Why Do Religions Fast



Have any readers here fasted. I did it for a day or two several years ago. It was a post Vietnam War health thing. I had a book about fasting, long since disappeared. Like everyone else, I do a brief fast before blood tests every year. I "fast" between about 6 PM and 8 AM. 

Fasting for religious purposes, however, is about something else. I'm a little suspicious about why it is advocated. The link supposedly gives us an explanation, it's humbling or it puts one closer to the divine. I've heard explanations about going sleepless--that is puts one in touch with some spiritual sense.  Could it be fasting and sleeplessness are about delirium? That is, they provide a buzz or light headedness that some enjoy and it can attribute to their religion? 

Perhaps fasting can be put into the long list of things in the Bible we must not eat, must not wear and must not think. Growing up in an evangelical church I can add several taboos that are not in the Bible. That was years ago. However, new ones have been added and the ones that were serious sins decades ago are no longer sins.

Maybe Christians should transfer the deprivation of food to sin judgementalism. I propose every member of the faith suspend judgement of others for one day a week. 

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