just wondering... I'm atheist and don't study religion so I get confused about religious stuff because it seems so... weird I guess but if there was a practical reason for this than that would help ease my curiosity.
In the old world (and in the East) pigs are filthy creatures. They eat excrement and garbage. They are full of parasites. Without adequate methods of preserving meat they go bad fast. In the modern Western world pigs are grain fed and kept clean. We can keep meat clean after slaughter with refrigeration and we have antibiotics.
Remember that when the religious laws were made there was no separation of church and state. A law, weather civil or religious, came from the same source. They all became religious laws.
Because it is haram or treif depending on the religion. Simply put, they are forbidden. People like to make up reasons such as trichinosis, which is rather silly since the people in surrounding areas could eat pork and it would be learned fairly quickly that cooking it thoroughly makes it safe. So, at least in Judaism, it's a chok, that is it has no apparent reason, though mekubalim do provide one. I don't know the tradition Muslims have decide on as their reason though it may be as simple as it was originally forbidden in the Torah and so they do it too.
Lol! The answers are funny but inexact!
The Jews only follow the Biblical interdiction to eat any animals impure. And so do Muslims follows the Quranic interdiction to consume swine. And for Islam http://webziner.com/islam/whypork.htm
" Forbidden to you for (food) are: dead meat,
blood and the flesh of the swine and that
which hath been invoked the name other than
Allah. "
Holy Qur'an 5:4 http://webziner.com/islam/whypork.htm (they explain the reasons in details why today this interdiction makes sense).
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In the Bible: check http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?
The pig is the only common livestock animal that has split hooves but which is not a ruminant - its external aspect makes it appear kosher, while it is not. The cultural materialistic anthropologist Marvin Harris thinks that the main reason for prohibiting consumption of pork was ecological-economical. Pigs require water and shady woods with seeds, but those conditions are scarce in Israel and the Middle East. They cannot forage grass like ruminants. Instead, they compete with humans for expensive grain. Unlike many other forms of livestock, pigs are omnivorous scavengers, eating virtually anything they come across, including carrion and refuse. This was deemed unclean, hence a Middle Eastern society keeping large stocks of pigs would destroy their ecosystem. Harris points out how, while the Hebrews are also forbidden to eat camels and fish without scales, Arab nomads couldn't afford to starve in the desert while having camels around. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_restrictions_on_the_consumption_of_pork
http://www.kashrut.com/articles/soul_food/artid=531&letter=Chttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unclean_animal
Actually, if you check the number of (ritually) impure animals most of them are not herbivorous. There are more impure animals in the Bible. just check the links.
It is known as unclean meat. Many Christian people also do not eat Pork.
God's Word describes the flesh of unclean animals as an ''abomination''. Leviticus 11:10-13, 20, 23, 41-42. and ''detestable'' (Deutoronomy 14:3) . and in light we are warned against consuming such meat. (Leviticus 11:43).
Read Leviticus 11 and Deutoronomy 14.
The book of Revelation, in describing the end-time events leading up to the return of Christ, uses the expression ''a haunt for everything unclean and hated bird!" (Revelations 18:2)
God is consistent and unchanging.
Mark 5: 1-13 records that Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee by boat to the region of Gadara, a gentile (non-Jewish) area on the eastern shore. There He was met by a demon-possessed man from whom He would shortly cast out many evil spirits.
In this remarkable encounter, the demons requested that Jesus send them into a herd of 2000 swine/pigs. on a nearby hillside. Jesus granted their request, and, when the demons enter the swine, ''the herd ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and drowned in the sea' (verse 13).
Many have puzzled over this astounding incident in which Jesus precipitated the desctruction of a valuable herd of 2000 pigs - enough to feeld many thousands of people. Yet we should not be surprised when we understand the biblical instruction that these animals should never have be raised for food, and their owner was acting in defiance to God's laws.
Not being a cud chewer, the pig was ruled unacceptable for food or sacrifice by the terms of the Mosaic Law.—Le 11:7; De 14:8.
While Jehovah’s ban on eating pork was not necessarily based on health considerations, there were and still are hazards connected with the use of this meat for food. Since pigs are indiscriminate in their feeding habits, even eating carrion and offal, they tend to be infested with various parasitic organisms, including those responsible for diseases such as trichinosis and ascariasis.
The Israelites generally seem to have viewed swine as especially loathsome. Hence the ultimate degree in disgusting worship is conveyed by the words: “The one offering up a gift—the blood of a pig!” (Isa 66:3) To the Israelites, few things could have been more inappropriate than a pig with a gold nose ring in its snout. And it is to this that Proverbs 11:22 compares an outwardly beautiful woman who is not sensible.
Have you ever heard a pig being slaughtered? They sound very similar to a human. Muslims just copied the Jews for their aversion to pork, but some Melanesian cultures also have taboos about swine flesh and they couldn't have been influenced by Middle Eastern traditions.