[gotchange]

I have a circumcised penis and I am not Jewish. Reducing the Jewish identity to having your penis circumcised is just flawed as it naturally excludes Jewish women.

Jewish males can still have their private parts circumcised when they become adult as it was supposed to be the case, a rite of passage for getting into the adult world.

Most of your rebuttal is centered around a "slippery-slope" argument and it is not convincing enough.

[relics443]

Entirely incorrect.

As an orthodox Jew, I can tell you that failure to circumcize your son at 8 days old (outside of extenuating circumstances, e.g. medical issues) is one of the worst sins you could commit.

Furthermore, you would be ostracized from the community, and your child will suffer socially, and emotionally.

Once the child turns 13 he is responsible to ensure that he it's circumcised, and considering that he most likely will not have abandoned his religion by 13 he will go through with it. So now there's physical pain as well.

[gotchange]

That's a theological critique, mine was sociological one from an outside observer. Still, the theological arguments don't work under a secular government which takes pride in separating the state from religion.

[relics443]

They do. It's called religious persecution.

And if a government would ban circumcision, I'd be willing to bet that all Orthodox Jews would leave. And if the government prevented that (which has certainly happened before), then it is well documented that many Jews are ready to give up their lives in order to circumcise their sons.

Update: only my first comment was theological; the rest were socio-physical

[spraak]

Babies feel pain, which you seem to be saying they don't with:

> by 13 he will go through with it. So now there's physical pain as well.

[relics443]

I'm not saying they don't. But the experience is forgotten quickly.

[spraak]

It's really not. There is evidence [1] that the trauma of circumcision lasts a lifetime

1. One example is Ch 4 and 5 of http://www.circumcision.org/cht.htm

[pugio]

Jewish _male_ identity, obviously. "Supposed" is irrelevant (and highly debatable). What _is_ is that Jewish male identity views circumcision as one of its lynchpins. Kick away that support, and you create a powerful identity crisis.

Slippery slope argument says that "we shouldn't do X (even though X is inherently okay) because it might lead yet another set of actions – Y – which is a negative". I'm not saying that at all. Banning circumcision will lead to significant identity issues as a direct consequence, not as a result of some other intermediate effect that obtains as a result of the ban.

[gotchange]

My supposed remark was a reference to how this ritual was practiced in other human cultures as Jews didn't invent male circumcision.

It was like "Hey boy, you've hit puberty and become a man now. Let's do this small rite of passage and cut that foreskin off your dick so you could join the rest of the tribe of grown up men"