You mean Transubstantiation? Sorry, won’t work. That’s Aristotelean substance we are talking here, the real substance beyond what your senses can feel. Bread, Wine, Flesh, Water - that’s just base matter. God’s essence isn’t that crude.
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Members of such sects tend to get violently cranky when their claims are tested.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/08/its-a-goddamned-cracker/
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You know, I think I’m going with this article here.
Also, the claims you and that a*hole image aren’t even the ones the catholic church makes.
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I’m surprised that this reading of Jesus is presented as something new. Many Christians are totally aware of most of this (though the reading of “pais” = homosexual is new to me). It’s true that most of his fandom is falling short of living in his footsteps, but it’s wrong to assume that the American style of anti-Jesus “Christians” are the standard. American Christianity is really weird. At least the archconservative branches; Obama’s kind of Christianity seems very reasonable and a lot more honest.
That is really, from a Christian perspective, the core of the problem here. They create their own image of God, which can be seen as a form of idolatry. American right-wing Christianity seems like a form of Christianity without Jesus. They need to ignore nearly everything Jesus himself said.
What baffles me even more is when some of them claim to love the ideology of Ayn Rand, arguably the most anti-Christian writer in recent history. Everything she wrote goes directly against what Jesus said.
Lately I’ve been calling this a Christianity without Christ.
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Jesus may have emphasized that partially because some people expected him to bring a political revolution and free the people from the Romans. Jesus pointed out he was going to do none of those things, but instead came to bring a spiritual revolution to free them from their sins.
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I’m happy to agree that pinching a prop from a religious ceremony is an obnoxious act. And mocking other folk’s ceremonial practices is generally a dickish thing to do, absent context.
OTOH, I’m in agreement with PZ that the death threats that Cook got in response were batshit crazy and thoroughly worthy of both condemnation and mockery.
I’m also of the view that the Catholic clergy’s well-established position as an international conspiracy of child rapists has forfeited them any respect they may once have been due, and rendered continuing membership of such an organisation highly problematic for the laity.
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Shroud of Turin baby!
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Ah, so all those fasting Muslims are endorsing terrorism and I can safely chuck a bottle of water in front of them, Thanks for letting me know.
If you want to get that literal, I believe He is also described as having female parts, like a womb or a bosom. Imposing human anatomy on God is a bit silly.
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Do mainstream Muslims endorse terrorism? No.
Do mainstream Catholics support an organisation that continues to shield and assist child rapists? Yes.
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To slightly expand: religions lose their exception from mockery the second that they start trying to enforce their dogma on non-believers, or start causing harm to non-consenting victims.
Would an American atheist disrupting an Islamic ceremony in New York be a dick? Yes; they’re reinforcing the existing structure of oppression, and upsetting folks who probably aren’t hurting anyone.
Would a Saudi atheist disrupting an Islamic ceremony in Riyadh be a dick? No, they’d be a hero, albeit probably a short-lived one. They’d be resisting the existing structure of oppression, and upsetting folks who very much are hurting people.
It’s important to differentiate the laity from the overarching power structure, but a blanket prohibition on critique of religion gives birth to monsters.
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absent enough context, and statements mocking ceremonial practices becomes uncomfortably ambiguous…
Wait, what? Holding a cracker hostage is now a hate crime?
One would have needed only materials already present; the other would have required making something from nothing. So more convincing as a miracle. Of course, one has to accept the backstory, since there are alternative ways that material could have gotten in there.
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nailed it 
The Romans also tolerated a lot of religions. Sometimes they absorbed them by finding an equivalent god in the Roman pantheon - that’s what happened for most of the Hellenic gods. Sometimes you had a low-profile cult such as that of Mithras, which wasn’t really Roman, but appealed to a small audience because it was secret. There was also a low-level belief in witches, curses, luck and magic. Sometimes they imposed their divine imperial cult too heavily, as they did in Britain, which caused the locals to rebel, but that reads as poor local management, rather than true theocracy.
The persecution of the Christians is not characteristic, and the later conversion of the Roman Empire to the Christian God shows that Christianity did pose a real threat to the status quo. maybe some Roman scholar can provide a better summary…
I remember some historian suggesting that if the Romans had got to North America, they would have got on well with the Native Americans, and recognised their gods and spirits, and found links with the Roman pantheon.
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I’m sure there are other ways to do it too.
If only we knew where it was now.
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Which meant absolutely nothing to the Romans (and still doesn’t mean much to those outside Christianity right now). It did not challenge their power or preach insurrection like the contemporary zealots did.
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Saturn, apparently.
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Easy. Catholicism.
And if drinking blood and worshipping a zombie isn’t cool, I don’t know what is.
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