Why do you think God said do not eat certain foods?

Question

IScience is continually finding that things in the Word of God are beneficial if followed. Like circumcision being a factor that lowers risk of AIDS in Africa and such


I doubt He said it just do not eat this because he wanted us to live without pork. There had to be a reason. What are your thoughts?

Answer 1

It's because pigs have a similar digestive system to humans that isn't so good at expelling imuprities. Similarly, shellfish basically absorbs all the pollution of the ocean and then when you eat it, you quite often get food poisoning. God always gives us advice for our own benefit. Going against God's advice will always only harm us. In matters large and small.

Answer 2

There were a lot of health factors to consider. Improperly cooked pork can cause trichonosis, shellfish can pick up and carry lead from the water as well as iodine, this was the bronze age where there were a lot of metals being smelted. The rabbis saw people getting sick, and made up what was kosher and what was not.

Answer 3

Well, if you're looking at the Bible as the "Word of God" you need to remember that it is the Word of God as interpreted by man--the men who wrote the Bible may have been divinely inspired, but they're also men who had knowledge of their world, filled with prejudices, political leanings, and tribal knowledge.

That being said, these men, after living in the desert for thousands of years are going to know what is healthy to eat and what could be dangerous. Animals such as pigs, who wallow in mud and are indescriminate eaters, are viewed as unclean--and it was just smarter to avoid eating it all together than risking the health consequences.

Answer 4

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circumcision pre-dates recorded Human history with depictions is stone-age cave drawings and Ancient Egypyian pyramids. It is thought to have originally meant to be a form of ritual sacrifice or offering, a sign of submission to a deity,a mark of defeat or slavery,a rite of passage to adulthood or a health precaution. It is a religious commandment in Judaism and customary in other beliefs ( Islam, Oriental Orthodox), but has more recently become more widespread because it is believed to control HIV, penile cancer and other viruses/diseases.

as for food,particularly pork, part of it is that pigs are considered filthy animals that could carry diseases and such, but i also heard a Jewish rabbi explain on some reality show--Hulk Hogan's,i think-- that what separates a Kosher animal from a non-Kosher animal is the method of slaughter,whether the animal feels pain or not

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Answer 5

Pork was infected with the trich, which killed people who ate improperly cooked pork. It was no use telling that to the savages. They didn't have the brains to believe in trich, but they were afraid of Jehovah; so the priests came forward and proclaimed that God had forbidden pork. Since the rule was given divine sanction, it was eventually elevated into a "universal" virtue, with the result that certain "religious" people still refrain from eating pork today, even though it's perfectly safe in most instances.

The same goes for most of the proscriptions in the Bible. They originally served a practical purpose, but became dogma. It's ridiculous to avoid eating pork for "religious" reasons that have nothing to do with reality. In the same way, the proscription on homosexuality was originally due to the fact that for a tribe of nomads wandering in the desert, non-procreative sex was literally a social crime. Not so today!

Answer 6

Pork carries trichinosis, a parasite that does nasty things to the body. It is killed with sufficient cooking. Not knowing a cause or fix, just ban it. Some of the other things are much more emotional in content - not mixing milk and meat because of mothers milk.

Answer 7

Pork is very high in bacteria and other harmful germs. The reasion was becuse in biblical history, they cooked mostly over open fire in which it is very hard to throughly cook pork or to get it hot enough to kill the bacteria. By outlawing pork, he lowered the effect of food posining on the early jewish nation.

Answer 8

People saw that when you ate pork you died. They told people not to eat it and they died. They said "hey, there is an all powerful sky daddy that said not to eat pork" and that did the trick.

Now we know rare or raw pork carries trichinosis so we cook it and eat pork. If it was really from a god he would have just told us to cook it.

Answer 9

Not sure about pork, but catfish and shrimp are bottom feeders. Very nasty. God knows what he is talking about. However in Romans I believe it speaks as though all foods are clean now. That's is something between each individual and God. I eat pork , but do not eat shrimp.

Answer 10

Some argue that pork really is harmful if not properly prepared, but others argue that this is was merely an ancient superstition, derived from people fearing a pig's intellgence. (Christopher Hitchens is a proponent of the latter view.)

I think viewing it as an irrational belief makes more sense.

Interesting note: fear of eating pig meat predates Judaism, as anthropologists have found from the lack of pig bones in ancient trash pits in the Judea region.