Are Mormons really more persecuted than other faiths or do Mormons just perceive that because the criticism is aimed at us? Are there as many anti-[insert religion here] as there are anti-Mormons? I decided to take a very cursory, unscientific, yet interesting look at this question.
The methodology of my experiment was simple: I did a Google search of 22 different religions. I then did a search for “anti [religion]” for each of those faiths. Some of what I found may surprise you. Some will not.
A few quick caveats:
- There is a big difference in internet presence between religions.
- Google searches render a different number of hits on different days; these numbers are constantly in flux. My searches were done on March 28, 2008.
- I only searched in English.
- My selection of churches was not comprehensive.
- Some churches (like Mormon/LDS/Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) have multiple names that can be searched. For Mormonism, I have two separate search results based on the nickname Mormonism and the formal name Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
- Site hits with just religious name returned both supportive and non-supportive sites; I did not differentiate.
- Site hits with “anti” will also include supportive sites discussing discrimination, not just sites that are opposed to the religion in question; again, I did not differentiate.
Internet presence. Based on sheer number of hits for the religion name, I grouped the religions into how much internet presence they have. For consistency sake, all numbers of hits are expressed in millions.
- High presence: Islam (123.0 million), Christianity (51.9), Baptist (39.9)
- Moderately high presence: Buddhism (18.0), Judaism (15.5), Evangelical (13.2), Mormonism (12.2)
- Medium presence: Scientology (10.8), Anglican (9.3), Amish (8.6), Hinduism (8.5), Catholicism (7.9), Atheism (7.6), Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (5.8)
- Low presence: Jehovah’s Witness (2.8), Mennonite (2.8), Seventh-day Adventist (2.7),
- Very low presence: Episcopalian (1.0), Universal Unitarian (0.8), Methodism (0.7), Lutheranism (0.5), Presbyterianism (0.4)
First Blush, I noticed that only the following religions had an “anti” site (a site opposing the religion) on their first page of hits:
- Scientology & Atheism – 5th site listed was anti
- Mormon & Seventh-day Adventist – 6th site listed was anti
- Jehovah’s Witness – 7th site listed was anti
- Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – 8th site listed was anti
Interestingly, these religions (with the possible exception of atheism) are all newer religious movements (I chose not to use the pejorative NRM which is often used synonymously with “cult”), and all but atheism and Scientology are Restorationist Christian movements from the Second Great Awakening (1800-1830). I also noticed that on the Evangelical search (no first page anti sites returned), the 7th site specifically warned “unsaved not welcome.”
“Anti” Site Hits. I next googled the “anti” of each of these religions and found:
- High anti yield. Presbyterianism (1.83), Islam (1.74), Episcopalian, Methodism (0.8), Baptist, Jehovah’s Witness (0.7)
- Medium anti yield. Atheism, Evangelical, Lutheranism, Buddhism (0.6), Mennonite, Anglican (0.5)
- Low anti yield. Judaism (0.4, although 5.18 for anti-Semitism), Hinduism, Catholicism, Amish, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Scientology (0.4), Mormonism (0.3, although 2.19 for just “anti-Mormon“), Universal Unitarian (0.3), Seventh-day Adventist (0.2)
Anti Ratio. Then I determined the ratio between anti hits and regular hits to estimate which churches may be getting the most proportionately negative internet press. (Again, this is a flawed assumption and not very scientific, but the results were interesting nonetheless).
- Excessive anti ratio. Some of these religions actually had more “anti” hits than regular hits: Presbyterianism (4.82 ratio), Lutheranism (2.92 ratio), Methodism (1.08 ratio), Episcopalian (0.84 ratio). Many of the “anti” hits were historical in nature, explaining protestant schisms and the “heresies” of these religious movements.
- High anti ratio. Universal Unitarian (0.36 ratio), Jehovah’s Witness (0.25 ratio), Mennonite (0.20 ratio)
- Moderate anti ratio. Atheism (0.08 ratio), Seventh-day Adventist, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (0.07 ratio), Anglican (0.06 ratio), Hinduism, Catholicism, Evangelical, Amish (0.05 ratio)
- Low anti ratio. Scientology, Buddhism, Judaism, Mormonism (0.03 ratio), Baptist (0.02 ratio), Islam, Christianity (0.01 ratio)
To address the problem of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints having multiple names, I ran an additional search using each of the following names: Mormon, Mormonism, LDS, and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The composite anti ratio was still in the same range at 0.06. However, both “Mormonism” (0.20 ratio) and “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (0.33 ratio) had a higher anti ratio on par with the Universal Unitarian, Jehovah’s Witness and Mennonite group above. The “Mormonism” search, however, had a significantly lower “regular” hit return which created the higher ratio (2.2 million hits vs. 12.2 for “Mormon”). The same was true for “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (1.5 million hits vs. 12.8 for LDS; however, several “LDS” hits were unrelated to the church).
This exercise does not address the quality of the sites (or level of antagonism of “anti” sites) returned by a Google search, only the quantity. A few possible conclusions:
- All religions (including atheism) are openly opposed by someone on the internet.
- The lower the internet presence, the higher the negative ratio.
- Established protestant religions receive proportionately more “anti” hits due to how they were formed and tend to have lower internet presence.
- Newer religious movements (Scientology, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witness, Seventh-day Adventist) have more active, open and targeted opposition on the internet.
So, are Mormons more persecuted than other faiths? I, for one, found some comfort that in this regard we’re not as special as we like to think we are. Discuss.
Comments 43
Interesting!!! I for one have had “MPC”… maybe it’s from hearing all of those church history stories at church where we are always the victims (and never the perpetrators). Also we have General Conference which is a great opportunity to see good ol’ Lighthouse Ministries call us baby killers or something else ridiculous (I was there, I saw them with the anti-abortion sign).
Interesting study here.
I’d say that we are not that persecuted on the internet because there aren’t that many ex-mormons who hold a grudge against the church.
It seems that almost all the anti-Mormon stuff on the web comes from these ‘ex-Mormons’.
But then if we try to get our kids into a baptist or catholic school we will probably run into the subtle persecution that happens every day to Mormons.
Thanks Hawkgrrl for the facts you have gathered. There’s persecution and there’s persecution. I rarely see Mormons getting tarred and feathered anymore, or shot to pieces in a gunfight.
Good work. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always heard the “persectuion complex” discussion framed in historical terms (Haun’s Mill, etc.), rather than in modern media terms. One question — did you take a look at YouTube videos? For example, I know that Scientologists (a group I assumed would have had a much higher “anti ratio”) are the subject to numerous anti videos. How do you think inclusion of YouTube material would skew the results? Also, is there any differentation in the level of “anti” rhetoric in the sites you looked at? For example, is the tone of anti-Mormon sites more heated, or less heated, than that found on Anti-JW sites?
Google searches typically have youtube videos at the top of search results as they own Youtube. I’m guessing that for brevity the researcher does include it when they say “results”.
I can’t believe that you left out my church, The Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster. It has as high an internet presence as Presbyteriansism, with Google bringing up 434,000 hits when searched today (8 April). And when searched for an “anti” presence, I couldn’t find a single anti site in the first 10 pages of results. So certainly you Mormons are significantly more persecuted than Pastafarians.
One question as to your methodology: do sites that oppose a religion classify themselves as “anti-“? That is, I might call someone an anti-Mormon, but they might call themselves a countercultist or a missionary, or something that Google wouldn’t classify as “anti-.” I would assume that, in an anti-Mormon search, you’d get a large proportion of blogs decrying anti-Mormon sentiment, in an anti-Catholic, you’d get a lot of Catholic sites, etc. That is, I’m not at all convinced that the anti-[whatever] label is one that a person would (in general) give him- or herself.
You know, Hawkgrrrl (if that’s your REAL name), I have to say I am suspicious of your motives for even writing this post, as well as your obviously biased and flawed methodology to create the mis-impression that Mormons are not the most persecuted group in the world. Do you, or have you ever, worked for the Salt Lake Tribune? Were you involved in making the PBS show on the Mormons? Are you a former McCain/Huckabee staffer? I think you owe it to your readers to make full disclosure. This whole post sounds like another hit job on the Mormons to me.
You seem to really want to be special. Perhaps do your own research or hire a group to determine similar or dissimilar results? What say ye?
Sam B- I have to agree…Along with Carlos’s statement that most anti stuff comes from ex-mormons… An ex-mormon is well aware of how mormons are counseled to stay away from “anti-mormon literature”… and so may label themselves as “Truth-seekers” to get more readers… or you may not realize they are “anti” until you have been fooled into thinking they are FOR the church. I’d guess that most “anti” falls under this category, as I run into it quite often without noticing it’s “anti”.
Of course, it’s easier for me to notice a (potential) problem with the study than it is for me to suggest a better design. I think it’s fair to say, however, that using the search term “anti” probably underestimates the number of sites that oppose each group (from Mormons to Catholics to Muslims to athiests). Maybe it doesn’t; I don’t pay any attention to countercultists or anti-religionists or anti-secularists of any stripe. It’s an interesting idea, and an interesting experiment. I just don’t see where, as of now, it’s passed the point of anecdote into the realm of social science. But that may not have been Hawkgrrl’s point; maybe, because she’s dealing with a subjective persecution complex, she was looking for subjective results.
This one of the things that has always concerned me about the Church, the persecution complex we have. Coming from my Jewish background, I always thought that what the Church endured was rather mild by comparison. Many other group’s treatment throughout the world and history can also attest to that fact.
For example, Haun’s Mill was clearly a tragic and brutal event. 18 Latter-day Saints were killed. What it a massacre? I’m not sure. Compared to Mountain Meadows (120 people killed), Haun’s Mill was not in the same league. But yet, the church promotes it as a massacre.
I played in the Orchestra of the Oakland Temple Pageant for many years. Persecution was practically the theme of the pageant after the restoration of the Gospel and the trek west. It depicted incident after incident where Joseph and other members of the church were persecuted. There was even a piece of music at one time, called the Persecution Ballet.
It’s time to give it up. The Persecution complex that is. Good post, Hawkgrrrl!
Hmm, I guess I should post on anti-Mormon crusades. I’ve seen a number of those, nary a single “anti-Presbyterian” crusade.
What would an “Anti-Presbyterian Crusade” crusade about?
I agree with Sam B. Instead of “anti”, you should have used “outreach ministries”.
An anti-Presbyterian crusade would have it in for the Scots. There would be tartan-burnings, bagpipe shreddings, and William Wallace and Bobbie Burns voodoo dolls. It might go down well in the Catholic neighborhoods of West Belfast, where the Presbyterians have been the oppressors for a couple hundred years.
Outreach is a problematic word to use as anti. The Church has outreach meetings for Spanish-speakers in Utah, but they’re not anti-Spanish speaker, or anti-Catholic, even. I don’t think.
Also, “outreach ministries,” while it would pick up certain anti-LDS thought, would probably not pick up anti-Protestant sites in general. The hard thing here is that we (or at least I) don’t know the terminology that different groups would use to describe themselves, their outreach, their attacks, their truth-telling, or whatever else it is they are doing. But using a single formulation to try to capture sites attacking a broad range of beliefs will probably not provide consistency between different groups.
Andrew (7): 😛 Hilarious!
===
On an aside, Until I formally began to investigate Christianity I didn’t fully stay aware of, and was surprised –though I shouldn’t have been — at how much oppositional rhetoric there still is among the Christian body. Calling any of it “anti- this or that” seems a little strong, especially the way I was used to the term as a Mormon. But there definitely is a healthy dose of cultural mistrust, that sometimes even elevates to whom is really “saved” or not. Fundamental Evs dislike the Liberal Mainliners. Protestants mistrust the legalism of Catholicism. Catholics, including the current Pope, seem to merely tolerate the Protestants. Older, traditional worshippers think Christians like me would be more holy if we dressed in “Sunday best” and sang traditional hymns. Many Christians seem united in disliking athiests. And anti-Semitism — well at least doctrinally — is still pretty common in traditional and older communities. Yep, we Jesus Lovers don’t seem to have come very far.
Maybe it is reflective of why the Pew Forum study notes that all established Christian traditions are netting losses in membership, while unaffiliated is the fastest growing segment. (And they note only about a quarter of Unaffiliated types self identify as agnostic or athiest.) The only Christian traditions that seem to be growing are non-denominational types, which tend to shake up tradition, in practice, worship style or even doctrinal emphasis. Yet even the non-denominational segment is only a little over twice as big as the size of the American LDS church. Meanwhile, regardless of cumulative Christian net loss, certainly America is becoming more religiously polarized. Definitely more important battles seem at hand than any single denomination’s stake in the “pro” and “anti” battle, including that of the LDS Church.
Reminds me of an old Emo Phillips joke:
I was waiting at the train station this morning, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off as a train approached.
So I ran over and said “Stop! Don’t do it!” He said “Why shouldn’t I?”.
I said, “Well, there’s so much to live for!” He said, “Like what?”
I said, “Well, are you religious or atheist?” He said, “Religious.”
I said, “Me too! …Are you Christian or Buddhist?” He said, “Christian.”
I said, “Me too! …Are you Catholic or Protestant?” He said, “Protestant.”
I said, “Me too! …Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?” He said, “Baptist!”
I said, “Wow! Me too!…Are you Baptist church of God or Baptist church of the Lord?” He said, “Baptist church of God!”
I said, “Me too! Are you original Baptist church of God, or are you reformed Baptist church of God?” He said, “Reformed Baptist church of God!”
I said, “Me too! Are you reformed Baptist church of God, reformation of 1879, or reformed Baptist church of God, reformation of 1915?”
He said, “Reformed Baptist church of God, reformation of 1915!”
I said, “Die, heretic scum”…and pushed him off.
I love this survey – for as informal and as basic as it is, I really learned a lot.
The only question I have is this: Is the phrase “anti-” a Mormon phrase? Meaning in the LDS world, it gets thrown around a lot and carries a strong yet varied meaning with it – is it the same with other religions/groups?
Andrew and Hawkgrrl,
I dont mean to be a conspiracy theorist but I think Hawgrrrl is hired by the CIA to spy on extremist and fundamentalist Mormons. Her first goal is to infiltrate them and then play Freudian mindgames with us to convince us that we are not God’s chosen and persecuted people!!! For goodness sakes…WE ARE PERSECUTED JUST LIKE THE JEWS!!! Missouri was our Auschwitz for goodness sakes….unless you dont believe the Nazi concentration camps never happened Hawkgrrl!!! Next she will be saying that the Haun’s Mill Massacre was just dreamed up by the Mormons so that we can rule the world using anti-mormonism as a cover!!!
We have our eye on you Hawgrrl.
p.s. And yes Brigham Young was right….there are still men on the moon called Moonies!!! Andrew will back me up….he has seen them!!!
I was shocked not many months ago when I heard a lunchtime conversation down the table from me discussing politics and a woman that I have close ties to through our mutual employer said, “I would never vote for a Mormon, I know that sounds bad…”
I first questioned myself about whether I heard that correctly, then battled briefly whether it would be best to intrude into the conversation and declare “I’m a Mormon” or whether I should remain silent and respectful of her right to vote according to her own beliefs.
Its funny to have a persecution complex emerge when you least expect it. You think you are accepted by your peers at one moment, then feel alienated the next.
Early in the late 90’s I remember anti-Mormom sites being higher up on search engines. How you have to dig deeper. I think that the only thing we can conclude is that the religions with more hits and sites actively manage their google presence more than religions that don’t. I don’t put much stock in your Internet research.
For the record, I have actually seen discrimination against Mormons. I once was sitting in a law firm recruiting meeting. The candidate was a Berkley undergrad, BYU law student near the top of his class. Sharp guy. A significant number of the attorneys on the recruiting committee had developed a bias against non-drinkers because they weren’t as fun to party with. I argued strenuously in the candidate’s favor, particularly since we had just voted to extend a job offer to a less qualified candidate. As I argued in favor of the BYU law student, I saw the lead partner who was in charge of the committee lean over to another law partner and point to the lines on the resume where it listed that he was attending BYU and that listed his voluntary missionary service. The candidate didn’t get the offer.
I know discrimination and bias and ignorance is out there. But I also think there is a certain “persecution complex,” which is that we’re a bit trigger happy in jumping to the conclusion that someone is out to get us when they really aren’t.
Ditto to what Andrew said. I, too, have witnessed real, honest-to-goodness, discrimination against Mormons. Funny enough, it also was in a law firm recruiting committee meeting, albeit at a different office. The attorney leading the meeting wanted to ding a perfectly qualified LDS candidate because he felt we were becoming “too much of a Mormon-friendly firm.” My jaw hit the floor. Thankfully others also found this statement equally offensive.
At the same time, I may be just as guilty of religious discrimination. It drove me crazy when people would say, with regards to Brother Mitt: “I just can’t bring myself to vote for a Mormon.” However, in the next breath, I made very clear that there was no way in h-e-double hockey sticks that I would ever vote for a Baptist preacher. Am I the persecutor as well as the persecuted?
Uh, you just called Scientology a religion…
A few quick responses to some of these great comments:
Carlos #2 – There was a cool survey on another Mormon blog site (not as cool a site as MM) where people were asked “If you found out in no uncertainty that the church was not true, what would you do?” Only 3% said “Get back at those jerks for misleading me.” Interestingly, 38% said they’d keep going to church. 35% (like me) said we’d sleep in on Sundays. Only 8% said head to the local pub. (The data might have changed over time since then).
#4 – I didn’t include YouTube but that would be interesting. I also did not check the tone of the anti sites to evaluate the virulence of their antipathy.
#5 – My son and I are closet Pastafarians (Mormons with a side of Pasta). All hail, Flying Spaghetti Monster!
#7 Andrew – You have sniffed me out. I am actually Huck’s front-woman! I’m frying up some squirrels in the popper as I type this. Crunchy, but economical for a family of five.
#18 Brandt – I’m not sure that the term “anti” is used consistently to describe oppositional movements to other religions, but there were sites described as “anti-Amish,” etc.
#19 Steve Wellington – I’m sorry, but this post is on the Mormon Persecution Complex. The Mormon Conspiracy Theorist post is yet to come!
#24 SAP – Scientology is not exactly a religion, but it’s not exactly a non-religion either. It might be more accurate to call it a spiritual movement. And there is the Church of Scientology. Because there is so much opposition to the movement, I thought it an important inclusion.
JfQ: That’s about the funniest religious joke (#17) I’ve ever heard. Maybe someday I’ll tell you the funniest ones that involve Mormonism. *grin*
Some of the key questions that seem to be coming up in this discussion are:
1 – What is persecution? How does the actual (vs. perceived) persecution of our faith compare with that of others?
2 – Is persecution that ended 150 years ago valuable to dwell on for us today? I have no pioneer stock, and yet somehow I seem to have a dog in this fight. (not that I condone dogfighting). Is it valuable as it brings us together? Is it necessary to dwell on it to honor those who made sacrifices? Or is it better to let go of the past?
3 – Where does “anti” stuff originate? Disgruntled ex-Mormons? Competing religion “outreach” movements? What is the point of the “anti” movement? Counter-proselyting? Revenge or sympathy? To instill prejudice?
I would add the following:
Is “anti” stuff bad or is it true that there’s no such thing as bad press?
“Is it true that there’s no such thing as bad press?”
No.
Ray, I agree that some bad press is indeed harmful. But I would add the caveat that some intentionally bad press has beneficial outcomes. I’m not sure what the total value equation works out to be, though. I guess I wonder more whether there is more good done unintentionally by bad press than there is harm done by it. That’s more dinner conversation than anything else. It would be hard to determine empirically.
Some bad press is so ridiculous it makes us look good. Some people view the bad press with skepticism, investigate further, and find it is untrue and there is much to be admired. And sometimes the bad press just opens more dialogue on the topic, and the dialogue can have positive outcomes.
A headline today said, “400 children saved from Mormon sect amid allegations of abuse” – referring to the FLDS, not us. I don’t care how you slice it, there ain’t no good in that. 99% of those who read it and don’t understand why it is misleading will never find out that it is.
Some of the Romney press brought great results, but a few conversions (one literally happened in our stake due to the person’s curiosity to see if all the crap was true) doesn’t negate the thousands or milloins (at least) who are calcified in their opposition by the same bad press.
A very humble and astute bishop in the Deep South once said to me, “The Church would flourish down here if everyone didn’t already think they knew what we believe – if they weren’t already convinced we are damned to Hell – if we only could get them actually to listen. These are SUCH good people; they simply believe some horrible things about us and won’t listed because of the distortions they hear regularly in church and from the media.” He was absolutely right. When 90+% of the people won’t even listen due to “bad press”, how can that be a good thing?
Persecuted now? Probably not so much. Misrepresented now? Definitely.
Ray – I agree with your point, although in my own life experience bad press has generated more curiosity than animosity. But that was north of the Mason Dixon line, and the evangelical movement was not as strong back then. Living in the west now, I forget that there is still so much ignorance and bigotry elsewhere. Romney’s campaign brought that out loud and clear. But painting ourselves the victim, even when we are, doesn’t recommend us to others or put us on equal footing. I think Romney’s stance that he believed that Americans would not be persuaded by bigotry is the only pragmatic approach–it appeals to the best in people by pretending it’s already there.
Your methodology is so flimzy I won’t comment on it or attempt to improve on it but will make a personal observation from the Southeast. A Annual Eduacational Week of other religions sponsored by the largest protestant church in the area, with thursday being Cult night and a discussion of Mormonism. Seems a little prosecutorial. I say with as much authority as your study that the persecution of Mommons is where it has always been, local and not national.
In addition, I suggest that persecution/discrimination of any kind. Be it racial, religious, gender based or whatever is by it’s very nature local and not national.
Dennis – Fully agreed (and disclosed in my post) that the method I used was neither scientific nor reliable and subject to myriad flaws. It was just an exercise based on blog comments by persecution-minded LDS individuals who were aghast at how much “anti” stuff is out there and how early on our web returns something “anti” appears.
Your comment is interesting about persecution of Mormons being “local” vs. “national.” Would you mind elaborating on that? Are you referring to “local” in the sense that it is always personal? Or that it is centered in Utah? Or that it is not an organized effort at a national level? I’m just seeking more clarity of your point.
When I was going to university I took this class about the Amish. the real ones who don’t even want to have their picture taken.
My teacher was a teenager in the sixties and she is German. She was sent on an exchange program in an area where there were a lot of Amish. You probably know that Germans enjoy healthy living and so she really loved to walk anytime she’d get a chance. In the sisties, walking along an american road was a clear sign that you were in trouble so people would often stop by to offer their help. getting tired of explaining who she was and what was this weird habit of walking she decided to use some other not very used roads and this is how she eventually became friends with the Amish up to this day.
She gave us a very interesting class about it and it was extremly interesting to see how much persecution they are going through even now. The fact that we don’t hear about on the news or on the net does not lesser what they are going through that has nothing with the bad stuff we read about the church today. I am talking about people being mean and cruel to them everyday and even more when/if possible.
Nice post. Well said.
May I interest you in Google Fight, y/y? It’s science!
That
just to let you know Mormons belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints
I believe many Mormons do have a persecution complex. I also believe that convert Latter-day Saints do not. Notice I have made a distinction between Mormons and Latter-day Saints.
I was born and raised in Southern California but I come from “pioneer stock” during the hand cart period. I have observed clear distinctions between Mormons and Latter-day Saints. I believe the LDS church has been around long enough now that there are people who culturally are Mormon but they are not Latter-day Saints. I am referring to some percentage of “active” or practicing Mormons. Even here in California there are enough Utah transplants that have brought their persecution complexes with them that suburban Orange County wards have many cultural Mormons that are on what I call “auto pilot”. There are many members that will stand up and willingly offer uninspired yet professional sounding prayers with all the Thee and Thou correctly placed. I too often went home from these wards more spiritually hungry than when I arrived. If I did not get away from those auto pilot ward I would have gone inactive.
I now attend and serve in a small branch in South Central Los Angeles – Watts. The branch is filled with probably 90% converts. It makes a huge difference. I attend with people that truly know the Lord but don’t get the Thee and Thou right. I attend church with Latter-day Saints that don’t have all the Utah baggage. This branch has an overabundance of rich spirit.
Verlin Richins
You (Author) failed to define “anti-Mormon”. What Mormons call “anti-Mormon literature”, the rest of the world just calls “science” and “history”. When science and history are used to refute Mormonism — as is so easily and thoroughly done now with the Internet — it’s typically done by Ex-mormons. Ex-mormons are not motivated by hate, as Mormons like to say. They’re motivated by two other drives; anger at having sacrificed so much of their lives, decisions, time and money to what is so easily shown to be a fraud, and an impulse to save other’s from doing the same.
Exactly, what is anti? Some of the church’s own records are “Anti-mormon” Many a good mormon has left via reading church history, as presented by the church.