LDS leaders have long claimed that the Biblical chronology is historically accurate. Stories like Noah's Flood, The Garden of Eden, and the Tower of Babel are all essential to LDS theology and are firmly established in LDS scripture.

If there was no Garden of Eden, then there was no Fall and no need for the atonement. LDS theology loses a central element. If there was no Great Flood, then the Earth's "baptism" never happened and the Bible loses a lot of credibility. If the Tower of Babel never happened, then the Jaredites never existed and the Book of Ether is proven to be fraudulent. These are major problems for LDS theology and ones that cannot simply be explained away by apologists.

If any LDS apologist thinks that the 6,000 year Earth is not central to LDS theology, I suggest that they take it up with their prophet Joseph Fielding Smith who used LDS scriptures to defend the 6,000 year Earth in Doctrines of Salvation chapters 5 and 9. He calls anyone who doubts Biblical literacy an apostate. It looks like LDS apologists have been disowned by their own prophet!

If Genesis is an actual historical record and not a collection of Bronze Age myths and analogies, we have some clues for an actual chronology. Bishop Ussher created the most commonly accepted timeline for the Bible and supports it with Biblical verses. Most other chronologies are within a few years of the Ussher timeline. Joseph Fielding Smith and other prominent LDS leaders have supported a similar timeline, so I will use it for our purposes.

Basically, the Ussher chronology says that the Earth was created in 4004 BC and the Fall of man happened soon after. Noah's Flood happened in 2349 BC or so. The Tower of Babel was about a century later. Now, it is very easy to test this and see how these dates match up with what we know from high school world history. I submit 7 irrefutable, common-knowledge, and simple evidences that blow Biblical literalism out of the water and provide a devastating blow to LDS theology.

1. The Pyramids

Everyone knows that they are there. Even LDS apologists can't deny their existence. So how does their very existence destroy LDS theology? Because every single one of them was built hundreds of years before the Flood supposedly wiped out humanity. The Great Pyramid of Khufu in Giza was built around 2550 BC according to Egyptian records. That is 200 years before the flood. Embarassingly, God's miles high flood made no mark on the pyramids or their contents. The mummies and artifacts inside are still dry and in great shape. If there really had been enough water to cover the Earth, it would have exerted a force of at least 2 million pounds per square foot on the Pyramids. This amount of pressure would have completely destroyed the antiquated architecture.

2. Tree Rings

Dendrochronology, the study of tree rings, is an interesting and informative science that can tell us much about history. Every year, each tree creates a new growth ring. The size of this ring depends on the conditions of that year. Scientists can take cores of these trees and count the number of tree rings in order to give the age of the tree. Each year has a distinctive pattern depending on the local conditions. Amazingly, we have a species of tree, known as Bristlecone Pines, that provide a record of tree rings that extends back 11,000 years to 9,000 BC. This is an obvious problem for those that believe that the Earth was still "matter unorganized" back then. We even have a tree, known as Methuselah, that has now been alive for 4,842 years and counting as shown by its rings. That means that the tree was born in 2831 BC. This tree (and many others) kept living right on through the Flood that supposedly killed everything in 2350. The lowly Bristlecone Pine has toppled the Holy Bible simply by living when it should have died.

3 Carbon Dating

Radiometric dating is one of the strongest killers of Biblical literacy and one that creationists love to hate. Basically, radiometric dating measures the amount of an isotope and its decayed products are present in a given sample. It is based on the universally admitted fact that radioactive things decay at a certain rate. Through simple math, one can figure out the age of the sample. Radiometric dating is important because it proves that fossils are much older than a few thousand years old. This data shows that the Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years which obviously destroys the Ussher Chronology. Creationists often claim that "decay rates may have changed" or "I carbon dated my dead cat and the answer was off, so..." I have heard all kinds of silly attempts to discredit radiometric dating. The fact remains that we have used this method with not only carbon-14, but with more than 50 other isotopes to confirm the dates. Each of these 50 isotopes decays at a different rate. Yet, they all agree that the Earth is more than 4.5 billion years old. This is important. The half-lives for isotopes range from 70*10^-18 seconds for Be-8 to 2.2810^24 years for Te-128. This is a huge range of time. That means that God would have had to speed up each of the 50 isotope's half-lives by vastly different factors in order to fool us into thinking that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. How ridiculous. My question is: why do creationists make insane claims about basic laws of physics in order to defend a Bronze Age myth?

4 Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Sumerian

Before 2250 BC and the Tower of Babel, according to LDS mythology, the only language on the planet was Adamic. All of the other languages, including Egyptian and Sumerian, were created by the confusion of tongues. The Jaredites escaped with their pure Adamic language intact (and wrote it on the Kinderhook plates). Therefore, it is devastating that we have found hundreds of examples of writing that date to a thousand years before the Tower of Babel. Egyptian writings are also powerful evidence against Biblical literalism. The first known Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription was the Narmer Palette which is a collection of writing that dates to 3200 BC. This writing existed 1,000 years before the Tower of Babel when the Egyptian language was supposedly created. The first examples of Sumerian Cuneiform date to 3300 BC. Obviously, two completely different languages existed long before the Tower of Babel "created" them all and neither of them was Adamic. By this point, Mormons must really hate Egyptian papyri and those that can actually read them.

5 Egyptian Dynastic Records

Thanks to a well-developed system of record keeping and well-preserved papyri (which oddly enough, survived the Flood), we know an amazing amount about the Egyptian dynasties of the Old Kingdom. We know the exact years that each pharoah rose to power and then was replaced beginning with the Pharoah Zanakht, who rose to power in 2649. This line continues unbroken until the Pharoah Unas (2356-2323 BC) who obviously survived the "Global Flood" in 2349. This line continues until Nemtyenmzaf (2255-2246 BC) who reigned while God was changing everyone's language. Luckily, God forgot Egypt existed and no major disruptive linguistic change occurred during those few centuries when the Tower of Babel suppposedly happened. Also of interest, the Pearl of Great Price states that Egypt was founded by Ham's Granddaughter, Egyptus, a little while after the Flood. Really? Egypt was founded almost a thousand years after their own records say that the dynasties began and more than 400 years after the greatest pyramids were built? I would love to see Daniel Petersen defend that.

6 Kangaroos, Lemurs, and Emus

Besides the obvious absurdity that Noah crammed 2 of each of the more than 5,000 mammal species, 10,000 bird species, 1,000,000 insect species, and 9,000 reptile species in a 450 foot long boat, there are other biological problems with the Bible. Leaving aside all the evidence for evolution, we can look at current animal distribution to see that Noah's Ark is bunk. Supposedly, Noah collected 2 of each animal into his boat and rode the Flood out for a year until he disembarked and released all of these animals from one point on Earth (legend says in Turkey). They then reproduced and spread out to where they are now.

If this were true, animals would be present wherever they could have migrated since the Flood. Animals go where they can survive. That would mean that there would not be the kind of differences that we see in the world. Why are most Marsupials in Australia? Are we really expected to believe that all the Kangaroos got off the Ark and made a beeline for Australia without leaving one behind on the mainland? Why did all the Lemurs head for Madagascar? Why are the platyrrhines only found in the Western Hemisphere and catarrhines only in the Old World? How did all those animals get to Australia or any other island at all? How did tapirs survive crossing Siberia in order to be the Nephite horses? I could list such problems in animal distribution forever. These questions are all easily answered by evolution, but they really make no sense if we accept Genesis.

7 Oil and Coal

Every time a creationist drives he is benefitting from the fact that he is wrong.

Petroleum only exists because the Earth is billions of years old. As most know, it is formed when the remains of phytoplankton and zooplankton settle to the bottom of the sea and are compressed and decomposed in anaerobic conditions. There is no other way to make petroleum. Enormous amounts of heat, pressure, and time are require to create petroleum. Only geologic time could do it. The gas in your car is great proof that Joseph Smith was wrong when he said that the Earth was 6,000 years old.

These seven common knowledge evidences will convince any rational, intelligent person that Biblical literalism is absurd and that the LDS church made a major mistake in tying itself to that sinking ship. Joseph Smith rewrote large portions of the Bible and had ample opportunity to prove his prophetic abilities by not reaffirming the absurd Genesis history. He didn't. The 15 "prophet, seers, and revelators" since then have had the opportunity to admit that Genesis consists of the myths of some Bronze Age tribesmen. They haven't. If the prophets can't use their "revelation" to confirm a no-brainer like this, then what do they use it for?

Biblical inerrancy is dead.

I would love to see the apologists try to resurrect it in face of so much evidence.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2011 10:04PM by captainmoroni.

Thankyou for putting that together. It makes a lot of sense and I would really like to hear what the apologists would do to spin that.

Perhaps you will post it on some Mormon forums, give us some links, and let us watch.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2011 10:14PM by deco.

If someone could possibly explain to me why or how my TBM sister knows all of this, yet has no problem with it. She is still determined to be mormon. How does one believe two opposing things at once? She herself has said she knows there is no way the flood could have been a world event. She does not believe the Adam Eve story (hello, temple?) happened the way any of the scripture explains it. Yet, she won't talk to me about anything that she perceives as anti mormon.

I am well read on cog.dis. I guess I am seeing it in action. It is so frustrating!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2011 11:06PM by captainmoroni.

One of the smartest things the LDS church did was shift focus from product features (doctrine) to product benefits (happy, safe, eternal families). As long as members believe they're on the path to Forever Families, then the rest is either methodology or "not relevant to your eternal salvation." Age of the planet, impossibility of the Noah story and so on: irrelevant. Family prayer, temple attendance, tithing and so on: relevant.

Interesting stuff! Thanks for sharing all that - it gave me much to think about, and in ways I hadn't considered before. I love posts like this...

Elle Bee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> n/t


Oh you APOSTATE! The Sacred Scriptures that were revealed to Joseph Smith clearly state that the earth is not millions of years old:

6 Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals? A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence.
--D&C 77:6

12 Q. What are we to understand by the sounding of the trumpets, mentioned in the 8th chapter of Revelation? A. We are to understand that as God made the world in six days, and on the seventh day he finished his work, and sanctified it, and also formed man out of the dust of the earth, even so, in the beginning of the seventh thousand years will the Lord God sanctify the earth, and complete the salvation of man, and judge all things, and shall redeem all things, except that which he hath not put into his power, when he shall have sealed all things, unto the end of all things; and the sounding of the trumpets of the seven angels are the preparing and finishing of his work, in the beginning of the seventh thousand years—the preparing of the way before the time of his coming.
--D&C 77:12

Clearly, if Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, the earth is only six thousand years old, with the seventh millenium yet to occur. To deny the young earth is to deny that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God!

...and not all creationists are Mormons! The majority of them absolutely, vehemently deny that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.

Though your evidences are right on target and completely obvious to all of us, they may not be so "common sense" to the hard core TBM. Why? Because our old nemesis Cognitive Dissonance overwhelms the minds of the faithful and prevents them from seeing the obvious. In other words, cognitive dissonance slams the door and bolts the lock on trying to understand much less investigate claims that are contrary to one's firmly entrenched beliefs.

You know the old canard about the "burning in the bosom" that missionaries use to trick - I mean, "convince" - investigators that the Holy Ghost is witnessing to them. Well, cognitive dissonance is sort of the opposite of that bosom burning. It's an uncomfortable, queasy feeling that forces a person to stop thinking about whatever it is they are thinking about. It's very powerful!

So even when the evidence is overwhelming and should be plain-as-day obvious to one and all, cognitive dissonance erects roadblocks, puts on blinders and shuts down the brain.

That is the driving force of cognitive dissonance. It is why Herman Cain's wife thinks he never had an affair. It is why Steve Jobs thought he could beat pancreatic cancer into submission by eating the proper fruits and veggies. It is why Mormons won't question Jaredites, Noah, or Nephite swords and horses. Or wonder about JS's "wives".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2011 11:05AM by Brother Of Jerry.

captainmoroni Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If any LDS apologist thinks that the 6,000 year
> Earth is not central to LDS theology, I suggest
> that they take it up with their prophet Joseph
> Fielding Smith who used LDS scriptures to defend
> the 6,000 year Earth in Doctrines of Salvation
> chapters 5 and 9. He calls anyone who doubts
> Biblical literacy an apostate. It looks like LDS
> apologists have been disowned by their own
> prophet!

Actually,that's even in the D&C (77:6, I believe) where Joe asks god what the seals mean of the book John saw. He's told they represent the 7000 years of the earth's mortal existence, including the millennium.

Recall Ether 13:2 records that the flood covered America, and that after the water receded, the land was preserved for only a righteous people.


Also, to add to your methods which trounce the LDS claims...


Archaeomagnetic dating
The study and interpretation of the signatures of the Earth's magnetic field at past times recorded in archaeological materials. These paleomagnetic signatures are fixed when ferromagnetic materials such as magnetite cool below the Curie point, freezing the magnetic moment of the material in the direction of the local magnetic field at that point in time. The direction and magnitude of the magnetic field of the Earth at a particular location varies with time, and can be used to constrain the age of materials. In conjunction with techniques such as radiometric dating, the technique can be used to construct and calibrate the geomagnetic polarity time scale. This is one of the Dating methodologies used for sites within the last 10,000 years.

Argon dating
A radiometric dating method invented to supersede potassium-argon (K/Ar) dating in accuracy. The older method required two samples for dating while the newer method requires only one. This newer method converts a stable form of potassium (39K) into 39Ar while irradiated with neutrons in a nuclear reactor.
The decay ratio of 40K to 40Ar* ( * means daughter Ar atoms) is used to compute a radiometric date for a geological event, particularly the eruption and cooling of igneous rock and minerals.

And many more, including:

Thermoluminescence dating
Amino acid dating
Obsidian hydration dating
Rehydroxylation dating
Tephrochronology (volcanic ash) dating
Chronostratigraphy (Oxygen isotope) dating

that the Book of Mormon and the other LDS scripture depend on the most fundamentalist reading of the OT possible. Never mind their wacky take on the NT, the Book of Ether might has well have been written by George Macready Price. A literal Garden of Eden, a literal Tower of Babel, a literal global flood--all refuted since the 19th century. Ugh.

There are very simple and rational explanations to all of your points but I just don't feel like sharing them with the likes of you.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go to the temple and pretend to be a dead person. Good day...

I remember some story telling B.S.er in the MTC once told me about an experience someone had where they fell asleep during an endowment session and the person they were representing came up to them later and expressed their dissatisfaction with it.

I thought, "so what, is the endowment valid or not, and if not, whose fault is that?...the dead person?"

Off setting penalties in the football game of heaven, replay the down!

captainmoroni Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Biblical inerrancy is dead.
>
> I would love to see the apologists try to
> resurrect it in face of so much evidence.


I have spoken at length with Moap Brant Gardener about how he resolves this at FAIR. His repsonse is, science is correct, the church leaders were just expressing opinion. When pointed to scriptures such as Ether 13:2, D&C 77:6 and those saying Adam is the first man, Noah's flood covered the world, etc. Brant just explains they are local events, and that to the writers of those scriptures, the known world was small, so they are technically correct.

Unfortunately, when the Lard speaks, he should know what the world is--he created it, supposedly, so that doesn't tract.

Which just goes to show that the biggest critics of Mormonism are the Mormon apologists.

Yeah that is some real good obvious research. I think most ppl just want to stick in their social networks and no one wants to admit they are stupid enough to be wrong or be dooped.

One thing obvious to me, even while I was on my mission, was how we all started from Adam and Eve. Its a nasty thought to think that the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve became one big incestuous family to create us.

How do you co-mingle with your siblings romantically to reproduce so many children to inhabit the world. It sounds really nasty.

I feel like I have pissed away the first 40 years of my life and I really want it back.

What always got me thinking was that if Noah, his wife, 3 or 4 sons and daughters in law were the only people left after the flood, how can you get a billion chinese out of 2 people? The twelve tribes of Isreal story is in there somewhere, but it still doesn't explain the Asian or African races very well.

Have you ever seen one of these? It's a fold out "Synchronological" history of the earth that was hugely popular in the 19th century (timeline based partly on Bishop Ussher). I've seen one in person and they're about 9 feet long and very detailed. And this was taken as real history, so that's what J. Smith and his faithful would have believed as historical & scientific truth; no Jaredites, though!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/mcYM1EVISiyUmze_6pNSjw

The scary thing is that they make reproductions of it and some people use it!!

http://www.amazon.com/Adams-Synchronological-Chart-Map-History/product-reviews/0890515050

you mean the all-powerful would take notice that people were building a tower to 'try' to reach him (utterly Impossible in the First Place)?


this Might explain why GA/GC talks are so ambiguous, non-commital, and schmoozy for say, the last 60 years or so?

gosh.

I think I'll talk this over with my moon inhabitant friends, we'll get back to ya.

The Old Testament is myth that morphs into some actual history, but continues to bull crap the story. I saw this as a TBM. The OT would be the subject of study....the lessons on the creation, flood, exodus, destruction of the cannanites, the talking ass, etc. None of it seemed real. It seemed like we were studying Greek myths. Then I read Karen Armstrong's book on the "4000 year history of God". Now we can't make strong statements about where this or that myth came from,about how the idea of God developed and from what ideas, BUT we can get some idea how it all came about. Looking at it now, it is ridiculous.

But I still believe in "god". Just not the one I was taught about.

if i may add,

some stories especially from the old testament (genesis up to ch 6 more less) are just a re-write of much older texts from sumeria.


i'm talking about texts such as atra hasis and enuma elish


which makes sense, i mean, moses was an egyptian by nationality, the pharaoh's son who had access to pretty good libraries. so he compiled the old stories into a few books. most likely he did it from memory since he was in exile at that time so there are a few errors.

sumerian texts also provide a hint on who was jehovah from the old testament. my take is that it was the sumerian god enlil.


my point is not there isn't much of an inspirational revelation type of process here. just a [bad] compilation.

darth jesus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> which makes sense, i mean, moses was an egyptian
> by nationality, the pharaoh's son who had access
> to pretty good libraries. so he compiled the old
> stories into a few books. most likely he did it
> from memory since he was in exile at that time so
> there are a few errors.

You are assuming Moses wrote the "Books of Moses."

That is only an assumption. Nowhere in the Pentateuch does it say it was written by Moses. Moses is only referred to in the third person etc.

Either way the religion of the ancient hebrews was highly eclectic, regardless of who scribbled the watered-down myths into scripture.

captainmoroni Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>Snip<
> 7 Oil and Coal
>
> Every time a creationist drives he is benefitting
> from the fact that he is wrong.
>
> Petroleum only exists because the Earth is
> billions of years old. As most know, it is formed
> when the remains of phytoplankton and zooplankton
> settle to the bottom of the sea and are compressed
> and decomposed in anaerobic conditions. There is
> no other way to make petroleum. Enormous amounts
> of heat, pressure, and time are require to create
> petroleum. Only geologic time could do it. The
> gas in your car is great proof that Joseph Smith
> was wrong when he said that the Earth was 6,000
> years old.
>
> I would love to see the apologists try to
> resurrect it in face of so much evidence.

I'm afraid you'll have to take *this* one off your list. The process called "Thermal Depolymerization" converts lots of biomass into oil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization

I fail to see how a 20th century invention has any bearing on this list...

Really? I'm surprised to hear that...ok, I'll break it down for you.

Item #7 is (my paraphrase): "Oil takes millions of years to develop from biomass. Oil exists, therefore the earth is more than 6,000 years old."

This 20th century invention creates oil from biomass. (I'm not sure how long, but for benefit of the doubt, I'll grant "within the inventor's lifetime" and just for good measure, double it - say 200 years for REALLY good measure.) Even an oil-to-biomass rate of 200 years will invalidate the argument that "since we have oil, the earth must be more than 6000 years old." At *best* we can say "Since oil exists, the earth must be at least 200 years old".

kolobian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I fail to see how a 20th century invention has any
> bearing on this list...

Do you have any evidence that "Thermal Depolymerization" existed when the bible was compiled?

If not, I'm afraid I still don't see the point in bringing it up. This is a conversation about the bible's claims, not holy books that might be written in the future...

theGleep Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> I'm afraid you'll have to take *this* one off your
> list. The process called "Thermal
> Depolymerization" converts lots of biomass into
> oil:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerizat
> ion


Truth is, if you want to play the technology/miracle game, you could scratch everything off his list by saying god is all powerful and did these things in six short days, leaving the mystery of evidence that it took longer to trick us, so we'd have to have faith.

In other words, god is the norse legend of Loki. ;-)

His list is valid from the perspective that the entire train of evidence from so many vantages, processes and developments all point to the same thing: old earth age and natural processes explicable by scientific principles.

Religion and science both make claims about the way the world is. They make incompatible claims about reality using different standards of evidence and modes of argument. There is an unresolvable conflict between religion and science. For example, the claim that Jesus was born of a virgin--that is a scientific claim about biology and human physiology. That he resurrected and ascended to heaven--central to Christianity--are all claims that run contrary to what we know from science (resurrection-- biology, ascending -- avionics).

If the basic tenets of religion are true, then science is so blind to the underlying supernatural modification of reality (that religion would supposedly have correct) it would render the whole enterprise of science (and my job) as invalid (and perhaps unneeded).

On the other hand, if the tenets of religion are wrong, then most people are ultimately confused about reality.

Which has more evidence?

Which modifies itself to conform to the other?