Robert Sapolsky OCD and Religious Ritual

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Prof. Robert Sapolsky Bio 150/250, Spring 2002 Human Behavioral BiologyThe Biology of ReligionI. Obsessive compulsive disordera. Obsessive thoughts: intrusions, blasphemies, and so on.b. Compulsive rituals: self-cleansing, food preparation, leaving and entering, numerology and symmetryc. Genetic, neuroanatomical and neurochemical hints2. Ritualism of the religious orthodoxy3. Hindu Brahmans: hours of daily purification rituals involving cleansing, cyclical nostril breathing, defecation, ratios of handfuls of food from the left versus right hand, rules for entering temples....4. Orthodox Jewry and the magical combination of 365 prohibitions and 248 requirements: cleansing, food preparation, and the importance of numerology over content.5. Orthodox Islam: rules for numbers of mouthfuls of water, for entering and leaving a lavatory, for handwashing, and, of course, magical numbers.6. The rituals of Orthodox Christianity: the magical number 3, the multiplicities of Hail Marys and rosary use down to Lutheran organists advised about dotted rhythms in the Lutheran hymnal7. Freud: "obsessional neurosis as individual religiosity and religion as a universal obsessional neurosis."8. Ignatius Loyola and the 15th century concept of "scrupulosity."9. The underlying adaptive value of anxiety reduction10. Making a living as an obsessive compulsivea. An example in a 16th century monk named Luder: "The more you cleanse yourself, the dirtier you get."11. Why should OCD and religious rituals have such similar patterns?a. An ecological explanationb. A historical explanationIV. Religion and the attribution of causality.

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• Ritual
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[nilbud]

The blocks of wood the orthodox Jews tie on and the rocking back and forth OCD/Autistic style, also if the respected religious leader has a stroke his brain isn't damaged it's "enhanced by god".

When you have no healthcare religion does the job. Considering there was no real healthcare system before around 1899 that's a lot of madness over the years.

Judging by the westboro baptists it's still going on in some places.

[camelotradio]

@nilbud You would be surprised how fucked up things still are and its 2011. I cant believe religion is accepted.

[Jezreel7773]

The same is true with secular society!

[EyeLickChildren]

@milyur Buddhism is easy to explain in this context. But, I don't like to give answers away. If you can't seem to figure it out then come back and ask.

[milyur]

well this kind of attitude is ok for christianity and judaism. but this are not all religions. and of course this approach is quite limited. you may try to test buddhism for example. plus rituals is not all religion. every religion has its world view, its outer world explanation and its inner world explntion. and if first and second can be wrong in our time, last one - subjective inner world is uniqe and has no analogs in modern world

[PhilGalinsky]

@ZarlanTheGreen Long live Zarlan The Green!

[ZarlanTheGreen]

@PhilGalinsky blip dot tv / enneagon / sapolsky-on-religion-2215838

[PhilGalinsky]

Does anybody know where the full lecture can be found?