Topic awaiting preservation: The existence of God.... (Page 2 of 5)

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If that indeed happened

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If that indeed happened, things change.

Having never seen the slightest bit of reason to even truly *suggest* that it might have happened (other than a story saying that it did..........), that is far too big an "if" to even begin to speculate on.

Of course we've been through many conversations here reagarding that story, so I won't start all over with it now...

Given what we know these days about modern medicine, it would not surprise me if Jesus did appear to "rise from the dead" - someone in a comatose condition in those times would appear for all intents and purposes to be dead. That he might awake, and then suffer a relapse and then die in his weakened condition would not be all that surprising, considering the nature of the wounds that he had and the conditions that he suffered.

Again, I would be cautious against assuming that a supernatural agent was at work, when a natural explaination would better fit the situation.

We have been over this before and we can reference those conversations. Suffice it to say here that I think the story saying that it did happen has tremendous merit. WS, what one has to do is take the theory you just offered and walk it through the facts as we know them to see if it makes sense.

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(Edited by Bugimus on 03-04-2005 21:40)

What facts?

To the best of my knowledge, the only source forthat yarn is the highly questionable bible.

Hell, you and jade can't even agree on the interpretation of what is essentially the same book.

There is no rational reason to believe in the resurrection story whatsoever and as with the entire bible, no factual support has been put forward.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)

I think you're over generalizing, Ehtheist. There are plenty of facts that we know about the bible with respect to the people and historical context in which it was written. I'm not talking about the "fact" of the resurrection per se. I'm talking about who wrote the books, when and many of the circumstances surrounding the events described.

Jade and I do not disagree nearly as much as you may think about what the actual New Testament has to say. Where she and I part company is whether the edicts of the RC church magisterium have co-authority with scripture. Regarding the death, burial and resurrection (DBR) of Christ, I think you will find she and I very much on the same page.

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I'll agree there are plenty of things in the bible that can be said to be 'fact' but the vast majority are 'incidentals'.

The gospels are very far from containing anything that can be called fact (perhaps a mention of a name here or there that can be somewhat verified....).

So we don't end up writing all the things we already have on this topic... please to be referencing this thread that I just preserved: Paul Harvey Passion review

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Ye gads! What an apalling bit of self-serving crap that was. Harvey, as an ordained minister, cannot be expected to give a very unbiased report on his lord and master.

I don't think I over-generalize at all Bug. The fact the bible may make mention of some historical figures does not lend any authentication to the myths of which the bible is composed.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)

DOH! You weren't supposed to read Paul Harvey's review. About midway down the thread, you will see the conversation address the historical aspects of the New Testament, both for and against. Take another look and I think it will really address what the last few posts have been about.

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Well I wasted a lot of time reading that whole boring thread and I don't see what you claim is there.

Besides, you can't prove the authenticity of the bible by quoting the bible.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)

Bugs, "rising from the dead" - most native peoples have a special status for someone who has died, and then returned to life. And even these days, people actually die medically and return.

So "rising from the dead" in and of itself is not all that unusual - and certainly would not be a convincing piece of evidence to prove that god exists - in fact, I just don't see a relation here.

Death is just one more natural occurance in Nature.

But being crucified by the Roman legions is hardly a natural occurrence Huge difference there.

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Apparently it was a common practice of the times, sufficient so for it to be a natural consequence of pissing off the Romans.

We no more know how many of the crucified may have later awakened and survived their injuries, than we know for certain that there was a xist or that he was crucified or that he was wounded as described.

It is a damn good story and if I were writing it I would throw in the typical punishment of the day for my mythical hero to suffer...especially If I were planning to later have him 'rise'...perhaps he had a yeast infection?

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)

The existence of Jesus, the man, simply isn't questioned anymore by anyone who is familiar with the period of history in question. The debate has shifted from whether the NT is historically reliable to whether or not it's more extraordinary claims are true.

I fully acknowledge that the claims of Jesus' divinity and the resurrection require a leap of faith. What we have are the words of his followers written down and claiming these things about Christ. One must look at the data we have and reason it through to make a determination as to whether the claims are more likely or less likely to be true. You mentioned earlier it was irrational to have faith in Xianity, but I would argue that ration is the best way to come to a true faith in Xist. If the Xian faith is just a shot in the dark, then it isn't worth my time.

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an adventure of heroes taking up similar roles has been in human culture's throughout the history

http://www.am-psychotherapists-new-york-city.com/Joseph-Campbell.html
http://www.tearsofllorona.com/hero.html

So Bugs I am sure you know that there are many other religious texts (or should I call them now mythological texts?) that talk about factual events.

For example Greek story about Trojan horse,

there are thousands of others, all mention historical figures/rulers that scholars consider to have existed. Yet all include supernatural heroes like Achilles etc

I for that matter accept that there was a man who influenced christianity, whatever his name was it's unknown.

He surely was of a lower class who happened to know about Jewish theology and in fact challanged it.

Roman adoptation of christianity was nothign more than a political issue.

As far as I hear all of the scholars say that NT gospels that made it into what is now known as bible , have been written at least around 60 to 40 years after apostle death.

Heh no wonder they are called "Gospel according to (Some guy)"

(Edited by Ruski on 03-06-2005 04:59)

Sorry Bug, I have not found and you have not provided me, with any source, aside from the bible, which mentions xist historically.


BTW, Whatever the Aramaic was which has been translated into xist, both names were apparently as common as Smith.

I was watching an archeological program where-in the diggers said they come across bones and burials in that part of the world almost daily, with that name attached.

Now, if it were a common name as suggested and you were a writer of the day who wanted to create a hero, you would want to create someone every-one could relate to. So, use a common name and a common profession.

The more I think about those bible, the more I see it for the work of some writers who bound together hundreds of years of old myths and stuck a mythical hero in the middle.

Sure makes more sense that way.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)

Ehtheist, I thought I did. This link can be found in the thread I cited earlier, please take a look:

http://www.probe.org/docs/ancient.html

Again, the theory that it was a hoax is important to consider. Does everything we know make sense if it were a hoax? There are problems with that theory. Where did the body go for instance? All the authorities had to do is produce the body. What did the apostles gain from the hoax? Riches? Power? They were all slaughtered except for John for their claims *and* not one of them admitted under this persecution that they had made it up. What drove them to that? Wouldn't it make more sense to say that at the very least they believed 100% in their story?

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All the authorities had to do is produce the body

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This argument has been brought up many times.

There is a *big* problem with it. A couple maybe.

First and foremost: all we have for reference are the 'gospel' accounts of the story.

The authorities producing a body requires many things.

1) it requires the authorities to know where the body is. There are many reasons why they may not have.

2) (this is the important one) it requires the movement around the divinity (reliant, of course, on the resurrection) to have been a movement that developed quickly and strongly enough to be a bother to the "authorities" and therfore prompt them to action in regard to said body (or movement in general).

It seems pretty clear given the accepted timeframes of the writing of the gospels that many decades had gone by before the production of such a body could *possibly* have been called for as refutation of a resurrection. And obviously by then it would be far too late to worry about such a thing...

Had the resurection actually happened, perhaps the production of a body or some similar attempt at action would have been plausible to ask for, and more than likely some repsonse at least would have been forthcoming (and thus recorded).

The total silence on behalf of the authorites is the strongest piece of evidence *against* the idea of an actual resurection, IMO. The strongest evidence that the *concept* of a resurection did not even happen until well after the fact.

Had there been large groups of people running around 3 days after the crucifixion yammering about Jesus walking aruond, I find it completely unbelievable that *no* action at all would have been taken. At the least, we would have in the gospel some record of attempted refutation by the authorities.

But nothing...

A less biased and more reasoned source;

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/scott_oser/hojfaq.html

one as biased as yours perhaps; http://hamsa.org/jesus-history2.htm


Facts overwhelm faith: http://www.truthbeknown.com/jesuspuzzle.htm

The only suggestion there was a resurrection still comes from xian writings...hysterical rather than historical evidence.

Even so, your own myth says his close buddies didn't recognize him. Must have been an imposter then huh? Gullible lads those disciples.

I am afraid Bug, you will have to rely heavily on your faith as fact will offer you no comfort whatsoever.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)

addendum;

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/robert_price/martin.html

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)

As for what the apostles gained from the idea of the resurrection: they gain immortality for their movement.

That's a pretty significant thing that many people have been willing to die for in various situations/movements.

Dying for a cause is not so rare a thing.

Lying for a cause isn't either, and is something that christianity has practiced throughout its history...no big leap to say that it started at the *very* beginning.

I will reiterate that I do not doubt Jesus' existence.

I do not 'doubt' the resurrection either - rather I hold that it simply didn't happen, for reasons that should be obvious to you bugs, with what you know of my position in general.

Tacitus, Pliny, Josephus, and the like offer 'circumstantial' evidence for the existince of Jesus. Do these sources prove his existence irrefutably? Not even close. But they offer as much premise as we have for the existence of many other historical figures, and the combination of these references, the movement in general and the ideas that it represented, references to other family memebers, etc, is enough for me to presume he existed.

Simply existing, and being a god, of course, are two very different things

Well DL, those sources you quote are so questionable as to be inadmissable. I believe my links cast quite sufficient doubt for any by the zealot. As stated earlier by meself, the bible in it's entirety has been so bowdelrized and "adjusted" to suit the flavour of the day, it can only be faith which would lend one to give it any creedence whatsoever.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)

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I believe my links cast quite sufficient doubt for any by the zealot

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The raise sufficient doubt to require a further researching of the materials referenced on those pages.

None of them appear to me as credible enough to stand on their own, however, and it is irresponsible to accept the superficial treatment of the subject matter as 'gospel' ( ) when using them to refute the validity of some other source.

I am hardly a zealot in any sense, and obviously not in regard to the religion whose premise I oppose.

I have seen all of those pages before, and aside from wanting to read the 'Jesus Puzzle' book , found very little on them to add to the conversation (other than my mention of some of the sources earlier which are also mentioned on most of those pages).

Your statements about the bible in general I agree with,and have said similar things plenty of times. That doesn't equate to outright dismissal of everything contained within it, however.

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DL-44 said:

...for reasons that should be obvious to you bugs...

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Well, of course, they are. I am personally content to agree to disagree on this as much as it pains me... and I know the feeling is mutual As with most topcis like this, there is an abundance of arguments and counter arguments.

I appreciate that you accept the existence of the historical Jesus. It speaks to your objectivity. I also think I understand where you are coming from. I have associated with the atheist/agnostic mindset for much of my life. I tend towards skepticism on plenty topics myself. It's not such a bad thing because the only way to make sure an idea is sound is to take a critical look at it and challenge its precepts.

One thing that I would like to mention here is that in spite of how highly we regard reason, knowledge, the scientific method and the like, these things are limited. We are human and quite imperfect in our understanding. You will never get the level of proof you seek from these things alone. There will come a time when fiath is required. Just as we need air to breath, water to drink and food to nourish our bodies to survive... we need to connect with the eternal through faith. I am beginning to believe this is just something that we humans need to acknowledge and let go of our pride. I would love nothing more than to be able to tell you that Xianity is 100% true and correct and here's the undisputed truth, but rarely in this world is anything so certain. I would actually argue nothing is and that at the very core of every one of our philosophies lies the "assumption" that we cling to.


Ehtheist, I do not expect to convince you of the resurrection on the basis of a link or two. The links you offer above are also biased since they originate from orginizations opposed to religion (Pesonally I don't believe any source is without bias including my own) Just take a look at this bit from the about us section of infidels.org:

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Our adopted mission is to defend and promote a naturalistic worldview on the Internet. To that end we publish the very best secular essays, papers, articles and reviews.

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I sincerely hope your position is not that anything agrees with your world view is objective and anything that doesn't isn't.

Anyways, what I do hope to show you is that not all people who have faith in Jesus Christ are basing that faith in hysteria or anything close. There are plenty of highly intelligent, rational and educated people who find sufficient cause to choose a faith in the God of the bible. My goal here is to help clarify why I believe what I do, how I reach those conclusions and how that affects how I live my life.

At the end of the day, I believe that few people are swayed or converted by direct arguments such as the type we usually do here. It is the interaction with people in the course of life that really makes the biggest impacts in what people believe and how they think.

Ruski, I didn't mean to ignore your post Actually, the existence of the "god becoming man" stories in other cultures has been a difficult one for me. I mentioned that in a few years ago in a post. I wonder if I can find that quote... nope couldn't find it but suffice it to say I have no desire to mask the areas I have difficulty with my faith.

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(Edited by Bugimus on 03-07-2005 04:50)

No problemo Bugs.

About the faith thingy, I disagree. You might have found your comfort in faith; others simply do not find it so. Instead they can gain insecurity, fear and confusion.

People can rather find comfort in art (like me) where intellect creativity and imagination go hand in hand.
Others simply rely on reason, history and science.

They find those tools and concepts to be much more rewarding and mind stimulating than faith. Just like not everyone likes Sushi, even though it is great food . People must choose how they want to seek their pleasure.

In fact faith can be such a passionate and dangerous thing that even the Founding fathers of USA decided to keep it personal and away from the government.




But I am sure you are aware of all of these. =)

Ruski, I'm suggesting that faith is as deeply built into the species as requiring food to survive. And just like food, there is healthy food and not so healthy, and there are those who die from its lack. I'm suggesting that this "need" may not be simply an evolutionary quirk but rather something placed there in the course intelligent design. The "God hole" as some call it is actually one of the reasons I think God exists. Here are a couple of quotes that I like regarding that:

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Surely God would not have created such a being as man to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.
--Abraham Lincoln

If you are really a product of a materialistic universe, how is it you don't feel at homne there?
--C. S. Lewis

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[edit]And the founding fathers were actually extremely fond of faith demonstrated by the fact that most of them believed in the Supreme Being. What they did find dangerous was the government telling you what to believe.

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(Edited by Bugimus on 03-07-2005 05:34)

I dunno about people dying without a faith, that seems to be pretty damn exagerated sentence.

On to quotes, I am not even going to argue about them. Immortality is another concept men have tried to archive simply because they cannot cope with reality. To me immortality lies in the idea that we not only pass on our genes, but also our beliefs, cultures and ways of thinking. Putting in metaphorically I would say (Passing on the torch for the future generation)

It has nothing to do flying with magical being in some dimension. I prefare to look at in in more realistic fashion.

and I am aware of Founding Fathers beliefs and many of them were Dieists, but of course during that time, faith was still necessary, but surely they kept it personal.

faith can have it's use. I would prefare to have faith in the future rther than past. =)

Dude, I'm just relating the need for faith to the need for food. Faith feeds the spiritual side of our beings and food feeds the physical body. I think it is quite possible to do without the faith part as you well know... it's just that would guarantee a purely physical existence as the spiritual existence would die of starvation.

Besides, faith has a profound effect on how we live our lives while we are here. So even if there isn't an afterlife, there is a very real aspect to the concept that we call faith.

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just how rational is it to talk about "spirtuality" ?

I for the most part never expirienced any. "shurgs"


{add}
I simply do not agree with you on this comparison.

(Edited by Ruski on 03-07-2005 06:03)

How rational is it? I would say that would totally depend on the reasoning process that would lead one to explore spirituality. I argue that my belief in the existence of the spirit is rational. It is based on a set of basic assumptions about reality and I do my best to draw conclusions reasoning from those assumptions.

I think that one of your assumptions is probably that there is no supernatural; or that we live in a completely material universe and everything that exists can be explained with a sufficient grasp of scientific data and analysis. Is that close? So to you it makes no sense to talk of spirit when, by definition, it's outside of reality.

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Actually Bugs, I see the opposite of what you believe. I think Mankind has a need to explain the unknown. And before Science offered real, reasoned explainations, Mankind invented Spirits, Gods, and Mythical Creatures to explain those things that were unexplainable at the time.

As we mature as a race, and Science grows, we have come to explain quite a bit - and the Spirits, Gods, and Mythical Creatures of old have retreated into the imaginary mists where they came from. We had this discussion before, as I remember.

God has retreated, in the face of Science. As for immortality, I do believe that Mankind may reach it - if it is indeed possible to reach such. But it will be through Science and not through Religion. We are near to extending lifespans considerably - it is not unimaginable that in the future, lifespans will be increased dramatically (and here I am talking about the near future - within the next 100 years).

Should death fall (or at least, the threat of it retreat), I think that Religion will suffer accordingly. After all, much of modern faiths do revolve around what happens after death, with many a penalty/reward for how one lived this life.

I think that one does need to consider that the human body is a biological machine, and therefore, it should be possible to repair it. Our technology just isn't advanced enough to do this as we can with other types of machines. However, advancements in the nanotechnology area, Gene treatment area, and the science of Biology hold great promise IMHO.

The real question is, is the human (soul, spirit, conciousness, etc) actually capable of surviving immortality? This is probably a question better left for another thread, maybe. Suffice it to say, that this "God hole" of yours (as you call it) is nothing more, than a need for answers to explain the unknown IMHO.

You know I don't subscribe to the "God of the Gaps" methodology.

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The weakness of "God of the Gaps" methodology is that the existence of God would be endangered every time scientists filled the gaps with knowledge. Howard J Van Till, a theistic evolutionist, warns against this risk, and proposes instead to see the whole of the evolutionary saga as a pointer to a creative and generous God, no gaps needed.

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ref: http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/God_of_the_Gaps

So with the understanding of God that is mentioned in the quote, I don't think God has retreated in the face of science. He has in the minds of those who use the God of the Gaps.

The immortality you describe... just isn't. Even if we learned how to extend life for 1000s of years, it is still but a season compared to actual eternity. And quite honestly, I don't believe in our present existence we can survive immortality. I believe we will require a complete make over by the Maker to survive such an existence. We are in a fallen state right now destined for a return to the dust from which we were crafted, whether that return is tomorrow or millenia from now.

To your other point, why do you think we have a need to explain the unknown? We have a need to eat and there is food, we have a need to drink and there is water, we have a need for something greater than this life... why must it be the only need that is not provided for in our reality? Perhaps the need is a clue to the existence of the provision.

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For believers with faith in God all is possible. Even in the supernatural. And I think this concept in faith is practiced by many different religious sects who worship a God of the heavens. Because we do believe the body who is glorified in the spirit can attain the supernatural in the form of gifts. This is recorded in the history of the Christian faith. Christ perfomed many supernatural miracles. Some not even recorded in scripture. He sent his followers the gifts also to be done in his name. We know we are all endowed certain abilities and differents gifts. But in the supernatural, the soul takes on a Christ power. We think that this supernatural power from Christ does exist even today because the holy spirit of God is still with us. What reason would it have to stop. Many persons through the grace of the Almighty have been endowed with the ability to perform wonderous miracles. This is verified by prophetic scripture. In the Christ way of thinking God chooses a soul for a certain mission or deed, so the soul filled with the power of Christ, is Christ. It is Christ in that person who is perfroming that supernatural act. This happens on many levels in the nature of Christ on the extent of how the supernatural act is viewed. For believers God works his miracles in the science of nature and the desire to seek and reason God's existence comes from God through its communciation with the intelligence of mind, the body and the spirit. For us, only in this way will we come to the full revelation of the essence of God. For many of us it takes a lifetime of trial an error to get even close. Most never make it at all.

For example, a mystic who comes to mind is Padre Pio, a monk, but there are many many others. He was a stigmatist. (Expierenced the ecstasy of the passion of Christ suffering with wounds) He also had the gift of bi-location, where his double was seen in spirit when he never left his abby. He bi-located many times and was recorded by eyewitnesses. In the confessional he knew the sins of the people before they gave him his confession. He would hear hundreds of confessions a day. One I read is when a women went to the confessional and confessed her sins, but eliminated a horrible sin. He then told her to go look her well at home and then come back to the confessional. She did as he requested and saw the silloutte of her dead baby who she had drowned many years before. This is just one example. There are also recorded levitations. One I know of is one priest who was called the flying priest, because he levitated during mass and would go from one place to another without touching ground. Of course one can be skeptial about this but its part of the faith and not necessary to believe in to have faith in Christ.

For Christians, the knowlege in the existence God attains one the ability experience the power of God in the acts of the supernatural and to see God in the everyday natural.

(Edited by jade on 03-07-2005 16:54)

Dragons, trolls, banshees, Camelot, leprechuans...etc, we have a rich written history of all of these and none of them ever existed either.

Bug, every argument and defence you provide is predicated upon the existance of a god.

Until you can substantiate your position without relying on biblical sources, you will make no headway whatsoever.

My links are every bit as valid as yours and most are far less biased. There is nothing sinister about promoting secular points of view, especially in the Excited States where religion is more a cudgel than anything else.

In my case it is reasoning which leaves me with no option but to consider, as the Romans did, that xianity of nothing more than a superstition.

Despite your protestations to the contrary there is no solid, irrefutable evidence to substantiate the existance of a god or your xist.

Sorry DL, the "zealot" reference was a generalization, not aimed at you at all.

Jade, how do you enjoy being a member of a cult which which practices ritual cannibalism?

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)

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Jade, how do you enjoy being a member of a cult which which practices ritual cannibalism?

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In what way? Please explain.

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Dragons, trolls, banshees, Camelot, leprechuans...etc, we have a rich written history of all of these and none of them ever existed either.

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The evil one takes on many forms in this world. I assume it takes on the form of humans, animals, monsters, etc. Are there monsters in this world? I believe., Yes. Even humans perform monsterous acts. I remember one time a person heard one way to summon evil was to go into dark room, count to ten and then satan comes. And he did. Nothing happend then. He saw no devils, but his life has been full of evil acts, adultrey, sexual abuse of children, alcoholism and a life of debachery. So, evil in many forms come to one who loves evil.

(Edited by jade on 03-07-2005 19:08)

jade: I suppose Etheist is refering to the fact that the priest are "drinking the blood of the Christ", and the believers are "eating his body".

Oh...

This is a common misconception. I can assure you there is no cannibalism involved. But the community of believers partake of this also drinking of the blood and eating of his body. Since, Christ himself told his disciples to do this in his memory, we must follow this ritual. It the basis of what our religion stands. But if you don't know the deep theological basis for the ritual, I can see where one could get confused. It memorializes the Lords Supper/Passion. We do not crucify Christ all over again, but we do believe the wine/bread is transformed to the real presence of Christ thru a mystery of transubstantiation. Here is a more detailed explanation of i:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm#1

"Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:54-56). "

Here we believe Jesus is using prophecy. When Christ said these words stated in the Gospel of John, he lost many thousands of followers because they didn't understand. They thought he must of been looney. Christ could of said, " wait a minute, come back, come back, you don't understand what I mean." But he didn't. He knew what he was referring to would be hard to swallow, even in those times. And then he asked his apostles "Are you going to leave me too" And the disciples said. How can we leave you, you have the words of eternal life. I always felt that John 666 referred to Revelations 666. Anyway, from the beginning thur the history of Christianity, followers always were communal to take the bread and wine and fully believed in the real presence. When many Christian sects splintered off thur the ages, for the most part they eliminated this ritual and but some today still practice it. I think the Lutherans, Greek Orthodox and Episcopal Church still have communion too. I do know reading the biography of Martin Luther that he also believed in the real presence.

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But if you don't know the deep theological basis for the ritual, I can see where one could get confused.

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I know/suppose this is not directly aimed at me. I know the wine/bread symbolizes the blood/flesh of Jesus. However I must admit I didn't knew the purpose of this ritual.

For the record, I've been baptized, went to catechism for 1 or 2 year, and even made my communion. But actually I don't remember of a single moment in my life where I believed in a superior being.

It is ritual cannibalism and it's quite good actually. I gnaw on Jesus' flesh and drink his blood on a weekly basis Jade quite appropriately cited John chapter 6 regarding this.

poi, the night that Jesus was betrayed and before his crucifixion, he told his disciples that the bread represented his body which would be broken and the wine represented the blood of the New Covenant which would be poured out for the forgiveness of sins. He told them to continue to do that ritual in rememberance of him. I'm not aware of any mainstream Xian groups who don't participate in communion.

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Eat hearty

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)