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Religious Misunderstandings--RELATIVE-ly speaking...

Just something that I was noticing today...

As my extended family was arriving for a get-together (and, mind you, most of them are about as far from "raw" as one can get) and gathering around to say the blessing, I couldn't help but cringe when I heard the phrase "bless the hands that prepared this food and allow it to nourish our bodies". Meanwhile, everyone was gathered around two tables overflowing with pork, chips, cookies, 2 kinds of pre-packaged and processed pies, white-flour butter rolls, and, oh yeah, a crudite platter (even though it had been confined to the corner of the adjacent living room and matched with a processed velveeta dip to make it "palattable". Do people get it? How can I be told that my food is weird when they eat...well... THIS?! From a strictly religious aspect, I don't believe that God had in mind for humankind to do what we do to food, or in other words, what we do to make food into garbage. How can you bless the hands that made your food when a significant portion of the "nourishment" your ingesting is made on unsourceable machines in a emmisions-spewing factory?

...just a thought.

Comments

  • rawmamarawmama Raw Newbie

    :) We always talk about that...I still want God to bless those who made the food, whether it is good or not, still would want my loved ones to be blessed. And I ask for Him to bless the food because His blessing on it is the only thing that can make people ok from eating it LOL! We also wonder why churches always have pork barbeques when pork is supposed to be avoided as told in the Old Testament. I think people are sometimes so into their unhealthy foods that they don't want to take the blinders off and accept the "norm" as "harmful." I have to laugh, made a raw uncheese ball (from sunflower seeds, but did not tell anybody but my husband that it was not a "true" dairy cheeseball...they all ate it and ate it and ate it, loving everybite and saying how great it was. Finally, at the end of the evening, after being asked a few times what type of cheese it was, I said, it wasn't cheese at all, I made it from sunflower seeds and smiled. LOL!!! IF I had said it was a sunflower seed mock cheese ball when I first brought it out, they would have not even tried it. Recently I just bring one or two dishes and don't say they are raw. I make foods that I know they will like, even if it is the veggie tray, and then I fill up on that and enjoy their company, not their food. It has helped me to like the holidays better to not even talk about my weird food habits ;) And if I bring the veggies tray, or mock cheeseball, and they all fill up on it before the gross meal, then secretly they are enjoying part of a raw food dinner without even knowing it LOL! ;)

  • MeditatingMeditating Raw Newbie

    You will find that there are plenty of people who will choose to follow a different religious path than you do. Actually, you will find more people you disagree with than you agree with, as we all do.

    It is important to understand that everyone is entitled to have their own religious beliefs, just as you and I are. You don't have to agree with them and maybe one day they will realize that they should change some of their beliefs and perhaps you will come to that conclusion too, and I am not talking about food. As we live our lives, we all learn new things everyday and our beliefs change.

    My personal opinion is that you should always respect another person's religious belief with one exception. You don't have to respect those who use their religious beliefs as a reason to hurt or hate others. I believe the majority of people are willing to sit by and watch unspeakable things happen in the name of religion. They do this by not speaking up or trying to educate those around them how wrong the behavior is. There is an old saying, "evil flourishes when good people sit by and do nothing," and I believe that is true. People have always used religion to hurt others and that will probably never change because they think it is acceptable to do. It shouldn't be. This is why things like the Holocaust happened and sometimes why many people are discriminated against and hurt today.

    I understand that you are upset that your family eats unhealthy. But it doesn't sound like your family chooses to eat this way because of their religious beliefs. They only eat these foods because they were raised eating them and believe it is acceptable to do so. It sounds like their prayer is a way of showing they want to be thankful to their God for providing them with food. Most people do that and it is way to acknowledge that they believe their God created the world and all their food. They are thankful they have food because many people do not.

    As for being thankful, think of starving children in third world countries who go through garbage bins looking for food. They are eating garbage but still may thank their God to have that garbage-food to eat. Their prayer isn't about the quality of the food but just that they were lucky to have found some that day.

    You know how you feel about food. If you join in the prayer, you are saying your prayer and you are thankful for what you are going to eat. In this respect, if you pray, your prayer doesn't violate your beliefs because you are thankful for the food you are about to eat. Keeping this in mind, I think it is okay for you to join in the prayer if you want to.

    Of course, it is your decision but these are some of the things you may want to think about before you decide.

    I know it is hard watching your family eat unhealthy. Just be glad you have already figured out a better way to eat and maybe one day they will too.

  • WOW! Thanks so much for the insight... I definitely agree with what your saying and that totally opened up another facet of this topic. I have some thinking to do!

  • BluedolfinBluedolfin Raw Newbie

    Meditating~

    Eloquent and thoughtful reply! A thought to add... you said "think of starving children in third world countries." I would say, think of starving children that are within 100 miles of where one lives. I would suspect that none of our "industrial and progressive" countries are void of people living in what we categorize as "third world" conditions. It doesn't take looking very far from home to see those in need. And, in general, it doesn't usually take looking very far from "home" to find whatever "we" tend to point our fingers at others about. Just a thought...

  • MeditatingMeditating Raw Newbie

    Very good point that we have problems with people going hungry in this country and tend to believe it isn't happening. I have come across some really difficult instances in my job. It has only gotten worse with the economic decline. I live in one of the poor Southern states anyway and we have almost 9% unemployment as of November 2008.

    I was just trying to paint a picture that would be easy for a young person to imagine and most Americans are familiar with that image or stories..

    We should all be thankful we have food to eat.

  • BluedolfinBluedolfin Raw Newbie

    Meditating~

    I totally get what you are doing and applaud you. Let's each of us continue to challenge/invite each other to think bigger and bolder. You challenged intheraw13 to think bigger and bolder. I simply added my half cent to your challenge. My point is about dissolving the "us -vs- them" examples and having a "we" thinking as the "status quo". Imagine the young people starting to look around them and then expanding globally without effort. Knowing without having to "relearn" that we are all one and connected. What solutions would be created that are not thought of today?

    May us "oldies" be around long enough to see it as reality. :)

  • internettouristinternettourist Raw Newbie

    We should always be thankful for the many things we have.

    Intheraw13 is blessed to have a knowledge about food at such a young age that most don't have. I didn't open my eyes up until I was over 40. There is so much false information out there. Make sure you eat your dairy. You're not getting enough dairy. Time, breath and energy are wasted explaining to closed minds. It's just easier to save the energy for someone who looks like they are trying to learn.

    Can you get rid of the false information? No. I think you can only respond truthfully about what you do to those who wish to know (who have asked).

    Thank you God for all the wonderful fruits and vegetables and our amazing bodies that are capable of recovering from all the ignorant things we have done to our gifts. We are rich.

  • aimeeaimee Raw Newbie

    I guess while eating all that unhealthy food, you'll need all the blessings you can get.

    I grew up in a Baptist Church and all the potlocks and stuff, so I know all about that. I'm still a christian, but fellow christians have trouble understanding my food choices. Although non- christians have trouble, too.

  • Raw CurlsRaw Curls Raw Newbie

    Not all Christians think like this! Watch this video, it's hilarious (around 1 minute he talks about the OP)

    Have you noticed on Easter, the day to worship a Jewish man who never ate pork, the center of the Easter "feast" is a big ham?

    I just read the other responses, I do agree, we should all be thankful and blessed to eat, even God allowed unkosher food to be eaten in the New Testamaent and it doesn't affect a person's salvation. I think most people eat the way they do out of tradition and their own knowledge. Most people just don't know any better, it's the way they were brought up and it's what they know, and they aren't looking beyond what they already know.

    P.S. Just to add a funny that Tim Hawkins mentioned about "blessing the hands that made the food" - they just want to bless the hands and not the person? Can you imagine a pair of hands living without the person...another funny tradition that people say in their prayers. Also the tradition of squeezing the person's hand next to you at the end of the prayer - stuff I never thought about until Tim joked about it. I remember my MIL giving my hand a "quick squeeze" when she said Amen. I think I may have started doing that a few times, it's so funny how we pick up others habits isn't it?

  • SuasoriaSuasoria Raw Newbie

    I guess it depends on one's belief systems. For some, looking at meat is like looking at suffering on a platter - not just the animal's suffering, but the people all along the chain. You can't tell me that someone whose job it is to slit an animal's throat or drive a bolt into their brain doesn't suffer every time they do it, whether they're actually conscious of it or not. The rate of violent crime is very high in neighborhoods where a slaughterhouse is a major employer. It would be hard for me to "bless" that plate of meat in some spiritual sense, being as aware as I am personally of what's behind it.

  • ajcajc Raw Newbie

    An excellent reply Suasoria.

    But I just don't think some people suffered slitting an animals throat,they enjoyed it.

    Just look at what most of the serial killers did for their living and sorry to say "enjoyment".

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