If that sounds too general ask how these immagrants managed to establish political independence from the power groups already in controll of the land.
And this is precisely a major area in which Beastie's many hypothetical scenarios bottom out in the shallows. Central and South America are vast landmasses, and in ancient times, there was plenty of room for newcomers to grow. There is no reason whatever to think that new groups could not establish themselves in their formative stages in essential isolation from other groups, and only later engage in cross cultural fertilization.
And nothing prevents early Nephite cultural attributes from achieving a hegemonic position by displacing other cultural attributes, and this could have happened quite without bloodshed. Its happened many times before (early medieval Europe, for example).
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.
I think you just hit the nail on the head. The Three Nephites and visions and speaking in tongues are embarrassing. To modern sensibilities, they are the marks of an uneducated and superstitious people. And no Latter-day Saint wants to be associated with that.
And this statement represents both the grossest ignorance of what the vast majority of both the educated and uneducated faithful members of the Church believe as well as the most obnoxious modernist conceits regarding our supposed "enlightened" status as over against the sorry primitives who pray over their meals and anoint others heads with oil in expectation of healing and comfort.
My stomach is beginning to knot...
It's only knotting because you don't like being reminded of some of the more silly aspects of your religion. Face it, you don't like talking to non-mormons about the Three Nephites, or the protective powers of the garments, or the healing powers of priesthood blessings, or seeing visions, because you would be throwing pearls before swine, plus it's embarassing. I know I never talked about that stuff with non-members. I preferred to talk about Jesus and families.
"We of this Church do not rely on any man-made statement concerning the nature of Deity. Our knowledge comes directly from the personal experience of Joseph Smith." - Gordon B. Hinckley
"It's wrong to criticize leaders of the Mormon Church even if the criticism is true." - Dallin H. Oaks
It's only knotting because you don't like being reminded of some of the more silly aspects of your religion. Face it, you don't like talking to non-mormons about the Three Nephites, or the protective powers of the garments, or the healing powers of priesthood blessings, or seeing visions, because you would be throwing pearls before swine, plus it's embarassing. I know I never talked about that stuff with non-members. I preferred to talk about Jesus and families.
Honk, if you like bacon.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance.
Oh please don't try to teach the class when you cannot even earn a passing grade on this basic principle. You seem to think DNA gets diluted over time, but ask yourself what it gets diluted with...? Can't answer that? Because it doesn't get diluted, it just gets scrambled by recombination events. So you still have countless DNA smidgens of all your ancestors. ALL OF THEM. I don't think DNA is diluted. I have heard that you are involved in some scholarly pursuit related to genetics. I am sure you have heard the old saw, "I would gladly give my life for my brother, or eight of my cousins." This, for those who don't understand genetics, means that if the purpose of your life is to see that your DNA gets into the next generation, (Darwinism) you are likely to have DNA in common with a close relative such as brother, but that it takes 8 cousins, statistically, collectively, to provide the same DNA as yours for a succeeding generation. The DNA is not diluted. But your grandfather's DNA doesn't just pass along unmixed to his descendants, either.
The only DNA that doesn't get scrambled is the mtDNA and the Y DNA, and so it faithfully represents one maternal and one paternal ancestor. Completely the opposite of what you seem to think. I understand that, and have posted that. But this only accounts for the very left hand slot of your pedigree on your father's side if you are a male, and not at all if you are female, and the very right hand slot of your pedigree, male and female. And what percentage of your ancestors are represented that way? By the 5th generation back you have had 28 male and 28 female progenitors. 1 line is represented in the Y chromosome. This leaves 23 males who have no contribution to the Y line. Same for women's mtDNA. 5 of the 28 females are represented in the mt line. So what happens to all those unrepresented male and female progenitors?
This isn't dilution. This is extinction. As for as Y and mtDNA goes for those lines poor 23 lines each.
thestyleguy wrote:Here Charity: you can learn a lot about geneology from this video: It takes about fifty minutes to watch but would likely save you writing time in the long run. It gives a very simple lesson on tracing your lineage.
Will The Dude be holding Genetics 101 classes anytime soon (I'm looking for Spring Semester classes)?
"Whatever appears to be against the Book of Mormon is going to be overturned at some time in the future. So we can be pretty open minded."-charity 3/7/07
The Dude wrote:The only DNA that doesn't get scrambled is the mtDNA and the Y DNA, and so it faithfully represents one maternal and one paternal ancestor. Completely the opposite of what you seem to think.
I understand that, and have posted that. But this only accounts for the very left hand slot of your pedigree on your father's side if you are a male, and not at all if you are female, and the very right hand slot of your pedigree, male and female. And what percentage of your ancestors are represented that way? By the 5th generation back you have had 28 male and 28 female progenitors. 1 line is represented in the Y chromosome. This leaves 23 males who have no contribution to the Y line. Same for women's mtDNA. 5 of the 28 females are represented in the mt line. So what happens to all those unrepresented male and female progenitors?
This isn't dilution. This is extinction. As for as Y and mtDNA goes for those lines poor 23 lines each.
Okay that is all correct.
To answer your question: "So what happens to all those unrepresented male and female progenitors? " The other 22 chromosomes and the X are made of DNA rearrangements from all of your ancestors including those who aren't represented by the Y and mtDNA. Their DNA is still there just getting recycled with each generation. Some bits are lost as gene pool drifts, but much persist. So there are "autosomal" markers besides the classic maternal and paternal chromosomes, and someday soon they will be used to mine for more gene relationships. Patterns will continue to emerge.
in my opinion, it is wise for the Church to downgrade the claim in the Introduction to the Book of Mormon. They are obviously being conservative now that we are in the 21st century and everybody is talking about DNA. The Church doesn't seem to be holding out for the autosomal markers to suddenly swerve in favor of Joseph Smith's original concept of "Jews from sea to shining sea". But who knows, the Church can always change it back if science turns out to be their friend -- like when I was a kid and they had pictures of Inca temples in every Book of Mormon.
"And yet another little spot is smoothed out of the echo chamber wall..." Bond
I'm too tired to read all 14 pages of this thread, but I find the change interesting. Can someone tell me if you guys have ascertained that this change is primarily a response to critic attack? Who was the entity authorizing this change?
Trinity wrote:I'm too tired to read all 14 pages of this thread, but I find the change interesting. Can someone tell me if you guys have ascertained that this change is primarily a response to critic attack? Who was the entity authorizing this change?
DNA. It was the final nail in the coffin. The sad fact is that they will still jump u and down like spoiled brats at the store yelling about the "falsehoods" of modern MTDNA science.
And crawling on the planet's face Some insects called the human race Lost in time And lost in space...and meaning