Crackers

July 13th, 2008 - 01:48 | 2 comments

Last week a student took a cracker from his local church, and the Internet exploded.

Some Catholics think the cracker is actually - literally - the body of Jesus, and say it’s a hate crime to hold it hostage. A hate crime! The US Catholic League has gone bananas, hurling fire and brimstone (and bizarrely coming out as anti-evolutionists, despite their church’s ‘official’ position) and suggesting the student should be expelled. Of course, if he’d taken the cracker and chewed it up, that would have been just fine. Their little world is really quite gross.

The insanity ensued after science/atheist blogger P.Z. Myers posted about it, in typically entertaining style. He asked for crackers to hold hostage on his blog, and he’s had to close various posts after literally thousands of comments threatened to take down his server. The Catholic League is in shock that anybody would want to hurt the baby Jesus, and so is telling people to email the head of P.Z’s university with their complaints. P.Z. has tenure, but I think he and everyone are somewhat shocked at the escalation of muppetry in just a few days.

One the one side you’ve got many many people taking advantage of an excellent opportunity to take the piss out of the Eucharist. I don’t blame them at all. The Eucharist is so conspicuously stupid that it’s almost a duty to bring it up whenever the opportunity arises.

It is a bit weird that the Eucharist is still around, if you ask me. Religions have been quite good at abstracting out all the fantastical stuff so it’s vulnerable to logical fallacy. Miracles conveniently happened thousands of years ago, because humans for whatever reason think old stuff = wise. God acts in mysterious ways = the ultimate argument winner. Jesus died for our sins makes no sense, but it’s mysterious, and humans for whatever reason equate mystery with virtue. All pretty obvious. But the Eucharist doesn’t bother. It just says ‘this here cracker literally becomes the body of Jesus Christ’, and that’s it. No equivocation. They’ve got as far as using fancy words to make it sound Big And Clever: a cracker = ‘The Host’, magic spells and voodoo = ‘The Eucharist’, doing something the Catholic Church doesn’t like = ‘Desecration’. But that’s it. No spin, just magic spells and cannibalism. Really, at some point it’s got to be phased out.

I guess I find it hard to believe that most Catholics, in their heart of hearts, really think it’s literally true. I mean, most religious nonsense I can empathise with. There are plenty of reasons people believe wrong things. But the Eucharist? Come on. The cognitive dissonance must be epic. The whole concept makes no sense - why do you want to eat Jesus? what part of his body does it become? Is he alive or dead? WHY DO YOU WANT TO EAT JESUS? - and I suspect most people just take it as highly symbolic.

Which is why the other side of the argument is probably just your standard mental minority. But they’re very very loud, totally paranoid, lack any kind of sense of humour, and have been sending death threats. At which point it stops being funny. Although, having said that, the average YouTube videographer gets death threats - “this video sucks, die in a fire” - so while it’s serious, I suspect that’s just the way things are on the Internets. You get the impression they’re quite new at this lark, and watching them try to take on creationist-hardened skeptics is almost painful.

Still. The Eucharist itself = pretty funny. I only know one Catholic - I must ask what she thinks…

This post was longer than intended. I really just wanted to point towards Ophelia, who made me laugh.

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2 Responses to “Crackers”

1 Timothy Jul 13th, 2008 at 9:05 pm

>”Really, at some point it’s got to be phased out.

You made the statement, now support it. Why must the Eucharist be phased out?

>”I guess I find it hard to believe that most Catholics, in their heart of hearts, really think it’s literally true. I mean, most religious nonsense I can empathise with. There are plenty of reasons people believe wrong things. But the Eucharist? Come on. The cognitive dissonance must be epic. The whole concept makes no sense”

My own daughter wrestled with the Eucharist in preparation for confirmation. I asked her “Why limit God?”. She thought on that and has since accepted the mystery of the Eucharist and was confirmed.

There’s no cognitive dissonance and the Eucharist makes perfect sense. Catholics believe per Isaiah 55:11 that the voice of God does not go forth and return void. God said let there be light and there was light (Genesis 1:3). God incarnate held bread in His hands and said “This is my body” (Matthew 26:26, Mark 14:22, Luke 22:19). God’s voice went forth, bounced off the bread, and returned to God incarnate’s ears. According to entire testimony of scripture, what happened? Did God’s voice return void?

In addition to the scriptural evidence, there is the physical evidence and the as yet lack of any credible scientific explanation for its existance. There are over 140 documented cases of the Eucharist becoming human flesh and blood. The most famous is Lanciano.

Catholics have the logic of scripture and the physical evidence of Lanciano.

>” what part of his body does it become?”

In the case of Lanciano, a complete heart. The blood turned into universal type AB. Pretty Cool, huh?

>”Is he alive or dead?”

Good question. I don’t know the offical Church answer, if there is one. I would argue alive, as, in the case of Lanciano, neither the flesh nor the blood have ever decomposed.

>”WHY DO YOU WANT TO EAT JESUS?”

Interesting that you should ask this twice. Catholics consume the Eucharist for the same reason Jesus gave His Aposles - eternal life.

“Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.” (John 6:53-57)

If you were in the presence of God and God told that to you, you would be foolish not comply, would you not?

>” - and I suspect most people just take it as highly symbolic.”

As most people are not Catholic (only 1/6th of the world), I agree with you. Reformation Christians lost the Eucharist when their forefathers schismed 500 years ago. They will tell you that their communion is only a symbol of Christ and not Christ. Catholics agree wuth them, that they do not have the Eucharist and that their communion is indeed a symbol. But just because many Christians’ communion elements are a symbol, it does not necessarily follow that the Eucharist must also be a symbol.

>”Still. The Eucharist itself = pretty funny”

Spoken like someone who likely does not eat the body and blood of Christ and may not have eternal life.

God bless…

Timothy
2 Andrew Jul 13th, 2008 at 9:57 pm

Thank you for your friendly comment - it’s very interesting to get an opposing perspective.

“My own daughter wrestled with the Eucharist in preparation for confirmation. I asked her “Why limit God?”. She thought on that and has since accepted the mystery of the Eucharist and was confirmed.”

But isn’t there a problem that ‘why limit God?’ allows anything to be true? What would happen in Catholic scholars discovered that particular part of the Bible to be a forgery? ‘Why limit God?’ is essentially an expression of complete trust in scripture, which I’ll come back to.

“Catholics have the logic of scripture and the physical evidence of Lanciano.”

I’ve looked up Lanciano, but I’m afraid I don’t find it compelling. At the most generous, the ’scientific evidence’ consists of a church with a heart. It isn’t difficult to think how this could happen without any miracles occuring. It’s also in Italy, where few churches don’t have sacred relics of one kind or another. The original event happened 1300 years ago and is deeply implausible to anybody neutral on the reliability of scripture. If I told you a 1300-year old story of a boy ago who turned into a giraffe, then produced some hairs from a giraffe as proof that this happened, would you believe me? I haven’t investigated the other 139 cases, but I’m going to assume they’re the same kind of anecdote, reliant upon trust.

I think our difference comes down to scripture and how must trust you place in it as reliable evidence. You quote from it to back up the truth of the Eucharist, but I’m afraid I don’t see any compelling reason to regard scripture as reliable or true. The Eucharist is such a fantastical claim that it requires strong evidence for a neutral party to believe it to be true. If it’s an actual miracle occuring under our noses, some change should be detectable in a laboratory. Why hasn’t this happened?

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