Hi Nathan,

A beautiful face will age. A perfect body will change.
But a beautiful soul will always be a beautiful soul.

Here's to Lent and Ramadan. I'm old school. I still
believe in respect.

Hi Nathan,

You ask if fasting for Lent and Ramadan - is worth it?

Of course it is for believers.

Both Lent and Ramadan practices provide an opportunity
for individuals to deepen their spiritual connection
with their God and draw closer to their faith.

All religions do things not understood by the non-religious, who probably should mind their own business, as the practices have no affect on them.

But, this morning comes the news that Hamas wants a 40 day ceasefire for Ramadam. I find that bizarre, coming from a terrorist organisation that hardly fits in with the 'religion of peace' theory, wanting to stop waging war for a fixed period to comply with a tradition of Islam.

Knowing the past history of Hamas we know that the 40 days would be used by the terrorists to regroup and do all sorts of things to enhance their efforts against Israel. The genuine Muslims wanting to observe Ramadan don't really figure in the call for a ceasefire.

Is it worth it?

What a first world question. Only people who've never known food shortages would or could ask such a question.

Lent/Ramadan etc have nothing to do with health. All of these practices emanate from the northern hemisphere. They all come near the end of winter.

500 to 10000 years ago, most people and societies lived year to year. You'd make hay while the sun shines and put away enough to survive the late autumn, winter and early spring months. Refrigeration was unknown. Salt was absolutely vital to ensure that things like meat would remain edible for these lean months.

But as you got toward the end of winter and before the bounty of spring kicked in, these stores of food would be getting low. So, you'd need to go without. You'd NEED to fast, not for your health but because you needed to stretch the dwindling supplies.

As with most things like this, societies turned these cultural requirements into religious requirements. Other examples are the semitic bans on pork and the taboos around circumcision. The summer solstice festivals (Christmas) were part of this, where you had a great feast to finish of the supplies that wouldn't keep into the late winter. In some cultures this was called Carnival or Carnivale - literally 'farewell meat'. Your salted meat supplies wouldn't last much longer so you had a festival to finish it off.

Our society, thanks to the agricultural revolutions ushered in by the British and later the US, has defeated food want. While there remains pockets where food is still a problem, world-wide we are producing more calories per capita than ever before, despite rising population.

So the societal need for fasting festivals no longer exists, just like things like saying farewell to meat is no longer necessary. It continues because of tradition in religion and culture.

Absolutely nothing to do with health.

Having said that, I do practice intermittent fasting for health/weight control purposes and find it to be of enormous benefit.

It seems that hitting the thread with a few facts bought it to a rapid close.