Archive
Reason #60: The Nature of LDS Truth
Since leaving the Church, I have been puzzled that my many Mormon friends have not shown interest in engaging with me over the reasons for my disaffection. Arguing such points does not interest them nor me, but the elephant in the room is hard to...
Reason #57: The Nature of LDS Missionary Lessons
When I began missionary service for the Church in 1962, I was given a "plan for teaching the Gospel" to use in converting others to the Church. This plan was usually referred to as "the discussions" and contained teaching instructions and a carefully...
Reason #54: The LDS Depreciation of Bible Translation
Second Nephi 29:3 mocks the trust of the Bible believer by having him say mindlessly, "A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible," with the Lord responding by calling such a man a "fool" (v. 6). Actually, says the Book of Mormon,...
Reason #51: Latter-day Revelation Didn't Create Unity
Whatever its effects upon the religious world, Mormonism has not, as it originally purposed, done away with religious division. Its aberrations of Scripture and liberties with the Word of God, though, have in the past caused Christianity to solidify against it....
Reason #59: LDS's Exclusivistic Claim to Truth
Of particular interest was my discovery of many people outside the Church who had exceptional powers, such as healing, effecting other physical change through thought, or extraordinary intuitive knowledge. Of greatest importance to me were those who were...
Reason #56: The modern LDS leaders' lack of foreknowledge
Some years earlier, the war in Vietnam had been gaining momentum and arousing greater domestic opposition. As consternation grew in the Church membership over this issue, especially among the many families with young men being conscripted into the war, Hugh Brown,...
Reason #53: The warfare in the Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon raises questions when we examine its accounts of warfare. Where is evidence of the great mounds of weapons, the steel-smelting operations necessary for their production, and the warfare technologies described in this book? LDS...
Reason #50: The Book of Mormon and Polygamy
Probably one of the hottest areas of controversy rages around the Book of Mormon"'s teachings on polygamy. Those unfamiliar with the teachings of this book might be surprised to learn that polygamy was flatly condemned in the book of Jacob. Jacob was a Nephite...
Reason #58: LDS Leaders' Linguistic Abilities
After finishing graduate work in linguistics and education at BYU in 1976, I found professional work in the translation department of LDS Church headquarters in Salt Lake City. Even though I thought I already knew a lot about language from my study of...
Reason #55: Group Pressure in Mormonism
An LDS doctrine that had always strongly appealed to me was free agency: that God respects our right to choose, and that it is our ethic to likewise respect unconstrained choice for all people. That notion was badly shaken when I was first "endowed"...
Reason #52: LDS Sources Enlist Unwilling “Advocates”
When I was a Mormon, I and other people told prospective Mormons that the Smithsonian Institute believed and supported Book of Mormon archaeology. Of course that venerable organization did no such thing, and became so deluged with requests that they routinely...
Reason #49: The Proxy Baptisms of Jews
An ethnic group which has done public battle with the LDS Church is Judaism. According to Richard and Joan Ostling, in the mid-1990s about 380,000 deceased Jews had proxy baptisms performed in their names in various LDS temples. They included many Jews who died in...