Why are circumcision cultures more violent?

B_NineInchCock_160IQ

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I'm not arguing in this thread anymore. It's clear the original poster has no concept of history, is completely insane, and/or mentally deficient, and at any rate is beyond the reach of reason. Of course... I know that I should expect that every time I open any thread on these boards with "circumcision" somewhere in the title.

JBT, stop making sense! That's not allowed in circ threads, you should know that. You too, aloofman.
 

jordanj

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I don't think it's being circumcised that makes the Jewish guys violent, it's wearing prayer locks.:rolleyes:
 

agentblueuk

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I think it's an intersting idea, though how much this idea can be verified as any form of trend i think has been put into question by the many different examples quoted.
I think maybe it's been taken one step too far, I think that while it may be true that such rituals are based on these 'abolute' relgious views, but to then label the religions listed as violent is pushing it too far

all cows have 4 legs, but not all animals with 4 legs are cows

I do find it interesting to note that considoring how happy people who come from cutting cultures claim to be, that they are so very defensive about the topic
 

SteveHd

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I however, think this is all balderdash.
For a change, you and I agree on a circumcision issue.
Let us not forget that Elie Weisel, John Lennon, Martin Luther King, and many other prominent proponents of peace were circumcised.
Umm ... John Lennon and Martin Luther King were intact.
Also, i look to countries with a currently peaceful culture, such as South Korea, and the Phillipines where circumcision is prevelant in the absence of Judaism, Islam, or Anglo-Protestantism.
An important distinction about South Korea and Philippines is that they do their amputations at an later age, say, 9ish and up. That may or may not have any bearing on the balderdash.
 

dreamer20

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decades. Many have observed that precisely these monotheistic religions can't cope with modernity. "Catholics obviously can."

Just make a list with all post-WWII conflicts, massacres and terrorist attacks and see who's involved. You'll notice that these three cultures are behind the vast majority of these events.

Re: The Roman Catholic Church not being able to cope with modernity:
See the case of Kelly Romenesko:

Teacher says she was fired over in vitro - Pregnancy - MSNBC.com

The Roman Catholic Church hasn't been able to cope with the notion of married priests or the ordination of women from the 4th century A.D. to this present date. Nor do they want anyone to have abortions, consult I.V.F. clinics, benefit from stem cell research, or birth control, frown upon the practice of masterbation and presently ban gay priests.

Funding for the IRA terrorists has been linked to Catholic persons in the USA and the UK. I was in Britain in 1984 and saw how a bomb planted by IRA terrorists exploded at a Tory Party Conference in Brighton. The bomb nearly wiped out most of Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet. I suppose you didn't want to get into the subject of pre WWII as the Vatican allied itself with Mussolini in 1929 and did not denounce Hitler's actions during his reign.

Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski were Catholics. If I were to use your reasoning I would have to blame the RCC. I hold individuals responsible for their actions however.
 

B_johnschlong

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I think it's an intersting idea, though how much this idea can be verified as any form of trend i think has been put into question by the many different examples quoted.

It's controversial, sure, but it's backed up by some good scientific research.

Gregory S. Paul, 2005. Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies: A First Look. The Journal of Religion and Society, Volume 7.
Journal of Religion and Society


It shows that there are some interesting correlations - they're all based on hard quantitative data:

-prosperous democracies where desert religions (Judaism, Islam, Anglosaxon Protestantism) form the basis of culture, result in societies that are less healthy and less well-educated than secular societies or than prosperous democracies where non-desert religions form the core of culture
-prosperous democracies where desert religions form the basis of culture result in societies that are more "politically violent" (as in: engaged in conflicts causing death amongst their own citizens or death amongst foreign citizens) than secular societies or than prosperous democracies where non-desert religions form the core of culture
-prosperous democracies where desert religions form the basis of culture result in societies that are oppressive towards women and show a high degree of inequality of the sexes in the public sphere than secular societies or than prosperous democracies where non-desert religions form the core of culture
-many more correlations

I just add that these desert religions also happen to be the cultures where men and/or women are circumcised. Since several philosophers, like Derrida and Levinas, have written on circumcision as the basis of these relgions - not just a symbolic or ritual expression of it - I thought the connection was interesting. That's all.

I have nothing against circumcision or male/female genital mutilation as a practise at all. I have something against the cultures that are based on it.
 
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Some people here are so aggressive and defensive. Are they, could they be?
 

dreamer20

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desert regions result in societies that are less healthy and less well-educated than societies in non-desert regions


It wasn't the religion at all then. It was a case of an arid climate.
 

dannymawg

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Ok so this is about being cut = war, right? daaaahhhhhhhhh :biggrin1:

Since several philosophers, like Derrida and Levinas, have written on circumcision as the basis of these relgions - not just a symbolic or ritual expression of it - I thought the connection was interesting. That's all.

I might be out of my league asking this: is Derridean play involved here?
 

B_johnschlong

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It wasn't the religion at all then. It was a case of an arid climate.

Well, the old idea expressed by the Encyclopédistes is being recycled by modern science which is so much influenced by environmental determinism nowadays. That idea said that climate and natural resources are the single most important factor determining culture and social organisation.

The idea's being recycled by some top scientists; in a recent controversial article, one scientist even went so far as to say that "civilization" was born out of severe climate change and consequent resource constraints:
Climate change rocked cradles of civilization

Severe climate change was the primary driver in the development of civilisation, according to new research by the University of East Anglia.

"Civilisation did not arise as the result of a benign environment which allowed humanity to indulge a preference for living in complex, urban, 'civilized' societies," said Dr. Brooks.
"On the contrary, what we tend to think of today as 'civilisation' was in large part an accidental by-product of unplanned adaptation to catastrophic climate change. Civilisation was a last resort - a means of organising society and food production and distribution, in the face of deteriorating environmental conditions."
He added that for many, if not most people, the development of civilisation meant a harder life, less freedom, and more inequality. The transition to urban living meant that most people had to work harder in order to survive, and suffered increased exposure to communicable diseases. Health and nutrition are likely to have deteriorated rather than improved for many.
The new research challenges the widely held belief that the development of civilization was simply the result of a transition from harsh, unpredictable climatic conditions during the last ice age, to more benign and stable conditions at the beginning of the Holocene period some 10,000 years ago.
The research also has profound philosophical implications because it challenges deeply held beliefs about human progress, the nature of civilisation and the origins of political and religious systems that have persisted to this day. It suggests that civilisation is not our natural state, but the unintended consequence of adaptation to climatic deterioration - a condition of humanity "in extremis".
Dr. Brooks said: "Having been forced into civilized communities as a last resort, people found themselves faced with increased social inequality, greater violence in the form of organised conflict, and at the mercy of self-appointed elites who used religious authority and political ideology to bolster their position. These models of government are still with us today, and we may understand them better by understanding how civilisation arose by accident as a result of the last great global climatic upheaval."
Climate change rocked cradles of civilization

Clearly, in such harsh circumstances, you have to discipline people. You do so by cutting off their most sensitive, fragile part, their foreskin. It's like saying: "don't think you're free, obey our hard rules, because we're watching you - remember, we have cut you before, we can do it again."

And now for some Derridist play: circumcision has to do with discipline (in the Foucaultian sense of "discipline, punish, control"), and with circonscription (calling the men to arms to go to war, blindly). Metaphorically, circumcision results in societies in which circumfessions, confessions are demanded: speak out your allegiance openly in front of the circumcised men and pledge that you will go to war to defend your circumcised buddies (also read Foucault's famous ideas on the culture of confession - confession culture is the interiorisation of discipline and war.)

So indeed, from deserts to circumcision, to circonscription, lack of freedom and ultimately violence - it's not a big step.
 

chico8

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The wrong conclusions are being drawn.

If we start with the premise that John Kellogg 1852-1943 was one of the prime instigators of the practice, then we need to acknowledge that there was no functioning medical research system in the US until after the Flu Epidemic of 1917-18. That's when John Hopkins University began to take medical research seriously. It's true there were medical schools but the majority of physicians were educated in Europe, especially Germany. The US medical schools that existed were poor in quality. Few aspiring physicians could afford such the superior education that could be obtained in Europe so there were a lot of quacks out there. Coca Cola got its start as snake oil.

In the US, sexuality was repressed as it was in England and a cure for masturbation was impressive. Especially one by such a person as Kellogg. Even though the "cure" only disfigured the patient, as opposed to stopping them from enjoying self-pleasure, the practice caught on. Since the only ones able to afford the cure were wealthy, it soon became a badge of American's pseudo nobility.

The burgeoning ranks of real physicians and medical journals in the US meant that localized practices soon found a national stage. The massive social upheaval that took place after WWII meant that most women were delivering their babies at hospitals instead of at home and the doctors were unknown to them. The doctors were viewed as gods, whatever they said was treated as gospel. Since many of the new urbanites still had the whiff of cowshit on their shoes, anything that would help remove that smell was welcome. The foreskin soon came to be viewed as belonging to life on the farm, something the majority were all too happy to leave behind. No thought of course was given to the sexual benefits of the foreskin. Sex still was something that was only discussed in the broadest of terms.

What made it all possible of course, was this thing called health insurance. Wages were frozen during WWII and the only way to provide incentives to a shrinking pool of employees was to give them bennies, including health insurance. By not having to pay for it or perhaps only a small part of it, few people chose not to have it done to their newborn sons, if they were given a choice at all.

So, in short, I don't think circumcision is caused by violence although it's possible that the mutilated men of the world are more violent than the intact, the last however needs a lot more study. In the US' case at any rate, it was ignorance, coupled with the snake oil salesmen, a highly transient society and the social upheavals of WWI, the Depression and WWII together with Health Insurance.

It's sad that the practice remained even though the early advocates of it were mostly certifiably insane.
 

BigA

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Man JohnSchlong, quit trying to pretend you're not trying to be offensive. In both circumsicion threads now you've made statements that are blatantly racist against Americans with bs claims. Since when is this tolerable?
 

B_dxjnorto

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Reference: James DeMeo, author of Saharasia: The 4000 BCE Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-Repression, Warfare and Social Violence in the Deserts of the Old World
_____________________________

The major motivation for fundamentalist hatred of non-fundamentalists (of any religious background) is the absence of the latter group’s adherence to strict “moral codes” regarding sexuality and female reproductive functions. A fundamentalist who is raised with heavy obedience training, who suffered through severe genital mutilations, severe abstinence demands, segregation of the sexes at an early age, and ruthlessly enforced virginity taboos (girls murdered for violations;) when such a person grows to be an older teenager, they react with extreme rage and anxiety when confronted with the physical presence of another person who is more emotionally alive and fluid in character structure. And from that extreme rage and anxiety, comes new belief-systems and social institutions which organize the emotional outbursts into “religious demands” for attacking such a person. Translated into entire social structures, this is a mechanism for open warfare.

Consider the Taliban, butchering their own women who do not wear the veil or who rebel, as with Islamic fundamentalists elsewhere, they consider western women to basically be whores and prostitutes. The men in the west, they consider to be weak-willed, and generally because we do not follow their faith, they consider us vermin, useless, trash. Young men, with dynamite strapped to themselves, prefer to walk up to groups of young Israeli girls before blowing themselves and the girls to bits. In a more rational world, the same Arab boy might give the Jewish girl flowers, or ask her to dance. Instead, the sex repression is so extreme, that only a deadly hatred is expressed.
 

BigA

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I'd really like to know why, on a website dedicated to celebrating cocks, there is so much discussion of and support for cutting them up?

Do even read these threads? The only pro-circumsicion sentiment is really from people who defending against ant-circumsicion attackers. That Ive seen at least. i like my cock. I'm not gonna be convinced that i shouldnt. (Wish it were bigger, thats all)
 

BigA

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Lol.. nobody has even said babies should be circumcised. So unsolicited inflammatory remarks about others genitalia is an attack. sorry asswipe
 

dreamer20

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-prosperous democracies where desert religions (Judaism, Islam, Anglosaxon Protestantism) form the basis of culture, result in societies that are less healthy and less well-educated than secular societies or than prosperous democracies where non-desert religions form the core of culture
-prosperous democracies where desert religions form the basis of culture result in societies that are more "politically violent" (as in: engaged in conflicts causing death amongst their own citizens or death amongst foreign citizens) than secular societies or than prosperous democracies where non-desert religions form the core of culture

I have to agree with NIC that your above statements are erroneous . Ancient Egypt and Persia were very advanced and prosperous civilizations at a time when most Europeans were still living in caves. Elements of Ancient Egypt's culture, architecture, religious rites and rituals , were adopted by the Hebrews, Greeks and Romans. Religious rites, rituals and symbols of Ancient Egyptian origin are still prevalent in the Roman Catholic Church and Christianity today.

Historic Islamic Achievements as follows:

With regard to hygiene the Islamic persons of the Middle Ages fared better than those of the Christian faith as washing and bathing are religious requirements for Muslims. They perfected the recipe for soap which we still use today. The ancient Egyptians had soap of a kind, as did the Romans who used it more as a pomade. But it was the Arabs who combined vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide and aromatics such as thyme oil. One of the Crusaders' most striking characteristics, to Arab nostrils, was that they did not wash. Shampoo was introduced to England by a Muslim who opened Mahomed's Indian Vapour Baths on Brighton seafront in 1759 and was appointed Shampooing Surgeon to Kings George IV and William IV.

Distillation, the means of separating liquids through differences in their boiling points, was invented around the year 800 by Islam's foremost scientist, Jabir ibn Hayyan, who transformed alchemy into chemistry, inventing many of the basic processes and apparatus still in use today - liquefaction, crystallisation, distillation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation and filtration. As well as discovering sulphuric and nitric acid, he invented the alembic still, giving the world intense rosewater and other perfumes and alcoholic spirits (although drinking them is haram, or forbidden, in Islam). Ibn Hayyan emphasised systematic experimentation and was the founder of modern chemistry.

The crank-shaft is a device which translates rotary into linear motion and is central to much of the machinery in the modern world, not least the internal combustion engine. One of the most important mechanical inventions in the history of humankind, it was created by an ingenious Muslim engineer called al-Jazari to raise water for irrigation. His 1206 Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices shows he also invented or refined the use of valves and pistons, devised some of the first mechanical clocks driven by water and weights, and was the father of robotics. Among his 50 other inventions was the combination lock.

Quilting is a method of sewing or tying two layers of cloth with a layer of insulating material in between. It is not clear whether it was invented in the Muslim world or whether it was imported there from India or China. But it certainly came to the West via the Crusaders. They saw it used by Saracen warriors, who wore straw-filled quilted canvas shirts instead of armour. As well as a form of protection, it proved an effective guard against the chafing of the Crusaders' metal armour and was an effective form of insulation - so much so that it became a cottage industry back home in colder climates such as Britain and Holland.

Many modern surgical instruments are of exactly the same design as those devised in the 10th century by a Muslim surgeon called al-Zahrawi. His scalpels, bone saws, forceps, fine scissors for eye surgery and many of the 200 instruments he devised are recognisable to a modern surgeon. It was he who discovered that catgut used for internal stitches dissolves away naturally (a discovery he made when his monkey ate his lute strings) and that it can be also used to make medicine capsules. In the 13th century, another Muslim medic named Ibn Nafis described the circulation of the blood, 300 years before William Harvey discovered it. Muslims doctors also invented anaesthetics of opium and alcohol mixes and developed hollow needles to suck cataracts from eyes in a technique still used today.

And many more achievemments are posted here:
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dreamer20

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Lordpendragon said:
The culture of the Moors of southern Spain made the rest of Europe look like it was in the stone age - non muslim visitors were astounded when they visited and took back the idea of Universities amongst other things.

Thay had also safeguarded the great works of classical literature and philosophy - yes their open minds allowed them to do this whilst christian Europe of the Dark Ages and early middle ages had lost them - that's being kind.

Islamic culture was the founding influence for the European Renaissance.

Columbus wouldn't have got to the New World without Islamic navigation skills.

Their map makers were fantastic.
If you get the chance - visit the Al Hambra in Grenada southern Spain. To sit in the gardens there will make you understand.

The Europeans did eventually defeat the Moors and regain control of Spain. It took much longer for the Ottoman empire to fall. Had the Europeans left it alone the ME world would have been a much more stable region IMO.