State supreme court rules in case of two bishops who were silent about three children abused by Mormon parents
Clergy members in Arizona who learn of child abuse in the context of religious confession are not required to report it, the state’s supreme court has said in a ruling that protects what church leaders call the “seal of the confessional”.
The panel’s ruling ends a long-running case in which three children who were sexually abused by their parents sued the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), also known as the Mormon church, and two bishops who became aware of the crimes but remained silent.
The case has parallels in a short-lived 2025 law in Washington state that would have compelled clergy members there to report sexual abuse. That proposal was permanently withdrawn in October after legal action by the Catholic church.
In a statement, the LDS welcomed the unanimous ruling by the state supreme court on Thursday that exempts clergy members as “mandated reporters” if they learned of the abuse of minors in the confession booth or through other “confidential” methods.
God itself has a beginning, right? Something cannot be created from nothing.
Here, again, is the most honest truth: we don’t know.
But inventing wizards does not solve any of these questions, it just kicks the can down the road, from the universe to an anthropomorphic yet vaguely defined “supreme” being whose supposed omnipotence fails to prevent needless suffering. You’ve not answered any questions, and you’ve added many more by making unfalsifiable claims.
How do you know that?
And how do you know time can’t be “created” by something that isn’t god?
I’d also like to point out that in order to perform the act of creation, god must already be experiencing time. So where did his time come from?
I cannot invent something that already exists, right? I cant take a lightbulb and say I invented lightbulbs.
God relies completely on hinself, and why must he be experiencing time?
Because he performed the act of creating us. There is no action if there is no time.
Any argument you apply to god can be applied to the universe itself. You have arguments from ignorance and nothing else, which is not sufficient to convince anyone reasonable of god’s existence.