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I didn't imply that it's a cult. I mentioned one aspect that is the mark of a cult.
Great back-pedaling, jencam.
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As to the rest, whatever. You just came around to agreeing to the most important thing I wanted to talk about, how Mormonism contradicts the Bible with belief in multiple Gods. You played with that for pages, and now you're all giggly about me being 'slow' for not understanding my own statement from the start????????
I'm not "giggly" about anything (except maybe some of the outlandish things you believe about us). Trust me, it was extremely frustrating having to explain myself as many times as I did. Oh, and for the record... I have never agreed with you that Mormonism contradicts the Bible. We interpret it differently, that's all. Why can't you just accept that?
(By the way, I do some volunteer work on Saturdays. I need to leave now and won't be back until evening.)
So, let’s talk about archaeology for a while. You are insisting that there is no archaeological evidence for “The Book of Mormon.” You haven’t actually told me yet what would constitute archaeological evidence, and that’s very important to this discussion. You’ve mentioned that the wheel, cattle, horses, Iron and a system of currency are mentioned in the Book of Mormon but did not exist in the Americas prior to the Spanish Conquest. But let’s get real here. It would not make the slightest difference to you if any of these items were to be found. If they were to be discovered, you’d just blow the findings off, which is exactly what you did when we were discussing DNA evidence.
As recently as 1980, barley, which is mentioned four times in the Book of Mormon, was frequently cited by Mormonism’s critics as “just one more of the things that Joseph Smith got wrong” because no evidence had yet been found for it in the New World. Domesticated barley is now known to have existed and has been found in multiple locations stretching from Mexico to the southeastern United States. How many of our critics do you believe were converted to the Church due to this discovery? Well, I can tell you one thing – not as many as one might expect given the excuse of “no barley in America = The Book of Mormon is a fraud” rationale which was so prevalent up until the first barley was discovered. Evidence is not the same thing as proof and even if it was, it does not necessarily lead to belief. Will you become a believer when the wheel, cattle, horses, iron and a system of currency have been proven to exist in Pre-Conquest America? Of course not. I wouldn’t expect you to and I wouldn’t actually think much of you if that was the kind of thing that could convince you to become a believer.
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I think this is a broad misinterpretation.
The New World species Hordeum pusillum (little barley), has very little relationship to barley as we know it that is used by agriculture, Hordeum vulgare, with the two having a common ancestor that reaches back some 12 million years.
If you have information that indicates otherwise, I can not locate that outside of Mormon sources. Yes, there is some evidence that pre-Columbian residents utilized it, but they also used other members of the Poacea family, which includes maize and rice.
It's a stretch to suggest they are the same. Foxtails are in the same genus. Hanging the term "barley" on a plant doesn't mean it's the same thing.
The New World species Hordeum pusillum (little barley), has very little relationship to barley as we know it that is used by agriculture, Hordeum vulgare, with the two having a common ancestor that reaches back some 12 million years.
If you have information that indicates otherwise, I can not locate that outside of Mormon sources. Yes, there is some evidence that pre-Columbian residents utilized it, but they also used other members of the Poacea family, which includes maize and rice.
It's a stretch to suggest they are the same. Foxtails are in the same genus. Hanging the term "barley" on a plant doesn't mean it's the same thing.
So, let's say that the barley mentioned in The Book of Mormon was actually "Hordeum pusillum," do you think that's the word Joseph Smith should have used in his translation?
Actually, she didn't intend to. She intended to answer questions regarding Mormon doctrine and practices. Maybe she should be flattered that people seem to think she is an anthropologist, a linguist, a geneticist, or a historian but she's really not. She does have a very good understanding of Mormon doctrine, though.
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I didn't read the whole thread yet so forgive me if any of these questions were asked.
OK I know Kolob isn't a core teaching or anything but I was wondering how they know Kolob is the actual name. Did a person name it Kolob so people would have a way to refer to it or is it the name God calls it too? If God named it Kolob how did people come into possession of that knowledge? It just seems like it would be a strange piece of information God would seek to convey.
I've pretty much said all we know about Kolob in my very first post. It's mentioned briefly in "The Pearl of Great Price" which is part of our canon. We believe the name was given by revelation to Joseph Smith, but we have no other detail about it.
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Second question: I just saw on the exMo site them talking about a man named Sam Young. What do you know about what's going on with that?
Not a lot, but here's the most recent news. I'm not really sure what kind of "sexually explicit questions" kids are being asked. I know that in the 62 years since I was baptized and in the 68 years since my husband was baptized, neither one of us were ever asked any sexually explicit questions in an interview with a church leader. The closest a question ever came to being "sexually explicit" is the one that is always asked in the temple recommend interview: "Are you morally clean?" We all know what that means. It means "Have you had any sexual relations prior to marriage?" (if you're unmarried) and "Have you had any sexual relations outside of your marriage?" (if you're married). If questions that are more probing than that are being asked, I am totally opposed to the practice and am very much on Sam Young's side. I just haven't experienced anything of the sort myself and neither has my husband.
That is difficult for all of us aspiring. It's especially difficult to please the Mormon God, which is yet another issue I have with the Church. I can't imagine living with the fear of being shunned.
All that pressure to get those pre-existing souls in the womb. I could never deal with it.
So damnation is okay, but shunning something to be avoided?
So, let's say that the barley mentioned in The Book of Mormon was actually "Hordeum pusillum," do you think that's the word Joseph Smith should have used in his translation?
I would suggest Smith was thinking of exactly the barley you and I know as the type that is used for beer and barley soup.
I didn't imply that it's a cult. I mentioned one aspect that is the mark of a cult. As to the rest, whatever. You just came around to agreeing to the most important thing I wanted to talk about, how Mormonism contradicts the Bible with belief in multiple Gods. You played with that for pages, and now you're all giggly about me being 'slow' for not understanding my own statement from the start????????
Oh Jen...you implied it by bringing it up in the first place. There had been no mention of cults previous to your post.
I would suggest Smith was thinking of exactly the barley you and I know as the type that is used for beer and barley soup.
And I'm suggesting that he translated the word using the closest English equivalent he could come up with. You still haven't told me how he should have translated the word if it was actually "Hordeum pusillum" the text referred to. As I said in a prior post, the Spanish conquerors said that the native population had both silk and linen, but they weren't silk and linen after all. Sometimes, an approximation is pretty much your only option.
I would suggest Smith was thinking of exactly the barley you and I know as the type that is used for beer and barley soup.
That's the way Mormon apologetics go. We find anachronistic stuff and say 'that wasn't around at that time' and then it is a case of finding something that was around at the time and claim that this is what Morini wrote, but J Smith 'translated' it into terms that he understood.
That's why I lean on horses, wheels and iron. There is really nothing around when the Nephites were supposed to be in America that credibly fits. Chariots can be passed off as really being wagons or carts, but they still need wheels. From Alaska to Paraguay, no wheels. Nothing to pull a chariot or cart even if they had, unless you have Llamas or Bison harnessed to chariots. For me, like the Book of Abraham, they are the 'touchstone cases' that gives the more debatable objections (like "Barley" - or my inability to see the Nephite currency as making any kind of sense) a bit more weight.
So damnation is okay, but shunning something to be avoided?
And as I've said on many instances in the past (not in this thread, though), we are essentially universalists with respect to what we believe concerning the afterlife. And as I said in this thread, shunning non-believers or former believers is something that we are very pointedly told not to do. It really doesn't matter, though. Even though most of the recent conversation has been between Jencam and me, others are following the thread and I'm really not concerned about how I've answered her questions. It's getting late, though, and I need my beauty sleep. At my age, it takes a lot of sleep.
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