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Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/For my Wife and Children (Letter to my Wife)
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Response to "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife")
Summary: For my Wife and Children" (a.k.a. "Letter to my Wife")' is an online document which is critical of Latter-day Saint truth claims. The author states, "I began to see how the Church profits by misrepresenting history in order to gain converts and retain members". [1]
About this work
The online document "For my Wife and Children" (also known as "Letter to My Wife") was written by an anonymous author who posts on the ex-Mormon subreddit. It is addressed to the author's wife. According to the author,
I remain grateful for the good things the Church brought me, the great people I’ve grown to know and the ways in which all this has helped me grow. My decision to leave the Church was the product of years of research, study, and prayer. This letter became a comprehensive explanation for my decision, and now you have read it and thought deeply about what it reveals about the Church, I hope that you will join me by my side. [2]
The text of the 2016 version of the document is generally respectful in tone and approaches the issues in a mature manner, while avoiding the sarcasm and immaturity in tone that plague the "Letter to a CES Director" (which addresses a number of the same issues). [3]
The author provides a good deal of sourced material (much of it from Church sources). The author does, however, tend to rely on other documents (including the "CES Letter") to formulate his own claims, thereby relying on a limited subset of data and sources in those other documents without being aware of a number of errors and missing data. A number of the author's source links and typographical errors in the author's document have been silently corrected in this response and are not considered in FairMormon's evaluation of this material.
After carefully evaluating FairMormon's response to this work, the author responded:
Every single line in their response to my letter is a lie. I can't read it anymore. My head hurts. [4]
The following links respond to individual claims contained in the following document:
- Anonymous, For my Wife and Children (Letter to my Wife) (2016)
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" by Anonymous
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 1 - The First Vision
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 2 - The Translation (Book of Mormon)
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 3 - The Witnesses
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 4 - The Kinderhook Plates
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 5- The Word of Wisdom
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 6- The Endowment
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 7 - Polygamy
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 8 - Blacks and the Church
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 9 - Blood Atonement
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 10 - Prophesies
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 11 - DNA
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 12 - Reformed Egyptian
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 13 - Anachronisms
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 14 - The Jaredites
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 15 - Source Material (Book of Mormon)
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 16 - Expert Views (Book of Mormon)
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 17 - Facsimile #1
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 18 - Facsimile #2
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 19 - Facsimile #3
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 20 - The Rosetta Stone
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 21 - The Translation (Book of Abraham)
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 22 - Expert Views (Book of Abraham)
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 23 - Tithing
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 24 - Church Spending
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 25 - Scientific Evidence
- Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 26 - Spiritual Confirmation
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 1 - The First Vision
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: By the time of the "first publication in 1842" of the First Vision in the Times and Seasons, "not a single one of 23,564 members of the Church ever recorded hearing about it"
- Response to claim: "Several religious publications in the New England area demonstrate that such visions were common"
- Response to claim: "In his first account written in 1832, Joseph mentions that he had already concluded that the world had apostatized from the faith"
- Response to claim: "He then has an encounter with “the Lord,” but makes no mention of two separate personages"
- Response to claim: "Joseph’s 1835 account notes that while one of the two personages testifies that Jesus is the Son of God, neither personage is specifically identified as God or Jesus. Also sees 'many angels'"
- Response to claim: "Even the elders of the Church, who labored with him closely, did not know that Joseph saw two personages...Brigham Young"
- Response to claim: "Even the elders of the Church, who labored with him closely, did not know that Joseph saw two personages...Wilford Woodruff"
- Response to claim: "Even the elders of the Church, who labored with him closely, did not know that Joseph saw two personages...George A. Smith"
- Response to claim: "The...statement from 3rd president of the Church, John Taylor, reveals that as late as 1879 (35 years after Joseph Smith’s death) the Church was still not teaching that he saw two personages but only an “angel"
- Response to claim: "In 1902 The Church decided to adopt the 1838 version of Joseph’s First Vision as the official account now contained in The Pearl of Great Price – Joseph Smith History"
- Response to claim: "his motivation for praying seems to be different"
- Response to claim: "Continued Concealment. Using the vast resources of the Church education system, members are not informed of the inconsistencies relating to Joseph’s visions"
- Response to claim: "it took at least 60 years for even the leadership of the Church to know that Joseph was visited by two personages"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 2 - The Translation (Book of Mormon)
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "Contrary to general Church teachings, Joseph did not read the gold plates like an open book at all. Rather, during the entire translation process he buried his face in a hat that contained a common rock"
- Response to claim: "If the Church knew the true method Joseph used to dictate the Book of Mormon, why would they commission works of art and film and use the education system to teach otherwise?"
- Response to claim: "David Whitmer mentions a seer stone, but other than this more than 20 year-old Ensign article, the existence of this method using a stone in a hat has never been mentioned"
- Response to claim: "For nearly 200 years the Church has had this object in their physical possession, yet has never shown it or actively taught about its existence"
- Response to claim: "Apparently seer stones were a common item used in folk magic in the New England. The Smith family’s use of these stones does not appear to be a unique practice"
- Response to claim: "Josiah Stowell requested Joseph's assistance in a mining operation looking for old coins and precious metals. This effort was fruitless and ended in charges being brought against Joseph by the Stowells for being a 'glasslooker'"
- Response to claim: Joseph Smith was "taken to court for defrauding those he promised fortunes"
- Response to claim: "Josephsmithpapers.org displays one of the trial bills for Joseph’s court hearings in Bainbridge, New York where he was charged for fraud, a misdemeanor in 1826"
- Response to claim: "Members have always been taught that Joseph’s times in court were because Satan was stirring up the hearts of those who would stop Joseph from the Lord’s work"
- Response to claim: "Joseph was using the same tool to defraud people as he later used to write the Book of Mormon"
- Response to claim: "He used a seer stone to sell treasure hunting services and when that didn’t turn out well for him, he used the same stone to sell religious services"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 3 - The Witnesses
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "No scribe to the translation process (Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris or Emma Smith) was ever allowed to see the plates. Emma only felt the plates through a cloth on the table"
- Response to claim: "Why wouldn’t Joseph want anybody to see the plates?"
- Response to claim: "Joseph describes how the men gained their witness of the plates in a purely visionary setting"
- Response to claim: "Remember, the word “vision” means dream not reality"
- Response to claim: "Why was prayer necessary to see the plates if they were in fact, a physical object?"
- Response to claim: Regarding the gold plates, Martin Harris is claimed to have said that "the eight witnesses never saw them and hesitated to sign that instrument for that reason the eight witnesses never saw them and hesitated to sign that instrument for that reason"
- Response to claim: Martin Harris is reported to have "said he had hefted the plates repeatedly in a box with only a tablecloth or handkerchief over them, but he never saw them only as he saw a city through a mountain"
- Response to claim: John Whitmer "responded by saying 'I now say, I handled those plates...they were shown to me by a supernatural power'"
- Response to claim: "Josephsmithpapers.org published the original source document for the statements by the 3 and 8 witnesses that are printed in the beginning of the Book of Mormon"
- Response to claim: "Josephsmithpapers.org states that both statements and all signatures are in the handwriting of Oliver Cowdery"
- Response to claim: "Reportedly this source document is printer’s manuscript and the original was partially destroyed; however no remains can be found"
- Response to claim: "No one has ever seen the plates, yet it seems as though they are still here on the Earth in a cave in the Hill Cumorah. Surely the Church must be in possession of the plates as there is a visitor’s center at the Hill Cumorah"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 4 - The Kinderhook Plates
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "Joseph claimed to translate the characters on the plates"
- Response to claim: "How could the prophet Joseph Smith believe they were authentic and claim to have translated the symbols as an account of a descendant of Ham through the loins of Pharaoh, King of Egypt?"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 5- The Word of Wisdom
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "Verse 2 – Clearly states that the Word of Wisdom is not a commandment; yet modern members are asked if they follow it during temple interviews"
- Response to claim: "Verse 12,13 – Meat should only be eaten in the winter or during a famine"
- Response to claim: "according to the Word of Wisdom, members should currently refrain from hot drinks of all kinds, chocolate and soups included"
- Response to claim: "if God really wanted Joseph to give the saints a code of health that would continue to modern day, he should have included things like daily cardiovascular exercise, and the avoidance of fast food and soda"
- Response to claim: "the Church has long taught that coffee was unhealthy. But coffee’s reputation in the Church appears to be backward"
- Response to claim: Joseph Smith "becomes a member of a Methodist congregation that taught against hot drinks" in Harmony, Pennsylvania in June 1828
- Response to claim: Joseph Smith received the Word of Wisdom because Emma's complaints about "the conduct of the Elders in using tobacco"
- Response to claim: "Joseph taught the Word of Wisdom but did not practice it. If the Lord really gave this revelation to Joseph, one would think he would at least follow it himself"
- Response to claim: "It appears that the Word of Wisdom may not be unique instruction, but well within the context of 19th century assumptions"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 6- The Endowment
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "Church leaders claim that the connection between Masons and Mormons date back to the stonemasons who built Solomon’s temple in the Old Testament"
- Response to claim: "Unfortunately for the Church, Freemason historians cite its origins to the late 14th to early 15th century in Scotland as a trade guild; not 950 BC in Jerusalem"
- Response to claim: "Joseph’s family and several of the first members of the Church were Masons"
- Response to claim: "Just seven weeks after his initiation as a first-degree mason, on April 4, 1842, Joseph introduces the endowment ceremony"
- Response to claim: "What exactly was Joseph exposed to during this initiation and is it possible that any of it made its way into the endowment ceremony?"
- Response to claim: "Masonic Symbol Use on Early Temples"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 7 - Polygamy
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "Joseph Smith married up to 65 women...For unspecified reasons his polygamy is never addressed in the Church education system"
- Response to claim: "In 1833 Fanny Alger became Joseph’s first marriage after Emma – ten years before the official revelation"
- Response to claim: "Oliver Cowdery also addresses this situation when he notes his extreme displeasure with Joseph’s conduct with Fanny Alger while married to Emma"
- Response to claim: "Letter from Joseph Smith to Sarah Ann Whitney...the only thing to be careful of; is to find out when Emma comes then you cannot be safe"
- Response to claim: "On April 6, 1840, Orson was sent on a 3 year mission to Jerusalem. Shortly after his departure, Joseph married his wife Nancy Marinda Johnson-Hyde while Orson was gone"
- Response to claim: Joseph Smith told Zina Diantha Huntington-Jacobs, who was married to Henry Jacobs at the time, "that the Lord had made it known to him she was to be his celestial wife"
- Response to claim: "Brigham Young also took Zina for his wife while she was still married to Henry Jacobs"
- Response to claim: "Joseph Smith "demanded for himself what to Heber was the unthinkable, his Vilate"
- Response to claim: "Seven of Joseph’s wives were teenagers while he was in his late 30’s"
- Response to claim: "Elder Law was excommunicated for disagreeing with Joseph’s actions. This disagreement came after finding out that Joseph asked William’s wife, Jane, to be sealed to him"
- Response to claim: "William Law then started a newspaper called the Nauvoo Expositor" and Joseph Smith "issued an order to destroy the printing press"
- Response to claim: "At 8pm that night the Nauvoo militia burned the Nauvoo Expositor to the ground"
- Response to claim: "Nothing is ever said of actual crimes committed by Joseph and his followers. Joseph’s increasingly public acts of illegal polygamy, combined with the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 8 - Blacks and the Church
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "For over 150 years the Church has taught and sustained racially prejudiced doctrines; while attributing these teachings to God’s will"
- Response to claim: Brigham Young "went as far as preaching death as a consequence for inter-race marriage"
- Response to claim: "As a church claiming to be led by Jesus Christ himself, I would expect it to be on the front line fighting for equal rights for all people; instead the Church did nothing. In fact, they actually tried to prevent it"
- Response to claim: "Prior to 1978, blacks could only be servants in the Celestial kingdom"
- Response to claim: "President Ezra Taft Benson gave a talk in general conference after the passing of the (1964) Civil Rights Act and before the Church changed its stance on the issue....President Benson does not sound like the Lord’s prophet bringing a message of love"
- Response to claim: "the Church blatantly contradicts itself when disavowing: '…that black skin was a sign of disfavor or curse…'"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 9 - Blood Atonement
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "Brigham inspired his followers to murder in God’s name, both Mormons and non-Mormons alike"
- Response to claim: "President Young acknowledges that elders in the church have murdered, in the name of God, those assumed to have sinned"
- Response to claim: "Many terrorist organizations around the world commit terrible acts in the name of God. Should they get a free pass for their actions? Should our Church?"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 10 - Prophesies
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "Joseph’s prophecy was mistaken in two ways: he did not live to be 85 years old and Jesus did not return in 1890"
- Response to claim: Joseph Smith "said the moon was inhabited by men and women the same as this earth"
- Response to claim: Brigham Young said, "with regard to the inhabitants of the sun. Do you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is"
- Response to claim: Joseph Fielding Smith said, “We will never get a man into space"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 11 - DNA
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "Over the years, prophets, apostles, and missionaries have preached an ancestral link between the ancient Hebrews and Native Americans"
- Response to claim: "Current genetic and paleontological evidence indicates Natives Americans arrived from Asia"
- Response to claim: "Due to DNA evidence disproving the Hebrew origins of the people of the Americas, the introduction to the Book of Mormon has been changed from the 'principal ancestors of the American Indians'"
- Response to claim: "According to the Book of Mormon, the DNA of the people of the Book of Mormon is exactly known"
- Response to claim: "Unfortunately, the resulting studies reveal that Israeli lineage of the natives to North, Central and South America is not the case"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 12 - Reformed Egyptian
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "the Church teaches that the civilizations of the Book of Mormon wrote in a language called 'reformed Egyptian'"
- Response to claim: "The Church claims that Lehi’s family used a writing system called ‘reformed Egyptian’ and after the destruction of the Nephites, the Lamanites are supposed to have taken this language and spread throughout both American continents and the Pacific islands"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 13 - Anachronisms
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "The Book of Mormon time period covers 2,200 B.C. – 400 A.D., and also contains similar anachronisms...Elephants"
- Response to claim: "The Book of Mormon time period covers 2,200 B.C. – 400 A.D., and also contains similar anachronisms...Cattle"
- Response to claim: "The Book of Mormon time period covers 2,200 B.C. – 400 A.D., and also contains similar anachronisms...sheep"
- Response to claim: "The Book of Mormon time period covers 2,200 B.C. – 400 A.D., and also contains similar anachronisms...pigs"
- Response to claim: "The Book of Mormon time period covers 2,200 B.C. – 400 A.D., and also contains similar anachronisms...goats"
- Response to claim: "The Book of Mormon time period covers 2,200 B.C. – 400 A.D., and also contains similar anachronisms...Honey Bees"
- Response to claim: "The Book of Mormon time period covers 2,200 B.C. – 400 A.D., and also contains similar anachronisms...Horses"
- Response to claim: "The Book of Mormon time period covers 2,200 B.C. – 400 A.D., and also contains similar anachronisms...Wheeled Transport Vehicles"
- Response to claim: "The Book of Mormon time period covers 2,200 B.C. – 400 A.D., and also contains similar anachronisms...Metal Working"
- Response to claim: "the problem does not lie in a lack of any Nephite coin discoveries, rather, it lies in Joseph Smith’s idea that such coins existed in the first place"
- Response to claim: "If Joseph had actually translated each word of the gold plates by the power of God, then there is no room for errors of logic, terminology, naming, or placement"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 14 - The Jaredites
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "General authorities confirm that both these battles took place on the Hill Cumorah, the same hill in upstate New York where Joseph retrieved the plates"
- Response to claim: "ancient trans-oceanic travel by barge as described in the Book of Mormon was impossible"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 15 - Source Material (Book of Mormon)
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: B.H. Roberts "says that there is 'no doubt' that Joseph could have written the Book of Mormon with influences from a book called View of the Hebrews"
- Response to claim: "Joseph Smith Sr.’s dream is nearly identical with Lehi’s vision of the Tree of Life"
- Response to claim: "In 1823, Rev. Ethan Smith...published his book View of the Hebrews...Oliver Cowdery...was also a member of Ethan’s Congregation"
- Response to claim: "View of the Hebrews...teaches that Native Americans are descended from Hebrews that traveled to America...separated into two factions"
- Response to claim: "Joseph likely grew up reading the book The Late War Between the United States and Great Britain, by Gilbert J. Hunt...evidence shows unmistakable similarities"
- Response to claim: "The First Book of Napoleon is also strikingly similar to The Book of Mormon"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 16 - Expert Views (Book of Mormon)
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "The Smithsonian Institution has never used the Book of Mormon in any way as a scientific guide"
- Response to claim: A number of university professors are asked about archaeological support for the Book of Mormon, and they respond that there is little or no support for it in the archaeological record
- Response to claim: In 1969, Dee F. Green of Brigham Young University said, "The first myth we need to eliminate is that Book of Mormon archaeology exists"
- Response to claim: "Thomas Stuart Ferguson...concluded that the archaeological evidence did not substantiate the Book of Mormon"
- Response to claim: BYU anthropology professor Ray T. Matheny said, "I would say in evaluating the Book of Mormon that it had no place in the New World whatsoever"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 17 - Facsimile #1
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "Common burial artwork depicts Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the after life, preparing those recently deceased for their journey to the afterlife"
- Response to claim: "Joseph Smith translation: 4. The altar for sacrifice by the idolatrous priests...Modern Egyptologists translation: 4. A "lion couch." ... simply a funeral bier seen in many funeral scenes in ancient Egyptian art"
- Response to claim: "Joseph Smith translation: 4. The altar for sacrifice by the idolatrous priests...Modern Egyptologists translation:...Human sacrifice was never practiced in Egypt"
- Response to claim: "Modern Egyptologists translation: 5,6,7,8. There are no gods named "Elkenah," "Libnah," "Mahmackrah," or "Korash" in Egypt's recorded history"
- Response to claim: "Joseph Smith translation: 9. The idolatrous god of Pharaoh...Modern Egyptologists translation: 9. The god Sobek is often portrayed in the form of a crocodile"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 18 - Facsimile #2
Jump to Subtopic:
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 19 - Facsimile #3
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "In the Book of Abraham, Joseph interprets Facsimile #3 as Abraham sitting on Pharaoh’s throne teaching the court the principles of astronomy"
- Response to claim: "Joseph Smith "labels figure 1 as Abraham and figure 2 as Pharaoh. Actually this is Osiris"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 20 - The Rosetta Stone
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "the Rosetta Stone provided the key to decode ancient Egyptian text"
- Response to claim: "Joseph didn’t know that a translation of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics was completed only years earlier in France when he set out to decipher the papyri himself"
- Response to claim: "The Church has published Joseph’s notebooks that contain his attempt to translate the papyri. They are labeled The Kirtland Egyptian Papers"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 21 - The Translation (Book of Abraham)
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "the Church has taught that the Book of Abraham" was "written by his own hand, upon papyrus"
- Response to claim: "Egyptologists have refuted the accuracy of Joseph’s translation"
- Response to claim: "In light of a growing body of contradictory evidence, the Church has acknowledged that the original claim to the Book of Abraham is untrue"
- Response to claim: "The modern Church has known for decades that Joseph Smith's translations were not correct, yet has only now admitted to it"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 22 - Expert Views (Book of Abraham)
Jump to Subtopic:
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 23 - Tithing
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "The definition and requirements of tithing have varied at different periods in the Church"
- Response to claim: "The previous chapters reveal that Malachi wasn't talking to the general membership of the Church when he asked, 'Will a man rob God?' but was rebuking the priests who had been collecting money and food to give to the poor, but were keeping it for themselves"
- Response to claim: "Old Testament laws were never taught by Jesus Christ and did not apply to New Testament Christianity"
- Response to claim: "Are members today required to follow the Law of Moses, like the Pharisees, to be approved for a temple recommend?"
- Response to claim: "why is tithing a modern practice? It turns out that the Catholic Church re-instituted the law of tithing centuries after the completion of the Bible"
- Response to claim: Regarding a statement by Lorenzo Snow in a Church manual: "The removal of the phrase 'who has means' demonstrates that the modern Church is not above misrepresenting the truth to ensure being paid above the individual needs of members"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 24 - Church Spending
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "while we know that a portion is used for the operational expenses of the Church, much of the donations make their way into business investments"
- Response to claim: "The lack of financial transparency by the LDS Church has put revenue estimates between $10-20 billion annually"
- Response to claim: "What are the Church’s for-profit business ventures?"
- Response to claim: "Even though City Creek clearly generates substantial income, the Church has reclassified it as a 501(C)3:Charitable Organization...to avoid paying taxes on property income it collects"
- Response to claim: "Every year billions of tithing dollars are funneled into these businesses for non-religious and non-humanitarian aid purposes"
- Response to claim: "the modern Church never passes an opportunity to remind us that all members, no matter how financially burdened, must pay them first. Yet...tithing funds are routed into multi-billion dollar investments"
- Response to claim: "Family Promise"...relief organizations help the needy and homeless in the backyard of the LDS church headquarters and should never have to turn away parents and children because their finances are 'put to the test'"
- Response to claim: "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was only 1 of 31 corporations that contributed to the Fourth Street Clinic’s private donations"
- Response to claim: "'The Road Home partners with a variety of organizations to ensure families and individuals have the tools they need to get back on their feet.' The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is not on that list"
- Response to claim: "Utah Food Bank"...The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is not listed as a member"
- Response to claim: "What if instead of investing billions of dollars a year into for-profit real estate, the Church built hospitals and homeless shelters, and actually tried to emulate the acts of kindness performed by Jesus for the sick and afflicted?"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 25 - Scientific Evidence
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "The Church’s stance is that life on Earth has not existed for millions of years, but less than 7,000 years"
- Response to claim: "Section 77 of the Doctrine and Covenants states that the Earth will only exist for 7,000 years before the second coming of Christ"
- Response to claim: "life and death occurred on this planet long before human existence. These facts refute the doctrine that human sin brought about physical death to all living things"
Response to claims made in "For my Wife and Children" ("Letter to my Wife"): Chapter 26 - Spiritual Confirmation
Jump to Subtopic:
- Response to claim: "Thousands of different world religions...make the same claim: 'God has witnessed to me that my particular religion, prophet, book, and teachings are true'"
- Response to claim: "Since thousands of religions claim to be 100% true, an emotions-based method proves unreliable"
Notes
- ↑ Anonymous, For my Wife and Children (Letter to my Wife), (2016), p. 144
- ↑ Anonymous, "For my Wife and Children" (2016) p. 145.
- ↑ Comments in ex-Mormon forums and inquiries received by FairMormon indicate that this document is gaining popularity, while use of the "CES Letter" is diminishing due to its "tone" issues.
- ↑ Comment made by "JeffreyArrrHolland2" on the ex-Mormon subreddit, posted on 28 Sept 2017