Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: cms@dragon.uucp Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: The Mormon Religion Message-ID: Date: 5 Aug 90 23:07:03 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Computer Projects Unlimited Lines: 108 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu The Mormon religion has never been accepted by any Christian council of churches including: National Association of Evangelicals, National Council of Christian Churches, Word Council of Churches, American & International Council of Churches, among others. One of the major problems with the validity of the Book of Mormon is its contention that two great civilizations once flourished on the American continent; it describes buildings, machinery, shipping and shipbuilding, temples, synagogues, and even a city whose inhabitants sank in the ocean, like Atlantis. The archaeological evidence does not support these contentions. The Smithsonian Institution has indicated that no contacts with Egyptian, Hebrew, or other peoples of Western Asia or the Near East occurred among American Indian cultures. Furthermore, the American Indian is basically Mongoloid (more closely related to eastern, central, and northeastern Asia). Present archaeological evidence indicates that the ancestors of American Indians migrated across a land-bridge in the Bering Strait during the last Ice Age around 30,000 years ago. The Book of Mormon indicates that the first of the two great civilizations it describes left the Tower of Babel about 2,250 B.C. whereas the second group left around 600 B.C. Cities mentioned in the Book of Mormon are nowhere to be found, the elephants described in Ether 9:19 never existed in North America, metals supposedly made and used by these civilizations have never turned up. Archaeologically, the Book of Mormon is a flop. Also, Mormon theology consistently indicates that the American Indians are descendants of the Lamanites, who are supposed to have been Semitic, in fact Jewish. American Indians are Mongoloid and not of Mediterranean extraction. From the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 11:13, "....And I beheld the city of Nazareth; and in the city of Nazareth I beheld a virgin, and she was exceedingly fair and white. And it came to pass that I saw the heavens open; and an angel came down and stood before me; and he said unto me: Nephi, what beholdest thou? And I said unto him: A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins. And he said unto me: Knowest thou the condescension of God? And I said unto him: I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things. And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh." 1 Nephi 13:15, "And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance; and I beheld that they were white, and exceeding fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain." 2 Nephi 30:4, "And then shall the remnant of our seed know concerning us, how that we came out from Jerusalem, and that they are descendants of the Jews. And the gospel of Jesus Christ shall be declared among them; wherefore, they shall be restored unto the knowledge of their fathers, and also to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, which was had among their fathers. And then shall they rejoice; for they shall know that it is a blessing unto them from the hand of God; and their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall become a white and delightsome people." 4 Nephi verse 8, "But there were many cities which had been sunkk, and waters came up in the stead thereof; therefore these cities could not be renewed. And now, behold, it came to pass that the people of Nephi did wax strong, and did multiply exceedingly fast, and became an exceedingly fair and delightsome people." I should note here that I am quoting from a pre-1973 version of the Book of Mormon. Since that time, I understand it has undergone revisions, that is, "corrections." The three witnesses at the front of the Book of Mormon, the ones who witnessed that they actually saw the plates and the angel which brought them, later said they saw them with the "eyes of faith." All three of these witnesses later apostosized from the Mormon faith and were described as thieves and counterfeiters by Mormon contemporaries. The very witnesses to the validity of the Book of Mormon are thus described by the Mormons themselves as unreliable. The Book of Mormon has more than 25,000 words quoted from the King James Bible. The Mormons say that Nephi must have brought the Hebrew Bible with him and this accounts for the quotations from the Old Testament. It stretches the limits of credulity to believe that the translations of the inscribed plates came out in King James English without variation more than 1000 years before the 1611 Authorized Version was written. I can't go on. Anyone can see why I refuse to accept, and all legitimate Christian churches refuse to accept, the Book of Mormon as a valid testimony of Jesus Christ, and why secular scholars refuse to accept the Book of Mormon as having any basis in fact. At least Biblical stories have archaeological evidence to back them up, whereas the Book of Mormon has none. As a work of fiction, the Book of Mormon is a masterpiece; I commend its probable author Solomon Spaulding, who wrote a work called "Manuscript Story," which was probably later changed and expanded into "Manuscript Found." None of the anti-Mormonists who discovered "Manuscript Story" believed it was the manuscript upon which the Book of Mormon was based; rather, they believe that Spaulding, a retired minister, wrote a later version of his story, as yet undiscovered, upon which Joseph Smith plagiaristically based his Book of Mormon. Even so, "Manuscript Story" contains "at least 75 similarities to what is now the Book of Mormon and this is not to be easily explained away." Source: The Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin. -- Sincerely, Cindy Smith emory!dragon!cms [I am normally not enthusiastic about anti- postings. However this is a common enough conception about the basis of the LDS faith that it seems best to get it on the floor and let our LDS readers respond. Walter Martin's book is not always the most unbiased of sources, but I believe our LDS readers are in a better position than I to give details. --clh]