Who says that I or anyone has to go prove that King Benjamin was a fictional character? That's like trying to say that someone must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there has never been a Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer or Easter Bunny in order for there to be any validity to the argument that these characters are make-believe.
A few of the most dishonest examples of how the Mormon apologists have been trying to explain away the Lamanite/DNA issue are as follows:
(1) The apologists will try to deceive people into thinking that the traditional Mormon leaders' point-of-view was that the Book of Mormon peoples were only a small number of the Native Americans. They'll do this by stating the fact that the Book of Mormon never explicity says "all the ancestors of the Native Americans were the Book of Mormon people". But anyone who looks at the whole context will see that the understanding was that all or almost all the ancestors of the Native Americans were these Book of Mormon people who came to an almost empty continent circa 600 BC where the Jaredites had self-destructed. Go read what Joseph Smith said that the heavenly messengers told him. In order to believe the apologists I believe that one must assume that the angels of the Lord of Nephite origin sent to Joseph Smith like Moroni were very clueless about the geography of their people, and even after they were resurrected and supposedly possessing of great knowledge on all things. I'm so tired of the blatant dishonesty of this tactic.
(2) They present an idea that perhaps the Lamanite mixed with the natives that were already here. But for anyone who reads 1st Nephi 13 and 2nd Nephi 2 this whole mixing theory idea is absurd. What about the flood? What about the Jaredites? Why is there no contemporary talk of these mixings in the days of Joseph Smith? These whole ideas of mixings came AFTER the scientific evidences became overwhelmingly strong against the church's original viewpoint on Native American ancestry. The church tried to change their story on the Kinderhook Plates by discrediting their own historians once physical studies proved the Kinderhook Plates to be a hoax. And they've tried to change the whole story about the Book of Abraham being written by Abraham himself upon papyrus AFTER the original Joseph Smith papyri was found.
Don't the apologists for Mormonism realize how they are perceived by the rest of the world? They only dig themselves in deeper when they try to defend the undefensible problems they have. They act like a defense attorney for a criminal suspect who has a long rap sheet. And they flip-flop like crazy in order to try to play the difficult balancing act they must play to self-justify their belief system in light of all the facts.
In a court of law its possible for a high-powered defense team to persuade a carefully picked pool of jurors that some reasonable doubt exists and that they should acquit. But the rules of engagement in a presidential election aren't as easy for the defense. Just because you raise millions more than your opponents doesn't guarantee you'll have an easier time winning votes. You have to come across as brutally honest. When people ask you about your church's beliefs on the Second Coming then you should either consistently decline to talk about religion or you should be completely honest about your church's historical beliefs. When Mitt Romney failed to disclose the church's historical teaching about Missour being the place where Jesus will come and reign in the Milennium then he lost alot of credibility.
I'm curious to know if any non-Mormon on FreeRepublic has become more inclined to vote for Romney because of the explanations given by any of the Mormon apologists here. If so then what made the difference. Are there any non-Mormons here who really think that the Mormon apologists are being completely honest? Or do you fear or think that they are being less than forthright?
Table of Contents
Dr. Michael Whiting on the DNA ControversyDr. Michael F. Whiting, a prominent geneticist whose work has received widespread attention (it was featured as the cover story in cover article in Nature in mid-January 2003), recently gave a lecture at BYU entitled, "Does DNA Evidence Refute the Authenticity of the Book of Mormon?: Responding to the Critics." Please watch the video presentation.
He also has an excellent article, "DNA and the Book of Mormon: A Phylogenetic Perspective" in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Nov. 2003.)
Short Summary
Introduction: The DNA Challenge for the Book of Mormon What Does the Book of Mormon Claim?
"Others in the Land": Not a New Position!
What is a Lamanite?
Asiatic Origins Taught by the Book of Mormon?
What Does DNA Evidence Show?
Enter Haplogroup X
Discovery of Haplogroup X in Siberia
Throwing out the Pearl with the Clamshell: The Likelihood of Discarding the Most Interesting Evidence
Uncertainty in Dating a Haplotype
An Inflated Mutation Rate? Perhaps a Critical Problem
Other Problems in mtDNA Analysis
Could Lehi's Genes Vanish Without a Trace?
The Success of DNA Analysis in Tracking Jewish Ancestry:
More Questions for the Book of Mormon
What is "Jewish DNA" anyway? Is It Really Absent in Native Americans?
An Ancient Melting Pot
HLA Genes: Possible Evidence for Transoceanic Migrations to the Americas
The Mathematics of Ancestry: Lehi as a Common Ancestor Squaring All the Evidence
Literature Cited
Other Recent News
Other Resources and Links