Moroni, a Man Unlike Any Other.

[_Chad (Swedeboy) Spjut]

LOL! I guess you have me there. I did not back up my claims to cover the already absurd claims of the Book of Mormon. Back to the sounding board of RFM I go. :)

[_Scottie]

LOL! I guess you have me there. I did not back up my claims to cover the already absurd claims of the Book of Mormon. Back to the sounding board of RFM I go. :)

Nice straw man there.

I did not ask you to back up claims that the Book of Mormon was true. I asked you to back up the very specific claim you made.

Maybe I should write a post claiming that King Benjamin was a homosexual pedophile!! After all, since the Book of Mormon is false, we can say anything we want without providing any kind of substantial evidence to back up our claim, right??

[_Chad (Swedeboy) Spjut]

Scottie, do whatever you like, cast King Benjamin in your own rendition fo CATS for all I care. I guess I really don't understand what you are wanting here. Blame it on my basic lack of intelligence, but what exactly are you getting so upset about? Did Moroni exist? Is there a chamber of treasures in Cumorah? Did men with a special calling carry each and every Nephite record to Cumorah for the benefit of Smith and Cowdery's romp in the woods together? It is all a joke, there is no defense, only magic. I have no proof, I have nothing in defense of the absurd. Nothing. I can't find it anywhere. I've looked, but the land of make believe just won't pan out. So your point is simply that I did not back up my claims, threw in a few strawmen and then I left holes in my argument about Moroni and his trip northward with plates and tapirs in tow. I feel like we are discussing whether or not Snow White actually cleaned the house and baked a pie for the seven dwarves before they came home from the mine.

Thanks for the laughs, but I just don't know how to go on further with this conversation.

[_beastie]

Well, it certainly is true that apologists don't feel it necessary to create apologia that actually relies on what the Book of Mormon itself says, so sure, in the Book of Mormon world of apologia, there could have been a whole army carrying the stuff to cumorah.

To understand Book of Mormon apologia, you just have to remember that apologists are willing to do any damage necessary to the actual text of the book in order to craft some argument that they hope will help someone, somewhere, continue to believe.

[_Scottie]

Scottie, do whatever you like, cast King Benjamin in your own rendition fo CATS for all I care. I guess I really don't understand what you are wanting here. Blame it on my basic lack of intelligence, but what exactly are you getting so upset about? Did Moroni exist? Is there a chamber of treasures in Cumorah? Did men with a special calling carry each and every Nephite record to Cumorah for the benefit of Smith and Cowdery's romp in the woods together? It is all a joke, there is no defense, only magic. I have no proof, I have nothing in defense of the absurd. Nothing. I can't find it anywhere. I've looked, but the land of make believe just won't pan out. So your point is simply that I did not back up my claims, threw in a few strawmen and then I left holes in my argument about Moroni and his trip northward with plates and tapirs in tow. I feel like we are discussing whether or not Snow White actually cleaned the house and baked a pie for the seven dwarves before they came home from the mine.

You do realize that this is a message board for Mormons and critics alike, right? Just because you claim it is false, others here believe it to be a true historical document. Comparing it to snow white is absurd.

If you want to argue the existence of evidence for the Book of Mormon, that is a different discussion. But you've been backed into a corner, and are now resorting to the equivalent of bearing your testimony. Very convincing. The only thing worse than an intellectually dishonest apologist is an intellectually dishonest critic.

If you want to make a claim about something that others believe to be true, be prepared to back up your claim. Is that so much to ask?

Thanks for the laughs, but I just don't know how to go on further with this conversation.

Thank God

[_Chad (Swedeboy) Spjut]

Huh?

[_beastie]

If you want to make a claim about something that others believe to be true, be prepared to back up your claim. Is that so much to ask?

Scottie,

You have READ the Book of Mormon, correct?

The Book of Mormon clearly states that Moroni was the last of the Nephites, hiding and running from Lamanites. What more proof do you need that he would have had to have superhuman powers to transport all that stuff (much of which is anachronistic) to Cumorah?

[_Blixa]

Chad, if I may play devil's advocate, where does it ever say that Moroni was the only one that carried all this stuff, and further, that he carried it all at once?

Perhaps this treasure cache in NY had been there for centuries. Perhaps men called of God had been making this trip for years and years, taking small amounts of documents and artifacts to be deposited in this holy treasure room. Perhaps Moroni was just the last one to put anything in there.

I still maintain that I missed my calling as an apologist...

Ok, maybe. But don't we have to go with what is actually found in the Book of Mormon? Once you start saying, "well it didn't rule out X"..you've opened yourself up to any claim: it didn't say that the plates/artifacts weren't transported by a team of trained parrots who flew alongside Moroni either.

Chad's point was to look at the account in the Book of Mormon and find implausibilities in it. Is your point really that he should be looking at what's not in the Book of Mormon, instead?

Either way it seems an overly-lengthy response to something that's not the most important thing in the world to rebut in the first place.

Unless I missed something. Which is possible.

[_Scottie]

If you want to make a claim about something that others believe to be true, be prepared to back up your claim. Is that so much to ask?

Scottie,

You have READ the Book of Mormon, correct?

The Book of Mormon clearly states that Moroni was the last of the Nephites, hiding and running from Lamanites. What more proof do you need that he would have had to have superhuman powers to transport all that stuff (much of which is anachronistic) to Cumorah?

The only thing I see in the Book of Mormon is that he took the gold plates to NY. It says NOTHING about how the rest of the items got there. So it is open to wild speculation, which is exactly what you are all doing. MAYBE he really did take everything in 1 trip. MAYBE the vault had been there for 10,000 years and people had been slowly filling it for centuries. We just don't know.

Ok, maybe. But don't we have to go with what is actually found in the Book of Mormon? Once you start saying, "well it didn't rule out X"..you've opened yourself up to any claim: it didn't say that the plates/artifacts weren't transported by a team of trained parrots who flew alongside Moroni either.

EXACTLY!!! There is NOTHING in the Book of Mormon that says how this vault was filled. So, now we have to go outside the Book of Mormon to figure out how it was filled. Well, guess what...nothing has surfaced explaining how it happened, therefore it is all wild speculation. I could just as easily speculate that he used a team of flying jaguars on Santa's sleigh to take it there, after all, could you prove me wrong???

Chad's point was to look at the account in the Book of Mormon and find implausibilities in it. Is your point really that he should be looking at what's not in the Book of Mormon, instead?

Well, if there was ANYTHING in the Book of Mormon that gave any kind of clue whatsoever as to how the items got there, I'd say yes, look in the Book of Mormon. But there isn't. Therefore, it's wild speculation. Wild speculations don't convince me. It appears that they do convince you, which is fine. Everybody has their own interpretations.

Either way it seems an overly-lengthy response to something that's not the most important thing in the world to rebut in the first place.

It sure has!! I was simply trying to say that Chad's argument has some holes in it. He's the one that started throwing straw men in, demanding that since the Book of Mormon is false that he can say whatever he wants about it, etc.


Again, let me restate that I certainly don't believe in the Book of Mormon. I think it's as much bunk as anything. I don't believe there even was a room in Cumorah that had treasure.

As I said, I was simply trying to play devil's advocate and point out what an apologist might say to discredit Chad's argument. For some reason, Chad took that as some kind of personal attack. I'm not sure why he thinks his posts shouldn't be subject to criticisms.