As a 13/14 year old on priesthood class, I heard discussions on the celestial kingdom which sounded very similar to this. As I was already questioning whether I wanted to stay in the LDS church at that time, I was very interested and asked alot of questions. The answers I received sounded like what was described in the above post. As it didn’t make sense to me, it was added to the long list of reasons for my leaving, and sent me closer to my long journey home.The confusion you are describing is the surest sign of people trying to speculate about something beyond that which God has revealed. There are certain things that God has revealed, and lots more things that He hasn’t; and it is very unwise to try to speculate about what God has chosen not to reveal to us as yet. When that happens, the safest course of action is to stick closely to what God has revealed on the subject, and ignore the speculations. As far as the particular doctrine that you are referring to, there are several passages in LDS scripture that mentions it; but it is most comprehensively taught in section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants. If you have a copy of that book, I recommend you to go and read it. If not, you can also read it online here. That is basically what God has revealed to us at the present time about this subject. Everything else you hear is likely to be speculation and not true LDS doctrine.
zerinus
The web page you sent me to is the weakest sort of LDS BS and mis-direction, calculated to deflect honest questions of the BOM. Show me some physical evidence of BOM cities, armor from the battles involving tens of thousands of soldiers clad in steel, chariots, horses, silk, etc. You know, any steel-making culture leaves behind slag from the smelting process that lasts thousands of years. I have seen slag heeps from steel production, both in Bethlehem, PA and in Taiwan, where I served my mission.Here is a link for some examples of the evidence you seek, Paul:
jefflindsay.com/BMEvidences.shtml#intro
Just don’t get too excited about it, is all I am saying. I think there are few atheists who share your faith in the “overwhelming” evidence of the Bible. Again, like the Bible, there is just enough physical evidence substantiating claims of the Book of Mormon to inspire and confirm faith and just enough questionable facts to require it.
Thanks for your follow up.
I found the link interesting, though not convincing, of course. Why the comment on “LDS BS?”The web page you sent me to is the weakest sort of LDS BS and mis-direction, calculated to deflect honest questions of the BOM. Show me some physical evidence of BOM cities, armor from the battles involving tens of thousands of soldiers clad in steel, chariots, horses, silk, etc. You know, any steel-making culture leaves behind slag from the smelting process that lasts thousands of years. I have seen slag heeps from steel production, both in Bethlehem, PA and in Taiwan, where I served my mission.
Isn’t it curious that not even one slag heep has ever been found in America remaining from the “exceeding fine steel” from which the tens of thousands of Nephite swords and shields were crafted?
Paul
Frankly, your post doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. That makes us even I guess.As a 13/14 year old on priesthood class, I heard discussions on the celestial kingdom which sounded very similar to this. As I was already questioning whether I wanted to stay in the LDS church at that time, I was very interested and asked alot of questions. The answers I received sounded like what was described in the above post. As it didn’t make sense to me, it was added to the long list of reasons for my leaving, and sent me closer to my long journey home.
That depends a lot on how you define “power and glory”. What is your definition of the “glory” of God? How do you define “glory”? If you can give me a clear answer to that, then I can tell you whether it is infinite or finite.I would have to disagree with this assumption. Infinite glory “without increase” does not imply a limit. After all, “infinite” means “no limit.” You can’t say that God has infinite power and glory, and then say that his infinite power and glory are increasing. . . .
Religion is a matter of faith. To the doubting Thomas the Lord said, “. . . because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29). True faith never comes by signs or evidence. The Jews had many signs and miracles wrought among them, but still they did not believe. It is the Spirit that convinces; and that conviction, or faith, comes as a result of “hearing the word of God” (Romans 10:17). Hence when the word of God is heard (or read, as the case may be), it is the Spirit of the Lord that brings faith or conviction in the heart; and that is how true faith is engendered in the hearts of the righteous. The Book of Mormon deliberately comes without a lot of external evidence because it is designed to separate the sheep from the goats; the chaff from the wheat; the true believers in God, and those “sign seekers” who merely bring excuses, but do not really want to believe, and would not in fact believe even if convincing evidence was presented to them. This is made clear in the Book of Mormon. Allow me to quote:I have to take issue with this statement. The BoM isn’t like the bible at all in this respect. For the bible, we have far more evidence of many places, people, and events. With the BoM, not one person, place, or event about the peoples in the America’s has ever been corroborated or discovered. We have no idea where any of the BoM cities are. We have absolutely no historical records from any member of either the Nephite or Lamanite civilizations. I don’t think it’s accurate to compare the bible and BoM in the way you did. Granted both require faith, but they are certainly not anywhere in the same neighborhood when it comes to historical or archeological evidence.
I don’t know why he would have commented that way except for the fact that it accurately describes Mormon apologetics. FARMS, FAIR, Jeff Lindsay are all of the same ilk. If there were any real evidence for the Book of Mormon besides the feelings of Mormons, I think we would hear a lot more about it. The reality is the Book of Mormon has for all intents and purposes been completely debunked. There are droves of Mormons who are finding this out and either leaving the LDS Church or going inactive. The normal Mormon convert finds this out rather quickly which is the reason so many of them return to their former churches or go in active within the first few months after baptism. The convert rate is dropping like a rock with the introduction of the Internet. Most converts now come from Third World countries which don’t have access to the information that most semi-intelligent North Americans and Europeans can find. And the retention rate among LDS converts in Third World countries is extremely low. It’s getting harder and harder to sell the Book of Mormon as an ancient text because the evidence is so strongly against it. That evidence has already been presented briefly in this thread. It’s available in much more detail at your local library or on the internet. I would strongly recommend two books for anyone who really wants to learn about the Book of Mormon and Mormonism. The first would be Grant Palmer’s book, “An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins” (amazon.com/Insider-View-Mormon-Origins/dp/1560851570) and the other would be Simon Southerton’s book “Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church” (amazon.com/Losing-Lost-Tribe-Americans-Mormon/dp/1560851813/ref=sr_11_1/102-6016718-7015301?ie=UTF8)).I found the link interesting, though not convincing, of course. Why the comment on “LDS BS?”
I have heard this theory numerous times. While it sounds like a romantic tail of the persecuted faithful, I have yet to read or see or even here of any historical evidence of any sort except the words of speculation from anti catholic apologists.The first reason is that the gates of hell never did prevail against the Church. The people persecuted the Christians, killed the apostles, and ran the Church underground so that by the time they realized the truth, there were only fragments left to piece together. The world, of its own free will, rejected Christ and rejected His Church.
The Mormon claim for a Meso-American location for the book is firmly based in their unwillingness to accept the Great Lakes location, for reasons which will become obvious to anyone who makes it halfway through the article.armor from the battles involving tens of thousands of soldiers clad in steel, chariots, horses, silk, etc. You know, any steel-making culture leaves behind slag from the smelting process that lasts thousands of years.
You may find that ex-Mormons like myself have a harder time keeping the punches above the belt because we consider ourselves to have been victimized by Mormonism to some extent. I’m not exactly sure which posts you are referring to in this thread. Many of us converted to Mormonism with less than full disclosure from the missionaries and the LDS Church. The RCIA program was just the opposite from the tactics of the Mormon missionary endeavor. So having discovered the truth about Mormonism it is a little hard to hold back at times.Catholics…please…let’s keep the punches above the belt. NDM has been kind enough to indulge my invitation; please show him the respect due to a guest in our house.
I trust you’re all charitable enough to self-edit in the future. If anyone continues to be rude, I’ll report you and we’ll let the mods sort it out.
God Bless,
RyanL
I appreciate your passion.I have heard this theory numerous times. While it sounds like a romantic tail of the persecuted faithful, I have yet to read or see or even here of any historical evidence of any sort except the words of speculation from anti catholic apologists.
Do you have any real sources for this theory? If so can you show me? if not, why do people accept this as the truth?
Or better yet, you might try this link:I appreciate your passion.
For a more detailed discussion on the LDS view of the loss of the Church and the need for a restoration, please see *The Great Apostasy *by James E. Talmage. This book discusses the scriptural and historical evidences you request.
Thanks for the follow up question.
Alright I make it simple so there is no confusion. I will just say that nothing about God is increasing. God is God. God is infinite. You cannot increase what is already infinite. To claim so logically implies that God was less yesterday than today, which furthermore leads to the conclusion that God had a beginning, which cannot be so. That would make God a part of time and space rather than the creator of time and space and everything contained therein.That depends a lot on how you define “power and glory”. What is your definition of the “glory” of God? How do you define “glory”? If you can give me a clear answer to that, then I can tell you whether it is infinite or finite.
“Power” is a lot easier to define; and LDS scripture teaches that God’s power is indeed infinite. He is described as being “omnipotent” and “almighty,” all which means that He has all power. He can do whatever He pleases.
zerinus
I agree that faith is a gift from God delivered via the Holy Spirit, not something that one can prove.Religion is a matter of faith. To the doubting Thomas the Lord said, “. . . because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29). True faith never comes by signs or evidence. The Jews had many signs and miracles wrought among them, but still they did not believe. It is the Spirit that convinces; and that conviction, or faith, comes as a result of “hearing the word of God” (Romans 10:17). Hence when the word of God is heard (or read, as the case may be), it is the Spirit of the Lord that brings faith or conviction in the heart; and that is how true faith is engendered in the hearts of the righteous.
I read your quote from 1 Nephi and I’m not certain whether this is your own personal interpretation or the way the LDS church authorities interpret it. To say that the BoM deliberately comes without a lot of external evidence based on the passage you quoted seems a bit of a stretch. Perhaps if you provided an official interpretation of this passage by an LDS leader I might buy your position that the BoM is deliberately short on external evidence.The Book of Mormon deliberately comes without a lot of external evidence…This is made clear in the Book of Mormon.
ND,This is another important question, one that RyanL and I are currently discussing.
The Church’s response to that question (found in the Newsroom section of LDS.org) is:
"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes in the sanctity of human life. Therefore, the Church opposes elective abortion for personal or social convenience, and counsels its members not to submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for such abortions.
The Church allows for possible exceptions for its members when:
• Pregnancy results from rape or incest…
As a general rule, I would agree with that (though not necessarily with the logic you have used to justify it). I believe that most—if not all—the attributes of God are indeed infinite. His power, His wisdom, His love, His knowledge and intelligence, are all infinite, and therefore cannot be either increasing or decreasing. And I believe that that conforms to what LDS scripture teaches. There is one attribute of God, however, which might always be increasing, and that is His glory! Before coming to the critical issue of how you actually define God’s glory, let’s see what scriptural evidence there is for that in Bible. The Bible states in many instances that those who do good works, or suffer, or are martyred in the cause of truth, glorify God in the process. Jesus often described His sacrificial act as a means by which He glorified God. Examples are too numerous to mention. I did a search, and found more than 50 in the NT. Does that mean that the glory of God is constantly increasing? That may be a difficult question to answer without having an accurate definition for the glory of God. Unfortunately the Bible does not attempt to define what is the glory of God. But modern LDS scripture does! It defines the glory of God in these terms:Alright I make it simple so there is no confusion. I will just say that nothing about God is increasing. God is God. God is infinite. You cannot increase what is already infinite. To claim so logically implies that God was less yesterday than today, which furthermore leads to the conclusion that God had a beginning, which cannot be so. That would make God a part of time and space rather than the creator of time and space and everything contained therein.
Okay, you are an intelligent debater. That makes a change. I like that! That interpretation of 1 Nephi I had given was neither my own nor from Church authorities. It actually comes from the Book of Mormon itself. I had not given further detail because I did not want to overwhelm the reader with too much theological analysis from the Book of Mormon, and I am still unwilling to do so. But to be short in writing, the expressions “a marvelous work and wonder” or just “a marvelous work” and similar expressions occurs in several places in the Book of Mormon; and if these are all carefully examined and analyzed together within their contexts, it will become clear that they all refer to the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. I will just confine it to a couple of quotes:I read your quote from 1 Nephi and I’m not certain whether this is your own personal interpretation or the way the LDS church authorities interpret it. To say that the BoM deliberately comes without a lot of external evidence based on the passage you quoted seems a bit of a stretch. Perhaps if you provided an official interpretation of this passage by an LDS leader I might buy your position that the BoM is deliberately short on external evidence.
There is no scientific proof of the fundamentals of religion in either Book. The fundamentals of religion in either book are: That there is a God who has spoken through His prophets, that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, that He was born of a virgin, suffered and died to atone for our sins, was resurrected on the third day, ascended to heaven, and will in like manner return to earth; and there is no scientific evidence for any of these.Anyway, the entire point of my earlier post was not about whether evidence is required to prove something we should believe by faith. There are many things I believe about Christianity through faith without some kind of scientific evidence. What I was trying to point out is that it is inaccurate and unfair to put the Book of Mormon on the same level as the bible when it comes to the amount and quality of external evidence in existence. They are in no way comparable in that regard. The historical evidence in support of people, places, and events from the bible is a mountain compared with the historical evidence in support of the BoM.
There is nothing surprising about that, considering that we know a lot more about Old World civilizations and their languages than we do about the New World.Do I require scientific evidence to believe in the bible? No. Would I need scientific evidence to believe in the BoM? No. But I do think it wonderful and interesting that God has allowed much historical evidence of the bible to be found and explored. Simultaneously, I do think it odd that God has not allowed any person, place, or event from the BoM to ever be corroborated or discovered.
Sorry for being so obtuse, I’ll elaborate as I should have in my original post.Frankly, your post doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. That makes us even I guess.
zerinus