How do the Mormons do it?

[CopticChristian]

Except when it means Dear Husband.

constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the DH

Dumb Hick
Drunken Hystrionics
Darkened Harbor
Darn Hamburger

Communication is borne of sentence structure when we write. In the context of a constitutional ammendment, utilizing Astroturf and DH could mean lots of stuff. It would appear that even the simplest statement can be misconstrued the only solution is to ask the person that posted Astroturf and DH to identify the intent of the communication.

This is the only solution.

 

[Miriam1947]

Coptic give it a break.

I said you sounded rude and to me, in my opinion, you did sound rude. You still do. I hear an attitude from you and it ain’t pretty.

So, I’m not entitled to an opinion? Because I’ve got lots of them.

And because I responded to something that Lefty said and in a humorous manner somehow he and I are best buds?

How old are you?

 

[Cowboy_Pete]

maybe you should enlighten me.

I’d love to, but proselytizing is against the forum rules.

 

[CopticChristian]

Coptic give it a break.

I said you sounded rude and to me, in my opinion, you did sound rude. You still do. I hear an attitude from you and it ain’t pretty.

So, I’m not entitled to an opinion? Because I’ve got lots of them.

And because I responded to something that Lefty said and in a humorous manner somehow he and I are best buds?

How old are you?

You are recalcitrant in your error. No sounds are made by words I know of unless we speak them.

Your opinion is your opinion.

I have made no inferences as you recall. I just pointed out a posting.

My age is my age. I am he who is of the age that I am and will be and the relevance of this question based on your recalcitrant attitude is left to the knowledge of who I am.

 

[Miriam1947]

There is a sound, it is the voice of the writer.

 

[Michael19682]

I’m a former Mormon who really kind of likes the Mormon Church. Basically, the Mormons have been handed a lemon and made lemonade out of it. The LDS Church works for them in a way Catholicism probably wouldn’t. The LDS community is much tighter than the Catholic community is. A case in point – my wife came across a Catholic woman looking for help in getting to mass, but didn’t really know how to get help from the church to get there. In the Mormon Church you would contact a home teacher and a way to church would be found for you. That’s a small example, but I think it will suffice for now. Most Mormons are more interested in trying to live like a Christian than they are interested in actually learning theology.

---

Sorry to interrupt the side commentary taking place.​

I was visited by Mormon missionaries. I looked over the book of Mormon. Most of what I read had caption headings telling one to compare it to other sections of the actual Bible. The entire thing, with its recursive references to Joseph Smith, the plates of Gold under a tree and their assumption into Heaven after being ‘translated’ from inscrutability, looked to me like a then state of the art marketing ploy aimed at Americanizing the Christian religion. The time period was that of the war of 1812 era, as I recall from their literature and their list of signatures in the witness section of the book.

I don’t pass good/bad judgment on this marketing concept because I don’t know exactly what Americans in the early 1800’s (1830’s) had in mind about Christianity and if really, these architects of an early cult had rebellion in mind (against whom?) or if they simply were experimenting with an attempt to preserve the spirit of Christianity in “coded” form, so that in ‘l a t e r’ centuries, these admittedly ‘religious’ people would be effectively cocooned and ready for actual transformation and transition into the dominant culture of some future day. I see it as a preservative move that probably was of the mind that violent clashes in religion usually take place between major groups. Hence its cult beginnings and smallish circle of “good” people with a “good” book would have been viewed as a physically protective mechanism to its architects.

After all this analysis, the most important answer to the thread question is in a philosophical speculation: If you were raised by your parents to believe that the skies were home to innumerable alien cultures, would you believe it and defend it, and, if so, what would your life and answers to these kinds of question be? (Notice how cults in their beginnings always rely on some cutting edge scientific speculation.) Furthermore, if it sounds like I’m calling an entire group ‘liars’–NOT SO!! The fact is that some people are far more comfortable with ambiguity and outlandishness than others. People spend whole lives in and out of wedlock with a partner they don’t trust or even love, yet their children are often none the wiser. What’s so difficult to understand about the personality that defends the untenable with ever tenuous reasoning? Often there is a fine line between apologist par excellence and devil’s advocate. It’s a matter of pride, self esteem, etc that makes their front line apologists so flexible. Pure polemics, as one or another thread participant has pointed out. A kind of intellectual thrill or speculative euphoria.

 

[campeador]

The notion of total objectivity in scholarship has been pretty well discredited.

“Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth.”

“Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are.”

CCC 159

 

[banarick]

banarick;8292830:

And yet you have all of those pesky Native Americans in the Great Lakes Region with X2 mtDNA:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_X_%28mtDNA%29

Since Mormons don’t believe humans are more than 6000 years old it’s hard to convince them the mtDNA of those middle easterners with X2 mtDNA couldn’t have wound up in Algonquian land.

Thank you BartBurk: Not so pesky for The American Journal of Human Genetic November 2003 issue. A.M. J. Hum. Genet. 73:1178-1190 quoted in the GodandScience arguement. Non Jewish Druze DNA that made it over here more than 11,000 BC. A far cry from the DNA of the children of Abraham allegedly making it here 600 BC. The Journal seems to be a reliable and acceptable scientific source accepted by scientists in the community . I dont think the Mormon obfuscation would convince a jury in a DNA murder case, a magistrate in a DNA paternity case, or me. If the Journal tells me they finally discovered Jewish DNA here among American Indians in the time frame alleged by Mormons I would listen.

Sooner or later I would think you would find the one unifying source of DNA being Adam and Eve. The question would be when in the history of human kind.

I did not know they held humans have not been here on this earth more than 6000 years ago. Sounds like a fundamentalist. Is this Reorganized LDS or LDS dogma? Where would I find it?

I guess this is all part of the How do they do it post. We all come to the table with preconceived notions and pride keeps us from exploring alternatives at some point when we are convinced. My preconceived notion that has totally rejected Mormonism is the Theological Racism that offends my children, wife and I. It is so wrong that it can only come from the devil. It is built into the fabric and structure of Mormonism inherited from a racist origin in 19th century America. Thus, Mormonism cannot but help to offend most of the world upon closer inspection.

The bumper sticker is Mormonism = Racism.

Ultimately I believe in the goodness of people who will reject and have been rejecting Racism. Thus they will reject Mormonism out of common decency.

 

[ParkerD]

…
Like a defense attorney he tries to confuse the issues to hide Mormonisms greatest weakness. Yet, DNA usually convinces a jury beyond a reasonable doubt and in this case it is clear the BOM is contrary to science.

Banarick,

I don’t mind the articles about DNA at all. There is ample support that there were other migrations to the Americas than one single migration and a spreading out from the North to the South.

The Book of Mormon itself speaks of many migrations to the New World, and reiterates the Old Testament prophecies that the Jews would be scattered throughout the world–not just the Old World, since God of course knew that there was a larger world than the Old World the people there were familiar with.

One who reads the Bible, needs to decide if for them it is some kind of allegory with an allegorical or fictional timetable for its events, or if it has literal meaning. For me, I believe it has literal meaning for Adam and Eve being the first flesh on the earth, and that occurred just before 4,000 BC. But for those who don’t accept that kind of timetable (not saying the creation was in six days, but after the fall of Adam and Eve the mortal timetable begins), then anything goes, I suppose.

The migration across the Bering straight could have included remnants of the house of Israel at some point, since they had a scattering that included going to the north countries including to the mountains and through the mountain passes. So for anyone to say that the predominant lineage in the New World for native Americans was closer to the peoples of the mountains of northern Asia than to Middle Easterners, is not a problem for the Book of Mormon, at all.

The words “principal ancestors”, by the way, were not in the Book of Mormon itself, and contained a belief that some had but not the teaching of the Book of Mormon itself on the subject of migrations to the New World.

 

[KathleenGee]

America has the most fragmented Christianity on the planet…nothing to brag about.

 

[ParkerD]

America has the most fragmented Christianity on the planet…nothing to brag about.

Kathleen,

It’s called freedom, which is “something to be grateful for”. Of course there are different religious beliefs encountered within the United States–freedom leads to that kind of situation.

 

[CopticChristian]

America has the most fragmented Christianity on the planet…nothing to brag about.

True and the fragmented are trying to transmit the fragmentation by Satellite to other parts of the world to bring them to join the fragmentation.

 

[BartBurk]

Banarick,

I don’t mind the articles about DNA at all. There is ample support that there were other migrations to the Americas than one single migration and a spreading out from the North to the South.

The Book of Mormon itself speaks of many migrations to the New World, and reiterates the Old Testament prophecies that the Jews would be scattered throughout the world–not just the Old World, since God of course knew that there was a larger world than the Old World the people there were familiar with.

One who reads the Bible, needs to decide if for them it is some kind of allegory with an allegorical or fictional timetable for its events, or if it has literal meaning. For me, I believe it has literal meaning for Adam and Eve being the first flesh on the earth, and that occurred just before 4,000 BC. But for those who don’t accept that kind of timetable (not saying the creation was in six days, but after the fall of Adam and Eve the mortal timetable begins), then anything goes, I suppose.

The migration across the Bering straight could have included remnants of the house of Israel at some point, since they had a scattering that included going to the north countries including to the mountains and through the mountain passes. So for anyone to say that the predominant lineage in the New World for native Americans was closer to the peoples of the mountains of northern Asia than to Middle Easterners, is not a problem for the Book of Mormon, at all.

The words “principal ancestors”, by the way, were not in the Book of Mormon itself, and contained a belief that some had but not the teaching of the Book of Mormon itself on the subject of migrations to the New World.

I’m curious Parker – do you believe humanity has been around for more than 6,000 years? It seems to me that many Mormons don’t. I know FAIR dismisses the idea that Nephites wound up in the Great Lakes area, but the Algonquians seem to share a common mtDNA with the Druze in the Middle East … FAIR dismisses it because they believe the mtDNA was from humans who came here 13,000 years back, but it seems to me that if you limit humanity to 6,000 years like many Mormons do that the Druze-Algonquian connection would at least be interesting to Mormons.

Regardless of the cause, evolutionists are most concerned about the effect of a faster mutation rate. For example, researchers have calculated that “mitochondrial Eve”–the woman whose mtDNA was ancestral to that in all living people–lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa. Using the new clock, she would be a mere 6000 years old.

No one thinks that’s the case, but at what point should models switch from one mtDNA time zone to the other?

Of course nobody thinks that is the case because most scientists believe humans have been around a lot longer than 6000 years. Here’s the link to the article:

dnai.org/teacherguide/pdf/reference_romanovs.pdf

The Druze-Algonquian connection would blow apart FAIR’s belief that Book of Mormon peoples lived in Central America. But the mtDNA in that region is definitely Asian, not Middle Eastern. It would kind of make those Book of Mormon tours to Central America less lucrative if they gave up on that.

 

[BartBurk]

BartBurk;8292916:

Thank you BartBurk: Not so pesky for The American Journal of Human Genetic November 2003 issue. A.M. J. Hum. Genet. 73:1178-1190 quoted in the GodandScience arguement. Non Jewish Druze DNA that made it over here more than 11,000 BC. A far cry from the DNA of the children of Abraham allegedly making it here 600 BC. The Journal seems to be a reliable and acceptable scientific source accepted by scientists in the community . I dont think the Mormon obfuscation would convince a jury in a DNA murder case, a magistrate in a DNA paternity case, or me. If the Journal tells me they finally discovered Jewish DNA here among American Indians in the time frame alleged by Mormons I would listen.

Sooner or later I would think you would find the one unifying source of DNA being Adam and Eve. The question would be when in the history of human kind.

I did not know they held humans have not been here on this earth more than 6000 years ago. Sounds like a fundamentalist. Is this Reorganized LDS or LDS dogma? Where would I find it?

I guess this is all part of the How do they do it post. We all come to the table with preconceived notions and pride keeps us from exploring alternatives at some point when we are convinced. My preconceived notion that has totally rejected Mormonism is the Theological Racism that offends my children, wife and I. It is so wrong that it can only come from the devil. It is built into the fabric and structure of Mormonism inherited from a racist origin in 19th century America. Thus, Mormonism cannot but help to offend most of the world upon closer inspection.

The bumper sticker is Mormonism = Racism.

Ultimately I believe in the goodness of people who will reject and have been rejecting Racism. Thus they will reject Mormonism out of common decency.

All I can say is that if the mitochondrial clock really does run a lot faster and humans only began about 6000 years ago than all of the dates are skewed and the Mormon position is stronger. I think the normal position in the Mormon pew among active LDS would be a rejection of the evolutionary model and a much younger age for humanity. At that point the mtDNA argument against Mormonism would fall on deaf ears.

Of course if the Book of Mormon is true it would be hard to argue racism, just as it is hard to argue sexism because we Catholics don’t ordain women.

 

[Stephen168]

I guess this is all part of the How do they do it post. We all come to the table with preconceived notions and pride keeps us from exploring alternatives at some point when we are convinced. My preconceived notion that has totally rejected Mormonism is the Theological Racism that offends my children, wife and I. It is so wrong that it can only come from the devil. It is built into the fabric and structure of Mormonism inherited from a racist origin in 19th century America. Thus, Mormonism cannot but help to offend most of the world upon closer inspection.
The bumper sticker is Mormonism = Racism.
Ultimately I believe in the goodness of people who will reject and have been rejecting Racism. Thus they will reject Mormonism out of common decency.

Of course if the Book of Mormon is true it would be hard to argue racism, …

The Book of Mormon is not true therefore he can argue racism.

 

[Lefty0908]

I’m curious Parker – do you believe humanity has been around for more than 6,000 years? It seems to me that many Mormons don’t. I know FAIR dismisses the idea that Nephites wound up in the Great Lakes area, but the Algonquians seem to share a common mtDNA with the Druze in the Middle East … FAIR dismisses it because they believe the mtDNA was from humans who came here 13,000 years back, but it seems to me that if you limit humanity to 6,000 years like many Mormons do that the Druze-Algonquian connection would at least be interesting to Mormons.

The Druze-Algonquian connection would blow apart FAIR’s belief that Book of Mormon peoples lived in Central America. But the mtDNA in that region is definitely Asian, not Middle Eastern. It would kind of make those Book of Mormon tours to Central America less lucrative if they gave up on that.

Hey, Double-B,

I’d be interested in the source of your statement that most Mormons believe people have been here for only 6000 years. I know of no survey demonstrating that conclusion (but there’s a lot of stuff I don’t know). Personally, I haven’t thought a lot about it, don’t much care, and still remain a communicant Mormon.

As to Nephites living in the upper-midwest of current day America, one of the biggest problems I have with that theory is that if one accepts the Book of Mormon as being an ancient document that was generated somewhere in the western hemisphere, then the culture from which it arose must have had a written language during the time-frame that encompasses claimed BOM events. To my knowledge, no ancient culture that existed in today’s upper-midwest had a full-blown written language during the time period the BOM describes. The “limited geography” model that most LDS scholars accept describes Nephites as being a relatively small culture imbedded in or surrounded by other larger cultures. Thus, Mesoamerica becomes a better “fit” given the advanced nature of those cultures in terms of written language near the time of BOM-described events.

The recent DNA controversy was reported in many outlets as being a “Galileo event” for Mormons (figured Catholics would get a kick out of that!). The charges came mainly from disaffected Mormons and (surprise, surprise) were used mainly by Evangelical anti-Mormon “ministries” to further their cause (even though the underlying “science” was just as destructive of many of their own truth claims relative to the Bible).

In response, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship published a 287 page book comprised of 10 papers authored by LDS authors having expertise on the subject. The book’s title is The Book of Mormon and DNA Research. Of particular interest to me was one paper that cited an in-depth Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA study done by non-Mormon researchers on the population of Iceland. It found that the majority of people living in Iceland today had ancestors living just 150 years ago that could not be detected using Y-chromosome and motichondrial DNA tests. Genealogical records verified that those people existed, but according to the tests, they didn’t. From this, I therefore don’t think you can totally rule out the notion that BOM peoples could potentially be related to modern Native Americans yet not be detected using current Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA tests.

No Mormon I know who is conversant with the current science denies that virtually all ancestors of Native Americans are Asiatic in makeup, having migrated across the Bering Straits anciently (and certainly more than 6000 years ago!).

For everyone else, I promise I’ll stop the cultural references. See, it went like this, and I couldn’t resist:

1. I made the Blazing Saddles reference triggered by Cowboy Pete’s name (cowboy, cowboy movie - get it?).
2. Someone makes the assumption that I know Cowboy Pete (and maybe Rebecca and Miriam).
3. Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me, so I decide to transition by
4. Citing Lee Harvey Oswald (also the subject of conspiracy theories) in context of Crash Davis’ monologue to Annie Savoy in the movie Bull Durham (best baseball movie ever, though I left out portions of the monologue that I thought some might find offensive).

See, it’s just not funny when you have to explain it (probably wasn’t funny anyway, but I was just trying to lighten things up a bit - something that at times is sorely lacking around here ).

 

[Miriam1947]

Lefty, be careful. Don’t be taking my name . . .

You get the drift.

Don’t you just love conspiracy theories? i do.

 

[ParkerD]

I’m curious Parker – do you believe humanity has been around for more than 6,000 years? It seems to me that many Mormons don’t. I know FAIR dismisses the idea that Nephites wound up in the Great Lakes area, but the Algonquians seem to share a common mtDNA with the Druze in the Middle East … FAIR dismisses it because they believe the mtDNA was from humans who came here 13,000 years back, but it seems to me that if you limit humanity to 6,000 years like many Mormons do that the Druze-Algonquian connection would at least be interesting to Mormons.

Of course nobody thinks that is the case because most scientists believe humans have been around a lot longer than 6000 years. Here’s the link to the article:

dnai.org/teacherguide/pdf/reference_romanovs.pdf

The Druze-Algonquian connection would blow apart FAIR’s belief that Book of Mormon peoples lived in Central America. But the mtDNA in that region is definitely Asian, not Middle Eastern. It would kind of make those Book of Mormon tours to Central America less lucrative if they gave up on that.

BartBurk,

Thanks for citing and linking that article. I am one who believes that the dating models used that arrive at “13,000 years” or “200,000 years” are based on assumptions that don’t have all the factors considered within the assumptions, and that the 6000 year dating is most probably correct, so of course that article made sense to me.

As far as where the events in the Book of Mormon happened, I don’t have a settled opinion about “where”, except for knowing that there was a large group who moved far to the north of the group living around Zarahemla, so there could have been groups in both places you mentioned having ties to migrations to the Americas as described in the Book of Mormon. One important item about those migrations is that the original Zarahemla group was started by the Mulekites, whose migration is only briefly mentioned in the Book of Mormon but whose population was larger than either the Nephites or the Lamanites and became assimilated into both. We know nothing about how large that group was originally, how they migrated, or what the heritage of their ancestral “mothers” was. (Nor do we know the ancestral heritage of Sariah nor of Ishmael’s wife.)

 

[BartBurk]

Hey, Double-B,

I’d be interested in the source of your statement that most Mormons believe people have been here for only 6000 years. I know of no survey demonstrating that conclusion (but there’s a lot of stuff I don’t know). Personally, I haven’t thought a lot about it, don’t much care, and still remain a communicant Mormon.

As to Nephites living in the upper-midwest of current day America, one of the biggest problems I have with that theory is that if one accepts the Book of Mormon as being an ancient document that was generated somewhere in the western hemisphere, then the culture from which it arose must have had a written language during the time-frame that encompasses claimed BOM events. To my knowledge, no ancient culture that existed in today’s upper-midwest had a full-blown written language during the time period the BOM describes. The “limited geography” model that most LDS scholars accept describes Nephites as being a relatively small culture imbedded in or surrounded by other larger cultures. Thus, Mesoamerica becomes a better “fit” given the advanced nature of those cultures in terms of written language near the time of BOM-described events.

The recent DNA controversy was reported in many outlets as being a “Galileo event” for Mormons (figured Catholics would get a kick out of that!). The charges came mainly from disaffected Mormons and (surprise, surprise) were used mainly by Evangelical anti-Mormon “ministries” to further their cause (even though the underlying “science” was just as destructive of many of their own truth claims relative to the Bible).

In response, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship published a 287 page book comprised of 10 papers authored by LDS authors having expertise on the subject. The book’s title is The Book of Mormon and DNA Research. Of particular interest to me was one paper that cited an in-depth Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA study done by non-Mormon researchers on the population of Iceland. It found that the majority of people living in Iceland today had ancestors living just 150 years ago that could not be detected using Y-chromosome and motichondrial DNA tests. Genealogical records verified that those people existed, but according to the tests, they didn’t. From this, I therefore don’t think you can totally rule out the notion that BOM peoples could potentially be related to modern Native Americans yet not be detected using current Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA tests.

No Mormon I know who is conversant with the current science denies that virtually all ancestors of Native Americans are Asiatic in makeup, having migrated across the Bering Straits anciently (and certainly more than 6000 years ago!).

For everyone else, I promise I’ll stop the cultural references. See, it went like this, and I couldn’t resist:

1. I made the Blazing Saddles reference triggered by Cowboy Pete’s name (cowboy, cowboy movie - get it?).
2. Someone makes the assumption that I know Cowboy Pete (and maybe Rebecca and Miriam).
3. Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me, so I decide to transition by
4. Citing Lee Harvey Oswald (also the subject of conspiracy theories) in context of Crash Davis’ monologue to Annie Savoy in the movie Bull Durham (best baseball movie ever, though I left out portions of the monologue that I thought some might find offensive).

See, it’s just not funny when you have to explain it (probably wasn’t funny anyway, but I was just trying to lighten things up a bit - something that at times is sorely lacking around here ).

I used to be Mormon. When I was in the Mormon Church, it was made very clear to me that we believed Adam and Eve lived no longer than 6,000 years ago. That would make the Maxwell Institute’s acceptance of an older time period for people coming to the Americas wrong. It seems to me Mormons would be in better shape looking at the Great Lakes Region because there is absolutely nothing in Central America that proves their case. And of course if the “Nephites” were using bark for most of their communication traces of a written language could well have disappeared. There are a few lines in the Book of Mormon which said the people built cement houses, but mostly it says they dwelled in tents and used wood for their dwellings.

bookofmormongeography.org/book-of-mormon-geography-cement-houses

All of FARM’s articles caused me to dismiss the Book of Mormon because their conclusions seemed to be inconsistent with the Book of Mormon. Is Central America really where you guys want to look for a land of freedom and a land of promise?

 

[campeador]

BartBurk,

Thanks for citing and linking that article. I am one who believes that the dating models used that arrive at “13,000 years” or “200,000 years” are based on assumptions that don’t have all the factors considered within the assumptions, and that the 6000 year dating is most probably correct, so of course that article made sense to me.

Parker,

Thanks for allowing us to see how your mind works to some extent. You must be willing to reject the mountain of evidence offered by the sciences of geology, astronomy, physics, and mathematics to accept a young-earth theory.

Of course, your entitled to believe whatever you want, but just as a contrast:

“In his encyclical* Humani Generis*, my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation, provided that we do not lose sight of certain fixed points…Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis.”

—Pope John Paul II

Peace.