Evidence of God

[Prometheus]

If God wanted them to write his words down so badly to share with everyone else, why wouldn't he do it himself? Or maybe tell them in person?

I don't know - why dosen't god just post it on the www? You can speculate all day, but your alternate speculations don't discredit the BOM.

But he knew ahead of time about Joseph Smith, right? So does that make you a Jew?

Yes... I am a Jew because a Jew forsaw the formation of my religion. I guess that also makes Christopher Colombus and George washington Jews because he forsaw them too... What a stupid question.

Why would he set himself up for another religion to be created since he already knows the future?

Well judiasim and christianity are really offshoots of the same religion. When christ came, he changed proper worship from the Jewish way. So it's not like Joshph Smith and Nephi were from competing religions.

A timber ship full of people would not have been large of enough to safely make it's way across the Atlantic.

Actually, there is evidance that the egyptians did it in both timber and reed boats.

And can you find me a site that says Iron can be found in the Arabian Peninsula.

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=insights&id=134
It is from BYU, but like I said before, BYU has prestigious academic credentials. They wouldn't sign in to a lie.

One study found that if you mix of bunch of the elements in the peninsula it is possible to make usable iron, but no one knew about it until now and no one had the technology to make it.

I get the impression the iron came from a simpler source. But nephi does say that the lord showed him how to make the tools, so he may mave had advanced tecniques.

It would be pretty weird to see an iron ship 2000+ years ago.

No one said the ship was iron. The tools he used were iron.

None of these items were here before the Spaniards:

wheat

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?tab...scripts&id=126
wrong

horses

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?tab...scripts&id=129
wrong

chariots

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=68
wrong

cows

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?tab...scripts&id=129
wrong

elephants

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=68
wrong

silk

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=70
wrong

linen

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=70
wrong

money-pieces of gold and silver

this one is just moronic. Everyone knows the pre colombians had gold and silver. It was the motivation of the conquestadores.
wrong

steel

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=250
and yet again, wrong

[SoccerfreakAB2]

First, some of those things you listed did exist here before the spaniards. Horses for example. Here is an objective site for you about ancient American horses.

http://www.acnatsci.org/museum/leidy/paleo/equus.html

No where does this site say that horses, as we know them, existed in the Americas. It's actually assuming evolution is real, then it says that evidence was found of pre-existing ancestors of horses, like the teeth they show. It sums it up in the first statement of the entire website:

"Horses were introduced into the Americas during the 16th Century by the Spanish Conquistadors."

At the time that the Nephites left Jerusalem, they were considered Jewish. They followed Jewish customs and traditions. But when Christ came again, He said that a new law was now in effect. The Nephites followed the new law. Today's Jews do not believe Jesus was the Christ. That is how we differ from Jews.

Jesus had not come yet. So how could the "new law" already have been in effect? Unless Nephi had prophcized his new law. But I doubt it.

You have asked what the Gold plates are. They are a record of an ancient American people. The record was engraven on golden plates bound by rings on the side. The plates were placed in a stone box in the ground. Hundreds of years later, Joseph Smith removed them. This is relevant beacuse, when Joseph talked of these gold plates in a stone box, people ridiculed him for it. They claimed the Book of Mormon was false beacuse no one had heard of records on metal plates in a stone box. Nowadays people have, so Josepoh was right.

That doesn't mean he's right. It means he has gold plates with writing on it. And just because other plates were found that were like it, doesn't mean they had any relevance nor does it mean he is any more closer to being a prophet.

[Flip Jackson]

You are right the first paragraph appears to say that horses were introduecd by the Spaniards, but read on. Paragraph two says:

"The Old World pedigree of the horse was first challenged by the discovery of fossil teeth in South America which had been collected by a young Charles Darwin and examined by Richard Owen in 1840 (2)"

It says the Old World horses were challenged by new fossils. It then goes on to talk of ancient horses. For example, this is from the third paragraph:

"He concluded that there were at least two North American horses species and that both were different from Old World species (4)."

According to the Book or Mormon, after Christ was ressurected, he then visited the nephites. This is when the new law was given to them. Nephi did not prphesy of this law, and have his people live it. The Nephites did not live it until Christ had visited them. As you know, the Jews rejected Christ's new law. This is where the Nephite culture split from Judaism.

You are right. The plates alone do not mean he is right. But they show that he might not have been lying about having metal plates. He could have actually had an ancient record.

My point made in the intro of this thread is that it seems highly improbable that Joseph could have written the Book of Mormon. He used Hebrew names. He used Hebrew poetry. He gave locations of rivers and lakes in the area around the Red Sea that people did not know about at the time. He claimed to have meatl plates found in a stone box. We have found genes that link Jews and Native Americans. We used to think they only came from Asia, until the Book of mormon challenged the idea. Joesph used phrases and ideas from Hebrew culture. When the differebt areas of the Book of Mormon are looked at literarily, there seem to be many different authors.

Are you giving Jospeh so much credit? How did he know so much of Hebrew culture, some of which was not known at his time? How did he know the geography of the Arabian Peninsula so well? How did he pretend to be a number of different authors, and do it effectively? Probability says that it is much more likely that the record actually came from ancient people descended from the Hebrews.

[Flip Jackson]

Wonder, we are trying to give evidence of God. Do you have any evidence for your claim that we become One?

[SoccerfreakAB2]

I don't know - why dosen't god just post it on the www? You can speculate all day, but your alternate speculations don't discredit the BOM.

You can answer or not answer my speculations. I think you're just frustrated that you can't answer the majority of my questions about this religion.

Yes... I am a Jew because a Jew forsaw the formation of my religion. I guess that also makes Christopher Colombus and George washington Jews because he forsaw them too... What a stupid question.

If Nephi knew that a new separate religion would be created why didn't he try to stop it? And no, he never said anything about George W. and Columbus. He said a man who went to the Americas, which could have been someone else for all we know. What is the one about George W.? If Nephi was a Jew, and his decendants were Jews, and you believe what they believe, then why aren't you a Jew? Does it make all the difference that Joseph found the plates that only proves Nephi to be a Jew, and others like him as well as their teachings?

Well judiasim and christianity are really offshoots of the same religion. When christ came, he changed proper worship from the Jewish way. So it's not like Joshph Smith and Nephi were from competing religions.

Well Smith is Mormon and Nephi is Jewish. Those seem pretty competing in today's standards.

Actually, there is evidance that the egyptians did it in both timber and reed boats.

Can I see a source for such a crazy statement. Reed boats? Reed is not strong enough at all to make it all the way across the Atlantic.

It is from BYU, but like I said before, BYU has prestigious academic credentials. They wouldn't sign in to a lie.

Get rid of this source. Not only do you use it for everything, but every paper written is for the Mormon religion. Nothing goes against it. Seems pretty biased to me. This doesn't help: the president of the religious studies group is a devout Mormon believer. He's in like 500 groups that are all Mormon. Who would go to a Mormon religious school to disprove the Mormon religion? Find a new source for the sake of objectivity. Please respect this opinion on your source in understanding that it is not objective.

[SoccerfreakAB2]

Flip, since I don't have every answer in the debate and don't feel like doing a lifetime of studying, I'll give you the fact that Mormonins is possible. But back to the probability, I don't think the probability is in your favor. For every "evidence" shown, I can ask 20 questions about it, most of which isn't known or could be interpreted different ways. Like the Bible, it could be interpreted 100 different ways. Now, assuming that every single interpretation is correct on your behalf, then mormonism would then be true. But if some of the interpretations prove it to be false, no matter where in the line, or the book, then the religion is false (because the book was said to be perfect). Now according to probability, and assuming that there are a ton of interpretations of the book and its parts, then the the chances that every interpretation being in your favor is not likely, but possible.

Until we know more about history, dating methods, DNA, etc. it's too hard to know the specifics. That is why I feel technology will someday either prove or disprove religion. Cheers.

[Flip Jackson]

Sorry, it took so long to respond to this. I'm a busy man, what can I say?

Soccer, I explained in my last post how the Judaism that Nephi practiced was related to the church that exists today. I have also heard of the reed boat thing, although I'm not in the mood to look it up. If it bothers you so much, you can look it up, but it isn't pertinent to this thread.

I don't think you can discount Prometheus' source so quickly. While the information comes from Mormons, it wasn't their opinion. Just beacuse Mormons did the research, doesn't mean they biased the results. If you discount any research done by someone because they are Mormon, then you aren't being objective, and we don't need to even continue this conversation. BYU is considered a great secular learning institution. The research done there is valid. You have to have a good reason to discount it. Saying "it was done by Mormons so can't be valid" is being subjective and bigotous, I think.

[Flip Jackson]

Soccer, I wish to emphasize that I am not trying to say the Mormon religion is possible. I am merely saying that the Book of Mormon has a lot of evidence showing that it is an actual historic record. I don't care how many ways the Bible and Book of Mormon can be interpreted.

I think that much of the evidence shows with high probabilty, that Joseph did not have the means to write the Book. This means that ancient Americans wrote it. Which means that they came up with some miraculous prophesies. Or a higher power guided them.

I just want to show that some theists have evidence. Some theists have many reasons to believe, not just blind faith or leaders saying "this is true because I said so."

THIS IS MY REQUEST. I would like many of the atheists on this forum to renounce the negative labels they give all theists, unless they can show me a flaw in my reasoning. I don't want to see how evidence could be interpreted differently. This still leaves this possibility that my interpretation is right, and I have a rational reason to believe. I WANT SOME ATHEISTS HERE to allow theists to be intelligent and rational. I want them to take back claims of theists being uneducated, mentally ill, irrational, or stupid.

I will not stop pushing this until theists are granted the same intellectual territory as atheists!!!

[Jack]

I WANT SOME ATHEISTS HERE to allow theists to be intelligent and rational. I want them to take back claims of theists being uneducated, mentally ill, irrational, or stupid.
I will not stop pushing this until theists are granted the same intellectual territory as atheists!!!

Honestly, Flip, I've seen the same epithets directed toward atheists. While individually I respect all of you who can express your opinions intelligently, it's very difficult for even me to promise to consider the theist position as "rational". I don't say all theists are stupid or ignorant, I never have. But for us to consider that a belief in that which can only be taken on faith is rational or realistic would require us to alter our definitions of those terms. I don't consider the belief in bigfoot, martians or unicorns rational. Since I consider a belief in god to be the same as those beliefs, honestly I have to consider it just as irrational. You know how christians say, "Hate the sin but love the sinner?". Well, it's the same thing for me. I can respect the believer, but I cannot respect their belief.

[Flip Jackson]

Isherwood, that is mostly all I ask. But many people here discount what a theists says because he is a theist. Don't discount everything I say because you feel my religous view isn't rational.

To me and others, religious views are rational. It makes sense to me that there is a power higher than ours. There is an intelligence that knows what is going on better than we do. I don't see how chance could have created the situation we find ourselves in. I think science and religion explain different parts of our world.

And the point of this thread was to show that some rational research and physical evidence supports God in a way. While the evidence can be seen in other lights, surely you can see how some of us think that this validates our beliefs. While we don't base our faith on physical evidence, this makes our belief seem more rational.

Ultimately, I suppose that if you accept that I, as a person, am rational, and you don't judge me by my belief, then I guess I will survive if you think my belief is irrational.

[JamesMcBride]

There is no solid evidence of the existence of a supreme being. For the faithful believer. none is needed. For the non believer, no amount of evidence would be sufficient.

What is needed is a system that allows the believers and non-believers to live and work side by side in mutual respect.

I thought they did?

[Jack]

They can and often do. Respect and being comfortable with your own beliefs helps a lot.