(August 15, 2013 at 3:06 pm)Simon Moon Wrote:(August 15, 2013 at 9:01 am)Maelstrom Wrote: Religion is to humanity as the appendix is to the human body.
While I like the idea of your analogy, it has recently been discovered that the appendix does have a function.
It turns out that the appendix is a store house for beneficial bacteria. If a person contracts a disease, such as cholera, that kills of the friendly fauna in the gut, the friendly fauna stored in the appendix are able to 'reboot' the gut.
"Scientists from the Duke University Medical Centre in North Carolina say following a severe bout of cholera or dysentery, which can purge the gut of bacteria essential for digestion, the reserve good bacteria emerge from the appendix to take up the role."
Maybe you should change your analogy to wisdom teeth or goose bumps...
Interesting. This may explain why, when I had a life-threatening case of pneumonia in January of this year (where my natural bacteria were wiped out by the antibiotic treatment), that it took many weeks for my digestive system to fully recover. My appendix burst and was removed in 1982.
