Is FAIR Mormon an apologetic resource for members with doubts and questions about the church? My closeted non-believing overheard his cousin mentioning his friend looking at it on his phone during seminary.

Yes, it is.

It was the #1 place that I was able to confirm all of the so called anti-mormon lies. You cannot explain away a fraud, no matter the speaker.

Thanks. I also know that one of my friends' TBM friends looks at it. Perhaps in the future, the pieces of the puzzle will all fit and the mumbo jumbo starts clicking for them.

FAIRMormon: Trying to make 2+2=5 since 1997.

FAIR Mormon. We have an excuse for that! Ten Thousand give or take.

Anti-mormon lie? Nope per FAIR Mormon, mormon truth confirmed.

The excuses they provide are down right hilarious at times but mostly maddening.

Notice their website has a disclaimer that they don't speak for the church.

So why does the church send doubters there for answers?

Below this line of text is the amount of intellectual integrity found at FAIR Mormon.

FAIR's purpose is to make doubters doubt their doubts.

The writers there generally take two main tactics:

a) character assassination of any "critics"

Ad-hominem attacks against anyone being critical of the church, sometimes entirely made-up, sometimes genuine (but irrelevant), intended to make doubters think the critics are Satan's own minions, and are thus not to be listened to. This is their #1 tactic.

b) Making up "possibilities"

Essentially, convincing doubters that the critics can't "prove the church is false," so it must be true. And to show that it can't be "proven" false, they make shit up. For example: yeah, there probably weren't horses in the BoM time (but it's possible there might have been!), so maybe Smith used "horse" as a word HE knew, but it's not what they Nephites knew as a "horse." It's possible the Nephites could have meant tapirs. Or squirrels. Or something else. And since that's possible, the critics who say the BoM is wrong 'cause there weren't horses in the Americas then can't prove the BoM wrong. So it must be true.

Yes, it's entirely fallacy and entirely dishonest.
That's apologetics for you.

This is why they parrot that Joseph Smith wasn't a very smart man.

This fits VERY nicely with "mistakes of men" to dismiss any critics.

Fallacies and cover-ups are worse than the original lies.

FAIR Mormon in a nutshell:


"Joseph Smith is a prophet of God."

"A prophet of God can write scripture."

"If he can write scripture, he can change scripture."

"He can add his name to the scripture."

"Scripture says that Joseph Smith will be a prophet of God."

"Therefore, Joseph Smith is a prophet of God because scripture says so."

"If Joseph Smith is a prophet, than the Book of Mormon is true."

"If the Book of Mormon is true, then the church is true."

"If the church is true, then the church is right."

"YOU are wrong."

Love the way you put that.

Sadly,although what you have made clearly fraudulent in a clever way here, the phrases in that order would be to many TBMs the same as being thrown a life raft at sea. My family happens to be on that raft. Dang.

Its main purpose is to neither be carefully read nor to explain away objective criticisms of Mormonism.

Its purpose is to put online page after page of drivel arranged by topic that the faithful masses can scan, be impressed with the volume, and thereby satisfy themselves that some smart guys have explained the problems all away with lots of words.

It depends on the individual. I have frequently mentioned to questioning Mormons to go to Fair and check for themselves to ascertain if their apologetics makes any sense. If one is seeking confirmation bias, it could solidify a TBM's belief if they do not think critically. With a modicum of logic skills, the Fair site falls apart immediately. In fact, their apologetics becomes laughable. Unfortunately the humor is often overshadowed by the pain of the discovering of the fraud of Mormonism.

Is FAIR Mormon actually short for FAIRy Tale Mormon?

I've read some very interesting fairy tales on the site.

I have and will always defend fair. call me a tbm if you want, but remember I do believe that it is all nonsense. I do not believe joseph smith saw god, but I do believe he started to believe his own "power" - the shaman approach.

I love fair, i grew up playing in Scott GOrdon's front yard in Redding California. He is an honest, good man. The downside, what he defends is nonesenese.


Why do I like fair, because of them I exted slowly, and carefully. I took five years to really exit. Fair gave me reasons to still believe. And allowed the change to happen over time.

I had thoughts over time "what if it isn't true, what would be idfferent about my life?" I would feel guilty for those thoughts, but they came often, and looking back were very threapeutic. Plus, ti showed my TBM wife that I really tried to stay. I took the arguments seriously. I accept some, but reject others, and ultimately conclude the MOrmon CHurch, and Christianity, Islam, and Judiamasm as a whole is not worth my time. Fair helped me stop believing in nonesense, but they did it slowly.

Remember the story in the BoM of poisoning them slowly? Fair allowed that to happen. I was "Poisened" slowly to non-belief. ANd I think it saved my marriage.

guy1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I love fair, i grew up playing in Scott GOrdon's
> front yard in Redding California. He is an
> honest, good man.

I'm glad FAIR had some positive value for you.
However, I can't possibly agree with the statement above.

Gordon's articles on FAIR are full of dishonest crap -- things he KNOWS aren't true, but he posts anyway.
They're almost as bad as Dan Peterson's when it comes to attacking the critic -- fallacious ad-hominems that are mean, nasty, and irrational.

I'm sorry, but "honest, good" men don't lie and attack honest critics personally. "Honest, good" men are honest and kind to others, even if those others disagree with them on "belief." His writing on FAIR clearly shows he's neither honest nor good. Whatever he does outside of FAIR.

From the FairMormon website:

"FairMormon provides faithful answers to criticisms of the LDS church.

Notice it say's "faithful answers to criticism of the LDS church", not "honest answers to questions about the LDS church."

That's how honest your hero at fair is.

Guy1, we may know each other.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/2017 01:37PM by kathleen.

They used to have the address at the top of their site.

We were surprised to find it's a small brown 1950s house in a declining neighborhood. The yard needed water and work and was littered with grimy toys. The lady who answered the door seemed tired and hassled. She was holding a very wiggly yipping dog which was nipping at her and growing at my DH.

The woman seemed proud that her husband was head of FAIR and she seemed to think my nevermo husband was some kind of high placed official mormon. She was very admiring of him and said he could return to discuss FAIR that evening. We took pictures of the place and left.

Was that when they had Brigham Young's Deseret Alphabet hanging on the front of the house?

I just re-read the FAIR article on Lamanite skin color and the curse, which basically expends a lot of text trying say that even the NBoM says "...a skin of blackness..." it really doesn't mean "a skin of blackness".

The spin makes me dizzy......

I also tried to look up why 2 Nephi talks about gold, and silver, and all manner of precious things to be found upon the land, and then in the *very next verse* says these things were NOT to be found upon the land--FAIR doesn't even bother to try and answer this one; all I could find was 'Ask Gramps', and he didn't answer it either.