"This is NOT the place to ask questions"!

[_The Nehor]

Who pissed in your corn flakes this morning, Nehor?

I had Kashi.

[_Jersey Girl]

Okay, now I'm just pissed. Apparently I'm not permitted to hold an opinion without registering the number of times I've attended an LDS Church, interacted with a Bishop and maybe I should get up a head count of LDS I've interacted with on the ground over the last 30 frickin' years. Does any one need to know the number of LDS posters I've interacted with? A post count separated out by boards over the last 10 years?

Just let me know!

[_The Nehor]

This is a good point. I'll never ask you to discuss your god again.

Okay.

by the way, you might want to get off the mushrooms.

But I like mushrooms on my pizza.

[_dblagent007]

Jersey Girl, how many times have you attended an LDS Church? Or interacted with an LDS Bishop, excluding Internet message boards? I'm just curious.

Why? Is it that you think I've never attended an LDS Church? That I've never interacted with an LDS Bishop? That you think that based on your assumptions that I don't have anything to base my opinion of plausiblity on?

Your own posts on this thread and those of others, indicate that it's plausible.

I have never said it was plausible. I already stated what I thought would have been plausible above. zzyzyzyyzysyzy's story is ridiculous.

If you had some experience dealing with Bishops and stake presidents then maybe your opinion would take on some new meaning. As it is, you are just blowing empty wind.

[_dblagent007]

Okay, now I'm just pissed. Apparently I'm not permitted to hold an opinion without registering the number of times I've attended an LDS Church, interacted with a Bishop and maybe I should get up a head count of LDS I've interacted with on the ground over the last 30 frickin' years. Does any one need to know the number of LDS posters I've interacted with? A post count separated out by boards over the last 10 years?

Just let me know!

If you have an opinion about the plausibility of the actions of a Bishop and a high councilor in a Sunday School class, it would help if you could show that you had actually been to a Sunday School class and/or interacted with a few Bishops and high councilors in a church capacity.

[_Jersey Girl]

If you have an opinion about the plausibility of the actions of a Bishop and a high councilor in a Sunday School class, it would help if you could show that you had actually been to a Sunday School class and/or interacted with a few Bishops and high councilors in a church capacity.

Really? How would you suggest that an anonymous poster on a message board "show" that they've been to a SS class or interacted with a few Bishops, etc?

[_Jersey Girl]

I have never said it was plausible. I already stated what I thought would have been plausible above. zzyzyzyyzysyzy's story is ridiculous.

If you had some experience dealing with Bishops and stake presidents then maybe your opinion would take on some new meaning. As it is, you are just blowing empty wind.

Nowhere on this thread, have I stated that I thought the OP was true. I simply stated that I thought it was plausible. This is based on personal observations of groups of LDS in real life and on these types of boards.

To begin with, the OP paraphrases throughout. Why haven't any of you self appointed sharp shooters noted that?

The OP has been attacked as a "liar", a "pathological liar" essentially accusing him of being mentally ill, you yourself have stated in what instances you think a member would be shunned, how to oust someone in an official capacity, you yourself have advised the OP on how to hide his personal information lest it be passed on to the church.

For pete sakes, agent, look at what you all are displaying here.

Do you see any posts of disagreement on this thread that are temperate in nature? Do you see any secure persons simply saying "I doubt this happened, it hasn't been my experience". Do you?

Review the thread, agent, look at the over the top reaction the OP has gotten. Are people offended by the OP? A secure person would say " I find this offensive". What the OP has gotten in return is accusations of lying and mental illness.

Do you all not see yourselves? It's generated a mini-feeding frenzy and you're telling him how to hide himself.

[_Jersey Girl]

To Whom It May Concern (you know who you are):

If you want to know what makes the OP appear even remotely plausible to an outsider and observer of Mormonism/Mormon culture, please take a moment of your time to notice how you all treat each other.

What I see on these boards is not unlike the type of "smearing" I have witnessed in real life. My statement of plausibility is not a blanket condemnation of LDS or LDS culture, for fortunately, not all LDS engage in such things.

[_Sethbag]

We have to remember the Bell Curve. Most Sundays, in most LDS wards, most of the priesthood and relief society classes wouldn't have something like this go on. These would fall under the majority of the curve. But the whole point of the bell curve is that the tail ends represent the extremes, and the area under these is small to vanishingly small, depending on how far outside the norm one chooses to look.

Most of the time, our relief society and priesthood meetings would not be noteworthy to anyone else, so they go unremarked on on a board like this. It's only logical that the ones we hear about are the ones that aren't under the vast majority of the curve, ie: they are the ones at the tail ends of the curves, the ones unusual enough to be remarked on.

I'm not sure the "gut feel" of what is plausible to have gone on in such a meeting, as judged by most Mormons, would be the most reliable indicator of whether zzyzyx is making this up or not, because our gut feel is probably tuned to the usual routine, the most common part of the curve.

Personally, I think something like this is plausible, as an unusual occurrence. I experienced a meeting not quite this extreme, but under the same end of the curve, a few years back in the Nashua, NH ward. We had a combined stake and relief society meeting where some folks came in and started introducing us to the efforts of a group of LDS who were organizing politically to promote an anti-gay-marriage bill in the NH legislature. They were passing out a roster people could use to sign up to donate time and be involved in this effort and whatnot.

I raised my hand and expressed doubt that we ought to be doing this. People shifted uncomfortably in their seats, and the person in charge asked what I meant. I brought up the efforts of people in the second half of the 1800s to pass laws making our unusual form of marriage illegal, and punishing the LDS for practicing marriage in a way that most in the country thought was immoral. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and we're the ones using the law to trample on some other group trying to practice a form of marriage which we have judged to be immoral. After going back and forth with the guy, while everyone else looked on in kind of stunned silence at the (gasp!) expression of dissent from what was going on, the person in charge (from another ward in our stake) said that this was not the time nor place to discuss this sort of thing, and if I didn't like it, I should leave. So I got up and left.

Now, that's the sort of thing that doesn't usually happen in our combined RS/priesthood meetings, and yet it did happen to me. I don't see why the OP's experience couldn't have happened, especially if it was in one of the more backwards, inbred sort of Mormon place like the OP described.

I'm not saying it happened, or that I think that it probably did happen. I wasn't there, so I really don't know. But I don't think I would reject it out of hand as impossible.

[_Nevo]

Do you see any posts of disagreement on this thread that are temperate in nature?

Do you see any posts of zzyzx that are temperate in nature? I think your umbrage is misplaced.

I find plenty of posts offensive on this board. I rarely respond to them because, frankly, I don't think they deserve a response (see, e.g., the current thread "Was Joseph Smith a Sexual Predator?"). But when I see someone inventing stories and preying on the gullibility of people already disposed to believe the worst about the Church, I'm going to call them on it. Sorry if that offends your sensibilities.