Amazing new Book of Mormon Evidence!!!!!

[Tator]

Hm, maybe it's attention getting behavior. Has it been too long since I mentioned her or something? Has her ego been wounded by the lack of attention?

Now she's talking about sea trade, as if any of this supports her hope that ancient Mesoamerica engaged in metallurgy in the appropriate time period. Yes, we know people traded. Artifacts have been identified that were the result of trade. This doesn't alter reality, which is that there is zero evidence that the ancient Mesoamericans practiced metallurgy during the Book of Mormon period. That is the topic, not whether or not ancient Mesoamericans could possibly have traded with other groups. Of course they did.

Oh well, it will be entertaining to see how much smoke she tries to blow. Just how much diversion can she provide to help those who doubt stop paying attention to a very inconvenient fact?

For those interested in documentation from experts, you know, the sort you read in all those books...

http://zarahemlacitylimits.com/wiki/ind ... _Artifacts

PS - don't tell Juliann, but I talked about trade right in that essay:

Although iron mirrors were fairly common, gold was not, at least in the specified Book of Mormon time period. From Linda Schele’s The Code of Kings, page 158:

“The Substella Offering (Copan)
Hard-packed earth and tree roots completely filled the cruciform vault under this stela. Nevertheless, archaeologists found many fragments of beads made of jade and other material, bits of jade plaques, two shells, and most important, a pair of gold legs, one broken below and the other above the knee. Analysis of the gold suggests its origin was Panamanian or Colombian. This find in the substela cache at Copan represents the earliest known appearance of gold in the Maya area, and implies the trade connections with lower Central America were in place by AD 750.”

I will say that the funniest thing about Book of Mormon apologetics is that it has become so desperate, that just the mere fact that exploration continues and discoveries continue becomes, somehow, a rebuttal to critics. :O

[_christopher]

Yes, you're right, there is no point. What harm is there in letting people bask in ill-merited self-satisfaction. Life can be hard, maybe that's all they've got.

Exactly....that is all they've got. Broad sweeps, Ed Decker's garbage, and the letters NHM. And because that is all that they've got, the only one's they will have talking about it are of the like of Julian and Pahoran, etc.

Not too convincing unless someone doesn't look into it, or just wants to believe.

Chris <><

[_beastie]

Not too convincing unless someone doesn't look into it, or just wants to believe.

Exactly. That is the target audience. You can tell by the misleading statements apologists insert into their apologia - misleading statements that anyone with a certain degree of background knowledge in the subject would immediately recognize. They are relying on the fact that their audience will not recognize these misleading assertions, either because they don't have the background information to do so, or because they do not want to see the misleading nature of these assertions.

That's who apologia is for. It's for people who already believe for other reasons (familial, tradition, spiritual reasons) and simply want to feel good about believing in something that appears to be an illogical and unsupported belief. And, in that respect, it does its job. It even allows people like Juliann to feel superior. Now that has got to be worth something.

[_beastie]

And, by the way, why is she pretending that Runtu has not been upfront about his identity?

[_truth dancer]

Book of Mormon apologetics is getting to be just plain silly. :-)

I've asked before...

Is there one non-LDS archaeologist/anthropologist/linguist/Mesoamerican expert in the entire world, who thinks there is even a possibility that the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be, or that the Book of Mormon is a record of a group of people in Mesoamerica?

No one need rely on critics, or silly people, or Beastie for information and expertise.... lets go with the world's known experts on the subject.

I think the only thing for the church to do here is go with the metaphorical idea...

Give it another couple decades... :-)

~dancer~

[_Bond...James Bond]

I've asked before...

Is there one non-LDS archaeologist/anthropologist/linguist/Mesoamerican expert in the entire world, who thinks there is even a possibility that the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be, or that the Book of Mormon is a record of a group of people in Mesoamerica?

No one need rely on critics, or silly people, or Beastie for information and expertise.... lets go with the world's known experts on the subject.

I made a History professor laugh outloud once when I asked him "So do you think there's a chance the Book of Mormon is historically accurate?". Thankfully I didn't embarrass any of my LDS classmates as I asked the professor after class.

[_Runtu]

And, by the way, why is she pretending that Runtu has not been upfront about his identity?

I have no idea. As she is a mod, I'm sure she was involved in the conversation about my reappearance.

What I find interesting is that she seems to think that you and I go way back and therefore I have been following your exchanges with her. I don't remember having any interaction with you until early this year when that whole brouhaha started about pottery, and I certainly had no idea you had any history with Juliann. It wasn't until several weeks ago that you and I figured out that we had both been on a.r.m. years ago, but even then we didn't have any interaction.

I suppose I'm growing up a little because it doesn't bother me in the least to have someone accuse me of having a disingenuous "MO." It just doesn't matter much.

[_The Dude]

John Clark said that LGT is the last hope in his BYU devotional:

Well, for example, you had this flap about DNA recently. ... The DNA question is never going to be a problem. It only works one way, and in our favor. But the only reason that it looked like a flap or a problem is because they say: Well, Mormons believe (first of all they tell us what we believe) Mormons believe that all Indians in North and South America descended from these people who came over that are described in the Book of Mormon. I grew up believing that—but that's false, that's absolutely wrong.
And so once you say there were other people here, you say: OK, where were the Nephites, and how many more people were here. We have all kinds of other DNA signatures to worry about all of a sudden. It may be that we never find any Hebrew DNA (whatever that looks like) in the New World. ... But if we do find some, that's fine; if we don't find some, that's fine too. There's no way that negative evidence on that hurts the Book of Mormon whatsoever once you believe in a limited geography. If you believe in a global geography, you're basically done, toasted, game over.

So DNA and growing understanding of ancient America has certainly forced the "intelligentsia" of the LDS church to change strategies and overwhelmingly embrace LGT.

The last two lines (italic) are part of my signature line over on MAD board, but the whole quote from John Clark is very interesting because he's so candid -- about what he was taught growing up, which was "false" and "absolutely wrong", and how LGT is a safe haven for intellectuals who are concerned about the scientific picture of ancient American history. Few apologists are so upfront about the role and purpose of different "limited" theories.

Beastie, do you have a reference for this quote? Thanks!

[_Blixa]

The last two lines (italic) are part of my signature line over on MAD board, but the whole quote from John Clark is very interesting because he's so candid -- about what he was taught growing up, which was "false" and "absolutely wrong", and how LGT is a safe haven for intellectuals who are concerned about the scientific picture of ancient American history. Few apologists are so upfront about the role and purpose of different "limited" theories.

Beastie, do you have a reference for this quote? Thanks!

It is remarkably candid. First, I love the tone, which is that of a rhetorical strategist, not someone talking about religious belief or spiritual truth. Second, I love this insane contradiction: "(first of all they tell us what we believe)...I grew up believing that..." Can he not see that he just gave the lie to his knee-jerk parenthetical sneer?

[_Sethbag]

Some people say that the Book of Abraham problems are worse and that the Church has gone through worse than proof that the Book of Mormon is not historical. I just can't conceive it. I can't see how the Church would survive if this conclusion became as scientifically sound as say any evolution or other new discoveries that challenged false beliefs.

It really doesn't matter what the scientists say. Since when does a devout LDS member need a scientist to tell them things, when they have a prophet, and a direct line to God? If the scientist isn't LDS, then he won't be credible. You'll get some apostates, as evidenced by the many of us on these boards, but by and large the worst you'll see is people who admit that there are problems with the story, but they know it's true and they'll just wait until they die for God to show them how the conundrum is solved.