I can't stand manipulative people, Mormon or not. The Mormons who are manipulative have the added annoyance of hypocrisy by claiming to come from the truest religion on earth, while simultaneously looking down on others outside their religion. This can be applied to other religions and groups that emphasize the claim to exclusive truth too.

So when does your bs meter go off? How soon do you pick up on subtle manipulation or control? Do you call them on it when you catch it, let it go, or deal with it in another way?

My bs meter goes off right away, after I confirm a pattern of problematic behavior and don't consider them one-time instances anymore. I tend not to be afraid of calling anyone out or to at least mention what I'm seeing, if I have nothing to lose from the situation. For me, this is much harder to do when there is more at stake and the relationships are fairly permanent.

"The Bible says..."
"The Lord wants you to..."
"I have a testimony of it."
"Jesus is love."

All of these peg the meter. Nothing more should be heard from those who utter these words.

Yeah, I agree, those are awful. I recall the Jesus is Love remark from a Christian who viewed Jesus as a nice hippie. Basically, Jesus is love, so much that dangerous (sinful?) behavior, like bullying someone who is kind to you, is acceptable. This happened to someone I knew. On movie/game nights the host would use his own money to buy pizza for the group. Very kind. One of the group members complained how stupid it was that he always bought pizza and that she was sick of it. She also tried to sabotage the games if she wasn't the center of attention. She went out of her way to be rude, despite the host's best efforts to accommodate her. This "group friend" would openly disrespect him. The rest of the church group sided with her and felt sorry for her, because "Jesus is love."

Whenever I identify a logical fallacy, excessive emotion, or assertions made without any attempt at providing evidence.

Conspiracy theory stuff accusing the government or NASA - Basically anything preceded by or ending with "THEY don't want you to know this."

When it comes to the LDS church leadership, however, they really DON'T want you to know about certain things.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2016 11:34AM by seekyr.

My BS meter goes off when I read things that I have written or when I examine things I've said or thoughts I've entertained. There are some big-league BSers out there. I am among them.

In retrospect many of my own problems seem to have arisen when I believed my own BS about something or other.

Over the past few years, I learned something after dealing with a sociopath: don't trust charming people. And don't trust people who heap on praise when they hardly know you. These two things have made me look at people in a new light, making my bs meter go off instantly. As for anything else, I've always been on those who question everything...well, except the morg.

This is an interesting tip that I haven't seen before. Can you tell me more? I'm guessing charming people tend to give off vibes of being too good to be true. The second point is interesting as well. What does excessive praise look like in another person? Compared to someone who likes giving compliments to everyone they know, will this type of person be selective in who they praise in order to isolate their target? I know what you're getting at though. Someone who uses praise as a weapon will later say, "But I'm so nice to you! I did this, this, and this for you! This is the gratitude you're showing me, [even though what I'm asking for makes you uncomfortable]?! I can't believe you!" Someone who either has an end goal in mind or lacks foresight would use guilt to get what they want, instead of respecting the other person's boundaries. True motive discovered! I've seen this happen too much.

The person in question was all buddy-buddy with a small circle of us when we first met her only to find out she was buttering us up to get us to speak openly about another person. Once that person was gone, she dropped us like a hot rock, making all of us feel like we had been used. She was slick, charming, smooth, our best friend, and she loved to throw in a compliment at just the right time. The anger I felt over this situation opened my eyes. Someone had posted this link on Twitter at the same time this was going on -- talk about timing.

http://lundybancroft.blogspot.com/2012/02/rethinking-charm.html?m=1

After that experience, and reading the link, I thought back on my life and found a pattern of charming people who turned out to be either narcissists or sociopaths.

Yes, I don't know if I'm just too cynical to trust people, or whether I have been burmed enough to become cynical. I am on high alert if anyone pays me too much attention

I have pretty good radar for people who want a piece of me, thanks to the church.

Whenever the first sentence from a person I've never met before contains the phrase "I'm a Christian". My TBM cousin from Las Vegas told me that during his career in auto sales his BS meter pinned whenever someone introduced themselves with "I'm from Utah and we're LDS".

RB

My BS meter always goes off when somebody approaches me with with some type of ultimate good deal, superlative offer, or universal truth, while being evasive about some of the essential facts or the benefits the person will receive.

A good religious example would be Moronism's "milk before meat" sales technique. And recruiters for Scientology won't even tell you it's Scientology.

Did you know that MLM recruiters are typically advised to persuade you to come to their meetings without telling you the name of the business?

When I hear the word "always."

Mine goes off anytime someone says:

Jesus

God

Bible

Anything pertaining to the supernational.

Astrology.

You are sooooo Gemini!!

How did you know ????? A spirit must have told you , right?

I make $458.00 per DAY working at home. Only a high school
education is required, and anyone with an internet connection
can do it . . . . yadda yadda.

I can smell a MMM scam a mile away. Got into a pretty heated argument with my wife over a deal she was certain was the real thing. It wasn't, but I never invoked "I told you so"....smart enough to know when to shut up...most of the time.

RB

The words:

"You should_________."


I had a counselor that told me to literally imagine a red flag popping up anytime I heard those words. It has worked well for me. It's a bit shocking how many times people tell you what you "should" be doing. Mormons use that word a lot.

I'm going to keep that in mind. Can't recall how many times someone used those words when correcting my behavior. And this was outside of the church.

I agree. This desribes my BIL very well. My BS meter definitely went off when I noticed he made a habit of it. "Should" is the type of word to be used with caution.

After having been associated with a few habitual liars, I've learned to be skeptical whenever another human is trying to communicate with me.

Whenever they start talking to me about some shake or other stupid diet. The last one was at church a few years ago, a bishopric counselor was telling me how much weight he lost, blah blah blah (and naturally he was selling the product now.

I laughed at him and told him about a KS State professor of nutrition who ate nothing but twinkies and doritos for a couple months. Lost about 30lbs, his good cholesterol went up and bad went down. But he didn't exceed something like 1200 calories a day of that crap...basically reduce calories and I didn't need some stupid shake.

I later actually did it (although not twinkies) and lost 40 lbs in a few months. Not really recommended, basically starved myself, but my body got used to it and I was going through a divorce so wasn't in the mood to eat anyway.

My BS meter goes off when they want my money now in exchange for blessings that will come after death.

"Whenever I identify a logical fallacy, excessive emotion, or assertions made without any attempt at providing evidence."

Same

I'm naturally suspicious overall. There's a a very good reason why I score less than 10% on Agreeableness and over 50% on Neuroticism. So I believe in being kind, but wary and trust, but verify.

Specific things that set off my BS meter:

Black and white thinking as a rule, not the exception.

People who claim to have special, spiritual knowledge and gifts.

Guys who always whine about "being a nice guys, why doesn't anyone want me?"

Anyone who misuses evo psych to support their misogyny and racism.

Anyone who misuses any form of psychology to support their views.

Anyone who is so blatantly clueless and ignorant that you wonder if they're a POE or really just that willfully stupid.

People who are rude to servers, cashiers, and anyone in the service industry.

Anyone that blatantly and insincerely tries to insult or flatter me.

Sort of matches my list. *high five*

or using the old standard sales techniques. Compliment, find common ground, ask what they are doing/using, present how what they are selling is better, push for agreement, demand a sale. Applies to ideas as well as products.

Gee, your dogs are so cute. I love dogs. My dogs are xyz. What kind of knives do you use? I have these great knives with a LIFE TIME warranty! Don't you think that would be better? Don't you want/need that too? How can you not want these great knives with a full warranty? Well it just makes sense and think how much money you will save!

One reason I rarely visit my TBM kin is that "The Church" is about the only thing they talk about. So my BS meter is almost constantly on whenever their lips are moving.

excessive compliments (i.e. "you're SUCH a kind/smart/insert non-visible character trait person!" when we've just met 10 minutes ago and I haven't done anything to warrant a character read)

unsolicited hard sales pitches:
A: "it's fantastic weather today, isn't it?"
B: "I know!! I love it! You know what else makes me feel great!? ASEA, DoTerra, long-ass eyelashes, cream, vitamins, nutrition powder, kitchen stuff, candles, purses, .....don't you want to have all this crap too?

"it's the gospel truth".. uh huh. sure it is.

Whenever someone has to use something from their religion to give credibility to their opinion, it tells me they can't think for themselves = instant BS meter.

"God says so" is code for "I make stuff up and make appeals to authority."

Here's my second thoughts/addendum on this matter:

I don't usually believe what anyone tells me. I don't go

by what people say to me I go by what they do. Actions

speak way louder than words any day.

That circular cult thought process where all roads lead back to the church being true. That's where my BS meter goes off. It's typified by lots of lieing and repeating the lies of others. Pretty much, my BS meter is stuck in the BS position, any time I am listening to any church member speak, especially about the topic of religion.

"God said..."
"The scriptures say..."
"Jesus said..."

All send my BS meter into overdrive.