DiscussMormonism.com

• It's interesting to see such a heated argument over a question that the leaders of the church have not only not (recently) expressed a view on, but have actually explicitly stated that they do not have a position on.
• I wonder if part of the reason for the non-position is that siding with one or the other would involve two potential negatives:
  - scientific evidence could prove the chosen side to be wrong - not good for the brethren's credibility
  - members on the non-chosen side may have their faith badly shaken, and/or be alienated from the church
• There appears to be a bit of a lack of brotherly love - where are the fruits of the true gospel?
• I suspect that, as faithful members, each side believes that they are guided by the Holy Ghost whispering to them - fulfilling the promise made to them when they were confirmed. Can either side really concede that either they themselves are wrong, and thus misled, or that the other side, who by definition must be wrong, might also be subject to the whisperings of the spirit?
• As a bit of an outsider looking in, I see in full display the weakness of the church claims about its authority, and its relationship with the godhead: both sides cannot be right, but they can both be wrong. So, for the claims of the church to be valid, how is it possible that the Holy Ghost has managed to mess up so badly?
• Must we then admit that nobody can depend on the Holy Ghost for anything?

drumdude wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 2:29 am

It does explain why the brethren don’t want to touch the issue with a 10ft pole.

Moksha wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 8:28 am

Put Shulem into the cage and let him bop both sides with his beefy Delmarva hypothesis. Heck, even the Malaysian hypothesis packs a more evidentiary punch than the NHM inscription.

dastardly stem wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 2:50 pm

Its a funny battle considering neither side has any reason to think the story is ancient. When is a group of Mormons going to get together and lay out how the Book is not ancient but yet inspired? After these two groups show how silly it is to say the book is ancient? You have to take a pretty big blind leap of faith to even be able to jump into the same arena where these two are fighting it out. Its like two children fighting an embarrassing useless fight. If an adult had a chance to sit and talk it through with each kid, they'd realize how silly they are being.

They've failed to answer the important question so in order to distract from that and sound credible, they're fighting over a question that only matters if they first one ever got resolved.

I'm not a baker, but it's like two chefs fighting over which ingredients to put in, but they have no flour to even get started.

Nimrod wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 27, 2023 5:03 pm

A cage match over where a fictitious people lived? Ha ha ha.

It appears to me that mopologists are playing a game of 3 card monte. The LGT in MesoAmerica allows them to keep claiming that anyone else taking a look at MesoAmerica has not focused on the 'correct' location, even though the LGT fails to offer the pecise location. It is utterly Mormon: Joseph Smith told Josiah Stowell's men that once they dug in one spot and nothing was there, the evil spirits had relocated the treasure somewhere else underground. Smith would point them to the next spot to begin digging. So too have Sorenson and acolytes been and continue to be as slippery.

The heartlanders seem earnest, but are not sufficiently vague (slippery) to avoid being disproved. They are a much easier target, so easy the LGT crowd goes after them. Mormon-e-Mormon style.

But neither has produced any archaelogical evidence that there ever were Nephites or Lamanites. So what then? Does it really matter where unicorns lived if there were no unicorns?