Yeah that's a strange line of reasoning. But then the Catholic Church also has only the priest drinking the cup whereas all ceremonial juice/wine in the Bible (Old and New Testaments) was shared around to everyone participating. The New Testament indicates a complete movement away from forbidden foods, especially in the books of Acts, Romans, and James. It's one of those topics that just about every author of the New Testament mentioned rather than the various "Pauline" or "Johannine" or other systemics. So, sorry I'm not sure what you're referring to?
The tone of your post is The Book (your capital B) was silent on an issue on which the Catholic church was not, so the church's doctrine is ipso facto just the detritus of religious history rather than religion. As an atheist it's sort of funny to me that religious leaders lost the ability to make stuff like this up and have you believe them around 400 AD or so; as an ex-Catholic it seems like a somewhat Protestant perspective.
Got it. For the record I personally hold that anything the Book (my capital B) is silent on cannot be legislated from the pulpit and called the Word of God, be it Protestant or Catholic or Eastern Orthodox or otherwise. It might be called something else like a tradition or a good idea or an opinion, but that's wholly different than dogma. You'd have to bounce into the politcal threads to see me gnashing my teeth against Protestant bully pulpits; but for example I'm pro-choice and voted for Obama. While there you will find plenty of ex-Catholics giving their points of view as well and if I may say so it is remarkable how often we agree! ;)
I'm assuming proper Catholics also have a mental division of some sort between things taught in the scriptural canon and things taught subsequent to that, I've never asked anyone qualified to explain. But if you don't have the protestant narrative - that is, Christianity up to the collation of the canon was a divinely inspired process, followed by the mistaken construction of a church hierarchy with its fallible teachings for good or bad - then it's a lot less of an automatc dichotomy between the former and the latter. And I have always had a bit of a "this isn't good internally logical fantasy" problem with the Protestant narrative of Christianity's history. God was apparently on-hand as a sort of slap-dash multi-century encyclopedia editor up to late antiquity, totally signing off on the bibleness of the things in the Bible, but then he went out to the store for 11 centuries forgetting he'd left Christianity turned on, so he had to have Luther and Calvin fix it by rewinding to the wisdom of the (mythopoeic) primitive church. If I'm going to believe in a god and his religion I'd pick Catholicsm or Greek Orthodoxy on the grounds that presumably if the guy existed he'd have kept tabs on things.
Naw, He needed John Smith to fix it, which is why He needed America to be discovered by His followers and the native population driven away. The ability for people to add books to The Book apparently was still in full effect up through the 19th century.
I'm an atheist. Alright, truth be told when I'm feeling exceptionally religious I'm agnostic. Still Catholic though, at least culturally. :D But I don't really care anymore. As far as I'm concerned, it's all words of men, and being in the Bible or some Papal decree or whatever is all the same.
Hmm . . . the product is available, but can it be used? http://www.dispatch.com/content/sto.../2012/06/01/church-bans-gluten-free-host.html
God changes the host to Jesus' flesh, literally (because you're Catholic), as soon as the priest waves his hands over it, says the words, and the altar boy rings the magical bells. Once that host is flesh, it should be gluten free (I don't think any flesh contains gluten, but I'm no expert). So if you're saying that host is not the actual flesh of Jesus and it does contain gluten, then you're denying one of the core tenets of Catholicism. It all makes perfect sense. All this mumbo jumbo about it must contain wheat is just the church covering up a scientifically provable core belief. Why would they do that?
I assume that question is rhetorical. The belief is that it becomes flesh and blood, which it patently does not. The rule is that the host must contain gluten before it becomes flesh. Only one reason I always insert the word "lapsed" before "Catholic."
I could get the idea that Communion is a commemoration ("Do this in remembrance of me"). I really can't get my head around the idea that the bread is literally supposed to change to flesh. I mean, you can still feel the texture, right? How could anyone keep believing the priest after that? What do the priests say about this? "It's bread that miraculously changes to flesh that miraculously still tastes and feels like bread, because ew raw human meat"?
The appearance, smell, texture, taste of the bread are "accidents" -- they are what our senses perceive. Our heart and our soul perceive "substance" -- that the bread and wine have become body and blood. Become body and blood -- not represent body and blood. It is not that Jesus enters into bread and wine. He changes the bread and wine, even though our senses do not perceive it. True story.
The Anglican doctrine of consubstantiation sort of splits the difference hand-wavingly between transubstantiation and metaphor. I'm guessing that Catholicism's strict transubstantiation sort of refuses in principle to call it consubstantiation but would probably say something like "it's very mysterious and does have the sensory qualities of bread but really isn't" in a way that actually amounts to consubstantiation. Again though, ask a nun or something, presumably they worry about these things.
So apparently you need gluten for the transubstantiation to work. Whatever happened to "With God, all things are possible?"
If you're going to go with Not Meat for your communion anyway, why not give it some flavor? To be precise: five radical fruit flavors! Sacred Strawberry, Blessed Blueberry, Pious Pineapple, Chaste Cherry, and Godly Grape! Turn your sacrament into a Snackrament with new Communion Wafers Xtreme. But wait! There's more! Dip your Communion Wafer Xtreme in our Way Past Cool Wine to reveal a hidden code! Input it on our website for a chance to win a free Xbox 360! Many will enter, few will win.
Does the gluten requirement mean we can't use albino flesh for the eucharist? I mean, seems like a natural match doesn't it? It's magic flesh to begin with so Jesus can take a day off and Catholics will still get their power pellets.
Nope. The wafer becomes Jesus-flesh but then the Jesus-flesh tricks your mind into thinking that's it's actually just a wheat wafer which by extension also tricks your allergy into having a reaction.
Just thought I'd put out there that even though I dumped the Church, I still totally do the no-meat-fridays during Lent (and I fast/abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday). Not because I think it's a sin if I don't, but because it's my little "hey, Jesus. We're still cool." ritual. <shrug> This reminds me of another Lenten Story! A few years ago, it was Ash Wednesday. Ingmar and I decided to go out to eat (I hadn't eaten yet that day!) and picked an Italian restaurant we'd not yet tried, figuring there would be many fine no-meat options for me to choose from. Well, the special of the day was filet mignon in a red wine sauce (I believe a cheese as also involved). Ingmar got that, while I got some seafood thing. Well. Apparently the special was really fucking good, because Ingmar kept trying to get me to at least taste it. After I refused, he looked me dead in the eye and said very, very seriously: "Jesus would try this." I still didn't try any. Because I am a weirdo, I guess. The end!
Note: I've had that same special again since, and the first time was by far the best execution. Tangible proof that religion is evil, IMO.
How weird would it be if you got to Heaven and Jesus was all like, "I wasn't going to let you in, but you didn't try that filet mignon that one time, so I guess I can't send you to burn forever in hell now can I?"
Yes please. Let me start by saying that I agree, ha. However, I also think that its a little different for religious people. Those that actually believe you are going to hell might think of what they are doing as community service. And I can't completely disagree with that. My mum loves her children, and she loves us actively. She is not at all religious, but she is a zealous advocate of Health with a capital H, and she is not shy about spreading the good word. If she were religious, I can absolutely see her calling me on Sundays to make sure I was going to church. But I don't resent that in her, I know its coming from a place of love. And yes, there are many differences between my example and yours- she's my mum, those are strangers; my mum is clever enough to know when she has reached a dead end in conversions of family members, and won't strain relationships by trying to push it. She also respects our right to make our own decisions about our life and lifestyle choices. With that said, if she ever thought we were doing something really bad to ourselves, she would step in. And governments/societies also make decisions like this- laws against personal drug use, underage drinking, etc. We can discuss whether this is a good or a bad thing, but I think in some situations preaching and door-knocking is a similar thing. They think people are hurting themselves, possibly because they don't have all the facts- they are trying to help. I can't wholly call them out on that. As a side note, I think one of the things a found particularly distasteful on that atheist society facebook page was a discussion which started reasonably, but ended with everyone raging about how teaching your own children about your faith was tantamount to child abuse. I wonder how many of them will be explaining atheism to their kids. (I'm also not sure if someone has said something similar in this thread before, I was too lazy to read through. If so, please excuse me)
Which is the discussion I had yesterday that annoyed me so much, and is a bit why I am not so fond of continuing with this. But to explain that idea (just in case anyone needs me to) - the reasoning goes 'believing means to not question, therefore teaching kids to believe means to teach them to not question things. It bereaves the child of choice and therefore is abuse.' Please let me note that someone like Richard Dawkins, who I think raised this idea first, will put it far more eloquently, but I cannot be bothered. Some of the flaws in that: a) Yes, believing ultimately means to not question specific things. But it does not mean to never question anything beside that. Teaching a kid to believe in god gives it a few blinders, but that does not mean it won't be able to think anymore. b) We take choice from kids all the time. For example: Which school should you visit. Making choices for a kid is not automatically bad. c) If it is true that the choice has been made and will prevent the kid from thinking critically, why on earth are there so many people that change faiths as adults, or become atheists ? d) Abuse needs to mean something. For this line of reasoning to work, the definition of abuse needs to be stretched to the point of meaninglessness. While I would absolutely agree that in extreme cases religious upbringing can be abusive, that is the exception, not the rule. And to call it generally abusive is smug, insulting to actual abuse victims and insulting to religious parents. What purpose does this serve beyond making the speaker feel superior ? What is the endgame here ? Do people making this ridiculous would-like-to-be-true replacement of a point expect anyone to applaud or agree who is not on their side already ? Do they dream of religious parents sinking to their knees in pain, tears streaming from their faces when they realize that they were oh so wrong ? To use the exact example from yesterday, when someone tells me that raising kids to believe in god is worse abuse than any physical abuse that kids can go through, what do they expect me to do ? One minor point: Atheism is not 'just another religion', even if militant atheists seems to crave turning it into one. The basic idea of not raising your kid to be religious is to not push it towards anything. If the kid comes home with a question, for example on Mormonism, by all means explain what that is. If the kid is interested, explain some other religions. All of that to the best of your ability, and without making your own values shine through too much. If the kid chooses not to join any, ok. If it wants to become - for example - catholic, perhaps feel the metaphorical kick in the groin, but let the kid decide. Militant atheists assume the kid will naturally choose not to follow any religion, which is another idiotic point.
Well, I attended a private school run by the catholic church for 9 years. Gave me a good education, and funny enough all the teachers in religion class ran through all the best criticisms of the church an christian beliefs, and showcased a lot of alternatives. Well, all but the nun that I had as a religion teacher for a year. But yes, the stuff I experienced there outside of religion class directly made me disgusted by organized religion, which was a part of the reason I lost my belief. The rest was my interest in science/biology, which really does not go too well with religion.
