Posted: Sep 15, 2013 2:30 pm
Nora_Leonard wrote:Matthew Shute wrote:Not only an excuse. Sometimes the sole motivation.Thomas Eshuis wrote:
The point/claim is that religion, unlike atheism, can give an excuse to do bad things.
What, other than religious dogma, motivates those who carve away at the genitals of male and female children when there is no medical necessity to do so? This would make no sense whatsoever without believing some very strange things. Without the dogma, the cause is removed. Spurious child genital mutilation is almost exclusively "faith based".
Circumcision of male infants in the states has been done routinely on health grounds (c.f. religious) whether spurious or not.
If it is genuinely done for medical reasons, then it isn't spurious.
And if there are no medical benefits, then it isn't done "on health grounds", even if that's cited as the excuse reason.