Civil Religion

Am I the only one troubled by the iconography in many churches of the US flag? When I wrote about, and gave an example of Civil Religion last week, it was not well received. Here is what Prof. Philip Gorski who has specialized in studying Civic Religion said about the early church: 

In the standard genealogy, the term “civil religion” is attributed to Rousseau and traced to the Romans, sometimes via Machiavelli (Hughey 1983; Rouner 1986; Shanks 1995; Cristi 2001; Parsons 2002). While the peoples of Rome enjoyed a great deal of religious freedom, they were nonetheless obligated to take part in the civic rituals of the Empire (Scheid 2003). These demands, it should be noted, were of a purely ritual character. They did not involve a confession or creed of any kind, as regarded the efficacy or meaning of the rituals. The refusal of the early Christians to take part in the Roman cult was one of the principal reasons, perhaps the principal reason, why they were subject to periodic persecutions. Nor did the Christianization of the Empire bring an end to religious persecution; it simply shifted their target — from the Christians to the “pagans”

This was actually the subject of one of my earliest blog posts. It seems almost quaint that the early church was so concerned about such a trivial matter--and that is the problem, for the confusion of the state with God is a common error among Christians. This should not be a surprise as this was a common mistake throughout history. 

For those interested in this subject and who wish to go a little deeper, here is an interview with professor Gorski.  

Since I have meditating on this lately, you can no doubt expect more posts on this subject. 

Don't Diet

Later I will review the The Perfect Health Diet. While I found the book incoherent, I did find one point of agreement similar to my agreement with the video I posted last week. This is from location 6598 in my Kindle edition:

Some diet gurus advocate different diets for weight loss and maintenance. This is unnecessary. Since it is possible to lose weight eating the same calories as a normal person, it's not necessary to eat a diet different than a normal person's to lose weight.  

While the book critiques diet gurus who suggest diets, do you want to make a guess what the book does a few pages later? That is right, the authors offer a diet! This book will receive the full "Positive Dennis" critique very soon. 

But the authors were right in the first place: "dieting" is a mistake. The first reason is that while one is dieting,  they do not learn permanent techniques for healthy eating. The dieter learns temporary techniques that do not necessarily apply to the normal eating habits they will eventually adopt. It is like being an ivory tower intellectual where the theory does not fit reality. One needs to adopt permanent lifestyle changes, not temporary ones. A dieter is worse off if they yo-yo back and forth in weight. I am not talking about natural weight cycling based on the seasons, although we modern humans tend to do this backwards and gain weight in the winter and lose it in the summer. What the dieter is doing is messing up their metabolism, maybe semi-permanently. 

5 lbs. of Fat and MuscleAnother reason that dieting is dangerous is that those of us who are fat have been eating a lot of crap. This crap is stored in the fat. As we lose weight this crap is dumped into the blood stream. There is a real danger that one will overwhelm the toxic removal system of the body by forcing it to rapidly deal with lots of chemicals. Slow is better. 

There is also the danger of confusing your body. If you lose weight rapidly the body may think that a crisis has occurred and that the body is starving. Thus the body reduces the metabolism in order to preserve life. This makes weight loss more difficult. 

Should one ignore what one weighs? My surprising answer is yes. Instead concentrate on eating a proper diet at a level of calories that would supply the body you should have based on your height and size. I think most of us know what we should weigh. We may not like the answer, but we know. If you want some guidance, click here and look. 

For me the answer was no more than 185. How many calories do I need for that level of weight? Oddly enough there is great disagreement. WebMD thinks it is 2000-2200 for a sedentary male. The American Cancer Society says 2600. Fitness Magazine suggests 2063, which was about what I originally figured when I started my healthy eating program.

So what I did was eat 2000 calories a day. All these figures were for a sedentary person. I was that then, but now I am not, although I am at best lightly active at this time. This means that I am under eating slightly, but only slightly. 

So am I asking you to keep track of what you eat? Yes, I am. As Peter Drucker, business consultant, once said, whatever you measure is what you concentrate on. If you do not measure your calories, you will have no idea what you are eating. There will be surprises. I still remember my shock in discovering the calories in an Ultimate Cheeseburger. I have not had one since. 

How does one count calories? With modern technology the answer is that it is surprisingly easy. We will talk about that the next time I write about health. 

What is 2000 calories? Here is a visual aid. 

Trust Me, You Need This

Yes I realize you may never trust me again. 

Goose Stepping For Jesus

As we are traveling my blogging may be somewhat irregular, so I thought that today I would share an old post from the past. I had not realized until I came across this post that I have been blogging for over two years! I wish to publicly thank Pam Dewey, the beloved editor here at prophecypodcast.com. If you like what you see here, a lot of the credit goes to her. 

So if you want to see one of my earlier posts about the uniforms we all wear, click here. 

Wrongfully Accused

There are two things that really frost my drawers: advertising and a snow cone about three foot tall. While Leslie Nielsen movies always have strong sexual innuendo, these movies strongly play into my sense of the absurd. 

Here is my favorite.