You may have been following the tale of PZ Myers (Pharyngula) and the fatwa declared on him by Bill Donohue and his band of enlightened, loving, open-minded to everyone's point of view, God freaks.
In short, PZ commented on a story about some poor college kid who is being drummed out of school because he took one of the communion wafers from Church. PZ's comment was "It's just a cracker."
The entire thing snowballed out of control when Bill Donohue stepped in and rallyed his troops to get PZ fired. His supporters happily obliged and as a special bonus even threw in some death threats for PZ and his family (all the while blathering about how if it had been Muslims, PZ would be in REAL trouble - is there something in the religious kool-aid that renders a person unable to recognize irony?)
Anyway, PZ has written a post today summarizing the history of the holy cracker (hint: it's pretty ugly but not unexpected considering the Catholic Church's overall history), his experiences with this incident, and capped off with an awesome photo of what he did with the "holy cracker" he had:
- and why:
I know some of you have proposed intricate plans for how to do horrible things to these crackers, but I repeat…it's just a cracker. I wasn't going to make any major investment of time, money, or effort in treating these dabs of unpleasantness as they deserve, because all they deserve is casual disposal. However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus's tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel. My apologies to those who hoped for more, but the worst I can do is show my unconcerned contempt.
By the way, I didn't want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur'an and The God Delusion. They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet. You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanities' knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality. You will not find wisdom in rituals and sacraments and dogma, which build only self-satisfied ignorance, but you can find truth by looking at your world with fresh eyes and a questioning mind.
I can't really do the post justice - so I strongly suggest you go read it here. And follow the links back to the earlier posts - including the comments from the holy death squad.
