My First Encounters with Institutional Mormonism

[_Brackite]

I "laughed" at Murphy DNA (then Southerton).....

Mormons had LONG known that most natives of the America's were of Asiatic decent.
There was nothing "new" by such a revelation.
Lamanites were always everyone Non-Nephite, and the Book of Mormon's version of the Bibles "Gentile".

The Following is From Brent L. Metcalfe:

Moreover, Nephites don’t label as Lamanite every non-Nephite they find. Amaleki, for instance, details Mosiah’s discovery of “a people, who were called the people of Zarahemla,” not Lamanites (Omni 1:14). Consistent with Lehi’s prophetic promise (2 Ne. 1:9, and passim), these people “came out from Jerusalem . . . brought by the hand of the Lord” (Omni 1:15–16). Amaleki adds that “their language had become corrupted” so that neither “Mosiah, nor the people of Mosiah, could understand them. 16 This is a clear example of a Nephite encounter with a foreign group of “others”—not considered Lamanite or Nephite—but Israelite nevertheless.

16. Omni 1:17. From the narrator’s viewpoint, the Mulekites probably lost their pristine mother tongue because, unlike the Lehite party, they “brought no records with them” (ibid.; see also 1 Ne. 3:19 [cf. Mosiah 1:2–5]).

(Link: http://www.sunstonemagazine.com/pdf/131%2020-25.pdf )

[_Nightlion]

Thus, either way you cut it, anti-mormon claims concerning the DNA somehow "debunking Mormonism" is ONE BIG LIE!!!!

ldsfaqs,

You need to be careful when you characterize the evidence backed consensus of the scientific community on the issue of pre-Columbian New World DNA as just one big lie.

You look especially silly making this claim when better and more precise the analytical techniques become available(especially for mtDNA) and continually provide yet more evidence that supports the consensus scientific view. This view is that there were no contributions to the pre-Columbian genome by trans-oceanic migrations. If the Lehites even existed (and there is no evidence whatsoever that the ever did), they certainly did not make it to the New World before Columbus.

Here is an article that explains, in very simple terms, what is going on here. If you do not wish to actually read about the scientific findings that contradict your unfounded belief, then perhaps a look at the picture below will help.

This is a graphic put together by Dr. Southernton that shows that, in direct contradiction of LDS Church claims for more than 150 years, the Polynesians are not related to the "Lamanites" of the New World. There is no New World DNA (and hence no "Lamanite" DNA) in any of the Polynesian native populations.

This finding alone shows that the whole Book of Mormon narrative, as well as published revelations, claims and statements by prophets of the Church and Church leaders, and the tall tales told by LDS missionaries to the Polynesian people, were all (and I don't know how else to put this) lies. There was not, and is not, a scintilla of truth in these claims.

Don't show your fast and loose side so easily. Calling the Book of Mormon a lie because LDS enthusiast told the Polynesian people that they were related to the Lamanites is a bit much. What published revelation said the Polynesians were Book of Mormon people? The Book of Mormon identified themselves and those people on the islands of the sea.

Oh, yeah, you got to figure too that on all those islands it was the Big People who ate the little people when things got scares. Obvious in the size of the modern descendants. That constricts the DNA sampling quite unnaturally, wouldn't you suppose? A kinder thought is that only the big guys and their women were able to paddle to the next island to eat when things got scarce. Which ever. No offense intended. It's an observable fact.

[_tapirrider]

Nightlion said:
"Don't show your fast and loose side so easily. Calling the Book of Mormon a lie because LDS enthusiast told the Polynesian people that they were related to the Lamanites is a bit much. What published revelation said the Polynesians were Book of Mormon people?"


Is it acceptable to call the First Presidency of the Mormon church "LDS enthusiasts"? The First Presidency wrote a letter to the Maori people in 1911.

http://LDS.org/new-era/1981/06/maori-tr ... h?lang=eng

“The Lord … directed their course away from this continent [America] to their [the Polynesian ancestors’] island homes, that they might not be left to be preyed upon and destroyed by the more wicked part of the House of Israel whose descendants still roam upon this continent in a fallen and degraded state. … This is the secret of the overruling hand of providence which has been over you all from that time until you received the gospel through the preaching of the elders, and until the present time. …"

“And we repeat, the reason that few of the islands of the sea have been more highly favored and blessed in the Lord than those of your brethren of this continent is because of the worthiness of your forefathers who were led away and separated from their brethren of this continent, and because of the blessing of the Lord which has attended you, their children, from that time to the present.”

In 1911 the First Presidency told the Maori that they were more righteous than the American Indian. The First Presidency said that the American Indian were in "a fallen and degraded state". It came right from the living Mormon prophet of 1911. Or was he just an "enthusiast"? I see a pattern with the Mormon prophets. They say things that are not correct. Members later on claim that it was not revelation. Like when Spencer W. Kimball told the world in the October 1960 General Conference that American Indian children were turning white. Is the Mormon church a religion that allows its top leaders to make such strange statements without revelation? Members believe the words of the Mormon prophets. It seems quite loose and reckless.

[_Nightlion]

Hey NL (Good to see you back on the board. Hope all is well) :)

But then they also just fart like inbred dogs all day long

Do inbred dogs really fart all day long?

Peace,
Ceeboo

I was thinking of you lately.

I linked a Benedictine Monk's Bible Proofs & Miracles video the other day.
Made me think of you. That guy was sharp and well thought out. He was proving
the Catholics true by the power of miracles. I thought that was really great.
I will give you link if you want.

Without ceasing do they fart the day away.

[_DrW]

While there are slight variations in estimates as to how long ago the Beringia migration started and when it ended, there is complete consensus among mainstream scientists, based on genetics and archeology, that there were simply no trans-oceanic contributions to the pre-Columbian New World genome - period.

LOL WHAT? LOL Oh my gosh, wiping tears from my eyes. LOL Oh, geez. LOL Oh, hell. Stop it.
Science has concluded that the New World remained isolated for over ten thousand years. Period.
How likely is that? LOL

Exaggerated for truth.

Here is what I said, NL:

Best evidence now suggests that there was a 10,000 to 15,000 year "hold up" in migration during which these ancestors of the New World Native Americans were reproductively isolated, either in Siberia or Beringia, before they were able to move on in to North America and expand south and east.

Here is how the original authors stated this conclusion:

Or, to express this first conclusion another way, the ancestors of Native Americans who first left Siberia for greener pastures perhaps as much as 30,000 years ago, came to a standstill on Beringia – a landmass that existed during the last glacial maximum that extended from Northeastern Siberia to Western Alaska, including the Bering land bridge – and they were isolated there long enough – as much as 15,000 years – to maturate and differentiate themselves genetically from their Asian sisters.

If you disagree with these conclusions, as stated by me or by the original authors, then you are taking a position that is diametrically opposed to science, which is, of course, your right.

[_Nightlion]

Here is what I said, NL:

Best evidence now suggests that there was a 10,000 to 15,000 year "hold up" in migration during which these ancestors of the New World Native Americans were reproductively isolated, either in Siberia or Beringia, before they were able to move on in to North America and expand south and east.

Here is how the original authors stated this conclusion:

Or, to express this first conclusion another way, the ancestors of Native Americans who first left Siberia for greener pastures perhaps as much as 30,000 years ago, came to a standstill on Beringia – a landmass that existed during the last glacial maximum that extended from Northeastern Siberia to Western Alaska, including the Bering land bridge – and they were isolated there long enough – as much as 15,000 years – to maturate and differentiate themselves genetically from their Asian sisters.

If you disagree with these conclusions, as stated by me or by the original authors, then you are taking a position that is diametrically opposed to science, which is, of course, your right.

hmm? I will have to practice my science reading. But are you still saying that for all that time there were no human inhabitants of the Americas? And you are somehow asserting that the Native Americans are NOT so much Asian after all, to the point of not being able to link them to any known locale or people? Sorry I mocked so loudly, but it is absurd that you come off so certain about things happening just so when that was so very long ago and way out of the reach of reason.

You may not have notice but I lack no shyness in being opposed to most everything.

[_ldsfaqs]

Did Joseph Smith lie? Did the resurrected Moroni that came into Joseph Smith's bedroom lie? Smith's own words are in his journal.

http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSumma ... %931836#25

"he [Moroni] said the indians, were the literal descendants of Abraham"

That is "literal", not spiritually speaking. If Joseph Smith did not lie, an ancestor of American Indians came to Joseph Smith and told him who the Indians were, "literally".

Ever heard of the 12 Tribes of Israel.....? EVERYONE is related to Abraham.

Further, ever read a Patriarchal Blessing? In most cases everyone knows it's a spiritual lineage, not a literal one. But we also know that in some cases it is literal.

The Church nor God doesn't make a distinction between literal and spiritual. Because spiritual is also literal.

And ldsfaqs, when you talk about dominant ancestors you are referring to people that lived long before Adam and Eve. People whose descendants were not killed in a world wide flood. When you talk about Lehi and the Mulekites mixing with other people, those others would not have even originated with Adam and Eve. bcspace thinks that they did not have spirits that were even the children of God. What do you think about that?

I'm not going to talk about pre-Adamites. No, I'm talking about that DNA doesn't determine every single Ancestor. If anti-mormons didn't cherry pick their DNA arguments, they would know that genetic drift entirely debunks their argument.

A small party inserting into the America's the year they did, and the number of years since, Lehi's DNA WOULD in fact be in nearly every single native american. Yes, it wouldn't almost at all be detectable because the dominate DNA in the region would show instead, i.e the millions over the years who migrated from Asia.

Let me give another example. History knows of many groups who traveled to the America's, had sex, and even settled. These small groups are rarely found DNA speaking. The main group Asiatic is dominant.

Anyway, any way you cut it, it's not the science that is wrong, it's anti-mormon usage, mis-usage, and false assumptions concerning it and Mormonism.

[_ldsfaqs]

I "laughed" at Murphy DNA (then Southerton).....

Mormons had LONG known that most natives of the America's were of Asiatic decent.
There was nothing "new" by such a revelation.
Lamanites were always everyone Non-Nephite, and the Book of Mormon's version of the Bibles "Gentile".

Mormons NEVER have believed that Lamanites were "only" those descended from Lamen/Lemuel.

That was an anti-mormon strawman created by Murphy and Southerton.

The Following is From the 12th President of the LDS Church, Spencer W. Kimball:

With pride I tell those who come to my office that a Lamanite is a descendant of one Lehi who left Jerusalem six hundred years before Christ and with his family crossed the mighty deep and landed in America. And Lehi and his family became the ancestors of all of the Indian and Mestizo tribes in North and South and Central America and in the islands of the sea, for in the middle of their history there were those who left America in ships of their making and went to the islands of the sea.
Not until the revelations of Joseph Smith, bringing forth the Book of Mormon, did any one know of these migrants. It was not known before, but now the question is fully answered. Now the Lamanites number about sixty million; they are in all of the states of America from Tierra del Fuego all the way up to Point Barrows, and they are in nearly all the islands of the sea from Hawaii south to southern New Zealand. The Church is deeply interested in all Lamanites because of these revelations and because of this great Book of Mormon, their history that was written on plates of gold and deposited in the hill. The translation by the Prophet Joseph Smith revealed a running history for one thousand years—six hundred years before Christ until four hundred after Christ—a history of these great people who occupied this land for that thousand years. Then for the next fourteen hundred years, they lost much of their high culture. The descendants of this mighty people were called Indians by Columbus in 1492 when he found them here.
The term Lamanite includes all Indians and Indian mixtures, such as the Polynesians, the Guatemalans, the Peruvians, as well as the Sioux, the Apache, the Mohawk, the Navajo, and others. It is a large group of great people.

(Link: http://LDS.org/ensign/1971/07/of-royal-blood?lang=eng )




(Bold Emphasized Mine.)

Is "A"..... he didn't say "only". You can't put words into his mouth and be telling the truth.
Further, the Book of Mormon itself identify's two kinds of Lamanite, one is the literal descendant from Laman/Lemual, and the other is other groups and adopted, a "generic" name to describe anyone non-Nephite.

Quote mine all you want, but that just makes you anti-mormon, not a truth teller.
My views didn't come out of thin air..... They came from being a Mormon, reading the Book of Mormon, hearing the words of my leaders, and studying LDS scholarship, and comparing it to anti-mormon claims.

I know my religion, you do not.

[_moksha]

History knows of many groups who traveled to the America's, had sex, and even settled.

I understand that nowadays that Thailand is the favored destination for this sort of thing.

[_ldsfaqs]

While there are slight variations in estimates as to how long ago the Beringia migration started and when it ended, there is complete consensus among mainstream scientists, based on genetics and archeology, that there were simply no trans-oceanic contributions to the pre-Columbian New World genome - period.

LOL WHAT? LOL Oh my gosh, wiping tears from my eyes. LOL Oh, geez. LOL Oh, hell. Stop it.
Science has concluded that the New World remained isolated for over ten thousand years. Period.
How likely is that? LOL

Exaggerated for truth.

No kidding..... Talk about "science denier".....

Everyone knows those who actually study history and the sciences to any reasonable degree knows that there were MANY migrations from both East and West, both sides of the planet. Anyone that thinks only Spaniards visited the America's and none else from Vikings to Hebrews to Chinese to Arabs to Solomon to Christians, etc. is living in fantasy land.