DNA Vs Mormonism

[Benadam]

When the DNA and the book of mormon first hit the internet, it was a big thing or issue. There was much discussion about it and to some extent, there is still discussion. Some members left the lds church over the issue. But now it has all died down. Most mormons have come to terms with it. The book of mormon is more than DNA. It is a history of a people and the religious struggles that they endured. Plus, the book itself can stand on its own merits. At this moment in LDS sunday schools the book is being discussed. From a religious point of view much can be gleamed from the book. The DNA issue is more or less a moot point these days.

As I have said before, it is all about faith and not scientific evidence. If science would have found hebrew DNA markers in the american indian and in the latin american populations, many on this board would be in a quandry. Any many people from other faiths would flock to the lds faith because of science and not because of faith. God seems to work with faith and not evidence.

Hello why me, you have expressed in your statement exactly what I’m curious about. IMO this may be an issue that folks can put aside for now and move on as Mormon’s. But that is easily done only now , perhaps only this current generation of Mormon’s.

Whether or not Mormon’s treat this evidence as consequencial now, it will be in time as long as the science functions with increasing certainty in clarifying human history. That it will can be said with increasing certainty.

Future Mormon’s will be faced with a world that defines history in terms much more certain than today’s and those terms will put the terms Mormon’s have come to rely on as coping mechanism’s to the test.

What mechanism’s Mormon’s rely on to cope with this IMO will determine what Mormonism will become in the not to distant future.

So far the mechanism on this thread has been denial of the validity of the evidence or the science it’self. The video recorded interviews with several Mormon scientists and it appears that there are faithfull scientists not doing that.

Faith cannot be divorced from reason.

 

[teancum79]

Ah yes, the old Mormon standby. You can’t defend your BoM, so you fall back on discrediting the Bible. It is understandable considering the Mormon doctrine that all of Christianity is in apostasy. Discrediting Christianity, including our scriptures, is the Mormon apologetics de rigueur of “proving” Mormonism.

What you are failing to grasp is that there are miracles within the Bible that are known by faith. The BoM has nothing. The entire book, from front to back, has to be believed as a miracle.

There are witnesses to Christ’s resurrection. We have texts and Sacred Tradition. We have Sacramental and liturgical evidences both of the Jewish and Christian Traditions.

There are witnesses to creation, just go stand outside and look around. That some scientists looks at creation and denies God’s hand in it doesn’t mean that creation doesn’t exist. You can see it for yourself.

There are no contemporary witnesses to the BoM, nothing that supports it as even remotely factual. No contemporary texts, not even ONE in the make believe language of “reformed Egyptian”. No Sacred Tradition within Native American groups that indicate any mid Eastern culture was ever in contact with anyone in the Americas. No evidence of Christianity, not even a remnant that has been paganized. No Christian Sacraments. No form of Christian liturgy, at all. No archaeological remnants of an ancient midEastern civilization as described in the BoM. No crops as described in the BoM. No technology as described in the BoM.

Science looks at DNA and finds no supporting evidence for the non-miracle aspects of the BoM. It is just another evidence that the BoM is a lie.

The science of DNA proves the existance of the people named in the Bible. It is supporting evidence for the Bible, that goes along with archaeology, cultural, Sacramental and liturgical evidence.

You have nothing but a wish for it to be “true”.

so back to my question. Do you check you brain when you read the Bible?

repeating the same lie does not make it into a truth.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

so back to my question. Do you check you brain when you read the Bible?

repeating the same lie does not make it into a truth.

Teancum,
I haven’t followed this entire thread – but there is a difference between a lie and a fallacy. If your oppenent is lying, then there ought to be an obvious way to show the contradiction to the truth – whereas, if it is a fallacy, then they have made an error in logic which is neither provable nor disprovable.
Can you demonstrate that any of the miracles in the bible are true or false yourself?

If your opponent has lied, what exactly is the contradiction to the “truth” rather than “opinion”?

I don’t see anything she has actually stated – which I could identify as “false” by demonstration – so I would think she is at most arguing fallaciously, not lying.
Did I miss something?

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Hello why me, you have expressed in your statement exactly what I’m curious about. IMO this may be an issue that folks can put aside for now and move on as Mormon’s. But that is easily done only now , perhaps only this current generation of Mormon’s.

Whether or not Mormon’s treat this evidence as consequencial now, it will be in time as long as the science functions with increasing certainty in clarifying human history. That it will can be said with increasing certainty.

Future Mormon’s will be faced with a world that defines history in terms much more certain than today’s and those terms will put the terms Mormon’s have come to rely on as coping mechanism’s to the test.

What mechanism’s Mormon’s rely on to cope with this IMO will determine what Mormonism will become in the not to distant future.

So far the mechanism on this thread has been denial of the validity of the evidence or the science it’self. The video recorded interviews with several Mormon scientists and it appears that there are faithfull scientists not doing that.

Faith cannot be divorced from reason.

I might state “Faith ought not be divorced from reason”.

There is another part to what you are focusing on – the nature of knowledge and defensability. Oddly, there is no guarantee that the scientific findings of today will bear out tomorrow – it is merely prediction based on repetability. Philosophically, science is based on a fallacy – the “truth” it arrives at converges to the real truth in a statistical sense and is always subject to bounded error.

eg: Science has supposedly proved all things are “relative” by Einstein’s theories – although any close inspection will show that Einstein really proved no such thing – just demonstrated that many things are relative to each other in a certain way.

I have been to a “science” symposium which tried to apply the results to our pope at the time – which was hilarious – but a sobering reminder of how science is repetitivly abused through equivocation.

The response is that – although a defense may be weak today – doesn’t guarantee it will be weak tomorrow. We “predict” the weakness based on how much we believe the science.

In the question about the Genetics I posted a few posts back, I am trying to explore where these “cracks” in the science might be – proving or disproving the BoM not being of real interest to me at this time as I don’t know much about it.

 

[teancum79]

“There are no contemporary witnesses to the BoM, nothing that supports it as even remotely factual. No contemporary texts, not even ONE in the make believe language of “reformed Egyptian”. No Sacred Tradition within Native American groups that indicate any mid Eastern culture was ever in contact with anyone in the Americas. No evidence of Christianity, not even a remnant that has been paganized. No Christian Sacraments. No form of Christian liturgy, at all. No archaeological remnants of an ancient midEastern civilization as described in the BoM. No crops as described in the BoM. No technology as described in the BoM.”

As I’ve said before there are bits and peaces particularly in the area of a paganized Christan ideas. I understand that people may choose to not accept or dispute the value of the evidence but the non stop that there is none is a lie.

Many minor things point to the reality of the BOM. The idea that people kept records on metal pales and the use of stone boxes where unknown in the early 1800’s but these ideas have been shown to be valid. Again this is small peaces, but the “No Evidence” lie needs to stop as it servers only to discourage people from learning.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Many minor things point to the reality of the BOM. The idea that people kept records on metal pales and the use of stone boxes where unknown in the early 1800’s but these ideas have been shown to be valid. Again this is small peaces, but the “No Evidence” lie needs to stop as it servers only to discourage people from learning.

I suppose, as long as the frustration level due to inarticulate teachers doesn’t frustrate any potential students into throwing up their hands anyway.

Literally, I think she(?) made a fallacy when she claimed you were discrediting the bible – I don’t think you were, but rather were depending on its authenticity in your opponent’s eyes to show hypocritical argument – a reductio type argument.

As far as I can tell – she never actually claimed no evidence at all of any kind – though I can see how you might take her statement that way. I think throughout this first part she is speaking of contemporary texts and witnesses which are those Not directly caused by the Mormons, but are rather due to non-Mormon civilzation bearing witness to their “enemies”.

"There are no contemporary witnesses to the BoM, nothing that supports it as even remotely factual. No contemporary texts, not even ONE in the make believe language of “reformed Egyptian”. No Sacred Tradition within Native American groups that indicate any mid Eastern culture was ever in contact with anyone in the Americas.
No evidence of Christianity, not even a remnant that has been paganized. No Christian Sacraments. No form of Christian liturgy, at all.

And your response on the contemporary argument appears to be:

As I’ve said before there are bits and peaces particularly in the area of a paganized Christan ideas. I understand that people may choose to not accept or dispute the value of the evidence but the non stop that there is none is a lie.

So, Paganized Christianity (an enemy of Mormons?) evidince exists – I’ll go back and look for your posts on that because you ought not have to retype everything… so that is for later…

But that last line of yours might be mixed with her second argument – where she changes topic without a paragraph seperator:

No archaeological remnants of an ancient midEastern civilization as described in the BoM. No crops as described in the BoM. No technology as described in the BoM."

So I am not quite sure what evidence you are claiming in reference to what objection… (not entirely your fault – obviously).

These plates and stone boxes and pail writing – are they mormon artifacts – or contemporary artifacts?

If contemporary, she certainly has lied – if not then it is an “opinion” argument (generally falacious) and not a lie. That’s all I am getting at.

I’ll look back at the earlier posts to see the pagan evidence stuff, may take me a couple of hours as I am doing other things right now…

 

[Benadam]

I might state “Faith ought not be divorced from reason”.

There is another part to what you are focusing on – the nature of knowledge and defensability. Oddly, there is no guarantee that the scientific findings of today will bear out tomorrow – it is merely prediction based on repetability. Philosophically, science is based on a fallacy – the “truth” it arrives at converges to the real truth in a statistical sense and is always subject to bounded error.

eg: Science has supposedly proved all things are “relative” by Einstein’s theories – although any close inspection will show that Einstein really proved no such thing – just demonstrated that many things are relative to each other in a certain way.

I have been to a “science” symposium which tried to apply the results to our pope at the time – which was hilarious – but a sobering reminder of how science is repetitivly abused through equivocation.

The response is that – although a defense may be weak today – doesn’t guarantee it will be weak tomorrow. We “predict” the weakness based on how much we believe the science.

In the question about the Genetics I posted a few posts back, I am trying to explore where these “cracks” in the science might be – proving or disproving the BoM not being of real interest to me at this time as I don’t know much about it.

Very good to read you again Huiou. I’m not really interested in proving or disproving the book of Mormon either. A friend posed a question to me; " what if some conclusive evidence was found that if true would prove my faith to be untrue." Well, I couldn’t think of anything that would do that. My answer was that I hoped I would seek truth no matter what it cost.

When I came across the video I thought that this could be an opportunity to find out from folks actually facing that reality, to find out how they are responding and perhaps find insight into how I might respond as well.
Yes, Faith ought not to be divorced from reason. Because you’re right it sure can be !:whacky:

 

[teancum79]

truthbook.com/index.cfm?linkID=435 Stone boxes clearly used is the old world.

A pic of a cool one
mormanity.blogspot.com/2006/05/stone-boxes-on-display-in-mexico-city.html

Old world metal tablets
maravot.com/Pyrgi_1Translation.html

These people are very not LDS, but they have some interesting things to say. This site alone provide enough evidence to make looking further reasonable.
hope-of-israel.org/copan.htm

This site also has some interesting tid bits which again are evidence that the BoM could be right.
ns.webb.com/Starfire/native.html

These last two links where available through a previous link I posted.

I’m not trying to prove the BoM, but I am bothered by the baseless attacks on it.

 

[MelanieAnne]

Baseless not the right word.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Very good to read you again Huiou. I’m not really interested in proving or disproving the book of Mormon either. A friend posed a question to me; " what if some conclusive evidence was found that if true would prove my faith to be untrue." Well, I couldn’t think of anything that would do that. My answer was that I hoped I would seek truth no matter what it cost.

I don’t remember if it was Keeting or Akin, but one of them addressed this topic a few years back and I was somewhat disturbed by the reasoning.
Jesus said “I am the truth,” – So clearly to seek after truth is to seek after God.
Even to the Gentiles and Pagans, the Luke/Acts points out:

Acts 17:27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
Acts 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring."

The poet mentioned here is speaking of God (dios) which many take to be Zeus, although the word simply means deity. The poem is by Epimendes (Greek, CA: 596 BCE) – which is before Alaxander the Great (Macedonian / pseudo-Greek ) began forcing his version of Greek culture on everyone…

What Paul is capitalizing on here, is that Logic itself – and common human coping techniques – tend toward a particular end or understanding of God even when distorted by charlatans.

Epimendes is also famous for the “unknown God altars in Athens” eg:

when the Athenians were afflicted by a plague …
they sent a ship … to invite Epimenides to Athens;
and he, coming there in the forty-sixth Olympiad, purified the city and eradicated the plague for that time;
he took some black sheep and some white ones and led them up to the Areopagus,
and from thence he let them go wherever they chose,
having ordered the attendants to follow them,
and wherever any one of them lay down they were to sacrifice him to the God who was the patron of the spot,
and so the evil was stayed;
and owing to this one may even now find in the different boroughs of the Athenians altars without names,
which are a sort of memorial of the propitiation of the Gods that then took place.

Which is converging toward the Hebrew’s God – even in its’ distorted way.
So Paul can point out that the ideas he presents are NOT truly foreign to the Greeks – they too have “groped in darkness” looking for God.

In, perhaps, an honest attempt to prevent people from loosing faith – Aiken or Keeting point to the absolute necessity of faith (undefined in that conversation) even in the face of direct contradiction. I think they do so because, as Peter points out – the unlearned and unstable twist even the scriptures to their own destruction – eg: the simple problem that some believers aren’t as astute as their detractors and can be convinced falsely of contradictions that do not in fact exist.

My problem with their statement is that ultimately God is the truth – The source and sculptor of it – so that ultimately if one accepts a lie – they can’t have Christian faith in the first place. :whacky: So far as church teaching IS misunderstood – many Catholics NEED to embrace the full truth by learning their faith in more detail.

When I came across the video I thought that this could be an opportunity to find out from folks actually facing that reality, to find out how they are responding and perhaps find insight into how I might respond as well.
Yes, Faith ought not to be divorced from reason. Because you’re right it sure can be !:whacky:

Aye. And what a conversation…

 

[Huiou_Theou]

truthbook.com/index.cfm?linkID=435 Stone boxes clearly used is the old world.

A pic of a cool one
mormanity.blogspot.com/2006/05/stone-boxes-on-display-in-mexico-city.html

Old world metal tablets
maravot.com/Pyrgi_1Translation.html

…

I can’t seem to load the hope of israel site from here, is there another link perhaps?

I don’t think that stone boxes as used in the Holy Land are disputed by anyone – so the ossuaries are certain to be a habit of the Hebrew people as a whole.
I think even the early patriarchs speak of having their bones carried up with the people to the promised land in a box. So, as a comparison point the first link shows that Hebrews do indeed uses stone burial boxes. But isn’t evidence of them being in the north american continent.

Now the second link, to the Aztec (?) box is not a burial box like those used in the Holy Land – so it seems to be distinctly Aztec or North American rather than a Hebrew form of stone Box. I will grant, though, that it is evidence that stone boxes were used in the North American continent. I certainly can’t conclude that it is implausible for stone boxes to have found their way any-place in the American Continent. Is that Aztec box from the same time period as the Hebrews which I am surmising are said to have come to the North American Continent – so your evidence becomes “contemporary” with the lives recorded in the book of Mormon? (That is a major step in the right direction.)

The Etruscan plates don’t prove much – as Etruscans are italian and not Hebrew – or am I missing something? And they are not in the north American continent.
So why would this plate be evidence for the Hebrews said to have come here in a boat? (Or are you just saying that people did write on metal plates? – which even the Dead Sea Scrolls proves with the copper(?) scroll – as they weren’t steel workers at that time and which might be more pertinent evidence to your end… )

I see the palo(?) Hebrew inscribed stones – which are possible evidence if they are authentic – That would mean that either the Hebrews had a common ancestor who lived both in the North American contenent and around the area of Babylon sharing a language – or potentially these stones were brought over at a later time from the Holy land – or they could be construed as evidence of a Hebrew people — are the ages of these carvings known so they are “contemporary” ?

 

[teancum79]

I could open the link from my original post. You could also try a Google search. “The Incredible Origins of the Maya Indians!” got me right to it.

The issue with the boxes and plates is that there where few if any known in the early 1800’s. What are the odds that a young uneducated person would correctly guess that people would store valuables in stone boxes or would write in metal.

 

[majick275]

I could open the link from my original post. You could also try a Google search. “The Incredible Origins of the Maya Indians!” got me right to it.

The issue with the boxes and plates is that there where few if any known in the early 1800’s. What are the odds that a young uneducated person would correctly guess that people would store valuables in stone boxes or would write in metal.

the odds aren’t all that long. he wasn’t as uneducated as mormons present him, boxes and plates were better known than this assumes and more importantly, we have no reason to believe that Joseph Smith wrote the book by himself. we know there was a collaboration of multiple individuals involved in the alleged translation.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

I could open the link from my original post. You could also try a Google search. “The Incredible Origins of the Maya Indians!” got me right to it.

Will do. I am sure I can find some information on it through Google.

The issue with the boxes and plates is that there where few if any known in the early 1800’s. What are the odds that a young uneducated person would correctly guess that people would store valuables in stone boxes or would write in metal.

Who are you referring to as “uneducated” – Joseph Smith Jr? I understood he was at least able to read and write – you mean unaquainted with archaology?

Well, just thinking about the logic of your statement, there is nothing to say that an Aztec stone box wasn’t dug up and a story made about it… The chances of that are really low, I’ll admit. But if it happened, I know that man has a habit of using the imagination to explain things — Archaologists make up fake stories all the time, and they are even educated!

But, if the person could read the bible – then he would know that the most valuable thing of all – Jesus christ and most of his precious blood – was kept in a hollowed out stone sepulchre with a covering lid. And he would also see things like:

Exodu 7:19 And the LORD spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon the
ir rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood; and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Eg
ypt, both in vessels of wood, and in vessels of stone

And even if the “unlearned” couldn’t read or didn’t have a bible – someone else sure could have told him that’s the way the Hebrews did it. (He did have friends, didn’t he?) I don’t know what the odds of picking a “stone box” are – but then the odds of picking out anything in the bible is fairly low because there are so many things to choose from. On the other hand, come to think of it, there are more stones mentioned associated with pagan cults and worship than anything else – even false Gods of stonework.

Deute 4:28 And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.; …
Deute 29:17 And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them

And then even with the Hebrews there are the stones of Aaron’s breast plate – the urim and thummin – and lots of other stones. It seems like stone is almost always used in connection with the sacred and the rich in the bible.

Deute 8:9 A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.

And the ten commandments were carved in stone, so why not metal – if that was a kind of “stone”.

I suppose to estimate an unlearned person’s perspective – I would have to imagine what an unlearned person might have seen in the 1800’s – (and show my own ignorance) – probably something like native Americans with stone tipped arrows (glassy stone/obsidian? ) and wood shafts.

So, that makes me wonder – what are the choices in generic that one could pick?

In general building materials consist of metal, wood, clay, stone, glass. (They didn’t invent plastic right?)

So, about 1 in 5 chance if they were totally ignorant. Or maybe, if they didn’t realize clay had to be fired – maybe 1 in 6. But if they knew that wood rotted (plenty of examples of that – so even an ignorant person might have noticed) back down to 1 in 5. So as a first crude estimate – I would say 20% chance of picking stone to store valuables in.

Come to think of it , stone jars / dishes are not uncommon in many cultures.
Also, when the Law was lost in the old testament – copies were found inside the stone walls of the temple. If a man lived in a stone built house – and wanted to hide something – where would be a good place?

So it seems like just about every culture (even uneducated ones) stores some kind of valuables in stone.

So, Fill me in. How do you estimate the odds?

 

[teancum79]

Stone as a box is not too far out, but writing on metal seems odd. Given the records of the Bible and the ten commandments being written in stone one would think that a young man making up a story would have copied the Biblical records closely. After all if God can writ on stone with his own hands why have people writing on metal? The former sounds to me like a better story (and given the people trying to rob him a safer one.)

 

[Jerusha]

So, Fill me in. How do you estimate the odds?

I estimate the odds for a Hebrew 1000 BC to 420 AD setting for the Book of Mormon to be .0005%
I estimate the odds for a Native vs. Viking 980 AD to 1472 AD setting for the BOM to be 75%.

No need to strain my brain on silly details any more.

 

[MelanieAnne]

Stone as a box is not too far out, but writing on metal seems odd. Given the records of the Bible and the ten commandments being written in stone one would think that a young man making up a story would have copied the Biblical records closely. After all if God can writ on stone with his own hands why have people writing on metal? The former sounds to me like a better story (and given the people trying to rob him a safer one.)

Show us these golden plates then, that is, if they ever existed. Lets have scholars examine them now and test them for age, language, etc.

 

[Jerusha]

I amend that:

I estimate the odds for a Hebrew 600 BC to 420 AD setting for the Book of Mormon to be .0005%, if 100% of the content is taken seriously.

I estimate the odds for a Native vs. Viking 980 AD to 1472 AD setting for the BOM to be 90%, if 20% of the content is taken seriously.

No need to strain my brain on silly details any more.

My apologies to my college stats prof.

 

[Jerusha]

Here is the latest followup article by Simon Southerton:

signaturebooks.com/dna.htm I really like those North American Geographists!!!

 

[teancum79]

Show us these golden plates then, that is, if they ever existed. Lets have scholars examine them now and test them for age, language, etc.

yes of course I keep them at home.