From: ripng@halls1.cc.monash.edu.au (PAUL NG)
Subject: Transubstantiation, Catholic ritual, Creation/Evolution, etc.
Organization: Halls of Residence, Monash University 
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 15:28:36 GMT

A few points about the following:
1.	Transubstantiation.
	Transubstantiation merely means that the Mass is not just a 
community-building exercise where "Christians" come together and have a good 
time, sing songs, read from some long-dead book, chat amongst themselves, 
and go home feeling happy.	
	Transubstantiation is one of series of facts indicating that Christ 
is among us, He invited us to meet together, and we Worship Him when we come 
to Mass.  It is a lot more than a community-building exercise.  When 
Christians come together they come together to celebrate God, not just their 
fellow human beings.  That is why when we take communion, the bread and 
wine "become" the body and blood of Christ, the bread is still bread (you 
can chew it and not damage Christ's body in any way, for example) and the 
wine is still wine (its taste and smell should make that clear, as opposed 
to human blood) but in much the same way as when an art critic calls a white 
dot on a white canvas "art", or a carpenter calls a flat piece of wood 
mounted on four wooden stakes a "table", the bread and wine become "FOR US [
those gathered in His name for the Mass]"...the body and blood of Christ.  
It isn't and doesn't become the body and blood of Christ if you don't 
believe in Christ.  The fact that this is "Aristotelian" is irrelevant; the 
point is, it makes sense.  To me, anyway.  There are quite a few biblical 
statements in support of Transubstantiation, the most famous of which is 
that which is quoted everytime at Communion - Jesus' speech to his disciples 
at the last supper.  I don't have a bible in front of me right now but it's 
in there some where.         

2.	Regarding Catholic ritual, the point is the belief that lies behind 
the ritual.  Doing the ritual isn't going to change one thing if it isn't 
accompanied by a belief in God the Son and the Holy Spirit.  I try to eat 
fish on Fridays, for instance.  That's my way of reminding myself (and any 
fellow Christians who happen to notice) of the entire teaching of the 
Church.  But if I just happen to pick beef for dinner one Friday, or if my 
Catholic friends choose to have pork, that's not going to consign us all to 
eternal Hell and Damnation.  My God is a lot bigger than that.  The ritual 
helps, but it's not the be-all and end-all of things.  Lots of mafia 
gangsters go for the ritual, but that's not to say that they are good 
Catholics.  They merely look good.  If they kill on a Saturday and take 
communion on a Sunday that's not going to save them unless they feel truly 
remorseful and regret the murder the previous day.  In the end "there is 
only one lawgiver and one judge" (one of Paul's letters or Hebrews, can't 
remember now) and He will know.

3.	I think those who say flatly that you can't believe in the 
scientific view of Evolution and still call yourself a Christian are too 
quick to pass judgement on their fellow human beings and too quick to 
condemn.  Note there are plenty of passages in the New Testament in 
effect warning Christians to be real careful and to double-check before they 
go round claiming that true Christians must accept their view and only their 
view, of Christianity.  Now the point about Genesis is this; if you take it 
literally there will be a massive inconsistency between Chapters 1 and 2.  
Mankind was created early in the sequence in Chapter 2, as opposed to 
Chapter 1 where Mankind was created last.  Unless you want to say God was (
can be) inconsistent (I disagree with that) Genesis cannot be interpreted 
literally.  Genesis was put into the Bible for a different, bigger 
purpose than to give a simple historical blow-by-blow account of the 
creation of the world.  It was put in, among other things, to show Mankind's 
place in His universe - as boss, next to God.  EVEN if Genesis could be 
interpreted literally, there are varying interpretations.  Some say 100,000 
days (or was it 10,000 days?) equal one "day" in Genesis, some say (see the 
book of Daniel) one "day" really means one year (one prophetic day).  Much 
better, I feel, to simply accept that God was more than just a 
history teacher.	
	Now, the stuff about Science never being right, and scientific 
theories being merely useful, as opposed to "right" in some absolute sense, 
is absolutely correct.  Any good scientist without an ego will tell you 
that.  We can never be 100% sure that evolution happened the 
way it did.  Despite denials from the field, let's face it, palaeontology 
and related fields like Biology involve a lot more guesswork (educated 
guesswork, but guesswork, nonetheless) than say, Physics.  You can put your 
finger into a live power outlet and test the theory of electricity, but you 
can't put your finger to a rock and expect a dinosaur to jump out at you.  
And even Physicists are constantly revising their theories.  And that's the 
reason why there have been famous (or infamous) mistakes made in the past.  
The Piltdown man, for example.  Or what turned out later to be a 
hipbone was initially thought to belong to the neck, or extinct species 
were put into all the wrong evolutionary timelines and families.  
	I can accept that evolution may have happened.  Given the weight of 
evidence available in the rocks, I can say that evolution probably happened, 
though I wouldn't place any bets on exactly -how- it happened, ie. 
specifics.  I will never (and I submit if you're a good scientist you won't 
either) say that evolution absolutely definitely happened, because to a 
scientist nothing is absolute and definite, merely useful at the given time 
for a given purpose.  So for example, Newton's laws are useful today - to a 
certain degree and for certain purposes.  After that you must move to 
Einstein.  I will say as a certainty that howsoever the world was created, 
it wasn't created precisely to the letter as set out in the first few 
chapters of Genesis, because I don't think God meant Genesis to be 
interpreted that way and I don't think He meant it to be a history lesson.
	What I object to is the attempt to teach Creationism as a 
science, as a counter-theory to Evolution.  If you want to teach it as a 
science then you should be prepared to put it to scientific scrutiny.  I 
mean -real- scientific analysis not pseudo-scientific analysis (like 
astrology, which some people claim is a science but which I say is 
poppycock).  	
	I've had a look at the so-called "scientific" evidence put in front 
of me in support of Creationism	as opposed to Evolution, and frankly, I've 
seen it being demolished by mere undergrads in Geography and Biology, and 
as a logician (I study law) I don't think the evidence is very strong at 
all.  
	Basically my view is that Genesis is not to be proven or disproven 
scientifically.   Let's say you can prove Genesis false from the viewpoint 
of evolution.  So what?  That doesn't reduce its validity as a book in the 
Bible, as a source of useful Christian teaching.  To me, if evolution 
happened, and I say it probably happened, then it was 
like everything else, divinely inspired.  Like one Catholic priest said, if 
you ask me how the Big Bang came about, I'll say God caused it to come 
about.   The whole purpose of the book is NOT to give a literally-worded  
history lesson.  IF it was, then incest was really common in the early days 
because brothers must have slept with sisters all the time, and first 
cousins must have done the same, and we are all therefore descended from 
brothers and sisters who copulated with each other.  Why the abhorrence for 
incest today?  More importantly perhaps, why the abhorrence for incest in 
all "later" (theologically speaking) books of the bible, for instance those 
in the Old Testament handing down specific laws to the Jews on sex (either 
Leviticus or Deuteronomy or both, can't remember now)?  
	The scientific theory of Evolution is useful today.  It's useful in 
Genetics, for example, and it's useful in Taxonomy, of course it is a part 
of, and useful for, the subject of Biology generally.  Okay.  But that's NOT 
quite the same, in any sense, as saying that God doesn't exist, or that 
Genesis is useless, or that God lied to us about Creation, or that God didn'
t create the universe.  Those two concepts (God and Evolution) are not 
mutually exclusive.  Creationism, in the most popular sense of that word ie. 
a literal word-for-word interpretation of the first few chapters of Genesis 
taken as a history lesson, is mutually exclusive to Evolution, and I don't 
believe in Creationism so-called.

God Bless.