SoyLeche
meh...
Actually, Joseph Smith was one of the first ones to suggest that there were 2 cummorahs. I'll have to look it up when I get home.
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Joseph Smith - Prophet of God
- Thread starter Polaris
- Start date
Bishka
Veteran Member
Attempting to speak for us again?
Honestly, don't you people have better things to do with your time then tell other people their religions are false? How about the other commandments, love your neighbor as you would yourself, feed the poor, etc. etc. Or is telling others they are going to hell and that their religion is false the utmost important commandment?
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
In broad, general terms, yes.
wiki
A few flaws in your extremely sarcastic and disrespectful analogy:
What do you claim?
Both North and South America are very well-inhabited. Hundreds of cities have been built, including some of the biggest in the world. Further, there are many universities and archeological teams who have worked all over both continents, excavating hundreds of sites, and pieced together a coherent, if incomplete, picture of who lived here, when, and what their lives were like. No backhoe has ever happened to struck a chariot wheel. Ever. Zip. Nada. No archeological team has ever unearthed a single artifact described in the BoM. Ever. None. For example, I live in Colorado. A huge chunk of the SW corner of my state is a National Park and several National Historic sites set apart just for preservation of archeological sites, some of the most advanced found in the continental U.S. You can go inside their homes and see their baskets, sandals, and clay vessels. None of them have ever revealed any of the technologies described in the BoM. Same for Mexico. Same for Belize. Same for Guatemala. No steel smelted anywhere. No wheat. No Barley. No cattle. Etc. etc. etc. Had these things existed, they would not be small. Any of them requires a large civilization and structure to support them, with hundreds of people, at a minimum, engaged in their production. You don't have just one cow. You have herds of cattle and an economy and trading system based on it, such as say in various places in Africa. You get statues of cows, pictures of cows, cattle trading, cattle products, etc. etc. The Spaniards arrive in the New World and begin exploring. They never see a single cow. Zilch. They see alpacas and jaguars and snakes and guinea pigs and lots of other things, but no cows. We explore and domesticate and excavate and dig and find no bones, no fossils, no tools, no statues, no pictures, no evidence anywhere of a single cow anywhere in North America. Fill in same story for everything else: horses, steel, wheat, chariots, etc. etc.
And your explanation is that we just don't happen to have found it yet?
Are you accusing me of not being honest in heart? If so, I take exception to that.
Why wouldn't physical evidence persuade me of anything? It's persuaded me of just about everything I believe right now. What other kind of evidence is there? How do you decide what medicine to take? And what on earth is spiritual witness?
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
I agree, as is anything else based on this extremely vague book.
It's your holy book, you tell me. What does BoM tell us about where these mythical people are supposed to have lived?
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
Only if you reject archeology as a way to learn about the past.
It most certainly can, if you take a literal reading of it. Furthermore, it has.
As an atheist, I don't have a horse in this race, but it is wrong nonetheless. The Bible doesn't say anything about Jaredites, Lamanites or Nephites and although it isn't, it could have been quite correct about, say, the Noachian flood, and the BoM could still be quite wrong about the Lamanites. As it happens, they're both wrong.
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
Isn't that the same thing?
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
I take your point. The difference is that Salinger wrote fiction, and was not cited as a true prophet of God who should be judged by his fruits. I realize you think all these splinter groups are just a few crackpots, but of course they think you're all apostates and they're the true prophets. My view is that due to the history of LDS, and some of its doctrines, it's prone to crackpots declaring themselves the True Prophets and having a direct line to God. Dangerous stuff.
Speaking as non-resident and non-Mormon, applying my personal standards, I find the fruits mixed. Lots of prosperity and stable communities. A stable, patriarchal, male-dominated hierarchal system. Also a history of racism, anti-gay bigotry and second class citizenship for women.
Bishka
Veteran Member
From your opinion.
Have you ever asked the LDS women here what they've felt about it?
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
Could you be more specific about what finding in the field of paleolinguistscs support what statements in the BoM? Thank you.
There is no archeological evidence in favor of the Book of Mormon. The best you can do is like Polaris, hope that someday there will be some and keep saying the jury's still out.
Autodidact
Intentionally Blank
O.K., so you're going with this area, right?
Would this be a fair summary?
[FONT=trebuchet ms,arial,helvetica]The second and third migrations occurred circa 600 BCE, between the times of the Assyrian and Babylonian victories over the Israelites. The immigrants:
established large civilizations extending from one sea to another, wrote in Hebrew and some form of Egyptian, domesticated horses and cattle, cultivated wheat, barley and other Old World grains, traveled in chariots and smelted metals, including iron and steel.[/FONT]
So let's talk animals first. Once again, no evidence of any kind, archeological, paleontological, for pre-Columbian horses, cattle, oxen, goats in this area. Actual native fauna include: jaguars, tapirs, iguanas, howler monkeys, sloths, aquatic animals such as manatees and sea turtles. So once again the BoM names animals that were not present, and fails to name those that were.
Archeology: This is an extremely well explored area, because one of the greatest American civilizations, the Maya, lived there. Did the Maya have horses, cattle, iron, steel, wheat, barley, chariots, etc. etc.? They did not. They did not smelt any metal until after the tenth century. Nor is there any evidence of any other people in this region doing any of these things. They traded in obsidian, jade, and quetzelcoatl feathers, which, again, are not mentioned.
They used heiroglyphics which bear no resemblance or relationship to any known Egyptian system.
By confining yourself to a specific area, you reduce the possibility that "we just haven't found it yet." You're talking about a relatively small area, that has been extremely well excavated. These were good sized cities and towns, and quite a few of them, and we've found them, excavated them, and even restored some of them.
Maybe you need to get on board with the "We don't know where it was" story, because that works much better. As soon as you pinpoint a location all you have to do to verify is go there and dig. Then publish your results! Why do you suppose this hasn't happened?
No, it was an honest observation if you followed the discussion. And what do you mean by "again"?
Who exactly are you referring to as "you people"? I'm sorry, but it sounds sort of intimidating.
I am posting in the first-person singular, so your remarks to me should probably stick to what I have presented.
As to what reason I may have for joining the discussion, I'll answer you if you answer the question yourself first. Why are you posting here in an open debate thread?
This sort of intimidating diatribe doesn't add anything to the topic at hand, btw.
Yes, how about them. I'm all for it. Are we starting a new debate now?
:biglaugh: Is that a deliberate li... um, "misquote", or are you just trying to bait me into a silly pie fight? Here, have some banana cream....
Hogwash. If you followed the entire discussion between me and a responding poster, who kept addressing herself to "my testimony", you would understand what was written and why. So you may want to try again, only this time without the pretense. I suspect we have a lot more in common than you think.
Autodidact said:
Yes, I'm waiting to hear back on that one too.
Guitar's Cry
Disciple of Pan
I would say that Smith was a Prophet of God in the same sense we all are. His unique translation of reality is as an important revelation as everyone else's.
madhatter85
Transhumanist
In a way that is what we teach, But not quite.
Each person is always able to recieve personal revelation from Heavenly Father for themselves. All you have to do is ask in faith and prayer. Those in spiritual service to members of the church, like Bishops, Stake Presidents, Quarum leaders, Relief Society Presidencies, Visiting and Home Teachers, also, are able to recieve revelation regarding those they are over spiritualy. Where the President of the Chruch and the Quarum of the Twelve recieve revelation fort he church as a whole. Same goes for the General Relief Society Presidency and Presiding Bishopric.
Only if you believe in the equal merit of all purported claims to the truth.
I would have to disagree, though. Some statements are inherently true, some are false. Some opinions are actually better than others and we are called upon by our own levels of intellectual honesty to figure out why. Some revelations are real, some are false. Some prophets are real, some are false. It's worth the effort to try and discern the difference, imho.
KingM
Member
Attempting to speak for us again?
Honestly, don't you people have better things to do with your time then tell other people their religions are false? How about the other commandments, love your neighbor as you would yourself, feed the poor, etc. etc. Or is telling others they are going to hell and that their religion is false the utmost important commandment?
Beckysoup,
I don't understand this post. You've come to a religious debate forum. It's for people who like to discuss, and yes, disagree with other people about religious subjects. That doesn't give people carte blanche to be rude, but you have to expect that people are going to come right out and tell you that your religion is wrong and why they believe so.
Again, it's not like you're on a bus and someone has just said, "You're LDS? You know what doesn't make sense about your religion?"
That would be entirely inappropriate. This, however, is an appropriate venue for just such a conversation. I would think that only people who found such discussions interesting and stimulating would stick around.
Hmm, i could agree with your third possibility if there were evidence that he was in other ways delusional or psychotic. There are some historical accounts that would contraindicate that though, like the famous Egyptian papyri phony translations and the Kinderhook plates debacle.
Melissa G
Non Veritas Verba Amanda
To that list, you can add, Smith's, ' Books of Abraham'. Both Stephen E Thompson and David P Wright have proved that the books of Abraham display no ready knowledge of Egyptian Language, religion, and culture. It's textual origin lays with the KJV. With modifications of course
melissa g
melissa g
Polaris
Active Member
Autodidact said:
That a group of people lived somewhere in the western hemisphere, and there are people today who are descenants of the survivors. That's it. We don't know exactly where they lived, how many survived, and who they mixed with.
That doesn't mean too much. Do you know what percentage of the land area of North and South America is covered by city? Can you prove that all cities have been adequately excavated in an archealogical sense?
So a couple hundred excavation sites can expose every group who ever lived in the western hemisphere?
That's not true. There have been certain findings that are consistent with BoM descriptions. Stone writings have been found that contain certain correlations to Hebrew. Relatively recent findings on the Arabian penninsula are consistent with certain descriptions of Lehi's travels to the Americas in the BoM (ie, Nahom burial grounds, lush coastal Bountiful, and valley of Lemuel). Certain burial procedures, temple structures, religious alters, etc have been found that seem to have similarities to those of the Old World. So to say that there is no evidence is flat out wrong.
You can keep going back to the same argument and we'll keep giving the same responses:
Either we simply haven't found the exact locations of the ancient Nephite cities, or what they called a chariot or a horse is different from what we call a chariot and a horse. Both are valid possibilities.
We're talking about the veracity of the Book of Mormon. No matter what physical evidence we discover, none of it will prove that the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be -- scripture, written by true prophets of God.
You're the one who said the book told us where they lived. I've repeatedly stated that it doesn't.
Simply not true. While there is no definitive evidence to suggest that some of the major claims of the Book are true, there is also not definitive evidence to the contrary, and to say that there is absolutely no evidence in favor of the Book is not true.
A history of racism? Let's see... the early saints were persecuted in part in Missouri because of their position against slavery, blacks have alway been welcome in the church and have always received the same promises to salvation.
How are we anti-gay bigots? Just because we view homosexual behavior to be contrary to God's commandments doesn't make us bigots towards gays. We all fall short of perfection and rely on repentance and the atonement of Christ. Our doors are closed to no one.
What is the definition of second-class citizenship that you seem to think we apply to women?
To that list, you can add, Smith's, ' Books of Abraham'. Both Stephen E Thompson and David P Wright have proved that the books of Abraham display no ready knowledge of Egyptian Language, religion, and culture. It's textual origin lays with the KJV. With modifications of course
melissa g
yup, the papyri i was referring to was Smith's source for the Book of Abraham, when in fact it was a pagan burial papyri from the ancient Book of the Dead - and anachronistic to the time of Abraham by about 2,000 years.
It's almost painful to read what authentic Egyptologists have said about Smith's fantasy "translation" of the heiroglyphs.