Summations Only

So...cutting skin off of a penis somehow relates not just as a correlation, but is in fact somehow a cause of increased wealth accumulation and cultural survival (side note: holy shit that's racist). You cannot tell us how penile skin removal causes these things, but you believe the causal relationship to be there; you can be no more specific than telling us that "there must be a good reason that God told us to do it."Huh.

Buz, that's nonsense.Just nonsense.

You are a great asset to my cause Buz, thank you. Or they just stumbled onto the fact that waiting a week is a good idea because of all the babies the bled to death when they tried it too early.Given a choice between that quite mundane and probable explanation and an invisible sky dictator gifting them with the knowledge of the proper way to mutilate a child without killing it, I'll happily choose the mundane.

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Circumcision is in no way a form of mutilation. Removing a child's tonsils when not necessarily would be more mutilative to children. It's is a Biblical procedure for a good purpose. It is to tone down a child's desire for sex before maturity. It likely lessens criminal rape incidents, etc,

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God commanded his messianic nation, the Jews to have this done on the eighth day. Providentially, the eighth day is the day when the proceedure is the less painful and heals the quickest. This is just another evidence of the credibility of the Biblical record.

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We had our boys circumcised, though we are not Jewish, since we knew there had to be a good reason to have it done or God wouldn't have required it of the Jews.

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History attests to the fact that Jews, for the most part are a special people, capable of great feats, though they are a very tiny nation. The have a way of acquiring wealth, protecting themselves and surviving for centuries of dispersion globally. Circumcision, likely is just one of many reasons they are superior to Gentiles in many ways.

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The child gets his first corporal spanking at birth, rendering no harm, yet our laws forbid parents, teachers and principals to apply this effective way of correcting bad behavior. Government meddles in too many things which should apply to parents.

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Baby rights pertaining to matters as trivial as circumcision is as non-sensical as pet rights.

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I cannot remember when was the last time Id disagree so strongly with anybody as I do with you. You are incredibly unhumane - would you be willing to go as far as to accept the Jewish tradition of a Mohel sucking the blood off circumcision? Would you be willing to defend the twisted tradition even though it has killed several babies in the NY alone last couple of years?Your argument that circumcision is good because it lessens the drive to have sex is vile and obnoxious. I have nothing good to say to you.And then about corporal punishment - I am totally at loss with words. How on earth can you even try and justify raising a hand against an innocent little baby? How could you hurt a child?

Just throwing out a couple of links for the debate:Infant’s Death Renews Debate Over Ritual Circumcision - The New York Timesdavidwilton.com is coming soonI always try to respect religious beliefs and practices, but when an aspect of religious practice can (and does) kill a baby, for no purpose which protects others from death in greater numbers, then the practice is (to state it at its mildest) extremely hard to justify.

Okay, so.. naturally there's something wrong with a male's sexual desires, they being to uncontrollable?I am willing to partially agree to this, but I can't really see the logic in God designing our sexual behavior to be erratic enough that He must decree the removal of the foreskin, which plays a part in sexual enjoyment, to adjust to this effect to more desirable levels. Why didn't He design sexual attraction to work properly in the first place, instead of the current state of affairs. As of now, huge amounts of hormones causes unrestrained behavior, especially in human males who already have a impulsive personality. This is the base reason why rape is relatively common, sadly enough.And even then, wouldn't it be easier for God to solve it for the whole world populations behalf and simply adjust our DNA a little to make everything sexual work balanced in the first place?

I've read all of the responses to my last message, narry a one containing any substance significant for a response from me, except the unsupportable belief that some babies have died from this alone.FYI, hospitals these days do not wait 8 days. My two boys were circumcised at birth, with no adverse effects and certainly no significant amount of bleeding. Of course, they were immediately coddled and observed by my wife and I. Other than some short lived crying, nothing significant at all.Hospitals do this as an accomodation to parents who see it's benefits. Certainly, if there were all this so called mutulation and death etc, our hospitals and MD's nor law inforcement would have none of it.One definite benefit is to the woman in intercourse. Body contaminants accumilate underneath the foreskin. Likely, often males who are not careful to keep these cleaned out would contaminate their partner in intercourse inside of her. Circumcised organs would not have this problem.

Like driving to church on Sunday?

As a society, we have collectively reached a position where we justify the use of a car, for any number of situations where we need to travel some distance, because the overall benefit and convenience of car use is deemed to be worth the inherent risks. We look at that risk, and assess whether we feel the benefits justify the risks. We have decided that they do.I think that a similar assessment should be made in relation to circumcision.To be honest, I am not yet entirely sure where my own assessment of the risk lies. Until I looked into this a little, and realised the risks of infant death, circumcision didn't bother me. However, I am revisiting that view, in light of the deaths.

Ringo says: The debate in this thread is whether or we should allow it before the boy reaches the age where he can decide for himself (call it "adulthood" if you will). The issue is whether the law should be changed. It's like a slave owner, say in 1842, in an argument on making slavery illegal, arguing that he is allowed to own slaves because he is allowed to.So, you cannot use your point of fact, because that is using your own conclusion of this debate as evidence to support your conclusion.Your sig now says: It should read: No one is saying that a man cannot get himself circumcised.

Jon argues: False analogy. No one driving to church on Sunday is TRYING to get into an accident, with the possible exception of a handful of lunatics. Every circumcision attempt is something they are TRYING to do successfully, with the possible exception of a handful of lunatics.

Sunday church is a necessity? Performed properly, infant death is an impossible side effect of circumcision.But even where it is possible, infant death is a risk in many things parents do.Do we outlaw all of those things?

And no one performing circumcision is TRYING to botch the procedure.How is it not an apt analogy?

Jon retorts: ...yes, no one is trying to botch it (except for a handful of lunatics that may possibly get into a position to do that intentionally that I mentioned).It's not apt because no one (other than a handful of the other lunatics mentioned) is trying to cause a small injury to a male infant, causing bleeding and pain, on their way to church.Maybe there's an organization that provides skillful drivers who are trained to sideswipe a telephone pole on the way - who are so skilled they can exact a precisely shaped cut on the infant with 99.98% accuracy - who the driver & spouse have now hired because of their adherence to a religious or cultural habit handed down for thousands of years. I haven't heard of one. Have you?Edited by xongsmith, : Sillyness to the extreme.Edited by xongsmith, : No reason given.

No more or less so than a trip to the bowling alley, or to visit relatives. In all cases, we have determined as a society that the benefits of driving are worth the risk.It does not follow from society having come to that collective view in relation to driving, that all risks are worth taking, in light of their respective potential benefits. You have to make the case for the specific benefits of circumcision against the risks, not simply refer to another activity, with a different risk/benefit analysis. If you can back that up with some pertinent data, then please do so. The links I gave suggest that infant death is a rare, yet real consequence of some circumcisions. It is possible that every one of those deaths is as a result of improper procedure, but (a) there was nothing in the links to suggest that this was the case; and (b) even if it were, in an imperfect world, improper procedures will occur, and so the risk/benefit analysis should still be undertaken. Once again, you have to perform a risk/benefit analysis for each activity - you cannot state that because one risky activity is justified, all risky activities must be justified. That is a false equivalency, and a fallacy.Let me give you an example - taking our child for a ride in the car to visit church/the bowling alley/grandma is something we see as an acceptable risk, in view of the benefits. Holding the child over a precipice, so someone can take a pic on their iPhone for giggles is something we see as bad, because the benefits aren't worth the risk to the child. Somewhere on that spectrum lies circumcision - what's your considered view as to the balance of risks and benefit, when it comes to circumcision ?