I don't ask Meyers to accept or even respect the teaching — he can ridicule all he likes. But when he undertakes actually to desecrate the Eucharist itself, not because it means anything to him, but solely because it means a great deal to Catholics and he wishes to outrage us, that's just plain hate — or, at least, it's well short of the minimal respect for other people's viewpoints that one would expect from a faculty member at a state-supported university.
And of course if Myers had asked for help in desecrating, say, the Koran, he would not only be denounced by university authorities, he might also also have to have round-the-clock body guards. Myers and his ilk would never have the guts to do anything that actually required something like, well, courage.
You make a good point that his choice of target is anything but daring.
ReplyDeleteBut bear in mind that he's trying to right (what he perceives as) an injustice by making threats in an online diary.
He can walk into any Catholic church on any morning and have a host handed to him by a priest, who won't know he's not a believer, and he could easily walk away with, just as the college kid did. Myers is agrandstanding phony, and not trying to right anything. Bear in mind he thought the Muslims had a valid gripe against the Danish cartoonist.
ReplyDeleteI'm a staunch Darwinist and a Catholic-raised agnostic, so would seem to be a natural ally of Myers. Instead, I find his behavior abhorrent. There is a clear line between skepticism and malice, and he has crossed it. I read his blog for a few weeks but was put off by the unhinged quality it shares with so many of Dawkins' pronouncements. More than anything, I resent the shadow they cast over the role science has played in uncovering the glories of creation, whatever the source of those glories.
ReplyDeleteHi Jeff,
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I'm a Darwinist exactly, but the theory works for me. But then I was very influenced by Teilhard de Chardin when I was in college. Evolution looks like the sort of thing a supreme intelligence would hit upon (of course, I see it as purposeful and I know that's a no no). I totally agree with you that Myers has stepped over the malice line (he also strikes me, if I may say so, as so many pseudo tough guys I met in bars when I was "out there," as they say). I don't understand why we cannot simply compare our views.