One of my TBM relatives "liked" a FB post by a Mormon guy named Tarik David LaCour. Since that "like" alerted me to the page, I commented on it. LaCour's post was a criticism of a John Dehlin podcast in which he had commented on some statements by apostle Russell Nelson re: the historicity of the BOM. My response:

Just a comment on Russell Nelson's statement re: the Book of Mormon: "It is not a record of all former inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere, but only of particular groups of people.” Actually, according to LDS Church doctrine, the BOM is the history of the *first* inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere. LDS doctrine holds that the Noachic flood circa 4500 YBP was literal and global, and that every human on earth was drowned except for those aboard Noah's ark. The ark landed in the Middle East (presumable Mount Ararat in Turkey), and the human race was repopulated from there. Shortly thereafter came the scattering at the Tower of Babel, which led to the Jaredites emigrating to the western hemisphere. Therefore, the Jaredites had to be the first human inhabitants in the western hemisphere after the flood. Any emigrants from Asia had to arrive in the Americas after the Jaredites, circa 4000 YBP. So, DNA research should show that the first inhabitants of the western hemisphere would have been Semites from the Middle East. For more info, see https://www.lds.org/.../the-flood-and-the-tower-of-babel...

End quote. I took care to only recite orthodox LDS church doctrine and writings. Now I'll see if my post gets deleted or if some Mopologist responds with "Maybe the flood wasn't really global," as Jeff Lindsay did years ago.

Nelson's statement is all kinds of wrong. A tower of Babble.

It doesn't really matter if there was no flood at all, there was a regional flood, etc... We know that the Tower of Babel story is a myth. Bible believers can concede that fact, but Mormons never can.

"It doesn't really matter if there was no flood at all, there was a regional flood, etc... We know that the Tower of Babel story is a myth."

The doctrine of the global flood is vital to demolishing the very foundations of Mormon theology. Obviously, if the flood didn't happen, then neither did the scattering at the tower of Babel.

You see, these modern Mormon leaders such as Russell Nelson, and scholars/apologists like Ugo Perego and Jeff Lindsay, concede that "other people" lived in the Americas before the Jaredites arrived. They are forced to concede that because of the DNA research shows that virtually all Pre-Columbian Amerind strains originated in East Asia, and there is NO evidence of Pre-Columbian DNA introduction from Semitic/Middle Eastern people. But the global flood doctrine mandates that the *first* people to inhabit the Americas after the flood were the Jaredites.

In other words: when the Mopologists concede that Asians emigrated into the Americas in prehistoric times, before the flood, as the DNA and archaelogical evidence shows, they concede that the concept of the great flood as well as the Jaredite crossing are bogus.

Unfortunately, most TBMs, even the leaders and scholars, are too stupid to understand this.

I checked back on that page this morning, and no one has replied to my comments.

Is this the article you meant about the Flood and the Tower?
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1998/01/the-flood-and-the-tower-of-babel?lang=eng

What a bunch of nonsense! Quick version: Science is mistaken, because propets said something different.

"Is this the article you meant about the Flood and the Tower?"

Yep. That's the same article that Duwayne Anderson and I cited when debating this subject with Mopologist Jeff Lindsay on ARM back in 2002:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.religion.mormon/Rr6xfA7f3VM

My very, very brief experience with Bro. LaCour is that he doesn't much appreciate opposition to his views. But rather than expose himself to further criticism, he simply ignores what you have to say. He doesn't seem to want to get tied up in the minutiae of being wrong.

"My very, very brief experience with Bro. LaCour is that he doesn't much appreciate opposition to his views. But rather than expose himself to further criticism, he simply ignores what you have to say."

My agenda in debating these issues with Mopologists for about eight years was not so much as to de-convert the rabid, incorrigible fanatics, but to try to influence some readers who might possess a smidgen of rational reasoning capacity. I only responded on LaCour's page because one of my Mormon relatives had "liked" it. I have a dozen or so TBM relatives who occasionally "like" or forward such Mormon material, so my hope is that some of them will read my comments and that will jog a brain cell or two.

Like most of us Ex-Mos, my TBM relatives don't want to know why my family left the church 20 years ago. They're afraid to ask, and when I attempt to tell them, they quickly change the subject or just declare that the church is true and we are sinners who were wrong to leave it. I could just remain silent, but when one of my TBM relatives provides me with an opening like this one where I can shed a little light, I'll try to do so. I'll be interested to see what responses any TBMs give to my remarks.

I glanced back at LaCour's page and noted his employment:

"Custodian at Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."

In other words, he has no job.

...named Stephen Smoot:

"Since when has an Ensign article written over a decade ago by a BYU professor constituted "official doctrine"?

I replied:

"If you bother to read the article, you will see that Parry quotes the numerous scriptural verses which affirm that the Noachic flood was global, including: "[Gen. 7:23] states, “Every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl.” Moses’ list of those destroyed by the Flood is inclusive; only Noah “remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.” If Russell Nelson believes that any humans lived in the Americas between the time of the flood and the arrival of the Jaredites, he either doesn't know his own church doctrines or he doesn't believe in them."

Smoot's ignorant response was predictable: in my years of debating Mopologists, whenever I would quote a GA, they'd respond with "GAs' statements are not official doctrine." That's why I informed Smoot (who obviously didn't even glance at the article) that the article quoted the scriptural verses which supported his remarks.

"Since when has an Ensign article written over a decade ago by a BYU professor constituted 'official doctrine'?"

I would respond: "Well, this Ensign article is teaching either true doctrine or false doctrine. Take your pick, Mr. Smoot."

"I would respond: "Well, this Ensign article is teaching either true doctrine or false doctrine. Take your pick, Mr. Smoot."

Indeed. In order to make Russell Nelson look good, Smoot is forced to opine that the Ensign magazine is in the business of disseminating false church doctrine.

By the way, here are Donald Parry's bona fides:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_W._Parry

He's written or co-written numerous scholarly works, including some on the Dead Sea Scrolls. We know that Daniel Peterson has also done work on the Dead Sea Scrolls, so undoubtedly he and Parry are colleagues. I wonder what Peterson thinks of Parry's Ensign article.

Blasphemy... go on.

If you have access to seminary and Sunday school manuals from just a few years ago, those teach literal global flood.

The latest versions back off from direct claims but don't deny it any form.

"If you have access to seminary and Sunday school manuals from just a few years ago, those teach literal global flood."

In the original 2002 thread from alt.religion.mormon where this issue was debated, one poster contributed this:

From the Syllabus for Religion 327 – Lesson 12 Noah and the Flood,
being taught this semester at BYU:

Was the Flood universal?

Moses 8:30 - "I will destroy all flesh from off the earth."

Genesis 6:13

Genesis 7:21-23

Ether 13:2 - "after the waters has receded from off the face of this
land . . ."

"The earth . . . has been baptized with water, and will, in the future
be baptized with fire and the Holy Ghost, to be prepared to go back
into the celestial presence of God." (Brigham Young, Discourses of
Brigham Young, 603)

"Latter-day Saints look upon the earth as a living organism, one which
is gloriously filling "the measure of its creation." They look upon
the flood as a baptism of the earth, symbolizing a cleansing of the
impurities of the past, and the beginning of a new life. This has been
repeatedly taught by the leaders of the Church. The deluge was an
immersion of the earth in water. (Elder John A. Widtsoe, Evidences and
Reconciliations, 127-28)

"The Lord baptized the earth for the remission of sins and it has been
once cleansed from the filthiness that has gone out of it which was in
the inhabitants who dwelt upon its face." (Brigham Young, JD, 1:274)

"The first ordinance instituted for the cleansing of the earth, was
that of immersion in water; it was buried in the liquid element, and
all things sinful upon the face of it were washed away. As it came
forth from the ocean flood, like the new-born child, it was innocent,
it arose to newness of life; it was its second birth from the womb of
mighty waters--a new world issuing from the ruins of the old, clothed
with all the innocency of its first creation." (Orson Pratt, JD 1:331)

"Some doubt that there was a flood, but by modern revelation we know
that it did take place. By modern revelation we know that for more
than a century, Noah pleaded with the people to repent, but in their
willful stubbornness they would not listen to him. (Mark E. Petersen,
Ensign, Nov. 1981, 65)

"The whole family of man was destroyed, except Noah and those seven
souls who received his testimony, a part of his family, and a part
only, for there were children that Noah had who rejected his
testimony, and who also shared in the destruction that came upon the
inhabitants of the earth." (George Q. Cannon, JD, 26:81)

I was taught this doctrine my whole life, in many wards, across many states and countries.

To say otherwise is straight up lying for the lawd.

screw mopologists

you go Randy !

Interested if Mr. Smoot replied to your comment.

What the apologists and everybody else glosses over is the real world, practical implication of belief in a global flood: the priesthood ban depended on it. No global flood, no priesthood ban. The reason for this is simple: if there were other people on earth during the time of Noah that did not die in the flood, and if the flood didn't cover all of Africa, then not all people of African ancestry need be descended from Ham. The priesthood ban depended on the assumption that all black people are descended from Ham (Abraham 1:24). A non universal flood completely delegitimizes the notion that you can predict descent from Ham on the basis of skin color (not that the notion has any legitimacy otherwise).

On a personal note, my deconversion was gradual, and the pathway out of true belief was paved by apologetics. Once I realized that there was no global flood, I knew that the priesthood ban couldn't be valid. That meant that prophets and apostles don't always teach the truth. Jeff Lindsay and his ilk can claim all they want that Mormons aren't bound to believe what individual church leaders teach, but clearly the church leaders themselves can't tell the difference between their own opinions and divine truth. By abdicating to the apologists, the apostles are sowing the seeds of their own undoing.

The main tactic of apologists is to shrink the doctrine. They do this to win debates on the internet. I could respect them if they go back to church and tell the pew potatoes that they need not believe in a universal flood or that it's OK to believe in evolution, but they don't. They preach one version of Mormonism on the internet and through their silence support a different version for true believers on Sundays. This makes them dishonest charlatans, plain and simple.

I taught gospel doctrine for the last 6-7 years that I actively attended church, and I taught in four different wards around the US. For most of that, I was a liberal believer who reinterpreted the scriptures in a way to make them compatible with science. Based on my experience, the vast majority of members believe in a universal flood and reject evolution. They do this because they read the scriptures and actually believe them. This matters because it propped up the priesthood ban. Don't let the apologists get away with letting people think otherwise.

"What the apologists and everybody else glosses over is the real world, practical implication of belief in a global flood: the priesthood ban depended on it. No global flood, no priesthood ban."

True, and another point that demolishes Mormon theology is their teaching that after Jesus died, he went to the "spirit prison" to initiate the teaching of the gospel to those who had drowned in the flood without having had the opportunity to hear it while alive. 1 Peter chapter 3 was the "missionary scripture" we used when I was a missionary and taught from the discussion manual "The Uniform System For Teaching Families":

18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

We followed that verse up with 4:6:

6 For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

If there was no global flood, then these verses, as well as the entire concept of "salvation for the dead," are moot.

"The priesthood ban depended on the assumption that all black people are descended from Ham (Abraham 1:24)."

I thought the latest official reason for the ban was that we don't know who decided or why there was a ban other than maybe some past leaders racist (acceptable at the time) leanings. They were just speaking as men at the time and god was ok with it cuz the people (white and black) weren't ready for blacks to hold the priesthood.

Yes, that is the latest squid ink, but the general authorities from Brigham Young onward who initiated and perpetuated the ban gave their reasons at the time. You have to stick your head in the sand, historiographically speaking, not to know where the ban came from or why. Early leaders weren't as coy as they are today. They were very clear that it had to do with descent from Cain through Ham's wife.

Wow! Over and over I see how this board is like a keeper of historical facts. When the LDS church tries to change their story or make the inconvenient past disappear, someone here pulls out a piece of long-buried factual information, or a scripture, or a quote from a GA, or from an official church document, and WHAM! Take THAT, LDS church!

"You have to stick your head in the sand, historiographically speaking..."

That's pretty much mormonism in a nutshell.

"I thought the latest official reason for the ban was that we don't know who decided or why there was a ban other than maybe some past leaders' racist (acceptable at the time) leanings."

Yep, that's what they're saying now, but of course, that explanation concedes that past leaders who taught the incorrect dogma for over 100 years were false prophets. It's kinda hard for Mormons to sing "We Thank Thee, O God, For a Prophet" and "Follow the prophet, he knows the way," when the prophets obviously don't know the way.

Great point randyj and Jude. They've painted themselves into two corners and like a 5 year old trying to undo a lie, they sink deeper.

My experience with TBMs concerning these hardball issues is they cop to the, "Well, all the mysteries will be known eventually" plea.

BS! We know all of this RIGHT NOW! There are no mysteries in this......either A happened or B happened. They are mutually exclusive events by any measure of logic.
Your doctine teaches they both happened, so the only mystery is why do you still believe in it?

This reminds me of what an old lady in the ward told me when I was in college.

"Too much book learning will destroy your testimony. Be careful what classes you take."


Man was she ever right. The only safe classes for a mormon to take in college are business related. Stay away from history, biology, chemistry, geology, etc.

I responded to another poster named Morgan on that thread:

I hope you don't mind me horning in on this discussion. One of my Mormon relatives "liked" this FB page, so I came here to see what people were discussing. I glanced at the essay you refer to, and found this statement: "The evidence assembled to date suggests that the majority of Native Americans carry largely Asian DNA. Scientists theorize that in an era that predated Book of Mormon accounts, a relatively small group of people migrated from northeast Asia to the Americas by way of a land bridge that connected Siberia to Alaska. These people, scientists say, spread rapidly to fill North and South America and were likely the primary ancestors of modern American Indians." Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that LDS doctrine holds that the Noachic flood was literal and global. Since the flood occurred about 4500 years ago, that means that any people living in the Americas would have died in the flood. So how can the church's essay opine that Asian-descended people "were likely the primary ancestors of the American Indians," when those people all drowned in the flood? Since the Book of Mormon says that the first people to emigrate to the Americas after the flood were the Jaredites, then shouldn't the DNA makeup of pure-blooded Pre-Columbian Indians be primarily Semitic, or closely related to Middle Eastern/Israeli peoples?

I followed that up with:

That essay also states: "Nothing is known about the DNA of Book of Mormon peoples, and even if their genetic profile were known, there are sound scientific reasons that it might remain undetected." Why is nothing known about the DNA of Book of Mormon peoples? Weren't they descended from the people who were aboard Noah's ark circa 4500 years ago? Didn't Noah's ark land in the Middle East, and its inhabitants become the ancestors of the Semitic people? Shouldn't the Book of Mormon peoples' DNA be closely related to Semites?

Morgan replied:

"Lots of things should be that aren't. Science in one pocket, religion in the other. True believers will not be dissuaded. No amount of evidence or factual information will make any difference. I just jump in on this stuff every now and then to remind myself that nothing has changed. No, Randy! Don't mind at all. This kind of exercise can be really interesting and fun."

None of the Peter Priesthoods have responded to any of my posts.

Nobody else on that thread replied to any of my posts, so I wrote another post to Morgan. My intent was to spur the TBMs to recognize the contradictions in Mormon teachings:

Thanks for responding. I was hoping that someone here could help me reconcile the contradictions between the church's essay re: The Book of Mormon and DNA and the church's doctrines re: the Noachic flood. No one else has responded to me, so I suppose that means that no one has any answers. Another conflict that occurred to me on these issues is the LDS doctrine that the first humans, Adam and Eve, lived in the Garden of Eden, which was in western Missouri, about 6000 years ago. But archaelogical and DNA research over the last half-century or so indicates that the Missouri area has been inhabited by Amerinds for about 10,000 years. So, how does that square with LDS teachings? Was the Garden of Eden some hidden place where Adam and Eve lived, isolated from the prehistoric Amerinds who were living all around them? After God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden, did they intermingle with the Amerinds? Here's an article which gives the timeline of Amerind habitation of the Missouri area: http://www.warpaths2peacepipes.com/.../history-of...

Enjoying this thread and also hoping for some responses to your comments.

iris Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Enjoying this thread and also hoping for some
> responses to your comments.


Ditto!

I enjoy your posts. This one was exceptionally fun to follow. Thanks for keeping your end of the world in reality. I'm doing my best to keep my circle in reality.