…and this is a 
What is part of their job description?
Category: Humor
Posted on: January 24, 2008 3:59 PM, by PZ Myers
Both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are making a reduction in the legal blood alcohol driving limit from 0.08 to 0.05%. This is facing opposition from an unexpected quarter: Catholic priests are concerned about driving home after Mass. Well, now, how terrible for them.
"Perhaps it could be enough for you to fail a drink-driving test," the Rev. Brian D'Arcy, a priest from Enniskillen, told the Irish Times. "I don't like to use the word wine, as it is Christ's blood in the Eucharist -- but it still has all the characteristics of wine when in the blood stream."
So it's OK to drive if it's Jesus who has lowered your response time, diminished your coordination, and addled your perceptions, but not if it's alcohol? And do these guys seriously believe that that's Jesus's blood in your circulatory system afterwards? Weird.
I did learn something new…
Priests say the new limit would put them over the legal limit after fulfilling their duties during the Mass, which include drinking all consecrated wine not distributed during communion.
What a racket — here I thought godless evilutionists had it easy, what with their porn and moneybags, but the Catholics have made gurgling down any leftover wine an official duty. At the next EAC meeting, I'm going to have to move that we make it Official Policy that atheists are allowed to eat the last office donut, they are required to bogart that joint, and even if they are the last man or woman on earth, you must have sex with them.
Comments
Posted by: Gregory Kusnick | January 24, 2008 4:11 PM
With rules like this, maybe we really should get around to making it all official. I'm fairly certain we can get catapulting any leftover creationists after School Board elections worked in there too...
Posted by: dWhisper | January 24, 2008 4:12 PM
I think if the blood of christ has the same characteristics as wine in the bloodstream, then he must have been permanently sloshed. :)
Love that mythology!
Posted by: Shadow Boxer | January 24, 2008 4:15 PM
Some wags have claimed that the framing scam began when the wine was skillfully framed into the blut of The Man.
Posted by: gerald spezio | January 24, 2008 4:16 PM
Is it too late to turn in my Official Atheist Membership Badge and join the priesthood? Guzzling alcoholic Jesus Juice is a pretty nice perk of which I had been previously unaware.
On second thought, bogarting joints and guaranteed post-apocalyptic nookie beats the pants off being a Sunday Morning Drunk with repressed sexual urges.
Posted by: stogoe | January 24, 2008 4:17 PM
Gregory Kusnick hit the nail on the head:
Perhaps because I'm a wine snob, I actually feel sorry for priests: sacramental wine usually isn't of good quality.
Posted by: sdh | January 24, 2008 4:19 PM
While their reasons may be silly, it also seems silly too to lower the legal driving threshhold to a level at which impairment has got to be neglible at most. .05%? I'd guess countless other factors would have a greater impact on safety. I wonder how many drivers in accidents test between .05 and .08, versus how many acidents are related to cell phones, driver age, changing radio stations, etc.
Posted by: JasonE | January 24, 2008 4:20 PM
Considering they are talking about wine that has 'transubstantiated' into the blood of Christ we can only assume that Jesus must have been constantly loaded! No wonder he went around telling people he never met before that he loved them, I do exactly the same when I'm completely pissed!
On a slightly more serious note, I grew up in Ireland and can inform you that Catholic mass ceremonies in Ireland do not involve the congregation getting to drink wine (they only get the 'host', a wafer of bread). If the priests do not want to drink more then they should aliquot less wine in the first place, dilute it or simply use non alcoholic wine.
Posted by: Sigmund | January 24, 2008 4:21 PM
I think more jobs should have rules that require alcohol consumption. Everyone would be much more relaxed, and we all know a relaxed work environment helps productivity.
Posted by: Michael | January 24, 2008 4:22 PM
Single most stupid thing in print by a human being today. How does what started out as a functional human brain end up spouting something like the above? This really does boggle the mind.
Posted by: Uber | January 24, 2008 4:22 PM
"I don't like to use the word wine, as it is Christ's blood in the Eucharist -- but it still has all the characteristics of wine when in the blood stream." So, my question is this: when exactly does it stop being wine and become, morbidly, the blood of Christ? Through liver metabolism perhaps?
Posted by: Randy | January 24, 2008 4:23 PM
Shouldn't there be a "not" added to that last sentence? I.e., even if we're not the last folks left on earth?
I mean, at least that wording gets us a lot more nookie.
Posted by: Rieux | January 24, 2008 4:25 PM
Now this would have been an excellent Father Ted episode.
Posted by: VWXYNot? | January 24, 2008 4:25 PM
As I understand it, not only does transubstantiation change the wine into the blood of Jesus, but that the same process also transforms the priest himself into the Lord as well. So Jesus is technically offering himself to you-- it's pretty twisted, but fun from an artistic standpoint!
Posted by: DaveX | January 24, 2008 4:28 PM
So, what's stopping them from turning the blood/wine (that sounds kinda Klingon doesn't it?) back into wine/wine after the ceremony is over? Awfully convenient how it only goes in one direction.
Posted by: Michael X | January 24, 2008 4:34 PM
"How does what started out as a functional human brain end up spouting something like the above?"
You may be making an assumption there that might in fact not be the case.
Posted by: Captain C | January 24, 2008 4:35 PM
Whoa... They get bashed on left over wine?
I guess that explains why they have such a hard time telling the difference between a woman and an altar boy. Impaired judgment and inhibitions seems to come with the gig.
Posted by: Dan | January 24, 2008 4:35 PM
*hic* It's okay, officer, it's not wine, it's the blood of Jesus. Plus I'm filled with the Holy Spirit, so if I pass out, he can take the wheel.
Posted by: DiscGrace | January 24, 2008 4:35 PM
That would certainly explain the "fig tree incident."
Posted by: Azkyroth | January 24, 2008 4:37 PM
sdh [#6] wrote "Perhaps because I'm a wine snob, I actually feel sorry for priests: sacramental wine usually isn't of good quality."
Well, that depends on what you mean by "quality", I suppose. The sacramental wine I had when I was younger seemed pretty good to me, probably because it was a fairly sweet wine, and I like sweet drinks. I actually think that the "good quality" wines I've tried taste kind of revolting. I'm obviously never going to be able to pass myself off as a wine snob.
Posted by: tceisele | January 24, 2008 4:39 PM
If the priests do not want to drink more then they should aliquot less wine in the first place, dilute it or simply use non alcoholic wine.
Yeah really, if they don't want to drink all that extra wine then just consecrate less wine. And if they see the wine running low, then just consecrate some more! No big deal. Shrug.
You would think they have the consecration estimation down to a science by now. I wonder if they have to eat all the bread too. Hmm.
Come on you guys, estimate the consecration. And stop whining.
Designate a driver or something.
Sheesh.
Posted by: 386sx | January 24, 2008 4:43 PM
Classic... my colleagues are all wondering what I'm laughing about now.
It's just incredible what mental gymnastics a true believer can go through in order to maintain their fantasy.
Posted by: Brain Hertz | January 24, 2008 4:45 PM
This is actually at least a month or more old PZ. I remember from the original reports that the prime concern is that these days priests have to minister to often several different parishes on a Sunday and in the countryside they are not exactly cycling distance apart. A tot of wine at each which is the minimum requirement would put them over the limit. So even without polishing of the dregs some of them will be in trouble.
Also whoever reckons 0.05% is nothing, it translates to 50mg of alchohol per 100ml of blood. Which is about a pint of 4-5% alcohol for a 6 footer like me. Here in the UK we still have the 80mg limit which means I get to have a pint and a half. I could have two but I like strong beer and strength has been going up recently.
Posted by: Peter Ashby | January 24, 2008 4:49 PM
it gets better:
Posted by: Brain Hertz | January 24, 2008 4:49 PM
"Well, see, we made up this rule that we're required to drink all of this wine, and it makes it kinda hard for us to be under the legal limit... so can you make the legal limit higher? I know it's dangerous, but c'mon, what are we supposed to do? It's not like we can just avoid drinking the wine or something, because we made up a rule that we have to drink it."
Though I do agree with JasonE #7... I wonder how many accidents are caused by people with a BAC between 0.05 and 0.08.
I also have to wonder why an omnipotent deity can't make blood out of a non-alcoholic beverage. Seems like it wouldn't be any harder, and that solves the priests' problems, right?
Posted by: Eric | January 24, 2008 4:50 PM
/sacramental wine usually isn't of good quality./
Hell, Coors isn't great beer either, but it'll get your buzz on. How do you think supposedly celebate priests cope with, well - celebacy? (insert altar boy joke of your choice). Okay, okay, so let's phrase it a new way - how do they cope with the guilt? Anyway, sacramental wine is a helluva lot better than most wines for Seder.
Posted by: Jsn | January 24, 2008 4:55 PM
@386sx #21:
At my Lutheran college, after the contemporary service ended, people would just hang around and talk and munch on the leftover bread - which my Catholic friend found to be absolutely horrendous. 'Course, then the pastor and those over 21 would go out to a bar and hang out too, which a lot of my friends found horrendous (the pastor drinks!! oh noes!!), but they grew out of the "alcohol is bad" mindset coincidentally around the time they turned 21.Posted by: Eric | January 24, 2008 4:55 PM
Now wait a minute...no, it doesn't make sense, even granted the silliness of transubstantiation in the first place. What's in the bottle is clearly NOT blood, so they have to argue that the magic Jesus substitution must occur somewhere between lips and anus, so why not just call what's in the bottle "wine" and agree that it can be tossed down the drain?
It's not as if they are constrained by the evidence, you know. Religion means you get to make up any ridiculous rule you want.
Posted by: PZ Myers | January 24, 2008 4:58 PM
Listening to Catholics try to explain transubstantiation is always, ALWAYS hilarious.
Posted by: Justin H. | January 24, 2008 4:58 PM
Okay, it's funny and religion sucks, but you know what else sucks?: our insane approach to drunk driving laws. The woman who started MADD quit a long time ago because even she thinks they've gone crazy. Why? I don't have the exact numbers or links for you, but look it up for yourself and you'll find the vast majority of drunk driving accidents, particularly ones involving grievous bodily harm or death, are caused by people with staggering blood alcohol levels. Constantly lowering the levels of intoxication doesn't prevent accidents it puts more people in jail. Lots of things cause some impairment while driving: talking with passengers or on a self phone, messing with the radio, being sleepy - but these don't land you in jail. Now, couple lower and lower BAC levels with more and more draconian punishement - till the point where cops are well aware of it, judges are aware of it, etc. - and you get selective enforcement. They don't take the king and the queen of the prom to jail for it, but there's a lot of people (not as clean cut) who they do. It's a travesty.
Posted by: tim quick | January 24, 2008 5:01 PM
Maybe priests could enjoy some sacramental beer instead
Dispensation is made in cases of alcoholic or diabetic priests for the sacramental wine to be non-alcoholic or simply grape juice.
I do however think that the tightening of limits is both necessary and unjustified. It's far more effective to catch the people actually driving drunk than to create a whole class of statutory drunks.
Posted by: Quiddam | January 24, 2008 5:02 PM
This is actually a pretty good idea. This way the priest can't get it up for the altar boys after mass.
Posted by: Lycosid | January 24, 2008 5:03 PM
Pity they don't give wine to the congregation, those snacks they serve are pretty dry.
Posted by: McAtilla | January 24, 2008 5:04 PM
PZ Myers:
How do you know? Maybe it has all the physical and chemical properties of wine, but its inner essence is that of Jesus juice!
No, that's completely different from symbolic transubstantiation. Dammit, because the man in the funny hat said so!
Posted by: Blake Stacey | January 24, 2008 5:09 PM
Corollaries of the sacraments
1) Jesus must have had 'type O' blood.
4) Absence of evidence is evidence of presence.
[we already knew this, never mind]
2) Prions (obviously) survive transubstantiation.
3) Blood drives and blood banks are unnecessary.
7) California raisin adds were blasphemous.
8) Blood alcohol testing denies freedom of religion.
9) Alcoholics are merely spiritual seekers.
10) Bars and some resaurants desirve tax exempt status.
6) Wafers & wine provides complete nutrition.
[there are only 2 food groups]
5) Yeast is god.
[god really does hate women]
Posted by: mothra | January 24, 2008 5:10 PM
Forgot to re-number after editing- oops :}
Posted by: mothra | January 24, 2008 5:11 PM
my dad was otherwise a teetotaller, and he used to make my mom drive home from church because the communion wine gave him a buzz
i was very young when i noticed that the priest would slam down a left-over chalise or two each week. he'd turn his back to the congregation to do so, and i remember the impression that he was trying to hide doing something illicit ...
Posted by: skyotter | January 24, 2008 5:14 PM
I never noticed that before.
For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen
No wonder everything that follows in that comic doesn't make any sense.
Posted by: Feshy | January 24, 2008 5:17 PM
Back in the 80's I went to San Francisco for the first time. I went to daily eucharists at different Episcopal churches during the week. I was trying to work out some problems and, at the time, that seemed logical. Being near wine country, each church offered a different kind of wine. I was like going on a very slow wine-tasting tour of Napa County.
Thomas Aquinas developed the theory of the eucharist for Roman Catholics. He used the theory that all things have two parts, the inward susbstance, in this case the wine or blood, and the accidents, the parts that can be seen, felt, smelled, etc. The substance of bread is transformed to the substance of Jeebus's blood, but the accidents, the color, taste, aroma, etc. stay the same. I think somewhere in the digestive system the change is reversed.
The RC canons prescribe the kind of wine to be used, including the amount of alcohol in the wine. The percentage of wine can be reduced by adding more water to the wine, but this, too, may be regulated.
I think most RC churches have a special sink called a piscina or sacrarium. The drain goes directly into the ground, not into the sewage system. The water used to clease the communion dishes is poured down there because it has come in contact with the body and blood. Episcopalians sometimes use this sink to dispose of extra wine. They also can put some of the extra wine in a container and save it to be used for communion of the sick. The RC's don't do this. Both save extra bread for the same reasons. I don't know if the bread they use has an expiration date: "Best if transubstantiated before Nov 2009."
Posted by: wrpd | January 24, 2008 5:19 PM
Let's not also forget that that wine they're drinking they get tax exempt.
Posted by: Jon Voisey | January 24, 2008 5:19 PM
Corollaries of the sacraments
1) Jesus must have had 'type O' blood.
2) Absence of evidence is evidence of presence.
[we already knew this, never mind]
3) Prions (obviously) survive transubstantiation.
4) Blood drives and blood banks are unnecessary.
5) California raisin ads were blasphemous.
6) Blood alcohol testing denies freedom of religion.
7) Alcoholics are merely spiritual seekers.
8) Bars and some resaurants desirve tax exempt status.
9) Wafers & wine provides complete nutrition.
[there are only 2 food groups]
10) Yeast is god.
[god really does hate women]
fixed.
Posted by: mothra | January 24, 2008 5:22 PM
I don't know a lot about wine, but I have handled large flasks full of blood. It's distinctive. Wine isn't usually thick and viscous, doesn't have that sharp smell, and doesn't get all lumpy and fibrously stringy after a short while. What's in those bottles and little cups is absolutely nothing like blood.
Posted by: PZ Myers | January 24, 2008 5:26 PM
So....why can't they just transubstantiate something else then? Tea? Ribena? Irn Bru? Pocari Sweat? Water? Come to think about it, why not a gallon of atheist piss. Transubstantiate that into the blood of christ and drink up now. I'll send some.
...Oh, it's because they're ruddy-nosed, sexually repressed, ignorant, superstitious pissheads and it's a great excuse?
Posted by: AlanWCan | January 24, 2008 5:27 PM
Plus I'm filled with the Holy Spirit, so if I pass out, he can take the wheel.
I had this hallucination whilst driving once. It was a road trip with the boys, and I had the early morning shift. Somehow, I'd had an 'epiphany' that if I focussed 'just right' on the taillights of the car ahead of me, I would open myself up to possession by a 'benevolent angel' who would then take over and drive perfectly. Luckily, by this time, my friend in the passenger seat had woken up and was pretty alert and aware (I'm sure I wasn't weaving, else he would have noticed it).
Ironically, I kept wishing he'd shut up so I could 'focus.'
The really freaky thing is that I had no idea how impaired I was due to fatigue until we pulled into a doughnut shop and I had a coffee after which I had an epiphany about my earlier epiphany. Luckily, my two friends were well rested and took over the driving duties from there.
It's due to experiences like this that claims of personal revelation hold no water with me.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | January 24, 2008 5:31 PM
imagine getting implicated in some sort of car accident because you were off yr head on god's blood. scientology doesn't compare.
Posted by: alex | January 24, 2008 5:31 PM
Compared to where the stuff ends up a few hours after drinking it?
Posted by: windy | January 24, 2008 5:32 PM
#7 and #30 are dead on. Dropping legal BAC thresholds to 0.05 is asinine. Just because these priests have a funny argument doesn't mean they're on the wrong side of the BAC issue.
Also, re: finishing the bottle - in the churches that I'm familiar with, the entire bottle is not consecrated during the mass, just one or more chalices of wine. Priests aren't complaining that they've got to finish a bottle at every mass, they're saying that they sometimes have to finish off one big cup of wine. Or, you know, Crunk Juice if you're Lil Jon.
And yeah, I want to laugh because the literal wine to zombie blood thing is so obviously wrong. But even if you don't buy into their postulates, who drinks a few sips of wine and then pours the rest back into the bottle? Or even down the drain? Nobody. That would be lame. Drink it!
Posted by: Spaulding | January 24, 2008 5:34 PM
Or at least that's how it worked last time I went to Mass, back in the '60s.
Because wine is what Jesus used at the Last Supper, when he said "Do this in remembrance of me."Again, I'm not defending it; I think the whole thing is silly. But it's not arbitrary silliness; there are (to them) sound reasons for doing things the way they do, reasons that follow from the mythology.
Posted by: Gregory Kusnick | January 24, 2008 5:37 PM
Is it christ's blood in the septic tank, too?
My real question: why are they allowing someone so stupid to drive?
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | January 24, 2008 5:38 PM
#44 - I shall have to remember that story for the next time my sister tries to forcibly convert me by explaining that she JUST KNOWS Jesus is real because she was able to speak in THE LANGUAGE OF HEAVEN in church and the HOLY SPIRIT told her it was all real.
Posted by: DiscGrace | January 24, 2008 5:41 PM
when i was studying to become a primary school teacher - i teach in a catholic primary school in ireland - i had the pleasure of studying some of this crap with the priests in maynooth. the key is that the changes of transubstantiation affect the 'substance' of the wine, which is separate from the physical characteristics of the wine. so everything that can possibly be measured by humans still resembles wine, but the deeper reality has changed to blood. very old, completely indistinguishable from wine, holy blood.
as far as i know, the change occurs at the point of the mass where the bell is sounded, and the bread and wine are help up by the priest, and not after their are consumed. this is why the leftovers have to be treated so respectfully - and what lead to fears of host desecration.
i see it as the result of a futile exercise in trying to force lunacy to comply with logic. the argument has some of the external characteristics of reasonable thought, but the essential substance is completely insane. that's why i love news stories like this one, which force the 'average' believer to consider the fundamental stupidity of catholic dogma.
Posted by: jmc105 | January 24, 2008 5:43 PM
Please do. I wonder if she as fervently believes the things she's seen and heard while suffering a high fever?
Posted by: Brownian, OM | January 24, 2008 5:50 PM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the whole transubstatiation thing is cribbed from Aristotle's metaphysics such that there are essential and accidental properties that things have. Transubstantiation replaces the essential property of the wine with the essential property of God-blood leaving all the accidental properties (i.e. smell, taste, non-clotting behavior) intact. A very interesting way to explain complete lack of evidence for anything actually happening.
The catholics aren't into using the little cups PZ which is why I always used to opt out from sipping the chalice of blood and disease.
Posted by: joeschmo | January 24, 2008 5:50 PM
Were I to take a vow of celibacy, I think I'd appreciate alcohol even more. Were my ability to indulge in alcohol to then come under attack, I'd be inclined to speak out about it. Were I also a moral focal point of a repressed community that associates any sensory indulgence with guilt, I'd speak out very circumspectly. Not like "hey wait, I like my booze," but rather like "this may interfere with my sacramental duties." It's not a stupid strategy, given the circumstances. I just don't comprehend what would lead someone down that road in the first place.
Posted by: Spaulding | January 24, 2008 5:52 PM
Well, why can't the Priest get someone else to drive? There's got to be an altar boy or someone else handy that could take the wheel for the afternoon.
Posted by: Dysentery | January 24, 2008 5:57 PM
From what I recall, most people don't even drink the wine anyways. It tasted funny. (I said it! Wine tastes funny!) Also, it's slightly unsanitary.
I didn't know priests were required to drink the leftover wine. Well, sucks for them.
Posted by: miller | January 24, 2008 5:58 PM
Ridiculous. It's wine all the way. It's produced and bottled as wine. It has the same effects on the body as wine. Just because they want to pretend that it's really divine blood is no reason to respect that viewpoint, especially if it's connected to a public health and safety concern. Is there a real reason why they can't produce non-alcoholic sacramental wine?
Posted by: Chayanov | January 24, 2008 6:00 PM
This habit might go a short distance towards explaining priestly lack of control around altar boys.
Posted by: Kseniya | January 24, 2008 6:03 PM
Brownian, OM: It's due to experiences like this that claims of personal revelation hold no water with me. There's a nice story in Michael Shermer's 'Why People Believe Weird Things' where he talks about being abducted by aliens during a huge long-haul cycling race because he was so exhausted & dehydrated. There's a nice if a bit breathless little talk by him on TED.
Posted by: AlanWCan | January 24, 2008 6:08 PM
I also thought that it was OK to pour the blood-wine on the ground if you can't drink it all. They even had a special sink for this in the back room I thought. I think that church is just being disingenuous (surprise!)about why they don't want the limit lowered.
Posted by: joeschmo | January 24, 2008 6:14 PM
That reminds me. I've been reading Avalos' Fighting Words, and there was a brief mention that the medieval (and later) witch hunting craze was linked to belief in the Eucharist; if demons could transform into humans and have sex with humans, then wine and bread could transform into the spiritual essence of Jesus. Or something like that. The wording could have been clearer. And Avalos might have just been citing someone else.
Posted by: Owlmirror | January 24, 2008 6:17 PM
Man, if it's Jesus' blood in your system after you've drunk the wine, there's no way I'm joining a catholic church, even if I had a frontal lobotomy, and was deprived of all my faculties. I mean, what if he's not my blood type? One eucharist, and I'm a dead man!
Posted by: Armchair Dissident | January 24, 2008 6:26 PM
This story is god's way of telling you to buy the fecking Father Ted DVD. G'wan.
Oh, and,
'I have made an important discovery. That alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, produces all the effect of intoxication. - Oscar Wilde
Posted by: Don | January 24, 2008 6:28 PM
I, for one, would be interested in seeing the official response of the Catholic church if one of those priests ran over someone with his car after Mass due to imbibing too much of the sacramental wine.
I don't know if there's a big difference in response times and ability to think clearly between .05 and .08 intoxication. Would be nice to know before changing the law. Still, I think that people being tired probably causes a lot more accidents than the difference between .05 and .08.
Posted by: Carlie | January 24, 2008 6:33 PM
"What a racket"
Bullshit, as sdh said:
"Perhaps because I'm a wine snob, I actually feel sorry for priests: sacramental wine usually isn't of good quality."
That is ridiculous understatment, it is complete shit and to have to drink it any quantity is a penance.
On the other hand it raises interesting points. 1. PZ is right they can pour it down the sink, I think the belief is it does not change into Christ's blood till you take it.
2. If this belief is correct, there should be no rise in blood alcohol - a scientific test of whether transubstantiation works, and clearly it does not.
Posted by: sailor | January 24, 2008 6:38 PM
Ahh, brings back childhood memories of visiting my friend Susan's Episcopalian church!
It was well-known there that the priests poured more than enough wine for the congregation. So if you sat in the back pews, you got extra-generous swigs, as they wanted to use up all the wine they had poured. Susan practically had a Stammtisch in the back pew.
Good times...
Posted by: thalarctos | January 24, 2008 6:45 PM
The good book says "Eat, drink, and be merry, then go for a drive".
Posted by: Jim | January 24, 2008 7:00 PM
Oh that's old news!
This is the weird religious story of the day today in Ireland: the state TV company is denying that it's been served a gagging order by a woman who claims that the Virgin Mary talks to her.
It seems that one of the weekend papers ran a story that she's "living a life of luxury with a multi-million euro property portfolio and top-of-the-range luxury cars, despite not having any visible means of support or income".
And it's you Yanqui's who's she's fleecing. She gets American pilgrims by the busload.
Anyway - they ran the story on a radio talkshow and such as the general fury of some of the callers that the host warned them to be careful what they said - triggering suspicions of a gagging order and the denial.
Because, as we all know, there's no-one more litigious than a religious crackpot.
P.
Posted by: NC Paul | January 24, 2008 7:05 PM
"I don't like to use the word wine, as it is Christ's blood in the Eucharist -- but it still has all the characteristics of wine when in the blood stream."
Jesus makes the girls easy.
Posted by: truth machine | January 24, 2008 7:15 PM
If you drink and drive, you're a bloody idiot. The limit for drivers should be 0%, but the government is being generous in giving people .05% so you can have one drink after work or with dinner or whatever. It's been .05% in most Australian states for 30 years or more an the priests here don't complain, as far as I know.
Posted by: Zarquon | January 24, 2008 7:17 PM
What, only now? In Austria it was done over 10 years ago, and it was one of the last countries in Europe to do that. It has meanwhile been lowered farther. Even at 5 permil...
Wait. Do you mean 0.08 and 0.05 % or 0.8 and 0.5 %?
So, even at 5 permil = 0.5 percent, the effects on reaction speed are easily measurable.
LOL!
Still does.
The eggcorns are multiplying like mad lately. :-o
Now that's a good description!
Bingo. St Thomas Aquinas was mentioned -- he's the guy who wrote the monumental reconciliation of Aristotelian philosophy and Christianity (...by bending and twisting both and occasionally just skipping over the former...).
The altar boys (and, in some dioeceses, girls) really are children. They aren't just called that.
Only if you get it intravenously, and even then large quantities would be required.
No. It changes when the priest does the transubstantiation, before anyone takes it.
No, because, as mentioned above, it's the Aristotelian inner essence that changes, not any quality of the wine. Without changing any of its qualities, the wine changes from belonging to one Platonic idea to belonging to another Platonic idea.
Was nice of Aquinas to try to reconcile religion and reason. It's just that some parts of Aristotelian philosophy aren't reason, but elaborate arguments from ignorance, personal incredulity, and so on.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | January 24, 2008 7:35 PM
Forgot to mention that you can get 1 permil = 0.1 percent from eating an apple.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | January 24, 2008 7:40 PM
Remember the Jebons?
http://pharyngula.org/index/science/comments/incredible_new_breakthrough_in_physics/
Maybe, just maybe, transubstantiation takes place when the priest magically applies some unknown force field to the wine, which remarkably causes all the gluons therein to change into jebons.
The ethanol in the wine still gets you drunk, but now you have the added benefit of Jesus in your blood to be the scapegoat in all of your evil doings!
Sweet deal!
Posted by: s1mplex | January 24, 2008 7:49 PM
Since those latter ones are lethal blood alcohol levels, it's sort of redundant to forbid driving then, unless you are talking about Finns.
And, please tell me where to get some of those apples.
Posted by: windy | January 24, 2008 7:49 PM
I always thought that was funny, when I was a kid in Catholic mass: Everyone would return to their pews and the priest would clean up the altar, fold up napkins, whatever, in silence, and then GLUG GLUG GLUG down went the chalice.
Of course, there is a downside. He has to share denture backwash with 110 little italian widows.
Posted by: blogtopus | January 24, 2008 7:51 PM
I agree with the other two, drunk driving laws are ridiculous in most places already. .05%? Nevermind the fact that a less-than-perfectly calibrated breathalizer will have a large margin of error at that level, and focus on the fact that a .05% bac isn't enough to buzz a 12-year-old.
If this pathetic, pussified, cripple-world is the one I'll be forced to live in, I want my justice too. Anyone caught putting on make-up, reading anything other than road signs, fussing with children, farting around with the radio, turning their head to talk, or eating anything should be subject to the same penalty, because those actions are much more risky than having a .05% bac.
Posted by: Neil | January 24, 2008 8:47 PM
Funny note: In Catholic parlance the body and blood of Jesus Christ are said to subsist in the "accidents" of bread and wine. The word "accidents" is used to underscore the belief that the bread and wine merely appear to still be bread and wine after the transubstantiational consecration. They're really flesh and blood now (yum!), but retain the look and feel of the original substances. Makes sense, right?
I remember a priest we had in my home parish who was always very careful when mixing the water and wine (a routine part of the mass) to dilute the wine with only a drop or two of water. Accidental or not, he preferred his drink to be as strong as possible. Being overenthusiastic with the water was not going to get the altar boy any brownie points. The wine? Pour away!
Posted by: Zeno | January 24, 2008 8:58 PM
In catechism classes we used to drill our priest about weird things like the eucharist, infallibility, blessed objects and holy water. The holy water topic in particular was for some reason what drove the priest nuts the quickest.
How much water could a priest bless? If it cleansed the water of everything foul, why did we bother with expensive public water filtering and not just employ a bunch of the clergy to make it potable? What happens to bacteria in water when its blessed? Is exorcising water anti-viral? Can you bless the water in a person to cure them of the illnesses? Can you boil holy water and end up with just the holy part left over?
We got out of class early often.
Posted by: Martha | January 24, 2008 9:03 PM
As a youngster being forced to attend Saturday catechism classes at the local catholic church, myself,and a few other similarly wayward 10 year olds found the cuboard that they kept the wine in and, natch, drank it all. Thye final nail in the coffin of my catholic upbringing was finding out a) they watered the bastard down so not even 3 ten year olds can get drunk on a litre of the stuff and b) the priest will give you all a thorough flogging after catching said ten year olds in the act.
I doubt he's reading this but allow me to say, as closure to a thirty year old pain, Fuck You Monsignor Walsh.
Posted by: Bride of Shrek | January 24, 2008 10:11 PM
"I'm going to have to move that we make it Official Policy that atheists are allowed to eat the last office donut, they are required to bogart that joint, and even if they are the last man or woman on earth, you must have sex with them."
I like this rule, and will implement it immediately. But I will only indulge after making offerings to Cthulhu.
As for the apple thing. I remember using apples as bongs in high school. Did the trick alright.
Posted by: YSTH | January 24, 2008 10:19 PM
Regarding the BAC laws:
Studies have been done about this, they don't just pull the nubmers out of their butts. The accident rate for BAC levels below 0.05 is no higher than the non-alcohol related accident rate. The accident rate then increases steadily for BACs between 0.05 and 0.08. Then, above 0.08, the rate increases dramatically.
(I wish I could remember the name of the study, so I could give a cite, but the info is buried in my master's degree coursework, and I frankly don't feel like digging around at the moment to find it.)
In any case, both 0.05 and 0.08 are natural cutoffs if one were to make a law, and deciding between the two depends on how much you care about the increased accident rate (which between 0.05-0.08 is relatively minor compared to the jump after 0.08) vs. hassling people who truly aren't in any way impaired at a BAC of under 0.08. One solution I've heard of is making 0.08 a blanket cutoff - anything over it is illegal - while judging cases between 0.05 and 0.08 on the observed level of impairment of the driver. But of course that brings up it's own set of problems, too.
Posted by: kellbelle1020 | January 24, 2008 10:31 PM
Ritualized cannibalism.... Mmm Mmm Good!!
Posted by: doctorgoo | January 24, 2008 10:46 PM
It might help to think of the bread and the wine as elements of a little girl's dollhouse tea party. Once the tea party is in progress, the dolls are seated at the table, the invisible tea is poured out carefully into the cups, and the invisible cookies are handed around. Most normal little girls would not go directly from dolls being guests at her table, to dolls being piled up against the far wall so she can climb up high enough to straighten a picture. There is a solemnity to the little girl's tea party that is admirable in itself.
For non-magic-users,it seems to me this would be a sufficient explanation for all the fiddly and apparently ridiculous respect being paid to a loaf of bread and a cup of wine.
It should be theologically correct and respectful to take the remaining wine and bread out into the churchyard and lay the bread down and pour the wine out at the foot of a tree. After all, the Bible does say that Jesus came on behalf of all creation, not just as hairless apes. I guess they don't do that because it might get mistaken for pagan libations.
Noni
Posted by: Noni Mausa | January 24, 2008 10:56