The reason the Church does not sue individuals or identities responsible for slander against the Church (whether provable or not) is because of the counter lawsuits that would be returned and up the ant[e].
So, the church doesn't sue because it's afraid of countersuits? This seems to be contradicted by:
The Church is a great resource of MONEY in which it can be sued and bled by those who can prove they have been victimized and deserve compensation for losses they have incurred.
People--most often sexual assault survivors-- are doing this anyway without being sued by the church first. My apologies, but this renders me unable to accept your explanation.
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"When the Mormon God requires a PR crisis to act moral, we've clearly outgrown him."
The reason the Church does not sue individuals or identities responsible for slander against the Church (whether provable or not) is because of the counter lawsuits that would be returned and up the ant[e].
So, the church doesn't sue because it's afraid of countersuits? This seems to be contradicted by:
The Church is a great resource of MONEY in which it can be sued and bled by those who can prove they have been victimized and deserve compensation for losses they have incurred.
People--most often sexual assault survivors-- are doing this anyway without being sued by the church first. My apologies, but this renders me unable to accept your explanation.
Shades,
I think you'll agree how the Church is heavily influenced by its legal department and how this secretive arm of the Church is hired to protect the interests and fortunes of the Church. Look, it's my observation that the Church is not in the business of initiating litigation against others and avoids lawsuits as much as possible and spends its energies defending it's position and meeting obligations when it loses. The Church in my view likes to keep a low profile and not tell anyone how much it has in its wallet -- Ensign Peak is proof of that.
It's fine that we disagree on how the Church operates from a legalistic point of view, you need not apologize.
If the church was going to sue someone it would be John Dehlin. I’m sure he has said something false during one of his many rants.
Nobody reports things with 100% accuracy. Human error and mistakes are always at play but let's keep in mind that there is a difference between mistakenly reporting something that is not accurate and knowingly with intent reporting something that is false in order to inflict damage to the reputation of the other party.
Based on the presentations I've witnessed from John Dehlin it seems clear enough that he is trying to report everything as accurately as he can and in good faith. BUT the Church does not do that and I can prove it; take the explanations for Facsimile No. 3 -- they are outright lies and deceptions and the Church continues to stand by them attempting to hoodwink the members and tell potential members that Joseph Smith translated the gold plates and papyrus by God's power. THAT is a lie. There is zero power manifested by the translation given in the explanations of the Facsimiles. The Church continues to falsely misrepresent ancient Egypt and has knowingly corrupted its language and art. Thus the Church continues to lie repeatedly on this issue knowing full well that science has proven their case false. And yet they allow their apologists to continue to falsely represent Egyptology and lie for the Church! That is criminal in nature if you ask me.
The time is coming when the Church will be sued for this reprehensible behavior, either in America or some other country -- or in some court of opinion whether legal or not. The Church is going to pay for their continuous slander and false statements they make about another religion (ancient Egypt) and for publishing invalid material in order to promote faith and seek new converts. The Church is guilty.
John Gee, you're a dirty rat and a liar. You're not a good person. You're a liar.
I suppose they recognize this was allegedly written by someone with a mental health condition brought on by possible early childhood abuse that resulted in DID.
This.
The Church likely views suing a mentally disabled individual as looking pretty unsavory, from a public image standpoint.
If the church was going to sue someone it would be John Dehlin. I’m sure he has said something false during one of his many rants.
You missed the word "obvious" in my thread title. I posted a link to a website whose author claims that Thomas S. Monson told him about "The Left-Hand Path," which is the Satanic path to achieving salvation (or whatever). John Dehlin hasn't claimed anything anywhere near as outrageous as that.
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"When the Mormon God requires a PR crisis to act moral, we've clearly outgrown him."
If the church was going to sue someone it would be John Dehlin. I’m sure he has said something false during one of his many rants.
You missed the word "obvious" in my thread title. I posted a link to a website whose author claims that Thomas S. Monson told him about "The Left-Hand Path," which is the Satanic path to achieving salvation (or whatever). John Dehlin hasn't claimed anything anywhere near as outrageous as that.
The more outrageous a lie is, the less believable it is. I could claim the church was run by space aliens but to successfully sue me the church would have to argue that so many people actually believed it as to cause real damage to the church’s reputation.
Something closer to the mark might be the commonly made insinuation that Wendy Nelson and Russel Nelson’s biographer Sheri Dew are engaged in some kind of lesbian relationship. It’s believable and it could be damaging to the church’s reputation.
It's a very long document, so click "Ctrl+F" and type in "Left-Hand," then click "Enter."
It references President Monson, who was deceased before the site went up (which was apparently in 2021), so maybe there is less motivation to do so, but I'm scratching my head over why the church doesn't sue the pants off the guy pushing such obviously made-up lies. Or any of the other people who spread clear and obvious falsehoods about members of the hierarchy, for that matter.
My only guess is that the church wishes to avoid bringing publicity to such claims, false though they may be, but wouldn't it be better off putting out a clear and obvious disincentive to those who might be tempted to publish such things in the future?
Any insights will be welcome.
I think it's because there is no upside for the church in doing so. The vast majority of people who happen to stumble across The Left-Hand Path will write it off as the writings of someone who is either lying or delusional. Were the church to sue, many people would reflexively conclude that the church is trying to censor someone who has information the church is afraid of. Then church could easily win a lawsuit and have caused more people to give some credit to the story that do not today. Why risk the Streisand effect when the church isn't being damaged by this person?
he/him
“I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time so that my children can live in peace.” — Thomas Paine
Isn't there also some consideration if he's lying or really believes it? This guy comes across as 100% sincere to me. He's not lying, in my opinion.
I don't want to add more links because I feel bad for the guy and his family actually, but if you go to his biography section, I think you can see that he has two modes of narrating.
He has his past experiences recounted from his regular memory, and then he has past experiences that have been awakened by therapy techniques, or at least those awakenings began with his therapy.
To borrow from Brandt Gardner, his awakened stories likely consist of textual layers. He probably really did go to SLC on a family vacation at some point, and who knows, he could have even met with high-ranking church leaders. It's not unheard of for the twelve to meet with regular members, especially if there's difficult life circumstances involved. And then there is the layer of remembering where the conspiracy material fills in.
But his bio has plenty of unembellished material. He took several pictures of black helicopters flying overhead to prove the government is harassing him. He recounts a story of missionaries who knocked on his door and also a police welfare check, and suspects all kinds of ulterior motives. The missionary reached inside his jacket and very well could have been going for a gun. But, he seems to constrain himself to speculating within the rather ordinary facts that he sticks to. He could easily say that the black helicopters landed and kidnapped him for the night or the missionaries broke in and tied him up and interrogated him, and there are a thousand embellishments like this that would be considerably tame compared to the details of his repressed memory narration. I take it there is a dividing line at a certain age, where anything after that age is regular memories and anything before is fair game for producing repressed memories.
"if you can't admire Joe Biden as a person then it's probably, you got a problem." -- Lindsey Graham
