In the course of my leaving Mormonism, I made a brief detour in Mormon apologetics. This encounter actually accelerated my exit, however, because I noticed a number of things about what they were doing:

1) Mopologists deliberately deny the orthodox position. They admit flat-out that the Book of Abraham is not on the scrolls. They admit that there is no evidence for the Lehites or Jaredites.

2) Instead of trying to "put things on the shelf," they try to lie and distort the plain words of the scriptures and the past leaders to make them comport better with reality. But their rewriting of history is always forced and overcomplicated. They're slitting the gospel's wrists with Occam's Razor on literally every issue.

3) In trying to make Mormonism rational, they are by necessity bringing greater attention to it from academics who are non-Mormon. This attention is always devastating, however, such as in the case of Robert Ritner who utterly destroyed the nonsensical Mormon beliefs about the Book of Abraham.

4) All in all, they are trying to prove something which is obviously false. But in making it OK to investigate Mormonism intellectually, they are ensuring that a good number of people who come into contact with their pathetic spin will leave the church.

The Church would be much better served if it just ignored truth historical truth claims and focused only on the spiritual messages. That's what the Orthodox church does to great success. But they just don't have the humility and good grace to pull this off or even to attempt it.

Russell Mallard Wrote:
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> The Church would be much better served if it just
> ignored truth historical truth claims and focused
> only on the spiritual messages. That's what the
> Orthodox church does to great success.

I agree. This would be a smart move by the church. But we exmos would (and should) make a lot of noise so the world forever knows of the church's claims of truth. Afterall, they have gleefully sent thousands if not a million of missionaries to the corners of the earth extolling their message of "we're the only true church. We have all the truth and every other church is false and an abomination of god". The church makes outrageous claims about priesthood authority, prophets and Joe Smith and his imaginary gold plates. No, we should not let the church quietly jump onto that path if they should choose to go that route. The church needs to swallow all of the criticism pushed into its face.

Agreed. When I first got here, I had just discovered a few articles on the church's website about seer stones and polygamy. It was written like a Child's First Encyclopedia entry with barely any information at all. But I desperately wanted to hear explanations from true believing LDS to refute my doubts. So, I stumbled onto FAIR Mormon.

Their exhaustive article on the Book of Abraham and the papyri was what fully knocked over the teetering Jenga tower. One moment, they were admitting that the papyri didn't have the BoA on it, nor were the facsimiles interpreted correctly by J.S. It was by "Inspiration from God" that he wrote it and it wasn't translated but "revelation". But in the defense against what Joseph Smith wrote, "Written by his own hand upon papyrus" FAIR Mormon made the case that actually, it meant Abraham authored it, not that Abraham actually wrote on that papyrus which was way too young to have been made during his life. It was a copy, much like J.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, is actually not the original manuscript but actually a printed copy. And they mixed it in that the phrasing was actually a title commonly used by Egyptian writers. This might be plausible if the stuff on the papyrus actually translated to the BoA but it doesn't, it has nothing to do with Abraham. You can't have both, FAIR Mormon. And since both cannot be true, it reveals the lie like a blaring red light.

I wouldn't dare to try to counsel the church on how they should handle their unflattering past and the lack of logic.

1. I wonder if they had taught in Primary about J.S. and the seer stone and the polygamy, if I'd still be with them now.

2. Or would it have been hard for me to maintain faith in a guy who used stones to conjure and seer? Would I have been smart enough not to defend BY racism if I'd known about it right from the beginning, or would it have always bothered me?

3. I am glad they're incompetent. Sure, learning about these things that I was never told is very surprising and damaging. But the behavior of the church is one of deceit, covering it up, rewriting history. Part of the failings of apologetics is that not only do they have to explain the logical inconsistencies of actual facts and history but they also have to juggle the manipulation and lying of churchco itself. And I find that more often than not, apologetics take the stance of the leaders of the church, gaslighting and passive aggressively trying to shoot down my confidence in myself and my own memories. It was always there, we didn't hide it from you, they say. You just didn't look hard enough, they say. Right, doubt my doubts.

One GA (forget who) decried 'Bad Apologetics' as harmful but that was a long time ago that I saw it...

I do think to some degree that the church realizes this, which is why they forcibly disbanded Daniel "Plagiarist" Peterson's fetid FARMS fiefdom several years ago. He and his execrable cohort are particularly odious, even to fellow members. But while Richard Bushman is not a pretentious pseudo-academic, his approach is still fundamentally the same. To acknowledge the problems at all is to confess that the critics are correct. Because there is no excuse for stealing other men's wives, vile racism, making fraudulent claims about ancient Egyptian scrolls, etc.

Agreed on all points.

As the character Tevye said in "Fiddler on the Roof" "On the other hand? On the other hand there is no other hand!"

The problem when you tell lies to cover other lies means eventually you forget which lie went with which lie and people just see you're lying.