How to logically leave the church

The church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints has some STEEP claims. Do they have enough logical evidence to even come close to backing up these claims?

Have you been a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints and don't want to be one anymore? -- but aren't sure how to logically write off the possibility of it being true? 

Or, have you been presented with information about the church and would like to be certain that it is not correct so that you can continue living without a logical nagging about whether or not it is correct?

Welcome to this blog post. It is prepared so that you can have an opportunity to logically leave the church behind and have no uncertainties about it from a logical position.

So that you can have confidence that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints is false and because you won't want to have lingering and pestering doubts that it may be true, I have prepared a list of "evidences" for the claims of the church, followed by a list of options.

In order to be logical in your reasoning that the church is false, all you have to do is go through these evidences and then choose one of the options listed below them. Its that simple.

Good luck!

Evidence 1: The Smith Family

This entire family knew Joseph Smith from his birth to his death. They were closely associated with him at age 14 when he saw God in vision and at age 17 where he was visited by an angel and he first learned of a book which would become another testament of Jesus Christ and a history of an ancient nation that lived on the American continent. They were closely associated with him during the translation of the Book of Mormon and during many other such experiences.

His family would have known better than anyone if he was a 14 year old fraud. His family would have known better than anyone if he was the kind of kid to tell lies and attempt to deceive people. However, his family were his closest supporters and strongest believers. The ones who would have been in the keenest position to be aware of his character and catch him in a lie, are the ones who testify-- stronger than anyone, that they KNOW that he was telling the truth. The fact that his entire family knew him better than anyone and was closely associated with him during all of these miraculous events, is perhaps one of the strongest witnesses to the claims of the work of Joseph Smith.

What is your take on the Smith Family?

There are only 5 options here and you have to choose one if you are going to say that there is no God or that the work of Joseph Smith is false:

1). Joseph Smith managed to lie to and trick his entire family starting at the age of 14, and did so for the rest of his life and none of them ever caught on to his fraud (seeing as they were his strongest supporters till the end of their lives).

2). Joseph and his entire family were all insane/delusional and had many series of both group and individual hallucinations and delusional episodes. The thousands of people who associated with the Smith family did not catch on to the fact that they were all crazy, many other people also had group and individual delusional/hallucinating experiences with and in regards to the experiences claimed by the Smith family.

3). The entire family was in on the fraud together, including his mother, father, and siblings.

4). The entire Smith family were deceived by the devil (or something/someone else besides God-- maybe aliens?).

5). Joseph Smith told the truth and his family believed him because he was an honest boy and they experienced many things with him because of their shared faith in Jesus Christ.

Evidence 2: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon

 

Testimony of the 3 witnesses

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken. And we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for his voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true. And it is marvelous in our eyes. Nevertheless, the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen.


Oliver Cowdery
David Whitmer
Martin Harris

Testimony of the 8 witnesses

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That Joseph Smith, Jun., the translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith has shown unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen. And we lie not, God bearing witness of it.


Christian Whitmer
Jacob Whitmer
Peter Whitmer, Jun.
John Whitmer
Hiram Page
Joseph Smith, Sen.
Hyrum Smith
Samuel H. Smith

What is your take on the 11 witnesses?

Either the witnesses of these 11 men are true or they are not... and if they are not, what are they? There are 5 possibilities. One must be chosen. Before you choose one, you must read the witnesses accounts. If you have done so before, do it again please-- it should be fresh in your mind if you are going to reject it so that you don't have any pesky doubts.

1). The lives of the witnesses or their families were threatened by Joseph Smith and so they signed this document and held to it to their deaths out of fear for their life (even on their death bed).

2). The witnesses signed the document out of a lust for wealth or other promises given to them by Joseph Smith and still maintained and adamantly supported their witness even after some of them were excommunicated from the church and any chances of being reimbursed for their fraud and continued up until they died.

3). The whole thing was staged by Joseph Smith or someone else with a fake metal book and a fake angel etc.

4). All of the 11 witnesses were delusional and hallucinated the same thing and the hallucination was so powerful and persuasive that they were confident that it was not a hallucination even after some of them were excommunicated from the church-- whatever their circumstances, they held to their surety of it not being a hallucination all the way to their death.

5). They were all deceived by the devil or some other person or thing (maybe time travelers or aliens?)

6). They told the truth and they held to their witness because they had a strong conscience for truth even though some of them were excommunicated, and they held to their witness of the truth to their dying breath.

Archaeological and historical evidences

Many critics have declared that there is not sufficient archaeological evidences to support the authenticity of the Book of Mormon being an actual account of people that lived on the American continent from 600 B.C to 400 A.D

Critics have declared that since they cannot see or find evidence of many of the things discussed in the Book of Mormon, that it must not be true. They feel that a lack of findings is sufficient "proof". Nearly any critical essay will use this "logical" reasoning to dismiss claim after claim in the Book of Mormon.

I think it is first important to demonstrate the absolutely pathetic limits of archaeology. In order to demonstrate this please read the following.

http://christianmormonism.blogspot.com/2014/09/insufficient-archaeological-evidence-to.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/01/100104-amazon-lost-civilization-circles/

I will summarize it as well. According to this article written by authors of the National geographic magazine, archaeologists had unanimously declared that the Amazon Basin had never had any people living there for multiple archaeological reasons. This was the unanimous conclusion up until 2010, when something was seen via satellite.

This was strange to see, so they starting digging and lo and behold, they discovered that a civilization as recent as 700 years AFTER the LAST even in the book of Mormon that comprised of 60,000 people had lived here and it was a complex society. Read the article.

Point is, in 2009, world renown archaeologists would have unanimously told you that there was no evidence to suggest that a society ever existed in the Amazon Basin and therefore, one did not exist. In 2010, a HUGE complex society was suddenly discovered and it flew in the faces of everything that had been concluded by leading experts.

CLEARLY, ANY attempts by ANYONE to say that the people described in the Book of Mormon did not exist because there is "insufficient archaeological evidence" is TOTALLY WEAK, seeing as this society thrived 700 years AFTER the last even recorded in the Book of Mormon and wasn't discovered until 2010. Surely a society that existed many hundred years prior to this would be even more difficult to debunk on the basis of "insufficient evidence".

All arguments that the church is not true because of a lack of archaeological evidence are null and void because clearly the ABSENCE of this form of evidence does not have the ability to reliably disprove anything-- however, the PRESENCE of archaeological findings do ABSOLUTELY have the potential to act as evidence to support claims-- as demonstrated by the article sited above.

So that being said, have they found any archaeological evidence?

At first (back in the 1800's) they found VERY little and some people even left the church because they couldn't find much.

Here is a quote that explains the history of this situation:

“It is also worth noting that there is a growing body of evidence from New World archaeology that supports the Book of Mormon. Dr. John Clark of the New World Archaeological Foundation has compiled a list of sixty items mentioned in the Book of Mormon. The list includes items such as “steel swords,” “barley,” “cement,” “thrones,” and literacy. In 1842, only eight (or 13.3%) of those sixty items were confirmed by archaeological evidence. Thus, in the mid-nineteenth century, archaeology did not support the claims made by the Book of Mormon.

As the efforts of archaeology have shed light on the ancient New World, we find in 2005 that forty-five of those sixty items (75%) have been confirmed. Thirty-five of the items (58%) have been definitively confirmed by archaeological evidence and ten items (17%) have received possible–tentative, yet not fully verified–confirmation. Therefore, as things stand at the moment, current New World archaeological evidence tends to verify the claims made by the Book of Mormon.”

The Book of Mormon claimed a long list of items that according to archaeologists in his day "simply did not exist". Few seem to recognize that to make such claims in the face of contradicting archaeology for his time is a very big deal (only 13% of its claims were supported?!). It is an even bigger deal that since that time 75% of the claims are supported by archaeological evidence??!!! This is incredible! Yet people are blind to this. For example if you read wikipedia it will point out that it mentions sheep in the Book of Mormon but they never found any one who had ever domesticated the long horn sheep which are found on the American continent. Is this proof that no one ever did? The above article debunks any fragments of ideas that it might in some way disprove the book of Mormon. On the flip side, there are hundreds of evidences that can work to support it. I will mention only one.

Writing on metal plates

Here is one of hundreds of such evidences.

The fact that the Book of Mormon was allegedly written on Gold plates was originally a source of criticism because in the early 1800's, only writing on clay tablets was known of and there was no evidence that writing on metal plates was a practice during 600 B.C in Jerusalem. Since that time, what was once a criticism has turned around to be an evidence. It appears that during this time in history, in this part of the world, the writing on metal plates was in fact done and there have been numerous archaeological findings to support this. You can do a search yourself and come up with tons of hits, but here are already compiled essays on it I found with a quick google search.
http://nephicode.blogspot.com/2012/12/ancient-writing-on-metal-plates-part-i.html
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1979/10/ancient-writing-on-metal-plates?lang=eng



Lastly: to truly be thorough about it and cast all doubt aside about it being false, I highly encourage you to watch this video which is perhaps the most substantial and solid logical (not spiritual) evidences for the book of Mormon is in the following video. I would HIGHLY encourage watching all of it if you really want to be thorough: (the link can be found at the following site)

http://www.christianmormonism.blogspot.com/2014/12/dna-evidence-for-book-of-mormon.html

What is your take the archaeological evidences?

1). Although very little evidence (13%) existed in 1830 to support the archaeological findings mentioned in the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith guessed right that later they would find support fo an additional 62% of the archaeological claims, making it on whole a strong archaeological support (75%) to substantiate and legitimize his claims in the Book of Mormon.

2). The devil, aliens or time travelers (or something/someone else) gave Joseph Smith his revolutionary archaeological evidences of things which would not be discovered in the new world for over a hundred years later and that is how he knew that these things would end up supporting the archaeological claims of the Book of Mormon.

3).  Starting at age 14 Joseph Smith suffered from numerous delusional hallucinogenic trances over a period of many years and was exceptionally intense during a period of time that lasted a few months and resulted in him writing a five hundred page historical novel with hundreds of names, extensive cultural and technical details, manners and customs, arts and industries, political and religious institutions, rites and traditions with complicated military and economic histories that covers thousands of years with no large gaps; keeping a number of interrelated local histories going on at once, including religious controversy and philosophical discussions. He managed to get none of it to ever contradict itself and wrote it all essentially without any changes beyond punctuation. OR he lied and so did his entire family, including his mother and father and numerous other witnesses who gave their names as eye-witnesses to both the book and to the translation of the book—either that or his entire family were all experiencing a form of group and individual hallucinations about the same thing and it was a strange anomoly that it did not contradict the majority of modern archaeological findings in the year 2014 even though it contradict the majority of findings back in 1830.

4). Although very little evidence (13%) existed in 1830 to support the archaeological findings mentioned in the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith wrote what was on the plates and because what he wrote was true, it was in due time discovered and showed to the majority of the archaeological claims and substantiate and legitimize the claims that were self evident in the Book of Mormon. This strong support has been discovered because the Book is true.

Testimonies of saints: past and present

Thousands of members of the church witnessed and were present for many of the events and miracles recorded in church History. They also gave their spiritual testimonies of the fact that God had His hand in the work of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. Since that time many millions of members of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints have also witnessed and born testimony of the truth the gospel of Jesus Christ and of Gods organization of the Church to prepare the world for the second coming of the Savior of the World, Jesus Christ. They have received a spiritual witness that the Church is of God.

I myself once said to a religion teacher: "well all of the billions of members of other religions claim that their religion was organized by God too and they have spiritual experiences to support their beliefs"-- My teacher told me that I was incorrect, that billions of other people did not have spiritual experiences telling them that their church was true. I did not believe my teacher at the time. I figured that my teacher was being narrow minded and was wrong. It was only after spending hundreds of hours in research and talking to literally thousands of people about their religious beliefs on my mission that I discovered that other churches do not even claim to be the "true church"-- with very few exceptions. There are absolutely not "billions of people who think that they belong to the "true church" at all.

There are billions that think that Buddha was an enlightened teacher... so do I. And many that think that Mohammed was visited by the Angel Gabriel-- so do I. And many that think that the Bible teaches truths about Jesus Christ-- so do I...

The church of Jesus Christ doesn't contradict all of the other religions-- it actually supports them. The Church of Jesus Christ does not say that all of the other religions are all wrong-- it says that they are mostly right. In this the Church of Jesus Christ does not claim to be "THE ONLY CHURCH THAT HAS TRUTH" AT ALL. It claims that pretty much all of the religions teach truth. The difference is the claim that it was organized under the direction of Deity.

I have come to discover that very few religions even claim to be a church which God organized Himself. Catholics and Jews are almost the only two organizations who actually claim to be organized under the direction of God. Muslims are pretty much the only group that even comes close to such a claim besides the already mentioned Catholics, Jews and the Church of Jesus Christ. Muslims claim that their book is from Allah (God) and that it teaches the doctrines of Abraham and many prophets and about the second coming of Jesus Christ, but they do not claim that God organized them into a "church". I actually believe this too. I also believe that the Catholic church was originally organized by God (back before it was taken over by the Romans) and also that the Jews were called of God as well.

SO-- the Church of Jesus Christ actually, for the most part does not contradict the claims of any major religions for the most part. SO, all other religions can mostly be almost exactly what they claim to be and it does not interfere with the claims of the church of Jesus Christ.

Of these many millions of witnesses and testimonies of Members of the Church of Jesus Christ, which do not (for the most part) contradict any of the claims of other churches and which are quite unique among the theological world in their position, what will you say regarding them?

What is your take the testimony of members?

1). The millions of members of the Church of Jesus Christ and the leaders are and always have been delusional.

2). The millions of members of the Church of Jesus Christ are deceived by people like Thomas S. Monson and the 12 Apostles.

3). The millions of members of the Church of Jesus Christ are tricked by the devil or aliens or something.

4). The millions of members of the Church of Jesus Christ are telling the truth and have received a witness of the truth from God according to their faith in Jesus Christ.

Witness of the Holy Spirit

This cannot be adequately described. It has to be experienced in order to be understood. For direction on how to experience this and how to attain sufficient faith to have the capacity to experience this, read all of the scriptures diligently and then pray and keep a journal of your experiences.
You can start here.
https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bible?lang=eng

What is your take on the witness of the Holy Spirit?

1). If you haven't experienced it personally, then you don't really have any room to adequately judge, but I guess you can just assume that everybody who experiences it is delusional.

2). If you have experienced it personally, then you have most likely already made up your mind and you know that there is a God and that He did have a hand in organizing the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints.

I have personally experienced it. If you want to talk, please feel free to contact me.

P.S. there are many, many other issues that can be addressed regarding the Church of Jesus Christ. I would like to discuss them all. I have run into things that appear to be "disturbing" but upon further examination and with research turned out to be nothing of the sort. If you are willing to look, there are reasonable answers. Granted, if someone does not want to believe, they are likely to reject this answers, and if someone wants to believe, then they are likely to accept the answers. So the real question is: do you want to believe?

1). Nope.

2). I'm not sure if I want to or not. Sometimes I want to believe and sometimes I don't.

3). Yes, I do want to believe.