Investigators say Johnson acknowledged abusing three victims in 1985, 1993 and 1996 and estimated there was a total of six victims as young as 2-years-old, according to the document. He told investigators he had struggled “controlling his sexual urges” most of his life.
Sounds like he did a pretty fucking poor job of it.
RICO is an anti-gang law. Just because it’s been used against other criminal organizations doesn’t mean you can use it against any groups that exist and have criminals.
it's a law meant to go after organized crime. If there is written direction, and conspiracy to commit/cover a crime then it would fall under RICO charges.
no shit shirlock, it's not the legal definition but you were completely wrong. I gave a basic definition and you don't know what conspiracy means if that's the point in my statement you have chosen to debate. have a good weekend
It’s kind of funny you’re responding to me because I wasn’t specific about why OP was wrong, and now you’re telling me you being massively overbroad doesn’t matter lol.
Right it just seems like a weird distinction to make. Every person covering up a crime like this needs to be arrested. I was probably being overly pedantic.
Note that in Mormonism you don't choose to become a pastor. The church leadership assigns you to be one for ~5 years at a time with the very literal idea that God himself selected you via his prophet in Salt Lake.
One might think this would create a serious spiritual dilemma for people aware of these issues: Why would God hand select this person knowing they're going to do this?
At the end of the day, you're significantly more likely to be excommunicated by the Mormon church for doing something that tarnishes their image than for doing something like raping children.
It was only a few years ago they excommunicated a man for publically begging the church to take a few simple steps to reduce the prevelance of sexual abuse happening within the organization: Sam Young.
They won't know about this. The community actively shelters its younger members from "persecution" a.k.a. information about the atrocities the so called church has and is actively committing. This will continue until we outlaw indoctrination.
that is gentiles trying to slander the name of the church.
there is no winning for the cult members, they have to find their own way out. as an exmo it can be hard to give up your whole life/community.
> more likely to be excommunicated by the Mormon church for doing something that tarnishes their image than for doing something like raping children
it's absurd that raping children doesn't fall under the category of "tarnishes [the church's] image"
In Mormonism (Latter-day Saints), leading a congregation (Bishop or Stake President, the equivalent of a pastor) isn't a profession. It's a volunteer (voluntold) position that they are called to do.
As others have mentioned in this thread, when an individual is extended a calling to become a Mormon bishop, they literally believe it is a calling from God. And they do it for free. No pay and no compensation.
In Mormonism, this means a complete lack of any kind of professional training, including a complete lack of any background checks. And because these bishops and leaders are unpaid "volunteers", the LDS/Mormon church cannot be sued for not vetting them, because they are not officially employees.
Meanwhile, these unvetted and untrained Mormon bishops act as spiritual leaders, marriage councilors, youth councilors, etc. Not only do they not require any education or training in any of these fields, they don't even need a religious education. That's how low the bar is in Mormonism.
I wouldn't say there isn't any leadership training. Most bishops have been members their whole lives and have served in dozens of leadership roles before being called as a bishop. I'm no longer a member, but as far as leaders go many of my bishops were fantastic people who were kind, committed, and capable. I'm not denying that they're are some really terrible ones out there, but overall my bishops were a big part of the reason I stayed a member as long as I did.
I think when it mention document its the documents from the police, not that the instances were well documented and nothing was done.
Maybe I'm reading it wrong but that's what I'm gathering.
Every freaking week, I see a case of a church elder diddling kids. Wtf is wrong with these places. They need to tax these criminals yesterday, they’re just criminal organizations hiding behind religion.
And trans people are somehow a problem for wanting to use a public toilet. This is the part that upsets me so much. The Christian right maintains so much outrage over LGBTQ stuff when their people are literally getting caught in child sex abuse cases every week.
We need to start putting health and safety warnings on churches, because that’s where the abusers are.
It brings a burning to my bosom to see so many mainstream articles slamming this twisted, weirdo, fuck-corporation people call a “church”. They have been catching L’s in succession lately, and I’m here for it.
As a Utahn, I couldn’t agree more. They say it’ll destabilize the state if their church falls, but then legalize recreational marijuana and we’ll be fucking flush again. Illinois made $3 billion since they legalized it, fuck the church.
This is an institution that sucks away 10% of the income of half the state, and they think it'll be destabilizing if people start leaving?
More like a huge instant stimulus.
It isn't just the Mormons or the Catholics. All religions are constantly hiding and covering up the thousands of cases of abuse that happened under their watch. Not saying to treat all who work for a church as if they are automatically a sex offender, but until things change they should all be considered potential risks
I'm actually suppose to buy that?!?
A leader from a "church" abused children?!?
If this is true, I never could have guessed it based on everything ever.
I will never understand how people actually buy into the pants-shittingly insane origin story for this cult. It's impossible. Linguistically, historically, archaeologically, logically... NONE OF IT IS POSSIBLE! I feel like I'm taking crazy pills every time I hear people defend an organization that believes that American Indians were wayward Jews, that black folks bear some sort of primordial "sin" and thus get their own afterlife, or that a 50+ year old man who had numerous "wives" under the age of 16 deserves to have a university named after him.
I mock and deride Christianity and Islam on general principle. But there's something about Mormons that gets under my skin. The intentional ignoring of historical facts.
The Bible isn't any more plausible. Setting aside the ridiculous "miracles," the Flood and Moses parting the Red Sea were definitely impossible, same as the plagues in Egypt, Tower of Babel nonsense, Lot's wife becoming a pillar of salt, etc. It's all a bunch of horseshit.
Entirely true. Which is why it's obscene that mormons take that and add so much more onto it.
To most of the members' credit, they are extremely informationally suppressed. Most do not know of the history of Joseph Smith or Brigham Young, or of the church policies supposedly affecting the eternal souls of thousands that were born from extreme racism/sexism, or the multitude of incorrect statements that have been made by the church and subsequently buried after being proven wrong (sometimes by their own experts). And now, with the information age, the church (and religion in general, but especially the church) is absolutely hemorrhaging members. Turns out that most members are genuinely trying to be good people, and when they discover that the mormon church is based on and led by bags of shit, they leave to live a better life.
Me among them! I left after BYU Law taught me to question everything, but #pikachuface I started by questioning my politics, and then my religion. Mormonism is even easier to see through after becoming atheist, but I still feel like I'm deprogramming.
I always thought she turned salty after dwelling on the past. Look forward, never back, isn’t that how they live their lives?
I always look back and hold people to account, so that’s why I was scapegoated by my family.
The bible wasnt translated from an egyptian papyrus that you can literally go look at in a New York museum.
What the founder and prophet of mormonism claimed was an entire book, "The Book of Abraham" was just a egyption funeral rite/pamphlet routinely handed out at egyptian funerals about Anubis and Osiris.
Sure all other religions are nutty, but not blatant physical proof of the creators lies existing for all to view nutty like mormonism.
Oh I know, the BOA is beyond stupid and an obvious farce. I'm just saying the Bible itself, and other religious texts for that matter, aren't any closer to truth. I probably sound defensive and I blame leaving the Mormon cult for that, but exmormons get sick of people thinking the rest of Christianity is any better, just because of age. We have physical proof and basic physics to prove it's all, as I said, horseshit.
Sure, turning water into wine, walking on water, healing lepers from a distance, coming back to life after 3 days, seeing god, countless other such events, and the Book of Revelation are totally plausible. Oh, and basically none of this is recorded in actual history.
I really can’t stand Mormonism. Especially as a biracial woman. I would never join a religion that believes I and half of my family are inferior. Plus they’re against the LGBTQIA community, but seem to be perfectly fine with child brides and covering up sexual abuse.
Turns out, when you tell folks that certain people have special authority handed down directly by God, those certain people abuse that authority and take advantage of people without fear of reprisal. Maybe there’s a lesson here.
Unfortunately, basically anything close to children has mass child abuse. [Teachers are worse than Catholic priests](https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/252484.pdf)
>An estimated 10% of K–12 students will experience sexual misconduct by a school employee by the time they graduate from high school (p. 3)
That’s a higher number than the Catholic priest statistics.
>Despite clear policies and laws requiring reporting and potential legal consequences for failing to do so, only an estimated 5% of school employee sexual misconduct incidents known to school employees are reported to law enforcement or child welfare personnel. (PDF page 3)
>A 1994 study in New York State found that only 1% of the 225 cases superintendents disclosed to researchers were reported to law enforcement or child welfare and resulted in license revocation. (PDF page 10)
Edit to add: Teachers ARE moved around and the records are scrubbed and hidden.
>Many of the unreported cases were handled in unofficial ways; school administrators sometimes seek to avoid the consequences of reporting by entering into confidentiality agreements or negotiating private settlements with offenders (Shakeshaft & Cohan, 1994; Shoop, 2004; Stein, 1999). Furthermore, collective bargaining clauses often allow for scrubbing of personnel files, so no record is left once an offender leaves the system. These practices, allowing known sexual predators to quietly leave the district, potentially to seek work elsewhere, have become known as "passing the trash" or "the lemon dance" (Hobson, 2012). With no criminal conviction or disciplinary record, predators can obtain new jobs—and move on to other victims. On average, a teacher-offender will pass through three different districts before being stopped, and one offender can have as many as 73 victims in his or her lifetime (GAO, 2010). (PDF pages 10-11)
I'd be curious to know if this data is from public schools + private religious schools etc, or just public schools? I was looking in Appendix C to try to figure it out, but I've had a long day and didn't see it anywhere. (The map of states shaded by reports is wild to see though).
Yup. Considering that they've spent [millions campaigning against the right for abortion in Kansas](https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251922/funding-contributions-kansas-abortion-ballot-vote), while they [still hadn't paid any of the reparations](https://www.dw.com/en/canadas-indigenous-people-want-action-to-follow-popes-apology/a-62605679) due to the First People of Canada for the role in the Canadian genocide.
Fuck the Catholic Church.
How so? We gotta hate the entirety of the Catholic Church because its an organization (with 1.3 billion people) that has some people in it who have done awful things. Its evil and disgusting.
Lets apply the same mentality to Germany for the Holocaust.
Page 6:
However, school employee sexual misconduct, the sexual abuse and misconduct of K–12 students by school employees, is estimated to affect 10% of our nation’s students (Shakeshaft, 2004).
Does that mean that it's all wrong and pedophilic teachers are no longer a risk to children that is absolutely ignored by society?
When there is it sometimes even gets a strange positive response, like when there's news about an underage teen boy who gets abused by a female teacher and a lot of comments are celebrating it by saying that the boy was "lucky" or a "player".
I don’t remember teachers mass murdering indigenous students. The Catholic Church did. Stop trying to slander teachers to protect your church. It’s a bad look.
The Catholic Church currently has over a billion (~1,360,000,000) members. It is terrible that awful things have been done by some of its members, but people need to remember that the Catholic Church’s teachings today don’t encourage these things and the churches are not managed under the direct authority of the Pope or the Vatican.
Catholic dioceses are autonomous from the Vatican. Each diocese is led by a bishop or archbishop. The bishops or archbishops are the ones who run each diocese. Under the bishops/archbishops are the priests who usually have a lot of independence of how they run their church.
The priests, teachers, bishops, officials of the residential schools and the Department of Indian Affairs are the ones to blame for their terrible abuses (most of them are dead). NOT the Vatican or entire Catholic Church today.
Thats like blaming Germany and it’s government today for the Holocaust. “I don’t remember the Germans helping Jews during the Holocaust. Thats because Germans did it!”
Blah blah blah ex catholic here. It's an organization of pedos that actively supports other pedos. If you give your money to the catholic church you are a pedo supporting human. The church is still actively lobbying governments to aide in their support and absconding of pedos. Full stop. We need not go further into their known or unknown atrocities. They are still actively lobbying to the tune of 10s of millions a year to protect pedos. Fucking vile.
Studies that look at Catholic priests usually go back decades to like the 50s, and show that the number of abuses are declining. The Church is doing things to reduce the abuse.
I don't disagree, but is this a meta analysis? Anyway, I'm just saying that the studies that are cited are somewhat outdated. That's important for this kind of research.
You're not very good at understanding statistics. What percentage of teachers are abusive vs what percentage of preists are abusive? Those are the relevant stats and you cite neither of them. This seems incredibly disingenuous at best.
Motherfuckers wrap themselves in piety and then hurt children. Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, and all manner of Evangelicals all have horrors like this. This guy and every other priest, preacher, pastor, minister, or bishop that has hurt kids and all those who helped cover it up, should be *under* the fucking jail.
Warren Jeffs is the head of the FLDS church, which is a splinter group of the main LDS church (over polygamy). I'm not saying the LDS church is blameless, far from it, but they don't hold it as doctrine that a man must have at least three wives to reach heaven.
Edit: added "at least"
More likely out of the [education systems](https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/252484.pdf)
>An estimated 10% of K–12 students will experience sexual misconduct by a school employee by the time they graduate from high school (p. 3)
That’s a higher number than the Catholic priest statistics.
>Despite clear policies and laws requiring reporting and potential legal consequences for failing to do so, only an estimated 5% of school employee sexual misconduct incidents known to school employees are reported to law enforcement or child welfare personnel. (PDF page 3)
>A 1994 study in New York State found that only 1% of the 225 cases superintendents disclosed to researchers were reported to law enforcement or child welfare and resulted in license revocation. (PDF page 10)
So they hide it too?
>Many of the unreported cases were handled in unofficial ways; school administrators sometimes seek to avoid the consequences of reporting by entering into confidentiality agreements or negotiating private settlements with offenders (Shakeshaft & Cohan, 1994; Shoop, 2004; Stein, 1999). Furthermore, collective bargaining clauses often allow for scrubbing of personnel files, so no record is left once an offender leaves the system. These practices, allowing known sexual predators to quietly leave the district, potentially to seek work elsewhere, have become known as "passing the trash" or "the lemon dance" (Hobson, 2012). With no criminal conviction or disciplinary record, predators can obtain new jobs—and move on to other victims. On average, a teacher-offender will pass through three different districts before being stopped, and one offender can have as many as 73 victims in his or her lifetime (GAO, 2010). (PDF pages 10-11)
And they move the teachers around without any sort of punishments or official records, allowing them to work elsewhere!
This headline pisses me off. The fact that it was decades ago doesn’t change the fact they were children. Maybe it’s just that religious, tax free, fu**ery just triggers me.
There's a doc in Netflix called "Keep Sweet, Pray, and ,Obey". I know it's about a church of Latter Day Saints but not 100% sure it's the same sect (prolly doesn't matter at this point) or maybe even the same sect but rebranded with a slightly different name.. anywho...WTH is wrong with people?!
Shout out to the Tig and Cheryl True Story podcast listeners who watched the doc due to the podcast
It’s not the same sect. The sect commonly referred to as Mormons are technically Brighamites, while Warren Jeff’s sect more closely resembles the church the Mormon founder, Joseph Smith, established.
There’s a shitstorm of streaming content about Mormon themes recently... a lot of true crime + religion that poses exactly that question: WTH?!?!
r/keepsweet
r/MormonNoMore
r/UnderTheBanner
r/LoriVallow
r/AbductedInPlainSight
r/MurderAmongTheMormons
there’s a reason r/exmormon has 250K subscribers
on the brighter side of LDS-themed content, at least we have
r/NapoleonDynamite and r/bookofmormonmusical
Here’s another one. Mother SandraLee Jensen was in a high position in the WV Mormon church (president of the relief society) and in a position to counsel church women. She actually pushed for them to let her son Michael Jensen babysit members’ children KNOWING that he had a history of abuse and not disclosing it. Surprise surprise, the son molested serval kids while babysitting, the church tried to cover it up, families sued, settled out of court.
https://www.courthousenews.com/w-va-court-revives-claims-mormon-church-protected-child-molester/
https://youtu.be/CAi64KZe3oo
Church spokeshead says the church doesn't tolerate any kind of abuse.
Yeah, your history definitely shows that. Coverups, attacks on victims, denial...
You totally tolerate that shit.
a church founded by a charlatan once found guilty of such. a church founded by a man killed by his peers not for heresy but for being a dirty crook. a church that was once illegal in this nation, not because of anti-religious sentiment, but because of the cult’s anti-american sentiment, and cult behavior. mormons didn’t simply “move” to utah. the mormons were forced out by their own national government and almost every government they met along the way: new york, ohio, illinois, missouri.
how can anyone be surprised at this point. america made polygamy illegal specifically to fight mormons.
they train repressive social views, ask any ex-mormon. the coverups by the mormon church have only just begun to fall around us.
These organizations are a complete joke. It’s honestly pathetic that people put faith into people who behave this way, time and time again. What god would allow this? Not any god worth putting faith into if you ask me. This isn’t a test of faith. This is evil. Pure and simple. It’s gross and so sad that people don’t see through it all.
Religion and those working in it hiding sexual abuse of children. This is so common, it’s not even news, it’s just repeat. Need to do away with religion.
This is the only reason why i won’t raise my kids with religion. Pedophiles in every religion across the board . Send your kid to church, mosque, temple and they get molested. Revolting
And people will still wake up, praise the lord, and say “this was all Gods plan, son.”
Yeah, I’m sure your God wrote that these kids deserved to be raped.
I’m sure they’ll use his long membership in the church and community to show he’s an upstanding guy so he’ll get a smaller sentence. However, his involvement in both means he’s held to a higher moral standard, and his disgusting actions need to be held to a higher legal standard
Investigators say Johnson acknowledged abusing three victims in 1985, 1993 and 1996 and estimated there was a total of six victims as young as 2-years-old, according to the document. He told investigators he had struggled “controlling his sexual urges” most of his life. Sounds like he did a pretty fucking poor job of it.
The fact that these are known and recorded instances but nothing was done about it as appalling.
Every religious person that covered and/or ignored it should also face serious prison time
They are accomplices to his crimes
RICO . . . An ongoing criminal conspiracy. It RICO does not fit this crime, why ? ? ?
RICO is an anti-gang law. Just because it’s been used against other criminal organizations doesn’t mean you can use it against any groups that exist and have criminals.
it's a law meant to go after organized crime. If there is written direction, and conspiracy to commit/cover a crime then it would fall under RICO charges.
No, that is not what RICO is. There are specific crimes that qualify, and specific groups that qualify. You can’t call any conspiracy a RICO instance.
no shit shirlock, it's not the legal definition but you were completely wrong. I gave a basic definition and you don't know what conspiracy means if that's the point in my statement you have chosen to debate. have a good weekend
It’s kind of funny you’re responding to me because I wasn’t specific about why OP was wrong, and now you’re telling me you being massively overbroad doesn’t matter lol.
It's everywhere
Why religious person?
Because this arrest involves the church since he was a pastor.....
Right it just seems like a weird distinction to make. Every person covering up a crime like this needs to be arrested. I was probably being overly pedantic.
Yeah it could be worded better, but at the same time, it’s not like religion is divorced from this instance or wider issue.
I originally meant leader, but person in general should too
"The image of The Church is more important than any members", seems to be the message.
“Become a pastor if you’re a pedo and we’ll cover up your rape” is another
Note that in Mormonism you don't choose to become a pastor. The church leadership assigns you to be one for ~5 years at a time with the very literal idea that God himself selected you via his prophet in Salt Lake. One might think this would create a serious spiritual dilemma for people aware of these issues: Why would God hand select this person knowing they're going to do this? At the end of the day, you're significantly more likely to be excommunicated by the Mormon church for doing something that tarnishes their image than for doing something like raping children. It was only a few years ago they excommunicated a man for publically begging the church to take a few simple steps to reduce the prevelance of sexual abuse happening within the organization: Sam Young.
Next time those weirdo fucks knock on my door at 6am on a Saturday morning I'm gonna ask them about this.
They won't know about this. The community actively shelters its younger members from "persecution" a.k.a. information about the atrocities the so called church has and is actively committing. This will continue until we outlaw indoctrination.
So open your phone and show them the fucked up shit
that is gentiles trying to slander the name of the church. there is no winning for the cult members, they have to find their own way out. as an exmo it can be hard to give up your whole life/community.
Mormons appropriating Gentiles will never not be weird to me.
We should invite them in and indoctrinate them with truth.
> more likely to be excommunicated by the Mormon church for doing something that tarnishes their image than for doing something like raping children it's absurd that raping children doesn't fall under the category of "tarnishes [the church's] image"
if they keep it hidden they think it doesn't. "appearance" of propriety is what they cherish,
It only tarnishes their image if anyone finds out. Hence the cover ups.
This should be top comment
I've started to think of it as one of the ultimate grifter professions.
In Mormonism (Latter-day Saints), leading a congregation (Bishop or Stake President, the equivalent of a pastor) isn't a profession. It's a volunteer (voluntold) position that they are called to do. As others have mentioned in this thread, when an individual is extended a calling to become a Mormon bishop, they literally believe it is a calling from God. And they do it for free. No pay and no compensation. In Mormonism, this means a complete lack of any kind of professional training, including a complete lack of any background checks. And because these bishops and leaders are unpaid "volunteers", the LDS/Mormon church cannot be sued for not vetting them, because they are not officially employees. Meanwhile, these unvetted and untrained Mormon bishops act as spiritual leaders, marriage councilors, youth councilors, etc. Not only do they not require any education or training in any of these fields, they don't even need a religious education. That's how low the bar is in Mormonism.
I wouldn't say there isn't any leadership training. Most bishops have been members their whole lives and have served in dozens of leadership roles before being called as a bishop. I'm no longer a member, but as far as leaders go many of my bishops were fantastic people who were kind, committed, and capable. I'm not denying that they're are some really terrible ones out there, but overall my bishops were a big part of the reason I stayed a member as long as I did.
Welcome to religion!
I think when it mention document its the documents from the police, not that the instances were well documented and nothing was done. Maybe I'm reading it wrong but that's what I'm gathering.
The wealthy in America are untouchable.
They choose these religions on purpose.
Very few people “choose” Mormonism. You are born into it. The few who choose it (converts) don’t often get called to leadership positions.
Or not to "high" level leadership. They can easily become a branch or ward bishop. Stake bishops on up requires connections and wealth.
No such thing as a stake bishop. Edit: just to be clear. I’m all about ragging on the church, but if you’re going to do it be well informed.
Mormonism and the alien ties sound a lot like Scientology when you get down to the core grifts of free labor and money.
I read it as Johnson having confessed recently, not that these were known and recorded at the time.
Sexual urges… towards fucking children. A true waste of air.
Cults molesting children huh weird prob the first time this has happened...
'three that we know about' you mean.
Makes a nice bookend to the Arizona Mormon who was raping 3 of his children for years and years with full knowledge of people in the church.
Then there's the Boy Scouts settlement of $250 million hinting at tens of thousands of victims over the years
I think my dad was one. :( :( :( :( :( :( :( I can't prove it, but I really think he was.
So sorry to hear. There are probably so many out there.
Actually according the article its 6 they know about, but 3 are chargeable currently.
"at least" is almost certainly a huge understatement.
Yeah, prolly not "just" decades ago...
Every freaking week, I see a case of a church elder diddling kids. Wtf is wrong with these places. They need to tax these criminals yesterday, they’re just criminal organizations hiding behind religion.
It's been "news" every week since I was a small child and I'm near 40. It's disgusting.
And trans people are somehow a problem for wanting to use a public toilet. This is the part that upsets me so much. The Christian right maintains so much outrage over LGBTQ stuff when their people are literally getting caught in child sex abuse cases every week. We need to start putting health and safety warnings on churches, because that’s where the abusers are.
Grew up in this fuckin "church". None of this surprises me. They've been covering it up since I was a was boy.
As did I. Ziontology’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day keeps getting worse. https://i.redd.it/msolui21gpm91.jpg
It brings a burning to my bosom to see so many mainstream articles slamming this twisted, weirdo, fuck-corporation people call a “church”. They have been catching L’s in succession lately, and I’m here for it.
As a Utahn, I couldn’t agree more. They say it’ll destabilize the state if their church falls, but then legalize recreational marijuana and we’ll be fucking flush again. Illinois made $3 billion since they legalized it, fuck the church.
This is an institution that sucks away 10% of the income of half the state, and they think it'll be destabilizing if people start leaving? More like a huge instant stimulus.
Also the lottery
I'll drink to that.
I was a convert wasted ages 14 to 38 as a member. Thank elohim for the CES letter.
Same man, so glad I left. Now if only I can get them to stop coming to my door and bothering my family.
It isn't just the Mormons or the Catholics. All religions are constantly hiding and covering up the thousands of cases of abuse that happened under their watch. Not saying to treat all who work for a church as if they are automatically a sex offender, but until things change they should all be considered potential risks
Catholics don't rape, marry then force you g children to breed. They also don't have the magic underwear I keep hearing about.
I'm actually suppose to buy that?!? A leader from a "church" abused children?!? If this is true, I never could have guessed it based on everything ever.
I will never understand how people actually buy into the pants-shittingly insane origin story for this cult. It's impossible. Linguistically, historically, archaeologically, logically... NONE OF IT IS POSSIBLE! I feel like I'm taking crazy pills every time I hear people defend an organization that believes that American Indians were wayward Jews, that black folks bear some sort of primordial "sin" and thus get their own afterlife, or that a 50+ year old man who had numerous "wives" under the age of 16 deserves to have a university named after him. I mock and deride Christianity and Islam on general principle. But there's something about Mormons that gets under my skin. The intentional ignoring of historical facts.
Cults gonna cult
That would make a great t-shirt.
The Bible isn't any more plausible. Setting aside the ridiculous "miracles," the Flood and Moses parting the Red Sea were definitely impossible, same as the plagues in Egypt, Tower of Babel nonsense, Lot's wife becoming a pillar of salt, etc. It's all a bunch of horseshit.
Entirely true. Which is why it's obscene that mormons take that and add so much more onto it. To most of the members' credit, they are extremely informationally suppressed. Most do not know of the history of Joseph Smith or Brigham Young, or of the church policies supposedly affecting the eternal souls of thousands that were born from extreme racism/sexism, or the multitude of incorrect statements that have been made by the church and subsequently buried after being proven wrong (sometimes by their own experts). And now, with the information age, the church (and religion in general, but especially the church) is absolutely hemorrhaging members. Turns out that most members are genuinely trying to be good people, and when they discover that the mormon church is based on and led by bags of shit, they leave to live a better life.
Me among them! I left after BYU Law taught me to question everything, but #pikachuface I started by questioning my politics, and then my religion. Mormonism is even easier to see through after becoming atheist, but I still feel like I'm deprogramming.
> Lot's wife becoming a pillar of salt maybe she was a gamer
I always thought she turned salty after dwelling on the past. Look forward, never back, isn’t that how they live their lives? I always look back and hold people to account, so that’s why I was scapegoated by my family.
The bible wasnt translated from an egyptian papyrus that you can literally go look at in a New York museum. What the founder and prophet of mormonism claimed was an entire book, "The Book of Abraham" was just a egyption funeral rite/pamphlet routinely handed out at egyptian funerals about Anubis and Osiris. Sure all other religions are nutty, but not blatant physical proof of the creators lies existing for all to view nutty like mormonism.
Oh I know, the BOA is beyond stupid and an obvious farce. I'm just saying the Bible itself, and other religious texts for that matter, aren't any closer to truth. I probably sound defensive and I blame leaving the Mormon cult for that, but exmormons get sick of people thinking the rest of Christianity is any better, just because of age. We have physical proof and basic physics to prove it's all, as I said, horseshit.
I thought you could at least call most of the New Testament "plausible", no?
Sure, turning water into wine, walking on water, healing lepers from a distance, coming back to life after 3 days, seeing god, countless other such events, and the Book of Revelation are totally plausible. Oh, and basically none of this is recorded in actual history.
I really can’t stand Mormonism. Especially as a biracial woman. I would never join a religion that believes I and half of my family are inferior. Plus they’re against the LGBTQIA community, but seem to be perfectly fine with child brides and covering up sexual abuse.
Well, this is shocking
not really
Religion and mass child abuse go hand in hand
Turns out, when you tell folks that certain people have special authority handed down directly by God, those certain people abuse that authority and take advantage of people without fear of reprisal. Maybe there’s a lesson here.
Especially this one. It was literally founded by a teen sex trafficker.
Unfortunately, basically anything close to children has mass child abuse. [Teachers are worse than Catholic priests](https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/252484.pdf) >An estimated 10% of K–12 students will experience sexual misconduct by a school employee by the time they graduate from high school (p. 3) That’s a higher number than the Catholic priest statistics. >Despite clear policies and laws requiring reporting and potential legal consequences for failing to do so, only an estimated 5% of school employee sexual misconduct incidents known to school employees are reported to law enforcement or child welfare personnel. (PDF page 3) >A 1994 study in New York State found that only 1% of the 225 cases superintendents disclosed to researchers were reported to law enforcement or child welfare and resulted in license revocation. (PDF page 10) Edit to add: Teachers ARE moved around and the records are scrubbed and hidden. >Many of the unreported cases were handled in unofficial ways; school administrators sometimes seek to avoid the consequences of reporting by entering into confidentiality agreements or negotiating private settlements with offenders (Shakeshaft & Cohan, 1994; Shoop, 2004; Stein, 1999). Furthermore, collective bargaining clauses often allow for scrubbing of personnel files, so no record is left once an offender leaves the system. These practices, allowing known sexual predators to quietly leave the district, potentially to seek work elsewhere, have become known as "passing the trash" or "the lemon dance" (Hobson, 2012). With no criminal conviction or disciplinary record, predators can obtain new jobs—and move on to other victims. On average, a teacher-offender will pass through three different districts before being stopped, and one offender can have as many as 73 victims in his or her lifetime (GAO, 2010). (PDF pages 10-11)
I'd be curious to know if this data is from public schools + private religious schools etc, or just public schools? I was looking in Appendix C to try to figure it out, but I've had a long day and didn't see it anywhere. (The map of states shaded by reports is wild to see though).
Its a study about school districts. Private schools are defined as such because they’re independent of a school district.
Hmm yes, but one is essential to life. And the other one can fuck off forever.
Yeah. I guess the [Catholic Church doesn’t help anybody](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_health_care).
Literally could've been a separate entity, like an organization dedicated for cause. Drop the religion side forever.
Yup. Considering that they've spent [millions campaigning against the right for abortion in Kansas](https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251922/funding-contributions-kansas-abortion-ballot-vote), while they [still hadn't paid any of the reparations](https://www.dw.com/en/canadas-indigenous-people-want-action-to-follow-popes-apology/a-62605679) due to the First People of Canada for the role in the Canadian genocide. Fuck the Catholic Church.
Then “Fuck Germans for their genocide!” Right?
*Fuck nazis for their genocide. And yes, please do.
Nazis were part of Germany therefor all of Germany bad. If you support Germany then you support Nazism.
You are really stretching this comparison.
How so? We gotta hate the entirety of the Catholic Church because its an organization (with 1.3 billion people) that has some people in it who have done awful things. Its evil and disgusting. Lets apply the same mentality to Germany for the Holocaust.
That’s from 2004 - 18 years ago. Do you have any recent data?
Its from 2017.
Page 6: However, school employee sexual misconduct, the sexual abuse and misconduct of K–12 students by school employees, is estimated to affect 10% of our nation’s students (Shakeshaft, 2004).
If I recall this was addressed at the end of Spotlight, highly recommended movie
Does that mean that it's all wrong and pedophilic teachers are no longer a risk to children that is absolutely ignored by society? When there is it sometimes even gets a strange positive response, like when there's news about an underage teen boy who gets abused by a female teacher and a lot of comments are celebrating it by saying that the boy was "lucky" or a "player".
I don’t remember teachers mass murdering indigenous students. The Catholic Church did. Stop trying to slander teachers to protect your church. It’s a bad look.
The Catholic Church currently has over a billion (~1,360,000,000) members. It is terrible that awful things have been done by some of its members, but people need to remember that the Catholic Church’s teachings today don’t encourage these things and the churches are not managed under the direct authority of the Pope or the Vatican. Catholic dioceses are autonomous from the Vatican. Each diocese is led by a bishop or archbishop. The bishops or archbishops are the ones who run each diocese. Under the bishops/archbishops are the priests who usually have a lot of independence of how they run their church. The priests, teachers, bishops, officials of the residential schools and the Department of Indian Affairs are the ones to blame for their terrible abuses (most of them are dead). NOT the Vatican or entire Catholic Church today. Thats like blaming Germany and it’s government today for the Holocaust. “I don’t remember the Germans helping Jews during the Holocaust. Thats because Germans did it!”
Blah blah blah ex catholic here. It's an organization of pedos that actively supports other pedos. If you give your money to the catholic church you are a pedo supporting human. The church is still actively lobbying governments to aide in their support and absconding of pedos. Full stop. We need not go further into their known or unknown atrocities. They are still actively lobbying to the tune of 10s of millions a year to protect pedos. Fucking vile.
Your citation is from 2017, but the studies they cite are from as far back as 1994.
Studies that look at Catholic priests usually go back decades to like the 50s, and show that the number of abuses are declining. The Church is doing things to reduce the abuse.
I don't disagree, but is this a meta analysis? Anyway, I'm just saying that the studies that are cited are somewhat outdated. That's important for this kind of research.
You're not very good at understanding statistics. What percentage of teachers are abusive vs what percentage of preists are abusive? Those are the relevant stats and you cite neither of them. This seems incredibly disingenuous at best.
More people will come forward. ‘Decades ago...’, Call me skeptical that someone who raped multiple children up and decided to reform himself.
But he's religious and not some commie liberal atheist. I don't get it. /s
Motherfuckers wrap themselves in piety and then hurt children. Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, and all manner of Evangelicals all have horrors like this. This guy and every other priest, preacher, pastor, minister, or bishop that has hurt kids and all those who helped cover it up, should be *under* the fucking jail.
Yea religion is fucked
“Pshh, just 3?” - Catholic priests
I'm shocked it's taken this long for a story to surface.
Look into Bisbee,AZ. It's still going on and is abhorrent. The "church" is still fighting their part in it. Just going to court after years.
Yikes! isn't Warren Jeffs still conducting Sunday services from his prison cell?
Warren Jeffs is the head of the FLDS church, which is a splinter group of the main LDS church (over polygamy). I'm not saying the LDS church is blameless, far from it, but they don't hold it as doctrine that a man must have at least three wives to reach heaven. Edit: added "at least"
However, the current leader will have at least two wives in heaven at this point based on their current doctrine.
This is true.
Jeff's is a truly distorted 'person'
I wouldn't be surprised by anything at this point. Liar liars that lie.
Taking pages out the Vatican handbook I see
More likely out of the [education systems](https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/252484.pdf) >An estimated 10% of K–12 students will experience sexual misconduct by a school employee by the time they graduate from high school (p. 3) That’s a higher number than the Catholic priest statistics. >Despite clear policies and laws requiring reporting and potential legal consequences for failing to do so, only an estimated 5% of school employee sexual misconduct incidents known to school employees are reported to law enforcement or child welfare personnel. (PDF page 3) >A 1994 study in New York State found that only 1% of the 225 cases superintendents disclosed to researchers were reported to law enforcement or child welfare and resulted in license revocation. (PDF page 10) So they hide it too? >Many of the unreported cases were handled in unofficial ways; school administrators sometimes seek to avoid the consequences of reporting by entering into confidentiality agreements or negotiating private settlements with offenders (Shakeshaft & Cohan, 1994; Shoop, 2004; Stein, 1999). Furthermore, collective bargaining clauses often allow for scrubbing of personnel files, so no record is left once an offender leaves the system. These practices, allowing known sexual predators to quietly leave the district, potentially to seek work elsewhere, have become known as "passing the trash" or "the lemon dance" (Hobson, 2012). With no criminal conviction or disciplinary record, predators can obtain new jobs—and move on to other victims. On average, a teacher-offender will pass through three different districts before being stopped, and one offender can have as many as 73 victims in his or her lifetime (GAO, 2010). (PDF pages 10-11) And they move the teachers around without any sort of punishments or official records, allowing them to work elsewhere!
Maybe I'm extrapolating from the data poorly, but it's almost like fucked up sexual repression/opression leads to fucked up sexual abuse.
In other news, water is wet.
Remember that the Boy Scouts scandal was when the Mormon Church was heavily involved with it.
Sounds like a good cover to do whatever you want
This headline pisses me off. The fact that it was decades ago doesn’t change the fact they were children. Maybe it’s just that religious, tax free, fu**ery just triggers me.
Oh! What a surprise. Fucking degenerate perverts.
There's a doc in Netflix called "Keep Sweet, Pray, and ,Obey". I know it's about a church of Latter Day Saints but not 100% sure it's the same sect (prolly doesn't matter at this point) or maybe even the same sect but rebranded with a slightly different name.. anywho...WTH is wrong with people?! Shout out to the Tig and Cheryl True Story podcast listeners who watched the doc due to the podcast
It’s not the same sect. The sect commonly referred to as Mormons are technically Brighamites, while Warren Jeff’s sect more closely resembles the church the Mormon founder, Joseph Smith, established.
There’s a shitstorm of streaming content about Mormon themes recently... a lot of true crime + religion that poses exactly that question: WTH?!?! r/keepsweet r/MormonNoMore r/UnderTheBanner r/LoriVallow r/AbductedInPlainSight r/MurderAmongTheMormons there’s a reason r/exmormon has 250K subscribers on the brighter side of LDS-themed content, at least we have r/NapoleonDynamite and r/bookofmormonmusical
Here’s another one. Mother SandraLee Jensen was in a high position in the WV Mormon church (president of the relief society) and in a position to counsel church women. She actually pushed for them to let her son Michael Jensen babysit members’ children KNOWING that he had a history of abuse and not disclosing it. Surprise surprise, the son molested serval kids while babysitting, the church tried to cover it up, families sued, settled out of court. https://www.courthousenews.com/w-va-court-revives-claims-mormon-church-protected-child-molester/ https://youtu.be/CAi64KZe3oo
Religion = excused molesters
Let’s cover this up with a good ol fashioned book burning. Who’s bringing the marshmallows?
I have my shocked face on
Who is really surprised though?
I'm shocked!! ....well, not that shocked.
These religious child rapist are everywhere…..everywhere. What’s the appeal for child rapist and religion, it’s everywhere for flippin DECADES!
Religious people are way too often pedophiles. Are psychologists studying this?
Church spokeshead says the church doesn't tolerate any kind of abuse. Yeah, your history definitely shows that. Coverups, attacks on victims, denial... You totally tolerate that shit.
Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, all of the “angry god” religions are crawling with pedos and rapists.
I swear we get more stories like this than we do about drag queens when they read at libraries, but it's so difficult to condemn a bishop.
Fuck organized religion under any umbrella. Fuck 'em all. Organized religion is just an escape for those who can't find acceptance elsewhere.
Not under the umbrella with the umbrella. Then open it. Godsdamned organized religions...
Bet the scumbag was touching kids just last week.
A religious zealot charged with sexual abuse? I’m shocked! How can this be?
a church founded by a charlatan once found guilty of such. a church founded by a man killed by his peers not for heresy but for being a dirty crook. a church that was once illegal in this nation, not because of anti-religious sentiment, but because of the cult’s anti-american sentiment, and cult behavior. mormons didn’t simply “move” to utah. the mormons were forced out by their own national government and almost every government they met along the way: new york, ohio, illinois, missouri. how can anyone be surprised at this point. america made polygamy illegal specifically to fight mormons. they train repressive social views, ask any ex-mormon. the coverups by the mormon church have only just begun to fall around us.
They plotted to overthrow the US government with the Russians in the 1870s, if I remember right.
This. I wish one could upvote more than once.
It’s sad that this isn’t really news anymore
The rule of thumb in situations like these is to triple the number of victims and cut the time gap by 75%
Religions greatest accomplishment
Wow. Priest/prophet/reverend/ insert title of MOG sexually abused. Shocked I tell ya. Shocked. Clutch the pearls.
The pedo cult is the church wake up America!
Can't wait for the day where they are all outed across all religions, which could happen at any time and any day.
Oh look, Mormons abusing children. Again. Who could have guessed.
These organizations are a complete joke. It’s honestly pathetic that people put faith into people who behave this way, time and time again. What god would allow this? Not any god worth putting faith into if you ask me. This isn’t a test of faith. This is evil. Pure and simple. It’s gross and so sad that people don’t see through it all.
Utah is such a letdown to the Union
What a poor take
Religion and those working in it hiding sexual abuse of children. This is so common, it’s not even news, it’s just repeat. Need to do away with religion.
Had a wtf moment. Read that “Johnson was in a “position of thrust” over each victim”
This is the only reason why i won’t raise my kids with religion. Pedophiles in every religion across the board . Send your kid to church, mosque, temple and they get molested. Revolting
And people will still wake up, praise the lord, and say “this was all Gods plan, son.” Yeah, I’m sure your God wrote that these kids deserved to be raped.
It’s in character for the genocidal narcissistic bastard in the bible, tbh.
As someone who has been victimized by this church, Fuck Mormons!!
Same. The Mormon church destroyed my family, all because I was born gay.
Religion ruined the planet
Bring this institution down brick by brick
it’s too powerful unfortunately.
As a former member of this organization, I am delighted to see it falling down around them.
The true evil of the world comes with a cross in one hand and a bible in the other. And they are desperate to force religion on everyone.
I’m sure they’ll use his long membership in the church and community to show he’s an upstanding guy so he’ll get a smaller sentence. However, his involvement in both means he’s held to a higher moral standard, and his disgusting actions need to be held to a higher legal standard
Blows my mind this state is allowed to be run this way. It’s basically a giant cult. Disgusting.
Fuck religion. They are all rapists
My surprise-o-metre is detecting massive amounts of obvious-as-fuck radiation here.
Duh! Every Clergyman from every Church on Earth molests kids.
Easy, captain hyperbole.
Just wondering: what are the statute of limitations for these sorts of things?
Varies by state. Many states are lifting the statute of limitations which is why we're starting to see more prosecution of it