• Hoodoir@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Christ isn’t a demigod in Christianity; He’s God incarnate, fully God and fully Human. So we eat God directly. I can’t explain how with any precision as I’m not a trained and experienced theologian with the credentials to make the “how” statements, but we do eat God.

    • real_username56@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      Some Christians don’t believe that Jesus is God so they wouldn’t be eating God. Also I think eating Jesus is mostly a catholic thing

      • Hoodoir@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Anyone who doesn’t believe that Jesus is entirely God isn’t a Christian. That’s not gatekeeping, its like saying someone can reject the prophet Muhammad and still be a Muslim. It just wouldn’t be true.

        I’m an Orthodox Christian, and we definitely eat God every Sunday. The Lutherans also believe they eat God but they define it more like we do than the Roman Catholics do. The Anglicans usually agree with the Catholics on how they eat God. Beyond just the groups named, I’m fairly certain no one else truly eats God’s flesh.

          • Hoodoir@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Anyone who doesn’t believe the earth is flat isn’t a flatearther. Anyone who doesn’t believe in the flying Spaghetti Monster isn’t a pastafarian.

            Definitions carry value and determine what something/someone is or isn’t

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Unitarians are weird. They don’t believe in the trinity, but are Christian, but also merged with a non-Christian sect to form Unitarian Univalersalism.

          But also, Catholics and most Protestants have a very different view on the Eucharist. Catholics believe in Transubstantiation, where the bread and wine become the literal body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, whereas many Protestant sects either see the Eucharist as symbolic of the body and blood and Christ’s sacrifice, or something in between (Consubstantiation or Calvin’s very complicated take).

          It also helps explain modern Catholocism’s stance that Protestants aren’t allowed to take part in the Eucharist. It’s not just a remnant of the old adversarial relationship between the sects, but different beliefs on what the sacrament is. They want everyone taking part in the ritual to understand it.

          • Hoodoir@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            In Orthodox Christianity, the bread is homemade sometimes by the priest’s wife like in my parish. Its also leavened unlike the western Churches’ eucharist.

  • HugeNerd@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    Religion is a straight up mental illness and by far the greatest threat facing humanity.

    • FistingEnthusiast@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Yep,

      But it still has a stranglehold on the world

      There’s no excuse for a developed country to be swayed by superstitious claptrap, but 'Murica isn’t really a developed country, culturally speaking

  • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    OTOH it’s not literally consuming blood and flesh, it’s more like doing it in a D&D game, but with the self-delusion that it’s real.

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 @pawb.social
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      2 days ago

      Transubstantiation makes it literal. Catholic and a couple other demoninations believe they are magically transforming the wine and bread into actual blood and flesh. I mean, that’s what it teaches anyway; whether most people participating believe that is a different story.

    • njm1314@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Well no, for Catholics it literally is. They’ve killed a ton of people of the years over this issue.

      • MeowerMisfit817@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        My mom forced me into catechesis, uh, they have this cookie they believe that symbolizes God’s body. Once the teacher mentioned it and a girl didn’t know what was it. When I replied “It’s a cookie”, the woman got angry at me and began saying calling it a cookie was “disrespectful”.

      • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Former Catholic here. No, they believe “trans-substantiation” literally happens, but it literally doesn’t.

        • wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          But ultimately, the statement being made is addressed to people who do literally believe that it is happening. If you don’t believe that, then the statement doesn’t apply to you, does it?

          Furthermore, if they hold, as a requirement for eating the flesh and drinking the blood, that you must believe in its magic, then they are still people who seem to think that they are regularly practising literal cannibalism, and are not just okay with that, but are convinced that it would be morally wrong not to do so.

          • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Throw as many words at it as you want, but literally happening means happening in real life, actually, physically, genuinely, for real. It doesn’t depend on belief.

              • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                Ok here’s a question - if you have bleeding gums and swallow the blood, are you a cannibal? What if somebody gives you a drop of their blood to swallow? If Catholics believe Jesus is immortal, do they think they’re being cannibals by drinking a small amount of his blood with his consent (in fact, it’s his idea)? In my mind the central question is, does this debate matter any more than an argument about whether Superman could beat up The Hulk? To that last one I’ll say no, it doesn’t, to me it’s all just idle amusement.

            • wolframhydroxide@sh.itjust.works
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              2 days ago

              An important note: I literally never said that it was literal cannibalism.

              I claimed that catholics literally believe that it happens, and that they believe that the transsubtantiation literally happens, which is what you said in your original comment. The entire thesis of my comment is that it doesn’t matter at all that it doesn’t literally happen. All that is required for the point is that the original statement was addressed to people who believe in the literal nature. The statement is made to “you”, where “you” applies to the reader if and only if the reader “regularly consumes the blood and flesh of a demigod with elders standing around chanting”. I think we can both agree on at least that much.

              I am pointing out that, people not being perfectly objective, we must interpret whether statements apply to us based on our worldview. If a true believer in transsubstatiation read the comment, then the fact that they believe that they regularly consume the flesh and blood of Christ is sufficient to make that statement apply to them. Thus, it is utterly immaterial whether they “literally” eat a demigod. It is sufficient that they believe that they do, and thus should believe the statement to apply to them.

      • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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        3 days ago

        A demigod is (roughly) 50% man 50% god. Jesus is supposed to be 100% man and 100% god. That’s less of a demigod and more of a contradiction.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          2 days ago

          That’s not a contradiction if they aren’t related. Is god a species? I don’t think so. It’s like saying a cat is 100% cat and 100% cute. They’re different things. He’s not a human-god hybrid. He’s a god who also happens to be human (at that time).

          (Before people go assuming I’m arguing on the validity of all this, it’s stupid. I’m an atheist. The whole thing doesn’t really make sense. I’m just correcting a logical mistake.)

          • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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            2 days ago

            Yeah, but then we get into “what is human?” Last time I checked, humans can’t walk on water, raise the dead, or resurrect themselves.

            • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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              2 days ago

              I don’t think those are part of the definition of human. If we develop the ability to walk on water, for example, does that make us not human? I don’t think it would. Human is being of the species homo sapiens and nothing else. That does not definitionally preclude being a god.

          • kreskin@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Ever heard of the satanic temple? An atheist religion. Heres their 7 tenets

            • One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.

            • The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.

            • One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.

            • The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.

            • Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.

            • People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.

            • Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

                • rumba@lemmy.zip
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                  2 days ago

                  search out eleven-rules-of-earth

                  They’re not necessarily horrible; a number of them are good advice, some are a little strange

                  When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.

                  If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.

                  There’s one about magic.

                  Honestly, the 7 Tenets are so based, I think the entirety of humanity would do well to use them as their default.

              • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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                2 days ago

                That’s because they’re from two different sects. The Rules of the Earth come from the Church of Satan, and the 7 Tenets come from The Satanic Temple.

        • Axolotl@feddit.it
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          2 days ago

          So that means that jesus total is 200%, which can be still correctly rappresented as 100%, so he is still a demigod

  • Venator@lemmy.nz
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    3 days ago

    *pretend to consume it while eating some rice paper circles and drinking a tiny sip of wine…

    • waitmarks@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      No, Catholics really believe that those crackers and wine are physically transformed into the flesh and blood of christ. Other christians treat it as symbolic, but catholics are very literal about it.

      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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        2 days ago

        Which means they are openly participating in ritual cannibalism, but Atheists are the weirdos?

        Seriously, we should start referring to Catholics as Cannibalists.

      • edible_funk@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        They don’t teach that it’s literally physically flesh and literally physically blood, it’s still wine and a bread cracker thing, it’s just that they also now have the spiritual essence and properties of the J-man’s divinity. Like, most catholics would be confused that anyone would draw a comparison to say cannibalism, because it’s not literal in the physical sense, just the spiritual. Which admittedly probably doesn’t make much sense unless you’re catholic.

        Source: raised in catholic town by catholic family with twelve years of catholic school in which I actually read the bible and the catechism, all of which explain why I’m an atheist. But it’s funny seeing all the (admittedly understandable) misconceptions people have about what catholics believe.

        • Soggy@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          From the outside: it’s all fucking crazy no matter how you spin it.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          2 days ago

          I believe that transubstantiation is supposed to mean that it quite literally becomes his flesh and blood

        • waitmarks@lemmy.world
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          You were taught incorrectly then, I grew up catholic as well (also now atheist) and it was made very clear to me that it is not symbolic, it is an actual transformation. This is directly from the US conference of catholic bishops website: Is the Eucharist a symbol? The transformed bread and wine are truly the Body and Blood of Christ and are not merely symbols.

          I remember very specifically that learning this official belief being one of the things that made me start questioning my religion. Like I can very clearly see that no transformation is happening so, it started making me question everything else they were telling me.

        • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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          2 days ago

          Yeah, that sounds like a lot of rationalization so they don’t have to admit they are participating in ritual cannibalism.

          Transubstatiation means that is is NOT symbolic or metaphoric, but that the “essence” is truly the body and blood of Christ, so it really is cannibalism - if you believe in religious magic. I don’t, so I don’t truly believe it’s cannibalism, just a mid-service snack, but devout Catholics do believe in religious magic, so they do believe they are being Cannibals, even if they try to pretend that it’s something else.

          • edible_funk@sh.itjust.works
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            2 days ago

            Technically it’s the whole change of the substance of the Eucharist which is some sneaky wordplay. It’s even specifically stated the outward characteristics remain unchanged so it’s metaphorical ritualistic cannibalism at most, and even that is a reductive surface level misunderstanding. Any catholic would think you’re kinda dumb for thinking the communion is even related to cannibalism. It’s not considered actual flesh and blood, it’s magic bread and wine that’s magically infused with divinity so when you eat and drink it you more or less reswear your allegiance to the J-dog and his socialist ways. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all still bonkers dumb and logically inconsistent but no catholic theologian will take seriously the claim that it’s actual flesh and actual blood.

            • T156@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Especially since it very obviously does not physically turn into flesh and blood. Any priest with half an eye would see that. It’s reconciling it with what transubstantiation is supposed to do in doctrine that’s the hard part.

              • edible_funk@sh.itjust.works
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                2 days ago

                Well the doctrine specifies the whole no outward characteristics changing part so it’s just a contradiction, but faith and logic are mutually exclusive.

              • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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                2 days ago

                I don’t understand why anybody does communion or baptism or any of it. I mean, I do because it’s all bonding and stuff, but if you look at the religion on paper, all you need to do is accept Jesus and you’re saved. You don’t even have to go to church!

        • kreskin@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Nothing in catholicism can be taken at face value. Growing up Catholic, you learn obfuscation, and to work through abstractions of ideas rather than literal ones. Anyone considering the literal words in the bible was considered some kind of idiot zealot barbarian. Frankly we looked down on the rest of the christians who were limited to what was written on the paper. Only the priests could translate the text into what we actually truly believed, and thats what they were good for-- telling us what was meant rather than what was actually written.

          Its a system that worked out great when the priests had charisma and could sell it, but when they lacked that personal touch it all fell apart pretty quickly. Being a catholic priest looks hard.

          • rumba@lemmy.zip
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            2 days ago

            Religion has always been a business plan wrapped up in series of brainwashing techniques. Mystery->Answers used to the a commodity. Not religious? Ostracized from society. If you didn’t know, you paid in, if you did know, you kept your mouth shut and paid in. It was easier to be that showman back in the day, the only mystery left is existential dread, we’re disillusioned with society and government.

          • Venat0r@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            yeah I know: just saying most Catholics I know are just pretending to believe so they don’t get ostracised 😅

            I’m sure some actually believe it, but they’re definitely in the minority where I’m from.

  • kreskin@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    well. good point. How about we just consume the flesh then, not the blood, and we introduce maybe some backroom pedophilia as filler?

    /s