South Dakota Board of Education on Monday adopted a set of core concepts and standards for teaching Native American history. South Dakota is not Utah. There was no so-called BofM history stories in the curriculum.

http://www.argusleader.com/article/20110726/NEWS/107260309/New-Indian-education-standards-aim-respect

(Sarcastic parody alert) In an unrelated story, the head of LDS public affairs said "Journalists could and should do better than perpetuate this kind of shallowness..."

Because, sadly (for God and the Spirit), some evidence or support for its claims is demanded. The world is a bad place, only Telestial - in the Millennium it will be Terrestrial, and then it will be taught in school in history and all other disciplins (praise Jesus!).

Wait, are Book of Mormon stories really discussed in Utahan classrooms?

Discussed among the students, yes. Educators make mistakes too. This one was not Utah, but involved LDS ideas:

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/5362/bhsu-religion-book-to-be-pulled

Utah doesn't teach BoM history in schools. It seems like you were suggesting that Utah schools teach that. If that is your point, it is untrue.

The BoM is obviously a fake, but whether or not public schools teach about it doesn't prove or disprove it.

I'm not suggesting that they teach it. My point is that if it were a real history they would.

My DD was in a Utah Jr High World History course when the subject of horses in the New World was brought up. A student protested the teacher's statement that they didn't exist prior to Columbus. But, the student said, it says so in the Book of Mormon.

The teacher soundly dismissed the claims as unsupported by the evidence.

Yep. That is my point. It is not a real history and is not taught in public schools. Just as the teacher dismissed the claim, this teacher's book was dismissed:

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/5362/bhsu-religion-book-to-be-pulled

I know that I've seen classes in the Bible as literature -- I can't recall if we had that in high school or if it was just in college.

Can you imagine teaching the BoM as literature? :o)

I imagine it is for the same reason they don't have courses on how to live in a fish for three days.

When I was in the third grade (yes they had schools in those days) I remember my teacher telling us that the indians believed Christopher Columbus was Jesus Christ returning because the sails on his ships looked like clouds, and because he was white just like Jesus.

I was told silly things too. Public schools are much more careful now.

True, they don't teach how to live in a fish but history teaches about Egypt and by golly there is Egypt in the Bible. The stories in the BofM that were supposed to happen in America don't even compare to reality.

than what they DO teach that indicates Mormon influence.

When Mormons discover that I came from the Nauvoo area, and see that I have Native ancestry, they start questioning. One told me that the half-breed tract was some worthless swampy land by Mount Pleasant. NOOO. It was 119000 acres, the entirety of the triangle bounded by the Des Moines and Mississippi.

Why don't they teach Geoffrey of Monmouth when it contributed to the Arthurian legend, and King Lear? Because of the parallels with "Manuscript Story" and the BoM, that is why.

Why don't they teach Scandinavian literature about Greenland? Because, again, there are parallels with the BoM.

Why don't they teach Maccabees and Josephus?

Why don't they teach----

because the truth offends LDS.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/2011 10:00AM by me.

as the curse God put on Cain.

(1953)

Seriously.

I was sitting in SM and the SP was going on about how truly true the BoM was in an "every member a missionary" style talk. He set himself up as an example relating a story of how he recently gave a BoM to the Spanish-speaking construction workers putting an addition on his McMansion.

The thought came to me strongly that if that book were True (as in with a capital T), he would be calling up his rich friends and telling them about it instead of the poor illegal aliens on the fringes of society who because of relative position and circumstance don't have much choice but to listen to his stupid spiel - a captive audience indeed, just like me sitting in SM with 43 yrs. of brainwashing.

If the BoM were true, it would be one of the most important historical documents in the world.

I left SM, cutting out of the rest of the meetings, and drove to Borders and bought a copy of Palmer's book that I had tracked down on the internet (doubts had been building for some time). After I fed the kids that afternoon I retired to my bedroom to read it. About 1/2 hr. into it, I could no longer believe. I never knew there were at least three accounts of the First Vision that contradicted each other! Because of Mormon conditioning, I read more books (4-5k pages worth) for about a year just to make sure.

Have to wonder too how much the LDS ideas influence what gets taught in Utah studies for public schools.

For example, "The Utah Journey" is a relatively new seventh grade textbook. It teaches that Paiute were involved in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

http://books.google.com/books?id=0gs5r3ACH9IC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=massacre%20at%20mountain%20meadows&f=false

"...convinced the generally peaceful Paiutes to join them at Mountain Meadows."

But this Utah government website disputes the Paiute involvement in the massacre.

http://historytogo.utah.gov/people/ethnic_cultures/the_history_of_utahs_american_indians/chapter4.html

"...it is important to note that many Paiute leaders (among others) believe and claim that, contrary to most published accounts, Indians did not participate in the initial attack on the wagon train nor in the subsequent murder of its inhabitants."

When LDS people believe the BofM and think that the Native Americans had turned against god long before Columbus came, it sets up a false history against living human beings.

That is why I liked what I saw in the South Dakota news story. Why can't Utah do more things like that?

I just looked at the textbook online. Wow. What a joke of a text.

Fortunately I've never seen anything like that being used. The textbook says it is based off of the Utah Social Studies Core Curriculum. I just checked the core, and it doesn't say anything about MMM, so somebody is adding that in.

I think that teachers in the past felt like they had more freedom to push religious ideas onto their students. Now days, teachers could easily lose their jobs for teaching that horses existed pre-Columbian times, or any other sort of pretend history that comes from the BoM.

It's merely "a testament of Christ." See, Mormonism's getting easier.

They (official LDS) really need to get their act together. The Ensign says something like that, but if you go to an LDS owned website for the public, it makes a most absurd claim.

http://mormon.org/faq/purpose-of-book-of-mormon/

"We now know it was not uncommon for people from that era of ancient America to keep records on metal plates."

Not uncommon? What a pile of s***! Show me the "common" metal records of history from anywhere in the Americas. Notice how they snuck a pseudo-historical claim into their offical website?

An investigator goes to that website and reads that part about metal plates. He or she might actually believe it. LDS are good at creating their own fictional history. They are not so good when it comes to public education about the Native Americans.

There are school districts in the US that MUST teach Creationism.

I'm glad my kids have graduated from High School. If I had a kid come home from school and start spouting Creationism, I'd storm the school district admin building.

~VOW