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Mormon Apologetics
September 22, 2012 at 8:21 pm
(This post was last modified: September 22, 2012 at 8:45 pm by Tea Earl Grey Hot.)
Found this site through an article linked in another thread:
http://mormonthink.com/
It's hilarious and eye opening to read if you're an atheist coming from a fundamentalist Christian background with knowledge of Christian apologetics. I'd be pissing my pants right now if I were a Christian reading this site since their arguments are about as "good" as Christian arguments.
Edit: Wait, it might not be a mormon apologetic site after all. It's confusing what it is exactly.
Yeah, never mind. It's not one after all. I read a few pages that seemed apologetic at first but it's seems that it's some sort of Mormon recovery site. Should have read it further before posting. Sorry. (I tried deleting this thread but it won't let me.)
Ok, to keep this thread from being completely futile, I found a real Mormon Apologetics site: http://en.fairmormon.org/FAIRwiki:Table_of_contents
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"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
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RE: Mormon Apologetics
September 22, 2012 at 10:52 pm
Good find. I began to browse the site, and immediately found one of my very favorite kinds of arguments:
"...Joseph Smith could not possibly have written the Book of Mormon. How could a young, farm boy with limited education like Joseph have written a fairly long, complex, flawless religious text like the Book of Mormon? If Joseph could not have written the book on his own, then therefore his story of the golden plates and the angel must be true."
If this specific alternative did not happen, then it MUST be true.
There are so many believers out there who spend all of their time & energy attempting finding ways to disprove what we do know about the creation of the earth in order to say "well if it's not this, it must be god!"
The disproof of one alternative is just that. It says absolutely nothing about what actually happened.
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RE: Mormon Apologetics
September 22, 2012 at 11:14 pm
(This post was last modified: September 22, 2012 at 11:42 pm by Tea Earl Grey Hot.)
Yep, I think that's a case of the fallacy of appeal to ignorance. Intelligence Design is founded upon that fallacy. "How'd the eye evolve? Can't explain that."
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"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."
-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
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RE: Mormon Apologetics
September 22, 2012 at 11:33 pm
It's also the fallacy of false dilemma / dichotomy.
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RE: Mormon Apologetics
September 22, 2012 at 11:59 pm
(September 22, 2012 at 11:14 pm)teaearlgreyhot Wrote: Yep, I think that's a case of the fallacy of appeal to ignorance. Intelligence Design is founded upon that fallacy. "How'd the eye evolve? Can't explain that."
Heh. I know. I called a group of creationists on that a while back. Remind them that even if we throw away everything about evolution, what evidence do we have for creationism? Didn't get any responses.
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RE: Mormon Apologetics
September 23, 2012 at 12:00 am
(September 22, 2012 at 11:59 pm)TaraJo Wrote: (September 22, 2012 at 11:14 pm)teaearlgreyhot Wrote: Yep, I think that's a case of the fallacy of appeal to ignorance. Intelligence Design is founded upon that fallacy. "How'd the eye evolve? Can't explain that."
... what evidence do we have for creationism? Didn't get any responses.
Der der der, TEH BIBEL! Der der der
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-- George Yorgo Veenhuyzen quoted by John W. Loftus in The End of Christianity (p. 103).
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RE: Mormon Apologetics
September 23, 2012 at 2:35 am
(September 22, 2012 at 10:52 pm)AtheistAmes Wrote: Good find. I began to browse the site, and immediately found one of my very favorite kinds of arguments:
"...Joseph Smith could not possibly have written the Book of Mormon. How could a young, farm boy with limited education like Joseph have written a fairly long, complex, flawless religious text like the Book of Mormon? If Joseph could not have written the book on his own, then therefore his story of the golden plates and the angel must be true."
If this specific alternative did not happen, then it MUST be true.
There are so many believers out there who spend all of their time & energy attempting finding ways to disprove what we do know about the creation of the earth in order to say "well if it's not this, it must be god!"
The disproof of one alternative is just that. It says absolutely nothing about what actually happened.
Who says it is "flawless?" Mormons? Now there is an unbiased source.
Smith's idea was hardly original.
http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/bomi...rigins.htm
Quote:One of the claims often made by LDS people is that there was no information on the Indian ruins in Mexico and Guatemala available prior to 1830. Actually, numerous books recounting similar ideas as those in Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon had already been published.
Many of the books published on the American Indians claimed a possible tie to the lost tribes of Israel. The Book of Mormon follows this idea and claims that the main group in the story is Israelites from Jerusalem. Other ideas found in the Book of Mormon that are also found in books of Smith’s time include: two groups warring against each other, a white group destroyed by war, horses, use of the wheel, mammoth bones, Hebrew writings, Egyptian influence, the use of stone boxes, written records, temples, grand ruins, highways, fortifications, etc. These commonly held theories prepared the way for people to more readily believe the Book of Mormon.
However, current findings and non-LDS scholars now reject these ideas and see no relationship between the American Indians and Hebrews or the civilization depicted in the Book of Mormon.
Below is a partial list of books published prior to 1830 dealing with the Indians (condensed from Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon, Dan Vogel, Signature Books, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1986, pp. 105-132).
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