ReligionSkepticism

Was Jesus a Juicer?

The other day, after watching the new Indiana Jones flick (which I did not hate), I was shopping at a health food store in Boulder, woo capital of Colorado, and I stumbled upon a magazine in the check out lane called What is Enlightenment? Normally this is the type of thing I’d chuckle or snort at and move along to pay for my veggies. But because this issue is featuring atheism, I wanted to take a look. I didn’t have time to browse through it before it was my turn to check out, so I just bought a copy.

It turns out there are several interesting articles that I’ll probably post about sooner or later, but for now, I just have to point out the funniest thing I have read in a long time. I seriously could not figure out if the magazine included this to make fun of it to endorse it. 

Apparently there’s a Christian vegan diet called the Hallelujah Diet that was developed by a preacher named George Malkmus based on “twenty-five years of nutritional research.”

According to Malkmus, “God originally created man to live forever, and on this raw vegetarian diet, man lived an average of 912 years, prior to the flood, without a single recorded instance of sickness.” But just like we fell from grace after Adam and Eve took a bite of that forbidden (organic) fruit, Malkmus says, our diet has also fallen from it’s pure original form…

The Hallelujah Diet has helped thousands of Christians to overcome everything from obesity to osteoporosis, including Malkmus himself, who used the diet to cure his colon cancer.

Please don’t get your panties in a wad because you think this magazine is full of woo and I shouldn’t read it and certainly should not admit I found anything interesting in it. It was reading Whole Earth Review, equally full of woo, that cracked my brain open and let me escape from fundamentalism. I believe in reading anything and everything that catches my eye and then figuring out for myself what I agree with and what I don’t. So I guess I am a bottom feeder.

Writerdd

Donna Druchunas is a freelance technical writer and editor and a knitwear designer. When she's not working, she blogs, studies Lithuanian, reads science and sci-fi books, mouths off on atheist forums, and checks her email every three minutes. (She does that when she's working, too.) Although she loves to chat, she can't keep an IM program open or she'd never get anything else done.

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11 Comments

  1. I find it somewhat humorous that he was unable to cure his high blood pressure with his herbs and had to “reluctantly resort to some very mild blood pressure medication”. Did Jesus use blood pressure medication? I think not.

    It also makes wonder where these people get the idea that applying medical science is against god’s will? Does it actually say such a thing in the bible somewhere? And if science somehow validated these herbel treatments would that make them too against god’s will? Where is the line drawn between medical science and what christian scientist types find acceptable?

    Also, living for 912 years isn’t nearly like living forever. I demand to live for at least 912 trillion years. Unfortunatly, it would probably get a little monotonous eating raw vegetables for that long, especially if I couldn’t listen to rock music.

  2. Pssshhh. Everyone knows the average life span was 908. This Malkmus guy needs to get his facts straight.

    DD, I didn’t realize you live in Boulder. I’m in Denver, and lived in Boulder for a year myself. That place is at least the woo capitol of Colorado. I once saw two (self-proclaimed) Buddhists arguing on Pearl St. about who was “more Buddhist.”
    “Fuck you brah. I meditate like 6 hours a day!”
    True story.
    =)

  3. “find it somewhat humorous that he was unable to cure his high blood pressure with his herbs and had to ‘reluctantly resort to some very mild blood pressure medication’. Did Jesus use blood pressure medication? I think not.”

    Especially since the diet supposedly cured his colon cancer! You’d think high blood pressure would a snap by comparison.

  4. Just as bad as the Makers Diet. Same deal, they rip off others research slap it up as a divine diet and call it a million dollar day.

  5. Czech, perhaps god was testing Malkmus by making it look as if his whole herbal medication solution was just a sham by not curing him of high blood pressure? At least Job kept believing in god when god did all that horrible stuff to him and his family. Malkmus ‘s solution was to run back to the real doctor for some of those horrible, toxic drugs we all use. Malkmus’s god would be like so steamed and stuff.

    And what exactly is a “Christian Cancer Hospital”… sounds awful.

  6. Imrryr:“Czech, perhaps god was testing Malkmus by making it look as if his whole herbal medication solution was just a sham by not curing him of high blood pressure?”

    That must be it. The same way he put dinosaur bones in the ground to trick people.

    “At least Job kept believing in god when god did all that horrible stuff to him and his family.”

    If God were torturing me, I’d believe in him too. I might, however, not be so impressed that the reason he was torturing me was that Satan double-dog-dared him to do it.

    “And what exactly is a ‘Christian Cancer Hospital’… sounds awful.”

    Technically, we have a ton of those in the U.S. since a lot of hospitals are run by various churches. But for some reason, they usually practice actual medicine. They must not have read their Bibles carefully enough.

  7. Thanks for clearing all that up TheCzech! Admittedly, when I was a kid in Sunday school the story of Job was the only story that caught my interest. I thought something like, “Wait, Satan just walks up to God and dares him to test Job like that?” You’d think God, being God and all, would already know how Job would react to every conceivable situation He could throw at him. He could then tell the devil to get lost. But why let logic get in the way of mediocre story telling? I could go on about all the things I hate about that story but that’s a topic for another day :)

  8. Please don’t get your panties in a wad because you think this magazine is full of woo and I shouldn’t read it and certainly should not admit I found anything interesting in it.

    If skeptics read only what they already agree with, how would they ever debunk anything? :)

    There are a couple Bible-based diet things which I mildly enjoy — “Ezekiel 4:9” bread (named after the verse which lists the ingredients), for example, is pretty tasty. I don’t expect it to miraculously heal my ills or extend my lifespan by centuries, though, I just think it’s yummy bread.

  9. The first part of Ezekiel 4:9 reads thus: “Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself.” (NIV)

    The fun one is actually Ezekiel 4:12

    “Eat the food as you would a barley cake; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel.” (NIV)

    Most Christians have never read that one, so it’s fun to point out.

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