In Genesis 17, we find God making an everlasting covenant with Abraham and his ancestors:
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you and will make you exceedingly numerous.
….
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 circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. Both the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money must 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.
One sign of this covenant between God, Abraham, and future generations required all living males to have their foreskins — the retractable roll of skin covering the end of the penis — removed. Going forward, all male babies, including those of slaves, were to be circumcised on the eighth day. Anyone male not circumcised was cut off from “his people.”
I wonder if God, the Father, warned Jesus before sending him to earth to atone for human sin.
God, the Father: Jesus, after we impregnate your mom, Mary, and you are born, you will have to have your foreskin cut off, without anesthesia, with a sharp rock.
Jesus: What the fuck, Dad? Is that really necessary? That’s really going to hurt!
God: Yes, my Son, your circumcision will be a sign of the covenant between Me, Abraham, and the Jewish people.
Jesus: Dad, why can’t we just issue covenant certificates, signed by you, me, and Ghost?
God: Absolutely not! Certificates will end up lost, but cut off a man’s foreskin? He will never forget that. Every time he pees, has sex, or takes a shower, he will be reminded of the covenant. Awesome, right?
Jesus: Shakes his head, wondering if Dad has dementia.
For thousands of years, countless Jewish, Christian, and Muslim male children have had their foreskins ritually and painfully removed. Why? Because God allegedly said to do so. It is 2025. Circumcision — which is genital mutilation — has no medical purpose, yet millions of boys are circumcised anyway. According to Google, over eighty percent of American males are circumcised, whereas only ten percent of male Europeans are. Anecdotally, this suggests that the more religious a culture is, the more likely they are to practice circumcision. For example, take Africa’s devoutly religious population. Over ninety percent of males are circumcised. That said, I suspect the practice is so deeply rooted in some countries that parents have their male babies circumcised, not out of religious conviction as much as conforming to societal norms.
Let me be clear, mutilating the genitals of children is child abuse. The United States could end circumcision by banning the practice. Hospitals and doctors could stop performing unnecessary, elective surgery on male infants, and insurance companies could stop paying for the procedure. Overnight, parents would stop circumcising their boys. Bruce, but what if parents want to circumcise their son for religious reasons? Sorry, but that’s not a justification for having unnecessary elective surgery performed on your children. Female genital mutilation is often done for religious reasons, yet the practice is universally condemned. It is irrational, then, to support male genital mutilation, but condemn the same practice for females. Both practices need to come to an end immediately.
What I want to know is why God didn’t create males without foreskins to start with? If his creation is intelligently designed and finely tuned, why is it necessary for practitioners of the three Abrahamic religions to have their male babies’ foreskin removed?
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Bruce: “What I want to know is why God didn’t create males without foreskins to start with?”
Me: Chef’s kiss for that question!
Also me: Isn’t a “covenant” a two-way contractual agreement? However, when it comes to the biblical god, it sounds more like: “Do as I say, or else”… which is absolutely NOT a two-way contract.
I was circumcised shortly after I was born, but at that time it was considered a societal norm. Growing up I never knew that my penis had been modified until I heard of the practice at my fundy school. It was a strange idea to me, but the puplit thumpers at chapel and church spoke of it as though it was a normal thing to do. When both my sons were born I made it clear that I did NOT want them circumcised, and rather let them decide later if that’s something they want to do.
It’s very important that parents and minors be able to make medical decisions in consultation with their doctor – well… as long as its the right decision. I mean, its ok to circumcise an infant who has no ability to understand or choose, leaving them to live a lifetime with an irreversible medical procedure which they may regret later in life. But we can’t let these older minors who realize they are trans get non-surgical medical support, because they are not old enough to make those decisions and their parents and doctors can’t be trusted to help the minor properly and besides that its an abomination, so they have to wait until they are 18, or 19, or 26, or maybe not at all! It could be something they may regret later when they get over the peer pressure and desire to be a cool trans or non binary person.
🙄🙄
The logic of christians is crazy. It’s the same logic than goes to great lengths to ban abortion, but does nothing to protect minors from being killed in schools in mass shootings, or watces them die because they refuse to vaccinate. Apparently the mantra of “if it saves one life then its worth it” applies only to children not born yet, but once they are breathing, the urgency to protect the children disappears.
If I had male children, I’d get it done. I think it is a clean svelte look and it does keep it clean and lowers odds of STD transmission. While I’d prefer to give agency to any of my children to decide to do it later, there is an issue: When done as a baby there really is no scar, the healing is perfect, this is not so if done as an adult. I suspect that the nerves in the foreskin are reappropriated as a baby, while adults possibly not so. While this is conjecture and hard to prove I’m sticking with it.
Just a comment on the Biblical origin of the practice. Desert cultures, where it is harder to clean, started it for cleanliness and later tacked on an origin story.
Well let’s all hope you never have male children then.
If circumcision is going to be done, it absolutely must be done with full painkillers rubbed on and after that,a small injection of Novocaine, so they can’t feel anything at all down there, before the procedure. Painkillers aren’t automatic! Lots of doctors don’t give a 💩 and claim that a little bit of pain toughens these unlucky babies up. Only it’s not a little bit, it’s very intense pain that lasts a long time!
That’s a helluva great question… if God doesn’t like full wiener wraps, why did he make them that way? And if man was created in his image does that mean that God has a johnson, too? And is it clipped or unclipped? Sorry, these are the important questions that you’re not gonna hear in sunday school!!
A significant bit of the glaring nonsense that made so many of us bail out of religion.
‘… over eighty percent of American males are circumcised, whereas only ten percent of male Europeans…” That’s consistent with the closed up churches I saw in The Netherlands.
Thank you to my struggling Mother who only took me to a doc a week after being born at home. That was probably only to get me a birth certificate to prove there was a born American in the house. And thanks to the legendary old Doc Goll of Stryker for not mutilating me.
One of my boyhood friends was circumcised at about 12 years of age. I never understood why it was done. I’m sure he didn’t know why himself. He was ashamed of it and it was not discussed. That was when I learned about circumcision and that I had something the other boys lacked. Again, Mom and Doc Goll, thank you.
Bruce: “God, the Father: Jesus, after we impregnate your mom, Mary, and you are born, you will have to have your foreskin cut off, without anesthesia, with a sharp rock.
Jesus: What the fuck, Dad? Is that really necessary? That’s really going to hurt!”
Zoe:
Jesus: Geesh! Won’t my crucifixion be enough?!?
Zoe, that’s hilarious, I really did LOL reading it. Not often, but occasionally, raving fundies from english cities come to my tourist town and set up PA systems to shout their nonsense at visitors. (Local welsh churches are moribund generally, so don’t have any members young enough to do street preaching.) I’m now dying to try your take on jesus+circumcision on one of them, they’re ususally arrogant young males doing the shouting!
Thank you. 🙂
Temporarily back at the blood cult today, Just like Naaman used to. But your page here is quite a relief.