Here is a Story regarding 100 Atheists

[ufamtobie]

Here is a Story: There was a survey done with 100 Atheists regarding (John 6: 51-70) theses Atheist never opened a Bible and they were asked to put all beliefs aside and to read it with an open mind.

After reading it, all of the Atheists came to the conclusion in the town hall that this man Jesus Literally meant that we should eat and drink his Body and Blood that the people may have life. The leader in Charge of this Survey asked the Atheists, perhaps Jesus Christ was speaking symbolically? These Atheists said that Jesus was not speaking symbolically here because Jesus Christ stated: " I SOLEMNLY ASSURE YOU.

The survey Leader in charge said to the 100 Atheists what about the Many Disciples who Left Jesus in verse 60 and the twelve Disciples that remained with Jesus in verse 68, 69,. Many Atheists replied that these Disciples in verse 60, left Jesus Because they knew exactly what Jesus meant about his Body and Blood that it was to be eaten and his Blood as a Drink and it was to hard for them to endure, as it is for us to endure as well, how can anyone take this talk seriously said many Atheists in laughter. And regards to the twelve who remained with Jesus what about they, said the survey leader? The Atheist said these twelve that remained with this Jesus obviously literally believed His words and took Jesus WORDS SERIOUSLY, an Atheist in the back row yelled out in laughter stating that the TWELVE Disciples who remained with Jesus must of been Catholics for they are the Only ones who believe in this sort of talk that is hard to endure.

Sadly many of these atheists however cited with the Jews who quarreld with Jesus, those who said: “How can he give us his flesh to eat.” Now as I was reading this story I thought to myself, do many Protestants have a Little bit of Atheistism in them when it comes to (John 6: 51-70). Or perhaps theses many Protestants have not read it with an open mind as did these Atheists puting all things aside?

My point is, regarding this story of these Atheists who came to the conclusion that Jesus Christ Literally meant that we should eat His Body and Blood for he Solemnly Assures us, then why don’t many of my protestant brothers and sisters believe that we should/MUST literally eat Jesus Christ Body and Blood in the Most Holy Eucharist?

Perhaps if many protestants would read John 6: 51-70 with an open mind as did these Atheists perhaps, many Protestant would come to the same conclusion that Jesus Christ Solemnly Assures the People that we must eat and drink his Body and Blood in order to be saved…

Can one learn from an Atheist? Truth is Jesus Christ works through everyone!

Many will perhaps say where did you get this survey? The Survey is YOU! Read (John 6: 51-70) with an Open mind/heart and come to this One and only Conclusion as did these Atheists.

Indeed the Survey is YOU! One either believes in the words I SOLEMNLY ASSURE YOU, if you do not Eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood You Have No Life In You. Or you can quarrel along with the Jews agains’t Jesus and His Church and say “HOW CAN HE GIVE US HIS FLESH TO EAT”

Can a Symbolic Bread and wine/coolaid save you, now if you believe this, this is Idolatry?

Can the Real Bread the Real Blood Save you, now if you believe this, this is Jesus Christ! Body Blood Soul and Divinity Did not Jesus Christ state that he will be with us until the end, well this is how the Most Holy Eucahrist which contains His Body and Blood., eat drink and live.

Where do you Stand in this Survey?

Ufam Tobie

 

[Eucharisted]

Jesus emphasises the Real Prescense a lot in His words. For He says:

Matthew 26
26 Cenantibus autem eis, accepit Iesus panem et benedixit ac fregit deditque discipulis et ait: “ Accipite, comedite: hoc est corpus meum ”.

“hoc est corpus meum” means “this is my body.” The word ‘est’ dose not mean represent, as in ‘this represents my body’, but means be, as in ‘this be my body’. To confirm that:

1 John 4
16 Et nos, qui credidimus, novimus caritatem, quam habet Deus in nobis. Deus caritas est; et, qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, et Deus in eo manet.

“Deus caritas est” means ‘God is love’. The word ‘est’ here dose not mean represent, as in ‘God represents love’, but means be, as in ‘God be love’.

 

[ufamtobie]

Jesus emphasises the Real Prescense a lot in His words. For He says:

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ in reparation for the offenses and blasmphesies committed against the Holy Sacrament on the altar. By the merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I beg Thee to convert sinners, save the dying, and set free the holy souls in Purgatory

Echaristed, I love this prayer that you have posted.

Ufam Tobe

 

[BobCatholic]

Well, I profess that I believe what Christ says.

When Jesus says “This is my body” I believe him. Despite certain traditions that say “no it is not, it is only a symbol”

When Jesus says “This is my blood” I believe him. Despite certain traditions that say “no it is not, it is only a symbol”

So, how did the Apostle John interpret John 6? Well, that interpretation was not written in the Bible. However, he did pass it on to those who followed him - and we hold to that interpretation.

Let’s take a look at two of his students, shall we?

Ignatius of Antioch

Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes. — Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1

Wow. Ignatius, who was Bishop of Antioch, learned everything from the Apostle John and died for the faith (Martryed shortly after this letter was written) - believed in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Well, I’m sure someone will accuse him of just making it up, so let’s quote another.

Polycarp

Chapter II. When Christ visited us in His grace, He did not come to what did not belong to Him: also, by shedding His true blood for us, and exhibiting to us His true flesh in the Eucharist, He conferred upon our flesh the capacity of salvation.

. . . 2. But vain in every respect are they who despise the entire dispensation of God, and disallow the salvation of the flesh, and treat with contempt its regeneration, maintaining that it is not capable of incorruption. But if this indeed do not attain salvation, then neither did the Lord redeem us with His blood, nor is the cup of the Eucharist the communion of His blood, nor the bread which we break the communion of His body.  For blood can only come from veins and flesh, and whatsoever else makes up the substance of man, such as the Word of God was actually made. By His own blood he redeemed us, as also His apostle declares, "In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the remission of sins."  And as we are His members, we are also nourished by means of the creation (and He Himself grants the creation to us, for He causes His sun to rise, and sends rain when He wills). He has acknowledged the cup (which is a part of the creation) as His own blood, from which He bedews our blood; and the bread (also a part of the creation) He has established as His own body, from which He gives increase to our bodies.

3. When, therefore, the mingled cup and the manufactured bread receives the Word of God, and the Eucharist of the blood and the body of Christ is made, from which things the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they affirm that the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God, which is life eternal, which [flesh] is nourished from the body and blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him? even as the blessed Paul declares in his Epistle to the Ephesians, that "we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones." He does not speak these words of some spiritual and invisible man, for a spirit has not bones nor flesh; but [he refers to] that dispensation [by which the Lord became] an actual man, consisting of flesh, and nerves, and bones, that [flesh] which is nourished by the cup which is His blood, and receives increase from the bread which is His body. And just as a cutting from the vine planted in the ground fructifies in its season, or as a corn of wheat falling into the earth and becoming decomposed, rises with manifold increase by the Spirit of God, who contains all things, and then, through the wisdom of God, serves for the use of men, and having received the Word of God, becomes the Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ; so also our bodies, being nourished by it, and deposited in the earth, and suffering decomposition there, shall rise at their appointed time, the Word of God granting them resurrection to the glory of God, even the Father, who freely gives to this mortal immortality, and to this corruptible incorruption, because the strength of God is made perfect in weakness, in order that we may never become puffed up, as if we had life from ourselves, and exalted against God, our minds becoming ungrateful; but learning by experience that we possess eternal duration from the excelling power of this Being, not from our own nature, we may neither undervalue that glory which surrounds God as He is, nor be ignorant of our own nature, but that we may know what God can effect, and what benefits man receives, and thus never wander from the true comprehension of things as they are, that is, both with regard to God and with regard to man. (Against Heresies, Book V)

This was quoted by Irenaeus who held to this belief. Interesting. Polycarp was martyred after 81 years of service to the Lord Jesus.

Two students of the Apostle John believed the same thing - the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. They obviously got this from the Apostle John who passed on his interpretation of John 6 to them.

We Catholics believe what Jesus taught.

 

[bpbasilphx]

And is what you’re telling us here a true story or some kind of parable or merely legend?

If this survey really happened, you should be able to give us some kind of corroborative detail.

 

[Charlie_Zeaiter]

… the TWELVE Disciples who remained with Jesus must of been Catholics for they are the Only ones who believe in this sort of talk that is hard to endure…

There really isn’t much in the passage that suggests that the Twelve Disciples understood this hard teaching; It appears that everybody thought that Jesus was being literal. But they give a good response; “To whom shall we turn to?”

So, they stayed with Jesus and saw how marvellously clear the teaching was at the Last Supper.

As for those who walked, well - some of them come back some 1500 years later, and said that Jesus was being symbolic.

 

[BobCatholic]

The Apostolic Interpretation of Scripture is the only interpretation worth it.

 

[cerad]

And is what you’re telling us here a true story or some kind of parable or merely legend?

If this survey really happened, you should be able to give us some kind of corroborative detail.

Go back and read the original post more carefully. The survey is you. Have no idea what that means or how a bunch of people can be turned in to surveys but it must be profound.

Actually the notion that 100 atheists would agree on anything (besides the lack of convincing evidence for gods) pretty much moves this story into the land of fiction.

 

[ufamtobie]

Jesus emphasises the Real Prescense a lot in His words. For He says:

With the words “I SOLEMNLY ASSURE YOU”

Ufam Tobie

 

[abucs]

The problem with saying that the ‘Body and Blood of Christ’ at the Eucharist is only symbolic is that it appears to be a very late idea.

For well over 1500 years the western and eastern churches accepted the Eucharist as the body and blood of Christ and this goes back to the earliest fathers of the church.

All writers - Matthew, Mark(Peter), Luke, John and Paul mention the body and blood of Christ and all stress that this is a central theme of Christianity. Jesus did not ask for many things to be done ‘as a memorial to him’ but this he does and he is described not just in his words, but also by his actions to be performing a very sacramental ritual on the night before his death.

You can say 2000 years later that it was all meant to be symbolic, even if the words actually say ‘This is my Body’ etc and John goes out of his way to say it is literally correct connecting it to the miracle of feeding the 5000 and the manna coming down from Heaven as a sign to the ‘present age’. All the church fathers wrote in the next generations accepting the fact, and for the next 1500 years all Christianity accepted it.

Even the leaders of the Protestant Reformation accepted it.

The idea that it is only symbolic comes well after the schism in the western Catholic Church by the descendents of the people who broke away. The thing is, the power to consecrate the bread is by direct laying on of hands from bishop to priest. Once you break that line this power or authority goes too. Hence you have to deny the whole thing or make up new rules for who can do the consecration.

The people who broke away decided, belatetedly, to deny the whole thing. A very late development which goes against the whole history of Christianity.

 

[ufamtobie]

And is what you’re telling us here a true story or some kind of parable or merely legend?

If this survey really happened, you should be able to give us some kind of corroborative detail.

bpbasilphx,

Don’t worry about it being a true story, a parable or merely legend.

I tell you what you should worry about and that is Do you believe in the true presence of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist that he SOLEMNLY ASSURES US that we must eat and drink his Body and Blood to have eternal life?

You are the Survey.

To many I say what part of “I SOLEMNLY ASSURE YOU” don’t you understand.

Ufam Tobie

 

[ufamtobie]

Go back and read the original post more carefully. The survey is you. Have no idea what that means or how a bunch of people can be turned in to surveys but it must be profound.

Actually the notion that 100 atheists would agree on anything (besides the lack of convincing evidence for gods) pretty much moves this story into the land of fiction.

Hello Cerad,

I read your profile page and it states that you are an Athiest, and I do believe you.

I know you don’t believe in God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, we all have our own will to believe or not to believe. I know you probably think we Christians wether Catholic or Protestants live in a fantasy belief that there is a God who will save us all, if we accept him through His Grace.

I would love you to tell me your point of view, for you have an open mind since you are an Atheist literaly, and you don’t care wether the outcome was Jesus being here literally or symbolic regarding (John 6: 53) below:

Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.

Cerad, as you know in many Christian Bibles John 6: 53 You here the Words Amen, Amen" or I solemnly Assure You" then there is “Truly I Say Unto You” “Verily, Verily I Say to you”

Cerad, in your point of view do you think that this Man Jesus Christ, by stating these strong words: “Amen, Amen,” “I Solemnly Assure You” “Truly I Say Unto You” ETC. Did this Man Jesus Christ truly believes that we Should Eat His Body and Drink His Blood in the literal sense in order to be saved and have ever lasting life?

Cerad, what if someone came up to you and said to you using these Strong Words: I Solemnly Assure You, or Truly I Say Unto You, that I am an Athiest, whould you believe him or her to be truly an Atheist, in the Literal Sense along with their Actions?

I say Actions above as well, because Jesus Christ’s Action was Unmoving with His Strong Words he Used when saying: I Solemnly Assure You: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. And truning to his 12 Apostles stating: Do you want to leave me too? Regarding, this sort of talk that is hard to endure.

Cerad, What is your conlusion was this Man Jesus Christ Speaking Literally or symbolically when he states: I SOLEMNLY ASSURE YOU?/COLOR]

Ufam Tobie

(John 6: 54-70)
54 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. 55 For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. 56 He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread, shall live for ever.

59 These things he said, teaching in the synagogue, in Capharnaum.

60 Many therefore of his disciples, hearing it, said: This saying is hard, and who can hear it? 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself, that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Doth this scandalize you? 62 If then you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before? 63 It is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning, who they were that did not believe, and who he was, that would betray him. 65 And he said: Therefore did I say to you, that no man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.

66 After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him. 67 Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away? 68 And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. 69 And we have believed and have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of God. 70 Jesus answered them: Have not I chosen you twelve; and one of you is a devil? 71 Now he meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon: for this same was about to betray him, whereas he was one of the twelve

 

[StrawberryJam]

That is one heck of a story I guess.
Okay, now that we know this is a fictional survey why stop at these verses? There are many verses in the OT that I have seen other agnostics and athiests take as literal that catholics and protestants seem to like to dance around. So, I am not sure what your point is really. And, if you are trying to give credence to a literal interpretation I am not sure how helpful it is to you to taint your position with the argument that athiests can even see it as literal. IMHO, if I were a protestant I think I would feel even more convicted to remain so lest the evil athiests pollute my mind/faith.

 

[ufamtobie]

That is one heck of a story I guess.

Okay, now that we know this is a fictional survey why stop at these verses? There are many verses in the OT that I have seen other agnostics and athiests take as literal that catholics and protestants seem to like to dance around. So, I am not sure what your point is really. And, if you are trying to give credence to a literal interpretation I am not sure how helpful it is to you to taint your position with the argument that athiests can even see it as literal. IMHO, if I were a protestant I think I would feel even more convicted to remain so lest the evil athiests pollute my mind/faith.

StrawberyJam,

My point is, God works through all people Atheists and even Agnostics, Thank God.

Ufam Tobie

 

[Reuben_J]

Where do you Stand in this Survey?

Ufam Tobie

Hi. As a Catholic my answer is obvious but what strikes me is your approach in using a fictional survey. If it’s really a made-up survey then it all boils down that what you wrote was your mere opinion. But anyway, it’s kind of interesting as I have not seen it done that way before.

Problem with this kind of apologetic is that Protestant posters here could easily come with another fictional survey; perhaps even more outrageous that supports their theology and discredits ours. And how would we deal with that?

As for the usage of Amen, Amen, I tell you / Solemnly I tell you – Scott Hann did explain this very well when he espoused on this topic – that the speaker, Jesus, could only mean one thing and that was literal. You got it right there but I’d rather you don’t use the survey. Personally I thought it only discredit what so already obvious.

God bless.