Transubstantiation 'miracle' shenanigans

[Randy Carson]

We atheists know the transubstantiation into The Jesus fillet is bogus, but we are free (and I encourage all) to press the 40,000 stripes of christers to go as far as possible into the ludicrous zone in pathetic attempts at christian apologetics on the topic.
...

The transubstantiation nonsense is limited to select groups of Christians, including Catholics,* but most protestants regard it as symbolic.  However, it gets more complicated than that, with some having contradictory (or otherwise nonsensical) views:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharist

From talking with Christians, most of the ones I have encountered have no idea that anyone believes the Eucharist ceremony is anything other than symbolic, but obviously the people who I have encountered may not be representative of Christians generally.

______________
*Many individual "Catholics" (by which I mean, people who call themselves "Catholic"), of course, do not believe in official church doctrine, or in other words, do not believe in Catholicism and are Catholic in the lists kept by the Catholic church, but otherwise are Catholic in name only.  Strangely, many people are members of churches with which they disagree.  Someone who agrees with many of the basic ideas of Catholicism, but disagrees with parts of it, is more properly called a "protestant."


It makes me a bit tempted to start saying to people, "I am a Christian, but I don't believe in hell, heaven, any afterlife at all, nor do I believe in Jesus or God, but I am a Christian alright."

You have hit upon an important point. 

Today, there is a spectrum of believe regarding the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist with 1.2 Billion Catholics and 300+ Million Orthodox holding the traditional view that Jesus is really and truly present in the Eucharist. Some Protestants (Lutherans and a few Anglicans notably) would also hold this view. This is, by far, the majority opinion.

Since the Reformation (ca. 1517), a smaller number of Christians have rejected this, but the symbolic interpretation must be viewed as a theological novelty which was not the position found in scripture nor in the writings of the Early Church Fathers.

Needless to say, however, attempts are made to justify the denial of the Real Presence based upon both scripture and snippets of the ECF's.

You also highlighted the phenomenon of the "Cafeteria Christians" who pick and choose what they will and won't believe while claiming to be fully orthodox in their theology. With Catholicism and atheism on two different ends of the spectrum, there is quite a range of belief or disbelief in between.

---

...




Given that there ARE 44,000 denominations who do teach a common core, I'd say that at least 2 billion people on the planet ARE reasonably clear, and have been for 2,000 years.

But God did not CAUSE the schisms, did He?
...

According to the Bible, he did willfully confuse people about such things.  Here is Jesus on the subject; the "he" in verse 11 is Jesus, which you can tell if you look earlier in the book (since you are Catholic, I am giving it to you in the Douay-Rheims 1899 version):

Mark 4:

11 And he said to them: To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but to them that are without, all things are done in parables:
12 That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand: lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.


So Jesus wants people to be confused and go to hell, according to the book of Mark.

Thank you for the Douay-Rheims. However, Catholics are perfectly comfortable with modern translations such as the RSV-CE, the NAB or even the NIV in a pinch (despite its obvious confessional biases).

In the the passage you referenced, Jesus is actually paraphrasing Is. 6:9-10 wherein the prophet Isaiah was preaching judgment against a persistently obstinate and stubborn people. Since that is not the subject of the OP, I won't go further on this point, but I will remind you that proof-texting like this fails when it does not take into account ALL that God has spoken on a particular case. Consequently, I need to remind you that Jesus also said:

    John 3:14
    Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

As you can see, MY proof-text (along with rest of the NT) suggests that Jesus wants any and all to be saved through faith in Him.