It happened again.
I was just mentioning, in context (we were visiting a natural history museum), how there was a recent National Geographic article arguing that the arrival of Man conincides with the mass extinction of "megafauna" in Australia and the Americas in the 40,000 to 15,000 YA range.
DW is wary of my vulnerability to scientific arguments that strain the church's version of events. Sensing the implication that the scientific view of the migration of Man disagrees with the Biblical view, she says "I don't think that could have happened, no matter what proof you think you have". And that's verbatim.

"...no matter what proof you think you have".

That's the church's free pass. Dismiss an argument without any rationale, and offer no counterargument.

When I first mentioned to my tbm dh that there was no physical evidence that the bom people ever exsisted,he said we have to have faith...we just don't know where they actually lived. They can use that reasoning for anything they want. Or say "we won't know that until the next life." And they say it so casually and like it makes such perfect sense.

The Church knows exactly where the Hill Cumorah is - the Prophets have said it's the hill where the plates were found in New York state.

So we and the Church know exactly where to look for proof.
Guess what...no proof.

@loveskids -- I actually started going down this path a few weeks ago. Brainstorming to come up with crazy apologetic arguments that may present themselves in the coming years. Here is what I came up with:

1. The BOM actually took place in Australia. The "dark" people there are the lamanites.

2. The BOM took place on Mars. The boats were spaceships.

3. The BOM took place in the center of the earth, ala the lost 10 tribes.

4. The BOM took place in another, parallel dimension / universe.

See? You can go on and on. I'm a genius!

What frustrates me, is that man's scientific proof is dismissed as being merely from men. Yet, purely subjective, non-proveable Mormon "impressions, promptings and revelations" are supposedly from God, so those supercede men's facts.

--But--if you have your own gut feeling, or intuition, or heartfelt conviction about something--the Mormons dismiss that as well! It is considered to be Satan influencing you, because it doesn't come from cult sources. "Natural man is an enemy to God", and all that.

No wonder so many of us were hurt by bad advice and poor decisions.

IMO those kinds of people should have their "Science Benefits" card revoked. They should not be allowed to fly on airplanes or have vaccines or otherwise benefit from scientific facts or "proof" of how they work.

Just kidding, but sheesh.

You can ignore almost anything with that, from drinking Coke to BoM historicity.