(August 27, 2015 at 10:38 am)Celestine Wrote: While I might attract the ire of the more fringe side of Christianity with this comment, I am fairly certain cannibalism is not going to grant me eternal life in a paradise. Christians often practice this in what they call the Sacrament of Communion and since many would find it detestable to actually eat the flesh of another human or drink their blood they replace the substance with wine and bread which through a process of unseen transfiguration becomes the literal body and blood of their undead god whom they believe has risen from the dead and will come back again bringing about the apocalypse of their world and rewarding those who were loyal to him, by raising the bodies of the dead.
While I understand that the original question may have been meant differently, I took it to mean as in a general sort of thing and chose to tackle this aspect of it. As you can see it's... really weird what the Christians believe in, but I suppose the same can be said for just about every other religion out there.
If we believed that it would be weird but those who understand the text correctly don't. When Jesus spoke of eating my flesh and drinking my blood (John 6:56) the Nation of Israel was celebrating the feast of booths which was a reminder of the nation about how God redeemed them from slavery in Israel and took them through the wilderness. While in the wilderness the Israelites were sustain by Manna that come down from Heaven, a flaky substance that they would make into bread. Earlier after he feeds the 5,000 the people come to Him and this is how the conversation goes.
John 6:28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
So later as Jesus is standing up there and telling the people to eat his flesh and drink His blood He is pointing to this time period in the Jewish history. He is claiming, in a very cryptic way, that He is the bread that came down from Heaven. They also receive water from a rock in the wilderness and that is symbolic of Jesus as well, which represent living water. So He is saying in a spiritual since take me into your body because I am the source of spiritual life. If you look at this phrase in the natural it would seem very strange but as you know we Christians believe in the supernatural so that is why we read the verse this way. You may want to read John 6-7 to get more of the story.
