While most of the article is clearly and irrefutably true, there are two things I would like to comment upon.
1. Dietary rules
Actually, eating pork in the past was risky, because it was frequently passing parasites that live in pigs but not in cows or fish.
Rules about removing blood make sense as they extend the period the meat does not spoil.
Rules about not eating carrion eaters also reduce chance of parasite infections or food poisoning.
Some rules about not combining certain classes of foods increase the nutritional value of dishes / prevent nutrients from becoming less bioavailable / make them more bioavailable.
While obviously many were discovered to control people, it really seems not all, and the ones we can find in Bible or Quran seem mostly health oriented.
2. Tradition
While mindlessly keeping useless traditions does not make much sense, certain level of respect for tradition is necessary to preserve culture integrity. I completely agree that we should always ask ourselves if the rules are not harmful / clearly stupid, but as long as they are not there is nothing deeply wrong in keeping even nonsense traditions just to preserve cultural identity / originality.
We’re on the same page. Dietary reasons are complex, and it wouldn’t be accurate to say they’re solely about controlling people. That’s why I mentioned control as just one possible reason.
I also agree with you about traditions, though some of them really bother me. For example, it’s still seen as normal for the bride to be handed over to the groom during ceremonies.
While most of the article is clearly and irrefutably true, there are two things I would like to comment upon.
1. Dietary rules
Actually, eating pork in the past was risky, because it was frequently passing parasites that live in pigs but not in cows or fish.
Rules about removing blood make sense as they extend the period the meat does not spoil.
Rules about not eating carrion eaters also reduce chance of parasite infections or food poisoning.
Some rules about not combining certain classes of foods increase the nutritional value of dishes / prevent nutrients from becoming less bioavailable / make them more bioavailable.
While obviously many were discovered to control people, it really seems not all, and the ones we can find in Bible or Quran seem mostly health oriented.
2. Tradition
While mindlessly keeping useless traditions does not make much sense, certain level of respect for tradition is necessary to preserve culture integrity. I completely agree that we should always ask ourselves if the rules are not harmful / clearly stupid, but as long as they are not there is nothing deeply wrong in keeping even nonsense traditions just to preserve cultural identity / originality.
Hi Grzegorz,
We’re on the same page. Dietary reasons are complex, and it wouldn’t be accurate to say they’re solely about controlling people. That’s why I mentioned control as just one possible reason.
I also agree with you about traditions, though some of them really bother me. For example, it’s still seen as normal for the bride to be handed over to the groom during ceremonies.