If you haven't read all the sections yet then please do so before reading this section. If you have read all the completed sections then you probably have come to one of the following three conclusions:
If you fall into category 1, and you fully analyzed all of the critic's arguments then you will be a better missionary. You can now fully refute the critic's problems with the Church. You needn't ever worry what an investigator or a critic of the Church may bring up. The following sites may be of comfort to you:
First make sure you have read all of the critic's arguments as well as the LDS faithful responses from this website. Check out the numerous relevant links for both sides. Read books by both sides, and listen to podcasts. Use the Internet, google any topic and research all sides of the issues. There are lots of very informative websites from many viewpoints out there. Pray for definitive, detailed answers as you are comfortable with prayer. Leave no stone unturned in your quest for the truth. Talk to critics, faithful members, former members and anyone that can intelligently discuss the issues.
Don't feel that you need to make a decision today. If you are still uncertain as to what you believe is the truth, we would suggest not doing anything until you are comfortable with your decision. Take your time and explore your options. Visit the message boards of both critics and faithful church members, and get their insights. Some of the more popular discussion sites:
Former members and questioning members
New Order Mormons (active LDS that don't necessary believe everything the church teaches)
Totally faithful member sites
Neutral
List of Links
One book we personally would recommend is:
An Insider's View of Mormon Origins by Grant Palmer. He's a former CES teacher and remains an active member of the Church but questions the LDS history as taught by the Church.
Another excellent book is No Man Knows My History, by Fawn Brodie. (This book is found in many public libraries).
This is the most difficult conclusion to address, and the one with the hardest decisions to make. What most people do:
Option 1) Leave the Church. Send in your resignation letter and no longer be involved at all with the LDS Church. Get on with your life. Instructions for resignation given here: MormonNoMore.com and here: HOW TO GET OUT by Richard Packham
Option 2) Become inactive. Just forget about the Church and dwindle into inactivity.
Option 3) Stay in. Some people that don't believe in the divinity of the Church don't want to leave it for various reasons so they become "New Order Mormons". The reasons often cited by NOMs are family (often a spouse is still a believer and would cause significant strife if one partner leaves the Church), job reasons (members, particularly living in Utah, often work with many LDS and fear for that their careers may suffer if it was known that they left the Church) or they don't know what else to do. Some people don't want to join another church and are just comfortable staying in the church they've been a member of all their lives, even if they don't really believe it's true.
This reminds me a little bit of what the Mormon kid Gary says to Stan in the South Park episode, “All About the Mormons”:
Gary: Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life, and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that. The truth is, I don’t care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice and helping people. And even though people in this town might think that’s stupid, I still choose to believe in it. All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan, but you’re so high and mighty you couldn’t look past my religion and just be my friend back. You’ve got a lot of growing up to do, buddy. @#*%!
Cartman: Damn, that kid is cool, huh?
For those that no longer believe that the Church is true, we ask you to consider another option. First we don't blame anyone for leaving the Church after finding out it's not what you were lead to believe. Also, those that stay in to keep the peace with their families and 'suffer in silence' have their crosses to bear, and we wish them well also.
For those that wish to do an altruistic service, we ask you to consider staying in and try to make the Church a more honorable institution. Several of us are doing that now, from this site and thousands more 'New Order Mormons' do that as well.
We're gospel doctrine teachers, Sunday School teachers, home teachers and just average everyday members that provide service in the Church just like other Latter-day Saints, yet we know the full history of the Church and try to teach that to other members as best we can.
It's not easy, and some of the original founding members of Mormonthink.com found it just too difficult to continue to listen to the sugar-coated history in church every week so they no longer attend. But if this is something you may be interested in doing, we ask you to stay in the Church, at least for a season.
Here is a thought-provoking essay entitled 'How to Stay in the LDS Church After a Major Challenge to Your Faith'. This was done by John Dehlin, host of mormonstories.org.
John is a non-traditional believer that encourages people to stay in the Church as he does. John makes a strong case to stay in the LDS Church unless you have something else to replace it with.
http://mormonstories.org/howtostay/HowToStay.html
also a more recent John Dehlin essay, "For those who are in the LDS faith struggle"
http://mormonstories.org/?p=749
Several people were involved in creating this site. Most of us are still active members even though we don't believe the Church is exactly what it claims to be. We stay in for various reasons, but mostly what makes us unique and different from the New Order Mormons is that the main reason for our continued membership in the Church is education. We simply want the rest of the members to know what we know.
We don't feel that it is appropriate that any members or the Church leadership need to hide things from the general membership of the Church. We want to get everything out on the table. People can do whatever they want with the information; we just want everyone to be informed on the issues and therefore make a decision based on accurate information.
Our goal would be that no knowledgeable member should have to be afraid to speak the truth in church to avoid offending a naïve member with the truth about polygamy, or the translation process, Masonry, or any other historical aspect of the Church. We want the Church leaders to be 100% open and honest with the members so we can be 100% open and honest with our children, families, friends, investigators and fellow members.
We're kind of like a subset of missionaries within the Church that try to take members to the next level of understanding. Some of us are Sunday School and Gospel Doctrine teachers. We attempt to bring a little more honesty to the lessons than other less-informed teachers would. Others bring up issues in classes to generate discussions. Some have even discussed these issues with our bishops to try to generate more interest in the total honesty movement.
We don't share the truth in a belligerent way or by bearing our 'real testimonies' in testimony meeting or by disrupting classes with awkward comments - but rather in open discussions in Sunday School, priesthood or even home teaching as appropriate. We only wish to communicate the in-depth issues with those members that express interest in learning the details of church history. We do not advocate forcing the truth on people that expressly say that they are not interested. We acknowledge that deciding how and who to share the truth with is a fine line.
The Church asks an awful lot of its members. We're asked to pay 10% of our income every year for our entire lives, to devote some 10 hours every week in church meetings, temple attendance, home teaching, preparing lessons, reading scriptures, doing service, etc. To sacrifice two years of our lives in total service to the church by serving missions, that despite what many people say it is not really the best two years of your life for most people. We're asked to wear special underwear 24 hours a day that very few people would ever pick out on their own. Many of us have suffered problems with our families for even joining the church. Many have also felt the strain of having family members not able to attend our own temple weddings.
That is a lot to ask of people and we simply feel that the people have a right to know everything about the organization before they make such life-long commitments. If people knew that the church really wasn't what it claimed to be then maybe they would not make those kinds of sacrifices.
Accept what you feel is good about the Church and reject what you feel is bad. Only participate as you are comfortable doing so. Believe only the doctrine that you are comfortable with. Only pay tithing to the extent you feel you are receiving benefit (chances are you've already paid enough to last the rest of your life). Accept only callings you wish to do honorably. Don't feel compelled to wear garments unless you really like wearing them. Be in control and take the Church on your terms - after all it is a volunteer organization. It's okay to be a cafeteria Mormon.
We're not fooling ourselves; we know we won't effect much real change, but at least it makes us feel good about being part of an organization that we don't believe is totally honest with its members.
The Church has some 13 million members. That can be an incredible source for good. However, membership should not be based on inaccurate or misleading information. We recognize that the Church is perhaps the best fraternity in the world, but it's not likely God's one, true church. We don't want to harm the church, but rather reform it so it can truly be an organization to be admired and trusted 100%, but that can only happen if the Church is totally open and honest in recognizing the many issues that are problematic in its history.
We should never apologize for teaching the absolute truth. It's the right thing to do as stated by:
"It may not always be easy, convenient, or politically correct to stand for truth and right, but it is the right thing to do. Always."
- Elder M. Russell Ballard, LDS apostle, Ensign, Nov. 1997, 37
"It's healthy to get Joseph Smith's history out in the open. It shouldn't be concealed."
- Richard Bushman, LDS historian, Deseret News
People wonder what if by some chance the Church is 100% true, and that there is some sort of fantastic explanation for all the historical problems - would God punish us in the next life?
God gave us a brain and expects us to use it. We're expected to use every means at our disposal to seek the truth and to live our lives in a desirable way. "The Glory of God is intelligence" is something we hear at church all the time.
If the LDS Church is somehow 100% true, we're not too worried about defending our beliefs on judgment day. If we end up 'on trial' for not believing what the LDS Church has taught, the information on this website alone would justify our actions.
We would ask God to explain the following:
The lists of questions would go on for several pages. If God does indeed exist, and he's the fair judge that we all believe him to be, then how could He condemn anyone for not believing a story fraught with so many problems?
Likewise if the church isn't true, then I don't think a just God would punish anyone for believing in it if they really believed it, although perhaps some people would be chided for IGNORING the red flags and continuing to believe a lie out of fear or willful ignorance. If the church isn't true then it does not have the power to 'save' you anyway.
LDS people would probably have the same response if, in the next life, they found out that Scientology was really God's one, true church. They would bring up the absurd problems with that religion and expect absolution for not believing in that religion.
According to LDS lore, Joseph Smith himself will have some role in the final judgment of our souls. Shortly before he died, Joseph said "no man knows my history; if I hadn't lived it I wouldn't have believed it myself." Well, if even Joseph wouldn't have believed it, then how can anyone blame us for not believing it either?
Although we don't necessarily accept prayer and good feelings as superseding facts, many of us sincerely prayed about these issues after they were brought to our attention. None of us received any answers that would have comforted us enough to maintain our beliefs.
Believe me, as the owner of this site, I prayed earnestly for several years about these issues, and I never received any comfort at all that the LDS Church was still true. And before I started publishing this site, I also asked God if this was something he would be offended by, and I again received no negative response. I would be the first person to alter or delete this site if I ever had a true knowledge that God wanted me to. That would be something else I would bring up on Judgment Day, if somehow this site offended Deity.
Most LDS members believe that one, or a combination of the following, are reasons members leave the church:
Each one of those reasons doesn't apply to anyone that helped develop this site or for many of the former members or inactive members that post their experiences on LDS message boards daily on the Internet. There doesn't seem to be any room for the idea that for many people, they leave because of doctrinal disbelief and historical problems of the Church that are too serious to ignore.
We used to think that way too. I remember when I was a totally-believing member, an intellectual couple in my ward (both were schoolteachers) left the church. All I had known was that they left because of early Church History, but I jumped on the bandwagon of the people that were speculating as to what really happened to them. I said no one leaves the Church because it isn't true. They must not want to pay tithing, or somebody offended them, or they have some serious sin that they don't want to confess, or something else we don't know about.
I feel ashamed of myself now for thinking that way. For now I know that many people leave the Church because they simply no longer believe it. Many of the people have very good reasons for not believing it.
An excellent presentation on why people leave by John Dehlin: http://www.mormonstories.org/whytheyleave/
George Carlin on Religion
Comedian George Carlin has a 10 minute bit on why all religion is phony. Although comedic (and irreverent), it does make you think.
George Carlin - Religion is BS
If the LDS Church is true, then we would expect the following things to have happened in this way. We don’t necessarily mean that these things would necessarily be required for a restoration of the gospel to happen, but rather since we’ve been taught certain things about the church happened in a certain way, then the list we’ve developed is in the context of what we were taught in church.
There are so many more but those are a few to think about.
Some people are under the mistaken idea that we don't like the Church, and we don't want it to be true, and we are finding ways to harm people's testimonies. Nothing could be further from the truth. We all want the Church to be as true as we believed it was growing up in the Church. It was devastating for all of us to find out what we believed, all our lives, wasn't entirely true.
The Church has many appealing things. Certainly the prospect of progressing to be a god in the next life is appealing, but that would be independent of whether the LDS Church is really God's one, true church. We would prefer the Church to have actually been true, but we cannot deny the evidence contradicting what we've always believed - as humbling as that may be to us.
Many sincere family member and bishops may try to tell you to just believe in it because they do. You can't "choose" to believe anything. Your brain either believes something or it doesn't. You can try to believe something desperately and still not believe it. We know; we've tried it. But in the end, common sense and careful study of the facts overrides merely believing in something for the sake of believing, when the evidence is so strongly against the beliefs.
One important thing to consider: this site, as well as many of the critic's sites, link to many faith-promoting websites. We link to FAIR, The Neal Maxwell Institute (FARMS), Jeff Lindsay's webpage, SHIELDS, the official LDS page and various websites made by faithful members of the Church.
But do any of these sites link to Mormonthink.com? Do any of these sites link to Richard Packham's site, The Tanners Utah Lighthouse Ministry, exmormon.org, i4m.com, lds-mormon.com or any of the blogs or so-called 'anti-Mormon' sites?
We at Mormonthink.com want everyone to look at ALL of the credible information out there, even if we don't agree with it. But the people at FAIR, FARMS and especially the LDS Church itself, want you to only look at their information.
We ask you, who do you think is dealing more fairly with you? Who has something that they don't want you to see?
We get emails all the time from faithful members. Some disagree with us and say that one of the faithful member arguments is too weak, and they suggest changing it. Well, guess what - we change it. We want the strongest arguments from both sides so we will change them accordingly or at the very least link to it if it's too lengthy.
FAIR and FARMS would probably say that they adequately discuss the issues from their viewpoint. An analogy: If you were involved in a court case and the opposing lawyer said that you don't need a lawyer that instead he would fairly state your case and then argue against it, would you do it? Of course not, only a lawyer working for you would present the strongest arguments for your side. Also, FAIR and FARMS (and most other apologetic web sites) often only show part of the problem, and the average member would also then think that all of the issues have been covered in a given topic, but in reality only the issues that they choose to bring up are discussed.
For example, some of the faith-promoting sites may actually mention that Joseph did put his face in a hat for translating the Book of Mormon. But they don't talk about how the stone he used was a common stone he found while digging a well, the very stone he was brought up before a court in 1826 for 'glass looking'. They let readers believe that Joseph put the urim and thummim, that he got from Moroni, in the hat. They never mention why on earth the gold plates were preserved for 1400+ years when they were never even used in the translation process. They don't talk about why Moroni did not return the urim and thummim to Joseph when Moroni returned the plates, after he took them from Joseph for losing the first 116 pages. They also act as if the name urim and thummim was always used to describe the seer stones instead of having the name coined by W.W. Phelps in 1833, some three years after the Book of Mormon was published.
An example of this was on the 2007 PBS Special "The Mormons", when one of the most well-known defenders of the faith, Daniel Peterson was discussing the stone. Daniel Peterson said that the stone Joseph used to translate the BOM with is something we don't know much about except that it was found in the vicinity of Cumorah. That is Peterson's attempt to make it sound as if the stone was something that the Nephites had used or something anciently divine. In reality, Peterson is undoubtedly aware that the stone was found some 20 feet underground on Willard Chase's property when Joseph and his brother Hyrum were digging a well for Mr. Chase years before the gold plates were even given to Joseph. He also neglected to say that the church still has this stone in their posession.
The same is true of all the historical problems of the LDS Church. The LDS apologetic sites only discuss some of the disturbing details of the topics and only from their viewpoint. We at Mormonthink.com discuss all the issues - the good, the bad and the ugly, and we link to the LDS Church and both critics and LDS defenders for every topic. We also gladly add links to ANY site when asked of us for sites that have relevant information on the topic, whether we agree with their viewpoint or not!
See this informative link by Dr. Shades: Inside the minds of LDS apologists
The information discussed on Mormonthink.com is just the stuff we know about. Many of these things only came to light in the past 30 or 40 years or so because insiders in the Church decided to leak the information to the public. What else is in the vaults that hasn't been leaked out? It could be a lot worse. How will we ever know because we have no trust. What if there's something like a fabricated set of plates that were found in Sidney Rigdon's basement or something. How would we ever know there isn't more damaging stuff in the vault OR has already been destroyed, especially since the Church won't openly acknowledge the stuff that they have now? An obscure paragraph in the Ensign is not sufficient to say they aren't hiding anything. When the masses know everything and have full access to the information in the Church vaults then the Church can say it's not hiding anything.
In the Church, we've been taught to feel guilty for not being a missionary and proclaiming the gospel to everyone, especially our friends and neighbors, and how disappointed our friends would feel in the next life, if we knew the truth but chose not to tell our friends about it.
Assume for a minute that the LDS Church is not true, and that you discovered this after studying the history of the Church. How do you think your friends and family would feel, either at the end of their life or in the next life, if you knew the truth and never cared enough to tell them? The principle is the same - tell people the truth, no matter what it may be.
Some people may not want to know that their religion, which to some people means a great deal, may not be what they thought it was. Do you risk telling them and have them say "Gee, I wish you wouldn't have told me that"?
We suggest the following. If you know someone that you feel may benefit from the information relayed on this site, ask them the following:
Fables can be useful to a culture. Who can deny that Santa Claus makes Christmas more memorable to the child in us all. And what a wonderful tale of George Washington and the cherry tree did Mason Locke Weems weave out of whole cloth not "to give information about George Washington but to suggest virtuous conduct to young Americans." In religious matters, however, folk tales equated with reality can ultimately destroy conviction when unmasked. Latter-day Saints who base their faith on such irresolute stories as Paul H. Dunn's allegories or the "Transfiguration of Brigham Young," when faced with evidence that their belief system seems to rest on sources that are dubious at best or duplicitous at worst, may conclude as Elder Brigham H. Roberts once warned "that since these things are myth and our Church has permitted them to be perpetuated ... might not the other fundamentals to the actual story of the Church, the things in which it had its origin, might they not all be lies and nothing but lies." Answering his own compelling question Roberts responded, "I find my own heart strengthened in the truth by getting rid of the untruth, the spectacular, the bizarre, as soon as I learn that it is based upon worthless testimony." That advice, like a spectral voice of reason from the past, remains as sound today as it did six decades ago.
http://www.mormonismi.net/pdf/myth_creation.pdf
This site is a work in progress. We will continue to update all the sections with any further, relevant information that comes to light, corrections of any errors and strengthening of arguments from BOTH sides of the various issues. If anyone has any corrections or wishes to strengthen an argument from any viewpoint, please email the administrator of this site at truthseeker@mormonthink.com
Bear in mind, this is not a commercial site so we receive nothing but peace of mind for helping to educate others about historical truths that they may not be aware of. It's truly a Labor of Love.
In reviewing many LDS responses against critics of the Church, many of the true believers seem to focus an inordinate amount of time on the critic's motives or their personal lives. We have to ask why they aren't arguing the facts or interpretation of the facts instead of the motives of the critics. We've seen Simon Southerton, who published a book demonstrating how DNA disproves some claims of the Book of Mormon, attacked by the LDS faithful because he had marital problems. The LDS apologists spent the first part of their attack on Grant Palmer's book An Insider's View of Mormon Origins complaining about the title of the book because the publisher used the word 'Insider' which they object to. Non-LDS Egyptologist Robert Ritner was attacked for his lack of religious belief when he was asked to evaluate Joseph's translation of the Book of Abraham papyri, which he showed Joseph was in error. Michael Quinn, author of many very factual, but unflattering LDS history books, is attacked because he is gay. So what do any of those things have to do with their research on Church history?
So often in Church we've observed that the first thing out of someone's mouth when discussing a critic's unfavorable research into the Church is 'he's an anti-Mormon' or 'he's gay' or 'he committed adultery' so any pre-conditioned LDS member will automatically reject any research done by the 'sinner' before they even look at their information.
Why do the LDS apologists so often resort to personal attacks on anyone that seems to have evidence disproving the Church's claims? Why can't they just argue the facts? Our opinion is that anyone that attacks someone's personal life must have a weak argument against the person's arguments. If you ask a mathematics professor to solve an equation, what possible difference does his motive, his religious beliefs, his marital fidelity or anything unrelated to mathematics make in evaluating whether or not he solved the equation correctly? The same is true with church history.
Regarding our motives: First, as owner and administrator of the website, I'd like to say that several people are involved in the production of Mormonthink.com. We don't always agree on everything and some of us may have different motives for helping develop this site. Some honestly like going to church and being a part of it - they just wish it was true, some have decided that the issues are just too troubling and no longer wish to be members and others stay in for family reasons. But the one thing we all have in common is an altruistic desire to share the truth, as we understand it, with our fellow Latter-day Saint friends and neighbors. We only want people to know what we know and then they can do whatever they want with that information.
How important are motives really in determining truth? What if Thomas Monson said that the world is flat and Asama Bin Laden said that the world is round, who would you believe?
Something to think about: When Mark Hoffman brought the infamous Salamander letters to the First Presidency; the President of the Church declared them to be valid documents and purchased them for the Church at a high price. However the biggest 'anti-Mormons' the Tanners, said that the documents were forgeries, even though the documents would make the Church look bad. If we were back then, who would you believe was right - the humble Prophet or the bitter, lying 'anti-Mormons'? Well the 'anti-Mormons' were correct. The documents were proven to be a forgery after Mark Hoffman was arrested and convicted for killing a Mormon bishop and duping the Church into buying forged documents.
Bottom Line:The facts speak for themselves, regardless of who says them and why.
If it was just a matter of having no evidence to support the Church's claims, then that would be one thing. We would just need a certain amount of faith to accept the Church's claims. However it is not the lack of evidence but rather the contradictory evidence that makes the claims of the Church so hard to believe.
If it was just a couple irreconcilable items that needed an extra measure of faith, then that would be a hurdle most of us would be willing to shelve until the next life. But the sheer accumulation of significant issues that contradict what we've been taught makes it seem inconceivable that all of these things somehow have some sort of extraordinary explanation.
Maybe none of the individual items listed in the various sections of Mormonthink.com, perhaps with the exception of the Book of Abraham translation issue or Book of Mormon problems, is in itself an absolute deal-breaker. But the sheer volume of significant issues makes it inconceivable that the Church is really what it claims to be.
Maybe there really are fantastic explanations to explain all these things like God changed the American Indians' DNA from Jewish to Asian, Egyptologists don't really understand Egyptian, archaeologists just haven't found the steel swords, horses, and elephants mentioned in the BOM, Joseph didn't really know where the Hill Cumorah from the BOM was, the scribes were responsible for all the errors and misquotings of the prophets, blacks really are cursed from God through Cain, Joseph's brothers sleeping in Joseph's own bed with him just slept while Moroni visited him all night, evil men really did steal the lost 116 pages but just decided to destroy this valuable document, the Masons really did have the original temple ceremony from Solomon's time, God brought all the dinosaur bones from other planets to the Earth, etc.
If these and many, many more fantastic explanations for all the numerous problems were really true, then that would be even more amazing and unbelievable than the story of the restoration itself as taught by the Church! What are the chances that ALL of the damning evidence against the Church will suddenly reverse itself?
We think that anyone that knows the complete, true, historic details of all of these events, and many others not listed here, and then still believe in them as taught by the Church, is asking for more sheer faith than anyone should be asked to have.
"When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?" - British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946)
Here's an outline that we originally used to help develop this site. Some readers have asked that we publish it for use as a reference.
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Mapping Book of Mormon Historicity Debates
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How fair is FAIR?
Introducing the Dawn of a New Era in BofM Geography Research