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September 19, 2006
Healthy Living, the New Righteousness.
What is there in society today that makes us believe that healthful living is somehow a good thing? For the purposes of clarification, the question may be put in this way.
“Why should living a healthy lifestyle add anything to one’s goodness?” Better still, “Is a healthy person more righteous than an unhealthy person?”
There are some who contend that by carefully eating what is good for the body, and not damaging to it, one is somehow fulfilling a supposed scriptural commission in regards to what is clearly shown to be the “temple of God.” But perhaps I should have said ‘by eating what is least damaging,’ for on this planet there is not one thing that is completely suited to the needs of our bodies, else we should have no need of plumbers and plumbing. Also, the word ‘good’ must be defined. I here mean ‘righteous.’
This contention, that we should eat healthy, is, as I have said, believed to be the fulfilling of a scriptural injunction. The very first question, then, is, or should be, this: is it? That is, is there a command in the Bible—excluding the apocrypha, which I disallow of as being divinely inspired—but in the Bible, is there a command to live healthy?
I contend that there is not.
It is no secret that I smoke cigarettes, nor do I strive to keep it a secret. Those fumes which, to so many people, are mere noxious miasmas, are to me a soothing aroma. I leave it to be argued about by my betters just how poisonous are these effluvia which I so enjoy. But this is beside the point. For the point as given by some persons today, if I understand it rightly, is this. One may do no thing which harms their body.
We see this capricious attitude everywhere. Here in Tennessee, our legislators have codified a law that requires my children to be in a car-seat until they attain the weight of ninety pounds, or until they reach the age of nine years. Just think about that for a moment. And while you think about that, picture this. My daughter, herself nine years old, is approximately 47 inches tall. She weighs nearly sixty pounds. That is, she is small for her age. She has a friend—these days not so extraordinarily uncommon—who is the exact same age. And yet, her friend is nearly as tall as I am. Last year, when the girl was only eight, and had not yet gained the requisite ninety pounds, the Law of the Land here in Tennessee required her to be in a car-seat. Five-feet, four-inches; yet in a car-seat. I know some mothers who, themselves, are only this tall. Should they be in car-seats too?
One sees this arbitrary goodness being expounded in every avenue of life. In the states of Florida and Georgia, the pleasurable streets of smoking are being blockaded. All across our great Nation, fat is condemned as a vice. No more do we justly excoriate the evils of lust and pride. There are no advertisements offering a solution for wickedness. But nearly everywhere the eye can see there are billboards for Spas, for Gymnasiums, for Exercise.
Television, that seductress, offers her viewers a vast array of gadgets and gismos which claim the ability to tone and sculpt our flabby figures. Magazines and newspapers, like gibbering anthropoids, parrot back the words of the supposedly learned of our time. PETA lunatics, thinking they prove something, cavort naked through the streets and pretend to be animals; and very convincing they are, I might add.
The new sin is fat. The new wickedness is obesity. Having lost all reverence for a God of righteousness, society has carved an idol out of fat-free Margarine, and, following pagan rituals, enacted an orgy of healthful debauchery. Society has placed her idol on a pedestal and those who would dare to touch it must die. Fat may be looked upon. It must never be eaten. At least, it must never be eaten by those who would be righteous.
For those who would be righteous must exercise. They must eat healthy. It matters very little if they run amok into rampant hedonism; so long as they have good cholesterol, their sacrifice will be accepted.
But all of this is very trivial to me. History, philosophy, and true religion: all these teach otherwise.
“There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.”
Religious | By Carl | 12:46 AM
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