Washing Away Our Sins Away - Literally?

Sept. 7, 2006 — Germs may not be the only things you're washing away at the sink.

Washing one's hands may also give the feeling of washing away your sins or cleansing a dirty conscience, reveals a new report in the journal Science.
 

Physical cleanliness is linked to moral or spiritual cleanliness in religions and cultures worldwide.
 

Scientists have finally put that concept to the test and have found that physical and moral purity are indeed psychologically intertwined — and sometimes even interchangeable.
 

"Showering — a simple everyday activity — is linked to morality in a way we never knew," said study co-author Katie Liljenquist of Northwestern University.
 

Liljenquist and her colleagues were inspired to research the phenomenon of the sense of linkage between physical cleanliness and morality after remarking that movie characters almost always showered after committing a heinous crime.
 

"Showering can feel so good," Liljenquist said, "like it's more than something physical. We wondered if there was something more to that."

FULL STORY at
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2405530&page=1
 
(1 John 1:5-10, "This is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.")