In an article titled "Texas sect temple 'used for sex'", we read this from the BBC Web site on April 11, 2008.*
"Members believe a man must marry at least three wives in order to ascend to heaven. Women are taught that their path to heaven depends on being subservient to their husband."
Now if ever there were invented truths, these must (still) be two of 'em. And it's 2008!
Not to cast stones at the sincerity of some and the damned foolishness of others, these precepts or revealed truths are a prescription for God knows what, and only s/he knows! No man or woman with a mentality beyond mythical can swallow this stuff. But apparently some have.
Perhaps the reason is desperation or some strong sense of I-can-beat-this-death's-end-of-everything thing. It is unclear, except of course in an omniscient's vision. And we cannot know that even by the standards of the devout who acknowledge a better and brighter force in and through and all around us.
To be accurate, the quote refers to three wives at the same time, polygamy. Otherwise many of us are already guaranteed a place because of three or more legal, lifelong commitments made serially because each has proven short lived. My stairway to heaven.
The subservient-to-men piece is archaic by any wisdom to be gleaned from the further reaches of human and social progress, development we can document in higher levels of knowledge, socio-political organization, and consciousness studies. Slavery has been declared dead, and civilized peoples have already nailed that coffin shut, in word if not in deed.
How is it that things continue to go arrested in this country? Perhaps we are too full of ourselves and what we have and have accomplished, while at the same time losing our vigilance to what is sane and good.
Some would argue that the Good is all relative. Relativity be damned. Is dominance over and exploitation of the impressionable justifiable in the face of what we know causes harm? Call this Good Evil and stupidity, or more kindly, ignorance. Today, to be either evil or ignorant, or to inflict these conditions on others through rationalizations or deprivations, this is the curse and self-inflicted disability of the religious and otherwise self righteous.
OK, OK. Take that back. This is just one person's perspective, so back to Texas. Perhaps it is in the soil or the water? No, too simplistic. By that explanantion my own place breeds as much weirdness. And you no doubt can name other places and not just in this country. What then?
Some would have us see polygamy-subservience as a male conspiracy and the brainwashing of women, or more anthropologically correct as an aspect of a culture to be respected and accepted. These explanations then attribute a level of consciousness and premeditation to promulgating doctrine. We usually call this kind of thing propagandizing untruths, a sin. In this reading, polygamy is just a cover for coveting the other, and being coveted, and taking what the ego or the devil (same thing) says will save Me.
Some would claim that women or men in this sect(?) believe. Although that has been pretty much dismissed above, perhaps there are some Believers. No doubt there are. But here is that old counter-argument. Enticed or enrolled into a polygamous program before the opportunity to see and learn the world in all its accomplishments except through belief's lenses could account for the preachings and the practice. But this does not justify it.
Which finally (aren't you glad) brings up this: Do we need to save ourselves from ourselves?
The end of the world is at hand and in the hands of those who would have us believe in invented truths and the exploitation of those unquestioning and impressionable. The perpetrators are killing us with their words and fervor for their own, not God's, pleasure--I suspect.
Otherwise, polygamy sounds like a fun idea.
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* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7341077.stm
