Religious Genital Mutilation

by Joe Grundy 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Joe Grundy

  I never was a JW. I am an atheist. (I keep introducing my posts that way, but it's for the avoidance of doubt).

  On an entirely different MB, someone just raised the issue of FGM. Horrific. MGM is no less evil, I suggest.

  By coincidence, I happened to watch a youtube Christopher Hitchens debate and this - poorly summarised - is what he said.

  'How many of us, seeing a new-born baby, have asked to be passed a sharpened stone so that we can mutilate his/her genitals?'

  We (humans, I mean) have a vehicle on Mars and yet this barbaric practice in the name(s) of discredited supernatural beings continues?
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  Joe Grundy

  (Replying to my own post, sorry!)

  I really don't care what people choose to believe, their choice. What really winds me up is the damage done to people in the name of religion. And the fact that there is so much pressure NOT to criticise 'religion' as if it was off-limits.

  Well, it isn't, and I for one will criticise and make comments where I think it's due.
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  NewChapter

  Yes, it continues. This god made a man, called him good, then commanded that we start lopping off pieces of him.

  As bad as it is, what little girls go through in some areas of the world is even more deforming, and has serious health implications. I knew a nurse that worked as head nurse when a woman came in from another country in labor. They had mutilated her and sewed her up so tightly as a child, that there was no way for her to give birth without things being reopened. The stunning part was that after the delivery, they expected the doctors to sew her back up. This nurse did what she could to prevent that from happening on her shift, but she went home. She doesn't know the outcome of this story, because she could not bear to ask.

  All it takes is a doctor from a similar culture, and I'm sure they did it. Apparently the hospital itself did not have a policy against it. This was California. Horrifying.
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  NewChapter

  Damage done to children---babies----no consent required.
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  Joe Grundy

  This was the link posted to another site which prompted my post:

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/nov/18/female-genital-mutilation-circumcision-indonesia

  (Sorry, don't know how to make it 'clickable')

  I spent much of my working life investigating child abuse. This, it seems to me, is as bad as anything. But to challenge it, because it's part of 'religion' is or seems to be unacceptable in most societies.

  Do you wonder why I count most religions as 'evil'?
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  ÁrbolesdeArabia

  Hi Joe, this FGM has been going on for some time, the Awake Magazine helped bring this horrible practice into the light over a decade ago. Old Watchtower magazines might have mentioned it even earlier, it's a terrible practice and it's being done here in the United States in secret to young girls of Somali and other African descent. It's illegal, cruel and must be stopped, their thought is it keeps women chaste by removing their clitoris.

  We can give the Awake Kudos on this topic, they have been exposing it for a long time!
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  Joe Grundy

  Thank you for the response.

  FGM has been going on for centuries, I guess. MGM has been going on for longer, all in the name of a bronze-age supernatural being.

  I can't give 'Awake' any kudos for this. They perpetuate the belief in a bronze-age (stone-age?) god that sanctioned this sort of stuff. Their religion, in promoting theit god, is just as culpable.

  Try standing up in a KH and proclaiming that 'Your God' sanctions lopping off foreskins and clitorae'. See how far you get.
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  Joe Grundy

  "Damage done to children---babies----no consent required."

  No, that's not quite right. Sadly, and in a life I'm glad to be away from, babies were abused. I never came across a case of FGM but if I had then believe me the abusers would have been arrested. (one benefit of being a UK cop, you hold power under the Crown under a personal oath and nobody but nobody can interfere with that).
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  Xanthippe

  My local Amnesty International group just brought FGM to the attention of our member of parliament. She came to one of our group's meetings and she said the government is aware of it. Problem is little girls get taken out of the country during school holidays and it is done back in their home country because it's illegal in the UK.
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  Joe Grundy

  And, of course, it's so difficult (politically incorect) to question, let alone criticise, anything done in the name of religion.

  Well, here I stand. I absolutely condemn this practice. I condemn Allah or whoever condones this. I say that you are child abusers in the worst way. Am I allowed here to publish my name and address? Happy to do so against this vile practice.