One of fundamental parts of Mormonism is the concept of worthiness. In fact, this is such a defining characteristic that often mainstream Christians point to this as an unbridgeable divide. Mormonism does not teach that grace alone is sufficient to attaining the highest degree of glory, but worthiness in combination with grace is required. So the concept of worthiness is deeply embedded in Mormonism, in its teachings and practices. Active members are expected, from their teen years onward, to submit themselves to "worthiness interviews" with the priesthood leaders. Before being issued most callings, worthiness is ascertained through such an interview. Loss of worthiness can result of loss of calling as well as priesthood and even church membership. Simply being a smoker is enough to disqualify Mormons from leadership positions. Loss of worthiness is directly linked to the loss of the spirit, the mechanism by which LDS members are "enlightened" from on high.
Yet, when confronted with solid evidence that the high leaders of the LDS church incited members to commit mass murder, and possibly other murders as well, apologists insist that this, alone, does not disqualify the leaders from being able to lead the church in behalf of Jesus Christ.
It makes reason stare!
A missionary can be sent home in disgrace for even minor sexual sins, or infractions of the Word of Wisdom. Yet the prophets and apostles apparently are subjected to a far lower standard.
A bishop can be forced to resign and be excommunicated for far less. But prophets and apostles can incite mass murder and God will still consider them adequate for the job. God has no problem with his prophet teaching his followers that they can manifest TRUE love by killing sinners.
Just what kind of bizarre God is this? A hypocrite? An elitist? A trickster? A demon?
So God doesn't particularly care about the moral character of his leaders, nor does he care about how they "represent" his church. As I said earlier, not even the stupidest CEO would choose such an obviously flawed person as their representative. After all, the word "representative" means that this individual is standing in your stead. God doesn't mind if someone who incites murder stands in his stead, but he does mind if a missionary sneaks a smoke.
Ray won't judge these men, and he defies anyone to judge him, but he is very willing to judge internet exmormons.
Let's look at the internet in particular, and the behavior it tends to encourage. This is a well known phenomenon and is often commented upon. People tend to engage in far ruder behavior on the internet then they would ever engage in in real life. I believe this is due to the fact that, as Robert Wright noted, human beings are wired, in part, to behave according to social expectations in order to obtain a good reputation in the community. They are someone worthy of reciprocal altruism. When this social observation is muted, as it is on the internet due not only to anonymity but also to the fact that even those who use their real names are generally not interacting with people in their "real life" community. It is also due to the fact that there is no face-to-face interaction, but rather an impersonal screen. Is this behavior limited to exmormons? Only
the most naïve individual would imagine so.
Are Ray and DCP and his crowd of cheerleaders engaging in their own form of “presentism” when they studiously ignore the context of these comments? In other words, an internet board?
Let’s look at some current observations about internet interactions:
http://www.profy.com/2007/02/21/web20-politeweb/
I found a really insightful essay in the New York Times by Daniel Coleman. The article deals with online behavior and in particular "flaming" before thinking in online communication venues. After all, we have all been exposed to rude and antisocial behavior from other people since we first ventured here.
In fact, offensive messages seem to plague every dialogue we enter into, and often comments that are not meant to be offensive can easily be taken badly. The "flaming" phenomena actually has a technical name, it is known as the "online disinhibition effect."
According to the essay, in 2004 an article in the CyberPsychology & Behavior suggested that several psychological factors lead to online disinhibition: the anonymity of a Web pseudonym; invisibility to others; the time lag between sending an email message and getting feedback; the exaggerated send of self from being alone; and the lack of any online authority figure. Dr. John Sujler, psychologist at Rider University concludes that this effect can either be benign - as when a shy person opens up online, or toxic - when more aggressive people become uninhibited.
There is an emerging field called social neuroscience, which studies what goes in the brains and bodies between interacting people. This field offers clues into what exactly goes in to "flaming."
There appear to be some flaws in the inherent interface between the brain's social circuitry and the online world. In face-to-face interaction, the brain reads a continual cascade of emotional signs and social cues, instantaneously using them to guide our next move to effect good encounters. Most of this social guidance occurs in circuitry centered on the orbitofrontal cortex, or center for empathy. This center works to ensure that interactions are kept on track.
Research by Jennifer Beer, a psychologist at the University of California, showed that the face-to-face guidance system inhibits impulses for actions that would upset other people to throw interaction off. Neurological patients with a damaged orbitofrontal cortex lose their ability to modulate the amygdala, a source of unruly impulses like small children exhibit.
Socially artful responses are largely a function of neural chatter between the orbitofrontal cortex and emotional centers like the amygdale that generate impulsive behavior. The cortex needs social information - a change in voice or tone - to know how to select and channel impulses. In emails or chat rooms there are no channels for voice, facial expression or other cues from the person on the receiving end of textual communication. We do have cute emoticons to add punctuation and simulate emotion, but these rather lame icons lack the neural impact or an actual smile or frown. Essentially, the cortex has so little to go one in these types of communications that people are much too easily misread and misunderstood.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve been saying!!!
So what is happening? Is Ray right, and some sort of “evil spirit” is current infiltrating the entire planet? Are scores of mini-holocausts ready to unfold? Apparently Mormons will not be the sole targets, based on the rhetoric seen elsewhere on the internet.
To evaluate this evil spirit, let’s look at some of the changes that have taken place within the past decades:
1. Familial abuse has “come out of the closet” to openly be addressed and condemned. It is no longer socially accepted to beat one’s wife, with the exception of the most radical religious communities, nor is child molestation the hidden shame that children had to bear, by and large, by themselves.
2. Slavery is universally condemned. It took a while for some societies to get onboard, but the change is undeniable.
3. Human rights in general are being codified into more governmental systems, with some setbacks now and then.
4. While racial prejudice is not eradicated, it has become socially unacceptable. This is a dramatic change even in my own lifetime. Does anyone else remember the old candidates who used to practically brag about their own racism, and their intent to keep the races separated? Even the fundies in the US have gotten onboard. Jerry Falwell has distanced himself from his former racist teachings, for example.
These are just a couple of examples that immediately come to mind. If these changes are the influence of an “evil spirit”, then I hope that “evil spirit” has more and more influence.
Once again, let’s review Ray’s comments, in the context of his determination that even if BY and other church leaders have blood on their hands for inciting murder and mass murder, that alone does not disqualify them from being God’s representatives in leading the “one true church”.
Mr. Scratch is an outright Nazi, on par with Eichman, who sent thousands of Jews to their deaths.
Exmormons who call DCP a fattie, a barracuda, a liar, a dummy, and whatever else they call him, are the equivalent of Luther who sowed the seeds of anti-semitism.
God alone can judge Brigham Young and Ray A. But Ray is more than qualified to judge exmormons, even if it requires engaging in flagrant disregard of context and balance.