No Lion Remains in Israel: another one bites the dust

[_Kishkumen]

And I appreciate, truly, any efforts to expose shoddy arguments, even if it paints my faith in a poor light.

I don't think it does paint your faith in a poor light, no matter what anyone says. Your faith is no more or less ludicrous than the notion that a Jewish carpenter who was executed by the Romans is God, and, hey, millions of people find that idea perfectly respectable!

[_Buffalo]

The simple and correct answer to these problems is that the Book of Mormon is not ancient.

I agree with ya there, in the academic sense. But what fun would it be if we always had to rely on stiff logical conclusions on everything? We'd have no Mormons, no Christians of any brand, and no non-religionists. We'd all be the same.

Thus, I must maintain, for diversity if for nothing else, the best answer to the fact that there is no horse evidence in the Book of Mormon time frame is that there must have been horses.

[Guest]

I agree with ya there, in the academic sense.

I can't believe my eyes. My respect for stem just went up into the stratosphere.

Really?
I was hopeful when I read the first line.

Then it quickly changed when I read the following paragraph:

But what fun would it be if we always had to rely on stiff logical conclusions on everything? We'd have no Mormons, no Christians of any brand, and no non-religionists. We'd all be the same.

Thus, I must maintain, for diversity if for nothing else, the best answer to the fact that there is no horse evidence in the Book of Mormon time frame is that there must have been horses.

This scares me not just a little.
Craaaazy!!
Let’s not be logical because that wouldn’t be fun.
Let’s be non-logical to stir things up a little, create some confusion and make things FUN and different, lie, decieve and then perpetuate and defend such deceit to make things different! Yikes! That sounds more like a follower of Satan than Jesus.
One persons “fun” is another persons sadomasochistic deviant.
Whether my statement is an opinion or a diagnosis I don’t care at this point. That’s just plain deviant and untruthful.

Like I said in another thread, you can tell the difference between apologists and critics by the different level of integrity and ethical standards in the area of deception/truth and how that is processed and delivered in the critic or apologetic mind. I’m going to say that Stem’s integrity and ethical values are far different than mine, which explains why he grasps on to the apologetic stance…. . ..
To have spice and make trouble to make things different???? (no amount of question marks or exclamation marks can suffice this drama.)

I always suspected that this was the apologetic mind set. Now I’m inclined to agree with Thews on Thews sociopath psychopath or deviant opinions of rabid apologists at least in this case, and if stem is an accurate representation of other apologetics minds then wow! That explains a lot. If it's okay to be deviant with religious beliefs what's wrong with being deviant and breaking into people's houses, because it wouldn't be fun or right if we were all the same ethical law abiding citizens would it. I mean, seriously, what the heck?? It's against the law to be deviant trouble makers in specific crimes but people such as yourself manage to operate below the ethical radar because there isn't a law against your type of religious ethical deviance and perpetuation of deception through apologetics in the name of fun. It's still causing a lot of damage, especially to people who have to live in this environment. You think THAT's FUN!!!
Sadomasochism at it's religious height as you perpetuate your much loved drama and chaos. People's families and environments are suffering for God's sake man!
You're perpetuating and defending non-truth and deception because it's FUN! Not because it's truth, integrity or ethics!
Like prophet/apostle; like tbm I guess.

And you have the nerve and gall to preach to us critics about LOVE!!! Why not try focusing on asking for direction in living a truthful, ethical life of integrity in your dealings with your fellow man and God's direction toward Truth. Then your words about Love won't be so hollow and empty. As it stands I'm putting you on ignore. Your love sermons make me want to puke.


bleh! I feel like I need to shower now.

[_Sethbag]

Stemelbow, please, with sugar on it, for your own sake, please go rent, buy, borrow, or steal a copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

If you want, also listen to the Mormon Expression podcast on Guns, Germs, and Steel that I did with some of the other posters from this board. With all its flaws and warts, it also discussed some very interesting points, IMHO, that you should be exposed to.

Included in these points are the following:
1) Horses provided such a huge military and economic boost to every single society that's ever been documented as having them, that it has radically boosted their competitiveness with respect to their neighbors without horses, and lead to the horse-owners out-competing them.
2) The possession of domesticated horses, cattle, sheep, the organized production of wheat, barley, and other food crops and animals, and so forth have always lead to explosions in the populations of those societies that possessed, developed, or inherited these technologies.
3) The Book of Mormon description of the Lamanites as this booming population of savages, yet due to indolence and laziness, they were not as industrious as farmers and ranchers and whatnot as the Nephites, is completely ass-backwards. If the Nephites really practiced organized agriculture and the production of wheat, barley, corn, and so forth, and raised domesticated horses, cattle, sheep, and so forth, they would have dominated the Lamanites not only technologically, and militarily, but also numerically This is exactly the opposite of what the Book of Mormon depicts.

The Book of Mormon simply isn't credible as a history of peoples who actually existed. Societies in ancient days, with access to food production and animal technologies as described in the Book of Mormon, reacted very, very differently in real life to how they are shown in the Book of Mormon, which shows that Smith et al. didn't really know what they were talking about.

Not to mention, the development of organized agriculture based on wheat, barley, and so forth, and domesticated cattle, sheep, and horses, would have been so widespread and have spread so fast throughout the area that the notion that all of these practices should have left no traces not only in archeological digs, but also on the cultures, art, and remains of the civilizations that really did exist in the ancient Americas, is outlandish, improbably, non-credible, and simply doesn't deserve to be believed.

Do yourself a favor. Read more about the real world. Come to a better understanding of how things really have occurred in the history of human civilization and colonization of the Earth. It rewards itself in many ways, and in many more than just rendering the Book of Mormon mythology all the less likely really to have happened. There is a real history of humanity on Earth, that is incredibly more interesting than the made-up one foisted upon you by the likes of Joseph Smith. It is your real history as much as it is mine and everyone else's on this board. Claim it as your own, and start to learn it, and appreciate it. You don't have to keep believing the children's stories of Mormonism.

[_ShadowFax]

Do yourself a favor. Read more about the real world. Come to a better understanding of how things really have occurred in the history of human civilization and colonization of the Earth. It rewards itself in many ways, and in many more than just rendering the Book of Mormon mythology all the less likely really to have happened. There is a real history of humanity on Earth, that is incredibly more interesting than the made-up one foisted upon you by the likes of Joseph Smith. It is your real history as much as it is mine and everyone else's on this board. Claim it as your own, and start to learn it, and appreciate it. You don't have to keep believing the children's stories of Mormonism.

That was well said, but it appears that he's not interested in truth or in perpetuating truth, but rather lies and deceptive games.
According to his last post he isn't interested in standing with truth, but wants to defend, promote and perpetuate deception and lies basically because he's a religious deviant - for the giggles, fun and spice of it. Yep, and it appears that he's quite willing to have people like myself and others suffer with family/work issues in this environment of deceptive mythology all for his deviant entertainment value I guess.
Bleh!

That explains why his definition of love he preaches defends the apologia program. Their words speak of Christ and being Christ-like, but their hearts are far from God/Christ. Like prophet; like Stemelbow. Now that's what the Bible calls a false prophet with representative fruits of membership. The Bible said that Jesus will say, "Depart from me. I never knew you."

[_Kishkumen]

This scares me not just a little.
Craaaazy!!
Let’s not be logical because that wouldn’t be fun.
Let’s be non-logical to stir things up a little, create some confusion and make things FUN and different, lie, decieve and then perpetuate and defend such deceit to make things different! Yikes!

I am not too concerned about it. People invent myths to make life bearable. We all do. I am just happy to see that stem is honest and conscious enough to admit that there is really no case for the antiquity of the Book of Mormon, at least in an "academic sense." That's good enough for me.

[_Buffalo]

Stemelbow, please, with sugar on it, for your own sake, please go rent, buy, borrow, or steal a copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

If you want, also listen to the Mormon Expression podcast on Guns, Germs, and Steel that I did with some of the other posters from this board. With all its flaws and warts, it also discussed some very interesting points, IMHO, that you should be exposed to.

Included in these points are the following:
1) Horses provided such a huge military and economic boost to every single society that's ever been documented as having them, that it has radically boosted their competitiveness with respect to their neighbors without horses, and lead to the horse-owners out-competing them.
2) The possession of domesticated horses, cattle, sheep, the organized production of wheat, barley, and other food crops and animals, and so forth have always lead to explosions in the populations of those societies that possessed, developed, or inherited these technologies.
3) The Book of Mormon description of the Lamanites as this booming population of savages, yet due to indolence and laziness, they were not as industrious as farmers and ranchers and whatnot as the Nephites, is completely ass-backwards. If the Nephites really practiced organized agriculture and the production of wheat, barley, corn, and so forth, and raised domesticated horses, cattle, sheep, and so forth, they would have dominated the Lamanites not only technologically, and militarily, but also numerically This is exactly the opposite of what the Book of Mormon depicts.

The Book of Mormon simply isn't credible as a history of peoples who actually existed. Societies in ancient days, with access to food production and animal technologies as described in the Book of Mormon, reacted very, very differently in real life to how they are shown in the Book of Mormon, which shows that Smith et al. didn't really know what they were talking about.

Not to mention, the development of organized agriculture based on wheat, barley, and so forth, and domesticated cattle, sheep, and horses, would have been so widespread and have spread so fast throughout the area that the notion that all of these practices should have left no traces not only in archeological digs, but also on the cultures, art, and remains of the civilizations that really did exist in the ancient Americas, is outlandish, improbably, non-credible, and simply doesn't deserve to be believed.

Do yourself a favor. Read more about the real world. Come to a better understanding of how things really have occurred in the history of human civilization and colonization of the Earth. It rewards itself in many ways, and in many more than just rendering the Book of Mormon mythology all the less likely really to have happened. There is a real history of humanity on Earth, that is incredibly more interesting than the made-up one foisted upon you by the likes of Joseph Smith. It is your real history as much as it is mine and everyone else's on this board. Claim it as your own, and start to learn it, and appreciate it. You don't have to keep believing the children's stories of Mormonism.

The Book of Mormon really fails the sniff test at any level of analysis. That was a great podcast.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Thus, I must maintain, for diversity if for nothing else, the best answer to the fact that there is no horse evidence in the Book of Mormon time frame is that there must have been horses.

[_stemelbow]

?huh?
By your reasoning that ""20,000 is a considerably small number in the relative short time the Hun were in Europe"", wouldn't it suggest that the ratio of horses in the Americas should be much greater based on on the high population of Lehi's descendents vs the long period of time they allegedly inhabited the Americas?

I don't know if that's a safe assumption at all. IT seems just as safe to assume there were fewer than 20,000 horses in america during any generation of Nephite/Lamanite peoples. by the way the 20k being a small number was what I got from reading Chris Smith's comments on page one. I don't know what a small number of horses is for any given area.

What if it's all fabricated stem?

Then I have misplaced faith.

Are you able to look at that as a possibility?

Most certainly.

Are you able to allow your questions to formulate from a place that it could be false?

Of course.

When you formulate your questions from a place to defend that it could likely be true you start to make little sense and it becomes difficult to follow because the rational mind has to twist itself in a very strange way to understand how you are trying to make sense of it.

Okay.

Now you say "you really don't know", but is that really what you mean?

I really don't know much about horse or other mammal populations throughout the world's history. I'm not sure what you are asking about what I don't know. Do I know my faith is safely invested? No.

All the comments you make sound like you really DO know and defend and support what you think you really DO know.

Come again? All my comments do what?

Now you say you really don't know.
Which is it??
Can you understand the readers confusion? It's no wonder readers are confused by your writing as you are equally confused it appears.

cheers!

We’re all probably a little confused by things, particularly when it comes to faith.

[_stemelbow]

I don't think it does paint your faith in a poor light, no matter what anyone says. Your faith is no more or less ludicrous than the notion that a Jewish carpenter who was executed by the Romans is God, and, hey, millions of people find that idea perfectly respectable!

Good point. To have this religious faith is to rely upon some pretty absurd claims. Its true. I wish it wasn't, but it is.