I don’t think anyone thinks a Catholic priest can turn wine into blood on command.
Neither do Catholics think their priests turn wine into actual blood. After all, they’re able to see and taste it as wine afterwards! Instead they’re dualists: they believe the Platonic Form of the wine is replaced by that of blood, while the substance remains. And they think this makes testable predictions, because they think they have dualistic non-material souls which can then somehow experience the altered Form of the wine-blood.
Anyway, Catholicism makes lots of other predictions about the ordinary material world, which of course don’t come true, and so it’s more productive to focus on those. For instance, the efficacy of prayer, miraculous healing, and the power of sacred relics and places.
I really don’t think that the vast majority of Catholics bother forming a position regarding transubstantiation. One of the major benefits of joining a religion is letting other people think for you.
Neither do Catholics think their priests turn wine into actual blood. After all, they’re able to see and taste it as wine afterwards! Instead they’re dualists: they believe the Platonic Form of the wine is replaced by that of blood, while the substance remains. And they think this makes testable predictions, because they think they have dualistic non-material souls which can then somehow experience the altered Form of the wine-blood.
Anyway, Catholicism makes lots of other predictions about the ordinary material world, which of course don’t come true, and so it’s more productive to focus on those. For instance, the efficacy of prayer, miraculous healing, and the power of sacred relics and places.
I really don’t think that the vast majority of Catholics bother forming a position regarding transubstantiation. One of the major benefits of joining a religion is letting other people think for you.
This is probably true, but the discussion was about religion (i.e. official dogma) making predictions. Lots of holes can be picked in that, of course.