(Serpthia)

Did I make you a little testy?

"utterly droll," "dullard," "you've a reading comprehension problem," "are you capable of fully understanding this . . .," "fluff," "wallowed," "bastardized," "feebly grasped at straws," "adulterating the . . . Christian faith," "bogus," "pompous attitude." Your apology to the readers that they "were exposed to such negativity" notwithstanding, just who is it that brings negativity into the thread?

You don’t impress me and I don’t care to impress you.

You sure have a funny way of showing it! Your tone and reaction really seem to be "protesting too much," as if you feel the need to reassure yourself of the strength of your position in the face of competent and compelling responses to it.

Joseph Smith believed the Book of Mormon historical significance would be found right here in the good ole U.S.A. - since this has eluded LDS scholars their focus has shifted and now they’re trying to commingle Mesoamerican archaeological finds (facts) with Mormon fiction

This has been a popular claim among critics lately because of the advantages that Mesoamerican studies have given to believers in the Book of Mormon. It is demonstrably false. You actually could have avoided making this mistaken claim had you taken Brant Gardner's response seriously, as he went into this in some detail, but these things happen when you dismiss everything with your disdain quoted above. Joseph Smith actually focused on Mesoamerica and was very enthusiastic when John Lloyd Stephens published his book on Central American ruins. Joseph Smith placed the City of Zarahemla directly in Mesoamerica:

The 1879 edition of the Book of Mormon, edited by Orson Pratt, contained much footnote material that similarly pointed to Central America as the Book of Mormon's location. A 1900 expedition by Brigham Young Academy faculty traveled from Mexico to Panama by foot in a matter of weeks, in an effort to test out first-hand travel times and distances recorded in the Book of Mormon. This, of course, presupposes a Central America setting. Mormon General Authority B.H. Roberts wrote on assignment from Apostle James E. Talmage a response that employed a limited Central American geography in defense of the Book of Mormon.

You get the idea. Central America as the setting for the Book of Mormon is not, as critics claim, a recent contingency in the face of a dearth of evidence in North America. It goes back to Joseph Smith himself.

This brings up the important point about how questions are formed when asked of experts in order to obtain sound bites for a documentary. You will get vastly different responses when asking "Is there evidence of Nephites" instead of "What does archaeology reveal about day-to-day life in 300 B.C. Mesoamerica?" When experts are allowed to comment on the latter without any hint of partisans seeking to exploit them, you end up with striking big picture corrrelations with demographic and cultural details recorded in the Book of Mormon, such as these:

Romans 1:20 tells us “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.”

Psalm 19:1-4 further explains that the creation speaks clearly of God in a language that all understand. “There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard” (verse 3)

People may also know about God through our conscience:  “What may be known of God is manifest in them” (Romans 1:19).

I am really sad that your father was given this information- wrong at that.  Unfortunately, people spout of things that they have no idea what they are talkng about, and like in this case, it would seem, totally turn people off and away from the Truth.  I would hope and pray that whoever gave your father this false information has since learned through the Bible about these things.  I would also hope (and pray) that your father has learned Biblical truth for himself and that you would too. 

I do not believe God put people on this earth to condemn them to a certain hell. But, unfortunately, with the sin of Adam and Eve, condemnation to hell is real. As is salvation through Jesus Christ. If God had wanted us all to be condemened to hell, He would not have set in motion the events that took place leading to Jesus birth, death, and resurrection. So, no I do not believe this. I believe that God would want eveyone to be saved and to be with Him, which is why we were created. If you read in John, it talks about how God draws people to Him. I believe this too. But, I also believe that people resist that drawing, they ignore what is right before them, and they make the decision not to accept Jesus into their hearts. And, if they die before they do, they go to hell.

The Bible does not talk about levels of heaven. I have read the verses that LDS believe support three degrees of heaven, and I feel, myself, and others have broken down those arguments and looked at verses in context and used other scriptural verses...and the belief of three heavens is not biblical. According to the Bible, there is one heaven and there is one hell. You are not the only one that struggles with predestination. It is a difficult concept to understand, but it is in the Bible and God gives us some understanding into His ways on this. But, should man spend a whole lot of time debating predestination? No! Jesus has offered a sure fire way to all who want to accept Him. We need to stop being distracted and gain some Biblical understanding. I think this topic, of what archealogical proof there is to support the mormon belief is a distraction. When you break down what LDS believe and try to find that in the Bible, its just not there. That fact should be enough to make someone question. And maybe I am not the best one to talk to how former LDS came to their conclusion to leave mormon beliefs and follow the Bible. I would hope that some of those people, who might be reading these threads, would jump in and talk about that.

My religion is right.

NO, mine is.

No, mine is more right.

No, mine is even more right.

No, mine ie even righter than your is right.

No, mine is the rightest.

No, mine is the rightest +1.

No, mine is the rightest +infinity.

Thats how I read this thread.

Valhalla rocks!

Well after a couple weeks, I finally get my laptop back from HP because my motherboard died, and this thread still hasn't gotten anywhere.

I think I have a new favorite poster in Serpthia.

My vocabulary has improved 435% reading his/her post. (Yea, my vocab level is pretty bad)

moinmoin you want specific ad hominem examples.  I said the majority of the article is ad hominem because, it failed to provide proof what the video said it lacked.  Instead of providing proof they attacked

1) Certain People in the video

2) The Methods

I'm not going to waste my time reading that article again.  I will give a you a shameless plug and tell people to read the article you posted themselves and have them draw their own conclusions after watching the video.

As far as your super looooooooong post......I'm not going to waste my time reading that.  During that time I would rather go read the whole Bible.........twice.

If somebody was curious about something specific your wrote in that novel, hopefully they will post it here, and we can discuss it then, but I'm not going to dissect that.

It's fine if you don't know if Jesus has a physical body now, or if we will when we're resurrected, or where hell is (while insisting that it definitely is a place!). The fact that Mormonism provides definite, authoritative answers to questions like these and many others is one of the things that draw people to it.

Posted By moinmoin on 07/08/2008 2:29 PM
(EEE)

moinmoin you want specific ad hominem examples. I said the majority of the article is ad hominem because, it failed to provide proof what the video said it lacked. Instead of providing proof they attacked

1) Certain People in the video

2) The Methods

Welcome back, EEE! I'm sorry to hear about your computer. I know I should back up my files, but I never have, and mine's four years old. IT people tell me that hard drives and other things can go at any time.

If the response failed to provide evidence that the video said it lacked, that would make it a weak response, not an ad hominem attack. It sounds like your definition of ad hominem is "a reponse that I don't find to be compelling."

Actually, the response was completely free of ad hominem attacks. Brant Gardner has performed PhD. level work in Mesoamerican ethnohistory (NYU-Albany), and knows that that would have weakened any response to the detriment of what he wanted to accomplish. An ad hominem attack would essentially have been something like "What do these people know? They're just a bunch of anti-Mormons, etc."

Where he did criticize individual people, it was relevant to the video's purpose and the people's roles as experts within the video. For example, Gardner pointed out multiple instances where Murphy or Wilson claimed a complete absence of Mormon scholarly responses, while engaging in scholarly critiques of the very scholarly responses they claimed are non-existent. Pointing this out is not ad hominem, it's completely relevant to the question of the integrity of the video.

If criticism of methods, assumptions, etc. is also a no-no in a response, what in the world is left to respond to? Resorting to calling everything "ad hominem" smacks too much of safeguarding something from any response or criticism at all.

I'm not going to waste my time reading that article again. I will give a you a shameless plug and tell people to read the article you posted themselves and have them draw their own conclusions after watching the video.

Can't say fairer than that! That's all I asked.

As far as your super looooooooong post......I'm not going to waste my time reading that.

Ummmm . . . no need to --- you've already read the whole article, right?

Fair enough, it's a weak argument not an ad hominem

Thanks for the warm welcome back itsa and moinmoin