Gratitude, Compulsion, Idiocy or Nobility?

[MRC_Hans]

Yes but Potato n other root crops are discouraged in Jainism.

We can't all live from fruits and nuts.

Hans

 

[Mojo]

Not to mention the advantage of cooking meat rather than risk eating putrid meat.

There are several other "natural" foods that are poisonous when raw. For example Cassava root.

I wonder if Kumar's vegetarian diet includes kidney beans.

 

[JayUtah]

We can't all live from fruits and nuts.

Not only can't we, there's no reason why we should have to. Kumar's religion is ascetic. It practices privation for its own sake, not out of some practical necessity or universal moral mandate. It's a "natural" religion only because it creates a fairy-tale version of nature and worships it as a god. All these supposedly "natural" dietary practices are really just made-up religious obligations to the nature-god, not anything that has a basis in fact or science.

My culinary training is in the Escoffier tradition. There's a staple recipe called Chateau Potatoes. Westerns today eat a descendant of this dish very commonly: it's essentially chunks of potato baked on a tray in oil and spices. Most restaurants will serve their variant as "house" potatoes, especially for Sunday brunch. But traditionally, Chateau Potatoes require "turning" the potatoes. Turning vegetables means primarily using a reverse-curved paring knife to slice away the rotten parts of the vegetable -- that's the practical purpose. But the artistic purpose is to create a pleasing, uniform shape with the core of the vegetable that's fit to eat. Commonly they were cut in jewel shapes, or narrow cigar shapes. Some of the vegetables like carrots could be blanched and sauced. Potatoes, of course, had to be cooked thoroughly.

By January or February you simply don't have good vegetables anymore. No matter how carefully you lay up your stores for the winter, some amount of rot will have set in. Turned vegetables became a necessity if you didn't want to die from decayed food. Now, ironically, turning a vegetable is considered wasteful. Why would you throw away three-fourths of a perfectly good potato? And that's because nearly every potato we get is perfectly good, even in February. Somewhere they're still growing potatoes, and somewhere they're trucking them into colder areas.

Similarly I don't have to blanch carrots anymore. The Edwardians would have done so artistically to make them softer and easier to eat in the stilted, straight-laced style in which they dined. But they did so practically because even just the 2-3 minutes in boiling water kills the bacteria in questionably-preserved foods. But even still, practically any time of the year I can obtain the fruits and vegetables I use in a fresh state, and this lets me crunch on a perfectly ripe, perfectly safe carrot even when the climate where I live wouldn't let me get one out of my own patch.

It is this nearly ubiquitous presence of high-quality, safe foodstuff that lets the modern raw-food movement flourish. It's no longer a practical necessity to cook some foods. It's no longer a practical necessity to preserve foods for times in which no food is available to be gathered. But this luxury of nutrition is possible only with the cultivation and factory-farming techniques that Kumar decries as "violence" to nature. I can have a ripe lime today only because they were grown at a scale that makes economic sense and transported to me. If we get rid of that infrastructure, we have to go back to scratching by only by what we can collect and preserve. We'd have to go back to spending the majority of our time and energy collecting enough food to survive on.

That is not an evolutionary advantage.

 

[Mojo]

Naturally occuring, should be, not in anyway assaulted, distúrbed and intervenéd by humans. Is it so? Since you provided thís link, it is not cherry picked.

Would you prefer "quote-mined"?

 

[sackett]

Mahavira, won't you please come home

We can't all live from fruits and nuts.

Hans

Especially the nuts.

 

[Kumar]

We can't all live from fruits and nuts.

Hans

Plus milk?

 

[Kumar]

I didn't say anything about indoor versus outdoor living. Anyone who lives in mountainous country is more susceptible to radiation from space, and hence has a higher cancer rate, than people who live at sea level. This is a natural cause of cancer. What are you talking about with respect to indoor living?

As for uranium, some of it is subsurface and some of it is just lying on the ground. Chunks of yellow uranium ore are a natural feature of our landscape. Again, this is a natural source of radiation and therefore a natural source of cancer.

Your insinuation that cancer arises only from bad human behavior is not factually correct. There are natural causes for cancer.



It's not a matter simply of taste. Potatoes will make you sick if you eat them raw. Many foods that we are able to consume via cooking would make us sick or kill us if we ate them raw. Cooking is a net evolutionary advantage.



How nice it must be to have that luxury. Elsewhere they are important sources of food.

Why can’t it be possible we became immunocompromised due to modern practices so that even natural exposures became harmful to us? Other species esp livíng naturally apear to tolerate well these nsturals,
I think radon radiation effect more indoors and in mines.

 

[JayUtah]

I think radon radiation effect more indoors and in mines.

Wrong.

 

[bruto]

Why can’t it be possible we became immunocompromised due to modern practices so that even natural exposures became harmful to us? Other species esp livíng naturally apear to tolerate well these nsturals,
I think radon radiation effect more indoors and in mines.

And caves? We can't all live outdoors in the tropics.

 

[Kumar]

You are the one who simplified it. You are the one who told us the life of Mahavira was documented sufficiently that its authenticity could not be rationally disputed. I'm asking you questions designed to determine the standard of proof that applies to that statement.

I think, you done some home work, but if not, just read it to get answer to you question:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahavira

And as usual your standard of proof boils down to whether you already agree with it. Do you understand that your argument is no more powerful than simply stating the origin story of Jainism and demanding that people accept it without question? How is that not just pimping your religion? From the point of view of someone who doesn't already believe your religion, there's nothing "basic nature" about it. It's just Hindu mysticism, which is just a fairy tale.

Influencing manipulatively or force preaching of this religion is not the principle and need of this religion. Therefore, thought quite ancient but still remained within natural limits. Pls avoid personal remarks.

And when I said "written down," that's really being charitable to the Mahavira story, which was handed down by an oral tradition, not a written one. So you're already several steps behind, say, the Jews, whose scriptures are just as old as your religion, but they had the foresight to write them down and institute a textual apparatus to prevent corruption over time due to copyists' errors. And you seem to be entirely sidestepping the fact that there are two different camps of Jains, and that one of the things that separate them is a belief about the integrity of Jain scripture. Some Jains believe that a famine long ago wiped out enough of the Jain clergy that Mahavira's teachings did not survive entirely -- an understandable problem if you rely on oral transmission. Are you really going to maintain the infallibility of the Mahavira story when that's not even a belief shared by all the people who follow him?

I mentioned, recorded sayings of Lord Mahavira by his disciple. Yes many such records were lost, but other still existed which become basis of continuance of it. You know, many time, someone say a new thing to us and that you remember for whole lifeas if embedded in your memory. Lord Mahavira all sayings were like it i.e absolute. Moreover, 23 lords/Tirthankers also preceded him. These 24 lords considered to repeated many times and will continue, which may suggest, it can has million billion years history. Anyway, since basis was true religion, even a smaal spark was capable to produce big fire. Its followers, though divided in few bronches due to regional environment changes, but still main stem is maintained. Basic principles and basic worships remain same. They still remained like a family, never fought within, never disrespected other member, accepted marriages within all of them etc. Divisions in branches even upto stem level, i.e basics+principles+people attitudes+contradictions etc seems to be quite apparent in many other prominent ancient religions.

I understand that you're desperate to place Jainism above criticism, but you simply aren't going to get there on this forum by consistently misrepresenting the facts and continually preaching from the point of view that your religion is self-evidently correct. This may be the religion forum, but it's the religion forum of a skeptical web site. You don't get to demand that your preaching can't be questioned on logical, scientific, or factual grounds. That never goes away.

As I told above, this religion neither encourage nor suggest undue or unnatural preaching because it does not need it and tend to remain within natural limits.

 

[JayUtah]

I think, you done some home work, but if not, just read it to get answer to you question:

I don't have a question. I have a challenge. You claim the Mahavira story is beyond rational dispute. I've provided facts that challenge that. You cannot deal with those facts and simply fall back to saying you'll just believe whatever your religion says. Unfortunately your religion is simply Hindu mysticism, not self-evident fact. It is no more credible than a fairy tale. That's not a personal attack. That's an observation.

 

[Kumar]

Your answer was unnecessarily vague and evasive because it's very clear that you misunderstood the question. Jay Utah asked the question if you believe a story is true JUST because it is repeated. JUST because it is repeated (or recorded)! He did not ask the abundantly stupid question of whether a repeated story might be true. He did not ask whether any specific story is true, or why.

You repeatedly misunderstand basic ideas and questions. This is actually a one-sided question, and to answer it as if it were not is to misunderstand the question and to guarantee error. A "one side" answer is not only possible, it is necessary, if it is to be an answer at all.

Obviously a true story may be repeated, and a repeated story may be true. But a false story can also be repeated, and a repeated story may be false. Thus the answer to the question asked can only be "NO" to anyone but a manifest fool. A story cannot be shown to be true JUST because it is repeated. If you come up with any other answer you are mistaken.

e.t.a. apologies for using "repeated" here rather than "written down" or "recorded," but I think it's the same. It should be abundantly, trivially obvious that if you argue with anything anyone has ever written, you already know that the answer is, that simply writing a story down does not make it true. If the reverse were true, then every criticism others make of you would be necessarily true too, wouldn't it?

I repeat, this was not an ambiguous question. It is supremely important, I think, that you take the time to understand this, because thinking about it correctly might bear on one's understanding of other, basic, scientific ideas. If a single instance occurs of a repeated story being false, the answer to that question can only be one thing. Reread that sentence again until you understand what I just said. The question was about whether repetition alone makes a story true. If a single instance exists of a repeated story being false, the question is, necessarily, answered. Any answer but the negative is a mistake.

When I sat and thought, as he asked, then I could understand his intention. He simply tried, I should give one sided reply. But one sided reply can never be possible unless A&F. One can be modification/manifestation of Prime/basic other of some secondary/gross. Eg. Eating natural fruits vs cooked food, walking vs vehicles....so on.

However, I should thankful to Jay for putting this question intentionally but with unintentional outcome. As I gave Dict def. of Natural as "Inherent sense of wrong and right" but since we are evolved to cooking, it should had become natural to us, may be to secondary level but still we should have its inherent sense of right or wrong. If so, how it is not at par to natural at primary level? It made me to re-think about real meaning of "Inherent", if relate to natural at primary level or also to secondary level. ?

 

[Kumar]

I wonder if Kumar's vegetarian diet includes kidney beans.

Those are seeds.

 

[JayUtah]

When I sat and thought, as he asked, then I could understand his intention. He simply tried, I should give one sided reply. But one sided reply can never be possible unless A&F. One can be modification/manifestation of Prime/basic other of some secondary/gross. Eg. Eating natural fruits vs cooked food, walking vs vehicles....so on.

However, I should thankful to Jay for putting this question intentionally but with unintentional outcome. As I gave Dict def. of Natural as "Inherent sense of wrong and right" but since we are evolved to cooking, it should had become natural to us, may be to secondary level but still we should have its inherent sense of right or wrong. If so, how it is not at par to natural at primary level? It made me to re-think about real meaning of "Inherent", if relate to natural at primary level or also to secondary level. ?

Do you agree that there is no rational basis for considering the Mahavira story integral and infallible?

 

[Kumar]

Not only can't we, there's no reason why we should have to. Kumar's religion is ascetic. It practices privation for its own sake, not out of some practical necessity or universal moral mandate. It's a "natural" religion only because it creates a fairy-tale version of nature and worships it as a god.
That is not an evolutionary advantage.

Please avoid personal remarks. You may read about Hindu beliefs about diets on following links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sattvic_diet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism

Basically, Meaning of specific diets in any true religion should be: to improve our Physical, metal & spiritual health by keeping in mind regional & environmental variations and availability. Why spiritual? Because we are somewhat senior most higher conscious intelligent speci esp gifted by nature to fulfil some specific purpose/natural duty consciously .

 

[Kumar]

Would you prefer "quote-mined"?

??????

 

[Kumar]

Wrong.

I think, It is there in that link provided by Pixel.

 

[Kumar]

And caves? We can't all live outdoors in the tropics.

Should we not take, common, specific or rare occurance differently?

 

[JayUtah]

Please avoid personal remarks.

Those aren't personal remarks. You have no right to have your religion described in glowing terms. Your religion worships nature as if it were a god. If you don't how skeptics respond to that, don't talk to skeptics.

Basically, Meaning of specific diets in any true religion...

No. Once again you're just listing the teachings of your religion and trying to say they are somehow universal. They aren't.

 

[Kumar]

I don't have a question. I have a challenge. You claim the Mahavira story is beyond rational dispute. I've provided facts that challenge that. You cannot deal with those facts and simply fall back to saying you'll just believe whatever your religion says. Unfortunately your religion is simply Hindu mysticism, not self-evident fact. It is no more credible than a fairy tale. That's not a personal attack. That's an observation.

When anything exist in history and in today's scriptures & literature. It is a proof and awnser to your question. That link which I gave should satisfy you, yes, if you are not otherwise perceived or interested.