Indoctrinating kids

I agree with you 99% of the way. It is traumatizing. I lived it, though not in a strange land, far from my home and loved ones. I’m just saying that there is no real equivalency between the possibility of unintended emotional trauma and definite emotional and physical trauma intentionally inflicted. Rape is an intentional act of inflicting emotional and physical trauma for the purpose of exerting control over another where spreading your religious beliefs generally has no malicious intent and, in fact, usually has exactly the opposite intent, regardless the actual effect. I just don’t agree that you should be conflating someone’s misguided attempt at sincerely trying to help another person with a viscous and selfish act which intentionally inflicts trauma for the self gratification of control. I think that does a disservice to the conversation and that it is completely unfair to the people we’re discussing.

It’s like calling someone who is against interracial marriage because they have a sincere concern about possible children being accepted Hitler. Yes, it’s a disgusting thing to believe that people are anything but people. But they’re not malicious, just stupid.

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@Widdershins

Damn, I hate when it won’t let links of a complex post go through and I have to do it this way…

From (of all places!) a Mormon website. Article, followed by comments…

 

 

 

Of course, those are exchange students thru an organization. This is a private family. But still. As I said, the adult siblings have not been close for years & I highly doubt the father knows what his sister’s beliefs are now.

@widdershins

I see what you are saying. I do.

I am a victim of both types of abuse & trauma.

The intent behind religious abuse and sexual assault are different.

However the EXPERIENCE of the trauma can be the same.

Emotional abuse is a real thing. That isn’t always intentional, either. Yet society is beginning to understand that emotional abuse can sometimes be worse than physical abuse.

This is the same. I’m sorry I can’t find the right words to explain.

Not having experienced it myself I cannot say with certainty that I know where you are coming from, but I believe I understand. But I think intent matters. I see this as little different than the common Catholic belief that being gay and being a child molester are exactly as bad. They use the excuse that all sins are equal in the eyes of God, but they never throw gluttony or whoring in that list. Just those two.

We don’t have to agree on this. I believe I understand your point, I believe you understand mine. I can tell you, when I think back to what I went through and the literal decades it took me to shake off all of the damage the church had done to my mind, and then I think back to the people responsible I just don’t see “rapists” there. Yeah, I think the pastor was a POS. He was a swindler. He was two faced and self-serving. But a rapist? I can’t, in good conscience, go that far.

And my mom was one of those people responsible. She is the sweetest lady you’d ever care to meet. She, more than any other, was responsible for me being in that church. I cannot possibly express what that woman means to me, what she has sacrificed her whole life for her kids. To say that what she did, out of love, was no different than a rapist, it’s unconscionable to me.

Now, after typing all of that I think I might see one point where we may not be connecting. I am looking at it from the human perspective where you may be looking at it from the consequence perspective. I think you are saying that “the consequences” are the same and I am saying that “the people” are not the same. But you can’t have a rape without a rapist. To say that it is mental and spiritual rape you are saying that the people who do it are mental and spiritual rapists. There is nothing you can say that will ever make me see my mother in that light. There just isn’t.

As I said, we don’t have to agree on this. So long as we actually understand each other it has been a productive conversation and we have both benefited from furthering our understanding of another human being and we can leave it at that.

@widdershins

Yes … thank you. What you have said makes total sense. All of it, especially this:

I am looking at it from the human perspective where you may be looking at it from the consequence perspective.
Exactly. And intent does matter.

I get into a similar discussion, on “your” side, in discussion about a very different topic, and this helped me clarify.

 

Thank you.

 

Hey, no problem. Always a pleasure. I’m actually happy we disagree about something for once. That’s the only way I learn anything, so thank you!