DNA tests contradict Mormon scripture.

[rodeodance]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-me-mormon16feb16,0,1135048.story?track=hpmostemailedlink

Bedrock of a Faith Is Jolted

DNA tests contradict Mormon scripture. The church says the studies are being twisted to attack its beliefs.

By William Lobdell
Times Staff Writer

February 16, 2006

From the time he was a child in Peru, the Mormon Church instilled in Jose A. Loayza the conviction that he and millions of other Native Americans were descended from a lost tribe of Israel that reached the New World more than 2,000 years ago.

"We were taught all the blessings of that Hebrew lineage belonged to us and that we were special people," said Loayza, now a Salt Lake City attorney. "It not only made me feel special, but it gave me a sense of transcendental identity, an identity with God."

A few years ago, Loayza said, his faith was shaken and his identity stripped away by DNA evidence showing that the ancestors of American natives came from Asia, not the Middle East.

"I've gone through stages," he said. "Absolutely denial. Utter amazement and surprise. Anger and bitterness."............

[Demeter]

1. That Was Just Plain Weird

Does it matter who your ancestors were, or where they came from, as much as who you are and what you are doing about it? Aside from inherited genetic disease or genetic advantages, ancestry is a parlor game, not a way to organize one's personality or life.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Oh, yes it matters. These people were exploited.

Big surprise, the Christians and missionaries coming into the New World and exploiting the indigenous people to ply them and get them to be more cooperative. Pretty sick, the things that missionary did and still do.

[oneold1-4u]

18. Memory serves me

that one of the first missionaries to the Oregon territory, built a mission and told a bunch of lies to a group of Natives only to make them slaves. They all died at the hands of the natives! Somehow history keeps this alive as a "bad native" thing!
Religions seem to create their own diverse propaganda, forever, simply to grow into their own power structures.
Now the citizens are "beneath" the religious structure of an enslaving government. How will history write its demise?
DNA isn't going to replace common sense and the innate desire for freedom!

[The Backlash Cometh]

22. Funny how our perspective of historical events change as we get

new information. I remember as a child being distressed whenever I saw a rendition of Custer's last stand. I felt so sorry for the General and his men. But later, I learned to root for the indians. It was all about karma.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. If you're talking about the Whitman mission

I don't remember anything about enslaving the Indians, but they DID bring European diseases to the area. The Indians not surprisingly assumed that the missionaries were making them sick on purposes, hence the so-called "Whitman massacre."

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. oh, yes, it matters to them. You see, there is only enough room in

heaven for so many people, and the elders get to decide who is 'pure' enough. Toe the line or live forever in pergatory. A lizard told him this, so of course we musn't question this book written 175 years ago. :eyes:

[MADem]

13. Gee, if God could give this guy glasses and magic rocks

...why couldn't he have given him the correct geneology???

People have the right to believe what they want to believe, but I find the entire tale fanciful, to put it very kindly.

[Burning Water]

My guess would be

that this invalidates a major portion of his faith. A very basic portion of it. If this much of it is wrong, he must be asking himself, what about the rest of it?

His world view is shattered, and he has yet to develop a new one. Yeah, it's a major life crises.

[sybylla]

16. You've got it

This man says he bought into the mormon faith specifically because of this claim. It is seductive to think you are from a special group of people specifically mentioned in holy books.

When it turned into a farce, the whole world that this man built not only his faith but his identity upon is gone like a burst balloon. People don't just recover from that with a simple shrug of their shoulders or even by contrivances to deny the truth. It's life shattering and, as you said, a major life crisis.

[Burning Water]

11. DUPE delete

[rodeodance]

12. Lots of information in this article--talkes of conversions in Peru

.....Over the years, church prophets — believed by Mormons to receive revelations from God — 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 , 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…. 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 — about a third of Mormon membership worldwide, according to church figures.

"That was the big sell," said Damon Kali, an attorney who practices law in Sunnyvale, Calif., and is descended from Pacific Islanders. "And quite frankly, that was the big sell for me. I was a Lamanite. I was told the day of the Lamanite will come."........

[ktlyon]

24. that is a little insensitive

being lied to is never easy to take

[rodeodance]

30. but ancesty does order lives in some form or another (not all )

[greenman3610]

2. racial identity, I guess

is really important to Mormon conservatives.
Just another way to be "pure white".

[bluethruandthru]

7. I think that's "white and delightsome"

I grew up in Utah and remember my neighbor talking about how people were like cookies. The brown and black ones had been left in God's oven too long and they just weren't as good!!! GAWD!

[nofoil]

19. What about Sun Tans?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

9. Isn't it lovely how they tell these people that there is something wrong

with them because of the color of their skin... and they believe them!? Sickening.

[Canuckistanian]

3. Geez, I'd hate to be the one to tell him about Santa Claus

He'd probably be suicidal.

[nofoil]

20. Oh that's what Santa uses his little glasses for!

Magic tablets written in "Egyptian" containing all the names of the bad little girls and boys.

[bananas]

6. Next they'll say the talking frog was fake

or salamander or whatever it was.

[tanyev]

8. *Gasp!* Joseph Smith just made all that stuff up? Inconceivable!

[bluethruandthru]

10. I'm sure he didn't want to take more than one wife!

What a horrible burden to put on him! All that procreating!

[tanyev]

21. You know, given the disproportionate ratio of men to women

back in the days of the western frontier, a religion that allowed women to take multiple husbands would have been much more logical. I guess no woman was stupid enough to dream it up.

[nofoil]

25. Disagree

Multiple husbands? Imagine the housework. Imagine the socks. Imagine... oh, better not.

[megatherium]

27. Read Mark Twain, Roughing It, for interesting details about Mormon

polygamy. One of the funniest things in print. (Chapter 15, easy to find on the web.)

[drm604]

14. Along with

The whole business about the "Book of Abraham". It was "translated" by Joseph Smith from Egyptian papyri. The only problem is, since then the Rosetta Stone was discovered and we can now read the papyri (at least what's left of them) and they say nothing remotely related to what Smith said they did.

http://www.carm.org/lds/ldspapyri.htm

[Bamboo]

29. Plain old archeology is enough.

Lots of non-evidence of the civilizations in the Book of Mormon.I knew a mormon,he was always going on about the self-reliant pioneers and mormon myth-his way of scraping imaginary manure off his boots.The first thing he did after returning from missionary work was to clear brush.

At 20 he was called "elder" which is ironic since I was familiar with his behavior.He did not follow much of the church law except tithing which is what matters most to the church.He did not have a year's supply of food but he did have a year's supply of skin magazines.

He played Dungeons and Dragons which messed up his perception of reality,he went to Brigham Young University and he told me about getting together with girls and "bundling",they all sleep together as a group and let things take their course.

Mormonism is rather narcissistic in that they all dress up on Sunday to go to church then go back to their suburban hedonism.My study of narcissism started when I was very young with some yard sale paperbacks,it made religion,politics and sex entertaining instead of traumatic.

[yurbud]

15. oddly, I am embarassed on their behalf. Because they are a newer

religion, their beliefs look sillier and are easier to disprove.

This did need to be done though, and should be done with things like Evangelicals belief in the Rapture or the Zionist claim to all of Israel after a nearly 2,000 year absence or New Age nonsense about reincarnation or crystal colonics.

If you want to believe stupid stuff, that's your right, but we should politely debunk this stuff in the public square as is done here.

[mooseandsquirrel]

31. Amen, brother!

snark

m&s

[blindpig]

17. Was that Moroni or Morani?

:rofl:

[oppositionmember]

26. All organized religions are hokum...

some more than others.

[megatherium]

28. I like to draw the line between religions that are demonstrably false

and those whose beliefs are not falsifiable.

[bobbieinok]

32. that Indians are the Lost Tribe of Israel is apparently an essential

part of the Mormon belief system

When my ex was in 7th grade, his family moved to Utah; they moved b/c of the father's job--they were/are not Mormons. That year in their study of American history, the teacher told the class: 'Well, that's what the text book says, but WE know that the American Indians are descended from the Lost Tribe of Israel.'

My ex had never heard this before, and he started asking her what she meant, what was she talking about, how did she know this. There was apparently a very heavy-duty discussion in the class, and finally the teacher sent him to the principal.

I don't remember if his parents got involved, but the teacher and principal decided that this belief would not be discussed in class. He always thought they meant 'whenever you're in class.'