Do Christian Parents Abuse their Children?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Dawkins is a very good biologist, and listening to him teach what he knows is a treat.

However when it comes to his ill concealed hatred of religion I take a much more cautious approach.

I agree completely. Dawkins has a very good reputation as a biologist but he is a very poor theologian and/or philosopher. As for William Lane Craig...not a fan...his debating style is cringe-worthy and the way he does apologetics is very shallow. Both sides can choose better role models, as it were. If I were an atheist, I would be inclined towards Nagel and Quine, because I despise Dennett. Historically, I think the existentialist are best, thinkers such as Sartre and Nietzsche.

As believers, I don't think we can do much better than Alvin Plantinga and David Bentely Hart (as contemporatries). Fesser and Maverick Philosopher are strong contenders as well. And historically, I would defer to Aquinas, but we could even reach back to the pagan traditions Plotinus IMHO. In the Eastern traditions I would look to Lao Tzu as a more mystical approach - similar to The Cloud of Unknowing. Whitehead is a possibility at least for Open Theism (which I don't endorse).

How about transubstantiation? This is a physical impossibility. We have known from the time alchemy became chemistry that one element cannot change into another. So how to you reconcile the physical impossibility of transubstantiation with the catholic church's insistence that it literally happens?

That's because naturalism has abandoned Aristotelian causes to answer the question of what something is. You are correct that the host remains chemically the same; however, the blessing of the priest changes the final and efficient causes. The host gains God's purpose of nourishing and restoring the souls of the penitents. This is true even in Lutheranism, except that they believe that the piety of the penitent is the efficient cause of the hosts change as an instrument of God's purpose (final cause). IMHO other Christian sects that see communion as a purely symbolic act (and the Catholic tradition as empty ritual) have abandoned something beautiful. That is partly why I am attracted to RC even if I have not fully embraced it.