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Originally Posted by ex19k

ok...monkey wrench time...at least for me... Everyone...Great words on the spirit!
However....some people do have a passion for this kinda thing...like me! I love the research that is done in the name of science...and hey...if it helps to promote the gospel that i hold so dear, oh yeah..as the old archeologist once said...Have trowel will travel!
To me the discoveries that are being made today are amazing! not to mention that they are re-writing history every day!

It is really fun stuff. I also think some of the findings are giving us a clearer picture of what it was really like in BoM times.

Now..let me ask you something...if they found say a rock..in the U S say in the New Mexico area that had a phonecian style of hebrew that had the 10 commandments on it. that this writing was used about 600BC and when discovered in the 1800's was thought to be a joke. well....i for one went...hmmmm...do tell. if you want will try to find that link again....

link

Originally Posted by Dale

Without such evidence i would think Joseph Smiths story of the angels taking the plates back as a cover story. The real story would be he created fake plates and have to destroy the evidence. So as an explanation if he was lying he would have to create a story to cover his deception.

I have been closely studying Living Hope Ministries Bible vs. the Book of Mormon. FAIR at its You Tube channel put up its own film a few days ago. But in the film some of the critics saw the lack of manuscript evidence for the book as evidence Joseph Smith had no plates. Certain critics think if he really had plates he would have no need for an angel to take them back. Rather the plates would be on display somewhere. I would agree with them were it not for the evidences that gives me hope to trust his story.

Book of Mormon evidences to me satisfy me no 19th century guy alone wrote the book. To me i have seen some of those evidences survive some tough critical scrutiny. But if i had nothing outside Joseph Smiths word i would agree with critics he was a fraud. To me the evidence gives me hope i can rely on Joseph Smiths word. And to avoid making ourselves victims of decieving men we should accept nobody's word on their sayso alone.

Doubts and questions are a part of religion. And i see lots of issues ambiguous. So living with not knowing based on evidence alone is a reality. I live with having faith in what i do not know.

There is always multiple interpretations for everything. There are some people who say that the holocaust never happened, there are some who say we never landed on the moon, etc. etc… every single “fact” that exists can be debated, interpreted different ways etc. etc… like Perry model – have to realize that there are no "100% proven" facts, and base your decisions on personal values... Kroll’s intellectual progression from being “ignorantly certain” to being “ intelligently confused”.

"The only truths are in systems of belief." - my old chem prof. Dr. Sloan

I think the plates were taken so that there would be no “translation wars” resulting in 100eds of versions of the BoM as with the Bible…