In addition to being a bad argument technique...

 ...playing the Nazi card is a typically a sign that historical illiteracy is at work.

Not necessarily on the part of the speaker, though that's not a bad bet. 

The exclamation "READ ANOTHER BOOK, ELOI!" rockets through my cerebellum on a too-regular basis. 

No, it can also be a recognition by the speaker that he's talking to crowds whose familiarity with the first half of the 20th Century is limited to Inglourious Basterds or The English Patient.

They don't make many movies about communist atrocities, even though plenty of Catholic clergy and religious have sucked up to the hammer and sickle. 

So keep that in mind when reading that Fr. Daniel Horan lazily slandered the nun who spoke at the RNC by comparing her to a German nun giving the Nazi salute. 

Now, I don't know what to make of the President's sincerity on abortion, and his personal life has been a trainwreck of adultery. But his actual record on the issue has been a lot better than those whose sincerity has been less open to question. It can be safely said that he recognizes it is important to people who vote for him, so he attempts to deliver.

I wouldn't have done the fulsome endorsement Sister did--nope. But Fr. Horan's Godwin/Whataboutism hybrid was grotesque, and cleverly-evaded engaging with the substance of the nun's speech. As did his "sorry you misinterpreted it" non-apology.

The Catholic Left has its own "All Lives Matter" tic when it comes to abortion, and it is open to the same legitimate criticism.

Namely, you do not have to advocate on all possible permutations of a life issue. You are allowed to focus, and reflexively barking out a laundry list of seamless garment issues is not a response. It's an obstruction. 

An actively-hostile one. And don't think it's not noticed.

Now, if you want to rhetorically-belt Austin Ruse in the chops, go right ahead. 

[8/31/2020 Update: here's a screenshot of the tweet that caused Ruse to lock his Twitter account. Not a good look:]

 

The age of argument is dead.

David Harsanyi nails it in this piece at The Federalist:

Conservatives might be ethically compromised, uninformed, or—if liberals are in a generous mood—mentally unstable, but they can’t be for real. At least, that’s the sense I increasingly get from the Left these days. Blame it on social media.

When a group confuses its politics with moral doctrine, it may have trouble comprehending how a decent human could disagree with its positions. This is probably why people confuse lecturing with debating and why so many liberals can bore into the deepest nooks of my soul to ferret out all those motivations but can’t waste any time arguing about the issue itself....

Don’t like big government? You’re a nihilist (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc…). Forget what your policy does, watch your tone. Transphobic. Homophobic. Eleutherophobic. Sure, you may claim that you want to save unborn girls from the scalpels of Planned Parenthood, but your real goal is to control women. Even if you’re Carly Fiorina. Even if you’re a majority of women in the United States.
Or maybe you can’t see things clearly because you’re hooked to the most addictive opiate imaginable, religion—which, let’s face it, you probably don’t properly understand or adhere to correctly. Here, let them tell you what Jesus would do. (Hey, Vox, what’s up with Jesus?) Are you part of some regressive denomination that follows doctrine and hasn’t been poll-testing on the Left, that isn’t always pleasing to millennials’ ears, that hasn’t evolved properly, or still clings to “religious freedom?” You’re a modern-day Orval Eugene Faubus, probably. We can sue you into compliance or we mock you into the twenty-first century, because clearly you’re too selfish to be part of our future.

What conservatives (and some libertarians) possess aren’t arguments, but corrupt and nefarious ambitions. Defend yourself. What you can’t possibly have are legitimate differences of opinion.

Precisely. Exactly. So much this, or whatever the hep yutes say these days.

And religious "discussion" is poisoned by the same problems. I'm no stranger to hyperbole, but I can't run on it 24/7. Port is an excellent beverage, but I don't pour it on my Honey Nut Cheerios every morning. 

The culprit is social media, and its bullshit meme thinking, running from the comparatively benign (but still problematic) latest missive from Bernie Sanders (who at least has the integrity to make his case respectfully before an opposing audience, who proved to be equally respectful themselves) down to the poisonous frauds which presume the moral superiority of those who agree and lard them with, shall we say, non-facts. The Christian-hater pages swarm with these. 

And it doesn't take a flashcard from an a-hole to prompt it--most comment threads in Zuckerbergia that involve politics or religion degenerate into a Two Days Hate worthy of the Cultural Revolution. When such tactics and "thinking" become a staple of self-identified Christians--and they have--it is gruesome. It was one such thread that became the pile of anvils that broke the camel's back for me, when the questioning of a fellow Catholic's sanity was met with baying approval. 

So, while Harsanyi's points are well-taken as re: the tactics of the Left (who are not liberals in any traditional sense of the term), they are sins which beset everyone. 

I am pretty well convinced that Hell has a robust--and mandatory--social media platform.

And now for something completely different...

...a new phrase for your water cooler conversations: "Amoral familism." To quote from the link, it is

Social action persistently oriented to the economic interests of the nuclear family. In a controversial account of poverty in a village in southern Italy (The Moral Basis of a Backward Society, 1958), Edward C. Banfield argued that the backwardness of the community was to be explained ‘largely but not entirely’ by ‘the inability of the villagers to act together for their common good or, indeed, for any end transcending the immediate, material interest of the nuclear family’.

A similar ethos obtains elsewhere, as in the grim Arab proverb: "Me against my brother, me and my brother against my cousin, and me and my cousin against the stranger."

And it also applies increasingly to American culture, as we see in this jackass spectacle of a wealthy cardiologist expressing no empathy whatsoever for people outside of his immediate family. It started with a plea from a pediatrician and parent of a leukemia victim:

Dr. Tim Jacks, an Arizona pediatrician, wrote a blog post chastising  parents whose are not vaccinating their children after his two children were exposed to measles by a woman who reportedly picked up the disease while visiting Disneyland. Adding to Jacks’ concern is his 3-year-old daughter, Maggie, who suffers from leukemia and whose immune system is compromised due to chemotherapy, making her vulnerable to the disease which can lead to death.

Jacks wrote, “I assume you love your child just like I love mine. I assume that you are trying to make good choices regarding their care. Please realize that your child does not live in a bubble. When your child gets sick, other children are exposed. My children. Why would you knowingly expose anyone to your sick unvaccinated child after recently visiting Disneyland? That was a bone-headed move.’

He went on to say the family had to cancel a trip in order to monitor the children for measles as well as protect against any other infections, writing, “Thanks for making us cancel our trip to the snow this year. Maggie really wanted to see snow, but we will not risk exposing anyone else. On that note, thanks for exposing 195 children to an illness considered ‘eliminated’ from the U.S. Your poor choices don’t just affect your child. They affect my family and many more like us.”

Now, perhaps Dr. Jacks could have phrased it more gently and irenically--in fact, he probably should have. But at least he tried to credit love and a little good faith to the other side.

Enter the heart (the much-abused irony meter explodes again...) doctor:

Responding to Jacks’ post, Arizona cardiologist Wolfson said the familiy’s health issues are theirs, and he shouldn’t have to keep his unvaccinated children away from other kids.

Wolfson, who refuses to vaccinate his two young sons, said, “It’s not my responsibility to inject my child with chemicals in order for [a child like Maggie] to be supposedly healthy. As far as I’m concerned, it’s very likely that her leukemia is from vaccinations in the first place.”

“I’m not going to sacrifice the well-being of my child. My child is pure,” he added. “It’s not my responsibility to be protecting their child.”

Asked if he could live with the idea that his unvaccinated child could cause another child to become gravely ill, the cardiologist was dismissive.

“I could live with myself easily. It’s an unfortunate thing that people die, but people die. I’m not going to put my child at risk to save another child,” he said,before adding, “If a child is so vulnerable like that, they shouldn’t be going out into society.”

Translation--screw you and your kids. Only mine count.

And lest you think Dr. Lucius "Purity!" Malfoy was misquoted or something, here he is revelling in the attention and offering conspiracy theories worthy of a man who debates lampposts.

I would like to report that Dr. Malfoy is an outlier, but he's not. Thankfully few anti-vaxxers are this brazen, but too many of them are incapable of expressing even the slightest empathy for the elderly, the infant, the weak and the medically-compromised. They can't even fake it. I spoke with a couple yesterday before leaving the conversation in disgust. They differed only in degree from the heart doctor. Not in kind.

I'm not in favor of mandatory vaccinations. We ourselves vaccinate, but I think there should be the option to refuse vaccines in certain situations. However, I have no problem with affixing financial, insurance and legal liabilities to those who refuse. It's all part of the calculation of risk.

And, yes, of course your kids are your first responsibility. Nobody's arguing that. But you don't live in a vacuum, and probably not even in an isolated area. We are social beings, and we owe certain responsibilities to each other in order to make civilization work. At a minimum, it requires an effort to understand each other and to not contemptuously dismiss real and valid medical concerns.

The bottom line is that if a mandatory vaccination program is ever imposed, it will owe a lot to the callousness of anti-vaxxers, and their inability to express even a modicum of sympathy for the weak.

[Update: And, just to be abundantly clear, I will not be hosting a vaccination debate here. If you'd like to post something along those lines, there are plenty of such places on the internet where you can do so.]

Good dhimmi!

Shorter Maureen Fielder: Krystallnacht was not anti-Jewish, it was anti-Versailles Treaty.

He first characterized the bombing as a "horrific act" without a shred of justification. He praised the Christian community in Pakistan, now more fearful than ever, and noted that he himself was educated by Catholic priests and later by Presbyterians. He counts many Christians as friends.

So I asked him point-blank, "Was this bombing an act of religious discrimination?" Was it religiously motivated? Without hesitation, he said, "No." He pointed to a statement from the Taliban themselves saying it was a response to the United States' frequent and continuing drone attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan. He said the Pakistani government's protests to the United States have been unable to stop the drones, so the frontier tribes have resorted to their ancient "eye for an eye" response to perceived injustice.

Nice to see Dr. Ahmed has "many" Christians as friends.

Much like the white bigot who's "friends with a black guy."

Yeah, despicable.

And of a piece with freshly-minted chickenhawk Michael Sean Winters' airy dismissal of concern about the fate of Syria's Christians, should Assad fall.

Say what you will about the Reporter, they always manage to find a new low. And if Catholics ever go into ghettos, you can guess from whose ranks the authorities will recruit the Order Police from.

OK, upon further reflection, it's not that worrisome.

But that's OK: they're now the home of "The Francis Chronicles, reporting on the ministry of the world's parish priest!"

The wind at their backs. The orthodox-as-Chip-Diller response is losing it's effectiveness. Just saying.

Hat tip to Pat Archbold for the link.

Bye, bye, Hot Air.

Salem Communications' acquisition of the previously-excellent news aggregator/punditry site, Hot Air, is starting to show signs of being a disaster. Not because of the actual pundits at the site, but due to the studied lack of supervision of the commentariat. This has become a backbreaker for me. Here are exhibits A and B.

Exhibit A is found in response to this post about Isabella Santorum, the beautiful daughter of former Sen. Rick Santorum, who has the rare Trisomy-18 genetic condition.

Here’s where I disagree with Catholicism and agree with the Spartans — at least the Spartans as mythologized by Plutarch.

I hope she gets well and makes a full recovery. Failing that, I hope she dies in as much comfort as possible, and that this is not unnecessarily prolonged.

Random on January 29, 2012 at 1:02 PM

And then there's Exhibit B, offered in what should have been a celebration of a micropreemie's survival:

There is too much medical intervention in our society, both at the beginning and end of life. We are letting every weakling with a congenital disorder survive as [sic] reproduce, and striving to put death off unnecessarily generally. This is weakening our genome across the board. We ought to give natural selection a chance.

I hope this baby goes on to have a good life, but if it doesn’t, it will be largely our fault.

Random on January 23, 2012 at 10:12 AM

Eugenics--it's not just for Nazis and Spartans anymore. Coming soon to a death panel near you... And while we're at it, why don't we label some of the neighbors "Helots" and have at it?

Yeah, same anonymous jerk, what's the big deal? Well, here's the big deal: HA requires registration before commenting. Salem has opened the floodgates and a whole host of freakazoids of all stripes have wandered in. And they aren't supervised. The same clown appeared on the open-commenting Ace of Spades, was chewed to flinders by the "Morons" and then spat out by Ace himself, an open agnostic/atheist not afraid to wield a banhammer. Random is also fond of trying to hit you with some knowledge about racial issues, too, which won him a swat from Ace's electronic Mjolnir.

Sure, the dick jokes and foul language run rampant over at Ace, but it's a hell of a lot friendlier place to the sane than HA has become. Let alone the increasingly-virulent (and ever-more-unimaginative) anti-Catholicism permitted at Salem's blog toy. The latter is especially mystifying given the presence of two Catholic writers--Ed Morrisey and Tina Korbe.

It's increasingly obvious that HA has become more friendly to the economic conservatism/small-government-at-all costs wing, and less so to social conservatives. Sure, Korbe counterbalances this to some extent, but when you let the comments become a cesspit where eugenics is part of the conversation, that should be a heads up that there's a serious problem. The degeneration of the commentariat is a symptom, and HA's ownership better start heeding it. I'm not interested in a conservatism where eugenics is part of the discussion. Apparently, Salem's mileage varies.

Anyway, goodbye to all that. Have fun re-founding the agoge.

Gutless wonders, petty tyrants and chancery dwellers.

But I repeat myself. Yes, I know there are good folks laboring in the bureaucratic halls of the Church--this isn't directed at you. As for the rest of you...

The rector of the Cincinnati seminary managed to successfully retaliate against Rich Leonardi, long-time Catholic blogger extraordinaire and pointed, but usually civil, critic of the manifold problems of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.

Rich was booted off the Son Rise Morning Show in retaliation for his criticism.

Here's the message he sent me in response to a query on Facebook:

To net it out, the seminary rector reached out to the head of the Son Rise Morning Show to have me thrown off the program. I called him out on it, and a pissing contest ensued. I shut down my site and intend to withdraw from public Catholic life.

In the meantime, Ken Overberg will continue to deny the Atonement from the pulpit, and Paul Knitter will air his doubts about the salvific significance of Christ and the historicity of the Resurrection, both undisturbed in the sanctuary of Xavier University. Because doing something about *them* would take a set of clockweights, the willingness to endure media hostility and the turning of a deaf ear to the squalling of local progressives.

Squashing a layman who criticizes the local leadership? You can do that in a snap and still have plenty of time to enjoy a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon with lunch. To applause from "the right people," to boot.

What few non-Catholics understand is that we remain Catholic in spite of--sometimes literally in spite of--those to whom God, in his inscrutable Providence, has temporarily given custody of part of His Church.

I hope you reconsider, Rich. The Seditious Catechist is needed now more than ever.

The perils of undergoing a classectomy.

The side-effects are lifelong and difficult to treat, as a distinctly churlish commentator at the Reporter demonstrates.

In the past, Winters was a sometimes-challenging read, but his increasingly-venomous streak has made it not worth the bother.

Huzzahs!

No, this is not the beginning of a "walk in to a bar" joke:

Jewish and Muslim scholars protest English city's deletion of "Christmas" from city Christmas light display.

Executive Director of the from the Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths, Dr Edward Kessler, who is Jewish, said: "'people of all faiths in this country should recognise that such developments are a curb on all our religious freedoms. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. If Christmas lights cannot be named as such how can the religious festivals celebrated by Muslims, Jews, Hindus and so on be openly celebrated? If restrictions are only imposed on Christian festivals (for the time being), the interfaith endeavour is threatened."

Prof. Kessler's Muslim counterpart is downright acidic:

Muslim colleague Dawud Bone, Stone Ashdown Director of the Centre for the Study of Muslim – Jewish Relations at the Woolf Institute said: "To call this political correctness would be to flatter those who have arrived at this policy. I am unaware of any academic research that suggests anyone of any faith is offended by Christmas lights. They are therefore responding to a problem that almost certainly does not exist and in doing so they are creating a greater problem. I believe actions such as this can only damage community cohesion and reduce the respect individuals have for each other's faiths."

A hat-tip and thanks to you both!

[H/t to the incomparable Mark Steyn.]

Speaking of going down swinging.

I spent two and a half hours GOTV phone-banking yesterday. Remarkably easy (we were hitting self-identified GOPers with a history of needing a kick to the backside). Don't have any real (as opposed to anecdotal) impressions, but I wasn't the only first timer.

Alas, no canvassing the undecided voters. Which meant I wasn't able to use my Barry White impression on the ladies and my R. Lee Ermey drill sergeant on the gents.

Oh, and another trespasser decided to try his origamy skills on my McCain sign (again sparing the No On Human Embryo Research sign), during the daylight (!) hours of Saturday while we were gone. I decided to respond by duct-taping a C battery to the sign, running a wire to the battery lead, taping that in place and digging a hole to run the other end of the wire into the ground. It won't do anything but make them think, but so far, so good.

What a horrible person.

Alleged McCain supporter violence victim admits to hoax.

Way to blame "a black guy" for it, too.

Despicable.

New politics. Change. Trespassing.

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence and three times is enemy action.

My McCain yard sign has been vandalized three times in this election cycle. I could say four, but that time was the result of goofy kids trying their best Evel Kinevel impression using a two by four off the curb.

Twice the wire has been bent so you couldn't read it and Saturday I found it laying on the ground. No, it wasn't windy and after the first two times I made sure it was hitting bedrock.

Our neighbor found hers in a puddle across the street.

None of this crap happened in 2004. On the bright side, they are leaving our "No on 2" sign alone. Maybe Doug Kmiec is doing drive-bys...

Anecdotal, but somewhat cheering: the number of McCain yard signs is still growing in this neck of the woods, despite the campaign pulling the ripcord a few weeks back. And one of our good friends up the street, a Kerry fan in '04, has no yard sign this cycle.

Remember all the leftists saying how awful it was for Godbotherers to try to end P.Z. Myers' livelihood?

Yeah, that was awesome:

"I think Mike Koelzer is a contemptible, sanctimonious ass, and I hope he goes out of business," said Myers on his blog on Monday. "[Please, if you live in Grand Rapids, boycott Kay Pharmacy.] If Mike Koelzer comes to your town to speak in some demented fundagelical [sic] church, feel free to picket and protest, and feel free to attend and grill him with difficult questions."

Before we dismiss Prof. Aneurysm's statements out of hand, we must give due weight to the fact that he's easily one of the top ten contemptible and sanctimonious asses in North America. So, if you subscribe to the "takes one to know one" theory...

Naturally, Dr. Cranky's herd mind of free-thinkers sprang into action, covering themselves with glory and advancing the banner of Pure Reason into the benighted heartlands of religious ignorance:

Koelzer confirmed that he had received over 400 emails in the 36 hours since Myers' post, but he remarked that the 'difficult questions' Myers wanted his readers to grill him with were nowhere to be found.
"I had to read all of the messages," Koelzer told LifeNews.com. "They were quite boring. None of them offered up any real argument, and they were all demanding I give them their choice while denying my own choice."

"It was like they were following the same script, as if it was their own church or club, using the same boring rhetoric, and the same 5 or 6 words or phrases were repeated often such as 'sanctimonious,' 'fairy in the sky,' 'bronze age,' and 'crackers,'" added Koelzer.

"I was handed a script of what their arguments were," observed Koelzer. "Attacks with no reasoning or posing of an argument, demanding I do everything and anything they want."

The messages also displayed a lack of understanding and outright attempts at deception.
Several messages assumed that Koelzer charged for his speaking engagements and accused him of trying to generate speaking revenue, and others attacked him by lumping his position with unrelated fundamentalist Christian ideals such as creationism.

Many of the messages were sent by people posting as customers, claiming they had been to the store and received 'lectures,' or gave names that were not among the customers of Kay Pharmacy.

"My customers who didn't like the policy left 6 years ago," said Koelzer.

Some messages, however, threatened violence to the store or Koelzer himself, such as, "Burn[ing] the building to the ground."

Voltaire would be so proud. Oddly enough, there is no word yet from Dr. Science about his minions' threats of violence, nor how it might reflect badly on
"rationalism."

Drop the good doctor a note of support here.

[H/t to Larry for the find.]

Remember all that nice stuff

...I said about the Vox Nova blog?

Permit me to retract a lot of it. The posts themselves can still have value, but the comment boxes are, in the main, utter crap, a free-fire zone of bad faith, insult and readily-cast aspersions. Even the contributors jump in, and I was appalled to see Steve "Feddie" Dillard subjected to infantile taunts by one of them.

It's not all on the left side (somebody called Morning's Minion a "loon"), but it's clear there's no interest in maintaining even minimal levels of respect over there. And yes, I'm not exactly guiltless myself, but I never quite reached the level of calling someone a "f-ing hypocrite" or flatly stated that responding to an opponent was an occasion of sin, nor have I suggested that my opponents were mentally ill, or made (deeply ironic) accusations of moral cowardice.

There's a lot of growing up that needs to happen over there, posthaste, and there's no hint it's going to happen.

So I have a free spot in the blogroll now, available for a low monthly fee.

Get ready for the hate.

First in a new and intermittent series of posts for my children.

Dear Madeleine, Dale, Rachel and Louis:

I've decided to start writing posts to and for you. Sure, eventually you're going to be able to read this blog (and your Mom's) in full, but that's not necessarily the best snapshot of what I think on a particular issue, even if I happen to be addressing it. Blogs are blogs--they aren't epistles, or essays, or anything so formal as that, and occasionally I think I need to be more formal, or at least talk to you directly.

I guess I've been inspired by two models: the late Professor Randy Pausch, who recorded "life lessons" for his three young children as he was dying of cancer and (2) the advice given by European monarchs such as King St. Louis IX and Emperor Manuel II to their heirs. Not that your Dad has any such delusions of grandeur, elevating himself into such august company, they are merely an inspiration. Oh, and rest assured that while I haven't been in the best of health lately, I'm not expecting to shuffle off this mortal coil prematurely. But I do want to leave you with something from me to you that you may find useful in life.

I'm not sure when you are going to be reading these, so if you are doing so really early on and stumble on some of the words, here's my advice: the dictionary is on the shelf behind the chair you are sitting on.

Today's letter is on hate. Specifically, being hated for being Catholic. I'm going to start out without fanfare. Take a good long look at this photo:



Yes, Sprout, that thing with the nail through it sure looks like a consecrated Host similar to the one you received last month at your First Communion. The very same Body of Christ which you were ecstatic to receive and which we as a family and parish celebrated with you on that blessed Sunday.

Yep, someone decided to drive a nail through it, toss it into the trash and take a picture of it. Along with trashing what appears to be a page from a Koran (though this is not at all clear: Muslims don't regard translations as actual Korans, which I will explain to you when you get to comparative religion) and a page from something called "The God Delusion," a book which purports to conclusively prove that religious belief is a form of mass hysteria which should be cleansed from the human mind. We'll give that notion a whirl in comparative religion, too.
You're shocked, and you should be. I was and still am to a certain extent.

This is the man who did it, Mr. Paul Z. Myers, a biology professor from a small public college in Minnesota which touts an endorsement from Cosmo Girl! at the top of its kudos page.

As you may have noticed by now, your Dad thinks the rapier is an excellent writing tool.

In addition to being an employee of the State of Minnesota, Mr. Myers is a world class jerk who decided he simply had to desecrate a Catholic Eucharist. I know--try to be nice, Dad. Another lesson--sometimes the only words that fit are the harsh ones.

Why did he do it? Well, if you follow this link (DON'T do it yet), you'll read a lot of finger-pointing about Catholic persecution of Jews, the Fourth Lateran Council and so forth. Given Mr. Myers' resolute pig-ignorance about religion and his non-Catholic upbringing, it is unlikely in the extreme that he'd ever heard of the history he cites in his extended fart-lighting (uh--I'll explain much, much later--outside of your mother's earshot. Preferably the Upper Peninsula) rant. It's likely that he cribbed it entirely from Wikipedia, which is to serious, in-depth study what Ripple is to Dom Perignon. By the way, champagne is another fine Catholic invention.

Wikipedia--use in moderation.

Then again, moderation is not a virtue the Myerses of the world possess.

Which is not to say that Catholics haven't in the past done horrible things to Jews. Far from it--they certainly have. Even in the recent past, I'm appalled to say. Remember what I've told you about Hitler and the Second World War, and how he tried to exterminate the Jewish people? Some of Hitler's supporters were baptized Catholics, and even Hitler himself was, though he thoroughly hated Christianity by the time he came to power. We must always remember that horrible history and to try to make up for, in our own way, the evil actions of our forebears. One of the underlying rules of Confession is that you can never whitewash the past. To try to do so is lying. The same applies in our dealings with other people. And we have to try to remember and imitate the Catholics of the time who saw that hatred of Jews was evil and fought it, like one of my favorite Saints, Hugh of Lincoln.

But since there is no hint of violence against Jews today based on desecration of the Eucharist (if there had been, Mr. Myers would have trumpeted it with delight), this is grandstanding on his part. He whipped up an after-the-fact excuse to justify his actions, probably to ward off the alleged grown-ups who are supposed to be supervising his employment as a salaried worker for the State of Minnesota.

The thing that really set him off was an incident where a grown man had his arm grabbed by a much smaller woman at a student Mass in Florida after he tried to walk off with the Body of Christ. Then the guy in question started lying about what happened. And then some well-intentioned but wrong-headed loud Catholic guy decided to make it a national crisis. No, really. It's that stupid. Then Mr. Myers, who claims that reason should trump all, didn't bother to investigate the particulars of what really happened before going, well, berserk.

Very rational.

By the way, Mr. Myers and his noisy religion-hating friends call themselves "brights."

So, Mr. Myers decided that the grown-up way to address the situation was to ask one of his fellow "brights" to "score" him a consecrated Host so that he could wreak vengeance for this heinous arm-grabbing at a Mass 1500 miles away. The bottom line is that he had someone lie (because we don't just give the hosts to everyone, as you know from your First Communion, Maddie) and take the Eucharist from a parish that offered it in good faith, expecting good faith in return. A parish that almost certainly does more charitable work in a year than Myers and his dishonest drone will do in a lifetime, I have to add.

All so that he, as a droll Catholic commenter noted, could demonstrate the superiority of pure reason by gleefully assaulting a foodstuff. To the triumphant howls of fellow "rationalists."

All righty, then.

The horror for us is that he abused the trust of a Catholic parish and then desecrated a consecrated Host. Probably.

Or maybe just possibly. Remember, you shouldn't trust the word of people who will readily turn to lies to achieve their aims.

Regardless, Mr. Myers' behavior shows pure hatred at work. That's what hate does, children: it presumes the worst of the hated, always and everywhere, and reacts accordingly. It also is an example of Dad's favorite form of bleak humor at work--irony. [Which, I suspect, has to be God's favorite form of humor since we see so much of it.] This is man-is-the-measure-of-all-things reason at work?

Now, Mr. Myers and his fellow "brights" claim they don't hate Catholics. They just hate Catholicism. Which merits the following response: Bullshit.

Yes, I know--language. Your mom will tell you I have gotten better. But once again, the harsh response is best. Go ahead--take a look at this, which was Mr. Myers' original explosion, the comments there and then look the link I originally told you not to read. Make sure you read all of the comments, use your God-given reason and see if you can believe that Mr. Myers and his bright friends don't really hate us.

That's hate right there, kids. Hate. Fangs bared and slavering. They hate us. Not so much you right now, as you are young children. But they certainly hate me and your mother for our act of "child abuse," meaning that we teach you the Catholic faith. Or, as the ever cool-headed and reasonable Mr. Myers puts it:

And if I wanted to be so evil that I would commit a devastating crime against the whole of the human race, twisting the minds of children into ignorance and hatred, I would be promoting the indoctrination of religion in children's upbringing, and fomenting hatred against anyone who dared speak out in defiance.

You want to know the really hilarious thing? I think he's serious.

Remember, kids--this is a "science" blog. It says so right in the URL. Note also how he squeals about other people
fomenting hatred" in his run-on sentence accusing religious parents of the worst possible crime in human history. At least in his book. Which is apparently written with crayons.

So much irony that magnets are confused and spinning.

It's abundantly clear he hates my guts and your mother's, our catechism lessons being a crime against humanity and all. Yet his heart is without hate for us. Sure.

Not to mention that this claim is absolutely contrary to reason. You cannot have a deep-seated, furious loathing for religion and the teaching of it and not have this spill over to a hatred of the faithful adherents to same.

Rest assured, the older you get, the more you will be fair game to the Myersian haters. Who, I am bleakly amused to inform you, will invariably march under a banner reading "Tolerance." Again, irony. I'm sorry to say that it will probably happen sooner rather than later, given how little our society respects and gives a breathing space to childhood these days.

What I'm going to tell you next requires maturity and balance. You can be angry about this, but you cannot let your anger turn into hate. Otherwise, you'll just end up looking like a hopelessly angry ranting old man who thinks ripping pages from books and putting rusty nails through Hosts makes him a better person than you.

No, you cannot hate.

Just because a person believes the wrong thing and even acts upon it in a certain way does not mean he deserves hatred. As I've explained, an atheist is a person who does not believe that God exists. There are a variety of reasons for this, but it boils down to the fact that they don't think there's any good evidence supporting this belief. There are days when I sympathize with this a great deal. I've had periods of doubt, and I don't know how well my faith would survive shock, to be honest with you. But, in the end, I end up believing in God and that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. In another letter or letters I'll go into the whys and wherefores of that, including the "Why Catholic?" question.

For the purposes of this letter, it is enough to say I'm on the opposite side of the atheists. But I believe many of their arguments deserve respect and that their persons always deserve respect, as long as they act within the bounds of the law and human decency. I'll make this easy for you: there are plenty of atheists who live worthy lives and make our world a better place. Let's start with your Aunt Diane and Uncle Mark, two very admirable and caring people that you would do well to imitate on a number of levels, starting with their integrity, concern for others, care for the environment and for abused animals.

Now on to some names you don't know: Mr. Nat Hentoff is a fervent defender of our constitutional freedoms and a champion of the right to life. The man is fearlessly honest, even when he doesn't necessarily like where the evidence is taking him.

The late Sidney Hook, whose autobiography is in our library, stood against communism and other threats to liberty at great personal cost. Oh, and another lesson--you don't have to agree with everything a man writes to admire his intellectual courage and integrity.

And finally, there is a friend of our family and frequent visitor to this site, Mr. Steve Stirling. He doesn't believe, but he respects what Catholic belief has helped to build. And he writes great stories, which the world can always use more of.

Remember these folks, and the fact there are many more like them. You could do far worse than to imitate their virtues.

In other words, do not equate atheists with "brights."

Now what to do about Mr. Myers and those who shrieked their approval or made excuses for his behavior? First and foremost, prayer. Not just for them, but also for ourselves that we will respond appropriately and not with the inexcusable hostility of some of those who were angered enough to send threats. Prayer is never the last resort, it is the first.

Second, your mother and I will continue to build our dossier for the inevitable Myersberg Trials by passing on our faith in Jesus Christ and the teachings and beauties of the Catholic Faith to you. Just knowing the "brights" regard it in such a deranged light gives me an additional incentive to be thorough. I've decided to call it the Secondhand Incense Effect.

Third, when you face this hatred (I'm afraid it's only going to get worse), take a little holy pride in it and rejoice. We have it on good authority that it's a good thing. And remember the hard part--to love your enemies. It doesn't mean not being angry with what they do, nor does it mean acquiescing to violence against you or others, but it's not optional.

Someone pointed out this exchange from the film version of The Two Towers (maybe when you're ten), and I think it's an excellent take on this and other assaults on our faith:

Theoden: What can men do against such reckless hate?

Aragorn: Ride out with me. Ride out and meet them.

Theoden: For death and glory?

Aragorn: For Rohan. For your people.



We are not to cower. We are not to run away. Even--especially--when the odds appear the bleakest. We are to go forth into battle, noting that those who attack us are not, in the ultimate sense, our enemies. They are, regardless of how they feel about it, sinners for whom Christ died, and people for whom we should desire the joy we have and the ultimate good of salvation.

For His people.

If they won't have that, and they won't be civil, then they'll just have to suffer as we show them that the Faith is alive indeed, and will not go away, will not retreat from the public square. Just imagine how nuts they will get with that.

Finally, live joyously and don't whine. Avoiding the latter alone will make you stand out in our crabbed day and age. Remember, the victory is won, even if the other guys get the occasional first down or even manage to string a drive together. Joy is infectious--try it and you'll see.

I love you all, with all my heart,

Dad

What set the Minnesota biology professor off.

Nick Milne has a detailed account of the Eucharist confrontation at the University of Central Florida, complete with an eyewitness report.

Surprise--the student in question seems to be a dick. No wonder Dr. Science came to his aid, spittle flying.

Little man, smaller mind.

By now most of you have probably heard about Paul Z. Myers, a biology professor at a second-tier Minnesota public university who is soliciting his equally stunted fanboys to provide him with a Host from a Catholic Mass whereupon he can visit some destructive, sacrilegious behavior. Here's a link to the idiocy in question that won't drive up his link score. First, let me state that if he has been the subject of credible death threats, I hope those who made them are punished to the fullest extent of the law. And if any of them are Catholics, I hope they are subject to excommunication. Just because he's an ass doesn't mean that it's open season. Ever.

Moving on.

Please note that Myers is not a model of godless consistency, being a critic (!) of the Muhammad cartoons published a couple years back. For all of the proper leftist-cant reasons, natch.

Let me just add at this point that taunts to do the same to a copy of the Koran are contemptible, really. Why bay for the same mistreatment of others? "Hit him, too!"

Oh, I know--he's motivated by pure pragmatism, given Minnesota's burgeoning traditionalist Muslim population. And he made a threat to desecrate a Koran that he didn't follow through on last year. Good. I don't want to give this clown the license to do something equally asinine to someone else. Myers has done his level best to poison public discourse and toss a grenade into the public square--let's not coarsen it any further.

To get to the point, Myers is not a particularly impressive man. And I fully predict he'll back down. In fact, he's already started a climbdown as his last statement in the interview shows.

Prediction? It was a joke/satire/thought experiment (the rationales will be confused) to demonstrate how violent Christians are when push comes to shove. The reaction proves it, you see, and this explanation will leave him confirmed in his moral superiority over the godbotherers. His dim fans will stomp their approval and the administration/trustees of the University of Minnesota--Morris can go back to lives of contented anonymity.

On the positive side, we've learned a lot about the Myers brand of atheism, to the disgust of other nonbelievers. It is a thoughtless and unreflective ideology that can't be bothered to engage the other side on its own terms, preferring the irrational, emotional and insulting. A great advertisement for the brights, PZ!

Finally, his own behavior contradicts his claim that "Religion is actually fading a little bit." If that were the case, he would just wish it ill and let it continue to fade. Stunts like this argue that he thinks the opposite.

Why so loud, Prof. Myers? As was said of the equally shrill Richard Dawkins:

Scientists all over the nation must hold their heads and groan whenever Richard Dawkins appears on television, as he did in The Root of All Evil? (Monday, C4). He is such a terrible advertisement, such an awful embarrassment, the Billy Graham of the senior common room. His splenetic, small-minded, viciously vindictive falsetto rant at all belief that isn’t completely rooted in the natural sciences is laughable. Dawkins is a born-again Darwinist, an atheist, so why is he devoting so much blood pressure and time to arguing with something he knows doesn’t exist? If it’s not there, Richard, why do you keep shouting at it? He looks like a scientific bag lady screaming at the traffic, and watching him argue with a fundamentalist Christian, you realise they were cut from identical cloth, separated at birth.

Just so.

Request for advice.

The one downside to the vacation: some a--h--e keyed the driver's side door of our minivan last Saturday. I'm not talking minor scratching--the horse's ass scraped over a space roughly two feet square.

I'm not happy. And I'm looking for cheap cures. I'd rather not take the hit on the insurance if I can avoid it.

Thanks for letting me borrow the Sponger for a while.

Oh, the questions:

Can a life of preening self-regard, gossipy self-aggrandizement, and laughable pseudoscholarship be made into a drama that isn't "Boy Meets Tractor" agitprop?

Can a spiteful fundamentalist who has traded in one intellectually void worldview for another be a sympathetic dramatic protagonist?

Why not a musical: SpongRock!

More importantly: Can a play close during the first intermission?

We will soon find out. Perhaps the strangest thing is that it's not a one-man play:

At 74, Spong, the retired bishop of Newark, N.J., continues to rile many Christians with his denial of the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection of Jesus and a God who works miracles and exacts punishment. His critics call him a heretic.

Others, however, say that Spong's defense of ethnic minorities, women and gays as well as his skeptical take on Scripture as the literal word of God bring relevance, rationality and hope.

Now Spong's lifelong quest to wrest himself from what he has called his fundamentalist evangelical North Carolina upbringing to understanding God in a radically different way is the subject of a sympathetic new drama, "A Pebble In My Shoe."The bishop plans to be at Sunday's 5:15 p.m. premiere at the Los Angeles Theater Center, 514 S. Spring St. After the 90-minute performance, Spong will be honored at a reception. He also will sign his latest book, "The Sins of Scripture." Other performances are scheduled for Oct. 15,16, 22 and 23.

Written and directed by Cox, the play is based on Spong's 1999 autobiography, "Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love and Equality." It features actor Stephan Wolfert as the bishop.

Maybe Mr. Wolfert will be able to parlay this stepping stone into a role of true artistic integrity.

Like, say, portraying a satisfied client of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe in a commercial that runs during the middle of Montel.

[Update: My beloved child-bride, who has seen the movie more times than theoretical mathematics can count, gently corrected me, resulting in the change of the post title. She also has a great story about the time she nearly made Molly Ringwald cry in Paris (and still feels awful about it, if you're reading this, Ms. Ringwald), but I'll let her tell it.]

Ever read O'Brien's Eclipse of the Sun?

Good stuff. A page-turner, it seems to be based on what Yanks would regard as a most unlikely premise--the development of an increasingly totalitarian Canada, with full-bore hatred of orthodox Christians. After what I read today in two major Canadian newspapers, it's making more sense now.

Mark Cameron (blogroll imminent) offers a couple samples of Grade A, Government-certified, 100% pure, blinkered pig-ignorance from the Great White North.

I'm not sure which is worse: Heather Mallick's demand for the "Jane, you ignorant slut" rejoinder or Hartley Stewart's Springer-ready revelation that "Daddy said sex with Mom sucked 'cause she was Catholic."

Decisions, decisions. I think I'll learn towards Mr. Stewart, who feels it necessary to spill embarrassing details about his parents' sex life, and sounds more authoritatively stupid throughout:

The Church has got nothing right in the area of sex since its beginnings. Its edicts on sexual issues have been hurtful and counterproductive. They have done nothing to make for a better world.

A trail of misery, guilt and destruction has followed closely behind the Church's intervention in the sexual lives of its adherents and its hierarchy. It has not fostered understanding and compassion among peoples of differing views. None of it has helped us resolve our difficult moral and social issues.

On the contrary. It has caused heartbreak and stress throughout society. Encyclicals in the field of marriage, sex and relationships have always been a century or two behind the moral standards adopted by society.

Short of medical advances that allow doctors to reverse a lobotomy, there's really no point in arguing with the mouth-breathing illogic and factual errors of Mr. Stewart.

At least Ms. Mallick (who strikes me as a Canadian Maureen Dowd without the intellectual rigor) confesses her pig-ignorance: "The fact is, I know nothing about religion." To which I reply: "Thanks for the heads up, toots." Though I pretty well had it figured out before, discerning it from the opening paragraph:

Canada is a secular nation. I love you for that, beautiful Canada. Secularism means great things. Churchy people of any brand have no say in government, and that's all she wrote.

Translation: if you have the bad taste to be religious, shut up about it, leave it in the pews on Sunday and never, ever bring it into your public life.

And you thought Soviet ideology was dead. Hardly. Now I know why Kathy Shaidle keeps talking about getting a green card to the States. Sheesh.