Our newest member, Wayneman: Shades' missionary companion??

[_Ray A]

To think that a church puts people like you in positions of authority over others, is telling of the flaws and weakness in the system. What standard of care did they use in choosing you?

Well, it goes something like this. A person serves a mission, has a temple recommend, pays tithing, etc., serves in callings, is usually raising a young family, and the stake president feels impressed that he should be the next bishop, but makes no move until he confides with his counselors, then they pray for confirmation.

It's not something you'd understand. But that's the way it works in the Church.

If you'd like to register formal complaints about my time as a bishop, or you have any specific charges to make against me then do so, but as far as I am aware, none have been made. Not by any member who was under my jurisdiction. You, of course, are well placed to judge that, I am sure, on the Internet, 26 years after I was released.

[_marg]

The point is people like Harmony are obeying rules of a cult, listening to the advice of Bishops who are chosen based on loyalty to the organization more than anything else. Her loyalty is not about having to believe in a God it's about obedience to a organization which has created their own rules and practices. So she wears garments she doesn't want to because to not do so would bother her husband a loyal obedient member. Her wearing of garments when she doesn't want is an indication which gives me reason to think she lacks high personal integrity to follow through on what's best for her, what makes sense, what's right and wrong. She obviously is quite obedient in appearance in real life, but on here likes to complain.

[_harmony]

The point is people like Harmony are obeying rules of a cult, listening to the advice of Bishops who are chosen based on loyalty to the organization more than anything else. Her loyalty is not about having to believe in a God it's about obedience to a organization which has created their own rules and practices. So she wears garments she doesn't want to because to not do so would bother her husband a loyal obedient member. Her wearing of garments when she doesn't want is an indication which gives me reason to think she lacks high personal integrity to follow through on what's best for her, what makes sense, what's right and wrong. She obviously is quite obedient in appearance in real life, but on here likes to complain.

Never make the mistake of thinking you actually know something, marg. You'd just be... wrong.

[_Daniel Peterson]

The point is people like Harmony are obeying rules of a cult, listening to the advice of Bishops who are chosen based on loyalty to the organization more than anything else.

We're back to the status quo ante: I disagree with marg.

She doesn't know what she's talking about. And, in the past at least, she's been entirely content with that.

[_marg]

Neither one of you two addressed the words you quote with any sort of substance, instead you resort to ad hom. Harmony you should think twice before using the word "never" in ways in which is it unrealistic.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Neither one of you two addressed the words you quote with any sort of substance

I've written a book, entitled Offenders for a Word, which is partially devoted to arguing, at length, that the term cult, used as a pejorative, is essentially meaningless.

That's half of your claim.

Now for the other half:

I flatly deny that bishops "are chosen based on loyalty to the organization more than anything else," and I declare that you do not have and cannot be in possession of evidence to demonstrate your claim.

Direct denial of your claims is about as substantive as it's possible to be.

[_The Nehor]

Nothing like two old women beating the crap out of each other to provide comic relief.

[_Jersey Girl]

Nothing like two old women beating the crap out of each other to provide comic relief.

Nehor,

I understand how much you value your position as resident Jack in the Box of this board however, might I point out to you that if gender and age related comments are the best you've got, you might wanna work on your catalog of non-constructive comments. I've known both of these "old women" for years and on their worst day, both are more intellectually vibrant than you on what you might consider your best.

It does not escape my attention that you made no mention of the "old guy" in these exchanges and why is that, eh?

[_marg]

I'm sorry Daniel for possibly giving you the impression I would respond to you. There is no point, remember you don't talk with me. And I don't have a problem with that, as I have no interest in talking with you. That saves us both time.

This post is not for you to respond to. Infymus has this to say about garments and I agree with him:

In all reality, garments in the LDS Church are an absolute control mechanism. It is another key in the Cult of Mormonism to bind a member to the church. If you can create a religion and require your members to wear special underwear, you will have a high level of power over those members.

And of course an organization exerts power and control over members when it can get them to reveal their private sex lives to those put into authority positions like Bishops in Mormon church. Bishops who have no need to know, nor expertise other than what the church/cult wants and teaches in order to control and manipulate. It exerts power and control when it can get members to feel guilty about not conforming to sexual practice dictates. When it can get members to feel guilty...about anything. Guilt is a natural feeling people have when they know they are doing something wrong, but it can also be unnecessarily inflictedand used in order to manipulate and control the vulnerable.

With regards to cults obviously there are degrees of how cultish an organization is and various factors which make an organization rightfully be viewed as having properties of a cult.

taken from http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cultinfo.html

Eight Conditions of Thought Reform

as presented in
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China, by Robert Jay Lifton, M.D.; W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1963.

One condition

The Cult of Confession:

Closely related to the demand for absolute purity is an obsession with personal confession. Confession is carried beyond its ordinary religious, legal, and therapeutic expressions to the point of becoming a cult in itself. (Page 425.)
Public confessional periods are used to get members to verbalize and discuss their innermost fears and anxieties as well as past imperfections.

The environment demands that personal boundaries are destroyed and that every thought, feeling, or action that does not conform with the group's rules be confessed.

Members have little or no privacy, physically or mentally.

[_Jason Bourne]

And by the way, if Ray can be a Bishop, Ray who admits to using prostitutes, who admits to drinking beer while he posts on the Net for his main entertainment in life, the same Ray who isn't the sharpest tool in the shed then it is apparent that anyone , strike that, any man with questionable morals and mental reasoning ability can be a Bishop.

Uh and by the way Marg I think you just made an argument not based in facts. If I recall, Ray was an LDS bishop as a member in good standing. Ray's questionable behavior listed above happened after he was no longer an LDS bishop and indeed, when he was not even a member of the LDS Church. I think that little point is rather important.

As for Ray not being the sharpest tool in the shed, readers can decided that for themselves. But yea, there is not any intelligence test for someone to be asked to be an LDS bishop. Some are fairly bright, some not and of course some in between.

However, based on my immense experience with LDS bishops I can tell you most are fairly decent people who try hard to do a difficult job the best they can. And most genuinely care for the people they are asked to lead for a four to seven year period of their life.

In many ways it is a unique thing and the way it works has problems and advantages. But for those who serve as a bishop it can be one of the most rewarding experiences of their lives and one that cannot really be explained or understood unless one experiences it or something similar.