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Those things aren't bonkers because they're not materialistic, but because they make no sense. They are incoherent.
If you told me that ghosts could fly, I find the concept "ghosts can fly" to make sense. Ghosts aren't material and I don't believe they exist or can fly, but I can make sense of the concept "ghosts can fly"; it's false, but it's logically coherent.
Many of the things Christians want me to believe don't make sense. I don't mean I think they are false, nor do I mean they're not material; I mean that they describe no logically coherent concept.
Transsubstantiation is literally nonsense.
Then don't be Roman Catholic.
If I think the Trinity and original sin are nonsense too, is the answer "then don't be Christian"?
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I'm going to have to respectfully disagree here. Transubstantiation is neither nonsense, nor incoherent. But I also am in no way a skilled enough writer to make an argument better than what the various theologians and apologists have had to say over the years, so I will simply have to refer you to them. And if you still think it's incoherent, then we will have to agree to disagree.
I'm also not sure why you are picking on transubstantiation in particular as a flaw of Christianity in general. That is not a doctrine shared by all Christians, it's just Catholics as far as I'm aware. So at worst it's a flaw in Catholic teachings, not Christian teachings as a whole.
The problem is that this isn't just some academic thing. Remember why I'm pointing it out--you made the argument that it's not oppressive to avoid original sin. If I have to believe nonsense in order to avoid original sin, and I'm unable to believe the nonsense, that's pretty darn oppressive. It's not like not understanding calculus.
Because it's probably the most well known example of Christianity requiring belief in nonsense. Yes, only some Christians believe it. If you are not one of them, I'd be happy to discard the example while talking to you, and use the Trinity instead. If you are one of them, however, I think it's fair to bring it up even if other Christians don't believe in it.
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Narrowly defined as the aristotelian explanation for the eucharist, yes, it is only catholic (although most catholics don't even know this). But the belief that the eucharist is some real magical thing and not merely symbolic is patristic and exists in almost all christian denominations, although there are theological differences between catholic transubstantiation, orthodox transubstantiation, consubstantiation, sacramental union and whatever else protestants have come up with. I would agree with characterising all of them as nonsense, however.
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