Commentary: Discussion on Mormonism

[Kopji]

Wow, I bet you have some great stories! Can you at least give us a quick summary. How does the RLDS feel about the LDS and the FLDS? It's such a young religion and already there are sects... how long were you a believer? Does the RLDS send their members on missions. I think the FLDS creates membership primarily through massive spawning, right-- not a lot of recruitment.

Eh, digression...

I still have a lot of fondness for many of the RLDS people. Yeah, I have stories but I often don't think of them as 'weird' until I tell them. It does not seem easy for people, even LDS Mormons, to understand being raised in such a tiny sect. It is your whole world, so it does not seem so cult-like from the inside - only with time and distance.

Believing that the 'New Jerusalem' will be in Independence MO and that's where the 2nd coming will be is pretty strange, but that would include LDS...

I left when they were still called RLDS, it is now named 'Community of Christ'. The version of RLDS I was raised was far more conservative and sectarian than the modern version - was more similar to 1800's Ohio Quakerism than LDS Mormonism. They have evolved over time into a fairly liberal protestant-like organization and are generally eager to participate in activities with other churches.

I left about the time the church theologians were musing if the Book of Mormon could be better thought of as a kind of parable, and not based on any real historic facts.

Like, eh, why not take it all a step further and consider the whole enterprise of religion a myth?

In a nutshell? You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family. RLDS / Community of Christ suffers can get stuck on defining what they are 'not' rather than what they would be. RLDS have a rich historic and cultural heritage with the same roots as LDS Mormons. The name usually reserved inside the family is 'apostates', although in more recent times I think LDS and RLDS get along a little better.

FLDS (modern polygamists) are very far removed from RLDS.

A traditional RLDS would likely have been taught from an early age that Joseph Smith never taught polygamy, and that it was a lie promoted by elements of the early church that Smith always opposed. Emma Smith is more revered, and is not the darkly evil person that the LDS tend to portray.

 

[RandFan]

I'd just like to take the opportunity to point out that KOPJI doesn't reject the true false Mormonism. I do.

 

[Kopji]

Hey we're all atheists here.

I like the term 'Post Mormon'.

 

[articulett]

I'd just like to take the opportunity to point out that KOPJI doesn't reject the true false Mormonism. I do.

Can I reject it (or them?)... I have it on authority from childhood slumber party guests that I can't make it to the highest heaven. I know I can't be an official apostate, but still...

In any case... many LDS must have relatives that are FLDS or RLDS, right? Who is the prophet of the RLDS? And doesn't the FLDS have assorted prophets depending on which FLDS you belong too. Are you familiar with people who have switched between them? I've read of Mormons who become fundamentalist Christians--which I think is it's own kind of weirdness-- but it underlies the whole problem with telling people that faith can bring "truth".

As a woman I just used to look at all of these men... all so sure that they were right and none agreed. I sure couldn't figure it out. And the women just seemed to be making the peace and going along with things hoping not to screw up their eternity from what I could tell. I still have a mental disconnect to think of all the "infallible" people that are said to exist and speak for god--

If people truly think their eternity is at stake, isn't it risky to just assume you happen to be born into or stumbled upon the right religion?

Kopji, is your family still RLDS? I wonder if former Mormon support groups also have former FLDS or RLDS? Do the RLDS have large families? Do they proselytize?

I've heard the term "exmo" and "Formon" for former Mormons. Sometimes I wish I was a former Mormon...

 

[RandFan]

Hey we're all atheists here.

I like the term 'Post Mormon'.

There is always foreman (former mormon).

Damn, articulett beat me to it.

 

[Pixel42]

This is a comment on rcronk's post #16 in the moderated thread.

The normal rational reasoning process is:

1. Look at evidence
2. Find most likely and plausible way of interpreting it
3. Draw conclusion

After years of arguing with creationists, people who believe the moon landings were a hoax etc etc it has become clear to me that such people use an entirely different reasoning process:

1. Decide what you want to believe
2. Look at evidence
3. Find way of cherry-picking and interpreting it, no matter how unlikely or implausible, that will enable you to continue to believe (1)

For example whilst most people will

1. Look at the Grand Canyon
2. Interpret it as an example of how landscape gradually changes over immense periods of time
3. Conclude that the world is at least many tens of thousands of years old

a young earth creationist will

1. Decide to believe that the world is 6000 years old
2. Look at the Grand Canyon
3. Explain it away as the result of the Flood

It's not just religious beliefs, any belief in which the believer has invested emotionally is prone to provoking the same faulty reasoning when they are confronted with contradictory evidence.

Here's a non-religious example. Compare and contrast

1. Evidence: My husband beats me
2. Interpretation: men do not beat women they love
3. Conclusion: my husband does not love me

with

1. Belief: my husband loves me
2. Evidence: my husband beats me
3. Interpretation: I must be doing something very wrong if the husband who loves me has to beat me

People who work with battered women can get very frustrated when they continually go back to their abusers; understanding the faulty reasoning process they are using helps to understand such behaviour.

Anyone who uses the normal rational reasoning process to examine the validity of the Book of Mormon cannot avoid the conclusion that it is a clumsy fake, containing assertions that are demonstrably false. But to True Believers this conclusion is literally unthinkable, so they come up with the prime examples of this faulty reasoning process that rcronk links to in his post.

Here's a rather more useful link for rcronk:

http://skepdic.com/cognitivedissonance.html

 

[rcronk]

ooh! ooh! A post that has something to do with the moderated thread!

Pixel42 - how many of the 25 articles/interviews had you read at the time you posted your comment?

 

[Pixel42]

ooh! ooh! A post that has something to do with the moderated thread!

Pixel42 - how many of the 25 articles/interviews had you read at the time you posted your comment?

None. I looked at the list and noted the sources, which told me all I needed to know.

Bear in mind that I have been having this discussion with Scot Ferre, on and off, for about three years. He posts these kind of links too. As do creationists, conspiracy theorists etc etc. I've got good at recognising them.

But if you think there is an article in that list whose author looks at all the DNA evidence, without any preconceived conclusion in mind, and constructs a chain of sound reasoning that leads from that evidence to a likely and plausible conclusion then by all means point me to it, and I'll read it. One more should just about be bearable

ETA: But be warned that if it follows the faulty reasoning process I've described, i.e. assumes that the Book of Mormon is true and then cherry-picks and twists evidence to support that belief whilst ignoring all evidence that contradicts it, I will never bother to click on a link you recommend again. So choose carefully

 

[rcronk]

If you didn't read any of them, then your reasoning process is:

1. Decide what you want to believe
2. Don't look at any evidence presented to you
3. State your belief as though you've looked at the evidence

I admit I've done that before, so I'll certainly not beat you up for it. I did want to at least make it clear what you had done by the same method you did above because I'm feeling like a smart aleck today. No offense.

This article from the list I posted earlier is not Book of Mormon related:
http://www.gene-watch.org/genewatch/articles/14-5nativeidentity.html and so it looks like it meets your criteria of not starting out assuming the Book of Mormon is valid. It's written by Brett Lee Shelton, J.D., Director of Policy and Research for IPCB (Indigenous People’ Council on Biocolonialism) and Jonathan Marks, Ph.D., is Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina and a member of IPCB's Board of Directors. It points out how much genetic data is lost in just a few generations for both Y-chromosome and mtDNA markers and how both tests can give false positives and false negatives in those few generations. Using these tests, they can't even tell for sure if a person is "Native American" or not because of the problems outlined in the paper.

Some other problems outlined in many of the papers deal with knowing what to compare current Native American DNA to in order to see if it matches Lehi's DNA from the Book of Mormon. What did Lehi's DNA look like? These articles state that no DNA studies have specifically been designed to find the answer to that question. They also state that no studies have been designed to look at the Book of Mormon claims. The studies have been unrelated and then assertions have been made with regard to the Book of Mormon. Anyway, there seem to be a lot of holes in the original DNA assertions according to the DNA experts.

Again, I'm a software engineer, not a DNA expert, so I am not qualified at all to make assertions about these articles/interviews. I can read through them though and see basically how non-iron-clad ancestral DNA testing is shown to be by people who are DNA experts.

 

[Pixel42]

If you didn't read any of them, then your reasoning process is:

1. Decide what you want to believe
2. Don't look at any evidence presented to you
3. State your belief as though you've looked at the evidence

Actually it was

1. Look at list of articles that are from the same sort of sources as other articles I've looked at before. Many, many, times.

2. Describe the reasoning process that lies behind all such articles that I have ever read.

This article from the list I posted earlier is not Book of Mormon related:
http://www.gene-watch.org/genewatch/articles/14-5nativeidentity.html and so it looks like it meets your criteria of not starting out assuming the Book of Mormon is valid.

I'll read it if you insist, but I'm well aware of the limitations of DNA testing. Just pointing out that such tests are not 100% accurate doesn't exactly advance your case very far. No-one said they were. It's the nature of the scientific method that such tests cannot be 100% accurate. It's still the case that the DNA evidence is overwhelmingly against the assertions made in the Book of Mormon, and that there is no DNA evidence that supports them.

 

[rcronk]

I do not insist that you read it.

Do you have expertise in the field of DNA studies? If so, what are your qualifications? I'm just wondering so that I can know how to classify your comments about these things.

The DNA experts who have written these articles (including the ones that are not Mormon related) disagree with your assertions. Again, what are your qualifications?

RandFan said "Here we have conclusive proof that they are, indeed, Asian." and so I was pointing out that it's not conclusive. According to the articles I've cited, it's not conclusive at all.

 

[Pixel42]

Do you have expertise in the field of DNA studies?

No. I'm a retired engineer. My degree is in Mathematics. I have only a (well read) layman's understanding of biology.

The DNA experts who have written these articles (including the ones that are not Mormon related) disagree with your assertions

The only assertion I have made is that the DNA evidence is overwhelmingly against the assertions made in the BoM. This is not an assertion that any genuine expert in the field would dispute.

RandFan said "Here we have conclusive proof that they are, indeed, Asian." and so I was pointing out that it's not conclusive. According to the articles I've cited, it's not conclusive at all.

I wouldn't personally have used the word 'conclusive'. But the consensus of scientific opinion is certainly behind RandFan, not the authors of the articles you cite.

 

[rcronk]

Thanks. I wish I was a DNA expert so I could understand these things better, but until I decide to go back to college for such training, I'll watch the experts and see what else develops.

Maybe one of RandFan's items will deal with computers, then I could have an expert opinion.

Exactly how many experts form this consensus of which you speak (the ones who have a DNA-based opinion against the Book of Mormon)? I have only seen two so far: Thomas W. Murphy and Simon G. Southerton. Since I'm not as well read in this area, I'm sure there are more. How many are there?

P.S. I love math. pi should be 6.28318...

 

[ChristineR]

My opinion, based on what I've read on other church type frauds from time to time, is that the primary reason is simple gullibility and a strong desire to trust someone you think is like you; special. Possibly the fact that they have been fairly industrious and therefore I would guess (I haven't seen stats) wealthier than average, would also make them juicier targets.

The LDS does now speak out about it, but I'll bet large numbers of Mormon men have wet dreams about it still. It's still in their bible, and they do produce fundie prophets still.

As to Muslims, I have never heard a Muslim speak out against it. Allah allows it. How can they? Practically it's expensive. Only some can manage, but it's very common in the Middle East. Obviously not in the West where it's not allowed, and where their women have a greater say, but as far as being obsolete or considered "despicable"; not at all.

Some Muslims have spoken out against polygamy. There's a curious verse in the Koran which says that it's all right to have multiple wives if you treat them all fairly; and there's another verse that could be read as claiming that no man can treat all his wives fairly.

Both the old and new testaments allow for polygamy, yet I don't believe that most non-Mormon Christians are having wet dreams about it. And there are non-Mormon Christian polygamous sects of course.

I've even heard some Muslims argue that the Koran is morally superior to the Bible based on this (Christianity=polygamy, Proper Islam=monogamy). Unfortunately I can't find a web site making this rather bold claim....

 

[ChristineR]

According to Linda Walker and Flora Jessup's speech, the LDS does sort of help out polygamous clans by returning runaway brides and getting rid of surplus boys http://www.exmormonfoundation.org/2006ConferenceReport

--and Mormon doctrine does assert polygamy in the next life. Men are the ones that get the message from god about which woman marries who-- and this still is used by enterprising Mormon men-- It probably wasn't too hard to convince Elizabeth Smart that her captor got a message from god about making her his wife-- and if he gave her her first orgasm, I bet she considered it a sign that it was true...

I don't think polygamy is despicable nor Mormons nor the fact that Mormons are tied to polygamy... I just don't think the church has any claims on the truth and a lot of methods for manipulating people (especially women) into thinking they do. I think this is a recipe for abuse of trust by liars, scam artists, and just the deluded who are sure that god is given them particular messages. Whose to say whether god is or isn't?-- according to Mormon doctrine, this is the way god communicates-- and there is no method of telling true revelation from the false ones. If it feels good--it's probably "true"-- if you find it abhorrent, the "the individual was misguided". (No true Scotsman.)

Krackaur's book illustrated just how scary this is. Suppose someone is convinced as is Scot and rconk of their truth--but it involves a truth that causes others to suffer (the example in the book)-- isn't history replete with these misguided truths? Shouldn't we call them all delusions until we get some evidence of a god that exists and reveals himself in such nebulous ways? And isn't such a god a dick if he doesn't give his beloved creation measuring tools or a method from determining his real directives from all the silliness and "misguided notions" and downright evil directives?

Just so you know, I don't object to polyamory, which is where everyone gets to marry everyone else. I'm not sure how stable a society formally based on polyamory would be, but here in the US we have more or less a tolerance of informal polyamory.

A polygamous society is by definition unequal and unstable. A teenage girl might want to marry a charming celebrity who's already married, but the only way you can get women to enter into and to stay in most of these unequal marriages is by some sort of social pressure and coercion. The men prostitute their own daughters to their friends in the return for a nubile child of their own.

 

[articulett]

Well, I'm a certified genetic counselor-- and the article you linked is not something that advocated for the BoM. There are not distinguishing racial markers in the genes because there are no "pure races"... all humans are related, and all of humanity comes out of Africa. However, we do know enough about DNA and where certain mutations arose and when so that we can trace back ancestry and determine how closely two people are related. We know that the native Americans picked up key genes from Aisa... they came across the Bearing Straight... different tribes evolved... and when Europeans came over later, there was mixing, but they did not come from the Middle East-- Not all Asians are native Americans, but all Native Americans carry gene mutations that arose in and passed through Aisa. There are notable markers that were picked as humanity spread through Aisa--that don't exist in those that traveled straight out of Africa through the Middle East and into Europe without Aisans being part of the ancestry. We can look at genes and tell where you have some ancestors-- of course, not every ancestor leaves markers we can trace-- but having certain markers means that you definitely have ancestry from a given area... and having no markers associated with a give group of people in a given time period means that you are unlikely to have any ancestry from that area. All dogs share ancestry with wolves-- but they also share ancestry with other dogs... a chihuaha is unlikely to have a Saint Bernard in it's direct ancestry and a Saint Bernard is unlikely to a have a chihuahua in it's direct ancestry, though both will have dog and eventual wolf ancestors in common but before the breeds started to distinguish themselves via human intervention.

Does this make sense? We can look at genes and tell where and when the peoples ancestors came from-- not every one of them, since not all genes are passed on-- but they can tell you for sure where different ancestors passed through and when. If our native American skeletal DNA shares none of the known mutations coming from the people in the Middle East per Joseph Smith's alleged tribal ancestry-- it's devastating for Joseph, who couldn't have known a thing about DNA (though an omniscient god would have.)

Several times you've quoted articles that might be useful apologetics for someone looking for a reason to believe in the prescience of Joseph Smith, but to non biased viewers, it makes you look kind of desperate. No, there is no genetic anything that distinguishes "races" or "tribes"-- but there is lots in the DNA that tells where your ancestors passed through and when.

This is tangential, but it illustrates the point and lets you in on just how much information there is in DNA. Most mammals synthesize vitamin C in their bodies... the great apes do not-- they have the gene, but it's mutated and doesn't work... which turned out not to be a horrible thing in a species who got enough Vitamin C from their diet. The other primates have the same "broken" part of the gene as we do... so we can estimate approximately how far back in time and where the mutation took place... also-- the more time that passes between the shared ancestor, the more differentiated the useless genes become, because more mistakes don't change anything... the gene is a "fossil"-- it's junk. The DNA that we don't use accumulated changes faster then the essential DNA and gives us a lot of clues about how closely related 2 life forms are and when they last shared an ancestor and what that ancestor was and approximately where. Really. That's how cool DNA is.

 

[articulett]

Thanks. I wish I was a DNA expert so I could understand these things better, but until I decide to go back to college for such training, I'll watch the experts and see what else develops.

Maybe one of RandFan's items will deal with computers, then I could have an expert opinion.

Exactly how many experts form this consensus of which you speak (the ones who have a DNA-based opinion against the Book of Mormon)? I have only seen two so far: Thomas W. Murphy and Simon G. Southerton. Since I'm not as well read in this area, I'm sure there are more. How many are there?

P.S. I love math. pi should be 6.28318...

I don't think anyone in genetics can take the Book of Mormon seriously. The more you understand genetics, the more ridiculous it seems. Truly. Just read a genetics text or anything about what we know about evolution and anthropology and archaelogy just so you can understand what we know and how we know it... it's amazing that we've been able to figure out so much-- but you can't even begin to grasp it because your fantasy world will be shattered. The tests that we use for forensics and paternity tests are, in essence, the same tests that devastate the "truth" of Mormonism. If you need to believe that book is true... don't study genetics. But if you want to know some of the coolest things humans have ever been able to know-- the field is fascinating... and you can SEE what I'm talking about. It's pretty damn undeniable and incredible.

 

[rcronk]

Are you this type of genetic counselor? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_counseling

I never knew there was such a thing - that's pretty cool.

Yes, DNA is an amazing thing, no doubt about it. I am quite fascinated by the interesting things we are learning from DNA.

I guess I'm not understanding what's so desperate sounding about bringing up some questions about the assertions made against the Book of Mormon. Are the questions and points made in the articles I linked to really useless? Are the DNA experts who wrote them really that dumb? Are they putting their reputation on the line to sound desparate and ridiculous or do they actually bring some valid points to the table? Are there more than two experts making the claims against the Book of Mormon? Thanks for your input.

 

[articulett]

The experts, like your Berkeley experts (that analyzed whether Joseph wrote the BoM by himself) are not saying what you extrapolate them to be saying. The sources are correct... but they don't connect the dots the way they do in your head. Suppose your neighbor saw a light they couldn't explain in the sky... and you asked a whole bunch of experts about what it could be, and they weren't sure-- that doesn't mean it was an alien spacecraft. In fact that is the remotest of possibilities... but you leapfrog over the most obvious explanation to find the justification you need.

Yes, there is nothing in the genes that can identify "race", because race is a human construct-- like dog breeds-- it's not a genetic construct... although there are similarities with people who share more ancestry... you look more like the people you come from-- but people are mixed up. With a tribal member, you can't see the tribe or "race" in the genes, but you can tell who the parents are and where the ancestry passed through... that doesn't mean they don't have some ancestry that didn't show up--

But I feel like I'm talking to a wall. Utah is a great place to do genetic studies because they have huge families and keep geneological records... they are also home of a few very rare disorders because of polygamy (fumerase deficiency for one)-- it's a little complicated... but I don't think there is anybody in the field of genetics that takes the book of Mormon more seriously than it would take the Science in Scientology. It's just so... wrong.

Here are some well respected sources on the topic... they don't even consider the BoM story... or any scriptural authority on the topic, because they were all clearly written by people who didn't have a clue.

http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/origin.htm
http://www.humanquestion.com/links.htm
http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/
http://www.becominghuman.org/
http://www.indiana.edu/~origins/

Pick your favorite scientific source-- PBS? The Smithsonian? The Leaky Foundation? National Geographic? Scientific American? Nature Magazine. They all concur-- and none of them even give a glance towards Mormon story--

Are there any geneticists that are Mormon? I'm always curious about how they explain things to themselves... it just doesn't make sense... lots of it doesn't make sense scientifically.

 

[articulett]

The experts aren't saying what you are extrapolating from what they say. We can't do a DNA test for "race"-- race is a human construct-- we can tell a lot about one's ancestry from looking at DNA. But people have always been mixed--and skin color variation--although it's big in Mormonism... it's a very recent human development and we know why skin got darker and lighter-- in sunny regions, dark skin was protective, and dark skinned people survived better-- in colder climates lighter skin made it easier to synthesize vitamin D from the sun-- we need vitamin D-- and those who could make enough survived better than those who couldn't. The first humans were probably Middle Eastern looking-- inbetween and the environment selected for the most successful replicators as it always has.

We have a very good understanding of horse evolution and which inventions came to the new world and when--all of it makes the BoM look bad--wrong-- fanciful. But the bible of course, is much more off target. Can't you see how you believe a truth and are looking for the data that fits it... scientists don't have that luxury-- in fact, if they want to really make sure they are on the right path, they try to disprove their theories--they test and prod... and they have to fill in only the pieces that they have-- they can't make up their own pieces to fill in the gaps. The Amish still believe the earth is flat and that it is the center of the Universe, because they get all of their education from the bible. The BoM is a terrible book to get your science from if your goal is to know what is true. And so is faith and feelings.