Nothing must be held sacred
“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.”
- P.Z. Myers
A quote clipping from my friend P.Z. Myers on a recent entry.
If you don’t follow P.Z., or his blog, he has been the target of many nut-job people who believe some very crazy stuff, all centered on their turbo-Catholic belief that the Eucharist cracker from mass is ACTUALLY the physical being of Christ once it is blessed. Most of the people who I know, who are smart enough to remember to breathe in and out to stay alive, should know that I just can’t deal with something that stupid.
These crazy people have been attempting to get P.Z. FIRED from his job, have harassed him in e-mail with threats of every sort. His latest blog entry was one where he finally did a few VERY sacrilegious things to many religious items, and commented on how crazy people can be about mythos. Good for P.Z. and I find it funny that he pointed out that some people called him a ‘Freemason’ for his lack of belief and he writes in his blog. Well, at least they might have a point. MOST of our founding fathers were Freemasons, and they were not much of the devout type. Heck, President Lincoln was most likely Atheist, and even gave a speech to the fact to a group of Jews, telling them that America has room for them, BECAUSE we in America should not endorse or, as a nation, be tied to any supernatural forces of any religion. So, maybe he does sound like a Freemason… I am actually wearing my grandfathers ring he received when he became one of the high levels in the Freemasons himself, I inherited it after he died, he willed it to me. My grandfather sounded much like P.Z. in his posts as well.
Enjoy… follow the link below to meet P.Z. and read the post he made that I ripped that quote from.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/the_great_desecration.php
This is the website and blog for the thoughts and ideas of Derek Colanduno. The host, and producer of Skepticality, the Official Audio Program for Skeptic Magazine and the Skeptics Society.