An observation about the bible and book of mormon

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why_me

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On the book of mormon and honey bees thread Majick275 stated:

the BoM asserts many things that are either unproven or actually disproven. more importantly though it does NOT contain any accounts of what we now know was in existence then. I have thought all along that you were a TBM trying to use a Catholic background to lead the unwary here to your missionaries. I don’t think it will happen and I still hold out hope that you will put away the false prophets of the Mormons and accept the exclusive truth of the ONE, Holy, Catholic church. God bless you,

My comment: The bible can be proven by archeological evidence however it cannot prove that Christ is the Christ, the son of god. We need faith to believe so. There is nothing in the bible that can give us proof that Christ worked miracles. It takes faith to believe so. No problem.

With the book of mormon there is no substantial archeological evidence to conclusively support the book of mormon, however, we do have a book which has been testified by 11 witnesses to be the work of god and who have seen the plates that the book was translated from.

To believe the bible or the book of mormon, one needs faith. It is in the faith that the two books are united. Neither will be conclusively proven to be true because if this were the case, faith would no longer be needed and that can not happen.

Such is the religious life…all is based on faith. Sign seekers will always be disappointed.
 
I am bumping this up because no one has responded. I thought I made a good point…😦
 
not sure what your goal is here. the eleven witnesses to the BoM are questionable at best and little different than the “witnesses” to the Koran.

I will agree that one needs faith for the spiritual things but the Bible and the BoM both also claim to chronicle the lives of vast civilizations at known times and places. The Bible accounts can be verified to at least be culturally consistent with what is known, the BoM cannot.

If you want to go purely on faith (which LDS leaders all counsel their members to do) then you have to determine how you are going to do that. I choose to start with existing scripture (the Bible) and then place it in proper context by using what is known through tradition of it’s writers and the situations being addressed when it was written. I then apply my own thoughts and prayers. I conclude that the BoM is false and that the Catholic church was established by God himself and is still the church that he wants us in.

IF you feel differently then perhaps you can share your position, methodology and why your faith has led you to a different conclusion
 
why_me said:
I am bumping this up because no one has responded. I thought I made a good point…😦
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You did! If proving the Bible was so straightforward, there wouldn’t be so many atheists and unbelievers in the world. There have been millions of atheists and unbelievers in Christianity’s 2000 year history who have believed that the Bible is nothing more than a piece of fiction–archaeology or no archaeology–just as many do today about the Book of Mormon. That proves nothing, either abut the Bible or about the Book of Mormon.

zerinus
 
The Koran neither can boast archaology and yet its taken more seriously than the BoM.

Sometimes the bigger the threat you are, the more respect you get.
 
AgnosTheist said:
The Koran neither can boast archaology and yet its taken more seriously than the BoM.

Sometimes the bigger the threat you are, the more respect you get.
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I don’t see the Koran as a threat. Apparently JP2 didn’t either!

zerinus
 
On youtube there are interesting videos which refute the Book of Mormon. Search for “Mormon DNA”.

The Book of Mormon, to read it, it sounds made up. It doesn’t really contain anything other than “history”.

I have native American ancestors. Studing the assumed populations of the American continent it seems as though an Eastern Indo/Aryan population crossed the land bridge or traveled by boat to the America’s. They presumably followed herds across the continent. They appear to have acquired traits of certain know populations along the way which were homogenized in the population. They then settled at the shores of the east coast, probably for fish and milder winters. These would have been the Indians in the area of New York. They were more than likely prolific for a period of time and then eventually broke up into more distinct tribes. Later (or in a separate group), Asiatic peoples also crossed over the land bridge. They seem to have traveled immediately south and were predominately on the westcoast because of the rocky mountains, funnelled into Mexico and South America. Later travelling north and integrating with the other Indians who likewise went south.

The notion of a “Lost Tribes of Israel” concept may well have arrived in the New World right around the area of New York. The New World was already visited once by foreigners, of which there is DNA evidence. Amerindians were on the continent for 12,000+ years by sciences numbers. Interestingly there was little genetic drift from the original population. But Israel was not in existence nor was it dispersed around the time frame we are looking at.

I think if you are to question the Book of Mormon as an outright Historical fraud, I think you may well look at the Bible as well. While the Bible was not disclosed whimsically as was the book of Mormon, the evidence that refutes the Book of Mormon also refutes the Bible, just not on it’s key novelty.
 
AgnosTheist said:
the koran is not the threat, its followers are.
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I don’t see them as a threat either. Islam is one of the world’s great religions. For about a thousand years during the Middle Ages, the “followers of the Koran” built a great civilization which excelled Christian Europe in art, culture, philosophy, science, tolerance, and refinements of civilization. Even religious tolerance existed in Islamic countries much more than it did in Christian Europe. The Jews used to escape from Christian lands to Islamic ones because they received greater protection there. Follow the story of Maimonides as a typical example.

zerinus
 
zerinus said:
I don’t see them as a threat either. Islam is one of the world’s great religions. For about a thousand years during the Middle Ages, the “followers of the Koran” built a great civilization which excelled Christian Europe in art, culture, philosophy, science, tolerance, and refinements of civilization. Even religious tolerance existed in Islamic countries much more than it did in Christian Europe. The Jews used to escape from Christian lands to Islamic ones because they received greater protection there.
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I wasnt necessarily literal when i said ‘threat’. Why is it really a great religion? Would islam be a great religion if it only has 100 followers instead of 1 billion? Would Mormonism be a great religion if it has 2 billion followers? Would scientology?
 
AgnosTheist said:
I wasnt necessarily literal when i said ‘threat’. Why is it really a great religion? Would islam be a great religion if it only has 100 followers instead of 1 billion? Would Mormonism be a great religion if it has 2 billion followers? Would scientology?
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Its great history makes it a great world religion, if nothing else.

zerinus
 
Without getting too far off topic, I think the Bible contains enough – no MORE threatening (to somebody) material than does the Koran. The Koran has a few passages which could be read one way or another. The Bible has structural depictions of potentially harmful means. It is not so much the content but the context. The Bibles saving grace may be that is more difficult to understand. Or maybe that no one follows it, I don’t know.

The BoM is inert AFAIK.
 
majick275 said:
not sure what your goal is here. the eleven witnesses to the BoM are questionable at best and little different than the “witnesses” to the Koran.

I will agree that one needs faith for the spiritual things but the Bible and the BoM both also claim to chronicle the lives of vast civilizations at known times and places. The Bible accounts can be verified to at least be culturally consistent with what is known, the BoM cannot.

If you want to go purely on faith (which LDS leaders all counsel their members to do) then you have to determine how you are going to do that. I choose to start with existing scripture (the Bible) and then place it in proper context by using what is known through tradition of it’s writers and the situations being addressed when it was written. I then apply my own thoughts and prayers. I conclude that the BoM is false and that the Catholic church was established by God himself and is still the church that he wants us in.

IF you feel differently then perhaps you can share your position, methodology and why your faith has led you to a different conclusion
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The point that I was trying to make that both the bible and the book of mormon do seem to go hand in hand in regards to faith, however, one is archeologically verified without sworn witnesses as to the truths of the story and the other is not conclusively verified through archeology but verified by 11 witnesses who never retracted their testimony.

It seems god can never give complete assurance without loosing the purpose of our earthly lives: to live by faith. Those who seek verification for the bom are no different from the people who seek verification as to christ’s divinity.

Sign seekers will never be satisfied until they get conclusive proof about both of the books. And this will not happen. God will not destroy the notion that we all need to live by faith.

Hence, I cannot dismiss the book of mormon out of hand as some do on this forum.
 
1 nephi 13:5-6

“And it came to pass that I beheld this great abominable church; and I saw the devil that he was the founder of it”
this is lehi’s vision of the church after jesus and the apostles died (even though joseph taught that john never died but is still walking around today). The rest of the chapter goes on to talk about how the devil’s church took things out of the bible. I would venture to say that this the very definition of anti-catholocism ( calling it the devil’s church). quick question: why do mormons accept the old and new testament canon if the post-apolostolic church was the devil? How can a mormon prove that james, revelation and hebrews belong in the NT? How could church fathers Polycarp, Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr and company forget to tell fellow christians before their death that god has a human body and is a seperate being from God the Father and the Holy Spirit? How could the early church fathers not pass on these essential truths?
 
why_me said:
The point that I was trying to make that both the bible and the book of mormon do seem to go hand in hand in regards to faith, however, one is archeologically verified without sworn witnesses as to the truths of the story and the other is not conclusively verified through archeology but verified by 11 witnesses who never retracted their testimony.
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Are you out of your mind??? The bible has the blood of tens of thousands of martyrs who have been fed to the lions, beheaded, drawn and quartered or otherwise tortured to death for their “sworn witness” to truth of the bible. 14 of the first 29 popes were put to death by the Roman Empire for their “sworn witness” of the truthfulness of the bible’s message and its testimony of Jesus.

There are still Christians suffering persecution and death all over the world for their “sworn witness” to the bible message.

Compared to that, the “witnesses” to the Book of Mormon were self-interested con-men who were promised greatness by Smith in return for their “testimony”. None of them died for their witness.

Sheesh,
Paul
 
why_me said:
To believe the bible or the book of mormon, one needs faith. It is in the faith that the two books are united. Neither will be conclusively proven to be true because if this were the case, faith would no longer be needed and that can not happen.

Such is the religious life…all is based on faith. Sign seekers will always be disappointed.
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I like what our RCIA leader taught us last week. That is, that faith alone can cause people do believe in all sorts of things. Sometimes things that make no sense to anyone else because it is not a reasonable belief. It is believing nonsense.

Yet, reason alone, without faith, will lead to no belief in God.

The two work together, faith and reason, in harmony. So no, not all is based on faith. Faith should be reasonable.

In my own case, I don’t believe Joseph Smith was a prophet. I don’t believe that he did anything divine. There is more evidence pointing to a book that is made up, not one that is an accurate history of anything. There is evidence that JS was a con man. There is evidence that he lied, a lot. There’s a lot of evidence against mormonism, and the only thing that mormons have to put against that are warm fuzzy feelings. It is not reasonable to me in the least.
 
why_me said:
The point that I was trying to make that both the bible and the book of mormon do seem to go hand in hand in regards to faith, however, **one is archeologically verified without sworn witnesses as to the truths of the story **

and the other is not conclusively verified through archeology but verified by 11 witnesses who never retracted their testimony.

QUOTE]

This is a riot! Are there any scientists (archeologists) OUTSIDE of the mormon sect (BYU and UofU faithful) who can verify this?

Of course not.

Please tell me this is one of those burninginthebosom things!

Robert
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RebeccaJ said:
I like what our RCIA leader taught us last week. That is, that faith alone can cause people do believe in all sorts of things. Sometimes things that make no sense to anyone else because it is not a reasonable belief. It is believing nonsense.

Yet, reason alone, without faith, will lead to no belief in God.

The two work together, faith and reason, in harmony. So no, not all is based on faith. Faith should be reasonable.
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How is the resurrection of Jesus Christ “reasonable”? How many people have you seen getting up from their graves and walking about (spooky movies not included)? How is His walking on the water “reasonable”? How is Moses’ plagues in Egypt, his dividing the Red Sea, and the raining down of manna from heaven “reasonable”? When was the last time you saw someone accomplishing such a task? How is Elijah’s calling down fire from heaven to destroy the captain of fifty with his fifty “reasonable”? Do you honestly believe that these things happened? On the basis of what “reason”? My own guess it that you probably don’t. You are just pretending to.

zerinus
 
zerinus said:
How is the resurrection of Jesus Christ “reasonable”? How many people have you seen getting up from their graves and walking about (spooky movies not included)? How is His walking on the water “reasonable”? How is Moses’ plagues in Egypt, his dividing the Red Sea, and the raining down of manna from heaven “reasonable”? When was the last time you saw someone accomplishing such a task? How is Elijah’s calling down fire from heaven to destroy the captain of fifty with his fifty “reasonable”? Do you honestly believe that these things happened? On the basis of what “reason”? My own guess it that you probably don’t. You are just pretending to.

zerinus
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I think that it takes a lot of faith without reason to believe such things even for our friend Rebecca. 🙂
 
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