Religion is Not a Firm Foundation for Reality or Morality

It encourages us to believe in implausible and untestable assertions based on faith. By Faith i mean believing in something because you want to believe it disproportionally to the best available evidence.

Normally what we do when assessing the validity of claims is to asses them against the evidence and if the claim is contrary to the evidence then we discard it. If the claims become increasingly implausible we raise the bar as to the evidence required to substantiate the claim. Religions do the exact opposite. As the claims become increasingly implausible we lower the bar and just believe based upon faith. Religion asks us to believe not only implausible but highly improbable, impossible and untestable claims. It then encourages us to live our lives on the basis of these implausible and untestable claims.

If one wakes up in the morning and assert that saying some words in latin over your pancakes will turn them into the body of Elvis you have lost your mind, but if you do it to a wafer,  the *eucharist in mass you’re just a catholic.

The second way that religion harms society is that it corrupts our sense of morality.

Morality is a natural function of the brain. It has evolved in the brains of social animals because co-operation and competition are both helpful to survival. In recent generations we humans have refined our sense of morality. We increasingly recognize the rights of persons and of non-human animals.

It’s hard enough to balance the competing requirements of compassion, empathy, co-operation, suffering and well being, fairness and justice. What religion does is to corrupt that task. It adds into an already difficult task the corrupting factor of a set of supernatural commands that are unrelated to compassion or justice, fairness or reciprocity. Religion insists that our natural morality is trumped by this. It’s trumped by what some people believe the creator of the universe told them and wants them to impose on the rest of us.

So many Catholics will deny giving condoms to AIDS patients in Africa, and many Muslims will refer to  the claim in the Quran to justify that husbands can beat their wives.

Last year in Ireland a hospital refused an abortion to Savita Halipanavar who’s fetus had no chance of survival and Savita also died in the process of giving birth. When her husband asked why he was told it was because Ireland is a Catholic country.

Not only is religion not needed for morality but religion actively corrupts morality.

It is infinitely implausible to suggest that a supreme being created a universe of 1000 billion galaxies, each galaxy containing 1000 billion stars like our sun, in order that it might talk to one man of one species and tell him to stone another man to death for gathering sticks on the sabbath and then impregnates a virgin and give birth to himself and then give Mohammad a ride on a flying horse and then appear in Josephs smith’s hat in order to attire him in magic underwear.

* referring to the Catholic sacrament of the Eucharist.

In Catholicism, the concept you’re asking about is called the “Real Presence.” It’s the belief that during the sacrament of the Eucharist, the bread (wafer) and wine used for Communion become the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ.

The sacrament itself is called the Eucharist, Holy Communion, or the Lord’s Supper. The ceremony in which it’s celebrated is called the Mass.

Here’s a breakdown:

1. Eucharist: The sacrament itself, in which the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ.

2. Holy Communion: The act of receiving the consecrated bread (wafer) and wine.

3. Mass: The ceremony in which the Eucharist is celebrated, typically including prayers, readings, and the consecration of the bread and wine.

4. Real Presence: The Catholic doctrine that the bread and wine used for Communion literally become the body and blood of Jesus Christ.