Why are some religions anti pig? did god not make these pigs?

Answer 1

This leads to some interesting thoughts about Bible stories.

The Gadarene Swine, for instance, where Jesus drives a legion of demons out from an allegedly possessed man and they enter a conveniently situated herd of unclean pigs, which then stampede to their deaths off the top of a cliff.

Let's roll this one back a bit.

A herd of pigs.

Unclean creatures.

In ISRAEL.

This baffled me for a long time - I mean, Israel is an arid semi-desert. Good farming and grazing land must be at a premium. Why waste it on a herd of animals that nobody's going to eat and nobody can wear the leather of?

Then it occurs to me - shortly after this episode, Jesus is hauled in by the Romans and has seven kinds kicked out of him.

All becomes clear. What Jesus has inadvertently done is send six months worth of the Roman Army's meat rations flying over the top of a cliff to its doom. The lads in the legion are down to hard tack and bare bread for the foreseeable future. With an excuse to feel the collar of the local insurgent who destroyed their meat ration, of course they are going to smite him above and beyond the call of duty.

this also explains the lowly status of the Prodigal Son in the parable - an Israeli Jewish boy in Jewish Israel, oi vey, exactly whose pigs does he become the swineherd to, already?
It won't be Moishe the Pig Farmer, unless he's a really unorthodox Jew... more likely the PS is tending to the pigs of the Roman occupation...


And when you look at the fringe Christians of the British-Israel movement (Herbert W Armstrong's lot) - the ones who alleged the Ten Lost Tribes moved into Europe and among other things became the fathers of the British and American peoples - it just doesn't work.

If you consider that one of the Ten Lost Tribes allegedly populated Ireland - and don't forget these are Jewish people in diaspora - then where do the Celtic and Irish myths come from that hold the pig to be an animal blessed by the Gods, whose meat is the chosen meat of the Gods, which is so precious that only the Champion of Ireland may first carve the cooked meat and take his portion of choice?

This sems strange and unthinkeable behaviour for Jews in diaspora... and the total opposite of what we have seen in the Jewish race during recorded history!

So if a God or Goddess created pigs as a blessed Food of the Gods animal - and in modern-day Ireland it is still said that every part of the pig finds a use apart from the squeal - then we're looking at the Old Gods of the Celtic World, folks:

Angus Og, the Dagda Mhor, Fand the goddess of field and forest, Epona goddess of horses, Mhor Rigna the goddess of death and battle, whose sign can be the wild boar of blood-rage...

Take a bow, Lords and Ladies of Eire, for graciously giving Irish people pork sausage and bacon butties.

Answer 2

Pigs look less graceful than other animals, they look a bit disgusting. Unlike sheep, cattle, hens etc, pigs would even eat dead maggot infested bodies. Pigs look dirty and ugly.

In ancient times, religious leaders were intent on making rules up that benefitted the masses. They saw the pigs and how disgusting they seemed. They thought 'these pigs are more likely to spread disease than sheep, cows, chicken etc', lets ban them, we don't want our lot to be at any more risk of disease than they have to be'.

So pigs got banned by the original Jews and Muslims.

Interestingly the Jews and Muslims also made strict laws on how animals should be killed. The knife had to be extra sharp, it has to be done in a certain way, the carcus wasn't allowed to fall into blood, no other animal must watch, etc. Back then this was a more ethical way of slaughter than the any old method non-jews and non-muslims might have used.

Nowadays Halal and Kosha are actually comparitivly unethical to the majority of slaughter. Because non-halal and non-kosha animals are stunned before their throats are cut then there is no pain.

If I were animal I would want to be stunned first, I would not want to feel the incision as in Halal and Kosha, would you?

People shouldn't feel too sorry for animals. If we didn't use their leather, meat, etc we would just end up using more oil to make our stuff and we would be weaker too coz less good protein.

I've seen animals on good farms, who are completely content. When their time is up, they saunter off to market with their friends. Along the line at slaughter house, stunned on the head by million volts (no pain), throat cut, lose masses of blood in a millisecond, immediately slip into a dreamy unconsciouness and die.

The way I see it nowadays in the advanced countries non-kosha and non-halal meat is pretty ethically produced.

Answer 3

Most religious rules are a codifying of what the norm was when the religion was taking root, of taking what people were doing, customs if you like, and making them into religious rules.

Some people say that pork is banned in Jewish and Muslim faiths because, in a hot climate, pork goes off quicker than anything.

However, Pork is not banned large sections of the Far East where it can get seriously hot.

The best explanation I have heard is that pigs need a lot of moisture to thrive and eat a huge amount of vegetation. This means it is a very difficult animal to maintain in hot dry climates.

However, sheep and goats can thrive in such climates, so pigs were banned.

Answer 4

In some ways Judaism may be said to be pro-pig, as they do not kill them for food!

Lots of animals are not kosher as food, such as rabbits, dogs, lizards etc. But pigs are singled out seemingly as even more unclean in some way.

This is said to be because the law allows Jews to eat animals that show a cloven hoof and chew the cud.

Nearly all animals that have cloven hooves, such as cows and sheep, also chew the cud and are permitted as food.

But the pig does seem to have a cloven trotter and yet doesn't chew the cud. So he's condemned as a hypocrite - showing the outward signs of cleanliness but not the internal ones

Answer 5

The explanation that I heard is that pigs, in ancient times, would be fed grain as they were raised. This raised a problem as there was not enough grain to feed the people, let alone the pigs, so when organized religions codified their moral codes, they outlawed pigs.

Answer 6

For christains, it particularly is a query, yet once you're involved here is the Jewish attitude. a million) 2 women human beings is a prohibition presented by the Rabbis of the Talmud 2) eating pig is punished by whipping, homosexuality by dying. 3) purely Jews are commanded in pig, yet even non-Jews are commanded against homosexuality (Genisis 2:24, a guy could marry a woman, to the exclusion of a guy)

Answer 7

In Liviticus(sp?) it says you can eat any animal that has a cleft foot and chews a cud. Pigs have a cleft foot, but don't chew cuds. Camels chew cuds but do not have a cleft hoof.
It also says only eat ocean life that has scales. That's why some people don't eat shellfish. And it says do not eat birds of prey, like an eagle. Liviticus(sp?) is old testament, Jews follow the old testament only. They don't eat pork or shellfish. Somewhere in the new testament things change, but I don't know where.

Answer 8

They are considered unclean (Leviticus). Peter would not go into the house of a non-Jew because the Jews believed it was unclean to do so. God in vision showed to Peter a net which contained all the forbidden food chain which was considered unclean. He said not to call anything unclean which he had created. What comes out of a persons heart is either unclean or clean. That's the moral.

Answer 9

Poor pigs, although if everyone was anti-pig then no-one would eat them and the pigs would all be happy.

Answer 10

Pigs were thoght to be "unclean". (umsanitary) As anyone who has seen them in a pig sty and observed their dietary habits (usually controlled) mmight concur, but their habits when not confined or in a place controlled by sanitarians are acceptable in most instances.