Talk:Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement/Archive 6

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Sexual repression and homophobia

Only a few sentences in the homophobia section actually deal with homophobia, which is an irrational fear against homosexuals. The rest talks about the repression of gay sex, which is already dealt with in the sexual repression section. Those are both important, but distinct concepts. Homophobia attacks people, while sexual repression is attacking gay sex. We should either move the section dealing with the sexual repression of homosexuals into the section on sexual repression or rename the section to something besides homophobia. Joshuajohanson (talk) 21:31, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Homophobia as a couple of definitions, but the most common use of homophobia is hatred of or discrimination against gays (not merely fear). The purpose of the two sections is quite distinct: Sexual Repression section is trying to capture criticisms that the church is unreasonably prudish; Homophobia section is capturing criticisms that relate to treatment of gays. --Noleander (talk) 18:06, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Unreasonably prudish relative to who or what? Is it prudish when compared to the majority of Christianity? Is it prudish relative to Islamic beliefs? We are talking about the majority of religious beliefs with those two groups. Are we going to use the minority position as a standard? Exactly what is the standard and why is that standard used? Is this standard clear in the article? I don't think so. It would help if you could answer these questions and reflect that standard in the article. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 18:25, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Excellent questions. I suppose a criticism should be included in this article if it is made by a notable source, such as the Ostlings, Tanners, Abanes, Affirmation.org, IRR, MRM, etc. And that standard should be applied to all sections in this article, not just the Sexual Repression section. --Noleander (talk) 18:58, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

... and the purpose of this article is to summarize criticisms made by noteable critics. The article cannot and should not pass judgement on the criticisms, and as editors we should not omit a criticism merely because we dont like it or it makes us uncomfortable. --Noleander (talk) 19:14, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

It is one of the things demonstrating the weakness of criticism in this article. If we are able to provide context to whatever criticism is leveled the readers will gain a better understanding of why it is significant and to whom. This specific criticism is odd it that it is applicable to such a broad range of religious systems. Why is it significant here?

When you read the article all at once there are a range of issues that pop up where improvement is needed. The Ostlings are used, but generally without any context provided to their position. I think criticisms that are unique to the Latter Day Saint movement are more important than those criticisms that can be leveled against all Christianity and other religions. For example, the role of women, priesthood, sexual morals, etc. are generic. Others are quite specific and should be the main thrust of this article. Also, criticisms similar to Joseph Smith was not a prophet, are not criticism when speaking of a topic of faith; if one thought he was a prophet, one would be a Latter Day Saint. It is so obvious it makes the article sound infantile. The article should be concise and direct and focus on criticisms unique to this particular movement. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 19:27, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Also this quote is bad: "I cannot comprehend our Father in Heaven endowing certain of his children with the unique characteristics of a gay person, then rejecting them." This quote implies that either the church rejects gay people or teaches that God does. I agree there are many church members who believe that, but you can't imply the whole church believes that if can't find anything from the church indicating some form of rejection or at least some reliable source saying some of the practices of the church imply that. Joshuajohanson (talk) 23:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I was reading the related article section and wonder if Affirmation, a Gay & Lesbian organization, and Ed Decker are even credible references for the cirtique. Neither of them are trained in this in this area and neither has any expertise. Does anyone think they are credible? If so, could you please tell me how they meet our policies for being such on this topic? We must be able to find some qualified references. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 00:43, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The church in no way attacks gays. They simply disagree with that way of life, just like how they don't drink and smoke. For example, they don't ATTACK drinkers, they just don't get involved with it. The LDS church belives that marriage is between a man and a woman. They believe that is how God created us. I feel this whole article is based on shaky grounds, at best. I suggest that all of you, anyone who claims to be a good scholar, should go to the Mormon church a few times before you start making wild statements on what they believe. How can you critisize what you do not know.

Read some of the Book of Morman! Read some D&C! Listen to talks by their leaders. Many simple truths will be open to you, all you have to do is put in time. John J Joe (talk) 20:04, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The LDS church hierarchy verifiably persecutes and attacks gays and lesbians and encourages its members to do so. Note the recent (2008) communication to the membership to donate to an anti-gay legislation attempt in California. The purpose of the article is to inform people of existent criticism of the LDS church, not to support or refute any criticism. Drkeithphd (talk) 16:11, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Verifiably persecutes and attacks? Good accusation, please provide the reputable reference that supports the allegation.--Storm Rider ^(talk) 16:18, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I am sure this depends on your definition of persecution. The open opposition of the church to gay marriage is perceived by most (all?) members of the LBTG community as blatant persecution and even an attack. The church doesn't see it that way of course. It depends on your POV. --Descartes1979 (talk) 19:19, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

This is not homophobia, but sexual repression. Homophobia is an irrational fear of homosexuals. This isn't motivated out of fear of homosexuals, but love for homosexuals, since same-sex relationships have destroyed many people with a homosexual orientation, through AIDS, anal cancer and other STDs. Eventually, this will be for the good of the LGBT community. Joshuajohanson (talk) 19:48, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

There's so much bullshit in the above post that I'm going to have to ask you to back that up. Cite it, or you lose any attempt at being treated seriously. STDs afflict both heterosexual and homosexual relationships, as you can see in Africa where AIDs primarily affects heterosexuals. 'Love' for homosexuals should not deny them the love of a person of smae sex or marriage to that person. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.13.130.18 (talk) 03:22, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Fresh perspective needed

This article needs some new perspective. I think it has gotten bogged down in the world of Mormon and Evangelical points of view. Thoughts? --TrustTruth (talk) 21:20, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I am open to suggestions - I think there are several sections that definitely take an Evangelical POV, but I don't think the entire article suffers from that. I do think that the article is a little disorganized, and could use better rebuttals from apologists. I personally would like to see serious scholarly research referenced instead of amateur critics and apologists. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought has a wealth of information written by serious researchers both critical and apologetic. I am not as familiar with other scholarly journals related to Mormonism, but I know there are some out there. --Descartes1979 (talk) 03:54, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The other issue this article has is that it is many opinions with nothing backing them up. For example, it says that people beleive that Joesph Smith invinted the church to get money,women, and power. That is an opinion with nothing really backing it up due to the fact the Smith was poor all his life, yes there was polygamy but it wasn't instituted untill years after the church was orginized so why wasn't it introduced immediatly after the church was created, and as for the power. What power did he have over these people? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.219.0.48 (talk) 01:37, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Also has anyone noticed that the "Sources" come from anti-mormon scholars. There are a few that are mormon, but based on this article they speak for the entire church which isn't the case. The few facts are hidden under a blanket of anti mormon facts coming from anti mormon scholars. 71.219.0.48 (talk)

Perhaps you should define what the criteria is to be anti-mormon. Also, your recent attempts to blank this article don't say a lot about your objectivity and good faith.--Descartes1979 (talk) 04:39, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I tend to find that mormons use the terminology "anti-mormon" as anyone/anything that shows mormonism in a bad light. Its a thought terminating system designed to dissallow ideas contrary to promoting the religion. Admitedly ive known a very small number of people that are predjudiced against mormons/mormonism in which such a term could be used appropriatly. Though overall I find the term to be missleading or missrepresentative to people that could at worst be called critics. Most have genuine research or legitimate views and issues to bring forward. I believe the issue stems from a fear of persecution which bubbles over into those who merely have differing opinions or contradictory information. Sono hito (talk) 17:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you Sono that there is a wide divide between crticism of Mormonism and anti-Mormonnism. Anti-Mormonism is often misapplied to those who are simply critical, but there is definitley things that appropriately called anti-Mormonism, anti-Catholicism, and anti-Semitism. I would use the term critical as one would use in philosophical debate and not anything that is negative.

When I look at Criticism of the Catholic Church, I see nothing in common with this article. This article has evolved into a hodge-podge of ideas that attempts to catch everything that has ever been said negatively about the LDS church. I personally do not like it because I think it is of such low caliber, its dissimilarity with other comparable articles, and the mixing of criticism with anit-Mormonism. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 18:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

While i have many personal issues with mormonism, it should be only fair for NPOV to be the course for this article. Theres a ton of POV from both sides. Understandably from a doctrinal POV anything that speaks ill of mormonism is of satan and as a member it was neigh impossible not to voice a bias as such. When i have more time at home ill attempt to contribute a better NPOV. Because when you get right down to it you need to let the facts speak for themselves. Sono hito (talk) 20:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out that wiki as a comparison. Now that ive had some time to give some serious consideration/comparison to it, you are quite right. The entire wiki needs an overhaul for NPOV and objectivity as well as that I'm beginning to think it would be appropriate to remove the Pro/con style of the editing since this is a wiki on the "criticisms of general mormonism" not an article on the "arguments/issues of mormonism" in which pros/cons editorial would be appropriate. Though since the wiki revolves around a religion, one must be very carefull to properly maintain objective statements of criticisms. The Criticism of the Catholic Church wiki is pretty clear cut with very little POV. Comparitively this wiki looks like a room full of people going "oh yeah! well so and so...!". Sono hito (talk) 16:34, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I can answer many of the problems that are in this whole "anti-mormon" perspective. I use the tearm "anti-mormon" loosly, it meaning "anti", or against mormons. What are people doing? They are saying veiws that go against the church, thus "anti-Mormon". So, would that be okay if I just added a little "Arguments against" thing after evey little debate??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by John J Joe (talk • contribs) 20:11, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Article title

The article needs to be renamed "Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement". This would help (big time) to clarify things like the FARMS criticisms, because then our discussion about whether FARMS is an official auxiliary of the church would be moot. Most of the pre-Brigham Young content would stay in the article; the rest could be summarized and split into sub-articles (e.g. Criticism of the LDS church, the FARMS article, Hugh Nibley article, etc.). This would accomplish your goal of moving criticisms back to their mother articles, and it would hugely improve the quality of this article. I am now completely behind you in moving criticisms back to their mother articles. --TrustTruth (talk) 19:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Editing conflict; I like the proposal of renaming the article.--Storm Rider ^(talk) 19:14, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

You guys forget so soon - we had this exact conversation a few months ago, and the decision was to make the article "Criticism of Mormonism" - not "Criticism of the Latter day Saint movement" or "Criticism of the LDS Church". This article is already a POV fork - to fragment it even further would only cause confusion for the reader that is looking for this information. Why do we need to split them out, or rename the article? Why not make this the single comprehensive article to get a picture of the criticisms of Mormon denominations, thought, beliefs, practices, and ideology? Even if you guys don't buy that BYU and FARMS are operated by the LDS church, they would still fall under the auspices of this article in their own right as self-identifying Mormon organizations - so as the article stands right now, I don't see why there needs to be any clarification - it is clear to me what the scope of the article is. By the way - I also don't buy the length argument. Remember that per Wikipedia policy, Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, and as such, "there is no practical limit to the number of topics it can cover, or the total amount of content, other than verifiability..." --Descartes1979 (talk) 20:21, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I didn't forget that argument. In fact, I was disappointed when the name was changed back to Criticism of Mormonism without much discussion. I stick by wanting the name changed. However, we don't HAVE to create new articles; we can just have article sections for different denominations. No matter what we do, we need to make it clear that most of the pre-Brigham Young criticisms apply to the entire Latter Day Saint movement, not just to the LDS church. --TrustTruth (talk) 20:28, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Just want to re-emphasize here that this article needs to be renamed to "Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement". Anything not movement-wide should either (1) be absorbed into related articles or (2) split into a separate article that is organization specific (since a lot of criticisms are specific to the LDS Church organization and are not movement-wide). --TrustTruth (talk) 21:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The more I think about this, the more I disagree - I like the article as a general criticism of Mormonism, not the LDS movement, or the LDS church in particular. I think it will make the article more stable. I have only been around this article for 6ish months, but from what I have seen, it swings pretty drastically between critical bias and apologetic bias on a periodic basis. I perceive if we start splitting things out, they will only get added back later by anonymous editors. TrustTruth, perhaps you can give a better rationale behind why you want to change the name? I know that you don't like the Parallelomania section and sections criticizing FARMS, but I think those criticisms are particularly relevant to Mormonism in general and give added value to this article for readers that want to see a high level view of relevant criticism. --Descartes1979 (talk) 03:50, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at this template:

We need movement-wide criticisms included in an article entitled "Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement". That would go in the first tier on this template. Then we need organization-specific criticisms in an article entitled "Criticism of the LDS Church". That would go in the second tier of the template. The first article would contain criticisms up to the Succession crisis, when most of the schisms occurred (the point where the Community of Christ, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite), etc. share a common lineage). This would include criticisms of the Book of Mormon, of Joseph Smith, and probably of the Book of Abraham. It could also include criticisms of the movement's apologetics (but would have to include the John Whitmer Historical Association in consideration of where FARMS fits in the universe of Mormon apologetics / historical organizations). The second article would contain criticisms specific to the LDS Church, such as polygamy, doctrinal changes, financial disclosure, etc. This would make a better-organized article overall. --TrustTruth (talk) 17:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm - I am starting to be persuaded TrustTruth, you make a good argument. Let me think about this some more...--Descartes1979 (talk) 05:38, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Just one more piece of persuasion toward renaming: according to the Wikipedia naming convention, articles that could apply to more than one Latter Day Saint denomination, should use the phrase "Latter Day Saint movement" or the phrase "Latter Day Saints". In addition, the term Mormon or its derivatives such as Mormonism are appropriate when referring to doctrines and practices that have a historical connection to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Utah church, or adherents from Brigham Young forward), but no historical connection to other denominations within the Latter Day Saint movement. Therefore, the idea of renaming this article to "Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement" is consistent with this guideline. Then we either create a new article called "Criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" or else clearly define that denomination's criticisms within subsections of the main article. --TrustTruth (talk) 19:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Is anyone opposed to pulling the trigger on the article split? --TrustTruth (talk) 16:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

In that case I'm going to take the first step, and rename the article Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement. --TrustTruth (talk) 19:32, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Hugh Nibley criticism

This parallelomania criticism belongs in the Hugh Nibley article, plain and simple. The fact that it's Dialogue making the criticism just strengthens my argument, because Dialogue itself is one of the foremost examples of Mormon scholarship! Dialogue's comments against Parallelomania serve to show that Mormon scholarship in general is not suffering from Parallelomania, and that it is (if true) at best a subset of Mormon scholarship suffering from said mania! If it's a FARMS criticism, it belongs in the FARMS article. Anything else is bald-faced guilt by association. --TrustTruth (talk) 17:13, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not so sure its that clear - the quote seems to point at a trend in Mormon scholarship in general (even though it goes on to point at Nibley as the leader of the movement), even if it is from Dialogue itself.--Descartes1979 (talk) 05:49, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

It's bickering among Mormon scholars, not a criticism of the movement (or dare I say the church) as a whole. --TrustTruth (talk) 15:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

"Notable apologists include Hugh Nibley, B.H. Roberts, the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), and the Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR)." This information is not really relevant to the article. This article is not about the defense of the LDS religion, or who is defending it. Greenw47 (talk) 21:46, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

And yet, contrast yields context. Highlighting an opposite helps one better understand the topic at hand. The reference also renders the article more credible in its neutrality. kylealanhale (talk) 08:24, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Even you have to admit, this is a wiki on the "criticisms of mormonism" not "arguments/issues of mormonism". Sono hito (talk) 17:40, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Priesthood and racism section merger

In line with the desire to clean this artile up, I merged both of these sections; they both are about blacks and the priesthood with the same accusations in both sections. If anyone thinks there is somethign wrong with this, please discuss it here.--Storm Rider ^(talk) 01:36, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You also conveniently left out some cited sections; maybe you should have started this discussion before doing that. Don't accuse me of edit warring when I simply reverted your changes because they hadn't been discussed. Duke53 | ^Talk 01:39, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

No references were left out. The merger was self-explanatory. Both sections used the same references essentially. More importantly, do you have any reason to oppose the merger? --Storm Rider ^(talk) 02:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I did a quick glance through, and will detail review it later - but one thing sticks out - why is the Walker Lewis debacle and Brigham Young's obvious racism with regards to him not mentioned? That is the real source of the entire sordid history behind blacks and mormonism, and why Young revoked the priesthood from them... --Descartes1979 (talk) 07:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Walker Lewis may warrant a brief mention in a high-level summary. However, every section in this article needs to be condensed into high-level summaries. The bulk of the criticisms in this article need to be moved to their respective, related articles. I think that's the best way to give proper context to criticisms and rebuttals. BTW, Lewis is fleshed out in the Blacks and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints article. This article is, essentially, a POV fork. --TrustTruth (talk) 17:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I see no reason for Walker Lewis to be mentioned in this article. This is not a dump-all, but rather an article that covers criticism of Mormonism. I am sure Brigham Young offended a number of individuals, should each an everyone of them be mentioned because it is criticism? How about the time when Heber J. Grant as a child spit on the street and the old widow across the street was offended for his crudeness, should that be mentioned. If anything the current section is bloated and repetitive and should be further pared down. The allegation is that Mormons did not ordain black men to the priesthood for racist reasons. I suppose we could have innumerable sections to list every squabble that happened between a Mormon and a non-Mormon, but that seems like overkill. How about if we just say Mormons are human and made mistakes? --Storm Rider ^(talk) 17:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Removal

I just removed a quote of a detailed quote arguing against the genetic problem. Please remember that we cannot allow this article to become an online argument - a brief statement of the criticisms and how the subjects view them is all that is required. DJ Clayworth (talk) 19:37, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for removing that. This article needs to continue moving in the direction of being a summary of each item with a link to the related main article, instead of being a repository of all the for / against arguments of a particular issue. --TrustTruth (talk) 22:45, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Ancient writings support LDS doctrine and teachings

The reference to the story Ancient writings support LDS doctrine and teachings, printed by Deseret News, was removed. The edit summary said "poor source". The Deseret News is a regular newspaper, with the second-highest distribution in Utah. Why is it considered a poor source? Joshuajohanson (talk) 07:13, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Joshua, I find the reference lacking. When I read the article it does not provide any references for any of the claims. For this to be an acceptable reference it would be better to find a source that discussed in more depth the papyri found in Egypt that discusses baptism for the dead, or sealings, etc. Essentially, the article cited is not an academic presentation of material, but rather a "faith-promoting" type of article. Does this make sense? --Storm Rider ^(talk) 07:43, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

What Storm Rider said. The source should be considered not just for its general reliability, but also for what it actually says. This is not an indictment of Deseret News, or even the Mormon Times. Ratatosk Jones (talk) 08:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Dang, you said that perfectly! A logical mind and a word smith. Thank you.--Storm Rider ^(talk) 08:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Aw, you make me blush. Thanks. Ratatosk Jones (talk) 21:54, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Um... if you "find" the article to be lacking, isn't that an opinion based un subjectivity? Even if it is "faith-promoting", it is still a reference to a legitimate Newspaper, thus- a reference. The fact that you want to see specific examples within the aricle such as baptism or the dead, etc.- that's beside the point. The claim was that newly discovered writings from antiquity supported some LDS doctrines, nothing more specific. It's not a question of semantics- it boils down to the point that it is an article published in a state-wide newspaper; it qualifies as a source regardless of any personal opinion about it's contents. I think that Fox News is a load of crap, but it still counts as a source. And those cited in the article have doctorites- acredited universities have recognized them as expert sources, so what makes your opinion on the subject negate that? The article never should have been deleted, but rather- a secondary source refuting such support could have been added. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew042886 (talk • contribs) 06:38, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Again, the reference is poor because it doesn't claim what the removed sentence said: "However, many scholars are now admitting that the book is an ancient book, based on archaeological finds." If the sentence had read "However, one Mormon scholar claims that several unnamed non-Mormon scholars admit the book is an ancient book, based on unspecified archaeological finds" it would have fitted the source, but at that point I'd question the value for this article. If you want to add it, fine, but make sure it matches the source. Ratatosk Jones (talk) 14:43, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Distilling and moving specific items to main article pages

I am going to begin the process of distilling arguments and moving specific examples to the related main article pages, per the discussions above. I will be very careful about not deleting any references or examples; this is just a matter of reorganizing for flow, etc., not editing for content (critical or apologetic). Please criticize me because I want to be sure I'm doing it right. --TrustTruth (talk) 18:01, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay I'm done. Hopefully this will help reduce the necessity of point / counterpoint arguments in this article by moving long lists of specific examples to their respective main article and thereby providing better context to the criticisms and the apologetics, increasing quality overall. Also I hope it helps summarize the criticisms here more succinctly. --TrustTruth (talk) 19:17, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Recent additions

User Udt-21 has repeatedly added content that does not deal with a specific criticism (Stanford ban on playing BYU in 1969, Catholic denial of Mormons' access to parish records) but rather general embarrassments to the church. Because this article is about specific criticisms of the doctrines / history of the church, not about embarrassing events, it has been removed several times, each time with a short explanation, by multiple editors. However, Udt-21 has repeatedly reverted this content, including violation of WP:3RR. I invite Udt-21 to explain here how these quotes fit into the context of this particular article. --TrustTruth (talk) 02:29, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

In fairness to Udt-21, I think I've found a good place for the Vatican statement (still don't know how the Stanford statement fits though; try adding at the Blacks and Mormonism article maybe?). --TrustTruth (talk) 02:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Wait a second - I don't get your reasoning. Aren't you splitting hairs between an embarrassment and a criticism? The Stanford criticism is pretty specific I think - Stanford is the one criticizing, and they are criticizing what they perceive as racial discrimination. Maybe we don't need to go into a great deal of detail, but I think we should mention it at least. Also the baptism for the dead stuff - same thing, it should be mentioned. --Descartes1979 (talk) 05:37, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

It all depends upon what is criticism; does a pithy statement qualify? Should we list every school that chooses not to play another school as criticism. Is criticism all negative statement about someone/thing else? I don't think all negative comments, editorials, or pithy statements merit being listed as criticism. Criticism, in an academic sense, should be the objective and not the more mundane silliness found in common society. In an academic sense, we would attempt analyzing or evaluating the quality of impact upon religion of this religious movement and how it has compared with other groups/denominations. This was the original purpose of the article though it has severely left that more elevated, challenging academic product.

Stating simply that two groups have doctrinal differences is not criticism; it is disagreement over scriptural doctrine. That is the very definition of religion; groups that purport a doctrinal interpretation. There are over 36,000 Christian denominations in the world today; each has a unique, specific interpretation and emphasis of scripture. How does listing doctrinal differences become criticism?

I think it would appropriate criticism to discuss the value baptisms are held among Mormonism and other religions. Here is a small group that completely rejects all baptisms from all other Christian churches. It is not surprising nor interesting that other groups reject their baptisms (that is tit-for-tat), what is critical is understanding the value of apostolic succession and why Mormonism falls completely outside of it. Incidentally, that is the meaning and purpose of Restorationism. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 06:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

If anything this paragraph would fit better at the Blacks and Mormonism article, as the rest of the article doesn't really contain lengthy anecdotes about specific criticisms. By the way, the subsection title is not entirely accurate: Stanford was responding to the church's alleged racism, not to BYU's. It's more like a proxy war, with Stanford punishing BYU as a proxy for the church. --TrustTruth (talk) 17:20, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The more I read through the article, the more firmly I think that this paragraph about Stanford is totally out of place. It does need to be removed. I'm not against putting in the Blacks and Mormonism article, or in the BYU article. --TrustTruth (talk) 17:46, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

If you'll notice, the Catholic criticism was already been incorporated in the article at the beginning of that section. At most this is a doctrinal criticism, and does not in any way approach the level of criticism for baptizing Holocaust victims. There is no criticism in the Vatican's letter about baptizing without permission, it does raise the issue of confidentiality of records, but the criticism specific to the LDS church is doctrinal, nothing more. --FyzixFighter (talk) 05:52, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Finances section

I understand the criticism of not releasing financials, but I'm not sure where the criticism is in the statements about estimated church assets. Is that just included for shock value? The link to the main Finances article will show the reader this and much more, including a breakdown of several church-owned for-profit businesses. Given that this section is much longer than most others in the article, I'm considering removing most of the statements about assets based on the reasoning above. I would make sure anything removed is fully covered in the related main article. Thoughts? --TrustTruth (talk) 03:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

At one time in the past this was more of an academic criticism of the church rather than a catch-all as it now is. They both have their place; however, an article that does not first seek to titillate or sensationalize will allow the real criticism not to be lost amongst the junk. I appreciate the work you are doing and I support removing everything that is not a criticism.--Storm Rider ^(talk) 03:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not believe Finances should be a subsection of "Criticisms specific to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". Churches in the United States are not required to publicly disclose their financial statements per the IRS, and I am unaware of any that are disclosing them. This lack of disclosure may be a criticism of religion in the U.S., but it is not specific to the LDS Church. Alanraywiki (talk) 19:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

This is not a list of the offended

Descartes, you have got to stop adding those inane lists of situations where people were offended or expressed being offended by BYU, LDS, etc. That is not the topic of this article. It is criticism. You really need to spend some time trying to understand what criticism is and what it is not. If you want to make a list of the number of people that don't like BYU, LDS, Mormons, the Church, Joseph Smith, LDS temples, etc., you need to write another article and list all the people in the world who have ever said anything negative and how they expressed it. That is the article for pithy statements by Stanford presidents, athletes who want to protest playing BYU, people of other faiths who think baptisms for the dead mean something, etc. Criticism is thought and actually ideas; there is an analysis that takes place. So much of what you have added is just not what this article is about. Please consider an article of people who are offended by Mormons; this is not it. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 06:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Good point StormRider - I consolidated the section, removing the list, and focusing on what I think the real basis of the criticism is. Please review --Descartes1979 (talk) 14:52, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

This belongs at either the BYU article or the Blacks and Mormonism article. It's just too tangential to be included here, as race is already discussed at length. The article is too long to start including anecdotes. --TrustTruth (talk) 16:32, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Major restructuring proposal

A major restructuring proposal for all polygamy articles related to Mormonism has been made at Talk:Joseph Smith, Jr. and polygamy#Series and Restructuring proposal. Please visit and give your two cents. --Descartes1979 (talk) 04:53, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Mormonism revealed

...same as Scientology.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zy0d1HbItOo&feature=related

Half the things is not in the Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.137.123.172 (talk) 00:05, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Moving article

Per the discussions above, I moved the article to Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement in keeping with the article's scope. --TrustTruth (talk) 19:48, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Bot report : Found duplicate references !

In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)

• "SacredLoneliness" :
  • {{cite book| title=In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith| last=Compton|first=Todd| publisher=Signature Books| year=1997| pages=640| isbn=156085085X }}
  • {{cite book| title=In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith| last=Compton|first=Todd| publisher=Signature Books| year=1997| pages=486-534, 457-472, 342-363| isbn=156085085X }}
  • {{cite book| title=In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith| last=Compton|first=Todd| publisher=Signature Books| year=1997| isbn=156085085X }}
  • {{cite book| title=In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith| last=Compton|first=Todd| publisher=Signature Books| year=1997| pages=457-485| isbn=156085085X }}
• "changing" :
  • {{cite book| title=The Changing World of Mormonism | isbn=0802412343 | first=Jerald and Sandra| last=Tanner| publisher=Moody Press| year=1979| page=67-72 }}
  • {{cite book| title=The Changing World of Mormonism | isbn=0802412343 | first=Jerald and Sandra| last=Tanner| publisher=Moody Press| year=1979| page=129 }}
  • {{cite book| title=The Changing World of Mormonism | isbn=0802412343 | first=Jerald and Sandra| last=Tanner| publisher=Moody Press| year=1979| page=86-87 }}
  • {{cite book| title=The Changing World of Mormonism | isbn=0802412343 | first=Jerald and Sandra| last=Tanner| publisher=Moody Press| year=1979| }}
  • {{cite book| title=The Changing World of Mormonism | isbn=0802412343 | first=Jerald and Sandra| last=Tanner| publisher=Moody Press| year=1979| pages=29-34| }}

DumZiBoT (talk) 23:12, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Claims/Contends vs. States/Points out

An IP has been changing instances of the former to the latter, saying that doing so increases the articles npov. However, I would argue that it does the opposite. For example, of the following two statements, I argue the second is more neutral:

• "One critical black church member points out that the church 'refuses to acknowledge and undo its racist past...'"
• "One critical black church member contends that the church 'refuses to acknowledge and undo its racist past...'"

The first statement assumes that "the church 'refuses to acknowledge and undo its racist past" is a fact and that the critic is merely pointed out that fact, while the second places the statement in the context of someone's opinion, which it is. Thoughts? --TrustTruth (talk) 00:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you in the example you gave and think it is the preferrable term to use. However, when it comes to "claims", you may want to review the words to avoid policy. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 01:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Section needs to be split

There used to be two sections in this article, and they got combined into one. The current section is "Criticisms of doctrinal changes". The two original sections/criticisms were:

1) Chruch makes policy changes for political/practical purposes, but changes are misrepresented as divine prophecies (two primary examples are polygamy-reversal and blacks admitted to priesthood)

2) Church was and, to a lesser extent, still is racist.

The two criticisms are unrelated, but I can see how some editor may have confused them and lumped them together since they both mention race. I'll go ahead and separate them. I dont think any text/citation changes are needed since they both seem to have decent citations. --Noleander (talk) 00:02, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Improve format of "Related to Chrstnty" section by using table

I propose to improve the layout of the Criticisms related to Christianity section by converting it to a table format. The table format is used here http://www.carm.org/lds/compare.htm and also by Abanes page 382, and both are far more readable than the current text layout.

I dont propose any content change, just formatting. The two tables mentioned above are 2-column (Mormon vs. mainstream Christian). I propose that the existing apologetic text be placed in the "Mormon" column.

Again, no text/content changes are proposed, just formatting to improve readability. --Noleander (talk) 19:43, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

...except the Cult subsection would remain as-is and not be placed in the table. --Noleander (talk) 19:48, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

... never mind. I tried it and although it looked nice, there was too much text in some table cells. --Noleander (talk) 22:07, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Temple admission

Storm Rider: Thanks for improving the Temple admission section. I think this article has a policy that nearly everything needs to be cited. Could you get some citations for that info? As is, it sounds like OR. Thanks --Noleander (talk) 18:21, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The primary criticism in that section, to paraphrase, is "Nearly every church in the world, when there is a wedding, lets everyone come in and enjoy the ceremony, regardless of financial means (or even faith). The LDS practice is highly unreasonable, and sometimes hurtful". So any rebuttal info should probably address that particular criticsim. --Noleander (talk) 18:23, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Reminder: Citations needed for all non-trivial statements

Friendly reminder: this is a controversial article with a lengthy, adversarial past. Any non-trivial statement in the article needs to be cited. In addition, any significant additions or changes need to be discussed on the Talk page first. Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 19:18, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Storm Rider: please follow Bold/Revert/Discuss model

Storm rider: you are starting an edit war. The policy is to be bold, revert, then discuss. You were bold (added OR); I reverted. Now we go to step 3: discuss here on Talk page. This is controversial article, please follow the protocols.--Noleander (talk) 19:43, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Homosexual issues in "sexual repression" section?

I think we need to come up with a distinction between the "Sexual repression" section and the "Homophobia" section. Right now, some criticisms are intermingled.

I recommend that all homosexuality-related criticisms be in the Homophobia section (since that is how the critics themselves characterize their own criticisms). The Sexual Repression section would focus on criticisms that the church is overly prudish (without regard to sexual orientation).

I understand that 1 or 2 editors may think that some homosexuality-related criticisms (e.g. criticising the church for supporting anti-gay marriage legislation) belong in the "Sexual Repression" section, however, we should defer to how the critics themselves characterize the criticsm, and to what is best for the readers of this encyclopedia, and to common sense.

Comments? --Noleander (talk) 20:01, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Homophobia is the irrational fear of homosexuals. That by itself is a very real concern that has been brought up against the LDS church. Opposing same-sex relationships is not homophobia. There was no hint of fear of homosexuals in any of the letters. If you want all the homosexual issues together, we need another section besides homophobia. Otherwise, only things related to homophobia belong there.

It makes sense to put it under the sexual repression section. The church has one standard - celibacy before marriage and fidelity after. Making a separate section makes it seem as if the church allowed straight people to have sex with whoever they want, but not gay people. Joshuajohanson (talk) 20:51, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I think you are using Homophobia in a very narrow sense, most people use it (see some dictionaries) to mean any hatred of or discrimination against homosexuals. But in the spirit of compromise, would it help if we re-named the Homophobia section to "Anti-homosexual" or similar? Again, our guiding rules here should be what is best for the readers of the encyclopedia, and what the critics themselves think. For clarity, all homosexual related issues should be in one section here. --Noleander (talk) 20:59, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Anti-homosexual would be taking sides. The church (and many gay Mormons) view these warnings as beneficial to homosexuals. How about a more neutral "Views on homosexuality"? Joshuajohanson (talk) 21:43, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I understand your point. However, I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of this article: its purpose is to capture criticisms of Mormonism, made by notable critics. By definition, every criticism documented will be negative. Although you are correct that LDS may treat homosexuals with love, and have good intentions, those facts belong in the "LDS and Homosexuality" article. This article's primary job is to record the comments of the critics, and those comments are "the LDS church is anti-homosexual (or homophobic)". --Noleander (talk) 17:59, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

You do not understand my point. This does not need to be, by definition negative, just as the other pages should not be, by definition positive. Our job as Wikipedians is to present the facts, regardless of the title of the pages. Just because the word "Criticism" is in the title, doesn't mean the article's purpose is to give credence to the criticism or deny it. Simply state it. Supporting Prop 8 is neither homophobic nor anti-homosexual and it is inaccurate to represent it as such. If certain people view that as being anti-homosexual, and the source is not self-published, you can say, such and such a group says the church is anti-homosexual for such and such a reason. As it stands right now, the article simply states the church opposes same-sex marriage and then labels it as homophobia, which is original research. We can say people state it is homophobia, but we cannot say whether they are right or wrong. Joshuajohanson (talk) 19:09, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I think we are in agreement. This article should _only_ contain statements like "critic X has criticized the church by saying Y". To my knowledge, all the criticisms in this article follow this pattern, which was established about a year ago (prior to that, some criticisms were just stated as "The LDS church has bad policy X").

Applying this pattern to the oppositon of the LDS church to gay-marriage laws to this article: this article should say "Critic A claims says the church is anti-homosexual and cites the churches opposition to law X". (And this article should _not_ include statements like "LDS church opposes law X", or "LDS opposes law X because Y").

Furthermore, there are several criticisms of the church that are related to homosexuality. All those criticisms should be in one section. The criticims _all_ say that the church is anti-homosexual (or else they wouldn't be criticisms).

I'll find some more notable critics that have published criticisms relating to homosexuality, and add their criticisms (fully supported with citations, of course). That should help put this issue to bed. --Noleander (talk) 19:35, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I disagree all criticism says that the church is anti-homosexuals. I think many take an issue with the church being anti-same-sex relationships. The church does not deny they are anti-same-sex relationships. They are very clear on that. The article currently states "Richard and Joan Ostling point out that the LDS church actively campaigns against same-sex marriage statutes". This is in the homophobia section. I see no connection to anything homophobic or anti-homosexual. Unless a connection is made by Richard and Joan Ostling, it should not be in the homophobic section because it is unrelated. Now, Affirmation claims some members are unloving, and the church itself accepts that accusation "many gays "have felt rejected because members of the Church did not always show love." It criticizes those members, and challenges gays to show love and kindness so the members can "change their attitudes and follow Christ more fully." But you can't mix anti-homosexual attitudes with anti-same-sex relationships attitudes. Those are completely different. Unless you can provide a clear link, stuff about same-sex relationships needs to be taken out of the homophobia section. Joshuajohanson (talk) 20:06, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, Quinn's assertion that the church has changed their attitudes towards gays is not an accusation that the church is anti-homosexual. Joshuajohanson (talk) 20:09, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

[reindent] You raise some good points. The pattern established for this article is that each section begins with one or more criticisms, and is then followed by aplogetic or explanatory matter. I think the example you give from Quinn is in the latter category (if not, it should be moved into the "Homosexuality and Mormonism" article). Regarding your assertion that opposition to same-sex marriage is not discriminatory against gays, I think that you are in the minority on that. Certainly all gay-rights advocates Im aware of consider opposition to same-sex marriage to be discriminatory. And, as I've pointed out before, the purpose of this article is to document criticsms of the church, as the critics express them (not as apologists perceive them). And, as I've pointed out twice before, the standard definition of homophobia includes discrimination against gays, not merely fear of. --Noleander (talk) 01:27, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I am not a minority in believing opposition to same-sex marriage in not discriminatory towards gays.[1] You have to show evidence from the critics themselves that they think opposition to same-sex marriage is homophobia. Simply saying, well I think most people think that, is original research. Joshuajohanson (talk) 16:15, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. It appears we dont have consensus on this. Please refer to my earlier posts for the logic behind my viewpoint. --Noleander (talk) 16:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Unless there is a reliable evidence stating that the church's opposition to same-sex marriage is irrational fear or irrational discrimination against homosexuals, I am removing it from the homophobia section. Opposition to same-sex marriage is intended to help gays, not discriminate them. Joshuajohanson (talk) 17:40, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Please make an effort to be more cooperative, and work towards consensus. Your attitude is a bit too confrontational. There is no consensus on this issue. --Noleander (talk) 18:34, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

In the spirit of compromise, how about this: we create a new subsection called "Same-sex marriage laws" and in that new section include all the (existing) text about Calif/Alaska/Hawaii and the church's lobbying against same-sex marriage? --Noleander (talk) 18:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, Quinn is hardly being apologetic. He is accusing the church of changing its stance on same-sex relationships and advocating that we return to the previous era where leaders were more tolerant of same-sex relationships. He is attacking the church, but not by saying it is homophobic, just that its policies have changed. It already is in the Homosexuality and Mormonism article. Joshuajohanson (talk) 16:25, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Christianity section missing "god was a man" criticism

I noticed the "Criticisms related to Christianity" section was missing the "God is flesh-and blood and was once a man" criticism (from Tanners, Abanes, CARM, etc). So I added it in. Perhaps someone could put in the apologetic view at the end of that section? --Noleander (talk) 17:56, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Reminder: Statements need to be sourced

Friendly reminder: All significant statements in this article need to come from notable sources. This policy was established about a year ago. Prior to that time, the article contained many (true) assertions such as "The church has policy/statement X[citation]". Although the statement was true (and even supported by a citation), some editors felt this was OR, because the editor could pick-and-choose the church policies/statements. For instance, an editor could state two policies X1 and X2, but omit related (but unwanted) statement X3.

There was concurrance among the editors that indeed that "selective" choice of church policies/statents was indeed often OR, and so the policy was adopted that _only_ statements from notable sources could be included. So the entire article was improved to instead read as follows:

"Notable person/organization M says that the church is R because it has policies/statements X1 and X2".

This improvement did improve the article, and made it more neutral. Several statements were removed from the article because they did not meet that policy (that is, the editor could not find a notable person that posited the position).

I bring this up because I see that some statements have been inserted recently that are not following the consensus approach. Examples are:

Apologists note that other faiths have similar proscriptions, such as the Roman Catholic Church,[6],[7],[8] Eastern Orthodoxy[9] as well as Judaism[10][11] and Islam.[12][13][14]

or

God Loveth His Children, a pamphlet produced by the LDS Church, acknowledges that many gays "have felt rejected because members of the Church did not always show love." It criticizes those members, and challenges gays to show love and kindness so the members can "change their attitudes and follow Christ more fully."[180]

In accordance with the consensus, those statements are presumed to be OR, and need to be either eliminated, or a notable source that posits those postions needs to be quoted/sourced. --Noleander (talk) 01:38, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

So are you saying that the majority, i.e. the biggest Christian churches in the world, do not have similar policies against homosexuality, masturbation, etc. as the LDS are not? I entered the data above, with sources that support the statements by each of the churches cited. I don't know who added "Apologists note", that was not in my edit. Criticism, for it to have impact/value, should be what is unique about the Latter Day Saint movmeent that sets it apart. The criticism of being against homosexuality is a criticism against the vast majority of Christian churches and doctrine.

Your history above about the developement of the article and a supposed agreeemnt of process is your interpretation of that process from a year ago, I don't recall any siimilar agreement; can you please provide where that agreement was made?

You might also want to review Wikipedia policy about Wikipedia:Not#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information. Having three quotes stating each group/individual's similar criticism is not necessary. Wikipedia is not for collecting quotes and repeating criticism does not make it more real. It would be better said, Critics disagree with the LDS Chruch's position on condemning homosexual behavior and then provide the references of the people who take that position. I will begin moving quotes to the footnotes, which will also have the added benefit of deleting paragraphs that repeat the same criticism. It is not necessary to be redundant. Cheers.--Storm Rider ^(talk) 02:02, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

As an aside, you might also want to review Criticism of the Roman Catholic Church to see how others have written similar articles. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 02:04, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I dont think we have consensus on "moving quotes to footnotes". This is a controversial article, please obtain consensus on the Talk page before making significant changes. --Noleander (talk) 03:10, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the consensus reached by editors a year ago: it was very clear: Simply listing church policies/statements is OR. The archive of this Talk page seems to be hosed up. If some archive-savvy person can fix it, I'll find the reference for you. If someone wants to propose a change to that consensus, please bring it up here on the talk page and we can see if a change is in order. --Noleander (talk) 03:13, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Regarding your question about "are you saying that the majority, i.e. the biggest Christian churches in the world, do not have similar policies against homosexuality": No, Im not saying that. I agree with the assertion that some other major faiths have similar policies against homosexuality. The point Im trying to make is that a year ago this article was in very, very bad condition. Editors were just adding in statements of fact (all true, all verifiable) and the article was a huge list of true statements BUT the article was a mess because the _selection_ of true statements (by the editors) was OR. Both "sides" of the editors agreed that that approach (simply listing true facts)was OR, and they agreed that the way to fix it was to only include statements that notable people/organizatiaons made. The editors spent many months implementing that policy, and it made the article a lot better (I know ... hard to believe :-). The article is now starting to backslide. As one that was editing it a year ago, believe me, we dont want to go back to the old way. --Noleander (talk) 03:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

By the way, here is a statement recently put in that follows that protocol:

Gordon B. Hinckley encouraged church members to reach out to homosexuals with love and understanding.[181]

This line is okay (not OR) because the source of the information is a notable person. --Noleander (talk) 03:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

What you are prposing is having a collection of quotes. I am not sure that will produce a very good article.--Storm Rider ^(talk) 03:40, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it is not the best approach. But you have to remember the history: the article has gone thru several stages:

1. Statement of facts "The church is X" (early 2007)
2. Clarify that it is critics: "Critics say the church is X" (late 2007)
3. Specify critics: "Critic A says the church is X" (early 2008)

The first format (1) was the most encyclopedic (and most similar to the "Criticism of Catholic Church" that you refer to). However, the transition from (1) to (2) was insisted on by LDS-apologetic editors. Likewise, the transition from (2) to (3) was insisted on by LDS-apologetic editors. So I agree that (1) is most encyclopedic, but that had some huge drawbacks in this article (any editor could just compile a huge list of true statements at will, carefully selected to prove any point). Approach (3) was insisted on by LDS-apologetic editors, and - tho it is not ideal - it does have the benefits of reducing edit wars and minimizing OR. So I support (3) and would not support a return to (1). --Noleander (talk) 03:56, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

(new indent) I am not sure I am disagreeing with you. I support that things need to be referenced, but I think editors might be able to state the position and put most of the quotes in the footnotes with the reference. I don't think policy would say that all quotes should not be in the article, but a more narrative format is the standard.

Frankly, when I read the article it seems a bit pedantic and whining. Worse, it is simply a bad article. The Catholic criticism article is much better and we should emulate their example. This has just become a catch-all for whining; there is no real article. It is too important of an article for it to be teated in such a poor manner.

Criticism is a finer art than that and it is more learned. I also think that criticisms that are unique to this specific movmement should receive more focus than those criticisms that are leveled at religion as a whole and Christianity in particular. Nothing that the LDS Church does is different than the vast majority of Christianity when it comes to Christianity. When we focus on it, the critique loses its impact because it is the same for almost everyone other Christian group. Why is this topic such a focus of the article? Does this make sense to you? --Storm Rider ^(talk) 04:18, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you make good sense. Unfortunately, I dont think the editors of this article are able to produce a neutral, balanced article under approach (1). Approach (3), although clumsy, has proven to be workable and results in less OR and POV. It is certainly tempting to try approach (1) again, but the following is bound to happen (in this example, assume - for the sake of illustration - that all statements are 100% true and citable):

Editor A writes: "The LDS church did not let african-american boys lead Mormon-sponsored boy scout troops until forced to by a lawsuit in 1974".

Editor B then writes: "The LDS church has allowed a-a boys to lead since 1975. There are now over 300 a-a boys in LDS-sponsored troops. Prior to 1975 there were only 22 boys in LDS-sponsored troops. It was customary in the pre-civil-rights era for many non-LDS boy scout troops to prevent a-a boys from being leaders".

Editor A then writes: "The reason there were only 22 boys in LDS-sponsored troops before 1975 was because the church didnt ... " etc etc.

What is the result of approach (1)? Not good. That is the way it went during 2007. There are still editors around who show an inclination to pursue that method of editing. Until the editors show more restraint and balance, (3) is working much better than (1) did. --Noleander (talk) 13:41, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, I draw attention again to the fact that the transition from (1) to (2) and transition (2) to (3) was insisted upon by LDS-aplogetic editors. The transition from (2) to (3) was especially harmful to the articles readability. Perhaps you could review the archive of this talk page to discover which LDS-apologetic editors insisted on that formatting approach, and get them involved in this discussion. In any case, we dont want to flip-flop on this article's format and simply go back and forth on an annual basis between approaches. Approach (3) is not ideal, but is the lesser of 2 (or 3) evils. --Noleander (talk) 13:44, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I found the archive of this Talk page on the transition from (1) to (2) it is at Talk:Criticism_of_the_Latter_Day_Saint_movement/Archive_4#Original Research (BTW: thanks to whomever fixed the archive!) The transition from (2) to (3) is at Talk:Criticism_of_the_Latter_Day_Saint_movement/Archive_4#Remaining POV issues? it was in the context of trying to get the POV tag removed from the article. Someone asked "what do we have to do to get the POV tag removed?" and one of the answers was "Change all wording from '[anonymous] critics claim ..' to 'Critic A and critic B claim ...' That guidance was followed, and a crew of editors dutifully made that painstaking change .... and the POV tag is still there :-) --Noleander (talk) 13:51, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Notability of criticism

I question the reliability of Affirmation. The Affirmation web site is self published and is not notable. They can publish whatever they want without any regard to truth and accuracy. The most recent addition is a good example of a severe lack of scholarly research typical of Affirmation. The quote says "We are deeply dismayed that the Church ignored our request that they not meddle in California politics. This initiative will hurt so many people. Without marriage, a couple who have been together 30 years could be torn apart at the doorway to the emergency room." This is simply false. Even if the initiative passes, a couple in a Registered Domestic Partnership will not be torn apart at the doorway to the emergency room.[2] This is blatantly misrepresenting the purpose of the initiative as a sympathy tactic to demonize the church. It also misrepresents the church's view. The church does not object to rights (already established in California) regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights.[3] It does not believe a couple that has been together for 30 years should be torn apart at the doorway to the emergency room, as Affirmation indicates. I believe Affirmation is an unreliable, self-published source and should not be used as a reference. Joshuajohanson (talk) 16:07, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Affirmation is a notable and significant organization. For instance, an LDS-apologetic editor added this line into this article: "Church leaders have agreed to meet with Affirmation to discuss these concerns", which is accurate, and demonstrates that LDS church leadership itself recognizes Affirmation. Also, see numerous major newspaper articles which mention Affirmation, such as http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10000658?IADID=Search-www.sltrib.com-www.sltrib.com --Noleander (talk) 16:13, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay, the organization itself is notable. Is that specific accusation notable? Just because the organization is mentioned in newspapers doesn't mean everything it writes belongs on Wikipedia. Of course, the bigger question is, is it reliable? As I showed above, they falsify information to gain sympathy. Joshuajohanson (talk) 16:17, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I refer you to my responses to your similar questions, above. --Noleander (talk) 16:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

By the way, if you have important information about Affirmation, such as that they falsify things, perhaps you could include that information in the Affirmation:_Gay_&_Lesbian_Mormons article. --Noleander (talk) 16:27, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The falsifying information comes from the quote in the article: "Without marriage, a couple who have been together 30 years could be torn apart at the doorway to the emergency room." This is not true in the state of California. So either they did not do their research or they are deliberately falsifying information. Either way it isn't reliable. This is why self-published sources like Affirmation do not pass verifiability. [4] I will take it out if you have not sufficiently addresses my concerns. Joshuajohanson (talk) 17:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

There is not consensus on this issue. Do not change the article without obtaining consensus on the Talk page. The purpose of this article, as I've said 4 times, is to capture notable criticisms, even if the criticisms are unwarranted or offensive. --Noleander (talk) 17:47, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

.. and if you feel a strong need to rebut Affirmation on the California item, feel free to add-in balancing information. Please ensure that the information is from a notable source, and is supported with citations. --Noleander (talk) 18:03, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The California Family Code says, “domestic partners shall have all the rights, protections and benefits” of married spouses. There are NO exceptions to this. Proposition 8 will not change that. Claiming that they will be separated at hospital doors is false.[5] ProtectMarriage is the group that put the measure on the ballet and is sponsoring it. Joshuajohanson (talk) 20:53, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the only legitimate way to handle this specific issue is not to delete the issue, but demonstrate by reputable references that it is an inaccurate representation of facts. When doing so the position of Noleander's edit is respected, but its fallacy is demonstrated to readers. Does this make sense to you? --Storm Rider ^(talk) 21:09, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind having a reference to the partisan position of the proposers, but it definitely should not be written like that: "However, the initiative in California will not allow a couple who have been together 30 years to be torn apart at the doorway to the emergency room." This assumes that what Thomas meant was that the proposition would outright get rid of hospital visitation rights. A few simple checks at the sites of the other side, like this[6], shows that it's not that straightforward, and the idea seems to be that "separate but equal" will never be more than half true. Also, the reason I said its OR is that the reference does not mention hospital visitation rights specifically, nor does it mention Mormons, and is used as a rebuttal not by someone in the LDS hierarchy, but by a Wikipedia editor. Now, if there is a source that either rebuts the claim by Thomas specifically, or has the LDS hierarchy pontificating on the same topic, that can be used. The second reference does fit that bill, and you may note that I did not delete that one. Ratatosk Jones (talk) 21:48, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

You said "if there is a source that either rebuts the claim by Thomas specifically". You are not going to find one, because Olin Thomas is nobody. He self-published an unresesarched, wild and unverifiable claim on an web site that isn't peer-reviewed, isn't reliable, and plain and simple isn't true. Who is going to take the time to address Olin Thomas' concerns? The LDS hierarchy sure isn't, and I don't think Wikipedia should either. The whole paragraph should be removed. Joshuajohanson (talk) 23:23, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

The rewrite made it better, plus it got rid of that awful link, so I think it'll work just fine now. And while Olin Thomas may be a "nobody" as you so lovingly put it, he is part of an organization that actively criticizes the church. Hence, his inclusion here. Ratatosk Jones (talk) 04:48, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

(new indent) I think the process is contested information is deleted, brought to discussion page and then re-entered upon concensus being achieved or deleted for the same reasons.

This is the type of sensational listing of quotes that has no place on Wikipedia. It is not criticism and does not belong in a criticism article. It is an accusation by a source that is not peer reviewed, has no scholarly function, and is a support group for gays who strive to reconcile their sexual orientation with the doctrines of the LDS Church. Their purpose is not to present a neutral evaluation of the situation. --Storm Rider ^(talk) 23:27, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Small correction. Affirmation is only one of many support groups for gays who strive to reconcile their sexual orientation with the doctrines of the LDS Church. However, it differs from other support groups such as Evergreen International in that it seeks change in the church's doctrine on same-sex relationships. There is no conflict between a homosexual orientation and the doctrines of the LDS church. Joshuajohanson (talk) 20:53, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality?? Really?

Um, just wondering, how can a criticism article be neutral? Isn't the definition of criticism to take one side over another? Why the "Neutrality" template? padillaH ^{(review me)}_{(help me)} 17:46, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

If it can't be written neutrally, it does not belong on Wikipedia. Joshuajohanson (talk) 17:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Then we need to start the AfD, right? Criticism is, by it's very definition, not neutral to the given point of view. padillaH ^{(review me)}_{(help me)} 12:33, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the main problem with this article is that it is a POV fork. If this was a perfect world, the content of this article would be folded into the main LDS church and LDS movement articles. This idea was struck down several months ago, and so the article remains. The idea behind the POV tag if I remember the original rationale, is that all criticisms should be juxtaposed with an apologist perspective, so that a reader would see the criticisms laid against the LDS movement, and their responses. Not the best way to go about it in my opinion, but nevertheless that is the route that the editors of this article have decided to take. --Descartes1979 (talk) 20:59, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I agree with Descartes1979 wholeheartedly. We must also differentiate between criticism against the LDS Movement per se and the LDS Church - and do we then add criticisms made against other churches stemming from the LDS Moevemnet? In any case, each criticism needs to be balanced with an apologetic (but still scholarly) reference, if possible. Best, A Sniper (talk) 21:19, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I would have to strongly disagree with this sentiment. An article that objectively talks about the subject of criticism about the LDS Movement is one thing. Having an article that is criticism of the LDS Movement is something entirely different. I can't, for the life of me, see how this article can possibly be written as something remotely NPOV with its current focus, structure, and makeup. I was looking for an article about the "anti-Mormon movement" and about the organizations and people who are critics of the LDS Church (based on the title of the article). What I am reading instead is a bunch of POV tripe that is basically a hit list of everything that seems to be wrong about the LDS Church and Mormonism in general. If criticism sections are considered bad form in articles, there is no rational explanation as to why this article even needs to exist on Wikipedia. I'm not going to start the AfD, but I would certainly support one that was done on behalf of this article. --Robert Horning (talk) 09:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Horning. This article should be about the subject of criticism, the background of critics, motives (good and bad), etc. Any specific criticism should be housed in the actual article on that subject. This article as it stands is simply a laundry list of criticisms from all sources, with little to no hope of ever being neutral. It is a POV fork and is unacceptable on Wikipedia, regardless of one's personal views toward Mormonism. A reader who comes across this article knowing little else about the LDS movement will almost certainly come away with a negative view of the religion. That is hardly NPOV. The laundry list needs to be deleted (after checking that it is covered in the actual related topic article, where it can actually get NPOV treatment), and this article needs to morph into the subject of criticism. --TrustTruth (talk) 15:44, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

There seem to be a lot of "Criticism..." articles on Wikipedia, but they all seem to differ in quality and style. It is not a POV fork; given the length of this article it would be impossible to fold this into any other article without creating an imbalance. IMHO, I reject the entire current style of this article. What shows up for me is that someone read the Ostling's book and then regurgitated it into the article. Some of it is just so inane. For example, the LDS Church is too secretive about their finances. Well DUH! Tell me which church in the world publishes their financial statements? This is a criticism about organized religion, not the LDS Church. Doctrinal disputes are not criticisms...they are doctrinal disputes and have no place in this article. So much of the current article is a collection of opinions, rather than scholarly criticism. Frankly, I think this article is hopelessly mired in silliness. When discussing religion what generally results is a war between zealots. This happens to be the playground of the antagonistic zealots on Wikipedia. Currently, I think it is best to just let them play. --^StormRider 15:48, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

While I understand the motive to redirect the energies of those who would be critics into an article like this, POV pushers can and should be pointed out for exactly what they are.... and should be fought against. I thought that NPOV in articles was a fundamental pillar behind Wikipedia and the very basis to justify the existence of this entire website. If you want to push your point of view, go make your own website and exercise your freedom of speech there. I seriously don't see this article surviving an AfD if it were brought up to the attention of the greater Wikipedia community. At the very least, I'd like to see a couple defenders of keeping this article explain why this article should remain without having to go through the meat grinder of an AfD (I've never been a huge fan of the Wikipedia AfD process even if it might be necessary at times). --Robert Horning (talk) 14:21, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Horning as well. The article needs to be about criticism, not about what is being criticized; otherwise is a POV fork. This article can be topical, but under each topical subheading, we should be talking about the broad, major trends in Mormon criticism. Instead of statements like "X critic thinks that Y Mormon doctrine is a bunch of hooey," there should be statements like "Regarding Mormon doctrine X, early criticism focused on Y, influence primarily by American anti-Mormon cultural trend Z."

For example, the text for the "BOM criticism" section should go something roughly like this: "During the 1800s and early 1900s, criticism of the Book of Mormon focused mainly on the theory that it was written by Solomon Spaulding. Later, critics began to focus on perceived incongruities between the book's narrative and archaeological findings. Most recently, genetic analyses have been brought into the discussion to dispute the claim by Joseph Smith that the book is a history of the ancestors of Native Americans..." The difference might be subtle, but I think it is important that we write about the criticism, not about what is being criticized. COGDEN 00:59, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

(new indent) COGden, what you have proposed is what I have been arguing for for quite some time, but to no avail. I think you voice the position better than I have done. To me it is the difference between scholarly criticism and...stuff that isn't. Frankly, I despise this article because there is nothing redeeming about it. It is an anti-Mormon's dream article about everything that has been said negative about Mormons, but were too intelligent to believe, but we will say it anyway. Having said that I realize that I am not the person being asked your collective questions. The editors that need to respond are those that authored this type of article and understand their motivations. I hope that it can be improved, but don't think it is likely. Cheers. --^StormRider 01:51, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely! COgden has worded his argument nicely and the example he gave is what I thought this article was supposed to be. Now that we've got a direction let's start being BOLD. Padillah (talk) 19:16, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I also agree with this approach. Make it happen. --TrustTruth (talk) 22:08, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Strong Objection The ideal, scholarly wording was tried several times in this article (nice, neutral wording capturing significant criticims of notable critics). But every time, LDS-apologetic editors would alter the sections by (1) changing the scholarly "some critics" (or similar) to give specific names (e.g. "The Ostlings"); and by (2) tacking-on an awkwardly-worded apologists rebuttal. The result was to make the article have the odd style that we see now. There is no sign that this situation is abating (see comments above by JoshuaJohnson). The status quo was achieved after much, much negotiation (and lots of tedious editing). Although the article is phrased non-felicitously, it is accurate, concise, balanced, and fully cited. It is a compromise. --Noleander (talk) 15:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

... and to respond to Hornings comment: "I seriously don't see this article surviving an AfD if it were brought up to the attention of the greater Wikipedia community. At the very least, I'd like to see a couple defenders of keeping this article explain why this article should remain without having to go through the meat grinder of an AfD": This article has been recommended for deletion 3 or 4 time (see archive) and each time the result is keep. Regarding why it should be kept: read the archives. --Noleander (talk) 17:01, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Do you think the satus quo is good, or do you agree that the article is in sorry shape, but are just pessimistic that it can be made better? COGDEN 18:16, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Excellent question. The article's phrasing is only so-so, but its content and citations are good. This is a controversial article, and the current layout/phrasing is probably as good as we can get, given that it is written by volunteers. Although the phrasing is not quite up to Encyclopedia Britannica standards, it does have the merits of conveying the thrust of what notable critics said, in an accurate, balanced manner. The point Im trying to make is: It is tempting to try to overhaul the article's layout/phrasing, but I'm 99.99% sure that would just continue the cyclic pattern of edit wars that have occured repeatedly in the past. There are a handful of very aggressive editors that have demonstrated that they cant live with a normal encylopedic approach on this article. At least twice, this article _was_ changed to move towards a more encyclopedic phrasing, and both times LDS-apologetic editors (I can name names, if needed) insisted on changes that resulted in the format we see before us today. I can cite several instances where I asked a group of LDS-apologetic editors: "What would it take to remove the POV tag?", they would give a list of tasks, I (or other editors) would carry-out those tasks, and this page is the result. The status quo is not smoothly worded, but it is accurate, cited, balanced, and the result of lots of consensus-building in these Talk pages. --Noleander (talk) 19:01, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I've worked with a lot of controversial articles and have been successful in altering the dynamics. What it takes, basically, is some very good, well-cited writing, and a "natural" outline that doesn't seem arbitrary. For this article, I think we can aspire to more than just optimizing the current phrasing. We need a more fundamental re-thinking. As it stands, the article has no natural equilibrium. Nobody knows what material should, or should not, be included within this article. An editor could add just about any statement like "X critic thinks Y aspect of Mormonism sucks" and it would be just about as good as any other statement in the article, and if that's the standard, the article will just continue to grow, until it becomes little more than a gigagantic list of statements like "X critic thinks Y aspect of Mormonism sucks because of Enlightened Science", each followed by "but Mormon apologist Z disagrees because X uses sucky methodology." This article can be better than that, and actually be about criticism, not just a container for criticism. COGDEN 20:38, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

This article is not a compromise and has not been for some time. I have never supported it since it was greatly enlarged and evolved into a catch-all of everything under the sun that an anti-Mormon can think up (yes, that includes the wonderful Evangelical duo of the Ostlings). Theological disagreements are not criticisms and never have been; they are simply theological disagreements between churches and have no place in this article. They should and are handled in more appropriate articles like Mormonism and Christianity and other similar denominational articles.

This anti-Mormon playground has been kept to appease the mundane objectives of an Evangelical attack pamphlet. User:Noleander did not communicate nor discuss his edits, but rather came in and changed them wholesale. To see the beginning of his edits see here. To attempt to say there was a compromise is a recreation of history. He started cold and never stopped until his spleen was emptied. The article has essentially been left alone with the most minor of edits and attempts to correct the most egregious of problems. It has nothing to do with true criticism. It does not begin to explain the evolution of criticism and its motivations and it gives no merit to quality of those areas where true criticisms have been raised (i.e. you have to wade through so much muck, readers can't tell the good from the silly). There is no comparison between this article and the Criticism of the Roman Catholic Church. Why? How did that article evade all the of the anti-Catholic crap that exists? My first guess is that there is a vast difference in numbers of editors and intelligence and objectivity prevailed. I remain infinitely pessimistic that this article can be improved because of the vitriolic passion of anti-Mormons. True, actual criticism is not and cannot be found among anti-Mormonism. I think they are diametrically opposed and come from two completely different places and thought patterns. I think COgden has proposed a better direction and hope that he is successful. However, the current article is a reflection of Noleander's POV and no other editor of Wikipedia. --^StormRider 21:01, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Why is this article here?

I'm new to wikipedia but I was reading the general LDS article, and the discussion there explained that describing things as the church saw them, in terms of the inaccuracy of post-New Testament writings, and the God-head was appropriate for the article describing the religion. That makes sense. Should not the criticisms here be left 'as is' as well? Having a 'and the Mormon apologist response' tacked on to each one feels like it's preserving neutrality here, but when linked with the general article implies a large pro-LDS leaning. Not that it surprises me that members of the church have responses to common criticisms, but can this be better prganized somehow? Are all religion articles this back-and-forth?

Hello, it might be worthwhile to review other criticism articles. Here is one for the Roman Catholic Church and here is one for the Controversies regarding Jehovah's Witnesses. Those are ones that immediately come to mind. You should probably make up your own mind about which is better written and how this one can be improved. I would be curious to hear your opinion after reading the other two. Please consider sharing your opinion here.

I am moving your comment to the end of the page. We try to keep the latest, new comments at the bottom of the page and then allow each person to comment in each section by likewise editing in chronological order i.e. always at the bottom of the section. I look forward to hearing your views. --^StormRider 23:06, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Hey, OP back. After reading those, I intute a preference to the Catholic article, though I haven't had enough coffee to formulate why. I did notice somethign else, though. The main articles on Catholicism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Eastern Orthodox, do not follow the 'describe as this church sees them' policy, conatining nearly endless, "x beleivers feel" or "the x church contends" type statements. Is there a formal ruling on this from Wikipedia? I know that applying 'fairness' to an encyclopedia could get us into endless debate, but it does seem un-blaanced to have one sect described with definite statements and others not.

I tend to prefer the way the Roman Catholic Church articles are written than LDS articles. They have a more even-handed approach and provide a more intellectual approach to the topic. One thing that is specifically stated is that doctrinal conflicts are handled in denominational articles, which I think is a better choice. For this topic it would be Mormonism and Christianity. In addition, I am not sure I understand your position regarding stating a the criticism and then providing an answer; that is the manner in which the Catholic article is written. It would be highly POV to just address criticisms and not address the response by the given church. This article has evolved into a catch-all and more akin to tabloid genre of writing than an academic encyclopedia. --^StormRider 19:12, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, don't for get to sign your comments with four ~ (it is the key in the top left of your keyboard) or you can use the signature key just above the edit box (it is the 10th key from the left). It allows other readers to recognize who is making the edit. --^StormRider 19:12, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

My point on the criticism and answer was based on the 'non-criticism' article containing no qualifying statements, such as "meber of the church beleive that", where the others I've mentioned do. Perhpas it's that article that needs change. 206.126.163.20 (talk) 19:33, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Dividing article

This article is 100 kb long, and getting a bit unruly. Should we split off a separate Criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints article? This article would focus on criticism relating to the pre-1844 time period (including all criticism relating directly to Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon) and contain a brief summary of criticism of specific denominations that occurred post-1844. In this generic article, there would be limited discussion about criticism of polygamy because there was not much movement-wide criticism except what is found in the Nauvoo Expositor. Most post-1844 criticism of polygamy was more squarely a criticism of the LDS Church, given that the RLDS did not adopt polygamy.

The new LDS-specific article would go into detail about criticism of the LDS Church, including its post-1844 doctrines and practices, but not the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith, except to the extent that the criticism concerned any LDS-specific "spin" on the earlier events, or to the extent that the criticism was aimed directly at the LDS Church and not other denominations. I think splitting up the article in this way might help editors to think more carefully about the context and time period of the criticism, and thus force us to write in terms of the criticism itself, rather than about what is being criticized. COGDEN 17:49, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a huge fan of such arbitrary splits of focus based on time. Yeah, I do understand that there are several philosophical branches that are not LDS Church-related that do use Joseph Smith as the basis of their beliefs. Still, a great portion of these critical debates.

I would like to see what the role of this article is that isn't already covered in Anti-Mormonism. I'll say it again, this is merely a hit list of all of the doctrines and practices of Mormonism that many people in main-stream Christianity (mostly traditional Protestants) don't like. Again, I fail to see how articles like this can possibly be maintained with a neutral point of view.

If there is a split, I'd like to see it topical in nature somehow. I think it is important to work with these topics in an historical context and to compare and contrast how perhaps other LDS movement groups work with these objections as well. I certainly don't want to see an article that is LDS Chruch vs. everybody else in the LDS movement. The 1844 temporal meridian doesn't seem to work in this case, at least for me. --Robert Horning (talk) 01:38, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Object. The article is large, but not too large. It is a summary-style article. An arbitrary time split is not sensible. Splitting pre-chuch-breakup and post-chuch-breakup (death of Smith) makes some sense, but the fact is 99% of modern mormons are LDS, so it is reasonable to treat them in the same article (FLDS already has its own Criticism article split off). That suggested time-split was already done for Blacks and Mormons (Blacks and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Blacks and the Latter Day Saint movement and the result was degraded quality of info for Wiki readers. Regarding the notion of a "topical" split: this article is a summary-style article, and every significant criticism is already topically split off in the various "main" articles. --Noleander (talk) 15:37, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

In answer to Horning, I do think there is a distinction between Mormon criticism and anti-Mormonism. Often, Mormon criticism comes from within, by loyal Mormons (maybe that is a good subheading for this article). Also, you have RLDS criticism of the LDS Church and vice versa, none of which can be called anti-Mormonism. Plus, Mormon criticism is more academic and scholarly than anti-Mormonism.

In answer to Neolander, this article is, or at some point should be, more than just a summary article. This is the distinction between an article about criticism versus an article about what is being criticized. We have plenty of articles about controversial subjects in Mormonism, and if this article is limited to pointing these controversies out, we might as well just list every single Mormonism-related article in Wikipedia. What is lacking is an article that discusses the criticism itself. This will be more in the nature of a cultural history, and there have been many articles and writers who have discussed the subject of Mormon criticism in the abstract. We just don't cite them here. Specific instances of criticism should be cited in support of general propositions about the subject of Mormon criticism, and not as just a list of "top ten things that bug people about Mormonism."

Maybe it's premature to split off the article before it becomes reasonably decent, so I guess we can work on it for a while and then I'm pretty sure the need to split will become self-evident. COGDEN 18:34, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

I would like to reopen this discussion, supporting the original proposal by User:COgden. At 100kb, this article is too long and unreadable. The proposed split is to separate Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movment from Criticism of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It can be argued that what remains in Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movment will overlap with Anti-Mormonism. The separation that we make between Criticism of the Roman Catholic Church and Anti-Catholicism is that Criticism of the Roman Catholic Church is usually about criticisms that are more mainstream, (i.e. generally considered to be reasoned criticisms) as opposed to Anti-Catholicism which is based more on bias and bigotry. --Richard (talk) 20:51, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. This article is extremely unreadable, however along with splitting the content into multiple pages many sections can be merged as they are 1-3 lines and are hardly worthy of a full section. One quick example is the "Finances" sub-section. To simply create a section and have it link to another is useless, especially when the article is at the length it is. If there is truly a need to have a finances section it should have been at least a summary of the other article. --Teancum (talk) 21:25, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, and I second Teancum's suggestion to merge smaller subsections. --Eustress (talk) 23:50, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to be bold here and suggest a few things. Then if there's no argument go ahead and implement them.

• This article does NOT need to be an extensive list of every little criticism. It's getting to be a laundry list of everything. Wikipedia is better suited for the high points. We can summarize sections bigtime. If someone wants to find out more about criticism of the LDS church there are plenty of other sites around. Listing every little issue makes this fail WP:NPOV miserably.
• Smaller sub-sections need to be moved either to a section-based See Also subsection, or a common See Also subsection at the bottom.

Honestly this stuff needs to happen before we split the article so that what we split is clean, organized and as neutral as possible. If I don't hear anything in the next 2-3 days I'm just going to make the changes. This discussion has been beaten to death. --Teancum (talk) 13:57, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I object to Teancum's proposal, sort of. He(she) and I agree on the symptoms but perhaps not on the cure. I agree that this article is nearly unreadable due to excessive subsections. Even after splitting, the problem will still exist. However, I don't think the issue is that the article is "a laundry list of everything". I think the topics in the article are appropriate and pretty much should stay in the article. However, there doesn't need to be a subsection heading for every topic. If all we did was remove the lowest level subsection headings without removing the accompanying text, that would be a huge improvement. The subsection headings make for choppy reading. Also, the higher level subsection headings often don't have any introductory text. That is, a higher-level subsection heading is often immediately followed by a lower-level subsection heading. This also makes for choppy reading. If we wrote introductory paragraphs for all the higher-level subsections, that would also be a huge improvement. I do agree with Teancum's point made above that sections should be summaries of the detailed article that they point to.

--Richard (talk) 16:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

What about a title change?

I've been pondering how to begin revising this article, and came to the conclusion that maybe the title is wrong. I don't think there is, or ever has been, such a thing as criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement. It's either been criticism of Mormonism or criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The problem is, the movement is composed of a motley group of religions. People may criticize each of the denominations independently, but not the movement as a whole. They do criticize Mormonism, but that term mainly applies to the "Brighamite" branch of the movement, as well as the movement during Joseph Smith's lifetime. Mormonism does not generally apply to the Community of Christ or other non-Brighamite branches after the Succession Crisis. Any post-1844 criticism of the Community of Christ (RLDS) is of a decidedly different character than criticism of "Mormonism". So should we change this to Criticism of Mormonism? COGDEN 05:30, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

When did this page move back to LDS movement? I moved it to Criticism of Mormonism last December for very similar reasons. Cool Hand Luke 05:38, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I see. It happened in July in the #Article title section. Well, I agree with you, COGDEN, that it should go back. Cool Hand Luke 05:42, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I didn't notice that section. It looks like only TrustTruth, Descartes1979, and Storm Rider were engaged on the issue at that time. I think the matter needs to be aired further. COGDEN 19:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I can support a name change; as I read your comments above it has merit to be heard again. In normal discourse I think one hears of Mormonism more than anything else. However, there is a problem given the periods in which criticism is directed. LDS movment can apply to everything from Joseph Smith forward and all branches of the movement. Any other term is limiting, which may be what is desired and acceptable. What is the purpose of the article in your opinions? --^StormRider 20:26, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I think more important is the revamping of the article as described a few sections above. I say spend our energies on that first. --TrustTruth (talk) 23:24, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I think there is value on setting the title first, because that defines the scope. We are either talking about criticism of the movement as a whole (which I don't think exists) or of Mormonism, and we need to know what we are writing about. This article, as it now stands, is about criticism of Mormonism (i.e., the pre-1844 Joseph Smith and post-1844 Brighamite branches), but if we want to write an article about criticism of the movement, we need to figure out what that means. If it means criticism of each church individually, including the Community of Christ, The Church of Jesus Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite) and other non-"Brighamite" churches, I don't see the value in such an article, given that there isn't much criticism of these churches, and what criticism there is is of a different character. COGDEN 09:11, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with COGDEN. Although it's been argued that some doctrinal or historical criticisms apply to the whole movement, I doubt even that's true. The Church of Christ (Temple Lot) group, for example, rejects most of Smith's later prophesies, and the Community of Christ is notably liberal compared to the LDS Church. I don't think I've seen a single source "in the wild" that criticizes the whole movement, and I think it's a fool's errand to decide which criticism is—and is not—"movement wide". Cool Hand Luke 20:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I disagree that a simple title change will solve the problems here. I think there needs to be an article titled Criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but the scope of that article should be limited to criticism of that particular church as an institution and any doctrinal issues specific to that church. That article would include everything that is in the current section "Criticisms specific to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". What would be left is the section currently titled "Movement-wide criticisms". I'm not sure whether this section should be titled Criticism of the Latter-day Saint movement or Criticism of Mormonism. If there are criticisms of LDS churches other than The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, then perhaps those criticisms could go in separate articles but as Cool Hand Luke says, there doesn't seem to be significant criticism of those churches. --Richard (talk) 18:12, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Richard, thank you for taking the time to review this article. I view you to have a high degree of neutrality and thus very helpful here. I do think different articles should be used to present the criticisms of the diverse churches within the LDS movement. The vast majority of criticism is directed specifically at the largest group, the LDS Church; thus, you don't find much criticism leveled at the other groups. Some of them reject the name Mormonism which makes titles important.

I like your proposal, but would filter some of the "criticism" which is in the article. This is a cesspool of thought, regardless of quality or reliability, regarding the LDS Church throughout its history. If someone said it, it is found here. There is no differentiation between lies, fringe, or common criticism; everything is treated as if it is of equal value. I would like to see something more scholarly rather than the low-quality anti-Mormonism so typically found. We should also emulate other criticism articles. Cheers. --^StormRider 18:42, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you again for the compliment. I do try hard to maintain NPOV. I will now make a proposal that may ruffle some feathers with our Mormon friends but hear me out first.

What about an article titled Criticism of the Book of Mormon? We have two articles that are basically critical of the Book of Mormon: Historicity of the Book of Mormon and Origin of the Book of Mormon. These two should probably be merged but under what title? I propose Criticism of the Book of Mormon or Criticism of Mormon sacred texts (to cover the material in this article under the section "Book of Abraham". Besides putting all related material in one article, it will enable to get much of that stuff out of this article and improve readability.

I've changed my mind somewhat about this article being a "laundry list of all criticisms under the sun". Without commenting on the relative quality or reliability of specific criticisms, the problem is the "laundry list" nature of the article makes it hard to see the forest for the trees. It would be far better if the article communicated the message: "Here are the major areas where people criticize the LDS movement...scripture, Joseph Smith, Christian heresy". The section on "Criticisms specific to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" is even worse. There are 14 separate subsection topics. This is too many trees and not enough forest. We need to consolidate this down to something that people can grasp in a single paragraph. At the very least, sexuality, homophobia and views on homosexuality need to be merged.

--Richard (talk) 18:57, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm proposing to change the name of the article. I think that the word criticism carries primarily a negative connotation with the general population. While it is true that the actual definition is not necessarily adverse, the general connotation remains. Definition of criticism." 1. the act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything. 2. the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding. 3.the act or art of analyzing and evaluating or judging the quality of a literary or artistic work, musical performance, art exhibit, dramatic production, etc. 4. a critical comment, article, or essay; critique. 5. any of various methods of studying texts or documents for the purpose of dating or reconstructing them, evaluating their authenticity, analyzing their content or style, etc.: historical criticism; literary criticism. 6. investigation of the text, origin, etc., of literary documents, esp. Biblical ones: textual criticism. 1.The act of criticizing, especially adversely. 2.A critical comment or judgment. 1.The practice of analyzing, classifying, interpreting, or evaluating literary or other artistic works. A critical article or essay; a critique.The investigation of the origin and history of literary documents; textual criticism." Those definitions were from dictionary.com. As you can see, even some of the dictionary definitions contain a negative connotation. I do not think anything will be lost or of lesser quality by changing the name. I would suggest using a word such as controversy perhaps? Wikipedia also supports the use of neutral names. Here is a portion from the NPOV section. "A Wikipedia article must have one definitive name. The general restriction against POV forks applies to article names as well. If a genuine naming controversy exists, and is relevant to the subject matter of the article, the controversy should be covered in the article text and substantiated with reliable sources. Otherwise, alternative article names should not be used as means of settling POV disputes among Wikipedia contributors. Also disfavored are double or "segmented" article names, in the form of: Flat Earth/Round Earth; or Flat Earth (Round Earth). Even if a synthesis is made, like Shape of the Earth, or Earth (debated shapes), it may not be appropriate, especially if it is a novel usage coined specifically to resolve a POV fork. Sometimes the article title itself may be a source of contention and polarization. This is especially true for descriptive titles that suggest a viewpoint either "for" or "against" any given issue. A neutral article title is very important because it ensures that the article topic is placed in the proper context. Therefore, encyclopedic article titles are expected to exhibit the highest degree of neutrality. The article might cover the same material but with less emotive words, or might cover broader material which helps ensure a neutral view (for example, renaming "Criticisms of drugs" to "Societal views on drugs"). Neutral titles encourage multiple viewpoints and responsible article writing. Where proper nouns such as names are concerned, disputes may arise over whether a particular name should be used. Wikipedia takes a descriptive rather than prescriptive approach in such cases, by using the common English language name as found in verifiable reliable sources; the most common name used in English-language publications is generally used; see also WP:Naming conventions (common names)." WP uses the exact word criticism here as an example of a word that causes emotion and contention. Could we not re-name the article to something else that would provide a neutral and accurate description of what the article contains? Sharpsr1990 (talk) 18:49, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Here are some more guidelines from Wikipedia. "Neutral point of view per Wikipedia:Verifiability an article should only contain sourced statements. Explicitly calling such statements "criticism" in the text of the article without any serious reason to do so (IE, if they are not negative criticism) can result in a violation of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. As with all Wikipedia articles, evaluations must follow Wikipedia:Neutral Point of View. If there are valid counter-arguments to the evaluations, then these must be fairly included. Just as in most cases the existence of an article seems to inherently promote its topic, "Criticism of ...." articles/sections would seem to inherently advocate the critics' negative point of view. In this case they would be POV forks, however, there is no consensus whether "Criticism of .... " articles/sections in general are always POV forks, especially if balanced by an article/section describing positive evaluation and influence. It also a concern that often these articles or sections quickly degrade into POV complaints or condemnation about a topic, known as "POV magnets". Titling evaluations Thus "Criticism of..." should be avoided (see WP:POV FORK). Preferred titles include "Critique", the synonym "review" which may also imply a more comprehensive study.[1], and "Reception". "Reception" sections should contain rebuttals immediately if available. As is the convention with summary-style articles, reception should generally start as sections of the main article and be spun off by agreement among the editors. Before being spun off, "Reception of ..." articles should contain rebuttals if available, once spun off the original article should contain a summary of the "Reception of ... " article." Any thoughts? Sharpsr1990 (talk) 20:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Criticism of the Book of Mormon

I prefer consolidation of articles rather than the current plethora of articles that essentially address the same topics. In other words, I support your proposal above for a Criticism of the Book of Mormon article. I don't think you will find LDS editors to be uncomfortable with it. If we are going to continue I would like a commitment to making the articles at least good. I am not interested in achieving featured article status, but I at least would like to be proud that they are part of Wikipedia. This particular article has been an embarrassment for a long time. A format such as a laundry list, kitchen sink, etc. is hard for me accept; on this topict is not helpful. The article's reference list is enough to indicate to anyone knowledge in the subject matter the quality of the criticism. This article need not be a play tool for anti-Mormons or zealous Evangelicals, but a scholarly article that approaches the subject with a degree of respect and a desire to present honest criticisms. Presently it is the sensationalized banterings of religious fanatics. A narrative format would be an improvment and facilitate presenting criticisms as concepts such as: Scripture, Tradition, and modern day revelation. Sola scriptura, Sola Fide, and the LDS concept of works. Religious exclusivism, major doctrinal differences, etc. The tone of the article should be scholarly and not so condescendingly damning. Reading the Criticism of the Roman Catholic Church provides a good direction for this article. --^StormRider 19:20, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

With respect to Richard, I think you are unfamiliar with the articles that already exist for the LDS Movement. A Criticism of Sacred Texts article would be a massive duplication of content from several other articles including Archaeology and the Book of Mormon, Linguistics and the Book of Mormon, Origin of the Book of Mormon, Historicity of the Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham (criticism already part of the article itself...) etcetera. If you don't agree think about this - what would you put in the Criticism of Sacred texts article? All I can think of is massive copy pasting information from the sections in the other articles which already treat the criticism pretty thoroughly. When it comes to these topics I also think consolidation is better - there are WAY too many articles about the LDS movement on every nitpicky little thing. --Descartes1979 (talk) 17:58, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I am aware of the number of articles that already treat various aspects of Criticism of Mormon sacred texts. One might argue that they should be merged into Criticism of the Book of Mormon or Criticism of Mormon sacred texts. The first problem is that most of these articles are fairly long as it is and any attempt to merge them would result in a really long article. However, it might not be so long as to be unreasonable. I would be open to considering merge proposals of this nature. In truth, I was seriously considering it but backed away from it because I would have had to put on a bunch of merge tags on all the relevant articles and I was too tired at the time and I wasn't 100% convinced it was the right way to go. I figured I'd get around to it but you are raising the issue now so, be my guest, if that is the direction you think we should go in.

Alternatively, we could keep Criticism of the Book of Mormon or Criticism of Mormon sacred texts as a summary article. I do think it might be a bit much to have Criticism of the Book of Mormon, Criticism of the Book of Abraham AND Criticism of Mormon sacred texts. We should have either the first two or the last one but not all three. I am leaning towards the last one but I'm open to hearing what others think about this as I am not 100% convinced of my stance.

--Richard (talk) 20:39, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

As someone who is just watching the splits, not contributing much, my feeling is there should be a roadmap before this gets split and merged much further. I'd tend to go for fewer articles and integration with the main articles, rather than having a whole pile of "criticism of.." articles- on the other hand- the "criticism of" articles are good for going further in depth. tedder (talk) 00:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Here's the deal

I have said this before - the problem with this article is that it is a massive POV fork. All of this (well not ALL - but the major points anyway) should be included in the relevant articles to which they are related. Book of Mormon criticism should go in the main Book of Mormon article. Polygamy criticism should go in the Joseph Smith and Brigham Young articles. Other criticisms should go in the main LDS or History of the LDS articles. I suspect that the reason this article exists in the first place is that non-Mormon editors (such as myself) are sick and tired of Mormon editors removing legitimate criticisms from the main articles - which I have seen a hundred times. For what it is worth that is my perception of the reality here. Is it practical to move the criticisms into the main articles? I don't know - probably not since there would be major opposition by Mormon editors (which is inappropriate - but that is another topic). Do we continue to split this article down into other articles? Not sure if that is goo either. With all the flaws of this article I always thought it was rather useful for people to get a good snapshot of the criticism that has been laid against the LDS church over the years. Maybe there are things that shouldn't be there - but this article does have merit.--Descartes1979 (talk) 17:45, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this and other LDS-related "Criticism of..." articles are POV forks but, for better or worse, there is established precedent for treating religions in this way. All the other major religions have "Criticism of..." articles and, as someone who has worked on several of those articles, I have to say that, official guidelines notwithstanding, this really is the better way to deal with the major religions. Perhaps the only issue is that the main articles on each religion should mention the criticisms more and link appropriately to the criticism articles or sections thereof.

I do not think it is practical to move the criticisms into the main articles, not just because of opposition from the editors of those articles but because doing so tends to make those articles overly long and unreadable.

The purpose of creating smaller subsidiary articles was to make this article to be a summary-style article which provides snapshots of all the major criticisms but in summary form.

--Richard (talk) 20:29, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Book of Abraham???

OK - probably the most important scholarly criticism of the LDS movement (at least in my mind) is the Book of Abraham - which is now completely absent from this article. What happened to it? I am re-adding it. I get so frustrated when stuff like this happens to LDS articles. Maybe it wasn't intentional, but even if it wasn't it demonstrates that editors don't know the subject material, which is equally frustrating. --Descartes1979 (talk) 18:09, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposal for content restructure

OK - I have been looking over this article and the newly splitted articles and here is my view. I think we need to create a set of articles that treat criticism of the LDS movement from different angles. 1st there is the Anti-Mormon article that deals with fear mongering and persecution. There is a Mormonism and Christianity article that deals with criticisms from other christian faiths from a religious perspective. Things like Bible inerrancy, and doctrinal points, etc. Then we rename this article to Secular criticism of Mormonism. Within each of these articles would be a treatment of minor branches of Mormonism such as the FLDS or the Strangites etc. I think we have to differentiate between these three types of criticisms since they are very different. Anti-Mormons will make up lies to bash them. Religious critics have a whole different set of criticisms based on doctrinal points. Secular critics don't care about either of these other perspectives and focus on science, history, etc.

To me this is a much more logical presentation of the information. I have been trying to figure out why this article is so muddled - and I think this will really clear this up. As part of this effort I think we should delete the articles Criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Criticism of Mormon sacred texts and try to move web traffic back to the main articles that represent these topics.

What do you guys think?

--Descartes1979 (talk) 18:27, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, as the guy who implemented these changes, I disagree with your proposal. The major purpose to having Criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is to separate criticism of that church from criticism of Mormonism in general (yes, what's left is mostly pre 1844 criticism of Joseph Smith and the Mormon sacred texts). The rationale for Criticism of Mormon sacred texts is that it is a huge chunk of text that fits logically together. Yes, most of it is Criticism of the Book of Mormon and relatively little is [[Criticism of the Book of Abraham. I argue below that we should merge those two articles into Criticism of Mormon sacred texts. I just hadn't gotten around to putting the merge tags on. --Richard (talk) 20:22, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't you see a problem with that kind of split? There would be massive duplication of information. For example, criticism of polygamy would be applicable for the pre 1844 church, as well as the post 1844 church. Would both of these sections be identical in both articles? Criticism of sacred texts would be applicable to both periods as well. I think as you really start to fill these articles out you will see there is so much duplication that they really should be the same. Also - Criticism of the Book of Abraham redirects to the Book of Abraham since the criticism is already in the article itself. If in this case the criticism is there and there is no POV fork, are you saying you want to pull that info out of the Book of Abraham article and put it in your Criticism of Mormon sacred texts article? Again - it doesn't make sense. I think we need to pause for a second and get a REAL consensus before we continue down this path of splitting the articles. I would even suggest we revert all the changes made in the last few days and discuss this for a good week before we start such a huge effort - especially if there is a chance all of that effort will be wasted in the end.--Descartes1979 (talk) 07:30, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Also - my perspective on the "huge chunk of text" that you refer to regarding the Book of Mormon - originally, about a year and a half ago when this article was taking form, there was at least the objective of making each of these sections much shorter than they are now - since all of them should have main article links to them. For example, if someone wants to drill down into the criticism of the Book of Mormon, they really shouldn't be reading this article, they should be reading Archaeology and the Book of Mormon, Linguistics and the Book of Mormon]] etcetera. This article is just a nice page to redirect people to the correct articles. If there is a large treatment of text in each section, my view is that the section should be consolidated, rather than to bloat it and split it out into another article. In the end, you are just going to refer people to another page anyway right?--Descartes1979 (talk) 07:33, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Where did the content go?

Wow - I consolidated the religious criticisms section - moving it to Mormonism and Christianity and realized how skimpy this article is. What happened to all of this content? There used to be much more substantial criticism here, and now there is almost nothing...--Descartes1979 (talk) 19:01, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

None (or very little) of the content has been deleted. Most of it has been moved elsewhere. I do suspect that, if we leave criticisms of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints out of this article, most of the rest belongs in Mormonism and Christianity and we could almost argue for deleting this article with a redirect to Mormonism and Christianity. I would argue in favor of keeping this article in summary style (i.e. trimming the content down to a summary of what is in other articles). --Richard (talk) 20:18, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that pre 1844 the only criticism of the LDS was religious criticism that is in the Mormonism and Christianity article? Sorry but that is absolutely inaccurate. What about scholarly criticism of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham? Those are definitely applicable to the pre-1844 church. And what about the criticism of Joseph Smith as a charlatan? There are many, many criticisms that do not have anything to do with the relationship with Mormonism and Christianity, and were leveled from a secular standpoint.--Descartes1979 (talk) 07:28, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly with Descartes1979 - a historian doesn't need to have a religious bent, or indeed to discover a contemporary critic with no particular religion or dogmatic ax to grind, in order to lob objective criticism at the pre-1844 church. Best, A Sniper (talk) 07:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Merge tag

Whoever split this article into the other criticism of the LDS church article removed a great deal of criticism that was levied against the church prior to 1844. Homophobia? Racism? Distortion of church history? Book of Abraham? Temple ordinances? Baptism for the Dead? These are ALL applicable prior to 1844 and to other LDS sects - and I am sure there are others. I have tried adding some of them back - but now I feel like the two split articles will end up being largely mirrors of each other - just one of them will ahve a few sections for current criticisms like Prop 8. I don't have time to do more editing, but suffice it to say, I think this all looks ridiculous. I am adding a merge tag to the articles rather than try to reconcile them. --Descartes1979 (talk) 19:21, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

• Merge until we can organize this effort a little better. --Descartes1979 (talk) 19:26, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The fact that this article is so fractured and duplicates so much other content on Wikipedia.... I've never been a huge fan of this page and even think this page ought to be deleted, not withstanding the "consensus" on keeping the article. Both articles are POV hacks that have little to do with objectivity and neutrality.... supposedly pillars of Wikipedia. The fact that content has been moved and even the theme of this article is lacking focus should speak volumes about the rationale of even keeping the article in the first place.

The reason this article was renamed in the first place is due to still another POV push that somehow the "other" LDS movement denominations/churches/philosophical branches that are different from the LDS Church are somehow above the fray and somehow distinctively unique in their criticism and that the year 1844 is somehow a remarkable year. I do admit that 1844 is when many of these groups took a different philosophical tact, but that doesn't by itself justify different articles or deal with the lack of focus that this article contains.

This is a hate-filled article with a point by point hit list of reasons why the LDS Church and anything related to Mormonism is wrong. That Mormonism (itself a politically charged word and why it is avoided via article name change) is currently the "bad boy" among certain "intellectual" groups just make it all that worse. So in this sense, I guess it really doesn't matter. Both articles violate basic pillars of Wikipedia and can be covered much better in other articles already existing on Wikipedia with both better focus and objectivity. The only thing this article really serve to offer is a place for those spewing bitterness to have a place on Wikipedia. --Robert Horning (talk) 10:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict with Robert Horning)

• Oppose - Criticism of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is 65kb long. Merging all of it back into this article would make this article too long again. I have no problem if someone more knowledgeable than I brings back important pre-1844 criticisms or even post-1844 criticisms that are applicable to all Mormon/LDS churches.
  • I would suggest that we have to be careful with criticisms like homophobia and racism. Is the church homophobic (a POV term) or does it just have a doctrine against homosexuality that is consistent with the doctrines of other non-LDS Christian churches? We must not criticize the LDS movement for doctrines that it shares with other Chrisitan churches. Such criticisms belong in the Criticism of Christianity article. They can be referenced here but we should not give the reader the impression that the LDS church is unique in this stance against homosexuality.
  • As for racism, this is a highly controversial topic. I am not knowledgeable enough to know if Mormons were more racist than their contemporaries in the 19th century. There is a controversial charge that Mormons have been more racist than some other Christian churches in the 20th century in that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has not had many African-American leaders. (I forget the details.) But is this a criticism of the LDS movement? I remember reading the website of one Strangite LDS church that insists that they have never been racist.
  • I'm OK with having the Criticism of Temple Ordinances here if it is the case that these ordinances are observed by all or most LDS churches.
  • What is the point about Prop 8? This is a criticism of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is it not?
  • Are we saying that most of the criticisms levelled at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are also levelled at the other LDS churches?
  • Distortion of church history - what is the issue here exactly? Are we saying that all the LDS churches are accused of having distorted church history in the same way and to the same extent?
  • --Richard (talk) 10:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Couple of thoughts:

• • • If you don't like the length - condense the content! I have been saying that for like a year now, that this is a summary article, not a place to go into any depth!
    • As for racism, yes it is a controversial topic - but I think the specific criticism here for the LDS church, and several other LDS branches is the concept that African Americans cannot hold the priesthood (some still believe that). So you can see this topic would have to be covered here and in the other article - another duplication.
    • Temple ordinances - another duplication
    • Re: Prop 8 - please read my post again, I was saying that a topic like that would be one of the only differences between this article and the new article you split out because it only would be in your article - not here.
    • Re: Same criticisms levelled at other LDS faiths - ABSOLUTELY! That is my whole point! For example, if all (or most) believe in the Book of Mormon then there is another duplicate between this article and the other. If all (or most) believe that Joseph Smith's practice of polygamy was inspired - again it would have to be here and there. If all (or most) believe in Baptism for the Dead, it would have be be here and there. If all (or most) believe in the temple ordinances established by Joseph Smith, then there is yet another duplicate. Can you see the problem you are creating here? If these two articles are going to exist without one being deleted, I forsee a huge duplication of content. And you know what, if that is what the concensus is, then that is fine - but to me it just sounds like a ton of effort for not much benefit at all.
    • Re: Distortion of history - YES, all LDS faiths have been criticized for this. Take a look at List of sects in the Latter Day Saint movement for a list of the denominations that exist. And no - not all of them are small in size.

--Descartes1979 (talk) 21:00, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose - The LDS Church is the face of Mormonism. All the other churches that descended from Joseph Smith, in the eyes of public perception, are virtually non-existent. However, each is unique and can be approached from a different critical position. What is needed is to have an LDS Church criticism article, but I oppose any effort to accept that all we need to do is move crap around and we will end up in a better place. Review the history of the page and you will find exactly who created this laundry list of anti-Mormon screed where no effort was made to distinguish between valid criticism and base falsehood and innuendo. I do agree that having a single article where anti-Mormon editors can run wild to focus their vitriol, but in the end it against all major policies of Wikipedia. Move forward, produce good articles by emulating those articles that are similar. There is no comparison between this article and the Criticism of the Roman Catholic Church article; absolutely nothing but the names compare. I think that is evidence enough that something is seriously wrong with the current condition of this article and the new one created. --^StormRider 15:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Some thoughts:
    • Are you saying you want to only have a Criticism of the LDS church article and remove the Criticism of the LDS movement (movement wide)? If so, then why split them out - why not just rename this article, and hone the content? I would not necessarily be opposed to that kind of effort.
    • I disagree with you that we should have an article where "anti-mormons" can run rampant - I think that the only criticisms that should be included in the Wikipedia are valid criticisms, not the garbage that anti-mormons would include. (Although I suspect that you and I might disagree on what qualifies as "anti-mormon" - but that is a debate for another day on a case by case basis right?)
    • Re: against Wikipedia policy - I couldn't agree more - I have said time and time again, that this article is a massive POV fork. But I have been overruled time and time again, so this article remains. As long as this content is not folded into the main articles they treat, it will never be in compliance with Wikipedia guidelines.
  • --Descartes1979 (talk) 21:06, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• Merge. The church's shameful involvement in the toppling of our equal marriage law here in California is absolutely applicable and pertinent. Mormons will never again get the same looks as they did before November 4, 2008, and everyone knows that. Funding has dropped, membership has dropped... It's silly to not mention even once in this article (minus the photo) Proposition 8.

It's not about partisanship or anything of the sort, it's a reality. The Mormons played a massive role in funding the initiative and they have been criticized. For that, merging both articles is needed. If homophobia was not a factor in their involvement, no involvement would have occurred. GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 18:03, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

You stated "funding has dropped, membership has dropped..." do you have any reliable sources for that bit of exaggeration? It reeks of some of the worst forms of propaganda, but if it makes you feel better, please keep repeating it. Also, homophobia has nothing to do with a belief in the family unit. Homosexuality is diametrically opposed to a reproductive family unit. That is not homophobia, but just reality. --^StormRider 07:29, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

If you attempt to school a homosexual on the definition of homophobia, you are going to be unsuccessful. There are many adjectives you may use to discuss the topic of homosexuality, but altering one to sound more favorable to you is not smart.

Omitting very pertinent information and events from this article is not doing any good. Sidestepping the shame that Mormons have been served this past year does no justice to the inclusiveness of this article. I was raised Catholic. Does the Pope, my priest, my God father, or do I deny the Inquisition? To deny such things would not be helpful, and it would, in fact, make me look silly.

The setup of Mormons' family units is neither interesting nor a good topic for this article. Perhaps I should copy and paste the title of this article here to remind everyone, because apparently it's been forgotten: "Criticism of the Latter Day Saint Movement".GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 00:23, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

First of all, I would like to point out that there is a difference between a policy and a guideline. WP:Content forking is a guideline, not a policy and thus exceptions can be made based on common sense. Secondly, I would like to suggest that you review the section on "Criticism articles" in WP:Content forking which says "There is currently no consensus whether a "Criticism of .... " article is always a POV fork." I don't know how long that sentence has been there but it does, IMO, represent the current practice as found "in the wild". For examples of "Criticism of..." articles, look at Wikipedia:Criticism#Separate articles devoted to criticism, trivia or reception (history) which shows that there are multiple ways of handling the "Criticism of..." issue and there exists a Criticism of X article for exery major religion.

That said, I would like to suggest that the multiple "Criticism of..." articles approach can be made to work if come up with a plan and work assiduously to implement and enforce it. It is true that there is inherently a lot of overlap amongst these articles and, were it not for length, I would try to consolidate a lot of them. As I've expressed elsewhere, it's crazy to have so many articles criticizing different aspects of the Book of Mormon. I mean, an article on the historicity of the Book of Mormon, and one on archaeology and another one on linguistics? I have to think that, even despite length issues, these would be better all rolled into a single article titled Criticism of the Book of Mormon. If you want to say I'm ugly, fine but you don't need to write a book on why my legs are are ugly, a separate one on why my thighs are ugly and then a separate one on why my knees are ugly.

So, if I feel that way about Criticism of the Book of Mormon, why don't I want everything rolled up into a single Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement article? This will sound like a flip-flop from what I wrote above but I really think this article was way too long and, more importantly, unreadable before I started chopping it up. Yes, there is a lot of overlap between Criticism of the Latter Day Saint movement and Criticism of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but with some effort we can find ways to make it work. For example, much of the "movement-wide" criticism can be summarized here and in the Criticism of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints article and then detailed in more specific articles. In fact, this article could be used to help differentiate the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Mormon churches from other LDS movement churches by making explicit which criticisms of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Mormon churches are NOT applicable to the other LDS movement churches and vice versa.

By the way, one big problem that I have had in figuring out how to organize these articles is the "Criticisms of Joseph Smith" section. Somehow, I am perfectly happy with having "Criticism of X" articles where X is a major religion such as Christianity, Islam or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, I feel less comfortable having a "Criticisms of Joseph Smith" article. I think the problem is that this opens the door to having a "Criticisms of Y" article for every notable person. Sounds like madness to me. So... what should we do with these criticisms? To the extent that the criticisms are encylopedic, I think they should go in the Joseph Smith article although I'm not 100% confident of this and would like to hear what other editors think.--Richard (talk) 23:07, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

BoA

Just a minor note. The article stated "Mormons accept the Book of Abraham as a divinely translated document." I clarified the statement that most do. There are a number of sects within the movement that do not. Examples include the RLDS (now CoC) and the Strangite branches. There are likely other Prairie Saint denominations that do not either. Surv1v4l1st ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 01:17, 24 July 2009 (UTC)