fried beef sandwich

In the non-denominational protestant denomination I grew up with, we were taught that the communion service was supposed to be a ritualized, contemplative reminder of christ's sacrifice.

we were taught that the whole "this is my body" and "this is my blood" were symbolic of his body that would be broken on the cross. As for the blood part, symbolism for the blood that he shed on the cross.

eating and drinking of these elements held no spiritual significance, other than the fact that it facilitated contemplative reflection and was something of a public testimony to others that you considered yourself a christian and a believer in christ.

in our church, you were not supposed to take part in communion until you had either accepted christ or have been baptized by the church.

Wooo! Almost 500 posts!

Weltall

Christianity: Swallow the leader.

SLD

The Eucharist predates Christ. It is one of the prominent mystery cult rites whereby sins were purified. Eating the body of the murdered god and drinking his blood makes all the sins go away. Cicero, several decades before Christ's birth, discusses his own opinions of the meaning, calling them purely symbolic, but indicating that some people took it literally even before Christianity.

To me, the Eucharist is one of the dead give-aways that Christianity is nothing more than another ancient mystery cult. It makes it obvious that it is nothing more than bunk. Discovering this fact was one of the first that seriously led me away from faith. I've yet to hear a good Christian explanation for the similarities in the Eucharist and mystery cult rites. It's a pretty damn big smoking gun.

SLD

fried beef sandwich

SLD, that's fascinating. What sort of books/references did you read to learn this info?

rlogan

Sometimes I would go to the Catholic church and wait in line with everyone else for "The body of Christ". Before the priest stuck the round little wafer in your mouth he'd say "The body of Christ".

We did communion in the pews, but not every sunday in my Church. It was always "body of Christ". They never taught us it was the word of God.

Whenever they talked about the Bible, that was "the Word of God". So I understand. They were just mixed up.

We were suppose to eat the Bibles and read the wafers.

Evoken

It is in The Bible, so no not revealed to me supernaturally

The word is God’s will, it is ‘God with us’ thus the meaning of the name Jesus. That is why it is said that the word became flesh and dwelth among us.

Yes the blood is the Holy Spirit.

"He who shall not eat my flesh (do God’s will) and drink my blood (receive the Holy Spirit) has not life in him" (Jn 6:53).

Those who have no life in them are those who don’t do God’s will and have not been baptised in the Holy Spirit and need to be ressurrected from the dead.

And what is God’s will? It is the law given to Moses, it was to be crucified to release us from the wrong of original sin that entered the world when Adam ate from the tree, that is why the veil was teared in half, to give us a personal full access to God thru Jesus’s sacrifice.

In my case both, but some people interpret it in different ways, some take it literaly and others as parables.

Jesus was the reborn Joseph blessed by the Holy Spirit and commited to do God’s will, so yes..Jesus is real and the Gospel and his teachings are mostly in parables whose meaning was revealed only to his diciples in private, so that is why I don’t think they were meant to be taken litraly.

Beetle

IAsimisI, the reason why atheists (and agnostics) "interpret the bible literally" is because that's what almost all the christians we come in contact do (at least the headache inducing ones). You do realize that your interpretation of communion differs with the practice of 99.9% of christian churches over thousands of years, right? So, please excuse us if we're more apt to deal with what we're regularly confronted with.

When it comes to communion, has anybody else noticed that Jesus doesn't taste very good? He could use some jelly.

archpaladin

From SLD:

The fact that such practices were in place before the coming of Jesus could add another reason as to why Jesus used the metaphor of eating his body. People who were familiar with those practices would realize that Jesus was claiming to be able to take the place of their gods.


There was a case where Jesus's disciples were confronted with the idea of "eating his body" as well. In John 6:43-59, Jesus speaks about being the bread of life and having others eat of his flesh and drink of his blood. Look what happened in verses 60-63:

Here Jesus seems to me to give a little interpretation to his own words. In verse 63, Jesus says that the Spirit is that which gives life, rather than the flesh itself. To me Jesus is showing here that his use of the word flesh is symbolic of his teachings, rather than as a promotion for cannibalism.

How many Christian denominations can still interpret the Eucharist as being the literal body and blood of Jesus in light of this passage is beyond me....

quartodeciman

The institution of consuming Christ's body and blood was certainly not calculated to be acceptable to faithful Jews. Animal blood must never be consumed, so meat must always be soaked and salted so that every speck of blood is removed, then the meat must be roasted. Human flesh is definitely unacceptable.

Of course, this might all be a deep metaphor for the word and spirit of God, but it is guaranteed to create revulsion in the original target audience.

"Body" and "blood" must have meant something entirely different, however. There are no meat cells or blood cells, just bread and wine.

George Gamow, cosmologist,astrophysicist,nuclearist, etc. told a caper from his life as a young lad in Odessa in his autobiography (My Worldline). His father encouraged an interest in science by getting him chemical equipment and a microscope set. His mother, however, came from a religious family and sent him to church school. The religion teacher one day explained that the communion received in church was really the body and blood of Christ. So, next time in church George deliberately tucked the particle of communion under his tongue. When church was over, he ran home, sliced a section of the communion and mounted it on a microscope slide. He satisfied himself that it was neither flesh nor blood. Henceforth he decided to take all such claims as just holy stories.

Weltall

A decidedly odd webcomic, but this arc was really funny.