Religious Viruses

The religious type of virus has had its most destructive effect at the most intimate level of our marriages. Marriage has been made into a structure of iron clad boundaries, instead of being a forum with a strong center that enriches the world according to the model of the son. Thus a paradox existed ever since the first major religious platform had been established by which the social marriage bond between two people became defined. The paradox is that prostitution has flourished side by side with marriages so that prostitution is now called the world's oldest profession. Even in modern days, researchers find that statistically, 50% of all married men become engaged in extramarital intimacies before the age of 45, and this often at a great cost to themselves as a consequence of violated conventions and unfulfilled expectations. This conflict has existed for several thousands of years already, which indicates that some unnatural factors have entered the scene at a very early stage, like a virus that causes havoc in computer programs.

One wonders therefore what this virus is. What has caused humanity to pay a huge price socially, for something that had never been avoided for several thousands of years? In fact, the modern cost of reaching across the marriage boundary is minute in comparison to the price that was once exacted when such violations incurred the death penalty.

It is interesting to note, in this context, that the most prominent passage where this paradox has been directly dealt with in ancient scriptures, where Christianity's great teacher and spiritual pioneer goes to the very heart of the issue, has been 'censored' out of some modern editions of the Christian Bible (John 8:1-12) . In the 1976 Oxford Study Edition (ISBN 0-19-529710-5), for instance, the book of John chapter eight, begins with Verse Twelve instead of Verse One.

I have been advised and correctly so, that a tiny footnote indicates that the passage has been relocated in the above edition to the end of the book of John, since in some sources it appears at different places or not at all. So it appears that the subject of the passage has been a controversial one for some time, perhaps right from the beginning. It is interesting that this should be so.

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