"dishonest from the beginning"

Unfortunately, this series smear campaign is dishonest garbage filled with false and inaccurate information, fake quotes, deceptions, ad hominems, smears and grossly misleading claims.

The issue here isn't my integrity, which is the sole focus of attack in FAIR's new smear piece. I've been honest and open from the very beginning.

The issue here is that Sarah Allen has been given grossly misleading, inaccurate, deceptive and totally incomplete data - devoid of context and divorced from reality - as I demonstrate below in my line-by-line debunking.

In my CES Letter Introduction page, which Sarah unfortunately ignores and does not share with her readers, I state:

It's all right there. Exactly what I sent to the CES Director on April 13, 2013. Jim Bennett can confirm this. I shared about my disaffection, when my faith crisis started, I stopped belief and activity in the summer of 2012, where I was at then and why I was listing all of these issues and problems to the CES Director.

So...why didn't Sarah Allen and FAIR share the above very pertinent information with their readers?

I'm going to be charitable here to Sarah by giving her the benefit of the doubt and not say that she, by design, was deliberately trying to withhold this key vital information from her readers from the beginning and which information ruins the rest of her attacks on me. Let's just chalk it up to her being a greenie apologist.

There was no evil-mustache-twirling. No advanced "manipulative" strategy planning (WTF?). No attempt to overwhelm (if it's overwhelming, it's the fault of the LDS Church's truth crisis - not mine).

But yeah...funny how things change when you get the full context and backstory, huh? When you actually read what I wrote in the opening paragraphs of the CES Letter, huh? I wonder how many of Sarah's readers walked away with a grossly misinformed understanding of what happened and what my motives were because Sarah forgot to share this critically important information and context?

The only reason why this deceptive drive-by attack on me here is possible is because apologists are using links from my own Reddit profile history of 9 years worth of undeleted posts and comments. My entire Reddit history the last 9 or so years is on there untouched, undeleted and open for all, including for people to twist, distort and obfuscate my words for their own purposes.

If this was all the evil-mustache-twirling enterprise and conspiracy that apologists attempt to cook up in their smear campaigns against me...why are all these Reddit comments and posts still on my Reddit profile in 2021? How come I never deleted these supposed unsavory posts and comments that supposedly "debunk" me, the CES Letter and reveal me to be the spawn of Satan? Why would I say supposedly damning stuff that ruins my entire evil anti-Mormon enterprise that I supposedly connived and planned and "manipulated" from Day 1?

What's really going on here is that there is other information, quotes and context that put these supposed unsavory quotes into a completely different context and light than the context that is presented by Mormon apologists. The quotes, as presented by Mormon apologists, are incomplete or fake or missing key pertinent information that is being ignored or misunderstood.

I demonstrate all of this clearly below.

Needless to say, while I'm very disappointed that I'm being treated in such an unfair and despicable way, I'm grateful for the opportunity to clear things up so that I can neutralize the destructive charge and toxic apologetic poison of all future similar deceptive, false and fake smears and attacks made against me, my integrity and my character.

Gish Gallop

"This was done by design."

No, Sarah, it wasn't. It's not a Gish Gallop (a term you're misusing in this case). And no, it was not "done by design".

It was just a letter to a CES Director who approached me on March 22, 2013 asking me to share all of my concerns and questions about the LDS Church's truth crisis.

You don't have to take my word that this happened as I presented the emails and all the evidence to Mormon apologist Jim Bennett. Jim Bennett has expressed satisfaction that I'm telling the truth about the Director, the CES Letter origins, my motives for writing the letter to the Director and more:

Only in a Mormon apologist's mind is the following formula "Gish Gallop":

CES Director in 2013: "Hi Jeremy, your grandpa asked me to help address your questions and concerns. Can you share them with me?"

Jeremy in 2013: "Thanks for your offer to help. I'm really looking forward to your answers as they will be as close to official answers I've seen after dealing with these unofficial apologists and their unofficial pet theories for a year. Here you go...(attaches PDF letter with questions and concerns)"

Present Day Jeremy:

In my CES Letter Introduction page, which Sarah unfortunately ignores and does not share with her readers, I state:

It's all right there. Exactly what I sent to the CES Director on April 13, 2013. Jim Bennett can confirm this. I shared about my disaffection, when my faith crisis started, I stopped belief and activity in the summer of 2012, where I was at then and why I was listing all of these issues and problems to the CES Director.

So...why didn't Sarah Allen and FAIR share the above very pertinent information with their readers?

I'm going to be charitable here to Sarah by giving her the benefit of the doubt and not say that she, by design, was deliberately trying to withhold this key vital information from her readers from the beginning and which information ruins the rest of her attacks on me. Let's just chalk it up to her being a greenie apologist.

There was no evil-mustache-twirling. No advanced "manipulative" strategy planning (WTF?). No attempt to overwhelm (if it's overwhelming, it's the fault of the LDS Church's truth crisis - not mine).

But yeah...funny how things change when you get the full context and backstory, huh? When you actually read what I wrote in the opening paragraphs of the CES Letter, huh? I wonder how many of Sarah's readers walked away with a grossly misinformed understanding of what happened and what my motives were because Sarah forgot to share this critically important information and context?

Moving on to the ridiculous Gish Gallop attack:

Sarah Allen is pointing to an attack that was made over 7 years ago in the summer of 2014 by Daniel C. Peterson. It's an asinine and misused attack against me and the CES Letter that demonstrates a severe ignorance of the CES Letter along with a fundamental misunderstanding of what Gish Gallop is. It just doesn't work or apply in the case of the CES Letter, as I demonstrate below.

Here's my debunking of Daniel C. Peterson's talk.

The basic attack and premise is that the CES Letter is just a "Big List" designed and engineered for the purpose of overwhelming the reader and destroying his or her Mormon testimony.

This "big list" attack is also referred to as "Gish Gallop", which is defined as:

John Dehlin in his interview with Jim Bennett shares his view of apologists using this disingenuous attack against the CES Letter:

The apologetic Gish Gallop attack against the CES Letter is ridiculous. The CES Letter has been online since April 2013. There is no such thing as Gish Gallop online.

There is no timer. The internet is open 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

One of the most well-worn apologetic cards is that of misapplying logical fallacies. The "big list" or "Gish Gallop" that apologists refer to is a tactic used in debates to drown out reasoned responses because there's a time limit. The shotgun approach is effective at giving an opponent too much to address in their allotted time, and it gives the impression that the attacker has "won" because the response is lacking.

Apologists are incorrect that the CES Letter takes any such approach. The internet is not a formal debate club and Mormon apologists do not have a time limit.

The CES Letter is not a Gish Gallop as it's a list in written form of grievances, questions and concerns to a CES Director who, by the way, requested them. The CES Letter is not a Gish Gallop as there is no time limit to respond to it. Indeed, Mormon apologists have had the time to respond to it over the years and I lovingly reciprocated in return.

The CES Director requested my list of doubts and concerns. I was not trying to win a debate nor did I think I was in a debate with the CES Director when I wrote the letter. It was not written to overwhelm anyone or to destroy anyone's testimony. I was seeking official answers from the Church to these problems.

The CES Director asked me to lay down my concerns on the table so I did exactly just that. I wanted his official answers. For Mormon apologists to claim that the letter is a "big list" is more of a testament of their fundamental misunderstanding of the CES Letter's background story and purpose than it is that the CES Letter is a "big list." It's a testament of their ignorance on what the Gish Gallop is.

CES Director: "Give me a list of your issues and concerns about the Church."

Jeremy: "Sure, here's my list."

Mormon apologists: "Big List! Gish Gallop! Sheer volume of complaints designed to bring someone's 'shelf' crashing down."

Jeremy: ...

The apologists and the CES Director are not being drowned out and have had plenty of time to respond to each issue. In fact, apologists have and I have responded to them. You can see a list of my debunkings here.

What's ironic is accusing the CES Letter of Gish Gallop and "Big List" attack when FairMormon and apologetic sources could be accused of the exact same thing.

Sarah confusing Jeremy with Joseph Smith

This is just Mormon apologists trying to cook up a fake, cunning, evil, Machiavellian "anti-Mormon" version of Jeremy Runnells that they desperately need me to be in their frantic attempts to discredit the CES Letter while obfuscating their religion's truth crisis from the members.

I find it hilarious that Sarah Allen is trying to pin on me a cult tactic that her own religion uses to brainwash its members.

Sarah also accuses me of using other "manipulative techniques" elsewhere in her smear campaign. There was no "manipulation" technique used. The reason why there is repetition is because nothing that Joseph Smith did was done in a vacuum. Everything is tied to each other in one way or another.

A main concern that I was expressing to the CES Director, which required repetition, was the disturbing picture and pattern that was emerging of Joseph Smith when you look at the entire forest considering all the problems together. When you do this while showing how all of the issues are tied with one other. You cannot look at each individual problem separately without also looking at all of them collectively. John Dehlin talks about this:

Instead of acknowledging the clear patterns of fraud and dishonesty in Joseph Smith's actions, conduct, words and behavior over the course of his adult life, FAIR chooses to distract and confuse their readers from this pattern by cooking up distracting and confusing fake nefarious nonsense and conspiracy theories in an ad hominem attempt to kill the messenger instead of the message.

The idea that I'm somehow masterfully employing all of these advanced psychological "manipulative" tricks to separate Mormons from their tender testimonies? I mean...lol.

Sarah, the "manipulators" you're looking for have names like Jim Jones, Warren Jeffs, Marshall Applewhite, David Koresh and...Joseph Smith.

It was just a letter to a CES Director, Sarah. Nothing more. Nothing less. I'm sorry to disappoint you.

Mormon apologists live in a universe where they isolate problems individually and never collectively. They live inside the dense forest micro analyzing trees while refusing to come out onto the high cliff to glance at the entire forest. They miss the forest for the trees.

Their math looks like this: 1x1x1x1x1x1x1x1x1x1=1.

My math looks like this: 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=10.

Mind-controlled members just see annoying "repetitions" of the number 1. Everyone else sees 10 individual ones that add up and create a larger and clearer picture.

Dishonest Strawman

No, Sarah. I reject your strawman and misrepresentation. I know you're new to the block here and you're trying to get the layout of the land but it's clear that you don't know my background story and how I viewed the CES Director's approach to me asking for my questions and concerns.

I wasn't looking for the Director to "save me". I was looking for official answers from the Church to these problems after an exasperating year prior researching the bizarre unofficial pet theories of Mormon apologists like your new boss, FAIR.

Now is probably a good time to revisit the CES Letter introduction page. In my CES Letter Introduction page, which Sarah unfortunately ignores and does not share with her readers, I state:

It's all right there. Exactly what I sent to the CES Director on April 13, 2013. Jim Bennett can confirm this. I shared about my disaffection, when my faith crisis started, I stopped belief and activity in the summer of 2012, where I was at then and why I was listing all of these issues and problems to the CES Director.

So...why didn't Sarah Allen and FAIR share the above very pertinent information with their readers?

I'm going to be charitable here to Sarah by giving her the benefit of the doubt and not say that she, by design, was deliberately trying to withhold this key vital information from her readers from the beginning and which information ruins the rest of her attacks on me. Let's just chalk it up to her being a greenie apologist.

There was no evil-mustache-twirling. No advanced "manipulative" strategy planning (WTF?). No attempt to deceive. No attempt to overwhelm (if it's overwhelming, it's the fault of the LDS Church's truth crisis - not mine).

But yeah...funny how things change when you get the full context and backstory, huh? When you actually read what I wrote in the opening paragraphs of the CES Letter, huh? I wonder how many of Sarah's readers walked away with a grossly misinformed understanding of what happened and what my motives were because Sarah forgot to share this critically important information and context?

Also, now would be a good time to revisit the above Timeline, Sarah. All of your attacks below are a symptom of your fundamental ignorance of what happened, when it happened, my motives and what the full context was when it happened.

Sarah Allen shares her own personal apologetic opinion: "That is a lie."

Let's see how well our aspiring new greenie apologist does to demonstrate her above little FAIR (pun intended) opinion.

Jeremy left the Church prior to the CES Director

Notice that Sarah doesn't give us the full quote that she pulled that sentence out of:

"TL;DR I have a TBM wife who still takes kids to Church. I want to know the most effective way to save them from Mormonism so they won't have to go through what I went through."

See what Sarah did there? She ripped out half of a sentence in the middle of the quote while hiding the pertinent other sentences that completely changes the context and meaning of her ripped out half sentence.

The underlying message that Sarah is deceptively trying to paint here is, "Oh look, Jeremy no longer believed in the Church and left it before the CES Director approached him a few months later in March 2013 but Jeremy did not disclose this to the Director or to the world. Look at how dishonest, evil and anti-Mormon Jeremy is."

Except that I did disclose all of this to the Director and to the world. It's right there in the first page of the CES Letter. Now would be a good time, Sarah, for you to do your actual homework and learn the actual timeline of events and the context of those events.

Now I'm starting to wonder why Sarah didn't share with all of us in the beginning of her hit-and-run piece the opening paragraphs of the CES Letter Introduction page. Let's have a look again:

Well, would you look at that? It's all right there on the first page of the CES Letter. Exactly what I sent to the CES Director on April 13, 2013. Jim Bennett can confirm this. I shared about my disaffection, when my faith crisis started, I stopped belief and activity in the summer of 2012, where I was at then and why I was listing all of these issues and problems to the CES Director.

So...why didn't Sarah Allen and FAIR share the above very pertinent information with their readers?

And yes, Sarah...this is what loving, responsible and concerned disaffected parents in a mixed-faith marriage do...they express concerns about their children being indoctrinated with false information.

This whole thing is a nothingburger that Sarah Allen and FAIR (FairMormon) are nefariously and dishonestly attempting to paint as an evil scandal.

Let's see what other deceptions, fake quotes and fake scandals our new and aspiring Mormon apologist Sarah Allen has in store for us.

Sarah is clueless on Jeremy's background and story

...And?

Why is this scandalous, Sarah?

Looks like I have to do Sarah's homework for her again. Sigh...let's pull out the Introduction page of the CES Letter:

It's all right there, Sarah. From Day 1. Full and complete honesty and transparency from the very first page of the CES Letter. On my website, which you ignore, it's been on there since Day 1 that I had my crisis of faith in February 2012 and I became disaffected from the Church that year.

Why don't you go have a look at the above Timeline so that you can see everything in context? It's probably a good idea to know what you're talking about before presenting yourself as an expert on the subject.

I shared this information in my April 2014 Mormon Stories interview.

I share this information on my website here and other places including the "About Jeremy" section on the homepage and have done so since 2013.

Now I'm really starting to have a faith crisis about our greenie apologist and why she, perhaps by design, did not include the above pertinent CES Letter Introduction page opening paragraphs.

Let's see what other nothingburger "scandals" our new apologist and FAIR have cooked up for us.

More "Gish Gallop" nonsense and mischaracterizations

Notice that Sarah doesn't give us the exact quote from the website. There's a reason for this. Here's the exact quote from FAQS & Common Attacks page on cesletter.org:

The CES Director requested my list of doubts and concerns. I was not trying to win a debate nor did I think I was in a debate with the CES Director when I wrote the letter. It was not written to overwhelm anyone or to destroy anyone's testimony. I was seeking official answers from the Church to resolve my doubts and to hopefully restore my testimony.

The CES Director asked me to lay down my concerns on the table so I did exactly just that. I wanted his official answers. For Mormon apologists to claim that the letter is a "big list" is more of a testament of their fundamental misunderstanding of the CES Letter's background story and purpose than it is that the CES Letter is a "big list."

CES Director: "Give me a list of your issues and concerns about the Church."

Jeremy: "Sure, here's my list."

Mormon apologists: "Big List! Gish Gallop! Big List Attack on the Church."

My statement was true then and it's true today. I didn't write the letter to the Director to overwhelm him or to destroy anyone's testimony. The reason why I wrote it to the Director the way I did is because my concerns weren't just the individual issues. My concern was the disturbing pattern and picture of Joseph Smith that all of these individual issues combined reveal.

I already talk about this in the CES Letter Introduction page that Sarah has ignored:

"I’ve decided to put down in writing just about all the major concerns that I have. I went through my notes from my past year of research and compiled them together. It doesn’t make sense for me to just lay down 5 concerns while also having 20 other concerns that legitimately challenge the truth claims of the LDS Church."

There's nothing nefarious here. Only in Sarah's mind is the following a plot and conspiracy to "overwhelm" and "destroy testimonies":

CES Director: "Give me a list of your issues and concerns about the Church."

Jeremy: "Sure, here's my list."

Mormon apologists: "Big List! Designed to overwhelm others and destroy their testimonies!"

Jeremy: ...

It was just a letter to a CES Director, Sarah, that the CES Director asked me to share all of my concerns and questions to him about the Church.

No conspiracy here. No master diabolical world domination planning. No evil-mustache-twirling. No advanced psychological "manipulation" techniques (lol?).

Just a letter, sweetheart.

More Misinformation and Deception

Let's unpack and debunk each one of Sarah's above asinine claims:

"Manipulation Techniques"

Because I didn't, Sarah.

All of this bullshit "manipulation techniques" you're bizarrely accusing me of here is just that...horseshit.

This is just Mormon apologetic fake scandals and fake conspiracy theories manufactured for the purpose of deceptively painting Jeremy Runnells as some masterfully brilliant evil-mustache-twirling Machiavellian "anti-Mormon" character who uses crazy advanced psychological "manipulation techniques" and tricks and hacks to brainwash and separate Mormons from their tender testimonies.

The idea that I'm somehow masterfully employing all of these advanced psychological "manipulative" tricks to separate Mormons from their tender testimonies? I mean...lol.

Sarah, the "manipulators" you're looking for have names like Jim Jones, Warren Jeffs, Marshall Applewhite, David Koresh and...Joseph Smith.

It was just a letter to a CES Director, Sarah. Nothing more. Nothing less. I'm sorry to disappoint you.

I mean...Jesus. I'm in the wrong business if I really have the skillset and foresight that Sarah thinks I have. I should've become a cult leader instead.

You're barking at the wrong tree, Sarah Allen. The source that is using "manipulation techniques" and brainwashing is your own religion. Go bark at that tall building on North Temple instead.

As mentioned previously, it was just a letter to a CES Director, Sarah. That's it. I'm just a normal guy who occasionally mispronounces words. There was no nefarious purpose here. No mustache-twirling. No conspiracy. No "manipulation techniques" conniving and planning. No advanced foresight. I didn't wake up one day in 2013 deciding to set up this big elaborate anti-Mormon machine and enterprise.

It just happened and it all happened in a way that I never imagined or could have ever imagined. I promise you...I didn't plan or connive anything. It just happened.

Look at my above Timeline. My concerned grandfather asked his CES Director friend to intervene. He emailed me and asked me to share my questions and concerns. I'm not a half-ass kind of guy so I shared all of my questions and concerns.

That's it. Nothing special. No elaborate conspiracy or advanced psychological "manipulation techniques" planning and strategizing needed.

I was shocked by the Church's truth crisis in February 2012. I started researching trying to get answers to the problems. I have emails from then to Mormon apologists seeking help. I've been open and honest since Day 1 on my Reddit account. I've been open and honest since the very first page of the letter to the CES Director - as evidenced from my Introduction page (that Sarah omits).

I showed Mormon apologist Jim Bennett all of this, including my emails with the Director and how they line up with everything. He expressed satisfaction that I'm telling the truth:

And Jim Bennett has also shared his position that I'm telling the truth about what happened and that my motives are what I've always stated them to be from Day 1:

A full interview and more information about what happened in 2013, including about the Reddit posts that Sarah Allen is trying to paint as so "scandalous" are discussed in the upcoming CES Director Revealed:

Destroy Testimonies

Would you look at all this deception? Let's debunk:

This attack is more of an indictment of Sarah Allen and her ignorance than it is anything of Jeremy Runnells. The problem here is that Sarah hasn't done her homework and is ill-informed.

Sarah, I made it easy for you. Go look at the above Timeline. Now look at the CES Letter Introduction page that you've ignored and didn't share with all of us:

Alright, you back? Educated now?

If you are, then you can clearly see that your above attack is a clusterduck of deception and inaccurate and incomplete information.

I left the Church before the CES Director approached me in March 2013, Sarah. This was never a secret. I told the Director and everyone in the world from Day 1 in the first page of the CES Letter that you completely ignore: "I'm a disaffected member who lost his testimony...I was a very active and fully believing member my entire life up until around the summer of 2012."

Got it? Yes, I left the Church before the CES Director contacted me in March 2013. We both knew that as it was the entire purpose of his reaching out to me. I didn't hide this from anyone as I've mentioned above. And yes, I was angry and upset at the Church and I wrote some angry stuff on Reddit during my faith crisis throughout 2012. This is what people in a faith crisis sometimes do.

I posted in November 2012 (which post and quote Sarah deceptively bastardizes and misrepresents) asking for advice and help in protecting my children from harmful indoctrination. This is what loving, responsible and concerned disaffected parents in a mixed-faith marriage do...they express concerns about their children being indoctrinated with false information. There's nothing nefarious about this. This is what disaffected members of the Church and parents ask all the time on social media.

This has nothing to do with "leading others away" as Sarah is deceptively trying to paint this as. It has everything to do with a concerned and doubting parent trying to minimize the indoctrination and harm of his children so that his children would not experience the same excruciating pain of a faith crisis that he had experienced himself that year because of the Church's truth crisis.

What does saving my underage children, who were all under the age of 5 at the time, from indoctrination have to do with "destroying anyone's testimony"? They didn't even have testimonies and they all could barely talk. You're just creating a misleading and nonsensical strawman here.

Further, you are grossly mischaracterizing how I viewed the CES Director's offer and approach. I saw his intervention as an opportunity to finally get official answers after a year of pulling my hair out dealing with asinine and contradictory unofficial answers from FAIR and other apologists. As I've stated in my above CES Letter Introduction page that you keep ignoring:

"I'm just going to be straightforward in sharing my concerns. Obviously, I'm a disaffected member who lost his testimony so it's no secret which side I'm on at the moment. All this information is a result of over a year of intense research and an absolute rabid obsession with Joseph Smith and Church history. With this said, I'd be pretty arrogant and ignorant to say that I have all the information and that you don't have answers. Like you, I put my pants on one leg at a time and I see through a glass darkly. You may have new information and/or a new perspective that I may not have heard or considered before. This is why I'm genuinely interested in what your answers and thoughts are to these issues."

There it is. In black and white. Now I'm starting to see why Sarah, by design, hides these introductory paragraphs of the CES Letter. It ruins the entire bullshit painting and narrative she's trying to paint of me here in her drive-by hit piece.

See what Sarah Allen is doing here? She's manufacturing a bullshit nefarious narrative and smear on me while hiding context and information that debunks her nefarious narrative and smear.

The core of Sarah Allen's thesis and hit piece here is her dishonest insinuation that I never disclosed that I was a disaffected and unbelieving member before being approached by the CES Director in March 2013.

As I've demonstrated, this is just completely false and deceptive as I have disclosed exactly just that. It's on the first page of the CES Letter!

"I'm a disaffected member who lost his testimony...I was a very active and fully believing member my entire life up until around the summer of 2012."

Sarah Allen's Kangaroo Court Deception

Wow, this is so deceptive and false.

Let's break this up and debunk each individual attack:

Clueless Sarah proves Jeremy's kangaroo point

This is an incomplete and inaccurate quote that doesn't include its very important first sentence along with its pertinent previous paragraph. Here's the full and accurate quote that Sarah isn't giving us:

"I’m told to put these foundational problems on the shelf and wait until I die to get answers? To stop looking at the Church intellectually even though the “glory of God is intelligence”? Ignore and have faith anyway?

I’m sorry, but faith is believing and hoping when there is little evidence for or against something. Delusion is believing when there is an abundance of evidence against something. To me, it is absolute insanity to bet my life, my precious time, my money, my heart, and my mind on an organization that has so many serious problematic challenges to its foundational truth claims."

And the above full and accurate quote is in the current CES Letter and has always been in the CES Letter.

The disciplinary council was a scam and I demonstrate this in my thoroughly documented and detailed outline of what happened from beginning to end. You can see for yourself here: Mormon Kangaroo Court Against Jeremy T. Runnells.

Amateur apologist Sarah obviously hasn't read Mormon Kangaroo Court Against Jeremy T. Runnells. She doesn't know what she's talking about as she doesn't have all the important details nor is she capable of understanding or appreciating the real purpose, threat and danger of these kangaroo courts as the Church did everything it could to do its dirty deeds in secrecy. The stake president wasn't answering my questions and he was insinuating vague insidious claims about my conduct and character. The sole purpose of this exercise on the part of the LDS Church was to try and destroy my name and reputation and I had a right to defend myself. I did just that and Sarah doesn't like the end result - which is that I exposed this practice of her religion for the cult activity it really is.

Sarah demonstrates for us below my exact above point about defending myself from that scam court.

Sarah Allen's Fake Kangaroo Court Quote

Bullshit. I never said this in the Disciplinary Council and I can prove it. Sarah Allen is lying here and misleading her readers on false and fake quotes.

Now you see, my dear reader, why a recording of this scam council was necessary...so I can defend myself from completely fake and made up quotes like this one that Sarah Allen is misleading her readers on and smearing me with.

Here's the recording of the council on April 17, 2016:

The quote isn't in there. Neither is it in the separate transcript that was handmade by another individual listening to the video.

Sarah Allen's quote here is fake and I never made this statement in the council. Unlike her, I can prove it and I have just proved it by providing a video recording of the council along with a detailed line-by-line transcript of everything that was said in the video.

Why are you lying about me and making claims about me that are not true, Sarah?

Deceptive Sarah still lying about Jeremy

Your quote is fake. Shame on you, Sarah. I never said this in the council as you're claiming I did. I just debunked your claim in the previous box answer.

Further, your second sentence is also fake and a lie as you're misrepresenting and bastardizing my actual Reddit comment, which I conclusively debunk and demonstrate in this section below.

Your third sentence is a blatant misrepresentation and a demonstration of your complete ignorance (or willful blindness) of what I've written in the Introduction page of the CES Letter:

"I'm just going to be straightforward in sharing my concerns. Obviously, I'm a disaffected member who lost his testimony so it's no secret which side I'm on at the moment. All this information is a result of over a year of intense research and an absolute rabid obsession with Joseph Smith and Church history. With this said, I'd be pretty arrogant and ignorant to say that I have all the information and that you don't have answers. Like you, I put my pants on one leg at a time and I see through a glass darkly. You may have new information and/or a new perspective that I may not have heard or considered before. This is why I'm genuinely interested in what your answers and thoughts are to these issues.

A quick description of my background might help you understand where I'm coming from. I was a very active and fully believing member my entire life up until around the summer of 2012..."

Funny how this dissolves your little scandal cooking, huh? The reason why the "delusion" and "absolute insanity" quote (which you distort and bastardize) is in the Conclusion section of the CES Letter is because I explained in the Introduction section of the CES Letter that I'm a "disaffected member who lost his testimony so it's no secret which side I'm on at the moment" and "I was a very active and believing member my entire life up until around the summer of 2012."

I show how you bastardize and distort my "delusion" and "absolute insanity" Conclusion quote above in this section.

CES Letter updates and changes over the years

What's the problem or scandal here, Sarah?

I know you're brand new on the scene here and you're still learning but this is old news and commonly known.

Everyone knows that the original CES Letter had some tone issues. How do they know? Well, partly because I told them. I released the following update on December 3, 2017 informing people of the tone changes in the updated version, which important document you fail to mention to your readers. In fact, here's the hero image that I created myself on this page:

So...what's your point, Sarah? You think you're sharing something new? That you caught me here or something? What's the scandal here?

Sarah and her fellow apologist just share their unsupported personal opinions that the new updated version has been "recalibrated to appear more sincere and questioning. It's more manipulative on purpose."

No. It's been exactly as what I said in the above CES Letter 2.0 link. Go read it. I talk about the updates and why it's been updated, the tone issues and where there were tone issues and how I'm shifting the focus of the CES Letter and its purpose, etc.

Seriously, it's all in there. I'm not hiding anything. There's no conspiracy or "manipulation" going on here; well, except in the minds of Mormon apologists like Sarah. I'm very open and clear on my intentions and motives and what I've done.

Isn't it interesting how you didn't get this link and its contents that I publicly released on December 3, 2017 from amateur Sarah Allen and her apologist buddy "Senno"?

"The original subtitle of the letter in 2013 was “How I Lost My Testimony.” In 2015, he crowdsourced the new subtitle “My Search for Answers to My Mormon Doubts” from the exmormon subreddit."

Oh my god, Jeremy asked for feedback to a subtitle of the CES Letter on Reddit in 2015. The Church is true now. Everyone back to the pews.

So what? I also changed the title from Letter to a CES Director to CES Letter.

What Sarah isn't telling you is that I wrote this in the opening paragraphs on the first page of the CES Letter: "Obviously, I'm a disaffected member who lost his testimony so it's no secret which side I'm on at the moment."

This is why Sarah ignores my opening statements in the CES Letter. It ruins her narrative that I'm trying to secretly hide my disaffection from the Church prior to the CES Director and that I'm trying to pretend to the world that I wasn't disaffected from the Church before the Director. Sarah is being dishonest and deceptive here.

Sarah is acting like she uncovered some dirty secrets. All this was very public. I changed, edited, revised and updated the CES Letter over the years due to new information and mistakes that I correct. Everyone knows this. This is well-known and well-documented. In my 2014 Mormon Stories interview, I called the letter a "living document". What I meant back then was that my goal and focus has always been to keep the letter as accurate and updated as possible while being transparent in doing so.

If there's mistakes, I correct them. And I have. This is why the letter has been updated. And I share what the mistakes are and what I did to correct them. If there's new important information that is germane and important to the contents of the letter, like the Gospel Topics essays that were released after I wrote the letter in 2013? I update the letter to include them.

The CES Letter is not the Book of Mormon. I don't claim it's scripture.

There's been public and transparent changes and updates over the years. Okay? So what? What's your point? What's the scandal?

You don't have one, Sarah, other than your dishonest attempts here in trying to denigrate and paint me as a nefarious, dishonest and disreputable person. This is all you can do because you are choosing ad hominem over the actual arguments and issues and questions raised in the CES Letter. Instead of focusing on the issues and arguments, you're pulling a Scientology-style cult move here and focusing instead on attacking the person instead of the issues.

I've been honest and open and transparent since Day 1. Sarah and her stooges only have all of this fake "dirt" on me because I gave it to them. I didn't delete my comments and posts from Reddit. It's all there on my Reddit profile.

Here...here's the link to my Reddit profile. Go have at it. All 9 years of it going back to 2012.

Have fun.

Deceptive Sarah's Fake "Rewrite" Quote

Fawk, this is so deceptive and dishonest.

Notice that Sarah Allen doesn't share links or sources or screenshots here. It's because she's trying to control access to information and how it's branded. The purpose of her hit piece here is not truth or honesty. Sarah's sole purpose here is to smear and defame me, my integrity and my character at the expense of honesty and truth.

Sarah, you're going to be an amazing cult apologist when you've already sold off your honor, decency and integrity this early in the game. Congratulations, Sarah, you just got the 15 minutes of fame you're looking for but I promise you, based on my track record with my past apologist critics, that you're not going to be proud of this in 5 years. You will now be known as the dishonest apologist who blatantly attempted to smear Jeremy Runnells by grossly misquoting and misrepresenting him.

First with the 2015 statement. Look at how Sarah describes its source and where it came from: "When rewriting it in 2015".

I had to look all over for this quote until I finally found it. She took the quote from my CES Letter at the Crossroads blog post that I posted on cesletter.com. This is not a "rewrite". It's just a blog post. It's a blog post asking people for their thoughts and votes for the CES Letter's future. So, Sarah Allen Deception #1.

Sarah then unbelievably deceives her readers by outright altering and distorting both of my quotes! In the first "rewrite" quote, Sarah adds the last sentence that's not even in the blog post that she got the rest of the quote from! I mean, WTF?

The "rewrite" quote is not even my fawking quote. The last sentence is an add-on. It's nowhere to be found on the CES Letter at the Crossroads blog post. It's a fake quote that Sarah Allen created to tie in to the other quotes in her deceptive scheme to smear me.

The second quote from a March 7, 2016 letter to my Stake President is accurate and was pulled from the Mormon Kangaroo Court page on cesletter.org.

The third quote is a bullshit distortion and gross mischaracterization of what I actually wrote. Here's the screenshot from my Reddit profile comments history of what I actually wrote on March 26, 2013:

Unlike our amateur apologist Sarah Allen, I share direct links and screenshots so you can verify for yourself the accuracy of the quotes and information. The link to the March 26, 2013 Reddit Post with my comment.

Now compare what I actually wrote on March 26, 2013 in the above screenshot, that you can also independently verify with the Reddit link, to amateur apologist Sarah's bullshit distortion and blatant deception:

"However, the same day he posted it on Reddit, March 26, 2013, he also included a Word doc download of the letter and encouraged others to “make it their own” and to share it with as many people as possible. How is that “independent of his involvement,” “unbeknownst to him,” and “to his bewilderment” when he’s the one providing downloadable copies and encouraging everyone to share it with as many people as they could?"

How dishonest and deceptive is this?

I never once wrote or said "share it with as many people as possible". This is Deceptive Sarah's words. Not mine. She added this into her deceptive attack just like she made up and added the fake "unbeknownst to him" and "unbeknownst to me at the time, a lot of people liked it and started sharing it with family and friends" fake sentences and quotes.

The March 26, 2013 Reddit Post was asking for feedback on my advanced and mostly completed rough draft. My purpose in seeking this feedback and advice was to make sure that I was sending the Director a document that was worthy of his time and which would be as accurate and clear as possible so that the Director could receive my best work and hopefully he would provide a response. Apologists attempt to dishonestly twist this as a "crowdsourcing" event that I relied upon in writing the CES Letter, which is complete horseshit. It was nothing of the kind and you can clearly see in the comments that there's nothing of substance that I could've used to write the letter. In fact, two of the comments ask if I'm going to finish the Witnesses section as that's the one that's missing (I hadn't completed the Witnesses section by that point), which shows that the majority of the draft was already done just 4 days after the CES Director first emailed me on March 22, 2013.

In my next "Feedback, please" Reddit post a few weeks later on April 11, 2013 and just before I sent it to the Director, you can see the same thing. Nothing of substance in the comments section to use to write the CES Letter with like dishonest apologists are claiming.

Back to Deceptive Sarah's quote again:

"However, the same day he posted it on Reddit, March 26, 2013, he also included a Word doc download of the letter and encouraged others to “make it their own” and to share it with as many people as possible. How is that “independent of his involvement,” “unbeknownst to him,” and “to his bewilderment” when he’s the one providing downloadable copies and encouraging everyone to share it with as many people as they could?"

Of course I offered a download to the letter. I had no website. I was asking for feedback on my advanced rough draft. How else am I going to get feedback if people don't have the document I'm asking for feedback on? Notice that Deceptive Sarah doesn't offer this very pertinent and important background story and purpose of the Reddit post to begin with. She just deceptively makes it appear that I created a Reddit post just to distribute and advertise the letter for others to download when that's not what happened nor was it my purpose. I was asking for feedback on a letter I was about to send to the Director. Go to the Reddit post that I linked (that Deceptive Sarah didn't link) to see all of this for yourself.

Deceptive Sarah continues her con job of trying to smear me by then claiming that I was telling people to "share it with as many people as possible" when I wrote and said nothing of the kind. This is a blatant deception and misrepresentation. As you can see with my above screenshot, which I'm showing again below. I simply said, "make the document your own".

This was a reply to another comment. Here's the comment that my above comment was in response to:

I was giving this person and others permission to make the document their own for their own letters to their families. They could delete it all. They could grab a picture or a graph. They could take a paragraph or several and put all of this into their own personal letter to their families about their own exits. Their letter could look 95% different than mine and I was fine with that. Their private letter could have no trace back to me with zero credit back to me and I was fine with that. This is what I meant by "make it your own".

I did the exact same thing a few weeks later in the next "Feedback, please" Reddit post on April 11th, 2013. This was a little over a day before I sent the PDF to the Director. Here's a screenshot of my comment on that post:

Notice what I said:

"You guys can do whatever you want with the Word document. Personalize it for yourselves to give to your TBM loved ones. It's yours."

This all actually debunks Deceptive Sarah's point here as it undermines and ruins the supposed narrative Sarah is creating that I was evil-mustache-twirling my CES Letter empire from Day 1 as I was telling people to butcher up and destroy my letter as they saw fit and for their own private purposes.

If I was trying to set up an empire from Day 1 and make the CES Letter go viral, why the fawk would I tell people to "make it their own" or "it's yours...do whatever you want with it" and allow everyone to completely butcher up and destroy the letter with zero credit or trace back to me? I was literally allowing the document to be destroyed by everyone.

If this was some conspiracy on my part and an evil-mustache-twirling Master Plan to "manipulate" from Day 1 as Deceptive Sarah is trying to paint here...I did a horrible job in the beginning when I'm giving away the barn and product with no request for others to respect the letter's contents and ask that all credit come back to me. I would not have allowed people to "make it their own" or "it's yours...do whatever you want" and butcher up and ruin my document. I would have copyrighted it and tried to sell it in Canada. Maybe not Canada but I would have copyrighted it and told people not to mess with it and to make sure to credit it back to me. Telling people "to make it their own" and to allow them to butcher up my letter to their liking with no credit back to me is the worst thing I can do if I'm building the evil "anti-Mormon" empire from Day 1, as amateur apologist Sarah is insinuating I did. Sarah's claims are stupid and fall apart when you see the actual evidence and see what actually happened. Mormon apologist Jim Bennett saw the evidence and he has publicly defended me and stated that I'm telling the truth about the Director, the letter's origins, the dates and that I actually attached a PDF to the Director in an email.

What you see here is honesty on my part. I was sincerely trying to give the Director my best work. The date of this Reddit post was March 26th...4 days after the Director first emailed me (you can verify this with Mormon apologist Jim Bennett who saw this email and its timestamp). I wasn't trying to spread or market the document. I was asking for feedback to ensure a document worthy of the Director's time and efforts.

Look at how much different the painting looks now from Deceptive Sarah's painting of me and the situation. Amazing what evidence, screenshots, links, background information and context can do, huh?

Ask yourself why Mormon apologist Sarah Allen hasn't given you these evidences, screenshots, links, background information and context.

Sarah's deception on my CES Letter "hook" comment

This is so incomplete and deceptive.

Again, as usual, Deceptive Sarah doesn't give any screenshots, direct links or context to her readers to read for themselves.

Here's the September 17, 2013 Reddit post screenshot and link that Deceptive Sarah doesn't give us:

And here's a screenshot of my exact comment on that September 17, 2013 Reddit post that Deceptive Sarah doesn't give us:

In the previous box answer I talk about how I told people to "make the letter their own" and how this strategy was the worst thing I could do as the evil-mustache-twirling-build-an-anti-Mormon-empire-from-Day-1 bullshit narrative that Deceptive Sarah is trying to paint here.

Deceptive Sarah is doing this again by trying to paint my comment as meaning something else than what it meant and doing it with a nefarious spin to it.

I was thinking about the CES Director when I wrote that comment explaining why I wrote the original letter in the order that I did. When I wrote "TBM mind" (notice that this is singular and not plural), I was thinking of and referring to the CES Director himself.

The above is further confirmed when you read down below in my comment where I wrote, "If I'm going to have someone read 77 pages?"

Again, this was simply a comment where I'm explaining why I wrote the letter the way I did for the CES Director himself. I was asking the CES Director to give me a considerable amount of his time and efforts and, like it or not, I had to pitch him and sell to him that I was a worthy investment of his time and efforts.

This is what I was talking about when explaining how I needed to get the Director "hooked" in the beginning of my letter so that he would read the entire document and my chances of getting official answers from him would increase. Otherwise, if the director wasn't "hooked" or interested in my letter from the beginning, my letter and efforts to get official answers from him would be "doomed" right then and there.

This is Writing 101. There's nothing sinister or nefarious about understanding and appreciating as an author that the beginning of your writing needs to have a "hook" to keep your reader engaged and interested in or your writing will be "doomed" from the start.

What Deceptive Sarah is trying to do here is distort and twist this as meaning that I evil-mustache-twirled and connived on how to manipulate the document for mass distribution and to "hook" all Mormons and readers when this is not what I actually wrote nor was it what I was thinking, intending or saying.

As mentioned above, I was thinking of the CES Director himself when I wrote this explaining why I had ordered the issues in the letter the way I did and why a "hook" was needed for the Director; I had to sell the Director that I was worthy of his considerable time and efforts in responding back to me or my letter and efforts were "doomed" from the start if the Director wasn't hooked and lost interest and moved on.

Sarah and a lot of people don't get how seriously I took the Director's offer here and how seriously I took this opportunity in providing the very best work I could produce for the Director in hopes that he would give me official answers. This seriousness is why you see the Reddit post from me asking for feedback. This seriousness is why I talk about "hook" in the above comment. I was trying to do everything I could to sell to the Director that I needed his answers and I was taking him and his offer seriously. I wanted to "hook" his interest in my document from the very beginning so that he would not only complete the reading of my letter but that he would be interested in actually giving me answers.

Another context that Sarah isn't sharing with us here is that this comment was made in September 2013; about 7 months after the CES Director approached me, I sent the PDF to him and when I last heard from him. My grandfather had reached out to the Director about an update and didn't get a response back. It was becoming clear to me by now that there was very little chance I was ever going to hear back from the Director.

Additionally, FAIR had already started attacking me that summer and someone had put the letter on the homepage of MormonThink.com. The CES Letter was no longer just a letter to a CES Director. It was now a viral document that had turned into a lightning rod in discussing the LDS Church's truth crisis. I had already made changes to the letter by then fixing some errors and mistakes and people were asking me to make changes to the letter.

So, it's when you take all this context into consideration that you understand the environment I was in when making this comment on Reddit. I was being asked why the now viral CES Letter document was ordered the way it was and if I would consider reordering it for the public.

My response to this post was explaining why I wrote it the way I did for the Director while also explaining why I think the Book of Mormon issues should be front and center now that it was a viral document that was beyond just the CES Director. My comments about "hook", as I mentioned above, was explaining why I was trying to hook the CES Director's interest in not just finishing his reading of my letter but also to be interested in providing me a response to the letter. The Director is not a robot and like any school teacher or college professor or any reader, I wanted to impress him early in the document that my document was worth reading, my questions were valid and my concerns were legitimate.

In response to Sarah's second and last attack:

"And why did he go on to say on Reddit on November 2, 2015, that “the target audience are the fence sitters”?"

Because the CES Letter was, by that point, close to 4 years after writing to and last hearing from the CES Director. Thus, the CES Letter was now serving a different purpose than the purpose it originally was written for in March 2013.

This demonstrates that Sarah Allen hasn't done her homework (or is being willfully deceptive) as she doesn't understand that by 2015, the CES Letter was completely beyond the simple letter to a CES Director in April 2013. The letter was on fire on the internet and was very viral. It had become a source for people learning about and processing the LDS Church's truth crisis. It was being attacked left and right by Mormon apologists.

Go look at the above Timeline, Sarah.

So, by 2015 and even by September 2013 when both comments were written by me, it was no longer about the CES Director as it became very clear by those dates that the CES Director chose to disappear and not give the response that he told my grandpa that he'd give me. And by both dates, the CES Letter was more about the readers and defending it from nonsense apologetic attacks.

All of this is a nothingburger that Deceptive Sarah and other apologists are desperately trying to cook up as a nefarious scandal. There's a reason why Deceptive Sarah didn't give us screenshots and links like I just did. There's a reason why Sarah is not giving her readers context and why she's misleading them without explaining what has happened in-between dates.

Sarah Allen is not interested in truth, complete information and full context. Sarah is just interested in smearing and defaming me at any cost - including her own integrity and decency.

Translations and hurting the Church

Let's unpack this and show screenshots / links of what was actually written so that we don't have to rely on Deceptive Sarah.

Here's the screenshot and link of my letter to the stake president on March 7, 2016:

And here's the screenshot and link to the May 16, 2014 Reddit comment:

And here's the screenshot and link to the specific part of the same March 7, 2016 stake president letter about the website should not be construed to hurt the Church or its members:

Deceptive Sarah's modus operandi only works if she is allowed to operate in vacuums devoid of screenshots, links, evidence and context. Deceptive Sarah's entire deceptions and mischaracterizations collapse when confronted with screenshots, links, evidence and context.

Everything I stated to the Stake President is accurate and true. I still to this day have spent exactly $0 on translations. All of the translations have been given to me by volunteers.

The context that Deceptive Sarah isn't giving us about my asking for Spanish translations is that it was a comment to someone's Reddit post asking about translations. Since this was getting eyeballs, I commented asking people to share what they're voluntarily working on and I had been getting a lot of emails back then asking me what languages were needed and which were not being worked on by others. I mentioned Spanish as a language that would be helpful.

Aside from Sarah's deception here, it's about perception of motives. Sarah is pretending to mind read here and know my motives. She doesn't and she never has and she never will. All that Sarah has demonstrated here is that her perception of me and my motives is just wrong. The version of Jeremy Runnells that Sarah Allen has in her head is crazy and evil and I have no idea who that version is as I don't recognize him. He's not me.

When Sarah sees translations, she sees me attempting to destroy the Church. Sarah doesn't get it that the CES Letter was and is never about destroying the LDS Church. In my "About Jeremy" section, which I have had on my homepage since 2014, I state my belief and motives:

I share the same approach and philosophy as LDS First Presidency counselor, J. Reuben Clark:

In an email exchange with apologist Jim Bennett, I wrote:

"The Church does a lot of good for people but it also does a lot of harm. It's a very complicated thing and I don't believe in its destruction. I believe in its reform so that it can be less harmful and more good."

In my FAQs and Common Attacks page, I wrote the following:

I have no ulterior agenda here. I have no better Jesus to sell you. I'm not banking or getting rich off of this as this has always been primarily a side charity project that I've donated way too much time and energy that I mostly did not have over the years.

I do not care what you place your faith in let alone "tearing it down". I really don't. I do not care if you stay in or leave the LDS Church. It has absolutely zero effect on my life on what your LDS Church status is. I don't know you and I have no idea what is personally best for you and your own life. Only you do. Some people are better off leaving and some people are better off staying. Both are equally valid decisions.

In fact, there have been people who I know personally who have asked me about whether or not to go down the rabbit hole and I told them that I felt, based on my knowledge of them personally, they were better off in the Church today and to leave it alone unless circumstances changed and they were no longer happy and fulfilled in the Church.

My own 85-year-old grandfather had bought Rough Stone Rolling and had it on his office shelf when I visited his home. I asked him about it and if he had read it. He said he planned to and asked my thoughts about basically going down the rabbit hole of Church history. I had already spent about two years prior telling him to not read my CES Letter or to watch my Mormon Stories interview and to just ignore me on this topic. Why? Because I loved and cared about my grandfather very much and I would be damned if I was going to let my elderly, frail and vulnerable grandfather experience a crisis of faith in his mid-80s. I'd rather him believe in the Church's narrative that I'm a lost dark soul who lost my way than for him to personally suffer because of his religion's truth crisis and his leaders' failings to do the right thing.

I have had many LDS missionaries email me over the years. There have been many missionaries that, after discovering their family and background situation along with how many months they've been out on their missions, I felt strongly that it was against their well-being and safety to do a deconstruction of their religion while out in the field. I told them to drop it if they can and to just make the best of their missions. If they felt the need to revisit this when they returned home, they could do so but my advice to them was to love and serve the people and to grow personally as much as they can.

Look...all I'm asking here is that all of the information be on the LDS table. Not 20% or 50% or 90% but 100%. I am seeing too much disruption and carnage in the lives of LDS individuals and LDS families because the LDS table is missing too much important data and information. Anything less than 100% on the LDS table is an obstruction to the free agency of the member and investigator in making a valid and complete decision as to whether or not they want to devote their lives, money and devotion to Mormonism.

We have a word for this withholding of key vital information in the real world in marriage proposals and sectors like mortgages, insurance and government: fraud.

I never tell people to leave the Church. I don't say that I want to destroy the LDS Church. I have told people to stay in the Church. And as I wrote to Jim Bennett, I don't believe in the LDS Church's destruction; I believe in its reform.

So, context matters here. Complete information matters. Sarah Allen provides none of these to her readers and fans in her locked down /lds Reddit echo chamber.

When Sarah sees translations, she sees me evil-mustache-twirling on how to destroy the Church. When I see translations, I see an opportunity to make the Church better and more transparent by allowing all members to have an LDS table filled with more complete and balanced information that allows them to have real free agency.

This attack is more of a reflection on who Deceptive Sarah is than it is an indictment of me. I believe in equal opportunity for discussion and debate and investigation (as President Clark advocated). Apologist Sarah believes in echo chambers, deleting comments, banning people from /lds Reddit, hiding information, creating fake quotes, not providing full context, blocking all non-English members from the discussion and more.

"Jeremy tells a teen to lie and manipulate his parents"

Let's unpack this deception and mischaracterization of what happened and what my intentions, motives and goals were:

First things first...as usual in Deceptive Sarah's poorly done hit piece filled with deceptions and falsehoods, Sarah doesn't share direct links or screenshots. Nor does she share the original Reddit post so readers can read for themselves what was actually written as opposed to getting the information from Deceptive Sarah's distorted and misleading retelling and paraphrasing of what she thinks happened.

We don't give a shit what Deceptive Sarah or u/latterdaydata thinks happened or what their biased opinions on my motives were. We want to see with our own eyes what was actually written, right?

Right. Well, lucky for all of you, I got the goods and I'm gonna deliver. You can come to your own conclusions and not rely on me or Deceptive Sarah or u/latterdaydata to tell you what happened.

Here's the direct link to the December 8, 2017 Reddit post by the teenager.

Here's the screenshot of the original Reddit post by the teenager:

Here's a screenshot of the full comment of what I actually wrote to said teenager:

Compare this to Deceptive Sarah's above quote and notice how hilariously terrified amateur apologist Sarah is in sharing her own religion's Gospel Topics essays to her readers. Notice that instead of giving me credit in front of her readers for telling this teenager to tell his parents to go read specific Church's official Gospel Topics essays on the Church's own website, Deceptive Sarah omits the specific Gospel Topics essays I point to by replacing them with an ellipsis instead.

This tells you all you need to know about how confident amateur apologist Sarah Allen and FAIR are in sharing their religion's Gospel Topics Essays to their readership.

And here's a screenshot of the full comment of what the OP (original poster) teenager replied back to my above comment:

Pretty straightforward, right?

My response to Deceptive Sarah's and u/latterdaydata's bullshit attacks:

"Jeremy advised this young man, who clearly indicated he had lost his testimony, to pretend that he wanted his parents to help him resolve the issues, playing on their parental instincts to help him because he “can’t get those questions out of his mind” – all in order to manipulate his parents into getting sucked down the rabbit hole."

No. I never told this young man to pretend anything. I don't even use the word "pretend". This is u/latterdaydata mischaracterizing me, what I actually wrote and how I viewed the teenager's situation and frame of mind.

This entire exercise on the part of u/latterdaydata and Deceptive Sarah is based on inaccurate and incomplete presuppositions on their part. The teenager said that his "shelf shattered" and he "stopped believing" but this does not mean that the teenager's mind is shut and closed and he no longer has any questions or concerns whatsoever about the Church that can be resolved.

It could mean a lot of things. It could mean that the teenager is shell shocked and hurt. And in the initial stages of his 5 stages of grief, he's reacting in anger by stating that he's out and that he "no longer believes" when in all actuality, he doesn't know yet what he believes and no longer believes and is still in process.

I see this all the time. People in faith crises are very vulnerable and emotional. They often say things that they don't mean out of anger.

The problem with Mormons and black-and-white thinkers like u/latterdaydata and Deceptive Sarah Allen is that they do not understand the nuances and extreme complexities of a faith crisis or how long they can drag on and that people still have questions that they would like to resolve even within in the trenches of a faith crisis. As demonstrated by u/latterdaydata's black-and-white binary comments and assumptions, you're either all in and you're all out.

I don't look at it this way. Especially with a vulnerable teenager who had just learned all of this stuff about a religion that his parents indoctrinated him in.

During my own faith crisis in 2012, I told a believing friend that my shelf cracked and hit the floor and that I was struggling to believe in some of the Church's truth claims. My friend took this to mean that I was 100% out and a full-fledged unbeliever when the reality was very different, nuanced and complicated. I was in process and deep in research trying to figure out and yes, resolve my questions on what I believed and did not believe about the Church.

So, it's complicated and nuanced. Where u/latterdaydata and Deceptive Sarah are looking for nefariousness and evil in their binary black-and-white worldviews of apostates and those in their faith crisis journey, I see, based on my own experiences as well as in the experiences of thousands I've talked to over the years, the deep nuances and complexities of a faith crisis.

There's nothing nefarious or sinister going on here. Faith crises are messy and complex and even for people whose shelves "shattered" or they say that they "stopped believing", like I told my friend, does not mean to the believer what it means to the doubter. For me, I had trouble believing in Joseph's character and integrity but I believed that the Book of Mormon was still divine. I had unresolved questions that I was still wrestling with.

It is with this nuanced and complex understanding that I approached this teenager. When he was claiming that he "stopped believing", I knew from experience that it's more complicated than that and he still was in process, trying to figure things out and still had unresolved questions swirling in his young brain about the religion he was born and indoctrinated in.

There's no "manipulating" or "lying" here. The teenager is trying to figure out life and his religion and my experiences told me that he still had unresolved questions he was wrestling with and that it was in his interest to share those unresolved questions and hurt emotions with his parents - who are asking him to share - so they can see the struggle and journey their teenage son has been on and is still experiencing.

So, sorry to burst your bubble and little scheme in trying to manufacture a scandal here, Deceptive Sarah...but I stand by my comments and advice 100%. It was sincere and I was looking at the teenager and his situation with a nuance that neither of you will ever understand as cult apologists.

In response to the bullshit attack that I'm trying to "hurt the Church and its members"...Jim Bennett made a similar claim in his document, which I'm currently debunking at the moment, when he said: "Jeremy Runnells just wants to tear down my faith and leave me comfortless in the theological rubble."

My response:

This is an attack made in 2018 by Mormon apologist Jim Bennett.

I simply share the same exact position as President J. Reuben Clark, who Jim also agrees with:

"If we have the truth, no harm can come from investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed."

It was a letter to a CES Director trying to get official answers to resolve my concerns and doubts. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I absolutely reject and resent Jim's 2018 attack here and mischaracterization of my motives. In fact, 2021 Jim rejects this (talks specifically about my motives at the 5:15 mark):

I have no ulterior agenda here. I have no better Jesus to sell you. I'm not banking or getting rich off of this as this has always been primarily a side charity project that I've donated way too much time and energy that I mostly did not have over the years.

I do not care what you place your faith in let alone "tearing it down". I really don't. I do not care if you stay in or leave the LDS Church. It has absolutely zero effect on my life on what your LDS Church status is. I don't know you and I have no idea what is personally best for you and your own life. Only you do. Some people are better off leaving and some people are better off staying. Both are equally valid decisions.

In fact, there have been people who I know personally who have asked me about whether or not to go down the rabbit hole and I told them that I felt, based on my knowledge of them personally, they were better off in the Church today and to leave it alone unless circumstances changed and they were no longer happy and fulfilled in the Church.

My own 85-year-old grandfather had bought Rough Stone Rolling and had it on his office shelf when I visited his home. I asked him about it and if he had read it. He said he planned to and asked my thoughts about basically going down the rabbit hole of Church history. I had already spent about two years prior telling him to not read my CES Letter or to watch my Mormon Stories interview and to just ignore me on this topic. Why? Because I loved and cared about my grandfather very much and I would be damned if I was going to let my elderly, frail and vulnerable grandfather experience a crisis of faith in his mid-80s. I'd rather him believe in the Church's narrative that I'm a lost dark soul who lost my way than for him to personally suffer because of his religion's truth crisis and his leaders' failings to do the right thing.

I have had many LDS missionaries email me over the years. There have been many missionaries that, after discovering their family and background situation along with how many months they've been out on their missions, I felt strongly that it was against their well-being and safety to do a deconstruction of their religion while out in the field. I told them to drop it if they can and to just make the best of their missions. If they felt the need to revisit this when they returned home, they could do so but my advice to them was to love and serve the people and to grow personally as much as they can.

So, "Jeremy Runnells just wants to tear down my faith and leave me comfortless"? What a crock of shit.

Look...all I'm asking here is that all of the information be on the LDS table. Not 20% or 50% or 90% but 100%. I am seeing too much disruption and carnage in the lives of LDS individuals and LDS families because the LDS table is missing too much important data and information. Anything less than 100% on the LDS table is an obstruction to the free agency of the member and investigator in making a valid and complete decision as to whether or not they want to devote their lives, money and devotion to Mormonism.

We have a word for this withholding of key vital information in the real world in marriage proposals and sectors like mortgages, insurance and government: fraud.

The bottom line here is that there are legitimate and very real problems to the LDS Church's narrative and truth claims. Full stop.

You don't have to take my word for it as LDS scholars and historians have acknowledged the LDS Church's truth crisis:

You don't have to take my word for it as you can read the Church's very own Gospel Topics essays that have destroyed faith and left people "comfortless in the theological rubble", as Jim so poetically describes. And it still does everyday.

It is not me who is tearing down faith. It's the LDS Church and its narrative and truth crisis that is doing just that. I didn't create or perpetuate their truth crisis. "Prophets, seers and revelators" since Joseph Smith have. Especially since around 1910 onward when LDS Church leaders began to really see the serious and unsustainable cracks to their theology and foundation.

The real "theological rubble" here sits at the doorstep of the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City. The real people who are leaving members "comfortless" with its "theological rubble" is the pandemic GameStop / Tesla banking First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve who care more about their secret $100 billion dollar slush fund than they do being truly transparent and honest with all of their members about its truth crisis.

It is not my responsibility to "comfort" anyone as I am not responsible for the LDS Church's truth crisis and its "theological rubble". This responsibility and blame rests solely on the LDS Church leadership alone.

What Jim doesn't tell you is that I do mourn with those that mourn and comfort those that stand in need of comfort. Even though I did not cause the truth crisis or perpetuate it, I have donated and given many, many hours in emails and conversations with those devastated and left comfortless by the LDS Church's truth crisis by comforting them and telling them that it's going to be okay. By giving them advice on how to navigate through this while keeping themselves and their family relationships intact. One of them being my own father who I have spent many hours in conversations with for years in helping him to process the Church's truth crisis and to be at peace in his late 60s about the Church and his decades of devotion and service to it.

So, I take offense at this turd attack and smear from Jim. I take offense to Jim blaming me for his religion's truth crisis and I take offense to him painting me as this evil person without compassion or kindness who only seeks to destroy and leave people bleeding on their own.

You're just absolutely wrong here, Jim. You're completely and totally barking at the wrong tree. Go bark at that tall building on North Temple instead.

2021 Jim knows that this is not a fair or legitimate personal attack.

Conclusion

This is getting long enough, so I'll save the rest for when Sarah Allen (and FAIR) releases her next post. Just be aware that there are multiple manipulations, fake quotes, deceptions, half-truths, misrepresentations, and outright lies in Sarah Allen's and FAIR's new smear campaign disguised as a "series" and "rebuttals".

I'll be addressing these in future installments as they become available by our new aspiring amateur Mormon apologist who, like the legions of aspiring nobody apologists before her, is piggybacking off of the CES Letter and me (yeah, I know...not a pretty sight) to make a name for herself while copying/remixing other apologists' work.

In the above bio, it says that Sarah Allen is "iNtErEsTeD iN hElpInG oThErS tHrOUgH tHeIR FaItH cRiSiS."

You're not helping others by completely lying about and smearing others, Sarah. You're not helping by flooding the Mormon Marketplace of Information with sewage sludge that is just not accurate, complete or true. You're doing the exact opposite. People in faith crises are going to read this line-by-line debunking of your absolute immoral garbage and see right through you and FAIR for the unChristlike and deceptive person and organization you both are.

It's just so disgusting and shameful. I don't know how you or your FAIR handlers sleep at night.

I don't appreciate you calling me a liar, Sarah. I'm many things but I'm not a fawking liar. As demonstrated multiple times in this debunking, the one whose integrity is in question and in jeopardy here is not mine. It's yours. The organization and leadership that you've now disgraced yourself affiliating with lost theirs to the highest bidder (LDS Church) decades ago.

Own and fix this. Do the right thing by publicly acknowledging that you were wrong to write this rancid garbage and acknowledge your grave errors, smears and defamation. I hope to see your public apology to me as well.

Time to get back to finishing my Jim Bennett Mormonism® Manifesto debunking. I'll be here to debunk the rest of your garbage series smear campaign next week.

FAQs & Common Attacks

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