The Nature Of It

Good post. Excerpt:

Myers, who sometimes makes some intellectually interesting arguments in his little corner of ScienceBlogs, a wonderful website hosting numerous scientific blogs, accomplishes nothing with an attempt to desecrate the Holy Eucharist other than to insult many people and show how bigoted he is. Is this science? Is this planned desecration an experiment? He is asking that someone mail him a consecrated wafer. How will he know that he has the real thing?

"[I will] treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart."

I have in my mind the image of a small frail women I once saw in a small parish church in England. Dressed in black and wearing a communion shawl over her head, she knelt at the communion rail to receive. "Amen," she said as she struggled to her feet. You could see in her face how meaningful this was. She probably knows little about molecules and atoms and cares nothing about arguments of substance about substance. It is, for her, the body of Christ. It is the moment of receiving the elements that for her is important.

Myers thinks this is mere superstition. He is entitled to this opinion. He is entitled to his belief in scientism, for ultimately that is his philosophy. Myers, who frequently argues intellectually, scientifically and rationally well, now wants to make a point with a stunt to has none of those redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Myers wants to shake the silly woman and explain to her that her belief is "silly superstition." On his blog he repeatedly tries to do this. His attacks on creationism and Intelligent Design and the existence of God have often been formidable and well articulated. But that is not what this is about now. He seems to have lost it, emotionally and intellectually."Okay, woman," he now seems to say. "Since I can't convince you I will trample on your holy bread, on your holy moment, on your faith."

It is a hurtful act.

I'm an Episcopalian. I don't believe in transubstantiation in the sense that there is a change in the substance of the bread. But the word substance, in this sense is a theological term and not a scientific one. For me the bread is the body of Christ and the wine is the blood of Christ. It is not about chemistry or physics. Nor is it about magic. The consecration by the priest and the acceptance by me is a shared moment in communion with God and God's people. That makes it sacred. That makes it holy. That makes it substantive. That gives it substance. Without that sharing, and the belief it entails, it can not be desecrated. But that is my personal point of view. For others, for the woman dressed in black wearing a communion shawl, it is mean-spirited, hateful desecration.

The Buddhas of Bamyan in Afghanistan may not have been a god or a godly person in an incarnate sense, but the destruction of them by the Taliban was nonetheless a desecration. A purposeful mistreatment of a consecrated communion wafer , regardless of one's belief about presence or substance, "with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented . . . on the web . . . joyfully and with laughter in my heart" is a desecration. It is no less a desecration than the desecration of a Buddha, a church or a temple.

Not all white people are white supremacists. But sometimes because of arrogance, sometimes because of a sense of inadequacy, sometimes because of a sense of feeling threatened and sometimes because of utter ignorance, a few white people become white supremacists. We find some of the same seeds in anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny and radical religious fundamentalism. Often, these bigotries lead to hate crimes.

Sullivan said: "Myers' rant is the rant of an anti-Catholic bigot. And atheists and agnostics can be bigots too."

No, it is more. First of all, it is anti-Christian, not only anti-Catholic. But when a capable scientist, a biology professor, an able critic of creationism and Intelligent Design (and I agree with him on this) abandons all reason and even meaningful demonstration and resorts to a senseless act he goes beyond bigotry.

The term Atheist Supremacist comes to mind and a reading of Myers' more recent postings to his blog seems to support this...