Another missionary story. I was a missionary in Tahiti. During those 2 years, about 1000 people committed to read portions of the Book of Mormon and to pray to know the truth. Maybe 100 of those really did it. When I’d follow up and ask how praying made them feel, half would roll their eyes and say “uhhh, it felt… good.” So I’d persuade them that the good feeling could only be of supernatural origins - the burning in the bosom, fluttering of the bowels, or still small voice was because they had been possessed by the Holy Spirit. The other half would admit that they felt nothing. So I’d encourage them to do it again, except this time they have to be more sincere or more humble or they have to stop sinning first. In other words, a good feeling is a confirmation that the LDS church is true, and everything else is a confirmation that there is something wrong with the prospective convert. The test was rigged.
My experience is the same as the 60,000 other missionaries around the world at the time. The numbers and percentages vary, but all over the world people were taught to recognize a positive feeling as something supernatural and to dismiss a neutral feeling as the fault of the seeker. After the mission, thousands of missionaries confess that they themselves had never felt anything supernatural when praying as directed in Moroni 10; that the emperor has no clothes.
Billions of Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, Protestants, JWs, and Mormons have received divine confirmation that their religion is the one true path back to God. Their experiences are no more real and no less real than your experience and mine. They are all the product of peer pressure, confirmation bias, and wishful thinking.
Well, whatever may be historically disprovable in their faith, and whatever they may or may not understand or care about that, the impression I get from media (there are a couple of LDS churches but we don’t have a whole visible lot of Mormons in Tampa, can’t say I know any) is that Mormons, as people, are by and large way nice people, solidly middle-class, productive citizens, well-behaved, and perfectly pleasant to have living next door. That’s not true, is it?
Well, I’ve never met a mean Mormon. But that’s hardly something unique to Mormonism–it seems to fit anything that isn’t the mainstream in a given area. Pentecostals, Mennonites, and Catholics share the same traits around here. The mean people tend to be the people who don’t practice, and it’s easier around here to be a non-practicing Southern Baptist.
One of my jobs over the years was truck driving. I picked up a load from a plant in Arkansas that processed chicken into stuff like slim jims, etc… Chickens would go in alive and clucking one end of the plant, and be 'mechanically separated into a grey gooh, squirted into 2200 lb plastic lined cardboard boxes and loaded onto trucks out the other end. I have never eaten a slim jim et al. again. The stench was horrible.
Granted, some of his sources are out there. But then, you go with what you got. I think the point is there is more than nothing.
Yep. You have hit the nail on the proverbial head for me. I know I have had a personally objective experience regarding the Church. Problem is I have had similar experiences studying other faiths. Note that none of these were life changing, more along the lines of a what had happen to you is real, but there are other beliefs which I recognize as worthy. It is my personal belief (not LDS) that Faith is not quite as limited in its scope as many, including the LDS members, would have us believe. Interestingly, Joseph Smith stated once the Members should read all good books and hold fast to that which was good and true. I am paraphrasing a little. My studies, both formal and informal, have taken me from Islam and Wicca to the Buddhism (Tibetan Book of the Dead coming to mind, as well as others and the Mahabaratah’s Bhagavad Gita. I am particularly fond of the Tao te Chung and have read over a dozen various translations 100s and 100s of times. Easily one of my favorite top 5 books. I don’t mention this as self promoting, know one here knows who I am. Just to establish that my tastes run more eccentric than the typical LDS.
Regarding the ‘feel good thing’, when I was told that, I made a special point to suggest that what we mean is more than just ‘a good feeling’, and more than that tingle you get at a good cricket match or rugby game when your team is doing well. When investigators came to Church, I would prepare them by telling them they will most certainly have good feelings. I also told them that good feelings do not make a testimony of Christ and that what they need is a deeper spiritual contact with the Almighty. I had concerns of baptizing into the Church those not ready with an actual Spiritual Experience. They were selfish. I did not want on my conscience the idea that someone was brought into the Church unprepared and the condemnation be on my head, to some extent at least.
I have read the Book of Mormon, and have an article that appeared in The New York Times that includes a timeline of what was really happening in the New World when the events were supposed to have been happening. Needless to say there is no correlation between claims found in the Book of Mormon, and what archaeologists have determined what really happened.
When I showed the article to a Mormon missionary he said, "The man who wrote that is intelligent, but God is more intelligent, and he told me that the Book of Mormon is true.
I responded, “After I read the Book of Mormon God told me that it was not true, but He only confirmed what I had already figured out for myself. After he ordered the invasion of Iraq President Bush claimed that God told him to. That bothers me. What if he thought God told him to launch a nuclear attack on Russia?”
As is always the case when I talk to Mormon missionaries we remained civil throughout, but they terminated the conversation.
According to the Book of Mormon, Nephi landed in the New World around 600 B.C. According to the timeline, the Olmec civilization had already been in the New World for nearly a thousand years, but there is no mention of it in the Book of Mormon.
No, you don’t. If your sources are widely acknowledged in their field as cranks, you don’t deceptively present them as being highly respected researchers. You simply don’t rely on them at all.
The same can be said about the entire book of exodus that is in most of the other Abrahmaic religions mythos.
There is zero evidence it happened, the events as told do not make sense even as told. And this is ignoring the evidence that the builders of the tombs in Egypt seem to have been, in context, very well paid for their labor.
Even non-evangelicals hold the story of Exodus as dear but we Know through large amounts of evidence that it did not happen in any fashion as told in the bible if at all.
I will agree that the rational position is that Joseph Smith was just a successful charlatan or maybe just delusional however I do not think the Mormon doctrine requires a greater suspension of disbelief than any of the other western religions.
I visited Uxmal once (the map indicates it is a Mayan city). All the tour guides kept talking about Mayan architecture, Mayan government, Mayan culture. But the family weariny BYU merchandise understood the real story. The father of that family ignored all the Mayan BS and showed his family the real history of Israelite architecture and Lamanite/Nephite government and precolumbian Christian culture.
Prove his sources are widely acknowledged as ‘cranks’. An ad hominem argument does not prove the invalidity of the position due to: a) just because someone is ‘x’, say a crank, does not prove that argument he is making is false, and b) one can make ad hominem attacks by lumping all the positions supporting the premise as being ‘cranks’ without supporting evidence. Clearly the latter is the more egregious. History is rife with crackpots who were later proven correct.
Nope, one crazy guy doesn’t make it doctrine. Nor do millions of crazy guys saying the same things. But here is a listof indications that Mormons believe (officially or not) that Mayan = Nephite/Lamanite:
Another item that’s not on the list is that the 1990s LDS Institute curriculum for the Book of Mormon course includes a couple days of lectures proving that the Maya and Olmec were really Nephites.
Did you see “The Testaments”? Have you seen the paintings in the 1980s Book of Mormon? And the paintings on the walls in LDS Temples and church buildings? Joseph Smith taught that the Book of Mormon civilizations were the mound builders of North America (google fun words like Zelph and Cumorah if you’re not convinced), but pretty much everyone since then has placed the events in Mesoamerica.
Just in case the crackpot theory isn’t proven… Betty Meggers, PhD, Columbia still teaching at the Smithsonian (as of 2005) Michael Coe, PhD, Harvard, prof emeritus at Yale.
Carroll L. Riley, PhD, New Mexico, Distinguished emeritus at Southern Illinois University
David Kelley, PhD, Harvard, Prof Emiritus Univ of Calgary, (also spoke highly of Sorenson’s works)
Svetla Balabanova, PhD Ulm, works at Institute of Forensic Medicine
Well, I got bored. Seems they are all crackpots.
When I first started investigating the Church in the 70s the missionaries had the books with the cool pictures. They told me point blank they were not intended to be taken so literally. When I asked where at in the New World their little civilization lived they told me that a lot of members thought it was central america, but [emphasis in original] it was impossible to say and frankly probably not. Maybe my first set of missionaries were more pragmatic. I certainly never told my investigators that. Also, because many members have ‘religious hobbies’, including this archeology stuff (something we are counseled not to do, have religious hobbies that is) does not mean they are right. Even if the Church unwisely (imo) were to imply this, it does not make them right.
Frankly, I always figured the main purpose for us to come here is to develop faith. If one could prove were all this was, then what purpose would faith have. It was infinitely more difficult to accept a man (Man) was God, died on Earth, resurrected himself, propitiated for us of our sins, and then offers us heaven than any of this other stuff.
You really want to hash out Jeff Lindsay’s amateur apologetics? All the names on your list (except Balabanova) have written about possible trans-Pacific pre-Columbian contact with Asia. Not Jews coming in 600 BC with their annoying younger brother.
There is no evidence for the events of the Book of Mormon. None. A long list of professors doesn’t change that.
Besides, if you followed current Mormon apologetics (not Lindsay’s stale GeoCities apologetics) you’d know that FARMS and FAIR now believe that the events of the Book of Mormon took place on an isolated area about 1 square mile in Mesoamerica and all the inhabitants were immediately absorbed into the other dominant Olmec and Mayan cultures.
