Native American use of Sacred Metal Tablets

[_tapirrider]

If I'm wrong nothing bad happens when I die. If god does not exist life as we know it is meaningless from a big picture point of view. Nobody will care a hundred years from now when I or yourself pass away. But If myself and millions of believers are right the consequences last forever. Laugh all you want but pray that you are right.

Why in the world would you tie whether you are right or wrong about your claims of evidence to your salvation? David, that is really going over the edge. Look, if you believe that the Book of Mormon is true because of prayer and the Holy Ghost as written in Moroni 10, fine. My discussion with you is about your abuse and misuse of science and your false claims. Earlier I asked you why you would need to distort science in an attempt to fabricate evidence to support the Book of Mormon . But now I can't understand why would you need to try to manipulate science to support your salvation. David McKane, if evidence is that important to you, so crucial that you think your own salvation depends on it, then I can only wonder why Moroni's promise hasn't been enough for you. Do you realize that you are making a mockery of Moroni 10:3-5? I mean, let's get real here. You claim that haplogroup x originated and diffused out of Israel and you claim that in the face of the facts, that there was no nation of Israel 30,000 years ago, or even 14,000 years ago, or even 8,000 years ago. And those facts somehow put your salvation in jeopardy? Is that why you do what you do? If Moroni's promise really worked for you, I cannot understand why the facts of science that dispute the Book of Mormon should even bother you to the point that you would distort the research of scholars in a misguided attempt to make their work fit into your belief. I cannot understand why you seem to have such an obsessive need for evidence to the point that you state falsehoods and even use known hoax artifacts and tried to steer me to a link that was nothing more than verified white people who only pretend to be Indians.

Maybe something bad will happen when you die. You are promoting a form of racism. You continue with the Caucasian claims even after I tried my best to inform you on why your claims are racist, that no scientist today uses it the way you do. You might have to answer for that. Jesus wasn't Caucasian. You don't know American Indians, you don't understand them and yet you continue to drag them into your fantasy. You just can't leave them alone. What makes you so certain that nothing will happen when you die if you are wrong? You might have to face up to your actions and it might not be pleasant. Give that one some thought. Twisting and distorting other people's history and making wild claims that they killed off ancient Caucasians in America just might not go well for you in the next life, if it is a place where reality can't be ignored and your fantasies will be seen by you at that time for what they really are, a delusion. God might not be white, and He, She, It or They might not be the God that you believe in. How about it David, are you quite certain that nothing bad will happen if you are wrong? There could be very much at stake for you by being wrong.

I suggest you simply follow the counsel of the LDS leaders, do not worry about geography or DNA or scientific evidence and simply try to live a good life and help others and avoid causing divisiveness and contention and stop spreading unverifiable rumors about people you don't know and are unwilling to learn about from them or from scholars. Follow the example of the leaders of your church, who are trying to tone down the racism.

Is your faith in the Book of Mormon from the power of the Holy Ghost strong enough to do that without any evidence or wild claims? If not you might want to explore the possibility that the Book of Mormon isn't real and that you are seriously misguided and warped in your perceptions of reality.

[_Xenophon]

Although discussing anything with David McKane a.k.a. bomgeography is as futile as DrW has warned, I do enjoy reading up on some of the topics.

I just wanted to take the time to point out that although smashing your head against the wall with bomgeography may be frustrating it is greatly appreciated. I (and I am certain many others) learn so much and get to see a lot of relevant conversation when you do so. I can't thank you, Themis, tappirrider or Maksutov enough for all the valuable information you post here.

[_Themis]

If I'm wrong nothing bad happens when I die. If god does not exist life as we know it is meaningless from a big picture point of view. Nobody will care a hundred years from now when I or yourself pass away. But If myself and millions of believers are right the consequences last forever. Laugh all you want but pray that you are right.

If JW's are right you cease to exist while they continue on in happiness forever. If evangelicals are right you burn in hell for eternity. If LDS are right non-members go to heaven anyways to live in happiness, and movement from kingdom to kingdom the church has no position on. If you are honest with your logic, Mormonism would be one of the last religions to follow since it has one of the best outcomes for non-believers. This logic says go with the religion that has the worst outcome for not being part of their religion. So when will you be leaving Mormonism?

[_Lemmie]

Although discussing anything with David McKane a.k.a. bomgeography is as futile as DrW has warned, I do enjoy reading up on some of the topics.

I just wanted to take the time to point out that although smashing your head against the wall with bomgeography may be frustrating it is greatly appreciated. I (and I am certain many others) learn so much and get to see a lot of relevant conversation when you do so. I can't thank you, Themis, tappirrider or Maksutov enough for all the valuable information you post here.

You are quite welcome, Xenophon! Themis, tapirrider, and Maks are definitely the more experienced ones so I would always recommend listening to them, but I am doing my best to learn and catch up!

When I left the church, I was alone on the East Coast with a child, in grad school, with a Mormon ex-spouse who took off for Utah to try to avoid child support issues. All I knew was that the Mormon church did NOT want a woman like me speaking up in Sunday School and especially NOT in Relief Society! I left the church. All of my family was in the Moridor and for a very long time none of them supported me or my decision (the 3 younger ones who did were still 1) in high school, 2) on a forced mission, or 3) already banished and trying to make their own way), so my only option was to buckle down, finish school, start teaching, and raise my kid. Learning about the details of the crazy religion I left behind was a luxury I couldn't afford for a couple of very busy years, so I have now found myself on this board in the interesting position of having utterly and completely left the church behind me, and yet not having done all the reading and research that so many others have done.

For that reason, I do engage posters like bomgeo, as I have a lot of gaps to fill in. I only wish I had found out about Mormondiscussions.com about a decade earlier than I did, but I'm very happy to hear that my continued research findings may also be interesting for you. Happy reading here!!

[_Philo Sofee]

If I'm wrong nothing bad happens when I die. If god does not exist life as we know it is meaningless from a big picture point of view. Nobody will care a hundred years from now when I or yourself pass away. But If myself and millions of believers are right the consequences last forever. Laugh all you want but pray that you are right.

Pascal's wager is all you've got to fall back on? That's not very impressive.

[_EdGoble]

You will always turn to your tribal authority. But that limits you to their universe. Unfortunately, you are interested in the wider universe not based on a 19th century fabrication. Those things are deeply incompatible and so you are often engaged in intellectual contraptions to dispel the cognitive dissonance: transhumanist Mormonism, vacillating Book of Mormon site theories, esoteric Book of Abraham codes and so on.

You will dwell in a tiny universe, Ed. Welcome to it.

It doesn't limit me to their universe. It makes that universe the primary foundation of reality, through which the rest of reality and the larger universe is necessarily interpreted. I'm comfortable with that. I'm ok with that for the rest of my mortal life. This is the choice that I make. To me, that is a choice that brings me joy, and it is the choice that will lead to a promised outcome. This is where you have no ability to rationally criticize, where I know things perfectly in my own life, because the outcome that I experience at this moment is the result of my actions and choices earlier in life. So far, the promised outcome is what was promised, and there is no reason to believe that there will be a deviation to that outcome (regardless of the trials along the way) because of the choices made to lead to that outcome. To me, it seems clear that that is the outcome that was advertised and there was no lie there. That is one thing that you cannot explain away, is the fact that my choices have led to my current outcome that I experience. In contrast, I look at the lives of those around me that I know very personally and closely that have made choices contrary to what was expected of them, and similarly, the outcome in their lives is precisely what was promised as well: a not so good outcome. I would ask you to respect and tolerate that choice that I have made to deliberately choose my desired outcome.

Yes, some people that are in the Church have a hard time. That eventually passes if they stick to the correct set of choices. I don't need to go into the rabbit hole of the exceptions to the rule that people who generally make correct choices generally experience good outcomes.

You seem to think that everybody on my path has cognative dissonance. It may be true for those that merely see a light at the end of the tunnel, but who are still in that tunnel. I have no cognative dissonance, because I have sampled a few things where I have emerged from the tunnel entirely, and know what the light is at the end. There is no cognative dissonance after one emerges from the tunnel. Yes it is difficult for those who are still in the tunnel entirely, and when they don't have perfect knowledge of any one thing, it is a trial of their faith. Once they emerge and have perfect knowledge of certain things, then it becomes more comfortable and tolerable that one is still having to have faith in other things.

[_Maksutov]

I wish you well, Ed. I apologize if I've been presumptuous or harsh. Life is a difficult business under whatever code we adopt, with whatever understanding we have, or think we have. We are travelers on the same path.

[_Philo Sofee]

I understand your sentiment Ed Goble. But what I question is perfect knowledge? I don't think there is such an animal. Not from a mortal, finite limited point of view. I'm open to a discussion of that but if we're talking science then we'll never get perfect knowledge but that's not what it's all about. It's about probability because that is what reality in this universe is based upon. Notice I don't say possibility. All things are possible but not all things are probable, and only what is more probable is closer to real. That is how science works so far as what little I understand.

[_EdGoble]

I understand your sentiment Ed Goble. But what I question is perfect knowledge? I don't think there is such an animal. Not from a mortal, finite limited point of view. I'm open to a discussion of that but if we're talking science then we'll never get perfect knowledge but that's not what it's all about. It's about probability because that is what reality in this universe is based upon. Notice I don't say possibility. All things are possible but not all things are probable, and only what is more probable is closer to real. That is how science works so far as what little I understand.

You can question it if you want. Be my guest.

But after a certain amount of time, certain things in life after long experience are crystal clear and become anchors to the soul. That is as perfect as necessary to be a rock on which to build one's reality. If you question the perfectness of that, you are entitled to that questioning. This is not science that I speak of. This is pure experience in the living of one's life where certain things after a certain number of years harden like cement in one's perceptions, after every aspect of these things has been examined from every fundamental angle, and after attacks from the outside on these facts have been examined from every fundamental angle. When all attacks on these "facts" (as close to facts in one's perceptions as can be) have failed to budge the "facts", then the facts are basically facts, and are known as perfectly as they can be known, and there is nothing fundamental left to be known about them. Anything else to be known about them is not something fundamental to them. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, there is fundamental, perfect knowledge about that fact, and there is nothing else that is useful that could be known about it that would change its nature, or what is known about it.

Therefore, for all intents and purposes, this is perfect knowledge about a fundamental. And this is all I need to move forward and continue on as I am, without "cognitive dissonance." Cognitive dissonance is real to be sure, but only for those I suppose who do not have perceptions of perfect knowledge about a certain set of fundamental facts. You can basically believe that this is just my perception and interpretations if you want. To me, it is my rock on which the rest of my life will be built, and from which the rest of my actions will proceed. Having a good understanding of everything ex-Mormons have thrown at it, and it has not budged, there is really nothing new they could come up with that would make it budge. It is firmly-rooted conversion.

And so, there is a certain experiential type of perfect knowledge after long experience. And then there is empirical, hands on knowledge like the brother of Jared had. It is nice if someone can have both, but one can live life enduring to the end with just the first type if necessary, and the first type is for all intents and purposes, perfect knowledge as well.

[_SteelHead]

The problem is when those things which we decide are facts, aren't.