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| Tuesday, June 18, 2013 |
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I am by no means a historian, but I will take a stab at it. My thinking was that those who resided in the Holy Land had a more established and written history than the Lamanites. The plates and perhaps a few other written sources might not have been available to all, thus no real ‘civilization’ was continued. When you compare the amount of time people had been living Israel to the Book of Mormon folks, I can see how the traditions would become warped and change over time. But, that is just my thoughts… |
The difference is that the Lamanites did not have a larger, more established and controlled environment like the Jews and early Christians did with the Roman Empire. Now, mind you, with the fall of the Roman Empire, Christians certainly got very bloody and bad, forcibly converting entire nations to Christianity at the pain of death. Actually within four hundred years after the Savior, the Roman Empire was failing and darkness covered Europe as well as America. |
I think all civilizations have at one point or another practiced Genocide. Europe and the Middle East fell into the Dark Ages and catholism, paganism, othodoxy, and Islam had some shockingly bloody battles. |
Only 4 years after Ronald Reagan left office, the American people elected Bill Clinton. |
IMO In the apostacy, the apostate early christians adopted the attributes of the cultures surrounding them. Thus the Greeks and Jews and Romans permiated the christian view in the “Old World” and we had the “Idunnowhat?” in the new. Also, I would say the Christians of the New World were much more apostate. |
and only after Bill Clinton did America vote for Bush. How quickly they fall… |
C’mon Dan, America voted Bush before Bill Clinton too… |
I think the answer to your question is the Roman Empire, which did decay and deteriorate. While they didn’t have formal human sacrifices, some of the games were little better than human sacrifices. After the end of the Roman Empire things got much worse, in my opinion. You read the history of Europe around the year 1000 and it’s definitely not a place I’d have wanted to live. |
My impression is that the Lamanites had a policy to destroy any Nephite scriptures/records that came into their possession. I would expect that kind of policy would destroy all memory of Nephite Christianity. I think European Christianity (or Roman Christianity) survived and succeeded because the records/scriptures were preserved. As long as people could read about Jesus’s life (as well as the lives of the prophets), there’s a chance for some vestiges of Christianity to exist. |
Another possibility to keep in mind is that, at least according to an article I read in the Chicago Tribune, the movie was extremely inaccurate in its portrayal of the bloodthirstiness of the Maya. I don’t know enough about it to comment beyond that. But I enjoyed the movie. |
Kevin, did you mean it was more or less than actual? There were parts I didn’t watch, but movies today are pretty bloody anyway. Those of you who say it was because of the scriptures, why? I mean, why did those people who saw Jesus coming from the heavens, when the worst of them was destroyed, who felt Hands by the thousands, why did they devolve enough to destroy their scriptures? It just seems like they would be more righteous than less righteous. Amy, I think you have something. Dan, Broz: oh yeah, the dark ages. DKL, we do forget quickly, don’t we. Take a deep breath and don’t pass out, I like Barak Obama. ! Jacking my own thread. :) |
But, Matt and Clark, after 1000, they began to prosper, albeit slowly. They didn’t descend into barbarism. Europe became mostly Christian. The people who were alive when Jesus was crucified saw Him, more than the people in the Holy Land. Yet, they turned from that. I find that daunting and scary because what could happen to me, who am blessed. |
I think growing up, Mel read too many 1960 and 1970 era James A. Michener novels about Mexico, the Aztecs and Mayans. Michener filled his “historical” novels with brutality – and Mel just capitalized on those or similar stereotypes without taking in account other world views – including those of the Book of Mormon. |
Here’s the simplest explanation: The Book of Mormon is fiction. How does that explain the decline of the Lamanites into human sacrifices? Simple – you are creating a decline from the people in the Book of Mormon to the actual history of Native Americans without any basis in fact. There is absolutely no supporting evidence that anything in the Book of Mormon ever happened. No elephants, no horses, no metal, and no DNA. Why try to reconcile fiction with reality? If you want to learn about the Native Americans, read about it from a scientist (e.g., David J., M. (1995). Search for the First Americans. Smithsonian.). |
exmoron – your explanation is fine for you, however, that is not on the table here as that negates the entire conversation. As a scientist myself, you cannot mix religion and science – you will never find reconciliation between the two with our current knowledge. Your only option is to reject religion in favor of science, but science only answers the how questions, not the who or why. So good luck to you |
DKL–It always comes back to Reagan. I eagerly await your hagiography. |
Wow! Could Exmoron waste any more time on his blog. Here is someone who is totally obsessed with his hatred of religion. I think it is fine to have differing opinions, I am all for open discussions. But I find it completely counter productive to spend so much time on things that you HATE. |
exmoron, actually that didn’t occur to me. Hmmm. . . Devyn’s right, though, my question was based on the assumption that the Book of Mormon is basically fact. I believe that it is. I was thinking last night about Amy’s premise. I suppose the pilgrims still maintained that link with the old world, ie civilization. Yet, here we are, America is 200 year old and we are not sacrificing each other. The people of the Book of Mormons covered many hundreds of years and had wealth and opportunities, the priesthood and scripture. I still there is an unquantified aspect of the experience in this “new world” that led to their deterioration. For instance, China had very little contact with Europe and they progressed without exterminating each other. They had a value system. |
The difference was that the Lamanites had, en masse, seen Christ perform miracles, and been converted by the thousands. Having had such great light, turning away from it can only be a savagely deliberate thing; simple ignorance is no longer a choice. cf. Alma 47:36; 4 Nephi 1:38; Alma 45:12; 2 Nephi 1:10 |
H. Tracy, we have a plugin that we are using which automatically links scripture references to the LDS scriptures sight, so that you don’t have to worry about it. This encourages people to provide such citations, prevents comments that make use of multiple scriptures from ending up in the spam moderation queue, and gives the overall impression that we’re using cool technology. :) |
Kevin and anon, be careful about all the politically correct nonsense being pushed around to glorify the pre-European inhabitants of North America. There’s a great article debunking the supposed bad portrayal here. Besides, as the article points out, nobody faulted Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, because it focussed too much on the brutality of gladiatorial combat and not enough on the great achievements of the Romans (like their aqueducts, calendars, or language). Only academics could be so stupid… |
But, H. Tracy, this is my question. Why on earth did that happen? They should have been the more righteous continent. |
I have been thinking some more – a rare occurrence. Let’s look at the Roman Empire. It was great, cultured, educated – yet it crumbled. Not quite into sacrifices (I don’t think) but all the same. How did it end? From within. There are examples in the B of M of Lamanites killing each other for power. This may have happened in Asia, again my history is not that sharp. I guess your question is how did they get to this point in the first place? Let’s look at 4th Nephi. He (I am assuming Mormon?) lays out the decline of the people. Pride, false churches, persecution. Secret combinations return. I guess, in short, they just decided to become wicked when those in Israel did not. Can’t the answer be an easy one? |
The era of the Mayans spanned the supposed Book of Mormon occupation by Nephites and Lamenites. In other words their documented culture in Central America preceded the Book of Mormon by at least 1000 years and this distinct documented culture (including human sacrifice) lasted at least 500 years after Moroni. Consequently, the Book of Mormon peoples cannot in any way be connected to the Mayans. As the saying goes – on cannot make a square peg fit into a round hole. It is time that Mormons give up trying to fit the Book of Mormon into ancient Central American culture and history. |
