>From: "John M Grigg" <starman125@mailcity.com>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>To: extropians@extropy.com
>Subject: Re: Why we believe
>Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 14:23:30 -0900
...
>J.R. Molloy wrote:
>I couldn't get past the Introduction, where that vastly overrated book
>claims "gold plates" as its source. It also refers to these as "sheets of
>metal," "metal record plates," and "Plates of Brass." So, whatever happened
>to these mythical "metal plates"? Why, "the messenger called for them...
>and he has them in his charge until this day." How convenient! This leaves
>the dispassionate observer with absolutely no evidence to contradict an
>intuition that the entire Book sprang from the fevered brain of a misfit.
>This vastly overrated book has nothing to do with extropy, and everything
>to do with wasting paper, ink, and other resources, including the minds of
>children and the bandwidth of the Net.
>(end)
>
I tried to read it in middle school and had the same reaction - I found some
interesting things in the bible, and there's debate about how much of
biblical stories are somewhat based in reality - some of the debate is
legitimate. As for the Book Of Mormon.. it's stunningly fraudulent, and not
at all interesting as fiction. Nothing in it synchronizes with anything we
know about history, botany, or the anthropology of the Americas. Here is a
brief article about some of the mistakes in it:
http://www.nowscape.com/mormon/zindler1.htm
Also note that there's some translation mistakes in the King James version
of the Bible - there are some Bible passages in the Book Of Mormon, and
every translation mistake is carried over.
>John Clarke was I believe discussing the Bible and NOT the mormon cripture
>known as The Book of Mormon! Again, on my mission people would ask if the
>golden plates which had the original Book of Mormon text on them were in a
>Utah museum! I have no problem with the idea that an angel of God took
>them back when the translation was finished. The attempts to steal them
>and kill Smith were many as he translated.
I believe his wife at the time stole some of them. This presented a dilemma,
because these were the originals - if he were to re-write them, he should be
getting the same translation, but nobody's memory is that good - so he came
up with a story about how Satan influenced the original translation, and any
differences found between versions was due to Satan's influence.
He also tried to tie Egypt into it somehow - there were some Egyptian
pictographic scripts at the time which nobody could translate. Smith, by
divine inspiration, was able to fill in the missing parts. Today, an
Egyptologist would laugh at the parts he filled in.
>
...
>
>
>Some say the whole NDE experience is simply caused by electro-chemical
>activity in the brain, and nothing else. I read the web article about the
>researcher who allows people to be "hooked up" and experience a medically
>induced "nde." I was not overwhelmed by the accounts and if visiting the
>facility, I would tell the scientist to crank it up to FULL power!
>
I have a friend who was in a near-fatal motorcycle accident and had a NDE on
the road, and later in the hospital. She says she is no longer afraid of
dying. She also descibres a ghost who followed her throughout her house for
a few months when she was 16. She gave a physical description of the ghost
as a ashen faced 40ish man, wearing a Frank Sinatra type hat (I know there
is a name for that). It sounded to me like she was describing William
Burroughs. I showed her a picture of him and she was startled by the
resemblance. I know of at least 4 other people who have described a "ghost"
of the exact same appearance (all of them live in Utah). I have no
insightful comment on this, I just thought it was interesting. I personally
do not believe they were actually being trailed by a sentient entity.
---------------------------------------------------
Zeb Haradon (zebharadon@hotmail.com)
My personal webpage:
http://www.inconnect.com/~zharadon/ubunix
A movie I'm directing:
http://www.elevatormovie.com
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