Nordic countries may finally ban circumcision.

[Craig B]

I do have a question for some of the Jewish people here. Considering that Judaism appears to be a religion that pretty much based around Rules Lawyering, why is it that when you are to be circumcised is fixed?

Judaism is also pretty much based on the holy book, which says eight days, and that's that.

 

[Abooga]

I... think you haven't done much research on this thing.



Talk about your faint praise! Actually, as of 2008 Europe and America Pew Global Attitudes survey, America tested as substantially less antisemitic than any of the other countries surveyed. Except for England, which was pretty close behind. Holy crap, though. Recently, it has actually been getting worse in all the other countries.

Especially Spain. **** you too, Spain.

Completely off topic but in the case of Spain that statistic must surely be the result of the Spanish recent increasing animosity against Muslims, specially Moroccans. Very little antisemitism in Spain (having expelled Jews centuries ago we hardly remember them). But we seem to be importing all the Moroccan thieves and rapists and people are quite fed up. It´s quite a contrast with the other immigrant communities, central africans or eastern europeans for example are quite well regarded.

Sorry for the off topic comment but I wanted to "clean the name" of the spaniards. We might be a corrupt and lazy people but at least we are not anti-semitic. (in general).

EDIT:
Actually the statistic also shows unfavorable views against jews. I suspect the Palestinian issue is to blame here.

 

[catsmate]

I was answering a compound question. Since circumcision is in Europe almost always carried out for religious rather than aesthetic reasons.

Well there are a tiny number of medically justified circumcisions.

Where's the moral indignation about pediatric orthdontia?

Regardless of the benefit,<snip>

And there you have it, there's an actual medically justifiable benefit from such procedures, unlike circumcision.

Think of what you could do if you abandoned your fallacies.

Pot <-> Kettle.

Oh, but there was - by that poster and at least one other. When you say that a religious practice should be banned because it harms children in that religion, you are dictating how the religion is observed.

Wrong. The proposed legal changes are not (as you and a few others keep insisting) aimed at one religion but at protecting children.

Some have said that they see no reason why Jews couldn't continue to be Jews without circumcision. That's exactly the same thing as determining which religious practices Jews can do with and which they can do without. There's really no one here who can make that determination, though that poster and others kep trying.

You may be unaware of this, but there is actually an active debate within Judaism about circumcision.

Nonsense. Laws requiring a reading test to register to vote were aimed at ensuring that voters could at least understand their ballots. Those laws had a disparate impact on African-Americans. You propose a law that will have a disparate impact on the practice of Judaism. I see no difference.

Perhaps because you're looking through the filter of your beliefs?

The right to bodily integrity is a fundamental human right.

A good start.

And parents act for the child when deciding how to exercise that right. They substitute their judgement for the child because the child cannot exercise his judgment independently.

Sorry but no. There are plenty of justified restrictions on what parents can do to their children.

How about those parents who decide to remove life support from their sick child? Surely, if the right to an unscathed penis trumps the parents' decision, the right to life must. It may only be a few days or hours more of life - one filled with pain and torment.

Oh dear jeebus this is a truly silly strawman.

I'm guessing you do support the rights of parents to withhold nutrition and other life-saving medicine from their children in certain unhappy circumstances. So, your argument from some sort of rule about bodily integrity is really just an end-oriented way of saying that you personally don't agree with circumcision so it just shouldn't happen.

And this one is no better. Have you no actual, valid, logical arguments that you feel the need to resort to this?

Babies cannot make any decisions. They're babies. Someone has to make decisions for them. The choices are: the children's parents or you. I vote for the parents.

So you don't accept any restrictions on what parents can do to their children?

 

[catsmate]

You can condemn it all day and all night and nobody would have a problem with that. However, what you are actually doing is advocating that it be made illegal. Were that to occur, the rights of Jews to freely practice their religion will have been dashed to bits.

Overly dramatic strawman.

That you have devoted exactly zero thought to articulating any observable benefits that society would derive from such a ban

1. Fewer dead children
2. Fewer children requiring additional medical/surgical intervention later in life
3. Reduced sexual dysfunction
4. Reduced medical expenditures

let alone a benefit large enough to justify the enormity of denying a perfectly functional minority ethnic group's ability to preserve their own religious and cultural identity!--leads me to believe that your true motivations have less to do with improving societal welfare and more to do with your desire to suppress activities that you personally find to be distasteful.

I'm curious, how many dead children (per year per million adherents, say) is an acceptable level for a "perfectly functional minority ethnic group" to "preserve their own religious and cultural identity"?

leads me to believe that your true motivations have less to do with improving societal welfare and more to do with your desire to suppress activities that you personally find to be distasteful.

Wow, with this mind reading ability you should apply for the million dollar prize.

It will be worth the price of Admission to see the "Nordic Countries" try to enforce a No Circumcision on their Muslim populations. They will get their cities burned down in short order by the followers of the "religion of peace".

Gee, you really don't understand reality do you?

Really?

Why?

Why is a level of unnecessary, unwarranted genital mutilation justified?

If you're proposing to change the laws in a way which restricts a human right as fundamental as the practice of free religion,
Actually the law is already in place.

the burden isn't on the religious people to justify why they should be allowed to do their stuff.

Why not? "Because my religion says so" isn't a justification for genital mutilation

Instead, it is up to you to explain why you think such a change would do more good than harm.

No. I am under no burden to justify ending male genital mutilation. You're attempting to twist the debate to conceal your inability to argue convincingly in support of you thesis.

We already know that you find circumcision repugnant, but your personal revulsion with a practice does not constitute a persuasive argument for its criminalization.

Strawman.

To justify that, you have to explain how you think that outlawing circumcision will lead to a concrete improvement in the quality of life of the people who live in your country. And it better be a big damn improvement, because you're weighing it against the curtailment of free right to religion in your country.

No. Again what acts do you consider too morally repugnant to be justified by "religious freedom"? Discrimination? Physical abuse? Rape? Murder?

But despite your all your talk of sado-masochism and mutilation, you haven't presented any evidence that circumcision actually has a detrimental effect on the quality of life of the people who've been circumcised. So... why are you so concerned?

That was done in the previous thread, I suggest you examine the studies on the negative effects of circumcision.

So what? It doesn't matter that the text of the law doesn't explicitly say anything about restricting religious practices specifically. The fact is that if the law is instituted, it will have the inevitable effect of--surprise!--restricting freedom of religion. Or do you think it would pass religious freedom scrutiny if a country decided to outlaw cross-shaped objects (what pointy edges they've got!) or sprinkling water on children (my god-nephew got water up his nose!) Neither of those things are inherently religious, after all.

Gee, more strawmen................
Though I would support enforcement of safety standard on hold water, no more cases of disease transmission.

So it would be cool with you if we outlawed crosses and water-sprinklings? After all, Christians can just put wooden spheres on their church buildings and start baptising their kids by briefly setting them down next to sno-globes. No biggie, right?

Those things don't make permanent physical changes in the person bearing the crucifix or having water sprinkled over them.

Don't you spot the difference?

Possibly not, though s/he may just be engaging in strawmannery due to lack of coherent arguments.

Yeah, and I suppose that a ban on inter-racial is equally discriminatory again those who marry their own race because they are equally fobidden from marrying members of other race and anti-sodomy laws are just as discriminatory again heterosexuals because they are equally forbidden from participating in the same sex acts homosexuals are.

Actually "anti-sodomy" laws do tend to effect heterosexuals more.
However are you attempting to make a point?

It speaks a lot to the endemic anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in Europe

Evidence of this?

if Europeans are advancing the same defenses of legal proscriptions against circumcision as Europeans roundly (and rightfully) comdemn Americans for advancing against racial and sexual equality.

Wow, that might be the greatest strawman argument advanced in this thread so far.

By the way, in US jurisprudence, there are times when discriminatory laws are upheld under strict scrutiny^WP, but those judicial decisions (e.g.Korematsu v United^WP) are usually pursued all the way to the Supreme Court and are, to this day, themselves extremely contraversial, leading most often a de facto reversal of the decision. The European anti-circumcision statutes fail to meet any of the prongs of strict scrutiny, which is why they meet with such vehement opposition when addressed from US jurisprudential principles.

So what?

That all of the religious practices that circumcision opponents equate with circumcision (e.g., human sacrifice, infant rape, and now cannablism) violate other principles than bodily integrity, so claiming that allowing circumcision entails allowing these other religious practices that allegedly violate bodily is in fact a red herring because, for instance, human sacrifice and cannibalism violate taboos against killing people.

Sigh. A number of the supporters of infant genital mutilation advance, presumably through lack of better arguments, "religious freedom" to justify this practice. However they (and you) are unwilling to state just what practices aren't justified by "religious freedom".

 

[sphenisc]

Judaism is also pretty much based on the holy book, which says eight days, and that's that.

There was one Jewish guy who proved that in the right reference frame eight days could equal eighteen years.

 

[Craig B]

There was one Jewish guy who proved that in the right reference frame eight days could equal eighteen years.

So he did. I suppose you could place an infant in a space vehicle and accelerate it and him to near-luminal speeds, but I think common or garden circumcision would be less stressful, all things considered.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Just use the definition of "days" used in Genesis...

 

[Sockor]

The latest in Finland is that there will be no new legislation concerning circumcision during the current government's term. So jews and muslims can sleep soundly for now, the order for barbed wire has been cancelled.
http://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/Poikien+ym...tulossa+lakia+eikä+ohjeistusta/a1381120381758

 

[ABC10]

The latest in Finland is that there will be no new legislation concerning circumcision during the current government's term. So jews and muslims can sleep soundly for now, the order for barbed wire has been cancelled.
http://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/Poikien+ym...tulossa+lakia+eikä+ohjeistusta/a1381120381758

No surprise. We don't know how long G-d considers a day. Probably not 24 hours.

 

[zooterkin]

Just use the definition of "days" used in Genesis...

...by some fundamentalist Christians. As far as I'm aware, Jews are not much given to belief in biblical inerrancy.

 

[The Big Dog]

Well there are a tiny number of medically justified circumcisions.


And there you have it, there's an actual medically justifiable benefit from such procedures, unlike circumcision.


P

My kids' pediatrician would disagree,

/Not Jewish or Muslim or religious.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

My kids' pediatrician would disagree,

/Not Jewish or Muslim or religious.

Maybe I'm slow, but with what claim?

 

[The Big Dog]

Maybe I'm slow, but with what claim?

This one:

"And there you have it, there's an actual medically justifiable benefit from such procedures, unlike circumcision."

 

[colander]

EDIT:
Actually the statistic also shows unfavorable views against jews. I suspect the Palestinian issue is to blame here.

So Spanish people aren't antisemitic, but if they are, it's the Jews' fault.

Cool story.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

This one:

"And there you have it, there's an actual medically justifiable benefit from such procedures, unlike circumcision."

Keep going...

Are we interpreting that we are talking about circumcision for medical problems, and not routine, ritual circumcision? Or are we saying that certain decreased risks (UTI or STD) justify it medically?

Or are we going with orthodontia having no medical justification?

 

[The Big Dog]

Keep going...

Are we interpreting that we are talking about circumcision for medical problems, and not routine, ritual circumcision? Or are we saying that certain decreased risks (UTI or STD) justify it medically?

Or are we going with orthodontia having no medical justification?

Our pediatrician recommended circumcision for prophylactic (no pun intended) medical reasons.

 

[ehcks]

Our pediatrician recommended circumcision for prophylactic (no pun intended) medical reasons.

Severe phimosis when multiple other treatments failed?

 

[Craig B]

No surprise. We don't know how long G-d considers a day. Probably not 24 hours.

Genesis 1:5

And the evening and the morning were the first day.

So 24 hours, but starting at sunset, not like us at midnight. But 24 hours. That's how long G-d considers a d-y.

 

[colander]

Keep going...

Are we interpreting that we are talking about circumcision for medical problems, and not routine, ritual circumcision? Or are we saying that certain decreased risks (UTI or STD) justify it medically?

Or are we going with orthodontia having no medical justification?

In my country, the vast majority of orthodontic procedures carried out on children are not at all medically necessary and are done strictly for cosmetic reasons. Orthodontic braces are painful to install and make the teeth much more difficult to clean properly.

So should we pass laws against doing elective orthodontic procedures on children?

 

[Craig B]

In my country, the vast majority of orthodontic procedures carried out on children are not at all medically necessary and are done strictly for cosmetic reasons. Orthodontic braces are painful to install and make the teeth much more difficult to clean properly.

So should we pass laws against doing elective orthodontic procedures on children?

Again, is circumcision carried out for cosmetic reasons, or is that why it is defended so strongly? Cosmetic surgical procedures are in any case valid medical activities in very many cases.