Circumcision and the Is/Ought Dichotomy

Human beings do a large variety of very strange things with sexual organs, either our own or those belonging to other species. Consider that we often give the severed sexual organs of various plants to our significant others, the predilection that some have for rocky mountain oysters, or the rather severe taboo on displaying these parts (on humans) that prevails in many Western societies. We use the term "private" to describe such parts, owing to the cultural mandated ban on public exposure. There are certainly very good explanations for all of these behaviours. Many of those explanations are evolutionary in character and some have only been recently understood.

The cutting of genitalia, especially in the very young, is a cultural practice that is widespread amongst Abrahamic religions. It is yet another behaviour that admits an evolutionary explanation as Connor Wood explains on his blog Religion and Science:

Arguing for God?

At one of the Freethinkers meetings last year, we spent the meeting discussing the arguments presented for Christianity on an apologetics website. After having carefully refuted much of the website, a Christian, who happened to be present, agreed with the rest of us that the site did not provide very good arguments for believing in his religion. He went on to say that he felt the best arguments for his religion were contained in the Bible.

Almost immediately, I responded that, independent of whether or not the Bible is true or factual, it does not contain any arguments for Christianity (or for any other position for that matter.) As I pointed out, the Hellenistic tradition of codified argumentation was developed after the appearance of much of the Old Testament and, at any rate, did not make any serious contact with the Christian tradition until the Medieval Period (most notably within Catholic scholastic circles.) It stands to reason that this piece of intellectual technology would not have made an appearance in the Bible because the Biblical authors were not yet aware of such things. If the events in the Bible are true as presented, then the book would simply be a recounting of various historical events alongside some flowery poetic language (as in Proverbs or Psalms). Still, not an argument or a set of arguments.