Religious Special Pleading

OK, so you believe it is pharisaical to punish criminals. There's nothing to say to someone who would take such a stance.

No. I absolutely did not say that. But I see you've found your reason to disengage, so go in peace.

So how can you tell whether or not it's "working"? You asked the equivalent of, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" The answer is neither yes nor no. What part of "it shouldn't be about 'allowing' things at all" was unclear?Society should not be in the habit of "allowing" people to do things.Edited by ringo, : Question mark.

On the contrary, non-religious people performing circumcisions for non-religious reasons is obviously relevant to whether or not circumcision is a religious act.If you use your car to drive children to Sunday School, then that specific case of driving could be considered a religious act. But that doesn't make all driving of all cars at all times a religious act. But not all medical circumcisions are a medical necessity. Unless your neighbour is on the "wrong" side in a war. So, not an absolute.

Crap. A circumcision performed for (admitted) religious reasons is performed for religious reasons. End. Yeh, like I've said not quite a dozen time so far - the last time being the one you're replying to and have deliberately quote mined - non-medically required circumcisions should require the consent of the individual whose dick is being cut. My neighbour and your neighbour are not on the wrong side of a fictitious war, so yes it is an actual absolute. Or, does being a non-absolute in your mind make it wrong to intervene in someone's personal freedom to shoot your neighbour in the head for fun? How absurd are you going to get with this? So far it's further than FGM and getting towards murder.

And a circumcision performed for non-religious reasons is performed for non-religious reasons. Thus, circumcisions can not be blanket-labelled as religious. You've said that a few dozen times too and it's still just as wrong. Children do not have the capacity to give consent. It happened in Britain. It happened in the US. It's happening in Syria right bloody now. There IS such a thing as a civil war. "Murder" is NOT an absolute. And war is only one example. I'm just pointing out that you're wrong.

Why would anyone think that they were? That's exactly why it should wait until they can. It is not happening in my street or yours. Nor in my country or yours. So is it ok to do it? Nope, what you're doing is evading and obfuscating. Where is you line? To the right of FGM; all the way to murder for fun? Where is it?

If people get caught and are then being dealt with in an orderly and agreed upon fashion, then it's working. So we should neither permit nor forbid child labour, child foot-binding, child labour, domestic violence or the flogging adulterers?I'm not sure that's a state of affairs that can make sense. The part where you said "maybe they should be allowed" and then said 'it shouldn't be about 'allowing' things when I asked for you to be specific about what is included in the word 'they'.In Western law, that which is not forbidden is permitted. This is sometimes thought of as a marker of freedom. It's either one or the other. So do you have an opinion with regards to which items in the list should be which, and will you reveal it here along with your arguments as to why?If you think this legal principle is flawed, perhaps you could expand on that instead.

You keep doing it. It's the entire premise of this topic. That isn't practical with things like education. So why give special treatment to circumcision? If it's happening anywhere, you can't say there's an absolute definition of murder. As the saying goes, your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. Your position is that because swinging of fists may cause injury a few times in a million, everybody should be prohibited from ever swinging their fists.

By that standard, prohibition of alcohol worked and prohibition of abortion worked and prohibition of drugs is working. It seems like you're setting the bar pretty low.By that standard, if your car won't start and you have the option of scrapping it, your car is working. Forbidding them may be "working" according to your standard but they're still happening. So fewer prohibitions would suggest more freedom? When in doubt, don't prohibit. Some people may think there's such a thing as too much freedom. I don't.

The premise of this thread is religious special pleading, male circumcision is simply one example. You're attempting to make it the entire thread. The fact that medical circumcision is sometimes necessary. Is irrelevant to a discussion about non-medically required circumcision. More obvious crap. By-and-large, people are fairly clear about whether they want their dicks slicing at a relatively early age - phd not required; age of majority is fine. I'm not, you are. Male circumcision is simply one example of religious special pleading. Male circumsion for religious reasons is child abuse - it will be stopped at some point because it's an obvious wrong. I'm not remotely interested in definitions, and I'm not falling into dictionary discussions. I'm stating quite flatly that it is absolutely wrong to shoot my neighbour in the head for fun and you're pratting around like this, pretending that it isn't? Do try to be honest, otherwise we're going to think you're a psychopath. That's exactly right. Your right to swing your izmel stops at the point of a child's dick.I see you're still evading the question, where do you intervene? I'm now saying it's way passed FGM, you would allow murder. Where do you stand? Do you stand or do you prefer to wave dictionaries around?

Naturally you can add additional metrics to determine whether prohibition is better than not prohibition for any given thing. For instance, if you believe 'reduction in associated crime' is an essential metric, prohibition of alcohol certainly faces problems in that regard. You didn't address the argument that the position I described is nonsensical. To answer yours: I'm confident there is less child labour as a result of its prohibition. As far as one's goal is to inhibit the offence, prohibition has succeeded. No, that's not what I said at all. And of course, it wouldn't necessarily be true. I'm not in doubt. You have avoided the question yet again. What items in the list do you have doubts about? What are the nature of your doubts? If you don't want to answer this - you could at least just say so. Save me having to ask over and over again.

On the contrary, as long as circumcision is an accepted medical practice you can't ban it on grounds of "harm". The most you could do is charge non-medical practitioners with practicing without a license. But that would be ridiculous, since it's been a non-medical practice since long before the medical profession even existed. That's a non-response. You haven't given any reason to distinguish circumcision from education. Nope. I'm saying do the same in every situation: let the parents decide. And when child abuse or rape or shooting your neighbour in the head becomes an accepted medical procedure, I'll say let the parents decide on them too. You're dreaming. Discrimination on the basis of religion is specifically prohibited by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. No Canadian politician would touch circumcision with a twenty-foot pole. I expect the same applies to the US. No, I'm saying that you can't extrapolate from one example of something that is pretty clearly wrong to a blanket statement that circumcision is absolutely wrong. Not if it's my child. You wish it stopped there but it doesn't. It isn't about "allowing" murder. I can't prevent murder and neither can you. The laws we have about murder exist to handle the aftermath, particularly to prevent murderers from murdering again. The only analogue with circumcision is what you would do after the fact.So where do you stand? if parents circumcise their children, would you throw them in jail? Do you think that would improve the child's life?

You can't use one "success story" as a basis for banning things. How confident are you that cocaine usage has decreased since it was banned? I have doubts about everything. Any skeptic should. I'm not going to start beating my wife just so I can stop for the benefit of your question. So I don't mind if you keep asking over and over again. But if you want a different answer, ask a different question.

Of course you can. All surgical procedures carry risks, they're a last resort. Circumcisions for real medical reasons have benefits that outweigh the harm. Circumcision for religious/cultural reasons is an unnecessary harm. Yeh, I wonder why that is? Possibly because it's yet another diversionary irrelevance? The existence of medical procedures are irrelevant. I've given you examples of countries that have already banned religious/cultural circumcision. Is it a difficult political decision? sure. But is it also a wrong? Of course, that's why it will eventually be banned. Well yes, that's the point of the thread. I may have mentioned it before. You're wriggling. People will notice. You have already said that it's a parent's right.to cut their girl's clitoris off. I'm interested in how far you think it's ok for parents to do other things. At the moment you're equivocating about shooting your neighbour for fun so I guess that's our answer. If there was a law passed similar to the law on FGM, the parents would suffer the consequences of whatever punishment was deemed fit. UK law imposes a 14 year maximum sentence. Male circumcision is less damaging so I would expect it to be much less, but my guess would be that jail would certainly be possible. Yes. Parents would stop circumcising their children and everyone will live happily ever after..