The Fascinating Facts About Mormonism Thread

[john9blue]

it's not so much about their looks as their unattainability

[Mr_Adams]

25. Every Mormon girl I've known is ugly...like, I'd rather have sex with Serbia ugly

bad lot where you live?

[Army of GOD]

25. Every Mormon girl I've known is ugly...like, I'd rather have sex with Serbia ugly

bad lot where you live?

It was only two families, actually. One of them was this really cool guy who ended up moving and another was two girls who were...*shivers*

There's this, at least: http://therionorteline.com/2011/11/19/r ... mon-women/

[Mr_Adams]

25. Every Mormon girl I've known is ugly...like, I'd rather have sex with Serbia ugly

bad lot where you live?

It was only two families, actually. One of them was this really cool guy who ended up moving and another was two girls who were...*shivers*

There's this, at least: http://therionorteline.com/2011/11/19/r ... mon-women/

If the Momo's are right, we're going to hell for this conversation alone.

[PLAYER57832]

It's batshit crazy according to the scientific method. The question, gentlemen, as always - is "how the f*ck do you know that?" If your answer is "faith" then yes, you are batshit crazy and have no business teaching it to other people. Also, you're an automatic half-retard.

The scientific method always begins with faith, belief. Denying that is idiotic and more than half-retarded.

[PLAYER57832]

double-post

[john9blue]

It's batshit crazy according to the scientific method. The question, gentlemen, as always - is "how the f*ck do you know that?" If your answer is "faith" then yes, you are batshit crazy and have no business teaching it to other people. Also, you're an automatic half-retard.

The scientific method often begins with faith, belief. Denying that is idiotic and more than half-retarded.

only if you consider drawing conclusions based on empirical observations "faith"

[PLAYER57832]

It's batshit crazy according to the scientific method. The question, gentlemen, as always - is "how the f*ck do you know that?" If your answer is "faith" then yes, you are batshit crazy and have no business teaching it to other people. Also, you're an automatic half-retard.

The scientific method often begins with faith, belief. Denying that is idiotic and more than half-retarded.

only if you consider drawing conclusions based on empirical observations "faith"

No, you speak of the end point, proof. I speak of the beginning. How do you even decide what to question, form a hypothesis. Often that is mere belief. In fact, the more hinged upon belief, the more likely that validation will get you the nobel.

[john9blue]

It's batshit crazy according to the scientific method. The question, gentlemen, as always - is "how the f*ck do you know that?" If your answer is "faith" then yes, you are batshit crazy and have no business teaching it to other people. Also, you're an automatic half-retard.

The scientific method often begins with faith, belief. Denying that is idiotic and more than half-retarded.

only if you consider drawing conclusions based on empirical observations "faith"

No, you speak of the end point, proof. I speak of the beginning. How do you even decide what to question, form a hypothesis. Often that is mere belief. In fact, the more hinged upon belief, the more likely that validation will get you the nobel.

should have made it more clear: people also use empirical observations to form hypotheses. they don't just randomly design experiments for no reason.

[b.k. barunt]

Historical evidence has never disproven a Biblical account - the siege and conquest of Jericho is a good example. On the other hand, historical evidence makes the Book of Mormon look like a comic book. A vast civilization covering all of the U.S. and part of Mexico and Canada, walled cities and tons of inhabitants, epic battles, etc. In one battle over 2 million warriors were killed. These warriors had metal helmets, breastplates, shields and swords - not one shred of historical evidence has ever been found to support this vast civilization. Do i also need to bring up the embarrassing DNA tests that were done by the LDS to prove that Amerinds are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel?

[PLAYER57832]

only if you consider drawing conclusions based on empirical observations "faith"

No, you speak of the end point, proof. I speak of the beginning. How do you even decide what to question, form a hypothesis. Often that is mere belief. In fact, the more hinged upon belief, the more likely that validation will get you the nobel.

should have made it more clear: people also use empirical observations to form hypotheses. they don't just randomly design experiments for no reason.

Belief IS the reason. Faith is the reason, faith often as much based on "intuition" which is really our way of describing things that people know and understand without really being able to fully explain exactly why and how that belief comes about. Again, the line you want to draw is purely artificial.

The conclusions, they must be based on evidence, sure. However, most really great scientists actually do NOT wait for the firm results before moving on. That is, they won't publish "gut feelings", but use them to decide which track they will follow. To really move forward requires those kind of leaps. It is the difference between being a technician aka "pea counter" and a true genius. AND.. you iterate a great misunderstanding about science. It is the predominance of that type of thinking that is very much stifling science. There are, of course, limits. Anyone who decides to test their new-fangled parachute by just leaping off a 100 story building without any other testing is stupid. BUT.. the guy who creates that parachute, uses one material instead of another, etc is often going as much on "gut" as anything else. Then again.. if the building were burning, maybe a leap is worthwhile. That, too, is part of science. Scientists making huge leaps becuase they had to do so. The scientists studying the early yellow fever epidemics, for example, took HUGE risksb because the danger was so very great.

[2dimes]

Do i also need to bring up the embarrassing DNA tests that were done by the LDS to prove that Amerinds are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel?

Is there any links to discussion about this? I don't even want to know the results. I'd like to read about the process.

[b.k. barunt]

http://www.rickross.com/reference/mormon/mormon86.html

[b.k. barunt]

http://www.rickross.com/reference/mormon/mormon86.html

The Bible says "Prove all things; hold fast to that which is good" (I Thessalonians 5:21).

The Mormon Church says "Don't ask embarrassing questions".

[Juan_Bottom]

Historical evidence has never disproven a Biblical account - the siege and conquest of Jericho is a good example. On the other hand, historical evidence makes the Book of Mormon look like a comic book. A vast civilization covering all of the U.S. and part of Mexico and Canada, walled cities and tons of inhabitants, epic battles, etc. In one battle over 2 million warriors were killed. These warriors had metal helmets, breastplates, shields and swords - not one shred of historical evidence has ever been found to support this vast civilization. Do i also need to bring up the embarrassing DNA tests that were done by the LDS to prove that Amerinds are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel?

Bryant Wood, the creationist who proved that Jericho was destroyed sometime around 1400 BC... has been shown to be less than honest. His original test sample really did show a date of 1400 BC +/- 40 years. And according to the Bible, Jericho was destroyed by Joshua in the year 1400. BUT - since that time the Laboratory has discovered that it had a minor flaw in it's process, and that it's date's on everything were wrong. New archeologists now date the site's destruction to the 15th and not the 14th century. Bryant Wood however, still uses the original flawed results as proof of his life's work.
The guy is a total douche anyway... working for some Bible research group, he "re-examined" real Archeologist's Jericho work and discovered that they were wrong and that only the Bible was right. Unfortunately all this got the media's attention, and the resulting scrutiny from the real scientists was ignored.
So yeah, Jericho is a real place and it really was described. But the media wasn't skeptical of Dr. Douche and told a fake news story, and the Bible too got the story wrong.

[b.k. barunt]

Link? The Bible didn't give an actual date so i don't know what you mean by "the Bible got the story wrong." A difference of 100 years or less wouldn't have made that much of a difference in the estimated time frame of the Israelite incursion into Canaan, and the "story" that you claim the Bible got wrong was that the walls collapsed, which the archeological evidence supported. Also the specific manner in which the walls collapsed as cited in the Bible was supported by the archeological evidence. At any rate could you provide a link to support your claim?

[Juan_Bottom]

Link? The Bible didn't give an actual date so i don't know what you mean by "the Bible got the story wrong." A difference of 100 years or less wouldn't have made that much of a difference in the estimated time frame of the Israelite incursion into Canaan, and the "story" that you claim the Bible got wrong was that the walls collapsed, which the archeological evidence supported. Also the specific manner in which the walls collapsed as cited in the Bible was supported by the archeological evidence. At any rate could you provide a link to support your claim?

Here's a short article to show that I didn't make this stuff up.

http://ahotcupofjoe.net/2010/07/why-bib ... chaeology/

Take Jericho, for instance. Kathleen Kenyon excavated this site between 1955 and 1958. Her results showed that the destruction of Jericho was at around 1500 BCE, during the period that Egypt was expelling the Hyksos, so it was very likely destroyed by the Egyptians. In addition, Kenyon’s results demonstrated that the site was abandoned by the alleged “conquest” in the 13th century BCE.

More recently, Bryant Wood attempted to contest the dating of the destruction level at Jericho. Wood’s key point of evidence is a radiocarbon sample that was among the many samples collected by Kenyon. He puts a lot of words and a few other points of more spurious evidence around it, talks it up like he’s being fair and balanced, but comes down on the side of a 1440 BCE date during the Late Bronze Age. Did you see it? If you go to his article on the site linked, the key piece of evidence he cites as his source is footnote # 39, which leads to Kathleen Kenyon’s fifth volume on her excavations report: Excavations at Jericho Volume 5: The Pottery Phases of the Tell and Other Finds (Jericho 5) (London: BSAJ, 1983). Her co-writer was Thomas A. Holland also an archaeologist.

But here’s the problem with Wood’s key point of evidence: it doesn’t exist.

The British Museum retracted the date due to the discovery of calibration problems with the equipment used to take the radiocarbon measurements. Once the date was corrected for the sample, it was consistent with Kenyon’s original 1550 BCE destruction date for Jericho IV. For corroboration, in the event that you might think there’s a vast secular conspiracy to suppress archaeological data and biblical mythology, you could have a gander at Bruins and van der Plicht, who also dated samples found in the same layer (charred cereal grains) independently and without any intention of proving or disproving Wood’s speculations. Their data falsified Wood’s and supported the conclusion that City IV was destroyed around 1550 BCE. Clearly during the Hyksos conflict and probably sacked by Egypt.

To my knowledge, Wood has never, ever retracted or revised his conclusions. In the face of scientific evidence and empirical data, this is, itself, is evidence of bad science. Indeed, the very nature of starting with a conclusion (that biblical narratives like Joshua’s “conquest” are proof of supernatural beliefs) then sorting out the material record so as to fit that data, is pseudo-archaeology.

Now Wood is at it again. He claims to have “discovered” Ai -a site that was discovered in 1933 by Judith Marquet-Krause. The site and Marquet-Krause’s conclusions were confirmed by Joseph Callaway, an archaeologist of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, albeit quite reluctantly:

For many years, the primary source for the understanding of the settlement of the first Israelites was the Hebrew Bible, but every reconstruction based upon the biblical traditions has floundered on the evidence from archaeological remains [...] the primary source has to be archaeological remains ((Dever, William (2003) <i>Who were the early Israelites and where did they come from?</i>, quoting: Callaway, Joseph A. [1985]).

The “biblical archaeology” venture which includes Wood appears to be mostly a tourism / evangelism scam than an actual excavation if you look at this post on the same site. It’ll be interesting to see what evidence he has to support the apparent notion that the site which has been known as Ai for the last 80 years isn’t. It must be some extraordinary evidence indeed. But , if his track record is any gauge, it will probably be spurious data, cherry-picked to concur with pre-conceived conclusions, while contradicting data are carefully swept aside, discarded and ignored.

http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/ans ... ntwood.php

It wasn't just the British Museum who charged that Wood was mistaken. In 1995 Hendrik J. Bruins and Johannes van der Plicht took 18 high-precision radiocarbon measurements from samples from Jericho. Their tests showed that Kathleen Kenyon was right all along.
Yet Bryant Wood continues to claim that the site was destroyed in 1407 BC. Because of this, and the media complacency that seems to follow him, I can't blame anyone for believe Wood's claims. He is supposed to be a scientist, after all. In fact, this wouldn't be a big deal if he'd stop telling everyone that he proved that Jericho fell in 1400 BC.

[BigBallinStalin]

I've never realized how batshit crazy Mormonism is..


Can I get a few more facts for the road please?

[b.k. barunt]

Link? The Bible didn't give an actual date so i don't know what you mean by "the Bible got the story wrong." A difference of 100 years or less wouldn't have made that much of a difference in the estimated time frame of the Israelite incursion into Canaan, and the "story" that you claim the Bible got wrong was that the walls collapsed, which the archeological evidence supported. Also the specific manner in which the walls collapsed as cited in the Bible was supported by the archeological evidence. At any rate could you provide a link to support your claim?

Here's a short article to show that I didn't make this stuff up.

http://ahotcupofjoe.net/2010/07/why-bib ... chaeology/

So we have a disagreement as to the date and a supposition that it was "probably" the Egyptians that sacked Jericho. The main problem with this is that the Bible doesn't give a date for the Israelite Exodus and resultant conquest of Canaan. There are many suppositions as to those dates, ranging over a period of at least 200 years. In light of this, a squabble over 100 years or less on Jericho is inconsequential to say the least.

[b.k. barunt]

I've never realized how batshit crazy Mormonism is..


Can I get a few more facts for the road please?

http://www.utlm.org/

This is the link to the best source of info that i know of. The Tanners are ex-Mormons who were very involved in the LDS. They left when they finally had to admit to themselves that it was a bizarre hoax. Read the excerpt (the whole is also available) from one of Smith's sermons on the home page for a glimpse of his character.

The LDS is not even founded anymore on the "prophetic revelations" of Joseph Smith. They abandoned polygamy - which Smith said was necessary to enter the Kingdom of Heaven - under pressure from the state. A true believer in any religion doesn't cave in to the state, which is where martyrs come from. Christians have been killed for their beliefs up to the present day, as have Muslims, but Mormons simply adapt their "beliefs" to escape such persecution. Now we even have Mormons running for office in the government that forced them to abandon their beliefs.

[pimpdave]

23. The Glorious Prophet Joseph Smith did not die as a martyr as Mormons often claim, but was killed during a gun battle in which he himself killed two men and wounded a third.

[b.k. barunt]

Umm, i don't think you're right on that one. I think he was killed by a mob.

[PLAYER57832]

Historical evidence has never disproven a Biblical account - the siege and conquest of Jericho is a good example. On the other hand, historical evidence makes the Book of Mormon look like a comic book. A vast civilization covering all of the U.S. and part of Mexico and Canada, walled cities and tons of inhabitants, epic battles, etc. In one battle over 2 million warriors were killed. These warriors had metal helmets, breastplates, shields and swords - not one shred of historical evidence has ever been found to support this vast civilization. Do i also need to bring up the embarrassing DNA tests that were done by the LDS to prove that Amerinds are descendants of the lost tribes of Israel?

Bryant Wood, the creationist who proved that Jericho was destroyed sometime around 1400 BC... has been shown to be less than honest. His original test sample really did show a date of 1400 BC +/- 40 years. And according to the Bible, Jericho was destroyed by Joshua in the year 1400. BUT - since that time the Laboratory has discovered that it had a minor flaw in it's process, and that it's date's on everything were wrong. New archeologists now date the site's destruction to the 15th and not the 14th century. Bryant Wood however, still uses the original flawed results as proof of his life's work.
The guy is a total douche anyway... working for some Bible research group, he "re-examined" real Archeologist's Jericho work and discovered that they were wrong and that only the Bible was right. Unfortunately all this got the media's attention, and the resulting scrutiny from the real scientists was ignored.
So yeah, Jericho is a real place and it really was described. But the media wasn't skeptical of Dr. Douche and told a fake news story, and the Bible too got the story wrong.

I have an entirely different take on this, was taught something entirely different. Cities like Jerico were destroyed and rebuilt many times. The likely date of the Biblical events would have been well before this period. However, as bk indicated, that this one guy got his archeological evidence wrong is no more proof of the invalidity of the idea than that Darwin getting some of his details wrong is enough to disprove evolution. These are all just people. The data does speak for iteself, sometimes is inconclusive, sometimes is misunderstood for a time. In the other thread, you consistently claimed you could prove the Bible false, but really had to rely upon some common false perceptions of Christianity. When I declared your "facts" about Christianity were off or irrelevant.. then you stomped on to declare I was changing things. You just cannot have it both ways. You have disproved YOUR personnal ideas of the Bible (and those some others believe as well), but not what is really true about the Bible or Christianity as far as many others are concerned.


PS I have more come to believe that many commonly accepted timelines for the early Bible are way off. Its much like early estimates of the evolutionary time line are now known to be way off. Its not that the Bible is false in this, but the people who passed along the information just plain had an entirely different concept of time than we do, had no possible way to even truly imagine and Earth that was billions of years old. It just was not a concept they could truly grasp in the way we do. Their highest number, for the most part was in the thousands. References to "thousands" of this or that are like our references to "millions"... that is, sure, it is a real number, but also more of a general term fo "too many to count". People who try to put too tight a timeline onto the Bible have to ignore those facts and try to put the numerical concepts used into our context, rather than as they were used in that time. Also, there are points of gap.

Even the lineology. Some see it as absolutely exact and some see it as more like a list of "highlights". That is, so and so begat so and so might refer to a grandchild, great grandchild, etc. I am not enough of a scholar to debate that particular issue, but I am aware that the debate exists. For me, I stick to what is said and proven. I have NEVER found a point where the Bible is actually false.

[pimpdave]

Umm, i don't think you're right on that one. I think he was killed by a mob.

One doesn't preclude the other.

[b.k. barunt]

The mob attacked the jail he was being held in - i don't think he was able to get his hands on a gun before they lynched him.

The people in and around the town in Missouri where the Mormons hung out had been getting progressively fed up with them. When they destroyed a the office of the local paper for printing negative things about them that was the last straw. The townfolk started killing Mormons and Smith fled the area. He was persuaded by a couple of his followers to come back and stand trial, but a mob attacked the jail he was in with no resistance from the soldiers who were "guarding" him.