Plea to Meso American Apologist

[sam]

19 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Again, it is not "Australian" DNA in South America. It is DNA that resembles the DNA in modern groups presently living in a wide swath of land and sea that stretches from the Andaman Islands in the west and Tonga in the East. But this DNA did not originate in Australia, nor did it necessarily pass to America via Australia. The most probable route went north and the carriers were probably about as close to Australia as a New Yorker is to Kiev. 

The "cavemen" (note the article you linked to gives them the more respectful name of indigenous Australians) arrived by walking. The sea levels were much lower 50 KYA and although a raft may have been needed for short floats, it would have been possible to walk most of the distance between India and Australia. 

Australians and those in the surrounding islands share the same dna but that dna it is found in South America as stated in the article.

 

"Reich’s group had also previously found genetic evidence for a single founding migration. But while sifting through genomes from cultures in Central and South America, Pontus Skoglund, a researcher in Reich’s lab, noticed that the Suruí and Karitiana people of the Amazon had stronger ties to indigenous groups in Australasia—Australians, New Guineans and Andaman Islanders—than to Eurasians."

 

[Rajah Manchou]

4 minutes ago, sam said:

These ideas are far fetched. Same with ideas that man evolved from pond algae and cockroaches.

So you appeal to science and evidence only when it agrees with you, and disparage it when it does not.

[sam]

Just now, Rajah Manchou said:

So you appeal to science and evidence only when it agrees with you, and disparage it when it does not.

I have a problem with evolution and saying we evolved with pond algae and anything dating humans past 6000BC. I personally believe that animals can adapt to their environment but can't go from pond algae to complex animals. I also believe that human life began with Adam and Eve.

When they first dated mitochondrial eve she was dated to 6000BC.

Biogenesis also has huge problems because it can't explain how dna came into existence. Even the singled celled cells have complex rna and it can't be explained by just chance.

[sam]

15 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

Regarding evidence that Joseph Smith stated where Manti was, see Roper:

http://publications.mi.byu.edu/publications/jbms/22/5Roper.pdf

Similar things turn up in looking at the sources for the Zelph story.  http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1398&index=11

And of course, if you want to provide a better explanation of the destructions in 3 Nephi than Mesoamerican volcanos, it's best if you actually look at what you are up against, and do the work to demonstrate that your proposal is better, that is testable, that experiments have provided good results, that it is more comprehensive and coherent in accounting for all the details and fitting together the larger overall picture, that it is fruitful, simple and had more future promise.

https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/geology-book-mormon

https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/thirty-and-fourth-year-geologists-view-great-destruction-3-nephi

And Calm is right that you ought to figure out who you are talking to, and cite specific sources, and know what is behind them.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

 

The new madrid fault is an excellent candidate for the earthquakes mentioned in the Book of Mormon. The last earthquake descriptions match those mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

In a report filed in November 2008, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency warned that a serious earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone could result in "the highest economic losses due to a natural disaster in the United States," further predicting "widespread and catastrophic" damage across Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and particularly Tennessee, where a 7.7 magnitude quake or greater would cause damage to tens of thousands of structures affecting water distribution, transportation systems, and other vital infrastructure.^[20] The earthquake is expected to also result in many thousands of fatalities, with more than 4,000 of the fatalities expected in Memphis alone.

The potential for the recurrence of large earthquakes and their impact today on densely populated cities in and around the seismic zone has generated much research devoted to understanding in the New Madrid Seismic Zone. By studying evidence of past quakes and closely monitoring ground motion and current earthquake activity, scientists attempt to understand their causes and recurrence intervals.

The Book of Mormon describes areas of land that sank and lands that lifted and shaking that lasted for long periods of time. It also describes a vapor of darkness to the point that they could not light fires.

Now compare eyewitness accounts of a New Madrid quake that happened in 1811. Quotes come from Joseph Knew website.

“In all the hard shocks mentioned, the earth was horribly torn to pieces – the surface of hundreds of acres, was, from time to time, covered over, in various depths, by the sand which issued from the fissures, which were made in great numbers all over this country, some of which closed up immediately after they had vomited forth their sand and water, which it must be remarked, was the matter generally thrown up. In some places, however, there was a substance somewhat resembling coal, or impure stone coal, thrown up with the sand. It is impossible to say what the depths of the fissures or irregular breaks were; we have reason to believe that some of them are very deep.” – Eliza Bryan

“The surface was sinking and a black liquid was rising up to the belly of my horse, who stood motionless, struck with a panic of terror […] water spouts, hundreds of them throwing water and sand were to be observed on the whole face of the country, the sand forming miniature volcanoes, whilst the water spouted out of the craters; some of the spouts were quite six feet high… In a few minutes, on both sides of the road as far as the eye could see, was vast expanse of sand and water, water and sand. The road spouted water, and wide openings were to be seen across it ahead of me, then under me, and my [vehicle] sank while the water and sand bubbled, and spat and sucked till my axles were covered.” – J Fletcher

“I went ashore, and found the chasm really frightful, as it was not less than four feet in width and besides the bank had sunk at least two feet. I took the candle, examined to determine its length and concluded that it could not be less than eighty yards long.” – John Bradbury (on the Mississippi River)

“The earth was broken in many places and the openings filled with water. The houses much injured – the only brick chimney in the place entirely demolished…” – Daniel Bedinger

“We were visited by a violent shock of an earthquake, accompanied by a very awful noise resembling loud but distant thunder, but more hoarse and vibrating, which was followed in a few minutes by the complete saturation of the atmosphere, with sulphurious vapor, causing total darkness.” – Eliza Bryan

“A dense black cloud of vapor overshadowed the land.” – Godfrey LeSieur

[sam]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Head-plates are mentioned 7 times in the BoM, nowhere does it say they were metal.

plates are associated with metal. Do have a better idea of what the head PLATES were made out of.

[cinepro]

22 hours ago, JAHS said:

Not sure how you can use the word "proven" false, unless an alternate model has been "proven" true, which none has so far. Perhaps there's not as much evidence for one compared to the other, but unless Nephi himself comes back and tells us where it all happen I don't think we can use the word "proven" for any case.

 

Uh...something can absolutely be "proven false" without any sort of alternate model or theory having been "proven true" (or even suggested).

[thesometimesaint]

12 minutes ago, sam said:

I have a problem with evolution and saying we evolved with pond algae and anything dating humans past 6000BC. I personally believe that animals can adapt to their environment but can't go from pond algae to complex animals. I also believe that human life began with Adam and Eve.

When they first dated mitochondrial eve she was dated to 6000BC.

Biogenesis also has huge problems because it can't explain how dna came into existence. Even the singled celled cells have complex rna and it can't be explained by just chance.

All life on this planet is related by genetics. You obviously don't understand science. Modern human DNA is about 200,000 year old. Adaptation of species over more than one generation is evolution.

Mitochondrial Eve. SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

While there is more to learn about Abiogenesis we do have some pretty good ideas as to how it works.

SEE http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html

[sam]

3 minutes ago, cinepro said:

Uh...something can absolutely be "proven false" without any sort of alternate model or theory having been "proven true" (or even suggested).

I should put it a different the meso American has become a huge of criticism for critics trying to disprove the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Calling tapir horses and wood clubs with obsidian stuck to it don't pass as swords or evidence. Nor does it help that Meso America is thousands of miles away from the Hill Cumorah were the last Nephite and Lamanite battles took place.

[Brant Gardner]

3 minutes ago, sam said:

I should put it a different the meso American has become a huge of criticism for critics trying to disprove the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Calling tapir horses and wood clubs with obsidian stuck to it don't pass as swords or evidence. Nor does it help that Meso America is thousands of miles away from the Hill Cumorah were the last Nephite and Lamanite battles took place.

Clearly, you aren't actually reading the responses to your comments. It would be really interesting if you could tell me why the NY hill must be Cumorah if the plates were taken from that hill, and the Book of Mormon says they were not buried in Cumorah? It never says where they were buried, only that when plates were buried in Cumorah that the plates Moroni had were not among them. I would think that agreeing with the text of the Book of Mormon would be important.

As for your criticisms of the Mesoamerican hypothesis, if you don't like the Mesoamericanist answers to the issue of horses and swords, you might give your explanation of the absence of swords and horses in the right period in North America. I know that you have asserted that there were knives (and I have seen "swords"), but I have not yet seen any that are accepted by archaeologists. All of the ones I have seen are late or known forgeries. Before you try to use ridicule to diminish someone else's hypothesis, you should make certain that the very same criticism doesn't apply to your own.

[Rajah Manchou]

2 minutes ago, sam said:

I should put it a different the meso American has become a huge of criticism for critics trying to disprove the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Calling tapir horses and wood clubs with obsidian stuck to it don't pass as swords or evidence. Nor does it help that Meso America is thousands of miles away from the Hill Cumorah were the last Nephite and Lamanite battles took place.

And the critics are so much more impressed by the Heartland model. Calling mastadons domesticated elephants and claiming forgeries as evidence. Nor does it help that New York looks nothing like an isle in the sea nearly completely surrounded by water.

[sam]

16 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

All life on this planet is related by genetics. You obviously don't understand science. Modern human DNA is about 200,000 year old. Adaptation of species over more than one generation is evolution.

Mitochondrial Eve. SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

While there is more to learn about Abiogenesis we do have some pretty good ideas as to how it works.

SEE http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html

I have studied into abiogenesis quite a bit its mathematically impossible for RNA even for singled celled organisms to form by chance.

” Using our empirical rate to calibrate the mtDNA molecular clock would result in an age of the mtDNA MRCA of only ~6,500 y.a., clearly incompatible with the known age of modern humans.'”

Nat Genet. 1997 Apr;15(4):363-8. A high observed substitution rate in the human mitochondrial DNA control region. Parsons TJ, Muniec DS, Sullivan K, Woodyatt

[Rajah Manchou]

15 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

This is not a response to this post but you need to read this individual if you have never come across his work

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_josmith.htm

That was amazing. Has Robert Price publishing anything else on Mormonism?

[sam]

13 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

And the critics are so much more impressed by the Heartland model. Calling mastadons domesticated elephants and claiming forgeries as evidence. Nor does it help that New York looks nothing like an isle in the sea nearly completely surrounded by water.

A mastodon looks much more like an elephant than a tapir looks like a horse. Early settlers thought the Mastodon bones were elephant bones

If you include the Great lakes and Mississippi and Ohio river than the area is surrounded by water. Joseph Smith Said that Ohio Illinois were Nephite and Lamanite lands. 

[sam]

22 minutes ago, Brant Gardner said:

Clearly, you aren't actually reading the responses to your comments. It would be really interesting if you could tell me why the NY hill must be Cumorah if the plates were taken from that hill, and the Book of Mormon says they were not buried in Cumorah? It never says where they were buried, only that when plates were buried in Cumorah that the plates Moroni had were not among them. I would think that agreeing with the text of the Book of Mormon would be important.

As for your criticisms of the Mesoamerican hypothesis, if you don't like the Mesoamericanist answers to the issue of horses and swords, you might give your explanation of the absence of swords and horses in the right period in North America. I know that you have asserted that there were knives (and I have seen "swords"), but I have not yet seen any that are accepted by archaeologists. All of the ones I have seen are late or known forgeries. Before you try to use ridicule to diminish someone else's hypothesis, you should make certain that the very same criticism doesn't apply to your own.

Brant you bring up a good point. Modern archeology has not confirmed iron swords in North America. The instances of rusted iron sword found in Hopewell mounds were given by early settlers and early Smithsonian researchers.

[Rajah Manchou]

19 minutes ago, sam said:

A mastodon looks much more like an elephant than a tapir looks like a horse. 

And a tapir looks more like a mastodon than a horse. This type of thinking goes nowhere real fast.

20 minutes ago, sam said:

If you include the Great lakes and Mississippi and Ohio river than the area is surrounded by water.

I've lived a good number of my years in Missouri. Not once did I ever feel like I was on an island in the sea nearly surrounded by water.

Again, this type of thinking doesn't do much to convince critics that the Heartland model works better than the Meso model.

[Teancum]

1 hour ago, Rajah Manchou said:

So you appeal to science and evidence only when it agrees with you, and disparage it when it does not.

Well yes that is what believers do. If scientific evidence confirms belief it is a wonderful thing.  But if it challenges or refutes belief well then not so much. 

[Teancum]

1 hour ago, sam said:

I have a problem with evolution and saying we evolved with pond algae and anything dating humans past 6000BC. I personally believe that animals can adapt to their environment but can't go from pond algae to complex animals. I also believe that human life began with Adam and Eve.

When they first dated mitochondrial eve she was dated to 6000BC.

Biogenesis also has huge problems because it can't explain how dna came into existence. Even the singled celled cells have complex rna and it can't be explained by just chance.

Well then you are rejecting close to untefutable scientific evidence. 

[morgan.deane]

1 hour ago, sam said:

plates are associated with metal. Do have a better idea of what the head PLATES were made out of.

I actually just read a book called Native North American Armor, shields, and fortifications by David Jones. It was a fun book to read and I found armor can be made out of wood, shell, antlers (I really enjoyed that one,) bones, stone, cloth, stones in cloth with sand and glue, rods, skins (Elk, wolf, buffalo, deer) and even tightly woven strands of willow trees. Jones described "breast plates of rib bones" found in Pueblo sites for example. (85) The Spanish noted that wooden helmets from the northwest were "as heavy as iron.' (107)  Captain Cook described a "breast plate of wood" that could stop musket balls at mid range. (108) Of course, this analysis isn't too different than Hamblin's article on armor in the BoM: http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1108&index=19

I recently presented at the FAIR conference. I'm very proud of the research I've done, but I did make one mistake. I assumed that plates referred to metal, and based my analysis on that. This is somewhat embarrassing because my new book is about reassessing our assumptions about the text. So I've been hitting the books and find that armor, even the heavy (or at least heavier) armor described in the war chapters wasn't necessarily metal, but a variety of non metal objects that could be described as plates.

Thanks for giving me a chance to comment. I love talking about the Book of Mormon. 

Edited August 20, 2016 by morgan.deane

[Brant Gardner]

51 minutes ago, sam said:

Brant you bring up a good point. Modern archeology has not confirmed iron swords in North America. The instances of rusted iron sword found in Hopewell mounds were given by early settlers and early Smithsonian researchers.

Yes. That is the problem. Even though quoting the Smithsonian seems to be a credible source, at that early time it was not up to the standards that we see now. There is nothing verified, no preserved artifacts that can be dated to that period--on top of the lack of evidence for that technology among the Hopewell.

I return the the comment I made much earlier. There is zero archaeological evidence for the Heartland hypothesis. No matter what might be done to make the geography look possible, all available information about the Hopewell tell us that they cannot have been Nephites.

1) The Adena are in the wrong place and cannot have been Jaredites. The fact that they were in Hopewell areas at all contradicts what the Book of Mormon says.

2) Archaeology cannot confirm defensive locations in most of the Hopewell sites that are claimed to be forts. In one case, the moat associated with the wall is on the inside, which is hardly defensive. 

3) While archaeology does support some agriculture, there wasn't sufficient agriculture to support very large populations. Therefore, we see smaller populations than would fit any of the Book of Mormon descriptions about 400 years in to their history.

4) There is no evidence for the kind of complex political structures among the Hopewell that the Book of Mormon requires.

5) While they have copper, it was imported from outside of the Hopewellian sphere, and therefore doesn't fit the Book of Mormon description of a land rich in the metal they used.

6) There is no evidence of large settlements, large populations, and particularly of large battles in the area around the NY hill we call Cumorah.

7) There is no evidence of a written language anywhere in North America (actually, only one region in the entire western hemisphere). Suggestions of written scripts are all late forgeries (and there are certainly some famous ones).

So, the only possible connection between the Book of Mormon and the Hopewell is that the basic dating for the beginnings and end of the Hopewell are similar. That coincidence certainly requires that we look at the Hopewell, but when we do--we find zero evidence from archaeology.

[juliann]

1 hour ago, sam said:

plates are associated with metal. Do have a better idea of what the head PLATES were made out of.

  Native Americans constructed very effective armor and shields using wood, bone, and leather.

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=TRGtkS3Dj3QC&hl=en

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Rajah Manchou said:

That was amazing. Has Robert Price publishing anything else on Mormonism?

Dunno.  I never knew he existed until yesterday

[mfbukowski]

3 minutes ago, juliann said:

  Native Americans constructed very effective armor and shields using wood, bone, and leather.

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=TRGtkS3Dj3QC&hl=en

The first three letters of my name are "BUK"

That is an Indoeuropean word which has come into English as "book"

The original meaning was "beech tree".  Beech trees are associated with books because Beech is a hard and fine grained wood.  When cut into thin slices or "plates" they can be written upon or carved or scratched and bound together into "books"

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/book#English

[mfbukowski]

24 minutes ago, morgan.deane said:

I actually just read a book called Native North American Armor, shields, and fortifications by David Jones. It was a fun book to read and I found armor can be made out of wood, shell, antlers (I really enjoyed that one,) bones, stone, cloth, stones in cloth with sand and glue, rods, skins (Elk, wolf, buffalo, deer) and even tightly woven strands of willow trees. Jones described "breast plates of rib bones" found in Pueblo sites for example. (85) The Spanish noted that wooden helmets from the northwest were "as heavy as iron.' (107)  Captain Cook described a "breast plate of wood" that could stop musket balls at mid range. (108) Of course, this analysis isn't too different than Hamblin's article on armor in the BoM: http://publications.mi.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1108&index=19

I recently presented at the FAIR conference. I'm very proud of the research I've done, but I did make one mistake. I assumed that plates referred to metal, and based my analysis on that. This is somewhat embarrassing because my new book is about reassessing our assumptions about the text. So I've been hitting the books and find that armor, even the heavy (or at least heavier) armor described in the war chapters wasn't necessarily metal, but a variety of non metal objects that could be described as plates.

Thanks for giving me a chance to comment. I love talking about the Book of Mormon. 

See above

[mfbukowski]

In one of my previous lives I made musical instruments and a variety of other wooden objects and became acquainted with "ironwood"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironwood

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignum_vitae

Quote

Demand for the wood has been reduced by modern materials science, which has led to polymer,alloys and composite materials that can take lignum vitae's place.

That's how hard it is.

I am also a gun guy.

There are species of ironwood which are extremely heavy and extremely hard.  I have experimentally shot at plywood sheets to see how they responded to various calibers.  This was not scientific research it was more "playing around" than anything else.

But I am convinced that a two inch plate of ironwood- though it would be HEAVY would stop a .357 magnum bullet from a revolver.

Now you know all my weird secrets.

 

Well maybe not all of them........

Edited August 20, 2016 by mfbukowski

[sam]

16 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

And a tapir looks more like a mastodon than a horse. This type of thinking goes nowhere real fast.

I've lived a good number of my years in Missouri. Not once did I ever feel like I was on an island in the sea nearly surrounded by water.

Again, this type of thinking doesn't do much to convince critics that the Heartland model works better than the Meso model.

To say a mastodon does not look like a elephant is a stretch. You make it look like I'm comparing a mastodon to a tapir. A island is completely surrounded by water while the land of Nephi and Zarahemla is nearly surrounded by water in my opinion the major rivers great lakes and gulf of Mexico fit the bill. Next time put up a picture of a mastodon and a elephant.