Yeesh, some people really do live in the dark ages. This is abuse.

[dtewi]

mrstickball said:

dtewi said:

mrstickball said:
dtwei -

It's their religion. It's their choice. If that person believes that homosexuality is wrong, and feels that he needs to go through an exorcism to make himself better, then that is his prerogative. Even if you believe it's wrong, I don't think arguing violence against those people really should be tolerated in the forum.

If this person was not coerced into this activity, and did it of his own volition, why should you, or anyone else, attack this person's choice to involve themselves in the activity?

There's a point when religious beliefs turn into extremist crap. Exorcisms are just cruel and unusual.

It is more likely that he was coerced into taking the exorcism than letting him of his own accord. Their ideas are archaic and morally unjustified. I think I am allowed think that is a horrible act due to my idea that no one should be punished for something they did not decide.

He never would have thought that homosexuality was unnatural by himself. Someone told him that it was morally evil. He was influenced into this or basically manipulated.

I was making a point with the violence. Them being beaten for their hair color is just as outrageous as beating someone for their sexual orientation. I do have a major problem with bigotry and I'm not all that fond of exorcism either.

1) How are exorcisms cruel?

2) I think your making a weak argument concerning coercion. The church has a moral code of conduct, and the person is free to accept or reject that code of conduct if he so chooses to. If you want to argue the church's moral code is unjustified, that's your choice, but there are many people that believe their code of morality is correct, since it's based on the Bible (and the Bible is certainly not homosexual-friendly in it's morality).

And who are you to say that homosexuality may be deemed by a person to be unnatural? We've had many conversations on these forums concerning the issue, and there are many that take a stance against it. You may argue against it, which is certainfly fine, but some people do hold it to be unnatural and/or wrong. 

3) Again, we don't know why the boy decided to accept an exorcism. You can rage all you want to say his parents forced him into it, but I do not see any indication of that. Exorcisms are highly personal matters and the process can only be initiated by someone that wants to have that done to them. I find it very unlikely that he was forced into that situation, other than his own belief system.

4) If we are going to make the correlation that influence = manipulation, then I think we could establish that every person's belief system is manipulated.

1) Well besides the fact that they beat the people, scream at them for hours, and make them mentally and physically ill, nothing at all.

2) Maybe coercion wasn't the right word. But you seem to be missing the point of what I said. This boy if he was not told anything about sexual orientation would have never though to be a demon controlling him and that he was evil. He would just suddenly decide "I'm evil". He was told by the family or the church that his feelings were evil and that a demon possessed him. The mental stress that it must have placed on him made him accept an exorcism. I wasn't saying that people aren't capable of thinking it is wrong, I'm saying that if no one talked about sexual orientation in the first place, no one would hold it to be an unnatural thing.

3) He didn't want to have it! Who would agree to that torture? He got it because he thought he needed it when in actuality he didn't.

4) Again, another bad point on my part.