Posted by:
ThinkingOutLoud
(
)
Date: October 29, 2014 10:04AM
I wonder if Mormons feel the same way about this, as they do about a member's doubts about the church/the BOM?
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", they say. Ok. So absence of evidence against Hinckley means...what?
That such evidence is non existent? Or it exists and we just haven't seen it, prayed for it hard enough, had enough faith for to to be presented to us yet?
I mean, really, they cannot have it both ways with that statement. Absence of evidence is absence of evidence, no more. Because if no evidence is found means it exists and can be found if looked for long enough, and prayed for hard enough and if we just have a little faith, then I guess we can expect a big comeuppance for the church, any day now. Oh, wait...
I don't believe the stories about GBH, though it is weird that his initials are the acronym for "grievous bodily harm" and also for a date rape drug by the same name, but, oh well. I don't believe it, simply because the source info is corrupted, and provably so. Even those who worked with Decker on the prior film felt he was way off base on this one. Those already predisposed to be doubters of Hinckley and his church and had evidence for such doubt, The Tanners, felt the same. I tend to discount what whackos with a track record for being whackos, say when they also have no evidence at all for their whacko claims.
Same goes for LDS claims of Joseph Smith being a prophet and his BOM being true.
As far as proof or evidence being found, if there is any: when was this alleged to have happened? A member's church file would be at the COB, right? But the complete file held there would have such alleged evidence only if the alleged events occurred, and only if a member or victim confessed to them or reported them, correct? If no one did that, then no such record within church files exists of any of it. Even if it happened. Alternative: If these alleged events happened and the alleged victims were non members, then I'd bet no official record of such a thing exists within the church at all. Not unless they were a party to a lawsuit or criminal case, and maybe not even then. I don't know if the church does "press clippings" or "press mentions" of these sorts of things and inserts or attaches them to member files.
Maybe this is one reason no member can see their own church file, except to see ordinances performed? COB keeps anything and everything and all alleged black marks against them are in the hands of church leaders, to be used in any way they see fit. Kind of like the way Scientology keeps records on their people and yanks them out and spills what's in them in public, whenever the member quits.
The church track record on abuse reporting has been so abysmal over most of the years they have been in existence, I'm not certain any alleged evidence would ever be found. The church claims now to have stopped all that funny business and put safeguards in place to prevent future cases. And yet, the frontline "lay clergy", the bishops among them, more often do things like tell two minor girls to just pray away their father's sexual abuse of them, and to forgive him:
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20051122&slug=abuse22mThe problem is: who polices the police? Who bishops the bishops? There is a hotline for bishops to call if they come across a victim or an abuser in the regular course of their work. It's a "let's protect ourselves first, shall we? " sort of hotline, by all accounts, designed to limit the liability of the church rather than help its victims. But never mind. The phone number is there, it exists.
It only exists after much controversy over the church's alleged lack of action on known cases, their alleged bumbling, fumbling and mishandling of evidence, and only after much internally reported abuse went civilly unpunished, allegedly, or properly addressed, also allegedly.
But what happens if the person responsible for calling that number is the abuser, themselves? Then nothing goes anywhere, and nothing is done unless the victims go to the police.
Can anyone imagine that in latter days, or former ones, it would have been any different?