From MSNBC:
ELDORADO, Texas - Child welfare officials following up on an abuse complaint took custody of 18 girls who lived at a secretive West Texas religious retreat built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs.
A total of 52 girls, ages 6 months to 17 years, were bused away on Friday to be interviewed, but only 18 were immediately taken into state custody, said Texas Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner. No arrests had been made.
Meisner said welfare officials were looking for foster homes for the girls, most of whom have rarely been outside the insular world of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
My view of why philosophies are good but religions are not, below the fold.
OK, there are some that will argue that religions have done so much for the world. Inspiration and light for art, literature, music.
But that's like saying that whale oil did so much for the world. Maybe a few centuries ago, but the world has moved on.
For generations, the sole reason for any religion wishing to thrive has been to gain power or hold power over people, and the things that people want. More land, money, resources, recognition. Or just power to do with people as you will.
Sure: there are messages of peace in religions. And exemplars that can be cited as good and peaceful role models. But even they eventually get usurped and perverted into a twisted quasi-logical mish-mash in order to get people to give more money (Jesus wants you to win this war, fight the good fight with weapons).
And so to Warren Jeffs. A man placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution on Utah state charges related to his alleged arrangement of extralegal "marriages" between his adult male followers and underage girls in 2006. A man charged in 2007 for sexual conduct with minors and incest in two separate cases.
Did he call himself a pedophile? No, of course not. The gullible don't follow you if you paint yourself as having any human characteristics, especially bad ones. No, he was the "President and Prophet, Seer and Revelator" and "President of the Priesthood" to all that followed him.
So the man claimed descent from Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith, in order to have sex with little girls.
If there was a god, why wouldn't he strike this shit down before all the pain and suffering he caused to so many kids? You can't tell me there's a plan I don't know about, because I see the plan all too clearly. It involved Jeffs, his penis, and a liking for fresh meat.
Some may be blind to the humanistic ways of people, but my eyes are wide open. And not in a religious way.