William Schryver wrote:It's like I said, Nehor. These guys are very motivated extremists. You must see it the way they claim to see it, or you're not a faithful LDS -- you're a heretic, or worse ... an apologist.
These people, almost without exception, are not very well-versed in ancient texts. They don't appreciate what one would look like, nor the kinds of things it would be likely to say about events that occurred then. They are simply extreme exmormons, with an agenda to convince current Mormons that everything associated with the religion is a crock.
Additionally, they manifest a notable tendency towards two-dimensional thinking, and given the right circumstances and just enough liquor, they'd make one hell of a mob.
Yes, that's also ALL true. We're all violent, extremist alcoholics who like to engage in curb-stomping, lynchings and cross-burnings directed at Mormons. We can't think for ourselves, have never read a book in our lives and can't get our neurons to function in 3D. It's amazing that can get down the street without killing ourselves, what with our incapacity to experience the third (or fourth) dimension. If you mention the implications of string theory to us, our two-dimensional heads explode.
William Schryver wrote:It's like I said, Nehor. These guys are very motivated extremists. You must see it the way they claim to see it, or you're not a faithful LDS -- you're a heretic, or worse ... an apologist.
These people, almost without exception, are not very well-versed in ancient texts. They don't appreciate what one would look like, nor the kinds of things it would be likely to say about events that occurred then. They are simply extreme exmormons, with an agenda to convince current Mormons that everything associated with the religion is a crock.
Additionally, they manifest a notable tendency towards two-dimensional thinking, and given the right circumstances and just enough liquor, they'd make one hell of a mob.
I think what you meant to say, is that we lack creativity. That special quality it takes to make words take on a whole new meaning - sometimes the opposite even. That special quality to think outside the box (or - outside the book in this case). To let your imagination run wild. A sort of seinfeld bizarro world scenario. A quality that only .001 of the world's population has. A special quality, indeed.
Either that or we've had the visions of eternity opened to us and we saw what they saw and can correct it as needed to make it clearer. Mwahahahahahahahahhahah!
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
Canucklehead wrote:Yes, that's also ALL true. We're all violent, extremist alcoholics who like to engage in curb-stomping, lynchings and cross-burnings directed at Mormons. We can't think for ourselves, have never read a book in our lives and can't get our neurons to function in 3D. It's amazing that can get down the street without killing ourselves, what with our incapacity to experience the third (or fourth) dimension. If you mention the implications of string theory to us, our two-dimensional heads explode.
Nice. String Theory implies that things are made out of strings. Send pics of head exploding. Want to use it as my avatar.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
Verse 2 says that nearly 2 million men women and children had already died in war. I'm not sure how many people lived in that tiny Limited Geography area, but if 2-million men, women, and children had already died in battle and they were still gathering armies of men, women, and children, I can't imagine that left many non-combatants.
"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
I'd love to see a Fomenko-esque analysis of the Jaredite story vis-a-vis the Nephite story.
Sure, brilliant a mathematician as he is, Fomenko is also a bit of a nut, but I think his convergence theory of multiply-parallel historical stories is probably useful in some regards.
William Schryver wrote:These people, almost without exception, are not very well-versed in ancient texts.
...says the overconfident amateur.
They don't appreciate what one would look like, nor the kinds of things it would be likely to say about events that occurred then.
I can understand how an authentic ancient text would contain fables. You might even expect the ancients to pass off their fables as true history. No problem here. There can even be fables within fables, such that Joseph Smith's made-up story contains made-up people telling made-up stories of their own. Therefore, logically speaking, the Book of Ether "as a myth" cannot make the rest of the Book of Mormon more historically authentic. It can still be a myth within a myth.
In my judgment, the inclusion of the Book of Ether is one of the internal evidences of the antiquity of the Book of Mormon.
You might want to reconsider that judgement.
"And yet another little spot is smoothed out of the echo chamber wall..." Bond