p.s. Do you mean that your evidence is anecdotal as opposed to empirical?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empirical_evidence

Some people, including me, avoid this though. When I was obese (for different reasons), I used to lose 3 or 4 kilograms each Ramadan, but failed to sustain that once the month was over because of my previously terrible lifestyle. My mother also gets leaner during Ramadan because she prepares her own healthy Iftar (mostly Harira, a Moroccan soup, some figs, whole-grains bread and other "sane" alternatives to oily/sugary food)

> we fast for 2 meals on the first Sunday of every month.

Not everyone does (pregnant or nursing women, or the sick, for example (edit: or people who just don't wanna)), and not everyone fasts for that period of time. Some people in different roles in the church (what non-Mormons might call a prophetic / visionary role) are encouraged to fast more often.

> For Mormons, food and drink is abstained starting Saturday night after dinner until Sunday night's dinner.

Many will frequently shift their fasting times. I do. Just posting this because I often talk to people who tell me exactly what I believe, because they read it online.

> In both cases, Mormon fasting and participating in Ramadan, I can say that I have noticed personal health benefits

I'm just another anecdote, but I have noticed no personal health benefits. What I would call thinking or meditation benefits, perhaps. I have frequently felt relief that while I may have overeaten the day before a fast, my belt will usually fit nicely on the following fast day. ;)

Indeed. I wanted to put that in my initial comment, and forgot. If you are sick, pregnant, or there are other health concerns, or doctor's orders to prevent you from fasting, then you don't.

Also, you are encouraged to fast more frequently for spiritual matters indeed.

Isn't that the other way round? As a non-mormon I'm not about to call anyone prophetic/visionary.

Religions use a bunch of jargon. "Prophetic role" is descriptive where their particular jargon word is not.

Edit: you might refer to Bob: "Bob, the one who calls himself a prophet".

I'm not sure these additional beliefs necessarily disqualify them as "Christian" though as they do appear to have retained most of the fundamental basics.....

I suppose it depends on ones definition of Christian. No doubt plenty of "Christian" denominations consider that others aren't.

"In truth, there was only one Christian, and he died on the Cross" -Nietzsche

Most mainstream Christians don't consider Mormons as Christians because they have added to the Bible, which is considered a heresy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed#Comparison_betwee... (note that "catholic" in this means "diverse" and doesn't specifically refer to the Catholic church)

[2] the differences between the two creeds listed there are basically what split the Orthodox church from the Western church and indirectly led to the fall of Constantinople. So some people consider them fairly important, but others don't.

That was never a christian belief to begin with.

The atonement was (supposedly) because of God's own incarnation as Christ, our of love, not because of some blood offering to God (i.e. the crucifixion, which was not even meant as such, anyway).

Romans3:25, Hebrews9:22, Rev1:5 for instance. There are plenty more. Very prominent concept. Which is why up until recently there was plenty of talk about being "washed in the blood" in Christian churches.

(I believe the manifest brutal cruelty and outright ridiculousness of the concept was one of the primary things leading to my rejection of Christianity at a very early age.... no offense to anyone's particular faith... just my point of view)

I believe the Biblical narrative describing the significance of Jesus' sacrifice was about past sins, that which humans bore without actually committing. I do not believe the death of Jesus in any way suggests, in Christian folklore, that you don't need to atone for sins.

FWIW, I think the Catholic Church (which didn't exist until hundreds of years after the whole Jesus thing) considers things like rosary prayers as atonement.

I realize the idea is that the blood of Jesus was supposed to end blood atonement and usher in a new era. However, I never thought this idea was reasonable, never identified with a God who would set such a system up, and never felt that this idea at the core of a religion would ultimately lead to positive outcomes or really much more than continued barbarism and cruelty, but I'm not going to argue with your faith.

Given what he had to work with I think he did pretty well.

Mormons do get drawn outside of Christianity by some christians for a variety of reasons (non-trinitarian, open canon, cosmological background quasi-polytheism), and some people have suggested classifying the faith as another Abrahamic one as a means of sidestepping that discussion, which may be where one could get the idea that the comparison to Muslims is a good one. But if Mormons are outside mainstream Christianity, it's only marginally so.

They are as Christian as catholics are, perhaps even more so as in my opinion they follow his ideology a whole lot better.

Long story short - if their claims are true they will be able to be reproduced by other researchers. Until then, colour me sceptical.

The question is: do your Crohn's symptoms improve concurrently with the duration of the fast, extend beyond it, or track as expected with the presence of food in your digestive system?

I guess where I'm going is that there may be two variables at play that can't be easily separated in the case of Crohn's.

Crohn's is one illness that attracts more than it's fair share of woo and 'special diets' and so on. As a result I've become fairly sceptical of any one-off scientific papers that make certain claims, whether they are related to auto-immune diseases or not.

I wonder if they do. Or are otherwise are more healthy because of this practice. I would be a bit surprised if this were the case, although I could be wrong.

I do notice Utah is in top 10 US states for life expectancy (no tobacco might be another reason), but it is not in the top 5. So I'm guessing fasting (and/or a religious preference) may not really produce amazing life extending benefits after all.

Edit: Although fasting does have a long history in religious tradition, it is often associated with some not-so-savory movements as well....

http://www.prem-rawat-talk.org/forum/uploads/CultCharacteris...

> Any kind of stress will trigger an increase in immune system activity and cell regeneration

Would be nice if that extended to smoking but alas..

- kosher rules are pretty much there to prevent people from preparing food in unsanitary ways or eating potentially dangerous stuff (eating pork will kill you by worms growing in your gut)

- the 10 commandments are basic community rules to ensure they don't end up fighting and killing each other, helping the race to survive.

- fasting on Ramadan was probably created by a religious leader who felt better after doing it himself and though it to be a good idea for everybody else to do it.

That religious leader would be Muhammad.

That's one way to see things and how I explain part of my belief in Islam to non-religious people: Worst case scenario, I'm just doing things that I believe are pretty smart (fasting, praying, helping the poor and oprhan, keeping a strong sense of family, etc.); best-case scenario it's actually God that told us to do those things. Actually, it's mainly because I believe all those recommendations are pretty darn smart and coherent that I believe it might well be God's message. (Muhammad was an illiterate shepherd after all, hardly who you'd expected to come with these things)

and additionally, fasting was around before it was introduced in islam; check it's versions in judaism, christianity... actually, it was also around before that. people used to fast during equinoxes for a very long time for all sorts of different ceremonies...

And IMHO, belief doesn't have to be totally separate from reasoning. We're human beings, our beliefs are definitely influenced by what our reason (among other stimuli) dictates us.

I started my comment by saying that this is one way to see religions, a way that I sometime present to curious non-religious friends. There's also a more philosophical (and comprehensive) way to see them that I can discuss with people that are just more "into that". And of course, as a religious person, I do believe in God but that doesn't mean that it needs to be a blind belief without any reasoning.

If your kids insist on eating cotton candy (which works against their health) amid a veritable feast (that is delightful and nutritious), wouldn't your ire be justified?

God is often depicted as moody and chronically concerned with what we think of him. I think that's a ridiculous projection of our own human insecurities.

If a creator like God existed, he would be billions of orders of magnitude more intelligent than us. Why would he care if we were skeptical? Humans are arrogant and we project our own humanness onto everything. I doubt God, if he existed, would stop loving me even if I hated him. He would be above all that, in my view.

If there is a creator or God, I personally believe he doesn't care if we believe in him. He's too intelligent and mature for that to ever matter to him

Side note edit: It has always been interesting to me that moderate agnosticism is always the most drowned out religious view. I would be better off as a militant atheist or familiar, friendly theist if I cared about internet points.

If all of humanity gathered to believe, it wouldn't add Him anything. And if all of humanity gathered to disbelieve, it wouldn't remove anything from Him.

People still have this latent idea of God as an old bearded guy (or any variation of that myth) "interacting" with the world (via spells and miracles).

Upanishads states that God exists in each one of us as the pure consciousness that experiences the three states – waking, dreaming and sleeping. The mind with ego (I-ness) is the veil that has made us blind to experience this consciousness (experiencing consciousness by consciousness is possible as stated by wise men but describing that experience in words isn't possible because words are objects of mind and consciousness is beyond mind.)

Moodiness? I can give you human examples of this trait; but what specifically do you have in mind about God that portrays Him as such? This way I know we are communicating about the same thing.

"Overly worried" - I know of no text in all of the Bible that portrays God as anxious about anything. Maybe you mean to say "chronically concerned with" what people think?

The categories of love and hate as you are discussing seem to require a little work. Whenever we see God's unchanging love discussed, at least Scripturally, to what does it refer? And if God chose not to love, would that make Him less than divine somehow?

I'm asking these questions (not attacking! I value your response!) because whenever we go into the "my personal belief is..." it seems prudent to examine whether such beliefs have rational warrant, or are they simply another way of wishing the world worked that way?

"Humans are arrogant and we project our own humanness onto everything" -- that is utterly true. Thank you for acknowledging it. But could it be you are projecting your own preferences of what God would be like if He existed? How do you escape this human flaw while the rest of us can't or won't?

By the way, if God turns out to be real and He is preeminently concerned with what you think about Him, what grounds would have to object to His preoccupation with making you see how ultimate and satisfying He is?

God throws a few temper tantrums in the Old Testament. Either way the Christian God is not the God I might believe in. I sometimes believe in a creator who, for the purposes of familiarity, I call God.

> "Overly worried" - I know of no text in all of the Bible that portrays God as anxious about anything. Maybe you mean to say "chronically concerned with" what people think?

Yeah, that is what I meant. I will change that, thanks.

> The categories of love and hate as you are discussing seem to require a little work. Whenever we see God's unchanging love discussed, at least Scripturally, to what does it refer? And if God chose not to love, would that make Him less than divine somehow?

I don't personally believe the scriptures are anything but contradictory pseudo-history combined with fiction, so I cannot answer your question.

> "Humans are arrogant and we project our own humanness onto everything" -- that is utterly true. Thank you for acknowledging it. But could it be you are projecting your own preferences of what God would be like if He existed? How do you escape this human flaw while the rest of us can't or won't?

Of course, I am. I can only maybe accept that there was a creator. Everything else is just pure speculation. I'd like to think that this creator is unfathomable to mankind. That being said, I often doubt that this creator exists at all.

> By the way, if God turns out to be real and He is preeminently concerned with what you think about Him, what grounds would have to object to His preoccupation with making you see how ultimate and satisfying He is?

Well if he was right in front of me I would obviously admit I was wrong. If he cares as much as you say I'm sure he'd be pretty upset at me. At that point he would either have to understand where I was coming from, or send me to hell.

Either way, I'm willing to take that risk.

Clearly there are descriptions of God's kindled wrath that is admittedly frightful and overwhelming. Do these eruptions of anger and fury and wrath somehow militate against a standard above or outside God Himself? What's the origin of this standard? How does it (or can it?) apply to Him? Objections, it seems, are either rooted in taste ("I prefer this because of something about my personal predilections.") or in an understanding of the world as it is or ought to be ("Reason clearly shows that...")

"Either way the Christian God is not the God I might believe in." You very well might not believe in such a God. But what psychology is at work here? I can't read your mind, but if you indeed resist such a notion of a God who can erupt in wrath or even treasure up wrath against anyone who rejects Him, would this rejection be a product of mere taste? Should things of ultimate importance be considered on something as (I would consider) fickle as taste?

My point of bringing up the idea of God's love in the context of the Bible wasn't meant to say you accepted the text as true or inspired, only that if we are objecting to the historical Christian concept of God, we should at least try to deal with the source of its self-understanding since the defects of Christianity stems either from its faithfulness to its sources or its deviation from its sources.

"I can only maybe accept that there was a creator." -- Happy to hear you are not out and out closed out to the idea of a Creator. "Everything else is just pure speculation," which is an interesting claim in itself, but it seems to be an implicit admission that the hard work of metaphysics is an indispensable part of our dialogue. Your rejection of Christian scripture may be warranted, but I'd be curious as to how you concluded it is a "contradictory pseudo-history combined with fiction." Is this based on your own reading? You don't owe me an explanation, but so much seems to hang on this point. Even if it were demonstrably not a hodge-podge mess of history, fiction, poetry, and teaching, would that even sway your seeming pre-commitment to the words you wrote: "Either way the Christian God is not the God I might believe in?"

"Well if he was right in front of me I would obviously admit I was wrong." -- that seems to be the a realistic response. Scripture certainly paints that picture.

"If he cares as much as you say I'm sure he'd be pretty upset at me. At that point he would either have to understand where I was coming from, or send me to hell." -- An infinitely wise God would clearly understand your own mind on this. The ultimate question is whether hell is ever justified even in the case of those who claim a degree of ignorance? That's another discussion, but I am glad you are thinking about it at least hypothetically.

"Either way, I'm willing to take that risk." -- Blaise Pascal would love to discuss with you what constitutes a rational risk on this count. Risk-taking is a good thing, wouldn't you agree, if it is eminently grounded in reason?

Thank you so much for this exchange. I don't have all the answers, but like you I am happy to hang my hat on anything that has the ring of truth. I am openly a traditional, classical Christian, but I'm always willing to dialogue and calibrate my beliefs in the light of the Truth, the Good, and the Beautiful.

just for argument's sake...

His chosen framework cannot properly and consistently account for these things, perhaps the best he can do is proffer a narrative about bio-chemical impulses and evolutionary advantage -- but the transcendent "feel" at the end of the day seems no more than an illusion of nature.

So wouldn't it be helpful, for the sake of the thought experiment proposed by shawndumas, to at least see where his reasoning leads? The premise ("There is a God") might not be true, but an a priori exclusion of such a being seems no more based on logic than the counter claim. What is helpful, I think, is if by looking through those lenses we see if God gives the world more explanatory power than by not looking through those lenses.

Neither is an invisible horse. These all fall under the category of things that there is no physical evidence for.

>So wouldn't it be helpful, for the sake of the thought experiment proposed by shawndumas, to at least see where his reasoning leads?

No, because his entire premise is based on the existence of something that follows no logic or physical laws. Something that violates the laws of logic cannot be reasoned about.

You're still trapped in a category Christians (or any traditional Theists) don't believe about God. We're asserting X, you're attacking Y.

all sound arguments are valid but not all valid arguments are sound.

so I ask; in what way is my argument invalid?

-----

[1]: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Validity#Validity_and_soundne...

I never said it was. I said it had a bad assumption, which makes the whole thing entirely pointless and self-serving.

Entering a debate where you make your arguments using the form "Assume I am right about the thing we are debating. Now here are all of the logical conclusions of that." is completely worthless because nobody cares about the logical conclusions when the argument is about the part you are taking under assumption.

My response was addressing the part about insecurity. You are objecting to the original poster's thought experiment -- "If God exists" -- which I was allowing for the sake of argument.

So you are objecting to my continuation: Is this what you are intending to do?

An illiterate shepherd? He was a merchant until he was 40 and then became a warrior.

But he was a shepherd during his youth and was illiterate (even when he received the revelation and was a merchant/accountant, this is a period where a lot is based on oral communication).

Not sure about that "became a warrior" part (although he was what you could call a political leader, which included -in that time- participating in wars)

Likewise, is there any study comparing observant Muslims vs. a similar population showing better health?

It would be interesting to see either. I'm skeptical (because I feel like every religion claims that their particular diet has health benefits) but open to seeing a study.

There are studies comparing longevity at least. http://www.scientificintegrityinstitute.org/prevmed2008lifes...

active Mormons from age 25 (Anderson, 1999). Males had a life expectancy of 84.1 years, which was 9.8 years greater than that of 1989–1991 U.S. white males. Females had a life expectancy of 86.1 years, which was 5.6 years greater than that of 1989–1991 U.S. white females