Religious Special Pleading

I think you have it backwards. As often as not, religion takes it's practices from the culture. See Christmas as an example.When you start banning religious practices, you open the door to banning cultural practices in general. Note how "Christmas" trees are frowned on by the political correctness fanatics even though they have nothing to do with Christianity.

Who decides what's "harmful" and what's "harmless"? I suspect that you would if you thought they were "harmful".But you're missing the point. The point is that the "harmful" practices are not necessarily religious in nature.

I think the job of our institutions is to follow the public will, not dictate its practices. We're talking about cultural practices that can be used to target specific religious groups. By declaring certain practices like circumcision "harmful", you can excuse discrimination against the people who practice them.Why not let the individual decide what's "harmful" to him?

We're talking about "harm" here. Until recently, many governments judged that equality for black people did more harm to society. When they changed their assessment, they were following public opinion more than leading it.

What about female circumcision? It's far from universal among Muslims. It seems to be tied to the culture - primarily African culture - rather than the religion. Why would we not let the individual decide what is harmful to him? We don't let a child decide whether lack of education is harmful to him. His parents decide.

So you're against it because it's religious, not because it's supposedly harmful.

Well, I certainly believe in culture - and I don't want you deciding whether or not certain aspects of my culture are "harmful". That's what I'm saying: I don't want you trampling on my culture because of your vendetta against religion. But it's the adults who decide that it's mandatory. The children don't decide whether or not to go to school and they don't decide whether or not to be circumcised.

That doesn't address what I said: I don't want you deciding what is harmful to me. No deal. Trying to ban something that is "harmful" causes more problems than it solves. Prohibition doesn't work. It only makes the criminals rich. Our institutions and our parents don't agree with you about what is "harmful".

That's a poor example. Once the effect of thalidomide were known, nobody would have wanted it anyway.A better example is marijuana, which can have some harmful effects but is criminalizing the users an appropriate response? Prohibition of alcohol caused the organized crime problem that still exists today. So yes. Those are completely different situations. Murder is harmful to the victim, to his loved ones, even to society as a whole. I'm not banned from murdering because it's harmful to me. The same applies to Child Labour, Child Sexual Abuse, Infanticide, Child Neglect, Giving addictive recreational drugs to children and Corporal punishment. That's what I'm saying. I have no desire to stop you from doing anything that's harmful to only you.

Think it through. Slavery was banned because it was harmful to the slaves. A was banned from owning B because it was harmful to B. What we're talking about here is banning B from doing something that is harmful to B. Maybe you've heard of abortion. When it was banned, backstreet abortionists did it, some of them out of principle, maybe, but some of them for the money. If you ban circumcision, you criminalize mohels and make the business more lucrative for the unscrupulous ones.

Two of my brothers were circumcised at birth and two of us were not. I'm not even sure how I know that because I have never once heard either of them mention it.

I want health-care professionals telling me that thalidomide, alcohol and marijuana are bad for me. I don't want politicians jailing me for using them. I think it should be up to the parents, like it is for circumcision. To prove that it "is" harmful, you'd have to prove that it did harm. As I've said, that's an entirely different situation. I have no problem with the government telling others not to harm me and telling me not to harm others. What I'm against is the government telling me not to harm myself.

You make my point. There doesn't seem to be a problem.

Nobody should force harmful things on non-consenting people - and nobody should prevent consenting people from doing harmful things if they so choose. It has been shown that such things are harmful. Children can not consent to sexual activity, education, medical procedures, etc. My point is that if nobody talks about a problem, it's hard to establish that there is a problem.

If you had thought it through, you wouldn't make such a statement. Seven-day-old babies do not have the capacity to give consent. Maybe you haven't heard of abortion? We deferred from trying to prevent that practice - which some people do deem harmful - partly because criminals were continuing the practice in a way that was more harmful. Eliminating the ban on abortion made abortions safe.Another example would be marijuana. Some US jurisdictions have legalized its use and the Canadian government is about to do the same. In Canada, the express purpose is to keep the profits out of criminal hands and to reduce harm to children.