Science and the Mormons

The Mormons are a religious sect that emerged from Christianity in the United States in the Nineteenth Century. They added to the Bible their own scripture, the Book of Mormon, translated by Joseph Smith from an original text in a language he called Reformed Egyptian. According to the mythology of the Mormons, in 1827 the angel Moroni gave Smith these texts, which were engraved on golden tables. Smith could understand them without learning their language through the divine magic of two special lenses that he used to read them while he translated them.

Smith and his followers were persecuted by traditional Christians, who forced them to travel slowly and with great sacrifices until they reached what is now Utah, where their descendants dominate the religious and social life of this American state.

According to the Mormons, the Indians of the Americas came from Egypt more than 2,000 (two thousand) years ago. They used this myth to convert many Indians to their religion. “We were taught that all the blessings of our Hebrew ancestors made us a special people,” said Jose a Loyaza, a lawyer in Salt Lake City, the capital of Utah. “And this identity gave us a sense of transcendental affiliation, a special identity with God.” But Loyaza gradually learned that there was another outrageous irony to his faith.

He rejected his religion after learning that evidence provided by comparative DNA studies between American Indians and Asians conclusively proved that the first humans that migrated to the Americas came not from the Middle East but from Asia.

For the Mormons this genetic confirmation of the origin of the Indians in the Americas is a fundamental collision of science against religion. It is in direct conflict with the Book of Mormon, which, according to their religion, is a completely error-free historical work that must be interpreted literally.

The Book of Mormon is also fundamentally racist. It narrates that a tribe of Hebrews from Jeruselem went to the Americas in 600 B.C. and split up into two groups, the Nephites and the Lamanites. The Nephites carried the “true” religion to the new world and were in constant conflict with the Lamanites, who practiced idolatry. The Nephites were white (in 1980 the Mormons changed the word to “pure”), and the Lamanites received from God “The curse of blackness.”

The Book of Mormon also narrates that in 385 A.D. the Lamanites exterminated all the other Hebrews and became the principal ancestors of the American Indians. But the Mormons insist that if the Lamanites returned to the “true” religion (Mormonism, quite naturally), their skin would eventually become white like the skin of the Nephites that their ancestors had exterminated.

But despite these outrageous racist insults, many Indians and Polynesians (who also, according to the Mormons, are the descendants of the Lamanites) converted to Mormonism instead of telling the Mormons to go fuck themselves. (Through some perverse mechanism in human psychology, these converts are like homosexual priests who support the Roman catholic church or other gay people who support any type of Christianity.)

“The fiction that I was a Lamanite,” said Damon Kali, a lawyer in Sunnyvale, California, whose ancestors came from Polynesian islands, “was the principal reason that I converted to Mormonism.” He had been a missionary for the Mormans before he discovered that genetic evidence proved that the Lamanites were only a religious myth, and he could not continue his efforts to convert others to Mormonism.

Officially the Mormon church insists that nothing in the Book of Mormon is incompatible with the genetic evidence. Some Mormons are now saying that the Levites were a small group of Hebrews that went to Central America and after many generations of marrying with the natives they met, their Hebrew DNA disappeared into the DNA of their neighbors.

In 2002, officers of the church started a trial to excommunicate Thomas W. Murphy, a professor of anthropology at Edmonds Community College in Washington, an American state at the extreme northwest of the continental United States.

His trial attracted a lot of attention in the American public communications media, which ridiculed the church and insisted that Murphy was the Galileo of Mormonism. The general contempt provoked by this publicity seriously embarrassed the officers of the church, and they stopped the trial.

Very interesting information! Thanks!

Bye

So, you believe that the majority of Muslims believe that the Surah quote you mentioned is how they should live, but they aren’t living that way. in other words, they should be out killing us, but aren’t? I find it hard to believe that they could be so hypicritical.

I found this article to be very interesting on this subject. It has numerous quotes from early islamic scholars agaist the view that Muslims should fight non-believers.
http://www.islamicamagazine.com/content/view/159/59/

Another interesting thing, which contradicts your assertion that Christians cannot be accepted by Muslims without essentially becomeing Muslims, is this article.
http://www.islamicperspectives.com/Quran.htm

It talks in some depth about how Islam respects other monotheistic religions and allows for salvation through them. The assertion inherent in that is that Christians not revere Jesus as God. Due to the belief in the trinity you could see that, from a Christian perspective, as excluding Christians who are not basically Muslim. The intent behind the verse is that Christians not worship Christ as a person, as Catholics worship Mary. The warning is against excluding the trinity and making worship of Christ into a worship of his earthly self rather than his Godly self.

So, you can feel free to disagree, but I think you have extrapolated a belief from Islam that is not felt by most Muslims. Evidence for that is that the majority of the Muslim world is not itching for holy war, it is a minority.

As for your second post. You again misinterpreted what I said. I can go into greater depth in inherent morality but I used the golden rule as an example. I then said that that does not cover all of morality as simply as I discribed it. I never said that inherent morality could not cover the entire spectrum. I also never said anythign was right or wrong. You keep bringing that into the discussion. I have discussed it in terms of good and bad.

I find it interesting that you insist on mixing the two despite my insistence that you attempt to view it from my perspective. As I’ve said my perspective does not include an objective right and wrong as yours does. This contradiction that you speak of is an invention you have made and tried to attach to what I’ve said. If you read what I’ve said you will notice that it doesn’t appear in what I’ve wriiten. I think we both agree that love, truth and justice should not be walked away from. My point is that these ideas can be understood organically, without the need for external metaphysics to create right and wrong. Truth of course is related to right and wrong. In my interpretation it would probably be better to understand truth as a preponderance of evidence rather than a metaphysical absolute.

I understand your beliefs and understand the significance of Christs death and rebirth. I think though, that you make the same assertion I did, in reverse. Mabye we percieve each as trying to be superior to the other by our beliefs when in reality we are simply proving the mutual exclusivity of them. When two things do not interralate it is impossible to say one is better than the other. They are simply different.

Mabye we are all just a bit to sensitive about it all and should grow thicker skins.

You do not think that we need a religious text though you admit that we not know the whole of morality naturally. How do you know this is true? What reasonable and moral principle tells you this? What is a text anyways? Is it just cold thin pages? Or is it the words that form the ideas that bring light from the medium of inked symbols on pages? The text is the medium and the words are spirit and life. Philosophy can only take someone as far as complex ideas based on the simple that we have from our five senses, and we must pass over to knowledge given to them beyond this physical world. You say that there is no right and wrong, but how do you know that is right? That’s contradicting. It’s like saying there is no truth, but how do we know that is true? To accept the idea that there is no right and wrong as right is again contradicting. Hasn’t everyone done something against love, truth, and justice? Is this right? I will not put aside love, truth, and justice to accept an idea that is reflexively conflicting.

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, God was well pleased, through the foolishness of our preaching, to save those that believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

There’s no enmity from me and most Christians to those of other faiths. We will defend Christianity when it is opposed and attacked. I don’t hate or have ill-will toward those because they have another faith. The Scriptures teach against arrogance and I am not prideful or arrogant or at least I try not to be and am successful most of the time.

You are exactly right about living disgraceful and not good enough, because you have, I have, and all accountable people have not lived perfectly. Isn’t it strange that Christians are willing to come out and say that we’ve done bad things and our good deeds do not erase them, but then we are called prideful and stubborn? We don’t claim to be better, but forgiven. What about those who are not Christians? They think they can get to Heaven on their own by their own works. They believe that they are better than Christians who have to rely a sinless man dying to satisfy the justice due to them. They make Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection into nothing. Will God over look this sin? Now, you may understand the position of other religions and secularists to God.

Somehow I missed your last comment. Please, excuse me. Be careful about grouping all “Christians” together. Its best to reference them between their beliefs like Catholic, Baptists, etc. since the beliefs are so broad. Protestants, Orthodox, and New Testament Christians don’t like to be linked to the Crusades. These groups have their own problems.

First, the Quran is about doing good to other believers of the Quran. It’s easy to find good in the Bible. Can you find something good in the Quran for me toward non-believers? Remember to read the context. The Quran is revered more than most “Christians” value the Bible, and the interpretation that I presented was not my own but of most Muslims. Ask some of your Muslim friends or some on the blogs. So, I don’t think I’m wrong because I usually check my interpretation of other religious texts with those who believe it.

I’ve read most of the Quran and I find little good. You will find this agreement among many secularists who have also read it. The word for “non-believers” in Surah 9:1-5 includes polygamists and non-believers in general for which Quran claims that Christians “people of the Book” are polytheists, idolaters, and essential not Christians (9:26-36, 73-74; 4:51-52, 171; 5:73, 116, 48:29). The index of M.H. Shakir’s liberal translation of the Quran puts these passages also under paganism and polytheism, so this Muslim scholar has interpreted Christians to be polytheists and nonbelievers. The Quran accepts Christians who do not think Jesus is God nor the resurrected Messiah while accepting the prophet and the Quran thus they must actually be Muslim (3:67-71, 78-91, 113-119,164; 4:171, 5:73). Again, this is not my interpretation. The Quran does speak of taking care of children and widows (4:2-3), but not non-believing ones. The Quran is to be accepted because of the Apostle Muhammad said it though admittedly he did not do miracles to prove himself. I don’t see how I’m wrong here since it is not my interpretation.

Second, let’s address inherent morality. The Bible talks about inherent morality, a law written on the heart, their conscience, and their thoughts (Rom. 2:15), though the Bible also presents clarity on morality, it is often ignored whether written on our hearts or not. I can’t say that all morality is completely natural to the heart knowing that some people lose this or at least ignore that law. The Bible is to reveal and affirm morality and go unto all godliness for all good deeds and unto salvation (1 John 5:13, 2 Tim. 3:16-17), because being good alone does not get one into Heaven. The New Testament is also to be written on the hearts and minds of Christians (Heb. 10:16). Consciences at some point hold a law or morality. So, where did it come from?

Now, the Bible also says that those who do not recognize God, thank Him, nor glorify Him will make their heart dark and their reasonings vain (Rom. 1:19-21, 28-32). Evidently, not everyone keeps this law on the heart and everyone has broken it. We’re all guilty and the Bible says we have therefore all earned the punishment of a spiritual death (Rom. 3:23, 6:23). So, what are we to do?

That was an impressive show of Biblical research. I’m impressed by the logical flow and breadth of your argument. It would be hard to follow with a convincing rebuttal.

I would be interested to know your stance on inherent morality from my post above.

Jens

From the 1st-6th century according to JW McGarvey, the churches of Christ followed the Scriptures and accepted no additional government than elders shepherding congregations. Unless Paul was again a liar or a lunatic, he presented by the Spirit a picture of church government in Ephesians 4:11 of “apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;”. There is so much more to be seen about this. In the Church that Christ built, a plural number of elders were set in every church to oversee and shepherd (Acts 14:27) and besides this the only government was Christ by His Word. There are qualifications for Apostles, Elders/Bishops/Pastors, and deacons in the Scripture (1 Tim. 3, Tit. 1), but none for priests, archbishops, cardinals, and popes in the Scriptures, which collection Peter oversaw. The Bishops are to be a one woman man with children and that doesn’t sound Catholic (not ideally).

Matthew 16:17-20 establishes the authority of Peter to have the keys of life while Jesus calls him “Satan” in verse 23. May we also conclude Peter to be Satan? No. There is not one bit of truth to “petra” having to be feminine when the only other feminine words that make up context phrase are 2 articles. “Petra” is clearly separate from “Petros”, and if it weren’t, then there is still no explicit mention of the Pope. The Scripture present so many positions in the Church over and over again and yet the Pope, the highest of all, is not mentioned once. Peter could not have been told to build the Church on himself. In fact, Peter said that the Rock is Christ in 1 Peter 2:7-8. The antecedent of “this Rock” is “this” referring to Peter’s confession of who Jesus is. Peter was not the only one with the keys. Jesus also said that He gave the words of spirit and life (John 6:63) unto all the Apostles (John 17:8) by the Spirit (John 16:12-13). These words the Apostles all spoke (1 Cor. 2:13) in Scripture (2 Pet. 1:20-21).

Fourth, concerning differing practices, there is not one infant baptism in Scripture and infants can not believe to be baptized (Mark 16:16), nor confess faith (Rom. 10:9-10), nor are they spiritually dead (Rom. 6:4-6), nor repented (Acts 2:38). They do go to Heaven when they die (Matt. 19:14), and they do not need to wash away their sins in baptism (Acts 2:38, 22:16, Eph. 5:26).

Baptism is always immersion in the Bible even in pouring. Read the Didache to understand the late tradition of pouring “baptism” was to completely soak the one being baptized and this was done for the sick and by man’s invention outside of the Scriptures. In the Scriptures, everyone went into the water like the Eunuch in Acts 8. Baptism is a burial in Rom. 6 and Col. 2 and this makes it clear that it is immersion. There is no sprinkling or pouring in the Scriptures otherwise why did everyone go into the water to be sprinkled or to have a handful of water poured on them. Were they not caring water in the dry deserted areas? Why did the Eunuch even stop his chariot to be baptized (Acts 8)? Why did John stay near large amounts of water when a basin would do (John 3:23)?

There is no prayer to the dead in the Scriptures just prayer to God the Father.

In conclusion, the Scriptures collected by the Apostles present Christ’s words by the Spirit have all authority in governing the Church. The Scriptures are simply the medium of Christ, the Spirit, and the Father in governing the Church.

Though I side with Braden’s understanding, we all believe what we want to. The only way that we can reconcile this is to work together to understand, and to first and foremost want to know the Truth. We know that Christ Himself was a debater of religion and so good that He rarely even got a rebuttal.

Now, I will present my position on the side of Braden.

First, the Bible can be understood by all readers (Eph. 3:1-5, 1 John 5:13, John 20:30-31) or St. Paul speaking by the Spirit is a liar. Though Scripture is often twisted and/or just misunderstood (2 Pet. 3:15-16). The Bible does claim to be God’s breathe and profits to make one complete even unto every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Clearly, the Scriptures serves as the only source in Scripture to make such a claim. Revelation in the 1st century did give them everything needed unto life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3) unless the first “Pope”, Peter, lied or made that up. The Faith was once for all delivered in the first century (Jude 3). Were any of these men, who are foundational to all 3 groups, liars or insane in writing this? Evidently, they did not hold the beliefs of today’s Catholic Church nor the Orthodox. See more this if you want at: http://godsbreath.wordpress.com/2007/02/11/a-defense-of-2-timothy-316-17/ and http://godsbreath.wordpress.com/2007/06/11/who-can-understand-the-bible/ .

The Catholic Church did not form the 27 book canon of the Scriptures, but confirmed it. “Bishop” Athanasius who voted on the Council of Nicaea stated very clearly that they confirmed the collection passed down to them from the Apostles. The existence of the 2nd century Coptic collection of the 27 books proves the existence of the collection to be before this council. Then looking at the Scriptures themselves, every writing is confirmed to be guided by the Spirit and that it was collected under the oversight of the Apostles. Peter presents his writings, John’s and Peter’s as being “Scripture” (2 Peter 1:16-21, 3:15-16). “Scripture” is from the Greek word “graphei”, which means writing and it is clearly a term used to refer to the OT and NT (1 Tim. 5:18) as written by God’s instruction and collected. See more on this if you want at: http://godsbreath.wordpress.com/2007/05/03/ignored-truths-regarding-the-collection-of-the-new-testament-scriptures/ and http://godsbreath.wordpress.com/2007/05/03/who-gathered-the-new-testament-scriptures-together/ .

Second, the history of the Catholic Church, the Orthodox, and the Church of Christ collide all with validity. Why does the Catholic Church ignore the Orthodox Church and the churches of Christ? All look upon the 1st century writings of the Scriptures as a picture of Christ and the Church that He built. The churches of Christ have a written and recorded history in the book of the German holocaust survivor, Dr. Hans Grimm. He believes his fellowship of the churches of Christ is the 1st century church and his history starts in the 1st with a gap to the 4th unto the 20th century. Also see records kept by English scholar Keith Sisman on the history of the churches of Christ in England from in the 8th century and maybe even sooner. The history of the churches of Christ is valid too.