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Pamela Cummins's avatar

Sexual abuse destroys a person in every aspect (mental, physical, emotional, & spiritual) and takes years or decades to heal from. Sadly, it happens in every religion and often the perpetrator were abused.

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Brigantia Blackbird's avatar

You and I have different interpretations about what this means. I see it as further reason to repudiate sexual deviancy and sexual violence--in no way do the horrible experiences described reflect Pagan philosophy and doctrine in any way.

Now--it does describes some of the *leftists* who infect Paganism and bring their deviancy into it, but just as you'll find Pastors who try to twist scripture to suit their abuse you'll find people claiming to be Pagan and twisting things to do the same.

The issue is the manipulation and being able to distinguish monsters who creep into every society.

The horrific abuse is something our Pagan ancestors would have killed the perpetrators for. Look at any of the norms (beyond Rome and Greece when their civilizations were sinking under the weight of indefensible depravity) for Pagan society and it's easy to imagine how violently and swiftly such abuse would have been stopped, once known. Some Pagan cultures were far more sexual conservative than what we tend to see--in some Germanic tribes it was considered disgraceful for men *not* be virgins if they were younger than 20. In those societies, virginity of both sexes was prized, and girls were expected to be untouched until they were married.

I do not consider sexual predators to be representative of their religion unless their religion specifically permits their crimes (like Islam, which cannot be banished from the West too soon!).

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