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:MormonThink
Responses to claims made on the critical website MormonThink.com
Pages in category "MormonThink"
The following 200 pages are in this category, out of 423 total.
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- Joseph Smith and the Word of Wisdom
- Joseph Smith listed as author and proprietor of the Book of Mormon
- Joseph Smith Papers: "Although he hated adultery and was deeply loyal to his wife Emma, he believed he was to take additional wives as had the ancient patriarchs"
- Joseph Smith's First Vision/Did Joseph Smith join other churches/Methodist membership procedures
- Joseph Smith's First Vision/Lucy Mack Smith and the Presbyterians
- 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"
- Juncker (1994): "Unknown to many, the early church fathers often referred to Jesus as an Angel....in antiquity the word 'angel' meant 'messenger'"
L
M
- Martin Harris: "As sure as you see my hand so sure did I see the angel and 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"
- 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"
- Miller and Roper: "Evidence for the survival of the elephant can be found in Native American myths and traditions"
- Miller and Roper: "This was long enough to bring them (mammoths) to the time of the Jaredites"
- Mormonism and racial issues/Blacks and the priesthood/Repudiated ideas/Neutral in "war in heaven"
- Mormonism and racial issues/Blacks and the priesthood/The "curse of Cain" and "curse of Ham"
- Multiple accounts of the First Vision/Criticisms/Overview
- Multiple accounts of the First Vision/Oliver Cowdery not aware of First Vision in 1834-35
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- 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"
- Painesville Telegraph (1831): Martin Harris said that "He had seen and handled them all"
- 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"
- Peterson and Roper: "We know of no one who cites Ferguson as an authority, except countercultists"
- Peterson: "Thomas Stuart Ferguson's biographer...makes every effort to portray Ferguson's apparent eventual loss of faith as a failure for 'LDS archaeology'"
- Plural marriage and the Bible
- Plural marriage and the law
- Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto
- Plural marriage/Parley P. Pratt's marriage and murder
- 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 prophets simply "men of their time," without any special ability to guide the Church?
- Question: Are sacred garments used in religious traditions other than Mormonism?
- Question: Are the ages stated in Joseph's accounts of the First Vision 'all over the place?'
- 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 sources which identify the angel that visited Joseph as "Moroni" that date prior to the "Nephi" error?
- 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: Could ancient Americans have expanded the definition of "horse" to include new meanings?
- Question: Could Joseph Smith have used Ethan Smith's ''View of the Hebrews'' as a guideline for creating the Book of Mormon?
- Question: Could Moroni have been an "angel of Satan"?
- Question: Did any of Joseph's scribes ever say anything about Joseph's story of the vision changing over time?
- 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 Church leaders ever teach that Blacks were neutral in the "war in heaven?"
- Question: Did David Whitmer ever deny his Book of Mormon witness because he thought that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet?
- 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 John Whitmer, one of the Eight Witnesses, actually say that he saw the plates by a "supernatural power"?
- Question: Did Joseph attempt to translate the Kinderhook Plates using the "gift and power of God?"
- Question: Did Joseph Fielding Smith say that it was not reasonable for Joseph Smith to use a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon?
- 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 attempt to translate the Kinderhook Plates?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith become a member of Emma Hale Smith's Methodist congregation in 1828, eight years after the First Vision?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith begin his prophetic career with a "trinitarian" idea of God?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith change his stated motivation for praying in later years after he received the First Vision?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith confer the priesthood on several black men?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith consummate any of these marriages with married women?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith create the temple ceremony as a way of teaching polygamy to certain members while keeping it a secret from the general public?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith decide that all churches were wrong before he received the First Vision?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith derive the idea of "three degrees of glory" from Emanuel Swedenborg's book, ''Heaven and its Wonders and Hell''?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith ever publicly attempt to teach the doctrine of plural marriage?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith have access to materials related to Nahom at Allegheny College?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith incorporate his father's dream of the tree of life into the Book of Mormon?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith institute polygamy because he had a "voracious sexual appetite"?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith lose control of the Church during the 1838 Kirtland apostasy?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith make an error by claiming that Elias and Elijah are two different people, when they are in fact one and the same?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith marry Fanny Alger as his first plural wife in 1833?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith misidentify a Greek "psalter" as a containing "reformed Egyptian" hieroglyphics?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith originally identify the angel that visited him as "Nephi" instead of "Moroni"?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith place his seer stone in his hat while looking for lost objects?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith receive a revelation instructing him to to sell the copyright to the Book of Mormon in Canada and later claim that the revelation was false?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith revise his account of the First Vision in 1838 to respond to a leadership crisis?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith simply conflate elements of the 1818 and 1824-25 revivals in his story of the First Vision?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith use his own seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith use the Nephite interpreters to translate? Or did he use his own seer stone?
- Question: Did Joseph Smith write a "love letter" to his plural wife Sarah Ann Whitney to request a secret rendezvous?
- Question: Did Lucy Mack Smith join the Presbyterian Church after her son Alvin died in 1823?
- Question: Did Lucy Mack Smith state when she joined the Presbyterians?
- Question: Did Martin Harris change his religion five times prior to the Restoration?
- Question: Did Martin Harris claim that he only saw the gold plates as they were covered "as a city through a mountain"?
- Question: Did Martin Harris ever deny his Book of Mormon witness because he thought that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet?
- Question: Did Martin Harris tell people that he did not see the plates with his natural eyes, but rather the "eye of faith"?
- Question: Did Martin Harris tell people that he only saw the plates with his "spiritual eye"?
- Question: Did Oliver Cowdery ever deny his Book of Mormon witness because he thought that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet?
- Question: Did Oliver Cowdery state that Joseph did not know if a "supreme being" existed in 1823?
- Question: Did one of the Book of Mormon witnesses actually only handle the plates while they were covered in a "tow frock"?
- Question: Did Solomon Spaulding's doctor state that Spaulding talked to him about the Nephites in his manuscript?
- Question: Did the actual words "God the Father" and "Jesus Christ" appear in Joseph's 1838 account of the First Vision?
- Question: Did the Church refute the "neutral in the pre-existence" teaching only to preserve their public image?
- Question: Did the Church repudiate the idea of neutrality in the "war in heaven?"
- Question: Did the prophet Nephi visit Joseph at some point in time?
- Question: Did the Three Witnesses consider Joseph Smith a "fallen prophet" after they left the Church?
- Question: Did the three witnesses's experience of seeing the plates and the angel take place only in their minds?
- Question: Didn't Hugh Nibley claim that a record of this trial would be "the most damning evidence in existence" against Joseph Smith?
- Question: Do academic translators copy translations of other documents to use as a "base text"?
- Question: Do Martin Harris's statements related to the "spiritual eye" or "eye of faith" contradict the reality of his witness?
- Question: Do Mormons believe that the temple garment will protect them from physical harm?
- Question: Do the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon link a person's skin color to their behavior in the pre-existence?
- Question: Does Cain still roam the earth, and does this account for stories about "Bigfoot"?
- Question: Does Church art always reflect reality?
- Question: Does Doctrine and Covenants 84 say that one cannot see God without holding the priesthood?
- Question: Does Jesus Christ's statement "they neither marry, nor are given in marriage" contradict the Latter-day Saint doctrine of eternal marriage?
- Question: Does Martin Harris' involvement with other faiths after the Restoration discredit him?
- Question: Does Martin Harris' involvement with the Shakers undercut his testimony?
- Question: Does the 14 November 1835 account reference to the "first vision of Angels" mean that Joseph Smith did not see Deity?
- Question: Does the belief by the witnesses that the experience had visionary qualities contradict the claim that the Book of Mormon plates were real?
- Question: Does the Bible forbid plural marriage?
- Question: Does the Book of Abraham state that the sun gets its photons from Kolob?
- Question: Does the Book of Mormon contain mistakes?
- Question: Does the Book of Mormon refer to "coins"?
- Question: Does the Smithsonian Institution send out a letter regarding the use of the Book of Mormon as a guide for archaeological research?
- Question: Does the use of the capitalized word "Angel" in the 14 November 1835 account refer to Deity?
- Question: Doesn't the Bible say that the continents were divided immediately after the Flood?
- Question: Has God used his power to enforce sleep on other occasions?
- Question: Has the book ''View of the Hebrews'' been readily available?
- Question: Has the Church tried to hide Joseph's use of a seer stone?
- Question: Have any ancient horse remains from the Nephite period been found in the New World?
- Question: Have edits to the revelations been discussed in the present day?
- Question: How can President Hinckley claim that polygamy is "not doctrinal" if it was a required practice in the 19th-Century Church?
- Question: How can we accept David Whitmer as a valid Book of Mormon witness if God told him to leave the Saints?
- Question: How could Joseph and Fanny have been married in 1831 if the sealing power had not yet been restored?
- Question: How could the Garden of Eden have been in Missouri if the Flood was local?
- Question: How did Elder Holland respond during a BBC interview when asked how the Book of Abraham was translated?
- Question: How did Emma Hale Smith react to Joseph's practice of plural marriage?
- Question: How did Joseph Smith use his seer stones as a youth?
- Question: How did Latter-day Saint scholars respond to the attempt to sell the Book of Mormon copyright prior to Page's letter coming to light?
- Question: How did newspaper accounts describe the nature of the witnesses experience?
- Question: How did the "curse of Ham" or "curse of Cain" become associated with Mormonism?
- Question: How did the apostle Paul describe spiritual experiences?
- Question: How did the erroneous story of the attempt to sell the Book of Mormon copyright develop over time?
- Question: How do critics of the Church portray Joseph Smith's letter to the Whitney family as a "love letter"?
- Question: How do Latter-day Saints reconcile scriptural accounts of the Flood of Noah with scientific evidence of continuous human habitation on the earth?
- Question: How do non-Mormon artists treat the Nativity?
- Question: How do the First Vision accounts compare on the subject of Joseph's motivation for praying?
- Question: How do the goals of Freemasonry compare to those of the Latter-day Saint endowment?
- Question: How do we reconcile the actual age of the earth to the "seven thousand years of its continuance" mentioned in D&C 77:6?
- Question: How does archaeology in the New World fit with the Book of Mormon?
- Question: How does archaeology in the Old World compare to the first chapters in the Book of Mormon?
- Question: How does David Whitmer's account of the attempt to sell the Book of Mormon copyright compare to those of the eyewitnesses?
- Question: How does the Church explain the existence of human-like beings on the earth prior to Adam?
- Question: How early was the story of the First Vision known among the members of the Church?
- Question: How exactly did Joseph Smith translate the gold plates?
- Question: How is the Joseph Smith Translation best understood?
- Question: How much did the gold plates weigh?
- Question: How quickly could one join the Methodists in the 1830s?
- Question: How were Joseph Smith's seer stones involved in the translation of the Book of Mormon?
- Question: How would a statement that "God is a spirit" be interpreted in ancient Judasism?
- Question: How would an archaeologist distinguish a Christian's pot from that of a non-Christian?
- Question: How would Book of Mormon archaeology compare to that of the Bible?
- Question: If a doctrine is repudiated, does that mean that it was false when it was being taught?
- Question: If the Joseph Smith Translation (JST) is Joseph Smith's 'correction' of Biblical errors, why do these corrections not match known Biblical manuscripts?
- Question: If the only purpose of polygamy was to "raise up seed," then why did Joseph not have children by his plural wives?
- Question: If we believe the story of the Three Witnesses, should we also believe witnesses of UFO's, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster?
- Question: In what context are elephants mentioned in the Book of Mormon?
- Question: In what way did Joseph Smith implement the Word of Wisdom during his lifetime?
- Question: Is any book of scripture perfect?
- Question: Is it inconceivable that anybody could run carrying a 50 lb. set of metal plates, jumping over logs and such and be able to outrun three men?
- Question: Is someone unreliable because they practiced "treasure hunting" and believed in the use of seer stones to find lost objects?
- Question: Is the Church trying to hide something through its use of artwork?
- Question: Is the concept of no death before the fall on the ''entire earth'' Church doctrine?
- Question: Is the fact that Latter-day Saint missionaries were teaching around 1 November 1830 that Joseph Smith had seen “God” personally a reference to having seen Jesus Christ, but not the Father?
- Question: Is the Mormon temple garment simply "magic underwear"?
- Question: Is the Spalding theory of Book of Mormon authorship credible?
- Question: Is the wearing of the Mormon temple garment not supported by the Bible?
- Question: Is there a case where Joseph stated that his age was 17 rather than 14 at the time of the First Vision?
- Question: Is there a link between Ethan Smith, author of ''View of the Hebrews'', and Oliver Cowdery?
- Question: Is there any reference to God the Father being present in Joseph Smith's 1832 account?
- Question: Of what did the Strangite witnesses testify?
- Question: Was Emma aware of the possibility that Joseph could take additional wives even without her consent?
- Question: Was Heber C. Kimball concerned that missionaries would "take all the best" convert women as plural wives before they returned to Salt Lake City?
- Question: Was it normal not to obtain a formal civil divorce in 19th century America?
- Question: Was Joseph Smith ever charged with adultery under Illinois law?
- Question: Was Joseph Smith sealed or married to other men's wives without the knowledge or consent of their husband?
- Question: Was Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible ever completed?
- Question: Was Martin Harris a gullible witness who would simply believe anything he was told?
- Question: Was Nephi's temple "similar in splendor" to Solomon's temple?
- Question: Was Oliver Cowdery aware of the details of the First Vision that were written in Joseph Smith's 1832 history?
- Question: Was Oliver Cowdery aware that some in the Church were practicing polygamy in 1835 at the time he authored the "Article on Marriage"?
- Question: Was Parley P. Pratt murdered because he stole another man's wife?
- Question: Was the "Adam-God" theory ever taught as part of the temple endowment ceremony as something called "the lecture at the veil"?
- Question: Was the "Pentecost" at the Kirtland Temple dedication actually a drunken orgy?
- Question: Was the ''History of the Church'' falsified when "first visitation of Angels" was changed to "my first vision"?
- Question: Was the ''View of the Hebrews'' theory of Book of Mormon origin advanced during the lifetime of Joseph Smith?
- Question: Was the idea that Blacks were neutral in the "war in heaven" ever official doctrine?
- Question: Was the Liahona simply a magnetic compass that was out of place in 600 B.C.?
- Question: Was the only purpose of polygamy to "multiply and replenish the earth" and "bear the souls of men"?
- Question: Was the practice of polygamy general knowledge among Latter-day Saints in 1835 when the "Article on Marriage" was published?
- Question: Was the priesthood ban lifted as the result of social or government pressure?
- Question: Was the young Joseph Smith a teller of "tall tales"?
- Question: Was there no death on the entire earth before the Fall?
- Question: Was there no mention of revival activity in 1820 in the newspaper?
- Question: Was Thomas Stuart Ferguson an archaeologist?
- Question: Were any of the changes to the Book of Mormon made in reaction to sectarian criticism?
- Question: Were revivals and religious excitement too common to be noticed in the newspapers?
- Question: Were the changes to the revelations hidden from the Church members?