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Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director: Difference between revisions

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#REDIRECT[[Overview of the CES Letter]]
{{Resource Title|A FairMormon Analysis of "A Letter to a CES Director: Why I Lost My Testimony"}}
{{Epigraph|I didn't write this for the CES guy. I'm not under any illusion that I'm going to change his mind. It's not going to happen. I wrote this for my kids who one day are going to ask their dad why he left the faith.<br>&mdash;The author of "A Letter to a CES Director" April 23, 2013. {{ref|kolobot1a}}
}}
 
{{parabreak}}
 
=Overview=
The "Letter to a CES Director: Why I Lost My Testimony" is an online document which is critical of Latter-day Saint truth claims. The document is comprised of a list of issues that the author states caused him to lose his testimony, and it is hosted on a number of websites which are critical of the Church. {{ref|website}} The author states that he is "a disaffected member who lost his testimony so it’s no secret which side I’m on at the moment.  All this information is a result of over a year of intense research and an absolute rabid obsession with Joseph Smith and Church history.  With this said, I’d be pretty arrogant and ignorant to say that I have all the information and that you don’t have answers."
 
A long list of issues follows. The author ultimately concludes that "There are just way too many problems.  We’re not just talking about one issue here.  We’re talking about dozens of serious issues that undermine the very foundation of the LDS Church and its truth claims."
 
In developing our response, our primary intended audience is not necessarily the author of the Letter nor his associates, but rather those individuals, perhaps faithful Latter-day Saints, perhaps questioning, perhaps once-faithful but now sincerely doubting, who may have come across this Letter and been troubled by its contents. We respond here to the original version of the letter that was actually sent to the CES director. The author has since made some corrections based upon this analysis and posted a response at <nowiki>http://www.cesletter.com/debunking-fairmormon/</nowiki>
 
=Detailed responses by section are found in linked subarticles below=
==== ====
{{SummaryItem
|link=Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/Book of Mormon Concerns & Questions
|subject=Response to section "Book of Mormon Concerns & Questions"
|summary=The author asks why italicized text and errors from the King James Bible are present in the Book of Mormon. He also briefly discusses anachronisms, archaeology, and a theory that the Book of Mormon place names actually originated in the area around New York. The "View of the Hebrews" theory of Book of Mormon authorship is discussed.
|sublink1="What are 1769 King James Version edition errors doing in the Book of Mormon?"
|sublink2="What are these 17th century italicized words doing in the Book of Mormon?"
|sublink3="The Book of Mormon includes mistranslated biblical passages that were later changed in Joseph Smith’s translation of the bible."
|sublink4="DNA analysis has concluded that Native American Indians do not originate from the Middle East"
|sublink5=Anachronisms
|sublink6=Archaeology
|sublink7=Book of Mormon Geography
|sublink8=Hill Cumorah
|sublink9="'View of the Hebrews' compared to the Book of Mormon"
|sublink10="The Book of Mormon taught and still teaches a Trinitarian view of the Godhead"
}}
==== ====
{{SummaryItem
|link=Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/Book of Mormon Translation Concerns & Questions
|subject=Response to section "Book of Mormon Translation Concerns & Questions"
|summary=The author of the letter asks, "Why is the Church not being honest and transparent to its members about how Joseph Smith really translated the Book of Mormon?  How am I supposed to be okay with this deception?"
|sublink1="Joseph Smith used a rock in a hat for translating the Book of Mormon"
}}
==== ====
{{SummaryItem
|link=Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/First Vision Concerns & Questions
|subject=Response to section "First Vision Concerns & Questions"
|summary=The author states, "Like the rock in the hat story, I did not know there were multiple First Vision accounts. I did not know its contradictions or that the Church members didn’t know about a First Vision until 22 years after it supposedly happened. I was unaware of these omissions in the mission field as I was never taught or trained in the Missionary Training Center to teach investigators these facts."
|sublink1="There are at least 4 different First Vision accounts by Joseph Smith"
|sublink2="The dates / his ages are all over the place"
|sublink3="The reason or motive for seeking divine help – bible reading and conviction of sins, a revival, a desire to know if God exists, wanting to know which church to join – are all over the place"
|sublink4="Who appears to him – a spirit, an angel, two angels, Jesus, many angels, the Father and the Son – are all over the place."
|sublink5="The historical record shows that there was no revival in Palmyra in 1820"
|sublink6="Why did Joseph hold a Trinitarian view of the Godhead, as shown previously with the Book of Mormon, if he clearly saw that the Father and Son were separate embodied beings in the official First Vision?"
|sublink7="There is absolutely no record of a First Vision prior to 1832"
|sublink8="In the 1832 account, Joseph said that before praying he knew that there was no true or living faith or denomination upon the earth"
}}
==== ====
{{SummaryItem
|link=Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/Book of Abraham Concerns & Questions
|subject=Response to section "Book of Abraham Concerns & Questions"
|summary=The author notes that, "Egyptologists have found the source material for the Book of Abraham to be nothing more than a common pagan Egyptian funerary text for a deceased man named “Hor” in 1st century AD.  In other words, it was a common Breathing Permit that the Egyptians buried with their dead.  It has absolutely nothing to do with Abraham or anything Joseph claimed in his translation for the Book of Abraham."
|sublink1="scholars have found the original papyrus Joseph translated and have dated it in first century AD, nearly 2,000 years after Abraham could have written it"
|sublink2="It has absolutely nothing to do with Abraham or anything Joseph claimed in his translation for the Book of Abraham"
|sublink3=Facsimile 1
|sublink4="The following image is what Facsimile 1 is really supposed to look like"
|sublink5=Facsimile 2
|sublink6=Facsimile 3
|sublink7="There’s a book published in 1830 by Thomas Dick entitled 'The Philosophy of the Future State'"
|sublink8="Elder Jeffrey R. Holland was directly asked about the papyri not matching the Book of Abraham in a March 2012 BBC interview"
}}
==== ====
{{SummaryItem
|link=Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/Polygamy & Polyandry Concerns & Questions
|subject=Response to section "Polygamy/Polyandry Concerns & Questions"
|summary=Regarding Joseph's practice of polygamy, the author states that "Joseph Smith’s pattern of behavior or modus operandi for a period of at least 10 years of his adult life was to keep secrets, be deceptive, and be dishonest – both privately and publicly."
|sublink1="Joseph Smith was married to at least 34 women"
|sublink2="Of those 34 women, 11 of them were married women of other living men"
|sublink3="Among them being Apostle Orson Hyde who was sent on his mission to dedicate Israel when Joseph secretly married his wife, Marinda Hyde"
|sublink4="Joseph was 37-years-old when he married 14-year-old Helen Mar Kimball"
|sublink5="Among the women was a mother-daughter set and three sister sets"
|sublink6="President Hinckley publicly stating that polygamy is not doctrinal"
|sublink7="D&C 132 is unequivocal on the point that polygamy is permitted only 'to multiply and replenish the earth' and 'bear the souls of men'"
|sublink8="These married women continued to live as husband and wife with their prior husband after marrying Joseph"
|sublink9="A union with a newlywed and pregnant woman (Zina Huntingon)"
|sublink10=Zina "married Joseph after being told Joseph’s life was in danger from an angel with a flaming sword."
|sublink11="Why is there no mention of God commanding Adam or Noah and/or their immediate male children to have many wives?"
}}
==== ====
{{SummaryItem
|link=Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/Prophets Concerns & Questions
|subject=Response to section "Prophets Concerns & Questions"
|summary=The author expresses concern about changes in doctrine. For example, "As a believing member, I had no idea that Joseph Smith gave the priesthood to black men.  I’m supposed to go to the drawing board now and believe in a god who is not only a schizophrenic racist but who is inconsistent as well? Again, yesterday’s doctrine is today’s false doctrine.  Yesterday’s 10 prophets are today’s heretics."
|sublink1=Adam-God
|sublink2=Blood Atonement
|sublink3=Polygamy
|sublink4=Blacks Ban
|sublink5=Mark Hofmann
|sublink6="Why would I want them following the prophet when a prophet is just a man of his time?"
}}
==== ====
{{SummaryItem
|link=Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/Kinderhook Plates and Translator & Seer Claims Concerns & Questions
|subject=Response to section "Kinderhook Plates and Translator/Seer Claims Concerns & Questions"
|summary=The author claims that, "Joseph Smith made a scientific claim that he could translate ancient documents.  This is a testable claim.  Joseph failed the test with the Book of Abraham.  He failed the test with the Kinderhook Plates."
|sublink1=Kinderhook Plates
|sublink2="Joseph Smith made a scientific claim that he could translate ancient documents"
|sublink3=Book of Mormon
}}
 
==== ====
{{SummaryItem
|link=Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/Testimony & Spiritual Witness Concerns & Questions
|subject=Response to section "Testimony/Spiritual Witness Concerns & Questions"
|summary=The author asks the question, "Why is this Spirit so unreliable and inconsistent?  How can I trust such an inconsistent and contradictory Source for knowing that Mormonism is worth betting my life, time, money, heart, mind, and obedience to?"
|sublink1="Every major religion has members who claim the same thing: God or God’s spirit bore witness to them"
|sublink2="it would likewise be arrogant of a Latter-day Saint to deny their spiritual experiences and testimonies of the truthfulness of their own religion"
|sublink3="If God’s method to revealing truth is through feelings, it’s a pretty ineffective method"
|sublink4="Joseph Smith received a revelation, through the peep stone in his hat, to send Hiram Page and Oliver Cowdery to Toronto, Canada for the sole purpose of selling the copyright of the Book of Mormon"
|sublink5="I saw a testimony as more than just spiritual experiences and feelings. I saw that we had evidence and logic on our side based on the correlated narrative I was fed by the Church about its origins."
|sublink6=Paul H. Dunn
|sublink7="a testimony is to be found in the bearing of it"
|sublink8="how can they be sure of the reliability of this same exact process in telling them that Mormonism is true?"
|sublink9="I felt the Spirit watching 'Saving Private Ryan' and the 'Schindler’s List'. Both R-rated and horribly violent movies. I also felt the Spirit watching 'Forrest Gump' and the 'Lion King'."
|sublink10="Why did I feel the Spirit as I listened to the stories of apostates sharing how they discovered for themselves that Mormonism is not true?"
}}
==== ====
{{SummaryItem
|link=Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/Priesthood Restoration Concerns & Questions
|subject=Response to section "Priesthood Restoration Concerns & Questions"
|summary=The author states, "Like the First Vision story, none of the members of the Church or Joseph Smith’s family had ever heard prior to 1834 about a priesthood restoration from John the Baptist or Peter, James, and John.  Although the priesthood is now taught to have been restored in 1829, Joseph and Oliver made no such claim until 1834.  Why did it take five years for Joseph or Oliver to tell members of the Church about the priesthood?"
|sublink1="Although the priesthood is now taught to have been restored in 1829, Joseph and Oliver made no such claim until 1834."
|sublink2="Why did it take five years for Joseph or Oliver to tell members of the Church about the priesthood?"
|sublink3="Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery changed the wording of earlier revelations when they compiled the 1835 Doctrine & Covenants"
}}
==== ====
{{SummaryItem
|link=Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/Witnesses Concerns & Questions
|subject=Response to section "Witnesses Concerns & Questions"
|summary=Regarding the witnesses to the Book of Mormon, the author states, "At the end of the day?  It all doesn’t matter.  The Book of Mormon Witnesses and their testimonies of the gold plates are irrelevant.  It does not matter whether eleven 19th century treasure diggers with magical worldviews saw some gold plates or not.  It doesn’t matter because of this one simple fact: Joseph did not use the gold plates for translating the Book of Mormon."
|sublink1=Magical Worldview
|sublink2=Witnesses
|sublink3=Martin Harris
|sublink4=David Whitmer
|sublink5=Oliver Cowdery
|sublink6=Second Sight
|sublink7=James Strang and the Voree Plates Witnesses
|sublink8=No Document of Actual Signatures
|sublink9="James Strang’s claims and Voree Plates Witnesses are distinctive and more impressive compared to the Book of Mormon Witnesses"
|sublink10=Martin Harris: “I did not see them as I do that pencil-case, yet I saw them with the eye of faith; I saw them just as distinctly as I see anything around me, though at the time they were covered over with a cloth”
|sublink11="the fact that all of the Book of Mormon Witnesses – except Martin Harris – were related to either Joseph Smith or David Whitmer"
|sublink12="in light of their superstitions and reputations"
|sublink13="The mistake that is made by 21st century Mormons is that they’re seeing the Book of Mormon Witnesses as empirical, rational, twenty-first century men"
|sublink14="It doesn’t matter because of this one simple fact: Joseph did not use the gold plates for translating the Book of Mormon"
}}
 
==== ====
{{SummaryItem
|link=Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/Temples & Freemasonry Concerns & Questions
|subject=Response to section "Temples & Freemasonry Concerns & Questions"
|summary=The author of the letter asks, "Does the eternal salvation, eternal happiness, and eternal sealings of families really depend on medieval originated Masonic rituals in multi-million dollar castles?  Is God really going to separate good couples and their children who love one other and who want to be together in the next life because they object to uncomfortable and strange Masonic temple rituals and a polygamous heaven?" We respond to these questions in this article.
|sublink1="Just seven weeks after Joseph’s Masonic initiation, Joseph introduced the LDS endowment"
|sublink2="We have the true Masonry"
|sublink3="why doesn’t the LDS ceremony more closely resemble an earlier form of Masonry?"
|sublink4="Freemasonry has zero links to the Solomon’s temple"
|sublink5="What does it say about the Church if it removed something that Joseph Smith said he restored?"
|sublink6="Is God really going to require people to know secret tokens?"
|sublink7="Does the eternal salvation, eternal happiness, and eternal sealings of families really depend on medieval originated Masonic rituals in multi-million dollar castles?"
}}
==== ====
{{SummaryItem
|link=Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/Science Concerns & Questions
|subject=Response to section "Science Concerns & Questions"
|summary=The author concludes that "The problem Mormonism encounters is that so many of its claims are well within the realm of scientific study, and as such, can be proven or disproven.  To cling to faith in these areas, where the overwhelming evidence is against it, is willful ignorance, not spiritual dedication."
|sublink1="no death of any kind (humans, all animals, birds, fish, dinosaurs, etc.) on this earth until the 'Fall of Adam'"
|sublink2="If Adam and Eve are the first humans, how do we explain the 14 other Hominin species who lived and died 35,000 – 250,000 years before Adam?"
|sublink3="Science has proven that there was no worldwide flood 4,500 years ago"
|sublink4="Other events/claims that science has discredited"
|sublink5="the sun gets its light from Kolob"
|sublink6="They carried honey bees across the ocean? Swarms of them?"
}}
==== ====
{{SummaryItem
|link=Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/Scriptures Concerns & Questions
|subject=Response to section "Scriptures Concerns & Questions"
|summary=The author states that "To believe in the scriptures, I have to believe in a god who endorsed murder, genocide, infanticide, rape, slavery, selling daughters into sex slavery, polygamy, child abuse, stoning disobedient children, pillage, plunder, sexism, racism, human sacrifice, animal sacrifice, killing people who work on the Sabbath, death penalty for those who mix cotton with polyester, and so on."
<!-- |sublink1=D&C 132
|sublink2=Numbers 31 -->
|sublink3=1 Nephi 4
|sublink4=Exodus 12:12
|sublink5=Deuteronomy 21:18-21
<!-- |sublink6=Exodus 35:1-2 -->
|sublink7=Numbers 21:5-9
<!-- |sublink8=Judges 19:22-29 -->
|sublink9="I’m asked to believe in not only a part-time racist god and a part-time polygamous god but a part-time psychopathic schizophrenic one as well"
}}
==== ====
{{SummaryItem
|link=Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/Other Concerns & Questions
|subject=Response to section "Other Concerns & Questions"
|summary=The author notes that, "Under [Quentin L.] Cook’s counsel, FAIR and unofficial LDS apologetic websites are anti-Mormon sources that should be avoided.  Not only do they introduce to Mormons 'internet materials that magnify, exaggerate, and in some cases invent shortcomings of early Church leaders' but they provide many ridiculous answers with logical fallacies and omissions while leaving members confused and hanging with a bizarre version of Mormonism."
|sublink1=2013 Official Declaration 2 Header Update Dishonesty
|sublink2="Zina Diantha Huntington Young"
|sublink3="Brigham Young Sunday School Manual"
|sublink4="The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy"
|sublink5="Church Finances"
|sublink6="Tithing"
|sublink7="Names of the Church"
|sublink8="Some things that are true are not very useful"
|sublink9="Criticizing leaders"
|sublink10="the scary internet"
|sublink11="Going after members who publish or share their questions, concerns, and doubts"
|sublink12=Strengthening the Church Members Committee
|sublink13="When the prophet speaks the debate is over"
}}
==== ====
{{SummaryItem
|link=Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/Conclusion
|subject=Response to section "Conclusion"
|summary=The author concludes, "FAIR and these unofficial apologists have done more to destroy my testimony than any anti-Mormon source ever could.  I found their version of Mormonism to be alien and foreign to the Chapel Mormonism that I grew up in attending Church, seminary, reading scriptures, General Conferences, EFY, mission, and BYU.  Their answers are not only contradictory to the scriptures and teachings I learned through correlated Mormonism…they’re truly bizarre."
|sublink1="Among the first sources I looked to for answers were official Church sources such as Mormon.org and LDS.org. I couldn’t find them."
|sublink2="FAIR and these unofficial apologists have done more to destroy my testimony than any anti-Mormon source ever could"
}}
 
==References==
#{{note|kolobot1}}Posted as "kolobot" on the ex-Mormon subreddit, October 9, 2012.
#{{note|website}}The PDF version of the letter is located at <nowiki>http://cesletter.com/</nowiki>. To the writer's credit, he does use his real name in the document.

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