Gluttony

Gula, one of the sections of the Table of deadly sinsHieronymus Bosch. Four characters, on the scene: on the table there is a man with great weight eating; on the right, on the right, one who drinks anxiously, directly from the pitcher; on the left, a woman presents a new railing on a tray. An obese child appears, symbolizing the bad example given to childhood. In the foreground, a sausage is tied to the fire

Gluttony (from Latin: gluttony; related to gluttiëre, meaning to swallow) is an excessive appetite for food and drink. The glutton or insatiable is a person who has no measure when eating, either a particular type of food or food and drink in general. Individuals with these characteristics are generally overweight and in many cultures it is frowned upon for aesthetic reasons. and health. Certain religions condemn gluttony because it is believed to be a selfish and lustful desire that seeks only personal satisfaction.

Etymology

The word gluttony comes from the Latin word gula which means throat, gullet, and came to mean voracity. The word comes from an Indo-European root meaning to swallow. Gola also derives from this root, and derivatives such as gollilla and gollete and verbs such as engullir. Words like goloso and gollería also present this root.

Psychological concept

Gluttony is socially and psychologically associated with the theory of addictions. An addiction is like a chronic and recurring disease of the brain that is characterized by a pathological search for reward and/or relief through the use of a substance or other behaviors. This behavior is associated with an inability to control behavior, difficulty in abstinence, compelling desire to consume, decreased recognition of significant problems caused by one's own behavior and in interpersonal relationships, as well as a dysfunctional emotional response. The result is a decrease in the quality of life of the affected person (generating problems in their work, in their academic activities, in their social relationships and/or in their family or partner relationships). Neuroscience currently considers that addiction to substances and behaviors share the same neurobiological bases.

Religious concept

Gluttony is known as that human mechanism characterized by excessive appetite in eating and drinking. According to the Christian religion, life cannot be renounced, hence an excessive appetite would be one that causes health problems that interfere with physical fitness and moral behavior.^{[citation required]}

Gluttony is a cardinal sin for the Christian religion since, according to it, it is a vice of disordered desire for pleasure connected with food or drink, the glutton continues to eat food without feeling hungry.^{[ citation required]}

In the third circle of Hell, the condemned are punished for the sin of the gull. Illustrated by Stradanus.

Fray Andrés de Olmos links gluttony to the passage in which Eve and Adam commit a sin by eating the forbidden food. It may be interesting to note that the serpent offers them a forbidden fruit that will make them like God. This is precisely the root of all sin and the reason why man ends up on earth where he realizes that he is not God, that he has limitations.

Human beings before God have no rights because they are not like God. Life is a gift that is received by the grace of God and that God disposes of as he pleases. ¨Only He, God, decides when he deprives us of life and in what way. Hence, man cannot dispose of life. Jesus Christ himself, when he became a man, arranged shortly before the crucifixion that not his will be done but that of the Father. Man does have, on the contrary, moral obligations and among them, that of keeping his body and mind in the best possible state, rejecting that forbidden fruit that provokes in him an insatiable appetite, an insatiable dependency in such a way that this fruit forbidden does not separate him from his moral obligations.

Egoism is always at the root of all sin, which is nothing other than believing yourself to be the center of everything, wanting to be like God.

Fray Olmos also writes a passage in which the glutton already in hell asks that they send him Lázaro so he can dip his finger in the water and appease the fire on his tongue.

In the poem Hell from the Divine Comedy, those condemned for the sin of gluttony are punished in the third circle, with the penalty of being beaten by a very strong rain mixed with heavy hail, and deafened by the terrible barking of Cerberus, which also tears them apart with teeth and nails.

Fray Andrés de Olmos associates excess spending with excess pageantry and ostentation (those who spend a lot on themselves). He also affirms that the one who disposes of material goods that do not correspond to him commits theft: Adam stole only one piece of fruit and was rejected by God .

In the same vein, and remembering that the following only exposes a religious point of view, in a situation of need due to food shortages, a person cannot hoard and deprive others of the food they need to maintain their body and fulfill their moral obligations. The justification is the same: life (in this case, that of others) is not a gift that, according to religious people, God has placed in humans to dispose of it in his interests, but rather a good that must be taken care of. But it is necessary to emphasize that depriving others of their food is not gluttony, but for the Christian religion it constitutes a lack of charity or mercy in the face of the suffering of others.

This desire can be sinful in several ways (always according to the precepts of said religion):

1. Eating or drinking over what the body needs.
2. Cut the taste for some kind of food knowing it's going to detriment of health.
3. Consent appetite for expensive meals or drinks, especially when a luxurious diet is out of reach.
4. Eating or drinking voraciously giving more attention to the food than to those who accompany us.
5. Waste the food, being in the same category as eating more than the body needs.

In the first four cases, gluttony is caused by the same factor as Lust: The desire to obtain satisfaction from the taste of the food eaten drives the one who commits this sin to eat as much as possible.

In 1589 Peter Binsfeld, drawing loosely on earlier sources, associated gluttony with the demon Beelzebub, who tempted people by means associated with sin. Temperance is one of the Seven Virtues that are part of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which serves so that the Christian knows how to face the temptation of gluttony, since it is opposed to it and, therefore, serves as every virtue to save the soul