A Real and Significant Biblical Contradiction?

[The Grand Nudger]

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

spockrates Wrote: I was threatened with being banned from catholic.com after asking, "Is God a loaf of bread?"

Quiet right too,ignorant heathen.


Any Catholic will tell you he is a small, white circular wafer of unleavened bread. (the last supper was at Passover,hence the unleavened bread) Of course he may also be a loaf of Wonder Bread or a MacDonald's sesame seed bun if there is nothing else.

This miraculous transformation takes place at each and every mass,which is a literal re enactment of the Last Supper. The process is called 'transubstantiation'

In Roman Catholic theology, transubstantiation (in Latin, transsubstantiatio, in Greek μετουσίωσις metousiosis) is the doctrine that, in the Eucharist, the substance of wheat bread and grape wine changes into the substance of the Body and the Blood of Jesus,[1] while all that is accessible to the senses (the appearances - species in Latin) remains as before.[2][3][4]

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

The Catholics on that forum probably thought you were a troll. It would not occur to them that non Catholics tend to have little if any interest in the sophistry of Catholic theology.

[spockrates]

spockrates Wrote: I was threatened with being banned from catholic.com after asking, "Is God a loaf of bread?"

Quiet right too,ignorant heathen.


Any Catholic will tell you he is a small, white circular wafer of unleavened bread. (the last supper was at Passover,hence the unleavened bread) Of course he may also be a loaf of Wonder Bread or a MacDonald's sesame seed bun if there is nothing else.

This miraculous transformation takes place at each and every mass,which is a literal re enactment of the Last Supper. The process is called 'transubstantiation'

In Roman Catholic theology, transubstantiation (in Latin, transsubstantiatio, in Greek μετουσίωσις metousiosis) is the doctrine that, in the Eucharist, the substance of wheat bread and grape wine changes into the substance of the Body and the Blood of Jesus,[1] while all that is accessible to the senses (the appearances - species in Latin) remains as before.[2][3][4]

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

The Catholics on that forum probably thought you were a troll. It would not occur to them that non Catholics tend to have little if any interest in the sophistry of Catholic theology.

Troll--yeah, I get a lot of that! Funny, every time I look in the mirror expecting to see pointy ears and fangs, all I see is me. I don't even like gruff billy goat meat!



Actually, they explained that the bread is not Jesus, but Jesus is the bread. That is, it looks like bread and smells like bread and tastes like bread, but it is really the body, soul and divinity of Christ. The discussion that this started lasted well over 1,000 posts with me asking simple questions and several of them answering. Turns out they believe the atoms of the bread are the accidents, but not the real essence of the bread. Jesus, they say, is the essence of what the Eucharist is. I found it all fascinating.

[catfish]

Ritualistic cannibalism???

[The Grand Nudger]

Nah, that would involve actually consuming human flesh as part of a ritual. It's more of an evocation. Sympathetic magic elevated to ceremonial status (which, in and of itself is pretty interesting). We might call it symbolic cannibalism in service of sympathetic ritual by way of evocation......lol, oh what tangled webs we weave.

[spockrates]

It's based on Plato's understanding if physics and metaphysics.

[Godscreated]

The writer of Hebrews is correct, God can not lie, deceiving and lying are not necessarily the same. Example military battles are often won by deception. This would actually qualify as a strategy.

Thanks for the reply GC. So to say the deception of Ezekiel is the same as the same as the telling of a lie of Hebrews would be akin to committing the informal fallacy of equivocation? To equivocate telling a lie with deception is illogical? You might be onto something there. I suppose one might reasonably say that all telling of lies is deception, but not all deception is telling of lies. One might logically assert that God never lies, but does sometimes deceive. Is this what you are saying?

Sorry it took me so long to get back with you. Yes, lies are always deception, but not all deceptions are lies. Another example would be in chess, you try to deceive the opponent by making him believe you are doing one thing while your actually doing another. In this deception you are not lying, you allow your opponent to believe he is sees what you are doing, while actually you have something else in mind.

What I was trying to explain is this, God allowed the false prophet to believe his own deception, God actually never deceived the false prophet but allowed the prophet to try and deceive Israel.

But why do you believe God actually never deceived the prophet? What else do these words of God mean?

"... I the Lord have deceived that prophet... ."

(Ezekiel 14:9)

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?sea...ersion=KJV

Not sure why you need to back off your premise that not all deception is telling a lie. I see no reason to, at the moment--unless I was mistaken about what you were trying to assert.

You were not mistaken, as you have read above, however I do not believe God used deception in these verses, this is why I do not pursue the premise. God does not state that he gave the prophet a false prophecy to give to the people, He said He deceived the prophet, I believe if God had given him a false prophecy it would have been in scripture. The deception God had for the prophet was to allow the prophet to believe he was right in his prophecy.

God punished the prophet for his deceitful work by ruining his reputation as a prophet so the Israelites would not listen to him. In actuality God was protecting His reputation as one who does not lie. If the people of Israel believed the prophecy and it did not come to past, then the people would say God has deceived us. Hope this helps.

Wouldn't the false prophet's inaccurate prediction be evidence he was not speaking for God? Seems to me this is what Moses quotes God as saying:

21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.

(Deuteronomy 18)

Right, this is always the way we know when someone is giving a false prophecy, but if God gave a false prophecy to a untrustworthy prophet then the prophet could say that God lied to him to make him look foolish. God does not need to work like that, false prophets are looking for one thing only, notoriety, all they care about is self. God knows they will give false prophecies and then He lets them hang themselves.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

God can not lie, deceiving and lying are not necessarily the same.

Interesting piece of sophistry. A basic definition of lying is to deliberately deceive another. 'White lies' , half truths and deliberate omissions to deceive are all lies.

If God sets out to deliberately deceive,he is lying,period.

[Godscreated]

God can not lie, deceiving and lying are not necessarily the same.

Interesting piece of sophistry. A basic definition of lying is to deliberately deceive another. 'White lies' , half truths and deliberate omissions to deceive are all lies.

If God sets out to deliberately deceive,he is lying,period.

I agree all lies are deceit, however as I mentioned in the posts above deceiving can be a strategy, in the case of war or the game of chess. If you read what I posted God did not use direct deceit with the prophet, He allowed the prophet to believe his prophecy was true, thus allowing the prophet to be deceived. God can not lie it is not part of His nature.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

in the case of war or the game of chess.

I repeat; sophistry,to deliberately deceive IS to lie. However, I do not argue that lying is always immoral..

IF you accept the concept of a 'just war', (I do not) Sun Tzu's precept that war is about deception is perfectly moral. To argue that it is OK to deceive/lie under some circumstances is to argue moral relativism,or that God is above his own moral laws.

My position is that of moral relativism,based on the sensible notion that the ends justify the means. Pretty sure those are not Christian ideals.