Is this statement bigoted against Catholics?

[laconicsax]

Poll question: Is this statement bigoted against Catholics?

"If you wake up tomorrow morning thinking that by saying a few Latin words over your pancakes is going to turn into the body of Elvis Presley, you've lost your mind. But if you think, more or less, the same thing about a cracker and the body of Jesus, you're just a Catholic."
-Sam Harris from a debate with William Lane Craig at the University of Notre Dame on April 7, 2011

[Odin2005]

1. It's why they are so attached to Aristotle's philosophy.

They need Aristotle's spurious distinction between "essence" and "accident" in order to justify why if the bread and whine are supposed to be the flesh and blood of Jesus why do they look like bread and whine!

[trotsky]

2. Of course it isn't.

And Catholics themselves will make fun of other religious beliefs regularly. It is only theirs that are super-special, naturally. One man's religion is another man's belly laugh, thank you Heinlein.

[laconicsax]

3. Well one person thought it was...

I'd love if they could reply to this thread and state their case.

[frogmarch]

4. I doubt anyone would

consider the statement bigoted against Catholics if it said this:

"If you wake up tomorrow morning thinking that by saying a few Latin words over your pancakes is going to turn into the body of Elvis Presley, you've lost your mind. But if you realize the same thing is actually true about a communion wafer and the body of Jesus, you're a good, loyal Catholic."

[skepticscott]

5. Suppose that

a lot of people in this country believed that extraterrestrials were on their way to earth in a giant spaceship, and that when they arrived, all of their devotees would be taken up into the spaceship and carried off to a better world. And suppose that they gathered by the hundreds and thousands every week to sing songs to the aliens (convinced they can hear across the vastness of space) and celebrate that glorious day to come. And suppose this went on for hundreds of years. Delusional, weirdos, nuts and crackpots would probably be some of the kinder terms (whether spoken out loud or not) that would be applied to them, by just about everyone.

But call those people Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, and the space aliens “God” and “Jesus”, and all of a sudden, the same behavior is supposed to be regarded (on DU and everywhere else) not merely as sane and sensible, but wonderful, as something to be praised and immune from criticism. Mainly because of the same deferential attitude and special status that organized religion has convinced most people it is entitled to.

[laconicsax]

7. I don't regard it as bigoted at all.

I posed the question to see if someone else had a different perspective on it that might make me change my mind. I decided to ask here instead of in R/T to avoid the inevitable flame-wars having nothing to do with the quote itself.

It seems that someone thought it was bigoted, and I'd love to hear their perspective.

[laconicsax]

8. delete, wrong place.

[awoke_in_2003]

10. excellent analogy...

I must steal it :)

[skepticscott]

12. By all means, plagiarize

the royalty fees on it are sucking, anyway :-)

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Not bigoted; provocative and argumentative, perhaps

But it's not 'bigoted' to point to one particular supernatural belief that is supposed to be held by all Catholics, and point out its similarity to obvious absurdity. It's a very specific reaction to a specific, bizarre, point of pride in their faith.

[laconicsax]

9. Such statements have a tendency to be regarded as bigoted.

Over in R/T, stating what a passage from the Bible says in amost every translation can be considered holding a homophobic interpretation, after all.

I think that some people don't that finding something offensive doesn't mean that it's necessarily bigoted. I've been called an anti-Catholic bigot for stating facts about the systemic problem the Church has with serial child rapists in the clergy.

Someone did vote here saying that comparing the belief in the Eucharist to an identical belief about a different bread product and person is bigoted and while I doubt they'll chime in to state their case, I'd very much like to hear it.

[skepticscott]

11. Those reactions tend to come

from those who are hypersensitized to see certain types of bigotry almost everywhere, whether they actually exist or not. And they are not likely to admit it when their accusations are shown to be groundless bullshit. They just slink away and use the same crap in a different forum as if they had learned nothing.