Circumcision

[LSAR]

What would you say the cut off point is for circumcise for a child and the risks at certain ages?.

[CaptainNancy]

Surely people should be allowed to decide as adults?

[faeriefruitcake]

Cut off point seriously, cut off point

[AnnieLobeseder]

Put your hard hat on OP, you're about to get a flaming of inferno proportions for even considering mutilating your child.

Personally, I think perhaps children's genitalia should be left as nature intended. Would you cut off their hand if religious tradition dictated it? And I belong to a religion which practices ritual circumcision, so don't tell me that you have to. You really don't.

[amirah85]

If u belong ti a religion which pratices ritual circumcision then yes u have to.dont see why people keep saying we are doing it for no reason,following one's religion is à reason.Op,i honestly dont think Thérèse is a maximum age,even tho apparently its a easier operation when dôme on babies,and they heal quicker then older kids

[AnnieLobeseder]

No, you can tell others of your religion that you don't agree with this barbaric part of your customs and that you refuse to inflict it on your sons. Change won't happen unless someone starts the ball rolling. What can they do, hold a gun to your head? You might find a surprising amount of people applauding you for making the stand.

[seeker]

Of course you don't have to!

[Tee2072]

No, you don't have to. No one can force you to cut off your son's foreskin.

I am Jewish. Therefore so is my son. And yet, there he is, uncircumcised. Imagine that.

[bellamom]

circumcism is a truly barbaric practice, just as is female genital mutilation. it is simply outrageous that it is done in name of religion.

[amirah85]

I have to cos im following my religion,it isn t a custom,no-one holding a gun to my head ob viously.how can u follow a religion but not agree with something God commanded?anyway not much point arguing with who compares it to fgm which its not part of religion at all.

[seeker]

Where did God command it?

[AnnieLobeseder]

amirah - Do you follow every single command in your holy book, to the letter, each and every day of your life?

Everyone, in every religion, tends to pick and choose which bits they follow and which they decide are "for the olden days, when things were different".

Astoundingly, mutilating children seems to be the one tradition which doesn't get left by the wayside.

Luckily I had daughters, but if I'd had sons, I wouldn't have had them circumcised. If god wants me to cut bits off my children, god can get stuffed. Any loving god would understand.

I'm fascinated that you think FGM isn't excusable simply because it isn't a religious practice, but MGM is excusable because religion comes into it. I would agree that comparing FGM and MGM isn't always ideal simply because girls and women suffer so much more in the long and short term from the practice.

But they're still both mutilating the genitals of innocent babies who are unable to protect themselves, at the end of the day.

[CaptainNancy]

There is no passgae in the Torah, nor the Quran, nor the Bible that says you must cut off the ends of boys' penises (penii).

[SamG76]

I'm sorry, but this is the sort of argument that gives MN a bad name.

Tee - no one says that you cannot have Jews who are not circumcised, just that those who don't do it tend not to be be very committed Jews. Similarly, there are of course Muslim alcoholics, and rapacious Muslim moneylenders, but they are probably not very good Muslims. I could be wrong of course - perhaps you are a pillar of your local community, who goes to some hardship in order to keep kosher, and whose unimpeachable sabbath observance is widely admired.
Ditto AL - but I doubt it....

Captain Nancy - I can only stand in admiration of the years of dedicated study of the Torah and Quran (presumably including the commentaries) that you must have undertaken in order to provide this pithy statement, which goes against thousands of years of Jewish and Islamic practice. Presumably you are conversant with classical Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and Greek. Where do you stand on the discussion on the subject between the Rambam and the Ravad?

A bit more intellectual rigour, please....

[seeker]

I always thought that Jews were the most intellectually questioning of religious people. The question " Why on earth would God create a bit of the body specifically to be cut off" must have occurred over the centuries.

[SamG76]

Frequently - the idea is that God wants some sort of human intervention. A similar question: why do we bake bread, rather than simply eating kernels of wheat - surely if God had wanted us to eat bread, he would have allowed loaves to grow from trees. And remember, Jews don't believe everyone should have the snip. It's perfectly reasonable for everyone to be created with it, but Jews specifically to be commanded to cut it off.

[seeker]

I find it bizarre that a God who specifically says that he is not to be tested, demands of his creation rant they deliberately hurt their boy children.

[Snorbs]

LSAR, I'd say the cut off point for circumcision for non-medical reasons is 16. Any younger than that and the owner of the penis probably wouldn't be regarded as old enough to give informed consent.

[onagar]

Call it 18 for pointless mutilation

For those who must follow their religion no matter what what will you do if we actually make it a specific criminal offence?

[nocake]

Religions do a very good job of ignoring the bits of their texts that aren't convenient while hanging onto those bits they like. There were hygiene and health reasons for circumcising boys in the past. We don't know for sure why God told the Jews to do it but I'm going to guess that improving health would be a good reason. Interestingly, there are health reasons why you might not have wanted to eat pork and shellfish in the past (pigs that aren't kept properly can have parasites that can infect humans and we all know about bad shellfish). So it seems that God was giving the Jews a whole load of instructions to improve their health and... well, keep them alive.

With modern understanding of shellfish and improved fishing techniques we have minimised the risk of food poisoning from shellfish. We have also pretty much eradicated parasites from pork and are also aware of the importance of cooking it properly. Then there's circumcision... we all have baths and showers in our houses. We all have access to high quality soap. We also have access to modern healthcare which I think means there is no reason to circumcise a baby.

I haven't seen the Jewish community stoning to death anyone who curses or blasphemes God (Leviticus 24:14) so why do they continue to circumcise their sons?

[SamG76]

Nocake - no-one has been stoned in the last 2500 or so years. Judaism, like Islam, is a religion of authority, rather than random reading and interpretation of biblical texts, which is more a fundamentalist Chritaian idea. Rabbis deliberately introduced safeguards to ensure that the death penalty would rarely if ever be applied. (And remember that at that time the residents of the British Isles were happily carrying out human sacrifices to pagan gods with no compunction at all). Your guesswork as the reason for the rules and your thoughts about the modern heathcare are very interesting, but will not set aside thousands of years of law and practice.

Onagar, if it was made illegal (as in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia) most Jews I know would be booking one-way tickets out of the country, but then so would a lot of other people....

[Snorbs]

I believe that the age of consent for tattoos and body piercing is 16 provided the parents also agree so it seems a reasonable age for male circumcision, too.

[Voidka]

Tattoos are 18.

[Snorbs]

Really? I thought tattoos were ok from 16 provided you have parental consent.

Fair enough - if anyone under 18 is not considered adult enough to consent to a tattoo, then they shouldn't be considered old enough to consent to (non-medically necessary) ritual circumcision.

I don't see any sound reason for ritual circumcision to go ahead without the consent of the owner of the genitals. If it's because man is supposed to perform some sort of sacrifice to his god then the man should be making that informed choice for himself, surely? After all, it's not a self sacrifice to get something sliced off someone else, is it?

[nocake]

By refering to stoning I was simply showing that religions pick and choose the bits of their religious texts that they choose to obey. I'm not picking on Judaism here because every religion does it.

If Rabbis have decided that stoning is no longer appropriate then why have they decided that circumcision is appropriate?

[NotJustKangaskhan]

nocake The rules for the death penalty under Torah law hasn't changed actually, but those laws are only in force when there is a Torah state and there hasn't been one for quite some time. Rabbis have as much say over the death penalty as they have over the weather at this point in time (and even before they had little say, as deciding on death penalty cases was a very long and complicated matter, not left to one Rabbi, and many of the laws which give the death penalty as punishment have never been used because of the complicated matter to convict). Circumcision is not a law bound by the need of a Torah state, it was placed on all the descendent of Abraham's 8 children so the two are not comparable. It would be more comparable to discuss ruling made about the laws of Kashrut, Niddah, Shabbat, or other daily life situations that are still in effect regardless of place or time that have had many rulings and debates over the years. And in those cases, the communities that feel that the laws are bound on them by God regardless have kept them and the communities that feel that man's logic is important part of God's will and it negates the laws have let them pass. People follow the leaders/communities that fits what they believe is true. As is the same for other religions.

And it would be impossible to do all the Torah laws unless one was male, female, Kohen, Levi, Israel, Noahide, Nazerite living in the land of Israel and outside of it, living in the time of Torah state and living not in the time of a Torah state all at the same time.