And I always enjoy it when those who insist on "truth in advertising" get coy with pertinent facts. Of course, it makes a difference if you were an ordained bishop, or a first counselor in a bishopric when you relate a direct experience. It wouldn't make a hill of beans difference if you were opining about the Book of Abraham, or the narrow neck of land. Here it does. You made representations that are beginning to sound little fishy. Like the guy who insisted he was almsot a Seventy. He had gotten all the way to the Sixty's. Nobody "steps into" being the "boss" of the ward.
Indeed. Fishy, and "the one that got away" at that.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.
truth dancer wrote:OK... the following statement helps me figure out from where Charity comes.
If you knew anything about abusive relationships, you would know that the hardest thing to do is to get the woman to DECIDE to leave the abusive relationship. To press charges against her abuser. Get a grip.
Charity... there is not a reputable, honorable, ethical therapist who deals with abuse in the Country who believe it is her or his job to "get the woman to DECIDE to leave the abusive relationship."
You seriously have a bizarre and odd perspective/understanding when it comes to counseling. Thankfully you never had actual clients or patients.
Women who are survivors of abuse do not need one more person to tell them what to do.
~dancer~
Okay, I'm eeking out on the limb here. I think the therapists role is to help the victim to discover the dynamic and their role in it.
[quote="Coggins7
You shouldn't laugh Bish, after all, your story is just that...a story. I have become very leery over the years of anti or exmo "coming out" stories, for the simply reason that many of these contain thematic elements that have all the marks of being written by a committee. Not that they are, but that those thematic elements; urban legends that have grown up in the anti and exmormon world, are things that are supposed to happen to people in the Church that trigger "study" and finally apostasy. They get used over and over again, in slightly different combinations, and the overall effect is to impress upon the mind the idea of a conveyor belt churning out those romance novels all of which have essentially the same title, same cover art, and same...thematic elements. In a nutshell, much of this is clearly used as a template by many who didn't actually have the experiences they claim (even thought they may have, indeed, had some experience), but whose experiences are embeliishable within the template. Hence, the standard "how I left the Mormon Church" story that is part and parcel of places like RFM.
Historically, when confronted with an anecdote such as this, my first response is to roll my eyes and say, "uh huh". The reason for this is that if you story were true, it would be very irregular; a rather large lunge away from Priesthood responsibility for your leaders in that Stake. Abuse of one's family by a Priesthood holder, and especially sexual or physical abuses of any kind, are grounds for putative excommunication. These are sins for which one can be tried for one's membership in the Church. It is very serious. My dad was a Bishop for ten years. I've read all of the manuals, and I know how serious these things are from official Church sources.[/quote]
Uh, ok, so we're all lying?
Could it be Coggins, that the stories have similar thematic elements because such stories . . . ummm, let's see here . . . actually share common thematic elements?
One thing I've learned is that, while experiences are unique in unique, ways, they also have much in common. With hundreds, thousands, millions, etc. of people, yes, you will find common themes.
God . . . "who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, . . . and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him ..."
There was even some of this type of cover-up in my own wife's family when she was younger.
And this is where it starts to smell of sardines in oil...
Point is, it happened...much more often than it should have. Like TD, I see an improvement in how this is handled today. For a few years, I worked in a professional capacity with LDS Social Services as they made efforts to improve the various challenges in the mental health arena.
Disfellowshipment or even excommunication have been the traditional remedies for the unrepentant regarding sins such as this, not "cover ups". You're story is getting fishier by the second Bish.
But I would like to invite Charity and others to consider why their Mormon minds immediately go to the suspicion of my story.
Because its suspicious Bish. Charity and Nehor immediately pointed out problems with your understanding of Church government.
Charity, with her psychology background, at least should be familiar with this process. We react to attacks. There have been many "attacks" on the LDS claims recently. Most of them have legitimacy, and may imply that the church is less than the stellar organization it claims to be. Since we personalize our faith as being "us," it is natural to "fight or flee" from the attacks. I think it is obvious this is what is happeneing here. Daily. And sometimes the fighting becomes humorous and sooooo illogical.
I have an extensive psychology background as well, and because of that I understand that anyone can use psychology talk to cast either aspersions or acclaim and to impugn or valorize, as one wishes. I don't think the vast majority of the claims against the Church have legitimacy, and they have been so demonstrated again and again. And in any case, this has nothing to do with the point at hand.
But I understand why it is done. It is easier to fight to stay in one's comfort zone than challenge that paradigm to possibly require the discomfort of complete spiritual alteration. I went through the latter. It wasn't easy. But for me, it was very worth it.
This is nothing but tactical wordplay, and does nothing to substantiate the claims you have made thus far in this thread. You're anecdotal coming out story is, like most others I've ever read, belied by my own experience in the Church over some 40 years. It may have happened, but there is no way to check any embellishment or exaggeration in your telling of it.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.
Coggins7 wrote: Abuse of one's family by a Priesthood holder, and especially sexual or physical abuses of any kind, are grounds for putative excommunication.
And this alone is one very real reason why these women do NOT want to go to the police. They don't want their husbands jailed. This is why it takes so long for them to go to their bishops! They don't want their husbands excommunicated. What they want is for their husbands to stop the abuse, to follow the prophet, to live up to their temple covenants
Get a grip, Loran. These women will bear the burden of being a divorcee, of having an ex'ed husband, of having a husband in jail, of having the father of their children be a pariah (and she also by extention... we all know what wards are like) in her community. What she wants is for her husband to be what she was led to believe he was when she married him: a man worthy to take her to the CK! And she wants her bishop to counsel/shame/make him be a worthy LDS man. (a vain hope, but still... it's there).
had a purpose in responding as I did...to show how the Mormon mind works. It worked.
You see, there's a "Mormon mind" that works differently than a normal human mind. This label "Mormon mind" that sets Mormons off from their betters (critics) will heretofore function in the same manner as "neocon" "denier", "fascist", "running dog capitalist", "proletarian" and "nigger" once functioned, and in some cases, still do function, as labels that marginalize and create an inherent out-group status regarding the people one wishes to remove from legitimate presence in the arena of ideas. Each of these categories is or was understood to have a "mind" or consciousness that pervades and defines the group. Each individual can be understood through the dynamics inherent in the group, and can be accepted or dismissed upon those grounds alone. Bishopric doesn't have to debate apologists. All he needs do is chalk up every counterargument to the mechanitions of the "Mormon mind" and have done with it.
Nice work if you can get it.
Most Mormons I know have minds as heterogeneous and idiosyncratic as the minds of most other normal human beings. I even have a home teacher who's a...Yipe!...Democrat. As incredible as that may sound, he very obviously would not agree with me on a number of issues. We do all agree, at least the faithful, on a number of things of spiritual import, things that transcend our nominal politics or tastes in music or food. And in this, yes, we are very much the same. As Christ said, we are to by one; we are to be unified in doctrine, practice, and faith.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.
Coggins7 wrote:Disfellowshipment or even excommunication have been the traditional remedies for the unrepentant regarding sins such as this, not "cover ups". You're story is getting fishier by the second Bish.
Which is why most women in this situation do NOT go to their bishops. And why when women DO go to their bishops, they want the bishop to fix it, not to discipline their husbands.
Charity and Nehor immediately pointed out problems with your understanding of Church government.
Read the whole thread before you reply, Loran. It will save you from making a fool of yourself, and save us from having to witness it... again.
I have an extensive psychology background as well, and because of that I understand that anyone can use psychology talk to cast either aspersions or acclaim and to impugn or valorize, as one wishes.
Where did you get your PhD from? I have a Masters in Counseling Psych, and i don't consider myself to have an 'extensive' background in it. It takes a PhD to be able to say that. So I repeat: where did you get your PhD from? What was your dissertation about? What research have you authored?
I don't think the vast majority of the claims against the Church have legitimacy, and they have been so demonstrated again and again.
Which is why the church pays out millions of dollars in settlements and damages, because the claims have no validity. R-i-i-i-ght. I have some oceanfront property in Arizona you might be interested in.
And in any case, this has nothing to do with the point at hand.
Then why did you bring it up?
This is nothing but tactical wordplay, and does nothing to substantiate the claims you have made thus far in this thread. You're anecdotal coming out story is, like most others I've ever read, belied by my own experience in the Church over some 40 years. It may have happened, but there is no way to check any embellishment or exaggeration in your telling of it.
It's outside my frame of reference too, but I don't discount it on that basis.
Happy to. Charity's silly question seemed apropos of nothing and not in the least responsive to my statement until I used my talents as an internet psychiatrist wanna-be and interpreted it metaphorically. "You want we should sit on a mountain top" ... as in the Mormon superior position of knowing their church is true ... "and contemplate the existence of fog" ... as in studying the literary creations of Joseph Smith as if they had ever actually lived much less spoke for God ... Yep, pretty much what Mormonism is about, sitting on their high horses in a fog, contemplating nothing real. If Charity had anything of substance in her ideology she could have responded with substance, but instead she fell back on the only thing she knows, get on her high horse and stir up some fog.
This looks for all the world like the classic spiritual penis envy we get from those for whom the claim that one knows some truths that others might not know is not a challenge to educate oneself and learn if this be true but a threat to one's intellectual, psychological, and emotional turf.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.