Sick wickedness of Catholic parents.

[Rhiannon]

But this is what loving parents do, NS. They accept the child whilst rejecting the behaviour. Being gay, murdering a toddler, all the same to Hope's loving Father.

[Rhiannon]

Exactly Anchorman, The only anti communist barking I heard in the USA, Canada and the UK was from our politicians. Don't try and tell me yours didn't do their share of anti communist barking. As far as teaching, Rhi was being dishonest by using the word teaching, as if children were being taught this from their grade three teachers all across America. Nope, my cousins never said any anti pinko commie words to me and they were schooled in N and S Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Colorado and Oregon. So Rhi is shoveling a load of her BS.

No I wasn't. We were specifically discussing McCarthyism and the Red Scare. I said we were taught about it in school - it formed a part of the syllabus on World History and I assume it still does. I asked if you were also taught about this in school.

[Outrider]

Acceptance is key.

There is 'acceptance' and 'acceptance'.  To take the argument away from the emotive issue of sexuality for a moment; there are behaviours which society almost without exception regard with revulsion - rape and murder being two examples.  Back in 1993, the Uk was rocked by the reports of the horrific death of James Bulger, at the hands of Robert Thompson and Jon Venables.  How were the parents of these two 10-year olds to behave?   Were they to accept the behaviour, or were they to reject the behaviour but continue to accept the individuals? 
...........

I think the problem is less with the parents in this story but with society which insists that you can'y divorce the two elements in this way; in other words, one can't accept the individual without accepting the behaviour.

Really, Hope? Really? Murder as analogy for homosexuality, now? Is the usual 'bestiality/paedophilia' analogy worn out?

I expected better of you, frankly.

O.

[jeremyp]

How can religion cause parents to be so heartless in the treatment of their children?

Probably for the same reason that atheism can cause parents to be just as heartless.  My wife used to be a child-minder.  Two of the children she cared for came from a family where the mother was a mix of spirituality, and the father was a die-hard atheist.  He was determined that his son and daughter should have absolutely no interaction with anyone who had a faith; he was determined that if they didn't agree with his belief system, they would not be allowed out of their house, wouldn't get any pocket money, or enjoy any friendships.  Fortunately for them, he worked  long and often weird hours, so their mother's hours and interests tended to take precedence over her husband's.  When he discovered this, he became severely abusive to all the family, and eventually the three left him.

This is a clearly made up, or at least exaggerated story.  For one thing, your wife (assuming she is Christian) would never have got the job, if the husband were really as you described.

[Rhiannon]

How can religion cause parents to be so heartless in the treatment of their children?

Probably for the same reason that atheism can cause parents to be just as heartless.  My wife used to be a child-minder.  Two of the children she cared for came from a family where the mother was a mix of spirituality, and the father was a die-hard atheist.  He was determined that his son and daughter should have absolutely no interaction with anyone who had a faith; he was determined that if they didn't agree with his belief system, they would not be allowed out of their house, wouldn't get any pocket money, or enjoy any friendships.  Fortunately for them, he worked  long and often weird hours, so their mother's hours and interests tended to take precedence over her husband's.  When he discovered this, he became severely abusive to all the family, and eventually the three left him.

This is a clearly made up, or at least exaggerated story.  For one thing, your wife (assuming she is Christian) would never have got the job, if the husband were really as you described.

I think the story is plausible, but the father's a domestic abuser - he would be regardless of his faith or lack of it. Religion sometimes frightens or conditions people into abusiveness in a way that a lack of belief doesn't.

[Nearly Sane]

I think the story is plausible, but the father's a domestic abuser - he would be regardless of his faith or lack of it. Religion sometimes frightens or conditions people into abusiveness in a way that a lack of belief doesn't.

We're back at Hope's usual issue here of conflating atheism to be a belief system which it isn't.

[jeremyp]

I think the story is plausible, but the father's a domestic abuser - he would be regardless of his faith or lack of it. Religion sometimes frightens or conditions people into abusiveness in a way that a lack of belief doesn't.

No I don't claim that atheists are immune to being domestic abusers.  The second part of the story is all too credible, unfortunately.  However, the bit at the beginning where he insists his children aren't allowed contact with anyone religious is not credible, unless Hope's wife is an atheist.

[Rhiannon]

I think the story is plausible, but the father's a domestic abuser - he would be regardless of his faith or lack of it. Religion sometimes frightens or conditions people into abusiveness in a way that a lack of belief doesn't.

No I don't claim that atheists are immune to being domestic abusers.  The second part of the story is all too credible, unfortunately.  However, the bit at the beginning where he insists his children aren't allowed contact with anyone religious is not credible, unless Hope's wife is an atheist.

Depends how involved the father was with choosing the childcare etc. but he could equally have decided he wanted no contact with vegetarians, or meat eaters, or people who wear crocs - he wasn't driven by belief but by the need for control. An aunt of mine married an abuser and they converted to the LDS. He carried on being an abuser, but post-conversion he used religion as his excuse.

[Owlswing]

I think the story is plausible, but the father's a domestic abuser - he would be regardless of his faith or lack of it. Religion sometimes frightens or conditions people into abusiveness in a way that a lack of belief doesn't.

No I don't claim that atheists are immune to being domestic abusers.  The second part of the story is all too credible, unfortunately.  However, the bit at the beginning where he insists his children aren't allowed contact with anyone religious is not credible, unless Hope's wife is an atheist.

Depends how involved the father was with choosing the childcare etc. but he could equally have decided he wanted no contact with vegetarians, or meat eaters, or people who wear crocs - he wasn't driven by belief but by the need for control. An aunt of mine married an abuser and they converted to the LDS. He carried on being an abuser, but post-conversion he used religion as his excuse.

Sadly many who are already religious are the same! A case of any excuse will do!

[Rhiannon]

Agreed. The question is whether religion can condition somebody to be abusive who wouldn't be otherwise. If you really are convinced that your child will be estranged from God because of their sexual behaviour then yes, I think it can.

[Nearly Sane]

Agreed. The question is whether religion can condition somebody to be abusive who wouldn't be otherwise. If you really are convinced that your child will be estranged from God because of their sexual behaviour then yes, I think it can.

I'm not sure that 'condition' is the right word but I can see the point in that if you subscribe to such a view then you don't see the activity as wrong. That said I think that applies to almost any set of beliefs (rather than the absence of one) - in Hope's example the father has to believe it is wrong to talk to non atheists , and that is a specfic belief.

[Rhiannon]

Agreed. The question is whether religion can condition somebody to be abusive who wouldn't be otherwise. If you really are convinced that your child will be estranged from God because of their sexual behaviour then yes, I think it can.

I'm not sure that 'condition' is the right word but I can see the point in that if you subscribe to such a view then you don't see the activity as wrong. That said I think that applies to almost any set of beliefs (rather than the absence of one) - in Hope's example the father has to believe it is wrong to talk to non atheists , and that is a specfic belief.

Yes, we can think of atrocities such as those committed by adherents to Naziism.

I think that religion can be conditioning because of the influence that church leaders and pastors have. There are accounts of parents standing by during 'exorcisms' and I wonder in cases such as this whether the parent isolates their child at the suggestion of their church leadership or through reading 'advice' on Christian parenting.

I once was involved in an online discussion with a new convert to Christianity who had fallen under the spell of an evangelical couple in France. They quite literally had a rod, a small fine stick, to beat their child with, and this woman dropped into the conversation that she was planning to do the same when her child was old enough. Fortunately the horror of our reaction brought her up short and we were able to point her in the direction of more balanced approaches to Christian parenting, but had she not had such hero worship for the couple she knew I doubt such a horrific idea would ever have occurred to her, and maybe they still convinced her that they were right.

[Nearly Sane]

Yes, we can think of atrocities such as those committed by adherents to Naziism.

I think that religion can be conditioning because of the influence that church leaders and pastors have. There are accounts of parents standing by during 'exorcisms' and I wonder in cases such as this whether the parent isolates their child at the suggestion of their church leadership or through reading 'advice' on Christian parenting.

I once was involved in an online discussion with a new convert to Christianity who had fallen under the spell of an evangelical couple in France. They quite literally had a rod, a small fine stick, to beat their child with, and this woman dropped into the conversation that she was planning to do the same when her child was old enough. Fortunately the horror of our reaction brought her up short and we were able to point her in the direction of more balanced approaches to Christian parenting, but had she not had such hero worship for the couple she knew I doubt such a horrific idea would ever have occurred to her, and maybe they still convinced her that they were right.

Yes, I suppose in one sense it is metonomy again, the conditioning is done by the religious rather than the religion  itself but once established it is like a vicious circle. I suppose also that might be used though about anything we see as 'good; behaviour from the religious as well.

[Udayana]

I wonder what it is about homosexuality that scares the religious conservatives so much. They don't freak out in the same way about divorce, yet the Bible is much clearer in its condemnation of that.

I wonder if it has anything to do with religious prohibitions on homosexual behaviour stemming from specific cultures and specific historical periods where the survival of the population was under threat? Now, today, we know that being gay doesn't render you infertile and doesn't prevent you from being able to procreate if you can force yourself go through with the sticky bit with a member of the opposite sex to whom you are not sexually, physically or emotionally drawn; nevertheless, it seems fair to say that a majority of gay people don't reproduce. It's generally the case that most gay people don't have children. If you live in a relatively small tribe/society, anybody who doesn't reproduce threatens the future existence of said tribe. Could that explain it? I'm not an anthropologist so I don't know, but it's presumably a testable hypothesis.

I've actually seen - remarkably often - people try to argue against homosexuality on the basis that if everyone was homosexual the human species would die out. The facts that exclusive homosexuals are a very small (though permanent) section of the human population and that the problems facing the world stem from overpopulation, not its lack, seems not to figure but you can't go intruding facts and reality on these people.

Well yes, if you go back to the times of the OT you are talking about a very small number of people - prohibition against gay relationships and adultery and divorce made sense. Similarly when Paul was writing he would have been observing a very different idea of homosexuality in Greek and Roman culture from what we generally mean when discussing gay relationships and marriage. So I guess you could say that after the Black Death being gay wasn't helpful in building up the population.

But that doesn't account for why in societies with booming populations and excellent health care we still have people with religious belief freaking out about it. Unless the church has replaced the tribe as the one under threat from non-procreation? 

There is no evidence to show that prohibitions on same-sex sex is anything to do with possible (but nonexistent) effects on population numbers.

Everyone seems (tact or PC?) to be ignoring the yuk factor and the chemistry involved in choosing whom to have sex with and who to avoid. Most likely religions, which generally were more concerned with politics than beliefs, just latched on to existing cultural mores.

It is not as if we were all happily swanning about in a sexual paradise and god came along and forced everyone to follow a rule book.

[Outrider]

There is no evidence to show that prohibitions on same-sex sex is anything to do with possible (but nonexistent) effects on population numbers.

Everyone seems (tact or PC?) to be ignoring the yuk factor and the chemistry involved in choosing whom to have sex with and who to avoid. Most likely religions, which generally were more concerned with politics than beliefs, just latched on to existing cultural mores.

It is not as if we were all happily swanning about in a sexual paradise and god came along and forced everyone to follow a rule book.

Most likely religions, attempting to enforce tribalism and readily identify an 'in' group and an 'other', latched on to readily identifiable traits and highlighted them to build unity within the in-group - that's a reasonably well-studied facet of sociology.

O.

[Hope]

I think the story is plausible, but the father's a domestic abuser - he would be regardless of his faith or lack of it. Religion sometimes frightens or conditions people into abusiveness in a way that a lack of belief doesn't.

No, Rhi.  His abuse (and it wasn't sexual or physical, by the way) was very much tied to his atheist beliefs.

[Hope]

Everyone seems (tact or PC?) to be ignoring the yuk factor and the chemistry involved in choosing whom to have sex with and who to avoid. Most likely religions, which generally were more concerned with politics than beliefs, just latched on to existing cultural mores.

Udayana, I would disagree that 'Everyone seems (tact or PC?) to be ignoring the yuk factor'.  It is regularly brought up by those who are in favour of the liberalisation of the law on homosexuality, as a way of trying to dismiss the views of their opponents.  I often wonder whether their regular use of this is actually hiding the fact that they feel there's a yuk-factor, something that few of their opponents seem to have even thought about.

[Hope]

No I don't claim that atheists are immune to being domestic abusers.  The second part of the story is all too credible, unfortunately.  However, the bit at the beginning where he insists his children aren't allowed contact with anyone religious is not credible, unless Hope's wife is an atheist.

My fault for not making it clear that when the two kids started with my wife, the father was working abroad, so wasn't in a position to easily control what happened.  Apparently, he had originally been 'posted' abroad for 2 or 3 months, but it stretched to 10 and a bit.  That was why the family hadn't accompanied him.

[Nearly Sane]

I think the story is plausible, but the father's a domestic abuser - he would be regardless of his faith or lack of it. Religion sometimes frightens or conditions people into abusiveness in a way that a lack of belief doesn't.

No, Rhi.  His abuse (and it wasn't sexual or physical, by the way) was very much tied to his atheist beliefs.

There are no atheist beliefs - it is a lack of belief in one thing.

[Outrider]

Udayana, I would disagree that 'Everyone seems (tact or PC?) to be ignoring the yuk factor'.  It is regularly brought up by those who are in favour of the liberalisation of the law on homosexuality, as a way of trying to dismiss the views of their opponents.  I often wonder whether their regular use of this is actually hiding the fact that they feel there's a yuk-factor, something that few of their opponents seem to have even thought about.

What 'yuk-factor'? There's nothing two men do that a man and a woman can't and don't do. there's nothing two women do that a man and a woman can't do.

There is nothing inherently 'yuk' in what gay people do with each other that isn't equally as 'yuk' when straight people do it. Whilst we, as a culture, have a reticence about discussing sexual activity, that's not specific to homosexuality.

O.

[Udayana]

It's just how people tend to feel subjectively. Many heterosexuals have an inbuilt "disgust" at the idea of having sex with someone of the same sex. Probably homosexuals have an opposite tendency. It doesn't mean that there is something inherently disgusting about it or that cannot be overridden by culture. But as there is a significant difference in the relative numbers, this would be enough to bias tribal mores.

Then later this was probably picked up and codified by some religions.

[Rhiannon]

I think the story is plausible, but the father's a domestic abuser - he would be regardless of his faith or lack of it. Religion sometimes frightens or conditions people into abusiveness in a way that a lack of belief doesn't.

No, Rhi.  His abuse (and it wasn't sexual or physical, by the way) was very much tied to his atheist beliefs.

I know far more than I'd like to about emotional abuse. As with my LDS uncle (by marriage, thank god) religion and atheism are both excuses used by abusers to justify their behaviour.

[Hope]

It's just how people tend to feel subjectively. Many heterosexuals have an inbuilt "disgust" at the idea of having sex with someone of the same sex.

Do you have any evidence for this assertion?  I have yet to meet any such heterosexuals. 

In fact, the heterosexuals I know are actually far more interested in working for things like childrens' rights, healthcare, trade justice, education and overseas aid, and only really take part in a debate like this when they are told what they believe about homosexuality by those who believe that legislation regarding homosexuality has to be changed.

[Hope]

I know far more than I'd like to about emotional abuse. As with my LDS uncle (by marriage, thank god) religion and atheism are both excuses used by abusers to justify their behaviour.

I'd agree, Rhi.

[Aruntraveller]

It's just how people tend to feel subjectively. Many heterosexuals have an inbuilt "disgust" at the idea of having sex with someone of the same sex.

Do you have any evidence for this assertion?  I have yet to meet any such heterosexuals. 

In fact, the heterosexuals I know are actually far more interested in working for things like childrens' rights, healthcare, trade justice, education and overseas aid, and only really take part in a debate like this when they are told what they believe about homosexuality by those who believe that legislation regarding homosexuality has to be changed.

Udayana wasn't talking about what people are interested in working for. She/he (sorry I don't know) was talking about peoples feelings. Talk about tangents that aren't relevant.