oddly enough....

I think I'm hooked on the god channel. it is endlessly fascinating and entertaining! after David's story last night and the myriad valuable lessons learned from it, I had another great program in store!

the great Benny Hinn's (every time I hear his name I think of Benny Hana...chinese anyone?) personal physician of 20 years, age rejuvenation specialist (or something like that...he was botoxed and nip-tucked out of his mind) Dr. Don Colbert and his wife Mary (no botox there...good for her!) had a nice televised sitdown, which was a thinly veiled attempt to hawk one of his books, I think. But that's neither here nor there. The topic was the obesity epidemic in the church. Apparently some scientists at Purdue University did a study and found that churchgoing folks are heavier than the godless heathens who can think for themselves outside the church. (these scientists need to get a life, obviously. um, I think we are still waiting on the cure for cancer, so why not devote your energies to that instead? great!)

Dr. Colbert went on to say that christians are supposed to be shining epistles of christ (just looked up epistle on dictionary.com and that statement doesn't entirely make sense to me, but I think I see what he's getting at), but instead people look at all the gluttonous christians (his words, not mine) and see a sick and diseased church, which essentially turns people off. Then he quoted some verses from Numbers wherein these fatties ate 20 bushels of quail and then god proceeded to set his sights on striking down the gluttons. He said that Christians believe it is wrong to drink and to indulge in almost every other way, besides with food, so that is at the root of this problem. The church needs to address it, he says, because gluttony is as bad as drunkenness.

Now, I have a slightly different theory. I think that in a lot of cases, the type of people who so ardently devote themselves to religion tend to be insecure people who are emotionally unfulfilled in other areas of their life, so they try to find solace in other mindless activities, such as unquestioning worship. They medicate themselves with whatever is available, and if religion isn't quite hitting the spot, then they turn to something else. Food, for instance.