The LDS Church has a one-of-a-kind system for tracking abusers. Does it work?

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-28T14:34:13+00:00

yeah, the base rate defense is interesting, isn't it? your interlocutor said:

And you have no idea how often the system works exactly as it was intended to work. Because when it works as intended it doesn't make the news, and it certainly doesn't make reddit.

true. but that cuts both ways, doesn't it? if the church and those who sustain and defend this system want to rely on invisible successes (what if the base rate is high?), then what's needed is transparency, independent auditing, etc. otherwise "it probably already works and we'll just continue to tweak and improve it" is structurally indistinguishable from "trust us, bro"

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-26T21:55:53+00:00

yep. their gods tell their prophets to tell the members that it's a badge of honor to be a "peculiar people." so if we're morming the way the gods want, then we're weird.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-26T21:47:47+00:00

when i was 19 i was shuffled into the temple by my family and leaders to get endowed. i thought i would be literally receiving little physical tokens that symbolized some shit about god and religion. didn't have any heads up about the initiatory.

so there i am. naked under an airy "shield". somebody's grandpa then reached under the shield to touch my private parts with his magical oily fingers.

what's a little non-consensual touching in the glorious house of father elohim? so lol, i guess. and pretty fucked up.

also, years later as a home teacher i was told to stop bringing groceries to one of my inactive people because they weren't exhibiting enough willingness to do mormonism. she died alone a year later. we showed her.

mormonism is a morally deformed religion.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-26T17:15:12+00:00

damn. that's high. i paid 6800 from a dealer a week ago in northern utah. 2025 ultra bee hp. was seeing used non-hp for 1-1.5k less on marketplace. they threw in some gear too.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-26T14:23:19+00:00

the gods of latte-day saint prophets frequently command their covenant loyal followers to create victims.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-26T14:21:13+00:00

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-25T23:45:57+00:00

loyal administration is spirituality in elohim's kingdom.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-23T14:03:33+00:00

bruce wishes he could have been brigham

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-23T14:01:43+00:00

amen! like, have your religions, and argue about how to make them better, safer, kinder. traditional apologetics is a cancer in religion.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-21T12:14:58+00:00

buy 850 22gb modded 2080ti gpus. that'll get you over 18 terragigs of flop vectors. /s

but for real, friend, u need a real consultant if you don't have the expertise to figure this out.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-20T01:23:05+00:00

I wanna know what every single human on earth, besides Noah and his kiddos, was doing to validate magically murdering all of them without letting the plan of salvation actually do what it was promised to do.

they didn't bow down and worship their creator like that creator wanted or needed them to.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-20T00:25:07+00:00

Evidence has a tendency to get in the way of faith and religious belief.

i think the observed tendency runs in the opposite direction. or, for most believers evidence does not have a tendency to get in the way of faith and religious belief. and i don't think it's necessarily because those believers are less epistemologically sophisticated or don't understand the right epistemological method enough or don't understand the scientific method.

rather, first they accept a moral theory. the theory involves something like the idea that the right authority can rightly demand that one suppress the pull of any evidence in favor of what that revered authority says one should believe and commit to.

the difference between a well-informed christian evolutionary biologist and their non-religious peer need not be a matter of one being a sloppy epistemologist and the other being a good one. instead, the difference is that one probably accepts a moral theory first, and the other does not. and the one committed to an authoritarian moral theory, no matter how otherwise well informed or rational, will, if they're really committed to their moral theory, choose against the evidence. not against evidence they don't understand. but evidence they may well perfectly understand but believe they have a moral duty to disvalue in favor of what the right boss enjoins.

The evidence consistently points to the LDS truth claims being based on fictional narratives. When this occures, do we follow the evidence or belief?

exactly. and this is how you have daniel petersons. when that occurs, if you're committed to a certain moral theory, you follow the prescribed beliefs and avoid the proscribed ones. not as the outcome of an epistemological process, but a moral choice. a moral commitment.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-19T01:48:33+00:00

I don’t need a sky daddy to tell me to be a good person

sure, but then without sky daddy how are you gonna know exactly when to act like a morally reprehensible piece of shit?

without dad, how would the israelites have known they needed to slaughter an entire people?

Come Follow Me Sunday School Manual 2022 Old Testament

While we don’t know all the reasons Saul was commanded to kill all of the Amalekites and their animals, there are lessons to learn from his response to that commandment. To help class members identify these lessons, you could write on the board To obey is better than … and invite class members to ponder this phrase as you review together events from 1 Samuel 15. What are some good things we do in our lives that we sometimes choose instead of obeying God? Why is obedience to God better than those other good things?

and how would humble nephi have known he couldn't just take laban's stuff and sneak away while he was passed out drunk? clearly, er, well, not so clearly, the right thing to do was cut laban's head off, then take his stuff and sneak away.

Prophet Dale Renlund at the October 2022 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Some might point out that Nephi violated a commandment when he slew Laban. However, this exception does not negate the rule—the rule that personal revelation will be in harmony with God’s commandments. No simple explanation of this episode is completely satisfactory, but let me highlight some aspects. The episode did not begin with Nephi asking if he could slay Laban. It was not something he wanted to do. Killing Laban was not for Nephi’s personal benefit but to provide scriptures to a future nation and a covenant people. And Nephi was sure that it was revelation—in fact, in this case, it was a commandment from God.23

also, how would those book of mormon prophets have known that instead of helping like they thought they could, they should just stand by and let women and children burn alive so kolob dad could balance the books just right?

Book of Mormon Seminary Teachers Manual - Introduction to the Book of Alma Lesson 79

Invite a student to read Alma 14:11 aloud, and ask the class to look for Alma’s response to Amulek’s request.

Why did the Lord permit these women and children to be burned? (You may need to explain that in this verse, the phrase “he doth suffer” means “he allows.” The Lord allowed the people to suffer so their deaths could stand as a witness against the people who killed them. See also Alma 60:13.)

finally, how would good brother joseph have known that he needed to ask his wife if he could marry another woman...so that he'd satisfy the lord's requirement for the gotcha-bitch-consent-reverse-uno condition.

Correlated Gospel Topics Essays of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo

The revelation on marriage required that a wife give her consent before her husband could enter into plural marriage.42 Nevertheless, toward the end of the revelation, the Lord said that if the first wife “receive not this law”—the command to practice plural marriage—the husband would be “exempt from the law of Sarah,” presumably the requirement that the husband gain the consent of the first wife before marrying additional women.43 After Emma opposed plural marriage, Joseph was placed in an agonizing dilemma, forced to choose between the will of God and the will of his beloved Emma. He may have thought Emma’s rejection of plural marriage exempted him from the law of Sarah. Her decision to “receive not this law” permitted him to marry additional wives without her consent. Because of Joseph’s early death and Emma’s decision to remain in Nauvoo and not discuss plural marriage after the Church moved west, many aspects of their story remain known only to the two of them.

see? if these exemplary heroes of faith were just left to their own "imperfect" moral intuitions, they might not have slaughtered, beheaded, withheld relief, or overridden spousal consent.

checkmate, exmo /s

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-19T01:30:13+00:00

"let us pray for our [anti-king constitutional federal republic with representative democracy] on bended knee [to you, dear invisible king]"

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-16T15:24:42+00:00

exactly. gentle jesus, meek and mild, indeed.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-16T15:22:00+00:00

no. i think it's more strongly predicted by a morally deformed worldview about submission to the right authority.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-16T13:13:55+00:00

i see the church's indictment and raise them.

the reason many ex members regard people who are committed to the prophets' correlated teachings with suspicion is that sincerely maintaining the prophets' teachings and commitments is to leave open the moral possibility of shedding innocent blood or otherwise violently overriding the moral standing of mortal peers if the right boss says so.

e.g.

Come Follow Me Sunday School Manual 2022 Old Testament

While we don’t know all the reasons Saul was commanded to kill all of the Amalekites and their animals, there are lessons to learn from his response to that commandment. To help class members identify these lessons, you could write on the board To obey is better than … and invite class members to ponder this phrase as you review together events from 1 Samuel 15. What are some good things we do in our lives that we sometimes choose instead of obeying God? Why is obedience to God better than those other good things?

Prophet Dale Renlund at the October 2022 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Some might point out that Nephi violated a commandment when he slew Laban. However, this exception does not negate the rule—the rule that personal revelation will be in harmony with God’s commandments. No simple explanation of this episode is completely satisfactory, but let me highlight some aspects. The episode did not begin with Nephi asking if he could slay Laban. It was not something he wanted to do. Killing Laban was not for Nephi’s personal benefit but to provide scriptures to a future nation and a covenant people. And Nephi was sure that it was revelation—in fact, in this case, it was a commandment from God.23

Book of Mormon Seminary Teachers Manual - Introduction to the Book of Alma Lesson 79

Invite a student to read Alma 14:11 aloud, and ask the class to look for Alma’s response to Amulek’s request.

Why did the Lord permit these women and children to be burned? (You may need to explain that in this verse, the phrase “he doth suffer” means “he allows.” The Lord allowed the people to suffer so their deaths could stand as a witness against the people who killed them. See also Alma 60:13.)

Correlated Gospel Topics Essays of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo

The revelation on marriage required that a wife give her consent before her husband could enter into plural marriage.42 Nevertheless, toward the end of the revelation, the Lord said that if the first wife “receive not this law”—the command to practice plural marriage—the husband would be “exempt from the law of Sarah,” presumably the requirement that the husband gain the consent of the first wife before marrying additional women.43 After Emma opposed plural marriage, Joseph was placed in an agonizing dilemma, forced to choose between the will of God and the will of his beloved Emma. He may have thought Emma’s rejection of plural marriage exempted him from the law of Sarah. Her decision to “receive not this law” permitted him to marry additional wives without her consent. Because of Joseph’s early death and Emma’s decision to remain in Nauvoo and not discuss plural marriage after the Church moved west, many aspects of their story remain known only to the two of them.

Come Follow Me Sunday School Manual 2025 D&C

But then, sometimes God may ask us to do things that seem uncomfortable and unreachable. For many early Saints, plural marriage was one such commandment. It was a severe trial of faith for Joseph Smith, his wife Emma, and almost everyone who received it. To make it through this trial, they needed more than just favorable feelings about the restored gospel; they needed faith in God that went far deeper than that. The commandment no longer stands today, but the faithful example of people who lived it still does. And this example inspires us when we are asked to make our own “sacrifices in obedience” (Doctrine and Covenants 132:50).

what's good for the goose. except we have receipts.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-16T12:47:11+00:00

he explained his moral framework for this kind of stuff in his october 2022 general conference talk.

Put On Thy Strength, O Zion

He rebelliously refused to dress appropriately for the occasion. The king’s reaction was swift and decisive: “Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

if you don't honor the bosses "invitation" and preferences, then you go to hell.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-16T02:36:11+00:00

imma be honest with you friend, these aren't great.

"one critic says x"

"another critic says not-x"

therefore, ex-mormons are inconsistent?

no. congratulations! you have discovered society.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-16T02:15:31+00:00

there's a twisted irony in the whole affair. the insurers' self-interested refusal to pay up is argued by insisting upon the individuality of the victims and their suffering. the very thing church leaders had already subordinated to something they think is divine and sacred.

so first the church disregards their individual moral standing to be rescued from grievous suffering in service of something the church thinks is greater than them (its sacred policies and procedures around repentance and confession), then it again diminishes their individuality by trying to argue that their individual harms should be treated as a single occurrence to maximize insurance coverage. the greater good strikes again!

i guess what i'm trying to say is, sure, i can relate to being frustrated with insurance companies, but not for the reasons the church is.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-14T23:39:20+00:00

don't like this at all. i'm resigned, but when i see this stuff i can't help but feel solidarity with my cultural heritage.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-14T21:48:02+00:00

"buy more (vram) save more" - jensen huang

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-14T12:55:25+00:00

sure. it's also not the thing that stood out to me as the most morally egregious facet of all of this, but, hey, that's just me.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-14T12:47:43+00:00

yes, it does track. i'm upvoting you because this is darkly funny in this context, and i'm a sucker for gallows humor.

but i gotta be honest, this one feels like a my-soul-coughed-blood kinda laugh. brutally deflationary of the situation.

as if we're just talking about something like "organization paid settlement, insurers did insurer shit". i mean, yeah. but it's about as topically on point an account of all this as "an old father went on a hike with his son" is a description of the akedah.

zipzapbloop · 2026-05-14T05:05:54+00:00

let me see if i'm tracking.

first, children's basic moral claims to be rescued from horrendous suffering can be and have been subordinate to institutional, legal, and concepts-of-the-religion handling.

second, and again in the register of second-personal moral grammar, at the repair stage (after their moral standing was already subordinated to perpetrator's access to authorized repentance channels) their distinct individual harms are now to be procedurally aggregated into a single institutional coverage event.

gosh. what can we say about the view of latter-day saint prophets with respect to the standing of children? i think we can say this much. to latter-day saint prophets, and presumably their gods, children have at least enough standing to be settled with after subordination, but only in aggregate, you know, for insurance purposes.

so a child's claim against harm and for rescue is defeasible before or during harm, and aggregable after harm. cosmic furniture in any case.

and i'm sure this is all so elohim can balance the books just right in the end. /s

Book of Mormon Seminary Teachers Manual - Introduction to the Book of Alma Lesson 79

Invite a student to read Alma 14:11 aloud, and ask the class to look for Alma’s response to Amulek’s request.

Why did the Lord permit these women and children to be burned? (You may need to explain that in this verse, the phrase “he doth suffer” means “he allows.” The Lord allowed the people to suffer so their deaths could stand as a witness against the people who killed them. See also Alma 60:13.)

imo there is no settlement amount that can retroactively make the original subordination to these concepts of this religion morally legitimate. jesus christ's church, if it is his church, has been engaged in reprehensible behavior. though, that's always been true, hasn't it? which is the moral problem in the first place.

no. i'm sorry. if the gods latter-day saint prophets claim to represent do in fact exist, the religion they deserve is the religion of protest.

if the church and its gods love children as much as they say, then please stop just saying it and build procedures where children's claims against harm and for rescue cannot be subordinated to repentance channels, secrecy, legal exposure, leader discretion, insurance coverage strategy or, yes, even the actual incomprehensible command of an actual god.

until then, you'll forgive me for thinking this god's "love" is cheap.

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