polygamy

i recently finished jon krakauer's under the banner of heaven and it was really interesting! i hadn't known much about mormonism except for the "magic underwear," no caffeine, and what i gleaned from the book of mormon, lol. so, basically, nothing. a couple months ago i did finally visit the very beautiful mormon temple in san diego where outside two mornon girls with a binder showed us pictures of the inside of the temple (non-mormons are not allowed into their special rooms [altho for the record, i would love to get in, the inside of the temple is even more beautiful than the outside!]).

anyway, back to some of the most interesting things i learned from the book. apparently mormons are latter day saints. this whole time i thought they were different sects! ting even dated an lds for a couple weeks last year, haha. the other super interesting thing i learned is that the big difference between regular mormons and fundamentalist mormons is that fundamentalist mormons believe in polygamy. and that's about it. seriously. that's why they split. couldn't agree on the number of wives.

but the reason this post is titled "polygamy" is because that after reading the book, i'm now pro-polygamy. i didn't have strong feelings about it one way or another before, but now i'm definitely pro. i feel like krakauer was pretty unbiased in his book, and i certainly don't feel like he was trying to sway readers towards polygamy, but here i am. but of course i only approve of it between consenting adults. adults!! (apparently a number of mormon marriages are assigned marriages between a much older man and a girl child. disgusting, illegal, and wrong!)

one more thing i randomly thought was interesting. apparently divorce is not uncommon in mormon marriages. wives seem to leave their husbands with some regularity. part of it, i guess, is that many of these couples don't choose each other, but are assigned to marry. oh! one question i have tho. if this society only does polygamy and not polyandry, like... where are all these women coming from? do they not run out? or are there a lot of single, unmarried men since all the women are taken? (i should probably remind you about elizabeth smart who was kidnapped by a mormon fundamentalist family and subsequently made to wed the kidnapper. however, cases like hers are very rare!)

lost heart of asia

quotations from colin thurbron - the lost heart of asia: an intimate portrait of uzbekistan, tajikistan, turkmenistan, kazakhstan, and kirghizstan, the five central asian republics

"I found myself launching a plea for tolerance. Why should one religion hold a monopoly on truth, I asked? Faith was a matter of private conscience... My evangelism for tolerance began to sound fanatic."

"'Islam is the last revelation... Fist came the Jews' book, then the Christians' book, and fainlly the Koran. The Koran is the last word of God. It was right at the time for Jews and Christians to believe as they did. They had nothing else. But now it is our way which his right...'
"I said pedantically: 'The Communist doctrine came later than Islam, but didn't disprove it. The last book isn't necessarily the right one. Your own Traditions come later than the Koran, but they don't superseded it... The Jews believe that the first is best... because it's the original.'"

both from page 74