Bacha Bazi

[Rayaan]

Who cares which it is more common in? The fact it's happening at all directly due to religion is what I'm getting at.

You're right also, that religion doesn't seem to make it any better.

But still, I think that there is a purpose behind why God would tell us to control our sexual urges (but not completely ban them). The reason is that in religion, the love for food and sex is considered to be one of the lower animal-like desires that we have, even though it is natural indeed. But religion is not concerned about what feels good to the body. It is more concerned on what happens to the soul, the thing that survives after our death. Religious people believe that whenever the body goes through physical hardships, or when it learns to control the sexual desires, it improves the state of the soul. That's why religion tells us to control these physical desires to benefit ourselves at a spiritual level.

The next question is, if God is the maker, then, why did He give us these feelings and then tell us to suppress them?

I don't know why, but, I think He gave us these feelings because He wants to see how much we would sacrifice the things that we love the most for His sake (such as when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son since he loved him so much). In this sense, we as believers have to give up some of the pleasurable things in our lives for a greater purpose. That's one of the things that makes us different from other animals.