Humanist Fasting?
It’s Lent at the moment. In fact, I think it’s been Lent for nearly a week. Traditionally, Lent is a time when you give something up originally it was meat and dairy products, but nowadays I think most people stick to something easier, like chocolate.
Religious customs that involve some sort of sacrifice of food are quite common. Besides Lent, there’s also:
- Ramadan - Muslims fast between sunrise and sunset for a lunar month
- the Bahai fast - a nineteen day fast running from 2nd March to 20th March
- Yom Kippur - a long (25 hour) day, when Jews fast, do not wash, or wear leather
- many different forms of Jain fasting
Generally, when a spiritual or religious practice is widespread across differing religions, I think that there might be something useful in it - at least to some people at some time.
I guess that fasting, or giving up food, can remind us that for example, not everyone has enough to eat. And it is important to remember that, although it’s probably more useful to help out in some way.
I think deliberately making a temporary sacrifice, in the modern Lenten style, can also be a good discipline - if you give something up, you can see how much you really value it. This doesn’t happen so much with fasting. I think I pretty much already know how valuable food is to my life.
The biggest non-religious sacrifice type thing that I’ve heard of, is The Compact, where a group of individuals have given up buying new non-food items for a year, to draw attention to the amount of waste produced in modern society and to stop contributing to it. It initially started in 2006, but is still going strong with people joining in for a year, or other pre-defined periods of time. I’d definitely struggle with this one.
I think that, on balance, temporary sacrifices can be a good practice, but I’m going to stick with trying to make permanent changes where I think I need to improve myself or my actions.
Image by Hydroxi
Popularity: 32% [?]
Comments
3 Responses to “Humanist Fasting?”
Got something to say?
I think that, on balance, temporary sacrifices can be a good practice, but I’m going to stick with trying to make permanent changes where I think I need to improve myself or my actions.
Both can be good. Since they serve different purposes, there’s no reason why one should preclude the other.
As a mormon I fast (No food or water for 24 hours) once a month. The money that I would have spent on food during this time is donated to a program that gives 100% to feed the poor and needy. Each time i break my fast I am again reminded how fortunate I am to have such plenty. This week my 12 year old felt she was ready to fast, she acually had tears in her eyes at the end but wanted to stick it out. She now has empathy instead of just sympathy for those less fortunate. She can’t stand that is the state of being for so many people. I think these reasons alone would be reasons for anyone of whatever creed to see the value in fasting.
@ pam:
It’s certainly good to be reminded of how much we really have, and to give to those who have less. I’m very impressed.