Archive
Review of When Mermaids Sing
The central plot of When Mermaids Sing by Mark Zvonkovic (IUniverse, 2008) focuses on the narrator, Larry, a man still finding himself. His own endeavors are side-stepped though, when his close friend and cousin, searching for many of the same things becomes...
Reason #135: Two questions for Temple-Endowed Mormons
In the LDS temple endowment ceremony, there are two issues that a faithful Mormon must deal with. First, why is the order of creation unlike that depicted in LDS Standard Works? In the temple, the creation of plants comes BEFORE light and darkness.* Secondly,...
Reason #134: The Logic Required to Affirm LDS history
This article claims to have pinned down the date of Joseph Smith's supposed First Vision. It hinges on the account of an axe stuck in a stump. Read it and ask the same question I did: Is there any other reason for chopping wood in 1820 in March in upper New York...
Reason #133: Today's Mormons Don't Know The Church's Past
I have read that a very high percentage of members of the LDS church today are first-generation. Recently I had the following experience with one of them: About two months ago I sat at a restaurant with a college student who had grown up Mormon as she recounted to me...
Reason #132: New Archaeological Site for Manufacturing Weapons
A newly-excavated archaeological site in Mexico shows a sophisticated Mayan manufacturing center devoted to weapons and tools. No metal weapons at all. For more information, see The Mormon Mirage 3rd Edition: A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church...
Interview on Examiner
The Examiner recently interviewed me with the following questions: Q-How did you get started writing?A-Writing begins, I think, with the art of noticing. One of my earliest memories is this:I am standing at the end of a peach orchard in Farmington, New Mexico, in...
No Silent Reading
There have been many ground-breaking events in the history of Christian literature and its readers. Perhaps one of the most shocking events came about in about 400 AD when the famous St. Augustine walked in on Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, and found him doing...
Reason #131: Joseph Smith Could Cut and Paste
A reader recently sent me a section of an article that's being circulated among Mormons. Its premise is that the Book of Mormon reflects Semitic peculiarities. The original article is here. (Update: Apparently Sami Hanna left the LDS church and here is a retraction of...
Reason #130: Because I Won't Ever Be that Fascinating
I was a faithful Mormon "girl" at BYU when Fascinating Womanhood by Helen Andelin was the gold standard for Mormon young women. In the dorms we often talked about some of the ideals of this book. It had a lasting effect on me in several ways. 1) Even at the time I...
Reason #129: Because the writing of some biblical texts in other languages does not support “reformed Egyptian”
Paul Davidson, on the Recovery from Mormonism discussion board, says a Mormon apologist defending the concept of the LDS teachings about the Book of Mormon being written in "reformed Egyptian" told him: “By the ninth to sixth centuries before Christ, Israelites...
Reason #128: Vikings Can't Prove Mormonism
Some LDS apologists are touting an archaeological excavation of a settlement at L'anse aux Meadow to try to draw a parallel between the mythical Nephite metallurgy and that of Vikings. But that's not a legitimate parallel, notes an observer on the RfM message...
Reason #127: LDS teachings about prayer
Joseph Smith taught that all forms of prayer were ineffective if they were not couched in the format of the LDS Prayer Circle in a Mormon temple. Explore the evidences for this claim, as well as the contention that this practice was Gnostic as well. My...