| Author | Message | ||
| Esther Registered user Username: Esther Post Number: 513 Registered: 5-2004 |
Haven't been around much lately as life has been super busy. Though my SDA grandfather died a little over a week ago, God has been so very gracious to me this holiday season, and I just had to share something that was so encouraging to me this week. Have been having a ton of interesting converstaions with sda's the past couple weeks. The one I'll expound on was regarding a book called "The China Study" which is a piece on how vegetarianism is "the answer to the worlds ailments" type book. Please, don't misunderstand me. I definately am supportive of those who chose to be vegetarian (as long as they don't make it a salvational issue). This isn't one of those instances. I've read portions of the book and after speaking with this friend I went to look deeper into the subject, and found that the study and conclussions presented in the book were, of course, grossly mistrued. In fact, in realily some of the opposite conclussions could easily be drawn. However, this line of thought had me thinking of the SDA's claim to fame with the blue zones and longevity. then I got thinking of how there are so very few societies documented that practiced vegetarianism and those that did/do aren't necessarily known for their advanced health. In my digging/reading, found a tale of a mongolian region at war. One of the tribes (I think because of the conflict) only had a diet of vegetables and roots and at a point in battle couldn't stand up to their enemies because the other side was so much better fed. Keep following... SO, then I start pondering the fact that a vegetable diet isn't considered the diet for stamina and strength, and questionably health. Suddenly, I had an epiphany regarding something I didn't really even know I still had qualms about. My whole life the story of the 3 wise friends of Daniel (Daniel 1) has been put forth as the story proving the superiority of a vegetarian diet. When the thought hit me that a vegetable diet is viewed as less than ideal, God gave me the realization that this is exactly the point of that story. I went to my Bible and reread it. Notice that the men were FATTER than their counterparts who'd been eating meat. How likely is that? Not very. The point is that they shouldn't have been as equal, especially not superior, to those eating the kings diet. These were all men who were being trained for service to the king. They weren't supposed to be brain dead, nor too fat to move. Being that they were only eating vegetables, they would have been expected to be less "robust" and healthy. But they weren't so that they could give the glory to God. Again, like so many other instances, God took the most illogical thing and used it for his glory. Like marching around Jericho and shouting the walls down. And telling most of your army to leave and attacking the enemy with a few hundred men against thousands. And sending the Savior of the world to be born in a stable... Reminds me of 1 Cor 1 & 2... specifically, "but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise"..."so that no man may boast before God." | ||
| 8thday Registered user Username: 8thday Post Number: 1384 Registered: 11-2007  |
Exactly!! It was a miracle! I remember when I saw that the first time. It's His pattern.. how He does things. The China Study has been presented to me also as evidence. If I remember right, the author has a political agenda of some sort. Weston Price Foundation website has a review on it. Sondra | ||
| Hec Registered user Username: Hec Post Number: 855 Registered: 3-2009 |
Are you saying that the point of the story is not that a vegetarian diet is superior, but that it is inferior and that is why God used it to prove to the Egyptians that with God an inferior diet is better than a superior diet without God? Hmmmmmm. Now that is new! Hec | ||
| Martinc Registered user Username: Martinc Post Number: 107 Registered: 9-2006 |
That's great, I love it! This was a miracle equal to the fiery furnace. God can turn ten days of vegetarianism into fatness, against all wisdom. Of course, Ellen made a point of them being obedient to the laws of Moses which were all about health and disease-avoidance. Great point Esther! | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 10757 Registered: 12-2003  |
Esther, great insight! This IS a "fiery-furnace-caliber" miracle. It shouldn't have happened. How many vegans do you know who are fatter than their meat-eating contemporaries? Yes, Hec--the truth is that God with us is the foundational source of our strength and success, with or without "superior" diets. The fact is, though, that God GAVE us meat to eat after the flood. He knew that, in the face of whatever huge changes had happened to this planet and its environment/atmosphere, we would need the nutrients found in meat and dairy. 1 Timothy 4:1-6 makes it very clear that we have no business spurning what God has given us to enjoy. Our role is to thank Him and pray, and then enjoy the food He has given us to eat. The "Eden diet" is no longer God's will for mankind. Eden no longer exists! Moreover, have you noticed that veganism is a hallmark of Buddhism and new age religions? Not an accident, I think... Colleen | ||
| 8thday Registered user Username: 8thday Post Number: 1385 Registered: 11-2007 |
Yes Colleen, interesting comrades in health evangelism. =).. hence the reference to "doctrines of demons".. It's really serious to teach this diet as a matter of spiritual obedience. Just had a comment on my blog this week from an sda who testified that even before she was sda, God had told her to be a vegan. I told her I believed God can speak to us, but never in contradiction to scripture. The overall witness of scripture regarding food in no way supports a vegan diet, or even a vegetarian one. I had outlined several examples in the article, and all that was ignored in favor of what she heard in her ear. Discernment is such a necessity - we cannot believe every spirit. Sondra - oh I know there are still vegetarians among us - so not making any references to those who wish to do so, for other reasons not related to a spiritual obligation. | ||
| Esther Registered user Username: Esther Post Number: 514 Registered: 5-2004 |
Precisely! The China study book is terribly flawed and biased. Luckily, he prints enough of the actual study for a careful reader to pick out the leaps in logic. I'm just so tired of the constant talk about this superior diet and it's health benefits. Most of the vegans in my family are terribly unhealthy. Anyway. I don't mean to make this conversation uncomfortable for those who do choose to be vegetarian...just my reaction to all the pressure I get. Like, when the National Geographic thing is talked about all we get to hear about is Loma Linda and we completely ignore the other blue zones where meat is a regular inclusion in the diet. In really, I was just so happy that God transformed this story for me, which I still wasn't able to read to my son since I hadn't been able to see past the objectives that I was raised to see that it taught. Last night, I sat down and told it to him and all about the amazing God who made them fatter while they were eatin veggies and drinking water  At the end, after we'd prayed, he looked at me said, "Jesus make Mackie fatter too". (sigh, and wipe a tear). | ||
| Animal Registered user Username: Animal Post Number: 708 Registered: 7-2008  |
Popcorn and rootbeer..truly the food of champions !!! Wouldnt you agree? Animal | ||
| Lucybugg Registered user Username: Lucybugg Post Number: 247 Registered: 2-2007 |
My overweight, vegan inlaws strongly suggested that we read "The China Study" to get information on health and vegetarianism. Once again, it's as if we left because we don't know what they believe... | ||
| Martinc Registered user Username: Martinc Post Number: 108 Registered: 9-2006 |
The point of the story is the very opposite to what we were taught as SDA's. We focused on the virtues and dangers in food. Pagan religions believe that when food is offered to their gods, the power of their gods is transferred and ingested into their bodies through the foods they eat. So as SDA's, our belief in the spiritual power of food actually resembled what the Babylonians, and many modern people believe. Jn. 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life." Daniel and his friends were ready to obey their sovereign God's word at any cost to themselves, even to their deaths. Eating only veggies was practically a starvation diet by Jewish standards. But like Esther said, God was powerfully intervening in this would-be disaster. The main point of the book of Daniel is about God's eternal rule over every detail of our lives, and of all history. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 10764 Registered: 12-2003 |
Thank you, Martin. Excellent point: Adventism's recommended veganism is awfully close to old (and not-so-old) pagan beliefs. I think most Adventists, at least in North America, are taught that we are more able to discern the Holy Spirit if our minds are clear and our bodies are healthy, so they are to eat vegan in order to have a clear mind, healthy body, and reduced animal passions (not as actively taught but often strongly implied). In spite of their care to claim their "health message" is all about health and not about spiritual merit, they cannot teach it to members apart from reminding them their bodies are the temple of God and they need to be healthy to hear the Holy Spirit. Moreover, they call the health message "the right arm of the message" or "the right arm of the gospel". If that's not clearly linking diet to spirituality, then what is it? Eastern religions that advocate veganism do claim that the spacey-ness that results from being protein deprived is an altered spiritual state that puts them in a position to be more open to communication from the spirits and the spiritual realm. Frankly, this phenomenon is more nearly like the Adventist connection of diet to spirituality than it is to anything biblical. How, then, would a chronically or acutely ill person be able to perceive the Holy Spirit? How would a developmentally disabled person be able to hear Him? Adventists would often argue that such people are unable to fully perceive God's voice. Even if they don't blurt it out publicly, they do evaluate the mentally impaired and even the chronically physically impaired as limited spiritually and even of less "value". I think it would be a fascinating study to find all the SDA beliefs and practices and assumptions and the EGW phenomena that resemble the occult and paganism. There's just so much stuff that used to blend into the figurative woodwork, and it's beginning to look more and more distinctly dark. Colleen | ||
| Martinc Registered user Username: Martinc Post Number: 110 Registered: 9-2006 |
Exactly Colleen. The SDA teaching on health would compel us to believe that anyone who is mentally impaired is also morally and spiritually impaired. The strongest mind has a spiritual advantage. The mind is nothing more than a phenomenon of the physical body. Body, Mind, and Spirit are really all different functions of one thing: body. The Holy Spirit depends on the strength of our bodies to influence and guide us. Ellen White is very clear about this. Like you say, the implications are huge for the developmentally delayed, the neurologically damaged, the mentally ill, and those traumatized by abuse. In other words, the lame. This is an area that reveals so much of what is horribly wrong with the "health message". Then there is this, "In that day, declares the LORD, I will assemble the lame and gather the outcasts, Even those whom I have afflicted. I will make the lame a remnant and the outcasts a strong nation, and the LORD will reign over them in Mount Zion from now on and forever." Micah 4:6,7 | ||
| Hec Registered user Username: Hec Post Number: 858 Registered: 3-2009 |
Is there anyone who is totally free of some kind of mental, psychological, emotional issues? If there is then those would be OK for God. The rest of us... oh well. Hec | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 5803 Registered: 9-2006  |
Oh that's why God hasn't communicated with me! I wondered... The Lord looked at me and said, "This guy is a fruit loop!" River | ||
| Christo Registered user Username: Christo Post Number: 193 Registered: 2-2008 |
Daniel 1:17 tells us that .... As for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel had understanding in all vision and dreams. It was God giving the knowledge and skill, not the food. Chris | ||
| Animal Registered user Username: Animal Post Number: 709 Registered: 7-2008 |
But a little bit of popcorn and rootbeer cant hurt....right???. | ||
| Hec Registered user Username: Hec Post Number: 859 Registered: 3-2009 |
Hey Animal, how's your face? We haven't heard anymore. I hope its well. | ||
| Martinc Registered user Username: Martinc Post Number: 111 Registered: 9-2006 |
Alright, Animal, if you have stayed on your popcorn and rootbeer diet for more than ten days, and are fatter and wiser, than truly the Lord is with you. But from your picture I say, how about some more veggies? Yeah, I know, very funny.....thud. | ||
| Hec Registered user Username: Hec Post Number: 862 Registered: 3-2009 |
My attempt to explain Daniel's diet. Defile: Daniel refused to defile himself with unclean food in Babylon (Dan_1:8). The word is used in a technical sense to define those who were defiled or polluted so that they could not take part in the priesthood (Ezr_2:62; Neh_7:64). (The Complete Word Study Dictionary) Daniel was not wanting to get a superior diet. He wanted to avoid being defiled by foods that were prohibited by the Jewish law. Ashpenaz, the king official in charge of the youths, knew that what Daniel was asking was dangerous; it was an inferior diet, so he did not want to do this. But Daniel asked him to test them for ten days. At the end of ten days, they were looking better that the ones who ate the regular diet. The narratives of the book of Daniel are mostly concerned with God performing miracles with Daniel and his friends. Each one of the chapters that are not prophecy relates a miracle perfomed by God to show that He was with these youths.
This in now way proves that vegetarianism is a superior diet. On the contrary, it proves that a miracle from God is needed for it to result in a better appearance. | ||
| Dennis Registered user Username: Dennis Post Number: 1841 Registered: 4-2000  |
Another strange thing about the SDA diet is their dry, over-baked bread. They want to be sure all the alcohol escapes by over-baking. Recently, an Adventist friend gave us a loaf of bread baked at Union College. It was the most tasteless (likely having little or no salt) and dry bread I have eaten in many years. It toasted immediately due to its dryness, and it was very light-textured. Dennis Fischer |
