Advice Needed: Circumcised vs Uncircumcised

quote:

---

strapping a baby down and cutting their genitals in my book is child abuse.

---

quote:

---

If it's for the purpose of involving a child in a loving culture and tradition, I'm all for it.

---

What if the baby is a girl and the procedure is to cut off her clitoris and sew up her vaginal opening?Or what about footbinding?The people who perform FGM and footbinding are "involving a child in a culture and tradition" that they believe is "loving", I am sure.

quote:

---

It is up to the parents to figure out how they want thier kids to fit into a society / culture. That's the parents job. If it's an accepted social practice, then I don't see how it can be considered abuse.

​

That would require me to use my own social values to judge someone else's situation.

---

Do you believe that human rights should be relative and are subject to varied cultural norms?

quote:

---

What do you think of praying mantis mating habits?

---

They are interesting.Are you trying to say that praying mantises have a "culture" or a "society"?But getting back to the point, if you do not wish to draw the line anywhere regarding human rights because that would be imposing your cultural norms on to another culture, then do you oppose, say, forced abortions, or genocide, or the killing of female babies, or slavery, or torture?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 01-17-2006 07:37 AM

quote:

---

For a person who maintains that evopsych is a realistic science, then your answer must be yes. Their habits are a genetically determined culture just as all human behavior is.

---

That is a strawman argument, because Evolutionary Psychology does not claim that all human behavior is genetically determined.(edited to fix quote box)This message has been edited by schrafinator, 01-17-2006 09:57 AM

I have asked several professional Psychologists in various fields what their opinon of EP is, and they certainly do not dismiss every bit of it out of hand like you do. They tell me that it is a new branch of science and that like many emerging fields some of it is not very good and some of it is quite good.I do hope you will excuse me if I do not give much credence to the opinion of a non-scientist/non-Psychologist in this matter.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 01-17-2006 10:52 PM

quote:

---

the human nervous system is fully formed at birth.

---

It is?I thought the brain was still making lost of networks and connections for years after birth.

I am sorry, holmes, but I am not going to continue this conversation.I am trying to stick to a resolution and I am currently in violation of it.