webbles

You can take it up with the mods on whether or not you posted temple content. I'm pretty sure they will disagree with you.

You should remove the temple content. Posting verbatim temple content is a really hard rule in this forum. But that doesn't win your case. You didn't have to post it since I have copies of it myself. I know what was said in pre-1990 (I even know what was said back in pre-1940s when the penalties were much, much more explicit). And it proves my point. When I read/hear that and then compare what Elder Holland answered, I do not see a lie. Because the question is talking about general temple content and not that specific oath and what it contains. You see it different. And that is why it is more nuanced. I do not see a lie because of how I understand what happened in the temple. Could Elder Holland have explained it instead of just saying "No"? He probably could have. And the interviewer did give him the chance to do that. But I don't see that being obfuscation or lying. He was telling the truth. Romney did not make an oath to that affect. He (and everyone else who went through the temple) made a different oath.

I'm sorry, but the answer to the first question is "No". I don't believe that anyone pre-1990 ever swore an oath to "not pass on what happens in the Temple, lest he slit his throat". I also don't believe that anyone post 1990 ever swore a similar oath without the penalties. The important part is the "what happens in the Temple". I have not sworn an oath to "not pass on what happens in the Temple". I have sworn an oath about some very specific parts in the ceremony but not about the entire ceremony. I understand that you might have understood the temple oaths differently from me, but your understanding doesn't mean it is the correct understanding. I don't know which is the correct understanding, but it seems like Elder Holland falls more on my side than on your side. You apparently didn't understand what I was talking about with the double digit stake creation growth. Elder Holland said there were 2 Thursday meetings where they approved double digit stakes. Do you have insider knowledge to know that those 2 meetings didn't approve double digit stakes? If not, then how can you call him a liar? They approved 27 stakes in 2 meetings. That's an impressive feat. That doesn't mean that those stakes would all be created in the same weekend. Stake creation takes time after approval. There were 100 stakes created in all of 2016. That easily includes the 27 that they approved in those 2 weeks.

Those 2 are in the nuances category and I don't believe they are lies or "definitely not true". Let's start with Romney and the BBC Interview. Here's the transcript of the part in question: Elder Holland doesn't deny there were penalties. But the answer to the first question "he would have sworn an oath ..." is "no". Elder Holland didn't lie there. I can see why members might think that Elder Holland lied there. But the penalties were about revealing a specific thing in the temple. It was not about "what happens in the Temple". Some members have understood them to encompass the entire temple ceremony but there are other members who don't understand it that way. I'm in that second bucket. So if you asked me that question, I would say that the statement isn't true because I made no oath like that. The third statement ("Therefore, he swore an oauth") is different from the first since it is now talking more about "the secrets" and the answer is closer to a yes. And notice that Elder Holland doesn't say no there but tries to give context. So no, Elder Holland did not lie in the BBC interview. I would have truthfully answered the same thing. The double digit stakes is also nuanced. He was not talking about stake creations that are announced. He is talking about the Thursday meeting where they discuss and approve stake creations. The time between approval of stakes and the actual creation is not mentioned. Based on the actual number of stakes that were created in 2016 (when he made the statement), it looks like it took several weeks or even months for some of those approved stakes. The most stakes actually organized in a single day was 6. Elder Holland also mentioned that the stake creations fluctuate frequently. https://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/2016/04/10-new-stakes-to-be-created-each-week.html has a decent rundown of what was said. So, no, I don't think he said something "definitely not true". For those 2 weeks that he mentions, the church could have approved double digit stake creations. And it would have excited Elder Holland to feel like it could happen much more frequently ("every week")

Some of those lies were not lies (the Book of Mormon one is definitely not a lie). Some of them had nuances. And some of them were not intentional lies from President Holland and he retracted them when he learned he had been misled. I would think that publicly calling out someone for lying when they didn't actually lie would be the second type of criticism. Especially if you don't retract your statements after people point out that the accusation is false.

I'm assuming you are talking about his talk "Criticism" from 1986 as recorded in the February 1987 Ensign - https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1987/02/criticism?lang=eng You might want to actually read the article instead of repeating the soundbite. He is pretty explicit that he is talking about one specific meaning of criticism. He also even talks about his counsel to not criticize doesn't include allowing lies: I don't see a problem with the counsel he gave. He did not "state very plainly that leaders in the church are not to be criticized". He is talking about a specific type of criticism, in specific situations. And I agree with that because we shouldn't really criticize anyone like that, not just church leaders.

The church's trademark for "Mormon" is renewing this year - https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=78977858&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch. So that could be part of the reason they are engaging in this behavior. I also noticed that Mormon Discussions created a trademark last year - https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=99193313&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch. They have voluntarily rescinded it this year and I wonder if that is because of some interaction with the Church. It is interesting that the Trademark Office gave them the trademark for Mormon Discussions. For this specific lawsuit, the Church included an Exhibit that lists all of the copyrighted items that they say Mormon Stories infringed. It is a 172 page pdf - https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.utd.163775/gov.uscourts.utd.163775.1.3.pdf. It looks like each item is 3-4 pages long, so that is ~45 infringements.

But the lawsuit against Open Stories/Mormon Stories has nothing to do with the word "Mormon". That was an initial thought people had when learning about this lawsuit but now that we can actually read the document, it shows that it is about the logo and copyright images. And those really make it look like Mormon Stories is trying very hard to look like the Church to cause confusion. They knew that it would cause the confusion because people talked about it on the channel (the filing has screenshots of these discussions). And even if we were actually talking about the word "Mormon", President Nelson never said that word was a "major victory for satan". When I hear people say that, it makes me think that they don't really care about the facts and just want sound bites. And I'm fine with criticizing Church leaders for lying. I don't see why "good mormons can't". But I'm not sure what that has to do with this discussion. I don't recall anyone saying that the leaders are lying. What does lying have to do with a copyright/trademark infringement case?

I get really tired of people saying that President Nelson said that using 'mormon' is a victory for satan. He was specifically talking about replacing the Lord's name with Mormon in the name of the church: You'll notice that 'LDS Church' and 'Church of the Latter-day Saints' are also a "major victory for Satan". It is not the word "Mormon" that is a major victory.

We don't really know what 'reformed Egyptian' is. It might not have anything to do with Egyptian as Moroni wrote about it 1000 years after Nephi's voyage so anything about Egyptian would be filtered down through 1000 years of telephone. The best evidence we have for what it might look like is the 3 documents that supposedly contain writing copied from the plates - https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/appendix-2-copies-of-book-of-mormon-characters-introduction/1. But we don't know how accurate those copies are. And then you also have to realize that it appears that this writing ("reformed Egyptian") was a rarely used writing and probably a scribal tradition. In the verses around the mention of 'reformed Egyptian' Moroni talks about wanting to use another language but can't because of limitations. This writing would have probably gone out of use after Moroni so we are looking for writings before 400AD and there aren't a lot of that in the entire Americas. So far, we have discovered 5 different writing systems from that era with another possible 2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_writing_systems#Pre-Classic_and_Classic_periods).

Here is the letter that the Church originally sent Open Stories - https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.utd.163775/gov.uscourts.utd.163775.1.5.pdf I didn't notice it in the complaint but the letter pointed it out. On Mormon Stories podcast main page, the main video use to have the copyrighted Christus statue in the thumbnail. It has been removed. But that does feel a little blatant attempt to make them look like they are church affiliated.

Here's the actual filing https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.utd.163775/gov.uscourts.utd.163775.1.0.pdf It doesn't look like the "Mormon" term is the main trademark infringement. It focuses more on the logo and images. In 2022, Mormon Stories started to use a blue logo with a "light-rays design" (see page 17-18). The church is arguing that it is too similar to the church's trademarked "light-ray design" (see page 6-7). Mormon Stories also uses many copyrighted images of the church in its promotions (see page 19-20). And then there is this part:

If you look at the source code for the page, they provide a header that indicates the publication date: <meta property="article:published_time" content="2026-04-17"/>

Joseph used to use "those which" most of the time. Then in 3 Nephi, he switched to using "they/them which" most of the time. If was just this one switch, it could be seen as unintentional but there are multiple things that switched around this same spot. And, oddly, many of them switch to a more archaic form (some that don't appear anywhere in Joseph's environment). So, the number of switches, the abruptness of the switch, and the direction of the switch makes it more unlikely for it to be an unintentional switch. If this was around the time of the move to the Whitmers, it could probably be connected to a new environment but the translation calendars that I've seen (which are all guesses but do have some evidence backing them) have 3 Nephi before the Whitmer move. So Joseph, for unknown reasons, just decided to switch multiple things to an archaic form. It is really odd and I think a bit unlikely.

It doesn't mention what language it is. But doubtful it is reformed Egyptian as that is first mentioned by Moroni which is over 1000 years. And he says (in the next verse) that he also knows how to write Hebrew (or reformed Hebrew, technically). 1 Nephi 1:2 says that Nephi makes a record "in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians." So it is possible that the Brass Plates were in Egyptian of some sort, but it wouldn't be the reformed Egyptian that Moroni is talking about.

The shift in 3 Nephi is odd but what does it even mean? Would that mean there are 2 translators? One for before 3 Nephi and one after 3 Nephi? How would that shift even happen? Does it mean that the second translator is an older EModE translator and the first translator is a later EModE translator?

The country statistics have been released and https://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/2026/04/country-by-country-membership.html has a breakdown. Some things of note: 44 countries had a growth rate of at least 10%. That breaks the previous record of 27 countries back in 2014. USA, for the first time, had a negative growth rate. It had a net decline of 186 members.

As far as I know, that isn't tracked.

I kind of think that we need to have a chance for both sides to reply to each other. Because this statement from the critic side is used by evaluator for some of the weight for H2 but it is more related to "Editorial complexity (Mormon/Moroni)" (though technically this is Nephi and his editing). The critic is bringing in areas that the proponent hasn't yet made its argument. I don't know if the proponent will know it needs to discuss this aspect when it gets around to that later phase. Nor do I think the evaluator will be able to see how the later argument actually weakens the critical argument in this earlier phase. This is also one of the reasons why keeping a running total is problematic. The argument against this statement is that Nephi, decades later, has no reason to care about talking about the locals. That fits what an ancient narrator would have done. The locals aren't impactful to his story, so don't mention them. It isn't a structural problem but something an ancient narrator would actually do and there are plenty of examples from ancient narrators doing that.

There was an moon race. If the US had faked the landing, the USSR would have been able to figure that out and announced it to the world. And China, which is currently trying to get to the moon, would probably love to point out that the US hasn't yet landed on it. These 2 countries would have no reason to keep it quiet. And if you look at the space movies in the 60s and 70s and 80s, none of them look like the moon landing. The gravity, the way the people walk, the way lighting works, etc. If Hollywood can't duplicate what was done, then that is a really good sign that the moon landing is real. If you want to watch a good video that goes into all the evidence, checkout https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMHLvoWZfqQ. It is over 2 hours long. He delves into a ton of things that are usually used as evidence against the moon landing.

Why are you shocked? It was an active topic of research at the time and McBride was specifically trying to figure out how to make the aversion therapy fit with BYU and similar cultures better. If aversion therapy actually worked (at that time, it was believed to work based off of multiple research going back decades), why wouldn't a "temple recommend holder" want to research whether clothed pictures was just as good as nude pictures. For psychologists of the day who did practice aversion therapy and for participants who seeked out aversion therapy (whether coerced, forced, or of their own free will), they would be using nude photographs. Some probably disliked needing to use nude photographs so if the study had come out in the positive direction, it would have made things better for those. I'm not sure there were nude images of adolescents. The quote is "composed of nude, semi -nude and clothed adolescent and adult males in various poses". That doesn't mean that the adolescents were nude. It means that there were pictures of adolescents, but they could have been clothed or semi-nude. It could mean they were nude, but I would find that unlikely.

I don't think a constraint ledger is a good idea. Because the order of evidence will affect this, as you already pointed out. I was thinking you were just going to do an evaluation of each evidence independently.

No, the experiment was trying to determine if the behavioral modification mechanisms (including electric aversion) can work with clothed pictures vs nude pictures. The usage of nude pictures was the norm but it doesn't work for certain cultures (such as BYU). If clothed pictures worked just as well as nude pictures, then for the cultures that have issues with nudity, they could use clothed pictures. It wasn't trying to determine if they are turned on by clothed vs nude pictures, only if the behavioral change had the same response to clothed vs nude pictures. It turns out that the response was not the same with regards to nude male pictures. But interestingly, clothed female pictures did have a different response. But the experiment also noted that the men who were randomly assigned to the clothed female pictures also had a stronger reaction to women vs the men in the nude female pictures so that probably was a factor.

https://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/2026/04/2025-statisical-report-analysis.html has an analysis on it. Some things of note: This breaks the all-time record for most convert baptisms. Previous record was in 1990 (!) with 330,877 baptisms. The baptism per missionary has been increasing in a trend since 2022 (3.4 in 2022, 3.71 in 2023, 4.2 in 2024, 4.9 in 2025). It is the highest since 2011 (which was 5.1). About 60% of the stakes were created outside of the US which is impressive since the requirements for a new stake were raised for non-US stakes. Children of record is low compared to historical rates. pre-2018, it was usually >100,000. And even back in the 80s and 90s, there was >100,000 with only 4-5 million members.

Some of the explanations are similar and still fit (Lack of Historical and Geographical Knowledge, Too long and sophisticated). But the "ignorant transcriber" and 'too poor and busy' don't fit because after Chatterton's death, people looked into his story and were able to find that he had a decent amount of schooling and read a lot. One of his first poems (in his name, sent to his sister) has obvious connections to other authors and he is known to have read at least 70 books while at the charity school. So Bryant was either misinformed or this information came after him. With Smith, we've been searching for anything to show that Smith was well read. The only evidence is his reading the Bible. No one has brought up him reading books. And the "unknowable dialects" isn't similar either. Rowley's poems have been scrutinized and it shows that Chatterton was guessing at what an archaic structure would look like. It is definitely Chatterton's language with archaism laced through it vs an archaic language with Chatterton's language layered on top. He definitely worked on injecting archaism into it and did an impressive job but the writing is definitely within his reach based on the books that he has read. But Carmack argues that the Book of Mormon has archaic structure that doesn't match the KJV and wasn't something that Joseph would have access to. And also that it is much more structurally laced through the text. And the "witnesses" aren't really the same. We know that Chatterton had access to ancient parchments. His father had a collection and had even give them to his wife for use around the house.