1) why is wine considered sacred by Christians and other religions? Why is it the 'nectar of the gods' and 'the blood of christ?' Why did Jesus decide that wine was his blood and not beer or water? wouldn't it make sense for it to be water?
Christians don't consider wine to be sacred - they just happen to use it in the Eucharist. There's nothing intrinsically special about wine per se. As Eran said, it was just what was drunk at the time. In particular, the Last Supper may have been a Passover meal (the Synoptic Gospels portray it as a Passover, although John's Gospel doesn't). The cup of wine played an important part in the Passover meal. Only the head of the table drank from it, which is why it is especially significant that Jesus is portrayed as saying, "Drink this,
all of you".
2) hypothetically, if an advanced alien civilization contacted us (earth), and were atheists or some extra-terrestial religion:
a)how would the religions of earth take it? would they be viewed as 'demons?' what do you think the pope would say? would we see exta-planetary missionaries?
I believe that the official Catholic position on aliens (naturally they have one!) is that because they are not part of the human race, they do not share in the sin of Adam (however one conceives of that) and consequently do not need Christ to be saved. In other words, there would be no point trying to convert aliens to Christianity. I should think the Pope would welcome our new alien overlords provided they didn't try to oppose Christianity among human beings. Of course, other Christian groups would no doubt take a different view and think that the aliens needed to convert to Christianity in order to be saved.
b)how would your personal beliefs be affected?
It wouldn't affect
my religious beliefs, because really I don't have any.
c)if the aliens were missionaries and converted a sizable population on earth, would this be seen as a problem among earth religions?
I'm sure it would! But I can't think of any reason why they would view this alien religion as more or less problematic than other human religions. I suppose it would entirely depend on what the religion in question was like.
1) I'm a bit confused about the idea of 'original sin.' why would the actions of adam and eve effect the souls of others? isn't that like saying the offspring of deathrow inmates are somehow tainted because of their fathers?
Well, in antiquity people believed that one's entire genetic material came from the father, with the mother contributing only a sort of convenient incubator. On this view, before his birth, each individual really existed (in seed form) in his father. And
he existed in the same way in
his father, and so on all the way back to the first man, like a set of Russian dolls. So you and I were, in some sense, present when Adam sinned, and in some sense share in his guilt.
However, quite apart from this being obviously stupid, you need to be aware that there are many different versions of the notion of original sin. Some theologians have regarded it simply as a bad example. Adam and Eve sinned, and this set a precedent, and that is all that "original sin" really is - there's nothing actually inherited. That was Pelagius' view. Others have viewed it as a sort of tendency to do wrong (known as concupiscence), without intrinsic guilt. That is, Adam's sin actually warped human nature, causing us to tend to sin. However, we are guilty only for the sins that we actually perform ourselves. This was the majority view among Christians before the fifth century AD. Finally, others have believed that everyone actually inherits not simply concupiscence but actual guilt, so that everyone is born guilty before they've even done anything. This was Augustine's view.
2) why isn't it a problem for Christians that communion is so similar to symbolic human sacrifice/cannibalism? is this somehow related to older pagan beliefs?
It's not
that similar to human sacrifice or cannibalism - after all, no-one dies during it or anything! There's no real evidence that the Eucharist was inspired by pagan practices; it seems to be much more closely related to Judaism, above all the Passover and Jesus' actions at the Last Supper.
3) where do christians believe souls come from? are they 'made' at the time of conception? have they been around since the beginning and why wouldn't we remember that? and to tie that into the question on original sin, if souls are 'made' at the time of conception, why would god have "built-in" sin in the soul?
Christians believe, and have believed, all kinds of things about the soul, including that it doesn't exist at all. The orthodox Catholic view is that the soul comes into existence at the same time as the body, so it doesn't exist before the time of conception. In fact the pre-existence of souls is technically a heresy. However, the greatest early theologian, Origen, believed not only in the pre-existence of souls but in reincarnation. The idea of the pre-existence of souls came from Platonism - Plato believed that souls pre-existed but forgot their knowledge when they are born. So when we learn things we are really just remembering. As for original sin, the soul is supposed to derive from the souls of your parents, so whatever it inherits, it inherits from them.
4) what is the most common religious definition of death? when the heart stops? when the brain dies? Are brain dead patients, that are being kept alive artificially, considered alive or dead by the various religions?
You can't ask a question like that about "religions" in general - that is just too vague and general. Even restricting it to one religion is pretty vague and general because there is such diversity of views within each religion. In Christianity at least, the traditional definition of death was the definition that most ancient philosophers accepted, which was the separation of body and soul. But even people who believe that might differ over
when that point comes. From an Aristotelian point of view, the body has a soul of some kind as long as it's alive in any sense. But whether that is a "soul" in the religious sense is another matter.
5) it is common for religious people to say god is 'outside' time and space, but where do they say heaven is? is heaven in the same place as god? if so, where is hell? is hell also 'outside' the universe? How would that work, for two polarized "places" to be "outside" of space? If there is no space, how do you separate them? or "distance" yourself from god without distance/length/space?
I suppose that heaven and hell aren't places at all, but states of being, just as timelessness itself is a state of being. In Christianity, "heaven" just means being with God, temporarily, as a foretaste of the resurrection life. "Hell" just means being without him, temporarily, as a foretaste of eternal damnation. Of course there are big problems with the notion of timelessness; most religious philosophers consider these in connection to the notion of God rather than of heaven and hell, but they are much the same. Be aware, though, that not all religious people think that God is outside time at all.
6) If David Blaine went back in time to the time of Jesus, do you think people would see his magic tricks as "miracles?" Why or why not? Were people more gullible or ignorant? And hypothetically, if jesus were to reappear today, and perform some miracles, do you think people would recognize them as "miracles" or just another magician's tricks?
I don't think people in those days were more gullible or ignorant than they are today. Just look at the political processes in supposedly enlightened nations today (
satire). In antiquity, educated people tended to rubbish "magic" while uneducated people tended to believe in it - again, much like today, although of course there were exceptions. Those who criticised Christianity often argued that Jesus was a magician or sorceror who took people in; but by this they generally meant that he really did magic, but tricked people into thinking that it was miracles. People distinguished between magic (which is done by manipulating the natural world) and miracles (which are done by the grace of God). So I think that an ancient David Blaine would be regarded as a sorceror, not as a miracle worker, unless he could do things that would be regarded as displaying the power of God rather than simply trickery - that is, if he could heal people, raise the dead, etc. I don't know how Jesus would be regarded if he did miracles today - it would depend upon what he actually did.
That is a popular doctrine, enunciated in the Nicene Creed. There are lots of neato philosophical problems in figuring out exactly what this means... I'll be reading an entire book about it soon for a class!
I think you mean the definition of Chalcedon rather than the Nicene Creed - the notion that Jesus had two natures was not generally accepted before Chalcedon and in fact remained very controversial for a long time afterwards (right up to today, really).
For LDS doctrine I don't think "fully divine and fully human" presents any difficulty; to be human in the fullest and most complete sense, to reach the highest potential of a human, IS to be divine.
Of course, this is where everyone accuses us of blasphemy.
Ah, but many other theologians have had exactly the same view. That was basically what Schleiermacher thought and it became a staple of nineteenth- and twentieth-century liberal theology.
The head of the table just takes the 1st sip.
