Analysis of websites critical of Mormonism

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• Critical websites initially presenting themselves as being run by active or believing Church members
• Online documents by disaffected Church members and ex-Mormons
• Online documents from non-Mormon sources
• Countercult ministries

Critical websites initially presenting themselves as being run by active or believing Church members

Summary: These articles respond to websites that initially presented themselves as being run by active or believing Church members. The authors of these sites wrote as if they were simply believing members who were interested in researching the "truth" about Mormonism. Over time, it has become apparent that these sites are run by ex-Mormons who are hostile to the Church.

Jump to Subtopic:

• A FairMormon Analysis of claims made on the critical website MormonThink.com

FutureMissionary.com

Summary: The website futuremissionary.com is designed to shake the faith of prospective missionaries by blindsiding them with troubling issues related to Church history. The site's anonymous authors claim to be returned missionaries. At the time that the site first went "live," the authors initially wrote as though they were "believing" members who naively accepted controversial statements and ideas without question. Eventually, over time, they finally admitted in their "Who are We?" section of the website that they are ex-Mormons. The most prominent and detailed page on the website is "A Letter to a CES Director: Why I Lost My Testimony." The authors claim that such blatant materials will help to prepare missionaries for questions and challenges they will face. In reality, the letter and other material on the site only introduce attacks on the church without discussing crucial context and explanations that would help readers fully understand the material. The approach and tone of the FutureMissionary site resembles that of MormonThink.com before MormonThink became openly antagonistic toward the Church in late 2012.

A FairMormon Analysis of claims made on the critical website MormonThink.com

Summary: The web site MormonThink.com originally claimed to be operated by active members of the Church with an interest in objectively presenting the "truth" about Mormonism. They authors have since abandoned the pretense that any of them are "active" in the Church. The founding webmaster was, by his own admission, pretending to be semi-active in order to destroy members' and missionaries' testimonies from within the social structure of the Church. The site pretends to be "balanced" by presenting information and links to apologetic sites, however, the conclusions reached by the site consistently reflect negatively on the Church's truth claims. The site also sometimes contains a large amount of Temple content.

Jump to details:

• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "Translation of the Book of Mormon"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "Book of Mormon Problems"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "The Lost 116 Pages of the Book of Mormon"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon?"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "The Witnesses"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "Moroni's Visitation"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "The First Vision"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "The Book of Abraham"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "The Kinderhook Plates"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "Joseph's Translation of the Bible"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "Running with Gold Plates"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "Polygamy"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "Blacks and the Priesthood"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "The Greek Psalter Incident"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "Conflicts with Science"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "Tithing"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "The Temple"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "Lying for the Lord"
• Response to claims made on MormonThink page "Doctrine & Covenants"

Analysis of online documents critical of Mormonism

Jump to Subtopic:

• Response to claims made in "A Letter to an Apostle" by Paul A. Douglas
• Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" by Anonymous
• Response to claims made in "Letter to a CES Director" and "Debunking FAIR's Debunking" by Jeremy Runnells
• Response to claims made by "The Foundation for LDS Scholarship"
• Response to "Questions and Answers" on Mormon Stories (revision 25 June 2014)

Online documents from non-Mormon sources

Summary: These articles review online documents from non-Mormon sources.

Mormonism and Wikipedia

Summary: FairMormon regularly receives queries about specific LDS-themed Wikipedia articles with requests that we somehow "fix" them. Although some individual members of FairMormon may choose to edit Wikipedia articles, FairMormon as an organization does not. Controversial Wikipedia articles require constant maintenance and a significant amount of time. We prefer instead to respond to claims in FairMormon Answers rather than fight the ongoing battle that LDS Wikipedia articles sometimes invite. From FAIR’s perspective, assertions made in LDS-themed Wikipedia articles are therefore treated just like any other critical (or, if one prefers, "anti-Mormon") work. As those articles are revised and updated, we will periodically update our reviews to match.

Countercult ministries

Summary: These are ministries that are targeted primarily at opposing Mormonism.

Jump to Subtopic:

• Answers to Questions All Mormons Should Ask Themselves
• Response to "Facts Mormons Won't Tell You When They Call at Your Door"

Answers to Questions All Mormons Should Ask Themselves

Summary: According to Contender Ministries, FAIR's responses are "deceptive and the original questions are still without adequate and truthful answers." The site owners also claim that "FAIR can pack a lot of deception into a paragraph or two." Apparently, this anti-Mormon ministry considers any interpretation of the Bible other than their own to be "deceptive." We invite our readers to thoroughly research and investigate our responses. If errors are discovered, we will be happy to correct them.

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• Question: What is Contender Ministries' "Questions All Mormons Should Ask Themselves?"
• Response to "Questions All Mormons Should Ask Themselves" (Questions 1-28)
• Response to "Questions All Mormons Should Ask Themselves" (Questions 29-58)
• Countercult ministries: Contender Ministries

Institute for Religious Research

Summary: According to the IRR website, "The LDS Church teaches a number of things that conflict with the Bible and are radically different from the beliefs of Christians down through the centuries. If Mormonism denies the core teachings of biblical Christianity, should it still be considered an authentic expression of true Christianity?"

Countercult ministries: Macgregor Ministries

Summary: The website claims that all articles on Mormonism contained therein are "all written from a Christian perspective and explain the differences between Mormonism and orthodox Christianity."

Jump to details:

• Response to "Facts Mormons Won't Tell You When They Call at Your Door"

Response to "Facts Mormons Won't Tell You When They Call at Your Door"

Summary: The alleged "facts" about Mormonism given by Macgregor Ministries contain so much hyperbole that they will greatly amuse most Latter-day Saints. Nevertheless, we respond to each of these "facts" here.

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• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that they believe your Church is wrong, your Christian creeds are abomination to God, and your pastor or Priest is a hireling of Satan"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that there is salvation only in their church - all others are wrong"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that those who have been through their temples are wearing secret underwear to protect themselves from "evil". This "evil" includes non - Mormons like you"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU about their secret temple rites at all. If they did, you would spot them as non Christians immediately"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that they think 'familiar spirits' are good, and that their Book of Mormon has a 'familiar spirit'. Leviticus 19:31 says familiar spirits defile one, and are to be avoided at all costs"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that women receive salvation only through their Mormon husbands, and must remain pregnant for all eternity"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that they intend to be gods themselves some day, and are helping to earn their exaltation to godhood by talking to you"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that they intend to have many wives in heaven, carrying on multiple sex relations throughout eternity, until they have enough children to populate their own earth, so they can be "Heavenly Father" over their own planet!"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that you were once a spirit - child of their heavenly father, and one of his numerous wives before you were born on earth"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that the Virgin Mary really wasn't a virgin at all but had sex relations with their heavenly father"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that they believe Jesus had at least three wives and children while he was on this earth"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that the 'heavenly father' they ask you to pray to with them, is really an exalted man that lives on a planet near the star base Kolob, and is not the Heavenly Father of the Bible at all"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that Jesus was really Lucifer's brother in the spirit world, and it was only due to a "heavenly council" vote that Jesus became our redeemer instead of Satan!!"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that there are over one hundred divisions in Mormonism. They conveniently 'forget' this while criticizing the many denominations within the body of Christ"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that all their so- called scriptures such as the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, Doctrine and Covenants, and even their official 'Mormon Doctrine' statements contradict each other on MAJOR doctrinal points. The King James Bible is likewise contradicted"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that the reason the Book of Mormon has no maps is because there is not one scrap of archaeological evidence to support it!"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that the state of Utah, which is predominately Mormon, has a higher than the national average of wife-beating, child abuse, and teenage suicide"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that their prophet Joseph Smith was heavily involved in the occult when he founded Mormonism"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that that they encourage visitations from dead relatives from the 'spirit world', a practice forbidden in the Bible"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that there are many accounts of Joseph Smith's first vision besides the one they present to you, and all are different"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that their secret temple oaths are based on the Scottish Rite Masons"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that before 1978 they considered the Negro race inferior, and even one drop of Negro blood prevented a person from entering their priesthood"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that they expect Christ to return to their temple in Missouri, but they haven't built the temple He's supposed to return to, because they don't own the property"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that they consider the Bible to be untrustworthy and full of errors"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that Jesus' death on the cross only partially saves the believer"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that that according to Anton Lavey's Satanic Bible, the demon god of the living dead is called "Mormo". Is it just a coincidence that the Mormons are so concerned with the dead?"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that on their Salt Lake City Temple they prominently display an upside-down star which is a Satanic symbol known as the Goat's head. Why?"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that they believe the Archangel Michael came down to earth with several of his celestial wives, and became Adam in the garden of Eden"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that that they believe the angel Gabriel came down to earth and became Noah in the days of the flood"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that their Prophet Joseph Smith prophesied falsely many times. For example, he foretold the second coming of Christ for 1891"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that their Prophet Joseph Smith did not die as a martyr as they claim, but was killed during a gun battle in which he himself killed two men and wounded a third"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU about the Mountain Meadows Massacre in which they brutally murdered an innocent wagon train of settlers, of over one hundred men, women, and most of the children, traveling through Utah"
• Response to claim: "MORMONS WON'T TELL YOU that Joseph Smith taught that there were inhabitants on the moon, and Brigham Young taught there were inhabitants on the sun as well!"

Countercult ministries: Tower to Truth Ministries

Jump to details:

• Answers to "50 Questions to Ask Mormons"

Watchman Fellowship

Summary: According to their website, "Watchman Fellowship is an independent, nondenominational Christian research and apologetics ministry focusing on new religious movements, cults, the occult and the New Age."

The Interactive Bible

Summary: The Interactive Bible website states that they are "the same as the church of the Bible."

• • Answers to "Difficult Questions for Mormons"—
    Brief Summary: The website lists a number of questions under the title "Difficult Questions for Mormons". (Click here for full article)
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Utah Lighthouse Ministry

Summary: According to their website, "The purpose of [Utah Lighthouse Ministry] is to document problems with the claims of Mormonism and compare LDS doctrines with Christianity."

• • Contradictions in LDS Scripture—
    Brief Summary: Many conservative Protestant critics have reproduced a table which purports to show how LDS scripture contradicts itself. FairMormon examines the supposed contradictions, presents the scriptures cited in context, and demonstrates that claims of contradiction rest on: 1) a misinterpretation of LDS scripture and 2)comparing two verses which are speaking about different things reading Protestant meanings into scriptural terminology (Click here for full article)
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  • Sandra Tanner: Bible and Book of Mormon Contradictions—
    Brief Summary: Sandra Tanner provides a feeble and long-answered short list of supposed "contradictions" between the Bible and the Book of Mormon (Click here for full article)
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Evangelical witnessing to Mormons

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• Response to "Dr. Craig Blomberg's 'Top Ten Things Jesus Would Say to Mormons'"