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Post by JonathanE on Mar 22, 2009 12:14:59 GMT -5
The book of Mormon claims that the Americas were peopled and colonized by ancient refugee Israelites, dating approximately to 600BCE, and were divided quickly into two cultures, of which one was white and fair-skinned and the other dark-skinned, Lamanites and Nephites. Is there any basis for this belief in the actual archeological record? The earliest evidence of Meso-American culture is known as the Lithic, or more commonly, the Paleo-Indian period, dated approximately 10000BCE to 8000BCE. This was the "hunter-gatherer" period. Archeological evidence is slim for this period, due primarily to the nature of hunter-gatherer societies, but there is much evidence for this period in the strata. The next period is known as the Archaic era, and dates from approximately 10000BCE to 1800BCE. This is the period where agriculture, pottery making, loom weaving and the urban development begins in Meso-America. It represents the beginnings of civilization in the region. The archeological evidence for this period is more dense and available to arheologists. The pre-Classic, or Formative period dates from 1800BCE to 200CE. This period shows the rise of urban culture, initially on the Pacific Coast of Meso-America, then to the Gulf coast, primarily Olmec culture, but also including early Zapotec and the Monte Alto cultures. These started primarily in the Guatemalan lowlands, but quickly expanded to include the Teotihuacan cultures, known as the "city of the gods" to the much later Aztec cultures. The Classical Period, from 200CE to 900CE includes mostly the classic Maya culture, but also included the Omecs, whose cultural record ended approximately 700CE, while classic Mayan culture lasted a few centuries longer. It is important to understand that the archeological records, including the written records of the Maya, contain no real evidence for large scale wars as the cause of their decline. Archeologist generally agree that a combination of internal dissension and environmental disaster How does this relate to the BoM? The BoM makes no mention of pre-existing cultures in America at the time of the purported colonization, despite the fact that Meso-American culture predates the timeline of the BoM by nearly a millenium. There is no archeological evidence of great, continent-sweeping warfare mentioned in the BoM. There is no evidence for any sort of religion that even vaguely resembles Christianity in pre-Columbian Meso-American culture. Given this information, how can the claims of the BoM be taken seriously by rational thinkers? There is more archeological evidence supporting the bible than the BoM, albeit slim evidence. The BoM, on the other hand, has no archeological evidence to support the story, and, in fact, flies in the face of the actual evidence. My sources are many, but I simply paraphrased information from www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Mesoamerican_chronology this source. It is but one of thousands of sites dedicated to pre-Columbian Meso-American history. It is pretty solid stuff, and is corroborated fully in the standing literature on the subject. My conclusion: The Book of Mormon is a total crock of shit, and as such, by default, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who hold said book to be scripture, ie the word of god, is based upon a crock of shit. Thoughts?
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Post by Star Cluster on Mar 22, 2009 12:54:23 GMT -5
Interesting info, Jon.
I really see no difference between the LDS and any other form of Christianity in that all of them are based on rather unrealistic fantasies. It's just that the Mormons beliefs stretch the limits of credibility further than mainstream Christianity. Although, as you mentioned, the Judeo/Islamic/Christian religions have more, although slim, corroborating evidence to stand on, that only shows that the writers of the ancient texts actually lived in and were familiar with, the area of which they wrote. Archaeological finds have shown that the they are rather weak as historical documents, though.
Although I have never read the BoM, from what I have learned of its tenets here, it would appear rather obvious it was written by someone who had no working knowledge of any kind of the history or time lines pertaining to the peoples of the Americas prior to Europeans settling here.
It's just another example of people believing what they want to believe regardless of the rationality or evidence against said beliefs.
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Post by JonathanE on Mar 22, 2009 13:01:27 GMT -5
The BoM is touted by the LDS church as proof positive of JS's mission and message. Unfortunately, the actual evidence negates that proof.
Also, a post edit, for clarification. Dark skinned people = Lamanites Fair skinned people = Nephites
In my OP, I reversed the order, inadvertantly, and I don't wish to engage in a discussion about that discrepancy.
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Post by antichrist on Mar 22, 2009 13:13:59 GMT -5
I have a native niece (adopted) who used to run up to people and say "I'm a Lamanite princess". I was always concerned about that, isn't that like a little black kid running up to people saying "I'm a nigger prince"?
Oh, and she didn't turn white when she was baptized, which the BoM makes clear should of happened.
She's falling away from the church. She seems to hang around with a lot of other lapsed Mormons of her own age. They're not bad kids, but they're definitely not the buttoned down ones either. They drink wine coolers, almost all the girls got pregnant out of wedlock, I'm assuming they'll eventually completely fall away.
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on Mar 22, 2009 13:35:56 GMT -5
Exalt +1
Good post, Johnathan. Though the source is obviously biased, as they didn't go into detail about how Mormons helped settle California.
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Post by Distind on Mar 22, 2009 13:41:56 GMT -5
My conclusion: The Book of Mormon is a total crock of shit, and as such, by default, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who hold said book to be scripture, ie the word of god, is based upon a crock of shit. Thoughts? Well, mostly just that religion being a crock of shit has never stopped it before, why is it supposed to start now? In fact, push it and make it a bigger nastier crock full, if not for Pat Robertson doing just that when I was a kid I may well be on the otherside of this, but the smell just got to nasty for me and I had to get out. Eventually I bothered to think about it, and found no real basis. Though this is an excellent example how religions are generally full of shit, it does make me wonder if there are any mormon anthropologists out there.
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Post by Star Cluster on Mar 22, 2009 13:43:54 GMT -5
The BoM is touted by the LDS church as proof positive of JS's mission and message. Unfortunately, the actual evidence negates that proof. And once again, I really don't see how this is any different than main stream Christianity saying the Bible (New Testament) is proof positive of Jesus and his message when a total lack of actual evidence negates that proof and even casts doubt that there even was an historical Jesus. And, yeah, we know that Joseph Smith was a real person since he wrote the the BoM, just as we know Paul was a real person that wrote a great deal of the NT. It's not that I'm disagreeing with you or trying to argue at all. On the contrary. It's just that I have the same regard for all religion whether it be Christianity and its various forms (including Mormonism,) Islam, Hinduism, or any other form of belief; none. And don't worry about the error. We all get things ass-backward sometimes. Since you corrected it so quickly, only an utter asshole would make an issue of it now.
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Post by Death on Mar 22, 2009 14:17:35 GMT -5
My conclusion: The Book of Mormon is a total crock of shit, and as such, by default, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who hold said book to be scripture, ie the word of god, is based upon a crock of shit. Thoughts? Well, mostly just that religion being a crock of shit has never stopped it before, why is it supposed to start now? In fact, push it and make it a bigger nastier crock full, if not for Pat Robertson doing just that when I was a kid I may well be on the otherside of this, but the smell just got to nasty for me and I had to get out. Eventually I bothered to think about it, and found no real basis. Though this is an excellent example how religions are generally full of shit, it does make me wonder if there are any mormon anthropologists out there. Glad you asked. BYU prides itself on it mormon anthropology (sic) www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon428.htm
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Post by JonathanE on Mar 22, 2009 14:59:59 GMT -5
Death - fantastic link, which actually discusses the science of studying meso-American cultures.
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Post by JonathanE on Mar 22, 2009 15:09:40 GMT -5
As an aside, this was the straw that broke the camel's back for me and my foray into Mormonism, all those years ago. The BoM was, for me, proven absolutely bogus by studying pre-Columbian archeology, and its absence of any references to anything resembling christianity, judaism, or even Middle-Eastern ancient culture. If the book touted as a history of the Americas is bullshit, the whole religion upon which it is based is bullshit. Not a big leap there, folks. My studies of pre-Columbian history negated my faith, and that was confirmed by actually looking into real, critical analysis of the religion and its coloured history. Of course, I have always found critical thinking natural, having been raised by parents who encouraged me to develop that skill. That is where apologists fail, generally, in that they dispense with critical thinking and rely on after the fact research to find ANY sort of straw to grasp at to allow the cognitive dissonance required to believe in absolute bullshit.
Edit> I missed a paragraph, sorry. This should be the second paragraph. I spent several years, poring over pre-Columbian history books, archeological journals, text books, anything I could find, searching for evidence to prove the BoM's claims, not to find holes, rather, to find factual evidence I could present to scoffers. Guess what happened?
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Post by JonathanE on Mar 22, 2009 21:23:12 GMT -5
Any other learned comments, questions, etc? (bumpage)
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Post by Caitshidhe on Mar 22, 2009 21:51:25 GMT -5
I'll just stop in to say that this is all fascinating stuff and I'm enjoying what I'm reading here. I haven't read the BoM, but from what I've read here, it might be worth looking through it for the lulz. I'm fairly well informed on the subject of Meso-American cultures and the timeline due to being a total history dork, so I'd've spotted that crap a mile away. It's an extraordinary claim--clearly by someone who doesn't know a lot about preColombian Americas. Isn't it also true that Joseph Smith was arrested and charged with fraud in (I think) New York just a few years before he made the claims about speaking with god? I've read this, but it has been a while so I'm not 100% sure.
I have nothing to add, I'll just keep on reading.
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Post by Sandafluffoid on Mar 23, 2009 2:25:27 GMT -5
I'll just stop in to say that this is all fascinating stuff and I'm enjoying what I'm reading here. I haven't read the BoM, but from what I've read here, it might be worth looking through it for the lulz. I'm fairly well informed on the subject of Meso-American cultures and the timeline due to being a total history dork, so I'd've spotted that crap a mile away. It's an extraordinary claim--clearly by someone who doesn't know a lot about preColombian Americas. Isn't it also true that Joseph Smith was arrested and charged with fraud in (I think) New York just a few years before he made the claims about speaking with god? I've read this, but it has been a while so I'm not 100% sure. I have nothing to add, I'll just keep on reading. I can't remebmer where exactly, but I've heard that Joseph Smith was well known as a compulsive liar. All it shows though is people are willing to believe what they want to believe during the more insane moments of my brief theistic past I effectively made up a religion and somehow convinced myself it was real, but in hindsight it was very close to mormonism, it suited my paticular morals perfectly, as well as flattering my ego by saying that anyone could become a God, it also came with an ancient civilization that believed it, but which was now extinct. My point is that the tenets of Mormonism are classical wish-fullfilment stuff, so its no wonder that people are willing to ignore meso-ameican history for the added benefit of being able to pretend that God loves America more than Palestine.
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Post by JonathanE on Mar 23, 2009 5:33:16 GMT -5
I'll just stop in to say that this is all fascinating stuff and I'm enjoying what I'm reading here. I haven't read the BoM, but from what I've read here, it might be worth looking through it for the lulz. I'm fairly well informed on the subject of Meso-American cultures and the timeline due to being a total history dork, so I'd've spotted that crap a mile away. It's an extraordinary claim--clearly by someone who doesn't know a lot about preColombian Americas. Isn't it also true that Joseph Smith was arrested and charged with fraud in (I think) New York just a few years before he made the claims about speaking with god? I've read this, but it has been a while so I'm not 100% sure. I have nothing to add, I'll just keep on reading. I can't remebmer where exactly, but I've heard that Joseph Smith was well known as a compulsive liar. All it shows though is people are willing to believe what they want to believe during the more insane moments of my brief theistic past I effectively made up a religion and somehow convinced myself it was real, but in hindsight it was very close to mormonism, it suited my paticular morals perfectly, as well as flattering my ego by saying that anyone could become a God, it also came with an ancient civilization that believed it, but which was now extinct. My point is that the tenets of Mormonism are classical wish-fullfilment stuff, so its no wonder that people are willing to ignore meso-ameican history for the added benefit of being able to pretend that God loves America more than Palestine. The problem is, they don't totally "ignore" the problem, they've spent big bucks over the decades, using BYU "archeologists" to dig holes all over Central America trying to find proof positive of the BoM's "story", only to come away empty handed. As to the speculation about JS being a compulsive liar, I think that the archeological evidence against the truth of the BoM speaks volumes on that score, don't you?
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Post by JonathanE on Mar 23, 2009 5:35:32 GMT -5
Also, I made a typo in the timeline of the BoM. 600BCE should read TO 600CE, from approximately 1000BCE, as to the events outlined in the BoM. Sorry for the error, it was inadvertant, not on purpose.
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