Biff the unclean

You know that that is just pseudo-science. You don't clean out any toxins by fasting. If anything you slow down your metabolism and retain any toxins that would have passed.
Try substituting a balanced diet for superstition, you'll feel better

Seraphim

"You know that that is just pseudo-science. You don't clean out any toxins by fasting. If anything you slow down your metabolism and retain any toxins that would have passed."

My reply : Not exactly. If you eat in regular basis, your body get used to the schedule. Fasting simply breaking that cycle by interupting the digestion schedule and when that is interupted, the body simply recycle whatever left in your body and the recycled stuff is thrown out. At least, that is what I think is happening when I fast.

"Try substituting a balanced diet for superstition, you'll feel better "

My reply : Maybe. But I will still stick to this since it also gives me chance to learn how to control my emotions (I'm have short-fuse and when I'm fasting, my fuse gets shorter still).

Corona688

It'd take a lot more than one day of fasting for a person to start hallucinating.

Seraphim

"It'd take a lot more than one day of fasting for a person to start hallucinating. "

My reply : Then such activity is not considered fasting.

In most religions (coming from the point of view of a person who lives in a country where Muslims, Hindusm, Christians and Buddhist live), a person will fast for maximum 12 - hours - usually at beginning of the day when sun rises and end it at the time of sun sets with prayers. This is the proper way (or at least universal one) for fasting.

Stephen T-B

I came across an Islamic web site which said that the breath of a fasting person was sweet to Allah; bad breath, it seems, is a bit of problem for Muslims observing Ramadan.
They’d have a more serious problem if they were beyond the Arctic and Antarctic Circles: food and drink cannot be taken between sunrise and sunset so they’d die when Ramadan coincided with a three-month long day,
In northern latitudes, Muslims dread summer-time Ramadan (it moves slowly through the year, year by year) because it means fasting , and not drinking, from about 4.30am until anything as late as ten thirty at night.
Does this mean that Allah is punishing Muslims who left their Middle Eastern homelands where the difference between winter and summer day-light hours is less marked?
If I were a Muslim, I’d want to know.

lpetrich

The same thing also happens to fasting Catholics -- they sometimes have a sweetish "odor of sanctity".

This is most likely the acetone in "ketone bodies", which are produced when the body runs short of carbohydrates. Here is a <a href="http://www.fred.net/ultrunr/keytone.html" target="_blank">nice article</a> on that subject. Persistent production of these substances is sometimes called "ketosis".

[ November 28, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>

lpetrich

In <a href="http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu:8080/hyper-lists/classics-l/listserve_archives/log95/9510e/9510e.11.html" target="_blank">this article</a>, there is this very interesting comment:
I find it interesting that biochemistry and molecular biology (BMB) are much less controversial than evolution -- one can easily make creationist-style arguments for vitalism, the view that some "vital force" or life-stuff is responsible for how living things work. Arguments like

Life-stuff is a much simpler explanation than all those horrendously complicated BMB explanations.

BMB is cold, heartless, mechanistic, and materialistic, and states that all living things are nothing more than complicated biochemical machines. Vitalism, by comparison, is much more dignified.

BMB cannot explain in full detail how one gets from genes to overall sizes and shapes, to name just one unaccounted-for phenomenon.

But this argument may be better off in another forum, however.

[ November 28, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>

covered

Perhaps this will help your understanding...

Isaiah 58:5-12

5Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?
6Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
7Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
8Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward.
9Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;
10And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness shall be as the noonday:
11And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
12And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt rise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breech, The restorer of paths to dwell in.

Rusting Car Bumper

One reason to fast, having nothing to do with the Bible, is to experience what other less fortuante people experience. It can help one keep mindful that ones petty little problems are somewhat less important ont h scale of things than the people who find themselves in unfortunate circumstances through no fault of their own.

DC

atheist_in_foxhole

Fisting is extremely dangerous and if you don't know what you're doing you can tear some very sensitive tissues. I would strongly recommend against any further fisting.