Just using my rational head here and thinking cap . . .
I have a recent clinical workplace background which included training in infection control.
This reignited a long held belief of mine that the religious views of Muslims actually were formulated by the realisation of hygeine principals and in a period of ignorance of microbiology as a medieval society human suffering was attributed to some higher power in the case of technical ignorance.
Food poisoning and death was probably attributed to not the devil as such as Muslims don't seem to have any opposite belief as Christians developed the theory of Heaven and Hell Muslims only feted one entity that of Allah.
If things went tits up for you it wasn't the devil but in fact your own God who you religiously pray to who had decided to give you a hard time... anyway back to the original point.
Muslims have a great deal of laws and traditions all based around touching.
You can't shake a Muslim by the right hand or you will have made it impossible for him to continue his daily prayers. You are unclean and by your act of touching him you have made him unclean also and now he wont be able to pray so you have upset him. The reason being and here is where microbiology comes in. Muslims eat with their left hand and wipe their bottoms with their right hand..
Here we can see the direct link between religious beliefs and hygeine. It makes perfect sense living in a desert where water is sparse to eat with one hand and wipe your ass with another. Ecoli has unwittingly become a God who will administer death if you don't respect his rules.
Is this why Muslims dont encourage education because the realisation that Allah is in fact a microscopic Bactrrium would be a bit silly?
But back to Pork. Pork goes off faster than any meat and also has a bad habit in its uncooked state of causing parasitic worms and food poisoning. It rots quicker in the heat. Even in a fridge Pork will go rancid if not eaten within its best by date and noone would risk out of date pork would they. It would have been an easy assumption to believe that Pork was somehow evil. Indeed in the bible pigs have a special mention
http://bible.org/seriespage/demons-and-pigs-matthew-828-34
So Pork is bad and in a desert society rightly so but poor things it's NOT THEIR FAULT.
There are other religious rules in Islam relating to urinating . We have toilets that you sit on but sadly these are not acceptable. Islam toilets must be ground level like the hole in the ground ones found in France etc.
Again this also relates to reventing splashes of urine...
http://islamqa.info/en/ref/9790
and shoes! shoes walk around all over the animal crap so the soles of your shoes become full of bacteria . . or if unshod your feet or indeed the soles of your feet become full of bacteria and guess what? The Muslims have a really nasty hatred of the soles of feet and shoes so much so that is why you FACE Mecca to pray as exposing the soles of your feet to anyone is the biggest insult you can do to a Muslim. Hence the shoe throwing events at political meetings.
So again Microscopic organisms have shaped cultural thinking and in the absence of scientific knowledge poor ol Allah gets another new rule made up.
Its easy to see why a society like ours which at times has seen us throw our crap out into the street was seen as 'unclean' because well we were a bit minging back then weren't we and yes by not following Mr Ecoli and friends rules we were actually 'unclean' in Muslims eyes but not for the reasons they thought.
In our temperate climate bacteria dont grow as fast and also because our gut bacterial balance is based on our habits we have a better resistance to eating crap 'Hooray for Kebabs on a Friday night eh'.
Ironically after having infection control training I now find a trip to MaccyDs fraught with horror as I realise kids pee or crap , dont wash their hands and then touch everything. The lack of proper plates and food eaten with fingers . (quick digression here Eating utensils were the western worlds solution to hygeine as if you dont touch your food with your fingers then you dont transfer the crap into it, so it wasn't all manners and breeding but hygiene again.)
Now of course westerners eat food with unwashed hands - Outbreaks of Ecoli and winter vomiting bug get worse every year and hospitals are not the clean places they should be.
In a word lazyness . . .
Now wasn't there a phrase? Ah yes Cleanliness is next to Godliness
Your welcome to tinker around with my thoughts on this subject as they are just a quick threading together of ideas but I think there is mileage in the concept that in fact the creation of religious entities was spurred on purely by an ignorance of microbiology.
Oh and Muslims bury their dead within 24hrs too again why do you think this is because Allah decrees it or Mr Strep' has an word in it?
