Thanks a lot Dr. Myers. What's next? Pulling kids off Santa's lap at Macy's? Burning the flag outside the Marine Corps League at closing time? Setting the Easter Bunny on fire? Some of us live out here in the world trying to convince our religious communtities that they have nothing to fear from educating their kids in adequate science and along you come with this substandard piece of performance art. Trying to supplant Dawkins for Boogeyman of the Year? The Koran, the God Delusion and a banana skin for Ray Comfort. Nice touch. We get it. Belief bad, rationality good. Although I'm afraid we'll have to give you a C for composition.
Bringing up an 800 year old depredation of the Catholic church to justify unnecessarily pissing off 40% of the American electorate in the present? Drawing the attention of those idiots from the Catholic League. Sweet. Your rightous indignation concerning the treatment of that wafer smuggling student reminds me of another group of self appointed monitors of public morality. And just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Irrationality in defense of the rational is no virtue, sir. Love your blog, but in the future, please don't be such a dick.
I am not terribly impressed by PZ, and that's not just because of the cracker incident. He has repeatedly shown that he has nothing but contempt for anyone with faith, no matter how otherwise grounded in provable reality they may be. I also consider him to be an egomaniac and a narcissist. His rabid followers are no better... they jump through PZ's hoops to be the first to comment on his posts, and basically his comment sections are nothing but showoff and suck-up contests to see who's the most atheist and most intellectual. It's pretty sad to see a bunch of so-called intellectuals desperately trying to be the one who gets to sit on PZ's lap.
ReplyDeletePZ doesn't seem to get the simple fact that his intolerance is extremely hypocritical, given the fact that he often targets the intolerance of fundamentalists. I'm a Christian, have been for over twenty years, but I like people of all faiths (or no faith at all). I hang out in a discussion forum with other Christians, extreme fundamentalists, wiccans, pagans, agnostics and atheists, and while we don't agree on everything with each other, we all get along great. PZ could learn a lesson in humility from the very people he denigrates every day in his blog. He's nothing more than a fundamentalist himself - an extremist atheist with a wildly popular blog, and he is reveling in the attention that he apparently needs so much.
Thanks for this post! It was nicely said, and I think it needed to be said.
Well, I'm impressed by him. He has a gift for communicating the science and he handles himself well in debates. This latest stunt was infantile and counterproductive, though. For myself, I think agnosticism is the only way to fly but I think it is silly to think that intellects like Miller, Collins, Polkinghorne, Davies, John Paul II, etc. are somehow deluded. They may be wrong but I get the impression that these guys have definately thought things through.
ReplyDeleteWhat bothers me most is that this further binds evolution and atheism together in the public mind. The money for research doesn't fall from the sky.
Oh, I agree that he is a good communicator and debater. Nothing against his smarts, I just often dislike his style and find it counterproductive. It's his life though, right? :)
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