Why are people mormon considering it is obvioulsy fabricated?

[PaulDupre]

you’d think that, if your presumption that we’ve already found everything that is there to be found is true, that a settlement that was something like six square kilometres, that close to a long explored and well known archeological treasure like Machu Picchu, would have been found quite awhile ago…but no. It was found within the last decade.

You are mis-characterizing my argument. I never said we have found everything there is to be found (where did you get such a notion?). I pointed out that, with regards to the BoM we haven’t found anything. Surely such a civilization as described in the BoM, with great cities connected by highways, metal weapons, horses, stables chariots, a highly literate population, huge armies and battles where hundreds of thousands of armored soldiers die in a single day should have left some small trace? Much smaller civilizations have.

 

[Eliza10]

Oh, aRRRGGGHHH!!!

But I asked for peace, you can have the last word. Fair is fair. peace.

…http://farm1.static.flickr.com/37/80545602_33c93703c8_b.jpg

 

[dianaiad]

In the battle cited in Mormon 6:9-15, 230,000 soldiers on the Nephite side were killed. Mormon doesn’t report how many died on the Lamanite side.

That’s more than tens of thousands.

Actually, it is ‘tens of thousands.’ Many 'tens of thousands."

Let us take your numbers; call it half a million dead; 500,000 dead. What makes you think that this battle site would be that obvious, when we have no way to identify where to begin looking for it?

Have you ever been to Gettysburg? The actual loss of life took place in a four square mile area. 50,000 men lost their lives, on both sides. That was less than a hundred and fifty years ago.

Now. If you didn’t know where it was; if there weren’t monuments all over the place, and tours and re-enactments, what is there about the place that would tell you that a century and a half ago, 50,000 men killed each other in a three day battle?

If you know exactly where to look, and know precisely where to dig, you would find the buttons and the bones, but not unless. There isn’t anything about that area that screams at you “HERE! HERE IS WHERE FIFTY THOUSAND MEN DIED IN THREE DAYS!!”

Go to Okinawa some day. Were you aware that the battle of Okinawa during WWII cost 250,000 lives? If you didn’t see the markers, didn’t know the history, and didn’t have the book, is there anything around that area to tell you 'here, a quarter of a million people were killed here."

No, actually, there isn’t.

I’m sure that someday, when we know precisely where to begin looking, we will find the scene of those BoM battles–and even then, it won’t be that obvious; there won’t be 500,000 skeletons rattling around waving bony fingers at us.
PaulDupre;5566722:

And the civilizations needed to support armies of that size must have been huge

Really? When the army consisted of every male who could raise a weapon? We aren’t talking about the sort of army the USA supports now, y’know. We are talking about a war footing, a war being faught right there in their front yards. Everybody was the army.

• plenty big enough to leave a whopping big archeological footprint a mere 1600 years later. The year 421 AD was just this morning in archeological time.

Ok. You tell me where to start looking for that footprint, in 10 million square miles, Paul. G’head.

It is ridiculous that the civilizations described in the BoM wouldn’t leave easily identifiable traces - especially their Hebrew and/or Reformed Egyptian writing.

They probably did. The question, of course, is…gee, why haven’t we found everything there is to be found in 10 million square miles of land area, in less than a century of modern archeology?

The Book of mormon reports several times that the Nephite people “searched the scriptures diligently”. If so, then

a) the people must have been highly literate
b) the scriptures must have been in wide circulation

Probably as literate as their counterparts in Israel at the time, I suppose.
I wonder; how many copies of the scriptures do we have that date to the time of Christ?

Oh, that’s right…zero. zip. nada. We have some amazing copies, but the originals?

Among literate peoples, written language provides a great advantage in commerce, warfare and every other facet of life, and so is used widely.

Oh, come on, Paul. Even in Europe and the middle east we have examples of early written languages ONLY because we have had a continuous history of evolving use of it. Whenever there is a time gap, we lose it; examples of it become very rare, no matter how much it may have been used.

However, let’s say you are correct; it would have been widely used. How? What on? paper and parchment disintegrates over time. engraved monuments stick around…but we have to find them first. Again, sir. 10,000,000 square miles to look in.

Oh. Did you know that just last winter a major archeological find was made in the middle of the city of Los Vegas? An early pueblo indian dwelling place, complete with furnishings, clothing and all sorts of interesting goodies, was found last March or so.

You never know where this stuff might be found, do you?

A civilization as large and literate as the Nephites would have left behind enough Hebrew and/or Reformed Egyptian writing so as to be easily identified. The fact that no such writing has ever been found, nor are there any traces of Hebrew or Egyptian in any of the surviving Native American languages is very suspicious, don’t you think?

Not really, no.

It’s almost as if those Nephites and Lamanites never existed at all.

 

[dianaiad]

You are mis-characterizing my argument. I never said we have found everything there is to be found (where did you get such a notion?). I pointed out that, with regards to the BoM we haven’t found anything. Surely such a civilization as described in the BoM, with great cities connected by highways, metal weapons, horses, stables chariots, a highly literate population, huge armies and battles where hundreds of thousands of armored soldiers die in a single day should have left some small trace? Much smaller civilizations have.

Yes, but we knew where they were, or stumbled onto them by accident. All we have at the moment for the BoM peoples is…the BoM, and it doesn’t tell us where to start looking. We haven’t exactly had time to debunk it, Paul.

In all fairness, it is too soon to use the LACK of archeological proof as proof that the BoM is not true.

 

[dianaiad]

…http://farm1.static.flickr.com/37/80545602_33c93703c8_b.jpg

(snort…) I GET TO BE THE ORANGE TABBY! I love his expression!!!

 

[Dee_Dee_King]

I wasn’t aware that Scientology is illegal, Dee Dee.

By the way, the USA was founded in part to ensure that we all have the right to believe and worship as we wish. Making any religion illegal is a smashing of the constitution that really would not be all that wise.

what i meant to write was that scientology and mormonism should both be illegal because they are demonstrably false. the constitution can be changed, that’s what admendments are for.

 

[dianaiad]

what i meant to write was that scientology and mormonism should both be illegal because they are demonstrably false. the constitution can be changed, that’s what admendments are for.

I see.

I’ll bet you are a Democrat. AT least, I HOPE you are.

 

[why_me]

what i meant to write was that scientology and mormonism should both be illegal because they are demonstrably false. the constitution can be changed, that’s what admendments are for.

And what about the protestant faiths…? Maybe we should outlaw Joel Osteen and Joyce Myers. What about Billy Grahamn? And the Episcopals? Outlaw them? They are all demonstrably false, if one is a catholic.

 

[ricko]

And what about the protestant faiths…? Maybe we should outlaw Joel Osteen and Joyce Myers. What about Billy Grahamn? And the Episcopals? Outlaw them? They are all demonstrably false, if one is a catholic.

Excellent idea! I do like your way of thinking why me. How do you come up with these Capital ideas?

By the way. I have removed my old rack from storage and it is ready for use as you have suggested earlier.

Keep the suggestions coming. How 'bout the old guillotine?

 

[Eliza10]

(snort…) I GET TO BE THE ORANGE TABBY! I love his expression!!!

…http://ct.iscute.com/userpics/funny_pictures/1068.jpg

 

[dianaiad]

…http://ct.iscute.com/userpics/funny_pictures/1068.jpg

Yep, that’s me all right.

 

[Elric]

Then why in the world are you holding the BoM to standards you don’t expect the bible to achieve?

What?

Perhaps it is because of what the BoM claims to be, yet it cant stand up to scrutiny.

Of course there is. If it was compiled as WE claim it was, then the books were gathered, abridged and compiled by two men, Mormon and Moroni, who wrote additional books. These abridgments were then engraved and bound together in one book. The bible is a collection of (hopefully) individual unabridged works that were simply gathered and organized by a group of people into one volume. Lots of differences there.

Yes and those two chaps could be simply fictional characters created by Mr Smith, when he “translated” their compilation that just happened to dissapear when he finished. No difference at all really.

Say what? Do you have any idea what you are talking about here? The first edition was full of printing and spelling errors. The second edition corrected many of those, as well as a few major contextual goofs, but the third and subsequent editions were based upon the first one, not the second one. It wasn’t until just recently that the final corrections were made. Elric, you really don’t know much about this, do you?

They used the known faulty copy for the template for later editions?

Maybe they should have used the original translation or better yet, the original text.

Well now. That’s a debate ender. You lose.

Im not allowed to call something rubbish?

Joseph believed that it did, but there is no textual evidence within the book itself that supports that. In fact, the disconnect between some of the things that Joseph believed about what it said, and what it actually says, is evidence that he didn’t actually WRITE the book himself; someone else did. The author of a book generally puts the textual evidence for his claims in that book.

Well that answered all of those questions. It could also be evidence that he made things up as he went along.

 

[Synneve]

With all of the evidence that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that mormonism is a sham

I’m new to this forum, and am sure that several people have already given the obvious answer from a Latter-day Saint perspective: We don’t grant the presupposition that “all of the evidence proves” Mormonism, “beyond a reasonable doubt,” to be a “sham.”

Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact.

why do people still buy into it?

Personally, I “buy into it” because I believe it to be true.

It almost makes me think that reason will not always work in apologetics.

I haven’t noticed that the people I interact with find me exceptionally irrational.

 

[Elric]

Actually, it is ‘tens of thousands.’ Many 'tens of thousands."

Let us take your numbers; call it half a million dead; 500,000 dead. What makes you think that this battle site would be that obvious, when we have no way to identify where to begin looking for it?

Have you ever been to Gettysburg? The actual loss of life took place in a four square mile area. 50,000 men lost their lives, on both sides. That was less than a hundred and fifty years ago.

Now. If you didn’t know where it was; if there weren’t monuments all over the place, and tours and re-enactments, what is there about the place that would tell you that a century and a half ago, 50,000 men killed each other in a three day battle?

If you know exactly where to look, and know precisely where to dig, you would find the buttons and the bones, but not unless. There isn’t anything about that area that screams at you “HERE! HERE IS WHERE FIFTY THOUSAND MEN DIED IN THREE DAYS!!”

Go to Okinawa some day. Were you aware that the battle of Okinawa during WWII cost 250,000 lives? If you didn’t see the markers, didn’t know the history, and didn’t have the book, is there anything around that area to tell you 'here, a quarter of a million people were killed here."

No, actually, there isn’t.

I’m sure that someday, when we know precisely where to begin looking, we will find the scene of those BoM battles–and even then, it won’t be that obvious; there won’t be 500,000 skeletons rattling around waving bony fingers at us.

Really? When the army consisted of every male who could raise a weapon? We aren’t talking about the sort of army the USA supports now, y’know. We are talking about a war footing, a war being faught right there in their front yards. Everybody was the army.

Ok. You tell me where to start looking for that footprint, in 10 million square miles, Paul. G’head.

They probably did. The question, of course, is…gee, why haven’t we found everything there is to be found in 10 million square miles of land area, in less than a century of modern archeology?

Probably as literate as their counterparts in Israel at the time, I suppose.
I wonder; how many copies of the scriptures do we have that date to the time of Christ?

Oh, that’s right…zero. zip. nada. We have some amazing copies, but the originals?

Oh, come on, Paul. Even in Europe and the middle east we have examples of early written languages ONLY because we have had a continuous history of evolving use of it. Whenever there is a time gap, we lose it; examples of it become very rare, no matter how much it may have been used.

However, let’s say you are correct; it would have been widely used. How? What on? paper and parchment disintegrates over time. engraved monuments stick around…but we have to find them first. Again, sir. 10,000,000 square miles to look in.

Oh. Did you know that just last winter a major archeological find was made in the middle of the city of Los Vegas? An early pueblo indian dwelling place, complete with furnishings, clothing and all sorts of interesting goodies, was found last March or so.

You never know where this stuff might be found, do you?

Not really, no.

Why do you have to resort to that, All that exaduration stuff?

It doesnt help. People are just asking for a shread of evidence that showed such a civilisation existed, not for the whole thing to be revealed.

It was a large civilisation that had many large battles and also a different culture/technology to Native Americans (which would make their things stand out), but nothing has been found.

Those things that you mentioned, we would know where they were because there is more than one source telling us with details.

 

[Synneve]

There are many, many LDS archeologists, both professional and amateur, looking for Book of Mormon sites for many decades.

Could you name some of these “many, many,” and identify the specific locations where they’ve been digging?

They have never found any

Are you sure of that?

despite the fact that the BoM cities and battlefields are far more recent (and should be more easily identified) than most of the things discovered by archeologists.

Your claim doesn’t seem to be an obvious one:

mi.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=2&num=1&id=25

 

[dianaiad]

What?

Perhaps it is because of what the BoM claims to be, yet it cant stand up to scrutiny.

Yes and those two chaps could be simply fictional characters created by Mr Smith, when he “translated” their compilation that just happened to dissapear when he finished. No difference at all really.

They could be. I don’t happen to believe they are. However, YOUR claim is that we believe Moroni helped Joseph Smith TRANSLATE the book. He didn’t. Speaking as an English teacher, I can tell you that even if you are investigating a work of fiction, you have to investigate it for what it claims to be, not something that isn’t in it.

They used the known faulty copy for the template for later editions?

They WERE under some stress at the time. The second edition wasn’t widely available; the first was.

Maybe they should have used the original translation or better yet, the original text.

Joseph had the original text. The original translation was scattered around a bit–but it helped greatly in the very few (I did say six, right) changes that actually affected meaning: like the change from "white and delightsome’ to “pure and delightsome” which delights our detractors so much. How inconvenient for them that this change was actually made back in 1837.

Im not allowed to call something rubbish?

Sure you are. But in a debate, you have to explain why you think it is rubbish. You know, reasons, explanations…to simply dismiss it as ‘rubbish’ is rude, not to mention ineffective; it’s an appeal to ridicule, thus a logical fallacy and a red herring. It loses you points.

Especially if the person you happen to be debating, and your audience, either is convinced that it is NOT rubbish, or isn’t certain about it yet.

Well that answered all of those questions. It could also be evidence that he made things up as he went along.

Could do, but since it IS something that someone who merely translated, rather than wrote, a book WOULD be expected to do, you can’t use it as proof of falsity.

 

[dianaiad]

I’m new to this forum, and am sure that several people have already given the obvious answer from a Latter-day Saint perspective: We don’t grant the presupposition that “all of the evidence proves” Mormonism, “beyond a reasonable doubt,” to be a “sham.”

Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact.

Personally, I “buy into it” because I believe it to be true.

I haven’t noticed that the people I interact with find me exceptionally irrational.

oooooh…be careful there, Synneve; an attack of reason is suspect in here. Welcome to the fray!

 

[dianaiad]

Could you name some of these “many, many,” and identify the specific locations where they’ve been digging?

Are you sure of that?

Your claim doesn’t seem to be an obvious one:

mi.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=2&num=1&id=25

That article is 37 pages long, Synneve. What makes you think that our opponents will take the time to, y’know, actually READ it?

I did, though…loved it.

 

[ricko]

By the early 1970s, surveying all of the foundation’s notable findings, ***Thomas Ferguson ***began to assemble the case for the Book’s ancient origins. Other than the “Egyptian” cylinder seal, the NWAF excavators had found nothing that seemed to authenticate the Mormon faith. Ferguson grew increasingly alarmed by this lack of progress.

“With all of [our] great efforts, it cannot be established factually that anyone, from Joseph Smith to the present day, has put his finger on a single point of terrain that was a Book-ofMormon geographical place. And the hemisphere has been pretty well checked out by competent people. Thousands of sites have been excavated.” In a detailed chart that poignantly illustrated his spiritual despair, he went on to enumerate all the plants, animals, and artifacts mentioned in the Book of Mormon that were as yet undiscovered in ancient Mesoamerican digs. Under the heading, “Evidence supporting the existence of these forms of animal life in the regions proposed,” he ticked off: “***: None. Bull: None. Calf: None. Cattle: None. Cow: None. Goat: None. Horse: None. Ox: None. Sheep: None. Sow: None. Elephant: None (contemporary with Book of Mormon). Evidence of the foregoing animals has not appeared in any form-ceramic representations, bones or skeletal remains, mural art, sculptured art or any other form … [T]he zero score presents a problem that will not go away with the ignoring of it. Non-LDS scholars of first magnitude, some of whom want to be our friends, think we have real trouble here.”

Eventually Ferguson, the indefatigable apostle and founder of Mormon archaeology, came to the anguished conclusion that Joseph Smith had simply invented the Book of Mormon out of whole cloth. He pronounced Mormonism a “myth fraternity,” and slipped into a profound spiritual crisis that lasted until his death, of a heart attack, in 1983. “You can’t set Book of Mormon geography down anywhere,” he wrote in 1976, “because it is fictional and will never meet the requirements of the dirt-archaeology. What is in the ground will never conform to what is in The Book.” And in another letter: “I have been spoofed by Joseph Smith.”

 

[Synneve]

That article is 37 pages long, Synneve. What makes you think that our opponents will take the time to, y’know, actually READ it?

I did, though…loved it.

I’m new here, and hope spring eternal.

Perhaps my experience with Catholic critics here will be better than my experiences with evangelical critics have been?