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"DNA Analysis of Consecrated Sacramental Bread Refutes Catholic Transubstantiation Claim"

Grandliseur

Well-Known Member
"DNA Analysis of Consecrated Sacramental Bread Refutes Catholic Transubstantiation Claim" .
That is some of the funniest stuff I have ever read. As if any actual change is supposed to happen. Better than Goofy and Donald Duck. :D
 

David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
In another thread " Should YouTube take down Catholic videos desecrating the Eucharist? The church demands them gone."" I became interested in the nature of the Eucharist, principally when and how it becomes the actual body of Christ---as it turns out, this happens when it's consecrated. While looking into the matter I came across the following information.

I'm not posting this as an attack on or criticism of Catholic beliefs, but simply to see what Catholics and others think of such findings.



"INTRODUCTION

With 1.2 billion members worldwide, the Roman Catholic Church exerts its influence on a significant portion of the world population. One of the important doctrines of Catholicism affirms that the wheat wafer (also called hostia, host or sacramental bread) used in the sacrament of Eucharist or Holy Communion becomes in actual reality the body of Jesus Christ, in a process called transubstantiation. The doctrine of transubstantiation was officially defined during the council of Trent in 1551 CE and holds that the consecration that takes place during Eucharist literally changes the substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ. Understandably, the claim has been viewed with skepticism among non-Catholics, but also among increasing numbers of Catholics who are being disillusioned with the Church's disconnect with today's scientific understanding and its insistence on upholding irrational dogmas. We propose to test the credibility of the transubstantiation dogma by analyzing the substance of consecrated sacramental bread. Host samples collected in Catholic churches during communion were tested for the presence of wheat and human DNA using PCR, and compared to human and wheat controls.

Samples

Consecrated hosts were collected during communion in 5 different Catholic churches in the United States and Canada and immediately placed into clean plastic bags to avoid contamination. A sample of cultured HEK-293 cells was used as the human control. Unconsecrated altar bread purchased from a church supply store was used as the wheat control.

DNA isolation

Human DNA was extracted from the control human cells using the GeneJet genomic DNA purification kit (Thermo Scientific, USA) according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Isolation of DNA from the altar bread samples (both consecrated and unconsecrated) was performed as follows. Bread fragments were placed into 2 ml microcentrifuge tubes into which 1.3 ml of DNA extraction solution (150 mM NaCl, 0.05 N NaOH, 2.5 mM EDTA, 0.25% SDS) was added. Tubes were then incubated at 65°C while being shaken at 900 RPM for 20 minutes. The tubes were then centrifuged at 21000 g for 5 minutes and 200 µl of supernatant was transferred to fresh tubes. DNA was purified from the supernatant samples using DNA Clean & Concentrator kit (Zymo Research, USA) according to the manufacturer's instructions.
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CONCLUSIONS


This study falsifies the claim that a religious ritual performed by a priest can actually change the substance of a bread wafer into the substance of a human body. It is by no means an attack on religion, but rather a small step in the refutation of superstition and irrational beliefs, an important role of science, at least since the age of Enlightenment. Religions can have important social benefits, and even more so when they evolve with scientific knowledge and update their claims and beliefs accordingly. We hope that this study will encourage others to use the tools of science to test other religious claims, thus contributing to bring enlightenment to their fellow human beings who still live under the influence of dogmatic religious doctrines.
source and more

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Funny no one asks how did they come up with the idea in the first place!!!! That's a more interesting aspect. Apparently the modern nut jobs making the claim of the study don't realize they are the same nut jobs that came up with the original idea in the first place. So the nut jobs have corrected their mistake 600 years ago. Exact same nut jobs, intellectuals. Congrats brilliant right on top of it. A wood chuck is a wood chuck whether modern or 1000 years ago.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
The purpose of the study appears to be to allow those running the tests and others to feel superior to Catholics by ignoring Catholic theology to perform a test which in no way invalidates what Catholics believe.
 

Rough Beast Sloucher

Well-Known Member
It's My Birthday!
Funny no one asks how did they come up with the idea in the first place!!!! That's a more interesting aspect. Apparently the modern nut jobs making the claim of the study don't realize they are the same nut jobs that came up with the original idea in the first place. So the nut jobs have corrected their mistake 600 years ago. Exact same nut jobs, intellectuals. Congrats brilliant right on top of it. A wood chuck is a wood chuck whether modern or 1000 years ago.

The Catholic concept of transubstantiation is based on the institution of the Eucharist formula during the Last Supper in Matthew 26:26-28. Jesus says of the bread "This is my body:" and of the wine "This is my blood". The Transubstantiation concept takes this literally, that the bread and wine are really the body and blood of Christ. Mark and Luke have essentially the same passage. It also appears in Paul as something Jesus said to do in a vision. That is where the idea comes from.
 

Scott C.

Just one guy
Isolation of DNA from the altar bread samples (both consecrated and unconsecrated) was performed as follows. Bread fragments were placed into 2 ml microcentrifuge tubes into which 1.3 ml of DNA extraction solution (150 mM NaCl, 0.05 N NaOH, 2.5 mM EDTA, 0.25% SDS) was added. Tubes were then incubated at 65°C while being shaken at 900 RPM for 20 minutes. The tubes were then centrifuged at 21000 g for 5 minutes and 200 µl of supernatant was transferred to fresh tubes. DNA was purified from the supernatant samples using DNA Clean & Concentrator kit (Zymo Research, USA) according to the manufacturer's instructions

I'm not Catholic and I don't believe in transubstantiation. But this is a joke right? Do you seriously think a DNA study can disprove this Catholic doctrine? What, are we going to do DNA tests to prove that people who were born again are actually still the same person?
 
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David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
The Catholic concept of transubstantiation is based on the institution of the Eucharist formula during the Last Supper in Matthew 26:26-28. Jesus says of the bread "This is my body:" and of the wine "This is my blood". The Transubstantiation concept takes this literally, that the bread and wine are really the body and blood of Christ. Mark and Luke have essentially the same passage. It also appears in Paul as something Jesus said to do in a vision. That is where the idea comes from.
It is a pure nonsensical reading of the text that even exists because Lutherans wanted to split from catholicism. It really is just a bogus ancient political bs thing nothing more. It literally has zero to do with the text or reality but that's theology for ya!!! I love the text theology is a joke. The text is independent from theology in theology o ly exists in context to the text. Sorry Christians lost the copyright patent a long long time ago starting with the claptrap Nicene creed first two words "we believe".. Nonsense. St hildegard von debingen called it and she is a Saint. Love her!!! Theology ha.
 
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The Emperor of Mankind

Currently the galaxy's spookiest paraplegic
The Catholic concept of transubstantiation is based on the institution of the Eucharist formula during the Last Supper in Matthew 26:26-28. Jesus says of the bread "This is my body:" and of the wine "This is my blood". The Transubstantiation concept takes this literally, that the bread and wine are really the body and blood of Christ. Mark and Luke have essentially the same passage. It also appears in Paul as something Jesus said to do in a vision. That is where the idea comes from.

So with one breath, the bread literally becomes Jesus' flesh. Then when people measure the claim to see if it's true it's not quite so literal any more. Gotcha.


I'm not Catholic and I don't believe in transubstantiation. But this is a joke right? Do you seriously think a DNA study can disprove this Catholic doctrine?

Are you implying that it hasn't? Catholics claim that transubstantiated bread literally becomes Jesus' flesh. But then when people point out it doesn't (and provide evidence to that effect) oh, the transformation isn't quite so literal any more.

That people can claim that bread literally is and is not flesh at the same time is truly astounding.
 

The Kilted Heathen

Crow FreyjasmaðR
Of course it would still be my car,
Perhaps you're seeing the issue with the claims of transubstantiation. According to that, the car re-built is no longer your car - even though it looks like it - but a completely different thing. Every piece has been replaced - the pieces that you sat in and drove around are no longer a part of the vehicle. It looks like your car, but it's not.

And this is the problem faced with transubstantiation. It's held and believed that every bit of the eucharist wafer has changed. It is told, taught, and held to be 100% Jesus flesh. With the car metaphor, your car with a new engine (the body and spirit/divinity of Jesus replacing the wafer) is not your car anymore. But you say that it is, just as the rest of us look at claims of transubstantiation and say "Well, that's a silly thing to say".
 

Rough Beast Sloucher

Well-Known Member
It's My Birthday!
If it was not my car I would not be driving it anymore.But I am. Might as well say that because it got scraped and repainted, it is not my car anymore. Where do you draw the line? It is still my car despite changes. You are concentrating on accidents. Transubstantiation is about substance. Also recall that in Transubstantiation the accidents do not change. Your argument is that the thing consists of the accidents alone. In Catholicism, the supernatural substance is more real than the natural accidents.
 

Scott C.

Just one guy
Are you implying that it hasn't? Catholics claim that transubstantiated bread literally becomes Jesus' flesh. But then when people point out it doesn't (and provide evidence to that effect) oh, the transformation isn't quite so literal any more.

That people can claim that bread literally is and is not flesh at the same time is truly astounding.

I understand that Catholics believe it literally becomes the flesh of Christ. But, without DNA tests, we all, including Catholics, know that it still looks like, tastes like, smells like, sounds like, and feels like the original bread. Obviously Catholics believe there is something mystical or miraculous hear, where it literally becomes the flesh of Christ but in a way that is undetectable to man. The DNA tests only further demonstrate that. I find the DNA argument to be silly.
 

Thief

Rogue Theologian
when i was leaving catholic grade school i had a one on one with a priest
I wanted to know......do you really believe the transformation?

he said yes
every occasion when the mass is performed there is a miracle

i suspected then....there is a distinct difference between convinced......as to believing.
 

Rough Beast Sloucher

Well-Known Member
It's My Birthday!
when i was leaving catholic grade school i had a one on one with a priest
I wanted to know......do you really believe the transformation?

he said yes
every occasion when the mass is performed there is a miracle

i suspected then....there is a distinct difference between convinced......as to believing.

Depends on what you mean by a miracle. Normally that term is applied to some sort of modification of natural laws. That is not the case with Transubstantiation. The natural world is not modified. Instead there is a supernatural presence beginning at the moment of consecration.

!2 years of Catholic school remains in the memory bank long after there is a need for it. ;)
 

The Kilted Heathen

Crow FreyjasmaðR
Where do you draw the line? It is still my car despite changes. You are concentrating on accidents.
It seems like you're focusing on ownership of the vehicle, as well as the appearance of it - "accidents", as the Church now says to keep up with science. I'm talking about the functional essence of the vehicle, not the chassis. Where do I draw the line? The engine. Just as with the eucharist they draw the line with the "invisible presence of Jesus" in the wafer; looks like bread, tastes like Jesus--just like the trinity.

They even go so far as to say that the "eucharist mystery transcends reason". Which is really just a pleasant way of saying that it's non-reason. That "no rationalistic explanation may be given by Christian theologians". Despite employing the language of "accidents" to answer critics, Catholics maintain what was stated at the Council of Trent, that the eucharist post-blessing is "truly and wholly the body and blood of Jesus"

To put it in car-analogy, they claim that their car has a new engine just by praying over it. Yet it's still got 300,000 miles and runs like crap. Yes, my argument is that "accidents" are all there is to the eucharist, because "accidents/substance" is really just dishonest language spawned quite recently to answer scientific criticism of miraculous claims. It's word salad, mumbo-jumbo meant to attempt to maintain some level of "mystery" in a slew of contradictory claims and beliefs, further compounded by adherence to the exact same old beliefs regarding what the eucharist is.
 

Rough Beast Sloucher

Well-Known Member
It's My Birthday!
It seems like you're focusing on ownership of the vehicle, as well as the appearance of it - "accidents", as the Church now says to keep up with science. I'm talking about the functional essence of the vehicle, not the chassis. Where do I draw the line? The engine. Just as with the eucharist they draw the line with the "invisible presence of Jesus" in the wafer; looks like bread, tastes like Jesus--just like the trinity.

They even go so far as to say that the "eucharist mystery transcends reason". Which is really just a pleasant way of saying that it's non-reason. That "no rationalistic explanation may be given by Christian theologians". Despite employing the language of "accidents" to answer critics, Catholics maintain what was stated at the Council of Trent, that the eucharist post-blessing is "truly and wholly the body and blood of Jesus"

To put it in car-analogy, they claim that their car has a new engine just by praying over it. Yet it's still got 300,000 miles and runs like crap. Yes, my argument is that "accidents" are all there is to the eucharist, because "accidents/substance" is really just dishonest language spawned quite recently to answer scientific criticism of miraculous claims. It's word salad, mumbo-jumbo meant to attempt to maintain some level of "mystery" in a slew of contradictory claims and beliefs, further compounded by adherence to the exact same old beliefs regarding what the eucharist is.

It is my car and has been continuously. That is the case regardless of changes made to the car along the way. Since it is my car, I drive it around. If it was not my car I could not do that. The engine is one of the accidents and can be replaced without changing the fact that it is my car. There is no need to pray over the car for it to be my car (substance) regardless of what details change (accidents).

Regardless of all that, according to Catholic theology, when the priest consecrates the bread and wine, the substance becomes the body and blood of Christ without changing any of the accidents. That is the point people keep missing. In Catholic theology the ‘real presence’ is substance not accident. You are entitled to your own worldview. But please do not misrepresent the worldview of others.

The language of ‘accidents’ in this context is not new and was not employed to keep up with science. The concepts of substance and accident as used in Catholic theology date back to Aristotle. With regard to transubstantiation, they were employed by Aquinas in the 13th century

It is evident to sense that all the accidents of the bread and wine remain after the consecration.

There is no deception in this sacrament; for the accidents which are discerned by the senses are truly present. But the intellect, whose proper object is substance as is said in De Anima iii, is preserved by faith from deception. And this serves as answer to the third argument; because faith is not contrary to the senses, but concerns things to which sense does not reach.”

Summa Theologiae, Tertia Pars, Question 75, Article 5

We live in a natural world. The incursion of the supernatural into this world, as Catholics consider the Eucharist to be, is not easily understandable in terms of the natural. Why should this not be called mysterious?
 

The Kilted Heathen

Crow FreyjasmaðR
...according to Catholic theology, when the priest consecrates the bread and wine, the substance becomes the body and blood of Christ without changing any of the accidents. That is the point people keep missing.
No, I don't miss this. I realize this is their belief, and recognize it as such. I don't recognize that it actually happens.

In Catholic theology the ‘real presence’ is substance not accident.
You mean in Thomas Aquinas' explanation. In Catholic theology, the eucharist is wholly Jesus. Catholic Catechism states repeatedly that the "real presence" is total and absolute - including the appearance of bread and wine, justified in that Jesus took on and became that "species" during the Last Supper. The "accident" isn't something that really or functionally enters into Catholic theology, as all gathered there agree that it's no longer bread and wine at all. So much so that according to doctrine and catechism a eucharist isn't a eucharist unless it's consecrated during mass. So in the video that started this all, and what that dude torched? Just a wafer, more likely than not.

I recognize their world view. I do not owe them agreeing with it, or acknowledging it as true. I will also add that you ask me "not to misrepresent the worldview of others"; Catholics - and Christians in general - constantly and persistently misrepresent my worldview. Why should I extend that courtesy to them, when it's never been reciprocated?

We live in a natural world. The incursion of the supernatural into this world, as Catholics consider the Eucharist to be, is not easily understandable in terms of the natural. Why should this not be called mysterious?
Others manage to marry religion and science - even incursions of supernatural into the natural - just fine without contradiction. Personally, I would have less issue if it wasn't insisted that it's actually flesh and blood, and in the same breath denying eating flesh and drinking blood. It's not mysterious, it's hiding behind symbolism.
 
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Rough Beast Sloucher

Well-Known Member
It's My Birthday!
No, I don't miss this. I realize this is their belief, and recognize it as such. I don't recognize that it actually happens.


You mean in Thomas Aquinas' explanation. In Catholic theology, the eucharist is wholly Jesus. Catholic Catechism states repeatedly that the "real presence" is total and absolute - including the appearance of bread and wine, justified in that Jesus took on and became that "species" during the Last Supper. The "accident" isn't something that really or functionally enters into Catholic theology, as all gathered there agree that it's no longer bread and wine at all. So much so that according to doctrine and catechism a eucharist isn't a eucharist unless it's consecrated during mass. So in the video that started this all, and what that dude torched? Just a wafer, more likely than not.

I recognize their world view. I do not owe them agreeing with it, or acknowledging it as true.


Others manage to marry religion and science - even incursions of supernatural into the natural - just fine without contradiction. Personally, I would have less issue if it wasn't insisted that it's actually flesh and blood, and in the same breath denying eating flesh and drinking blood. It's not mysterious, it's hiding behind symbolism.

The question is not whether you agree with the worldview. The question is whether the DNA test is meaningful. According to long standing Catholic theology, it is not. The test considers only the accidents, which do not change. The substance is the body and blood of Christ. The accidents remain the same as bread and wine. There is no contradiction in Catholic theology. It all fits together neatly. There are no internal contradictions. But it is not symbolism. It is an important part of Catholic theology that this is a direct connection with Christ. The Church IS the Body of Christ in the same sense of substance over accidents. A claim of mere symbolism would negate what is viewed as a supernatural reality.

You do not have to agree, and of course you do not. But try understand what is being said before being critical.
 
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