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The Latest Anti-Mormon Deception: "Futuremissionary.Com"

DonBradley

By DonBradley
in General Discussions

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Wiki Wonka Rising Star

Wiki Wonka

Posted
Posted

FairWiki,

Joseph actually uses the words "pillar of fire/flame" in the 9th of November account:

He did cross out the word "fire" in the 1832 History and kept the word "light". Then, a few years later, he said pillar of fire & pillar of flame. I don't get your point here.

The point is that the "mormoninfographic" specifically says that "pillar of fire" was not mentioned in the 1832 account, but that it was in the 1835 account. This is intended by the author to convey that Joseph changed his story. My point is that Joseph did indeed mention "pillar of fire" in 1832, before he changed it to "pillar of light."

Joseph obviously alternated between describing it as "pillar of fire" and "pillar of light" in various accounts. The Orson Pratt account is interesting, because he takes the "fire" idea and applies it to the "light". He applies the properties of "fire" to the "light" when he talks of the trees not being "consumed" by the light.

Orson Pratt: "He continued praying while the light appeared to be gradually descending towards him; and as it drew nearer, it increased in brightness and magnitude, so that by the time it reached the tops of the trees the whole wilderness, for some distance around, was illuminated in a most glorious and brilliant manner. He expected to have seen the leaves and boughs of the trees consumed as soon as the light came in contact with them, but perceiving that it did not produce that effect, he was encouraged with the hopes of being able to endure its presence."

Calm Grand Master

Calm

Posted
Posted (edited)

How exactly is this any different from FAIR's Allen Wyatt purchasing numerous domain names trying to redirect people looking for information critical of the Church, to apologetic hit pieces on certain critics? You know, websites like "SAVEGRANTPALMER.ORG" and "SAVEGRANTPALMER.COM" and "supportgrantpalmer.com" were purchased by Mr. Wyatt back when Palmer had published his book and FARMS was desperately trying to get readers to avoid reading his book.

While I agree that someone might misunderstand or be misled by the names into thinking that Wyatt's sites were supportive of Palmer's work (as opposed to 'saving his soul' perhaps), it was obvious once one clicked on the site what the purpose of the site actually was, he never claimed on the site that he liked Palmer's stuff and then misrepresented it. The problem with futuremissionary.com is that it is misrepresenting itself in much more than just the website name. If it was just the website name, it would have been ignored like so many other sites. I don't condemn either the critic or the believer that is trying to control traffic through use of domain names, though it is not something I would do myself. There is, for example, an anti-site that got to "mormonwiki" first and and claimed the dot org version, but it is clear on its home page that it is not an LDS site. Edited by calmoriah
crixus Enthusiast

crixus

Posted
Posted

Why are you folks gunning for the lowest hanging fruit?

Why not attack the more detailed piece produced by Mormonthink.org as opposed to quibbling over minor inaccuracies compiled by some anonymous poster?

Ending summary by critics

It is obvious by the above statements by church leaders that the First Vision did not happen in the way the Church portrays. The church would have you believe that Joseph had the vision in 1820 and that it has always been the central part of the LDS faith. In fact the one, simple, plain truth that every member that joined the church should have known is that God the Father and Jesus Christ were separate beings. We take this for granted now but this wasn't firmly established until over 15 years after the event supposedly occurred.

There are simply too many problems with the official version taught by the missionaries to ignore. The church doesn't like to talk about any problems with the First Vision and any articles written in church publications only discuss some of the problems and ignore others and their significance. If you look at all the problems surrounding the First Vision that the average LDS member doesn't know about, it is no wonder the church prefers to stick with the simple story told by the missionaries and casually dismiss any evidence that contradicts the account. Look at all the evidence for yourself and decide.

Joseph recounted how the visitation of the angel Moroni happened on September 21, 1823. An interesting question - how is it that JS could remember the precise date of the angel's visit in 1823, but could not remember the precise date of God's appearance to him in 1820?

From (link cut)

From all available lines of evidence, therefore, Joseph's 1838 official rendition of his First Vision story appears to be myth not history:

  • There was no revival anywhere in the Palmyra-Manchester, New York area in 1820.
  • The events as told by Joseph Smith will not fit into the time period between the 1824 revival and the 1830 publication of the Book of Mormon.
  • Joseph was welcomed, not persecuted by the Methodists.
  • In his 1832 account Joseph said it was by personal Bible study that he determined all the churches were apostate, while in his 1838 account he said it "never entered into my heart that all were wrong."
  • In his 1832 version Joseph claimed to see only a vision of Christ and in his 1835 version Joseph told of the visit of an angel, while in the 1838 story the message came from the Father and the Son.
  • No one knew of today's version of the First Vision until after Joseph dictated it in 1838, and no published source mentions it until 1842 (Ibid., pp. 30ff).

The conflicts and contradictions brought to light by the preceding historical evidence demonstrate that the First Vision story, as presented by the Mormon church today, must be regarded as the invention of Joseph Smith's highly imaginative mind. The historical facts and Joseph's own words discredit it.

- Wesley P. Walters

Another Possibility

How do we know that it wasn't Satan (if he exists) that appeared to Joseph? Please read this insightful essay to see how Satan can appear as a Heavenly Being as described by Joseph Smith: How can we know when information is from Satan?(link cut again)

Challenge from a critic

The Baura Challenge

I, Baura Kale, will give $1000 (USD) to anyone who can show that Joseph Smith even CLAIMED that he saw God, the Father and Jesus Christ as separate personages when he was a teenager and that they told him to join none of the then-existing churches. Note that I'm not asking that anyone prove that the First Vision actually happened, just that JS CLAIMED that it happened.

The kicker is that I will only accept sources that were in existence BEFORE 1835. With all the newspaper accounts, Church publications (including a history of the beginnings of Mormonism written by Oliver Cowdery who was working in close association with JS), journals, letters, missionary pamphlets, broadsides etc. that were in print, all the sermons published and even books written about Mormonism, one of which included affidavits from dozens of JS's Palmyra neighbors, surely there MUST be some record of it in the pre-1835 documents.
That's a full
14 years after it supposedly happened
.

I will not accept what JS LATER claimed to have happened to him way back in 1820; I will not accept a "testimony" that the First Vision is true; I will not accept a remembrance from some Mormon in the 1890s saying he remembers JS talking about the FV back in 1834. I will only accept documentary evidence that was in existence before 1835. Find that and you get the thousand bucks.

Feel free to forward my challenge to any TBMs you might know. I've posted THE BAURA CHALLENGE many times here and have yet to have anyone come up with an attempt to meet it. Surely if JS told people and got in trouble for telling as it says in the PoGP there would be SOME record of it in the mountains of documents pertaining to early Mormonism pre 1835, right?

Remember: God the Father and Jesus Christ as separate personages appearing and telling teenage JS not to join any of the existing churches. Find ANY mention of that by ANYONE before 1835 and you get a cool thousand bucks.

Editor comment: This challenge has been on the Internet for years and to our knowledge no one has attempted to claim it. He has actually upped the bounty since this was written to $2,000.

Wiki Wonka Rising Star

Wiki Wonka

Posted
Posted

A great example, which I brought up in another thread, is Kerry Meuhlstein's comment in a DVD published by FAIR saying there is an Egyptian papyrus referring to Abraham in a Lion Couch scene just like that in the Joseph Smith papyri. He said it translated to "Abraham upon his couch," which proves he is not interested in telling the truth. Even his predecessor, John Gee, was never crazy enough to make that claim.

Umm....you might want to do a bit more research. John Gee is the person that brought that particular lion couch scene to everyone's attention. It's on lds.org here:

https://www.lds.org/...-texts?lang=eng

Research and Perspectives: Abraham in Ancient Egyptian Texts

BY JOHN GEE

Since Joseph Smith connected the facsimiles in the book of Abraham with the Abraham of the Bible, some people have wondered if Abraham is ever mentioned in Egyptian papyri. Recent examination of evidence shows that the name of Abraham does indeed appear in late Egyptian texts.

Of course, acceptance of the book of Abraham, like acceptance of all scripture, will always depend on faith (see 3 Ne. 26:6–12), and the only real proof of scripture can come only through the power of the Holy Ghost(see Moro. 10:3–5; D&C 50:17–23). But a knowledge of external factors can help in the search for truth, and a number of Egyptian texts mention Abraham. After gathering dust for many years in various museums and libraries, several of these are now drawing the attention of scholars.

ensignlp.nfo:o:2438.jpg

A lion couch scene appears in Leiden Papyrus I 384 (PGM xii). The outline marks Abraham’s name, written in Greek. (Courtesy of Rijksmuseum van Oudheden.)

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Wiki Wonka Rising Star

Wiki Wonka

Posted
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Why are you folks gunning for the lowest hanging fruit?

Why not attack the more detailed piece produced by Mormonthink.org as opposed to quibbling over minor inaccuracies compiled by some anonymous poster?

If you think that we have ignored MormonThink, then you haven't been paying attention for the last four years. We don't pay much attention to them anymore since they became openly antagonistic toward the Church in the "post-Twede" era. We have enough MT stuff in the wiki already. In fact, my preferred response to MormonThink is to simply respond to their source quotes:

The "Spin Free" Section

The following articles extract all of the primary and secondary source quotes from the critical site, places them within their original context when possible, and provides links to the original sources online. This allows you to read the critics' articles free of critical or apologetic "spin." You read the quotes and decide for yourself what to think, without any help from FAIR or from the critics at MormonThink. If you want to check the sources, we make it easy to go back and look at the originals whenever possible. We won't tell you what to think, and neither will the critics.

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crixus Enthusiast

crixus

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Posted
While I agree that someone might misunderstand or be misled by the names into thinking that Wyatt's sites were supportive of Palmer's work (as opposed to 'saving his soul' perhaps), it was obvious once one clicked on the site what the purpose of the site actually was

So he lied.

he never claimed on the site that he liked Palmer's stuff and then misrepresented it.

Irrelevant. He still linked to attack pieces written by FARMS, which most certainly were misrepresentations of what Palmer has said and done.

The problem with futuremissionary.com is that it is misrepresenting itself in much more than just the website name. If it was just the website name, it would have been ignored like so many other sites. I don't condemn either the critic or the believer that is trying to control traffic through use of domain names, though it is not something I would do myself.

This is precisely the kind of apologetic group think that I'm talking about. You'll do anything you can to dismiss deception by one of your own by drawing attention to distinctions that really make no difference. The fact is Wyatt was deceptively diverting people away from what they were looking for. This is an indisputable fact, whereas your characterization of this futuremissionary site is mostly based on a psychoanalysis of what you think about their motives were. FOr all you really know that website was thrown together by an apologist just trying to make critics look bad. Why not deal with Mormonthink.org instead? Is it too sophisticated and irrefutable?

I love how when a critic does something deceptive it is thrown into the apologetic spotlight as some blanket example f what all Mormon criticism is about, but when the same exact thing is pointed out on your side of the fence, all you folks ever say is well, I don't condone it. Well, you don't condemn it either. Only when a critic does it is it worth your time to voice outrage about the deception.

Calm Grand Master

Calm

Posted
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which most certainly were misrepresentations of what Palmer has said and done.
That is debatable.
FOr all you really know that website was thrown together by an apologist just trying to make critics look bad.
And if so, then the harm that can be done to those who misunderstand the purpose and are confused needs to be addressed. Edited by calmoriah
Calm Grand Master

Calm

Posted
Posted

Only when a critic does it is it worth your time to voice outrage about the deception.

And yet I pointed out an example of a critic doing the same thing without being the least outraged....hmmm.
Wiki Wonka Rising Star

Wiki Wonka

Posted
Posted (edited)

Why not deal with Mormonthink.org instead? Is it too sophisticated and irrefutable?

You are fascinating...

The "FAIR Response" Section

The following articles respond point-by-point to articles on the critical website. This is where you can read FAIR's opinion of and responses to the critical material.

General topics

  • Overview of the MormonThink website—
    The web site MormonThink.com claims to be operated by active members of the Church with an interest in objectively presenting the "truth" about Mormonism. In general, the conclusions reached by the site reflect negatively on the Church. The best explanation of the purpose of the website is offered the words of its own webmaster, and by the testimonials of ex-Mormons who claim that the site caused them to lose belief and leave the Church. (Link)
  • Response to MormonThink's list of 25 items that would allegedly "make the Church true"—
    (http://www.mormonthink.com/endpage.htm) According to MormonThink.com, if the Church actually contained God's truth and authority, "we would expect the following things to have happened in this way." The following is a list of issues presented by the website followed by FAIR's response. Most items on the list are standard anti-Mormon fare, issues FAIR believes have been "asked and answered" many times. Nearly all points appeal to some type of intellectual or religious fundamentalism. (Link)

The Book of Mormon

"Joseph Running with the Plates"

"Translation of the Book of Mormon"

"Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon"

"The Lost 116 Pages of the Book of Mormon"

  • A FAIR Analysis of MormonThink page "The Lost 116 Pages of the Book of Mormon"—
    (http://www.mormonthi.../lost116web.htm) This MormonThink article draws the following conclusion: "There's an episode of the cartoon South Park called "All About the Mormons". In the episode, a faithful LDS family tells the story of the lost 116 pages to a neighbor boy they are trying to convert. They tell this story as proof that Joseph Smith was telling the truth and Mormonism is true. Perhaps the most telling comment we've ever heard about the lost 116 pages debacle comes from the neighborhood boy, who, after hearing the story of the lost 116 pages, exclaims "'Wait, Mormons actually know this story and they still believe Joseph Smith was a Prophet?'" (Link)

"Book of Mormon Difficulties"

"The Witnesses"

Visions

"The First Vision"

"Joseph's Translation of the Bible"

Controversial Past Practices

"Polygamy"

"Blacks and the priesthood"

Temple Related Topics

"The Temple"

  • A FAIR Analysis of MormonThink page "Temple"—
    MormonThink originally removed this page containing detailed information about the temple, not because it was offensive to Latter-day Saints, but only because it was driving ex-Mormons' believing spouses away from examining their critical website. The content has been removed and added back several times. FAIR responds to a number of issues raised which are not related to the explicit temple content that the site sometimes hosts. MormonThink concludes this page with a section titled "The absurdness of it all. (Link)

Church integrity

"Lying for the Lord"

  • A FAIR Analysis of MormonThink page "Lying for the Lord"—
    (http://www.mormonthink.com/lying.htm) MormonThink concludes that "lying was the method the church used as standard operating procedure to keep from losing its members." MormonThink also notes that "The message from current leaders is clear. Pretend that the LDS leaders are infallible, blindly obey and conform." (FAIR note: this is a standard position taken by many ex-Mormons after their disaffection with the Church). (Link)

"Tithing"

  • A FAIR Analysis of MormonThink page "Tithing"—
    (http://www.mormonthink.com/tithing.htm) This MormonThink article concludes: "The church doesn't need the money," and that the Church "simply does not appear to really need the money. President Hinckley acknowledged that no tithing dollars were needed to fund a $5 billion City Creek development & mall. If it can make this kind of interest on its existing assets, then it doesn't appear to need any additional funding to operate quite comfortably on its income from the many businesses it owns without any tithing income." The website recommends that members send their contributions elsewhere. (Link)

Other Topics

"Conflicts with Science"

  • A FAIR Analysis of MormonThink page "Conflicts with Science"—
    (http://www.mormonthi.../scienceweb.htm) This MormonThink article concludes that acceptance of scientific facts and a belief in God are incompatible. For example the website offers this conclusion: "What sounds more plausible; that dinosaurs and plants lived on our planet, died millions of years ago and turned into oil and coal and petrified wood, etc. from age and intense volcanic pressure OR that dinosaurs and plants really only existed on another planet and God moved all of the dinosaur bones, coal, oil, petrified wood, footprints and fossilized dinosaur poop here just to trick everybody but the clever Mormon gospel doctrine teachers?" (Link)

Edited by Wiki Wonka
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crixus Enthusiast

crixus

Posted
Posted
Umm....you might want to do a bit more research. John Gee is the person that brought that particular lion couch scene to everyone's attention. It's on lds.org here:

Umm... you might want to pay attention to what's been said and familiarize yourself better with your own apologetic library. I said John Gee never made the claim that this papyrus translates "Abraham upon his couch." That ludicrous claim was made by his protege, Kerry Muehlstein.

If you think that we have ignored MormonThink

No, I think you have failed to successfully refute their claims/arguments. I know you folks love to pump out "material" just for the sake of giving appearances that you're actually refuting something. This generally works because dedicated FAIR readers would rather read reviews about anti-Mormons as opposed to actually reading what has been argued from the source. This is what FARMS did for so many years providing "reviews of books" while generally attacking authors instead of dealing with any of the arguments, because they knew they could count on the fact that few, if any, devout Mormons were actually going to buy these books.

Calm Grand Master

Calm

Posted
Posted
I think you have failed to successfully refute their claims/arguments.
That is an opinion however, that our work is unsuccessful in your view is different than it being nonexistent.
crixus Enthusiast

crixus

Posted
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So you compiled all the boilerplate, and insufficient apologetic responses into a format that claims to "respond" to Mormonthink, as if it is something new?

And you're saying this web forum and FAIR is essentially one and the same?

crixus Enthusiast

crixus

Posted
Posted (edited)

I just googled one of the citations FAIR says comes from Mormonthink and it doesn't exist. Then I googled this from MormonThink. As I suspected, FAIR is up to their old tricks again. carefully dissecting minor things while ignoring the major points and even misrepresenting what has been said to make it look like they're refuting a stupid claim. No wonder you folks won't allow hyperlinks to these responses. It proves just how badly you've misrepresented their website.

FAIR's Detailed Analyses

We respond to FAIR's summaries below, but FAIR also did a detailed analysis of several sections. Some problems with their approach:

1) FAIR's detail pages omit much of the material on MT's pages so their analysis is hardly comprehensive. They cherry-pick comments made by critics and attack them instead of going through the whole, complete web page and the applicable essays often given only as links.

2) FAIR uses ellipses (...) and other selective copying of quotes to misrepresent and weaken arguments provided by critics on MT's pages without giving the full argument. FAIR continually states "MormonThink says..." (then they quote a critic and not a MT editor) to imply that the MT staff said the statement and not a critic, apparently to label MT as all critics. They often attribute comments made by critics as simply MormonThink comments such as:

MormonThink says...

It's very interesting that apologist Daniel Peterson of FARMS says that Alma 11, which describes Nephite coinage, is almost certainly wrong.

The actual statement on MT without the ellipses (...) is (underlining added):

It's very interesting that
according to Jim Whitefield
, apologist Daniel Peterson of FARMS says that Alma 11, which describes Nephite coinage, is almost certainly
wrong
.

FAIR omits that we are quoting Jim Whitefield and not giving our opinion. That's what MT does, we quote critics and defenders of the church. FAIR wants to portray MT as critics instead of people quoting them. NOTE: To avoid any misunderstanding, we removed this particular statement entirely. Why doesn't FAIR Quote MT when we use quotes from FARMS that disagree with FAIR such as in the Greek Psalter response?

3) FAIR's information is terribly out of date. Much of what FAIR quotes on MT is not even accurate - look them up on MT yourself before believing what FAIR responds to. They cite snarky comments they say are on MT's website, but when you go to MT to find those quotes, they aren't even on MT's site! They nitpick typos, bad links, semantics or verbiage that may have existed in draft form many years ago but were fixed by MT editors ages ago. Both MT and FAIR have editors that edit mistakes, clarify language and add new material so the only way to critique either site is to review the current web pages and not use old, draft ones before they were edited. For example, FAIR blasts MT for stating that the artwork of Moroni appearing to Joseph never shows his brothers sleeping in the same bed with him. That was a true fact when this page was first created in 2005 as the Church did not publish any accurate depictions of the event then. But as soon as an image appeared in the August 2009 Ensign, MT added it (link cut) and praised the Church for doing so. FAIR's response [as of 11/8/12] still acts as if MT is hiding this yet we've had it on there since August of 2009.

MT went through a major redesign since FAIR wrote their review and MT has a new batch of editors and IT professionals that are continuing to improve the website. Much of FAIR's criticisms aren't even on MT's site. So before accepting anything FAIR quotes from MT as fact, please look up the exact reference on MT yourself. You might be surprised at how little of what FAIR says about MT is even accurately portrayed.

4) FAIR states incorrect facts. In responding to the anachronistic use of the word 'elephant' in the Book of Mormon, FAIR responds:

In addition to mastodons, another species of an elephant-like creature existed in the New World and did not go extinct until after the time of Christ. Mormonthink is again unaware or withholding information.

Elephants are only present in Jaredite times in the Book of Mormon. Both mastodons and gomphotheres are elephant-like creatures that are plausible candidates.

Mastodons are already addressed on MT's website by quoting the respected National Geographic Society::

Mastodons lived in North America starting about 2 million years ago and thrived until 11,000 years ago—around the time humans arrived on the continent—when the last of the 7-ton (6.35-metric-ton) elephant like creatures died off.

If you google FAIR's suggestion of 'gomphotheres', you'll see that the scientific community believes they also went extinct long before Christ's time:

The
Gomphotheriidae
were a diverse taxonomic family of extinct elephant-like animals (proboscideans) — referred to as
gomphotheres
. They were widespread in North America during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, 12-1.6 million years ago. Some lived in parts of Eurasia, Beringia and, following the Great American Interchange, South America. Beginning about 5 million years ago, they were gradually replaced by modern elephants, but the last two South American species, in the genus
Cuvieronius
, did not finally become extinct until possibly as recently as 9,100 BP,and
Stegomastodon
remains have been dated as recently as 6,060 BP in the Valle del Magdalena, Colombia.Gomphotheres also survived in Mexico and Central America until the end of the Pleistocene.

Perhaps FAIR can search and search and maybe find a rogue scientist somewhere that endorses one of their theories but when the vast majority of the scientific community believes something, that should be used as the norm.

And how is MormonThink withholding this information?

5) FAIR's mocking attitude that everyone should of course dismiss every 'anti-Mormon' critic's research with a wave of the hand and simply accept the the apologists' attempt at 'quite reasonable' answers for something that 99.8% of the world doesn't believe in is absolutely the height of arrogance.

We wish we had the time to refute every item in their detailed analyses as much of their mocking responses are simply wrong or they missed the point entirely with their selective sound-bite analysis of the critics' arguments. But we doubt few people (other than the editors of both MT and FAIR) would even be interested in this never-ending back and forth critique.

CONCLUSON: Since websites from all sides are frequently updated and critiques are often out-of-date, the only way to really fully analyze any issue is to go to the various sites (pro and con) and read everything they currently have to say about the issue in their own words. MT makes this easy by providing actual links to all the major critics' sites and defense-of-the-faith sites. FAIR, on the other hand, will not provide any actual direct links to any critic's site. Which site sounds like they want every aspect of the issues brought out in the open - the one that makes it easy to see all the various sites critical AND favorable to the church or the one that won't even add one link to any critic's site and rarely even shows more than one critic site at a time?

Challenge: We provide actual working links to FAIR. FAIR will you do the same for MT and for the critics' sites? It's only fair.

Edited by crixus
Wiki Wonka Rising Star

Wiki Wonka

Posted
Posted

So you compiled all the boilerplate, and insufficient apologetic responses into a format that claims to "respond" to Mormonthink, as if it is something new?

Those are summaries that contain links to articles which respond to specific points.

And you're saying this web forum and FAIR is essentially one and the same?

I'm sorry, but I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say here.

Wiki Wonka Rising Star

Wiki Wonka

Posted
Posted (edited)

I just googled one of the citations FAIR says comes from Mormonthink and it doesn't exist.

Which quote did you Google? If it has changed, then we will eventually catch up with it.

Challenge: We provide actual working links to FAIR. FAIR will you do the same for MT and for the critics' sites? It's only fair.

Read back earlier in the thread where I responded to "CES Letter" and you will see why we don't make the links live. I'll give you a clue: it has nothing to do with preventing people from visiting the site. After all, we're reviewing a site called "momonthink.com". The way to get there is pretty obvious.

Edited by Wiki Wonka
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crixus Enthusiast

crixus

Posted
Posted

2012

MormonThink's responses (in blue) to FAIR's 2012 summary of some of the issues mentioned on MT:

The website mormonthink.com is designed to lead Church members into questioning their beliefs in a non-threatening manner by claiming to be "objective" and "balanced." The site claims to be run by active members of the Church. In reality, however, they are "active" only in the sense that some of them still occasionally attend Church—they do not accept the Church's truth claims, and they have no interest in strengthening belief. Instead, the site portrays Church leaders as liars, Joseph Smith as a fraud and con-man, and the Church as "an oppressive empire building corporation." FAIR primarily quotes MormonThink, its own editors and the testimonials of those it has "helped" out of the Church. The site includes links to FAIR as a way of demonstrating their claimed "balance."

How would FAIR know how active MT's contributors are? Some of MT's contributors are actually believing members that are very active in the church but don't like how the church is less than forth-coming in its telling of Mormon history. For example, in the past year alone, over a hundred pages of material was written by two, active, believing, tithe-paying, temple-going LDS members. The information they compiled could be considered damaging to members that don't know about the true details of Mormon history but they wanted this information published as a way of helping members deal with certain disturbing accounts of its past in which they have their own theories on why they occurred. They knew the Church, the Neal Maxwell Institute (FARMS) or FAIR wouldn't likely publish their research so they contacted MT which is more open-minded.

Each page on MormonThink.com typically includes quotes from Church sources, large amounts of block text copied from websites critical of the Church, a few references to LDS apologetics that are followed by refutations by critics, an "Ending summary by critics," and an "Our Thoughts" section, which generally agrees with the critics. The bottom of each page contains links to critical sites, believers sites and to some sites which they consider neutral.

True, seems like a pretty fair approach to dealing with the subject matter. Let both sides present their arguments in their own words and provide many references and external resources, both pro and con so readers can delve into the details as they desire from many sources to help them arrive at their own conclusions.

  • Overview of the MormonThink website—The web site MormonThink.com claims to be operated by active members of the Church with an interest in objectively presenting the "truth" about Mormonism. In general, the conclusions reached by the site reflect negatively on the Church. The best explanation of the purpose of the website is offered the words of its own webmaster, and by the testimonials of ex-Mormons who claim that the site caused them to lose belief and leave the Church.

No, the purpose of the MormonThink website from an official consensus of its contributors is clearly stated on its site in the introduction section:

The purpose of this site is to generate discussion about little-known topics of church history to those interested in increasing their knowledge about these kinds of interesting, historical Mormon issues. We encourage people to think objectively about issues involving the doctrine, practices and history of the LDS church. Many Latter-day Saints are completely unaware of some or all of the issues discussed here, or have an incomplete, one-sided view of them. We present arguments and responses from both critics of the church and true-believing members and add some opinions of those that helped compile the data.

In our opinion, nothing on this site 100% proves or disproves whether or not the LDS church is God's one, true church. We merely present some of the strongest critics arguments used against the church and then find the strongest defenses we can find against those arguments.

There are many legitimate issues that many LDS members are concerned about and many Latter-day Saints have left the church over them. Our hope is that the church will start discussing these issues openly so members can know the facts from all sides so everyone can decide for themselves how important they think these issues are. We feel that if the church will start openly discussing these issues and perhaps provide some official responses, less people will leave the church over them and those in the church that already know about these issues, will feel more comfortable remaining in the church if they can openly discuss them.

  • Response to MormonThink's list of 25 items that would allegedly "make the Church true"—(http://www.mormonthink.com/endpage.htm) According to MormonThink.com, if the Church actually contained God's truth and authority, "we would expect the following things to have happened in this way." The following is a list of issues presented by the website followed by FAIR's response. Most items on the list are standard anti-Mormon fare, issues FAIR believes have been "asked and answered" many times. Nearly all points appeal to some type of intellectual or religious fundamentalism.

The above was from FAIR's original attack on MT from 2009 listed below with MT's original responses (this is provided in the section following the response to the 2012 comments).

FAIR's 2012 Attack:

  • A FAIR Analysis of MormonThink page "Translation of the Book of Mormon"—(http://mormonthink.com/transbomweb.htm) The website concludes that at least two Apostles have mentioned the use of the hat in public discourses which appeared in print, and at least one believing LDS defender of the faith has mentioned it on television. This, according to them, is "astonishing," since they conclude that if members or investigators knew that Joseph used a stone and a hat instead of two stones in a set of spectacles, and that he didn't need to look directly at the plates instead of viewing a mysterious conversion of reformed Egyptian characters to English words, that they wouldn't want to join the Church.

The stone & hat is mentioned in only two church articles in the last hundred years that we could find - those being in 1977 and 1993. The last one was two decades ago. Yet, how many times has the translation of the BofM been discussed when they don't mention the stone & hat - maybe hundreds or even thousands? How can two brief paragraphs in the volumes of information about translating the BofM possibly be seen as anything other than trying to keep this information from being common knowledge among the members? Every single time they show an image of Joseph translating the plates in an official Church magazine it never shows Joseph with his face in a hat. For example this image from the October, 2006 Ensign:

trans4.jpg

FAIR says "This, according to them, is "astonishing," since they conclude that if members or investigators knew that Joseph used a stone and a hat instead of two stones in a set of spectacles, and that he didn't need to look directly at the plates instead of viewing a mysterious conversion of reformed Egyptian characters to English words, that they wouldn't want to join the Church."

What FAIR is omitting is that virtually all members believe (as they were taught in church) that Joseph actually used the gold plates to translate the BofM. However, they don't say that the plates were not even present nor provide a reason why the ancient Nephites bothered to even make the plates in the first place if the plates were not needed in the translating process. They act as if substituting the two stones and a pair of spectacles for one stone in a hat is the only issue.

Also, they don't state that the stone is not the "urim & thummim" that was preserved in the stone box for thousands of years to translate the BofM but instead was a common stone found 20 feet underground on Willard Chase's property when Joseph and Hyrum were digging a well years before the BofM was translated. Also, not mentioned in their summary is that this stone was used by Joseph in his attempts to find treasure by putting this stone in a hat and putting his face in the hat (just like he did when he translated the BofM) but of course he never found any treasure.

Also, in FAIR's detail analysis they state that the stones were just ordinary rocks (we agree). If that's the case, then can FAIR explain why Joseph couldn't translate when Martin Harris swapped stones with him without Joseph's knowledge? Obviously if they were just normal stones and if Joseph wasn't even aware that Martin swapped them to test him, why wouldn't Joseph be able to continue translating? It seems more likely that Joseph noticed the stone swap and used this as an opportunity to deceive Martin so he would believe that the seer stone did indeed have magical properties.

"Once Martin found a rock closely resembling the seerstone Joseph sometimes used in place of the interpreters and substituted it without the Prophet's knowledge. When the translation resumed, Joseph paused for a long time and then exclaimed, 'Martin, what is the matter, all is as dark as Egypt.' Martin then confessed that he wished to 'stop the mouths of fools' who told him that the Prophet memorized sentences and merely repeated them" (Kenneth Godfrey, "A New Prophet and a New Scripture,"
Ensign
, Jan. 1988)

So yes, we believe that If most people knew that the gold plates were never used to produce the BofM, that a common stone found when digging a well was used to produce the BofM and that Joseph put this stone in a hat to translate the BofM without even having the plates in the same room, it might make a difference to many church members and investigators. We say this by experience as we have discussed the stone in the hat issue with many members and that has led many people to further question the church and even leave it as portrayed in the South Park episode. Now if it was mentioned to a non-member, we have little doubt they would not accept the Joseph Smith story - especially since the missionaries would tell them a completely different story and every image they ever saw in any church magazine would show a different method which would also likely make them think the church was misleading them. To any objective person, it seems pretty obvious that this is the reason the church doesn't openly teach the 'stone in the hat' method of translation.

FAIR, if you don't believe this would make any difference to an investigator, why don't you bring up these details in the first discussion the next time you go on a missionary split with an investigator?

Also, please see this video that shows how misleading Scott Gordon, president of FAIR is when he discussed this issue at UVU College in 2012.

(youtube link)
crixus Enthusiast

crixus

Posted
Posted
I'm sorry, but I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say here.

Mormondialogue and FAIR are the same?

Your attitude still isn't playing well. Clean it up if you want to stay longer.

Calm Grand Master

Calm

Posted
Posted

Also, please see this video that shows how misleading Scott Gordon, president of FAIR is when he discussed this issue at UVU College in 2012.

(youtube link)

This is going to haunt Scott to his grave, lol:

The information that Scott included in his slide that was inaccurate was included at the last moment. The night before the presentation, Scott asked the FAIR list for some references having to do with the stone and the hat. We provided him with information that was taken out of the FAIR Wiki. This is how the info looked in the FAIR Wiki at the time. Notice that the title of the section (which I wrote) says "The stone and the hat," but not all of the references talk about the hat. It was just a heading that I used to collect those quotes, because some talked of the stone, some talked of the hat, and some talked of both. Somehow the reference to the stone was dropped in Scott's slide, so it implied that all of the references talked about the hat - they don't. It was a total accident on Scott's part. I'm the one that provided Scott with his references.

Yet, we see those who complain about "lying" apologists assembling cute YouTube videos targeted at proving that Scott is a liar.

One person on another message board, for whom I once had some respect, actually recently called Scott a "prick" because of this. There's a word that I have never directed at anyone online or off. I find the entire reaction to this disgusting. I am disgusted with people who jump on this as a means to "prove" that Scott is dishonest. Scott Gordon is an honest man, and he takes a lot of verbal abuse in some regions of the internet because of things like this.

Wiki Wonka Rising Star

Wiki Wonka

Posted
Posted

Mormondialogue and FAIR are the same?

No, FAIR divested itself of its message board years ago. The only message board FAIR operates is the new FairMormon Outreach board.

1
Wiki Wonka Rising Star

Wiki Wonka

Posted
Posted

This is going to haunt Scott to his grave, lol:

http://www.mormondia...entry1209222660

Yeah, I'm the one that gave Scott the quotes about the stone and the hat. They were copied from the wiki. The section included quotes about the stone, and about the stone and the hat. Scott's inadvertently shorted the title to "hat" (if I recall correctly) without noting that the quotes covered both the stone, and the stone and the hat.

1
Wiki Wonka Rising Star

Wiki Wonka

Posted
Posted

<MormonThink's response to FAIR>

The last time I read anything that MormonThink had to say about FAIR was in 2009, when we responded to their "25 items that would make the Church true." Since then, we haven't bothered to read anything that they say about FAIR since we prefer to respond to the issues. We aren't going to waste energy trying to defend FAIR in some sort of back-and-forth. That's why you don't see a response to stuff that they write about FAIR. You probably never will see one. To spend time on that would simply be a distraction.

2
Calm Grand Master

Calm

Posted
Posted

Yeah, I'm the one that gave Scott the quotes about the stone and the hat. They were copied from the wiki. The section included quotes about the stone, and about the stone and the hat. Scott's inadvertently shorted the title to "hat" (if I recall correctly) without noting that the quotes covered both the stone, and the stone and the hat.

My memory said that he left the title while not including all the quotes thus the claim that he is using the title to make it appear as if he had more evidence than he presented, the five (IIRC) quotes he used not referring to the hat IIRC, but only the stones. If it matters to anyone, I am sure the thread linked to discusses the details and if not, I can find it elsewhere on the board because I know it was discussed in detail when it first happened.
Calm Grand Master

Calm

Posted
Posted (edited)

No, FAIR divested itself of its message board years ago. The only message board FAIR operates is the new FairMormon Outreach board.

Where one can go ask all the questions one wants without the type of debate that one gets here. We treat all questioners as sincere unless they really make it obvious they are not. (yes, I am promoting the new board for those who are in faith crisis and don't want to deal with having their faith or commitment to the Church questioned). Edited by calmoriah
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