CES Letter Claims Strength List

[webbles]

2 hours ago, Frank11 said:

Now this is very surprising to me, especially since until today all the leaders of the church instructed members to only get information from pro-LDS sources. But back when I was active, there weren't even the Gospel Topic Essays. There were a few rumors that were immediately dismissed as anti-Mormon lies. Joseph Smith also had a single wife named Emma at the time and I would say here in Germany that is still the case for the majority of members.

I've heard this claim ("only get information from pro-LDS sources") on the internet but I never heard it growing up.  I have a grandfather who had the world's biggest library (to me at least as a child).  And he had books from all sorts of sources (for instance, he was a subscriber to the Tanners).  When I was a little older, my great-grandparents house was being sold off and we could go through their library.  I picked up and saw several books in there that would not be considered "pro-LDS sources".  These people lived in a town that was probably 100% church members.  So, I don't discount the claim but it wasn't universally taught.

[Devobah]

8 hours ago, Frank11 said:

This is often due to cognitive dissonance.

Am I the only one that is tired of this phrase? This and "mental gymnastics" are so overblown in my opinion. It's become so overused that it's lost its meaning to a lot of people. 

[Devobah]

3 hours ago, blackstrap said:

One thing I learned about translation is that there are those that can figure out the words but that is not the end of translation. The really hard part comes when one tries to convey what the words mean ie. understand what the original author wanted to present to a reader. 

 

There are many , many translations of the Bible and more than a thousand sects who see the same words and give them  varying meanings. 

 

I mentioned this in a thread a bit ago. Translation isn't as one-to-one as some people think it is. Cultural significance and speech pattern have to be taken into account. There are things that we say in our language that don't make sense in another. Teaching English Language Development last year really opened my eyes to this very fact.

A quick story. There was an Elder on my mission in Oklahoma. He was a Spanish speaking Elder. His goal was to introduce a phrase that we use in English to the Hispanic people in Spanish and have it catch on. As many people tried to tell them it wouldn't work, still he tried. The phrase was "What in the world?" (translated to "Que en el mundo?"). It never caught on unsurprisingly. I asked my dad and my brother why it didn't. Their answer was the same: because it just didn't make sense in their language. They have other phrases to convey that message in their own language that make sense. To them, this Elder was literally asking what was in the world. They just thought that he was forgetting the "in" portion of that phrase. 

[Devobah]

10 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I'd get to the middle of the BoM and throughout it and trail off, didn't fully study it.

I've thought about this for a bit. One of the hardest things, and something that I really had trouble with when going through my faith crisis was letting the Book of Mormon be scripture again. It might not be the same for you right now, but there was a time where all scripture to me was seen as just books on my shelf. Nothing special about them. Somebody wrote them. Somebody thought it was good and shared it. Nothing better than what you would find at Barnes and Noble or a secondhand book store.

And that's when I cried. When I realized my faith was almost nonexistent and I needed to put in the work to build it up again. I started with going back to the basics. I let myself be a clean slate. (This was the toughest part of the process. I'm 28 years old and it's hard to erase that in my mind) I literally came to the scriptures as a child. Sometimes, being born in the church, we take it for granted. We grow up in it. We become numb to these things. It's hard. 

I'm kind of on the verge of rambling. But the point is that I can understand it. I get it. And I know what a crisis is like. I'm still pulling myself out.

[LoudmouthMormon]

16 hours ago, Frank11 said:

Now this is very surprising to me, especially since until today all the leaders of the church instructed members to only get information from pro-LDS sources.

Yeah, "until today" ain't as solid as @Frank11 thinks.

September 26, 2006 - 18 years ago:  I had decided to attend my local mega-church's "Are Mormon's Christian" class, to see if they had anything I hadn't already encountered online.  Apparently, a member had left, and had invited his buddy the bishopric 2nd counselor to the class.    I was ward clerk at the time, and in bishopric meeting as they were discussing the soon-to-be-ex member and his offer, I said I wanted to go.  Bishopric thought that was ok.  The first couple of minutes of every weekly bishopric meeting, I'd give a brief summary of the stuff that was taught.  It really didn't spark any apologetic discussion, I wasn't even asked to report on what they were teaching.  It was just my contribution to the "so how has your week been going" small-talk before the meeting started.  Bishop found it at least as interesting as the other guy's fishing trip or flying to Indiana for work.

Eventually, either youth night changed or the mega-church's class time changed, so both bishopric and the class were on the same night.  I told the bishop, and he was interested in which one I'd be attending going forward.  I let him know that of course I'd be fulfilling the duties of my calling before engaging in my hobby.   The instructor's name was Esther.  She was a nice lady.  We had many email conversations after that. 

I've been some sort of clerk for a long time.  My hobby as guy-who-sought-out-church-critics has been well known across at least 5 bishops and bishoprics, for roughly 20 years.  Absolutely zero advice to stop, to only get info from pro sources.  None of them ever expressed so much as a hint of discomfort that I was interacting daily with critics.   One bishop even gave me some of the weird mail he'd get.  One bishop used to be on the mailing list for Warren Jeffs, issuing letters from prison.  I think I've discussed them on this forum somewhere.

 

Edited July 24, 2024 by LoudmouthMormon

[Teancum]

22 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

5-6 years ago, the letter was circulating around our youth.  Our bishopric 2nd counselor, an ER trauma surgeon, put together a combined 5th hour for everyone, and went through the thing.  Dude was pretty amazing, and I sat there and listened to him basically summarize all the apologetics in 20 minutes.  He managed to hit just about everything that I encountered in 15 years of reading FARMS and FAIR and battling in discussion forums like MDialogue.

Even quicker, now we have ldsbot.com.  

Me: "Please give me a chapter by chapter summary of the CES letter, along with a brief apologetic response for each chapter. Each chapter summary should be no longer than 3 sentences. Each apologetic response should be no longer than 3 sentences."

LDSBot.com:

 

Me: "Excellent! Please do the same thing, but increase the length and detail. Each summary should be at least 4 sentences long. Each Apologetic response should be at least 5 sentences long."

LDSBot: 

 

The AI has weak apologetics, just like those in real life.  Makes sense as it is just summarizing what apologists have already written.

[LoudmouthMormon]

 

10 hours ago, Devobah said:

When I realized my faith was almost nonexistent and I needed to put in the work to build it up again. I started with going back to the basics. I let myself be a clean slate. (This was the toughest part of the process. I'm 28 years old and it's hard to erase that in my mind) I literally came to the scriptures as a child.

Oh wow - my story is similar.  I grew up in the church, but didn't learn a dang thing.  My mind is like a brick wall, and it takes effort to actually learn things, and I never spent much effort at church.   Absolutely zero belief, zero faith.  I lied my way through all the priesthood interviews up to Elder.  I stopped going the second my mother stopped making me go, mostly because I had finally grown up into someone who was all done lying.  6 years later, I decided to act on my desire to finally put the matter to rest - was the church true or not.  I got a testimony, and started, like you said, as a child and a clean slate.  They had me teaching Gospel Essentials, and I was literally 24 hours ahead of the class, learning what Mormons teach and think and believe.

God bless you on your journey Devobah!

[LoudmouthMormon]

5 minutes ago, Teancum said:

The AI has weak apologetics, just like those in real life.  Makes sense as it is just summarizing what apologists have already written.

Weak apologetics is all that's really required for weak criticisms.   

@Teancum's criticism of ldsbot.com is pretty weak too, btw.  I told it specifically to briefly summarize a response.   If you're gonna criticize the quality of the AI apologetics, you'd have to ask it for something more than "a brief response at least 5 sentences long".   We're all free to ask it for college-level in-depth responses, complete with citations, footnotes, and sources.  If you want to do that, and then criticize it's apologetics, then your criticism may not be so weak.

[cujo22]

18 hours ago, Calm said:

And yet all my family was enthusiastically active in the Church when I got involved in apologetics over 20 years ago and even before that my mother and I had studied antimormon and other critical stuff way before simply because it was interesting.  Fawn Brodie’s book was on her shelf for as long as I can remember.

Two members of my immediate family out of ten individuals are nonbelievers now, though neither have been ever interested in Grant Palmer, etc at any time last I heard.  One doesn’t believe in the spirit, the other just isn’t interested.

There are some who may react as you say, but it is a stereotype and it shows a strong bias if someone assumes this is how all faithful Saints react.

Totally agree with you. Thank you for responding. I'm not sure if there is much truth to this generalization at all.

Here's the crux of my comment:  I think a reasonable person could choose the church and I think a reasonable person could not choose the church. 

My sense is that this perspective we're responding to comes from those who don't believe a reasonable person could choose the church. That the facts so obviously point to the church being a fraud that there must be some explanation for people who stay in it. That anyone who reads the CES letter would definitely not believe the truth claims anymore. They can't believe I've read the CES letter and it didn't bother me. They think... their brains must not be letting them think logically because they are so happy being the 2nd counselor in the Elders quorum. It's a simplification, maybe true to some degree for some people, but mostly not true. 

Why some people delve into these issues and others don't is not simple. I'm been completely happy in and committed to the church all my life, but I know about all these issues, I like reading this board, I've read CES letter couple of times, I think I've read a couple of rebuttals. For one thing, I think I like the intellectual aspect of looking at the different sides of things and the arguments and what not. For another, when I started looking more at these topics it was to try to understand why some friends had left the church. So there are different reasons for why someone might be interested in these topics. I don't think it's that commonly true that people who are happy don't look and even if they see things then they can't think logically. Honesty, this line of thinking strikes me as a story someone might tell themselves to make themselves feel better about their choices (we all do this to some degree), someone still trying to convince themselves. This line of thinking is a corollary with, "People believe that stuff and leave the church because they want to sin." 

 

[Teancum]

18 hours ago, ttribe said:

I can assure you I studied the BoM daily, having read it through from beginning to end many times, and I took my studies VERY seriously. Ultimately, I reached a very different conclusion than you regarding the truth claims of the Church. Studying the BoM is not a magic potion which cures a faith crisis.

Same here.

[Teancum]

41 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

Weak apologetics is all that's really required for weak criticisms. 

I that works for you great.  I find that the criticisms of the church as so many and so problematic it is a no win for the church.  But a lot of people. like you for example, conclude differently. 

41 minutes ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

 

 

@Teancum's criticism of ldsbot.com is pretty weak too, btw.  I told it specifically to briefly summarize a response.   If you're gonna criticize the quality of the AI apologetics, you'd have to ask it for something more than "a brief response at least 5 sentences long".   We're all free to ask it for college-level in-depth responses, complete with citations, footnotes, and sources.  If you want to do that, and then criticize it's apologetics, then your criticism may not be so weak.

I really do have better things to do with my time these days.😁

[ZealouslyStriving]

18 hours ago, ttribe said:

I can assure you I studied the BoM daily, having read it through from beginning to end many times, and I took my studies VERY seriously. Ultimately, I reached a very different conclusion than you regarding the truth claims of the Church. Studying the BoM is not a magic potion which cures a faith crisis.

I said "much less likely"- I didn't say impossible.

🤙

[Tacenda]

12 hours ago, Devobah said:

I've thought about this for a bit. One of the hardest things, and something that I really had trouble with when going through my faith crisis was letting the Book of Mormon be scripture again. It might not be the same for you right now, but there was a time where all scripture to me was seen as just books on my shelf. Nothing special about them. Somebody wrote them. Somebody thought it was good and shared it. Nothing better than what you would find at Barnes and Noble or a secondhand book store.

And that's when I cried. When I realized my faith was almost nonexistent and I needed to put in the work to build it up again. I started with going back to the basics. I let myself be a clean slate. (This was the toughest part of the process. I'm 28 years old and it's hard to erase that in my mind) I literally came to the scriptures as a child. Sometimes, being born in the church, we take it for granted. We grow up in it. We become numb to these things. It's hard. 

I'm kind of on the verge of rambling. But the point is that I can understand it. I get it. And I know what a crisis is like. I'm still pulling myself out.

Thanks so much for this response. I have to explain a bit, I did that even while in total belief, trailing off and not focusing. It was after my faith crisis that I dove into learning things, whether it be the BoM and buying the original 1830 copy that has chapters w/o verses to checking out other faith beliefs, reading everything I could on church history and contacting FairLDS and speaking with Gregory Smith and other apologists. But still had troubling getting interested. I'm a lost cause.

But I appreciate you reaching out and having empathy. ❤️

[Calm]

3 hours ago, cujo22 said:

Why some people delve into these issues and others don't is not simple. I'm been completely happy in and committed to the church all my life, but I know about all these issues, I like reading this board, I've read CES letter couple of times, I think I've read a couple of rebuttals. For one thing, I think I like the intellectual aspect of looking at the different sides of things and the arguments and what not. For another, when I started looking more at these topics it was to try to understand why some friends had left the church. So there are different reasons for why someone might be interested in these topics. I don't think it's that commonly true that people who are happy don't look and even if they see things then they can't think logically. Honesty, this line of thinking strikes me as a story someone might tell themselves to make themselves feel better about their choices (we all do this to some degree), someone still trying to convince themselves. This line of thinking is a corollary with, "People believe that stuff and leave the church because they want to sin." 

Well stated

[Devobah]

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Thanks so much for this response. I have to explain a bit, I did that even while in total belief, trailing off and not focusing. It was after my faith crisis that I dove into learning things, whether it be the BoM and buying the original 1830 copy that has chapters w/o verses to checking out other faith beliefs, reading everything I could on church history and contacting FairLDS and speaking with Gregory Smith and other apologists. But still had troubling getting interested. I'm a lost cause.

But I appreciate you reaching out and having empathy. ❤️

I did get a little preachy and sobby there. I apologize. It was late and I was in my feelings a bit 😅

Edited July 24, 2024 by Devobah

[Frank11]

4 hours ago, cujo22 said:

"People believe that stuff and leave the church because they want to sin." 

I didn't quite understand it, but that's more down to my poor English, but I'm glad that the absolute classic sentence hasn't died out yet.

[Kevin Christensen]

I wrote an essay for Interpreter with my response to the CES Letter. 

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/eye-of-the-beholder-law-of-the-harvest-observations-on-the-inevitable-consequences-of-the-different-investigative-approaches-of-jeremy-runnells-and-jeff-lindsay/

Runnells was peeved with it and promised to respond.  He did not, but had a friend respond, which I also responded to.  

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/image-is-everything-pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain/

One thing I did not address that is worth noting is that the story that Runnells tells about his own disillusion that launched his diatribe is not actually true.  I decided not to address that issue, and to rather focus on the arguments he made.

https://www.plonialmonimormon.com/2016/02/ces-letter-author-jeremy-runnells-to.html

There are several other lengthy and very detailed responses to Runnells, the detail of which are notably absent from the brief summaries.  Sarah Allen, for instance, did a very good job.

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Sarah_Allen_CES_Response_Posts

I do notice that summarizing the debates about LDS issues at the level of Tweet by its nature misses a lot of the telling details, and is actually more telling very abstract stories about the debates and evidence than dealing with them.  That sort of thing in Politics is a sign that a person is going along with the results of some effort to "control the narrative."  Indeed, I commented in my "Eye of the Beholder, Law of the Harvest" essay that when I read the CES Letter, it struck me as not the result of original scholarship but came across as "Tanners Lite for the Twitter generation, and in that sense, all “old news” to me.

And of course, he shows little interest in keeping up.  For instance, on the Book of Abraham and its relationship to the Hor Book of Breathings.  I few years ago I posted about Tim Barker's crucially observant FAIR presentation.

Quote

• Posted January 12, 2021 (edited)

This one is notable and very much worth the read. 

https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/2020-fairmormon-conference/the-answer-under-our-heads

For all of the detail, figures, and commentary he provides, at the center of it all is one very clear observation about information provided by Tanner and Heward in an early Dialogue essay claiming that the Book of Abraham is a bogus translation from the Hor Book of Breathings.  Tanner and Heward made the important observation that Joseph Smith directed Rueben Hedlock to fill out gaps in the engraving for Facsimile 2 (the hypocephalus) with some characters from the Hor Book of Breathings and a figure from elsewhere. Unlike the previous 50 years of commentators, Tim Barker notices that while Heward and Tanner match up characters from the Hor Book of Breathings to marginal characters in the Egyptian papers, they did not match up to their influential thesis the fact that Joseph Smith's comments in the annotated portions of the published, reconstructed facsimile plainly show that Joseph Smith openly declares that had expressly NOT translated those characters (taken from the Hor Book of Breathings).  That means that the source of the Book of Abraham must be something else, despite long standing assumptions to that effect by a great many critics.

Jeff Lindsay has a nice post about Tim Barker's talk here.

https://mormanity.blogspot.com/2021/01/a-gift-from-early-anti-mormon-attack-on.html

One thing that I noticed that neither Lindsay or Tim Barker discuss much concerns Joseph's preparation of the incomplete facsimile 2 for publication.  Lindsay includes an illustration where Tanner and Heward noted that the besides characters, image for the solar bark in the upper right panel was taken from other portions of the papyrii that Joseph Smith had in his possion.   Hugh Nibley's collection of other examples of hypocephali in One Eternal Round shows that having that particular figure in that position was particularly apt.  One might even say inspired.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited July 30, 2024 by Kevin Christensen
typo

[brownbear]

7 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

One thing I did not address that is worth noting is that the story that Runnells tells about his own disillusion that launched his diatribe is not actually true.  I decided not to address that issue, and to rather focus on the arguments he made.

I think it is important that you addressed the content of the letter, rather than the origin of the letter. Even if one discredits the author, you still have to deal with the content. There are some real issues that aren’t easily answered (YMMV). One “strengths” of the letter as a tool for deconstructing faith is that it doesn’t contain every critical argument against the restoration. Trying to solve the KJV in the BOM issue introduced me to multiple Isaiah and the documentary hypothesis, which, IIRC, isn’t in the letter  

I actually read the CES letter when it first came out and it had zero impact on me, but I looked at the issues as “anti-Mormon” lies. The second time around (in conjunction with some other “shelf items”) got me. 

It has actually been a blessing and a curse for my faith. I got introduced to a deeper faith. But the richer one can be more challenging. 

[Calm]

24 minutes ago, brownbear said:

Even if one discredits the author, you still have to deal with the content.

It speaks to his methodology that he chooses not to be truthful in telling his own story.  If he is willing to lie about that, why should I trust him to present the truth in his criticisms?

[Devobah]

1 hour ago, brownbear said:

I think it is important that you addressed the content of the letter, rather than the origin of the letter. Even if one discredits the author, you still have to deal with the content. There are some real issues that aren’t easily answered (YMMV). One “strengths” of the letter as a tool for deconstructing faith is that it doesn’t contain every critical argument against the restoration. Trying to solve the KJV in the BOM issue introduced me to multiple Isaiah and the documentary hypothesis, which, IIRC, isn’t in the letter  

I actually read the CES letter when it first came out and it had zero impact on me, but I looked at the issues as “anti-Mormon” lies. The second time around (in conjunction with some other “shelf items”) got me. 

It has actually been a blessing and a curse for my faith. I got introduced to a deeper faith. But the richer one can be more challenging. 

It’s interesting. My first go around with the CES letter was actually reading Jim Bennett’s response. When I was talking about it with my parents I described the experience as “having poison in one hand and having the cure in another.” And I was just going back and forth. It’s not healthy. 
I will also agree that my faith has deepened when doing my research. I still have a ton of questions, but im willing to wait. 

44 minutes ago, Calm said:

It speaks to his methodology that he chooses not to be truthful in telling his own story.  If he is willing to lie about that, why should I trust him to present the truth in his criticisms?

This is a big thing when coming to terms with somebody’s claims. Considering the source of the argument is important. It’s how many people have avoided these things for so long. We look at past better known critics like the Tanners and Ed Decker, and if I was to ask about them with a family member or bishop from my youth they probably would have said it’s not worth my time because of the source. Jeremy doesn’t seem to think that his history is messy enough (when it comes to the events surrounding the letter) that we shouldn’t trust his criticisms and questions as valid. 
 

Jeremy has also refused to answer any of Sarah Allen’s response to his letter (which is one of the better responses imho) because she started off her response with the history surrounding the letter as well as some personal attacks on Jeremy’s character. Her response has since been updated to remove such language. However, Jeremy has made the decision to not respond to her response, calling the whole a “smear campaign” and dismissing it to work on his response to Jim Bennett. Though I haven’t checked recently, I don’t think the website has been updated in about 3 years. The copyright has been updated but he hasn’t done anything since October of 2021 I believe. He’s even teased that he will reveal the identity of the CES Director that he wanted a response from. But he’s been teasing that for longer. 

[Calm]

51 minutes ago, Devobah said:

Jeremy doesn’t seem to think that his history is messy enough (when it comes to the events surrounding the letter) that we shouldn’t trust his criticisms and questions as valid. 

I don’t see any reason to outright dismiss the criticisms simply because he wanted to frame the production in an appealing, attention getting history and was wiling to lie about that rather than just use the predictable story one saw online while it was happening***.  It just adds another reason to check his work thoroughly where if I trusted him to tell what he himself personally experienced in a relatively accurate way I might be more likely to skip double-checking the basic stuff after a few times of seeing if he did it correctly, such as if he accurately quoted or referenced something.  I would be more likely to see what I thought of as errors as more about varied interpretation of facts and bias influencing which material strikes him as more important or unintentional misrepresentations rather than willingness to intentionally misrepresent what he found….which makes for much more work, usually tiresome too. 

***https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/blog/2021/08/25/ces-rebuttal-part-1-extended-version

Edited July 25, 2024 by Calm

[brownbear]

9 hours ago, Calm said:

speaks to his methodology that he chooses not to be truthful in telling his own story.  If he is willing to lie about that, why should I trust him to present the truth in his criticisms?

I think there is some truth to this, however, the underlying historical issues are not nothing. There are “difficult things” to deal with regarding the Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, Polygamy/Polyandry, Prophets, Priesthood Restoration, Witnesses, Testimony and Spiritual Witnesses, The First Vision, Translation, Kinderhook Plates and Zelph, etc. Many of the things in the letter aren’t known by the lay member and other things go against common assumptions held by the lay member, IMO.

Edit: There is a reason why the church is starting to inoculate people about these issues  Inoculation can protect against future faith crises. 

Edited July 25, 2024 by brownbear

[mburgess1982]

On 7/23/2024 at 9:26 AM, Devobah said:

Hello!

I know I haven't been asked this on the board, but I have been asked by a few friends (I do have those in real life) what I find to be the strongest arguments in the CES Letter. Obviously an explanation of each would merit posts of their own, and I don't have the time nor the attention span to really put that together. But I am curious to see what people struggle with and what people don't when it comes to church history, policy, and doctrine.

This is my personal strength list (divided by section of the CES Letter since it seems to be the largest Anti-Mormon tract since The Godmakers) as well as a brief explanation as to why I placed this where it is. Obviously there are multiple things talked about in each section, but again, time and attention span are not on my time. Plus I have to actually be useful in my life. 

The list was made by claims of the letter, and the apologetic response.

1. The Book of Abraham

Yes the big one for a lot of people. The smoking gun, the final straw, the killing blow, is first on my list. It's the hardest one to defend for a lot of people, including me. One shouldn't need a degree in Near East Studies or Egyptology to try and defend the book. Also the Catalyst vs Missing Scroll battle hurts more than it does help.

2. Polygamy/Polyandry

The things surrounding polygamy and polyandry are things that a lot of people struggle with comprehending. Brian Hales does a great job defending the practice and giving a good glimpse into the lives of the wives of Joseph Smith, but the subsequent prophets' practice seem to leave one more confused than anything else.

3. Other Concerns/Prophets

These two sections go together because they kind of deal with the same thing: the fallibility of prophets. At what point does a man end and a prophet begin. It would seem that the visions and blessings of old seemed to have stopped by around the 1920s. 

4. Testimony and Spiritual Witnesses

It is rather fascinating to see the spiritual witnesses of other faiths (namely the Catholic one imho) and what happens when one doesn't get a spiritual witness of the Book of Mormon or the gospel? 

5. Temples and Freemasonry

A bit odd because this is the one that a lot of people struggle with. It never really bothered me too much. The similarities between Freemasonry and the Endowment cannot be denied, and the scholarship seems weak in this area.

6. Kinderhook Plates & Translator Claims

This one is placed where it is because the apologetic response is a bit of a double edged sword. The use of the GAEL leads one to believe that Joseph did attempt to translate the Book of Abraham through practical means, but it also swings the pendulum back to the Book of Abraham.

7. First Vision/Priesthood Restoration

Again, these two are together because they deal with similar things. In this case Joseph's silence about the events. Joseph didn't talk about his vision much, and didn't talk about the priesthood restoration much. Intentionally deceptive or just naive? The multiple First Vision accounts really don't do much for me, with the only one with "major" changes being the 1832 account.

8. Book of Mormon

Book of Mormon Evidence is hard to come by, and seems to be dubious and unconvincing to critics. What really drags this section down is the "names" portion. This was to the point that even Runnells himself was considering removing the section because he himself found it weak.

9. Witnesses

The strongest case for the reality of the plates, no matter the "visionary" experience. This has shifted much because now a lot of critics talk about how there were actual plates, but there was no way of  actually knowing if they were of ancient record.

10. Book of Mormon Translation

I think my unconventional view of the translation helped me a lot in this regard. The KJV sections of the Book of Mormon do raise some questions, but all in all, it just never bothered me much and I find the apologetic response to be satisfying.

THAT'S ALL FOLKS!

If you'd like me to go more in depth on my thoughts for each section, feel free to ask!

 

I wouldn't say struggle, but I used to really wonder about some of these. I watched every single video in the LDS truth claims series which showed me that there are equally as strong if not stronger arguments on the pro faith side which the doubting side likes to ignore altogether. Your post reminded me of a quote from a book called "The God who weeps" By Terryl Givens

 

"What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love. That is why faith, the choice to believe, is, in the final analysis, an action that is positively laden with moral significance.
We are, as reflective, thinking, pondering seekers, much like the proverbial *** of Buridan. The beast in the parable starves to death because he is faced with two equally desirable and equally accessible piles of hay. Having no determinative reason to choose one over the other in indecision. In the case of us mortals, we are confronted with a world in which there are appealing arguments for a Divinity that is a childish projection, for prophets as scheming or deluded imposters, and for scriptures as so much fabulous fiction. But there is also compelling evidence that a glorious Divinity presides over the Cosmos, that his angels are strangers we have entertained unaware, and that his Word and will are made manifest through a scriptural canon that is never definitively closed.
There is, as with the *** of Buridan, nothing to compel an individual's preference for one over the other. For most of us, at least, there is neither a choir of heavenly heralds proving God exists, nor a laboratory of science equipment proving He doesn't. Rather, we find a persuasive body of evidence on both sides of life's competing propositions. Only in the case of us mortals, there is something to tip the scale. There is something to predispose us to a life of faith or life of disbelief. There is a heart that, in these conditions of equilibrium and balance, equally "enticed by the one or the other," is truly free to choose belief or skepticism, faith or faithlessness
The call to faith in this light, is not some test of a coy god, waiting to see it we "get it right". It is the only summons issued under the only conditions, which allows us to fully to reveal who we are, what we most love, and what we most devoutly desire. Without constrain, without any form of mental compulsion, the act of belief becomes the freest possible projection of what resides in our hearts.
Like the poet's image of a church bell that only reveals its latent music when struck, or a dragonfly that only flames forth its beauty in flight, so does the content of a human heart lie buried until action calls it forth. The greatest act of self revelation occurs when we choose what we will believe, in that space of freedom that exists between knowing that a thing is, and knowing that a thing is not.
This is the realm where faith operates, and when faith is freely chosen gesture, it expresses something essential about the self. For we do indeed create gods after our own image - or potential image. And that is an actively endowed with incalculable moral meaning. If we linger in indecision, as does Buridans beast, we will not perish. We will simply miss an opportunity to act decisively in the absence of certainty, and show that fear of error is greater than our love of truth"

 

That last line always hits me. "We will simply miss an opportunity to act decisively in the absence of certainty, and show that fear of error is greater than our love of truth" Everybody that goes through the struggle of doubt, and reading through stuff like the CES Letter etc, I would say this: When you come to realize there is no "smoking gun" proof on either side of the equation for any of this stuff, Existence of God, Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, etc (Because all you have done is spent your entire time on the doubt side) then you come to realize that God does not want to compel us to believe. All of the evidence stacked up on one side would force acknowledgement and restrict agency. God wants us to choose.  

If we take the path of faith, which ultimately will grow into a knowledge of the truth over time, your heart changes. This is why Korihor after being struck dumb and admitting he always believed didn't have the curse lifted off of him. His heart hadn't changed and Alma knew it. 

The thing is you get nothing with doubt other than confusion, and feelings of "I've been duped". You have to choose which path to go down to experience the fruits of that path. Unfortunately too many are too scared to step down the path of faith because their fear of being wrong is greater than their desire to believe
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LoudmouthMormon]

5 hours ago, brownbear said:

There is a reason why the church is starting to inoculate people about these issues  Inoculation can protect against future faith crises. 

Indeed.

"Though argument does not create conviction, the lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish."
Austin Farrer, "The Christian Apologist" 

[Devobah]

14 hours ago, mburgess1982 said:

wouldn't say struggle, but I used to really wonder about some of these. I watched every single video in the LDS truth claims series which showed me that there are equally as strong if not stronger arguments on the pro faith side which the doubting side likes to ignore altogether.

I saw a comment on a video talking about LDS Truth Claims and LDS Critics. The comment talked about how the person is dealing with the people and not the arguments themselves. The commenter (I'm assuming male) said that he wanted to research arguments against the church so that he would have answers. This lead to him losing his testimony mainly over things like quotes from past leaders of the church (my guess is that had more to do with Blacks and the priesthood than anything else), and the normal (if you can call it that) things that other people would struggle with.

I won't pretend to be any sort of psychiatrist, but I think that our brain can latch onto things very easily. When people hear about the criticisms against the church, 9 times out of 10 they aren't hearing it from leaders or apologists, they are hearing about it from the critics (the Tanners, Ed Decker, Grant Palmer, Jeremy Runnells (take your pick)). The follow up question is usually "Why haven't I heard about this before?" Now they could immediately go to things like FAIR, Mormonr (relatively new site that I love), or other apologetic sources, but in their mind, the distrust is already there between them and the Church, and it is VERY difficult to rebuild that. Some rebuild their beliefs; some leave. Some stop attending to get some space. The path that everyone takes is different. 

The Church has a tough job to do, but the primary thing is to prepare the souls of men to return the presence of Heavenly Father. I've seen people take a Doctrine and Covenants class and think that this and Church History are the same thing. They aren't. Church History is not just revelations. Just as a History of any other Church is not just councils and creeds and bigger events in their history. 

Am I happy that the Church is coming forward with a less sanitized view of history? Of course! Do I wish they had done it earlier? Of course, again! I was lucky to serve in a section of the world where the doctrines of the Church were the only thing that was attacked. Mainstream Christian arguments are easy (and often time they speak out of both sides of their mouths. My favorite was always "You believe God was a man!" Then I'd turn around and say, "Well y'all believe that Jesus was also a man, right? Or are you a Docetist?"), but Church history leads to infighting and is hard a lot of the time to combat.