P.Z. Myers threw the Holy Qur'an and Dawkins' God delusion in the trash with some coffee grounds and took a picture of it. He drove a rusty nail through a communion wafer and took a picture of it. What was the point? What did he hope to achieve? One could argue, as Myers did, "that nothing should be held as sacred" and yet we all have lines that we cannot or will not cross. We all have some sort of sacred line that will end a conversation. To not acknowledge this is to be both foolish and willfully disrespectful.
In science we human beings are required to question everything but have respect for the answers that manifest themselves. In religion we are required to question everything but have respect for the answers that manifest themselves. Some atheists have tried to get to God and cannot. I am glad I do not sit in judgment of them. I cannot judge others and I am reproached if I ever do so. One will find that most Christians adopt this viewpoint (difficult as it is). However there is a portrayal of Christians as being close-minded bigots. I would like to say that everyone in church is a Christian, but as one wise Christian put it, "just because a mouse is in the cookie jar, doesn't make it a cookie." We all know Christians whose grasp on the Bible is as tenuous as an atheist's grasp and once again, I am glad I do not sit in judgment of them.
So what does one mean when one dumps the Holy Qur'an in the garbage with coffee grounds and The God Delusion? It means that the opposing view offers nothing at all. If we live in a world with P.Z. Myers' and such, I would say that we live in a world of close-mindedness. I have on my computer copies of works by great Muslim philosophers, but I am very much not a Muslim. I want to know what a person thinks and how their feelings are going to interact with their thoughts and culture. I want to know what makes a person a person; and if I just look at science for this, I miss a great deal of life and the human experience.
I love science. I believe when certain scientists tell me something and certain scientists tell me other things. Our belief in science, if we are truly honest, has little to do with the scientific method and a great more to do with faith. We put our faith in scientists because we believe they have done their homework and thought things through very carefully. Sometimes our faith is well-placed, but most of the time science experiences a paradigm shift every fifty years or so. It is no big deal, it is just alternating opinions. We are left with technology that is less efficient or useful and the technology based off of the new science is better, the technology of the future is usually better still. Science doesn't so much move from strength to strength, but rather from opinion to opinion. A great scientific mind will be open to new theories and humble to not being the smartest person alive; but they share something in common with the Christian fanatic when they fail to be open to different ways of thinking. Einstein was brilliant but became foolish with his outright denial of quantum mechanics. (I suppose the question is, if he is proven right, will we still think of him as foolish?)
But the matter still stands of a Qur'an, an atheist book, and coffee grounds in a garbage can; and what that means. To Mr. Myers it may mean one thing in his mind, but deeper down it means quite another. I suppose that his notes on a particular task he is trying to achieve in his work are sacred in a way. I suppose that his marriage certificate is sacred to him. And if they are not, than what is a human beings life without some bit of the sacred, the thing which is set apart. There has to be some sort of core to what makes an human an human. The philosophers come back to this time and time again. What is it that makes us so special? One could argue it is the fact that we have something that is uniquely sacred to us. We may disagree on what that is, but we can all agree that there is a sacred core to the human experience.
I believe Mr. Myers did this subconsciously as an act of provocation. As if provocation had meaning in and of itself. He was not looking to bring enlightenment to people, but to set himself apart. Christianity has always wrestled with this but, because humility is so interwoven into what we are supposed to believe, we have never been able to divorce ourselves from the need to be humble. Mr. Myers action does bring up a good point on one level to always question, something all people are called to do; but his motivation was not to do this. His motivation was to call attention to his own enlightenment. If you are an atheist, I pray you do not read this next part because I am going to let you in on a secret that has made Christians the most dominant force in the world, namely: be humble when you reach out and always do good works with the love of God. My best friend is an atheist and because of his brotherly love for me, I can never dismiss him or his belief. He gets into trouble when his beliefs which stem from his desire to be right try and dominate me and put me into a box. I know that my "Christian witness" when driven by my desire to be right and not show love or commune with my friend, drive him further from the cross. When Jesus was giving the Great Commission he did not say "Go into the world and make disciples of all nations..." but rather, "as you are going out into the world make disciples of all nations ..." This means that we are to humbly live our lives in ways bring people to asking the questions.
It is hard to dismiss an atheist who humbly serves a world in need and has entered his or her decision with great fear and trembling, just as it is hard to dismiss a Christian who reaches his or her conclusion in such a manner. However, it is easy to dismiss a Christian who condemns you to Hell. It is easy to dismiss an atheist who throws books into a garbage can with coffee grounds.
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