Jesus, therefore, said to them, `Verily, verily, I say to you, If ye may not eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and may not drink his blood, ye have no life in yourselves; (John 6:53)
he who is eating my flesh, and is drinking my blood, doth remain in me, and I in him. (John 6:56)
The two above passages, in my views, cannot literally mean that you are to eat the flesh of Jesus. That is pure hersey and absurdity. You need not do an earthly form of ritual to obtain life age-during. If we look to the begining of the passages in question, Jesus says,
`Verily, verily, I say to you, He who is believing in me, hath life age-during;I am the bread of the life; (John 6:47-48)
This states that you only need to believe in Jesus to achieve "life age-during." It goes on to say that believing in Jesus is the bread of life, which is what in futher passages is the metaphorical eating of His flesh.
The drinking of the blood as I see it is basically the same thing. Blood is a symbol of life. And bread is the nourshiment for the blood.
Again, the practice of literally eating the flesh of Jesus and drinking His blood is absurdity. Jesus once says that he is the Door. Does that mean that we need to walk through a literal door in order to reach God. And when Jesus says that we must take up our cross and follow Him; is that meant literally? I can surely say that it is not. And taking this passage literally is just as crazy as any of the others mentioned.