I have a question wrote:I think the Church trying to settle “behind closed doors” is suggestive there’s fire with the smoke.
His confessions, the corroboration about the weird little basement room with a bed, the corroboration about his singling her out and removing her from lessons, the other victim, all likewise lend credence to the accusations. As does his resignation from the Church.
Contrast that with these assumptions that do not rise to the level of evidence:
esodeji wrote:If Bishop confessed to Robert E. Wells in 1979 that he did anything more than choke his own chicken, I’m satisfied that he would have been released immediately as mission president. (Any accusers yet from Buenos Aires? I didn’t think so.) And he would never have been allowed to come within five miles of the MTC.
So, on the one hand there is corroborating evidence. On the other hand, there is the assumption that the lds church would have behaved properly, if something had actually happened. Presuming the conclusion is not evidence.
Last edited by Guest on Tue Jun 19, 2018 3:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I have a question wrote:I think the Church trying to settle “behind closed doors” is suggestive there’s fire with the smoke.
His confessions, the corroboration about the weird little basement room with a bed, the corroboration about his singling her out and removing her from lessons, the other victim, all likewise lend credence to the accusations. As does his resignation from the Church.
There is almost no doubt that Bishop is guilty of sexual harassment, but was he found guilty of rape? Like Larry King said "wait to see how things play out".
esodije wrote:In my day, the adage was "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Where is the evidence for the existence of God? Do you apply the same thinking to religion?
I have a question wrote:I think the Church trying to settle “behind closed doors” is suggestive there’s fire with the smoke.
His confessions, the corroboration about the weird little basement room with a bed, the corroboration about his singling her out and removing her from lessons, the other victim, all likewise lend credence to the accusations. As does his resignation from the Church.
There is almost no doubt that Bishop is guilty of sexual harassment, but was he found guilty of rape? Like Larry King said "wait to see how things play out".
There hasn’t been a trial. The Church doesn't want there to be a trial.
esodije wrote:In my day, the adage was "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
Where is the evidence for the existence of God? Do you apply the same thinking to religion?
Given Bishops comments and the various corroboration, the claims aren’t “extraordinary”. But I take your point, were esodije to believe in God or the Book of Mormon then we are getting into one-eyed territory.
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
It’s possible the church has other information suggesting Bishop was a sexual predator (or harasser) all along. If so, I can see the church trying to settle with Denson, although the usual incentive for settling, nondisclosure, is obviously out the window. However, if the church still believes Bishop is essentially a white hat, and that Denson is delusional, a settlement isn’t happening soon. Do you think Denson’s lawyers want to put her on the witness stand? Really? Forget the past criminal behavior, the false accusations, and the other missionaries who knew her in the MTC—there would probably be dozens of points from her deposition that would impeach her trial testimony. Any decent trial lawyer would reduce her on cross-examination to a raging, profanity-spewing, murder-threatening mess in five minutes.
esodije wrote:It’s possible the church has other information suggesting Bishop was a sexual predator (or harasser) all along. If so, I can see the church trying to settle with Denson, although the usual incentive for settling, nondisclosure, is obviously out the window. However, if the church still believes Bishop is essentially a white hat, and that Denson is delusional, a settlement isn’t happening soon.
The Church was actively trying to settle the case ‘behind closed doors’ back in December 2017.
Do you think Denson’s lawyers want to put her on the witness stand? Really? Forget the past criminal behavior, the false accusations, and the other missionaries who knew her in the MTC—there would probably be dozens of points from her deposition that would impeach her trial testimony. Any decent trial lawyer would reduce her on cross-examination to a raging, profanity-spewing, murder-threatening mess in five minutes.
In what way does her raging, profanity-spewing and murder threatening justify Bishops sexual abuse of her?
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
The Church was actively trying to settle the case ‘behind closed doors’ back in December 2017.
There’s a huge difference between receiving an extortion letter from a lawyer and “actively trying to settle” a case. The only thing I know with some certainty is that the church refused the initial amount demanded, not that there was even a counteroffer on the table when the recording was leaked.
In what way does her raging, profanity-spewing and murder threatening justify Bishops sexual abuse of her?
The same way, I guess, that the fact that Crystal Mangum had the DNA of 9-10 men in her “rape kit,” none of which came from any member of the Duke lacrosse team, justified three members of that team’s having raped her. No, wait, you mean nobody believes it happened anymore? Can anyone really be that delusional?
This may seem elementary, but just because a piece of evidence is corroborative of someone’s recollections doesn’t necessarily make it probative. There is corroborating evidence for any and all of a thousand conspiracy theories concerning the JFK assassination, but that doesn’t make any of them true. You want probative evidence? First, the postmortem cranial x-rays of JFK show no exit wound in the left rear of his skull, something that necessarily would have resulted from a frontal head shot. Second, Governor John Connally was struck in the back by a tumbling—lengthwise—bullet, something that could not have happened if the bullet had not passed through something before it hit him. What could that something have been if not JFK? Third, Oliver Stone notwithstanding, the sheer weight of eyewitness testimony and forensic evidence leaves no reasonable doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit. If you’re a hardcore conspiracy theorist, these bits of information mean squat to you (or you believe they’re somehow doctored or falsified), but a reasonable person sees them as excellent evidence that there was one gunman—Oswald.
What would I regard as probative corroborative evidence of Denson’s accusations against Bishop? A series of accusers from different periods of his professional life. Her MTC companion’s statement that she was told by Bishop to get lost during his “counseling”’ sessions with Denson. Someone’s having noticed the torn clothing or a change in mood or behavior after the attack. The MTC branch president’s statement that he was unaware of any counseling interaction between Bishop and Denson. Character witnesses attesting to Denson’s reliability in recounting past events. More Ron Leavitts who remember Denson’s accusations and attest that her story has remained at least somewhat consistent through the years. It doesn’t mean much to me that one of Denson’s district’s instructors remembers Denson getting called out of class (but not by whom or for what), or that some unnamed ex-MTC employee says he was aware of an office similar to the one described by Denson and had it on hearsay that it had been used as a private sanctuary by the former MTC president (Bishop). People get called out of class in the MTC all the time for all sorts of reasons—and their companions go with them. And how much does the bare existence of the room prove, assuming the unidentified witness is reliable?
Okay. I think a lot of abuse has happened in the church, and it’s probable that some of it has been covered up to protect certain well-placed individuals. For the sake of full disclosure, I served in the same mission as one of Bishop’s sons, although he and I pretty much despised each other; thus, truth be told, I’d feel more than a bit of schadenfreude if Denson’s story turned out to be true and the old hypocrite (and the church that covered for him) finally got his comeuppance. That said, the MTC backdrop, the sheer improbability of an MTC president’s getting away with repeatedly diddling sister missionaries, and my own experiences dealing with delusional people just won’t allow me to buy into it. The problem with narratives is that they cause people to flog all the wrong cases in a mad effort to prove the overarching idea, and thus they end up doing just the opposite. The motion to dismiss could take 18-24 months to adjudicate fully if there’s an interlocutory appeal; that’s a long time not to get any traction in a lawsuit. Denson could easily cease to be a cause celebre in the interim unless more evidence comes out pre-discovery.