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Nuns Donate Their Brains to Alzheimer's Research

Many Catholic religious orders are participating in a long range Alzheimer's disease study. Rush University's Religious Orders Study began in 1993 and tracks the participants' mental abilities through yearly memory testing. In addition to the annual tests, the study subjects agree to donate their brains. From the article: "The researchers sought members of religious orders, hoping they would be willing to donate and would not have children or spouses interfering with that arrangement at the last minute. More than 1,100 nuns, priests and brothers across the country representing a wide range of ethnic groups are taking part."

5 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Mental Capabilities? by drsmack1 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    How about we let them use yours instead? Get a donor card - Monty Python style.

  2. Re:Mental Capabilities? by vadim_t · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Just one of these women does more real, genuine capital 'G' Good in a week than a land-fill of snarky Internet tough guys like you will do in your entire life.

    Such as?

    Honest question, no intention of trolling. It's my understanding that nuns largely remove themselves from normal society, and as such don't really do much good in the way I understand it.

    Note that as an atheist my definition of "good", especially with a "capital G" doesn't include religious functions that don't benefit the society outside their environment, such as praying, singing and baking cookies to sustain themselves.

  3. Re:Mental Capabilities? by vadim_t · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    That I would consider a good thing indeed, so long that they don't follow Mother Theresa's footsteps.

    All I've read about her makes her considerably more evil than good in my view. She expressed a very bizarre love for poverty. Not for poor people and their problems, but poverty. As in she seems to have believed that being in a seriously screwed up situation of abject poverty is a good and virtuous thing, and that her task is to sort of bask in that atmosphere without trying to fix it.

    A quote of hers that expresses this view is: "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."

    From what I've read, her care consisted mostly of prayer, offered no real help, medicine, painkillers, and involved reuse of syringes, when she was getting tons of donations that would have allowed her to do much better. People who were curable were just let to lie in a bed without painkiller or any real assistance. That's not good, that's greatly harmful. And combined with the amount of donations she failed to use use for helping people, and that seem to have ended up in a bank account at the Vatican, makes her greatly evil in my view.

    Then there's the whole railing against birth control thing, but even where she could have helped in a way that wouldn't have conflicted with her religion, she still did a really horrible job.

    I hope that if there are any nuns trying to help that they do what she should have actually been doing, helping people, instead of what she did.

  4. Re:As someone who has worked with Religious Folk. by TheTyrannyOfForcedRe · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Just because you don't agree with their religion or religion in general, don't let yourself think for a second that these people are any less then you.

    They are key members of a worldwide organization that harbors a large number of repeat child molesters. The Catholic Church knowingly puts vulnerable children in close proximity with molesters, fails to warn parents about priests who have a history "problems," and it doesn't cooperate with law enforcement investigation. The Church does everything possible to cover up it's dirty little secret with no regard to the life destroying damage it causes in the process.

    It doesn't take much to be better than that.

    --
    "Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
  5. Re:As someone who has worked with Religious Folk. by commodore64_love · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The fact your well-reasoned, well-written, and logical post was marked "trolll" is proof positive that the Slashdot mods are asses (and the system is broke).

    The anti-religious bigotry in this thread is disgusting. Are you members of a KKK splinter group that desires to castrate and lynch nuns, imams, and other religious persons? As was done to blacks? Fucking intolerant bigots.

    I would mod your post +1 insightful if I had the ability. I don't agree with all the points of your post but enjoyed it nonetheless.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall