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Post by m52nickerson on Mar 26, 2009 21:10:44 GMT -5
If I was to show you any citations from an LDS source, would you believe it? Or would you reject them out-of-hand? If they had citation from non-bias sources that could be readily checked on they would be fine, but then you would be better off just linking to the other sources.
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Post by JonathanE on Mar 26, 2009 21:11:11 GMT -5
The BoM was written long before the breaking of the Mayan language. JS seems to have based much of his writings (the BoM) on the idea that the original occupiers of North America were the refugees from the Middle East. The archeological evidence says that massive cultures predate the supposed events of the BoM by half a millenium. The Olmec culture and its predecessors, predate the BoM story by at least 500 years. As Julian points out, there is not a single thread of evidence for any of the events in the BoM, and the lack of reference to any of the characters contained in the BoM should dispel the notion that there will ever be any supportive evidence found. The Mayans were, for a time, up until the language was deciphered, touted by apologists as possibly being the culture that resulted from the Nephite-Lamanite split and the destruction of the Nephites. The written record of the Mayas blows this out of the water. Perhaps god will miracle some evidence... If I was to show you any citations from an LDS source, would you believe it? Or would you reject them out-of-hand? I would reject them out of hand, unless they were not published only inside Church circles, and were not subject to peer review, and that there are, available, copies of the peer review papers. You don't have to cite them, I will find them. If your sources meet that requirement to validate them, I would not reject them out of hand. Simple, no?
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Post by skyfire on Mar 26, 2009 21:13:30 GMT -5
Wrong.The entire first half of this page here is a recounting of descriptions given by Catholic clergy of instances wherein Native beliefs that they encountered in the Americas bore resemblance to elements of Christian theology. Footnotes are even offered to show source citations. Resemblances such as a God, resurrection, virgin birth etc. These are found in many religions through out history. If anything is shows that all religions can trace their origins back to the beginning of human history. Christianity is know for borrowing ideas from older religions. It was, however, enough to bug the hell out of the priests. Thus, Jon's claims that there's not a single trace of Christian theology isn't as solid as he would like for them to seem.
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Post by m52nickerson on Mar 26, 2009 21:18:12 GMT -5
It was, however, enough to bug the hell out of the priests. Thus, Jon's claims that there's not a single trace of Christian theology isn't as solid as he would like for them to seem. Yes because the priest did not understand that those traits were so common to many religions. As I stated those similarities were not Christian they came from much older origins. Christianity borrowed them just as other religions did.
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Post by deliciousdemon on Mar 26, 2009 21:25:16 GMT -5
Resemblances such as a God, resurrection, virgin birth etc. These are found in many religions through out history. If anything is shows that all religions can trace their origins back to the beginning of human history. Christianity is know for borrowing ideas from older religions. It was, however, enough to bug the hell out of the priests. Thus, Jon's claims that there's not a single trace of Christian theology isn't as solid as he would like for them to seem. I don't think you have the slightest grasp of what m52 is saying here. The religious features listed (god, resurrection, et cetera) are shared features of Christian myth and Mayan myth (and indeed other religions as well). They are analogous. They are similar, but unrelated. They are not homologous. They are not similar because they are related. Finally, I don't see how 'annoying Catholic priests' proves the religious systems are related. There is no 'trace' of Christianity in any mesoamerican religion--it does not make any sense spatially or temporally. Comparative anthropologists and ethnologists have been pursuing these themes for ages and as a result even laypeople usually know something about the differences between cultures historically.
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Post by JonathanE on Mar 26, 2009 21:26:50 GMT -5
Resemblances such as a God, resurrection, virgin birth etc. These are found in many religions through out history. If anything is shows that all religions can trace their origins back to the beginning of human history. Christianity is know for borrowing ideas from older religions. It was, however, enough to bug the hell out of the priests. Thus, Jon's claims that there's not a single trace of Christian theology isn't as solid as he would like for them to seem. As I said, those sources are very old. One must consider the conditions and times extant when those accounts originated. The priests that accompanied the Conquistadors had no experience outside of their own religious context. They would find superficial paralells where no real paralell existed. It is all about their frame of reference. They did not speak the native language, except through interpreters, for the most part. They forcefully converted the natives, often killing them afterwards to ensure that they wouldn't backslide. This was a common practice, particlulary for the Spaniards. Fear of death is a strong motivator for natives and their interpreters to not be completely forthcoming in their answers to inquiries about their religion to the priests, who were their conquerers, essentially. Combine the fear of the priests by the natives, the language barriers, the complete culture disorientation of the priests and it is unsurprising that the priests found paralells. This doesn't alter the fact that the archeological evidence refutes this claim, as it does the claims of the BoM. The Mayan glyphs, which correspond roughly with the BoM story timeline, are absolutely silent on ANY of the events that take place in said book. The glyphs also show a fairly comprehensive history of the Mayans and their rulers, whose language bears no resemblence to any Indo-European language. Are we to believe that a Hebrew speaking group completely lost their language and culture and any reference to holy writ in the space of perhaps 1500 years, and learn or create a whole new language in that time frame and leave not one whit of evidence of it ever being used in the region? It beggars the imagination, truly. Unrefuted.
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Post by skyfire on Mar 26, 2009 21:39:36 GMT -5
To begin with, even an initial reading will tell people that the author isn't interested in studying the matter from an academic standpoint; he's already got a conclusion in mind and he's going for it. And his evidences? Hoo boy. The bit with people on the moon? What they don't tell you is that the one account listed is from a personal journal written 40 years after-the-fact. As apologists tend to note, the single source and the removal of time raise the issue of whether or not the anecdote was being brought forward accurately. IE, Joseph could have been trying to prank people to see if they were paying attention to his sermon that day, if it was actually delivered in a sermon at all. And the thing with the gulf stream? If you guys won't let me get away without citing sources, how about holding him to that same standard? For his death, the sad truth is that it was, indeed, a mob; the bit about it being a group of jilted husbands is nothing more than a fabrication created after-the-fact by critics hoping to disguise the nature of the incident. And Joseph killing two people? It's actually not a decided issue. While it is true that Joseph fired off a small pepper-box revolver after Hyrum was gunned down, the accounts of what happened next contradict one another. The account that critics like to go off of is that of John Taylor, who stated that two mob members were killed. Thing is, Taylor was knocked unconscious right after the shots were fired; he got his information after-the-fact. The alternative account holds that when several men were brought to trial for the murders, three of them had gunshot wounds that no one was willing to go into detail about; a hypothesis has arisen that these three men were the ones hit by the revolver. So yeah - you've picked yourself a real cruddy site to try and make your arguments from. I note that it's quite convenient how the section on what exactly money-digging was is presently blank. A study into the Burned-Over District will reveal that owing to the high levels of poverty in the area, many a person dreamed of finding buried treasure and thus being rich enough to avoid toiling ever again. In fact, at that moment in time rumors were circulating about buried Spanish treasure. As a result, searching for hidden loot was a common occurrence. While Smith's father was one of these people, the truth of the matter is that he and Joseph spent so much time just trying to carve out a living on the family farm (his father had really bad luck when it came to purchasing land; all-too-often the soil proved to be poorer than first thought) that any attempts on their part to locate any was nothing more than the odd hobby. The trial in question came after Joseph was hired to work as a laborer for an excavation group. The man who hired Joseph believed that the boy could actually find something, and is recorded as stating that Joseph thought he had a good spot to dig in. Several men hostile to Joseph brought charges against him saying that he'd defrauded the old man after nothing was ever discovered. As mentioned in the link I gave you, there's shockingly little in the way of consistent accounts or evidence beyond a handful of basic facts in the case. Most critics of the church hung their hat on a document that Rev. Wesley Walters stole from a courthouse, but an analysis of the document done in 2004 noted several irregularities once the document was compared to the actual laws of the state at the time. These irregularities led to the conclusion that the document was actually the bill for a pre-trial hearing and nothing more. The quote for the legal citation comes from a known hostile work. If there was indeed a conviction, why could the author of the page actually locate the original document? Surely, if the author of that hostile work had access to the write-up then a little extra leg-work should have allowed the page's author to do the same. Transcript of a discussion between myself and Saros over Hitchens' lack of credibility on the subject of MormonismTo sum it up, the two of us had a discussion about a piece that Hitchens did for Slate. Over the course of the discussion, it became clear to both of us that Hitchens had only read one or two questionable, if not overtly hostile, sources before forming his conclusions about the church.
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Post by JonathanE on Mar 26, 2009 21:42:35 GMT -5
To begin with, even an initial reading will tell people that the author isn't interested in studying the matter from an academic standpoint; he's already got a conclusion in mind and he's going for it. And his evidences? Hoo boy. The bit with people on the moon? What they don't tell you is that the one account listed is from a personal journal written 40 years after-the-fact. As apologists tend to note, the single source and the removal of time raise the issue of whether or not the anecdote was being brought forward accurately. IE, Joseph could have been trying to prank people to see if they were paying attention to his sermon that day, if it was actually delivered in a sermon at all. And the thing with the gulf stream? If you guys won't let me get away without citing sources, how about holding him to that same standard? For his death, the sad truth is that it was, indeed, a mob; the bit about it being a group of jilted husbands is nothing more than a fabrication created after-the-fact by critics hoping to disguise the nature of the incident. And Joseph killing two people? It's actually not a decided issue. While it is true that Joseph fired off a small pepper-box revolver after Hyrum was gunned down, the accounts of what happened next contradict one another. The account that critics like to go off of is that of John Taylor, who stated that two mob members were killed. Thing is, Taylor was knocked unconscious right after the shots were fired; he got his information after-the-fact. The alternative account holds that when several men were brought to trial for the murders, three of them had gunshot wounds that no one was willing to go into detail about; a hypothesis has arisen that these three men were the ones hit by the revolver. So yeah - you've picked yourself a real cruddy site to try and make your arguments from. I note that it's quite convenient how the section on what exactly money-digging was is presently blank. A study into the Burned-Over District will reveal that owing to the high levels of poverty in the area, many a person dreamed of finding buried treasure and thus being rich enough to avoid toiling ever again. In fact, at that moment in time rumors were circulating about buried Spanish treasure. As a result, searching for hidden loot was a common occurrence. While Smith's father was one of these people, the truth of the matter is that he and Joseph spent so much time just trying to carve out a living on the family farm (his father had really bad luck when it came to purchasing land; all-too-often the soil proved to be poorer than first thought) that any attempts on their part to locate any was nothing more than the odd hobby. The trial in question came after Joseph was hired to work as a laborer for an excavation group. The man who hired Joseph believed that the boy could actually find something, and is recorded as stating that Joseph thought he had a good spot to dig in. Several men hostile to Joseph brought charges against him saying that he'd defrauded the old man after nothing was ever discovered. As mentioned in the link I gave you, there's shockingly little in the way of consistent accounts or evidence beyond a handful of basic facts in the case. Most critics of the church hung their hat on a document that Rev. Wesley Walters stole from a courthouse, but an analysis of the document done in 2004 noted several irregularities once the document was compared to the actual laws of the state at the time. These irregularities led to the conclusion that the document was actually the bill for a pre-trial hearing and nothing more. The quote for the legal citation comes from a known hostile work. If there was indeed a conviction, why could the author of the page actually locate the original document? Surely, if the author of that hostile work had access to the write-up then a little extra leg-work should have allowed the page's author to do the same. Transcript of a discussion between myself and Saros over Hitchens' lack of credibility on the subject of MormonismTo sum it up, the two of us had a discussion about a piece that Hitchens did for Slate. Over the course of the discussion, it became clear to both of us that Hitchens had only read one or two questionable, if not overtly hostile, sources before forming his conclusions about the church. This is all very interesting but irrelevant to the thread. Let's restrict ourselves, meaning YOU Skyfire, to the subject at hand, and cease with the ad-homs and strawmen. Get on track or start a new thread. Stick to the topic at hand.
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Post by skyfire on Mar 26, 2009 21:44:10 GMT -5
Whatever proper information you might have posted in that rant of yours was quite summarily outweighed by your personal insults here. If you couldn't tell by my tone, I wasn't trying to go after you as a person; rather, I was noting your tendency to do what you just did - make fun of me as a person and regard me as somehow inferior because I've come to a different conclusion. If persona invective is truly the best that you ultimately have, then why, praytell, do you feel that you'll change my mind about anything? At this point, all you're doing is confirming my impression of you: a former member with an axe to grind and issues he hasn't quite dealt with yet.
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Post by skyfire on Mar 26, 2009 21:45:02 GMT -5
The plates were handed back a few months later, and translation continued. Once the work was done and several people had a witness of the plates themselves, they were taken right back up. I have several friends that if asked will swear that I could once fart the theme music to the A-Team and make Unicorns with Leprechaun riders appear each one carrying a two pound bag of the Devils Lettuces. .......but I bet you don't believe that now do you. Given that you're obviously being rather sarcastic with that post...
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Post by skyfire on Mar 26, 2009 21:46:31 GMT -5
If I was to show you any citations from an LDS source, would you believe it? Or would you reject them out-of-hand? If they had citation from non-bias sources that could be readily checked on they would be fine, but then you would be better off just linking to the other sources. I've a few book sources tho. That's part of it. And given that people have been refusing to even consider a non-Mormon source such as Furniss or Loewen, I figured that I should at least ask before digging through my piles.
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Post by skyfire on Mar 26, 2009 21:48:42 GMT -5
This is all very interesting but irrelevant to the thread. Someone posted links. I responded. What's the issue? How about you quit with the personal insults? ;D
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Panthera
Full Member
Here kitty kitty...
Posts: 229
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Post by Panthera on Mar 26, 2009 21:53:09 GMT -5
Skyfire, either put the fuck up, or SHUT the fuck up. If all you're going to do is throw tantrums over "personal insults" (which were well-deserved, I might add) and give us completely irrelevant information, then GTFO of the thread already. I was finding it quite interesting and informative until you came in here with your whining and temper tantrums.
Jesus fucking Christ. ENOUGH already.
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Post by JonathanE on Mar 26, 2009 21:53:33 GMT -5
Whatever proper information you might have posted in that rant of yours was quite summarily outweighed by your personal insults here. If you couldn't tell by my tone, I wasn't trying to go after you as a person; rather, I was noting your tendency to do what you just did - make fun of me as a person and regard me as somehow inferior because I've come to a different conclusion. If persona invective is truly the best that you ultimately have, then why, praytell, do you feel that you'll change my mind about anything? At this point, all you're doing is confirming my impression of you: a former member with an axe to grind and issues he hasn't quite dealt with yet. What you posted was laughable. I really thought you were more intelligent, considering your vast knowledge of history, but the link you provided was laughable, as an historic source, for the reasons I oulined in my previous post. You are either stupid or purposely trying to derail a legitimate thread. I chose stupid, because it seems more apt, all things considered. Read the fucking post, ignore the ivenctive, which was mild, indeed, and consider the content therein. Engage in a realistic debate, which in this case is about archeolgoy, the MesoAmerican records and the BoM. Do that, and the ivective will cease. So far, you have failed to give a single credible rebuttal to the OP, or to my horribly abusive, persecuting, ableit accurate post. As to your insipid "classification" of me and my motives, I can't call you a stupid, deluded fuckwit, because that would be simple flaming. I will say instead that the sources you quoted and your arguments to the OP and subsequent on-thread posts are indicative of a stupid, deluded fuckwit. The post I quoted in this post confirm that observation.
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Post by JonathanE on Mar 26, 2009 22:03:41 GMT -5
It was, however, enough to bug the hell out of the priests. Thus, Jon's claims that there's not a single trace of Christian theology isn't as solid as he would like for them to seem. As I said, those sources are very old. One must consider the conditions and times extant when those accounts originated. The priests that accompanied the Conquistadors had no experience outside of their own religious context. They would find superficial paralells where no real paralell existed. It is all about their frame of reference. They did not speak the native language, except through interpreters, for the most part. They forcefully converted the natives, often killing them afterwards to ensure that they wouldn't backslide. This was a common practice, particlulary for the Spaniards. Fear of death is a strong motivator for natives and their interpreters to not be completely forthcoming in their answers to inquiries about their religion to the priests, who were their conquerers, essentially. Combine the fear of the priests by the natives, the language barriers, the complete culture disorientation of the priests and it is unsurprising that the priests found paralells. This doesn't alter the fact that the archeological evidence refutes this claim, as it does the claims of the BoM. The Mayan glyphs, which correspond roughly with the BoM story timeline, are absolutely silent on ANY of the events that take place in said book. The glyphs also show a fairly comprehensive history of the Mayans and their rulers, whose language bears no resemblence to any Indo-European language. Are we to believe that a Hebrew speaking group completely lost their language and culture and any reference to holy writ in the space of perhaps 1500 years, and learn or create a whole new language in that time frame and leave not one whit of evidence of it ever being used in the region? It beggars the imagination, truly. This is what I was referring to. Logic would dictate that the odds for conditions of the last paragraph would be astronomical, and virtually unprecedented in the history of the Jews. Now, tell me again how much archeological "evidence" there is to support this hyposthesis, which is what the BoM would have us accept as literal truth. Surely the archeological record would be RIFE with clues pointing to such an occurance. Please, point out this VAST repository of archeological evidence. Or, shut the fuck up and move to another thread.
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