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Talk:Criticism of religion/Archive 7

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Latest comment: 5 years ago by Ramos1990 in topic Male circumcision - health effects
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On some sources 2

Latest comment: 8 years ago17 comments4 people in discussion

Ok per, Lipsquid's suggestion I have created a related section to discuss Dawkins and Hitchens writings which are used throughout the article. As I noted in the last section for a few days now, both have sources that are the same in nature to Day's source. In my view I would like to have kept diverse opinions on the issue, but since it was brought up on Day, there needs to some consistency.

Dawkins and Hitchens, which are cited through out the article more than 30 times seem, to warrant the same attention as Day received

Neither Dawkins or Hitchens are reliable for wikipedia purposes because the sources are personal social commentaries, they are not authorities in the topics they discuss: religion, women, children, violence, sexuality, etc, they also do not have formal credentials on the topics they discuss, and also numerous academics from a range of academic fields have criticized their lack of understanding of religion and also the social issues they link to religion. Other considerations from the previous discussion apply here.

I propose removal of their content to keep some consistency from the discussion in previous section above. Huitzilopochtli (talk) 01:28, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for starting a new section, could you please link what you believe are the appropriate Wikipedia policies or recommendations that would apply to Dawkins and Hitchens? At the end of the day the overriding principle that governs decision making is consensus and we should review applicable WP policies in making our decisions. As a very simple metric, I googled "Christopher Hitchens" 459,000 results, "Richard Dakwins" 12,300,000 results and "Vox Day" had 523,000. Vox Day is as notable as Christopher Hitchens generally speaking, but much less so than Dawkins. I think you may have a good argument to remove Hitchens material. Lipsquid (talk) 02:01, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
I agree with you on Hitchens for sure to remove. For both, the same reasoning used to remove Day apply here. Notability is not enough to add voice to their claims. I originally was lenient on this, but since it got more picky, we now need to reinforce a bit. Per what Bilby said (mostly quoted but slightly adjusted):
  • Relevance is not reliability. Something might be relevant, but it can still be unreliable. If the source is unreliable, we still can't use it.
  • Verifiablity is not reliability. A verifiable source can still be an unreliable one.
  • An author's opinion on whether something is true or not is also not reliability. If the author is an expert on that particular topic then it can be evidence of reliability, but that is not the case here.
  • These are are primary sources, as these are Dawkin's and Hitchen's own original research.
Their specific claims such as their claims on religion causing violence or teaching religion as being child abuse or others that I removed; are all claims on issues they are not reliable sources for. That is, they do not have relevant expertise in these topics. On top of that, they have been heavily been criticized by numerous academics who actually have expertise on these complex issues (resulting in numerous academic critiques of their claims). If they had some expertise or relevant experience on these issues, then their specific claims could have some weight. Huitzilopochtli (talk) 03:32, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
There are very very few experts in the study of the unpraiseworthy aspects of religion. I can think of one, maybe two who have an academic background in religious studies or philosophy. It is preposterous to remove the majority of their claims. Not all of them, but some of them are backed up by research, cited statistics and in Dawkins case sources and references are given. Their books are cited by other academics in articles and scholarly books. They are relevant to the article, in many cases reliable and to be honest I'm rather surprised that his groundbreaking work wouldn't be included.
Perhaps you can list some of the worst examples that are in the article (a handful of them may be worth taking out). Shabidoo | Talk 17:07, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
Hi Shabidoo, I would agree with you but since in the discussion above one source by Vox Day was removed, we now have to be consistent with the criteria because Dawkins and Hitchens books are of the same type of source as Day's. Dawkins and Hitchens are not experts of religion or even the issues involved in religion. Their remarks are more polemical. Day was also polemical and he indeed used references to back up his claims (like you said about some of Dawkins or Hitchens claims), but that was not enough to convince others that Day would stay on the article.
So now we have to reinforce the same standards (from the previous discussion) on Dawkins and Hitchens to keep consistency and avoid having a double standard. Here are the removals I made [1]. I think you will agree that they are not reliable sources on religion, violence, women, children, etc and on top of that they have been heavily criticized for their lack of understanding of the issues by academic researchers who are more well versed on those same issues (numerous books by scientists, theologians, historians, philosophers, etc have come about only to criticize Dawkins and Hitchens works).
I would agree with you that Dawkins and Hitchens are relevant to the article, but relevance does not make them reliable sources on what they say (per the discussion in the last section).
So far no one has shown that Dawkins or Hitchens are reliable sources on their claims. So they will have to be removed. What do you think?Huitzilopochtli (talk) 01:58, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
Reliability was not the only problem with the Vox Day prose. It was not a criticism of religion, or even a rebuttal to a criticism of religion. It was a criticism of atheism and specifically communist atheism, therefore does not belong in this article. There is already an article for criticism of atheism and these items are mentioned in that article. How many non-communist atheist nations have committed mass murders? Vox Day lists none. It seems it may be a trait of communism more that atheism and communism is not a religion. Lipsquid (talk) 14:19, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
Vox was rebutting Dawkins and Hitchens claims on criticism of religion as a significant source of violence (critiquing critics of religion on their claims about religion and violence) by pointing out hypocrisy (in another chapter he numbered mass killings by Christians to make similar comparisons more than he did on the cited chapter). He contrasts with violence by religious and nonreligious leaders and governments. In the cited chapter, Day contrasts mass killings under religious leaders with mass killings under atheist leaders. Considering that religious killings have been very few over thousands of years and atheists have had such a short amount of time in power, yet have a significant death toll, was part of the point. Anyways, it literally makes no sense to expect criticism of critics of religion to reply by siding with the people he is critiquing. It would be as wired as having a Democrat rebutting to a Republican by actually siding with the Republican. In any case, Bilby removed Day's source on even the Criticism of Atheism page, so even relevance was not enough to keep Day there. So we will have to reinforce this move on this article with Dawkins and Hitchens sources.
In any case, since I have been discussing Dawkins and Hitchens for a few days now (in the last section and this new section) as unreliable sources o their claims, and no one has shown that they are reliable sources on their claims, they will be removed. Lipsquid and I had already agreed on removing Hitchens, but Dawkins will follow. This will prevent having a double standard and keep consistency with the views on the last section above.Huitzilopochtli (talk) 15:05, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
I did not agree. I said "I think you may have a good argument to remove Hitchens material". Again, notability is not the only concern in the poor comparison to Vox Day. That said, if you remove the Hitchens material, I will not revert any edits. Lipsquid (talk) 15:26, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Appreciate the reply. There has been no real attempt to show that Dawkins is reliable on what he claims so the same thing would apply.Huitzilopochtli (talk) 15:50, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

The claim that "Vox was rebutting Dawkins and Hitchens claims on criticism of religion as a significant source of violence" doesn't hold up. Vox did not rebut, he responded with a non sequitur. Dawkins and others do not claim that violence was committed by people who also happen to be religious. That would be a specious claim. The claim Dawkins makes is that violence has been committed because of religion. Vox does not challenge, rebut, or apparently even disagree with this claim of Dawkins and others. Vox merely makes a claim that a lot of violence was committed by people who also happen to be atheist. While Vox's claim is true, it is also completely meaningless as far as being a response to Dawkins or his assertion. I've read a lot on Dawkins, and also edited his article significantly, so I am not just speculating. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Not the mama (talk • contribs) 00:33, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Not the mama. Vox has already been decided on in the previous section and of course he was rebutting both in some of their claims on sources of violence - that is what the chapter discussed and another one did also. In either case, no one has shown Dawkins or Hitchens to be reliable sources on their claims on violence, women, children, metal illness, sexuality, etc so I will proceed with since it has been discussed for many days (this section and the last section) with no one showing they are reliable sources for those claims. I will start with all of Hitchens' cites and Dawkins on children and violence. Huitzilopochtli (talk) 00:45, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
What portion of an intellectuals life one has dedicated to a topic is not the defining criteria of reliability, especially when passing over the fact that they have done ground breaking research on the topic, whose books/facts/statistics are well referenced, who are well published on the topic as well as being cited multiple times in multiple journals and academic books, are highly representative of what the topic of this article is (Criticism of Religion), whose works play a fundamental and overwealmingly large role in criticism of religion discourse, and themselves play a very role in what criticism of religion is. The name of the article is Criticism of Religion, which does not include merely arguments written by intellectuals dedicated only to the topic but also what the very narrative/discourse of religion-criticism is as well. It would be tantamount to not including nonsense that Rush Limbaugh spouts on against liberals in the article of Criticism of Democrats. Remember that Chomsky is mentioned on the Criticism of the United States government and Criticism of Israel Government, criticism of Milton Friedman, Anti-Zionism, Criticism of Capitalism, anti-capitalism, criticism of postmodernism, criticism of the BBC, even though he is not, on paper, an expert in non-linguistics topics as well as referenced in Criticism of the BBC, American foreign policy and many other articles. Shabidoo | Talk 19:49, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Shabidoo, why did you delete what other editors had written on the Talk page [2]? I restored all of it it because it looked like an attempt to alter the opinions already expressed by other editors. From what you have written in your last paragraph, none of it shows that Dawkins or Hitchens are reliable sources when they discuss religion, women, children, sexuality, etc. It only shows relevance and, per the discussion above, relevance does not automatically mean reliability. Neither Hitchens or Dawkins had dedicated their lives to studying religion, they do not have credentials on religion and they certainly have received numerous academic criticisms for their lack of understanding of religion and related issues. Simply put they are not reliable for those claims especially because of the latter.

Dawkins has made a name for himself in science, not in significant contributions on studies in religion. In fact Dawkins has been focused on educating for atheism and atheistic activism, not religion. Hitchens is a journalist and has made a name for himself in contributions in social-political commentary, not in significant contributions on studies in religion. If they both had a longer historical trail of books and writings pertaining to religion, then maybe you would have something.

In contrast to Noam Chomsky, it is different. Chomsky has been involved in political activism, economics, government commentary, social commentay, etc for decades along with his linguistical researches. However, on some of those criticism pages, he probably does not belong there.Huitzilopochtli (talk) 07:21, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Seems I deleted content. Wasn't done on purpose. My appologies. Ramos...please take another look at wikipedias page on "Wikipedia:Notability". Also...never a bad idea to read the page on "Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. I read them at least twice a year. Tell me where "being an official academic expert" is listed as an absolute overarching criteria and then ask yourself how much of the criteria for notable and reliable sources are met by the books in question. Shabidoo | Talk 15:26, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
The question is on the claims made. Are they reliable sources for their claims on religion, women, children, sexuality, etc? Them merely giving opinions in their books is one thing, but context matters like it says on the Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. Considering that both have had strong criticisms for their views by actual academics on these issues, they do not meet the criteria of being reliable for those claims. If on the other hand, they had some history of writing about these issues they may have been able to pass. Keep in mind that both were cited over 30 times in the article and may have been given too much weight when there are better sources out there that show more reliability. Just because it is relevant does not mean it is reliable, per what others agreed in the discussion in the section above. On the wiki page on reliable sources, it says "The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content. In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication."
On notability, the wiki page on that is about making articles, not about the content of an article. It has a section called "Notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article". Huitzilopochtli (talk) 16:26, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
Indeed...the more people engaged in checking facts is very important. A couple people trying to whiteout content by claiming a non-existant consensus based on an argument they haven't properly defended is quite the other thing.
As for Hitchens and Dawkins not being involved in political activism, government commentary or social commentary...clearly you know next to nothing about the four horsemen and might consider browsing a basic biography of the two.
Per notability...you are right...my bad. Badly misquoted.
Reliability certainly depends on context...but what you are doing is eliminating it by demanding that the sources come from authors who have your selected definition of authority where context seems to become utterly irrelevant. If you actually read the criteria for reliability...you'll note that these sources check off more than enough boxes. Shabidoo | Talk 14:26, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
Not really. This criteria was the consensus from the discussion above on Day and no one defended either Dawkins or Hitchens when I brought them up for removal too - to keep consistency. They are all similar in nature and content. So we have to be consistent here. I never said Dawkins or Hitches were "not being involved in political activism, government commentary or social commentary". You brought up Chomsky as a comparison and I noted that Chomsky made sense to keep elsewhere because he has a long history on "political activism, economics, government commentary, social commentay, etc" so has a degree of reliability considering his expertise. What I said about Dawkins and Hitchens was "Dawkins has made a name for himself in science, not in significant contributions on studies in religion. In fact Dawkins has been focused on educating for atheism and atheistic activism, not religion. Hitchens is a journalist and has made a name for himself in contributions in social-political commentary, not in significant contributions on studies in religion. If they both had a longer historical trail of books and writings pertaining to religion, then maybe you would have something."
Of course familiarity of religion is an important component for this article. And since both have been harshly criticized by numerous actual experts of religion (philosophers of religion, theologians, historians of religion, religious and non-religious scientists, anthropologists, etc) in their amateurish ideas and over simplistic understanding of religion, they do not belong here on top of their failings elsewhere. When actual religious and non-religious experts on religion say they have amateurish ideas of religion, it should signify that they are not that reliable. Huitzilopochtli (talk) 19:18, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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Primary

Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Per recent edits on removing material based on WP:Primary, the policy does not necessarily mean all primary sources are forbidden in wikipedia. The policy includes "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." Indeed, sources like Gallup poll and Pew Research Center for example are reputable primary sources and are cited in many articles on wikipedia e.g. demographics. BBC and Time should be ok as they are secondary sources. With primary sources, one can state the basic facts for instance if Gallup says 50% of people are men, then that is what can be claimed. One cannot, however, make an interpretation that Gallup has not made and stick it in the article like "50% of people are men and this means there is equality of the sexes".

Any thoughts before we move on?Huitzilopochtli (talk) 23:29, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

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The deconstruction of terms

Latest comment: 7 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

This is an article about the various criticism of religion in ancient times, the renaissance and modern times. It is not a post-modern deconstruction of what religion means nor is it a "response to those who criticise". On no other "criticism of..." page will you find a long so called "context" section which prepares for "response to criticism" or deflates much of the criticism before the actual criticism has been mentioned (by explaining how such criticism in the first place is problematic). That is not appropriate in a "criticism of page". Much of the so called "for context" section is a french-philosophical post-modernist preamble towards difficulties of the use of the term "religion". A multi paragraph history of the term religion is totally irrelevant to the article when almost the entirety of of the criticism documented in this article is directed entirely towards all facets of religion which are covered by the modern term "religion". All material which attempts to deconstruct religion and criticism of religion, point out difficulties in criticizing religion and responding to and preparing a defensive wall against the criticism of religion belongs in a brief section on "responses to criticism of religion" not in the main article. It does not belong in the lede, a "setting up for context" section which is really a post-modernist response to the criticism of religion nor anywhere else. Please respect the topic of the article and limit the content to actual criticism of religion, in particular actual criticism that is documented...instead of an inappropriately disproportionate introduction to difficult terms and use of terms. Shabidoo | Talk 02:13, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Hmm...what you have replaced the sourced materials on history of the concept is original research since you provided no sources for that. Do you have sources for those specific claims about what people criticize? The context section was not some "post-modernist response" since that IS the history of the concept by numerous independent sources on the issue. All the instances of talk about "religion" or even "world religions" emerge in the modern period, not the medieval or ancient period, precisely because there were no such concepts before the modern period. If you look at the history of atheism you will see that the first people to self-identify as atheists was in the 18th century, which coincides with the emergence of conceptions of religion too. This background info is certainly valid and necessary since this page is controversial and related to religion. If the article was was called criticism of ancient and medieval cultures, instead of criticism of religion, then we would have a different story. But we have a topic from which even many modern cultures have no equivalent term or concept of religion so context is obviously necessary.
The history of the criticism of religion is right underneath the history of the concept so both are covered independently. What I will do is provide a condensed version of the section you removed with sources as a compromise since it was a bit longer.Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 03:10, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
I adjusted the section and it is now better sourced and short to keep the context. I will also wikilink to the religion article for those who want to read up on what religion is. The "history of criticisms of religion" section looks longer now. This should be a decent compromise.Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 05:03, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
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Weird section

Latest comment: 6 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

Currently, there is wired section, which is poorly sourced by only one unreliable source from Stephen Roberts who makes a personal statement on everyone being an atheist and the his is just an atheist plus. Only one editor has objected to adding a different view by an academic reliable source on such relitavized claims and it was pretty much WP:IDONTLIKEIT whihc is not a legitimate reason. Considering that this is a criticism page and is controversial, opposing views are always appropriate (as can be seen throughout the article) since multiple opinions exist on any of these points. That is the point of such controversial pages - exchange of opinions and ideas since it goes both ways, not just one. There is no consensus on any of these views if they are right or wrong. The job of an encyclopedia is to present relevant and diverse views from reliable sources on the issues, not some soapbox or dumping grounds without relevant material presented to show many sides of any debatable topic. So re-added since no legitimate arguments have been presented for not including a different view from a reliable source considering that the only other source is actually unreliable (Stephen Roberts) and may need to remove it - or remove the whole section. It fails wikipedia policy. Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 12:47, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't find that the argument makes sense, personally. I cannot access the source. Is it really in relation to Robert's quote? Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 13:59, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
There are many problems here. 1) Stephen Roberts is an obscure person on the internet. I cannot find anything substantial on him (publications, credentials, expertise, etc) and seems to just be an internet meme [3] as even he confessed. In terms of wikipedia policy, the sources for Roberts (freelink.com and "Like Rolling Uphill: Realizing the Honesty of Atheism") do not qualify as reliable sources. Freelink.net is an obscure website and Like Rolling Uphill is a personal memoir by an independent publisher. They fail WP:RS and so will have to removed.
2) The claim Stephen Roberts makes is not really dealing with religion or criticizing it - it only justifies his own personal belief . It is not really an argument of anything, let alone anything that would be useful or fit for wikipedia.
3) I originally read Oppy's academic source (Cambridge University Press) and noticed that it addressed the same type of relativistic claim - "Some people relativise atheism to particular gods or particular classes of gods. Such people say that a person is an atheist with respect to a given god, no matter the attitudes that a person has to other gods. So, for example, these people say that Christians are atheists with respect to the Norse gods. This way of talking is misguided: no one says that a person is a vegan with respect to those occasions on which sit down to a meal that contains no animal products." Roberts is named by Oppy as an exercise on for the reader a little more ahead. I originally tolerated this bad section by trying to add an actual academic source, but at this point eliminating the whole Roberts quote is the best thing to do. Technically Roberts makes an odd claim and Oppy merely breaks down why it is odd. Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 22:48, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree. All I can find on this Roberts fellow is he came up with a pithy quote. I looked at the root article Argument from inconsistent revelations and found no reference worthy of citating here. Who wants to be bold and delete this section? Work permit (talk) 01:38, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Great. It turns out this is all about a meme, which does not belong on Wikipedia. The root article is also problematic since it overwhelmingly WP:OR. Only 2 refs in that one really poor. The fact that some have the nerve to defend such crap is concerning. Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 01:59, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
I don't agree with #2 above, as the Roberts argument does make sense, but I'm sure that we could find something more academic if we kept this (this is afterall only used to explain the context of nonbelief, it does show how people simply select subjective beliefs in relation to their culture)... I have no objection about removing it for now. —PaleoNeonate – 05:26, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
Sounds good. That part of the article looks more acceptable without the unreliable sources. Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 05:39, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Notable violence has occurred in non-religious countries

Latest comment: 6 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion

An editor has removed one cited line, “Notable violence has occurred in non-religious countries such as in Communist Soviet Union and China”. I disagree with this removal of cited information. We should reach a consensus. Work permit (talk) 01:35, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

The sources are pretty garbage, and the quotation from one source does not match the information. The editor that originally removed it also noted that the content was somewhat out of place, which I somewhat agree with. It almost feels a bit like OR.Petergstrom (talk) 01:44, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Adjusted that sentence and added a better source since those counters are common to the "religion makes violence" claims, which this article contains. Obviously these counters belong in the article because much time is spent on making these kinds of claims against religion. I removed other sources since those looked less relevant and a bit weird. I have added historian Geoffrey Baliney's comments since those are more relaible since it is form a historians point of view. These claims are found in literature in response to violence claims on religion in general. It goes directly to the point. Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 02:54, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
No, it does not go to the point - a criticism of atheistic violence is NOT a defence to religious violence. Just because information is cited doesn't mean it is relevant to the topic.SecC (talk) 11:34, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
You are a new editor and may not be familiar with wikipedia protocol. Once there is a talk discussion going on, you should solve the issue here before editing the article other have disagreed with your removal. Your claim does not make sense, since the discussions on violence it is common in literature to note that both secular and religious ideologies have done it. Indeed, in debates on this it is a counterpoint because it shows the spectrum of violence with respect to ideologies. Historian Geoffrey Blainey has stated "All religions, all ideologies, all civilizations display embarrassing blots on their pages". Of course the whole notion of persecution goes both ways, not just one way and that is part of the point. Keep in mind that studies on religion usually contrast with the secular to some extent. Otherwise, there is not much of an analysis. Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 15:53, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
It seems fairly clear that the source for that statement, "Answering Atheist's Arguments" from catholiceducation.org, is not a valid source. The link is broken, but just from the title and quotation, there is no way that this would count as a scholarly source.Petergstrom (talk) 20:38, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
I was think about removing that one...either way Geoffrey Blainey's is a better source on that. Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 20:55, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Truth claim

Latest comment: 5 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi Username Needed, you explanation of the revert is in a form I've never seen before. What does PROD:DUPE mean? And why have you removed the link? Shabidoo | Talk 22:52, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Male circumcision - health effects

Latest comment: 5 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

The discussion of health effects of male circumcision on this page is not appropriate. It should focus on the prevalence of circumcision in religion, the response of religious leaders to proposed circumcision bans. I like that section to be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.95.106.57 (talk) 21:45, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the IP editor above, and have deleted the irrelevant and unbalanced content on male circumcision. Tammbeck (talk) 08:30, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
Someone inserted that source inaccurately and it I left it there while correcting what the source says.
This is not POV, by the way, since the polcy page states "neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." So points and counterpoints are valid in this article. I am sure there are other sources out there on male circumcision, but this one was very good from a medical standpoint. Maybe later I will look for some and add them for context since there are pros and cons to them. I will add one right now on female circumcision. Huitzilopochtli1990 (talk) 23:33, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
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