*** Why don’t you eat pork (Why don’t *** believers eat pork?)
*** Don’t eat pork. Is it really because the pork is not clean? Judaism, which also fasts pork, why does it allow the “disgusting” locusts? Why do Chinese ***s hate pork more than Saudi and Iranian ***s? Is it appropriate to question religious taboos from a scientific perspective?
Why doesn’t *** eat pork? This is probably a question that every Han Chinese has been curious about, but most people may not be able to get a satisfactory answer. Especially in the era when Chinese people generally lacked education, ordinary Communists can only say that this is a clear stipulation in the “Quran”, but they cannot tell the truth. Therefore, it is easy for the Han people to automatically fabricate all kinds of bizarre guesses by fasting pork.
*** Scholar Ma Jian may be one of the people in China who gives detailed and authoritative answers. On March 20, 1951, Ma Jian published the article “Why the Communist Party Doesn’t Eat Pork” in the “People’s Daily”. In addition to introducing the relevant expositions of the Qur’an in detail, he also explained the provisions of the Qur’an from the perspective of modern people: pigs are the least clean livestock, and are prone to parasites and various diseases.
Ma Jian and his independent translation published *** classic “Quran” Chinese version
However, it appeared on the Internet In the past, the dissemination of Mr. Ma Jian’s articles was very limited, but today, for some people who are particularly fond of science, Mr. Ma Jian’s reasonable explanation with only a few words obviously cannot satisfy them.
Under pressure, on the basis of Professor Ma Jian, there are constantly updated new explanations, trying to explain why pork is an unclean food from a scientific point of view. But these efforts are almost ineffective for those who love the truth. Basically every explanation will be refuted one by one – your explanation is not scientifically tenable.
[Those dirty and unclean animals]
Judaism also believes that pigs are dirty and unclean, and it is forbidden to eat them . Among the three major monotheistic religions, only Christianity does not have the rule of fasting pork, which may be related to St. Paul (about 3 ~ 67 AD) – Christianity transformed from a Jewish sect into a world religion, and is considered the main author of the New Testament St. Paul made a huge contribution: he clearly opposed the regulations that set food taboos to raise the threshold of belief, and only required believers not to eat strangled animals and blood.
However, not all Christians eat pork. The particularly ancient Seventh-day Adventist denomination is quite self-disciplined. Like Judaism and Islam, it believes that pork is unclean and fasting.
In the “Koran”, when it comes to pork, there is only one sentence: “You are only forbidden to eat dead things, blood, pork, and slaughtered in the name of *** animals.” But the Old Testament” has an additional explanation of why pigs are unclean: any animal that has two hooves that chews the cud can be eaten, and “pigs are unclean to you because they have two hooves and do not chew the cud.”
The original text of the Koran and its translation
However, the food taboos of Judaism and Christianity are far more than pork, among which Judaism is the most detailed. The third part of the Pentateuch, Leviticus, has a long list. Some of the names are out of the question today, including all cats, canines and rodents, and all sorts of weird reptiles. Also, no horses, camels, or rabbits—land animals can only eat cows and rabbits.
Judging from the taboo rules of killing animals such as bloodletting, not eating dead animals, not eating tissues with many lymph nodes, not eating the meat of beasts and birds of prey, the food taboos of various religions There are indeed considerations based purely on cleanliness. But this kind of “impurity” is not only viewed from the scientific point of view of modern people, but also has a strong color of sensory or moral evaluation.
The most direct analogy is what people think of Cantonese cuisine in most parts of China – game such as snakes, mice, civet cats, pangolins, insects such as centipedes, locusts, silkworm chrysalis, especially These are fangs (maggots bred in a special way). In the eyes of northerners, it is disgusting and dirty food, and it is creepy to think of it. Many popular science articles today also believe that these animals are unclean and dangerous because of parasites and microorganisms.
Snake menu on the wall of a Cantonese restaurant
People have basically similar feelings about animals that “we” don’t often eat . People who rarely encounter frogs, turtles, turtles, snakes and other animals (not to mention various reptiles) in their living environment will instinctively feel that these “ugly” things will make people feel a strong sense of disgust, while cats Beautiful and cute animals such as dogs, dolphins, etc., will make people feel cruel if eaten, and it is difficult to arouse appetite.
It’s a completely different situation emotionally if it’s an animal that “we” eat regularly. For example, naturalist Cantonese diners, when they see a strange animal, most of them will talk eloquently and their eyes will shine. For example, Judaism, which has the longest and most detailed fasting list, actually pointed out in the Book of Leviticus that all kinds of locusts and their beetle relatives can be eaten-of course, it is difficult for modern urbanites to understand, but in a place prone to locusts area, locusts were widely accepted by ancestors everywhere.
Perhaps the pig is the most discriminated animal. Even in areas where pigs are used as meat, they are considered stupid, ugly, and dirty (in fact, pigs are not only smarter than cattle and sheep, but even cats and dogs are dumber than them. It likes to roll in mud because it has no sweat glands and cannot heat dissipation). If it is not an important source of meat, it is easier to rise to the level of moral commandments as an ugly and unclean symbol.
The most typical example is that after the enclosure movement in the UK, some areas were gradually transformed into pastures suitable for intensive grazing. The environment without forest vegetation is not suitable for raising pigs.After the pig’s status was replaced by sheep, it was soon regarded as an unclean animal, and the rejection of pigs was even stronger than that of Jews and Christians. However, after potatoes came to the UK, pigs slowly regained their reputation, because after the potatoes were harvested, pigs were very suitable for digging food with their noses in the farmland.
[Religious Prohibition and Compromise]
Pigs are large livestock although they do not produce milk and have little use for their fur Higher meat production efficiency – the meat production ratio of the same feed is 5 times that of cattle, it is simply an exclusive angel to provide animal protein for human beings. In most areas where pork is not taboo, pork is the most important source of meat.
Comparison of wild boar (left) and domestic pig skulls
The Middle East is the region where humans first domesticated pigs. About 10,000 years ago, people started raising pigs. A large number of pig bones have been unearthed from the ancient village sites of the new era from the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea to the Mesopotamia, showing the domestication process from wild boar to domestic pig. However, long before the Old Testament (written between the 14th and 5th centuries), pigs began to fade from the list of important domestic animals in these regions.
Some anthropologists have long given the answer: the influence of the environment and climate. In the Neolithic Near and Middle East, dense forests and abundant water resources were very suitable for shade-loving pigs, so pigs would become important meat suppliers to people. However, with climate change and increasing population density, forests in the Middle East are gradually degrading into croplands, grasslands and deserts. However, since pigs cannot ruminate, their ability to digest forage is far inferior to that of cattle and sheep, so the meat production rate is greatly reduced, and it is becoming less and less cost-effective to raise pigs.
In addition, pigs and humans are omnivores, and after desertification, there will inevitably be a phenomenon of “pigs and humans competing for food”. Unlike cattle, which provide power and milk, raising pigs is not only useless but harmful when natural resources are scarce.
In the era of the rise of Judaism, Israel’s pig industry has long since declined, and the main source of protein for local residents is cattle and sheep. Cattle and sheep are ruminants, so “rumination” has become an edible symbol.
The stomach of a ruminant. Rumination is the act of an animal moving food from its stomach back into its mouth and chewing it again. The stomach needs to be divided into multiple gastric chambers, which mainly occurs in some herbivores of the artiodactyl order.
The rejection of pork in the Old Testament may seem unnecessary, but it is not. To spread religion effectively in an area, it should not conflict with local customs, but should instead be relegated to dogma. The formula of “rumination + hoof-chopping” is not imposed on the believers, but to institutionalize and sanctify the latter’s existing eating habits-in addition to pigs, Judaism also prohibits eating seabirds such as gannets and cormorants. By then, Israelis living in the interior may never see these animals again.
The climate and natural conditions in the area where *** religion was born are even less suitable for raising pigs than Israel. It is not difficult to imagine that in the eyes of most people in China today, pigs in such an area are easilyReduced to the status of snakes, mice, and civets. This is the case with how the British view pigs after they once ate less pork.
And locusts and their close relatives, although considered food by modern humans, are uncomfortable, especially their “cooking” methods, whether they come from North Africa or East Asia, Both lack basic attention. But in the Old Testament, the locust is specifically listed as lenient because it was still a common food for people at that time. Compared with those strange creatures without fins and scales among aquatic animals, locusts are obviously much more friendly.
Before the birth of Christianity, Zoroastrianism (also known as Mingjiao, Zoroastrianism), the most influential religion in West Asia, also had a rule not to eat pork. Historically, the taboos against eating pork in religions widely spread from North Africa, the east coast of the Mediterranean to Central Asia are not so much a mutual influence, but rather a confirmation and reinforcement of local customary concepts.
The different attitudes of Judaism and Christianity to camel meat can also be seen, dietary taboos are more related to regional customs rather than religion: because its eating action is similar to that of cattle Much like sheep, camels were mistaken for ruminants by the ancient Israelites, but are slow to reproduce and are often used as desert mounts rather than meat sources. Therefore, when the “Old Testament” stipulated the characteristics of food animals, in addition to “rumination”, it also deliberately added “split hooves” to exclude them.
Different from Israel, Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Christianity, is completely in the desert. Camels are not only an important tool for riding, but also camel milk is the main source of protein for desert people, and they can be slaughtered to satisfy their hunger in emergencies during riding. Therefore, the Qur’an does not list camels as forbidden meat.
Saudi cuisine – camel meat hand pilaf
*** Teach the classic transmission boundary to clearly outline the pork The relationship between taboos and regions—in Africa, North Africa, where the climate is dry, is rapidly becoming globalized, but in sub-Saharan regions where pigs live, it is difficult for Christianity to remain in the mainstream; while in China, Christianity is The sphere of influence is limited to arid or semi-arid western provinces, but it has always been difficult to take root in traditional agricultural areas suitable for pig farming.
In stark contrast to the pork taboo, *** attitudes towards wine vary across the world. The Qur’an clearly states that *** shall not drink alcohol. In Saudi Arabia and Iran, drinking alcohol in violation of the order will be severely punished, but the alcohol culture in the Central Asian society is quite developed-they don’t eat pork, and they can completely accept the taboo of pork, but if they don’t drink alcohol, they will definitely not force them to eat alcohol. implement.
Whether horses can be eaten also reflects this adaptation to local conditions. *** When encountering livestock, the standard of “rumination + hooves” is also used to judge whether it can be eaten. Therefore, the people who settled in the inhabited areas of the people, such as the people of China, the people of Er, Dongxiang, etc., all listed horses and donkeys as non-eaters, while the nomadic HaThe Sak and Kirgiz people love to eat horse meat.
Kazakh women are processing fresh horse meat.
Before the cultural and economic exchange space today, the Youyou resource network of the nomadic *** has brought a huge puzzle to the settled ***: marked ” *** Food “Is the Kazakh sausage and smoked horse meat edible? This is a question frequently asked by devout *** members of the *** community in recent years. In addition, whether all kinds of seafood can be eaten is also a headache.
The attitude of many *** is simple: you can eat anything but pigs.
[“This is unscientific” is unscientific]
Today, the biggest trouble of the Chinese Communist Party may be the Eager Han people repeatedly asked: “Why don’t you eat pork?” Even though they were told that it was clearly stipulated in the Qur’an, some people still insisted: “Why is the **** not allowed to eat pork?”
The five pillars of *** religion (“*** religion pillar”) is a term used by Sunnis of *** religion, which refers to the five basic principles that *** religion must abide by in principle.
Judging by the relentless ridicule and refutation of all attempts to find a scientific explanation for not eating pork, such efforts are futile – not because you No matter how hard you try, you will be considered “this is unscientific”, but religious dietary taboos are the sanctification of experiences without scientific basis, and are the product of strengthening collective identity based on specific cultural customs and traditions.
Outside the Guangzhou Railway Station, cat lovers put up the slogan “Refused to eat cats”
It is difficult to follow the scientific perspective to justify traditional dietary preferences or taboos, especially when elevated to a religious level. Today, many of our dietary preferences and taboos are almost entirely guided by scientific theory. But dietary preferences or taboos are bound to be a civilized topic.
For example, Cantonese, because their recipes are all-encompassing, they cannot avoid being condescending and morally scrutinized by people from other parts of China. Because people always think that people who dare to eat anything without a choice are usually barbaric and backward, and one of the characteristics of civilized people is that they don’t eat all kinds of strange things indiscriminately.
If the Pearl River Delta happens to be not the richest area in China, but a poor and backward area, it is hard to imagine that Cantonese still have such a strong desire for their own “heavy taste” Cultural confidence. As for the outsiders who look at the Cantonese with strange eyes today, they will probably summarize the causal relationship between their eating indiscriminately and being barbaric and backward.
Payment and car. In Chinese medicine, ziheche is made from ziheche, which is considered to have a tonic effect and is used to treat diseases such as infertility caused by pregnancy.
There is no place for taboosNo, it’s just hard for us to notice. The most extreme example is that no matter how tolerant people are about food today, they will not eat people – it is difficult for most people in China to accept eating a plate of fetus today.
Cannibalism used to be a very common behavior on the Pacific islands, and its strange way of eating is also creepy today: for example, before the Western colonists changed their customs, the indigenous people of Bali There is such a burial custom, they put the dead in the coffin, put bowls to receive the body fluid, and the family uses it to mix rice.
In fact, I know that the Koran stipulates that *** not eating pork is enough. It does not require scientific answers and explanations. If one day, more than half of the people in China are Cantonese, and they ask you why you don’t eat rats, snakes, or meat and teeth, can you give a scientific enough reason to defend yourself?