I think you might have read something into the post that wasn’t there. 
Hey Liberal, I needed your help the other day, and could not find the thread by searching. (I even went to the Philosophy Forums.) The topic at hand was the nature of mathematics: Discoverd or invented? Do you remember when you participated in such a discussion? Can you point me to it?
I agree. And speaking of Mormons and Scientologists, you might be interested in this post and the rest of the thread.
The Seventh-Day Adventists believe they are. (At least I think it’s them, I know it’s at least one of the less common sects).
You and others here have spoken as if all sets of incredulities are equally incredible. They’re not.
Mormonism piles impossibilities and implausibilities upon impossibilities and implausibilities virtually ad infinitum. What particularly distinguishes the ludicrousness of Mormonism from nearly all other religions are it’s explicit, empirical claims. Empirical claims which have since been proved false and even laughable. For example, that Native Americans originated with a lost Jewish tribe who built an impossibly huge and preposterous submarine to travel from the old world to the new. That dark-skinned people who embrace Mormonism would become white-skinned (a claim emphasized as official, current doctrine by a recent LDS President). Horses and elephants in relatively recent but pre-Columbian South America. That Joseph Smith could accurately read Egyptian hieroglyphics. That the Sun shines by light reflected/borrowed from Kolob.
I can’t think of any other religion which makes these kinds of empirical, scientific claims. These are not equivalent to the doctrines of most other religions.
Since Mormonism was fabricated after the rise of science to social prominence, Smith and Co deliberately tried to employ then-popular scientific claims to bolster their credibility. To my knowledge, that’s unique, at least among huge and growing denominations. And it sets up a distinctly falsifiable set of doctrines, which I believe is also unique.
Furthermore, the Bible and the Rig-Veta and numerous other “holy” books at least contain certain elements of art and beauty. The Book of Mormon, on the other hand, has been accurately described by Mark Twain as “chloroform in print”.
So the question is a good one: How can anyone believe this rubbish, at least without suffering severe cognitive dissonance?
Except for the points I raised just above. It is unique among huge and growing sects and so may justifiably be singled out.
Mormonism has something along the same lines, or at least that’s how it’s been interpreted by at least some important Mormons, such as Brigham Young. Look into “blood atonement”, for example.
Sure it is. See above.
Possibly. But did you know that this claim has been compellingly (IMHO) minimized if not debunked by recent critical LDS scholars?
True, and that is indeed a very convenient (if intellectually dishonest) vehicle for escaping from valid legal prosecution. But they’ve rarely used it outside of that framework. For example, a recent (but former) LDS President made it clear that the doctrine wherein dark-skinned converts will become light-skinned is still valid.
Yes indeed, for the reasons I outlined above. You just can’t lump them all together as equally dumb.
Hmm… I think I made a mistake above when I said I thought it might be the Seventh-Day Adventists who believe in salvation for all critters, too. I think now that it may be the JWs, instead.
Many would say, and I tend to agree, that this inability or reluctance on the part of Mormons to recognize how extremely bizarre and empirically counter-factual their beliefs are is precisely the problem.
I didn’t say “all sets”. I pointed out that other denominations of Christianity are no more believable than Mormonism.
Both the old and new testaments make a great deal of empirical claims that can easily be proven false.
The Old Testament claims that Moses built a huge ark and loaded it with every single species of animal. I don’t see that as any more believable than the story you just referenced.
Is that more believable than people who embrace Christianity being snatched up into the sky from an apocalyptic earth with supernatural beings riding supernatural horses through the sky?
Earth created in 7 days? No dinosaurs created, but dinosaur fossils discovered?
That Jesus could know the future? That he could turn water into wine? That the dead can come back to life? That a man could part the sea? Should I stop, or do you want me to go on for another hour?
I can’t think of one that doesn’t. Although I don’t know what you mean by “scientific”. They are religious claims, just like any other religion. There are other Christian denominations who believe every word of the bible literally, as scientific truth.
Yes, they are.
There is much in the Bible that is quite easily falsifyable. The Mormon religion is not unique at all. It makes the same kinds of claims as other religions. The only difference is that it’s newer, and as I said, being old doesn’t make a claim correct.
Matter of opinion. I’m not a fan of the Bible either. The stuff that’s considered the best parts of it is simply reworked from earlier myths. There’s very little that’s even original. And the original question was, “How can anyone buy into it?”, not “How good is the poetry?”
It’s a valid question, but singling out the Mormons as being the only group to apply the question to makes no sense. I don’t believe in ridiculing others for their religious beliefs. I disagree with all religious beliefs; I don’t see the point of making fun of them, and I can’t think of a single time in history when doing so has had any kind of positive effect on anyone.
Perhaps it is the inability of the rest of Christianity to recognize it in their own beliefs that is the problem.
Huh? This is Great Debates, the perfect place for these issues. And I haven’t seen any evidence of genuine rudeness in this thread thus far. There is a vast difference between being polite and being obsequiously submissive to all claims and tiptoeing beyond any and all objections.
If she believes what she says, she should stick around and attempt to inform us of our errors and try to correct them. This is a debate, not a mutual admiration society or a witnessing zone.
Nonsense. I’m a soft atheist, epistemic agnostic, and even a skeptic of the historicity of Jesus. I strongly believe that all supernatural religions are ludicrous. But not all religions are equally ludicrous. Mormonism holds the championship in this regard among huge and growing religions.
And that view is quite unjustifiable. Personally, I don’t find any religions believable, but there is zero doubt that some religions are “more” believable than others.
No, they don’t. Certainly not “many”, at least. Some people today unjustifiably interpret them as empirical, but it just ain’t so. For them to have been empirical claims, the authors would have had to have been scientifically | experimentally | observationally | verificationally minded, and that, they most certainly weren’t. But Smith and Co. were. The Bible’s authors weren’t knowingly making falsifiable and thus empirical claims. They were creating supernatural, cultural mythos.
No, they didn’t. That’s a modern and highly dubious interpretation. Only fundamentalists and literalists and those of such modern ilk foolishly believe that these were anything but knowing myths. The Bible does not pretend to be reportage. The BoM does.
Revelation is by far most obviously the very opposite of reportage or empirical claims. Most biblical scholars, modern and ancient, have held that that book should not even have been included in the canon. Consider it not.
Sheesh. What part of “creation myth” don’t you understand? Are you really so naive as to think the authors of such things imagined they were reporting literal history? You’re confusing modern fundamentalists and literalists with the far more savvy and sophisticated mythologists of the Bible’s authorship. All that is nothing like the BoM’s direct, empirical claims that a historical tribe of Israel constructed (and the BoM goes into enormous, empirical detail about just how it was constructed and it’s modernly convertible dimensions) an impossibly vast submarine and traveled, en masse, to the new world in it and were the Native Americans. There’s just nothing like it in the Bible, certainly not Noah’s Ark. The vast majority of the questionable portions of the Bible are unfalsifiable, while the vast majority of the questionable portions of the BoM are falsifiable. That’s a huge difference.
Please do. It’s fun. None of those amounted to the kind of empirical claims in the BoM. This may be a bit subtle, but not even the most recent biblical authors had even a clue about reportage. They just didn’t think that way. The author of the BoM did.
One of the biggest errors you keep making involves your apparent dismissal of the fact that Mormonism takes all of the Bible’s impossibilities and implausibilities and adds vastly more of them! Mormonism doesn’t merely replace the absurdities of the Bible with their own absurdities, it vastly multiplies them! That alone is enough to distinguish Mormonism from other religions. It’s as if some religion came along and expanded a “turtles all the way down!” theology into “not only that, there’s nothing BUT turtles!” theology. It places Mormonism in a unique position among faiths with a large number of adherents.
No, no, no. That’s just my point. The Bible makes many “religious” (i.e., unfalsifiable) claims, but the Mormon scriptures make vastly more empirical, scientific (i.e., falsifiable) claims.
That’s a modern, Christian invention which has no bearing on my point. For example, none of the religious Jews I know (admittedly a small sample) believe the Torah makes empirical claims or that it should be taken literally or that it’s intended to be a factual history of the Jewish people. The authors simply did not think that way, while the BoM’s author did just that.
These are not equivalent to the claims of other religions!
::: sigh :::
I’ll repeat: that is a result of empirically, scientifically minded moderns looking backwards to a time long past when no one made scientifically empirical claims, and foolishly re-casting the Bible in modern clothes that just don’t fit. What matters is whether or not the authors were making empirical claims, not whether we moderns can interpret (misinterpret, rather) what they wrote that way.
The subtlety involved is apparently lost on you. Mormonism is indeed unique to those with more nuanced vision.
Thank you for pointing out the very, very obvious and perfectly well-known. I did not base my arguments on the artistry or lack of it in the BoM versus other scriptures. I simply pointed out that this made for an additional difference. But if it should give you pleasure to blow that up out of proportion, I’ll happily stand aside and not interfere. Jes’ let me know.
Then it’s a damn good thing I never claimed such a thing! But the fact is that Mormonism contains both qualitatively and quantitatively more ludicrous empirical claims than other religions.
I strongly resent any implication that I’m doing that. Pointing out the absurdities of a belief system is in no way equivalent to personal ridicule.
Then you are very inexperienced in this sort of thing. I have de-converted a few Mormons by pointing out the absurdities in the Mormon belief system, and they’ve profusely thanked me for it. Alas, I haven’t been able to do so in the case of my wonderful, loving, but hopelessly naive niece, more’s the pity. So I’ve long since stopped trying and have accepted her naivete with no loss of love from my quarter. Some beliefs just can’t be dislodged by reason.
groans I’m not even Mormon anymore; why am I spending time correcting this? :smack: 
OK, ambushed, you’re conflating two separate BoM stories with one Bible story.
The Jaredites in the Book of Mormon traveled to the American continent in sixteen submarines. This voyage took place immediately after the confounding of the languages at the Tower of Babel. The Jaredites were wiped out, and wouldn’t have been Israelites anyway, since they predate Jacob (Israel), so the Mormon notion that Native Americans are descended from Jews has nothing to so with the “submarine story.” No dimensions, nor any other construction details except for the vaguest description, are given for the ships.
The Nephites and Lamanites in the Book of Mormon traveled to the American continent shortly before the Babylonian captivity. They did so in a surface ship, whose dimensions are not given. The Mormon Church claims that these people are the princpal ancestors of the native Americans.
Noah in the Bible built a massive ark in which he housed specimens of every terrestrial and avian species in order to preserve them from the flood. The dimensions of this ark are given, as well as some basic construction details (type of wood, sealed with pitch, etc.).
OK, carry on. I don’t believe any of the three stories detailed above, but I figured I’d fight some ignorance.
:smack: :smack:
Eight submarines. The Jaredites traveled in eight submarines. Sixteen was the number of magic stones they used to light the interiors of the boats.
Wasn’t a big part of that joke, the fact that there is a character named “Ether”?
I really like that they were set alight by a touch from the finger of God. And the Brother of Jared, who Joseph Smith gave the name Mahonri Moriancumer, had so much faith that he was allowed to see the finger of God. Not all of God’s body, because that would blind him, but just the finger of God.
Wrong Ark. Noah built the floating zoo. Moses built the Nazi-killer.