DNA Vs Mormonism

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teancum79 said:
Um lets see. Oh yeah we’ve only known that there was DNA for just over 100 years.
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And this is relevant how? There are a lot of things we’ve only known about for short lengths of time.
We still have not ID a lot of major factors relating to disease, but somehow we know how many generations back a person moved out of town. To assume that sort of information is stored in DNA and we can retrieve it accurately is a leap of faith not a scientific project. It can’t be tested outside of its self. It is like asking people to believe the bible is the word of God because the Bible says it it.
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These comments betray a deep ignorance of both genetics and science in general. Did you bother to look at the Genographic Project website? Are you going to write those researchers and tell them they’re wrong with their “science project”?
I’m fine with faith I think ti is great, but call it what it is.
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See, I’m fine with leaps of faith, too, and if you’d just admit your faith in the mythology of the BoM and quit messing with science, it’d all be great.
 
There is a great deal of faith in accepting God and his word.

I’m simply point out the lack of scientific reason and logic behind those who are attack the beliefs of others.
 
teancum79 said:
There is a great deal of faith in accepting God and his word.

I’m simply point out the lack of scientific reason and logic behind those who are attack the beliefs of others.
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Teancum79, has your church addressed this issue or offered some guidance as to how to view this research? Is it being talked about amongst the Mormon faithfull? Is it causing any kind of stir I guess is what 'm wondering.
 
If I might chime in… It’s important to remember that the Book of Mormon doesn’t claim the people discussed were the ONLY groups of people living on the two American continents.

Even if you assume the book is indeed an ancient record, you still won’t have any idea where those people lived, what other groups of people were living on the continents before, during and after the Book of Mormon peoples and how much intermixing took place. The fact that the Lehi family split into two groups and the skin of one group turned dark suggests from the text itself that intermixing must have occurred with another indigenous race. Given all these variables it’s a bit of a straw man to suggest that the book must be false because no DNA marker was found in modern day American Indian tribes. A LONG time has passed and we don’t know what if any link should even exist between the Book of Mormon peoples.

If we could fly to Saudi Arabia and DNA test some random people on the street and compare that DNA with Mohammad and we found no link would we conclude that Mohammed never existed??

Of course not! We could only conclude that the specific individuals we tested were not descendents OR that and descendent markers had been lost. That’s it.

In any case, as teancum79 has suggested, these issues come down to matters of faith, not proof.
 
Casen said:
If I might chime in… It’s important to remember that the Book of Mormon doesn’t claim the people discussed were the ONLY groups of people living on the two American continents.

Even if you assume the book is indeed an ancient record, you still won’t have any idea where those people lived, what other groups of people were living on the continents before, during and after the Book of Mormon peoples and how much intermixing took place. The fact that the Lehi family split into two groups and the skin of one group turned dark suggests from the text itself that intermixing must have occurred with another indigenous race. Given all these variables it’s a bit of a straw man to suggest that the book must be false because no DNA marker was found in modern day American Indian tribes. A LONG time has passed and we don’t know what if any link should even exist between the Book of Mormon peoples.

If we could fly to Saudi Arabia and DNA test some random people on the street and compare that DNA with Mohammad and we found no link would we conclude that Mohammed never existed??

Of course not! We could only conclude that the specific individuals we tested were not descendents OR that and descendent markers had been lost. That’s it.

In any case, as teancum79 has suggested, these issues come down to matters of faith, not proof.
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I can’t agree with that. Much depends on the degree of certainty that a particular scientific conclusion has.
 
Casen said:
If I might chime in… It’s important to remember that the Book of Mormon doesn’t claim the people discussed were the ONLY groups of people living on the two American continents.

Even if you assume the book is indeed an ancient record, you still won’t have any idea where those people lived, what other groups of people were living on the continents before, during and after the Book of Mormon peoples and how much intermixing took place. The fact that the Lehi family split into two groups and the skin of one group turned dark suggests from the text itself that intermixing must have occurred with another indigenous race. Given all these variables it’s a bit of a straw man to suggest that the book must be false because no DNA marker was found in modern day American Indian tribes. A LONG time has passed and we don’t know what if any link should even exist between the Book of Mormon peoples.

If we could fly to Saudi Arabia and DNA test some random people on the street and compare that DNA with Mohammad and we found no link would we conclude that Mohammed never existed??

Of course not! We could only conclude that the specific individuals we tested were not descendents OR that and descendent markers had been lost. That’s it.

In any case, as teancum79 has suggested, these issues come down to matters of faith, not proof.
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i have to disagree with this. i believe the BoM is quite clear on claiming that there were no other inhabitants in the land. i also look at Joseph Smith and other early LDS leaders for context on this and find a pretty broad belief in that. LGT coupled with all these other people here is recent innovation that is controversial even in LDS circles. the dark skin is described in great detail as a curse from god to make the lamanites look unattractive to the nephites. actually we could find quite alot with DNA samples in saudi arabia today. your mohamed example is fallacious. the correct analogy would be to perform random DNA samplings in saudi arabia to see if early Scandinavians had migrated there and built a vast prosperous civilization.
 
teancum79 said:
There is a great deal of faith in accepting God and his word.

I’m simply point out the lack of scientific reason and logic behind those who are attack the beliefs of others.
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Unless you are suggesting that God is falliable and incompetant, I wouldnt be suggesting that the BoM is Gods word.
 
Casen said:
If we could fly to Saudi Arabia and DNA test some random people on the street and compare that DNA with Mohammad and we found no link would we conclude that Mohammed never existed??
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:confused: The entire post made little sense, but this section is particularly nonsensical.
 
why_me said:
Of course, faith must play a role in all this. Lets say that DNA was proving the book of mormon true. Where would all the catholics on this board be? Most likely joining the lds faith. Or at least questioning its truth claims in a more positive fashion.

Science will never prove the existence of god. DNA is no exception to the rule. We are on this earth to live by faith, not science.

But lets face it, if DNA was at this moment in agreement with the book of mormon many of the catholics and other christians would be flocking to the lds faith. And yet, not because of faith but because of scientific evidence. God’s plan will not be subverted by science whether as proof in god or just the opposite.
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Not likely but at least it will give you something to pray for.

But, I guess by your reasoning, when the science proves the whole LDS genetic thing wrong, you’ll just say it’s bad science and stay LDS.
 
Casen said:
If I might chime in… It’s important to remember that the Book of Mormon doesn’t claim the people discussed were the ONLY groups of people living on the two American continents.
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Actually it does. The Book of Mormon is quite clear that the Americas was “preserved from the knowledge of other nations” so that it would be preserved for the “choice remnant” - Lehi’s people.

It is very clear from the text that the Jaredites, and subsequently the Nephites/Lamanites were the only humans on the American continents.

Paul
 
ibkc said:
:confused: The entire post made little sense, but this section is particularly nonsensical.
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Since it was hard for you to understand (my fault I’m sure) let me try to be more clear…

You can’t prove a negative. Is that simple enough?

A lack of DNA in modern American Indians neither proves NOR disproves the veracity of the Book of Mormon since we don’t know how many different groups of people may have lived and intermixed on the American continents in the last 3,000 years.
 
majick275 said:
i have to disagree with this. i believe the BoM is quite clear on claiming that there were no other inhabitants in the land.
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Quite the contrary. We know of at least one other group because the BoM mentions them… the Mulekites. And it does NOT claim there were no other groups on the continents.
 
PaulDupre said:
Actually it does. The Book of Mormon is quite clear that the Americas was “preserved from the knowledge of other nations” so that it would be preserved for the “choice remnant” - Lehi’s people.

It is very clear from the text that the Jaredites, and subsequently the Nephites/Lamanites were the only humans on the American continents.

Paul
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That’s just plain wrong. It’s an interpretation of the text but a wrong one.

The reference to the “land” is generally believed to refer to the specific area where Lehi’s people landed (and we don’t even know where that was!).

To take that to mean all of North and South America is a pretty wild stretch and doesn’t match most current LDS scholarship I’ve read.
 
Casen said:
Since it was hard for you to understand (my fault I’m sure) let me try to be more clear…

You can’t prove a negative. Is that simple enough?
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Again, I have no idea what you’re talking about. No one is trying to prove a negative. What is being pointed out is that science does not support the historical claims made in the Book of Mormon.
A lack of DNA in modern American Indians neither proves NOR disproves the veracity of the Book of Mormon since we don’t know how many different groups of people may have lived and intermixed on the American continents in the last 3,000 years.
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You are wrong. We DO have a pretty good idea. We know that Native Americans have been in North America a very long time, and that they remained isolated from the rest of the world for the majority of that time. Their genetic makeup reflects this isolation. If “many groups of people” from all over the world had been here intermarrying for the past 3,000 years, the genetic makeup of Native Americans would reflect this. It does not.

The Book of Mormon makes very plain statements about Israelites being the ancestors of modern Indians. It does not say that a few Israelites came here and intermarried. It says that they came here and had a giant civilization and that they are the ancestors of Indians. And some are trying to claim that the fact that they left absolutely no genetic trace isn’t relevant to the discussion?
 
So far, if I’m understanding correctly, the Mormon’s good eneogh to respond are dealing with the DNA results to date by filing them in the M folder for Meaningless.:confused:
 
Casen said:
That’s just plain wrong. It’s an interpretation of the text but a wrong one.

The reference to the “land” is generally believed to refer to the specific area where Lehi’s people landed (and we don’t even know where that was!).
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The LGT has only been theorized during the last few years since the impossibility of the BoM story has been proven.
To take that to mean all of North and South America is a pretty wild stretch and doesn’t match most current LDS scholarship I’ve read.
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Joseph Smith and all of the LDS prophets until GBH (who “didn’t know much about” anything) taught that the BoM peoples covered the entire continents from Central America to the Hill Cumorah in New York state.

The “most current LDS scholarship” is yet another set of theories meant to facilitate the furious backpedaling from the Mormon organization’s first 180 years of teachings about the Book of Mormon. Now that all of the scientific evidence is against the BoM, they are inventing new theories, trying to postpone the inevitable admission that the BoM is a work of fiction.

Paul
 
Elric said:
No you didnt.

Most of it was the usual misdirection stuff that you have done before. Other parts are based on a book that you cant even validate (the Book of Mormon), which has an extremly questionable origin and should rightfully be regarded as a work of fiction.

The part about God changing the DNA of the Lamanites was interesting.

If you believe the BoM, God can change a races DNA. But God appears to have no idea about smaller things like grammar, spelling, human languages (much interperating them) which required His book (the BoM) to have multiple editions and thousands of corrections.

Of course there is also the point that there are no original texts that we can verify the BoM translations against, although that could arguably be put down to a question of faith, but that also means that there was no original source to use for comparisons when corrections were done to the BoM. Which raises questions about how it could actually be corrected at all!!!

Even the part in the Book of Mormon about the Lamanites being the principal ancestors of modern American Indians is a correction, it used to be that they were the sole ancestors of modern American Indians.

I am sorry, but you are going to have to do better with your DNA argument (especally with your dismissal of critics not being scientists, where exactly did they get this lack of DNA evidence from?). Since it is quite apparent that the BoM is at best an unreliable source (an observation that you and other LDS have not been able to disprove), it cant be used as a source to discredit the lack of DNA issue (or any other LDS issue really).
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This is interesting, so God can change the DNA of an entire group of people, and to Mormons that is credible, but that same God cannot effect transubstantiation?

It’s remarkable how God can be so powerful sometimes and so powerless another, depending on how people are trying to squeeze Him into their own personal agenda. 🤷
 
LaMar said:
but so were most of the other characters in the original bible. There were a few (I think Caesar Augustus is in there) that actually did exist in the real world, but those are simply added in to make the story seem realistic.

Abraham, Noah, Lot, Job, Moses, Jesus…Nephi, Korihor, King Noah, Laban… no serious scholar would ever do much more than laugh or scoff at the idea that any of these people ever existed.
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Do you have any further information on this?
 
MelanieAnne said:
This is interesting, so God can change the DNA of an entire group of people, and to Mormons that is credible, but that same God cannot effect transubstantiation?

It’s remarkable how God can be so powerful sometimes and so powerless another, depending on how people are trying to squeeze Him into their own personal agenda. 🤷
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I think whats more remarkable is the contradiction of the whole belief and the extremes of Gods power.

On one hand God can perform such a miracle as changing the DNA of an entire race of people (that is beyond amazing). Yet on the other hand He cant even inspire/help someone to translate something (the Book of Mormon), in fact He is so bad at it that there are thousands of errors in the translated text.

He goes from being awsome and all powerful to being illiterate and incompetent.

But His incompetence actually raises questions about Him being all powerful, because the story actually comes from the same text that he translated so poorly (the Book of Mormon). So the whole ancestor thing cant be relied on unless there is evidence/proof to support the ancestor idea (which there isnt).
 
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