Bad life choices

[SchnidlersLeest]

He doesn't have a choice. In some places in the Arab world you aren't considered a man until you are circumcised. It has nothing to do with 70 virgins (the Koran mentions 72 wives for the faithful), it's just culture and tradition. Wrong or no, it has nothing to do with morals whatsoever. I personally find it horrifying and I do not respect the practice as an uncircumcised atheist, but I don't judge. I wish the practice would cease, and it may, but neither of us have any idea what it is like to grow up or even raise a child in an environment like that. I just find it a little suspect to accuse the parents of being overpious, immoral or even stupid without knowing them.

No, absolutely do judge it. Don't say that you find it horrifying but refrain from judging it. The culture of the society doesn't excuse immoral actions of a person(s) from moral evaluation. There's MORE responsibility on the parents, or whoever made JAP go through that horrendous operation and took away half of his sexual pleasure, if there wasn't even a moral justification. Because that means it was just some sort of preference like "I don't like oranges, so I'm going to go cut that guy's hand off and take the orange out of his axed off hand." Not knowing a murderer doesn't mean he "can't be judged" for having murdered someone. I think what you're talking about is circumstance, like if JAP's parents were forced and gunpoint to removed his foreskin, though I assume that didn't happen. Social pressure and conformity are not the same thing as being forced to do something.

There's one thing that we damn know well happens in that environment, and that's that you get your foreskin cut off as a child without that child's consent.

Child abuse is what leads to violence in society. In the case of Arab societies, though, it's also the destruction caused by several different governments. Especially the mass murdering US military. Just to be clear that I'm aware of the violence currently affecting the adult populations.