mentalgymnast wrote:
The overall point that I'm making in this thread and other threads over a period of time is that the Book of Mormon is the keystone of the CofJCofLDS. Without it, the church falls.
Almost everyone here knows the Book of Mormon needs to be historically true or the church's truth claims are not true.
OTOH, if the Book of Mormon is 'true' then all else...including issues and other controversies along the way...become peripheral to the central message/mission of the church.
That's why we look at the evidence you are ignoring. There are lots of if's about other religions as well.
To believe in and plant the Book of Mormon in the soil of 'God's word' is a choice.
Why should we choose to believe if we don't know?
But it's not a blind/ignorant choice.
Sorry but is based on unreliable interpretations of sensations and thoughts. No different then our prophets downtown on soap boxes.
It's based on data...for and against. How else can a choice be made?
But you admit you have put the best pieces of evidence on the shelf. Your choices are made without the best evidences to look at. You also make bad assumptions about your bodies sensations.
Personal biases/prejudices/assumptions play a role in how one views the Book of Mormon within the larger/universal/global picture of mankind and world history...and what one might consider to be a sensible view of eternity and life after death.
Most former believers don't want the church to be false. They now may also not want it to b true.
So, the point of this thread was simply to put the Book of Mormon on the table instead of up on the shelf and encourage investigation rather than placing permanent and/or insurmountable roadblocks in the way of opening the covers and reading the book with the intent/desire to gain a testimony of Jesus Christ and the great plan of happiness for God's children.
From someone who admits to putting most of the Book of Mormon on the shelf.
But I realize that his all sounds like gibberish and gobbledygook to those that have biases/prejudices that get in the way. If one doesn't believe and/or hope in a creator/God, that's going to act as a bias...consciously or not. If one doubts the reality of continued existence after death as an individual entity, that's going to act as a bias...consciously or not. If one is biased in thinking that God's prophets must be closer to 'perfect' than 'weak', that will create a bias/prejudice when a prophet comes along who IS weak in ways that we might not expect/accept. If one let's the theory of evolution get in the way of US and why we're here...and questioning if there might not be some grander purpose...then that bias towards secular/humanistic thought is going to act as a bias towards spiritual things...consciously or not.
I'm more then willing to talk about spiritual things and how we can reasonably conclude how we know they are from a divine being and how to reasonably know what they mean. Funny that believers run away from good questions everywhere you go.
The list could go on. And the thing is, on this board the 'herd' mentality is pretty much of one mind and one heart, generally speaking. Yes, there are some folks here that are open Christian thought/belief/hope/teachings...but overall there is a general and STRONG bias/prejudice towards religion and God/Christ belief that acts as an insurmountable barrier in any conversation with the 'other'...one that is open to further exploration and thought in regards to possibilities/plausibility. There is a line in the sand and it can't be crossed. And when the herd says what will be...that will be. The 'other' is literally an invader. An outsider. A foreigner.
An alien. Not to be trusted. To be marked up and stamped as an undesirable.
There is such a herd mentality here that when topics come up like Joseph is a pedophile non-believers all agree. Wait actually they didn't. I have disagreed with many non-believers about different LDS issues. Hate it when you can't get the herd to all follow the same path.
