If I remember my history correctly, one of the primary draws of the at the time new christianity over judaism was specifically that dudes wouldn’t need to lop off part of their dongs in a pre-anesthesia world.
pro tip: you can’t stutter if you never existed.
you also can’t loose yor peen tip or your protip.
Somewhere in heaven, God is sitting on top of a huge pile of foreskins like Smaug.
Tbf Jesus didn’t start this shit.
If you believe in the Trinity he did
I love this comment.
The son is just as creepy as the dad and the holy what the the mother fuck is that‽
At least they did it bcs they believed in some BS.
Unlike the suckers doing it for ‘esthetic reasons’It’s fucking crazy bro my parents were believers but weren’t actually subscribed to any traditional religion and them mfers still trimmed my shit
Blame Kellogg
The cereal guy? Next you’re gonna tell me Nestle’s been up to some shady shit
Well the cereal was invented cause he thought bland foods would stop you masturbating but that was clearly not working so he leaned back into foreskin hoarding.
I am not kidding as much as that sentence would make it seem.
Let’s clear it up though, it’s the guy who invented the cereal who was a nut. His brother was the one who was like “I’m gonna sell the flakes, not the dick snip bit.” They got into a huge battle when the quack doctor realized his brother was making more money selling the cereal than he was selling religious pseudoscience.
And ultimately Christian sexual repression
Yeah you’ve got to wonder if that extra bit they trimmed off would be nicer to have there or not. But I guess the mutilated pecker is all I’ll ever know so I guess its fine?
1: Reduces feeling, bad for you 2: Reduces feeling, good for your partner 3: Might be useful hygienically if you ever live as a desert nomad, so that’s nice
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Circumcision is not a Christian practice.
It’s popular in America because some 19th Century RFK jr style health freaks convinced everybody that masturbation caused disease.
I know it more from Islam.
Arguably the same thing in different colors tho.
Fun fact: Adventists (Kellogg’s religion) run the second largest system of Christian schools, behind the Catholics. It definitely won’t leave you weird and sexually repressed for the rest of your life.
So there is that story in Genesis where the sons of Jacob have an army of 318 men circumcised so they could follow their religion.
Just think they probably put then into a pile, a small little mountain of foreskins.
They made them into some wallets
You know how you can collect rubber bands over time, wrapping them around each other, and eventually you have a great big ball on your desk to play with?
My wallet is really at the end of its life cycle and this comment made me consider
Genital mutilation for all your babies! Use myths and lies to explain why it’s necessary!
You mean to tell me it’s not physically impossible to clean the dick if the foreskin isn’t cut off? My whole uncircumcised life has been a lie!
Wrong dude. That was Abraham in Genesis.
If Jesus is God and God told Abraham then i guess it’s technically the right dude.
Didn’t Jesus deny being god though, the son of god and god are not the same entity, it’s like saying I’m my mother because I was born out of her, but two different entities
This is technical correct and I love it.
only jesus said there is a new covenant with him, which nearly all denominations interpret to mean the rite of circumcision is a thing of the past
… Unless you’re in Protestant dominated USAmerica, where male genital mutilation remains a widespread, common practice.
Roughly 80% of American boys/men are circumcized, almost all at birth.
I can provide either statistics or pics as proof, your choice.
EDIT: There’s also a whole history of basically junk/fraudulent science in the US being used as a validation of this practice, much of which basically claims that having your whole hood intact makes you more vulnerable to skin infections and STDs.
This is false, but Americans are quite good at doing motivated reasoning and convincing themselves it is objective critical analysis.
no i know. i’m part of that statistic. my parents weren’t consulted ahead of time. it was simply done “for health reasons”
… are you saying you don’t want pics… =[
/s /s /s lol
I edited in a bit more info… yet another wonderful amazing lie I had to figure out entirely on my own that my fundie parents told me with utter confidence.
i saw the edit
But that’s not religious. It’s an american thing.
It is an American thing that arose from, and persists because of how Americans ‘do’ Christianity.
As I said in another post, start with Max Weber, and then explore more of the history of how Christianity and Christian Denominations, cults, sects, revival movements, etc, have shaped the country as a whole, in ways that are distinct from how other kinds of Christianity have shaped other countries in the last 300 or so years.
Like… the whole reason we have the First Amendment, the freedom of religion part… was mainly to make it so that none of the varying Christian Denominations would be able to use the government to censor or outright oppress or murder each other.
Read the journals of the founding fathers, federalist papers, etc, if you doubt that. See how most of them were Deists, who… just believed in a big creator God, but basically no theology of any particular Christian branch… the neutral middle ground.
America was largely initially founded by populations of varying kinds of extreme Christian Sects fleeing persecution in Europe… and a lot of our early history is… those sects persecuting and mistreating, or at best, barely tolerating and competetively trying to proselytize, other sects that just over here now, on a different continent… as well as all the indigenous populations… and the imported slaves.
It’s motivated by Christian sexual abuse
None of that is for (directly) religious reasons though; Americans circumcise their sons because a cereal company founder thought it would prevent masturbation, and Americans are removed apparently
Lol I guess one of the involved instances censors that word.
… It is an unchallenged remnant of many things, a large chunk of those things having puritanical religious origins.
And almost all those religions happen to be Jesus-centric.
Kellogg was just a more recent large scale eh… reinforcment of the norm. He was inspired by his particular Christian views… 7th Day Adventist.
Like, yes, its not as direct as many modern preachers constantly doing sermons about the virtuosity of circumcision… but even still, I can easily say that the reason the practice is unchallenged is that American Protestant Christians of many, many different Denominations… well they strongly promote traditionalism for the sake of tradition, not questioning authority figures, actively rejecting modern science and medicine.
Like uh… Max Weber’s christian protestant work ethic explanation of the peculiarities of American culture in regards to attitudes toward work and politics and many other cultural features… isn’t 100% perfect… but it is a very good starting point to understand why American Protestantism is sociologically distinct to other societies.
Which has fuck-all to do with Jesus, the meme is still incorrect
Pentecostal holiness denominations are both small and overrepresented in policy making
edit: oh yeah and they teach the opposite of what jesus did
? I agree with you. Has nothing to do with Jesus, the meme is wrong
no yeah for sure. i’m just saying that the subset of people who are gungho about the importance of circumcision because of their love for jesus are people you’re unlikely to ever encounter, but do have every conservative politician’s ear
Good vid!
Tell that to the doctors recommending it then, not to us. As far as I’m concerned this obsession over it is a mental disease and not one I’m pleased to see making the jump from Reddit.
I’m circumcised, and I don’t give a shit, and I never will, and it’s not the same thing as FGM at all.
Discussing it isn’t an obsession, an obsession would be making your whole personality about it, or basically having that be a primary hobby or something.
You are doing a less extreme version of the thing that politcal news pundits do against protests:
Protesting as a concept is fine, but it turns out any protest with views I disagree with? Well they’re protesting wrong.
If you are reading this as an obsession, I dunno what to tell you, check my comment history and you’ll see this is the first thread I’ve ever mentioned it in, and my older, nearly year old account? Don’t think I ever mentioned it.
Finally: Yes, female genital mutilation is very often much, much worse, in that it usually entails total removal of the clitoris, which is… basically fundamental to the ability of a woman to experience pleasure and orgasm.
But that doesn’t mean male genital mutilation is not also bad. The male hood also generally has a much higher concentration of nerve endings than… basically everywhere other than the head.
And both of these practices fundamentally remove bodily autonomy from a baby/child, and are culturally/religiously done for reasons that ultimately or directly arise from a very paternalistic and authoritarian approach to children as property of parents, and intending to diminish and control their sexual characteristics without consent.
… But if you don’t wanna have this discussion, feel free to block me, or just… not discuss… this…?
I will block you because this is tedious, but know that I will always discuss this and never let it go uncommented on because it’s unhinged. While you supposedly don’t make this your entire personality there were those on Reddit who definitely did, and you smell just like them. I will never stop speaking out that this whole thing is a bullshit non issue.
Does lemmy have a function to block words? if you can’t stop yourself from discussing it when you see the word, it might benefit you to not see it for a while. i’ve been there.
I will always discuss this and never let it go uncommented on
I dunno, sounds like the one who’s made it their whole personality might not be spectral here.
Glad you left your reddit trauma at the door to lemmy and certainly aren’t making any personal judgements based entirely on vibes rofl.
I will never stop speaking out that this whole thing is a bullshit non issue.
Not obsessive in any way at all, nope, that’s me apparently.
Hahahahaha
Why would you come to a thread about circumcision, read the comments about circumcision, and leave a comment about being fed up of circumcision discussions if you were tired of talking about circumcision? And then block a guy who replies to your comment in a reasonable and ration manner because he reminds you of someone on a different website.
If anyone’s “unhinged” here it’s the guy who doesn’t just move on to the next thread.
Jesus’ deity is pretty famously rejected by the Jewish faith.
Jesus hadn’t been created yet. God is eternal, but Jesus was God made mortal.
Not as readily recognizable; but on the other hand, if you recognize Jesus then you already know this is incorrect.
Where’s that painting of Moses with the tablets? That’s probably better
Yes, this dude got his dick cut off as well.
I can understand desert people coming up with some excuse to preform the operation because sand is coarse and rough and irritating… and it gets everywhere.
But it’s just nicer to think they wanted their kids to have the most attractive cocks in the village
Actually there was a huge debate among early Christians whether circumcision was still required because Jesus never spoke on the issue (or if he did, there was no verifiable record of it).
To crudely summarize:
The earliest Christians were primarily Jews, so they were already circumcized as required by Judaism so it was a non-issue. However unlike Judaism where you’re almost always born into the religion, Christianity actively encourages adult conversion, so as more non-Jews (e.g. Greeks) began to identify as Christians, the circumcision issue became a conundrum. Some felt Christianity was a branch of Judaism and as such Jewish practices like circumcision were still required, whereas others objected because they saw Christianity as a new approach to Judaism, or even as a separate religion altogether (circumcision specifically was hotly debated due to such issues as adult circumcision being more, shall we say, unappealing than infant circumcision, plus getting circumcized would “out” non-Jews in nude spaces like bath houses, which was at best awkward and at worst deadly).
The earliest followers of Jesus thought Jesus was going to return in their lifetimes, so these types of issues were not discussed (or at least not resolved) by the original founders and proselytizers (researchers have determined the Gospels weren’t even composed until well after everyone involved was dead), but as generations passed it became clear that the Second Coming actually may not happen anytime soon, so practical issues of “how to establish a new religion (is it even a new religion or just a Jewish sect???)” turned into gigantic internal debates for the community. That’s what much of the New Testament is: letters back and forth trying to interpret the words of Jesus to resolve doctrinal conflict. In other words, the New Testament is basically four different versions of the story of Jesus (Mark, Matthew and Luke which were based on Mark and a lost “Gospel X”, and John), followed by a curated back-and-forth commentary section debating issues of the day such as circumcision and women’s role in the church, and controversially capped off by the (theorized) hallucinations of a hermit tripping balls off donated moldy bread.
The history of the New Testament (how it was written and later compiled, early texts that were lost or discarded, and all the doctrinal conflicts that boiled over into variously incidents of geopolitical chaos) is fascinating and seriously worth exploring.
That’s fascinating. Can you recommend any books on the subject? The easier to read the better!
I don’t know if I’d call it “easy” reading, but this is a well-regarded college textbook that’s popular in “Christianity 101” religion classes (so at least it’s entry-level and doesn’t assume prior knowledge on the topic):
For something much lighter, Extra Credits did a video series on early Christian schisms that mentions the circumcision debate:
I’m far from a religious scholar (just someone who enjoys history from time to time), so I’d be curious if other folks have additional recommendations.
Christianity actively encourages adult conversion
That’s why 99% of christians were baptized before they learned to shit and piss properly.
I can’t tell if you’re being humorous here, but historically babies were baptized shortly after birth out of fear that anyone who died without being baptized would be unable to get into heaven.
In the middle ages* in Europe, baptism was usually scheduled a few days after birth, and often the historical record includes baptism dates and death dates for individuals, so historians estimate birth dates to be a few days prior to the baptism date. Babies that died pre-baptism were thought to go to purgatory instead of heaven, and considering the high infant mortality rate pre-modern medicine, there was a bit of a rush to get your offspring baptized pronto to save their itty bitty souls. Generally this is no longer believed, at least not by most mainstream Protestant sects, and many Christians nowadays opt to wait until their children are old enough to “appreciate” the event more.
*Not sure exactly when, and maybe this was mostly a Catholic thing? Again, this is not my area of expertise.
Catholics still do infant baptism, as do several Protestant groups.
I think adult baptism popped up in a few heresies/other groups - like maybe the Cathars did it and iirc a few early heresies - but really became a thing post Protestant reformation with groups like the Anabaptists. (Like, Baptists are called such because they specifically reject infant baptism.)
Jesus was in fact the one to say “yeah all this old rules don’t matter, just focus on these two: don’t be a dick and don’t be a fucking dick, god damn”
And that is why they crucified him, The Old Testament Repeatedly says “Be a dick against gays, infidels and non-virgin women who are not your wife. And whoever comes to say otherwise, be the most absolute dick against him”.
But even the new testament says to fear god, why would a all loving god want us to fear it? The abrahamic god is not all loving at all
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
Matthew 5:17
Matthew, particularly, was so obsessed with this idea that he even made up new scriptures that didn’t exist and said Jesus fulfilled them.
The law of the prophets was a costly covenant between old-testament god and humanity. Or, you know, whatever subgroup was in charge of translations at the time.
The “fulfillment” mentioned is a single lump sum of holy lamb blood in place of the never-actually-complete exchange of not wearing blended fabrics, not getting tattoos, and sacrificing your firstborn on a rock in the mountains. And slaughtering prisoners of war who you tricked into getting circumcised as a condition of their surrender so that they would be vulnerable.
Aleluya
Found some really nuts messianic Christian family on Facebook, and the mom just gives birth on the back of the skoolie they live in without any medical care, thankfully they only have one son but the father circumcised him with a razor by himself on the bus, and mom thinks that is a swell idea and wrote up a manual about it for her website. They drive around putting up religious signs and begging donations off their fellow believers to live on, and I want to call CPS so badly but I don’t know how to find them. It’s SO much worse than that too.
Egads, that poor child is probably going to have significant scarring around the cuts. Assuming he didn’t get a massive infection that they didn’t bother to get treated until amputation was necessary.
Those kids have never seen any medical care providers of any sort. They let the boy get an almost 107 degree fever one time, and he’s obviously autistic so it must have been extra miserable for him. No vaccines, no dentists, no school, etc etc.
Circumcision of children should be highly illegal. Any health practitioner doing the procedure should be criminally liable for assault and malpractice.
It’s sexual assault
I think religiously mandated circumcision is as dumb as the next guy does but c’mon now… there are legitimate reasons to do it and getting it done does not have that terrible health outcomes for the kid compared to FGM. I think society as a whole should start to think of it as a bygone practice, but putting doctors on pikes over it is extreme.
They are clearly not talking about the legitimate, medically necessary cases
not really… they said any. they didn’t give any indication they might have an exception to that. sounds like they’re talking about a blanket ban.
The rational behind it is flimsy to begin with. Stopping bacterial buildup? Sure. Then you have the whole “circumcision as a remedy for masturbation” … which was actually a movement.
nah my nephew had to get one because his foreskin wouldn’t grow. it literally was cutting off blood flow to his pecker, so they give him a circumcision. sucks but kinda had to happen.
I would say that any… if the people live in a group or a society that is religion-based, and that religion requires it, then I am not against infant circumcision.
Basically, if you were born to Jewish parents living in Israel or Palestine or born to Muslim parents living in a Muslim-run country, then yes, participate in the culture that you were born in.
But, like in America, where every single person decides their own faith for themselves and only the most culty stay in this same religion that their parents were in, infant bodily autonomy outside of life-saving procedures should be the rule.
It seems to happen less often in Europe, but wouldn’t hurt to add that as a rule there, too.
At least wait until the kid is 13 years old as a minimum.
