Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday October 04 2016, @12:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-see-what-they-did-there dept.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) is notoriously secretive about the inner workings of its ruling hierarchy, the First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve Apostles. With an estimated annual income in the billions and assets in the tens of billions, the church does not release financial statements to its members or the general public. The meetings and decision-making processes of the Mormon leaders are similarly undisclosed.

That changed Sunday when a group called Mormon Leaks posted more than a dozen videos to YouTube, containing briefing sessions with the hierarchy. The briefings were apparently recorded "live" and include candid comments and discussion from the apostles in attendance. The leak appeared to be timed to coincide with the church's semi-annual conference that took place over the weekend.

Ironically, one of the briefings discusses WikiLeaks and the possibility of a similar leak targeting the church, but the apostles shown in the video appear to more concerned about Chelsea (nee Bradley) Manning's sexuality than they are about threats to their own secrets.

One briefing that is particularly troubling was given by a former U.S. senator from Oregon, Gordon H. Smith. Smith, a member of the church, admits that he values obedience to the hierarchy and loyalty to the church more than he does his office. He also describes using his office and staff to gain political favors for the church, and justifies the Iraq War by claiming that it will allow Mormon missionaries access to Middle Eastern nations. At one point (around the 26 minute mark), Smith possibly reveals classified information to the group, or at least his willingness to do so.

The videos appear to come from the same whistle blower who leaked a trove of church documents on-line about a week ago. Those documents are here and the leaker has announced that many more are coming.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:00PM

    by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Tuesday October 04 2016, @07:00PM (#410209) Homepage

    All your questions have answers.

    Of course. Every question has answers. "42" is an answer to pretty much any question you might have, for example.

    But not all questions are meaningful in the first place, and not all answers to meaningful questions are themselves meaningful.

    Even more importantly, how much you like the answer is utterly irrelevant to its validity. Nor is its internal consistency.

    If you want to know how correct your answer is likely to be, you've got to objectively test it against observations. Forget about "should be"; what actually is?

    And, boy did I ever call it. Any parent as neglectful as your "Almighty" would be the poster child for abuse, and would have the children most rightfully taken away by the state. I mean, really? It's a blessing to a child to be raped by a priest so the child can mourn and be comforted? And we all know that justice delayed is justice denied; a police officer who knowingly let rapists run rampant for decades would again be the poster boy for official malfeasance.

    Really, you should be ashamed of yourself. You'd be ashamed of acting according to the standards you're defending your gods by, right? So why aren't you equally ashamed of your gods for their horrifically incompetent malfeasance? Why aren't you ashamed for your public association with such monsters?

    I mean, you'd be ashamed of wearing Nazi regalia, right? Of publicly identifying as a Crusader or an Inquisitor? Yet you've just described your "Almighty" as even more despicable than Hitler, Urban II, or Torquemada -- and in terms as horrifically glowing as any propaganda put out by any of those outfits.

    When you understand why you can't make sense of why battered spouses stay with their abusers, you'll understand why you yourself shouldn't be making excuses for your pantheon, either.

    Cheers,

    b&

    --
    All but God can prove this sentence true.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:19PM

    by lcall (4611) on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:19PM (#410332)

    He has promised that such things will pass and that He will heal and restore, for each individual. I trust that He can and will, even if it seems long, sometimes, while we are in the thick of it.

    The things people are claiming here are very foreign to my personal experience. I'll thoughtfully and sincerely read the Quran. I challenge you to do the same with the Book of Mormon. :)

    Best wishes.

    • (Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:44PM

      by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:44PM (#410353) Homepage

      He has promised that such things will pass and that He will heal and restore, for each individual.

      So, let's say we've got one of these Catholic child-raping priests. And he kidnaps a child and keeps him chained in the basement and rapes him every day for a couple decades. If he promises the child that this will all pass and that he'll heal and restore him in a few more years, would that make it okay?

      How about the priest's bishop. If the bishop knows all this is going on, and gives the same "will pass" line, does that make it okay?

      And if the cardinal and even the Pope are all singing from the same sheet of music, does that still make it okay to keep the kid chained up?

      No?

      So why is it okay when it's Jesus, next in line after the Pope, who's the one who's refusing to call the police?

      Look, I'm making it easy on you. You clearly reject the notion that the Papists have any sort of legitimate theological authority, and yet you can't deny that their hierarchy is responsible for committing some seriously heinous crimes and then conspiring to cover them up in a way guaranteed to create even more victims.

      So why doesn't the Mormon Jesus call 9-1-1 whenever a Catholic priest rapes a child in Jesus's name? All y'all have an history of something akin to that, what with the official disavowals of the polygamous schisms.

      And your own Jesus can't do the same, but instead goes along with the conspiracy?

      ...and you still worship him...why, exactly...?

      I challenge you to do the same with the Book of Mormon. :)

      I have.

      And when you actually read your own holy texts, rather than read the Cliff's Notes and apply the Notes to the text, you might understand why the text is undeserving of respect.

      No, really. You've read Mein Kampf, no? Thoughtfully and sincerely, presumably, as part of an history class or the like? Do you respect it?

      So if you wouldn't respect a text justifying the slaughter of millions of Jews, why would you respect text that glorifies the slaughter of all the Midianites, to pick but but one of depressingly many examples?

      Cheers,

      b&

      --
      All but God can prove this sentence true.
      • (Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:55PM

        by lcall (4611) on Tuesday October 04 2016, @09:55PM (#410365)

        I know you won't find this satisfactory, and I'm not intending a complete answer since it probably won't matter, but just to be clear: We must never condone such atrocities, and we should seek to punish the perpretrators according to law. And the ones we miss, God will punish, there is no doubt whatever.

        • (Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:10PM

          by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:10PM (#410371) Homepage

          And the ones we miss, God will punish, there is no doubt whatever.

          But divine wrath is utterly useless to the victims of priestly rape. (And, of course, various other atrocities; I'm just focussing on this one example because it's so theologically clear-cut.)

          Let's again say that the bishop learns about the priest's harem. The bishop does nothing to interfere, doesn't call the police. But when the priest finally retires, the bishop throws the priest in the dungeon and waterboards him every day for the rest of his life.

          Would you even pretend to consider that morally acceptable behavior on the part of the bishop?

          No?

          So why is that same scenario writ immense something you're so passionate to promote?

          I should note: you're writing from a presumption of your own moral righteousness, that you're fighting the good fight for the good guys, that you can't possibly be worng. You've got faith, after all.

          But when your faith prompts you to justify infinite torture, praise it even as the ultimate moral virtue that excuses any and all terrestrial atrocity...you really, really need to look in the mirror and ask yourself if you're one of the baddies.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY [youtube.com]

          Cheers,

          b&

          --
          All but God can prove this sentence true.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:32PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:32PM (#410380)

            justify infinite torture

            This was one of those things that never made sense with a "just" or "merciful" god. Even if someone lived to be 100 and was an evil bastard for every minute of it - the equation just doesn't balance if there's eternal punishment involved. This is even more obvious when someone is generally good, but not good enough by a certain religious standard (such as believing in the wrong god).

            Do Mormons believe in a purgatory?

            • (Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:51PM

              by lcall (4611) on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:51PM (#410388)

              I don't know strictly how other religions define purgatory, but we believe there will be a just punishment for sin, unless one repents and chooses to keep the commandments, and chooses to qualify for forgiveness by behavior changes and obedience. Sounds tricky? That's why it's good that the judge has complete wisdom. He is not a God who wants us to be miserable, so He gives us commandments so we can be happy (like guardrails on a highway), but He lets us choose for ourselves. Not everyone had the knowledge to make the choices well, so they'll get a fair chance at some point. I hope the other post I just made in this thread helps a little on this. He doesn't expect us to get it right all at once either, but to do our very best and keep going forward.

              If one knowingly chooses not to keep His commandments, the eternal reward will be limited according to what one was willing to accept. The punishments for sin are real and severe, if we choose not to follow Him, but eventually they will end and we can receive the level of reward we were willing to receive. In my own crass sort of way (not official doctrine, just me, imagining), I imagine that it is a perfect, complete, way of determining who can be trusted with how much, for eternity, by finding out what they truly desire, and giving them that, ie letting them be with those who want the same thing. Those who like chaos and destruction will get to be with others who like it, etc. (which sounds like a rather severe punishment to me), until they realize that doesn't work and stop it, then they get as much reward as possible, for them. But that's not the same reward as those who show by their actions that they desire things like honesty and the Golden Rule, etc, so there are different rewards. That last part is just me thinking aloud as to how I understand & visualize it, so forgive me if I'm off.

              • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Thursday October 06 2016, @06:47PM

                by SomeGuy (5632) on Thursday October 06 2016, @06:47PM (#411203)

                Wow, just wow. Post after post of nit-picking over all the little details, rules, and ins and outs of an "afterlife" and one small detail you completely overlooked is that IT DOES NOT EXIST!

                You don't have the first shred of proof that it is even there, and yet you somehow think you already know every teeny-tiny little detail of how it operates.

                That is one of many problems with religious nuts. You spin such fantastic stories to divert attention away from the root fact that what you are talking about is nonsense.

                Where does a flame go when it is extinguished? Where does a bit in RAM go when it is powered off? It doesn't "go" anywhere, it ceases to exist. Same with human brains. And that simple fact makes all your fluffy-happy-dead-bunny stories, as the British say, complete ballox.

                There is no such thing as an afterlife. Sorry about that :\

            • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:38AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:38AM (#410538)

              FWIW, Hell is often (and probably more logically) explained as a place the soul effectively chooses to go to once it realizes its overall incompatibility with God's Heaven. Yet because the soul is designed to have God as a necessary part for its happiness, even if in Hell there is nothing different to Heaven except for God's felt presence, multiplied by infinity it equates to an infinite unhappiness or unfulfilment, however mild. So I'd agree this hell as punishment per se is a convenient but illogical idea akin to revenge, whereas if it does exist, it is likely part of the whole free will thing. Earthly justice however is indeed described as God's vengeance, especially for such things as sodomy/rape/usury/murder/defrauding workers. That some or many seemingly die without ever being 'punished' in this life may well equate to a worse Hell, where the soul is forever aware of why it misses out on God, that it chose this and has to live with it. Whereas the reward for unmet justice to the victim is said to be given exponentially more greatly in Heaven, so the whole thing does have an internal consistency to it, be it true or not. I am not a Mormon by the way.

          • (Score: 1) by lcall on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:39PM

            by lcall (4611) on Tuesday October 04 2016, @10:39PM (#410384)

            I'm not expecting you to like this, but I'll try to explain.

            I'm not saying the priest's torture would be infinite, in your scenario, just that there is a price to pay and it will be paid, unless the sinner repents, in which case Christ has paid the price by His tremendous suffering, and therefore has commanded us to forgive, because the price has been paid. It isn't fair that he had to suffer for our sins, when He was sinless. Many things aren't fair. But He has paid the price for everyone who truly repents, and He will judge, with justice and mercy properly applied in His infinite wisdom. Repentance would include confession, restitution where possible, and a change of heart and of behavior. As mortals we can't always un-do the harm, but we believe that Christ has paid and will provide full healing and restitution, in His time which is not always ours.

            I think you're saying that it is wrong for God to allow the abuse to continue, therefore there can be no God.

            The real question is whether God exists, and whether He deserves our trust. Each of us will have to answer this for ourselves, for now. If He exists, as I believe, then He knows the rules and will follow them, even if it takes a while for us to fully understand the wisdom of His plans. It's not for us to tell Him the rules, but He does guarantee it will be fully right in the end, including for the sufferers, even for those that you and I have offended, and for you and I who ourselves will need healing. I believe He will make it right for all.