Ken Jennings vs. Brandon Flowers

Well, if Ken's not going to bring it up ... There's an online video being passed around by email with my Mormon family with subject line as given above. Not sure what to say about this, but here it is for your enjoyment.

Guap

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Ah, thank you for the tip. Looks like it came up here the week before I started reading the forum. My bad for thinking anything you get in your inbox might be new!

cadams35 wrote:

Yeah, it was definitely on the boards, though I'm not sure about the blog.

Ken mentioned he got the CD from Eric Snider, but didn't link to the video in his blog.

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Reeder wrote:

... So I switched the photograph to the LDS Conference Center, which doesn't have quite the same sacred aspect as the temple does. It's not as iconic or recognizable, and I don't even like the picture as much, but I felt better about it.

Speaking of the Conference Center, I was talking Sunday to a friend who'd just moved from Salt Lake recently. I asked where he had lived in the city and he says, "Behind the big ... Mormon Palace." He meant the Conference Center, or as we lovingly refer to it in the exmo community, the Great and Spacious Building.

What caused you to leave the church?, This one is for all my anti's out there. —Her Amun

Almost everyone goes thru a period of doubt or questioning, regardless of their religious faith. Ive noticed that many anti's on this board have mormon roots. What made you leave? Was it a set of doctrines or practices? Which ones?

White shirts in church.

Scott Woodward.

Google.

QUOTE (The Dude @ Aug 12 2006, 12:01 AM)

QUOTE Scott Woodward. You too, huh?

QUOTE (beamer @ Aug 10 2006, 07:36 AM)

QUOTE Scott Woodward. I'm curious--what about him or his research caused you to leave the church?

Yeah, the mods asked for brevity but that one deserves explanation. I'd hate to think Bro. Woodward would see that and think he ushered in the great latter-day apostacy. I actually like Scott and really enjoyed an early presentation he did at BYU Education Week one year. I also, still as a TBM, appreciated his FAIR presentation on DNA a year or two ago. I don't know if that link is still active here, but that was also my introduction to FAIR.

The point of including him here is not that his findings were so damning to the church or its claims. He just represents in my mind the whole episode of jarring my consciousness to the point where I really asked, "What if it's not all true?" His significance in the whole process came from the fact that this was BYU saying this about Native American DNA. I suspect I would have discounted it had it come from any other source.

QUOTE (Christian)

Over time, this led to the church ceasing to be an important institution in my life over the matter of about 1.5 years as my study and new exploration of the "truth" continually lessened my basis for belief (thus proving the point of many prophets that when you are not doing all the things that a valiant member does, you risk losing your testimony).

Yeah, you gotta love proving their point, huh? That's powerful marketing, second only to "They leave the church but they can't leave it alone."

WHO, WHERE, WHEN ,WHY and HOW of BoM, Anti mo's explain yourselves —Her Amun

Since the we "TBM"s are in agreement as to the who what where and why of BoM translation and the plates. Could the non-mo's please give us their account of the who, what were and why of the BoM translation and gold plates?

I hope what's obvious here, Her Amun, is that the non-mo's don't have an account of who, what, where, and why. Some speculate and conjecture about what may have happened, but I've never met an exmo who left the church because they gained a testimony of the Spalding theory, the Golden Pot theory, or any other. In most cases I think the conclusion is that I don't need to know how it happened, I just don't believe it happened like Joseph said.

Unfinding Christ, How do people do it? —hondo

I am reading a bloody fascinating book entitled, "God the Evidence:The Reconciliation of faith and reason in a post-secular world" by Dr. Patrick Glynn. He basically argues how he was atheistic growing up and then learned the hows and the why's of atheism as he completed his studies at Harvard, including a PH.D. He says he found God after various life experiences and presents his arguments against atheism and thats as far as I got. I can see how people "find God", my question is how do you go the other way? How you unfind Christ? If you found something how do you lose it and does losing Christ mean he was never there in the first place?

QUOTE (hondo @ Jul 17 2006, 06:40 PM)

If I lose faith or unfind something does that equal I had never really it in the first place? Example If I found ten bucks and then through whatever experience decided I never did find it does that mean that ten bucks was imaginary or just some weird event that I decided never happened. Do people say to themselves that they never really believed in Christ or that there is no Christ-but How do you find him and then decide you lost him?

You're not talking about finding a tangible thing here, are you? When you say "finding Christ," aren't you referring to some internal acknowledgment of your own belief in what you've been taught about Christ? It's not like finding ten bucks. Find a less ambiguous verb and I suspect you'll have your answer. It seems to me you're just asking, "How do people change their minds about Christ?" Well, they just do. Is there something more I'm missing?

Creation vs. Taxonomy, Relevance of biological classification —ElGuapo

Just sharing a random thought here. If one does not believe in the common descent of living things, if we instead believe God independently created each creature, then scientific classification is kind of meaningless, isn't it? I mean, we speak of mammoths and elephants as being closely related, but if each was brought to earth separately, that "relationship" is nothing more than coincidental.

I'm thinking here of statements from some early church leaders. B. H. Roberts said that each life form was

QUOTE (from The Gospel and Man's Relationship to Deity)

brought from some other and older sphere, with power to propagate their kind. [Eventually] the changed conditions of the earth became unfavorable to them [and] they became extinct and were replaced by other species of a higher type.

Similarly, Joseph Smith in the History of the Church talks about "beasts which had lived on another planet and not ours" (HC 5:324), "strange beasts of which we have no conception" (HC 5:343).

Parley P. Pratt likewise seemed to believe these creatures were brought from another sphere:

QUOTE (from The Key to Theology)

When lo! from yonder world is transferred every species of animal life. Male and female, they come, with blessings on their heads.

The same kind of ideas pertain to the plant kingdom. (There's that taxonomy creeping in again.) Brigham Young said that Adam

QUOTE (from JD 1:50)

arranged in their order the herbs of the field, the trees, the apple, the peach, the plum, the pear, and every other fruit that is desirable and good for man; the seed was brought from another sphere, and planted in this earth.

Of course, however you believe each species has arrived at where it is today, classification is still useful as a descriptive tool. But for those who believe in a literal creation of independent species as referenced above, do you still think of different species as being somehow related? Are tigers and lions and bears and fishes all equally related in your view?

What tribe are you from? Restoration of the 12 tribes —ElGuapo

OK, so I know everyone is from Ephraim. But once in a while you hear of someone having a different lineage in their patriarchal blessing. You get some Manasseh, some Benjamin. On my mission in Korea a companion once told me (who knows where he heard this) that Korean members' blessings generally say they're from the tribe of Dan.

Well, I was just gonna ask the question, but then for kicks I went ahead and set up a Frappr map. If you've never used that site before, it's just an online map where you can mark your location. You do not have to give out any IRL information (just use your FAIR username as your name there). You will have to enter a real email address, but you could use a throw-away address. That's just for registration, the address isn't viewable publicly.

Let's see if we get any non-Ephraimites. But please, Ephraim, stand up and be counted. (And please, everyone, don't ruin the fun by pretending to be from Issachar or something.)

12 Tribes map

Guap

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All Ephraim so far it looks like. By the way, I forgot to mention that location info is only viewable to others at the zip code level, even if you pinpoint your actual address.

And "Guapititos?" What's that about?

QUOTE (Doctor Steuss @ Jul 10 2006, 12:58 PM)

ElGuapo, This site has a couple of stories about different people, their ancestry, and their tribe. If you find it trustworthy, you could probably plug in a couple of the different tribe stories and where the people are from: Beyond Arsareth: The Twelve Tribes of Israel Today

Interesting reading, Doctor Steuss, thanks. Sounds like some lineage declarations are not so clear--"tribe of Joseph," "lineage of Abraham," "mostly Asher."

QUOTE (Tarski @ Jul 10 2006, 01:52 PM)

QUOTE (Antley @ Jul 10 2006, 01:48 PM) QUOTE (Tarski @ Jul 10 2006, 02:38 PM) Given how populations interbreed and how many g-g-g-g-g-g- great grandparents we each have, I don't see how this being from a particular tribe thing can even make any real literal sense. To the extent that the ideas surrounding the so called Tribes of Israel are actual, I would say I likely have ancestors in every single tribe and so do you all. I think most LDS are well aware of that. Ten to one odds that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were not aware of it.

QUOTE (Number 9 @ Jul 10 2006, 03:21 PM)

To confirm your Korea/Dan theory - my niece is Korean, and she is from Dan.

That's great, Number 9. Did you also notice in the link Doctor Steuss provided they mention full-blooded Irish members tend to be from Dan as well?

QUOTE

(sailgirl7 @ Jul 10 2006, 07:31 PM) I'm part Korean and I'm from Ephraim- same as my Dad and full Korean Grandma.