Like I'm not asking for several or a few, but just one piece of evidence, just one. A court needs evidence to convene and proceed.

Is there even one piece of proof a Mormon could use as a discussion?

TBMs will just throw the BoM at you and say, "there!"

A better approach may be to ask questions like:

"Do you truly believe our schools should teach that Middle East Jewish peoples were the first Europeans to 'discover' and populate the Americas?"

"Would you actually advocate changing text books and curriculum accordingly?"

"If not, why not? I thought the BoM was historical truth? If you do believe we should teach this, what facts and evidence would you use in the textbooks to justify?"

This line of questioning could apply to any anachronism in the BoM, and I think it would be effective with anyone who actually has a decent scientific background.

And it's a whole lot easier with the Book of Abraham, since we have the papyrus and we don't have the gold plates.

You're taking the wrong approach here.

Imagine I propose the following hypothesis: "The Earth is a sphere. Everything revolves around it."

Now, let's ask for one piece of evidence. Got it! The Earth is indeed a sphere! This hypothesis is true!

But of course it isn't, as the second part of the hypothesis is false. If you have 1,000,000 parts and only 1 is disproved, the hypothesis is false.

You have to remember a fundamental tenet of the scientific method: you don't prove things are TRUE, you prove them FALSE.

(Sadly, this doesn't work with Mormons, who are highly invested only in proving their religion true and who ignore contradictory evidence. Best bet with them is honestly not to try---it just ruins relationships.)

Xyandro, you're right! It's 100X easier to *disprove* Mormonism, except that they will trump you by simply saying: "Who are you going to believe, my faith in Joseph Smith and my bosomy burnings, or hundreds of easily found facts!!"

No. I cannot prove a false. Except when Joseph Smith prophesied that Gov Boggs would die a violent death within a year. And sent Porter Rockwell to shoot Boggs. Self fulfilled prophecy. Or claiming Elijah would return on Passover (how convenient that he appeared to J.S. in the Kirtland temple to return the keys, on Passover/Easter).

So, now for the real test. If Joseph's prophecies did come true, why did none of the following prophet's revelations come true? Why was there no prophesying for the Gold Rush, airplanes, man on the moon, 9/11, the Great Depression, WWI or WWII or other wars???

So if a TBM proves J.S.'s prophecies, it disproves the later "prophet, seers & revelators" for the lack of translations, revelations and prophecies.

Paul Harvey and Johnny Cash are more prophets than any one the corporation can provide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rysHrMClDE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhCG0Nt7wXs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt_wZ3wdbq4

Yep, just ask active members.

Tree of life rock in Central America.

Pyramyds in central America.

Kinderhook plates.

Smithsonian Institute uses the Book of Mormon to guide archealogical research.

and on and on and on...

All kinds of similar stuff, none of which shows a darned thing relating to Nephites or Reformed Egyptian or anything of the kind - but that does not stop these folks from claiming it does.

The BoM mentions wood and cement. I was inspired to wander around in the woods near my home and .... drum roll ... I found a piece of wood and some pieces of concrete on the ground.

What other proof do you want?

I wrote a discovery letter to John W. Welch (who was in my Riviera 32nd ward at YBme) and almost shipped him the wood and concrete (packaged up in cotton in a nice box). For some reason, I did not follow through. Should have.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2015 09:15PM by beyondashadow.

I don't think that approach would work. They are either going to say you can't prove it because God requires you to have faith or they are going to give a laundry list of silly things like "Joseph Smith couldn't have written the BoM" or Chiasm the witnesses to the BoM, etc.

You can't knock down a TBM testimony just by making one point. You need to provide them with a LOT of items that will weigh down their shelf to the point of collapsing.

If you can get them to read the CES letter or Mormonism-Shadow or Reality, THEN you might convince them. But its hard to convince them to actually read those. I guess you could use reverse pyschology on them.

I'll believe Mormonism when Google directs me there after a search for 'truth.'

right now it's giving me wikipedia, a series of dictionaries and the anti-smoking campaign.