I would have took the crackers just to prove how crazy religion can be. This would definately prove my point. Any time I went to church I always refused communion because how crazy I thought it was. I never would have thought that taking a cracker is the same as kidnapping. Your right, these people are insane. Wonder what a non-religious psychologist would think of all this.

Death threats? Their as bad as the Muslim extremists. Catholic extremists they should be called.

Hey! A religion based upon eating cupcakes, I see the next Pink Unicorn or Spaggetti monster style cult. With cupcakes though, this could take off as a mainstream religion sometime soon!

Yeah.  Catholics take their Eucharist very, very, very seriously.  That said, Cook probably had grounds for assault charges from being manhandled that way.  Needless to say any sort of threats of violence or burglary aren’t very in keeping with what the Church purports to be about.

Of course, Cook was a bit of an ass about this, too.  It’s not clear in the story, but ... taking the host back to the pew to show it to a friend?  If he’s actually Catholic, that’s highly inappropriate based on the tenets of the religion; if he’s not Catholic, he’s behaving disrespectfully If someone invites you to their house and shows off their Holy Cupcake in its Cupcake Shrine, it’s more than a bit rude to carry it over to a friend out on the patio to show it them, even if you think your host is cuckoo.  That doesn’t justify your host assaulting you to get the cupcake back, of course.

It’s also clear that Cook has an axe to grind against the college religious center or the ministry involved or something for being funded at least in part by student fees.  Which make sme wonder if there’s more here than meets the immediate eye.

Would there be ice cream with the holy cupcake?  ‘Cause that could be a deal-maker.

Cook was being kind of obnoxious about it, no question.  But nothing in the imaginary realm justifies assault or death threats.

I think I can shed a little light on this strange ( and highly blown-out-of-proportian ) reaction on the part of the religius folk involved.

I was telling a relative about this who had studies religion in their education and acording to them, stealing the Eucharist is often an activity of satanists (who are just as fucked up as the people in this incident).

I have no reason to doubt my relative and acording to them the satanists like to take the Eucharist home, defile it using bodily waste and then offer it up to Satan. Like I said, just as nuts as their counterparts.

Perhaps said congregation has a paranoia that satanists are among them? It would certinaly fit in with their behavior.

Dave: Respect has to be earned and religion hasn’t earned that respect. I’m glad Cook did what he did. It proves how fucking crazy religion really is. Sorry but cannibalistic rituals aren’t my thing.

I don’t disagree that Cook was, at a minimum, being rude, but even if we discount his claims of assault and death threats as him having an axe to grind there’s still the fact that the priest compared this to a kidnapping and the Catholic spokesperson declared it a hate crime. That’s just fucking nuts.

Gelta, the beliefs about supposed Satanists are most likely based on as many facts as beliefs in God. Remember back in the late 80’s/early 90’s when everyone was freaking out about all the supposed Satanists kidnapping children and ritually murdering them? Yeah, turns out that never actually happened, but that doesn’t stop the True Believers™ from talking about it as if it were commonplace even today.

Dave: Respect has to be earned and religion hasn’t earned that respect. I’m glad Cook did what he did. It proves how fucking crazy religion really is. Sorry but cannibalistic rituals aren’t my thing.

I’m not suggesting respecting “religion,“ but people and their feelings—religious or not—are due at least some measure of respect on the level of courtesy.  Especially when you are on their turf.

I was telling a relative about this who had studies religion in their education and acording to them, stealing the Eucharist is often an activity of satanists (who are just as fucked up as the people in this incident).

I suspect there aren’t enough Satanists out there to make this particular concern all that real (nor, as far as that goes, if I were to consider the consecrated Host to be the actual transubstantiated Body of Christ, would I really be worried that there’s anything they could metaphysically do to it, but maybe I work with a different magic system than they do).

[T]he priest compared this to a kidnapping and the Catholic spokesperson declared it a hate crime. That’s just fucking nuts.

I certainly agree it’s not kidnapping.  And calling it a hate crime is trivializing other “real” hate crimes out there. 

On the other hand, I know people who go ballistic when the DM touches their dice in a D&D;game.  I know people (most, actually) who would be infuriated to find someone pissing on their mother’s grave.  And I’d be seriously pissed off if someone were to insult my wife or child, even if they weren’t there to be hurt by it.

The closest case I can think of to this is flag burning, which plenty of people who *don’t* support a law against it still consider to be a deeply insulting and angering act, an insult to those who have died, etc., etc.  On one level, it’s just a piece of cloth.  On another, people invest it with meaning beyond what it is on the surface.  I may not agree with that meaning, and I may certainly disagree with what they do about it, but I certainly realize I have enough things of my own that I consider precious to me that an outsider would consider meaningless that I shouldn’t just call someone crazy per se for their valuing of it.

Again, that doesn’t justify threats of (let alone actual) violence.  But while it’s easy to urge folks to be rational about their emotional attachments and take a few deep breaths, it’s not always helpful (or unhypicritical) to do so.

The catholic church has swindled the poor, the ignorant, and the gullible for almost 2000 years.  It is hard for me to get upset about them losing a cracker.  It is just a damn cracker.  With the tax breaks the churches get, I am certain the damn cracker was already paid for anyway.

Les, point taken, yours too Dave, although I still think that people who would think of a cracker as a hostage would be capable of beliving such rumors about so-called satanists, wether it be about killing children or defiling low-calory snacks.

They gave him the fucking cracker, he didn’t steal it.  I don’t see how it could be any more rude to not eat the communiuon cracker than to not eat a little cookie that you are given on some airplane flights.

What goes ‘Ouch stop biting, ouch ouch.‘

Jesus on Sunday

OK, that almost made me spew my drink all over my monitor.

Almost. I managed to contain the giggles it prompted.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH (cleaning up spilled liquid)   

The catholic church has swindled the poor, the ignorant, and the gullible for almost 2000 years.  It is hard for me to get upset about them losing a cracker.

Of course, this isn’t about “them” as a soulless, faceless, evil institution, at least in the initial reaction.  This is about individual people.

White people like me have been stealing from darker-skinned types around the world for centuries.  Do I get no sympathy if someone steals my wife’s wedding ring?

They gave him the fucking cracker, he didn’t steal it.  I don’t see how it could be any more rude to not eat the communiuon cracker than to not eat a little cookie that you are given on some airplane flights.

It’s sort of like an all-you-can-eat place—they kind of frown on your loading up a doggy bag.  Or it’s metaphysical DRM, and you’re only really licensing the eucharist, not buying it.  Or it’s like taking the damask napkin that your dinner host put at your spot at the table and taking it home with you.

Again, they way they took out their reaction was extreme, even wrong—but that they had the reaction was not, by their lights (or by anyone who’s spent any time in a Catholic Church) not out of left field.

Weird - I was just about to come on here and let y’all know about this story, and here it is.  Here’s a link to the story in the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, including the whining comments section complaining of Catholic bashing.

Did anyone try and reason with the guy first? If they did, and explained why they were upset, then the guys an arsehole.  If they went nuclear straight away then human nature is to kick back.

You had better be careful Les, the crazy followers of Bill Donohue are after PZ Myers because he said it was silly to get so worked up over a cracker.

And remember, a good Christain always makes death threats.

Raised a Catholic, all the time I thought the Eucharist deal was a symbolic thing.  I never realized I was part of a cannibalistic cult.

I’m ALWAYS the last one to get the news.

-EdK

“Gimme my cookie back.  It’s actually my left nut.“
- God

Cook’s father has made several comments and received answers from others at Vive Christus Rex! UFC Webster Cook in way over his head

I can’t wait so see the blogger who films himself taking one and then pissing or doing something else raunchy to it.

It will make my day.

I’m ALWAYS the last one to get the news.

Which reminds me of ...

Step into that long processional
Step into that small confessional
There the guy who’s got religion’ll
Tell you if your sin’s original

If it is, try playin’ it safer
Drink the wine and chew the wafer
Two-four-six-eight
Time to transubstantiate!

—Tom Lehrer, “The Vatican Rag”

To which I was first exposed by my good Catholic parents, who’ve always been able to take a joke, too.

Looking to the post that DOF pointed to:

1. Bill Donohue is a jerk.  But, then, I’m not much into hate speech rules (whether laws or school regulations).  The best way to deal with “hate speech” is either social ostracism or pointing and laughing at the jerk.

2.  The Catholics involved lose points in my book by painting it all as either an insult toward Catholicism or an insult to God.  The point is that it was an insult to the people who were there, and in whose community he was ostensibly worshiping.

3.  That Cook is a Catholic (as his father claims) means that he’s particularly clueless, or pointedly insulting, since he *should* know exactly how people would react to his actions.

4.  It occurs to me that, for the people there, what was being done was tantamount to doing what I suggested in an earlier comment, pissing on someone’s grave (whether it was meant to make a point, because of physical need, or to satisfy someone else’s curiosity).  One the one hand, arguably doing such a thing does no lasting harm to anyone (“It’s just a grave.  The person’s dead.  The grass will recover.“) 

On the other hand, if the family of the deceased was standing by, most people would understand if some attempts were made to physically restrain him from doing such a thing, even though, rationally, it’s not doing anyone any direct harm.

That doesn’t mean it’s okay to threaten him with death, or to threaten to break a few teeth, etc. And one could certainly argue that Christ’s suggestion to “turn the other cheek” should have applied here.  But to dismiss the crowd’s sentiments as silly, delusional, and wholly unwarranted is probably not the right reaction, either.

Call me conflicted.

I’m in favor of awarding religion all due respect—none. Playing pranks with a cracker and a ceremony of ritual cannibalism is therefore fair game. I’m not with ***Dave as far as it crossing the line between insulting religious beliefs and insulting people is concerned, but True Catholics™ will see that differently. At the same time, it’s poor form. Isn’t it bad enough that Catholics are supposed to believe this transsubstantiation nonsense? Then there’s the personal safety concern—people who feel strongly enough not to barf the cracker right up are bound to be provoked into muscular Catholicism.

The tie-breaker is Bill Donahue. If it gets him all huffy and puffy, then it must be all good.

I’m willing to bet that this isn’t even close to the first time that the cracker has been kidnapped and predictably, there are already out-of-the-closet copycats:

The Atheist Blogger: I kidnapped Jesus

Playing the role of fly in the ointment for a moment here…

If the young man had held the chip aloft and said; “I’m taking this and leaving!“ it would be tantamount to pissing on the grave with the family present.  But it seems his taking was not that overt. From all reports he was not attempting to give offense at the time.  Someone noticed and made an issue, and he got his back up about it, and here we all are.

But…

Deliberate offense (to use an example considerably further down the continuum of offensive things) like picketing a funeral practically guarantees sympathy for physical intervention.  The problem is that the continuum is printed on rubber; it stretches.  Some people have a thick skin, while others are terribly offended by things you or I might shrug off.

See what I just did?  I used an example practically everyone agrees is offensive to make my point.  But what makes it offensive?  The fact that people were offended.  By an act.  A symbolic act.  Which is to say, symbolic expression.  Which is a form of speech.

Jesus spoke of internal acts as being equal to external ones in the eyes of God.  The church is full of people reverently accepting the body of Christ having prepared their hearts for the act.  But it also has its share of people who take the Eucharist while thinking of dinner, or of their need for a drink, or of some other nonspiritual distraction.  Or unbelieving altogether but unwilling to confront their family’s questions about why they didn’t take communion. But we can’t see that offense, only God can.  Yet it is equal to the symbolic act we can see, the young man sneaking away a wafer.

If I understand Christian doctrine correctly, the church should have taken it as a teachable moment in practice, and many fewer Catholics should have taken communion at that church the following week. Instead many stepped forward as defenders of Jesus.  As if He needed defending.

My comments were deleted at the link above, but the author said; “...the Eucharist IS our God…“ to which I replied “That is painfully obvious”.

(Les, I’m still having to fix anchor tags by post-edits)

For me, part of the tiebreaker is the setting.  If Catholics march along on the sidewalk and wave a consecrated host at you and tell you that you’re going to hell for whatever it is you believe and that’s why they’re marching to shut down XYZ or whatever—it’s perfectly appropriate (IMO) to take the wafer out of their hand and do something with it that causes them to keel over in apoplexy.  Their belief doesn’t trump your disbelief in terms of the public forum.

This was the case of a worship ceremony in private, in which circumstance Cook either behaved with incredible cluelessness (and defensiveness over same) or with deliberate insult to make a point.  *He* invaded *their* space to do this, and that’s as unjustifiable (regardless of whether the theology and symbolism of the Eucharist is goofy to you or not) as your crashing a party at my house and slipping a kiddie porn disc into the DVD player.

Regardless of how one feels about the Catholic Church as an organization, as a theology, or as an egregious example of the balminess of those whacky theists, two wrongs don’t make a right, and being provocatively rude cedes the moral high ground, whether it’s Cook or Bill Donohue.

(I find it vaguely disturbing to apparently be the defender of the Catholic Church, which denomination I no longer belong to, and which hierarchy I find reprehensible on a number of issues.  I actually see myself more as a defender of civility in this instance than any particular organization.  If the Catholics want to perform ceremonial cannibalism in their personal ceremonies, so be it.  If they want to impose their will on the body politic, I’ll fight them tooth and claw.)