If they understood the difference between fact and fiction they wouldn't be a catholic. They're supposed to believe that crackers and wine literally turn into Jesus's body and blood by saying an incantation. Alchemy makes more sense than that, so I could see some people having issues.
I agree most probably don't believe it, but a catholic should if they're keeping with the teachings of the church. Yes, it's absolutely insane, but it's not even close to the most insane thing.
Also, you can't prove a negative, except by countering every other case, which is impossible in the case of a god. Of course there isn't any evidence there isn't a god because what could that even be? There can't be any. The only thing that can be proven is contradicting claims made by others, but obviously they can just shift to the next thing because you can't disprove every possible one.
There's no evidence there aren't leprechauns or unicorns, but anyone making the claim there has the burden of proof. There is no burden of proof to not believe things. You just don't believe it.
My bad, I am not so well versed in the theological concepts. I asked one philosopher and she said that transubstantiation is beyond human understanding. So I agree. That is insane.
There aren't evidence that unicorns don't exist but there is certain probability that they don't exist. If so far no one spoted them then a) they are super rare (they would need better luck than Dream) or b) they don't exist
God on the other hand isn't physical and we can't take a picture of Him like some sort unicorn. There are certain aspects of the world that skew the probability for the existence of God. Prophets, teachings and miracles of Christ, possessions, various apparitions, time before big bang. These things slightly skew the probability of existance of God but certainly they don't provide definite answer.
There aren't evidence that unicorns don't exist but there is certain probability that they don't exist. If so far no one spoted them then a) they are super rare (they would need better luck than Dream) or b) they don't exist
If I believed in unicorns I would probably just say they're magical so they can avoid detection. Problem solved. There's no way to collect evidence for them, but they can't be disproven.
There are certain aspects of the world that skew the probability for the existence of God. Prophets, teachings and miracles of Christ, possessions, various apparitions, time before big bang. These things slightly skew the probability of existance of God but certainly they don't provide definite answer.
These do not really skew the probability for any god in particular. Every god has the same claims, and there are thousands, if not far more, of them, and they're usually mutually exclusive. Using probability, if they're all equally probably, the probability you were born to parents who believe the correct one is effectively zero.
Now there's Pascal's Wager to deal with, that is you're better off believing because the finite things you give up in this life weighed against the infinite reward if he's real. However, again, every god has equal claim to this wager, and they're mutually exclusive. You will give up something measurable and there are effectively infinite petitioners, so the wager is hardly even worth discussing. It's just apologetics.
Then you are changing the nature of unicorns. Usually in books they are made of physical stuff and interact with physical stuff. But if they can't do that then they would be made of the same stuff that souls and angels are made. And then you are changing question from "Does this weird animal exist?" to "Does higher mode of existence that we can't detect exist"
Every god has the same claims
I think you are confusing gods with religions. There are 20 major religions. There are of course monotheistic and polytheistic religions. We could split my claim to two basic components. One 'humans have a undetectable soul or spiritual element to them'. And two 'The Christianity is correct religion'
The prevalent existence of spirituality in Ethnic Tribes is an argument for spiritual element in humans. I will assume that we are in agreement on that point. If you want You can come up with an argument against this.
I don't think that Christianity is definitely correct. I didn't put the work to have that strong of an opinion on the topic. It definitely helped that I was born in the culture that already had Christianity ingrained in it's roots. It also gave me personally some benefit to my mental well being. I think that it is neat that in some christian circles it is encouraged to question your own beliefs and trying to get to the truth.
Pascal's wager was nice at that time for its simplicity, but when counterarguments come up, it became messy and complicated. It is still worth a mention as a historical milestone in philosophy.
Sure, as is my right. This is what happens with religion constantly. For example, Pope Benedict XVI believes in evolution and the big bang. These remove the domain of God from creating all creatures, the earth, etc. Sure, it still leaves room for God to start it all off, but it is changing a fundamental aspect of creation. It's the god of the gaps.
There are 20 major religions
There are currently 20 major religions. There have been many more through human history. The vast majority don't exist anymore. Two of those, Islam and Christianity (plus Judaism), believe in the same god. Abrahamic religion all comes from previous religions though. You can compare the stories in the Bible to stories of other beliefs in the region and they match, though some aspect vary. Religion evolves. (Which I'd argue is evidence that it isn't correct. If it were correct it'd never change.)
The prevalent existence of spirituality in Ethnic Tribes is an argument for spiritual element in humans. I will assume that we are in agreement on that point.
I agree it's an argument for humans to believe in something spiritual, but not that it's accurate. We don't need to explain lightning with something in the sky fighting or anything anymore. We don't need to explain mountains with gods having risen from them or anything anymore. Spirituality in humans is evidence of humans wanting an explanation for things, regardless of their knowledge of how it actually came to be, and nothing more.
It also gave me personally some benefit to my mental well being.
That's good. For me it was only a negative influence. It didn't make me feel better and only told me what to do. I don't agree with many morals the Bible teaches (and neither do most Christians), and I'd rather have morals that treat people well regardless of what they or I believe. I don't need religion to constrain my behavior, and it would prevent me from doing things I want to do and cause me to do things I don't want to do.
If it's a positive for you then fine, though I'd argue there's probably some other religions that have better effects. When I was poking at religious beliefs when I was a teenager I really liked Buddhism. It's a much more relaxing religion and makes much fewer claims and demands. That's how I became an atheist though is I learned about other religions and noticed they all have equally valid claims, so I just don't believe any.
The fact is there is no evidence for existance of God Flying Spaghetti Monster. But also there is no evidence that disproves the existence of God Flying Spaghetti Monster.
No, you just exchanged one metaphysical entity that is prevalent in culture to the one that isn't. It doesn't change the lack of possibility of evidence for either of them.
No, Catholicism dogma says it literally changes into it through transubstantiation. That's what the church teaches. You can not believe that part if you like, like I do, I just go slightly further and not have belief in any of it.
In a thread about making fun of the beliefs of a catholic, it's wrong to make fun of the beliefs of catholics? What is the difference between making fun of the silly belief that this person can't use a tool named after alchemy and making fun of their belief in their own form of spellcraft? If you weren't in a thread literally making fun of the beliefs of a religious person, you might have some ground to stand on. As it is though, why are you in this thread at all if you are bothered by it?
They take on the spiritual qualities of such things, on the outward they still remain wine and bread, even says that in the very article you posted. And again, Wikipedia is not a credible source, did you not take High school?
Where does it say otherwise? It very clearly says over and over that the substance becomes the body and blood of christ. It also says the appearance and outward characteristics stay the same, but the substance literally changes somehow in an undetectable way.
Also, I'm not writting a damn paper. I don't need academic sources to post something online. Wikipedia is the best resource to share information with people. That's the whole point. Here's another. Meanwhile you are here with no sources at all. Say what you will about Wikipedia, but it's a better source than your ass. If you want more or different information then you can search for it yourself. Those should give you all the search terms you need and I hope you can figure it out.
In your Wikipedia article that the Bread and Wine maintained the characteristics of bread and wine on the outside, but were in essence the body and blood of christ.
Yes, the essence of it changes, but it's somehow undetectable. It becomes his body and blood, but you can tell using your senses. Yeah, it doesn't really make sense and language doesn't seem to work well to describe it, because it's insane. That's the dogma of the Catholic church though. It also isn't the most crazy thing you're expected to believe. If this is an issue for anyone, they probably shouldn't believe in the religion at all.
Honestly I think you're overthinking it, it's symbolically becomes the blood and body of christ, and this does stuff for you spiritually because Jesus. That is a sad thing about Reddit atheism, they overanalyze things until they stop making sense. Even when these things are as simple as they appear to be on surface.
What I want everyone to keep in mind is that everything sounds stupid if you over analyze and oversimplify to the proper extent.
I'm not the one overanalyzing. I'm just taking their word for it.
["Something happened at that last meal that Jesus celebrated with his disciples, something that had never happened before: Ordinary bread and wine were transformed into the body and blood of Jesus, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. I’m sure the disciples didn’t fully understand what had just happened, nor what would happen when they went on to celebrate “Last Suppers” with the early Christian community.
Yet they believed and had faith in the Lord’s words, even though they didn’t fully understand them.
For Catholics today, not much has changed. We believe that at every Mass, bread and wine become Jesus — his body, blood, soul and divinity — even though we can’t fully understand how it happens. The miracle of the Eucharist is a mystery, something that human reason and intelligence can never fully grasp."](https://nwcatholic.org/voices/cal-christiansen/how-can-i-explain-transubstantiation)
I know it's easier to just say it's a metaphor or whatever, but this is what the dogma of the church is. You don't need to agree with it, but that doesn't change it. Most Christians don't believe this, but the Catholic church does. However, whenever anyone does anything that appears stupid, it's easier to just say "you didn't get it, it was a joke" or whatever. "Trump didn't actually tell people to drink bleach, it was a joke." Its a more convenient thing to think instead of having believed in something that has such rediculous beliefs.
Bro one of my best friends is literally catholic, but he is also a furry, and he has played Cult of the Lamb without any guilt. This is because he can differentiate between fact and fiction, he can tell the difference between a sincerely held religious belief, and something that someone made up is a fun joke.
I am not a christian, but as someone who interacts with someone of the faith long enough to get the gist, and see how he behaves, it really makes me roll my eyes when I see someone who claimed that they went to Catholic School that one time when they were like seven, and they saw two nuns making creationism in the closet, and one of the creationisms looked at them.
I'm not sure what that last paragraph was about, but I was extremely religious throughout highschool. Like, leading youth group retreats and all.
Catholicism comes in many forms for many people. The OP could be legit. My family struggled with the idea of fantasy. It was a strongly held belief that dabbling in things that tilted occult would result in possession. An actual conversation I had with my mother was that Magic the Gathering would result in demonic possession, which would not be fixed because the Catholic Church officially stopped exorcism after Vatican II.
Some people take Catholicism more seriously and at seriously more weird ways than you can imagine from "having a Catholic friend."
I didn't know exorcisms had stopped, I thought that they continued, but they had to be absolutely sure that a psychological Factor was not at Play before one officially be done.
I will confess I have heard of Magic the Gathering being believed to lead to demonic possessions, but that's always been a Evangelical position as far as I knew. But then again, some people will take things more seriously than others I suppose.
I'm sorry. I don't think this is a "Reddit thing". I've been here longer than I've been on Reddit. I agree that we have the same dynamics here, that people often are incentivized to reply with negative comments. But this is a community with "Humor" in the name. And edgy humor is part of the discussion. And where I'm from, being an atheist is fairly common. I still think if you were able to tell facts from fiction, you wouldn't be religious in the first place and mixing both terms in one sentence is kind of an oxymoron. So I think it's more that both the audience on Reddit and on Lemmy is quite diverse. And we both have different perspectives on life, probably also are part of different cultures and maybe have a different take on humor and which things to scroll past and which things to reply to.
That is a reddit mindset. I don't think it works that way here. Comments usually get only a few votes on Lemmy and I don't think many people chose this platform for the upvotes. That specific post got 0 upvotes and 1 downvote (given my instance fixed federation and the numbers are correct now.) I don't want to get on your nerves too much. Just explain my perspective. Religious people are super loud. They want to dictate how I live, if I can marry someone if I'm gay, oppress women, oppress minorities and they wage war all around the world. Have done so for centuries, and continue to do so. I feel entitled to call out their BS as long as they try to make everyone's life worse. I promise to stop in the exact moment they refrain from politics, violence and stop telling me and my surroundings how to live our lives. You can't just do all of that and then expect the other side to stay silent.