LDS

[RandFan]

And that is precisely what Joseph Smith recognized long before 21st century biblical scholars identifed (and continue to identify) countless errors in the KJV.

It's refreshing to see that you agree, albeit a bit late, with Joseph Smith.

The errors were known about more than a thousand years ago. Why do you think there are so many versions? The statement is trivially true, a tautology. The only possible value to the statement is to separate oneself from a Bible literalist. Otherwise it's little more informative than saying that the sky is blue except when it is not.

In any event, what objective means do we have to know when it is translated correctly? We CAN'T know. We can get a pretty good idea through looking at various manuscripts and applying logic and reason (see misquoting Jesus).

Hey, can you knock it off with the snark? It's not very charitable. I'm not attacking you personally. Could you treat me in kind. I'm not asking you to turn the other cheek. I'm asking you for a little civility.

 

[kerikiwi]

Here is what you wrote in Post 6380: "But he [Romney] and and most wealthy Mormons store up treasures on Earth as much as they can" [emphasis added].

Slip and slide all you wish, but that is rank speculation on your part, a practice to which you are no stranger.

Unless you have your own unique definition of 'wealthy' this makes no sense.
The definition of 'wealthy' would include 'treasures'. It involves no speculation.

It is a statement of fact.
If a person (Mormon or otherwise) is wealthy, that person has stored up treasures on earth.

 

[skyrider44]

If a person (Mormon or otherwise) is wealthy, that person has stored up treasures on earth.

"Storing up" is a process that takes time; one doesn't suddenly "store up" great wealth.

A principal way one gains great wealth without storing it up is by inheriting it. Another way is to win a personal injury lawsuit. When RF wrote "most wealthy Mormons store up treasures on Earth as much as they can," he was engaging in speculation. He doesn't know how "most" wealthy Mormons obtained their wealth, he doesn't know by what means they have added to it, and he doesn't know if they are, in fact, actually dedicated to "adding to it."

His statement unfairly suggests that most wealthy LDS are greedy and money obsessed. He has no way of proving that.

 

[RandFan]

"Storing up" is a process that takes time; one doesn't suddenly "store up" great wealth.

A principal way one gains great wealth without storing it up is by inheriting it. Another way is to win a personal injury lawsuit. When RF wrote "most wealthy Mormons store up treasures on Earth as much as they can," he was engaging in speculation. He doesn't know how "most" wealthy Mormons obtained their wealth, he doesn't know by what means they have added to it, and he doesn't know if they are, in fact, actually dedicated to "adding to it."

His statement unfairly suggests that most wealthy LDS are greedy and money obsessed. He has no way of proving that.

You are reading far too much into my quote. I make no judgements whatsoever about being greedy. I'm simply comparing the words of Christ to reality. Lots of Mormons who are wealthy have been their whole lives regardless of where the money came from. If you inherit millions and you are a follower of Christ then it seems to me that the thing to do is give most of it away, right? If you don't then what are you doing with it? Storing it, right? So, if it makes you feel better I will amend my statement to mean folks like Marriot and Romney who have been wealthy their entire lives and have the equivalent of many, many store rooms of gold. Those who give the money away as soon as they earn it don't "store" riches. And those people exist and they are, IMO, following the words of Christ. Those who horde their wealth, IMO, are not.

Romney put a car elevator into one of his homes. Where does that fit in with god's plan of salvation?

 

[Slowvehicle]

And that is precisely what Joseph Smith recognized long before 21st century biblical scholars identifed (and continue to identify) countless errors in the KJV.

It's refreshing to see that you agree, albeit a bit late, with Joseph Smiith.

What, then, of Joseph Smith's errors?

 

[jsfisher]

His statement unfairly suggests that most wealthy LDS are greedy and money obsessed. He has no way of proving that.

That wasn't how I took his remark at all. You may be trying too hard to find fault.

 

[jsfisher]

Hey, can you knock it off with the snark? It's not very charitable. I'm not attacking you personally. Could you treat me in kind. I'm not asking you to turn the other cheek. I'm asking you for a little civility.

At the risk of sparking a "well, he started it!!" derail, I will point out that skyrider44 has been on the receiving end of some measure of snark and snipe (from posters not RandFan, just to be clear). RandFan, I think you are simply the "beneficiary" of the tone some others of us have set.

As for my own part, I am guilty of contributing to the incivility, and for that I apologize.

 

[RandFan]

At the risk of sparking a "well, he started it!!" derail, I will point out that skyrider44 has been on the receiving end of some measure of snark and snipe (from posters not RandFan, just to be clear). RandFan, I think you are simply the "beneficiary" of the tone some others of us have set.

As for my own part, I am guilty of contributing to the incivility, and for that I apologize.

Thanks, I'm willing to admit that I have probably contributed to the snark. I'm not an innocent. Having been the minority voice in the past on different threads and other forums I understand his position.

Skyrider44, thanks for your willingness to come to this forum and engage with us.

 

[skyrider44]

At the risk of sparking a "well, he started it!!" derail, I will point out that skyrider44 has been on the receiving end of some measure of snark and snipe (from posters not RandFan, just to be clear). RandFan, I think you are simply the "beneficiary" of the tone some others of us have set.

As for my own part, I am guilty of contributing to the incivility, and for that I apologize.

I appreciate, probably more than I'm capable of adequatey expressing, your gracious statement. I, too, apologize--to one and all--for my outbursts of incivility.

 

[Navigator]

You are reading far too much into my quote. I make no judgements whatsoever about being greedy. I'm simply comparing the words of Christ to reality. Lots of Mormons who are wealthy have been their whole lives regardless of where the money came from. If you inherit millions and you are a follower of Christ then it seems to me that the thing to do is give most of it away, right? If you don't then what are you doing with it? Storing it, right? So, if it makes you feel better I will amend my statement to mean folks like Marriot and Romney who have been wealthy their entire lives and have the equivalent of many, many store rooms of gold. Those who give the money away as soon as they earn it don't "store" riches. And those people exist and they are, IMO, following the words of Christ. Those who horde their wealth, IMO, are not.

Romney put a car elevator into one of his homes. Where does that fit in with god's plan of salvation?

Not a lot I would guess. Although hoarding riches instead of sharing them probably adds fuel to the CTers fire as far as those who see sense in believing that the rich are building kingdoms for themselves and thus are against Jesus.

 

[deaman]

Janadele, are you watching this exchange between these civil human beings?

What do you think?

 

[jsfisher]

I appreciate, probably more than I'm capable of adequatey expressing, your gracious statement. I, too, apologize--to one and all--for my outbursts of incivility.

I blame RandFan. He somehow manages to elicit positive behavior from even the worst reprobate.

 

[skyrider44]

Janadele:

I am fairly certain you will not engage with this, but do you have any idea how long 5 million years is?

Equus (the modern horse) evolved in North America. The reason that the claims of horse culture in the BoM are (to be generous) egregious error, or (to be more accurate) outright invention is that Equus went extinct in the late Pleistocene, 10,000-12,500 years ago. By the time of the supposed "Jaderite" civilization, horses had been extinct for at least 7,500 years.

In other words, of course horse and camel fossils are found in the New World. However, those fossils date from long before the actual civilizations in the pre-Colombian Americas (I cannot recommend 1491, by Charles Mann, too strongly--you really should read it).

And, of course, 5-million-year-old horse and camel fossils, or 700,000-year-old Pzrewalski's horse fossils, offer no support to the unsupported claims of barley domestication, cattle domestication, or steelmaking technology...to say nothing of the absurd claims of the origins of humans living in the New World...

I still eagerly await your presentation of practical,empirical, physical evidence, attested to by neutral scholars.

Some on this forum seem to believe that science, here in 2013, has given us definitive, set-in-concrete answers to subjects not unlike the ones raised above. I am not saying that the answers we now have are wrong. I am saying that as scientific disciplines advance, some of the answers we now view as conclusive may turn out to require reformulation--or even dismissal. There is clear precedent in the history of science for just such developments; i.e., the liver circulates blood, earth is center of the universe, surgeons didn't need to wash their hands, DNA not especially important (proteins were key to heredity), the atom is the smallest particle in existence, the earth is only 6,000 years old, plowing land causes rainfall, heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones (shame on Aristotle), lead can be morped into gold (alchemy). (Source: Top 10 Science Mistakes - Science Channel)

We laugh at those errors today, but it's just possible that 50 years from now people will be laughing at some of what science tells us today. We may not know what we think we know. Moreover, it's possible that the BoM may be vindicated. I'm not saying that it will be; I'm saying that it's a possibility. To claim that it isn't a possibility, is, in a sense, to deny that scientific knowledge evolves.

 

[Janadele]

Wise words skyrider44

 

[AdMan]

Some on this forum seem to believe that science, here in 2013, has given us definitive, set-in-concrete answers to subjects not unlike the ones raised above. I am not saying that the answers we now have are wrong. I am saying that as scientific disciplines advance, some of the answers we now view as conclusive may turn out to require reformulation--or even dismissal. There is clear precedent in the history of science for just such developments; i.e., the liver circulates blood, earth is center of the universe, surgeons didn't need to wash their hands, DNA not especially important (proteins were key to heredity), the atom is the smallest particle in existence, the earth is only 6,000 years old, plowing land causes rainfall, heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones (shame on Aristotle), lead can be morped into gold (alchemy). (Source: Top 10 Science Mistakes - Science Channel)

We laugh at those errors today, but it's just possible that 50 years from now people will be laughing at some of what science tells us today. We may not know what we think we know.

Of course it's possible. This is how science works. Nobody who understands science believes otherwise. Scientific hypotheses and theories are meant to be continually and exhaustively tested--true scientists actively welcome others to come and try to prove their own hypotheses wrong. This is the essence of science. It is continually testing itself, correcting and improving.

When has religion done anything remotely like that? When have LDS elders welcomed scientists and scholars to test the stories in the BoM, to try to prove them wrong, and when have they been open for the stories to be shown to be inaccurate?

 

[Slowvehicle]

Some on this forum seem to believe that science, here in 2013, has given us definitive, set-in-concrete answers to subjects not unlike the ones raised above. I am not saying that the answers we now have are wrong. I am saying that as scientific disciplines advance, some of the answers we now view as conclusive may turn out to require reformulation--or even dismissal. There is clear precedent in the history of science for just such developments; i.e., the liver circulates blood, earth is center of the universe, surgeons didn't need to wash their hands, DNA not especially important (proteins were key to heredity), the atom is the smallest particle in existence, the earth is only 6,000 years old, plowing land causes rainfall, heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones (shame on Aristotle), lead can be morped into gold (alchemy). (Source: Top 10 Science Mistakes - Science Channel)

We laugh at those errors today, but it's just possible that 50 years from now people will be laughing at some of what science tells us today. We may not know what we think we know. Moreover, it's possible that the BoM may be vindicated. I'm not saying that it will be; I'm saying that it's a possibility. To claim that it isn't a possibility, is, in a sense, to deny that scientific knowledge evolves.

I appreciate your admission that, at this point, there is no practical, empirical, objective evidence, attested to by neutral scholars of the truth of the anachronisms claimed in the BoM to have existed in the pre-Colombian Americas.

There is practical, empirical, objective evidence, attested to be genrations of Egyptologists, linguists, ethnographers, and historians, that the BoA is not Abraham's autographic record of his time in Egypt, but a demonstrably fabricated mistranslation of a common Egyptian funnerary text.

There is practical, empirical, objective evidence that the peoples of the new world are not genetically descended from asiatic hebrews.

The differences between the errors in the BoM and the errors in your Science Channel list is that the latter were supplanted by evidence. Not by creed, not by decree, not by faith--evidence.

Read my question again. All along I have been asking you, and Janadele, for your list of evidence. Your statement that there is, at this point, none to be offered means that you can stop pretending that the problem is my lack of preparation, or my lack of understanding of the depth and breach of LDS scholarship.

 

[RandFan]

Some on this forum seem to believe that science, here in 2013, has given us definitive, set-in-concrete answers to subjects not unlike the ones raised above.

Science is not absolute. We've learned from relativity and quantum mechanics that the nature of nature is beyond such absolutes. There are no definitive truths. There are only error bars. Absolute truth is the stuff of religion. Every scientific "fact" is held scientifically as provisional.

Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world.

Top 10 Science Mistakes - Science Channel)

It is through our mistakes that we grow. Science is a self correcting process. There is no dogma. Red Shift theory, solar wind, radio waves, etc., etc., have all challenged conventional wisdom and won.

That's the greatest difference between science and religion. When Brigham Young was alive he claimed to talk to god and revealed fantastic revelations that the Mormon church, many decades later, abandoned. Religion has a very hard time changing. For science, if you are not changing the paradigm then you are doing it wrong. In religion, if you try to change the paradigm you are a heretic and subject to excommunication and even burning at the stake.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Wise words skyrider44

Do you agree, then, that there is, at this point, no practical, empirical, objective evidence that any culture in the pre-Colombian Americas husbanded horses? (The fact that there is a wealth of evidence that they did not so is another issue. Horses...change...societies. Those changes are not seen in any facet of pre-Colombian cultures.)

Do you agree, then, that there is, at this point, no practical, empirical, objective evidence of any of the other anachronisms claimed by the BoM to have existed, in any culture in the pre-Colombian Americas?

If not--please, by all means, present your evidence. I would be fascinated to find out new things to learn.

And, seriously, read 1491. Fascinating.

 

[Nay_Sayer]

Do you agree, then, that there is, at this point, no practical, empirical, objective evidence that any culture in the pre-Colombian Americas husbanded horses? (The fact that there is a wealth of evidence that they did not so is another issue. Horses...change...societies. Those changes are not seen in any facet of pre-Colombian cultures.)

Do you agree, then, that there is, at this point, no practical, empirical, objective evidence of any of the other anachronisms claimed by the BoM to have existed, in any culture in the pre-Colombian Americas?

If not--please, by all means, present your evidence. I would be fascinated to find out new things to learn.

And, seriously, read 1491. Fascinating.

It would seem their just here to pat each others backs on a job not well done.

 

[Pixel42]

Anyone who inherits (or in any other way obtains) great wealth and doesn't give it to the poor is (a) storing it and (b) not following the teachings of Jesus.