From their press release, I learned that University of Minnesota Professor P.Z. Myers, author of the Pharyngula blog, has deliberately destroyed a consecrated host (and, Myers' post says, apparently a Koran as well), apparently as a protest against what he sees as the irrationality and magical thinking of religion (or at least of some religions).
Now I wouldn't have heard of this, and wouldn't be telling you about this, were it not for finding the Confraternity's press release:
The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy (a national association of 600 priests & deacons) respond to the sacrilegious and blasphemous desecration of the Holy Eucharist by asking for public reparation. We ask all Catholics of Minnesota and of the entire nation to join in a day of prayer and fasting that such offenses never happen again.
We find the actions of University of Minnesota (Morris) Professor Paul Myers reprehensible, inexcusable, and unconstitutional. His flagrant display of irreverence by profaning a consecrated Host from a Catholic church goes beyond the limit of academic freedom and free speech.
The same Bill of Rights which protect freedom of speech also protect freedom of religion. The Founding Fathers did not envision a freedom FROM religion, rather a freedom OF religion. In other words, our nation's constitution protects the rights of ALL religions, not one and not just a few. Attacking the most sacred elements of a religion is not free speech anymore than would be perjury in a court or libel in a newspaper.
Lies and hate speech which incite contempt or violence are not protected under the law. Hence, inscribing Swastikas on Jewish synagogues or publicly burning copies of the Christian Bible or the Muslim Koran, especially by a faculty member of a public university, are just as heinous and just as unconstitutional. Individual freedoms are limited by the boundaries created by the inalienable rights of others. The freedom of religion means that no one has the right to attack, malign or grossly offend a faith tradition they personally do not have membership or ascribe allegiance.
The Chancellor of the University refused to reprimand or censure the teacher, who ironically is a Biology Professor. One fails to see the relevance of the desecration of a Catholic sacrament to the science of Biology. Were Myers a Professor of Theology, there would have been at least a presumption of competency to express religious opinions in a classroom. Yet, for a scientist to ridicule and show utter contempt for the most sacred and precious article of a major world religion, is inappropriate, unprofessional, unconstitutional and disingenuous.
A biologist has no business 'dissing' any religion, rather, they should be busy teaching the scientific discipline they were hired to teach. Tolerating such behavior by university officials is equally repugnant as it lends credibility to the act of religious hatred. We also pray that Professor Myers contritely repent and apologize.
This is of course quite wrong in its statement of the law, and in its application to the law. I take it they use "unconstitutional" to mean "constitutionally unprotected," rather than its more normal meaning of "violative of the constitution"; only government actions can be unconstitutional (with very few exceptions that can be relevant here). But "hate speech which incite[s] contempt" is fully constitutionally protected.
In narrow circumstances, speech that incites violence is unprotected, but these circumstances (intent and likelihood that the speech will cause imminent violence against its target) are not applicable here. Lies about factual matters are often unprotected, when they're about particular people. But it's hard to see any "lies" in Prof. Myers' action, unless one stretches the term to mean "expressive behavior that I think are contrary to the Truth as revealed by God," but there's nothing constitutionally unprotected about that broad category.
The analogies are also logically weak, and undefended: Inscribing a swastika on a Jewish synagogue is a trespass to someone else's property. Burning one's own copy of the Bible, the Koran, or a consecrated host is not. Perjury and libel are punishable as false statements of fact; blasphemy is offensive expression of opinion.
And the assertion that "A biologist has no business 'dissing' any religion" takes a mighty narrow of view of "business." A biologist is also a citizen, who is entitled to participate in theological debate just as are nonbiologists. I take it that the clergy believe that commenting on moral, social, and religious questions is part of their "business"; I would think that the rest of us have the same rights on this score that they do.
But beyond that, while one could operate on the view that science and religion inhabit different realms and thus aren't contradictory, one could also take the view that certain views of some religions (whether about supernatural forces generally or the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, transsubstantiation when taken seriously, and the like) are unscientific and undermine the progress of science -- just as one could take the view that certain views of some scientists (for instance, the insistence on material explanations for phenomena, or the endorsement of the theory of evolution, or the rejection of the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the like) are antireligious. There's an important debate out there about religion and science, and neither the criminal law nor government universities ought to suppress it.
But more broadly, this further illustrates that "blasphemy must be punished by the government" thinking is alive and well in America. I hope that the Confraternity is a fringe group, but I'm afraid that their beliefs on this are hardly a fringe belief. If a Confraternity of Muslim Imams argued that the Mohammed cartoons, or stepping on the name of Allah, should be governmentally punished -- either by firings from a university professorship, or by criminal punishment -- many of us would condemn their views. I think we should likewise condemn the views of the Confraternity.
Related Posts (on one page):
- "Confraternity of Catholic Clergy" Calls for Punishment of Blasphemy in the U.S.:
- Censorship Envy in England:
Is there any way to legally come into possession of a consecrated host? If someone were to leave a church with one, they are taking it under false pretences. It isn't "their own consecrated host."
Particularly given that the First Amendment does give everyone the right to do those things - at least in their speech.
I think you're likely wrong in assuming the consecrated Host was in fact Professor Myers' property. I am reasonably confident that Myers is not a baptized and confirmed Roman Catholic in good standing, or the Confraternity would have pursued excommunication as the proper remedy. Assuming he is in fact a non-Catholic, Myers is not entitled to possess a consecrated Host, if I recall the Catechism correctly. Presumably he either acquired the Host by theft or by fraud (by holding himself out as a Catholic in good standing when he was not). His actions are exactly equivalent to, for example, stealing a Torah scroll from a synagogue and burning it as a protest against Jewish doctrine.
You apparently acknowledge trespass and vandalism of a religious property is actionable. Now, unless I'm missing something, a non-member of a faith who steals and destroys a sacred religious item also commits a criminal act. And to the extent enhanced penalties are available under existing "hate crime" statutes, they should be just as fully applicable in this instance as they are for desecrating or destroying any other religious item or property based on anti-religious animus (one can of course attack the general validity of "hate crime" statutes, but that's a separate and broader issue than that raised in this post).
Now, if the offended Catholics would have cared to identify the consecrated wafers from the ordinary ones I suspect Myers might well have returned them...but the fact is that Catholics can't tell the supposed actual body of their lord (a consecrated wafer) from an ordinary wafer, which is why the concern over consecrated wafers is so silly.
What is not silly is the fact that people have been murdered in the past over alleged desecration of Jesus in the form of a wafer. Myers recites a litany of such murders, proudly recorded and even still celebrated by, the Catholic Church.
Who's rights are more important? The right of wafers? The right of people not to be offended? Or the right to freedom of religion, expression and not to be murdered by religious zealots who think their all powerful god is impotent to magically protect Himself from pudgy biologists?
In all the Catholic churches I've been to, the priests and eucharistic ministers give them away to anyone who walks up in line. It's not like you have to sign an affidavit promising to consume it as the Church intends or anything.
I believe some guy got his butt in trouble by flushing a couple of his own Korans down a toilet. He was a student in NYC, if memory serves. I don't mean they were his "own" Korans, but they'd been acquired for the purpose.
We'll know the Catholics are taken seriously when arguing against this disappears and NOOOOOBODY ever mentions having the least objection to it.
In the meantime, this reaction gives the good professor the attention his wasted, useless, empty life does not otherwise generate. And validates what a commenter referred to as juvenile behavior.
Maybe just little note to Catholic students to never, ever take his classes. If his class count drops, who knows what principled concern the university will suddenly discover.
Additionally, if transubstantiation is real then all Catholics are in violation of laws concerning cannibalism and desecration of corpses. So, if Catholics want to bitch about Myers tossing some wafers in the trash then they'll have to explain how they gather weekly for what they claim is genuine mass cannibalism. What's the bigger crime, tossing some ordinary, non human wafers in the trash--as Myers contends he did--or weekly actual mass canibalism, as the Catholics contend they do?
From what I understand he didn't procure it himself, but used a host that was sent to him by others who presumably were or are Catholics. To be honest if you want to deal with it, check his blog where he gave all the details you could want on what happened.
Eugene,
They're a crank group, and are only trying to respond as they view CAIR or other Muslim groups would, for P.R. purposes.
Maybe Myers didn't commit a crime, but he should probably be fired anyway because it's clear that a practicing Catholic would have no chance of passing any of his courses. This guy engages in the most hostile act imaginable to Catholics, which is equivilent to parading around with a swastika or burning a cross, and he expects people to think it's no big deal. Whatever else, his amazing stupidity would be cause for his employer to kick him to the curb. I'd expect that any professor who went out of their way to parade around with swastikas would be asked to find another job as well, even if it was constitutional for him to do so.
Isn't this state action if the University of Minnesota is a public university?
That is a false statement. Myers doesn't teach religion in his biology class. Catholics can pass his class the same way all other students do, by learning biology. Myers' blog is his personal hobby on his own time and not part of his work for the University.
I've never been to a synagogue where, halfway through the service, they started handing out Torah scrolls from a big pile to anyone who walked up and silently held out their hand. But, other than that, you're absolutely right: taking a cracker that was offered to you for free is just like stealing a scroll that hasn't been offered to you.
As zippypinhead argues above, I wonder if this is a different situation then burning one's own copy of the Bible. Under canon law, no one is entitled to "own" a consecrated host without the Catholic Church's permission. I wonder how the civil law recognizes this precept of Catholic canon law.
Suppose this hypothetical: A group of anti-Catholics illegally obtain a consecrated host and put it up for display without the Catholic Church's permission. Would the Catholic Church be able to invoke civil law and force the anti-Catholic group to turn over the consecrated host?
Surely you mean it's "obvious."
I suppose that's accurate, but it doesn't tell the whole story.
For the benefit of the commenters here, this event occured in reaction to the Church's reaction to a University of Central Florida student who kept a consecrated host.
This student attended church, received a communion wafer, and rather than consuming it as expected, left the church with it. To my recollection He later did nothing more offensive than post a picture of it on the internet.
The church's reaction was rather extreme, calling the "theft" of the cracker a "hate crime" and issuing public statements that quite seriously called for criminal charges to be brought against the student. Further the student senate of UCF subsequently voted to impeach this particular student for this event.
At some point during this fracas PZ Myers got involved posting a blog entry entitled "It's a goddamned cracker!" and in the post he threatened to do something "Far worse" than merely posting pictures of a wafer. Subsequently apparently some of his readers at Scienceblogs sent him communion wafers.
Due in part to some of the enraged responses he recieved, Myers apparently decided to drive a rusty nail through the communion wafer, which of course caused an even bigger stink.
All in all it's a rather silly situation, but the underlying event is pretty serious. A student faces real consequences for doing something as trivial as failing to eat a communion wafer he was given.
*Blink* At first glance, the "amazing stupidity" involved in this situation inheres in the continued calls (by the Catholic Leaque, among many other organizations) for Myers to be fired and the death threats he has received for daring to express a heterodox opinion. There is no evidence whatsoever that Myers has or would discriminate in objectively grading practicing Catholics. Myers acted deliberately and provocatively, but as far as anyone can tell, completely legally. He expressed the opinion that there is no difference between sincerely held religious belief and irrational superstition and proceeded to express that opinion through the symbolic act of "desecrating" inanimate objects that belonged to him, in a way that caused harm to no one (I am not counting offended sensibilities as a harm). I placed "desecrating" in quotation marks because Myers believes that the objects are simply objects, and not imbued with supernatural powers.
Legal issues aside, is this an insensible or dangerous belief worthy of intellectual or moral condemnation, let alone threats to his safety and livelihood? People need to grow up a bit.
That people have been hurt or killed in the past illustrates the degree of provocation, and may be seen as restraint (or timidity) of modern believers.
Going back to 'Original Understanding' --or 'Original Intent'-- of the Constitution and Amendments, I would be amazed of any evidence that this type of act was intended to be protected.
No. He writes on his private time on a website that's not hosted by or endorsed by the university. If I recall correctly, the university even at some point removed a link to his blog from its site so that they would not be perceived as endorsing it.
1. It is worse. Burning a Torah is bad, but, equivalently, this is like burning the ark of the freaking covenant.
2. Your anti-catholic bigotry is showing.
3. You don't hold your hand out silently. The giver states: "The Body of Christ." To which you state: "Amen." A giver is not allowed to give it to you unless you respond in this way. Importantly, "Amen" is a raitification/assertion (see merriam-webster). You are stating, in saying Amen, that you believe that the Eucharist is the Body of Christ, and that you will treat it with the reverence the Catholic Church demands.
In other words, dear little bigot, whether it was Myers himself or one of his little minions that he asked to do this (through his website), someone lied to the Catholic Church and achieved the Eucharist via fraud, because the end result was to desecrate it and treat it as a "cracker", as you so intelligently call it.
As to how the civil law is vis-a-vis the law of the Catholic Church, I don't know.
You can buy them online for Christ's sake
I don't deny the magnitude of the offensiveness to catholic beliefs, but they're just that, beliefs, no matter how sincerely you believe them.
Had the Catholic church simply decided to excommunicate the original student for such a grievous offense as keeping a consecrated host, none of this would have ever happened. But they had to make a big deal about it and try to get civil authorities involved for an offense against religious doctrine. This is not the middle ages and the courts of the United States are not there to punish Blasphemy.
The student was a Catholic and PZ is not, so apparently the particular remedy of Excommunication may not have been available, but that doesn't change the situation.
DangerMouse: Help me out here -- you say the Confraternity is "a crank group." But then you seem to agree with them that "he should probably be fired anyway because it's clear that a practicing Catholic would have no chance of passing any of his courses. This guy engages in the most hostile act imaginable to Catholics, which is equivilent to parading around with a swastika or burning a cross, and he expects people to think it's no big deal. Whatever else, his amazing stupidity would be cause for his employer to kick him to the curb. I'd expect that any professor who went out of their way to parade around with swastikas would be asked to find another job as well, even if it was constitutional for him to do so." So you actually agree with the "crank group" that a university professor should be fired by his government employee for blasphemous actions, presumably whether they are blasphemous against Christians, Muslims, or whoever else.
So which is it? Are you a crank? Or if your views are similar to those of the majority of Christians, then wouldn't the Confraternity's views -- at least as to the need to fire professors for blasphemy, even if not to prosecute them -- be mainstream as well?
It would violate the Establishment Clause for the regular laws of property to be suspended and for the secular authorities to defer to Catholic canon law with respect to this cracker.
Treating the cracker disrespectfully is not fighting words because it does not provoke an IMMEDIATE breach of the peace. Rather, it is analogous to flag burning, which is constitutionally protected.
And no, the fact that Myers is an atheist who thinks that Catholic beliefs regarding the cracker are BS does not either make him an anti-Catholic bigot or means that he wouldn't be able to grade the work of a Catholic believer fairly.
At bottom, you either believe in free speech when your own ox is gored or you don't.
And by the way, I am agnostic and would never desecrate a communion cracker. There is no doubt that Myers showed a lack of respect for Catholics, and I think there's a lot to be gained from a basic level of religious tolerance where we do not go out of our way to gratuitously insult other people's religious traditions. But there's no doubt that Myers had the right to do what he did.
The Muhammad cartoons were directly done to show that free speech was ok, because of death threats. The writers didn't hold deep hatred for Muhammad; they just wanted to make it plain that he should be mocked if people are trying to make you afraid to do it.
However, Myers was doing this deliberately to mock the Catholic church, not for free speech. it's become a cause celebre now, but his purpose remained to attack Catholics and their beliefs in a degrading and mocking manner.
Quite frankly, Myers is showing a profound disrespect for the religious beliefs of his students. If he had stood up and said, "Muhammad is a prick. Here's a picture. Everyone who believes this guy is loony tunes," no self-respecting Muslim would have taken his class, and he would have been fired for religious bigotry.
If the U. of Minnesota fights for diversity and tolerance, Myers is an example of extreme public intolerance. He should be fired. immediately.
MCL 750.102 Blasphemy; punishment.
Punishment—Any person who shall wilfully blaspheme the holy name of God, by cursing or contumeliously reproaching God, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
MCL 750.103 Cursing and swearing.
Cursing and swearing—Any person who has arrived at the age of discretion, who shall profanely curse or damn or swear by the name of God, Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. No such prosecution shall be sustained unless it shall be commenced within 5 days after the commission of such offense.
MCL 750.169 Disturbance of religious meetings.
Disturbance of religious meetings—Any person who, on the first day of the week, or at any other time, shall wilfully interrupt or disturb any assembly of people met for the worship of God, within the place of such meeting or out of it, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
Dude, that is exactly what Myers is doing. Read Ben P's post.
In both cases, religious zealots claimed "blasphemy" and issued death threats.
Sorry, my name's Anderson, not Richard.
But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
The cracker was freely given out by the Church at a mass, and was sent by the recipient to Mr. Myers. In no sense is it anyone's property but Mr. Myers.
Property you received by fraud is not your property. Ergo, it was not Myers's property. Please go back to criminal law.
Can someone simply buy some over the internet?
My, what a forgiving Christian spirit you demonstrate.
While it's true the wafers you can easily purchase aren't said to be Consecrated, how do you know? They are 100.0000% indistinguishable from "consecrated" wafers, nor can you tell the difference. You can't differentiate the supposed body of Jesus, your lord, from an ordinary flower wafer. And if you think different I have a piece of the True Cross to sell you.
A fraud requires a false representation, made in order to induce reliance, and which actually induces reliance and results in damages. Further, even where fraud exists, you aren't always entitled to your property back; rather, damages can compensate you.
The church doesn't have a fraud claim because there was no false representation (an "Amen" is not a specific representation) and because there are no damages. Further, evne if there were a fraud claim, the church could not necessarily get the cracker back; it could get damages.
Finally, a person who RECEIVES fraudulent property is not civilly or criminally responsible for fraud unless they conspired in the fraud. Myers simply received the cracker. Thus, the Church would have additional obstacles to a claim against Myers.
Communion wafers can be bought, but the Eucharist is what happens when the wafer is consecrated by the priest during a Mass. The communion wafers are not the "body of Christ" until that point.
er, which you think, for some reason, is not a free speech issue?????? You do realize this is a legal blog, not a fantasy blog, right?
But people like Jack M. certainly help me understand Myers's motivation.
And everyone but Catholics agree that they are not the body of Christ even after that point.
I take issue with this.
As a Jew, my faith tradition is attacked by the mere existence of the christian faith, which purports to bring all the benefits of the Jewish faith and more with fewer rules and less stringent observance of those rules.
The notion that Jesus fulfilled Jewish prophecies of moshiach further maligns that tradition by actively denying the vast body of Jewish rabbinical opinion that the christian interpretation is inaccurate.
The insistence of christian apologists in trying to convert my children is grossly offensive to me, especially when those apologists represent themselves as "messianic Jews", which is really just another way of saying "not Jews".
But what I have always believed to be the case, in both the law of God and that of man, is that freedom of religion demands that all religious traditions have an inherent right to disagree with and even take offense at the behavior of other religious traditions.
I don't think Professor Myers conducted himself properly. However, I do believe he had a right to conduct himself in this fashion, even if it is offensive to those who witnessed it. If their religious beliefs are accurate, he will be punished quite effectively by God, and that should be plenty - so their demand to punish him here and now is, at the very least, some indication that they doubt their own faith.
Which I believe was his entire point. The Catholics appear to be missing it.
It seems to me that, if religion involves telling people who is and isn't going to get into heaven or hell, that it's a pretty important thing. I mean, if you're telling me I'm going to hell because I don't believe what you say, I should have every right to say, "You are a complete and utter idiot, and I hold you and your views in utter contempt." And I should have the right to express that contempt. And if you have to resort to legal action or violence to keep me from doing so, then your religion is pretty weak.
That being said, the thing that really redeems Prof. Myers' actions is the fact that he apparently desecrated a Koran as well. I mean, it's not particularly heroic offending Catholics (much less evangelicals -- it's more heroic to defend them), and if you publicly flush a consecrated host without simultaneously pissing on the Koran, you're pretty much a blowhard and a coward.
In short, I think the world could do with a few more public Koran burnings. But do it politely, just to show that you can, and that you will not be cowed.
As embodied in a wafer? Of course not. But to suggest physically harming an actual human being. Yes, I object. Myers only tossed some wafers and bits of paper into the trash. No humans were hurt or even threatened by him, so your remarks seem particularly off base.
Now that I know that, I have a subtler theological question: if, as I understand it, wafers're not "consecrated hosts" until actually in use in communion, if they're received under false pretenses as to the recipient's intent, wouldn't that "un-consecrate" them, and make them revert to plain old wafers?
As to this whole issue of whether the people who obtained and sent the crackers to Myers committed fraud, I am extremely skeptical. Obviously, there is no written agreement that they consume the cracker. You could argue that there's an implied oral agreement, but I think such an argument would fail, inasmuch as religious doctrine regarding the sacredness of the communion wafer is not binding on any person, Catholic or non-Catholic. If the primary safeguard against someone's removing the wafer from the church is a shared set of beliefs that some member of the community actually lacks, then fraud just doesn't come into it. You'd have to show some agreement between the person who took the wafer and the person who gave it to them, or perhaps between the former and the Catholic Church. I doubt you could demonstrate the existence of any agreement to do anything in particular with the wafer, but rather only an expectation of what would be done with it.
Jack M.:
Ok, so people are offended. I can understand that, on an intellectual level. Do you think this offense, or the "public spectacle" that caused it, can constitutionally be punished under secular American law, or do you disagree with the press release Eugene quotes in the post? If you do believe Myers' actions can be punished due to the offense he caused to millions of Catholics, do you also believe that any action which causes offense to millions ought to be criminally or civilly punishable? As an example, Bill O'Reilly published an op-ed in this morning's Washington Times referring to people under a certain income as "Folks who dropped out of school, who are too lazy to hold a job, who smoke reefers 24/7." In the process, he probably offended millions of liberals across the country. Should his statement be punishable?
I'm actually quite familiar with the process of Celebrating the Eucharist. However, you yourself stated why it is also irrelevant. "According to Catholic Dogma."
According to any impartial observer, the Church purchases thin unleavened wafers. At a service the Priest preforms a ceremony and then distributes the wafers to those in attendance.
You may believe they've been transubstantiated, I may believe the same thing, however, to someone who accepts none of this, the item is still just a thin unleavened wafer and has no reason to consider the post ceremony item different from the pre-ceremony item.
Jack M writes with a similar angry style to that guy who got his wife fired from 1-800-Flowers by sending a death threat to Myers using his wife's company email account.
Hmmm...I wonder...
Ok, you got me there. :) My states laws still contain references to the "crime which cannot be named in Christian Company."
Now show me evidence of an actual prosecution for the blasphemy law.
Jack, please be civil. Stop throwing the words "ass" and "bigot" around. You do not help your cause by calling people names.
Second, it is a cracker. I don't believe it to be a "host", because I do not agree with the Church that it contains the Body of Jesus or any other substance other than the ingredients to the cracker.
As for "cracker" vs. "wafer", they are synonyms. Is there something about it that makes it not a cracker?
2. Amen is a specific representation, eejit. It is equivalent to "yes." And the act of taking communion implies both catholicism and the belief system involved in it. It is equivalent to someone saying, "Are you a police officer?" and the person saying, "I would say so" or not answering but is wearing a police uniform and the person asking then entrusting the police officer with property to be returned. The false police officer who takes goods is stealing via fraud, and can't claim "oh, well, I didn't positively assert anything. No fraud."
Again, don't call me "eejit" or other names. It doesn't help your case.
I don't think a long discussion of fraud is necessary or appropriate here. But the representations have to be pretty specific. Merely saying ambiguous things, or things that might mislead people, is not fraud. It is true that silence despite a legal (not religious) duty to speak can constitute fraud, but since the Church doesn't ask people "do you intend to consume this cracker at this time and for this purpose", you can't stretch the "Amen" to be more than it is. It's simply a ritual.
3. Intentional infliction of emotional distress? Negligent infliction of emotional distress? Have you been to law school?
Long enough to know that those doctrines don't apply unless the conduct is directed to a specific person, and that under Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, it doesn't apply to parody or criticism of religious beliefs.
In order to fire him, you would have to prove that 1) there is a clear pattern of bias in the grades awarded to Catholics in his classes, and 2) that the bias is due to their religious preference. You can't fire someone for what you think they might do, they actually have to do something.
Regarding the legal status of the wafer, it seems to me that if it is given freely to someone, it becomes their property. The agreement between the parisioner and the church may be binding according to Catholic law, but this has no status at all in US civil law. If I give you a ham sandwich, with the express intent that you eat it, and instead you throw it away, it is not a violation of any law, even if I fully believed that the two of us had entered into a binding contract. After following this little controversy for some time now, I find myself wishing that someone would sue Dr. Myers, the resulting verdict (which would certainly be in the professor's favor) would be an important precedent that would clarify the legal status of church law vs. civil law.
--Monty Python
"Lies and hate speech which incite contempt or violence are not protected under the law. "
--Confraternity of Catholic Clergy
Unless they incite contempt for homosexuals wishing to marry in a civil ceremony in the state of California, apparently. $250,000 will buy a fair bit of contempt for your favorite punching bag, yes?
Jack, I think I was clear. Though I wouldn't say I was outraged by what Myers did, I do think he showed disrespect to Catholics and that our society functions better when we don't go out of our way to insult each other's religious beliefs.
That, however, is a very different issue from whether he had a legal right to do what he did.
Is it possibly for you to imagine something having value to you even though it may be indistinguishable from something that doesn't have value? If your grandfather smoked a pipe, and passed away and you kept it, and I put it on a table with the same type of pipe, would you be able to tell which was your grandfather's? If not, would it be OK if I smashed one?
—
I don't have an opinion on the firing. What I do have an opinion on is that Myers is being a jerk, and being a herk ought to have social consequences.
The hosts are not "freely given" — the communicant must say "Amen" to the proposition that it is the Body of Christ. Do we want a society where ministers have to look each communicant in the eye and make sure they clearly enunicate "Amen," because failure to do so will be seen by some as assent to sunts like Prof. Myers's
And even if they were given freely, so what? My wife might "freely" give me a gift. I'd still be a jerk if I took it and smashed it.
Not really. For the record, I think he has the legal right to say whatever he wants. I don't think he should be fired for opining on his disagreement with Catholicism, or any religion. What he should be fired for is his unbelievable stupidity and character flaws. I think he fundamentally compromised his position as a professor, by showing how far out of the way he'll go to offend, demean and destroy the most precious object of a specific group of people. He lacks the character to be a professor, irrespective of his opinions. Somebody who says "it's just a cracker" doesn't deserve to be fired. But someone who engages in a publicity stunt to purposefully hurt people and then relishes the hurt he has imposed on them is a twisted individual whose character is seriously demented. It's all legal, to be sure, but I don't think it's the role of an educator. As a government employee, he has fundamentally compromised his ability to fairly teach Catholics. A man who like him relishes the hurt he caused Catholics cannot seriously be objective in grading or teaching someone if he learns a student of his is Catholic. Opinions notwithstanding, this guy is messed up.
I want a society where: (1) people don't go out of their way to disrespect Catholics, including by pulling stunts like Myers', but (2) conservative Catholics understand that the doctrine of transubstantiation is rather distinctive and implausible to many people, and therefore don't make such a big deal about communion crackers that don't make it into parishoner's mouths.
Myers is a butthead.
Considering his attitude toward religion in general, it's, if not obvious, worth considering for an observant anything whether taking a biology class from him would be a good idea.
Recall that Duke paid up some undisclosed big bucks for one of their profs screwing with a couple of laxers. It's not that it doesn't happen. What happens is that it's hard as hell to prove. And that some profs seem to think it's a perk and what is anybody going to do about it?
And, were I a student needing biology creds at that U, I'd avoid Myers just to be on the safe side.
If this cretin is expending all this energy in his spare time--which hard-working profs claim they generally lack--what would he be doing at "work"?
If I were a Catholic and Ash Wednesday was on a day I'd be scheduled to be in his class, should I worry? Ditto other religions' public observances.
1. brought up the issue by commenting at length about the controversy caused by someone absconding from a Roman Catholic service with a consecrated Host rather than consuming it during the Eucharist as required, and specifically demonstrating his awareness that this was not a use of the Host that is permitted by the Church;
2. actively solicited someone to steal a consecrated Host and send it to him (an action every Roman Catholic knows is wrong under fundamental Church doctrine);
3. received and then destroyed a consecrated Host (and a Koran and some other unspecified religious item), and bragged about it on his blog.
Sounds like he more than meets all the elements of knowing receipt and destruction of stolen property. And his behavior is probably also chargable under criminal solicitation and conspiracy statutes to boot. Myers flatly violated criminal law. No different from burning a Torah. And fully as actionable under "hate crime" statutes and sentencing enhancements as any other destruction of others' religious symbols done out of anti-religious animus.
Incidentally, those commenters who merrily assert that Priests just give out "crackers" to anybody do not understand basic Catholic theology. Only baptized Catholics in good standing (and a few other Christian faiths in full communion with the Roman Catholic church) are permitted to receive the transubstantiated Body of Christ during Eucharist. This is printed in the missalettes available in every Catholic church pew, and is often announced from the pulpit when there is reason to believe a number of non-Catholics are present at a Mass (e.g., at most weddings and funerals). IMHO, it does not generally reflect well on one to make ignorant (but Constitutionally protected) comments about religions one does not understand.
I would be amazed if, in order to turn an action or speech I didn't like into "fighting words", all I would have to do is hurt or kill enough people to demonstrate that my target illustrated a high "degree of provocation". In a free society, when you're afraid that Dark Ages mouthbreathers might start violence over an idea, the right thing to do is to lock up anyone who initiates violence and protect their intended victims, not the other way around.
First, prove the wafers are consecrated. Keep trying. You can't.
Second, the wafers are **disposable**--designed to be freely given, used up and not returned, so your Torah analogy fails by, well, not being analogous.
You would think that an all-knowing, all-powerful deity would be able to swoop in and make just that kind of adjustment. Heck, you would think that such a deity would know in advance which cracker the heretic was going to receive and would simply prevent that one from turning into the body of Christ. That would have saved everyone a bunch of grief. But apparently God can't do that.
"The actions of an individual public university professor do not constitute government action, just as my posts on this blog aren't government action."
This makes me a bit confused. If a public school teacher decides to lead a Christian prayer in class (even if not at the direction of higher authorities, and even if students are not required to participate), I am of the understanding that this is government action and prohibited by the First Amendment. Unless I am missing something, it seems to me that desecrating the eucharist in class is more analogous to praying in class than it is to making a blog post (which has nothing to do with a professor's employment).
Ooh! I know, I know!
Civil law > cannon law in non-theocracy.
On another (Catholic) blog there was a long discussion about the level of "force" that is acceptable when the goal is rescuing the host. The legal answer (NONE) was unacceptable to the Catholics.
Because when an item is sacred to you, it gives you the right to break the laws of men. Didn't you know that?
[I]f [communion wafers are] received under false pretenses as to the recipient's intent, wouldn't that "un-consecrate" them, and make them revert to plain old wafers?
Not understanding a religious belief. That's not how it works in Catholic dogma. So no.
You would think that an all-knowing, all-powerful deity would be able to swoop in and make just that kind of adjustment. Heck, you would think that such a deity would know in advance which cracker the heretic was going to receive and would simply prevent that one from turning into the body of Christ. That would have saved everyone a bunch of grief. But apparently God can't do that.
Ah, the old Athiest argument. If God does act exactly how I think he should, he does not exist, because I know exaclty how a God should act. Nice logic.
No way. Let's be clear here. He didn't tell anyone to go steal communion crackers from a Catholic Church. He just said if someone obtained one (without specifying a means) he would desecrate it.
The one he received was obtained not by theft but was freely given to a parishoner by a priest. Nor were the legal requirements of fraud met (see above).
So, he asked someone to obtain the cracker, the cracker was obtained, and it was obtained legally. He neither asked anyone to break the law nor specified a means that was illegal. There was no criminal solicitation, and no receipt of stolen property.
Look, I can imagine cases where there was no way to obtain the property except by false pretenses. If Myers asked a reader to obtain the veil from the celestial room of a Mormon temple, and the reader obtained it, I can see the argument. But communion crackers are too freely given out to qualify.
Unless I'm very mistaken this was not done in a class of any sort, nor is Myers blog related to his teaching except in that they sometimes cover the same general subjects.
I believe it's rather more akin to if Professor Volokh were to post a video of himself doing something that's against University Policy here on this blog.
Here, Jack M, let me summarize your previous argument for you:
You've been rude from the start. Your hypocritical demands for civility are incredible. And you really do write like that angry Catholic who got his wife fired...
That may be, but that's not legally enforceable. It's too vague (can the Church sue if a parishoner receives a cracker despite being in a state of sin?), and there's no mutual consideration.
You know, I wouldn't call people names here. I don't think it gets you anywhere. Frankly, people are always going to hate Catholics. You can't fight them with the tools of Satan.
More seriously, the good old days are a bit instructive. I particularly refer you to the English Corpus Christi plays (Croxton, Towneley, York, etc.), which I think most scholars nowadays take to be anti-Lollard in orientation. (The Lollards, followers of Wyclif, were basically English proto-Protestants who were skeptical of, among anythings, the Real Presence. Wyclif inspired Hus, who was a bit more successful.) In the plays, Jews--probably standing in for Lollards--steal hosts and try to determine whether they are actually the body of Christ or not. In some, the hosts kill the thieves in gory fashions; in others, there are miracles and the thieves are converted.
Look, I'm a Catholic who would like to remain free to criticize other religious--even in terms they would consider blasphemy. I am reasonably confident my religion can withstand criticism being, you know, true and all. When other people act thin-skinned about pictures of Muhammad or the like, it makes me wonder why they're so insecure about their truth claims. So I can't come up with a reason to do anything bad to Myers. So I'll let God handle this one.
I do not believe he desecrated the host, Koran, and other materials on school property in front of students. That makes it different than leading a class in prayer.
Also, do you all think that Muslims and Dawkins have a good civil suit against the prof? It seems that offending people is now gonna get you an IIED claim. Heck, I recall seeing a nazi preaching on public access TV, maybe that can be my cash cow to pay my loans. he said really awful things that were deeply offensive to millions of people.
Here's a YouTube video of a guy accepting a host and then taking it home. It's not hard, nor is it theft. A criminal complaint brought against this guy would be dismissed.
Well, to steal a bit from Thoreau, when the law "requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law." I would say that if the law requires you to bow down to an injustice against your own beliefs, then yes, a person has a moral (not legal) right to break the law.
Thoreau did not state that he had a legal right to break it, but a moral one. Thoreau didn't believe in the supremacy of human-made law; he held a belief in "Higher Laws," and that human laws were a nuisance to be tolerated unless they required you to break your own beliefs of morality.
I did assume that this was done by Myers in the classroom during a Biology class. If I was wrong on this, I agree that there is no question that this is not government action.
"Vengeance is mine; I will repay."
Note that the Lord God didn't even find it necessary to call anyone an "asshole."
Not without lying to the people there, you couldn't.
It's hard to say that all that is true AND that the wafer is "property of the Catholic Church".
No, it is relatively easy. Here's an analogy: you walk into a crowded bakery. One person is manning the cash register, another is doling out treats. You get a cookie and start eating it. You start walking out. the cash register guy says, "did you pay for that?" You say yes. You've committed theft and fraud of the bakery property, although the cookie is now gone.
Here's a YouTube video of a guy accepting a host and then taking it home. It's not hard, nor is it theft. A criminal complaint brought against this guy would be dismissed.
Simply because it is not hard to do doesn't make it not theft. Plenty of homes are easily robbed and plenty of people are easily pick pocketed. Does that make it not theft? (Note to the slow: rhetorical)
An action: [a person takes the consecrated host under false pretenses]
Causes another action: [Jesus evacuates the host and it reverts to its unconsecrated state]
The Catholic answer is that Jesus could certainly choose to do so, but we have no way of knowing one way or another whether he does. But, anyway, the person who takes the consecrated host under false pretenses has no power to force Jesus to do anything that he does not choose to do. So the underlying assumption to the form of your question is false.
Assume, arguendo, that the University of Minnesota has a statement of nondiscrimination that includes, inter alia, commitments that members of the University community will not show animus against others because of their "religion . . . or sexual orientation." What, if any actions would/should the University of Minnesota take if our hypothetical Professor Myers organized an anti-gay rally off-campus, and as part of the rally, burned a California same-sex marriage certificate that had been stolen from the rightful owners by a confederate, at Myers' request? And then crowed about it on his blog?
Guess who would immediately be brought up before the faculty disciplinary committee on charges of having violated the University's nondiscrimination code?
Myers' actual behavior is not distinguishable -- legally, morally, or otherwise.
Chris, come now, be gentle with the sarcasm. I'm honestly curious.
Obviously we live in a non-theocracy and the civil law trumps canon law. And it makes sense to me that no one normally has the right to break the laws of men (civil law) for the sake of religious sensibilities. But there are civil laws which protect religious institutions, at least incidentally: for example, I don't have a right to march over to the local Protestant church and spray paint its walls. I don't have a right to go into a mosque when it is open and take its Koran and then destroy it. I don't have a right to demand a consecrated host from a priest, and then assault him and take a host from him by force if he doesn't want to give me a host. In all those instances, there would be civil protections and remedies to the religious groups. Maybe there is no civil protection in the current case and the Catholic Church can't reclaim a host from someone who obtained it under false pretenses. If so, then so be it. I was just wondering what the civil law was in this case.
I have served as an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist and was never instructed to inquire whether prospective communicants had struck any clerics, been married illicitly, failed to give internal assent to that which the Church infallibly teaches, engaged in nonprocreative sex, etc. before giving them the sacrament. I suppose all those people all misrepresented themselves. Since I had good reason to suspect that, globally, a lot of the communicants were doing so, my reliance on their representations was not reasonable, so I lost the Church's fraud claim.
You are begging the question. What constitutes "Myers' request"?
Myers didn't ask anyone to steal a communion cracker. He asked that someone obtain one. And since the Church relatively freely hands them out, it is quite easy to obtain one legally.
If they were all like Bama 1L, on the other hand, there would be no reason to give offense.
This is the one part that's significantly differentiable.
Although certainly not exact, it would be closer to allege a confederate went to the county records office and copied the certificate without the knowledge of the parties involved and presumably against their wishes.
No, that is fraud and theft. You have failed to give the consideration necessary to execute the contract (the payment). In the case of communion, no consideration is expected, nor given. Moreover, you have not lied, not that lying is, in and of itself, a criminal offense. What Catholic doctrine or canon law regard the status of "Amen" as is irrelevant. Under secular civil law, that word is not an undertaking, a promise, or a statement of intent. Thus, it cannot be false, or by itself constitute a promise that can later be broken.
zippypinhead:
The point is that Myers' confederate in the instant case didn't steal anything. He was freely given a communion wafer, and he then mailed it off to Myers. The law (the actual law, not canon law) does not recognize participation in a ritual on false pretenses as a crime. Nor does the law regard as theft the disposal or giving of an object freely imparted as theft or fraud. A lot of this confusion in this thread arises from the continued tendency to conflate Catholic law/doctrine with civil law.
No, Jack M, there is no payment involved. No theft. The wafers are handed out for free. Iit's like being given a free donut at Krispy Kreme and deciding not to eat it on the spot.
Yes, and when the beautiful women tells the sucker that she'd run away with him, except she can't as long as her lousy husband is still alive, since he'd track her down and beat her, she's not telling anyone to go kill her husband.
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Jack: You are not doing yourself or Catholicism credit with your involvement in this thread.
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I didn't realize something had to be "hard" and not capturable on YouTube in order for it to be theft.
If you leave your bike unlocked on a campus, it's still theft if someone takes it.
If you are justifying this action on the premise that consecrated hosts are easy to come by, then the natural reaction will be for Catholics to make them more difficult to come by. Just like we respond to ordinary theft by locking things down and regarding each other with greater distrust.
This is where Myers is leading us.
More seriously, the press release clearly shows that the Cofraternity understands itself (contrary to its claims) to be engaged in the same business as Prof. Myers: understanding the world around us and helping others come to terms with it. As is commonly pointed out on this blog, asking for the government to restrain the competition hardly inspires confidence in your product, does it?
You have not committed theft.
Just a Thought, sorry to be snarky. I don't think I originally understood your question.
To answer it, there is no civil law protection for the church here. If the Gideons were passing out Bibles they might be furious when I tore my copy up, but they gave the Bible to me to keep as my own property and I can do what I want with it. It may be rude, but it's not illegal.
The act of saying amen. It may be perfunctory in many parishes, but its similar to a judge asking a pleading guilty defendant if he understands that he has a right to a trial by jury beyond a reasonable double. Often this is perfunctory, but perfectly legitimate to defeat an appeal by a defendant claiming he didn't "know" he had a right to a trial.
The defendant's affirmation is the same as the person saying amen. It is enough to defeat a defense of "not committing fraud" or not knowing. Amen requires a positive act of affirmation.
That helps exonerate him, rather than incrominate him like you think. He did it specifically with the intent of commenting upon an incident in which the church was involved related to communion wafers. It's not just pointless nastiness done for no reason other than to offend.
The flaw in your argument is that you equivocate between canon law and the human law of the land. In your first point, assuming the facts to be as you state, you've demonstrated simply that Myers is aware of some aspects Catholic doctrine. In your second point, assuming the facts to be as you state, your use of the word "steal" begs the question. If the person who removed the communion wafer actually did so by furtively walking up to the altar and taking it while trespassing on the property of the church, that is likely stealing under human law. But if the person participated in the ritual and was handed the wafer as part of that ritual, in the eyes of human law, that wafer is a gift and belongs to the recipient to do with as he pleases, regardless of whether some such actions are wrong or illegal in the eyes of the Church. Therefore, to your third point, unless you have evidence to the contrary, the person who removed the wafer merely gave his own property to Myers, at which point Myers was free to do what he wanted with it, including destroy it. Not obeying the religious instructions of the Church or failing to complete an expected ritual is not fraud or theft under human law, regardless of whether it may offend someone else's deeply held beliefs.
And, yes, in case you were wondering: I am aware of all internet traditions.
Of course, the tort actions would fail, too, unless someone knows how to show the extent of the injury suffered by the alleged victim.
The point is the legal character of the act, not how difficult it is. As Dilan Esper has pointed out, this doesn't rise to the level of fraud. Nor is it theft, because the priest voluntarily relinquished possession of the object in question. His incorrect expectation that the person taking it would consume it on the spot does not transform the voluntary giving into theft.
If the church begins to require explicit agreement on the part of those who receive communion to use the wafer as intended, and gets a decent (non-canon) lawyer to figure out how to make such an agreement reasonably airtight, but still susceptible of presentation and acceptance orally and quickly, I think they'd have their bases covered. If someone then defrauded them, they really would have a legal claim to make. But that isn't the current practice, so the action taken by Myers' helper in this case simply was not illegal.
Maybe some people do consider what he did equivalent to burning a flag, burning a cross, hanging a noose, or wearing a swastika. But if there exists one person who considers saying "hello" equivalent to those things (because of the "hell" in there) must the rest if us refrain from saying "hello"?
Objectively, he crushed a cracker.
Maybe some people do consider what he did equivalent to burning a flag, burning a cross, hanging a noose, or wearing a swastika. But if there exists one person who considers saying "hello" equivalent to those things (because of the "hell" in there) must the rest if us refrain from saying "hello"?
Objectively, he crushed a cracker.
I did assume that this was done by Myers in the classroom during a Biology class. If I was wrong on this, I agree that there is no question that this is not government action.
Why did you assume that? There is nothing I have seen that even hints at when and where this was done, and the only information in this thread about Myers is that:
1) He a professor.
2) He has a non-university affiliated (IE: private) blog that he posted this particular bit on.
There's nothing there to infer he did it on university grounds period, much less during an actual class.
Now, from the level of anger some people have about it, I can see thinking he MUST have done it right there in class to get people this angry.
But as far as I can tell, the entire thing took place privately. His private blog, his private home.
I personally don't desecrate religious symbols, but I think the reaction is rather interesting. Christianity isn't as enlightened as it likes to claim to be, nor as secure. Catholic doctrine says Meyers will burn in Hell for such an act, unless he confesses and does pennance (unlikely, given he's an atheist). Why agitate to fire him and threaten to kill him, when the core of your belief has already condemed him to the worst possible punishment?
These are not free samples. The Eucharist requires a payment, just not in monetary terms. It requires being a Catholic and believing in the Eucharist---it requires you to do something and affirm that you've done it (i.e. believe). The free sample analogy fails, because it doesn't require anything more than just showing up.
Catholics don't give away the Eucharist for free. Its given to people who, by their actions and words, express the notion that they are Catholics in full communion with the beliefs of the Catholic church.
Similarly, the bakery requires you to act by paying--not with belief, but with money.
So your analogy fails.
(2) Buying communion wafers on-line. Those wafers are probably not blessed by a priest. To be sure, a jerk could desecrate those wafers just as a jerk could desecrate the real thing. But, there’s a difference in the eyes of Catholics and, I believe, in the eyes of the law. You can desecrate all kinds of inanimate objects that you rightly possess. You cannot so easily desecrate objects that you don’t righty possess for a given purpose.
Wafers bought on-line probably come with no legal strings attached. Wafers blessed by a priest and obtained in a mass might come with such strings. The question, in the latter instance, is whether the Church has a reasonably claim against a person who obtains its property and uses it, without permission, in a way that is antithetical to the way the Church intended people to use it, when the person who obtained the property knows they’re using it in a way that was not intended.
(3) Fighting words: Context matters here. My sense is that if Mr. Myers pulled such a stunt in public, most Catholics would not respond favorably.
(4) Ownership. The key question is whether the Church has a reasonable claim against a person who obtains its property and uses it in a way that is a clear violation of the way the Church intended the property to be used. In many circumstances, you receive property for specific purposes only; using that property for other purposes may be a contract violation, it seems to me.
This is the typical non-religious reply---some uneductaed non-believer telling religious folks how they should act, merely because they think they should act this way, based on very little knowledge of the religion in question.
But that's a spiritual contract, not a legal one. (It's also not one that the Church really enforces, except for the odd incident every now and again where a Doug Kmiec gets denied commuion.)
The law only enforces contracts that have a legally cognizable form of consideration.
"The freedom of religion means that no one has the right to attack, malign or grossly offend a faith tradition they personally do not have membership [in]."
Hear that? No more offending Muslim for being sexist. Also, telling Mormons that Joseph Smith was a con artist and pedophile is strictly forbidden.
I for one welcome our new alien overlords.
Yes, you took something of objectively negligible value, freely given, in violation of the giver's expectations for what you would do with it.
(Sorry for the double submit of my previous comment. I have no idea how it happened.)
Rather, he's playing off the stereotype of the Catholic as someone who respects the Eucharis and the Church, but otherwise find it unnecessary to comply with any of the commands of Scripture or of Christ.
A *Lutheran* troll, I suspect.
Let's say the judge instead only said: "Are you making this plea accepting the usual conditions and limitations incident thereto", and the defendant said "Amen". Do you think the defendant can be inferred to have knowingly given up all his legal rights?
Before participating in this discussion, I would had no idea that saying "Amen" and accepting the wafer signifies anything more than acknowledgment that the priest believes that host is the body of Christ. If the Church wants to create legal obligations among participants in the ceremony, it should make them sign forms at the door.
PZ Meyers is a butthead for publicly desecrating what he claims is a consecrated host. (As pointed out, he can't prove it was in fact consecrated.) But he's not a criminal, and not liable in civil court.
The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, representing about 1% of RC priests in the US and looking somewhat like a crank group, is a butthead for various wrong claims about the law, including the claim that Meyers' act was "unconstitutional". If they are calling for government punishment of blasphemy, then they're buttheads for that, too.
Let buttheads be buttheads, I say, and let the government keep out of it.
It is instructive to consider Meyers' fate had he offended something truly sacred to the university. Imagine that he had made fun of rape victims. Or displayed a noose. Isn't it reasonable to ask for a consistent standard of civility, and penalties for its breach? Or are some animals more equal than others?
And now you insult my teachers. Do you know how much time and effort they put into educating us knuckleheads on theology? We had classes and tests and all sorts of shenanigans.
Heck, there was even this ritual when he had decided we knew enough theology to be safe explaining it to other people. Darn if I can't remember the term....perhaps your infinite religious education can remind me?
Darn Jesuits -- never know what they're talking about.
What if I consecrate the wafers? Would it then be ok by you to manhandle them?
For that matter, how do we even know that Catholic priests haven't accidentally consecrated all bread products world-wide? What if a priest of some religion blesses my house without my permission and declares it holy, must I "respect" his supernatural claim and not "desecrate" my house by living in it?
What about bibles and the Koran? Would it be theft and fraud to burn them if they came with a shrink wrap ELUA that said "no desecration?"
Craziness is craziness. Noone can tell the difference between a wafer that a priest picks up and consecrates, and the next wafer in the same box that he picks up and doesn't consecrate. Maybe a faint smell of incense?
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I think that the assertions that someone could acquire without consuming a consecrated host without committing fraud are vastly over-stating their case. Fraud is still fraud, even if the fraud victims are inattentive enough to let the fraudster get away with it. In fact, a common characteristic of successful vs. unsuccessful fraud is a degree of inattentiveness on the part of the fraud victims.
Chris Bell,
Fair enough. The one last distinction I can raise is that, from the perspective of Church law, you are not given a host to keep as your own property and cannot do what you want with it. When you stand in line to receive the host, there is an understanding that you agree to receive the host and consume it without doing anything else with it. If you told the priest that you were planning on not consuming it as you stood in line, the priest would not give you a host. So, from the Church's perspective, there may be an implied contract that you consume the host and any other act you do would breach that contract.
Now, I realize that the civil law probably does not recognize that distinction or these pseudo-implied-contracts, and even if it did, it would be impossible to determine as a practical matter. So there is likely no remedy that the Church can or should be able to obtain against people like Myers.
Party foul! Some of my best friends are Lutherans. And as they'd tell you, the only difference between them and Catholics is they don't need a priest there to explain the big words. *grin*
Feigned offense seems to work. See "water buffalo". What if a bunch of Catholic students showed up at the Office of Permanent Outrage and recited the (excuse me) litany of usual complaints about their various angstseses.
The way to tell if you're in an accredited victims group is to complain about something to the OPO and see if you're told to go away and get a life, or if the entire campus is turned upside down. My guess is Catholics would be in the first group.
To apply the gay marriage change-the-variables, suppose what was desecrated was a gay-friendly church's cert of holy matrimony, or whatever they call it, instead of a document from the county clerk's office. Actionable? More sympathy? Probably no and yes, but the first would only be non-actionable after a prosecution had been instituted. And large legal fees imposed.
Some guy does something obnoxious, and he doesn't care if it offends people. You think it's wrong, and it pisses you off. Understandable. So how do you justify your own behavior here? Especially after you've been told by the site's proprietor that you're breaking the rules and offending people?
As for your being certain that he couldn't have bought a consecrated host online.
That's not true. The reasonable reliance element imposes a duty on the party alleging fraud to take normal and reasonable precautions.
Because participating in cannibalism is soooo much better than not doing so by taking the wafer with you.
Would Christ willingly deliver his body to his enemies to be destroyed, and be glorified thereby? Discuss.
I really don't know what CCC was trying to accomplish by the press release. Probably just get people talking. Success!
Actually I happen to be a Lutheran troll.
Actually, the nature of the insults thrown about in this thread show a striking resemblance between Jack M, and everyone's favorite Christian Anti-Video Game Crusading Florida Attorney.
That is exactly my view. There is an expectation, an understanding, that you are taking the host only for the purposes of eating it, but you never explicitly said so and therefore there is no contract.
I am irreligious, but have taken communion. (Not in a Catholic church, but in churches where they "ask" that only Christians participate.) They would probably refuse to serve me if my beliefs were known, but they make no effort to verify those beliefs.
Don't get me wrong, it's extremely offensive to steal a host, but offensiveness is not illegal. Myers just thought it was worth it as part of making his point about the kid getting death threats in Florida.
I see what you're saying, but baptism joins one to the Church, and one need not receive the Eucharist but, what, once per year? Conversely one could continue to attend mass and receive the Eucharist by fraud, theft, or whatever we are saying but still be separated from the Church.
In the sense of church law, it isn't, but in the sense of civil law, it is.
The consecrated communion Host is not "freely given" to anybody wandering in off the street during the Eucharist for the recipient to do with as she wants. Legally, possession is best described as transferred only in the form of a limited-purpose bailment. The bailee who left church with the consecrated Host and gave it to Myers exceed the scope of her bailment. Legally, this is both tortious conversion and theft.
Nobody is advocating an actual prosecution here (at least I'm not), but merely pointing out that Myers' actions can be seen as not only morally wrong, but legally wrong and not Constitutionally protected. Among other things, at a really trite level there's an evidentiary problem on the current record, since Myers' blog admission does not detail the exact circumstances under which the consecrated Host was improperly removed from the Eucharist (although the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur seems circumstantially applicable if one understands the Roman Catholic theology involved).
On a (much) higher level, I would argue that the Christian reaction to the antics of a boorish prig like Myers should be to turn the other cheek, since this matter will be addressed in due time, and Myers will eventually get to spend the rest of Eternity dealing with the consequences.
Although I would be concerned that a person of faith might reasonably be concerned about taking courses from a professor who pulls such outrageous stunts. For example, a student might reasonably wonder if Myers would have another of his anti-religious outbursts at the expense of a student wearing a Crucifix. If Myers had demonstrated an equivalent amount of hatred and disrespect toward gays, the University of Minnesota would undoubtedly take whatever actions it could. But mere Christians are not nearly so favored in academia today, I'm afraid...
Not only is Jack M. a Lutheran troll, but he affirms the second (or maybe third?) law of posting, which is that when you try to criticize someone else's intelligence or education, you almost always demonstrate your own lack thereof. (I believe it's a variant of the "I'm rubber, you're glue" principle).
I don't think either is a good sign for society, though.
But what about the death threats?
Nobody is defending the death threats. And, BTW, I have still not seen evidence that the Florida student did in fact receive death threats. Bill Donohue did what Bill Donahue does.
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I suspect people do defend the death threats. There is certainly condonation of them. And we know for a fact Myers received them. It is entirely probable that the student also received threats, especially considering he'd already been physically assaulted over a wafer.
Jack, I've been to many, many Catholic services, including weddings and funerals (I'm a baptised Catholic myself, never really a believer). Never once have I heard a priest tell the congregation that only Catholics (and Methodists or whoever else) are allowed to take Communion. When I attended with non-Catholics, they would either take communion or stay there in the pews, according to their own conscience. If you go to a church that restricts communion to baptized Catholics or professed believers or something, perhaps your church is a little atyptical.
I give, what is it?
And I don't think you want the wafer back. That's just gross.
Given that they all pretty much come from one poster, an IP ban might be the more practical approach...
I'm inclined to agree, perhaps adding "shake the dust from our feet." I think when Dr. Myers was planning his stunt, it was appopriate he was somewhat ignorant of how offensive he was being, and let him and his acolytes know.
As he and his acolytes continued to defend it, I came to care less and less, and the actual desecration was a non-event for me.
The damage Myers did was mostly to himself.
I'm simply not convinced that that kind of relationship describes the situation of communion. In order to distinguish it from the freely-given gift it appears to be, you would really have to establish some sort of agreement cognizable by secular law. As Dilan has pointed out, a spiritual contract for spiritual consideration does not qualify; secular courts are under no obligation to enforce such a contract. As far as I can tell, there is no agreement between supplicant and priest. Arguendo, perhaps the "Amen" constitutes an agreement to the factual proposition that the wafer is the body of Christ. Even so, while that may have particular consequences within Catholic religious doctrine and canon law, I don't think the existence of a stipulated "fact" such as the divine nature of the wafer has any bearing on the existence of an agreement to only use the wafer for certain limited purposes.
Um, no. I do not deny that the Church COULD create such a bailment, with appropriate contractual language. But it would have to comply with the strictures of the UCC, you'd need the clear knowing assent of the recipient that he or she was entering into a contract, and you'd need consideration (and spiritual consideration doesn't qualify).
The crime which cannot be named and variants thereof were old laws prohibiting sodomy. The great majority of them were struck down as being unconstitutionally vague quite some time ago, but a few states still retain the unenforced ones on the books.
Scote — Hilarious:
Of course, another defense to claims of fraud or theft would lie in scienter. Tis very possible that the folks who did this were not knowledgeable that it was in any way wrong to take the wafer. I doubt there's any "should have known" rule for religious doctrines not your own.
Lost in the noise is the simple question: "Would crimalizing this be a good idea?".
I suspect to some it'd be a great idea -- until their particular ox is gored, on the strength of an "implied contractual obligation due to their being witness to a religious ceremony".
FWIW, the "assault" was a female campus minister half his size grabbing his arm on the way out.
Not an ideal pastoral response, obviously, but not an inevitable precursor to death threats, either.
I’m curious: What would constitute reasonable precautions by the Church to protect against fraud and that would allow a mass to be conducted without undue interference?
I think the strongest argument for a contractual infringement in this case is that a reasonable person knows that a host is to be consumed during mass, and is not given to be kept and desecrated later on.
The host is analogous to property. When you receive property for a specified purpose, and you have knowledge of that purpose, and you desecrate the property in contravention to that purpose, are you not engaging in a contract violation? Is the property owner entitled to relief?
I don’t understand your distinction between spiritual and secular contracts. There is an arguable point about whether a contract is reasonable and enforceable by law, but labeling a contract as “spiritual” does nothing to make the point.
See here for my take, which is above.
Indeed people are defending them. Others have argued on this very thread that Prof. Myers's acts are so likely to incite violence as to be constitutionally unprotected.
When Raymond Hunthausen was archbishop of Seattle, he had a policy of allowing everyone at Catholic weddings to receive the Eucharist. He got in big trouble. (Hunthausen was a little wacky, but his policy was rooted in a provision that allows the baptized and Real Presence-affirming but non-Catholic spouse to take communion during the wedding mass only. There's also a provision for persons in a similar state to receive from Catholic missionaries when they do not have access to their own clergy.)
A non-Catholic I know and trust fully was in a wedding which the current bishop of Colorado Springs celebrated. He is pretty well known for enforcing Eucharistic discipline, but he gave no instruction at this wedding, with the result that a few well-meaning but ignorant non-Catholics received. (It did not help that the bride's mother told the bridal party it would look better if they all got in the communion line and received, and that it wouldn't bother anybody.) My friend had called me during the rehearsal--which included a dry run of the distribution of the sacrament--and I told her our beliefs on the topic.
Pretty much the same thing with ordinary masses. Sometimes there's a notice pasted in the missal or hymnal. Good luck finding that. Sometimes there's an announcement. Sometimes it's in the program. Sometimes nothing. And of course there are people who feel they can take communion anywhere because there should be no divisions among Christians.
Steve in CA,
I can assure you that the Catholic Church teaching is that only Catholics in good standing can receive Communion. Unfortunately, it doesn't get mentioned enough at Catholic services (though I've been to many services, especially weddings with people of other faiths in attendance, where it did get mentioned).
And yet, the Catholic church has no problem offending billions of people around the world by proclaiming themselve the one true religion, that gays are objectively disordered, and all sorts of other statements.
Something tells me that doesn't bother you, right?
"Why agitate to fire him and threaten to kill him, when the core of your belief has already condemed him to the worst possible punishment? "
Jack M. "This is the typical non-religious reply---some uneductaed non-believer telling religious folks how they should act, merely because they think they should act this way, based on very little knowledge of the religion."
IN other words, when you don't have an answer to a question, just attack the questioner. Hey, it worked in the Inquisition!
(Oh, geez, now I'm gonna get it from Jack...)
You can't hand out free samples with a "one sample per person" sign and then try to take legal action against the person who comes back for a second sample. If you want to be able to take action, you need to get a more formal agreement. And if you want the convenience of not having to do so, you bear the cost that it's unenforceable.
What do you think should happen to a person who takes a lottery ticket form from a store display, writes his phone number on it, and gives it to a woman he met? Jail time? A 2 cent fine?
I could certainly think of some examples, like making someone sign something before receiving the communion, or giving the mass an oral disclaimer before the ceremony.
Mind you, I think that there are a lot of other problems with a fraud claim here, as stated above. But a person who wanted something to be used a certain way but took no precautions at all to ensure it wasn't is not your ideal fraud plaintiff.
I think the strongest argument for a contractual infringement in this case is that a reasonable person knows that a host is to be consumed during mass, and is not given to be kept and desecrated later on.
But that's not enough to create an enforceable obligation. To create an enforceable obligation, you have to show that the parties had a meeting of the minds and exchanged consideration. This is what prevents every little mutual understanding we ever think we reach with anyone from turning into a legal obligation.
Yes, you can imply a contract from conduct, but the conduct has to be unambiguous in manifesting an intention to be legally bound. We aren't even close to this here.
The host is analogous to property. When you receive property for a specified purpose, and you have knowledge of that purpose, and you desecrate the property in contravention to that purpose, are you not engaging in a contract violation? Is the property owner entitled to relief?
Actually, not in most cases. First, you'd need a contract that spelled that out and conditioned the sale or lease on that use. In many circumstances, someone intends for you to use something in a certain way but doesn't create a legal obligation. (For instance, if your mother gives you a car to drive to work and you use it to make out with your girlfriend instead, that doesn't void the gift.)
Second, you'd need mutual consideration (and spiritual consideration doesn't count). Third, even if there was a breach, the plaintiff would probably be limited to actual damages, and could not get the property back.
I don’t understand your distinction between spiritual and secular contracts. There is an arguable point about whether a contract is reasonable and enforceable by law, but labeling a contract as “spiritual” does nothing to make the point.
Contracts require a mutual exchange of something valuable. That's called consideration. E.g., I give you $10,000, you give me a car.
The believer gives nothing legally cognizable for the communion cracker. He or she may give spiritual promises, i.e., promises about the nature of his or her religious belief, but those don't have any legal worth. Thus, the contract fails for lack of consideration.
I cannot tell a married woman from an unmarried woman simply by looking at her. Which is why I think this concern about boffing other guys' wives is so silly.
(Randy R:)And yet, the Catholic church has no problem offending billions of people around the world by proclaiming themselve the one true religion, that gays are objectively disordered, and all sorts of other statements.
So you think the Catholic Church teaches what it teaches "for the purpose of wounding" people? Or did you just choose to ignore that part of Jack's comment?
Banning Jack M.'s offensive speech would be pretty ironical, in this context.
Now conceivably, there is a factual question here: "Does a reasonable person know that the Catholic Church is offering consecrated wafers only for reverent consumption during the communion ceremony?" Is there someone here who argues that a reasonable person doesn't know that? Another question is "Does a reasonable person know that the Catholic Church is offering consecrated wafers only to baptized Catholics?" Harder question--this one would definitely have to go to the jury.
Given various discussion in this thread about what would be required to establish a contract, I think that it is pretty clear that if a trained Eucharistic minister took and used a host under false pretenses (e.g. was given three hosts, two to take it to Mrs Smith and Mr Jones in the hospital, and one to Mrs Brown who is homebound, and instead mailed one to PZ Myers for desecration), then the Church would have a good cause for action for fraud.
What constitutes a more formal agreement? A reasonable person knows that a host is to be consumed during mass, and is not to be kept and desecrated later on.
(As noted above) The host is analogous to property. When you receive property for a specified purpose, and you have knowledge of that purpose, and you desecrate the property in contravention to that purpose, are you not engaging in a contract violation?
I don't think you could ask the wafer....
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I told a Catholic friend about this whole event. He told me that when he was growing up in the Catholic church he was actually told that scientists had performed "DNA tests" on consecrated hosts and there was actual human DNA present.
My friend has since become less gullible. Still, there are people who believe that kind of stuff. The smarter ones say that the host is just filled with the "essence" of Christ.
But it's sort of like the American flag. People go bonkers over symbols. The church knows this, and so every religion has its own symbols. These symbols are declared 'sacred' to ensure that no one will dishonor them. And so when some invading force comes in, what's the first thing they do? Why, dishonor the symbols!
The wafer is really nothing more than a symbol. The church got smart and realized that symbols are easily desecrated, so they elevated this particulary symbol into the real thing -- the actual body of Christ. Of course, there is absolutely no grounds for believing (scientific test show nothing has changed), but the belief is nonetheless strong.
Here's a simple solution: Eliminate all symbols. everything. Then there is nothing to desecrate. And then religion can get back to their basics, which is about teaching about God and how one should lead one's life. Jesus had no symbols (or if he did, it was only for teaching purposes and not intended to create meaning in it for all generations hence).
But whether the symbols are pictures of the prophet, or wafers, or crosses, or swastikas, just get rid of them. Then you don't have to worry about someone attacking your symbols.
I think this Cectic comic will explain the situation to you.
"Stealing" a consecrated host is more like crashing a wedding than not paying a doctor or eating peanuts at a bar--which suggests trespass is a good route to explore.
Such people are more properly called "Protestants."
Accepting that the host is the actual, not symbolic, body of Christ is a fundamental tenet of the Catholic faith and is not optional. If you don't believe it you are not catholic. Catholicism isn't a democracy.
Surely, they know that it *would* wound people to even imply that their religion is false, no? But even if they are that careless, the intent isn't the issue, but rather the effect. People are wounded regardless.
I'm not sure if Myer's ever heard of Jack M, much less intend to would him. Yet wound him he did, as we have all found out.
Now conceivably, there is a factual question here: "Does a reasonable person know that the Catholic Church is offering consecrated wafers only for reverent consumption during the communion ceremony?"
You are confusing monetary payment, which is a valid form of consideration, with spiritual consideration.
If a reasonable person knew that the Church charged money for communion crackers, then acceptance of the cracker could constitute a binding contract. But since the only things the Church requires in exchange are spiritual, there is no enforceable obligation.
Are those either personal insults or vulgarisms? No, they are not. Eating the flesh of your own kind is called cannibalism. Catholics claim to eat the actual body of Christ and drink the actual blood of Christ in Communion. Those are just facts.
As to how a god can be a "corpse," why not ask, oh, I don't know, Christians, who claim their god "died" on the cross for their sins. Rather an odd theological concept but not one of my making.
The answer, so far, is yes you are.
The wafer becomes the body of Christ. Although Christ was the son of God, he isn't God himself. Rather, while on earth, he was flesh and blood, which is exactly what the wafer and the wine turn in to. Therefore, Catholics are indeed eating his body and drinking his blood. That the whole POINT of it!
In fact, one of my favorite hymns from Sunday School goes as part of the refrain, "Eat his body, drink his blood, gather round, the table of the Lord...."
If money were involved I'd have a hard time seeing a court enforcing the "you must swallow the Lord" provision. I pay money for food all the time but with the exception of an all you can eat buffet (where taking food would cost the establishment money) or alcoholic drinks, I'm free to take the food with me.
Not to Catholics. Absolutely not.
Well sure there was! From the flaks of dead cells from the person who held the host.
If it were a person of the church who told him this, then the church was either lying to get you to believe, or at the least was intentioanally misleading.
Of course, the Catholic Church would NEVER do such a thing. Ever.
If you don't think that, it's just hot air, meaning nothing. The "wounding" is a fake, a pretense to get somebody to apologize or self-censor, or to advertise how sensitive you are.
I think you have us confused with the Jehovah's Witnesses.
"God from God
Light from Light
True God from True God
Begotten, not Made
One in being with the Father . . . "
Sound familiar?
Like most other religious believers, Catholics don't object to hearing others calling their religion false. They do object to having their sacred rites desecrated.
But without money, you don't really have any consideration and thus no enforceable contract. With money, then it becomes a question of whether the conditions that are placed on the usage of the item are legally enforceable.
Of course, the Catholic Church would NEVER do such a thing. Ever.
You know, I hear a lot of these "The Catholic Church used to say . . ." stories. But the Catholic Church makes these stories easy to follow up. Just check and see if, around that time, there was ever any sort of decretal regarding Jesus's DNA and consecrated hosts.
I could save you the time, since this was all resolved in Patristic times. But, hell, lots of people on here seem to have as much free time as I do.
Not to Catholics. Absolutely not."
Well, certianly, from the perspective of the Catholic, it isn't a symbol. It's the real body of Christ. And the wine is the real blood of Christ.
However, I can believe that my chair has healing powers and is holy. I can even believe that my chair is made with the bones of Christ, and I can venerate it. I can even start a new religion, and have as a requirement that all believers must believe that the chair is made with the bones of Christ. That doesn't make it true.
If someone came in and smashed my chair, I would be mightily angry, and upset. Reasonabley so. But bottomline: It isn't about the chair, and it isn't about the wafer. It's about what faith and religion is really about, which is who or what God is, and how we are supposed to treat each other, and live our lives that really matters.
At least that's just me. Others may disagree.
One and the same.
When I first read about P.Z. Myers' decision to destroy a consecrated communion wafer (which he followed up with actual action), I was appalled at his lack of regard for the feelings of a billion people who had never personally offended him.
However the angry reaction of fundamentalists (who are now calling for a law against blasphemy) has tempered my view of Myers' action. Being nice to people is a wonderful trait but there can be no real compromise with those who believe in enforcing niceness through censorship.
I am not sure what the appropriate reaction to religious fundamentalists is. Myers' way -- which I certainly sympathize with -- may not unfortunately be the most effective approach to quieten them. However, I happily welcome attempts to convince me it is; anyone who succeeds in doing does that earns a photo of me destroying a holy cracker. No kidding.
It is possible someone would not know that.
In the context of Myers's stunt, I think it is vanishingly unlikely that the host was acquired out of ignorance of what should be done with it.
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I think it's unfortunate that people are pushing for criminal and legal consequences, when I think social consequences would be more appropriate and sufficient.
If someone empties the tray of samples at Sam's, I don't want to see him arrested, but he is being a jerk.
That communicants are expected to reverntly consume the Eucharist may not be a legally binding contract, but our society works based on the assumption that people respect implicit agreements like this.
IANAL, but I can't fault your reasoning. This strikes me as one of those times where people think "There Oughta be a LAW!" under the influence of righteous indignation. But there isn't a law.
If the Catholic Church is right, then this prof will be punished, by and by.
Not analogous. The analogy would be taking one sample at Sam's and walking out with it for later use. Nobody has been accused of taking an entire tray of communion wafers in relation to this story.
And yes, there are plenty of stories about the church, some true, some false. I love making fun of the church, because I grew up in it and saw a lot of hypocracy and silliness, so I'm a little hard on it. What I loved was the music, the stained glass, all the ceremony, and the best of the theology. Another of my favorite hymns was "They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they'll know we are Christians by our love." IT's a strange hymn because it's written in a minor key, giving it a hint of menace, which is a wonderful counterpoint to the lyrics.
I only wish the Church would actually live up to its ideals instead of playing to it's basest nature. But then there wouldn't be any thing left to make fun of....
Actually, the host is both body and blood, as is the consecrated wine. The Church claims many things. But the ability to subdivide God-Made-Flesh into his constituent components ain't one of those things! ;-)
From your mouth to God's ear, my friend. And ENOUGH WITH THOSE STUPID 'GUITAR MASSES' ALREADY!
And good thing there isn't. Questions of free speech and secular law aside, the potential for abuse would be staggering.
Well, if the wiki is to be believed, that isn't so:
It's not as useful as you'd think, unless someone needs a good motto in what Pratchett calls "dog Latin". *sigh*. I used to read it almost as fluently as I did English, but those days are LONG past.
The complainers remind me of how some liberals foolishly fall into the traps that David Horowitz sets.
Is this considered theft if there is a "no takeout" rule?
Does the amount of food matter? (One drumstick vs 5 pounds of shrimp)
Does the location of the "no takeout" sign matter?
(Big sign vs printed on menu)
Is there an implied notice? ("all you can eat implicitly implies no-takeout")
Does it matter if the food has no value to the buffet? (I do this at closing time, the restaurant throws any leftover food out)
I think that's one reason why every doctor's office I've been in has a sign by the window, "Payment Expected At Time That Services Are Rendered."
But really, I think that the doctor would have to file a quantum meruit action -- I provided a service, patient benefited from it, I'm entitled to receive reasonable compensation.
Quasi-contract, in other words.
Scote:
I wouldn't trust Wiki on this. Here's what the Catholic Encyclopedia (First Edition) has to say, in part:
In order to forestall at the very outset, the unworthy notion, that in the Eucharist we receive merely the Body and merely the Blood of Christ but not Christ in His entirety, the Council of Trent defined the Real Presence to be such as to include with Christ's Body and His Soul and Divinity as well. A strictly logical conclusion from the words of promise: "he that eateth me the same also shall live by me", this Totality of Presence was also the constant property of tradition, which characterized the partaking of separated parts of the Savior as a sarcophagy (flesh-eating) altogether derogatory to God. Although the separation of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Logos, is, absolutely speaking, within the almighty power of God, yet then actual inseparability is firmly established by the dogma of the indissolubility of the hypostatic union of Christ's Divinity and Humanity.
Yeah. I'm a Tantum Ergo Sacramentum guy living in a "Glory and Praise" world. It sucks, really.
Go try it &let us know what happens, Chuck!
I don't think that's the law. Someone above made the "wedding crasher" analogy. If I sneak into a party, the host may have me arrested. This is so even though he didn't charge admission to the party. The condition for attendance at the party, which I didn't meet and knew I didn't meet, was that I be an invited guest. Financial consideration is irrelevant. Or if I knew that a church group of which I was not a member was getting on a bus to someplace I wanted to go, and I got on, I would be guilty of theft of services, even though the church group didn't offer bus trips for money.
I repeat, obtaining property or services under false pretences, which includes taking the items when you know they are intended for another person or another purpose, is illegal.
However, the whole thing started when it was reported that a kid was receiving death threats for taking a host. Myers flipped and said he would treat a host badly too, I guess as punishment to those who sent death threats to the kid. (Look what you did with your bad behavior, you just got another host desecrated sort of thing.) Myers received many a death threat himself.
Thank you for illustrating my point -- the emphasis on legal remedies leads to this tiresome argument over details and over whether certain analogies are perfect.
Jerky behavior is jerky behavior. Whether it's taking more than your share of free samples, or packing a cooler at an all you can eat buffet. Yes, if the buffet doesn't have a sign saying you shouln't do it, it might not be a prosecutable theft. But it's jerky behavior regardless.
I guess this is a legal blog, so this is what I should exepct.
If the threat takes the form of a disembodied hand writing the words on his dinning-room wall, he should probably take it seriously.
Though I don't know whom he could report it to. The police? The U of M Department of Religious Studies?
So many questions . . .
There's no one here -- or at least, no one I've seen -- who considers it unjerky behavior. Even Myers showed quite clear awareness that he was doing something particularly upsetting, and knew exactly why others found it upsetting even if he found it meaningless.
The question -- and problem -- at hand is the people straining to make it a crime. It's not just here on a legal blog. When I first bumped into this story, it was people trying to make the initial kid a criminal for it. As in "get him arrested and charged".
It could, in theory, be an open party -- right?
Jerky behavior is jerky behavior.
Right. I have no remedy at law for Jack M.'s calling me a dick. I just have to live with the pain as best I can, until the healing tides of Forgetfulness have washed my spirit clean.
In each of those examples, you have tangible property that is not going to be consumed in the endeavor (the land that the wedding is held upon, or the bus that is being used to transport the church group). So nobody is being given anything; people are being allowed to use property for a limited time and for a limited purpose. Because one of the bundle of rights inherent in property is the right to exclude others from using the property, someone who is not using the property for the limited purpose is a trespasser.
In contrast, the cracker is being given by the Church for consumption. They don't want it back. When you give something to another person, and do not ask for it back, you generally do not have any legal right to proscribe how that object is used, absent a contract and legal consideration. When you give your son a car (sign over the title) so that he can drive to work, and he uses the car to make out with his girlfriend instead, you can't use the legal system to preclude him from doing that or get the car back.
Doctrinally, you need a source for the right to prevent a person from using a cracker given to him or her for consumption and without legal consideration in exchange in the manner in which that person sees fit. There's no such doctrine in property law, because the Church is giving the property, not letting it. There's no such doctrine in contract law, because there isn't a contract.
Here's a thought, since we're speaking of symbols: in related contexts, symbols matter Constitutionally and legally, regardless who "owns" them. Publicly burning a cross that the actor possesses in fee simple absolute is not protected speech if done with the intent of intimidating the target of the "speech," or if it will tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. I believe the Supreme Court reiterated this general point as recently as 2003, in Virginia v. Black.
Here, Myers carried out and publicized what most folks (not including Scote, apparently) agree was a deliberately outrageous act of disrespect toward a sacred symbol of a specific religious group. Whether this rises to the level of "fighting words" or was specifically intended to intimidate is a question of fact that depends on the context. Even assuming it does not, a strong argument can be made that such a publicly overt act of intentional hostility toward a specific religion would raise a reasonable question in the mind of a student whether Myers as a professor might retaliate against a student he discovers is affiliated with that religion (e.g., by being seen wearing a crucifix). Thus raising significant concerns about whether he should face employment related discipline. Regardless whether it took place off campus.
Do you think an 18-year old college student might just be intimidated into not wearing her crucifix in Myers' biology class? Of skipping participating in Ash Wednesday services? Especially if she was pre-med and even a slightly-lower grade could adversely impact her future career? Heck, as a 40-something lawyer, I think I'd still be rather torn between the practicalities of free exercise of my own rights versus offending someone with basically unfettered discretion over my future.
Instead of destroying a consecrated Host, what if Myers had burned a cross off-campus while wearing a Klan robe and hood -- and then blogged about it to make sure everyone understood he was doing it out of racial animus? Or if Myers had done something similarly outrageous to show hostility towards, say, gays? In either event, the faculty disciplinary committee of the University of Minnesota would be all over him. But since he "only" did it to Catholics, he gets a bye? Something smells like a bit of a double-standard here, folks.
Nope.
The Church asserts that it confers sacraments, but cannot undo them. This is why the rules on divorce, though pastorally hard, are the only thing the Church could teach. To recognize divorce--don't get me started on annulment!--would imply that the Church can confer a sacrament, and then take it back.
Smae goes for Holy Orders. There is no such thing, canonically, as an "ex-Catholic priest." Just a laicized priest, who can no loger licitly perform the priestly role. But he is still a priest: sacraments confer ontological change, as per the Church's teaching.
Keep in mind that even an excommunicated Catholic is not an "ex-Catholic." He still is required to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. The Church can't remove his baptism as a Catholic. Thus, he still has all of the obligations of a communicant, with the obvious exceptions.
In other words: being Catholic ain't easy.
drgeox, do you really believe that Catholics make up whatever random things they want because they seem convenient? As opposed to teaching the things that they actually believe because, well, they actually believe them to be true? What about other religions?
The wedding crasher was a trespasser the minute he entered the reception hall without an invitation and could be ejected upon discovery.
The false communicant, however, was not a trespasser on entry, because Catholic masses are open to all. I guess that he became a trespasser when he took a host without permission. It's the "break a rule, become a trespasser" situation.
But then all we can do is eject the trespasser and extract damages, which are probably nominal. I don't think you can get emotional damages on trespass--does anyone think you can?
Not to mention that there's the practical problem of identifying the trespasser. We spot the wedding crasher because he's a stranger, but at most Catholic parishes we expect a few strangers--we even welcome them!
I was also thinking through unjust enrichment/quasi-contract/quantum meruit claims, but I think damages there are based on the benefit received, which, again, is nominal. (Indeed, if you stick to dogma, Catholics would believe that those who receive the Eucharist unworthily do so to their destruction!) Even if it is based on service provided, again, tiny. No emotional damages in contract generally, and certainly not in this case. And if the false communicant puts a dollar in the offering dish, then he's probably paid more than the value and there can be no damages.
Yeah. IANAL, so perhaps there is something to the "theft of property" argument. But even if so, speaking as something of an RC, I don't want to see the state brought into this.
Non-Lawyer Question: The state CAN prosecute me if I claim my product is Kosher, but it isn't. Does this apply even if I have given it away for free? The above discussion of hosts has me curious: Does there have to be a monetary damage for the state to get involved in a matter of religious law? Some sort of "impled contract" that has a monetary component?
I think they could have you arrested, but you would probably be charged with trespassing, not with stealing food. It's a little tougher to charge trespass at a church service, since they are more-or-less open to the public. I think the congregation would be more than within their legal rights to bar Webster Cook from its premises and ask that he be arrested for trespass if he violates, but there really is no basis on which to bring legal action against him for the original act of removing the wafer.
Is there any reason why we can't agree to say "host" instead of "cracker"? Would that courtesy to VC's Catholics constitute a serious assault upon anyone's conscience?
No snark intended, and, well, yes. After all, wasn't the ban on selling the host (along with all kinds of other rules against selling of indulgences) instituted in order to curb clergical abuses in the medieval church?
I'm going to stick with the wiki. It is an exact quote from the Council of Trent. Your claim was:
i.e, that the Church doesn't claim that the wafer is body and wine is blood. The Council of Trent clearly contradicts that claim:
I don't think much of the reasoning of Black. But to the extent it was rightly decided, it turns on cross-burning being an actual threat. In other words, someone who burns a cross is saying "I am going to kill you" and is saying it in a manner that is particularly associated with actually carrying out the threat.
In contrast, Myers isn't threatening Catholics. He is pissing them off. Enormously. (Which is why I don't think he should have done it.) But that's very different from a threat.
Rather, the better analogy is to flag burning, which is not a threat, but which pisses a lot of Americans off quite a lot. And the Supreme Court has ruled twice that flag burning is constitutionally protected.
Whether this rises to the level of "fighting words" or was specifically intended to intimidate is a question of fact that depends on the context.
Not if "context" has its ordinary meaning. I suppose one could come up with some set of facts in which the disrespect of a communion cracker could constitute an immediate breach of the peace. Doing it inside a Catholic Church, in a particularly demonstrative manner, during the middle of Mass, perhaps.
But what Myers did-- disrespecting a communion cracker in his private quarters and then posting a photo of it on the Internet-- cannot be fighting words if that exception doesn't swallow the First Amendment.
Even assuming it does not, a strong argument can be made that such a publicly overt act of intentional hostility toward a specific religion would raise a reasonable question in the mind of a student whether Myers as a professor might retaliate against a student he discovers is affiliated with that religion (e.g., by being seen wearing a crucifix). Thus raising significant concerns about whether he should face employment related discipline. Regardless whether it took place off campus.
This is a big stretch. It seems to me that you could make the same claim about any strident public expression of atheism or non-Catholicism by a college professor. Not only is it not plausible, but if we accepted this, we would put a serious dent into academic freedom.
Instead of destroying a consecrated Host, what if Myers had burned a cross off-campus while wearing a Klan robe and hood -- and then blogged about it to make sure everyone understood he was doing it out of racial animus? Or if Myers had done something similarly outrageous to show hostility towards, say, gays? In either event, the faculty disciplinary committee of the University of Minnesota would be all over him. But since he "only" did it to Catholics, he gets a bye? Something smells like a bit of a double-standard here, folks.
I am sure that some college administrators would apply double standards. And they would be wrong to do so. Other college administrators would stand up for academic freedom. But the proper response to a double standard is not to restrict the freedom of everyone. It's to defend the rights of everyone.
drgeox is almost certainly correct on this one, though, again, IANAL.
Catholic Churches that, for instance, are used for concerts--MUST be sacred music--are not allowed to sell tickets or charge admission. The church building, when unlocked, is open to all. So I cannot see a "tresspass" charge getting very far.
Non-believers don't believe that it is a "host" for anything. So it's down to "wafer" vs. "cracker", and they are synonyms. For some reason, "cracker" rubs some people the wrong way, but until someone can provide me with a secular reason for why it is a "wafer" but is not a "cracker", I don't see what the big deal is.
Why should anyone have to pander to Catholic's choice of words? Why can't you pander to mine? Why are yours deserving deference to the exclusion of mine?
Though, you might note, I, myself, have not, IIRC, called the wafers "crackers" in this thread.
No, theft is right out since they were giving the things away. All that stuff about "the ritual being an implicit contract" only works if you ignore virtually all the related law and legal reasoning in order to force it to be a crime.
Now, the Church was certainly within their rights to ask him to leave (and have him arrested for trespassing if he didn't), and certainly could bar him from the premises in the future (As they could anyone, really).
If I was straining to make a crime here, I think I'd have better luck against the Church proper for attempting to prevent him from leaving with the wafer. Under any reasonable reading of the law, the wafer was given to him freely and was his property. Attempting to prevent him from leaving unless he surrendered his property to them would seem to violate a few laws.
Now, no one in their right mind would ever prosecute it -- especially since the restraint was pretty much "hand on the arm, 'Hey, give that back'" sort, but it's a far more solid offense than trying to force undertaking Communion as a legally binding contract in which the celebrant is agreeing to dispose of the Church's property in a specific manner.
Especially since the penalty clauses are all about hell, and not about civil or legal liability. :)
I'm sorry to have to disappoint you on the Tridentine matter. But the neat thing about being RC is that, in our confusing world, we can answer certain things with certainty. Thus I give you, directly from the Cathechism of the Roman Catholic Church, the ANSWER:
1377 The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ.
As to why you have to "pander" to Catholics: You don't. But you might decide to be polite.
Dilan Esper: Re: "host" isn't the host of anything.
So by using the word 'Catholic,' are you asserting that that the Church is in fact Universal?
If you need me, I'll be in the Loggia. (Or, to make Dilan Esper happy, "the open-air walky place.")
I've already proved that the Church has said the bread turns into the body and the wine into the blood. That was sufficient to disprove your claim. The extent to which the Catholic Church may or may not contradict itself does not affect that disproof of your claim.
Some Christians think so, and call it the "Roman" Church, instead.
If belief in the supernatural is unjustified--as many of us believe it is--one hardly has to consider whether belief in each individual supernatural phenomenon is justified to know that it is not. I don't believe in the supernatural; ergo, I don't believe Catholics can supernaturally transform a cracker into human flesh.
This isn't radical, it's how most people operate most of the time. You probably don't know much about most of the supernatural beliefs that you reject. The other religious commenters on this thread undoubtedly know very little about the hundreds of gods that they feel, for whatever reason, aren't worth worshiping. Atheists are no different, except that one of the beliefs they reject happens to be one you hold dear?
You are making the same false analogy that has become so popular in the thread, you try and up the quantity to make your case seem like theft. The proper analogy would be waiting in line to get one peanut and walking out with it, not shoveling a bowl of them into a purse.
The difference is that nobody knows the meaning of the word "catholic" anymore, so when you say "Catholic", nobody thinks you are making a theological claim.
"Host" still has its original meaning, so I prefer not to use it.
I have been in regards to wafers being called wafers. But note the presumption on your part that the only way to be polite is to use the terms you like. It doesn't enter into your mind to be "polite" to me by using mine. There is an assumption by Catholics and other theists that their views are owed an automatic and hushed deference and a freedom from criticism or demands for proof or justification of the religion's beliefs--a standard we don't apply to other belief systems such as politics.
Assume Myers had instead posted a video of himself burning a cross, or even just standing in a white robe in front of a Confederate flag, announcing to the world that "N*gg*rs are stupid!" Would an 18-year old African American pre-med student in his biology class reasonably be expected to be intimidated? And would such intimidation be permissible in a public educational institution? You know the answers. It would be immediately actionable, and I daresay the courts would uphold any employment discipline meted out, up to and including dismissal.
And, frankly, I would expect the 18-year old Catholic pre-med student in his class to be similarly intimidated by Myers' actual antics, to the point where she would undoubtedly want to conceal any evidence of her religious affiliation. What he did was wrong, and shows a level of intolerence incompatible with tenure in a public institution.
I haven't made up anything. You are saying that the Church has a property right in the cracker AFTER it is handed out. What is the source of that right? It isn't property law, which says that after a piece of property is given with no expectation of return, the giver has no rights to control its later usage. It isn't contract law, because there is no contract.
I didn't see your peanuts on the bar hypothetical, but in general, whether there is some sort of civil or criminal wrong depends on (1) whether there is a property interest, which depends on whether the giver expects that it is going to be returned; (2) whether there is a contractual right, which depends on whether or not there was a mutual exchange of legal consideration and definite terms; and (3) whether the giver suffered any damages.
The problem with legal claims in the Church communion cracker situation is that (1), (2), and (3) are all absent. But one or more of them may be present in other hypotheticals, depending how you structure them.
(Back in the 70's my mom was one of the few white students at a college about 97% black. This was about the time that the term "black English" was coined. My mother's English teacher, who had already marked things wrong on her paper that were marked correct on black students' papers, spent most of a class period ranting about the evil racists who "denigrate black English". Yes, the word "denigrate", used over and over. Mom, of course, had enough sense to remain silent until after class. After class she remarked to her friends (the ones whose answers were marked right when my mom's identical answers were wrong and had already been to the dean to complain) that you couldn't "denigrate" black English because it was already black and they all chuckled together.)
Would you espouse the same views if, instead, there were a video of a hypothetical Catholic PZ Meyers accepting holy communion? Catholicism being a mutually exclusive religion, how could any non-Catholic expect fair treatment from such a person? Would that show a "level of intolerance incompatible with tenure in a public institution?"
You need to think through the consequences of your arguments before you make them.
Well, what you are doing is simply testing the outer limits of academic freedom. And at some point, perhaps there is something that someone could say that was so offensive and so antithetical to educational values that it would be held to be outside of academic freedom. Or perhaps not. So what? This case is not that.
Further, I might add that although actual anti-Catholic discrimination is despicable, there is a huge, huge difference between criticism of Catholicism, even through offensive means, and racism. In fact, this is a point conservative Catholics often make with respect to homosexuality. And I accept it (though I also think it is sometimes used as a cover for anti-gay bigotry).
The point is, we have to have substantial social room for people to ridicule belief systems, and saying that we wouldn't leave the same room for people to ridicule people's skin color isn't really a persuasive point. Both racism and criticism of religious belief are equally protected by the First Amendment, but that doesn't mean that the latter is the same thing as the former.
The problem with this argument is the Church has to do it. It's not trespassing to come onto property that is freely open to visitors. It may be trespassing if the Church then asks the person to leave and he or she doesn't.
The other problem with this argument is that it really doesn't affect the issue of the receipt of the communion cracker.
If the contract is enforceable, yes. I'm arguing that the contract is not enforceable. If you want something to happen in this case, you have to want something to happen in analogous secular cases.
I notice that you didn't comment on my lottery form example. What should happen to the person who uses a lottery form to write down his phone number in violation of the implied agreement to take them only for use to buy lottery tickets?
If you don't think that, it's just hot air, meaning nothing. The "wounding" is a fake, a pretense to get somebody to apologize or self-censor, or to advertise how sensitive you are."
Then it must follow that those who are upset to be informed that the wafer is just a wafer shouldn't feel offended, and if they are, it's because they suspect just a teeny little bit that it might be true. If you don't think that, then it's just hot air, meaning nothing.
I don't think anyone's arguing that. However, for it to be trespassing, you FIRST have to inform the person in question that he needs to leave or may not enter.
So, if the local Catholic church says "Everyone but PZ Myers welcome here. If you are PZ Myers, trespassing will be prosecuted" then PZ Myers walking in to attend Mass is trespassing. If no sign exists, but an representative of the property owner walks up to Myers while he attends Mass and says "You're not welcome here. You must leave", refusal to do so would be trespassing.
However, up until some representative of the owners notified him that he wasn't allowed there, he's not guilty of trespassing.
Assuming the Church in question follows the general habit of being open to non-members for services. If it's a "member-only" thing, PZ's only defense would be if he had a reasonable belief it was open to the public.
Your argument is silly. But there are circumstances where a video of Myers worshiping might be incompatible with teaching in a public institution. Your argument wouldn't be at all silly if, say, Myers was instead shown at a different kind of worship service shouting "Death to the Infidels" -- where "infidels" was clearly understood in context to include anybody showing up in his classroom wearing a Crucifix.
1. Jains are said to sweep the path before them wherever they walk to avoid inadvertently crushing any tiny bugs they would otherwise step on. They consider all life sacred, no matter how tiny. (Whether this is true or not hardly matters: this is a hypothetical exercise.) A family of Jains lives next door to you, and you consider their religious beliefs ridiculous and obviously untrue. You get some big boxes of tiny live insects or crustaceans from Carolina Biological Supply, or just some worms from the bait and tackle shop, and pour them out on the ground in your own yard, in full view of the Jains as they sat down for their vegetarian dinner, and crush thousands of tiny squirming beasts to death by stomping on them with hobnailed boots and glee.
2. Many American Indians are said to worship white buffaloes. Somewhere in the west (or so I've read) is a non-Indian farmer whose buffalo herd includes a white buffalo calf, which he refuses to sell or give to the Indians because he wants more money than they have offered. You buy the white buffalo from him, kill it in some legal and humane but very public way, and throw a big barbecue to cook and consume it, while making sneering remarks about how a sacred buffalo shouldn't be so easy to kill.
3. Local Muslims are having some sort of religious celebration (perhaps a wedding) involving a communal meal with prayers and blessings from an imam. You slip into the kitchen and add a 20% admixture of ground pork to the lamb kabobs, have a friend film you doing it, and put the film on YouTube for the world to see, making sure to send the URL to the mosque.
4. Same as #3, but change 'Muslims' to 'Jews', 'ground pork' to 'lard', and 'lamb kabobs' to whatever stereotypically Jewish dish might normally have plenty of non-pork fat in it. (I wouldn't know.)
5. Same as #3, but you put 20% grain alcohol in the fruit juice or whatever the adults are drinking with their kabobs. (We'll assume that you make sure none of the children get any.)
6. Same as #5, but change 'Muslims' to Southern Baptists of the non-drinking variety. (I got the idea for this from Wynonie Harris' amusing song "Who Put the Whiskey in the Well?".)
7. Your devout Hindu neighbor's grandmother just died. You buy a cow, paint "Sanjay's grandma? Could be" on it, and tether it in your front yard close to theirs on the day of the funeral. Then you kill it and have a barbecue, making sure to wait for a day when the wind will blow the smoke their way. Be sure to invite them, and tell them Scote thinks Christians are cannibals too, so it's OK to eat beef even if it is grandma.
8. After snickering about the sacred underwear devout Mormons wear, you decide that mere words are not enough, and stomping or spitting on them isn't enough either (it's been done), so you get hold of some authentic examples and use them in a filmed striptease or an out-and-out porno movie.
9. Vegans like Megan McArdle annoy you, especially when they argue that no one should eat pâté de foie gras, so you wangle an invitation to one of her soirées and slip 100g of the cruelestly-made pâté you can find into the lentil soup, wait until it's all eaten and someone comments on the oddly meaty taste, then brag about what you did and take pictures of the reaction.
Questions for each one:
a. Would it be fair to call you an utter a-hole and a contemptible creep?
b. Would it be fair to presume that you are bigoted against Jains, American Indians, Muslims, Jews, Southern Baptists, Hindus, Mormons, or vegans, as the case may be?
c. Would anyone be surprised if you received death threats from members of the religion you had mocked, or were even physically assaulted by them?
d. Would you lose your job teaching at a third-rate university?
e. Even if you were tenured?
f. Should you?
g. Could you be prosecuted for what you did, and on what charges?
h. Should you be prosecuted?
I'm most interested in questions 'd' and 'e', where I'm pretty sure the answer is 'yes' on more than one of my hypotheses. Note that none of them (except possibly #2) involves any desecration of something thought to involve the real presence of God, so what P. Z. Myers did is arguably a worse sacrilege than any of these.
PZ has stated before that he begins each semester by admitting that he is "that" PZ Myers and telling every student that they will be graded on biology only. He tells them that their religious beliefs will not affect their grades (unless they try to use them to answer a test question).
I don't know if PZ uses blind grading or multiple-choice exams, but I would advise him to do this just to avoid claims like yours. Still, I think he makes a substantial effort to allay fears and be fair.
* You have to be Catholic to take a consecrated host. This is very clearly stated in the front of every missal in any Catholic parish. So no one can claim they "didn't know" you couldn't just take a host.
* If you are a Catholic you had to go through a class (either Confirmation for the young or RCIA for adults). During that class you are taught that you must not steal or desecrate a host. After the class, you stand before the parish in a public ceremony and affirm that you accept the Catholic teaching that you must not steal or desecrate the host. Now wouldn't this constitute some sort of contract?
* When you go forward to receive the host you say "Amen" when the priest says "the body of Christ." "Amen", as others have explained, means "yes" or "I believe." So you are saying you believe that the host is the body of Christ (and you won't steal or desecrate it.) So wouldn't this also constitute some sort of contract?
* Professor Myers must know all of this. So when he asked for readers of his blog to send him a consecrated host, he was asking for someone to trespass into a Catholic parish with the intent of stealing a host. If the person was not a Catholic, he or she should have noted the printed request for non-Catholics to abstain from the Eucharist and not have taken the host. If that person was a Catholic, he or she should have been bound by promises made during confirmation or reception and the "amen" and not have stolen the host so it could be desecrated.
Now, granted, it is *just* a cracker. But why wouldn't the above be actionable in some way? Someone disregarded clearly printed requests and/or promises made not to steal or desecrate hosts in order to do this. Surely the host does not then belong to Professor Meyers and Catholics should have some recourse to the courts to try to get it back.
Why am I wrong here?
"
The purpose of laws and regulations preventing misrepresenting kosher status of food and goods is consumer protection and ensuring that the goods are what they purport to be (usually there's a label or two on the package). If I sell you a hot dog and claim the animal involved was slaughtered in a particular way and/or blessed by a rabbi, when it was not, I'm making a verifiable (or falsifiable) factual claim. So it's not really a matter of religious law, just a factual representation about the goods.
I don't believe Prof. Myers has suffered one iota from any of this. His employer backed his right to post on his personal blog, he is a fairly popular and respected teacher, and he really doesn't care what religious people think of him.
That is certainly true. But where the gift is fraudulently induced, the recipient is guilty of theft, and obtains no title, and the property remains the property of the giver. It is the difference between obtaining a loan by lying on the loan application, which is fraud, and obtaining a loan that you are later unable to pay back, which gives rise to civil cause of action, but is not a crime at all.
Here, the communion recipient knowingly took the wafer for other than the purposes for which it was intended, which taking was therefore fraudulent. The wafer is still the property of the Church. Recall that the original purpose of this discussion was to determine whether there was a scintilla of crime with which Myers could be charged. Which there is. That being so, current law permits the penalty to be multiplied indefinitely if the crime was motivated by religious hatred. So Myers can be thrown in the pokey for life, maybe.
See discussion up-thread. Some churches make this clear, others do not. A reasonable person could certainly be unaware that non-Catholics are prohibited from receiving the communion wafer. It beggars belief that anyone could not know that the intent is that the wafer be consumed immediately, but because the wafer is given freely with no expectation of return, the intentions of the giver are irrelevant.
See Dilan Esper's several posts on this subject. No consideration = no contract. Secular courts do not recognize spiritual consideration, such as eternal salvation in the next world.
You're just sneaking that parenthetical in, thinking no one will notice? The priest does not tell you (or ask you) not to steal or desecrate the wafer during the communion ritual, he simply asks you to affirm that it is the body of Christ. Whether or not that affirmation is true, it has no bearing on the question of whether you are legally entitled to do as you like with the wafer after it is given to you.
a. Would it be fair to call you an utter a-hole and a contemptible creep?
Probably. It depends on what motivated me to do this. For example, if the Jains had threatened me with death for killing bugs, I might feel justified. (And some of these, like #8, were funny.)
Next, let me note that several of your examples were battery, which is a crime and a tort. 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9 are illegal and are, therefore, bad examples. 7, with the smoke "blowing their way" is at least a nuisance, maybe battery considering your special knowledge of their aversion to beef. Someone doing these things is subject to arrest.
The rest of your examples were better, and I confine my answers to them.
b. Would it be fair to presume that you are bigoted against Jains, American Indians, Muslims, Jews, Southern Baptists, Hindus, Mormons, or vegans, as the case may be?
"Bigoted" is quite a wishy word. Am I refusing to hire these people at my business? (no) Am I responding to death threats and calls for censorship? (yes) I think the answer depends on the situation.
c. Would anyone be surprised if you received death threats from members of the religion you had mocked, or were even physically assaulted by them?
Yes and no. Perhaps not surprised, but appalled.
d. Would you lose your job teaching at a third-rate university?
No. The AAUP's statement on academic freedom states "College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline"
e. Even if you were tenured?
Especially if you were tenured.
f. Should you?
No.
g. Could you be prosecuted for what you did, and on what charges?
You could be for the ones that are crimes. For the other ones, no.
h. Should you be prosecuted?
No.
Maybe you received "deafening silence" because your questions were so long, but yet obvious.
Personally I think you've got some good points. I think Prof. Myers was committing some serious mischief, at the least, when he suggested that someone obtain a communion wafer for him. I like his blog a lot, but this is certainly one of his more subversive and offensive (to many people) pranks. Crime? I couldn't say. But one shouldn't overlook the truly shabby treatment of the student whose cause he too it upon himself to defend.
The problem is the distinction between these two similar statements.
-I will not give you the wafer unless you first promise me that you will only use the wafer for eating.
-I am giving these wafers away to all people that are Catholic and promise to eat the wafers.
Catholics may claim that they mean the first one, but they take no actual steps to confirm that the person is making the promise. (Like asking them to sign something or state "I promise only to eat this if you give it to me.") The second statement is closer to the truth. It creates a moral obligation not to take the wafer if you aren't Catholic, but isn't legally enforceable.
Wrong. The gift was not fraudulently "induced," inasmuch as you have no evidence that the person who obtained the wafer made any representation of him/herself as a Catholic. The reasonable person's knowledge test of liability does not extend to the exclusivity of ritual doctrines of every little sect.
As for the loan, there are two separate issues. First is contract-related, where again the issue of consideration causes the analogy to the communion situation to fail. Second is fraud-related, but it only arises because there is a statutory bar to falsifying information of certain types, including financial. There is no statutory bar to holding oneself out as a Catholic, not that there's any evidence that Myers' wafer source did that anyway.
No it doesn't. Rather, where a gift is fraudulently induced, the giver has a right to sue for damages. Only in rare instances does fraud void the title.
And, as I noted above, there is no fraud here, because there was no false representation, no reasonable reliance, and no damages.
Nothing really new here, move right along, it is one of the things PZ does, does with some frequency. Gains attention, creates some frisson, gives himself some applause, some other forty-something and fifty-something adolescents join in the applause, other motives and interests as well, no doubt, it is what he does. A cheap and ultimately cowardly trick performed in a cossetted environment where he's more likely to receive applause than scorn or ridicule, but it's what he does and likely will do again in one form or another.
And the confraternity needs to consider some other, more fruitful and more meaningful response. Their consciences are sensitive and that can even be admired, but it's not well directed if they are serious about any type of legal recourse for this type of offense.
You misunderstand the full meaning of "mutually exclusive." The Catholic Church believes that it is the one and only True Church and the only way to get into heaven. While Vatican II speaks of respect for other Abrahamic religions, it remains mutually exclusive of them.
It is an interesting topic -- I have been aware of this situation for a few days now -- but it is nice to have a chance to discuss it with people. It is kind of daunting to come across such a long thread (I've been at work) and have to wade through it all!
I guess it comes down to the point that I think the Catholic Church is actually making a claim very close to: "I will not give you the wafer unless you first promise me that you will only use the wafer for eating"
That is why I referred to the classes (First Communion, RCIA, Confirmation, etc.) a Catholic would have to go through before being admitted to comunion AND the two instances of public affirmation (reception into the Church/first communion and the "amen") that take place. In those classes, the priests make clear that hosts are made for eating (not stealing and desecration) and the Catholic-to-be publically states that he or she accepts this.
It seems unreasonable to say that someone could go through all that and not know that hosts were made for eating!
If a Catholic took the host after going through all of that they were acting deceptively and there should be some way to get the host back.
If a non-Catholic took the host, they ignored a clearly printed request not to do so (and perhaps a public statement from the priest), and were stealing and there should be some way to get the host back.
Even though it is *only* a cracker...
(All that said, it is still an asenine press release.)
The problem is, to have that way we would have to overturn all sorts of doctrines in contract, property, and/or fraud law that are designed to ensure that everything we ever do or say in life doesn't create a legal obligation.
It's funny because there's a certain commonality between Catholic doctrine and these legal doctrines. These legal doctrines are hundreds of years old. They weren't just made up on the spot to screw over the Catholic Church; they were the result of long experience about dispute resolution and the kind of situations where court intervention is helpful and the kind of situations where it isn't. These legal doctrines reflect the collective wisdom of tens of thousands of legal practitioners and scholars over centuries.
You are asking to overturn this, for what exactly? Because someone insulted your beliefs? Because someone threw a cracker in a trash can?
He shouldn't have done it, because he knew you would take offense. But asking the legal system to alter doctrines that are hundreds of years old and have proven to contain a lot of wisdom is something that I would think that devout Catholics would perceive might be problematic-- similar to asking the Church to change its longstanding doctrines.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
I’m afraid were going to have to agree to disagree.
A reasonable person standard is applicable here, not a “meeting of the minds and mutual exchange” standard. A reasonable person knows that a host is to be consumed during mass and is not to be kept and desecrated later. A person who plans to desecrate a host will not secure one through legitimate means, because no such means exist. The Church would never grant a contract that would allow desecration of a host.
I’d be happy to let a judge and jury decide if a reasonable person standard is controlling in this case.
To the point of “consideration” and value: A blessed host was obviously more valuable to Myers than a non-blessed host. That’s why Myers claims he secured a blessed host for the desecration; a non-blessed host wouldn’t do.
I’d leave it up to a judge and jury to decide the value of damages. You imply a blessed host is nothing more than a cracker. That’s like saying a Picasso is nothing more than canvas and ink.
I don't agree with what PZ did; but a free society has to permit "offending" religions; America was founded on blasphemy.
Here is some blasphemy from John Adams:
"The Trinity was carried in a general council by one vote against a quaternity; the Virgin Mary lost an equality with the Father, Son, and Spirit only by a single suffrage."
-- John Adams to Benjamin Rush, June 12, 1812.
And:
"An incarnate God!!! An eternal, self-existent, omnipresent omniscient Author of this stupendous Universe, suffering on a Cross!!! My Soul starts with horror, at the Idea, and it has stupified the Christian World. It has been the Source of almost all of the Corruptions of Christianity."
-- John Adams to John Quincy Adams, March 28, 1816
I think Catholic churches are very generous and trusting institutions. Which is a good thing. It enables people to take actions that abuse the Church. But the Church realizes, I think, that it is plenty strong and that actions such as those of Myers are ultimately insignificant to its ends.
I'm not Catholic, but I would find a compelling response to be: "we're sad for him, we'll pray for him," rather than "can we prosecute him?"
If my questions are so obvious, why do I come to precisely the opposite conclusion? I cannot believe that a professor who publicly barbecued the sacred white buffalo of the Sioux would not be fired by the end of the day (end of the week if he's tenured) and the same goes for most of the other examples.
If 3-6 and 9 are illegal (I'm not a lawyer, and they don't seem any worse than 1-2 and 7-8) change them to hypothesize someone who makes a thorough and convincing pretense of (e.g.) feeding pork to Jews or Muslims, but then denies it after he has enjoyed the gigantic uproar right up to the moment he's about to be indicted. I do not believe that such a vicious hoax would be defended by any administration.
Nor do I see why you think the AAUP's statement on academic freedom is relevant. It talks about what professors "speak or write as citizens", not what they barbecue or stomp or otherwise desecrate as bigots. In any case, it would only prove what universities should do in such a case (f), not what they would do (d and e), which is often quite different. If masses of (e.g.) Hindu or American Indian students are convinced on very plausible grounds that a professor thinks they are all morons for believing what they believe, and doubt that he is capable of grading them fairly, no matter how much he says he will, would his university really reject their complaints out of hand?
Again, you can argue that should be the standard, but if you imposed that standard for implied contracts, you would find that far more of what we say and do would create legally binding obligations. Imagine a car dealership that structured its rituals in such a way that anyone who entered into the premises entered into a legal agreement to buy a car!
We don't allow these cases to get to juries, because we need a bright line rule that protects unsuspecting parties from entering into legally binding obligations. That's why we require proof of a meeting of the minds. You can't change that sensible rule just because you take offense at someone disrespecting a communion cracker.
To the point of “consideration” and value: A blessed host was obviously more valuable to Myers than a non-blessed host. That’s why Myers claims he secured a blessed host for the desecration; a non-blessed host wouldn’t do.
Nobody doubts that the Church gave the congregant consideration. The reason there is no enforceable contract is because the congregant doesn't give the Church any consideration. The only promise exchanged for the cracker is a spiritual one, which is not legally cognizable.
You imply a blessed host is nothing more than a cracker. That’s like saying a Picasso is nothing more than canvas and ink.
I realize that the communion cracker is not just a cracker for those who believe in transsubstantiation. There is no doubt about that. But you missed my point in indicating that you are getting worked up over a cracker. The point is, why would we change wise and longstanding legal rules that reflect centuries of human experience just so the Catholic Church can obtain a remedy against the disrespect of a small object with only religious significance? There is no secular justification for this, and the law cannot consider the religious justification for it when determining what to do.
As for the official church, its response has been to ignore Myers. Probably using the logic that drawing attention to him does more harm than good (but that is my speculation, of course.)
All true, just not legally binding, and for good secular reasons. A reasonable person knows that lottery ticket forms are not given away for use as scratch paper but instead are to indicate the numbers you want to use to buy a lottery ticket. But we don't let stores sue people for taking one to write their phone number on.
If we allowed the religious value Catholics placed on the wafer to have legal significance, we would get into all kinds of absurd results with arbitrarily high religious value anyone could place on any objectively trivial thing. There would be no way to objectively analyze and validate this religious value.
If I hit your car, you would suddenly swear to a massive religious value to the part of the your bumper that I damaged and demand compensation for the psychic harm I had done you.
Secular law simply cannot recognize religious value. He took a wafer and disposed of it in a manner different from the manner the wafer-giver implicitly got him to agree to. The secular law cannot care or it must care about comparably secularly-trivial things. And that wouldn't burden normal life to an insane level.
I haven't been able to carefully read each and every of the many comments, so with that disclaimer, I would suggest that the Catholics might consider taking the attitude of Christ on the cross:
"Forgive them, for they know not what they do."
...and let it go at that.
Did somebody say some university administrators would stand up for everybody's freedom of speech? Not just that of the accredited victims' groups? COUGHbullshitCOUGH.
Dr. W. I know that. But the claims of, say, Jews that they are offended or wounded by the claims of Christians that the Christians have buffed up and tuned the old time religion so that it's new and improved, or the claims of atheists to be offended by the beliefs of Christians that atheists are going to hell are bogus. Unless there's this little bit of ...uncertainty.
And, of course, since there's no uncertainty, the claims of offense and wounding are, by definition, bogus.
A lottery ticket form is worth much less then a penny so it would be silly to allow a store to sue someone for "misuse" of a lottery ticket. In the same way, a cracker can't be worth much more...
But doesn't the law take sentimental value into account? (I'm not a lawyer -- I don't know.) And I mean sentimental value not spiritual value -- I'm trying to be secular here.
I have several items -- trinkets really -- that aren't worth much more than a few dollars in terms of market value but they have great sentimental attachment for me. If someone acquired one of these items of mine through fraud or theft and then vandalized it publically to embarass me, would I really have no recourse in the courts because the item in question is only worth a few dollars?
It seems to me that it would be fair for a jury to consider the sentimental value of the item in question in addition to the market value. It also seems to me it would be fair for the jury to take into account the motive of the person who took my trinket and the underhanded way in which he or she did so. Adding all of this together, we might say it would be appropriate for a court to intervene even though the market value of the item in question is small. But maybe, under the law, that is wrong. Educate me -- please.
So criticizing or discriminating against someone for their race is worse than criticizing or discriminating against them for their religion? I'm afraid you're simply grafting your own values system into the discussion. I know of precious few Constitutional scholars who would defend that argument.
The problem with your argument is that the rules you mention are the rules of the Catholic church, they are not laws of the Unites States. If I take the host even though I am not Catholic, the church is fully within its rights to expel me. If I fail to leave, it could call the police and file a complaint on the grounds of trespass. It could not, however, attempt to prosecute me for taking the wafer when it was offered. If I went to the priest and he refused to give it to me, following which I took it by force, then you might have a case (although you would probably have a better case for assault than for robbery). No matter how badly you may want taking a communion wafer during a church service to be a crime, it just isn't.
Let's turn it around. If Myers decided to claim he was going to pull an anti-religious stunt by eating human flesh and blood don't you think the same exact people would be all over the "Satanic" heretic? But they hold themselves exempt from the claims they would make against Myers.
The people making the outragious and unsubstantiated claims are the Catholics, who unreasonably claim to turn wafers into human flesh and then eat them. Unreasonable because the wafers do not change in any way, shape or form and there is no evidence to the contrary--none, none at all. Yet who are some people defending? They are defending the admitted cannibals who are offended that someone took their sacrificial human flesh from their ritual and did not eat it. I'd say that at an objective level, clearly Myers is the more reasonable one.
If the non-Catholic parent later reneges on the signed contract, is it enforceable in court? If the parents divorce, will the courts enforce the contract as far as regulating custody? What if the Catholic parent dies?
Just curious... Several people have claimed that Catholics could set up reception of a sacrament as a legally-enforceable contract. In fact, have the courts enforced these contracts?
But the Confraternity is wrong to assert that Myers' action shouldn't be accorded First Amendment protetion, I should think. To say that someone who trespasses and vandalizes by marking a swastika has no right to make swastika markings is wrongheaded, and likewise to say that someone who illicitly acquires a consecrated host is not free to make the statement he stole it to make (obviously destroying property illicitly acquired shouldn't be allowed).
Tom952 above was right: Christians ought not to expect the kingdoms of this world to defend God. There's actually Scripture on the topic. And Myers' problems are so much larger than the harm a Catholic might think he has done to Christ--so much so.
Provided the white buffalo was the legal property of the professor at the time of the barbecue, there would be no punishment. To understand what, change 'sacred white buffalo' to 'sacred cow' and 'Sioux' to 'Hindu" then ask the same question. There may be particularly unwise administrators that my try to fire the prof, but they would have no legal leg to stand on. Most likely, the university would take one look at the lawsuit they might face if they tried to fire the faculty member, and decide that discretion is the better part of valor.
I never said it was a crime. I don't think Myers committed a crime. For the record, I don't think he should be fired. (Or put in jail!)
I do think a Minnesota Catholic bishop should be able to sue Myers to recover the host.
Civil court -- not criminal.
Contract issues aside, they'd have to prove he had one of their hosts. I'd like to see them pick out, say, the consecrated one from the unconsecrated ones.
That said, I offer no positive prescription or formula, though such things as well written, respectful letters to officials of note, from the governor on down might be one fruitful avenue to explore.
Why are astigmatic or or apathetic or lethargic responses deemed any better than the responses of those who become overly offended, or rather who direct their offense in a poor or unfruitful manner?
cathyf, I thought Buster had some good thoughts there, in the link you provided, I like this recent link about Buster as well.
Myers claims it is one of their hosts on his blog.
(You're right, of course, we can't show chain of custody! Maybe a quick-thinking Catholic sent him an unconsecrated host...)
How do you draw this conclusion? I do know what larceny is and I know that larceny by deceit is still larceny. However, in order to prosecute the item in question has to have value and the aggrieved party has to prove that title was passed fraudulently. Pretty tough in this case.
As an aide, when you make a statement like one above you do two things; first, you commit the logical error of employing a strawman argument, which weakens your position in a debate, second, you assume a conclusion without providing the other party a chance to be heard, which is just kind of rude.
The wafer he used was sent to him by a third party, possibly from England. I don't think the Minnesota bishop would have much chance of proving ownership.
PZ has every right to do this. He's also an a_____e for it.
The Catholics have every reason to be offended, and they have every right to call for his job. They're not going to get it, but they can call him out as being the aforementioned a_____e.
Those few Catholics who call for more than his job -- like his head -- are severely overreacting and are at odds with the teachings of the Church herself.
Of course they do, but the death threats? The calls to fire a professor based on his disdain for religion? They don't offer the same rights you grant them to others...
The university would take one look at the costs of not firing the guy, lawsuit included, and fire his ass.
Some offendees are more equal than others.
Settlements are just money. Offending the Perpetually Indignant, with their Wounded Knee re enactments on the quad, war whoops in the admin building, mass complaints of hostile learning atmosphere by anybody with one red drop, and just money seems like a terrific alternative.
Catholics...they can't hurt anybody. Wouldn't. SCROOM.
Could you imagine two hundred and fifty posts on VC crapping all over the belief in the Great Gitchee Goomee? Me neither.
Then there's PETA.
It could get ugly. Just screw with Catholics, conservative Protestants, and Jews. They don't fight back.
"Of course they do, but the death threats? The calls to fire a professor based on his disdain for religion? They don't offer the same rights you grant them to others..."
"They"? There are 1 billion Catholics. How many are you talking about? I mean, you might want to be somewhat careful with your accusations. Because they might not, y'know, hold up under scruitiny.
When talking about events at a Catholic Church, yes, I think the Catholic terms are appropriate.
Look, you can comment on the Kipa thread and use the term "beanie" if you want. I don't think it will make you look tolerant, however. Nor informed.
I don't go around declaring how stupid other faiths are, as people here are doing. Most Christians don't, either.
Oh gimme a freakin' break with the damn "death threats" flop, will you. Yes, among the billion Catholics worldwise are a couple sickos who reacted to this intentional provocation in an idiotic manner. They would have no voice, except for people like you and Dr. Myers who seem to think, "
they started it!context" justifies the unjustifiable.Dr. Myers has long had a well-known "disdain" for Cahtolicism and religion, and there wasn't much pressure for his job. He has crossed a line, and done so on purpose with his eyes wide open.
At least 95% of the population of the world holds something sacred, and those lacking such a sense might want to consider whether they are possibly in the position of a tone-deaf man at the symphony, or a color-blind man at an exhibit of pointillist paintings. If it all sounds like noise, or looks like chaos, to you, but those around you are getting something out of it, maybe there's something lacking in you. If you not only find nothing sacred but can't even comprehend how any one else could, maybe you need to work on your empathy or imagination or anthropological skills or something. If a flag waving in the breeze, or a solemn religious ceremony, or any other symbol important to masses of your fellow humans does nothing for you, maybe you should try to understand the phenomenon instead of just dismissing them all as obvious morons.
Depends on what you mean by "fight back," I suppose. If you mean issue death threats, they do. If you mean call for the professor's job, they do that too. If you mean firebomb abortion clinics, that's another one that isn't often laid at the doorstep of radical Native American activists.
Honestly, what trash. Christians, and particularly conservative Christians, are among the most privileged groups in the country, if not the world. Their every whim is anticipated and planned for so adeptly that they rarely have any need to resort to such messy forms of persuasion as protesting, not that they don't choose to do a fair bit of that anyway. You can get all angry about your cracker, but let's not pretend that it's atheist biology professors or Native Americans who venerate white bison who are running the government, the business sector and, yes, the country's major public and private universities, hmmm?
Fortunately, however, it isn't, since no one here has managed to come up with even a tendentiously plausible argument as to how the wafer could have been obtained illicitly under secular law. Nor, surprisingly, have I heard anything about a grand jury being impaneled to investigate the Great Cracker Caper. Perhaps there's a sealed indictment, just waiting until the FBI can be sure that they'll be able to take this dangerous 51-year-old biology professor into custody without too many agents lost.
Just give up. You're not going to pretend this into a crime. In a free society, the existence of people who are offended about something is not equivalent to a license lock the offender up.
Scote: You really have a problem with this "speaking for the Catholic Church" thing. I posted above, in response to one of YOUR posts, an authoritative statement on the matter of "canibalism." And yet you say "what they [the Church] says is actual canibalism."
That's just shabby.
Oh, please, this cannibalism is part of the reason why there are protestants.
Yes. I agree that this isn't a crime. And that in a free society, the existence of people who take offense is not enough to summon a law into being.
Too bad universities are not "free societies." Since that sort of crap happens with depressing regularity on campus. As a Catholic, I am not anxious to join in the mau-mauing. I don't want veto power over the speech of others.
This does raise an issue, however, that some people above have discussed: I sure as Hell wouldn't take a chance with this joker as my bio prof. I don't expect him to be canned. But the powers-that-be at The U--if fairness is an issue and freedom of thought a value--will need to make space in a different prof's section for any student who does not feel intellectually safe in his class.
He should have the right to do what he did. Students should be able to opt-out of his course without suffering negative consequences.
Personally, I do hope that the University does something to ensure that students of faith are protected from this flaming jerk -- who had already proven he is more than willing to engage in petty, anti-religious acts -- but apparently that's already been decided by his fellow inhabitants of the (now somewhat tarnished) Ivory Tower.
"Oh, please, this cannibalism is part of the reason why there are protestants."
Martin Luther (!) insisted on retaining the doctrine of transsubstantiation. And he's often associated with that Protestantism/Reformation thing. So, really, Scote old boy, I think you're out of your depth here.
Ah, I see. So the bit about Myers' "[earthly] consequences" and the extended digression about how a "prosecutor" might investigate an analogous "criminal case" was just an irrelevant hypothetical. My apologies for not knowing when to tune out inane chatter.
And in case you were reading a different post from the one you appear to be replying to, I pointed out that "no one here has managed to come up with even a tendentiously plausible argument as to how the wafer could have been obtained illicitly under secular law," which pretty neatly precludes there being any legal wrong in Myers' actions, before the Constitution even comes into things. Unless you want to dispute that, and have another go at tearing down the edifice of property and contract law again?
Schwartz: All true, just not legally binding, and for good secular reasons. A reasonable person knows that lottery ticket forms are not given away for use as scratch paper but instead are to indicate the numbers you want to use to buy a lottery ticket. But we don't let stores sue people for taking one to write their phone number on.
Your lottery analogy seems inapt: A reasonable person should not take those forms, and use them as scratch paper, without asking the clerk. From the clerk’s perspective, the marginal cost of one form, relative to the cost of challenging the customer, is small, so the clerk probably wouldn’t care if the form is taken, assuming that such occurrences are rare. But that’s the clerk’s call, not the customer’s.
I think you (and to some extent, Dilan) are misunderstanding my argument, which, at base, is secular.
My point is that property owners get to decide how their property is used.
We normally don’t allow people to use another’s property as they see fit, when there is an implied contract about how the property is to be used. If an implied contract between a property owner and a user is broken, the user can be held liable.
A person who breaks an implied contract -- and defaces someone’s property -- doesn’t get to determine damages (if they’re found liable). If such people could determine damages, they would simply claim the property was worth nothing. A person who damages a Picasso, because he thinks it’s only oil and canvas, may have a tough time in court.
We normally let judges and juries decide whether somebody who violates an implied contract for property, and determine damages when applicable.
I think I agree with Frank Cross, not a Catholic, who makes a very Catholic argument at 7/31, 8:52p.
If you have a problem with cannibalism you should take it up with the Church not me. Accurate characterizations of Church tenets is not bigotry. It isn't my fault that the tenets of the church seem absurd when objectively described.
Playing the oppressed victim when Catholicism is the largest branch of Christianity doesn't wash.
Schwartz: All true, just not legally binding, and for good secular reasons. A reasonable person knows that lottery ticket forms are not given away for use as scratch paper but instead are to indicate the numbers you want to use to buy a lottery ticket. But we don't let stores sue people for taking one to write their phone number on.
My Reply: Your lottery analogy seems inapt: A reasonable person should not take those forms, and use them as scratch paper, without asking the clerk. From the clerk’s perspective, the marginal cost of one form, relative to the cost of challenging the customer, is small, so the clerk probably wouldn’t care if the form is taken, assuming that such occurrences are rare. But that’s the clerk’s call, not the customer’s.
I think you (and to some extent, Dilan) are misunderstanding my argument, which, at base, is secular.
My point is that property owners get to decide how their property is used.
We normally don’t allow people to use another’s property as they see fit, when there is an implied contract about how the property is to be used. If an implied contract between a property owner and a user is broken, the user can be held liable.
A person who breaks an implied contract -- and defaces someone’s property -- doesn’t get to determine damages (if they’re found liable). If such people could determine damages, they would simply claim the property was worth nothing. A person who damages a Picasso, because he thinks it’s only oil and canvas, may have a tough time in court.
We normally let judges and juries decide whether somebody who violates an implied contract for property, and determine damages when applicable.
I think I agree with Frank Cross, not a Catholic, who makes a very Catholic argument at 7/31, 8:52p.
How many protestant churches practice the exact same ritual and litteral belief in transubstantiation as the Catholic Church???
Really, old boy...
It is not a matter of "playing oppressed vicitm." It's really just a matter of you saying things that are not correct. The statement that anti-Catholic bigots came up with the "canibalism" argument is historically correct. I don't think it makes any of us victims.
But you don't see it, so there's no sense wasting electrons on it anymore. I just pity his students who are persons of faith, as they're very much at his mercy and can't adequately defend themselves if his anti-religion bigotry leads to petty tyranny in the classroom.
1) accept that most religions/groups try to silence speech they don't like
or
2) believe that the confraternity of catholic clergy is really a muslim group in disguise.
after having read the first 20 responses or so, i think it's safe to conclude that a surprisingly large groups of people believe 2.
Going back to the original question, some courts have struck down kosher laws because enforcing them requires that a court delve into a religious issue in violation of the establishment clause. See Ran-Dav's County Kosher, Inc. v. New Jersey, 129 N.J. 141 (1992) and Commack Self-Service Kosher Meats, Inc. v. Rubin, 106 F. Supp. 2d 445 (E.D.N.Y. 2000).
And those making accusations of anti-Catholic bigotry should be careful to not confuse criticism of a religion or that religion's doctrine with criticism of the practitioners of the religion (which is real bigotry). A certain religious group you are probably familiar with has been very successful with equating criticism of religious doctrine or practices with racism. These baseless accusations of bigotry could come back to bite you next time you want to criticize said religious group which, by browsing plenty of previous comments threads, some are inclined to do.
But if private citizens and churches can't enforce the idea that what looks from the outside like a piece of cloth or paper or bread is "really" something of value, why should the government be able to do so? The idea that government money is valuable (as opposed to, say, gold or a private currency or barter) is simply an idea. Why should government get a pass on things like this that no-one else does.
As sometimes find, as our society secularizes, that we instinctively hold a reverence for secular things, and permit government to enforce it, that a different civilization might do for religious or moral matters. Why should the government be able to enforce reverence for paper money? Why should expressing the idea that it's just a piece of paper be a crime?
What makes Mammon so different?
When the question is whether his actions are immoral, he loses. When the question is whether his actions are legally actionable, he wins. Fight the game he loses, not the game he wins.
Too many people are playing his game. Don't turn him into a martyr. Let him go back to being an obscure professor or something or another.
You're right. This is a Judeo-Christian country. The Founders set it up that way and that way it remains. Nice of you to say so.
Anyway, in the real world, UC-Irvine is a bad place to be a Jew, while the Muslims can do no wrong.
The "death threat" meme surprises me. That you'd accept somebody's word. I was accused of sending somebody a death threat. Hadn't. Didn't. Don't. Won't. But it's what the Usual Suspects do. Lie, that is.
I don't know who runs the universities, but those willing to make the biggest stink seem to be in first place. And Catholics, conservative Protestants and Jews are not willing to make the biggest stink.
Suppose a bunch of Baptists took over the ad building, complete with guns. Think we'd have a stand off with demands being met? A $10 mill for a Baptist student center in which only Baptists are allowed? Nope. We wouldn't even need Janet Reno as AG to anticipate a SWAT attack. Not like some others we can all remember.
How far would anybody get with "The Penis Monologues"? Depends. Is it a gay group or a het group making fun of "The Vagina Monologues"?
C'mon, Anon. Pull the other one.
No, it isn't. Many of the founders were Deists, not Christians and none, so far as I know, were Jews. There is no mention of God in the Constitution
Have you forgotten the Australian touring perfomance of Puppetry of the Penis? Penis "origami" live on stage. Even the mayor Willie Brown went.
You may or may not be right--you dearly wish to be right--but I was reacting to anon's point that everything in this country is designed to convenience the conservative Christian. Take it up with anon.
Was the Puppetry of The Penis a production of a group on a CAMPUS? CAMPUS. We were talking about a CAMPUS. Try to keep up.
And, yeah, if I'd heard about it, I'd hope I'd forgotten it.
I'm not sure, but I suppose it's possible you're making reference to an exchange documented here. Just in case you are, I thought maybe it would be good for folks to have a chance to see it.
(Well I suppose technically there was some risk that when they got to the Sign of Peace some disease would be passed on. The germ police are always scolding us that handshakes are so unsanitary after all!)
Wrong. Among other things, the only threat was that one should take care not to be on the side that will be massacred should something terrible happen. As I say, prediction isn't approval. You should hear what my doctor predicts if I don't lay off the bacon. I don't think he approves of my early demise..
Nope. I was dealing with some feminists and one claimed I'd e-mailed her a death threat. So another wrote a letter to my employer.
Nice folks.
The usual suspects.
As a non-Catholic, in most places, you are welcome to participate in the communion, which is why people at the wedding mentioned above asked for everyone to join the line. When you arrive at the priest (or officiant, these days), to indicate that you are non-Catholic, you cross your arms over your chest, placing your hands on your shoulders. You do not hold your hands out for the wafer. The officiant will give you an appropriate blessing but won't give you the host. You may reply if you choose, and then exit in the same direction as everyone before you.
Exactly, PD. In particular, following the Hooiser/Scote debate, what Myers did bears a striking resemblance to tactics David Duke used. Do something outrageous and offensive, then claim Free Speech protections, gin up a few death threats, and use the controversy to get publicity and money. Scote's defenses of Myers sounds a lot like the defenses David Duke's supporters asserted. Myers is a moral force and martyr of First Amendment rights only to the same extent and only if David Duke was one.
Nor pro-life activsts, these days.
Maybe your hang up is the same mistake I've seen lots of other people make. You seem to be implicitly concluding that Myers did what he did solely to piss off Catholics. He just woke up one morning, yawned, and then said, "You know who I don't like? Catholics. I wonder what I can do to make them upset?"
There were several posts on Myers blog that led up to the desecration. The whole thing started when it was reported that a kid in Florida was receiving death threats for taking a host. Local Catholic leaders were calling it kidnapping and a hate crime. Myers thought the backlash against the kid was over the top and decided to make his own statement on the issue. His response simultaneously said, "This is just a cracker" and "Don't treat the kid like that, because look what happens when you do."
All your examples strongly imply that the Sacred White Buffalo was cooked for the sole purpose of "sticking it to" Native Americans. If I owned a buffalo farm and was receiving death threats over the white buffalo that happened to be born on my farm, then I would be tempted to eat it as a sign of rebellion myself.
Two responses
1) The AAUP is kinda the "union" for college professors. You generally can't fire a tenured professor without following their guidelines.
2) I think your statement again shows that you think Myers had no point besides just being rude. Protected "speech", as it universally understood, includes actions that convey messages. You can disagree strongly with Myers, but I don't think you can read his posts and really believe that he didn't think he had a point he was trying to make. (You can say it was a horrible and rude way to make that point, but you seem to think he had NO point. He was just being mean for the sake of being mean and put no more thought into it at all.)
If that's what you think, then I invite you to read the post itself, especially the concluding paragraph:
Note the difference between whether you thought he had a point and whether he thought he had a point. Only the second one is needed.
It takes a complaint from Christians to get that kind of reaction.
Other religions...not so much.
It takes a complaint from Christians to get that kind of reaction.
Other religions...not so much."
I am not sure what exactly you mean by your remark, but I had the same basic reaction I do now to some Muslims' violent protests and threats of punishment against the publishers of the offensive cartoons of Muhammed.
Did VC have a third of a thousand comments on the subject? What, exactly, were your actual comments? I should have said manifest reaction, not let people off with "I felt that way...."
Let's have another go at this.
I have no problem with what Myers did to the Koran or the Hitchen's book. (I would also have no problem if he defaced a Bible.) Presumably he bought the books he destroyed, so they were his property -- he can do what he likes.
If he destroyed a non-consecrated wafer, I would also have no problem. Again, he would presumably have bought the wafer from a church-supply store so it would have been his property -- he can do what he likes.
A consecrated host is entirely different because he cannot simply buy one like he might buy a book or a (non-consecrated) wafer. The only way a person can come into possession of a consecrated wafer is through fraud or theft, therefore Myers can't "own" it in the same way he might own a book or regular cracker.
As many others have explained, a reasonable person would not (could not) conclude that the consecrated wafers were free for the taking:
* The missalette clearly states that non-Catholics should abstain from the Eucharist. Priests sometimes publically announce this from the pulpit. There is no way a reasonable non-Catholic, upon reading this admoinition, could conclude that they are invited to take one of the hosts.
* Catholics, because they have to go through classes, know that the host is to be eaten immediately during the mass. Catholics also have to publically affirm in first communion/reception ceremonies that, amongst other things, that they will eat the host during the mass. There is no way a reasonable Catholic would conclude that the host is something that can be taken out of the parish and mailed to an athiest blogger.
In addition:
* During the mass, the priest says: "take EAT, this is my body that is given up for you, do this in rememberance of me." And later: "This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, happy are those who are called to his SUPPER." The congregation may say: "When we EAT this bread and drink this cup we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus, until you come in glory."
* During the mass the congregation often sings a hymn while people go forward to receive the host. The themes of these songs are typically about eating.
* A person should also notice that many will choose to receive the host directly in their mouths again proof that hosts are ment to be eaten. He or she would also probably notice that everyone in the parish (whether they receive in the mouth or on the hand) eats the host when they receive it. He wouldn't see anyone taking it away for later!
Can a reasonable person see, hear, and read all of this and conclude that hosts are not for eating? They are given out with the expectation that they will be immediately consumed on the premesis.
Further Myers surely knows all of this this. His original blog post was on the reaction of Catholics when a host was stolen. He then solicited his readers to secure a host for him. He knows that consecrated hosts aren't simply given out for free. His reader, whoever it was, also knows that hosts aren't something given away with no expectation about how they will be used.
Now nothing I have written above is religious (except for quoting from the liturgy but I was quoting from the liturgy to prove a secular point -- that hosts are meant for eating -- not to prove any dogma about what the hosts mean). No reasonable person could go to a Catholic liturgy and conclude that there is nothing wrong with taking a host and sending it to Myers! They would have to know they were committing some sort of a fraud to go forward and take a host without eating it.
I agree with everything you say except for your legal implications. Of course (most) people know that they shouldn't take the host if they aren't Catholic and don't plan on eating it. That is still very different from a legal obligation not to do so.
You say a reasonable person could not conclude the wafers are free for the taking. Why not? What payment is required? I know that if I wanted to walk into a church this weekend I could probably get a wafer, no problem, no payment.
Sorry, but the wafer is a gift. There are all sorts of requests and conditions, but those really don't work for gifts. If you want to really limit the other person's actions you need a contract, and a contract requires getting something in return.
Absolutely no one has suggested or even implied "that outspoken atheists should be punished by the civil authorities for heterodoxy". Myers can say whatever he wants about Catholicism or religious belief in general, even if it obviously untrue. When he writes "You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanity's knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality", who could disagree? Benedict XVI could say exactly the same thing. When Myers continues, "You will not find wisdom in rituals and sacraments and dogma, which build only self-satisfied ignorance", he is saying something that is obviously false: many people do find wisdom in rituals and sacraments and dogma, and only a blinkered bigot could pretend that they are all stupid. They may of course be wrong, but that's quite a different thing. (By the way, if you think you're smarter than either of the last two popes, chances are 1000-1 that you're wrong, though maybe only 100-1 for readers of the Volokh Conspiracy.)
Nevertheless, no one doubts that Myers can say and write such things, true or not. The question is about his actions, not his words, and whether he has publicly demonstrated by those actions that religious students cannot trust him to grade them fairly. I think he has.
For example: if you're an invited guest at a wedding reception where the drinks are free, you're still expected to consume them on the premises, even if there's no sign up saying so. Everyone knows that grabbing a few bottles and putting them in your car to save money on your own liquor bill would be theft. If you tried to do so, an usher would very likely put his hand on your arm to try to stop you. Everyone knows that passing drinks out the window to uninvited guests who haven't been allowed in the front door would also be theft. In short, the fact that something is given out 'free of charge' does not prove that it is given out 'free of conditions' and one can therefore walk away with it and use it in ways that would offend the giver.
First, that is not the standard that professors are judged by. Professors get in trouble when they actually grade students poorly based on beliefs instead of test scores. Myers has publicly said he makes sure to do this, and evidence trumps your feelings on the matter.
Second, your standard should not be the standard. I had an evangelical Christian for a professor. He and I... did not get along. I was doubtful that he would be fair to me. I think he let his religion enter the classroom in an unacceptable way. Nonetheless, I have to admit that he did grade me fairly, and my suspicions that he would not should not be sufficient to have the man fired.
You're just looking for a loophole because you don't like what he did. Either students (a) will, or (b) will not get a fair shake in his class. Since you have absolutely no evidence of anything that has ever gone on in any of the professor's classes, I suggest that you are blowing hot air.
You may wish to read the press release of the Confraternity to the effect that Myers has violated the Constitution and committed a hate crime, and the assertions of others in the comments above that Myers has committed criminal or civil fraud or theft (as such terms are cognizable in human, secular law) and rethink your statement.
Did the Confraternity say that Myers "violated the Constitution and committed a hate crime" by saying and writing bad things about Christianity, or by physically desecrating a consecrated host? Have they demanded that Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and John Derbyshire be silenced, or have they only asked that people not be allowed to steal and destroy consecrated hosts? You may want to rethink your statement.
Although it would be incredibly rude, I doubt it would be criminally actionable. Which is exactly the point being made here. Most of us agree Myers is being an irredeemable jerk, but he has done nothing that is punishable under the law.
Actually, professors have gotten in trouble for looking like they would be unfair, even when they were not. To take one obvious example, Michael Hill, the founder of the neo-confederate League of the South, was a long-time history professor at Stillman, a historically-black college in Tuscaloosa, where students thought him an excellent and fair-minded teacher. Coming out of the closet as a neo-confederate brought his career there to an early and unpleasant end.
But since the only things the Church requires in exchange are spiritual, there is no enforceable obligation.
</blockquote>
I recently went through the conversion process to become a Roman Catholic as an adult. Trust me, the Church asked me for more than purely spiritual consideration before I was deemed eligible to receive the Host.
Anyway, all this talk of whether Myers received the Host via false pretenses, fraud or outright theft, and whether the Host is actually the property of the Church is besides the point. Nobody is contemplating a legal cause of action against Myers.
All we have here is a fringe group representing about 1% of American Catholic priests, exercising THEIR 1st amendment rights by calling for Myers to be fired or at least reprimanded by his employer. Good for them.
Now maybe their understanding of constitutional law is flawed. But so what? They're a bunch of lay people. And one could argue that speech and conduct codes promulgated by universities like Myer's employer play a large role in the production of such confusion.
I think you should have picked a better example.
Dr. Weevil, you hit it spot-on. The problem here isn't with Myers' words, literal or symbolic. It's that Myers decided to act out his bigotry with the self-admitted intent of intimidating and inflicting emotional distress on his targets. Cross-burning, Host-desecrating, or whatever, aren't protected under such circumstances, as the Supreme Court most recently reaffirmed in Virginia v. Black.
Having crossed the line, Myers himself raised questions about his fitness to teach groups of students that include members of the religion he has targeted. Res ipsa loquitur.
So, it was extortion and hostage-taking, not just thumbung his nose?
Because that's so much better.
I'm sorry, could you please quote where Myers said he had a "self-admitted intent of intimidating" Catholics?
American Heritage Dictionary
in·tim·i·date
tr.v. in·tim·i·dat·ed, in·tim·i·dat·ing, in·tim·i·dates
1. To make timid; fill with fear.
2. To coerce or inhibit by or as if by threats.
American Heritage Dictionary
ex·tor·tion
n.
1. The act or an instance of extorting.
2. Illegal use of one's official position or powers to obtain property, funds, or patronage.
What "official position" did Myers use to obtain property again? (Don't say his professorship, because he didn't use that to obtain the property. He would have to charge students for grades for that to make sense.)
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
hos·tage
–noun
1. a person given or held as security for the fulfillment of certain conditions or terms, promises, etc., by another.
What person did Myers hold? What promises did he extract in exchange for the person's proposed release?
You just can't make words mean whatever you want them to mean.
Second, where did Myers say that "he would not crumble the cracker if the Catholics did ________." Sorry, but I can't figure out how to fill in that blank. Myers said from the beginning he was going to desecrate the host and then proceeded to do so. There were no demands, no ransom notes, no hostage negotiations.
So what would I call it? I would call it "rude" and I would call it "free speech" and I would call it "a point worth making."
(I'm not a lawyer -- I'm sincerely asking this question)
So if I said "Chris Bell I'm going to give you $5,000" and then a week later I said "No, I'm not going to give you the money after all" -- you would have no cause of action against me because there was no exchange between us? What if we shook on it? What if I said it in front of a crowd of witnesses? What if I "crossed my heart and hoped to die"?
That just doesn't seem right. If I make a unilateral promise to give you something and then renege, you should be able to legally hold me to my earlier promise, regardles of whether you gave me something or not.
----
It is really hard to see what else the Catholic Church could do in your view short of having everyone sign a contract:
They post a written notice on the conditions to take communion, they verbally announce these conditions during their services, some people (Catholics) go through a class where they learn about the conditions and then publically affirm that they will yield to them...
... and yet you say that, if someone walks in off the street and takes a host hostage, the Catholics have no legal recourse to get it back because they don't make the guy (or gal) sign contract when he or she entered the room?
That just doesn't seem right...
You took what I said out of context. The Constitution protects racial bigotry just as it protects criticism of a religious belief. But that doesn't mean they are equal or equivalent.
If any kid who's an observant anything avoids his classes, the prof might find himself a liability.
If I were in his class and heard his opening remarks, I'd picture Lucy with the football. "Go ahead, Charlie Brown. Kick it as hard as you can. I won't move it."
Grades are too important to take the word of a psycho like that.
Under Lukumi Babalu Aye, Myers could not be targeted because he was protesting religion. He could, however, be targeted under a general law that prohibited cannibalism.
(There are some special ways to make gifts binding. For example, it can be binding when you know the other party will rely on your gift, (you say "Go ahead and use $5,000 as a down payment on a car and I will pay you back") but those doctrines really don't apply here and I don't want to get too off topic.
This argument is silly, and frankly, is typical of conservative anti-intellectualism. Professors have strong opinions all the time-- they are not tabulas rasas, but smart, informed people who are likely to have strongly held beliefs-- and yet the bulk of them managed to be basically unbiased graders. Do you think Professor Volokh can't fairly grade the essay question of a student who advocates strict gun controls and would favor taking away Professor Volokh's firearms?
This is not a problem.
It's quite different. "Kipa" isn't an English word that concedes the spiritual claim that non-believers deny. "Host" is-- it literally means the cracker "hosts" Jesus, which it does not do.
So it's down to "wafer" and "cracker". And since they are synonyms, I don't see how you can get so upset about "cracker", unless you can prove why it is a "wafer" but NOT a "cracker".
Actually, the problem is the number of conservative Catholics who seem to think that secular laws should impose their religious beliefs on non-believers.
You see, we secular types aren't saying that you don't have the right to believe that a consecrated communion cracker is the Body of Jesus. What we are saying is that the LAWS in a secular country with free exercise of religion have to treat that cracker as nothing more than a cracker.
Absolutely, it's just not legally enforceable. The wafer wasn't taken, it was given. The giver and the taker had a shared expectation it would be used in a particular way. The question is whether that expectation is legally enforceable, not whether a reasonable person would honor it.
In fact, if you want to make the lottery form analogy even better, you can have the customer walk up to the clerk and hold his hand out, and the clerk hands him a lottery form. The clerk expects the customer to use it to buy a lottery ticket and the customer knows the clerk has this expectation.
From a secular standpoint, this is almost exactly analogous. All the major differences favor the wafer-taker. For example, in the lottery form hypothetical, the clerk expects the form back. In the wafer case, the expectation is that the taker will destroy the wafer (though in a specific manner). In the lottery form hypothetical, the clerk expects the "gift" to result in a payment. In the wafer case, the giver does not.
Several others in this thread have used hypotheticals where the quantity is upped; where the customer takes the whole stack of lottery ticket forms. The difference -- the clerk would not have given the customer the whole stack.
I wonder if those quantity cases are legally enforceable. Does anyone know? If my local Burger King has a box of ketchup packets (with an understanding that customers take a reasonable quantity to use as a condiment with their purchased food) and I take the box, am I breaking the law?
What if the employee asks me how many ketchup packets I want, I say "500", and he gives me 500 ketchup packets? Did I fraudulent induce the 'gift' because I know he was asking how many ketchup packets I would use according to the understood use?
I don't see much productivity in calling communion a cannibalistic act. But that claim is not "anti-Catholic bigotry"-- rather it is a claim that Catholics believe in something that's completely silly, i.e., that the cracker can simultaneously be the Body of Jesus for purposes of the sacrament while also NOT being the Body of Jesus for purposes of the prohibitions against eating human flesh.
Again, it isn't bigotry to claim that a religious belief is dumb.
That's true if they loan property out, but it's not true if they give it to someone else with no expectation of return. Property owners do not get to decide how property they give away with no expectation of return will be used, except if they enter into a valid contract supported by legal consideration.
Because prohibiting the destruction of something because someone else values it (but doesn't own it) not only squelches free speech rights, but the possessor's property rights as well.
Death threats are often phrased as predictions (e.g., Jesse Helms saying "if I were Bill Clinton, I'd think twice about visiting North Carolina").
But what body of law makes the conditions legally enforceable? Not property law, because you can't enforce conditions on the later use of something given with no expectation of later return. Not contract law, because there's no legal consideration and thus no contract.
You can repeat that it wasn't handed out "unconditionally" until you are blue in the face, but you are ignoring that unless there is a legal doctrine that makes a "condition" enforceable, you don't have a case.
1. That's conversion, not communion.
2. What do you mean "more than purely spiritual consideration"? The issue is whether you give something of legally cognizable value to the Church. Promises to believe are not sufficient. Nor are rituals.
And that's the point with respect to communion. There's no contract because the recipient doesn't give anything to the Church in exchange for the cracker that the law considers to be a valid consideration.
Correct. The law does not enforce gratuitous promises, only contracts supported by a mutual exchange of things of value.
You learn this on the first day of Contracts class.
Or, that a small band of extremists on each side use the extremists on the other side to define all of their opponents is to be expected.
(And to be clear, I'm not referring to those who are making legal and similar arguments.)
If you can't base the legal principals on Catholic theology, then you can't base them upon Protestant theology, either.
"Actually, the problem is the number of conservative Catholics who seem to think that secular laws should impose their religious beliefs on non-believers."
I don't even understand what you mean by "conservative Catholics." I am conservative. I am Catholic. But I don't think anyone would think of me as a "conservative Catholic."
Is you point that "liberal Catholics" have a different view of the Eucharist, or of the law? Both?
What do you mean by that term?
What's "silly" is dissmissively calling an argument silly and then using an inapposite counter-example to try to make your point. Here, we actually have a public university professor announcing in open class his biases against belief systems and actions protected by the Free Exercise Clause (and undoubtedly explaining his views for the benefit of students who don't immediately grasp the import of him being "that" PZ Myers). So the biology professor puts his class on notice that he believes Christians are "stupid" (to quote from his blog)? He has told persons of faith who otherwise may choose to exercise their right to wear a Crucifix or otherwise publicly display their faith in class that he vehemently disagrees with them, and questions their intellect.
It matters not that Myers makes his classroom pronouncement under the guise of claiming "but I can still be objective, even though I detest your most deeply-held beliefs." That 18 year-old pre-med student in Myers' class DOES have a Constitutional right to visibly express her faith. But here you have Myers explicitly raising his biases in the classroom. Can you say "chilling effect" boys and girls?
You are elevating semantics above the point.
The point is, there's two rituals here. The one we have been discussing is the one where they put the cracker in your mouth. The one you mentioned is the one where someone who wasn't a Catholic before becomes a Catholic. Even if there is legal consideration given in the second ritual (something I am not sure about, because you didn't specify the consideration), it has nothing to do with whether there is legal consideration given in the first ritual.
I use that term because there's a sort of politically active conservative Catholicism that identifies with the religious right more generally, and sometimes they speak as though they speak for all Catholics. (For instance, saying that "Catholics" are against abortion when in fact lots and lots of Catholics are pro-choice, despite the Church teaching.)
So, I am trying to make clear that I don't believe that all Catholics, by any means, believe that the law should impose their religious beliefs on others. But I do believe that a group of conservative Catholics are pushing for that, and you see that in this thread in the arguments that the secular law should disregard established neutral principles of law and protect the communion cracker because Catholics believe it to be sacred.
But I do not mean by that locution that all politically conservative Catholics believe that; simply that there is a group of people who are not all Catholics, but a conservative segment of them, that do.
Again, IANAL. But this appears to be the most important issue: No consideration, no contract.
The issue of "consideration" may be explained in canon law. But in civil law? How would it? What value could one put on, say, absolution? And what does one give in return?
These are gifts--"Gifts of the Spirit," in RC parlance. Gifts sometimes go to those for whom they were not intended.
Need help with that last nail? Being a Lutheran myself, son of Catholics, married to a Methodist, I feel I have a good insight into the horrible persecution of Christians in America.
It's sad to think that out of the last 43 Presidents, we can only be sure of perhaps 40 were actually Christians. I suspect a Deist or two might have slipped in early.
Of the current Congress, we can only count on 90 or 95% being Christians. Shocking, really.
Our Judiciary is worse. I suspect that no more than 85% or so of sitting judges are Christian.
With the Presidenty, the Legislature, and the Judiciary only running at 90%+ Christian, is it any wonder how persecuted we are?
My God, we're just 534 members of Congress, a Constitutional amendment, and the death of 200+ million Americans away from being extinct.
I've been in academia for 18 years. I can vouch: There are professors who grade-down based on intellectual biases.
This one went out of his way, not just to express his opinion, but to offend Catholics as gravely as he could. I wouldn't not trust his objectivity. (Nor would I stand near him during an electrical storm. I mean, just in case.)
You misconstrue the protection offered by the Free Exercise Clause. You are free to practice your religion; your religion, however, is not free from criticism.
And this is exactly analogous to the gun controllers in Professor Volokh's class. Their beliefs, after all, are protected by the Free Speech Clause. That doesn't mean that Professor Volokh has no right to criticize them, in or out of class. And even if he thinks they are stupid or ill-informed and says so, that doesn't mean that he can't grade fairly.
That 18 year-old pre-med student in Myers' class DOES have a Constitutional right to visibly express her faith. But here you have Myers explicitly raising his biases in the classroom. Can you say "chilling effect" boys and girls?
You'll always have that chilling effect unless you silence all political expression by professors. Don't you think that a gun control advocate might decide that he or she doesn't want to express those views in Professor Volokh's class? Not because Professor Volokh will actually discriminate in grading-- he won't-- but because that student says "why risk it?".
I am sure that some conservative students don't say everything they would ordinarily say in Susan Estrich's classes, and some liberal students don't say everything they would ordinarily say in John Eastman's classes. The only way to prevent that sort of self-censorship is to stomp all over academic freedom and silence college professors-- who, by the way, are often experts whom we really want to speak.
I am sure there are a few. But if this really happened all the time, it would be pretty easy to document.
In fact, my experience is the opposite. I have talked to many people over the years who have said, e.g., that Professor X treated them fairly despite having deep disagreements in their views.
It's sad to think that out of the last 43 Presidents, we can only be sure of perhaps 40 were actually Christians. I suspect a Deist or two might have slipped in early.
This sort of sarcasm is not enlightening. The question is context. If the theoretical pre-med student with the Crucifix around her neck is walking down the road in Anytown, USA, I suspect she will be fine.
In the American university "community," she will be the victim of bias. The extent of that bias won't be the same everywhere. But in secular academe--which includes all public universities in the US--she can expect to face bias. The religious affiliations of presidents don't play a role in this relationship.
(And Wm H. Taft was not a Christian, just to set the record straight.)
Nope. Not required to. Won't. To do so would be the height, depth, and breadth of credulous stupidity. And I'd expect to hear you both laughing when I protested why my work got all Fs.
As to predictions vs. threats: Helms had a one-step prediction, i.e, show up here and things might get rough.
Mine is a two-step prediction, support a terrible thing and, if the terrible thing happens, you might be in trouble.
Since the person about whom I'm predicting insists that the terrible thing would never happen, that he's not supporting and facilitating it, then, clearly, he has no problem.
After 9-11, it shames me to admit, our church offered to put people on the steps of the local mosque to protect it against mobs. I agreed to go, thereby agreeing in a vile assessment of my fellow citizens, and doing so without a second thought. I won't do that again.
However, that was before we had a polity divided by, among other things, whether it was our fault or the terrorists' and whether we should take it easy on them. It was before Muslim organizations began whining about what was happening to THEM, and practicing lawfare, and issuing threats. See the Tulsa Islamic Center issue. You would expect moderate Muslims to abandon the place and rent a building somewhere until they could get their new mosque built. Can't find any evidence it's happening.
I see--I may be as awful as I was the first time--far less sympathy this time around, especially if a Beslan seems to be homegrown. And people who supported the rights of terrorists will be suspect. And people who supported extraordinary rights of terrorists, will be more suspect.
Nuke? Don't want to think about it.
(I don't see a civil private property interest in something given away at a public event. Confession (so to speak): I once took communion at a Catholic church and only found out sometime later that I should not have. Did I steal?)
Actually, it is. I have no patience for American Christians whining about how they are "persecuted" in a country whose majority religious is Christianty, whose government is -- if anything -- has a higher percentage of Christians than the nation it represents.
There is real persecution of Christians in the world. (And they are not the only religion to suffer it). Comparing the fact that some mean stranger said mean things about your beliefs to people who suffer and die is to belittle their sacrifice.
I am sick and tired of those who seek to elevate their soft lives into martyrdom, by pretending that failure to treat their personal beliefs with kid-gloves is somehow akin to "persecuting them".
Poor Christians. Only 85% of the population, controlling all the levers of power. How horrible it is for us, that we can't force PZ Myers to treat our religion how we want.
I swear, I'm actually gaining sympathy for him.
How about Christians insisting on their right to have as little as possible to do with the son of a bitch.
And I don't see anybody claiming persecution except the confraternity. Bias is not persecution.
Dilan. Easy to document. See Kim Curtis and the laxers. Took a pretty good sized lawsuit to settle that one. I know attorneys and others pretend there is nothing wrong if a lawsuit will fix it. More money for them. Less for the aggrieved, so it's all good.
That doesn't document anything.
Again, the claim is that a person who expresses what PZ Myers expresses could never be fair to conservative Catholic students (or perhaps to Christian conservatives more generally).
And if there were that sort of systematic bias on the part of professors who express strident views (or strident liberal views, or strident atheist views, or whatever), it would be very easy to document.
In fact, most ideological professors go out of their way to be fair. Which is why there are plenty of conservatives who succeed in academia.
No. The claim is that a Christian has good reason to doubt his capacity to be fair. I don't know why you are being so fundamentalistic on this point.
In fact, most ideological professors go out of their way to be fair.
Evidence?
What we had was a prof screwing with the grades of two students solely because they played lacrosse. It took a lawsuit to fix it.
Am I going to risk my grades with the understanding that if this psycho decides he doesn't like my religion I merely have to resort to a lawsuit to get it fixed? You have to be joking.
And we're talking not about adults with decades of experience behind them. We're talking about adolescents who have gone from being a big fish (National Honor Society, various science clubs, Varsity Club, top ten academically)in a small pond to being a small, anonymous fish in a huge pond. You think they want to get into a pissing match with a psycho?
My advice, were I asked, and I might be if the same happens around here, would be to avoid his classes entirely and make sure all your friends knew the score, too.
Other profs merely excoriated laxers in class. No biggy.
Pull the other one.
One small thing though.
Who was referring to "persecution"?
I doubt I'm the only person to notice your consistent and total failure to actually demonstrate any carryover of Myers' private speech into his classroom conduct. He's written before, I believe, that he considers it a point of professional ethics to evaluate his students solely on their academic performance, as objectively demonstrated by biology exams and practical exercises. I looked, and couldn't find any comments from past or present students suggesting otherwise, nor do his online rankings show any student dissatisfaction.
I understand how upset you are, but pointing your finger and spitting at the man doesn't actually demonstrate any professional misconduct on his part.
You could be making an emperical claim or a normative claim.
If you are making an emperical claim, I think it is partially true but irrelevant. In other words, just like many conservatives wonder about being able to get a good grade from a liberal law professor, sure, some Christian conservatives (lets get this straight-- the vast majority of Christians don't have dogmatic beliefs and don't think that cracker is anything other than a cracker) will feel that they can't get a fair shake from Myers. That is irrelevant, however, because we can't start talking about squashing academic freedom and free speech just because some students FEEL they can't get a fair shake, absent any evidence that they are actually not getting a fair shake.
If you are making a normative claim, that these students are right to feel that way, I strongly disagree. There's no reasonble basis for feeling that just because professors have strongly held beliefs, they will downgrade those who disagree. This is something conservatives HAVE CONVINCED THEMSELVES about academia, but it goes against the entire ethic of academic freedom as well as strong strictures within the profession (if biased grading were proven, it is a ground to deny tenure or even to discipline or fire a tenured professor).
That I know quite a few of them; that I knew lots of conservative students as an undergraduate and in law school, that if they were not being fair, it would be easy to document.
That was alleged. About one professor. About just 2 students. And even assuming the worst, it had nothing to do with the student's views but had to do with alleged conduct.
As I said, if there were widespread ideological discrimination in grading, it would be very easy to document.
Catholics have extensive record-keeping set ups. The Church where a Catholic was baptized acts as a central repository of records for that Catholic for the rest of his/her life. Every Sacrament received subsequently is recorded there. (For closed parishes, there is a diocesan office.) Whenever a person is admitted to Communion in the Church (usually in 2nd grade in recent years in the US), notification is sent to that person's baptismal church and it is recorded there. (That also goes for confirmation, marriage and ordination. It serves as a first-line defense against bigamy -- when a second notification of marriage arrives at the baptismal church, it must be accompanied by either a death certificate for the first spouse, or certification of anulment of the first marriage. If it's not, it generates a full-bore investigation.) If someone previously admitted to communion is excommunicated, that notification is stored at the baptismal parish as well.
This means that there is not question who is eligible to receive communion in the Catholic church -- any individual is traceable via standardized procedure. If money were no object, it would be possible to generate a complete listing of every Catholic in the world who is eligible to receive communion in the Catholic church. (We aren't called The World's Oldest Bureaucracy for nothing, after all.) The question of whether Myers, or whomever obtained his wafer, is on the list is unambiguous.
I think a better analogy than the lottery form, or the booze at the wedding, is a graduation ceremony. Suppose some random person who never enrolled in a college, or took any classes, or paid any tuition, were to rent a cap and gown, and line up at the graduation ceremony. He marches across the stage, and is handed an empty diploma folder. (It's one of those large schools where diplomas are handed out later for practical purposes, and so all he needs to do is be reasonably alert and slide into the place of a "no-show" graduate and pretend he is that person.) Can you argue that when the provost "freely gave" the imposter a diploma folder, and so it's not theft-by-fraud? Was it not theft because the college wasn't checking photo ID's while the "graduates" marched in?
That proves little and your reassurances prove nothing whatsoever. Did you know profs who acted in a manner that in any way was commensurate with the offense committed by Myers? Did a prof go out of his way to desecrate a synagogue or a torah, for example?
Does Catholic doctrine really claim the Church has a private property interest in the consecrated host?
(I don't see a civil private property interest in something given away at a public event. Confession (so to speak): I once took communion at a Catholic church and only found out sometime later that I should not have. Did I steal?)
You use of language is creative: "upset," "spitting on the man." Very creative indeed.
Look, my friend: I posted not long ago at all that the issue was whether a student was justified in concluding that he would have a bias against Catholic students. I don't have to prove that he has done anything in the past. If I were eighteen, I would doubt his ability to judge my intelligence, and thus my work, objectively. I am more than twice that age. I still would conclude that.
Why is it so hard to admit that he has given Catholic students a reason to consider him a bit of an anti-Catholic bigot, and, by his actions, a provacateur? Why should a Catholic "be fine" with taking a course from him?
I've avoided analogies based on other biases. But when pressed, I must point out that there would be no questioning the attitude of an Af-Am student if this prof had very openly burned a cross while wearing a white robe and chanting "White Power!" at the top of his lungs. People don't trust people who denigrate them. Not so odd, I suspect.
"Prosessional misconduct"? Incredibly hard to prove in academia when it comes to matters of, say, ideological bias influencing grading. I have no information suggesting that he has engaged in this practice. But let us stipulate that, if he had, we would be unlikely to know. Despite what Dilan says on this topic. Universities are so lawsuit-averse that the circling of wagons happens automatically.
I don't accuse him of anything that would be legal grounds for dismissal. But I don't think it is beyond the pale to suspect him of being uncommonly bigoted. And I am asserting that such things as grading bias will rarely see the light of day in any institution.
I hope I have not upset you.
It's not like Dr. Myers is the only biology teacher in the country. If the only first grade teacher in the local school district did this, we might have a problem.
I think if Dr. Myers has compromised his position as a professor (and I'm not entirely convinced he has), that's a matter for the UMM to determine.
But what if he had desecrated the sacred symbol of another group considered sacred?
I don't really care. Catholics and Christians are probably a large enough group that we can use the market power and not need interference from others, I can deal with other groups being protected and not ours.
Yes, as you said. But not as you demonstrated. Dilan, I don't want to get into a prolonged row with you. You obviously have good motives. I'm just saying what I say from years of experience. I am one of the very limited number of people at this university who has access to all the grades of all the students--grad, professional, undergrad--at the institution. Going back to the beginning of computerized grade-keeping. So back to the early '90s.
And yet there is no way, even for me, to know the race, religion, sexual preference, or ideological orientation of students in any given class. I can see their names and grades. That's it.
In addition, under FERPA, I cannot share this information with anyone outside of the other people who are so authorized. Not even with parents of under-17 freshmen (though our instituion, in doing this, goes beyond what FERPA actually requires.)
So, if I detected a pattern--say Prof. Italian-Last-Name gives disporportinately low grades to students with Irish surnames--I could tell no one outside a core group within the intitution. And you can guess that the CYA-Effect would be dispostitive.
The songbooks and missallettes are also freely available, and one need not even say "Amen" to receive one. But I think we know that that does not give a license for anybody, Catholic or non-Catholic, to walk out with one.
The hosts, on the other hand, are expected to be consumed. There is obviously no expectation they be returned. Thus weakening the Church's property claim.
Not to give anybody ideas, but what about the chalice? Would it be theft if someone went up to communion, took the chalice, and poured the contents in a flask? (Or even a small amount, since people seem the get hung up on differences in quantity). Does it matter that the communicant is expected to consume the entire host, whereas the communicant for the chalice is expected to only take a sip? The chalice is the Church's property, bur are its contents?
Exactly. What the outraged people here are missing is that **all** people have views, whether or not they are expressed publicly, that **could** bias them towards students. The outraged Christians just happen to know Myers views, which means it would be very difficult for Myers to discriminate against students. Whereas, Christianity is the majority religion and it would be easy for Christians who are less outspoken about their views to quietly discriminate against students. Or, in other words, Christians are letting "vividness" falsely skew their claims.
How can a professor, whose any good, not have strong views and express them strongly. It would be improper, I think, to hide those views. I have had professors that I strongly and publically disagreed with and somehow managed to still get a fair shake from them
Trom--So have I. But I don't discount that others have not been so fortunate.
But the strength of a prof's views, or power of expression, really are not relevant in cases like this.
I have very strong views on Evolution. How can I keep from expressing those strongly? Easy. I am a diplomatic historian. I avoid making a big stink about my frustration with "ID/Creationist" intellectual dishonesty. And I certainly don't announce to my class on "European International Relations since 1648" that "I am that Prof. Hoosier" who pulled stunt X to draw attention to my beliefs.
If students want to see my collection of fossilized dino poo, I am willing to oblige. I hold to the original understanding that my "academic freedom" extends only to my work in my discipline. I know that this idea of faculty privilege has expanded to encompass just about anything a tenured professor does that does not involve his genitals and an undergrad. But this is an abuse of the freedom, and of the position. I am not an expert on things that I am not an expert on. The honorific "Professor" doesn't change that.
And I am not saying that the fellow in question should be fired. Just that no student has any obligation to respect his "speech" in this case, anymore than my Latter Day Saint grad student has to respect my 'Jurassic Poop'.
You haven't. Nor have you demonstrated any factual basis for assuming that Dr. Myers is not able or willing to keep his personal opinions regarding religion out of the classroom. A young, timorous student might well believe that the professor would grade him unfairly, but would have no more factual basis for that fear than you do.
Why should a Catholic "be fine" with taking a course from him?
Because a Catholic at a secular university is going to have to take classes from all sorts of people, and shouldn't assume that all persons with offensive opinions will choose to exercise them with the grading power.
Bear in mind that Dr. Myers didn't recently come to his opinion of religious dogma - he speaks his mind on the topic frequently and openly (albeit, according to all available evidence, only through private channels and never in class). If he were inclined to grade according to his opinion of his students' religious beliefs, he'd have been doing it for a long time now. There's no indication that any of his past or present students believe that's the case.
Why is it so hard to admit that he has given Catholic students a reason to consider him a bit of an anti-Catholic bigot, and, by his actions, a provacateur? Why should a Catholic "be fine" with taking a course from him?
I don't consider his actions bigotry, any more than I consider certain European cartoonists to be bigots based on their drawings of Mohammed. A Catholic student might choose to take offense at Dr. Myers' private conduct, but (again) would have no more basis for believing his private conduct carries into the classroom than you do.
You seem to be saying that students are entitled to boycott a teacher's class on the basis of that teacher's public opinions. I absolutely agree. But that doesn't mean that such students' reaction is reasonable or appropriate, any more than if students who favored gun control angrily boycotted the Conspirators' classes because they won't stop blogging about the right to bear arms.
Sadly, a handful of our fellow citizens were not underestimated. In our towm, a group of local churches made a similar gesture, even to the point of offering to escort Muslim women to the supermarked to protect them from harrassment.
In some ways, admirable. I often wondered why the same churches made no similar efforts to protect Jews during the first and second intifadas a few years before 9/11, given the number of Jews who were assaulted or harassed n the very same town, and the Jewish institutions that were vandalised or threatened. I guess some neighbors are worthy of more Christian solicitude than others.
There are critical differences between a graduation ceremony and communion. For one, the expectation is that everyone seated with the students at a graduation and marching across the stage is a graduating student. But that's not the expectation at a Catholic Church. The church expects--indeed, it welcomes--individuals who are not Catholic to attend services. And these non-Catholics are invited to walk up and be blessed while Catholics take communion. (Incidentally, when my non-Catholic girlfriend did this with her Catholic ex-fiance, the person at the alter crammed the body of Christ into her mouth before she could say anything . . . so much for it being impossible for non-Catholics to obtain the host).
To be truly analogous, you'd need to imagine a bizarre graduation ceremony where graduating students and non-graduating students alike were invited to sit in the same area; where they weren't required to wear the same uniform; where all of them were invited to walk across the stage and shake hands with the dean; and where after the handshake they're handed something inexpensive and disposable, like a manila envelope. I would say that if a school had a setup like that, and the occasional person absconded with a manila envelope, we'd think about that person much differently than we would someone who impersonates a student at a closed graduation ceremony and takes a diploma cover.
People on this thread have struggled to come up with some analogy that absolutely proves that what this guy did was theft, and they've failed miserably. This is probably because, at the end of the day, there aren't many activities that are analogous to handing out pieces of bread, without doing any due diligence, only to people who promise 1) that they participated in some ritual when they were adolescents, and 2) that they believe the bread is magic. And if someone DID engage in that sort of behavior, and it was cloaked as anything other than religion, we wouldn't hesitate--even for a second--to conclude that such a person has no legal remedy if someone who doesn't actually believe in magic occasionally gets a piece. Instead we'd say that the law does not concern itself with trifles and be done with the matter.
Wonder what the VC comment records are for 24 hours and over the lifetime of the thread?
Given what he did, yes, it is approriate and reasonable from a Catholic perspective. And from the perspective of a non-Catholic, I should hope. I would avoid his class if he had "merely" flushed a Koran down the crapper. I don't need to be a Muslim to understand how offensive that would be. He should not lose his job: Free country and all. But I don't have to associate with him.
The Danish cartoons? The publication was an assertion of the right of the press in a free society to publish material that might offend a religious group. A right that is under seige in much of Europe.
Myers's stunt asserted what? The inherent right to go into the sacred space of others, violate what is most sacred to them, and then crow about it. I was never aware that this freedom was under seige. Or, frankly, that its excercise was so very important to a free country.
You want it both ways, Colin: Bigots have the right to offend. But the people offended don't have a commensurate right to avoid association with the offenders.
As to they "will have to take classes for all sort of people": true. And when they graduate, they will have to deal with all sorts of people. Racists. Scientologists. Creationists. Elks Lodge members. Why are you not advocating the hiring of these sorts of people in significant numbers by our universities? I mean, since students will "have to deal with them."
Then we have different standards of reasonableness. Nothing wrong with that.
He should not lose his job: Free country and all. But I don't have to associate with him.
I agree on both points, and I should probably apologize - for some reason, I thought you were arguing that he should be fired because it would be unreasonable to ask Catholic students to take his courses. Looking over your prior comments, I see that's totally out of line with what you've actually said, and that's my mistake. I'm not sure how I reached that conclusion. I don't think it changes any of my prior statements to you, though.
The Danish cartoons? The publication was an assertion of the right of the press in a free society to publish material that might offend a religious group. A right that is under seige in much of Europe.
Are you agreeing or disagreeing with my analogy? The publication in question here was an assertion of the right of free speech in a free society to publish material that might offend a religious group. The reaction has been much less severe, but in many respects similar. (To forestall the obvious objection, obviously there's been no violence here. There have been cries to outlaw the speech in question, however, and to punish the offender.)
You want it both ways, Colin: Bigots have the right to offend. But the people offended don't have a commensurate right to avoid association with the offenders.
No, I don't want it both ways. I acknowledge the right of those who were offended by his speech to avoid association with him, even where I find the offense unreasonable. He entered the free market of ideas, and knowingly ran the risk of a market response. If students boycott his class, then I would call them silly and glass-jawed, but within their rights.
And when they graduate, they will have to deal with all sorts of people. Racists. Scientologists. Creationists. Elks Lodge members. Why are you not advocating the hiring of these sorts of people in significant numbers by our universities?
I have a strong contempt for creationism, a feeling that it appears we share. I think we also share the conviction that a professor can be a creationist and a good teacher, as long as they leave their creationism outside of the classroom. Why would being a scientologist be any different?
There are instances in which I would believe that students should avoid a class, for example if the professor were a notorious racist. I think you'd say that Myers' actions are comparable, but I don't think so; I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on that point. The end result is the same - the students are free to avoid the professor or not, and the only variable is the reasonableness of their decision to do so. That depends on facts that, in this case, aren't in evidence. Once again, there's nothing before us to support your instinctive belief that he would be an unfair professor. Let's be clear-eyed about it and remember that none of his students have ever complained.
I told you that PZ Myers starts all of his classes by promising that he will grade all of them fairly, just in case any of them were worried about it. I like the way you have been using that as evidence that Myers is unfair. Well done sirs!
And a piece of friendly advice... If you are going to muddle up your argument with ad hominem irrelevancies which are easily-checked factoids, you might want to stick to the ones that are true. It is false that "the vast majority of Christians ... don't think that cracker is anything other than a cracker." Catholics make up a plurality of Christians in the US, and the majority of Christians in the world. If you add in Orthodox, Lutherans and Anglicans, it's even further away from "vast majority."
Before you go too far agreeing with Hoosier you should note that he thinks the right "not to associate" with Myers includes a right to demand that the school offer alternate courses taught by other professors, so students can fully avoid Myers if he/she so chooses.
Can we drop this now?
But First Communion, as I understand it, is a specific ritual. We are talking about communion in general. As far as I know, you don't have to go through all those steps to get Communion under any circumstance, only to have a First Communion ceremony.
In any event, as I noted above, there are all sorts of other problems (no intention to form a contract, no damages, no right of action against Myers for receiving the cracker even if it was obtained in breach of a contract by the parishoner) even if you are able to establish that there was consideration.
Let's put it this way. I know professors who have a quite established and extensive record of advocating for liberal beliefs and espousing and supporting liberal causes, and who think that many of the positions of political conservatives are complete BS and have said so. And I also know outspoken conservatives who were students of those professors who feel they got a fair shake.
And this is absolutely normal in academia.
HOW would you construct a law to make taking the wafer illegal in either the original kid's case, or in the case of whatever person mailed PZ Myers one?
Mind you, it has to pass the Lemon test -- or at least be within shouting distance -- so you're going to have to restrict yourself to something that is religiously neutral and the government has a secular interest in.
So go for it. Construct a hypothetical law to prevent this from occuring -- and then we'll test it a bit, and see if it's tight enough to both pass the Lemon test AND not catch up everyday activities into it's grasp.
After all, if by protecting a wafer we turn casual utterances into binding contracts, I'm thinking it's a bad law....
I'll go with provocateur, and as I said, I think some CONSERVATIVE Catholic students (again, lots of Catholics are not dogmatic about transsubstantiation) are probably concerned about him, though they shouldn't be.
I will also go with insensitive, boorish, insufficiently respectful of religion.
But I strongly resist "bigot". A bigot is somebody with an irrational prejudice against people because of who they are. A person who stridently rejects BELIEFS, or makes fun of them, or ridicules them, is not a bigot.
Indeed, the doppleganger to the problem I discussed upthread (conservative Catholics who want the state to step in and enact their religious doctrines as law) is that conservative Catholic groups-- the Bill Donahues of the world-- have for a long time been angling to expand the definition of "bigotry" so as to rule any criticism of the Church's practices and beliefs off-limits.
Again, Myers was insensitive, he was boorish, he was provoking people, and he shouldn't have done what he did. But ridiculing Catholicism is not the same as hating Catholics, and it is very important we maintain that distinction so that non-believers retain their full right to offer biting criticism of beliefs that they find absurd or objectionable.
Hoosier, you can't detect statistical significance by eyeballing the grade sheets. And so long as IRB requirements are satisfied, it's quite possible to do statistical studies on grades vs. demographic information.
Plus, students who get low grades often complain, especially at higher end schools. These complaints are investigated. Again, if a professor was found to have exhibited a pattern of downgrading people based on some characteristic, that professor would be found out.
You and some other commenters here are making a very serious charge, and one that is actually taken very seriously in academia. You can't just go off half-cocked and say that professors are discriminating or not grading on merit.
Did you believe President Bush when he said, "we don't torture."
You are expecting people to whom Prof. Myers has gratuitously and intentionally offended to take him at his word?
He would desecrate a consecrated host, but would never, ever lie? What would I expect him to say, "Oh, I dock Christians a letter grade each to punish them for general stupidity."
What hoosier is arguing is that a Christian would be justidied justified in suspecting that Dr. Myers wouldn't treat them fairly. Dr. Myers's own claims of his fairness aren't going to work to chane that.
Ok, seriously, no, the Church does not bind you as having converted to Catholicism if you lacked the intent to do so because of your ignorance that you were carrying out the act of conversion. Except, of course, now that you DO know that reception of communion is conversion to Catholicism, if you do it again then then you are no longer excused by ignorance. (Digression: in English common law, ignorance of the law is not a defense. In Roman law, it is. So, in Catholic canon law, ignorance gets you out of things.)
Hoosier has made no such charge -- he is saying that Dr. Myers's actions have give Christian students reason to suspect they would not be treated fairly.
He has not made the indeed strong and serious charge that Dr. Myers has indeed discriminated in his grading.
The second is a hanging offense so to speak, the first is probably in a grey area that people in authority probably shouldn't venture into.
Taking someone's class isn't "associating" with him. Every student has to take classes with professors they disagree with, don't like, don't think teach very well, etc. And that's because you don't choose your classes the way you choose your friends. It has nothing to do with "association".
The truth is, in fact, that we all have a lot to learn from people we disagree with. Hearing arguments that we despise, presented well by well-educated people, sharpens our own responses.
I would encourage any conservative Catholic to take Myers' class, no matter how much he or she disagrees with him.
You missed the point. I object to conservative Catholics in this thread conflating their position with that of "Christians". Most "Christians" do not believe the cracker is the Body of Jesus. A subset of Catholics do, and a subset of that subset once to make an issue of Myers.
It doesn't have anything to do with my legal argument; I am just resisting the attempts of some commenters to wrap themselves in the broader mantle of Christianity when these issues are very much contested within the religion.
By the way, I specifically wrote PZ Myers and asked how he grades (Re: fears of discrimination). He responded that he uses blind grading.
Thanks for contacting your friend. We'll be sure to mention you've been an aggressive defender of him. But unless PZ does it a *lot* different than any biology professor I've ever known, how does he pull off pure blind grading?
Undergraduates at least have non-blind labs that count. Grad students -- well, absolutely no way you can do purely blind grading in any grad program. Evals of his TAs and research assts? In other words, this just doesn't pass the sniff test.
Or if he's somehow managed to do it that way, I'd never recommend him to the tenure committee b/c he's obviously skirting major parts of the standard academic evaluation methodology for the sciences.
John, the post I was responding to said that he had seen evidence of discriminatory grading in his role at the college that he works at.