Subject: Re: Circumcision
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 12:44:55 +1200
From: "David Bisman" <
Organization: The Internet Group (Dunedin)
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian,aus.religion,nz.soc.religion 
>>Tigger wrote:
>>> > I once knew an atheist of this same opinion. Yet he was relating to
me
>>> >how he caught a certain desease which he had to get circumcised in
order to cure it.

>>> > Now is that poetic justice or what ?

And an awful lot of people got on their high horses about circumcision. As a
Jew, I have some observations: I had a religious bris (circumcision) as a
child and am perfectly happy about that. Due to my being a mutant (or some
such thing) enough foreskin grew back to necessitate hospitalisation and a
second job at age 11 (my definite choice).

I have, therefore, experienced the religious rite and the clinical act. I
recommend the religious rite any day. In an earlier discussion (over a year
ago) on this list I was forced to re-examine my ingrained attitudes to
circumcision, I have given the subject an awful lot of thought since then.

I am glad I was circumcised *for purely religious reasons* and would advise
any non-semite to avoid it. Claims regarding hygeine and clinical necessity
are, for the most part, spurious. On the other hand I find the practice of
excising a small piece of foreskin on the eighth day of life to mark
religious membership of a particular tribe infinately more appealing than
the hateful and vindictive doctrines of original sin and eternal damnation!

Were I to have a son (ain't never gonna happen, but as an hypothetical) I
would proudly have him circumcised on the eighth day by a Mohel in a
religious ceremony that would mark him as one of an unbroken chain going
back five thousand seven hundred and fifty nine years. To fail in this
regard would, in my opinion, be to dishonour my ancestors, particularly
those who suffered and died at the hands of the ignorant (from Pharoanic
Egypt to twentieth century California, from Ancient Babylon to modern
Germany, from Assyrian Kings to British Generals).

As to why female "circumcision" is different - the facts speak for
themselves. There is no comparison between a clitorectomy and the removal of
a boy's foreskin. Even the religion that its practitioners profess forbids
female "circumcision" (Islam is way more elightened on matters of
sexuality
than Christendom) because it destroys the woman's ability to receive
pleasure from the sex act, this is a God given ability and the removal of it
is, therefore, a denial of God (or so I believe the Islamic theology runs).

Cheers anyway

David Bisman

Dunedin