I made a post a few days ago about the Desecration of the Eucharist on YouTube (http://progressiveu.org/node/49101). Throughout the comments, there was a lot of disputing about the reality of the Eucharist as the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Because of this, I’ve put together some points explaining some of the reasons why I personally believe in the Eucharist. Because of the length of each segment, I’m separating it into three sections. Skepticism is understandable, but there does come a point when skepticism merely becomes denial. Enjoy!
1. Science:
Whereas there have been multiple scientific tests done on multiple Eucharistic miracles, I personally find the findings of the Miracle of Lanciano the best. In Lanciano, Italy, during the 8th century, a Basilian priest way officiating the Mass. At this time, he was suffering from doubts in the Real Presence of the Eucharist. As he spoke the words of consecration, the host suddenly became a circle of flesh and the wine turned into five globules of various sizes. At the priest’s bidding, the entire congregation swarmed the alter and all marveled. The feast day of this miracle is on the last Sunday in October (so it’s coming up!)
In February 1574, Monsignor Rodrigues, in the presence of reliable witnesses, verified that the combined weight of the five clots of blood weighed the same as any one of them.
In 1970, Professor Doctor Odoardo Linoli (who was followed up by Doctor Ruggero Bertelli), performed many scientific tests on the flesh and blood. Conclusions were presented on March 4, 1971. In 1973, the Higher Council of World Health Organization (WHO) appointed a scientific commission to verify Linoli’s findings. A total of 500 examinations were completed over a time period of 15 months. All confirmed Linoli’s discoveries. The discoveries include the following:
(1) The lunette containing the flesh was not hermetically sealed.
(2) Although not properly sealed, the flesh and blood were not damaged.
(3) The flesh and blood were of human origin and of the same blood type (AB…the same blood type discovered on the Shroud of Turin).
(4) The flesh was “striated muscular tissue of the myocardium (heart wall” and had no trace of any preservatives.
(5) The cut of the flesh would be extremely difficult for an expert.
(6) The blood contained minerals and proteins of normal ratios of fresh blood.
(7) The blood, had it been taken from a corpse, would have spoiled and decayed rapidly.
Sources:
“Eucharistic Miracles” by Joan Carroll Cruz
http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharistic_miracle
http://www.zenit.org/article-12933?l=english
Pt 2: The Bible
http://progressiveu.org/blog/49419-eucharist-real-presence-2-bible
I don't know...I'm a Protestant, so I don't take part in the Eucharist, per se. I take communion, and God has moved my heart each time, but I know I'm eating bread and drinking grape juice. I'm somewhat skeptical, but if someone said they saw something, then they must've seen something!
Read and comment as you like....http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/starving-musician
One of the most important aspects of any scientific test is experimental control, which of course is completely lacking in the story your provided. In fact, this story (like ALL stories of "mircales") boils down to a claim by an individual that cannot be objectively verified (in this case, the claim of a 1300-year-old monk who said that he saw the Eurcharist literally "transform" into a circle of flesh and 5 drops of blood. The problem with the "findings" you noted above, is that the exact same thing would have been found in the blood and flesh had been switched with fresh blood and flesh from a living human by someone just before they samples were passed to the "Higher Council of the World Health Organization"* just prior to the examination (which is far more likely to have been the case, IMHO). Having no controls established over the samples for more than 1300 years seriously damages the credibility of this claim. In fact, I would suggest that it is insulting to your reader's intelligence to suggest that this story qualifies as "scientific evidence."
*An interesting side-note is that there is no such thing as the "Higher Council of the World Health Organization," and despite being fairly proficient in finding scientific articles, I could find no actual source from the ANY functional group within the WHO that supporting this claim. Everything that I COULD find traced this claim back to a catholic source (i.e. the catholic news agency, Zhenit), which also failed to cite the original source with any specificity. Could you perhaps provide us with a link to the primary source from the WHO that provide the cooboration you have offered as evidence?
TTFN,
Blackout
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The Church has had four official investigations since 1754.
("Understanding the Mass" by Rev. Maynard Kolodziej, O.F.M.)
However, as the 1970 one is the most recent and the most thorough, I discussed that one.
It wasn't just one individual...it was a priest who had been doubting the Real Presence, as well as the entire congregation who witnessed this first hand. Also, accounts were written in both Latin and Greek that attested to the miracle.
(http://www.miraclerosarymission.org/lanciano.html)
WHO's commission is confirmed:
http://www.italiancatholiconline.com/Lanciano.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1731445/posts
Next time I get to the library, I'm going to look for the medical journals, because I found something that said it was published by Who's Medical Commission in December 1976.
RESPECT LIFE
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...and certainly doesn't qualify as a scientific source. Neither do 1300 year old, unsubstantiatable reports qualify as the scientific evidence to which you cliamed to have access. As for the WHO report, I would suggest that the best place for you to find the evidence of THAT would be with the archives of the WHO (which as far as I could tell, has no record of any such cooboration). No matter how you slice it, you have failed to meet the standards that you set forth when you promised scientific evidence for the transubstatiation of the Eurcharist. I find it a little bit sad (and a little bit funny) that you seem to think that these stories would satisfy anyone with a truly scientific mind.
TTFN,
Blackout
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(1) Nothing's "unbiased" "no matter how you slice it."
(2) I'm not saying the Church officials did the experiments, they just called for them.
(3) Then where does history come from? It all comes from people from x centuries ago. To disregard this event, witnessed by no telling how many people and recorded multiple times, is to disregard quite a bit of history.
(4) I'd rather go to the library and read it...it might be easier than going through the ton of stuff on the internet. I will find it, though.
(5) About replacing the flesh and blood...even if someone did, then it would have decayed over 15 months and thus wouldn't have met all the discoveries set by Linoli.
RESPECT LIFE
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...I am not questioning that there is a historical record, kept by the church that supports your point-of-view. But, you didn't say that you were going to present us with "historical evidence" to support your belief that during the Eucharist, the crackers and wine actually transform into the literal blood and flesh of "christ." You said that you could give us scientific proof, and to qualify for that you have to give us something that can be objectively verified, not simply reported by a 1300-year-old source that had a strong vested interest in one particular outcome, and repeated by a similarly motivated organization that failed to enact even the most basic scientific controls of the sample in question. NOTHING that you have presented to is even an actual scientific report. You referenced some studies, supposedly by an organization that your source could not even name correctly, and which upon request you have been unable to produce. We KNOW that you (and many other catholics) believe in transubstantiation, but...
BELIEF != SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE.
So once again, you have failed to support your claims.
TTFN,
Blackout
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So just because I happen to agree with the Church, that means that they lose prominence? Of course they're going to be the ones encouraging the scientific tests...who else cares?
It's not "simply reported"...there is actual proof...the flesh and blood. This isn't just made up. Also, this is just one incident of hundreds (probably thousands) of similar ones. It all adds up.
I AM going to give you the proof. I just don't have the time nor the ability to jump in my car on a Tuesday afternoon and go to the library to look at medical records.
Therefore, I have not failed in anything...and like I said earlier...there does come a point when skepticism merely becomes denial. After all, what else would you call all those scientific experiments?
RESPECT LIFE
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Actually, yes, it is "simply reported" until you come up with some actual, objective evidence that supports your claim. And yes, I have no doubt that there are "hundreds (probably thousands)" of these hoaxes. I would suggest that if you really started looking into them, you would find that the "proof" behind each of these stories is similarly lacking to the one you presented here.
TTFN,
Blackout
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Multiple people witnessed this and recorded it. That's not "simply reported." Also, whereas not all of the miracles have had scientific experiments done on them, enough have to where it all adds up.
Oh, and I was wondering...is it possible to cut someone heart out while they're alive without killing them?
RESPECT LIFE
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A priest and a group of worshippers actively engaged in a religious service hardly qualify as objective observers, even if you COULD somehow question and verify what those people thought they saw over 1300 years ago, or even if the reports attibuted to those people were real and not just made up to perpetuate the hoax. You really have a strange idea about what constitutes "proof." In a court of law, the kind of "evidence" you are offering is known as hearsay, which of course doesn't make for a very strong case and is usually rejected out of hand due to the inherent unreliablility of statements of this sort.
If this blood and flesh has survived for more than 1300 years, where is it now? Where are the scientific reports you claim were performed back in the 1970's that supposedly cooborates your story? If this evidence actually exists, why isn't the catholic church parading it around to every scientist on the planet that questions the supernatural basis of the christian religion?
The reason of course is that this evidence does NOT exist, and like all such claims cannot stand up to close examination by objective sources.
TTFN,
Blackout
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A lot of history comes from things like that...a few people scratching down current events. Like I said previously, to do away with that is to do away with a lot of history we have retrieved in the same way.
Actually, it's in a church in Lanciano, Italy to this day. There are some pictures on this page:
http://www.miraclerosarymission.org/lanciano.html
Also, I would ask that you explain how it could have lasted 1200 years without decaying, especially considering that the cut is that of an expert (in modern day, much less a few hundred years ago) and could not be gathered from a dead man. If it was being replaced, that would mean that you'd have to get an AB heart every day (or at least once a week...I'm not familiar with precisely how long it takes for a heart to decay) of an expert cut.
And actually, I would love the Church to have more testings done on the flesh and blood. I think it would be interesting to see what else modern scientists come up with.
RESPECT LIFE
http://progressiveu.org/blog/respectlife
We don't have to throw away history...
...to realize that primitive people sometimes believe primitive things (and sometimes just lie to gain power, just like people do today). Nor do we have to accept that every word that was ever written represents an objective truth. In fact, one would be a pretty crappy historian (or a moon-bat) if one accepted every claim from every ancient text ever written as certainly true. We have no more reason to believe what you have presented than we do the claims of supernatural "proof" presented by the the countless priests, swammis, fakirs, oracles and snake-oil salesmen that have always been around, preying on the weak-minded fools of the world. Nevertheless, I must again point to the fact that despite having claimed that you had all kinds of "proof," when it comes right down to it you haven't been able to present us with anything that would rationally qualify as such.
Actually, it's in a church in Lanciano, Italy to this day.
I don't doubt that the church is a real building. There is nothing extraordinary in a belief that church buildings exist.
I would ask that you explain how it could have lasted 1200 years without decaying, especially considering that the cut is that of an expert (in modern day, much less a few hundred years ago) and could not be gathered from a dead man. If it was being replaced, that would mean that you'd have to get an AB heart every day (or at least once a week...I'm not familiar with precisely how long it takes for a heart to decay) of an expert cut.
Actually, you would only have to get it ONCE, just before the examination. And the easy answer is that either this guy was tricked, or he was in on the hoax. In fact, even in the catholic accounts, Professors Linoli and Bertelli only confirmed that the sample they examined was real human tissue, and that the blood (as you said) could not have come from a dead man. Even if this is true (and we're still waiting on you to provide a link to the supposed study in which they made these claims), those findings do nothing to cooborate either the age or the origin of the sample, which was not kept in a contolled setting for the 1200+ years prior, and which could have easily been replaced prior to the alleged examination.
And actually, I would love the Church to have more testings done on the flesh and blood. I think it would be interesting to see what else modern scientists come up with.
If they would, it might make your cliams more believable.
TTFN,
Blackout
-------------------------
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Agreed, but at the same time, if we were too skeptical, we wouldn't have anything.
OK...?
So how do you explain the thousands of people that go to the church each day and see the flesh and blood?
Well, I doubt it, because I'm sure the skeptics wouldn't accept that, either. Nevertheless, it would be awesome.
RESPECT LIFE
http://progressiveu.org/blog/respectlife
"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
~Mother Teresa
But I must also disagree you comment on a more basic level. ALL rational examinations begin from a point of skepticism. It is only by adopting a skeptical point-of-view that we protect ourselves from being foolish.
So how do you explain the thousands of people that go to the church each day and see the flesh and blood?
I've seen the Eucharist perfomed many times, and not once during my 20+ years in the christian church did I EVER see the cracker and grape juice turn into anything else. And, I would bet you a cookie that you couldn't produce ONE live worshipper who upon close examination could say with any objective certainty that they saw such a thing, either.
As for the skeptics, it really is easy to convince us of almost anything. All you have to do is come up with some ACTUAL, OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE, and we'll fall in line pretty quickly, I assure you.
TTFN,
Blackout
-------------------------
Check out Progressive PRIDE, a Gay-Straight Alliance for the Progressive U community.
I'm going out on a limb right now, because I don't know all the technicalities of this, and can't find any really good information on the internet right now (the only things I can find are references to your 'miracle' and something about blood type diets... do let me know if you can find something not referencing your miracle that describes what you claim), so I'm going based on what I've actually learned in biology class.
What makes AB blood AB blood is a selection of proteins on the red blood cells. One is an A antigen, another is a B antigen. There are also no A or B antibodies in the blood, which is why AB individuals can accept any blood type. Note that these proteins are ONLY found on Red Blood Cells; they are not found on tissue cells. So... there is no such thing as an AB heart, provided that the heart no longer has any blood in it. Also, the markers that are in the rest of the cells in the body are not found on Red Blood Cells. Why? Because RBCs don't have nuclei. There is no DNA in the RBCs, so you couldn't really take a red blood cell and match it to a person. Or, in this case, an organ.
Also, the claim you make that it would have been difficult for an expert doesn't align very well with the quote on one of the websites you gave: "As a matter of fact supposing that the heart may have been taken from a cadaver, I maintain that only a hand experienced in anatomic dissection would have been able to obtain from a hollow internal organ such a uniform cut (as can still be glimpsed in the flesh)." No mention of difficulty for this experienced hand, just that a novice probably couldn't do it.
~C
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There was heart tissue and blood clots. ;)
RESPECT LIFE
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"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
~Mother Teresa
In order for the heart to not come from a dead man, you can cut it out of a live human. Just because they die doesn't mean that the heart came out of a dead man...
Haven't you ever seen Indiana Jones? A heart can continue beating even when it's no longer in the body. The body will die pretty quickly (depending on how you define death, the brain will start to die after about 30 seconds, and the muscles will begin to die quickly too, since they aren't getting needed oxygen).
~C
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Actually, I'm not a big Indiana Jones person and I don't really consider those to be accurate scientific sources : P
RESPECT LIFE
http://progressiveu.org/blog/respectlife
"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
~Mother Teresa
Indiana Jones illustrates the concept of the heart continuing to beat. I never claimed it was a scientific source. Look up pacemaker if you want a scientific source. Not one you add to the heart, but the one that naturally exists in your heart. It controls your heart rhythm, independent of the nervous system (though the nervous system can change how fast the heart beats).
~C
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No, you didn't ;) I didn't say you did. I just said I don't consider it a scientific source ;)
RESPECT LIFE
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"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
~Mother Teresa
The question isn't do miracles happen in the presence of the Eucharist. Suppose for the sake of argument (which no one in their right mind would really do) we grant all the miracles did happen. That is no evidence the cracker turns into the REAL body of Jesus.
The question is does the cracker turn into the actual body of Jesus & does the wine turn into the actual blood of Jesus.
If you want to answer that question then there is a simple (from today's perspective) experiment that could be done. Shine a light through the wine and into a spectrophotometer. The atoms in the wine will absorb certain frequencies of light. Have the Pope (if you want someone with the utmost authority to do it) bless the damn thing. Then shine the light through the wine again. If there has been any "transubstantiation" the atoms will absorb light at different frequencies. If it is blood there should be a pronounced iron absorption line that wasn't there before.
The good thing about this test is that it is non-destructive. You can still drink the wine after the test is over. No harm done.
If you REALLY wanted to answer the question this is the obvious test to do. But you and I both know that the test would show absolutely nothing forcing you to come up with yet another stupid explanation on how this test doesn't show what it really shows. So instead you rely on thousand year old anecdotal evidence and uncontrolled wishful thinking experiments. Things that no matter what happen cannot rule out the belief.
Cheers,
DB
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If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
As I said to Blackout, there are the "accidents" where the appearance doesn't change. But I'll talk to a priest friend about it anyway and see what he has to say.
In the meantime, I'd like to present you with the same questions I asked Blackout:
"Also, I would ask that you explain how it could have lasted 1200 years without decaying, especially considering that the cut is that of an expert (in modern day, much less a few hundred years ago) and could not be gathered from a dead man. If it was being replaced, that would mean that you'd have to get an AB heart every day (or at least once a week...I'm not familiar with precisely how long it takes for a heart to decay) of an expert cut."
RESPECT LIFE
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(1) I think it telling that although the test has never even been tried that you are making excuses for why it wouldn't work. At some level even you know this is bullshit.
(2) Just so you what you are actually saying with respect to this case with regard to the"accidents". You "transubstantiation" says that the grape juice may still look and taste like grape juice, but in actuality its "substance" is the blood of Jesus. Now as stupid as that is, if we are going to test it, we have to allow for the possibility that our senses cannot detect the change. Fine, let's go to something that tests the property of the SUBSTANCE. Thats what spectral analysis does. If the wine does change to blood, then IRON which is indispensable part of BLOOD but not of the grape juice, should magically be appearing.
For the spectral analysis to fail to detect it, the "accident" would have to be that those transubstantiated iron atoms do not absorb light the way normal iron atoms do. Since the absorption of light is a part of the most fundamental properties of the universe, you are telling me that for that grape-juice-turned-to-blood the fundamental properties of the universe work differently so that no matter what test we ever do to it, it is going to be indistinguishable from grape-juice-still-being-grape-juice.
Now why should I even take that seriously?
(3) Considering the miracle at Lancioli. I don't know the answer to your question. So then why is it that I find it not worth putting much thought into to figure it out. There are a multitude of reasons.
a. The guy you claim did the study is NOT an eminent professor. I can't find anything else he ever did.
b. Religious scientists have done a horrible job of doing scientific tests on religious relics. Take for instance your claim about AB blood being found on the Shroud of Turin. That's crap. It isn't even blood. It is Iron oxide pigments. The Shroud is a fake ... there is even a Vatican-commissioned report from the time it first appeared and the Vatican investigator found the guy who faked it, for crissakes (intentional irony). Carbon dating on a swatch of cloth that expert curators cut from an unmolested section of the Shroud show it to date from that time. And a well qualified forensic investigator has shown that those "blood stains" to be an iron oxide pigment that fits perfectly well from the time.
Vatican investigators have refused to accept that so they have run a variety of other tests and claim that it can't be an iron oxide pigment and that it is AB blood. However, using iron oxide pigment skeptics have mimicked their results.
All I have is the conclusions that these guys come up with but I have not seen ANY of the evidence that caused them to come up with these conclusions. If the data was there to support their conclusions I figure somewhere on the internet I should be able to see it. Now I did look at a picture of a sectioned piece of the "flesh". You can't tell squat from that. It could have been a rubber hose as well as anything else.
(c) The whole idea doesn't make any sense. Why are wafers not turning into lumps of "flesh" now? What was so special about that one that it has never happened again? Why is it that God/Jesus/Holy Ghost would be willing to show its presence like that but NEVER again? Why is it that God goes to such lengths to miraculously make the cracker-turned-to-flesh indistinguishable from a cracker-still-a cracker, but he didn't do it then? Especially considering that if he would do now (under verifiable conditions) what he did then would be SO MUCH more effective. What ... does God need a PR guy to tell him how to more effectively communicate his message?
So when I look at what you give as "evidence", I ask myself ... is it more likely that there is something hinkey about these results, or is it more likely that crackers-turned-to-flesh-but-remain-indistinguishable-from-crackers-being-crackers actually exist?
To me the answer is obvious.
Cheers,
DB
===
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
A really simple test just occurred to me...
When you eat the "flesh and blood" during a Eucharist, what does it taste like? I remember participating in this ritual during my youth, and the "flesh" always tasted like a cracker to me, and the "blood" always tasted like grape juice. If this change is "real" (as you have claimed), shouldn't it taste different?
TTFN,
Blackout
-------------------------
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During transubstantion, the substance (body to flesh, wine to blood) changes, but the accidents (appearance) remains the same. Therefore, the appearance and taste do not change. I remember when I received my First Communion, we had a practice the night before with unconsecrated hosts. The next day, after I Mass and I received my First Communion, my dad asked me how it was. I responded that I was disappointed because it didn't taste any different.
But remaining under the accidents makes sense, because it would probably really difficult for the majority of people to receive communion if it actually looked like flesh and blood.
RESPECT LIFE
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During transubstantion, the substance (body to flesh, wine to blood) changes, but the accidents (appearance) remains the same.
So the crackers and grape juse REALLY turn into flesh and blood, but they still taste like crackers and grape juice...RIIIIIGHT. LOL.
TTFN,
Blackout
"Theology is never any help it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything." ~ Robert A. Heinlein
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Yep, that's the neat thing. It makes it difficult to prove to other people, but it also makes it easier for those who do believe to practice it.
RESPECT LIFE
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"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
~Mother Teresa
If your "proof" only convinces people who already agree with you, then its really not "proof," now is it?
TTFN,
Blackout
-------------------------
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