| | I believe in treating people with dignity. I'm guilty of not doing that on occasions, but I do repent and try to make amends. I think part of having dignity for people is respecting their beliefs no matter how much I may disagree.
The problem with religion and for that matter irreligion is that the respect for others often goes out the window. I've watched some Protestant/Catholic debates that made me understand how the situation in Northern Ireland came about. I've seen atheists treat people of faith like they are stupid simple minded fools. Here's a classic example:
Webster F. Cook is Catholic. He goes into the Catholic mass at the University of Central Florida Catholic center and goes up to communion. Now Catholics belief that the communion wafer actually becomes the body of Christ once consecrated by the priest. They have loads of rules and rituals regarding the handling of consecrated communion wafers. Webster goes up and gets communion and is supposed to immediately eat the wafer. He doesn't do that. Why he doesn't is unclear. Onc version has him wanting to show the wafer to a non-Catholic friend. (Non-catholics aren't allowed to take communion in a Catholic church.) Another version has him protesting the use of student funds for the on campus Catholic group.
However, the people conducting the ceremony want Webster to follow the rules. So, the grab him trying to get him to consume his wafer. He eventually puts it into his mouth but then takes it out and takes it home and puts it into a plastic bag.
So, Webster is guilty of the first act of indignity. If you're going to go into a Catholic church and take communion, then you should follow their rules. That's just a fundamental respect issue. I don't want anyone coming being invited into my house and then spitting in my face. However, the Catholic church then gets highly undignified. They assaulted Webster and then Webster gets death threats. Suddenly Webster is under some unofficial Catholic fatwa. They view it as Webster kidnapping the body of Christ.
Webster disabuses Catholic communion and they threaten to kill him. How very nice.
Now we need to cue the atheists. PZ Meyers is a noted atheist and professor at the University of Minnesota. He understandably doesn't understand what the big deal is about a cracker. However instead of just calling out the bad behavior of both sides in this mess, he puts out a request for a consecrated communion wafer so he can perform ritual abuse on it. Now, of course, this offends the Catholics again and they issue more death threats this time against PZ Meyers.
I understand why Webster would be upset with being assaulted. I understand why the Catholics would be upset over the communion wafer. I also understand why PZ Meyer would see it as an absurd mess. Now if everyone would just try to understand the other person, then perhaps wafergate won't get somebody killed.
Meanwhile, I hear the 4 horsemen of the apocolypse have entered an appearence in California.
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| | Posted 7/11/2008 9:22 AM - 76 Views - 6 eProps - 3 comments
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