Man, I’ve been picking on the Vatican a lot lately. Don’t worry, I’ll abuse all other religions later (I’m thoroughly impartial), but it’s just that the Catholic church has been doing such stupid things. Like this:
A Vatican official has said the Catholic church will excommunicate a medical team who performed Colombia’s first legal abortion on an 11-year-old girl, who was eight weeks pregnant after being raped by her stepfather.
Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, the president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, said in addition to the doctors and nurses, the measure could apply to “relatives, politicians and lawmakers” whom he called “protagonists in this abominable crime”.
The doctor in charge said exactly what I was thinking.
“We acted within the constitutional framework,” Dr Lemus said. “We were faced with the petition of a girl who wanted to go back to playing with her toys.”
He said Cardinal Trujillo “calls the doctors and nurses ‘evildoers’. I think the person who raped her is the evildoer”.
Although, to be honest, I think the Catholic church is doing something wonderful here. I encourage them to excommunicate everyone for any offense. In fact, I endorse the right of all religious leaders to tell all their congregations to stop coming to church anymore. It’ll be a great day when religion is reduced to nothing but the priests mumbling onanistically to themselves in drafty, empty, echoing cathedrals.
The image in that last sentence made me smile. If only it would happen.
The story is disgusting though. Who do they think they’re helping here?
They think they’re helping to save the souls of the doctors and nurses that might similiarly perform abortions on raped children. By threatening them with damnation, the Church hopes to prevent the faithful from making choices that will lead them into damnation.
They think it’s sometimes necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.
The only reason they excommunicated them is because they can’t get away with garroting and burning the lot of them, like the good old days. But what do you expect from a church who’s motto is (Free child care for your pre-teen sons)
I notice they conspicuously have not excommunicated the stepfather. Who’s the real “protagonist of the crime” here?
It’s politics: they excommunicated the doctors because it was the FIRST legal abortion in Colombia. They want to make a point.
People who make decisions incompatible with Church doctrine on principle are far more dangerous than people who make decisions incompatible with Church doctrine on impulse. The latter are merely sinners and must be redeemed, while the former are heretics and blasphemers – their deviant thoughts pose a threat to all other members of the congregation.
Coming from a former Catholic, the best thing for humanity would be if the entire religion had never fucking existed. It has definitely been what warped my mother’s brain so much that she married a misogynistic bigot and would never contemplate divorce. Ugh. Some of the priests are good people, albeit deluded, but the higher ups are pure, rank evil, as evidenced by this complete asshattery.
It’ll be a great day when religion is reduced to nothing but the priests mumbling onanistically to themselves in drafty, empty, echoing cathedrals.
Poetry!
How do you get excommunicated without performing a medical procedure? I’d love for the church to excommunicate me.
Here is where I must come out of the closet: I am a baptized and confirmed Roman Catholic. But, God damn I don’t believe any of that shit! I’ve heard of people actually requesting their excommunication. But doesn’t tha seem a bit hypocritical? I mean, requesting that honour would befit only a satanist. And satanists, logically, accept the existence of some deity. So, lo, here I am, the self-excommunicated Roman Catholic. It’s really simple: just stop willing to belive in Djizus KreiÃt and you’re free.
Cheerio, a semi-drunk, recorded forever,
Martin
How do you get excommunicated without performing a medical procedure?
Do you have to be Catholic? If not, maybe after the excommunication we could go find some Amish and get ourselves shunned.
“How do you get excommunicated without performing a medical procedure? I’d love for the church to excommunicate me.”
With great difficulty. For non-priests, it’s almost impossible. You pretty much have to try something that warrants an automatic excommunication, and then get a church court to try and convict you for it. However, getting or giving an abortion is on the list. If you’re not a woman, doctor, or priest you’ve pretty much narrowed it down to physical force against the Pope.
In theory, one can get it for heresy or apostacy. These aren’t hard things to accomplish, but just try to get the parish priest to start the paperwork. It’s almost impossible. I think they’re under orders to refuse requests.
How do you get excommunicated without performing a medical procedure?
Not sure, but what I would do is write a letter to the Vatican specifying what you believe and that you will not change those beliefs. If they go against the Church’s teachings, they will probably excommunicate you. As is Martin, I am self-excommunicated. I wouldn’t take communion now or ever. Fuck that bullshit.
I know someone who was raised Catholic and decided she wanted to be officially excommunicated. In part because if you were baptized Catholic, the Church counts you as Catholic when they’re counting believers, even if you don’t attend church. It took her two years and four different clergy to finally get her excommunication letter. And the bishop who was the person who had to sign off on her excommunication sent a copy of her letter to him outlining why she wanted to be excommunicated to the priest of the parish where she’d grown up and some of her family members still attended church. And the bishop didn’t ask before doing that. So she got her official documents, and then a couple of days later she got an absolutely furious letter from her old priest, excoriating her for all the things she’d talked about in her letter to the bishop, saying how disappointed he was in her, and he would be praying for her to come back.
P.S. So, HAS the rapist stepfather been excommunicated?
The measure will apply to relatives who participated in the crime. Because raping your step-daughter is not participating.
A question for the Catholics (and ex): why is abortion murder worse than non-abortion murder? Why are you automatically excommunicated for abortions, but not for other murders? (I am taking it as a given that abortion is murder, which seems to be the argument made here for excommunication.) What about an executioner? That’s killing people. (This is a serious question.)
Excommunication would be nice but, somehow, I don’t think I can get one as a non-Catholic. So, I’m shooting for being condemned as a “Heretic”. I’ve even got my auto-da-fe outfit planned out- Flame Retardant!
Jesus Christ, that is disgusting.
I think they’re not being excommunicated for performing an abortion, but for openly disagreeing with church doctrine and acting on their beliefs.
(It’s a little like those insurance policies that didn’t discriminate against women but only against people who could get pregnant.)
“Not sure, but what I would do is write a letter to the Vatican specifying what you believe and that you will not change those beliefs.”
I never thought about doing that.
It’s an excellent idea!
Well, at least that’s a mild improvement over their old policy of burning people in order to save them. But, with Good Ol Ratzy in charge, we’ll have the good old days back in no time. I think they’re already putting up a pyre and stake for me.
Let’s see, they tried to exorcise Hitler, who killed millions, but never excommunicated him from the Church, and now they excommunicate these medical professionals who were only trying to help a rape victim?
Yikes!
Shakes head, how is it that adult human beings can think that a loving God would burn someone forever because of this finite action or that and then disgustingly hold such a belief over the brainwashed and honestly fearful masses?
It truly is a sickening concept.
This is totally true and one reason why their number are so overstated. There are millions and millions of Catholics who are now either Protestant or non religious. All of this adds up to an overstatement of their numbers and the overstatement of Christians worldwide. By % no church loses more members annually.
You Christians think you have it bad? Feh! How the hell do I reverse the circumcision those barbarian Jews performed on me?
Circumcision is a sexually debilitating, sadistic practise.
Having one is almost as bad as people thinking I’m a Zionist because I’m a Jew.
Hey PZ,
This should warm the cockles of your atheist bleeding heart!
Here’s the LaHaye Institute’s President (yes that LaHaye) attacking the liberal National Council of Churches for, of all things, wanting to feed hungry people instead of preach to them.
Seems to be some question as to whether this really happened. According to this short piece it did not.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/colombia/story/0,,1862542,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12
The Atheist Foundation of Australia offers this handy guide to getting yourself excommunicated:
http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au/excommunication.htm
These past few weeks especially, it’s looking to be less of an option and more of a necessity.
And it’s one that’s practiced upon more than 90% of American male infants. Without even the justification of religion, for that matter.
The Archdiocese of Chicago has a form you can fill out to formally leave the Catholic Church without going to all the trouble of becoming involved in an abortion, profaning a blessed death-cookie (thank you Jack Chick!), or being persistently and contumaciously heretical. If you want to resign your association with Catholicism, you might check with the diocese or archdiocese where you were baptized and find out if they have a similar form. You’ll probably have to sign it in front of a notary, but it’s worth it, ’cause it sure feels good to know they can’t count you as one of them anymore.
I’m circumcised, because it’s required for Catholics. I have no problem with it really, but it would be nice to know what it’s like to not be mutilated.
I sure hope the bastard who did mine has died by now. Cause if I find him…
And how a mother and father could let someone do that to their child…
Where the hell did anyone get the idea that nature made us with extra parts that had to be cut off?
It has always been obvious to me that the savages who started the practice must have wanted to affect the sex lives of their males in some way. And I think I know how they wanted to affect it.
How the Jews ever convinced other religions to take up the practice is beyond me.
But then again, the US supports Israel, too.
Circumcision is not required for Catholics, Jack. That was one of the basic things that’s established in the Letters section of the Christian gospels, that many Jewish practices are not supposed to be obligatory for Christians, and circumcision is among them. Not being a Bible thumper, I can’t cite chapter and verse to you offhand, but if your parents told you that’s why you’re circumcised, well, their reasoning was incorrect.
“I’m circumcised, because it’s required for Catholics.”
It is?! Not around here! At least I think so…
Weird, then, as I was born in a Catholic hospital and it was one of the first things they did, and my mom acted like there was no choice in the matter, since they did it without her knowing (I was born in a C-section and she was under sedation when I was circumcised.) Granted, I think it’s that way in most hospitals, and I don’t really know what is required. I always assumed it was required.
Okay, I take that back, much as I hate it, I’ll cite chapter and verse because I’m too anal-retentive to leave my point unproven. An example of statements that gentiles don’t need to be circumcised would be Paul’s letter to the Galatians, chapter 2, which you can read the current Catholic English version of here. It’s probably also in the catechism somewhere, but I don’t want to link to any more of this crap from PZ’s space.
I feel dirty now. Blah.
Um… no. Circumcision is not required for any Christian sect that I am aware of (it’s always possible that some obscure one requires it, I suppose).
Numad is quite correct. It was abandoned as a requirement for the same reason the dietary rules were abandoned – they made it too hard to spread the faith among non-Jews.
That’s not the worst part. That the Catholic Church has failed to prevent an 11-year-old rape victim from aborting is a good thing. Recall that in El Salvador, 9 year old girls are made to give birth, and the anti-choicers in the Church pride themselves on that development.
Oh well – at least they were stupid enough to choose a Pope whose primary focus is Europe rather than Latin America.
Say the following phrase out loud:
Totally unnecessary elective surgery performed on newborns.
Imagine that there was no such thing, and it was proposed for the first time today. A whole nation of mothers would shriek in outrage. (Some of us men might make some noises too.)
The performing of it would be a felony in a very short time, I imagine.
Re: JackGoff
It’s not required for Catholics, or it wouldn’t be such a rare procedure in majority-Catholic European countries.
What a relief! Now I don’t have to bother getting myself excommunicated!
It makes me sick to keep seeing so many self-appointed “holy” people failing to advocate for and act in the best interests of children. To whom do they have a greater responsibility? If all these pious hypocrites really had any decency at all, then one of the worst crimes anyone could commit is to harm a child (no, I don’t consider an embryo to be a child, but an 11-year-old definitely qualifies)! In a decent society, all children would have the best health care, nutrition, and schooling that could be provided, be safe from physical and sexual assault, and be raised in an environment of unconditional love, kindness, and security. I think that it’s unconscionable that so many “good” people fail to place these goals among of their top priorities and sometimes actively work against them.
Hehe. My bad, everyone. I shouldn’t have said that, since I didn’t know it for a fact. I have just always assumed it as something that was required.
That’s great except you are confusing anti-clericalism with atheism. I once had a girlfriend who was raised roman catholic who was strongly anti-clerical and never attended mass. She found priest-pederast jokes really funny — but she got really weirded out when she found out that her boyfriend didn’t believe in God — it turned out as venial as she thought priests were she still believed in a higher being — as I suspect is the case among most people in the West.
Most live as atheists in every aspect of their lives until they are asked about some supernatural mumbo jumbo.
I have even worse news. You know those special, secret sessions with the priest…?
Just kidding. Really.
Yeah, it’s funny how a lot of people in the US just seem to think of circumcision as the default state and the alternatives as weird and surprising (not that I’m accusing you of this, Jack). For example, I think my parents (perhaps like yours) had my brother circumcised just because it didn’t occur to them to do anything differently. I seem to recall there was even a Sex in the City episode where one of the women was freaked out by the prospect of sleeping with an uncircumcised man and very nearly pushed him into getting circumcised. It’s a very odd default state for a culture to be in, especially when there’s no religious imperative behind most of it.
In re religious imperative, though, it occurs to me that I’m probably going to have to do a certain amount of arguing with my Jewish-born beloved to convince him that leaving our hypothetical future male children’s dicks intact doesn’t mean that they’ll be more likely to grow up to be Christians. I think maybe I need to remind him how many uncircumcised atheist friends we have. :)
JackG
Circumcision became common in North American hospitals starting in the late 1800s, first because it was believed that it would help prevent masturbation and all the mental and physical illnesses then associated with masturbation. Second, they believed it would prevent diseases caused by the build-up of smegma.
Some have pointed out that once it was covered by medical insurance, there was incentive for doctors to bill for it, just because.
In many places, by the 1950s it had became the default and only an assertive effort by a parent would prevent its occurrence.
I have no knowledge of the position taken by the Catholic church in those days, but that association with masturbation had to have figured in any priestly debates that might have taken place.
Interestingly, it is much less prevalent for Latin American babies in the US.
For more of the details on this strange fad, see Wikipedia.
You know those special, secret sessions with the priest…?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Yeah, I totally agree with all of you. I doubt that if I had a choice that I would say “Sure, just cut my genitalia, I’m all good!” But the real point was that I didn’t have any choice, and, in a sense, neither did my parents, since it was totally done without any input from them (according to them), so, naturally, I assumed it was a Catholic aspect, since I was born in a Catholic hospital, which asked my mom’s faith before she was entered as a patient. From what other people are saying, this is not typical, but I don’t care enough about Catholic bullshit to truly find out. That’s my bad, in a way.
Ys, ftr y fnsh wth th cthlcs, y cn trn t th Jws, tc.
nd thn t th svg rcs mntnd by Drwn n th Dscnt f Mn.
tc.
Mn, ths s bcmng ht fst nd y cn’t vn s t.
ts nt jst sd.
ts wrng.
EG,
I tried, but I can’t even take your comment seriously.
Sorry.
Swedish churches have been emptying steadily for decades. Since the 2000 divorce between the state and the former state church, this process has accelerated. The Christian Democrats are a small minority in the Swedish parliament.
No, no, wait, Numad, we’re supposed to do that thing PZ said, where we give the troll three posts to prove it’s not a troll before we kill it. So here, let me try…
EG, can you elaborate on exactly why you believe this is a hate fest? The things I usually consider key to a hate fest (description of those hated as intrinsically evil and subhuman, expression of violent or eliminationist intent), don’t appear to me to be present in the conversation to date. It seemed to me we were just discussing how the particular philosophy of Catholicism, as generally practiced, seems to be harmful in many ways, and also we think circumcising babies isn’t very nice, and maybe we were making a couple of wry jokes on the subject. Can you give specific examples of what you feel is hateful instead of simply in disagreement with your own particular views?
Anne Nonymous,
You’re making me look bad.
Oh wait, I guess I just took care of the subhumanizing and violent thing right there with “troll” and “kill it”. Heheh, you win after all EG. This really is a hatefest now. :)
This case is old news for South America. Three years ago a 8 years old child was raped, got pregnant, and the life threatning pregnancy was ended in Nicaragua.
Bishop Miguel Obando y Bravo excomunnicated everybody involved, the doctors, the parents, the people on the ONGs that helped, for something he deemed was the same as terrorist suicide bombings.
Later he stepped back because 26 000 catholics, mainly from Spain, signed a petition asking to be excommunicated as well.
The position of the Catholic Church on abortion is very clear: abortion is never allowed, even to save the life of the mother. The mother should consider herself to be very lucky indeed if she is prompted by the logical impossibility they call God to sacrifice herself for the sake of an embryo or fetus.
So JP II cannonised as the model of female perfection Gianna Beretta Molla, now saint Gianna, an italian woman that decided to commit suicide – meaning not interrupting a pregnancy she knew would end, as it did, in her death- instead of aborting. She and Isabella Canori Mora, another «perfect» woman that preferred to dye at the hands of an abusive husband to «sin» against the sanctity of marriage and leave him.
Even in the case of a href=”http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01046b.htm”>an ectopic pregnancy there are some doubts if the abortion should be allowed. The «progressive» ones say that ectopic pregnancies can be ended according to the principle aka sophism of double effect, meaning is only «moral» though salpingectomy, the ablation of the falopian tube, not a direct abortion as the use of Methotrexate or the remotion of the embryo (both forbidden).
I find this document, RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS PROPOSED CONCERNING “UTERINE ISOLATION” AND RELATED MATTERS very enlighning about the misogyny of the Catholic Church, that considers women have no rights, even the right to live!
Palmira, I agree that the Church taking this position is nothing new. The logical consequences of the doctrine of not allowing any abortions ever are shockingly cruel, and the doctrine has been around for quite a while now. But it’s been my impression that, until now, Vatican itself has always kind of sidestepped around these most hideous cases of children becoming pregnant by rape, and has instead allowed local bishops to do the dirty work of excommunicating everyone involved and writing position papers filled with callous indifference to the suffering of actual born humans.
So, if it is indeed true that the President of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family has finally brought the Church leadership out of its slippery refusal to confront the issue and come down firmly on the side of medieval misogyny, then it would definitely be newsworthy. I don’t know if I’ll be more relieved to hear that the purported denial is true, meaning that Vatican still recognizes at some level that its anti-choice stance is deeply shameful, or if I’d rather hear that it’s false and the Vatican has finally decided to take a stance that will drive all the decent Catholics out of the Church once and for all.
Excommunication is OK, but I think I’d much prefer those religions that practice shunning.
When you’re shunned all those people who believe in that religion won;t talk to you, won’t associate with you, they just leave you completely alone as if they don’t even know you exist.
Yep, I’d prefer the religious folks shun me. Sounds like a good deal.
I can’t believe this thread has gone from condemning forced pregancy for children to circumcision. Yeah, circumcision is a foolish practice, but it is hardly at the level of evil that is making a 9- or 11-year-old girl go through pregnancy and childbirth.
wolfa:
You shoudn’t forget that it was Augustin tha coined the word «just war» “justa bella ulciscuntur injurias” (just wars avenge injuries). As «saint» Augustine put it, “all homicide is not murder.”
So it was allright if one was killing following God orders, either by a law, or by an express command to a particular person at a particular time who speaks with Gods authority. The pope, for example. One who owes a duty of obedience to the giver of the command does not himself “kill,” he is an instrument, a sword in Gods hand. For this reason the commandment forbidding killing was not broken by those who have waged war on the authority of God.
Just wars were futher elaborated upon by Thomas Aquinas in the The Summa Theologica, of course.
So in the catholic catechism and the encyclic Evangelium Vitae, one can read that only embryos, fetus, and terminally ill ones have absolute right to live. All others are fair game.
Point 57, referring to criminals and unjust aggressors «the commandment “You shall not kill” has absolute value when it refers to the innocent person» so «I confirm that the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral»
So, collateral or indirect deaths of an war are okay as is the death penalty.
Read this memorandum sent by Cardinal Ratzinger to Cardinal McCarrick (saying basically catholics should support Bush and reject Kerry) that states:
3. Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
Anne Nonymous:
you are forgetting that Opus Dei Trujillo, the guy that sys «cientific» that stands first on the sucession line to the papacy, is colombian. And that Ratzinger, that favors Augustine as is favourite theological guide, is bringing the Catholic Church back to the good old medieval times. Now is the right time for that, pretending Europe can only fight back islamic fundamentalism with catholic fundamentalism. He even wrote a book about it, I can look for the reference (I wrote a post about it so it won’t be difficult)
I agree with those critics of circumcision, which should be a crime of child abuse. All major medical associations in the U.S. and in other medically advanced nations around the world now agree that this painful surgical alteration of the male genitalia has no significant health benefits (and circumcision most certainly does not stop masturbation).
I wrote to Amnesty International to complain that while they oppose female genital mutilation, they have no policy on male genital mutilation. Here is part of their reply.
“In terms of guidance from authoritative international human rights bodies, we are not aware of statements suggesting that circumcision of male infants for religious or cultural reasons constitutes a human rights violation in international law. By contrast, FGM has been explicitly addressed in this context.”…
” We have taken into account the current development of international law, although this would not be decisive. What is decisive for AI is that although there are views within the organization similar to yours AI’s membership has so far decided not to take a position one way or another on the issue of male circumcision.
With best wishes,
Ria Boerema
Deputy co-ordinator, health and human rights team Amnesty International, International Secretariat”
In other words, a complete cop-out. Amnesty can’t make its own decisions? Are they afraid of offending religious sensitivities?
BTW, it is not now 90% of American male infants that are mutilated, but about 34% and the rate has been declining for years. Another thing that is unknown to the public is that the prepuce has great commercial value. Pharmaceutical companies use extracts for such things as treating burns.
http://www.sexuallymutilatedchild.org/fibro.htm
http://www.norm-uk.org/where_do_foreskins_go.html
“Researchers are developing skin substitutes made from foreskins.
Working with Organogenesis Inc. in Canton, Dr. William H. Eaglstein, a dermatologist at the University of Miami School of Medicine in Florida, has studied a product called Apligraf made from cow collagen and foreskin cells. Because the cells proliferate in the lab, few are needed, he says.
In tests on 275 people with chronic leg ulcers, those who received the grafts healed faster than those who did not, he says.
Another foreskin product, Dermagraft, is designed for treating diabetic foot ulcers. Made by Advanced Tissue Sciences, Inc. in San Diego, Dermagraft, like Apligraf, it is scheduled for preliminary FDA review on Jan. 29. Last year, another form of Dermagraft , also made from foreskins, was approved by the FDA for treating burns.”
http://www.boston.com/globe/search/stories/health/health_sense/012698.htm
For more information–attention, some of the videos and photos at the links are very shocking:
http://www.cirp.org/
http://www.noharmm.org/home.htm
http://www.intact.ca/video.html
It isn’t only infants. The U.S. military has for a long time practiced more or less involuntary circumcision on its soldiers.
I also suggest you look up on youtube or google video the Penn and Teller shows on circumcision–I hope they are still available. Or buy the DVD from Penn and Teller.
oops, is missing on the last comment that Trujillo is the guy that said was scientifically proved condoms are no use preventing HIV infections because the virus… is smaller than the pores on condoms. In Africa, for instances, catholic clergy are spreading the «news» that condoms are contaminated with HIV. There was even a BBC program, «Sex and the Holy City», about it.
And don’t forget Trujillo said that scientists and politicians supporting stem cell research should be excommunicated…
I agree with those critics of circumcision, which should be a crime of child abuse. All major medical associations in the U.S. and in other medically advanced nations around the world now agree that this painful surgical alteration of the male genitalia has no significant health benefits (and circumcision most certainly does not stop masturbation).
Actually, there’s some disagreement over whether circumsion reduces HIV transmission. Granted, so does condom use, but blanket statements like this might not be entirely accurate.
Disemvoweling is the perfect liberal ploy.
While claiming you are not preventing the oppositon from speaking, you distort their message.
Well done.
The comments regarding cirucmsion being child abuse fit in quite well with the general anti semitic approach.
Do you think the Jews are also still drinking the blood of goy babies?
It is instructive to look at the historical arguments (the relatively modern, medical ones) for circumcision. They keep changing – first hygiene, then cancer prevention for men, then cancer prevention for women, then urinary tract infection avoidance, then HIV.
When people keep offering new reasons for something they’ve been doing, it is very very likely that they’re just rationalizing that thing, and their real reasons go unspoken.
Palmira, I didn’t “forget” so much as “not have the slightest idea”. So, let’s go standard variety murder — why is it excommunication for abortion vs infanticide, or abortion vs killing someone (but not on any particular order to)? I can maybe see the argument about the death penalty (breaking the social contract, eye for an eye, whatever), but about other murders? (I’m trying to understand, not to attack.)
Because criticizing a thing that Jews do, even when people other than Jews do it as well, is always necessarily antisemitism, huh?
Is there a word for hating stupid people in particular? Because that’s a kind of bigotry I can get behind.
wolfa: “Why are you automatically excommunicated for abortions, but not for other murders? (I am taking it as a given that abortion is murder, which seems to be the argument made here for excommunication.) What about an executioner? That’s killing people. (This is a serious question.)”
Willful murder is a mortal sin, according to the Catholic Church, so the murderer is automatically signed up for Hell, unless they confess and are absolved. Not excommunicated, but supposedly to be punished pretty much the same way.
Mooser: In his porker The Source, James Michener describes a procedure that you might want to look into. There may actually be a modern medical version.
Well, we know where the Church’s priorities are… anyone who helps those sinful daughters of Eve to avoid their God-decreed deaths by childbirth, is obviously far more Evil(tm) than those holy phallus-bearers who “just happened” to impregnate them! Of course, mere rapists don’t challenge Church authority….
As far as circumcision: For a few decades, America’s hospitals had a quite secular habit of routine circumcisions, but that seems to be going by the wayside now. Aside from shifting medical opinions, I remember a few cases where hospitals got in trouble for “routinely” circumcising the children of (inter alia) Greek Orthodox families. (G.O. theology explicitly rejects such mutilations of “God’s image”.) Funny thing about those religious mandates — different religions can, and do, have directly opposing rules….
Amnesty International:
Bernarda:
I call Bullshit! They “decided not to take a position one way or another”, because, while some of the membership agreed with you, others disagreed. Neither side could convince the organization as a whole, and the leadership respected that division. That’s not a “cop-out”, that’s a considered neutral position. Of course, if you feel strongly enough about it, you can line up across from the fundies, and declare that anyone who fails to support your position is de facto opposed to it. Or if you want to get “really tough”, you can declare that Amnesty International is “eeevvil” for failing to condemn male circumcision, and never mind anything else they’ve done! prisoners of conscience? death penalty? torture? slavery? Naah, none of that matters, because they’re not defending Penises. Yeah, right.
Bluntly: Male circumcision is a solid order of magnitude less damaging to health or sexual function, than is female infibulation. Which is not to say it’s nothing at all — but don’t bother me with that “I’m a victim too” line. An infant boy getting their foreskin clipped at birth, is just not in the same league, as an adolescent girl having her genitals cut out with a sharp rock!
Wolfa:
According to one priest in Portugal, abortion is the most horrendous crime, the one for which there is no forgiveness. Funny all unforgivable sins are commited by women… It’s a very long story to explain, basically it all goes back to Augustine, Thomas Aquina, original sin, the «sinful» nature of women, the misogyny that underlies the catholic doutrine. If you can read portuguese (written is very similar to spanish) I wrote a few posts on the subject.
Back to that priest, he made the headlines on all portuguese newspapers last year when, in an homily delivered on the funeral of a baby girl murdered savagely, preached that abortion was a crime much worst than the murder of the baby girl.
Everybody, except for the fanatics, was outraged but the bishops defended him saying all the huss was being made by the «leftist» press as our government was considering a referendum on abortion a few months later (now and maybe only later this year). The pious priest was just stressing catholic doutrine.
As another one that published a huuuge advertisement on a newspaper saying he wouldn’t give communion to any woman using contraceptives or having sex outside santified catholic marriage. Divorced people were also banned. No word about assassins or the like…
Jonathan Badger writes, “You are confusing anti-clericalism with atheism. I once had a girlfriend who was raised roman catholic who was strongly anti-clerical and never attended mass. She found priest-pederast jokes really funny — but she got really weirded out when she found out that her boyfriend didn’t believe in God.”
There’s a significant strain of thought in protestantism that pretends to oppose religious institutions. I say “pretends,” because it conveniently overlooks two facts. First, despite its dogma, these churches constitute religious organization. Second, the religious institutions created the religious belief that the believer keeps after the believer discards the institution as unnecessary. The Christians who discount religious institutions tend to ignore the history behind their own Bible. Paul’s travels and epistles had as their purpose the organization of a church. The gospels were written later to fill a need in that church. The selection of works that went into the New Testament was done by a committee of that church. In short, the Bible is a work product of religious institution. (That’s true of the Old Testament, also.)
The notion of a “pure religion” that has been divorced from the religious institutions is self-contradictory. The ideology and traditions incorporated into all such attempts come from the very institutions believers want to shunt aside. Of course, that is one of the lesser contradictions of religious belief generally. :-)
‘excommunication’ is entirely without meaning — unless you are already a life-long victim of the ‘Catholic Church’. For all others, the fact and concept of ‘excommunication’ is laughable.
The whole point of the Catholic Church is to convince its youngests parishoners they have a ‘soul’. The permanent ‘implantaion’ that results from this brainwashing at the beginning of life is then used to extort the person into doing what the ‘Church’ wants for the rest of the persons ‘life. In particular, this includes ‘tithing’, behaving according to the ‘moral code’ of the ‘church’, which defines ‘Right’, ‘Good’ (and of course their compliments ‘Wrong”, ‘Bad’, ‘Evil’) and much more.
Of course, the ‘moral code’ is and has been the much revised invention of the ‘religion’ of the civilized from the very beginning of civilization — but not before.
Much the same can be said of the ‘laws’ of the civilized, which overlap dangerously the ‘moral code’ of religion.
Both the ‘moral code’ of religion and the ‘laws’ of the civilized’ are inventions of civilized human beings. All other life forms, including not-civilized human beings, know better — much better.
Another problem with the ‘moral code’ of the ‘church’ and the ‘laws’ of the civilized is that both are based on an imagined ‘model’ of ‘ideal’ human behaviour. Of course this ‘model’ has little in common with ‘real’, living, breathing human beings.
To the extent that the religious ‘moral code’ and the ‘laws’ of the civilized differ from ‘what works’ in the ecosystem of out planet, they contribute to the demise of civilization.
JohnnieCanuck: thanks muchly for pointing me in the direction of the wikipedia article. I am now able to recognise a skin bridge when I see one – it was something that had been bothering me for some time.
Wikipedia rocks.
Then he can’t read his own bible. It clearly states(one of the few things it clearly states) that their is only one unforgiveable sin and it isn’t any one of these abortion, murder, rape, lying, stealing, sex, cussing, gambling, drinking, smoking, divorce, jerking off, birth control, stem cell backingand on and on.
Just because you may acquire your belief structure in such a manner doesn’t mean it is a necessity to the belief itself.
I was circumcised despite never having been exposed to religion as a kid whatsoever, my father being an atheist, my mother being perhaps just a tiny notch towards belief from agnosticism and completely silent about that for my entire childhood.
I was circumcised because it was the norm for every male in this country in the era in which I was born. There were two unquestioned facts back then – male babies needed to be circumcised, and breastfeeding was a bizarre, unnatural and perhaps perverse practice.
Bottom line is, of the males circumcised in the US from, say 1930-1970, Jews are a small minority…. so to say criticism of circumcision is anti-semetic is not only wrong, its obnoxious. Its being an ass for the sake of being an ass.
Might as well say that criticism of the fluoridation of drinking water is anti-semetic, because Jews are well known to drink water.
Most boys in Australia aren’t circumcised. But my brother had the misfortune of having been born in South Africa, where the doctor didn’t even bother consulting my mother before he stole the foreskin.
What a stupid position! Being hit in the head with a baseball bat arguably isn’t in the same league as having your genitals hacked off with a sharp rock, but if I came to your house with a bat and smacked you around a little, I’d lay dollars to doughnuts that you’d loudly proclaim yourself a victim, call the police to have me arrested, and expect others to be outraged and/or sympathetic.
The fact that there are worse violations of physiological integrity and autonomy doesn’t somehow neutralize lesser violations, nor does less victimized than someone else mean you’re not a victim.
Circumcision certainly does prevent masturbation! The foreskin protects the end of the penis, rich with nerve endings related to sexual function and pleasure. By removing the foreskin the area is exposed (assumming the mohel is not drunk and takes only the foreskin and not more flesh, nerve endings etc. than necessary, creating scar tissue and damage) dries out, nerves are killed, and the area rendered less sensetive and less able to perform the functions it was designed for.
You better believe you lose the urge to masturbate! Or have sex, for that matter, once the first flush of youthful conscusomething or other passes.
Circumcision must alter in some way, sexual function. Else they wouldn’t have done it. If you wanted to “mark the child as belonging to your sect, hell, just tattoo a Star of David on his upper arm or something.
Every pro-circumcision advocate assumes that the job is done skillfully, the minimum material removed from the right place, healing is perfect, no infection, etc. This is not always the case!
I doubt replacing the foreskin when you’re in your fifties will do anything to restore the damage done, but I apreciate the suggestions.
But more generally, when criticising religion please don’t spare Judaism! Criticising Judaism for the things that Jews themselve claim as part of thewir religion is not anti-semetism! Anti-semetism is critisising Jews for things which are not part of the religion, like the blood libel (drinking Christian blood as part of a Jewish religious service) are supposed ethnic characteristics shared by Jews.
Just don’t criticise Jews for the actions of Zionists and Israel. Those people are not Jews, rather they are people with a rascist and political agenda hiding behind Judaism, holding Judaism hostage when they can, to achieve their most un-Jewish of aims.
BTW I am a circumcised, Bar Mitzvahed Jew, with a pre-Zionist religious education. The idea of a “Jewish State” is as repugnant to me, as an American and religiously as a Jew, as the idea of an American “Christian State” would be to American patriots.
(Also- do Zionists ever read anything beyond the first few chapters of the Old Testament? They might try reading throught to the end to see what God thinks of their “Jewish State”. But of course, I got my religious training before Zionists kidnapped Judaism and held it hostage)
Mooser, interesting remark about tatooing the Star of David, or SOMETHING, on the Jew.
Well, the Nazis used numbers and you are a Jew hater, as you revealed by your tatooing remark.
According tohttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0608310130aug31,1,3231897.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
Pierce:
He doesn’t need to explicitly excommunicate the doctors… The 1990 encyclic Evangelium Vitae reaffirmes that abortion leads to automatic excommunication, aka latae senentiae, to the women who have abortions AND the doctors who perform them. He only needs, as he did, to remind that.
Or, as in the Nicaragua case, excommunicate everybody minimally involved, and the child’s parents.
Barry,
“Willful murder is a mortal sin, according to the Catholic Church, so the murderer is automatically signed up for Hell, unless they confess and are absolved. Not excommunicated, but supposedly to be punished pretty much the same way.”
I thought that communion was a technical necessity to absolution, so that excommunication is suppopsed to threaten to make absolution unavoidable and the punishment certain.
Numad:
You got it! the Catholic Church, ICAR, says that you can only achieve salvation through her, outside ICAR there is no salvation. Excommunication is a sure way to damn you the eternal flames :-)
Under current church law, excommunication latae senentiae, meaning that it is automatic and does not require an action or proclamation by a church official, is reseved for 3 cases: abortion, violence against the pope and consecrating a bishop without authorization.
It’s possible in a near future, as Trujillo wants, being involved in stem-cell research (or for a politician, not opposing stem cell research) will be added. Whatever the origin of the stem cell, as Ratzinger considers that if an adult stem cell, even from nose rheum, is modified to became totipotent is theologically an embryo :-)
Circumcision certainly never prevented me from masturbating. In fact, I’m typing this comment with one hand, if you know what I mean. I honestly can’t say that I’ve ever missed having a foreskin. Turtlenecks are never in style.
Now, tonsillectomy, that’s a crime against humanity. Thank God I still have my tonsils. Food tastes better (did you know that your tonsils are full of nerve endings?), I enjoy life more, and frankly, chicks dig a dude with a sexy set of throatflaps. A man with no tonsils is only half a man.
I bet you that defenders of male genital mutilation like dians and david harmon haven’t had the guts to go and look at the pictures and videos at the sites I linked.
BTW, Muslims also commit circumcision. Religious superstition of any source is not an excuse for a crime. If apologists for religious ritual mutilation would have looke at the question, they would find that it dates back at least to the ancient Egyptians, long before the mythical Abraham revered by muslims and jews.
If someone is an adult and wants to mutilate himself, that is his right. But here we are talking about infants. Why not cut off a finger or toe as well or instead? Why did the mythologers choose the penis and not some other part?
They obviously had serious issues with sexuality. People who continue this practice are also perverts.
As for those hypocrites who cry “antisemitism” at the drop of a hat,
http://jewishcircumcision.org/spectator.htm
http://jewishcircumcision.org/index.htm
Had she been impregnated by one of Colombia’s warring factions, it would have been a war crime, worthy of prosecution by the World Criminal Court. Shouldn’t the Catholic Church make an exception for acts like war crimes? Even if it was done by her stepfather?
“Whatever the origin of the stem cell, as Ratzinger considers that if an adult stem cell, even from nose rheum, is modified to became totipotent is theologically an embryo :-)”
They should probably tell God to stop throwing souls everywhere.
When love is gone there is always justice.
And when justice is gone there is always force.
And when force is gone there is only ritual.
– From Taoism and O Superman
JB, you bring up a very interesting point. Now that tattoing is all the rage, shall I assume that every tatto on the well-turned ankle of every girl I see is an indication of Nazi proclivities.
I did not suggest that Jews be tattooed.
While I will be the first to admit that my comments may be unclear, and I can only write well by going over what I have written several times checking context, syntax, grammer, spelling and performing a general tightening-up procedure, I think if you read the sentence slowly (out-loud helps, too) you might get it.
Mooser is a Jew-hater! That’s rich.
Are you sure this story is on the level? This part seems just too convenient:
Anyway, the point remains- when disparaging organised religion don’t spare Judaism. We are just as stupid, minipulative, bloodthirsty, superstitious and tribal as the rest.
And all the accusations of “Jew-hater” or “anti-semite” won’t make any of it a whit less true.
It seems to me that frequent and unfounded accusations of antisemitism that are so often loosed at the slightest of provocations would be likely to produce annoyance, resentment, and even hatred towards the accusers. In other words, it’s likely to produce a state not overtly different from actual antisemitism, and one that could easily lead to it.
As a strategy, it would thus seem likely to backfire.
Disemvoweling is the perfect liberal ploy.
A blog is an autocracy. Start your own blog and you will have the opportunity to disemvowel whoever you want to. Trolls are not following blog etiquette and thus do not get any consideration. Disemvowelled text isn’t hard to read if you alctually think about it. Problem solving must be a little tricky for you.
So one would think Caledonian, so one would think. But they never tire of making them.
Caledonian: So one would think, if the goal of the strategy were to reduce anti-semitism. I don’t think that’s the case, although the goal might not be (or might be, I don’t know) the promotion of anti-semitism, either. It’s probably more orthogonal.
If you are really sad about losing your foreskin, go get some psychological help. If you think it is comparable to female genital mutilation, you must never have had an orgasm.
AndyS,
Whether you agree with the practice or not your comment is ridiculous. Cutting a foreskin may not prevent an orgasm and that alone should not be the only criteria in determining the validity of the practice.
Psychologists do foreskin grafts? Gosh, I should keep up more with the medicine.
If you think it is comparable to female genital mutilation, you must never have had an orgasm
There, you take me into waters to deep and murky for my understanding.
Though I must admit, the thought that by either religious minipulation or simple inattention your parents may have subjected you to a surgically induced sexual disability is disconcerting, to say the least. I look at it this way:
Since I’m Jewish I got circumcised, and ran the risk of being brainwashed by Zionist propaganda. If I was born a goy, given my age and my parent’s economic circumstances I would have almost certainly been circumcised ( most everybody in my phy. ed classes was), my risk of being Zionised would be somewhat less, but I would have had an enormous amount of Christian propaganda to resist.
We all have our cross to bear.
Two things are comparable if there any features that are held in common, or even similar, between them. Whether the comparison is meaningful depends on the degree of congruence.
Female genital mutilation and male genital mutilation are generally not equivalent (although there are ‘circumcision’ practices that come very close), but they’re most certainly comparable. Both are surgical procedures on the genitals that remove portions of ennervated tissue; both are frequently justified by reference to cultural traditions, ideas of normality, and dubious medical claims.
I suspect that people who offer vehement and irrational defenses of circumcision are either offended at even a faint implied criticism of their religious beliefs or are utilizing defense mechanisms against the idea that their genitalia are somehow inferior.
If you think it is comparable to female genital mutilation, you must never have had an orgasm.
Of course it isn’t. Who has made this point? If they have, they know nothing about female circumcision. The only point I ever made was that I was not given a choice in the matter. Read JimC’s comment and then seriously consider your own asshattery.
“Onanistically”? In the manner of one who has refused God’s command to impregnate his sister-in-law?
Well, that certainly lends weight to the Great Green Arklesiezure hypothesis.
In re the use of foreskins to make skin substitutes: The above news on the Advanced Tissue Sciences products is way outdated. The company went belly-up several years ago and its remaining scientific assets were purchased by the British-based Smith&Nephew (who had invested a lot of $$ in the company). Last I heard (early 2006) S&N was trying to sell off these “assets”. The main problem is that the artificial product is no better, and probably no where as good, as cadaver skin for treating burns, it is susceptible to infections, and is VERY expensive. I remember the early AdvTiss hype which predicted that a football field area of skin could be grown from a single foreskin. In spite of a lot of publicity over the past 10 years growing replacement skin and tissues has, unfortunately, not met with any great practical success.
Gina Parody is apparently for real: http://www.ginaparody.com/parody/
Meanwhile, back at the Vatican:
PZ you have promised you will abuse all other religions later. Please, would you do me a favor? Show that you are not a coward and next time abuse Islam!
He’s taken on Islam before.
But Jesus is a local problem.