DiscussMormonism.com

Rodney Meldrum firmly believes the Prophet Joseph Smith as to where the Book of Mormon occurred and seems to be making a decent living at it.

Farms/MI firmly disagrees with the Prophet Joseph Smith as to where the Book of Mormon occurred and they all seem to be making a decent living at it as well.

Who has more followers? Meldrum? Probably so.

Meldrum is following his heart by following the Prophet, the original one, Joseph. He bears his testimony of the actual things that Brother Joseph wrote in his own journal which answers many of these questions.

It is easier for the average garden variety member to be a Meldrumite. It all makes sense. There is little if no risk when no archeological evidence is found. Just like the Gold plates, the city of Enoch, etc, God simply removed them from the earth.

Farms is following their mind by trying to make it all work out in their head whilst keeping their backsides in a pew. "Because it is a good way to raise a family". This one is a tough one for the Meldrumites to follow because it contains doubt and relies to heavily on the arm of flesh. They offer nothing when compared to Meldrum.

Mormon members need Meldrumism. It gives them something physical to cling to like the xtians and the perceived physical things of the old world which seem to testify of Christ.

Farms offers nothing but vast libraries of shifting plausible explanations, while Brother Meldrum offers his sincere testimony.

If I was say, like my inlaws, I'd probably be a Meldrumite. Heck even Steve Young is one!

Take a look at Meldrum's website. It is chock full of things like this:

The Hill Cumorah Monument : The monument on the top of the Hill Cumorah in Palmyra, New York, USA. This is the hill where the ancient record inscribed on gold plates is understood to have been buried and where Joseph Smith was directed to receive them for translation. This is also the hill around which the people of two ancient civilizations perished in war.

One fatal flaw. Is there anything doctrinal to the purported Joseph Smith's belief in the Book of Mormon location? If not, then prefixing this belief with Joseph Smith's stanmp of approval is meaningless.

bcspace wrote:One fatal flaw. Is there anything doctrinal to the purported Joseph Smith's belief in the Book of Mormon location? If not, then prefixing this belief with Joseph Smith's stanmp of approval is meaningless.

It doesn't matter one way or the other the majority of Mormons believe it.

One fatal flaw. Is there anything doctrinal to the purported Joseph Smith's belief in the Book of Mormon location? If not, then prefixing this belief with Joseph Smith's stanmp of approval is meaningless.

It doesn't matter one way or the other the majority of Mormons believe it.

Numbers of believers does not the truth make. I certainly don't get the impression the majority of Mormons accept an HGT or a North American LGT.

bcspace wrote:Numbers of believers does not the truth make. I certainly don't get the impression the majority of Mormons accept an HGT or a North American LGT.

Numbers still don't matter. I was taught exactly what is in Steve Young's blog posted above. I know lots of Mormons, related to most of them, they believe the same thing. I haven't met but about two members outside of the internet that even know what LGT is and they are associated with the university here.

You can argue doctrine and not doctrine all you want but the church I know and the majority of the people in it that I know treats this as fact, In other words as truth.

in my opinion, it would be best for Thommy to drop the hammer on Farms. If anything, their so-called research only casts doubt and confusion to the core of the membership.

Meldrumism is not new and only requires faith in God and his servant Joseph.

It is easy to pull the God card with Meldrumism. OTOH, Farmism removes god from the ancient history of the church.

Numbers still don't matter. I was taught exactly what is in Steve Young's blog posted above.

Out of a manual?

I know lots of Mormons, related to most of them, they believe the same thing.

I know a few.

I haven't met but about two members outside of the internet that even know what LGT is and they are associated with the university here.

But I know many who place the Book of Mormon lands in Central America and accept the notion of two Cumorah's

You can argue doctrine and not doctrine all you want but the church I know and the majority of the people in it that I know treats this as fact, In other words as truth.

But since such does not the truth make, it doesn't matter.

If anything, their so-called research only casts doubt and confusion to the core of the membership.

CFR.

I mention two Cumorah's and teach implicitly the existence of various LGT's in Gospel Doctrine in my capacity as teacher and no one bats an eye.

Here's a question for you guys. How religiously do you think a "chapel" Mormon reads the Ensign?

bcspace wrote:CFR.

Sorry, I cannot publish names of family members and former LDS friends.

bcspace wrote:I mention two Cumorah's and teach implicitly the existence of various LGT's in Gospel Doctrine in my capacity as teacher and no one bats an eye.

ROFL, Closed and droopy eyes do not bat. Seriously, here's a question for you, how many garden variety members even listen in GD?

bcspace wrote:Here's a question for you guys. How religiously do you think a "chapel" Mormon reads the Ensign?

In my experience most did read it word for word and cover to cover, but for many it is a chore like reading the damn Book of Mormon or giving a damn in GD class. Most of it is boring.

CFR.

Sorry, I cannot publish names of family members and former LDS friends.

In other words, you have no evidence?

I mention two Cumorah's and teach implicitly the existence of various LGT's in Gospel Doctrine in my capacity as teacher and no one bats an eye.

ROFL, Closed and droopy eyes do not bat.

Good thing we don't meet at 9:00 am.

Seriously, here's a question for you, how many garden variety members even listen in GD?

Quite a few judging by the fact that I typically can't get through one third of the lesson because of discussion and comments.

Here's a question for you guys. How religiously do you think a "chapel" Mormon reads the Ensign?

In my experience most did read it word for word and cover to cover, but for many it is a chore like reading the damn Book of Mormon or giving a damn in GD class. Most of it is boring.

My experience tells me most did not miss Sorenson's 1984 two parter or else they read something similar.

Meldrum and FARMS/MI are like two "non-overlapping magisteria" a la Gould - the one is for those in the church who want to believe in science, archeology, etc. and still believe in the church, and the other is for those who don't want to believe in science, archeology, etc. and still believe in the church.

And there are plenty of both kinds of people in the church.

Meldrumism is so easy to find in the LDS church because magical thinking is rampant throughout the entire story, from Adam and Eve, to the Flood, to the talking animals, to the disappearing Golden Plates, to the Three Nephites, and all the rest of it. It makes it very easy to believe that either God hid all of the evidence, but it will come to light some day, or else there is some kind of conspiracy of science to cover up the way things "really are" to keep people away from The Truth.

And then there are the Mormons who took science seriously in school, went to college, etc., do not believe the conspiracy of science crap, know that evolution is real, homo sapiens have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, there was no global Flood of Noah, etc. and have to find ways of reconciling their religious beliefs with the cruel reality of a world that came about entirely differently than their Prophets have taught in the past. These people are able and willing to take "reality" so far in their beliefs, but in the end, the Church is still True, and so they have to find ways to explain things in ways so that "reality" and their Church don't conflict.

There's no getting around this. It will be interesting to watch the friction at the intersection of these two paradigms, and watch how it unfolds.