Anti-Mormonism, Another Take

[Kishkumen]

And especially a religion that has canonized attacks on other religions in their scripture:

I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”

Yes, incorporating Alexander Campbell's anti-creed rhetoric here was probably not the best idea. But, it should be noted that attacking the creeds on the argument that the creeds are a divisive force in Christianity was very much in the air long before this was reported in an account of the First Vision, and it was an argument made by Christians about other Christians.

[I Have Questions]

No more scenarios. I just found it interesting to explore what I saw as an illogical double standard in how you viewed things. I’ve concluded it’s not the act of attacking a religion that bothers you, nor the accuracy or validity of the attack, it’s who the perpetrators are that determines whether you find it acceptable or not. I’ve not come across that way of thinking very often.

Then you are drawing incorrect conclusions based on limited data.

That’s definitely possible.

[Dr. Shades]

You find the Tanners' motives to be in poor form, but do you find any of their information on Mormonism to be inaccurate?

Do you think it is possible to draw incorrect conclusions using facts?

Of course.

So it appears that you only believe their conclusions are false, not their information. Their conclusions boil down to the position that Mormonism is false. Do you think they are wrong about that? If not, why not?

[Gadianton]

Their conclusions boil down to the position that Mormonism is false. Do you think they are wrong about that? If not, why not?

That's a bit of an ambiguous question, because you're going to disagree on what the word "truth" means. Don't shoot the messenger, I'm just sayin it.

As for the Tanners themselves, don't you think that they concluded Mormonism was false long before they investigated their first line item?

If you lived in a world where your only choices for learning church history was official church publications and what the Tanners produced, then clearly the Tanners win. I think a point that really drives that home is something you featured on your website. The Mormon leaders with all their degrees and money and consultants were fooled by Mark Hoffman, while the Tanners saw through it pretty easily. That's the power of the authoritarian information vacuum on full display. There is no comparison between the credibility of the Tanners and the credibility of the Church when it comes to church history. The Tanners win. Even today, the only question in the minds of Church leaders is how and what they can lie about and spin in order to maintain their foundation stories.

In the bigger picture, where the Tanners become annoying is that Mormonism is a modern religion and makes a lot of big religious claims, and therefore it's very easy to debunk. The big religious claims are standard fare for what the Tanners also believe as Christians, but obscured by thousands of years and protected by cultural acceptance of the Bible. And so what the Tanners really do, is provide a shady kind of justification for Evangelical Christians, who can have a good laugh at the failures of the Mormon narrative to match up with reality, while the only difference between Mormonism and EV positions in terms of credibility is falsifiability. Internet Mormonism works hard on that problem while Christians have had thousands of years to fix the issue for themselves.

That kind of bad thinking is a real blight to the world. Markk is intelligent and he is pretty good at sticking to a point unlike his peers on this board, but at the end of the day, he found basic factual reasoning for long enough to get out of Mormonism, only to become an right-wing culture warrior supported by narratives that crumble under the slightest fact checking, just like Mormon faithful history does.

[Markk]

The ex-Mormon, post-Mormon, liberal-Mormon, etc. world has largely left the world of counter-cult ministries behind. By counter-cult I just mean Christians who were publishing the seedier elements of Mormon history and doctrine with largely religious motivations: they thought the LDS church was false, that their version of Christianity was true, and that publishing on Mormonism was a means of defeating the former in favor of the latter.

I think this is a case of amnesia and biting the hand that feeds you. The counter-cult ministries provided a service to the Mormon community that only they could provide at the time. They were the only group of people that both had motivations to study Mormonism and a free hand to publish on it. Mormons had motivations, but the consequences to Mormons publishing truthful information in the mid 20th century were severe. The LDS church wielded this weapon with impunity, it was easier to excommunicate and shun authors rather than deal with their writings. See the examples of Fawn Brodie and Juanita Brooks.

Secular research into Mormonism was a tiny fraction of what it is now. Before Rodney Stark's claims that Mormonism was about to become a world religion, nobody cared all that much about Mormonism.

That left only the counter-cult people to do research and publish on Mormonism. The LDS church vacillated between denouncing these publications (and bringing attention to it) or ignoring it (and therefore letting the research stand).

Walter Martin did work on the early history of Joseph Smith that wasn't known or published about. He was the one who figured out that an 1820 revival in Palmyra was highly unlikely, 1824 being a much better fit. He also discovered the court documents for the 1826 trial of Joseph Smith, something that Mormon scholars didn't know existed (and likely didn't want it to exist).

Gerald and Sandra Tanner republished tons of early Mormon literature. In today's internet world, this isn't a big deal since any schlub can throw up stuff on the internet. But pre-internet this took a lot of time, effort, and money, i.e. you needed motivation. The LDS church wasn't publishing any of this, they were more than happy to let that stuff languish. They also were the primary movers in the study of the Book of Abraham by publishing the Kirtland Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian language. If it were not for them, that would have languished for decades more and the LDS church probably would not have let people have access to the rediscovered papyrii. I'll also add this speculation, I think that the new Mormon history of the 1970's was not motivated by scholarly desires to liberalize access to Mormon history. It was an attempt by LDS leaders to counteract the Tanners by doing better research using trusted Mormon scholars. It didn't work out so well for them.

Even the tawdrier stuff had some positive aspects for the current post-Mo world. Ed Decker lambasted the Mormon temple, which people rightly point out as unfair and sacreligous. But it was only a few years after Decker spilled the beans that the LDS church changed the endowment to take out the most offensive parts. And a lot of Mormons learned about Adam-God from Walter Martin's Kingdom of the Cults. This was at the same time as the LDS authorities were denying its existence.

The secular world has moved beyond all of this, but were it not for this earlier work, work that Mormons did not do themselves because of fear of retribution from LDS leaders, the knowledge of Mormonism today would not be the same. It would probably be less than it is now, and if not less then certainly discovered more recently. Scholarship requires courage and motivation. Pre-internet it seems that the one group that had both were the counter-cult anti-Mormons.

Well written, thanks for writing it.

Its been around 35 years since I came out of the church, and about 33 years before I became a Evangelical. When I first started studying the truth claims of Mormonism it was from the anti counter cult material. I think the God Makers was the first anti book I read (read through) , it was given to me by my mother in law. Kingdom of the Cults was next. At first I just kind of laughed and told my self yeah sure. What got my attention was that Joseph Smith had a gun, fired it, and Taylor saying he actually killed a few men. I can't remember which anti book I read that from but it had a reference to the History of the Church.

My GF was a patriarch and area authority in the So Ca church and had passed away and my parents had his library at their home. I went over and checked it out, and bang...it was there in black and white. It hit my like a ton of bricks. All the emotions of my childhood and youth of Joseph going to his death like a lamb to slaughter went down the drain. That lead me to go back and actually read the books and not just read through them.

A bit later my wife and I drove up to Utah and went to the Tanners and I purchased Mormonism Shadow and Reality. It's kind of funny that Sandra was in the store and she and my wife probably talked for a half hour while I browsed, and occasionally I walked over to listen, but honestly I was either scared to death or embarrassed to talk to her, probably both, because I still had guilt for doubting my faith....I guess. It is hard for me to understand that time looking back, my emotions we scattered. But I read every page of the book, making trips to my parents home, cross checking and borrowing my grandfathers reference books, with his notes. Rare Books like Andrew Jensen's Historical record that records Joseph Smith polygamy.

I then went on a letter writing campaign typing letters to the brethren, and I actually got answers to several of my questions. None to my truth claim questions, but from doctrinal questions, like..."How can God be a everlasting God, if there was a time he was never a God." They were always answered by F. Michael Watson. He was great, polite, and encouraged me to ponder and pray. His answers though were mainly copies of Ensign/Era articles or JFS responses highlighted, not much help countering the counter cult materials.

Then the internet took off, I had dial up and a used 2.86 and the craziness started. By this time I was a on fire Evangelical. Its funny in those early days the arguments were things like "Adieu," or multiple threads on King James Only, or "what would a sword look like." On the other hand, much of the defense from the Mopologist was more of "your just and anti" than actually dealing with the heavier topics. James White, Bill Mckeever , Hank Hanegraaff were kind of heading the counter attacks and providing much of the arguments from the Evangelical side.

But you are correct, the secular world and the Evangelical world has moved on. Those folks that were on the forums one by one either left the church, checked out (PIMO), or kind of shut up. Today, at least in my view there is this forum, and MAD, or what ever name they go by and that is about it, in regard to the "old guard," but with no communication between the two.

Back in the day we had ABC, NBC, CBS nightly news for maybe a hour....today you have 24/7 new access. In sports we had the game of the week and the morning box scores, today we Have Sunday Ticket, split screen with 4 games, and streaming show like Dan Patrick and the Herd. In regard to Mormonism and the debate of....we have podcasts. Anybody with a smart phone, a app, and a cheap mic can tell you what they think. I kid with a smartphone, that wants to know about Mormonism, can gather more information in a hour that I did the first year when I first started my journey. And Facebook groups, X, etc....spread out the conversation which in the early days was so centralized.

You are a 100% correct if it was not for the early arguments, the narrative would be much different. And in my opinion, more importantly allowed folks like John Dahlin and Mormon Stories, not only stand up to the bully, but force the bully to concede ground, whether or not we agree with either.

My two cents

Note: It was Wesley Walters and not Walter Martin, you understandably got your Walters mixed. Walter Martin was the one that lied about his PHD and had a heart attack on the toilet, and the mopologists celebrated that, and made sure that was a talking point to counter anything true about the church that Martin wrote, they made sure to mention he died on the pot, and "piled" on him, pun intended.

[Failed Prophecy]

Note: It was Wesley Walters and not Walter Martin, you understandably got your Walters mixed. Walter Martin was the one that lied about his PHD and had a heart attack on the toilet, and the mopologists celebrated that, and made sure that was a talking point to counter anything true about the church that Martin wrote, they made sure to mention he died on the pot, and "piled" on him, pun intended.

I fixed it in the original post. I looked up the names and still got them confused.

[I Have Questions]

Note: It was Wesley Walters and not Walter Martin, you understandably got your Walters mixed. Walter Martin was the one that lied about his PHD and had a heart attack on the toilet, and the mopologists celebrated that, and made sure that was a talking point to counter anything true about the church that Martin wrote, they made sure to mention he died on the pot, and "piled" on him, pun intended.

I fixed it in the original post. I looked up the names and still got them confused.

Some opponents have made claims that Martin did not have a valid doctorate. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Brown of Arizona, two members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have stated that California Western University, now known as California Coast University (CCU) was not accredited at the time the degree was awarded.[56] In addition some opponents of Martin claim he purchased his doctorate from CCU, which they claim was a degree mill.[57] Martin completed all the coursework at New York University, which is also an accredited school.[original research?] Furthermore, California Coast University also offers fully accredited programs,[58] being approved by the State of California since 1974.[10] Such approval is currently granted by the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education.[59] It, however, received national accreditation only in 2005, from the Distance Education and Training Council (DETC).[60] It obtained this status after a study by the US General Accounting Office (GAO), which sought to provide national accreditation to schools that offered high-quality education, which concluded that CCU was never a diploma mill and never committed wrongdoing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Ralston_Martin

[Kishkumen]

That's a bit of an ambiguous question, because you're going to disagree on what the word "truth" means. Don't shoot the messenger, I'm just sayin it.

As for the Tanners themselves, don't you think that they concluded Mormonism was false long before they investigated their first line item?

If you lived in a world where your only choices for learning church history was official church publications and what the Tanners produced, then clearly the Tanners win. I think a point that really drives that home is something you featured on your website. The Mormon leaders with all their degrees and money and consultants were fooled by Mark Hoffman, while the Tanners saw through it pretty easily. That's the power of the authoritarian information vacuum on full display. There is no comparison between the credibility of the Tanners and the credibility of the Church when it comes to church history. The Tanners win. Even today, the only question in the minds of Church leaders is how and what they can lie about and spin in order to maintain their foundation stories.

In the bigger picture, where the Tanners become annoying is that Mormonism is a modern religion and makes a lot of big religious claims, and therefore it's very easy to debunk. The big religious claims are standard fare for what the Tanners also believe as Christians, but obscured by thousands of years and protected by cultural acceptance of the Bible. And so what the Tanners really do, is provide a shady kind of justification for Evangelical Christians, who can have a good laugh at the failures of the Mormon narrative to match up with reality, while the only difference between Mormonism and EV positions in terms of credibility is falsifiability. Internet Mormonism works hard on that problem while Christians have had thousands of years to fix the issue for themselves.

That kind of bad thinking is a real blight to the world. Markk is intelligent and he is pretty good at sticking to a point unlike his peers on this board, but at the end of the day, he found basic factual reasoning for long enough to get out of Mormonism, only to become an right-wing culture warrior supported by narratives that crumble under the slightest fact checking, just like Mormon faithful history does.

Indeed. Although it is not clear how intelligent Markk actually is, when he can’t understand basic popular metaphors. Looking back at old UTLM newsletters, I see a lot to like there, but the simplistic speculations regarding the motives of LDS leaders really shows the limitations that their project labors under. I mean, if you simplistically find satisfaction in apparent contradictions, and that’s all you need to conclude that Mormonism is bunk and all about lies and deceit, look no further! After all, you don’t want to. And honestly, the type of person who is satisfied with this kind of disconfirmation is not a person I will ever see eye to eye with. They take the first exit ramp because they already had. And, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there needs to be a perfect exit ramp, but that’s not the same as really understanding the history, which is what I am more interested in.

[Kishkumen]

Well written, thanks for writing it.

Its been around 35 years since I came out of the church, and about 33 years before I became a Evangelical. When I first started studying the truth claims of Mormonism it was from the anti counter cult material. I think the God Makers was the first anti book I read (read through) , it was given to me by my mother in law. Kingdom of the Cults was next. At first I just kind of laughed and told my self yeah sure. What got my attention was that Joseph Smith had a gun, fired it, and Taylor saying he actually killed a few men. I can't remember which anti book I read that from but it had a reference to the History of the Church.

My GF was a patriarch and area authority in the So Ca church and had passed away and my parents had his library at their home. I went over and checked it out, and bang...it was there in black and white. It hit my like a ton of bricks. All the emotions of my childhood and youth of Joseph going to his death like a lamb to slaughter went down the drain. That lead me to go back and actually read the books and not just read through them.

A bit later my wife and I drove up to Utah and went to the Tanners and I purchased Mormonism Shadow and Reality. It's kind of funny that Sandra was in the store and she and my wife probably talked for a half hour while I browsed, and occasionally I walked over to listen, but honestly I was either scared to death or embarrassed to talk to her, probably both, because I still had guilt for doubting my faith....I guess. It is hard for me to understand that time looking back, my emotions we scattered. But I read every page of the book, making trips to my parents home, cross checking and borrowing my grandfathers reference books, with his notes. Rare Books like Andrew Jensen's Historical record that records Joseph Smith polygamy.

I then went on a letter writing campaign typing letters to the brethren, and I actually got answers to several of my questions. None to my truth claim questions, but from doctrinal questions, like..."How can God be a everlasting God, if there was a time he was never a God." They were always answered by F. Michael Watson. He was great, polite, and encouraged me to ponder and pray. His answers though were mainly copies of Ensign/Era articles or JFS responses highlighted, not much help countering the counter cult materials.

Then the internet took off, I had dial up and a used 2.86 and the craziness started. By this time I was a on fire Evangelical. It’s funny in those early days the arguments were things like "Adieu," or multiple threads on King James Only, or "what would a sword look like." On the other hand, much of the defense from the Mopologist was more of "your just and anti" than actually dealing with the heavier topics. James White, Bill Mckeever , Hank Hanegraaff were kind of heading the counter attacks and providing much of the arguments from the Evangelical side.

Whatever our differences are, I enjoyed reading this, and I am glad you posted it.

[Markk]

KIsh Wrote...,Indeed. Although it is not clear how intelligent Markk actually is, when he can’t understand basic popular metaphors.

LOL...I'll make it easy on you, I am just a dumb ass trying to figure this world and existence out, with eternal hope. But I do have life skills and a whole lot of common sense and experience with dealing with and managing folks and egos, every work day of my life. While being a dumb ass, I am a very good judge of character...lol, most the time.

One thing I have learned in life is people who tell you that they are either tough, intelligent, handsome, pretty, are usually insecure and the opposite of what they portray.

You said some things that you should not have said and obviously cannot defend, and more importantly are not emotionally prepared to concede. And not to others, but yourself. That is really obvious. Kish own your mistake and move on, it will be over with, the moment you do so, it is not worth feeling like crap about a dumb remark and doubling down on it with lame excuses.

One thing I have learned managing high end larger construction projects, is that when I screw up; cop to it, own it, mitigate it, and never ever take it home with you, it will eat you alive. It is obvious this is bugging you....cop to it and let it go.