GUEST Obie: I think you'll find it was sheep, not a goat. Though it often hard to tell them apart, proverbially so in fact. otherwise, you're on the button. It does seem a little on the sadistic side, scaring Abraham like that. God's advice seems very very patchy. Thou shalt not kill, not a bad one. Don't eat pork or shellfish, quite sensible in a warm climate in pre-refrigerator days. But banning the eating of chameleons, and stoning people to death for picking up sticks on Saturday seems to me to verge on the eccentric.
   Male circumcision seems to me to be one of the cleverer ideas, though, and not at all barbaric. Research suggests that it prevents the transmission of the viruses that cause cancer of the womb, HIV/Aids and possibly a variety of other infections, seems pretty sound to me. And various males have attested the fact that it is still possible to manage to have a modicum of fun in the rumpy-pumpy department, even minus foreskin. So why not give it a whirl?