This is http://www.essayz.com/a9712161.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %DISEASE DILEMMA COPE WASH PURITY RITUAL SANITATION 971216 To promote and maintain both personal and communal integrity we need to cope effectively with diseases and all that contributes to diseases. Our ancestors discovered that some effective methods of coping with diseases included in many inter-related ways the following: 1. Washing rituals. 2. Cleanliness. 3. Keeping self and others clean. 4. Sanitation requirements. 5. Removal of dirt. 6. Elimination of decaying matter. 7. Avoidance of certain foods. 8. Adequate rest. 9. Avoidance of discharge fluids. 10. Quarantine of the sick. In the absence of modern medical understandings regarding the roles of bacteria, viruses, molds, prions, amoebas and other micro-organisms --- cleanliness rituals and requirements evolved on a trial and error basis. There was no comprehensive theory of what was essential to successful coping --- because there was no understanding of the multitude of elements which contributed to disease and how they interacted with each other and humans. Many early religious rituals, practices, traditions and rules had to do with coping with diseases and contributed substantially to success in coping with diseases. Why they worked was not understood, and so it was not clear where the practices were really essential -- -and where they were unnecessary ritualistic traditions. Different people evolved with different traditions, and with different power structures which surrounded their different traditions and rituals --- pertaining to maintaining personal and communal integrity through cleanliness rituals. It is now clear that bacteria, viruses, molds, prions, amoebas and genetic variations all play significant roles in human diseases; some of them not yet well understood. It is also clear that the quality of human relationships, self-esteem, pride, and reflexive considerations also play significant roles in human diseases --- both individually and communally. It is not yet clear what the relative importances of the various roles are, or what all the manners of interaction are. One difficulty which we face is that the strategy of separation of pollution, dirt and agents of infection which has worked so effectively in regards to micro- organisms as now understood --- is a strategy which has often been transferred into the inter-personal and social realm with disastrous consequences. People have looked to the stars, astrology, mythology, and religious scriptures for explanations of these dis-asters --- with no clear universal consensus coming out of such efforts. Conflicts among contentious adherents of different explanations have contributed greatly to human disease and suffering. The strategy of separating the clean from the unclean (which works effectively in dealing with micro-organisms) does not work effectively in dealing with different people who have specialized in different ways of dealing with threats to personal and communal integrity. It does not work to try to identify which people are the "unclean people" as regards to beliefs, doctrines, language, culture, rituals, mythology, and traditions ---for such efforts engender alienation, misunderstanding, ignorance, confusion, prejudice and arbitrary patterns of behaviors which do not relate wisely to the challenges. The separation of people into classes of those who are "safe" and those who are "unclean" leads to alienation and dis- ease. Cast systems do not promote personal and communal integrity; they promote dis-ease. Love brings people together into intimate relationships. The strategy of separating the clean from the unclean tends to drive people apart ---especially when it is extended to labeling people as sinful or righteous - -- as individual people. The self-righteous are prone to undermine the works of Love --- because of an ultimate concern for avoiding the contaminations of the "unclean" people who do not live up to the standards for practical and ritual purity of the self-righteous. The self- righteous are unwilling to take prudent risks on behalf of Love --- and so engender alienation which puts people ill- at-ease and thus dis-eased. The strategy of separating the clean from the unclean thus is tragically faulty when carried over into the realms of ethics, morality and communal membership. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================