I posted this in a comment thread but I feel like it's worthy of its own.
The biggest misconception about traditions is that "people just randomly decided to do it and punish those who don't follow."
The most probable case is that traditions, such as male circumcision, were done for a particular purpose and ritualised into a tradition to share and continue that process.
It's only in more modern ages where we said that "rituals aren't enough" and we need to think of medical reasons for it as well. (Cue, studies in Africa, etc)
Considering how much of the mind is an enigma, it's an arms race to find out positive reasons of why we do certain traditions before we get rid of them completely without understanding them.
50 years (?) of the scientific method up against 50,000 years of human stories and primal survival.
The biggest misconception about traditions is that "people just randomly decided to do it and punish those who don't follow."
The most probable case is that traditions, such as male circumcision, were done for a particular purpose and ritualised into a tradition to share and continue that process.
It's only in more modern ages where we said that "rituals aren't enough" and we need to think of medical reasons for it as well. (Cue, studies in Africa, etc)
Considering how much of the mind is an enigma, it's an arms race to find out positive reasons of why we do certain traditions before we get rid of them completely without understanding them.
50 years (?) of the scientific method up against 50,000 years of human stories and primal survival.