The Nappy Cat Chronicles

So, there’s this mini-hoopla occurin’ in the blogosphere regarding blogger, terminal atheist, and biologist P.Z. Meyers and his declaration of war against Catholic communion wafers. This paragraph got him in trouble with the Catholic League and, Bill Donohue, its president:

So, what to do. I have an idea. Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There’s no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead 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. If you can smuggle some out from under the armed guards and grim nuns hovering over your local communion ceremony, just write to me and I’ll send you my home address.

I’ve been a reader of P.Z. Meyers for a year or so and I have a blog so I’m in a great position to judge him. P.Z. is a vastly intelligent and competent biologist. And, because he spends a majority of his posting hours picking on the religious and Republican, lunatic fringe, when it comes to the realities of religion and politics, he has the understanding and impulsiveness of a 2-year-old boy. When the two realities intersect, P.Z. loses all reason and accountability.

Not that I’m sympathetic to the Catholic Church. I’ve handled the communion wafer both before and after the transubstantiation is said to have occurred and there is neither a qualitative nor quantitative difference. At the church, there were older altar boys who would steal bags of unconsecrated wafers. This was a pointless endeavor on their part because the wafers contain no ingredient that provides physical sustenance and have no value outside of the church.

Inside of the church, the consecrated communion wafer is considered the most sacred object the can exist at any point in time. It is believed by some Catholics that the wafer literally becomes the flesh of Jesus Christ. Most who claim Catholic affiliation believe that this occurs in abstract terms. To those who believe in a literal transformation, obtaining and maintaining the privilege to ingest the wafer and participate in Eucharist–a spiritual communion with a god–is a cause worthy of a lifetime of mind, body, and soul devotion. It’s all called “Holy Communion” for a reason.

So, there’s some humor in P.Z.’s surprise at the ferocity with which the church directed its outrage. But, when your identity is fundamentally tied to rituals and esoteric doctrines that predate reason and were systematically copied from Pagan ideologies, your beliefs in what is real and what is unsafe behavior extend far beyond that which P.Z. has defined as being within normal cognitive and behavioral limits.

As such, P.Z. should really watch his back. If you think that the Muslims have a long history of violence against heretics, let me tell you about these things that occurred not long ago in a galaxy not so far away….