tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80054906852209490622024-03-08T05:33:26.509-06:00American Testament: The Book of MormonThe Book of Mormon is a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible and is a record of God's dealings with His chosen people in the New World. The main purpose of the Book of Mormon is "to the convincing of Jew and Gentile that JESUS is the CHRIST, the ETERNAL GOD, manifesting himself unto all nations." (Book of Mormon Title Page) It was written by ancient American prophets for our day (Mormon 8:35) and is an American testament of the Lord Jesus Christ.AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.comBlogger261125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-57089011997998974782023-09-30T14:22:00.002-05:002023-09-30T14:22:25.380-05:00Tenochtitlan: A reconstruction of the great Aztec city<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrmyTRcaUDMbTRdeClxU2_fVVlzNd43XJ3OxPRCL1uzuqf1jn_0Boo96louKaVDFAYKUcWqU0CW_Gbit_aeQL7Y2_VEx5mnCVbfDmMYSbXTcQmZ3goSMXM8v4wFtfPaD1CYfDE_nwnB-cshbSJR7AdYU-NhBKIIWvF6dJHgn5TcRUk7b0HxguMLihcWJM/s750/tenochtitlan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="750" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrmyTRcaUDMbTRdeClxU2_fVVlzNd43XJ3OxPRCL1uzuqf1jn_0Boo96louKaVDFAYKUcWqU0CW_Gbit_aeQL7Y2_VEx5mnCVbfDmMYSbXTcQmZ3goSMXM8v4wFtfPaD1CYfDE_nwnB-cshbSJR7AdYU-NhBKIIWvF6dJHgn5TcRUk7b0HxguMLihcWJM/w548-h275/tenochtitlan.jpg" width="548" /></a></div><p>A frequent criticism of the Book of Mormon is that the people, culture, population size, and advancements of the people it describes couldn't possibly be real. Its historicity is regularly challenged along the lines of the biases that modern people have about ancient people and claims that so-called "primitive people" wouldn't have been able to achieve what the Jaredites, Nephites, and Lamanites achieved. </p><p><a href="https://tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl/" target="_blank">This modern digital reconstruction of the great city of Tenochtitlan</a> (now modern-day Mexico City) is a full-throated rebuttal of such presentist and, frankly, bigoted thinking. It's truly amazing what we haven't been aware of simply because of the biased rhetoric about ancient Aztec and Mayan civilizations.</p><p><a href="https://tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl/">https://tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl/</a></p>AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0Mexico City, CDMX, Mexico19.4326077 -99.133208-8.8776261361788471 -134.289458 47.742841536178844 -63.976957999999996tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-56054510119588440952023-07-31T21:21:00.001-05:002023-07-31T21:21:15.971-05:00More Mayan Structures Revealed by LiDAR Scans<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIO0Q9LEePaZHn8TO0VxOhEqcIu50aAJRlZYDAgd671ZVVnfeSL15lCdx2ALi50TY8U4oCxzHu7B8BSEb7F6jg5-GDASHRZ0xAQ-vME3R5P7irrS9HHOI4uvpKaajoN0s9p_LKF9fFCUxjxYzWAe9iOIDSuuFFfnjyNt-ENVe8jFYBtD97BJgino0-Qrk/s1000/losttreasuresofthemayasnakeking_lr_15.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="1000" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIO0Q9LEePaZHn8TO0VxOhEqcIu50aAJRlZYDAgd671ZVVnfeSL15lCdx2ALi50TY8U4oCxzHu7B8BSEb7F6jg5-GDASHRZ0xAQ-vME3R5P7irrS9HHOI4uvpKaajoN0s9p_LKF9fFCUxjxYzWAe9iOIDSuuFFfnjyNt-ENVe8jFYBtD97BJgino0-Qrk/w482-h362/losttreasuresofthemayasnakeking_lr_15.webp" width="482" /></a></div><br /><div>More evidence that not everything is known about the size of the ancient Mesoamerican civilization known as the Mayans. </div><div><br /></div><a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/laser-scans-reveal-60000-hidden-maya-structures-guatemala-180968030/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Laser Scans Reveal 60,000 Hidden Maya Structures in Guatemala - Houses, fortifications, pyramids and causeways were among the discoveries</a><p><br /></p>AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0Central America12.7690126 -85.602364299999991-15.541221236178846 -120.75861429999999 41.079246436178849 -50.446114299999991tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-74548965105427580752023-07-31T21:00:00.000-05:002023-07-31T21:00:04.438-05:00Pre-Columbian Amazonian earthworks, geoglyphs, and signs of a massive civilization<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWDvDCHoOu4SXy7mMmR4Lat0r_lATjEsOnut84TkmxGE7aCAsF-dx7hkXnzx8vR4xEQOOLM2cCO74oKce0uVTbYGAN7Wd2vqqiu-9UhPbGFDFpLz3n67HIrCw_8Z0yMrl2OW3yTQwotvknJoiTDaR1HVrYWdpb6elqPvPaZXR8dWRLQNAuvgN6DXqYYIE/s687/41467_2018_3510_Fig1_HTML.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="687" data-original-width="685" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWDvDCHoOu4SXy7mMmR4Lat0r_lATjEsOnut84TkmxGE7aCAsF-dx7hkXnzx8vR4xEQOOLM2cCO74oKce0uVTbYGAN7Wd2vqqiu-9UhPbGFDFpLz3n67HIrCw_8Z0yMrl2OW3yTQwotvknJoiTDaR1HVrYWdpb6elqPvPaZXR8dWRLQNAuvgN6DXqYYIE/w429-h430/41467_2018_3510_Fig1_HTML.webp" width="429" /></a></div><br /><div>Here is a collection of headlines and links about pre-Columbian earthworks found in the Amazon region of South America showing signs of an enormous civilization that was much more advanced than was previously understood.</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03510-7" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Pre-Columbian earth-builders settled along the entire southern rim of the Amazon</a></li><li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/science/amazon-earthworks-geoglyphs-brazil.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Long Before Making Enigmatic Earthworks, People Reshaped Brazil’s Rain Forest</a></li><li><a href="https://phys.org/news/2017-02-hundreds-ancient-earthworks-built-amazon.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hundreds of ancient earthworks built in the Amazon</a></li><li><a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-30018-0_3029" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Geometric Earthworks of Western Amazonia</a></li><li><a href="http://www.jqjacobs.net/archaeology/geoglyph.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hundreds of Geoglyphs Discovered in the Amazon</a></li><li><a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/100104-amazon-lost-civilization-circles" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"Lost" Amazon Complex Found; Shapes Seen by Satellite</a></li></ul></div><div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div>AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0Amazon Rainforest - Codajás, State of Amazonas, 69450-000, Brazil-3.4653053 -62.21588049999999-31.775539136178846 -97.3721305 24.844928536178845 -27.05963049999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-43639095062431051912023-07-31T20:46:00.014-05:002023-07-31T20:52:32.256-05:00Metal Plates and The Words of Gad the Seer<p><span face="minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-size: 17.6px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-indent: 0px;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpqX6t_0vCw8TueiNrHCa9ikl6JwKZ-6fuYr5AnsrL4ePEmJyvdCpZLp2NfOHIFvFF1hQkII78cZZpSE5q8V8pwp8MjyI9uROYlToJTUanvFxkhVoipVHQRvFgGYY3TKfx105mx15YJ2uwuKQ39BAEy6PzYwwi_V3ZO8ubNXFdU1RmlPWS5pHXkfH5Uc4/s1280/1280px-Jewish_copper_plates_of_Cochin_-_2528plate_I252C_side_I2529_2528early_11th_century_AD2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="618" data-original-width="1280" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpqX6t_0vCw8TueiNrHCa9ikl6JwKZ-6fuYr5AnsrL4ePEmJyvdCpZLp2NfOHIFvFF1hQkII78cZZpSE5q8V8pwp8MjyI9uROYlToJTUanvFxkhVoipVHQRvFgGYY3TKfx105mx15YJ2uwuKQ39BAEy6PzYwwi_V3ZO8ubNXFdU1RmlPWS5pHXkfH5Uc4/w534-h258/1280px-Jewish_copper_plates_of_Cochin_-_2528plate_I252C_side_I2529_2528early_11th_century_AD2529.jpg" width="534" /></a></div><br />From <a href="https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/the-words-of-gad-the-seer-an-apparently-ancient-text-with-intriguing-origins-and-content/?fbclid=IwAR3FihIi0Px0_xkjv8qFQFqSlscskmf5rYCAr_lucQWbtRtkU_z9iM0xDDY&mibextid=Zxz2cZ">https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/the-words-of-gad-the-seer-an-apparently-ancient-text-with-intriguing-origins-and-content/</a><p></p><p style="text-indent: 0px;"><span style="text-indent: 2em;">“</span><span face="minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-size: 17.6px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto;">One aspect of the story of ancient texts among the Jews at Cochin, India, is the issue of writing on metal plates. The Jews at Cochin were said to have kept their ancient history on copper or brass plates, consistent with traditions of using copper plates in India for important legal documents going back at least to the third century</span><span face="minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-size: 17.6px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><span class="small-caps" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-family: inherit; font-size: 17.6px; font-style: inherit; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant: small-caps; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: lowercase; vertical-align: baseline;">bc</span><span face="minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-size: 17.6px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto;">.</span><a href="https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/the-words-of-gad-the-seer-an-apparently-ancient-text-with-intriguing-origins-and-content/?fbclid=IwAR3FihIi0Px0_xkjv8qFQFqSlscskmf5rYCAr_lucQWbtRtkU_z9iM0xDDY#footnote22sym" id="footnote22anc" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #9e292d; font-family: inherit; font-size: 17.6px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;" title="22. See Krishnendu Ray, “Material Melieu of a Western Indian Vaisnava Temple-Cluster: Gleanings From Sanjeli Copper Plates (AD 499–515 AD),” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 64 (2003): 254–60, http://www.jstor.com/stable/44145467; Richard Salomon, “New Inscriptional Evidence for the History of the Aulikaras of Mandasor,” Indo-Iranian Journal 32, no. 1 (January 1989): 1–36, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24654606; …"><span style="border: 0px; bottom: 1.5ex; font-size: 12px; height: 0px; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 2px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">22</span></a><span face="minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-size: 17.6px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><span face="minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-size: 17.6px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto;">A hint about scriptures written on metal comes from one source who visited the Cochin colony several times early in the 1700s, Captain Alexander</span><span face="minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-size: 17.6px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><span face="minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-size: 17.6px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto;">Hamilton</span><a href="https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/the-words-of-gad-the-seer-an-apparently-ancient-text-with-intriguing-origins-and-content/?fbclid=IwAR3FihIi0Px0_xkjv8qFQFqSlscskmf5rYCAr_lucQWbtRtkU_z9iM0xDDY#footnote23sym" id="footnote23anc" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #9e292d; font-family: inherit; font-size: 17.6px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;" title="23. See Wikipedia, s.v. “Alexander Hamilton (sailor),” last modified June 28, 2022, 17:01, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton_(sailor)."><span style="border: 0px; bottom: 1.5ex; font-size: 12px; height: 0px; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 2px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">23</span></a><span face="minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-size: 17.6px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><span face="minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-size: 17.6px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto;">(a British sailor, not the US statesman). In his</span><span face="minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-size: 17.6px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-family: inherit; font-size: 17.6px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;">A New Account of the East Indies</span><span face="minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-size: 17.6px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto;">, he stated that they had kept their history recorded on copper plates stored in a synagogue.</span><a href="https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/the-words-of-gad-the-seer-an-apparently-ancient-text-with-intriguing-origins-and-content/?fbclid=IwAR3FihIi0Px0_xkjv8qFQFqSlscskmf5rYCAr_lucQWbtRtkU_z9iM0xDDY#footnote24sym" id="footnote24anc" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #9e292d; font-family: inherit; font-size: 17.6px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;" title="24. Alexander Hamilton, A New Account of the East Indies, Giving an exact and copious Description of the Situation, Product, Manufactures, Laws, Customs, Religion, Trade, &c. of all the Countries and Islands, which lie between the Cape of Good Hope, and the Island of Japon [. . .] (London: 1744), 1:323–24, available at https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_New_Account_of_the_East_Indies/-jNagGDT-PsC??hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA323&printsec=frontcover."><span style="border: 0px; bottom: 1.5ex; font-size: 12px; height: 0px; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 2px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">24</span></a><span face="minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-size: 17.6px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto;"> </span><span face="minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-size: 17.6px; text-indent: 2em; text-size-adjust: auto;">He reports:</span></p><blockquote style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-family: minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif; font-size: 17.6px; margin: 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; quotes: "" ""; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">They [the Jews in Cochin, India] have a Synagogue at Couchin, not far from the King’s Palace, about two Miles from the City, in which are carefully kept their Records, engraven in Copper-plates in Hebrew characters; and when any of the Characters decay, they are new cut, so that they can shew their own History from the Reign of Nebuchadnezzar to this present Time …</p></blockquote><blockquote style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(55, 55, 55); color: #373737; font-family: minion-pro-n4, minion-pro-1, minion-pro-2, "Palatino Linotype", "Book Antiqua", Palatino, serif; font-size: 17.6px; margin: 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; quotes: "" ""; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">They declare themselves to be of the Tribe of Manasseh.<a href="https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/the-words-of-gad-the-seer-an-apparently-ancient-text-with-intriguing-origins-and-content/?fbclid=IwAR3FihIi0Px0_xkjv8qFQFqSlscskmf5rYCAr_lucQWbtRtkU_z9iM0xDDY#footnote25sym" id="footnote25anc" style="border: 0px; color: #9e292d; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="25. Hamilton, A New Account, 1:324."><span style="border: 0px; bottom: 1.5ex; font-size: 12px; height: 0px; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 2px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">25</span></a></p></blockquote><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-size-adjust: auto;" />AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0Kochi, Kerala, India9.9312328 76.26730409999999-18.418283088356336 41.111054100000018 38.28074868835634 111.42355409999996tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-11574127216416021282022-10-28T14:29:00.003-05:002022-11-21T20:21:55.368-06:00Part 4 of Debunking "30 Bizarre Mormon Rules You Won’t Believe Are Real"<p><i>In <a href="https://www.americantestament.com/2022/10/part-1-of-debunking-30-bizarre-mormon.html" target="_blank">Part 1</a> of Debunking "30 Bizarre Mormon Rules You Won’t Believe Are Real", I covered the first five of thirty different false narratives about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and our beliefs. If you're jumping into this current post from a search engine result, I recommend reading at least the first part of Part 1 for better context before continuing. I'll wait here. 😁</i></p><p><i>All done? Let's get cracking with these next five, shall we?</i></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_-aqUlpe0rb7rvgC4hHNI0819HGQZexZFxAAbuI6vSSdoNV3MwT84E_dLsCHRQDJ4p4ZCq-oMo-e9GSWz3XPGEoc19F2XdoZDz2h16KZrjbI2gT1tJ4cNbLelrQL_VRMHhdice2ue9d4GxO51K_Y4ylel04QjO9gSIBD4NMwALUenIoqrS6MFDwqK/s320/mexico_women_conversing.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Women converse with each other at church." border="0" data-original-height="213" data-original-width="320" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_-aqUlpe0rb7rvgC4hHNI0819HGQZexZFxAAbuI6vSSdoNV3MwT84E_dLsCHRQDJ4p4ZCq-oMo-e9GSWz3XPGEoc19F2XdoZDz2h16KZrjbI2gT1tJ4cNbLelrQL_VRMHhdice2ue9d4GxO51K_Y4ylel04QjO9gSIBD4NMwALUenIoqrS6MFDwqK/w400-h266/mexico_women_conversing.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Women converse with each other at church in Mexico.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><b><i></i></b><blockquote><b><i>16. No Caffeine</i></b><div><b><i><br />Costa and Starbucks are definitely off the menu for Mormons as they do not partake in tea or coffee due to the stimulant, caffeine which is seen as being a drug. Latter Day Saints have found ways to fill the gap by drinking concoctions of other drinks from recipes handed down by ancestors. Have they not heard of decaffeinated?</i></b></div></blockquote><p>It's true that tea and coffee are proscribed by the Word of Wisdom (a name given to the <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/89?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">law of health scripture the Lord revealed to Joseph Smith</a>) touched on in <a href="https://www.americantestament.com/2022/10/part-1-of-debunking-30-bizarre-mormon.html">Part 1</a>. <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/revelations-in-context/the-word-of-wisdom?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Here's a good article about it in the historical context of the original revelation</a>. But there has never been any solid clarification on whether the issue is caffeine or some other aspect of tea (only certain kinds) and coffee (all kinds, even decaf).</p><p>If the issue is truly caffeine, then chocolate and other natural sources of caffeine would also be counseled against. But they're not. We LDS folks eat chocolate like there's no tomorrow (though we probably shouldn't in the spirit of better health). We love hot chocolate beverages (our substitute for coffee in social situations).</p><p>BYU, the Church's sponsored school, no longer prohibits caffeinated cola drinks in its vending machines or cafeterias, so it's not caffeine. It's even well-known that Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf is a <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2016/10/o-how-great-the-plan-of-our-god?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Diet Coke drinker (or maybe Diet Pepsi?)</a>, so, again, it's not likely the caffeine.</p><p>One 2013 <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24325083/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">study</a> suggested that acrylamide, a Group 2A carcinogen, which is created during the roasting process, can be harmful over the long term and/or in high concentrations. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18624446/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Other</a> <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31905027/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">studies</a> <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7447024/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">also</a> looked into it. More research is needed to determine whether drinking coffee is a significant risk.</p><p>So why not drink tea and coffee if there are no obvious health downsides and <a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/9-reasons-why-the-right-amount-of-coffee-is-good-for-you" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">plenty of scientifically-claimed upsides</a> (even though those upsides can arguably be gained in other ways without coffee)?</p><p>While the Lord has not given us specifics, we commonly accept that anything that is as addictive or at least dependency-creating as coffee and tea can be (for whatever other possible reasons besides caffeine) is not good for us. </p><p>And, yes, this also extends to too much <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sugar</a> and any other substance or activity that rewards the addiction-forming neural and endocrine pathways. </p><p>Sure, coffee and tea aren't in the same category as, say, heroin, methamphetamine, or cocaine. Nevertheless, everyone "knows" that coffee is an addiction or dependency because it's as difficult for many people to quit drinking as it is to quit smoking cigarettes. Here's an interesting anecdotal article about <a href="https://www.thedailymeditation.com/quit-addictions" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">one person's journey to quit sugar, coffee, and cigarette addictions</a>.</p><p>It's also helpful to consider the fact that when the Word of Wisdom was first revealed, absolutely nobody was concerned about tobacco as a health risk. In fact, for decades there were actual doctors (incentivized by the tobacco industry) who told patients regularly that smoking was <i>good</i> for them. Even to the point of <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/blowing-smoke-vintage-ads-of-doctors-endorsing-tobacco/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">recommending certain brands</a>.</p><p>Why is that helpful? Because the Lord warned us in 1833 of "<a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/89?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days</a>" to damage our health. It wasn't until <b>1958 (!)</b> that there began to be warning labels to try to stop people from hurting themselves. </p><p>That, and the other prohibitions and prescriptions in the Word of Wisdom, gave LDS folks a 125-year healthy-living knowledge head start on the scientific establishment. </p><p>We didn't need to know each of the scientific reasons. We just needed faith to follow God's words. I trust God that it will eventually be the same outcome with coffee and tea.</p><p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2ovhbT-Iulc" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></p><i></i><blockquote><i><b>17. Set Forth And Multiply</b></i><div><i><b><br />In Britain, 2.4 children is the usual size of a family. With Mormons, it is more like 9.8 for an average brood. Their religion states that children are a gift from the Lord and even if the parents are experiencing financial hardships, this should not be taken into account when looking to fill those other bedrooms.</b></i></div></blockquote><p>If, as is common with these hit pieces on LDS living, the author is implying that all "Mormons" are from Utah, then even that is wrong. Pamela S. Perlich, Ph.D. <a href="https://gardner.utah.edu/utahs-fertility-rate-is-at-historic-low/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">says</a>:</p><blockquote>Utah’s fertility rate has fallen significantly since 1960, when it was 4.30 children per woman, to 2.33 in the most recent data for 2014. This is an historically low fertility rate for Utah, and only slightly exceeds the replacement level of 2.1.</blockquote>That's simply because Utah is not some exotic, faraway, isolated compound where only throwback "Mormon" hicks live and reproduce with abandon. It's a modern U.S. state with many decades of being integrated with the rest of modern American society, including such things as birth control, technological innovation, and migrations of people in and out of the state. It's not ever been 100% LDS people. Right now it's hovering around 60% LDS membership, but probably around 40%-50% or less are active members.<div><br /></div><div>Outside of Utah and internationally, the numbers vary, but generally, we do tend to have more children on average. But 9.8 for "an average brood" is a severe outlier today, and wasn't as common as people think it was in earlier times. Poverty, disease, and infant mortality were all mitigating reproductive factors until as late as the 1950s. When the 1960s brought more and advanced birth control methods, LDS folks didn't exactly march in lock step against them.<br /><br />A word like "brood" is not helpful nor tolerant. It implies that we are breeding, or being bred, like mindless rabbits or sheep. Every child we have is precious to us. With some exceptions where households suffer from marital disharmony or abuses, most children born into most faithful LDS households are wanted. That's because, in general, we do believe that children are a gift from the Lord, not a burden or an accessory.<br /><blockquote><i><b>18. Sexy Clothing</b></i><div><i><b><br />Even reading the word ‘sexy clothing’ would lead to shame in the Mormon religion. Females, even married women, should not go sleeveless or wear anything tight or figure-hugging. This is seen as, to be blunt, trashy and disrespectful to the whole and extended family.</b></i></div></blockquote>"Even reading the word 'sexy clothing' would lead to shame..." No, it wouldn't. We're not prudes.</div><div><br /></div><div>Women wear whatever they want in our church. The fact that they happen to choose to dress more modestly, in general, than the rest of the human population is really nothing scandalous. But a fair amount of LDS women are choosing to go sleeveless (if they haven't already made covenants in the temple and now wear the symbolic undergarments). </div><div><br /></div><div>Neither is "figure-hugging" clothing banished in any way. Nor is it universally and institutionally condemned in the harshest terms possible as the article alleges.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sure, there are some cultural and traditional norms that still hold some weight. Someone not of our faith showing up to a Sacrament meeting or to the temple in a miniskirt or bikini top is going to be noticed, for sure. That's just because that type of clothing is not the "norm" for what most members expect. </div><div><br /></div><div>But, especially in our most progressive congregations, they'll likely be welcomed and included in the proceedings as far as possible. In the less progressive congregations, someone may invite them to wear something less revealing to future meetings, but hopefully only after some rapport has been established, the moment is right, and the person is ready to hear the suggestion.</div><div><br /></div><div>Men are also invited to wear clothing befitting of the circumstances of worship. Showing up in greasy, torn jeans and a dirty t-shirt (or no shirt at all) is, again, going to be noticed. But we strive to "look on the heart" and to not judge by outward appearances only, so we'll create a friendship first before we ever broach the subject of how one should dress for a Sunday meeting. Most people new to our faith just figure that out anyways and adjust their wardrobe accordingly if they decide to stay.</div><div><br /></div><div>The elephant in the room here is the shaming of women for how they dress. That's not just an LDS problem. It's an issue that exists in all of human society. Especially highly orthodox segments of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religions. That's something we can all work on.</div><div><div><i></i></div><blockquote><div><i><b>19. Fasting</b></i></div><div><i><b><br />Mormons fast one Sunday every month for 24 hours. That extends to not drinking any water either for the duration. The money that would have been spent on two meals for the family is then donated to the poor and is known as ‘Fast Sunday’ – who thought that name up?</b></i></div></blockquote>Yes, we do fast and pray for that period of time. At least, that's the ideal that we are taught. I personally struggle to A) remember that it's Fast Sunday and B) start and end my fast exactly within 24 hours. Lots of people do. Others struggle with not drinking water or not having a little nip of food here and there. It's ok. Fasting is part of the doctrine of elevated prayer, of course. But the particulars of fasting for a 24-hour period one Sunday a month is a policy bordering on a tradition.</div><div><br /></div><div>Instead, we try to focus on the intent and faith behind a fast. Fasting isn't just going hungry and thirsty. It's an implementation of the Law of Sacrifice accompanied by sincere prayer. <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/nt/matt/17?lang=eng&id=21#p21" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jesus taught that fasting with prayer can have a stronger and more lasting outcome than just prayer alone.</a> </div><div><br /></div><div>Besides, most of our existence is the mundane mindlessness of the body compelling us to eat, drink, sleep, and do other activities that we could do without for a little while if we were just more mindful. Self-denial trains the body to let one's spirit (and God's Spirit) drive for a while.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some people have health reasons why they cannot go 24 hours or even 12 hours without food and/or water. Those folks are allowed to choose how they'll fast or even if they'll fast. They can fast in ways that don't involve food. Perhaps they will go without using mobile devices, watching TV, or some other bodily-driven desire that would stand in for that kind of sacrifice.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is correct that we are asked to donate the money that would have been spent on two meals. That is also a policy, not a doctrine. God doesn't need money to do His will in training us to provide for others. But in a world where agrarian lifestyles have given way to industrial and now technological lifestyles, it's not as easy anymore to donate a generous portion of chicken eggs, a bag of grain, or a side of cured ham like we used to do. Now, it's simply more practical to donate money that will be used to help pay rent for someone recently unemployed, cover medical bills, purchase clothing, or (of course) buy food for a family in need.<br /><div><i></i><blockquote><i><b>20. Dinosaurs</b></i><div><i><b><br />You read that correctly! What on earth are dinosaurs to do with the Mormon religion? Well, ‘earth’ is the operative word as this faith teaches kids that fossilized dinosaur bones come from other creatures living on other planets that were destroyed when Earth was created. I don’t know what planet these teachers were from!</b></i></div></blockquote>This allegation is only true in the realm of speculations that some members of our faith indulge in from time to time. Like most human beings, we are curious about the world around us. Our faith is part of that curiosity. So when we hear about scientific principles or discoveries, we naturally try to find ways to align them with what we know in our hearts about God. Dinosaurs coming from other planetary materials used to make this earth, and many other strange and unusual ideas, do emerge from time to time. Like all news about us, these ideas get "press" mostly for the fact that they are strange and unusual.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Bible isn't a scientific textbook, nor was it meant to be. We are somewhat unique in recognizing that fact. One of the many ways I like to read scripture is to try to separate what is literal from what is symbolic or metaphorical. </div><div><br /></div><div>I also like to try to figure out various timelines for events described in Genesis. Personally, I believe the science of a 4.2-billion-year-old Earth and a 13-billion-year-old universe is quite solid. I don't think it detracts from science or from God to say that. God is eternal, and likely lives outside the confining boundaries of our "spacetime" reality, which means <a href="https://phys.org/news/2011-04-scientists-spacetime-dimension.html">time really doesn't exist for Him</a>. It's all one "now". So 13 billion years is a blink of an eye and might as well be 130 billion or 130 trillion.</div><div><br /></div><div>While evolution could have been the way things came about, my observation of the enormous complexities of all creatures leads me to think it is unlikely that it was accidental or random. I believe God used scientific principles we call "nature" or "natural selection" to personally involve Himself in whatever was created. And, it's possible or even likely that some or even all creatures were transplanted, little by little, to our world from other worlds with life already on them. Lots of possibilities, but ones God has yet to confirm with more detail. Still, we wait for more revelations on the subject, per Articles of Faith 1:9.</div><div><span face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;"></span><blockquote><span face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;">We believe all that God has </span><span class="study-note-ref hidden-Wb_An" data-scroll-id="note9a" face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">revealed</span><span face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;">, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet </span><span class="study-note-ref hidden-Wb_An" data-scroll-id="note9b" face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">reveal</span><span face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;"> many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.</span></blockquote><span face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;"></span></div><div>Many prominent scientists have emerged from LDS homes where faith was a central value. A large number of those scientists found room in their intellect for the scientific principles they studied and implemented AND for God. That didn't hurt their professions except in institutions where non-religious individuals applied their own personal biases and put up roadblocks.</div><div><br /></div><div>Time to end this post, but there's more in <a href="https://www.americantestament.com/2022/10/part-5-of-debunking-30-bizarre-mormon.html">Part 5</a>!</div><div><i></i></div></div>AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-65933144945760669572022-10-28T14:29:00.002-05:002022-10-28T14:29:28.578-05:00Part 6 of Debunking "30 Bizarre Mormon Rules You Won’t Believe Are Real"<p><i>In <a href="https://www.americantestament.com/2022/10/part-1-of-debunking-30-bizarre-mormon.html" target="_blank">Part 1</a> of Debunking "30 Bizarre Mormon Rules You Won’t Believe Are Real", I covered the first five of thirty different false narratives about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and our beliefs. If you're jumping into this current post from a search engine result, I recommend reading at least the first part of Part 1 for better context before continuing. I'll wait here. 😁</i></p><p><i>All done? Let's get cracking with these last five, shall we?</i></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihtNjRkuNVJYrc18QVglPjzXsZFtBAtfomFy7pFti4ErKiO-ulb5rHrWz29bQqrpU2ejm4lCZx-pgGR0T9IEM1DORYagVaAjt4gNUelh1gOlEXzAKDRsMN4WsO8OIlRR5Rn90aAlTmk9e-IqvHtzr3RVnsSaqwbsxDY_757-27UL4cpHxH1-RVuvpU/s320/parents_children_playing.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="A mother and father play with their children outside" border="0" data-original-height="213" data-original-width="320" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihtNjRkuNVJYrc18QVglPjzXsZFtBAtfomFy7pFti4ErKiO-ulb5rHrWz29bQqrpU2ejm4lCZx-pgGR0T9IEM1DORYagVaAjt4gNUelh1gOlEXzAKDRsMN4WsO8OIlRR5Rn90aAlTmk9e-IqvHtzr3RVnsSaqwbsxDY_757-27UL4cpHxH1-RVuvpU/w400-h266/parents_children_playing.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A mother and father play with their children outside</td></tr></tbody></table></p><b><i></i></b><blockquote><b><i>26. Polygamy</i></b><div><b><i><br />Although polygamy (being greedy and having more than one wife) still exists in the Mormon faith, it is not the usual practice this days. However, there are communities who still practice polygamy and it is accepted. I wonder if a rota is drawn up with wife A and wife B?</i></b></div></blockquote><p>Polygamy or plural marriage no longer exists in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Anyone practicing it before becoming a member <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/38-church-policies-and-guidelines?lang=eng&id=title_number269-p2799#title_number269" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">must cease the practice</a> and anyone practicing it after becoming a member, and without ceasing it, is immediately excommunicated and cannot be readmitted until they stop.</p><p>The writer of the article is, again (frustratingly), equating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with the FLDS group and other unaffiliated groups. The FLDS may claim a common heritage with early LDS Church history, but that's where the similarity ends. <b>They are 100% <i>not</i> members of the LDS Church.</b></p><p>Was the practice of plural marriage "greedy"? From the ahistorical point of view that the reason the early Saints participated in it was that the men wanted more sex with more women, then......I guess? But it was never like that. This "explanation" never made sense to me because of the social cost at the time of being considered by one's community as a sexual degenerate. There was far more to lose than to gain and most men were on record in their own words as having been opposed to it until the Lord, through personal revelation, persuaded them otherwise.</p><p>Now, if it meant helping women have marital property rights and social status rather than turning to prostitution or destitution in the times before women had equal rights, I would argue that it was more helpful than hurtful or "greedy" in that regard. At certain points in our church's history, there were far more women than men (especially after deadly persecutions, apostasies, and migrations). So there were a lot of husbandless/fatherless families to take care of. It was either plural marriage to keep things respectable under the fact that men were taking responsibility for their welfare by taking them in, or turning them away to fend for themselves in a heartless and cruel frontier world.</p><p><a href="https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/content/library/resources-for-tough-questions-about-church-history?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Plural marriage has never been a question with an easy answer</a> because one man marrying multiple women has the exact types of implications one would expect. Social ostracization around plural marriage was a very real thing when it was first introduced all the way up until it was terminated by <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/od/1?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">abrogating</a> <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/od/2?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">revelations</a>. Hostility between the sister wives and jealousy between them for the attention of the husband are obvious issues as well. Having one man provide funding for such a large household is another. And the general situation of women being "property" in either singular or plural marriages, and rejected by society outside of any marriage, is yet another.</p><p>The differences between FLDS and LDS teachings on plural marriage are vast, though. The FLDS definitely check <i>all</i> the misogynist boxes. I witnessed a lot of it growing up near their community. And now it's the subject of multiple documentaries. I shudder to think about what I know about on that front.</p><p>By contrast, my LDS ancestors had several God-sanctioned plural marriages. As far as the family histories I have on hand show, with the normal exceptions brought about by the vicissitudes of life we all suffer, all were successful, thriving situations for everyone. From what I can tell, the women were revered, respected, and loved by each husband and they mostly got along with and loved each other. </p><p>Except for just one. In that one, the plurality wasn't the issue, but the proposal by the husband to one candidate wife in particular. She was underage AND his <i>stepdaughter</i>! It was very much unaccepted by the community and the Church and was a huge scandal. He was run out of town by a mob for his attempt and died poor and alone in Mexico. His name was erased from the family record for decades until my grandmother discovered it in some old genealogy records. By then, all of us had taken on an entirely new last name and family identity through a different and much better marriage arrangement.</p><p>In most cases, the first wife had the right of first refusal. Another ancestor of mine asked his wife for permission to marry a second plural wife. She invited the woman over for dinner and matter-of-factly stated, "It will be nice when you become my husband's second wife, for I shall then have someone to attend to the washing, the meals, and the dishes." With that, the whole proposal was ended and he didn't take a second wife.</p><p>In answer to how the "rota" or duties were divided up, it was usually the women who decided together how children were cared for, food was prepared, the house was maintained, etc. In most cases, the husband was far too busy trying to scrape up as much sustenance as possible for a single large household or multiple ones to support them all to have much of a real say.</p><i><b></b></i><blockquote><i><b>27. Basketball<br /><br /></b></i><div><i><b>This is a strange one – missionaries cannot play full court basketball, only half court. The reason is that the missionaries are insured by the Church and are more likely to get hurt and sustain injury if paying full court basketball. They also can’t play basketball in leagues or in tournaments.</b></i></div></blockquote>I'm not up-to-date on the current general worldwide mission rules. In my time and location as a missionary in the mid-1990s, full-court basketball was not discouraged to my knowledge. Our preparation day activities consisted of little else given that there wasn't much to do during our one day of down time.<div><br /></div><div>In places where full-court basketball is not allowed, the reason for the policy is, indeed, avoidance of injury. The Church's first priority is to keep missionaries safe, uninjured, and healthy. Also, it costs tens of thousands of dollars in sacred tithing funds and personal missionary funds to outfit, transport, train, and keep each missionary healthy while they serve. When a missionary gets a preventable injury, it's a big per-person expense not to mention a healthcare cost burden for the family and for the church.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not playing in leagues and tournaments is more about keeping an appropriate and dignified separation between the missionary and the world as he or she serves. Where I served, a 6'5"+ tall American missionary who can dunk would have been a huge boon to local teams where the average height of players was just 5' tall. He would also have been a message-distracting attraction to the local young women. Maybe it could have been a missionary opportunity, but more likely it would have been too much conflict of interest and potential for distraction.<br /><div><i></i><blockquote><i><b>28. Dating</b></i><div><i><b><br />Forget dating, if you’re a Mormon. That is the case if you are under 16 years of age. Mixing with the opposite sex for reasons other than studying is strictly forbidden and if a couple of teens are caught together, they both have to undertake hours of studying to repent for their sins.</b></i></div></blockquote><div>Nope. We do advise our youth to not date until the age of 16, and then only in groups (not "pairing off") until they are 18 or older. This is just as much for their personal protection from decisions they're not emotionally and intellectually ready to make yet as it is for any other reason. But plenty of LDS youth decide on their own to not follow these guidelines. Nothing happens to them in terms of Church discipline if they do date before 16 or pair off and "date steady" before 18.</div><div><br /></div><div>And, no, there is nobody looking for teens dating under 16 years of age so they can punish them with hours of studying and repentance. That's just ridiculous if one has even a little knowledge of how the LDS church works. The FLDS, however, is an entirely different story. And they don't even allow dating. Underage girls just get assigned to usually adult or elderly husbands, with no choice of their own, and that's that.</div><div><i></i></div><blockquote><div><i><b>29. No Smoking<br /><br /></b></i></div><div><i><b>It has always been forbidden for Mormons to smoke, not just for the health implications, which is understandable, but also that it neutralizes the purity of a person and all the goodness inside them. When it comes to their passing, they can only be part of the Afterlife if they have followed all the rules.</b></i></div></blockquote><p>This is another <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/86?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Word of Wisdom</a> prohibition as we covered earlier. The writer of the article started out right by correctly acknowledging the well-known health effects of smoking. </p><p>Aaaaand then they ruined it by pretending that we think it "neutralizes purity", i.e. God no longer loves or is interested in helping people after they start smoking or if they can't quit. Or that they no longer have "goodness inside them". Or that they have no chance at happiness after death unless every single rule had been followed to the letter.</p><p>Utter nonsense.</p><p>God loves everyone. Everyone is a sinner and He sent Jesus Christ to help us do and be better. There are dozens and dozens of talks in our General Conferences where the prophets have taught that no matter how many times we mess up, Jesus is there to pick us up, dust us off, and help us try again. If only we let him. And if only we don't listen to the adversary, Satan, who tries to convince us that if we don't keep "all the rules", God won't love us. </p><p>That was actually Satan's plan when he tried to overthrow God in the premortal life. He failed because, well, nobody can overthrow <i>God</i> and because a great number of us rejected being forced into obedience. We now get to choose our own path and Jesus is there to invite us to choose His path. </p><p>In the end, those of us who choose to follow Christ will receive the <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/76?lang=eng&id=92-96#p91" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">highest glory God can offer...eternal life and exaltation with Him</a>. And, as our loving Father, He will give us every chance and every benefit of every doubt to help us, through Christ's merits and grace, to return to live with Him. The most beautiful thing is that it's going to be <i>most</i> of humanity, once all is said and done!</p><p>To get anything less, a person has to actively reject that invitation over the multiple times it is and will be presented. And even the lowest of those levels of glory is so great to behold that Joseph Smith said it <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/76?lang=eng&id=81-90#p81" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"surpasses all understanding" and that "no man knows it except him to whom God has revealed it"</a>. (Which is probably a big reason we're not made aware of it. We'd probably all "rage quit" this lone and dreary world to get there.)</p><p>For the very, very worst, there is a punishment called "<a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/gs/hell?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Outer Darkness</a>". The only people that go there are the ones with the <i>most</i> knowledge of God who then rejected Him in <i>spite</i> of it <i>and</i> to spite Him. They also deny the Holy Ghost and everything the Holy Ghost ever revealed to them. Which is just about everything. It's like, I don't know, five named once-living people (?), including Lucifer (a.k.a Satan) and his always non-corporeal followers, in all of scriptural history who we know of that had that level of knowledge. And we know almost nothing about specific conditions in Outer Darkness. God seems to have chosen to keep that information from us so we won't focus on it.</p><i></i></div><blockquote><div><i><b>30. Popularity<br /><br /></b></i></div><div><i><b>Recent statistics have shown that conversion to Mormonism, Church of the Latter Day Saints, is growing at a rate of one million people a year. There is an almost even split of men and women and many of them have not followed any particular religion previously. It just goes to show that the rules attached to being a Mormon may not be as bizarre as we think!</b></i></div></blockquote><p>I'm glad the author ended on this positive note. Though flattering, the "million people a year" number is a bit high. The Church's growth is, at its highest, a few hundred thousand per year between convert baptisms and organic growth within LDS families (more children "of record" in LDS households being baptized). While we would <i>love</i> it if a million people a year joined, we're not there.</p><p>Yet. If you look at the <a href="https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">overall growth of the Church</a>, there is a sharp incline in the mid-20th century. That increase occurred mainly due to improvements in general transportation, communication, and technology, as well as foreign language skills among our missionaries. As the world progressed in productivity and global access, so did the Church.</p><p>Even though our 16.8 million membership is a drop in the bucket compared to the over 8 billion people that exist in the world, our message is, indeed, appealing to a good number of people. We amplify our small numbers by having a strong focus on family values. </p><p>Though we are often confusingly denounced as non-Christian in spite of the very name of our church, we appeal to people looking for traditional Christian ideals. People who have been disaffected from other faiths or a belief in God due to issues ranging from unanswered questions to horrific abuses have found their faith home among the various LDS congregations ("branches", "wards", and "stakes").</p><p>Some do leave, though it's not clear that they leave "in droves" as some critics contend. Even if that may be the case in North America and parts of Europe, which are experiencing a general decline in peoples' affiliation with any faith, it's not the case in Latin America and parts of Asia and the Asia Pacific.</p><p>In my experience reading ex-LDS stories on social media, most that are leaving do so for what they feel are more inclusive churches. Some leave for no other churches at all because they feel their issues with our doctrines, and Abrahamic doctrines in general, are too great to turn around and fill with any other faith. </p><p>We feel sad (and, yes, a little bit upset, especially with mean, hateful, trollish types) when people leave. We who stay are staying for reasons we can't imagine leaving behind for anything else. It's sad to think of our brothers and sisters abandoning those amazing blessings. </p><p><b>I hope this exercise has been helpful to people confused by what they read in the original article, especially if they know LDS people who don't fit the negative stereotypes it conveys. If you want to know more about us, visit <a href="https://churchofjesuschrist.org">https://churchofjesuschrist.org</a> and click on "About Us" or <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/belong?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">stop by any of our chapels</a> on any given Sunday to experience one of our Sacrament meetings for yourself.</b></p><div><i></i><div><i></i><div><i><b></b></i><div><b><i></i></b></div></div></div></div></div>AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-70562706733784276222022-10-28T14:29:00.001-05:002022-10-28T14:29:17.858-05:00Part 5 of Debunking "30 Bizarre Mormon Rules You Won’t Believe Are Real"<p><i>In <a href="https://www.americantestament.com/2022/10/part-1-of-debunking-30-bizarre-mormon.html" target="_blank">Part 1</a> of Debunking "30 Bizarre Mormon Rules You Won’t Believe Are Real", I covered the first five of thirty different false narratives about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and our beliefs. If you're jumping into this current post from a search engine result, I recommend reading at least the first part of Part 1 for better context before continuing. I'll wait here. 😁</i></p><p><i>All done? Let's get cracking with these next five, shall we?</i></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJwlGutNWQZXw0u4pKLYa1r5mPRxiFV8dk4AizTQmLLuodfDzpwu4BwI83HVlJ9RtQbfsalgK5xQP9y89svoICNkiPfu_smIDQ8Mb9-0kZ77v4HuWnjm2geSLCgvOwp-LI9U4XwvdXydJEiqT9r35MTtdriqJyHWviCsyajl2gGTWPtJbJp4-wU5Ls/s320/young_women_activity_youth_conference.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Young women at a youth activity" border="0" data-original-height="213" data-original-width="320" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJwlGutNWQZXw0u4pKLYa1r5mPRxiFV8dk4AizTQmLLuodfDzpwu4BwI83HVlJ9RtQbfsalgK5xQP9y89svoICNkiPfu_smIDQ8Mb9-0kZ77v4HuWnjm2geSLCgvOwp-LI9U4XwvdXydJEiqT9r35MTtdriqJyHWviCsyajl2gGTWPtJbJp4-wU5Ls/w400-h266/young_women_activity_youth_conference.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Young women at a youth activity</td></tr></tbody></table></p><i></i><blockquote><i><b>21. Church Dress Code</b></i><div><i><b><br />There is a strict dress code at Church which stipulates men must wear a white shirt and tie and females are forbidden from wearing trousers. This is to separate the sexes as to their duties within the home. The male is the bread winner and goes out to work to support the family and the female, in her dress or skirt, will cook and clean.</b></i></div></blockquote>This one is related to <a href="https://www.americantestament.com/2022/10/part-4-of-debunking-30-bizarre-mormon.html">#18 in Part 4</a> in that there is no "strict dress code" in the sense that anyone gets punished or excommunicated. There are traditional and cultural expectations, most of them on their way out, that most people follow with regard to how to dress at formal church meetings.<div><br /></div><div>In the home, there is no dress code whatsoever. I guess that for members who have been through the temple and now wear the symbolic undergarment, we do have the expectation that a person at least wears a t-shirt and shorts over them. That is more to honor the sacredness of what those garments symbolize and not to "show them to the world" of people who have not made temple covenants. </div><div><br /></div><div>But other than that, if he knows what's good for him, no LDS man living in this modern world is going to tell his wife she has to dress like June Cleaver. She'll dress however she wants. And vice versa. No LDS man is going to force his wife into any task or role. She, herself, gets to choose of her own free will what she does in the home. Ideally, though, husbands and wives will counsel together and mutually choose what they do, and wear, inside or outside the home. </div><div><br /></div><div>Men and women are equals in the Church and neither is allowed to exercise any form of autocracy or <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/121?lang=eng&id=39#p39" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">unrighteous dominion</a> over the other.<br /><i></i><blockquote><i><b>22. Piercings</b></i><div><i><b><br />That should read ‘lack of them’ if Mormon rules are to be abided by. Females may have their ears pierced but only once at each side whereas males are not permitted to get anything pierced, not even their nipples! It’s all to do with purity and disfiguring the body which, in turn, means you are not totally committed to your religion.</b></i></div></blockquote><p>This relates back to what I talked about in <a href="https://www.americantestament.com/2022/10/part-3-of-debunking-30-bizarre-mormon.html">#14 (tattoos)</a>. The same principles apply. Culturally, it was the (mostly Western) custom for a long time, until the last 30-40 years, to have <i>one</i> piercing in each ear for women and none for men.</p><p>But the prophetic counsel, again, is about the <i>extremes</i> of bodily mutilation that has manifested itself in a slippery slope competition of "Piercing Bingo" about who can put the most holes into their bodies the fastest. That slippery slope has paved the way for more than just piercings. There are now a great many other types of mutilations that are not only medically unnecessary and inadvisable, but also irreversible, highly risky, and even deadly.</p><p>None of us, at the relatively young ages when tattoos and piercings are first desired, is able to query far enough ahead to get permission from our future selves for the permanent things we are thinking of doing to our bodies. That goes not only for piercings and tattoos, but for drug use, risky stunts, single motherhood, and not taking care of our bodies through diet and exercise.</p><i></i><blockquote><i><b>23. Teachings</b></i><div><i><b><br />Each member of the Church must visit other members once a month and deliver ‘teachings’. For men these are called home teachings and for women they are visiting teachings. The Church will do random tests on members around 3 o 4 times a year to check their knowledge.</b></i></div></blockquote><div>As I've prepared this series of posts, every time I've read this one I chuckle in both amazement and in dismay. Not so much twistedness of this narrative, but at the fact that this is, counterintuitively, one of the most difficult parts of our faith to get right.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, in the past we had a program for what was called "Home Teachers" and "Visiting Teachers". The former role was automatically expected of all of the men and the latter of all of the women. The idea was that, yes, once per month we would formally visit each person or family assigned to our stewardship and offer a lesson, counsel, prayer, and any material assistance we could.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, it was <i>never</i> a thing that we would do random knowledge tests on members. Not even once, ever, let alone three or four times per year. This honestly sounds like an accusation some disaffected member made up after they didn't like being visited by people who were just trying to fellowship with them. You know, <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/nt/james/1?lang=eng&id=27#p27" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">like Christ and the apostles counseled us to do in the early Christian church</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>The problem has always been a willingness to go out and serve in that capacity. Lots of men and women didn't enjoy having an assignment "route" to commit to each month. And some families simply didn't enjoy regular assignment-based visits to their homes. I get it. I'm one of them. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's not that we didn't appreciate their efforts or couldn't make time for them (though some families do struggle with that). It was more that my family prefers more organic friendships that happen to have a spiritual component to them. Someone showing up with a lesson to teach is never <i>not</i> going to feel like an obligation to us. <br /><br /></div><div>But, there are also many members of the church who absolutely love being assigned to and receiving visits from various members. Especially men and women who are widowed or single and/or who are shut-ins due to health issues.</div><div><br /></div><div>A few years ago, the program of Home and Visiting Teaching was revised. It is no longer called that but is now called Ministering. It brings things closer in line with what God has always expected: that we more voluntarily seek out our brothers and sisters outside of church meetings and seek fellowship with (or minister to) them. </div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, there are still assignments (someday we'll get it right and this will all be totally natural because of increased love towards one another). But the visits are no longer tracked individually, nor is it even expected that visits occur at all. Members simply try to make some kind of conversational contact, however minimal and however seems most natural. It can be a short "how ya doing" conversation in person at church, going out to lunch, stopping by occasionally with baked goods (yes!!), and even emails and text messages. It can be offers of service like babysitting, yard work, or giving someone a priesthood blessing when they're sick. </div><div><br /></div><div>We strive to tailor our ministering to the individual needs of each member in our care. Exactly what Christ taught.</div><div><i></i></div><blockquote><div><i><b>24. No Abortion</b></i></div><div><i><b><br />Members of the Church strongly oppose abortion and refuse to allow it as one of the Commandments says ‘ Thou shalt not kill’. Church leaders have opened the possibility for abortion in extreme instances such as danger to the mother’s life, incest and rape.</b></i></div></blockquote>So far, this is the only one that has been true insofar that we change it to say "most members" instead of implying that it's <i>all</i> members. </div><div><br /></div><div>I personally know many members who are <i>very</i> progressive in their stance on abortion. Up to and including the moment of birth (and some even after, sadly). They have not been excommunicated and they continue to attend Church meetings and go to the temple. The Church does not dictate exactly what opinions every member will have. The only time the Church gets involved in the membership status of anyone along these lines is when the member is <i>intentionally</i> working to draw away other members from Gospel doctrines.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the Church of Jesus Christ, we are taught that life is sacred at every stage, from conception to birth and beyond. Obviously, murder is 100% "right out" (as the British say). We believe Jesus meant what He said when He stated:</div><div><p class="verse" data-aid="128396785" id="p4" style="--height: 69.7891px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.65em; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><blockquote><p class="verse" data-aid="128396785" id="p4" style="--height: 69.7891px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.65em; vertical-align: baseline;">Whosoever therefore shall <span class="study-note-ref hidden-Wb_An" color="var(--text-primary, var(--black))" data-scroll-id="note4a" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">humble</span> himself as this little <span class="study-note-ref hidden-Wb_An" color="var(--text-primary, var(--black))" data-scroll-id="note4b" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">child</span>, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.</p><p class="verse" data-aid="128396786" id="p5" style="--height: 69.7891px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.65em; vertical-align: baseline;">And whoso shall receive one such little child in my <span class="study-note-ref hidden-Wb_An" color="var(--text-primary, var(--black))" data-scroll-id="note5a" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">name</span> receiveth me.</p><p class="verse" data-aid="128396787" id="p6" style="--height: 127.383px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.65em; vertical-align: baseline;">But whoso shall <span class="study-note-ref hidden-Wb_An" color="var(--text-primary, var(--black))" data-scroll-id="note6a" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">offend</span> one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and <span class="clarity-word" face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", "Palatino Italic", Palatino-Italic, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">that</span> he were drowned in the depth of the sea.</p></blockquote></div><div>Abortion, in terms of Church policy, has some grace-based gray areas when it comes to the mother's life, incest, and rape. However, abortion is not automatically prescribed in church policy in those instances. </div><div><br /></div><div>While choice is respected in those situations, leaders are still within their stewardship to counsel members seeking abortions, if only to ask them to seek revelation from God as to what the truly best course of action is. While it may be that God will reveal to the member seeking the abortion that it is ok to do so for their particular circumstance and life plan, He may choose to reveal to another that a bigger blessing will come from allowing the child to live than surgically or chemically ending its life. It's up to each woman to make her own decision from there.</div><div><br /></div><div>In all cases, the member seeking the abortion still has their own choice. If it is done merely for convenience (i.e. not under the umbrella of the mother's life, rape, or incest), they can probably expect that <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/38-church-policies-and-guidelines?lang=eng#title_number91" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a membership council will occur</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Men or women who are seeking to join the church, but have participated in an abortion in the past, are <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/38-church-policies-and-guidelines?lang=eng&id=title_number267-p2794#title_number267" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">interviewed by the president of the mission in which they reside</a>. The mission president can then provide baptismal authorization, or not, depending on the individual's circumstances and/or measure of repentance.</div><div><br /></div><div>Statistically, not many LDS-member abortions under rape, incest, or the life of the mother circumstances have occurred. But among the few stories I've encountered, some women truly prayed and asked for knowledge of Heavenly Father's will and found they needed to carry the pregnancy to term. The phrase "beauty from ashes" definitely applies to those poignant and uplifting stories. Plenty of women outside the Church have also had <a href="https://www.liveaction.org/news/raped-women-who-had-their-babies-defy-pro-choice-stereotypes/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">similar experiences</a>.<br /><i><b><blockquote>25. Pornography </blockquote><blockquote>Mormons see pornography as a sin. Viewing it in a magazine or online is treated as seriously as burglary. They believe it is incredibly belittling to women to treat them as objects and again refer to the Commandments which say ‘Thou shalt not covet’.</blockquote></b></i><div>Chalk up another true one. Yup. We do. It's treated as a "burglary" in the sense that the truly priceless purity and dignity of any person who is featured in pornography have been stolen. </div><div><br /></div><div>The person who is viewing it is being robbed (or is allowing themselves to be robbed) of purity, dignity, self-respect, and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3050060/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">an addiction-free life</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>A huge amount of pornography is driven by the powerful and violent human trafficking industry. Here are some statistics that drive this fact home.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/styles/half_screen/public/images/otip/hotline_infographic_fy_2019_508.png?itok=CFfo4zKO" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="776" data-original-width="600" height="776" src="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/styles/half_screen/public/images/otip/hotline_infographic_fy_2019_508.png?itok=CFfo4zKO" width="600" /></a></div>By now (2022), in absence of the most recent data and at the rate it has grown year over year prior, it is likely that over 80% of human trafficking is sex trafficking. An astounding amount of it is likely allocated to pornography. How could it not be, since online pornography has become a growth industry and child pornography has grown 35 percent between 2020 and 2021?</div><div><br /></div><div>With all that we know academically and anecdotally about how it is produced and the toll it takes on individuals, families, and nations, anyone trying to argue that pornography is "harmless" or that those against it are "puritans" cannot be taken seriously.<br /><div><br /></div>Time to end this post, but there's more in <a href="https://www.americantestament.com/2022/10/part-6-of-debunking-30-bizarre-mormon.html">Part 6</a>!</div>AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-34944186032305636932022-10-28T14:28:00.005-05:002022-11-10T19:27:57.269-06:00Part 1 of Debunking "30 Bizarre Mormon Rules You Won’t Believe Are Real"<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtbIN16WAVuqWePXTf8dFyBfOoqadKPaoWBnrUYAk7Eq6W0Nz-wYiHj253Z5QJPztRz4fPXNUG-sDDtVjU9-rienJtYyF1K0qYaQHPm7pV4XIxzYMxmG-Nu2UVbkL9ezyNhK-7KBv7TNKHajPD60reCoQmRNMH6S6-VllVxyp3yds_JoqFJL4JmD3/s320/lds_new_farmington_solar_meetinghouse_small.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="The sun shining on a red-brick chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at dusk." border="0" data-original-height="243" data-original-width="320" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtbIN16WAVuqWePXTf8dFyBfOoqadKPaoWBnrUYAk7Eq6W0Nz-wYiHj253Z5QJPztRz4fPXNUG-sDDtVjU9-rienJtYyF1K0qYaQHPm7pV4XIxzYMxmG-Nu2UVbkL9ezyNhK-7KBv7TNKHajPD60reCoQmRNMH6S6-VllVxyp3yds_JoqFJL4JmD3/w400-h304/lds_new_farmington_solar_meetinghouse_small.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Farmington, Utah chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>From time to time, some ridiculous and completely wrong article about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints comes across my social media feed. I usually ignore them. But sometimes, just to get a laugh at how wrong I know they'll be, I read one. <div><br /></div><div>Here's one that I've decided to pick apart. It's from one of those trashy blogs that exist only for search engines to find and display advertising as you're forced to click "next" 30 times to see the whole article. </div><div><br /></div><div>I write this so that at least some counter-answer will be available to balance out the misinformation and disinformation about us. Maybe someone searching for these keywords will come here instead of going there. This is, as Paul Harvey's catchphrase goes, "the rest of the story". In most cases, it's a complete refutation. </div><div><br /></div><div>Before we begin, there are two major overarching themes of these misinformed posts. </div><div><br /></div><div>1. <b>an inability (or, often, a deliberate lack of attempt) to distinguish principles and doctrine from culture, tradition, or even policies within our faith. </b></div><div><br /></div><div>There are many cultural and traditional practices that creep into <i>every</i> organization on the planet that have little to do with or are even antithetical to their core principles. Those are the works of men and women, not God. </div><div><br /></div><div>The same has happened to us over the two centuries that we've been trying to get these things right as a church. We are human beings, fallible to our core, but nonetheless trying to do things the way the Lord wishes them done. We often fail to listen well. We make mistakes, but the Lord lets us learn through them, teaches us, and lets us try again. If He did not, then we would be forced at every turn to do things exactly as He wishes and all free will would be erased. We would cease to be His children and instead become slaves.</div><div><br /></div><div>In addition, some <i>policies</i> have arisen to handle situations endemic to certain time periods. They were later rescinded, changed, or replaced. Policies are not first principles nor are they doctrines that are based on principles. They are merely rules established for organizational or transient purposes and are not always perfect.</div><div><br /></div><div>2. <b>a lack of understanding, or engaging in deliberate misinformation, about the distinction between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) and the <i>completely unaffiliated</i> Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS).</b> I have some experience with the FLDS having grown up only 40 miles from their communities and having been an LDS "stake missionary" sent to help some of them escape and convert to LDS teachings. But that's the subject of another future post.</div><div><br /></div><div>Most of the error-filled points I am quoting from the article below have a mix of both 1 and 2.</div><div><br /></div><div>You don't have to take my word for <i>any</i> of the following. I invite you to simply show up to a local Sacrament meeting on any given Sunday and see and ask others for yourself.</div><div><br /></div><div>From: <b>"<a href="https://femanin.com/2022/07/22/30-bizarre-mormon-rules-you-wont-believe-are-real/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">30 Bizarre Mormon Rules You Won’t Believe Are Real</a>"</b><br /><blockquote><i><b>1. Passing the ‘Chastity’ Test</b></i></blockquote><blockquote><div><i><b>Females as young as 8 and up to the age of 12 are asked questions about their sexual knowledge and, hopefully, the lack of it. A Mormon girl must be as pure and white as the driven snow in order to be a suitable life partner for her future husband. Any known form of previous hanky-panky would deem the girl to be tarnished.</b></i></div></blockquote><p>The doctrines of chastity in Abrahamic faiths have been pretty well-established for thousands of years. The most concise expression of the Law of Chastity is that nobody shall have sexual relations outside of legal and lawful marriage between a man and a woman. </p><p>So, it should come as no surprise that Latter-day Saints, who profess Christianity (in spite of our detractors' howls to the contrary), also strive to live the Law of Chastity.</p><p>Part of doing so requires us to teach that law to our children. This happens primarily in the home, where fathers and mothers are both asked, per their own discretion and methods, and as far as the ability of the child to understand at any given age, to proactively instruct as well as answer questions about what sex is, when it's appropriate, what is appropriate, and how it can bless our lives. </p><p>That goes for boys, girls, women, and men alike. Not just girls.</p><p>Another part, on a more minimal level, does happen at church. Materials published by the Church in the past have included chapters on the Law of Chastity and still do. Exactly <i>how</i> that instruction was relayed has always been influenced by external and internal cultural and traditional pressures. It has rightly been a subject of controversy and change for such a sensitive subject being taught to people ranging from young to adult ages.</p><p>Ecclesiastically, the priesthood leaders, who have, for thousands of years, been God's designated gatekeepers to specific sacred ordinances, are given the responsibility of ensuring that those who participate in those ordinances are properly prepared and considered worthy to participate. This includes a discussion about <i>all</i> the laws of God that members are expected to follow, <i>including</i> chastity.</p><p>When bishops interview adults or youth to discuss their preparedness for participation in baptism, the sacrament, or temple ordinances, those bishops ask questions about members' adherence to the laws of God. </p><p>So, yes, adults, as well as youth, are asked if they keep the Law of Chastity. That's part of the covenants we make from the age of accountability (<a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/31?lang=eng#title_number23" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">age 8</a>) and onward. </p><p>Bishops are more trained now than ever before in how to sensitively and appropriately approach such topics without over-informing young people, creating a situation where abuse could be inferred or occur, or creating undue curiosity. In fact, the questions they ask anyone about chastity are very minimally-worded, yes/no types of questions. <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/31?lang=eng#title_number12" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">You can read them all for yourself</a>.</p><p>And <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/31?lang=eng#title_number6" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">more safeguards</a> are being added with each passing year to ensure the safety of youth in the presence of an adult priesthood leader who is asking such questions. Our prophet today, as he and other prophets have consistently been in decades past, <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2022/10/19nelson?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">is outspoken about the evils of <i>all</i> forms of abuse</a>. In our General Handbook, <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/31?lang=eng#title_number10" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">even more emphasis is currently being given to intolerance of abuse in all its forms</a>. And <i>all</i> <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/callings/church-safety-and-health/protecting-children-and-youth?lang=eng">leaders who work with youth are <i>required</i> to be trained regularly in how to keep youth safe from all forms of abuse</a>.</p><p>On to the next one.</p><blockquote><i><b>2. Hair should NOT be risqué...<br /><br />Women are encouraged, or rather have to, wear their hair in a way that doesn’t draw attention so as not to shine a negative light on the Church community. A simple pony tail or plaits are the most risque styles that would be permitted. No stand-up spikes or brazen backcomb then!</b></i></blockquote><p>This is simply not a thing. You can tell by this "listicle" point that the author has never known anyone from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Nobody is officially policing women's hairstyles in our church. If they are, then they need to repent of being judgmental. </p><p>In fact, as time goes on, our "<a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/for-the-strength-of-youth?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">For the Strength of the Youth</a>" standards, while not compromising on the intent, <a href="https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/october-2022-general-conference-for-the-strength-of-youth" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">have become less specific and more generalized</a>. This is to allow the youth to learn how to exercise their own agency (free will) in tandem with their own personal relationship with and revelation from God.</p><p>Even in the early years of the For the Strength of the Youth standards when they were released, and even before it was written down, there was not a doctrine of any kind that anyone could point to that so specifically dictated women's hairstyles. </p><p>Individual members often applied their own cultural and traditional <i>interpretations</i> of the standards for youth appearances. Some members unrighteously judged others for what they considered to be "risqué" styles. But nobody ever lost their standing or membership in the Church over any "extreme" hairstyle.</p><p>By contrast, in the FLDS groups I was around as a youth growing up in an LDS town near them, I remember seeing such conservative and non-contemporary hairstyles worn consistently among the women of those groups. And there were very probably individual women who were "sent away" (as they called it) for violating the norms. But, again, that's the completely unaffiliated FLDS group, not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.</p><p>Now, let's talk about food.</p><i><blockquote><b>3. Vegetarian Summer<br /><br />Officially, Mormons are supposed to be entirely vegetarian as the scriptures state that meat ‘should be used only in times of winter, or of cold or famine’. That means a barbecue of bean burgers and Quorn sausages with a side of corn on the cobs is the only way to eat without being frowned upon.</b></blockquote></i><div>Again, the author implies that if any member of the Church doesn't fall in line with very strict food rules, that member is imperiling his or her good standing and will be shunned or excommunicated. </div><div><br /></div><div>That is simply untrue. </div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, we are supposed to <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/89?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">eat meat "sparingly" per verse 12 of God's word about general health</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Those of us who know this scripture and try to live by it, yet love a good burger or porterhouse steak, have this in the backs of our minds as we strive to keep that counsel, however imperfectly. And, if we're being honest with ourselves, our potlucks and food-oriented activities sometimes tend to include too much meat (plus too many sweets). </div><div><br /></div><div>If we eat less meat, yes, the Lord will be more pleased with us, and, yes, we'll enjoy "health in [our] navel and marrow to [our] bones". Not strictly following the "meat only in famine" advice is not something that stops us from being able to go to the temple or to be a member in good standing. Though, admittedly, everyone in and out of the church would all be healthier for eating more veggies and laying off sodas and pastries.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>On the topic of censorship...</div><blockquote><i><b>4. Keep Quiet…</b></i><div><i><b><br />The church has a committee called ‘The Strengthening Church Members Committee’ and they keep files on every church member, especially what these members might write. If a member is caught criticizing the leadership, the committee notifies their bishop, who must confront the person about it. It’s a case of button up and shut up if you have your own views.</b></i></div></blockquote><div>I'm sorry...the...what, now?<br /><br />Come on. This is really embarrassing for the author of this listicle. If they had done even cursory research, they would have found that there is literally no such committee with such tasks, nor has there ever been. In the <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/30-callings-in-the-church?lang=eng#title_number13" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">chart of official callings</a> of the Church, there is nothing even approaching or resembling a head of such a committee, as so characterized, let alone a committee itself.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some have overexaggerated the Church's prerogative to correct individual members who teach false doctrine mixed with scripture in various settings such as Sunday meetings and even at church schools. At various times we've been accused of being against academic freedom and free thought. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's an overwrought accusation, though, because nobody has been physically threatened by Church clergy for speaking their minds about anything. It only becomes a problem for their <i>membership status</i> and <i>only</i> when they create a platform of false doctrines and teachings using Church resources to draw others away from the faith. </div><div><br /></div><div>At that point, as in any other orthodox religious, or even secular, organization with principles, standards, and rules in place to protect its integrity and membership, the Church has the right to transition that member to non-member status and revoke their authority and privileges. If they change and realign themselves with the Church's teachings, they're welcome to stay or to return to being members in good standing if their membership was previously ended.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you want to find out more about how the Church disciplines members who unrepentantly stray (and/or purposely cause others to stray) from doctrines and teachings, <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/32-repentance-and-membership-councils?lang=eng#title_number1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">read this entire section</a>. You'll find it's a process that, if done according to the Lord's manner, is done with love and concern for the member and not in retaliation or with spite. </div><blockquote><i><b>5. Missionaries Restricted to Seeing Family</b></i><div><i><b><br />Christmas Day and Mother’s Day were, at one time, the only two occasions where a missionary could go home to see his family. The young missionaries had to spend pretty much every waking hour knocking on doors and trying to convert as many people as possible to the Mormon religion.</b></i></div></blockquote><div><div>The only thing this one got right, and even that's in the past now, is that Christmas Day and Mother's Day <i>used to be</i> the only two days each year of an 18- or 24-month missionary term that a missionary could <i>call</i> home. </div><div><br /></div><div>Unless a missionary fell severely ill or was injured, they didn't actually <i>go</i> home. For missionaries serving domestically, they were quite often too far from home for that to be practical or economically feasible. </div><div><br /></div><div>For missionaries placed in foreign lands, it was prohibitively expensive and utterly impractical to send missionaries home twice each year. Also, it used to be that long-distance domestic and international calls (if phones were even available in some areas) would cost large amounts of money. So two calls per year was a reasonable compromise to avoid blowing each missionary's allotted budget. With up to 300 missionaries in a given mission, the cost of back-and-forth international travel twice each year per missionary, plus their initial arrival and final departure, would be astounding.</div><div><br /></div><div>For the several decades that this specific restriction was the case, the policy's higher purpose (again, not doctrine, but policy) was to honor each missionary's (and their family's) sacrifices to send them on missions abroad. It helped to establish in each missionary's mind that they were there to serve the Lord "<a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/4?lang=eng#p2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day</a>" and "<a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/4?lang=eng#p5" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">with an eye single to the Glory of God</a>". </div></div><div><br /></div><div>Remember, these were young adults, many of them away from home for the first extended time in their lives. Homesickness is a really difficult thing at that age. At the time the more strict policy was in place, the young adults of that time were more independent and more capable of having those family ties put on hold for the period of 6 months between each phone call. They were instead encouraged to write and mail letters to family members and some close friends every "Preparation Day" (P-Day).</div><div><br /></div><div>For today's generation of young adult full-time teaching missionaries, the Church has now made it possible for them to have weekly contact, if they want it, via phone or email. This policy was changed to adapt to the circumstances of an always-connected, modern world where communication is inexpensive and, let's face it, where youth tend to be less independently-minded, so as to endure long periods without calling home.</div><div><br /></div><div>My confession is that I broke with this policy a few times while I was a missionary in Guatemala several decades ago. There were a couple of situations that I felt I could not handle on my own or with my companion and that my mission president either wouldn't understand or be immediately available to help me with. So, I called home and got counsel from my parents instead. It was a decision I felt I was making through the Spirit in order to help myself stay serving in the mission field rather than give up and go home. I was glad I did it and, analyzing it in retrospect, I never would have been sent home, much less excommunicated, because of it.</div><div><br /></div><div>One more thing on this topic: There are now two major types of missionary service. In addition to full-time teaching missions, the Church is now rolling out a program of service missionary work. </div><div><br /></div><div>In a vast majority of cases, Church service missionaries <i>live at home</i> while they serve their local communities. </div><div><br /></div><div>They work in soup kitchens, food pantries, homeless shelters, disaster cleanup, and other LDS and non-LDS situations where help is most needed. </div><div><br /></div><div>My oldest son served as one of the first local service missionaries in our area and my youngest son just started his service in the same mission as the 21st service missionary called here. </div><div><br /></div><div>Neither of my sons has ever been "knocking on doors and trying to convert as many people as possible to the Mormon religion" as part of their service missions. Even full-time teaching missionaries are instructed <i>not </i>to do door-to-door contacting anymore except as a very last resort on a slow day, or when the Spirit prompts them to do so. Our contact work is typically done through member referrals of friends and family who have already opted into receiving lessons. </div><div><br /></div><div>So, say goodbye to the door-knocking LDS missionary stereotype.<br /><br />In <a href="https://www.americantestament.com/2022/10/part-2-of-debunking-30-bizarre-mormon.html">Part 2</a>, we'll tackle another five myths.</div>AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-60716497522541079722022-10-28T14:28:00.004-05:002022-10-28T14:28:56.035-05:00Part 3 of Debunking "30 Bizarre Mormon Rules You Won’t Believe Are Real"<p><i>In <a href="https://www.americantestament.com/2022/10/part-1-of-debunking-30-bizarre-mormon.html" target="_blank">Part 1</a> of Debunking "30 Bizarre Mormon Rules You Won’t Believe Are Real", I covered the first five of thirty different false narratives about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and our beliefs. If you're jumping into this current post from a search engine result, I recommend reading at least the first part of Part 1 for better context before continuing. I'll wait here. 😁</i></p><p><i>All done? Let's get cracking with these next five, shall we?</i></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUO2eReQsV1OSH2HNxwDz8t0eD1Z40VjDW7sVJo2JKJDZpVWVCg2zwM-gQj1QU2f6zED0DGBBvM6Uuujfs1P6j7WJ2PD8GVpvL3MUqt3oZWtk8q9Vn5lkuUxINyn4O-drjMD-RSvyvALLbG5jLHdrSo7DXHz5ZKFCynwPzA75ICFP9NMAfJeY9r_X5/s320/backyard_games_lds.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="A group of youth sitting in a circle in a yard and playing games together." border="0" data-original-height="213" data-original-width="320" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUO2eReQsV1OSH2HNxwDz8t0eD1Z40VjDW7sVJo2JKJDZpVWVCg2zwM-gQj1QU2f6zED0DGBBvM6Uuujfs1P6j7WJ2PD8GVpvL3MUqt3oZWtk8q9Vn5lkuUxINyn4O-drjMD-RSvyvALLbG5jLHdrSo7DXHz5ZKFCynwPzA75ICFP9NMAfJeY9r_X5/w400-h266/backyard_games_lds.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A group of Latter-day Saint youth sitting in a circle in a yard and playing games together.</td></tr></tbody></table></p><blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><b>11. Same Sex Relationships?<br /><br />Church leaders in the Mormon faith believe the Bible’s teachings that romantic relationships can only be ordained by the Lord if they are between a man and a woman. They are not allowed to engage in same-sex ‘liaisons’ so that must mean a large number of gay people have to live a lie or go behind the Church’s back – how sad in this day and age.</b></blockquote><p>First, some clarity on the Law of Chastity, which is where our boundaries on this matter come from. If you need a primer on the Law of Chastity, see <a href="https://www.americantestament.com/2022/10/part-1-of-debunking-30-bizarre-mormon.html">Part 1</a> and also "<a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/chastity?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Chastity</a>" in the Church's scriptural topic library.</p><p>Until extremely recently (relative to all of human history) this question has never been up for serious debate in all of the history of the Abrahamic faiths. Historically, <i>not one single instance</i> of gay marriage or even civil unions has ever been sanctioned, or recorded as sanctioned, in Jewish, Christian, or Islamic scripture. Other religions, maybe. Animal kingdom sexual relationships, yes. But those exceptions do not do away with the rule God made for all of humanity. His laws don't cease to exist merely because humans break them. And that is all outside the scope of this question anyways.</p><p>The Law of Chastity has not changed for us in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1995, quite before the present-day tumult about same-sex relationships and gender identity, the First Presidency issued "<a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Family: A Proclamation to the World</a>". </p><p>It states firmly, in part, that "We...solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God" and "the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife."</p><p>The language on this is crystal clear with no room for equivocation along the lines of making new marriage arrangements outside of heterosexual marriage. Quoting the Proclamation:</p><p></p><blockquote style="background-color: white; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif; font-size: 18px;">The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.</blockquote>and<p></p><blockquote style="background-color: white; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif; font-size: 18px;">All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.</blockquote>and<p></p><blockquote style="background-color: white; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif; font-size: 18px;">Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.</blockquote><p>and</p><p><span face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px;"></span></p><blockquote style="background-color: white; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif; font-size: 18px;">We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society.</blockquote><p>Strong words.</p>People both inside and outside of the Church rebel against this age-old notion of the traditional nuclear family. In fortunate democratically-structured nations, they have that right and <b><i>we are NOT advocating for any kind of man-made theocracy</i></b> that formally forces people to only participate in heterosexual unions. We believe only God will rule theocratically in His own way, and that still respects free will, when Christ comes to personally reign on the Earth again. <p></p><p>Therefore, we recognize the boundaries between the religious, spiritual world we choose to inhabit and the secular, political world we are forced to inhabit. And though we try to respect those boundaries, we are also within our rights as citizens of the nations we live in to have opinions and to express those opinions at the ballot box and through free speech in the "town square" just like anyone else. Those who are agitating for us to be silenced are playing with a kind of censorious fire that sometime in the future may be turned to burn them as well.</p><p>Now, about "gay people have to live a lie". That's simply untrue. Everyone who wants to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can do so. Gay people are welcome at church. We love them and want them to be with us. Our General Handbook states:</p><p data-aid="142444089" id="p792" style="--height: 230.375px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 0.889em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p></p><blockquote><p></p><p data-aid="142444089" id="p792" style="--height: 230.375px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 0.889em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">God’s commandments forbid all unchaste behavior, either heterosexual or same-sex. Church leaders counsel members who have violated the law of chastity. Leaders help them have a clear understanding of faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, the process of repentance, and the purpose of life on earth. Behavior that is inconsistent with the law of chastity may be cause for holding a Church membership council (see <a class="cross-ref" href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/38-church-policies-and-guidelines?lang=eng&para=title_number102-p336#title_number102" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">38.6.5</a>). It can be forgiven through sincere repentance.</p><p></p><p data-aid="142348827" id="p366" style="--height: 172.781px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 0.889em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">If members feel same-sex attraction and are striving to live the law of chastity, leaders support and encourage them in their resolve. These members may receive Church callings, have temple recommends, and receive temple ordinances if they are worthy. Male Church members may receive and exercise the priesthood.</p></blockquote><p data-aid="142348827" id="p366" style="--height: 172.781px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 0.889em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p></p><p>Elder Dallin H. Oaks also <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2019/10/35oaks?lang=ase" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">taught</a>:<br /></p><p data-aid="141509359" id="p16" style="--height: 374.359px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 0.889em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p></p><blockquote><p></p><p data-aid="141509359" id="p16" style="--height: 374.359px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 0.889em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We seek to persuade our members that those who follow lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender teachings and actions should be treated with the love our Savior commands us to show toward all our neighbors. Thus, when same-sex marriage was declared legal in the United States, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve declared: “The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us to love and treat all people with kindness and civility—even when we disagree. We affirm that those who avail themselves of laws or court rulings authorizing same-sex marriage should not be treated disrespectfully.”<span class="note-ref hidden-Wb_An" color="var(--text-primary, var(--black))" data-scroll-id="note19" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></p><p></p><p data-aid="141509364" id="p18" style="--height: 143.984px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 0.889em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Further, we must never persecute those who do not share our beliefs and commitments.<span class="note-ref hidden-Wb_An" color="var(--text-primary, var(--black))" data-scroll-id="note20" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span> Regretfully, some persons facing these issues continue to feel marginalized and rejected by some members and leaders in our families, wards, and stakes. We must all strive to be kinder and more civil.<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></p></blockquote><p data-aid="141509364" id="p18" style="--height: 143.984px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 0.889em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><p></p><p>But the ancient and eternal Law of Chastity, as well as the clarifying "The Family: A Proclamation to the World", both remain in effect. Our clergy <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/38-church-policies-and-guidelines?lang=eng#title_number63" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">will not perform gay weddings in our chapels or temples</a>. They are simply not authorized by God to do so and would be acting against their authority if they did, making it of no effect eternally. To force them to do it by law would violate First Amendment conscience rights under the United States Constitution and similar laws and rights in other nations.</p><p>Additionally, there will necessarily be a conversation between the priesthood leaders and any member who <i>intentionally</i> attempts to draw away other members with any teaching that opposes God's laws about marriage and family. That conversation can result in the person repenting and no longer working against God's laws, or it can end in that person deciding to part from us and pursue whatever path they wish. </p><p>Nobody is forcing anyone to come to church. If any member no longer desires to be governed by God or His laws as we understand them, they are free to leave and be governed by whatever other laws they wish. We simply ask that we be respected in staying and following what we believe God has taught.</p><p>This topic is too vast to cover here. To understand more, see:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2022/10/42dennis?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">His Yoke Is Easy and His Burden Is Light</a></li><li><a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2015/04/why-marriage-why-family?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Why Marriage, Why Family</a></li><li><a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2019/10/35oaks?lang=ase" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Two</i> Great Commandments</a></li><li><a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2014/10/loving-others-and-living-with-differences?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Loving Others and Living With Differences</a></li></ul><div>Now on to something a little less complex. Food storage.</div><p></p><p></p><blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><b>12. Stock Up</b></blockquote><blockquote><div><i><b>One of the more unusual, some would say bizarre, rules in this faith is that a family should stock up with 3 months’ worth of food in case any untold emergency happens to be thrust upon them. Broken down, this adds up to an extremely large pantry and freezer as well as 48 packets of Haribos (or is that just me?)</b></i></div></blockquote><div><i></i>I'm always puzzled as to why preparing for the future really trips people up about us. Or even outside of the context of the Church. In times past, it was considered common sense to stash away a little food, drinking water, money, and other resources "for a rainy day". There was nothing controversial about it.</div><div><br /></div><div>But for some reason, when we do it, it's weird. It could be that people associate "religious people" doing any sort of preparedness (prepping) or even basic self-sufficiency with what they've seen in the media about extremist doomsday cults and even militias. Some even consider it "selfish" and "hoarding". Sure, there are always some people who take it too far. That's true for every human endeavor. But everything we do is pretty tame, common sense stuff. </div><div><br /></div><div>Our Church welfare system is the envy of nations. When leaders of other countries are given tours of our food and goods processing and shipping facilities, they always come away amazed and ask for information on how they can replicate such a system for their own people.</div><div><br /></div><div>Three months of food and supplies don't really add up to "an extremely large pantry and freezer". The author of the post must be confusing that with those of us who decide to stock up for a year or two. In those cases, yes, the pantry has to be enlarged and we typically add another or larger freezer.</div><div><br /></div><div>Haribos are pretty gross. Not sure why anyone would want that in food storage, except maybe as a laxative. Just my personal opinion. </div><i></i><blockquote><i><b>13. Under-Clothing</b></i><div><i><b><br />After going through the temple, Mormons have to wear special under-clothing which are known as ‘garments’. They are usually made from silk or cotton and are a reminder to be honest, virtuous, pure, chaste and to keep the Commandments. It is a myth (thank goodness) that they protect the wearer from evil and harm).</b><br /></i><div></div></div></blockquote><div><div>Always this fascination with our underwear! Ok, it's pretty simple. People of other faiths wear special or symbolic clothing on the outside as a reminder of what they believe or the promises they've made to God. We just happen to wear ours under our clothing. What's the big deal?</div></div><blockquote><i><b>14. Tattoos</b></i><div><i><b><br />These are strictly forbidden if you are of the Mormon faith. Not even a butterfly on your bum or your parents’ initials on your wrist is allowed. The reasoning is because the body will no longer be pure. The few brave soldiers who go against their religion’s wishes, with a full sleeve, are ordered to have the ink removed by laser.</b></i></div></blockquote>No, not strictly forbidden. That makes it sound like, again, we have police running around pulling up people's sleeves and looking for "renegade ink". Nobody is ever "ordered to have the ink removed by laser" by any church official. Maybe some parents get really upset about a teen getting ink without permission and take them to have it removed, but that's a personal family matter the Church doesn't get involved with at all. <div><br /></div><div>The basis for this accusation stems from a couple of talks given in two of our General Conference sessions years ago by the late President Gordon B. Hinckley. Taken in the context of what was once considered "normal" (relatively few people engaging in extreme tattooing and piercing), his remarks and cautions made perfect sense both to him and to the majority of <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2000/10/your-greatest-challenge-mother?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">mothers</a> and <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2000/10/great-shall-be-the-peace-of-thy-children?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">fathers</a> he was addressing, as well as the youth listening to each of those talks.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, times have changed. It seems like everyone in this world has a tattoo or is planning on getting one. At least one beloved and now-prominent member of our Church, Al Carraway, who has many tattoos (obtained prior to joining our faith) has built a <a href="https://www.alcarraway.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">social media presence</a>, has written books, and has a speaking circuit talking about her faith journey. Many, many other LDS folks, both lifers and converts, have tattoos. They're still members in good standing. As are our beloved Tongan/Maori and other non-Western members who were tattooed as a result of living in their respective cultures which include tattooing as a rite of passage.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nobody is chasing them down, tying them up, and forcing them to have laser tattoo removals.</div><div><div><i></i></div><blockquote><div><i><b>15. Sundays<br /><br /></b></i></div><div><i><b>Forget about heading out to the garden centre for a Begonia plant or meeting up with friends for Sunday lunch and a giant Yorkshire pudding. Sunday is Church day for Mormons and a day of reflecting. That means no tv, no radio, no shopping and not doing anything that might be seen as enjoyment.</b></i></div></blockquote><div><i></i>Again, there is no Mormon Police force checking up on members about this. Do we hold Sundays, our sabbath, as something to be honored? Absolutely. There are suggested things we are counseled to do and not to do. The main ones are avoiding working or shopping. But we're also not absolut<i>ists</i> about what people do or don't do. </div></div><div><br /></div><div>Growing up in my family, we regularly took Sunday drives and stopped to eat at a restaurant along the way. Sometimes, on a three-day holiday weekend, we'd travel further, go to events on Sundays as part of the trip, and return home. Lots of other folks in my small, mostly LDS town went hunting, played sports, traveled, etc. None of us were excommunicated for doing so.</div><div><br /></div><div>As I said earlier, we were counseled against it, though. That's a whole different thing than what the article writer implies. God wants us to treat the Sabbath as holy. That hasn't changed in the Ten Commandments since ancient times. For Jewish people, that's Saturday. For us, generally, and for most Christians, it's Sunday. But He lets us choose what we'll do. And when we choose properly, <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/59?lang=eng&id=9#p9" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">we are blessed for it</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Time to end this post, but there's more in <a href="https://www.americantestament.com/2022/10/part-4-of-debunking-30-bizarre-mormon.html">Part 4</a>!</div>AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-80455422978192889202022-10-28T14:28:00.003-05:002022-10-28T14:28:44.254-05:00Part 2 of Debunking "30 Bizarre Mormon Rules You Won’t Believe Are Real"<p><i>In <a href="https://www.americantestament.com/2022/10/part-1-of-debunking-30-bizarre-mormon.html" target="_blank">Part 1</a> of Debunking "30 Bizarre Mormon Rules You Won’t Believe Are Real", I covered the first five of thirty different false narratives about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and our beliefs. If you're jumping into this current post from a search engine result, I recommend reading at least the first part of Part 1 for better context before continuing. I'll wait here. 😁</i></p><p><i>All done? Let's get cracking with these next five, shall we?</i></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs6mJDVnxQXrCisqunXGmKPq4AZkYhIANeySJRhviL4ga6bqJ8BQQ01JylhyBLPlGRdNstF8tj4nCagbO21kfCT_o1AlczetbA1pJlGF_tS6bWWxNI24P7YxO3W3mn15lcgn5Z-Sznt1RQNyZkO60l_GICm34jS5zoxQ29uGoXsLhty5kcugYWf9C_/s320/family_group_africa.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="A portrait of a family in Ghana." border="0" data-original-height="213" data-original-width="320" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs6mJDVnxQXrCisqunXGmKPq4AZkYhIANeySJRhviL4ga6bqJ8BQQ01JylhyBLPlGRdNstF8tj4nCagbO21kfCT_o1AlczetbA1pJlGF_tS6bWWxNI24P7YxO3W3mn15lcgn5Z-Sznt1RQNyZkO60l_GICm34jS5zoxQ29uGoXsLhty5kcugYWf9C_/w400-h266/family_group_africa.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A portrait of an LDS family in Ghana.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><blockquote><i><b>6. It’s OK To Lie</b></i><div><i><b><br />No one should be encouraged to tell porky pies but throughout the history of the church, it has been acceptable to lie to outsiders to protect the Church. Mormons share the Ten Commandments with Christians, Muslims, and Jews. The commandment about not giving false testimony doesn’t really hold the same ground in Mormonism that it does in the other religions.</b></i></div></blockquote><p>No. No, it's not. We never have taught or accepted this, we don't teach or accept it now, and we never will. For an article made of almost nothing <i>but</i> lies, this is a very bold assertion for its author to be making.</p><p>Some of our detractors make this claim because they pretend to find inconsistencies in what we say to individuals about our faith as we endeavor to teach the Gospel through missionary work. Or because they resent that some of the more sacred parts of ordinances in the temple are not made open or public knowledge by the Church. Or because they feel that our history is too "messy" for their tastes and that we aren't regularly and openly airing our warts enough before the world. (As if no other religion, organization, or governmental or non-governmental entity has problematic parts in their own history.)</p><p>Also, from their perspective, they call it a "lie" when someone who we've just started talking to doesn't get the entire doctrinal "brain dump" all in one session (an impossible task). </p><p>With exceptions for the extremely rare, extremely motivated learners who are the most eager to ask about and accept everything immediately upon reading or hearing it, learning the Gospel, like learning any complex topic, is something that necessarily happens in stages. </p><p>In the Bible, <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/nt/1-cor/3?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the apostle Paul calls this putting the milk before the meat</a>.</p><blockquote><p class="verse" data-aid="128385758" id="p1" style="--height: 69.7891px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.65em; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="verse-number" face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", "Palatino Bold", Palatino-Bold, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.9em; font-stretch: normal; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1 </span>And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, <span class="clarity-word" face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", "Palatino Italic", Palatino-Italic, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">even</span> as unto babes in Christ.</p><p class="verse" data-aid="128385759" id="p2" style="--height: 69.7891px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.65em; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="verse-number" face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", "Palatino Bold", Palatino-Bold, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.9em; font-stretch: normal; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">2 </span>I have fed you with <span class="study-note-ref hidden-Wb_An" color="var(--text-primary, var(--black))" data-scroll-id="note2a" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">milk</span>, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able <span class="clarity-word" face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", "Palatino Italic", Palatino-Italic, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: normal; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">to bear it,</span> neither yet now are ye able.</p></blockquote><p>Paul was writing to Greek saints (church members), some of whom not only had no knowledge of Christ before becoming converted but had little to no context from the foreign (to them) religion of Judaism about why a Savior was awaited or even necessary. </p><p>If Paul immediately gave them a complete and total "download" of everything there was to know and said, "See? There! Now you know everything and you can't say I've deceived you!" it would have taken reams of parchment or papyrus and would have come across as pure nonsense. Almost nobody learns well that way. Instead, he opted to gradually ease them into basic concepts and followed up with more as they were willing and able to receive it.</p><p>The Savior Jesus Christ was the model for this way of simple-to-complex teaching. But, He also taught the people using parables or stories. Contrary to common belief, these were meant as riddles, not ways to ease understanding using relatable concepts. Jesus stated to his disciples that his intention with parables was to <i>hide</i> His teachings within symbolism that faithful seekers would recognize, but that the merely curious, or his enemies, would not understand. So, to be consistent, the accuser of the Latter-day Saints will also need to point that accusing finger at the Savior Himself.</p><p>In all things, people are always encouraged to study and ask questions. The more humble they are in learning, the more they'll receive. Matthew 7:6-8 is clear.</p><blockquote><p class="verse" data-aid="128400437" id="p6" style="--height: 98.5859px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.65em; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="verse-number" face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", "Palatino Bold", Palatino-Bold, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.9em; font-stretch: normal; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">6 </span><span class="para-mark" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">¶ </span><span class="study-note-ref hidden-Wb_An" color="var(--text-primary, var(--black))" data-scroll-id="note6a" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Give</span> not that which is <span class="study-note-ref hidden-Wb_An" color="var(--text-primary, var(--black))" data-scroll-id="note6b" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">holy</span> unto the dogs, neither cast ye your <span class="study-note-ref hidden-Wb_An" color="var(--text-primary, var(--black))" data-scroll-id="note6c" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">pearls</span> before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.</p><p class="verse" data-aid="128400438" id="p7" style="--height: 69.7891px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.65em; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="verse-number" face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", "Palatino Bold", Palatino-Bold, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.9em; font-stretch: normal; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">7 </span><span class="para-mark" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">¶ </span><span class="study-note-ref hidden-Wb_An" color="var(--text-primary, var(--black))" data-scroll-id="note7a" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ask</span>, and it shall be <span class="study-note-ref hidden-Wb_An" color="var(--text-primary, var(--black))" data-scroll-id="note7b" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">given</span> you; <span class="study-note-ref hidden-Wb_An" color="var(--text-primary, var(--black))" data-scroll-id="note7c" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">seek</span>, and ye shall find; <span class="study-note-ref hidden-Wb_An" color="var(--text-primary, var(--black))" data-scroll-id="note7d" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">knock</span>, and it shall be opened unto you:</p><p class="verse" data-aid="128400439" id="p8" style="--height: 69.7891px; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino-Roman, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.65em; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="verse-number" face=""Ensign:Serif", McKay, "McKay ldsLat", Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", "Palatino Bold", Palatino-Bold, Pahoran, "Pahoran ldsLat", "Noto Sans Myanmar", NotoSansMyanmar, SaysetthaldsLao, NotoSerifTamil, serif" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.9em; font-stretch: normal; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">8 </span>For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that <span class="study-note-ref hidden-Wb_An" color="var(--text-primary, var(--black))" data-scroll-id="note8a" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">seeketh</span> findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.</p></blockquote><p>For the person reading this who says "but what about <i>this</i> teaching or <i>that</i> one that missionaries don't cover in detail?" I urge you to consider that <i>literally everything we teach</i>, excluding only the most <i>sacred</i> (not secret) parts of the ordinances of the temple, has been keyword searchable since the early 2000s and available to view online at <a href="https://churchofjesuschrist.org">https://churchofjesuschrist.org</a>. The temple is available to <i>everyone on the planet </i>who gets baptized into the Church and lives according to the commandments of God. </p><p>No lie.</p><blockquote><b><i>7. Here are the rules on kissing</i></b><div><b><i><br />When it comes to kissing, Mormons have they their own set of guidelines. Teenagers are allowed to pucker up providing there is no passion. The kiss can’t last long (not sure if a stop watch is used) and absolutely no tongues. Hugging and holding hands follow the same rules.</i></b></div></blockquote><div><div></div></div><div>Going back to <a href="https://www.americantestament.com/2022/10/part-1-of-debunking-30-bizarre-mormon.html">Part 1</a> of this series, this seems to refer to the Law of Chastity in general and, more specifically, the "<a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/for-the-strength-of-youth?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">For the Strength of the Youth</a>" guidelines. </div><div><br /></div><div>Let's not be naïve or obtuse here. We all know from personal experience that being a teenager was/is a really confusing and fraught time with regard to physical intimacy. It's a total rollercoaster of hormones, lust, and emotion. There are constant pressures from peers, society, and the entertainment world to engage in all kinds of behaviors. Some of those behaviors are within the bounds the Lord has set and others are decidedly not.</div><div><br /></div><div>In past editions of "For the Strength of the Youth", more specifics were, indeed, given when it comes to kissing (and several other related aspects of intimacy). None of these were founded in puritanic prudery at all. The adults writing those guidelines were fathers and mothers and had, at one time, been teens themselves. They were writing from a practical place of knowledge and experience with those strong emotions emerging at tender ages in themselves. They had seen the devastation that misuse of those feelings led to in their own world. They were trying to spare the next generation the deep sorrows of the negative consequences of unchaste behaviors.</div><div><br /></div><div>Tongue-kissing, the "soul kiss", or "French kissing" was the one I remember being called out the most. The other two were "petting" (basically all about not touching people's erogenous zones under or over the clothing) and "necking" (basically all about not kissing below the face). But when you think about it in rational, mature adult terms, tongue kissing really does simulate (and stimulate the desire for) sexual intercourse in a way that a simple kiss on the cheek or lips does not. And groping or kissing another person below the face is almost always signaling that sexual intercourse is on your agenda, or will eventually be.</div><div><br /></div><div>Did I want to engage in these things? Um, yes! I was a red-blooded hormonal teen growing up in the 1980s like so many others around me. But I trusted my parents and leaders who signaled to me that, at least outside of marriage, it was not wise to do so. And, being an observational learner, I saw how other teens went from those behaviors to far more intimate contact very quickly, followed by decisions and consequences they would later regret.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hugging, holding hands, and other aspects of teen romance were also given guidelines, but not always total prohibitions. The current edition of "For the Strength of the Youth" largely <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/for-the-strength-of-youth/06-body?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">does away with specifics and focuses on Law of Chastity principles</a>, respecting each youth's individual agency, and allowing the youth to study it out in their own minds and make decisions based on revelation and their relationship with God. </div><blockquote><b><i>8. Divorce? Not a chance</i></b><div><b><i><br />Divorce is a filthy word to Mormons. The Church considers it a necessary evil although they will accept an annulment (probably if cash is handed over). Mormons have two weddings, one where families are invited and there is the usual food and cake (maybe even a chocolate fountain). The other wedding is the sealing (for ever) of their marriage at the Temple and that seal can never be broken, even in the afterlife.</i></b></div></blockquote><div>Ok, <i>personally</i>, I do consider divorce to be a dirty word. In fact, as children of divorce, both my wife and I decided that we would not say that word in our home. If we did so (as a casual reference, say, to someone else's divorce) we would follow that up by apologizing for using the word. It was our way of strongly signaling to each other our <i>total</i> commitment to our marriage and to being "chain breakers". It was one of the best things we ever did at the start of our marriage.</div><div><br /></div><div>Also, there are <i>not</i> "two weddings". The author of that post is describing the wedding <i>reception</i> that usually happens the evening of or a day or two after the temple marriage. Sometimes that reception will include a ring exchange and/or discussion of marriage promises (but it's not performed as nor is it considered a ceremony). That is usually done for the benefit of non-LDS family members who weren't in attendance at the temple sealing ordinance.</div><div><br /></div><div>This business about annulment (a word we don't use) or cash being handed over? I don't know where that is coming from. Our weddings don't involve paying the clergy to perform them. The clergy presides over weddings for free, in all cases. It would be mockery against God to charge a fee to perform such a sacred ordinance. And there's certainly no money exchanging hands to allow divorces. That's just plain insulting.</div><div><br /></div><div>If by "two weddings" the author refers to civil vs. temple marriage, that can sometimes be the case. But the prophets past and present have emphasized that where permitted by earthly law and a couple's ability to get to a temple, a temple marriage (called a "sealing", as in sealing an eternal agreement between God, man, and woman) is the ideal marriage ordinance every faithful member should participate in.</div><div><br /></div><div>On occasions when members marry under civil terms first and later go to the temple to also be sealed, the former is only recognized by God as "for this life only". Unless later sealed in the temple, after the couple parts in death, they are not considered bound by marriage under God's law (with an exception noted below). The sealing is recognized by God as eternal in the afterlife <i>if and only if</i> <b>both</b> the man <b>and</b> the woman remain faithful to each other and to their temple covenants. It's a conditional promise, not an unconditional guarantee.</div><div><br /></div><div>Because we are all flawed mortals, divorce does happen in the Church. Even God knew divorce <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/nt/matt/19?lang=eng#p3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">would be necessary</a> due to our sinful natures. </div><div><br /></div><div>Though it is strongly discouraged, it's not (or is no longer) the hush-hush taboo the author of the post claims. And, there are times when divorce is not only allowed, but recommended, especially in cases of abandonment, abuse, and adultery leading to a spouse leaving and living with or marrying another person. All parties in a divorce are carefully counseled by bishops and stake presidents to ensure everything is according to God's law and the wishes of the ex-couple. </div><div><br /></div><div>Couples in the church who were sealed can obtain civil divorces but also decide not to have their temple sealings canceled. That was the case for my parents. I won't share the details, but the situation leading to their civil divorce was not one that they felt also necessitated a cancelation of their sealing. They still loved each other profoundly, but couldn't live together in marriage under their particular circumstances. All sealing matters, including sealing cancelations, are approved by the First Presidency of the Church. </div><div><br /></div><div>As noted earlier, there's an exception for civil-married-only couples who have passed on. That is done through a proxy temple sealing ordinance they or their descendants can perform "for and in behalf of" them after one or both pass away. <br /><br /></div><div>For example, if a man and woman are married by a Justice of the Peace, then later decide to get sealed in the temple (as was the case with my maternal grandparents), they can do so. But if, as with my paternal grandparents, they were married by the law of the land and then both died without being sealed in the temple, their descendants, with next-of-kin permission, can perform the ordinance for them by proxy. Likewise, if one of the civil-married pair still alive wishes to be sealed by proxy to their departed spouse, they can do so in the temple.</div><div><br /></div><div>By-proxy ordinances are <i>never</i> thought of or taught as forcing a deceased person into accepting the ordinance. Vicarious ordinances are always contingent upon the spirit of the deceased person accepting it of their own free will and choice. We simply do the ordinance as a service so as to make it available for the deceased person. They are free to accept or reject of their own free will and choice.</div><i><blockquote><b>9. Non-Mormons Don’t Love As Much<br /><br />Mormons believe that the love felt between spouses and families of ‘outsiders’ is not as strong as for those within the faith. Their views are that they are brought together on this earth for a reason and that creates a higher love. Meeting a partner in Wetherspoons, falling madly in love and living happily ever after cannot be judged as the love between two Mormons.</b></blockquote></i><div>This is simply absurd. Never in my life have I been taught in any version of any Sunday School, Seminary, or Institute manual nor by any prophet or teacher that I am to love the people of the Church more than those who aren't members. Christ's teachings about loving others <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/love?lang=eng" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">come to us from our leaders and prophets</a> and from the <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/nt/luke/6?lang=eng&id=31-36#p31" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">same scriptures we read that all Christians read</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps this accusation springs from non-LDS people who, from the outside of our faith looking in, see us socializing in ways that are different from how we socialize with them. That's more a function of typical in-group psychology all humans engage in and has nothing to do with the Gospel we believe in. It is decidedly <i>not</i> the case that we've been taught to love others <i>less</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>We have dear, dear friends who are not members of our church but with whom we have vacationed, have frequent get-togethers, and otherwise treat as family members. They are a de-facto aunt and uncle and their kids are like cousins to our kids who, being born of two only-child parents, won't have the blessing of by-blood, first-degree aunts, uncles, and cousins. If you asked these friends if we treat them "less" than we do our LDS friends, they would laugh loud and hard in your face. Especially since we invite them to LDS get-togethers and out to eat with our LDS friends, who they also love to be with. We've, of course, shared our beliefs with our friends and they have politely declined to follow us in it, but that is of <i>zero</i> consequence to how we all continue to treat and feel about each other.</div><i></i><blockquote><i><b>10. Marrying Age</b></i><div><i><b><br />It is quite usual for Mormons to marry in their late teens so much younger than the rest of the British and American population. Once the man has completed his missionary work, at the age of 18, he sets his sights on finding a wife. There is no need for him to register on Tinder as there will be an abundance of females that he knows in the Church and one of them will win his heart.</b></i></div><div></div></blockquote><div>There's so much wrong with this, I don't even know where to start. I guess I'll start in the middle with the age of completion of missionary service. Young men <i>can</i> begin missions at 18 and young women <i>can</i> begin at 19 but they <i>never end</i> missions at those ages. Missions usually end at 20 for men and 21 for women. Or older depending on if they waited to go to college for a bit before starting their missions.</div><div><br /></div><div>Marriage in one's late teens almost never happens anymore. It once did, up to 100 years ago, when the necessity to be getting on with life and establish yourself was more urgent, and cultural norms allowed for it under parental guidance. But as society progressed in marrying ages, so, respectively, did the young men and women of our Church in their marrying ages. Even though per capita we still, on average, choose to get married younger than society at large, it has never stayed static. We move in the same river as the rest of humankind. We just tend to row against it a little more.</div><div><br /></div><div>In fact, we have (for better or worse) whole congregations dedicated to being just for single young men and young women, both before and after serving missions, to attend. The idea is to give them a chance to meet and serve together in their own age bracket of 18-30 years of age. In so-called "family wards", serendipitous meetings of single people in this age bracket is noticeably less likely, so it makes a certain sense to put them together in a "singles ward" setting. </div><div><br /></div><div>Increasingly, though, singles wards are waning in popularity as well as effectiveness in helping people find their future mate. Some just are not ready for marriage and they postpone it. Others are looking to finish their educations and build their careers, which can put some past the age-30 threshold for continuing in attending young single adult wards. (Contrary to popular belief, we do find it weird for a 30-year-old to be looking for dates among 18-21-year-olds...it happens, sometimes, but not as often as some people think).</div><div><br /></div><div>Online apps are becoming a popular avenue for single LDS people to meet. Most prefer <a href="https://www.mutual.app/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LDS-oriented dating apps like Mutual</a> (not owned by or affiliated with the Church) because it helps them find like-minded dating partners more quickly. But there is still a significant number of young single adults who use Tinder and other non-LDS-oriented dating apps to look for their soulmates.</div><div><br /></div><div>Time to end this post, but there's more in <a href="https://www.americantestament.com/2022/10/part-3-of-debunking-30-bizarre-mormon.html">Part 3</a>!</div>AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-67426717183332714432021-10-28T22:42:00.001-05:002021-10-28T22:42:25.195-05:00New LIDAR Survey Uncovers Major Mesoamerican Structures<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwqhpwCdtxRYcT9gz6ldkTY7uz5JbmKZ75BN4Rd1cvj7Nn8r2gEwfD04U4-5EKWdo1oRDVWqZwZzFyhzEqELx6oc_9WQQA6QT3wEWXu_iFlfevp9NTi8S-P9189F2qiiWwkh4fkfTkV5I/s1024/_20211025_lidarmainimage.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="1024" height="377" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwqhpwCdtxRYcT9gz6ldkTY7uz5JbmKZ75BN4Rd1cvj7Nn8r2gEwfD04U4-5EKWdo1oRDVWqZwZzFyhzEqELx6oc_9WQQA6QT3wEWXu_iFlfevp9NTi8S-P9189F2qiiWwkh4fkfTkV5I/w568-h377/_20211025_lidarmainimage.jpeg" width="568" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: x-small;">ALFONSOBOUCHOT/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode">CC BY-SA</a>)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/nearly-500-mesoamerican-monuments-revealed-laser-mapping-many-first-time" target="_blank">LIDAR keeps bringing us new and interesting discoveries</a>. This time, in the digital unearthing of over 32,000 square miles of land in Mexico. </p><blockquote>Scientists have uncovered nearly 500 Mesoamerican monuments in southern Mexico using an airborne laser mapping technology called lidar. Dating as far back as 3000 years ago, the structures—still buried beneath vegetation—include huge artificial plateaus that may have been used for ceremonial gatherings and other religious events.</blockquote><p>Also:</p><blockquote>The analysis resulted in the discovery of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01218-1">478 formal complexes</a>—many new to science—the team reports today in Nature Human Behaviour. Several of these monuments had the same layout as Aguada Fénix, including an even more ancient Olmec site in San Lorenzo. Researchers continue to argue over whether the Olmec, which predate the Maya, are more of a mother or sister culture to them. The researchers estimate these Olmec and Maya complexes were built between 1100 and 400 B.C.E., and would have been used for ceremonial gatherings.<br /></blockquote><p>Long discredited now is the argument that there aren't nearly enough structures in Mesoamerica to serve as evidence that a large and complex population once occupied the area as possible evidence of the Book of Mormon's claims.</p><span style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: "PT Serif", serif; font-size: 18px;"></span><p></p>AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com096185 San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, Ver., Mexico17.7548451 -94.7626868-10.555388736178845 -129.91893679999998 46.06507893617885 -59.6064368tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-52007728469602069232020-10-31T13:18:00.002-05:002020-10-31T13:20:37.277-05:00Record-Keepers in the Book of Mormon - Downloadable Chart<p><a href="https://beccajones.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Becca Wilson Jones</a> created the images below and gave permission for all to print, download, use, and share. I have not fully verified what is in the chart, so please do your own research. I merely had a few moments in my day to post it so that I could come back to it later. </p><p>And, so that it might possibly help some who believe the Book of Mormon to be the work of a man and not of God. I simply cannot fathom how Joseph Smith, being so unlettered and unlearned as he was, could produce such a complex work that includes this complicated transfer of record custody across such a long span of time. If I, having a greater secular education than many in his time period could have ever imagined (which isn't saying much for me relative to others in my own time, actually) would have struggled to produce this kind of writing, how, indeed, was he able to do so without help from God?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYwPr-gc874nF_QiEOiyODH9uS5VYbNWzDHuIrC_edVfd-kPfJPCLpH7i_JV3RKs7Mu4sXWan_d9_8fj3NTAU2xkK6_JGlia9CpD_yO3CxKZtOQ9hu-r6EB0wkGL9gn8m5OHbT8bcQT7M/s1247/book-of-mormon-records-transfer-chart-by-becca-wilson-jones_white-bg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1247" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYwPr-gc874nF_QiEOiyODH9uS5VYbNWzDHuIrC_edVfd-kPfJPCLpH7i_JV3RKs7Mu4sXWan_d9_8fj3NTAU2xkK6_JGlia9CpD_yO3CxKZtOQ9hu-r6EB0wkGL9gn8m5OHbT8bcQT7M/s16000/book-of-mormon-records-transfer-chart-by-becca-wilson-jones_white-bg.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>White Background for Printing</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDhJ6cnnxzP0h2e0eEAG8DdpfJmfRf9pRLm-tI6Sh7kopODowUJQRgbL3Zmz-TJqpK9sK35Y4YzmXw0sDGuWdi2IG1K9uif81sC5sWDpKcuMoJ_hM_pRXXJKQlvGIKdxVoKVjGi4sol24/s1247/book-of-mormon-records-transfer-chart-by-becca-wilson-jones_black-bg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1247" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDhJ6cnnxzP0h2e0eEAG8DdpfJmfRf9pRLm-tI6Sh7kopODowUJQRgbL3Zmz-TJqpK9sK35Y4YzmXw0sDGuWdi2IG1K9uif81sC5sWDpKcuMoJ_hM_pRXXJKQlvGIKdxVoKVjGi4sol24/s16000/book-of-mormon-records-transfer-chart-by-becca-wilson-jones_black-bg.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Black Background Option</i></div><br /><p><br /></p>AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com1United States37.09024 -95.7128918.780006163821156 -130.869141 65.400473836178847 -60.556641tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-54518607772248653792020-10-03T19:26:00.003-05:002020-10-03T19:30:19.812-05:00What Evidence Exists of the Book of Mormon’s Authenticity?<p>Here is a super-list of multiple evidences, links to which I’ve gleaned from the excellent <a href="http://EvidenceCentral.org" target="_blank">EvidenceCentral.org</a> website, that point toward the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. For all the people who've ever asked or will ask me to show them evidence of the Book of Mormon being a true work of scripture and not a fictional story, this list is for you. To criticize the book in an intelligent and thoughtful way, you must first go through the entire list and read and understand everything as if you mean to speak credibly.</p><p>If he made it all up, how could Joseph Smith possibly have been so "lucky" to guess all these things so correctly in all of his writing? Especially if much of this scholarship appeared over a century and a half <i>after</i> he translated the Book of Mormon. Indeed, God must have prepared the record for him and at that time to "confound the wise" (or those who think they are wise) as to its true origin.</p><p>As always, I emphasize that the ultimate experience of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon is to <b>read it, pray, and ask Heavenly Father whether it is true</b>. If you do so <b>with sincere intent</b> to follow God’s commandments, you will know that it is true. However, if your intent is less than sincere, i.e. to continue to malign Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it will be difficult to hear the Spirit of the Lord speaking the truth to you.</p><p></p><h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public?te=1&class=type_1" target="_blank"><b>Ancient Literary Features</b></a></li></ul></h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=36&class=evidence" target="_blank">Calendrical Patterns</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=151&class=type_2" target="_blank">Editing</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=25&class=evidence" target="_blank">Repetitive Resumption</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=35&class=evidence" target="_blank">Subscriptio</a></li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=114&class=evidence" target="_blank">Egyptian Writing</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=155&class=type_2" target="_blank">Parallelisms</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=105&class=evidence" target="_blank">Chiasmus</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=40&class=evidence" target="_blank">Gradation</a></li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=156&class=type_2" target="_blank">Poetry</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=1&class=evidence" target="_blank">Arabian Desert Poetry</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=41&class=evidence" target="_blank">Nephi’s Psalm</a></li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=37&class=evidence" target="_blank">Politeness Formula</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=38&class=evidence" target="_blank">Prophetic Perfect</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=42&class=evidence" target="_blank">Simile Curses</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=39&class=evidence" target="_blank">Testament of Lehi</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=157&class=type_2" target="_blank">Wordplays</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=43&class=evidence" target="_blank">Iron Rod/Word of God</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=32&class=evidence" target="_blank">Irreantum</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=45&class=evidence" target="_blank">Wordplay on Benjamin</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=44&class=evidence" target="_blank">Wordplay on Enos</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=47&class=evidence" target="_blank">Wordplay on Jershon</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=31&class=evidence" target="_blank">Wordplay on Noah</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=46&class=evidence" target="_blank">Wordplay on Zeezrom</a> </li></ul></ul></ul><h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public?te=2&class=type_1" target="_blank"><b>Ancient Records</b></a></li></ul></h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=49&class=evidence" target="_blank">Codices in Stone Boxes</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=115&class=evidence" target="_blank">Doubled Documents</a></li></ul></ul><h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public?te=4&class=type_1" target="_blank"><b>Biblical History</b></a></li></ul></h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=28&class=evidence" target="_blank">Many Prophets</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=22&class=evidence" target="_blank">Mulek</a></li></ul></ul><h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public?te=5&class=type_1" target="_blank"><b>Complexity</b></a></li></ul></h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=166&class=type_2" target="_blank">Doctrine</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=56&class=evidence" target="_blank">Christ’s Gospel</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=57&class=evidence" target="_blank">Remember and Forget</a></li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=168&class=type_2" target="_blank">Editing</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=112&class=evidence" target="_blank">Book of Ether</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=4&class=evidence" target="_blank">Editorial Promises</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=110&class=evidence" target="_blank">Previews and Summaries</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=50&class=evidencehttps://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=50&class=evidence" target="_blank">Small Plates Pattern</a></li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=227&class=type_2" target="_blank">Intertextuality (External)</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=80&class=evidence" target="_blank">Bands and Chains</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=81&class=evidence" target="_blank">Christ’s Priestly Blessing</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=82&class=evidence" target="_blank">Didache and Moroni 2-6</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=83&class=evidence" target="_blank">Isaiah/Micah in 3 Nephi</a></li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=228&class=type_2" target="_blank">Intertextuality (Internal)</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=54&class=evidence" target="_blank">Alma’s Conversion</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=16&class=evidence" target="_blank">Ether's Genealogy</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=5&class=evidence" target="_blank">Fulfilled Prophecies</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=55&class=evidence" target="_blank">Historical Context for Moroni 9</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=85&class=evidence" target="_blank">Jaredite History</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=86&class=evidence" target="_blank">Lehi and Zenos</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=87&class=evidence" target="_blank">Limhi's Words</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=6&class=evidence" target="_blank">Mosiah-First Translation</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=84&class=evidence" target="_blank">Sermon at the Temple</a></li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=167&class=type_2" target="_blank">Narratives</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=52&class=evidence" target="_blank">Flashback (Alma 56-58)</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=2&class=evidence" target="_blank">Flashbacks (Alma 17-27)</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=53&class=evidence" target="_blank">Flashbacks (Mosiah 9-24)</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=51&class=evidence" target="_blank">Narrative Symbolism of Apparel</a></li></ul></ul></ul><h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public?te=42&class=type_1" target="_blank"><b>Culture</b></a></li></ul></h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=229&class=type_2" target="_blank">Customs and Ceremonies</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=8&class=evidence" target="_blank">Blessing Food</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=69&class=evidence" target="_blank">Infant Baptism</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=73&class=evidence" target="_blank">Long Quotations</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=70&class=evidence" target="_blank">Sacrifices and Cannibalism</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=71&class=evidence" target="_blank">Scourged with Faggots</a> (torches/firebrands)</li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=181&class=type_2" target="_blank">Festivals and Holidays</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=74&class=evidence" target="_blank">Autumn Festival</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=76&class=evidence" target="_blank">Covenant Renewal Formula</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=75&class=evidence" target="_blank">Mosiah's Coronation</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=77&class=evidence" target="_blank">The Passover Tradition</a></li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=171&class=type_2" target="_blank">Gestures</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=63&class=evidence" target="_blank">Falling Down</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=61&class=evidence" target="_blank">Hand Gestures (ANE)</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=62&class=evidence" target="_blank">Hand Gestures (Mesoamerica)</a></li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=233&class=type_2" target="_blank">Government</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=9&class=evidence" target="_blank">Divine Deliverance</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=12&class=evidence" target="_blank">System of Judges</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=10&class=evidence" target="_blank">Views of Monarchy</a></li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=234&class=type_2" target="_blank">Law</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=108&class=evidence" target="_blank">Apostate Cities</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=89&class=evidence" target="_blank">Cursing with Speechlessness</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=18&class=evidence" target="_blank">Military Exemption</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=19&class=evidence" target="_blank">Slaying of Laban</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=7&class=evidence" target="_blank">Thieves vs. Robbers</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=88&class=evidence" target="_blank">Zemnarihah's Hanging</a></li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=230&class=type_2" target="_blank">Sacred Numbers</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=107&class=evidence" target="_blank">Lehi's Seven Tribes</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=65&class=evidence" target="_blank">The Number 10</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=66&class=evidence" target="_blank">The Numbers 12 and 24</a></li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=231&class=type_2" target="_blank">Symbols</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=58&class=evidence" target="_blank">Engraven Image</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=67&class=evidence" target="_blank">Symbolic Time</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=60&class=evidence" target="_blank">Tree Growing from Heart</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=59&class=evidence" target="_blank">White/Light Fruit</a></li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=232&class=type_2" target="_blank">Traditions</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=72&class=evidence" target="_blank">Primordial Monsters</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=68&class=evidence" target="_blank">Shining Stones</a></li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=235&class=type_2" target="_blank">Warfare</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=109&class=evidence" target="_blank">Burning Cities</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=17&class=evidence" target="_blank">Cimeters</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=11&class=evidence" target="_blank">Geurilla Warfare</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=102&class=evidence" target="_blank">Seasonal Warfare</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=103&class=evidence">Total Warfare</a></li></ul></ul></ul><h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public?te=9&class=type_1" target="_blank"><b>Fulfilled Prophecies</b></a></li></ul></h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=78&class=evidence" target="_blank">Prophecy of Columbus</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=79&class=evidence" target="_blank">Prophecy of the Three Witnesses</a></li></ul></ul><h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public?te=10&class=type_1" target="_blank"><b>Geography</b></a></li></ul></h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=3&class=evidence" target="_blank">Jerusalem's Elevation</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=30&class=evidence" target="_blank">Land of Jerusalem</a></li></ul></ul><h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public?te=35&class=type_1" target="_blank"><b>Material Culture</b></a></li></ul></h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=236&class=type_2" target="_blank">Art and Construction</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=93&class=evidence" target="_blank">Cement</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=98&class=evidence" target="_blank">Early Ceramics</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=92&class=evidence" target="_blank">Highways</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=96&class=evidence" target="_blank">Large Stones</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=95&class=evidence" target="_blank">Markets</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=94&class=evidence" target="_blank">Nephi's Garden and Tower</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=99&class=evidence" target="_blank">Olmec Iron</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=97&class=evidence" target="_blank">Thrones</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=111&class=evidence" target="_blank">Watch Towers</a></li></ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/level_2?te=193&class=type_2" target="_blank">Food and Crops</a></li><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=90&class=evidence" target="_blank">Barley</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=91&class=evidence" target="_blank">Wine and Vineyards</a></li></ul></ul></ul><h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public?te=19&class=type_1" target="_blank"><b>Plates and Artifacts</b></a></li></ul></h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=33&class=evidence" target="_blank">Composition of the Plates</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=113&class=evidence" target="_blank">Sword of Laban</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=106&class=evidence" target="_blank">Urim and Thummim</a></li></ul></ul><h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public?te=37&class=type_1" target="_blank"><b>Science</b></a></li></ul></h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=15&class=evidence" target="_blank">Snake Infestation</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=100&class=evidence" target="_blank">The Beheading of Shiz</a></li></ul></ul><h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public?te=38&class=type_1" target="_blank"><b>Translation</b></a></li></ul></h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=116&class=evidence" target="_blank">Earliest Manuscripts</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=117&class=evidence" target="_blank">Joseph Smith's Education</a></li><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=101&class=evidence" target="_blank">Rapid Translation</a></li></ul></ul><h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public?te=40&class=type_1" target="_blank"><b>Witnesses</b></a></li></ul></h2><ul style="text-align: left;"><ul><li><a href="https://evidencecentral.org/#/public/evidence_form?te=104&class=evidence" target="_blank">Martin Harris</a></li></ul></ul><p></p><p><br /></p>AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0United States37.09024 -95.7128918.780006163821156 -130.869141 65.400473836178847 -60.556641tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-66287943749104422222019-03-17T14:56:00.000-05:002019-03-17T14:56:25.456-05:00Does DNA evidence directly disprove the Book of Mormon?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX0misZcBMM48MCh0zaNRHh3TSUxhqAuoo6Un1d21oj0r_stv5yfC-YjK_I7_dNXtg32s4CYnJ5i1DLH30_J-UEXrz4YO1A98K2YAwvnknbX5pIWh1q02QM5NeBLeu5a7ZB2U622VEwnQ/s1600/dna-2789567_960_720.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="679" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX0misZcBMM48MCh0zaNRHh3TSUxhqAuoo6Un1d21oj0r_stv5yfC-YjK_I7_dNXtg32s4CYnJ5i1DLH30_J-UEXrz4YO1A98K2YAwvnknbX5pIWh1q02QM5NeBLeu5a7ZB2U622VEwnQ/s320/dna-2789567_960_720.png" width="301" /></a></div>
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In <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/harvard-geneticist-no-populations-dna-is-pure/" target="_blank">"DNA reveals we are all genetic mutts"</a>, David Reich, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, talks about how migration shaped human populations. The TL;DR for people who want to know the "yes" or "no" answer to my post title is: </div>
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"It's complicated."</div>
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Read the <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/harvard-geneticist-no-populations-dna-is-pure/" target="_blank">article</a>.</div>
<blockquote>
<i>One question genetics can’t answer, he said in response to an audience question, is exactly how population replacement happened. “In the case of Britain after 6,000 years ago,” he asked, “did new people come in and kill the old ones, or just crowd them out? </i></blockquote>
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<i>We just don’t know. What genetic data does is provide facts about movements of people and changes in groups. We are not the experts to describe how that happened.” </i></blockquote>
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<i>One important takeaway from this study, he said, is that humans inherently derive from mixed ancestry. </i></blockquote>
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<i>“No population is, or ever could be, pure,” he said. “Ancient DNA reveals that the mixing of groups extremely different from each other is a common feature of human nature. We do not live in unusual times; profound events have occurred in our past. We should learn and feel more connected from that.”</i></blockquote>
I don't feel particularly like going into the details of why people are wrong when they say the Book of Mormon <i>isn't true</i> is because Native American DNA doesn't have any Jewish DNA mixed in. It's all been covered in much better detail and depth elsewhere. So, enjoy the links below.<br />
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<a href="https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-and-dna-studies?lang=eng" target="_blank">The Book of Mormon and DNA Studies</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Basic principles of population genetics suggest the need for a more careful approach to the data. The conclusions of genetics, like those of any science, are tentative, and much work remains to be done to fully understand the origins of the native populations of the Americas. Nothing is known about the DNA of Book of Mormon peoples, and even if their genetic profile were known, there are sound scientific reasons that it might remain undetected. For these same reasons, arguments that some defenders of the Book of Mormon make based on DNA studies are also speculative. In short, DNA studies cannot be used decisively to either affirm or reject the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon.</i></blockquote>
<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12736" target="_blank">Upper Palaeolithic Siberian genome reveals dual ancestry of Native Americans</a><br />
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<i>Our findings reveal that western Eurasian genetic signatures in modern-day Native Americans derive not only from post-Columbian admixture, as commonly thought, but also from a mixed ancestry of the First Americans.</i></blockquote>
<a href="https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Book_of_Mormon/Lamanites/Relationship_to_Amerindians/Descendants_of_Lehi" target="_blank">Are all Native Americans descendants of Lehi?</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The Book of Mormon itself, however, does not claim that the peoples it describes were either the predominant or the exclusive inhabitants of the lands they occupied. In fact, cultural and demographic clues in its text hint at the presence of other groups. At the April <b><u>1929</u></b> general conference, President Anthony W. Ivins of the First Presidency cautioned: “We must be careful in the conclusions that we reach. The Book of Mormon … does not tell us that there was no one here before them [the peoples it describes]. It does not tell us that people did not come after.</i> [emphasis added]</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/august-2006/dna-and-the-book-of-mormon" target="_blank">DNA and the Book of Mormon</a><br />
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<i>Joseph’s wife Asenath, daughter of Potipherah priest of On, is the ancestral mother of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (Genesis 46:20). While her genealogy is unknown, there is no reason to believe that her mitochondrial lineage or that of her descendants, including the Lehites, would have matched that of the tribe of Judah. <u>The presence of mtDNA types in Native Americans that do not match those found in modern Jewish groups is fully consistent with both Book of Mormon and Bible accounts.</u></i> [emphasis added]</blockquote>
AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-69872177838284469702019-03-03T09:08:00.002-06:002019-03-03T09:08:54.305-06:00LiDAR Survey Sheds Even More Light on Book of Mormon Authenticity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhceLCQXgkDQk1HdjcZxpbGLMwYpv1LwkSTBQ0ttBzk0vwMKcxoc59W12G-7zZCjWowix-VAimLf7io32XrRIkIVBYEyFaGnYl73HDxoepotW52PIfJsa5i0QEx4_Vh4djkhUT251iyk1I/s1600/2BB93579-0A2E-41C4-B2FF-A9B89A9A130A.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="873" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhceLCQXgkDQk1HdjcZxpbGLMwYpv1LwkSTBQ0ttBzk0vwMKcxoc59W12G-7zZCjWowix-VAimLf7io32XrRIkIVBYEyFaGnYl73HDxoepotW52PIfJsa5i0QEx4_Vh4djkhUT251iyk1I/s640/2BB93579-0A2E-41C4-B2FF-A9B89A9A130A.jpeg" width="547" /></a></div>
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For decades, critics of the Book of Mormon have made the evidence-free claim that “all” the ruins we could find in Mesoamerica have already been discovered and that nothing resembling a Book of Mormon-like civilization could have existed, does now exist, or would ever be found. Furthermore, the idea of large fortifications and centuries of large-scale warfare just weren’t evident in the archaeological record the way the Book of Mormon says.<br />
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<a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/03/lasers-reveal-maya-war-ruins/" target="_blank">National Geographic and the PACUNAM LiDAR Initiative, likely unwittingly, beg to differ with that assessment. </a><br />
<blockquote>
In February 2018, National Geographic broke the story of the PACUNAM LiDAR Initiative, a sweeping aerial survey of some 800 square miles (2,100 square kilometers) of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in northern Guatemala. Using revolutionary laser technology, the survey revealed the long-hidden ruins of a sprawling pre-Columbian civilization that was far more complex and interconnected than most Maya specialists had supposed.
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How very wrong these critics were. We haven’t discovered a tenth of what is yet to be found. And I am confident that, within my lifetime, someone will finally find a written record of something or someone in Mayan history that directly references an event, person, place, or thing from the Book of Mormon.<br />
<blockquote>
Archaeologists guided by laser images of a remote region of northern Guatemala have discovered 20-foot-high walls, watchtowers, and other evidence that ancient Maya societies waged large-scale warfare over many years. The finds have upended long-established impressions of a civilization that tamed the jungle and built thriving cities, then declined and disappeared beneath the dense tropical forest.<br />
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Among the most startling discoveries was a large fortress complex now called La Cuernavilla. Built on a steep ridge between the Maya cities of El Zotz and Tikal, the heavily fortified site included high walls, moats, watchtowers, and caches of round stones that likely served as ammunition for warriors’ slings. It is the largest defensive system ever discovered in the region, “and possibly in all of the ancient Americas,” says <a href="https://vivo.brown.edu/display/shouston">Stephen Houston</a>, a Brown University archaeologist and Maya scholar.
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As a side note, I love the symbolic completeness of how these new discoveries are coming to “light”. It’s literally a tightly coherent light from the heavens cutting through the obscurity of the forest canopy and revealing truths hidden underneath. Isn’t that how the truth about God is always obtained? Through revelatory light from Heaven? And could it be that God has just a bit of a sense of humor in how we are coming to these new scientific truths?AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-47696884312002966562019-02-17T16:04:00.002-06:002019-02-17T16:04:34.636-06:00Is the Book of Mormon a Forgery?One more time for the people in the back with their tar and their feathers.<br />
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_1UlnWs457w" width="560"></iframe>AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-26299541054725298422018-09-20T18:04:00.003-05:002018-09-20T18:04:43.808-05:00The Book of Mormon's Grammar Isn't So Strange...If You're From the 14th Century!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpU88JV0EgNWh3PusV7-s5N_TN3xhHM1RBzwhHoOhK7NHSoOmBdGMgL9xK0wu3ENomgm2LQPRaa0DdWXJaLTH2NwYnvKcAmbs4hDKebM2fO-N4kohsYwwTPehl_9v_hCAJAiOqv6k5u3Q/s1600/6194669.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="656" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpU88JV0EgNWh3PusV7-s5N_TN3xhHM1RBzwhHoOhK7NHSoOmBdGMgL9xK0wu3ENomgm2LQPRaa0DdWXJaLTH2NwYnvKcAmbs4hDKebM2fO-N4kohsYwwTPehl_9v_hCAJAiOqv6k5u3Q/s320/6194669.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Something even lifetime Mormons have been aware of with the Book of Mormon is the seemingly awkward phrasing of some passages and sentences of the Book of Mormon. To our modern ears, they don't seem to fit the way people speak or write today.<br />
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Critics of the Book of Mormon have long held that the Book of Mormon's phrasing is the simplistic product of Joseph's unlettered mind trying to grasp at the language of the King James Version of the Bible.<br />
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But, as it turns out, according to <a href="http://www.ldsliving.com/Scholars-Find-Evidence-That-Book-of-Mormon-Phrases-Mocked-by-Critics-Have-a-Surprising-and-Fascinating-History/s/89314" target="_blank">new studies of the language and grammar of the Book of Mormon</a>, the phraseology isn't all that bad. If you lived in the 1500s, it was perfectly natural, in fact.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Droid serif"; font-style: italic;">Several sections of </span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Droid serif";">T</span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Droid serif";">he Nature of the Original Language</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Droid serif"; font-style: italic;"> are dedicated to showing that virtually every expression that scholars and critics have proposed as representing the language of Joseph Smith’s time turns out to have existed in earlier English, including such striking expressions as “to endure the crosses of the world” and “to sing the song of redeeming love.” Some of these, indeed, are truly archaic expressions that died out of English prior to 1600 and that would, accordingly, not have been used by Joseph Smith in his own language.</span><i> </i></blockquote>
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<i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Droid serif";">Nineteenth-century critics of the Book of Mormon typically mocked what they viewed as the Book of Mormon’s inelegant phraseology. For instance, the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Campbell_(clergyman)" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; color: #00aeef; font-family: "Droid serif"; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Rev. Alexander Campbell</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Droid serif";">, in his blistering 1831 critique of the Book of Mormon, identified 121 of what he derided as “Smithisms.” Yet it turns out that all but one of them occurred in Early Modern English. In fact, some of them actually occurred in the King James Bible, but somehow Campbell, famed as a biblical scholar, failed to recognize them.</span></i></blockquote>
In his research, Royal Skousen identified 80 word uses, phrases, and expressions that didn't exist in Joseph Smith's time but were common up to three centuries prior.<br />
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So, the Book of Mormon is not a crude copy of the King James Bible language usage after all, as its critics have supposed, but was received in a direct translation using actual 1500s King James English, such as was not spoken in Joseph Smith's time at all. There's simply no other explanation, unless one wants to argue that Joseph was not unlettered, but rather a brilliant linguist who had the only copy of archaic idioms and grammar that other scholars of his time were not aware of.<br /><br />
It's almost as if God is challenging the learned of the world to figure out this mystery of how Joseph Smith got so many things right that people thought were so wrong for so long. The answer, for those who have the eye of faith, is that the Book of Mormon was given by direct revelation in exactly the way God intended it to be delivered.AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-43891865326230443992018-06-26T15:42:00.000-05:002018-06-26T15:43:10.310-05:00More Evidence for Pre-Nephite/Pre-Jaredite American InhabitantsOne of the more aggravating objections to the Book of Mormon that I see from time to time on various online forums is this idea that all original inhabitants of the Americas came from a single source: the Bering Strait. It usually takes the form of a statement like, "there's no evidence that anyone but Asians are the predecessors of Native Americans found when Columbus arrived..." or some such nonsense.<br />
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<a href="http://www.americantestament.com/2018/06/white-native-americans-new-dna.html" target="_blank">I've already written about this recently</a>, and <a href="http://www.americantestament.com/2012/12/why-debate-about-book-of-mormon-dna-is.html" target="_blank">also earlier</a>, and see also Steve Smoot's excellent <a href="http://www.americantestament.com/2008/05/has-dna-disproven-the-book-of-mormon.html" target="_blank">DNA and the Book of Mormon</a> article. But here comes yet another bit of scientific discovery that blows this limited and antiquated Beringian population group idea out of the water.<br />
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<a href="https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/01/29/brazilian-rock-shelter/" target="_blank"><b>Brazilian rock shelter proves humans inhabited Americas 23,000 years ago</b></a><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The “First Americans” are usually believed to be East Asian migrants that crossed the Bering Straits 15,000 years ago, members of the Clovis Culture (a reference to their stone tool technology). A small number of researchers have suggested that an earlier group of migrants, from Europe’s Solutrean culture, arrived in North America a couple of millennia before these Clovis settlers, a hypothesis which was hotly disputed by academics... </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It now appears that researchers favoring both the Clovis and Solutrean models have got it all wrong and supporting the claim of “First Americans” should be given to a mysterious population living in Brazil over 23,000 years ago."</blockquote>
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While there is still some reasonable doubt about the Solutrean (European) arrival and whether it was before or after the Beringian/Clovis culture, it's hard to find a way to refute the findings of the Brazilian site.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Scientists utilized three separate dating methods to investigate samples of charcoal, sediment, and the sloth bones. The revealed dates securely place people at the Santa Elina site well over 23,120 years ago. Humans groups abandoned the site after a short period, but later groups utilized the rock shelter again between 10,120 and 2,000 years ago... </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The new dates from Santa Elina further erode the consensus understanding that the first modern humans reached the Americas by walking across the land bridge between Northeast Asia and North America 15,000 years ago. The rock shelter is thousands of miles from the proposed entry site. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Not only is Santa Elina located far from even the earliest Clovis sites, it is also over 1,000 miles from the Brazilian coast in a heavily forested region. This seems like an unlikely first point of entry as it is logical to suspect that humans lived initially along the coastline before moving into the Brazilian interior by 23,000 years ago. This would seem to offer further support to claims that modern humans were in Brazil long before even this early period."</blockquote>
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Again, what people thought they "knew" for certain is being upended by new findings. This is why when people say to me that there is no proof (such a sloppy word) or evidence (better) that there were Nephites or Lamanites or Jaredites or any connection whatsoever between ancient America and the Middle East, first I tell them all the new stuff we're finding followed by "and wait until you see what else the Lord will eventually reveal."<br />
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By faith and also by reason. That is how truth is discovered.<br />
<br />AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-75747282059719898172018-06-22T19:15:00.000-05:002018-06-24T19:38:24.928-05:00Is Mormonism a CULT?!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi-M-dgqMDaF6xW508udt7yy_Ayqu_ZxYqAffRNqWSM5WbYdXtBWvXo5KTiH6RNWcQPHXZU-sdfyRsO0lYVV4fcFO60McTqioy68CMGnnW0sAFDqAN74rk627IC_PKWJrU82QHC2qwr5g/s1600/is-mormonism-a-cult.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="351" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi-M-dgqMDaF6xW508udt7yy_Ayqu_ZxYqAffRNqWSM5WbYdXtBWvXo5KTiH6RNWcQPHXZU-sdfyRsO0lYVV4fcFO60McTqioy68CMGnnW0sAFDqAN74rk627IC_PKWJrU82QHC2qwr5g/s640/is-mormonism-a-cult.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<br />
So? Is it?!<br />
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Well, that all depends on what you mean by "cult".<br />
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Jeff Lindsay, a Mormon apologist, put together a tongue-in-cheek website, <a href="http://mormoncult.org/">MormonCult.org</a>, to illustrate this concept. On the site he explains, in the voice of the Mormon church's detractors but while making the opposite argument, that he "pursued the most scholarly, objective approach [he] could take" and that "Mormons are clearly a cult". But the definitions he uses are the original ones right out of the dictionary.<br />
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Of course, Lindsay then goes on to explain, again tongue-in-cheek, how silly the new definition is and how it can be used to control peoples' thinking about religious groups that aren't a threat to anyone and just because they're "different".<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.plonialmonimormon.com/2018/06/zelph-on-the-shelf-just-accidentally-proved-that-mormon-stories-is-a-cult.html" rel="" target="_blank">Another great article about the Mormon church being a "cult"</a> comes from esteemed AmericanTestament.com alumnus Stephen Smoot. He takes aim at a prominent ex-mormon podcasting duo who, <a href="https://dearjohndehlin.wordpress.com/2017/05/25/john-dehlin-and-the-women-problem/" target="_blank">under the <i>very</i> protective and controlling auspices of one of today's most prominent ex-mormons</a>, have hurled this accusation at the Church in every episode.<br />
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But, as Smoot points out, they cannot or will not see that their own actions have put them and their efforts to discredit the Church squarely in the cross-hairs of that more modern definition of "cult".<br />
<br />
So, now that we know that Mormonism is definitely a cult, also originally known as "a system of religious belief and worship", we can dispense with the silly name calling and mudslinging and <a href="https://scriptures.lds.org/" target="_blank">focus on truth</a>.<br />
<br />AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-42497163588697176712018-06-09T22:43:00.001-05:002018-06-09T22:43:16.493-05:00White Native Americans? New DNA Discovery Says "Yes".When we talk about the Book of Mormon people, we often divide them into two categories: Nephites and Lamanites, with one group being light-skinned and another group being dark-skinned.<br />
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Well, it's not that simple, really. But cultural forces inside and outside the LDS church have sort of forced things into these polarizations.</div>
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<div>
The truth about the racial mix of human populations in reality is quite difficult to divide into two "racial" camps. Tribes and entire peoples intermarry and racial distinctions become hard to distinguish. Ultimately, we're just talking about one race...the human race...and nothing else about them really matters beyond that.</div>
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<a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/111/48/17060" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="440" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEhS8y309jU2ixaWJum0debZkPNGPufu8Kky6QaocIUROSuLvvtZyc0wtBSs1UaL-Wj8I2pJBcox2aH3gMkW3OXQNuTf8m202Vq_wktAC-52Tv7P1WqZ_i8rDpcZYiDaeD8OrIw6CSkpY/s320/dna-and-white-native-americans.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
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But if we're going to insist on going down this road of "who was white and who was not", we might as well start with <a href="http://en.protothema.gr/scientists-discover-dna-proving-original-native-americans-were-white/" target="_blank">a new DNA discovery</a> that portrays the origins of at least some groups of original inhabitants of the American continents as distinctly white.</div>
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What scientists found predates even the earliest estimates of the arrival of the Jaredites (the first Book of Mormon people, even if their story appears at the end). </div>
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About 11,500 years ago, just as the last ice age was drawing to a close, a woman gave birth in an Alaskan valley to a child who didn't live very long. She buried the remains next to another likely stillborn child (perhaps a cousin) in a burial pit. Those remains, discovered in 2013, hadn't been able to be fully analyzed until very recently.</div>
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Expecting the first child's DNA to come closer to matching modern Native American lineages, they discovered that the genetic markers pointed to a completely different origin. </div>
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Named the "ancient Beringians", this group seems to have come from European groups nearly 20,000 years ago. They had come to Alaska over a frozen land bridge from Europe and Asia and then continued south, likely in a single wave.</div>
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Please know that by posting this I'm NOT jumping onto any bandwagons about which races might be superior or pure or chosen or "first" or any of that other nonsense. No way. I'm just interested in the science of migrating people and how that might have looked before, in, and after Book of Mormon times without regard to anyone's preconceived notions about whiteness, brownness, or blackness. </div>
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That is all.</div>
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Find out more about this fascinating research at <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/111/48/17060.full">http://www.pnas.org/content/111/48/17060.full</a>.</div>
AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-83666104608813028982018-05-11T13:21:00.000-05:002018-05-11T13:21:07.727-05:00Was the Book of Mormon Man-Made or God-Given?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuVadELSeEqhvXBY8jb0hK5tmyfgbViUgrBnRlVNTjEpGjOWfpgavQNwAVUv-aTedgPYOu1UtXCgrWbjUm6clU5zH6rzlxu7QnwPQVXUp2zFIL7O6KS7ZD4AwF-_qVtrIBYU60eEI-1oI/s1600/2017-10-5020-tad-r-callister-900x505.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="505" data-original-width="900" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuVadELSeEqhvXBY8jb0hK5tmyfgbViUgrBnRlVNTjEpGjOWfpgavQNwAVUv-aTedgPYOu1UtXCgrWbjUm6clU5zH6rzlxu7QnwPQVXUp2zFIL7O6KS7ZD4AwF-_qVtrIBYU60eEI-1oI/s320/2017-10-5020-tad-r-callister-900x505.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elder Tad R. Callister<br />Sunday School General President<br />The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
A question I sometimes hear from people is whether the Book of Mormon came from the mind of a man or if it is real scripture from God.<br />
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This excellent talk, "<a href="https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/tad-r-callister_book-mormon-man-made-god-given/" target="_blank"><b>The Book of Mormon: Man-Made or God-Given?</b></a>", by Elder Tad R. Callister of the Sunday School Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will shed more light on this question. In the talk, he explores the many explanations that try to account for how the Book of Mormon came to be. He also addresses the holes in those explanations.<br />
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He covers the following proposed explanations:<br />
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<ol>
<li>Joseph Smith, alleged to be an ignorant man, wrote the Book of Mormon</li>
<li>Someone else wrote it</li>
<li>The Book of Mormon was plagiarized from other books</li>
<li>Joseph suffered from a mental illness</li>
<li>Joseph Smith was a creative genius who, shaped by his environment, wrote the Book of Mormon</li>
</ol>
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He also covers the following:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Where did Joseph get the doctrine?</li>
<li>A parable that counters the arguments proposed by the critics</li>
<li>Other evidences that the Book of Mormon is not man-made</li>
</ul>
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Ultimately, though, the truth about scripture comes from the Spirit. As he notes in his conclusion:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If I were to ask my good Christian friends how they unquestionably know the Bible is the word of God, I do not believe they would cite archaeological discoveries or linguistic connections with ancient Hebrew or Greek as their prime evidence; rather, they would make reference to the Spirit. It always comes back to the Spirit. The Spirit that helps me know the Bible is true is the very same Spirit that helps me know the Book of Mormon is true. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Spirit is the decisive, determining factor—not archaeology, not linguistics, not DNA, and certainly not the theories of man. The Spirit is the only witness that is sure and certain and infallible.</blockquote>
We can read hundreds of theories and explanations without ever coming to a knowledge of the truth. What will bring us to truth is prayer and faith. Have you prayed to know whether the Book of Mormon is true?AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-47058961935075173182018-05-09T07:05:00.000-05:002018-05-11T13:02:31.846-05:00What the Book of Mormon Witnesses Said Will Shock You!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZIQNp9BfAZwwbOaierye-Vj6oWh5_3K36s_oFcWshLnXqVk1Lv9LJCaY8eeCXigfLfW4VDIc3_6T6Id73X_jibXgu3quPSm3EgLJvz9VKTygWAduSvFa-xBLgCCLTIZsTtudH8fEKGz8/s1600/1609222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="878" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZIQNp9BfAZwwbOaierye-Vj6oWh5_3K36s_oFcWshLnXqVk1Lv9LJCaY8eeCXigfLfW4VDIc3_6T6Id73X_jibXgu3quPSm3EgLJvz9VKTygWAduSvFa-xBLgCCLTIZsTtudH8fEKGz8/s320/1609222.jpg" width="234" /></a></div>
Everybody knows the Book of Mormon is a fraud, right? Right? I mean, after Joseph Smith died, people came out of the woodwork to finally deny what his "mesmerism" had forced them to attest to. Finally, they were free to say whatever they liked about the Book of Mormon!<br />
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Except, that's not what actually happened (sorry if you were told otherwise).<br />
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Joseph Smith, Sr. (the prophet's father), Hyrum Smith and Samuel H. Smith (the prophet's brothers), Peter Whitmer, Jr., and Christian Whitmer never recanted their testimonies. All died faithful to the Church.<br />
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Here are the quotes of those witnesses of the Book of Mormon who later left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some of them left for good. Others eventually returned to full activity.<br />
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<b>David Whitmer </b>(left, but came back)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In regards to my testimony to the visitation of the angel, who declared to us three witnesses that the Book of Mormon is true, I have this to say: Of course we were in the spirit when we had the view, for no man can behold the face of an angel, except in a spiritual view, but we were in the body also, and everything was as natural to us, as it is at any time. Martin Harris, you say, called it 'being in vision.' We read in the Scriptures, Cornelius saw, in a vision, an angel of God. Daniel saw an angel in a vision; also in other places it states they saw an angel in the spirit. A bright light enveloped us where we were, that filled at noon day, and there in a vision, or in the spirit, we saw and heard just as it is stated in my testimony in the Book of Mormon.</blockquote>
Source: Anthony Metcalf, <i>Ten Years Before the Mast</i> (Malad, Idaho: A. Metcalf, 1888), 74.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It having been represented by one John Murphy, of Polo, Caldwell County, Mo., that I, in a conversation with him last summer, denied my testimony as one of the three witnesses to the BOOK OF MORMON. To the end, therefore, that he may understand me now, if he did not then; and that the world may know the truth, I wish now, standing as it were, in the very sunset of life, and in the fear of God, once for all to make this public statement: That I have never at any time denied that testimony or any part thereof, which has so long since been published with that Book, as one of the three witnesses. Those who know me best, well know that I have always adhered to that testimony. And that no man may be misled or doubt my present views in regard to the same, I do again affirm the truth of all of my statements, as then made and published. He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear; it was no delusion!</blockquote>
(Source: <i>Richmond (Missouri) Conservator</i>, March 24, 1881; <i>Hamiltonian (Missouri) Newspaper</i>, April 8, 1881.)<br />
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<b>Oliver Cowdery</b> (left, but came back)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If your honor please, and gentlemen of the jury, the attorney on the opposite side has challenged me to state my connection with Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon: and as I cannot now avoid the responsibility, I must admit to you that I am the very Oliver Cowdery whose name is attached to the testimony, with others, as to the appearance of the Angel Moroni; and let me tell you that it is not because of my good deeds that I am here, away from the body of the Mormon Church, but because I have broken the covenants I once made, and I was cut off from the Church, but, gentlemen of the jury, I have never denied my testimony, which is attached to the Book of Mormon, and I declare to you here that these eyes saw the angel, and these ears of mine heard the voice of the angel, and he told us his name was Moroni; that the book was true, and contained the fulness of the gospel, and we were also told that if we ever denied what we had heard and seen that there would be no forgiveness for us, neither in this world nor in the world to come.</blockquote>
Source: <i>The Restored Church</i>, 7th ed., p.74-75<br />
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<b>Martin Harris</b> (left, but came back)</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Book of Mormon is no fake. I know what I know. I have seen what I have seen and I have heard what I have heard. I have seen the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon is written. An angel appeared to me and others and testified to the truthfulness of the record, and had I been willing to have perjured myself and sworn falsely to the testimony I now bear I could have been a rich man, but I could not have testified other than I have done and am now doing for these things are true.</blockquote>
(Source: Martin Harris on his death bed. Cited by George Godfrey, “Testimony of Martin Harris,” from an unpublished manuscript copy in the possession of his descendants, quoted in Eldin Ricks, <i>The Case of the Book of Mormon Witnesses </i>[Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1971], 65–66.)<br />
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David Whitmer's brothers John Whitmer and Jacob Whitmer, along with Hiram Page were all excommunicated in 1838 and never returned to activity in the Church. Yet, they also never recanted their testimonies.</div>
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So, there were a total of 11 witnesses, 5 of which never left the Church, 2 of which left and later returned, and 4 of which left and never returned. All of them remained true to what they saw.</div>
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To prove the Book of Mormon a fraud, one has to go over, under, around, and through these men.</div>
AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-64415112662540925522018-05-05T17:33:00.000-05:002018-05-05T17:33:05.467-05:00On Whether Religious People Can Have a Scientific PerspectiveI was recently asked the following question on Quora:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://www.quora.com/Do-religious-people-ever-view-their-religion-in-a-bigger-perspective-Like-science-religious-history-psychology-human-religious-geography-cosmology-biology-evolution-neuroscience/answer/Rob-Watson-2" target="_blank">Do religious people ever view their religion in a bigger perspective? Like science, (religious) history, psychology, human/religious geography, cosmology, biology, evolution, neuroscience…</a></blockquote>
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My <a href="https://www.quora.com/Do-religious-people-ever-view-their-religion-in-a-bigger-perspective-Like-science-religious-history-psychology-human-religious-geography-cosmology-biology-evolution-neuroscience/answer/Rob-Watson-2" target="_blank">initial answer</a> was short and simple.</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: q_serif, Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", "Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro", Meiryo, serif; font-size: 15px;">Yes, definitely. I love to study these topics and try to piece together the puzzle of how my faith fits into it, particularly what God’s plan is in all of it.</span> </blockquote>
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The questioner wanted more detail, specifically with regards to how I could still believe in God considering what I've studied during my life.</div>
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Below is the longer answer I gave. I'm preserving it here because, well, it took a long time to write it. And, Quora can be...squirrelly sometimes as to where answers get moved, if they get renamed, or if they get downvoted out of existence. Furthermore, the current design of Quora makes reading threaded comments tedious.</div>
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Special hat tip to Dr. Daniel C. Peterson, who I've gratuitously linked in the footnotes only because he's pretty much covering ALL the bases on this topic with his more recent blog posts on the subject of science vs. religion. Saves me a ton of time and typing and I'm happy to promote his work here.</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
My short answer is “how can I not?”. But I know that’s not a satisfying answer to anyone but me. :) So, here is my longer answer. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
First, to set aside the ill-conceived notion that one cannot be a scientist and a believer in God (and believe me, I’ve read and do understand ALL of the atheists’ views on this), here’s a list (<a href="http://coldcasechristianity.com/2018/the-rich-historic-roll-call-of-great-christian-thinkers-and-scientists/">The Rich, Historic Roll Call of Great Christian Thinkers and Scientists</a>) of all the scientists over the years whose faith enlightened (was the reason for) their even exploring science. In other words, they pursued science because they saw God in it and wanted to know His creation more, not in spite of God (even if the Catholic Church often disagreed). Some like to insist that they were pioneering lone scientific renegades who were rebelliously and atheistically challenging the presumed wisdom of the Christian orthodoxy. But, that’s an incomplete (or disingenuous) reading of history and biography. In fact, many were (and remained even in the face of severe persecution) faithful Christians who maintained their belief in God until they died. See also <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/western-science-as-a-byproduct-of-medieval-christian-theology.html">Western science as a byproduct of medieval Christian theology</a>. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I was also quite impressed by the book “Signature in the Cell” by Stephen C. Meyer (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Signature-Cell-Evidence-Intelligent-Design/dp/0061472786">Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design</a>). It’s controversial in secular science circles, for sure, but his thesis made complete sense to me from the perspective of being both a Christian and a computer programmer with an interest in genetics. DNA is very, very literally a computer programming language, with its medium being biology rather than silicon. It is something that can be directly manipulated and changed (and even upgraded!) by the CRISPR CAS9 prokaryotic immune system. Given that DNA uses and gives rise to biological nanomachines of astounding complexity and elegance (that we have yet to duplicate from whole cloth), which, in turn, lead to an escalating and exponential scope of complex systems, organisms, organs, anatomy, and enablement of consciousness itself, there is zero doubt in my mind, after comparing the fundamentals of computer programming with the fundamentals of DNA replication and bio-computation that goes on in the cell, that an Intelligent Mind had to be behind its design. Just by sheer statistical improbability alone that all that DNA is, does, and the information (not just data) that it contains could have emerged by random chance and mutation. Someone imbued DNA with information. Information is a byproduct of intelligence. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As a student of American History, the main thing that impacts me to this very day is the extreme improbability that the American Revolution should ever have succeeded if it were not from an Outside Influence. There were simply too many improbable “coincidences” for a tiny, disorganized, hungry, diseased, under-armed, ragtag band of inexperienced farmer-soldiers to have ever defeated what was then the greatest military superpower that the world had ever seen. See <a href="https://www.lds.org/ensign/1987/10/delivered-by-the-power-of-god-the-american-revolution-and-nephis-prophecy?lang=eng">“Delivered by the Power of God”</a>. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
On the subjects of psychology/neuroscience, you might find <a href="http://journals.biola.edu/jpt/volumes/30/issues/1/articles/51">Intelligent Design Psychology and Evolutionary Psychology on Consciousness: Turning Water Into Wine</a> an interesting read. See also <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ambigamy/201803/intelligent-designs-one-valid-scientific-point">Intelligent Design's One Valid Scientific Point</a>, written by an anti-intelligent design atheist who sides with ID on the question of what can explain agency (free will). </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Logically speaking, just because all religions can’t be true doesn’t mean one religion can’t be true nor that there can’t be truth in religion. It’s not a binary either/or proposition. Truth is a both/and proposition. You can have truth in both science and religion. And the five physical senses are not the only way to know something is true or part of reality or cosmology (<a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/genuine-knowledge-available-beyond-sciences.html#QxHJJ1iw2d7sdCgp.99">Is genuine knowledge available beyond the sciences?</a>). We cannot begin to “see” the quantum realm of science. Our instruments are limited by the smallness of scale at that level. The quantum world is smaller than the photons we need to bounce off of its properties to see them. All our “seeing” of it is limited to second- and third-hand observations, and that is often limited to related phenomena where we have to infer rather than deduce to make a conclusion. At a certain point, that becomes more like faith than science. Indeed, the more we find out, the more questions we have. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Again, after reading all the atheists’ objections to the concept of God and a Creator, I can’t understand how anyone can look into the ever-expanding and infinitely complex cosmos and, at the other end, the incredible incomprehensibility of the tiniest yet cosmically impactful quantum phenomena, and <i>not</i> see Pure Intelligence. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Below are more articles by one of my favorite authors/researchers on this topic, Dr. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_C._Peterson">Daniel C. Peterson</a>. These short articles capture perfectly the essence of all my intended responses to the objections I perceive that you might have. I challenge you to read them all, as I have, before you respond. They’re actually notes he’s blogging about as he writes a book on this very topic (no idea when it will be published). After having reviewed your Quora thoughts on these topics, I think you’ll find his work enlightening as far as understanding how people who are religious can also be scientific (and vice versa!). With this list, I’m giving you everything he’s researched in order of most recent up to January 2018 (there’s much more beyond that).</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ol>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/05/a-note-on-science-scientific-literacy-and-religious-belief.html">A Note on Science, Scientific Literacy, and Religious Belief</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/05/on-adjusting-ones-religious-views-in-the-light-of-science-history-and-the-like.html">On adjusting one’s religious views in the light of science, history, and the like</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/05/thoughts-on-mormonism-and-intellectual-sophistication.html">Thoughts on Mormonism and Intellectual Sophistication</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/a-few-scientists-who-were-also-ecclesiastical-leaders.html">A few scientists who were also ecclesiastical leaders</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/objective-proof-in-religion.html">Objective Proof in Religion</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/three-physicists.html">Three Physicists</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/scientific-discoveries-as-religious-discoveries.html">Scientific discoveries as religious discoveries</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/consistent-with-what-i-know-about-science.html">“Consistent with what I know about science”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/the-wonder-of-it-all.html">The Wonder of It All</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/nature-is-skewed-toward-life.html">“Nature is skewed toward life.”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/endless-forms-most-beautiful.html">“Endless Forms Most Beautiful”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/the-wisdom-of-the-nobel-prize.html">The Wisdom of the Nobel Prize</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/the-lost-world-of-genesis-one-2.html">“The Lost World of Genesis One”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/four-nineteenth-century-mormon-quotations-on-science-and-religion.html">Four Nineteenth-Century Mormon Quotations on Science and Religion</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/peter-grunberg-rip.html">Peter Grünberg RIP</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/ultimate-questions.html">Ultimate Questions</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/whats-needed-for-life.html">What’s needed for life?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/whats-need-for-life-revisited.html">What’s Needed for Life (Revisited)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/anything-but-pedestrian.html">“Anything But Pedestrian”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/a-set-of-near-optimal-mechanisms.html">“A set of near optimal mechanisms”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/of-meaning-and-neurons.html">Of “meaning” and neurons</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/mind-intelligence-was-somehow-embedded-in-the-process.html">“Mind, intelligence, was somehow embedded in the process”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/highly-skewed-toward-fitness-for-life.html">“Highly skewed toward fitness for life”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/a-slice-of-life.html">A Slice of Life</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/did-random-chance-demand-the-existence-of-a-stellar-system-suited-to-life.html">Did random chance demand the existence of a stellar system suited to life?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/when-you-think-about-it-it-does-get-spooky.html">“When you think about it, it does get spooky.”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/our-favorable-location-in-the-solar-system-part-1.html">Our Favorable Location in the Solar System (Part 1)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/04/our-favorable-location-in-the-solar-system-part-2.html">Our Favorable Location in the Solar System (Part 2)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/life-and-our-galactic-location-part-1.html">Life and our galactic location (Part 1)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/life-and-our-galactic-location-part-2.html">Life and our galactic location (Part 2)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/life-and-our-galactic-location-part-3.html">Life and our galactic location (Part 3)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/walking-along-the-shore.html">“Walking along the Shore”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/the-myth-of-the-dark-ages.html">The myth of the “Dark Ages”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/nicely-balanced-against-all-hazards-at-an-absolutely-optimal-level.html">“Nicely balanced, against all hazards, at an absolutely optimal level”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/the-culture-of-science.html">The Culture of Science</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/reason-and-faith-and-some-science-news.html">Reason and Faith, and Some Science News</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/from-amino-acid-soup-to-the-b-minor-mass.html">From amino acid soup to the B-Minor Mass</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/ditchkins-science-and-religion.html">“Ditchkins,” Science, and Religion</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/eagleton-on-dawkins-and-dennett-on-science-and-religion.html">Eagleton on Dawkins and Dennett on Science and Religion</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/so-i-ate-his-lunch.html">“So I ate his lunch!”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/vantage-point-outside-body.html">“From a vantage point outside her body”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/death-and-consciousness.html">Death and Consciousness</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/death-and-consciousness-again.html">Death and Consciousness, Again</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/on-science-and-the-church.html">On Science and the Church</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/heads-beneath-feet-beneath-dignity.html">Above our heads, beneath our feet, and beneath our dignity</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/46814.html">Charles H. Townes, plus some science news</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/do-you-know-your-abcs.html">Do you know your ABCs?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/and-our-bodies-have-trillions-of-these.html">And our bodies have TRILLIONS of these!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/lise-meitner-pioneering-female-christian-physicist.html">Lise Meitner, pioneering female Christian physicist</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/secret-mental-life-trees-part-1.html">The Secret Mental Life of Trees (Part 1)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/secret-mental-life-trees-part-2.html">The Secret Mental Life of Trees (Part 2)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/secret-mental-life-trees-part-3.html">The Secret Mental Life of Trees (Part 3)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/03/piper-playing-gates-dawn.html">“A piper playing at the gates of dawn”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/reflections-probabilities-1.html">Some reflections on probabilities (1)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/reflections-probabilities-2.html">Some Reflections on Probabilities (2)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/reflections-probabilities-3.html">Some Reflections on Probabilities (3)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/mind-fundamental-universe.html">Mind, fundamental to the universe?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/no-truth-belongs-gospel.html">“There is no truth but what belongs to the Gospel.”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/aliens-did-it.html">Aliens did it.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/think-clearly-religious-implications.html">“I think there are clearly religious implications.”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/god-extravagant-generosity.html">“A God of extravagant generosity”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/the-god-hypothesis.html">“The God Hypothesis”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/alternative-infinite-multiverse.html">An alternative to the infinite multiverse?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/a-scientists-dissent.html">A scientist’s dissent</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/raffiniert-ist-der-herr-gott-aber-boshaft-ist-er-nicht.html">“Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber boshaft ist er nicht”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/45882.html">A utopian view of science</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/the-intuition-of-design.html">The Intuition of Design</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/personal-explanation.html">“Personal Explanation”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/the-problem-of-consciousness.html">The Problem of Consciousness</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/materialism-non-starter.html">Materialism as a “Non-Starter”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/02/we-are-invisible.html">We are invisible</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/darwinism-good-explanatory-theory-far-goes.html">Darwinism is a good explanatory theory as far as it goes, but . . .</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/extension-common-sense-means.html">“The extension of common sense by other means”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/science-related-items-interest.html">Some science-related items of interest</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/can-science-discipline-ever-without-unproven-assumptions.html">Can science (or any other discipline) ever be without unproven assumptions?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/weve-recently-begun-recognize-vast-scope.html">We’ve only recently begun to recognize its vast scope.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/biologists-hostile-physicists-religion-theology.html">Why are some biologists more hostile than physicists to religion and theology?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/supposed-war-science-religion.html">The supposed war between science and religion</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/scientific-discovery-encounter-divine.html">Scientific discovery as an encounter with the divine</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/asteroids-meteorites-construction-destruction.html">Asteroids and Meteorites, Construction and Destruction</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/unimaginable-vastness-remarkable-order.html">Unimaginable Vastness and Remarkable Order</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/nothing-comes-nothing-nothing-ever.html">“Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could.”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/star-stuff.html">Star Stuff</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/four-examples-astrophysical-fine-tuning.html">Four examples of astrophysical fine-tuning</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/nature-universe-seems-raise-god-question.html">“The nature of the universe itself seems to raise the ‘God’ question.”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/robust-fine-tuning-chemistry.html">“Robust” fine-tuning in chemistry?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/demiurges-hidden-message.html">“The Demiurge’s hidden message”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/universe-big-weird.html">The universe is both very big and very weird.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/scientism-religion-really.html">Scientism as religion. Really.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/make-solar-systems.html">“How to Make Solar Systems”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/good-quotations-science-religion.html">Some good quotations on science and religion</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/stardust-golden-billion-year-old-carbon.html">“We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion-year-old carbon”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/focusing-essentials-biblical-story-creation.html">“Focusing on the essentials in the biblical story of creation”</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/inconceivable-vastness.html">Inconceivable vastness</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/hans-georg-gadamer-scientism.html">Hans-Georg Gadamer on Scientism</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2018/01/scientism-cult-acolytes.html">“Scientism,” “cult-acolytes” and me</a></li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div>
</div>
AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-17490718143001425732018-04-28T09:09:00.003-05:002018-04-28T09:09:49.917-05:00Ancient horse bones found in Lehi, UtahA family doing landscaping in their backyard of their Lehi, Utah home <a href="https://www.ksl.com/article/46308711/lehi-familys-landscaping-project-turns-up-16000-year-old-bones" target="_blank">found the bones of what appears to be a 16,000-year-old horse</a>.<br />
<br />
Even though it's a small horse, about the size of a Shetland pony, this find pokes one more hole in the argument that no horses of any kind ever existed in the Americas prior to the Spanish Conquest.<br />
<br />
It has always seemed strange to me that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/science/prehistoric-humans-north-america-california-nature-study.html" target="_blank">we have been able to find human inhabitants in the Americas going as far back as possibly 130,000 years ago</a>, but that there is this strange idea that not one human crossing the Bering Strait <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/ancient-migration-coming-to-america-1.10562" target="_blank">or arriving by any other route</a> thought to bring a single pack-horse with them from the Old World to the New World. Or that not even one of these animals found their own way across the strait or along the edges of glaciers.<br />
<br />
This is one more example of the absence of evidence not necessarily being evidence of absence. Eventually, we will find many more pieces of evidence that help confirm what we already know by testimony to be true from the Book of Mormon.AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8005490685220949062.post-34406954022565953442018-02-01T15:38:00.000-06:002018-02-01T15:39:06.035-06:00New Evidence of Book of Mormon Historical AccuracyOne of the most persistent "faith-destroying rumors" (as I like to call them) about Book of Mormon archaeology is that we ought to have found much more "proof" (the real word is evidence) of the historicity of the Book of Mormon through archaeological discoveries by now.<br />
<br />
Given that I am a big proponent of the well-established theory of Mesoamerica being the core of Book of Mormon civilizations and events, I'm sharing some insights from a <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/maya-laser-lidar-guatemala-pacunam/" target="_blank">recent article by National Geographic regarding the literally groundbreaking technology of LiDAR</a> in the core of Classic Mayan civilization (ca. 250-900 AD), which is being used to revolutionize archaeological discoveries in our time. I'm going to do so in the context of the accusations made against Book of Mormon historicity claims.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="334" scrolling="no" src="//assets.nationalgeographic.com/modules-video/latest/assets/ngsEmbeddedVideo.html?guid=00000161-4d57-dc2f-a771-5d57f3b50000" width="590"></iframe><br />
<br />
CLAIM: "The scale of civilization as narrated in the Book of Mormon has never been discovered in Mesoamerica."<br />
<br />
NEW EVIDENCE: <i>“'Most people had been comfortable with population estimates of around 5 million,' said Estrada-Belli, who directs a multi-disciplinary archaeological project at Holmul, Guatemala. 'With this new data it’s no longer unreasonable to think that there were 10 to 15 million people there—including many living in low-lying, swampy areas that many of us had thought uninhabitable.'”</i><br />
<br />
CLAIM: "No evidence has ever been found that Mayan civilizations as a candidate for Book of Mormon civilizations ever built transportation or urban infrastructure at the scale claimed by the Book of Mormon."<br />
<br />
NEW EVIDENCE: <i>"Virtually all the Mayan cities were connected by causeways wide enough to suggest that they were heavily trafficked and used for trade and other forms of regional interaction. These highways were elevated to allow easy passage even during rainy seasons. In a part of the world where there is usually too much or too little precipitation, the flow of water was meticulously planned and controlled via canals, dikes, and reservoirs."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
CLAIM: "Nothing has ever been found in Mesoamerica to correlate with the idea that Book of Mormon civilizations had massive, decades-long wars involving defensive earthworks and large cities."<br />
<br />
NEW EVIDENCE: <i>"Among the most surprising findings was the ubiquity of defensive walls, ramparts, terraces, and fortresses. 'Warfare wasn’t only happening toward the end of the civilization,' said Garrison. 'It was large-scale and systematic, and it endured over many years.'</i>"<br />
<br />
To put all of this in even more perspective, this initial LiDAR survey covered a mere 800 square miles of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in the Petén region of Guatemala. Imagine what else we don't know and how much bigger the population and infrastructure scale <i>could</i> be with further LiDAR studies!<br />
<br />
Further, what we see under the forest canopy is what remains of the 250-900 A.D. civilizations that build <i>on top of</i> prior structures. That puts what we know right at the <i>end</i> of the peak of Nephite/Lamanite interactions. The evidence we're looking for to cover the period of the first Nephite arrival (591-589 B.C.) and, further back, the Jaredite arrival (approximately the 3rd Millennium B.C.), is subject to discovery only after we've spent decades digging through the layers of the Classic and Post-Classic Maya remnants, if it can even be found at all after being <a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140808-maya-guatemala-looter-antiquities-archaeology-science/" target="_blank">looted</a>/repurposed/decomposed.<br />
<br />
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: those who claim archaeology will never uncover evidences of Book of Mormon historicity are simply not patient enough and/or don't have an understanding of how archaeology is a long-haul activity that often involves more uncertainty and questions the more discoveries are made. It is simply naive to think that one can sally forth into the jungles, dig a little bit, and find direct, clear, irrefutable proof of the existence of Jaredites, Nephites, and Lamanites. Too many confounding factors are possible through the complexities of time, the elements, and intermingling civilizations for that to be a possibility. Instead, we must take our time and carefully sift through data to find correlations that amount to a preponderance of evidence. We're <i>far</i> too early in our nascent understanding of Mesoamerican archaeology for that to have borne the kind of fruit that anti-Book of Mormon critics suppose should have been found by now.AmericanTestament.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04127465919258708936noreply@blogger.com0