YOURSAY ‘Even seafood will inevitably be ‘contaminated’ with porcine DNA.’

Islamic scholars butt heads over pig gelatine

Ratbatblue: This is much ado about nothing. It’s up to the clerics to guide their followers, and this must be done in a responsible and learned way, with reliable proof and also common sense.

As almost every single product out there contains the minutest traces of porcine DNA, it dawns on me that there must have been some other ulterior motives behind this attack on Cadbury.

Why open up Pandora's Box now? There are a thousand and one things out there containing procine DNA. Is this going to stop now or will such things be brought up one by one?

My contention is, if one knowingly violates a belief, one deserves to be punished accordingly.

However, when things are dug up and analysed at microscopic levels, the common uninitiated man cannot be held guilty of any violation. It is plain mischief by those who have done so.

Ablastine: Any idiot can give an opinion on this self-created problem and the one with the biggest hammer has the correct answer. In reality there is no true answer.

These supposedly religious men who proclaimed to know so much about hellfire and heaven probably wouldn't know anything about earning some foreign exchange for the country or improve the livelihood of the rakyat by even one iota.

Observer: Those who reject the scientific evidence about the change in the molecular structure which is allowed in Islam shows how simplistic, rigid and literalistic interpretations are accepted without bothering to look at the facts and the Islamic principle of always choosing the easiest option and not making things difficult.

Vijay47: I have no clue as to the scientific properties of gelatine and I am not bothered about its spiritual implications. Calling a pig ‘khinzir’ hardly makes it less of a ‘babi’; an elephant referred to as rambutan remains an elephant.

But I digress. Despite all the finer discussions emerging about pigs and things porcine, we should not lose track of the original issue which prompted this controversy, the Cadbury chocolates.

What is the truth behind their constituency's shape-shifting tendencies? One minute they are charged with having pork DNA and the next moment they are clean as a whistle. One minute they are haram and next they are halal.

What was the actual sequence of the various tests carried and who was behind the changing results? Why is there no appropriate action taken against those who caused distress to Muslims and discomfort to the whole country?

Since pork is such a sensitive matter, the truth cannot remain out there.

Anonymous_3faa: I wonder what will happen if all the food producers decide to use one of the best organic fertilisers for their plantation and farmlands - porcine manure.

Every animal on earth will consume products of such farming and plantation, and across the food chain, with the carnivores and omnivores feeding on the herbivores and each other, all with porcine DNA invariably in their foods.

At the top of the food chain, humans will feed on most things down the food chain. So how? Even seafood will inevitably be "contaminated" with porcine DNA.

Think about it if you want to dissect your origin of food to the DNA level.

Doc: Both pigs and humans are from the mammalian species and thus evolutionary, both these species developed from a single source. The evolutionary process took both these species on different evolutionary paths thus ending up with humans and pigs.

Only thing is, the DNA of the pigs and humans are mostly the same (more the 90 percent) as they derived from the same single organism source.

So from an intellectual point of view this pig DNA talk does not hold water. But only in Malaysia, unintellectual talk makes it into mainstreams news because our country is run by buffoons.

Rupert16: Corruption, injustice, rapes, poverty, high crime rates, terrorism, family abuses and violence, shortage of food and water, etc, should be the priority as long as we live in this world, and certainly not arguing over whether something is halal or not.

God or Allah knows what in our hearts and our intentions.

Kanasai: Based on those scholars views, once haram, does it mean that all converted are still haram?

What a sorrow for those who had converted and fast in vain. What about the air and faeces of those haram animals, including non-Muslim when they exhale and excreted?

Allah or God is great when He made the earth round. That means that all will come into full circle. All food eaten and air exhaled will return to the earth and regenerated for the next cycle.

Anonymous_1399517796: One morning, I went to the pasar to buy pork. I gave the pork seller RM10 and he gave me small change.

Then the pork seller used the RM10 (which I gave him earlier) to buy nasi lemak at a Muslim stall. Surely, the RM10 note was contaminated with pork DNA, don't you think?

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