Some Examples of Being Clean Again After Baptism Lds

Childhood allergies like hay fever are linked to an absence of contact with fecal matter in their early years. [1]  In other words, their houses were besides make clean for them to develop immunity. [two] When antibodies have no real threats to fight off, they'll pick the next best affair – grit, pet dander, and pollen. [three]  I'm pretty sure information technology would make my female parent proud that my hay fever is a byproduct of her obsessive cleanliness.  Perhaps this phenomenon also explains why Mormons are prone to creating extra rules on top of our already high standards.  Let me explicate.

I of Jonathan Haidt'southward 6 moral foundations is Purity.  An instance of a purity violation from some other culture is the use of the left manus.  In many Muslim and Hindu cultures, the left hand is considered impure.  People do not impact others with their left manus or use their left manus for retrieving food from communal bowls.  The left hand is used for washing oneself in the toilet, hence its association with impurity.

Purity in Pop Civilisation

Many multi-cultural and multi-religious societies don't have as many clear cut purity prohibitions that are obvious to u.s.a., but nosotros do take them.  In fact, Seinfeld plumbs them for comedic effect routinely throughout the series. You may call up a few of these:

• George Costanza takes an fine art book into the bathroom at a bookstore, he is told he must purchase it, and so the store won't permit him render information technology because it'south been flagged.  ("Y'all get your toilet book out of hither, and I won't bound over this counter and punch you lot in the brain!" yells the cashier.)
• George finishes a half eaten eclair he finds in the top of the garbage at someone else's house.  ("Adjacent to turn down is refuse," Jerry explains).
• Kramer asks if he tin borrow Jerry's swim conform.  ("I don't want your…your boys downward there." Jerry whines).
• George double-dips a chip.  ("That's like putting your whole mouth correct in the dip!" rages Timmy, the younger blood brother of George's girlfriend).
• Jerry won't consume pizza made by restaurateur Poppy because he sees that Poppy has not washed his hands in the restroom.  ("Even if you lot're not gonna soap upwards, at least pretend for my benefit. Plow the water on, do something," Jerry says to George after.)
• Kramer makes a salad in the shower by installing a disposal in the drain.
• Everyone in NYC begins to eat processed and donuts with utensils to keep their easily make clean.  ("I am eating my dessert," George sneers when Mr. Morgan asks what he's doing eating a candy bar with a pocketknife and fork.  "How do y'all eat it–with your hands?")
• Elaine returns a babka with an impurity.  ("Yous sold united states a pilus with a cake effectually information technology. We'd similar some other one.")
• Elaine is offended that co-worker Peggy uses a seat protector in the bathroom since they are the only two women on their floor.  (Jerry defends Peggy while obsessively cleaning up his ain identify, "Well, perchance she just practices good hygiene."  Elaine eyeballs him:  "Yeah, y'all're probably right. She'due south probably one of those neurotic clean freaks.")

Nosotros often consider people who are hypersensitive to impurities to be borderline mentally ill.  We call them germphobes and say they have OCD. [iv]

The line betwixt purity and impurity is oftentimes personal.  My mother was e'er a fleck of a germphobe similar Jerry.  She had a strong distaste for drinking from the same glass or eating nutrient someone else (fifty-fifty in the family) had touched or eaten from.  She has always locked the bathroom door, and she insists that house guests clean and towel dry the bathroom tub immediately afterward if they shower in it.

Purity:  The Moral Foundation

When doing his inquiry on moral foundations, Jonathan Haidt used a few scenarios to help people place their revulsion towards impurity by removing all of the other moral objections (Harm, Fairness, Loyalty and Potency) from the scenarios.   Subjects who were asked to explain why they considered the scenario objectionable had difficulty providing a logical basis for their revulsion.  Here are two scenarios that illustrate a violation of the Purity moral foundation [5]:

• "I have some fresh orange juice, into which I have dipped a sterilized cockroach. The roach was bought from a lab supply company, raised in a make clean surround. It has been stored in alcohol, only just to be certain, I sterilized it once again in an autoclave, which heats everything then much than no germs tin survive. Would you drink the juice?"
• "A family unit's dog is killed by a car in front of their house. They take heard that heard that domestic dog meat is delicious, so they melt it and swallow it for dinner.  Was it wrong for them to eat the dog?"

In the above situations and others listed shared in Haidt's examples, my own reaction is a full body dry heave.  Tin I justify why these things are wrong?  Not really.  But they are icky, icky, icky.

Mormons:  The Pure in Heart

So what are some examples of Mormon impurities?  A person is said to be pure when his or her thoughts or actions are "clean" in every way.  We talk about no unclean thing existence able to enter into God's presence, and we sing a hymn near our hearts and easily being clean and pure.  We likewise detect things morally repugnant that "defile" people.

In Matthew fifteen, verse 11, the Pharisees accept called Jesus on the carpet because his disciples aren't washing their easily properly according to Jewish law earlier eating.  Jesus says, "Non that which goeth into the mouth ^adefileth a man; just that which cometh out of the ^boral cavity, this defileth a man."  No wonder Jesus was so pop with all those damn dirty hippies in the 1970s!

Food prohibitions are mutual purity hallmarks of religious practices.  Many of them originated for safe reasons.  For instance, eating shellfish while wandering in the desert for xl years with no refrigeration is a sketchy proposition. [half-dozen]  Joseph Smith introduced the Discussion of Wisdom in the early days of the church, and Bushman theorizes this is so that members would purge their minds and bodies to make themselves pure vessels prepare to receive revelation.  During prohibition, women involved in the temperance motility used to say, "Lips that touch wine will not touch mine!"  Keeping specific substances out of our bodies creates a feeling of purity even if those substances are non inherently harmful.

In improver to food prohibitions, many religions (including Mormonism) are obsessed with cleanliness.  In Balinese Hinduism, menstruating females are prohibited from entering the temple.  [seven] And in ancient State of israel, women who were menstruating were considered unclean and separated until they underwent specific mail-menstrual ablutions.  Likewise, there were prohibitions that involved postal service-coital ritual cleansing before participating in spiritual rituals.  The rite of baptism, washings & anointing, and foot cleansing all take significance in the LDS faith.  Throughout the ancient world, water figures in to ritual temple worship, likewise creating a purification for those who enter.

#six seems awfully hard to cocky-constabulary.

The colour white itself is viewed as a symbol of purity, both in and out of the church.  White clothing in particular symbolizes personal purity.  White shirts that are clean and pressed are somehow more pure than colored shirts or those with rolled upwards sleeves for those who anoint and laissez passer the sacrament.  White is worn in the temple.  And the Volume of Mormon conflates white or fair skin with purity.

Purity in Perspective

On the flip side, nosotros run the risk of focusing so much on the outward appearance of purity that we lose our grip on other aspects of morality.  This is something Jesus cautioned against.  He was constantly on the hook for purity violations – hanging out with the outcasts of society, not washing his easily when eating, eating out of the aforementioned sop dish at the last supper ( alright, perchance non that ane, but it is kind of gross, right? ).  His willingness to break purity taboos when they conflicted with other more important moral foundations are a lesson for the states all.

Do we judge some sinners more harshly than others considering nosotros consider some sins more impure than others?  Practice we have a stronger dislike of sins that accept a concrete component rather than just a spiritual one?  Do nosotros more readily accept impurity that is ideological or unseen than that which is physically credible?

• Would you be surprised to know that people are not turned away from the temple if they have a valid recommend, regardless of what they are wearing?  And notwithstanding, how often are people judged harshly in ward meetings for what they wear?
• Do we approximate people who smell of alcohol or cigarettes more than harshly than we gauge those who gossip and backbite or tattle on other members to the bishop?  Yet who is doing more harm to others?
• Are sexual sins, including homosexual actions, considered more than serious in part because they are more than "disgusting" than other sins?
• Are tattoos and piercings associated with making the body impure and therefore considered a visible manifestation of internal sin?

Our Pure Environment

Are Mormons especially decumbent to hypersensitivity about ideological impurity because of the sanitized environs in which we intentionally live?  We isolate ourselves from non only sin, but even the appearance of sin.  Nosotros not only censor our ain beliefs, but also conscience what nosotros sentry, mind to, and often the types of people with whom we associate to the point that nosotros take no tolerance for the stuff of life.  Art majors at BYU do non use nude models.  Some Mormons will go to ridiculous lengths to avoid using profanity.  I met engaged Mormon girls who were unfamiliar with the basics of how sex activity worked. [viii] Many members won't cook with alcohol, eat coffee water ice cream, or drink herbal tea (which isn't even tea – look at the box!).  Enterprising Mormons have made a living "cleaning" up the objectionable parts of movies so that members don't have to witness anything unseemly.  In some ways, we've created a second Eden, empty of the growth and progress that just comes with exposure to grit – with a noesis of both good and evil.  Simply we've also been able to brand sins of things that aren't inherently sinful, like wearing flip-flops in the chapel.

What practice yous recollect?

• Does lack of exposure to life in all its gritty celebrity forbid or enable spiritual evolution?
• Does self-censorship lead to increased purity or just intolerance for imperfections in ourselves and others?
• Are Mormons the fussy arms-length Jerry Seinfeld equivalent of obsessive spirituality?  Or are we simply demonstrating our delivery to the highest standards?

Discuss.

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[1] "What really causes allergic reactions is your own immune arrangement. Information technology mistakes these innocuous allergens for a serious threat and attacks them. The symptoms of an allergy are the result of a body's misguided assault." from http://world wide web.webmd.com/allergies/guide/chronic-allergies-causes.  Other known causes are genetic predisposition and timing of exposure.

[two] Feel free to use this equally justification for not cleaning your business firm.

[three] Or in my kids' case, chores.

[4] And of course some of them practice have OCD.

[5] For more than reading on this topic, see Jonathan Haidt'due south two excellent books:  The Righteous Mind and The Happiness Hypothesis.

[6] Likewise at Cherry Lobster.

[7] According to the book Mysteries of Godliness, early Mormon temple worship had a similar prohibition.

[8] The discussion "doo-doo hole" was used by 1 girl in my BYU ward.

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Source: https://bycommonconsent.com/2013/11/09/purity-rules-allergies/

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