Experience and Reason
Virtue, holiness, and religion are connected.
The kind of fasting that I am writing about is moral, and it is personal. My wife and I are in charge of it. The following of rules is a kind of religion, based in morality, that everybody follows. We don’t have to have the same understanding of holiness, and we don’t have to have the same understanding of virtue or grace.
My wife’s birthday is December 1st.
18 Avoid immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins against his own body.
19 Do you not know that your body is a temple* of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
20 For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.
1 Corinthians 6: 18-20
Christmas was not officially a federal day off from work or a break from mail delivery until 1870. We celebrate Christmas day on December 25th here.
My wife and I like to fast/ practice abstinence from December 2nd until December 25th because we find that people do a lot of eating, drinking, and partying starting on American Thanksgiving, and pretty much keep going through New Year’s Day.
There is about 37-38 days from American Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day, so let’s call it 40 days. That’s 40 days of parties, family gatherings, American football, college football, shopping, and miscellaneous eating and drinking.
My wife and I are not fasting from too many things, only grains and dairy. So, we are abstaining from grain-based food and dairy products starting after my wife’s birthday (she was born on December 1) and breaking our fast on Christmas day.
Religious fasting is real. Have you ever eaten only bread and water for a day, a week, or two weeks? No, I have not.
Religious people are fasting because asceticism and self-denial is a human activity that is said to help people grow in virtue.
Virtue, holiness, and religion are connected.
My wife and I enjoy romaine lettuce salads. I like salad more than my wife does because I don’t get bored/ tired of eating salad. Many vegetarians and vegans would have the same attitude.
We buy a particular Caesar salad mix from our favorite American chain of membership-only retail warehouse clubs. Inside our favorite Caesar salad mix is a bag of croutons, Caesar dressing, and parmesan cheese. The Caesar dressing is delicious, but very salty. The croutons are crunchy, taste good in my mouth, and I like to eat them. The parmesan flakes are high quality. I told my wife, “If you open one of these Caesar salad kits for yourself (there’s enough lettuce in there to feed 3-5 people) go ahead and throw away the cheese, croutons, and dressing because it’s the moral/ right thing to do.”
I don’t want her to leave the bits we are not eating in the refrigerator because they do not belong in this house right now.
The most just thing to do would be to give the extra food to someone who will eat it, like the starving, or the homeless, but I am not making commentary about feeding the hungry right now. I am making commentary about how living a moral life is the best way to glorify God with your body.
The adult human is the master of their domain.
Christian philosophy includes humanity has lordship/ dominion over nature because God gave it to us. That includes our body. This includes people who subscribe to “my body, my choice” based philosophy. Even children can do whatever they want. The human teenager smokes tobacco and drinks alcohol, becoming minors in consumption, when their parents are not looking sometimes.
I am master of my body up until a certain point. I am not master of your body, but I can persuade, inspire, or influence.
My wife and I choose what is not appropriate for us at any given time of the day, or any given season of the year, because we are intelligent life forms. Grain based food and dairy products are not appropriate for 23 days of the month of December 2021 because we choose it. The moral of the story is: they don’t belong in our house, and they do not belong in our body while we are fasting. On December 25th we can celebrate with the rest of the free world all the cheese, all the wheat crackers, and all the croutons we want.
Delaying gratification is an art form. Delayed gratification is not something is generally practiced by people who don’t care about self-mastery, virtue, or religious life.
It just so happens that my wife and I are practicing Christians. My wife was born on December 1st. Humanity celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25th. Everybody does not care about Christianity or Christmas day, but I suppose they like the federal holiday (days off from work).
The Jewish religion is the backbone/ foundation of the moral law that was popular for a long time.
Religion refers to a moral law revealed by God. My religion (Christianity) refers to heaven and hell as a place that my soul goes after my body dies. Sure, it’s a mental/ psychological reality also. Death is the separation of body and soul. Politics refers to a moral law made by human government after the separation of Church and State. Sometimes people think about heaven and hell being a psychological reality, but that can be simulated with mind/ mood altering substances/ drugs.
It does not matter which continent I live on; I can mock the moral law (the Ten Commandments) made popular by the Jewish religion if I want to. We can say the Ten Commandments was invented by a man. I believe that Jesus Christ is true God and true man, and I believe there is one God. So, Christianity is the foundation of a reality that refers to earthly actions having eternal consequences. That is beyond psychology or mood. I call it spiritual. I believe my soul will go to heaven or hell after my body dies.
When the New Testament says, “you have been bought at a price.” The price is the life of and death of Jesus.
Christ died for my sins, and our sins, so the good/ just could have eternal life. That’s the souls of the just/ good/ righteous, or those that live the way revealed by the truth of God’s existence. I am connected to the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth, and all souls that were executed and guilty of no crime, but I believe historical Jesus committed no sins. He was sinless. God is perfect. Be perfect like your father in heaven is perfect.
That’s what Christianity teaches: I must be holy if I want to go to heaven. The souls of the just/ good/ righteous are holy. Who decides what is holy?
It’s not goodness according to my human body. It’s not rules I follow for the time being. Holiness refers to God, the one true God.
I was bought at a price means that my life changed when I was baptized. I was baptized as an infant. A lot of people are baptized as children, teenagers, or adults.
I am celebrating the faith and reason of millions of souls that understand what I am saying. People celebrate all kinds of things with their body.
I have this feeling in my body.
Maybe you will see how religion refers to the existence of God, but there is one God. While we all have a body, and all our bodies need/ want/ don’t want certain things while we live and breathe, there is still the soul of Christ to be reckoned with if you want to see the one true God/ heaven/ ultimate reality that Christianity refers to.
There is no heaven without acknowledgement of a moral law, and to believe in God means I don’t create the moral law. It means I follow the moral law. I practice religion in the privacy of my own home, at work, and in public. I am not a preacher, but I do write a blog.
Christmas day refers to the birth of Jesus Christ. I still celebrate that with gifts, food, family, friends, and time off from work. I don’t forget where that day comes from historically, and what it means to believe.
Virtue, holiness, and religion are connected.
The kind of fasting that I am writing about is moral, and it is personal. My wife and I are in charge of it. Adults create rules to their lives, sometimes other people have the same rules, like in the case of two married people. The following of rules is a kind of religion, based in morality, that everybody follows. We don’t have to have the same understanding of holiness, and we don’t have to have the same understanding of virtue or grace.
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