The god of all religions a terrorist? I don't think so. Not all religions have the same god.
The original & only Charlie Hebdo rest in peace. The new Hebdo is not the same magazine as the old one. RIP Charlie Hebdo. Not all gods are equal nor are all religions. "Religion" as a concept is just as dangerous a thing when it flowers on the left as when it continues to exist on the right, and probably the leftist version is even more dangerous & denialist & dishonest.
Charlie Hebdo claims that the "god of all religions is a terrorist" as per a recent cover talked about in the video below. That's not true though.
The god the Jains is not a terrorist. The god of most Amish is not. Even the hippie god of leftie Christians/Unitarians is not (except in as much as that god says one must law down and let fascists thrive "in their own lands").
The god of Mormonism is a horny white & delightsome man who has sex with thousands of women every hour of every day [do the math: to make 10,000,000,000 spirit babies in say 1,000,000 years, that's 1 baby making activity even every hour].
The god of Scientology is an angry alien.
The god of Catholicism & Anglicanism is a mystical undefinable asexual parthenogenic blob, and in the case of Catholocism who really really hates making Jesuses via normal vaginal sex while at the same time really really liking perverted old fart virgin pedophile priests.
The god of Islam is vain & brutal & narcissistic & jealous & mean & evil. Check the links at:
Anyway
I've come to conclude that, as per Daniel Dennett's "dangerous" idea
regarding religion being a natural phenomenon, religion is so damn
natural that two or more atheists gathered in the name of their favorite
social or political agenda cannot help but form a de facto one.
Charismatic
charlatans come in all shapes and sizes. When our favorite "prophet" is
on our side of the political spectrum we're more ready to dismiss their
flaws. For example when Clinton was in office I personally wrote to the
White House expressing my support during their trials &
tribulations. However I now see that I was hoodwinked, just like I was
hoodwinked about Joseph Smith.
Why are the rape crimes of Bill Clinton given a pass while the probably-natural activities of Catholic
Priests & other pedophiles are not? Just because something is 'natural' doesn't mean it should be valued. Sociopathy and psychopathy are natural too, natural abusive outlier activities that is.
Recoverers
from religion have a hard time seeing value in fully natural &
fully evolved human morality which says "no" to certain activities. Why
did fully natural religions/cultures evolve moral codes of conduct? For
fully natural reasons.
So how "conservative" should we be? It's a balancing act. An evolution if you will. And we aren't the first people to deal with the tension between letting it all hang out, and hanging people for doing so. Somewhere in between those two extremes lies human happiness & human thriving.
Islam & Mormonism are too conservative.
60s/70s SanFran-Glory-Hole-style liberalism is probably too permissive.
Humans aren't Bonobos. Shame regarding certain otherwise destructive
activities exists for some reasonable evolutionary reasons. Moral codes
of conduct evolved as counterweights to proclivities which can be
destructive.
Facebook Censorship: Tranny, Feminazi - these are leftist "bad words" which will get you reported by leftist fascists and auto-banned by FB thought-control bots.
When freakish abusive trannies come to the fore, those of us who value non-outlier human history & human values & family values complain, and we speak our mind. But such actions are too much for leftist fascists.
When Bruce Jenner came out as an outlier freak, we complained. The response? SHUT UP! - from leftists and leftist-fascism enablers who run Facebook.
Later, when supports of gay marriage find there's "people of reason" (AKA atheists) who oppose gay marriage, they can't handle that fact. They report posts they disagree with so as to attempt to shut those people up.
24 hour ban resulting from the following exchange:
Freedom is a leftist swear word, a leftist "hate speech" word.
Freedom of thought.
Freedom of speech.
Freedom to refuse to comply with leftist dogma & doctrines. Sacrilege. The new religion of our day. And Facebook operators play a key part in the fascism of the left.
Leftists seek to censor, again and again and again. They demand you either fall in line with their views, or that you shut up.
Here's some of my recent reflections on the pressing issues of the day, posted in a place where deletion is less likely (originally posted on Faisal Saeed Al Mutar's facebook page).
============
OMG there is no such think as an unbiased journalist. Some bias is useful, and the more I look at things I see that a rightist bias is more reasonable.
Pro-family.
Pro-life, as in human life, as in survival.
Pro-Enlightenment, generally speaking, de facto (even if a given person claims they just 'hate' 'hate' 'hate' Darwin's findings, they can still be de facto pro-Enlightenment but what they say and do).
Pro-the-truth.
In the wake of Hebdo, exactly who on this planet published the cartoons? Who, exactly? Leftist media? "Main stream" media, which is de facto leftist? N-O.
As an ex-Mormon I can see the plight of ex-Muslims, fighting to be heard. People like Bosch Fawstin, who face death threats in response to their life work, and there's many others: Ayaan, Maryam; and that's not to mention the atheist bloggers who've been killed.
Where does the truth lie? In being honest and true to our evolutionary history. Embracing enlightenment & science, but not throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Daniel Dennett's dangerous idea is that religion is a natural phenomenon. That fact cuts several ways. Fully natural & useful & evolved human values exist w/in religion - values evolved to help us avoid destructive behaviors. But religions can and do go overboard: the hijab; controls on dating & marriage - Islam goes *way* too far in the negative & controlling direction.
In the 90s I thought Mormonism was the fruit of all evil, but now I see Islam as a far bigger problem.
And an an ex-religionist it's hard to admit that some shaming is useful, from a utilitarian perspective. Yes there's damn good reasons not to get an STD and leave your family with no parent, for example. Letting it all hang out has real world downsides.
Finding a balance between the crazies on all sides is hard work. The left is too permissive. The right is too uptight.
Freedom of speech comes from a limited slice of human heritage & experience (ref. Mark Steyn). Most people don't value it - which is one reason why it must be valued by those of us who were either born into or adopted into the Western heritage.
Who stands up for free speech? Not "the left," generally speaking. Who published & who was willing to show the cartoons? There is your answer - the camp we should go to & join.
------------
[In response to the above post a pro-gay-marriage person complained and stated that his gay "marriage" to his gay associate was an example of family values. I then drafted the following reply, a reply which resulted in a ban from FB for 24 hours. I don't think they liked my use of the tranny & femin*zi terms. But it's apparently quite true that there are strong institutional barriers against speaking one's mind & speaking the truth. Honest observations and honest opinions. True diversity encompasses a diversity of opinion (!), just just a diversity of skin tone.]
------------
Control experiment: Visit human communities who're opposed to gay-advocacy & gay "marriage," communities which have zero connection to the Bible or the Quran. Ask what they think. Do their views have value? Where do their views come from?
Religion is a natural phenomenon as noted. Dismissing out of hand everything w/in religion simply because given values are couched w/in a religious context is wrong headed & foolish & unscientific and unhistorical.
Outliers exist. They are side effects of how evolution works, how sex gets set up in humans. Outliers are a side effect of selection, not a root cause for selection.
When the human animal can naturally produce children via outlier "sexual" activity, or via natural non-interventionary parthenogenesis, then outlier "sex" will no longer have an outlier status.
Gay people can be service oriented and they can help main-line non-outlier humans who can and do naturally reproduce. But outliers can also inappropriately assume that they should essentially steal away children into outlier culture.
Gay culture is no place for children. Gay men tend to not be faithful. Gay women don't have father-figures around at all.
Non-faithfulness is simply a way of life w/in gay culture. Also children have been hard coded (by evolution, by nature) to *need* to be raised in a household where a mother & father are present.
So re gayness: here's for contributors like Alan Turing, Stephen Fry, Douglas Murray, and so on. That's all fine and good. But I suggest not whitewashing problems with gay culture & so-called gay "marriage."
Yes gay people can hook up, but they cannot have true sex nor true & honest marriage. Why? Because sex only happens when two sexual animals engage in inherently reproductive activities with their sexual organs. Other activities with one's sexual organs are not, literally, and in any real meaningful scientific sense, sex. And as marriage has been a direct extension of inherently reproductive sex, AKA sex, there is only one type of true & honest & meaningful marriage.
It's not about civil rights. Outliers have every right to work to not be outliers. That's why I support secular groups like NARTH. My gay nephew certainly would benefit from association with such a group. He lives such a wastrel, petty, selfish, mostly meaningful life, it's amazing and sad. Seen this first hand. I also say how he & his friends readily accepted a convicted pedophile into their friend community after the pedo was released from prison.
Oh and then there was my gay (or "bi") uncle who died of AIDS: a victim of the abusively permissive glory hole culture of San Francisco, thereby leaving his straight normal family (AKA his family) with no father. My uncle was a victim of both the ultra-right and the ultra-left - a victim of the ping pong game that happens when people rebel in response to exposure to ultra-right religion.
Ultra-left religion is no "answer" to the cultural & religious right, nor is it a panacea.
Then when I grew up and tossed my ultra-leftist colored glasses I graduated to: http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/
...where I am willing to examine truth from all sides, and where I take w/a grain of salt the dogmatic claims of all sides.
Gay "marriage" is not about families, it's about a basic denial of human nature, a denial of 1.2 billion years of sexual history, and ~13.82 billion years of evolutionary history. Leftists deny human nature all the time even more than righties do. At least rightist culture can help one avoid deadly STDs, the "childfree" life, a dead end life, a wastrel, a life as a lesbian femin*zi, and so on.
I am happy to have the gay people (AKA biological outliers) who contribute to society, and who help those of us who *are* inclined to naturally reproduce. But please don't steal away our kids into your sometimes-abusive culture. Gay culture is no place for kids.
From Jesse Bering: "...Even in societies where homosexuality was tolerated, such as in Ancient Greece, men tended to engage in pederasty with adolescent boys while maintaining wives and families at home..."
Geezus is not my savior, nor do I believe in Mohamed. But socially conservative atheists from rural China can serve as a control group and a counter to leftist relativism & leftist denialism.
In as much as gay culture produces people like Douglas Murray, I say let's have a million of them. The more neocons the better, yes that's true. But please let's have less gays like my gay nephew & less gays like my gay uncle, please.
Ultra-leftist type, and Darrel Ray's own, "sexuality" are apparently assumed by Ray and his followers as being The
definition of Secular Sexuality: It or they are Not.
You've been very verbose with your efforts to date, so I've opted for a verbose response.
A great crusade has been launched and is ongoing. But here's my take on your whole effort:
I agree that the "addiction" paradigm regarding sexuality is inherently abusive.
A better view would be this: Our brains were set up by evolution via natural selection to be "addicted" to certain activities, and that's a damn good thing, otherwise we probably wouldn't be alive today.
Drugs can hijack that built in system.
People try and make money off of selling sex as a means of hijacking our evolutionary-"designed"-sexual-system.
When people leave conservative religions they can jump to the complete opposite side of things, and can go right off a cliff.
I agree with a fair amount of what you say. But I think you have gone off the deep end yourself, by reportedly being a "polyamory" type person and advocate.
Within the context of the incredibly toxic way rightist religion shames regarding sex, it's very understandable why some people find it necessary to maintain high value with letting it all hang out. But there are some fully natural & reasonable reasons why religions have codes of conduct regarding sex.
A damn hard thing for an ex-religionist to admit.
Yes the ultra-right goes too far (too much shame), but so does the ultra-left in their own way (too little shame, and not recognizing how there's fully natural & reasonable value to ideals like monogamy, fidelity, and working to direct your sexual energy into productive activities eg. dating & inherently reproductive marriage as opposed to not).
People can be and are victims of the ultra-left (which they jump to and glom onto after being ultra-right).
I was raised a Mormon. After leaving Mormonism I became an ultra-leftist. I spent several years wading in the swimming pool of the left. Now I'm married to a socially-moderate-to-conservative atheist from China, a woman with zero connection to the Bible, Quran, or Book of Mormon. Where did her social-conservatism come from? Joseph Smith? Mohamed? The Pope? No. It came from her humanity, and culture is inseparable from biology & evolution.
Daniel Dennett's dangerous idea is that religion is a natural phenomenon. This fact cuts several ways. Yes it shows that religion is not "divine," but it also shows that it's very human.
Fully natural evolved codes of conduct do exist within religion. Dismissing all those codes simply because there's a charismatic charlatan as a leader of a given religion is premature. The codes themselves can have some very good reasons for existing. Yes, some bad, but also some good.
So what to do as a person who's very angry at the abuses of conservative religion regarding sexuality? Completely rebel? Proclaim that full sexual freedom is best? No. You're setting yourself and others up for failure if this is the route you take and/or advocate.
Like it or not shame evolved as a useful tool of protection within the human animal.
Regarding the DSM-IV: Whatever happens to be written inside books of this nature isn't "science." Psychology is not really a true science as such. There's huge leftist cultural confirmation bias going in within groups like the APA. Examples? Google for them yourself, but suffice it to say that the cultural left does not have all the answers.
Yes Mr. Ray I loath and hate Spencer Kimball & Boyd Packer & Joseph Smith & Mohamed. But on the other hand, my own wife is a sort of "control" for what humans do when they're *not* exposed to Abrahamic faith.
Also the left's fear of "patriarchy" is dogmatically misplaced misdirected abusive anger in and of itself.
So I agree with a fair amount of your work, but I strongly disagree with the current lengths to which you take it: an apparent de facto advocacy for a level of human promiscuity which is in and of itself inherently abusive. Not because the Bible tells us so, but because human nature and human sexual history tells us so. Infidelity destroys families, because of how human nature is set up, not because a-hole Spencer Kimball thought it was a good idea.
Thanks be to Thomas Rowlandson, and Mihály Zichy, and films like the Good Old Naughty Days, yes I agree with that. On the other hand there's some damn good reasons to be faithful to one's wife, and to value inherently reproductive marriage & monogamy & families & life, and to be highly skeptical of abusive humans who want to sell sex for money & so on - to yes hijack our evolutionary evolved sexual systems for their own ends. So this is all a balancing act between both sides IMO.
I received a few snotty responses from an operator of the FB in question, and from one other guy. Here's quotes of my responses. The page operator deleted some of my replies & the replies of others. Fortunately I made copies before they could click delete.
============== comment 1:
Additional note sent to the guy;
----
Humans gets to make rules to help quell destructive behaviors.
There's better and more productive activities than porn and harlotry that humans can and do engage in.
You've set yourself up as a sort of prophet, imposing your own brand of overly permissive sexuality as *the* secular sexuality. It ain't.
What you're peddling really is an infantile flavor: the initially and understandably rebellious flavor.
After the 60s comes the 70s hangover. And lives are destroyed via too much permissiveness.
It ain't a religion thing. It's a human nature thing.
Science and skepticism are not present in your endeavors.============== comment 2:
How about a podcast that's more along the lines of honest science and true honest skepticism?
Can we be skeptical about the value of the porn industry, and about all things "sex positive?"
Here's my question:
"Do you think selling sexuality and selling your body as a deceptive lie is helpful to society, or an inherent abuse?"
The assumption that being a secular who's sexual must mean all porn is good, and that monogamy is inherently bad, is a very misguided and very-unscientific non-skeptical assumption.
Science requires a crucible. Your requirement of having questions which "...must be sex positive..." disallows honest scientific & skeptical inquiry into the subject.============== comment 3:
Ad hominem fallacy and completely false claims.
I don't need your luck and neither do regular faithful monogamous humans trying to get on with their lives raising productive happy families.
The key touchstones for the rebellious here are harlots of one type or another.
Yes the machinery of evolution produces non-productive outlier activity, but humans are not bonobos.
Lives and families are destroyed via too much permissiveness.
Poly people are being abusive to themselves and others.
The ultra left is no answer to the ultra right.
We, recoverers from religion don't need the abusive non- solutions offered within the chambers of harlots, pornographers, and poly people who're in denial about human nature and the *value* of avoiding destructive outlier type behaviors.
If you or anyone here were interested in science and skepticism you wouldn't be putting all your eggs in the baskets of greedy abusers who're working to hijack our sexual systems to their own ends.
============== end of comments posted on the FB page in question.
Follow up thoughts:
Ray has reportedly come out as "polyamorous." Here is a graphical symbol he frequently uses in his conference presentation:
The above symbol is a slightly modified version of the symbol for transgenderism.
Also a brief view of the recent podcasts put on by Ray has swingers, porn stars, and various flavors of other "outlier" groups.
SweetWomanDirtyMind blogger – Lisa – talks about transitioning from religious to atheist, from monogamous to kinkster, swinger and sex positive blogger.
Sandra Meade is the host on one of the longest running LGBT shows in the
US. She is also an activist for Transgender issues and rights. We
discuss a broad range of topics.
Dr. Ray talks with 3 polyamorous people about relationships and jealousy.
And from their FB page:
Secular Sexuality Podcast
October 2 at 8:22am ·
Dear friends of the Secular Sexuality Podcast, on Monday I will be taping an interview with the Internationally known porn star Angela White from Australia. She actually ran for Parliament a few years ago as a member of the Sex Party, a fully recognized political party in Australia, I met the president Fiona Patten, when I was in Australia a few years ago. I want to give my listeners an opportunity to ask a question so here is my offer, if you would like to ask her a question put it in the comments below. I will select one or two questions to ask her, from those submitted. Questions need to be related to the theme of the podcast and must be sex positive. http://angelawhite.com/
---------end of quote
Porn stars, swingers, poly people, so-called transgender people, militant homosexual advocates: The quintessence of ultra-leftist sexuality today.
To Ray and his groupies the absolute quintessence and near utopian stance of human sexuality is represented by what inherently non-reproductive outliers do, and what non-monogamous people do.
They conflate the fact that humans share a common ancestor with Bonobos with what human nature is.
They conflate what humans do (cheat), with what humans need to do to have happy families (not cheat)!
They conflate and mix up their own desires to rebel against ultra-right religion, their chosen-ultra-rebellious flavor of sexuality, with what normal healthy thriving happy human sexuality is.
Permissive relativist liberalism destroys families and lives.
Jumping from the ultra-right to the ultra-left can result in the destruction of your family (via cheating, betrayal, and via deadly STDs).
Polyamory advocates are in denial about human nature. The answer to the ultra-right is not dismissing all sexual shame, rather it's putting that shame within context: the biological and evolutionary context.
There are damn good reasons for sexual shame: family stability, child support, happiness, progress, growth. Shaming for destructive abusive dead end outlier behaviors, all that shame has some very reasonable evolutionary roots.
All this is completely lost on Ray in my view.
Polyamory (eg: swinging - sex with multiple partners openly simultaneously) is an inherent abusive, upon those who practice it and the people who're connected to the people who practice it. Children raised in such groupings will end up being abused, by default.
Homosexuality (and gender confusion AKA transgenderism) happen naturally because of how the machinery of evolution by natural sexual selection works, and how sex gets set up in us. Doesn't mean being gay is "preferred" or selected for in any way! It just means that outliers "happen" within the context of the currently-operating machinery of evolution.
Homosexuals and transgender (gender confused /deluded) people have no more right to access to raising children than do animals of a completely different species. Outliers are outliers. But most children are not outliers, and so most children need a mommy and a daddy.
Daniel Dennett's dangerous idea, that religion is a natural phenomenon, cuts several ways as I've noted. Fully natural and highly useful human moral codes exist and are couched within religion. Simply because there are no mystical gods as such doesn't mean natural human moral codes are bogus! This is another key point completely lost on people like Ray and his ultra-leftist followers.
People exposed to the abuses of Mormonism and other conservite religions do have an axe to grind, and for good reason. Yes hard-line rebellion is understandable, but it's not an answer in the end.
Why do humans do what they do? That's a key question. And Darrel Ray does not appear to know any of the proper answers.
On his podcast he states that questions must be "sex positive." That phrase is code for open and ready acceptance of the abusively-permissive flavor of leftist relativist abnormal outlier-embracing sexuality, in other words sexuality which destroys families and lives, and which also is a de facto death cult.
All these people, the poly people, the tranny people, the gay people, the "childfree" people, oh and the pedophile people, the confessed sexual proclivities of all these groups exists because of how evolution by natural selection works. Doesn't mean we shouldn't lock up for life and execute all pedophiles, rather the same way we put down mad dogs. Doesn't mean the "sexuality' of the other groups mentioned must be declared as being equal to normal inherently-reproductive human sexuality.
Sex exists for one reason only: Reproduction. That's it. There is some "spill over" which results, but the spill over effects are N-O-T being selected for by the process of evolution. How can they be? Non-reproductive spill over effects most likely cannot be selected for!
So play while you can. Embrace your inner "you" by doing all the selfish dangerous abusive permissive destructive stuff you can with your sexual organs, but in the end there's really only one useful thing you can ever do with them: make babies. That's it. Don't like that fact? Tough.
Having my cake and eating it too.
How can a ex-Mormon be in favor of more conservative (family focused) forms of sexuality, and still also be an advocate for having adult humans being exposed to more honest expressions of what some would call "porn?"
There is joy in sex and we should realize why that joy is there, and where that joy comes from: from evolution and solely because of reproduction and sexual selection.
Porn 1.0 is based mostly on lies and harlotry.
Porn 2.0 allows for organic expressions via couples and individuals showing their sexuality to other adults. But Porn 2.0 is surrounded by and supported by porn 1.0 abusiveness.
Porn 3.0 could perhaps be a porn 2.0 which is not supported by or surrounded by the abusive money grubbing whorishness and lies of porn 1.0.
What would be some examples of Porn 3.0? Perhaps fine art which accurately depicts sexuality. Perhaps films which depict it, where such films are not being sold within the crass lying money grubbing hijacking porn 1.0 context.
I do think it's important that humans be able to learn about sex, and even be able to revel in it's joys and intricacies and power - but they should and must never forget why sex exists in the first place.
Just because humans shared a common ancestor with Bonobos doesn't mean we can be Bonobos ourselves, not without destroying the lives of our fellow humans and not without destroying our own lives.
Ultra-right religion helps push people to the ultra-left, and by so doing it's acting to abuse people further: because within the ultra-left people learn even more lies about human sexuality and they are foolishly taught on the left that "anything goes," when it does not.
[copy of a complaint filed with the University of Utah]
September 23, 2015
Complaint regarding the University of Utah Hospital and it's marketing department: Censored on Facebook, Permanently.
Request
this complaint be reviewed by the "complaint review" committee of the
Hospital, and by whatever citizen-rights-advocacy person or group may
exist within the University structure - any person or group who may
advocate on behalf of citizens who've been wronged by University
actions.
In violation of the First Amendment, in violation of my
right as a patient and citizen to complain to and about the University,
publicly, I have been blocked from any ability to post comments on the
University of Utah Hospital's Facebook page, at
https://www.facebook.com/pages/University-of-Utah-Hospital/102550626466923?fref=ts
Previously I posted copies of complaints on the Hospital's page regarding the Orthopedic Center unit of the Hospital.
Those posts were deleted by Hospital staff, in violation of the First Amendment.
My
posts were labeled as "spam" by the marketing department of the
Hospital (as per their comments to the University Office of Equal
Opportunity).
My ability to post ANY comments at all on the Hospital's Facebook page has been blocked by Hospital staff.
A permanent black mark.
An
attempt at retaliation in response to my Free Speech activities (my attempts to let the public know about problems with the University and
with the Hospital, in a public forum).
----
Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the
press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
the Government for a redress of grievances.
----
"The
right to petition government for redress of grievances is the right to
make a complaint to, or seek the assistance of, one's government,
without fear of punishment or reprisals."
Dr.
David Petron and his staff have directly acted to attempt to punish me
for making in-person during-visit complaints regarding their refusal to
weigh me on a scale during my visit.
Clinic Manager Leslie Berg
of the School of Dentistry has directly attempted to have me ejected
from the School of Dentistry clinics in response to complaints filed
about the school she works for, complaints filed with the University and
with other relevant parties.
The Marketing department of the
Hospital has directly attempted to have be barred from access to the
Hospital Facebook page. They have labeled my posts as "spam," have
labeled me a "spammer," have deleted my public posts complaining about
the University Hospital and it's clinics, and they have permanently
blocked my ability to post anything at all on the Hospital Facebook
page.
These acts by the University are reprisals.
These acts by the University are retaliation.
The University has engaged in censorship.
The University Hospital has labeling my speech as "spam."
The University Hospital has labeled me, a patient & citizen, a "spammer."
The
University Hospital does attempt to boot, block, and censor
patients who complain about poor treatment. If complaints are made
during an active visit, lower level staff summarily boot patients with
zero due process and with no opportunity to speak with the doctor being
seen that day (Orthopedic Center). If complaints are made after a visit
to other parts of the University and to other relevant professional
& accrediting bodies, University Hospital employees try & boot
patients in response. From Leslie Berg: "We don't know why you would
want to continue coming here?" - from the School of Dentistry Clinic Manager.
Are all these the appropriate actions for a governmental institution and for a University and for a hospital?
Clearly not!
They ARE the acts of an abusive institution bent on self-serving self-protection.
A "whack-a-mole" game IS engaged at the University when patients complain.
Your retaliatory acts are acts of punishment, and are reprisals.
Punishments directed at my family.
There
are some good providers & managers at the University - usually most
often on the "general practice" side of things. But there's also
administrators, doctors, clinic managers, and medical students who root
their daily work solely within the religious culture of Utah, where
belief maintenance, heresy trials, and excommunication are all ready
tools they have zero problem with using, using in their jobs as
government employees.
These people haven't read the Constitution, and neither apparently have the legal staff for the University.
Sincerely,
Jonathan with Yanning, Carl, and Tina
p.s.
Carl & Tina were both born at the University Hospital, if that
means anything to you. My wife Yanning is a patient of the Hospital and
it's clinics, it that means anything to you. Attempts to shut up and
shut down my family will not succeed, regardless of the apparent
sociopathic. theocratic, and dictatorial anti-Constitution inclinations
of Hospital & University administrators. The Utah government is MY
government, not your private club nor your personal enrichment device.
September 21, 2015 update, regarding the University of Utah School of Dentistry:
On
July 20, 2015 my wife & I had back to back visits at the Greenwood
Center location for the University of Utah School of Dentistry.
Problems noticed:
Problem 1: For the 7-20-2015 visits or myself and my wife the hygienist involved was not particularly friendly.
Problem
2: For the 7-20-2015 visit for myself, my cleaning was incredibly
painful. No anesthesia was offered for me. If in the mind(s) of the
relevant staff root planing was being done, at no time was the option of
anesthesia offered.
Problem 3: For the 7-20-2015 visit for
myself, root planing was billed out for, even though only a regular
cleaning was scheduled. At no time prior to or during our visit did
anyone warn or tell us a non-regular cleaning was going to be done, or
was being done while it was happening.
Problem 4: While I did
receive a few conciliatory phone calls from a dental medical director,
Dr. Craig Proctor, the regular manager for the clinic, a public employee
by the name of Leslie Berg, is very angry that I have complained about
her clinic to people within & outside the University (as per a
9-21-2015 conversation I had with her).
On 9-21-2015 I had an
extended conversation with Ms. Leslie Berg, a public employee of the
University, and manager over the School of Dentistry clinics.
I
wanted to speak with Ms. Berg because of insurance and clerical issues
for the 7-20-2015 claims (in-network vs out-of-network issues), and so
as to help ensure the 7-20 visits for myself and my wife would be
covered as "in network" with my insurance.
Ms. Berg's tone and approach was essentially the exact opposite of Dr. Proctor's.
Ms. Berg was angry, angry that I had complained to anyone about problems with the visits.
Ms.
Berg wanted myself and my wife, out the clinic door, permanently, in as
much as she said to me "I don't know why you want to continue to come
to our clinic if you are going to complain about us to the university
and to other parties." She made this point several times during our
9-21-2015 chat, and was quite upset that I had complained about the
visit to other University entities and to entities outside the
University.
From Ms. Leslie Berg of the University of Utah we
have a direct attempt at retaliation, retaliation in response to my
complaining about what happened during the 7-20 visits for myself and my
wife.
Ms. Berg said that I had "demanded" to speak with her on
9-21. I told her that I had requested to speak with her, because
clerical type network insurance problems which seemed more in her sphere
of influence as opposed to that of Dr. Proctor, and I explained this to
her staff. But Ms. Berg choose to characterize my request as a
"demand."
Ms. Berg said that she "did not like my approach." This
was her first volley in what became an argument with Ms. Berg. In our
9-21 chat she was combative and retaliatory, and her actions directly
served to undercut the otherwise good work of Dr. Proctor. Again Dr.
Proctor was conciliatory and cordial and kind. Ms. Berg was angry and
irritated, and she sought to deflect-at-all-costs any and all complaints
about bad-and-poor actions of her staff.
Ms. Berg's preference
was to call myself and my wife, as patients of the University, liars,
rather than to take ownership of any miscommunication or lack of
communication or inappropriate actions on the part of her staff.
Ms. Berg also did not address the issue of anesthesia during the supposed "root planing:" None Was Offered to me.
At the University of Utah, if you complain as a patient, a game of whack-a-mole is engaged.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Dr.
Proctor tried to not do this, but Ms. Leslie Berg picked up the virtual
mallet today (9-21) as from the referenced game, and began virtually
whacking away at my family.
Examples of how the game has played out with the dental clinic (paraphrasing Ms. Berg's direct responses):
Me and my family: "The hygienist was rude to us."
The
whack received from Ms. Berg in response: No comment, and "we don't
like the fact that you complained to other parts of the University and
to external entities."
Me and my family: "The hygienist never
warned me she would code my visit as 'root planing' even though only a
regular cleaning was scheduled."
The whack received from Ms. Berg
in response: "Our hygienist and the resident doctor involved both claim
they gave you proper notice. So it's your word against theirs, period,
end of story, and I'm probably going to give more weight to what they
claim as opposed to what you and your family are claiming."
My
response to the above whack: My claim is that the hygienist was rude and
that she never warned me about doing any root planing during a
regularly-scheduled cleaning. I was never warned, at all, and no
anesthesia was offered for the supposed 'root planing,' as is common
when such procedures are engaged.
The whack received from Ms.
Berg in response: "I am upset that you complained about our clinic to
other University departments and to external entities. Wouldn't you be
happier going elsewhere?"
My response to the above whack: "Dr.
Proctor's response to our complaint was positive. Ms. Berg's response is
the exact opposite of Dr. Proctor's in tone & substance."
The
reason I felt it necessary to escalate the issue to other parties was
because Ms. Berg was completely unreachable via phone prior to my
escalations. She never returned my phone calls. No return voicemail.
Nothing. And her staff at the clinics never take messages so that she
can call patients back in a timely manner.
But I ask myself now
what would have happened if she would have called me back? Her tone is
so very abusive & negative now, now that I have finally spoken to
her - I bet her tone would have been inappropriate from the beginning,
had spoken with her earlier.
The whack received from Ms. Berg:
You "demanded" to speak with me today even though Dr. Proctor said that
only he should be speaking with you moving forward.
My response:
"I requested to speak with you because of clerical insurance 'in vs out'
of network errors and issues, and it seemed like you would be the best
person to speak to about such issues. I did not 'demand' to speak with
you. I simply explained the situation to your staff today, and that the
problems seemed more relevant to your scope of work.
The whack received from Ms. Berg: "I am going to end this conversation, now." Click.
My
response: Leslie Berg has been the manager of the U of U Dental School
clinics yesterday, today, and she probably will be the manager moving
forward.
With such a manager, one who is fully willing to engage
in direct retaliation against patients who make complaints, first and
foremost because patients have the gall to complain & raise their
voice, is not a person who can be trusted with the medical care of my
family.
Dr. Proctor is a good man.
Leslie Berg is undercutting his good work.
After
Ms. Berg hung up on me today I phoned a professional dental association
and spoke with it's director, to have this man help me as a kind of
sounding-board.
Their director shared with me the following concerns regarding the U dental school, as follows (paraphrasing what he shared):
1. The U School of Dentistry is very top-heavy.
2. The U School of Dentistry has experienced a great deal of turn around regarding their upper leadership.
3.
The U School of Dentistry, and the U hospital generally, doesn't really
care if a patient is unhappy with treatment. Entrenched government
employees don't have any incentive to change or act better.
4.
The U is a government agency, and entrenched employees like Leslie Berg
could apparently care less what patients think or what their experiences
are.
5. Miscommunication is a fact of life in dentistry, and
patients being properly warned about procedures up-front is also a
continuing issue professional dental associations are trying to help
with.
6. Maybe the University will let Ms. Berg go if this is how she's going to act and if this is how she's going to treat patients.
----end of paraphrases & impressions from a director of a professional dental association.
Regarding item 6, one can only hope Ms. Berg will be let go soon from University employment.
But
there is a great tendency within the University to pounce on patients
who complain. To iron-fistedly stand by providers who act badly. To
defend the status quo, even if that means patients who complain are
booted right out the door - booted without any sort of due process.
Not really appropriate actions for a governmental agency, nor for a "caring" hospital.
Step 1: Patient has a bad experience with a given provider.
Step 2: Patient complains.
Step 3: Patient is retaliated against, retaliation which usually includes quick booting out the door in response.
The University cannot and does not tolerate complaints from patients.
Dr.
Proctor is an anomaly within the current abusive culture. A man who did
try to be conciliatory. But his own entrenched staff acts to directly
undercut his good actions & good intentions.
The University
of Utah is not a church, but parts of it still operate like one. Belief
maintenance. Heresy trials. Excommunications. These tools are all
actively used, today, by University staff.
The First Amendment does apply.
"Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Complaining
about the U dental clinic to other U departments, and to relevant
external organizations, are all attempts to "petition my government for a
redress of grievances."
Ms. Leslie Berg acted directly to
attempt to abridge this guaranteed right of my family. The right to
complain about poor treatment from governmental officials who operate
health clinics.
Retaliation in response to my usage of the First Amendment.
Yes
the University is not a church, and it's also bound by the Constitution
and so on. Employees like Ms. Berg don't know who they are working for,
nor are they familiar with how good dental practice is and should be
done.
My wife is Chinese, and I wonder if that was the
reason the hygienist was upset during our 7-20 visit? Was that the reason
the hygienist coded the visit for root planing even though no warning
was given for the change? Was that the reason she engaged a very painful
procedure with no anesthesia being offered? Was that the reason she is
now completely misrepresenting what I was told during my visit regarding
what exactly was going to be done?
We came to the
University School of Dentistry because translation services are offered.
We suspect we're being treated badly because of the race of my wife,
and because we have a "mixed-race" family.
Why else would we be treated badly?
Just because U employees & managers really hate complaints from patients?
Probably a combination.
Sincerely,
Jonathan
=== September 23, 2015 addendum:
Related posts:
Complaint regarding the University of Utah Hospital and it's marketing department: Censored on Facebook, Permanently. http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2015/09/complaint-regarding-university-of-utah.html
University of Utah Orthopedic Center and David Petron: rude treatment, denial of service, refusal to weigh (of all things!) http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2015/06/university-of-utah-orthopedic-center.html
