Review of Alone: The Impact of Anti-Mormonism

It's been a while since I've posted, but I think I'll be back from time to time when something gets on my nerves.  Such as this video. 

Alone: The Impact of Anit-Mormonism

Before you continue reading this, consider this.  Every person who has studied their way out of Mormonism, was a MORMON first. In having discussions with apologetic people there is an attempt to classify critics of the church as if they haven't bothered to consider the pro church arguments.  When in fact they at some point believed and cared deeply for the faith, and in many cases it was in trying to be a better Mormon and learn more about their faith that they lost their belief in the church.  Any attempt to dismiss them or mischaracterize them or to imply negative stereotypes about them is dishonest, hurtful, and wrong.  And most importantly requires a dismissal of the fact that for many if not most they were students and believers of Mormonism far longer than not.  They have seen both sides to the argument, weighed them, an found the church lacking.  And yes this video does attempt to paint such people with just such an ignorant stereotype on several occasions. 

 They way the wife treated the husband for confessing his problem was interestingly accurate, and incredibly unfortunate.  He's a victim, but treated as a terrible person.  He came to her when he realized it was a problem, but it's not a problem that you know you have until you've been doing some reading and doubting.  This happened in my relationship.  There is no intent to deceive at all.  This is a gross misrepresentation of how this happens.  It mentions that it was hard for him to talk to his spouse at least, but then she asks if it's porn and treats him as if he said yes, when he said no.  (Ryan, left the church got kicked out of BYU ya!) Don't think the comparison of looking at critical sites of the church to porn wasn't noticed.  Seriously?  So condescending.  So honest research and consideration of counter information is like a crime against our spouse?  "And you didn't tell me for six months?"  Luckily my wife wasn't such a bitch like the one in the video.  You do realize she doesn't look like a victim.  She looks like a person who takes a judgmental and condescending approach that blames the victim, her own spouse, with no consideration or even recognition that he came to talk to her about the church's problems.  Good job keeping the context of guilt on the victim, and never once stating the church might be at fault.   My hell the church is even finally releasing statements that admit to such. (Check out the church essays)

 

In the video they say to take an intellectually honest look at both sides?  Now, I've done some looking at fair.   In my opinion it was a train wreck.  Of course I didn't read everything there, but for what I did read, most pieces that I read were either attack pieces with nothing more than the intent to try to discredit an author or person without really going into the subject matter, or worse they did a glossing over of information and even provided dishonest representations of known scientific information, such as the DNA piece I read.  Even worse is to simply look the church's manuals.  I don't ever remember a criticism of mention of any troubling issue even in a church manual.  I mention this since I'd always been taught to only reference church approved materials (remember the earlier question from the dad "Did these videos come from the church?")  Trying to trivialize many of the issues people have as less important seems snobbishly arrogant, since they are significant enough to thousands of people that they decide to leave when they learn them.  So why are they never taught in church manuals, or even approached?

 It's great how they so simply paint and dismiss the person with troubling issues as unwilling to look at the issues other than from an "anti" stand point.  From my experience, and there have been many, any time I bring up an issue it's the believer who says leave me alone I don't want to hear it.  From my experience, not too many people who are doing in depth study are unwilling to discuss apologetic responses.  In fact these as I've met people who are studying harder issues they are usually excited to find anyone else who knows about them and will talk about them. It does grow tiresome when the same failed answers and dismissive comments from believers keep getting repeated over and over. 

 The Dad - "I don't think anyone's intentionally trying to hide anything from us.  It's boring."  Really?  It's boring?  Not to people invested in the faith.  And have you seen the recent news articles about the church coming clean because of the internet.  (UPDATE - The KUTV link is dead.  Here's some new references - one, two, three.  It's not hard to find more with a simple google search.  Once on the internet, always on the internet.)

Or comments like the following from Elder Steven E Snow the church's historian. 

"My view is that being open about our history solves a whole lot more problems than it creates. We might not have all the answers, but if we are open (and we now have pretty remarkable transparency), then I think in the long run that will serve us well. I think in the past there was a tendency to keep a lot of the records closed or at least not give access to information. But the world has changed in the last generation—with the access to information on the Internet, we can’t continue that pattern; I think we need to continue to be more open." Religious Educator 14, no. 3 (2013): 1-11

"9,502?"   Scoffing remarks follow about boring content by the father, after his silly guess at how many people are studying the troubling issues. I can reference the web traffic of some sites that cover tough topics from a non church approved/white washed perspective with traffic in the hundreds of thousands even on simple blogs, and for one site in the millions.

Don't worry, it's not just Mormons having troubles with the internet.

"You kinda feel like a traitor...like you've crossed over to the dark side."  This is nothing but a manipulative characterization made to keep believers from questioning.

 This if followed by a nice plug for John Dehlin.  At least he's an active member who has tried to foster an environment for open discussion, unlike fair and the church.

 In the video he asked them to watch a video where he types "Who should I listen to on the book of Abraham"  The very way he approaches this even in question is troubling, and is more troubling after watching the video.  The guy in the video says you have to be both an Egyptologist and church historian.  In fact all that is needed is for members to do a simple study of the church's representation of the history of the book, the book itself, and for the members to apply the overwhelming academic majorities translation of the papyri to the stories they've been taught.  It's not nearly as hard as this guy wants the lay person to believe it is to come to a conclusion of the church's honesty based on readily accessible information.  These constant types of defense amount for what seems normal to Mormon apologetics, but doesn't really provide any apologetic answer other than you aren't smart enough and neither are the critics.  It does nothing to address the church's representation of the papyri and what they say.  As a matter of fact here's how simple it really is.  First listen to Muhlesteins explanation, compare it to this rebuttle, then read this link where a teenager wrote to over 60 professors in Egyptology regarding the book of Abraham papyri, and compare their responses to the pictures in our scriptures of the same papyri and what they claim it says on them.  In addition to these links there's so much more available that this guy has no answers for on this one issue, but I'd bet you won't need much more than this simple comparison.  These responses represent the majority of Egyptologists opinions regarding the issue with the exception of a few believers.  It's in writing the opinions of both sides and the church itself even in scripture.  Trust me you're not too stupid to make a comparison of this information.  If a=b, and b does not = c, a does not = c.  My guess is you'll find it a little disturbing if you look that they even tried to suggest that you, or the critics aren't smart enough to make the comparison.  It'll be even more troubling the comparison itself.

 

Thanks you mormoninfograpics.

 

"I'm beginning to understand but it's complex...well it's not really that complex....too you..."  Yup don't read anything else, you're too dumb and we've done the work already, here's the answer.  Don't look behind our curtain to see if it's real.

If you've looked at the links, you'll see his idea that the "demonstrably wrong assumptions" is way off base, and he fails to answer any troubling issues regarding the book of Abe.  But as a commenter below the video has stated, if you're only problem is the book of A, you haven't looked at much.  In fact, the list of troubling issues for the church is very long.

 Zelph, Kinderhook Plates, Multiple versions of first Vision, Racism, Misogyny, Anachronisms, Archeology, Plagiarisms, Mistranslations, Polygamy, Polyandry, Use of Tithe (Search LDS Financial Investments), Population issues, Membership claims, Lying for the Lord, Paid clergy claims, Sept 6, Hoffman and the Salamander letters, Gold Plate translations with peep stone and head in hat, Convicted con man for treasure digging, Mtn Meadows, The Mormon Militia, Joseph Smith made a king, Didn't wear garments, drank and smoked after WofW, and had a gun that he used in his "lamb to the slaughter" martyrdom, Hid marriages from Emma, Polygamy is still in scripture, Some wives were young teens married to old mean (al la Warren Jeffs), Continued polygamy even with apostles after first declaration to stop, Took two declarations and federal pressure, Adam God Theory, Failed prophecies, DNA, Linguistics, Literal teaching of proven false Bible myths, Temple ordinances are barrowed Masonic ordinances, Edits to talks and scriptures and even the temple ceremony such as removing certain oaths, What happened in Navoo - the whole story leading up to his death, Can't find Mormonism in the book of Mormon, Widdeling deacons, Danites, And the persecution and excommunication of people who talk about this stuff....just to hint to some of them.

No matter how much ignorance is encouraged, ignorance never was faith.  And the excuse of "we don't know" doesn't excuse ignoring what we do in fact know. 

They then get a couple things right.  You do have to figure it out for yourself, and keep studying.  But the next statement is so incredibly wrong, let me know if you can't find the problem in it.  "Study it out intellectually until you come to a point you think it's true.  And then put it to a spiritual test.  While doing this you're going to have to set aside your false assumptions."  OMFG  I'm beside myself hearing this.  This probably marks the primary difference between apologetics and other scholars who do research with regards to the church.  What they are implying is that you have to first set aside the critics as false, and come to a conclusions the church is true, then find your confirmation of such.  This lacks intellectual honesty so deeply it hurts to hear it.  And this is the difference.  Apologetics starts with the conclusion (the church is true) and all efforts are to support it.  Honest research DOES NOT start with a preconceived conclusion.  You may start with a hypothesis, or even believe something to be the answer, but then you test the hypothesis or belief by considering ALL information, not by ignoring the data that disproves it.  This type of "intellectual" dishonesty should be very disturbing when you realize it.

 As for the last part in the video about God and "he quit searching too soon." Maybe he (the person being discussed in the video) weighed even more evidence and came to the conclusion that there is a serious lack of evidence for God.  That in fact the reason you likely believe in your God is predicted primarily by the faith of your parents.  That if you can say why you dismiss the many hundreds of other gods believed in by the many billions of people of different faiths, you will realize why he may dismiss yours.  Maybe when you realize why you don't believe in unicorns or santa claus....

This piece turns into little more than an emotion based propaganda piece when the points are looked at, and consideration is given to the speech used to describe people.  For example, the mother at the end praying with her child, and praying for daddy and his "problems."  What if he found out the church isn't' true, and he was right?  Maybe you just know your church is correct.  But try to imagine this characterization of the father if it's false.  However, he does have a problem.  His problem is that his discovery, even if true, isn't considered by the believing spouse, and he is viewed as having a problem for making such a discovery.  His problem is that his wife has decided he is broken and needs fixed with no thought that it may be her belief that in fact needs fixed.  His problem is that people around him he cares about most are unwilling to listen to him, and have no problem blaming him as a way of forcing him and his new beliefs to fit into their worldview.  If what he knows is true, whether she realizes it or not, she and the church are the ones with the real problem. 

 Holy crap this video is disturbing.  Even when he talks to his wife at the end about the problems with the book of Abraham, he uses NOTHING but GENERALIZATIONS and a NARRATED description of the conversation!  As if that represents the issues.  Seriously?  Not even a mention of funeral texts or Horus?  Not even a mention of how the papyri were recovered and the history of their existence.  No comparison of the pictures shown right inside YOUR OWN SCRIPTURES with the labeled descriptions and scriptural references vs the actual translations?  He might as well have said "EH STUFF."  Then he says "they say it proves he's a false prophet."  Well yes, if you study all of the details it does mean just that.  But they don't hesitate to tell you the conclusion.... "That's poisonous." and "It makes me feel sick inside."  Let me explain something.  When I made the same discoveries, it made me feel sick too.  But Feeling offended by a criticism of your faith doesn't mean the critical statement is false.  This entire video presents a conversation that happens within the context of having predefined that the criticisms of the church are false, and the church is true.  Any video trying to honestly address any issue from the standpoint of learning, should not approach the issue with a dialog so strongly biased towards a predetermined conclusion.  Before you say that a critic or even I sound predetermined, remember I was a believer first, and wanted it to be true more than anything.  Don't insult me by pretending I wasn't a veracious defender of my faith.  I did however recognize, after a long time of searching and studying that it was intellectually dishonest to only consider one side.  Watching this video reinforces the correctness of that conclusion.

 In the end they decide to separate the issues and try to learn them without considering their intertwined affect, and resulted to prayer, and choosing to believe.  In the end they decide that God doesn't show himself, but to believe in a God that isn't there.  (Insert reference to the guy who was "published a tone" and "oh wow") They admit they can't prove things (they say one way or the other, but I would say their way, because the other does have proof), but then say they can "intellectually" freed up enough to test things spiritually in his life.  Um.  Intellectually spiritually test things?  I don't think that word means what you think it means.

 

Oh hey hunny here's that link to this smart published "oh wow" guy.  Joseph Smith worship, kind words, nice music unlike the evil music for the first half the video, add testimony, and CHOOSE to believe.  Period.  Yup.  And this is why fail you already have.

 

For a good look at both sides, not just an apologetic side to many issues, I'd suggest visiting mormonthink.  If you don't think they are fair, compare them to FAIR.  Hell, compare them to LDS.org.  Mormonthink doesn't cover all issues to the limit of information available, but it does give a very good and fairly deep discussion on many tough topics.

Since I had a lot to say I decided to do a write up.  I know I this review is a harshly worded, but for f#$% sake, this video made my stomach hurt. At the end of the video they said to share our comments.  I'm going to post a link to this write up.  So I hope this means you don't lack intellectual honesty, and will allow differing opinions to remain posted.  UPDATE - perhaps my comment just didn't post.   Hmmm.  (I think my cousin also posted the link in the comments...)

But Seriously? This video makes me laugh to think that the same problems have been plaguing the church for decades and longer.  They still in all that time haven't figured it out?  No wonder the church has so many talks and ensign articles warning members about anti information on the internet.  Information is as it turns out the church's cancer.