Martha Beck: FARMS reviews sexual abuse claims

[_Pahoran]

You are wilfully misreading my argument. I am not condemning Martha (who I suspect may suffer from some kind of untreated mental pathology, and therefore needs help) but examining the quality of her accusations against her dead (and therefore unable to defend himself) father.

You called her a liar,

Did I?

I've gone back over this entire thread. Carefully. I've looked and looked again.

I cannot find where I called her a liar.

So where is it?

I have questioned the credibility of the allegations in her book. I am discussing what she chose to publish in her book.

Snip blather.

You said she made it all up, based on what other people said about her.

That's false.

Her book contains two sets of allegations: those that can be tested, and those that cannot.

The allegations that can be tested fail. Some fail on a "smell test." Others fail on a direct examination; see "Sonia Johnson." The articles were in the BYU library when she said they were gone. See her "panel discussion." She added a fictitious participant, misdescribed the actual participants and misreported what was said. And I don't mean that she merely paraphrased stuff badly, I mean she egregiously misrepresented the entire thrust of the key remarks she chose to report. She invented a fictitious instance of Mormon ritual shunning, "Mura hachibu."

And that's just a few of the problematic tales she tells.

Then there's what she suppresses. She was genuinely molested by a neighbour boy as a pre-teen. This is a huge omission, since she relies upon her various emotional problems, and alleged vaginal scarring, to give credence to her accusations against her father, and the genuine episode may well account for both. She claims to have left the Church over "doctrinal differences," and suppresses the fact that she was having an extra-marital (same-sex) liaison at the time.

I am not basing my verdict upon "what other people said about her." I am basing it upon verifiable facts.

The one she kidnapped at the age of ninety when he was just five days out of hospital, and interrogated for five hours while she held him in a hotel room against his will. That is an actual instance of abuse, and it is undisputed.

Yet... no trial? no conviction? no sentence? Kidnapping is a serious charge, federal in this country, and anyone who allows a known kidnapper to remain free isn't doing his duty. So why haven't you reported this crime? Why has there been no arrest, no trial, no conviction?

I don't need to. She documented it in her BOOK.

Her BOOK, Harmony.

The subject of this thread.

Because I have no dog in his fight, no matter how you try to drag me into it. I'm just pointing out that the sheep died, and children get molested every day, and no one knows. Just because no one in her family knew doesn't mean it didn't happen.

And that's not the the only reason why I conclude that it didn't happen.

And false accusations do not serve the interests of genuinely molested children. The reaction to the "recovered memory" fiasco has not been to be more aware of child molestation, but to be more aware of false accusations. Which is a good thing, but it would have been better for abused children overall if the "recovered memory" fiasco -- of which Martha's accusations are a legacy -- had never happened.

I asked why you were posting if you aren't going to address Martha's allegations one way or the other.

Why does everyone have to take a side? Do you live in that kind of black and white world?

No Harmony, but that is what this thread is actually about, after all.

Martha's accusations are rejected because they are not credible on their face. This says absolutely nothing about the general case of children who are molested.

Nothing.

Bolding your comments doesn't make them correct, Pahoran. You have yet to show that her allegations are not credible, at least, not in a credible manner. Restating them, bolding them, italicizing them doesn't give them weight.

I didn't say that it did, Harmony. I just want to make sure you're not missing something. You keep attacking me on the apparent assumption that I don't care a whit about abused children. I'll say it again -- and yes, I'll even bold it -- false accusations do not serve the interests of genuinely molested children. And rejecting false accusations does not "sacrifice" or otherwise harm genuinely molested children.

You reject her allegations because they don't fit in with your idea

Your arrogant and presumptuous mind-reading is beyond tedious.

I reject her allegations for the reasons I have repeatedly said: because they are internally absurd, externally unsupported, and form an organic part of a collection of stories, many of which are provably false.

My mother didn't want to hear it either, and refused to believe it even after my sister endured years of being messed up because of it.

Harmony: try to get this into your head, if indeed there is room: THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU AND YOUR SISTER. The fact that Martha's allegations are false does not mean your sister was a liar. You will NOT help your sister by crucifying a hated Mormon.

However, the fact that false allegations like Martha's get into circulation means that people are more likely to treat genuine cases with suspicion. The fact that some people seem unable to admit even the possibility of false accusations makes them unreliable informants in genuine cases.

It is all a moot point anyway. He's dead and she's gone a different direction. That doesn't mean what she said was wrong, though, no matter how you try to whitewash it.

Nor does it mean that what she said is right, no matter how you try to blackwash it.

Hell's bells, Pahoran. You think I was uncivil? ROTFL! My goodness, man! I'm the mild mannered milkmaid here!

That's right. "Mild mannered milkmaids" invariably accuse their opponents of heartlessly ignoring molested children. "unless you're willing to sacrifice the sheep..."

I have no "conversation with Martha." I'm talking about the claims she published in her book. You know, the one wherein she told the world that her father molested her?

Ah. Then you have no evidence, you haven't studied the situation

False. I certainly have studied it.

You're only in the clear, if he indeed did not molest her.

Then I'm in the clear.

I, on the other hand, have not taken a side.

Only because you lack the courage to take one. It is patently obvious where you stand.

And who proceeded to trample upon it [the Temple] in this sty today.

I did NOT! What are you talking about?

I am talking about the thread in which you sneered about how worthless the sealing you attended was.

Snip self-certification. (I really recommend you avoid waving your TR in my face, Harmony.)

Why? Are you going to throw a temper tantrum if I take it out of my purse again?

No.

It's not a question of her having "lied before." It is a question of her accusation against her father being part and parcel of a single tissue of falsehoods.

You don't know that. No one does, her family's protestations notwithstanding. There was no trial, so no justice has been done.

And never will be -- for the accused.

In other words, it's the false statements in her book that tarnish the credibility of her book. I have based no arguments upon her "history."

People are not convicted based on words in a book, Pahoran. If she was molested, she deserves justice, she deserves support, she deserves one helluva lot more love from her family than she's gotten.

And you condemn her family based upon -- what?

Oh yes: the words in her book.

The one you haven't taken sides over.

Instead, your posts here are part and parcel of the attacks she's endured... and why? Because she alleges a behavior that is both repulsive and outlandish about a prominent LDS icon. That, however, does not mean she isn't right.

Nor does it mean that she is. However much you might fantasise about it.

This is not about Martha, Harmony. It's about the validity of an accusation. It doesn't matter to me if the book was ghost-written by someone else under her name.

It's about Martha and the abuse she allegedly suffered. The validity of the allegation will never be adjudicated, because we don't convict the dead in this country.

Only in the court of public opinion, based upon accusations that have every appearance of being scurrilous.

Regards,
Pahoran

[Guest]

The Nibleys had eight children in a three bedroom house. How does that work? Well, you have all the girls in one room, all the boys in another, and the parents in the third (usually largest) room. Martha and her sister slept on top and bottom bunks. Martha's dream/recovered memory/thingy has her father coming into her room in the middle of the night with an Egyptian mask on to molest her. Where was her sister at the time? Asleep on the other bunk.

And yet Moroni appears to Joseph Smith in the middle of the night in a bright light, carries on a conversation with Joseph, and never manages to wake up any of the others sharing Joseph's bedroom.

Maybe Nibley learned the secret from Moroni.

Do you ever listen to yourself?

Jesus Homer Christ are you clueless.

[_Morrissey]

Two points just from skimming this:

1) People do sexually assault a single child with no other offenses. That most certainly does happen. I've been professionally involved in the supports of individuals involving such cases more than once.

2) "Recovered" memories are indeed prima facie suspect and at least in almost all cases should be treated as false memories implanted by the recovery process unless there is substantial corroborating evidence.

Amen and amen.

I would never, ever suspect, let alone accuse, someone of anything based on a recovered memory, absent some actual tangible evidence.

Recovered memories are about as trustworthy as Joseph Smith.

[_harmony]

I would never, ever suspect, let alone accuse, someone of anything based on a recovered memory, absent some actual tangible evidence.

Recovered memories are about as trustworthy as Joseph Smith.

You might want to read Jersey's comment:

I've read differing accounts with regards to the process involved in her recovered memories. 1. That she recovered the memories prior to therapy and 2. That she underwent hypnosis in order to do so. If there are other explanations, I'm not aware of them.

The hysteria of the 80/90's that you speak of not withstanding, Pahoran, some recovered memories are reliable when the abused disassociates during the abuse and later, through therapy, begins to remember them. In the case of Robert Pitsor (who posted on this board no long ago and no, I don't want to twist this thread off on a Pitsor derail) he developed alters on account of the abuse and his alters retained most of the memories.

If #1 is true, then her later therapy could not have been a factor in her memories returning. If #2 is true, her hypnosis might have been a factor, but doesn't necessarily have to have been.

I took a summer class on hypnotherapy in the late 90's from one of the world's experts on it. One of our exercises was to hypnotise someone, with another student watching and taking notes. When it was my turn to be the one in the chair, I managed to freak out everyone in the room, and they had to run to the next room to get the instructor to pull me out. Evidently, I'd started sobbing during the induced dream phase and talking in a 5 year old's voice about "deep water". I've had a deeply held fear of deep water for as long as I can remember; it appears to be connected to an incident involving my brother almost falling over a dam face, when I was 5. All my nightmares involve deep water.

Amazing how the mind works. At least now I know why going on a cruise doesn't sound at all fun to me.

Just because some recovered memories are planted by the therapist doesn't mean all of them are. Perhaps Martha's memories surfaced to explain feelings she'd always had, like mine did. Or perhaps not.

[_harmony]

Did I?

I've gone back over this entire thread. Carefully. I've looked and looked again.

I cannot find where I called her a liar.

So where is it?

I have questioned the credibility of the allegations in her book. I am discussing what she chose to publish in her book.

Which you label as lies. She tells lies, falsehoods as you've also called them, and yet she's not a liar? Splitting that hair a bit finely, Pahoran.

Then there's what she suppresses. She was genuinely molested by a neighbour boy as a pre-teen. This is a huge omission, since she relies upon her various emotional problems, and alleged vaginal scarring, to give credence to her accusations against her father, and the genuine episode may well account for both.

I'm surprised at you, Pahoran. I'm sure you know that just because she was molested by a neighbor boy when she was a pre-teen doesn't mean she wasn't molested by her father previously when she was a child. The scarring could certainly have already been in place when the neighbor boy molested her.

She claims to have left the Church over "doctrinal differences," and suppresses the fact that she was having an extra-marital (same-sex) liaison at the time.

I'm not seeing how the reason she left the church has anything to do with the alleged child abuse, but I'm sure you'll tie the knot nicely. I'm also sure you know that doctrinal issues may exist in the same time continuum and reality as do extra martial liaison, in the same person. One does not preclude the other. Some but not all people with doctrinal issues may have extra marital affairs just as some but not all people who have extra marital affairs may have doctrinal issues.

I am not basing my verdict upon "what other people said about her." I am basing it upon verifiable facts.

You just got through saying there are no "verifiable facts" about her father's alleged abuse, so how can you verify that which is not in evidence? You cannot prove a negative. Just because no one saw/has the abuse/golden plates, doesn't mean it/they didn't happen/exist. (See? I can play both sides.)

All you've verified is your lame critieria for connecting the dots. I think all you've done is connect your dots into a sheep you're willing to sacrifice, in order to keep the beloved icon's reputation clean.

Yet... no trial? no conviction? no sentence? Kidnapping is a serious charge, federal in this country, and anyone who allows a known kidnapper to remain free isn't doing his duty. So why haven't you reported this crime? Why has there been no arrest, no trial, no conviction?

I don't need to. She documented it in her BOOK.

Her BOOK, Harmony.

The subject of this thread.

And yet she is free today. So perhaps that doesn't qualify as one of your "facts". You certainly are a cafeteria critic, Pahoran. You pick and choose the facts you use to condemn someone.

And that's not the the only reason why I conclude that it didn't happen.

Pontificate then. Let's see the evidence you have that would stand up in a court of law. I might have been able to use it to support my sister, except the brother is dead and it would only serve to hurt my mother (who has buried the conversation so deep inside her conscious, she doesn't remember it).

And false accusations do not serve the interests of genuinely molested children. The reaction to the "recovered memory" fiasco has not been to be more aware of child molestation, but to be more aware of false accusations. Which is a good thing, but it would have been better for abused children overall if the "recovered memory" fiasco -- of which Martha's accusations are a legacy -- had never happened.

And now you are able to decide, for all abused children, what would be a good thing for them. How wonderful that they have you as a champion. What did you say your degree was in? A PhD in Child Psychology? We are blessed indeed to have you among us.

Why does everyone have to take a side? Do you live in that kind of black and white world?

No Harmony, but that is what this thread is actually about, after all.

You are now the arbitrator of the thread content on MDB? Our threads tend to become fairly broad here. And an individual poster is not required to take a side, even if they post extensively on the thread.

Bolding your comments doesn't make them correct, Pahoran. You have yet to show that her allegations are not credible, at least, not in a credible manner. Restating them, bolding them, italicizing them doesn't give them weight.

I didn't say that it did, Harmony. I just want to make sure you're not missing something. You keep attacking me on the apparent assumption that I don't care a whit about abused children. I'll say it again -- and yes, I'll even bold it -- false accusations do not serve the interests of genuinely molested children. And rejecting false accusations does not "sacrifice" or otherwise harm genuinely molested children.

False accusations don't serve anyone, Pahoran. However, you have yet to prove that Martha's accusation is false. No one can, because the accused is dead, and so is the issue. You keep trying to smear Martha with it though, even though she was the victim.

You reject her allegations because they don't fit in with your idea

Your arrogant and presumptuous mind-reading is beyond tedious.

I reject her allegations for the reasons I have repeatedly said: because they are internally absurd, externally unsupported, and form an organic part of a collection of stories, many of which are provably false.

You are being the villager, Pahoran. Martha's false stories (which you haven't yet proven all to be false) notwithstanding, the allegation of child abuse has not been dismissed by a court of law (the court of your opinion or even mine, notwithstanding), and now cannot be dismissed due to the death of the alleged perpetrator.

Harmony: try to get this into your head, if indeed there is room: THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU AND YOUR SISTER. The fact that Martha's allegations are false does not mean your sister was a liar. You will NOT help your sister by crucifying a hated Mormon.

Try to not shout, Pahoran. I'm right here and can read in small case letters too.

I bring up my sister because you keep bringing up Martha's brother in law as if he was an authority on Martha's childhood. He's not. He wasn't there. My mother didn't believe my sister either. She wasn't there. No one was there. No one saw the abuse. That doesn't mean it didn't happen.

However, the fact that false allegations like Martha's get into circulation means that people are more likely to treat genuine cases with suspicion. The fact that some people seem unable to admit even the possibility of false accusations makes them unreliable informants in genuine cases.

Your ignorance of the law is showing, Pahoran.

People have no business getting involved at all. Child abuse is a police matter. There is no excuse for the public to get involved at all, except as appropriate, such as witnesses. Those who are required to report (teachers, counselors, law enforcement personnel, etc) have no business basing their reporting possible child abuse or lack of reporting possible child abuse on suspicion of false allegations. They are required to report, no matter what.

Withholding a report because of suspicion of false allegations is not the duty of those who have a duty to report nor is it the arena of the average villager. That withholding is what allowed the wolf to devour the sheep, Pahoran. Which makes the villagers more culpable, not the victims.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why, if this abuse took place as alleged (when Martha was 5-7 years old), she didn't report it to her mother then? Do you think she, as a 5-7 year old, could have told her mother what her father was supposedly doing to her? What do you think her mother's reaction would have been to this accusation against the head of the family, the breadwinner, the prominent priesthood holding icon, when presented with this information by her small daughter? Do you honestly think Martha would have been believed?

That's right. "Mild mannered milkmaids" invariably accuse their opponents of heartlessly ignoring molested children. "unless you're willing to sacrifice the sheep..."

Only if the sheep happens to be the daughter of a prominent LDS icon. I have no doubt you'd be very sympathetic to other sheep.

I am talking about the thread in which you sneered about how worthless the sealing you attended was.

Balderdash. I certainly never said it was worthless. Certainly not spectacular, but also not worthless. Who's mindreading now?

You don't know that. No one does, her family's protestations notwithstanding. There was no trial, so no justice has been done.

And never will be -- for the accused.

Or for Martha. No closure, just an open wound forever, if indeed the abuse took place.

It's about Martha and the abuse she allegedly suffered. The validity of the allegation will never be adjudicated, because we don't convict the dead in this country.

Only in the court of public opinion, based upon accusations that have every appearance of being scurrilous.

The court of public opinion? My gosh, man. Since when does gossip count? If gossip counted, Joseph would have been hanged after the bank scandel!

[Analytics]

You keep trying to smear Martha with it though, even though she was the victim.

Don't you mean alleged victim? Or are you saying that she's a victim even if she's lying or sincere but mistaken? I mean, you haven't taken sides, right?

.

[_asbestosman]

People have no business getting involved at all. Child abuse is a police matter. There is no excuse for the public to get involved at all, except as appropriate, such as witnesses. Those who are required to report (teachers, counselors, law enforcement personnel, etc) have no business basing their reporting possible child abuse or lack of reporting possible child abuse on suspicion of false allegations. They are required to report, no matter what.

Withholding a report because of suspicion of false allegations is not the duty of those who have a duty to report nor is it the arena of the average villager. That withholding is what allowed the wolf to devour the sheep, Pahoran. Which makes the villagers more culpable, not the victims.

Is this the crux of the dispute between you and Pahoran? I certainly cannot disagree with you there. The only problem I have is that while the allegations are being investigated, the average villager will not only discriminate against the accused, but even persecute him. Shouldn't the average villager at least wait for the police and the court to do its job before deciding that the accused is guilty until proven innocent as they currently do?

Again, I cannot disagree with you about the duty we have to report any suspected abuse regardless of how much we suspect it may be false.

[_Pahoran]

The Nibleys had eight children in a three bedroom house. How does that work? Well, you have all the girls in one room, all the boys in another, and the parents in the third (usually largest) room. Martha and her sister slept on top and bottom bunks. Martha's dream/recovered memory/thingy has her father coming into her room in the middle of the night with an Egyptian mask on to molest her. Where was her sister at the time? Asleep on the other bunk.

And yet Moroni appears to Joseph Smith in the middle of the night in a bright light, carries on a conversation with Joseph, and never manages to wake up any of the others sharing Joseph's bedroom.

Maybe Nibley learned the secret from Moroni.

Exactly. In order to pretend that these things are equivalent, you have to presume that Nibley was a supernatural being.

Your tu quoque fallacy relies upon comparing apples and onions.

Do you ever listen to yourself?

That's just what I wonder about you.

Snip gratuitous blasphemy.

Regards,
Pahoran

[_Pahoran]

To save us all some time, let us stipulate to Harmony/Serenity/WAZing's Articles of Hate:

1. All men are disgusting pigs, and sexual predators under the skin.
2. Mormon men are the worst of the lot.
3. And the worst of the worst, the most hated and cursed, are the ones who have the temerity to question unsupported accusations of child abuse. I mean, how dare they?

With that out of the way, let us continue:

Did I?

I've gone back over this entire thread. Carefully. I've looked and looked again.

I cannot find where I called her a liar.

So where is it?

I have questioned the credibility of the allegations in her book. I am discussing what she chose to publish in her book.

Which you label as lies. She tells lies, falsehoods as you've also called them, and yet she's not a liar? Splitting that hair a bit finely, Pahoran.

You said that I "called her a liar." Thank you for admitting that I did not.

And you made that up.

Then there's what she suppresses. She was genuinely molested by a neighbour boy as a pre-teen. This is a huge omission, since she relies upon her various emotional problems, and alleged vaginal scarring, to give credence to her accusations against her father, and the genuine episode may well account for both.

I'm surprised at you, Pahoran. I'm sure you know that just because she was molested by a neighbor boy when she was a pre-teen doesn't mean she wasn't molested by her father previously when she was a child. The scarring could certainly have already been in place when the neighbor boy molested her.

You don't get it, yet again, Harmony/Serenity/WAZing.

It's not just that you don't agree with me. It is that you just don't get it; probably because you don't want to.

The issue is not just that she was molested. The issue is that she was molested by a neighbour boy, AND she suppressed that fact from her nov--er, her "memoir," DESPITE THE FACT that it may well account for ALL of the other things that she chooses to lay at her father's door.

She claims to have left the Church over "doctrinal differences," and suppresses the fact that she was having an extra-marital (same-sex) liaison at the time.

I'm not seeing how the reason she left the church has anything to do with the alleged child abuse, but I'm sure you'll tie the knot nicely. I'm also sure you know that doctrinal issues may exist in the same time continuum and reality as do extra martial liaison, in the same person. One does not preclude the other. Some but not all people with doctrinal issues may have extra marital affairs just as some but not all people who have extra marital affairs may have doctrinal issues.

Well, rather than take my word for it, I'll refer you to what her former husband said. I know, he's a man (ugh!) but you should be able to sympathise with his viewpoint on two fronts: (1) he's an ex-Mormon, and (2) he's gay. Here is what he told Kent Jackson:

John states that, "One of the reasons we both left the Church is because we are gay." He continues, "Martha's leaving the Church was very tied up with the affair (mostly emotional affair, but some physicality involved) that she was having at that time." John stresses that both Martha's affair and her sexual abuse by the neighbor boy are "huge variables," and "if she were doing a regression analysis as a sociologist, she'd have to include them in the equation to explain the correlations."

I bolded the last part because John is also a Harvard PhD and seems to know what he is talking about.

Incidentally, John also wrote a review of Martha's book on Amazon. He does not address the sexual abuse accusations, but highlights several discrepancies which, like all the other discrepancies in her book, all tend in the one direction -- to make Mormons look bad, and Martha look like a victim.

I am not basing my verdict upon "what other people said about her." I am basing it upon verifiable facts.

You just got through saying there are no "verifiable facts" about her father's alleged abuse, so how can you verify that which is not in evidence? You cannot prove a negative.

That's right. Which is why (1) the burden of proof remains with the accuser, and (2) we can only go on the allegations we can test.

Snip irrelevant tu quoque fallacy.

All you've verified is your lame critieria for connecting the dots. I think all you've done is connect your dots into a sheep you're willing to sacrifice, in order to keep the beloved icon's reputation clean.

You really are obsessed with this "beloved icon" straw man of yours, aren't you? Since this image exists only in your mind -- I have not brought it up -- I'm going to do a little "sauce for the goose" right now: I think you are so enamoured of Martha's baseless accusations precisely because a "beloved [Mormon] icon" is the target. Proving such an accusation would be an anti-Mormon's masturbatory fantasy -- and there is absolutely no question that you are a hard-core anti-Mormon.

I don't need to. She documented it in her BOOK.

Her BOOK, Harmony.

The subject of this thread.

And yet she is free today. So perhaps that doesn't qualify as one of your "facts".

Well, for all I know she may have made that episode up out of whole cloth too. But I don't think so. Disclosures that are against the interest of the one making them are generally reliable.

Believe it or not, incarceration does not automatically follow wrongdoing. Someone has to lay a complaint with the authorities. Evidently Martha's family -- including her father -- have been considerably more "loving" towards her than she has to them.

And false accusations do not serve the interests of genuinely molested children. The reaction to the "recovered memory" fiasco has not been to be more aware of child molestation, but to be more aware of false accusations. Which is a good thing, but it would have been better for abused children overall if the "recovered memory" fiasco -- of which Martha's accusations are a legacy -- had never happened.

And now you are able to decide, for all abused children, what would be a good thing for them. How wonderful that they have you as a champion. What did you say your degree was in? A PhD in Child Psychology? We are blessed indeed to have you among us.

Your sarcasm is only exceeded by your spite. I am talking from a position of common sense. Remember the "boy who cried wolf" story you keep bleating about? You insist that the villagers were the ones at fault for eventually getting sick of being jerked around, but the unanimous verdict of all reasonable people is that what happened to the sheep was the boy's fault.

(I'm sure you can relate to that. After all, the boy was male.)

Snip drivel.

I didn't say that it did, Harmony. I just want to make sure you're not missing something. You keep attacking me on the apparent assumption that I don't care a whit about abused children. I'll say it again -- and yes, I'll even bold it -- false accusations do not serve the interests of genuinely molested children. And rejecting false accusations does not "sacrifice" or otherwise harm genuinely molested children.

False accusations don't serve anyone, Pahoran.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

At last you see my point.

However, you have yet to prove that Martha's accusation is false.

But, as you know, I don't have to do any such thing. The burden of proof remains with the accuser.

No one can, because the accused is dead, and so is the issue.

If the issue is dead, why does this thread exist?

You keep trying to smear Martha with it though, even though she was the victim.

So you finally have the courage to own up to the side you have taken all along.

Thank you again.

She was only "the victim" if her accusations are true. If they are not, then her family and her late father are the victims.

Your arrogant and presumptuous mind-reading is beyond tedious.

I reject her allegations for the reasons I have repeatedly said: because they are internally absurd, externally unsupported, and form an organic part of a collection of stories, many of which are provably false.

You are being the villager, Pahoran. Martha's false stories (which you haven't yet proven all to be false) notwithstanding, the allegation of child abuse has not been dismissed by a court of law (the court of your opinion or even mine, notwithstanding), and now cannot be dismissed due to the death of the alleged perpetrator.

So, the accusation remains unproven, and her father remains innocent.

Frankly, I suspect that, had she tried to drag her father into court -- after the "recovered memory" fiasco, that is -- it would have been thrown out before it got to trial, on the basis that there was no case for her father to answer. You see, Harmony/Serenity/WAZing, "recovered memories" are so notoriously unreliable that they are just as good as if no accusation had been made at all.

The credibility of the accusation is highly suspect.

Harmony: try to get this into your head, if indeed there is room: THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU AND YOUR SISTER. The fact that Martha's allegations are false does not mean your sister was a liar. You will NOT help your sister by crucifying a hated Mormon.

Try to not shout, Pahoran. I'm right here and can read in small case letters too.

So you say, but you keep on talking right past the points I make.

Snip irrelevancy.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why, if this abuse took place as alleged (when Martha was 5-7 years old), she didn't report it to her mother then? Do you think she, as a 5-7 year old, could have told her mother what her father was supposedly doing to her?

How could she? According to her, she "suppressed" the memory, just like she has suppressed relevant information in her book now.

Snip baseless speculations.

I am talking about the thread in which you sneered about how worthless the sealing you attended was.

Balderdash. I certainly never said it was worthless. Certainly not spectacular, but also not worthless. Who's mindreading now?

Your contribution to that thread does not look like something that was written by anyone who actually respects the Temple and the sacredness of its ordinances.

Probably because it wasn't.

The court of public opinion? My gosh, man. Since when does gossip count? If gossip counted, Joseph would have been hanged after the bank scandel!

Gossip hurts real people. Martha's (well-compensated) gossip about her family has hurt them, and continues to do so.

But hey -- why care about them?

After all, they're only Mormons, right?

Regards,
Pahoran

[_Rollo Tomasi]

As for "shunning," I've had friends who have left the Church and experienced the same type of feelings (i.e., Church members turning the other way and pretending not to see them at the store, etc.). I agree there is no formal practice of "shunning" practiced by the Church (as exists in other religions), but the practical effect can still be there for some.

But this is not about "feelings;" Martha described, in detail, a specific practice: the neighbours came out of the houses and "showed us their backs" until the Becks were out of sight. Mura hachibu, expulsion from the village.

I agree that Martha's use of mura hachibu may be hyperbole, but at the same time perhaps that was the best way Martha could use to describe how she felt. She clearly felt that she and John were being "shunned," so she used a phrase that best described that to her (even if not with clinical accuracy). She often uses hyperbole in the book to describe how she felt (rather than expressing an objective result one might get in a lab setting). One example is her description of the first time she went through the temple endowment ceremony. She described how she struggled to put the temple robes on correctly when the time came, and that everyone was looking at her and everyone let out a sigh of relief when she was done. I seriously doubt everyone there was watching her or giving a sigh of relief, so technically speaking her recounting would be incorrect, but it very well may have seemed to her that everyone was looking and was relieved when she finally finished (I felt the same way my first time through). Again, her story is not a history book or scientific manual -- it's just her subjective feelings about what she experienced.

It's hard, from the book alone, to reconstruct what Martha actually did in her search of Sonia Johnson material at BYU's library. She writes that she looked up references she'd gotten from books that quoted specific newspaper articles. She doesn't name the newspapers or even name the books that she got the references from. She also doesn't tell us how the articles were "missing" -- whether they were they cut out or redacted or something else. We simply know she spent less than 2 hours looking for them back in the early 90's and found nothing.

But it was her idea to tell the story the way she did, with the intent to show that BYU -- and by extension, the Church -- had rigorously and thoroughly censored Sonia Johnson's information out of existence.

I took it to simply be how she felt when she couldn't find anything. It was her subjective conclusion. She may have been wrong due to sloppy research, but to her she was looking for something controversial that she could not find, and concluded that BYU had intentionally censored material about Sonia Johnson. Again, this is her point of view since it's her story.

If you want to defend her by saying that she simply was sloppy in her research, I'll accept that; because it means you are conceding that her accusation against BYU was not true.

Frankly, I don't know one way or the other. I don't have enough evidence to conclude that she was wrong in her conclusion when she did the search in 1992 or so.

Having said that, I've heard that it actually took the person who checked her story less than five minutes to find the first SJ article.

But 15 years after Martha's search. in my opinion, it is impossible 15 years later to reenact the same circumstances under which Martha performed her search.

And I also find it hard to believe that a Harvard-trained PhD would be unable to navigate a library's indexing system.

I don't know what Martha meant by referring to BYU's "retrieval system" (the term she uses in the book).