Is Islam The Problem?

[Formaldehyde]

Male circumcision is at best an unnecessary surgical operation. It results in multiple deaths annually in the USA alone. I stand by my opinion, thanks.

Lack of reverence = doesn't believe in? How convincing.

Why do you think so many agnostics and atheists have been killed by Christians over the ages?

And there aren't " multiple deaths annually in the USA " from male circumcision. That is just the usual crazy talk from the usual wacky "sources".

NY Times / SCIENCE: Benefits of Circumcision Are Said to Outweigh Risks

Granted, this is actually a great example of rampant Islamophobia in Europe, and the persecution of Muslims as well as Jews. So I guess it really is related to the topic...

Posted by a man trying to do the same to over a billion people.

Ironic, isn't it?

 

[brennan]

...deaths are not unheard of, and the review noted that '‘the true incidence of complications after newborn circumcision is unknown.’'

Anesthesia is often not used, and the task force recommended that pain relief, including penile nerve blocks, be used regularly, a change that may raise the rate of complications.

Significant complications are believed to occur in approximately one in 500 procedures. Botched operations can result in damage or even amputation of parts of the penis.

By one estimate, put forth by Dan Bollinger, a prominent opponent of circumcision, based on his review of infant mortality statistics, about 117 boys die each year as a result of circumcision.

117 is quite a lot imo.

And regardless. Unnecessarily hopping bits off your children is a disgusting practice.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Only it is complete and utter nonsense, which is extremely easy to discern even to the casual observer.

Fatally flawed: Bollinger's circumcision death calculations

Dan Bollinger (of the International Coalition for Genital Integrity) has published "LOST BOYS: AN ESTIMATE OF U.S. CIRCUMCISION-RELATED INFANT DEATHS". In it, he claims that circumcision causes 117 deaths per year in the United States. It's a lengthy paper, and is frankly rather tedious to wade through, but I thought it might be interesting to see how he derived his estimate:

Though the data previously cited are insufficient to establish a definitive death rate on their own, there is enough available information to calculate an estimate. Not all of the reported 35.9 deaths out of 1,243,392 circumcisions can be attributed to related causes.

(Here Bollinger references a figure he has provided previously: "Hospital discharge records reveal that, during the 1991–2000 decade, on average 35.9 boys died from all causes each year during their stay (average 2.4 days) in the hospital in which both their birth and circumcision occurred (Thompson Reuters, 2004).")

What portion, then, is circumcision-related and how may we extrapolate to the number of deaths after hospital release? What we can safely assume is that it is unlikely that any of these infants would have been subjected to the unnecessary trauma of circumcision if they had been in critical condition, or that they would have been circumcised after their death.

This is indeed a relatively safe assumption, though it is not one that actually gets us any closer to an answer.

Gender-ratio data can help extrapolate a figure. Males have a 40.4% higher death rate than females from causes that are associated with male circumcision complications, such as infection and hemorrhage,4 during the period of one hour after birth to hospital release (day 2.4), the time frame in which circumcisions are typically performed (CDC, 2004). Assuming that the 59.6% portion is unrelated to gender, we can estimate that 40.4% of the 35.9 deaths were circumcision-related. This calculates to 14.5 deaths prior to hospital release.

This is extraordinary! Bollinger is, in effect, assuming that the difference between male and female death rates is due entirely to circumcision. But it is a well-established fact that male babies are more susceptible to deaths than females, and there is no evidence that this is due to circumcision. Indeed, if circumcision alone were responsible for the difference, then we might expect countries with low circumcision rates to have the same infant mortality rates among males and females. But in fact, that's not the case, as the following table shows:

Country Est. neonatal circ. rate IM (male) IM (female) IM m:f ratio
Israel > 90% 4.39 4.05 1.08
Nigeria 80-90% 100.38 87.97 1.14
United States 50-80% 6.90 5.51 1.25
Australia < 20% 5.08 4.40 1.15
United Kingdom < 5% 5.40 4.28 1.26
France < 5% 3.66 2.99 1.22
Finland < 1% 3.78 3.15 1.2


Table: Infant mortality (IM) rates for selected countries. Derived from female rate table and male rate table.

Clearly, infant mortality rates are consistently higher among males regardless of circumcision rates. So Bollinger's approach is clearly flawed. When he is trying to estimate the risk due to circumcision he is actually estimating the risk due to being male!

But it gets even worse (this would be laughable if the subject weren't so serious). Even if we assume that Bollinger's method is sane and appropriate (in spite of evidence to the contrary), he manages to miscalculate those attributable to being male. If the rate is 40.4% higher among males then the observed rate (35.9) will be the rate in females plus 0.404 times that rate again (or 1.404 times the rate in females). So, to find the rate in females:

1.404f = 35.9

f = 35.9 / 1.404 = 25.57

And so the rate attributable to being male will be 40.4% of that, which is 10.33.

But, as noted, this is the rate attributable to being male, not to circumcision.

But as is often the case with hemorrhage and infection, some circumcision-related deaths occur days, even weeks, after hospital release. The CDC&#8217;s online searchable database, Mortality: Underlying cause of death, 2004 (CDC), lists causes by various age ranges and reveals that the percentage of deaths after release, compared with deaths before, is 772% greater. This ratio is comparable to Patel&#8217;s (1966) 700% postrelease infection rate.

Bollinger expresses this with less than optimal clarity, but what he seems to be saying is that the ratio between deaths in the hospital stay (which Bollinger identifies as typically 2.4 days) and those after the hospital stay (but presumably within the first 28 days of life) is 7.72.

Frankly, that shouldn't be surprising. There are 10.7 times as many days in the latter period than there are in the former, so one would ordinarily expect more deaths simply due to there being more time in which people can die.

Multiplying the 772% adjustment factor for age-at-time-of-death by the 14.5 hospital-stay deaths calculated above, the result is approximately 112 circumcision-related deaths annually for the 1991&#8211;2000 decade, a 9.01/100,000 death-incidence ratio.


This multiplication is irrational. It stands to reason that there would be more deaths in the first 28 days than the first 2.4 days, simply because there is more time in which infants can die. If we look at the first 100 years of life, then the ratio will be even greater (in fact, the mortality rate over that period will be almost 100%), but would it make any sense to apply that ratio? Of course not &#8212; people die of other things than circumcision, and it wouldn't make any sense.

It doesn't make sense to apply this multiplication, either. Yes, a certain number of circumcision-related deaths will likely occur some time after the event, but it doesn't make any sense to assume, in effect, that any deaths in the period must be due to circumcision.

Applying this ratio to the 1,299,000 circumcisions performed in 2007, the most recent year for which data are available (HCUP, 2007), the number of deaths is about 117. This is equivalent to one death for every 11,105 cases, which is not in substantial conflict with Patel&#8217;s observation of zero deaths in 6,753 procedures. It is more than some
other estimates (Speert, 1953; Wiswell, 1989),

It is perhaps a little disingenuous to refer to these as "estimates". These are observations showing 1 death in 566,000 circumcisions (Speert), no deaths in 100,000 boys (Wiswell). Similarly, King reported no deaths in 500,000 circumcisions. So if we use 1 in 500,000 as a reasonable estimate, we would expect 2.6 deaths in 1.3 million circumcisions. Bollinger's errors have led him to a figure some 45 times greater than that which can be extrapolated from actual statistics!

but less than the overstated 230 figure derived from Gairdner (1949). Breaking this statistic down further, about 40% of these deaths (47) would have been from hemorrhage, and the remainder (70) from sepsis, using a hemorrhage-to-sepsis ratio for infant mortality (NCHS, 2004).

Yes, I suppose the nice thing about imaginary numbers is that there is an inexhaustible supply of them.

I am stunned that it even found its way into that NY Times article. I guess it just shows how hopelessly warped this topic has become from the perspective of those who won't even do some simple google searches before publishing utter nonsense in a respectable newspaper.

And while your personal opinion in these matters is quite quaint and all-too-typical from those who choose to ignore basic science and medicine, it is obviously no business of yours that millions of people do have their children circumcised, either for quite valid hygienic / medical disease reasons, as well as merely for religious reasons.

 

[Gucumatz]

This is just a general post meant to address the thread's question:

Islam is not the problem. Questions of poverty, lack of opportunity, and lack of access to education create tensions and frustrations that can be channeled in many ways. Coupled with the threat of war/danger in many of these countries - people can often channel their frustrations into the feelings that their way of life/culture/or faith is under attack. Islam encourages charity and a strong community care among its practitioners, like all of the major world religions.

There is a reason no one ever hears about problems with the Muslim community in Singapore, unlike say Somalia. Where people have the opportunity to succeed, people channel faith for more constructive purposes - in the end it comes down to questions of poverty and strife. The real problem is not Islam - its a lack of economic development.

The problems of today will not be solved by blood and iron, but education and economics to help the millions of struggling in developing areas to rise up

 

[brennan]

Is that guy a casual observer? He runs a blog called 'circumcision news' (how bizarre). What credentials does he have I wonder...?

His bias is obvious.

 

[JollyRoger]

There is circumstantial evidence that his creds are suspect.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

I'm siding with those who are saying that all religion is the problem, but that Islam is just the most visible symptom of that problem these days. The real issue is the mindset that tells people that it's a virtue not just to believe things despite a lack of evidence, but to believe even if there is a mountain of directly contradictory evidence. Reminds me of the Stephen Colbert white house correspondence dinner, where he said of George Bush "The great thing about this man is that he believe the same thing on Thursday that he believed on Tuesday, no matter what happened on Wednesday." Making a virtue out of willful ignorance is self evidently going to result in a population of ignorant people.

There is also some merit to the arguments of those who have said that class and economic status matter most. People who are poor get desperate, and desperate people will sometimes latch on to any justification they can find that allows them to lash out.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Is that guy a casual observer? He runs a blog called 'circumcision news' (how bizarre). What credentials does he have I wonder...?

His bias is obvious.

The casual observer part is because it is obvious there aren't so many deaths from circumcision each year. If there were it would make international news. Non-doctors who perform circumcisions would be getting prosecuted left and right for manslaughter. Lawyers would be specializing and getting rich off of botched circumcisions. There would be a massive public movement to assure all circumcisions were only performed by medical doctors under completely sanitary conditions.

So find something wrong with his completely devastating debunking of this obvious quack with his own quite blatant agenda.

 

[brennan]

I quite agree Formy. If some commonplace event like, oh driving a carsay, routinely killed large numbers of people there would be an outcry and it would stop happening overnight.

 

[JollyRoger]

It is car driving extrermists we need to worry about and not car driving moderates.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I quite agree Formy. If some commonplace event like, oh driving a carsay, routinely killed large numbers of people there would be an outcry and it would stop happening overnight.

If 117 people were killed each year changing the registration sticker on their license plates, I'm fairly certain there would be a major investigation. You don't?

There is simply no reason that anybody should ever die from such a simple procedure. Not only would it take gross incompetence on the person who did it, it would also mean the parents were incredibly stupid and even criminally negligent for not getting the wound properly treated by medical professionals after it became infected. You certainly can't blame the procedure itself with a straight face unless you simply don't understand it.

 

[sophie]

Is Islam "The Problem"?

 

[Berzerker]

any religion advocating violence against people for leaving is morally bankrupt

 

[Tee Kay]

Please don't call me Islamophobic. It incorrectly suggests that I hold other religions in less contempt.

The Quran exhorts the faithful to "seize" and "kill" disbelievers (4:89). Surely that's a bit brennanophobic?

http://quran.com/4

And then the next verse immediately after exhorts the faithful to NOT do that if the disbelievers are not fighting them.

You are falling into the same trap as the jihadists: picking and choosing verses that justifies your preconceived notions (or notion, 'cause what you and them believe is the same, that Islam sanctions wanton indiscriminate violence) and ignoring the rest.

 

[JollyRoger]

There do seem to be a number of potential recruits here based on shared interpretation.

 

[Archbob]

Did you take the time to watch the video? I think he quite eloquently pointed out why religion should eventually go completely away if are are ever to have a rational, free, and open secular society. But he certainly didn't call anybody a "nutter", although I guess you could possibly infer it from his comment about the "Jesus" sign in Little Rock, Arkansas regarding the owner.

Please, do you really think religion is the real problem?

The problem is, and always has been, humanity itself.

The issue is that leaders or people abuse religion and twist it to make excuses to do what they want. Its not like Athiests are all purely rational, free, and open. If religion didn't exist, people would just find something else to twist or make excuses from. Do you really think that things like slavery where really caused by religion? That is incredibly Naive.

 

[Funky]

And then the next verse immediately after exhorts the faithful to NOT do that if the disbelievers are not fighting them.

You are falling into the same trap as the jihadists: picking and choosing verses that justifies your preconceived notions (or notion, 'cause what you and them believe is the same, that Islam sanctions wanton indiscriminate violence) and ignoring the rest.

I don't think anyone here wants Islam to sanction violence. I certainly don't. In fact, I've been fighting alongside with secular Muslims for two years now to help reform Islam and shift the focus away from the violent and inhuman parts.
But we can't fail to notice that in its current state Islam offers dozens and hundreds of incentives for violence, not only against unbelievers, but also against women, homosexuals, blasphemers and apostates, and anyone else who doesn't live in accordance with Islamic tradition or sharia.

You are right of course that the Koran also contains a few peaceful verses.

The first part of the Koran deals with Mohammed's life in Mekka. At this time, the city was home to several religions and sects, and Mohammed just had a few dozen followers. In light of his own numerical inferiority, he preached tolerance and suggested that all religious beliefs be respected and treated equally. It was only after he went to Medina and obtained a large following that he spread Islam through the sword and applied the rules of Islam to non-believers, who in most cases were forced to convert or die. After he came back to Mekka, he destroyed all the religious symbols in the Kaaba, which had been a remarkably tolerant religous center for all kinds of various believers. Believing in Islam became mandatory, as did the fight against all unbelievers. Mohammed's time in Medina and his conqering of Mekka make up the second part of the Koran.

Now, if we look only at the Mekka part of the Koran, we naturally find a comparably benign text. The focus lies on spiritual aspects, and when it touches political aspects they are about good relations and tolerance. But when we get to the Medina part, the incitement of violence against anyone who disagrees with the tenets of Islam becomes the central message. If Muslims only focused on the first part, we wouldn't have much of a problem. In fact, Sufists tend to do just that. They have a mystical rather than political approach to their religion.
However, there is a huge problem. After Islamic scholars noticed contradictions in the Koran back in the 9th century, they solved the problem by deciding that if two verses were in conflict, the one that came later in the book was the correct one. This means that for large parts of the Muslim community, when in doubt, the Medina part overrides the Mekka part, violence trumps peacefulness, the political and aggressive trump the spiritual.

I have often talked about reforming Islam. Personally I believe that this tenet of the latter verses abrogating the earlier ones is the place to start. If Muslims would abide by the Mekka part and ignore most of the Medina part, Islam could perhaps become a religion of peace. There are problems in the first part too, but this would be a big step forward. Unfortunately it won't be easy to do, since the traditions of Koran exegesis by the early scholars are almost as sancrosant as the Koran itself. That is why it is so important to talk openly about this problem and stop lying to ourselves that Islam is inherently benign. In its current mainstream interpretation it is incompatible with a sustainable civil society in the 21st century. Only by noticing that are we able to both support moderate Muslims who want to help reform their faith and apply conversational intolerance to those who deny the problem or seek to resist reform.
There is a huge battle of ideas going on this moment in the Muslim world. We can support either the orthodoxy or the stream that could eventually become an Islamic enlightenment. By being critical of the doctrines of Islam we are helping the latter.

Needless to say, he is clearly an Islamophobic bigot who is actually far more dangerous than Geert Wilders and Pamela Geller because he hides behind a mask of pseudo-science and atheism to preach his unmitigated hatred of an entire faith.

Label, slur, smear, distort, distract, lie. That's all you do. Not once have you talked about the facts, not once have you dealt with any arguments. Not only that, by constantly posting your defamations of those who actually look at the facts and want to discuss the issue, you are impeding honest discussion among other posters. But that's your goal, isn't it? Don't you think we don't see through that? I'll say it again, this is a fascist attitude. And you are not worth anyone's time. You are done, and this time for good.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Please, do you really think religion is the real problem?

The problem is, and always has been, humanity itself.

What do you think the difference is other than semantics? Religion is basically a crutch so that humanity could have all the answers long before they even knew what the right questions were.

But I'm not sure I'd call it "the real problem" as though eliminating religion would be some sort of worldwide panacea. The "real problem " as I see it is that most people are quite ignorant and simply can't think critically, which leads them into still using religion as a crutch long after they should have forsaken it. So religion is far mare an effect than a cause.

The issue is that leaders or people abuse religion and twist it to make excuses to do what they want. Its not like Athiests are all purely rational, free, and open. If religion didn't exist, people would just find something else to twist or make excuses from. Do you really think that things like slavery where really caused by religion? That is incredibly Naive.

I take it that you are not familiar with how Southern Baptists in particular used the pulpit to continue slavery long after it should have been abolished by claiming that their god was giving them the right to own other human beings.

Religion is the favored excuse to commit evil, and it has been in Western civilization for many millenia. What is "incredibly naive" (not that you necessarily believe this yourself) is to think that religion has in any way stopped people from committing evil acts. It seems to have had no effect whatsoever in that regard. It has actually given them an excuse because there are enough "tenets" in any religion to condone and rationalize essentially whatever you please.

This latest holy war against Islam is no different.

I don't think anyone here wants Islam to sanction violence. I certainly don't. In fact, I've been fighting alongside with secular Muslims for two years now to help reform Islam and shift the focus away from the violent and inhuman parts.

What in the world is a "secular Muslim"? Someone who is no longer Muslim? If so, how could they possibly "reform Islam" if they are no longer a member of that religion?

And Islam in and of itself obviously doesn't "sanction" anything. It is the humans who do so. And they obviously have opinions all over the place regarding what they "sanction" and what they do not. Again, there is no consensus whatsoever on these controversial aspects of Islam.

But we can't fail to notice that in its current state Islam offers dozens and hundreds of incentives for violence, not only against unbelievers, but also against women, homosexuals, blasphemers and apostates, and anyone else who doesn't live in accordance with Islamic tradition or sharia.

Again, no more so than Christianity or Judaism does. Yet you apparently don't "fight alongside with secular" Christians and Jews "to help reform their" religions, even though many fundamentalists and evangelists continue to misuse their own religions to preach hatred to kill Muslims and homosexuals. Many of them are even US soldiers who think their god has given them the right to be murderous bigots.

I have often talked about reforming Islam.

Then the first step should be to stop spreading the same Islamophobic nonsense that Sam Harris, Geert Wilders, Pamela Geller and millions of others since 9/11. Nothing changed with Islam on that magical date. Only in the sudden increase in the number of Islamophobic Christian converts and others who suddenly decided that they must engage in a holy war against Islam bacause they foolishly think a religion attacked them on that date, instead of 19 terrorists who did so for quite obviously non-religious reasons.

Label, slur, smear, distort, distract, lie.

As you continue to do so?

Not once have you talked about the facts, not once have you dealt with any arguments.

You don't seem to know what those words mean.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Islam is not the problem. Questions of poverty, lack of opportunity, and lack of access to education create tensions and frustrations that can be channeled in many ways. Coupled with the threat of war/danger in many of these countries - people can often channel their frustrations into the feelings that their way of life/culture/or faith is under attack.

Almost right. It's when you've got 2 out of 3 that things are really bad. Poverty, Lack of Opportunity, and loads of education. That's a dangerous combination.

Most terrorists are relatively well educated, especially by the standards of their society. Loads of the worst portions of the Muslim world are great at producing higher educated individuals such as Egypt and Pakistan.

The problem is that these societies are very bad at giving these people anything to do with their education. Your hopes are mostly, move to the West, and try your chances there, or join the Army.

And if neither of those are your cup of tea, or if you can't do that even if you want to, you've got lots of people who are equipped to be very critical of society, with no reason to be invested in it. It's a dangerous and volatile combination.

The problem is that for a signficant enough of a chunk of the world, Radical Islam offers a consistent tool for criticizing society as it exists, especially within the Muslim world.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Only the 9/11 terrorists weren't really fundamentalist Muslims at all. They were quite westernized and they were picked for that reason.

Again, they didn't attack because of their religious beliefs. They did so because they were vehemently opposed to US forces being stationed in Saudi Arabia.