jcgadfly wrote:

Lux wrote:

Textom wrote:

rpcarnell wrote:

During the debate, some guy from a small island in Asia (I may be mistaken) clained that before Christianity made it to his island, people were going around devouring each other. Yes, it is probably true.

Actually the guy from Tongo was over-generalizing the situation. The vast majority of mammals instinctively avoid eating members of their own species for sustenance. Nobody is certain why, but it may be that too many diseases (especially viruses, prions) are vectored that way. There's a theory right now, for instance, that Tazmanian Devils are going extinct because they routinely scavenge the bodies of their own dead, which might be why they're all dying from a virus-induced tumor disease. Animals don't need a religion to teach them not to eat each other--natural selection takes care of that.

Humans are a notable exception, but in all documented cases of cannibalism, people only routinely eat each other as part of a religious ceremony--and not for sustenance. In Tongo in the old days, you might eat a little piece of a dead enemy warrior to absorb some of his strength as part of a heavily-ritualized, communal ceremony. But the calorie intake was insignificant--to live you ate pigs, chickens, fish and plants.

Let me emphasize that--people eat each other *because of* religion, and not from a lack of it.

All Christianity does is swap one form of ritual religious cannibalism for another--a literal form for a symbolic form. What is the communion after all?

 

 

"All Christianity does is swap one form of ritual religious cannibalism for another--a literal form for a symbolic form. What is the communion after all?"

 

Actually it's called, Transubstantiation.

Transubstantiation (in Latin, transsubstantiatio) is the change of the substance of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ occurring in the Eucharist according to the teaching of some Christian Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church. In Greek, it is called μετουσίωσις (see Metousiosis). (WIKI)

 

This is the fruit of the church and the main point of the mass, this is a reminder and a commitment that we can have everlasting life through the sacrafice of Jesus. At the last Supper, Jesus told his diciples "Do this in memory of me". Its really quite beautiful and has nothing to do with canibalism. I love how atheist try to portray it as vile and discusting when it very much the opposite.

 

A distinction in search of a difference. You believe it's flesh and blood instead of it literally being turned into such. Symbolic cannibalism exchanged for the literal.

It does show how window dressing and pomp can make the mundane seem special. Taking in the body and blood of christ sounds so much better than eating a tasteless wafer and drinking some wine.

 

I suppose poetry makes no sense to you, only words bereft of meaning. nobody takes the "wafer" or drinks the wine and thinks it's snack time