Thy Plague Doctor

@belen can you please paraphrase? I’m not in a place where I can play sound.

@unseen We are discussing genital ‘editing’ of babies, in order to safeguard them from experiences that they aren’t likely to be exposed to until they are an adult.  If this is the case, then there is no need to ‘edit’ genitalia at birth, since the protection apparently provided by this operation is not expected to kick in until they are ad…[Read more]

Hi @belen. You stated, “There are things I’ve learned from him that are ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON and I wish I had known years ago.”. Could you give me an example or two of what you were referring to there, so I can better understand your overall view of this guy?

Bellen wrote:
No because he didn’t explicitly say that he believes in it.

No. Aboslutely not. Logos is a philosophical term. You don’t “believe” in logos. You use it as part of an argument or as a means of explaining something. He uses the term in a totally tortured and incomprehensible way that, as Reg said…does box him in. Because he uses t…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Can one be both an atheist and religious?

Yes, they are not mutually exclusive. There are millions of people who lack a belief in God yet are religious. None of lacking a belief in God stops you from believing in other supernatural irrational nonsense. An enormous amount of people in Asia and many gullible “new age loving” Americans…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
Without all that, it’s a philosophy.

Thats a pretty big insult to philosophers. His babbling rant barely approaches a philosophy. In response to the 10 minute video I would say:

He has me up until the “I don’t know what they mean by God”. A pretty standard igtheist stance. But then he qualifies that as a “our two concepts o…[Read more]

At least the court proposed that standard services must be made available to customers regardless of their sexual orientation (or race, and gender I would assume). As for customizing a cake? They should provide an unburdomsome alternative, like subcontracting out another person to put male figures on the top and write out any text. But to refuse…[Read more]

Not sure that many babies have sex, Unseen.  What do you imagine would happen if we moved the age of circumcision to 18 years?  Fully informed by the available information on STD reduction potential, and any other alleged health benefits, what proportion of men would choose to be circumcised, in your opinion?

If by discoveries you mean bullshit that so many people are all too willing to believe…then I’d say yes…most non-critical-thinking and non-skeptical people are extremely likely to accept this “mind-blowing facts you’ll never believe are totally scientificamal and true-like”.

I don’ think most people here will waste their time. Aliens with…[Read more]

@danielw

I agree with you. For me the most disturbing part of it is the ritual touching and physical violence to a family members genitals. It’s abusive.

But the second most disturbing thing is what you say:

It takes choice away from the child, is yet another forced social conformity, and has potential for negative outcomes.

The loss of bodily…[Read more]

Hi Jake,

I’d say a big yes. If a doctor can properly demonstrate why it is necessary and is sincere about it (absolutely no cultural or religious motivations) then it is a lot more acceptable than a Rabbi performing it (no matter how sanitary he tries to make it).

There are a few rare cases of women having part of their genitals removed to avoid…[Read more]

Very good, @davis

I thought that an analogy would help. Imagine if it was somehow discovered that if we scrape part of our tastebuds off, we will be a little less likely to get brain cancer (already a pretty low risk), will avoid tongue infections (pretty uncommon), will have 10% less likelihood of having the tonsils removed (few people suffer this anyways) and is…[Read more]

No

No

Yes, Belen, I agree with @davis so totally on this subject. I cannot for the life of me understand how people do this.  Religions have brainwashed people into thinking this is a normal thing.  It is not normal. It is grotesque. The hygiene thing is a myth. The only way that the concept of hygiene could apply is if a dick-owner completely fails t…[Read more]

Its no surprise that its almost only American doctors talking about the very questionable efficacy of circumcision as they are also more likely to perform they mostly pointless excision. The UTI benefits are tenuous at best, AIDS protection is about avoiding infection with unprotected sex un places of highinfection rate and none of them take into…[Read more]