When ritual DOESN'T make you feel good

Despite the study referenced in my last post, I'm guessing the people participating in this ritual did not have high levels of oxytocin, at least during the ritual itself. Having nails driven through your hands is a pretty horrifying way of "celebrating" Christ's crucifixion. This is definitely Extreme Religion:

Devotees in villages in the northern Philippines took part in a bloody annual ritual to mark Good Friday...The crucified devotees spent several minutes nailed to crosses in Pampanga province while thousands of tourists watched and took photos of the spectacle, which the church discourages. Earlier in the day, hooded male penitents trudged through the province's villages under the blazing sun while flagellating their bleeding backs with makeshift whips. Others carried wooden crosses to dramatize Christ's sacrifice.

The real reason people attend church?

An interesting article here indicates that "a majority of participants" release oxytocin (a hormone also released during orgasm and breastfeeding, incidentally) during rituals, religious or otherwise. This may help explain why people enjoy going to church on Sunday, and why churchgoers are "happier and healthier" in many surveys. Then again, one study doesn't really tell us much of anything and should probably be taken with several grains of salt.

"The final frontier"

My daughter and her girlfriend, demonstrating at the Supreme Court:

But it's bad for kids to allow gays to adopt...

Despite having nineteen kids and two grandchildren, the Duggars are apparently considering adopting yet more children. Michelle Duggar says, "We are praying about it, and we will see what God has in store. Love for children has been placed on our hearts."

I like this terse comment below the article: "Hoarding is a disorder." True, but I don't think fundamentalists see it that way. Apparently it's a wonderful thing for Quiverfull advocates to adopt, even if they have more children than most of us could possibly imagine coping with, but let a gay couple want to adopt a single child, and the child will supposedly be damaged somehow. Go figure. Personally, I suspect it's better for kids to be adopted by a loving couple (even-- gasp!-- a gay couple) that isn't already overwhelmed with a swarming mass of children.

North Dakota and "personhood"

According to this, North Dakota lawmakers passed a resolution declaring a fertilized egg to be a person. In November 2014, voters will determine whether or not they want this to become part of the state constitution. This is an admitted effort by lawmakers to shut down the state's only abortion clinic (in Fargo, the largest ND city).

But even if you're opposed to this measure, you can at least take comfort in the fact that it's a carefully drafted and well-researched resolution. Its sponsor, Senator Margaret Sitte, says,"There was no grandiose plan...It came from Wikipedia."

Wonder how lawmakers drafted laws and resolutions before Wikipedia came along?

Premarital fornication

I've read two good posts on the Evangelical perspective on premarital sex today. The first is on Love, Joy, Feminism, where Libby Anne explains why premarital sex can logically be viewed as a breach of trust if you were brought up to believe that purity until marriage is necessary, but points out that unless you're brought up with that expectation, no breach of trust occurs. The second is on The Way Forward, in which he talks about how "Evangelicals live in denial" about how people in their church actually conduct themselves sexually. Evangelicals, after all, are just like the rest of us, sexually speaking. They're just not as open about it.

I'm sure there are people who remain "pure" until marriage, and then live fifty happy years in an exclusively monogamous marriage. But just because it can happen doesn't mean it should happen. One of the things that worries me most about what Libby Anne terms "purity culture" is the underlying idea that young people should be pushed into early marriages so they can have sex within the holy confines of God-sanctioned monogamy. Marriage, though, is the last thing that anyone should be rushed into. I wonder how many people are caught in unhappy, unloving marriages because they were pressured into marrying too young, before they had enough worldly experience to know what they really wanted.

"People ought to have the right to get married"

An article here says that Senator Rob Portman, a "leading conservative voice" who was opposed to gay marriage because of his "faith" and his "faith tradition," has now decided that gay people should be allowed to get married. (He was never a big crusader against gay marriage, as his focus was more on economic issues, but he voted against it.) Portman came to this conclusion after his son let him know he was gay and "helped him work through his decision to announce his change in position on gay marriage."

It's great that he changed his mind, but unfortunate that he couldn't step outside what he thought his "faith" told him until it became a personal issue for him. (Yay for his son having the courage to come out to his parents.) As some have noted in the comments, a lot of people are changing their viewpoint on this subject as they begin to realize how many people they know are gay, and Portman is hardly alone here. Nevertheless, it's a little sad that it took a revelation from a family member to "evolve" Portman's thinking. If politicians had a little more empathy, a little more ability to imagine how others feel, this country might be a better place.