Controlled by fables from thousands of years ago!

[thool]

So rather than question the idiocy of these crazy "laws," they come up with creative ways to adapt technology to comply with them. Mankind (at least some of it) is doomed.

They also seem to think God is incredibly stupid and won't notice people employing workarounds in order to ignore his precious rules.

When god brings judgment, I'm sure there are plenty of Jewish lawyers who would be eager to represent all those obedient Jews who were simply working the system. Even something as sacred as a torah has loopholes that a keen attorney would be happy to exploit (for a commission).

[Minimalist]

I worked with a jewish guy who lived at home and whose mother kept a kosher kitchen.  Invariably when we went out for lunch he'd order fresh ham or a cheeseburger.  I would always tell him "mom ain't going like that."

[vorlon13]

I wonder if my secretions, exudates and fluids are 'kosher' . . . . . .

[BehindTheGnoll]

A community without bacon is one I do not want to be a part of. These laws were practiced at one time for many reasons. what with the appalling conditions and lack of sanitation and basic understanding of food hygiene its any wonder people did not die younger than they were already. Those biblical times are gone and we have food safety laws for a reason. Smile and eat bacon! Banning food from your diet because you believe in a sky fairy seems bizarre to me

[chimp3]

I wonder if my secretions, exudates and fluids are 'kosher' . . . . . .

It depends on whether or not your Rabbi is gay.

[The Grand Nudger]

We imagine that the prohibition against pigs has to do with some sanitary issue but it may have just as easily been the case that the guy who wrote the prohibition was in the lamb business and hated his pig selling neighbor.

[thool]

We imagine that the prohibition against pigs has to do with some sanitary issue but it may have just as easily been the case that the guy who wrote the prohibition was in the lamb business and hated his pig selling neighbor.

I kind of imaging a conversation like this:
"Hey, have you seen the Feinbergs?"
"Didn't you hear? They're dead."
"What?!? How did that happen?"
"They ate the leftover pulled pork."
"You mean the pulled pork from 3 weeks ago?"
"Yeah, that's the stuff. We ought to send out a memo to not eat bad pork."
"Hey, let's say is was a message from God, that will have more authority."

[The Grand Nudger]

It's a common way to imagine it, but that;s just us retconning them.  Their idea of uncleanliness was not ours.  The things they derided -as- unclean were spiritually unclean.  It;s also a bit of a stretch to imagine that there was any point in human history that we didn't know it was a bad idea to eat spoiled meat.  The lengths we went to to cure our kills going back as far as we have evidence thereof suggests that when it comes to food...we didn't have the luxury of being that clueless.

In context, "good pork" is just as dirty as "bad pork". The prohibition on pork does not specify a type or state of pork. They would have seen plenty of people eating pork, when they came up with this prohibition - and not dying..and at the same time, plenty of people eating their preferred meat source and dying. The modern urge to make such prohibitions food safety issues is nothing more or less than trying to sneak in credibility where there is and has never been any. All part and parcel of us imagining (or wishing) that there was more to this, that it wasn't always as absurd as it sounds today. That our deeply held beliefs and longstanding traditions aren't built on the flimsiest of foundations.

It was, they are.

In the larger scope of things, much of the OT is an attempt to codify and normalize the values of the instigating group as "-the- values" and very often they do so by making taboo or distasteful the values or actions of the other. It starts in genesis and it's never anything less than obvious. All that shepherd/sheep imagery.....and the constant refrain of how sinful the cities were, just tells us that a bunch of rurals thought everything to do with city life was icky. One of those things, was dense meat production - the raising of pigs...as opposed to grazing animals. God favored the shepherds and their flocks, and by transitive property the urbanites and their pigs were dirty.

[The Industrial Atheist]

So I was making some breakfast sausage this morning, and I recalled a time back in college where I was exposed to Jews for the first time. Never met one before, so it was interesting. At the time, I thought their devotion to their laws was commendable, as was their strict accordance to the whole kosher deal. As I continued to enjoy the scent of this Forbidden Meat Product, I had to wonder: Do Jews realize that they're blindly following "laws" that some people heard, that came from some other people, who ultimately claimed to hear it from some unseen entity they believed somehow endowed some people with the title of Chosen People?

Growing up Catholic, there we so many absurd traditions and theatrics in mass that I had to wonder how it was decided that doing a cross sign or using a beaded necklace somehow had a mysterious benefit.

It's almost like asking anyone why they do what they do, and they all answer, "I'm just following along! Just do what we do and don't ask the reasoning behind all this. Here comes the donation basket." Yeah, they're behaviors are being controlled, they probably know it deep down inside, but can't or won't break the cycle!

The absurdity almost had be burn a sausage, I was so deep in thought.

I don't think many Evangelical Christians would say that they were just "following along" They (unless we're talking about our average half lapsed Christian) would probably say " Because Jesus is my Savior! He does so much for me! " But yeah almost all the denominations preach about tithing 10 percent of what you make even though that's a law for Jews and not Christians and was supposed to be a tithe of food and not money. Literally the tithe was supposed to be given to the Levites but your Priest,Preacher or Pastor is unlikely to be a Levite. But remember, don't change a jot or a tittle of the word even if it makes megachurches possible.

[Minimalist]

A community without bacon is one I do not want to be a part of. These laws were practiced at one time for many reasons. what with the appalling conditions and lack of sanitation and basic understanding of food hygiene its any wonder people did not die younger than they were already. Those biblical times are gone and we have food safety laws for a reason. Smile and eat bacon!  Banning food from your diet because you believe in a sky fairy seems bizarre to me

Actually, that's a crock.  Pork was no more dangerous than any other cut of meat at the time.  Infested with parasites and disease which no amount of fucking prayer by some douchebag in a funny hat could overcome.

The reality seems to be that the Judahites did not raise pigs whereas their Philistine/Phoenecian neighbors did.  I suppose it is a much more logical way of drawing some sort of tribal distinction than cutting off the end of your dick?  Sadly, the assholes did that too.