Well -- doesn't it all depend on you view of reality?  Imagine an 18th
century doctor observing a modern surgeon's preparation.  How would he
characterize the compulsive scrubbing followed by putting on gloves?  Are
surgeons suffering from OCD, or does their view of reality make scrubbing
a rational and reasonable procedure?  Likewise with Orthodox Jews.
Perhaps their view of reality differs from that of society in general,
but this does not make their dietary practices complusive or
pathological.  What about vegetarians?  What about those people who
choose to eat only organic produce?  Are they compulsive, or do they have
rational beliefs about reality that make their restrictions reasonable?
Not all dietary restrictions, religious or otherwise, are just a matter
of "reducing anxiety."

    Please spare us the claptrap about different realities.  If I can
crib from Bertrand Russell, if you really believe all that stuff, the
only thing you can say about a lunatic who believes he's a poached egg,
is that he doesn't hold the majority opinion (or, since we must not
assume democracy, that he doens't agree with the government).

   I will not claim that medicine is entirely free of ritual.  However,
it is a mistake of the ignorant to think that everything in medicine
which looks like ritual actually is. Surgeons scrub their hands for the
time they do and the way they do because of a very long series of
experiments.  If that were true of the rituals of Orthodox Jews, there
wouldn't be any conservative or reform Jews.  Or any Christians,
either.  Disagreements in science lead to experiments and the death of
old ways of doing things.  Disagreements in religion, because no
experiments are possible, only lead to new movements and new religions.
That's not a search for truth-- that's just storytelling.  It's no more
than fashion, like what happens to women's hemlines each year.  Don't
be trying to foist it off as something else.

   Usually they don't.  There are some exceptions.  To the extent that
there is evidence to support the heathiness of an "organic diet" or a
vegetarian diet, these practices are justified.

   I never said they were.  But most of them are.  Diets differ widely
on Earth, and most of the differences don't make much health
difference.  Among the differences that we know make health
differences, the differences are far more likely to be due to economics
and cultural habit than religious dietary restriction.  The Japanese
don't eat rice because Shinto tells them they have to.

                                          Steve Harris, M.D.

Jim, Steve, Andrew, and whomever is involved in this pissing contest,
Could we PLEASE get back on topic and relate to medicine?...  This will turn
into a debate of "lame-ass" liberals vs. "narrow-minded" conservatives and
take in all comers in between.  Please take this to an alt.religion group if
y'all must dwell on this.

<snip>

Harris is right, as usual.  However, MY ritual is to browse through
Quackwatch from time to time, especially when the BS begins to get deep.
the URL is
www.quackwatch.com.

--
Walt Taylor

"Claptrap" is a rather emotional word.  I don't think it is helpful to
the discussion.  In addition, I would prefer to address the _medical_
rather than the _philosphical_ issue (which -- agreeing with Dave -- is
best taken up in another forum).

Again -- people do have differing epistimologies.  Dr. Harris seems to be
a proponent of the classical scientific method, and appears to reject
other ways of learning about reality as unreliable.  This is his belief
system.  Others may have differing beliefs. The question of which belief
is correct is NOT appropriate to this news group.  But -- I maintain that
a person undertaking a "ritual" based upon his or her belief about
reality is not necessarily engaging in OCD behavior.  Of course, a pilot
giving his aircraft a detailed pre-flight inspection is reducing his
anxiety about the flight.  But he has reason to believe that he is
increasing the saftey margin of the ensuing flight.  This is not
pathological.  SImilarly, an Orthodox Jew observing dietary restrictions
is making a rational choice given the epistimological axioms he believes
(which include at least one way of learning about the world in addition
to the classical scientific method).  This is not necessarily
pathological.

Are there Orthodox Jews who follow rituals because of OCD?  Of course
there are.  But there are also medical doctors who suffer from OCD.
Simple observation of behavior may be inadequate to diagnose OCD without
a more detailed interview of the client (patient?) to determine what is
going on cognitively, to what extent the behavior is interfering with
other life activities, what the emotional content of the behavior is, etc.

People are complex.  Their beliefs are complex.  We do no one a favor by
ascribing the OCD label in a blanket and non-critical fashion.

  It does relate to medicine: sorry you don't want to deal with that.
The secular and the sacred do still interact, even in our modern PC
world.  It's apparent that there is, in psychiatry, an inescapable
intersection between religion, medicine, and philosophy.  You realize
that the first time, as a medical student, you run across a person
diagnosed as schizophrenic because he says he's the messiah, or else
gets messages from God or the devil.  Those of my colleages who were
religious (Mormons, mainly, at that time) dealt with this by simply
assuming that anybody claiming message from God, without proper
"authority," was crazy.  I just laughed at them.  They didn't like it.

                                        Steve Harris, M.D.

Again Steve, I'm not taking a side.  But you're starting a pissing contest
and all comers are welcome.  Go to alt.religion.???  I am perfectly aware of
what's taught and learned in med school.  I'm an oncologist.  I'm perfectly
aware of the interactions of philosophies and medicine.  I am a practicing
evangelical Christian.  Is that relevent to this discussion?? No.  Move the
thread

        I realize the defintions are the last resort of the scoundrel,
however...
        According to my DSM 4.0 (g). The criteria most in play here are the
recognition by the person that the rituals are excessive or unreasonable,
cause distress, excesive interfere with person's normal routine and
functioning.
        So the OCD and Religious rituals would seem to be the same within this
context. Just different manifestations of the symptoms.

------------------------------
        "Get a load of that guy. He got over like that on your daughter and you would give him the beating of his life and we have him running the country." Andy Sipowicz, NYPD Blue

  By proper authority I assume you mean the writings of Joseph Smith??  By
what authority did he carry out his bizzare behaviour.  What portions of
the DSM's would be applied to his behaviour if he were still around and
behaving in the same fashion??
If you want to go all the way out to the end of the limb you could accept
at face value the "Canons of Holy Writ" and begin working on giving the
"Supreme Being" an appropriate diagnosis or two.  ;-)
dcr

I say yes.  Robert Mendelsohn was right when he referred to the religion of
modern medicine.  Oncologists tell poeple they have six months to live and six
months later they brag about their diagnostic ablility when their patient lies
dying.  How is this different from giving a person a placebo but telling him
he's been given a rapidly acting poison knowing that the mere thought of having
taken a rapidly acting poison in itself may be lethal.

Thir{*filter*} years ago I attended a lecture given by a Swedish physician, I believe
his name was Lundquist.  It was a nice little presentation given in a nice
little lecture hall at UCLA Scool of Medicine.  Seems the doc had come up with
an innovative treatment for neoplasia.  Using a two axis imaging unit he put a
canula into the growth and then through the canula an electrode into the center
of the tumor.  A little math to calculate the number of Joules required to
electrolyze the tumor and -presto- no more tumor.  Then he had another bright
idea:  While we have the canula positioned in the middle of the tumor why not
augment the electrolysis by putting some chemotherapuetic agent into the center
of the tumor.

Any guesses what kind of success he was having??
Any guesses what knid of reception he was having??
Semmelweis got a better reception.!!

Opinion:  Medicine is only a little more scientific than Judaism or Christianity
or Taoism or Shintaoism or Buddhism or Atheism or Agnosticism or  Hare Krishna
or Mormonism or Whathaveyou.  You believe what you were taught in Medical School
without question just as parishioners believe what they are taught by their
religous gurus and when someone comes along and points out your sins you
persecute him as surely as if he were possesed of a demon.  Some among you have
a genuine interest in science.  For most of you it is a sham.  You have no
interest in science unless it suits your purpose. You write prescriptions as if
you were writing checks and what is the outcome?? Can you prove scientifically
that you are doing more good than harm by medicating each and every condition
that walks into your office??  Don't tell me that you can, go ahead and do it
and don't be surprised if the results aren't as cheery as you'd hoped.

Don't do this for me, I'm as narrow minded as all of you.  Do it for yourselves
so that you can rest assurred that what you are doing in the office is science -
not religion.

Don Royal DC