A Rant About the Bible, Christianity, and Circumcision
I will not shut up about this until the practice is made illegal!
One of the many disagreements among Christians appears to be regarding the extent to which the Old Testament still counts.
It seems as though all Christians accept that some of the Old Testament still matters, but that’s because they have no choice. Without the Adam and Eve story, there is no original sin, and therefore no need for a saviour, which renders the whole Jesus Christ story unnecessary.
The disagreement mainly revolves around which, if any, of the 600+ laws they are still meant to obey.
Most Christians would agree that the Ten Commandments still apply. In fact, many claim that the USA was founded on those principles, even though that is not the case.
But what of the other laws, the ones not stipulated in Exodus and Leviticus?
Specifically, since I am passionate about bodily autonomy, including circumcision, Genesis 17:10-14:
"This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant." (Genesis 17:10-14, ESV)
This is the reason many Christians, in the USA at least, still want their sons circumcised shortly after birth.
But there’s a problem here because Galatians 5:2-6 states something like:
"Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love."
Paul appears to be arguing that if people rely on circumcision as being necessary for salvation, they are turning away from the grace offered through Jesus Christ, and that his (temporary) death and subsequent resurrection frees them from the burden of the Mosaic Law.
In other words, they are no longer bound by the ceremonial or ritualistic aspects of the law, which includes circumcision.
He goes on to explain that if people rely on circumcision, they would then be obliged to keep the entire law, which is practically impossible.
As an atheist, of course, I don’t care what the Bible says (as I’ve written about before) - but Christians say they do.
And many Christians have their sons circumcised because of their faith - even though it clearly violates the boys’ right to bodily autonomy.
But what if someone grows up and rejects their parents’ religion? Maybe they convert to a different religion or denomination. Maybe they revert to being atheists, as we all are when we are born.
That was the case with me, a lifelong atheist. My mother was a Roman Catholic and my father claimed to be some obscure Scottish form of Protestant, although neither were active members of any church. (Because my mother married outside her faith, I am considered, by the Roman Catholic Church, to be a bastard, to which my response is, fuck you!)
Remember, circumcision leaves a permanent scar on the penis (because it is genital mutilation).
So here’s my question: what right does any parent have to brand their child for life with a badge of someone else’s faith?
Again, to be crystal clear on this, I believe that parents do not have the right to have a healthy, functioning part of their child’s body painfully amputated at all. The issue of faith is nothing more than a red herring.
But if that is how some people choose to justify mutilating their son’s body, then they need to be better acquainted with their own holy book. (Not that most Christians apparently read the damn thing.)
Because one of the many things I’m sick of with the more vociferous Christians is their hypocrisy, their cherry-picking of the verses they agree with, their holier-than-thou attitude, and their claim that the Bible is a source of objective morals that atheists (and, presumably, heretics in general) do not have.
If you want to believe in your imaginary friend and live your life by some or all of your holy book’s 600+ laws, knock yourself out. But do not try to impose your laws and beliefs on the majority of the world’s population, and stop bugging us rational people with your delusional mythology.
Either provide actual proof that your God exists or shut the fuck up and keep your beliefs to yourself!
Oh, and stop practising genital mutilation on young children who cannot consent to it (and wouldn’t if they knew what the truth was).
bucketful of fish
lying on the dock
CSI