How do you feel about tattoos?

[bellatrys]

(No, I'm not thinking of getting one; they're way too expensive for someone like me. (I did, way back before I had any idea how much they cost.) This is something else. And yes, there are a lot more serious issues out there and a lot more sad things going on that are more important than this, but it's emblematic of a problem particularly rampant in

Comments

[celandineb]

I have two, and what I think of them is the nuanced "it depends on what it is, where, and how well done it is."

I wonder how many of those who cite Leviticus as a reason not to have (or even forbid by law) tattoos have pierced ears? That seems to me also a cutting or marking.

well, there are *some* according to google

[bellatrys]

here, both Christian and Jewish- but one Rabbi consulted said that the only real worry was health, that you might think it was unaesthetic but that was hardly an ethical judgment requiring legal intervention; the other school was more leery about it. So a resounding "maybe" (no/sure/I don't know) from the tradition which brought us Leviticus in the first place

[randwolf]

Judaic practice to many parts of Torah generally is more akin to obeying a health code than avoiding "evil"; that's how kashrut is treated, and apparently also the specific prohibition of tattoos. Judaism generally has a very different take on "sin" than christianity; it is more a matter of "just do this" and less a matter of shame.

most of the rabbis do feel that way, yes

[bellatrys]

I did notice that the more conservative ones were arguing that it was a matter of humans not having the right to deface the body that God had made and still owned, which is indistinguishable from the "your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit" arguments against all kinds of [various/different] things by Christian moralists.

In general, the halakhic tradition is much more in line with *my* upbringing as a convert Catholic where people read Aquinas and argued about exegesis and ethics, than the Evangelican fundamentalist attitude of uncritical selective acceptance of whatever fits their tastes and squicks...

"not having the right to deface the body that God had made"

[wombat1138]

unlike, oh, circumcision???!?

*eyeroll*

Re: "not having the right to deface the body that God had made"

[pecunium]

That, per the same text which bans tatoos, and the like, is commanded. It is a distinction with difference.

TK

Doh.

[wombat1138]

Knew I must've forgotten something. The exception that proves the rule, I suppose, though it seems like a fairly arbitrary one aside from the theory of preventing sand from getting stuck inside the foreskin. Which would probably chafe, yeah.

Re: Doh.

[pecunium]

There are several schools of thought on this. The Orthodox is that the reasons God has for the commands He makes are His, and human justifications are impinging on them, a sort of lese majeste.

The cultural group would say the distinction was being made between the local tribes, which practiced it at the coming of age, as a rite of passage, and the Jews, who did it in infancy, as a sign of group identity.

Those who make a health issue of it are, I think, missing the boat. Sand deson't really get in there, cancer is a small risk (and it isn't proven that it's actually higher for uncircumcised men) and the issue of cleanliness is debateable.

TK

The problem is, "God is arbitrary & demands whack things"

[bellatrys]

"you just gotta do it because He's da Boss" doesn't seem very respectful, *either*.

So you get exegetes all down the line from the time of Gamaliel (and before) down thru Augustine and Aquinas, trying to come up w/sensible earthly reasons for ancient tabus passed down as The Will Of God because they don't *want* to be in the position of saying "Yeah, He's wacky, but He's God, so..."