Featured Wine in the first century

One can establish when an accident or the cause of death itself is directly attributable to alcohol (cirrohisis of the liver caused by alcohol, for example). One cannot establish the same correlation with "junk food." That is bogus science. There are other mitigating factors: sedentary lifestyle, fatigue, stress, lack of exercise, etc. All of these contribute to an early demise. It is not any one factor. The factor in the cause of alcohol related deaths, or even drug related deaths, can be directly linked to either drugs or alcohol. The same cannot be said for junk food.
A good example is that an overweight person does not exercise as much as person whose BMI is in the proper range. The lifestyle of such a person is such that it only contributes to the person's problem of overeating. There are more than factors than just "food" in and of itself. So your stats are skewed. Heart attacks have many, many causes. We had a boy of seven die of a heart attack, while skate-boarding. Did he overeat? Not at all. Your stats are skewed.

 

The stats are from the CDC, DHK.

You don't get to arbitrarily dismiss stats that almost EVERYONE accepts for your stats just because you want to.

 

The difference is simply this. I quoted you stats that directly relate to alcoholism. You didn't. You quoted stats from the causes of sickness and death which could not be directly attributable to any one factor. For example, heart disease cannot be directly attributable to over-eating. To say that it is, is false. It is misinformation. It may be the leading cause of death, but even alcohol might be a contributing factor to a heart attack.

 

DHK, if you think that heart disease and type II diabetes is not MOSTLY the result of food you are by yourself on planet earth.

EVERYBODY but you knows it.

I don't mean to be rude here, but your stubborness to admit you are wrong when it is CLEARLY the case is unnerving.

 

You haven't done your homework. Heart attacks are caused more by stress than they are by food.
There is more than one type of diabetes. Type 1 is more serious and often genetic. Even Type 2 may come from a family who are genetically pre-disposed to the condition. You don't take all factors into the equation, and can't.

Your smart-alec remark: EVERYBODY but you knows it, is unwarranted and unnecessary.

 

Next time you speak from the hip, don't. Research your topic.
[FONT=&quot]

 

Yeah, right. Get real. :smilewinkgrin:

"Hi, everyone, I'm John." (Everyone: "Hi, John.") "I'm a chocoholic. I began my addiction when...."

"News flash: Mel Gibson has checked into the Beverly Hills Caffeine Recovery Clinic for a caffeine addiction that he says is destroying his life. News at 11."

"Go on, Sam, try a little sugar. It won't hurt you. It tastes so good. What's that about George? Well he just overdosed, that's all, that's why he died of sugar poisoning. Sure, too much sugar at one time can kill you, but we're be responsible adults."

 

You have drawn a false dichotomy in your mind between THIS chemical that we call food and THAT chemical we call drugs. To the body, they are all merely chemicals that our magnificently designed cellular machines use in one way or another.

 

Our whole body is made up of chemicals. Chemicals in the wrong combinations are very dangerous. Water is simply two atoms of hydrogen to one atom of oxygen. But what about others?

One of the most potent drugs on the scene today is called "ecstasy." Young people die every day of overdosing of this drug:
C11H15NO2 ecstasy

Only one pill of ecstasy is deadly.
But one cup of coffee is not deadly.
C8H10N4O2 caffeine
--The same chemicals in different combinations and different numbers, but in a much more safe and common form.

And then there is sugar:
C6H12O6 sugar or starch
--One teaspoon of sugar isn't going to kill you like a teaspoon of ecstasy will you. In fact the body can withstand a lot of sugar. Sugar is the building block of the body. The body converts it starch and glucose. It needs it. It doesn't need an overabundance of it; but it is one thing the body needs. Sugars come in different forms: potatoes, rice, pasta, honey, etc. All starches are sugar. The body needs it. It is not poison. Neither is coffee. But ecstasy is. Our entire body is made of chemicals. The combination of some chemicals are deadly. Most are not.

 

Guys, this is silly.

Stats have been given that clearly prove that food abuse is more deadly than alcohol abuse in this nation.

Facts are facts. Spin them any way you like but the only people you are persuading are yourselves.

 

I do find it rather ironic that in the Scriptures when the "deadly sins" are listed that alcohol use is not one of them.

 

Alas, tis true, but how often alcohol has aided and abetted poor souls in the commission of those sins!

 

I would submit that one of the properties of alcohol is to loosen one so that what is truly inside comes out. In that case, it is not the alcohol that is the blame for the sins of the person, but what already resided within them.

Listen, I am not against the scriptural view on drunkenness. It is very plain and evident for all to see. More so, I was once a drunk, so I actually know a tad more about how this all works than does someone who has a bunch of pride becasue alcohol never once touched his or her lips (a lie in any case, for it is virtually impossible to live in this world without touching alcohol).

But, there is not a cause and effect in order where we can argue successfully for abstaining absolutely -- especially in light of the biblical commands TO take wine and the example of Christ to make wine, and further the ultimate example to us -- in the mock trial of our Lord, one of the charges against Him was that He hung around with persons who drank. While He sinned not, He was for the sinner and did not shun that one from some sense of false pride about an issue that Scripture never condemns!

 

Um, the "Seven Deadly Sins" are a Catholic construction, nowhere listed or taught in the Bible. There is no list of "deadly sins." However, drunkenness is listed as one of the "works of the flesh" in Gal. 5:19-21.

 

No one here has bragged about "never having alcohol touch my lips." The first time alcohol ever touched my lips was when I was out on evangelism in Japan. :laugh: I stopped on my motor scooter to get a soft drink, a new one I'd never heard about. Turned out it had 1% alcohol. Then there was the time that a lady gave my wife some chocolates--filled with bourbon! Whoa!

You are taking this out of the realm of this debate. No one here has suggested we should not "hang around" with people who drink. I would argue the exact opposite. In fact, I have an early memory of going with my Dad to the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago when he preached there. Fundamentalists all over the US participate in rescue mission work to win drunkards to Christ, give them a place to stay, food to eat, etc.

And by the way, what Biblical command are you talking about to "take wine?" The only one I know about is the one to Timothy to use wine as a medicine for his stomach. No one on the BB has objected to that, and I suspect we all take something with alcohol in it for a cold.

 

And you have drawn a false union between a drug that can kill (alcohol poisoning) and chemicals that cannot: sugar, caffeine, etc.

"O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!" ~William Shakespeare, Othello

 

You don't like the stats when they go against your own beliefs.
I gave you stats that disproved your beliefs, but you didn't like the conclusions. What did you do. You tried to discredit the source. It doesn't work that way. Stats are stats. You can't so easily dismiss stats. My stats are far more objective than yours since they deal directly with the problem at hand--alcoholism. Yours don't.

 

I don't think any of us claim a biblical argument to abstain absolutely from alcohol. We are suggesting that in light of the dangers of the behavior altering substance to oneself, one's family, one's brother's faith (at least in some places in America, Wisconsin excluded apparently), that a not unwise thing to do would be to abstain voluntarily from it. Not of compulsion, for God loves a cheerful abstainer!

 

Correct; see Romans 14:21.

 

That is funny. One time my wife gave me cold tea to drink for breakfast because we ran out of apple juice and forgot to tell me. That morning I expected to drink apple juice. The tea looked just like apple drink. When I tasted it I thought it tasted awful and remarked at how terrible it tasted. When she told me it was cold tea it tasted much better.

When I was in Finland I bought an orange colored drink named appelssiini and thinking it strange that their apple drink was colored orange. When I got home I took a sip and then realized it was orange drink much like Crush orange drink.