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God created Satan to give himself plausible deniability for all the evil He created.
Among God's more serious mistakes was to create a world in which all values are relative, but a world with only Good and no Evil would have no referent by which to define Good within that relativistic dichotomy.
I wonder what the world would be like if God had given a little forethought to what he was going to create. Maybe 6 days was unrealistically ambitious. In any case, after the world is gone, I bet He'll never try anything like that again.
I for one think he should have consulted a shrink before taking on such burdensome task.
Back on topic... the "ancient times" reasons for the ban on pork didn't end until about two decades
after modern refrigeration was in common use and USDA butchering and handling regulations were established...
and those new methods had a chance to become well understood.
that was my first thought. As a child, I always heard about being careful of undercooked pork....it would give you worms. The slightest pink was cause for alarm. (I am a southerner) My DH, who is from PA, said that one of his grandmothers was so afraid of not getting pork done that she would cook it so hard, it rattled and bounced when it hit the plate......LOL
I hate it when that happens. However, I remember it well. Meat cooked so hard it was impossible to eat.
Pork was harder to keep good back then. It spoiled easily and also came with some adverse health effects. This is one of the main reasons why it was seen as bad.
Pork was harder to keep good back then. It spoiled easily and also came with some adverse health effects. This is one of the main reasons why it was seen as bad.
Which is why bacon was invented. Bacon, if stored properly, keeps forever. Same for cured sausages. Beer and cheese were invented for the same reason.
You can live on a desert island for ten years, provided you can also salvage a cargo of bacon, cheese, beer, and dehydrated vegetables, or fresh vegetables that you can dehydrate yourself just by leaving them out in the sun on your desert island.
Jews and Muslims forbid the consumption and handling of pork. Religious edicts sometimes have a practical reason behind them. We know pork is perfectly safe now, but was there a practical health reason in ancient times for avoiding pork?
Great Question! I always wondered this too! The explanation that made the most sense to me was that Pigs and Humans eat about the same food. In anciant times many poor people existed by eating the scraps of what other people did not eat. If they had pigs then the poor would have to compete with the pigs for food.
An ancient person without pigs would have no reason not to give his scraps to a poor person because most food could not be kept for very long in the days before preservatives and refridgerators. If that same ancient person had a pig then he would give his scraps to the pig instead of giving them away.
Prohibitions on pork in the ancient world are pretty much limited to the Levant. Pork was eaten in ancient Rome, Greece, Egypt, Northern Europe, and Asia. All of these places had the same reasons to avoid eating pork as anybody in the Levant, but they didn't abstain.
Therefore, despite attempts to place practical reasons behind the religious practice, I believe that the main purpose was religious separation and ritual cleanliness rather than disease prevention.
Therefore, despite attempts to place practical reasons behind the religious practice...
Pardon? Have you even read the thread?
I believe that the main purpose was religious separation and ritual cleanliness rather than disease prevention.
You have that backwards.
The religious separation (where it happened) was at best incidental
to the very reasonable common sense approach of to cleanliness in general.
In later years, like during the plagues of Europe, the Jews were thought to be devils because
they didn't get infected anywhere near as much as their neighbors who lived in foul and filthy conditions.
You have that backwards.
The religious separation (where it happened) was at best incidental
to the very reasonable common sense approach of to cleanliness in general.
In later years, like during the plagues of Europe, the Jews were thought to be devils because
they didn't get infected anywhere near as much as their neighbors who lived in foul and filthy conditions.
hth
That does not really support your argument, does it? Or are you claiming that Europe's plagues were caused by eating tainted pork? And that the Jews not eating pork somehow protected them from plague?
Keep in mind we are talking about an age when disease was believed to be the product of demons or angry gods. Which is more likely, that somehow a small group of ancients figured out the relationship between health and pork consumption, knowledge which somehow eluded the majority of the world which went right on consuming pork without ever noticing, or the Levant ban on pork was the product of religious superstition?
The former requires you to embrace a great leap forward in science for these desert dwellers, the latter is consistent with the way things were.
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