How To Spot an Anti-Mormon Book

[_sock puppet]

Stars get their power from other stars

Huh? Do you know what allegory is?

You see, Simon, that's the funny part. Apostates do know what allegory is all about. The LDS Church is entirely an allegory of scam artists of old.

[_Simon Belmont]

Journal of Discourses

AND?

[Guest]

It is no wonder you left the Church... you didn't even understand its doctrine. This is not the position of the Church. D&C says that one day is like 10,000 years to God. so if God created the Earth in 6 days... well you do the math.

Adam and Eve were created by god in the Garden of Eden

It's like I'm talking to a 4th grader. Adam and Eve were given BODIES in the GoE. Their intelligences have existed forever, like ours.

The flood happened literally and covered the whole earth

Yeah... usually that is doctrine. Some General Authorities have suggested it was a local flood, as well as some scholars. I think it was a local flood, too.

Native Americans are descended, in part (formerly wholly), from Hebrews

Some Native Americans.

Stars get their power from other stars

Huh? Do you know what allegory is?

Faith is a positive attribute

Faith is a positive attribute.

All directly contradicted by those texts.

Those texts say faith is not a positive attribute? CFR

The D&C says the temporal age of the earth is 6000 years old. That's the revelation. It never said "6000 years, Kolob time."

According to evolution, humans (our bodies) did not come from any special creation.

Scholars don't decide what is LDS doctrine re: the flood.

According to those books, none of the Native Americans have a Hebrew ancestry.

There is nothing in Abraham to suggest that the cosmology is allegorical. In fact, it's just a rip off of a popular 19th century cosmology.

Faith is the exact opposite of critical thinking. It is belief that is not based on proof.

By the way, do you know why Peter said that a year is like 1000 years for god? It's because Jesus and Paul taught that the end was coming VERY soon, within their generation. The 1000 years thing was a way to explain the false prophesies made by Jesus and Paul.

[_just me]

John A. Widtsoe

The fact remains that the exact nature of the flood is not known. We set up assumptions, based upon our best knowledge, but can go no further. We should remember that when inspired writers deal with historical incidents they relate that which they have seen or that which may have been told them, unless indeed the past is opened to them by revelation. The details in the story of the flood are undoubtedly drawn from the experiences of the writer. Under a downpour of rain, likened to the opening of the heavens, a destructive torrent twenty-six feet deep or deeper would easily be formed. The writer of Genesis made a faithful report of the facts known to him concerning the flood. In other localities the depth of the water might have been more or less. In fact, the details of the flood are not known to us [Widtsoe, p. 127].

That is cool, although he seems to be saying that the water may have been very shallow on some parts of the earth. I have seen that said before. He does seem to be leaving it open for a slight variation in interpretation.
The Flood is taught as worldwide in the Institute manual.

Now, if the Great Flood was local how did Noah get from Missouri to the Middle East? Ah, but that is a different thread.

[Guest]

We should remember that when inspired writers deal with historical incidents they relate that which they have seen or that which may have been told them, unless indeed the past is opened to them by revelation.

OK. So Widstoe is saying that that if the account of the Flood in Genesis was not based on revelation, then its writers were just writing up a story on the basis of old tales and their own experience.

The details in the story of the flood are undoubtedly drawn from the experiences of the writer.

Taken with the preceding sentence, this implies that the Genesis account was not based on revelation. That's OK for the CoJCoLDS, is it?

The whole paragraph is frankly strange. It strikes me as the kind of thing one would write if one really wanted to say that the world-wide flood just didn't happen, but didn't quite feel able to come right out with it in the face of the Genesis text.

But then GA's have the guidance of the Spirit and I don't, so what would I know?

[_Buffalo]

John A. Widtsoe

The fact remains that the exact nature of the flood is not known. We set up assumptions, based upon our best knowledge, but can go no further. We should remember that when inspired writers deal with historical incidents they relate that which they have seen or that which may have been told them, unless indeed the past is opened to them by revelation. The details in the story of the flood are undoubtedly drawn from the experiences of the writer. Under a downpour of rain, likened to the opening of the heavens, a destructive torrent twenty-six feet deep or deeper would easily be formed. The writer of Genesis made a faithful report of the facts known to him concerning the flood. In other localities the depth of the water might have been more or less. In fact, the details of the flood are not known to us [Widtsoe, p. 127].

That's opinion, not doctrine. The doctrine, as we find the Ensign, says the flood was global and good Mormons have to believe that.

[_Buffalo]

Another comment - even if D&C were referring to the age of the earth in "Kolob time," that would still only be 6 million years. The earth is far, far older.

[_Dad of a Mormon]

Where in Mormon doctrine does it say that the earth is 6000 years old?

[_Buffalo]

Where in Mormon doctrine does it say that the earth is 6000 years old?

http://LDS.org/scriptures/dc-testament/ ... ang=eng#11

[_Dad of a Mormon]

Where in Mormon doctrine does it say that the earth is 6000 years old?

http://LDS.org/scriptures/dc-testament/ ... ang=eng#11

Thanks.