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I described it in a thread you started, ironically. 
Here is the post itself, for anyone who is interested in a discussion about that story.
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3354&hilit=Isaac Old Timer wrote:
I described it in a thread you started, ironically.Here is the post itself, for anyone who is interested in a discussion about that story.
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3354&hilit=Isaac
Yes, it is ironic. Five years ago ironic though…and I had asked a question in that thread to which I didn’t see an answer from urt — perhaps you could answer the question there, or here, or whereever you think it fits. That may be why I felt the question was unresolved.
Here was my question — after you indicated God was testing Abraham to see if he had ABANDONED the blind obedience culture, and Abraham failed the test, I asked this:
Quote:
Got it Curt. I like your interpretation.However, didn’t God say he would reward Abraham for his actions with the Abrahamic Covenant? How could Abraham fail the test yet get eternal reward for failing it?
I didn’t see your answer to that in the thread….and I’m interested in your response.
Just for myself, the scriptures are written by men that overlay a certain religious narrative over events that may or may not have actually happened. This allows for the men to justify the wrong doings and even atrocities as being sanctioned by God.
George Washington didn’t lie, ever, in the original narratives. Thomas Jefferson didn’t have children through sex with a slave / servant.
John F. Kennedy wasn’t a serial adulterer, while married to a beautiful, popular First Lady.
A few Popes weren’t violent, lustful perverts.
Mormon polygamy had nothing to do with hormones – at least, not the LDS version(s).
Abraham was a perfect man, so everything he did can be explained by adding a covenant, prophetic element.
People are people. Believers are believers. Critics are critics. Justifiers are justifiers. Humans are human.
Confirmation bias is fascinating, and nobody here is immune from it just because our views have changed in some ways over time. Abraham can be whomever we want him to be, and so can anyone else. I try to be as charitable as possible – and I like the “Abraham failed narrative” primarily because of how charitable I think it is (toward him and, by extension, all of us).
/Back to the focus of the post (Abraham and Isaac is a good example of abuse, so let’s not let it stray from that focus.) I just want to add that in my view, there is a formula for preventing church abuse: 1. Be free of opinions about you from Church members. Get comfy in your own skin.
2. Set boundaries on what they can extract from you.
3. Unless you have personal confirmation, then don’t be swayed by arguments that the Lord told a leader you should do X or Y.
4. Keep your critical thinking hat on when you listen to the reasons members and leaders give for why you should have unwavering commitment to the church. Leaders can be wrong. Elder Uchtdorft had a point on that one.
Joni wrote:
It’s my understanding that Elder Montoya compares doubt to a fungus. I’m a little curious, is he not familiar withhuitlacoche
Corn smut! Ha!
Another idea:
beneficial fungi grow around and inside of tree rootsBack to the topic: I’m softening on this, mostly because there’s on essential difference between an organization and a singular human. In an organization, it’s much, much easier to abuse due to ignorance alone. Actions taken at the top appear to apply to aggregates instead of individuals. Feedback that indicates that an action is harmful to some takes a very different form.
I do think the Church systematically abuses members on the margins. I still think a lot of it is due to entitlement and control. I think some of it arises from ignorance. I don’t know how much ignorance is wilful. If someone thinks he doesn’t need your opinion because he honestly believes that God is telling him what to do – or at least would stop him from doing anything terrible – is that wilful ignorance?
I’m flirting with an analogy on the subject, which I’ll probably post on a separate thread.
Reuben wrote:
I do think the Church systematically abuses members on the margins. I still think a lot of it is due to entitlement and control. I think some of it arises from ignorance. I don’t know how much ignorance is wilful. If someone thinks he doesn’t need your opinion because he honestly believes that God is telling him what to do – or at least would stop him from doing anything terrible – is that wilful ignorance?
I don’t see how whether or not the abuse is willful and intentional actually makes a difference. It’s happening regardless, and it will continue to go on regardless. It makes no difference in terms of what you can actually do about the abuse.
ydeve, that might be true for one individual at the level,of the entire church, but each person can make a difference locally – and many individuals making a difference locally can have a widespread impact on the overall culture, including now but especially on the future generations who will make major cultural changes. What Ray said. The point of sussing out reasons is to determine whether there’s anything I can do to effect small changes, and then determine what that is. Whether
ignorance(not abuse) is intentional has a lot to do with whether something can be done, and what. Wilful ignorance can be really hard to overcome. It’s almost axiomatic that abuse is unintentional. No abuser sees himself as the bad guy.
ydeve, I know you’ve probably suffered more abuse than most of the rest of us. I’m sorry if the topic has brought you more grief, or if I seem too cavalier about it. Believe me, I’m not. Clinical detachment is one of my coping strategies.
At this point I’d say most of the ignorance is willful, at least to some degree. This is how you get people who hear many testimonies of those who are abused and dismiss it all as lies and propaganda, how you get family members who describe their “loved ones” as having gone astray and feel the need to frequently emphasize that they disagree with their “choice of lifestyle.” These people wouldn’t be able to remain ignorant of they weren’t resisting information that challenges their worldview. It takes a lot of willpower to do so. How conscious is the resisting? I don’t know. For some, it may be more of an instictual response. Best of luck in getting past their amygdala. I think there are a lot of factors at play. We have proven phenomena such as Groupthink to worry about — when people go along with ideas they think everyone else thinks is a good idea, it hurts good decision-making. There is conformity at work. Who would have thought to stand up in Sacrament meeting and say the priesthood ban was a mistake??? The social consequences would be significant a few years ago due to the need to conform with the culture. And then you have Milgram’s authority experiment where subjects gave perceived lethal doses of electrical shocks to a confederate actor at the direction of a person in a lab coat. Combine groupthink, social conformity, and someone clothed in God’s authority, and there is a recipe for believing certain principles or norms that can be harmful to people. I still think the Mountain Meadows Massacre is a case in point, albeit a rare and extreme one. That is why I will never surrender my conscience or my agency to someone else, not even leaders in the church. If what they want me to do is so far out there and I feel I must do it, there will still have to be some kind of major confirmation or I won’t commit.
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