Contention: Attack & apology

Since even before the Mormon church was organized there have been people who have argued against it ("con-Mormons," to use a currently emerging term). I must say that the concept of setting up a web site to argue against a religious point of view one finds disagreeable rather than for the one one agrees with rather flabbergasts me, but it is a rather popular thing to do. In any event, in reaction to the emergence of con-Mormon writings some Mormons (and even some non-Mormons), arguably starting with some of Orson Pratt's writings in the 1830s, have undertaken to write apologia. Apologia is technically simply a formal defense or justification of something; when used in the context of a religious discussion, it is generally used to mean a defense of a particular doctrine or practice which others have attacked.

In addition, this page includes a few sites that are neither con-Mormon nor apologetic, but simply by their very nature are extremely controversial. Accordingly, these other sites are listed in their own section.

One final note that belongs on this page (mainly for lack of a better place to put it). One of the most popular subjects for con-Mormon writers and speakers is the Mormon concept of a temple as a place dedicated solely to worship of God — for some reason that seems to be a point of huge contention for some people. As a result, there are various places on the 'net that claim to hold transcriptions of Mormon temple worship ceremonies. As far as i have seen, however, all of the purported transcripts of the Mormon temple ceremonies that exist on the 'net are incorrect in some way, some of them having extremely large interpolations and changes in the sorts of things that might conceivably be part of worship in a temple. Therefore, if you should come across any such texts, please exercise caution when attempting to draw any conclusions based on them.

An important note: Please note that i do not maintain the sites this page links to, nor do i have any influence over the people who run them. At a very deep level, in fact, i strongly disagree with the entire concept of having sites that argue against a particular religious or philosophical point of view — as i noted in the introduction to this page, the draw of setting up a site to argue against a religious point of view in order to try to tear it down rather than to build up one's own religious point of view is something i don't really understand.

Con-Mormon sites

That aside, i provide this section for two main reasons:


	To eliminate the charge that i might be attempting to somehow "silence" my opponents. I'm not entirely sure how exactly i of myself would be able to do such a thing, but it's a charge i've seen levelled at people before.

To allow people to see for themselves how unconvincing con-Mormon arguments tend to be. Con-any-particular-religion arguments tend to be rather unconvincing and poorly written in general, actually, but in my observation con-Mormon arguments tend to often be rather extreme in their awfulness. But maybe some people believe them — maybe there are people out there who actually do believe that Mormons have horns growing on their heads — but i would hope that most people put a bit more thought into what they believe than that.


	•	The Institute for Religious Research, which argues against several religions. (Note particularly the different — to put it lightly! — standards the authors of this page use to analyze the religions they argue against and those they agree with.)

Apologetic sites


	•	FARMS (The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies)


	•	FAIR (The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research)


	•	Kerry Shirts's Mormonism researched page


	•	SHIELDS (Scholarly and Historical Information Exchange for Latter-Day Saints)

Other highly controversial sites


	•	Affirmation: Gay & Lesbian Mormons


	Affirmation is a support group for gay, lesbian, and bisexual Mormons.


	•	Evergreen International


	Evergreen is a group for gay, lesbian, and bisexual Mormons, and is dedicated to the belief that one can change from such an orientation to that of heterosexuality.

Doctrinal resources · Indices & archives · Contention

Last updated 2 May 2002 v6.2