CES Letter Website Weirdness

[Devobah]

Hey all!

I was wondering if I could get an answer to a question. First some setup.

I was trying to check out something on the CES Letter website (mainly if there were any updates. There don't seem to be any). For some reason it seems that the main page for the website seems to be blocked? or put up for sale or something? I don't really know how to explain it. If you search for any part of the website (besides the homepage of the site) in Google you can see those, but the moment you try to go to the main page from there it doesn't seem to go there.

Is there anybody who knows more about website design who would be able to tell me what's going on? It seems odd to me. I don't think the domain is up for sale or anything (because why would it be) but it does seem odd that the homepage is the only thing that is down out of the whole thing.

Also, again, there doesn't seem to be any updates. I guess Jeremy is still working on his rebuttal to Brian Hales and getting ready to reveal the CES Director that spurned his request. Those have been up for years though. 

[Calm]

42 minutes ago, Devobah said:

getting ready to reveal the CES Director that spurned his request

Iirc, it was his grandfather who made the offer of his friend answering questions and Runnells’ response was to go online (to the exMormon Reddit iirc, wherever it was you could see the original exchange for years) and outsource editing his draft with stuff he pulled from others (I don’t have an issue with that unless he told his grandfather he had come up with it just by reading faithful material) and gathering as many questions as possible.  He was not a believer at the time and sent off a huge list of questions, a very aggressive and insincere imo response if the CES director had actually told his grandfather he would answer questions Runnells had.  Pretty clear he was looking to make a name for himself in the community at the very least.

I find it hard to believe that anyone who knows the actual story would fault the director for seeing what the reality was, recognizing there was no hope of convincing Runnells to reconsider and what the actual purpose of the letter was and refusing to waste his time playing Runnells’ game.  I would not be the least bit surprised if director or someone who knew him and heard of Runnells’ list went online and found out how the list came to be.  Would have been easier to find when there was less clutter.  
 

When people write FAIR with a list of quite a few questions, we generally pick out a few to answer in detail, sometimes with links if it’s a common question that has been addressed and sometimes with original research or commentary, often both.  The majority of those list senders do not respond at all, some do not engage much, but just add more on and a few engage in actual discussion.  When someone sincerely volunteers their time and effort, they have a right to expect to be respected even if there is complete disagreement and if not, why should they feel obligated to respond?  Burnout happens quicker if efforts are ignored or dismissed without consideration. 

Edited Sunday at 01:37 AM by Calm

[Calm]

https://publicsquaremag.org/faith/gospel-fare/ces-letter-calculated-deception-2/
 

Quote

 

In fact, in July of 2012—many months prior to the letter being published—Runnells created a new Reddit account with the username u/kolobot that openly attacked the faith. The engagement of this user over the nine months before the first publication of the CES Letter tells a very different story about the origin of the letter.

By October 2012, Runnells was attemptingthrough this anonymous profile to generate viral content with a letter to to a senior church leader. This letter, published on October 10, 2012, was titled “An Open Letter to Quentin L. Cook.” However, it was not widely read. In it, however, he runs down many of the matters he addresses in his future CES Letter. But in this letter, he stated the issues as assertions rather than questions. 

He also stated in this letter that by this point, he considered himself an “apostate soul” and that this came about because of what he had “found on the evil internet.”According to his own account, Runnells’ disaffection from his faith began back in February 2012, when he began to read the Church-hostile apologetics of Grant Palmer, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, and material on the website MormonThink—all influential critics of Latter-day Saint beliefs. 

It was primarily these sources that seeded his concerns. He even lifted language directly from Palmer’s book “Insiders Guide to Mormon Origins.”  In November of 2012, Runnells’s anonymous u/kolobot username admitted that he had “left the church a few months ago.”

For those who are curious about the actual origin story, more details provided in the above link and 

here:  https://www.publishpeace.net/p/were-these-ever-the-sincere-questions

The original thread is still up, took me a few minutes to track it down.

Edited Sunday at 07:47 PM by Calm

[Calm]

Here is the page that got posted:

[webbles]

46 minutes ago, Calm said:

Here is the page that got posted:

That's a standard initial page for Apache, which is a piece of software that hosts a website.  It would seem that either someone misconfigured it or they upgraded the Apache and lost the original configuration or haven't yet restored the configuration to how it was.

Edited Sunday at 03:18 AM by webbles

[Devobah]

8 minutes ago, webbles said:

That's a standard initial page for Apache, which is a piece of software that hosts a website.  It would seem that either someone misconfigured it or they upgraded the Apache and lost the original configuration or haven't yet restored the configuration to how it was.

This is great information. I guess if I looked a bit closer I could have seen that. I thought he got hacked.

[marineland]

On 6/20/2026 at 11:27 PM, Devobah said:

This is great information. I guess if I looked a bit closer I could have seen that. I thought he got hacked.

The letter is still accessible - https://cesletter.org/CES-Letter.pdf

Some rebuttal is here:
https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/blog/2021/08/25/ces-rebuttal-part-1-extended-version
https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/sites/default/files/archive-files/pdf/bennett/2019-03-04/jim_bennett_a_faithful_reply_to_the_ces_letter_from_a_former_ces_employee_2018.pdf

Edited Monday at 03:53 PM by marineland