But thanks for the links, though. I’ve been thinking along the same lines regarding comedic and satirical use of symbols. To be clear, the kind of juvenile behavior I object to is attending a worship service just to disrupt it, Gaius Baltar-style (I’m not saying Cook did this), or making off with property where your right to do so is fuzzy, as in, for example, an object that’s intended to be used as part of a specific ritual (P.Z. did encourage his readers to do this).

By contrast, using a cross or a floppy pope hat or a God Machine that goes “Beeedley-deedley-beeep-booooooop-doop” as part of a comedy skit can be fucking funny, and I’m grateful that people do it. Offense given by intellectual and artistic works is something adults ought to be able to deal with, especially when that work is fucking clever. Like this one.

THIS. I lol’d.

I agree that PZ’s not helping himself, or the rest of us, I guess, and I also agree that it’s his right, the man isn’t a perfect blogger, etc.

And I know you agree that any reaction from Nisbet or the other “framers’ will probably be wrong-headed and recommend a higher level of self-censorship than is necessary or even advantageous, and might even exploit the idea of “civility” to snipe a bit at PZ and further their own ambiguous ideological perspective.

Oh, look, Nisbet has responded:

“As for the reaction to blogger PZ Myers commentary, it’s another example of the unintended consequences of his preferred brand of Don Imus atheism. Even fellow atheists and free speech advocates are troubled.” (Link: http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2008/07/on_pz_don_imus_atheism_and_ath.php)

Nice: link PZ with a fucking racist. This man should work for FOX News. I swear I wrote my comment previous to that quote before I even checked Nisbet’s blog. Nisbet then quotes Andrew Sullivan:

“It is one thing to engage in free, if disrespectful, debate. It is another to repeatedly assault and ridicule and abuse something that is deeply sacred to a great many people. Calling the Holy Eucharist a “goddamned cracker” isn’t about free speech; it’s really about some baseline civility. Myers’ rant is the rant of an anti-Catholic bigot. And atheists and agnostics can be bigots too.”

(Note that “repeatedly” is an ambiguous claim: PZ hasn’t waged a continuous war against wafers over many posts; he has, however, “repeatedly” engaged in “free, if disrespectful, debate” concerning the Catholic religion, among all the others.)

(2nd note: Ouch, he used the word “civility” just like you did, and then took it to a rather different level.)

Anyway, then, surprisingly, Ed Brayton weighs in and offers something on the opposite of the framing debate than he usually does:

“[Sullivan is] certainly right that atheists and agnostics can be bigots just like religious people, but I don’t think mocking this absurd situation makes one a bigot at all. The mockery is perfectly justified by the absurd behavior of Bill Donohue and his cohorts, who are claiming that the student who did this engaged in kidnapping (!) and that he should be expelled from school. For taking a cracker. I’m sorry, if that isn’t deserving of mockery, what is?” (Link: http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/07/sullivan_on_pzs_sacrilege_thre.php#more)

Brayton goes further to bring up the Mohammed cartoons. Those cartoons could be considered just as juvenile as PZ drawing a smiley face on a wafer or photoshopping wafer poops out of, I don’t know, a Catholic priest’s behind. All were or would be stupid and unfunny (well, I’m not so eloquent, I might laugh at a priest pooping wafers). So, then, does it mean that we criticize a rather public mockery of religion only if it’s not funny or clever? I might agree with that, if it weren’t that the criticism were substantively about whether we should needlessly offend religious folk, and not about the affront to decent comedy.

The offense will come whether it’s in good taste or not, and perhaps the offense just doesn’t come as strongly when it’s actually funny or clever simply because it’s funny or clever, and the offended look even stupider for being so. (Really, though, that only happens when those who are offended are also intelligent. The death threats from 1-800 Flowers.com kind of disprove that assumption. And a lot of recent Catholic mocking has come from the boy-buggering priest thing, which they don’t have quite the ability to mobilize public outrage over. Well–not quite the right kind of outrage, anyway.)

I see and agree with your assertion that PZ’s post was juvenile. But rather than err on any caution, I’d just recommend he get a friend or two with a background in comedic writing. Then we wouldn’t be parsing over wafer-poop, and instead be all on the same side, openly mocking both the reactionary Catholic pundits (thugs) AND the namby-pamby idiot critics (like Nisbet) or the free-thought hypocrites (like Sullivan, who was not so offended by the Mohammed cartoons, and actually in support of publishing them–I think). My point is that it’s criticism that, while worthy, is merely nitpicking in the context of Bill Donahue and Matt Nisbet.

And as an after-thought, I think the distinction between religious symbolism and any other religious sentiment (like a commandment, or Bible verse, or age-old tradition) is somewhat of a silly distinction. Maybe it has something to do with the idiotic nostalgia that comes with symbolism (isn’t offending the letter of the symbol worse than offending the symbol?). But still, I see no difference; pooping on a communion wafer is admittedly less refined, but still similar to, saying that it’s silly to believe a cracker becomes Jesus because some old dude in robes sings some stuff. Both the symbol and the meaning are quite open for mockery–and, while PZ sort of failed, the symbol is much easier to mock. I mean, you know, it IS a “goddamned cracker!”

Later in Nisbet’s post:

“In a recent interview on the podcast Point of Inquiry, host DJ Grothe asked PZ if he worried that scienceblogs.com was becoming better known as “atheistblogs.com.” It’s a question that merits serious consideration, especially in light of recent events.”

Fuck off, Nisbet; I care not for your “serious consideration.” Go do some communication science, or something. Oh right; ROFL!