FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Category:Letter to a CES Director
The following wiki pages are included in the response to "Letter to a CES Director."
Pages in category "Letter to a CES Director"
The following 200 pages are in this category, out of 595 total.
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B
- Backman (1985): "On at least four different occasions, Joseph Smith either wrote or dictated to scribes accounts of his sacred experience of 1820"
- Barney: "three types of evidence favoring the conclusion that Joseph understood the meaning of the italicized words"
- Bell: "the questionable traces above the head of the Osiris figure are actually the remains of his right hand"
- Bell: "there would not be enough available space to restore the hand of Anubis, the erect phallus of the Osiris, and the body and wings of Isis"
- Bernardino de Sahagun: "Fodder was provided the deer—horses—which the Spaniards rode"
- Book of Jubilees 12:1-8: "Abram said to Terah his father...What help and profit have we from those idols which thou dost worship...And his father said unto him...Keep silent, my son, lest they slay thee"
- Boyd K. Packer (1980): "We do not talk of those sacred interviews that qualify the servants of the Lord to bear a special witness of Him, for we have been commanded not to do so"
- Brigham Young (1855): "I do not even believe that there is a single revelation, among the many God has given to the Church, that is perfect in its fulness"
- Brigham Young (1859): "have I yet lived to the state of perfection that I can commune in person with the Father and the Son at my will and pleasure? No, though I hold myself in readiness that he can wield me at his will and pleasure"
- Brigham Young (1871): "whether the Lord...made it in six days or in as many millions of years, is and will remain a matter of speculation in the minds of men unless he give revelation on the subject"
- Brigham Young (1871): "whether the Lord...made it in six days or in as many millions of years, is and will remain a matter of speculation in the minds of men"
C
- Christensen (2014): "His Letter and his response to FairMormon works from an assumption that LDS leadership should display no weakness, have no common manner of language, never err in their statements"
- Christensen: "Notice again the shift from an original argument against the priesthood restoration based on 'no such claim until 1834' to a much softer complaint about the general membership being 'unfamiliar with the now official story.'"
- Christensen: "Runnells shifts the argument regarding the First Vision from 'absolutely no record of' to...'the first vision was unknown to the Saints and the world before 1832'"
- CitationAbuse:CES Letter:John Whitmer:Supernatural power
- CitationAbuse:CES Letter:Metcalf Ten Years Before the Mast
- CitationAbuse:CES Letter:Stephen Burnett to Br. Johnson
- CitationAbuse:Jeremy Runnells' Response and Rebuttal to Brian M. Hauglid's Rational Faiths Essay:B.H. Roberts comment on the Book of Abraham
- Criticism of Mormonism/Books/By His Own Hand upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri/Larson "restoration" of Facsimile 1
- Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director
- Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Letter to a CES Director/Debunking FairMormon
D
- Dallin H. Oaks (1987): "It should be recognized that such tools as the Urim and Thummim, the Liahona, seerstones, and other articles have been used appropriately in biblical, Book of Mormon, and modern times"
- Dallin H. Oaks (1997): "Surely, the word “burning” in this scripture signifies a feeling of comfort and serenity. That is the witness many receive. That is the way revelation works"
- David B. Haight: "I was there with the outpouring of the Spirit in that room so strong that none of us could speak afterwards"
- David Whitmer (1878): "I saw them just as plain as I see this bed"
- David Whitmer (1881): "I do now again affirm the truth of all my statement, as then made and published"
- David Whitmer (1884): "I saw with these eyes and I heard with these ears"
- David Whitmer (1887): "'He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear;' it was no delusion!"
- Detailed response to CES Letter, Book of Abraham
- Detailed response to CES Letter, Book of Mormon
- Detailed response to CES Letter, Book of Mormon Translation
- Detailed response to CES Letter, Conclusion
- Detailed response to CES Letter, First Vision
- Detailed response to CES Letter, Kinderhook Plates & Translator Claims
- Detailed response to CES Letter, Other
- Detailed response to CES Letter, Polygamy and Polyandry
- Detailed response to CES Letter, Priesthood Restoration
- Detailed response to CES Letter, Prophets
- Detailed response to CES Letter, Science
- Detailed response to CES Letter, Scriptures
- Detailed response to CES Letter, Temples & Freemasonry
- Detailed response to CES Letter, Testimony and Spiritual Witness
- Detailed response to CES Letter, Witnesses
- Dr. Wendy Ulrich (2005): "How do the goosebumps and tearfulness I experience when someone speaks in a testimony meeting differ from the goosebumps and tearfulness I experience when the 4:00 parade begins at Disneyland?"
E
- Edward Stevenson (1870): Martin Harris said "my belief is swallowed up in knowledge; for I want to say to you that as the Lord lives I do know that I stood with the Prophet Joseph Smith in the presence of the angel"
- Elder Jeffery R. Holland: "it is a characteristic of our age that if people want any gods at all, they want them to be gods who do not demand much"
- Ensign (Jan. 2013): "He...referred to it using an Old Testament term, Urim and Thummim...He also sometimes applied the term to other stones he possessed"
- Ensign (June 1994): "Highlights in the Prophet’s Life 20 Mar. 1826: Tried and acquitted on fanciful charge of being a “disorderly person,” South Bainbridge, Chenango County, New York
- Ensign (Sept. 1977): "If his translation was essentially the same as that of the King James version, he apparently quoted the verse from the Bible"
G
- Gardner: "a correct approach to a Mesoamerican battle required all three elements: king, litter, and battle beast"
- Gee: "Ferguson is largely unknown to the vast majority of Latter-day Saints; his impact on Book of Mormon studies is minimal"
- George F. Richards: "The Lord has given me dreams which to me are just as real and as much from God as was the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar"
- George Mantle (1888): Martin Harris said "Do you know that is the sun shining on us? Because as sure as you know that...he translated that book by the power of God"
- George Q. Cannon (1896): "I know that God lives. I know that Jesus lives; for I have seen him"
- Godfrey: "Martin found a rock closely resembling the seerstone Joseph sometimes used in place of the interpreters and substituted it without the Prophet’s knowledge"
- Gordon B. Hinckley (1984): "I am not worried that the Prophet Joseph Smith gave a number of versions of the first vision"
- Gospel Topics on LDS.org: "Joseph Smith was sealed to a number of women who were already married. Neither these women nor Joseph explained much about these sealings, though several women said they were for eternity alone"
- Gospel Topics on LDS.org: "Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham"
- Gospel Topics: "As Joseph grew to understand his prophetic calling, he learned that he could use this stone for the higher purpose of translating scripture"
- Gospel Topics: "During the first two decades of the Church’s existence, a few black men were ordained to the priesthood"
- Gospel Topics: "Joseph Smith and his associates often used the term 'Urim and Thummim' to refer to the single stone as well as the interpreters"
- Gospel Topics: "Joseph Smith’s explanations of the facsimiles of the book of Abraham contain additional earmarks of the ancient world"
- Gospel Topics: "the Bible mentions other physical instruments used to access God’s power: the rod of Aaron, a brass serpent, holy anointing oils, the Ark of the Covenant, and even dirt from the ground mixed with saliva"
- Gospel Topics: "The Book of Mormon...does not claim that the peoples it describes were either the predominant or the exclusive inhabitants of the lands they occupied"
- Gospel Topics: "The phrase can be understood to mean that Abraham is the author and not the literal copyist"
- Gospel Topics: "The various accounts of the First Vision tell a consistent story, though naturally they differ in emphasis and detail"
- Gospel Topics: "Today, any person who practices plural marriage cannot become or remain a member of the Church"
- Grayson: "extinct North American mammals...losses began in Mexico and Alaska during the Pleistocene and ended in Florida perhaps as recently as 2000 years ago"
H
- Hamblin: "there are no references to Nephite steel after 400 B.C."
- Harold B. Lee: "I have received a witness that I cannot or dare not deny. When I see Jesus, I cannot mistake His identity. I know that He lives!"
- Head: "The indigenous American bee is the melipona (a stingless bee). It produces only about one kilogram of honey per year"
- Heber C. Kimball (1865): "I know it by revelation by the Spirit of God, for in this way my Heavenly Father communes with me"
- Helen Mar Kimball: "I have encouraged and sustained my husband in the celestial order of marriage because I knew it was right"
- Henry B. Eyring (1996): "I know as surely as did the Apostles Peter, James, and John that Jesus is the Christ, our risen Lord"
- Henry Eyring: "Is there any conflict between science and religion? There is no conflict in the mind of God, but often there is conflict in the minds of men"
I
- Improvement Era (1946): "Did Joseph Smith Introduce Plural Marriage?...It is also possible, though the Church does not now permit it, to seal two living people for eternity only, with no association on earth"
- Improvement Era (1946): "That Joseph Smith actually was the person who introduced plural marriage into the Church and that he practised it himself are amply proved by existing facts"
- Improvement Era (January 1968): "Often the funerary texts contained passages from the 'Book of the Dead,' a book that was to assist in the safe passage of the dead person into the spirit world"
J
- James E. Faust (1995): "Jesus is our divine Savior, Redeemer, and the son of God the Father. I know of his reality by a sure perception so sacred I cannot give utterance to it"
- Jeffery R. Holland: "It is wrong to assume that Nephi in any way wished to take Laban’s life"
- John A. Widtsoe (1943): "The Old Testament records a flood that was just over fifteen cubits (sometimes assumed to be about twenty-six feet) deep and covered the entire landscape"
- John Gee: "If Oylum Hoyuk is Olishem, the Ur of the Chaldees should be one of the dozens of Middle Bronze II sites in the Kilis plain"
- John Whitmer (1876): "I have never heard that any one of the three or eight witnesses ever denied the testimony that they have borne to the Book as published in the first edition of the Book of Mormon"
- John Whitmer: "Joseph the Seer saw these Record(s) and by the revelation of Jesus Christ could translate these records"
- Johnson: "Probably it is safe to say that American Proboscidea have been extinct for a minimum of 3000 years"
- Joseph Fielding Smith: "This was also in the similitude of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ"
- Joseph Fielding Smith: "when the millennium comes...There will be millions of people...of all beliefs, still permitted to remain upon the face of the earth"
- Joseph Smith (14 Nov. 1835): "I received the first visitation of Angels which was when I was about 14"
- Joseph Smith (14 Nov. 1835): "I received the first visitation of angels, which was when I was about fourteen years old"
- Joseph Smith (1832): "a piller of fire light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above"
- Joseph Smith (1842): "surrounded with a brilliant light which eclipsed the sun at noon-day"
- Joseph Smith (1843): "I am just as ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbyterian, a Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination"
- Joseph Smith (9 Nov. 1835): "a personage appeard in the midst of this pillar of flame...another personage soon appeard like unto the first...and I saw many angels in this vision"
- Joseph Smith (9 Nov. 1835): "a pillar of fire appeared above my head...a personage appeard in the midst of this pillar of flame"
- Joseph Smith (9 Nov. 1835): "I saw many angels in this vision...I was about 14 years old when I received this first communication"
- Joseph Smith's marriage to young women
- Joseph Smith: "I might have rendered a plainer translation to this, but it is sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands"
- Joseph Smith: "Jesus Christ became a ministering spirit (while his body was lying in the sepulcher)...After His resurrection He appeared as an angel to His disciples"
- Journal of Book of Mormon Studies: "Pottery and other cultural materials were found in levels VII and above. But in some of those artifact-bearing strata there were horse bones, even in level II"
- JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy: "Filial insubordination is a grave offense because respect and obedience toward parents is regarded as the cornerstone of all order and authority"
- Juncker (1994): "Unknown to many, the early church fathers often referred to Jesus as an Angel....in antiquity the word 'angel' meant 'messenger'"
M
- Madden et al.: "by the beginning of the tenth century B.C. blacksmiths were intentionally steeling iron"
- Marion G. Romney: "I have never told anybody some of the experiences I have had, not even my wife. I know that God lives. I not only know that he lives, but I know him"
- Martin Harris: "Just as plain as you see that chopping block, I saw the plates"
- Martin Harris: "The Book of Mormon is no fake. I know what I know. I have seen what I have seen and I have heard what I have heard"
- Martin: "no theoretical reason why a herd of mastodons, horses, or ground sloths could not have survived in some small refuge until 8000 or even 4000 years ago"
- Matthew Brown (2009): "Brigham Young repeated these ideas and expounded upon them during the next 25 years. His viewpoints have been variously classified as doctrine, theory, paradox, heresy, speculation, and some of the mysteries"
- Matthews: "To regard the New Translation...as a product of divine inspiration given to Joseph Smith does not necessarily assume that it be a restoration of the original Bible text"
- McGuire: "Anjouan, one of the Comoro islands, with an indicated anchorage identified as Meroni"
- Miller and Roper: "Bones of domesticated cattle...have been reported from different caves in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico"
- Miller and Roper: "Evidence for the survival of the elephant can be found in Native American myths and traditions"
- Miller and Roper: "Evidence of goats associated with pre-Columbian man also comes from caves in Yucatan"
- Miller and Roper: "In post-biblical Jewish literature some Jewish writers distinguished between wild and domestic cattle such as goats"
- Miller and Roper: "there are sheep native to America. The most common type is the Mountain Sheep, Ovis canadensis"
- Miller and Roper: "This was long enough to bring them (mammoths) to the time of the Jaredites"
- Miller and Roper: "two distinct species of peccary live in Mesoamerica....They were hunted and eaten as early as Olmec times"
- Muhlestein and Gee: "It is now apparent that human sacrifice did indeed occur in ancient Egypt"
- Muhlestein and Gee: "Sacrifice was a penalty for desecrating the sacred house of an Egyptian god"
N
O
- Oaks (1987): "it is wrong to make statements of fact out of an evil motive, even if the statements are true"
- Oaks (1997): "rarely speak of them publicly because...because we understand that the channels of revelation will be closed if we show these things before the world"
- Oaks (2000): "it is usually inappropriate to recite miraculous circumstances to a general audience that includes people with very different levels of spiritual maturity"
- Oaks: "We are supposed to learn by both reason and revelation, and that does not happen when we compartmentalize science and religion"
- Oliver Cowdery statements as one of Three Witnesses
- Oliver Cowdery: "My eyes saw, my ears heard...It was no dream, no vain imagination of the mind—it was real"
- Olson (2004): "People may like to think that they're descended from some ancient group while other people are not. But human ancestry doesn't work that way, since we all share the same ancestors just a few millenniums ago"
- Orson F. Whitney (1926): "One night I dreamed … that I was in the Garden of Gethsemane, a witness of the Savior’s agony"
- Orson Pratt (1840): "a very bright and glorious light in the heavens...He expected to have seen the leaves and boughs of the trees consumed, as soon as the light came in contact with them"
- Orson Pratt (1878): "I have been blessed with some revelations and prophecies, and with dreams of things that have come to pass"
P
- Padilla et al.: "The maya codex Tro-Cortesianus shows drawings of bees and parts of honey combs"
- Painesville Telegraph (1830): "Cowdry claims that he and his associates are the only persons on earth who are qualified to administer in his name. By this authority, they proclaim to the world"
- Painesville Telegraph (1830): "The name of the person here, who pretends to have a divine mission, and to have seen and conversed with Angels, is Cowdray"
- Parrish (1838): "I have set by his side and penned down the translation of the Egyptian Heiroglyphicks as he claimed to receive it by direct inspiration of Heaven"
- Paul Hoskisson (1991): "I will suggest an alternate location for the Ur of the Chaldees in the story of Abraham"
- Peterson (2005): The plates "are an indigestible lump in the throats of people...who contend that there were no Nephites but that Joseph Smith was nonetheless an inspired prophet"
- Peterson (2014): "It’s rather like someone to ascribe early Christian belief to the resurrection of Jesus to the supposed fact that ancient people, unlike us, hadn’t yet realized that dead people tend to stay dead"
- Peterson and Roper: "We know of no one who cites Ferguson as an authority, except countercultists"
- Peterson: "the identification of a crocodile as the idolatrous god of Pharaoh...Unas’ pyramid texts, includes the following: 'The king appears as the crocodile god Sobek'"
- Peterson: "Thomas Stuart Ferguson's biographer...makes every effort to portray Ferguson's apparent eventual loss of faith as a failure for 'LDS archaeology'"
- Pietro Martire d'Anghiera (1912): "the Spaniards noticed herds of deer similar to our herds of cattle"
- Preach My Gospel: "As you pray for inspiration, you should also confirm your feelings...Certainly the Spirit of the Lord can bring strong emotional feelings, including tears, but that outward manifestation ought not to be confused with the presence of the
- Preach My Gospel: "many other nations and cultures have been blessed by those who were given that portion that God 'seeth fit that they should have'"
- Prothero (2003): "in the 1832 version, Jesus appears to Smith alone, and does all the talking himself. Such complaints, however, are much ado about relatively nothing"
Q
- Question: Are Church members required to believe in a global flood?
- Question: Are LDS standards required by the mall?
- Question: Are prophets simply "men of their time," without any special ability to guide the Church?
- Question: Are the ages stated in Joseph's accounts of the First Vision 'all over the place?'
- Question: Are the Book of Mormon witnesses unreliable because many of them were related?
- Question: Are the names on the Holley Map in the correct locations relative to one another?
- Question: Are the original Temple Lot Case transcripts available online?
- Question: Are the reasons for discipline ever made public?
- Question: Are there any eyewitness accounts of the events that resulted in the trip to Canada to sell the Book of Mormon copyright?
- Question: Are there any known parallels between elements of Joseph's interpretation of Facsimile 3 with other ancient texts?
- Question: Are there no mentions of the seer stone and/or its use with a hat on LDS.org?
- Question: Are there similarities between the description of forts in the Book of Mormon and Gilbert Hunt's ''The Late War''?
- Question: Aren't tithing funds from "long ago" ultimately the source of all current Church funds?
- Question: At what age did Joseph Smith become concerned about religion?
- Question: By what name did Joseph Smith refer to the First Vision?
- Question: Can a person "feel the spirit" while watching movies?
- Question: Can a prophet make mistakes?
- Question: Can non-Mormons feel a spiritual experience that cause them to devote themselves to service within another Church?
- Question: Can someone feel the spirit when listening to stories of apostasy?
- Question: Could ancient Americans have expanded the definition of "horse" to include new meanings?
- Question: Could Gilbert Hunt's ''The Late War'' have given Joseph Smith the idea of using brass plates as a way of recording information?
- Question: Could Joseph Smith have acquired the names "Moroni" and "Cumorah" from a map of the Comoro archipelago off the coast of Africa?
- Question: Could Joseph Smith have acquired the names "Moroni" and "Cumorah" from stories of Captain Kidd that he read in his youth?
- Question: Could Joseph Smith have heard the names "Moroni" and "Cumorah" from American whalers?
- Question: Could Joseph Smith have learned about Hebraisms from Gilbert Hunt's "The Late War"?
- Question: Could Joseph Smith have used Ethan Smith's ''View of the Hebrews'' as a guideline for creating the Book of Mormon?
- Question: Could Joseph Smith have utilized place names and locations from the region in which he lived to create the Book of Mormon?
- Question: Couldn't the "Egyptian Alphabet" have referred to the "reformed Egyptian" characters on the Anthon transcript?
- Question: Did any of Joseph's scribes ever say anything about Joseph's story of the vision changing over time?
- Question: Did any woman suffer consequences for turning down Joseph's proposal?
- Question: Did B.H. Roberts lose his faith in the Church and the Book of Mormon?
- Question: Did B.H. Roberts state that it was possible for Joseph Smith to have come up with the Book of Mormon on his own?
- Question: Did Brigham Young believe that one could not enter the Celestial Kingdom unless they were a polygamist?
- Question: Did Charles Anthon validate the characters that Martin Harris brought to him that had been copied from the Book of Mormon plates?
- Question: Did David Whitmer tell John Murphy that the angel Moroni "had no appearance or shape" and that he saw "nothing"?
- Question: Did Elder Boyd K. Packer suggest that we should "lie our way" into obtaining a testimony?
- Question: Did Elder Dallin H. Oaks say that it’s wrong to criticize leaders of the Church, even if the criticism is true?
- Question: Did FairMormon do "more to destroy" the testimony of the author of the "Letter to a CES Director" than any "anti-Mormon" source?
- Question: Did God tell David Whitmer to leave the Church and repudiate Mormonism?
- Question: Did Gordon B. Hinckley claim that polygamy was "not doctrinal" on Larry King Live?
- Question: Did Helen Mar Kimball "confess" to having marital relations with Joseph?
- Question: Did Joseph attempt to translate the Kinderhook Plates using the "gift and power of God?"
- Question: Did Joseph claim that an angel threatened him with a "drawn sword" or "flaming sword" if a woman refused to marry him?
- Question: Did Joseph Fielding Smith remove the 1832 account of Joseph Smith's First Vision from its original letterbook and hide it in his safe?
- Question: Did Joseph hide his plural marriages from Emma, his first wife?
- Question: Did Joseph know what the italics in the Bible meant?
- Question: Did Joseph mention a "pillar of fire" or a "pillar of light" in his 1832 account of the First Vision?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith and Brigham Young steal Henry Jacobs' family?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith attempt to "cover up" Oliver Cowdery's work with a divining rod by changing the wording of the revelation that became Doctrine and Covenants 8:6–8?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith attempt to translate the Kinderhook Plates?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith begin his prophetic career with a "trinitarian" idea of God?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith being sealed to mothers, daughters and sisters violate a biblical prohibition?