PZ is NOT Toadfish Material...

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

There are actually two schools of thought: Chew and Swallow or accidentally-stick-to-roof-of-mouth and slowly, uncomfortably, scrape off with tongue, Dissolve and Swallow. Which one is a worse sin depends on which ancient Dominican nun taught your First Communion Class...

It's like sucking on one of those cheap packing peanuts--the kind that dissolve if you get them wet.

[pieces o nine]

[It's like sucking on one of those cheap packing peanuts--the kind that dissolve if you get them wet.

But not quite the same consequences, eh?

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

In defense of PZ, (or not, you judge) I've been reading his blog for quite some time now.

First off, he is routinely attacked for being an unapologetic atheist-- of the sort that Dawkins and Hitchens is, only most times not so "in your face" about it.

He is about as tolerant of fundamentalist religions of ANY stripe (including but not limited to astrology, voo doo, UFO'ists, etc) as Bush is of Muslims-- that is to say, not much if at all.

He's a science professor, who tries to teach biology, including evolution, to an increasingly ignorant number of kids each year.   Kids, who through no fault of their own, were fed the garbage that is Creationism/ID INSTEAD OF actual science.

For Creo/ID includes a sort of mockery of actual science (such as man-fishes, and dog-birds and other absurdities-- no really!).  Creo/ID "teaches" a straw-man version of "science" that is patently absurd, and as easy to knock down as, well-- a straw man is.

Thus, PZ is rather annoyed at such fuzzy "thinking" and is increasingly becoming annoyed as time goes on.

Add in, that PZ, being a "hard" atheist, is often ridiculed for his lack of belief.  He's a second-class citizen in many places in the US, because of this-- and he's tired of that, too.

As Goat (and others) put it-- when did religion become such that it was NOT ALLOWED to point out it's silliness?  And laugh?

When did religion get a "by" so that anything a nut-job says, in the name of religion, gets a free pass in the media?

The kid in question was an asshole-- no, strike that-- he was a spoiled brat.  No question. 

But.  Where is the outcry that he was physically assaulted by one of the Church proctors?

Where is the outcry that the priest compared a mere symbol (their cracker) to actual human suffering?  (kidnapping)

It is right up there with our stupid state senator comparing homosexuals to the holocaust... (Sally Kerns) 

PZ might have been more diplomatic.   But the thrust of what he said was on target.

I think that PZ is a very thoughtful person.   I, myself, use inflammatory language in venues other than the Monastery.   Look for some of my posts over on Topix, evolution and Topix, top stories. 

I fully understand the limits there, as opposed to the deliberate limits here.

I cheerfully abide by those, too-- in fact, I usually start my posting here, so as to help keep my attitude in check over there.   It usually works, but not always-- I'm pretty intolerant of people who post to me, ASSUMING that I'm "this" or "that"-- I call'em on those assumptions, too.  Again and again.  Sometimes, I use deliberately inflammatory word choices, so as to get a rile out of them-- sometimes it's the ONLY way they even notice.

The world is a big place-- and I think there's room for the likes of PZ, and I for one am grateful that he is trying to pull us back from the brink of religions idiocy.   

Sometimes, to keep one from going over the edge, one needs to pull two times as hard as one would like, just to keep the balance....

[Bluenose]

I agree with Bob.

I also have been reasonably active over on Topix the last few weeks or so.  Whilst I try to maintain my tolerance over there, some of the people are so willfully pig ignorant that it seriously strains my tolerance levels.  On occasion I too have gone over the top there, much to my chagrin.  Alas, I am not always as good a Toadfish as I might wish.  But OTOH, there have been some over there who started out fairly much on the fundie side who seem to beginning to grasp some level of understanding, so I think overall it is for them that it is worth continuing.  Some of the people on there know much more about things than I do and I have learnt quite a lot as well, which is always a bonus.  Our own Vita Curator has made some amazingly informative posts.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.  I read the article about PZ that started this thread and I can see why people might get upset by what he said, or more to the point how he said it.  However, I think that the ideas behind what he said are entirely valid, and given the level of provocation he has experienced at the hands of some of the so-called religious types, I am prepared to cut him a little slack.

Maybe that is just me being an ex catholic, like some of the other posters here, or maybe I am biased because I largely share the views expressed, even if I hope I would put them more tactfully, but there it is.

Should PZ one day wish to join the Monastery, I would judge him by his behaviour here.  I would not decide whether he was Toadfish material until then.  It is very easy to to take something someone says out of context and get entirely the wrong idea, nor should we be too harsh on someone, just because they had a bad day and blew off some steam.

[goat starer]

I dont think tolerance and humility are incompatible with having a good rant. Bill Hicks was thoroughly offensive whilst ranting on stage but that was ok because it was 'comedy'. I thought the PZ blog was quite funny and falls into the same category. A rant is a personal thing.. a primal scream of frustration at a world that is crawling around blind in the sludge of uncertainty. Tolerance and humility are to me about how we engage with people. A good rant is about how we release the tensions that build up from being tolerant and humble in the face of mind numbing stupidity.

I say let people have rants. if we dont like them we dont have to read them or listen to them. sometimes they spark debate in a constructive way. Sometimes they provoke extreme reactions but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Often it is not until we see the extreme reactions of people that we can judge their ideas properly.

I believe PZ made me think about how I feel about catholicism and the sanctification of objects in ways I have not done before. He also let me get in a good Frank Carson joke (that nobody seems to have appreciated enough!). His rant sparked a rational debate here that I have found interesting and enlightening and that is not to be sniffed at.

Offending people is not in itself a bad thing. In the case of many of the worlds religions you can't critiscise at all without causing offense. And I for one would not like to live in a world where tolerance and humility were used as surrogates for laissez faire and torpor.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Ahhh, but there are ways to suggest you're not talking seriously, and the desecration stuff is, well, really offensive as the original story proves. Had he said "I should ask for a wafer to desecrate" while still objectionable, it becomes clear that he doesn't intend to follow thru, but it sounds like a I-had-it-you'll-see-now-time-to-go-to-war statement, regardless of the apparent snarkiness.

Does being angry justify being an @sshole?

[Opsa]

Scuzi! Posted with Zone.

So here's a question: if said PZ were to enter these gates, would we have tolerated his rant here? How about if he had posted it in the Venting department?

I think PZ has good points, and I agree that religions really need to try to be flexible if they want to seem rational. Basically, the clergyman chose to go ballistic over the stolen wafer when he could just as well have shook his finger at the boy. It was his choice as an individual and maybe others would not have done so. (I feel absolutely sure that this is not the first stolen wafer in history, as is illustrated by PO9.) Maybe he was fed up with the anti-fundamentalists? Equally, PZ could have chosen a more balanced arguement against the incident and also seemed more rational.

[Alpaca]

I dont think tolerance and humility are incompatible with having a good rant. Bill Hicks was thoroughly offensive whilst ranting on stage but that was ok because it was 'comedy'. I thought the PZ blog was quite funny and falls into the same category.

That's the part I disagree with.

I love reading rants, and I agree with you completely about their necessity and permissibility. I thought PZ's rant was funny, and I happen to agree with it personally.

I can't claim to have read much of PZ's blog, but I associate it more with posts like this. That's written in a fun way, too, but it presents a rational debunking of some of the obscene logic perpetrated by the ID crowd. And it's that sort of rational, intelligent discourse I want when I read Pharyngula.

I might be mistaken about the nature of the blog, in which case I retract any objections I ever had to PZ's rant - but given that Chatty refers (or referred) people to it is a source of reasonable, rational, polite atheism, I suspect that's not the case.

[beagle]

I suspect Auntie would be better off with the Jonathan Miller school of atheism for her Southern ladies; articulate and polite.  Also doesn't require dissecting any frogs in order to understand the philosophical concepts involved.

[Sibling Chatty]

I suspect Auntie would be better off with the Jonathan Miller school of atheism for her Southern ladies; articulate and polite.  Also doesn't require dissecting any frogs in order to understand the philosophical concepts involved.

Please understand that these are generally educated women, almost all of them more in the arts than the sciences. They've DONE the dissecting, they're aware of that kind of language, it's just that I keep trying to explain that NOT EVERYBODY is Hitchens, Dawkins or Sam Harris, and then...

I start them with the science as a break-into-the-genre, but NONE of them is now or has ever been a YEC. (No matter what the opinion is of Southern gentlewomen, we're NOT stupid.)

I'll look into Jonathan Miller.

I know that not all of these women will move away completely from the tradition in which they were raised. I ALSO know that the Southern Baptist religion has moved WAY too far away from what they were raised with, or can tolerate. I really want to 'raise their consciousness' without raising their blood pressures...

True, one's in-Monastery behaviour is where the Toadfish 'decisions' are made. I do, however, feel that maintaining a certain level of civility in public dealings with others is an excellent idea. it makes you better prepared to deal with people in a manner congruent with that which YOU would prefer to be dealt with.

[beagle]

Trust me, if I thought they were stupid J.M. is the last person I'd suggest. Unless I wanted to see heads explode. I merely meant his approach isn't based solely on the minutiae of stratified stability and arguments about bacterial tails, though it embraces science as well as philosophy.

Apparently his series "wasn't carried on a national feed" in the U.S. , which is probably a polite way of saying the national networks wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.

[goat starer]

Ahhh, but there are ways to suggest you're not talking seriously, and the desecration stuff is, well, really offensive as the original story proves. Had he said "I should ask for a wafer to desecrate" while still objectionable, it becomes clear that he doesn't intend to follow thru, but it sounds like a I-had-it-you'll-see-now-time-to-go-to-war statement, regardless of the apparent snarkiness.

Does being angry justify being an @sshole?

you see i just dont agree that it is objectively offensive and I have little patience for any attitude that says we cannot offend peoples beliefs even if they are patently ridiculous. To me his response is ridiculous, clearly so as he can hardly expect a shower of communion wafers from avid readers. It is ridiculous and in being so points out how ridiculous the whole issue is. It very clearly shows how organised religion pulls people away from the message and into the structures. The message is clear - be nice - but people ignore the be nice message in the process of defending the superstition and fripparies of religion.

if it takes an arsehole to point that out then yes being angry justiies being an arsehole. Sometimes if you want to remove some of the bad things that will otherwise poison you only an arsehole will do!

[Griffin NoName]

Jonathan Miller has always been one of my pin ups.

I may be wrong, but I see a cultural difference in this debate, possibly due to the lack of centrality and threat to the state and the scientists here in the UK by religion (at present).

Our pre-occupation such as it is, with religious issues seems to be entirely taken up with sexually abusive and fornicating priests, females presuming they can equal men, and gay Bishops. That's enough to keep us busy. Especially is trying to contemplate the nature of G-d

He's a science professor, who tries to teach biology, including evolution, to an increasingly ignorant number of kids each year.   Kids, who through no fault of their own, were fed the garbage that is Creationism/ID INSTEAD OF actual science.

Again, this kind of problem - the increasing ignorance of kids coming into university education - polarises around those who have no maths (sciences) and those who have read no literature (humanities) in the UK. That too keeps us busy.

Even the Jehovah's Witnesses are getting easier to dodge. Their cloting and the little books they carry give them away. And the one who lives opposite me offers stewed chestnuts rather than conversion.

Finally, I believe there is also a cultural difference in our perception of "influential figures" one "looks to for" "ideas" and "opinions". What kind of "professor" (small p) is PZ?  Is he what one of many thousands of people who's working life is spent on the teaching staff of a university? Or is he one of the select band of those University teachers who have managed to reach the pinnacle of their profession - and tend to be hopeless at ordinary life skills, wear cardigans, and be brilliant in minute and obscure areas of research? Much comment is made about the fact he is a professor - but it seems to me a bit irrelevant, unless he has a big P. ((And if he does have a big P. then odd ideas and behaviour would be expected )).

<end cultural diversity polemic>

I fear that until Atheism becomes an organised religion progress will be slow.

[Bluenose]

I fear that until Atheism becomes an organised religion progress will be slow.

[Aggie]

I may be wrong, but I see a cultural difference in this debate, possibly due to the lack of centrality and threat to the state and the scientists here in the UK by religion (at present).

Was mulling this topic, and I'll plead guilty to cultural differences.  Us small town British Columbians is godless hippy pinkos, and overly religious types out there are in the minority and looked at with suspicion (seriously).  It's not that we have a strong atheist culture; rather, the majority of people are probably best described as apatheists and/or CPC*s.


_{*Canadian, Presumed Christian 'cause they haven't bothered to think about it beyond cultural defaults.  Obviously, Christian-as-cultural-default doesn't hold for many recent immigrants, which DO make up a significant part of the population.}