I suppose the 10 Commandments would not applicable either. Would two "New" Testaments quotes make any difference?

Actually, you are right. Love one another as I have loved you supercedes the 10 commandments.

I guess you mean to quote in Mark 12:30: "you must love your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind and with your whole strength. The second is this, ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
You seem to have the correct understanding that Christians are no longer under the laws of Moses and the Bible appears very clear on the changes from those laws, including eating of certain foods or animals. But it never opened the door to drinking blood, rather it reinforced the stance against it. I'm also curious, doesnt the church still teach tithing and observation of the sabbath?

So do we all agree now that the bread and the wine SYMBOLIZE Jesus' flesh and blood and are not actually those things in reality?

Just like the 7 days symbolize the creation, the fact being it didn't actualy take God 7 days to create the universe?

I certainly agree the first part is supposed to be symbolic.

As for the second part - who knows? If God did indeed create the world, who's to say he didn't do it in seven days? Maybe he's just that good.

Carbon dating says otherwise.

BTW, I know you were kidding. That bit was for the ones who actually think that's what happened.

Actually, I'm not kidding. But you say carbon dating disproves the seven days thing? How is that?

Yeah I though carbon dating had a decent margin of error.

Not in the billions.

I'm not even trying to dispute it...I'm just ignorant of how the whole carbon dating thing works.

Google it.

Pretty much the same here. I roughly undertand the whole decay thing but im not really a sience type. From watching history channel type stuff it seems its somewhat accurate at least.

Without googling it...being a science teacher myself....I can tell you that Carbon Dating involves a process where a Carbon-14 isotope is compared to the decay rate of the item in question....or something like that..

I only teach six grade science and I barely touch on the subject of isotopes.

Just one article:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0405/p01s01-ussc.html

Look folks, I don't know any other way to say this other than plain English. The Church does not support child sex abuse. Period. The Boston Archdiosese is getting its ass kicked right now, and rightly so. Yes there were coverups, and I don't say that lightly. They are paying the price for it now. There have not been a deluge of new complaints or accusations, the ones you are hearing about that the law suits are about happened 20-30 years ago. Not to say that stuff doesn't still go on now, but the church is much more aware of it now and is reacting to it.

What bothers me is the notion that the Catholic church is the WORST offender. That has been said numerous times on this board, and it simply is not the case. That is why Catholics feel the need to point to examples of this type of thing in other denominations. Not to vindicate the Church (As Clint In Wichita seems to think I meant it, still don't know where he came up with that notion) but to alay the idea that the Catholic Church is the ONLY offender. This DOES NOT MAKE IT RIGHT, but it puts the problem in perspective. To put it another way, it seems that the Catholic haters of the world are using the scandal to further their agenda against the Church, rather than being concerned about the problem as a whole.

I think I could probably go on till I'm blue in the face and people will think what they want. All I'm saying is, the generalizations that people are making about the Catholic church are true of all human situations, including other denominations. Whatever makes you feel good about it, I guess...

It IS the body and blood of Christ. Christ is PRESENT in the Eucharist. There is substantial biblical teachings to back this up.

This all requires faith as well, so I guess it doesn't really matter what others may think of it. But a Catholic should believe this (Trans substatiation) or they need to re-examine their faith.