These guys have developed maps and everything to show that Baja California was the most likely place for the Book of Mormon story. They have articles and videos as well. One of my favorite quotes, "We have no evidence that Barley grew there, but the fact that it could have is an important first step."

http://www.achoiceland.com/home

Jake Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> These guys have developed maps and everything to
> show that Baja California was the most likely
> place for the Book of Mormon story. They have
> articles and videos as well. One of my favorite
> quotes, "We have no evidence that Barley grew
> there, but the fact that it could have is an
> important first step."
>
> http://www.achoiceland.com/home

Well barley "could" have grown in my backyard too....that's not saying much

...after being in Cabo San Lucas last month, and seeing a municipal monument that looked a lot like the spires of a modernist LDS temple sticking out of the ground, I started writing a satirical article about the discovery and excavation of a Nephite temple and how Mopologists had suddenly realized, "Sea East, Sea West, narrow neck of land? Duh? How did we not think of this?"

Further evidence it's a Nephite temple is that Temple Polygon (as they call the block were the Cabo temple resides) contains a basketball court. Every Mormon knows church ball is a fundamental principle of the gospel.

I also wrote that modern place names provide obvious evidence that Book of Mormon peoples once lived there. Cabo Wabo is clearly a bastardization of Cumorah. Likewise, El Squid Row is Shilom and The Giggling Marlin is Morianton.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/2011 10:10AM by Stray Mutt.

BAjajajajajajajajajajajajajaja !!! That's a good one! Now I am really worried that the BOM might actually be true!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/2011 10:24AM by think4u.

How long for the principles to trek from B.C. to 'the Real (tm) Cumorah in N.York?

How many mountain ranges to traverse? How many rivers?
and; How many tapirs, how many chariots in the procession?

After looking at that home page, I suddenly have an urge for some USDA Choice beef---oh, why didn't God reserve a PRIME land above all others, it just tastes better than Choice...

On topic however, Baja CA is great for dirt bikes and Dune Buggies, so I must search the Book of Mormon for evidence of the Baja 500! It's in there, I just know it.

in Uranus.

Did they find millions bones heaped up on the ground from the last wars, steel swords, sheep, horses, elephants, caves full of golden plates, ruins with endowment rooms, reformed egyptian, metal coins, barely and wheat and European diet, natives who speak Hebrew, or even a shred of silk?

They did, you say? Well screw RFM then, I'm going back. JK.

That's the thing. They want to sway people with one little thing -- forget the whole big picture. Besides, JS said it was in upper New York, etc.

In other words, they make an outragous claim and tell you to prove them wrong.

Like Elohim and his teapots floating over the planet Kolob?
I totally get it -- hahaha.

We have the Jaredites essentially "crossing" the belt of Asia and then setting sail from what looks like Japan...

Get yourself a globe to study that one folks; the perspective and scale is particularly dishonest with regard to the "size" of the Arabian peninsula in relation to Asia (North America as well).

And then there's the "Paratethys sea" which existed in Jurrassic times but existed as only tiny remnants--the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea--by about 2 1/2 million years ago (long before the first homo sapiens--er Adam).

Praise lyin' for the Lard and pass me another bullchip filter...

Yeah, it's bogus, but at least the Baja climate is similar to the Holy Land so the Jaredites and Lehites would have felt at home. Funny how the BoM never mentioned how suffocatingly humid it was or how rainy it could be, which one would expect if they were living in the usually mentioned areas. I mean, drop a bunch of desert dwellers in the jungle and someone is going to say something.

Wow, that site is amazing. It embodies how desperate mormons are for legitimacy. So desperate, they are willing to blatantly lie just to make their story fit. Take for example this page:http://www.achoiceland.com/pictographs, specifically the first picture. What's this, a native american painting with horses? All the authors say is "Petroglyphs in the Great Mural Region of the Sierra de San Francisco in central Baja California, an UNESCO World Heritage site." But what about the horses???

The truth is that picture comes not from the Great Mural Region of Baja California, but instead are in Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona and is a painting done by the Navaho depicting when they saw the spanish conquistadores coming. http://vwpics.photoshelter.com/image/I0000aMzzO1ST0R8

What about the dating of these pictographs? The authors of "A Choice Land" acknowledge that they do not know when these paintings were made and that they need to do further analysis. They even concede that "others could have occupied these wilderness areas after the Nephite and Lamanite civilizations were destroyed, and these later inhabitants may have been the people who created these pictographs and petroglyphs. At this time, we can only ponder the meaning and origin of these paintings and their possible relationship to the people of the Book of Mormon, but the topic appears to be a potential area for investigation. This vast collection of rock paintings, extending along the 800-mile length of Baja California, provides tangible archeological evidence for a sizable pre-Spanish civilization on the peninsula."

"A sizable pre-Spanish civilization" is very accurate, the only problem is that the paintings provide evidence of a pre-Spanish civilization BEFORE the Nephites and Jaredites - as in 7500 years Before Christ, or 6900 years before the Nephites http://www.rockartscandinavia.se/pdf/2010/MexicoA10.pdf

Typical mormons, make evidence fit your predetermined beliefs and ignore everything that doesn't fit. "Lying for the lord" on everything in between doesn't hurt either.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/04/2011 03:28PM by lazarus.

The second one is straight up fucking artistic!
But it begs the question, why no Reformed Egyptian in any of these petroglyphs? Seems like you could get your point across better.

What about Nova Scotia? That fits the narrow-neck-land-south-land-north.

And if you look at the map: The Alaska Panhandle is a narrow strip of land, too!

Yeah, I guess Florida could also be the place as it is relatively narrow and situated North South.

The nice thing about all of these mopologist geographers is that they usually do a pretty good job of discounting each other. Rod Meldrum may be a crazy guy, but I love the way he discredits farms. Likewise, FARMS does a nice job discounting Meldrum. Perhaps we could turn FARMS and Meldrum on these Baja California guys.

And begs the question, "if there's SO MUCH evidence, shouldn't they be at least able to convince each other?"

http://www.questconnect.org/baja_california.htm#Archaeology

Why would Sea faring Israelites be eating clams if they are not kosher? Even if you argue that for some reason God allowed them to eat clams, why is that not mentioned in the Book of Mormon? Surely as a native of Vermont, JS knew what clams were.

[smirk]I think there's very solid evidence of Joseph Smith knowing *exactly* what 'clams' were.[/smirk]

Why would anyone accept any map which doesn't show Cumorah in New York State? I've never understood that -- it is the one place in the Book of Mormon that was actually "revealed" to the early Mormons. If you reject that how can you pretend to believe in Mormonism?

... if "that it could have" were the acceptable standard for evidence.

It's too bad they never mentioned snow in the BoM. Then they couldn't keep choosing these hot-climate places for the BoM scenario.

...it's that they need someplace that seems alien to most American Mormons. I mean, it's hard imagining BoM stuff happening in a place very much like your own neighborhood, but stuff happening in some mysterious far off land? Much easier to imagine and believe, no matter how laughable the claims are.

I would bet it was. JS wrote to book and gave it - either with intent or by accident - a feel similar to biblical stories. I think if it felt to dissimilar, his followers would have had trouble relating the two books.

If JS used Ethan Smith's "View of the Hebrews" as a model for the BOM, then Ethan may have been the one responsible for the similar feel and Joseph copied it into the BOM.

"We have no evidence that Barley grew there, but the fact that it could have is an important first step."

"We have often stated that the gold plates taken from the ground by Joseph Smith after being deposited there by Moroni are the best archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon."

oh my heck

They allegedly left the Middle East (modern day Israel area) by boat and sailed to the Americas. But to reach Baja by sea they would have had to sail around Cape Horn, the southern-most point of South America.

Cape Horn has notoriously harsh sailing conditions that no "do it yourself" amateur sailor could possibly handle. So the BoM apologists should erase that theory and start over.

It is time for the Mormon church to face up to the fact that their beloved BoM is second-rate-fiction.

The primary Mo theory of the route is that Nephi left from the Arabian peninsula and sailed east, across the Indian and then the Pacific oceans. So no need to round Cape Horn.

But church leaders and apologists have been notoriously circumspect on the possible route for BOM voyages... One I laughed at above featured the Jaredites, and an ancient inland sea in Asia that disappeared, leaving the Black and Caspian seas as remants (much as Bear Lake, the Great Salt Lake, and Utah Lake are remnants of pre-historic Lake Bonneville).

They crossed this shallow body of water, marched across Asia and departed from the coast near Japan.

Problem is that "Peratethys Sea" disappeared around 2 1/2 million years ago, before Homo sapiens even evolved.

The church sits on the fence on this one in much the same manner as they sit on the fence on the subject of evolution...

Regardless, the silence in response to a "Great Lehi Boatbuilding and Sailing Contest" I issued years ago has been noteworthy... I modeled this a bit after Nibley's "Book of Mormon Challenge," and permitted any route to the New World from the Arabian peninsula for be taken so long as the strict conditions of contest were follow using 6th Century B.C. maritime technology with no modern navigational aids--such as a compass or sextant--permitted,

Lehi's voyage never occurred, period.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2011 08:28PM by SL Cabbie.

You go somewhere, then claim it was the Book of Mormon land and put up a website so the gullible can pay for your vacation by sending you money. Say I want to go to Brazil--I go, have a great time, and when I get back, I use the tourist information I've gathered to put together a website showing how Brazil the setting for the Book of Mormon. ("The Amazon River is obviously the River Sidon referenced in the Book of Mormon.") Apostasy of the Lamanites? Blame it on Rio.

Some money could be made here by creating and selling a website template where Mormons returning from vacation could upload their photos, fill in some blanks have *their own* Book of Mormon Lands page!

I know the main guy involved in this project, he's Canadian and recently did a Friday forum and fireside presentation about Mormons here love the guy, he's attaining god status by mopologistics. He really emphasizes how he is not like the other geography theory groups because for one he's an actual geologist and expert in his field and he approaches everything skeptically, his whole approach he says is to prove the book of Mormon couldn't have happened in Baja but in turn it shows how true it is

Doesn't know much about anthropolgy, however... Or geography, either; the Pacific Ocean is a lot bigger than he represents it...

http://www.achoiceland.com/jaredite_migration_map

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paratethys

>During the Pliocene epoch (5,33 to 2,58 million years ago) the former Paratethys was divided into a couple of inland seas that were at times completely separated from each other. An example was the Pannonian Sea, a brackish sea in the Pannonian Basin. Many of these would disappear before the start of the Pleistocene. At present, only the Black Sea, Caspian Sea and Aral Sea remain of what was once a vast inland sea.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2011 08:54PM by SL Cabbie.

An "Zarahemla Research Foundation" article right at the top of the Google list.

http://www.restoredcovenant.org/Document.asp?CAT=Archaeology+%26+Geography&DOC=Barley+Found+in+the+New+World

It's really pathetic to read, and to think that someone is taking the effort to do this... I mean I feel just mortified for them.

http://artsci.wustl.edu/~gjfritz/Hordeum_pusillum_Nutt.html

Hordeum vulgaris is Old World Barley, and there's no evidence for it in pre-Columbian times, nor is there any evidence for wheat.

Whether "Little Barley" was domesticated or not is a subject of conjecture...

>Hunter (1992) describes other morphological changes in archaeological little barley: a “wrinkling” of the ventral surface and a twisting of the grains. Few other archaeologists appear to support these findings. Dunne and Green (1998) did not observe either of these features in the Gast Spring sample, but take this to mean that the little barley at that site was not domesticated, not to mean that Hunter’s indicators are incorrect in general.

>Discussion

>The status of little barley as a domesticated plant in Eastern North America is still undecided. While most, if not all paleoethnobotanists include little barely in the suite of small-seeded plants intentionally propagated in prehistoric eastern North America, few seem convinced of little barley’s status as a domesticated plant. Cultivation is inferred not from morphological changes, but from little barley’s association with the other cultivated and domesticated plants, and from the relatively large concentrations of little barley caryopses found at sites across the Midwest and Midsouth.

HOLY CURELOM CRAP!! They're still citing this one that "Hoggle" and I have been giggling over...

The theme is that this evidence will be forthcoming in God's own time...

>1980
>The discovery of the original Anthon transcript in 1980 must also be due to divine timing since this piece of paper, which has been preserved all these years, could have been discovered at any time in the lost 100 years or more. We now have, for the first time, an accurate copy of some of the characters from the Book of Mormon. This will facilitate comparison with known languages. More importantly, it is logical to assume that the appearance of the Book of Mormon characters is a prelude to the appearance of further Book of Mormon related records (see Zarahemla Record #9 and #11).

The "discoverer" of the "original Anthon transcipt in 1980" was a fellow named Mark Hofmann, of whom you may have heard...

Noah and his family were giving me and hubby some incredible grief on their 40 days and 40 nights cruise. First of all we weren't allowed to put any holes in the boat. And we weren't allowed to eat the 2 bugs. Fortunately my hubby got wood so we named our son Woody.