Pope Francis says atheists can be good

[grumbler]

I actually wonder how many here have sat in on a American Protestant religious service.

I think many people here have.  I just don't think that others here have your inclination to take a tiny sample and make sweeping generalizations based on it.

I agree that much of the magical thinking of some Protestant groups is kinda crazy and creepy.  I just note that the magical ritual cannibalism thing that your church does seems to me to be, in most ways, just as crazy and creepy.  Your arguments here are the classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

[Viking]

Basically something very important and significant happens to the cracker, but... nothing you can do to observe or measure it will show this and no effect of this will be measured nor will it have any observable or measurable effect until, in keynes speak, the long run has passed and we are all dead.

From an empiricist perspective, it is quite literally gibberish, like saying 0=1 or "The red thing is not red"
It depends on having a concept of substance or essence that can be separated from its perceptible manifestations, so e.g. you could have a horse that doesn't have any of the particulars that we associate with a horse (and perhaps has other particulars like those of a dog or a motorboat), or alternatively you could have something that appears to be a horse and actually has all of the particulars or accidents of a horse but in fact is something else entirely.
The theological component is postulating the existence of an omnipotent God who could cause this separation to occur through a miracle.
But before you get to the theology, you have to have a philosophical underpinning that makes the very notion coherent and possible, even for a omnipotent Being.  In the empiricist framework, the entire concept is incoherent and so the theology is irrelevant.

Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate

adding God here doesn't explain anything or really make any difference except with regards to God. But that is an aside here. The argument here is that something significant happens to the cracker but you can't test this, you just have to accept "our" word for it. This is a case where Religion should be testable. The doctrine originated at time when the consequences could not be tested. When the consequences could be tested and sceptics started running scientific tests on crackers pilfered from communion (pocketing them rather than eating them after they were concecrated) and they found out that they are indistinguishable from regular crackers in every conceivable way.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The form does change, but not the appearance.

I don't think so, the substance changes which is the innate properties of it, but not the form, which is synonymous to the word "appearance" to me since it's meant as the physical appearance and shape of the object. In Aristotleian terms  the substance but not the accidents have changed. As Aquinas would list the nine accidents the physical arrangement of something is one of those accidents, so the substance of bread can change to the body of Christ but that doesn't mean that the disposition of the bread has to change nor is that what Catholics believe.

It's not a question of purely theological understanding; there is a clear philosophical underpinning using the categories and elements of classic Greek philosophy.  It is not "strictly spiritual" - that is what "Real Presence" means.  Strictly spiritual would be closer to Lutheran doctrine.

You misunderstand my point, the Eucharist is a religious ritual as opposed to a Protestant prayer to advance a purely secular purpose (i.e. winning a football game.)

[Martinus]

How about the Aquinas?

Read on further:

It seems that the whole dimensive quantity of Christ's body is not in this sacrament. For it was said  that Christ's entire body is contained under every part of the consecrated host. But no dimensive quantity is contained entirely in any whole, and in its every part. Therefore it is impossible for the entire dimensive quantity of Christ's body to be there. . . I answer that . . .the conversion which takes place in this sacrament is terminated directly at the substance of Christ's body, and not at its dimensions; which is evident from the fact that the dimensive quantity of the bread remains after the consecration, while only the substance of the bread passes away.    Nevertheless, since the substance of Christ's body is not really deprived of its dimensive quantity and its other accidents, hence it comes that by reason of real concomitance the whole dimensive quantity of Christ's body and all its other accidents are in this sacrament. . . . Since, then, the substance of Christ's body is present on the altar by the power of this sacrament, while its dimensive quantity is there concomitantly and as it were accidentally, therefore the dimensive quantity of Christ's body is in this sacrament, not according to its proper manner (namely, that the whole is in the whole, and the individual parts in individual parts), but after the manner of substance, whose nature is for the whole to be in the whole, and the whole in every part. 

Christ's body is really there in all of its parts and dimensions but it is not perceived as being there.
Which is consistent with the other passage.

Yes, but this is esoterics. What matters is that in a popular term of the word, this is not a miracle (as opposed to situations where the holy host starts to bleed, for example).

[Valmy]

Interesting.  So, you think that the whole heliocentric debate was a cover for Italian Renaissance politics, and the Church just maintained the Index's ban on heliocentric works until the Eighteenth century as an oversight?  I think this looks like as amusing a case of rejecting empiricism in favor of doctrine as what the church pulled.  Giordano Bruno would be amused.

It was a debate inside the church and Galileo's team lost, and why they lost had more to do with Politics than anything else.  Galileo had actually done a pretty good job publishing all his findings with the Church's blessing (though obviously he had lots of enemies) and when the Florentines lost control of the Papacy it was curtains for him.  The whole thing was profoundly personal and he took it as such.  Further you said 'Bible' not 'Doctrine' and the Bible does not have much directly to say here which was why Galileo had no problem getting his stuff printed in Protestant countries.

Before this incident the Catholic Church was ok with publishing heliocentric stuff, so long as you paid lip service to the fact it is only a theory...which puts them on a level with modern Kansas.  Besides OvB did not say how long it took them to accept empiricism over doctrine

[OttoVonBismarck]

Anyone that would take my point as "the Catholic Church always embraces empirical thought" would be stupid, the Catholic Church is a religious organization so at its core it is always going to have a basis in faith that is no empirically testable. But the Catholic Church takes a view that the bible cannot be inerrant nor should we interpret individual passages as literal. If we find clear evidence of something in the physical world that conflicts with a fable in the bible, our Church approaches it with, in my opinion, a pretty rational view. The Church accepts the Big Bang, we accept evolution. There are parts of scripture that have inspired doctrinal core beliefs that we do not compromise on, but we don't nail ourselves to the cross on issues like a 6,000 year old Earth and other things we clearly recognize as fables, allegory, parables etc.

Plus, the whole heliocentric debate in itself involved a debate about two scientific theories neither of which was really rooted in anything in the bible. So even back then the Church, as it has for a very long time, showed that the basis for what it accepts is a higher level theological framework that incorporates the bible but also incorporates other ideas.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Which is Theology speak for "we make it up as we go along". You are arguing that the best understanding of the nature of the world and morality and ethics is to listen to people who spent their entire life understanding a book you already say is full of un-truth.

I did not say Catholic priests or theologians spend their lives studying the bible. They spend their lives studying certainly in part biblical passages but general theological thought and that is a greater field than just biblical study.

[fhdz]

Man, I remember going through these same apologetic gyrations. Seems like decades ago.

[CountDeMoney]

We already got you on the books for splitting with the flock, fhdz.

[Caliga]

I actually wonder how many here have sat in on a American Protestant religious service. A grandmother on my father's side was Presbyterian, a mainline Protestant denomination and their services are very normal and non-crazy to me. But I've heard Southern Baptist and Pentecostal sermons and in between the mixture of craziness, speaking in tongues and other insanity the core message of all of their sermons I've ever heard have been either of two possible things: 1) if you do not do exactly what the Bible says you will burn forever in Hell and can most likely expect horrible things to happen to you in the material world as well, 2) any problem in life can be and should be first resolved by devotion to God and prayer, you should pray for anyone who is having a problem because God will answer those prayers and solve those problems for you, any concern at all with matters of the world is innately sinful and wrong.

I've attended Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, Quaker, Unitarian, and Episcopalian services... and I have attended Southern Baptist services and yes, the sermons are pretty much what you're describing, with one addition: 3) Why [insert group we hate here] are wrong in their beliefs and/or practices.  Qualifying groups include: Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, Jews, gays, mainline Protestants that accept gays, atheists, scientists, etc.  They seemed to have an especially strong amout of ire for Mormons and gays, probably because both groups are very actively evangelizing (figuratively for the gays, of course) right now.

[fhdz]

We already got you on the books for splitting with the flock, fhdz.

The flock split with me.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Man, I remember going through these same apologetic gyrations. Seems like decades ago.

The difference between you and I is you were a fanatical devout Catholic. I've always bordered on heresy and would probably have been run out of the Church in ages past. I believe in revealed truth from a divine source through the Christ figure. I believe that the Catholic Church best shepherds the understanding of that truth in this world, but I think it does so imperfectly and I deviate from accepted (and acceptable) Catholic stances in several points. But for various reasons I do not think that requires me to break with the Church or even really confront those areas of collision. We actually had a group splinter off of my local parish church awhile back to form their own Independent Catholic Church (but of a different bent than me personally.) I don't feel that is a necessary step.

[fhdz]

Man, I remember going through these same apologetic gyrations. Seems like decades ago.

The difference between you and I is you were a fanatical devout Catholic. I've always bordered on heresy and would probably have been run out of the Church in ages past. I believe in revealed truth from a divine source through the Christ figure. I believe that the Catholic Church best shepherds the understanding of that truth in this world, but I think it does so imperfectly and I deviate from accepted (and acceptable) Catholic stances in several points. But for various reasons I do not think that requires me to break with the Church or even really confront those areas of collision. We actually had a group splinter off of my local parish church awhile back to form their own Independent Catholic Church (but of a different bent than me personally.) I don't feel that is a necessary step.

I hovered pretty close to the Lefebvrists, for sure. I never joined or went to one of those splinter churches, though. I found a Latin Mass approved by the archdiocese and went there almost exclusively.

[The Minsky Moment]

I don't think so, the substance changes which is the innate properties of it, but not the form, which is synonymous to the word "appearance" to me since it's meant as the physical appearance and shape of the object.

Aristotle equates form with substance so the form does change (it is "trans-formed"). 
The confusion exists because appearance is determined both by form and its accidents (matter), but for Aristotle form (substance) does not change, but persists.
Aquinas and the Christian Aristoteleans get around this by arguing that transformation of substance does not entail contradiction notwithstanding the persistance of the accidents of the prior substance, and can be achieved via miraculous intervention.

In Aristotleian terms  the substance but not the accidents have changed.

Just so, but going strictly by Aristotle this is backwards.

[fhdz]

Minsky, Otto - do you have any thoughts now on how many angels might fit on the head of a pin?