What is Truth?

What is Truth?

When I was a believing Mormon, one of my favorite hymns was, “Oh Say What is Truth.”

Oh say, what is truth? 'Tis the fairest gem That the riches of worlds can produce, And priceless the value of truth will be when The proud monarch's costliest diadem Is counted but dross and refuse.
Yes, say, what is truth? 'Tis the brightest prize To which mortals or Gods can aspire; Go search in the depths where it glittering lies Or ascend in pursuit to the loftiest skies. 'Tis an aim for the noblest desire.
The sceptre may fall from the despot's grasp When with winds of stern justice he copes, But the pillar of truth will endure to the last, And its firm-rooted bulwarks outstand the rude blast, And the wreck of the fell tyrant's hopes.
Then say, what is truth? 'Tis the last and the first, For the limits of time it steps o'er. Though the heavens depart and the earth's fountains burst, Truth, the sum of existence, will weather the worst, Eternal, unchanged, evermore.

I was raised to be truthful. I have always placed great value in being truthful and in seeking Truth. There are a few stanzas from this hymn that are of particular interest to me and seem to sum up how I view truth. “But the pillar of truth will endure to the last” and “Though the heavens depart and the earth's fountains burst, Truth, the sum of existence, will weather the worst, Eternal, unchanged, evermore”

Truth is eternal and unchanging. Truth does not cave into public pressure or bow to the whims of man. Truth is timeless, it is absolute, and it is unquestionable and certain. If something is true…you can bank on it forever and even if the heavens depart and earth’s fountains burst, truth will remain unchanged evermore.

I was taught that the tenants of Mormonism met the toughest of truth tests. That Mormonism and truth were synonyms of each other. Mormonism = Truth and Truth = Mormonism. How is it possible that I could have been so wrong?


Discovering that the church was not what it claims was one of the hardest conclusions of my entire life. It has been an extremely excruciating and painful supposition to come to. With all my being, I wanted the church to be all it says it is. To be TRUE. But the depth of the lies, cover-up and whitewashing coupled with so many obvious false claims were just too overwhelming for me to maintain faith in Mormonism. I agonizingly came to the conclusion that despite what I had been taught all my life, the faith of my youth had been built on false and unfulfillable promises of eternal life, eternal families and marriage only by maintaining an allegiance to Mormonism. The abundance of conflicting information to this claim can lead to only one logical conclusion, “The church is not what it claims to be“. It is NOT True.

To me ... this is the underlying evil of Mormonism ... It is equivalent to buying a medical elixir from a snake oil salesman who claims that his elixir and his alone can cure all of your medical ills. You buy into his claim of wonderful medical miracle cures and pay your money. You go home take the elixir exactly as instructed…you have great faith in this salesman and his product, believing that his claims are true. But when the desired cure never takes place…you go to get your money back….but the salesman has skipped town with his fictional claims and your money…you were sold a fiction, and despite his truth claims and your faith…it never was going to be anything other than fiction with no chance of ever delivering on its claims. You were sold a false hope and the salesman never had, nor intended to make good on his promises.
The allure of Mormonism is its claim of truth. The false hope in Mormonism is its ability to pass off to the NEXT life all of its big pay offs. The REAL rewards don’t arrive until you’re dead…when I suggest that none of us will have the ability to ask for a refund…Mormonism is a false hope with no intention of ever being able to make good on its promises.

Like the snake oil salesman promising miracle cures...Mormonism sells its members false hopes in the eternities that it will never have to make payment on. It sells its membership false promises that it will never have to keep.

Some knowledgeable members believe that a lifetime of dedication and obedience to the church is warranted because of the earthly benefits that are inherent in the church in this life. Because the church brings these members closer to Christ...they overlook or ignore the difficult history and false claims of the church. They buy into the claim that the church makes them a better human being. The promises of eternity are merely the “dessert” on an already wonderful lifestyle. In other words, some members are willing to overlook the truth claims of Mormonism because they perceive or reap earthly benefits. So the lifestyle benefits are worth forfeiting so-called earthly gratifications.

So Mormonism is a false religion because its claims are false. It claims to be the only true church on the face of the earth...yet its doctrine is riddled with falsehoods.

Some time ago I compiled some of the false testable claims found in Mormonism... here is a small portion of that effort.

Testable false claims found in Mormonism:

1.) If there was not a universal flood 4000 plus years ago, Mormonism is a fraud.

2.) If there was death of any kind, animal or vegetable, prior to The Fall, 5700 plus years ago, Mormonism is a fraud (check your local fossil record).

3.) If any human being on earth today descended from any human, or humanoid, other than two people who lived in Missouri 5700 years ago, then Mormonism is a fraud.

4.) If there were ANY humans living on earth prior to Adam and Eve 5700 years ago, Mormonism is a fraud.

5.) If the canonized Book of Abraham is not what Joseph claimed it to be (a "translation" of those particular scrolls), then Mormonism is a fraud.

6.) If the Book of Moses is not what JS claimed it to be (a restoration of Moses' original book of Genesis), then Mormonism is a fraud.

7.) If "spirit" is not "matter", then Mormonism is a fraud (that is, we ought to be able to detect the "matter" of "spirit", shouldn't we? Why is it totally invisible and undetectable, that is, IMMATERIAL?)

8.) If the Native Americans are not who "Jesus Christ" in the D&C said they were, namely, "Jews", then Mormonism is a fraud.

9.) If our sun is not drawing its light from a star called Kolob, then Mormonism is a fraud (wording from the facsimile may allow apologist spin job on this one - course, "wording’s never had much of an impact on whether a spin job comes up or not).

10.) If those who currently have themselves sustained as "seers" cannot actually perform the function of a seer by, say, translating unknown languages while looking through a seer stone, as outlined in the BOM and other places, Mormonism is a fraud. (Why haven't they translated the "papyrus scrolls of Joseph" yet?).

11.) If "A" and "not A" can not both be true, then Mormonism is a fraud, since in so many cases Mormonism requires us to believe just that, i.e., "The Lord won't let the prophet lead us astray"/"I don't know that we teach that"..."The Negroes weren't valiant in the pre-existence"..."birth control is an impure and unholy practice"..."plural marriage is necessary to exaltation"...and a million more reversals of previously taught doctrines by sitting church presidents. If the Lord won't let the prophets lead the church astray, how is it that in less than two centuries, the Godhead had been reconfigured by them so often? The Lectures on Faith were even CANONIZED for almost one hundred years! Can you imagine? The Godhead was the trinity for awhile, then it had two people in it, Adam's in there for awhile, JS thinks Jehovah is God the Father in section 109, or at least thinks it's okay to pray to Jesus which now it's not, the Godhead actually has three, James E. Talmage invents "divine investiture"....it's nuts. In which one of those evolutionary stages was the Lord not allowing the prophet to lead us astray? When we worshipped Jehovah? Or Adam, in the endowment ceremony? Or does it not matter who we worship? If not, then what's that commandment doing there in the Ten Commandments? And if it IS the case then that the Lord WILL let the prophets lead the church astray, then that torpedoes the whole thing anyway (as if all the contradictions don't anyway).The funny thing is, you don't even need to go searching around for steel and barley and stuff. You don't even need to go outside Mormonism itself to see that it can't possibly be what it claims to be. You can pretty much establish there is no way just on www.lds.org itself.

12. If the Earth is NOT 6,000 years old (see D&C 77) Mormonism is a fraud

13. If there were not Steal, Horses, Elephants, Wheat, Barley, Wheeled vehicles Figs, Grapes, etc in the Americas during the timeline of the Book of Mormon. Mormonism is a fraud

14. If the island inhabitants of the Pacific are not descended from the population of the Americas and of Hebrew blood, Mormonism is a fraud

15. If Joseph Smith’s claim to have translated Egyptian Papyri is proven a false translation, Mormonism is a fraud

16. If Joseph Smith translated the Kinderhook plates, which have been proved to be a modern day hoax, Mormonism is a fraud.

17. If Jews from the time of Moses until at least 600 B.C. were not proto-Christians, Mormonism is a fraud

18. If Ancient Jews didn’t believe in the Devil/Satan, Mormonism is a fraud

19. If Ancient Jews didn’t believe in an afterlife, Mormonism is a fraud

20. If there wasn’t an original, pristine Christian church started by Jesus Himself which fell into apostasy, Mormonism is a fraud

21. If Joseph Smith used the same method of translation for the BoM that he used to defraud unsuspecting farmers of their hard-earned money with his claim to find treasure, Mormonism is a fraud

22. If the JST of the Bible is found to be totally unsupportable as a translation of any original biblical manuscripts, Mormonism is a fraud

23. If the substantive narration of the BofM - King Benjamin's discussion involving Jesus bleeding from every pore - debunked as a fabrication when Bible scholars learned that the Book of Luke account of Jesus sweating blood was a fabrication inserted by proto-orthodox believers (precursor to Catholic Church) - see research by Bart Ehrman. The plates of brass insertion is also debunked via the 1769 KJV errors. The Nephite sermon on the mount text is also a demonstrated fabrication because of the Lord's Prayer that Bible scholars have found to be partly fabricated during the Middle Ages - see any Bible, like a NIV version or annotated NKJV for a discussion., Mormonism is a fraud

24. If the characters Joseph Smith claimed were on the golden plates bear no resemblance to any ancient writing forms, and particularly no form of Hebrew or Egyptian, Mormonism is a fraud.

25. If the Book of Mormon contains anomalies of history, anachronism, geography, archaeology, etc., and obvious plagiarisms from the Bible and other works, Mormonism is a fraud

26. If changes were made to the original so-called Book of Mormon translation after Moroni declared the translation correct and took back the Golden Plates, Mormonism is a fraud

27. If Joseph Smith did not see God and Jesus Christ in 1820, then Mormonism is a fraud.

28. If Joseph Smith was not persecuted for having claimed to see God and Jesus Christ, then Mormonism is a fraud.

29. If Joseph Smith never told anyone about the "First Vision," then Mormonism is a fraud.

30. If John the Baptist never conferred the Aaronic Priesthood on the heads of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, then Mormonism is a fraud.

31. If Peter, James and John never ordained Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery with the Melchizedek Priesthood, then Mormonism is a fraud.

32. If Joseph Smith attempted to join any religion after being directly told to join none by Jesus Christ, then Mormonism is a fraud.

33. If after 1820. Joseph Smith ever changed his concept of deity from a traditional Trinity belief to a belief of distinct persons of flesh and bone, then Mormonism is a fraud.

34. If there is no steel swords, cows, horses, elephants, etc in ancient America, the Mormonism is a fraud.

35. If the Jews before 400 BC were unfamiliar with Greek names, then Mormonism is a fraud.

36. If God didn't want Joseph Smith to have sex with teenage girls, then Mormonism is a fraud.

37. If Elijah and Elias are the same person, then Mormonism is a fraud.

38. If sacred Mormon temple tokens, oaths and penalties are of Masonic origin, then Mormonism is a fraud.

39. If the living apostles haven't personally visited with Jesus Christ, then Mormonism is a fraud.

40. If a modern day prophet states that no one can see the future, then Mormonism is a fraud.

41. If a modern day prophet does not boldly tell the world that he is a living prophet when asked, but states that "the people sustain him as such", then Mormonism is a fraud.

42. If the only and best example of modern revelation is the decision to build a conference center and build more Temples, then Mormonism is a fraud.

43. If the church requires mandatory belief, Mormonism is a fraud

44. If the church commands mandatory feelings, Mormonism is a fraud.

45. If it claims god is omnipotent and yet must follow some higher law, Mormonism is a fraud.

46. If the church can’t tell the truth regarding its own history, then Mormonism is a hypocritical organization and a fraud.

47. If the Mormon Church is not the restoration of the primitive church (either messianic Judaism or pure Paulism) then Mormonism is a fraud.


And on and on and on...

And cannot be what it claims to be or TRUE