Death of Tom Kimball

[moksha]

I do find it humorous that Juliann and Calm are running to Rosebud's defense though. LOL.

Sort of like "If Caligula beats up on Bambi then he is a friend of mine".

Wait a minute, are you suggesting Caligula was ever spurned? I think you crossed metaphors and were thinking of Godzilla. Godzilla and Bambi are locked in a star-crossed struggle in which the only way out is for Godzilla to step on Bambi. That is what the Mopologetics gals are hoping for, although they might also have a thing for Caligula (but that is purely speculation).

[Meadowchik]

There is no way for us to start at the point of Tom's own beginning and find those decisions, those abuses that made him. We can't because we don't know his starting point. He never understood his own starting point. He had no say in his mind's capacity nor the environment in which he found himself. Its sad to imagine that what came of him was an unavoidable thing, set as a consequence of all that influenced him. Its sucks to think if anyone of us were found, by happenstance, born as him, with every physical attribute he had, including his own mind, his own place and time, each one of us would have ended up just as he did. we call him abuser and coward because it's so much easier to swallow. But it's hard to accept he was victim of everything that made him.

"But I never would have let my imagination go there, or would never have reached out to hurt another..." Yeah, I know. That's the point. You wouldn't have. But you have no idea what he was composed of. How can we possibly escape the conclusion that we have no choice, nor real free choice? So, so easy to demean each other as we disappear, one by one, pretending their mind's, their circumstance, their inevitable life was their fault. Nah...God's a fool for creating the beasts among us, set strategically to hurt us, then in some act of presumed "heroism" eternally demeans the beast, saving us from the drooling fangs he forced upon us. But it was for our own good and somehow it was for the beasts' good too.

We may not know why but we can know what to do. There are requirements for a level of human interaction and when the requirements aren't met, that level of intimacy is cut off. Casual friendships end. Professional relationships cease. People get divorced. People go to jail. And in the gray areas between steps like these, people get medical attention to help them adapt in ways that are better for human interaction. And to prevent the hidden proclivities from having opportunities in the first place, we require trust to be earned.

Boundaries themselves help train the beasts among us and the beasts within us.

[Kishkumen]

Wait a minute, are you suggesting Caligula was ever spurned? I think you crossed metaphors and were thinking of Godzilla. Godzilla and Bambi are locked in a star-crossed struggle in which the only way out is for Godzilla to step on Bambi. That is what the Mopologetics gals are hoping for, although they might also have a thing for Caligula (but that is purely speculation).

Erm. . . Something like that? I also take juliann’s feminism seriously. I think she sees herself as primarily concerned about the problem of abuse here. She just has such a hatred of ex-Mos, critics, and unconventional Mormons that, yes, if Rosebud attacks John and Lindsay, well, isn’t Rosebud just right to do so? Since we know Rosebud’s history here, we can see, as can others such as our friend Dan Vogel, that Rosebud’s personal beefs are interfering with her cause.

[Kishkumen]

There is no way for us to start at the point of Tom's own beginning and find those decisions, those abuses that made him. We can't because we don't know his starting point. He never understood his own starting point. He had no say in his mind's capacity nor the environment in which he found himself. Its sad to imagine that what came of him was an unavoidable thing, set as a consequence of all that influenced him. Its sucks to think if anyone of us were found, by happenstance, born as him, with every physical attribute he had, including his own mind, his own place and time, each one of us would have ended up just as he did. we call him abuser and coward because it's so much easier to swallow. But it's hard to accept he was victim of everything that made him.

"But I never would have let my imagination go there, or would never have reached out to hurt another..." Yeah, I know. That's the point. You wouldn't have. But you have no idea what he was composed of. How can we possibly escape the conclusion that we have no choice, nor real free choice? So, so easy to demean each other as we disappear, one by one, pretending their mind's, their circumstance, their inevitable life was their fault. Nah...God's a fool for creating the beasts among us, set strategically to hurt us, then in some act of presumed "heroism" eternally demeans the beast, saving us from the drooling fangs he forced upon us. But it was for our own good and somehow it was for the beasts' good too.

Pretty deep thoughts there, Stem. I can’t begin to fathom what made Tom tick or whether he was just forged that way or he had a choice. I can see the merits of the different arguments. I also think that people’s God concepts tend to be far too simplistic.

Meadowchik has some interesting and thoughtful things to say. I am not sure what I am adding, except I think it is difficult for victims of abuse and violence to process these abstract philosophical considerations at a time of deep pain.

[Stem]

Erm. . . Something like that? I also take juliann’s feminism seriously. I think she sees herself as primarily concerned about the problem of abuse here. She just has such a hatred of ex-Mos, critics, and unconventional Mormons that, yes, if Rosebud attacks John and Lindsay, well, isn’t Rosebud just right to do so? Since we know Rosebud’s history here, we can see, as can others such as our friend Dan Vogel, that Rosebud’s personal beefs are interfering with her cause.

Rosebud's participation amounted to her talking at everyone insecurely declaring everyone else wrong even at times when there was no controversy under consideration, as I recall. She was an impossibly difficult person to communicate with. her couple of recent pieces people linked to about this Tom Kimball ordeal amounted to the same, it seemed to me. I agree, she seems to be very good at countering her own stated agenda.

[Stem]

We may not know why but we can know what to do. There are requirements for a level of human interaction and when the requirements aren't met, that level of intimacy is cut off. Casual friendships end. Professional relationships cease. People get divorced. People go to jail. And in the gray areas between steps like these, people get medical attention to help them adapt in ways that are better for human interaction. And to prevent the hidden proclivities from having opportunities in the first place, we require trust to be earned.

Boundaries themselves help train the beasts among us and the beasts within us.

I tend to think if we were able to get a much better feel for cause and effect, in terms of human behavior where it comes from and how it's developed, we may be able to identify points in people's lives where some sort of intervention can keep them from destructive and abusive behavior. I'm feeling hopeful about any potential there. We can kill two birds with one stone if we can learn to shut down abusive behavior before it grows in an individual. We save the victim and the abuser in such a scenario.

[Meadowchik]

We may not know why but we can know what to do. There are requirements for a level of human interaction and when the requirements aren't met, that level of intimacy is cut off. Casual friendships end. Professional relationships cease. People get divorced. People go to jail. And in the gray areas between steps like these, people get medical attention to help them adapt in ways that are better for human interaction. And to prevent the hidden proclivities from having opportunities in the first place, we require trust to be earned.

Boundaries themselves help train the beasts among us and the beasts within us.

I tend to think if we were able to get a much better feel for cause and effect, in terms of human behavior where it comes from and how it's developed, we may be able to identify points in people's lives where some sort of intervention can keep them from destructive and abusive behavior. I'm feeling hopeful about any potential there. We can kill two birds with one stone if we can learn to shut down abusive behavior before it grows in an individual. We save the victim and the abuser in such a scenario.

I agree. I think that boundaries like those I describe cover that. At the earliest of ages children, for example, can be taught consent. And when at any time there are signs of boundary encroachment, teaching children and eventually even medical attention can be applied if pathologies emerge.

In other words, healthy human boundaries can be governed by a sense of self and valuing others' selves, which when developed result in an inherent morality.

[honorentheos]

I tend to think if we were able to get a much better feel for cause and effect, in terms of human behavior where it comes from and how it's developed, we may be able to identify points in people's lives where some sort of intervention can keep them from destructive and abusive behavior. I'm feeling hopeful about any potential there. We can kill two birds with one stone if we can learn to shut down abusive behavior before it grows in an individual. We save the victim and the abuser in such a scenario.

I agree. I think that boundaries like those I describe cover that. At the earliest of ages children, for example, can be taught consent. And when at any time there are signs of boundary encroachment, teaching children and eventually even medical attention can be applied if pathologies emerge.

In other words, healthy human boundaries can be governed by a sense of self and valuing others' selves, which when developed result in an inherent morality.

If the focus from early on is on guilt and punishment of the person committing the act rather than consent and respect of self and others, well, where does your suggestion fit into the LDS model?

I don't think Mormonism creates pedophilia. But I absolutely believe it makes it harder for people to consider acts in the context of harmful or healthy because of the focus on abstinence outside marriage and fidelity within as the proxy for forming healthy sexual relationships. I think most people recognize there can be unhealthy sexual relationships between married couple and generally get that people can be quite happy together "living in sin" with no real harm to society and certainly not the people involved. But the culture leaves people to figure that out while making the law of chastity a constant messaging focus. So I suspect that at the fringes of deviant inclinations there are people who might have gone a different way had they thought about harm rather than sin when they were making moral chooses. I'm one of the people who doesn't lay any one act at the feet of Mormonism and say this is on you in situations like the one being discussed. But I do lay the problem of failing to teach moral judgement due to teaching obedience to laws and avoiding sin on Mormonism.

[Meadowchik]

If the focus from early on is on guilt and punishment of the person committing the act rather than consent and respect of self and others, well, where does your suggestion fit into the LDS model?

I don't think Mormonism creates pedophilia. But I absolutely believe it makes it harder for people to consider acts in the context of harmful or healthy because of the focus on abstinence outside marriage and fidelity within as the proxy for forming healthy sexual relationships. I think most people recognize there can be unhealthy sexual relationships between married couple and generally get that people can be quite happy together "living in sin" with no real harm to society and certainly not the people involved. But the culture leaves people to figure that out while making the law of chastity a constant messaging focus. So I suspect that at the fringes of deviant inclinations there are people who might have gone a different way had they thought about harm rather than sin when they were making moral chooses. I'm one of the people who doesn't lay any one act at the feet of Mormonism and say this is on you in situations like the one being discussed. But I do lay the problem of failing to teach moral judgement due to teaching obedience to laws and avoiding sin on Mormonism.

My suggestion represents significant subversion of the LDS model. I agree that Mormonism does not create pedophilia, but it does reduce the ability to prevent and respond to predation. Predators use shame including religious shame to keep victims silent. They use the concept of forgiveness and excessive trust to destroy legitimate boundaries.

[honorentheos]

This is purely anecdotal, so take it for what it's worth which isn't much.

Some years ago someone I know shared with me the shock they were going through having found out a childhood friend had been molesting his daughter and was going to jail for it. While describing the news and their devastation at learning of it, they mentioned something about the age when it began: she was 7 years old. And it struck me for some reason that every single account I personally knew of where there was abuse of a minor by a Mormon male (5 incidents total where I knew the person or was only one accountance removed from knowing them) the victim was 7 years old. And it left me wondering if, possibly, the teaching about being guiltless before becoming 8 years old played into that? That if the broken thinking involved didn't take into account the harm being done to the victim because the perpetrator wasn't thinking about harm but guilt? And they ended up acting in horrific ways in part because they didn't see the harm as occuring outside of Gods judgement which apparently they accepted for themselves or something, so the moral judgement we assume should happen didn't. I don't know. I once tried to find out if it had been studied or showed up in any studies about Utah and child sex abuse but didn't find it. So it remained this terrible anecdotal "statistic" if you will that I find myself revisiting when the subject of if Mormonism affects people in ways that are different from others and might result in different or increased incidents of child sex abuse comes up as it seems to way too often. That's to the side of the issues of treating it as sin in attempts to forgive the abuser while minimizing the effects in the victims, etc. That's not to say I believe there are more pedophiles among Mormons or that these people wouldn't have done what they did if they hadn't been Mormon. But still it bugs me that the age was tied to such a meaningful milestone. All five? It just seems like more than coincidence but that's how biases work so again, it's just an anecdote.

[Kishkumen]

If the focus from early on is on guilt and punishment of the person committing the act rather than consent and respect of self and others, well, where does your suggestion fit into the LDS model?

I don't think Mormonism creates pedophilia. But I absolutely believe it makes it harder for people to consider acts in the context of harmful or healthy because of the focus on abstinence outside marriage and fidelity within as the proxy for forming healthy sexual relationships. I think most people recognize there can be unhealthy sexual relationships between married couple and generally get that people can be quite happy together "living in sin" with no real harm to society and certainly not the people involved. But the culture leaves people to figure that out while making the law of chastity a constant messaging focus. So I suspect that at the fringes of deviant inclinations there are people who might have gone a different way had they thought about harm rather than sin when they were making moral chooses. I'm one of the people who doesn't lay any one act at the feet of Mormonism and say this is on you in situations like the one being discussed. But I do lay the problem of failing to teach moral judgement due to teaching obedience to laws and avoiding sin on Mormonism.

Quite coincidentally I have been doing a little more reading here and there in the history of Christianity, and from what I can gather the idea of sin as being primarily a personal issue is a more recent development. As a modern Christian sinner, one is preoccupied with one's own sinful condition, not with the harm one does to others. Focusing on sin as a personal issue is very inward-looking and has the effect of isolating a person from the community. Focusing on preventing or repairing harm would turn one's focus outward and benefit the community more.

[Kishkumen]

Rosebud's participation amounted to her talking at everyone insecurely declaring everyone else wrong even at times when there was no controversy under consideration, as I recall. She was an impossibly difficult person to communicate with. her couple of recent pieces people linked to about this Tom Kimball ordeal amounted to the same, it seemed to me. I agree, she seems to be very good at countering her own stated agenda.

It is unfortunate, and I agree with you.

[Craig Paxton]

Oh wait...so, Rosebud=Anne McMullin? Didn't see that coming.

Sounds like she's accusing Lindsay, then, for being party to her being mistreated by Dehlin...And now it makes sense why he was thrown into this.

Oh Good...another Rosebud thread.

[Kishkumen]

Oh Good...another Rosebud thread.

[Dr Exiled]

I'm surprised she hasn't come over here yet to make an "historical" note about how Dehlin ruined her life after their passionate embrace and rated G "affair."

[huckelberry]

Quite coincidentally I have been doing a little more reading here and there in the history of Christianity, and from what I can gather the idea of sin as being primarily a personal issue is a more recent development. As a modern Christian sinner, one is preoccupied with one's own sinful condition, not with the harm one does to others. Focusing on sin as a personal issue is very inward-looking and has the effect of isolating a person from the community. Focusing on preventing or repairing harm would turn one's focus outward and benefit the community more.

Kishkumen, I do not know if you have any desire to pursue this observation but I thought it was interesting. Did you mean post St Anselm ? post reformation, post American dispensationalism or perhaps post Jerry Fallwell?

My wife has some conservative Evangelical experience in her background. She recently remarked that she did not think she ever heard the phrase common good in that environment. I think that that lack would reflect thinking focused on law instead of relationships with people. I have often puzzled that a religion started with a passionate message of focusing on relationships instead of law should often drift into passionate law prosecution. (or the self justification by legal hair splitting )
.......Adding,
I think the shift to legalistic thinking is reflected in people who decide that locking children up separate from parents or family is ok because the parents crossed our border illegally. I do not know if such shift in understanding (from relationships to strict law) happens simply for convenience and desire or if there a well practiced shift in understanding behind it? I suspect some of both. I suspect self justifying legalism is a deep well worn path. I think there may be linked theoretical limitations.

[Kishkumen]

Well, I have hardly become an expert, huckleberry, but I think we are talking earlier than post American dispensationalism.