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skyrider44 said:
Perhaps you will find the following instructive: "People use facts and opinions to make decisions; you [writer] must help them by showing clearly which is which. You must attribute all opinions and any facts for which there is no commonly accepted truth" The News Manual, Chapter 56, "Facts and Opinions," http://www.thenewsmanual.com Note: The link is inoperative (at least for the moment); consequently, enter "The News Manual" into your search engine.
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Nobody else seems to have had any difficulty discerning that RandFan was expressing his opinions. I'm reminded of another forum member who once declared that everyone must explicitly announce every joke because he was unable to distinguish witticisms from serious statements.

As with your failure to demonstrate that the formulation of scientific hypotheses requires faith, I will conclude that your failure to address the archaeological, zoological, botanical and anthropological problems with the historical accounts contained in the Book of Mormon is an indication that you have nothing to offer in defense of your claims. Given your previous accusations that others were unwilling to admit error, I can see nothing but hypocrisy in your transparent evasions.
 
Mormonism only exists because Joseph Smith and his pals wanted to get their legs over a lot. Rather like the Church Of England, which only exists because Henry VIII wanted to roger Anne Boleyn.
 
Cat Tale said:
BTW, I'd still like to know why you were insulting my Stake Patriarch, remember for us LDS the insult actually goes deeper than that.
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After careful reconsideration, I would like to respectfully withdraw my comment about Janadele and my Stake Patriarch, it was entirely out of line. I did what I vow everyday not to do and lost my temper. Yeah, Mormons aren't perfect. After carefully looking over it I've concluded that her comments were entirely believing me to be non-LDS, therefore not requiring the tirade that I went into.

Life would just be so much easier if people would just answer posts so we knew what they were saying. :o
 
Cat Tale said:
After careful reconsideration, I would like to respectfully withdraw my comment about Janadele and my Stake Patriarch, it was entirely out of line. I did what I vow everyday not to do and lost my temper. Yeah, Mormons aren't perfect. After carefully looking over it I've concluded that her comments were entirely believing me to be non-LDS, therefore not requiring the tirade that I went into.

Life would just be so much easier if people would just answer posts so we knew what they were saying. :o
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Janadele still insulted you, but you're being the better person for it. Good for you.
 
Janadele said:
The doctrines and teachings of the LDS Church are not designed to win a popularity contest, nor do they bend to suit the whims of mankind.
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But they do.

Brigham Young stated on January 16, 1852, "...any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it." Yet the Political and social liabilities associated with this discrimination, especially the blatantly racist notion that people of African descent had darker skin pigmentation as a punishment for an ancestors crime, eventually became too much of a hassle for the church and they backed away from what Young had claimed to know in the name of Jesus Christ.

The Doctrine and Covenants once claimed, "In as much as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in the case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again". Plural marriage went from something publicly denied, to being doctrinal practice. Then the church changed its mind again.

And I can easily imagine that the church's discrimination against women will one day become too politically disruptive to continue, and women will be allowed to hold the priesthood.
 
Foster Zygote said:
But they do.

Brigham Young stated on January 16, 1852, "...any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it." Yet the Political and social liabilities associated with this discrimination, especially the blatantly racist notion that people of African descent had darker skin pigmentation as a punishment for an ancestors crime, eventually became too much of a hassle for the church and they backed away from what Young had claimed to know in the name of Jesus Christ.

The Doctrine and Covenants once claimed, "In as much as this church of Christ has been reproached with the crime of fornication, and polygamy: we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in the case of death, when either is at liberty to marry again". Plural marriage went from something publicly denied, to being doctrinal practice. Then the church changed its mind again.

And I can easily imagine that the church's discrimination against women will one day become too politically disruptive to continue, and women will be allowed to hold the priesthood.
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I'm surprised that so many women fell for some oversexed scheme that enabled men to have as many wives as possible.
 
Janadele said:
Pakeha: Where is that found as a doctrine?
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Randfan answered that one, Janadele.

That wiki article goes on to say:
"...As far as scholars can tell, the author of the blood atonement doctrine was LDS Church president Brigham Young, who first taught the doctrine after the death of Joseph Smith, Jr.[citation needed] The doctrine first began to be heavily taught and promoted, however, during the Mormon Reformation (1856–1858), most insistently by Jedediah M. Grant of the First Presidency. ..."

And
"...Chief among the Latter-day Saint writers defending the doctrine in the late 19th century was Charles W. Penrose, editor of the church-owned Deseret News, who would later become a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency."



There's a great on the subject of blood atonement and curiously enough, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used it as a theme in several of his Sherlock Holmes narratives.


Isn't it clear Mormon teachings about blood atonement changed over time?


Cat Tale said:
Good question, and that's where faith comes in. I guess to me, it's simple, if I'm right I'll be pleased, if I'm wrong I won't care, so... if it makes me happy now.

And there's also something to be said about being among like minded people who hold the same moral code, i.e. don't drink, smoke, wear revealing clothes, swear... I know it's not logical but... :)
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Pascal's Wager, then?
Even at the cost of ignoring the falsity of the texts?
Again, how can salvation be gained by believing a demonstrable lie?

What can be said about being with people who deliberately turn their backs on the truth?
 
pakeha said:
There's a great on the subject of blood atonement and curiously enough, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used it as a theme in several of his Sherlock Holmes narratives.
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I can only think of one, A Study In Scarlet.
 
The Valley of Fear.
But I've looked over the titles and in the end there are only these two, not more.
 
I'm sure everyone has noticed how skyrider44 has used his last dozen or so posts to quibble about opinions at the expense of actually backing up his claims that archeology, and science in general, confirms anything in the BoM. I wonder why that is?
 
skyrider44 said:
Perhaps you will find the following instructive: "People use facts and opinions to make decisions; you [writer] must help them by showing clearly which is which. You must attribute all opinions and any facts for which there is no commonly accepted truth" The News Manual, Chapter 56, "Facts and Opinions," http://www.thenewsmanual.com Note: The link is inoperative (at least for the moment); consequently, enter "The News Manual" into your search engine.
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SO where are the attributions for your "opinions" about the pre-Colombian Americas, for which you have been asked, politely, many times?
 
RandFan said:
. . .There are no "verifiable" facts. They are opinions. To assert that my opinions must be proven is simply cheap sophistry (and it is dishonest).
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Your opinions don't have to be proven (I'll grant you that), but they do have to be identified as such under certain conditions. Note the following:

"A writer without conclusive proof [who makes] an offensive statement [which you have done repeatedly re. Joseph Smith] should not hesitate to say that the statement is the writer's opinion or belief instead of propounding it as factual"
(MLA Style Manual, 3rd Ed., Modern Language Association, 2008, p. 71).

There is also this: ". . .readers don't expect you to cite a source [for what is common knowledge]. They do, however, expect you to cite a source when 1) the idea is associated with a specific person and 2) it's new enough not to be part of a field's common knowledge" (The Craft of Research, Booth, Colomb, Williams, 2008, p. 195). Isn't it true that you have made accusations against Joseph Smith--"a specific person"--that are simply raw conjecture?
 
Foster Zygote said:
. . .I will conclude that your failure to address the archaeological, zoological, botanical and anthropological problems with the historical accounts contained in the Book of Mormon is an indication that you have nothing to offer in defense of your claims.
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In Post 989, I began the process of addressing criticisms of the Book of Mormon, using FAIR as my source ("Book of Mormon/Anachronisms"). My post was immediately dismissed as worthless, coming as it did from an LDS source (although the Church does not necessarily endorse what appears on FAIR). Here are three examples of the close-minded responses I received:
1) "FAIR makes crap up to support their belief in a made-up book"--Cleon;
2) ". . .the explanations it [FAIR] offers are poor and not credible"--jsfisher;
3) ". . .the apologetics. . .were pretty lame"--Carlitos.

Note that the responses are opinions.

Who do you suppose is the most interested in bringing to light the truth about the existence of the Book of Mormon? Harvard researchers? MIT?
Stanford? A wide spectrum of independent research facilities? Wrong. LDS scholars themselves are the most dedicated to finding the truth, even though they function from a defensive angle of vision. If the BoM is a fraud, then it must eventually be revealed as such. No Latter-day Saints I know have any illusions about that.
 
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skyrider44 said:
Your opinions don't have to be proven (I'll grant you that), but they do have to be identified as such under certain conditions. Note the following:
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No. But if you are ever confused just ask. It's been explained to you now dozens of times and you are still using this in a dishonest fashion to gain rhetorical advantage.

The question is, when will you have the honesty to move on?
 
skyrider44 said:
LDS scholars themselves are the most dedicated to finding the truth, even though they function from a defensive angle of vision.
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I doubt that. Are you seriously saying that some Mormons are out to expose Smith as a writer of fiction?
 
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