I've been pretty disgusted with PZ Myers during the whole "religious symbol desecration" piece of performance art. It should go without saying that I've been disgusted with the so-called Christian zealots on the other side, since I'm disgusted with them 24/7.
But I've changed my opinion about PZ and what he did. What follows is going to be pretty long and very theological, so I'll put it after the jump.
I'm glad I didn't post on this earlier, because it's so much easier to just describe a mental journey than it is to make you go through it with me. PZ really went over the top with his reaction - no, he didn't make any death threats, but I still like to pretend that our standards are higher - especially when he declared that the doctrine of transubstantiation was invented as a way to inflame medieval Christians against their Jewish neighbors. I understand that he's a science professor, not history, but his accusation is just shockingly ignorant of the way in which the Roman Catholics have approached the formation of official doctrine their entire history. Religion is the field where everyone gets to be their own expert, and no one is required to apply any intellectual rigor to their analysis. So yeah, that pissed me off.
At the same time, it finally drove home that PZ, along with people like Amanda Marcotte and several of this blog's readers, I'm sure, really do believe that religion is a primary source, if not The Primary Source, of all the world's ills. On one level I've known that for a while, but for the first time I put that belief in its rightful place as a catalyst for behavior, and that's what made PZ's actions clear for me. It's not about desecration so much as it is about education. PZ thinks that believers in religion are superstitious and magical thinkers, so he set out to concretely prove that there is nothing magical about consecrated communion wafers, pages of the Koran or even The God Delusion.
Well, he's right. There isn't anything magical about those things, least of all the communion wafers. The Bible actually has a lot in it that tries to disabuse people of the notion that Yahweh can be controlled or subdued by incantations, trinkets or even prayers and animal sacrifices. Too much about the God of the Bible is confused with Zeus, the God with the ever-present thunderbolt in his hand, looking for people to smite. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the smiting and smoting that's done is in response to the evil things that people do to one another, not - with very few exceptions - any offense against God directly. And those exceptions are directed not at other peoples with other gods, but at God's own people, those who claim to follow and belong to Yahweh. In other words, PZ is in no greater danger of eternal damnation now than he was before The Abomination That Causes Desolation - no matter what Rod Dreher self-righteously proclaims. Because Yahweh simply isn't that kind of god. The only way to portray him so is to take seriously the claims American Christian Fundamentalists make about the Bible: that it was written merely as an account of the history of the world from the first day. I simply see no reason why I should trust their interpretation, when the better one is that the Bible is, from Genesis to Revelation, a theological treatise about the nature of God and humanity. Every story, whether we can connect it to a historical event or not, should be read in this light. And when read with this insight into the priorities of ancient Hebrews and Christians, we read of a far different God than the one which delights in slaughter of innocent men and women, the one which is always looking for a reason to get pissed off and punish us.
By abusing consecrated communion wafers, PZ has actually done the world's Christians a great service. He's given them an object lesson about the real nature of God. Had PZ been supernaturally struck down, I would immediately cease to be a Christian. I might be interested in whatever god decided to take action right then, but I wouldn't be a Christian, because it's impossible for an act like that to come from the Christian God.
The other side, though - those who have condemned PZ to hell like Dreher, those that have threatened him and tried to get him fired, and especially those that orchestrate such unholy vendettas, however, do no service to anyone, not people and certainly not God. In fact, by the standards of the Christian Bible, these people actually hate God:
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. . . . . .If someone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their brothers and sisters. (1 John 4:7-8, 20-21, NLT. I edited out references to “Christian brother/sister” because the Greek doesn’t support them.)
Trying to force people from their jobs isn't love. That kind of action doesn't spring from love, doesn't have love as its motivation. One cannot simply declare "I love this miserable sinner so-and-so" while working to destroy their livelihood and have it be the truth. Threats of physical harm, of course, are completely anti-Christian. The people who do this commit far greater acts of desecration than PZ could even imagine. They do more damage to God's reputation than a million Richard Dawkins in front of a million computers writing a million anti-Christian books. Each.
Christianity's current decline is the fault of no atheist. Christians themselves have turned Jesus's message and life of love and freedom into hate and oppression. Its self-appointed defenders like Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly claim that your personal problems are caused by liberals - not the ones in DC, but the ones that live on your street, that attend the fake church on the corner. They're destroying your life, the Limbaughs and Malkins and Bushes of America say, and they must be stopped. And so they are.
You see, though I believe in Jesus as the Son of God, when I look at the Church I find myself in fundamental agreement with PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins. This world would still be imperfect and a place of much evil, but it would be a better place and less evil without this thing that Christianity has become than it is now. And it sorrows and shames me to admit it.
