Talk:Ritual purification

Stubby
This page was a candidate for Stubsensor cleanup project. I think the page as a whole doesn't count as a stub, but individual sections certainly do, so I've decided to leave the stub tag on for now. --RoySmith 01:48, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC) -cleanup project? I see what you did there...

WTF
WTF? Does a encyclopedia start in this way?!

"There are strong similarities between the cleansing actions engaged in by obsessive compulsive disorder sufferers and those of religious purification rites."

Is that NPOV? --Striver 03:09, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Merger
I would oppose merging this article with the one on Ablution. Ablution referrs specifically to washing with water; whereas ritual purification referrs to maintaining a state of ritual cleanness--which may be accomplished as much by abstainig from certain behaviors as by performing certain acts (which may or may not involve the use of water). MishaPan 18:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced claims
Just a reminder that comparative theories about the nature or origin of ritual purification rituals require sources. Best, --Shirahadasha 22:56, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Content from 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia
I would encourage not using the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia as a source on contemporary Judaism. An example of how unreliable it can be is an edit made to the Ritual purification article, which included the claim, based on the Jewish Encyclopedia, that full body immersion by men has largely gone out of practice in contemporary Judaism. Things have changed a lot since 1906. Chabad-Lubavitch, among other Hassidic groups, practices daily full ritual immersion for men. They were a tiny obscure group in 1906 and could reasonably be ignored when the Jewish Encyclopedia was written, but their explosive growth has made their views and practices highly influential today. --Shirahadasha 22:31, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Why not a "Ritual purity" article?
I think the topic of ritual purity/impurity cannot be properly exhausted in an article called "Ritual purification". Christianity is a case in point: It does have rituals of purification in the liturgy, but it does not have the idea of ritual purity/impurity as such, while this is very strong in Islam, Judaism etc. (see impurity of dogs, swine, certain foods, menstruation etc. which does not exist in Christianity). The Hindu caste system should also be tackled here, as far as it concerns purity/impurity. Lumendelumine (talk) 14:38, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

section on Catholicism flawed
The whole article reads like a 4th-year paper for a class on sociology of religion. The comment about "bodily fluids" in the lede does not apply to Catholicism. Catholic churches do not have "lavers" but fonts; the holy water in them is not a ritual cleansing but a blessing, reminiscent of baptism but not repeating it. Confession is not a ritual purification as Catholic thinking doesn't have such a concept. In short, the way that ritual purification as defined at the beginning is applied to Catholicism is a sort of original research, which in addition to being wrong for Wikipedia, is wrong in its facts. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 16:57, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
 * And some passages are simply ridiculous. A blog article about bidets in Finland which does not even remotely draw any connection to Christianity is used to support the claim that bidets are somehow connected to "Biblical toilet etiquette". Seriously?
 * This use of sources makes me doubt the other ones. What do the sources #26-28 really say? --91.34.43.26 (talk) 10:21, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Omissions
The article suffers from a glaring omission - the parts of the New Testament of the Bible referring to ritual purity, such as Mathew 15:17-20 and Acts 10:28, are not mentioned at all. Binuj20 (talk) 11:01, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Mark 7:2-5 also is a nice one.
 * But there are more omissions than that. An article on ritual purity that does not even mention the concept of Kashrut cannot be considered complete. --91.34.43.26 (talk) 10:21, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Zoroastrian Cleaning
Probably need a newer source than this for such an important topic, but apparently among Zoroastrians cow's urine went from being a preventative/cure against leprosy to being a common daily ablution to avoid disease and evil spirits, with goats' urine and human urine being used as substitutes into the early 20th century. This was apparently most prominently expounded in Avesta's Vendidad and would merit inclusion here if true. — Llywelyn II   09:27, 11 April 2022 (UTC)