{"id":4929,"date":"2008-11-30T12:07:42","date_gmt":"2008-11-30T16:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=4929"},"modified":"2009-01-20T12:49:34","modified_gmt":"2009-01-20T16:49:34","slug":"a-more-fortunate-ensign-article","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2008\/11\/a-more-fortunate-ensign-article\/","title":{"rendered":"A More Fortunate Ensign Article"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since I was rather critical of an Ensign article<\/a> on the Word of Wisdom earlier this year, I feel obligated to point out that this month’s article<\/a> on the Word of Wisdom is a much better piece.<\/p>\n

I thought this was a very well-balanced article that didn’t attempt to force science to support the Word of Wisdom (“Used in moderation, caffeine may not pose significant health risks” and “the Word of Wisdom does not specifically prohibit caffeine”), but did explore situations where excessive use of caffeine could be physically dangerous. <\/p>\n

It is difficult to talk about caffeine in a Church where some people see no significant difference between it and heroin and others think that the first group are zealots. But I think this author did some good work in pointing out that caffeine abuse<\/em> is something that people in both camps can agree is problematic. He did a nice job in making clear that addiction to caffeine is physically and spiritually dangerous, but he didn’t make any effort to condemn all consumption of caffeine:<\/p>\n

Had my patient Mrs. Jones avoided caffeine or at least used it in moderation, she likely would have fared much better. Of course, not everyone who drinks caffeine will have a negative health consequence. However, both the quality and the quantity of life can be affected by the misuse of caffeine.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note that use “in moderation” or use that isn’t “misuse” isn’t condemned. (Although it isn’t specifically condoned, either.)<\/p>\n

I don’t suppose that this article will end our internecine Diet Coke wars, but I’m glad that it makes clear that caffeine addiction is a physical and spiritual danger to be avoided, without providing fuel for the fire of either camp in the debate. Or maybe I’m just saying that because I find much support in this article for my own thinking about the Word of Wisdom, which is that minor use of stimulants isn’t a problem until it becomes an addiction. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since I was rather critical of an Ensign article on the Word of Wisdom earlier this year, I feel obligated to point out that this month’s article on the Word of Wisdom is a much better piece.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mormon-life"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6638,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4929\/revisions\/6638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}