn’t say you didn’t spend a lot of time around them- I know you spend a lot of time around them.
Which makes it even sadder that you know nothing at all about them.
Simply brilliiant.
As for all the “cite” rebutters, there’s a difference between making the claim and asking for respect.
Besides which, I made no claim. You want to prove a negative, y’all go right on ahead trying.
The point, lest we have missed it, is that going out of one’s way to disrupt a religious ceremony is DICK.
The only disruption was caused by the people trying to stop him from taking the host. If they’d just sat down and STFU there would have been no fuss and bother at all.
You misspelled “disrupt.”
Not really. Not when the claim is so silly, and it’s silliness is WHY you don’t respect it. People who say they actually believe transubstantiation deserve to be looked upon as fools, liars or raving loons, not with respect.
And saying that Muslims think pigs are sacred automatically disqualifies you from having an opinion on religion.
And yet you still won’t shut up.
That’s what I said. The disruption was them trying to stop him from taking the host.
We don’t need to. Every piece of evidence supports our side. But hey, if you disagree you can claim that it’s just our ‘belief’ but then you’re going to have to explain why your belief trumps ours. (Hint: “Because I’m right” is not an argument.)
I don’t disagree. Dicks abound on all sides in this sorry shenanigan, but it still brings up some interesting points. Freedom of Speech ‘vs’ Freedom of Religion, amongst others.
The truth is, this wouldn’t be happening if religion didn’t try to force their beliefs on the rest of us. PZ has picked the wrong piece of nonsense to take a stand against as it’s the one that really doesn’t effect the non-religious of the world, but I can see where he was aiming.
Reading the e-mails that PZ has now posted I’m heartended that a lot of people put forth sensible points. And I’m slightly worried by the lunatic fringe.
You run around pulling the beards off Salvation Army Santas, don’t you?
This is no argument you would make in person.
When what you should have said was “the disruption was him trying to steal the Host.”
About LAWYERS?
Because that’s what the quote you’re referencing relates to.
Shirley’s little pet peeve is that he doesn’t like attorneys and so on. It had nothing to do with whatever your little pet peeve is.
Wanna try that again maybe? Maybe this time after having read, if not the thread, the PAGE?
The truth is, this wouldn’t be happening if some moron didn’t decide that a good way to get a rise out of people would be to publicly shit on something he thought silly.
You don’t like Catholicism? That is more than FINE by me. The Der Trihses of the world are just fine with me. Go on about your business, smile and laugh behind your hands at me; hell, you can laugh out loud at me if you like. It’s really no skin off my back.
But walking up to me, saying “Your religion is a bunch of silliness- you cannot prove to me that any of it is real, and THAT entitles me to act in a complete and total dickish way to you, including disrupting your worship and encouraging others to do the same,” well, that is going to be met with negative consequences.
Not because that’s the sort of thing pleases me, mind you, but because it is more expedient than sitting around worrying when the next black-turtleneck kid with daddy issues and a whopping idea he’s SURE is entirely new and groundbreaking decides to run willy-nilly into a solemn rite just to prove something to heaven knows whom.
And yet I’m willing to admit my error and study the issue and change my mind. Which immediately separates me from every religious person on the planet.
I’ll take ignorant over delusional any day of the week.
Bollocks. Quoted the wrong bit, I was responding to your bit about ‘cite rebutters’ but I screwed up. My point still stands.
Fine. And if Catholicism would give the rest of the world the same courtesy there’d be no beef. But they don’t. Too be fair Catholicism is far from the worst offender but it’s by no means without blame.
This thread is a prime example of why the world is fucked, we’re never going to agree and there’s enough nutcases out there to more than make up for the majority of reasonable people.
Dude, you thought that Muslims worship pigs. You are in no position to say anything about what religious people think, say, or do, because you are arguing from a position of utter, impenetrable, and absolute ignorance. Five minutes on wikipedia isn’t going to remedy that. I’d suggest you take the time to actually talk to some theists, and try to understand their beliefs and opinions, instead of just sneering at them out of a badly misplaced sense of intellectual superiority, but a) you’re too dumb for that to work, and b) it would be an unnecessary cruelty to the theists.
I’m glad we share some common ground.
When you posted this:
did you mean that understanding those two concepts would make transubstantiation seem less unbelievable?
No. That would be assault. besides, as far as I know, none of those volunteers is claiming that Santa Claus is, in fact, a real entity nor are any of them claiming to actually be Santa Claus. Because that would be as crazy as claiming a priest can turn a cracker into the actual flesh of a 2000-year-past dead dude.
No, that’s not what I should have said, because it’s not accurate. The disruption was people trying to stop him from “stealing” it. No matter how many times you say otherwise won’t change that fact.
I don’t know, man. Human sacrifice and cannibalizing said sacrifice is *soooo * B.C. Haven’t we moved beyond this? In everything else we’re in the 21st century, and in religion we’re stuck in the Paleolithic. Join us in the modern world.