Read the transcript of a speech Sapolsky gave on biology and religion [via PZ] The audio of the speech is here.
In the last 30 years we've seen a whole new psychiatric disorder, of people whose rituals take over and destroy their lives. OCD: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. These are people who don't merely find themselves counting when they go up a flight of stairs--these are people whose lives are destroyed by this disorder. They wash their hands eight hours a day. They stop eating most foods because of the conviction of contamination, germs. They get very ritualistic and phobic about entering spaces, leaving spaces. They can't enter a building until they've walked a number of steps that's a prime number. Very mathematical numerology comes through this, and it is an utterly paralyzing disease. This is one of these biological disorders that destroyed people's lives back when, up until 30 or 40 years ago, there wasn't even a word that described this. We can describe it now, and we know a lot about the genetics of this disorder, and the neurochemistry.Where does this one fit in with religion? There's a remarkable parallelism between religious ritualism and the ritualism of OCD. In OCD, the most common rituals are the rituals of self-cleansing, of food preparation, of entering and leaving holy places of emotional significance, and rituals of numerology. You look in every major religion, and those are the four most common ritual forms that you see.
You could look at any of these organized religions--though we're very accustomed by now that, when we think of religion, it's often interspersed with good works or a sense of community--and see that religion in its orthodoxy is about rules: how you do every single thing all throughout the day. You look at orthodox versions of any of these religions, and there are rules for which direction you face after you defecate, which hand you wash, how many swallowings of water, which nostril you breathe in with, which nostril you breathe out--these are all rules that Brahmans have in order to get into heaven.
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"You look at orthodox versions of any of these religions, and there are rules for which direction you face after you defecate, which hand you wash, how many swallowings of water, which nostril you breathe in with, which nostril you breathe out--these are all rules that Brahmans have in order to get into heaven."
- is this called Holy Shit ?
you need to elaborate more on your thesis.. right now it seems as if you have made an opinion and then, are trying to prove it.. moreover your knowledge about religion seems sketchy, at least in this piece.. quantify your argument and qualify it too.. i beleive you are a scientist..OCD becomes OCD only after a point.. I wash my hands 20 times a day..does that make me OCD patient..all the white people who come to India are paranoid about their food.. where do you place them.. are you saying that all methodologies lead to OCD.. chewing your food, for better digestion, upto 40 times.. is that suggestion OCD?
do you follow methods in your scietific practice?
abstain from making sweeping statements!
I am sorry.. I overlooked the fact that these are Robert Sapolsky's views and not yours..I would have said the same thing in a different manner.. apologies..