Myer’s doesn’t just do this with the religious. He does it with any broad group he has a disagreement with. Like libertarians.

1. The wafer is handed out with the intention that it be destroyed. What the student did was not destroy it according to a certain ritual. So anything about property damage is not analogous.

2. This is not making a point about a crazy extreme subsection of religious people, but is making a point about the standard belief of the religion.

3. Point 2 of course does not say that it isn’t still an asshole move, but it’s also important to remember that religion is an extremely powerful institution in the U.S. and the world. This isn’t someone picking on poor Johnny the little mentally retarded kid down the street. This is an act that highlights the bizarreness of a powerful force that has damaged the lives of many other people for centuries, and the reaction this prompted might have some people question why they hold such great influence and are considered reasonable by polite society.

The problem with the rattle analogy is that the rattle would never have been used to justify mass murder. Some symbols, no matter how beloved by certain people, need to be disrespected and the people who love them need to be offended. Simply because the history of said symbol is full of horror and blood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_desecration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_canard#Accusations_of_host_desecration

As a Catholic, I completely understand the non-believer’s (and I REALLY don’t mean that in a perjorative sense, I promise!) irritation with the tenet of Transubstantiation. Of COURSE it’s not “testable” and yes, I see who one can draw a parallel with the “pseudoscientific” claims of other religions and, of course, kooks, cranks and woo-mongers (i.e. “it’s not scientifically testable so it MUST be true!!”)

The big difference is that Catholic’s do not claim that its untestability PROVES it, in the way that kranks do. We simple shrug and say “it cannot be tested; indeed all tests show it to be false. And yet we continue to believe it.” We do not hold up a scientific test proving the host to be just bread, the wine to be just fermetned grape juice as if the lackof science’s ability to demonstrate anything other than their physical makeup is direct evidence of its veracity.

Catholicism is a relatively scientific belief (oddly)… it accepts evolution, the ancient universe, Big Bang theory, genetics, pretty much the entire canon of modern science. Indeed, some of the breakthroughs in these areas were MADE by Catholic priests (Mendel anyone?)

We believe what we believe, because of faith; science shows that in PHYSICAL terms the host remains unchanged, but that is what Catholic theologians have already said for several centuries now.

And FWIW… I think the Catholics calling for physical harm against Meyers, and the threats against Mr. Cooke are reprehensible; that is NOT what our faith is, or should ever be about.

PZ Myers is an idiot. He may or may not be a good scientist; I don’t know. But his philosophy is silly & absurd.

His campaign for atheism is not motivated by any kind of rational bried that can be made for atheism. This silly little affair just illustrates how much his crusade owes to malice & bile.

No you aren’t. Your “enormously detailed” explanation of why you think transubstantiation is false consisted of a passing reference to parapsychology. Transubstantiation has nothing to do with parapsychology. It also has nothing to do, according to Catholics, with the laws of physics. As one poster mentioned the law of physics deal with the accidents of the wafer, not the substance. So the theory of transubstantiation makes no predictions that can be tested in a physics experiment.