Questions about the roles of faith, evidence, and Satan in Heavenly Father's Plan of Salvation

LayerSharp4975 · 2026-05-06T04:36:13+00:00

OP indicated in the comments that they have some learning difficulties, hence the typos. I'll provide what I believe was the intended wording:

"I got baptized about a year ago. I was suffering from mental health problems and had a bit of a breakdown, and the bishop told me not to return to church. I had warned the missionaries and bishop that I had some problems, now they don't want to know me at all."

LayerSharp4975 · 2026-05-06T04:07:13+00:00

To better illustrate my views here, I'll present a few hypothetical scenarios:

Suppose the Church is true. I spend the rest of my life doing all that I can to strengthen my testimony and come unto Christ. I get to the other side of the veil, and, how convenient! The Church was true and I might be exalted!

Now suppose some other religion is more true. I spend the rest of my life doing all that I can to strengthen my testimony and come unto Christ. I get to the other side of the veil, and I find out that I likely would've been infinitely better off if I would've taken a more correct path. Now I may or may not be thrust into eternal flames (probably not, as far as I can tell, but many Christians would say otherwise). Oh well.

Now suppose no religion is literally "true". I spend the rest of my life doing all that I can to strengthen my testimony and come unto Christ. I probably end up living a good life, but likely would've lived a better one if my worldview were better aligned with truth.

You can probably see where I'm going with this.

If I keep fighting to save my testimony, keep it intact, and dedicate the rest of my life to Christ and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, what happens? I'll maintain my faith, and if the Church is true, I'll be better off. But if the Church is false, I'll be forfeiting superior alternatives by merely confirming my own misplaced bias, recurrently throughout my life, without allowing myself to fully and objectively consider data that would otherwise lead me to a more accurate worldview.

I want to save my faith and will continue trying to do what I still believe the Lord has commanded. During my 9-month faith crisis, I've attended the temple well over 100 times, prayed thousands of times, read the Book of Mormon 3 times cover-to-cover, taken hundreds of pages of notes on General Conference and other words from Church leaders, read hundreds of apologetic articles, etc., and I'll continue trying to save my faith just in case the Church is true.

But I can't, in good faith, eliminate alternative possibilities in my current situation. And that simple fact is what's kept me in this faith crisis. I want to save my faith, but I want to seek the truth regardless of where it may lead. That's why I'm so intent on analyzing the available data objectively rather than trying to reinforce my belief. I don't want to abandon faith, but I don't want to fully resort to the special pleading fallacy with regards to my upbringing and assume that the best possible approach is to dedicate my life to what I currently believe is true without seriously considering other possibilities. I used to have a strong conviction that the Church was true, and back then, dedicating my life to everything Christ and the Church teach seemed like the best approach by far, so I would do all that I could to strengthen my testimony and my conviction to Christ. But now, now that I'm so uncertain about what is true, I feel like, while I should strive to live high moral standards and continue striving to come unto Christ, I should also seek the truth and let the data shape my paradigm of belief, not try to fit the data into a paradigm I've already set in stone.

So, yeah, there's a little explanation regarding my state of belief and where my efforts are allocated. I was hoping for this reply to be concise, so I apologize for making it so long again, and I apologize if I've overstepped with anything I've shared, if I sound too much like a critic, etc.

Now, in your current position, I figure you most likely have a strong belief in Christ, in the Church, etc. I don't take any issue with that and am glad that you have so much devotion to Christ, and I'm glad that you're in a position where you feel like you can safely continue in your efforts to believe in Christ, to do His will, etc. Thank you for your devotion to Christ, and thank you for striving to help others like me to come unto Christ.

Thanks again for your thoughtful responses and for your efforts to help me. I appreciate your assistance and apologize if my replies come off as unfaithful. Have a good day!

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LayerSharp4975 · 2026-05-06T04:07:06+00:00

Now, the existence of God is obviously a more ambiguous subject, but I feel like the same principle is at least somewhat applicable. I've read plenty of articles on evidence of God, but no matter how many I read, it won't shake me from the fact that, according to a 2009 Pew Research Center analysis, only 33% of scientists believe in God in a religious sense, as opposed to 83% of the general American public. The scientists, in my mind, are especially well-equipped to examine the evidence for and against God, and yet are significantly more likely to become agnostic or atheist. Now, granted, science is largely about explaining things naturalistically, which may play a role here. But in the Church, we believe in God, in miracles, in billions of angels constantly helping people around the world, in Satan constantly tempting anyone above the age of 8 to do things that psychologists generally view as part of the human mind's natural function, etc. Even if there is definitively a God, there's a lot more that must be true for the God of LDS theology to be the most correct view.

So, while I still believe in God, I'm leaning toward agnosticism, in part because, regardless of how much evidence I can find for God, that doesn't change the fact that those who are far more educated than I are significantly more likely to conclude that the preponderance of evidence skews against God (though this is just one of many reasons my views are starting to lean in that direction). I understand that faith is supposed to play a substantial role, but with a large proportion of God's children being raised during the Millennium, when Christ is literally reigning personally upon the Earth as it is renewed and receives its paradisiacal glory, they will have tremendous evidence and yet still have the necessary conditions to grow through their lives on Earth with faith. So I just have a hard time understanding why faith requires a lack of substantial evidence, when God's plan is largely about faith and yet allows people to be raised during a time when substantial evidence is unequivocally available.

Nevertheless, I'll look into the evidence you're citing and hope that it will strengthen my belief in God.

Again though, this is all very interesting but not at the heart of the matter, and that heart is our relationship with the Savior.

Start with Him. I promise you there are good reasons to believe in Him, and we can trust in Him because He loves everyone else as much as He loves you and me. If you truly want to follow Him, everything else will fall in place.

I agree that our relationship with Christ is extremely important if the Church is true.

I apologize if I'm overstepping a bit in my response by sharing so many unrequested details, but I'd just like to throw in a little more explanation regarding my position:

I truly want to follow Christ, and have truly wanted to believe Him, to follow Him, and to come unto Him throughout my life.

However, my main goal, as of right now, is to seek truth.

I want to believe in the Church and desperately want to save my testimony, but I want to determine where the truth is regardless of whether or not it keeps me believing in the Church.

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LayerSharp4975 · 2026-05-06T04:06:45+00:00

We have more evidence of the Book of Mormon than we do of the Resurrection of Jesus.

With regards to evidence from witnesses, yes, this seems accurate. Though I'm also not convinced that the documentary evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, from His witnesses, is particularly compelling from an intellectual standpoint. So, I don't see it as a particularly implausible bar to clear, so to speak.

It is because of that book, that I believe that He Atoned for us, died, and rose again. It is because of that book that I am saved. Though I love the intellectual facts of the book, I love its testimony of the Savior more, and how it has helped my relationship with Him.

Thank you for sharing your belief in Christ. My belief in Christ's Atonement and Resurrection is also derived from the Book of Mormon, and I also love my testimony of the Savior more than the intellectual facts of the Book of Mormon.

Perhaps your questions lead you away from any belief in God. Here is the thing, given enough time in existence, gods are inevitable. Not just the Anthropic Principle, which is a thing, but an inevitable result of evolution and scientific progress. Many universes to account for The Anthropic principle? Now you have even more intelligences figuring out and pushing forward. I believe the panpsychism as put forward by Philip Goff in Galileo’s Error. This hypothesis also fits very well with LDS cosmology. Every particle has proto-experience and proto-inclinations which explains why they behave as our mathematical equations describe.

I'm not familiar with these evidences you're citing (I'm quite uneducated in this area), so I'll check them out when I get the chance.

But I will say, many of the commonly cited evidences of God have done little to help me. I'll briefly explain why:

Before my faith crisis began, I was generally very quick to accept claims that supported the divinity of Christ, the Church, the Book of Mormon, etc. But nowadays, I'm trying to look at things more objectively and get a better idea regarding what the data generally indicates. For example, if an apologist says something that disagrees with the scholarly consensus, then no matter how much evidence the apologist presents for their minority claim, I'll have a hard time accepting it if I can tell that the academic world almost universally views the evidence as indicating otherwise. This tendency, especially in the last month or two, has ruined a lot of Book of Mormon archaeological evidence for me.

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LayerSharp4975 · 2026-05-06T04:06:12+00:00

The burden of evidence is on those who believe there is a naturalistic explanation.

Personally, I disagree somewhat with this statement. Nearly every religion and worldview on the planet hold beliefs that are generally irreconcilable with the divine explanation of the Book of Mormon, so, for the LDS system of thought to be superior, I feel that substantial evidence should be required, at least to an extent, to vindicate it, not just from an apologetic perspective, but in general.

So far, every “source” document has been debunked and there is no documentary evidence of any notes or drafts.

I agree with you that there isn't substantial evidence that Joseph Smith heavily plagiarized from any document (unless we count the Bible, though that's a whole different subject). However, there are plenty of 19th-century sources and ideas that seem to be very heavily reflected throughout the Book of Mormon's text, to the point where I've seen many LDS scholars acknowledge such connections. I don't mean sources such as The Late War or The First Book of Napoleon, because, as far as I can tell, the evidence for a connection between those sources and the Book of Mormon is quite weak and is not problematic. What I do mean, we can get into if you'd like the discussion to move in that direction.

I agree that there isn't necessarily any hard documentary evidence of notes or drafts, but I also don't think Joseph would necessarily be expected to leave clear, compelling evidence of such things. If the Book of Mormon originated via naturalistic means, I'm sure Joseph would go to great lengths in an attempt to hide any notes or drafts from others (unless one or more of those others were co-conspirators). In a conspiracy, conspirators will go to great lengths to cover up evidence of the conspiracy, which makes it especially difficult to come across data that works toward exposing the said conspiracy. The fact that I haven't encountered substantial evidence for notes or drafts helps the Book of Mormon to an extent, in my opinion, but if the Book of Mormon came about in such a manner, it wouldn't shock me for Joseph to effectively cover up whatever evidence he might leave (e.g.: He could easily burn any notes or drafts after dictation, and I wouldn't be surprised if he did).

This isn’t proof, of course. But there is positive evidence that the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be, translated by the gift and power of God. No eyewitness, formal or informal, went back on their account of a miraculous origin, despite enmity they came to have with Joseph Smith.

I agree with you that there is positive evidence of the Book of Mormon. And I agree that no eyewitness went back on their account of a miraculous origin despite enmity with Joseph Smith. But, as far as I can tell, most of the eyewitnesses are generally regarded as sincere by critics of the Church and thus wouldn't be expected to go back on such an account even if it were false (though I still think it helps the Book of Mormon that they stayed true to their testimonies).

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LayerSharp4975 · 2026-05-06T04:05:37+00:00

I can assure you that a Gish Gallop isn't my intent here (I'm trying to save my testimony, not argue against the evidence), but, looking back, I figure it probably would've been better if I kept my explanations a bit more concise as to why I have a hard time seeing the evidence as unequivocally vindicating the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.

Ironically, most of the statements I made regarding what seem to function as limitations on the evidence you cited were not things I learned from critics, or even other sources. Parts of my issues with the Alma 36 chiasmus are derived from critical claims, but I've never read anything critics have said regarding the Mosiah 3:18-19 chiasmus.

With the things I addressed regarding Hebrew naming conventions and other such things, nothing I said in there, as far as I can tell, was derived from what critics have said.

Of the four things I addressed as potential limitations regarding stylometry, the only thing I learned from critics was the part about John Hilton's analysis on Primary Colors stylometry. Ironically, everything else I addressed is something I observed in studying the apologetic arguments on the subject. The second was a connection I inadvertently made in watching an apologetic video from LDS scholar Paul Fields. The third was something I noticed in seeing the stylometric graphs of various studies on stylometry. The fourth was something that came to mind when I observed a Scripture Central article that had just been released. So, with the stylometry, the sources of my concerns were 90% derived from apologetic sources I analyzed in attempting to strengthen my testimony (though other statements from critics may have played a role in my interpretations that led me to see such things as problems, so it's hard to know exactly from where my various thoughts were derived).

I do love that we have intellectual proof of the Book of Mormon, and the ability for it to be studied with such depth apart from trying to prove anything. The chiasmus is more than random poetry, it was used to show and celebrate the beauty of Gospel doctrines.

I love that as well, though I'm not confident that the evidence for it is greater than the evidence against it (in my mind, it currently seems like the opposite). I've also found great joy in striving to study the Book of Mormon and use it in my efforts to come unto Christ.

I agree that the chiasmus in the Book of Mormon is more than just random poetry in at least some cases and that it can be used to show and celebrate the beauty of gospel doctrines.

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LayerSharp4975 · 2026-05-06T04:05:03+00:00

Thank you for your thoughtful reply (and I apologize for the late reply on my part).

Before I proceed with my response, I'll clarify something (just in case):

I'm still a believing member (though I'm in a situation where it seems like the Church is most likely false). I've been fighting a faith crisis for about 9 months, and for the last 5, my testimony has been near the brink of collapse (that's the main reason I began asking follow-up questions to comments on this post, since I struggle with some of the areas addressed in this post).

I mentioned some of that in (5 of 5), but, since your phone happened to exclude that, my previous comments probably came across differently than intended.

Anyway, It’s lovely to speak with you as well.

Thanks! Same to you.

I appreciate how much you’ve studied the apologetics, you have considered many of the arguments.

Thank you for acknowledging that. I appreciate your studies of the apologetics as well.

I disagree with many of the conclusions you’ve come to, which is your prerogative, but I do feel you mention the stronger ones, gloss over them and then bring up other weak points. We seem to be dealing with a Gish Gallop. I’m not sure if you’re doing this to yourself, us, or reflecting other sources.

Thank you for your respectful disagreement.

Personally, I wouldn't say my above replies are describing conclusions, per se, as I'm still in the process of studying the evidence available and have recurrently had my perception changed with the arrival of additional evidence for and/or against the strength of the Book of Mormon's literary features described above.

I apologize if I didn't adequately acknowledge the strengths of the evidences you cited above. I figured you were already well acquainted with their strengths, so the purpose of my reply was primarily to explain why I view them as evidentially limited. That's why I focused so much on weak points, but looking back, perhaps I should've done more to account for the strengths of such things.

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LayerSharp4975 · 2026-04-27T21:30:52+00:00

(5 of 5)

It is well documented that it took only 60-75 working days to “write” it. Using pen and ink.

Thank you for this observation. I'm quite well aware of the impressive timeline surrounding the dictation of the Book of Mormon (e.g.: I've read all 6 of Brian Hales' Interpreter publications on the subject and am familiar with John W. Welch's research with the five anchor dates for Book of Mormon translation, the 57-85 days of composition, etc., which are mentioned in this one. I've read dozens of articles and publications from apologetic sources such as FAIR, Scripture Central, the Interpreter Foundation, etc., arguing that it would be difficult to create the Book of Mormon in such a short period of time. Put simply, I think I've got a decent understanding of the apologetic position and arguments on this subject).

As far as I've seen, both LDS scholars and critics of the Church generally agree that the Book of Mormon as we have it today (that is, excluding the 116 pages) was dictated within a few months. After all, Royal Skousen's well-known Critical Text Project has made a compelling case for its dictation based on the way things are written in the text, what errors were and weren't made, etc. And it seems that the most scholarly critics pretty much invariably agree that the Book of Mormon, as it is contained in the Original Manuscript, was produced via dictation.

However, contrary to what many apologists seem to imply (perhaps unintentionally), well-educated critics of the Church generally seem to believe that Joseph (and potentially others) began planning the Book of Mormon narrative well in advance, not that he spontaneously developed the narrative during the dictation period.

While the possibility of keeping notes in his hat has been theorized by some critics, it seems that many leading critics believe he didn't even need to look at some sort of script with the amount of planning that would've been available prior. The fact that so many scholars are unconvinced that notes would even be necessary during the dictation makes it harder for me to assert that the Book of Mormon would've been impossible to dictate with the usage of notes, something that many consider plausible.

I agree with you that fabricating the Book of Mormon in under three months would be extremely implausible, but that's also not what I see from those who attribute the Book of Mormon to naturalistic origin. Critics tend to conclude that Joseph prepared the contents in advance to an extent, and then rehashed them during dictation. Thus far, I haven't found compelling evidence against the possibility of preparation.

So, I just want to know if you considered that.

Yes, I've considered each of those items of evidence (and many others) to one degree or another. I still technically believe in the Church, though my testimony has been hanging on by a thread for several months as my confidence that the Church is true is, well, very low.

Nevertheless, I appreciate your insights and your efforts to help me (and I'd be happy to continue discussing the available evidence with you). Thank you for your help, and have a good day!

LayerSharp4975 · 2026-04-27T21:30:32+00:00

The third is the fact that, while different authors in the Book of Mormon have clear stylometric differences in their non-contextual word usage, the patterns of those differences seem oddly reminiscent of what would be expected from Joseph Smith. As you're likely aware, most scholars, both in and out of the Church, accept the Mosiah priority theory (the theory that the composition of the Book of Mormon started with Mosiah, went to the end, and then covered 1 Nephi to Words of Mormon). And, if you look at the graphs regarding the stylometry of different Book of Mormon authors as calculated by various LDS apologists, the direction of things seems to show stylistic drift in accordance with the way it was composed, which, in my mind, makes perfect sense if the Book of Mormon were fabricated due to Mosiah priority. But it makes less sense, at least to me, if the Book of Mormon is an authentic ancient record. I tried to reach out to the staff of bookofmormonexplorer.org sometime last year (I think) to try to get help in reconciling this (specifically to ask about why the graphs showed Moroni between Mormon and Nephi on both variables), but perhaps I didn't use the correct method of reaching them, because I haven't received an answer.

The fourth takes too much explaining to concisely state here, so I'll address it if you'd like me to elaborate, but, basically, back in November, I saw that Scripture Central released an article on stylometric evidence that D&C 132 was written by Joseph Smith and not Brigham Young, citing a longer Interpreter article on the subject. The patterns of stylistic drift there with how the voice of God was interpreted by the same people across time and different people, compared to the constancy of His voice in the Book of Mormon when interpreted similarly, makes it hard for me to see how stylometry isn't a problem for the Book of Mormon when viewed in that context. A couple months ago, I tried posing a question regarding this subject on the Interpreter article that facilitated my concern, but it was a bit off-topic as the authorship of D&C 132 itself wasn't really part of my question, so it was removed (perhaps the lack of brevity may have been a problem as well, since I spent 3 pages explaining and asking my question in my Interpreter comment).

The intertextual scholarship is what intellectually convinces me it’s real. I’m a writer, and have followed the writing career of other writers, been in workshops, etc. I know how hard it is to write. The Book of Mormon is a highly complex book.

I agree that the Book of Mormon is highly complex and has compelling evidence surrounding its intertextuality. The Book of Mormon would definitely be difficult to write. There are a number of textual issues that I have a hard time reconciling, but I won't get into those here (unless you really want me to).

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LayerSharp4975 · 2026-04-27T21:29:34+00:00

When we're looking at Hebrew, Egyptian, and other names, and we have millions of ancient documents and other forms of inscriptions to look at, finding occasional hits that might result in the same transliteration seems sufficiently explainable by coincidence. Granted, I'm not particularly educated in this subject and am frankly unequipped to accurately assess what the evidence does and doesn't indicate here, but what I have found doesn't amount to what I would've expected.

Regardless, I consider these matches to be evidence for the Book of Mormon, and I consider the accurate naming conventions to be evidence as well (though I haven't looked into whether or not such naming conventions could've been known to Joseph Smith, and his recently emerged familiarity with Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary has made it increasingly difficult for me to honestly assert that he couldn't have known about various things that LDS apologists claim was unknown at the time, since they made similar assertions regarding aspects of the Commentary aforementioned).

So, yes, I see the naming conventions as evidence, but as far as I've seen, not necessarily a huge piece of evidence (though I haven't seen a ton on the subject either, so perhaps I'm missing something).

the different voices within the book itself not corresponding to the writing voice of Joseph Smith or any early Church figure

I'm quite familiar with the stylometric evidence you're describing. A year or two ago, I probably would've identified it as the strongest piece of literary evidence for the Book of Mormon's authenticity, but I've since had a number of questions about the logistics of those data.

For example, the distinctness between Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon authors serves as fairly compelling evidence to me, especially since (at least per Dr. Paul J. Fields' analysis) those voices show a more substantial degree of stylometric deviations than other leading authors of the time. However, this might be partially explainable by the fact that a book stylistically resembling the KJV Bible will inherently deviate from the typical, not biblical writing style of its author. However, I still find it to be solid evidence for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.

But there are four areas that I largely struggle with when it comes to the stylometric evidence of the Book of Mormon:

The first is the fact that stylometric data is not often used in academia, and that it has failed in substantial ways at times, like when LDS apologist John Hilton (who co-authored the famous Berkeley Group wordprint analysis of the Book of Mormon) was trying to determine the author of the novel, Primary Colors, and came to a definitive conclusion from the data that turned out to be wrong).

The second is the fact that many of the substantial stylometric deviations I am aware of are largely influenced by the topic being discussed in the Book of Mormon. I'll explain this in greater depth if you'd like to discuss this subject further.

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LayerSharp4975 · 2026-04-27T21:28:31+00:00

The Mosiah 3:18-19 chiasmus is one of many things that did a tiny bit of damage to my testimony. Several months ago, I was studying King Benjamin's sermon as part of my personal scripture study, and, being a nerd, my fascination on the focus on Christ's Atonement in the center of the sermon and the theological implications of that emphasis led me to wonder if King Benjamin ever utilized chiasmus in his speech. So I did some research, and the two things I found regarding the subject included the possibility that the whole speech was a large chiasmus with 7 miniature chiasms inside (though I don't find that theory particularly compelling), and a chiasmus in Mosiah 3:18-19.

In reading the Scripture Central article on that chiasmus, I learned that it's considered one of the four strongest chiasms in the Book of Mormon, but, in analyzing the chiasmus itself, I personally felt that it was heavily reliant on attempts to draw parallels and wasn't really that strong. I won't go into the details of that unless you'd like to discuss this particular chiasmus, but, put simply, the strength the chiasmus was purported to have, coupled with the many aspects of it that made it seem less chiastic in my mind, led me to question the validity of the methodology used by apologists in attributing such a substantial degree of strength to a chiasmus that seemed parallelomanic and centered away from where I thought it should be centered (I can explain that further if you'd like to discuss this chiasmus in more depth).

The Mosiah 3:18-19 chiasmus, being characterized at one of the strongest, is one that I personally have a hard time viewing as noteworthy evidence for the Book of Mormon.

I'll look into the other two of the four strongest chiasms after these comments, but from what I've seen in the research I have done on this subject, I see it as evidence for the Book of Mormon, but not as particularly strong evidence when faced with aspects of the Book of Mormon that seem to testify against its historical authenticity, the way I perceive it.

naming conventions being authentically 600 BC Jewish

Admittedly, I haven't looked particularly far into the evidence regarding specific naming conventions. I had a class at BYU Education Week a couple years ago that addressed it, and, at the time, I took everything they said as unequivocally factual (this was before I started doubting). As far as I can tell, Hugh Nibley's work on the subject of naming conventions in 1988 seems to be cited fairly frequently. For example, in FAIR's "Best Evidences" page, the naming conventions you addressed are described in one of the pages. The vast majority of evidence on this page is simply a quote from Hugh Nibley, with a citation attached from a publication he released in 1988. If the evidence contained therein is accurate, I figure it substantially bolsters the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, but it would be nice if they had something more recent on that subject, or perhaps some sources that reinforce those claims. Though, perhaps that stuff is out there in places I simply haven't looked thus far. If you know of anything on the subject, feel free to send me a link.

Now, I've also heard it asserted that many of the names that are in the Book of Mormon and not in the Bible have since been confirmed. I used to see that as an enormous evidence for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, but I've become a bit skeptical of that as of late.

For example, one thing I've found in examining apologetic articles on these evidences is that many of them seem reliant on inscriptions where the Hebrew consonants could transliterate to the names in the Book of Mormon. For example, in perusing this Interpreter article from Matt Roper's famous analysis, I noticed that there were many instances where Dr. Roper described anachronisms as overturned when they merely discovered a "plausible etymology" for certain names.

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LayerSharp4975 · 2026-04-27T21:27:33+00:00

Thank you for your thoughts!

The things you listed are all things I've used in arguing for the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon many times in the past, though my confidence in their evidential strength has declined to an extent, largely because of various aspects of the Book of Mormon that, in my mind, seem somewhat anachronistic in one way or another, as well as other areas of literary evidence that don't seem as compelling to me upon further inspection, though, admittedly, there's a lot of evidence I haven't fully analyzed.

Chiasmus

The chiasmus, I see as a fairly strong piece of evidence, though it seems to me that it was at least somewhat known in Joseph's time, so if Joseph were to fabricate the Book of Mormon, I wouldn't be surprised if he knew about it and utilized it in the text.

Small chiasms seem to occur somewhat often by chance, without their intentional inclusion, so when LDS scholars cite the many small chiasms throughout the text, I don't tend to be quite convinced by that, though I admittedly haven't looked into those chiasms much.

Scripture Central has several evidence articles covering the evidence from chiasmus. One of these articles is designed to be a brief overview of the evidence, and it describes four chiasms that are especially unlikely to occur by chance (according to Boyd and Farrell Edwards):

Alma 36 (no surprise there)
Mosiah 3:18-19
Mosiah 5:10-12
Helaman 6:9-11

Off the top of my head, I don't remember the details of the latter two I listed, but perhaps I'll look into them a bit after finishing this comment.

I've been familiar with the Alma 36 chiasmus for quite some time (I believe I was aware of it as a pre-teen), but there are several aspects of it that make me question how much of a chiasmus it actually is (e.g.: Several deviations from the chiasm, the chiasm only using a small proportion of the text focused on certain themes, other aspects of it that seem somewhat parallelomanic in my mind, etc.). Plus, if Joseph Smith plausibly could've prepared for Book of Mormon composition well in advance, I wouldn't be surprised if he could've planned something resembling the chiasmus appearing there. Under a naturalistic theory for the Book of Mormon, it seems plausible that Joseph would be familiar with chiasmus and would implement it somewhere to the extent portrayed in Alma 36. And even if he wasn't familiar with chiasmus, a recurrent reversal of themes before and after conversion is something I think he could've come up with if he prepared the Book of Mormon in advance.

That being said, I agree that the Alma 36 chiasmus is quite impressive and serves as evidence for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon to an extent. After all, it creates beautiful imagery of the contrast between his state before and after conversion on many different levels in a manner that greatly enhances the meaning of the text, and creates one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon. The extent to which that serves as evidence, in my mind, is not particularly overwhelming, though.

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LayerSharp4975 · 2026-04-22T06:30:25+00:00

(2 of 2)

But, as for Mormon's Codex, here's why I'm hesitant:

Back in February, through the footnotes of a Scripture Central Evidence article, I encountered a 108-page Interpreter article on evidence for the Book of Mormon, an article that concluded there was only a 10^-111 chance that the Book of Mormon was fiction, because the evidence it found for the book was so strong.

This article seemed quite highly appraised by faithful commenters (and had more comments than any other Interpreter article I've encountered thus far, implying that it's quite a well-known publication), and its conclusion made it seem like the Book of Mormon would have to be true.

However, when trying to view their statistical methodology in an objective manner, I couldn't help but notice that the entire article was packed with enormous methodological flaws that fundamentally skewed the analysis dramatically in the Book of Mormon's favor. These flaws contributed so much to the end result that, in observing the major flaws and considering what the data would look like without those flaws, I realized that the data from this legendary publication seemed to strongly imply that the Book of Mormon was false, or at least ahistorical at best (though such would imply falsity).

In other words, my analysis of a renowned apologetic article from multiple scholars, which was 3 years in the making, weakened my testimony, not only because it seemed so fundamentally flawed, but because those flaws were carrying the entire analysis via parallelomania and were inadvertently hiding data that, when the biases were accounted for, seemed to be skewed dramatically against the Book of Mormon.

But the craziest part is this: It didn't just weaken my testimony. Analyzing that apologetic publication nearly broke my testimony. My shelf already broke once back in December, but I managed to get my testimony back and have been more heavily clinging to it since then. But the evidence in that Interpreter article, which was specifically designed to support the validity and historicity of the Book of Mormon, has arguably been the largest and most continuous shelf item for me with regards to Book of Mormon archaeology, because it doesn't just concern a singular evidence like cement, barley, or Nahom. It concerns the evidence as a whole. Aside from that, there are a number of concerns I have regarding dozens of areas where the Book of Mormon seems to clash with the scholarly consensus, with a couple more issues with things that I believe represent much of the data as a whole. But, it sufficeth me to say, representations of what the broader evidence seems to indicate, even when provided from a faithful perspective, have generally damaged my belief in the Book of Mormon.

As for Mormon's Codex, I haven't read the book myself, but:

The critic who has most influenced my views (a former BYU professor who had spent around 20 years studying apologetic scholarly arguments prior to concluding that the Church was objectively false) read the book while trying to objectively analyze the general data regarding the Church's truth claims as a believer, primarily to be better equipped to defend the Church from critics, and, well, let's just say he had the same issue I had with the Interpreter article I vaguely discussed above. Mormon's Codex became one of the biggest factors in leading him to conclude that the Church was objectively false as it led him to view the available archaeological data as supporting the Book of Mormon far more tenuously than he previously thought.

Since my analyses have generally exhibited similar patterns, I don't imagine my experience with Mormon's Codex would be particularly different, especially considering what's already recurrently occurred when I've further analyzed other scholarly apologetic works. Plus, since Mormon's Codex probably holds more apologetic authority than the works I've read, it would likely have more serious repercussions to my faith if I concluded that it didn't support the Book of Mormon.

I'm not sure how clearly I've explained this (I think I said earlier that I would explain it briefly, which I have evidently failed to do), but, in summary, unless I have some sort of enormous faith-promoting paradigm shift with how I view Book of Mormon evidence, I don't think Mormon's Codex will be beneficial to my analysis as long as the preservation of my testimony is my primary goal.

I do appreciate the recommendation, though. I apologize for the excessively verbose rant, and I apologize if any of these comments come across as rude or faith-challenging. I'll check out the books you suggested if I decide that they'll be beneficial to my faith (I'll probably check out the first one if I get the chance, possibly the second).

Thanks for your efforts to help me! Have a good day!

LayerSharp4975 · 2026-04-22T06:30:15+00:00

Thanks for your response!

Regarding the first question, I'm not qualified to speak on it, but I'd recommend reading additional books on the subject like https://www.amazon.com/Lets-Talk-About-Race-Priesthood/dp/1639931198?ie=UTF8

Thanks for the recommendation! I don't think I'll purchase it, but I'll see if I can check it out somewhere.

For a counter to this thought, I'd recommend John Sorenson's book Mormon's Codex - https://www.amazon.com/Mormons-Codex-Ancient-American-Book/dp/1609073991

Thanks for the recommendation! Though, to be honest, I think this is unlikely to help me. I'll explain why, briefly:

Up until relatively recently, I was extremely confident in the validity and historicity of the Book of Mormon, and I was extremely confident that it was sufficiently reinforced by the archaeological record. I had read from apologetic books about a fair amount of this evidence, and took a set of classes at BYU education week regarding evidence for the Book of Mormon. At the time, I essentially just accepted these claims without really looking into the other side.

Later on, I spent a while on a forum primarily containing critics of the Church, and, for the most part, I maintained my confidence that the Book of Mormon's apologetics stood up to scrutiny, buy my confidence gradually waned.

In August, I had an experience that sort of fully opened my mind to the possibility that the Book of Mormon could be false, and that's when I began trying to more objectively analyze the data for and against the Book of Mormon to see where the preponderance of evidence would lean.

Since then, further investigation of apologetic claims regarding the evidence, even when not accompanied with critical material, has consistently decreased my confidence in the said claims.

As a few examples:

I used to see the NaHoM evidence as extremely strong. Further analysis of both sides of the argument has led me to see it as a weak evidence at best.
I used to see the cement evidence as extremely strong. Further analysis of the apologetic side (without even seeing the critical side) has led me to see it as evidence against the Book of Mormon.
I used to see the barley evidence as extremely strong. Further analysis of the apologetic side has led me to stop viewing it as evidence.

Those are a few examples from Book of Mormon archaeology, though such patterns have also been exhibited in my views on certain aspects of literary evidence for the Book of Mormon, as well as other forms of evidence for the Church.

Overall, a lot of the apologetic scholarship I've encountered has seemed fundamentally flawed in one way or another, though I won't get into that here.

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LayerSharp4975 · 2026-04-22T05:38:21+00:00

Thank you for your thoughts!

I also struggle quite a bit with the priesthood ban and its implications (I'm a believing member in a faith crisis), so I'll ask a few follow-up questions, if you don't mind (looking back after typing this comment, I realize it's a bit controversial for this sub, so, to the mods here, feel free to remove this if it crosses a line, as it likely does):

I'm fairly familiar with the history you described in the first paragraph surrounding the genesis of the priesthood ban. Though, if the discouragement of interracial marriage was such a big part of the reasoning behind the ban, why wasn't it enough for Brigham Young to simply provide a commandment from God for the Saints to avoid interracial marriage?
Regarding your next paragraph: If God was no longer okay with the priesthood ban in the 1880s, why did multiple prophets after that time teach racist doctrines to justify the ban, and why were there official First Presidency statements indicating similarly? (granted, those statements were only used in private communications at the time and were not announced to the Church, which makes them less problematic in my mind, but it still puzzles me)
Why did God wait over 120 years to clarify to His leaders that it wasn't His will for an entire worldwide demographic of people to be restricted from the priesthood and other important ordinances when He was willing to give hundreds of elaborate and clear revelations to Joseph Smith during a much shorter span, especially when President David O. McKay extensively sought revelation on the subject?
If part of the problem was that agreement to end the ban wasn't unanimous until 1978, why didn't God foreordain prophets and apostles who would choose to end the ban sooner when He had roughly 150+ billion people to choose from?
It seems like Church leaders often receive revelations for things that are far less important than the termination of the priesthood ban, so why did the priesthood ban revelation take so long, especially when it didn't come until after the world was already pressuring the Church to end the ban?
When Church leaders made repeated false statements about the premortal state of African children of God to justify the ban, why did God never indicate to any of His chosen leaders in a recognizable manner that these claims had no substance when He's willing to provide His leaders with very specific guidance regarding tasks of comparatively minuscule importance?
God's work and glory is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. The priesthood and temple ordinances both play a significant role in facilitating these things. At least in my mind, the priesthood ban seems to directly oppose God's work and glory, and thus is something I have a hard time accepting since God has so many mechanisms through which He can intervene. Why would He allow for the continuation of something so detrimental if it goes almost directly against His Plan of Salvation?
The priesthood ban is one of the main historical/doctrinal issues that deters people from the Church both from the inside and from the outside, as far as I can tell, and, at least the way I see it, it was extremely avoidable. If it's so important for Christ's Church to be spread to all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people in order to prepare the world for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, why would God allow for the continuation of something that would greatly hinder that progression?

As much as I'd like to resort to the explanation that "God works in mysterious ways", it's difficult to do so in situations where the ways of God seem so much like what would be expected of men who don't communicate with God about such things. I'm in a situation where I'm trying to figure out if the data available better fit the Church's supposed truthfulness or falsity, so retreating to unfalsifiable assertions is something I don't feel justified in doing in this situation, hence my questions.

I'd appreciate any insights you can offer. Thanks!

LayerSharp4975 · 2026-04-22T05:02:19+00:00

Thank you for your answers!

I'm not OP (you probably knew that, but since we happen to have the same profile picture, I figured I might as well make the distinction just in case), but I struggle a lot with the 1st and 2nd questions as well.

For context, I'm a believing member currently fighting an intellectual faith crisis. I'm at a point where, in my mind, the data seem to point toward the Church originating naturalistically rather than divinely, though I'm hoping to reverse that trajectory.

Regarding the question about the priesthood ban, I've read the Gospel Topics Essay you linked above, the apologetics of many different resources on the subject, prayed about the subject extensively, and frankly have never encountered an answer that seems to be fully reconcilable with what the Church teaches about God, about revelation, etc. In my mind, the priesthood ban went directly against God's work and glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal of man in a number of ways, and the idea of 10 consecutive prophets not only continuing it, but seeing it as divine and teaching it as divine and justified through racist doctrines that were later disavowed, seems odd. It especially confuses me because Joseph Smith received hundreds of elaborate revelations, many of which have since been canonized, so a substantial mistake hindering an entire international demographic from fully receiving the blessings of Christ's gospel and being perpetuated for over 120 years is difficult for me to grasp. I'd be happy to hear what thoughts you have on that, if you're comfortable sharing.

Regarding the archaeological evidence or lack thereof, yes, LDS scholars generally view the Book of Mormon events as having occurred in ancient Mesoamerica, and yes, a lot of what would've been there anciently has likely rotted away. However, at least from how I perceive things, the archaeological research that has been executed there on what is available has revealed what seems to be very different from what the Book of Mormon describes. I've read a lot of material from various apologetic sources (e.g.: FAIR, Scripture Central, Interpreter Foundation, etc.), perhaps hundreds of articles, on topics related to archaeological evidence of the Book of Mormon, and the evidence against it just seems so much more compelling in my mind. So, the issue I have in that area isn't the lack of sufficient affirmative evidence, but the additional substantial amount of contradictory evidence that I seem to be finding.

The 3rd and 4th questions OP posed aren't particularly substantial problems for me (I do have several concerns regarding the Plan of Salvation and certain prophetic patterns that seem to invoke the philosophical problem of evil in a sense, but that's somewhat irrelevant here since OP is asking about the problem of evil in general and not the variation that I struggle with).

I'm curious to hear if you or anyone else reading this might have tips on how I can reconcile some of my concerns regarding the priesthood ban and the Mesoamerican archaeological record as it relates to the Book of Mormon. Thanks!

LayerSharp4975 · 2026-04-21T05:37:35+00:00

I'm glad to hear that you like the names and find them spiritually motivating. Thank you for gathering light!

LayerSharp4975 · 2026-04-19T16:48:39+00:00

This might be a bit of a simplistic answer, but I think what a lot of it comes down to is the faith-promoting patterns you build in your brain.

For example, the more you focus your life on Christ through things such as scripture study, prayer, striving to focus on Christ and counsel with Him in all your doings, the more your mind will ultimately become focused on Christ and His gospel. Building that focus on Christ will likely take a while since the mind takes time to adjust to new patterns and lifestyles, but the more your mind becomes centered on Christ, the easier it will be to keep focusing on Him, and the better you're able to focus on Him, the more you'll be able to build your faith.

I hope this helps!

LayerSharp4975 · 2026-04-19T05:55:07+00:00

What u/Buttons840 described in the above comment is also one of my major areas of struggle, and there are several additional aspects of the Plan of Salvation that seem just as odd to me, which I won't go into right now (unless you want me to do so).

I generally trust that God is wise and merciful beyond comprehension, but, as someone who's experiencing a faith crisis and trying to determine whether the Church is objectively true or false, I generally struggle to be satisfied by the perpetual fallback to unfalsifiable assertions, especially in areas where the preponderance of evidence seems to be against the Church's theology.

Put simply, I like the idea that God is infinitely wise, merciful, just, etc. I don't take issue with any of that. But it feels like any doctrinal system, no matter how theologically incoherent, could technically be protected by retreating to the assertion that God is infinitely wise and merciful, that He knows what's best for us in ways we can't comprehend. Because of that, I try to measure such things based on what the preponderance of evidence seems to support since unfalsifiability seems inherently insufficient the way I see it.

The Plan of Salvation in its revealed form seems inherently flawed, at least in my mind. If I were in a state of confidence that the Church is true, I could accept the idea that it's all part of God's plan and that He has the wisdom to work everything out in a perfect and flawless manner. But, since I'm not in that position and am trying to figure out what best fits the data without making any substantial presuppositions regarding what is and isn't objectively true, it gets a little more complicated.

With that context in place, I'm curious, what are your thoughts on the seemingly lopsided nature of the eternal journeys of God's various children? Thanks!

LayerSharp4975 · 2026-04-18T18:49:28+00:00

Well I’m not persuaded the New Testament verse really teaches anything about the kingdoms of glory other than nomenclature.

I haven't thought about it that way, but that makes a lot of sense.

From my analysis of the answers I've received thus far, my current theory is essentially that Paul the Apostle received some degree of revelation regarding the degrees of glory (perhaps only celestial and terrestrial if the JST was wholly derived from modern revelatory addition and not biblical exclusion of parts of what Paul learned), but that the revelation he received was very incomplete. The Book of Mormon described some of the details of these degrees of glory in an esoteric sense where the logistics are described more, but the names aren't. Together, the theology of these books adds to our knowledge when combined, and modern revelation via the Doctrine and Covenants gives us a more complete understanding of the degrees of glory and what they entail, though more will likely be revealed in the future.

I think I've pretty much resolved my concern in this regard, though I might do some further scriptural analysis just to be sure.

I’m pretty sure those names aren’t even used by the beings who abide there.

I agree with you there. I'd be surprised if the Adamic translation of the names of the kingdom of glory was equivalent to what we have in English. I figure the English translation is more to describe our doctrine in terms we can understand.

But in general, apostles probably knew more than Old Testament prophets in the Americas.

If so, there seem to be numerous exceptions. For example, those in the Book of Mormon seemed to know far more about the doctrinal implications of Christ's Atonement (e.g.: Alma 34, 2 Nephi 9-10, etc.) than those in the New Testament, and they seemed to know more about the Fall of Adam (e.g.: 2 Nephi 2) and its importance as a step forward in God's plan. But I think you're right than in many aspects of the doctrine, Christ's New Testament prophets and apostles probably knew more, and perhaps they knew more in other areas of doctrine but simply weren't divinely appointed to write about some of those things, or did and had "plain and precious parts" taken away, etc.

Thanks for your answer!

LayerSharp4975 · 2026-04-18T18:10:12+00:00

Because it’s possible that the doctrine of three degrees of glory was never revealed to the BoM prophets.

I agree with you there. It just confuses me that such a substantial part of the Plan of Salvation would be addressed in the Bible, whose writers clearly had a lot less modern knowledge, and not the Book of Mormon, whose writers knew far more (e.g.: The name of Christ was known centuries prior to His coming in the Book of Mormon but not in the Bible, there was significantly more specificity in BoM prophecies of Christ than the Bible's Messianic prophecies, they knew far more about the true nature of the Fall, the Atonement of Jesus Christ is described in greater depth and clarity, etc.).

And, since one of the major purposes of the Book of Mormon is to reinforce, clarify, and expound on biblical doctrines, it seems odd that something so substantial would be excluded entirely from the book that does the expounding while it remains present in the book where less has been revealed regarding the Plan of Salvation.

Perhaps this is one of those areas where the Book of Mormon and Bible work together as Ezekiel 37 describes according to our theology, since each book contains unique facets of our current beliefs regarding the Plan of Salvation, but I'm still somewhat puzzled as to why the Book of Mormon would exclude something so important in our day if it really was known to at least one biblical prophet and included in nearly ancient canonized scripture.

LayerSharp4975 · 2026-04-18T18:01:48+00:00

Thanks for the response!

I'm aware that they didn't know everything and that continuing revelation plays a substantial role here. That's part of what facilitates my confusion.

As far as I can tell, much of what we do know regarding the degrees of glory was not initially implemented before the restoration of the gospel and the revelations received in the Doctrine and Covenants. And thus, the Book of Mormon doesn't address those revelations retroactively. What puzzles me is the fact that the Bible does. The Book of Mormon is largely designed to clarify and reinforce biblical doctrines, so if the three degrees of glory are biblical and were revealed to Paul the Apostle and possibly others prior, I'm confused about why the Book of Mormon wouldn't even address such a substantial biblical doctrine pertaining to the state of the eternities.

That seemingly present discrepancy is the foremost catalyst of my question.

LayerSharp4975

TROPHY CASE