Both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are making a reduction in the legal blood alcohol driving limit from 0.08 to 0.05%. This is facing opposition from an unexpected quarter: Catholic priests are concerned about driving home after Mass. Well, now, how terrible for them.
"Perhaps it could be enough for you to fail a drink-driving test," the Rev. Brian D'Arcy, a priest from Enniskillen, told the Irish Times. "I don't like to use the word wine, as it is Christ's blood in the Eucharist -- but it still has all the characteristics of wine when in the blood stream."
So it's OK to drive if it's Jesus who has lowered your response time, diminished your coordination, and addled your perceptions, but not if it's alcohol? And do these guys seriously believe that that's Jesus's blood in your circulatory system afterwards? Weird.
I did learn something new…
Priests say the new limit would put them over the legal limit after fulfilling their duties during the Mass, which include drinking all consecrated wine not distributed during communion.
What a racket — here I thought godless evilutionists had it easy, what with their porn and moneybags, but the Catholics have made gurgling down any leftover wine an official duty. At the next EAC meeting, I'm going to have to move that we make it Official Policy that atheists are allowed to eat the last office donut, they are required to bogart that joint, and even if they are the last man or woman on earth, you must have sex with them.
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Granted that it's silly to believe the wine has been transformed into the blood of Christ (while still tasting and smelling and impairing your ability to drive just like real wine). But once you believe that, pouring the leftovers down the sink is not really an option. You're pretty much obliged to follow through with the sacrament and consume all the wine so transformed. So that part is at least consistent with the mythology, and not just some random perk they've thrown in for their own benefit.
With rules like this, maybe we really should get around to making it all official. I'm fairly certain we can get catapulting any leftover creationists after School Board elections worked in there too...
I think if the blood of christ has the same characteristics as wine in the bloodstream, then he must have been permanently sloshed. :)
Love that mythology!
Some wags have claimed that the framing scam began when the wine was skillfully framed into the blut of The Man.
Is it too late to turn in my Official Atheist Membership Badge and join the priesthood? Guzzling alcoholic Jesus Juice is a pretty nice perk of which I had been previously unaware.
On second thought, bogarting joints and guaranteed post-apocalyptic nookie beats the pants off being a Sunday Morning Drunk with repressed sexual urges.
Gregory Kusnick hit the nail on the head:
Perhaps because I'm a wine snob, I actually feel sorry for priests: sacramental wine usually isn't of good quality.
While their reasons may be silly, it also seems silly too to lower the legal driving threshhold to a level at which impairment has got to be neglible at most. .05%? I'd guess countless other factors would have a greater impact on safety. I wonder how many drivers in accidents test between .05 and .08, versus how many acidents are related to cell phones, driver age, changing radio stations, etc.
Considering they are talking about wine that has 'transubstantiated' into the blood of Christ we can only assume that Jesus must have been constantly loaded! No wonder he went around telling people he never met before that he loved them, I do exactly the same when I'm completely pissed!
On a slightly more serious note, I grew up in Ireland and can inform you that Catholic mass ceremonies in Ireland do not involve the congregation getting to drink wine (they only get the 'host', a wafer of bread). If the priests do not want to drink more then they should aliquot less wine in the first place, dilute it or simply use non alcoholic wine.
I think more jobs should have rules that require alcohol consumption. Everyone would be much more relaxed, and we all know a relaxed work environment helps productivity.
Single most stupid thing in print by a human being today. How does what started out as a functional human brain end up spouting something like the above? This really does boggle the mind.
"I don't like to use the word wine, as it is Christ's blood in the Eucharist -- but it still has all the characteristics of wine when in the blood stream." So, my question is this: when exactly does it stop being wine and become, morbidly, the blood of Christ? Through liver metabolism perhaps?
Shouldn't there be a "not" added to that last sentence? I.e., even if we're not the last folks left on earth?
I mean, at least that wording gets us a lot more nookie.
Now this would have been an excellent Father Ted episode.
As I understand it, not only does transubstantiation change the wine into the blood of Jesus, but that the same process also transforms the priest himself into the Lord as well. So Jesus is technically offering himself to you-- it's pretty twisted, but fun from an artistic standpoint!
So, what's stopping them from turning the blood/wine (that sounds kinda Klingon doesn't it?) back into wine/wine after the ceremony is over? Awfully convenient how it only goes in one direction.
"How does what started out as a functional human brain end up spouting something like the above?"
You may be making an assumption there that might in fact not be the case.
Whoa... They get bashed on left over wine?
I guess that explains why they have such a hard time telling the difference between a woman and an altar boy. Impaired judgment and inhibitions seems to come with the gig.
*hic* It's okay, officer, it's not wine, it's the blood of Jesus. Plus I'm filled with the Holy Spirit, so if I pass out, he can take the wheel.
That would certainly explain the "fig tree incident."
sdh [#6] wrote "Perhaps because I'm a wine snob, I actually feel sorry for priests: sacramental wine usually isn't of good quality."
Well, that depends on what you mean by "quality", I suppose. The sacramental wine I had when I was younger seemed pretty good to me, probably because it was a fairly sweet wine, and I like sweet drinks. I actually think that the "good quality" wines I've tried taste kind of revolting. I'm obviously never going to be able to pass myself off as a wine snob.
If the priests do not want to drink more then they should aliquot less wine in the first place, dilute it or simply use non alcoholic wine.
Yeah really, if they don't want to drink all that extra wine then just consecrate less wine. And if they see the wine running low, then just consecrate some more! No big deal. Shrug.
You would think they have the consecration estimation down to a science by now. I wonder if they have to eat all the bread too. Hmm.
Come on you guys, estimate the consecration. And stop whining.
Designate a driver or something.
Sheesh.
Classic... my colleagues are all wondering what I'm laughing about now.
It's just incredible what mental gymnastics a true believer can go through in order to maintain their fantasy.
This is actually at least a month or more old PZ. I remember from the original reports that the prime concern is that these days priests have to minister to often several different parishes on a Sunday and in the countryside they are not exactly cycling distance apart. A tot of wine at each which is the minimum requirement would put them over the limit. So even without polishing of the dregs some of them will be in trouble.
Also whoever reckons 0.05% is nothing, it translates to 50mg of alchohol per 100ml of blood. Which is about a pint of 4-5% alcohol for a 6 footer like me. Here in the UK we still have the 80mg limit which means I get to have a pint and a half. I could have two but I like strong beer and strength has been going up recently.
it gets better:
"Well, see, we made up this rule that we're required to drink all of this wine, and it makes it kinda hard for us to be under the legal limit... so can you make the legal limit higher? I know it's dangerous, but c'mon, what are we supposed to do? It's not like we can just avoid drinking the wine or something, because we made up a rule that we have to drink it."
Though I do agree with JasonE #7... I wonder how many accidents are caused by people with a BAC between 0.05 and 0.08.
I also have to wonder why an omnipotent deity can't make blood out of a non-alcoholic beverage. Seems like it wouldn't be any harder, and that solves the priests' problems, right?
/sacramental wine usually isn't of good quality./
Hell, Coors isn't great beer either, but it'll get your buzz on. How do you think supposedly celebate priests cope with, well - celebacy? (insert altar boy joke of your choice). Okay, okay, so let's phrase it a new way - how do they cope with the guilt? Anyway, sacramental wine is a helluva lot better than most wines for Seder.
@386sx #21:
At my Lutheran college, after the contemporary service ended, people would just hang around and talk and munch on the leftover bread - which my Catholic friend found to be absolutely horrendous. 'Course, then the pastor and those over 21 would go out to a bar and hang out too, which a lot of my friends found horrendous (the pastor drinks!! oh noes!!), but they grew out of the "alcohol is bad" mindset coincidentally around the time they turned 21.
Now wait a minute...no, it doesn't make sense, even granted the silliness of transubstantiation in the first place. What's in the bottle is clearly NOT blood, so they have to argue that the magic Jesus substitution must occur somewhere between lips and anus, so why not just call what's in the bottle "wine" and agree that it can be tossed down the drain?
It's not as if they are constrained by the evidence, you know. Religion means you get to make up any ridiculous rule you want.
Listening to Catholics try to explain transubstantiation is always, ALWAYS hilarious.
Okay, it's funny and religion sucks, but you know what else sucks?: our insane approach to drunk driving laws. The woman who started MADD quit a long time ago because even she thinks they've gone crazy. Why? I don't have the exact numbers or links for you, but look it up for yourself and you'll find the vast majority of drunk driving accidents, particularly ones involving grievous bodily harm or death, are caused by people with staggering blood alcohol levels. Constantly lowering the levels of intoxication doesn't prevent accidents it puts more people in jail. Lots of things cause some impairment while driving: talking with passengers or on a self phone, messing with the radio, being sleepy - but these don't land you in jail. Now, couple lower and lower BAC levels with more and more draconian punishement - till the point where cops are well aware of it, judges are aware of it, etc. - and you get selective enforcement. They don't take the king and the queen of the prom to jail for it, but there's a lot of people (not as clean cut) who they do. It's a travesty.
Maybe priests could enjoy some sacramental beer instead
Dispensation is made in cases of alcoholic or diabetic priests for the sacramental wine to be non-alcoholic or simply grape juice.
I do however think that the tightening of limits is both necessary and unjustified. It's far more effective to catch the people actually driving drunk than to create a whole class of statutory drunks.
This is actually a pretty good idea. This way the priest can't get it up for the altar boys after mass.
Pity they don't give wine to the congregation, those snacks they serve are pretty dry.
PZ Myers:
How do you know? Maybe it has all the physical and chemical properties of wine, but its inner essence is that of Jesus juice!
No, that's completely different from symbolic transubstantiation. Dammit, because the man in the funny hat said so!
Corollaries of the sacraments
1) Jesus must have had 'type O' blood.
4) Absence of evidence is evidence of presence.
[we already knew this, never mind]
2) Prions (obviously) survive transubstantiation.
3) Blood drives and blood banks are unnecessary.
7) California raisin adds were blasphemous.
8) Blood alcohol testing denies freedom of religion.
9) Alcoholics are merely spiritual seekers.
10) Bars and some resaurants desirve tax exempt status.
6) Wafers & wine provides complete nutrition.
[there are only 2 food groups]
5) Yeast is god.
[god really does hate women]
Forgot to re-number after editing- oops :}
my dad was otherwise a teetotaller, and he used to make my mom drive home from church because the communion wine gave him a buzz
i was very young when i noticed that the priest would slam down a left-over chalise or two each week. he'd turn his back to the congregation to do so, and i remember the impression that he was trying to hide doing something illicit ...
I never noticed that before.
For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen
No wonder everything that follows in that comic doesn't make any sense.
Back in the 80's I went to San Francisco for the first time. I went to daily eucharists at different Episcopal churches during the week. I was trying to work out some problems and, at the time, that seemed logical. Being near wine country, each church offered a different kind of wine. I was like going on a very slow wine-tasting tour of Napa County.
Thomas Aquinas developed the theory of the eucharist for Roman Catholics. He used the theory that all things have two parts, the inward susbstance, in this case the wine or blood, and the accidents, the parts that can be seen, felt, smelled, etc. The substance of bread is transformed to the substance of Jeebus's blood, but the accidents, the color, taste, aroma, etc. stay the same. I think somewhere in the digestive system the change is reversed.
The RC canons prescribe the kind of wine to be used, including the amount of alcohol in the wine. The percentage of wine can be reduced by adding more water to the wine, but this, too, may be regulated.
I think most RC churches have a special sink called a piscina or sacrarium. The drain goes directly into the ground, not into the sewage system. The water used to clease the communion dishes is poured down there because it has come in contact with the body and blood. Episcopalians sometimes use this sink to dispose of extra wine. They also can put some of the extra wine in a container and save it to be used for communion of the sick. The RC's don't do this. Both save extra bread for the same reasons. I don't know if the bread they use has an expiration date: "Best if transubstantiated before Nov 2009."
Let's not also forget that that wine they're drinking they get tax exempt.
Corollaries of the sacraments
1) Jesus must have had 'type O' blood.
2) Absence of evidence is evidence of presence.
[we already knew this, never mind]
3) Prions (obviously) survive transubstantiation.
4) Blood drives and blood banks are unnecessary.
5) California raisin ads were blasphemous.
6) Blood alcohol testing denies freedom of religion.
7) Alcoholics are merely spiritual seekers.
8) Bars and some resaurants desirve tax exempt status.
9) Wafers & wine provides complete nutrition.
[there are only 2 food groups]
10) Yeast is god.
[god really does hate women]
fixed.
I don't know a lot about wine, but I have handled large flasks full of blood. It's distinctive. Wine isn't usually thick and viscous, doesn't have that sharp smell, and doesn't get all lumpy and fibrously stringy after a short while. What's in those bottles and little cups is absolutely nothing like blood.
So....why can't they just transubstantiate something else then? Tea? Ribena? Irn Bru? Pocari Sweat? Water? Come to think about it, why not a gallon of atheist piss. Transubstantiate that into the blood of christ and drink up now. I'll send some.
...Oh, it's because they're ruddy-nosed, sexually repressed, ignorant, superstitious pissheads and it's a great excuse?
Plus I'm filled with the Holy Spirit, so if I pass out, he can take the wheel.
I had this hallucination whilst driving once. It was a road trip with the boys, and I had the early morning shift. Somehow, I'd had an 'epiphany' that if I focussed 'just right' on the taillights of the car ahead of me, I would open myself up to possession by a 'benevolent angel' who would then take over and drive perfectly. Luckily, by this time, my friend in the passenger seat had woken up and was pretty alert and aware (I'm sure I wasn't weaving, else he would have noticed it).
Ironically, I kept wishing he'd shut up so I could 'focus.'
The really freaky thing is that I had no idea how impaired I was due to fatigue until we pulled into a doughnut shop and I had a coffee after which I had an epiphany about my earlier epiphany. Luckily, my two friends were well rested and took over the driving duties from there.
It's due to experiences like this that claims of personal revelation hold no water with me.
imagine getting implicated in some sort of car accident because you were off yr head on god's blood. scientology doesn't compare.
Compared to where the stuff ends up a few hours after drinking it?
#7 and #30 are dead on. Dropping legal BAC thresholds to 0.05 is asinine. Just because these priests have a funny argument doesn't mean they're on the wrong side of the BAC issue.
Also, re: finishing the bottle - in the churches that I'm familiar with, the entire bottle is not consecrated during the mass, just one or more chalices of wine. Priests aren't complaining that they've got to finish a bottle at every mass, they're saying that they sometimes have to finish off one big cup of wine. Or, you know, Crunk Juice if you're Lil Jon.
And yeah, I want to laugh because the literal wine to zombie blood thing is so obviously wrong. But even if you don't buy into their postulates, who drinks a few sips of wine and then pours the rest back into the bottle? Or even down the drain? Nobody. That would be lame. Drink it!
They don't transubstantiate the whole bottle. A small amount of wine is poured into a chalice, and that's where the transubstantiation "happens". So we're not talking about priests guzzling whole bottles; we're talking about what's left in the cup when the Communion is done.
Or at least that's how it worked last time I went to Mass, back in the '60s.
Because wine is what Jesus used at the Last Supper, when he said "Do this in remembrance of me."
Again, I'm not defending it; I think the whole thing is silly. But it's not arbitrary silliness; there are (to them) sound reasons for doing things the way they do, reasons that follow from the mythology.
Is it christ's blood in the septic tank, too?
My real question: why are they allowing someone so stupid to drive?
#44 - I shall have to remember that story for the next time my sister tries to forcibly convert me by explaining that she JUST KNOWS Jesus is real because she was able to speak in THE LANGUAGE OF HEAVEN in church and the HOLY SPIRIT told her it was all real.
when i was studying to become a primary school teacher - i teach in a catholic primary school in ireland - i had the pleasure of studying some of this crap with the priests in maynooth. the key is that the changes of transubstantiation affect the 'substance' of the wine, which is separate from the physical characteristics of the wine. so everything that can possibly be measured by humans still resembles wine, but the deeper reality has changed to blood. very old, completely indistinguishable from wine, holy blood.
as far as i know, the change occurs at the point of the mass where the bell is sounded, and the bread and wine are help up by the priest, and not after their are consumed. this is why the leftovers have to be treated so respectfully - and what lead to fears of host desecration.
i see it as the result of a futile exercise in trying to force lunacy to comply with logic. the argument has some of the external characteristics of reasonable thought, but the essential substance is completely insane. that's why i love news stories like this one, which force the 'average' believer to consider the fundamental stupidity of catholic dogma.
Please do. I wonder if she as fervently believes the things she's seen and heard while suffering a high fever?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the whole transubstatiation thing is cribbed from Aristotle's metaphysics such that there are essential and accidental properties that things have. Transubstantiation replaces the essential property of the wine with the essential property of God-blood leaving all the accidental properties (i.e. smell, taste, non-clotting behavior) intact. A very interesting way to explain complete lack of evidence for anything actually happening.
The catholics aren't into using the little cups PZ which is why I always used to opt out from sipping the chalice of blood and disease.
Were I to take a vow of celibacy, I think I'd appreciate alcohol even more. Were my ability to indulge in alcohol to then come under attack, I'd be inclined to speak out about it. Were I also a moral focal point of a repressed community that associates any sensory indulgence with guilt, I'd speak out very circumspectly. Not like "hey wait, I like my booze," but rather like "this may interfere with my sacramental duties." It's not a stupid strategy, given the circumstances. I just don't comprehend what would lead someone down that road in the first place.
Well, why can't the Priest get someone else to drive? There's got to be an altar boy or someone else handy that could take the wheel for the afternoon.
From what I recall, most people don't even drink the wine anyways. It tasted funny. (I said it! Wine tastes funny!) Also, it's slightly unsanitary.
I didn't know priests were required to drink the leftover wine. Well, sucks for them.
Ridiculous. It's wine all the way. It's produced and bottled as wine. It has the same effects on the body as wine. Just because they want to pretend that it's really divine blood is no reason to respect that viewpoint, especially if it's connected to a public health and safety concern. Is there a real reason why they can't produce non-alcoholic sacramental wine?
This habit might go a short distance towards explaining priestly lack of control around altar boys.
Brownian, OM: It's due to experiences like this that claims of personal revelation hold no water with me. There's a nice story in Michael Shermer's 'Why People Believe Weird Things' where he talks about being abducted by aliens during a huge long-haul cycling race because he was so exhausted & dehydrated. There's a nice if a bit breathless little talk by him on TED.
I also thought that it was OK to pour the blood-wine on the ground if you can't drink it all. They even had a special sink for this in the back room I thought. I think that church is just being disingenuous (surprise!)about why they don't want the limit lowered.
That reminds me. I've been reading Avalos' Fighting Words, and there was a brief mention that the medieval (and later) witch hunting craze was linked to belief in the Eucharist; if demons could transform into humans and have sex with humans, then wine and bread could transform into the spiritual essence of Jesus. Or something like that. The wording could have been clearer. And Avalos might have just been citing someone else.
Man, if it's Jesus' blood in your system after you've drunk the wine, there's no way I'm joining a catholic church, even if I had a frontal lobotomy, and was deprived of all my faculties. I mean, what if he's not my blood type? One eucharist, and I'm a dead man!
This story is god's way of telling you to buy the fecking Father Ted DVD. G'wan.
Oh, and,
'I have made an important discovery. That alcohol, taken in sufficient quantities, produces all the effect of intoxication. - Oscar Wilde
I, for one, would be interested in seeing the official response of the Catholic church if one of those priests ran over someone with his car after Mass due to imbibing too much of the sacramental wine.
I don't know if there's a big difference in response times and ability to think clearly between .05 and .08 intoxication. Would be nice to know before changing the law. Still, I think that people being tired probably causes a lot more accidents than the difference between .05 and .08.
"What a racket"
Bullshit, as sdh said:
"Perhaps because I'm a wine snob, I actually feel sorry for priests: sacramental wine usually isn't of good quality."
That is ridiculous understatment, it is complete shit and to have to drink it any quantity is a penance.
On the other hand it raises interesting points. 1. PZ is right they can pour it down the sink, I think the belief is it does not change into Christ's blood till you take it.
2. If this belief is correct, there should be no rise in blood alcohol - a scientific test of whether transubstantiation works, and clearly it does not.
Ahh, brings back childhood memories of visiting my friend Susan's Episcopalian church!
It was well-known there that the priests poured more than enough wine for the congregation. So if you sat in the back pews, you got extra-generous swigs, as they wanted to use up all the wine they had poured. Susan practically had a Stammtisch in the back pew.
Good times...
The good book says "Eat, drink, and be merry, then go for a drive".
Oh that's old news!
This is the weird religious story of the day today in Ireland: the state TV company is denying that it's been served a gagging order by a woman who claims that the Virgin Mary talks to her.
It seems that one of the weekend papers ran a story that she's "living a life of luxury with a multi-million euro property portfolio and top-of-the-range luxury cars, despite not having any visible means of support or income".
And it's you Yanqui's who's she's fleecing. She gets American pilgrims by the busload.
Anyway - they ran the story on a radio talkshow and such as the general fury of some of the callers that the host warned them to be careful what they said - triggering suspicions of a gagging order and the denial.
Because, as we all know, there's no-one more litigious than a religious crackpot.
P.
"I don't like to use the word wine, as it is Christ's blood in the Eucharist -- but it still has all the characteristics of wine when in the blood stream."
Jesus makes the girls easy.
If you drink and drive, you're a bloody idiot. The limit for drivers should be 0%, but the government is being generous in giving people .05% so you can have one drink after work or with dinner or whatever. It's been .05% in most Australian states for 30 years or more an the priests here don't complain, as far as I know.
What, only now? In Austria it was done over 10 years ago, and it was one of the last countries in Europe to do that. It has meanwhile been lowered farther. Even at 5 permil...
Wait. Do you mean 0.08 and 0.05 % or 0.8 and 0.5 %?
So, even at 5 permil = 0.5 percent, the effects on reaction speed are easily measurable.
LOL!
Still does.
The eggcorns are multiplying like mad lately. :-o
Now that's a good description!
Bingo. St Thomas Aquinas was mentioned -- he's the guy who wrote the monumental reconciliation of Aristotelian philosophy and Christianity (...by bending and twisting both and occasionally just skipping over the former...).
The altar boys (and, in some dioeceses, girls) really are children. They aren't just called that.
Only if you get it intravenously, and even then large quantities would be required.
No. It changes when the priest does the transubstantiation, before anyone takes it.
No, because, as mentioned above, it's the Aristotelian inner essence that changes, not any quality of the wine. Without changing any of its qualities, the wine changes from belonging to one Platonic idea to belonging to another Platonic idea.
Was nice of Aquinas to try to reconcile religion and reason. It's just that some parts of Aristotelian philosophy aren't reason, but elaborate arguments from ignorance, personal incredulity, and so on.
Forgot to mention that you can get 1 permil = 0.1 percent from eating an apple.
Well, what if transubstantiation actually takes place on a microscopic (or sub-atomic) level, as opposed to, say, on the molecular or protein level? In that case, the transubstiantiated wine wouldn't necessarily have to take on the physical (i.e. macroscopic) characteristics of blood.
Remember the Jebons?
http://pharyngula.org/index/science/comments/incredible_new_breakthroug…
Maybe, just maybe, transubstantiation takes place when the priest magically applies some unknown force field to the wine, which remarkably causes all the gluons therein to change into jebons.
The ethanol in the wine still gets you drunk, but now you have the added benefit of Jesus in your blood to be the scapegoat in all of your evil doings!
Sweet deal!
Since those latter ones are lethal blood alcohol levels, it's sort of redundant to forbid driving then, unless you are talking about Finns.
And, please tell me where to get some of those apples.
I always thought that was funny, when I was a kid in Catholic mass: Everyone would return to their pews and the priest would clean up the altar, fold up napkins, whatever, in silence, and then GLUG GLUG GLUG down went the chalice.
Of course, there is a downside. He has to share denture backwash with 110 little italian widows.
I agree with the other two, drunk driving laws are ridiculous in most places already. .05%? Nevermind the fact that a less-than-perfectly calibrated breathalizer will have a large margin of error at that level, and focus on the fact that a .05% bac isn't enough to buzz a 12-year-old.
If this pathetic, pussified, cripple-world is the one I'll be forced to live in, I want my justice too. Anyone caught putting on make-up, reading anything other than road signs, fussing with children, farting around with the radio, turning their head to talk, or eating anything should be subject to the same penalty, because those actions are much more risky than having a .05% bac.
Funny note: In Catholic parlance the body and blood of Jesus Christ are said to subsist in the "accidents" of bread and wine. The word "accidents" is used to underscore the belief that the bread and wine merely appear to still be bread and wine after the transubstantiational consecration. They're really flesh and blood now (yum!), but retain the look and feel of the original substances. Makes sense, right?
I remember a priest we had in my home parish who was always very careful when mixing the water and wine (a routine part of the mass) to dilute the wine with only a drop or two of water. Accidental or not, he preferred his drink to be as strong as possible. Being overenthusiastic with the water was not going to get the altar boy any brownie points. The wine? Pour away!
In catechism classes we used to drill our priest about weird things like the eucharist, infallibility, blessed objects and holy water. The holy water topic in particular was for some reason what drove the priest nuts the quickest.
How much water could a priest bless? If it cleansed the water of everything foul, why did we bother with expensive public water filtering and not just employ a bunch of the clergy to make it potable? What happens to bacteria in water when its blessed? Is exorcising water anti-viral? Can you bless the water in a person to cure them of the illnesses? Can you boil holy water and end up with just the holy part left over?
We got out of class early often.
As a youngster being forced to attend Saturday catechism classes at the local catholic church, myself,and a few other similarly wayward 10 year olds found the cuboard that they kept the wine in and, natch, drank it all. Thye final nail in the coffin of my catholic upbringing was finding out a) they watered the bastard down so not even 3 ten year olds can get drunk on a litre of the stuff and b) the priest will give you all a thorough flogging after catching said ten year olds in the act.
I doubt he's reading this but allow me to say, as closure to a thirty year old pain, Fuck You Monsignor Walsh.
"I'm going to have to move that we make it Official Policy that atheists are allowed to eat the last office donut, they are required to bogart that joint, and even if they are the last man or woman on earth, you must have sex with them."
I like this rule, and will implement it immediately. But I will only indulge after making offerings to Cthulhu.
As for the apple thing. I remember using apples as bongs in high school. Did the trick alright.
Regarding the BAC laws:
Studies have been done about this, they don't just pull the nubmers out of their butts. The accident rate for BAC levels below 0.05 is no higher than the non-alcohol related accident rate. The accident rate then increases steadily for BACs between 0.05 and 0.08. Then, above 0.08, the rate increases dramatically.
(I wish I could remember the name of the study, so I could give a cite, but the info is buried in my master's degree coursework, and I frankly don't feel like digging around at the moment to find it.)
In any case, both 0.05 and 0.08 are natural cutoffs if one were to make a law, and deciding between the two depends on how much you care about the increased accident rate (which between 0.05-0.08 is relatively minor compared to the jump after 0.08) vs. hassling people who truly aren't in any way impaired at a BAC of under 0.08. One solution I've heard of is making 0.08 a blanket cutoff - anything over it is illegal - while judging cases between 0.05 and 0.08 on the observed level of impairment of the driver. But of course that brings up it's own set of problems, too.
Ritualized cannibalism.... Mmm Mmm Good!!
It might help to think of the bread and the wine as elements of a little girl's dollhouse tea party. Once the tea party is in progress, the dolls are seated at the table, the invisible tea is poured out carefully into the cups, and the invisible cookies are handed around. Most normal little girls would not go directly from dolls being guests at her table, to dolls being piled up against the far wall so she can climb up high enough to straighten a picture. There is a solemnity to the little girl's tea party that is admirable in itself.
For non-magic-users,it seems to me this would be a sufficient explanation for all the fiddly and apparently ridiculous respect being paid to a loaf of bread and a cup of wine.
It should be theologically correct and respectful to take the remaining wine and bread out into the churchyard and lay the bread down and pour the wine out at the foot of a tree. After all, the Bible does say that Jesus came on behalf of all creation, not just as hairless apes. I guess they don't do that because it might get mistaken for pagan libations.
Noni
Although I never really believed any of the mythology of the church - it was more of an Irish-American cultural thing for me - I really did enjoy going to mass as a kid. It was all quite aesthetically pleasing, what with the candles, incense, stained glass, statuary, etc. I liked the tales of the saints, as well, in the same way one enjoys fairy tales.
This story made me remember dear old Father Hart. Father Hart didn't give a crap about any wussified wine; he was a Jameson's man all the way. All he really cared about was whiskey and fishing.
We parishioners didn't get wine, though; only the Host. And since we were pretty parched with not being able to have breakfast until after mass (a requirement I'm not sure still exists, as it's been 30 years since I last took communion), a good slug of wine to wash down that bone-dry (pun intended) wafer would have been just the thing.
Here in Australia, the BAC limit's .05 for years. and I've never heard of a problem.
Even if visiting multiple places and sipping wine many times, I can't see a priest ever getting over .05 simply because of the delay of travel and ceremony at each stop.
The rule of thumb here is 1 standard drink per hour keeps you under the limit. Allowing for travel time, I'd be surprised if this limit was even close to being reached.
MattD
the argument has some of the external characteristics of reasonable thought, but the essential substance is completely insane
Bingo! (catholic tuesday night reference intended) Can also be stated as: buy the premise, buy the bit. It describes the religious justification of just about everything I learned in Catholic school.
If Its the blood of christ in his bloodstream, what exactly is he pissing out
after.
TK,
Check out Piss Christ the art work. I believe you have your answer right there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ
At the Vatican there are some wild and crazy guys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9sJVJMiYM
"A New Pope".
Reading this, I can't help but start singing some Tom Lehrer:
If it is, try playin' it safer,
Drink the wine and chew the wafer,
Two, four, six, eight,
Time to transubstantiate!
(Although the "try playin' it safer" in the song refers to original sin rather than drunk driving...)
My cleric could do 8 gallons per level.
I've always thought that D&D towns should have priests and wizards on the municipal payroll for basic infrastructure issues such as this.
OMFG, did you have to consecrate the whole 4 litre cask?
This kind of thing makes it hard for me to believe even the devout believe their own mythology. If I were a priest, I'd show up at church with a bag of blood and say I was going to convert it to the blood of Christ because it's easier than converting wine to the blood of Christ (you know, being blood already) and then everyone would drink that.
It would be fun to see how much of the congregation I'd lose.
I like Noni's #83; almost nobody (and I'm sure, no priest) really believes all that transsubstantiation stuff, but it's all about pretending consistently, as far as possible.
Parishioners hardly ever got wine at communion at my former church - only sometimes at Easter - so there was usually only a lttle bit of wine in the chalice for the priest (not that driving would have been an issue since they all lived next door). What I found much more interesting and moving than most of the official ritual was the moment when, after draining the dregs, he'd pour some water from a little jug into the chalice, swish it around and drain that too, before wiping out both with a napkin. A little sacrament of tidyness.
The Gospels didn't mention who did the washing up after the Last Supper, but let's pretend Jebus did, and then said "Do this in memory of me, too!"
Is it still the blood of christ when it turns into urine ?
I don't see why not, and why it shouldn't be recycled back
into the loonies drinking wine and then back to the blood
of christ. This is all incredible insanity and should be
the target of our ridicule and unvarnished comedy.
"Hey, I know this is supposed to be the blood of our
freaking savior, but it tastes like piss!" "Shut up and
be saved and keep your kidneys in a state of grace!"
Damn, what blatant craziness.
I'm late getting to this, but as an ex-Catholic altar boy, who went to a few different Catholic churches and a Methodist church as an adult before finally becoming an atheist, I wanted to comment on it. As far as I can tell, there's no nationwide Catholic standard for who gets wine during mass, or at least none that the priests follow. Where I grew up in Pennsylvania, during most masses, it was only the priest, deacon, Eucharistic ministers, and the altar boys. I was too young to really know good wine, then, but my parents told me that since it was for such a small group of people, our priest did buy good wine. A few times a year for special occasions (Good Friday, Easter, & maybe a few others), the entire congregation would get wine. I don't know if this was the same quality. Other churches I've gone to in Maryland and Texas gave wine to the entire congregation every mass, while others were like the one where I grew up. The Methodists used grape juice and gave it to everybody in their own little cups.
The blessed communion wafers were saved after every mass. They get stored in the tabernacle, and that's where Catholics are supposed to look when they genuflect. There were also a bunch of non-blessed wafers in one of the back rooms that we altar boys would snack on while we were cleaning up after the mass (it's an acquired taste).
This quote of the priest reminds me of a scene in Family Guy - after taking communion, Peter turns to Lois and says, "This is Jesus's blood? Man, that guy had to be loaded all the time!"
John Scanlon said: "...but it's all about pretending consistently, as far as possible...
Absolutely. And if you think the ability to pretend is a negligible one, I refer tou to Pratchett, ("Hogfather") who says,
'Ah,' said Susan dully. 'Trickery with words. I would have thought you'd have been more literal-minded than that.'
I AM NOTHING IF NOT LITERAL-MINDED. TRICKERY WITH WORDS IS WHERE HUMANS LIVE.
'All right,' said Susan. 'I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable.'
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
'Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little-'
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
'So we can believe the big ones?'
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
'They're not the same at all!'
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET-- Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME... SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
'Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point---'
MY POINT EXACTLY.
She tried to assemble her thoughts.
THERE IS A PLACE WHERE TWO GALAXIES HAVE BEEN COLLIDING FOR A MILLION YEARS, said Death, apropos of nothing. DON'T TRY TO TELL ME THAT'S RIGHT.
'Yes, but people don't think about that,' said Susan. Somewhere there was a bed...
CORRECT. STARS EXPLODE, WORLDS COLLIDE, THERE's HARDLY ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE WHERE HUMANS CAN LIVE WITHOUT BEING FROZEN OR FRIED, AND YET YOU BELIEVE THAT A... A BED IS A NORMAL THING. IT IS THE MOST AMAZING TALENT.
'Talent?'
OH, YES. A VERY SPECIAL KIND OF STUPIDITY. YOU THINK THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS INSIDE YOUR HEADS.
'You make us sound mad,' said Susan. A nice warm bed...
NO. YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME? said Death, helping her up on to Binky, [the pale horse of Death.]
Noni
I thought this was appropriate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff5FoGtAbro
I'm going to have to move that we make it Official Policy that atheists are allowed to eat the last office donut, they are required to bogart that joint,
I've always suspected double-hitters of heresy, but now this? For those smoking Mother Nature, this is a bust!
Re: the 0.05 vs 0.08
Whereas there is undoubtedly some difference in the 0.05 - 0.08 range, the real question has to be whether lowering the BAC limit has any effect on those who are really high, like > 0.15.
As others have mentioned, there are lots of things that cause low levels of impairment that aren't prohibited (cell phones, changing the radio, etc). However, there aren't a lot of things that are comparable to falling down drunk in the level of impairment, and we should be working to stop them. Someone who is that drunk is not going to be stopped by changing the BAC limit to 0.05, are they?
No Pablo, but the goal may be to train the population to have zero drinks before driving, to eliminate the "preventable", non-alcoholic DUI mishaps.
Having grown up Catholic and gone to mass approximately 2,345,671 times, I have a very clear memory of Father O'Brien going through his little clean-up ritual at the altar - including drinking down the dregs of communion wine. No wonder they put the rectory within walking distance of the church.
Transubstantiation -- If it's REALLY TRUE, we could technically clone the "blood of Christ" and at least find out his blood type.
You gotta be a brainless moron to believe anyone has the power to change one substance into another. The catholic church never got out of the dark ages, its teachings are not only archaic but downright laughable. I hope most of us have advanced beyond caveman mentality and don't take seriously anything the RC Ultra-Superstitious religion teaches. Believing in the Tooth Fairy makes more sense.
It's a bigger problem for team ministeries in the UK, where one or two priests are in charge of multiple parishes. You have to have a communion each Sunday in each church, and the vicar has to drive between them - each time, having disposed of the host in the approved fashion.
As for the transubstantiation - well, if you're going to make a big thing of ritual cannibalism, you might as well go the whole hog. Hocus-pocus comes from hoc est corpus mea, after all. Symbolism always looks silly if you take it literally, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work.
But PZ, think of the implications!!!! What if the last woman was Denise O'Leary!!!
What, only now? In Austria it was done over 10 years ago, and it was one of the last countries in Europe to do that. It has meanwhile been lowered farther. Even at 5 permil...
Wait. Do you mean 0.08 and 0.05 % or 0.8 and 0.5 %?
So, even at 5 permil = 0.5 percent, the effects on reaction speed are easily measurable.
LOL!
Still does.
The eggcorns are multiplying like mad lately. :-o
Now that's a good description!
Bingo. St Thomas Aquinas was mentioned -- he's the guy who wrote the monumental reconciliation of Aristotelian philosophy and Christianity (...by bending and twisting both and occasionally just skipping over the former...).
The altar boys (and, in some dioeceses, girls) really are children. They aren't just called that.
Only if you get it intravenously, and even then large quantities would be required.
No. It changes when the priest does the transubstantiation, before anyone takes it.
No, because, as mentioned above, it's the Aristotelian inner essence that changes, not any quality of the wine. Without changing any of its qualities, the wine changes from belonging to one Platonic idea to belonging to another Platonic idea.
Was nice of Aquinas to try to reconcile religion and reason. It's just that some parts of Aristotelian philosophy aren't reason, but elaborate arguments from ignorance, personal incredulity, and so on.
Forgot to mention that you can get 1 permil = 0.1 percent from eating an apple.