(June 3, 2015 at 2:49 am)rexbeccarox Wrote: It's just so very sad. I've never understood how religious faith, something that has at most an uneven grasp on reality and morality, can drive parents to do these things to their kids.
It is the power of belief. If one lived in a world in which being gay would mean that one would end up being tortured forever in hell, wouldn't it be better to torture them a little now to avoid the greater torture later? Even if the chance of it working were small?
It is the same reasoning that "justified" the Inquisition. Torturing people now, to save them from eternal torture in hell, is doing them a favor.
The only reason you don't approve of these kinds of actions is because you do not have the relevant beliefs. If you did, you would be on board with the idea that, under certain circumstances, torturing people is a good thing.
Some of you write as if you did not understand that people actually believe these kinds of things. What one believes affects one's actions. And one's actions affect others. This is why people's personal beliefs are a matter of public concern.
For more on this idea, you might want to look at what the philosopher William Kingdon Clifford had to say about the ethics of belief in his aptly titled essay, "The Ethics of Belief." At the following link, you can find it and also a more famous essay that is a response to Clifford, and a less famous essay that is a response to the response:
http://ajburger.homestead.com/files/book.htm
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
