cool story bro

подписался недавно на Pharyngula, смешной блог за авторством PZ Myers, доцента биологии Университета Миннесоты. по посещаемости Pharyngula сейчас сравним с Тёминым жж, а в 2006 году занял первое место среди блогов, которые ведут учёные. shvarz его удачно охарактеризовал как "глумление над креационистами", я бы ещё добавил "а также над прочими фанатиками и фундаменталистами".

Майерс родился в лютеранской семье, и ему, как и мне, близка тема религии - семейства самых успешных мозговых вирусов за всю историю человечества. вчера проглядел его страничку на вики, и обнаружил там невероятно забавную историю. как говорится, читал и плакал:

Eucharist controversy

A controversy arose in July 2008 over a Pharyngula blog entry written by Myers expressing amazement at news reports of death threats issued to University of Central Florida Student Senator Webster Cook. On June 29, 2008, Cook attended a Catholic Mass being held in the student union at UCF by a Catholic student group that receives funding from the student government. Cook received the Catholic Eucharist host but did not consume it immediately. He said later that he wanted to take it back to his seat to show a friend, but when stopped he put it in his mouth until back at his seat, then a church leader made forcible attempts to take the host from him. Cook stored the host at his home, then returned it one week later after receiving e-mail threats and pleas. Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League, described the student's actions as "beyond hate speech" and said that "All options should be on the table, including expulsion."

In his July 8 blog entry, Myers criticized the reaction to Cook's act. Myers described the level of harassment including multiple death threats leveled against the student, and accusations against the student which included hate crime, kidnapping, and intent to desecrate the wafer which Catholics consider a mortal sin. Myers expressed outrage that Fox News appeared to be inciting readers to cause further problems for the student, and ridiculed reports that armed guards would attend the next mass. Myers suggested that if any of his readers could acquire some consecrated Eucharistic hosts for him, he would treat the wafers "with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web."

A number of Roman Catholics immediately reacted strongly. Donohue's Catholic League accused Myers of anti-Catholic bigotry, described his proposal as a threat to desecrate what Catholics hold to be the Body of Christ, and sent a letter asking the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Legislature to take action against Myers. According to Donohue, as the Pharyngula website was accessible via a link from the University of Minnesota website, it should be bound by the institution's code of conduct which requires faculty to be "respectful, fair and civil" when dealing with others. Subsequently, Myers explained to the Star Tribune that while his post was "satire and protest," he had received death threats regarding the incident but was not taking them too seriously.

In a talk show featuring Myers on Catholic Radio International, hosted by Jeff Gardner, Myers confirmed that he had been sent an unspecified number of consecrated hosts and said that he intended to “subject them to heinous cracker abuse.” When asked by Gardner to explain why he must do so, Myers said that Donohue of the Catholic League was insisting that he acknowledge the Body of Christ in the Eucharist. Gardner pointed out that Donohue had no authority to insist on such acknowledgment. The show host then asked Myers which individual possessing the Magisterial authority of the Catholic Church had insisted that he recognize the body of Christ in the Eucharist. Myers replied that no one from the Catholic Church had contacted him.

On July 24, 2008, Myers, in his post, "The Great Desecration," wrote that he had pierced through the "goddamned cracker" with a rusty nail, which he also used to pierce a few ripped-out pages of the Qur'an and The God Delusion, and had simply thrown them all in the trash along with old coffee grounds and a banana peel. He provided a photograph of these items in the garbage, and wrote that nothing must be held sacred, encouraging people to question everything. In addition, he described the history of allegations of host desecration, emphasizing the frequent use of such allegations in medieval Europe to justify anti-Semitism. The following day, University of Minnesota, Morris (UMM) Chancellor stated: “I believe that behaviors that discriminate against or harass individuals or groups on the basis of their religious beliefs are reprehensible,” and that the school "affirms the freedom of a faculty member to speak or write as a public citizen without institutional discipline or restraint."

( мой беглый перевод )

upd новости до кучи:

* Поляки назвали причину падения Ту-154 Леха Качиньского
* охуительные сумки, уже хочу