When Christianity Harms People

 


Where I now live, the state legislature is debating whether to allow the practice of "Conversion Therapy." This is a type of counseling that claims to convert gay people to being straight people through a religious experience. It has been outlawed in various places at various times. Outside of a few who claim to have been changed, the consensus of people who have been subjected to "Conversion Therapy" is they were left harmed by it. 

The message most who have been in it say they are told if they are strong and devoted to God they will be attracted toward the other sex. When this doesn't happen the only conclusion is something is wrong with them. Self-worth is at its lowest. 

There has never been a reliable set of data on the percentage of people who "graduate" from conversion therapy and remain straight. People who have left it say it is unusual for people to change permanently. It happens for a while then gay people return to being gay. This happened to most prominent head of Conversion Therapy a decade or so ago and he apologized to all of those he had mislead.

While its possible to over regulate services and industries, providers of services like Conversion Therapy should be held accountable for their claims. Records should be made available for all to see. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ancient God, Bel (Baal), the Main Character in an Ancient Play

Image
In a British museum is a preserved stone tablet from Babylon. It dates to about 2,000 BCE. Someone labored patiently to inscribe an entire passion play featuring the god Bel. I reiterate this is a stone tablet, not a recopied papyrus. The play begins with the god Bel arrested by soldiers and taken off the stage. He reappears at a trial in the Hall of Judgement. Bel is innocent but is sentenced to death. In the next scene Bel is accosted by a mob. He is despised and rejected. The actor playing Bel is then taken by guard to a hilltop in a sacred grove. Two criminals are taken with him. One of these is released. The the audience then leaves the theater and follows the actor Bel and his guards to the top of a hill where the death scene is enacted by hanging from a tree. The audience returns to the theater for the dramatic final scenes. The dead Bel is stripped and prepared for burial. On a theatrical hill to the side of the stage is a tomb where the body is placed. A stone is rolle...
Read more

What Was the "Argument" in the Election

Image
I hate to add my blog to the piles of blogs and pundits analyzing and pondering the meaning of the just passed election. But that's what I feel like doing today. I've always like Senator Ted Cruz's summary of politics. He once said, "First, win the argument. Then, win the election." I think there is a way of applying that to anti abortion Catholics and Protestants. The link talks of Catholics who now feel they have no political home because Republicans let them down with Trump but they remain against abortion rights. Taking Cruz's win-the-argument thesis, I'd call the past election about an argument between two groups. One group's argument was, "Trump's a jerk." The other's argument was, "Abortion is wrong." The group, "Trump's a jerk," won the argument and then the election.  While one can argue the election, or any election, it about more complex issues, I believe in the end elections hinge on very simple ar...
Read more

Will We Ever Know How Accurate Current Bibles Are

Image
When I discuss the many times the Bible was copied and recopied by scribes over a couple of thousand years, the reply is often, "I have a book by this (or that) expert who says the Bible is 99% accurate to its original writers." The 99% claim appears in various places defending the Bible. There is one thing we know absolutely: There is no surviving original copy of the Bible. Even the oldest surviving material is a generation or two after the time some of the Bible was written. This means no one can claim he has, or ever will, compare the current Bible to the original Bible and find the two are 99% the same. We cannot claim either that it is not 99% accurate. For the sake of discussion, however, assume the current Bible is 99% accurate. That would mean the one word out of every 100 was inaccurate. It could still mean an important misreading of the original text. An example is the passage referring to punishment for a man who kills a fetus. In the oldest know materia...
Read more