Having surveyed the web for reactions to the ruling of a regional court in Germany to outlaw circumcision of young male children out of religious reasons, one gets the impression that most people believe the argument produced by the court that male circumcision is harmful. Many react with outrage in regard of the practice of circumcision, believing it to be a mutilation of the body of young children. Public sentiment is not always informed. Quite in opposite, public opinion is often misinformed. Why not hear what medicals say? Here is a report from Science Daily, published on the occasion of voting on banning of male circumcision in San Francisco last year. While public opinion seems to be in favour of the opponents of male circumcision, the ban of it is not tenable both out of juristic and medical reasons. What’s more, it exhibits a blank ignorance of the public of the Jewish culture and religion, what is most mind-boggling for a society which prides itself in its “multicultural tolerance, respect for other traditions and cultures etc.”. Without circumcision, one, though born of Jewish parents, is not a real Jew according to the Jewish understanding. In the end, good sense prevails. The ban of male circumcision in San Francisco was struck from ballot last November. The German court which decided that religious male circumcision is unlawful is only a regional court and its decision is not binding for other regional courts. While the opponents of the male circumcision, especially the so called inactivists, are hoping that other courts will follow suit, the Jews living in Germany decide to appeal to the Federal Diet (Bundestag), in the hope of getting the legal support of a higher level court. Perhaps, or let’s hope at least, that the highest court in Germany, the Constitutional Court will make a decision to give the 4000 years old Jewish practice a positive legal support. And that will be a good outcome.
Efforts to Defund or Ban Infant Male Circumcision Are Unfounded and Potentially Harmful, Experts Argue
ScienceDaily (Oct. 4, 2011) — Johns Hopkins infectious disease experts say the medical benefits for male circumcision are clear and that efforts in an increasing number of states (currently 18) to not provide Medicaid insurance coverage for male circumcision, as well as an attempted ballot initiative in San Francisco earlier this year to ban male circumcision in newborns and young boys, are unwarranted. Moreover, they say these actions ignore the last decade of medical evidence that the procedure can substantially protect men and their female partners from certain sexually transmitted infections.
The Johns Hopkins experts argue that implementing policy or financial barriers to safe circumcision could potentially disadvantage people most in need of publicly financed services to improve their health. These groups include minorities and the poor, among whom sexually transmitted infection rates are often the highest.
Critics of infant or childhood circumcision claim, among other things, that the procedure should not be considered until males can give legal informed consent at age 18.
In an editorial to be published in theJournal of the American Medical Association online Oct. 5, Johns Hopkins health epidemiologist and pathologist Aaron Tobian, M.D., Ph.D., and health epidemiologist Ronald Gray, M.D., highlight the most recent medical research showing the considerable life-long health benefits of circumcision performed during infancy and the potential disadvantages associated with waiting until adulthood before undergoing the procedure. The experts point out that there are medical benefits during childhood, as many young men are already sexually active before age 18, and at greater risk of infection from sexually transmitted infections. Circumcision at older ages is also associated with more complications and cost than having the minimal surgery in infancy.
“Our goal is to encourage all parents to make fully informed decisions on whether to circumcise their infant boys based on medical evidence and not conjecture or misinformation put out by anti-circumcision advocates,” says Tobian, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Among the research cited by Tobian and Gray, a professor at the University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, are multiple studies conducted within the last five years showing that in heterosexuals, circumcision reduced HIV infection risk by 60 percent, genital herpes by 30 percent and cancer-causing human papillomavirus (HPV) by 35 percent in men. Females benefit from a 40 percent or greater reduced risk of bacterial vaginosis or parasitic trichomonas spread during sex, as well as HPV infection, which causes cervical cancer.
In addition, the experts say the data clearly show that having the procedure in infancy reduces the risk of urinary tract infections, as well as inflammation in the opening or head region of the penis. Risk of infection from surgically removing the foreskin, considered a minimal and simple surgery, is already low overall but even lower during infancy, at between 0.2 percent and 0.6 percent. In adults, infection and complication rates are higher, between 1.5 percent and 3.8 percent.
In contrast to what circumcision’s opponents claim, Tobian and Gray say that research shows no reduction in sexual satisfaction or male performance. Indeed, they add, circumcised men in the trials, the gold standard of medical evidence, reported no difference or even increased penile sensitivity during intercourse and enhanced orgasms compared to uncircumcised men. The majority of female partners also reported either no change or increased sexual satisfaction, largely because of improved hygiene.
The Johns Hopkins experts argue that delaying circumcision until adulthood, when young men can legally decide for themselves, not only carries added risk of infection, but also challenges the long-held rights and responsibilities of many parents to make decisions about the long-term health of their children, including vaccinating them against hepatitis B, measles, polio, whooping cough and influenza. The proposed ban or delays also counter the religious rights for parents who observe Jewish and Muslim faiths, in which infant male circumcision is a prescribed religious obligation.
In the editorial, Tobian and Gray conclude that if a vaccine comparable in disease-prevention benefits to male circumcision was available, with the same disease-preventing benefits, “the medical community would rally behind the immunization, and it would be promoted as a game-changing public health intervention.” They say that banning male circumcision would be “ethically questionable.”
Tobian and Gray say Medicaid and other insurers should cover male circumcision costs if parents opt for the procedure, and that leading medical groups, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, need to recognize the health benefits of male circumcision and do more to educate parents and physicians about them.
More than 500 U.S. and international observational studies and 13 studies from randomized trials, Tobian says, have been published in the most influential medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet, in the past decade — reaffirming the benefits of male circumcision in preventing sexually transmitted infections.
However, the Academy’s policy on male circumcision, last issued in 1999 and re-affirmed in 2005, is ambiguous with respect to medical benefits. The CDC’s policy also takes no firm position on the medical benefits of male circumcision, but that policy is expected to be updated shortly.
“In light of the latest medical evidence, the medical community and government officials at all levels would do well to revisit their policies on male circumcision, so as best to counsel parents on the potential health benefits to their children well into adulthood,” says Gray.
Jewish and other community groups successfully challenged the San Francisco ballot initiative in court, and in July, the male circumcision ban was taken off the city’s November ballot because of a legal technicality. The most recent states to stop Medicaid funding for infant circumcision are Colorado in June, and South Carolina, in February 2011. States that already had funding bans in place include Louisiana, Idaho and Minnesota, all since 2005; Maine, since 2004; Montana, Utah and Florida, since 2003; and Missouri, Arizona and North Carolina, since 2002. California, North Dakota, Oregon, Mississippi, Nevada and Washington — all had stopped funding before 1999.
And the following is an article to explain the significance of circumcision for the Jewish identity, the author is Rabbi Eugene Korn:
The Significance Of Circumcision
Ritual purity and impurity dominate this week’s Torah portion of Tazria, but after the destruction of the Second Temple these religious institutions have been discontinued in Jewish life. Nor do many contemporary Jews yearn for their return, for what meaning could the ancient purity rituals offer Jews trying to understand the world in modern terms? By contrast, the commandment for Jewish males to undergo ritual circumcision, [Leviticus 12:3], which also appears in Tazria, continues to be a key to Jewish identity, a subject that continues to ignite controversy today.
Like Jewish identity itself, circumcision carries a dual significance, both ethnic and religious. It is the Jewish male’s quintessential sign of ethnic belonging and biological lineage. Though only a small percentage of Jews today consider themselves believers in any traditional sense, nearly every Jewish male undergoes circumcision. Indeed, circumcision is the most popular custom observed among our people. As the hallmark of national identity, it was the most visible difference between Jews and their Greek counterparts in the second century B.C.E., when Hellenists ruled over the Jewish commonwealth, and two millennia later it was, tragically, the tell-tale sign of Jews when Nazis hunted them down during the Shoah.
The ethnic significance of circumcision helps explain a mysterious incident in the life of Moses that is described in Exodus Chapter 4. After growing up in Pharaoh’s court and then spending 60 years in Midian, alienated from any Jewish identity, Moses was tormented by his unformed identity. He was psychologically unable to make the fateful existential choice between throwing his lot in with a nation of slaves or living an easy but purposeless life tending sheep in Midian. Because he lacked the commitment to his people and his higher destiny, God sought to kill him until his wife, Tzipora, hurriedly circumcised their son. It was that act which solidified Moses’ identity and endowed him with the determination to redeem his people.
Yet the Bible is more concerned with the theological meaning of circumcision than its ethnic significance. First commanded to Abraham, circumcision in the Bible does not constitute the brit (covenant) itself, but is the most permanent ot (sign) of someone who undertakes to live in covenant with God. Without this commitment, circumcision carries only surgical meaning; and without circumcision, the Bible’s commandments that were intended to be suffused with higher religious dimension lose their value. Hence, according to rabbinic tradition, the Jews in Egypt had to circumcise themselves before performing the first paschal sacrifice, and according to the Book of Joshua, 40 years later the next generation of Jews circumcised themselves before they entered the Promised Land.
What is this Jewish brit, the covenant of which circumcision is only a sign? In rabbinic parlance, it is to accept the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven—a life of responsibility, or as God tells Abraham, the imperative “to teach your children to do righteousness and justice” (tzedakah and mishpat).
Maimonides merged both dimensions of circumcision, hoping it would unify Jews as well as foster “love among all bearers of the same sign of brit milah.” He envisaged circumcision as the carrier of God’s seal with us and a catalyst for Jews to act with peace and communal loyalty toward each other. Perhaps he had in mind Malachi’s admonition, “Have we not all one Father … why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother?”
Jewish law supports this notion of communal solidarity regarding circumcision, for if the baby’s family cannot afford the cost of the circumcision, the community then assumes the responsibility to usher the child into the covenant of Abraham.
There is a famous fictional dialogue in the Talmud between the Roman official Tarnus Rufus and Rabbi Akiva concerning circumcision. The Roman challenged Akiva about why circumcision should performed at all: “If God wanted humans circumcised, He would have ensured that babies leave the womb without foreskins.” In reply, Rabbi Akiva tells Tarnus Rufus the secret and glory of the Torah: “The Holy One, Blessed Be He, gave commandments only for the purpose of refining human beings.”
Commandments are about improving ourselves, raising ourselves from mere biological objects to moral beings, about moving from facts to values, and about constantly striving for spiritual perfection. Judaism knows no noble savage. On the contrary, Jewish nobility is found only in the elevated being who has overcome the brute conditions of nature. On a national level, it means the transformation of an ethnic collection into a holy people. Individually or nationally, this transformation does not come cheap. It requires effort and sacrifice — the blood that transforms a medical procedure into a covenantal event.
Perhaps this is the deeper meaning of the old purity/impurity rituals — the staking out of values, and the importance of human striving to improve, purify and elevate. Though the rituals are relegated to antiquity, their underlying spiritual message seems eternal.
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Rabbi Eugene Korn is American director of Israel’s Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation, and editor of Meorot-A Forum for Modern Orthodox Discourse.
Brother Burrito
Catholicism Pure & Simple
Gertrude
kathleen
mmvc
teresa
The Raven
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Circumcision harmful? Didn’t do Jesus any harm, did it? And he had three foreskins it seems:
The rather sensitive subject of foreskins prompts Toad to offer the following:
“(Christ’s) umbilical cord and foreskin were already preserved in the Lateran basilica in the eleventh century, and the official explanation of their origin was that they had been spirited from Jerusalem by an angel and presented to Charlemagne at Aachen, whence they had been brought to Rome by Charles the Bald… At the end of the fourteenth century the Swedish visionary St. Bridget enjoyed a revelation in which the Blessed Virgin assured her of their authenticity…
At the very end of the eleventh century the monastery of Charroux in Poitou claimed to possess a foreskin…
Another foreskin was venerated in the Benedictine abbey of Coulombs: it was sent to England in the baggage of Henry V’s bride, Catherine of France, in the hope that it would bring good fortune on her marriage bed.” ..(Anyone know if it did? Asks Toad.)
And so on…
(Extracts from “The Age of Pilgrimage” by Jonathan Sumption, Very highly recommended reading. Kathleen would love it.)
And now some ghastly Germans are trying to stop this venerable and sacred practice!
It’s simple jealousy. Will they never learn? Apparently not. Protestants, probably.
What other religion can boast a historical legacy like this? Three foreskins! (Threeskins?)
Why, reading this amazingly miraculous stuff is almost enough to make Toad re-embrace his old religion!
But not quite.
(…And exactly how the subject of Christ’s foreskin came up in a conversation between St. Bridget and the Virgin, must remain a matter of speculation.)
Thanks for the information. How ridiculous. As one of the circumcised I have no complaints. This is another form of anti-Semitism rearing its ugly head. It is like the times of the Maccabees when the Greeks were trying to stop the Jews from circumcising their sons.
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“This is another form of anti-Semitism rearing its ugly head.”
Not, on the subject of circumcision, the most felicitous metaphor you might have chosen, Gilbert.
Ah Mr Whippy might have known you were an anti-semite. But its a shame you are misusing the name Mr Whippy which I have been fond of since childhood-you have ruined it for me now.
“Is male circumcision really harmful?” the article asks.
Answer: No, it certainly is not. If anything, it’s hygienic and beneficial.
This further attempt of the authorities to impose their biased ideas on the beliefs of others is not only threatening to “freedom of religion“, (one of the ‘basic human rights’ they themselves constantly expound), it is also quite crazy! It’s been around in the Jewish Faith, and accepted for thousands of years by everyone, and now certain judges want to ‘outlaw‘ it?!!
What could be next on their agenda, I wonder?
As the wife of a jewish man I am the opposite of anti-semetic. My husband and I have left our beautiful son perfectly whole as we both agree that circumcision is wrong, a violation of his human rights and a dangerous, painful procedure that carries a large risk with no benefits. I think in 50 years time people will look back in horror that society allowed it to continue for so long, it will be seen as just as abominable as female circumcision.
Does anyone here have any doubts that female circumcision – even the milder forms, such as removal of the clitoral hood only – is harmful?
@Bronwyn millar, I am aware that there are Jews who are opposed to their long tradition of circumcision, and it is your perfect right to choose not to have your son circumcised, but that is another thing to force your own ideology upon the traditional Jews and Muslims who decide to keep their identity and tradition. As for your next comment please check up the title, we are not talking about female circumcision, it would be kind of you not to change the subject.
Anyway, as long as I follow the discussion among politicians in Germany, the tendency is that there will soon be positive legislation to give male circumcision a legal status, so thank you for opposing male circumcision, instead of getting rid of it, you and the anti-circumcision pals are helping people to realise that government should leave private life of other people alone and respect the religious freedom.
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Teresa, In what way, even in the minutest degree, is Bronwyn forcing her ideology on anyone at all?
I’d read it again, carefully this time, if I were you.
I see not a hint of it. Just telling us her thoughts on this ticklish topic.
Is her having an opinion you don’t agree with, forcing? It would seem so.
But, logically, if we countenance male circumcision, why should the idea of female circumcision be utterly unthinkable?
Illogical. thinks Toad.
(And if anyone give a rat’s patootie, (Which they don’t) Toad was circumcised by a Jewish doctoer, and has no complaints, but couldn’t care less one way or the other, and never has.)
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“…government should leave private life of other people alone and respect the religious freedom.”
Says Teresa, a bit touchily. She’s quite right too.
But is it all right for Catholics to try to interfere in the private lives of other people?
Such as trying to prevent “gays” getting married, and thus disrespecting the secular freedom?
Of course it is!
I don’t know why I bother answer. But here you are: I didn’t mean that browny was forcing her ideology, I mean that the court decision which forbade a praxis as old as 4000 years and is the centre of Jewish self-identification is ideologically motivated and showing gross ignorance to other people’s background and culture. To criminalize a praxis which is harmless (medically) but central to the Jewish religion and culture and the Jewish people in majority (liberal Jews like the husband of the said commentators are minority among Jews), is forcing one’s secular ideology upon religious people.
As for gay marriage, I think you get it all wrong: the gays are forcing all people with common sense to accept their term of “marriage”, and there is also pressure from them to force their term of marriage upon religious communities.
If two gay men try to celebration their love in a restaurant with friends, no Catholic will try to interfere. That’s their demand that all of us much accept their definition of “marriage” which is really tyrannical.
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You might not know why you bother to answer, Teresa, but Toad knows why he does.
To get it right, is why.
“…it is your perfect right to choose not to have your son circumcised, but that is another thing to force your own ideology…”
Well, we shall go through this, slowly, carefully and patiently.
If the first “your,” refers clearly and directly to Bronwyn – to whom can the second only logically refer?
To “a court decision”?
Toad suggests not.
And…
“If two gay men try to celebration their love in a restaurant with friends, no Catholic will try to interfere.”
If you say so, Teresa.
But Toad certainly will try to.
That sort of behaviour puts him right off his cochinillo, and gets his dogs all stirred up.
This is one of the most misinformed articles I have ever seen. Those medical articles are shams and those writing them are structuring their studies to support their beliefs. HIV is sexually spread via the ejaculate, hoping the word is acceptable here), and not through some impaired magical desmosomal cellular attachment. This as been known since the first US National study in which I was in a small way a part of in 1984-1986.
Also, the religious statements are biased in justifying identity issues. People do not understand what they are reading when they read the Bible. First understand Ezra’s Warning about inter-marriage with pagan worshipping wives and connect it with Solomon. Then think Comixio Religionis which is the combininng of certain aspects of different religions.
Midian worshipped Hathor (Timna, The Jewish Magazine) as their Great Mother Goddess whose son was Horus. Jethro was a priest of Midian. When Horus transformed into animal form he had a flint paw knife. Just Google “Horus flint paw knife.” Midianites also performed the Golden Calf ceremony.
Joshua involves Baal-Berith which literally means “Lord of the Covenant.” His mother was the Great Mother Goddess Ashera a variant of Ishtar. It occurred in an area of her and one of her daughter’s worship as well as their being a second area where after Solomon the 2 Golden Calf temples were built (In any Bible Dictionary).
Third is the Abram-Abraham story of Genesis 17 added after the Jewish return from Babylon (Glick, Marken in Your Flesh), and the direct subject of Ezra’s Warning which supplanted the original Covenant of Genesis 15. This references Egyptian worship of the Great Mother goddess Isis whose moon-god son was also Horus.
It is not that the historical significance is incorrect, it is our way of reading what was written that is incorrect.
In fact, circumcision is a denial of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit was in Ancient Judiac thought equated to the Shekinah – the feminine aspect of God.
There is even misconception of what ‘circumcision’ really is. They did not bare the glans until 135-140 AD (The Oxford Dictionary of The Jewish Religion).
Again from Glick – The ceremony was changed many times by man but they kept the same word eac time.
Bronwyn’s viewpoint means nothing to Jews. Her son is not Jewish so no Jews would care if she circumcised her son or not. To stop Jews circumcising their sons is the same as telling Catholics not to baptise their babies.
Browyn’s viewpoint does mean a lot to Jews. They do care, especially because it is becoming more prevalent. The history of male circumcision since the middle 1800′s is an example of Cultural Imperialism. It started with giving the idea to Queen Victoria that European royalty were descendants of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel to today’s Operation Abraham in Africa headed by Israel and its USA. There is nothing more powerful than getting others to participate in one’s religious rituals. It normalizes such behavior within a society and thus gives normalcy to those who originate the practice. Circumcision as practiced today is a perversion of its origins, baptism is not.
Teresa I must make 2 points in response to your comments:
1. I believe very strongly in freedom of religion. I believe in every individuals right to choose their own religion. Just because a baby is small and unable to communicate does not mean he is not an individual with human rights. Why then do we allow the parents to force their religion onto their sons by physically branding them? What about the babys right to choose?
2. It is utterly fallacious to say that circumcision is harmless. I have witnesssed first hand the dreadful harm of circumcision – my best freinds son had the tip of his penis sliced off during his routine circumcision at 13 days of age. This was done by the “best” pediatric surgeon in the city. I know of a boy who lost the head of his penis due to a botched procedure and you can google circumcision death and you will come up with many, many links to babies dying.
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“But its a shame you are misusing the name Mr Whippy which I have been fond of since childhood-you have ruined it for me now.”
Well, Gilbert, my old Gran used to sing me to sleep with a charming little ditty which went, ” I’m Gilbert the Filbert – the Kernel* of the Nuts!” ..and now you have ruined that for me, by raising circumcision’s ugly head. (No realtion to the eponymous Fat Boy, are you?)
*Possibly “Colonel”?
What a very uplifting topic, Teresa!
We must all stand to attention and salute!
@browny millar: nobody is in the absolute sense free. Choosing not to raise your son as a traditional Jew and denying him the traditional Jewish rite, is also an limitation of personal right. Choosing to teach your son English instead French is also limiting his right to choose, etc. Common sense tells us we are all born into a certain culture and background and nobody can choose freely where when and into which culture he is born and how he will be raised. Do the aborted babies have the right to choose not to be aborted?
To your second argument: is eating harmful? There are cases that people choked to death, so forbid eating because some particular cases have negative results. Is football playing harmful? People break their hands and legs while playing. So should football be forbidden? Your logic is fallacious and not mine.
As for the comment of Dr. Richard etc. I am not really taken in by his “doctor title”, he sounds quite New Age to me.
But whatever pro and contra, most Jews will still practise circumcision and Muslims will live their own life and Catholics won’t be intimidated by liberal hypocrisy. As a friend say, on a blog there there is just hot air, people will live the life they choose to and not a bunch of liberals can force them to change their tradition. So long, so good.
@ Teresa. Christian Brothers St. Mary’s College of California 1967. Jesuit Creighton University 1971. Whatever suits your fancy in Cultural Relativism which is more in tune to actual New Age liberalism, compared to emperical theological discussion. Of course people will do what they will do. But it is a misrepresentation to call circumcision as performed today a traditional Jewish custom with regard to the ritual as performed during biblical times on which it is being justified.
bronwyn @ 11:33
“I believe very strongly in freedom of religion.”
So do we all on CP&S, but “choosing” to circumcise your son is not “forcing” religion on him. People of other Faiths – even some Christians – have their sons circumcised.
If however, you have something worth more than all the gold in the world – which is how I see my Catholic Faith – would it not be wrong and crazy not to share this treasure with my beloved child?
Btw: My poor son (one of them) had to have a very painful and unpleasant phimosis operation when he was an adolescent. If he had been circumcised as a baby, this would have been unnecessary.
Female circumcision (which as Teresa rightly says, is not really relevant to this debate) is a completely different kettle of fish. It has far reaching consequences and it is far far more risky than male circumcision. Its practice in some male dominated Muslim countries has only one purpose: to deprive a woman of any sexual pleasure. It is an abomination.
Thanks for your reply teresa. In response to the comparisons you made to eating and football I need to point out that eating is neccessary to survival, circumcision is not. Football is generally something the child has chosen to do himself, it is a game and has no sexual or religious connotations. Circumcision of a baby however is a surgical procedure which amputates healthy, nerve rich sexual tissue which is supposed to protect the glans of the penis until puberty. The operation itself carries risks, as do all surgical procedures. This procedure, however, is an elective one, chosen by the parents and not by the patient. Why place any burden of risk upon a newborn. And for those that say the risks are small, how many babies have to die for you to start believing that its wrong? Even one dead baby is enough for me, but then, I’m a bit of a bleeding heart, so how many would upset you? How about 117? Because that’s how many american babies die every year as a direct result of having their foreskin ripped off the glans and sliced off. So no, the comparision to football and eating does not “cut the mustard” for me. Comparing circumcision with either of these things is akin to comparing forced masectomies of baby girls to knitting. Apples and oranges.
And I’m sorry that the other commenter had to watch her son go thru a circumcision in later life but that’s no reason to advocate removing all foreskins at birth. My brother had his tonsils and adenoids removed, do I advocate removing all childrens tonsils and adenoids as a result? Of course not!
Also I’d just like to point out one more thing – I was berated for comparing male circumcision to female circumcision and yet its ok to compare male circumcision to football and eating?
Thanks kathleen for your reply. In response I must point out that two of the most vocal activists for male genital integrity that I have ever known are women who were circumcised themselves. My good friend Patricia Robinett was circumcised in the 50′s in America upon the insistence of her parents.
All genital mutilations are not equal, some involve only the removal of the tiniest part of skin – the clitoral hood or prepuce, some involve removal of the clitoris and or labia and then of course there is the horror that is complete infibulation, removal of all external genitalia and sewing up of the vaginal opening. It is unspeakable, yes, an abomination, your word. However, holding a newborn baby down, giving him a sip of wine and then ripping the fused foreskin away from his glans before slicing it off is as horrifying as the milder forms of female circumcision. Why is there such a disconnect when it comes to the pain, terror and loss of sexual tissue of a baby boy? Do you know there are over 20 000 touch sensitive nerve endings in a foreskin and only 7 000 in a clitoris?
I must say I’ve read the responses here with an involuntary closing of the knees and a protective placing of hands. It’s all so barbaric, so tribal, so violent. .
And I suggest that circumcision is actually lese majesté towards God – as if He would make males with bits that needed cutting off. No, I think it’s insulting to dare to “improve” on how we were made.
We’ve stopped ‘docking’ dogs’ tails yet many continue to ‘dock’ little children.
It’s a dog’s life…….
“Do you know there are over 20 000 touch sensitive nerve endings in a foreskin and only 7 000 in a clitoris?”
Do uncircumcised men enjoy sex more than circumcised men then, Bronwyn? And men more than women?
Thanks anyway for your detailed response. You honestly do know much more about the subject than I do. The point I wanted to make though, is not calling for circumcision for one and all the baby boys, but that those of the Jewish (or Muslim) faith, who hold this age-old practice as a sacred tradition, should not be dictated to by a handful of European (in this case, German) judges. There seem to be no long-lasting negative side effects of circumcision (as even our contrary Toad has testified to), and only the positive one of hygiene. Statistics of the ‘danger’ of this practice seem to differ greatly as well. It’s confusing.
I don’t regret not circumcising my sons – it wasn’t even an issue for my husband and me – but just wanted to show how doing so could have avoided the problem my son had later on.
The issue of hygiene is often mentioned in this context. But we don’t amputate our toes when young because we may get athlete’s foot. Or extract all our teeth as preventative medicine. So why this?
We have the means to be clean – like brushing our teeth, so the hygiene argument has no foundation. That’s not why people do it. They do it for perhaps the same reasons as those tribes which shove a big lump of wood into their lower lips.
The judges were right – we abhor the ritual slaughter of sheep by Muslims in our streets and forbid it. We cannot allow child mutilation, nor ‘honour’ killings, nor forced marriage. You are not allowed to smack a child, but you can chop bits off him if you want. It’s abit OLd Testament “If the eye of your neighbour offends……..”.
I did watch three George Carlin YouTubes but did not even get close to partying with him. Maybe green stained Levis after branding and de-horning would not make appropriate attire for such occasions. Kudos to you.
My response giving 2 of my Colleges and Universities was an answer to pretentious inference. As far as one can surmise that party’s esteemed theologians are worshippers of the Cult of Isis and her rewnouned philosophers she cavorts with drink the finest British ale in a Liverpool pub watching the International soccer/football matches while she pretends she is sipping on a glass filled with the best French wine one of the guys will pay for.
All forms of Female Genital Dismemberment are abominations and yet they are not a different kettle of fish with regards to theological power based source and the science of Criminology.
Though it is true that Islam is grossly male dominated and these women suffer tremendously the fact is that this practice is wholly within the feminine realm. The masculine has no power structure involved in any Female Genital Dismemberment other than giving aid and comfort to the feminine rule in this matter. This is well know to those who have studied these female genital rituals. Which includes first: Egyptian Dr. Nour Kassamili who when I talked with her years ago taught Internal Medicine at Harvard Medical School, as well as Dr. Pia Gallo of Padua University where I met her who has studied this issue for over 30 years and based out of Somalia. She is married to a man from Somalia. Her and her students gave excellent presentations which I attended in University of Washington and University of California Berkeley.
For Criminology the Modus Operendi is the different ways these rituals are performed regardless of sex or age of the victim perpetrated on. The Signature of the crime, the ritual that is consistent and drives the psychology of the act, is an attack of the genitals. Rape is not about sex, it is about power, control, humiliation and often infliction of pain. Child molestation is about sex. Genital Dismemberments is where the psychologies rape and child molestation meet. They both come from malignant narcissism which does not see the innate humanity of the victim of treats them as objects for their ownd selfish whims and desires. Genital Dismemberments are examples of Major Sadism whether actively performed or voyeuristically accepted.
Many non-Jews choose to circumcise their sons for health reasons so your arguments otherwise are rather poor. I can honestly say I have never met a person in the real world (not on cyber space) who was circumcised that wishes they hadn’t been. I don’t think men who are circumcised are complaining about enjoying sex any less than uncircumcised men so that is also a ridiculous argument. For Jews the Bible commands we circumcise our sons on the 8th day unless for health reasons it is necessary to wait longer. If it was good enough for Abraham Isaac and Jacob then its good enough for me. How dare you lot try and force your anti-Jewish looney tune ideas on the rest of society. If you don’t want to be circumcised or you don’t want your sons done then don’t but give the rest of us a break. I suggest you read the books of Maccabees and see how Jews were prepared to be brutally tortured rather than give in to brutal dictators that tried to stop them circumcising their sons according to God’s Law.
This so-called Dr Richard is a total looney tune just read his posts as they confirm it and this is usually the case for these people who wish to force their views on every one else.
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“I don’t think men who are circumcised are complaining about enjoying sex any less than uncircumcised men …” ponders Gilbert sagely.
Indeed, how could they know?
Do some men, when they’re at it, think to themselves, “I’d be enjoying this more if I hadn’t been circumcised?” Or contrairiwise?
Gilbert, I became active in the intactivist movement precisely because I met men who hated their circumcised penises. My first boyfriend was so badly cut as a baby that his too- tight skin would tear during sex. He took upwards of 45 minutes to climax and sometimes the pain would actually prevent climax. Another lover had been cut as an adult and complained that he had lost at least half of the sensation and that the head was so sensitive that for a year after he was cut he had to wrap it in a hankie to prevent it chafing against his underpants. If you google “botched circumcisions” you will see there are many, many men who hate their cut penises.
The foreskin of an adult man comprised 15 to 17 square inches of skin. Its purpose is to act as a sheath for the penis to glide within during intercourse. It prevents genital microtearing of both the vagina and penis and negates the need for artificial lubrication. A penis without foreskin is more of a blunt instrument which can cause painful intercourse in women. Add to this “hairy shaft syndrome”, and affliction affecting over half of circumcised men (the erect penis is not supposed to have hair on it, but an erection of a cut peen will often pull scrotal hair up the shaft because too much skin was taken during the crcmcsn). The hairs also cause microtears in the vagina which makes the woman more vulnerable to infection.
Lastly, if I truly was anti-semetic as you claim, I wouldn’t give a damn what you did to your Jewish sons. I want to save ALL babies from this brutal practice because ALL humans deserve to have autonomy over their own genitals. We kept our son whole despite family pressure because my husband and I want to give HIM the choice of whether he wants to identtify with his Jewishness or not. And luckily where I live there are Shuls that will accept him and my daughter even tho I am not Jewish. They also accept uncircumcised babies and will do a non cutting naming ceremony called a Brit Shalom for them.
So many non referenced health studies that make circumcision the way to go so that opposite knowledge has poor standing. So who wrote these studies? Auvert, Bailey, Schoen who was once Pediatric head of USA’s Kaiser Hospital chain wich also did Female circumcisions and other Jewish authors like them that the World Health Organization uses to send Operation Abraham based out of Israel to do mass circumcisions in Africa where many are forced at gunpoint. This is forcing their religious beliefs on others. These guys with Catholics like Morris from Australia belong to and are associated with the Gilgal Society. This is a fine organization that promotes circumcision, documents circumcisions, participate in circumcisions and have published their own book of circumcision erotica – all so they can masturbate to te experiences and relive afterwards. Their Society’s head who lives in England was just convicted of possessing child pornography. And people come to a Catholic forum with hyperbole with False Arguments including, in part, Ad Homimens and Appeals to Tradition, Special Pleading and Appeal to Tradition. Of course I will get in your face. Deep down people who do this really have nothing.
How dare people force circumcision on others including being like the Wizard of Oz giving pronouncements every way possible through a veiled curtain.
So what is circumcision? During the time about 135 BC referenced in the Book of Maccabees circumcision removed only the tip of prepuce skin that extended beyond the glans penis. It was ‘officially’ changed later to full glans exposure during the Roman Punic Wars around 140 AD. Common knowledge among learned Jewish European scholars as well as European scholars not belonging to the Jewish religion. The prepuce is the entire skin covering the glans. The proper definition of the foreskin is only that portion of skin that extends beyond. Reference: Werblowski RJZ, Wignor G, “The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion,” Oxford University Press, 1997. This is probably not known among the New Age Gaia movement of resurrecting ancient Mother Earth worship which includes the old Cult of Isis. And all these ritual genital sacrifices stem from the latter.
According to God’s Law? What goddess/god? Moses’s wife’ Hathor/Horus, Joshua’s Ashura/Baal-Berith, or the latter day post Babylonian Abram Isis/Horus to which Isaac and Jacob are attached to? Or has Lilith the ancient Babylonian wind spirit of Gilgamesh evolved to being the excuse? It does not matter most of time unless in discussions like this. It also does not matter for people who are trying to live spiritual lives. For the reason not to state a deity’s name, Google: Isis and the name of Ra.
The Mission Statement of this web paper is “Catholicism without compromise.” According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph 2297: “Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations are against the moral law.” This means propylactic Routine Infant Circumcision is against Catholicism. Circumcision is not allowed in Italian hospitals. But the Catholic nuns brought it into their American Catholic hospitals. American Catholicism has lost its Morning Star. So it may surprise Gilbert that we “Intactivists” who oppose circumcision oppose it being performed on children and what a person chooses to do as an adult is their perfectly acceptable decision to make.
Of course my anthem for the protection of children against socialized forms of child abuse and child molestation will sound Loony to those without a song in their heart or music in their soul toward them. One basic commonality in criminal behavior is Dissociation of the humanity of their victims. Maybe that is why, for those who practice in the extremely strict part of doctrine, a Jewish boy is not named until he is circumcised and considered less than fully human like all us others not descended from their tribal faith.
Misters Toad and The Wimpmiester are correct that censorship through deletion is not acceptable and leads to obfuscation. I have been involved with this subject for over 20 years and have a sense were people are coming from, their group consistencies and how their presentations are made. Circumcision is about the touchiest subject there is. And from this I will exchange ‘in the face’ with others who feel the opposite and let others decide who presents best. This will not change anyone in the extreme opposites of direct debate. Forensically in Criminal Profiling according to the FBI Behavior gurus, child molesters will not change. Legally and with other conditions my license to practice involves reporting abuse. Being circumcision is a social issue, I am presenting in a social forum. When I report it is to the authorities. The authorities here are those who visit this page, Catholic or otherwise.
Where are Teresa and Gilbert anyway? I seem to be preaching to the choir here. Oh well, adios all, this foreskin crusader has other fish to fry.
Thanks Toad. Richard is fine. Forget the Dr. protocol. Just looked at the rules. Names of posters will be removed upon their request. But the posts remain. Totally acceptable. Yet, these posts are important and have been discussed for thousands of years. Nothing new. Some posts illustrate dabbelers not even close to the seriousness represented with actions of certain Churches mentioned in the beginning of Revelation. Another is actually learned and holding back more likely than not out of respect for the forum. But those posts are also important. They are actually lead-ins to deeper discussion.
Just the magic number 8 leads to the Gematria which can take one into Greek Isopensy with the use of the number 8 prevalant in the set-up for the life of Heracles (see: Graves, Robert, “The Greek Myths”), Chinese End Times theory to even Nostradamus which these last two both exibit the 8 sided star. The Jewish Gematria is fantastic and essential to understand certain meanings of the Jewish and Christian Testaments. The number 8 often relates to Resurrection and Regeneration – and this implies usage in theoretical sacrifice whether Full Sacrifice or Partial Sacrifice. According to Catholic Doctrine Jesus was the Last Sacrifice.
These ,meanings and many other things are often, but not always, used as Totemic representations. Totemic Symbolism is the sense of “Like” or “As.” When the words Like or As are not used, they are inferred. They are similes, not metapors. Example: Psalm 18:2 “The Lord is my rock.” A metaphor says the Lord is actually a rock. A simile says or infers that the Lord is Like or As a rock. Religions with multiple deities often use the metaphor.
The word “tent” is often used for the human body in which the soul resides, or the social body which the verse refers to. Psychosexual play with humor referencing two social bodies is exampled in Ezekiel 23:1-4. Oholah (Samaria) means “her tent.” Oholibah (Jerusalem) means “My tent is in her.” This basically is saying in their vernacular of the times written that: He is “playing” with her.
Any good Bible dictionary tells the meaning of many words and names. Many things connect.
For this discussion Moses’s wife’s name means ‘bird.’ Who is this bird? Can be a sparrow which brings bad omens, to the Screech Owl which is Lilith and her offspring are the Lilum which are the Creatures of the Night.
Sorry. To complete the bird symbolism to my post’s last part: As mentioned before Moses’s wife’s father was a Midianite priest. Shaleen in The Jewish Magazine stated they worshipped Hathor. And Hathor’s moon-god son was falcon headed Horus. Shaleen, repeating again, also mentioned they performed the Golden Calf ritual. This then will lead us the star Saturan which is extremely important.
Dear Bronwyn, I would suggest that we have gone nowhere. We just have a life other than sitting on a computer. Bronwyn at least you stick to the point and don’t go off on some kind of crazy talks of gods etc like this Richard fellow. He also distorted Catholic teaching. Nowhere does the Catholic church include circumcision with amputation etc. I know many Catholics who are circumcised and the Church has no problem with it. The church would only be against circumcision if one was circumcising their sons because they believed one had to be circumcised to be saved.
Your child is not Jewish according to Jewish halakah and would not be recognised as Jewish by anyone who is orthodox unless he converted and was circumcised. You may mean to be good but actually you are interfering in the personal heart-felt core of the Jewish religion. Just as a Child is not a Christian unless he is baptised and is not fully a part of the Church unless he receives first communion, confession and confirmation so a child is not Jewish unless he has a Jewish mother (or converts via circumcision for the boys) and he is not fully part of the Jewish people’s life if he is not circumcised. Instead of you sons having a relatively painless circumcision on the 8th day if he should want to embrace being Jewish later he will have to have a very painful adult circumcision.
Sorry to see Bronwyn leave. “Fish to fry.” This fish symbolism is interesting. The Hebrews were not that much into direct fish symbolism but did use it. Also, fish symbolism is expanded with elements of the sea. Fish, in her context represent are those unguided people in a society. Noah was swallowed by a Great Fish and not contexed as a whale. The Leviathan and Behemoth along with the bird Ziz come from ancient Mesopotamian mythworking. Leviathan is the feminine serpent of the seas where the seas represent the social body. Behemoth is the masculine beast that roams the earth’s dry land. Ziz is the bird like creature of the skies. The fish has become a Christian symbol in the context of ‘fishers of men’ from within the misguided social seas. A good starting point for this animal symbolism would be: Cooper, JC, “Dictionary of Symbolic & Mythological Animals,” Thorsons, 1995.
Great Fish symbolism is similar to the use of Ancient Egyptian crocodile to where there is no sea in deeper Africa with the Hippopotamus. The crocodile and dragon-like Leviathan are reptilian yet used in the same symbolism.
Often times their symbolism is with the Devouring Mother. In Jonah the Devouring Mother brought Jonah to where he was to go through a Jungian Light side context. Revelation uses the reptilian context in the Jungian Dark Side of destruction.
Noah’s flood uses the punishing aspect of Light Side correction to an evil world without any animal symbolism, but rather uses the feminine aspect of God.
From Mesopotamian origins through biblical usage one may see how mythworking, perceptions of change, alter over time yet do not necessarily always but often do distort meaning. One must follow the Jungian archetypical dimensionThis is true with Behemoth becoming first associated with Satan as merely using an accusation in Job to conclude with Satan being the Antichrist.
Job 2:4 “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life.”
This refers to the historical Babylonian ritual of full male human sacrifice with Sacrifice of the King which Jesus is the Catholic Last Sacrifice of the King. Also elsewhere where full male human sacrifice to then go fertilize the Great Mother goddess. In essence theologically circumcision has replaced female deity fertilization to the existent female human who replaces the deity. Sacrifice of the King: National Geographic Society, “Everyday Life in Ancient Times: Highlights of the Beginnings of Western Civilization in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome,” 1961.
An interesting correlation into the workings of Mesopotamian life during the times of Sacrifice of the King is seen in the life of Heracles as Omphales Slave. Graves, Robert, “The Greek Myths,” Penguin, 1992.
According to Philo of Alexandria Jewish circumcision is used as a human fertility ritual because it was thought the foreskin trapped to much of the semen. Philo, trans, CD Yonge, “The Works of Philo,” Hentrickson Publishers, 1995.
There does appear to be a connection with swine that is just more than the Jungian Collective Unconscious. The Greeks and others throughout the world used pigs in fertility rituals. Sows mated with more than one boar produce on the average 2 more piglets per litter. For Gilbert, I also have a minor degree in Agriculture, Animal Husbandry. You are beginning to squeel like a piglet being castrated, not a calf being de-horned. Hmmm. This can lead to a lot of bovine symbolic mythworking.
As you can see social ritual connects to many aspects of human life. Think of it as a spider web with many connections to circular patterns.
Thus in the Catholic, Christian and possibly as well as true Judaism, the context of Job 2:4 circumcision may well be perceived as the Satanic Ritual.
Pain:
Anand KJS, “Hormonal and Metabolic Functions of Neonates and Infants Undergoing Surgery,” Current Opinion in Cardiology, 1:681-689.
Anders T, “The Effects of Circumcision on Sleep-Wake States in Human Neonates,” Psychomatic Medicine, 36(2): 174-179, 1974.
Anders T, et al., “Behavioral state and plasma cortical response in the human neonate,” Pediatrics, 1970, 46 (4): 532-537.
Boyle GJ, Goldman G, Svoboda JS, Fernandez E, “Male Circumcision: Pain, Trauma and Psychosexual Sequelae,” (Journal of Psychology), referenced in ‘Men’s ealth, Vol. 7, Ussue 3, 01 May 2002.
Camberlain D, “Babies Don’t Feel Pain: A Century of Denial in Medicine,” Lecture Presentation 02 May 1991.
Chamberlain D, “Babies Remember Pain,” Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal, (Winter), 1995, 10 (2): 57-74.
Cunningham-Butler N, “Infants, Pain, and Wat Health Professionals Sould Want to Know Now: An Issue of Epistemology and Ethics,” Bioethics, 3(3): 18, 181-209.
Flaherty J, “Circumcision and Schizophrenia,” Journal of Clinical Psychology, 1980, 41: 96-98.
Glover E, “The ‘Screening’ function of traumatic memories,” Int J Psych, 1929; 10: 90-93.
Gunnar M et al., “Adrenocortical activity and behavioral distress in human newborns,” Dev Psychobiol, 1988, 21: 297-310.
Gunnar M, et al., ” Coping with adverse stimulation in the neonatal period: quiet sleep and plasma-cortsol levels during recovery from circumcision,” Child Dev, 1985, 56: 824-34.
Gunnar M, et al., “The effects of circumcision on serum cortisol and behavior,” Psyconeuroendocrinology, 1981, 6: 269-275.
Koren G, “Effect of Neonatal Circumcision on Pain Responses,” Lancet, 1995, 345: 291-292.McFayden A, “Children have feelings too,” BMJ, 1988316: 1616.
Patel D, “Factors Affecting the Practice of Circumcision,” Amer J of Diseases of Children, 136, (7): 634.
Porter F, et al., “Neonatal Pain Cries and Vagal Tone: Parallel Changes in Response to Circumcision,” Child Development, 1988, Vol. 59, 495-505.
Rawlings D, et al., “The effect of circumcision on transcutaneous PO2 in term infants,” Am J of Diseases of Children, 1980, 134: 676-678.
Talbert I, et al., “Adrenal cortical response to circumcision in the neonate,” Obstet & Gynecol, 48: 208-210, Aug., 1976.
Sadomasochism a probable requirement in the ritual of circumcision:
Glucklish A, “Sacred Pain and the Phenomenal Self,” Harvard Theological Review, 91, (1998), 389-412.
Glucklich A, “Self and Sacrifice: A Phenomenological of Sacred Pain,” October 1999.
From 12th Century Dr. Rabbi Moses Maimonaides in his “The Guide of the Perplexed.”
“The bodily pain caused to that member is the real purpose of circumcision.”
“The fact that circumcision weakens the faculty of sexual excitement and sometimes perhaps diminishes the pleasure is indubitable. For if at birth this member as been made to bleed and has had its covering taken away from it, it must be indubitably weakened. The Sages, may their memory be blessed, have explicitly stated: It is hard for a woman with whom an uncircumcised man has had sexual intercourse to separate from him.
“The perfection and perpetuation of this Law can only be acieved if circumcision is performed in childhood.”
“The parents of the child that is just born take lightly matters concerning it, for up to that time the imaginative form of the parents to love it is not yet consolidated.”
18th Century American Medicine:
Johnson, Anthol, “Lancet,” vol. 1 (7 April 1860): 334-345.
“The operation, too, should ‘not’ be performed under cloroform, so that the pain experienced may be associated.”
Kellogg, John Harvey, “Treatment for Self-Abuse and its Affects, Plain Facts for Old and Young,” Burlington, Iowa: P. Segar & Co., 1888, p. 295.
“The operation should be performed without anesthetic, as the pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind.”
“In females, the author has found the application of pure carbolic acid to the clitoris an excellent means of allying the abnormal excitement.”
Female circumcision was finally outlawed in the `1990′s in the USA.
Richard, I must admit that I find your lengthy comments hard to understand or follow. Without wanting to offend you, it all sounds a bit New Agey to me….. as Teresa said earlier on.
Anyway, and admitting that this is way off topic, your comment on the fish symbol had another meaning to the early Christians, as far as I know.
When Christians found themselves to be the subject of persecution in the early days after the Resurrection, when the Church was growing rapidly, they used the fish symbol as a secret code between strangers to verify their Faith. One would draw the top line of the 'fish' on the ground, and then the other would draw the bottom line. (Maybe you already know this?)
Why use a fish? Well, the word fish, Ichthys, consists of five letters from the Greek alphabet: I-ch-th-y-s. When these five letters are used as initials for five words, we obtain this Christian Declaration: Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter. This is an acrostic for 'Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour.'
Sorry, there is a lot and with so, so many connections.
Not really New Agey stuff.
For Symbolism any good Bible Dictionaryis the best start.
One of mine is:
Douglas, J. D., Organizing Editor, “The New Bible Dictionary,” WM B. Eerdsmans Publishing Co., 1962.
Google: Bible Name meanings
There is so much a person can get lost in it. Yet it is truly interesting and important.
Others, in part, include: Heavenly Bodies, Elements, Vegetation and Food, Animals, Human Body, Apparel, Objects, Colors and Numbers.
Thanks for explaining more on fish symbolism. Did not know that.
I have the impression that the socalled “intactivists” search for the web systemtically for blogs on circumicisons and use them for their propaganda, as we’ve seen here. I think Gilbert wrote a charitable and nice comment, he summarized it well. We won’t change our point of view and the discussion has gone nowhere.
But as I came across something quite appalling, I think it is my duty to inform you of the racist and antisemitic background of the anti-circumcision movement:
The Aryan type superhero who is not circumcised tries to rescue babies from evil and also evil looking rabbis, that is the message spread out by this intactivist propaganda, smacks of KKK. To Read more, click the link below:
http://blog.sfgate.com/djsaunders/2011/06/02/circumcision-ballot-measure-and-anti-semitism/
Teresa:
You are absolutely correct and it is even a pain for me to have all kinds of Facebook posts from groups about someone mentioning circumcision. In fact I came here from that. Why did I choose here? Because of my Catholic background and discussions with a now retired Navy Priest friend of mine who got his Masters Degree in Rome after his retirement. He taught me a lot. Was from Northern Ireland and sent to the Washington Diocese before being sent to the Navy by the Church.
To me they should mind their own business and leave people alone. They have caused a lot of problems for others and themselves. This forum is OK.
Oh yes, Foreskin Man. Can’t help but notice how German Aryan he is. I first saw that at the NOCIRC Symposium at the University of California Berkeley 2 years ago. Do not like it. Should not have been done the way is was. Have a picture of me and a friend there and I did not know he was holding it up. Hate it, but he passed away a year ago and at least I have something.
What got me at that Symposium was I only heard a few negative remarks. Not even from so many of our Jewish physicians, attorneys and leaders. Maybe they were just doing everything they could do to ignore it.
I know the kid who does it. College student. Met him at that Symposium. Think he has done 4 by now. The cover is enough to know. He is not anti-Semitic and should have known better.
And another yes about reporting it. People will see it and go along to the anti-Semitism connection.
Fine if this is going nowhere for you. Take the discussion where you feel it should go. Your post is an excellent example about how impropriety happens. I’m going to run a thread from conversations with my priest about the lost feminine identity in the present day Jerusalemic God concept.
Teresa:
Thanks again. Was just thinking. The person who asked me to see this article is Catholic from Europe. We have met at 4 NOCIRC Symposia. 2 Europe, 2 USA. She is not one of those you mentioned, nor do I think Facebook Friends with many of them.
Thank you Teresa for bringing that to our attention. Rather disturbing.
They now have Vulva Woman. Never seen one except a cover posted by someone on Facebook. I got promptly put in my place by a San Francisco attorney when I told him this behavior with Foreskin Man is not right and will backlash on them. Oh well, so be it.
Foreskin man harkens me back to Shakespears’ Merchant of Venice. Gilbert can give us a better history of anti-Semitism and job restrictions during Shakespears’ time. Blood and Flesh symbolism are important, but why Literature gets so much attention is beyond me. This includes things like The Golden Compass which was made into a movie.
Spirituality is, theology explains, religion practices
Look at the two images at the far right and far left of this page and consider the tread I will give you.
Carl Jung’s Collective Unconscious is basically the:
“inborn unconscious psychic material common to human kind, accumulated by the experience of all preceding generations”
Mother with Child is everywhere; from pre-historic finds to Egyptian Great Mother Goddess Isis with moon-god son Horus. Mythologically, which is to say ancient religion, expressed feminine primacy with the function of womanhood far more than ‘perceived’ by the three Jerusalemic religions. Yet the feminine is in Scripture, but from my Catholic and other Christian formal education it is not discussed and inference unnoticed. Judaism understands this far more than my American Catholicism. I am not sure of Islam.
The feminine though is clearly expressed with ritual structure by all the Jerusalemic religions. This is done through the moon. Jewish and Islamic calendars use the moon and so too the timing of Christian Easter. Also the moon is used in Jewish ritual events as the New Moon and Full Moon Festivals. Islam’s symbolic Crescent Moon with Star inside may be discerned as Mother with Child.
The star is indicative of the child, as has Christ used symbolically as the Morining Star. The theological connecting star is Saturn used in Scripture’s Repham.
Ritual structure is important. It is the child who experiences the socialized apocalyptic event.
Jungian psychologist Clarissa Pinkola Estes stated in her book, “Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype,” stated:
“So who is the Wild Woman? She is the Life/Death/Life force”
Rituals like circumcision and Baptism are rituals used symbolically by taking a child born in innate primal existence to ritualistically experience a death of that animalistic primacy and then be re-born into the social body of the society performing the ritual.
Throughout Estes’ book she develops a story/fairy tale about a woman and bodily, bloody dismemberment.
Erich Neumann in his “Great Mother” has a section about ‘goddess knives’ and that it is goddesses who are associated with the hunt and being the dismemberers. This is not necessarily negative. As woman has the power to bring forth life she as the power and authority to take life.
There are a few cultures that would sacrifice a joint of a finger, with others sacrificing a finger, as a sign of mourning with the loss of a loved one especially as spouce. This finger amputational sacrifice, like circumcision, are examples of Partial Human Sacrifice.
Christianity made the break away from dismemberment ritualization through the feminine, in archetypic dimension, Holy Spirit.
As an aside. I will use the (NIV) New International Version Bible translation. It was my text at non-demoninational Simpson College where I took some courses. It is also very concenient. I have the Concordance to the NIV also.
Whatever Bible one uses, they should have it’s Concordance.
Bible Gateway is a good Internet source. It opens with the NIV, but many translations can be chosen for translation variations. They do not have the Catholic Bible.
Bible Gateway also has “Keyword Search”
http://www.biblegateway.com/
Quick ‘Keyword’ lesson for feminine expression.
Go to Bible Gateway. Do a Keyway for the word: barley
Scripture is consistent. Barley is used with the feminine with regard to persons and social connotations. A good example of “barley” is the Book of Ruth that uses both.
The person is Ruth.
Most interesting social in the Book as a whole is the feminine choosing a husband with Eschatological symbolism. Winnowing, chaff, harvesting, winepress, vat, and so on.
In current vernacular usage of symbolism: She is basically choosing which frog in the pond to kiss and transform into her Prince Charming for residence in blissful matrimony with him on his lily pad.
Think, another, in the continuum: How do these expressions we use without consideration come about? Frogs are Eschatological and used only twice in Scripture. First in Moses’ confrontation with Pharoah. Second in Revelation.
You might, if time permits, want to ‘Keyword” search the word ‘frog.’ On an end-point very deep discussion about circumcision the word frog may be connected.
I haven’t read every one of the comments, so perhaps someone else may have made this point: in the United States circumcision is an almost routine medical procedure performed on newborn male infants, without regard to religion. It is almost as common as placing drops of silver nitrate or erithromycin ointment in the eyes of a newborn, to prevent infection. Roughly seventy percent of American males are circumcised, and none feel mutilated or disadvantaged as a result.
Hi Robert: Just a few things and hope you do not mind.
1). Circumcision is a religious ritual in which medicine has taken over the role of the Ritual Agent. See: Bell, Catherine, “Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice,” Oxford University Press, 1992. She was a Professor of Religious Studies at Jesuit Santa Clara University which is south of San Francisco, CA and close to Stanford University. (RIP).
2). The concept of ‘Routine’ came about in medicine through the psychology of ‘Doubling’ which is described in: Lifton, Robert, “The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide,” Basic Books, 1986. Circumcision is a mock death ritual. Many rituals are. Baptism and even the Catholic Mass include this concept. Reinactment of the Atemporal Moment discussed by bothe Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade. Some rituals are more destructive than others, yet ritual is essential in and to Spirituality. For history Google: Circumcision Quotes
3). Silver nitrate is not used as a prophylactic measure to prevent infection that is not clinically existent as is Routine Infant Circumcision (RIC). Prophylactic amputations are against the Catholic Catechism whic is quoted somewhere above. This treatment was started to cure a possible infection of syphilis in case the mother has it. Infection occurs at the time of birth.
4). For your very last statement I refer you to J. Steven Svoboda who runs Attorneys for the Rights of the Child (ARC). Also ARC Law. He is also a Harvard graduate. Steven is on Facebook as well as well as ARC Law. He also has a web site.
BTW: One of my most prized possessions is the 2 book collection of Alexander Pope’s “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.”
Thanks. You are straight forward with your identity. Going to stick to my thread for American Catholicism’s sake as time permits.
Spirituality is; Theology explains; Religion practices.
We explain human experience and perceptions through linguistics. Linguistics changes and languages vary in modality. Scripture is written through the patriarchal aspect. Feminine perception appears to be lost, yet it exists. This is true within the Jerusalemic ideation of God. Four verses are psychic indicators to how we deity conceptualize. The numbers correlate to psychological theory:
1): The Freudian single God, besides all the verses stating there is only One God, is:
Exodus 3:14 (Moses and the Burning Bush) God said to Moses, “I am who am I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
2): Jungial duality of the sexes is – note the words “us” and “our”:
Genesis 1: 26-27 (The Beginning) Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and all the creatures that move along the ground.”
NOTE: Sexual duality in Islam is expressed in The Fig. They miss the point when they say Christians worship three Gods. From this the next two also apply.
Qur’an 95:4 (The Fig) Certainly We created in the best make.
NOW: The next two are extremely important and thousands upon thousands of books have been written regarding religious and mythological usage.
3). Is Transactional Analysis which is how we ‘Communicate’ yet uses sectioning of the Ego into three parts. This verse is very important due to it being just after the story of Abraham’s circumcision:
Genesis 18: 1-2 (The Tree Visitors) The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.
4): Is the Jungian Tetrad. It splits each sex into two parts. Thus 2 male parts and two female parts making a total of four. Most important – note even the punctuation. The two masculine separate. The two feminine are Contained. The two feminine comprise the Holy Spirit – water and blood.
1 John 5:6-8 (Faith in the Son of God) This is the one who came by water and blood – Jesus Christ. He did not come from water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
OK Staff, know it is long. Will go deeper into each later.
OK Staff will start step by step with the 4 bible verses from above. It is for your esteemed sources. We are talking circumcision. Circumcision is an unforgivable denial of the Holy Spirit. The American Catholic Church as our Shepherds have as a thief in the night led its children astray.
ONE: The I AM. Spirituality is. This is within Freud’s totally unconscious Id which does influence the partially conscious Ego. It is our deepest inherent personal relationship with God. Psychology is built into our creation. It is the Self. And in this we have a basic conceptual image of God, the ‘imago Dei,’ both inherent in the Id and brought forth to the EGO.
Thus: Psychologically “one” represents the Self, as well as the Self with God.
Now a step deeper. Edinger in “Ego and Arcetype” stated:
“The Self is the ordering and unifying center of the psyche (conscious and unconscious) just as the Ego is the center of the conscious personality. Or, put in other words, the Ego is the seat of the ‘subjective’ identity while the Self is the seat of the ‘objective’ identity.
The Self is thus the supreme psychic authority ans subordinates the Ego to it. The Self is most simply described as the inner empirical deity and is identical with the ‘imago Dei.’
Since there are two autonomous centers of psychic being, the relation between the two centers becomes important. Indeed the myth can be seen as a symbolic expression of the ego-Self relationship.”
And this involves what happens when being one with Christ.
TWO is the “us” and “our” in Genesis and Islam’s “We” in the Fig. They represent the two sexes. A Jungian Duality. Two represent in the Gematria ‘unity’ or ‘opposition.’ Strength when 2 walk together or opposition by not being able to serve 2 masters.
This sexual TWO is communication in our perspective, not God’s existence. Catholic Doctrine is God has no sex. Put in other words: God is totally self-contained. Essential with the one-God concept.
We do not explain theologically the nuances of human behavior to our basic spirituality with a balancing of gods and goddesses like the 12 main deities in the Greek pantheon. 6 male gods, 6 female goddesses.
This perceived dual sexuality of one deity is seen in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Ra is the masculine aspect. Re is the feminine aspect. Re is, among many things, the Celestial Cow.
And in connection to a genital blood ritual as circumcision is, it was Re who took to cutting its own genitals so to bleed.
Going back to a more distant post of mine regarding the Abraham myth that was added after the return from Babylon with Ezra’s Warning against intermarriage with pagan worshipping wives, this is the deity relationship of Abrahamic circumcision. Not from the God of Abraham, but rather Re in Isis worship.
As an Aside: Why Re in Isis worship?
Ra was the supreme god. Only he knew his name. To know a god’s name is to be able to to use that god’s powers by invoking the name of that god. Isis tricked Ra into giving her his name. He became weak, and she became all powerful. It is an interesting little myth.
Google:
Isis and the Name of Ra
This is the derivation of the Jewish reason not to put a name on their God.
It was humerous to see this in the movie Harry Potter that people are not to say the name of the evil male witch/warlock.