Is it ok if I ask for your assistance? There is the mention of these 2 animals: curelom and cumom
What do mormons think about these? There seems to be a parallel between the Bible and the book of mormon. Both books mention animals that we all know: rabit, bat, etc. Both books mention a couple of animals no one knows what they are suppose to be.
I think the bible has the behemoth. Job 40:15. The word elephant does not exist in the Bible and some people think it is the elephant. There is also another animal. Some have suggested that it is the hippo or rhinoceros. I think there is a few other animals such as the unicorn. This might be the rhinoceros. The jews were living close to Africa and so, I imagine they have seen them.
For the curelom and cumom, didn’t Joseph Smith give details? Any image? Did anyone ask Joseph Smith?
JS made them up and to my knowledge BS'ed his way if there were any questions about these made up civilizations. He tended to make things up as he went along.
Apologists have come up with all kinds of excuses: It was something he couldn't translate exactly. It wasn't made clear in the record. They were really something else- similar animals like tapirs. They come up with round about reasons just like the Bible.
There is nothing JS did that the bigger religions didn't do in spades. The trick is getting the person reading the Bible or BoM into some kind of faith mentality when they read them. If anyone reads these religious books with scrutiny like they would any other kind of book, they would see their own holy book is just like any other mythology.
Mormons in general tend not to think about issues like this because (1) they're discouraged from too much independent thought, and (2) the church keeps them too busy to think deeply about much of anything except checking off the next box. They're typically content to let it slide since "everything will be revealed in the next life."
Way back when, the occasional authority speculated them to be mammoths and/or mastodons, which are obviously anachronisms. More recent apologists have suggested animals like llamas and alpacas, which raises the question of why god wouldn't inspire Smith to use those terms, especially since Smith was supposedly reading the words directly off a rock. (You read that right.) This leads into "loose" vs. "tight" translation methods, which is related, but a separate discussion in itself.
Jesus must have a limited English vocabulary. Instead of “llama” or “alpaca,” he had to make up nonexistent words. He also didn’t know the words “coffee” or “tea,” so he just said “hot drinks.”
Thanks for the reply so far. Also, I just read that Sticky post. I did not know that I should not discuss mormonism and apologetics. Should I post to another forum? Another site?
Like I said, I am asking for your assistance. Why? 1. I am having a conversation with a mormon. I don’t know if he is an expert or what but that does not matter. 2. I do not know every detail of the mormon religion. Your in depth knowledge will be helpful as I will learn. Some of the stuff posted online may be way too anti-mormon, they might be from christians who don’t care about facts and care more about Jesus and will do anything, including lie. 3. This is important: we have to be neutral and consider all possibilities from every angle. 4. There is reading material to handle. Perhaps you can assist? 5. Why do I want to have a conversation with a mormon? I have conversations with lots of people: christian, hindu, islam, mormon, homeopathy believers, science related topics of chemistry, physics, biology, anthropology. I learn new things. Debating is fun. Did I mention that I learn new things? Although I am an atheist and I think there is no afterlife, I still think life is worth living and truth is extremely important. I will die, but humanity will go on.
Perhaps we can email each other. I am chatting with the mormon through email.
Dagny: #1 Ok, but I find it surprising that nobody asked Joseph Smith or they did and JS bulldipped his way out of it. I would say that that is a MAJOR issue I have. JS had access to god and Jesus and Moroni and yet, no information, not even an image of those animals?
How could you not ask god what those animals are?
#2 curelom and cumom sounds like “child talk” to me. Both starts with “cu” and end with “om”. Does the hebrew language have words of that format? I may have to ask a hebrew speaker about this. Yes, I can understand that in subatomic physics, some particle names end with “on”: neutron, meson, proton. Some element names end with “ium” and others with “on” such as the noble gas family.
^^^^What is your opinion?
Weekend: I really don’t see any reason for a god to use bizarre non english names specially when the rest of the animals have english names.
The thing is, discussing this with a Mormon is a dead end, just like talking about the Bible to a person who views it through rose-colored Jesus glasses. They simply have some vague "God will sort it out later" mentality. They believe and cherry pick the things that are important.
Most Mormons have too much invested to risk facing a paradigm shift in their thinking. It would risk their world view and family.
It's pretty obvious the information is out there if anyone wants to know how ridiculous the Mormon church really is, from made up animals to divine claims. Like they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him think.
It's perfectly fine to discuss mormonism here. We do it all the time. What people CAN'T do here is preach mormonism, or they will find it rough going. In general, we have studied the religion and its doctrines more completely than active mormons. *Defending* the church is not allowed. Your questions are legitimate, and no one will have any problems. Continue to ask away.
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"I really don’t see any reason for a god to use bizarre non english names specially when the rest of the animals have english names."
You're quite correct, there isn't any reason. A mormon would say that Smith used the "original" names for terms he was unfamiliar with. This is "loose translation," where god would plant ideas and let Smith use whatever language he could come up with. But that introduces other problems, like horses and chariots, both BOM anachronisms.
The words "curelom" and "cumom" are supposed to be "Jaredite" words. The so-called Jaredites allegedly separated from the (literal) Tower of Babel c. 2200 BCE, long before any Hebrews appeared; their language, according to the church, was the original Adamic/Edenic language. That's how stupid it is.
If you want to do a deeper dive, I suggest MormonThink. It will give you a better understanding of mormon doctrine than talking to any mormon.
dagny: “The thing is, discussing this with a Mormon is a dead end, just like talking about the Bible to a person who views it through rose-colored Jesus glasses.”
==That’s ok. In all my conversations with theists, most are christians. I don’t think I have ever converted anyone or convinced that any single one of my points are valid. I’m fine with that. I try to understand their point of view and yes, I have the suspicion that they are wearing “Jesus glasses”.
So, my principle goal is to learn about people. In exchange, I give them what I found in the Bible and what I think. The same applies to my discussions about homeopathy, physics, chemistry, etc.
BACK TO MORMONISM: So, this person says: “All of the eyewitness testimony of the dictation process (even from Joseph's enemies) agrees that he dictated the entire book without any notes and without referencing what he'd said previously. It would be very unlikely for him to be able to do that while giving us a complex and coherent (and often profound) scriptural text, particularly since he never showed any indication that he had that kind of prodigious memory.”
^^^^My response was that JS had the papers with him. He could sit with it at night and go over them again. THAT IS his notes. I don’t know about the prodigious memory memory part. I don’t know JS personally and don’t have his school records or his university records and any kind of measurement about his memory capabilities.
^^^^What’s your opinion, dagny, and all the guys here.
weekend logout: “The words "curelom" and "cumom" are supposed to be "Jaredite" words.”
==Adamic/Edenic language? I thought the story is that 40 to 50 jews built a boat bc god told them to and they sailed off. Shouldn’t they be speaking hebrew? Yes, I understand that the people of the jewish faith are of multiple ethnicities. Anyway, it is irrelevant. Since the jewish god is omniscient, he would know what the english names should be. There should at least be drawings of them. (W14589) If the people of the 1800 joined mormonism without clarification, then what does this say about their character?
Lot’s Wife: Ok, that is an interesting take on the Behemoth and Leviathan. Don’t forget the unicorn. Mentioned = 9 times in the Bible dragon. Mentioned = 48 times in the Bible cockatrice. Mentioned = 4 times in the Bible satyr. Mentioned = 2 times in the Bible
Greyfort: I answered that with my own style. Search for W14589.
Additional questions: What’s the mormon position on creationism. Are some young earth creationists? 6000 y old Earth. Do some accept the Big Bang theory but not Evolution theory? Do some accept the Big Bang theory and the Evolution theory with the jewish god tweaking and putting a soul into some ape creature?
At what age did you guys leave mormonism?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2020 10:05PM by iceman9090.
Behemoth and Leviathan are well documented, so there's not much argument.
Most of the others are likewise mythical beasts, the point being that the Bible is full of wild stories from other traditions that the authors could not possibly have seen personally. Cumons and Cureloms may be less interesting, in part because they have no provenance in other religious/cultural realms, but they are no more imaginary than a lot of animals and events in the Bible.
Mormons believe the BOM tells the story of two migrations: the Jewish one c. 600 BCE and an earlier "Jaredite" one c. 2200 BCE. The Jaredites are the ones that built wooden submarines for a year-long voyage across the ocean. The story is that they built a mighty civilization and then annihilated each other in one final battle that killed over two million of them. Of course, no trace of their mighty civilization has ever been found.
As for the mormon take on the BOM from Smith, that's one of the standard apologist defenses. In fact, Smith had years to map out the plot in his head. He was telling fanciful stories about the Amerinds as a boy; he took the Tree of Life from a dream his father had; King Benjamin's sermon was a standard Protestant tent revival stemwinder; he copied a large amount of Isaiah as well as the Sermon on the Mount; many phrases are nearly identical to other books of the period such as The Late War and the First Book of Napoleon, etc.
Further, the book as currently published has gone through literally thousands of corrections since its initial publication. The 1830 edition was hardly "coherent" and reads like hillbilly English. Further (and very few Mormons are aware of this), when the BOM was finished, Smith tried to sell the copyright in Canada. Why would he do that if the book was actually a sacred and holy record dictated from god?
Seriously, go to Mormonthink.com and start reading. There's a large section devoted to the BOM and all its issues and problems, and they discuss it more thoroughly than I have time to do.
Thanks for the reply, weekend logout. I took a look at the site:
I found: “We've all heard that one of the important reasons that we have a prophet and apostles in modern times (as well as ancient times) is for them to act as a 'special witnesses' of Christ. What does this mean? Many members believe it means that these 15 men may have actually seen Christ or have had some sort of definitive experience that would eliminate any possible doubt as to the validity of God's true church on earth. We've heard that when missionaries are visited by apostles and they give them the opportunity to ask them any questions, it almost always come up that someone asks the big question 'Have you actually seen Christ?'. The usual response is something vague like 'If I have, it would be too special to talk about'. A member of my stake presidency was talking to me about Gordon B. Hinckley's interview with Mike Wallace and said that Wallace asked him if he'd ever seen Christ (this may have been off-camera). Hinckley responded that he has not seen Christ. The stake presidency member said that GBH had to say that to Mike Wallace so it wouldn't be paraded around on National TV but that we all know that GBH has seen Christ. It's obvious that many Latter-day Saints believe that the special witnesses, that we call prophets and apostles, have actually seen Christ. What do the apostles themselves say?”
============That helps. If you or anyone have directly links available in a text file, let me know. As you know, locating information is time consuming. This is why I came here. To take a shortcut. To suck your brains.
Behemoth and Leviathan are both Babylonian mythical beings. They are the terrestrial and marine manifestations, respectively, of the chaos from which the world arose. When people or nations expand into unknown lands, they risk Behemoth's wrath. When they voyage far out into the sea, they risk confrontation with Leviathan.
Both mythical creatures, or forces, entered the Jewish canon during the Captivity, particularly through the Book of Job which was a Zoroastrian story with some Babylonian images superimposed. There is little likelihood that they ever indicated actual animals at least until others started looking for a literal meaning for a spiritual concept.
Cureloms and Cumoms are different because they were supposed to be literal animals with no particular spiritual meaning. They are more snipes or jackalopes than chaos demons.
We are all at the mercy of ghawd's imperious love until he, as foretold in the handbook of revelations, shouts the sacred formula, "Ollie, ollie oxen, all in free!"
You have to realize the Book of Mormon is undoubtedly a 19th century work of fiction. You can prove that’s what it is. So cureloms and cumoms are made up beasts of burden like you see in the Star Wars Universe or various fairy tales. Although there’s a chance fairies actually are real, but alas Joseph didn’t include them in the BoM. Thankfully, he didn’t include Jarjar Binks either.
My herd of prize pack-cureloms is always ready to hire if you want to carry supplies, plural wives, or the Gospel, yea, even the precious Gospel of the Christ, to wherever there's a need; over exceedingly high mountains and across great rivers, and through the lands of the toughest Lamanite tribes; yea, even through the tribes of the sons of Laman in all their iniquity.
Apparently Joey wasn't farsighted enough to see that many Canadians would join & send $ to ChurchCo, so he thought he could pocket a few $$$ selling the Canadian rights to his made-up book;
IF that had happened, would the Canadians be more independent mormons now? Who Knows???