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Seven virgins.

Submitted by Jim Downey on May 3, 2008 - 8:25am.

Well, the Church of All Worlds, it ain't:

Former follower: Sect leader wanted to sleep with teenagers

CLAYTON, N.M. - For 16 years, he followed a man who calls himself Michael, finally settling along with other families on a former ranch in a remote corner of New Mexico.

There were red flags along the way, but John Sayer didn't break away from the apocalyptic church until late 2005.

Michael "said God told him that he was supposed to sleep with seven virgins," recalled Sayer, 36. Two were to be Sayer's daughters, then 14 and 15.

OK, the cheap shot here would be to bash all religions as being about power and exploitation. And I don't go in for cheap shots - I'm better than that.

Because I don't think that is true. However, the magical thinking usually associated with religion makes believers more susceptible to power games and exploitation by crazies and con men.

Personally, I have no problem with some group of independent adults going off into some corner of the world (real or metaphorical) and defining their small society in whatever terms they want. Seriously. There is a real "Church of All Worlds", and while it isn't anything I'm interested in, I say more power to them. Likewise, if people want to belong to the Lord Our Righteousness Church, and consider the founder to be God, then that's their business. Completely. I get that some people want this kind of life, want to be told exactly what to believe and how to behave, right down to with whom and how they can have sex.

That's fine. Because, after all, is it really so different from what conventional mainstream churches do?

Oops. That was a bit of a cheap shot. Maybe I'm not better than that. Well, as Mal said: "Guess I'm just a good man."

Anyway, I do find it interesting that a news item such as the one cited above will tend to elicit a fairly predictable response not just from godless heathens like yours truly, but from believers as well. Because you can be sure that most believers will think "wow - those people are crazy, letting that nut tell them how to live and all."

Ah, irony.

Jim Downey

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