Oh Please
--I just posted this on my other LJ account, but I find this amusing enough to share here as well.--
Just found this on a dieters' forum and am truly appalled/intrigued by this EVERYTHING-IS-RELIGION viewpoint:
"It's funny... no one has brought up the spritiual side of our hunger. Think about it... temptation with food goes waaaaay back... all the way to the first sin. Food is a physical need and greed is just the nature of humans. Put them together and you have a very powerful tool that can be used against us by the devil to keep us depressed and feeling horrible about ourselves. It is not a sin to be tempted (remember the devil tempted Jesus when He was fasting)... the choice is yours... just say no...
"Will power is just another muscle... the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.
"Choose to be blessed!! : ) "
Depending on one's perspective and the, ah, doggedness of that perspective, the apple is either figurative or literal, or a mixture of both. Now, I think it's a curious and not wholly retarded idea to consider the apple a symbol of the difficult relationship many overeaters have with food, and the inner conflict they feel trying to overcome their own demons.
But...to take it literally...and to be so promptly certain that of course this issue is all about Eden and the apple...that's where I'm left cringing and pulling what-the-fuck-is-this-bitch-on faces. Not to elevate modernity and make all of us out to be so much more and better than our ancestors, but psychology is not a fixed thing. Like, if the understanding of self has the power--and what I would say is the undeniable ability--to change from one era to the next*, then the understanding of the psychology of eating--and whether the word "psychology" has anything to do with that understanding--has changed with it. I'm probably not making myself too clear with such unwieldy sentences and throwing around of ideas. I could make an essay out of this if I wanted. But I don't much want to, as this is a journal, so I invite you to take my words as you will, and I'll try to defend myself later if I feel misinterpreted. I guess my essential point is this, though: taking your own personal issues and finding new and applicable meaning in a biblical passage is one thing. But saying that it is of course** the answer we can and should all come to as it was oh-so-clearly laid out for us, that, to me, is wholly retarded.
*Dr. Biberman, your lessons have stayed with me.
**The person whose quote and ideas I'm ripping into never actually uses the phrase "of course" in her proposal, but to me the passage wreaks of such condescension. As to my own condescension in this entry, I think of it as more of an eye-rolling "oh please".
Just found this on a dieters' forum and am truly appalled/intrigued by this EVERYTHING-IS-RELIGION viewpoint:
"It's funny... no one has brought up the spritiual side of our hunger. Think about it... temptation with food goes waaaaay back... all the way to the first sin. Food is a physical need and greed is just the nature of humans. Put them together and you have a very powerful tool that can be used against us by the devil to keep us depressed and feeling horrible about ourselves. It is not a sin to be tempted (remember the devil tempted Jesus when He was fasting)... the choice is yours... just say no...
"Will power is just another muscle... the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.
"Choose to be blessed!! : ) "
Depending on one's perspective and the, ah, doggedness of that perspective, the apple is either figurative or literal, or a mixture of both. Now, I think it's a curious and not wholly retarded idea to consider the apple a symbol of the difficult relationship many overeaters have with food, and the inner conflict they feel trying to overcome their own demons.
But...to take it literally...and to be so promptly certain that of course this issue is all about Eden and the apple...that's where I'm left cringing and pulling what-the-fuck-is-this-bitch-on faces. Not to elevate modernity and make all of us out to be so much more and better than our ancestors, but psychology is not a fixed thing. Like, if the understanding of self has the power--and what I would say is the undeniable ability--to change from one era to the next*, then the understanding of the psychology of eating--and whether the word "psychology" has anything to do with that understanding--has changed with it. I'm probably not making myself too clear with such unwieldy sentences and throwing around of ideas. I could make an essay out of this if I wanted. But I don't much want to, as this is a journal, so I invite you to take my words as you will, and I'll try to defend myself later if I feel misinterpreted. I guess my essential point is this, though: taking your own personal issues and finding new and applicable meaning in a biblical passage is one thing. But saying that it is of course** the answer we can and should all come to as it was oh-so-clearly laid out for us, that, to me, is wholly retarded.
*Dr. Biberman, your lessons have stayed with me.
**The person whose quote and ideas I'm ripping into never actually uses the phrase "of course" in her proposal, but to me the passage wreaks of such condescension. As to my own condescension in this entry, I think of it as more of an eye-rolling "oh please".