Christopher Hitchens on Male Genital Mutilation

On the issue of religion i am usually on the other side of the fence* to Hitchens, but on this matter i find i am 100% wholeheartedly in agreement. Male circumcision is practised by most of the societies that practise female circumcision, & more, for the same reasons & with comparable effects. Female Genital Mutilation, however, is considered just about the worst crime imaginable pretty much everywhere in the world, while Male Genital Mutilation is legal in every country & a joke the world over.

There is something to be learned here about how ideology - religious or otherwise - has an uncanny power to blind human beings to the actual reality of what is staring them in the face. If you truly cannot see that taking a razor & cutting parts off of healthy male infant's genitals is the same as taking a razor & cutting parts off of healthy female infant's genitals, then whatever is happening inside you at this very second is that process. Take a moment to step back & look at how you have got here.

For more information on both Male & Female Genital Mutilation please check the 'Resources' sidebar.




*or rather, the other side of the debate altogether: it has always been clear to me the monotheistic religions [Judaism/Christianity/Islam] & Atheism are actually on the same side of the scales: the present day reductive materialist belief-system of the west - which includes Atheism - emerged out of Christian/monotheistic thought & would not - could not - have existed without it. It takes a breathtakingly limited worldview to define all religious experience as simply the modern west's experience of monotheism. The monotheistic religions go back 2 or 3 thousand years & have bred intolerance, war & fundamentalism. The religious experience of humanity, on the other hand, goes back at least a hundreds times that long, & is perhaps the defining characteristic of our species. There has never been, in all the thousands of tribes, nations, & civilizations ever discovered & recorded, been a culture found without it.

Religions may well be for sheep. That doesn't mean the concerns of religions are for sheep. They are the questions that all human beings eventually have to ask of themselves & the universe. But that's another matter, & for somewhere else than here.