My mother says she had a friend in college who went to St. Mattress in her first few Sundays at college.
And then there’s the Mark Lowry bit about shaking off morning people asking him to come to sunrise Bible study by naming his bed The Word, so he could tell his preacher, “I can’t talk now, I’m in The Word”.
I don’t remember anyone asking Walky to church before. I guess the results are predictable from him. (Not to mention, does he still have the same disbeliefs as in It’s Walky?)
I don’t think he’s religious, no. He’s made a lot of snarky comments about it, though often to get under Joyce’s skin, or when he pretended to be raptured.
Do we know everyone’s religious affiliation? I don’t think there’s been much diversity in that (maybe realistically for the setting). I want a Pagan character. Samhain is coming up! (In comic).
Also, what about Mike? I don’t think he is religious…and what about Danny? He seems kinda agnostic.
Masumi
And don’t forget about Dina.
KM
As I recall Danny’s probably about as nominally Christian as Billie – I think there was a strip where is mother was asking (over the phone) if he’d found a church to go to yet and he brushed the question off…
thejeff
Mike is as religious as you don’t want him to be.
I think there’s a good deal of diversity, though admittedly mostly fairly mainstream. No pagans. A lot who are nominally something or other, but don’t currently go to services regularly, which is pretty common among college kids away from home for the first time. More non-practicing than agnostic.
Agatha’s Mormon. Raidah’s Muslim (and presumably Asma as well, though we haven’t seen much about her.) Amber and Roz are Catholic. Ethan and Joe are Jewish. Sierra goes to the same church Joyce has been going to, though she obviously comes from a more liberal background.
HeySo
I’m not sure if it was clarified whether or not Sierra went to Joyce’s church more than once [or, in fact, whether Joyce did, as I believe that was the catholic one?].
In any case, just here to note that Sierra stated that her religious background was based in The Church of God. In other words, she was raised under a Pentecostal denomination. While Pentecostal faiths have several traits they can be associated with, the most notable element is their strong association with biblical inerrancy. In other words, Pentecostal denominations are generally not what one would refer to as “liberal”.
More simply put, Sierra’s background is probably very interesting, if she turned out as open as she is for reasons other than teenage rebellion/self-assertment.
In any case, we can at least consider it reasonable to label Sierra, our most likely candidate for paganism, as “Christian”, and leave it at that.
So yeah, I don’t think we’ve seen anyone among the regular cast who is pagan, of any eastern faith, or of any non-major faith. Well, who knows, maybe Sayid’ll surprise us! ..Galasso, probably not.
thejeff
Not the Catholic one. Joyce hasn’t been to a Catholic church. She went to Jacob’s Episcopal church that has similar high church trappings and she only went there once.
She went on her first Sunday to a church that Mary suggested, along with Dorothy and Sierra. It was described as “awesome with a huge congregation” and having electric guitar and drums.
We saw her there at least one more time, again with Sierra, but this time with Ethan in tow (and Mike coming along to heckle.) Or at least I assume it was there, since it seemed similar and there was no mention of seeking another church. We know Joyce has been to church every sunday, but we can only assume it was the same one – other than the week she was home and when she went with Jacob.
There’s also apparently an Indiana version of Church of God that’s not Pentecostal, but does still look pretty conservative.
Is Nashita Muslim? She might be but I don’t know if it’s confirmed.
BBCC
Yeah, Agatha is Mormon and Sierra is Church of God. Nash is most likely a Muslim (she has a hijab), as is Asma.
BBCC
Here, have the main characters (as in those on the cast page or with profiles in the books)
Joyce – Nondenominational fundamentalist Protestant
Dorothy – Atheist
Walky – Agnostic of the ‘unconcerned’ variety (word of Willis)
Billie – Christian of some variety, not stated what.
Amber – Catholic (word of Willis)
Danny – Christian of some variety, not stated what.
Ethan – Jewish
Sarah – Not stated
Sal – Agnostic upbringing, went to Catholic school, no word whether any sort of religion ‘took’ (word of willis)
Ruth – Not stated iirc.
Dina – Atheist iirc (though I might be thinking of Walkyverse Dina so don’t quote me on her. Joyce also refers to her as non-Christian, but I’m not sure Joyce is accurate since she believes evolution is incompatible with Christianity)
Becky – Nondenominational fundamentalist Protestant, same as Joyce.
Joe – Jewish
Mike – Not stated, iirc.
Roz – Catholic
Jacob – Episcopalian
Marcie – Catholic (word of Willis)
Carla – Not stated
Leslie – Atheist
Malaya – Not stated
Lucy – Christian of some variety, not sure what. She was some stripe of ‘born again’ in Walkyverse, though.
Mary – Nondenominational fundamentalist Protestant
Raidah – Muslim.
According to Willis, most of the kids believe in god (as is true in real life Indiana) but whether or not that’s important to them varies. Billie, for instance, doesn’t place super great importance on her faith (and Danny says ‘church isn’t really super exciting or anything’). Meanwhile, Becky is faithful but irreverent (unless it’s important) and Joyce has it all memorized and internalized. Mary, on the other hand, is a definite believer but uses it like a cudgel to hurt people.
Ferret
Amber being Catholic struck me as weird at first until I remembered Daredevil was a thing, and now I totally see it.
David M Willis
look, amber’s #1 problem is guilt
so
BBCC
Catholic guilt.
Inahc
*/ I could really use
To lose my Catholic conscience
‘Cause I’m getting sick
Of feeling guilty all the tiiiime */
Also, Amber being Irish Catholic makes a ton of sense.
Roz…hrm. She seems likes someone who would de-convert. But then, faith is complicated. Is Robin also still Catholic?
Even though there aren’t any non-Abrahamic faiths represented (that we know of; it’d be cool if Nash turned out to be Jain or Sikh), it’s still a lot of diversity compared to most stories with a large cast. I think often characters religions are just never mentioned, which can be safer but not necessarily realistic.
BBCC
Yeah, Mary referred to the DeSantos as Catholic, which is one reason she wouldn’t vote for Robin. Plus, this is the US. It would be a lot harder for Robin to get elected if she weren’t, at least nominally, religious.’ Word of Willis has also said Roz is at least nominally still Catholic, and that very few characters explicitly don’t believe because Indiana has like an 80% majority of folks who at least profess to believe in god (even if the belief isn’t super important to them, like with Billie).
Freemage
Roz is most likely a cultural Catholic who rages against the Church’s teachings on sex and sexuality.
BBCC
I mean, you can be Catholic and hate a LOT of things about the church. Like it’s stances on sex, sexuality, reproductive rights, trans rights, it’s issue with pedophilia, etc.
MatthewTheLucky
Mike hasn’t been on speaking terms with God since he was forced to move out.
I mean… it’s not like you need a reason not to go to church.
Meagan
You do. In the same way you need a reason to not smoke weed.
(This is in reference to the days when I was more surrounded by stoners who would ask me why I don’t smoke weed, as if it was some kind of strange aberration.) hi
Michael Lanting
It stinks isn’t good enough for you?
Dark
I never said you needed a reason not to go to Church.
I just said that Walky’s reason isn’t a good one, since he decided to provide a reason at all.
I wonder why Lucy thought inviting the boy she likes to church was a good idea. I mean, I absolutely loved my church (only reason I stopped going was that we moved), but ‘fun’ and ‘good place to spend time with a crush’ aren’t exactly the descriptions I’d use for the place. Maybe her church is really informal.
Partly I think she’s just not as socially adept as she thinks she is, but also she’s not ashamed of the “uncool” things she likes, so maybe that extends to church? She doesn’t care if it’s seen as “square”, she likes to go to church.
But seriously, yeah, what was she thinking. Especially considering the boy she likes is Walky. Like, one look at the guy should let you know he’s not gonna wake up at 7 AM for anything.
J
See, now I wonder if not knowing Walky is one of the biggest reasons why she likes Walky. 😛
Deanatay
That, and the fact that he’s into cartoons.
Her next seduction technique: get him to sit down and watch TTG with her.
When I was a teenager, I invited the girl I liked to church because I cared about her and at that time, that meant I wanted her to become a believer and be saved. She was never interested, though, and I was never pushy about it, so it didn’t go anywhere.
Inviting crushes to church is actually a common precursor to actual dating for some devout Christians.
Source: I went to a conservative Christian university in South Carolina for a couple years. Only got invited to church once. 🙁 I was one of a small handful of atheists on campus, so I respectfully declined.
Oof yeah, I forgot that’s a thing. Catholic here, was dating a kid who attended a Universal church in the second half of hs. He invited me to his church, to which I (goaded by fam) responded with an invitation to mine (apparently I just…can’t go to any ol’ church, gotta be Catholic) and he balked lmao which was great for me b.c we weren’t going to last. I think it’s a method employed by a number of Christians to attempt to make sure their possible future partner follows their same denomination, partially b.c it’s assumed that whoever strikes first and has the superior religion gets to decide their kids’ faith.
Except he didn’t even remember that he was in the show until this year. This insinuates that he really hasn’t been recognized before (at least not to his face).
I’m with Walky on this one.
I don’t even have anything insightful or clever to say about it.
Don’t go to church, especially out of obligation, just try to be a good person.
How does he not get sick? I bet there’s so many germs at the entrance to his immune system, they’re squeezing into each other at the door and they can’t get in.
That’s not how immune systems work. Bad hygiene does NOT give you a stronger immune system.
Mankind survived before we discovered hygienics in the same way rabbits do – by reproducing at a higher rate than disease, injury, and other forces killed them off. The average lifespan used to be much shorter for a reason.
Indoor Cat
+1
Good grief. Germ Theory: Actually Not “Just A Theory.”
I really wish, like, middle school science classes had a whole unit on germ theory, how we discovered it, how it stood the rigorous testing of the scientific method, why other disease theories were discredited, and how that led to contemporary hygeine practices.
Just…just the sheer ignorance about underlying disease principles in our country is a serious problem. It’s how all these wacky “clean eating” “anti-vaccine” “cure cancer with smoothies” “whatever Gwenyth Paltro is pushing” junk science theories are taking root. People misunderstand the fundamentals, so alternate “theories” seem plausible.
thejeff
Well, it kind of is how immune systems work. There’s at least some evidence that attempting to be too sterile is bad in a number of ways.
OTOH, it’s not how immune systems work when directly exposed to serious illnesses.
Hand-washing in daily life isn’t the panacea some treat it as. Washing (and other sterilization) in hospital settings were serious disease is common is of course critical.
In a communal setting like a college dorm, you’re probably slightly more likely to catch something someone else has if you don’t wash your hands regularly. You’re more likely to transmit something you have. OTOH, many common illnesses are airborne, so it doesn’t matter that much.
Just not washing your hands doesn’t cause germs to spontaneously infect you.
And mostly we survived without handwashing for so long because we lived in small communities with much less and slower travel, so it was harder for diseases to travel as well.
Agemegos
There was an experiment done is a US Army training facility about twenty-some years ago, which I read about in [i]Scientific American[/i].
What they did was to relax the inspection standards for hand-basins so that they only had to be properly clean when inspected once per week instead of pristine twice per day. Then they ordered everyone to wash they hands at least four times per day — once before each meal and at least once more.
The experimenters expected gastroenteritis to decline a bit, which it did. The thin that surprised them was that respiratory tract infections (colds and flu) fell by eighty percent. Since colds and flu made up 70% of the sick call, that means that they reduced the total sick call by 55%.
Wash your hands! Wash your hands! Wash them before you touch food. Wash them before you touch anything moist and pink, such as your lips, eyes, or genitals.
In a similar vein, study after study shows that the main cause of infections in hospitals is that senior staff don’t wash their hands between seeing one patient and the next. The more important people feel, the more likely they are to consider that they are too high-status to be dirty.
IndoorCat
THANK YOU
Inahc
Neat! 🙂
There is definitely such a thing as washing too much, but that doesn’t change the fact that regular washing is good.
175 thoughts on “Play-by-play”
Ana Chronistic
“I’m a somniatheist”
“oh, sorry… please return to your morning service”
Ana Chronistic
alt-text: ok I dated someone who didn’t clean, and yeahhhhhhh *sideeyes with enough force to create whiplash*
Johan
Your poor bits…
Clif
I chose to believe that Walky was asleep for the entire conversation.
Tparadox
My mother says she had a friend in college who went to St. Mattress in her first few Sundays at college.
And then there’s the Mark Lowry bit about shaking off morning people asking him to come to sunrise Bible study by naming his bed The Word, so he could tell his preacher, “I can’t talk now, I’m in The Word”.
TlalocW
I told people I was a Mattress Methodist in high school and college.
Doctor_Who
Lucy swiftly abandons her plans to seduce Walky by telling him to eat up because he’s skinny and come over here so she can pinch his cheeks.
Kim
Haha! 😀
Deanatay
Appealing to Walky’s stomach is a valid means of seducing him. Making him eat his greens is NOT.
ValdVin
I don’t remember anyone asking Walky to church before. I guess the results are predictable from him. (Not to mention, does he still have the same disbeliefs as in It’s Walky?)
mrnoidea
I feel like Walky may have quipped against religion sometime in Book 2. Don’t remember exactly when, though.
DailyBrad
I don’t think he’s religious, no. He’s made a lot of snarky comments about it, though often to get under Joyce’s skin, or when he pretended to be raptured.
Bagge
Also, he already has a free get-to-haven-card since his days as a cute little mouse boy.
Jon Rich
A literal churchmouse.
Schpoonman
In that he is extremely 18 about being an atheist?
Zatar
Walky is one of the few Atheist characters in the comic. I think it’s just him, Ruth and Dorothy.
Meagan
Do we know everyone’s religious affiliation? I don’t think there’s been much diversity in that (maybe realistically for the setting). I want a Pagan character. Samhain is coming up! (In comic).
Also, what about Mike? I don’t think he is religious…and what about Danny? He seems kinda agnostic.
Masumi
And don’t forget about Dina.
KM
As I recall Danny’s probably about as nominally Christian as Billie – I think there was a strip where is mother was asking (over the phone) if he’d found a church to go to yet and he brushed the question off…
thejeff
Mike is as religious as you don’t want him to be.
I think there’s a good deal of diversity, though admittedly mostly fairly mainstream. No pagans. A lot who are nominally something or other, but don’t currently go to services regularly, which is pretty common among college kids away from home for the first time. More non-practicing than agnostic.
Agatha’s Mormon. Raidah’s Muslim (and presumably Asma as well, though we haven’t seen much about her.) Amber and Roz are Catholic. Ethan and Joe are Jewish. Sierra goes to the same church Joyce has been going to, though she obviously comes from a more liberal background.
HeySo
I’m not sure if it was clarified whether or not Sierra went to Joyce’s church more than once [or, in fact, whether Joyce did, as I believe that was the catholic one?].
In any case, just here to note that Sierra stated that her religious background was based in The Church of God. In other words, she was raised under a Pentecostal denomination. While Pentecostal faiths have several traits they can be associated with, the most notable element is their strong association with biblical inerrancy. In other words, Pentecostal denominations are generally not what one would refer to as “liberal”.
More simply put, Sierra’s background is probably very interesting, if she turned out as open as she is for reasons other than teenage rebellion/self-assertment.
In any case, we can at least consider it reasonable to label Sierra, our most likely candidate for paganism, as “Christian”, and leave it at that.
So yeah, I don’t think we’ve seen anyone among the regular cast who is pagan, of any eastern faith, or of any non-major faith. Well, who knows, maybe Sayid’ll surprise us! ..Galasso, probably not.
thejeff
Not the Catholic one. Joyce hasn’t been to a Catholic church. She went to Jacob’s Episcopal church that has similar high church trappings and she only went there once.
She went on her first Sunday to a church that Mary suggested, along with Dorothy and Sierra. It was described as “awesome with a huge congregation” and having electric guitar and drums.
We saw her there at least one more time, again with Sierra, but this time with Ethan in tow (and Mike coming along to heckle.) Or at least I assume it was there, since it seemed similar and there was no mention of seeking another church. We know Joyce has been to church every sunday, but we can only assume it was the same one – other than the week she was home and when she went with Jacob.
There’s also apparently an Indiana version of Church of God that’s not Pentecostal, but does still look pretty conservative.
ValdVin
I think Agatha is a Mormon. There’s a lot of conversations back in the “Choosing My Religion” arc.
ValdVin
…and here I am repeating what Thejeff said. Ugh.
Is Nashita Muslim? She might be but I don’t know if it’s confirmed.
BBCC
Yeah, Agatha is Mormon and Sierra is Church of God. Nash is most likely a Muslim (she has a hijab), as is Asma.
BBCC
Here, have the main characters (as in those on the cast page or with profiles in the books)
Joyce – Nondenominational fundamentalist Protestant
Dorothy – Atheist
Walky – Agnostic of the ‘unconcerned’ variety (word of Willis)
Billie – Christian of some variety, not stated what.
Amber – Catholic (word of Willis)
Danny – Christian of some variety, not stated what.
Ethan – Jewish
Sarah – Not stated
Sal – Agnostic upbringing, went to Catholic school, no word whether any sort of religion ‘took’ (word of willis)
Ruth – Not stated iirc.
Dina – Atheist iirc (though I might be thinking of Walkyverse Dina so don’t quote me on her. Joyce also refers to her as non-Christian, but I’m not sure Joyce is accurate since she believes evolution is incompatible with Christianity)
Becky – Nondenominational fundamentalist Protestant, same as Joyce.
Joe – Jewish
Mike – Not stated, iirc.
Roz – Catholic
Jacob – Episcopalian
Marcie – Catholic (word of Willis)
Carla – Not stated
Leslie – Atheist
Malaya – Not stated
Lucy – Christian of some variety, not sure what. She was some stripe of ‘born again’ in Walkyverse, though.
Mary – Nondenominational fundamentalist Protestant
Raidah – Muslim.
According to Willis, most of the kids believe in god (as is true in real life Indiana) but whether or not that’s important to them varies. Billie, for instance, doesn’t place super great importance on her faith (and Danny says ‘church isn’t really super exciting or anything’). Meanwhile, Becky is faithful but irreverent (unless it’s important) and Joyce has it all memorized and internalized. Mary, on the other hand, is a definite believer but uses it like a cudgel to hurt people.
Ferret
Amber being Catholic struck me as weird at first until I remembered Daredevil was a thing, and now I totally see it.
David M Willis
look, amber’s #1 problem is guilt
so
BBCC
Catholic guilt.
Inahc
*/ I could really use
To lose my Catholic conscience
‘Cause I’m getting sick
Of feeling guilty all the tiiiime */
Kamino Neko
Why?
Indoor Cat
Thank you for the list! This is helpful.
Also, Amber being Irish Catholic makes a ton of sense.
Roz…hrm. She seems likes someone who would de-convert. But then, faith is complicated. Is Robin also still Catholic?
Even though there aren’t any non-Abrahamic faiths represented (that we know of; it’d be cool if Nash turned out to be Jain or Sikh), it’s still a lot of diversity compared to most stories with a large cast. I think often characters religions are just never mentioned, which can be safer but not necessarily realistic.
BBCC
Yeah, Mary referred to the DeSantos as Catholic, which is one reason she wouldn’t vote for Robin. Plus, this is the US. It would be a lot harder for Robin to get elected if she weren’t, at least nominally, religious.’ Word of Willis has also said Roz is at least nominally still Catholic, and that very few characters explicitly don’t believe because Indiana has like an 80% majority of folks who at least profess to believe in god (even if the belief isn’t super important to them, like with Billie).
Freemage
Roz is most likely a cultural Catholic who rages against the Church’s teachings on sex and sexuality.
BBCC
I mean, you can be Catholic and hate a LOT of things about the church. Like it’s stances on sex, sexuality, reproductive rights, trans rights, it’s issue with pedophilia, etc.
MatthewTheLucky
Mike hasn’t been on speaking terms with God since he was forced to move out.
Foxhack
As far as reasons for not going to church go, Walky’s is a good one.
Wizard
Close enough, Walky. Close enough.
Dark
I mean it’s certainly not the worst I’ve heard, but I’d hesitate to call it good.
Kim
I mean… it’s not like you need a reason not to go to church.
Meagan
You do. In the same way you need a reason to not smoke weed.
(This is in reference to the days when I was more surrounded by stoners who would ask me why I don’t smoke weed, as if it was some kind of strange aberration.) hi
Michael Lanting
It stinks isn’t good enough for you?
Dark
I never said you needed a reason not to go to Church.
I just said that Walky’s reason isn’t a good one, since he decided to provide a reason at all.
WingedBeast
I can see certain problems with Walky’s belief system… but he could do worse.
das-g
Oh, well, almost every believe system comes with some problems.
BBCC
I was about to say ‘Oooh, sweet, more Walkerton family info’ but then I read the alt text and I think I’m about to throw up in my mouth.
Walky, WASH YOUR HANDS.
Doctor_Who
Everyone knows germs can’t stick to McNuggets, they’re too greasy!
J
I wonder why Lucy thought inviting the boy she likes to church was a good idea. I mean, I absolutely loved my church (only reason I stopped going was that we moved), but ‘fun’ and ‘good place to spend time with a crush’ aren’t exactly the descriptions I’d use for the place. Maybe her church is really informal.
J
(aaaaaand I have no clue why my above comment is nested here. whoops?)
Sporky
Partly I think she’s just not as socially adept as she thinks she is, but also she’s not ashamed of the “uncool” things she likes, so maybe that extends to church? She doesn’t care if it’s seen as “square”, she likes to go to church.
But seriously, yeah, what was she thinking. Especially considering the boy she likes is Walky. Like, one look at the guy should let you know he’s not gonna wake up at 7 AM for anything.
J
See, now I wonder if not knowing Walky is one of the biggest reasons why she likes Walky. 😛
Deanatay
That, and the fact that he’s into cartoons.
Her next seduction technique: get him to sit down and watch TTG with her.
Jamie
When I was a teenager, I invited the girl I liked to church because I cared about her and at that time, that meant I wanted her to become a believer and be saved. She was never interested, though, and I was never pushy about it, so it didn’t go anywhere.
Cryny
Inviting crushes to church is actually a common precursor to actual dating for some devout Christians.
Source: I went to a conservative Christian university in South Carolina for a couple years. Only got invited to church once. 🙁 I was one of a small handful of atheists on campus, so I respectfully declined.
tirachokko
Oof yeah, I forgot that’s a thing. Catholic here, was dating a kid who attended a Universal church in the second half of hs. He invited me to his church, to which I (goaded by fam) responded with an invitation to mine (apparently I just…can’t go to any ol’ church, gotta be Catholic) and he balked lmao which was great for me b.c we weren’t going to last. I think it’s a method employed by a number of Christians to attempt to make sure their possible future partner follows their same denomination, partially b.c it’s assumed that whoever strikes first and has the superior religion gets to decide their kids’ faith.
Yumi
If I were Walky, I wouldn’t have answered my door. I feel like maybe Mike opened it and shoved him out of bed to the floor in front of it.
Yumi
The first sentence isn’t anti-Lucy, by the way; it’s just pro-sleeping.
Stephen Bierce
I would have thought it would have been “chorus kids keep chasing me and asking for my autograph” or somesuch.
Terry
Except he didn’t even remember that he was in the show until this year. This insinuates that he really hasn’t been recognized before (at least not to his face).
Rocketboy1313
I’m with Walky on this one.
I don’t even have anything insightful or clever to say about it.
Don’t go to church, especially out of obligation, just try to be a good person.
mrnoidea
How does he not get sick? I bet there’s so many germs at the entrance to his immune system, they’re squeezing into each other at the door and they can’t get in.
mrnoidea
*re: alt text*
abysswatcher1993
So Walky has the Three Stooges Syndrome?
Arianod
He’s indestructible!
Agemegos
How does he not reek? He doesn’t wash his clothes and doesn’t change his underwear.
Deanatay
He puts on deodorant. I’m sure he has layers old old deodorant on his body, kind of like layers of lacquer on old wood.
Amazi-Stool
How did mankind survive in the like several-hundred-thousand years without immediate access to a lavatory?
The answer is: the human body has an immune-system and you are not doing yourself any advantage if you do not train it.
Michael Haneline
That’s not how immune systems work. Bad hygiene does NOT give you a stronger immune system.
Mankind survived before we discovered hygienics in the same way rabbits do – by reproducing at a higher rate than disease, injury, and other forces killed them off. The average lifespan used to be much shorter for a reason.
Indoor Cat
+1
Good grief. Germ Theory: Actually Not “Just A Theory.”
I really wish, like, middle school science classes had a whole unit on germ theory, how we discovered it, how it stood the rigorous testing of the scientific method, why other disease theories were discredited, and how that led to contemporary hygeine practices.
Just…just the sheer ignorance about underlying disease principles in our country is a serious problem. It’s how all these wacky “clean eating” “anti-vaccine” “cure cancer with smoothies” “whatever Gwenyth Paltro is pushing” junk science theories are taking root. People misunderstand the fundamentals, so alternate “theories” seem plausible.
thejeff
Well, it kind of is how immune systems work. There’s at least some evidence that attempting to be too sterile is bad in a number of ways.
OTOH, it’s not how immune systems work when directly exposed to serious illnesses.
Hand-washing in daily life isn’t the panacea some treat it as. Washing (and other sterilization) in hospital settings were serious disease is common is of course critical.
In a communal setting like a college dorm, you’re probably slightly more likely to catch something someone else has if you don’t wash your hands regularly. You’re more likely to transmit something you have. OTOH, many common illnesses are airborne, so it doesn’t matter that much.
Just not washing your hands doesn’t cause germs to spontaneously infect you.
And mostly we survived without handwashing for so long because we lived in small communities with much less and slower travel, so it was harder for diseases to travel as well.
Agemegos
There was an experiment done is a US Army training facility about twenty-some years ago, which I read about in [i]Scientific American[/i].
What they did was to relax the inspection standards for hand-basins so that they only had to be properly clean when inspected once per week instead of pristine twice per day. Then they ordered everyone to wash they hands at least four times per day — once before each meal and at least once more.
The experimenters expected gastroenteritis to decline a bit, which it did. The thin that surprised them was that respiratory tract infections (colds and flu) fell by eighty percent. Since colds and flu made up 70% of the sick call, that means that they reduced the total sick call by 55%.
Wash your hands! Wash your hands! Wash them before you touch food. Wash them before you touch anything moist and pink, such as your lips, eyes, or genitals.
In a similar vein, study after study shows that the main cause of infections in hospitals is that senior staff don’t wash their hands between seeing one patient and the next. The more important people feel, the more likely they are to consider that they are too high-status to be dirty.
IndoorCat
THANK YOU
Inahc
Neat! 🙂
There is definitely such a thing as washing too much, but that doesn’t change the fact that regular washing is good.