Mailbag: Truth About Mormonism

From: "Luke"
Subject: Mormonism

I am writing in regards to the Mormonism section located within the atheism part of your web site. First I would like to say that I respect your ability and right to put whatever you want on your web site and I am not asking you to remove anything. My concern is that the information from sites you have linked is fundamentally wrong, and not a part of the Mormon docterine.

Considering how many links I have to various pages around the internet, it's not at all surprising that I get complaints about which places I have chosen to link to. If anything, I'm surprised that I don't get more complaints. Most of those I do receive seem to assume that I am the author of the sites I link to, but occasionally I hear things like the above: that the places I link to provide faulty or false information.

First of all, I don't make any specific claims about the accuracy of each and every page I provide links to - that simply isn't possible. Even if I had the time to check them all, I wouldn't have the time to re-check them on a regular basis in order to ensure that the quality and accuracy hasn't gone down over time.

Second, when people do complain, they don't explain how and why the sites I link to are so bad. Of course, were they able to do that, it would make much more sense for them to send such complaints directly to those responsible for the sites in the first place. If anything, I think that it may be a bit cowardly to try and get people like me to stop linking to sites critical of religion rather than address one's concerns directly to those who created those sites. Speaking personally, if a person had a problem with anything I have written I would expect them to write to me rather than try to get others to stop linking to me.

Furthermore I find it odd that you have an entire section devoted to Mormonism, yet you do not (not that I can find, anyways) provide a link to the web site of the Mormon religion, nor to anyone else backing our faith, but rather to a wealth of sites that know nothing of our teachings and spew out nonsense about us believing in moon men. I would only request that you do something to make it seem less like a Mormon bashing page and more like something providing actual information.

This is a relatively common complaint: I don't provide enough "balance" in the links on this site. When I do provide some links, as I do with Scientology, I'm told that I don't provide enough! It seems that I can't win.

However, people raising this criticism are operating from a faulty assumption: that the Agnosticism / Atheism site is obligated to provide a balance of links to places that defend and places that critique religion. Where did such a premise come from? I don't know, but I certainly haven't tried to convey the impression that I'm trying to link to both.

This assumption is especially outrageous when you consider that most sites that defend religion don't do much to link to their critics, like this site. Do people like Luke write to those sites and complain about the lack of "balance" in their presentation? I rather doubt it - but they do complain when critics don't do enough to link to apologists. Can you say "hypocrisy"?

Another point to consider is that this site is one of several About.com sites that deal with religion. All of the others, however, are presented from the perspective of believers and theists. Even when they aren't explicitly defending and advocating a particular faith, that perspective still exists. I'm not criticizing that, but it should be kept in mind because it means that this is the only About.com site that offers a skeptical, critical, non-believing perspective on religion.

So, with twelve sites presenting a believer's perspective on religion and one site offering dissent, I would argue that this site creates balance, even without a single link to a single page defending religion. People who want to read defenses of any particular religion have more than enough resources both on About.com and on the internet generally - people who want a more critical or skeptical view don't have nearly as many places to go. Arguing that I should include more links to the sites of defenders and apologists strikes me as a bit disingenuous, to be perfectly honest.

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