Circumcision is not a Christian practice.
It’s popular in America because some 19^th Century RFK jr style health freaks convinced everybody that masturbation caused disease.
Religions have some of the wackiest rules
Submitted 2 weeks ago by Mickey7@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/fdc424b7-dff8-47aa-b489-7569706cc22a.png
Comments
yesman@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
I know it more from Islam.
Arguably the same thing in different colors tho.
moakley@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Kellogg was never actually that influential. People mostly knew he was a crackpot at the time.
An episode of Adam Ruins Everything gave him way too much credit, and then people on the internet just keep repeating it because Kellogg was such a weird guy.
GlendatheGayWitch@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Even biblically speaking, it’s anti-christian. The first chunk of Galatians talks about how they should not force anyone to be circumcised. It goes against the bible to force anyone to be circumcised.
Inaminate_Carbon_Rod@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
People on here really hate you if you’re a Christian.
It’s sad what America and its bullshit has done to give Christianity a bad name.
caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Jesus was in fact the one to say “yeah all this old rules don’t matter, just focus on these two: don’t be a dick and don’t be a fucking dick, god damn”
NONE_dc@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
And that is why they crucified him, The Old Testament Repeatedly says “Be a dick against gays, infidels and non-virgin women who are not your wife.”
dontbelasagne@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
But even the new testament says to fear god, why would a all loving god want us to fear it? The abrahamic god is not all loving at all
seeigel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
Matthew 5:17
caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
The law of the prophets was a costly covenant between old-testament god and humanity. Or, you know, whatever subgroup was in charge of translations at the time.
The “fulfillment” mentioned is a single lump sum of holy lamb blood in place of the never-actually-complete exchange of not wearing blended fabrics, not getting tattoos, and sacrificing your firstborn on a rock in the mountains. And slaughtering prisoners of war who you tricked into getting circumcised as a condition of their surrender so that they would be vulnerable.s_s@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Matthew, particularly, was so obsessed with this idea that he made up new scriptures that didn’t exist.
Siegfried@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Aleluya
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Genital mutilation for all your babies! Use myths and lies to explain why it’s necessary!
MBech@feddit.dk 2 weeks ago
You mean to tell me it’s not physically impossible to clean the dick if the foreskin isn’t cut off? My whole uncircumcised life has been a lie!
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Tbf Jesus didn’t start this shit.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 2 weeks ago
If you believe in the Trinity he did
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
The son is just as creepy as the dad and the holy what the the mother fuck is that‽
Paper_Phrog@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I love this comment.
artichoke99@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
It’s fucking crazy bro my parents were believers but weren’t actually subscribed to any traditional religion and them mfers still trimmed my shit
PaintedSnail@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Blame Kellogg
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
And ultimately Christian sexual repression
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
The cereal guy? Next you’re gonna tell me Nestle’s been up to some shady shit
kreskin@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah you’ve got to wonder if that extra bit they trimmed off would be nicer to have there or not. But I guess the mutilated pecker is all I’ll ever know so I guess its fine?
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 2 weeks ago
1: Reduces feeling, bad for you 2: Reduces feeling, good for your partner 3: Might be useful hygienically if you ever live as a desert nomad, so that’s nice
fireweed@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Actually there was a huge debate among early Christians whether circumcision was still required because Jesus never spoke on the issue (or if he did, there was no verifiable record of it).
To crudely summarize:
The earliest Christians were primarily Jews, so they were already circumcized as required by Judaism so it was a non-issue. However unlike Judaism where you’re almost always born into the religion, Christianity actively encourages adult conversion, so as more non-Jews (e.g. Greeks) began to identify as Christians, the circumcision issue became a conundrum. Some felt Christianity was a branch of Judaism and as such Jewish practices like circumcision were still required, whereas others objected because they saw Christianity as a new approach to Judaism, or even as a separate religion altogether (circumcision specifically was hotly debated due to such issues as adult circumcision being more, shall we say, unappealing than infant circumcision, plus getting circumcized would “out” non-Jews in nude spaces like bath houses, which was at best awkward and at worst deadly).
The earliest followers of Jesus thought Jesus was going to return in their lifetimes, so these types of issues were not discussed (or at least not resolved) by the original founders and proselytizers (researchers have determined the Gospels weren’t even composed until well after everyone involved was dead), but as generations passed it became clear that the Second Coming actually may not happen anytime soon, so practical issues of “how to establish a new religion (is it even a new religion or just a Jewish sect???)” turned into gigantic internal debates for the community. That’s what much of the New Testament is: letters back and forth trying to interpret the words of Jesus to resolve doctrinal conflict. In other words, the New Testament is basically four different versions of the story of Jesus (Mark, Matthew and Luke which were based on Mark and a lost “Gospel X”, and John), followed by a curated back-and-forth commentary section debating issues of the day such as circumcision and women’s role in the church, and controversially capped off by the (theorized) hallucinations of a hermit tripping balls off donated moldy bread.
The history of the New Testament (how it was written and later compiled, early texts that were lost or discarded, and all the doctrinal conflicts that boiled over into variously incidents of geopolitical chaos) is fascinating and seriously worth exploring.
Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
That’s fascinating. Can you recommend any books on the subject? The easier to read the better!
fireweed@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I don’t know if I’d call it “easy” reading, but this is a well-regarded college textbook that’s popular in “Christianity 101” religion classes (so at least it’s entry-level and doesn’t assume prior knowledge on the topic):
bartehrman.com/the-new-testament-a-historical-int…
For something much lighter, Extra Credits did a video series on early Christian schisms that mentions the circumcision debate:
youtube.com/watch?v=E1ZZeCDGHJE&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5…
I’m far from a religious scholar (just someone who enjoys history from time to time), so I’d be curious if other folks have additional recommendations.
riodoro1@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Christianity actively encourages adult conversion
That’s why 99% of christians were baptized before they learned to shit and piss properly.
fireweed@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I can’t tell if you’re being humorous here, but historically babies were baptized shortly after birth out of fear that anyone who died without being baptized would be unable to get into heaven.
In the middle ages* in Europe, baptism was usually scheduled a few days after birth, and often the historical record includes baptism dates and death dates for individuals, so historians estimate birth dates to be a few days prior to the baptism date. Babies that died pre-baptism were thought to go to purgatory instead of heaven, and considering the high infant mortality rate pre-modern medicine, there was a bit of a rush to get your offspring baptized pronto to save their itty bitty souls. Generally this is no longer believed, at least not by most mainstream Protestant sects, and many Christians nowadays opt to wait until their children are old enough to “appreciate” the event more.
*Not sure exactly when, and maybe this was mostly a Catholic thing? Again, this is not my area of expertise.
vga@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Somewhere in heaven, Jesus is sitting on top of a huge pile of foreskins like Smaug.
Lucky_777@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
My skins…a hurricane!!!
Wilco@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Circumcision of children should be highly illegal. Any health practitioner doing the procedure should be criminally liable for assault and malpractice.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
It’s sexual assault
LeroyJenkins@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I think religiously mandated circumcision is as dumb as the next guy does but c’mon now… there are legitimate reasons to do it and getting it done does not have that terrible health outcomes for the kid company to FGM. I think society as a whole should start to think of it as a bygone practice, but putting doctors on pikes over it is extreme.
Zwiebel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
They are clearly not talking about the legitimate, medically necessary cases
Wilco@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
The rational behind it is flimsy to begin with. Stopping bacterial buildup? Sure. Then you have the whole “circumcision as a remedy for masturbation” … which was actually a movement.
uniquethrowagay@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Even with phimosis, circumcision is not needed in most cases. You can make the foreskin bigger and more flexible with stretching over time. Still, people with phimosis get circumcised without ever even hearing of an alternative option. Shit sucks
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Don’t eat pork, don’t eat shell fish, don’t work on Sundays (or Saturdays depending on who you talk to), no sex before marriage, don’t masturbate … but you can bend the rules and get close to doing those things and even get away with breaking the rule because God is an idiot that can easily be outwitted or deceived with human logic.
FrostBlazer@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Jesus basically came in to say: just follow the commandments, love one another, love your enemy as yourself, and you guys don’t have to keep doing those self-imposed rules the Israelites made themselves do like don’t eat pork or shell fish, etc.
rebelflesh@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
God is not an idiot, your leader are.
NABDad@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
rtxn@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Rabbits, beavers, and hippos are fish, you see.
jecxjo@midwest.social 2 weeks ago
So there is that story in Genesis where the sons of Jacob have an army of 318 men circumcised so they could follow their religion.
Just think they probably put then into a pile, a small little mountain of foreskins.
InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They made them into some wallets
rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You know how you can collect rubber bands over time, wrapping them around each other, and eventually you have a great big ball on your desk to play with?
ptu@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
My wallet is really at the end of its life cycle and this comment made me consider
Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
If I remember my history correctly, one of the primary draws of the at the time new christianity over judaism was specifically that dudes wouldn’t need to lop off part of their dongs in a pre-anesthesia world.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
I can understand desert people coming up with some excuse to preform the operation because sand is coarse and rough and irritating… and it gets everywhere.
But it’s just nicer to think they wanted their kids to have the most attractive cocks in the village
Retreaux@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Found some really nuts messianic Christian family on Facebook, and the mom just gives birth on the back of the skoolie they live in without any medical care, thankfully they only have one son but the father circumcised him with a razor by himself on the bus, and mom thinks that is a swell idea and wrote up a manual about it for her website. They drive around putting up religious signs and begging donations off their fellow believers to live on, and I want to call CPS so badly but I don’t know how to find them. It’s SO much worse than that too.
Hazor@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Egads, that poor child is probably going to have significant scarring around the cuts. Assuming he didn’t get a massive infection that they didn’t bother to get treated until amputation was necessary.
BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Those kids have never seen any medical care providers of any sort. They let the boy get an almost 107 degree fever one time, and he’s obviously autistic so it must have been extra miserable for him. No vaccines, no dentists, no school, etc etc.
kazaika@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Casual reminder that many religious rules were just basic Hygiene practices from prehistoric times which were later absorbed into the local beliefs.
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The whole “hygiene” and circumcision is a myth and a lie. Your foreskin has no bearing on your ability to wash your dick
woelkchen@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The whole “hygiene” and circumcision is a myth and a lie.
It’s not like there microbiology science existed thousands of years ago. It may have been a hygiene practice because people thought it was helpful. Bloodletting is BS as well and people thought it helped drain the body’s poisons.
rasbora@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Your foreskin has no bearing on your ability to wash your dick
I imagine the whole circumcision thing makes sense when you’re wandering the desert for years and there’s not a whole lot of water around, but other than that, yeah.
tauren@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Not so long ago people would go weeks without washing their bodies, let alone in prehistoric times.
Deepus@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
It does if it’s tight. I couldn’t wash it due to the extreme tightness. I don’t agree with doing it for religious reasons, just saying your argument there is not without holes.
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You are quite right. There is a tribe in East Africa which makes a hole on their lower lip and place a huge disk into it. It is theorised that the practice started to prevent lockjaw disease that may have been prevalent in the area eons ago. I am not sure how this prevents lockjaw but maybe for them it works.
NONE_dc@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You know, I have a personal theory that this particular law was established as a measure of genital hygiene, since without the foreskin dirt does not accumulate on the glans; but over the years it was distorted until it became a divine mandate that is just for the sake of it.
Glide@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
The vast majority of the Bible was simply guidelines to keep people healthy and happy. All this “the skin of the pig is unclean” stuff? They hadn’t figured out germs yet. No sex until marriage? No contraceptives, so don’t create in cared for children. I won’t waste my time on it but, when examined in context, this is the vast majority, if not the entirety of the bible: lessons on how to be safe and happy relative the time, made digestable and relevant to the common person.
Sucks they had to get there via fear of imaginary, post-life pain, and it sucks twice as hard that they’ve neglected to rationalize that part as the rest of the belief structure has modernized.
Akasazh@feddit.nl 2 weeks ago
The best way to test the resolve of your fellow cultists is by making them commit to very rigorous rules that affect their life significantly.
I mean if you can get them to cut of a piece of their reproductive organs, you have insanely loyal followers. Also resisting something to eat that is very tasty, of it said ‘don’t eat shit’ it’s not a very hard rule to follow.
Somehow this works like a drug for some people. There a reason that many rehabs are ran by religious fellows.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Religions prey on the weak, hence the rehabs and homeless shelters. It’s not charity it’s recruitment
margaritox@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Everybody was filthy back in those days.
MissJinx@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I got the meme but this is Jesus. He was himself circuncised since he was jewish. It was alredy a thing before him. oh, and christians don’t do that
softcat@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
“And turn some of them into facial cream in about two thousand years. Have celebrities rave about it in an extremely odd way for a few weeks on TV, then mysteriously let it be broadly forgotten.”
Bloomcole@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
At least they did it bcs they believed in some BS.
Unlike the suckers doing it for ‘esthetic reasons’pineapplelover@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
How tf did this even start? Some guy was like, “you know the tip of the dick? Cut it off your children” and they just went along with it
TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
You can tell when a tradition was set in by the hidden undertone it allowed to play for it. “Time for your circumcision… Whoops! Guess you are my eunuch surrogate now, totally didn’t mean to eliminate the competition / your genes from my gene pool of surrogates!” Yeah, probably looking too much into it, it’s not like it’s a practice associated with a culture heavily associated with a god’s chosen master race ideology or anything. Totes just a coincidence that it was fabulously sported by the slave loving Egyptians and cultures famous for their obsession with slave land owners of the times as a “rite of passage”. ^/actualshitcomment^
betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Guy was just pissed off that nobody had gotten around to inventing Spaghetti-Os and figured this would be close enough.
EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
“We’re going to cut off (part of) your Johnson!”
wanderwisley@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Thou shall try really really really hard not to kill anyone, unless they pray to a different invisible made up man in the sky to the one you do.
loomy@lemy.lol 2 weeks ago
pro tip: you can’t stutter if you never existed.
you also can’t loose yor peen tip or your protip.
TheBat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That’s Moses, right?
barnaclebutt@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
God hates the tips of little baby dicks
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Wrong dude. That was Abraham in Genesis.
CalipherJones@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If Jesus is God and God told Abraham then i guess it’s technically the right dude.
Quill7513@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
only jesus said there is a new covenant with him, which nearly all denominations interpret to mean the rite of circumcision is a thing of the past
Neverclear@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Jesus’ deity is pretty famously rejected by the Jewish faith.
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Jesus hadn’t been created yet. God is eternal, but Jesus was God made mortal.
dontbelasagne@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Didn’t Jesus deny being god though, the son of god and god are not the same entity, it’s like saying I’m my mother because I was born out of her, but two different entities
Pippipartner@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
This is technical correct and I love it.
4am@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Not as readily recognizable; but on the other hand, if you recognize Jesus then you already know this is incorrect.
Where’s that painting of Moses with the tablets? That’s probably better
BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Yes, this dude got his dick cut off as well.