There are health benefits to male circumcision, and I’ve heard claims that many women prefer their partners to be circumcised.
The other thing about Islamic Male Circumcision is that it isn’t aways done at the infant stage. In some societies, it’s sort of a right of passage for adolescent boys. I’m not up on all the details, so I’ll let someone who is Muslim come in and fill those in.
Is there a name for this line of reasoning which a lot of religious minded people use ? For example :
- Muslims/Jews - Halal/Shechita is found to be humane by some scientific studies so it reinforces our belief.
- Hindus / Buddhists - Meat has been found to be bad for health by some scientific studies so it reinforces our belief in vegetarianism.
On the flip side
- Muslims/Jews/Hindus/Buddhists - Don’t care if scientific studies find homosexuality to be natural. It’s our belief and we are gonna always think of it as unnatural.
Confirmation bias? Subjective validation, maybe…
Confirmation bias.
That’s when Catholics get all biased after they receive the sacrament or Confirmation. 
I’m on my phone, so I hope this works:
Ritual circumcision was practiced among some peoples of the Middle East before the coming of Islam.
The Ancient Hebrews were supposed to have copied the practice, for males, from the even ancienter Egyptians.
Allegedly the latter feared the sand getting places.
Most Muslims don’t live in the Middle East, so I’m not sure where you’re going with that.
My dad had a lot of recurring rashes and other problems because he wasn’t circumsized. The area under the foreskin collects sweat, stays moist and yeast loves to grow there.
The doctor strongly recommended dad get circumsized. Let’s just say it’s a bit challenging for a man in his mid-thirties. :eek: It took awhile before he was wearing tight underwear again.
A baby is fine the next day.
Is it really true that “a lot of people” use that reasoning? I’m not too familiar with the other groups, but I am fairly knowledgable about Orthodox Judaism. I can’t remember ever hearing an Orthodox person appeal to scientific knowledge to justify Jewish law, and I have on many occasions heard them explicitly caution against doing so, due to the risk of falling into the obvious logical fallacy you mention. More liberal Jews like myself, of course, do believe we should reject traditional beliefs and practices when they conflict with scientific knowledge, and so, for example, no longer have a problem with homosexuality.
But Islam is a religion that originated in the Middle East.
Circumcision has cropped up in a few locations over time. One of them is Northeast Africa/Middle East, where a lot of groups practiced foreskin removal for men, and various degrees of FGM.
Another locus for circumcision is in Australia, where it seems to have been mostly if not exclusively done on males, and at times taken to extremes like subincision.
But it’s the religions of the Middle East that have transported the custom to locations where it’s not native.
No, the baby is not “fine” the next day. The thing is, the baby can’t explicitly tell you his penis hurts, he’s not expected to go to work or really do anything other than eat, poop, and cry, and it’s easy to diminish or ignore discomfort or pain in non-verbal people.
True, infants do recover faster than adults from this procedure, but it takes more than just one day.
Some Christians (Catholics mostly) rely on “natural law theory” as the basis of their sexual ethics. Thomas Aquinas certainly did. Unfortunately some of the scientific data he relied on (birds being sexually monogamous for example) is now known not to be the case.
Even so, I think everybody knew perfectly well what he meant. If you really have to nitpick, I guess you win, well done you!
This. I used to perform circumcisions on newborns and was one of the few people in my area to do pudendal blocks for anesthesia. And I assisted on a few adult circumcisions in my career. Babies who have the blocks act much more comfortable and less stressed that those without them, but all circumcised newborn boys are crankier than their non-circumcised counterparts for 3 to 4 days. Imagine having to urinate through and on a swollen, sliced up glans (which has some of the densest concentrations of sensory nerves of any place on the body).
Back when I did the procedure, there was a strong cultural imperative (outside of religion) in many families to have it done. I advised all the parents that the evidence of long-term benefit was not that strong and that the procedure didn’t need to be done. Some declined to have it done after hearing that, but frankly more were absolutely shocked to hear it wasn’t required by health authorities. And most opted for it so the boys would “look like their daddies”.
But do they de-claw their cats?
Well, back in the day people used to routinely take out various bits — such as tonsils and appendixes — on a preventative hygienic basis of magical thinking, and although it may, repeat may, have been safer than an old lady with shakey hands using a rusty sharp tin-lid to make a girl-baby into a woman, the health benefits were fairly minimal.
People just like doing things to other people because reasons, often moral reasons.
Also, medical instruments from the 1820s to the 1950s were fearsome.
Yaaaay!!
I’m so sorry you had to experience that. 
Given that Islam originated in the Middle East, I’m not sure why you think a connection wouldn’t be relevant. Although that cite seems to link the tradition in Islam to that in Judaism, which obviously predated Islam.
From Wiki:
They cite: Doyle D (October 2005). “Ritual male circumcision: a brief history”. The journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. 35 (3): 279–285.
Yes, it takes a couple of days for an infant to recover.
Having seen both “traditional” Jewish circumcisions and a “surgical procedure”, I can also say that the traditional method is faster and less traumatic for the infant. But still takes a couple of days to heal from.