Ellen White, snails and Oysters...

[Amelia]

I only counted 2 times He gave thanks.

[NormF]

Bravus noted:

Quote:

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... checking the contents of our calcium supplement pills for kosher reminded me of this text:

• Matthew 23:23 "...for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith..."

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Couldn't agree more. That was the reason for all my posts on this thread. A devil's advocacy sort of thing ...

Regards,

Norm

[Tom Wetmore]

Paul's counsel to Timothy sounds very much like what he said in his letter to the Romans:

Quote:

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"As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. ... For the kingdom of God is not about eating and drinking,... Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. ... So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God."

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Good advise indeed! And I think consistent with a paradigm shift on such matters hinted at by Jesus during his ministry.

When Jesus was confronted with the Jewish purity police about his own disciples not being careful about the rules of clean vs. unclean when it came to the ritual of hand washing before they ate, he said, "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this Jesus declared all foods clean.) Mark 7:18-19. (NIV)

Actually, that parenthetical part is a rather loose translation of the original Greek, katharizôn panta ta brômata. The literal translation is "cleansing all meats". So Jesus is really saying, "What you eat goes into your mouth, through your body and out the other end, and thus it is all cleansed."

It is worth noting that the hand washing issue was not simply a personal hygiene issue for the Pharisees. They observed that ritual on the order of the straining out gnats for fear that they might ingest even the smallest impurity, forbidden by Moses. (Sort of like the oyster shell calcium concern...) Given that hands would inevitably touch that which was deemed impure under Mosaic law, people eating with their hands would ingest such contact impurity and thus defile themselves. The twist that Jewish thinking had taken at that point was confusing the ritual cleanliness laws with moral laws. Jesus' answer, I think, cuts through such fastidiousness to essentially say, "Don't worry about taking in some unclean thing because you didn't wash your hands before you eat, (or didn't strain out the gnats like the Pharisees do), it will pass through you in the normal course of what happens to whatever you eat. Your body takes care of such things naturally."

Jesus seems to be saying, "I think you are just making too big of a deal over such things. In the end, so to speak, it just amounts to so much poo."

Tom

[Amelia]

Thanks Tom, that gives me something to chew on.

[NormF]

Just for the fun of it, I thought I'd give this tired old horse of a thread another shake or two.

Gregory had said,</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

I consider any bird that naturally feeds by picking up insects, and other material from off of the ground to be a scavenger.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

Mixed bag here. Locusts are kosher, and they're insects. But if they're OK then for people, I'd think they would be just as fine for critters, including chickens. So, looks like we ought to give these birds an OK check here. Still, then there's that "other material" to be contemplated. On that side, there's more to it than than mere stuff off the ground, in my book. For example, wild turkeys eat mast off the ground (that's acorns). Nobody seems to object too much to that, or them.

But back when I was farming, most of my neighbors kept chickens as part of a plan for efficient use of farm resources. In plain English, what that meant was that the chickens roamed the place eating the grain they found left in cattle dung. Cattle are unable to digest grain very well because of certain inefficiencies of their digestive systems. Lots of it goes right straight through them. (Cows, and most ungulates, are meant to eat grass, not grain.) It's my understanding that the feral sorts of chickens in places like Southeast Asia tend to follow this same pattern in the wild as do their domesticated brethren in North America and Europe. In other words, wild or domestic, they have similar habits - left to their own devices, they eat food they find in dung.

Well, I'd call chickens scarfing up dung grain scavenging in the purest sense of the word. If so, what then are they - kosher or forbidden?

The above deals with evaluating what's happening "out there." Then there's the question of who's says so. On this side of the discussion, for example, GreatLakesGramma asserted,</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

We know that God gave these laws for our health, not as rules to prove our devotion. [emphasis supplied]

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

But where in the Bible does it say that? I don't want to go round and round on it, but I don't remember coming across any thus saith the Lord's to that effect.

This whole thing becomes quite a merry-go-round if we dance around it long enough, doesn't it?

Regards,

Norm

[melvin mccarty]

Hey Norm now that you brought up the horse (smile) I wonder why...if it's scavengers we are after..is the horse who is a very fastidious eater unclean?

Now since we, unlike the Jews, believe that the ceremonial no longer applies how can we still talk about clean and unclean? Shouldn't we be just considering what is most healthful and available to us? That might not always be the ideal food either but just the least harmful. But clean and unclean ..I dont think so.

mel

[Amelia]

Clean or unclean, I would never eat a horse. I could never eat anything kept as a pet.

[Planey]

I have a fish tank but still enjoy eating fish.

But then again I am a renowned Philistine.

Graeme

[NormF]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

... could never eat anything kept as a pet.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

Hens and roosters aren't often very friendly (except in a soup pot where they can be friendly to the tongue), but my kids always did enjoy playing with the new chicks each spring, and the ducklings too, which I guess made them pets of sorts ... not to mention the hiefers I gave them to raise, one to each. Those really were pets. We didn't eat the hiefers ourselves; but after they'd grown enough, they got sold at the auction barn, which meant they undoubtedly ended up sometime later on somebody's dinner table. The money we got for selling them went a long ways toward meeting the kid's church school bills, and we were glad to get it.

Regards,

Norm

(Guess we Philistines just have to band together, Planey.)

[Planey]

If you are willing to eat animal foods of any type, be it farm animals, wild animals, ex-pets, fish, poultry, game birds, in the end you are still consuming something that ate, moved, interacted with other living things and had some sort of personality all to itself. If should be no different if we actually knew our dinner while it was still alive but in actuality it always makes a difference, doesn't it?

Perhaps if we feel that just because an animal or whatever is cute or has a nice personality or whatever we will not eat it but if it does not possess any of these redeeming qualities then we willingly scarf it, we need to have a look at ourselves. I have always felt it to be hypocritical to pick and choose what types of meat we will eat depending on whether the meal was appealing when alive but have no qualms about less loveable beasts.

Is this specieism? Help save the pretty animals but tough for the ugly ones (You're on your own, buster)

Graeme

[Amelia]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

I have a fish tank but still enjoy eating fish

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

hummmm, one bowl of neon tetra coming right up. <img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/tongue1.gif" alt="" />

[Planey]

At the moment I hane but one fish.

It is a river catfish (eel tail) which I have had since someone gave it to me as a very small tadploe-size baby which they had caught in the shallows of a local creek.

I have grown quite attached to him and he is pretty well big enough to eat now. The greedy guy continues to grow (because he continues to eat hungrily)

And yes I am a hypocrite because I would not eat him.

Graeme