[Vision2020] Religious Liberty

Chasuk chasuk at gmail.com
Mon Oct 10 18:50:41 PDT 2005


> On the other hand, if there's a reasonable, collective social standard
> embraced by all world religions and most non-believers in any faith, it
> would be that deliberately harming someone in the expression of another's
> religious belief is wrong.  I would call it sin, some would call it cruel,
> others would call it unloving -- but we would all agree it's wrong.

I would argue that the universality of a belief, regardless of the
pedigree of its proponents, does not speak as to the validity of said
belief.  However, for want of any better standard, I accede your
point, at least provisionally.

> So, then, if an 8-year-old girl is raised in a village in which the male elders
> believe that her sexual organs and her expression of her sexuality is
> inherently dangerous and evil

As the father of two wonderful daughters, I find female circumcision
particularly horrifying.  How any parent could conspire in the
mutilation of his own little girls is beyond my ken.  Before anyone
accuse me of caring less for little boys, I will confess straightaway
that this is true (but solely insofar as genital mutilation is
concerned).  I am a circumcised male, and my orgasms are fine, thank
you.  I can only imagine that the procedure was traumatising to me as
an infant; I thankfully have absolutely no recollection of the event. 
For the record, if I had fathered sons, they would not have been
circumcised.



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