Don’t Poke the Tiger – or maybe you should.
There are days when my kids are just in a really rotten mood. Now, it’s not uncommon for my to verbally tease them, and, some days they take it better than others.
My wife, on the other hand, doesn’t always see the importance of teasing kids, and when they’re in their crankiest moods, she says to me, “Don’t poke the tiger.”
Personally, I think it is an important lesson for them to learn. They’re not really tigers, and I’m not really poking them – it’s just a metaphor.
These things happen in life, people say and do things just to irritate you. How we respond to them is one of the measures of a person.
Why do I mention this? ‘Cause PZ nailed the cracker. (And when I say, “nailed”, I actually mean “nailed”, not a somewhat simplistic euphemism for “fornicated with”.)
Say what you will about this whole shebang (Was PZ really poking an actual tiger, or a paper tiger?) it’s caused a lot of controversy, and not nearly enough heartbreak for the people who’ve threatened his life and his family.
It has helped emphasize the insanity of religion, and it has certainly shown the measure of these people. (How did they measure up? About as big as an exposed prick in Antarctica.)
This whole ridiculous charade has taken on an unbelievable life of its own, and there are those who have criticized PZ’s handling of this. He has certainly been poking fun at these ridiculous superstitions. (I keep using “ridiculous” because words fail me.) There are those who think that a “play nice” approach is the correct approach in the war against this blatant stupidity – that you’ll win catch more flies with sugar than vinegar.
I don’t agree.
I will agree that there is room for multiple approaches, and I will also agree that by ridiculing someone else’s beliefs, you’re not likely to convert them.
The object is not to convert them. These people will age and ultimately die with their silly beliefs. The object is to stop the poison from infecting others. The object is to show others who don’t realize how ridiculous (there’s that word again) these beliefs are and in so doing perhaps inoculate them from these stupid ideas,
In a way, PZ had backed himself into a corner – having mentioned the idea of desecrating the host and then being bombarded with threats because of it, and then having been sent sample crackers for destruction by supporters, anything short of a “desecration” became impossible.
To his credit, in the end, he turned the so-called act of defiling the host into a lesson in history and intolerance, by reminding people of the atrocities committed in the name of the host in the past against Jews.
I strongly recommend everyone read his post. [Pharyngula: The Great Desecration]
Darwin, has your time come to go? »