Thrashing Anti-Mormon Arguments

"Goodness gracious me!" declares our average, earnestly pacifistic Joe Mormon. "Contention is of the devil. I hate that stuff and never pay attention to it." And such somber pronouncements are usually offered in the gravest of sincerity.

But...

Chances are that most Mormons are familiar with the basics of anti-Mormon propaganda, and take just a wee smidgen bit of guilty delight in knowing how to tear them into sad, minuscule little shreds of deflated logic, exposing them for the shoddy ideas that they are, and leaving said propaganda curled up in a corner, whimpering and sucking their thumbs. Even if the typical Latter-day Saint eschews confrontation and honestly does avoid such discussions in the real world, it's a comforting pleasure to know that one could rend such pitiful attacks asunder if one wanted to.

What did that article in The Nation just say about us? That we believe that our underwear has magic powers? Well, I could show them some quotes that would clear that right up and take their dumb old great and spacious building down a story or two...

Indeed, a huge segment of the LDS presence on the Internet is dedicated to such polemics, both private and public (thus the popularity of Jeff Lindsay and FAIR, for example). So while Joe Average Mormon (Joe Birkenstock? Joe Plasma Screen? Joe I'll-Do-My-Home-Teaching-On-The-30th...If-I-Do-It-At-All?) prefers to personally only broach the subject of alleged criticisms of his beliefs in the most discreetly polite manner possible*, online such tiptoeing quickly turns into an all-out smackdown, a la the mocking of SHIELDS or the sarcasm of Daniel C. Petersen.

*Well-meaning non-member friend: My pastor said something last week about how the Book of Mormon has had all these changes and that it says Jesus was born in Jerusalem and stuff?

Average Mormon: (OK, don't get excited! This is a softball, you can explain this one like it's some simple pop-up book. Oh boy, this is it! I finally get to put all those Gospel Doctrine classes to work! Remember those verses the GA's always use, and....go!)

So, undoubtedly, while it's a furtive fantasy suppressed by the better natures of most Mormons, it's also demonstrably true that they do love knowing how to annihilate anti-Mormon arguments.