This was a fun lesson to review, so my review runs a bit long this week. Also, it’s better sourced than any of my prior reviews. The church keeps piling on the lies. Let’s get started.
In the three years after the First Vision, Joseph Smith suffered “severe persecution” but remained true to his testimony (Joseph Smith—History 1:27). How can we remain true to our testimonies even when we face persecution?
Lie. The details now known about Joseph’s early life contradict his claim that he was persecuted in 1820 for telling the story of the First Vision. As a young man he participated in Methodist meetings, and later joined a Methodist church class. No persecution is recorded. (source)
When Joseph was 17 years old, he was visited by Moroni.
Probable Lie. Early records indicate that Joseph’s original claim was that he was visited by Nephi. (source)
When Joseph Smith was first shown the gold plates, he was not prepared to receive and translate them. How did the Lord prepare Joseph to receive and translate the plates? (See Joseph Smith—History 1:33–35, 42, 44–46, 53–54.)
One key historical fact… is the fact that Joseph Smith did not receive his First Vision until after the death of his brother Alvin Smith… Since Alvin died in the Fall of 1823 and Joseph Smith states that his vision occurred “early in the spring,” this places the First Vision in the year 1824—not 1820!
When one adds the seven years Joseph Smith describes in his 1838 account to the recalculated 1824 date for his First Vision, one realizes that this places Joseph Smith’s obtaining of the gold plates in 1831! This is one year after he had already translated, printed, and published the 1830 Book of Mormon! (source)
Explain that Satan tried to stop the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. He tempted men to try to steal the gold plates, and people continued to persecute Joseph Smith and his family (Joseph Smith—History 1:60–61). However, the Lord thwarted all of Satan’s attempts to keep the Book of Mormon from coming forth.
Really? Seriously? What is this like Cowboys and Indians with GOD? Maybe God and Satan should just drop all this pushing back and forth through earthly surrogates, get in a caged octagon, and duke things out for the final time…
One example of the miraculous preservation of the Book of Mormon occurred when one of Joseph Smith’s scribes, Martin Harris, lost 116 pages of the translated manuscript. Ask the assigned class member to summarize this account (see “Preparation,” item 3). Then teach and discuss D&C 3 and D&C 10, which the Lord revealed after the pages were lost.
However this may be, the Lord told Joseph Smith that he could translate the small plates of Nephi and they would take the place of what had come from the large plates of Nephi – i. e., the missing 116 pages. The Book of Mormon would no longer be a book without a beginning. In addition, it was made clear to Smith that the small plates of Nephi dealt more with spiritual matters than the missing pages. Consequently, the loss of the 116 pages was actually set forth by the Mormon Church leaders as a victory for the Lord because the Book of Mormon would be more spiritual than it would have been if the pages had not been stolen!
Mormon critics, on the other hand, do not accept this explanation. They point out that if Satan actually did cause Joseph Smith’s enemies to alter the words, these wicked people would have had to produce the original pages to prove that Joseph Smith could not produce an accurate duplicate of the original. It would be almost impossible to alter the manuscript without detection. The Mormons could have taken the case to court and easily won a significant victory. Critics feel that the simple truth is that Joseph Smith could not reproduce an exact copy of what he had previously written. Therefore, he was forced to come up with the elaborate story about the Lord providing a second set of plates covering exactly the same time period to fill in the missing portion of the Book of Mormon.
As Joseph translated the Book of Mormon, he learned that the Lord would permit three witnesses and a few others to view the plates (see the references to these witnesses in 2 Nephi 27:12–14 and Ether 5:1–3). Who were the Three Witnesses? (See “The Testimony of Three Witnesses,” Book of Mormon.) What were they commanded to do? (See D&C 5:11–15, 24–25; 17:3, 5.) Why was their testimony important? (See Ether 5:4; D&C 5:16–18; 17:4.)
And at least one of the witnesses admitted never seeing the plates with his physical, actual, eyballs. Oops! See the following:
The foreman in the Palmyra printing office that produced the first Book of Mormon said that Harris “used to practice a good deal of his characteristic jargon and ’seeing with the spiritual eye,’ and the like.” Pomeroy Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1867), 71 in EMD, 3: 122. John H. Gilbert, the typesetter for most of the book, said that he had asked Harris, “Martin, did you see those plates with your naked eyes?” According to Gilbert, Harris “looked down for an instant, raised his eyes up, and said, ‘No, I saw them with a spiritual eye.” John H. Gilbert, “Memorandum,” 8 September 1892, in EMD, 2: 548. Two other Palmyra residents said that Harris told them that he had seen the plates with “the eye of faith” or “spiritual eyes.” Martin Harris interviews with John A. Clark, 1827 & 1828 in EMD, 2: 270; Jesse Townsend to Phineas Stiles, 24 December 1833, in EMD, 3: 22. In 1838, Harris is said to have told an Ohio congregation that “he never saw the plates with his natural eyes, only in vision or imagination.” Stephen Burnett to Lyman E. Johnson, 15 April 1838 in EMD, 2: 291. A neighbor of Harris in Kirtland, Ohio, said that Harris “never claimed to have seen [the plates] with his natural eyes, only spiritual vision.” Reuben P. Harmon statement, c. 1885, in EMD, 2: 385.
Anyway, I’ll leave it at that. See you all next week for my next review.
Tags: Book of Mormon, ex mormon, exmormon, first vision, gold plates, golden plates, joseph smith, LDS, Mormon, mormonism, skeptic, skeptical, skepticism
January 19, 2009 at 4:53 pm |
Truly spoken like a guy who has no clue what putting a historical narrative together about ANY historical figure is actually like.
Ask any historian – any biographer. They will all tell you a story of contradictory accounts, different recollections, unverified reports, and murky facts.
That’s true of Winston Churchill, that’s true of Genghis Khan, that’s true of Martin Luther King Jr., that’s true of any famous person who ever walked on the planet. They all have a lot of confusion in the records and accounts. If you had a basic understanding of history, you’d know this.
Next!
January 19, 2009 at 4:54 pm |
Really, all you have to fall back on is that “Golden Plates seem pretty kooky.”
Stick with it. It’s your strongest suit. And frankly, it’s really all you’ve got.
January 19, 2009 at 6:05 pm |
@Seth – I don’t think Measure76 is attempting to be a biographer. Not sure where you got that idea. I for one was very intrigued by the information regarding First Vision chronology problems. I knew there were differences in accounts, but it was very interesting that William Smith, Joseph’s brother, claimed Joseph had the First Vision AFTER their brother Alvin’s death.
I think its very telling that you would criticize Measure76’s style and try to boil his arguments down to “Golden Plates seem pretty kooky.” That’s certainly not what I got out of this. What he really has is a summary of contradictions to the church’s “official” version of it’s history. Why not make a specific point about some of those allegations, instead of attacking the author.
For example: Measure says that there is no evidence of that Joseph was persecuted in the years after 1820. The church states, categorically, that he was. Since the church, and by extension it’s adherents, are making this claim, the burden of proof is on them to show some kind of evidence that this was the case. Why not refer us to such evidence, should it exist, rather than making blanket criticisms against the person doubting these claims?
I’m sure we’ll all hear back from you on that.
January 19, 2009 at 7:31 pm |
Seth R… biography? What? I think it’s very clear that this series of posts is to highlight the many inaccuracies and downright lies contained within the church’s Sunday School Manuals. Do you have a bone to pick with any of the lies I pointed out?
Brinkley Boy… right on, man.
January 19, 2009 at 7:35 pm |
Seth R says “Golden Plates seem pretty kooky.”
I couldn’t agree more, though I don’t think I’ve ever said that. Well put, Seth R. Well put.
January 19, 2009 at 10:42 pm |
Not to mention later on, when Joseph can’t remember which *month* he was visited by Peter, James, and John, and had the Melchizedek priesthood given to him.
Seriously, did so many people who were second only to Christ in the hierarchy of the church visit Joseph that he simply lost track?
All the explanations and rationalizations fade away like Ptolemaic epicycles before a heliocentric model, when you realize that Joseph Smith was a liar. Everything is very simple if you believe that.
January 20, 2009 at 7:53 am |
Doesn’t matter if you mentioned the word “biography” or not. All this inquiry into Joseph’s life is essentially the business of either the biographer or the historian. Everyone who studies a historical character and the events surrounding them is playing at amateur historian or biographer.
I simply pointed out that EVERY historical character is surrounded by conflicting accounts, murky facts, and such. You’ll get this with any such figure, no matter how wonderful or horrible they really were.
I merely brought this up to point out that simply saying “witness A contradicted the LDS position!” or “we’ve found an account that is different from Joseph’s other accounts!” is not enough to prove much of anything about LDS faith claims. The mere fact that differing accounts of the First Vision exist , for instance, is not really all that impressive – in and of itself. You find that with any recollection of historical events.
Neither is the fact that one source has Joseph saying “Nephi” and the other “Moroni” all that noteworthy either. History has been and always will be a foggy business.
In my second comment, I was just being snotty. Which is nothing new either. But there you are.
January 20, 2009 at 7:56 am |
That’s right, Seth. Joseph can get a free pass for telling completely contradictory stories because… well because you worship him.
To anybody else, it’s clear that he was a liar.
-Measure
January 20, 2009 at 8:04 am |
No, he can’t get a free pass. I never said that.
But I did say the nature of historical inquiry, precludes the sort of absolutely confident faith-statements you are expressing here.
And I do mean “faith” statements.
January 20, 2009 at 8:08 am |
So, Joseph doesn’t get a free pass? So that means you’re ok with my post after all? Thanks, man!
January 20, 2009 at 9:19 am |
Ok, Seth R, I’ve had more time to think about your statment, and I have another question for you. If I am wrong to tear apart this Sunday school lessons by choosing sources that contradict what it says…
Why is the lesson manual itself not wrong to ignore these sources, and tell a narrative that is grounded in lies and intentionally misleading statments?
January 20, 2009 at 10:49 am |
Look, no one is more irritated than me that LDS Gospel Doctrine services are essentially taught at a sixth grade level.
But for me, the jury is out as to whether the Church is really actively trying to suppress anything, or whether they are just doing an inadequate job of educating people. So I don’t currently consider the Church “dishonest.”
However, since I have long been open to the possibility of the LDS Church being in some state of apostasy (emphasis on “possibility”), I guess I would have to be open to the idea of someone being dishonest in the chain of authority too, right?
Thing is, I’m just not as confident in the conclusions as you are. And I’m unwilling to jettison what I do like about being Mormon over unproven/unestablished criticisms (which is what I consider the contents of the original post to be). So I’m still active in the Church, and defend what I do believe.
January 20, 2009 at 10:56 am |
So… let me get this straight.
1-I attack LDS sunday school lesson as being dishonest.
2-You attack me for doing this.
3-I redirect your attack to the actual issue
4-You admit even you have problems with LDS Sunday School lessons
5-You now state your main problem with my posts is the level of my confidence.
It must suck to be stuck in a church where you can’t be confident of its history. After reviewing all criticism of the church, I am indeed highly confident the church is a fraud. It is interesting that you cannot be equally confident that the church is not a fraud.
January 20, 2009 at 10:57 am |
I also don’t like black and white thinking.
Either the Church history is all true or all false. Is that it?
January 20, 2009 at 11:00 am |
I happen to like most of what Joseph Smith taught.
But that doesn’t require me to think he was right or wrong about Zelph.
Overall, I believe that Joseph’s account of the First Vision that is recorded in the Joseph Smith History in our scriptures is basically the correct one. I don’t find his own personal variations on telling it particularly damaging to the official narrative, and some of the stuff other people have said ABOUT what Joseph said, I don’t find all that credible at all.
January 20, 2009 at 11:15 am |
So you cherry-pick the things that make sense to you, in order to make Joseph a greater prophet than he actually was.
I know that Joseph made up parts of his ‘first vision’, as there are no heavenly messengers in real life. There is no God or Jesus to appear.
Gold plates are highly suspect due to Joseph previously having made a living gold-digging… and then he happens to tell everyone that he knows where gold plates are hidden underground! hah! That’s good stuffs.
January 20, 2009 at 11:43 am |
Thank you for bearing your testimony to me measure76.
I’ll take it under advisement.
January 20, 2009 at 11:45 am |
To me, Joseph’s prior interest in treasure-hunting and the supernatural were simply things that prepared him to accept the real-deal when it came to him.
But let’s just pretend he did make the whole thing up about the gold plates story.
Does that automatically invalidate the Book of Mormon as a source of God’s teachings?
January 20, 2009 at 11:49 am |
1-I never bore testimony. A lack of belief is not a faith statement. If you can provide one piece of solid evidence that there is a God, I will believe in that God. As it is, you can’t.
2-The Book of Mormon is invalidated as a source of God’s teachings because there is no God.
January 20, 2009 at 12:38 pm |
Well, your stint in Mormonism certainly gave you the gift of throwing out bare assertions of belief without backing it up.
Why is the Mormonism not true?
Because it’s a fraud!
Well gee… it’s so simple. I guess we can all go home now.
January 20, 2009 at 12:43 pm |
Yes, the church is a self-evident fraud.
The purpose of this series of posts is to explore the ways the church decieves its members to keep the fraud going.
The puropose of this website as a whole is to help people find the evidence they need to decide that the mormon church is indeed a fraud. I think my “Evidence Against Mormonism” series has some great information on that.
January 20, 2009 at 1:47 pm |
The purpose of this website is self-evident thank you.
The “fraud” of the Church is not.
January 20, 2009 at 1:58 pm |
Nice, Seth. I provide an entire series of posts to back up my statements, and all you can say is “LALALA ICAN’T HEAR YOU THE CHURCH ISN’T A FRAUD!”
http://wordpress.com/tag/evidence-against-mormonism/
January 20, 2009 at 4:58 pm |
I wasn’t referencing the quality of your previous posts.
Each blog post is an island for commenting purposes as far as I’m concerned. So I’m only discussing what’s right here.
Not that I thought there was much point to this line of argument to begin with. We’d probably be better off debating specifics rather than overarching issues like whether the Church smells bad in general.
January 20, 2009 at 6:42 pm |
What specific evidence of God’s existence would you like to debate?
January 20, 2009 at 7:18 pm |
None really. It’s completely off-topic to this post.
I don’t know why you brought up the existence of God in the first place.
Still it’s your blog…
January 20, 2009 at 9:18 pm |
Hey, you’re the one who said I was “Bearing testimony of unbelief” when I pointed out that Joseph’s claims are obviously false because there is no God.
So if you have proof that my unbelief is not founded in reality, I’d like to see it. Thank you.
January 21, 2009 at 3:07 pm |
To me, it’s not whether the history is all true or all false. It seems obvious to me that some is true and some is suspect. But because of the claims of the Mormon church, that their god is personally guiding the church through the living prophets, it does call into question for me why anything put forth by the church would be inaccurate. If they are the one true church being directly guided by their god, everything should be accurate and they should be pioneers in information, not the ones dragging their feet bringing up the rear.
One example of this would be with homosexuality. Their god would obviously know that it’s biologically determined (as science is now showing) and that it occurs at about the same percentage rates within all species studied thus far – so it’s really not “unnatural”. They could’ve been pioneers in the field of saying it was biologically determined. That doesn’t mean they would necessarily embrace homosexuality, of course, but why would their god let their prophets insist that it’s a personal choice that comes out of evil and selfishness for so many years? Why would he want them being the ones dragging their feet, bringing up the rear and some of the very last to admit that “ok, it’s biologically determined, it’s not a choice.” If god is real and is truly guiding their church, why weren’t they the first to advance this information, even before science had its evidence?
Why would their god want to have so many of his children suffer through the severe anguish that came to those who were accused of choosing their orientation and of being evil, selfish, etc.? It seems rather sadistic and dishonest, doesn’t it?
The fact that the early church leaders seemed to be unfamiliar with the 1st vision is not a deciding factor in and of itself, IMHO, but it’s another “nail in the coffin.”
January 21, 2009 at 3:15 pm |
sorry, some of my post didn’t cut and paste properly from notepad. The last paragraph should read:
The fact that the early church leaders seemed to be unfamiliar with the 1st vision is not a deciding factor in and of itself, IMHO, but it’s another “nail in the coffin”, just as their ignorance about the causes of homosexuality is another “nail in the coffin”. One nail may not be adequate, but added together with many other nails, you can have an entirely different scenario.
January 30, 2009 at 2:35 pm |
measure and INTJ, have either of you read “Mere Christianity” by C.S. Lewis? It is a great book by someone who is not a Mormon. Lewis was an atheist and it answers a lot of the questions that you pose about God. Really good read if you haven’t read it already.
January 30, 2009 at 2:39 pm |
So because CS Lewis got hoodwinked by religion, I should join up too?
Sorry, I don’t want your scam God.
January 30, 2009 at 2:45 pm |
“Lewis was an atheist?” Is it possible you know that little about him?
For that matter, there are lot of books that answer a lot of questions posed about God. How about this:
Q: Why does God allow suffering?
A: Because he doesn’t exist.
Q: How can God forgive my sins?
A: He can’t, because he doesn’t exist.
Answering questions about God, from any viewpoint, isn’t necessarily hard. Finding out the truth; now that’s hard.
This blog does an excellent job in pointing out why it’s unlikely to find the truth in Mormonism.
January 30, 2009 at 2:50 pm |
C.S. Lewis went through a period of intense questioning. But I’ve never heard anyone claim he was an atheist before.
C.S. Lewis is nice for a lot of people, but even I don’t claim that “Mere Christianity” is going to be a slam dunk persuasive read in proving Christianity true.
Really, as far as religion is concerned, you either buy into the faith thing or you don’t. If you don’t, there’s not much an LDS or Christian apologetic is going to offer you ultimately.
January 30, 2009 at 2:54 pm |
Seth R says:
“Really, as far as religion is concerned, you either buy into the faith thing or you don’t. If you don’t, there’s not much an LDS or Christian apologetic is going to offer you ultimately.”
That is so true.
Few religionists want to admit that there is no evidence to back up their faith. But it is the case.
Of course, if you want to prove me wrong, and show me the actual, verifiable evidence for your God, I’m open to it.
January 30, 2009 at 3:45 pm |
I’ve got enough evidence not to reject it (which is what all our friendly spats are about).
But as for proving it… I’ve never thought that objective evidence would do that. Affiliation in this religion is ultimately an intuitive matter for me.
Either that approach works for you, or it doesn’t.
January 30, 2009 at 3:56 pm |
You have no such thing. You have justifications for not rejecting mormonism, but you do not have evidence.
January 30, 2009 at 4:37 pm |
Oh I have evidence. You just don’t find it convincing, that’s all.
I find it to be enough.
January 30, 2009 at 5:30 pm |
I’m sincerely curious, what is this evidence?
January 30, 2009 at 6:43 pm |
Look, I’m not up for putting something out there and then having measure and others jump all over it just because they’re looking at it from a different set of assumptions.
Here’s the thing – if you approach a religion from an assumption of skepticism and a critical eye, then stuff like FAIR and apologetics isn’t really going to do it for you. If you are starting from an assumption of faith however, the stuff FAIR puts out is usually fine for resolving concerns. It’s good enough for me anyway.
I actually do get that measure76 and others aren’t going to see it my way.
But I’ve already said that intuitively I’ve accepted the LDS faith claims. From that perspective, the apologetics stuff is usually enough.
I say usually, because I don’t always toe the FAIR line on everything. Some of their stuff I actually recognize as being pretty sketchy.
But other stuff I find quite strong and I find the criticisms pretty weak. DNA would be a good example. I personally think the DNA attack on the Book of Mormon is probably the dumbest thing our critics have come up with since the Spaulding theory. The criticism just doesn’t “get” how DNA tracing works.
But I’m just throwing that out for purposes of example. Other criticisms like the common Evangelical criticism that our prophets don’t seem to do much real prophesying anymore – sincerely bug me. I never claimed I had all the answers – or that all the criticisms thrown at this Church are stupid or inconsequential.
But overall, I do consider this religion “the place to be.” Warts and all, this religion is where the action is at. I think it represents a major paradigm shift in the world religious scene and I think it’s pretty cool to be in at the ground level on it. It’s an opportunity to be a part of shaping a new world religion. You don’t get an opportunity like that every day.
January 30, 2009 at 9:07 pm |
Interesting. From all that I’ve read, the DNA “attack” seems pretty valid. I know some Mormons just put out a new book they claim addresses the DNA problems with the BoM and I admit I only just flipped through it and haven’t bought it, but I don’t recall seeing any actual geneticists having contributed to it. I did notice that the bigfoot guy, Meldrum, from Idaho State is listed as a contributor which made me go “hmmm”. I’ve read all about the Icelandic people example from both sides and tried to consider both arguments as objectively as possible and frankly, the side that argues that DNA disproves the BoM honestly seems more logical.
I personally haven’t seen any arguments from actual geneticists as of yet that argue in favor of a high probability of the israelite DNA “disappearing” in the American indigenous populations. Thus far I’ve only seen that argument coming from apologists who would be considered laymen in regards to genetics and human DNA mapping/tracing.
I actually participated in The Genographic Project sponsored by National Geographic, IBM, & The Watts Family Foundation. They traced my mitochondrial DNA back tens of thousands of years, it was quite fascinating. As it was explained to me, even if I’d had one Israelite maternal grandmother in there somewhere, it would show up (I’m part native American). Through my mDNA I won’t trace to Asian however, because the native american blood comes through my mother, her father, his mother. mDNA through my great grandmother’s female descendants shows Asian DNA but mine doesn’t. Interestingly however, I have had people ask me if I’m part Asian throughout my life (without knowing I was part native american). Not so much now, but when I was a teen and young adult – all the time. But I digress.
So yes, my Asian DNA appears to have “disappeared”, but there are other relatives for whom it hasn’t “disappeared”. It’s always going to show up for the relatives that fit in the right tracing sequence, either mDNA or Y chromosome tracing. As it was explained to me by some actual geneticists, because of the way populations were sampled, if there were any middle east ancestors in the North/Central/South American indigenous peoples’ past at all, they would’ve been picked up by at least a few of the samples. But as of yet, none has shown up.
I also think that people tread on shaky ground when they try to rewrite the BoM to fit new scientific and historical findings. Moroni the angel never gave any indication that there were 2 Cumorahs, neither did Joseph Smith. There is ample evidence that Smith was not nor would be an advocate of the limited geography theory and well if anyone knew, it would be him, right? Why would God let him and the other prophets since him make such a huge mistake and blunder such as that? Wouldn’t that be one of the whole benefits and points to having a prophet – so the people could have the most correct information? Why take such pains to restore “true” Christianity and then let the people believe more false information? Do you see how these questions can be troubling for people? It really makes no sense to me unless I choose to believe that God is some sort of sadistic and/or sociopathic and/or sloppy and non-detail oriented type of being.
As for the religion creating a major paradigm shift in the world religious scene, what are some examples of that? I’m into sociology, so I’m really interested in what exactly you’ve seen that has influenced you to think this. Also, if you don’t mind, what city (or county) and state are you in, as this may possibly influence your perspective. From my current perspective, the church itself has admitted in an official press statement that only about half of its claimed membership is actually active. There’s this sociology professor at BYU, I think his name is Heaton, who does membership retention research and he’s said that his research has been showing that only about 25-33% of the claimed membership is actually active and participating. I took the church’s published numbers from 2002 and figured out that according to their published numbers, a ward/branch would have 449 members on average. (11,721,548 total claimed members and 26,143 wards/branches). I don’t know for sure, but that sounds pretty big for a ward/branch. A lot of people wouldn’t have callings. I’m in Utah, and the last ward directory that was left on my porch (which was a couple years ago) included family photos with the lists of all the kids and I only count about 150 active members in my neighborhood ward. This is a pretty Mormon area and the ward has been divided at least once, so I can only assume that that is an average ward size.
But let’s give the church the 50% they claimed in their press statement back in late 2005. With about 50% of the claimed membership residing in the US, that would make about 3.25 million active members in the US. That is about 1% of the US population. Worldwide with the 6.5 million or so active members, that’s about 1/10th of 1% of the world population. So if they are actually causing a paradigm shift for the rest of the world, that would be pretty amazing. So if you would please give me some examples of what you see as Mormon caused paradigm shifts in the world at large, I would greatly appreciate it. If you don’t want to post here, you can email me: intj_mom@hotmail.com
January 30, 2009 at 9:25 pm |
Seth, why the focus on the criticisms in your evidence presentation?
Why can’t you present any evidence that is above criticism?
If I wanted to prove that the ball my son is playing with is orange, I could provide a picture, showing direct evidence that it is true.
Why is it that Mormonism and Christianity have NO claims that can even pass the picture test?
If all you can do is attack the critics, rather than provide real evidence, you have some serious problems with your belief system.
January 30, 2009 at 10:37 pm |
Most of the positive aspects of Mormonism for me are doctrinal. I like the Mormon view of the cosmos – even the “weird” stuff. I genuinely like it. I find the idea that every last human being is a “god in embryo” pretty heady and empowering stuff. I also like being part of a religious movement that has such a firm sense of history and destiny. All that stuff in Jacob 5 is just really cool to me. I like the idea that God has an overall plan for the entire span of world history. I don’t think that really comes out in the Bible so much as it does in the Book of Mormon.
I also like the Mormon rejection of creation ex nihilo (a fervently held doctrine among traditional Christians). The idea that there was ever “nothing” and that the universe suddenly popped into existence because God was bored one day never made any sense to me. The Mormon notion of eternal matter, eternal human identity, and an eternal universe seems much more logical to me and much more in harmony with the latest developments in quantum physics.
I like how Mormon doctrine allows us to look at the text of the Bible (and the Book of Mormon – I’d argue) with a more skeptical and less starry-eyed attitude. Our theology allows the writers of scripture to be flawed. It allows the Bible to be flawed. It also allows prophets to be real men instead of whitewashed superheroes.
Maybe this doesn’t sound like the Mormonism you guys know, but it is the one I grew up in. I love being in a religion that allows me to have a sense of assurance in God’s presence, but also allows me to read scholarly books questioning whether the Bible events really took place without feeling threatened at all.
I’ve recently been delving into how the wife of Eloheim – Ashurah – was systematically removed from Jewish religion by the Josian reformers and how the writers of the “Five Books of Moses” (probably exiled priests in Babylon) tried to obscure her presence in the record (not entirely successfully).
If I was an Evangelical, this stuff would be incredibly threatening. But as a Mormon, I’m free to embrace it, study it, and incorporate into my personal belief if I like. When “The Da Vinci Code” came out, all the Christian world was in an uproar. But Mormons were just like – “so what?” I enjoy being a part of a theology that can take stuff like that in stride and not bat an eye.
Is the theology immune to criticism?
No. But the fact that I like it is, as far as I’m concerned. And why shouldn’t I believe in something I like?
As for the DNA thing INTJ…
Just keep in mind that the genetic study of Native Americans was never designed to prove or disprove the Book of Mormon. The people conducting the study were – as far as I can tell – objective scientists who didn’t give two straws about the Book of Mormon one way or the other. So it really wasn’t on their radar. So it’s hardly surprising that more objective scientists haven’t weighed in on topics germane to proof of the Book of Mormon.
You also mentioned Mormons changing the geographical model to avoid problems with attacks – like the recent DNA study.
Well, I don’t know about all individuals in the LDS Church. But I can tell you that Mormon scholars have been arguing a limited geography model for the Book of Mormon since at least the 1950s. Even as a church-going Mormon kid growing up in rural Southern Utah in the 1980s I distinctly remember being taught that the Book of Mormon took place in a small area in Central America.
Both of those periods are well before anyone was worrying about DNA challenges. So I just don’t think the idea that we made this up to “dodge” a new criticism flies. Limited Geography Theory is not a new concept in Book of Mormon studies. Even some old Book of Mormon study manuals I’ve seen talk about a smaller area.
January 30, 2009 at 10:38 pm |
“If I wanted to prove that the ball my son is playing with is orange, I could provide a picture, showing direct evidence that it is true.”
With the constant use of photoshop, I’m not entirely sure of that measure…
January 30, 2009 at 10:55 pm |
Ok, send some unbiased photographers of your choosing to my house. We could even commission a scientific study of the matter, using controlled conditions, to help determine whether the ball is orange.
Or you could just come over to my house and take a look.
The point is, none of this is possible with theology. Theology cannot be reliably tested, or interpreted in a consistent manner without contradicting itself. Importantly, you can’t prove religious claims false, which means they aren’t scientific.
Scientific claims can be proven false with the right evidence… which brings us back to… oh say, what evidence do you have that your chosen religion is superior to any other religion? What evidence do you have that falsifies Scientology?
January 30, 2009 at 11:39 pm |
American author John Updike died recently. I heard him quoted as saying that human existence consists equally of both the physically experienced world and the imaginary. He said that only religion tries to harmonize both aspects of human life.
January 31, 2009 at 8:46 am |
Heh. Appeal to authority. I can play that game… Notwithstanding Updike’s belief in the supernatural, it appears that he stayed away from Mormonism. I guess it’s just another evidence that Mormonism isn’t the one true religion.
January 31, 2009 at 12:57 pm |
I’m not appealing to authority measure.
I’m just throwing out an interesting statement someone made that seemed relevant to the topic. Don’t you think it’s relevant?
I just got done listening to a series of Fresh Air interviews Terry Gross did with Mr. Updike, and I seriously, seriously, doubt he had much use for any organized religion – least of all Mormonism.
Quit jumping all over me. I’m actually trying to be non-confrontational here. I’m not having a competition with you here to see who can score the most points.
January 31, 2009 at 1:32 pm |
Seth, I’m well aware of when the limited geography theory came about. I didn’t mean to imply that I thought it was developed to counter DNA evidence. The whole of the Americas belief espoused by Joseph Smith and most of the Mormon prophets has had multiple problems since day 1 for the more educated. Frankly, a limited geography based in Meso America is the only one that really could be plausible.
The problem is that Joseph Smith and even the church espoused the whole of the Americas theory for a very long time and now the church has just pretty much backed out of saying anything officially one way or the other. However, with the BoM being such a foundational part of the religion, and also the claim to have a living prophet also a foundational part of the religion it seems absurd that there would be any up in the air questions in regards to the BoM.
And I’d like to add that it seems irrelevant whether a genographic project was/is looking specifically for israelite DNA or not. It seems better that they were acting objectively. Like I said, there was a plan to the samples of the indigenous peoples that were paid for by the project. Then you’ve got the rest of us who signed up to be part of the project and paid for our own analyses.
I would love to be able to pay for another study that specifically concentrated on the Meso American indigenous populations to try and get a definitive answer that noone could argue with. Unfortunately I don’t have that much money yet. However, I suspect that even if this study was done, if the desired results don’t appear, that many Mormons will continue to find red herrings and rather far fetched hypotheses to cling to and try to justify their belief. I’d still like to see this type of study done just because I’m personally curious.
January 31, 2009 at 1:43 pm |
“I would love to be able to pay for another study that specifically concentrated on the Meso American indigenous populations to try and get a definitive answer that noone could argue with.”
I don’t think such a study is genetically possible – no matter how much money you throw at it.
First off, what DNA signature would you be looking for? Do you even know?
January 31, 2009 at 1:48 pm |
LOL. It is known what ancient DNA markers there were in the area of Israel circa 600 BC. I’m starting to get the impression that you might think that DNA tracing is more of a guessing game.
January 31, 2009 at 2:10 pm |
“It is known what ancient DNA markers there were in the area of Israel circa 600 BC.”
Well, I’m interested to know what you’ve got on this subject then. Who knows what they were and what do they know?
January 31, 2009 at 3:48 pm |
While it is obvious that Seth R. is under some level of ignorance when it comes to DNA tracing, I still want to respond to an earlier point.
Seth said he just wanted to provide an interesting quote about religion. I’m going to offer a few interesting quotes about atheism:
A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows. – Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. – Seneca the Younger
I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence. – Doug McLeod
Since the Bible and the church are obviously mistaken in telling us where we came from, how can we trust them to tell us where we are going? – Anonymous
Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer. – Anonymous
Blind faith is an ironic gift to return to the Creator of human intelligence. – Anonymous
What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. – Christopher Hitchens
On the first day, man created God. – Anonymous
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. – Stephen Roberts
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish. – Anonymous
January 31, 2009 at 5:01 pm |
Are you keeping score Measure? How many points do you have so far?
I’m not keeping score here. I’m just waiting for INTJ’s answer.
I’m not throwing out snarky comments about atheism am I? Why are you in attack mode right now? I don’t think I did anything to invite it, did I? Not this time anyway…
January 31, 2009 at 5:02 pm |
They are good quotes though.
January 31, 2009 at 5:29 pm |
I liked the quotes too. Seth, there are known markers for each type of specific ancestry that occurred at certain points in time. Here’s a good place to start for a detailed explanation:
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html
January 31, 2009 at 7:10 pm |
Hmmm… I can’t seem to get the links on the website to work…
January 31, 2009 at 7:44 pm |
I just went through the site and the links all seem to work. It is probably your browser settings. I do have to click “yes” when the window pops up and says that there is mixed content (secure as well as non-secure) and do I want to show the non-secure content. It also appears the site is using Flash or some type of similar embedded content. Maybe you have that blocked.
February 9, 2009 at 12:42 pm |
Sorry to take so long in responding. Busy week at work.
I got the site to work. My NoScript program was shutting it down. I read through the entire FAQ and paid attention to the part about genetic “markers.” I’m still not seeing how this says anything about the Book of Mormon debate.
The study is simply looking for common ancestry that is most easily located for ALL Native Americans. The study never claims to be ruling out any other possible genetic sources. I understand that you can trace mitochondrial DNA through an unbroken female line. But what if the female line has breaks in it? Entire mtDNA lines can be, and have been lost.
I’ll just give you an easy hypothetical from the Book of Mormon:
We don’t really know if Lehi and Saria had any daughters because the record only mentions sons. But lets just assume Saria had only sons.
Viola! No mtDNA line to pass on from the “Jewish” line. Right from the get-go.
Did Saria have any daughters? Don’t know. But it doesn’t matter, because the example could have happened at any one of hundreds of points along Lehi and Saria’s branching family pyramid (with them at the top). You can easily lose entire genetic branches this way in a family tree. No daughters born – no mtDNA “markers” to pass along for modern genetic researchers.
If you actually asked the National Geographic researchers, they would probably agree with me. They never once in their study claimed to be eliminating all options EXCEPT the Asian connection.
The same problems occur when you are talking about male genetic markers. You can get the same bottlenecks and dead ends. There simply isn’t any way to prove or disprove all genetic source material for the modern Native American population. Entire lines vanish without a trace. That’s just how mtDNA works.
The only way you can make this criticism of the Book of Mormon work, is if you try to make the claim that Lehi and Ishmael’s families provided such a huge population that there is statistically almost no chance that the genetic markers could have been eliminated entirely.
In short, you have to subscribe to the Continental Geography Model for the Book of Mormon. Which Mormon scholars have been refuting and rejecting ever since the end of World War II. Limited Geography Model has been the norm for well over 50 years now. It’s even in my Book of Mormon study guide published by the Church! This is not a new concept that FAIR cooked-up solely to defend against DNA arguments. Few serious scholars of the Book of Mormon argue that the Book of Mormon took place in an area much larger than Guatemala. That kind of a smaller population would have genetically mixed in with the surrounding populations and could EASILY be completely untraceable today.
This doesn’t even take into account the fact that we have no idea what the original DNA looked like. The most important DNA sample would be that of Ishmael’s wife – who provided the mtDNA to her daughters, who then married all Lehi’s sons and would have been the primary source for mtDNA in question.
What was Ishmael’s wife? Jewish? Moabite? Manasseh? Egyptian? Phoenician? Asian?
Does the Book of Mormon say? It does not. So from the get-go, the mtDNA argument is an utter dead end. We have no idea what the orginal genetic material looked like. For that matter, we don’t know what Lehi’s DNA looked like either. He was of the tribe of Ephraim (Ishmael was of Manasseh). Do we know what THOSE DNA samples looked like? We really don’t. So we lack a patrilineal genetic sample as well.
Lehi’s party is a closed-book from a genetic standpoint. Nobody knows what their DNA (which came from one of the most genetically diverse and shifting regions on earth – the Middle East) looked like.
Then they came to the New World and populated a small geographic region, probably mixed with the indigenous peoples their and further diluted their genes, probably making any Middle Eastern taint very, very hard to find, if not non-existent. If such Middle Eastern taint was discovered, it would probably be dismissed as a transplant from European settlers (who would be assumed to have a bit of Middle Eastern mixture in the genes).
And we haven’t even gotten to the genocides caused by the Conquistadors and the diseases they brought with them. People have to remember that the Native American population was absolutely devastated by European diseases. Entire cities were wiped off the map. It is estimated that the majority of the Native American population actually died from these diseases without a single shot being fired. This is what is called a “genetic bottleneck.” Vast quantities of DNA data were lost in those mass deaths and never passed on to descendants.
To sum up though, the National Geographic study is ONLY claiming to have found the major genetic source common to all Native Americans. It has never claimed that it found every genetic contributor. If you asked the geneticists working on this project they would agree that their study emphatically does not rule out a small Middle Eastern group intermingling with the American populations.
February 9, 2009 at 1:17 pm |
In short, you have to subscribe to the Continental Geography Model for the Book of Mormon. Which Mormon scholars have been refuting and rejecting ever since the end of World War II. Limited Geography Model has been the norm for well over 50 years now. It’s even in my Book of Mormon study guide published by the Church! This is not a new concept that FAIR cooked-up solely to defend against DNA arguments.
No, it was something that FAIR (or their ilk) cooked up to explain the complete and total lack of any archeological finds that correlate, in any way, shape, or form, with the BoM.
In other words, science was making the “Continental Geography Model” look ridiculous, so the apologists invented a story that is at odds with what every prophet had said previously.
Few serious scholars of the Book of Mormon argue that the Book of Mormon took place in an area much larger than Guatemala. That kind of a smaller population would have genetically mixed in with the surrounding populations and could EASILY be completely untraceable today.
Please cite your evidence that DNA from such a small area would be likely to be “completely untraceable” 2600 years later.
February 9, 2009 at 6:35 pm |
The answers you are asking for are in the post I just put up. Read it again.
February 9, 2009 at 7:58 pm |
Joseph Smith: “The Nephite nation spanned the continent, from sea to shining sea, and I have a record of them”
Archeologists: There’s no evidence of a hebrew nation in the Americas, no matter where we look.
Apologists: Well, uh… The book of Mormon could be interpreted to say that the Nephite nation occupied only a small corner of the americas, and we just haven’t found the right place yet. So Joseph Smith was right, and the Book of Mormon is a factual historical record! Nevermind the parts he was wrong about.
Biologists: Uhm, there is absolutely no Hebrew DNA anywhere in ancient America.
Apologists: Oh… uh… well… The Nephites were even smaller! And… there were people here before them! And, uh, the Nephites couldn’t be expected to do anything like, leave a actual genetic footprint! So the Book of Mormon is an actual historical record, and Joseph Smith was right. Nevermind the additional things he said that contradict this new conclusion.
Measure: So who’s driving mormon doctrine here? The scientists, or the purely reactionary apologists?
February 9, 2009 at 9:06 pm |
Nope, just the actual text of the Book of Mormon.
If you read the war chapters in Alma, and pay attention to the march times of the armies between cities, it quickly becomes apparent that the geographic area couldn’t have been that big.
I think I’ll take Mormon’s word over Joseph’s – well intentioned as I’m sure he was.
February 9, 2009 at 9:09 pm |
Besides, cultural divergence tends to happen at a pretty high rate. It wouldn’t have taken more than 3 generations in isolation from Jerusalem for the Nephite culture to look very, very different from the Hebrews in Palestine at the time.
This is just basic history and archaeology. I didn’t make this stuff up. Educated people in these fields know this.
February 9, 2009 at 9:32 pm |
I agree, Seth, but what I’m getting at, is that the Mormon apologists didn’t come up with the limited geography theory until AFTER the archeologists proved the initial theory wrong.
Likewise, no mormon theologian or apologist predicted that DNA would turn up no proof of the Book of Mormon until the DNA results started coming in.
If the church was true, mormons could have, and should have come up with these theories first, and then science validate them.
Instead, scientists proved mormon theories wrong, and THEN the apologists came up with new theories to explain why the BoM is still valid.
February 9, 2009 at 9:34 pm |
By the way, the Book of Mormon states that a Hebrew culture persisted in America for about 1000 years. Not the two or three generations you’re proposing. Even if the culture was vastly different than the old culture, Christ himself appears to set things straight. No evidence of Christ visit appears in Native American History.
February 9, 2009 at 10:17 pm |
Really? Where does the Book of Mormon say that Hebrew culture persisted that long?
You also wrote:0
“If the church was true, mormons could have, and should have come up with these theories first, and then science validate them.”
What does this statement mean? You lost me.
February 9, 2009 at 10:27 pm |
Do you not understand how advancement of scientific theories works?
There is no evidence that any mormon ever even thought of the Limited Geography Theory before the archeologists insisted the Book of Mormon couldn’t be true.
Apologists then came up with excuses to keep the book true.
If the Book of Mormon WAS true, then mormons should have predicted that the archeologists would find nothing BEFORE the research was done. This didn’t happen.
Again with the DNA, mormons should have predicted DNA studies would find nothing, Decades before it was possible to complete the research.
Again Mormons were proven wrong by science first, and only then had to come up with reasons that the book of mormon could still be true.
If the book of mormon was true… testable predictions would be possible. History has shown that mormons have never made a testable prediction about the book of mormon, done the research, and had the actual science come down on their side. This is a big problem.
February 9, 2009 at 10:36 pm |
I have a general idea how science works. That’s not the problem. The problem is that your statement:
“If the Book of Mormon WAS true, then mormons should have predicted that the archeologists would find nothing BEFORE the research was done. This didn’t happen.”
makes no logical sense.
Why would the Church have to predict this to be “true?”
Maybe you’re defining “true” some way other than the normal usage here. Because I honestly haven’t any idea what you are talking about.
February 9, 2009 at 10:51 pm |
Because the archeologists found no evidence to support the book of mormon, and now apologists claim that this was to be expected based on the text, it follows that if the book were true, mormons should have known that archaeology would find nothing BEFORE the archaeologists actually did find nothing.
Because the apologists can only react to scientific findings, instead of predict scientific findings, it is clear that the book of mormon is false.
ANY book can be reinterpreted after the fact.
A TRUE book would predict scientific findings ahead of time.
February 11, 2009 at 6:44 am |
This does not logically follow at all.
Why would a religion be required to predict criticisms to qualify as being “true?”
February 11, 2009 at 7:55 am |
You’re missing the point. Religion wouldn’t be required to predict criticisms to be true.
But the Book of Mormon would be required to predict scientific findings if it were a true historical document.
Since it never has, it is false, or at least, has been false for every theory it ever posited. Now, there’s still an outside shot, remote as I see it, that some part of the book of mormon may be true.
But in order for that to happen, someone would have to make a prediction about some concept based on the book of mormon text, have expirements run in the real world, and have those experiments confirm the hypothosis, or prediction. Then, and only then, could the book of mormon be said to be “True” in any real sense.
February 11, 2009 at 9:25 am |
Measure, the whole point of my post above was to state that science has not revealed anything contradictory to the plain text of the Book of Mormon.
Contrary to Joseph’s assertions about the book, yes, I’ll grant you that. But nothing contrary to the BOOK.
February 11, 2009 at 9:36 am |
You’re still ignoring the main point. On second thought, you have granted it somewhat in your phraseology. I’ll stop trying to explain how science works, I think anybody reading this exchange, with an idea of how hypothesis and scientific proofs work, will understand by now what I’ve been trying to say.
While you grant that Science has not contradicted the BoM, (which I don’t agree with, but I’ll play along for this post,) science has also confirmed ZERO facts from the Book of Mormon.
Since the Book of Mormon purports to be actual history, but no actual history in the real world has ever been found to confirm it, it must remain on the “False” bookshelf for now.
February 11, 2009 at 9:40 am |
For now I guess you’re right.
Just keep in mind. The idea that the earth was flat was a “scientific fact” for quite some time as well.
So I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
There, is that a proper note to end the exchange on?
February 11, 2009 at 9:43 am |
By the way, science has confirmed the existence of cement roads in Central America.
So there’s at least one factoid from the Book of Mormon that has been confirmed. Cement roads in Pre-Columbian America.
Barley too, as it so happens. So there’s another.
But anyway…
February 11, 2009 at 10:16 am |
If you accept that barley and cement in the book of mormon prove anything, then you must also accept that horses in the book of mormon prove it false.
As it is a contradiction, the book is false, no matter what justifications you come up with for the horses, as that would be reinterpreting, not predicting.
February 11, 2009 at 10:42 am |
Absence of data cannot prove anything false.
You can assume something to be false in the absence of data if you like. But you cannot assert that anything has been disproven here.
February 11, 2009 at 11:06 am |
You come on my blog and try to set rules? Fat chance. I am not bound by your rules.
I will assert anything I damn well please.
And I was only using the same criteria you used, modern words appearing in the book of mormon, to prove that your method for proving the book is flawed, since while there may be barley and concrete, there were no horses in ancient america, so either your proof is flawed or the book of mormon is false, or both.
February 11, 2009 at 11:51 am |
Yes, and you can assert the moon is made of cheese too if you wish. It is a free country. I’ll grant you that.
I disagree with your assertion that there were no horses in Pre-Columbian America. That has not been proven yet. This is what I’m getting at. There is a difference between proof and absence of proof. Horses are a case of absence of proof.
Incidentally, there is also an absence of proof that there were any horses in Romania during the time of the nomadic Huns. Since historical records speak of the Huns herding thousands of horses in Romania and Hungary, we assume that it happened. But to date, archeologists have never uncovered so much as a single horse bone that can be radiocarbon dated to that period.
That’s the problem with biodegradable evidence.
It tends to biodegrade.
February 11, 2009 at 11:56 am |
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Absence of evidence does however, make a mockery of any attempts to prove the Book of Mormon is true.
In fact, anyone who claims the Book of Mormon is true, even though they have no evidence to back it up, is a Liar. I was a Liar on my mission, and I was trained to be a liar by sunday school, seminary, and the MTC.
February 11, 2009 at 12:20 pm |
I’m not trying to prove the Book of Mormon true.
And the evidence of knowledge that they’re talking about in the missionary discussions typically is talking about something other than scientific proof. But now we’re changing the subject.
I wasn’t discussing whether missionaries are taught to “lie for Jesus” or “fake it till you make it.”
I was just talking about whether the Book of Mormon has been scientifically discredited. That’s all.
If you want to rip on the one-size-fits-all testimony approach of the MTC, be my guest. I didn’t much care for it myself.
February 11, 2009 at 12:22 pm |
HA! That’s funny. The book of mormon scientifically discredited! LOL!
Heh. oh man. that was a good one.
Just in case you were serious… In order for the book of mormon to be scientifically discredited, it first would have had to be scientifically accepted.
Never has been. Never will be. Man, you are a hoot!
February 11, 2009 at 12:27 pm |
Shrug.
You guys were the ones saying it had been discredited.
If you want to back out of that argument now, and shift the debate to burden of proof issues, fine by me. I wasn’t the one who brought it up. That would be you.
February 11, 2009 at 12:32 pm |
I just did a ctrl-F of this page, and the first time “discredited” shows up is from you.
I’ve been saying all along the book of mormon is false. Discredited is a separate concept, and would have required the book to have a level of scientific acceptance first. The Book of Mormon will never have this, and never have the honor of being “discredited”
March 24, 2009 at 8:54 am |
I enjoyed your list of ’sayings,’ M76, but it was a very short list, and it was cherry picked to serve your ends. OK, I hear you, this is your blog and you can do and say anything you feel like writing or doing. I kneel before your appeal to your own authority – [Kneels] – but you do not prove that your list of ’saying’ is true. Presumably, if you offer your ’sayings’ as evidence, you will have submitted them to the same rigorous scientific standards as you insist the Book of Mormon fails to satisfy.
Being an atheist does limit your options as a serious-minded scientist conducting serious religio-social experiments that will prove that there is not now nor ever has been a god or gods, and that all sacred literature is a tool of the Adversary – oops! No god, ergo no saitan.
As far as atheism is concerned, I will hazard to guess that you became one through your disappointment with all religions, their scriptures, their epople, their rules of conduct, and all the other disciplines that are common to all religions. If so, then your atheism is an honest conclusion to your mind-set, even ‘if’ you are mistaken by relying on insufficient or the wrong data.
How hard is it, then, for you, an atheist, to acknowledge that Christians arrive at their faith situations through satisfying the demands of their mindsets in regard to evidence that they accept, honestly, even ‘if’ they are mistaken?
Why is it necessary for a double standard to be applied to atheist-believer debates? After all, as a scientist, you will understand that conducting the same [stated] experiment under different conditions and using discrete methods will not produce the same results – unless you are a magician or an alchemist.
You attack Mormoism and the BOM as if you had a divine commission to do so. However, that is unlikely, yes? So exactly what is it that drives you to argue against religion of any kind?
Joseph said, “People leave the Church, but they can’t leave it alone.”
I wish you well, but you really are on a hiding to nothing, because the more you persecute the Lord’s people, the stronger they grow.
Thank you for helping out Mormonism and the Book of Mormon. I realise you did not set out to do so, but anti-Mormonism inexorably leads to Church growth in all kinds of ways. The strength of Mormonism comes from being forged in the crucible of persecution.
Hit me again!
March 24, 2009 at 9:04 am |
Yes, Joseph started a number of cult-like mind control techniques when he made statments like “People can leave the church, but they can’t leave it alone.”
It is cult-like because it teaches the members to assume that ex-members are out to get them.
When in reality, many ex-members like myself are more interested in letting members know about the suppressed history, which I am attempting to do here.
The truth is that the church tries to hide anything that would make it look bad. The church doesn’t teach about Joseph’s polygamy, it tries to not teach about polygamy at all, even though it was a major part of the church at one point, and probably the one thing that held the church together after Joseph’s death.
As for my atheism, you have me all wrong. I went atheist before I left mormonism, and not so much because I was disappointed by the church, but because at a certain point, a reality with no God made more sense to me than the fantasy I had been living, with God.
May 6, 2009 at 2:45 pm |
I am interested to see “there is no God” messages here. Could well be true, but we can not know for sure. Personally I was raised in a Mormon environment. I’ve become an avid non-believer but Christianity has me hooked. I relatively recently went through a terrible accident. I was on a 4-wheeler and a lady traveling down the highway hit me at 75mph. I’ve no memory of it. My memory begins about 3 months later when I awoke in the hospital, not knowing my name or what had happened to me. During my recovery I experienced some “near death experiences” (I literally died several times according to the doctors) I don’t remember much but I do remember several visits from folks who had preceded me in death. My Grandfather who was an avid non Morman. My sister who had committed suicide (thus proving that suicides do not go directly to Hell as was taught in church, to me, at any rate) and a good friend who had shortly before death been successfully lured into Mormonism. Unfortunately he had no comments on Mormonism at this time and I hadn’t the presence of mind to question him. I’m taking a lot of time and space to get to a simple and small point. One of the things that happened during my experience is that, for the first time in life I became entirely convinced of the reality and existence of God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost as three independent beings. I have no memory of the actual experience but I know for certain it occurred, that much remains. I’d trade almost anything for the distinct memory of it.
May 6, 2009 at 3:09 pm |
Howard, I don’t presume to know what lenghts the human mind will go to in order to preserve it’s own sanity when under major trauma.
Your experience proves again, though, that the brain tends to confirm what you already believe in these situations, instead of giving you an entirely new belief.
For instance, Muslims who go through similar experiences have their own religion confirmed to them.
I would exhort you to examine the evidence behind your beliefs. Hell, if you find evidence that there is a God, I will believe.
May 6, 2009 at 4:09 pm |
measure76,
If you start worshiping God just because someone provides evidence he exists, I will seriously lose a lot of respect for you.
What if God is a monster?
Would you still worship him then – just because he was proven to exist?
May 6, 2009 at 5:56 pm |
I said I would believe, not that I would worship.
But Seth, Since you asked, I have a question.
If God was a monster, who enjoyed making us suffer on earth, and after this life will make us all suffer for eternity…
And If this monster-god wanted to further screw with us by giving revelations that made him ‘feel good’ to us so we’d be completely fooled…
How would we know the difference between that God and a good God?
How do you know the mormon God isn’t secretly evil, making you feel good about himself?
May 6, 2009 at 11:01 pm |
If he is, then there isn’t really much to be done about it, is there?
That’s why I’ve always held that the Calvinist God is utterly pointless. You wind up with these kind of problems.
Either way, I think it’s apparent that trying to logically convince on the topic of God is a rather worthless exercise – since mere belief doesn’t really go anywhere anyway.
May 7, 2009 at 4:55 am |
Since you agree there’s no way to know whether God is really good or evil, I don’t know why you would choose to worship him.
Seems to me like the best course of action is to make this life as good as it can be, without filtering your decisions through a God or a Church that will alter your life for potentially no good reason.
May 7, 2009 at 6:09 am |
Well, that’s the thing.
I don’t see a downside. And I don’t see what you or anyone else has to offer that’s any better.
May 7, 2009 at 6:40 am |
So in Seth R’s mind, the LDS church is the most perfect institution on earth, even if God is non-existent or fake, there’s no better way to live?
Talk about ego-centric… or institution worship, even.
May 7, 2009 at 7:29 am |
measure76,
Frankly, you don’t know what I think.
May 7, 2009 at 8:36 am |
Well, you spelled it out pretty clearly in your comments, on this blog and on your own.
I’m just trying to help you see that you believe in a fraudulent institution, and maybe even a fraudulent God.
I probably won’t be successful, but there’s always hope.
May 7, 2009 at 10:12 am |
Whether the Church is true or not has nothing to do with whether it’s the most perfect thing on earth. And I also didn’t say there is no better way to live.
What I did say is that the personal benefits for me far outweigh the downsides, and I have yet to hear you or anyone else offer a better alternative.
You seem to have this caricature of Mormons in your mind that you keep trying to shove me into. Maybe you think I’d be easier to deal with if you can paint me as some sort of retard.
May 7, 2009 at 10:25 am |
If you don’t believe that the LDS church is the best way to live, why live it?
Even just two scenarios would show the LDS church not winning out.
1- Live in the church, giving up a minimum of 3 hours on Sundays (up to tens of hours a week depending on your callings) and ten percent of your pay.
2- Live exactly the way you do now, but dumping the church, gaining hours and money back, improving your life, even if you still believe in God, and even Joseph Smith.
Which is better? #2, without a doubt. Unless you believe that God requires his people to belong to a imperfect organization that is borderline cult like? (the small example I’ll use here is that in the LDS church, it is taught that to criticize leaders is wrong, even if the criticism is true)
But if you do believe the church is perfect, then you are worshipping an organization, instead of a God.
May 7, 2009 at 10:41 am |
I don’t believe the Church is perfect, and I do believe our leaders are sometimes wrong, and I don’t mind criticizing them either.
I choose to participate in a FLAWED and IMPERFECT organization as a personal affirmation that life is not perfect, and never will be – no matter how much you obsess about personal-fulfillment (and all that other self-centered new age crap). I live in a community with real people. Real people with real problems and real flaws.
Sure, I could stay home and it would just be perfect, precious little me, and whatever TV programs I choose to have over for the afternoon.
But life isn’t perfect. And no matter where you go, or where you hide – that is the reality.
I choose to embrace that reality. And that is why I go to church.
What do you do on Sunday?
May 7, 2009 at 10:50 am |
What do I do on Sunday? Whatever the hell I want.
Interestingly, I don’t see flawed people all around me. I see good people all around me. There is no perfect standard to hold anyone to, people are just people.
And most of the time, people do good things for other people, and that is beautiful to see. No church is necessary to see this.
Personally, I don’t think you’ve made a good case for why scenario 1 above is any better than scenario 2. Either way you would believe in God and Joseph, just one way you wouldn’t be beholden to a flawed organization.