Posted by:
midwestanon
(
)
Date: June 28, 2016 03:30AM
When I got to the part about the car salesman bishop, I literally snorted and rolled my eyes. How more typical of an ignoramus bishop can you get? 'satan wants you to not see me... when you say you don't want to see me, you really DO want to see me..' Yea, bishops are great at telling you what you REALLY need, and what you really mean. Assholes. Being a car salesman probably makes you great at hustling people professionally, but really, really, shitty in talking to them on a personal level.
The bishops I've had, that I can remember, by profession (in order)
Violinist/Music Instructor/Session Musician (Professional, played for a big metropolitcan city orchestra)
Doctor (Not sure what kind)
Vice President for Advertising for Sprint (something like that)
Lawyer
Farmer (and the weirdest prick I've ever met in my life)
Middle Management for Pacfic Union
I don't see any trained therapists, counselors, psychiatrist, crisis interventionists, etc. up there. Most did ok, a couple were so magnificently unqualified to deal with some of the even most BASIC problems that people had (that did not have to deal strictly with mormon doctrinal questions) that I had to question whether or not they had ever had a conversation with a person before.
Point is, so much of this woman's story, especially towards the end, is the anxiety and stress she feels about FEELING that she HAS to tell some unqualified asshole about her private business. Mormons are some of the only people I know, who, as adults, feel the compulsion to tell what are essentially random people intimate details about huge parts of their life. I don't know any catholics who feel this way. I don't know any Jews who feel this way. I don't know any atheists who feel this way. I even know a couple Muslims, and they don't feel this way.
Maybe these people just feel more emotionally stable, and feel like they are qualified to decide whether or not they've done wrong and handle it in their own private way- between them and god, without the intervention of some religious mediator- I don't know.
The mormon church is the only church I know of where you are encouraged to go to a bishop if there is even a notion that you MAY have committed a sin. You are not qualified to decide- you have to ask your religious authority. THEN he can mete out the appropriate punishment.
Rant over.