How Can Anyone Remain a Mormon in the Face of All the “Facts”?

One of the things that you will see sometimes in anti-Mormon forums is what appears to be a sincere question: ‘How can anyone remain a Mormon in the face of all the facts?’ As a Mormon myself, I would like to address this.

First of all, many of the “facts” they think that they have are not facts at all. They are more claims than facts. Even if they have sources for their claims, that does not make them facts. Claims might be facts, but they might not be. Facts can be hard to come by on things like religious beliefs, politics, and even history. Most claims can not be proven to be facts if sufficient rigor is applied.

Secondly, many facts are partial facts. They do not tell the whole story. At times, partial facts can produce a distorted view of reality on their own. Critics are often very good at presenting partial facts in such a way that they present a very negative view of their opposition, and this will often be intentional. Taking partial facts, deliberately presenting them in the worst possible way, and intentionally twisting them to give a distorted view, is one of the things that anti-Mormons do very well. Once you see this, it takes most of the bite out of their attacks.

Lastly, one can have a collection of facts and still come to the wrong conclusion. I would suggest that good conclusions are even more important than good facts. It does not take much imagination to consider opponents in religion or politics doing this to each other. Many arguments between pro and anti-Mormons will focus on conclusions rather than facts.

So to summarize, much of what you will find on anti-Mormon forums are claims rather than facts, partial facts used in negative ways, and erroneous conclusions based on some facts.

For me, the real question is why would anyone leave Mormonism, and all of its potential benefits, based on the claims, partial facts, and suspect conclusions that come from anti-Mormons?