Talk:Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement/Archive 4

This article really shouldn't exist

I can see we've had a good little debate over this, but frankly I'm shocked that this article has been around so long, to me it's basically they definition of POV forking. "A POV fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. Both content forks and POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia, as they avoid consensus building and violate one of our most important policies." You'll notice there's no "Why the Mormon's are right" or more appropriately "support of the LDS church." There's not even a "criticsm of George W. Bush" or the like (an article merely based on criticism of something) because it's completely inappropriate. I know this has already gone to vote once, but I'm not sure those who voted all completely understood Wikipedia's content forking policy. Again, I'm not denying that there's enough material to fill this page, but the majority of the material is slanted against the LDS church. Although I favor a complete deletion (the material is sufficiently covered on 3 or 4 other articles) I can see a merge... Am I the only one who sees it this way? gdavies 06:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I Agree Completely if an article like this is too exsist it should be from a mormans point of view being able to state the critism and then explain it not haveing someone who dislikes this religion write it not allowing a Morman to state their opinion —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.7.155.232 (talk • contribs) 17:59, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Merge?

I stepped back from mediating the discussion over this article, as one of the main participants seems to have withdrawn from the debate. Since then there has been a lot of discussion, but what sticks out like a sore thumb to me is that the discussion has become about how best to express LDS doctrine rather than about the criticisms themselves, which rather defeats the supposed object of the article. And as others have pointed out, there seems to be an abundance of articles addressing criticisms of Mormonisms already. I vote for some sort of merge. David L Rattigan 22:37, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

David, thank you for your efforts to mediate for our group. It is a failure that we lost one of our editors. When that happens we all lose an opportunity to improve not only WIKI, but oursleves. Thanks again and I hope to work with you again. Storm Rider ^(talk) 01:30, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks David. I think a merge may be in order. DavidBailey 01:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

One person who did have a good point is Edward, who I quote here.

This article should not be a criticism of Mormonism, but a list or a summary of the criticisms of Mormonism. If we simply stick with that we will be fine. But everyone wants to write a dissertation. They want this to be more than an encyclopedia article. It shouldn't be hard to write an article that conforms to NPOV, and that represents the criticisms of Mormonism without itself being a criticism of Mormonism. There are many websites, and many areas where people can get more information on these criticism. We should link to them, both pro and con, and let this article act like an introduction. Edward Lalone 02:20, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the article has a use, if confined to this scope. DavidBailey 01:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I still get stuck on criticism by whom? Catholics and Protestants will have a decidedly different list of criticisms. Some criticisms may be capable of just stating and moving on; others will need explanation and an opportunity to provide a rejoinder. Too often criticisms are based on the sensationalized viewpoint of those who don't understand Mormonism, but believe they "know the truth" about it.

Further, there are a plethora of articles about why others disagree with Mormonism and specific areas of Mormonism. I still think it would be better to have just one article about criticisms, not anti-Mormonism, but criticisms and then refer to all of the individual articles about the list. I see no reason for an article about Mormonism and Christianity and this article; they are redundant. We may be saying very similar things, but whatever happens some articles need to be merged and/or deleted. Storm Rider ^(talk) 02:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

We must remember that the article itself should not be a criticism of Mormonism. Wikipedia and its editors has no place in determining the merits of a criticism, or whether a criticism is true or false. Nor can Wikipedia act as an arbitrator of what Mormonism and its critics believe. The scope needs to be limited, and it needs to list the criticisms. The section on Criticism of the Book of Mormon should be the format of the article (i.e. a concise summary of the criticism, and a link to articles that deal with the criticism).

I also think the standard for the main article should be that 1) there for inclusion in the main article a criticism must have a Wikipedia article dealing with that specific criticism, and that the article 2) be NPOV. When an article meets that criteria it should be linked to the main article which lists various criticism and provides a brief summary of the criticism. If a criticism cannot warrant a full article it should not be included. It seems to me that all encyclopedias follow the standard of "is there enough interest in an article for it to be published."

The same is true here. We could list every criticism of Mormonism and every response to those criticisms but "who cares." I would argue only a few people who would be interested in these kinds of articles are those who don't want to host their own websites but think of Wikipedia as a good place to get their POV across. I could write hundreds of articles about Mormonism, and its doctrines and beliefs in an effort to advance a pro-Mormon position but it would be just as wrong as a person who disagrees with Mormonism to write a bunch of articles and to use Wikipedia to be a tool to spread their views. If I want to do that I can host my own website. I think, "if it doesn't have a wide enough appeal it should not be included." I really support merging the articles and creating a format with a Main Article Heading for each criticism that is listed. Let's at least take a simple vote of where people stand. Edward Lalone 19:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment: So you would rather we pretend that criticism of Mormonism is something that doesn't exist? Or sandwich it into a section on the Mormonism page? The point is, this has enough material to be an article on its own, if every article could be a section, then we would have just have one giant article. Why not a giant article on Christianity? Many reasons... For example, it would be unweildly to merge Criticism of the Catholic Church into the main Catholic Church article. This is why we have a seperate article to expand on the criticisms, instead of sandwiching it into the main article. Superbeatles 17:25, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Visor, could you explain the difference between Criticism of Mormonism and Mormonism and Christianity? I may be missing something. The only group critical of Mormonism is Christians. The articles seem to be reflections of each other. My biggest concern is having repetitive articles that address the same issues. If an article is going to stand alone, it has to be so clearly specific that it does not evolve into what we have now; repetition and redundancy.

Comment: The one article is comparing the two, this one is merely reporting on the criticism of Mormonism. What about the DNA section? Are you saying that science is Christian too, since some scientific research is critical of Mormonism? That is absurd. This article introduces many criticisms, some of them from Christians, some not. Just because the views cataloged in an article do not agree with your own does not mean that they are POV. Superbeatles 17:25, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I see no reason why this article should have anything done to it, I vote that we collaboratively edit it. Superbeatles

Comment: This page should be merged with the LDS page, but pared down to eliminate the bias. I don't think a separate page on criticisms is warranted, this reads more like a dissertation than an encyclopaedic article.--Insbordnat 14:13, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I notice someone has said "The only group critical of Mormonism is Christians." No. Atheists may well be critical of it, and in fact anyone generally critical or religions may well be. And many other groups who are critical of any religion other than their own. Oh, and others who group it with Christianity as a whole and are critical of that. So in fact many many people are critical of it, or potentially can be, not just Christians. Prophaniti 03:23, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

It may have been better to state that the ones who are most active are other Christians. It is understood that all the others have been critics, but it is also apparent that they simply do not expend the effort or time with criticism. When you attend general conference in Salt Lake City, one will only see one group present to atagonize and insult LDS entering the center...those who call themselves Christians. It will be fair that in recent years there has been a wonderful group of fellow Christians that disdain the methods of the aforementioned troublemakers. They are there to welcome LDS and wish them a good conference. By their actions one would say they have a far better understanding of Jesus Christ and His message. Cheers. Storm Rider ^(talk) 05:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Storm Rider; please stick to discussion on merging, that's what this secion is on- what you believe about these people having a "far better understanding of Jesus Christ and His message" is not necessarily correct, and definitely not relevant. Countryroad 13:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Vote on Merging

Do you support merging Criticism of Mormonism, Mormonism and Christianity, and Controversies regarding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Anti-Mormonism into one main article?

Yes

• Edward Lalone 19:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
• Val42 03:05, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
• DavidBailey 03:20, 7 June 2006 (UTC) (except Anti-Mormonism is considerably different and I don't think it should be combined or we're going to end up with a REALLY long article, unless a lot of content is removed.)

What I was thinking was having one main article, and have anti-Mormonism and other similiar articles be sub articles. Anti-Mormonism by definition is a form of criticism of Mormonism and should be treated as a sub-article. What do you guys think? Edward Lalone 23:48, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

• Storm Rider ^(talk) 03:55, 7 June 2006 (UTC) Definitely; It also would not surprise me to find there are other articles with the same subject matter. Anti-Mormonism could be included; it is distinctly different, but is more about form than content.

I think Anti-Mormonism should be included as a short summary with a link to the main anti-Mormonism article. I think that the main article should act as an introduction to the various forms and types of criticisms, and then link to those forms and types. Edward Lalone 23:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

• I think this should be shortened and added to either Mormonism or Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, since a whole page of Mormon criticism is bound to be vandalised constantly.Ron3090 03:56, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
• For more or less the reasons laid out by gdavies under "This article really shouldn't exist" Jsnbase 21:38, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

No

I am opposed to merging the articles into one article for a number of reasons. I like the idea of having a main article with summaries and pointers to more specialized articles. Having everything in one article would cause lots of problems, and you could pretty much guarentee a permanent POV tag on the page because somebody thinks some section is biased. I would love to see at least one of these articles w/o a POV tag. ;^) wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 23:59, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

The point here is to merge them into one article, and then to have the main article be a summary article. I don't think that the articles should be merged unless there are going to be sub-articles. That's the point I've been trying to make. The more articles, about specific topics, and the less commentary in the main article the less POV is going to be found in the articles. Not merging them only allows people to create an article for the very purpose of advancing a POV (See Democrat Party (United States) and Democratic Party (United States). There is no doubt what purpose the Democrat Party article serves. The same is true of these mini-articles that only seek to advance a POV. People visit them, and aren't able to get a broad picture of the topic. That's simply not right. That is why I think there should be a single article, and that article should have a summary of the criticisms with links. I personally also would whether have one article have a permanent POV tag then 50 with permanent POV tags. This article will not lose it's POV tag, unless it is deleted or merged. If it is merged with a broader article there are going to be more editors and it is going to as a result of the number of editors be harder for someone to impose a POV on the article. Edward Lalone 00:28, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

• I do not agree with the merge of the articles. I see them as completely seperate ideas. I see Criticism of Mormonism and Controversies regarding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as merge-able, but not Anti-Mormonism or Mormonism and Christianity. -Visorstuff 00:42, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Strong No: The article on Mormonism and Christianity has little to do with the other articles. That goal of the first article is to avoid polemics, apologetics, etc., but to explain and compare the two religious traditions with persons who are unfamiliar with one or both. Any "Anti", "Criticism" (in the negative sense), or "Controversy" elements are muted. RelHistBuff 09:26, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I would like to add something. I would agree that the doctrinal elements of the Criticism of Mormonism could be merged with the Mormonism and Christianity article. In fact I was already preparing an expansion of the doctrinal differences section. But I would like to see any additions of doctrinal elements to just "note" the differences, not to "criticize". I intended to write on each side's point-of-view and without counter-responses. However, there are a number of sections in Criticism of Mormonism that are not appropriate for Mormonism and Christianity. For example the DNA and archaeology or the listing of critics of Mormonism. These sections could stay where they are or be merged somewhere else.Sorry, that was me who wrote the above. RelHistBuff 15:20, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Strong No: I agree with RelHistBuff above. Superbeatles 17:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

NO!!: The critisism of the LDS Church is not fact and should not be printed in the main article. User:Webwiz4u52

NO Well, Webwiz, that is your POV. There is plenty of valid criticism of the Church. You are basically saying that anyone who says anything critical of the church is lying. Where I come from, you really stop and think long and hard before tarring people with the brush of being liars. It does not necessarily need to be on the main LDS page, but it needs to be in Wikipedia though, and should be linked from the main page. Nirigihimu 17:08, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

NO If this article were to merge with the article about mormonism alone it would send the message that mormonism is not a legitimate religion. The Westboro Baptist Church is considered a domestic terrorist group and that is why it has criticism in its article. Although Mormonism is not a terror cell and it can not be considered an more false or true than any other religion on earth. User:talib 72 22:40, 14 July 1006

NO These distinctions are important in order to differentiate between scholarly criticism of Mormonism and bias of Mormonism.

Mediation closed

I am closing the mediation case now, as A.J.A. seems to have disappeared, and you are doing fine without a mediator. Might pop back to this page as a regular user. Cheers, all. David L Rattigan 15:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

The mediation is now archived, as this page was getting pretty long. David L Rattigan 15:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Criticism of Judaism

--Greasysteve13 09:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Sensationalist Allegations, but no facts

I just deleted the following paragraph:

Some young men who enter the mission come home early and recieve professional councelling afterwards for depression and various social or mental behavior, and in some cases commit suicide. This is most common in the western states of the U.S. where going on a mission may be culturally expected. [1] [2]

What I find egregious about the allegations is the complete lack of fact and a demonstrated lack of the material cited. First, the Garrett Smith book, if one took the time to read it, never provides any allegations or evidence that this young man suffered from depression as the result of his mission. Quite the contrary, during his mission he served honorably and well without any significant bouts of depression. Second, the book from Mission to Madness is a biography on Joseph Smiths last (I think) son. He served a mission for the RLDS church in Utah. His despression and later eventually resided in an asylum was never demonstrated to be caused from his mission.

This is the kind of unmitigated crap that invalidates all appropriate criticism. Some twit takes two titles and then makes up a story about how missions cause young men and woemn to go mad! No basis in fact, no basis in reality...just two titles of two books, left unread by the accuser, and viola, presto, criticism in a can for the mindless minions that give all critics the label of biased, Anti-Mormons.

If you haven't the the drift, I am more than just mildly ticked. For this idiot to take a disease like depression and then belittle it while smearing the good name of two men that suffered horribly from the disease is beyond acceptable. You should be banned from WIKI. Advice: start writing for the National Enquirer or the Star. You have no business editing for an encyclopedia.

I am deleting the entire edit until it can be discussed on the discussion page after I have cooled off. Storm Rider ^(talk) 22:57, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I am wondering why the charge of "plagiarism" is not broached in this article. I actually have a source for this: "Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness by David Weeks & Jamie James." On p.115 it states that The Book of Mormon "bears a strong resemblance to a romance published 25 years earlier by Solomon Spaulding." I have not seen other scholarship regarding this but I am interested in seeing this (to my mind) serious allegation discussed, supported or dismissed. There is a link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Spaulding —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gbruno (talk • contribs) 12:13, 14 August 2006

I suggest you read the Spaulding manuscript, and then try to find some similarity with the Book of Mormon. It was a believable claim as long as no one had access to the manuscript. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 12:53, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The two have very little in common. The Jade Knight 03:54, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I have read the Spaulding manuscript and they are very similar whole passages are copied I believe that the past two post are close friends of Storm Rider and have other agendas besides truth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.33.92.66 (talk) 04:57, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

Then you would be the first person who has actually read the document to make such an allegation. The others all made their allegations prior to its actual discovery, which definitively disproved this long-term allegation that is so beloved of rather low caliber critics. Also, I know of Jade and Wrp103 as fellow editors, but I assure you that I do not know them beyond Wikipedia. I find it interesting that you would make such a statement. I assume that others can make statements about the editors with whom your edits align and thus should be wholly discounted? I hope you see the utter stupidity of such a statement; please refrain from such in the future; they have no place here on Wikipedia. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 05:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I would also ask you to quote a couple passages you believe closely mirror the Book of Mormon. Maybe we missed them. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle) ^(Talk) 19:18, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it is the stirring passage where Nephi and Laman compete in a mudsliding contest to win some "wampum?" I have somehow misplaced the corresponding chapter and verse in the Book of Mormon however...:-)

"The whole tribe repair to the top of an hill, at one place their is a gradual slope a small distance & then it decends about twenty five feet in an almost perpendicular direction, at the bottom of which is a quagmire, which is about ten feet in length & the soft mud is about three feet deep—at each end the ground is soft but not miry—Down this declevity twenty pair of very suple & sprigtly goung men & women are to decend, If by their agility & de terity they escape the quagmire,—a peice of wampum will be the reward of each fortunate champion—but if they plunge in, their recompence will be the ridecule & laughter of the multitude—" Spalding's Manuscript Found, page 28. Bochica 20:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Let's deal with the neutrality tag in this section

First of all, is it the entire article that is not neutral, such that it warrants a tag being at the top of the article; or is there a section that the tag should be specified to?

Then, once that's resolved, let's deal with the issues right here. List them, because from the previous talks, it doesn't seem like anyone is bringing up any specific points dealing with the entire article in general. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 02:36, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Here's my two centimes. The article is divided into three main sections. The first is really just polemics. In an encyclopedia, the issues should just be simply compared and described as is done in Mormonism and Christianity. The first section is redundant. The second section are summaries of three different articles. The second section is redundant. The third section is a list of anti-Mormons, but there is already an article on Anti-Mormonism. The third section is redundant. So I bring up the question of not only getting rid of the neutrality tag, but should this article be removed altogether? RelHistBuff 08:19, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Racism / Priesthood denied to Black Members

I am surprised that this article does not include information about how the Mormon Church denied giving the priesthood to black members for most of its history, only to grant it in the 70's (I could be wrong on the date). I am not an expert, so I won't add anything to the article, but I personally find an inconsistency between the LDS church's position that the President or "Prophet" is inspired by God, yet for many years denied equality to all races of people. Admitedly, that is my POV - but in any case, I think this article is incomplete without mentioning something on this topic. 67.120.92.138 07:21, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

This article is about criticism of the LDS church. Unless you can find some quotes on it, it isn't appropriate in this article. Jaxad0127 16:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

One of the problems is the vast number of articles about Mormonism. You might want to look at Blacks and Mormonism, but it is also mentioned in several other articles.

Of course you might also want to ensure that everyone is aware how God denied the priesthood to everyone in the world but members of one, small tribe in Israel; a rather ethnocentric thing for God to do. Even worse, of all the people in the world God only chose one group to be his "covenant" people; obviously a very, very, racist God. In addition, you might also add some information about the sexist actions of Jesus Christ and early Christianity where only men who had hands laid on their head and were ordained with the priesthood could officiate.

Interestingly, throughout history the priesthood has always been reserved for a select few. It was not until the relatively recent past that Protestant Christianity decided that anyone who "believed" held the priesthood. Before you go painting "others" as racist, you might want to have a good conversation with God. Let me know how it goes. Storm Rider ^(talk) 17:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like to point out that anyone thats baptised in the LDS church is adopted into one or more of the tribes. And about the curse put on Cain.... Jaxad0127 18:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

And the interpretation of the Curse of Cain during the duration of slavery in the United States prevented many "Christians" in the South from even seeking to convert those of sub-Saharan African descent (a.k.a. "blacks). And those blacks that did convert to Christianity in the South, had to have their own churches because they weren't welcomed in to the same buildings as the "Christian" whites. One of the reasons for the violent conflict against Mormons in Missouri was because of the favorable treatment that the LDS Church had toward blacks and former slaves, whether or not they were ordained to the priesthood. (Though at least Elijah Abel and Walker Lewis were ordained to the priesthood during Joseph Smith's lifetime, and some descendants of Elijah Abel afterwards.) Val42 19:11, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Jax, I am sorry if you interpreted my statements above to be a criticism of Christianity. The ANON's type of comments above is rather common rhetoric by Christians critical of the LDS church. Unfortunately, I think they level the criticism without an understanding of the history of the priesthood or God's interactions with mankind from the beginning. Were Mormons racist? The history speaks for itself and the evidence says they were not. Can their doctrine be interpreted as racist? Yes, but in doing so we would also have to condemn the history of Christianity. Storm Rider ^(talk) 21:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I didn't take it that way. I was just adding appropriate info. But I can see how someone could take it that way. Jaxad0127 22:01, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Deleted References

I deleted two references. This article is supposed to be about Criticism of Mormonism and not anit-Mormonism. The sites in question are base anit-Mormonism becuase they exaggerate and sensationalize lies. As a member of the church for decades and having served in numerous capcities, I can tell you that never have I ever experiences or heard counsel that an individual who interviews another for a temple recommend interview is standing in for Jesus.

If we are going to attempt to have a legitimate article it must focus on true, academic, and theological criticism. Conversely, it must rigidly resist all the trappings of anti-Mormonism. The entire article needs to be purged of those sensationalistic lies that are so common. The two sites don't even resemble Mormonism.

I would still bring up the same point I have discussed before to which no one has ever responded. Exactly which Christianity are we using as the standard? If we are going to use standard of the majority of Christians, then the critique must be written from Catholicism. If we are going to take the minority opinion, then let it be Protestant. If we are going to take even the smaller minority, then let it be Evangelical. However, to attempt to write from all three positions without any clarification from which perspective one is speaking, the article turns into complete POV. Many of the critiques listed can be leveled against Catholicism. The Evangelical critiques are soundly refuted by the Catholic theologians. We are going to have to do better. Storm Rider ^(talk) 05:57, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me, but your honorable experiences do not invalidate the disappointing experiences of others. I restored the reference [3] to the experience of an LDS returned missionary, because personal experience is as valid as the best empirical evidence used for any academic endeavor. Occasionally I have seen an enthusiastic church leader, maybe also a convert, unwittingly step out of bounds (sometimes per D&C 121:39). However, your reference to “standing in for Jesus” does not strike me as terribly out of bounds. So, I asked a local LDS bishop about this (out of context) and he agreed that the phrase “the interviewer represents Jesus” has merit. I would agree that this returned missionary’s lead in, “members are told”, is an exaggeration because this is not a common exclamation in LDS interviews – although it is certainly possible, particularly in response to a question about an LDS bishop's authority in such an activity.

The experiences shared by this returned missionary are unfortunate, but entirely believable, and should not be categorized as lies. I reread the web page in question, and noted that several other proclaimed members (or former members) identified with the experiences related by this returned missionary, which strengthens the value of this reference and it's believability.

Does your accusation of "sensationalistic lies" meet the high standards of church etiquette and academic discussion that you advocate? Are you out of bounds? I whole heartedly recommend behavior described in D&C 121:45 - charity towards all men.

The standard that we should follow here is defined precisely in the introduction for this topic, which is that "criticism is an all-encompassing term referring to critical scrutiny of Mormon beliefs or practices, with reasons ranging from academic interest, to religious motivations, to outright prejudice." I suppose that you would classify this returned missionary's statements as "outright prejudice", and you would have a good case.

You are welcome to insert “citation needed” and raise questions about “POV”, as a means of exercising editorial privilege. However, sometimes this strategy might backfire, as when an appropriate citation is provided that makes a much stronger case than the original article.

The invitation for "all-encompassing" criticism (above) answers your last question about standards. Now you have a response.

I invite you to call for mediation, if necessary. Otherwise, thank you for explaining your position and giving discussion a chance. --DustOfTheEarth 20:40, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Interesting to ask questions "out of context" and then use it as a basis upon which to formulate a position. I would suggest that this form of honorable, pesonal analysis may produce incorrect deductions and should be discontinued. Of course, I am sure that subterfuge works well when attempting to design a specific POV. I think the statement used by tabloid reporters is "When the news is not fit to print do whatever it takes to sell it". WIKI is not for tabloid news stories.

When using a personal experience it should be stated as such, which you did not do. On WIKI, which you seem to possess a high degree of familiarity and should know better, we strive to produce reputable references. If you want to use a private expereince do so, but state that it is the viewpoint of one individual.

I am also surprised that you would threaten "this strategy might backfire" of seeking reputable references. I do not edit to ensure a personal POV, but rather to ensure that WIKI is as complete a public encyclopedia as possible. If you have more reputable resources use them. If not, I suggest you keep that quality of a threat to yourself. In the words of that little guy that stood up to the playground bully, "either put up or shutup". My statement should not be taken personally, but it should be interpreted as my extreme dislike of threats on WIKI. It is completely unacceptable.

Also, your seeming desire to inflate this into a need for mediation surprising. I am confused by the "invitation". Either you make a crusade of being "right" and only your opinion is acceptable or you feel that having mediation is a disagreeable experience. For your personal clarification: there is not any one person who is always right and I promise to let you know when it is the right time for mediation. This not a win-lose proposition, nor is mediation. We are striving for a win-win compromise and if we can't get to that end point on such a simple point, you and I both are not fit to be editors. Storm Rider ^(talk) 06:36, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Dust. I work for the LDS Church Education System, and not very enthuiastic about this citation. However, I recently had an interview with a member of my Stake Presidency and he instructed, "... answer as though you were speaking to the Lord". As you apparently know, truth defies context, but context makes truth hard to see. Your reference to "charity" is excellent, because charity is the foundation of the freedoms and tolerance that make this kind of forum possible. The "tone" of comments made here (and in citations) is left to the interpretation of the reader, and reveals something about the reader's personality (e.g. charitable or coersive). I choose to interpret your invitation for mediation as a simple diplomatic gesture, which implicitly supposes a willingness to negotiate and compromise. Thank you, Dust, for sticking to principle, avoiding both name calling and taking the last word. Best wishes. --LifeOfLearning 16:48, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Another reason for this article to remain undeleted is The Bible Code. Is the Book of Mormon another code? I remember a Mormon couple asking me if I "knew what I was doing" when I questioned them about the curious errors that appear in the LDS testament. Knew what I was doing? In regards to what? Knew what I was doing when I asked what a verse was supposed to mean when it was incoherent, was undecipherable? Was I supposed to guess at its intent? I guess I know what I'm doing then, I'm guessing pretty good as far as the LDS goes, aren't I? A criticism of a religion such as this is not only appropriate, it is necessary and required. What's one of the Ten Commandments, something like "Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness?" Now, what is "false witness?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.212.158.166 (talk) 06:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Navigation

This article starts by stating that any criticism of Mormonism is criticism of the LDS Church but there is no link to the article Controversies regarding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be found anywhere in the article. This article seems to be a bit mellow. I am not an expert on Mormonism but there seems to be a lot missing. What about social issues? Women in the church? The evidences and prophecies as presented by Joseph Smith and the testimony of the witnesses? Plural marriage? Finanicial issues within the church? This is just the tip of the iceburg.

I can see that there are subjects that are dealt with in other articles but to have this article and not prominently display at least a link to these other articles and other issues seems more than a little remiss. From an outsider POV of someone who has just stumbled upon this web of articles - it is VERY confusing. I was looking at the discussion back in June and I must say that it needs to be readdressed.

The articles are too big to put all together. My suggestion would be a main article and then sub articles stemming off this main article. This is a major issue for the religion. The main controversy article needs to have a link on the main navigation tool for the Latter Day Saint Movement. To hide the controversy surrounding this religion deep within articles is in itself POV. I would also suggest a small navigation tool specifically for the controversy articles to be placed at the top of each article allowing a reader to easily find their way around. Lucy 00:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Criticism in what sense?

This article seems to be very poorly-defined. This is the first time I've taken a good look at it, and I can't tell what kind of criticism this article is even about. The word criticism has many senses. In the academic world, it means a sort of criticalanalysis, that doesn't necessarily make any value judgments. If this is the sense this article is going—and I doubt it is, based on the content—then I suggest it be renamed Mormon criticism. If, on the other hand, this article is about the sense of criticism that means disagreement, then it seems like a hopeless WP:NPOV violation, because it separates contrary points of view into a separate article from the topic. If the purpose of this article is just to show how people disagree with particular Mormon topics or ideas, then the article has to go, no questions asked—not negotiable, according to Jimbo Wales. That sort of thing belongs in the article about the particular topic for which there is disagreement, such as Godhead (Mormonism). COGDEN 20:07, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I concur. I believe the term you are looking for is POV fork. --INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 21:56, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I also concur. What is the next step and who will take it? Storm Rider ^(talk) 23:11, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest that merging this article back into Mormonism, possibly with parts going into Controversies regarding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, would be the only POV-neutral move. The controversies article at least has the potential to be NPOV because it describes events rather than viewpoints. [Edit: I looked at the article, and it needs serious work as well. Perhaps these projects should be undertaken in tandem?] However, I am not sure that it will be possible to merge this entire article into Mormonism, given its considerable length. Some editing down might be in order for this one.

Personally, I try to stay away from articles that are religious in nature for fear of introducing POV myself (I am not religious, but have difficulty accepting the presentation of religious beliefs as fact). Still, I would be happy to help out where I can. Looking at your profile, you look like an excellent candidate for the job - would you would like to spearhead this one? --INTRIGUEBLUE (talk|contribs) 03:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

This article is about criticism of Mormonism, in the sense of skepticism. Other examples of "Criticism of" articles include Islam, Christianity, atheism, and Hinduism. Cogden, just because you think the article is disorganized is not grounds for removing the article. Please Be Bold! and fix up the parts that need help. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 05:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

This article needs a good rewrite

Now that I look at it, it says nothing about actual criticisms of Mormonism, but rather differences between Mormonism and Christianity. This will be changed soon (by yours truly). --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 06:20, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Bravo! A.J.A. 16:02, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Un(believe)able sic amount of weasel words in the article completely compromising the facts PalX 13:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Why "Controversies regarding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"?

I understand that this article may be about mormonism generally, and the other about specifics on the LDS Church. But you have a big picture of Lorenzo Snow in the article, so it seems to me that this article is really mostly about the LDS Church, and considering that other branches of the Latter Day Saint movement are not really controversial, why not just bring in the info from the other article. The other article is more a list than anything else, and it seems pretty hard to maintain so many LDS related articles. Please note, this is not a request to merge all LDS articles dealing with LDS issues, just these two. I am for keeping Anti-Mormon, and suggest if we keep separate articles having the Controveries article renamed to List of Criticisms of Mormonisn because thats basically what it is. My appologies to StormRider as well. Bytebear 23:42, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Its not just the LDS Church that's controversial. The whole movement is. Most everything has been criticized somehow. That's why the articles says "Mormonism." Jaxad0127 00:18, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a category root page in the making. It's designed to link to other articles, not discuss them. The bottom part of the page in question was deleted a few times and always returned. It doesn't really belong. By the way, controversy is only the same as criticism to a Mormon in this case. They are very different. Anon166 06:08, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't non Latter-day Saint groups be offended being criticized for beliefs of the mainsteam church? I think Lorenzo Snow has no bearing on the Community of Christ for example. Same with the mainstream church being criticized for Warren Jeffs. It just doesn't make sense to combine the issues. I dont mind having a category of controversial issues (to replace the list article). I also don't mind if this article is expanded using proper formatting, but the article is going to be extremely long given all the controveries that exist out there. I prefer the category page myself. Bytebear 07:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

So what if they are offended? I don't remember Wikipedia having a rule that says we aren't allowed to offend religious groups. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 07:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Byte, it is one of the difficulties with the term Mormonism. We have a couple of options: Church specific criticisms may be registered on the respective church page (there is nothing unique in these articles that is not already found in other articles) or simply identify which group is being critiqued so that other groups are not tainted.

There are also problems on the other side, who and why some groups find reason for criticism. The secular world is one thing and much of the critique against the Book of Mormon is also said against the Bible. In the religious world, there is a significant difference between an Evangelical and a Catholic. ANON166 is correct; criticism and controversy are two different things (even for a Mormon). I think you will find that this article was intended to be focused on the academic arena and the research findings covered there. It was not to be the criticisms of other religious groups. The Controversy page is not an article and is not intended to be. Storm Rider ^(talk) 07:25, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

My commetns to Bytebear earlier were about "Controversies regarding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (mostly). Just focussing on controversies/criticisms of one part of the movement would be POV. We need to do it for all parts , not just the largest group. Jaxad0127 15:18, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

In time it will get sorted out, but I do agree that the "general criticism" part on the end of the controversies must go. As far as offending people goes, if Mormons can't be allowed to access information on controversies, then I think you've revealed far too much about Mormonism already. Anon166 16:29, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I see there is also Criticism of Mormon missionaries which should be merged into Controversies regarding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I can see the need for two articles, Criticsm of Mormonism which should only cover issues dealing with the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and generally theological issues of the early church (including polygamy and splinter groups). The other article, Controversies Regarding LDS Church should focus more on social issues, like women in the church, the missionary program, etc., as well as specific LDS doctrines that don't fall under Smith's reign or accepted by most splinter groups, like , blacks and the priesthood, early Utah polygamy (excluding splinter group issues), temple rituals, etc. I think if we define each issue as either an LDS issue or a Mormonism issue, it will go far in clarifying these two articles. Oh, and can we vote on the missionary article? Bytebear 20:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Still, if a criticiscm applies to more than one sect, it should be applied to all those sects, and not just the largest(/most influential/etc). Applying it to just one would be POV. — Jaxad0127 01:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Merge Criticism of Mormon missionaries?

Please comment on whether to let this article live or die.

Keep as Criticism of Mormon missionaries

The other article fails all standards of NPOV and is OR. Tell me the value of an article that says everyone outside a specific religion does not believe in the religion...it is one of those DUH moments. If this specific article has not merit; delete it. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 16:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Merge into Controversies regarding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

MERGE - Other Mormon faiths do not really have a missionary program Bytebear 20:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• MERGE No sense having lots of little articles floating around, and it isn't such a big subject it requires its own article. --Karafias ^{Talk • Contributions} 09:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Not Merge Obviously, anyone can see that the two are vastly unrelated. It belongs with criticism, or on its own, and it may be linked from controversies, but not "merged" into a general list of linked controversies. Anon166 02:57, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Other

MERGE — The article could easily become a subsection of either article, and the current state of the album makes me doubt that it should stand on its own. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 11:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• Merge - there is little value to the little article. Also, if this fails, it should be renamed LDS missionaries not Mormon missionaries. Storm Rider ^(talk) 02:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

MERGE — Criticism of Mormon missionaries with Mormon missionaries and Criticism of Mormonism with the article that best covers that issue (i.e. Plural Marriage for issues relating to that topic).

Although not policy, here is a Wikipedia essay on the subject:

There are two main forms of criticism in a Wikipedia article on a certain topic. The most obvious is the criticism in a section, often titled "Criticism", found in some articles (for example Igor Stravinsky#Criticism). A second format is the inclusion of criticism into the article's other sections or introduction.

Another format of criticism is including the criticism of a topic in the articles about the critics of that topic, or in articles describing books or other media criticising the topic. Separate articles consisting entirely of criticism of a topic are not allowed.

"Don't make articles entirely devoted to criticism of a topic that has or should have its own wikipedia article."

This is especially true of the missionary articles. See Wikipedia:Criticism for more details. Bytebear 00:46, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

MERGE Criticism of Mormonism into Controversies regarding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or re-name article to Controversies regarding Mormonism. I concur that a separate article dealing with criticism of a specific topic is inappropriate on Wikipedia. Edward Lalone 08:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

No

• There's no need to merge this article. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 09:06, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• These articles are still evolving - too early to merge. DustOfTheEarth 05:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Removed Dead Links and Bad Source

I removed the following sentence and links:

At other times it is compared with ancient Gnosticism or Arianism [4], and is even credited to have associations with the occult [5] [6].

The first link is dead and the charge is baseless, and the second and third pages link to some conspiracy theorist alleging images of pentagrams and Baal and other nonsense on Mormon buildings. . .203.131.167.26 10:52, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Archeology

I reverted an edit to the effect of: The civilization described by these passages and scores of others in the Book of Mormon should yield certain types of discoveries in the pre-Colombian archaeological record. However, (if any) few such discoveries have been made" to the original of: "The civilization described by these passages and scores of others in the Book of Mormon should yield certain types of discoveries in the pre-Colombian archaeological record. However, few such discoveries have been made" because the addition of (if any) is more POV than the original statement. Edward Lalone 04:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

This article really shouldn't exist

I'm kind of shocked that this article has been around so long, to me it's basically they definition of POV forking

I have nominated this article for deletion for some of the reasons you have outlined here. I also think that this article cannot conform to Neutral Point of View as the article itself seeks to present a point of view. Please take part in the discussion about deletion at Delete Criticism of Mormonism. Edward Lalone | (Talk) 23:06, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad this article did not get deleted, because it is factual for what it states. You are misreading the WP:NPOV guidelines, since almost any article in of itself has a POV. Holocaust denial is an offensive article to me, yet I'd never ask for it to be deleted, because there are Holocaust deniers, and if I were to seek a an unbiased article on it, I would read it. I don't know if you're a Mormon or not, I really don't care one way or another. But what is wrong with having a critique of that religion? Is their faith so weak that they cannot stand a little criticism? And as long as the article is written in a balanced, verifiable manner, it can be written in a neutral manner. No one is stating that "mormons are bunch of wierdos." The critique is on a variety of points, and the article reads in a balanced fair manner. I'm glad the RfD failed, because this is a good article to start if one is to get a balanced analysis of Mormonism. If anything in it is factually incorrect (say someone wrote that Joseph Smith was high on hallucinogenic mushrooms when he found the golden plates, and cannot provide one bit of evidence), then fix it. But if someone wrote, Johnson (1957) uncovered a diary that states that Joseph Smith ate mushrooms frequently, well that would be verifiable. (Please note I used examples that I'm pretty sure are ridiculous enough to not merit any serious discussion.) Orangemarlin 20:16, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe that I have misread NPOV as it pertains to POV forks but I have been done with this article for months and I only nominated it for deletion because these POV forks are inappropriate even if certain editors continue to promote them as a viable vehicle. These articles on balance are inappropriate and cannot be balanced and any claim that they can conform to neutrality is simply not true. These articles are criticisms of a topic as opposed to a topic in and of themselves and should not have articles dedicated to them. Criticisms should be included in the articles on the topic in question thus allowing the greatest number of editors possible to edit the articles for NPOV.

According to Wikipedia guidelines, "Both content forks and POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia, as they avoid consensus building and violate one of our most important policies." In articles of this type you do not have consensus, and these articles tend to be hotbeds of contention and are nominated for mergers, deletion, and often undergo mediation and yet more often than not mediation fails and one or more editors stop editing on Wikipedia. What comes across as consensus in these articles is simply the ability of certain editors to prevail through aggressive editing and participation in this type of article and less aggressive editors tend to go along with it as they only edit occasionally and those who agree with them tend to not be present when an issue is being discussed, and they tend to not be as outspoken or aggressive as they are not here to promote a POV.

Wikipedia guidelines go on to say, "The generally accepted policy is that all facts and major Points of View on a certain subject should be treated in one article. As Wikipedia does not view article forking as an acceptable solution to disagreements between contributors, such forks may be nominated for deletion." Simply put, all major points of view on Mormonism or a sub-topic of Mormonism (i.e., the Book of Mormon) should be treated in one article on the subject including the criticisms of the subject. The same guidelines go on to say, "There is no consensus whether a "Criticism of .... " article is always a POV fork. At least the "Criticism of ... " article should contain rebuttals if available, and the original article should contain a summary of the "Criticism of ... " article." While it may be true that there is not a consensus on this issue it seems as though those who believe that these articles are not POV forks claim a de facto consensus on the issue by virtue of their aggressive defense of these articles. Now that Wikipedia is being cited by Judges in court cases, and by the news media and other scholars it is important that we make sure that Wikipedia maintains a consistent policy of zero-tolerance for POV articles.

There isn't a single good argument in favor of keeping these articles and the only reason they continue to avoid deletion is because certain editors hold to the POV that they should remain and by the nature of these editors they tend to prevail as opposed to the nature of those who nominate them for deletion who tend to leave Wikipedia afterwards. Edward Lalone | (Talk) 20:50, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

This article is NOT a vehicle for criticizing Mormonism. It is instead, an explanation of the criticism of Mormonism. Pretending that Mormonism can't have their criticism documented (which may or may not be the intention of the people who want to delete this article) will hurt Wikipedia. Also, this article has plenty of precedent. Category:Criticism of religion --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 11:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Your point that this article is not a vehicle for criticizing Mormonism but instead is an explanation of the criticisms is sophistry as the issue isn't whether the article itself criticizes Mormonism but whether it is a POV fork. What hurts Wikipedia more than anything is these kinds of articles (i.e., someone wants to list all the reasons Mormonism is true so they start an article Praises of Mormonism and out of pure sophistry claim that they are merely explaining all the good things about Mormonism) as they create in the mind or users, scholars, the media and others that Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information. These articles have cost us enough editors who have left Wikipedia and this hurts Wikipedia. Larry Sanger has addressed this in the following words, "So, for any person who can and wants to work politely with well-meaning, rational, reasonably well-informed people--which is to say, to be sure, most people working on Wikipedia--the constant fighting can be so off-putting as to drive them away from the project. This explains why I am gone; it also explains why many others, including some extremely knowledgeable and helpful people, have left the project."

One of the complaints he has against Wikipedia is that "Consequently, nearly everyone with much expertise but little patience will avoid editing Wikipedia, because they will--at least if they are editing articles on articles that are subject to any sort of controversy--be forced to defend their edits on article discussion pages against attacks by nonexperts. This is not perhaps so bad in itself. But if the expert should have the gall to complain to the community about the problem, he or she will be shouted down (at worst) or politely asked to "work with" persons who have proven themselves to be unreasonable (at best)." I personally see no reason why those who want to edit Criticism of Mormonism cannot edit the articles dealing with Mormonism or its subtopics in such a way as to treat all points of views and I consider POV forks to be unnecessary, redundant and what Larry Sanger mentions above does occur more often in POV forks than it does in a main article on a topic or its subtopics. People simply leave articles like this one (i.e., this is bad for the article as the same issues are again addressed every few months) as they get tired. Many even choose to depart from Wikipedia itself. I am also at the point where I can no longer tolerate the bias that is part and parcel of Wikipedia. I do not for a minute accept the argument that it is unfair to not allow an article dedicated specifically to criticisms of a topic anymore than I consider it unfair to not allow an article dedicated specifically to highlighting the positives of a topic. There is no need for a Criticism of George W. Bush article anymore than there would be a need for Praises of the Great George W. Bush when such criticisms can be included in the main article about George W. Bush, and in any sub-topics (i.e., Early life of George W. Bush). Edward Lalone | (Talk) 20:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe that this article should remain intact. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and should therefore present as much history as possible about any subject. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has experienced much persucution and I believe that readers have the right to know exactly what they had to endure. Wikipedia does not have to present everything from a happy standpoint. This article SHOULD NOT be deleted. --Austinsimcox 18:44, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The above exchange is the reason why I've always opposed this article. Nobody can agree what "criticism of Mormonism" means. Is it the same as Anti-Mormonism? It is the same as Mormon scholarship? Is it the history of people expressing mild disagreement with Mormon theology? Or is it just content forking? COGDEN 19:21, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I doubt that your reasons for opposing this article will be given serious weight by those who feel differently. I used to support this article and actively edited it but no longer do so because I find that it avoids consensus building. Every section of this article is of such length that they can be treated in the various subtopics of Mormonism. The sections on the Book of Mormon (i.e., Archeology and the Book of Mormon, Genetics and the Book of Mormon, and Linguistics and the Book of Mormon) can be treated in the article on the Book of Mormon. In fact, there is already sections in that article dealing with each of these. The section on Criticism of Doctrine and Practices should be included in their respective articles (i.e., Godhead (Latter Day Saints)) instead of here. The claims that this hides the criticisms in articles is sophistry as the criticisms would become more available to the general mass of people as opposed to a select few who visit this article. These type of articles are contentious and avoid any real consensus building, and I oppose it now because I have come to realize that it serves no legitimate purpose other than to give "trolls" a place to vent. Edward Lalone | (Talk) 21:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

However, if we were to delete this, we would have to delete Criticism of the Catholic Church, Criticism of Christianity, Criticism of Judaism, and many others, because they fall into the same category. I can't deny that some of this could be merged, but given some improvements, it could be just as good as any other article. --Austinsimcox 13:32, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but in reading the Criticism of the Catholic Church article, I find a completely different tone and balance. It is written from a Catholic position. If anything, this article's tone should be brought up to par with the example of that article, which demands a lot of effort and constant monitoring. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 00:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Nomination for Deletion

This article has been nominated for deletion. Please take part in the discussion about deleting this article at Delete Criticism of Mormonism. Edward Lalone | (Talk) 23:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Reasons for deleting "procedural" issues

I deleted the words "procedural" that had a reference to Scott Bidstrup when trying to support why the LDS church is a cult. First, please someone read Schott Bidstrup's blog page where this information is found. I am not even sure this fellow is sane. Can anyone vouch for his reliability? Surely there is a more reputable source. In addtion, what does procedural mean? Please explain how using the same standard Bistrup came up with that the Catholic church is also not a cult; or is it?

Another comment, the reference for calling the LDS church a cult on doctrinal grounds can be summarized as, "they believe differently and therefore they are a cult". This is not the definition of the term cult. Rather, this is an example of denigrating another group by using derogatry terminology. Several Christian churches call the LDS Church a cult; we can do better than these two references. At least we can stay in keeping with the actual definition of cult. The way the article reads now it is just a tract for the local Evangelical church of your choice. Of course that bodes well for LDS, but does not make the criticism very legitimate. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 09:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

http://www.carm.org/dictionary/dic_c-d.htm Cult

     A religious group that follows a particular theological system.

In the context of Christianity, and in particular, CARM, it is a group that uses the Bible but distorts the doctrines that affect salvation sufficiently to cause salvation to be unattainable. A few examples of cults are Mormonism , Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, Christadelphians, Unity, Religious Science, The Way International, and the Moonies. Duke53 | ^Talk 15:50, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The word "cult" has a negative connotation and has no place in Wikipedia's articles. Duke, using that definition, Christianity itself is a cult, with it's theological system the belief that Jesus was a person who spoke for God (most common denominator). --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

South Park Episode

The episode All About Mormons doesn't clearly criticise mormon beliefs, however it could be of some interrest here? Leclerq 09:58, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Find a notable scholar using that episode as part of a discussion of a criticism of Mormonism, and I think it could find a place here. --Ķĩřβȳ♥ŤįɱéØ 21:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

"That's just a BB gun, you stupid Mormon! Mind your own business!" What show's that line from? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.244.161.86 (talk) 02:41, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Highly Biased Terminology

The use of the term "Christian apologist" is highly biased; does anyone have an explanation as to why is it used in the article, instead of more neutral words such as "Christian theologists" or similar? Hi There 08:47, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the real bias is using the word "Christian" as being distinct from Mormonism. Mormonism is a branch of Christianity. Most of those "experts" who make a distinction consider Protestantism to be the only "true" Christianity, and many of those refuse to admit that their own family of churches came out of Catholicism. 64.122.31.130 01:02, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

In academic circles, the terms critic and apologist are the standard terms, so Christian apologist simply means someone who supports the Christian viewpoint. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) ^(Talk) 03:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Can you cite any circumstance where the term is used in a POSITIVE manner? More often then not it has a negative connotation attached to it, i.e. "Clinton apologist" "Bush apologist" et. al. I do not believe the use of the term is appropriate at all. If you are referring to a supporter of one side or another, then simply use that word. 12.10.217.50 (talk) 21:45, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, look at any academic article on religion and you will find the word "apologist" is standard and does not carry any baggage or negative connotations. See Apologetics. --TrustTruth (talk) 21:58, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

As TrustTruth says, "apologist" is a standard academic term used to identify someone who argues for a particular stand. The term is used throughout wikipedia, especially in religious articles. The term not widely known to laypersons, and so many editors suggest using other, more common, terms such as "scholar" or "advocate". My impression is about half the editors use "apologist", and about half use an alternative term. "Apologist" doesnt bother me, since I know what it means, but I can see how one might think it carries an "anti church" bias. Personally, I avoid the term in my edits, and use "scholar". As for _this_ article, I think many editors have use "apologist" in recent edits, and so converting to another term could be just thrashing. But if someone wants to do that, I have no objections. Noleander (talk) 22:31, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

As Noleander states above, academics fully understand and are not bothered by the use of the word "apologist." However, many non-academics react to the word in a different manner based upon its relationship to the word "apology." In this case, they interpret it to mean, "What are they apologizing for?" It is possible to use the word, which is perfectly valid in academic circles, in a manner which imparts subtle bias within an article when viewed by a layperson. For this reason I have always removed the word "apologist" from articles which I edit and replaced it with "researcher" or "scholar." Just my two cents. Bochica (talk) 02:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

WORD CHANGE NEEDED

I believe the words in bold print should be re-evaluated to reflect a non biased view...

FOUND UNDER THE SECTION "NATURE OF DIVINITY":

"These doctrines have been heavily criticized based on some interpretations of the Bible, often citing Isaiah 43:10, in which God declares: "before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me." A possible alternate reading of this chapter reveals that God may be saying that no other God will ever take his place. This alternate reading does not result in a Biblical contradiction of Isaiah with the Lord in Psalms 82:6 or John 10:34."

I think opinion is being implemented into this paragraph in the form of "fact". A Biblical contradiction CAN be made against Mormon theology based on the Isaiah passage. To say otherwise is opinion & interpretation - not fact. Mmirarchi^(talk) 17:02, 18 May 2007 (UTC).

It is not acceptable to leave it as it is; what is needed is for a reference for the position being presented. However, I would also say that both positions need to be referenced from reputable sources. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 18:06, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Surely we can take it as common knowledge that Judaism and Christianity both have traditionally interpreted passages like this to mean there is, was and will be only one God? I think it's the alternate or novel interpretation that needs a citation here. Wesley 04:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Certainly it is true that Judaism has maintained that there is only one God. Early Christianity, however, struggled with a possible conflict. Since the New Testament declares Jesus as God, and since Jesus uses the phrase "my God and your God", the early Christians were accused by Jews as being polytheistic (Jesus was convicted of blasphemy for declaring himself to be God). The doctrine of the Trinity was developed in response. I suggest that all three perspectives have citations. I suspect that the bold text is OR. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle) ^(Talk) 04:46, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I tagged the comment about an alternate reading as needing a citation. I haven't heard that expressed as any kind of official position, although it is possible that some Mormons believe that. Personally, I think these kinds of arguments are similar to the early arguments about the Trinity. The Trinity was created by early Christians to get around the problem of more than one God (Jesus and Heavenly Father), while the Godhead is the Mormon perspective. If you consider the term "God" to be a compound noun (like family), then there is no conflict between the Godhead and scripture. They are three individual personages working together as a single God. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle) ^(Talk) 04:56, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd think many sources discussing John chapter 11 would cover the basic idea here. - Reaverdrop _(talk/nl) 05:52, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I am in agreement with Reaverdrop and Pringle; citations are needed for both positions. Tradition is a two edged sword. I have read scholars who have asserted that in the early days of Judaism a polytheism was the norm and its monotheism developed over time. Orthodox Christianity has been accused of the polytheism also. Tradition is often considered the most recent understanding and limiting it to common knowledge, that knowledge of today, would seem to invite ignorance and misinformation. Judaism and Christainity were not and are not monolithic belief systems; they have always been an amalgamation and synthesis of belief systems. I think it is appropriate to never make assumptions and cite all statements of belief. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 13:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Hard to argue against the need to citations, though I have to add that 1st century Judaism was clearly monotheistic even if earlier centuries seem less clear, and it was in the context of 1st century Judaism that Christianity emerged. I'm curious, is the idea of "God" being a compound noun like "family" a common or standard Mormon understanding, or a private opinion? This happens to be the first time I've seen it expressed like that. Wesley 03:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Wesley, that is a new analogy for me also. I have never heard a similar comparison prior to Bill's statement. I would thus say that this is not a common position for LDS. BTW, I really appreciate references for your edits because it allows me to read the theologians you cite. Though I am an avid reader, your edits direct my patristic efforts. Cheers. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 05:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Removed Tags

Articles which have the title "criticism" by their very nature will contain strong POV views of critics. I do not think a neutrality tag is warranted here. Jeffrey Vernon Merkey 03:08, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Link Farm

The external links section is turning into a link farm for websites to promote themselves in Google searches. Neither the Criticism of the Catholic Church nor the Anti-Protestantism articles feature such a section. The Criticism of Judaism article has a few links but they are to neutral web sites. Wikipedia is not a link farm. --TrustTruth 13:30, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, Wikipedia is set up to prevent robots (who honor standards) from drilling down to the external links. This means that being included in Wikipedia doesn't help their search ranking. Regardless, I agree that we need to limit the number of links. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle) ^(Talk) 14:51, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Undue Weight

The article as it stands still does not come across npov. There is undue weight placed on critical views. See WP:NPOV#Undue_weight. --TrustTruth 21:04, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

When checking for undue weight, bear in mind the title of the article. Wesley 03:29, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Which brings us full circle back to considering deletion of the article. --TrustTruth 03:31, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Race and Jacob 3:8-9

Why is this even there? First off all it sounds like original research and blatantly ignores the context of the whole passage while trying to make its point. I'm going to delete that part quoting and explicating the Jacob verse unless someone thinks it should stay. Here is the complete verse:

8 O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God. 9 Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, which is the word of God, that ye revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins; neither shall ye revile against them because of their filthiness; but ye shall remember your own filthiness, and remember that their filthiness came because of their fathers.

Verse 8 clearly ties sin and skin color together by threatening the believer with darker skin than the American Indians. Up earlier in the passage it talks about having cursed the Indians with dark skin for their sins.70.116.28.113 02:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Article written by Mormons?

This article is way too pro-mormon. Any decent discussion of Mormon controversies would include prominent (as in top-level sections) for:

• Mormons baptizing jews, and the resulting controversy
• Huge amount of evidence that J. Smith fabricated the book of mormon
• Suspicious coincidence that church leaders received revelation that Polygamy was forbidden, just in time to become a State
• Suspicious coincidence that church leaders received revelation that Blacks could become priests, just in time for civil rights movement (actually about 10 years too late)
• Sexism of leadership (no worse than Catholics, of course)
• Secretive about wealth of the church
• Temple admission limited to dues-paying members (at least the Catholics let you into St. Peters :-)
• ... etc, etc.

All very well documented in many books ("Mormon America" (sp?) was the last one I read). Nothing crackpot about it.

I dont have time personally to edit this article. Im just pointing out that, as it stands, it is shallow and obviously the victim of Mormons coming in and cleaning it up. All under the cover of NPOV, of course. Noleander (talk) 05:43, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

You don't have time to edit the article, but do you have the time to check the factual accuracy of your sources and assumptions? --TrustTruth (talk) 05:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah, yes. 3 minutes after my post: one of the global network of Mormons monitoring Wiki and radio waves to detect and crush any dissent. My point wasnt that Im correct or not: My point was to give courage to any other rational people that _do_ have the time ... just letting them know that they are not alone. Also, I suppose, Im indirectly criticizing Wiki: one of its many defects is how a cabal can really distort the information herein. Noleander (talk) 06:33, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

... here is a cite on the baptism of Jews (from NY times) .. in case anyone has time to write such a section:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06E2D7123FF932A15751C1A9659C8B63 Noleander (talk) 06:49, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

.. and another: Contemporary Mormonism: Latter-Day Saints in Modern America By Claudia L. Bushman; p 86; Greenwood press; 2006

... and another on the coincidental revelation that Polygamy was prohibited (from 1890 Manifesto):

By September 1890, federal officials were preparing to seize the church’s four temples and the U.S. Congress had debated whether to extend the 1882 Edmunds Act so that all Mormons would be disenfranchised, not just those practicing plural marriage.[citation needed] The Supreme Court had already ruled in Davis v. Beason[5] that a law in Idaho Territory which disenfranchised individuals who practiced or believed in plural marriage was constitutional.[6]

Woodruff would later recount that on the night of September 23, 1890, he received a revelation from Jesus Christ that the church should cease the practice of plural marriage.[7] Woodruff announced the Manifesto on September 25 by publishing it in the church-owned Deseret Weekly in Salt Lake City.[8] On October 6, 1890, during the 60th Semiannual General Conference of the church, the Manifesto was formally accepted by the church membership.

15:29, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Noleander (talk • contribs) 15:29, 22 November 2007

Nobody is trying to crush dissent. If you look through the talk page for many of the articles about Mormons, you will find people regularly complaining about it having a pro-Mormon bias, but not providing any specifics. Your entry identified areas, but no citations. Unsourced claims would / should be either reverted or flagged.

As for the timing of the Manifesto, LDS generally accept that the revelation was influenced by the Government's threats. (So much for freedom of religion, BTW ;^) Woodruff described the results if polygamy had been allowed to continue in several places. Those are facts, not criticisms. Most non-Mormons don't believe that LDS revelations are from God, and so they assume the revelations are received for other motives. I believe that the root of your criticism isn't about the Manifesto, but that it wasn't a real revelation. The citation above doesn't make that claim - it merely states the facts. You need to find a citation that interprets those facts in the manner you believe is correct. Then you can add it to the article.

As for baptizing the Jews, that looks like a valid issue, and I would encourage you to add it to the article. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle) ^(Talk) 19:29, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Considering the nature of this article, I had thought that this topic had been coverted here, because it is coverted in at least two other articles. However, I have checked this article and it is not present. I am in the process of adding a summary and a link to the coverage in other articles. Look for this shortly. — Val42 (talk) 18:10, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've added the information. I can tell that it reads rough, but I don't see a way to fix it right now. I think that I'll need to leave it for a few days before I can smooth it out. If you can smooth it out, please feel free to do so. — Val42 (talk) 18:44, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

This is just plain bizarre. We have a devout mormon (Im guessing, based on your User page) adding text into an article about criticism of mormons. And the section title doesnt even include the word Jews ... which was the whole point of the criticism. And the first couple of paragraphs, instead of explaining the criticism, start off by justifying the practice being criticised. And why is a section on Jews (1.3.1) under Christianity (sec 1.)? Umm ... this is Wikipedia, folks. NPOV and all that stuff? .... Ill tell you what: Ill edit the section and give it a more independent wording/order. Noleander (talk) 21:44, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I put it in the wrong section. But you have narrowed the scope of the controversy of baptism for the dead to only include the jewish controversy. I'm wondering about your agenda in this issue. — Val42 (talk) 23:30, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you are surprised to have a Mormon adding entries critical of the LDS Church. If you look at most LDS articles, you will find that Mormons are as likely to add negative entries as well as positive ones. For example, much of the Anti-Mormon article was written by LDS editors. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle) ^(Talk) 00:56, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not surprised that Mormons are editing articles relating to LDS (I see there are some regulars User:Reswobslc, User:Bochica, User:Val42, User:TrustTruth). What I am surprised at is the blantant non-neutrality. Just as a rule of thumb, on an article critical of, say, Catholicsm, Id expect 2/3 of the article to be focusing on objective criticisms, with a secular bent; and maybe 1/3 defending/explaining the church's actions. (BTW, Im a Catholic, who thinks the Catholic church has done some horrendous things in the past, inquisition, etc) But the Mormon articles, they read like pro-Mormon recruitment brochures. Just a random example: regarding Mormons racial discrimination against blacks: Id expect the focus to be on the overt discrimination that lasted over a century, ending only in 1978 (!) .. but instead this article repeatedly emphasies how the church (now) has wonderful non-discriminatory practices. From a wiki point of view: the problem here is that when an editor edits an article that he/she is personally involved in (your own church) you need to bend over backwards to avoid any bias. I dont see much bending :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Noleander (talk • contribs) 04:28, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

You still didn't answer my question: Why did you remove the controversy on what other christians think about baptism for the dead? You should either add back in the information and change the title of the section, or remove the link to this christian controversy because it doesn't match the name of the section title. Why are you so concerned about this one part of the controversy so much so that you want to bury the rest of it? — Val42 (talk) 19:58, 24 November 2007 (UTC)]

My mistake: Im familiar with the Jewish criticims (read about them a lot in the newspapers), but not familiar with Christian criticisms (dont recall ever reading about it .. but I'll take your word for it that some Christians criticize the Mormon church for it). I didnt intend to "bury" anything ... I was just ignorant of that criticism so I inadvertently dropped it. How about if we add a section on Christian criticims of the Baptism of the Dead? Noleander (talk) 20:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

It was its own paragraph in the section that you moved, but I'll accept that you dropped in inadvertently. But shouldn't these two items be together because that way we don't have to explain twice what "baptism for the dead" is. That's why I started the article with briefly (three sentences) explaining what it iss so that people would understand about why it is performed in the first place. The next paragraph, two sentences, explained the controversy with other christians. The next paragraph, five sentences, dealt with the Jewish Holocaust controversy.

After writing this, I wrote in this talk page, "I can tell that it reads rough, ... [i]f you can smooth it out, please feel free to do so." I hoped that it would be fixed, not gutted. I've also seen that you've restored the christian controversy section. But now, these sections are disconnected, giving less weight to this controversy than it deserves. I hope that you can see how breaking it up causes these problems. I hope that we can work together to rectify these problems. — Val42 (talk) 20:57, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[popping some levels off the stack] ... Yes, well that is one of the problems with the tree-organization structure used in Wiki and most documents: sections are organized hierarchically 1.2.1, 1.2.2, etc. That is great for info that is in a tree structure, but info that is a "matrix" structure doesnt fit into a tree. This article could have a Christian criticisms section, and a Jewish criticism section, but where would a Baptism of the Dead subsection go, since it applies to both? I would posit:

• The jewish criticism is rather well-publicized, so deserves its own named subsection.
• The jewish criticism subsection shouldnt go under the Christian section
• Some mention, perhaps small?, of the Baptism of the Dead criticism should be under the Christian top-level section
• Any subsection on this should _begin_ with a description of the criticism, then give background information/justification afterwards.

On that last topic, say you wanted to document, say, "Criticism of Global Warming". Which is more encylopedic: "Global warming critics say that global warming is not caused by mankind. And here is a description of warming and weather and statistics..." or "Here is a description of weather and warming statistics. Global Warming critics assert that global warming is not caused by humankind". I think most objective people would say the former is is more neutral. The latter de-emphasizes the criticism, and gives the impression that the editor is trying to obscure the criticism. In other words, the latter "takes the wind out of its sails" before the reader even gets to the statement of criticism. Noleander (talk) 22:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Because of your suggestion, I looked at the Global warming controversy article. I have made edits, attempting to pattern the introduction after this article.

BTW, it is not "baptism of the dead", as you wrote, but "baptism for the dead". Also, "for" should not be dropped, as you did in another case. There is a large difference in one, small word. — Val42 (talk) 00:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposed New Section on Secretiveness

I propose a new section on this article on criticism that the church is excessivley secretive, especially in regards to finances. In terms of neutrality, I think it should be very neutral. For illustration, here are three brief, paraphrased versions of how the section could be slanted (assume that every assertion is true and includes a valid citation):

Anti-Mormon Slant - The Mormon church has been accused of being excessively secretive. The church refuses to divulge information X. Information Y is locked away in church archives and when person Z asked to see it, was denied access. Source A speculates that the church is deliberately hiding the information for nefarious purpose B. Church member M was excommuicated for divulging secret documents.

Pro-Mormon Slant - The Mormon church, in response to allegations that it is too secretive, recently adopted a new policy ensuring transparency. Church leader X recently said "we are committed to sharing information". The church recently published hitherto undisclosed documents D1 and D2. Federal law XYZ provides that private entities are not required to disclose financial information, yet the chuch has voluntarily disclosed information Z, going above and beyond federal disclosure requirements. Other notable churches A, B, and C, have information policies that are even more restictive than the mormon church.

Neutral Slant - A major news publication had a cover story on the Mormon church, that included some allegations that the church was overly secretive, especially with regards to financial matters. Estimates of the church's wealth are not published, but independent estimates range from $x to $y. Church critic X asked for information Y from the church, and was told "xxx". Church leaders respond by pointing out that they are a private entity and, like many other churches, choose not to publicly disclose financial information. The church recently published hitherto undisclosed documents D1 and D2, and conforms to all disclosure laws.

I'll volunteer to write the section, using a very neutral tone, similar to the latter example. Any comments or suggestions before I undertake the effort? Noleander (talk) 16:46, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Certainly there have been critics that complain about the LDS church not disclosing their finances, but they are certainly not the only church to do so. I have no problem with you adding the neutral slant version, provided you mention that the LDS Church is not unique in this position. The reality is that there are many Christians who are seriously upset with Mormons, and seldom miss a chance to complain. I would hope that this article tries to stick with actual criticism of Mormonism (doctrine, behavior, etc.), rather than airing all the reasons that others don't like them. Do those same people complain that the Catholic Church doesn't disclose their finances? If not, then I suspect it isn't really a criticism. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle) ^(Talk) 02:56, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that any discussion of finances should include mention that many churches, esp Catholic, are equally if not more secretive. I also agree that any section added into this article needs to be balanced, in the sense that only significant criticisms that have risen to a high level of public awareness (that is, criticisms published in major magazine articles; major newspaper headlines; books published by mainstream publishers) should get mentioned. For example, in the article Criticism of the Catholic Church I would expect to see (I havent looked) sections on (1) The inquisition; (2) child abuse by priests; (3) secretive Vatican; (4) Anti-semitism. (And if those sections are not there, I would not hesitate to add them). Those criticisms of the Catholic church have risen to a high level of noteworthiness. Likewise, the Mormon church has experienced criticism, and that criticism (when noteworthy) should be captured in a neutral way in an Encyclopedia like Wiki. Noleander (talk) 06:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

This article is missing a lot of stuff

What is the scope of this article? It seems to be lacking some of the more serious criticisms. I will attempt to add some more sections to it in the next few days for some of the more glaring pieces that are missing, like the mistranslation of the Book of Abraham, the drastic changes to the Temple Ordinances, Polygamy, the Adam-God doctrine, and a host of others. Frankly I am surprised at this article - it is pretty poor in representing the criticisms of Mormonism.Descartes1979 (talk) 20:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Holy Smokes - the section on Race looks like it was written by an LDS PR representative. It is TERRIBLE - it bears absolutely no resemblance to the real criticism. The more I read this article, I am just floored by it. Seriously guys...I have to wonder what is going on here.Descartes1979 (talk) 21:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

POV tag added until non-neutrality cleared up

I've added a POV tag, until some of the POV issues (mentioned above) are cleared up. To remove the POV tag from this article will require:

• Addition of key criticisms that are missing (secrecy, obfuscation of negative aspects of early church history, polygamy and sexual abuse (as a dedicated section outside the "Women" section), politically convenient changes to church policy, etc)
• Improve emphasis of existing sections to be more neutral. For example, the Criticism of Mormonism#Race section: the initial sentences need to be on the historical policies and the impact to the victims. After those initial sentences, then the church's recent efforts for improvement can be mentioned. Another example: in the Criticism of Mormonism#Doctrinal Changes section, the notion of "change for policital convenience" is not mentioned ... merely listing the changes is not enough.
• Improve subsection titles to more precisely describe the criticism ("Race" vs "Criticism that Mormonism Discriminates Against African-Americans", for example).
• Improve overall tone to be more neutral

After those criteria are met, the POV tag can be removed. Noleander (talk) 20:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

The POV tag stays until an appropriate neutrality returns to the article. There is far too much use of "Critics" without spcific citations to who those critics are. These types of weasel words need to be expunged from the article. Also, the tag is removed when a concensus has been reached that the article has become neutral. Noeleander, you are not the editor best suited to remove the tag given that you are one of the main offenders to destroying the neutrality of the page. No single editor is ever best suited to unilaterally decide when the tag can be removed. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 07:18, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd be happy to help with addressing some of the sections that are overly critical or otherwise in need of work. Can you list a few that you consider the most outstanding, or are the "citation needed" etc tags sufficient to identify those sections? Noleander 07:53, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I have been looking over this article, and I think it is getting close to neutrality, if it isn't there already.Descartes1979 (talk) 03:49, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Article Overhaul

OK guys - I did some pretty major changes and additions, and structural reorganization - I know that there aren't any references in the new sections yet, I will add them later tonight when I get back home. Please don't delete those sections, I have a full list of references for each one. Or help me fill up the sections and add the references yourself :).Descartes1979 (talk) 21:11, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and added citation requests and weasel notices where necessary. Please, as you and I and others add references and make other changes to the article, let's save us all trouble by using citation templates and by making the citations clear enough that they can be checked. Also, let's change the spirit with which this article has traditionally been approached and try to make a good, solid, non-mud slinging article. Let's avoid weasel words and passive voice. I realize it's meant to be a collection article of various criticisms, but that doesn't mean it can't be done professionally and in a good spirit. Remember that the purpose of the article isn't to convert the reader, but to present a neutral point of view (not my point of view, not your point of view, not Sandra Tanner's point of view, not the LDS president's point of view, etc. ad nauseum). Good luck to all! --TrustTruth (talk) 22:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree - I am the last person that wants to get into an edit war.Descartes1979 (talk) 22:25, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I think we can do better with references - rather than reference, for example, a book about what Brigham Young said about this or that - we can get quotes directly from the Millennial Star and the Journal of Discourses - they are readily available online. Just a thought.Descartes1979 (talk) 01:41, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I concur ... primary sources are always better than secondary sources. I'll work harder to find some primary sources, but if you (or anyone else) can find some, I'd appreciate the help.Noleander 15:06, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip ... I found the primary source and added a cite.Noleander 15:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Progress on Neutrality Issues

I've contributed several edits to the article that are aimed at restoring it to a neutral tone/emphasis. I tried to move forward on all four criteria for removing the POV tag:

• Add a few more sections on omitted criticisms (Descartes1979 did most of the work)
• Improve emphasis to focus on the criticisms, rather than rebuttals to criticisms
• Improve section titles to be more specific
• Improve overall tone to be more neutral

I'll be monitoring this page (and Talk) page for awhile, and if anyone has any significant changes they would like to make to my edits, I'll be happy to discuss the changes here ... Im sure we can find common ground if there are any disagreements. Noleander 15:04, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Section titles

TrustTruth, I see you changed a couple of section titles. My opinion is that the titles should explicitly state what the criticism is. This is an article on criticisms. Each section, more or less, describes one criticism. It is natural and expected that the titles may be somewhat negative in tone, but that is the nature of this article.

E.g. if the criticism is "Genetic Analysis Does Not Support Book of Mormon", then that would be a good title. The title "Genetics and the Book of Mormon" does not come close to describing the criticism; and there is already an article entitled Genetics and the Book of Mormon that discusses that generic topic in depth.

Likewise, the title "Book of Mormon Probably Derived From An Eariler Book" is very specific and describes precisely the criticism (there is evidence of plagarism). The title "Other possible Book of Mormon origins" is very vague, and sounds as if it is designed to eliminate any negative connotations.

Remember, _this_ article is about criticims of the church/movement, and so the section titles should clearly describe the criticims. This is an encyclopedia. Noleander 16:22, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from, but my concern is that the titles themselves are drawing conclusions -- that they have a sense of finality that is not supported by the evidence. That's definitely not portraying a neutral point of view. A possible compromise would be to explicitly state that the titles are criticisms, for example: "Claim: Book of Mormon derived from an earlier book" or "Claim: Genetic analysis does not support Book of Mormon". I know that's getting wordy, but without the "claim" part those titles are loaded and heavily pov, even though I recognize that's not the intent. I'll hold off on making any more title changes until we can reach a consensus. --TrustTruth 16:38, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Your suggestions are okay. They are a bit wordy, and wordiness is generally not good in section titles, but these wordy titles seem to be the approach that maximizes the neutrality and accuracy. I think I tried to achieve that same goal when I inserted the preface "Criticism that..." in several titles, e.g. Criticism of Mormonism#Criticism that Mormonism Was Racist. The word "Criticism..." to start the title seems more descriptive than "Claim:...".

I noticed those titles and should have mentioned them as well, because I agree that they do a better job than simply stating the criticism outright. However, "Criticism that Joseph Smith fabricated the Book of Abraham" still makes the statement that Smith fabricated the book, which is not a neutral point of view. The hypothetical title "Criticism that Hillary Clinton shot Vince Foster" similarly includes a statement of fact, even though that fact is hardly established. Any editor stating such on Clinton's article would be reverted.

I think that inserting the "claim" word serves neutrality better, for example "Claim: Joseph Smith fabricated the Book of Abraham". Similarly, "Claim: Hillary Clinton shot Vince Foster" is a much more neutral way of expressing an accusation. --TrustTruth 18:49, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I would consider the titles neutral if they start with "Claim ..." and go on to specify the precise criticism, as in "Claim that genetics does not support the book of mormon" or the exmaples you give above. After we get the section titles straightened out in the article, I'll put forward a proposal to remove the POV tag since I think all the original concerns have been addressed. Descartes: Do you have any comment on this? Noleander 19:17, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't go along with the pov tag removal just yet, as there are still some gaping holes in the article. For example, every criticism needs a rebuttal that summarizes Mormons' response to the criticism. There are already several rebuttals scattered throughout the article, but these need to be reformatted and segregated in a uniform way. I would hesitate to go along with removing the POV tag until most (if not all) the criticisms include a small rebuttal and until most of the fact tags are gone.--TrustTruth 19:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Small rebuttals are fine. But the article is already rather lengthy, and extensive rebuttals belong instead in the "main" articles cited in each section. For example, in "Criticism X" section in this article, I would expect to see the section begin with an explanation of the criticism, then followed by a brief rebuttal, perhaps ending with "For more details on rebuttals, see main arcticle Women and Mormonism". In those main articles there are alrady dozens or paragraphs of rebuttal (which, in most cases have a POV-issue of their own .. but that is another story). Remember, the primary goal of this article is to enumerate and define the criticisms. There are already dozens of other articles that explain the church's position (on these criticisms) in a positive way, and there is no harm letting those articles do the heavy lifting. The whole reason this article was tagged for POV was precisely because the "rebuttal" information was so extensive and prominent, that it was distorting the focus of the article. If the rebuttal sections get too extensive, we will be back where we started :-)

As for the "fact" tags, if you want to wait for those to go away, that is fine. On the other hand, the POV tag is here simply to get the article neutral. Although "Featured Article" quality would be nice, it is not necessary for the POV tag removal, in my opinion.  :-)

I agree that the rebuttals should be small relative to the rest of each respective section. --TrustTruth 20:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

If I may interject (and unindent) the only problem with this new style is that it does not fit the pattern established by other "Criticism of.." articles and is not very flexible. The straightforward, single word topic is what is generally used elsewhere and allows the incorporation a variety of criticisms on that single topic. I think it would be possible to perhaps keep the highest level headings as "Criticisms of so-and-so", but sub-headings should be short and sweet. The headings are for easy navigation, not to describe the criticism, especially when the criticism is multi-variate. Also, rebuttals are standard in most "Criticism of", if you want to see a bad one that is dominated by them check out Criticism of atheism, but you are right that they need to be short, but it does not require a "see also the main article" (which kind of goes against WP:SELF), but should be a summary of the apologist response. The church's doctrine is not the same as the apologetic response, and so we cannot rely entirely on the main pages to do the heavy lifting. Along these same lines, I think it best if the apologetic external links (not the doctrinal ones like lds.org) be re-included - again this is standard practice on "Criticism of" pages and apologetics and criticisms are opposite sides of the same coin. We also need to be careful that we don't swing to far the other way a we seek to remove the rebuttal POV, a lot of the new edits state criticisms and critics' interpretation of aspects of mormonism as fact - a lot more statements need to be prefaced by "Critics argue/state/interpret". --FyzixFighter 21:38, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Regarding External Links: I have no objection to including some LDS apologist links.

I understand your point: short section titles are generally desireable. The problem is that, when too short, they have virtually no value. For instance, the section now titled "Claim: Church is sexist" used to be "Women". That had virtually no value. Even a reader who applied the "Criticism of" context would think: "Okay, some criticism about women", then the question is: what about women? Are LDS women too tall? Does the church have too many women members? No, the exact criticism is "Claim: The LDS Church is sexist" or "The LDS church oppresses women" or "The LDS Church treats women as inferior to men". Agree with the criticism or not: that is what the critics say. Regarding the other "Criticism of.." articles: (1) I would submit that their titles could be improved by being more specific ... I see no reason why this article should reduce its information content to conform; (2) This goes back to the whole POV issue that started this effort: the original Criticism article was sanitized: a reader really had to work hard to find out what the criticisms were. We need to _help_ the reader understand the criticisms, not hide them. (3) Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia: a few extra informative words are a good thing. Noleander 22:16, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Respectfully I have to disagree with you. It is not the header's function to totally describe the detail of the criticism but to act as a navigation tool, it should describe the subtopic that is the center of criticism a not the nature of the criticism, that's what the actual text is for. For the case you bring up, I would argue that the title should simply be "Sexism" - it's neutral, it's a "noun or noun phrase" (see the WP:MOS#Article titles, headings and sections), it's flexible, and the reader already knows that this is about criticisms of Mormonism/LDS church so the longer title is simply "restating or directly referring to the topic or to wording on a higher level in the hierarchy" (something the MoS also frowns on). I'm not arguing this on because I think the current titles are too long, but that they go to far too great a length to preserve neutrality, when the properly chosen simple and sweet one works just as well. --FyzixFighter 22:49, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that short titles are better, in general. And I like the "Sexism" suggestion .. that works for me. Likewise, Homophobia, Racism, Plagarism. There are a few that probably would need 2 to 4 words: baptism of Jews, Archaeology etc. But we cannot focus on titles with a microscope: The reason this POV effort was initiated was because the overall article was non-neutral. The question of whether the titles are good, or not, depends on the tone and emphasis of remainder of the article. If the "rebuttal" sections become so large they dominate the criticism, and the wording becomes biased in favor of the church, then - in the overall scheme - the titles may need to be expanded to counterbalance. We have to look at the article as a whole. Regarding the Wiki title guideline: Yes, it is valid. (And lets not forget the "Ignore all the Rules" rule :-) But we cannot pick and choose the guidelines: adhering to the title guideline, while ignoring the NPOV guideline. Once the article is neutral, and the dust has settled, I will be more comfortable with pithy titles. In summary: Im willing to try short titles like "Sexism" etc, provided that the article, as a whole, remains neutral. But if the overall article starts hiding the criticisms, then we are back to square one. Noleander 00:12, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Then why did you start adjusting the headings in the first place if they do not have anything to do with the NPOVing effort? You're the one that started questioning and adjusting headings, not me. You can't just drop it and say it's unimportant therefore we should now leave it as you've edited them. There were a few, like "Women", that were ambiguous, true but the majority of them worked just fine. Yes, we should be trying first and foremost to be addressing NPOV issues, but let's not introduce worse problems like this heading issue and original research in the process. Attributing opinions, both criticisms and apologetics, is the way to solve POV issues, not expanding and adjusting headings to counterbalance (unless the headings are blatantly POV, which most of the original ones were not). Since the headings are such a minor thing, then my simplifying the headings should not get in the way of the greater effort of NPOVing the text. --FyzixFighter 00:33, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Baptism For The Dead split into 2

I split the Baptism for the Dead section into 2 sibling sections ... TrustTruth renamed the old section "BFD not Bibilical" which is okay, but then the Jewish/Holocaust subsection became inappropriate there ... so I moved the latter up to be a sibling section. Val42: Do you have any comments? I think you were the one that originally merged them into a single section.Noleander 20:50, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

That's appropriate because I think there are two separate issues: (1) the fact the church does the baptisms in the first place and (2) the past practice (was it rogue or church-sponsored? Does anyone know?) of submitting lists of holocaust victims for baptism. (By the way I know the most recent complaint on this was due to rogue members doing it despite church policy, but was the original criticism due to a church-sponsored extraction program, or was that due to over-zealous members? That distinction might clarify things.) --TrustTruth 20:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

My understanding is that the original baptisms were part of an extraction program, which has since been discontinued. It is important to remember that the actual names that people submit are not reviewed. The emphasis is for people to have ordinances performed for their ancestors, but I know cases where a member feels strongly that they should have the work done for deceased friends.

When you run the "Temple Ready" program (which creates temple submissions), if you are not directly related to a name in your list, and that person died recently (they have to be dead at least a year before their name can be submitted) a note appears encouraging you to consider the feelings of other relatives before proceeding. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle) ^(Talk) 21:52, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Original Research

One problem that needs to be addressed in this article is its reliance in places on original research. For example, using a quote from Bruce McConkie is fine, but using it as an example of what "some critics" cite as sexism is original research, unless you cite a work that actually cites the McConkie quote. --TrustTruth 23:49, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I was actually about to express the same sentiment. I noticed that too as I was playing around with the sexism section. Quotes like that are fine when describing mormon doctrine. However, it's not enough to grab pieces of mormon theology and say "Look, this is worthy of criticism", or "This is why I am critical of mormonism", or "I find this quote/scripture supports this bit of criticism that I've read" - we need critics using these quotes. Otherwise, it's OR like TrustTruth says and should be removed. This article is not about our criticisms, but about documented criticisms. --FyzixFighter 00:03, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

In general I agree with you, but there is one exception: If the quote being used is well-known and likely to have been known to the critic, then it should be useable. For example, say there is an article on "Criticism of Islam", and say there is a section on "Claim: Some Muslims want Israel wiped off the map". Say that in year 2001 the President of Iran says, in a widely publicized speech "Israel should be wiped of the map". Say in year 2002 the Presient of Israel says "I criticize Islam: they want to wipe israel off the map". Can the article say:

Some critics say that some Muslims want to wipe Israel off the map [cite president if Israel]. In 2001, the President if Iran said "Israel should be wiped of the map" [cite president of Iran here].

Clearly the above is acceptable in an encyclopedia. It is asking too much to require that the President of Israel say "Iran wants to wipe Israel off the map, I refer you to the 2001 speech by the president of Iran".

In _this_ article, the parallel case is found with Sexism and Racism, where 20th century critics are obviously aware of widely disseminated public pronouncements by early church leaders (Snow on women; Young on slaves). Noleander 06:21, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

The parallel is not perfect. The problem comes when the critics interpret those quotes and scriptures differently than someone within the LDS faith. Snow's quote re: women is a good example of this. LDS do not see this quote as teaching that the requirements for women are different, but likely would say that it teaches that marriage is necessary (for both male and female) for getting into the celestial kingdom and that the resurrection process is somehow related to the priesthood which the husband holds. There are similar statements that state that a man cannot enter the celestial kingdom without his wife. The idea that it would be possible for a husband to win every marital battle by saying, "If you don't agree with me, I'm going to refuse to bring you into the celestial kingdom with me" is totally foreign from the LDS understanding of this statement, since such a man would be exercising unrighteous dominion, and amen to his priesthood. It's fine to mention a quote, but when you include an interpretation of it like in this case, especially when it's different the LDS interpretation, the interpretation that leads to the criticism needs to be cited.

A parallel to this might be something like:

Critics argue that Christianity encourages ritualistic cannabilism. Eusebieus taught that ""We are continually fed with the Saviour's body, we continually participate in the Lamb's blood".

Roman catholics would rightly be up in arms over such a statement since the quote is included to participate in the criticism and debate, not to describe it.

This need for reliable sources especially applies to the presentation of circumstantial evidence like what happened to the three witnesses. While we certainly have references for certain things, like cowdery's and whitmer's leaving/disavowing mormonism, we need a reliable source that ties this to the credibility criticism. You and I might think that such statements give us reasons to criticize their testimonies, but that's not what wikipedia is about, ie it's OR. I don't mind giving some time to find cites for the criticisms, but we shouldn't wait for ever. The burden is always on those adding materials to find sources, and other editors are under no obligation to let uncited statements that fail NOR remain. --FyzixFighter 10:33, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, your example of citing the president of Iran's comments independent of the president of Israel's is original research. It's an annoying hurdle, believe me, but it serves neutrality well. --TrustTruth 16:59, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I've studied the Original Research issue, and I've come to the conclusion that your points are valid. I've made an effort to remove all "stand alone" facts/quotations, leaving only facts/quotes/references put forward by critics. If you see any remaining statements that look like OR, go ahead and tag them and I'll either remove them or replace them with a non-OR substitute. Noleander 05:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

First sentence should defne criticism?

Can we get consensus on a guideline: that the first sentence of each section (that is decribing a criticism) should define/explain the criticsm? Especially in light of the "shorter titles" discussion above. For example, I think the Sexism section was just changed so the first sentence no longer explains the criticism. It should read something like "The church has been criticized for treating women as inferiors", or similar. The current sentence does not define the criticism. As written, it softens the whole issue and comes off as very apologetic.

This is very essential: This is what the whole POV issue is all about. I think we can all agree that we dont want an edit war here. Can we at least agree that the first sentence of each section should define the criticism, as posed by the critics themselves?

I can certainly agree to that - the homophobia certainly then needs to be reworked in that regards. In the sexism section, I was trying to move everything around into some kind of coherent, story-telling fashion so that it didn't seem so disjointed. One of the reasons I had put that "Various..." line first is because it speaks to the LDS movement in general, while the "Critics..." sentence speaks to the LDS Church in particular. I'll try and rewrite it a bit, but not having "Mormon America" in front of me at the moment, I hope that I don't twist there meaning too much. --FyzixFighter 00:51, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, one more thought. I'm about to move that sentence you mention and I suddenly realized why that sentence bugs me - it needs more, namely a quick mention of the main reasons. I'd like to add a ",citing..." clause to the end, but I'm not certain what evidence exactly the Ostlings use. My guess would be the refusal to ordain women to the priesthood and the emphasis on the women's role in the home, but if you've got it could you expand and qualify the sentence a bit. Thanks. --FyzixFighter 01:05, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I'll beef-up the sexism cites and clarify the criticism. Regarding the "story-telling": that is an interesting dilemma. On the one hand, it is arguable that a section should proceed historically, in chronological order, starting with the background, and leading up to the criticism. On the other hand, since these sections are so brief, it is may be clearer to initially state the criticism, _then_ proceed to give background and rebuttals. Both are defensible ways of writing a section. But when we take the "story telling" approach, the criticsm appears buried, and a casual visitor of the article may miss the criticism altogether. That is why I think the "initial sentence defines the criticism" approach is key to putting the POV-issue to rest.

Time for arbitration?

There are a few section titles at the beginning that need consensus:

"Criticism of sacred texts" ...."The Book of Abraham" ...."The Book of Mormon"

In keeping with the title guideline that subsections "inherit" the information from parent sections, I suppose the two "book" subsection titles could be left alone. But the parent title is not capturing the essence of the criticism. The criticism is that Joseph Smith fabricated the Books. The way the title reads now "Criticism of sacred texts", it sounds like the critics are examining the quality of the binding :-)

Likewise, the first sentence under Book of Abraham was changed to read "Critics argue that translations of surviving papyri that are believed to be portions of the source of the Book of Abraham are completely unrelated to the content of the book's text".

That is very misleading: the translation/unrelated issue is one (of many) factors used to buttress the actual criticism which is that the Book was fabricated by J. Smith.

Can we get consensus on this? Im sure we all have better things to do than go back and forth changing each other's edits, so if we cant get consensus, it is probably time to think of arbitration. I suppose we could frame a few questions for an arbitrator (section titles, first sentence empahsis, proporation of criticsm explication to rebuttal) that would capture the essence of the POV issues. Noleander 06:08, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

In all fairness, I should add that the Linguistics section first sentence is accurate and neutral: "Critics conclude that certain linguistic properties of the Book of Mormon provide evidence that the book was written by Joseph Smith, rather than obtained from divine sources". So if we can make the other initial sentences (and section titles) as accurate as that sentence, that would address the POV issues.Noleander 06:30, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we're to needing arbitration yet. These small disagreements, at least in this case of the BoA criticism's opening sentence, indicate a lack of clarity and communication in the writing. I rearranged the sentences to bring it in line with the "Criticism in the first sentence idea" which I think works nicely. However, apparently the original criticism was not clear in the original paragraph I was editing, thus I picked out what I thought the paragraph was saying, which apparently is not how you see it. And in this I slightly disagree with you. The criticism imo is that the BoA papyri don't match the text, that the BoM and archaeology don't match, or whatever. That Smith fabricated/made up/invented the narratives is the conclusion based on those criticisms. As a parallel, criticism of the Christian concept of the Afterlife is not that the Afterlife does not exist, but that this concept has such and such logical fallacies and problems. The belief that the Afterlife does not exist is a consequence of these criticisms. Likewise, to say that the criticism is that Smith fabricated the BoM doesn't sound right to me - you and I can claim this or believe it, but our criticisms would be about such and such aspect of the BoM narrative or what have you.

My two problems with that one line off the linguistic section are first the word "conclude", it should be something more along the lines of "argue" or "state". "conclude" carries too much connotation that the critics are right - can you imagine how it would sound if we said in a rebuttal section, "Apologists conclude that word print analysis provides evidence that the Book of Mormon was written by more than 42 authors." Maybe it doesn't to you, but to me this sounds like it favors the Apologist view way too much, I'm not sure I can exactly put my finger on why, but I do know that it's tied to the word "conclude". And secondly, it needs a cite to stand on its own, especially since the apologist rebuttal is wordprint analyses that indicate multiple authors. --FyzixFighter 11:20, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate your optimism, but I do think arbitration is required. The neutrality of this article has been disputed by many independent editors. When the POV tag was most recently applied to this page, there were 4 neutrality goals established on this Talk page:

• 1) Add a few missing criticism of the church
• 2) Improve the neutrality of individual sections, by ensuring that the first sentence of each section defines the criticism (rather than starting with a story/background and only later discuss the criticism)
• 3) Improve subsection title wording to indicate the criticism under discussion (rather than bland nouns that give no hint of the criticism)
• 4) Make the overall article more neutral, primarily by ensuring that pro-church rebuttals are not larger or more promient that the actual criticisms that are th focus of this article.

Our progress on these issues is:

• 1) Done.
• 2) Many sections were done, but several of those were reverted
• 3) Many sections were done, but several of those were reverted
• 4) Many sections were done, but several of those were reverted ["reverted" here mean manually edited to return nearly to original state; does not mean "revert" action in History page]

Since we have now come full circle on many sections in this article (that is, the sections are back to their original POV state), it appears that an edit war is in effect, despite extensive attempts on this Talk page to establish consensus. So I think arbitration is necessary. Further efforts to get consensus would be worthwhile if this was a new dispute, but this article has been POV since its inception, and several past efforts to make it more neutral always ended up get reverted. Also, there is a bit of a passive/aggressive approach by the POV editors, where one POV editor will agreed to a consensus on this talk page, then the POV editor (or NPOV editor) will implement that consenus, then a second POV editor will revert the changes. More significantly, the arbitrator's decision could be applied to other LDS-POV articles (Linguistics and the Book of Mormon and Archaeology and the Book of Mormon) which face similar POV issues. For all the above reasons, an arbitrator is needed.

Arbitration may be appropriate, but it does seem a little sudden. One thing that I would request of the editors is to review other articles of a similar nature. Review Criticism of the Catholic Church and Criticism of Judaism. This article is taking a decidely different approach and does not now resemble those articles, which is not acceptable. Why should this article be different? Should the article title now be Evangelical reasons for disagreeing with Mormonism? If so, then you are on the right path; if not, Houston, we have a problem.

I am concerened that this article is turning into an Evangelical anti-Mormon tract. This article is not supposed to be about the differences between Mormonism and orthodox Christainity; that is topic is covered in Mormonism and Christianity. Overall I sense there are two major problems: First, people do not understand the meaning of critical thinking and second, this is more academic and should not be an Evangelical anti-Mormon tract. It is not about "why you are wrong" and such a path is highly POV and not acceptable on wikipedia. There is a significant problem here. Why should this article be different in scope than others with the same purpose? --Storm Rider ^(talk) 16:54, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I admit I haven't read much of those other criticism articles. I will study them before making any other edits. --TrustTruth 17:01, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

The two articles you cite, if you read the History pages, have the identical issus facing them as this page. Many comments echo the comments about this page: that the articles are missing key points; edit wars; POV issues. In all cases, the rebuttals in favor of the churches dominate the dscription of the criticisms themselves. This is an encycolpedia. Criticisms against faiths have been an important part of civilization for centuries, the subject of books, polemics, and, yes, even web pages :-) It is appropriate for Wikipedia to document the criticism, using the critics own words and citations. It is not appropriate for the church propopents (Catholic, LDS, or Jewish) to edit the criticism articles to de-emphasize or hide the criticsms. The other two articles you cite are not mature, high-quality, stable articles. Their histories clearly show they are in flux and facing the same issues that this article faces. Noleander 17:29, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Criticism of Islam is another one. I reviewed the discussion pages; you must be reading different pages than I am. The first two I cited simply do not have a lot of active discussion. The third I just added seems far more active, but it also support the premise that the nature of the criticism is markedly different than the new additions we have seen in the past week. This has moved form the academic to evangelical tract. You completely evade the discussion of what is critical thought versus the type you wish to endulge in which "why you are wrong" or "you don't believe like I do, so you are wrong", which is the tenor of all the new additions. This is beginning to reek of private agenda.

I think you might want to retract your statement about editors of faith not be acceptable editors for faith oriented articles. That would be the thought of highly immature editor that is completely ignorant of the degree of academic criticism developed by people of faith. It also further emphasizes the point that you have strong POV that prevents you from approaching the topic from in a neutral manner. Arbitration is looking more like an appropriate avenue for this type of fundamental disagreement. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 17:51, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

(after ec)The more neutral edits keep getting reverted? Really, can you provide an example where I have done this? Cuz, honestly I'm not seeing it. Some of the sections had seriously swung to the other POV side of the pendulum, were poorly written, and were wandering, disjointed and repetitious before I edited (the Racism section for example - sitll feels a little disjointed and low-quality though). Where are the rebuttals longer and more prominent in the current article? I would argue that the biggest problem right now is the original research. Editors, in attempt to address #1, have been slapping on every odd criticism they have themselves or have heard without providing reliable sources that the criticism exists. If cites are not provided, those will be removed - other editors are not obligated to attach fact-tags and wait for cites, but it is a general courtesy though not required.

About the past history of the article, most of the time that the POV-tag got placed in the past, there was no real discussion of POV points here on the talk page, usually no discussion was begun, rarely some random drive comment of "I think this page is POV" occurred. To my knowledge, this time around is the first time that an editor has specifically pointed out POV spots in the article. But even then, we have not had extensive attempts on the talk page to reach consensus. Where was the consensus building discussion before you went and changed the headings? Where's the consensus building for the total neutering of rebuttals that, in some cases was hidden in misleading or absent edit summaries[7], you did? An extensive attempt and consensus building would be starting a new section on the talk page about a single section or paragraph, proposing a new version, discussing with other editors the pros and cons, adjusting and rewriting, and then implementing the consensus-arrived-at version in the article.

And I think you have a rather big misunderstanding of how wikipedia's dispute resolution system works, do you want mediation or arbitration. You're edit below also seems to indicate a lack of knowledge of how to request either of these. Either way, we should probably have a RFC or informal mediation first. I certainly think we could use some formal or informal mediation on some of those points - namely #3 of which I adamantly oppose you're interpretation as it goes against the MoS rule and the pattern followed in all other "Criticism of..." articles (which would seem to indicate the larger wiki-communities consensus on that style). Can you find another "Criticism of..." article that supports you're interpretation? Anyways, you can try and get arbitration in, but I'm fairly certain that the arbcom would immediately refuse to hear this as it appears to be a content dispute more than anything (which they admittedly are bad at resolving). I think it would do you good to brush up on wiki policies and procedures and styles as you're edits here and on the article seem to indicate a lack of knowledge in all cases. --FyzixFighter 17:56, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, mediation would be fine. I'll look into how to get that going. Noleander 18:06, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Issues for Mediator To Address

Questions for arbitrator/mediator (note that this article is a list of criticisms of Mormonism, and each section of the article typically addresses one criticism):

• 1) Should each section begin with a sentence that defines the criticism (rather than starting with a background story and only later mention the criticism)?
• 2) Should section titles be worded to suggest the nature of the criticism under discussion (rather than simple nouns that give no hint of the criticism)?
• 3) Should this article avoid lengthy pro-church rebuttals that are designed (because of their wordiness) to obscure the criticisms that they are rebutting?

We respectfully request arbitration/mediation on this article, specifically on the three questions posed above.

Examples

Below are two examples of the same section. The two examples are written from two viewpoints: pro-LDS, and Critical. These two examples illustrate the 3 issues listed above. Note that in these examples, citations are removed for clarity. Assume that in the final versions, every sentence is true and contains a valid citation:

Example of LDS-POV slant:

The Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon is a sacred text that is a core document of the LDS church. The Book was translated by Joseph Smith in the 1820's, with divine assistance from an Angel. The Book describes the histories of several ancient peoples. The Book is used as a spirtual guide by millions of church adherents worldwide. Some critics claim that the book was not divinely inspired. LDS scholars refute that claim, by citing large amounts of evidence, archaeological and linguistic, that supports the veracity of the accounts in the Book. For instance, many meso-American cultures left artifacts, such as inscriptions, artwork, and burial evidence that is consistent with the Books accounts. Also, 11 witnesses swore that they personally witnessed the sacred golden plates that J. Smith used as a source for his translation.

Example of NPOV slant:

Book Not Divinely Inspired

Critics of the LDS church claim that the Book of Mormon was not divinely inspired, but instead was written by Joseph Smith, without the aid of an angel. Critics claim that there never were any golden plates, and point to the fact that the plates have never been found. Critics also point to a book View Of The Hebrews (that was published 10 years before J. Smith published the Book of Mormon) which contains many concepts that are, according to critics, clearly plagarized in the Book of Mormon. LDS Scholars refute these criticsms by citing large amounts of evidence, archaeologiical and linguistic, that supports the veracity of the accounts in the Book. See Archaeology and the Book of Mormon and Linguistics and the Book of Mormon for more details on the LDS rebuttals to these criticisms.

Brief Background on the POV dispute

There are a large group of articles that deal with the LDS church, and although many are very neutral and of excellent quality (see The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) a few of them have LDS-POV issues. LDS-POV articles include Archaeology and the Book of Mormon and Linguistics and the Book of Mormon and this article, Criticism of Mormonism. The LDS-POV articles are generally biased to deemphasize or hide any criticism about the church.

POV accusations extend back several years. Editors can be, roughly, divided into two camps: pro-LDS editors (many in the group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Latter_Day_Saint_movement ) and "critics" (for lack of a better word).

History of Past Attempts At Neutrality

The pro-neutrality "critics", based on the edit Histories of the POV pages, will typically happen upon a LDS-POV page, notice that it is POV, attempt to make it more neutral, then leave after edit wars with the pro-LDS groups begin. The Critics are not part of an organized group.

Common Ground

The two groups do have some common ground. Based on edit histories, it appears that:

• All editors agree that LDS is a fine faith, and agree that LDS church members are virtuous people
• All editors agree that the LDS church has been subject to widely publicized criticisms, dating back for over a century.

It is important to note that both sides have extensive citations available, and the disputes rarely involve factual accuracy or lack of citations, but rather, the disputes focus on tone, wording, and emphasis. (See two sample sections above with pro-LDS slant and NPOV-slant).

Relevant Wikipedia Policies/Guidelines

• Wikipedial is not censored
• Neutral Point of View
• No Original Research
• Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia
• Wikipedia is not a democracy
• Dispute Resolution

Noleander 07:42, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

RfC: Need assistance with POV issues

We need assistance with POV issues, specifically: improving neutrality of section titles and over-all article emphasis/tone. See details in talk page above.

Removing the request for assistance that I inserted several days ago. I no longer need asssistance ... dont want to waste anyone's time. If anyone else wants assistance and/or RfC, feel free to add an RfC again. Noleander 19:22, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Shrink "Credibility of Witnesses" section?

Descartes: There are a couple of sections that are rather lengthy, and go into gory detail about the criticisms: "Credibility of Witnesses" and "Comparison to View of the Hebrews". Did you edit those? If you did, what would you think of trying to tighten them down a bit: They seem rather large compared to other comparable sections. Is there any way to remove some text and use links to other Wiki articles? or to cited documents? Thanks for considering it. Noleander 21:10, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure - let me look over it...Descartes1979 21:14, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I shortened the section a bit, moving a lot of information to the footnotes - but don't have a lot of time to do a better job. I will look at it again later unless someone else beats me to it.Descartes1979 21:33, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Another option, if you've got important info in there, is to move some of the text into the "main article" articles ... those articles may be good places to hold lots of detailed info.Noleander 21:35, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I moved the detailed text into the main 3 Witnesses article; and left a summary here (that is approx same detail as other sections in this article). You may want to address the missing citations in this section, and in the main article. Noleander 18:19, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Article renaming

Here's some low-hanging fruit: in accordance with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Latter Day Saints), this article needs to be renamed something along the lines of Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement. Per Wikipedia convention, "The term Mormonism should never be used in referring to the Latter Day Saint movement as an institution or historical movement, or to all Latter Day Saint churches as a body. For example, the following would be inappropriate: Mormon denominations, or Early Mormon history." This change should also ripple through the article and help clarify criticisms. The change should be a big help to the article. Lets get a consensus around the change and pull the trigger in the next week or so. Thanks a lot. --TrustTruth 18:43, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Noleander 19:35, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

POV tag removed

As a result of recent edits, I think there has been real progress towards neutrality. Reviewing the four criteria:

• 1) Add a few missing criticisms of the church
• 2) Improve the neutrality of individual sections, by ensuring that the first sentence of each section defines the criticism (rather than starting with a story/background and only later discuss the criticism)
• 3) Improve subsection title wording to indicate the criticism under discussion (rather than bland nouns that give no hint of the criticism)
• 4) Make the overall article more neutral, primarily by ensuring that pro-church rebuttals are not larger or more promient that the actual criticisms that are th focus of this article.

The progress has been significant:

• 1) Done
• 2) Done
• 3) Partially done. Balancing the competing goals of pithy titles vs. high-information-content titles, I've been persuaded that pithy titles are preferable, so I consider this done.
• 4) Done.

So I'm satisfied that the article, in its present form, is sufficiently neutral (not to say that the article is perfect: lots remains to be done with style, citations, etc :-) Noleander 05:39, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Of course, if anyone thinks the pendulum has swung the other way (too critical), one would expect to see a POV tag added back into the article (as has been done). By removing the POV tag, I was just speaking for the critics (all two of us :-), saying that the article is no longer too far to the apologetic side.Noleander 07:41, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, the article has made significant progress. For those that think the article is too critical, make sure you add a rebuttal to each criticism, and cite your sources.Descartes1979 13:43, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone have a list of outstanding POV issues? The article seems fairly neutral now (in terms of wording, citations, balance), but if not, I have some time and would be glad to help out addressing any outstanding POV issues. Noleander 15:38, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I wish I had more time to work on this article. I don't understand how you can think it is neutral, when the apologist view doesn't show up to balance most of the criticisms.

For example, the Joseph Smith never claimed that the Book of Abraham was a direct translation of the papyrus. It could have been the inspiration for the text. Also, there have been LDS studies that indicate the Book of Mormon was written by multiple people, and those groupings match the alleged authors of the various sections. The list goes on and on. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle) ^(Talk) 17:58, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that every section should contain at least one sentence of rebuttal, and some sections are missing that, so yes, it is not fully neutral yet. On the other hand, I think that nearly every section has an accompanying Main Article (e.g. the Book of Abraham article, and a link to that main article, and those main articles are very detailed and neutral, and contain all the rebuttal information. Perhaps a good plan would be to have the sections (in this article) end with: "Here is a summary of the rebuttal: blah blah blah. For more details on the rebuttal, see MainArticle." Noleander 18:44, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I put a rebuttal sentence into every critical section, in most cases refering the reader to the "main" article which in every case has lots of information written from an LDS perspective. So, once again, I ask: what specifically about the article, in its current state is not neutral? For comparison purposes, the main COJCOLDS article has about 0.001% critical content. This article has about 5% "rebuttal" content. (When I use percentages here, my intent is not a strict mathematical fraction, but instead a rough guage of the overall balance of viewpoint representation). I suggest that same POV standard should be applied to both of these articles. If _this_ article is considered non-neutral, then certainly the COJCOLDS article is non-neutral as well, no? Noleander (talk) 08:14, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

We would need an article titled "Praises of the Latter Day Saint movement" to document pro-arguments. You're right, the LDS main article should not be a pro article, it should only state the facts (not someone's opinion on the facts -- facts being beliefs of the church, etc., not that the basis of those beliefs are necessarily factual). The purpose of this article is to document peoples' critical opinions of the facts (critical opinions of beliefs, practices, etc.). The purpose of a "praise" article would be to document peoples' positive opinions of the facts. Please make any NPOV changes you think are necessary to the main article. It is only fair that it be neutral. --TrustTruth (talk) 18:17, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, based on your suggestion, I may take a stab at adding a small section on "Crticisms" (5 to 10 sentences, each cited) at the end of the COJCOLDS article, and have a link in that section refering to this article. BTW: any comment on what tasks remain in _this_ article to become neutral? Noleander (talk) 18:44, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually Bill, Joseph Smith stated several times that he was "translating" the papyrus. See the main Book of Abraham article for more info. Perhaps your rebuttal for that section can be that the church doesn't believe that it was a direct translation - but critics all think based on reasonable evidence that it was.Descartes1979 18:53, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

On another note I agree with you Noleander that there should be a rebuttal for each criticism.

Merge/Structure/POV Fork Discussion

And on even another note, the more I edit this page the more I get this nagging feeling that it is really a POV Fork. I have tried suggesting on the main LDS page that we include a small section on criticism, and refer out to this article, but I think it is maintained by a bunch of die hard Mormons, because I was shot down pretty soundly. What do you guys think?Descartes1979 18:53, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not a matter of being a "die-hard Mormon" but rather about being consistent with other criticism of religion articles.--TrustTruth 19:03, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree TrustTruth - if you read the POV fork guidelines, these two articles should really be merged. Also, when I look at several other articles such as Jehovah's witnesses, it is not consistent. I know, you guys have mentioned the Koran, and Catholic Church articles before, but the more I look at it, the more I think they are going against the guidelines as well. Also - sorry about the "die-hard mormons" comment - I didn't mean to offend, I am really trying to reach a consensus here that does this information justice.Descartes1979 19:10, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The history of this article includes many suggestions for deletion, and/or merging back into the Main article. There was an official Request for Deletion about 10 months ago, and the decision was Keep. As for putting it into the main article, I think that is highly unlikely to happen. Many of the other "Criticism of XXXX" articles have all been suggested for deletion or merge, and in every case, the decision is Keep. The POV forking is a rather complex issue. I think that the religion "Criticism of .." articles are separate for at least 3 reasons: (1) it is unseemly to put a large amount of criticism in the main article, the focus of which should be the history and positive aspects of the faith; (2) merging would create a main article that is unreasonably large; and (3) the critical movements that challenge major religions are very significant movements in their own right (that is, the criticism _is_ a subject, with its own history, actors, and events) and arguably warrants a dedicated article. In any case, _this_ article had a deletion/merger discussion around 10 months ago and the decision was Keep. And this discussion (merge/delete) has been done dozens of times in other "Criticism of.." articles, and it always seems to end up the same way: Keep. Noleander 19:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

No offense taken, and I think your POV fork argument has merit and in a perfect world we'd be able to apply that standard consistently. In fact, I remember we discussed it here several months ago. However, as long as this article is truly npov, then I think the issue becomes moot -- it's just another sub-article (there should probably be a brief, 30,000 ft. summary at the Latter Day Saint movement page, as well as on the pages of the related denominations).

Building on this, I think it's important to point out that in addition to the article needing to be renamed Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement, there needs to be a specific, clean breakout within the article among criticisms that are applicable to the entire movement (probably Joseph Smith and prior) and criticisms that are specific to denominations (e.g. ongoing polygamy & sexual abuse criticisms would be Fundamentalist-specific; sexism criticisms would not be in the Community of Christ section, etc.). --TrustTruth 20:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you completely on everything you said. :) Descartes1979 (talk) 22:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, now that I have looked at the definition of Mormonism - I am not so sure that the article needs to be renamed. Also, perhaps it makes more sense to put the criticism of other sects of the mormon church on their own pages, rather than have a central article that has to then differentiate between the criticisms of each sect. After thinking about this, I am leaning towards making this a "Criticism of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" article. What do you guys think? Descartes1979 (talk) 22:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, the _only_ criticsm in this article that does not apply to the COJCOLDS is the "ongoing polygamy" criticism. So we could either (1) Leave the "ongoing polygamy" criticism in this article, but highlight it as "not pertaining to COFCOLDS"; and name this article "Cr of ..Mormonism (as is) or "Cr of ... "LDS Movement". or (2)move the "ongoing polygamy" criticism into another article (polygamy article or Fundamentalist-LDS article) and then rename this article "Criticism of COJCOLDS".Noleander (talk) 00:21, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

The problem is we'd have to delete content from the article that is not specific to that church, e.g. the ongoing polygamy. That's fine eventually, but in the near term there are not enough criticisms of the other LDS movement denominations to justify separate articles. As far as the naming goes, it's simply a matter with complying with already-established Wikipedia naming convention. According to that convention and to the Mormonism article, the term Mormonism is church-specific (specific to TCOJCOLDS). In contrast, the scope of this article is movement-wide, and I think there are valid criticisms of other denominations within the movement that are not yet addressed here. A good first step would be to rename the article according to the convention. A later step, if necessary, would be to split the article into sub-articles by denomination. The problem with a premature split is that many criticisms apply to all denominations; that is also an argument for keeping the article intact long-term. --TrustTruth (talk) 00:32, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I segregated the non-COJCOLDS criticisms into a dedictated section (at the bottom of the article) and added words to clearly state that those criticisms are not applicable to the COJCOLDS, but instead are only applicable to some smaller branches. Noleander (talk) 01:05, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

OK - I agree, we should rename the article now. Never done this before, so I will see if I can figure it out...Descartes1979 (talk) 03:06, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to join this discussion late, but I wonder if we should do something more radical. Good work has been done re. NPOV, but I would query whether a "criticism of" article is appropriate at all. The basic structure of this type of article means that it is little more than a succession of he said/she saids, without a guiding theme. It also risks being a troll-magnet. The material seems to belong in the specific articles that already exist e.g. factual/historical criticisms in the "archaeology/linguistics/genetics and the Book of Mormon" articles, social criticisms in the "Homosexuality and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" articles etc. Similarly, disputed aspects of the life of Joseph Smith belong in his article, criticism of FARMS belongs in its article etc. Criticisms of minor LDS churches can go into the - generally quite small - articles on those churches. So why not simply delete this article, and move any unique content to the appropriate specific article? LeContexte (talk) 13:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Putting this article's information into the other "main" articles is a fine idea (I'll let you do it :-). But even if that is done, this article will continue to exist for several reasons: (1) this article is a summary article, or portal (see Wikipedia:Summary style and WP:SPINOUT). (2) All religions have "Crticism of.." articles, and nearly every one has had a merge/delete discussion, and they always end up "keep". See Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. (3) The critical movements that challenge major religions are very significant movements in their own right (that is, the criticism _is_ a subject, with its own history, actors, and events) and arguably warrants a dedicated article. (4) One can think of this article as documenting, in encyclopedic fashion, the ideas of notable critics (Tanners, etc). In any case, _this_ article had a deletion/merger discussion around 10 months ago and the decision was Keep. Noleander (talk) 14:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - I'd missed the other "criticisms" articles. They seem to vary from the terrible (Judaism) to the more sophisticated (Christianity). I can see that in some cases there are critical movements challenging religions, and there would be room for articles on "evangelical criticisms of the LDS movement" etc, but I don't see the point of these general articles. However I totally take your point that this seems to be the consensus approach, and I'll leave it there! LeContexte (talk) 14:40, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Anti-Mormon protestor photo

In the spirit of these comments (ripped off from the Anti-Mormon article) by Mormon apologist Jeff Lindsay, I propose we remove the photo of the protestors that accompanies the introduction of the article:

"Most Protestants and Catholics who disagree with [Mormons] are not 'anti-Mormons' but simply people of another denomination. ...Those of other faiths who disagree with [Mormons] and engage in civil discourse with us about their differences are usually not 'anti-Mormons' but perhaps simply critics or just adherents of a different faith."

My reasoning is basically this: this article is about good-faith criticisms of the movement, not about anti-Mormonism, which is a fringe movement that thrives on couching criticisms in terms that maximize shock value (there is already an article for that). That photo is great for that article. But this article is less about people shouting one-liners at each other in the streets and more about people having thorough, level-headed discussions, conceding points where concessions are due, with an overall respectful "agree to disagree" mentality. --TrustTruth (talk) 22:08, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree.Descartes1979 (talk) 23:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the photo - please let me know if you disagree.Descartes1979 (talk) 05:11, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Talk Page Cleanup

I am not as familiar with Wikipedia guidelines for cleaning up talk pages - it seems this one is pretty long, and there are a bunch of discussions that are no longer relevant, or are very old. Especially since we have done a substantial amount of work on this article in the last week or so, a lot of it seems irrelevant. What are your thoughts? Descartes1979 (talk) 05:19, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I have no objection to archiving this page. Noleander (talk) 15:17, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Feedback from the uneducated

I'm neither a Mormon, nor Anti-mormon, and know little of the church. I just wanted to say that I hope this article gets some work done on it, it's one the worst written articles I've encountered on wikipedia.

Someone has to do something about reusing the phrase: critics argue... on and on and on.

Also some of the criticism is bizarre, for instance, stating that the book of mormon conflicts with historical or archeological evidence. Can't that be said about any religious book? It's more like a general criticism of religion or obtaining information through revelation. Adding such criticism makes the article longer than needed and comes across as though the article was written by nitpicky anti-mormons... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.56.203.142 (talk) 06:32, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Although some parts of the article may sound rather nitpicky, the primary purpose of the article is to document significant, published criticisms of a certain faith, like them or not. Some of the notable critics are identified in the "See Also" section. Refer to Wikipedial is not censored, Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. As for wording "Critics argue ...": that may sound awkward or contrived, but it is required as a result of the No Original Research and Neutrality policies: simply selecting aspects of a faith and listing them could be percieved as bias, whereas the phrase "Critics argue.." explains to the reader that this article is simply documenting criticisms publicly made by others. Noleander (talk) 14:58, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

One way around the constant use of the "Critics say..." phrase is to specifically refer to the critic by name. I think this is most useful when specific information like lists are given. This should be useful since critics may agree on a criticism in general, but not on what supports that criticism. Stylistically, there are other ways of satisfying NPOV and OR without repetitive use of that phrase. As has been stated before, we should look at the other Criticism articles to see how they satisfy these principles without coming off repetitive.

You do have the scope right Noleander, but there still are some uncited criticisms. We also need to be careful that we are checking the sources themselves and not reporting the criticisms based on what some website says the sources contain. For example, a few of the statements that used Bushman's "Contemporary Mormonism" as a cite did not appear to be supported by her text when I actually checked her book. Using a mormon-critical website is fine for direction, but let's make sure that we check sources directly when adding something. We should also make sure that these are criticisms, not just weird/unusual practices/doctrines. This is the Criticisms of Mormonism, not the Weird Practices of Mormonism page.

Also, the "see also such and such an article for the rebuttal" is not acceptable. It is a blatant violation IMO of [[WP:SELF]. It's especially unneeded when using the "Main" template or when a link exists in the text to the article. Simply the summarize the apologetic/rebuttal response if it exists - that's the established pattern. The rebuttal summary should also be free of counter-responses from the critics. Such a style makes for a playground-like endless battle of "My dad is better than yours. No he isn't. Yes he is...". I think we would all agree that the apologetics should not be interspersed among the criticisms, and so likewise the criticisms should not be interspersed in the rebuttals. --FyzixFighter (talk) 15:00, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

To keep things uniform, in addition to "Critics say" could "Apologists respond" or something similar be used for the rebuttals. In some places it almost reads like the critics are rebutting themselves. Also, it looks neater IMO to separate the criticisms and rebuttals into different paragraphs. PhoenixofMT (talk) 22:21, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Remaining POV issues?

Any remaining POV issues? There was a post on 3 Dec asking for a list of remaining POV issues, and no replies were recieved:

I'd be happy to help with addressing some of the sections that are overly critical or otherwise in need of work. Can you list a few that you consider the most outstanding, or are the "citation needed" etc tags sufficient to identify those sections? Noleander 07:53, 3 December 2007 (UTC) I have been looking over this article, and I think it is getting close to neutrality, if it isn't there already.Descartes1979 (talk) 03:49, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

In addition, I note that the edits of the past few days have been on the small-ish side. So, what specific POV issues remain? Noleander (talk) 15:12, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The biggest one as I read this is the "Mormonism claimed to be a cult" section. Unfortunately I don't have access Walter at the moment, but the reasons mentioned don't seem to have anything to do with the "cult" accusation, and more to do with that these are wierd/strange/evil things the mormons believe or do. Does Walter, or anyone else, use a standard evangelical definition of "cult" and then argue how mormonism meets that criterion? I think in general, my previous comments about specifically identifying critics in some cases would remove some of the POV atmosphere created by the common invocation of the nebulous "some critics". We also need to get some basic cites for the rebuttals, and make sure we're not setting them up as straw-men (the apologetic response to continuing racial issues seems like this to me). There's some other turns of phrases, like about tithing compliance, that are a bit POV in that they treat the critics' interpretations of doctrines/policies as facts. --FyzixFighter (talk) 15:22, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Your commentslook do-able. Just to re-cap in bullet form:

• Cult - OR/accuracy/definition
• Identify some critics by name
• Cites for rebuttals
• POV phrasing e.g. tithing. Noleander (talk) 16:08, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Im starting to work on the POV atmosphere created by the "Some critics ..." phrase. I notice that most of those criticisms have 2 or more critics that have published the criticism. It doesnt seem very encyclopedic (or readable) to say "Critics such as the Tanners, the Affirmation organization, and the Ostlings have criticized ...". Perhaps it would satisfy the POV issue to have it phrased as: "Critics, such as the Tanners, have criticized ..." or "Critics, including the Tanners, have criticized ...". Noleander (talk) 04:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Utah Statehood

I don't have a copy of the Ostlings' book, so the comment that approval for statehood came one year after the 1890 Manifesto is puzzling. Utah became a state (officially) in January 1896. This link [8] explains that Grover Cleveland signed the Enabling Act in July 1894 after positive recommendations from the Utah Commission; this link [9] explains that the state constitution was approved in Fall 1895. Could someone clarify what the Ostlings were getting at? --TrustTruth (talk) 19:42, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The Ostlings describe the chronology of the Polygamy revelation, and suggest that it may have been politically motivated, to get the federal government to back-off its legal attacks on the church (I think the book says that the federal government actually did sieze a lot of church property prior to the revelation). After the revelation, the federal government did back off. The critics are suggesting that the timing indicates mortal, rather than divine, motivations for the renunciation of polygamy. There are quite a few critical sources that analyze the production of the 1st manifesto, and give detailed accountings of how/when the church leader explained the divine nature of the revelation to church members. Noleander (talk) 20:08, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you know that there wasn't a period of time set aside for waiting? I seem to recall that both Alaska and Hawaii were announced as being accepted for statehood long before they actually were admitted to the union.

I don't believe that you should edit something because you are confused; it is quite possible that the section is correct ... that there was a lag and / or waiting period before Uath officially became part of the Union. Duke53 | ^Talk 01:01, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't confusion, I was trying to be polite. The statement -- "Critics point to the fact that one year after the church received the revelation that Polygamy was prohibited, Utah again applied for statehood and the request was accepted" -- was not factual (see my post above), as the enabling bill wasn't passed by Congress until four years after the Manifesto. The statement could at least have clarified what is meant by "the request was accepted". I'm not sure about Hawaii, but I looked into it and Alaska's enabling bill was passed in 1958, and Eisenhower signed the official declaration in early January 1959. It seems like a lot of statehood elevations were drawn-out political battles (Eisenhower didn't want a Democrat-leaning Alaska to wipe out his slim Republican majority). --TrustTruth (talk) 02:19, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Adam-God theory

What exactly is the criticism on this one? I understand it's controversial, but there is no description of a criticism here. I'm sure there are criticisms of the theory / doctrine, but as it stands now the sub-section looks like original research. I'm not going to delete it or anything, but someone needs to go in and define the criticism. (Same goes for Blood Atonement.) Also, do critics say this was changed for "political, rather than spiritual purposes" as stated in the section header? If not, that header needs to be clarified, maybe to say "other-than-spiritual purposes". --TrustTruth (talk) 20:42, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I didnt create those sections, so I cant say what the original editor intended. But from inspection it appears that the point is that the church has flip-flopped on significant doctrines. So I suppose the criticism (for Adam and BloodOath) is something along the lines of "Critics claim that key church doctrines are not divinely inspired, citing instances where church leaders reversed key doctrines on several occasions". Noleander (talk) 21:00, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The only problem with that argument is that these were not key doctrines. The Adam-God theory and Blood Atonement were nowhere near in importance, nor the discontinuance of them as significant as with polygamy and the priesthood policy with regard to blacks. Those were serious doctrines in LDS theology, and the change in those included additions to the theology's open canon. Also the criticisms with regards to these (A-G theory and blood atonement) aren't that the teachings changed (which is what the subsection is about), just that the doctrines were once taught and those doctrines are "weird" or repugnant in some ways to critics. These are two of the subsections that I think make this article seem like an anti-mormon tract - it contains no criticism, just a mostly one-sided presentation of an odd teaching included simply to point out the weird. It would like including just a simplistic description of the doctrine of transubstantiation on a Criticism of the Catholic Church page. --FyzixFighter (talk) 14:36, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you're right: I read older versions of those sections (Blood Atonement and Adam/God), and it looks like the original editors were focusing more on the criticism "These two Mormon doctrines are contrary to Christian doctrine, therefore Mormonism is not genuine Christianity". Those sections need some phrasing clean-up to clarify that ambiguity. In the meantime, I moved those sections out of the "LDS doctrines change" section to the "Criticisms related to Christianity" section. Noleander (talk) 16:29, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I know it's not a perfect edit, but I moved these two past teachings under a new heading, "Criticism of past teachings". I see the point about the Christianity criticism, but these teachings were specific to the LDS church, so they should probably stay in that general section, instead of in the Latter Day Saint movement area. --TrustTruth (talk) 22:43, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with what you guys have done.Descartes1979 (talk) 07:39, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Page name, again

I think this is a poor name. Very little of this criticism is of the Latter Day Saint movement. The criticism is mostly of the movement's theology/beliefs (which is most concisely described as "Mormonism") and of the LDS Church. I challenge anyone to find secondary sources that survey criticism of the "Latter Day Saint movement." I believe reliable sources trump our guidelines, and that this page should return to Criticism of Mormonism. Alternately, I could probably live with Criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (which almost all the sources here are aimed at), including a spinout section on criticism of "Latter Day Saint beliefs," if not "Mormonism". Cool Hand Luke 21:21, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I have struggled with this too - however, if you look at the Mormonism page the definition is given:

Mormonism is a term used to describe the religious, ideological, and cultural elements of certain branches of the Latter Day Saint movement, specifically, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).

Based on this definition, the scope of "Criticism of Mormonism" would be restricted to criticism of "the religious, ideological, and cultural elements". Are we sure all of the topics in this article are limited to that description? For example Historical revisionism doesn't quite fit into that mold in my mind, although some might disagree. Descartes1979 (talk) 21:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I think it does encompass revisionism, unless you suppose that history and culture are unrelated. If anything, "Latter Day Saint movement" utterly fails to embrace the theological criticisms. Movement theology is quite varied, but this article is aimed squarely at the LDS understanding of the religion. In other words, it's criticism of Mormonism. Cool Hand Luke 23:30, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll buy that for a nickel. Anybody else weigh in? Descartes1979 (talk) 22:31, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

If no one else says anything in several more hours, I'll move it, and perhaps WP:BRD will kick start debate (if any). Cool Hand Luke 22:34, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

We will need to evaluate whether the name change has implications on how the article is organized. Right now there are criticisms broken out by denomination throughout the article. Don't have a lot of time to think about it now - I'm headed to bed. Descartes1979 (talk) 07:04, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Man I leave for a week and the article title's changed. This should be a slam-dunk issue. The majority of the criticisms listed here are movement-wide. Those specific to the LDS church are the minority. The proper title should be Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement. The goal here (as established by the discussions above) was to have an all-emcompassing article of movement criticisms, with break-off articles for the various denominations (including the LDS church, the fundamentalists, the Community of Christ, etc.). Through consensus, we had built a framework and were in the process of filling it in. --TrustTruth (talk) 20:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

A few of these criticisms could hypothetically be made in reference to non-Brighamites, but in fact they aren't leveled against the 'prairie saints.' The references confirm that these are almost exclusively criticisms of the LDS Church and it's doctrine. There are probably some reasons for this. One likely story is that that the second-largest Latter Day Saint denomination is quite liberal and, for example, does not believe in the unusual Mormon conception of God, or even the Book of Mormon's historiography. These criticisms could not even hypothetically apply to the Community of Christ. Criticisms of that denomination—which might include things like giving women the priesthood, or long-denying Smith's polygamy—share virtually nothing with Criticism of Mormonism. There's no economy in attempting to shoehorn everything into "Criticisms of the Latter Day Saint movement," and such an article flies in the face of the sources which uniformly show that Mormonism is being criticized. Cool Hand Luke 20:17, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

POV Revisited - please vote

Are there any POV problems left in this article? Please vote to either keep or remove the POV tag. If you vote to keep it, please say why so we know what issues remain to be fixed.

• Remove - Descartes1979 (talk) 21:43, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
• We don't vote about POV. This is not Wikiality. That said, if there are no good objections, the tag should be removed. Cool Hand Luke 23:34, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Point taken - I guess what I am getting at is if there are any objections. Descartes1979 (talk) 22:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

• Remove — I reviewed the whole article and made eighteen edits. Almost all of these were minor edits: punctuation, removing redundant links, etc. Two edits moved sections to more-relevant locations. The most major edit was to replace the section on archaeology and the Book of Mormon with the introductory paragraph of the main article. There are still some minor things that I think could be done, mostly grouping related topics, but I think that it is written well enough to remove the tag. — Val42 (talk) 23:46, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
• Remove - The article still contains some phrasing that comes off as anti-mormon bigotry (rather than simply documenting published critics) but those phrases can be fixed as time goes on. Noleander (talk) 14:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey Noleander, we agreed again. While not as large as the other one, this is twice in a week that are at least a medium-level issue.  :-) Another celebration! — Val42 (talk) 17:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

In the spirit of Wikiality - I removed the POV tag. ;) --Descartes1979 (talk) 07:04, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Even though I agree with removing the tag, I would have preferred that you waited a few more days. But unless someone objects within a week of your proposal, I'm not going to make any big deal about it. I just figured that I'd bring it up here for future reference. — Val42 (talk) 17:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, as you see below, there has been an objection. TrustTruth has already reinstated the NPOV tag. I think that it should remain for the full week from your proposal. All that would be needed to break consensus now would be one more to say that it shouldn't be removed. — Val42 (talk) 01:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - This article is not yet to NPOV status. The tag should be re-instated. A first step toward that status would be to have a rebuttal to each criticism listed (as agree upon above). --TrustTruth (talk) 20:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry - didn't mean to jump the gun. Lets work to address TrustTruth's comments so we can get the tag removed. Descartes1979 (talk) 02:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - Some more work should be done to identify if possible both critics and apologists. I agree with TrustTruth that some of the apologetic responses are inaccurate, lacking, and poorly worded. Some of the headings are still problematic in terms of Neutrality, namely:

• "Conflicting accounts of the First Vision" - the accounts are different, but that they conflict is POV
• "Failed prophecies" - again POV that they failed (the section itself still needs some work, but more of that later)
• "Coerced tithing" - again, that it's coerced is POV - the church doesn't check up on its members comparing paycheck stubs to tithing donations
• "Suppression of dissent" - probably should be "Reaction to dissent" since the church rarely gives reasons for the excommunications - people can guess (ie POV) which we must then attribute
• "Distortion of history" - some people do not see some of these points as distortion
• "Sexual repression" - (help, help, I'm being repressed) critics view this as repression, others don't

And the other point of NPOV that IMO needs to be addressed is the wording in the "Prophecies" of JS section. That these constitute prophecies and even failed prophecies depends greatly on the interpreter. Again, most LDS today and then did not see these as prophecies. Take for example the 1891 second coming prophecies - unless a whole bunch of mormons sold all their stuff and went up to the hills dressed in white in 1891, I don't think they saw this as a prophecy. Also see the US civil war - LDS will agree that this is a prophecy (it's a common one they use in support of JS) but critics and LDS will disagree whether it was prophesied that england would enter the war, and on other points in the prophecy. To remedy this, wording needs to be smoothed to clearly indicate that the critics believe that JS made the prophecies regarding the following things and argue that these prophecies failed. It might be better to reduce the itemized list to short comments such as "Second coming of Christ" - then a brief explanation of how the critics interpret JS's statement (which will naturally show how they believe it to be false) and then a quick response for the apologetic response. The apologetic response could possibly be foregone if we could summarize the gist of the apologetic response (which I believe is that the critics are twisting, misinterpreting, cherry-picking and/or taking out of context the statements - assuming we can find a RS for such a statement) and then linking to somewhere (reliable website/published source) that has a more detailed response.

There might be some more, but these are the glaring points to me. --FyzixFighter (talk) 04:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the section titles you list above: I think that in every case that wording is directly quoted from the critics themselves. Since this primary purpose of this article is to document the published criticisms of the church, I think that the titles are accurately capturing the criticism. That said, I have no big objection to making the section titles less provocative, provided that the critical sentiment is preserved in the body of the section (and in most of those sections, it already is mentioned in the body of the section). Noleander (talk) 00:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• Keep — Considering the new input and that I still dispute the reversion of the Archaeology summary (which doesn't look like it will be worked out anytime soon), I'm changing my vote to keep. — Val42 (talk) 06:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Book of Mormon Archaeology

Descartes1979 brought up on my talk page that he'd reverted my changes to this section of this article. (Thanks for letting me know there.) I had made the changes in small pieces just in case this sort of thing needed to be done. However, I think that the discussion on what this section should contain should be done on this page.

The current summary has details for the critical view but only broad information from the apologetic view. The introductory paragraph from Archaeology and the Book of Mormon is balanced in scope. — Val42 (talk) 17:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I think there are two versions of the Arch. section that have been in recently. One is the Arch. article intro paragraph. I did not write either one. Of the two, Id say that the "bulletized" one mentioning D. Persuite (sp?) is more informative for the wiki reader: it lists some key controversies in the BoM that most mainstreaam archologists have heartburn with. The other paragraph was very confusing: it started off discussing the various tribes in the BoM, and it was not really clear what the criticism was. I think that the pattern in this article is that every section begins with a sentence defining the published criticism, so the Arch. section should begin with a sentence something like: "Critics say that the science of archaeology undermines the claim that the BoM is an account of actual peoples .... blah blah". I think the "bulleted" paragraph starts that way, so I prefer it. Noleander (talk) 00:48, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

New section on leadership structure

Ive been meaning to insert a new section capturing the criticisms about the chruch leadership structure (too autocratic; too secretive; too old; non-democratic, etc) ... mostly what the Ostlings have in Chapter 9 of "Mormon America", but I havent had much time. If anyone wants to take a stab at it, go ahead, and maybe I can contribute. Noleander (talk) 00:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Length?

Its nearly as long as the article on The Church of Latter Day Saints... too much for an article that should only be a subsection —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.182.53.16 (talk) 02:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

• Wikipedial is not censored
• Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia

Noleander (talk) 13:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Susan Wolverton

Does anyone have any knowledge about Susan Wolverton; her book "Having Visions" is used as a reference about disproving the Book of Mormon from an archeological viewpoint. All I can find for a Susan Wolverton is she is a professor of Theater Arts with an interest in archeology. Algora Publication is not exactly a glowing recommendation for publishing; it is little better than self-publishing. Has there been any peer review of her work? Does she have the ability to critique anything in archeology? This seems little better than personal opinion. Surely there must be more reputable sources for a critique on archeological basis. I question whether this rates as a reputable source. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 23:53, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Innacuracy in "Failed Prophesies" section

How is "Saints would gather in Independence, Mo. and build a Temple (D&C 84)" a "Failed Prophesy"? Though not LDS, the RLDS (now the Community of Christ) is headquartered in Independence, Mo. where there most definitely is a temple. There is even a picture of it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_Christ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.23.67 (talk) 22:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Construction on the original Temple to which this prophesy refers was started, but never completed. If I remember my history correctly, the lot still stands empty with a single cornerstone - and the LDS church believes that it will be completed someday, even though they don't own the lot anymore. I am not sure if the RLDS consider their temple a fulfillment of this prophesy - but I doubt it - though I don't know much about it.Descartes1979 (talk) 03:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe the lot you are thinking of is known as the Temple Lot; there is a wikipedia entry on the splinter group that owns this property. At any rate, the phrase as it appears is even more misleading than before because it says "a temple was never built" when the Community of Christ has, indeed, built a temple. Poking around the Internet tubes it appears the prophesy was that the Independence temple would be built "in this generation," meaning the generation alive in 1832. I am not a Mormon or even a member of the Community of Christ but I was raised in Independence. For the record, the LDS church never owned 3/4 of the land to which you refer the LDS "don't own... anymore." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.23.67 (talk) 05:54, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that the temple built by the Community of Christ is not considered a fulfillment of this prophesy - though I will check my sources - If I am not mistaken, the Mormon church membership at the time had been told specifically by Joseph Smith that the temple that was to be built at the temple lot was the temple in question. Do you have a reference saying that the Community of Christ considers their temple to be a fulfillment of the prophesy? Even if it was, for the rest of the Latter Day Saint movement, they wouldn't consider it such. I believe the real rebuttal to this failed prophesy that is maintained by apologists is that the Lord changed his mind (for lack of a better phrase - and no offense intended) and that the Temple would be built at a later time. As a Mormon, I know that people still talk about how the temple will be built sometime on the lot you mentioned. Based on all of that, I am pretty sure that most people don't consider this prophesy to be fulfilled.--Descartes1979 (talk) 22:00, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I never claimed the prophesy was "fulfilled." I am only saying that the statement "a temple was never built" is not true based on the facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.23.67 (talk) 08:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)