"If there were no God,

there would be no atheists."

…G.K. Chesterton

(Posted 08/13/08 www.RemnantNewspaper.com) By now, most readers of The Remnant likely know about biologist P.Z. Myers. He is the professional atheist and biology professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris, who desecrated the Holy Eucharist, photographed said desecration and then posted the photograph on his blog, “Pharyngula,” the “ejaculations of a godless liberal.”

Unsurprisingly, the sacrilege enraged devout Catholics everywhere, which was Myers goal. “Nothing must be held sacred” Myers insists, including the “frackin’ cracker” that Catholics believe is the body of Christ. Yet the point here isn’t what Myers did. “It is finished,” he wrote on his blog, reprising the final words of Christ when He died on the Cross, and so it is. But what isn’t finished is what to do about this hate filled enemy of the Church who profanes the body of Christ with the sole purpose of enraging Catholics.

Myers’ desecration experiment began when he literally became unhinged after parishioners at a Mass at the University of Central Florida tried to stop a student from absconding with the Eucharist he received at Mass. Apparently, the student, who eventually returned it, was “upset” that student fees supported religious organizations. Whether the student, or Myers’ for that matter, is opposed to student fees or tax dollars subsidizing organized campus buggery we are not given to know, but at any rate Myers went ballistic when he found out that Catholics take their faith seriously. He labeled Catholics upset about the incident “demented fu..wits.”

Thus did the anti-Catholic pus ooze from Myers infected brain: “Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There's no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I'll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare.”

Well, we are told, he received what he claims was a consecrated Host and profaned it as promised. He drove a rusty nail through the Eucharist, and tossed it into a trashcan with a rotten banana peel, coffee grounds, torn pages from the Koran, and, apparently to make his point, a few torn pages from atheist Richard Dawkins’ book, “The God Delusion.” Even atheists aren’t sacred.

Naturally, Christophobic atheists sang the Alleluia Chorus. Just two of this anti-Christian thug’s blog posts on the subject, “It’s A Frackin’ Cracker” and “The Great Desecration” received more than 3,300 comments, most expressing near religious ecstasy at Myers’ adolescent attempt to grab some attention for himself.

Once the desecration was done, Catholic writer Jimmy Akin correctly concluded that the University’s only appropriate action is to fire Myers for violating its code of conduct for professors. Among other things, the code says “ethical conduct is a fundamental expectation for every community member … [who] are expected to: act according to the highest ethical and professional standards of conduct [and] be personally accountable for individual actions.” Professors must also “Be Fair and Respectful to Others. The University is committed to tolerance, diversity, and respect for differences. When dealing with others, community members are expected to: be respectful, fair, and civil … avoid all forms of harassment … [and] threats … [and] promote conflict resolution.”

Five minutes of reading Myers blog on the subject of Catholics demonstrates that he is not only not “respectful, fair and civil” but also forthrightly threatening and hostile to believers of any faith. In this case, it is Catholics, and aside from the aforementioned smear, he says that “people are so goddamned stupid. Petty and stupid. Hateful and stupid. Just plain stupid. And nothing makes them stupider than religion.” In case you didn’t get the message, all believers are stupid. Hardly reflective of the University’s alleged commitment to “tolerance” “diversity,” “respect for differences” and “conflict resolution.” Indeed, it invites conflict, not only with Catholics but also with Christians and those of others sects at the University who must sit in his classroom, which makes Akin’s point. School officials must not grant this unhinged fanatic a pulpit at a publicly funded university.

Aside from this obvious point, we have Myers himself, who, like many if not most atheists, is a liar.  He clearly does not believe “nothing must be held sacred.” At his blog, he “reserve[s] the right to publicly post, with full identifying information about the source, any email sent to me that contains threats of violence,” which means he believes that his “right” to rhetorically spit upon others, along with his life, is sacred. One wonders what this crackpot would say if the University fired him, or gave him a choice of either apologizing or resigning, or a choice between shutting down his obnoxious blog and keeping his job. He would caterwaul about his sacred right to free speech. We’d see what the professor thinks is sacred if some Irish Catholic student flattened his nose.

Here is a “liberal” who presumably agrees with the University’s politically correct code of conduct, yet reserves the right to his own bigoted intolerance by ranting, raving and whining about stupid, intolerant Catholics. He uses fighting words and expresses unreasonable and unrighteous anger toward Christians, then expresses dismay at their righteous anger. He mocks a “frackin’ cracker,” yet wastes the time to profane it, and avers he is “godless,” even as he spends hours blaspheming God, which may only prove Chesterton’s dictum that if there were no God there would be no atheists.

All these contradictions point to the base mendacity of Myers’ philosophy, such as it is, and despite the popularity of his blog, which Nature magazine has said is the top science blog on the Internet, he made his name not as a biologist of renown but as a professional atheist bigot and subject in Ben Stein’s “Expelled,” the film about the Stalinist repression of believers on colleges campuses. Myers is a pipsqueak science professor who studies a minuscule fish no one cares about at a school no one ever heard of. Most people don’t know there even is a University of Minnesota at Morris. Most don’t know there is a Morris.  And most don’t know there is a Myers. And they never will.

Which brings us back to the original question: what to do about this Goebbels of the Atheist Party? Answer: Ignore him. But pray for his tortured soul. 

R. Cort Kirkwood is the author of Real Men: Ten Courageous Americans To Know And Admire (Cumberland House). He last wrote for The Remnant about the upcoming film Valkyrie, about the Catholic anti-Hitler plotter, Claus Philip Schenk Von Stauffenberg.