Relevation & Inspiration...MTC abuse

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

13 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Perhaps so; but I think that regardless of gender—if you’re going to make an accusation of severe wrongdoing against a highly-placed individual, you need to not have a history of making stuff up.  

Do we have any proof that she made stuff up?  I mean other than the words of the person accused of raping her? 

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, LiterateParakeet said:

Do we have any proof that she made stuff up?  I mean other than the words of the person accused of raping her? 

What we have is the memory of the branch pres (or bishop depending on the report) where her accusation was quite short of rape.  In fact, it was short of even sexual assault. The pres' admission to police was farther than the BP's testimony recounted.

That's why I'm still waiting for more info.  While I'm pretty sure something happened (and that was certainly bad enough to think little of the pres) it's premature to call it rape.  And when a woman just throws around such a term (not necessarily saying she is) it diminishes the true victims who are pleading to be believed.

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

Just now, Carborendum said:

What we have is the memory of the branch pres (or bishop depending on the report) where her accusation was quite short of rape.  In fact, it was short of even sexual assault. The pres' admission to police was farther than the BP's testimony recounted.

That's why I'm still waiting for more info.  While I'm pretty sure something happened (and that was certainly bad enough to think little of the pres) it's premature to call it rape.  And when a woman just throws around such a term (not necessarily saying she is) it diminishes the true victims who are pleading to be believed.

Carb, don't you see the irony here.  She says he raped her.  He admits to touching a sister missionaries breasts, and people here say...."but we don't know what happened."  

BUT he claims she made stuff up and it's "Well, see she's just a liar."  Someone else is even accusing some sister he knew during that time...

Feels like a double standard to me.  If Bishop's own admission of guilt is not enough, then his claim that she made stuff up is suspect as well.  

[Rob Osborn]

7 hours ago, zil said:

See @Carborendum's post just below yours to which I'm replying.  It's not about men doing something right or wrong.  Men aren't making a mistake here - neither are women.  I'm going to turn this into words which I'm not sure are 100% correct, but which I think will get the idea across:

Satan's minions are running around whispering all those things I said into the ears of women.  They are not whispering those things into the ears of men.  They are whispering different things into the ears of men.  It's not the men's fault that they don't hear the things whispered into the ears of women.  It's not the men's fault they know nothing about the things whispered into the ears of women.  (Vice versa for the women.)

You're so stuck on feminism and liberalism that you can't recognize that what I'm saying has nothing to do with them.  You can't recognize that I'm not saying men are wrong or misunderstanding.  I'm saying Satan isn't drilling those words into male brains - he's drilling them into female brains.

Dogs hear frequencies humans don't hear.  That's not the dog's fault.  That's not the human's fault.  It's simply a fact of the frequency and the ear structures.

What we constantly hear is how bad patriarchy is, how bad church policy is, etc. I admit, I am stuck on the feminist agenda. I think it poses perhaps the greatest threat to our society. Its not hard for me to tune in to that channel anytime a story like this comes up. The very first sources I go to observe are the fringe Mormon feminist sites because I know they are making war with the saints. They are the wolves in the flock destroying the sheep. Its sad because true saints, regardless of race or gender, dont want anything to do with these feminist groups. They truly hate men. And, I honestly believe their agenda is entirely the work of Satan. 

[Just_A_Guy]

43 minutes ago, LiterateParakeet said:

Do we have any proof that she made stuff up?  I mean other than the words of the person accused of raping her? 

Lemme clarify.  The KUTV interview isn’t with Joseph Bishop.  It’s with Ron Leavitt.  Leavitt was the accuser’s branch president when the accuser made her first report back in the 1980s.  He chose not to believe/pass on her accusation, because his experience was that she was not an honest person.

[lostinwater]

33 minutes ago, LiterateParakeet said:

Carb, don't you see the irony here.  She says he raped her.  He admits to touching a sister missionaries breasts, and people here say...."but we don't know what happened."  

BUT he claims she made stuff up and it's "Well, see she's just a liar."  Someone else is even accusing some sister he knew during that time...

Feels like a double standard to me.  If Bishop's own admission of guilt is not enough, then his claim that she made stuff up is suspect as well.  

Attempting to portray third person perspective here.

i am a girl who has been sexually abused.  i feel a crippling amount of shame and confusion about it.  People ask me "What's Wrong?"  i tell them, "Nothing, you wouldn't understand!"  They beg and plead.  i hear this story - i see a woman who has obtained a taped confession from the man who raped her.  It is shared in the media, after which the perpetrator denies it - saying a medical procedure made them so groggy they accidentally admitted to something they didn't do - and not just any something - molesting young women while in a position of power and authority.  They see a great deal of conflict and confusion and some people saying that the man who can now no longer be prosecuted for the crime - who likely will never face any kind of legal retribution for what he admitted to doing - is accorded the benefit of the doubt.  And not only that, the person who claimed the assault occurred has dirt about her past thrown up and plastered all over the news.  This girl knows she has lied in her past too.  She thinks of all her mistakes - the shame of the event and just everything makes her wilt inside.  And she doesn't even have anything close to what the woman in the news has.  She has no taped confession.  She just has her word.  She thinks she was in the wrong place.  That may something about how she acted encouraged the man to do what he did.

That girl swears to herself that she will never EVER tell anyone about this.  Never expose something that hurts as much as her memory of that experience to a world who will not believe her.  She descends into an eating disorder, self harm, and eventually, attempts suicide.

 

Of course, this assumes a number of things.  It's definitely not the only perspective.  Feel free to write the account from another perspective.  In fact, please do.  Maybe it will help all of us understand one another a little better.

Edited March 27, 2018 by lostinwater

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

23 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Lemme clarify.  The KUTV interview isn’t with Joseph Bishop.  It’s with Ron Leavitt.  Leavitt was the accuser’s branch president when the accuser made her first report back in the 1980s.  He chose not to believe/pass on her accusation, because his experience was that she was not an honest person.

Oh, I didn't realize.  Thank for clarifying.  

Still, I find Leavitt's opinion suspect.  The police said there was enough to investigate if the statute of limitations had not passed.  And there was that MTC employee that verified that there was an office in the basement.  And Bishop admitted to touching a sister missionary.  

[NightSG]

 

2 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I agree with this.  Leaving aside the allegation of physical rape—based on the stipulated facts from both parties, we have an apparently- consensual sexual encounter between two adults with the power dynamic being roughly analogous to that between a college student and her professor. 

More like employer/employee, only worse; one professor would have a hard time getting a student kicked out of a college, while Bishop was certainly in a position to easily have her sent home from the MTC, with the attached lifelong stigma that's orders of magnitude worse than having to admit you got fired from your first job.

1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Perhaps so; but I think that regardless of gender—if you’re going to make an accusation of severe wrongdoing against a highly-placed individual, you need to not have a history of making stuff up.  

Where the heck are you getting that from?  The only thing even close that I see in the article or the video is “I didn't think it had much credence. I wasn't going to risk sullying the reputation of someone based on that kind of a report.”  That, frankly, doesn't ring true; one doesn't "oh heavens yes" clearly remember a fib from 34 years ago.  Heck, a lot of people would have to sit down and think about it to tell you what state they lived in 34 years ago.  If he really does remember one specific meeting with one specific person from the branch he presided over for six years that clearly, then it had a significant impact on him at the time; one that should have been discussed with his own leaders rather than dismissed out of hand.

51 minutes ago, LiterateParakeet said:

Do we have any proof that she made stuff up?  I mean other than the words of the person accused of raping her? 

His claim is one of those "I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, and all the evidence that I did it is long gone" types; Bishop has been channeling the ghost of Ronald Reagan on that part.  (And not even the admirably-eloquent-yet-reassuringly-direct aspect of the Gipper, just the part bright enough not to openly confirm, and yet not dishonest enough to deny the really bad stuff.)  

7 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Lemme clarify.  The KUTV interview isn’t with Joseph Bishop.  It’s with Ron Leavitt.  Leavitt was the accuser’s branch president when the accuser made her first report back in the 1980s.  He chose not to believe/pass on her accusation, because his experience was that she was not an honest person.

Again, where are you finding that statement from Leavitt?  Even assuming that he's some sort of remembering-relatively-inconsequential-things savant, and really didn't believe it at the time, disbelieving one statement is hardly the same as having real experience to substantiate the person being inherently dishonest.

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

2 minutes ago, NightSG said:

His claim is one of those "I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, and all the evidence that I did it is long gone" types; Bishop has been channeling the ghost of Ronald Reagan on that part. 

He admitted to this:
Former LDS Mission President tells BYU Police he asked missionary to expose breasts
http://kutv.com/news/local/lds-official-admits-to-police-he-asked-missionary-to-expose-breasts-in-private-mtc-room

He also admitted to:

 

Quote

Partway through the interview, she confronts Bishop with the allegation that he tried to rape her in a storage room in 1984. He admits that he had a long-standing “sexual addiction” and that he had “struggled my whole life” with it, but does not confess to that specific rape.

He indicates nearly an hour into the interview that some sister missionaries, upon arriving at the MTC, began having flashbacks to previous experiences of sexual trauma, and they would pray and ask leaders for help in putting it behind them. Bishop says he was “the last person who should have been” in leadership over those vulnerable women.
http://gazette.com/retired-mormon-mission-president-admits-he-molested-a-female-missionary-religion-news-service/article/1623071

Bishop's son says:

 

Quote

Bishop’s son Greg, a lawyer, released a statement and copies of police reports that cast doubt on the credibility of the accuser, saying she “has a long history of false accusations and criminal activity.” The documents suggest the accuser may have been previously involved in cases of fraud and identity theft.
(IBID).

And there is this:
 

Quote

Bishop appears to acknowledge in the conversation that while the interviewer was a missionary he discussed with her some sexual preferences he had with his wife, as well as a previous encounter with another woman who had removed her bikini top in front of him.

“The fact that I was a missionary, and you were my mission president, and you were sharing that was the problem,” she says.

“That’s true,” he concedes.

Then she raises the #metoo question: “So, how many other women are there? How many other missionaries? How many other young women in the Church have been destroyed like me?”

He says he remembers one woman from when he was a congregational leader, as well as one other missionary who served alongside the interviewer at the same time she was in the MTC. When the interviewer asks, “Did you molest her?” Bishop answers simply, “Yes.”

Bishop does not explain what he means by admitting to molestation, however. He claims that the sister missionary in question initiated physical contact by requesting a back rub, which he provided, and then things got “frisky.”
IBID

 

[NightSG]

9 minutes ago, LiterateParakeet said:

Bishop's son says:

Might as well be "she was the Russians' point of contact in influencing the election."  I can find plenty of documents that "suggest" the Earth is flat and Hillary Clinton is completely honest, but I notice he can't find any that do more than "suggest" she "might have been" involved in some activities so vaguely described that it might consist of clocking someone else in at the office so they don't get fired for being late or trying to use someone else's season pass.

Edited March 27, 2018 by NightSG

[askandanswer]

On 3/26/2018 at 1:20 PM, Petty3 said:

The MTC scandal has brought up questions.  Why does Heavenly Father allow people who abuse others to serve in callings of authority?  Why wasn't revelation given to those who called him?  (Or others like him.)  I know there is agency but I still think that inspiration could occur.   He could have been removed from his calling after using his agency incorrectly.

Is revelation and inspiration a real thing  given to leaders or isn't it?  

I like to think that the call to call Brother Bishop to be President of the MTC was inspired. But then one might ask how could the call be inspired when such bad things happened? I don't see a lot of value in trying to work out why seemingly bad things happened because its practically impossible to work out whether or not something is actually bad. I think that the only time that something can be definitively labelled as bad is when ALL the seemingly bad consequences flowing from an event are measured against all the seemingly good consequences that flowed from the same event and then we subtract the bigger pile of consequences from the lesser pile of consequences to see if an event is good or bad. At present, this is an impossible calculation for at least three reasons: first, as long as time continues, there may continue to be good and bad consequences that flow from a particular event. Second, there is no way of tracing, or knowing or finding out what exactly are all of the good and bad consequences of a particular event. Third, the process of assigning values to a particular consequence as a necessary step to determining precisely HOW good or HOW bad a particular event is is likely to be highly subjective. It therefore being exceedlingly difficult to work out whether any particular event is good or bad I don't think we can say with any degree of precision whether the calling of Brother Bishop to be President of the MTC was good or bad. 

This idea is supported by story given during a talk, I think from conference a few years back, that went something like this:

The son of an elderly couple who depend on him for their livelihood breaks his leg and cannot work - seemingly bad

The next day the king's soldiers arrive in the village on a forced conscription drive. The son is not conscripted because he has a broken leg - seemingly good

To help him do the work he now finds difficult because of his broken leg, the son acquires a horse - seemingly good

The horse runs away - seemingly bad

The next day the horse returns, with a bunch of his mates, all ready to be put to work, so now the son has lots more horses - seemingly good 

The story could continue, ad infinitum.

At the end of the story, what would the answer be to the question of whether it was good or bad that the son broke his leg?

The point of this story is not to compare a broken leg to what happened in the MTC to this sister missionary, but to suggest that it can be exceedingly difficult to work out, in the eternal scheme of things, whether something is good or bad. Whatever happened to this sister was probably bad for her but I'm not sure if this is sufficient to therefore describe it as a bad thing overall.

Another example: Autopsies are often held when a person dies. There death is often a bad event for the person who died, but the learnings and changed practices resulting from the autopsy could save thousands of lives over the next 20 years. Is the death that resulted in the autopsy that led to the saving of thousands of lives a bad thing?

[Grunt]

4 hours ago, LiterateParakeet said:

Still, I find Leavitt's opinion suspect. 

You do because you have a desired result. You’re looking to confirm your bias.   You’re condemning and calling out those who won’t immediately and fully support your desired outcome.  

While MY leaning is in your direction, I’m not prepared to erect a gallows until the investigation has been conducted and the results are released.  

[estradling75]

1 hour ago, Grunt said:

You do because you have a desired result. You’re looking to confirm your bias.   You’re condemning and calling out those who won’t immediately and fully support your desired outcome.  

While MY leaning is in your direction, I’m not prepared to erect a gallows until the investigation has been conducted and the results are released.  

Indeed and that is exactly the kind of unrighteous judgements and attacks that happen if you do not find the accused guilty and the accuser innocent.  Leavitt is not the accused or the accuser.  The only reason he is being attacked and called into question was that 30 some odd years ago he did not play by the current requirements for reporting abuse.  Thats it... that is the sum total of his "crime"   I mean now a days the only thing that is needed to prompt a police investigation is an "Accusation."  30 or so years ago reporting such a claim was more of a judgement call then is now allowed. Accuser had (at least in the mind of Leavitt according to his word) credibility issue so he did not, per the standard of his day. And for that he is judged to be "suspect"

[zil]

8 hours ago, LiterateParakeet said:

"history of embellishment"  Yeah....see zil's post.  All us women knew something like that was coming.  

My earlier comments were about that one question and the subliminal / subconscious message that come from a woman's own mind (that were planted there over the course of her entire life).  When we start talking about interactions between humans, I think it gets a lot harder to start attaching labels to things.  And I'm not sure I want to try to get into all the things other people can do in response to an accusation that would cause a woman to avoid bringing the accusation in the first place - it's too messy to try to come up with general terms - there are too many specifics and exceptions.  I think it's the sort of thing that should be left to each specific instance and the people involved.

While you may (or may not) dislike it, I agree with those who think we have to separate healing for the victim from prosecution of the accused.  False accusation may be rare, but the impact is too significant to start with an assumption of guilt.

I also agree that when it comes to pursuing punishment of the accused, character matters on all sides.  If the accused has a history of either being accused by many parties or of having been proven guilty of the same offense, then, when accused falsely, well, they can hardly complain that people switched from assumed innocence to assumed guilt - after all, history says the accused is the sort who could well be guilty.  On the other hand, if one has a history of crying wolf, how can one blame others for disbelieving future cries?  And how can one blame others for pointing it out as a relevant fact when trying to seriously determine whether one is being truthful this time?  And if one has a history of lying - because that's what embellishment is - one gets to reap the consequences of mistrust.

And it's entirely possible that my own prejudices are coming into play here.  My tolerance for willful deception is decreasing rapidly toward non-existence.  As I have grown older, I have learned that it's actually not hard to be completely truthful all the time - it's just that we don't teach correctly or deliberately how to tell the truth while still maintaining privacy or confidentiality, nor how to be accepting when others tell a truth we'd rather not hear.  Truly, it's not hard, but our society is built on the assumption that it's better to deceive and be deceived in at least some things - and they're wrong.

[Just_A_Guy]

7 hours ago, LiterateParakeet said:

Oh, I didn't realize.  Thank for clarifying.  

Still, I find Leavitt's opinion suspect.  The police said there was enough to investigate if the statute of limitations had not passed.  And there was that MTC employee that verified that there was an office in the basement.  And Bishop admitted to touching a sister missionary.  

Well, and to clarify further:  neither Leavitt nor I are weighing in on whether Bishop actually tried to rape the accuser.  Leavitt is merely explaining why, twenty-odd years ago, he didn’t find her credible based on the information available to him at the time.

Also, I think the jury is still out on the nature of the basement office.  There’s an anonymous ex-employee saying that yes, it had a bed in it; but as of a couple days ago everyone the Church had interviewed was saying that no, there was no bed.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Just_A_Guy

[Just_A_Guy]

7 hours ago, NightSG said:

[1]More like employer/employee, only worse; one professor would have a hard time getting a student kicked out of a college, while Bishop was certainly in a position to easily have her sent home from the MTC, with the attached lifelong stigma that's orders of magnitude worse than having to admit you got fired from your first job.

[2]Where the heck are you getting that from?  The only thing even close that I see in the article or the video is “I didn't think it had much credence. I wasn't going to risk sullying the reputation of someone based on that kind of a report.”  That, frankly, doesn't ring true; one doesn't "oh heavens yes" clearly remember a fib from 34 years ago.  Heck, a lot of people would have to sit down and think about it to tell you what state they lived in 34 years ago.  If he really does remember one specific meeting with one specific person from the branch he presided over for six years that clearly, then it had a significant impact on him at the time; one that should have been discussed with his own leaders rather than dismissed out of hand.

[3]Again, where are you finding that statement from Leavitt?  Even assuming that he's some sort of remembering-relatively-inconsequential-things savant, and really didn't believe it at the time, disbelieving one statement is hardly the same as having real experience to substantiate the person being inherently dishonest.

1.  I’m not sure that’s right.  Ultimately an MTC president has to justify his decision to send a missionary home, just as a college professor or administrator would have to justify his decision to give a student a poor grade.

2.  The interview itself has him saying she was prone to exaggeration.  Another write-up from either KUTV or Fox13, which seems now to have gone down the memory hole, had him saying that her story was internally inconsistent.

3.  I, too, am mildly surprised a) that he even remembers her, b) that he remembers individual exchanges with her, and c) that he would violate confidentiality by talking to local media about the content of their interviews.  That said, it would be more self-serving for him to simply deny any memory of ever interacting with her; so I think we have to give some credence to Leavitt’s claims that the accuser and her characteristics were somehow uniquely memorable.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Just_A_Guy

[anatess2]

17 hours ago, zil said:

I already did.  And I already said this isn't from overt teaching.  Two people grow up hearing the same words, seeing the same things, etc. etc.  One is male, one is female.  The male comes away thinking what you're thinking.  The female comes away thinking what I posted.

<snip>

The message is tuned for females.  It is subliminal.

<snip>

And, since you don't seem to get it, I'll say it again - men don't learn this "lesson".  Why?  I can only assume it's because Satan is subtle and patient.  The male and female brains are different, the message is transmitted on a frequency male tuners can't receive.

<snip>

And since there's a chance someone will think that only liberal women learn this message I will be as blunt as I know how to be: my political and social views would make you look like a flaming liberal in comparison.

<snip>

In short, I'm kinda rejecting the backwoods hillbilly hypothesis.

<snip>

And let's be clear on this - I have never been a victim of anything, so it's not just victims into whose heads these thoughts go.  I believe a broad percentage of women are (were?) primed with these subliminal manipulations ahead of time, just in case.  I could be wrong - I would be very happy to be wrong.

I understand what you're trying to say here and the "male and female brains are different" bit is THE main thing here that is at the root of the discussion that causes these differences in responses.

But, I do not like that the message is called "subliminal manipulations" or "drilled into heads tuned to a gender".  It makes it seem like the manipulation happened external to the person rather than a by-product of the person's qualities.  It somehow puts a fault or a responsibility to the messenger instead of the person.  The messenger has no bearing to this phenomena. 

This is how I would present it especially when I'm addressing a mixed-gender audience ranging from @person0 to @Carborendum with @Rob Osborn mixed in - There are two main traits that are prominent and relevant to this discussion in each gender.  Aggression and Compassion.  Going towards the negative expressions of these traits, Aggression is manifested in Combative responses while Compassion is manifested in Neurotic (non-technical use of the word, not the mental illness usage) responses.  Aggression is dominant in Males, Compassion dominant in Females.  That is - both Male and Female are Aggressive and Compassionate but the vast majority of Males have Aggression dominating over Compassion whereas the vast majority of Females have Compassion dominating Aggression.  There is overlap, of course - where you find Males being more compassionate than aggressive and Females being more aggressive than compassionate and a Venn Diagram is an appropriate illustration of it.

The message hits both male and female the same and the normal person understands the idylic scenarios when everything is going fine.  Where the responses diverge is when trauma occurs.  In traumatic situations, the majority of males respond in a Combative manner while the majority of females respond in a Neurotic manner.

In a case of sexual abuse, Combative responses could be the victim beating up their abusers or turning the situation around by sexually dominating the abuser or they immediately go and seek re-dress.  If they see themselves as a lot weaker than their abuser (happens in teens abused by adults) then they may side with their abuser and start hailing them as their heroes or they bury the incident in a compartment in their brains never to see light of day.  In the extreme cases, if they see themselves as too weak or a failure then they beat themselves up over it, mentally snap, and either kill themselves or end up shooting up a school. 

Compassionate responses on the other hand, almost always focus inward - what did I do? - as a way to process the evil of the abuser.  Then it goes to - I'm soiled, I'm dirty, I'm ashamed.  This leads to depression and anxiety where the victim gets dragged down to the pit of hell.  It takes a while to get out of this neurotic pit to finally live again and by that time, the compassionate responder just can't go through the emotional upheaval caused by re-hashing the thing again.  Most of them does not even try regardless of how many eons have passed.  Some go through decades climbing out of the pit and finally - either by someone dragging them out, or them finally just getting the courage to jump out - get desperate enough to face their abuser to be able to leave it behind.  In the extreme cases, they either get so lost in focusing inward that they end up killing themselves or they redirect that focus outwards to the abuser in vicious vengeance.

It is important to recognize this because the message should not change to accommodate these differences.  I do not like the way Elizabeth Smart's comments are perceived by a lot of vocal people.    Idylic responses - all good responses - should remain to be taught.  But, AWARENESS of these traits and their subsequent pitfalls is needed to be taught too - the negative side of things.  Church is not the proper venue of such discussions, especially the pitfalls of Compassion - Church is for promoting and strengthening faith and maximizing compassion.  The Home is the proper venue of such discussions - where preparation to face man's capacity for evil, including the evil within ourselves needs to happen.  The proper control of Aggression and the proper balance of Compassion, especially in the preservation of self, is something that children learn from their parents - either just by example or in an open discussion.

Edited March 27, 2018 by anatess2

[The Folk Prophet]

So what you're saying, @anatess2, is that boys like playing with guns and girls like playing with dolls?

[anatess2]

Just now, The Folk Prophet said:

So what you're saying, @anatess2, is that boys like playing with guns and girls like playing with dolls?

Put it in a Venn Diagram and you got it. 

 

[zil]

4 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

It is important to recognize this because the message should not change to accommodate these differences.  Idylic responses - all good responses - should remain to be taught.

You and others seem to think I'm talking about a message openly and knowingly taught by humans - and this wording implies that it's a good message (why else should it not change).  I'm not talking about what we or other decent people teach each other or children.  I am not talking about a coherent repeated lesson that the teachee and teacher are aware of.  Children are somewhat aware their parents are teaching them (or that their parents taught them even when it didn't seem like a teaching moment).  Adults are even more aware.  This is not the kind of teaching or message I'm talking about.

I believe that Satan and his followers, literally and by manipulation of those willing to be manipulated are "sending" a subtle and slow message made up of thousands of little things.  Each thing is so small and subtle that it goes unnoticed or unremarked.  No one would think it a big deal.  Those being used to send any given tiny portion of the message don't know they're doing it.  And no one is aware of it in the instant they receive one of these thousands of little things, let alone aware of the fact that it is actually part of a larger message that will aggregate in their head over time into erroneous thoughts.  My use of subliminal and subconscious was very, very deliberate.  I respect anyone's right to reject the idea and to call me a nut.  I recognize that I may well be wrong, but I seriously doubt it.

[Crash]

There is so much to comment on since last night but it really does no good. Here's my take on what I've been reading:

1. I am a man and as such I have typical male tendencies that I must bridle. But there are also female tendencies that women must bridle as well. As an example, while I am extremely inexperienced with intimate encounters with women, my ex-wife is extremely experienced with intimate encounters with both men and women. So, one of us has bridled our tendencies more than the other one has. 

2. As a man, or really just a human being, I have been around members of the opposite sex that I have been very attracted to and my thoughts have sometimes been, well, inappropriate. But that's where things stopped for me. There was a line I was never willing to cross, so I avoided all possible scenarios that could have led to any inappropriate language or action. 

3. If Bishop did indeed do the things he said in those interviews, and I have no reason at this point to say that he didn't do them, then he did not bridle his passions. He allowed his tendencies to control his language and his actions. He placed himself in those positions just as the sister missionaries and others placed themselves in those positions (what in the world is a sister missionary doing by asking for a shoulder rub from the MTC president and why is the MTC president telling a sister missionary about a girl taking her bikini top off for him?!! And to that same point, why is the woman taking her bikini top off for him?!!). If anything, all of these adults put themselves in positions where they did not bridle their natural male and female passions. There should have been absolutely no reason for any of these things to have happened if they all just did what they knew to be right. Instead, they were all like Alma's son, Corianton. So, as of right now, my feeling is shame on all of them!

On a side note, some here have used the word "gender" to describe the difference between male and female. For the record, the term "gender" is not an accurate description of men and women. That word does not actually identify the sex of a human being as it includes many other things, especially today. The correct term to identify the sex of a person is just that, "sex." I'm just being nitpicky but the accurate way to describe whether a person is male or female is by identifying their sex, not their gender. 

[Vort]

13 hours ago, NightSG said:

Ah, I missed one on the sealed book thread:

• If thou rememberest not proper usage of "your" and "you're," complain not if the Lord remembereth not your name, for He hath a lot more than two simple words to keep up with

Give him a brake. Its bin a long day.

[anatess2]

9 minutes ago, zil said:

You and others seem to think I'm talking about a message openly and knowingly taught by humans - and this wording implies that it's a good message (why else should it not change).  I'm not talking about what we or other decent people teach each other or children.  I am not talking about a coherent repeated lesson that the teachee and teacher are aware of.  Children are somewhat aware their parents are teaching them (or that their parents taught them even when it didn't seem like a teaching moment).  Adults are even more aware.  This is not the kind of teaching or message I'm talking about.

I believe that Satan and his followers, literally and by manipulation of those willing to be manipulated are "sending" a subtle and slow message made up of thousands of little things.  Each thing is so small and subtle that it goes unnoticed or unremarked.  No one would think it a big deal.  Those being used to send any given tiny portion of the message don't know they're doing it.  And no one is aware of it in the instant they receive one of these thousands of little things, let alone aware of the fact that it is actually part of a larger message that will aggregate in their head over time into erroneous thoughts.  My use of subliminal and subconscious was very, very deliberate.  I respect anyone's right to reject the idea and to call me a nut.  I recognize that I may well be wrong, but I seriously doubt it.

It doesn't matter who the messenger is - including Satan.  That's what I'm trying to say.  These are not a product of anything external to the person, neither the message nor the messenger.  This is a product of the traits of the person - these traits, like all of our natural man traits - are both good and bad.  Having a trait prone for compassion is both good and bad - it is good when oriented towards good, like raising children, it is bad when oriented towards bad, like depression.  The more you develop that trait, the higher the propensity for it to go really bad when the orientation shifts.

Edited March 27, 2018 by anatess2

[zil]

I give up.

[Vort]

12 hours ago, clwnuke said:

Both Sister H****s and Mr. Bishop were adults at the time. I think it's a horrible moral tragedy but I also agree that it's probably not a crime unless assault/rape and coercion was actually involved. If that's the case then it all comes down to character. I sure wouldn't want to be in the courtroom when the dirt starts flying.

[Mod edit:  Let’s avoid putting specific names to the accuser until we have solid confirmation.  Thanks—JAG]

Bishop's name is out there, and he is being mercilessly pilloried. The hypocrisy of "journalistic ethics" notwithstanding, I see no reason why his accuser should be granted anonymity that he doesn't get.