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About this quote

What does it mean?
Despite moral failures, religious rules about diet like eating fish on fast days were still enforced.
In plain terms
Even when people were bad, they still had to eat fish on fasting days.
What can you take from it?
Formal rules often persist even when deeper values are ignored.

Where it applies

  • religious practice
  • social analysis
  • historical study

Putting it to work

  • analyze rule adherence
  • study religious customs
  • evaluate sincerity

Questions to consider

  • Why do rules remain when values change?
  • Is ritual important without belief?

Another view

Focusing only on diet ignores broader ethical or spiritual reforms.

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