I wrote my favorite blog entry a few weeks after I began blogging, on August 29, 2011, when I got a Facebook message in response to my previous entries about the FOC. The message read:
“Interesting.. since I don’t belong to your cult, I am going to hell? dude thats f--ed up!! will you drink the punch if asked too?”
This is my response: yes, you're going to Hell and yes, I will drink the punch.
In middle school (mid-1980s) we have the Rajneeshee cult here in Oregon. It is a big deal on the news. Many of their members wear red and we all joke that our vice-principal is a member because she has a red suit she wears once a week.
In high school I write a paper about the Jonestown cult. I know what a cult is. I have even heard it whispered that the Followers are a cult. But it doesn’t matter what we’re called. This is the only truth I know.
There are two ways to get into heaven and I would take either one without blinking an eye. The first is to be baptized by a prophet. Since the last living prophet died four years before I was born, I am stuck with door number two: martyrdom.
People want to know why the Followers allow their children to die. Why not take them to a doctor? Let me tell you why: we are told that the only option we have to absolutely ensure salvation is martyrdom.
If a woman dies in childbirth, it has been proven (I cannot give the details of this proof here because I want you to read my memoir) that she is assured salvation. If a child dies and his family has the faith and trust to allow God’s will to be done, then that child is also on his way to the streets paved in gold.
I don’t know if you can understand this, but fear is a powerful thing. I do not want to go to Hell. If there is a temporary suffering – even if that means two days of hard child-birthing followed by a slow and painful death with my baby still unborn – I choose to take that route over an eternity of Hell Fire and Damnation where there will be weeping an gnashing of teeth. If watching my two year old child die because she needs an insulin shot will mean she gets a free ticket in, well, thank God I am not faced with that choice. We all know that God sent His son to die a horrible death. God even asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Why should our children be spared?
I think about Hell all the time. I obsess about it. I imagine the day I am thrown in. I picture the weeping and gnashing of teeth. I’m not sure what gnashing is, but I think it involves a demon bashing my teeth in with a sledgehammer; new teeth replace the old and the process repeats for all of eternity. I suppose this teeth bashing happens inside a pool of boiling lava. My skin melts off and regenerates in endless torture.
So, yes, if drinking the punch keeps me out of Hell, then bottoms up, baby!
Interesting post, Suzanne. Haven't heard this point of view before. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the martyrdom for men of FOC?
ReplyDeleteYes drinking the cool aid will get you to Heaven,as long as that cool aid is the"BLOOD OF CHRIST". Martyrdom , works or any thing else will not get you there.Cults pray on ignorance thru their brainwashing. Mix that with a good does of fear and those are their tools.
ReplyDeleteThe man's martyrdom is having to watch their wife and unborn child suffer and die. Then after a year or so they have to find a new (usually) very young woman to date and marry.
ReplyDeleteTo be truthful, there have almost been as many young men die in the same span of time as women die in childbirth. Most of the widows found new (usually) young men to marry.