that juice may not be the juice of the fruit depicted on the label. One must read the ingredients list closely to be sure of the package's content. Ingredients are listed in order of quantity. Your "100% Juice" cranberry juice may be mostly apple or grape juice.

Purists insist on, well, purity.

Not much.

Though it wasn't, still remarkably on point.

I love those.

Right!?

Literal or symbolic...that's always the question with transubstantiation, isn't it?

For it to occur, for real, the wine must contain alcohol and the bread must be leavened, too. Those are the rules, at least for one church body. And the consecration must be done just so, although changes have occurred there, too, from time to time.

Others disagree. Heck, others disagree on the entire thing.

That's what makes transubstantiation such a tasty topic.

Plus, it's simpler than talking about predestination. That topic is all complex and weird, really.

I'm allergic to wine, so I can never drink Christ's blood, because it would give me hives. I could eat his flesh, though.

What are they to do?

I can't drink Christ's blood, but I can eat his flesh. They can't eat Christ's flesh, but they can drink his blood. Does half a sacrament count? I have no idea.

Once the consecration has been done, you wouldn't be eating glutinous bread and wine. You'd be eating flesh and blood. That's assuming you believe as Roman Catholics do that the transubstantiation actually takes place, rather than symbolically.

It's the mystery of the Eucharist, see.

Apparently it's acceptable for celiacs to pass on eating Christ's flesh and to only drink his blood, and it's considered a valid Communion. I didn't find any references to alcohol allergy. My allergy must be pretty rare, because whenever I tell a doc I'm allergic to alcohol, they look surprised and say, "Really!" So, I have no idea if skipping Christ's blood and only eating his flesh counts. It probably does.

Another instance of an atheist defining theism. Can I expect no further argument when I define atheism?

just quantify it.

The situation is different. It has to do with religious privilege.

I expected as much.

Yet when theists define atheism, that provokes an angry response from some.

Again, what I expect.

So you know, most atheists were raised as theists, so they actually do know what it's like.

When you do it, you make it up and insist you are correct even when the people you are defining say you are incorrect, simultaneously you admonish others for doing the same then you do. The problem is the hypocrisy, which is in the Bible remember. Or is that one of the parts you consider "metaphorical"?

Do claims of privilege eliminate the need for keeping to the same standard as what you attack in theists?

I have read a few posts today wherein a non-theist claims the right to define what theism is.

You have truly outdone yourself this time, G-man.

Thus the error of confusing your very limited personal view with a view of the totality of religion.

I am not royalty. I do not use "we" or "us" to describe myself alone.

Or you decided to ignore it.

I'm not going off on some ass-backwards tangent on the validity of anecdotal evidence when no one here is claiming their experience is fucking definitive. Your petition to derail the conversation is hereby revoked. Please try again later.

If irony were a mineral this post would be a rich vein.

Or did you just up and forget what we were literally just talking about?

Where am I defining theism? I'm discussing the Bible and how much of it is taken literally. I realize every theist has their percentage. I'm happy to let them define it for themselves.

Well, when you wrote, in this actual post,:

Every time something in the Bible is pointed to as being hypocritical or ludicrous, you trot out the whine that theism is being unfairly defined. I guess that is all you can do when the Bible is indefensible. That and saying it's all metaphorical. Or at least some parts are.

But I must confess to wondering why you deny that you actually did define theism.

Where did I define theism? Here are two words in English. I'll let a third party define them so we know what we are talking about.

Theism
noun
1. belief in a god or gods

Define
verb
1. to state or set forth the meaning of (a word, phrase, etc)

Do you objecting to that definition of theism? Where have I said anything that differs from that definition?

My comments are usually just observations. I'm not writing a Bible, just commenting on the one a lot of theists believe contains some truth.