Believing in Mormonism requires believing in....

[_Coggins7]

Oh, I love this. You’ve slid all the way down the slippery slope to cdowis’ favorite cliché: archaeologists don’t know nuttin. They just look at a bunch of rubble and BS.

Again, just to reassure me you’re not talking out of your (you know where) please cite the books you’ve read on the subject of the science of archaeology that enables you to make such an assertion with confidence.

Again you must force an all-or-nothing position upon apologists where none exists. Archeology, in Mesoamerica, is, relatively speaking, an infant discipline. We do not know that we have enough knowledge to make sweeping claims for all time about those cultures and peoples because we have no baseline from which to make such a judgment.

Now, you have yet to explain the existence of Ebla.

[_beastie]

Coggins,

Still waiting for those book lists and the "highly christian-like" beliefs/practices of ancient Mesoamerica.

It's time to put up or shut up, and admit you're talking about of your (you know where).*




*of course I'm not delusional enough to imagine that Coggins would ever admit he's speaking out of ignorance. Just stressing my point.

[_Coggins7]

One cop out after another. Now were on to the credentialism.

Just run away from what you know to be the obvious and likely truths Beastie...and then keep running. But don't spill any of your eggs. Just one more dig Beastie; one new civilization, one new people, one new Temple complex, or a Rosetta Stone with which to finally translate some of those languages we don't understand, and "poof!", there goes all of your certain knowledge and absolute pronouncements. There goes Metcalf, Hutchinson, KG, Signature, all into the septic tank of interested revisionist history.

I can't remember the books I've read over the last 25 years about this subject, but I used to read BAR a great deal, and if old world archeology is similar to new world, and it is, then everything I've said is correct. And the fact does remain that only a tiny fraction of Mesoamerican sites have ever been excavated, and much of what we know about ancient Mesoamerican societies at present is theoretical and speculative reconstruction. Don't try to fool or humor me with the credentialist argument please.

Mesoamerican archeology is in its youth, and we will yet see...

[_beastie]

It’s not “credentialism”. The fact is that you’ve made several assertions about Mesoamerican archaeology that I’d like you to back up. You won’t. You can't. You clearly haven’t studied Mesoamerican archaeology in particular, yet you feel qualified to make sweeping pronouncements about what we could or could not know about the subject. You won’t even back up your assertion that ancient Mesoamerica had “highly Christian-like” practices or beliefs. For heaven’s sake, you apparently thought that the metallurgy in the Book of Mormon was a “hit” with Mesoamerica. I would guess you know next to nothing about the subject, aside from frantic google searches.

Despite your best attempts to blow smoke and mirrors, that much is obvious.

Here’s one example that demonstrates how little you know. It is true that only a fraction of possible Mesoamerican sites have been excavated, but enough have been thoroughly excavated AND provided enough evidence that scholars have a good idea of what the pervasive world-view was. The most powerful polities of the area expressed this view, and had great influence over all the other polities, as well. It was a type of “copy cat” phenomenon of sorts that we still see in the world today. The social complexity described in the Book of Mormon indicates that any polity that could possibly qualify as a Book of Mormon polity would be one of the most powerful polities in the period – and yet had zero impact on the others.

So for it to be feasible that a massive Judeo Christian civilization once thrived in Mesoamerica, everything scholars currently accept about Mesoamerica would have to be discarded as erroneous. That was possible prior to the decoding of the Maya glyphs, but today, it is very unlikely. I would say the probability of discovering, in the future, that there really was a massive Judeo Christian civilization is about as likely as discovering that aliens really did build the Egyptian pyramids.

But people like you can always hope. I think of you as the "know nuttin's". Your only refuge is to insist that archaeologists really "know nuttin" about ancient Mesoamerica - and, of course, don't bother to educate yourself enough to know better.

[_Coggins7]

You're a fakakta blowhard Beastie, you and KG. Broad, sweeping gneralizations in the humanities have been overturned before and they will be overturned again.

And besides, I don't recognize you as a competent archaeologist or historian, and I don't know anyone who does. I'm not at all sure, precisely because I don't know Mesoamerican archeology in fine detail, that what your telling me is really all that close to the truth, the point being, who are you to tell me what Archeology says or does not say about the Book of Mormon?

I'm not at all sure, based upon a life long pursuit of both archeology and history, that what you say regarding what modern archaeologists think they know and the certainty with which they know it is anything close to the truth-the truth that has yet to be unearthed in ancient America.

I don't trust your analysis, in the last analysis. Despite your claimed educational background on the subject, you are frankly far too interested, far too partison, and far too tendentious to be trusted in many points. Its just all to important to you that the Book of Mormon and the Church be impugned for me to take your more broad generalizations seriously. All of your study and scholarship, to the extent that you have ever done any of any substance, is aimed at destroying the Church, not on discovering the truth, whatever that might be.

And that's the point.

[_beastie]

I'm not asking you to trust anything I say about ancient Mesoamerica, and I'm certainly not presenting myself as an archaeologist or historian. I'm asking you to educate yourself before making your sweeping (and, in some cases, ridiculous) pronouncements. You clearly have not, and since I've exposed that fact, have been busy blowing smoke to try and divert attention from that fact.

I've given up on the book lists, since obviously they don't exist, but I'd still like to know what "highly christian-like" beliefs or practices existed in ancient Mesoamerica. Maybe you can do a google search and put together some lame attempt to salvage yourself.

[_Coggins7]

I

'm not asking you to trust anything I say about ancient Mesoamerica, and I'm certainly not presenting myself as an archaeologist or historian. I'm asking you to educate yourself before making your sweeping (and, in some cases, ridiculous) pronouncements. You clearly have not, and since I've exposed that fact, have been busy blowing smoke to try and divert attention from that fact.

This is nothing more than secularist, atheist, humanist, liberal verbiage and intellectual oneupsmanship using archeology in the service of a personal agenda, and for that reason, I don't trust it.

I also have what you do not have, a authentic testimony of the Gospel, and I'm not going to betray that for a pig pile of guesstimates, assumptions, and speculations mixed with the fragmented and ambiguous factual surface features of long dead ancient cultures. The Book of Mormon is true, and historic, there is no doubt about that fundamental reality. The fact that you don't know--and don't want to know--this for yourself, is the real question.

[_Brackite]

Magic rocks? I do believe in magic rocks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_rocks

http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/magicrocks.htm

[_beastie]

Now those are magic rocks even I can believe in. :)

This is nothing more than secularist, atheist, humanist, liberal verbiage and intellectual oneupsmanship using archeology in the service of a personal agenda, and for that reason, I don't trust it.

Do you even read what you supposedly just responded to? I swear it's like talking to a wall... a wall, that when cornered, bears a testimony and thinks that Trump's all. In other words, a Mormon wall.

Yeah, someone already added that to the list: to be a fully believing Mormon, you have to believe that your "testimony" Trump's all other knowledge and information. You have to be willing to have this supreme confidence in your ability despite the fact that past prophets have a pretty bad track record at figuring out what God said to them.

[_beastie]

by the way - when a Mormon finally bears his/her testimony as a response, it's their way of saying "uncle".