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As much as I’d love to give this strange new niceness concept a try, I’ve got to start by pointing out your rudeness and presumption in upbraiding me because of an alleged "lack of research" and that I look foolish, lazy, etc. Frankly, nothing I’ve read in your book so far is anything I haven’t seen Mormons argue before. If you think the fact that I began at the first-level arguments, rather than immediately resorting to the full body what I know and all the arguments I’ve come up with or gotten from others proves I’ve never encountered anything more, your #56 (in which you pretended not to have any idea why I would view the foundational Mormon view of God as an insult to His dignity) must prove something similar of you.

Now with that said, we have a little more prolegomena based on the introductory materials to your book. In your " Warning to Non-Mormons, you write:

God is always known as the God of Truth. Rejecting Truth means rejecting God. Never reject what is true (John 8:43-47) since nothing can triumph against the Truth (2 Cor 13:8)… True acceptance of Jesus necessitates accepting his true Gospel

This is true, apart from your presumption that the true Gospel is Mormonism, and I would ask you and all others to keep this in mind yourselves, and consider whether you might be wrong. Mormons I’ve met have argued that Mormonism must be Christian because they have the name Jesus Christ in the name of their organization. One missionary even pointed to a (rather Aryan-looking) picture of Jesus they had in their cardboard tri-fold as proof of their status as genuine Christians. The answer is as you said: to reject what Scripture teaches of God is to reject God and reject Christ.

I should add here that we must be all the more eager to know the truth because of the warnings Scripture gives. E.g., Acts 20:28-31, Galatians 1:8, and so on; I’m sure you could multiply examples on your own. Matthew 7 is especially important, in that the issue is whether you follow a false prophet.

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

This shows your error when you write:

Why then do anti-Mormons think we care if Joseph Smith drank and smoked the day before his death, or if he had a temper, or that he booted an abusive and hostile minister?

Whether you care or not, you ought to, because this is exactly where Christ directs our attention: their fruits. Hypocrisy is especially relevant, because weeping and gnashing of teeth is their portion (Matthew 24:51).

There’s something else in the Warning I find interesting.

No one can be brainwashed by a book. We know we can’t convince everyone or even one person to join the church. It is only God’s Spirit who converts. We are looking for the elect of God, the ones God has chosen who belong to him… We know who they are by their readiness in accepting the gospel (Matt 13:15-16; John 6:37; 8:47; Acts 13:48; 17:2; 2 Th 2:13; 1 Pet 1:2; 1 Jn 4:6) since they know the voice of Jesus (John 10:4-5,14,26-29) and recognize it in the gospel when it is brought to them

This is the Biblical teaching. It is not, however, the Mormon teaching. It’s surprising to see a book advocating Mormonism contain a paragraph like this: you’re the first Mormon I’ve encountered who even seemed able to understand it, let alone believe it. Elsewhere, however, you wrote:

For example, the Mormon belief in the pre-existence means God is not responsible for undeserved suffering (e.g., Why did the baby suffer cancer and die?). The Mormon belief in the uncreated intelligence which is the foundation of our spirits means God is not responsible for our failures and evil deeds, which he would be if he created us ex nihilo. The Mormon belief in the uncreated nature of Good and Evil means God is not responsible for the existence of evil because it pre-existed God as God.

This isn't compatible with your paragraph in the Warning. If God isn't "responsible" for our failures, He cannot be responsible for the greatest of all failures, the failure to believe the Gospel. Now in Protestant theological debates you can get into some nice distinctions between active and passive reprobation, but any way you cut it, if the elect are elect because God chose them and converted them by His Spirit, it follows that the non-elect got that way because they were not chosen and not converted by the Spirit.

And some stronger statements of similar themes here.

So I’m curious which you actually believe, and if you believe the Biblical doctrine how you reconcile it with the rest of Mormonism.

Here you announce your willingness to accept modern source criticism. Jesus ascribed the Torah, not to a Yahwist, an Elohist, etc., but to Moses (see for example Mark 12:26 and John 5:46). If you’ll believe scholarly speculations (many centuries after the fact) over the Lord, why bother with any of it? You also said you didn’t care who wrote Titus and 2 Peter, they were inspired anyway. The author of Titus claims to be the Apostle Paul and the author of 2 Peter claims to be the Apostle Simon Peter; if the books were written by other men yet are inspired, then the Holy Spirit inspired deception, which would be somewhat problematic. On the general subject of scholarship, this is simply an exercise in well-poisoning.

But let’s move on to the largest matter: who God is.

First, the Isaiah passage. Your counter-argument is one I’ve seen before, as I said. You seem inordinately proud of having written it all yourself without relying on other’s works, but your answer is, so far as I’m seen, pretty much the stock reply to what is, admittedly, a standard objection. A note on standard objections: the reason so many arguments against Mormonism originated so early and continue more or less unmodified is that they are obvious and that the attempts at answering them have been so weak compared to their strength and nature. That’s the case here.

For background, some of the relevant verses:

(43:10-11) "You are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour."

(44:6) "Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God."

(44:8) "Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any."

(45:5-6) ""I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else."

(45:22) "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else."

The Mormon answer is that this is in the context of denunciation of false gods, and includes repeated statements that God created the universe. And both observations are true, as far as they go, but hardly mitigate the force of these verses they way they would need.

Suppose a father had prohibited his children to do something, and let’s say something in itself innocuous. Since you’re a Mormon I’ll say drinking coffee. Then somebody on T.V. talks about the health benefits of coffee. So the children decide to drink coffee contrary to their father’s rules. So the man, to reassert his authority and meaning only to say that he is the only father in the household, declares that: 1) The man on T.V. is not their father. 2) He built the house with his own money and sweat equity. 3) He is the only father ever, there are no other fathers beside him, was never any father before him, will never be any fathers after him (but even as he says he is the last father ever he hopes his sons will give him grandchildren), and that he knows of no other fathers. Clearly this last claim is absurd, and ludicrously in excess of what the argument intends to prove. Even if the man were a Mormon apologist who frequently deals with the Isaiah issue, he would never speak in this manner.

It becomes obvious that Jehovah's denial of the existence of other gods in Isa 43-46 wasn't a blanket statement but was indicative of the understanding of the people who believed in the existence of certain gods such as Astoreth, Ba'al, Baal-berith, Baalzebub, Chemosh, Dagon, Milcom, Moloch, Nisroch, Marduk, Tiamat and the Babylonian deities. Jehovah was denying the existence of the gods represented by the ANE idols.

That such grand statements would mean so little simply cannot be credited.

Here is another comparison. A man, whose wife suspects his fidelity, declares that she's the only woman he ever loved or ever would love. But you see, her suspicions were aroused by Jennifer, who the man finds ugly and avoids, and so none of it actually applies to Kate and Sarah, who he actually is carrying on with. Is this honest?

Jehovah (YHWH) wasn't talking about the presence or absence of other Gods in other universes which wouldn't even make sense since he placed the setting of his denial in this universe with his frequent reference to his creating the heavens and the earth.

Nothing in the text would support making this universe the limits of the claims. Grammatically and logically, the only one tied to the heavens and the Earth is 45:6, "from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me." If this were the only relevant verse, or if all the other verses set a range within which there is none beside Him, your case might be credible. But this is not the case. And if you did try to hang your case on this verse, it would prove more than you intend to prove, since the frame of reference is clearly planetary, while you have claimed somewhere on your site that Mormons deny God rules this planet only. Instead, you say He rules the whole universe. Which still demeans Him by asserting an infinite space He does not rule, namely all the other universes, and so doesn’t make the doctrine that much more palatable.

Another verse, 2 Samuel 7:22, "Wherefore thou art great, O LORD God: for there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears."

You comment:

David was praising God and his wisdom and power. He contrasted God with the gods of the other nations such as Egypt (vv. 18-23). Notice the comparison was between YHWH and idolatry, not God and Gods in other universes.

There is absolutely no reason in the text to make "none like thee" mean "none like thee compared to idols". False gods are only tenuously present, in reference to the other nations, but these are not introduced until God’s uniqueness has already been asserted. Now, this idea you’re imposing on the text and the other texts, that you can be unique "compared to" one thing but not another, is simply a misunderstanding of the concept. When David says there are none like God, it’s unfaithful to the text to make none mean some.

If "none like thee" isn’t comprehensively true, David was not praising God correctly, but offering flattery and sycophancy.

Later on the same page, you "answer" every New Testament assertion of monotheism by asserting that if we take the verse to mean what it says we would have to reject the divinity of Christ. But this presupposes the antibiblical Mormon division between The Father and the Son. But the Word was not only with God, the Word was God. For example, commenting on John 17:3, you say:

Consequently, since this statement of Jesus doesn't exclude him, neither should it exclude others from being "God" or else he isn't "God" as well.

The only problem is, if "others" are not excluded from being God, "the ONLY true God", which is what Jesus said, just does make any sense.

One New Testament verse you neglected:

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:3)

Note, please, that in verse 1 we see an obvious reference to Genesis 1:1, which says "In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth." In John we have an "in the beginning" and now we have a creation account. But notice: John changed what was created. The Genesis, all we see being created was "the heaven and the Earth", but John has changed it to "all things", and then he emphasizes his expansion by denying the contrary: "without Him was not anything made that was made". If Genesis left room for things outside the heaven and the Earth which God did not create, John is careful to close that room and say there is nothing which the Word did not make. Are there other universes? The Word made them, and without the Word they were not made.

Now, back when I was an Arminian, I was troubled by the fact that if Paul had intended, in Romans 9 and elsewhere, to say what I wanted him to be saying he did a pretty bad job of it. On the other hand, if Paul really did intend to teach predestination, I could hardly imagine clearer language than what he already used. What more could Paul have said? So let me ask you: if God intended to tell us that He is indeed unique regardless of how far you wish to range, could it be expressed in clearer or stronger terms than we already find? Would you let God say that? The only thing I can think might be lacking is a specific condemnation of the very outs you’re using. But then Joseph Smith would’ve thought up some other heresy, making the passage irrelevant both to the original audience and all subsequent generations. So do you expect the Bible to list everything single error a person might ever come up with? What more could Isaiah have said?

What makes this worse is the fact that there is no good reason why Mormon theology deserves such commitment over against the plain reading of the text. As noted Joseph Smith had a character not in keeping with a prophetic calling. From money-digging (using the very same paraphernalia which would later be associated with the translation of the plates) to taking other men’s wives to falling for the Kinderhook Plates to the extreme cultishness of the group he founded, everything points away from his being a prophet. Yes, I said he founded a cult. Your criticism of the very category of "cult" amounts to a big fallacy of equivocation. You quoted a dictionary entry similar to this one,but with a crucial alteration. You took the numbers out, making multiple definitions appear as if they were all parts of one. But this is just misdirection. If someone says you practice scary mind control, it doesn’t even make a proper tu quoque to say that he practices organized worship and ritual. In fact, even answering the charge like that is somewhat culty in itself. Regular groups would just point out all the common characteristics of cults they don’t have.

Lest I be misunderstood, although the organizations led by Smith and Young were among the most disturbing and dangerous cults in American history, most of the cultishness has faded away over the years.

Another mark against Smith is the fact that he depicts a civilization in pre-Columbian America that just wasn’t there. I see you have a chapter on archeology, but it’s not online. I’m willing to hazard a guess that in that chapter you also rehearse the standard replies to the standard objections, and as before, the replies are too weak to bear up under the weight of the original objections. Must we hear of how "horses" really means deer or tapirs or some other unhorselike creature, and how "swords" really means spiked clubs?

It's been a while since anyone's tried to debate me about religion. I kinda miss it.

Theology is the Queen of the Sciences.

Classification-wise, there's no doubt Mormonism is a separate branch of Christianity. It, like the other three branches, fully accept all the central Christian teachings that are found in the Bible. Where the four branches disagree are on doctrines and practices that are ABSENT in the Bible. IOW, the areas of disagreements are on extra-biblical issues.

What I meant is not that Mormonism should understood as part of Protestantism or something like that (frankly we don’t want you -- well, actually we do, but only as converts away from Mormonism). Rather, first, it should not be understood as a branch at all. As I’ve demonstrated, Mormonism does reject central Christian teaching in the Bible. Second, it hardly rates as comparable to the three main branches. That’s what I meant by the comparison to the Mahdists. They’re a comparatively small, recent offshoot which rejects a foundational Muslim doctrine (in their case the finality of Mohammed as prophet).

If you're having problems just click on the page links. I placed the entire book on the web.

I mean the pages on Protestants, Catholics, Baha’i, Carbohydrates, and so on.

Anyway, at this point I’ve written all I care to for now.