It is no secret that when you start expressing doubts about certain aspects of the church, you’re bound to receive an article written by some apologist. Whether it comes from FairMormon, the Maxwell Institute (formerly FARMS), Jeff Lindsey, Brian Hales, the Givens, or any of a number of apologists.

The whole purpose of LDS apologetics, and the reason the church does not shut them down, is to introduce doubt. It is to cause you to worry that the logical conclusions from reading the historical record may not be correct, that maybe you are wrong and you’re throwing away your eternal salvation. They don’t provide any real answers, only possible explanations. This wouldn’t be so bad if they were plausible explanations, or even internally consistent, but they don’t have to be and usually aren’t. They only have to undermine your confidence in your ability to think logically and draw rational conclusions. This serves to keep people in the church, paying tithing, and holding callings. While it is working, why would the church want to shut this down? If there is ever a time where more people leave the church because of apologetics, they will shut them down.

Clearly, I don’t have a high opinion of apologetics. I find it to be dishonest, and ultimately self-delusion. Here are a few of the reasons for my low opinion.

Possible/Plausible/Probable

I touched on this a little earlier, but apologetics tends to rely on people not grasping the difference of these words.

Possible: able to be done; within the power or capacity of someone or something.

Plausible: having an appearance of truth or reason; seemingly worthy of approval or acceptance; credible; believable:

Probable: likely to be the case or to happen.

Let’s look at the idea apologists like to tout that Nahom has been discovered. We have the letters NHM inscribed on a rock. It is possible that they represent Nahom. Is it plausible that they represent Nahom? Well, we’d have to look at the credibility of the Book of Mormon, other explanations for the existence of the letters on the rock, the time frame that those letters were inscribed, and the location to see if it matches the BoM description. Even if the letters did represent Nahom, does that mean it is the Nahom in the BoM? Or, could it be another Nahom from that region. Given the Nihm tribe in the area, it is more probable that it represents Nihm and not Nahom. That won’t stop apologists from using the possible, though not probable, chance that NHM represents Nahom as evidence for the Book of Mormon. We even see it as support for the current archaeological dig being done in the possible site of Bountiful. Jumping from possible to probable takes a significant amount of supportive evidence, as well as the evidence required to disqualify other possible explanations.

Confirmation Bias

Quality research requires the researcher to identify hits and misses to any explanation proffered. Confirmation bias happens when you only looking at the supporting evidence, or only noticing evidence that fits your preconceived notions, or giving it more significance than contrary evidence when it isn’t warranted. Apologists do this with NHM and Nahom v. Nihm. The existence of the Nihm tribe is much more significant than a story in a book that includes the name Nahom, especially when that book has no evidence to support its claims.

A credible researcher would not go to London in search of Diagon Ally simply because it is described in Harry Potter books. Until the Harry Potter books could be shown to be historically accurate, there would be no reason to look. Likewise, until the Book of Mormon can be shown to be historically accurate, there is no reason to believe the letters NHM inscribed on a rock in the area of the Nihm tribe would really mean Nahom. Jumping to the conclusion it represents Nahom is simply confirmation bias.

Not official/authoritative

In the end, however, my opinion doesn’t matter because apologetics in an LDS context are irrelevant. No matter how convincing their explanations may be, they do not speak for the church. Their conclusions are unofficial and non-authoritative. They could provide extensive evidence to support a doctrine, including journal entries, talks given in church conferences, quotes from past prophets, etc. However, if the church came out with an official declaration that contradicted the apologists, they would have no choice but to fall in line and find evidence to support the new position. For LDS apologetics, “when the prophet has spoken, the thinking has been done”.

When you have a prophet who speaks with God, and declares his word, apologists can only agree with the prophet. They can’t contradict him, because then they would be contradicting God, and undermining their purpose of defending the faith. Anything they say that the prophet has not spoken to is merely speculation, subject to relegation to the trash bin once the prophet does speak.

Clearly I no longer believe in the church or any of its truth claims, but if you want to provide answers to my questions, doubts or concerns, leave the apologetics out of it. I really don’t care what they have to say. If I am going to align myself with the church, I want to know what the church’s official positions are so I can decide if I agree or not.

Lastly, the fact the church is using apologists to write the recent essays to answer people’s concerns tells me the leaders of the church have no direct connection to God. They are no more inspired than any other leader of any other faith in the entire world. What is the use of a prophet, seer, and revelator if he neither prophecies, seers, nor reveals?