Indoctrinating Children in Religion

[Lek]

Lek: do you see a difference between educating your children about your religious beliefs, and telling them what they should believe? Which did you do?

The circumcision issue is a perfect example of emotion vs logic. The real reason you had your children circumscized (feel free to correct me) is a religious reason, an emotional attachment to a mythology, and it's part in the story. Yet you put forward logical reasons about it being of some actual benefit as a procedure. Unless you'd like to put me straight, you did not do this for health reasons, you did it for religious reasons. Then this logical, health argument is a rationalization to make yourself feel better about have made the decision, for other reasons. But it's a failure as a logical argument, as almost all such rationalizations tend to be. Of course it's possible you may be deceiving yourself as to the real reason.

The facts are there is no real evidence it has any benefit at all, doctors do not advise it as standard. It's a mutilation which cannot easily be undone and which the child cannot consent to. There may have been a benefit 2000 years ago where personal hygiene was worse, but assuming you're taking good care of your child that is now entirely irrelevant, so why not let it decide when it is older if it wants to be mutilated? You're literally following 2000 year old advice. That's what the bible is. Most likely they wove this "advice" into the story.

And answer me this, if I make up a religion where I think cutting a little bit of my babies ears off is a "good thing" for them, should I be allowed to do this? Can I do what I like as long as I'm not causing too much damage?

And again, a perfect example of religion leading to real world actions with real consequences.

If I was your child, I would be angry you had done it to me. If you felt remorse and realized you had done it for bad reasons, I would forgive you. But if you persisted and claimed it was still a good thing and you'd do it again, I would be mad as hell.

I'm not having a go at you personally, I'm evaluating your beliefs and why I think religion has caused a problem here. I'll happily shut up if you're not interested in my evaluations

Say what you think, Robvalue. You do it nicely enough. I'll say this to all of you, though. I didn't even think of my faith when I decided to have my son circumcised. I just did because most everyone did it and I thought it was the healthy thing to do. I don't know anyone who regrets having been circumcised. Like I said earlier in the thread, I had a friend who had it done in his twenties and it was much more painful at that point. He had it done for his specific health reasons. There never was any requirement for christians to have their sons circumcised. I don't know of any christians who actually have their children circumcised for religious reasons. Maybe there are some who do, but they don't understand the christian faith. In fact, in the book of Galatians Paul chastised those early christians who were gravitating back toward the Jewish customs, and specifically addressed circumcision for reasons of faith.