1492 fue la fecha trágica en la memoria de la comunidad judía que se residía en España, tanto en Castilla como en Aragón. Se les obligaba a convertirse al Cristianismo o a marchar al exilio. Fue una experiencia muy doloroso para muchas familias que llevaban siglos viviendo en nuestro país... Pero, exactamente. ¿Cuantos siglos?

Diversas tradiciones y leyendas de escasa fiabilidad histórica situan la llegada de los judíos a tierras hispanas en fechas tempranas. Así, segun éstas, tras el diluvio universal, algunos descendientes de Jafet, hijo de Noé, habrían poblado la península Ibérica. También la Tarsis bíblica seria identificada con la Tartessos hispana, hipótesis hoy descartada por la mayor parte de los investigadores, que no encuentran datos contundentes que la soporten. Otros estudiosos, basándose en la colaboración comercial mencionada en la Biblia del rey Salomón con el soberano tirio Jirán, han defendido la llegada de israelitas a la península Ibérica junto a los fenicios que establecieron relaciones comerciales y se asentaron en tierras hispanas a finales del segundo milenio a. de C., teoría que carece igualmente de sustento científico.

Algunos cronistas medievales, por su parte, con el propósito de demostrar que los judios de Sefarad no tenían nada que ver con la muerte de Jesús, situaron el origen de las aljamas judías hispanas en el año 587 a. de C., tras la primera destrucción del Templo de Jerusalén por el rey babilonio Nabucodonosor, que habría provocado un masivo éxodo de judíos por todo el Mediterráneo. Según estas crónicas un rey de Sevilla habría ayudado al babilonio en su empresa y se habría traído consigo algunos elementos emblemáticos del Templo, como la mesa de Salomón. De haber existido esta presencia judía temprana en la Península sería dificil establecer su continuidad hasta las aljamas judías históricas documentadas con certeza, cuya aparición se sitúa en epoca romana.

Las primeras noticias fiables que relacionan a los judíos con nuestro país se encuentran en la Biblia, concretamente en el libro I de los Macabeos, escrito en el siglo II a. de C. En él su autor menciona la apropiación por parte de Roma de las ricas minas de oro y plata que había en Hispania, así como el dominio de este territorio.

Sabemos además de diversas expulsiones y destierros de judíos de Roma y de Palestina, que podrían haber traído judíos a la Península. De hecho, la universalidad de la diáspora judía era un hecho incuestionable para los historiadores del cambio de era.

En este sentido, un testimonio muy significativo de la posible relevancia de las comunidades judías de Hispania en el siglo I nos lo proporciona el interes de San Pablo por evangelizar la Península, tal como manifestó en una de las epístolas que dirigió a la comunidad cristiana de Roma. Como es sabido, una de las principales misiones del apóstol era contactar las comunidades judías diseminadas por el Imperio. Pablo no hubiera expresado su deseo de evangelizar estas tierras, priorizándolas a otras más cercanas a Italia, si no hubiese sido por la importancia de las aljamas judías aquí existentes.

También sabemos que como consecuencia de la ofensiva del emperador Tito contra los judíos (y su brutal derrota en el año 70), muchos de ellos tuvieron que marcharse de Judea. Algunos, como los tapiceros del Templo, llegarían a Hispania, quizá con la intención de no instalarse definitivamente, tal como indica el derecho sobre la propiedad de tierras en Palestina que contempla términos especiales para estos emigrantes.

Del siglo I procede asimismo el testimonio del comentarista bíblico Jonatán ben Ozíel, que identifica erróneamente la Sefarad del profeta Abdias con la Sefarad de la Península, una confusión solo posible si en su época el nombre que los judíos dieron a la península Ibérica, Sefarad, era inconfundible y plenamente admitido para designar a Hispania. De los contactos comerciales directos entre Palestina e Hispania nos hablan asimismo algunos restos arqueológicos y monedas documentados en yacimientos palestinos e hispanos, al igual que la referencia del Talmud a salazones de pescado importados de Hispania y consumidos en Palestina.

Las comunidades judías de la Hispania romana procedieron tanto de Palestina como de otros territorios de la diáspora. Se desarrollaron fundamentalmente en prósperas zonas urbanas costeras o de fácil comunicación fluvial y sus actividades se centraron especialmen te en el comercio ultramarino y la artesanía especializada. Así parecen indicarlo los testimonios judíos documentados, que sitúan las principales aljamas judías en zonas de Andalucía, Cataluña, Levante, el centro peninsular y las islas Baleares.

JUDIOS Y CRISTIANOS, JUNTOS PERO NO REVUELTOS

Las señas de identidad propias del judaísmo, entre las que destacan abstenciones alimenticias, el descanso sabático, la celebración de ciertas fiestas y rituales, como la Pascua, y la práctica de la circuncisión, dotaron a las comunidades judías de Hispania de un carácter propio y diferenciado de otros grupos. Las fuentes sugieren que los judíos que habitaban en Hispania siguieron manteniendo estrechos lazos con Palestina y otras comunidades judías de la diáspora y que no profundizaron mucho sus relaciones con los hispanorromanos. En un contexto general latinoparlante mantuvieron las lenguas griega y hebrea, que emplearon en algunos de los testimonios que nos han legado. Sí se sintieron más cercanos a comunidades de procedencia oriental, a las que les unían rasgos afines.

Al parecer, también interactuaron de un modo especial con los cristianos, con quienes compartían raíces comunes. La proximidad del judaísmo y cristianismo propició que se estableciesen estrechos lazos entre ambas comunidades, así como conversiones de una religión a otra. Muchos de los primeros cristianos habian sido judíos en su origen y siguieron manteniendo intensas relaciones con sus antiguos correligionarios y familiares. No es de extrañar, por tanto, que en las fuentes ambos grupos aparezcan conviviendo, compartiendo comidas, propiedades y lugares de enterramiento, y contrayendo matrimonios entre sí.

Ciertas practicas y rituales judíos, además, fueron muy atractivos para algunos cristianos, que los consideraron esenciales para que su vida espiritual fuese mas pura y auténtica. Esta interacción e intercambios, sin embargo, no fueron bien vistos por las autoridades eclesiasticas, que los consideraron muy perjudiciales para los cristianos, que corrian el peligro de adoptar costumbres judías o incluso de convertirse a su religión. Con el propósito de evitar que esto sucediera, la Iglesia adoptó medidas muy duras, que trataron de impedir los contactos entre ambas comunidades.

Las relaciones entre judíos y cristianos, además, se fueron paulatinamente tensando y adquiriendo un cariz muy virulento, conforme el cristianismo ganaba posiciones en el Imperio Romano. Así, a partir del reinado del emperador Constantino, la actitud del Estado hacia los judíos fue endureciéndose cada vez más. Se prohibió a los judíos ejercer cargos públicos, construir nuevas sinagogas, participar en la milicia y tener esclavos cristianos. Los abusos cristianos quedaron impunes y el judaísmo quedó supeditado al cristianismo, que se había erigido a si mismo como el verdadero heredero de las promesas de Dios al pueblo de Israel. En Hispanía, al igual que en otros lugares del Imperio, se produjeron conversiones forzardas de judíos al cristianismo y la transformación de sus sinagogas en iglesias cristianas.

EL APOYO AL ISLAM

A pesar de que los tiempos y las leyes estaban en su contra, el judaísmo no desapareció de Hispania. En la pervivencia del judaísmo influyeron diversos factores. Uno de ellos fue la dificil situación politica que atravesó el Imperio Romano en el siglo V, que llevó a su desaparición en Occidente y a su sustitución por estados gobernardos por pueblos bárbaros, que impidió en muchas ocasiones la aplicación de las medidas civiles o eclesiásticas. La supresión del judaismo dependió además de la visión y del celo personal de los obispos y de los cristianos que habitaban en un determinado lugar, quienes podían decidir presionar a los judíos para que se convirtieran al cristianismo o dejarlos practicar sus creencias con tranquilidad.

El fanatismo religioso contra quienes no compartían la fe cristiana no fue tampoco la opción mayoritaria en la Iglesia de este tiempo. Al radicalismo religioso se oponían muchos cristianos, que eran partidarios de utilizar otro tipo de metodos, basados en la persuasión, el diálogo, la intervención de los obispos o los concilios o en un testimonio de vida ejemplar para lograr que otros adoptasen sus creencias.

La coerción y el fanatismo religiosos, sin embargo, fueron ganando terreno durante la época tardorromana hasta convertirse en el patrón a seguir en siglos posteriores. La intolerancia de los cristianos hacia los judios en la Hispania tardoantigua tuvo su cénit en la dura política antijudaica adoptada por algunos monarcas visigodos tras la conversión al catolicismo de su Reino. No es extraño, portanto, que los judios fueran uno de los principales apoyos de las tropas musulmanas que a comienzos del siglo VIII acabaron con el reino visigodo.

JUDÍOS Y CRISTIANOS EN MENORCA

UNA DE LAS PRIMERAS COMUNIDADES JUDÍAS DE LAS QUE TENEMOS IMPORTANTES NOTICIAS ES LA DE MAGONA. LA ACTUAL MAÓ, EN LA ISLA DE MENORCA. A COMIENZOS DEL SIGLO V DE NUESTRA ERA, ESTABA CONSTITUIDA POR PERSONAJES DE GRAN PODERÍO ECONÓMICO Y MUCHO PRESTIGIO SOCIAL.

Uno de los testimonios más significativos de la importancia de las comunidades judias en la Hispania romana y de sus relaciones con los cristianos, procede de la isla de Menorca. Se trata de una carta-enciclica escrita por su obispo,Severo, que narra los acontecimientos que tuvieron lugar en la isla en febrero del ano 418, y que culminaron en la conversión al Cristianismo de los judlos que alli habitaban.

Por ella, por la arqueologia y por las últimas investigaciones sabemos que Magona (Maó), la ciudad más relevante de la isla de Menorca en la Antiguedad, era el lugar de residencia de una importante comunidad judía, algunos de cuyos miembros poseían un elevado prestigio politico y social, y bastante poder económico, pues poseían importantes propiedades en Menorca y Mallorca. Tenían grandes fincas, casas confortables, muchos sirvientes y algunos barcos preparados para alzarse a la mar. Algunos de ellos, además, ocupaban los principales cargos públicos de la ciudad. En consonancia con ello, su lugar de culto, la sinagoga, era un edificio majestuoso que ocupaba una posición preeminente en la ciudad.

De entre todos ellos destacó Teodoro, una persona muy respetada y de gran prestigio en la isla que había desempeñado todos los cargos civiles posibles y además era el patrono de la ciudad, es decir, representaba a la comunidad local en todos sus asuntos (politicos, legales, comerciales), tanto dentro de las Baleares como en el exterior. También era el máximo benefactor de la comunidad judía.

Conocemos a otro judio menorquin ilustre. Ceciliano, de reconocida preeminencia. Era el defensor de la ciudad, esto es una una especie de comisario de policia y auxiliar del gobernador de la provincia. Ocupaba el segundo rango en la sinagoga y era también protector de los judíos, al igual que su hermano Floriano. Estaba también Artemisia, hija del conde Litoria (gobernador de las Baleares), y que estaba casada con Melecio, un hermano de Teodoro y un hombre sobresaliente por su riqueza y posición social. E Inocencio, buen conocedor de las letras griegas y latinas, y de la ley judía, que habla llegado recientemente a la isla, con su familia y sirvientes, huyendo de los conflictos que asolaban la Península.

LA MALDICIÓN DE OROSIO

En Magona había también a inicios del siglo V una destacada comunidad cristiana. Sus miembros, sin embargo, no eran tan prestigiosos, ni tan letrados ni acaudalados como los judíos. Su lugar de culto, la iglesia, se encontraba en un lugar apartado de la ciudad. El obispo de Menorca. Severo, visitaba ocasionalmente Magona, pues residía en Iamona (o Iammo, en la actual Ciutadella), donde el número de cristianos era mayor.

En su vida cotidiana, judíos y cristianos se relacionaban cordialmente, conversaban amigablemente en las calles, se reunían y compartían propiedades. Los cristianos respetaban y acogían con orgullo al grupo social dominante judío y sustentaban su poderío, dándoles su apoyo para que fuesen sus gobernantes. Los judíos celebraban sus ritos y festividades y respetaban el precepto sabático sin que hubiese intromisión por parte de los cristianos, y lo mismo ocurría con los cristianos, quienes podían practicar sus creencias sin que el grupo dominante judío se lo impidiera.

Un dia, en uno de los barcos que anclaron en Magona, llegó, procedente de Tierra Santa, un presbítero, probablemente Orosio, que traía consigo parte de las recientemente descubiertas reliquias de Esteban, el primer mártir de la cristiandad, que habra muerto a manos de judíos. Las reliquias de Esteban infundieron en los cristianos de Magona el deseo de convertir a sus vecinos judíos al cristianismo, con lo que las relaciones entre ambas comunidades se hicieron cada vez más difíciles. Judios y cristianos dejaron de saludarse y de tratarse amigablemente y empezaron a disputar entre si por causa de su fe. Los cristianos de Iamona, liderados por el obispo Severo, decidieron entonces acudir en ayuda de sus hermanos de Magona y participar en la cristianización de los judíos. Finalmente, Severo cuenta en su encíclica que, tras diversos acontecimientos prodigiosos, los judíos se convirtieron al Cristianismo y su sinagoga fue transformada en Iglesia cristiana.

UNA OBLIGADA CONVERSIÓN

Pero los hechos no sucedieron, probablemente, tal y como los relata Severo. El Obispo menorquín, que con su escrito pretendía incitar a otras comunidades cristianas a seguir el ejemplo de Magona, enmascaró lo que realmente habla ocurrido, esto es, que los cristianos hablan obligado a los judíos a convertirse al cristianismo y se habían apropiado de su sinagoga, para evitar una posible reacción del gobierno romano en su contra. Para ello culpó a los judios de instigar el enfrentamiento, les atribuyó frases que reconocian la bondad de los cristianos y justificó las acciones de los cristianos, presentándolas como guiadas y sancionadas por la Providencia divina.

El que los cristianos de Magona se atrevieran a desafiar a la poderosa comunidad judía con los que hasta entonces habían vivido en paz y armonía, y obligarlos a convertirse al cristianismo puede parecer muy atrevido. Sin embargo, no lo es, más si tenemos en cuenta que en su litigio con los judíos, los cristianos tenían todas las de ganar, ya que las leyes romanas estaban de su parte. Los beneficios que podían obtener los cristianos si incorporaban en sus filas a los judíos de Magona eran especialmente atractivos para ellos dado el mayor prestigio politico, económico, social y cultural de los judíos islenos.

También lo fue para los judíos de Magona, si se tiene en cuenta que los cristianos no les dejaron otra opción. Si se convertían la situación podría continuar siendo igual de beneficiosa, pues les permitirían seguir ejerciendo sus prerrogativas, y conservar su estatus y propiedades sin contravenir las leyes, que les impedían desempeñar cargos civiles. Es por esto por lo que muchos judíos decidieron convertirse al cristianismo. Sus intereses nada espirituales los manifestaron abiertamente y a los cristianos no pareció importarles demasiado, ya que los acogieron con gran júbilo en su comunidad.

LOS JUDÍOS DE ADRA, TARRAGONA Y MÉRIDA

Gracias a la epigrafia conocemos también a otros miembros de las aljamas judías que habitaron en la Hispania romana. Entre ellos cabe destacar a Justino, natural de Flavia Neapolis, actual Nablus y antigua Siquén judía, cuyo epitafio funerario, fechado en el siglo II, apareció en Merida. También se ha encontrado material epigráfico en la costa almenense, donde se nos habla de la pequena Salomónula, que fue enterrada en Abdera (Adra) en el siglo III. El rabino tarraconense del siglo V-Vl Lasies o Latoues dedicó una lápida a su amigo archisinagogo, que había nacido en Cyzico en la Propontide microasiática.

Por Purificación Ubric Rabaneda de la Universidad de Granada, España, publicado en "Clio - Revista de Historia",  n. 120, noviembre 2011, p.23-29, Barcelona. Digitado, adaptado y ilustrado por Leopoldo Costa para ese sitio. 

Esqueleto de 24 mil anos tem semelhança genética com europeus e indígenas. Cientistas extraíram material genético de ossada de menino morto aos três ou quatro anos na Sibéria.

Luzia

O DNA de um menino da Sibéria, que morreu aos três ou quatro anos de idade, na fase mais severa da Era do Gelo, pode ser uma das pistas mais importantes para entender como o ser humano colonizou as Américas.

Segundo os cientistas que “leram” seu genoma, o garoto tem semelhanças genéticas tanto com europeus quanto com os indígenas atuais.

E a recíproca é verdadeira. Os pesquisadores calculam que a antiga população à qual o menino pertencia seria responsável por algo entre 15% e 40% da herança genética dos índios. Esse povo misterioso teria se misturado a outro, oriundo do leste da Ásia, para dar origem aos habitantes do continente americano.

Há décadas alguns antropólogos argumentam que o povoamento da América pode ter envolvido dois grupos geneticamente distintos.

Uma das vozes mais importantes desse grupo é o brasileiro Walter Neves, do Laboratório de Estudos Evolutivos Humanos da USP.O principal indício desse fato é a variedade no formato dos crânios dos mais antigos americanos, os paleoíndios — o exemplo mais famoso é “Luzia”, fóssil achado em Minas Gerais,com mais de 11 mil anos.

SEGUNDA LEVA

Neves e seus colaboradores afirmam que o crânio de Luzia e de outros paleoíndios lembra mais o de aborígines australianos, melanésios e africanos do que o da maioria dos índios atuais,normalmente comparados a grupos do nordeste da Ásia.

A ideia é que a maioria dos ancestrais dos índios modernos teria integrado uma segunda leva migratória, que teria exterminado os paleoíndios ou se misturado a eles.

“Nossos achados não apoiam diretamente o trabalho dos brasileiros”, disse Eske Willerslev, biólogo do Museu de História Natural da Dinamarca que coordenou o estudo, publicado na “Nature”. “Parte do material genético da criança tem afinidades com grupos do sul da Ásia [região de origem dos paleoíndios, segundo Neves]. Então o artigo se alinha parcialmente à ideia deles.”

Neves reagiu com cautela e ironia aos achados. “Eu podia estar comemorando, dizendo ‘olha, finalmente alguém fala de herança dual’. Mas vai depender da estabilidade dos trabalhos deles.Se os achados desse tipo continuarem, vou poder dizer que estive certo por 25 anos.”

MISTURA

Seria o caso, então,de pensar nos índios atuais como uma mistura de europeus com asiáticos? Não exatamente. Europeus e asiáticos dessa época eram bem diferentes dos de hoje. Eles estavam mais próximos de um padrão genético e morfológico “genérico”, resultado da expansão inicial dos humanos modernos da África para o resto do mundo, diz Fabrício Santos, geneticista da UFMG (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais).

“Características mongólicas [a “cara” asiática de alguns índios atuais] teriam sido adquiridas mais tarde a partir de populações do leste asiático”, afirma Santos.

Rolando González-José, biólogo do Centro Nacional Patagônico,na Argentina,diz que nem é necessário postular duas “ondas” de migração para entender os dados do genoma do novo estudo.

Ele argumenta que é mais natural pensar que a população “genérica” à qual pertencia o menino teria se diferenciado cada vez mais ao se expandir para os quatro cantos da Ásia e das Américas.

Texto de Reinaldo José Lopes publicado na "Folha de S.Paulo" de 21 de novembro de 2013. Adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

INFLUÊNCIAS DOS MICROELEMENTOS MANGANÊS E MAGNÉSIO NA ESTIMULAÇÃO DA FERMENTAÇÃO CÁRNEA.

A fermentação cárnea pode ser melhor conduzida com a utilização de microorganismos selecionados, originando-se o ácido lático como um dos seus principais subprodutos (Bacus, 1980: Pröler, 1994).

A presença do ácido lático influi nas características bioquímicas, sensoriais e na conservabilidade dos produtos cárneos fermentados (Jay, 1992; Frazier, 1993: Yamada,1995)

O uso de microelementos como estimuladores da produção de lactato por microorganismos selecionados vem sendo estudado com atenção, com o objetivo de se obter menores tempos de fermentação de produtos cárneos (Zaika & Kissinger, 1984; Raccach & Marshal, 1985).

MATERIAL E MÉTODOS

No presente trabalho foi testada a estimulação da fermentação lática da carne por diferentes concentrações de manganês e magnésio, frente aos açúcares glicose e/ou sacarose em concentrações variáveis e o "starter" em concentração fixa, adicionados à massa cárnea.

A massa cárnea foi preparada de acordo
com a seguinte formulação:
* Carne suína    60%
* Carne bovina  40% (moídas em discos de 10 e 6 mm)
* Sal refinado     3%
* Açúcares        1%
* Condimentos   1%
* Sais de cura   0,3%
* Microorganismos selecionados

Para produzir a acidificação da massa cárnea para salames foram utilizados l00.000.000 UFC do "starter", composto por Pediococcus pentosacelis, Lactobacillus sake, Staphylococcus carnosus e Staphylococcus xilosus 2 por grama de massa cárnea.

Como fonte de energia foram utilizados glicose e sacarose separadamente (a 1%) ou combinadas (a 0,5% + 0,5%).

Os microelementos testados foram manganês e magnésio (na forma de MnSO e MgSO). Tanto um como o outro foram adicionados separadamente, nas concentrações de 0,5; 0,8; 1,3; 1,6; 2,0; 3,2; 8,1; 20,0; e 65,00 ppm.

Reservou-se uma porção da massa cárnea sem a adição de microelementos para servir como controle do teste.

Para cada tratamento realizaram-se três repetições. Os resultados expressam a média destas repetições.
Os tratamentos foram colocados em copos de béquer, determinando-se o valor do pH da massa cárnea através de um pHmetro digital.

A fermentação foi conduzida à temperatura constante de 25°C, em equipamento tipo banho-maria, com ajuste automático de temperatura. tendo sido acompanhada até que o pH 5.O fosse atingido.

RESULTADOS

No trabalho realizado obteve-se a estimulação da fermentação lática da carne tanto com o uso de manganês como de magnésio.

A avaliação da influência dos microelementos manganês e magnésio na fermentação cárnea levou em consideração o tempo necessário para que o pH 5.0 fosse atingido, em relação ao controle, uma vez que o desempenho deste pode ser afetado por diversos fatores.

Dentre os melhores resultados obtidos, cabe destacar que foi observado um tempo de fermentação de 20,5 horas até o pH 5.0, quando foram utilizados 0,5 ppm de manganês combinados com 1% de sacarose, o que representou uma redução de 6,5 horas (24%) em relação ao controle, cujo tempo foi de 27 horas.

Para o magnésio, o menor tempo de fermentação foi de 22,5 horas, obtido quando foram utilizados 20 ppm de magnésio combinados com 1% de glicose. Este tempo foi de 6.5 horas menor que o tempo de fermentação apresentado pelo controle, que foi de 29 horas, correspondendo a uma redução de cerca de 22% no tempo.

CONCLUSÃO

Nas condições testadas, tanto a adição de traços de manganês (0,5 ppm) e sacarose (1%), como a adição de traços de magnésio (20 ppm) e glicose (1%), proporcionaram a obtenção dos melhores resultados, uma vez que estimulam a produção de lactato pelo "starter, obtendo-se uma acidificação mais intensa em menor tempo, colaborando assim com a redução dos custos de produção do salame.

REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS

1. Baccus, J. Utilization of microrganisms in meat processing: a handbook for meat plant operators. New York: John Wileus & Sons, 1984, 170 p.
2. Frazier, W. C. Microbiologia de los alimentos,4ª ed. Zaragoza: Editorial Acribia S.A., 1993
3. Jay,J. Microbiologia Moderna de los Alimentos. 3ª ed. Zaragoza: Editorial Acribia S.A, 1992.
4. Zaika, L. & Kissinger, J. Fermentation Enhancement by Spices: ldentification of Active Component, Journal of Food Scíence, 49:5-9, 1984.
5. Pröller, T.Taylor-made cultures for fast and safe production of fermented dry sausages. Die Fluscherei, 10:10-16, 1994.
6. Raccach, M. & Marshal, P. Effect of Manganese Ions on the Fermentative Activity of Frozen-Thawed Lactobacilli, Journal of Food Science, 50:665-68, 1985.
7. Yamada, E. A. A Produção de Salames. Revista Nacional da Carne, n° 220, pp 72-75, junho/1995.

Artigo de S.S.Chagas, N.N.Terra, C.R.Valente e C.M Costa publicado na "Revista Nacional da Carne" n.25, pp 44-47,janeiro de 1998. Digitado, adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

* Separating the real reasons atheists are atheists from some common misconceptions.
* Finding out what atheists actually believe.
* Reconciling science and religion — or not.

If you want to know the beliefs of a particular religion, you can start with that religion’s scriptures. But scriptures written long ago aren’t likely to match up too well with beliefs that are held today. Few 21st century Jews or Christians think that women are the property of their husbands or that slavery is a good thing, even though their scriptures are still trumpeting those Bronze Age ideas.

Atheists avoid this problem by not having a central scripture. That doesn’t mean they have no beliefs or values, just that their beliefs and values aren’t codified in an unchanging document. Atheists also have no central authority, no Vatican or High Council to decide and transmit any approved set of beliefs.

The best way to find out what people believe, whether religious or nonreligious, is to ask them. And because those beliefs can vary from person to person, the more people you ask, the better your understanding will be.

This chapter explores what atheists tend to believe, and just as important, what they don’t believe — the myths and misconceptions about atheists that find their way into people’s heads through forwarded e-mails and the occasional sermon. But first I spend some time explaining why atheists are atheists — what it is that leads them to walk away from religious answers. Throughout the chapter, I offer not just my own opinions, but also the general consensus of atheists, humanists, and other freethinkers whenever possible.

Understanding Why Atheists Don’t Believe in God

Not all atheists follow the same route to their disbelief. That’s partly because they don’t all start in the same place. For example, the path varies depending on whether a person is raised.

* In a religious family that discourages or punishes the questioning of religious ideas.
* In a religious family that encourages questioning, even of religious ideas.
* In a secular family that’s tolerant of religion and encourages religious literacy.
* In a secular family that’s hostile to all religion.
* In a family that’s just indifferent to religious questions.

Then there’s geography, family history, a person’s own inclinations — each of these has a profound effect on the way a person encounters and questions religious assumptions. These sections list a few of the most common reasons atheists give for coming to their conclusion that God doesn’t exist.

Crossing from the will to believe to “the will to find out”

Ask an atheist why he or she doesn’t believe in God, and you’ll usually hear that the evidence just doesn’t hold up. I agree with that. But there’s another piece of the puzzle that isn’t talked about enough.

— What makes it possible for a person to ask the questions in the first place?

That question may sound strange. Anyone can ask whether God exists, of course. But most people don’t ask that question in any serious way. People are presented with God as a fact from the time they’re very young, told that life and love and the sun and stars are gifts from God, and that good people accept these things without question. So why would you question, especially when it comes with the best of intentions from someone who loves you?

Selected myths about why atheists are atheists

A few of the reasons people think atheists are atheists:

* “You’re mad at God.” Try though I may, being mad at something that I don’t think exists is pretty difficult. I’m about as mad at God as I am at Paul Bunyan’s blue ox.

* “You don’t want to be answerable to God. You want to be free to sin.” I suppose this is possible, but it would be a pretty bad idea — a bit like flooring the accelerator because I don’t want to be answerable to the police car behind me. If God is real and his rules are as advertised, he will indeed catch up with me, and a life of not answering to him will be followed closely by an eternity of answering to him in a big and smoky way. So once again, not wanting to be answerable to God doesn’t make a lick of sense as a reason to stop believing he exists.

* “You just haven’t found the right church.” Most atheists go through a period of searching to see if they missed anything. In fact, I pretty much assumed I’d missed something, because it looked like everyone around me believed in God. (That wasn’t true — it almost never is — but I didn’t know that yet.) So over the course of 25 years, I attended churches in nine denominations, listening carefully and asking questions everywhere I went. It’s a common story among atheists — and the more I saw, the clearer my conclusions became. Besides, if God exists, I can’t believe his case is so tenuous that you have to be in a particular building, or framed in a particular set of teachings, to figure that out.

* “You haven’t tried hard enough to believe.” Like anyone, I’d much prefer to have my death cancelled and to have a source of ultimate goodness and justice to appeal to in times of trouble. But the form of the objection is actually telling. It’s true that I never tried hard to believe — instead, I tried hard to find out what was true, something the philosopher Bertrand Russell addresses later in this chapter. My desire to know has always been stronger than my desire to believe any particular answer. If I want to know the truth, trying hard to get a particular answer is the surest way to fail.

* “Something bad happened to you, and you blame God.” I’m sure some atheists’ position is based on a traumatic event, but this is much less common than one based on a long period of reflection and questioning. On the contrary, it’s much more common to hear of a traumatic event causing a person to see religious consolation than to run away from it.

Speaking for myself, I asked the question because I thought it was the most interesting one anyone could ask. If there’s a God — then oh my God, there is a God! There’s a supreme being who created everything and cares for us! It affects everything. If on the other hand there’s no God — then oh my God, there is no God! There’s no supreme being. We’re really on our own! It affects everything.

Either answer is startling and fascinating. Either one is acceptable. I just want to know which one’s true.

I was really lucky to be able to ask the question at all. Like many of my friends who are now atheists, I attended church regularly with my family when I was young. But I was never given the message that questioning is a bad thing. On the contrary, curiosity and education were both valued in our home, and I was allowed to chase ideas wherever they led.

Just as importantly, I felt personally safe and secure. Religion is often an understandable response to feeling alone, afraid, or unsafe. Depending on a person’s circumstances, being alive and vulnerable in an uncertain world can be terrifying. But fear and insecurity were never a big part of my upbringing. I had enough to eat and a loving home. My education allowed me to take control of my life. I don’t recall ever being threatened with hell. Not everyone with these lucky conditions becomes an atheist, of course, but those conditions are helpful in allowing a person to relax and open up, to ask the questions with a mind both clear and unafraid. In short, these conditions allowed me to doubt. In the end, they allowed me to decide.

Religious texts in many traditions warn about doubt — and for good reason. After a person begins to treat one of the Big Questions as a real question, not as the set-up for a preferred answer, many of the old questions that were so easily deflected in the past begin to appear in a new light. The philosopher Bertrand Russell called this the difference between the will to believe and the will to find out, which he says is the exact opposite.

Many children go through this same change in their questions about Santa Claus. At first they believe without hesitation. But at some point, questions start to nag at the back of their minds: How do the reindeer fly? How does Santa get around the world in one night? How does he get into my house if we have no chimney and the alarm is set? For a while, the child’s strong preference is to continue believing, so the most transparently silly answers from Mom and Dad (“The reindeer eat magic corn!”) are eagerly accepted at first. Tellingly, a child at this stage rarely asks directly if Santa is real because she doesn’t really want to know yet. Her will to believe is stronger than her will to find out.

As the child grows and learns more about the world, the answers become less satisfying, and the urge to know the truth starts to overtake the will to believe. That’s when the direct question comes at last: Is Santa real?

REMEMBER

By offering a universe that cares for everyone after all, and by cancelling death, the idea of a loving God solves many of the deepest human problems. When it comes to God, the will to believe can be so overwhelming that most people never cross the threshold into the will to actually find out. Whatever doubts they have are easily shooed away by the religious equivalents of magic corn.

Those who are able to cross that threshold find that they’re able to revisit the many questions they had shooed away so easily while their will to believe was strongest — questions about good and evil, meaning and purpose, life and death — and to see them in a whole new light. Many end up coming to the conclusion that the God hypothesis just doesn’t fare well in that light, and that it’s much more likely that humanity lives in a natural universe without gods.

Getting a handle on confirmation bias Many people who eventually identify as atheists notice early on that religion is a perfect fit for the deepest human hopes and fears. Suspiciously perfect, you might say.

Confirmation bias is the human tendency to see things the way you prefer, and it’s the single biggest obstacle to getting at the truth in any area of life. It leads people to notice and accept evidence that seems to support their beliefs while ignoring evidence that contradicts it.

It’s funny how consistently my kids are the most amazing performers in the talent show, for example, or the most gifted athletes on the field. Of course I tend to notice the things that confirm my opinion (the jump shot or high note that’s successful) and forget the ones that contradict it (the jump shot or high note that’s missed). That’s why I’m a terrible choice to judge their talent shows or referee their games — confirmation bias impairs my judgment, tilting me in the direction of the conclusion I’d prefer — that my kids are the best.

Likewise, any person who wins eternal life if a certain religious idea is true is a terrible judge of whether it is actually true.

The satirist H. L. Mencken said he respected someone’s opinion on his own religion no more or less than his opinion that his wife was beautiful and his children were smart. No one can be trusted to be an objective judge when one particular answer showers him or her with glory.

That’s one of the central problems many people notice when they first begin to look closely at religion — that the claims and conclusions of the faith so often play to the preferences of the faithful in a really big way.

The 19th-century agnostic feminist Susan B. Anthony said she distrusted people who claimed to know what God wanted, because it always seemed to line up really well with their own wishes. My thoughts exactly. If someone says he can cancel my death (which is one of my least favorite things, by the way) in exchange for my signature, I’m strongly inclined to reach for that clipboard. But if I’m more eager to see the world as it is than see it as I’d like it to be, it’s important for me to be very skeptical of claims that fit my preferences like a glove. That doesn’t mean I reject the claims outright, just that I need to ask some probing questions and follow the answers wherever they lead.

Asking new questions

After the old questions are reassessed, entirely new questions pop up. Some of these new questions may never have occurred to the person while deep in belief. A few examples include:

* How do I determine my own values, and how can I best live them out?

* If God didn’t create the world, how did everything get here?

* What’s the basis for human morality? What else have I taken for granted that isn’t true?

* Because God isn’t providing ultimate justice, how can humanity create a just world?

* What does it mean to truly die?

* Why did it take me so long to figure out what now seems obvious?

The answers to these new questions can speed the process of shedding religious assumptions. Some of them can make a person a little dizzy. But new atheists commonly describe an intoxicating mix of freedom, maturity, and deep responsibility that results from asking such questions without worrying about what Jesus or the minister may think.

Comparing religions

One of the most common “Aha!” moments for atheists is their first exposure to a religion that’s not the one in which they were raised — not a two-dimension snapshot of another religion, but the real deal. Meeting a fully developed system of thought with its own gods, its own stories, and its own claims — one that deeply contradicts their own religion and is held to be absolutely true by millions of people and absolutely false by everyone else — is an eye-opening moment. And many of those people come to the conclusion that both systems are simply ancient attempts to explain the world and comfort human fears before there were better ways of doing so.

I loved Greek and Roman mythology as a child; I knew every god and every myth by heart. In second grade, when it was time to do a project, everyone rolled their eyes as little Dale, dressed like Apollo, held up his helpful chart of the 12 gods of Olympus and their major fields. But the biggest lesson I got from those gods was that something could be earnestly believed by a whole civilization, and then discarded as obviously false by pretty much everyone a few generations later.

Then I had the related “Aha!” moment: If I’d been born in a different place, family, or time, I would have almost certainly been a faithfully observant believer in the religion of that place, family, or time. Many atheists cite that realization as yet another big step toward complete unbelief.

Reading the Bible

Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov calls the Bible “the most potent force for atheism ever conceived” — and many atheists agree. I read the book straight through at 14, and it was a big part of making an informed decision.

I’m more than willing to agree that the Bible has some really magnificent passages. I’ve never found a more eloquent tribute to love than the one in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. That’s why it was read at my wedding, and if you’re married, probably at yours, too. The 23rd Psalm is unsurpassed for its poetic expression of peace and acceptance in the face of death. And the Sermon on the Mount distills the best ethical principles of Christianity into what has been rightly called the moral essence of the faith.

But most people are only familiar with that carefully handpicked sampler of inspiring passages from the Bible. For each and every inspirational passage that finds its way into pulpits and needlepoint pillows, half a dozen immoral horrors stay pretty well hidden. When you decide to read the book on your own, without a filter, a very different picture emerges.

I won’t bore you with a long list of these atrocities. I can’t say it’s important to get away from filters and cherry picking, then just pick cherries from the other side of the tree. I will have to offer a few of them, just so you believe me about the sour fruit on the other side of that tree. But if you want to assess my claim that the Bible includes some very bad stuff, there’s no better way to do so than reading the Bible.

TIP

Wait wait, come back! I’m not suggesting you read the whole thing. You certainly can if you want, but for now, just start with two books: Genesis and Matthew. Religious scholar Stephen Prothero estimates that 80 percent of the religious references you’ll hear in American culture — from political speeches to figures of speech to Christmas carols — get their start in one of those two books.

Genesis will take you three hours of reading, Matthew even less. And (here’s the small bowl of sour cherries I promised) before you reach your first bathroom break in the middle of Genesis, you’ll encounter the stories of two fathers and their children. Both fathers behave with astonishing cruelty toward their kids, and — here’s the thing — both are immediately praised and rewarded by God. Worse that that, God even ordered one of those cruel acts.

Now I don’t hold such stories against God, by the way. Even if he exists, I always picture him smacking his ineffable Forehead in disbelief at the way he’s portrayed. But I do hold it against the Bible and those who wrote it. And as I continued slogging through the Old Testament, that work of the human imagination has the poor Guy first instructing his people not to kill, then directly ordering them to kill neighboring peoples by the tens of thousands, including every child and infant.

“It says what?!” asks God. (See, even he knows the book mostly from needlepoint pillows.)

In Matthew, I found the story of a mortal woman impregnated by a god just as fascinating and compelling as when I’d read it in the Greek myth of Danaë and Perseus. And for all the beauty and moral poetry in the rest of the Gospel, Matthew is where Jesus introduces the world to hell, speaking with some satisfaction about the eternal “wailing and gnashing of teeth” by those individuals who don’t follow his teachings.

I heard in Sunday school that the New Testament was intended to cancel out the Old. But read it yourself and see that Jesus puts that idea firmly to rest in Matthew 5:17–18: “Do not think I have come to abolish the Old Law. [That’s the Old Testament.] I come not to abolish but to fulfill it. And until Heaven and Earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle of the Old Law shall pass away.”

So all the commands to kill homosexuals, disobedient children, and nonbelievers, and to enslave and kill the people of neighboring countries — until Heaven and Earth pass away, it’s all still in force.

Okay, enough sour cherries. Perhaps you can see why reading the Bible (or the Qur’an, which fares no better, or whatever the home team’s scripture may be) is an important part of the process for many people who come to doubt, or completely reject, the religious claims around them.

Reading the Bible didn’t make me an atheist, but it took that book off the list of possible reasons to believe. It was an essential step, though by no means the final one.

Admitting the weakness of the arguments and evidence

After someone begins to doubt aloud, he quickly encounters the arguments for God’s existence, whether from a peer on the playground, a parent, or a Sunday school teacher. If the person’s will to believe is stronger than his will to find out, the arguments will do their job, tucking the questioner back into his comfortable belief.

On the other hand, if the will to find out is stronger, the questioner is often surprised by the astonishing weakness of the arguments. I certainly was. I had been convinced that my doubts had to be wrong. It was impossible for so many billions of people to be mistaken! I had to have missed something big.

I wasn’t surprised that the playground arguments were weak — The Bible is true because the Bible says so, you have to believe or you’ll go to hell, and so on. But I thought that the more I probed and questioned, the more challenging the arguments would become. Instead, they didn’t rise too far above the playground level: I feel it in my heart, it isn’t that kind of question, and so on.

The most common kind of evidence I heard was the “I feel it in my heart” variety — the direct experience of God. Though most people take this for granted now, this approach is actually a pretty recent one for talking about faith. Direct experience only replaced the formal arguments for God’s existence when those arguments started falling apart. (More on that in a few paragraphs.) Believers may speak of a feeling of transcendence, a near-death experience, a random act of kindness, or the sensed presence of God as a reason for believing. These feelings are beautiful and genuine, and I’ve had several of them myself — feelings of profound connection, of transcendence, and of overwhelming love and peace. I’m pretty sure we’re talking about the same things. The question is whether they originate with a God or in the natural, human heart and mind.

TIP

Admitting the weakness of the arguments and evidence After someone begins to doubt aloud, he quickly encounters the arguments for God’s existence, whether from a peer on the playground, a parent, or a Sunday school teacher. If the person’s will to believe is stronger than his will to find out, the arguments will do their job, tucking the questioner back into his comfortable belief. On the other hand, if the will to find out is stronger, the questioner is often surprised by the astonishing weakness of the arguments. I certainly was. I had been convinced that my doubts had to be wrong. It was impossible for so many billions of people to be mistaken! I had to have missed something big.

I wasn’t surprised that the playground arguments were weak — The Bible is true because the Bible says so, you have to believe or you’ll go to hell, and so on. But I thought that the more I probed and questioned, the more challenging the arguments would become. Instead, they didn’t rise too far above the playground level: I feel it in my heart, it isn’t that kind of question, and so on. The most common kind of evidence I heard was the “I feel it in my heart” variety — the direct experience of God. Though most people take this for granted now, this approach is actually a pretty recent one for talking about faith. Direct experience only replaced the formal arguments for God’s existence when those arguments started falling apart. (More on that in a few paragraphs.) Believers may speak of a feeling of transcendence, a near-death experience, a random act of kindness, or the sensed presence of God as a reason for believing. These feelings are beautiful and genuine, and I’ve had several of them myself — feelings of profound connection, of transcendence, and of overwhelming love and peace. I’m pretty sure we’re talking about the same things. The question is whether they originate with a God or in the natural, human heart and mind.

If I heard from a very young age that every good feeling I have originated with God, then I’d see every good feeling as proof of God’s existence. And if I heard from a young age that faeries cause rain, I’d see every spring shower as proof of faeries. Confirmation bias was at work again, so the evidence of experience failed to convince me.

Finally I reached the highest level — the ministers and theologians — fully expecting more challenging answers. Instead, more than one minister gave me the weakest reply of all — I should abandon my doubts and take a “leap of faith.” When I spoke to theologians, I learned that many had quietly defined God right out of existence. One friend who is a Catholic theologian said the idea of “God” is really just “a response one gives to mystery,” the name people call that which is unknown or unknowable. Another theologian friend — yes, I have several — told me in writing that the idea of an individual soul surviving death is “an elementary-schoolish belief that is no longer widely held.”

Because modern theology was quietly putting “God” in quotation marks, I turned to the classics of theology to check out the arguments there. Most are variations on three ideas:

* The ontological argument: God is the greatest being conceivable. It’s greater to exist than not exist. Therefore God exists. This argument is kind of stunning in its silliness, don’t you think? It says God must exist because of the human definition of God. Yet people were so caught up in the will to believe that it held everyone’s attention for centuries.

* The cosmological argument: Everything that exists must have a cause. At the beginning of the “chain of causation” must be a First Cause, that was not itself caused; that’s God. This argument has some attraction, until you realize that it cancels itself out. Everything needs a cause, and God provides that cause. So what caused God? Simply contradict the opening statement by declaring he doesn’t need a cause, then pretend that something has been solved. Yet again, this strange argument holds human attention for many centuries.

* The teleological argument: The universe is so complex and purposeful that it must have been designed by an intelligence. That’s God. Now there’s a problem worth thinking about, a genuine challenge that can’t be dismissed out of hand. It’s the kind of headscratcher I’d hoped for when I started thinking about God. I’m not at all surprised that so many people find the seeming design or “purpose” in the universe convincing, especially when the alternative seems (incorrectly) to be blind assembly by random chance.

If I were born just two centuries ago, I’m pretty sure I’d have been a believer of some sort — perhaps a Deist. The reason would have been the seeming design and complexity of the universe. Though “God did it” has some serious problems of its own (check the second bullet, “cosmological argument”), no better explanation had yet been advanced at that point.

That changed, suddenly and decisively, in 1859.

Solving the complexity problem

Have you ever wondered why evolution in particular is such a hotbutton issue in the culture war? I wondered that for years. Sure, it contradicts the creation story in Genesis, but so do a lot of other modern discoveries. Why does this one in particular inspire so much heat? The answer is found in the problem of complexity, especially the complexity of life on Earth — a problem that evolution solves very well.

Evolution by natural selection doesn’t just uproot one branch of religious belief. Challenging the idea that humans are special and separate from animals uproots the whole tree, mills it into lumber, and builds a very nice house out of it. And not a house of God, let me tell you.

Still, most people don’t decide what to believe by looking at abstractions like these. Darwin or no, the complexity of the universe, and especially of life on Earth, seems to make a designer a sure thing for most people. “I may not know what this God looks like or thinks or wants,” they say, “but come on! I can’t believe that this tree, or that moose, or the human body . . . I can’t believe these things just knitted themselves together by random chance!”

You know what? They’re right. If there’s anything less likely than a supernatural God, it’s the idea that all of this happened by random chance. Somebody once compared that idea to a whirlwind passing through a junkyard and assembling a 747.

For most of human history, those were the two apparent choices, God or random chance. Given those choices, I’m not surprised most people opted to believe in a designer. But in 1859, British naturalist Charles Darwin published the theory of evolution by natural selection. Suddenly people had three choices — and Darwin’s theory, properly understood, finally provides a credible fit for the evidence.

Understanding evolution

An intelligence doesn’t guide evolution; evolution also isn’t a process of random choice. In a nutshell, here’s how it works:

* All organisms include differences among individuals — bigger or smaller hands or feet or eyes, a tendency to react a certain way to loud noises, different coloration, and so on.

* Some of these differences don’t matter. Some have a  effect, making it harder to survive or to have as many babies. But some differences are actually helpful. They make it a little easier for the individual to live longer or have more babies.

* If the difference — say a slightly longer beak — gives even a tiny advantage, the lucky organism will have slightly more offspring and pass the same feature to them. The advantage will have been naturally selected. It’s not magic, just math.

* The kids will tend to have the same long beak, passing it on to their own slightly greater number of kids, and so on. And if one of them has an even longer beak, the selective process continues. Eventually, if the longer beak keeps giving an advantage, it becomes the norm.

* Fast-forward millions of years, and millions of selected traits produce the incredible diversity and complexity of life.

The variation is random, but the selection is anything but random.

Keeping God in the process?

Many religious believers have tried to reconcile evolution and religion, saying God uses evolution to create, but honestly, there’s really not much for him to do. Natural selection works just fine without a guiding hand. In fact, after a person understands the theory, it’s clear that it works inevitably without that guiding hand. Thomas Henry Huxley captured this idea when he hit his forehead and said, after first reading Darwin’s theory, “How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!”

Defining “theory”

Even though the scientific community now accepts evolution as fact, it’s still called a theory. So is the theory of gravity, which doesn’t mean there’s much doubt about what will happen when you step off your roof.

In science, theory simply means an explanation. Some theories are weak and don’t survive close examination, like geocentricity (that says the Earth is at the center of the universe) and phrenology (a person’s personality is reflected in the shape of his head). Other theories survive that close examination — like heliocentricity (the sun is at the center of the solar system) and evolution by natural selection.

But weak or strong, they’re all called theories.

Not all scientists in the 1860s felt the same. They weren’t sure for some time whether such a process could really account for all the variations people see. So for 70 years after Darwin’s theory was published, they did what scientists do — they squabbled and argued and challenged the details. Not until the 1930s and 1940s did a “synthesis” of genetics and biology solve the legitimate problems that had kept many scientists from accepting the idea up to that point. But after that powerful synthesis happened, an overwhelming majority of the scientific community accepted the theory.

Despite claims to the contrary by those driven by their own confirmation bias, evolution by natural selection is now as solidly established as the orbit of the Earth around the sun.

Accepting a better solution

Evolution uprooted the tree of traditional religion in several ways. But perhaps the strongest blow was to the argument from design. For thousands of years, everyone from theologians to the person in the street found the complexity of life to be the strongest argument for the existence of God. Now a powerful, simple, natural explanation was available, one that presented fewer problems than an uncreated Creator.

In The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins described the importance of evolution to atheism. Before Darwin, an atheist may have said, “God’s a poor explanation for complex biology, but I don’t have a better one.” That’s a pretty unsatisfying position to be in. But Darwin’s theory made it possible to be what Dawkins called “an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” The single most compelling reason to believe in God could finally be set aside with confidence.

Noticing the steady retreat of religious answers

Religions haven’t been shy about offering explanations for the universe — how Earth was formed and how old it is, what causes weather, how humans and animals are related, how life on Earth came to include such incredible variety, why bad things happen, and what happens after death, to name a few. The original purpose of religion was to provide these answers before other methods were available.

Science has answered many of these questions — not all, but quite a lot. And in every case, a natural explanation has replaced a supernatural one.

If scriptural claims are valid, it seems that scientific inquiry should be constantly confirming those claims. Instead, they’re found to be incorrect, one after another, and there’s a steady retreat of supernatural explanations into the remaining gaps in human knowledge — an approach sometimes called “the God of the gaps.”

Getting humble about humanness

Christianity was the religion I was born into the middle of, so Christian ideas were naturally some of the first I wrestled with, Jacob-like. And one of the defining Christian ideas is that humans are special, created separate from animals and endowed with immortal souls. Now that science has determined this isn’t the case — that humans are in fact animals, and that they share common ancestors with other animals living today — the very idea of the soul and human specialness deserves another look. And when people take that look, many find that the central narrative of Christianity no longer works.

Astrology took a similar blow when it lost one of its central, foundational principles — that Earth is in the center of the universe — about 600 years ago. But that hasn’t hurt horoscope sales too much.

Humans weren’t here from the beginning — in fact, Homo sapiens have only been on the planet for less than one tenth of one percent (0.1 percent) of its history. (More on that in the next section.) If other animals are without souls, God must have chosen a moment in evolutionary history when humans were “human enough” to merit souls. Because evolution happens by achingly tiny steps, no single moment happened when humans crossed a line from “prehuman” into “fully human.” Among other problems, such a sudden transition would result in a generation of children who are ensouled but whose parents aren’t — a very weird prospect, I’d say.

Go the other way, declaring that yes, animals also have souls, and I’ll have to follow that down the tree of life, ensouling bacteria and my front lawn at the same time. A lovely idea in its way, but it does challenge the very heart of the Christian narrative.

No matter how you spin it, the idea that I have a soul and my dog doesn’t have one is an enormous problem, one that many find fatal to the idea of the soul and salvation.

It is important to note that not everyone finds evolution and Judeo-Christian belief incompatible. I’m glad they find that possible. I (and most atheists) don’t quite see how they manage it, but it’s nice to have their support for evolution education.

Coming (really, really) late to the party

One discovery that deals an especially strong blow to the idea that humans are at the center of creation is how very recently humanity has arrived on the scene. The following example puts the human animal in humbling perspective.

TIP

Spread your arms out to your sides, like a plane. Your wingspan is a timeline. Your left fingertip represents the time of the first single-celled life on Earth, and your right fingertip is right this minute. Between the two is 3.7 billion years of time, the history of life on Earth. At what point in that span would you say the dinosaurs enter the picture? And what about humans?

When I was young, I’d have put the dinosaurs somewhere around my left shoulder, and then people somewhere in the middle of my chest. Then I spent some time with Carl Sagan, one of the great popularizers of science, and learned that I was off by... well, kind of a lot.

From your left fingertip, all the way up your arm, past your left shoulder, across your chest, and past your right shoulder, life on Earth is nothing but bacteria. By the time you reach your right wrist, the most impressive form of life on Earth, the king of the beasts, is the worm. In the middle of your right palm you finally get your dinosaurs, and they’re extinct by your last finger joint.

Run your eyes along that history again so far. All that history, all that life, and still no appearance by the Main Attraction, the species for whom everything is supposedly made — humankind.

So when do humans finally show up at the party? Well, it’s more than fashionably late. Homo sapiens fits in one small fingernail clipping.

Realizing that the human species has only arrived on the scene in the last one tenth of one percent of the history of life on Earth ... well, it’s a humbling earthquake of perspective, one of several that seriously cracked the foundations of traditional religion.

Grasping the size of the universe

In the first millennium BCE (1000 BCE to 1 BCE), when most of the major religions were born and most scriptures got themselves written down, Earth was believed to be the center of a really small universe, one that could fit inside what now is known to be the orbit of the moon. You can easily see why humanity was pretty cosmically important when the stage was that small.

Fast forward about 2,500 years, and science now recognizes the sun as one of about 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, which is one of 100 billion galaxies in the universe. To take a single step into that immense scale, drop a penny on the ground, and call it the sun. At this scale, the nearest star — the very nearest one — would be another penny 350 miles away. And it goes from there, trillions of times over. Earth is a speck in space and a blink in time. That makes it pretty unlikely that humans would be the central concern of the creator of all that, but people can still be the central concern of each other. All of humanity is in the same itty bitty boat.

It’s not surprising that religions born prior to the Scientific Revolution put humanity at the center of creation and at the core of God’s concern. The universe as humans understood it then made it possible to do so. Making such a claim with a straight face today is much more difficult, and many people find it impossible.

Seeing that the universe is just as you would expect it to be without a God

Some religious answers to challenging questions about God are worth considering carefully. Others require some Olympic-quality back bending. If the judges place no limit on the amount of back bending allowed, reality can indeed be made to conform to the God opinion. But to meet the world honestly, I’d rather conform my opinions to reality.

One of the best ways to do this is by applying a principle called Occam’s Razor. When deciding between two possibilities, the one that requires the fewest assumptions — the least back bending — tends to be the right answer. An all-powerful, all-good God can be made to fit into this universe, explaining away evil and catastrophe and death and uncertainty like a game of cosmological Twister — Left hand blue! Right foot red! — or a person can notice, at long last, that the universe is just as one would expect it to be if no supernatural God is at the wheel.

I can like the fact or I can dislike it, or some combination of the two. But as soon as I decided to disregard my preferences and instead to discover reality as honestly as I could, there was little left to do. I was an atheist.

The next step was deciding what that meant and what to do with it.

By Dale McGowan,PhD in "Atheism for Dummies",John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd., 2013, excerpts p.73-93. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

O chão é o limite. A sentença do locutor que narra os rodeios da Festa do Peão, em Barretos, dá bem a ideia do tipo de visão invertida da vida que tem este tipo particularíssimo de "lumpen" do mundo rural brasileiro. Desde tempos imemoriais, O homem aprendeu que progredir é conquistar o espaço - e neste sentido, o céu é ilimitado. Ao contrário, a perspectiva do peão, no solavanco da sela, é a de um horizonte duro e concreto; ele é alguém que encontra o ponto máximo da sua existência num equilíbrio precário às vésperas do tombo. Como o bêbado, ele tenta evitar a humilhação da queda. Poucos segundos separam a abertura do portão e ele, surfista de um ondulado galope, experimenta frações de segundo entre a vitória e a derrota, o céu e a terra, a vida e a morte. Tudo que é sólido despenca no chão.

Garota, se você quer ir para Barretos bota sentido em algumas coisas. Em primeiro lugar, há uma espécie de "New-caipirismo" cultural ventando sobre uma das principais estéticas dos anos 80, e elas dizem respeito ao teatro de Sam Shepard, à música de Tom Waits, ao "Paris, Texas" de Wim Wenders. O vaqueiro é tomado em sua inflexiva solidão como, o portador de estranhas verdades indizíveis. Aliás, é este olhar calejado pela própria experiência ("A visão gloriã", Guimarães Rosa) do contato direto da pele com a matéria prima do perigo ("Viver é muito perigoso", Guimarães Rosa), que informa o ponto das fotos tiradas pela câmera "songspieleana" de David Zingg - o mensageiro da ligação chique entre o brega brasileiro e o country americano.

Tudo isto sem contar que na tradição interna, a vereda da alta invenção do caipirismo roseano é tudo. Mas não pense que você poderá passar por este pedaço de sertão com a mesma impunidade de Marilyn Monroe em "Nunca Fui Santa", Os brutos perderam a ingenuidade, mas continuam brutos.

Se o vaqueiro ao conduzir a boiada domina a horizontalidade ("Para mim tudo é caminho", ouvi um boiadeiro dizer; o aforismo esconde certamente uma verdade metafísica), seu plano é interrompido pelos saltos perpendiculares do rodeio, espécie de cortes bruscos em sua vida linear em comitivas. Estas - que até hoje andam cerca de sessenta "marchas" (dias) trazendo o gado de Goiás para a engorda final em pastos de Barretos e região - fazem o meu instante preferido da festa: a chamada "queima do alho". Ponto de contato urbano com as reminiscências da cultura do tropeiro, ela consiste em uma prova gastronômica: depois de desfilar seus burricos pela cidade, as comitivas reúnem-se para disputar qual delas desfruta do melhor "chef": quem consegue aliar a rapidez ao melhor tempero.

"Atenção senhores peões, mais elegância. Elegância quer dizer rapidez". O locutor da festa soltava um dos fragmentos da moderna vida elegante, sem nunca ter lido Balzac.

Disparado, o melhor restaurante da cidade é o Afrikan (av. 13, número 648. Como em Nova York, as avenidas barretenses são numeradas) do Leobino. Os peixes são do mundo civilizado (quem puder que coma um "Peixe na Telha ", do balacobaco); para um lanche rápido há o Caju (av. 19, entre as ruas 22 e 24, em frente ao Grêmio Literário e Recreativo. O Literário é só força de expressão) com seu bauru digno e sua cerveja que, como no romance de Cyro dos Anjos, encerra várias soluções. Como o calor é de torrar os miolos (se engana redondamente quem acha que cultura não é privilégio de climas mais amenos; tente ler Hegel em Barretos), não falte ao sorvete da Nossa Senhora Aparecida (esquina da rua 22 com a av. 22). Se tiver coco queimado, você é um rabudo.

A moçadinha mais avançada (o papo das meninas evoluiu mais do que a dos meninos, travados na "machonaria" burra, com exceção das inteligências brilhantes que o interior produz, mas que, se ficam por lá, acabam melancólicas) é arredia, mas a "tchurma do alalalaô" vai ao bar do Naba (av. 11, esquina com a rua 16) ou, depois que tudo estiver fechado; ao bar do Tuim (rua 18, na praça central da cidade). Pronto, já entreguei.

Que eu me lembre, os melhores hotéis são apenas razoáveis. Mas como a liberação dos costumes já viajou até mais de quatrocentos quilômetros ao norte de São Paulo, os motéis estão em franca atividade (certamente com demanda amorosa aquecida neste período).

Os rapazes que criaram a Festa do Peão de Boiadeiro (o "de.", apesar de dispensável, é um traço distintivo; é ele que faz a diferença da festa de Barretos das outras festas de "peão boiadeiro"), chamavam-se Os Independentes. Eram a versão local dos boas vidas de Fellini. Não podiam se casar, sob pena de expurgo da confraria. Apesar da motivação prosaica algo na denominação me faz pensar na espécie de homem indomável sobre o cavalo a ser domado (ao contrário do toureiro o domínio do homem sobre a força adversa no rodeio não acaba em extermínio; é uma espécie de performance sem finalidade, pois aqui os cavalos jamais serão domados e ficam mais nervosos com a dor de uma corda que ofende a virilha). Uma identidade entre caça e caçador, entre domador e domado que remete ao maverick citado por Orson Wells, um tipo de errância que do animal, passou a designar também o homem.

Quando eu era menino, na sede de Os Independentes, havia uma figura sobrenatural: um bezerro bi-fronte embalsamado. Até hoje, ao experimentar a impotência frente ao desconhecido, eu me pergunto: como é que se laça o bezerro de duas cabeças?

Texto de Matinas Suzuki Jr. publicado no caderno de Turismo da "Folha de S. Paulo" de 13 de agosto de 1987. Digitado, adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

Apis

Apis

Apis is a Greek rendering of Hapi. As the 'Bull Apis' he is to-day the best known of the sacred animals. Very popular and honoured throughout Egypt, he was tended and worshipped at Memphis, where he was called 'the Renewal of Ptah's life.’ He was Ptah's sacred animal and believed to be his reincarnation. Ptah in the form of a celestial fire, it was taught, inseminated a virgin heifer and from her was himself born again in the form of a black bull which the priests could recognise by certain mystic marks. On his forehead there had to be a white triangle, on his back the figure of a vulture with outstretched wings, on his right flank a crescent moon, on his tongue the image of a scarab and, finally, the hairs of his tail must be double.

As long as he lived Apis was daintily fed in the temple which the kings had had built for him in Memphis opposite the temple of Ptah. Every day at a fixed hour he was let loose in the courtyard attached to his temple, and the spectacle of his frolics attracted crowds of the devout. It also drew the merely curious; for a visit to the sacred animals was a great attraction for the tourists who were so numerous in Egypt during the Graeco-Roman era.

Each of his movements was interpreted as foretelling the future; and when Germanicus died it was remembered that the bull, shortly before this, had refused to eat the delicacies which Germanicus had offered him.

Normally Apis was allowed to die of old age. Ammianus Marcel-linus, however, tells us that if he lived beyond a certain age he was drowned in a fountain. During the Persian tyranny the sacred bull was twice assassinated, by Cambyses and by Ochus. Space is lacking to describe how the Egyptians mourned the death of Apis, and their transports of joy at the announcement that his successor had been found. We should also have liked to describe the vast subterranean chambers discovered in 1850 at Saqqarah where the mummified bodies of the sacred bulls were, after splendid funeral services, buried in immense monolithic sarcophagi of sandstone or pink granite.

Above these underground galleries arose a great temple of which to-day nothing remains. In Latin it was called the Serapeum. Here the funeral cult of the dead bull was celebrated. He had become, like all the dead, an 'Osiris' and was worshipped under the name Osiris Apis. This in Greek was Osorapis, which caused him quickly to be confused with the foreign God Serapis, who was worshipped according to a purely Greek ritual in the great Serapeum at Alexandria. A God of the underworld, Serapis was confused at Memphis with Osorapis and was worshipped with Osorapis in his funerary temple. Due to this confusion the temple was thenceforth called Serapeum.

Other Sacred Bulls

To be brief we shall only enumerate the three other important bulls of Egypt.

Mneuis

Mneuis is the Greek rendering of Merwer, the Bull of Meroe also called Menuis. He was the bull sacred to Ra Atum at Heliopolis. It seems that he was of a light colour, although Plutarch speaks of his black hide.

Buchis

Buchis, the Greek for Bukhe, was the bull sacred to Menthu at Hermonthis. According to Macrobius, the hair of his hide, which changed colour every hour, grew in the opposite direction from that of an ordinary animal. The great vaults where the mummies of Buchis were buried were discovered near Armant by Robert Mond, who in 1927 had already found the tombs of the cows which bore these sacred bulls.

Onuphis

Onuphis, the Greek rendering of Aa Nefer, 'the very good,’ ' was the bull in which the soul of Osiris was said to be incarnated, as Ra Atum re-appeared in Mneuis and Mont was reembodied in Buchis.

Petesuchos

Petesuchos is the Greek rendering of an Egyptian word meaning 'he who belongs to Suchos' (or Sebek). He was the sacred crocodile in which was incarnated the soul of Sebek, the great God of the Fayyum who had his chief sanctuary in Crocodilopolis, the capital of the province, which was called Arsinoe from the time of the second Ptolemy.

At Crocodilopolis, in a lake dug out near the great temple, Petesuchos was venerated. He was an old crocodile who wore * golden rings in his ears. His devotees riveted bracelets to his forelegs. Other crocodiles, also sacred, composed his family and were fed nearby.

In the Graeco-Roman era the crocodiles of Arsinoe were a great attraction for tourists. Strabo tells us how in the reign of Augustus he paid a visit to Petesuchos. 'He is fed,' Strabo writes, 'with the bread, meat and wine which strangers always bring when they come to see him. Our friend and host, who was one of the notabilities of the place and who took us everywhere, came to the lake with us, having saved from our luncheon a cake, a piece of the roast and a small flagon of honey. We met the crocodile on the shore of the lake. Priests approached him and while one of them held open his jaws another put in the cake and the meat and poured in the honey-wine. After that the animal dived into the lake and swam towards the opposite shore. Another visitor arrived, also bringing his offering. The priests ran round the lake with the food he had brought and fed it to the crocodile in the same manner..'

For many centuries no one has worshipped Petesuchos, but in the center of Africa those who dwell on the southern shores of Lake Victoria-Nyanza today still venerate Lutembi, an old crocodile who for generations has come to the shore each morning and evening at the call of the fishermen to receive from their hands the fish they offer him.

Like Petesuchos of old, the crocodile Lutembi has become a profitable source of revenue for his votaries. For, since many people come to see him out of curiosity, the natives demand a fee for calling him to the shore and make the visitor pay well for the fish they give him.

Sacred Rams were also very popular in Egypt. Chief among them was Ba Neb Djedet, 'the soul of the lord of Djedet,’ a name which in popular speech was contracted into Banaded and in Greek rendered as Mendes. In him was incarnated the soul of Osiris, and the story which Herodotus brought back about the ram - which he wrongly calls 'the He-goat of Mendes' - confirms the veneration in which this sacred animal was held. Thoth himself, said his priests, had formerly decreed that the kings should come with offerings to the 'living ram.’ Otherwise infinite misfortune would spread among men. When Banaded died there was general mourning; on the other hand immense rejoicing greeted the announcement that a new ram had been discovered, and great festivals were held in order to celebrate the enthronement of this king of Egyptian animals.

Bennu

The Bird Bennu must also be mentioned among the sacred animals; for, though he was purely legendary, the ancients did not doubt his reality. Worshipped at Heliopolis as the soul of Osiris, he was also connected with the cult of Ra and was perhaps even a secondary form of Ra. He is identified, though not with certainty, with the Phoenix who, according to Herodotus' Heliopolitan guides, resembled the eagle in shape and size, while Bennu was more like a lapwing or a heron. The Phoenix, it was said, appeared in Egypt only once every five hundred years. When the Phoenix was born in the depths of Arabia he flew swiftly to the temple of Heliopolis with the body of his father which, coated with myrrh, he there piously buried.

CONCLUSION

Much more remains to be said on the subject of the sacred animals. In most sanctuaries the God or Goddess of the locality was supposed to be incarnate in the animal kept: a cat in the temple of Bast, a falcon or an ibis in the temple of Horus or Thoth. In addition, popular superstition in later times so grew that every individual of the species of animal in whose body the provincial God was incarnate was regarded as sacred by the inhabitants of that province. It was forbidden to eat them, and to kill one was a heinous crime. Since, however, different nomes venerated different animals it could happen that a certain species which was the object of a cult in one province was mercilessly hunted in the neighbouring province. This sometimes gave rise to fratricidal wars such as that which, in the first century of the Christian era, broke out between the Cynopolitans and the Oxyrhynchites. The latter had killed and eaten dogs to avenge themselves on the former for having eaten an oxyrhynchid. a kind of spider crab.

Plutarch writes:
'In our days, the Cynopolitans having eaten a crab, the Oxyrhynchites took dogs and sacrificed them and ate their flesh like that of immolated victims. Thus arose a bloody war between the two peoples which the Romans put an end to after severely punishing both.'

Certain animals - cats, hawks, ibis were venerated all over Egypt and to kill them was punishable by death.

'When one of these animals is concerned,’ writes Diodorus, 'he who kills one. be it accidentally or maliciously, is put to death. The populace flings itself on him and cruelly maltreats him, usually before he can be tried and judged. Superstition towards these sacred animals is deeply rooted in the Egyptian's soul, and devotion to their cult is passionate. In the days when Ptolemy Auletes was not yet allied to the Romans and the people of Egypt still hastened to welcome all visitors from Italy and, for fear of the consequences, carefully avoided any occasion for complaint or rupture, a Roman killed a cat. The populace crowded to the house of the Roman who had committed this "murder"; and neither the efforts of magistrates sent by the king to protect him nor the universal fear inspired by the might of Rome could avail to save the man's life, though what he had done was admitted to be accidental. This is not an incident which I report from hearsay, but something I saw myself during my sojourn in Egypt.'

Cats, indeed, were so venerated that when a building caught fire the Egyptians, Herodotus tells us, would neglect the fire in order to rescue these animals whose death to them seemed more painful than any other loss they might sustain. When one of the sacred animals died it was considered an act of great merit to provide for its funeral; and in certain cases, such as the bull Apis, the king himself made it his duty to take charge of the obsequies.

Pity for dead animals reached an almost unbelievable degree. To give an idea of this it may be mentioned that crocodile ccmeteries have been discovered where the reptiles were carefully mummified and buried with their newly bom and even with their eggs.

Animals, birds, fish, reptiles of all kinds that were venerated by the ancient inhabitants of the Nile valley were interred by the hundreds of thousands. An example of the abundance of these corpses can be found at Beni Hasan, where the cats' cemetery has been commercially exploited for the extraction of artificial fertiliser.

Herodotus did not exaggerate when he wrote that the Egyptians were the most religious of men.

A LIST OF ANIMALS WHOSE HEADS APPEAR ON EGYPTIAN DIVINITIES

The following is a table, in alphabetical order, of those animals whose heads were borne by certain Gods. Only the Gods mentioned in this study are listed. We have omitted the countless genii and lesser divinities who on tomb decorations and in illustrations of funerary papyri were also represented with animal heads.

Bull: Osorapis (Apis, Mont)

Cat: Bast perhaps, Mut

Cow: Hathor (Isis when identified with Hathor), Nut

Crocodile: Sebek

Dog-faced ape: Hapi, Thoth at times

Donkey: Set (in later times)

Falcon: Ra-Harakhte, Horus, Mont, Khons Hor, Qebhsnuf

Frog: Heket

Hippopotamus: Taueret

Ibis: Thoth.

Jackal: Anubis, Duamutef.

Lion: Nefertum, sometimes

Lioness: Sekhmet, Tefnut (sometimes Mut and Renenet)

Ram with curved horns: Amon

Ram with wavy horns: Khnum, Hershef or Harsaphes

Scarab: Khepri.

Scorpion: Selket

Serpent: Buto (Mertseger and Renenet)

Uracus: See Serpent

Vulture: Nekhebet

Wolf: Upuaut, Khenti Amenti

Indeterminate animal called "the Typhonian Animal": Set

By J. Viaud in "New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology", introduction by Robert Graves, Crescent Books, New York,1987, excerpts p.53-57. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

"Não vim trazer a paz, mas a espada".

Livro de autor norte-americano de origem iraniana defende que as pregações de Jesus convocando o “Reino de Deus” sejam lidas de forma mais literal e revolucionária que espiritual. Embora a tese não seja totalmente inovadora, “Zelota” popularizou-se após seu autor,muçulmano,ser atacado em entrevista à TV nos EUA.

Um grande campo de pesquisadores, ao qual Reza Aslan pende, vê Jesus como profeta apocalíptico. “Não acho que esteja explorando terreno realmente novo”, diz ele

“Não penseis que vim trazer paz à Terra; não vim trazer paz, mas espada. Vim trazer divisão entre o homem e seu pai, entre a filha e sua mãe”, declara Jesus no capítulo dez do Evangelho de Mateus.

Durante séculos, a maioria dos cristãos interpretou a frase belicosa do Nazareno de modo espiritual. Afinal, se levadas ao pé da letra, as exigências de Cristo para abandonar riquezas, casa, pais e filhos para segui-lo não estão entre os assuntos mais agradáveis para um almoço familiar de domingo.

Para o escritor norte-americano de origem iraniana Reza Aslan,no entanto, está na hora de voltar a ler os versículos em seu contexto original — no qual a ideia era desembainhar uma espada literal, e não metafórica.

Eis, em essência, a premissa de “Zelota: a Vida e a Época de Jesus de Nazaré” [trad. Marlene Suano, Zahar, R$ 36,90, 308 págs.], novo livro de Aslan, 41 anos, que acaba de ser lançado no Brasil: Jesus não era um mestre pacifista, que só pensava em exaltar as virtudes dos lírios do campo e oferecer a outra face.

O principal objetivo do profeta de Nazaré, fomentar a vinda do “Reino de Deus”, equivalia a um programa político (e revolucionário), que envolvia a expulsão dos romanos da Palestina e a recriação da antiga e gloriosa monarquia israelita, com o próprio Jesus no trono, sob as bênçãos de Deus.

Daí o nome do livro: zelota (do grego “zelotes”) é como os autores bíblicos denominavam os judeus especialmente zelosos das prerrogativas religiosas do Deus de Israel — uma divindade que, ao menos no Antigo Testamento, era capaz de uma aterrorizante fúria militar contra os inimigos dos israelitas. Mais tarde, o termo seria usado para designar uma seita revolucionária judaica.

“Vamos colocar a coisa da seguinte forma: há aqueles que acham que Jesus era total e absolutamente único, diferente de todos os judeus do seu tempo. E há os que acham que, embora ele fosse extraordinário e inovador, ainda assim seu pensamento tinha muito em comum com o de outros judeus.Eu faço parte desse segundo grupo”,explicou Aslan,à Folha, em entrevista por telefone.

“Os demais judeus do século 1º d.C.acreditavam que o Messias era um descendente do rei Davi cujo trabalho seria derrotar os inimigos de Israel e implantar o Reino de Deus na Terra. Acredito que essa era a visão que Jesus tinha sobre si mesmo.”

Aslan é um acadêmico, com mestrado em teologia na Universidade Harvard e doutorado em história das religiões na Universidade da Califórnia, em Santa Barbara, mas seu livro conquistou o grande público. Razões alheias ao seu conteúdo contribuíram para que a obra tivesse virado best-seller nos nos EUA.

No dia 26 de julho,dez dias após o lançamento norte-americano do livro, Aslan foi hostilizado por uma entrevistadora do canal conservador Fox News, que exigiu que ele explicasse por que um muçulmano iria querer escrever um livro sobre Jesus. “Ser atacado de falta de ‘jesusidade’ por uma âncora da Fox Nex é aparentemente um bom caminho para conduzir seu livro ao número 1 das listas”, comentou Adam Gopnik, na revista “New Yorker”.

O que a âncora de TV provavelmente não sabia era que o histórico religioso de Aslan é mais complexo do que ela deu a entender. Nascido numa família iraniana secular, ele tornou-se evangélico na adolescência e,mais tarde, retornou à fé de seus ancestrais.

“O ponto mais importante, que muito gente não conseguiu entender, é que o livro não é sobre o cristianismo — Jesus, afinal, não era cristão, mas judeu. Meu tema é o judaísmo de veia revolucionária que existia no século 1º d.C., do qual Jesus era um representante”, sustenta Aslan, que hoje é professor da Universidade da Califórnia em Riverside.

O BÁSICO 

A abordagem do escritor é, em grande medida, uma espécie de “retorno ao básico” na pesquisa histórica sobre a figura de Jesus Cristo.

De fato, umdos primeiros intelectuais a tentar uma interpretação secular para entender quem foi o Nazareno,o alemão Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768), já defendia que os objetivos de Jesus eram basicamente políticos.

Especialistas contam ao menos três grandes fases de “busca pelo Jesus histórico”,a mais recente delas nos anos 1980. Um consenso entre os estudiosos parece quase tão distante quanto era no século 19.

Aslan iz que não há muito mistério sobre o porquê desse aparente fracasso acadêmico. “Fora do Novo Testamento, simplesmente não há nenhum traço de evidências a respeito de Jesus que seja do século 1º d.C.”, afirma.

“Creio que até existe algum consenso, mas ele é muito limitado. Podemos dizer que Jesus era um judeu,que iniciou um movimento para os judeus da Palestina, e que Roma o executou como inimigo do Estado. E é só”, diz Aslan. “O que conseguimos fazer é pegar esse pouquinho e colocá-lo no contexto do mundo no qual Jesus viveu, sobre o qual sabemos muita coisa. Sempre há a possibilidade de que alguma nova descoberta arqueológica mude esse cenário.Mas por enquanto isso não aconteceu.”

INTERPRETAÇÕES 

Diante de tal pobreza de dados, talvez não seja surpreendente que haja hoje no mercado uma variedade enorme de interpretações sobre Jesus.

Excetuando a ideia de que o personagem nunca tenha existido, sendo apenas uma figura mitológica inventada pelo apóstolo Paulo ou outro membro da primeira geração de cristãos — o que raríssimos historiadores sérios consideram como uma possibilidade —, uma das visões mais influentes é a esposada pelo ex-padre irlandês John Dominic Crossan.

Autor de “Quem Matou Jesus?” [trad. André Cardoso, Imago, R$ 60, 268 págs.], Crossan afirma que Jesus teria sido uma versão judaica dos filósofos cínicos gregos. Em outras palavras, um pensador itinerante que atacava as convenções sociais e convidava seus ouvintes a levar uma vida de solidariedade radical (“comensalidade” é um dos termos técnicos), defendendo que o “Reino de Deus” já estava presente entre os membros dessa confraria.

Outro termo técnico para descrever a posição de Crossan e de outros especialistas é “escatologia realizada”, no sentido de que o Jesus histórico pintado por eles não esperava o Juízo Final e a ressurreição dos mortos (e talvez nem a sua própria): a “escatologia”, ou seja, a consumação do plano de Deus para o mundo, aconteceria naturalmente entre os que abraçassem a mensagem do Nazareno.

Opõe-se a essa visão um grande campo de pesquisadores,bastante heterogêneo,para quem Jesus era acima de tudo um profeta apocalíptico, ou seja, alguém que previa — provavelmente “para ontem”, ainda durante seu tempo de vida — a intervenção decisiva deDeus na história, libertando o “povo escolhido” de Israel e instaurando uma nova era de justiça e de paz.

Uma das abordagens mais influentes sob essa perspectiva está em um dos quatro volumes da série, ainda não concluída, “Um Judeu Marginal: Repensando o Jesus Histórico” [trad. Laura Rumchinsky, Imago,468págs., esgotado], do padre norte-americano John P.Meier.

Ao analisar algo que parece ser tão banalmente cristão quanto a oração do Pai Nosso,por exemplo, Meier argumenta que a expressão “Venha a nós o vosso reino” deve ser lida, nos lábios de Jesus, como nada menos que um pedido para que a intervenção apocalíptica de Deus no Cosmos acontecesse o mais breve possível — o “reino” nada mais seria que esse domínio restaurado do Senhor.

Aslan pende mais para o segundo campo, embora sua ênfase política o distinga de Meier,de quem se declara admirador. “Não acho que eu esteja explorando algum terreno realmente novo na questão”, pondera. “Consegui apenas reunir os principais dados e argumentos de uma maneira coerente e que pode ser compreendida pelo leitor não especializado.”

Apesar da modéstia,Aslan teve peito para defender posições controversas mesmo para os padrões da pesquisa sobre o Jesus histórico. Ele vê a célebre “purificação do Templo” (episódio no qual Jesus expulsa cambistas e vendedores de animais do local mais sagrado de Jerusalém) como um ataque político direto à corrupção da elite sacerdotal judaica,aliada a Roma, coisa com a qual muitos outros estudiosos concordam.

Mas vai além e argumenta que a passagem na qual Jesus diz “Dai a César o que é de César e a Deus o que é de Deus” é, na verdade, uma frase sutilmente subversiva. E parte de uma explicação filológica: o “dai” seria tradução do verbo grego “apodidomi”,ou “devolver”. Em vez de dizer que é certo pagar imposto para os romanos, tema da frase, Jesus estaria dizendo simplesmente que se deve devolver o dinheiro romano ao imperador e retomar o que pertence a Deus, ou seja, a Terra Santa de Israel.

Da mesma forma, a ideia de “oferecer a outra face” seria aplicável apenas a irmãos judeus,não a pagãos ocupando Jerusalém, ou a qualquer outro não judeu.

“O judaísmo era tudo o que Jesus conhecia e pregava. Ele mesmo afirmou que não veio para abolir nem uma só letra da Lei de Moisés”, diz Aslan. “O mandamento de amar ao próximo já estava presente no judaísmo, mas valia apenas para membros da comunidade de Israel.”

Pergunto se, sob essa perspectiva, Jesus e outros profetas e revolucionários judaicos do século 1º d.C. (alguns dos quais acabariam expulsando os romanos temporariamente entre 66 d.C. e 70 d.C., até serem esmagados) poderiam ser comparados aos muçulmanos que  jihad hoje.

“Certamente em nenhum momento Jesus pregou a violência contra não combatentes”, afirma Aslan. “Mas, é claro, ao longo da história, sempre houve o uso da religião como arma contra potências consideradas opressoras ou em favor da justiça social.”

Texto de Reinaldo José Lopes publicado na "Folha de S. Paulo" de 24 de novembro de 2013. Adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa

URBANIZATION AND COMMUNICATIONS

The foundation of the colonia at Colchester, on the site of the recently evacuated legionary fortress, in A.D. 49, is mentioned by Tacitus as a deliberate act of policy, whereby a reserve of legionary veterans was maintained in the south east in the absence of any worthwhile regular garrison. It was also intended to act as a model of urbanization for the native Britons, and incolae - native inhabitants - were included in the population from the first. The earliest houses of the veterans have been shown by excavations to owe much to the legionary structures that had preceded them, although there were significant changes in layout; yet some of the streets of the fortress were perpetuated. The position of the forum is still not known with certainty although several sites have been proposed; Tacitus mentions a curia. He also refers to a theatre which has now been identified by excavation, but he stresses that there were no fortifications at the time of the Boudican rebellion, which implies that the legionary defences had been dismantled. Astride the main road to London on the western boundary, a triumphal arch was constructed, presumably to commemorate the foundation of the colonia and to honour its founder, Claudius. His memory, though, was more than adequately recognized in the construction of the principal building connected with the new city. This was the great temple of Claudius, which was also to be the centre of the imperial cult in Britain. All that remains now is the podium, lying beneath the Norman castle; originally, it stood within a great colonnaded courtyard with an entrance to the south. It is often argued that Colchester was also intended to be the provincial administrative capital, a function that was later to fall on London. It should be stressed, however, that there is no evidence to support this suggestion, and in the extremely fluid state of the new province, it is more likely that the 'capital' would tend to be where the governor was; there is nothing to link him specifically with Colchester.

Some other urban centres had their beginnings in the years immediately after the invasion. Canterbury, a recognized Iron Age site, early became the capital of the civitas Cantiacorum, although many of the features originally attributed to its foundation are now thought to be somewhat later, and the main development did not occur until the turn of the first and second centuries. But the final street plan may owe some of its irregularities to the lines of earlier streets and existing buildings. London was recognized by Tacitus as a flourishing trading centre even before the Boudican rebellion; houses and shops of the first town, burnt in the rebellion, have been uncovered over a wide area, but little is known of any public buildings. There are indications of an embryonic street system in the area north of the Thames bridge, the possible northern abutment of which has been identified in excavations in Pudding Lane. There is also evidence to show that at least some provincial administrative functions were centred on London, possibly even before the Boudican rebellion, and certainly after it. The procurator, Iulius Classicianus, died in office and was buried at London; his ornate, altar-style tombstone was found reused in the later town wall on Tower Hill.

Verulamium, like Canterbury, was also founded on the site of a major Iron Age centre, the probable sometime oppidum of Tasciovanus. It almost certainly served as the administrative centre for the Catuvellauni from its beginning. Arguments, however, still continue over whether, and if so when, municipal status was conferred. The most recent view holds that it was granted under Claudius and at about the same time as the foundation of colonial Colchester. But the evidence is not decisive and relies to a large extent on the interpretation of a passage of Tacitus. Excavations have identified a rudimentary street system of Claudian date, and a number of buildings, mostly, as at both London and Colchester, constructed with timber frames and wattle-and-daub walls, and so consumed in the Boudican fire. One block in Insula XIV has been identified as a range of shops, possibly built as a speculative venture by a Catuvellaunian noble and rented out to his retainers or managed by slaves. The forum and basilica are dated by the dedicatory inscription to A.D. 79, although earlier structures may still lie undiscovered beneath them. The fown was encompassed, probably in the Claudian period, by a bank and a ditch; when the town later expanded beyond them this line was commemorated by two triumphal arches set astride the London-Chester road.

Two other embryonic urban settlements may be considered as belonging to this period and both lie within the likely kingdom of Cogidubnus. The site of the town at Chichester, in the kingdom's heartlands, had an early military presence, but it is not known precisely how long it lasted. Yet, alongside the military base, or after it, there is evidence for a major public building dedicated during Nero's Principate. Probably slightly later, the Cogidubnus inscription displays advancing Romanization, not only in the existence of a temple to the purely classical cult of Neptune and Minerva, but also to social organization in the collegium fabrorum, or guild of craftsmen. Also, very likely situated in Cogidubnus' kingdom, the Iron Age oppidum at Silchester has produced elements of early urbanized development which included a bathhouse and amphitheatre35 of Neronian date, and a slightly later, but still Neronian, timber building on the site of the later forum and basilica?* This building has been variously interpreted as a market square, a residence for Cogidubnus or military principia. But the two phases of fortification on different alignments which were thought to belong in the same context, have now been shown to be of pre-Roman origin.

Communications rapidly came to play a crucial part in the development of the new province. Roads, such as Watling Street, Ermine Street, Stane Street and the Fosse Way, were primarily constructed for military reasons, but, once in existence, would have been used by all.They linked a series of burgeoning ports such as Richborough, Dover, Fishbourne, Colchester and London, which provided havens for the increasing number of merchants wishing to exploit the new markets. No doubt the major rivers were likewise pressed into service; it is worth noting that water transport was much cheaper.It should also be remembered that the main roads, even with their straight alignments, metalled surfaces and good drainage, probably degenerated into a series of muddy potholes in winter, possibly making road transport in Britain, apart from pedestrians and pack animals, a seasonal affair which was confined mainly to the summer. The upkeep of the road system, together with its ancillary structures such as bridges, devolved upon the local magistrates of the town or civitas through whose area they passed.

RURAL SETTLEMENT

The Romanization of the countryside was generally a slower process, and there is little change to be observed in most farmsteads and agricultural communities until much later, their owners continuing to live in the traditional Iron Age manner, even though they began to use new agricultural and domestic equipment and utensils. The first villas, which are the best measure of the rate of adoption of Roman ways, were to be found, as might be expected, not far from the new towns, Verulamium, Colchester and London, and in the kingdom of Cogidubnus. It has, indeed, been claimed that in these rural areas the pace of Romanization outstripped that in the new towns, with better quality housing appearing in the countryside at an earlier date.It may be, though, that these first ventures into Romanized country life were not the work of native Britons, but of migrants from Gaul or further afield, eager to invest in the new province. Such villas as Eccles (Kent), or Angmering (Sussex), both probably of late Neronian or early Flavian date, would seem to fit best into this category, but the early foundation at Rivenhall (Essex) is held to have been built by a rich native landowner. The stimulus given by the Roman occupation to increased agricultural production was at first twofold: the demands of the tax-collector and the food requirements of the army. Whenever or wherever troops have been stationed in foreign or occupied territory, they have always created a demand and have become a source of accessible wealth for the local populations; the Roman army in Britain was no different. It is unlikely that British farmers could have immediately supplied all the food needed by the army. Total requisition would probably not have been a workable policy for an army of permanent occupation, since it would have left the producers to starve. Nevertheless, it must be reckoned that, within a reasonable time, production would have been stimulated sufficiently to meet most needs. This could only have been done by increasing the areas of arable land, the clearance of which would have helped in supplying the sudden demand for the huge quantities of timber required for constructing the many new military and urban buildings. Once production had begun to expand, it must have occurred to many British farmers that there were profits to be made by increasing it still further, in order to supply other markets offered by the new towns. This, or something like it, will have been the economic base on which, in time, the villa system grew.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

Improved communications undoubtedly helped to expand trade connexions. But the introduction of Roman currency into the province, primarily to pay the army, will have created a pool of low-value coins for small, everyday transactions, thus performing a function which the mostly high-value coinage of the Iron Age had failed to do. Trade in Britain, and between Britain and the rest of the empire, increased rapidly, much of it at first probably connected with supplies under army contracts. Large quantities of samian pottery came mainly from factories in southern Gaul, and other fine wares from places like Lyons; mortaria, kitchen mixing bowls, also came in quantity. At first, British potteries only supplied coarse wares, many still of Iron Age, wheel-made, traditional types. Gradually, however, new forms began to infiltrate, and within a decade or two, several centres were in full production, supplying both military and civilian markets. Other imports included glassware from the eastern Mediterranean and metalwork from Gaul and Italy. But Britain slowly built up its own industries, which, apart from the manufacture of pottery, were usually situated in the towns. A bronze-smith's workshop existed at Verulamium before the Boudican rebellion, where goods would have been both manufactured and sold on the premises. Unfortunately, the evidence for industries and trade connected with organic materials such as wood, leather or cloth, does not often survive. But there is evidence for the exploitation and export of minerals such as Wealden iron and more notably the lead/silver ores in the Mendips worked possibly as early as A.D. 49 by a detachment of legio II. It is interesting that the pattern of trade between Britain and other parts of the empire in some ways resembled that of modern trade between developed and undeveloped countries, the former exporting manufactured goods and the latter raw materials. Strabo listed corn, cattle, hides, slaves, gold, silver, iron and hunting dogs as British exports in the time of Augustus; ivory ornaments, amber, glass and other manufactured trinkets came in return, although wine and oil might well be added to the list.

RELIGION

The new province was already well served by its native cults, which tended to be localized; yet there is evidence from the Roman period for the existence of tribal deities, such as Brigantia, and for sites which had more far-reaching significance, such as Bath with its deity, Sulis, presiding over the hot springs. In most instances, Celt and Roman possessed a common basic level of superstition. Consequently, the introduction of classical cults would have struck an immediate response; Celtic and Roman deities often shared similar areas of supernatural influence, so that Minerva could be identified both with Sulis at Bath and Brigantia in the north. But totally foreign to British religious practice was the introduction of the imperial cult, with its physical centre at Colchester. This provided a common element in the empire which had an enormous diversity of religious practice and at the same time incorporated expressions of loyalty to the imperial household. It required an expensive commitment on the part of the leading inhabitants of the province - the size and magnificence of the temple of Claudius attracted unfavourable comment even in Rome. Yet the concept had worked well in Gaul, with its great centre at Lyons, and there was no reason to believe that it would not work in Britain; that it was to become one of the causes and focal points of the Boudican rebellion could not have been foreseen.

The account given above suggests that the process usually described as Romanization in Britain was very uneven in place, time and depth. Although the Romans encouraged aemulatio in their provinces and often provided models of behaviour or structure, little pressure was applied to force the change. The rate, therefore, at which any individual or community adopted the new ways was largely a matter of personal inclination. Provided that existing ways of life and behaviour were acceptable to the Roman administration, and taxes were paid, no change was demanded. Naturally, therefore, the fastest rate of Romanization is to be detected in those areas of Britain which had been affected by the most recent migrations from Gaul, whose people had already been in closer contact with Roman culture. Practical, less often financial, help might be provided for Romanizing communities, as in the founding of new towns; but in the end, the main burden of the cost had to be paid by those same communities or its individual members. This, in itself, imposed the limit to the progress of Romanization. Strictly, the Roman civil administration was not concerned with the welfare of society, except insofar as a well-ordered province made tax collection easier. Nor could it do much more to help, even given the best of intentions. It was probably no more than a few hundred strong, consisting mainly of military personnel seconded for these duties, and simply did not have the manpower to influence every individual member of the estimated 2 to 3 million population of the province. Consequently, it could only function properly through delegation of responsibilities to the native people; the degree of delegation could vary greatly from place to place depending on the natives' fitness to accept it. Hence, also, the towns, villas and other structures of Roman Britain ultimately exhibit many variations in size, planning and degree of sophistication, mainly conditioned by the presence or absence of financial restraints, or will.

By John Wacher in "The Cambridge Ancient History - Volume X" editeb by Alan K. Bowman, Edward Champlin & Andrew Lintott, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2008, excerpts p. 511-516. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Hoje em dia, o sanduíche de manteiga de amendoim e geleia, é proibido na maioria das escolas americanas devido às reações graves e ocasionalmente fatais de alguns alunos a nozes e castanhas.

A “epidemia alérgica” das últimas décadas deixou duas a três vezes mais pessoas com doenças alérgicas e asma. Cerca de uma em cada 13 crianças tem uma alergia alimentar, e o número de crianças com alergia a amendoim triplicou entre 1997 e 2007. É uma epidemia para a qual não há explicação clara, mostrou o “New York Times”.

Cientistas acreditam que expor crianças a germes desde que elas são muito pequenas faz bem a elas. Um estudo sueco recomenda que os pais lambam as chupetas dos filhos para limpá-las, relatou o “NYT”. De acordo com os pesquisadores, os bebês cujos pais faziam isso desenvolveram menos alergias do que aqueles cujas chupetas eram lavadas ou fervidas.

Joel Berg, presidente da Academia Americana de Odontologia Pediátrica, disse que as descobertas reforçam o que ele vem dizendo a seus pacientes há anos: “A saliva é sua amiga”.Ela contém enzimas, proteínas,eletrólitos e outras substâncias benéficas, algumas das quais talvez possam ser transmitidas de pais para filhos.

Outra maneira de reduzir o risco de alergias seria criar seu filho num paiol ou estábulo. Sem eletricidade, esgoto ou água corrente.

É assim que os Amish, que rejeitam muitas das conveniências da vida moderna, vivem e criam seus filhos na Pensilvânia, no Ohio e em Indiana.

O alergista Mark Holbreich, de Indiana, descobriu que apenas 7,2% das 138 crianças Amish que ele testou apresentavam sensibilidade ao pólen de árvores e outros alérgenos, contra cerca de metade de todas as crianças americanas.

O agricultor Amish Andrew Mast disse a Holbreich que o trabalho na fazenda foi uma constante em sua infância. “Minha primeira recordação é de tirar leite da vaca aos cinco anos” , contou. Sua mulher,Laura, trabalhou no estábulo quando estava grávida, e as duas filhinhas do casal foram levadas ao estábulo a partir dos três meses de idade.

Noventa e dois por cento das crianças Amish que Holbreich examinou vivem em fazendas ou as frequentam, e o médico acredita que seja esse o segredo dos Amish, segundo o “NYT”. Cientistas europeus estudam o chamado “efeito fazenda” desde o final dos anos 1990.A teoria é que micróbios do estábulo,da matéria vegetal e do leite cru estimulam o sistema imunológico das crianças, protegendo-as contra alergias.

Mas,como a maioria de nós passa 90% de nosso tempo em espaços fechados,entre paredes,ecologistas como o microbiólogo Noah Fierer, da Universidade de Colorado Boulder,começaram a estudar esses espaços, relatou o “NYT”. Os cientistas querem saber como “colonizamos” nossas casas com vírus,bactérias e micróbios.

Cães e outros animais de estimação afetam as formas de vida microscópicas que vivem sobre nossos travesseiros e telas de computador.Peter Andrey Smith escreveu no “NYT” que, com o tempo, cientistas “esperam propor estratégias para controlar casas cientificamente, eliminando táxons nocivos e fomentando as espécies benéficas à nossa saúde”.

Um estudo realizado na Finlândia em 2012 constatou que a diversidade vegetal fora das casas está relacionada a uma variedade maior de bactérias presentes sobre a pele humana dentro das casas. Adolescentes expostos a essa biodiversidade maior apresentam risco menor de sofrer alergias.

“No momento, não entendemos como as construções funcionam como ecossistemas”, disse Jordan Peccia, engenheiro ambiental na Universida de Yale que estuda o vínculo entre diversidade fúngica maior em espaços fechados e índices mais baixos de asma. “Achamos que aumentar o isolamento das casas seria benéfico,mas talvez isso seja um equívoco do ponto de vista da diversidade ecológica.”

Texto de Tom Brady publicado traduzido na "Folha de S. Paulo" de 26 de novembro de 2013. Adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

Fin dai primi secoli del cristianesimo la questione della verginità di Maria, asserita dai vangeli, fece discutere i teologi. Alle dispute (strettamente laegate a quelle sulla natura umana o divina de Gesù) tentò di porre fine nel VI secolo il Secondo concilio di Constantinopoli, sancendo che Maria era rimasta vergine prima,durante e dopo la nascita del Messias ( è la cosiddetta "verginità perpetua", rifiutata dai protestanti). Ma le parole evangeliche all'origine di queste controversie teologiche non aiutano a fare chiarezza

Per i vangeli sarebbe nato da Maria grazie all'intervento dello Spirito Santo. Secondo Matteo, "Destatosi dal sonno, Giuseppe fece come gli aveva ordinato l'angelo del Signore e prese con sè la sua sposa, la quale, senza che egli la conoscesse, partori un figlio,che egli chiamò Gesú" (Mt 1:24-25). Luca riporta anche il dialogo fra l'arcangelo Gabriele e Maria, che all'annuncio della futura nascita obietta: "Come è possibile? Non consoco uomo". Risposta:"Lo Spirito Santo scenderà su di te, su te stenderà la sua ombra la potenza dell'altissimo" (Lc 1:34-35). Per i teologi il fatto che vangeli parlino di fratelli e sorelle di Gesù (Mc 3:32-34, Mt 12:46,50,Lc 8:19-21) non sarebbe in contraddizione con la verginità: quelle parole non si riferirebbero a una parentela di sangue.

Per gli storici il dettaglio sulla verginità serviva a confermare la profezia del Vecchio Testamento, secondo la quale il Messia sarebbe nato de una vergine. Tuttavia,l'originale ebraico parla genericamente di "giovane donna", tradotto in greco con 'parthenos' che vuol dire anche (ma non solo) vergine. Da qui l'equivoco (e la tradizione). Nel II secolo il polemista anticristiano Celso sostenne che Maria fu in realtà messa incinta da un soldato romano, il cui nome sarebbe stato Tiberio Panthera. Gli storici delle religioni, infine, fanno notare che la nascita "innaturale" di un essere divino era frequente nei miti antichi, dalla Grecia all'Oriente.

A cura di E. Bork e A. Carioli estratti "Focus Storia", ed. Mondadori, Milano, n.50, dicembre, 2010. Compilati, digitati e adattati per essere postato per Leopoldo Costa.

The Islamic Empire, like other great civilizations before and after it, had specific social classes. Despite the Quran’s admonition of equality, these classes existed throughout the empire. Only as non-Arabs intermarried with Arabs and family bloodlines became less distinct did the separations between some of the classes begin to blur.

Even before the advent of Islam, the Quraysh tribe in Mecca had represented a sort of Arab aristocracy. After the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs took control, the most elite of the upper class were made up of the rulers, their families, and their officials and courtiers. Under the Umayyads, those officials and courtiers were often members of the Quraysh tribe to which the Umayyads belonged, as well as leaders of other Arab tribes. Under the Abbasids, Persian officials and courtiers were also selected for prestigious positions within the caliphate.

As the empire expanded, another upper-level social layer appeared. This class of people was made up of the Arab descendants of Muhammad’s companions, as well as the descendants of those Arabs who had taken part in the wars of conquest. As early adherents of Islam, these people received pensions, large pieces of land, and special privileges.

Below the upper class of Arab Muslims were the mawali, an Arabic word that means “clients.” The mawali were new Muslims, non-Arabs who converted to Islam after being conquered. To become a mawla (singular of mawali), non-Arabs had to be accepted by an Arab patron.

The mawali were not, at first, considered the equals of Arab Muslims. Although the Quran says they should have been treated the same way, this was not always the case. During the Umayyad period, for example, mawali were still taxed at a higher rate than Arab Muslims. Mawali in the army received lower pay than Arabs and usually had to fight as foot soldiers. Socially, marriages between mawali and Arabs were discouraged.

Over time, the mawali population in garrison towns actually outnumbered the Arabs there. As their numbers increased, the converts began to realize the enormous power and political leverage they might wield within the empire. Because of their dislike of Umayyad economic policies, many mawali joined the Shiites. As a result, the Shiite movement was strongest in Iraq, where Persian mawali lived. It quickly became clear to the Umayyad rulers that they must find a way to appease this growing class of people, and economic and social reforms were the result. After Umar II became caliph in 717, for example, he changed the tax structure to exempt the mawali from paying the same taxes non-Muslims paid.

A third class of people in the Islamic Empire were the dhimmis—people who followed religions that were protected under Islam. Dhimmis (the word means “protected minority”) included Christians and Jews, whom Muslims considered “Peoples of the Book” because they followed the word of God as revealed by prophets in the Old and New Testaments of the Judeo-Christian Bible (Muslims recognize prophets who came before Muhammad, including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus).

In most parts of the empire, dhimmis were treated well. They often held important positions in government and owned and operated their own businesses. They were allowed to continue practicing their religion in private.

Dhimmis throughout the empire were, however, under some restrictions. In addition to the land tax, which all members of the empire paid, they had to pay an additional head tax—a tax paid per person each year. In some parts of the empire, dhimmi had to carry certificates showing that they had indeed paid their yearly tax.

They were forbidden to build new houses of worship and could not try to convert others to their religion. They could not worship outside their church or synagogue. They could not ride horses or bear arms. They also had to wear distinctive clothing that signified their religion. They were not allowed to testify against a Muslim in a court of law, and they could not live in Mecca or Medina. Depending upon the current caliph, these and other restrictions might be eased or tightened.

Although the restrictions might seem designed to encourage dhimmis to convert to Islam, most Muslims were content to allow them to retain their own religions; the Muslims preferred having the income from the dhimmis’ head tax.

The lowest class in Islamic society were slaves. Slavery was not a new practice; it had existed on the Arabian Peninsula long before Muhammad was born. In his teachings, Muhammad did not ban slavery. However, restrictions were placed on who could be enslaved and how slaves must be treated. As a result, Muhammad’s teachings did improve the lot of enslaved people throughout the empire.

In the Quran, Muslims are forbidden to enslave other Muslims. They are also required to treat their slaves humanely. This included allowing slaves to marry or buy their own freedom. In addition, the Quran states that freeing one’s slaves is pleasing to God and can absolve many sins.

Muslim armies enslaved people from all the regions they conquered. Men, women, and children from Africa, Turkey, Spain, and other areas were all enslaved to work for the Islamic Empire. Slaves could be bought at any large city’s slave market. The trade itself was a lucrative one throughout the empire.

There were two different types of slaves: Those who worked in the home and those who served in the Islamic armies. In the eighth century, young men of Turkish origin were brought as slaves to major cities such as Baghdad to serve as palace guards. The caliphs also used enslaved Turkish soldiers as personal bodyguards.

Sometimes, slaves refused to passively accept their fate. In 869, an uprising of African slaves known as the Zanj resulted in the slaves seizing control of Basra and other areas in southern Iraq. They turned the tables on their former masters, taking Muslims as slaves to serve them. The Zanj were able to hold onto these areas until 883.

Despite their low social standing, some slaves played an important role in the history of the empire. Through the years, the most trusted and competent served not just as servants and soldiers but also as high-ranking government officials, advisors, temporary rulers, and concubines (women who were supported by men and lived with them without being legally married to them). Concubines who had children by their masters could not be sold or given away, and were freed when their masters died. The children of these relationships were free from birth.

One of the strongest indicators of the blurred lines between social classes occurred in the middle of the eighth century. In 744, Umayyad Caliph Yazid III ascended the throne. Yazid’s mother, a captured Persian princess, was the slave and concubine of an earlier caliph. The last two Umayyad caliphs were also sons of slaves. And in later years slaves actually founded dynasties. The most famous of these is the Mamluk Dynasty.


By Robin Doak in "Empire of the Islamic World", Facts On File, New York, 2005, excerpts p.60-63. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Munich

SERFDOM, POPULATION EXPANSION, AND DISEASE

In the 18th century Germany continued to be a predominantly agricultural society. Of the approximately 20 million people living in the Holy Roman Empire, more than a majority (80 percent) were still peasants living at a subsistence level. By the end of the century when the population had reached 24 million, 1 percent of the population, comprising 50,000 families, belonged to the nobility. The agricultural workers in the western portions of the Empire were freer and economically more independent and better off than their counterparts in the Prussian lands to the east. There peasants were under the bondage of serfdom in an almost slavelike condition. As far back as the Thirty Years’ War agricultural estates in the east had grown larger through enclosures, which had led to an increase in peasant oppression. Frederick II had some success in reforming landholding in his estates through the reduction of the days of obligatory service to the lord and the establishment of some 50,000 privately owned farms. Generally, the Prussian aristocracy opposed any reforms, failed to modernize their estates, and were deeply in debt. Not until the defeat of Prussia at the hands of Napoleon did the aristocracy wake up to the necessity of reform. In the other German states to the west such as Baden and Bavaria the old feudal obligations were reduced but not eliminated and few peasants were able to purchase their lands.

Population expansion in the 18th century contributed to pressures on the land and to increasing poverty. Around the middle of the century the Habsburg subjects totaled about 6 million, which increased to more than 9 million at the turn of the century. Migration and immigration contributed to this growth as Germans from the south and west colonized Hungarian lands, which had been depopulated. Prussia, which in 1740 had an estimated population of 3.5 million, also tried to stimulate population growth through the immigration of almost 300,000 colonists. Other population movements occurred, and the most important one was the 100,000 or so settlers who immigrated to the United States. Like other German rulers, Frederick III of Hesse-Kassel, engaging in the trade of mercenary soldiers, sold more than half of his 29,000 German soldiers to Great Britain to suppress the American revolutionaries. Life expectancy in Germany was less than the 29 years of Frenchmen. If one wonders why the population was so small throughout much of the century, one need only look at the impact of epidemic diseases. Even though plague waned at the beginning of the century, it nonetheless killed off about one-third of the population of Prussia. Smallpox was the second-greatest check on population growth as one in 10 average deaths was attributable to it. Inadequate nutrition was also a contributing factor, and primitive medical practices ensured a low survival rate from other illnesses like pneumonia. Not until after 1800 did the potato improve the diets of the poor and bring an end to famines.

ECONOMY

Handicraft production, or the manufacture of products from some raw material, had for centuries been principally carried out in artisan workshops and closely supervised by the guilds. With the rise of a wage-based capitalism, the putting-out system expanded production by including home-based workers. The only large units of production consisted of pre-industrial enterprises called “manufactories.” Hundreds of workers might be concentrated in one building for the more efficient utilization of their labor. These manufactories were owned by governments or capitalists and numbered about 1,000 in 1800. Although the Industrial Revolution occurred later in Germany in the mid-19th century, some early experiments had occurred, such as the construction in 1784 of the first cotton mill in Düsseldorf.

POLITICAL DECENTRALIZATION AND COURTLY LIFE

The political decentralization of Germany gave rise to many vibrant urban centers with an industrious middle class and royal courts. Munich and Dresden were court cities, while Mainz was important because of its cathedral; Nuremberg was an old imperial city, Hamburg a commercial center, and Göttingen a university town. The Holy Roman Emperor did not have a capital city as the French king had in Paris, where imperial coronations could take place or the emperor’s residence was located and organs of government functioned. Regensburg was the city in which the imperial Diet had met since 1663, but the emperor generally lived in Vienna. In general the princes of Germany built their own versions of Louis XIV’s palace of Versailles and enjoyed an extravagant court life, fleecing their peasants to pay their expenses. At Mannheim, for instance, the elector Karl Theodor of the Palatinate maintained a large orchestra, a ballet, and an opera company. In Pfalz-Zweibrücken the duke constructed an extravagant residence at an enormous cost. The landgrave of Hesse-Kassel found ingenious ways to finance his palace and art collection at Wilhelmshöhe, by selling his male subjects to Britain for use as soldiers against the American colonists. Each palace stimulated the local economy by relying heavily on numerous craftsmen to produce the gold and silver luxuries and other miscellaneous items thought to be appropriate to a princely lifestyle. The extravagance of one estate in Saxony illustrated well how a court provided hundreds of positions of employment not only for nobles but also for musicians, ballet dancers, actors, cooks, and other staff. In Würzburg and in Salzburg the princebishops lived in beautiful baroque palaces and entertained lavishly.

SOCIAL STRUCTURE

As elsewhere in Europe the social structure of German society was very hierarchical. The social position of most Germans was not one of choice but was determined by birth into a particular social estate. Like so many other things the occupations open to a person, educational opportunities, religion, clothing, and food were likewise prescribed. When social advancement did occur it was often the result of marriage, education, or service to a prince. Not yet organized into a modern class structure, society was still divided into four estates: clergy (Klerus), nobility (Adel), middle class (Bürgertum, Burghers) and peasantry (Bauern). Three-fourths of the German population, or 18 million, were farmers (40 percent were propertyless) and existed under the manorial system that defined legal and social relationships. The Protestant clergy were mostly of middle-class origin, while the higher clergy, the bishops and archbishops and prince-bishops, came from the nobility. The lower Catholic clergy came from middle-class and artisan families. As usual in premodern societies the tax burden was unevenly divided as can be seen in the status of the Catholic Church in Bavaria, which was exempt even while it owned approximately one-third of the land. Consequently, the Bavarian Wittelsbach monarchs sought to curtail inheritance donations of taxable lands to the church.

The nobility were the ruling elite and in the wealthier states of Germany attempted to live lives of luxury and splendor, while in eastern Prussia it was said that some aristocrats lived lives indistinguishable from their subjects’. Education was of little interest, and where the nobility could afford luxurious living one grand tour of famous places would suffice. The composition of the noble estate was not static, and wealthy members of the middle class could often purchase various titles of nobility. The middle class were positioned socially between the nobility and peasantry, living predominantly in towns and cities and approximating some 25 percent of the population. Their employment would range from wealthy merchants, lawyers, doctors, and civil servants in the upper middle class to domestic servants and day laborers in the lower. Politically, it was only the masters of the guilds who controlled town government. There were variations in legal status with approximately only 10 percent who could claim full status as free citizens (Bürgerrecht). While the richest might build fine residences, the general standard of living afforded wooden furniture and thatched roofs. More than half of the middle class belonged to the lower ranks who were very poor. The very poor often engaged in begging, which during the eighties in Berlin amounted to 5 percent of its 145,000 inhabitants. Finally, the peasantry amounted to 75 percent of the population. In the west and south land ownership was more prevalent, while in Holstein and Prussia an oppressive serfdom still prevailed. Except for the most well off, a meager subsistence was the rule, even extreme poverty and hardship similar to the animals they raised. On the backs of the illiterate peasantry the agricultural economy and grand lifestyle of the nobility rested.

In society and the family males were dominant. In Prussia women were subject to their fathers or husbands in careers, finances, and children. The purpose of marriage was not romantic love but to have children. Grounds for divorce in Protestant Prussia were codified in law. In Catholic areas divorce was not allowed.

CULTURE

One of the primary expressions of the refined culture of the aristocracy and the beautification of church ceremony was music. In the middle of the century Mannheim became a great musical center, where the model and rules for modern orchestras were established and what form the classical symphony should take. The “Berlin School” under Frederick the Great, who was an accomplished musician, composed music to the taste of the king. C. P. E. Bach was temporarily employed there as a harpsichordist, later moving to Hamburg for a more lucrative position. The career of George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) as a composer started in northern Germany but then took him to England, where he composed his great oratorio, Messiah. Vienna, however, was the music capital of Germany. It was the home of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91), and Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827). Bach sought to give a musical expression to fundamental Christian truths in his Passions, while the secular Brandenburg Concertos honored the Hohenzollern monarchy. Franz Joseph Haydn composed primarily for the Hungarian aristocracy, developing the integration of stringed instruments in the orchestra. Out of his Enlightenment Pietist religious inspiration he composed The Creation in 1798. The Enlightenment also influenced Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who grew up in Salzburg and was employed in the court of the prince-bishop. This tragic genius composed operas in German, such as The Magic Flute, in which the characters were developed with a realism akin to Shakespeare. His Requiem Mass expressed his religious sentiments and beliefs that humans were capable of moral progress. The appeal of the Viennese composers to a European-wide audience attested to the universal quality of their music. The final composer in this group was Ludwig van Beethoven. He hailed the advent of Napoleon Bonaparte with his Third Symphony, and the stirring chorale of his Ninth Symphony joyously expressed the sentiments of Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT

Germany was also influenced by the French Enlightenment. Called the Aufklärung in German history, it influenced a small part of the learned upper and middle classes. As in France, its goal was to liberate the individual from the conventions of society, and through the use of reason to challenge accepted traditions, ignorance, prejudices, and religious superstition.

The Enlightenment attempted to make reason completely autonomous and sought to derive all other authorities from it. The church no longer kept its dominating position, and even ideas of God, freedom, and immortality were derived through logical thinking. Not only did reason free itself from the restrictions placed on it by the churches, but it also became less concerned about religious dogma. The beliefs of the individual became less important than his thoughts and actions. Tolerance became an ideal and the quarrels between the denominations that had been so pervasive during the 17th century became less violent. The realm of the supernatural now ceased to dominate philosophical thinking and practical ethics formulated moral rules of behavior. Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646–1716) went so far as to assert that the world we live in was “the best of all possible worlds,” in which everything had a reasonable purpose and was the instrument of a benevolent divine will. It was an optimistic attitude in contrast to the pessimistic resignation to the will of God emphasized by the Reformation. Now the ideal man no longer sought to remove himself from the world, but was one who led a reasonable life and sought to abolish injustice in the world. Among the reforms that emanated from this application was the elimination of trials for witchcraft. It pleaded for dignified living conditions for the Jews and other minorities. It fostered the education of women and started the emancipation of the colored races.

Although the German Enlightenment challenged the religious traditions of the Catholic Church, it did not challenge princely power. Rather it sought to rationalize the use of state power and to secularize it. Leibniz, for instance, opposed revolution against rulers because he thought that the consequences would be worse than the abuses of authoritarian princes. German Enlightenment thinkers also did not challenge the hierarchical order of society. The most important theorists were Samuel von Pufendorf (1632–94), Christian Thomasius (1655–1728), and Christian von Wolf (1679–1754). None of these opposed the theory of absolute monarchy and did not support the idea of constitutional limitations. Instead, they concentrated their thought on the duties of the rulers, emphasizing their responsibility to guide the economy and provide education and social welfare.

Because the German Enlightenment took place later than that in France and England, it was strongly influenced by the English philosophers John Locke (1632–1704) and David Hume (1711–76). Both based reason on experience and therefore were called empiricists. Instead of starting with general principles, as did the French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650), they began with the observation of detailed objects and only inductively derived their ultimate principles. Another important English influence in German literature was the thought of Lord Shaftesbury (1621–83), who applied empirical methods to the fine arts. The most important German representative of the empirical method was Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81). Another empiricist was the younger contemporary, Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), although he also considered unique historical conditions and human emotions. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), the Königsberg philosopher, represented the culmination of empiricism, but also like Herder he opened a new chapter in German intellectual history.

Both rationalism and empiricism were ways of understanding the world as a meaningful system that followed its own laws. That does not mean that the existence of God was denied. Like the Deists in France it was thought that after God created the world it was left to function according to the perfect laws that he had established. Miracles and other interferences with daily processes were no longer believed to occur. The universe was autonomous and functioned according to God’s laws. Man’s actions were no longer directed nor his destiny fulfilled by God’s involvement.

Both of the greatest philosophers of the Enlightenment, the Dutch Jew Baruch Spinoza (1632–77), and Leibniz thought that the existence of God could be arrived at only through faith but not proven through reason. They avoided the absolute rationalism of Descartes and the philosopher Christian von Wolff (1679–1754), who was the most popular of the disciples of Leibniz. The followers of Wolff employed the deductive method and tried to discover the reasons for all the processes and facts of life, creating great dictionaries for their definitions.

LITERATURE AND DRAMA

Modern German literature also took form in the life and work of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81), Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805), and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1852). While the inspiration for the Enlightenment thinkers came from France, English literature was the predominant inspiration for the creation of modern German literature and came through William Shakespeare, John Locke, and writers of the 18th century such as Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. The first German poet of this modern period was Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803). Sometimes called the German Milton, he liberated lyrical poetry from the dominance of French neoclassicism. His work was soon overshadowed by Lessing’s, in particular Minna von Barnhelm (1767), which satirically depicted the sorrowful state of Prussian army veterans after the Seven Years’ War. In Nathan der Weise (1779) Lessing pleaded for religious toleration and the Enlightenment ideal of humanity. Both plays laid a solid foundation for the modern German drama.

The storm and stress (Sturm und Drang) movement was one of youthful protest against stuffy elders and emphasized naturalism and individual liberties. One of its founders and philosophical leaders was the theologian Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803). His influence was that of a literary critic and philosopher of history. Herder glorified Shakespeare as the greatest dramatist since the Greek classical age. Poetry, he thought, should not imitate foreign standards, but emanate from the innermost soul of a people. Perhaps most significant was his Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind (Ideen zur philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit). In this classic on the philosophy of history Herder emphasized an “organic” interpretation of history in which the history of culture progresses through cycles of birth, maturity, and death. He saw each stage as a step toward the perfection of humanity.

During his studies at the University of Strassburg the youthful Goethe was influenced by Herder. Becoming the chief representative of the storm and stress movement, Goethe emerged as its leading poet, and author of its first important drama and novel. As the friend and adviser of the duke of Saxsen-Weimar, Goethe wrote some of his greatest love poetry. The rebelliousness of his young generation is expressed in his hymn Prometheus (1773). In the dramatic tragedy Götz von Berlichingen (1773), in which a rebel loses in a heroic struggle against corrupt civilization, Goethe reveals his anticlassical sentiments and his belief that nature and simple folk are the source of strength. A novel of unhappy love and suicide, The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers) (1774) is filled with passion and sentimentality and protests against the French etiquette of love. This novel made Goethe famous throughout Europe. It was, however, Goethe’s Faust trilogy (1773, 1806, and 1832) that was the most influential in German literature and its greatest masterpiece. In this dialectic between a variety of opposites like good and evil, reality and myth, and guilt and forgiveness, Dr. Faust, a magician, makes a compact with the devil to gain superhuman power. In the end Faust triumphs over evil because of his striving for a higher type of mankind, making this tragedy an archetype of German tragedy and “divine comedy” in the 18th-century classical humanist tradition. The essential aspect of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister is this pursuit of the ideal personality and of striving self-development, which Goethe thought should be the chief goal of society. Goethe was a true cosmopolitan and loved all of humanity.

A good friend of Goethe and the second-greatest figure of Germany’s classical literature was Friedrich Schiller. A professor of history and philosophy at the Jena University, he set his dramas in historical and national settings and sought to communicate moral lessons. In The Robbers (Die Raubers, 1781) the theme of fraternal hatred and injustice brings the leader of the robbers in the end to atone for his rebelliousness. Other historical dramas included Don Carlos (1787), Maria Stuart (1800), and Wilhelm Tell (1804). In general, Schiller was a strong advocate of freedom of speech and was a critic of a corrupt aristocracy.

The romantic school of writers also had its origins in the 18th century and continued until about 1830. Even though they were influenced by the storm and stress writers, they were not youthful rebels. They included writers such as Jean Paul (1763–1825), Friedrich Hölderin (1770–1843), Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811), and Friedrich von Hardenburg (1772–1801), known as Novalis. Others were Achim von Arnim (1781–1831), Clemens Brentano (1778–1842), Joseph von Eichendorf (1788–1857), and Ludwig Tieck (1773–1853). They idealized individual freedom, sensuousness, nature, and a poetic aesthetic sense. These writers emphasized the German people as a cultural group and humanity, but not political nationalism. They surprisingly idealized the medieval past and a Christian Europe presided over by the Catholic Church. They criticized the Reformation and the Age of Reason as having destroyed a united Christendom and for making God superfluous. They were cosmopolitans, many of whom converted to Catholicism.

PHILOSOPHY

It was, however, the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) who was responsible for undermining the theological underpinnings of the traditional world outlook, liberating science from the dominance of metaphysics. In his Critique of Pure Reason Kant denied any respect for tradition, emphasizing that every idea had to justify itself. It was a Magna Carta for German scientific thinking. It also had political ramifications because as the old order collapsed so did the beliefs that provided its foundations. As Kant stated, “A free man is one who is autonomous. Man exists only as an end in himself. The highest maxim of morality and freedom is: Act so that you utilize the humanity in your own person as well as in the person of every other individual at all times as an end and never as a means.” The concept of humanity and the goal of world peace through a world order were the themes of Kant’s Essay on Perpetual Peace.World citizenship and the brotherhood of man were deeply held ideals in the humanist tradition and were given expression in Schiller’s Ode to Joy. More important was the long-term influence of these ideals, which were foundational for German liberalism. Serious weaknesses, however, existed in this foundation, especially in the dichotomy between morality and legality, which in the end paralyzed the liberal and democratic movements in Germany.

SECRET SOCIETIES

During the last two decades before the French Revolution broke out in 1789, a number of secret societies were established that enlisted members from the middle class to the nobility. The Freemasons were perhaps the most numerous, and they were spread throughout the German states. They were egalitarian, humanitarian, and cosmopolitan and sought to transform society through influencing governmental ministers and rules. Their greatest enemy was the Catholic Church and its influence. Their cult of secrecy created fears of their power and influence. The Illuminati, a secret society founded by Adam Weishaupt, emphasized the importance of reason and education in order to raise the moral level of daily and political life. Its strength was primarily in Bavaria, where it had more than 600 members. Nonetheless, members of the lesser nobility joined as well as writers such as Goethe and Herder. Another society was the Rosicrucians, who sought to influence personal lives, politics, and culture, and had chapters in Prussia, Bavaria, and Austria. Spiritualistic seances were an important part of their meetings, which gave them a bad reputation. With the French  both the Freemasons and Illuminati were suspected of supporting the radical Jacobins and were gradually suppressed.

By Joseph A. Biesinger in "Germany: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present", Facts On File, New York, 2006, excerpts p.55-63. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa

Preferências à parte, o doce reina soberano na lista das sobremesas preferidas dos brasileiros.

Vou lhes confessar um segredo. Tenho uma teoria própria para identificar "chatos de galocha". Desses que atravessamos a rua para não ter que cumprimentá-los. Minha teoria é simples: quem não gosta de pudim de leite é uma pessoa chata. Excluindo aqueles que têm alergia a leite e ovos, todos os outros podem ser assim adjetivados. Alguém que não adore comer pudim, na minha opinião é um chato. Interessante é constatar que minha lista é mínima, Só constam dois ou três nomes, pois realmente quem não gosta de pudim é doente do paladar ou tem a cabeça ruim.

A grande maioria da doçaria popular brasileira vem é lógico das tradições portuguesas. Existem duas versões para a origem da sobremesa mais amada do Brasil Uma linha defende que o doce deriva de uma receita praticada no século 19 pelo religioso português Manuel Joaquim Machado Rebelo na paróquia de Priscos, localizada na cidade de Braga, região do Minho. O pudim do abade era cozido em banho-maria e levava gemas, açúcar, água e toucinho de porco. A outra versão garante que a iguaria descende de um tal "pudim republicano", uma releitura mais leve e mais cremosa feita com os ingredientes do famoso doce português toucinho do céu. A iguaria ganhou esse nome por ser a sensação das donas de casa brasileiras em tempos de efervescências culturais ocasionadas pelo novo regime. O problema dessa sobremesa era o ponto. O leite gordo deveria ser fervido lentamente. As gemas pacientemente batidas com açúcar eram acrescidas ao leite fumegante, juntamente com a farinha de amêndoas. Essa fervura deveria ser mexida lentamente, por horas a fio, antes de ser derramada no tacho forrado com uma calda dourada de açúcar grosso. Só então poderia ser assado em um demorado banho-maria. Depois de pronto, ainda precisava de muitas horas para esfriar, antes de ser desenformado. Uma trabalheira danada. Muitas moças dessa época devem ter conquistado seus maridos por conhecerem os segredos do tal pudim.

Entre dois séculos de história muito leite derramou e muito pudim desandou para que a sobremesa tivesse o sabor e a popularidade dos dias atuais. No meio disso, um divisor de águas, ops, de leites. A história e o sucesso do pudim podem ser medidos antes e depois da latinha que tem a mocinha estampada. O pudim como conhecemos hoje surgiu no Brasil no fim do século 19, com a importação de latas de leite condensado vindas da Nestlé suíça. Numa bela jogada de marketing, o fabricante descobriu que colocar receitas nas embalagens aumentava a venda do produto. Fazer o pudim republicano com leite condensado era muito mais prático e rápido. Pronto, estava instalado o reinado do pudim

O pudim de leite é consenso. As preferências são um gosto à parte. Com ou sem furinhos, mais cremoso ou mais durinho, com calda mais queimadinha ou mais clarinha, o fato é que a sobremesa é unanimidade entre os brasileiros. O tradicional almoço de família, aos domingos, quase sempre termina em pudim. Na gastronomia clássica, que não usa leite condensado, o pudim leva somente leite, ovos (muitos) e açúcar. Feito com esses ingredientes pode ser chamado de flã ou creme caramel. Ganha em leveza, mas perde em textura. O leite condensado por sua vez, deixa o pudim com a massa firme e untuosa e inevitavelmente mais doce. Por isso é desnecessário açúcar extra. Assim como qualquer tipo de farinha ou espessante. Deixe isso por conta dos ovos e do leite condensado.

Um capítulo à parte no universo do pudim são os furinhos. Há quem os prefira, mas eu, particularmente, gosto dele bem lisinho. Problema para uns, solução para outros. Então, aqui está o segredo. Tudo se resume no areamento da massa e na temperatura do assamento. Quando batemos a massa do pudim no liquidificador forma-se uma espuma cheia de bolinhas. Essas bolinhas são responsáveis pelos furinhos do pudim. Quanto mais espuma, mais furinhos. Quando se cozinha essa massa aerada em altas temperaturas, a proteína do ovo coagula mais rápido, selando a superfície e prendendo o ar nas bolinhas. Se você é antifuros, depois de bater a massa coe para eliminar toda a espuma. Mantenha o forno em temperatura abaixo de 200 graus e cozinhe em banho-maria em assadeira funda. O ideal é colocar água até dois terços da altura da fôrma do pudim. Se não gosta de casquinha, cubra a fôrma com papel alumínio durante o assamento. O jovem cozinheiro Paulo Henrique Xavier, foi quem me deu essas dicas. Com um futuro brilhante pela frente, Paulo já demonstra suas predileções pela confeitaria e posso dizer que no quesito pudim ele já foi aprovado.

Texto de Patricia Crespo publicado no caderno "Degusta" do "Estado de Minas", Belo Horizonte, de 24 de novembro de 2013. Digitado, adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

Aumentam vendas de águas com gás e aromatizadas. Até o fim da década, a venda de água engarrafada deve ultrapassar a de refrigerantes nos Estados Unidos.

Poucas bebidas são encontradas em mais lugares ao redor do mundo que a Coca-Cola. Mas a água engarrafada hoje está desafiando seu predomínio.

Até o final desta década, ou antes, as vendas de água engarrafada nos Estados Unidos deverão ultrapassar as dos refrigerantes carbonatados, segundo Michael C. Bellas, da Beverage Marketing Corporation.

“Nunca vi nada parecido”, disse Bellas, que observa a ascensão da água no setor desde a década de 1980.

As vendas de água em garrafas plásticas padrão de peso leve cresceram a um ritmo de mais de 20% por trimestre de 1993 a 2005,disse ele.O crescimento se estabilizou por volta de 8% a 9%.

Essa mudança apresentou um duplo desafio para a Coca-Cola Company e sua rival PepsiCo nos últimos anos. As duas empresas vendem linhas de água engarrafada — Dasani da Coca e Aquafina da Pepsi —, mas tiveram dificuldade para estabelecer o predomínio no negócio mais rentável das chamadas “águas realçadas” — que inclui águas carbonatadas (com gás) e com sabor e aquelas com adição de vitaminas e sais minerais — onde uma horda de novas empresas de bebidas como Talking Rain e Fruit 2O lhes faz forte concorrência.

As constantes preocupações sobre obesidade e doenças relacionadas estão conduzindo a tendência.

Em setembro, Michelle Obama apoiou fortemente a água, unindo-se a Coca-Cola, Pepsi e Nestlé Waters, entre outras, para tentar convencer os americanos a beber mais desse líquido.

A água engarrafada também ficou mais barata, aumentando sua atração. Embalagens com 24 arrafas de meio litro de algumas marcas podem ser compradas por US$ 2, ou cerca de US$ 0,08 a garrafa (cerca R$ 0,16).

“Diante dos preços, eu diria que na embalagem média de 24 garrafas de água, a Coca-Cola e a Pepsi estão vendendo a preço de custo”, disse John Faucher, do JPMorgan Chase.

Algumas coisas que tornaram as duas empresas concorrentes formidáveis no negócio de refrigerantes funcionam contra elas na água. Por exemplo, as empresas abastecem as prateleiras das lojas e supermercados diretamente de seus caminhões. Isso lhes dá maior controle, mas também é muito mais caro do que deixar os comerciantes manipularem o estoque.

A Coca-Cola vendeu 5,8 bilhões de litros de água no exterior e 253 milhões de litros nos Estados Unidos e no Canadá de 2007 a 2012. As vendas de água da Pepsi na América do Norte caíram 636 milhões de litros nesse período, mas ela ainda vendeu 4,7 bilhões de litros no exterior, segundo a Euromonitor.

As vendas de refrigerantes das duas empresas caíram na América do Norte no mesmo período. Hoje a Pepsi e a Coca-Cola estão revidando com investimentos em águas flavorizadas e realçadas. Em outubro, a Coca-Cola lançou suas primeiras bebidas borbulhantes Dasani, em quatro sabores. A Pepsi deverá revelar uma água engarrafada premium neste ano, segundo a “Beverage Digest”.

“É uma ótima ideia? Não necessariamente”, disse Faucher sobre o avanço das grandes companhias nas águas realçadas. “Elas têm muitas alternativas? Não necessariamente. As pessoas querem variedade, por isso a Coca e a Pepsi vão aonde há oportunidades. Não há muitas outras opções.

Artigo de Stephanie Strom publicado originalmente em inglês no "The New York Times" e traduzido em português na versão semanal do jornal anexa na "Folha de S. Paulo" de 3 de dezembro de 2013. Adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

Kawa Sushi tem ambiente moderno e serviço de rodízio atencioso, mas requeijão e frutas acabam soterrando os peixes.

Quando foi inaugurado em 2006 pelos irmãos Leonardo e Leandro Masiero,de 36 e 34 anos,o Kawa Sushi do Brooklin (onde ainda funciona, na rua Flórida, 1.771) era uma casa charmosa com balcão e poucas mesas e que, além do rodízio, servia à la carte bem mais opções de sushis.

Os tempos mudaram,e o rodízio se impôs,mais ainda na sua nova unidade: o recém inaugurado Kawa do Jardim Paulista, instalado num belo imóvel de dois andares com conforto e ambiente bem acima dos rodízios comuns.

Neste, mesmo havendo também um menu à la carte, nem mesmo os simpáticos garçons acreditam que alguém queira abrir mão do rodízio — para eles,muito mais compensador. (Terminam até trazendo itens extras, se você aceitar o esquema padrão.)

Mas o rodízio, realmente farto e variado, é bem sofrível. Começa com um hot roll frio (e muito doce), um tartare de atum em pedaços (e temperos) que mais lembram um ceviche, o temaki com a alga mole e peixe muito graúdo.

E tem carpaccio de atum e de meca cortados grosseiramente (numa das vezes, ambos com o mesmo molho pouco cítrico). Dentre outros itens, salvam-se a lula e o camarão na chapa (na versão empanada, até que sequinhos, sofrem com o molho de ketchup).

A chegada dos sashimis e sushis não traz alívio. A já pouca variedade de peixes — um atum pálido, meca (ou o gorduroso agulhão) e salmão — é pervertida por todo tipo de requeijão e fruta, soterrados por tirinhas de couve frita.

Existe, porém, uma luz no fim do túnel: o garçom anuncia (“para quem não gosta de ‘cream cheese’ no sushi”) um “rodízio gourmet” — pelo mesmo preço. Neste, os delírios californianos dão lugar a itens mais próximos da gastronomia japonesa.

São sushis de vieira (pequenas e sem gosto), de ovas, de polvo com curry, de agulhão com raspas de limão-siciliano e ovas de salmão, de cavalinha ou carapau com ovas de massago, de peixe-serra com gengibre e cebolinha.

Mas o niguiri de atum com “foie gras” e geleia de pimenta tem um atum sem viço, e o “foie gras” parece apenas um cisco de patê. Os peixes, sem firmeza, vêm mais quentes que frios e o arroz (que frequentemente desmonta), mais frio que o desejado.

Trata-se de um rodízio que, pelo menos no meu caso, ficou melhor depois da primeira vez — porque depois já era possível evitar as ofertas menos apetitosas e se concentrar apenas naquelas mais razoáveis.

Texto de Josemar Melo publicado no caderno "Comida" da "Folha de S. Paulo" de 4 de dezembro de 2013. Adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa. 

Para acompanhar o bate papo entre amigos com chope ou cerveja bem gelada, nada melhor do que petiscos fartos e bem servidos. Neste quesito, Ribeirão Preto se destaca regionalmente com um número expressivo de bares e de restaurantes que investem na diversidade gastronômica. A cada porção, os chefes recriam antigas receitas e os tradicionais petiscos ganham formas e recheios inusitados como o Pastel de Picanha com Queijo, do Salz Bar, uma das especialidades preferidas dos amigos Alcídio Balbo e Aline Brunello.

Outra opção é a Tábua Caipira do Bar do Val que reúne, num só prato, iguarias típicas de boteco como lascas de pernil assado, torresmo, linguiça e mandioca frita. Além do pastel, o Zero 16 transformou a famosa feijoada em um dos bolinhos mais apreciados do bar. Outro exemplo é o Vanguarda Bar, com pratos cada vez mais elaborados, como o Porco Embriagado. Cozido, frito e flambado na cachaça, a especialidade já lidera a preferência aos frequentadores da casa.

O Tea Bar também tem novidade. A casa especializada em chás elaborou receitas diferentes, com ingredientes tradicionais da culinária brasileira, como o Filé em Tiras no Chope ou a Linguiça Recheada. Vale a pena conferir!

Texto sem identificação de autoria publicado na revista "Revide" de Ribeirão Preto SP. Digitado, adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

O EMPRESÁRIO AMERICANO FRED DELUCA, DONO DA MAIOR REDE DE FAST-FOOD DO MUNDO, EM NÚMERO DE PONTOS DE VENDA, QUER CHEGAR A 100 MIL LOJAS. ELE CONTA COMO O BRASIL VAI AJUDÁ-LO A ATINGIR ESSA META.

Fred DeLuca

O empresário americano Fred DeLuca, fundador da rede de lanchonetes Subway, sempre sonhou alto. Em 1965, aos 17 anos de idade e com US$ 1 mil no bolso, abriu sua primeira lanchonete, a Pete's Super Submarines, na cidade de Bridgeport, em Connecticut, em parceria com o amigo Peter Buck. Seu principal objetivo era pagar a faculdade de medicina com os lucros do pequeno comércio. Mesmo dividindo seu tempo entre os estudos e a administração da empresa, DeLuca fixou uma meta ambiciosa para quem era um estudante: inaugurar outras 31 lojas em dez anos. O plano não só deu certo como superou qualquer expectativa. Com 39 mil unidades em 102 países, a rede de fast-food, que mais tarde ganharia o nome de Subway, se tornou a maior do mundo em número de lojas e a segunda em faturamento, com estimados US$ 10 bilhões no ano passado (com uma rede de 34 mil lanchonetes, o líder McDonald's fatura US$ 27,5 bilhões). "Estávamos apenas focados em nosso objetivo",
disse DeLuca à DINHEIRO.

"Não pensávamos que a empresa poderia se transformar em uma potência global." Essa tática de estabelecer metas ambiciosas, que até parecem fora do alcance, norteia a atuação do empresário até hoje. Seus sonhos, no entanto, se tornaram ainda maiores. O novo objetivo é chegar a 50 mil restaurantes até 2017 e ultrapassar a barreira dos 100 mil nos próximos 20 anos, Para isso, DeLuca conta com o ritmo acelerado de expansão da Subway no País. "O Brasil só perde para os EUA em termos de crescimento", diz o empresário. Atualmente, assim como ocorre no mercado internacional, a rede lidera o mercado de fast-food em número de lojas aqui, com 1,1 mil unidades. Seus principais concorrentes, Bob's e McDonald's, têm, respectivamente, 1.013 e 735. A expectativa é de que a operação brasileira cresça 700% na próxima década, atingindo um total de oito mil lanchonetes. Neste ano, a expectativa é inaugurar 400 lojas. "O Brasil é o quinto maior mercado e deverá superar a Austrália, quarta colocada, ainda este ano", afirma Brian Marino, gerente do Subway para a América Latina e o Caribe.

Colocar o plano brasileiro em prática vai demandar um investimento de cerca de R$ 2 bilhões. Esse dinheiro virá de seus franqueados. DeLuca não é dono de nenhuma das 39 mil lojas do Subway no mundo, Todas elas pertencem aos franqueados. Para cumprir essa agenda frenética de inaugurações proposta, os executivos da companhia no Brasil colocaram como prioridade avançar em direção ao interior do Pais. No foco, estão cidades com população a partir dos 35 mil habitantes. «O custo dos imóveis é muito menor e o retorno do investimento é o mesmo"', afirma Roberta Damasceno, gerente-geral da empresa no Brasil. A estratégia é viável por que o custo de abrir uma lanchonete do Subway, cerca de R$ 300 mil, com taxa de franquia de R$ 25 mil, é menor do que o de seus concorrentes, que exigem investimentos da ordem de R$l milhão por loja. "Nas cidades do interior, a demanda já existe, é só uma questão de migração do consumo do comércio local para uma rede de fast-food", afirma Adir Ribeiro, da consultoria paulista Praxis Business, especializada em franquias. "Não é viável para redes como o McDonald's, que exigem muitos recursos financeiros."

Outra investida da empresa é aumentar a presença dentro de estabelecimentos como postos de gasolina, universidades, hipermercados e até hotéis. Hoje, mais de 160 unidades já estão instaladas nesse tipo de locação no Brasil. A estratégia, além de se aproveitar do fluxo de pessoas já existente, acaba gerando uma vantagem competitiva. Ao contrário do que acontece com as lanchonetes dos seus principais rivais, uma loja do Subway pode ser montada em um espaço de apenas 30 metros quadrados. Esse modelo de negócio, na verdade, é uma tendência global da companhia. Nos Estados Unidos, também existem unidades dentro de hospitais e até de uma igreja batista.

Texto de Rafael Freire publicado na revista "Istoé Dinheiro", ano 16, n° 818 de 19 de junho de 2013. Digitado, adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

Óleos vegetais são vendidos com a promessa de acelerar o metabolismo e diminuir a fome, mas, para especialistas, faltam provas sobre os benefícios.

O cardápio da moda para emagrecer inclui colheradas de gordura — o que parece estranho, já que uma colher de sopa de óleo de coco, linhaça ou cártamo, populares em sites de dieta, tem cerca de 120 calorias,o mesmo que um bombom recheado.

Mas, segundo os fabricantes, apesar do alto valor calórico, essas gorduras vegetais aceleram o metabolismo e aumentam a saciedade, ajudando na perda de peso.

As promessas são vendidas a preços salgados: 260 ml de óleo de semente de chia, rico em ômega 3, custam R$59,90 na rede Mundo Verde.

O sucesso das gorduras para emagrecer começou como óleo de coco,que explodiu no verão de 2012. De lá para cá a lista só cresceu.

Ainda está longe, porém, de haver um consenso sobre os benefícios dos produtos.

“A literatura científica sobre o óleo de coco é ampla”, defende Natana Martins, nutricionista do Herbarium, marca de fitoterápicos e suplementos. Segundo ela, o efeito emagrecedor é atribuído à propriedade termogênica da gordura do coco (que aumenta a queima de calorias no corpo).

Mas, para o nutrólogo Edson Credidio, pesquisador da Unicamp, essa ação ainda não foi comprovada. “As pesquisas encontraram tanto benefícios como malefícios no alimento e não foram capazes de explicar o mecanismo envolvido”, diz.

A nutricionista Annie Belo, pesquisadora do Instituto Nacional de Cardiologia, no Rio, orienta um estudo sobre óleo de coco com 130 voluntários. A pesquisa será apresentada em março,mas já há uma prévia dos resultados.

“O óleo teve efeito adjuvante na redução da circunferência da cintura”, diz. Ela ressalta que os participantes seguiram uma dieta acompanhada por nutricionista, porque o óleo de coco, sozinho, engorda. “Não há milagre.”

À espera do efeito milagroso descrito em blogs, a assessora jurídica Sheilla Lovato, 27, tentou emagrecer só com óleo de coco,primeiro em colherada, depois em cápsulas.

“Deu muito errado. Passei mal”, conta. Ela tomou 500 gramas de óleo em um mês. “Tentei de todo jeito: puro, na salada... Não funcionou. Tive diarreia e ânsia. Se emagreci foi de tanto passar mal.”

Tomar o óleo pode mesmo causar diarreia, principalmente em grandes quantidades, diz a nutricionista e bioquímica Lucyanna Kalluf.

Ela recomenda no máximo duas colheres de chá ao dia, aliadas a uma alimentação saudável. “Óleo de coco é uma gordura saturada — pode aumentar o colesterol.”

ÔMEGAS

Mais novos no arsenal das dietas, os óleos de chia, cártamo (planta da família do crisântemo), abacate e linhaça são boas fontes de ômega 3, 6 e 9, gorduras mais saudáveis que as saturadas e que ajudam na manutenção da saúde cardiovascular.

Mas não emagrecem, de acordo com a nutricionista Ana Maria Lottenberg,do Laboratório de Lípides do Hospital das Clínicas de SP. “É uma falácia.Quem emagrece tomando óleo é porque faz outras mudanças alimentares em conjunto”, diz.

A estudante Nicole Olive, 19, toma três cápsulas de óleo de cártamo por dia há quatro meses e perdeu três quilos. “Dá resultado, sim”,diz. Mas, além de tomar o óleo, Nicole cortou refrigerante e frituras e caminha quase todo dia. “Acho que as cápsulas ajudam a controlar a fome.”

O óleo de cártamo é fonte de ômega 6, ácido graxo essencial que também é encontrado no óleo de soja, canola e milho. “Não precisamos consumir ômega 6 do cártamo, que é caríssimo.É melhor variar entre outros óleos mais baratos”, diz Lottenberg.

O ômega 9 do abacate é o mesmo do azeite, e o ômega 3 do óleo de chia e de linhaça é encontrado nesses alimentos na forma de semente. “Não faz sentido comprar o óleo,mas as sementes de linhaça e chia, sim, porque têm fibras e aumentam a sensação de saciedade”, diz ela.

Para a nutricionista Alessandra Rodrigues, o brasileiro já consome muita gordura. “Tomar um suplemento via oral ultrapassaria as recomendações diárias.” E não importa se a gordura é boa ou ruim:“Em excesso,vai engordar e fazer mal”.

Texto de Juliana Vines publicado na "Folha de S. Paulo" de 26 de novembro de 2013. Adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

Não me animei a transformar minha cozinha numa farmácia, nem minhas receitas culinárias em receitas médicas.

A experiência de passar uma semana sem consumir nenhum produto de origem animal (como fazem os veganos) para esta reportagem pareceu que seria chata,mas fácil. Uma semana sem carnes, laticínios,ovos? Moleza — ou, como dizem os americanos, “a piece of cake” (um pedaço de bolo — sem manteiga, leite ou ovos, claro).

Com o passar dos dias, porém, fui entendendo que a opção vegana — esse vegetarianismo radical, inspirado por razões ideológicas (não explorar animais) e não de paladar ou saúde — vai além de empobrecer (em nutrição e gastronomia) a nossa mesa.

Pois não se trata apenas de eliminar os ingredientes animais, mantendo de resto nossa dieta habitual — gostosas massas com vegetais,legumes crocantes ao alho e óleo, saladas exuberantes, belas tortas de frutas... Não: ao subtrair os alimentos animais que nos fizeram humanos moldando nossa fisiologia, essa dieta priva o vegano de nutrientes fundamentais.

Como explica a arqueóloga Claudia Plens, professora da Unifesp, “o desenvolvimento do nosso cérebro e da nossa capacidade cognitiva se deu graças ao consumo da carne”, no curso “Arqueologia da Dieta e da Alimentação”, ministrado na USP.

Sem a carne, os nutrientes precisam ser repostos, numa estratégia de guerra em busca de ingredientes muitas vezes estranhos à sua cultura.

ANTINATURAL

Como vivi na pele, a comida vira um problema. Quem segue o curso da natureza (que deu aos humanos um lugar onívoro na cadeia alimentar), alimenta-se intuitivamente (tipo arroz, feijão, salada e bife) e tem basicamente os nutrientes de que precisa.

Já a opção vegana implica uma permanente busca por sobreviver com outras estratégias alimentares, que não a natural. O prazer da mesa é trocado pela lógica da receita médica, necessária para evitar a subnutrição.

E embora um bom chef seja, sim, capaz de fazer pratos deliciosos sem produtos animais, a ausência diária desses impõe a necessidade de introduzir grãos, castanhas e outros ingredientes compensatórios que tornam a comida pesada, sem sutilezas, sem refinamento.

A menos que me convençam que coisas como “peixe de soja”, ou “lombinho vegetal” (sem falar de “hambúrgueres”, “salsichas” e “presuntos” cheios de corantes) são capazes de trazer alegria ao paladar e à mente de quem, como eu, não gostaria de transformar o momento de comer numa operação medicinal.

Sou mesmo natureba. Respeito os milhões de anos em que a natureza nos fez onívoros — e fez de nós parte do seu equilíbrio.

Nem quero pensar no dia em que os humanos pararem de comer outras espécies: estas vão se multiplicar e em pouco tempo atacarão nossas plantações — e os humanos que cuidam delas. Será o fim do equilíbrio regulatório natural. Melhor respeitar nosso lugar nesse ciclo — e, de quebra, satisfazendo o paladar com sabores atávicos que a história nos incutiu.

Procurei passar minha semana vegana em quatro ambientes: minha cozinha, restaurantes veganos, restaurantes com alguma inclinação natural e restaurantes comuns.

Em casa, fiz um macarrão com tomates, alho, azeite, pimenta calabresa, ervilha-torta crocante e purê caseiro de alcachofra (que dá sabor e encorpa o molho sem precisar de cremes). Fácil.

Entre os restaurantes, dei me bem no Le Manjue, que sem ser vegetariano adere a alimentos funcionais e orgânicos. Escolhi uma moqueca de shiitake e palmito com molho exuberante, muito bom.

Acontece,porém, que mesmo respeitando as restrições veganas, esses pratos não resolvem a desnutrição provocada pela ausência de produtos animais.

Vegetariana (mas consumidora de ovos e laticínios), a nutricionista Alessandra Luglio atende desde maratonistas até veganos subnutridos e com olheiras.

“Tirando os produtos animais da dieta normal causamos uma carência de nutrientes fundamentais: proteína, cálcio e vitamina B-12, além de ferro e vitamina D”, explica. “É preciso achar substitutos que os reponham.”

Raros grãos fornecem sozinhos as proteínas animais de que necessitamos.Para fabricar essas proteínas, temos que ingerir vários ingredientes (cereais, castanhas, leguminosas) numa só refeição.

Não me animei a transformar minha cozinha numa farmácia, nem minhas receitas culinárias em receitas médicas, nem a gastar fortunas com a indústria de suplementos veganos. Preferi viver esta experiência vegana mais radical em restaurantes especializados.

Quando o chef francês Alain Passard prepara seus magistrais legumes, ele não está preocupado em enfiar quinua na receita para salvar a vida de ninguém. E realiza obras de arte. Mas constatei que um restaurante vegano, que sabe que seus clientes podem ficar subnutridos, tem que encher o prato de substitutos da carne.

No modesto e simpático Broto de Primavera,da Liberdade, onde reina um ar pungente de paz, me foi oferecido um... “lombinho vegetal”. Gostei da ideia (é miolo de jaca cozido), mas não da patética garfada: precisamos respeitar os animais, não chamem isso de lombinho! (O cuscuz estava gostoso; o arroz e feijão não tinham gosto.)

O Nectare, em Pinheiros, também emana uma aura tranquila, e exibe uma vistosa mesa de saladas. Mas o “peixe de soja” nem de longe lembra pescados (parece quibe frito pastoso e sem graça). Mas, enfim, a soja não estava ali para dar gosto nem prazer. São apenas ordens médicas. Também pedida, a seca moqueca de banana não salvou o almoço.

Também tentei ser vegano em restaurantes comuns. Sentei no Attimo e procurei algum prato compatível com minha triste sina. Mas fora saladas... nada servia. Mesmo as massas, têm todas um raguzinho de carne aqui, uma mozarela ali, uma linguicinha... Delícia.

Como já era o último dia de dieta, dei-me o direito de encerrar os trabalhos com algo mais convencional (para mim, ao menos): uma suculenta dobradinha. A volta à natureza humana integral. Balanço curioso: com toda aprovação,não emagreci nada. Em uma semana de dieta vegana, só perdi exatos sete dias.

‘Sou adepto à cruzada contra a crueldade com os animais’

Talvez a principal referência dos veganos, o filósofo australiano Peter Singer afirma que os que comem animais (ou usam seus derivados — mesmo para vestir) são “especistas”: agem como uma espécie superior às outras.

Eu, ao contrário, acho que quem se considera superior é aquele que resolve redefinir a natureza, revogando a cadeia alimentar, assumindo o papel não só de espécie superior, mas de Deus.

Porém sou adepto à cruzada contra a crueldade com os animais. Um leão chega a comer uma zebra enquanto a mantém ainda viva. Os humanos, creio, deveriam, ao contrário, reverenciar os animais que nos alimentam, provendo-os de uma vida tranquila (criados soltos, com boa alimentação) e abatendo-os sem estresse nem dor.

Esse ideal significa produções menos intensivas e, portanto, menor oferta de produtos animais. Mas é um preço justo a ser pago.

Se não houver bife para todos os dias, vamos comer menos carne, vamos intercalar com ovos, aves, queijos. Também da variedade vem o prazer gastronômico. E o respeito aos animais que nos alimentam incute um prazer espiritual que deveria sempre acompanhar uma boa refeição.

Cardápio diário de Josemar Melo.

DIA 1 >> Em casa, preparei macarrão com tomates frescos, alho, azeite, pimenta calabresa, ervilha-torta crocante e uma colher de purê de alcachofra.

DIA 2 >> Jantei no Le Manjue, que não é vegano, uma moqueca de shiitake e palmito com molho exuberante, acompanhada de farofinha e arroz.

DIA 3 >> No Broto de Primavera, modesto e simpático vegano da Liberdade, comi “lombinho vegetal”(miolo de jaca cozido).

DIA 4 >> Comi “peixe de soja”, cujo paladar nem de longe lembra pescados, no Nectare, e uma moqueca de banana.

DIA 5 >> Almocei em casa um “hambúrguer” de soja assado, farinhento e se desfazendo; legumes ao alho e óleo e salada.

DIA 6 >> Jantei na casa de uma amiga, que preparou creme de ovos com caviar, garoupa crua e barriga de porco — e para mim,alcachofra com chimichurri e macarrão integral com brunoise de legumes e shoyu (muito bom, mas...).

DIA 7 >> No último dia, hora de voltar ao normal: pedi uma suculenta dobradinha no Attimo.

Texto de Josemar Melo publicado no caderno "Comida" da "Folha de S. Paulo" de 27 de novembro de 2013. Adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.

Poucos consumidores sabem, mas a maioria dos alimentos orgânicos é produzida no Brasil com sementes convencionais que podem até receber tratamento com agrotóxicos.

E essa contradição, que tinha prazo de término no final deste mês, vai se estender por mais alguns anos.

Ontem, representantes do setor produtivo, das certificadoras e do governo, entre outros órgãos, concordaram em revogar o prazo previsto para a obrigatoriedade do uso de sementes orgânicas.

Hoje,o plantio com sementes convencionais é permitido caso o produtor comprove a indisponibilidade do insumo equivalente vindo de sistemas orgânicos. Pela legislação em vigor, essa prática seria proibida a partir de 19 de dezembro de 2013.

O problema é que a exceção virou regra, obrigando o governo a esticar esse prazo. O motivo: não existem sementes orgânicas em número suficiente para atender a todo o mercado, cujas vendas crescem em ritmo acelerado.

Segundo o coordenador de Agroecologia do Ministério da Agricultura, Rogério Dias, o objetivo do adiamento é adaptar a legislação à realidade do setor no país.

“Se as certificadoras cobrassem as sementes orgânicas, o agricultor seria impedido de produzir muita coisa, ficando limitado às sementes que ele mesmo consegue multiplicar”, diz Luiz Carlos Demattê Filho,diretor industrial da Korin Agroindustrial.

Não foi definida uma nova data para que o uso de sementes orgânicas seja obrigatório — o texto final deve ser publicado no“Diário Oficial” nas próximas semanas.

A tendência é que a transição ocorra gradualmente e siga diferenças regionais. A partir de 2016, cada Estado poderá produzir listas de variedades que terão de ser obrigatoriamente orgânicas.

A diversidade de solo e clima entre as regiões do país dificulta ainda mais o cumprimento da norma.

Representantes do setor afirmam que, para chegar a um número de variedades que atendam a todas as especificidades climáticas e regionais em escala comercial, será necessário pelo menos uma década de pesquisa.

FALTA DE INTERESSE

Poucos agricultores conseguem utilizar as sementes orgânicas desenvolvidas por eles próprios. “É preciso investir muito, durante anos, para obter um bom resultado”, diz Sylvia Wachsner, coordenadora do Centro de Inteligência em Orgânicos.

Alexandre Harkaly, diretor-executivo da certificadora IBD, diz que é comum encontrar falhas de germinação —  importante veículo de doenças nas plantações.

Por isso, é necessário que o governo estimule pesquisas nessa área. A primeira ação com esse objetivo chegou atrasada. Apesar de a legislação prever a proibição do uso de sementes convencionais desde 2008, o Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico lançou a primeira chamada para projetos de pesquisa em agroecologia há dois meses.

No setor privado, ainda há pouco interesse. “As grandes empresas não investem porque o mercado é muito pequeno em comparação com o total”, diz Wachsner.

O mercado de hortaliças orgânicas hoje equivale a 2% do setor, segundo Warley Marcos Nascimento, chefe da Embrapa Hortaliças.

Até na estatal a prioridade é a agricultura convencional — carro-chefe das exportações brasileiras. “Dificilmente a Embrapa, ou outra empresa, vai desenvolver uma variedade exclusivamente para o cultivo orgânico.”

Na UE, é obrigatório o uso de sementes orgânicas.

Texto de Tatiana Freitas publicado na "Folha de S. Paulo" de 5 de dezembro de 2013. Adaptado e ilustrado para ser postado por Leopoldo Costa.