Actually, he was of the tribe of Manasseh.

Veger: Of course you must you use your mind to think... I wasn't saying you must ignore all common sense and just go with your instincts.

But in the end of the day, it's the spirit that converts somebody, not scientific facts. What I'm trying to say is that you must open up your mind, and then FEEL for that reassurance, that you can believe in it.

There are a lot of weird things that have gone on in the Church's past, but they can be followed up with explanations. I'll post later.

DNA doesn't discriminate between arbitrary tribes. The fact of the matter is, Native Americans did not migrate from anywhere near Jerusalem. Besides, it's impossible to tell anything from the "tribes" because they are arbitrary. I know of a family that has a son who is of Manasseh, but both of his parents are Ephraimites. Therefore, the tribes are not delegated by blood, nullifying any validity Nephi's tribe might have played in the matter.

And what are you trying to say? That the tribe of Manasseh wasn't from Israel? There is no DNA evidence from anywhere in the middle east.

[edit] Note...I re-drafted this whole post to make it less confusing and a little more simplistic...or right to the point. I don't know if that paid off very well [edit]

Whelly, I hate to bug ya, but I disagree.

I mean, some people have researched this stuff and found nothing. Some people have researched it and found lots.

But I've heard of many people who have tried to attempt to prove Christianity wrong with facts, and in their failure they became Christians. I do believe that solely trusting what you feel is not going to prove anything. I could feel like a god is telling me to join the buddhist religion or the hindu religion, or some cult (essentially, to join or become a part of a particular group, which, for the sake of argument, will be random). Then I'll be a buddhist or a hindu. And all because it's because I felt it. I could feel like god is telling me to go to the beach. So based on a feeling I'll go to the beach. (I'm trying to do an extreme, and a not so extreme examples).

Or, I could research it, discover what I beleive to be more true.
Do you want to know why I "Believe" in Christianity? (if not...then...well. read on? I guess?)

It's because A: I was raised in being taught about it since a child.
B: I spent the majority of my life in Christian/Private school (save kindergarten, first grade, and high school, this far)
C: I've seen too much, and heard to much to persuade me that Christianity is false. And my faith in God I partially take separate in terms of proving Christianity. (IE: I don't let my feelings cloud my academic prooving of Christianity, so as to remain empirically sound...as best as I can) I have been taught too much in schools and discussions about truths of the bible, things that have been proven, or shown to be nearly, true, in the bible. I've been taught that the bible has more evidence to prove itself, as well as Christianity as a religion, than any other religious text in history.
An example is the connection between the new testament and the old testament, themes, things that seem to collaberate with jesus proof as God's returning to earth after the old Testament. I'm sure that many Jews might disagree with me here, or muslims or other groups for that matter, but there is lots of evidence to support it, and I learned that there are even hidden themes, between the bible and the new testament. Jesus died and was resurrected in three days, Jonah was swallowed in the belly of a fish and was stuck there for three days. It’s a symbolic theme that Jesus is the one people had been waiting for after the Old Testament (there are many more).

Plus, take in the fact that as I stated earlier, the bible is used as a historical document by archaeologists.

I just...there is enough evidence for me to believe that Christianity is not false, academically. And you kinda need to use academics when showing how groups that come after, or before another group, might be right or wrong. IE: The jews might use academics against the muslims, or something to this nature, because some groups only believe the first 5 books of the bible are true, that spawned…I think muslims? Some other group? The jews, however, believe in the entire old testament…which has another name I think. Anyway…

This is totally turning into a religious discussion now, but I'll just say that I think you should search for answers to prove things. I mean...Siddartha. The guy who started Buddhism. He stayed alone for years until he was "enlightened" and then started to explain to people the principles of Buddhism that he created in order to achieve Nirvana (enlightenment). He..."felt" what he believed was true.

Personally...I think he's full of crap. And alot of the buddhist principles, though full of great morals, are...not...very..valid? provable? I guess I"m saying that. Sure some of the statements they say are good, things like "don't catch a fish unless oyu have enough bait" (I made that up), but I don't think that the religion is very credible. I mean it's a huge religion, and many people love it, but academically, I don’t see why that is a great lifestyle.

I speak more like someone who has studied things than a political (everyone has equal rights) person. I'm not really talking in terms of equal rights. It's true that you have your opinion, but my point is I am talking in a more scientificly. I'm just saying that I've tried to study as to why Mormonism is right or wrong, true or not true, and I'm saying that “feeling” or “spirit” or “heart” aside, I don’t see a lot of truth in Mormonism.

You might say that God has given me insight into judging religions? He has helped me in judging this, or making my opinion, instead of stating openly. Perhaps, perhaps not. But God certainly didn’t simply state “Mormonism is wrong” to me. I looked for it. Just like I said earlier…



Just like I might believe president Kerry flip-flopped, it was based on what I saw. And I felt that made him less credible. I didn’t believe the remaining things he said were all that credible, so I didn’t vote for him.

And...it's good to have a spiritual relationship with God, in my opinion, or, more politically speaking, to have a non-academic role in your religion, or a more heartful role in a religion. It’s just that if there a reason or flaw might exist that disproves or discredit a religion…or something doesn’t quite seem right, it’s worth checking out before you dedicate yourself to it.

Blargh theres probably a lot of controversy in all that I just said so I think I might try to back off…again.

Veger: Buddhism was intended to be a lifestyle. His students decided to deitize him after he died though, so that kind of threw a wrench in the original intention of his teachings.

Freelancer - I was just stating that they weren't Jewish. The distinction between Jewish and Israelite has dimmed with the scattering of the tribes of Israel, and it was something I had learned in church - that Lehi was not of the tribe of Judah, but of Manasseh.

However, there are plenty of Mormon apologetists who have various ways of attempting to explain away the DNA theory.

FARMS is a good place to look up all of this scientific stuff to see what Mormon but scientific folks are saying about them.

http://farms.byu.edu/publications/dna.php?selection=dna&cat=dna



About your friend who is of a different lineage than his parents, the lineages given in patriarchal blessings are not the literal lineages that the people of Israel are referred to by. In the case of a patriarchal blessing, when a person is welcomed into the church, they are one of God's chosen people and are welcomed into one of the twelve tribes. I do not know how God decides the placement of people in these patriarchal blessings.

The above statements concerning patriarchal blessings are strictly from memory. If you want to get some definite information, look it up on Wikipedia or something.

wow, that one article "DNA and the Book of Mormon: A Phylogenetic Perspective" is awful.

His thesis is pretty much "The Book of Mormon is a religious text and therefore cannot be measure in the scientific realm... and if if someone DID try to use DNA to prove the Book of Mormon false, unless they get NSF funding their findings are no good and it's a religious text so..."

People scientifically test the Bible all the time....

FARMS is pretty much a laughing stock. All they do is pervert science in order to prove whatever they want to prove. I mean, think about it: the agency was FOUNDED to defend the Book of Mormon scientifically.

Amen (bad pun :p ) to that. FARMS is a joke, really.

Latter Day Saints, Watchtower Society and Scientology are all perfect examples of where freedom of religion can go wrong, to the same degree that Ann Coulter illustrates precisely why women's sufferage took so long to achieve.

They're good ideas, but that doesn't make insane people any less so.

Yep, because you should have freedom of religion, but only so long as your religion isn't one that we don't like.

Although I'm days late, You should have given that Mormon tele-religioniser more of an earful.

You, sir, are a god.

Ok, obviously you need some help seeing his point. He's not saying to ban the religion and stop people from practicing it. He's saying that in his opinion, those religions are fundamentally based on false teachings and led by insane extremists who are more caught up in the act of playing church than an actual search for truth.

No, that'd be saying, "This is where religion went wrong." To say, "This is where religious freedom went wrong," is to say, "These groups shouldn't be allowed to practice under the U.S. Constitution."

Actually, I understand exactly what that phrase means, as Wolfy explains...


So please don't tell me I need help understanding the basics of "freedom of religion" and what saying "this is where it goes wrong" means.

I agree, Freelancer. That's why they call them apologetists (or some such). Their lot is to figure out BS ways of explaining things that people hold up to them and that science proves wrong about their faith.

At least they're earning money.

How exactly can you 'scientifically' assert that your particular denomination is more true than...anything else?

The sheer number of religions, and the number of denominations per religion, is enough to really put a blow against 'religion' as a whole. If we assume for a moment that there is a God(s) and one of these denominations does represent him adequately, the probability of choosing the correct one is so incredibly low that you're almost certainly doomed to damnation or whatever. What if the 'true' religion is the Mayan religion, or the Norse mythology? Sure, if you're trying to be dipomatic about things, you'd go on something like "well... they're all true..", but that's a total cop-out and has so many flaws I don't know where to start.

Arguing for the validity of religion as a whole is difficult enough - to go on and argue that Christianity is more valid than Islam is considerably more difficult - to go on to argue that denomination X is more valid than denomination Y is venturing into the impossible.
Really, after the first argument you'll probably be throwing away any 'scientific' principles and be arguing using the entirely irrational - that is, 'faith' based.

^ What he said.

I agree too. I always seem to agree with Mort-Hog these days..

Why is one religion more 'true' than any other? Because we want it to be. You forget, we're human, we have opinions, we have creative thinking skills, skills that a computer (as of yet) can't replicate. So why don't we employ these instead of just letting them sit there and using straight logic. How can you call something beautiful? How can you call a certain color red? How...

You get my point. No offense.

Ummmmmmmmmmm Yoshers?

beauty = subjective
red = subjective
Truth =/= Subjective

Truth IS subjective. Facts aren't, but the 'truth' is up to interpretation. At least in this case.

I think the reason we die.....is because we accept it....as an inevitibility....

There are plenty of folks who thought they would live forever.

truth
n.
Conformity to fact or actuality.
Reality; actuality.
often Truth That which is considered to be the supreme reality and to have the ultimate meaning and value of existence.

Mowr?

gah...don't make me do this.
I just had a physical science final.
My brain hurts.


A better way of stating that was "As a Christian, and a person who has studied religions (myself knowingly far, far from being an expert in such matters), I am saying that I feel that I personally have good reason to believe why a particular sect, or group, in this case, Mormonism, is not something I believe in, and I have stated why, in the academic sense, or why I believe it is not worthy of being pursued.
However, this style of thinking is almost totally biased in terms of the 'everyone has equal rights to express religion.' And that's not by total choice, that's a side effect, of sorts. Though everyone does, and if I were in charge of a large group of multi-religious or multi-cultural people, I would not so quickly pursue my own personal beliefs, or instow upon them my personal beliefs. (separation of church and state)
However, as a believer of my faith, I also have the right to attempt to show why I believe, academically, a sect or group may be...in my opinion, ... wrong?

I guess I"m saying "I'm not trying to instow my beliefs, or force my beliefs, but I think I can prove why Mormonism (and for the sake of multi-cultures, 'IN MY OPINION,') is uncredible"

It's hard to make a religious point when people are saying things like "everyone has their own opinion, and their own right to express things" if you make a point and the result from someone of a different culture simply says "I don't htink that way." or "I have a different opinion" Of course there's controversy, but I would love to get into details with a Mormon about things I think are flaws or holes in the Mormon philosophy. I'm not trying to force anyone to believe a certain thing, but I would love to use my knowledge in matters that I believe in and attempt to fill in the gaps between the groups of "Christians and Mormons" And even in saying that, I have to take into account that many Mormons here, might think "but they're the same thing." IT's confusing

I could attempt to show why, and someone could say "I'm entitled to my opinion" and I'd want to wonder why the heck they just flew over a point and stayed with a belief without explaining it.

I don't know why I get riled up in this stuff :P.

I hope that might have cleared anything up.

You can do away with the whole 'in my opinion' crap, that doesn't bother me. In fact, adding 'in my opinion' to the end of sentences tends to irritate me.

You can also do away with the whole 'people are entitled to their opinions' crap, which seems to constitute as most of your reply. The whole 'I'm entitled to my opinion!' thing tends to irritate me as well. People have all sorts of opinions they are not entitled to. They can have them, but they are only entitled to them when they actually show that they can back them up in some way.

And no-one has a "right" to an opinion. A "right" to an "opinion" means that nobody can take away your opinion, or damage it, or whatever.
Obviously this is impossible, so a "right" to an opinion can't exist.
"Respecting" an opinion means you have to acknowledge another opinion as being as valid as your own, but this is impossible because it would mean that you would have to consider the "other" opinion as being your opinion also (as they both have an equal 'value' to you, you don't consider one superior to the other).
If this was the case, you wouldn't have an opinion at all, just 6 billion different views all of equal value.
"I respect your opinion" is incorrect.
"I respect the fact that you have a differing opinion" would be correct, and also completely useless. Congratulations, you have an opinion!

Now that we're done with all that, we can get to the meat of the actual point.



This may well have been covered in one of the previous pages of the thread, and do say if it has, but why exactly do you consider your denomination superior to all others? (and don't start the whole 'it's my opinion' crap, you do consider it superior or else you wouldn't believe it). Pointing out the flaws in Mormonism is fair enough, I assume that's what you lot have been doing in the last few pages, but that doesn't explain much about why you prefer your denomination to all others. There must be some reason why you do, unless you plan on going through and addressing logical fallacies in every single denomination in every single religion. Your logic against Buddhism was questionable enough, so I don't think this is a good idea.

When faced with innumerable options and a lack of empirical evidence pointing any of them as more legitimate than the other, a choice must be made. The reason he believes Mormonism is the correct option is because the beliefs of that group suit his needs. I wouldn't be surprised if his parents were Mormon -- not meant as a slight against Mormonism, but to say that a lot of people's religious decision (mine included) were influenced heavily by their parents.

As I see it, Mort has something messed up in him, because in the states we have a right to an opinion. There are, of course, limits to this right, or at least its expression, but it's there. Having said that, everyone has a right to their religion, also. And nobody's going to change anyone's mind on religion anytime soon. Why? Because it's a personal thing, religion. It's not something to be forced, religion or the lack thereof, by any means, but something to be offered and then left alone.

Anyone who tries "reasoning" away Christianity will fail. Same with mormonism, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism...if the person who is trying to be woo'ed away from their religion truly believes in it, you can't change their minds, no matter what you do. Accept that, and you'll be a lot better off, Mort.

Mikus--you can throw around a dictionary definition of Truth, but to be realistic, that doesn't apply to religion. There is no one right thing to believe as a group, only as individuals.

The Mormon faith is based entirely upon relatively recent historical events which never happened and can easily be proven to have never happened. So yes, I can quite easily reason Mormonism away as a wacky cult, which is something rather difficult to do in other instances.

Also, the first draft of the Book of Mormon sounded like it was written by a retard (because it was).

Yoshi, what is "Right to believe" and what is "The Truth" are completely different things. Either one of them is "True" or none of them are "True" but which ones are "Right" is a question that cannot be answered.

I'm genuinely interested in having you explain what exactly can be proved that did not occur in early Mormon history which makes it false, Jon. Don't dangle the carrot in front of us without giving us a nibble. And maybe a link to the first version of the BoM or where I could get one..

http://www.bible.ca/mor-1830-changes.htm <- A list of changes between the original edition and the modern edition, as well as the halfassed explanations the LDS tried to pull ("IT WAS GOD'S FAULT" and such).

Reality of the matter: Joseph Smith was a con artist and he was poorly-educated. Even if an angel did appear to him and tell him where to dig he would not have any knowledge of "reformed Egyptian" or how to translate it. I guess that's why he used the magic beads to do it - the same magic beads he used in every single other con he ever pulled, ever.

As for being able to find your own hard copy edition... good luck. The LDS has been hunting them down and burning them.

http://www.bible.ca/mor-questions.htm <- I'd like to hear a Mormon answer all of these, honestly. I need a good laugh.

There were two questions in there that were pretty flaky and one that simply had the wrong information (by stating a doctrine that Mormons don't nor have ever believed), but the other 300 or so are damn good questions. I think most Mormons will look at you for a second with an odd expression, do some mental gymnastics, and spout off that God changed everything so it would require faith to believe in the Book of Mormon.

Thanks for the links..

A: It's not that I see mine as superior, like I"m a nazi believing a purity in Christianity like they saw themselves as pure to the Jews. I might see mine as superior personally, on a level of personalness that might not need to be expressed to everyone, just like someone might believe that "OJ did murder his wife," they might believe that their opinion of that is superior, and just because it's not proven in court that he did doesn't mean he didn't kill her (unless you...really don't believe he killed her...in that case nevermind). I might believe my religion is superior because I believe in it and not other religions, and I do respect people with their religions, everyone has a right to believe what they believe, but there can be a select few of major religions that I know about, that I know, personally, to be false, under personal "Belief." I also, through empiricism, have discovered things that I believe back up my personal feeling beliefs.

In terms of the bible, I can, without my "feelings" getting in the way, declare, or state, openly, that I believe the bible is the most historically accurate religious text in history. The fact that it is more historically accurate, to me, means that whatever men wrote it, who must have witnessed first hand, events that occurred in these times, were telling the truth. OFten, these events involved what would seem today as "miraculous" or "Impossible," yet those things haven't been proven wrong yet (nor can they, really, but there is still proof of their possibility). The fact that whomever witnessed things in the bible had both a visual story and a historical accuracy that coincided means that there is a much stronger "CHANCE" that the bible is not false. Not to mention that the books were written at different time periods, by dozens of different men. And it's STILL used as a fairly accurate historical document.

On a side note, this is not true of the Book of Mormon, it does hold accounts, but not anywhere near the level of proven or historical accuracy, and there are many many debates about the logic, or accuracy of claims made in the book of mormon based on historical accounts of the last 300 years of U.S. History.



I don't agree with that, that's my opinion. In your opinon, what you just said is true. So you're saying that anyone can affect anyone's opinion? That sounds like some kind of dictatorship or communism. I don't think we live in a world where we can't control our thoughts

Early Christians were persecuted by people, Romans, etc. But they kept their opinon, and their religion, alive and going, even though the Romans torutred and murdered many of them to try and stop Christianity.



Umm.
http://www.contenderministries.org/mormonism/bomproblems.php



To conclude, Try not to take this personally, I'm saying this in general. (I actually wrote this before adding in that proof above)

And I might add, if a religion might actually be proven to have enough flaws to make it "uncredible" or "false" then it would be...inferior. Not in a political sense (president Bush will never say "DOWN WITH BUDDHISTS, WE'LL CONVERT ALL OF CHINA AND INDIA"), but in a religious sense (as a memeber of a religion having a serious religious conversation). I'm not talking about dictatorially stating "this religions is flawed" I'm talking about exposing flaws.
Hypothetically...that is.

...I sense fruit about to fly. *ducks*

Geez, what have I started? And forgive me for taking your link with a grain of salt, but:



1. Why is it blasphemous to suggest that we can become godlike? Such blasphemy is a man-made construct, since it is not addressed in the Bible.

2. Satan didn't mention being godlike after partaking of the fruit. (If you believe in Satan)

3. What false prophets have perpetuated the lies of godhood besides Brigham Young?

No offense, but you're so out of line that you've caused me to become defensive, and I'm a flaming exmormon for god's sake. Not for trying to debunk Mormonism but for your really weird and complacent attitude. Other religions /inferior/? I don't think so.. Snapping at people for no reason? Oh no.. you're not biased /at all/.

Well, most of Genesis is complete nonsense. Genesis states that the "heaven and earth" were created at more or less the same time. But 'heaven', that is 'space', appeared billions of years before the Earth. Our Sun is at least a "third generation" star, formed from condensed gas made from remnants of at least two supernovae from previous stars.

Genesis also claims that "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. "

The early universe was not "dark". We know from quantum mechanics that the earliest universe was a sea of quarks, followed shortly after by a sea of free nucleons and photons. Until the era of 'decoupling', about 300 000 years after the formation of the universe, the entire universe was as bright throughout as the surface of the Sun is today.

The verse refers to "the face of the waters". If this verse refers to the waters on earth, such as the ocean, it is completely wrong. The early earth had no ocean. It was not until millions of years of accretion had built up the planet that liquid water began to form, both from volcanic outgassing and from the impacts of comets attracted by the gravity of the earth.


Or, it could mean the "waters" in heaven, from which rain comes.
But we know from science that the early universe did not have any liquid water. None at all. Not even any water molecules. In fact, for a period of several hundred thousand years, it did not have any molecules of any sort. The Genesis description of water above the "firmament" is simply wrong.

Perhaps the most famous Genesis passage "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. ".
This verse has the formation of light occuring only AFTER the "waters" and the earth already existed. As noted above, this is simply wrong. The entire universe was brightly lit for its first 300,000 years of existence, billions of years before the earth came into being.

"And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
"
This verse betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of "light", one that was common to the pre-industrial peoples who wrote the Bible. During these times, it was believed that "darkness" was an element separate and distinct from "light" (see, for example, Amos 5:8, which declares that God "maketh the day dark with night"). This of course is simply not true. Darkness is nothing more than the absence of light. One can no more "separate" light from darkness than one can separate "left" from "right" or "up" from "down". Surely if these were the scribes of God then they would not fundementally misunderstand the workings of the Universe? This certainly suggests that whoever wrote this was no more than a fairly intellectual philosopher. Not a particularly good one, either, as Aristotle could have told them that was wrong.

"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. "
Notice here that there is no Sun yet, it not having yet been created. This account is thus contradicted by science on several grounds. Since a "day" is itself based on the earth's rotation near the Sun, there could have been no "day" until AFTER the sun appeared. Nor is there any cosmic source of "day light" other than the sun. Scientifically, we know that the sun actually condensed first, and was already burning nuclear fuel when the earth first began to appreciably accrete. The Genesis account, which has the earth and the "waters" formed before the Sun, is simply wrong.

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. "

Note here: God says "Let *us* make man in *our* image." Yet another leftover reference to Judaism's polytheistic past, that hadn't been edited out of the creation narratives. . . .

"And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made."

The idea here is that creation is completed - there are no new things appearing. Wrong. New species have been observed forming in the wild. Humans, despite the Genesis account, were NOT the last living things to appear.


This could go on for some time. Certain concepts are hilariously wrong, such as the 'firmament'. The writers of the Bible postulated that there must be a glass sphere above the Earth, or else stars and planets would fall down, and also that there must be a 'window' to let the rain through.


It's not just Genesis, the New Testament has various historical inaccuracies. Acts 5, Luke writes of the Pharisee Gamaliel's speech. This speech would have taken place around AD 35-40, yet it refers to Theudas' revolt of AD 46-47 as a past event. Furthermore, Gamaliel is made to say that "Judas the Galilean" raised a revolt which followed that of Theudas - but Judas' revolt was in AD 6 or 7! We know these dates from Josephus, most notably, as well as from other records.

The writers of the Bible could easily write about recent history, so anything to do with the Romans, that wasn't a problem. But they knew that they probably should talk about things that happened considerably before then too, to 'explain' the stars and planets they could see above them. From then on, it was complete guesswork, and they guessed wrong. Very wrong. More wrong than many of the Greek philosophers and astronomers of a hundred years before them.

Because, by the definition of the word, it is.

Veger: I can see where you're coming from, and you're not bugging me. I think those are good opinions... but I've had enough happen to me to believe what I believe is true. However, Jon 'C, I don't know what's your beef with people who don't believe like you. So much for open-mindness.