This little piggy went to the market...

[lunakilo]

Unless you're going to eat the animal, there is no reason to kill it. Since we don't eat pigs, there would be no point in killing them in any form.

Except when there is swineflu around

 

[Revoltingest]

Except when there is swineflu around

I'll bet that pig flu virus can be cured & fried.
Gimme a flitch'o flue!
Maybe they even have little knuckles to pickle, eh?

 

[lunakilo]

I'll bet that pig flu virus can be cured & fried.
Gimme a flitch'o flue!
Maybe they even have little knuckles to pickle, eh?

I was refering to this story from teh time of the swine flu pandemic.

 

[Revoltingest]

Dang! I just noticed that I spelled "flue" for flu.
One cannot cure exhaust pipes.

 

[Rakhel]

Dang! I just noticed that I spelled "flue" for flu.
One cannot cure exhaust pipes.

Yes you can. just call a chimney-sweep.

 

[Revoltingest]

Yes you can. just call a chimney-sweep.

I suppose I could brine cure the sweep instead.

 

[Badran]

I was refering to this story from teh time of the swine flu pandemic.

So what is your point by referring to that story?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

If pigs were "unclean" to eat, then why did Noah save them?

Because an animal's value isn't just based on its usefulness as food, maybe?

It is a >social< religious law not to eat pork...not a >spiritual< religious law.

Pork was far more difficult to keep/preserve than other meats, especially in the Mid East, it became "unclean"/contaminated very quickly...people would get sick/die from eating it and not know the cause.

Prohibition on eating pork was loving parental advice to those who would otherwise not know better.

I don't think this is really true. It's not like beef or chicken are any more safe to eat after being left lying around in a hot climate with no refrigeration.

If there has to be a justification for the prohibition, apart from it being simply an arbitrary rule, then I think it's with one of these things:

- pigs eat the same food people do, and are therefore costly. Cows, sheep and goats eat grass that humans can't use; pigs only eat things that humans can eat, so in that regard, pigs are an inefficient use of resources.

- because pigs aren't grazing animals - they require pens and fixed farms. They're incompatible with a nomadic lifestyle. If you were an ancient Israelite shepherd going from place to place with your flock, passing by the farms of other peoples, then to you, keeping pigs as livestock would be a mark of the "other". It's possible that it became incorporated into the communal identity of the Jews, and then continued to be carried on even by those who gave up their nomadic lifestyle to live on farms and in cities themselves.

 

[TalAbrams]

Far be it from me to agree with a Muslim but in this case I think Badran is correct.
Besides, pig-skin makes great gloves.

 

[waitasec]

If pigs were "unclean" to eat, then why did Noah save them?

why did god create them?

 

[Kilgore Trout]

If pigs were "unclean" to eat, then why did Noah save them?

Because trying to make religious stories mesh results in all sorts of inconsistencies. Stop questioning them and just assume they make sense. Otherwise, you'll never be able to accept them as true.

 

[Wombat]

I don't think this is really true. It's not like beef or chicken are any more safe to eat after being left lying around in a hot climate with no refrigeration..

Yea...it is "really true". And other meats are "more safe" in terms of preservation and cooking.

"Pigs have a reputation of being dirty animals. Pigs are susceptible to infection by a parasite called Trichinella that lives in the muscles. This poisoning for this parasite is what causes trichinosis, the biggest risk of eating pork"

Two factors have decreased pulbic health risk....both factors are recent.

"The first factor is increased public awareness. People have long heard about the dangers of pork. People are more careful to use precautions when cooking pork products. Cooking pork completely brings the internal temperature high enough to kill the trichinella. The Center for Disease Control recommends cooking pork to 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Other sources have said that temperatures of 140 to 150 degrees are sufficient. It has also been found that freezing pork cuts of 6-inches or less for 20 days at 5 degrees or less will also kill trichinella. These two factors have been very effective in controlling the cases of food born illness.

The other factor is changes in legislation. Trichinella is only found in carnivorous animals. It is now illegal for raw meat products to be used in feeding pigs."
Pork: Is It Worth the Health Risk? - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com

If there has to be a justification for the prohibition, apart from it being simply an arbitrary rule, then I think it's with one of these things:.

But it aint "arbitrary"...it was a sound social ruling given the conditions/ environment of the day.

Good advise from Allah that folk would not otherwise have known that saved countless lives.

 

[WorldCitizen]

Because an animal's value isn't just based on its usefulness as food, maybe?


I don't think this is really true. It's not like beef or chicken are any more safe to eat after being left lying around in a hot climate with no refrigeration.

If there has to be a justification for the prohibition, apart from it being simply an arbitrary rule, then I think it's with one of these things:

- pigs eat the same food people do, and are therefore costly. Cows, sheep and goats eat grass that humans can't use; pigs only eat things that humans can eat, so in that regard, pigs are an inefficient use of resources.

- because pigs aren't grazing animals - they require pens and fixed farms. They're incompatible with a nomadic lifestyle. If you were an ancient Israelite shepherd going from place to place with your flock, passing by the farms of other peoples, then to you, keeping pigs as livestock would be a mark of the "other". It's possible that it became incorporated into the communal identity of the Jews, and then continued to be carried on even by those who gave up their nomadic lifestyle to live on farms and in cities themselves.

search biltong, i eat it everyday... really delicious when living in africa

 

[lunakilo]

So what is your point by referring to that story?

I was in response to you comment:

Unless you're going to eat the animal, there is no reason to kill it. Since we don't eat pigs, there would be no point in killing them in any form.

I said:

Except when there is swineflu around

Then Revoltingest made a comment that probably had something todo with bacon and I thought I better clarify what I was talking about so I said:

I was refering to this story from teh time of the swine flu pandemic.

 

[gnostic]

But it aint "arbitrary"...it was a sound social ruling given the conditions/ environment of the day.

Good advise from Allah that folk would not otherwise have known that saved countless lives.

If God's (religious) law is eternal, then it would be valid, no matter what the changing conditions are in this world.

I don't think God (if he exist) ever consider that man would invent something like the refrigerator or freezer. Technology (and preservative know how) have change, what God's miracle couldn't do.

And given that we know how to preserve pork (smoke them, pickle them, etc), as well keeping them in cold places, doesn't this make the law prohibiting Jews and Muslims from eating pork, "invalid"?

It also make the customs of not eating pork irrelevant. Why keep following customs that are no longer relevant in this day and age?

 

[Badran]

I was in response to you comment:


I said:


Then Revoltingest made a comment that probably had something todo with bacon and I thought I better clarify what I was talking about so I said:

I know, i meant what do you mean by saying this in the first place in response to what i said. Were you being sarcastic in regard to that story? Or did you mean it contradicted something in what i said?

 

[doppelganger]

But it aint "arbitrary"...it was a sound social ruling given the conditions/ environment of the day.

Good advise from Allah that folk would not otherwise have known that saved countless lives.

I think the folk would gradually figure it out without Allah's help, when people who ate a lot of pork seemed to die quite frequently with similar symptoms.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yea...it is "really true". And other meats are "more safe" in terms of preservation and cooking.

"Pigs have a reputation of being dirty animals. Pigs are susceptible to infection by a parasite called Trichinella that lives in the muscles. This poisoning for this parasite is what causes trichinosis, the biggest risk of eating pork"

Two factors have decreased pulbic health risk....both factors are recent.

"The first factor is increased public awareness. People have long heard about the dangers of pork. People are more careful to use precautions when cooking pork products. Cooking pork completely brings the internal temperature high enough to kill the trichinella. The Center for Disease Control recommends cooking pork to 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Other sources have said that temperatures of 140 to 150 degrees are sufficient. It has also been found that freezing pork cuts of 6-inches or less for 20 days at 5 degrees or less will also kill trichinella. These two factors have been very effective in controlling the cases of food born illness.

Yes... undercooked meat can be bad for you because it doesn't kill any harmful bacteria. This is true whether we're talking trichinella in pork, salmonella in chicken, or E. coli in beef. Again, pork isn't really different from other meats in this regard. If a pre-refrigeration society decides not to cook their meat thoroughly, they will have negative health effects, regardless of whether that meat is pork or not.

The other factor is changes in legislation. Trichinella is only found in carnivorous animals. It is now illegal for raw meat products to be used in feeding pigs."
Pork: Is It Worth the Health Risk? - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com

So the thing that you claim makes pork especially unhealthy can be avoided by small changes to the pigs' diet? Why didn't God know this 2000-3000 years ago when he was laying out the rules for everyone?

But it aint "arbitrary"...it was a sound social ruling given the conditions/ environment of the day.

I agree it wasn't arbitrary, but I don't think it has to come down to any special insight into epidemiology or food handling.

This whole thing is completely explainable by the idea that the ancient nomadic, shepherding Israelites just looked around at what made them different from the other settled cultures they encountered, and placing a high value on community, assigned divine importance to the differences between them and the other people around them.

The way of life of the ancient Israelites was based on movement: they'd move with their sheep as they'd take them from pasture to pasture. This is impossible if you're rooted in one place with a pig farm, so the things that go along with eating pork - i.e. raising pigs - would've meant a major change to their way of life.

It doesn't have to be more complicated than that.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I think the folk would gradually figure it out without Allah's help, when people who ate a lot of pork seemed to die quite frequently with similar symptoms.

Even if nobody actually figured out what was going on, if eating pork killed people, then over time, their numbers would diminish until the only people who would've been left would've been non-pork eaters.

Of course, since we don't actually see this effect, despite the fact that the Jews were surrounded (and occupied by) people who did eat pork, this says to me that all the claims about health benefits and risks are overblown.

 

[doppelganger]

Of course, since we don't actually see this effect, despite the fact that the Jews were surrounded (and occupied by) people who did eat pork, this says to me that all the claims about health benefits and risks are overblown.

I tend to agree with you. Pigs have been domesticated food animals for a long, long time.

Though don't underestimate the possibility that they were aware of certain diseases peculiar to pork, and could have had an outbreak or a leader's child died sometime around the time the rule got written down, which could have accentuated the degree of the risk. Once it becomes "God's rule" it's pretty hard to turn the ship around.