Watch National Geographic

[Sveta and Ko 0]

Religion is the biggest business in the world in terms of revenue

[LvivLovers 39]

Mox, I could go on and on countering your arguments, but there's absolutely no use (which I knew before the discussion even started). I just disagree with what you call "facts" and see them as your interpretation and opinion. In any case, continue to believe what you believe and I'll do the same. But again, I'd request that you refrain from putting down Christianity or any other religion. Is there really any point to your discussion except to point out how bad, wrong, or silly they are anyway?

[mox 298]

But again, I'd request that you refrain from putting down Christianity or any other religion. Is there really any point to your discussion except to point out how bad, wrong, or silly they are anyway?

I honestly don't know how I can refrain from saying things that you consider "putting down" Christianity and still be able to voice my own personal beliefs. As I said before, I've been careful to keep from being inflammatory, and I've been respectful towards civil discourse. If we were talking about any other subject than religion, you'd never consider my speech problematic. I don't see why religion should enjoy any more protection than any other subject.

And honestly, quid pro quo isn't exactly enjoyed by us non-religious types either. Religious people continue to press their own objectionable beliefs onto us non-believers in every segment of society. Why should I censor myself when Christians are constantly "putting down" other belief systems? I'm told by some Christians that I will go to hell and burn in eternity for my anti-Christian beliefs, sometimes with a hint of glee in their voice. I see Christians protesting funerals with signs that say "God hates Fags" and trying to overstep the division of religion and state by putting up nativity scenes on state property, pushing prayer into our public classrooms, and erecting old testament scripture into our courtrooms. You can't even be elected into political office anymore without expressing a belief in religious mysticism, no matter how good you'd be in the job. Through the ages we've seen Christians and other religions committing the most heinous of crimes in the name of a god, but I'm supposed to be respectful to these belief systems? I appreciate that my views might be construed as offensive, but Christians and other religious people don't seem to care how offended I am at their daily intrusions into my life and the lives of others.

I'm all for tolerance, and many of my friends are higher-power believers. They are good people, and some of them I love very much. I don't hold their beliefs against them or think less of them, and most of them feel the same towards me (I do have a few fire-and-brimstone nutjob relatives, but then don't we all?) I can respect that our belief systems are mutually exclusive, but if we're going to talk about religion then I'm not going to suppress my own views just because it might fly in the face of their own sacred cows. That way lies madness, and then next thing you know, cartoonists are going to be killed for drawing pictures of so-called prophets because that's not sensitive enough either. Oh...too late...

[LvivLovers 39]

Yes...I get it. That's why I wanted to avoid a "discussion" on religion (or lack thereof). Bashing religions is one of those things that's typically frowned upon in the same way as racism or sexism. That's just the way it is. You may not see why people feel that way, but by the same token, racists may feel the same way about why they feel certain races cause all the problems in the world.

You can claim you're not being inflammatory, but every post you make is a thinly veiled attack. I'm sorry if you feel like you've been persecuted as an athiest in other places. Really, I am. But that doesn't give you the right to espouse your hatred of religions on VJ. To be honest, it just seems like you're trying to bait reactions. If that's not the case, I suggest you just drop the subject and I'll do the same. I don't come on here to see my religion trashed.

[mox 298]

Yes...I get it. That's why I wanted to avoid a "discussion" on religion (or lack thereof). Bashing religions is one of those things that's typically frowned upon in the same way as racism or sexism. That's just the way it is. You may not see why people feel that way, but by the same token, racists may feel the same way about why they feel certain races cause all the problems in the world.

See, if I were easily offended, I'd see this as a "thinly veiled" attack, equating atheism to racism.

I suppose if the VJ administration believes what I'm saying violates the TOS, they should come in and say so. But I suspect that even though I've been reported already, there's nothing in my posts that qualify as attacks. People in this forum say how much they hate American women's fat аsses, or Russians, or people who want to take away their guns, etc etc, and yet this all is apparently acceptable speech. But let me come in and point out the logical fallacies in multiple belief systems and the very documented fact that religion has been the source of the world's worst atrocities, and all of a sudden it can be compared to racist speech? This does not follow.

You can claim you're not being inflammatory, but every post you make is a thinly veiled attack.

This is your perception. I'll certainly agree that it's difficult to point out how ridiculous these belief systems are without coming across as "attacking," but think of it this way: if you had some neighbors who every morning made an offering of Raisin Bran and turnips to the tree in their front yard so that it would continue to provide them shade, how would you describe them if you were discussing them on an internet forum? "Ridiculous" is certainly something that might very well show up. And it's not an "attack" on the tree people, it's just an observation--hopefully with awesome photographic evidence. Same thing.

I don't come on here to see my religion trashed.

Heh. There's a lot of things I don't come here to see. I don't know what to tell you. I'm not specifically trying to tweak you or anybody else. The subject came up, I voiced my opinion, and then the subject just took off. And amazingly, everyone who's participated in this thread has been pretty respectful, given how religious conversations usually go on the internet. This is why I find it rather unfathomable that you'd object. I think if you'd look at my posting history, my "attacks" are almost never veiled. If I were out-and-out attacking, it would be pretty evident. Apologies if I'm not managing to convey that.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Religion is crutch not to mention it's so out dated it's not even funny. It's right up there with Dracula, and werewolves.

[mox 298]

See Lviv, it can always be worse.

[Brad and Vika 129]

But Brad, you need to read more than just Penthouse Forum

Didn't realize that was an atheist periodical. We live and learn. And you are a silly, godless heathen. How is that for a thinly veiled attack.

Edited April 20, 2010 by Brad and Vika

[mox 298]

Didn't realize that was an atheist periodical. We live and learn. And you are a silly, godless heathen. How is that for a thinly veiled attack.

Reported TO GOD!!! for thinly veiled personal attacks.

[Brad and Vika 129]

Reported TO GOD!!! for thinly veiled personal attacks.

Sorry - former Marine here. We tend not to do thinly veiled well.

[SMR 368]

Sorry it's taken a while to get back to you on this one. I was on a 4 day weekend and not on much.

And this is the problem with religion. The "I believe button" shuts down all intelligent discourse, it stops reason at the door, and yet for some reason it still holds an iron grip over its adherents. If I were to come up to you and say I was an angel and you should believe what I'm saying, you'd laugh and keep walking or you'd at least demand some proof from me. And yet you and billions of others trust in the word of people who are long dead who themselves had no evidence other than "you should just believe me."

The influence of religion in the world for good is undeniable. You seem convinced that you have a corner on logic but yet believe that there is no God for no good reason. You can't explain the universe to any real degree of plausibility. Yet you think that your perception of the universe works and explains reality. Who is really accepting things without proof?

A wise man said, "By their fruits, ye shall know them." The fruits of religion are many and positive. In particular, I see the LDS church as an overwhelming influence for good in the world. Who can say the same for atheism?

So here's where my ex-Mormon friend comes in. I popped off an email to him and said "hey, I thought Smith was the only one to see the tablets." He told me I was wrong (at least, according to Mormon history), and that yes, a total of 12 people are said to have seen the tablets. So once again I was wrong it seems. And yet, the more we chatted about it, I realized that it would have actually been much better for LDS credibility if only Smith had seen the tablets.

Out of the 12 who saw the tablets, every single one of them were either close family or financial associates. (the last witness was the mother of 5 of the other witnesses) And of the 12 witnesses, Smith did indeed have a falling out with 5 of them and said (actual quote) ""Such characters as McLellin, John Whitmer, David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris, are too mean to mention; and we had liked to have forgotten them." Now when the main prophet of your religion calls you "too mean to mention," that's a huge blow to your credibility. Do you think there'd be a Matthew in the bible if Christ had said he was "too mean to mention?" And granted, this doesn't directly refute the men's claim to have seen the tablets, but then Smith would have been cutting off his nose to spite his face if he'd called them liars, and the four men would have just proven Smith right by recanting. Why would God show the tablets to 5 men who were "too mean to mention"?

One of the first three alleged witnesses to the plates, Martin Harris, said that the following eight witnesses never saw the plates but were coerced into signing a document that said they had. But probably the most damning evidence of all comes from Brigham Young himself who said (actual quote) ""witnesses of the Book of Mormon, who handled the plates and conversed with the angels of God, were afterwards left to doubt and to disbelieve that they had ever seen an angel."

In fact, from what I understand, there's a great deal of controversy within the Mormon community as exactly how to treat the golden tablets. Some say it's merely allegory (we hear this all the time from other Christians about The Holy Bible too when they want to explain away a difficult matter), some say the tablets were never physical but were sort of an angelic hologram, and some even think it's just best to forget the whole thing. (this from my ex-Mormon friend, it's actually all very new but interesting news to me.)

And this is a common theme we see throughout all religion. There's never ever a clear-cut trail to the actual evidence. It's always twisted, convoluted, shady, and more importantly, better explained by just plain old human nature. And the stranger the story gets, the more unbelievable the explanations get. Can you imagine if scientists tried to get away with this? If they had some scientific dogma about how the universe was created, and the more questions people asked, the more convoluted and crazy their explanations got in order to fit the actual facts? As I've said before, science is all about theories, and once the theory doesn't fit the evidence, it is discarded. Even Steven Hawking, who based his entire career on the notion that the universe was created from a singularity, admitted he was wrong when the evidence didn't support it. Religion can't do that though. You can't rewrite a tablet handed down from an angel, and you can't say Christ changed his mind about beating your slaves because god cannot be wrong, and god can't change his mind. And since dogma is static, the stories to justify it all just get more and more convoluted. Like...

So 12 people, otherwise upstanding members of the community, seemingly of sound mind and body, signed a written testimony that they had seen something. If these testimonies were really fabricated and these men were coerced, why did none of these men ever think to recant that testimony in writing? The lack of documentation to support your version of this story is deafening. None of these men ever gained anything from this testimony and many of them faced persecution because of it. But none of them ever bothered to recant. Even if there were no persecution, wouldn't a reasonable person simply want to clear his name and set the record straight?

Your quote from Brigham Young is actually taken well out of context and this is not what he was talking about, at all. Young was referring to the fact that seeing typically does not result in faithfulness. That is, a person can see all kinds of evidence that God exists but it doesn't really change his heart unless he choses to make corresponding changes in his life. The quote is actually a reference to Harris, himself, who saw the plates and angels but wasn't really willing to change his life and become an active member of the LDS church.

This is actually an interesting point, since I think it brings up a very important question. If the golden plates had in fact been left in the possession of the church leaders and were now stored in some museum for all to see (or some similar situation), would it really make any difference to you, Mox? Or would this just be another shroud of Turin, something you can't explain but accept as a fabrication nonetheless? Think about this honestly. As Young was saying, you can see all kinds of amazing things, but that doesn't really change people's hearts.

Also, in terms of the plates being literal or allegorical, they are definitely literal and I don't know any members of the LDS church who claim otherwise. There are, of course, many small "Mormon" churches with various beliefs but I don't really know about them. The main LDS church believes that the plates literally exist and contain a literal record of an actual ancient people.

So very wrong, and this is a subject I know quite a bit about. DNA testing *is* that good. DNA is, in fact, fantastically good, and it doesn't matter how many people your family has married through. If we had the DNA from one of your relatives from 100,000 years ago, we can link you no matter if your ancestors reproduced through every single race in existence. So when I say that science has conclusively proven the Book of Mormon wrong on the lineage of American Indians, it's absolutely true. The ONLY way you can get past the issue is to say that god deliberately obscured it. And I suspect that very argument has already been used by Mormon apologists. (in which case, one wonders why god would deliberately obscure the DNA in such a way as to mislead us to believe that native Americans have a much different lineage, rather than just make the DNA trail stop completely.)

When I say DNA testing isn't that good, I'm not speaking of the quality or accuracy of the technology but rather the genetic similarities that could be identified. Even the simple case of paternity cannot be conclusively determined. All humans share 99.9% of their DNA. Of the DNA that varies among humans, two brothers can share anywhere between 0 and 100% of their DNA depending on random meiosis. Two thirtieth cousins, for instance, may not share any DNA at all beyond the DNA that is common to all humans. On the other hand, the fact that two people share some DNA does not indicate a family relationship (two people could have blue eyes but not be brothers).

Moreover, you need to consider the fact that an understanding of the Bible and where the Book of Mormon fits in shows that modern Lamanites and Jews are not expected to be closely related. They came from different tribes.

Speaking of conclusively proven wrong, the supposed "reformed Egyptian" characters from a transcript of one of the golden plates has also been conclusively proven as having come from no known language on the planet. Smith is very precise when he says that this language was being used by prophets between 400 BC and 200 AD, but we know this with absolute certainty not to be true. And the reason is simply that in Smith's time, he could not conceive that we would ever have the technology to investigate his claims. (actually I doubt he ever believed his church would grow as big as it did). Smith had no concept of DNA, and no idea that we would ever know so much about our natural world. If Smith were starting his church today, he'd be MUCH more careful. (Hubbard made the same mistake when he founded Scientology. His e-meter is predicated on the basis that we didn't know as much about electromagnetism in the 1950's as we do now, where we can show the e-meter to be absolute rubbish.) We see this in religion all the time. Ancient Hebrews couldn't conceive of the notion of a round earth, a heliocentric solar system, or even a non-geocentric universe, so their creation story revolved around the mysticism of the day. Not a single religion has been able to step forward outside of their own timeframes like a god should allow them to do. Joseph Smith should have transcribed Hebrew or Aramaic, not this fake alphabet that has no basis in any reality. But he didn't, because there was no divine hand guiding him.

Actually, the language was a version of Egyptian Hieroglyphics and the fragments that were transcribed are not contradictory to our current understanding of Hieroglyphics, which is limited.

Smith never realized he would die until it was way too late. A mob killed him while he was in jail awaiting trial (for crimes including polygamy). But even still, I agree that nobody can say that he'd have ever recanted even if he'd had time and understood how immediately threatened his life was. And if he had recanted, it could simply be explained away as the most expedient thing for him to do at the moment. After all, most people will (rightly so) say just about anything to save their life. I don't think this is proof one way or the other that Smith really was a Prophet or crazy or just a scam artist.

Actually, Smith's journal indicates that he was well aware of the fact that he would be killed before leaving home.

Hmmm...well if you want a different example, then probably the most damaging institutionalized aspect of Mormonism has to be polygamy. And while yes I know that the main LDS church has rejected polygamy (basically because it was politically expedient), the fact is that it's still very much tolerated and even encouraged. Entire polygamist sects exist in Utah and Arizona, and even now in the 21st century, teenage girls and young women are being forced into becoming the nth wife for some guy to satisfy his sexual appetites in the name of religion. It's a very real and disgusting persecution that continues to be practiced by Mormons. And while you can certainly claim that these sects don't have the blessings of the main branch of LDS, the fact is that they've justified it because the Prophet Joseph Smith made it a central tenet of Mormonism. (LDS may have renounced polygamy, but the Joseph Smith Jr., the Prophet, never did.) So who you gonna believe, the Prophet or the guys running LDS in the modern day?

Interesting you should ask the question as to whether I believe the prophet or the guy running the LDS church today. Actually, the guy running the LDS church today is a prophet. As I said, you can view this whole thing with cynicism, but that doesn't really change the fact that the explanation makes sense and is true.

As to trying to pin modern day polygamy on the LDS church, we're back to all atheists being bad because of communists.

[mox 298]

Sorry it's taken a while to get back to you on this one. I was on a 4 day weekend and not on much.

No problem, Brad kept me entertained.

The influence of religion in the world for good is undeniable. You seem convinced that you have a corner on logic but yet believe that there is no God for no good reason. You can't explain the universe to any real degree of plausibility. Yet you think that your perception of the universe works and explains reality. Who is really accepting things without proof?

I honestly don't know how to respond to this. I mean, I sort of feel like you're pulling my leg. The exact opposite is true. Religious doctrine has taught us absolutely nothing about the world and the universe, and in fact gets it wrong pretty much all the time. Religion teaches us that there was a flood about 5,000 years ago that covered the earth--demonstrably untrue, and Noah's ark can be disproved through the logic of common sense. That 6,000 years ago we all descended from a single man and woman who looked exactly like us, again demonstrably untrue. "Reformed Egyptian" is demonstrably untrue. The Islamic claim that the earth is flat was shown to be untrue 2,500 years before the first pictures of the earth from space. The Koran also says the sky is *literally* held up by giant pillars. And on and on it goes.

What is it that science hasn't "proven" to your satisfaction? Without a fundamental understanding of the rules of the universe, we'd have never been able to put a man on the moon. Do you own an iPod or mp3 player? You can thank science for that. Has anyone in your immediate family ever had polio? You can thank science for the medicine that has all but eradicated this disease. I think we can safely say that the average life expectancy of a human being on this planet has almost doubled over the last hundred years, not because of prayer circles or the Pope's blessings, but because of modern advances in medicine, technology, and education. Am I really so self-delusional that I'm seeing proof of a fundamental understanding of nature and our universe in these examples where it doesn't exist?

Religion taught us falsehoods about our universe. Galileo was tortured by the Catholic Church because he would not recant his empirical observations that the earth is not the center of the universe. Just yesterday a top cleric in Iran, Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi, told Iranians that women who wear modern, revealing clothing and makeup have caused an increase in earthquakes in the country. But those people are just stone-age backward thinking cavemen right? Well Pat Robertson, a man who has dined with US Presidents, claimed the Haiti earthquake was caused by a historical "deal with the devil." He also claimed Hurricane Katrina was sent by God because of abortion. There is no end of even modern religion attributing natural phenomena to the hand of god.

Just what "reality" is it that religion teaches us? Morality? Hardly. Time and again we've seen that you don't need religion for morality, and very often religion flies in the face of morality. (is it moral for the Pope to disallow birth control even though it's one of the biggest reasons for the AIDS epidemic? Even though LDS doesn't officially endorse polygamy, was it any more moral a hundred or so years ago when Brigham Young had 50 wives, some of them as young as 14? Is Jesus' admonition to stone disobedient children moral? Were the crusades moral?)

A wise man said, "By their fruits, ye shall know them." The fruits of religion are many and positive. In particular, I see the LDS church as an overwhelming influence for good in the world. Who can say the same for atheism?

Another wise man, Douglas Adams, said "I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously."

Thomas Edison, John Adams, Richard Dawkins, Oscar Wilde, Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie, Ted Williams, Albert Einstein, Kurt Vonnegut, Steve Wozniak...all of these and many many more have all been influences "for good in the world." Not a single one of them needed religion to do it. And as I said before, roughly 98% of the National Academy of Sciences are atheist--you think they're not doing good work for mankind? I've often wondered too, had they not faced death by torture, the stake, or just complete social abandonment, how many historical scientists and philosophers would have also been open atheists. Men like Copernicus, Da Vinci, Lincoln, Jefferson and others flirted with the idea of atheism, but were too much a product of their society (or enjoyed their head being attached to their shoulders too much) to take it to the logical conclusion.

Your quote from Brigham Young is actually taken well out of context and this is not what he was talking about, at all. Young was referring to the fact that seeing typically does not result in faithfulness. That is, a person can see all kinds of evidence that God exists but it doesn't really change his heart unless he choses to make corresponding changes in his life. The quote is actually a reference to Harris, himself, who saw the plates and angels but wasn't really willing to change his life and become an active member of the LDS church.

If you could provide the full quote in context then, I'd appreciate it. I haven't been able to find the entirety of the text, although maybe on my next trip to the library I'll see if they've got a set of the Journal of Discourses. But even if Young's quote is as you say (and I don't doubt it), it's still really a tautology, isn't it? He was either convinced he saw an angel, in which case he has accepted the truth of God, or he refutes that he saw an angel in which case he is denying the truth. It's completely circular. It's like the Monty Python gag where the witch is guilty if she floats, or innocent if she drowns. Of course Young isn't going to address the third and very likely option, which is that Harris (at the very least, his quote is in plural) doesn't think he saw an angel because there was not in fact an angel present.

If the golden plates had in fact been left in the possession of the church leaders and were now stored in some museum for all to see (or some similar situation), would it really make any difference to you, Mox? Or would this just be another shroud of Turin, something you can't explain but accept as a fabrication nonetheless? Think about this honestly. As Young was saying, you can see all kinds of amazing things, but that doesn't really change people's hearts.

Nobody would like to see these golden plates in a museum more than me. And hopefully the LDS Church would give access to scientists for testing (doubtful, given LDS's penchant for secrecy), but even if we'd only be allowed to read them I think we could learn a lot. For starters, it would lend a lot of credibility to Smith's claims, because there's no earthly way a man of his means could have gotten hold of such a sizable amount of gold or had access to the technology to produce them--each tablet is said to weigh in the vicinity of 50 pounds, and although I don't know how many there are said to be, I'm guessing it would certainly be the world's largest collection of privately held gold in the world, worth hundreds of millions even 190 years ago. For the first time, it would present science with a real challenge. In our hypothetical situation, it would also be a real game-changer. Every other religion on the planet would now be as close to being debunked than ever before, and it would finally be the closest thing the world would ever see with its own collective eyes that would lend any evidence to support a Christian god. Millions would convert to Mormonism. Maybe even over a billion. Hell, I'd even have to give it some thought. Certainly LDS would grow to become the world's largest church almost overnight. But more importantly, we'd finally have more than just somebody's word to go on.

Also, in terms of the plates being literal or allegorical, they are definitely literal and I don't know any members of the LDS church who claim otherwise. There are, of course, many small "Mormon" churches with various beliefs but I don't really know about them. The main LDS church believes that the plates literally exist and contain a literal record of an actual ancient people.

Like every other religion in the world, you're going to have people who are intuitively uncomfortable with what they're being asked to believe, but can't quite bring themselves to discard the lot of it, so instead alter the religion to fit their own comfort levels. It's the same reason you have Christian apologists who have convinced themselves that when the bible says the earth was created in 6 days, it doesn't mean literal days, and when it says "Adam and Eve," God was just allegorical for possibly evolution or maybe something else. So I guess good job in at least sticking to the doctrine, at least I don't have to worry about trying to figure out which version you've decided to believe in.

When I say DNA testing isn't that good, I'm not speaking of the quality or accuracy of the technology but rather the genetic similarities that could be identified. Even the simple case of paternity cannot be conclusively determined. All humans share 99.9% of their DNA. Of the DNA that varies among humans, two brothers can share anywhere between 0 and 100% of their DNA depending on random meiosis. Two thirtieth cousins, for instance, may not share any DNA at all beyond the DNA that is common to all humans. On the other hand, the fact that two people share some DNA does not indicate a family relationship (two people could have blue eyes but not be brothers).

All I can say is that if you're going to make an argument from genetics, you should familiarize yourself with the subject more. It would take a pretty huge wall of text for me to explain where you've gone wrong--I'm not trying to be condescending, but if you really understood how genetics works, you'd understand that the only explanation for the inconsistency between the real world and Smith's claims would have to be that God intentionally altered their DNA. If you're not going to resort to a supernatural explanation, the only explanation left is that Smith was wrong.

Once again, if Smith had gotten it right, if DNA evidence did show a link, science would be left with its jaw dropped to the floor. It would be a true game-changer.

Actually, the language was a version of Egyptian Hieroglyphics and the fragments that were transcribed are not contradictory to our current understanding of Hieroglyphics, which is limited.

Our understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphics is not limited at all. Thanks to the Rosetta Stone, we know everything there is to know about the grammar and structure of Egyptian hieroglyphics. And this is a HUGE problem for Mormonism, because you can't even resort to a supernatural explanation. Either the "reformed Egyptian" alphabet is a real historical alphabet, or Smith was wrong. Since we can show that this alphabet has no historical credibility, there can be no other conclusion than that Smith got it wrong.

And this is another point that, had Smith gotten it right, it would have left science in a real predicament. The Rosetta Stone wasn't translated until 1824, and this research wasn't even made available until about 1858, a full 30 years after Smith revealed the alternate Egyptian transcript. So had he gotten the hieroglyphics right, the only explanations would be that Smith somehow got his hands on 4 year-old translations (in England!) that almost nobody outside of academia knew about, or that it was divinely inspired. Once again, something like that would damn near drive me to belief.

But this is the problem that every single deist religion has in common: no evidence, and convoluted explanations for everything. Nothing can be straightforward, nothing can be testable. When religion tries to explain how science got it wrong (as in the DNA example), they get the science completely wrong, or they attribute the discrepancy to God. (Muslims love to say that God refuses to be tested, and so intentionally corrupts any experiment used to prove or disprove him or his works. Even some modern young earth creationists insist that dinosaur bones were planted by god to test our faith.) And yet apologists try to act like this is the most normal thing ever. Of course god couldn't have just shown himself to all the Israelites instead of just Moses. Of course John Smith had to read the scriptures out of a hat, behind a blind, in another room, rather than the angel Moroni just appearing in the middle of a populated city and saying "listen up everyone, John Smith is the Prophet and you need to listen to him." I mean, the lengths that religion goes to, to explain situations that you and I would never actually believe in person, is simply astonishing. And if I were a believer, I'd have to wonder why a being that I'm supposed to have "personal relationship" with, who loves me and wants me to be happy, who claims to be my father and I his child, would go to such lengths to hide himself and deceive me and the people who just want to seek knowledge. Such a one-way relationship would never provide the supposed peace and comfort that religion is supposed to provide. It would be just the opposite, in fact. Creepy and terrifying would be a more apt description of such a dysfunctional relationship.

[SMR 368]

I honestly don't know how to respond to this. I mean, I sort of feel like you're pulling my leg. The exact opposite is true. Religious doctrine has taught us absolutely nothing about the world and the universe, and in fact gets it wrong pretty much all the time. Religion teaches us that there was a flood about 5,000 years ago that covered the earth--demonstrably untrue, and Noah's ark can be disproved through the logic of common sense. That 6,000 years ago we all descended from a single man and woman who looked exactly like us, again demonstrably untrue. "Reformed Egyptian" is demonstrably untrue. The Islamic claim that the earth is flat was shown to be untrue 2,500 years before the first pictures of the earth from space. The Koran also says the sky is *literally* held up by giant pillars. And on and on it goes.

What is it that science hasn't "proven" to your satisfaction? Without a fundamental understanding of the rules of the universe, we'd have never been able to put a man on the moon. Do you own an iPod or mp3 player? You can thank science for that. Has anyone in your immediate family ever had polio? You can thank science for the medicine that has all but eradicated this disease. I think we can safely say that the average life expectancy of a human being on this planet has almost doubled over the last hundred years, not because of prayer circles or the Pope's blessings, but because of modern advances in medicine, technology, and education. Am I really so self-delusional that I'm seeing proof of a fundamental understanding of nature and our universe in these examples where it doesn't exist?

Religion taught us falsehoods about our universe. Galileo was tortured by the Catholic Church because he would not recant his empirical observations that the earth is not the center of the universe. Just yesterday a top cleric in Iran, Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi, told Iranians that women who wear modern, revealing clothing and makeup have caused an increase in earthquakes in the country. But those people are just stone-age backward thinking cavemen right? Well Pat Robertson, a man who has dined with US Presidents, claimed the Haiti earthquake was caused by a historical "deal with the devil." He also claimed Hurricane Katrina was sent by God because of abortion. There is no end of even modern religion attributing natural phenomena to the hand of god.

Just what "reality" is it that religion teaches us? Morality? Hardly. Time and again we've seen that you don't need religion for morality, and very often religion flies in the face of morality. (is it moral for the Pope to disallow birth control even though it's one of the biggest reasons for the AIDS epidemic? Even though LDS doesn't officially endorse polygamy, was it any more moral a hundred or so years ago when Brigham Young had 50 wives, some of them as young as 14? Is Jesus' admonition to stone disobedient children moral? Were the crusades moral?)

Another wise man, Douglas Adams, said "I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously."

Thomas Edison, John Adams, Richard Dawkins, Oscar Wilde, Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie, Ted Williams, Albert Einstein, Kurt Vonnegut, Steve Wozniak...all of these and many many more have all been influences "for good in the world." Not a single one of them needed religion to do it. And as I said before, roughly 98% of the National Academy of Sciences are atheist--you think they're not doing good work for mankind? I've often wondered too, had they not faced death by torture, the stake, or just complete social abandonment, how many historical scientists and philosophers would have also been open atheists. Men like Copernicus, Da Vinci, Lincoln, Jefferson and others flirted with the idea of atheism, but were too much a product of their society (or enjoyed their head being attached to their shoulders too much) to take it to the logical conclusion.

You have made a big jump from Atheism to Science. I didn't ask what good science has done for the world, nor do I see it as the antithesis of religion. The question is what good atheism has done for the world. A man can be a scientist and believe in God. Many have.

If you could provide the full quote in context then, I'd appreciate it. I haven't been able to find the entirety of the text, although maybe on my next trip to the library I'll see if they've got a set of the Journal of Discourses. But even if Young's quote is as you say (and I don't doubt it), it's still really a tautology, isn't it? He was either convinced he saw an angel, in which case he has accepted the truth of God, or he refutes that he saw an angel in which case he is denying the truth. It's completely circular. It's like the Monty Python gag where the witch is guilty if she floats, or innocent if she drowns. Of course Young isn't going to address the third and very likely option, which is that Harris (at the very least, his quote is in plural) doesn't think he saw an angel because there was not in fact an angel present.

Nobody would like to see these golden plates in a museum more than me. And hopefully the LDS Church would give access to scientists for testing (doubtful, given LDS's penchant for secrecy), but even if we'd only be allowed to read them I think we could learn a lot. For starters, it would lend a lot of credibility to Smith's claims, because there's no earthly way a man of his means could have gotten hold of such a sizable amount of gold or had access to the technology to produce them--each tablet is said to weigh in the vicinity of 50 pounds, and although I don't know how many there are said to be, I'm guessing it would certainly be the world's largest collection of privately held gold in the world, worth hundreds of millions even 190 years ago. For the first time, it would present science with a real challenge. In our hypothetical situation, it would also be a real game-changer. Every other religion on the planet would now be as close to being debunked than ever before, and it would finally be the closest thing the world would ever see with its own collective eyes that would lend any evidence to support a Christian god. Millions would convert to Mormonism. Maybe even over a billion. Hell, I'd even have to give it some thought. Certainly LDS would grow to become the world's largest church almost overnight. But more importantly, we'd finally have more than just somebody's word to go on.

We'll see. My experience with people has made me skeptical. You see, it's not only a question of believing. It's also a question of changing your life to live by your beliefs. And that is actually a lot more involved than you seem to be aware of.

Like every other religion in the world, you're going to have people who are intuitively uncomfortable with what they're being asked to believe, but can't quite bring themselves to discard the lot of it, so instead alter the religion to fit their own comfort levels. It's the same reason you have Christian apologists who have convinced themselves that when the bible says the earth was created in 6 days, it doesn't mean literal days, and when it says "Adam and Eve," God was just allegorical for possibly evolution or maybe something else. So I guess good job in at least sticking to the doctrine, at least I don't have to worry about trying to figure out which version you've decided to believe in.

Thanks, I guess.

All I can say is that if you're going to make an argument from genetics, you should familiarize yourself with the subject more. It would take a pretty huge wall of text for me to explain where you've gone wrong--I'm not trying to be condescending, but if you really understood how genetics works, you'd understand that the only explanation for the inconsistency between the real world and Smith's claims would have to be that God intentionally altered their DNA. If you're not going to resort to a supernatural explanation, the only explanation left is that Smith was wrong.

Once again, if Smith had gotten it right, if DNA evidence did show a link, science would be left with its jaw dropped to the floor. It would be a true game-changer.

I'm interested in any sort of information on the subject you have. I think this is already pretty much a "wall of text" so I wouldn't let that stop you.

You're right, my knowledge of genetics is limited, but I did take some classes on it in college. So tell me where I am going wrong here. Jews are a loosely defined group that have been scattered throughout the world and quite likely intermarried with various races in unknown proportions. American Indians, although probably more isolated for certain time periods have also intermarried following the discovery of America. Additionally, no scientific fact and no record in the Book of Mormon precludes the possibility that inhabitants of the Americas came from other origins as well. Thus, intermarriage may have occurred between American Indians and undetermined other races who arrived in America sometime between the end of the Book of Mormon in about 400AD and the arrival of Columbus, over 1000 years later.

Outside of the assumption of isolation, it is very difficult to determine relationships between two groups of people through genetic testing. The Lamanites and the Jews split genetically at least 2600 years ago. The number is probably larger when you consider that they come from different tribes and thus may have been genetically isolated since Jacob. Even a conservative estimate of 30 years per generation gives us over 100 generations of separation. So we are talking about proving that two people are not 100th cousins.

Yet since we don't know the identities of most of the ancestors of either group, both of which may have intermarried with anyone, we are left with a problem determining anything conclusively. Any gene present in one group but not in the other can be accounted for by the fact that either group could have ancestors which are not in common with the other group. Thus the presence of genes in one group and not the other cannot serve to demonstrate that members of the groups are not 100th cousins.

Our understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphics is not limited at all. Thanks to the Rosetta Stone, we know everything there is to know about the grammar and structure of Egyptian hieroglyphics. And this is a HUGE problem for Mormonism, because you can't even resort to a supernatural explanation. Either the "reformed Egyptian" alphabet is a real historical alphabet, or Smith was wrong. Since we can show that this alphabet has no historical credibility, there can be no other conclusion than that Smith got it wrong.

And this is another point that, had Smith gotten it right, it would have left science in a real predicament. The Rosetta Stone wasn't translated until 1824, and this research wasn't even made available until about 1858, a full 30 years after Smith revealed the alternate Egyptian transcript. So had he gotten the hieroglyphics right, the only explanations would be that Smith somehow got his hands on 4 year-old translations (in England!) that almost nobody outside of academia knew about, or that it was divinely inspired. Once again, something like that would damn near drive me to belief.

But this is the problem that every single deist religion has in common: no evidence, and convoluted explanations for everything. Nothing can be straightforward, nothing can be testable. When religion tries to explain how science got it wrong (as in the DNA example), they get the science completely wrong, or they attribute the discrepancy to God. (Muslims love to say that God refuses to be tested, and so intentionally corrupts any experiment used to prove or disprove him or his works. Even some modern young earth creationists insist that dinosaur bones were planted by god to test our faith.) And yet apologists try to act like this is the most normal thing ever. Of course god couldn't have just shown himself to all the Israelites instead of just Moses. Of course John Smith had to read the scriptures out of a hat, behind a blind, in another room, rather than the angel Moroni just appearing in the middle of a populated city and saying "listen up everyone, John Smith is the Prophet and you need to listen to him." I mean, the lengths that religion goes to, to explain situations that you and I would never actually believe in person, is simply astonishing. And if I were a believer, I'd have to wonder why a being that I'm supposed to have "personal relationship" with, who loves me and wants me to be happy, who claims to be my father and I his child, would go to such lengths to hide himself and deceive me and the people who just want to seek knowledge. Such a one-way relationship would never provide the supposed peace and comfort that religion is supposed to provide. It would be just the opposite, in fact. Creepy and terrifying would be a more apt description of such a dysfunctional relationship.

Some very interesting points. I have seen many people who admit that they understand and believe the truth of the LDS church, but are unwilling to make the necessary changes to be part of it. They like sleeping in on Sundays, drinking and smoking, don't want to pay tithing, etc. The truth doesn't help someone, in that case. Religion doesn't effect your life until you start to live it.

If you're really sincere about searching for truth. Read the Book of Mormon. Ask God if it is true. If you really want to know, He'll let you know. But if you're happy where you are and don't want to make any changes and would just rather not know that it's true, then it doesn't make any difference.

[mox 298]

You have made a big jump from Atheism to Science. I didn't ask what good science has done for the world, nor do I see it as the antithesis of religion. The question is what good atheism has done for the world. A man can be a scientist and believe in God. Many have.

You're correct that there are scientists who are also believers. Perhaps the most famous modern-day believer/scientist Dr. Francis Collins, the Director of the Human Genome Project until very recently. Fortunately, Dr. Collins, an otherwise pretty damn smart cookie, sets aside his religion when working on science, and sets aside science when he's being religious. It is, in my opinion, a terrible way to have to live your life, but it seems to work for him. (I've seen him in lectures on Youtube defending how he compartmentalizes his faith and scientific research, and it's so cringe-worthy to watch that I can't believe the guy doesn't suffer a mental breakdown at some point.)

But the reason I'm linking science and atheism together so closely is because the two are intertwined so closely. If you don't believe in the supernatural, then you really have only the natural. And the only way to make sense of nature is science. I see the world through Planck's constant and relativity theory in the same way you see the world through golden plates and the Mormon scripture.

It's not a long jump at all, but it *is* "the antithesis of religion." Science shows that the universe came into being 13.7 billion years ago, and that the earth was created 4.5 billion years ago over a period of about 15-20 million years. Both the Bible and the Koran teach that the earth and the universe was created in a day, with the next 5 days being spent creating everything else. So just in the first few pages of 2 most popular religious scriptures is a complete incompatibility with science. If you (as a Christian or Muslim) believe anything else, you're denying the validity of the scriptures.

We'll see. My experience with people has made me skeptical. You see, it's not only a question of believing. It's also a question of changing your life to live by your beliefs. And that is actually a lot more involved than you seem to be aware of.

I made a small mention of it in an earlier post, but I used to be a born-again Christian. I was *seriously* into it. I didn't just talk the talk, I walked the walk. So I actually do know what's involved, and I agree that it's a hard row to hoe. But as time went by, I realized that this so-called "personal relationship" I had with Christ was really just a one-way street. In the meantime, I'd alienated the actual real people in my life, all of my friends and family. All because I believed that some invisible guy who couldn't even be bothered to give me even the slightest evidence that he really existed wanted me to put him above everything else.

Thanks, I guess.

Heh. I just mean it's easier to discuss religion with somebody who actually adheres to their chosen religion. Drives me crazy when I challenge some scripture only to be told that this person doesn't really believe that part, or it's just allegory or a parable or something.

I'm interested in any sort of information on the subject you have. I think this is already pretty much a "wall of text" so I wouldn't let that stop you.

Lineage testing is done through mitochondrial DNA sequence (mtDNA), which is the DNA passed on the maternal line. The great thing about the mtDNA sequence is that the mitochondrial genes don't get mixed up like other inherited genes. This makes mtDNA perfect for tracing lineage. If you have a (great x 10) grandmother from Scandanavia, her mtDNA is in your blood and every cell of your body. And so is your (great x 5) grandmother from Asia. So it's a pretty simple matter to determine where a particular sub-group not only comes from, but what other lineages they're a part of. Test their mtDNA, and compare it to other known groups to see what matches. Which is exactly what scientists did. They tested the mtDNA in a large sampling of native Americans (several thousand or more), and then compared it to other samples of mtDNA. What they found is that the vast majority of native Americans share their mtDNA with people across north and South America, Asia and Mongolia. Like every other racial group, Jews also have a very distinct mtDNA line, and there just isn't any overlapping. Scientists can also trace through mtDNA how far apart generations are (it's something to do with genetic markers, I don't really know how), and they determined native Americans and Asians to be about 10-12,000 years apart.

(Not to drag anybody else into this, but I believe Марты is in genetics, so if I've made any mistakes he can lambaste me in public. )

So unless god manipulated the DNA to obscure their lineage (a crazy thing to do, even by god's standards), Joseph Smith was completely wrong. As I said earlier, it's a classic mistake that all religions make when formulating their core beliefs and claims. DNA was unknown in Smith's time. He had no way of knowing that anybody would ever be able to disprove the connection. DNA wasn't even known until the late 1800's (and they really didn't even know what they had then), and we couldn't even identify a person's blood type until the 1940's. The idea that you could even trace a child to a particular mother through anything except physical features was science fiction in his day.

You're right, my knowledge of genetics is limited, but I did take some classes on it in college. So tell me where I am going wrong here. Jews are a loosely defined group that have been scattered throughout the world and quite likely intermarried with various races in unknown proportions.

From a genetic standpoint, Jews are actually a very defined group. In fact, they're probably one of the most "defined" populations in human history, mostly due to their historically tight-knit co-mingling. It's why they represent such a small fraction of the population. Before WW2, they numbered about 15 million. It was somewhere between 4-5 million post-WW2. Wikipedia puts them at about 13 million nowadays.

Additionally, no scientific fact and no record in the Book of Mormon precludes the possibility that inhabitants of the Americas came from other origins as well. Thus, intermarriage may have occurred between American Indians and undetermined other races who arrived in America sometime between the end of the Book of Mormon in about 400AD and the arrival of Columbus, over 1000 years later.

Sure. But again, you can trace all this through mtDNA. Also, the vast majority of native Americans had no contacts with Scandinavians or Europeans until very recently--we're talking not sooner than about the 1700s, and Europeans really didn't have much more than a toe-hold (and population) on the continent until the 1600s. Before that it was mostly the Native Americans on the east coast that had anything to do with non-natives.

Some very interesting points. I have seen many people who admit that they understand and believe the truth of the LDS church, but are unwilling to make the necessary changes to be part of it. They like sleeping in on Sundays, drinking and smoking, don't want to pay tithing, etc. The truth doesn't help someone, in that case. Religion doesn't effect your life until you start to live it.

Heh, this pretty much sums up my ex-Mormon ex-roommate. As he himself proclaimed, "I believe in God, but I just like to drink, smoke, and #### too much to be in his church."

If you're really sincere about searching for truth. Read the Book of Mormon. Ask God if it is true. If you really want to know, He'll let you know. But if you're happy where you are and don't want to make any changes and would just rather not know that it's true, then it doesn't make any difference.

I've read the Holy Bible from cover-to-cover probably a dozen or more times. I have admittedly not even read the Book of Mormon a single time cover-to-cover, although I've gone through it, and hell I think I might even have a copy in a box somewhere. But as for "truth" and "asking God," well...been there, done that, got the t-shirt, but found the real truth in spite of it.

[mox 298]

Googling around, I just ran across this USA Today article that may interest you SMR:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-07-26-dna-lds_x.htm

I Googled the author, and came across his blog, specifically this entry:

http://www.exmormon.org/whylft125.htm

He's a genetics researcher, and covers the mtDNA subject in a lot more depth and authority than I can. He's also someone who comes from the inside (he was a Bishop), so frames his concerns with LDS much better than I can. He is not an atheist (sadly ) and at the time of the writing was still "looking for God."

Not trying to inundate you, just thought you'd find criticisms from somebody who at one time shared your beliefs and knows what you've been through a little easier to analyze.