Mormon Myths

Previous articles from this series: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Argument: Anderson's argument contains six major distractions from his central affirmation: Creation ex nihilo discussion - A clear Red Herring fallacy. The whole discussion about whether Jesus created Satan from nothing diverts attention from the core argument about monotheism and the meaning of "god." Jesus creating Satan (Colossians 1:16) - Non Sequitur fallacy. The argument that being created by Jesus would make Satan a true deity doesn't follow logically from the premises. Problem of evil references (1 John 3:8) - Red Herring  and Appeal to Emotion fallacies. The question "Why create Satan only to destroy his works?" is emotionally charged rhetoric that's irrelevant to the logical validity of monotheism. Technical discussion of the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) - Red Herring fallacy. The technical terminology about Hebrew names of God adds complexity without contributing to the logical argum...

More articles from this series: Part 1 Part 2 Mormon antagonist and Cavalry Admin Travis Anderson presents arguments for the credibility of the Three and Eight Witnesses of the Book of Mormon. His analysis responds to Michael Licona and Gary Habermas's 'A Case for the Resurrection of Jesus,' which compares Mormon witnesses to Jesus's resurrection witnesses. Though Anderson correctly identifies this as a false comparison, his commentary on Bart Ehrman's remarks about the Book of Mormon witnesses reveals an inconsistency. He selectively applies rigorous criticism to Licona and Habermas but not to Ehrman, reflecting a pattern in LDS apologetics where evidence standards shift based on their alignment with LDS truth claims. Anderson states: " None of those that left the church ever retracted or recanted their testimonies they continued to validate and verify what they had seen especially with the three Witnesses two of the witnesses Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris ...

More articles from this series: Part 1 Argument: " Theories that want to explain the Book of Mormon as a 19th century book, have to somehow account for not just the contents of the book, but the manner in which it was produced. " - Stephen Smoot's summary of Richard Bushman's argument in Rough Stone Rolling. Response: It would be both fair & accurate to describe this as rhetorical sleight of hand that conflates the method of production with substantive validation of it's contents. It is fundamentally arbitrary and a clever attempt at shifting the burden of proof. When employed, this argument creates an unattainably high evidentiary standard that amounts to a form of special pleading in order to sidestep well established standards of rigorous historical scrutiny with respect to ancient texts. A far more appropriate and balanced question would be:  ' Does the text's content align with the historical, archaeological, and linguistic evidence we have avail...

A little over two years ago when I started the Mormon Myths page, I was admittedly unaware of the latest wave of bizarre arguments coming from the likes of the Cavalry's admin/moderator roster. As time went on, more missionaries from that group would occasionally comment on my posts & send me messages parroting them. It eventually became clear to that these young men were getting these quips from someone/somewhere, and eventually I would pinpoint their origin with the help of one of those missionaries in particular. (Thanks Preston) Since then, I have had a lot of time to do reflection & study. Investigating whether they had any merit, and whether I was simply behind the times and needed to catch up. In this series, I'm going to seek to tackle the most frequent arguments I've heard/seen online from Cavalry members and Cavalry-adjacent Mormon apologists who use them in their discussions and respond from a historic Christian perspective with the necessary disclaim...