Hitchens Schools Rabbi on Issue of Genital Mutilation

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7 Comments

Comment by Hank Fox on July 5, 2009 at 11:01pm

The whole subject for me is summed up in one statement:

Elective surgery performed on people without their consent ... for reasons of STYLE. And they do it to BABIES.

Comment by Doug Anderson on July 4, 2009 at 1:54pm

Since my first child was born before my wife and I got married and before my wife converted to Judaism the first child had to have a drop of blood taken out of his penis. Since he was already circumcised at the hospital there had to be a symbolic ritual to compare to an Orthodox circumcision. So they had to take a small needle and prick the tip of the penis to draw a drop of blood. This was then collected and supposedly was good enough to count as a Jewish circumcision. As you can imagine, after this I really starting questioning my religion and I believe that this is where my 'fall' started!

Comment by Jacqueline Sarah Homan on July 3, 2009 at 7:42pm

I was raised Jewish, and am Jewish by race, but atheist by common sense. ANd my common sense tells me that if there was really a God who was "All That" he/she would not need anyone's bodies harmed as some sort of proof of allegiance. Hitchens is right. Genital mutilation is NO joke, which is why ALL of it must be stopped (inlcuding routine episiotomies for women giving birth).

Comment by Evilgenius20 on July 3, 2009 at 6:42pm

Great video, thanks for posting this. I love it when Hitchens goes on the offensive. He wields his intellect like a weapon and eviscerates the rabbi's paltry defense of genital mutilation.

Comment by Josh Luzania on July 3, 2009 at 3:17pm

i love how the rabbi ignored the part about the death of boys as a result of infections from the genital mutilation. Just imagine the number of deaths without modern medical science and extrapolate that a few thousand years.

Comment by Jeff on July 3, 2009 at 1:19pm

Interesting video.

With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.

Comment by Kitty on July 2, 2009 at 8:59pm

Bravo!~
Thank you for posting this.
I am appalled at the frequency that circumcision is performed on baby boys as a matter of course in the US. You have to tell the doctors not to, or they will by default!