Response to "Letter to a CES Director: Why I Lost My Testimony (CES Letter: My Search for Answers to my Mormon Doubts) and "Debunking FAIR's Debunking"(Debunking FairMormon)

Summary: Letter to a CES Director: Why I Lost My Testimony (CES Letter: My Search for Answers to My Mormon Doubts as of 2017) is an online document which is critical of Latter-day Saint truth claims. The document is comprised of a list of issues that the author states caused him to lose his testimony, and it is hosted on a number of websites which are critical of the Church. The online document Debunking FAIR's Debunking or Debunking FairMormon is an apologetic attempt by the CES Letter author to respond to an earlier summary version of FAIR's CES Letter response. The author incorporates much of the text of FAIR's original summary responses (created in 2013) and then attempts to, in his own words, "debunk" them. Here we have incorporated all arguments from three updates to the CES Letter and responded to them. We have also included responses to Debunking FairMormon. Articles have been edited to correct factual errors spotted by the author of the CES Letter and clarify responses.

Readers should bear in mind while interacting with any of the material from the author of the CES Letter that he frequently attempts to portray FAIR and other apologists as delusional and deceitful--frequently citing changes we (FAIR) have made to our responses in his rebuttals to FAIR and often appealing to ridicule. He often tries to discredit apologists by simply showing how we disagree on matters such as Book of Mormon Geography or other trivial things. Readers should be careful to look for this and be aware of how FAIR responds to criticism.

It is true that we have edited our articles that were posted in initial response in 2013 and also created new articles and responses to arguments from the CES Letter over time. This is the refining we expect to receive as we make the defense of the Church better through more study, improved scholarship, and through suggestions from our readers. We believe it's made our responses much stronger than his attempts at "debunking" us in Debunking FairMormon. We may also make mistakes in formulating our response (which we have corrected since the rebuttals to our original 2013 pages were posted by the author) but we have not sought to deliberately deceive anyone in editing them.

Readers should also be aware that just because FAIR hasn't responded to an argument or a response does not satisfy a question completely, that does not then mean apologetics can't be created or improved in answering that question/criticism. We are a group of volunteer members who seek to defend the faith in our spare time and write however much we can with that time and when we see it as necessary. We expect, as mentioned, to improve our efforts over time with improved scholarship and from suggestions by our readers.

With respect to the disagreement that the author cites among apologists, there are often many ways to faithfully reconcile something. FAIR's goal is to provide every angle. Additionally, the nature of scholarship is to make arguments based upon current scientific findings. Scholarship refines itself overtime as science improves and with it, apologetics. Additionally, the existence of disagreement does not invalidate the strength of an argument. Are we to believe that critics don't have any good points if they disagree on something? Readers should consult the actual scholarship done by faithful scholars and decide for themselves where they stand instead of accepting obfuscatory arguments such as these made by the author.

The CES Letter is a compilation of the most common attacks on the Church. Each of these issues that the author discusses have been repeatedly discussed in both official Church literature and in scholarly articles, notes, and monographs. A monograph could be taken to explain these issues in a satisfactory way and indeed, entire books have been written on many of these subjects. We advise readers to use FAIR as a starting point rather than an ending. The wiki is designed as your first stop for getting immediate first aid, so to speak. It may be advisable that, instead of reading this long response, that readers take time to order books that cover the same issues and read and digest at a pace that is more suitable to their work/family/school schedules, level of knowledge, and so forth.

. . .