Do American fundamentalists even take the eucharist seriously?

I'm not the kind of skeptic atheist who constantly and aggressively attacks religion, particularly Christianity, just for the sake of it. I like to consider myself more reasonable, academic and rational than that. And that means being able to analyze religion, such as Christianity, on its own terms, from its own perspective. Even if I don't believe it, I still consider myself capable of understanding its beliefs and tenets, and kind of putting myself in the shoes of a serious educated Christian, and examine the religion from a Christian perspective. It's the same kind of thing as approaching the Bible seriously and academically as a work of historic literature and a source of human history and culture, even if you don't believe any of the supernatural (nor most of the historical) claims made in it.

In this case I would like to momentarily put my "Christian hat" on, and examine one of the most fundamental tenets of Christianity, and that would be the sacrament of the Eucharist, ie. Holy Communion.

There are literally tens of thousands of denominations of Christianity with wildly different interpretations of their religion, but one thing that the vast majority of them (with perhaps only the exception of a few extremely small and fringe cults) agree with are the two most fundamental sacraments: Baptism and Eucharist. Some denominations believe in more sacraments (for example Catholicism has seven), but most of them agree at least on these two. They could be considered the two most important and fundamental sacraments of Christianity as a whole, spanning the vast majority of denominations.

Of course that doesn't mean that all denominations believe the same things about the sacraments themselves.

More particularly, Catholicism believes something about the Eucharist that the vast majority of other denominations do not. Particularly, the Catholic catechism believes in the doctrine of "transubstantiation", which means that when the priest blesses the bread and wine used in the Holy Communion, they become literally the body and blood of Christ. Not figuratively, not symbolically, but literally.

(This does not mean, even according to Catholic doctrine, that the physical matter, the atoms and molecules, that the bread and wine consists of changes. The molecular structure remains the same, the composition remains the same, the taste and physical properties remain the same, but the nature of the bread and the wine is literally changed at a metaphysical level. Again, not figuratively or symbolically, but literally. One could say that the bread and the wine become the body and blood of Christ by definition, in the literal sense. In the eyes of God, and by God's divine intervention, the bread and wine are the literal physical body and blood of Christ, even if the molecules themselves don't change.)

Most other denominations, even the major ones, do not agree with this. Their interpretation is that Jesus was being metaphorical, and that the bread and wine are considered his body and blood in the symbolic sense, not the literal sense. (In the same way that Jesus being "the Lamb of God" is a metaphor and does not mean that Jesus was a literal sheep, the bread and wine are metaphorically, not literally, his body and blood.) In God's eyes it's the symbolic gesture that matters.

Even then, most denominations still consider the Eucharist a sacred event, a sacred act to be performed and approached with the utmost respect, one of the holiest rituals that Christians engage in, an act established and commanded by God's Son himself, as an act of grace and remembrance.

Some denominations, in fact, consider it so holy and sacred that their members only participate in it once, just like is the case with baptism. Indeed, in the same way as baptism is a one-time event symbolizing the person being "reborn" into Christianity, the Holy Communion is considered a similar one-time event, an act of unification with Jesus, the Savior.

Other denominations do not restrict it to be a one-time event, but still consider it so sacred and holy that it's restricted to the major holidays, sometimes even just once a year (obviously to the Passover, which is when Jesus himself established it.) A common doctrine in these denominations is that doing it too often trivializes the act, makes it more mundane and common, and mars its sacred holy quality.

Yet, other denominations, even major ones (including Catholicism) do not have such restrictions and very typically organize Holy Communion at least weekly (usually on Sundays, or Saturdays in the case of some of them), sometimes even more than once a week.

The Bible itself does not mention any restrictions, not even in passing, so in that sense this is not directly forbidden. However, from a Christian perspective one cannot help but to consider that those denominations have a point who posit that organizing it too often devalues it and makes it more mundane and trivial, even though it's supposed to be one of the most sacred and holiest acts of all of Christianity, a sacrament that should be approached with utmost respect and veneration, not something trivial done weekly or even more often.

Then we have some certain fundamentalist Christian denominations, especially some of those most prevalent in the United States.

In the same way as the vast majority of denominations agree on the two sacraments, most of them also agree that the drink used during the Eucharist should be wine, because that's what Jesus used. The bread should be actual bread, not something else, and the wine should be wine, not something else.

Not these certain fundamentalist Christian denominations. You see, some of them teach that alcohol is one of the greatest sins in existence, and preach 100% absolutism. Not a single drop of alcohol, ever, under any circumstance. They have an absolute hard-core stance on this, in the same way as they have towards extramarital sex: Absolutely no alcohol, ever, period, end of discussion. Alcohol is evil and Christians must avoid it like the plague.

There are a few Christian denominations that have similar attitudes towards alcohol, but make an exception with the Eucharist (usually the only exception they make). Not these certain fundamentalist denominations, though. To them, even the Eucharist is not an exception: No alcohol ever, period!

So they substitute it with non-alcoholic grape juice. In fact, most of these denominations outright teach that Jesus himself used non-fermented grape juice during the Last Supper (and anywhere else in the Bible where "wine" is mentioned as being used by believers). They claim that the word used for "wine" in the Bible means non-alcoholic grape juice. All biblical scholars, experts on the languages and culture of the time, and Jewish scholars and rabbis disagree on this, but these fundamentalist denominations don't care. They ignore all that disagreement and assert that their interpretation is the only correct one.

Moreover, and most egregiously, their entire approach to Holy Communion is the exact opposite to those denominations who restrict it to just once a year (or even once per lifetime): In many of these denominations the Eucharist is exactly what those other denominations don't want it to be: It's trivial, it's common, it's mostly performative, it's approached extremely lightly, often several times a week. To them it's like just a small quick prayer or blessing a meal. Something to be done routinely and casually, without much thought or veneration.

In fact, and I kid you not, there are some denominations in the United States where the entire Eucharist has been literally industrialized. I'm not exaggerating. This is a real product that's industrially produced and sold there:

What is it? I'm not even making it up: It's an industrially produced plastic cup with a lid that contains a bit of grape juice and a piece of bread under the lid. This is literally something that some of those American fundamentalist Christian denominations are using for the Eucharist. You open the lid, eat the small piece of bread, and drink the grape juice. That's your "Holy Communion".

There are ex-members who consider this a complete mockery of the holy sacrament, even to the point of being sacrilegious. And it's hard to disagree with them, even from a secular academic perspective.

If we keep our "Christian hat" on for a bit longer, it does indeed feel like completely ridiculous. One of the most important, most sacred, holiest, most important rituals of the entire religion, reduced to an industrialized product, fabricated in some factory somewhere and sold as a commercial product, to be casually consumed at a moment's notice.

One would think that if fundamentalist Christians truly believe in their Holy Scriptures and their teachings, they would not denigrate one of their holiest rituals, established by Jesus himself, like this. It's a complete travesty.

One of the strangest instincts of "rapture" believers

From time to time the same age-old story happens once again: Some preacher or whoever once again predicts that the famous "rapture" will happen in such-and-such date, he gets a varying amount of followers who totally believe him, then the date arrives and nothing happens. No rapture.

The reactions to the inevitable failure vary. In almost every single case, with only very few exceptions, the preacher will then go with the classic excuse of "oops, I actually got the date wrong, in fact it will happen in such-and-such date instead", and only a fraction of his former believers will go with it. The others will be disappointed from the first time and move on.

There is, however, one particular reaction that's common to some of those believers (before the eventual predicted date arrives) which is rather incomprehensible: When they are utterly convinced that the "rapture" is arriving in a few months or weeks, and thus the end of the world, they go ahead and sell their property.

In one recent example some man sold his work truck because he believed in such a rapture prediction, and after the date arrived and went without incident, he reported how he was now out of job because he had sold his truck and lost his job.

What he didn't explain (and what pretty much none of the people doing similar things) is why he sold his property away. What for?

This seems to be a strange instinct among some of these believers: When they think they won't be needing their property anymore, they will sell it. Often not even just give it away, but sell it.

They never seem to stop to think: "Why? What for?"

They seriously believe that they won't have any use for the property because the end of the world is coming (and depending on the branch of Christianity, essentially Hell on Earth for the people left behind). So why would they think that somebody else would have a use for that property either? Why sell it?

Maybe the idea is that they will sell all their property and use the money to go on a lavish vacation before the end? Except that that doesn't sound logical either: These are usually extremely fundamentalist Christians who believe that engaging in such self-indulgence, particularly that soon before the second coming of Christ, is sinful. They strongly believe they should be spending that time praying, studying the Bible and preaching to others, not engaging in self-indulgence and sinful behavior.

Maybe they think that selling off all of their property shows commitment? That it's some kind of act of faith? That it's showing to God how strongly they believe in him and that he is going to rapture them?

If that's so, one could ask: Are you so insecure in your faith that you need to show it off to God, to make sure that he doesn't leave you behind? (Also: If that's so, why sell your property? What exactly do you need the money for? Do you think you are taking the money with you to Heaven?) 

God's (alleged) omnipotency raises a lot of questions

Most Christians really love their "omni" words when describing God: Omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omniwhatever... Yet, at the same time they very rarely if ever stop to think how this clashes with a lot of the Biblical narrative.

In a lot of cases when God acts in a non-omnipotent non-omniscient manner in the biblical stories, the go-to excuse by many Christians is the typical "free will" argument or, sometimes, that God is teaching humanity some kind of lesson. However, in many cases even those excuses don't really hold up to scrutiny.

As an example, why exactly did an omnipotent God, who could have just willed Adam into existence out of absolutely nothing, have to use dust (or mud depending on the translation) to create him? Why did he create him out of dust rather than just willing him into existence? To be poetic about it?

In the story, when Adam was alone in Eden, God noticed that he was feeling lonely, so he brought animals (which he also created from the ground for an even more inexplicable reason, according to the text) to him to keep him company. Yet, Adam was still feeling lonely, so according to the story God took one of his ribs and created a woman as a companion.

If this were interpreted as highly poetic and metaphorical, then fine. And in fact, a few Christian denominations actually do exactly that. However, the vast majority of denominations officially declare the story to be literally true and exactly what happened, to the letter.

So an omniscient God didn't predict from the get-go that his creation would feel lonely and give him a companion from the very start? And the same omniscient God didn't predict that animals wouldn't be enough for this? Only after a bit of trial and error he came up with such a wild idea as creating a second person to keep him company? The omniscient omnipotent creator of the universe who knows everything?

And how did he create this second person? Did he create her out of nothing, as he could have (according to the Christian view that he is absolutely omnipotent and can do whatever he wants)? Did he create her out of the dust of the ground, like he did with Adam and all the animals, according to the story? Nope, for some inexplicable reason he had to take a rib out of Adam and create the other person out of it? Why?

Again, if this were a highly figurative metaphor not to be interpreted literally, then fine, but the majority of Christianity interprets it literally and claims that this is exactly what happened. And no "free will" argument makes sense here.

By far the most common interpretation of the Bible is that only Adam and Eve were created, the entirety of the rest of humanity are their descendants. And the vast majority of Christianity believes this as being literally the case, not just metaphorically. Even putting aside the question of incest, there's the question of genetic degradation, which happens extremely fast if siblings procreate. Thus, Christian apologists have needed to come up with wild (and extremely unscientific) theories about how genetic degradation didn't happen in the beginning somehow.

Why not just as well, since the story remains completely silent about it and doesn't make statements one way or the other, interpret it such that God created an entire population of humans from dirt, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people at once? There's nothing in the narrative that would contradict this (and, in fact, the narrative, even if we took it literally, indirectly supports this, as Cain and Abel were clearly in a world that was already so populated that Cain could go ahead and not only find a wife but moreover found an entire city.)

And, of course, the flood narrative also raises similar questions. If God wanted to destroy humanity and start over (let's just skip discussing about how an omnipotent omniscient God couldn't do it right the first time), why not just wish them out of existence? Why go through the trouble of the physically impossible boat carrying a physically impossible amount of animals, floating on a physically impossible amount of water for a year? Why would an omnipotent God need to go through all this charade?

If we went though the Bible, the list of such incoherent details would be enormous.

And it all stems from that one single claim that God is "omnipotent" and can do anything he wants without any limits whatsoever. 

One of the most braindead arguments (some) apologists present

Tim Allen, the famous actor, once said this in an interview:

"My older daughter is an atheist, and I said, well, philosophically there's an irony there too, because atheists don't believe in God. Well, there has to be a God to not believe in."

Some other Christian apologists sometimes present, in essence, this same argument, although they often don't say it so succinctly and in such a distilled manner, and instead try to dress up and masquerade it in a big amount of fancy words and complex arguments.

The distilled version that Tim Allen spouted immediately reveals the main problem with it: The fact that you could use the same argument to argue for the existence of anything. And that includes other non-Christian gods.

"You don't believe in Shiva? Well, there has to be a Shiva to not believe in."

"You don't believe in Allah? Well, there has to be an Allah to not believe in."

"You don't believe in magic unicorns? Well, there have to be magic unicorns to not believe in."

"You don't believe in bigfoot?" Well, there has to be a bigfoot to not believe in."

The funny thing is that Tim Allen clearly said it as if it was a big "gotcha!" moment for his daughter (and for all the atheists watching) that shut her up so effectively that she had no response.

Yeah, sure, whatever you say, Tim. 

The conversion of Alex O'Connor is a bit incomprehensible

Alex O'Connor was a quite long time atheist and skeptic who was active on YouTube, commenting and debating on the topic of religion, atheism and skepticism.

He has always been characterized as being extraordinarily calm, understanding and eloquent, always approaching these topics and these debates respectfully and in good faith, always trying to fully understand and acknowledge what the opposing arguments are, and what the other person in a debate is saying, without any judgment, without any distortions, without any unjustified assumptions, without any straw-manning, always understanding and acknowledging the argument, and giving a calm rational reasonable full response to it. I don't remember him ever saying anything belittling, disparaging, mocking or insulting to anybody, and always approached every person in an extremely respectful and amicable manner, and in good faith.

In other words, he always was pretty much the nicest skeptic debater out there. Someone who wanted to discuss these topics in a warm approachable manner with zero hostility or animosity, avoiding at all costs the other person feeling insulted, belittled or disrespected.

He became such a notorious "friendly skeptic" that he even got to have live debates with several big-name Christian apologists, like William Lane Craig.

Some time ago, however, for one reason or another he stopped being an atheist and became a deist, perhaps even an outright theist (although not a Christian.)

I honestly cannot comprehend why.

You can see a video where he explains a few of the most compelling arguments for the existence of God (or at least some kind of "god") here.

Not to belittle him, but his number one argument is not rational. Or, perhaps more precisely, he is jumping to a completely unjustified, and thus irrational, conclusion from the argument.

His number one argument is a form of "first cause" argument, although slightly different: Rather than arguing that the universe must have a "first cause" for its existence, he does so in another axis: He argues that every single thing is dependent on something else, usually a more fundamental thing. Something having the properties it does is caused by something more fundamental allowing it to have those properties. And that more fundamental phenomenon itself will have an even more fundamental underlying cause allowing it to exist, and so on. If we follow this chain all the way down we must inevitably end up in the most fundamental phenomenon that allows everything to be like it is, that allows everything to exist.

Even putting aside the subsequent conclusions for a bit, that notion is in itself not something that can be taken for granted. One of its biggest flaws is that it assumes one single fundamental phenomenon that allows everything in the universe to exist and be like it is. He dismisses the possibility of there being more than one independent phenomena, ie. that don't depend on each other, being at the "bottom" of this vertical causal chain, perhaps allowing separate things to exist as they are, or doing so for the same things in conjunction.

It also disregards the possibility of mutual dependence of two or more of these "most fundamental" phenomena. In other words, phenomenon A depends on phenomenon B, and vice-versa, and they together then allow everything else to exist.

Anyway, that's just a side point, not the main objection I have. The main objection is, rather obviously, that from "there must be a most-fundamental cause for everything to exist as it does" to "that something is (some kind of) God".

It's that jump in logic that I categorically do not accept, and it genuinely baffles my mind why he does.

Even if there is some "most-fundamental cause" that allows everything to exist as it is, there is no reason or justification to apply the label of "God" to it. That's because that name (with or without a capital G) carries a huge amount of assumptions and baggage with it, and labeling something unknown with it automatically applies all those assumptions and baggage to that unknown.

This "most fundamental cause", if one exists, could well be just a completely mindless natural phenomenon, just like electric charge or gravity.

In other words, it's disingenuous to apply the label of "God" to such an unknown. It is pretty much a perfect example of an argumentum ad ignorantiam (or, perhaps a bit more precisely, "assigning characteristics to an unknown (in a completely unjustified manner)".)

Outright becoming a theist, or even just a deist, because of this is irrational. Starting to believe in some kind of "higher power" that some religions (like Christianity) get at least half-right (as he states in the video), is completely unjustified. It's just not rational nor reasonable. You are assigning theistic characteristics to something we know nothing about.

And that's assuming that this "most fundamental cause" even exists in the first place, which in itself is not a self-evident fact.

I genuinely have a hard time understanding how a skeptic of the caliber of Alex O'Connor cannot comprehend this.

(I really have to wonder if the King of Sophistry himself, ie. William Lane Craig, somehow managed to mess up his thinking. Advanced sophistry can be a powerful tool against the unwary. Could it possibly be that, somewhat ironically, Alex was being a bit too "nice" and giving WLC's arguments a bit too much thought and respect, and this somehow messed up his thinking to the point of becoming irrational?)

The idea of Jesus being punished on your behalf is completely asinine

One of the core tenets and talking points of (most of) Christianity is that Jesus became a human and was punished on your behalf, for your sins. That he carried the burden, he received the punishment so that you could be saved. That instead of you being punished for your sins, he took it on himself instead, to save you from eternal damnation, the consequence of sin.

This is often depicted as a form of "sacrificing oneself to save others", like if Jesus did the ultimate sacrifice to give humanity the opportunity to be saved from certain damnation. The ultimate form of altruism, the ultimate form of self-sacrifice in order to help others.

However, this entire idea is not just a completely perverse form of "justice", it's outright asinine.

When we get down to it, as many of these Christian apologists and preachers explain it, it's like a weird form of "karma": It's as if every crime, every evil deed, has to be "counter-balanced" with a corresponding punishment.

Because you have sinned, there has to be some punishment. Apparently it's just how it is. Apparently it's just not possible to forgive and forget your sins, your evil deeds: They must be compensated with punishment.

Ok, fine: Every crime, every evil deed, requires a punishment. Perhaps a bit harsh (because the punishment is not proportional to the severity of the crime), but it makes sense. But that's not the egregious part about it. Apparently, it doesn't matter who that punishment is done to, as long as there is some punishment. Apparently it doesn't matter if the punishment is done to a completely innocent third-party who was in no way involved in your crimes: As long as someone is punished for your crimes, that's enough.

They literally talk as if crimes go to one container, and the punishments for those crimes go to another, and the delicate balance between the two has to always be maintained. And punishments don't need to be just and fair: As long as the punishment is done, doesn't matter who it's done to, that counts.

Thus, innocent people being punished for the crimes of the guilty brings balance to the system and absolves the guilty.

Rather obviously this is a completely perverted form of justice. But worse than that, it indeed seems to allude to some form of "karma", where evil deeds accumulate and "punishment" must be done to counter-balance them. Which makes no sense.

And the funny thing is that this is, from a logical point of view, completely unnecessary: The belief that "if you truly repent for your sins, truly feel regret for them, and you truly make a complete 180 and decide on not doing anything like that anymore, God will forgive you and absolve you from your crimes" would be enough and completely logical. The part where God's Son needs to come to Earth as a human and be punished for your crimes in order to make this deal possible could be completely skipped and removed from the formula, and it would only make the entire thing more logical, not less. Sure, there might still be some discussion to be had about what kind of justice system this is, but at least the most egregious part of it would have been removed, ie. the part where there just has to be a punishment and, most egregiously, an innocent person can be punished on your behalf.

Be careful with "shotgun" and "rapid-fire" arguments

Oftentimes when a skeptic has a discussion with someone, not even necessarily a Christian / religious person, but also for example with a conspiracy theorist, that other person may engage in "shotgun argumentation" and "rapid-fire argumentation", and this is something that many skeptics fail to stop, even though they really should.

"Shotgun argumentation" is when tons and tons of tiny claims are presented all at once, in rapid succession, defending or attacking some position. There are two main reasons for such a tactic:

1. Just the sheer amount of arguments may make the claims more credible. After all, if only two or three arguments are presented, then that might not convince many people, but present twenty or thirty, and suddenly you have a much weightier argument! After all, there's an "overwhelming amount" of arguments and "evidence" for the position, so clearly there's something legit going on.
2. The other distinct advantage of this tactic is that when you present dozens and dozens of arguments, the chances that the skeptic will not have a proper answer to at least one of them increases dramatically. Thus, you can present argument after argument after argument, rapidly moving from one to the next (ie. "rapid-fire argumentation"), and immediately when you arrive at one that the skeptic has no immediate good answer for you can immediately jump to the opportunity: "See? You have no answer! I win!"

When skeptics engage in conversation with such religious people or conspiracy theorists, they should really stop that kind of argumentation on its tracks.

If the other person just starts making argument after argument after argument in quick succession, by the third or fourth one, when it has become clear that he is just going to spout a flood of dozens of such arguments, the skeptic should just stop it: "Wait, wait. Instead of doing this whole shotgun-argumentation thingie, how about we discuss one argument at a time? Just present me with one argument and we can discuss it."

The other, closely related type of argumentation is one where the other person does indeed present an argument, allow the skeptic to answer it... but then immediately moves to the next argument without even acknowledging the answer. The goal is simple: Go through argument after argument until he stumbles across one that the skeptic has no good answer to, and then declare victory.

As a skeptic, don't just allow that to happen: After you have properly answered the very first argument, if the other person immediately jumps to another, don't allow him. "Wait, before we move to something else, do you accept my answer or do you have some objection to it? If you don't accept my answer, what is the problem in it?" Just don't simply allow the other person to move on until he has either acknowledged the validity of your answer, or clearly demonstrated that he is figuratively putting his fingers in his ears and doesn't want to even listen to nor acknowledge any answers.

In some cases you may even be able to flip the entire situation on its head this way. In other words, rather than you being overwhelmed by a barrage of arguments and getting stumped by one of them, it may well be the believer / conspiracy theorist who gets stumped because he is just unable to acknowledge the validity of your answers, and you are not letting him proceed without doing that, or presenting a valid response. The rapid-fire shotgun argumentation tactic doesn't work if you don't allow it.