As Monty Python says, “And now for something completely different . . . ” There was a recent discussion on Reddit that was asking participants to share the weakest arguments against the Church that kind of drove them nuts. It’s an interesting thought experiment, partly because there are arguments both for and against the Church that some will find appealing, but others will find utterly unconvincing. But for now, let’s use the same parameters as the comments from that post.
First of all, I was reminded of a post our own Mary Ann did about the CES letter’s usage of place names in the upstate New York area bearing resemblance to names in the Book of Mormon. The problem with that argument is that many of these towns didn’t exist until after the publication of the Book of Mormon, meaning, they could not have been the inspiration for the place names in the Book of Mormon. Now, it doesn’t mean the Book of Mormon is ancient or that Joseph Smith didn’t write it. It just means that these specific town names are irrelevant. The post points out that when alerted to this problem with the argument, the CES letter chose to retain the map of place names (it’s still there!) because so many said it was the thing that tipped them over into unbelief. And yet, it was bad evidence, unlike most of the content in the CES letter. When you keep a weak argument next to strong ones, it can undermine the overall credibility, although honestly, maybe that’s no longer true in our post-truth world. Lies and weak arguments seem to be having a moment.
So, here are some of the arguments that people on Reddit found to be unconvincing or weak as criticisms of the Church. Let’s see if you agree, and why some of these might vary from person to person in terms of whether they are convincing or not.
That Oaks and Nelson are polygamists. The poster’s view is that there is a distinction between believing in (hoping for?) a theoretical eternal polygamy out of love for two consecutive spouses and practicing concurrent marriage to more than one spouse. It’s reasonable for a person who’s spouse has died to remarry, and people can love again. I think this is a totally fair argument, but my own opinion is that being sealed to both spouses, then denying women in the church the same courtesy (to be sealed to consecutive spouses) while hand-waving away women’s concerns that they will be forced to practice polygamy for eternity is callous and utterly disgusting in its lack of empathy. Men who hanker for multiple wives while denying that women *might* have multiple spouses don’t look godly to me. But the poster’s point is valid.
That Church leaders are greedily enriching themselves. This is not to downplay the Church’s financial shenanigans or possibly too conservative charitable efforts. The gist of the argument is that they are doing this primarily for personal financial gain, not because they believe in the church’s mission or inherited a pile of gold that would make Smaug blush, and now don’t know what to do with it, but they know they can’t shrink it (!). Per the OP “I truly think they teach tithing to poor people because they honestly and truly believe they are helping people unlock some magical key of the universe that will help them. I felt that way as a fully convinced missionary.” Fair point.
That Mormons don’t worship the “true” Jesus. The implication is that if you leave the Church, now you too can find the TRUE Jesus, not the made-up Mormon Jesus. The fun thing I’ve learned about Jesus is that every Church thinks they’ve cornered the market on what He really thinks and what He really taught. And you gotta wonder whether the actual Jesus is anything like any of these people think. Probably not. As the Straight White American Jesus podcast title puts it, people are great at telegraphing their own identities onto Jesus, but not great at understanding a person who lived in an impoverished, obscure middle eastern village occupied by a hostile foreign power two thousand years ago.
Anti-Vaxxers. I’m not aware personally of anyone who literally left the Church because Nelson said to get the vaccine, but I’m sure they exist. I agree this is a super dumb reason to leave the Church, and it’s not just because I disagree with them about the vaccine. It’s because I disagree with Church leaders about lots of things that I just ignore, so leaving over thinking Church leaders are giving dumb advice seems kind of like a “Welcome to adulthood” moment to me.
That Joseph Smith made it all up to gain sexual access to other women. The argument that this was his primary motivation is probably weak for a few reasons (although he did in fact use his church power this way). He didn’t start out doing this, and you don’t actually have to start a church to have sexual affairs. One might argue it’s the least effective way to carry on extramarital affairs. Why bother with all this “we’re secretly married” stuff? Louis Bidamon, Emma’s second husband, also cheated on her, but he didn’t start a church to do it. He just did it the old fashioned way, by being a randy old goat.
That Joseph Smith was a pedophile. There is no evidence that shows that he had a sexual predilection for pre-pubescent children, which is the definition of pedophilia. There is scant evidence of hebephilia (attraction to young adolescents), although that’s likely a stretch as the youngest was “just shy of her 15th birthday,” and hebephilia usually refers to ages 11-14. What is quite clear according to evidence is ephebophilia, a later stage adult attracted to late adolescents. That’s unfortunately something you can also find in Jane Austen (looking at you Colonel Foster, Colonel Brandon and Mr. Knightly), and was perhaps more common due to the high rate of maternal mortality, although none of those 3 Austen characters have that excuse, and neither does Joseph Smith.
That Church leaders don’t believe the Church is true. I’ve heard this one quite a lot, and while I certainly think it’s likely that there have been doubters and skeptics and even a few unbelievers among church leaders over time, that’s not really the same thing as the claim that “they all know it’s false.” For that to be the case, it would mean that it’s a sort of vast conspiracy. Also, I have a hard time imagining a better “proof” that the church is true than God putting you in charge of it. Who could resist such a heady notion?
The lack of physical evidence to support the Book of Mormon’s historicity. This one’s an interesting one. I’m not going to outright dismiss it, but I don’t think it’s a slam dunk either, for a few reasons. I usually hear it in conjunction with the mountains of evidence that the Bible has a connection to history, that its cities and peoples exist in archaeology and that their stories can be found in non-Biblical sources. That’s true enough, but people have been trying to prove the Bible’s historicity for a lot longer than the Book of Mormon’s. Most of the meso-American sites I’ve been to have barely been excavated, like 5% of the site, for example, while 95% remains uncovered in the jungle. On the other hand, there are no reputable non-LDS archaeologists who take it seriously and it doesn’t match any of what is known or has been found. What feels more damning to me is the contradictions and anachronisms in it, and the fact that it reads like it was written by white settlers in the early 1800s who read the Bible a lot.
That having $250+ billion in and of itself proves the Church isn’t true. The gist of this one is that Jesus would not have this much amassed wealth. It’s kind of a Catch-22, though, because you could just as easily argue that a church isn’t true because it’s in financial dire straits, which the Church kind of was until the 1980s. I think a more valid critique can be made in looking at how the church amassed the wealth, the risible financial audit process, the extortive approach to tithing, how the Church evaded SEC regulations, and how the Church spends. But being wealthy in and of itself? Not sure that’s convincing me of anything. The Vatican is filled with amazing treasures (despite so many of the statues having been castrated), and boasts incredible gold- and art-filled Cathedrals, and the Catholics aren’t fleeing in droves over that. In fact, I find their Cathedrals to be far more inspiring than our chapels.
Anyway, that’s a pretty good starter list for a discussion, regardless your own personal belief stance.
- Are there some on this list that you agree are weak or that you think are stronger? Give your reasons.
- What do you consider to be weak arguments against the Church?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
Here’s another one for you.
Mormon missionaries were sent to England and Europe to solicit poor women for polygamous marriages in Utah.
Now refute it.
Worst anti-arguments:
For balance a couple of notable bad apologist arguments
Brad D: As I like to point out, my favorite chiasmus is Swedish band ABBA.
When it comes to strong or weak arguments, I think it comes to what resonates with us.
1.I actually don’t think the place names is a weak argument. I think it’s good argument to the mind of the it’s creator.
I know of people who compare the map of Middle Earth to Europe. Middle Earth is fictitious, but it is no surprise that Tolkien was a professor of Anglo Saxon (Beowulf anyone)
Salem is a town name that spread west in the US with the pioneers (the one in Massachusetts has witches, the Salem in Maine has vampires, and the one in Oregon has politicians. Which is scariest?) There is a Salem in India of different origin. But when I look at the place names(as well as crops and animals and theological concerns) there is only one place I see that matches. And it’s not India or Middle Earth.
2. The lack of physical evidence is not only a slam dunk, it wins the contest. Not that I think much of the historicity of the Bible, the Iliad, or Beowulf, But… There is a Jerusalem, and we don’t need to scour every inch of Denmark looking for Grendel’s bones in order to understand something about the mindset of the Anglo-Saxons. Can anyone walk anywhere in England without coming across something Anglo Saxon? But you can’t go anywhere in the America’s and find any Nephite or Lamanite physical evidence, nada, ziltch. Slam Dunk. Meanwhile I’m writing this in english.
A lot of the traditional Christian arguments against Mormonism seem, well, to be largely based on tradition rather than any better evidence than Mormonism has:
1. The Trinity. Traditional Christianity is skeptical of Mormonism because Mormonism doesn’t embrace their Trinity idea…because tradition.
2. Modern prophets. Traditional Christianity embraces ancient prophets, but can’t accept, without providing very good reasons, that there might be more modern prophets.
3. Grace versus works. Traditional Christianity rejects Mormonism’s emphasis on works over grace. The Bible has plenty of support for both.
4. Evidence versus feelings. Traditional Christianity rejects Mormonism’s reliance on finding truth through fuzzy feelings of the Spirit. Traditional Christians often claim that their faith is based on solid evidence, and all of that solid evidence evidence can be found in…drumroll please…the Bible. The evidence for Christ’s miraculous birth, life, and resurerection is all just sitting there in the Bible. See, we have evidence–no fuzzy feelings required. Those stories may have some truth to them, but I’m sorry, given what we know about the origin of the Bible text, I’m not sure that it should be considered solid evidence for much of anything. In fact, it’s not any better than those fuzzy feelings of the Spirit that Mormons claim to have.
I would like you folks to evaluate one of my main arguments against the truthfulness of the Church (see below). I’m genuinely curious as to whether you agree that this is a strong argument. It’s always been a sticking point with me, even when I was a TBM:
The Church can’t possibly be what it claims to be because its membership only constitutes .2% of the world’s population. That’s 2/1000 for those of you who like fractions. And because the Church membership is at least 50% inactive, that means only 1/1000 folks on the earth today are on any kind of “covenant path” (trademark).
How can it be that in this day and age of instant travel and communication, a full-time missionary force of 60k+, and more money and resources than we know what to do with, we can’t seem to even get close to 1%. We don’t have to be the largest religious organization in the world. But there are more Muslims in Syria than LDS in the world (yes, I looked it up). Heck, there are many more gay folks in the US than LDS folks but that’s another conversation.
Why is this the case? Is the world so evil, so distracted, so worldly, so secular, that there just isn’t time and energy for the truth? Why is the truth so utterly uncompelling? Why is Heavenly Father so unsuccessful with his children (or Jesus with his brothers and sisters)? Do we just need more time to get to 1%? But aren’t we already in the last days, the 23rd hour?
Regarding anti-vaxxers: Most of the folks that support the Heartland theory of the BoM, including the ones over at the Joseph Smith Foundation (not a charitable foundation, it is a business that promotes conspiracy theories about how “progressive” historians destroying fundamental teachings) are anti-vaxxers and are still very upset by the Church’s support of vaccinations (see here) including the First Presidency encouraging vaccinations during the pandemic. Kimberly W. Smith, the research director for the Joseph smith Foundation, claimed the LDS Church was “off course.” She also described those who advocated for and received Covid vaccines possessed a “cult mindset.” So yeah, there are some right-wing members who are frustrated with the Church promotion of vaccinations.
Suzanne and Josh have strong, logical ‘Anti’ arguments.
Re: Lack of physical evidence. Apologists go to great lengths to argue in favor of dubious claims like the NHM inscription. Yet I have traveled to Turkey, Greece, Israel, et.al, and observed a plethora of physical evidence of highly advanced civilizations dating back at least 5,000 years. The BoM claims >230,000 deaths occurred at the Battle of Cumorah (see Mormon 6). Their combined armies would have numbered >1M. Zero physical evidence of such a battle or civilization exists. Apologists strain credulity and insult our intelligence when they counter with arguments like “Mormon may have exaggerated” or the even more comical “A thousand may not actually mean a thousand”. Give me a break.
Re: Membership Numbers/Truthfulness: It is impossible to comprehend a God that would restore the ‘truth’ to a scant few of His progeny. As if any parents would intentionally exclude most of their children from eternal salvation.
Finally, I am so grateful that after GC ended, a neighboring Mormon couple brought over a plate of cookies and expressed sorrow that three of our four children have “left Mormonism” (one remains semi-active for social reasons only). As in “we know you are pathetic parents but please partake of our sugary offerings”. We assured them that our children are happy and successful; as such their pity was neither appreciated nor solicited. Talk about the antithesis of true Christianity.
Josh H: The argument about the size of the Church membership is strongest when you consider it against the Church’s own claim that it’s like the “stone cut from the mountain that fills the whole earth,” meaning that if that is taken as true, the Church must have a growth trajectory to be “true.” Here’s where the wiggle room exists:
– Who counts the membership? We don’t really know how many active members there are, but we have strong evidence that it’s nowhere near 17 million (as the Church claims) and the growth rate has stalled completely. Because the Church counts people who no longer attend or affiliate but remain on record (including any babies who were blessed then never attended) until they are 110 years old, these numbers are pretty highly inflated. Just as you shouldn’t believe that Trump is a trim 225 pounds (or that I am whatever I claim on my driver’s license), you can’t really believe the Church’s self-reported membership numbers.
– You could (I’m not aware of anyone actually doing this) sort of make the argument that all these people who were baptized after they died “count” somehow. I mean, eh. Any port in a storm?
– Maybe a more reasonable argument is that the Church is just one of many valid ways to return to God, but again, they can’t really say that (although JS flirted with that more universalist idea) because if so, why would anyone pay tithing, wear terrible underwear, attend boring temples and meetings, follow the WoW, or clean the church for free? The only way to get people to do all this stuff is if they really believe it.
And having said all that, I do personally think that the size of membership, particularly now that it has stalled, is a pretty strong argument against. The flip side was certainly used as a strong argument “for” when it was the case. The main apologetic is that “in the last days, the very elect shall be deceived,” to which I say “OK boomer.”
Josh H,
One conclusion I’ve come to is that the Father and the Son likely place nearly (emphasis on nearly) the same amount of emphasis on the mortal experience in general as they do the acquisition of truth. I mean, knowing the Fall and Atonement was the plan, rather than a mistake and backup plan, God would have to know what we’re getting into, and that it would be extremely messy. And even if he routinely exerts his power to start new dispensations and a Church he calls his own, I don’t necessarily think that means his sphere of influence is limited to the Church, or even Christianity in general. And while I in no way would call myself a universalist, I am sure there is a mercy attached to that messiness that few of us understand.
Additionally, though many members would disagree with me, I tend to think of Earth life and mortality as both our present state, and the Spirit World, with the Spirit World here and really not being a heck of lot different than the life we’re living now. With that, you’d have believers preaching from every dispensation starting with Abel. I’d imagine the preaching is far more efficient on the other side a well. I’ve read or heard numerous stories of people preaching to others in settings as small as a classroom, to nearly stadium sized. I also happen to be of the belief that the premortal and postmortal realms currently occupy the same space, so you’d have a whole host of unborn essentially added to the force. In short, if you decline to distinguish between unborn, living, and dead, as I do, it would not surprise me at all if true Gospel followers are one of the largest denominations currently occupying this sphere, if not the largest already.
For what it’s worth, I saw a stat somewhere just a few weeks ago that stated the current growth rate of the Church is, in fact, outpacing the general growth rate of the world, even with the slowing. I realize it would take millennia to make dent.
I’m a boomer, but not very elect.
Wasn’t the church suppose to have over a hundred million members by now. Guess that stone cut from the mountain was from the Franciscan complex. Just slip sliding along.
If I am remembering right, the purpose of missionary work was to find the elect. Searching for people descended from Ephraim. Kinda like the Stargate Atlantis gene.
So… the argument could be most of the elect are already gathered. So the only prospective members left were war in heaven malingerers who spent most of their time in the preexistence on the couch watching reruns and eating snacks. Hardly elect material. See, that means the church is true and it’s members are extra extra elect. Last days and all.
I agree that there are some good arguments against the church being “The One True Church”. The issue that Josh H. brings up about the church’s numbers problem is a strong argument.
In my opinion, the weakest arguments that I hear, are arguments of: “If it’s not all true, then none of it is true.” or “Because some if it is bad, all of it is bad.” Or any other type of black and white thinking when it comes to the church.
Whether or not the church is what it claims to be — the church teaches a lot of good values and true things. There are truths and good values found in every religion, including Mormonism. I haven’t found any organization at all that is “all good” or “all bad”. So I will leave the bad, and keep the good that is found in the LDS church. And I find arguments telling me that I need to leave all of it to be pretty weak.
P.S. Yes, I am familiar with Gordon B. Hinckley’s quote, “Each of us has to face the matter—either the Church is true, or it is a fraud. There is no middle ground.” Welp, that didn’t age well. In my opinion that was a mistake for him to say that. It does go to show, like Hawkgrrrl says in her post, that church leaders really do believe the church to be true. For me, if I’m already acknowledging that not everything in the church is true, but there is still a lot of good in it, I’ll just go ahead and fully discount and dismiss President Hinckley’s quote.
A common theme in the examples you give is claims about motives of leaders and founders of the church. I think this whole category is always going to be weak because it involves speculation about what is going on in someone else’s mind, which is inherently unknowable. Sometimes there is evidence to back up such speculations, but I see almost no evidence for any of it. There’s a pretty solid case for Joseph Smith doing deceptive things at various times, but it also looks to me like he believed in the religion he started, and that the present day leaders are sincere believers. I also think if the primary motivation of today’s church were accumulation of money they could have accumulated much more by now.
Another couple of weak anti arguments come from Evangelicals. The first is that Mormonism couldn’t possibly be true because it doesn’t have a Trinitarian view of God and Jesus. Sorry, but the Trinitarian view is not what immediately jumps out to me upon reading the Bible. It took serious mental gymnastics on the part of theologians from the 300s to the 1100s to arrive at that view. God and Jesus seem pretty darn separate in the New Testament. Not as some single super god with a bizarre nature who refers to himself in the third person. I’ve always thought that Mormon Godhead theory makes much more sense. Trinitarianism seems to have emerged out of the context of a fraught Greek-Israelite world where Greeks were cool with multiple gods and Israelites jealously guarded the idea of a single patron god. But alas, Bart Ehrman explains why we see separateness between God and Jesus in the NT. Because there is no evidence that Jesus promoted himself to be a god. It is only later followers who turned him into a god beginning with the Johannite community who composed the Book of John sometime between 85 and 110 AD. For it is only in the Book of John that Jesus says he is “I am” translated from YHWH, the Israelite patron god.
Related to that point is the poor anti argument that Mormons aren’t real Christians because they reject the real Jesus. Please. Of course Mormons are one of the many branches of Christianity. It has to be one of the most arrogant arguments made about Mormons and is a key reason why I detest Evangelical/Pentecostal/Southern Baptist (I can’t tell too much of a difference, many go by the label of non-denominational as well) rhetoric about Mormons. Even though I am not a believer in traditional Mormon teachings, the Evangelicals real grate on me and I am committed to defending Mormonism from their ridiculous attacks.
“The Church leaders don’t believe the Church is true.”
In the nonbelievers and critics I’ve talked to personally, I’ve often found the way they say this is just as revealing as what they’re saying. On the one hand, it almost feels like a backhanded compliment. Surely a doctor/lawyer/professor/international business person is smart enough and full of enough enriching life experience to realize it’s all false. They have to be hanging on to power or cultural ties only. On the other hand, though I could be admittedly reading too much into it, it’s almost as if the some have said it out of mild desperation. If these leaders largely have their crap together in every other way, then I’d be forced to admit the slightest possibility that they’ve discovered something quite reasonable and wonderful that I may be forced to confront or reconcile with at some point.
Despite the fact that there’s generally a positive correlation between education levels and activity in the Church, I think most believers and nonbelievers would do well to recognize that there are plenty of smart and not so smart people among leadership, regular membership, and the nonbelieving.
From my own experiences, in the few general authorities I’ve met personally, I’ve found the sincerity factor to be on the more convincing side, transcending anything you see or hear over the airwaves. Also, Elder Holland is a lot shorter than he looks on TV.
Maybe my comment about sex trafficking missions was correct up until about 1870, but it no longer is. The church has reformed itself since the days of Brigham Young.
Somewhere else I commented that Smith created a byzantine structure. I see it like an old grade school jungle gym you can clamber around in. Stand on the top, hang upside down, and when you get bored go play on the swings. The temples seem exactly like that. A big divertissement.
I don’t say that as a Southern Baptist or a Catholic or a Mennonite or a Buddhist. I say it as a curious outsider observing the fish swimming in your aquarium.
I had a Mormon sugar cookie with coffee this morning. Ghastly sweet frosting with sprinkles just like it was from Fiiz. Good every now and then. In exchange here’s some recipes from my aquarium.
http://www.mennonitegirlscancook.ca/?m=1
We brought a lot of them from Ukraine 100 years ago. Try the plumimoos and cabbage borscht if nothing else.
As an aside the Mennonites had their Restoration movement in the late 1500’s under Zwingli. There was no need for golden plates, just a return to the Book of Acts. Adult baptism specifically.
I thought the reasoning for keeping the place names issue in the CES letter was more along the lines of that those places were probably referred to by those names locally long before they were actually incorporated with the names. This theory makes sense to me, but I don’t think I’ve seen any hard evidence either way.
I always thought that one of the dumbest ‘anti’ claims was that the book of revelation says that nothing can be added to the book and therefore no BOM. Just a silly and complete misunderstanding of what revelations and the Bible are or ever were.
Josh H,
There are two other points I completely failed to bring up earlier.
How successful do you think the Gospel of Jesus Christ would be on a planet that, according to some LDS leaders, was likely one of the only ones or the only one wicked enough to kill its Savior in the first place? Probably not very successful. I have a hunch The Church of Jesus Christ is more successful on other worlds, despite the fact the Messiah was not born on any of them. In fact, there are a couple of good LDS science fiction novels out there that deal a little bit with that, along with the scientific advancements that would move forward on a planet that had largely accepted Christ for most of its existence.
Plus, there’s the millennium. From what I understand, most of the population of the earth that ever existed or will exist will be during that time, when the Gospel goes forth largely unhindered. I feel like that levels the playing field for most mortals and wrongs of the past become righted. It doesn’t initially seem fair to me, but those born during the time eventually face temptation again once the millennium is over. I’m hopeful most will reject that temptation.
Speaking truly Universally, I think one could make a fairly good argument you and I and the rest of humanity got the relative short end of the stick by being born when and where we are. I do think the Lord accounts for that, and I ultimately wouldn’t trade it for anything else, knowing many leaders have argued the exact opposite.
I just want to say, I don’t have strong feelings about anything any of you are talking about. It strikes me as intellectual ideas, rather than spiritual in nature. I have read and studied many of the concepts and history challenging Mormonism. I am still studying. I have hunger for in depth study of every point of view: however I have little interest in excluding points of view.
I feel very comfortable in uncertainty. I resent people and concepts that try to require me to choose true or false or black or white, be they church leaders and culture, or nuanced or exmormons.
My experience of life is all in the grey and in between areas. It’s how I think. About your theories I think, maybe, maybe not. In most anything I object to in the church, I can also understand (but not always accept as right) some of the reasons they choose this.
I do not mean I don’t have deep and strong convictions. I definitely feel deeply convicted about many things. I guess you could call it a testimony of sorts, though it doesn’t match the conventional. Some my testimony is about standing up for what is right, even if church leaders firmly disagree, even if there should be consequences for my disagreement. Nothing is worth it without sacrifice. I experience a lot of peace, guidance and connection with God, whoever They may be.
These were my off topic thoughts as I enjoyed your intellectual discussion. I appreciate having a place to share it even if topic.
Off topic not if topic. Spell check is determined to put spell check me and change my meanings. I would prefer to eliminate it if I had the technical skills
“The temple is like a cult, with its weird chanting and ritual!” – I’m a convert to the church and my background prior to joining was non-Christian. My family’s religious affiliations include millennia-old practices that feature rote prayer, chanting, and ritual. There are most definitely bones to pick with the temple (gender roles, secrecy, relationship to Christianity, revision over time, etc), but I feel like critics seize on these aspects of temple practice that just aren’t a big deal unless you either want to discard all religious practice, or insist on a modern American protestant worship ideal that has no ritual whatsoever.
Admittedly, if we didn’t have so much secrecy around the temple, it would probably make people feel substantially less weird about it.
The Book of Mormon is the only scripture God took away from us. The rest of the Bible has been translated and retranslated over 3000 years. God did not send an angel to take it away.
Given Smith’s known translation inaccuracy (Pearl of Great Price, an Egyptian funerary script) and his stilted KJV language, The Book of Mormon needs correction. Yet God has taken the original material away.
lws329 brings up an interesting point. Some people stay in or leave the church because their belief is rooted in the truth claims. Others operate on a much more emotional level—church either feels good or it doesn’t. So one of the strongest “anti” arguments might actually be: This place is toxic and it makes me feel awful. No amount of apologetics is going to change that.
Here’s an argument for someone to weigh in on: Joseph Smith was a fundamentally untrustworthy person. He was paid for treasure hunting services that never yielded results using the same peep stone that he used to translate the Book of Mormon. Worse, he lied under oath about polygamy.
There’s a great line in A Man for All Seasons: “When a man takes an oath he’s holding his own self in his own hands. Like water. And if he opens his fingers just a little, he needn’t hope to find himself again.”
IMO that’s a good reason to be deeply skeptical of everything Joseph Smith ever said.
I think Bro. Jones has a point about chanting in the temple. The word “cult” seems to get applied to two different categories: religions that exercise a high degree of control over their members (the focus of Steven Hassan’s research), and religions that practice rituals that are often old and seem strange to the uninitiated. I don’t think there’s much correlation between the two. Is a group that is trying to revive ancient pagan ritual a cult? It could go either way, I think, and depends on factors unrelated to the nature of the rituals. I’m not going to deny that the temple is uncomfortable for a lot of people (which Bro. Jones correctly suggests could be alleviated by greater transparency), but I think cult is an imprecise term to describe it.
Kirkstall,
When church is toxic to mental health, I find that very concerning and contrary to the purposes of the gospel. But it doesn’t inherently have to be toxic. It’s individual leaders and teachings that make it toxic. Those oughta be ended.
I believe that Joseph Smith was successful enough at treasure hunting to continue doing it. I worked with a guy who dug old outhouses in Aberdeen. He was after the antique perfume bottles the whores disposed of there. He found a lot of them. IMO Smith found treasure similarly, digging old cabin and settlement sites. I doubt that his peepstones helped other than to impress his clients, like dowsing sticks. Smith’s talent was in finding likely treasure sites. Knowing where the outhouses used to be.
Weak arguments can exist on both sides of the same issue. Faithful TBMs like to assert that Joseph Smith was an uneducated, semi-literate country bumpkin, thus he could not have produced the BofM without extensive divine assistance, therefore the BofM (and by extension, the COJCOLDS) is true. A common “anti” counter-argument is that Joseph was actually a charismatic genius executing a long con, who pulled the BofM out of his backside and founded the Church primarily to further his own nefarious ambitions (profit, political power, polygamy, etc), therefore it must be all false because it is founded on dishonesty and deception. The truth is much more complicated, but also much more simple than either of these propositions.
Gold plates as scripture texts are not found in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Babylon, Palestine or Hittite sites. Clay and stone were used, but for extensive text papyrus and parchment scrolls were the norm.
Smith’s account would be credible if he had found something like the Dead Sea scrolls and delivered them to Boston or New York for translation. But he didn’t. He wasn’t motivated by making an important discovery and sharing it with the world.
I have tried to consider the worst anti arguments I know the past couple of days but the issue for me is that the Church has chosen to engage with each of them in some way, which for me legitimizes them somewhat. To wit:
“If it’s not true then it’s a lie.” I mean, I want to be in the camp that if people find meaning and joy in the faith community, more power to them. But President Hinckley agrees with the critics on this one.
“It’s true because it’s growing so now that it’s not growing it’s not true.” Again, the church was all in on this rhetoric during the growth spurt of the 70s-90s. Once the numbers were less favorable, they simply stopped talking about them.
“If the church is so great why are the members so mid?” I don’t expect perfection from my coworkers, clients, neighbors, or family. But the Church goes on the offensive saying the only way to be happy is in the church. So then why aren’t the members any different from all the non-members?
“They claim revelation but check the receipts.” Here is seems the goal for President Nelson is to simply make up in quantity what is so lacking in quality.
In sum, these aren’t the greatest arguments, but the church’s binary thinking on the faith spectrum means that even the worst arguments get a seat at the table.
Jack Hughes; I honestly don’t know how anyone who has actually read the BOM can seriously call JS a “genius.” It’s not great writing by any measure. I mean, parts of the Bible also suck, so whatever. But that argument just always seems ridiculous to me. The characters are flat and undeveloped. There are hardly any women. There are many anachronisms. It’s extremely repetitive. Loads of the stories are lifted straight out of the Bible, so it’s not unique.
What an interesting post and great discussion!
IMO, the weakest arguments attack the Brethren. I believe that the leaders all believe the Church is true and the best to Christ. They aren’t con artists. They also aren’t getting rich. Their living stipends are comfortable, that is true, but if you look at the compensation package for the top 15 people running a Fortune 500 company (Church is rich enough and big enough to be on the list), they are being paid peanuts. And their work schedule is horrible. All that travel. All those evenings and weekends. They get July off and that’s it. Ugh. Their stipends could be 3x what they are and they would still be underpaid if you compare the Q15 to any other business exec of a $40B company. It was a mistake for the Church to trumpet the idea of unpaid clergy though. That made them look like hypocrites. Obviously, if you want people spending all their time on Church matters, you have to pay them.
Any Bible-bashing or scripture analysis is a weak argument. You can find scriptures on basically any side of an issue. I had a woman at a Pentecostal church offer to give me a book showing every place the Doctrine and Covenants contradicted the Bible. I could not be less interested in that. I already know the contradictions. Did she want to hear about the contradictions within the Bible? No, she did not.
I’m in lws329’s camp as summarized by Kirkstall. The black and white truth claims weren’t a high priority for me as long as I felt like I belonged at Church. A huge factor in my departure was a horrible experience. I ‘chose to get offended’ more than any other reason. And that experience, coming after several years of feeling more and more like a misfit at Church, was enough to show me the door.
I stayed as long as I did because I thought faithful practices like prayer, scripture study, and temple attendance helped with my mental health. I didn’t care about truth claims because I needed Church (or thought I did) to deal with my wild mood swings. It turned out I was wrong, but I didn’t find that out until after I left. In the years that I thought the Church was my best hope for peace of mind, it wouldn’t have mattered to me what scandals happened or how much evidence to the contrary existed.
Janey: “Their living stipends are comfortable, that is true, but if you look at the compensation package for the top 15 people running a Fortune 500 company (Church is rich enough and big enough to be on the list), they are being paid peanuts.” I don’t agree with you there because these are guys who’ve basically retired decades ago, so it’s more like getting a cushy pension. I agree with you that I don’t think they are motivated by money, but I wouldn’t downplay the value of getting a six-figure annual salary from retirement to age 100. I’ve also heard (but not from direct sources) that their debts are discharged as well, although I can’t say if that’s accurate, other expenses (travel & full health) are paid by the church, and they don’t pay tithing on these stipends. Again, that may not be accurate–you know how the rumor mill churns–but even if none of that’s accurate, getting $120K a year after retirement until death would make a whole lot of difference to basically every retiree I know. Oh, and I bet they are all NDA’d to death because if I were the Church’s lawyer, that’s what I would do (and I’m not even a lawyer!). So even if someone stopped believing, they probably signed away their right to talk about it.
Regarding the Bible-bashing, I totally agree that is some weak sauce. If any individual faith held the perfect interpretation of scripture, there would be only one Church. Probably the worst argument of all those based on scripture are the “sola scriptura” Evangelicals who believe that the Bible says you can’t add anything to scripture. It’s laughable since that passage isn’t even the last thing that was added to the Bible which is itself a compilation of different sources.
Hawkgrrl – you’re right the stipend is valuable for a retiree. I was comparing the stipend to the salary they’d make if they were running a company that’s comparable to the Church. I looked up highest paid CEOs just now. Number 100 on the list is the CEO of KLA Corporation (semi-conductors). The CEO’s 2019 salary: $20,512,367. Then I looked up KLA’s financial disclosures. In 2019, KLA had $5.6 billion in assets, with operating revenue that year of $4.3 billion. Those numbers are significantly smaller than the Church’s asset portfolio.
Comparing Church leaders’ stipend to average retirees definitely puts them in a great situation. But comparing the stipend to what men earn when they’re running a multi-billion dollar entity really is peanuts. $120,000 per year until death just doesn’t stack up against even one year of earning a $20 million salary.
Here’s my faith-promoting rumor: There was a muckraking journalist who came to SLC when Hinckley was president, with the intention of writing a tell-all about the Church leaders living large on church donations. This wasn’t long after several televangelists were disgraced by stories about their lavish lifestyles and this journalist was hoping to expose LDS leaders. Anyway, the muckraker did his investigation and left quietly. Hinckley wasn’t taking lavish vacations, living in a mansion, or buying a fleet of sports cars.
I expected some refutations to my anti-arguments. I’ll refute the first. LDS has changed for the better since polygamy ended. Mormon missionaries may be obnoxious but they are no longer recruiting for polygamy.
I can’t refute my other anti-arguments. Plates were never used as scripture codices, and God never sends angels to repossess scripture. The story of The Book of Mormon’s origin is an 1820 treasure hunter’s fabrication, complete with secret caves, gold, lucky stones and wrestling with spooks. It’s a hilarious supernatural fantasy, like Ghostbusters.
similar to Janey, and furthermore:
”retirees” isn’t a relevant comparable. (I’m not sure Fortune 500 CEOs are the right counter factual, either.) but GAs aren’t retired; as has been pointed out they sort of relentlessly travel and attend meetings and direct local reorgs etc etc. it’s nonsensical to say “retired people would love to get a free 100 K also” … because it’s not free. the point is, there’s no question they’re quite busy. Of course, if one is disaffected and not impressed with the work itself that they are actually doing, well that’s a different argument altogether. But these aren’t retired people.
Besides, good skilled electricians make far more than the 120 K per year. I just don’t think this is much of a critique.
Sorry for the late addition here but Josh’s question reminded me of a crucial event in my disillusionment with the church. I was in the carpool lane on I-15 in Kaysville and was debating the war in heaven in my mind when I realized there is no way I would have picked THIS plan. I wouldn’t pick a plan where almost no one would hear the covenant path and be able to find the way to salvation. I had learned you can’t trust prayer as an answer so there wasn’t even a clear way of discerning the right path. Considering all the human life on the entire planet over the last 100 thousand years or so, is this life really a test if you don’t ever get to choose the right path? Is the only reason for this life to get a body? Why go through all the elections, the wars, the violence, the lies and manipulation, all the extreme conditions we’ve placed each other in over the span of human history? Why the need for so much disparity if we are all just taught in the afterlife? Was the war in heaven really a race to the bottom? Were we picking the least-bad of two bad plans? At that moment I realized I absolutely would have backed Lucifer’s plan. Things began unraveling from there and went seriously downhill after the 2016 election.
The small church membership seems to me to be a weak argument and not likely to persuade a TBM, but I suddenly felt the weight of it once. It was enough to let me begin to see all the arguments.
Corou:
I’ve wondered about the same doctrine and how it applies today. Mormons say they believe in the War in Heaven and “free agency,” but when it comes to choice, they want to use the power of government to take away choice with abortions. They also don’t mind using the power of government to limit choice with LGBTQ or Transgender issues, certain books, marijuana, and any number of right-wing other problems. Of course, they cry foul if the government says you can’t pray in schools, which means at graduations and where the school appears to endorse any religion. You can still pray in schools as an individual but this and many other right-wing problems get distorted when freedom is not taken away but is defined in such a way as to not infringe on another’s freedom. The War in Heaven is still being fought today here on Earth. We need laws and we need government but we also need to protect choice. Here in is the problem: agreeing on the choices we allow.
Corou,
Yes!
Where I’ve seen the faithful land on this is that everyone is going to suddenly accept the Rocky Mountain Mormon Jesus in the afterlife. Hence why all these temples that won’t be fully staffed when they are built but will be bursting at the seams in the Millennium. To wit, there is a conversation on this very thread at T&S right now saying as much. I guess if you believe people of color will be white and queer people will not be queer, it’s not hard to believe everyone chooses the religion they rejected while in so-called spirit prison. I suppose I even taught as much as a missionary.