Maria, on May 13th 1998 --as a continuation of our long-standing dialog at Serendip Forum-- you wrote,

Subject: crime and punishment

Hello, Jacob,
First of all, the image of a "half-life" is a literal translation of a Spanish expression ("media vida"). What I was trying to say is that if you don't risk anything, if you are always afraid, you will live only the half of your life. Excuse me, I will try to improve my English expressions.. It's very interesting your last post, on crime and punishment. I have read many books on anorexia and bulimia (trying to understand my own anorexia), and there is some evidence of a connection between religion and anorexia/bulimia diseases. In Spain, for instance, there is a strong trend in radical Catholic girls to have anorexia. The "anorexic" message lying in the radical Catholic doctrine is that "flesh is weak and you have to be strong" or "one of the deadly sins is the flesh sin" ("el pecado de la carne"). In spanish flesh and meat or food is almost the same ("carne"). The spirit is the only important thing... The main problem of psychologists with this girls is that the parents (radical catholics, of course) impede the girls' recovery.
What do you think about it? Do you know what about other religions?

Maria, two weeks later you again wrote,

Subject: goodbye
Jacob, I am leaving this forum, 'cause I have decided to solve my problems all alone. Goodbye forever.

That very same day I replied,

Subject: SEX = SIN

Maria, I can only be glad that you have decided to solve your problems all by yourself. I do hope that you've picked here and there some useful ideas. I'm quite certain that we all here at Serendip Forum will be happy to learn about your progress in self-help. You sound as an intelligent and mature person. Are you perchance the same Nobody who requested "help from experts?"

I told you, there are no experts here, just people looking for answers, mainly in order to make the world that surrounds us in daily social intercourse less ambiguous. I can not claim having succeeded. In fact, it's been a year this month since I started participating here, and I do not recall even one e-mail telling me that I have helped anyone in making his/her life less ambiguous. Yet I have also explained that I post here for sheer pleasure, just like smelling a flower, which is just there, with no purpose at all. It is not up to it for us to enjoy its aroma, no, it is up to us to know that we can enjoy it, and all for free!

As for your post on the "Sin of the Flesh," it really is not so complicated as it might seem at first sight.
Elohim's first commandment to all creatures was "Fructify and Multiply." Elohim is the first God, the one of Creation, as written in Genesis. Note that after this initial commandment, He somewhat later becomes quite mixed-up, creates man and woman, and then only man ("Adam," in Hebrew).
How then can religious people not be confused about sex, pregnancy, fertility, procreation, man, woman, bisexualism, and so on?

But wait! That's not enough... God now tells Adam and Havah (Eve) not to perform certain action. What is that? Freud is not needed to suspect that God was forbidding sexual relations. Why so? How did He expect people to fructify and multiply? What a mess!
Much later. the Israelites got --through Moses-- a private, tribal, parochial God, who called Himself, YHVH, wrongly pronounced Javeh or Jehovah. And the Israelites said, fructify and multiply, that's God's first commandment. And they went, and got now duly married "according to Israel and Moshe."
King Solomon's unconscionable acts led to the sundering of Eretz Israel. The Kingdom of Israel at the North was destroyed by the Assyria, remaining only the Kingdom of Yehuda (Judea), to be called later, when subjugated by Alexander, just Judea. The subjects are called Yehudim (Judeans), and then "Judios" in Spanish, "Juifs" in French, "Jews" in English.

Among the Jews are some crackpots, who become celibates, and are known as "Essenes." Why, not important here and now: they were not the first crackpots. And then, some Jews decide to make more interesting the boring Jewish tenets, and create, unwittingly, a new religion, Christianity. Now, the Catholics get touched by the Essenes celibacy, and convert the EX of SEX into the IN of SIN. Genesis' sex mix-up reborn!
Other Christians abhor this anomaly, and become Protestants.

The central tenet of SEX = SIN has its ups and downs. From time to time there is a revival of the flagging beliefs. This is called "revivalism," although this term is almost exclusive to the Pentecostal religion, and in a different context, as explained in "Crime and Punishment."

What your poster says, Maria, about flesh=meat=food, is interesting, yet valid only when "cathected," meaning, when charged with "libidinal energy," which is the emotional energy of the unconscious. Such equivalency cannot affect a whole religion, only predisposed individuals.
Therefore, the present phenomenon of anorectic young women is not new. It is the times which are new, ever changing. From what you say, there appears to be now in Spain a revivalism of the tragic sex=sin mess-up. No psychologist is going to make a mark on this periodic phenomenon. Let it flare up and then burn down, do not waste time, smell the free aroma of the flowers in the wild, make garlands of them for your hair, and strive to be happy with what you have.
Use your brains in order to make order, not disorder. (See "God and the Big Bang.")