Background Context and Assumptions
By true I mean that it really was somewhat inspired by God. That the stories in the Book of Mormon happened pretty much the way they are written, except if Joseph Smith made some of it up, if he was having a bad day, but in general most of it is true.
As you see, I am trying to present both sides, and go where the algorithm takes me, but don't tell me that everything in the Bible is 100% true, and non contradictory. Were there two angels or 3 at the Tomb? Which version of Jesus's ancestry was accurate? What about all the other differences between the Gosples. There are hundreds if not Thousands.
No one on this planet who is smart accepts that every single word in the Book of Mormon or Bible are 100% accurate.
Reasons to agree (that the Book of Mormon is "true"): +5
- It is acceptable to define true as inspiring.+0 If you define true as inspiring, you can say the Book of Mormon is true.
- The theory that the Book of Mormon is an ancient American history is deemed to fall outside the pale of academic credibility.
- If you ask God if the Book of Mormon is true, and you are righteous, he will tell you that it is by giving you a comforting warm feeling.
- A man will get nearer to God by abiding by the Book of Mormon's precepts than by any other book.
- The book of Mormon contains too many 19th century points of view to be what it claims to be: an ancient text.
- There are too many historical problems with the book of Mormon to say that it is "true". -11
- The Book of Mormon has so many problems with it, that personal belief that God told that it is true must be inaccurate.
- A warm and fuzzy feeling when reading or praying about the Book of Mormon should not be taken as evidence of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon unless individually you have weighed the problems of the historicity of the book.
- There are not enough inspiring stories in the Book of Mormon to think that God would go to all the problem of bringing it forward.
# of reasons to agree: 4
# of reasons to disagree: -5
# of reasons to agree with reasons to agree: +2
# of reasons to agree with reasons to disagree: -11
Total Idea Score: -10
Don't like the score? It is easy to change the score. Just post a reason to agree or disagree with the overall idea, or any of the reasons and the score will change
The Book of Mormon is true if and only if each statement in the Book of Mormon must be true.
ReplyDeleteThe BoM contains mutually exclusive statements (i.e. where one statement is true, the other statement would be false).
An example is Nephi 5:15 and the next verse.
Alternatively, the BoM states Jesus was born in Jerusalem, whereas accepted historical records and the bible state he was born in Bethlehem.
If one statement is incorrect, then the BoM as a whole cannot be true (even though it may contain some true statements).
Alternatively, the LDS Church has changed the meaning by adding / inserting / deleting words in the BoM (note: the errors are not only typos), so even the LDS Church thinks some statements are not true.