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MormonTimes.com: Theology suggests Book of Mormon setting in Central America, scholar says
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I just have to ask: why does it matter whether the Inca deified dead leaders? It will not prove the historicity of the Book of Mormon! FAIR scholars should know better than to make suggestions that things like this constitute links to BOM theology.
Just because you are both uninformed about and undesirous to learn about ancient American civilizations does not mean that everybody thrives on ignorance.
The Inca were in a different time and place than the Mayan.
This is not about proving that the Book of Mormon is true but about seeking for a larger historical setting. Some of us believe in the unity of truth and believe that it is a good thing to learn more.
Lastly, the Zelph comment is not relevant. It is clear that in the final part of the Book of Mormon a major retreat northward occured. Since Zelph is not even mentioned in the document, his exact physical connection is not clear. Beyond this the distances involved in the northward retreat are hard to quantify, so forcing events in Mormon to have occured in the same location as events in Alma is not justified by the Book of Mormon text. We also have to remember Mormon never tried to give us enough information to find any sight he referenced, so we have to accept ambiguities.
IN 3rd Nephi just before Christ visited america, their was a great change in geography, high places made low, low places made high, etc.
So attempting find the geography of the Book of Mormon discriptions based on pre- 3rd nephi scripture made be complete hopeless due to the radical changes in the landscape.
But a more important point:
It's just lazy thinking, and no intellectual effort to just disbelieve the Book of Mormon and/or Joseph Smith,
for no other reason just because you believe it can't be true,
or claim all religions are myth and are false.
Why it's so easy to disbelieve without proof and just claim it so?
IT takes no effort to believe something is NOT true, it takes no proof or evidence to believe something is NOT true, just lazy thinking and no intellectual effort required.
It takes greater intellectual effort to believe something is true.
You simply can not prove Joseph Smith did not see what said he saw.
It is lazy not consider a moment if what if all he said is true what that means for everyone,
what that means period.
Come clean! Admit it!
You make a very strong argument!
"It takes greater intellectual effort to believe something is true."
It takes much more intellectual effort to believe in God than to believe nothing.
So we can create a hierarchy of mental effort and faith:
At the bottom are all those who don't believe anything. They are the MOST "intellectually lazy."
Next are those who believe in God, but not in Mormonism. They are low-to-MEDIUM lazy.
Then there are the MEDIUM intellectual effort people who believe in Mormonism and the Book of Mormon and the Zelph prophecy. They have put forth the effort to believe some things that are tough to believe.
But those in the HIGH intellectual effort category are those who believe in UFOs, alien abductions, ESP, psychic readings, that the X-files are true documentary, and those who believe in unicorns. These people are morally superior to all the others because they are the LEAST LAZY intellectually! They have sacrificed and done the MOST work to believe!
Of course, then there are the Extra-High intellectual effort people like yourself, who believe they are actually a pomegranate. They deserve our worship because they are like the intellectual Olympic Gold winners!
You are absolutely right. "We can't have true faith in something that is false."
So when I learn that Joseph Smith's history (as told by Bushman in "Rough Stone Rolling") is completely different than the history told me by the missionaries, and "the Spirit" confirms to me that the "inspiring" Joseph Smith history is FALSE, then I cannot have faith in it.
Trouble is, I cannot have faith in the "true" Joseph Smith history told by Bushman because it shows Joseph to have been anything BUT a prophet or a righteous man! In many ways he was downright deplorable! What kind of a man uses his Church position to threaten women if they don't become his plural wives? What kind of a man lies to his own wife for years about his sexual relationships with other women, even if you accept that he married these other women first?!
No, you cannot have faith in things that are false. I cannot have anymore faith in Joseph Smith because he was a false prophet.
Probably the same reason the mormon church has never given any official answer.
There has never been any archeological evidence to support any of the BOM claims.
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