Problem Summaries: resources discussing LDS-truth claims

Prob­lems with LDS truth-claims Before read­ing about the prob­lems, you may want to first con­sid­er the pros and cons of inves­ti­gat­ing the truth-claim data. Very short sum­maries Five Key Facts (~ 1 page) 50 Prob­lems with the Mor­mon Church (~10 minute youtube video) More sig­nif­i­cant sum­maries Mor­mon Primer (mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives: main­stream, crit­i­cal, apolo­getic, and pro­gres­sive) Let­ter For…

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Joseph Smith’s Polygamy Denials

Joseph Smith’s Polygamy Denials Intro­duc­tion Joseph Smith denied the prac­tice of polygamy1 on sev­er­al occa­sions. He was also respon­si­ble for the pub­li­ca­tion or dis­tri­b­u­tion of sev­er­al addi­tion­al denials. A com­plete list­ing of ear­ly Church leader polygamy denials up to 1850 is avail­able here. A few notes: Hyper­links to orig­i­nal source mate­r­i­al may be found by clicking…

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Faith of a naturalist: response to “Faith of a Science Teacher” questions

Intro­duc­tion On Feb­ru­ary 12, 2017, The Faith of a Sci­ence Teacher pub­lished a post enti­tled “Ques­tions about the Church and Gospel of Jesus Christ”. I think many of these ques­tions are very poignant. Hav­ing thought for many years about these same kinds of ques­tions, I decid­ed to offer up some respons­es. The author indi­cates that…

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Eyes vs Heart

There may be those that attack a 14yr old boy prophet, the Book of Mor­mon prophets, liv­ing prophets, and a liv­ing Christ. There were those that accused, and today accuse, Jesus Christ of not being Chris­t­ian, of hav­ing, and being the dev­il. There are those that deny the exis­tence of Heav­en­ly Father, angels, and mir­a­cles. Do not…

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To peek behind the curtain: weighing the decision to investigate LDS truth-claims

Why not inves­ti­gate? From the per­spec­tive of a believ­ing mem­ber, there are many valid rea­sons to avoid crit­i­cal­ly1 inves­ti­gat­ing the truth-claims of the Church.2 Lack the time, ener­gy, inter­est, or capa­bil­i­ty To inves­ti­gate requires time and effort. Most mem­bers are busy rais­ing a fam­i­ly and have many demands on their time and focus. Maybe now…

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Five Key Facts

This is a very short sum­ma­ry of what I view as the 5 most impor­tant facts in under­stand­ing alter­na­tive mod­els for LDS truth claims. To the best of my knowl­edge, every point made in this doc­u­ment is accept­ed as fac­tu­al by both LDS and non-LDS schol­ars (please cor­rect me if I am mis­tak­en and I…

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Understanding Book of Mormon Geography

It has become appar­ent to me that the rea­son why it has been impos­si­ble to pin loca­tions for the Book of Mor­mon till now is because the Book of Mor­mon men­tions six seas and the nar­row pas­sage and nar­row neck are two sep­a­rate geo­graph­ic fea­tures. The nar­row pas­sage is not between the east sea or…

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Archeological Evidence of the Fortified cities by the East Sea

Arche­o­log­i­cal Evi­dence of the For­ti­fied Cities by the East Sea This evi­dence is based on the Six Sea Mod­el http://​bookof​mor​monev​i​dence​.blogspot​.com/​2​0​1​6​/​0​9​/​a​l​m​a​—​c​h​a​p​t​e​r​—​2​2​—​b​o​m​—​m​a​p.html I will be using the Hopewell mound for­ti­fi­ca­tions found in New York State and Penn­syl­va­nia for arche­o­log­i­cal evi­dence for the for­ti­fi­ca­tions described in Alma Chap­ter 50 and refor­ti­fied in Alma Chap­ter 52. E.G Sqi­uer and Charles Whit­ney described…

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Joseph Smith and Polyandry

Of all the aspects of church his­to­ry I found polyandry to be the most sur­pris­ing and the most shock­ing. But because I hold the Book of Mor­mon to be authen­tic and brought about how Joseph Smith stat­ed. I have to give Joseph Smith the ben­e­fit of the doubt that his actions were not mali­cious in anyway.…

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X2A’J Bible and Book of Mormon DNA

DNA mark­er x2a’j is prob­a­bly the great­est DNA evi­dence for the Book of Mor­mon thus far. X2a’j is not found in North Amer­i­ca but its impor­tance to Native Amer­i­can DNA is vir­tu­al­ly unknown. It’s the 5‑ton ele­phant in the room that researcher’s geneti­cist do not want to talk about. Out­side of the Amer­i­can con­ti­nent it’s the…

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