When the CES letter came out, the apologists complained that the issues brought up were “old issues” and despite their answers to many of the old issues being wrong, untested, or simply insufficient, they expected people to doubt the CES letter simply because the issues were “old”.
As such, here are 17 “new” reasons to doubt provided, found, or published in 2016:
17) The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, when briefed about Wikileaks were more concerned with contributors’ sexual orientation than they were about church security. Being visionaries and prophets, they totally missed this would be leaked.
16) Jeremy Runnels was excommunicated (or excommunicated the church) for asking questions. The very reason Joseph Smith got answers from God is now grounds for being removed from the church. That should disturb even the most devout member.
15) Former Senator Gordon Smith admitting he was “Church Broke” and would do whatever the leaders asked of him, which included revealing classified information
14) Elizabeth Smart, member and sex captive of a prophet at age 14, speaks out against the church’s teachings
13) The Price of Rugs in the Celestial Room was leaked to be $17,000. This caused a lot of people to want financial transparency and realize there was none. They start #FightTheNewRug in response
12) Stake Presidents and Bishops removing temple recommends for associating with family members. Possibly not new, but something that should give people pause in any case
11) Internal Survey of Church History shows that most members are concerned about the role of women in the church. And yet the church refuses to consider the implications.
10) Church History Department video leaked explains they don’t do history but instead were to focus on serving the opinions of leaders
9) Church leaders wonder about altering members via drugs in their meetings
8) Church Leaders discussed using members in political agendas
7) BYU had to revise its Honor Code section Title IX as it protected rapists and sexual harassers instead of victims
6) Dieter Uchtdorf compared the seerstone rock with an iPhone
5) Romney/Trump interactions along with Romney not running for President because Jeb Bush visited him. Along with this is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing for Trump’s inauguration after the Deseret News suggested members shouldn’t vote for Trump.
4). The Brass Plates – The gold plates have been criticized for years but the Brass Plates were addressed in my ABC’s and Mormonism series. They are anachronistic in the following ways:
- Book binding wasn’t invented yet
- The 5 books of Moses were not assembled into a single scroll yet
- Brass etching via acid was not invented yet, which means they had to be engraved increasing the size of each brass plate significantly.
That leads one to wonder how much they would have weighed. 1000 lbs at the minimum or about 2/3 the weight of a cow. And Nephi walked out with them while wearing armor which leads us to…
3) Armor. Also from the ABC’s of Science and Mormonism, Nephi, Laman and Lemuel all knew about the stuff because Nephi wore Laban’s armor, so Captain Moroni inventing it shouldn’t have surprised Zarahemna. Even worse, the Lamanites invent armor in Alma 3 years before Captain Moroni enters the scene (or is even born) in response to Limhi’s people.
2) Wine. Key to the story of escaping Nephites and King Noah’s Winepress, there was no wine in pre-columbia America.
1) Opioid death in Utah, but Utah declares Porn to be a “Health Crisis”
There you go, 17 things that happened this year that still aren’t addressed on FAIRMormon or in any literature that should make anyone take a real long hard look at their religion and wonder where it is headed, and what the next year will bring.
Yeah, you missed what was by far the most relevant video leak. Most of the stuff in this list is pretty lame. The video where the 12 is discussing MJ and WOW is gold though. Packer goes on a rant telling a story about the history of the WOW and its revelatory basis which is factually incorrect and long ago debunked by church scholars. In other words, you’ve got the president of the Q12 in private deliberations with the 12 and he is on video making a fool of himself, demonstrating that he doesn’t know basic things like the revelatory basis for the WOW… kind of a big deal.
It’s a good point. The hard part about the post was narrowing it down to only 17 things. 2016, a year for church gaffs.
Hey on the previous post can you fix my name? And then delete this post 🙂 Not sure what happened. I think the auto complete changed the name on me. Thanks.