Everything you know is wrong.

#1

What do you do when DNA testing proves your religious identity wrong?

Sucks to be Mormon...

[spoil:b7d29d2558]According to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an angel named Moroni led Joseph Smith in 1827 to a divine set of golden plates buried in a hillside near his New York home.

God provided the 22-year-old Joseph Smith with a pair of glasses and seer stones that allowed him to translate the "Reformed Egyptian" writings on the golden plates into the "Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ."

Mormons believe these scriptures restored the church to God's original vision and left the rest of Christianity in a state of apostasy.

The book's narrative focuses on a tribe of Jews who sailed from Jerusalem to the New World in 600 BC and split into two main warring factions.

The God-fearing Nephites were "pure" (the word was officially changed from "white" in 1981) and "delightsome." The idol-worshiping Lamanites received the "curse of blackness," turning their skin dark.

According to the Book of Mormon, by 385 AD the dark-skinned Lamanites had wiped out other Hebrews. The Mormon church called the victors "the principal ancestors of the American Indians." If the Lamanites returned to the church, their skin could once again become white.

Over the years, church prophets †™ ¢‚¬„¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¢†™‚¢‚¢¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¬¦‚¡¢‚¬Å¡‚¬†™‚¢‚¢¢¢¬…¡‚¬? believed by Mormons to receive revelations from God †™ ¢‚¬„¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¢†™‚¢‚¢¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¬¦‚¡¢‚¬Å¡‚¬†™‚¢‚¢¢¢¬…¡‚¬? and missionaries have used the supposed ancestral link between the ancient Hebrews and Native Americans and later Polynesians as a prime conversion tool in Central and South America and the South Pacific.

"As I look into your faces, I think of Father Lehi [patriarch of the Lamanites], whose sons and daughters you are," church president and prophet Gordon B. Hinckley said in 1997 during a Mormon conference in Lima, Peru. "I think he must be shedding tears today, tears of love and gratitude†™ ¢‚¬„¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¢†™‚¢‚¢¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¬¦‚¡¢‚¬Å¡‚¬†™¢¢¬…¡¢‚¬Å¡‚¦. This is but the beginning of the work in Peru."

In recent decades, Mormonism has flourished in those regions, which now have nearly 4 million members †™ ¢‚¬„¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¢†™‚¢‚¢¢¢‚¬Å¡‚¬¦‚¡¢‚¬Å¡‚¬†™‚¢‚¢¢¢¬…¡‚¬? about a third of Mormon membership worldwide, according to church figures. [/spoil:b7d29d2558]

Genetic testing of Jews throughout the world had already shown that they shared common strains of DNA from the Middle East. Southerton examined studies of DNA lineages among Polynesians and indigenous peoples in North, Central and South America. One mapped maternal DNA lines from 7,300 Native Americans from 175 tribes.

They found no trace of Middle Eastern DNA in the genetic strands of today's American Indians and Pacific Islanders.

#2

Oh man! LOL that'd really blow.

Just for interest's sake, here's the LDS response to the research:

Mormon response

#3

I recommend reading something else.

Basically, here is a summary: "Just because there is no evidence, there is no proof that we will not SOMEDAY find evidence, and then you will all look as silly as we currently do. and you won't have magick underwear to keep you warm in the cold light of humilation."

#4

Yep, that about sums it up. I thought about posting some of those "papers" in here but then thought, "Why waste the bandwidth?"

#5

though, there is alot to say about them... and at least some of it is good.

their beliefs may be a bit skew-wise, and their attitudes a bit more conservative than mine specially bout woman-folk,..

their values are pretty intact with regard to family and provision, which is more than most of the "religions" out there can say.

and, to date, they have never went jihad.

#6

And BOY can they party!

#7

do you mean to tell me that both have you have not accepted Joseph Smith as your personal saviour? What the heck is going on around here? Just when I thought I was starting to make some new friends......frick!!!

heh, I lived in SLC for a couple of years. While it was a beautiful city, there was some serious repolitigion going on in that city. It was kinda oxymoronic (or is that oxy-mormonic? heh) how the board that approves liquor licenses for the taverns, pubs, and bars in the city was made up of a bunch of garment-wearin, closet drinkin, cross-dressin, misogynistic LDS crumudgeons, who unless you were in their parrish or shared a 4th wife twice removed you stood no chance in the outer darkness of getting approved. Unless of course you kicked up your tithing percentage quite a bit for a while.....then maybe.

The funniest part was hearing all the urban myths about how they had secret caves with all kinds of strange artifacts and documents where they practiced ultra secret rituals that affected the future of the universe. I think it was really a bunch of strange old men getting together to wear their wives pantyhose and eat jello with chunks of canned fruit and carrot shavings in it.

To each their own.

-emanon (is not a saint latter day or otherwise)