4 ms·

> we'd expect poorer life outcomes for the victims of it. Instead we see the opposite. People keep saying this, but fail to link to sources substantiating thei

> we'd expect poorer life outcomes for the victims of it. Instead we see the opposite. People keep saying this, but fail to link to sources substantiating their non-obvious claims. Link to a study please?

grandalf 9y ago
None of those benefits go away if we wait until the person being cut is old enough to understand what is going to happen and to consent for it.
- jquery 9y ago
  You don't actually know that.
- EGreg 9y ago
  Yes they do. It's far harder to agree to do it later. And it is necessary for membership in the Israelite Nation, according to the Bible. Which means it will have huge ramifications for the person in terms of marriage, children and their whole life. Ask 1000 men born to Orthodox Jewish parents whether they regret being circumcized. And ask 1000 Orthodox Jewish men who were not circumcized whether they wish they had been. In the West, we have values of individualism. So being part of a millennia old people or a tradition or serving God are not seen as primary values by many atheists. I bet the people downvoting and commenting here negatively about circumcision are not of an Abrahamic faith - Judaism Christianity or Islam. Fine but the individualism has also led to more depression, tiny families, often broken homes (also permanent effects on the child). So when you talk about tradeoffs tou have to consider the complex set of interconnected benefits. And different people perceive different benefits depending on their cultural upbringing. I can tell you that the vast majority of Orthodox Jewish men are glad they were circumcized at 8 days old and not had to choose it later.
  - grandalf 9y ago
    Those are good points. I respect that some people have religious beliefs and affiliations. Rights generally begin as a very individual thing... the right to vote, the right to free speech, etc. So the right not to have one's body mutilated without consent is pretty individual the way I look at it. It's hard (for me) to separate granting the right to mutilate a body that is not yours from the notion of the person being mutilated somehow being "chattle" of the person doing the mutilation. But I'm not arguing that the same set of laws should apply to all groups and all cultures, but for an area where rights and protections are very minimal (such as infants) there is a lot of room for improvement. My guess is that if circumcision were banned religious communities would not be harmed because the symbolism of circumcision would adapt to be more figurative in the same way that many other traditions are now done in a "lite" way that lacks strict historical accuracy but still holds great ceremonial significance. But don't take my remarks as disrespectful of religion or of Judaism. I think that trying to figure out how to accomplish (broadly speaking) moral progress is very difficult, and I'd much rather improve the rights of prisoners than see circumcision ended, even though in principle I hold the view that circumcision should only occur when the person whose penis is being circumcised can consent. In the US there are much lower hanging fruit for humanitarian improvement. Not sure about Norway.
  - alistairSH 9y ago
    Does the same logic apply to female genital mutilation is societies where that has been acceptable for eons? Is your standard for acceptable mutilation really "it isn't noticeably harmful"? What if my religion calls for the removal of a single testicle instead of the foreskin - is that ok? Afterall, men with one testicle can still father children and lead productive lives.
    - jquery 9y ago
      If there was a culture going back thousands of years where men with a single testicle went on to live lives with hugely outsized outcomes, then yeah, I might say, "hey, maybe they know something we don't."
  - GordonS 9y ago
    > And it is necessary for membership in the Israelite Nation, according to the Bible. Which means it will have huge ramifications for the person in terms of marriage, children and their whole life. According to the Torah you should be stoned to death for merely breaking the Sabbath, and a murder victim's family members should be permitted to kill the murderer - and yet Judaism has modernised, recognising these acts as barbaric. Maybe Judaism needs to modernise a bit more, and allow children to grow up and make their own choices regarding the mutilation of their bodies. Should people with religious beliefs really be able to mutilate their children in the name of their beliefs, however 'benign' that mutiliation is seen to be? I don't see the problem with allowing children to grow into adulthood, decide for themselves what, if any, religion they want to follow - and make their own choice about how, if at all, to mutilate their bodies? I understand that there are hundreds of years of tradition involved, but you could say the same about plenty of practices that are frowned upon or outlawed, so I don't think that argument stands up on its own.
jquery 9y ago
I think Jews having outsized outcomes in life is pretty well settled. If you're asking for a double blind study I don't have one, but I'm hesitant to throw away thousands of years of tradition. There's a lot of things in life we think we understand well but it just ain't so. Maybe circumcision reduces sex drive in men allowing them to pursue higher goals. Maybe it frees up an important part of the brain for other general computation. I'm only speculating but I think that's fair when most of the alleged harms of circumcision are also speculation. For what it's worth, the biggest harm for myself has been the unending insistence that circumcised people are somehow "incomplete" and inferior. It took me a while and lots of research to realize that the story is far more complex.
- Mithaldu 9y ago
  > I think Jews having outsized outcomes in life is pretty well settled. This is not meaningful unless you control for social circumstances. Also, for now, all i'm asking you to do is only state things you can substantiate, and state them exactly and clearly.
  - jquery 9y ago
    I think it's on the people who want to ban a tradition going back thousands of years to clearly demonstrate harms.
    - Mithaldu 9y ago
      There is a clear and very simple harm in: This thing can operate in various fashions. Unmodified it works like this, modified it works in another way. Leave it as is and there's the option for both at any point. Make the decision now and one of the options is forever gone.
      - jquery 9y ago
        Same argument could be used for vaccination.

grandalf 9y ago

None of those benefits go away if we wait until the person being cut is old enough to understand what is going to happen and to consent for it.

jquery 9y ago
You don't actually know that.
EGreg 9y ago
Yes they do. It's far harder to agree to do it later. And it is necessary for membership in the Israelite Nation, according to the Bible. Which means it will have huge ramifications for the person in terms of marriage, children and their whole life. Ask 1000 men born to Orthodox Jewish parents whether they regret being circumcized. And ask 1000 Orthodox Jewish men who were not circumcized whether they wish they had been. In the West, we have values of individualism. So being part of a millennia old people or a tradition or serving God are not seen as primary values by many atheists. I bet the people downvoting and commenting here negatively about circumcision are not of an Abrahamic faith - Judaism Christianity or Islam. Fine but the individualism has also led to more depression, tiny families, often broken homes (also permanent effects on the child). So when you talk about tradeoffs tou have to consider the complex set of interconnected benefits. And different people perceive different benefits depending on their cultural upbringing. I can tell you that the vast majority of Orthodox Jewish men are glad they were circumcized at 8 days old and not had to choose it later.
- grandalf 9y ago
  Those are good points. I respect that some people have religious beliefs and affiliations. Rights generally begin as a very individual thing... the right to vote, the right to free speech, etc. So the right not to have one's body mutilated without consent is pretty individual the way I look at it. It's hard (for me) to separate granting the right to mutilate a body that is not yours from the notion of the person being mutilated somehow being "chattle" of the person doing the mutilation. But I'm not arguing that the same set of laws should apply to all groups and all cultures, but for an area where rights and protections are very minimal (such as infants) there is a lot of room for improvement. My guess is that if circumcision were banned religious communities would not be harmed because the symbolism of circumcision would adapt to be more figurative in the same way that many other traditions are now done in a "lite" way that lacks strict historical accuracy but still holds great ceremonial significance. But don't take my remarks as disrespectful of religion or of Judaism. I think that trying to figure out how to accomplish (broadly speaking) moral progress is very difficult, and I'd much rather improve the rights of prisoners than see circumcision ended, even though in principle I hold the view that circumcision should only occur when the person whose penis is being circumcised can consent. In the US there are much lower hanging fruit for humanitarian improvement. Not sure about Norway.
- alistairSH 9y ago
  Does the same logic apply to female genital mutilation is societies where that has been acceptable for eons? Is your standard for acceptable mutilation really "it isn't noticeably harmful"? What if my religion calls for the removal of a single testicle instead of the foreskin - is that ok? Afterall, men with one testicle can still father children and lead productive lives.
  - jquery 9y ago
    If there was a culture going back thousands of years where men with a single testicle went on to live lives with hugely outsized outcomes, then yeah, I might say, "hey, maybe they know something we don't."
- GordonS 9y ago
  > And it is necessary for membership in the Israelite Nation, according to the Bible. Which means it will have huge ramifications for the person in terms of marriage, children and their whole life. According to the Torah you should be stoned to death for merely breaking the Sabbath, and a murder victim's family members should be permitted to kill the murderer - and yet Judaism has modernised, recognising these acts as barbaric. Maybe Judaism needs to modernise a bit more, and allow children to grow up and make their own choices regarding the mutilation of their bodies. Should people with religious beliefs really be able to mutilate their children in the name of their beliefs, however 'benign' that mutiliation is seen to be? I don't see the problem with allowing children to grow into adulthood, decide for themselves what, if any, religion they want to follow - and make their own choice about how, if at all, to mutilate their bodies? I understand that there are hundreds of years of tradition involved, but you could say the same about plenty of practices that are frowned upon or outlawed, so I don't think that argument stands up on its own.

jquery 9y ago

I think Jews having outsized outcomes in life is pretty well settled. If you're asking for a double blind study I don't have one, but I'm hesitant to throw away thousands of years of tradition. There's a lot of things in life we think we understand well but it just ain't so. Maybe circumcision reduces sex drive in men allowing them to pursue higher goals. Maybe it frees up an important part of the brain for other general computation. I'm only speculating but I think that's fair when most of the alleged harms of circumcision are also speculation. For what it's worth, the biggest harm for myself has been the unending insistence that circumcised people are somehow "incomplete" and inferior. It took me a while and lots of research to realize that the story is far more complex.

Mithaldu 9y ago
> I think Jews having outsized outcomes in life is pretty well settled. This is not meaningful unless you control for social circumstances. Also, for now, all i'm asking you to do is only state things you can substantiate, and state them exactly and clearly.
- jquery 9y ago
  I think it's on the people who want to ban a tradition going back thousands of years to clearly demonstrate harms.
  - Mithaldu 9y ago
    There is a clear and very simple harm in: This thing can operate in various fashions. Unmodified it works like this, modified it works in another way. Leave it as is and there's the option for both at any point. Make the decision now and one of the options is forever gone.
    - jquery 9y ago
      Same argument could be used for vaccination.