I suggest we chisel off the coccyx, cut out the appendix and pull out the tonsils of every 7 day old baby right this instant.
Pain. Babies and can feel this. it causes emotional, psychological damage to the child as well as being physical trauma: http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/goldman1/

cut with a knife, sucked on by a rabbi, deliberately manipulated to bleed more.


The damage is obvious.
and what's more:
Whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously by any means whatsoever wound or cause any grievous bodily harm to any person, . . . with intent, . . . to do some . . . grievous bodily harm to any person.

It meets all the elements of GBH. Do it to any other unwilling volunteer apart from a 7 day old baby, see what happens to you.

Sorry but you're talking out of your arse again.


A duty to protect from harm, avoid the risk of infecting your baby with herpes, learn modern medical practices and protect your baby. Chafing, discomfort, the inability to have pleasure when having sex, these are all potential problems in later life. Should parents ignore modern medical knowledge about peanut allergies and feed their babies peanut butter before knowing if they are allergic? To introduce them to the culture of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Calling it culture and therefore protecting the practice for no rational reason is just the same bollocks as calling it religion and therefore protecting the practice for no rational reason. I've already explained how you love to do that, how you justify things by saying "well that's the way it is, so that's the way it ought to be". Sorry, not an argument.


eh?

Your argument is incoherent and platitudinous.



Done. I did what you said I must do, what happens now?

You have to stop being hypocritical and pompous.


Whatevs.

I do like your is/ought try. That could put me in some difficulty depending on how the conversation goes. Bear in mind though that the point of the is/ought error is that you can't make an is the logical foundation of an ought, you can't make the charge stick just by pointing out that the ought and the is both exist in my argument, you have to show that the ought is entirely dependent upon the is for its justification.

Perhaps I underestimated the harm that is done by circumcision, it always struck me as a pretty minor thing. You however didn't balance that against the possible harm of telling a boy that he can't have a bar mitzvah because he isn't a real jew. That's an inevitably subjective comparison, fraught with the clear impossibility of showing how much value there is in any cultural or religious heritage.

Either way, you have to consider the wider circumstances in which the state is entitled or required to overrule the judgment of parents in the matter of how to raise their children. It's kind of you and the psychologists on your side, versus billions of jews and muslims (plus whatever doctors and phsychobabble merchants are on theirs), who may or may not feel that their lives would have been better without the snipping. Even under (for you) the best of circumstances, that's obviously going to get subjective - which gives me the advantage in this topic because I am arguing the negative.
Even worse, your own link expressly states that
And so you compound your failure to establish true objectivity (which is impossible by definition in this matter) by cock blocking yourself with the fact that nobody has even tried to establish a quasi-objective position.

The smart move for you to make is to just accept the fact that you won't be able to turn an ethical question of this nature into an easy objective comparison. But you can maybe win with a subjective argument if you craft it well enough. After all the state requires of parents - sometimes against their wishes - to send their children to school, get vaccines, and not murder them as witches or keep them in coal sheds as sex slaves. But as I already told you - alas your emotional investment in competing with me seems to be blinding you though - it is a morally hazardous endeavour to allow the state to overrule the wishes of parents in regard to the rearing of their young except in cases where there is the most compelling need and all of the facts have been taken into account.

So stop trying to goad me with silly insults, and craft your argument properly; show a little subtlety, you need to properly consider the wishes of the parents, and not blithely describe their actions as malicious willful bodily harm.

so is describing it as non-malicious wilful bodily harm more correct?

yes. although of course it's still blithely dismissive so not a great improvement.

I would say its not blithely dismissive, just an accurate description of what the procedure is. The difference between it and an action that would get you in court is the fact that it is normally classed as a religious act performed upon a child, with the informed consent taken from the parents. The child is never (or very rarely due to their age) consulted and the parents take that responsibility. No matter what arguement you or anyone use it is still wilful bodily harm, it is just sanctioned under the law (or not depending where you are in the world). The get out from that is if it is needed as a medical requirement.

The question that should parents be allowed to make that decsion on behalf of a child is another matter seperate from what the procedure is.

That's as may be, but "non-malicious wilful bodily harm" does not adequately describe the activity, nor even hint at it. It can stand as a category I suppose, but that's its limit. And that's before we consider the paradoxical nature of the phrase. You have added a clause for considering additional factors, but leave out that addendum, and unless such is implied (which was not the case in my view with Manc's original comment), then it would still be blithe and dismissive.

I wonder if we are really arguing over anything that either of us cares about here?

I wonder how many circumcised men are actually bitter about what was taken from them. Is this just a bunch of gentiles being indignant on other people's behalf?

I dont. But then I'm not a survivor of the act.

Then perhaps to balance the arguement, we need input from those who have been circumcised on medical grounds. We can ask them whether it was traumatic (given that birth is supposed to be very traumatic for the child), and whether they have any problems or issues with it. I've seen girly flicks where the men seemed to be circumcised and it doesn't seem to affect their ability to enjoy themselves though it is acting nonetheless.

As I think I have mentioned before, I have, on medical grounds.

Its fine, fixed my prob (nob) and is recommended and wasn't traumatic. Though the condition that led to the surgery most definitely was.

Every. Single. Time.

It's true, I do always have the advantage.

The same advantage that Talkie the Toaster has. Always getting the last word, first one to give up loses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRq_SAuQDec

I think the insight would need to come from those that had it removed for religious reasons. Someone who has had it removed for a medical one has a logical basis to fall back on and you can understand why ones parents had come to a reasoned decision on the matter. As opposed to someone who had it done 'just because'.

Bizarrely enough, my very earliest memory is of having stickers with numbing cream under them on the backs of my hand prior to having it done (for medical reasons). And no, it bothers me not one jot and I certainly haven't suffered for it if you know what I mean.

Gaaah! I actually meant religious grounds not medical grounds, particularly those who no longer follow their religion.