Purity Movements

Because I don't think like other people on certain issues, I've learned to keep my mouth shut a lot. But I have an interest that I can't keep quiet about because I'm not sure of the answer.

You see, humans seem to have always had a belief that they can purify themselves and I wonder what it is they're feeling when they think they're pure.

For instance, Native Americans used to burn tobacco to purify. Tobacco? The cancer-causing plant? Pure? They're not the only ones. Think of today's vegetarians. They firmly believe they can purify their bodies by abstaining from meat and processed foods.

While I think they do have a healthy diet. I just don't see how they can feel they are pure. In fact, what is purity anyway? Humans are secretions, oils, waste and dead skin. How can any living human be pure?

I say I keep my mouth shut. Mostly because people are offended by what they consider purity. As the religious sex taboos. They think I'm talking Victorian morality here and though that is also a purity movement, I don't understand why they assume I agree with purity movements when I say I'm fascinated by the idea of them but that's how people take it.

They think I agree that someone who sins and then confesses and does penance can somehow be made pure. My thought is, I don't understand what they suppose purity is but somehow, every human civilization has this concept. It goes around and around and around.

Like the temperance movement of the nineteenth century. Leeching or letting out bad blood in medicine.

I'll have to do some more thinking about this to figure it out but until I do, I'll just keep my lips zipped.