Criticism of Mormonism/Websites/MormonThink

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A FAIR Analysis of: MormonThink
 A work by author: Anonymous
Copyright © 2005–2013 Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research. This is not an official Web site of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The content of this page may not be copied, published, or redistributed without the prior written consent of FAIR.
High Level Summary
Title MormonThink.com
Type Website
Author(s) Anonymous
Affiliation "Active" members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Ex-Mormons active on the Recovery from Mormonism message board.
Accuracy Conclusions drawn are predominantly negative toward the truth claims of the Church.
Temple content NOTE: Extremely detailed temple content is present on the site, including links to secretly taped video recordings of the endowmnent.

A FAIR Analysis of the critical website MormonThink

I fantasize about a full-blown faith-destroying session. In real life, I did put the bishop in his place over polygamy. He kept saying I was wrong about Joseph having other wives and being illegal and such. I proved him wrong and he ate crow. twas fun.
—MormonThink's first managing editor, posting as "SpongeBob SquareGarments" in the thread Anyone Fantasize About a Showdown with SP or Bishop? on Recovery from Mormonism, Feb. 21, 2012, 12:50PM.[1]
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My dream and hope and aspiration: Members of the 1stP and the Q12 are walked out of the [Church Office Building] or their homes in handcuffs for tax evasion, racketeering, money-laundering,...Add the gender discrimination and fraud suits that many will pile onto the criminal charges, and I think 2013-14 just might be a banner moment. Maybe I'm dreaming. But some of us are working on it.
—MormonThink's second managing editor, posting as "Jesus Smith" on Recovery from Mormonism, December 26, 2012. [2]
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I prophesy, in the honorable name of Jesus Smith, that 2013 will be the beginning of the 'Mormon Apocalypse'. The gig is up.
—MormonThink's third and current managing editor, posting as "anointed one" on Recovery from Mormonism, January 3, 2013. [3]

Overview

The website mormonthink.com is designed to lead Church members into questioning their beliefs in a non-threatening manner by claiming to be "objective" and "balanced." The site claims to be run by active members of the Church. In reality, however, they are "active" only in the sense that some of them still occasionally attend Church—they do not accept the Church's truth claims, and they have no interest in strengthening belief. Instead, the site portrays Church leaders as liars, Joseph Smith as a fraud and con-man, and the Church as "an oppressive empire building corporation." The site includes links to FAIR as a way of demonstrating their claimed "balance."

Each page on MormonThink.com typically includes quotes from Church sources, large amounts of block text copied from websites critical of the Church, a few references to LDS apolgetics that are followed by mocking refutations by critics, an "Ending summary by critics," and an "Our Thoughts" or "Editor comments" section, which generally agrees with the critics. The bottom of each page contains links to critical sites, believers sites and to some sites which they consider neutral.

MormonThink has had a series of managing editors, all of whom retained membership in the Church during their tenure while simultaneously mocking the Church's truth claims in online ex-Mormon forums. The transfer of the editorial position appears to be triggered by the resignation from the Church of the previous editor. The founding editor, who remains anonymous, resigned in 2012 in order to avoid discipline after the Church apparently identified him. In his parting letter to his Stake President (posted on the MormonThink website), he states,

You said that [MormonThink] is 'anti-Mormon, anti-Joseph Smith and anti-LDS Leadership'. However, you never said it wasn’t true.[4]

The most publicly well known managing editor was David Twede. Shortly after taking over the site, Twede was approached by local Church leaders and scheduled for discipline. After creating a media spectacle regarding his scheduled discipline, Twede resigned publicly during an appearance at the open mike session at the 2012 Ex-Mormon Foundation Conference in Salt Lake City. After emailing his resignation letter, Twede publicly challenged the Church,

If you’d like to help further, please, by all means, excommunicate the next editor at MormonThink. Have leaders of the Strengthening Members Committee stalk us. Even better, send in the Danites, please, please. That should propel MormonThink popularity into orbit around Kolob. [5]

MormonThink's directors consider Church attempts to impose discipline on their editors as a beneficial way of increasing traffic and visibility of the website, thus making Church membership more aware of its existence.

  • Media efforts in 2012 by Mormonthink managing editor David Twede—
    David Twede went to the media in September 2012 after claiming that the Church was attempting to discipline him for his online writings about Mitt Romney posted both on his blog and on MormonThink. Details regarding this effort may be found in the sub-articles linked here. (Link)

NOTE: A church member has created a faith-promoting site with a similar name called "Mormons Think." at http://www.mormonsthink.com/. This site should not be confused with the critical site mormonthink.com.

The specific content of the MormonThink website is addressed in the articles listed below

Click on the links for detailed point-by-point discussion of specific content.

General topics

  • Overview of the MormonThink website—
    The web site MormonThink.com claims to be operated by active members of the Church with an interest in objectively presenting the "truth" about Mormonism. In general, the conclusions reached by the site reflect negatively on the Church. The best explanation of the purpose of the website is offered the words of its own webmaster, and by the testimonials of ex-Mormons who claim that the site caused them to lose belief and leave the Church. (Link)
  • Response to MormonThink's list of 25 items that would allegedly "make the Church true"—
    (http://www.mormonthink.com/endpage.htm) According to MormonThink.com, if the Church actually contained God's truth and authority, "we would expect the following things to have happened in this way." The following is a list of issues presented by the website followed by FAIR's response. Most items on the list are standard anti-Mormon fare, issues FAIR believes have been "asked and answered" many times. Nearly all points appeal to some type of intellectual or religious fundamentalism. (Link)

The Book of Mormon

"Joseph Running with the Plates"
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"Translation of the Book of Mormon"
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"Could Joseph Smith have written the Book of Mormon"
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"The Lost 116 Pages of the Book of Mormon"
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  • A FAIR Analysis of MormonThink page "The Lost 116 Pages of the Book of Mormon"—
    (http://www.mormonthink.com/lost116web.htm) This MormonThink article draws the following conclusion: "There's an episode of the cartoon South Park called "All About the Mormons". In the episode, a faithful LDS family tells the story of the lost 116 pages to a neighbor boy they are trying to convert. They tell this story as proof that Joseph Smith was telling the truth and Mormonism is true. Perhaps the most telling comment we've ever heard about the lost 116 pages debacle comes from the neighborhood boy, who, after hearing the story of the lost 116 pages, exclaims "'Wait, Mormons actually know this story and they still believe Joseph Smith was a Prophet?'" (Link)
"Book of Mormon Difficulties"
"The Witnesses"
  • MormonThink's "The Witnesses" source quotes without critical or apologetic commentary—
    This is the "no spin" version of the web page. We provide all of the complete primary and secondary source quotes without any "Critic's comment," "Apologetic rebuttal" or "Our Thoughts" or "Editor comments" sections. We don't give you our interpretation of the quotes, but we do provide links to online primary sources of the quotes and provide additional context whenever possible. (Link)
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Visions

"The First Vision"
  • MormonThink's "The First Vision" source quotes without critical or apologetic commentary—
    This is the "no spin" version of the web page. We provide all of the complete primary and secondary source quotes without any "Critic's comment," "Apologetic rebuttal" or "Our Thoughts" or "Editor comments" sections. We don't give you our interpretation of the quotes, but we do provide links to online primary sources of the quotes and provide additional context whenever possible. (Link)
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"Moroni's Visitation"

Other Translation Related Topics

"The Kinderhook Plates"
  • MormonThink's "The Kinderhook Plates" source quotes without critical or apologetic commentary—
    This is the "no spin" version of the web page. We provide all of the complete primary and secondary source quotes without any "Critic's comment," "Apologetic rebuttal" or "Our Thoughts" or "Editor comments" sections. We don't give you our interpretation of the quotes, but we do provide links to online primary sources of the quotes and provide additional context whenever possible. (Link)
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  • A FAIR Analysis of MormonThink page "The Kinderhook Plates"—
    (http://mormonthink.com/kinderhookweb.htm) MormonThink editors conclude that "If Joseph did misrepresent himself about the Kinderhook Plates, for whatever reason, we wonder what else he may have misrepresented about himself?"

    We note that the most recent new data on this subject presented by historian Don Bradley (who is not an apologist, nor is he a member of FAIR) invalidates the old apologetic arguments. The new data suggests that Joseph attempted to translate a character on the Kinderhook Plates manually by matching it to a similar character in the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language (which, by the way, actually has nothing to do with actual Egyptian). The "translation" recorded by William Clayton matched the explanation given for the character in the GAEL. See: “President Joseph has Translated a Portion": Solving the Mystery of the Kinderhook Plates by Don Bradley, 2011 FAIR Conference. (Link)
"The Greek Psalter Translation"
"Joseph's Translation of the Bible"

Controversial Past Practices

"Polygamy"
"Blacks and the priesthood"

Temple Related Topics

"The Temple"
  • A FAIR Analysis of MormonThink page "Temple"—
    MormonThink originally removed this page containing detailed information about the temple, not because it was offensive to Latter-day Saints, but only because it was driving ex-Mormons' believing spouses away from examining their critical website. The content has been removed and added back several times. FAIR responds to a number of issues raised which are not related to the explicit temple content that the site sometimes hosts. MormonThink concludes this page with a section titled "The absurdness of it all. (Link)

Church integrity

"Lying for the Lord"
  • A FAIR Analysis of MormonThink page "Lying for the Lord"—
    (http://www.mormonthink.com/lying.htm) MormonThink concludes that "lying was the method the church used as standard operating procedure to keep from losing its members." MormonThink also notes that "The message from current leaders is clear. Pretend that the LDS leaders are infallible, blindly obey and conform." (FAIR note: this is a standard position taken by many ex-Mormons after their disaffection with the Church). (Link)
"Tithing"
  • A FAIR Analysis of MormonThink page "Tithing"—
    (http://www.mormonthink.com/tithing.htm) This MormonThink article concludes: "The church doesn't need the money," and that the Church "simply does not appear to really need the money. President Hinckley acknowledged that no tithing dollars were needed to fund a $5 billion City Creek development & mall. If it can make this kind of interest on its existing assets, then it doesn't appear to need any additional funding to operate quite comfortably on its income from the many businesses it owns without any tithing income." The website recommends that members send their contributions elsewhere. (Link)

Other Topics

"Conflicts with Science"
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  • A FAIR Analysis of MormonThink page "Conflicts with Science"—
    (http://www.mormonthink.com/scienceweb.htm) This MormonThink article concludes that acceptance of scientific facts and a belief in God are incompatible. For example the website offers this conclusion: "What sounds more plausible; that dinosaurs and plants lived on our planet, died millions of years ago and turned into oil and coal and petrified wood, etc. from age and intense volcanic pressure OR that dinosaurs and plants really only existed on another planet and God moved all of the dinosaur bones, coal, oil, petrified wood, footprints and fossilized dinosaur poop here just to trick everybody but the clever Mormon gospel doctrine teachers?" (Link)

Endnotes

  1. [note] Comment by MormonThink's founding editor, posting as "SpongeBob SquareGarments" on the ex-Mormon message board Recovery from Mormonism, Feb. 21, 2012 at 12:50PM. After FAIR posted this quote, the original was deleted from the RFM board. The original thread in which it appeared, however, still exists here: Thread Anyone Fantasize About a Showdown with SP or Bishop?, Recovery from Mormonism, posted Feb. 20, 2012.
  2. [note] Comment by MormonThink's second managing editor, David Twede (posting as "Jesus Smith"), on Recovery from Mormonism, December 26, 2012.
  3. [note] Comment by MormonThink's third and current managing editor (posting as "anointed one"), on Recovery from Mormonism, January 3, 2013.
  4. [note] Former MormonThink managing editor in a letter to his Stake President prior to his resignation in order to avoid Church discipline. Posted as "MormonThink Founder Resignation" on mormonthink.com
  5. [note] David Twede, statement during open mike session, Ex-Mormon Foundation Conference, Salt Lake City, October 19, 2012.

Copyright © 2005–2013 Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research. This is not an official Web site of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The content of this page may not be copied, published, or redistributed without the prior written consent of FAIR. The Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR) is a non-profit organization formed in late 1997 for the purpose of defending the Church. FAIR is staffed completely by volunteers, all of whom are dedicated to defending the Church. FAIR is not owned, controlled by, or affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All research and opinions provided on this site are the sole responsibility of FAIR and should not be interpreted as official statements of LDS doctrine, belief, or practice.
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