That little blonde kid needs a lesson in gratitude. What if she'd been sucking on that wafer and it had turned into a toenail? She should be thankful she got a bite of something as nutritious as Jesus' holy liver.
Search
Profile
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
• a longer profile of yours truly
• my calendar
• Nature Network
• RichardDawkins Network
• facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Atheist Nexus
• the Pharyngula chat room
(#pharyngula on irc.synirc.net)
I reserve the right to publicly post, with full identifying information about the source, any email sent to me that contains threats of violence.
Random Quote
Of the three Popes, John the Twenty-third was the first victim; he fled and was brought back a prisoner; the most scandalous charges were suppressed; the Vicar of Christ was only accused of piracy, murder, rape, sodomy, and incest.
[Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]
Recent Posts
- The Midwest Science of Origins Conference!
- Biology teaches that sexual deviancy is normal
- Mary's Monday Metazoan: Ambition!
- Our illness is their profit
- Friday Cephalopod: NUMBERLESS HOSTS!
- Dear Jezebel
- There Will Be Blood?
- Zooming in on the Origin of Life Science Foundation
- Friday Cephalopod: Feasibility trial successful
- Making excuses
A Taste of Pharyngula
Recent Comments
- Billy on Biology teaches that sexual deviancy is normal
- EntropicForces on Botanical Wednesday: Walking? No way
- kamizushi on Biology teaches that sexual deviancy is normal
- peter.waine on Biology teaches that sexual deviancy is normal
- mariadogwood on Biology teaches that sexual deviancy is normal
- Bill Dauphin, avec fromage on An open letter to the Indiana legislature
- Day2u on American political conservatism impedes the understanding of science
- David Marjanović on Our illness is their profit
- David Marjanović on Biology teaches that sexual deviancy is normal
- David Marjanović on More bad science in the literature
Archives
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
Blogroll
Other Information
« O'Reilly. Dawkins. Or, what happens when a fathead meets a scholar | Main | My talk at AAI »
More articles by PZ Myers can be found on Freethoughtblogs at the new Pharyngula!
The perils of transubstantiation
Category: Humor
Posted on: October 10, 2009 9:52 AM, by PZ Myers
Find more posts in: 
Education
EducationTrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://scienceblogs.com/mt/pings/121986
Leave a comment
HTML commands: <i>italic</i>, <b>bold</b>, <a href="url">link</a>, <blockquote>quote</blockquote>
Comments
Posted by: Kobra
|
October 10, 2009 10:00 AM
Blech! Foreskin again.
Posted by: Forbidden Snowflake
|
October 10, 2009 10:32 AM
Kobra actually makes a good point. Does the "body of Christ" as perceived by Catholics include a foreskin?
Obviously, baby Jesus had one [assuming existence], but grownup Jesus did not. Which is being consumed?
Kobra, wasn't it you who advertised a drawing contest for Blasphemy Day? Ant results yet?
Posted by: Kobra
|
October 10, 2009 10:41 AM
@2: Nobody entered it. :(
Posted by: vogonpoet
|
October 10, 2009 11:24 AM
At least with Jesus' liver you get a side of fava beans and can wash it down with a light Chianti.
Posted by: buttie.openid.pl
|
October 10, 2009 11:28 AM
Not quite funny for me. We had a "miracle" in Poland, holy wafer turned in to dying heart. :)
No, I'm not joking: http://news-poland.com/result/news/id/3300
Polish Rationalists Association brought the case for prosecution because it's hardly possible to get piece of heart from healthy living person. ;)
Posted by: NewEnglandBob
|
October 10, 2009 11:56 AM
Teach the controversy!
Jesus had a belly button.
No he did not.
Yes he did.
Posted by: Matt Heath
|
October 10, 2009 11:58 AM
Kobra/Forbidden Snowflake: I understand Jesus' foreskin is said to be lying around on Earth in one or more reliquaries, while the body the wafer turns to was the one the physically ascended, whole, into heaven. So no foreskin crackers. Penis crackers and arse crackers (or maybe it all mushed together like a burger - so you get a small bit of every saviour part in each bite) but no foreskin crackers.
Posted by: ArrantPrac
|
October 10, 2009 12:00 PM
What? I get those things from people all the time. Maybe the priest just completed some sort of quest from god?Posted by: Matt Penfold
|
October 10, 2009 12:09 PM
If all reliquaries said to contain part of the foreskin of Jesus actually did, he must have been one well endowed guy.
Posted by: Mobius
|
October 10, 2009 12:10 PM
PZ...
I was about to e-mail this cartoon to you, and then thought it likely you had already posted it and that I should check.
Guess I was right.
Posted by: Marcus J. Ranum
|
October 10, 2009 12:16 PM
I don't understand why some catholic hasn't sequenced the DNA in a transubstantiated eucharist. "OMG! jesus was made of cracker!!!! How did all that complexity spring from mere gluten and water? It's a miracle!"
Posted by: Marcus J. Ranum
|
October 10, 2009 12:19 PM
Matt Penfold writes:
If all reliquaries said to contain part of the foreskin of Jesus actually did, he must have been one well endowed guy.
Or else he'd been whittled away to a nub. Considering the shit he put up with, it wouldn't surprise me.
Posted by: Matt Penfold
|
October 10, 2009 12:24 PM
Ah, now you are being silly. From a Catholic point of view anyway.
You see during transubstantiation the wafer changes but also it does not change at all. The "substance" is different but no test will show that difference. Apparently you, and I for that matter, are naive and shallow for wuondering abot this.
Personally I think the person who told me all this was talking bollocks.
Posted by: SEF
|
October 10, 2009 12:28 PM
Perhaps he was a unique counter-example to the otherwise abject failure of religion/faith to heal amputees. For a superpowered character able to come back from the dead in only 2 days (the 3 day thing is a miscounting!), he may have had to have his foreskin shaved off very frequently. Hippy Jesus may have had a beard but in order to enter the Jewish temple ...
Posted by: skeetar
|
October 10, 2009 12:30 PM
One must wonder: Do the liver bits taste like a bronze spear?
Posted by: Standard Curve
|
October 10, 2009 12:36 PM
Watch out for the nails... really, they should x-ray these things before letting kids eat them, just like some places do after Halloween.
Posted by: cag
|
October 10, 2009 12:37 PM
At least the cracker should be an excellent source of iron.
Posted by: Susan
|
October 10, 2009 12:37 PM
This is just silly. I was always told we were eating the "essence" of Jesus. In other words, all Catholics swallow. The good news is, they limit it to those over 5 years old, at least.
Posted by: SEF
|
October 10, 2009 12:42 PM
Mary Poppins (Disney version) did transubstantiation better - just like a stage magician. Catholic priests are truly rank amateurs in comparison with the professionals in that field (ie magic).
Posted by: gadow
|
October 10, 2009 12:59 PM
I agree that transubstantiation is a silly concept, but its not quite as silly as some here seem to think.
The idea tracks back to the Roman philosophy of neo-Platonism (yes, pre-Christian PAGAN philosophy.) Neo-Platonism made a distinction between physical characteristics and non-physical characteristics. Physical qualities -- weight, color, texture, temperature, etc. -- made up a thing's forma, or form. Non-physical qualities -- honor, virtue, truth, etc. -- make up a thing's subtantia, or substance. The distinction was an important one: you cannot tell whether a person is honorable (a matter of substance) just by their physical appearance (meaning its form), nor was a statement true (substance) just because it looked elegant (form.)
Because many of the early Christian apologists were educated Romans writing for an audience of educated Romans, this terminology was used to describe the Christian distinction (by way of Greek gnosticism) between physical and spiritual.
Transubstantiation is the belief that a thing can change substance without changing form. For example, when a law-abiding person becomes a criminal, there is an act of transubstantiation: the person's substance has changed, but not his form. Christian theology (among most non-Protestant and some Protestant sects) holds that this is also what happens with the sacraments: baptism is an act of transubstantiation that changes a person's allegedly sinful nature into one capable of being sin-free, and ordination changes a person's soul so that they become usable as channels of God's grace. There is no change in form, only a change in substance.
In the eucharist, the transformation from bread and wine into body and blood is one of substance, not of form. The elements still look like, taste like and otherwise have all of the physical qualities of what they were before. It is their spiritual nature -- their substantiae -- that are changed, thus trans substantiāre, "to change substance."
Posted by: Matt Penfold
|
October 10, 2009 1:03 PM
Gadow,
Like I said, it is a load of bollocks.
Posted by: gadow
|
October 10, 2009 1:30 PM
Matt, I don't disagree at all. I am just saying that when we ridicule silly beliefs, we should ridicule them for what they actually are and not for what we perceive them to be. If you will, based on their substantiae and not their formae.
Posted by: Matt Penfold
|
October 10, 2009 1:37 PM
Talking about concepts such as honour makes sense when you are talking about people. It makes no sense at all when talking about inanimate objects. Now it is true that people imbue certain objects with meaning beyond there mere physical characteristics, but that aside it makes no sense to talk about substantiae in respect of them.
In any case, talking about a wafer becoming the body and blood of Christ is a claim about the physical nature of the wafer.
Posted by: Platypus
|
October 10, 2009 1:37 PM
So if your cracker turned into a piece of arm or leg, would that make it a Limb Bizkit?
Posted by: gadow
|
October 10, 2009 1:54 PM
Matt: In any case, talking about a wafer becoming the body and blood of Christ is a claim about the physical nature of the wafer.
No, it is not and never has been: the supposed change is metaphysical, not physical, which is the explanation as to why nothing happens. The bread and wine become the real body and blood, not the physical body and blood. That's a very significant distinction. Transubstantion, not transformation.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
|
October 10, 2009 2:10 PM
Hey, kid, at least you didn't get earwax or contents of large intestine.
Posted by: AnswersInGenitals
|
October 10, 2009 2:30 PM
What I have never been able to understand about the eucharist is why it focuses on the flesh (meat or muscle tissue) and blood (a fluid for conveying oxygen and nutrients around the body and disposing of waste products) of Christ. Surely, if we must assign body parts, Jesus' mind and spirit are in his brain. So why don't they consecrate and consume the eucharist cabbage or cauliflower? On a recent trip I passed a chapel called the Church of the Sacred Heart. Again with the muscle and blood stuff. Why isn't there a Church of the Divine Prefrontal Cortex? And shouldn't Corpus Christi be renamed Corpus Callosum?
Does all this date back to Aristotle who believed that the mind and soul were contained in the heart and that the brain was just a temperature regulating organ? As long as Conservapedia is revising the bible to make it more politically correct, perhaps they should also be revising church dogma to make it more anatomically correct.
Posted by: gyeong-hwa
|
October 10, 2009 2:43 PM
If transubstantiation is true, shouldn't we worry about the fact that children might get a cracker that turned into Jesus' reproductive organs?
Posted by: Matt Penfold
|
October 10, 2009 2:45 PM
We are talking about a physical object with no metaphysical properties. Either the physical properties change or they do not. There is nothing else to change.
Real and physical are the same thing. So please stop being so silly and contradicting yourself.
It is no distinction at all. It is simply a pathetic game of semantics played by people who want to avoid dealing with reality and the fact they have no evidence to support their claims.
Just so you are very clear. A wafer has properties, but there are ALL physical properties. Nothing at all changes when a few words of mumb0-jumbo are muttered over them.
If it is not possible to tell a consecrated host apart from an unconsecrated one, then there is no difference between them.
Posted by: teachingsapiens.wordpress.com
|
October 10, 2009 2:48 PM
Mmmmm, Soylent Jesus.
Actually, I'd stay away from his liver. Judging by the blood alcohol content of the wine, the liver must be close to the consistency of leather.
Posted by: Matt Penfold
|
October 10, 2009 2:55 PM
I would add that I accept that a Catholic's view of a wafer changes as a result of transubstantiation.
However that is not a change in the wafer, it is a change in the person. It is like the value of a painting changing when it is realised that it is by a famous artist rather than some unknown. People's opinion of the painting change, but nothing in the painting has changed at all.
Posted by: BdN
|
October 10, 2009 2:59 PM
So, what about the alledged miracles where it transformed in real flesh and blood to prove it is the savior ?
Posted by: gadow
|
October 10, 2009 3:06 PM
@Matt - There is no distinction for you, and I have long ago given up on neo-Platonism as nonsense. But what we believe is irrelevant: the theologians who put forth the dogma do believe that all things have a distinct, separate form and substance, and that by certain acts a thing's substance can be changed. That concept is not just at the heart of Christian ritual, it is THE heart of every sacrament and every ceremony.
One of the first things I learned in both critical thinking and debate is that all sides must agree on the definition of terms: then, and only then, is is possible to have a meaningful discussion. With regards to transubstantiation, I have absolutely no problem with agreeing to the established doctrine that has been in place for at least 1700, because that makes it easier to dismiss.
Posted by: BdN
|
October 10, 2009 3:08 PM
I try all the time to convince people that my finger isn't a finger but really is a Q-tips, but they never let me clean their ears.
Posted by: BdN
|
October 10, 2009 3:12 PM
How do you dismiss it, then ?
Posted by: gadow
|
October 10, 2009 3:16 PM
@MattPenfold - Catholic doctrine holds that there is an actual change in the substance of the elements which, when consumed with reverence by a person in a state of grace (ie, is a baptized Catholic who has confessed and not had a dirty thought since), brings about a change in the person's substance. But note that the change in the bread and wine occur first and are prerequisite to the change in the person. This is also the theological position of the Orthodox churches and a number of other denominations.
The doctrine that the eucharist is symbolic of a change in the person but does not undergo any kind of mystical or metaphysical change itself is a Protestant position. Some of the older Protestant churches hold to a hybrid doctrine and say that the elements change in substance but only when it is received in faith, ie it is the faith of the recipient that causes the metaphysical change in bread and wine, and not the actions of the priest.
@BdN - Provable cases of religious fraud with intent, that's what I would call it.
Posted by: Matt Penfold
|
October 10, 2009 3:20 PM
I am sure they do believe it. It is not a belief with any justification. There is no reason to treat such belief with any respect. What it does do is underline the vacuousness that the religious call theology. It also illustrates one of the problems some people have said they have with philosophy in a discussion taking place on another thread. When philosophy is divorced from reality there is not normally much good that comes of it.
There is an interesting philosophical discussion to be had over how people imbue objects with meaning. There is not one to be had in discussing whether something in the object changes.
Posted by: BdN
|
October 10, 2009 3:27 PM
Well, I think we can agree on that ! But my point was more along the lines that people who believe it, and there are plenty out there, and I'm not talking about educated scholars, think the Eucharist really is the body and blood of Christ in disguise and not merely a change in substance. They would argue that you cannot see it, but it really is there, underneath. And that those miracles are a way God used to prove it when people began lacking faith. Those people think it really is the body and blood rather than, as you say, it being the real body and blood.
Posted by: SEF
|
October 10, 2009 3:34 PM
From the evidence of history, the nature of what the transubstantiation was supposed to be (real vs "essence") has varied in its sophistication (much like the version of god has) - quite likely to fit the particular marks being conned in each place and time.
Even with the "essence" belief, they still have the problem of not being able to tell, from one priestly magical invocation to the next, whether the transubstantiation was successful.
Posted by: gadow
|
October 10, 2009 3:37 PM
@BdN - How do you dismiss it, then?
Like thus:
Accept the ancient theological definition of transubstantiation as a metaphysical change with no corresponding physical change (that is really what it comes down to, after all.) Then assert that, because there is no corresponding physical change, there can be no way to prove any change at all. Then swat aside your opponent's arguments as circular reasoning, non sequitur, begging the question, appeals to authority, straw men and other logical fallacies.
Posted by: BdN
|
October 10, 2009 3:44 PM
I, and other people here, can see that. I've already tried it on family members. But I think it depends on the public in front of you. Explain it to your friendly catholic neighbor to see is reaction. They thrive on things that cannot be proved in any way.
Posted by: BdN
|
October 10, 2009 3:46 PM
Sorry for the bad English in the last post...
Posted by: Piltdown Man
|
October 10, 2009 4:23 PM
Matt Penfold @ 29:
Size, shape, colour, texture, taste etc - these qualities, whether considered individually or collectively, are not a thing but properties of a thing - in Aristotelian terms, the "accidents". The "substance" is the thing in which all these properties inhere, which exists in its own right rather than as a property of something else.
Anything pertaining to mass, size, chemical composition etc that is detectable by scientific methods is therefore (in Aristotelian terms) accidental.
These Aristotelian concepts were applied by St. Thomas Aquinas to the mechanics of the Eucharist. Had St. Thomas been able to peer down into the molecular or sub-molecular structure of the consecrated Host, he would have said that what he was seeing was just another layer of accidents. The molecular structure would be that of unleavened bread. By apprehending it, we come no closer to the essential substance of the wafer.
Consider a person's physical development. By the time I die, so I'm told, my body will contain none of the original cells with which I was born - yet I am still one and the same person because my essence, my substance, endures while the accidents change. In the case of the Eucharist, the physical accidents remain while the metaphysical substance changes.
It's worth adding that St. Thomas' scholastic model of transubstantiation is no more than a speculative attempt to gain a toehold for human reason on an ineffable mystery. His philosophy has been declared kosher for Catholic consumption, but Catholics are not thereby bound to be Thomists. One just has to accept that Christ is really present in the Eucharist, body, blood, soul and divinity. The 'how' is not important.
Posted by: BdN
|
October 10, 2009 4:29 PM
That's what I was saying : you cannot disprove it since they don't need any proof and don't ask questions.
Posted by: Piltdown Man
|
October 10, 2009 5:05 PM
gadow @ 40:
Do you believe a person retains his identity despite undergoing observable physical change over time?
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM
|
October 10, 2009 5:40 PM
Therein lies the problem, Piltdown. Most truly thoughtful and intellectually honest people see that as being indicative of a claim being something someone just made up.
An analogy: I have a seashell which I claim allows you to, when you hold it to your ear, hear Jesus singing a cover version of Bohemian Rhapsody (overdubbing himself on the harmonies). You take this shell and listen - but you hear nothing at all. I respond by saying that this means your faith is not strong enough, since Jesus would be heard by someone truly faithful.
What's more likely to be true - that I have a magic singing-Jesus-shell that senses the levels of a person's faith - or that I'm completely full of shit?
Posted by: SEF
|
October 10, 2009 5:57 PM
In particular, how dare they claim to be able to (exclusively) perform a magic trick when: (a) they have no way of demonstrating the trick has ever really happened at all; and they themselves can't tell the difference between success and failure of the magic trick when either they or someone else performs it.
It's even worse than that. They themselves would have to be unable to distinguish their sea-shell from your essentially identical one (pre-defined by them to be non-magic just because it's yours) when you pull a switcheroo.
Posted by: Mike Wagner
|
October 10, 2009 5:58 PM
Yum. Ritual cannibalism.
I'm not just enjoying the flesh of the Lord, I'm having a ball. Would you like the other one?
Posted by: SEF
|
October 10, 2009 5:59 PM
Oops, I failed to put in the "(b)" after the "; and"!
It could be worse, though. I might have been one of those to start with letters and continue with numbered points (or vice versa). :-D
Posted by: BdN
|
October 10, 2009 6:04 PM
@SEF
Sorry, I've meant to tell you this for the past weeks but I just wanted to thank you for your answer on the "The five best arguments for creationism ever!" thread. I went away for a few days and when I came back, I completely forgot to check the news there. I'm still trying to understand Bell's Inequality, but I think I get your larger point. Thanks for your patience!
Posted by: Piltdown Man
|
October 10, 2009 6:18 PM
SEF @ 47:
This is true. My faith in the Eucharist in no way alters the physical experience of consuming the Host -- it look, feels and tastes like a wafer to me just as it would to you.
If you ask why I should have faith that a consecrated Host is something other than it appears, I can only reply that I regard the testimony of the Church as trustworthy because Catholicism seems to me the most reasonable explanation of the facts of reality as I experience them.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM
|
October 10, 2009 6:18 PM
Yum. Ritual cannibalism.
The last supper was an orgy, and Jesus is a cannibalism bottom. "This is my body. Take. Eat."
Posted by: BdN
|
October 10, 2009 6:30 PM
Yeah, they really must have thought it through : it took a whole 1000 years before they got to the transubstantiation wagon...
And I don't see how theological interpretation can be considered a "testimony".
What reality ???????
Posted by: SEF
|
October 10, 2009 6:33 PM
@ BdN #50:
Yes, I had been wondering back then why you didn't respond at all, either positively or negatively! I'm glad it helped a little bit. A lot of people still have issues with Bell's Inequality - perhaps more genuine controversy there than with evolution. I have no idea what the levels of controversy are with transubstantiation, ie what proportion of the believers think something real happens and aren't disabused of that despite the currently official woffle on it being all about the "essence" instead.
Posted by: RickR
|
October 10, 2009 6:41 PM
Only slightly OT- we've all seen the typical artistic representations of jesus- the virile whitebread savior who looks Just Like You™!
But in other parts of the world, do the representations change to play to a different audience? Are they Asian jesuses and Latin jesuses?
And if you showed a typical catholic a picture of what jesus must have looked like given his background and time, would they still want to put it in their mouths?
Posted by: Marcus J. Ranum
|
October 10, 2009 7:05 PM
Piltdown Man asks:
Do you believe a person retains his identity despite undergoing observable physical change over time?
Gosh, what a simplistic question. They might suffer a stroke and their identity might come out somewhat worse for wear. Or they might die, in which case their identity is going to only be what other people remember. So I guess it depends on how long a time, and what kind of "physical change" you're asking about, huh?
Posted by: SEF
|
October 10, 2009 7:19 PM
Yes, amusingly so. I suspect the wafers remain the same colour, though - especially if commercially produced. But perhaps someone else has seen ethnic transubstantiation hosts in the same way that a variety of ethnic bandage colours were produced some years ago (before they then moved on to bright blue etc ones).
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM
|
October 10, 2009 8:09 PM
Piltdown Man wrote:
And it's never occurred to you that perhaps the people in the church could be completely and utterly (though, to be fair, perhaps honestly - at least in some cases) wrong about what it is they present as an explanation?
Christianity started out like any other woo-based cult - stuffed full of mysticism for the sake of sounding interesting. The fact that, years later, someone like Aquinas sat down and cooked up a mishmash of oblique sophistry (so as to help the tiny proportion of Christians who actually apply some critical thinking to their belief system alleviate their cognitive dissonance) reeks of a desperate act of post hoc rationalisation.
Oh, and you really shouldn't use the term 'reality' when you clearly don't understand what the word actually means.
Posted by: sqlrob
|
October 10, 2009 9:23 PM
You might want to stop taking those drugs.
Posted by: Peter G.
|
October 10, 2009 9:26 PM
Just my luck that every wafer I was ever compelled to swallow tasted like Jesus' smegma. Hell I actually like liver!
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
|
October 10, 2009 9:43 PM
Piltdown Man,
Uh, Dude, I don't know how to break this to you, but we've really made a whole lot of progress in describing physical world since Aristotle, and even since Thomas Aquinas. Realy, you might want to acquaint yourself with something maybe a little more modern. I mean, don't join us in the 21st century all at once. Maybe start with the Enlightenment and Galileo and Isaac Newton. Work your way up to quarks, gluons, DNA and logical reasoning.
Posted by: Markita Lynda: Healthcare is a damn right
|
October 10, 2009 11:29 PM
A belief in the magic, mystical, intangible holiness of communion wafers is essentially the same as a belief that kissing the Blarney Stone gives one the gift of gab or that certain objects or places are unlucky (cursed, taboo) or lucky (holy, blessed). If incense or sage smoke makes you feel holy and purified, if having a witch doctor wave his rattles and feathers over you makes you feel ready to face more challenges, then I guess it's good for you. If magically transferring your sins (bad luck) into a goat and driving that goat out of the village or sacrificing it (the Jesus theory) or rubbing a piece of quartz on your forehead (new age woo) makes you feel better, then you're ready to face your life. But it's in your mind, not in the wafer, the goat, the rattles, the smoke, sacrificed chicken, or whatever focus object you use.
And if you think, "My focus object is valid but theirs isn't—I'm right because I have faith that I'm right"—just remember that they believed, too. To me, they're all equally invalid.
Posted by: Thunderbird 5
|
October 11, 2009 1:09 AM
Gadow @ 20 sez
"Transubstantiation is the belief that a thing can change substance without changing its form. For example, when a law-abiding person becomes a criminal there is an act of substantiation: the person's substance has changed but not the form"
But nothing ever changes or seems different when I break the law (something I do regularly). Going along with the same Eucharistical analogy, what is it that I need to experience in my mouth to understand this transubstantiate example?
Posted by: MAJeff, OM
|
October 11, 2009 1:20 AM
iltdown Man,
Uh, Dude, I don't know how to break this to you, but we've really made a whole lot of progress in describing physical world since Aristotle, and even since Thomas Aquinas. Realy, you might want to acquaint yourself with something maybe a little more modern. I mean, don't join us in the 21st century all at once.
I appreciate what you're saying and all, but Piltfuck ain't worth the effort. Way too far gone.
Remember the dude in Maher's Religulous who thought rain was a miracle? That's piltfuck.
Posted by: Thunderbird 5
|
October 11, 2009 1:47 AM
Piltdown @51
Does that taste/imagination-perception dichotomy you describe extend to all religious-oral experiences? Or only those undertaken by the pure of heart and faith (viz. not by criminals - see Gabow #20))
Would I perceive the same waferlicious flesh and blood of Christ if I give up committing all class of crimes?
Or would I have to switch from my preferred deliquencies to those routinely practiced by the Catholic clergy in order to share your experience?
Posted by: Piltdown Man
|
October 11, 2009 4:30 AM
BdN @ 53:
The Church has always believed in the Real Presence. Transubstantiation was just a medieval attempt to shed some light on this mystery using Aristotelian concepts.
RickR @ 55:
Yep.
No such critter.
Sure.
Marcus J Ranum @ 56:
Do you believe that a person who suffers a massive debilitating stroke is still the same person before and after his stroke?
Wowbagger @ 58:
Of course it's occurred to me.
"The Catholic Church is the exponent of Reality. It is true. Its doctrines in matters large and small are statements of what is. This it is which the ultimate act of the intelligence accepts. This it is which the will deliberately confirms. ... If the Ordnance Survey Map tells us that it is 11 miles to a place then, my mood of lassitude as I walk through the rain at night making it feel like 30, I use the Will and say: 'No. My intelligence has been convinced and I compel myself to use it against my mood. It is 11 and though I feel in the depths that of my being to have gone 20 miles and more, I know it is not yet 11 I have gone. ... I am by all my nature of mind skeptical ... And as to the doubt of the soul, I discover it to be false: a mood, not a conclusion. My conclusion -- and that of all men who have ever once seen it -- is the Faith: Corporate, organized, a personality, teaching. A thing, not a theory. It." - Hilaire Belloc
a_ray_in_dilbert_space @ 61:
It doesn't matter how you "describe the physical world". Quarks, gluons etc are completely irrelevant. As for logical reasoning, Aristotle practically invented it, dude.
Thunderbird 5 @ 65:
Whether you were free of sin or not would make no difference to what you experience in taking Communion. Everyone experiences the same thing -- it looks, feels and tastes no different to eating a small wafer of unleavened bread. However, if you take Communion while in a state of mortal sin, you've committed sacrilege and in a world of shit with the Big Guy in the Sky.
Posted by: Forbidden Snowflake
|
October 11, 2009 6:15 AM
I have a feeling you're begging the question a bit, by using an ill-defined colloquial expression (namely, "the same person") and thus assuming a person has some kind of constant "substance".
I am "the same person" (in the colloquial sense, mind you) as I was when I was 20 years ago because my existence has been physically continuous between then and now.
However, all of my cells (and the vast majority of my atoms) have been replaced many times over, and my mind (that is, the set of my knowledge, memories, etc.) is completely different.
Likewise, the man who had a stroke is colloquially still considered "the same person" due to physical continuity because that appears to be the criterion we use when defining "the same".
I frankly don't see how a substance would fit into this, nor do I see the usefulness of the concept, especially in application to inanimate objects.
Posted by: JohnScanlonFCD
|
October 11, 2009 6:50 AM
Pilty asked
A person generally retains the same name, birthdate, and native language, objectively retains the same basic familial relationships, tends to retain priveleged access to their own memories, is conventionally associated with the same roles of ownership, legal obligations, etc. etc.
There's no reason to invoke an identity of essence beyond the continuity of these real and conventional properties.
Personal identity is a bit like alpha taxonomy; there are a lot of species concepts, and the ones based on essentialism are the most obviously wrong. A species undoubtedly changes through time, like any individual, but it's convenient to let its name stay the same over an appropriate span of time. But because there's no essence (species identity) apart from those things that actually exist in space and time, once a species is extinct it does not come back. Same with people.
Posted by: Knockgoats
|
October 11, 2009 7:13 AM
It's worth adding that St. Thomas' scholastic model of transubstantiation is no more than a speculative attempt to gain a toehold for human reason on an ineffable mystery a load of crap. - Pilty
Fixed for you.
Do you believe that a person who suffers a massive debilitating stroke is still the same person before and after his stroke?
There is no "essence", so whether someone remains the same person is not, in these cases, a matter of fact to which a yes/no answer is appropriate. As it happens, relatives of such a person, or of a dementia sufferer, often say things such as "He's not the same person".
There is a well-known philosophical example, the "ship of Theseus", used to illustrate that questions of identity often have no appropriate yes/no answer. The idea of this example is that a ship originally sailed by Theseus exists, but every part of it has been replaced (piecemeal) at some subsequent point. Is it still the same ship or not? Yes, I know the cases are not exactly the same: my point is simply that questions of identity are not simply matters of fact.
(Incidentally, it is not true that all your cells will have been replaced since you were born - many neurons last a lifetime. Not that it would make any difference to questions of individual identity if it were true.)
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM
|
October 11, 2009 7:25 AM
Except that the unfortunately deluded Mr Belloc could go out with a measuring device the next day and confirm whether the distance was, in fact 11 miles or a greater distance. So, his analogy - and your citing of it - was a complete waste of everyone's time.
Posted by: RickR
|
October 11, 2009 7:35 AM
Ugh. This is the first time Pilty has ever replied to one of my postings.
I feel all....... dirty.
Pilty, you're the perfect ambassador for the evil, corrupt institution known as the catholic church.
Posted by: Knockgoats
|
October 11, 2009 7:50 AM
Bah! for "an ineffable mystery" read "
an ineffable mystery@69.Posted by: DaveL
|
October 11, 2009 8:37 AM
Transubstantiation will deserve to be taken seriously the day I can put my used chewing gum in the collection plate and the Church will agree it has the true essence and substance of a U.S. 100 dollar bill.
Until then their embrace of Neo-Platonism is nothing more than special pleading.
Posted by: Anri
|
October 11, 2009 10:14 AM
Pilty sez (in part):
And if the Ordinance Survey Map is wrong, no amount of repetitions of "But god said it was!" will make the incorrect 11 miles marked on the map be equivalent to the 13 miles it actually is in reality.
In other words, if your doctrine is at odds with reality, it doesn't matter how clever you are in describing the ways in which it might be right - it's still wrong.
With regards to the 'same person' business - at one point, I could remember my first girlfriend's home phone number. Now I can't. In that small way, I am not exactly the same person that I was. At one time, I didn't know how the World Trade Center would be demolished. Now I do know. As one point in my life, I weighted 40lbs. I don't anymore.
I am not the same person I was when I was 30, or 20, or 10 - put my current self next to that person and there would be substantial differences, moreso, of course, the further back one goes.
My sense of identity has extended through those changes (although not continuously - I sleep sometimes, and not unchanging in and of itself), and that's fascinating. It does not, however, seem to require a soul.
Posted by: SEF
|
October 11, 2009 12:04 PM
@ DaveL #73:
No, transubstantiation still won't deserve to be taken seriously even then. However, were your scenario to happen, that Church would finally have a teensy-weensy claim to being open-minded* - if only in the feeble direction of respecting and accepting rival woo as being as valid as its own woo. The Romans were much better than the Christians (and Jews) there and it's a shame they had to combine the very worst traits of each into one murderous, intolerant, empire-building religion.
* Religious people are usually dead wrong, dishonest, hypocritical and projecting whenever they whinge that someone else isn't open-minded and boast that they are.
Posted by: BdN
|
October 11, 2009 4:17 PM
@SEF #54
Well, having only layman knowledge of physics, my only "issue" comes from the work I have to do to get a grip on it! I don't know enough (yet) to pretend I find it controversial.
As for the "what proportion of the believers think something real happens and aren't disabused of that despite the currently official woffle on it being all about the "essence" instead" part, I couldn't say neither : I haven't really done any research (the data, that is), but I doubt it even exists. As many other commentators here, I've been raised in a believing family. I even attended a Roman Catholic high school. My data is only anecdotal, but everyone around me believed something really happened and that is why they used the various Eucharistic miracles like the Miracle of Lanciano to "prove" it. My family and friends were very fond of it and our teachers reminded us once in while.
Of course among the different traditions remains a wide range of beliefs, hence the BEM.
Piltdown @#66
Yeah, tell that to the Gnostics...
Anyways, even though it's true that this belief began early, there is no way to prove that the church has ALWAYS believed in it. Except if as other Roman Catholics, you pretend that your church existed even BEFORE the birth of Jesus... Furthermore, the church hasn't always believed it because other traditions don't. But, of course, yours is the only True One.
And if you dismiss transubstantiation as only "a mediveval attempt" and not the real deal, why don't you do the same with every other doctrinal position ? To be true to yourself and your True Religion through the Real Presence of the Holy Zombie, you should stick to the teachings of the earliest Christians and abandon everything that was discussed and decided after the first century. Try this, you'll feel at home.
And about your "Do you believe that a person who suffers a massive debilitating stroke is still the same person before and after his stroke?", as Knockgoats pointed out, it is a really old question that encompasses the ship of Theseus and also the "whole greater than the parts" and even the interrogations about the identity of people along the lines of : if I lose a leg, am I still myself even though I cannot do the same things as before ? And then continue removing parts till you get to the brain. The opposite also has been asked : if I get a transplanted body part, am I still the same ? If we replace every body parts except the brain ? And if I get my brain transplanted in another body, is it the same as replacing my whole body except the brain ? And so forth. These are questions that have been discussed by many and it would be tedious to try to answer it here. But plenty of literature exists on the subject.
The "whole greater than the parts" thing as been discussed in various disciplines, from philosophy (see ship of Theseus, for example) to biology (how to define an ecosystem?, what are the boundaries of an entity, levels of selection, emergent properties, etc. )to sociology (see Durkheim) and it has been one of the great debates in anthropology (what is a culture ? how do you describe it? what is an ethnic group? evil reductionism and determinism, etc).
Posted by: BdN
|
October 11, 2009 4:19 PM
= I haven't really done any research, but I doubt it even exists (the data, that is).
Posted by: Piltdown Man
|
October 11, 2009 5:25 PM
BdN @ 76:
?
???