Thanks for starting this thread, Steph. That way I don't have to.
So I have two thoughts about this. The first one is that religion is sometimes used to justify and sanctify truly horrible things like rape and terror. Some religious people claim that they are doing what is good and righteous in the eyes of the Lord when they commit various atrocities. Their religions allow them to feel
good about themselves when they blow themselves up in crowded marketplaces and take hundreds of people with them. Their religion bestows virtue and righteousness on them when they marry dozens of women and rape underage girls.
Their religion even promises them that God will reward them for committing these horrible acts! This off-shoot renegade Mormon group in Texas (not the real Mormon Church in America at all) actually preaches that a man can't reach the highest levels of paradise in the afterlife unless he has many wives.
They really preach that God prefers polygamous men over monogamous ones! Can you believe it? Isn't this comparable to the views held by some extreme Muslims, namely, that a suicide bomber will go directly to Paradise after committing his horrible deed, and in Paradise he will be greeted by seventy-two virgins who will offer him unlimited sexual pleasure in reward for his murderous act!
So this is what I would describe as religion as its most despicable. It's the kind of religion that teaches that murder, terrorism, rape and oppression are things that are delightful in the eyes of the Lord and that will bring the perpetrator glorious rewards in the afterlife.
I said that I have two thoughts about this. Well, my second thought is that it is
horrible that ordinary people accept this line of reasoning at all. Why do so many normal people seem to buy the argument that religious people
always deserve respect for their religious beliefs? Why do so many people accept that something that is obviously horrible should be accepted as
good just because the Bible or the Koran seems to support it? Believe me, I have read the Bible, and I know that you could use the Bible to argue that those who are chosen by God have the right to commit genocide. No, the Bible gives NO blanket approval of genocide. ABSOLUTELY not. You would have to build your line of argument from a few individual stories about brief genocidal episodes in the Old Testament. But in my opinion, you COULD use these stories from the Old Testament to justify genocide, if you wanted to do it badly enough. And that is why I'm saying -
don't buy the argument that whatever could be sort of justified from passages in the Bible or the Koran is automatically always GOOD!!! Let's not just buy the argument that people should
always be respected for their religious beliefs.
They should not! If they believe in and practice bad things, we should not respect them. Do you remember David Koresh and his sect, the Branch Davidians? David Koresh preached that he himself was Jesus who had returned to the earth. :rolleyes: This new Jesus had developed quite a sexual appetite, because while the Biblical Jesus may well have been celibate, David Koresh was - surprise - polygamous. This is from Wikipedia:
Koresh advocated polygamy for himself, and asserted that he was married to several female residents of the small community.[1][6] Some former members of the cult also alleged that Koresh felt he could claim any of the females in the compound as his.[1][6] Evidently he fathered at least a dozen children by the harem.[9][6] Allegedly, his harem included girls as young as age 12.[10][6] The other adults at the compound were told by Koresh not to tell anyone else about this "because they wouldn't understand."[11]
Wikipedia says this about how children were treated at Koresh's camp (twenty-one of them were released before the siege, and the information comes from these children):
The children related at various times that they had been instructed to call their natural parents "dogs" and to call Koresh "father."
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By 1992 the children were being taught to view Koresh as their father, and soon after they were taught that he was God.
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Children, as young as 8 months, were beaten for trivial matters, and older children were beaten for not fighting hard enough in bouts arranged by Koresh between the children as part of their "paramilitary training."
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The children were also threatened with death if they revealed aspects of life inside the compound to the "non-believers."
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Furthermore, the girls were socialized to believe that sex with Koresh, by age 11-12, was normal, appropriate, and desirable as part of "God's plan" as revealed to and by Koresh. All of the young girls were being prepared to be his wives and to view that as a healthy and desired position to be in.
Koresh stockpiled huge amounts of weapons. When authorites came to investigate claims of child abuse, the Branch Davidians shot four agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. This led to a long siege by the BATF of the Davidian sect. It ended after 51 days when the compound with the Davidians caught fire. Surviving members of the sect accused the BATF of setting fire to the camp. Well, I just don't believe that the authorities did that. And why not? Simple. The Davidians were surrounded and could not get away. Why would the authorities kill all the sect members when the Davidians were bound to have to give up sooner or later anyway? Yes, it was costly to keep the siege going, but come on - money was not such a problem in 1993. Remember that there was no Iraq war costing money in those days, among other things. What is a 51-day siege, or a 100-day siege, against a five-year Iraq war? Of course the authorities could afford an extended siege. But David Koresh, the leader, could not afford to get caught. Just imagine the horrible, horrible humiliation he would suffer if the authorities got his hands on him. He who had called himself God! He would be treated like a dog himself if they caught him. Terefore I am convinced that he committed suicide by setting the compound on fire himself. And not only did he commit just ordinary suicide, but he committed what is called "extended suicide", which meant that he took his "family" with him. And his "family", of course, were all the other cult member who died with him.
You know what drove me crazy about the whole Branch Davidian affair? It was that so many people in the United States seemed to take David Koresh's side against they authorities. They talked about how David Koresh and his sect had had their human rights violated, how they had had their religous rights violated etcetera. Come on, people! This was a crazy sect centered on a crazy man who called himself God and who abused and raped children. What respect did he deserve? None at all. What respect do people like Warren Jeffs, polygamist guru of the renegade Mormons, deserve? None, if you ask me.
So please, please, let's not automatically respect whatever people believe and practice in the name of God. Because, frankly, some of the things they do in the name of God deserve no respect at all. None.
Oh, and... is it true that the Bible recommends polygamy, by the way? No. It's not true at all. The Bible allows polygamy. It never issues any blanket ban on polygamy. It never even really and truly criticizes polygamy. But it also never says that polygamy is preferable to monogamy.
Ann
