Sam Young is Excommunicated

[Hamba Tuhan]

5 minutes ago, Avatar4321 said:

Why is anyone taking this guy seriously anymore?

Anymore?

[Tacenda]

Thanks Sam!

https://www.lds.org/church/news/first-presidency-releases-new-guidelines-for-interviewing-youth?lang=eng

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900022262/lds-leaders-again-update-guidelines-for-bishops-interviews-with-children-and-youth-including-a-list-of-topics-and-questions.html

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900013999/lds-first-presidency-letter-directs-leaders-to-review-teach-policies-on-preventing-responding-to-sex-abuse.html

 

Edited November 1, 2018 by Tacenda

[rockpond]

1 hour ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Mr Young accepts it as true, presents it as emblematic of what he's up against, and says that it's worth losing his membership over.

I suspect I may not be alone in having reached slightly different conclusions.

I’m sure you aren’t. 

Either way, one of you is right and one of you is wrong.  We don’t have enough data to know which. 

[smac97]

2 minutes ago, rockpond said:

I’m sure you aren’t. 

Either way, one of you is right and one of you is wrong.  We don’t have enough data to know which. 

And in the absence of such data, the presumption of innocence carries the day.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

16 minutes ago, rockpond said:

I’m sure you aren’t. 

Either way, one of you is right and one of you is wrong.  We don’t have enough data to know which. 

She makes some rather extravagant claims though, so the positions are not exactly equivalent.  I think we can say which is more likely.

[let’s roll]

On 9/16/2018 at 8:36 PM, BlueDreams said:

Personally, I don’t see worthiness interviews in the same light as your do or the same as confessions. I think its a common misconception of them and one I think i held for a while too. But my perspective changed over the years. I remember one time in particular that I had a nice stake counselor explain to me beforehand that this was a time to reflect on my covenants with God and testify of my faith (or something like it...i cant remember the exact words). He was more of a facilitator or witness of the process. I think that we are stewards of our own bodies first and foremost. the bishops arent there to deem us worthy. The spirit is. They’re there to help guide us and support us if we feel impressed by the spirit to go that route in our repentance journey.  And they have stewardship to help facilitate that process as judges in israel. I do think that culturally that’s somewhat misunderstood and both members and bishops can treat recommend interviews as what you mentioned. It leads to overreach by some bishops and members being dependent on bishop counsel instead of fostering and building their own relationship with God to work with them in their covenants. But that’s not what i plan to teach my children. And as I mentioned there’s plenty of space for each of us to hold our different opinions.

 

With luv, 

BD

Deep, perceptive, wise, and as always, delivered with love.  Amen and thank you.

[provoman]

.............

Edited November 1, 2018 by provoman

[Storm Rider]

20 hours ago, rockpond said:

Is there something leading you to believe that I am in "fantasy land", not on firm ground, and not looking with clear eyes on reality?

You seem to allege that there is a significant abuse of young people in bishops' interviews. Yes, that is a fantasy - in that men are as human as anyone else there may be abuses, but they remain the exception rather than the rule. This Young fellow is an idiot. Why? Because he is willing to believe the most outlandish of stories and attest that they are real. 

[lostindc]

15 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Anymore?

Oops, looks like the Church listened based on links below your post.  Sam’s has a great impact on the process.

Edited November 1, 2018 by lostindc

[Avatar4321]

23 minutes ago, lostindc said:

Oops, looks like the Church listened based on links below your post.  Sam’s has a great impact on the process.

What impact has he had?

[Tacenda]

31 minutes ago, Avatar4321 said:

What impact has he had?

 

15 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Thanks Sam!

https://www.lds.org/church/news/first-presidency-releases-new-guidelines-for-interviewing-youth?lang=eng

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900022262/lds-leaders-again-update-guidelines-for-bishops-interviews-with-children-and-youth-including-a-list-of-topics-and-questions.html

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900013999/lds-first-presidency-letter-directs-leaders-to-review-teach-policies-on-preventing-responding-to-sex-abuse.html

 

 

[rockpond]

2 hours ago, Storm Rider said:

You seem to allege that there is a significant abuse of young people in bishops' interviews. Yes, that is a fantasy - in that men are as human as anyone else there may be abuses, but they remain the exception rather than the rule. This Young fellow is an idiot. Why? Because he is willing to believe the most outlandish of stories and attest that they are real. 

I've never alleged that.  I'm not even sure how you would define "significant abuse".  Unless someone wants to say that any abuse is significant (which isn't altogether false).

Do I think that abuse exists in the process?  Yes.

Are there things we could do better?  Certainly.

[Tacenda]

3 hours ago, Storm Rider said:

You seem to allege that there is a significant abuse of young people in bishops' interviews. Yes, that is a fantasy - in that men are as human as anyone else there may be abuses, but they remain the exception rather than the rule. This Young fellow is an idiot. Why? Because he is willing to believe the most outlandish of stories and attest that they are real. 

IMO, interviews with certain questions are enough to cause the youth to go through life with unnecessary guilt or spark someone to search out what masturbation means, or search porn, or search chastity, or the meaning of many things that wouldn't have even been on youth's radar and then ignited a problem to start.

There are many instances of this that I've seen or read about in the church. Have you read the the stories? Or seen online posts? If the church didn't think there was a problem would they have made all the changes in the links I provided on another post? Or do you think the church did that for publicity purposes? 

[alter idem]

On 11/1/2018 at 12:43 PM, Tacenda said:

 

 

I'm not sure how Sam Young can be given credit for having influenced the church when these actions by the church took place before he held his starvation stand and was exed.  I remember thinking at the time if possibly he was unaware of the changes which had already been announced.

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, alter idem said:

I'm not sure how Sam Young can be given credit for having influenced the church when these actions by the church took place before he held his starvation stand and was exed.  I remember thinking at the time if possibly he was unaware of the changes which had already been announced.

Did they implement the changes before Dec. 2017? https://fox13now.com/2017/12/01/former-lds-bishop-calls-for-church-leaders-to-stop-interviewing-teens-about-sexual-practices/

[rockpond]

15 hours ago, alter idem said:

I'm not sure how Sam Young can be given credit for having influenced the church when these actions by the church took place before he held his starvation stand and was exed.  I remember thinking at the time if possibly he was unaware of the changes which had already been announced.

His first organized protest (the march to church headquarters and delivery of his book of stories) was in March 2018, I believe. 

[ksfisher]

On 11/1/2018 at 2:05 PM, Tacenda said:

IMO, interviews with certain questions are enough to cause the youth to go through life with unnecessary guilt or spark someone to search out what masturbation means, or search porn, or search chastity, or the meaning of many things that wouldn't have even been on youth's radar and then ignited a problem to start.

 

So should we stop telling people not to lie, cheat, or steal as well?  Surely we would want to prohibit any mention of “thou shalt not kill.”

[Judd]

On 10/31/2018 at 8:59 PM, rockpond said:

I’m sure you aren’t. 

Either way, one of you is right and one of you is wrong.  We don’t have enough data to know which. 

Do you believe there’s enough data to say that the probabilities are different?

Edited November 10, 2018 by Judd

[rockpond]

45 minutes ago, Judd said:

Do you believe there’s enough data to say that the probabilities are different?

The question reflect a misunderstanding of probability theory.  However, I think that some of the accounts in Sam’s growing book are likely 100% true.  Some are likely totally false. Others fall somewhere in between. 

We are called to leave the 99 and go rescue the one. 

[rockpond]

1 hour ago, ksfisher said:

So should we stop telling people not to lie, cheat, or steal as well?  Surely we would want to prohibit any mention of “thou shalt not kill.”

I don’t believe that either Sam Young nor Tacenda are arguing for us to stop teaching true doctrine, morals, or commandments. 

[Judd]

5 minutes ago, rockpond said:

The question reflect a misunderstanding of probability theory.  However, I think that some of the accounts in Sam’s growing book are likely 100% true.  Some are likely totally false. Others fall somewhere in between. 

We are called to leave the 99 and go rescue the one. 

You were addressing a specific one, though, saying there wasn’t enough evidence to conclude. I was asking if there was enough evidence to suggest anything other than both possibilities being equally likely. 

To me, it kinda seemed like we heard some galloping in the background, someone suggested it was a horse, and you’re somewhat baffled, wondering, if nobody has seen the horse, how we could possibly conclude that it’s not an ostrich wearing horse hooves.

[rockpond]

16 minutes ago, Judd said:

You were addressing a specific one, though, saying there wasn’t enough evidence to conclude. I was asking if there was enough evidence to suggest anything other than both possibilities being equally likely. 

To me, it kinda seemed like we heard some galloping in the background, someone suggested it was a horse, and you’re somewhat baffled, wondering, if nobody has seen the horse, how we could possibly conclude that it’s not an ostrich wearing horse hooves.

It was a week and a half back that I posted that response.  I’m a little foggy on the particulars of the discussion.  Would you do me a favor and ask the question with the specifics?  I’ll then do my best to answer. 

[Judd]

1 hour ago, rockpond said:

It was a week and a half back that I posted that response.  I’m a little foggy on the particulars of the discussion.  Would you do me a favor and ask the question with the specifics?  I’ll then do my best to answer. 

The discussion had come up regarding the story Young posted before his excommunication, implying that preventing that is something he’d trade his membership for, and of which the GAs don’t care about. That story was about a woman claiming to be sexually abused a week after she was born, prostituted by church leaders in sex rings, being drugged and turned into pornography, then being interrogated by the bishop to test her memory. On one occasion, she had to participate in a murder that then culminated in cannibalization. Her stake president grandfather kept moving the family around and making sure other members of the sex ring were in her ward. As an adult, she later saw a therapist independently, who then drugged her and prostituted her for a few years. Then she saw a bishop who didn’t believe her story, but then she found the spirit of Christ through Sam and his acceptance. 

Anyway, Hamba said that Young accepts this at face value, while he himself has come to different conclusions. You suggested that between Sam and Hamba, one of them is right and one is wrong (in their conclusion), but that there’s not enough data to tell.

I’m curious if, with what is actually known about the claim, if you think there’s any level of varying possibility, or if both conclusions are equally likely. 

What I struggle most with is how much it seems “the desire to believe” allows for suspended logic. Atheists and agnostics have longed criticized theists, and rightly so in many instances, for how they will rationalize the most irrational of positions out of a desire to believe. I feel if this were fundamentally something more neutral, many wouldn’t be so wishy-washy about acknowledging what is patently obvious. But, as Sam is ‘fighting the good fight,’ and as many of these stories may be true, and as many bad things have previously happened, are currently happening, and will continue to happen, it sets this stage of indifference about the legitimacy of claims because “lots of abuse can happen and so maybe decades long sex ring conspiracies with murder and cannibalism could happen, too!”

In a nutshell, these claims don’t have to be accepted en bloc. Rejecting, or even simply not encouraging, outrageous claims is not a rejection of any other claim, and to accept that there has been abuse doesn’t mean that stories like this must also be given legitimacy. What I’m trying to nail down is this specific claim, not the movement, but Sam is throwing this out there to rationalize his rage. I mean, who wouldn’t want to go to all lengths to prevent something like this. Church leadership, apparently.

[rockpond]

2 hours ago, Judd said:

The discussion had come up regarding the story Young posted before his excommunication, implying that preventing that is something he’d trade his membership for, and of which the GAs don’t care about. That story was about a woman claiming to be sexually abused a week after she was born, prostituted by church leaders in sex rings, being drugged and turned into pornography, then being interrogated by the bishop to test her memory. On one occasion, she had to participate in a murder that then culminated in cannibalization. Her stake president grandfather kept moving the family around and making sure other members of the sex ring were in her ward. As an adult, she later saw a therapist independently, who then drugged her and prostituted her for a few years. Then she saw a bishop who didn’t believe her story, but then she found the spirit of Christ through Sam and his acceptance. 

Anyway, Hamba said that Young accepts this at face value, while he himself has come to different conclusions. You suggested that between Sam and Hamba, one of them is right and one is wrong (in their conclusion), but that there’s not enough data to tell.

I’m curious if, with what is actually known about the claim, if you think there’s any level of varying possibility, or if both conclusions are equally likely. 

What I struggle most with is how much it seems “the desire to believe” allows for suspended logic. Atheists and agnostics have longed criticized theists, and rightly so in many instances, for how they will rationalize the most irrational of positions out of a desire to believe. I feel if this were fundamentally something more neutral, many wouldn’t be so wishy-washy about acknowledging what is patently obvious. But, as Sam is ‘fighting the good fight,’ and as many of these stories may be true, and as many bad things have previously happened, are currently happening, and will continue to happen, it sets this stage of indifference about the legitimacy of claims because “lots of abuse can happen and so maybe decades long sex ring conspiracies with murder and cannibalism could happen, too!”

In a nutshell, these claims don’t have to be accepted en bloc. Rejecting, or even simply not encouraging, outrageous claims is not a rejection of any other claim, and to accept that there has been abuse doesn’t mean that stories like this must also be given legitimacy. What I’m trying to nail down is this specific claim, not the movement, but Sam is throwing this out there to rationalize his rage. I mean, who wouldn’t want to go to all lengths to prevent something like this. Church leadership, apparently.

I desperately want to believe that the particular account being referenced is significantly fabricated or remembered with extremely exaggerated details.  Personally, I wouldn't share or repeat it without more validation.  

Aside from that, I can’t speak to the possibility or it being true or not.  

[bluebell]

17 hours ago, rockpond said:

I don’t believe that either Sam Young nor Tacenda are arguing for us to stop teaching true doctrine, morals, or commandments. 

I thought that Sam Young was against the church teaching the law of chastity?  Maybe i'm remembering wrong though.