MY MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE BEATS YOUR DNA FINDINGS?

In previous posts about Mormonism I have suggested that it is a religion based not on evidence or reason but on fideistic blind faith. For example, just this morning I posted a response to a radio show listener which said:

[There is] an important distinction between Christianity and other religions like Mormonism and Islam. Mormons and Muslims are told to believe their "holy" books because they are holy. The Koran and Book of Mormon are revered first as the very words of God handed down to his supposed prophets and only after that are they accepted as true historical documents. There is no outside test for their validity – it simply must be accepted on blind faith that these books are from God and that any claims made within them are true. Any questioning of their authority is seen as a lack of faith.

I went on to say

There is only on objective truth regarding the nature of reality so claims regarding that truth should stand up to scrutiny in any discipline of knowledge. Truth that we discover using the scientific method should match up with truth discovered through reasoning as well as truth revealed from prophets, etc. If claims made by any of them are in conflict, at least one of them must be wrong.

Religions like Mormonism and Islam do not accept this assertion. A perfect example of that comes via Column One in today's L.A. Times. It seems DNA evidence repudiates Mormon claims that Indians are the lost tribes of Israel and therefore Middle Eastern descendants of Abraham. However, although this rightly shook the faith of some, and others have rightly tried to reconcile the evidence with their sacred teachings, most Mormons simply don't care.

"This may look like the crushing blow to Mormonism from the outside," said Jan Shipps, a professor emeritus of religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, who has studied the church for 40 years. "But religion ultimately does not rest on scientific evidence, but on mystical experiences. There are different ways of looking at truth."

Well, whatever she means by "there are different ways of looking at truth", it clearly has nothing to do with objective truth about reality at all. If your mystical experiences tell you something about reality that is the opposite of what scientific inquiry tells you about the nature of reality, one of them has to be wrong. There is no middle ground. To try to hold on to both is irrational, which is what I have claimed Mormonism is. This is just one more example.

 

Comments

[Alma Allred]

Your conclusions about Mormonism are a bit sheltered (bogus); and your conclusions about “DNA evidence repudiate[ing] Mormon claims that Indians are the lost tribes of Israel and therefore Middle Eastern descendants of Abraham” totally miss the point. (2) Mormons don’t claim that Indians are the lost tribes of Israel –only that several dozen Hebrews were some of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas. DNA has a long way to go before it can exclude 50 or so people as having come to this hemisphere 2,600 years ago. (1) Whatever “fideistic blind faith” is, it seems reasonable that since Hebrews 11:1 defines “faith” as excluding evidence –once you have evidence it is no longer “faith.” I have been a Mormon all of my life and never once was I expected to believe in the Book of Mormon because it was holy. I was expected to find out for myself that it is true and then live according to what I learned. That is the scientific method. You read what others have experienced and then see if their experience can be replicated. That's hardly "blind faith."

[Don]

Thanks for your comment, Alma. I appreciate the clarification about the DNA.

I have a question, though, about faith and evidence. If faith excludes evidence, on what basis were you expected to "find out for yourself" if the book of Mormon is true? You seem to indicate that your experience and the experience of others was the standard. If that is correct, is that not evidence? And if it is evidence, would that not mean that you don't have faith?

[Alma Allred]

>>I have a question, though, about faith and evidence. If faith excludes evidence, on what basis were you expected to "find out for yourself" if the book of Mormon was true?

I was expected to evaluate the testimony of others, to examine the book itself and then ask God if it was indeed His word. Similar to those who heard about the resurrection from those who witnessed it, the hearers needed to hear the testimonies evaluate whether or not they were credible, then search the scriptures to see if it was consistent with Word they already understood and then go to God for confirmation. They obtained the “assurance” or “substance” of what they hoped for, even though the evidence was not seen.

>>You seem to indicate that your experience and the experience of others was the standard. If that is correct, is that not evidence? And if it is evidence, would that not mean that you don't have faith?

I don’t think so. In the situation of someone like Timothy, he had no evidence of the resurrection other than the testimony of those who had seen and met with the resurrected Lord. Perhaps our term “evidence” should be synonymous with “proof.” Timothy had no proof of the resurrection; he only had the word of witnesses that was confirmed by the Holy Spirit once he exercised faith in believing their report. I think that this constituted the “substance of things hoped for…”

[Greg]

These are quotes from prophets of the Mormon Church as well as members of the Quarum, so they would seem to be reliable sources refuting your assertion that "Mormons don't claim that the Indians are the lost tribes of Israel."

"That the existing Indian tribes are all direct descendants of Lehi and his company, and that therefore they have sprung from men all of whom were of the house of Israel." -- James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith, p.293

"When Columbus discovered America, the native inhabitants, the American Indians as they were soon to be designated, were a people of mixed blood and origin. Chiefly, they were Lamanites, but such remnants of the Nephite nation as had not been destroyed had, of course, mingled with the Lamanites. Thus the Indians were Jews by nationality.... [since then] there has been [a]... dilution of the pure Lamanitish blood. ... But with it all, the great majority are the descendants of the original inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere, the dominant blood lineage is that of Israel. The Indians are repeatedly called Lamanites in the revelations to.... become again a white and delightsome people as were their ancestors a great many generations ago." -- Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2nd Ed., 1966, pp. 32-33.

"We can pray to the Father, in the name of Jesus, to convert these Indian tribes around us ... that they shall be instructed not only in relation to their fathers and the Gospel contained in the record of their fathers... because they are of the blood of Israel" -- Orson Pratt, Journal of Discoursess Vol. 17, p.301, (1875)

"In a sense I do not feel sorry for the Indian people because they are children of promise, belonging as they do to the house of Israel and are the posterity of Abraham, the father of the faithful, through whose lineage the Lord promised that all nations of the earth are to be blessed; therefore, they are a chosen race and people unto God, possessing a divine and royal heritage." Delbert L. Stapley , Conference Report, April 1956, p.56

[Alma]

I’m sorry to belabor this point, but Greg, you need to find out exactly what is meant by the “lost tribes." There is no doubt that Mormons believe that a small group of Hebrews did land in the western hemisphere 2600 years ago, and that their descendants intermarried with other indigenous people. But no Mormon anywhere thinks that this small group represents in any way the “lost tribes” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_tribes) of Israel. The citations you provide merely reiterate the belief that these few dozen immigrants from Jerusalem lived here anciently and have descendants among the native populations here at the time of Columbus.

[Greg]

"That the existing Indian tribes are all direct descendants of Lehi and his company, and that therefore they have sprung from men all of whom were of the house of Israel." -- James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith, p.293

The first Quote I cited. It says that the Indians that are here, are Direct decendeds of the Nation of Isreal. The DNA tests Cited in the LA times Article directly refuted this claim. James E Talmage, a Prophet of the Mormon Church Was Factually Incorrect.

de·scen·dant Pronunciation (d-sndnt)
n.
1. A person, animal, or plant whose descent can be traced to a particular individual or group.

He made the claim that this was traceable. It is not. He is wrong. By the test of a Prophet laid out in the OT, he is not a prophet, which means nothing he said can be trusted, which means the Mormon church is built on falty premises, which means the mormon church is not true, in its current form. which means the mormon churh is a false church.

[Bonnie B. Vallance]

I think you can't believe everything you read. This also applies to the newspaper.
If you look at the source of the DNA research and dig a little deeper you will find the truth. In fact there are many who wish to maintain the status Quo ( for example the author and those funding the blasphmous book, "The Bell Curve")at all costs including obscuring the truth. The fact is that scientists that have done DNA research have found that there is more variation in monkeys than there are in humans and that all "races" are really from one source. That is why we have to stop making assumptions about race. You need to look at the AAA American Anthropology Associations statement on race. DNA proves we are all brothers. Now let's stop quibling.
What is really boils down to now is classism, exclusionism and racism.Technically race is a delusion there are no true races. This was an invention of man to perpetuate exploitaion of individuals it was a classist act of oppression and one of the biggest lies we are led to believe is true. The phenotypes are just that.
Whenever you look at scientific data, see who is funding this. Scientists are human they may have an agenda like money.

[Eric Hoffman]

Hey Don I ran across your interview with Alma Allred. I have to say that many great points were left out that would discredit Mormonism entirely. If there is one scripture alone that would destroy Mormonism it would be John 1:1.
I would love if Alma could come back on the show and try to defend his faith with me as a guest on your show as well. His comments regarding the LDS witnesses is totally bogus. All the witnesses said their seeing the golden plates was a vision. Some of them even recanted their testimony. Let me know if you would be interested as having me as a guest to clear up this fog called Mormonism.
God Bless...
-Eric
Psalm 18:2

[Doug Forbes]

Modern Jews and Native Americans share common DNA lineages. For example, the Q-P36 Y-chromosome lineage is found in 31% of American Indians in the US, (Hammer 2005) 5% of Ashkenazi Jews (Behar 2004) and 5% of Iraqi Jews. (Shen 2004) Most scientists believe that Q-P36 entered America long before Book of Mormon (BoM) times. This, of course, does not mean that a strain of Q-P36 could not have made a late entry. However, mainstream science has a problem with this lineage they have not yet been able to resolve in a way that supports their theories.

In 1996 Dr. Peter Underhill, a PhD from Stanford University calculated that the most recent common male ancestor of most Native Americans lived 2147 prior or 151 BC. He determined this from the genetic diversity of Y-chromosomes in living Native Americans. Essentially he counted mutations and applied a rate of 2.1 per 1000 (Weber & Wong) and a generation length of 27 years. This date can, of course, be adjusted by altering variables like the generation length. For example with a generation length of 32.65 years, a date of 600 BC is obtained.

Even faster mutation rates of 2.8 per 1000 have been observed in father/son pairs (Kayser). However, Underhill has never believed that this date was true. He and a colleague named Zhivotovsky have spent a good deal of time developing what they call an ‘effective’ mutation rate. The theory is that even though rates of 2.1 per 1000 (Weber & Wong) and 2.8 per 1000 (Kayser) have been observed in living populations, that mutations don’t really accumulate that fast over thousands of years. Their effective rate is 6.9 per 10000 or 0.69 per 1000.[1]

In 2006, a study by Pakendorf et al. used the mutation rate observed by Kayser (2.8 per 1000) and got a pretty accurate date for the migration of the Yakuts. Pakendorf states, “… it has recently been proposed that ‘effective’ mutation rates (Zhivotovsky et al. 2004), which are not based on pedigree studies but on archaeologically calibrated migrations, may reflect the true historical processes better than pedigree rates. Using the average ‘effective’ rate of 6.9 [per 1000] calculated by Zhivotovsky et al. (2004) results in a much greater age of the Yakut male expansion of approximately 3800 years … However, these older dates are inconsistent with linguistic and archaeological evidence: … the split of Yakut from Common Turkic cannot be earlier than 1,500 years BP.” [2]

Applying these faster mutation rates to American Indians gives dates for the most recent common ancestor that range from 2147 to 2750; well within BoM times.

Footnotes

[1] Zhivotovsky LA, Underhill PA, Feldman MW (2006) “Difference between evolutionarily effective and germ line mutation rate due to stochastically varying haplogroup size”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?tmpl=NoSidebarfile&db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=16956974&dopt=Abstract

[2] Brigitte Pakendorf et al (2006), “Investigating the effects of Prehistoric migrations in Siberia: genetic variation and the origins of Yakuts” | Hum Genet (2006) 120:334–353 | DOI 10.1007/s00439-006-0213-2
http://www.eva.mpg.de/genetics/pdf/Yakut_article_2006.pdf