What is it with circumcision?

AWPrime said:
Not really circumcision is just a way to control sexuality. In both males and females. And therefore quite unethical.
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Why "therefore"? I don't know if I'm convinced that circumcision, and male such in particular, was about controlling sexuality, but assuming that to be the case, why would that automatically make it unethical?

Remember that cheap and reliable birth control is a modern phenomena, and still not common everywhere on the globe. Add to that how dangerous to the mother it was to give birth prior to modern medicine, and it's clear that pre-modern cultures had very good reasons to control sexuality.

The institution of marriage, for example, is also a method for controlling sexuality; so would you say that it too is "therefore quite unethical"?
 
Leif Roar said:
The institution of marriage, for example, is also a method for controlling sexuality; so would you say that it too is "therefore quite unethical"?
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Yes, if that's what marriage really is, rather than a public display of love between two people.
 
Leif,

There is a difference between controlling ones own sexuality (pil, marriage) and having it controlled by someone else.
 
Kimpatsu said:
Are you saying that circumcised penises look scary? :p
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I am not going that far, but some look like this:

comp.gif
 
Kimpatsu said:
Yes, if that's what marriage really is, rather than a public display of love between two people.
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While the act of marriage today might, for the two parties engaging in it, be primarily a matter of publically annoucing their love; the legal and social (and religious, if we separate that from the social) institution of marriage is not. It is also just in modern times that love typically plays a major part in deciding who marries -- historically speaking, love was usually less important than pragmatism in choosing one's partner.

While the institution of marriage is not just a way to control sexuality (it is, for instance, also a way to regulate the inheritance of property,) it has also clearly been that -- which we can see from the fact that much of the legal and religious laws concerning sexuality has prohibited adultery.

Kimpatsu said:
There is a difference between controlling ones own sexuality (pil, marriage) and having it controlled by someone else.
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Marriage was not a way of controlling one's own sexuality -- which we can see simply from the fact that adultery was historically mainly illegal and was punished to various degrees. To take the argument to an extreme -- stoning someone to death for having committed adultery is clearly a case of controlling someone else's sexuality.
 
Leif, what the hell do you think marriage is?
It's a legal contract. nothing more. From your posts, one would almost think you bought into the lie that marriage has a religious dimension...
 
Kimpatsu said:
Leif, what the hell do you think marriage is?
It's a legal contract. nothing more. From your posts, one would almost think you bought into the lie that marriage has a religious dimension...
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Marriage is not just a legal contract -- it is also a social institution. It is not just your legal status that change when you get married -- you also take on a different social role. In most, if not practically all, religions, marriage is also a religious institution. It is possible to aknwoledge this for a fact without making any judgements whatsoever on the truth of the religions themselves.

Religion is an important social force, and it would be just stupid and inane to ignore the religious aspects of a phenomena just because I myself happen to be areligious.
 
Leif Roar said:
Marriage is not just a legal contract -- it is also a social institution. It is not just your legal status that change when you get married -- you also take on a different social role. In most, if not practically all, religions, marriage is also a religious institution. It is possible to aknwoledge this for a fact without making any judgements whatsoever on the truth of the religions themselves.

Religion is an important social force, and it would be just stupid and inane to ignore the religious aspects of a phenomena just because I myself happen to be areligious.
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If you believe that crap, Leif, then you've bought into the lies of the religious right without knowing it.
Marriage is an irreligious social institution. Legally, its only role is to provide tax brakes (which should be abolished) to people who happen to take advantage of it. It has nothing to do with religion. If it did, which religion has the monopoly on marriage: Xpianity? Islam? Judaism? Hinduism? After all, only one of them can be right (at most) and, according to your argument, all others are not legal marriages. (Which is what a fundie acquaintance of main claims, but that's a debate for another day...)
Any which way you slice it, marriage is a social, not a religiuous institution.
 
Kimpatsu said:
Any which way you slice it, marriage is a social, not a religiuous institution.
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Why don't you read what I actually wrote, rather than what you think I wrote?
 
What?

Kimpatsu said:
If you believe that crap, Leif, then you've bought into the lies of the religious right without knowing it.
Marriage is an irreligious social institution. Legally, its only role is to provide tax brakes (which should be abolished) to people who happen to take advantage of it. It has nothing to do with religion. If it did, which religion has the monopoly on marriage: Xpianity? Islam? Judaism? Hinduism? After all, only one of them can be right (at most) and, according to your argument, all others are not legal marriages. (Which is what a fundie acquaintance of main claims, but that's a debate for another day...)
Any which way you slice it, marriage is a social, not a religiuous institution.
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As far as I'm aware there is no tax break for being married. In fact, if my wife and I were not married and we paid our taxes separately I am pretty sure we would be paying considerably less.
 
Re: What?

billydkid said:
As far as I'm aware there is no tax break for being married. In fact, if my wife and I were not married and we paid our taxes separately I am pretty sure we would be paying considerably less.
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I can't speak for where you are, but there certainly is in the UK; it's called the Married Man's Allowance.
 
Re: Re: What?

Kimpatsu said:
I can't speak for where you are, but there certainly is in the UK; it's called the Married Man's Allowance.
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Didn't that disappear with the advent of "independent taxation" a few years ago?
 
Re: Re: Re: What?

Badly Shaved Monkey said:
Didn't that disappear with the advent of "independent taxation" a few years ago?
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Ah, you may be right; I've been an expat for 13 years now. I'm no longer au courant.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: What?

Kimpatsu said:
I'm no longer au courant.
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Hey, those Japanese lessons have been a damn waste of money. I think Linguaphone sent you the wrong tapes. :)
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What?

Badly Shaved Monkey said:
Hey, those Japanese lessons have been a damn waste of money. I think Linguaphone sent you the wrong tapes. :)
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OK:
イギリスの現状に遅れている
Better? :p
 
The cultural practice of circumcision spreads for the same reason similar practices - such as subincision - tend to spread. They're relatively easy to begin, and once they've become accepted, they're incredibly difficult to get rid of.

It's rather like making new doctors work ridiculously long hours without sleep. The available data and common sense indicate that the practice is very harmful, but the tradition has a great deal of cultural inertia - particularly since it's so hard to get doctors as a group to recognize that they're doing harm in the first place.
 
Kimpatsu said:
Leif, what the hell do you think marriage is?
It's a legal contract. nothing more.
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Actually, there are two halves.

1. The religious half (for those that believe.) This half is the important half (in their eyes) and the half that counts (in their eyes)

2. The legal, governmental-recognition half. This is meaningless (in their eyes).

Hmmmm...I guess there is no reason for a religious person to object to gay marriage since the state's half is the meaningless half.


Oops, sorry, was thinking there.
 
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