Religious children have harder time between fact and fiction

Certainly better at changing their previous held firm facts into the fiction the rest of us already know when it becomes inconvenient/unsustainable. Which was the point of my comment. Creationists will die out - are dying out - because their beliefs are obviously demented. Catholics will carry on compromising forever to maintain their organisations.The transubstantiation is the fiction that will die the hardest, but die it will. It'll be another matter of 'conscience'. How does that stack with fact and fiction that are taught to children? I'm sure they'll do better; Catholics are more pliable. But it's like saying that one broken leg is better than two.

No. It has already become symbolic and spiritualized. The intention verifies the actuality. Evidence will never trump symbolism.

It might be for you and me and for the majority of Catholics - but not, I assume, for CS. Rome declares it a daily miracle. The bread and the wine are *actually* the body and blood of Christ. As the kids say, "yeh, right."Can a bigger lie be told?

Catholic doctrine is that the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Jesus and they are not merely symbolic.

How do you square that with the easily provable condition that the consecrated wafer is still just a wafer and the wine is just wine?

They distinguish between the substance, i.e. its essence, and the species, i.e. its outward appearance.The accident of the bread remains the same (it still looks like bread), but its essence has change (it has become something else).

Yes, that sort of language-based twaddle worked before we could actually prove forensically that there is no change whatsoever, however measured, in the before and after bread and wine.You don't actually believe this stuff do you?

"I really want this bread to be jesus"Is this "essence" quantifiable? Can I get some essence at the store and put it in my beer bread recipe? can I put it in a beaker or on a scale or see it with a microscope? "through my catholic rose lenses, this really looks like jesus"What does a jesus wafer look like that sets it apart from a normal wafer that is made of the same stuff (obviously sans essence, of course)? According to.....? Does its molecular structure change? can you measure what it is that changed?I know you don't actually believe this shit, CS. You're far too smart for that.Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

On a certain level, I believe in Santa Claus: Santa is us in the same sense that, "We have met the enemy and he is us." This is an important truth, whether it is literally true or not.I can see how people could believe in transubstantiation on a similar level.Maybe you literalists just need to get a little more art into your lives.

You're talking about things on the physical level. The doctrine is that transubstansiation takes place on a metaphysical level.That the substance is distinct from species. All those things you're talking about pertain to the species and not the substance.But I don't really care to get into some stupid ontological discussion about something that boils down to magic. Transubstantiation was arrived at through a logical deduction. In the Bible, Jesus took the bread and said "This is my body".From the premise that the bread is the body, and that we cannot perceive any change, it was deduced that the change must take place on a non-physical level, i.e. the substance rather than the species changes.

I'm fine with art and I'm fine with imagery and metaphor. I'm also fine with 'on one level this and on another level that.'What I'm not fine with is the absolute statement that the bread and wine IS the body and blood. No messing about, no 'I know it's not really, but it has another meaning' but IS.It's the absolute that's the problem.

I think CS is trying to tell you that it isn't "absolute"; it's philosophical.

But you (and the catholic church) claim that it actually, really, physically IS the body and blood of christ, correct? You don't openly say "well, we just pretend that it is" or "you just have to believe me that it really, truly is".However, this seems to be the crux of the matter: you admit that it's all metaphysical (ie: you just gotta believe because I have no evidence anything metaphysical exists), yet you teach these kids that this wafer they eat and this sip of wine they have is really christ. That is why religious kids have trouble separating fact from fiction; you tell them fiction is fact. I have no idea what that means. A cracker is not a species, nor is wine. I get that it's a metaphor, but I really don't get it. That's good. For a second there, I thought you believed this crap and were willing to discuss why it is all mumbo jumbo and probably shouldn't be told to impressionable kids. Hopefully you tell the kids in your church that it's just magic and wishful thinking. You and I must have different ideas of what a logical deduction is, then.Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given.

No, what he's trying to do is rationalise a belief that is incompatible with reality and he's smart enough to know it - so it's a bit of a problem and he'd really rather not talk about it anymore. Don't forget he said this this: 'actual' not 'philosophical', not 'symbolic'Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

But the Catholic Church doesn't say it is philisophical. Philosophical is not a synonym for metaphysical or magic.