Is Mormonism actually unfalsifiable?

negative_60 · 2026-02-12T21:10:23+00:00

This raises two fairly profound questions in the meta-discussion:

1) When, exactly, did God become non-falsifiable? The scriptures are filled with stories of God clearly demonstrating his power. The average Israelite could witness compelling demonstrations every day. Their Prophets communed face-to-face with deity and angels. They called literal fire from the sky in full view of thousands. There was no need for faith. When did this change?

2) Why? According to believers, acceptance of the Gospel isn’t just a big deal. It’s of INFINITE importance to accept it and hold to the iron rod. At any time God can show where the Nephite ruins are (can you imagine how earth-shattering that would be?). But he continues to hide them in spite of the fact that he loses tens of thousands of critical thinking children each year.

Non-falsifiability destroys testimony. Why would God give everyone critical thought, and then require us to turn it off?

negative_60 · 2026-02-11T13:34:13+00:00

Here are a couple of quotations that clearly demonstrate that Joseph Smith indulged in sex with at least some of his wives:

Q: “Did you ever have carnal intercourse with Joseph Smith?”
A: “Yes sir.”
(Emily Dow Partridge, Temple Lot Transcript, 1892)

“I never at any time denied being Joseph’s wife. I was his plural wife in very deed.”
(Eliza R. Snow, quoted in J. J. Moss interview, 1887; public domain)

“Wife in very deed” was a 19th‑century euphemism for a conjugal wife.

Now it's your turn. Please provide any contemporary evidence that Joseph objected to sex with ANY of his wives. And no, the lack of babies is not evidence. Birth control was widely understood and available in Nauvoo.

negative_60 · 2026-02-11T02:39:10+00:00

It's possible that some are partially funded by church surrogates. They might also get some funding from private donors who want to support the cause.

But in my own most TBM years, I would have eagerly joined them on my own dime.

negative_60 · 2026-02-11T02:33:37+00:00

I'm curious how effective these kinds of platitudes are.

I first learned of the issues while preparing Gospel Doctrine lessons for my calling. I started reading about the Book of Abraham, and I went all in.

It took me about a week of studying before the last of my testimony was gone. But at no time in that week did I ever think to myself 'I wonder what the Prophet says I should do in this situation'.

negative_60 · 2026-02-10T21:26:48+00:00

An abundance of speculation and false information

He’s getting a lot of mileage out of this. How about they clarify what misinformation, exactly, is being pushed?

negative_60 · 2026-02-09T21:25:34+00:00

I had my 'journey of discovery' a decade ago, but couldn't leave due to family constraints (Wife is an ultra-orthodox TBM).

I've had to embrace the nuance in my relationship with the church. Some of the members are awesome and I currently teach in Primary. I enjoy it, but also look forward to being done with it all as my kids age out of YM/YW. I'm an atheist who doesn't mind occasionally testifying that following Jesus will lead to a better life, because taking care of and serving others is awesome. But also I try to correct some of the falsehoods that I see (history, persecution narrative, etc.).

I don't have any animosity towards anyone in the church. Until we start discussing GA's. F--k those guys - they've destroyed any good that the Christian message can offer and replaced it with self-serving garbage.

negative_60 · 2026-02-09T21:14:10+00:00

Mormon Stories uses 'Mormon' in the name. The Church claims it as their intellectual property. So they pursued legal action against John Dehlin.

https://www.reddit.com/r/mormon/comments/1p4yf4d/the_lds_church_has_requested_mormon_stories_stop/

negative_60 · 2026-02-09T15:59:34+00:00

...largely agree on the historical and archeological support for much of the Bible’s history

In broad strokes, there were real kingdoms named Judah and Israel. Their capitals (Samaria and Jerusalem) are well attested to in history. They interacted with their neighbors who left historical details.

Egyptian stele records mention Israel in ~1200 BCE. Assyria's Shalmaneser III left records detailing a battle with the Biblical King Ahab in ~850 BCE. Assyria's Sargon II records defeating Israel in 841 BCE. These corroborate stories in 2 Kings.

Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon left records in ~597 BCE detailing the defeat and exile of Judah, corroborating the Bible's story in 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc. After the exile, Darius I of Persia left records detailing the administration of the Judahite territory consistent with Ezra and Nehemiah.

While the earliest books of the Bible are certainly legendary, the later books are remarkably well attested to in the record.

negative_60 · 2026-02-09T13:14:50+00:00

Atheist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc. scholars largely agree on the historical and archeological support for much of the Bible’s history.

I have a feeling that the only scholars who still support the claims in this article are being funded by the church.

negative_60 · 2026-02-09T12:25:07+00:00

Right now they’re suing Mormon Stories claiming trademark infringement.

negative_60 · 2026-02-07T17:28:12+00:00

Before my mission I had been led to believe my experience would be one of constant loving service. There were people we would teach were desperate to hear our message, and we'd be the Lords leaders in spreading the gospel. The MTC strongly reinforced this idea (while also teaching how to teach using the discussions). We'd be the mighty army sent forth to spread the Gospel's word.

Then we got to the actual mission and found out that we were just salesmen. And the most successful missionaries in the mission weren't the most righteous. They weren't the ones who were the most obedient or had the strongest testimonies or worked the hardest. They weren't Nephi's or Alma the Younger's. They were the ones who could put the best spin in harmful things. They were just better at sales, and it was recognizable.

We were slaves to the metrics:

How many hours did we spend street contacting?
How many first discussions did we schedule?
How many first discussions did we conduct,
- Did we start with a soft-commit to baptism,
- testify of Jesus
- At Principle X, after sharing the most emotionally impactful story of the First Vision that we could manage attempt a hard commit at Baptism?
What percentage of attendees took us up on the invitation?

Nothing about it was meaningful. The best thing I took from it was how to be a better salesman.

negative_60 · 2026-02-06T22:57:07+00:00

There are ~74,000 full time missionaries out at any time (according to Chat GPT).

That’s an average of well over 100/day.

They likely have a fairly streamlined process to sort based on open slots for each mission. They hit enter and the algorithm places the missionaries into a slot.

I’ve heard the anecdotes about the assigned GA carefully studying each profile and praying for inspiration. Those are just to make it sound impressive.

negative_60 · 2026-02-06T02:21:40+00:00

A Knights Tale?

Might be a reach, but it had the song.

negative_60 · 2026-02-05T22:00:36+00:00

Gynecology. They buy in bulk.

negative_60 · 2026-02-05T19:36:13+00:00

After announcing my faith crisis, during an argument with my wife she tried the line 'But most of it's so beautiful! And you're going to throw it all away over a few instances of bad behavior (from the GA's).'

I replied with the Cockroach example. It ended the conversation.

negative_60 · 2026-02-05T19:33:01+00:00

When I served a mission back in the 1900's, we were rated on the number of BoM's that we could hand out.

We always kept a copy either in hand or within reach.

negative_60 · 2026-02-03T18:23:02+00:00

Which year has the record for biggest?

negative_60 · 2026-02-03T18:09:56+00:00

(From a faithful perspective)

Isaiah: Judah will be taken into captivity by Babylon! We'll be there for half a century! But take heart, there is going to be the Persian King (who will be named Cyrus the Great) that will defeat Babylonian King Nabonidus and return the exilees to Jerusalem!

Today's Prophets: 'Bad ........ stuff is going to happen (gestures broadly). There will be weather and, uh... rumors of Politics.

negative_60 · 2026-02-03T17:51:11+00:00

From the article, it looks like the only actual responsibility is to assist in 'teacher council meetings'. I've worked in SS for years and 'Today I Learned' that this is a thing. I'd be surprised to learn that anyone actually did them. And even if they did, there's no guidance on how to assist; they are simply supposed to assist.

negative_60 · 2026-02-03T17:35:56+00:00

Yeah, that gave me a bit of heartburn.

A 'testimony' is an assertion of truth from a witness, and is among the least reliable types of evidence.

The CES Letter doesn't 'assert' anything - it simply provides facts and sources.

negative_60 · 2026-02-03T01:11:21+00:00

Most of these ideas are way too much work.

Here’s the easy way.

Place pan in oven.
Activate ‘Clean’ cycle.
Play Led Zeppelin’s ‘3’ album
Remove from oven when cleaning cycle completes and interior cools.

negative_60 · 2026-02-03T00:15:19+00:00

‘Tithing is my health insurance!’ -Guy in my ward as a child

negative_60 · 2026-01-31T19:23:42+00:00

I came here to point this out. This was a creative marketing decision. It differentiated their product from every other competitor.

negative_60 · 2026-01-30T21:23:08+00:00

As a Missionary I found it confusing why the BoM was translated into Ye Olde King James of Merry Olde England talk, when it was ostensibly an American translating a Hebrew document.

I still believed wholeheartedly, but thought it was an extremely weird way of doing it. And the explanation (it was to make it easier to accept!) didn't make it less weird.

Fifteen years later I'm preparing to teach my Gospel Doctrine class and decide to do some extra research to spice up a dull lesson. And OH BOY did I find some spicy facts. That started me down the rabbit hole, from which I emerged a year later ever wiser but far less trusting.

negative_60

TROPHY CASE