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.
It is 2008. If ever there was an invented truth, this must (still) be it.
Not to cast stones at the sincerity of some character or others, this precept, or "revealed truth" is a prescription for God knows what, and only s/he can know. No man or woman today with a mentality beyond mythical can swallow this. But apparently some have. And they have allegedly included children in the mix, but to date it is unclear how children play a role in the "sect's" marriages and families.
Perhaps it is desperation or some strong sense of "I can beat this death-inevitability thing by sowing my seeds." It is unclear, except again in an omniscient's eye. We cannot know that even by the standards of the most devout, who acknowledge a better and brighter yet unknowable force in and through and all around us. That s/he has spoken audibly on this specific approach to marriage and male-female relations and not on other matters of great import yesterday and today seems highly suspect.
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, which may successively have found rocky shores.
The subservient-to-men piece is archaic by anything we can learn from the further reaches of human and social development, developments we can document by advances in knowledge, prosperity and consciousness. How is it that there is great want of awareness in this world of seeming plenty? Perhaps we are too full of ourselves and what we have accomplished, while at the same time losing our vigilance to what is reasonable and good.
Some would argue that the good is relative. In the context of faith, sex with minors and multiple wives (why not husbands?) is sanctioned. But is dominance over and exploitation of the young or naive ever justifiable in the face of what we know causes physical, mental and emotional (let alone spiritual) harm? Call this then stupidity, or more kindly, ignorance. But today, to be possessed of either is both a curse and the self-inflicted disability of religious and non-religious alike. Okay.
Maybe it is about Texas. After all, it is not the first sect to have been uncovered in that state. Perhaps it is in the soil or the water of the place? No, too simplistic. By that my own place could breed as much weirdness, and it does. So the idea of doctrine growing out of location seems fruitless, or it deserves much, much more careful thought and study. What then?
Some would have us see this as a male conspiracy and the brainwashing of women. These then attribute a level of consciousness and premeditation to promulgating the doctrine. Isn't this just a cover for coveting the other for pleasure or dominance, and taking what the ego or the devil says is there for the taking?
Some would claim that women and men in this sect believe. Although that has been dismissed above, perhaps there are some believers. Enticed or enrolled into a polygamous program before the opportunity to see and learn the world apart from one belief's lenses could account for this. If this is the case, do we need to save ourselves from ourselves, thus justifying state intervention?
All of this to say if not strongly suggest: The end of the world is at hand and in the hands of those who would have us believe invented truths and the exploitation of the poorly informed. They are killing us with their words and fervor for their own, not God's, pleasure.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7341077.stm
