The Sage Garden

[Meursault]

In this case I'm far more inclined to believe that the American medical establishment is stupidly justifying an American cultural marker, and that the Europeans have the right of it.

[memphis]

I stand by the content of everything I said in all of those posts. The first two and last two are considerably more impolitic than I wanted them to be and I apologize for that.

That's convenient as you've provided precious little content outside of personal attacks in this thread.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I stand by the content of everything I said in all of those posts. The first two and last two are considerably more impolitic than I wanted them to be and I apologize for that.

That's convenient as you've provided precious little content outside of personal attacks in this thread.

Ha!  A guy who thinks of the Pope as nothing more than "a creepy old man in a cape" lecturing others on personal attacks.

Please, oh sage, further enlighten us with your theological wisdom.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I stand by the content of everything I said in all of those posts. The first two and last two are considerably more impolitic than I wanted them to be and I apologize for that.

That's convenient as you've provided precious little content outside of personal attacks in this thread.

I've provided plenty of content, including but not limited to my criticisms of your and Einzige's writing and posting styles. Note especially my post in response to Antonio, a poster whose position isn't any different to yours but for whose presentation of it and general attitude I have a lot more respect.

[memphis]

I stand by the content of everything I said in all of those posts. The first two and last two are considerably more impolitic than I wanted them to be and I apologize for that.

That's convenient as you've provided precious little content outside of personal attacks in this thread.

Ha!  A guy who thinks of the Pope as nothing more than "a creepy old man in a cape" lecturing others on personal attacks.

Please, oh sage, further enlighten us with your theological wisdom.

Tell me again about how the SBC is a cult, Mr Religion Expert.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I stand by the content of everything I said in all of those posts. The first two and last two are considerably more impolitic than I wanted them to be and I apologize for that.

That's convenient as you've provided precious little content outside of personal attacks in this thread.

Ha!  A guy who thinks of the Pope as nothing more than "a creepy old man in a cape" lecturing others on personal attacks.

Please, oh sage, further enlighten us with your theological wisdom.

Tell me again about how the SBC is a cult, Mr Religion Expert.

Dude, I think you knew damn well what I meant when I called the SBC a cult.  Structurally, is it a cult?  No.  Does that in any way change my opinion of how the vast majority of its churches operate, often to the detriment and marginalization of those who aren't associated with it?  Hell no.

Try again, though - this time, without semantics 'gotchas.'

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Dude, I think you knew damn well what I meant when I called the SBC a cult.  Structurally, is it a cult?  No.  Does that in any way change my opinion of how the vast majority of its churches operate, often to the detriment and marginalization of those who aren't associated with it?  Hell no.

For future reference--and I'd be happy to discuss this with you some time if you're interested--I still don't really agree with that characterization, but yeah, that's not really the point here. Just putting that out there.

[memphis]

I stand by the content of everything I said in all of those posts. The first two and last two are considerably more impolitic than I wanted them to be and I apologize for that.

That's convenient as you've provided precious little content outside of personal attacks in this thread.

Ha!  A guy who thinks of the Pope as nothing more than "a creepy old man in a cape" lecturing others on personal attacks.

Please, oh sage, further enlighten us with your theological wisdom.

Tell me again about how the SBC is a cult, Mr Religion Expert.

Dude, I think you knew damn well what I meant when I called the SBC a cult.  Structurally, is it a cult?  No.  Does that in any way change my opinion of how the vast majority of its churches operate, often to the detriment and marginalization of those who aren't associated with it?  Hell no.

Try again, though - this time, without semantics 'gotchas.'

Honestly, I have no idea what you meant. Feel free to elaborate.

[Meursault]

Our positions are very different.

mempgis is, so far as I know, a New Atheist in the Dennett/Hitchens mold. He opposes involuntary circumcision primarily because it is irrational.

Antonio is a European social democrat, and opposes it primarily because it is backwards.

I am a German-style post-idealist, ala Schopenhauer or Nietzsche or Heidegger. I oppose Gentile circumcision as an unnecessary symptom of the Judaization of European culture facilitated by Christianity.

These are three very different things.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Our positions are very different.

mempgis is, so far as I know, a New Atheist in the Dennett/Hitchens mold. He opposes involuntary circumcision primarily because it is irrational.

Antonio is a European social democrat, and opposes it primarily because it is backwards.

I am a German-style post-idealist, ala Schopenhauer or Nietzsche or Heidegger. I oppose Gentile circumcision as an unnecessary symptom of the Judaization of European culture facilitated by Christianity.

These are three very different things.

Your motivations are different but your proposed policy outcome doesn't seem to be and--and this is what I'm primarily referring to--the arguments that memphis and Antonio advanced were in substance as opposed to in rhetoric more similar than the admittedly large amount of daylight between their worldviews would suggest.

Incidentally, your line of reasoning is actually the one that I have the easiest time engaging with instinctually, but that's only true enough to make it feel more grating ('Judaization of European culture' as a phrase makes perfect intuitive sense to me, but only because it sets off all sorts of really deep, almost knee-jerk alarm bells). You know the feeling I mean?

[traininthedistance]

I oppose Gentile circumcision as an unnecessary symptom of the Judaization of European culture facilitated by Christianity.

well then

[Meursault]

I'd have no problem with cracking skulls if that's what it took to weed out involuntary mutilation. I don't know if they'd agree.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'd have no problem with cracking skulls if that's what it took to weed out involuntary mutilation. I don't know if they'd agree.

I'd hope few people would.

[memphis]

For the record, irrationality is not my objection to infant circumcision. Choosing circumcison as an adult would still be irrational, but I don't see why that should be controversial. Furthermore, people are irrational in all sorts of child rearing decisions that I don't think ought to be illegal. The issue at hand is one of personal autonomy, especially in regards to matters of sexual choice. I'm a firm believer in the importance of consent. A pity others don't share that view.

[IceSpear]

After seeing the garden with so many new posts, I thought maybe Snowstalker went on some more tangents about Ukraine. Instead I find this?

[Antonio the Sixth]

For the record, I'm not really arguing that this topic is worth legislating about. I understand that would do more harm than good in the current context. You know as well as I do that legislation can't always achieve what we would like it to.

However, I find it frankly strange that you seem to argue that opposition to circumcision to be immoral. If anything, I would argue that removing a part of a newborn's body without a medical reason (yes, I know there are sometimes medical grounds for circumcision, and I obviously have no problem with them, as I have no problem is it's an adult who makes the choice) is the immoral thing. Which again, doesn't mean it should be banned.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

For the record, I'm not really arguing that this topic is worth legislating about. I understand that would do more harm than good in the current context. You know as well as I do that legislation can't always achieve what we would like it to.

However, I find it frankly strange that you seem to argue that opposition to circumcision to be immoral. If anything, I would argue that removing a part of a newborn's body without a medical reason (yes, I know there are sometimes medical grounds for circumcision, and I obviously have no problem with them, as I have no problem is it's an adult who makes the choice) is the immoral thing. Which again, doesn't mean it should be banned.

That's why I amended 'immoral' to 'morally irresponsible' after a certain point. Advocating for legally banning circumcision is morally irresponsible because it I don't think it adequately takes into account the histories of the groups that traditionally consider circumcision important and of legislation that targets them and their customs. Just personally opposing and advocating against circumcision is fine as far as I'm concerned.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

You, guys, are just obsessed with dicks and all dick-related matters.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

guilty as charged

why do you think the memphis-types get so much attention?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

After seeing the garden with so many new posts, I thought maybe Snowstalker went on some more tangents about Ukraine. Instead I find this?

The worst is that Snowstalker is making some pro-ISIS posts that would qualify that are getting ignored.

[afleitch]

For the record, I'm not really arguing that this topic is worth legislating about. I understand that would do more harm than good in the current context. You know as well as I do that legislation can't always achieve what we would like it to.

However, I find it frankly strange that you seem to argue that opposition to circumcision to be immoral. If anything, I would argue that removing a part of a newborn's body without a medical reason (yes, I know there are sometimes medical grounds for circumcision, and I obviously have no problem with them, as I have no problem is it's an adult who makes the choice) is the immoral thing. Which again, doesn't mean it should be banned.

That's why I amended 'immoral' to 'morally irresponsible' after a certain point. Advocating for legally banning circumcision is morally irresponsible because it I don't think it adequately takes into account the histories of the groups that traditionally consider circumcision important and of legislation that targets them and their customs. Just personally opposing and advocating against circumcision is fine as far as I'm concerned.

Something like 100-150 million women have their genitals mutilated. That is also done for ‘cultural’ reasons. It is of course far far worse than the practice of male circumcision. It is of course, rightly improper to make appeals to culture and defence in tradition of such practices. Part of the main cultural reasons for doing so is of course misogynistic; it is the traditional inference that women’s sexual parts are ‘dirty’ and its removal promotes both virginity and fidelity. So why are males circumcised for religious and cultural reasons? There is evidence that as a procedure it was a form of emasculation. We tend to forget the ritualistic forms of castration that took place across cultures the majority of which have of course been made culturally redundant. Circumcision provided two ‘benefits’; it lowered sexual arousal in young males (as someone who has not been circumcised I am able, without the need for any other lubrication to masturbate ‘dry’) and it reduced the ability of men to inseminate other women (by ‘other’, I mean not his wife). The biological reason as to why men have a foreskin is in part, to a siphon off other men’s semen if the male penetrates a women immediately after other man. For whatever ancient reason the domino effect of the practice of circumcision took off amongst Semitic peoples, it was not for health reasons. If it was for reasons of cleanliness then it was at most a subjective cleanliness.

Both male and female circumcision are first recorded in Egypt. In the case of male circumcision that practice spread to neighbouring Semitic peoples and was subsequently layered with religious significance. Female circumcision remained fairly self-contained within that area until it was utilised much, much later on by Arab and Coptic cultures. Both were originally practiced for the same reason and for the same ends regardless of what difference people now place on them.

It would be improper of me to oppose FGM without giving pause to reflect on the shared cultural history of male circumcision.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

For the record, I'm not really arguing that this topic is worth legislating about. I understand that would do more harm than good in the current context. You know as well as I do that legislation can't always achieve what we would like it to.

However, I find it frankly strange that you seem to argue that opposition to circumcision to be immoral. If anything, I would argue that removing a part of a newborn's body without a medical reason (yes, I know there are sometimes medical grounds for circumcision, and I obviously have no problem with them, as I have no problem is it's an adult who makes the choice) is the immoral thing. Which again, doesn't mean it should be banned.

That's why I amended 'immoral' to 'morally irresponsible' after a certain point. Advocating for legally banning circumcision is morally irresponsible because it I don't think it adequately takes into account the histories of the groups that traditionally consider circumcision important and of legislation that targets them and their customs. Just personally opposing and advocating against circumcision is fine as far as I'm concerned.

Something like 100-150 million women have their genitals mutilated. That is also done for ‘cultural’ reasons. It is of course far far worse than the practice of male circumcision. It is of course, rightly improper to make appeals to culture and defence in tradition of such practices. Part of the main cultural reasons for doing so is of course misogynistic; it is the traditional inference that women’s sexual parts are ‘dirty’ and its removal promotes both virginity and fidelity. So why are males circumcised for religious and cultural reasons? There is evidence that as a procedure it was a form of emasculation. We tend to forget the ritualistic forms of castration that took place across cultures the majority of which have of course been made culturally redundant. Circumcision provided two ‘benefits’; it lowered sexual arousal in young males (as someone who has not been circumcised I am able, without the need for any other lubrication to masturbate ‘dry’) and it reduced the ability of men to inseminate other women (by ‘other’, I mean not his wife). The biological reason as to why men have a foreskin is in part, to a siphon off other men’s semen if the male penetrates a women immediately after other man. For whatever ancient reason the domino effect of the practice of circumcision took off amongst Semitic peoples, it was not for health reasons. If it was for reasons of cleanliness then it was at most a subjective cleanliness.

Both male and female circumcision are first recorded in Egypt. In the case of male circumcision that practice spread to neighbouring Semitic peoples and was subsequently layered with religious significance. Female circumcision remained fairly self-contained within that area until it was utilised much, much later on by Arab and Coptic cultures. Both were originally practiced for the same reason and for the same ends regardless of what difference people now place on them.

It would be improper of me to oppose FGM without giving pause to reflect on the shared cultural history of male circumcision.

This is a really good overview and goes into some specifics of which I wasn’t really aware and I’d actually be interested in learning more about this but as was probably already obvious it isn’t the part of the history that I was talking about. It just isn’t the part that I think is relevant to this particular debate. I’m not saying that to cover my ass or because I’m trying to move the goalposts or only accept aspects of history that will support my position; I genuinely just did not even consider that the interrelationship between male circumcision and FGM in the distant past and in terms of their cultural origins before either of them became anything that could by any stretch of the imagination be considered religiously important was what was under discussion here. Nobody (with the exception of Einzige) wants to ban circumcision because its cultural provenance and associations are suspect, although they are. That’s a perfectly good reason to oppose it, but the reasons people want to ban it have to do with thinking that it’s an unacceptably significant violation of the body to be countenanced under the aegis of religious freedom, which has nothing to do with how it became a religious issue in the first place or with this original relationship between circumcision and FGM and everything to do with the ways in which and reasons for which those practices and the ways they are viewed have diverged.

My position remains that, even if circumcision’s supposed health benefits are highly dubious and even if the real initial ‘reasons’ for doing it weren’t the reasons of a culture that any of us would want to emulate were we to construct a religion or ethnoreligion from scratch right now, it’s, as you acknowledge, simply untrue to suggest that it is anywhere nearly as damaging, dangerous, and prima facie unreasonable as FGM, and that considering the almost uniformly stupefyingly awful outcomes of laws banning non-life-threatening religious practices (I say ‘almost’ because I suspect someone may bring up polygamy or whatever and I want to say that yes I am aware that there are instances of laws of this kind both being good ideas and more-or-less working if you look for them but that doesn’t mean it’s not best approached with extreme caution) it’s, and I know at this point I’m just repeating myself but I want to underscore that having fully read and understood your argument I’m not going to run away from having said this, intellectually and morally irresponsible to actually go and treat it with the same sort of legal condemnation as we do FGM. I no longer however think that the instinct to do so or the desire or wish to be able to do so is immoral. Your handling of this discussion has been evenhanded and compassionate enough to convince me that that is not the case and so that I do fully retract and apologize for having said.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I would like to thank everyone for proving my point.

[Velasco]

The worst is that Snowstalker is making some pro-ISIS posts that would qualify that are getting ignored.

There's nothing wrong in being a fan of Egyptian deities. I'm pro-Isis and pro-Osiris, though my favourite goddess is Bastet because I adore cats.

[TNF]

The worst is that Snowstalker is making some pro-ISIS posts that would qualify that are getting ignored.

There's nothing wrong in being a fan of Egyptian deities. I'm pro-Isis and pro-Osiris, though my favourite goddess is Bastet because I adore cats.

>2014
>not being pro-Anubis