Noah Gallagher

What is #Arcreonis? It is a new mythology, an epic fantasy saga in 5 parts. The tale of a great and fallen people, the Relmé, who dwell on Aeruul, a world of magic, adventure, and cyclical rise and ruin.

@TheKingerdYT @KevinKoolxHalo

@KevinKoolxHalo Halo fans are sitting like sleeper agents waiting to be reactivated at all times

This is what happens when Halo releases Halo content for Halo content creators to create content about new Halo...... Halo

@shoes_god @Apologetics941 You like talking to yourself, don't you?

@Arcreonis @Apologetics941 ... The fact this is how I learn you don't understand what's the difference between genes and alleles, or how the concept of you being unable to evolve your way out of a group is foreign to you is honestly a bit depressing given all the posts that we have had.

Hey you remember when they changed the intro to the Book of Mormon because the DNA evidence showed that American Indians weren't descended from the Jews? Lol good times.

Other than the site that was found (Nahom), yeah, absolutely. You're right that no BoM sites have been found down in mesoamerica where literally 95% of the ruins have yet to be excavated. I mean, we could dig those up and find out for sure, but why bother right? Nah, but really, if your faith rests on physical evidence, it's not faith. You have no grounds on which to lecture someone about faith if that's what you think it is. You don't have faith and it's incredibly pathetic that you've entered this conversation with nothing to offer except scorn. The Church is growing and continuing to grow. People who have actually read and sincerely prayed about the Book of Mormon keep joining. Convert baptisms are at an all-time high. God is on our side in ways you're too much of a fool to ever see. You think scorn will work because you have absolutely nothing going for you. You're intellectually un-curious, spiritually empty, emotionally hollow, and stuck up with pride. Your scorn is not going to change a thing, because like I said, the Church is doing better than it's ever done before and will continue to grow. People more humble than you will keep seeing the truth because they actually read and pray with a sincere heart. Nothing you or I can say will change that because it's the will of God. Scorn more, though, it's good for your mental health I'm sure.

@Arcreonis @LadyDemosthenes 😂 You’re really reaching now. Creeds are statements of faith to help you understand the faith. Your false prophet isnt a prophet and the Book of Mormon is fiction. How can I say this? Easy, not a single site mentioned has been found. Why not?

The Mormon church (because maybe not all Mormons believe this, but this is what the church teaches) brings God low. The God of the Mormon church didn’t create the world out of nothing. He only reorganized what was already there. This makes God less than God. The Mormon church demoted God, and promotes humans with the potential to be gods.

I do place revelation from God above incomplete current scientific knowledge, yes. I consider that a more trustworthy source. If that's a "gotcha" then I don't know what to tell you, I'm a Christian. That's not what the Founder Effect is? What is it, then? Is the Wikipedia page on it just completely wrong? Wanna go in and make your own edits? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founder_e… In the figure shown, the original population has nearly equal numbers of blue and red individuals. The three smaller founder populations show that one or the other color may predominate (founder effect), due to random sampling of the original population. A population bottleneck may also cause a founder effect, though it is not strictly a new population. The founder effect occurs when a small group of migrants—not genetically representative of the population from which they came—establish in a new area.[4][5] In addition to founder effects, the new population is often very small, so it shows increased sensitivity to genetic drift, an increase in inbreeding, and relatively low genetic variation. So stay with me here: Lehi's small group leaves Jerusalem, settles in the Americas. Descendants experience genetic drift relative to the greater Israelite population already through the Founder Effect. They intermingle with presumably much larger populations that already lived in the Americas--we must presume that these preexisting peoples originated from Asia, to match current DNA research. Lots of wars happen and an entire segment of the people, the Nephites, is eventually completely exterminated. On top of that, in the 1600s a severe genetic bottleneck happens when the Spanish arrive. My understanding of genetics is that it's at least plausible that through all of that, the alleles that would link Amerindians to the Near East got diminished or lost. I fail to see what I'm missing that proves those alleles could not possibly have been lost somewhere along the way. I understand that we can find ancient corpses from the areas and examine their DNA, but what I don't know that we can be sure of is whether we have currently found and examined corpses from the right time and place. Which again is why it makes it difficult both not knowing where the BoM took place and also the most likely candidate where it took place hardly having been excavated at all thus far.

@Arcreonis @Apologetics941 No, you are not. You already gave the game away when you dismissed the entire field as long as it disagrees with your beliefs. Your understanding is both irrelevant and incorrect, so that is even less important. And no, that's not what the founder effect is, nor how that works.

The main evidence is that you worship the Creeds, which were not the product of revelation and are not correct. The structure of the Church changed, apostles and prophets were removed. Revelation ceased, new scriptures stopped being written. None of that is the way Jesus's church was run. Have you read the Book of Mormon and prayed to know if it's true? That's the only way to discover whether or not it's believable, not whatever it is you're doing.

@Arcreonis @LadyDemosthenes We have manuscript families from all over. It’s your job to prove they were, not mine to prove they are not. So where’s your evidence of this corruption, the word of a single man, that wrote a book that nobody can confirm a single site mentioned? Yeah, real believable. 😂

Sounds like we need to become as Christ is. Your claim is that there was... no corruption in the early Catholic Church? The corruption began when the apostles were still alive. The reason Paul wrote letters to the churches was because they were already becoming corrupted. The apostles' mission was to keep the church doctrinally sound. What do you think happened when the apostles all died and no new ones were called?

@Arcreonis @LadyDemosthenes Explain this please: “Jesus Christ, through his transcendent Love, became what we are, that we might be even as he is himself.” Irenaeus Sorry, but there is no corruption. We can trace many manuscript families of the Bible down to prove this. Your church is wrong. 🤡

I am interested in knowing what the truth is, so it's not meaningless. I just don't believe we are able to know with complete certainty what happened 2600 years ago. Since I can't time travel, the best tool of understanding I have is spiritual revelation. But my understanding of the relevant genetics is that smaller populations that integrate into larger ones can have their genetic identity lost through the Founder Effect, and I think it's plausible that this, exacerbated by the population bottleneck of the 16th century, explains why we don't see any trace of Near Eastern DNA in modern Amerindian populations. But there are probably other factors at play I'm not knowledgeable of. It's tough to figure this kind of thing out when we don't even know exactly where the Book of Mormon took place, and the most likely candidate (Guatemala + southern Mexico) has barely had the surface scratched in terms of structural excavation. So we may have already found contemporary corpses from the time when the genetic signature from the Near East should have still been detectable, but it would be difficult to know if those are the right people or not.

@Arcreonis @Apologetics941 I have been very specific how you are wrong in regards to what you are saying and I'll be happy to see any source that makes any of the scientific claims you are making. However, as we already established that is meaningless to you, don't be surprised I delay in responding.

@Awright874 @LadyDemosthenes You can say whatever you want. Just know that your Creeds are post-apostolic lenses tainted by Greek philosophy which have been misapplied to the Bible by corrupt, misguided, uninspired councils, and it's a miracle the Bible survived at all.

@Arcreonis @LadyDemosthenes Yes, one scholar agrees, so that’s it. No others can say otherwise!

Your take on the science does not square with what I've read on the subject. You can tell me I'm wrong and that we have absolute 100% scientific certainty of even the smallest ethnic origin of, apparently, every culture on earth, but all I have to go on is your word which I don't find authoritatively persuasive. I would like to read more about the genetics at play, but I'm always skeptical of any scientist who claims 100% certainty of something they did not witness firsthand. Every generation or so, we discover every scientific field has been making bad assumptions or missing important details. At this point it should no longer be surprising. I did bring in the faith angle, because it seemed germane to the broader topic of why some of us accept this record even though it is not historically proven. Nowhere have I said that my own personal testimony should convince you of anything. In fact, I explicitly said you should get your own testimony.

@Arcreonis @Apologetics941 You entered the conversation making a bunch of scientific claims and at every turn your understanding or arguments have failed. Only after that was done did you fall into "I believe the BoM is true because I have faith" which you should be aware is unconvincing to everyone else.

@Awright874 @LadyDemosthenes I can't copy and paste the footnotes for you. I gave you the link, find it yourself. It's footnote 11.

@Arcreonis @LadyDemosthenes 😂 Who is this ‘modern scholar’? Why no references to who he is? Can you show me specific passages, from the church fathers, that agree with you and why?

You're ignorant, my friend: churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/g… Latter-day Saint beliefs would have sounded more familiar to the earliest generations of Christians than they do to many modern Christians. Many church fathers (influential theologians and teachers in early Christianity) spoke approvingly of the idea that humans can become divine. One modern scholar refers to the “ubiquity of the doctrine of deification”—the teaching that humans could become God—in the first centuries after Christ’s death. The church father Irenaeus, who died about A.D. 202, asserted that Jesus Christ “did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be what He is Himself.” Clement of Alexandria (ca. A.D. 150–215) wrote that “the Word of God became man, that thou mayest learn from man how man may become God.” Basil the Great (A.D. 330–379) also celebrated this prospect—not just “being made like to God,” but “highest of all, the being made God.” What exactly the early church fathers meant when they spoke of becoming God is open to interpretation, but it is clear that references to deification became more contested in the late Roman period and were infrequent by the medieval era. The first known objection by a church father to teaching deification came in the fifth century. By the sixth century, teachings on “becoming God” appear more limited in scope, as in the definition provided by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (ca. A.D. 500): “Deification … is the attaining of likeness to God and union with him so far as is possible.”

@Arcreonis @LadyDemosthenes They didn’t say you became gods. They said Jesus was God and took on flesh. They said no where you become gods. Sorry? Your church was wrong again.

You should get your own testimony of the resurrection by asking God. Have you ever actually talked to one? Nobody in the Church is going to walk up to you and try to convince you of the truth of the BoM by talking about its evidence or historicity. Not to say we don't talk about that at all, but that's not what we're focused on. I only entered this conversation to respond to claims made that are not entirely accurate, because I'm interested in correcting the record when appropriate. (In this case it was about why the introduction to the BoM was changed from "principal ancestors" to "among the ancestors".) But if I were to tell you how you can know the BoM is from God, I wouldn't point to "the evidence." There is some, absolutely, but not a ton. That isn't the point. In fact, not having much evidence IS the point. There are plenty of reasons to disbelieve. It's a deliberate test of faith. If you want to know if it's from God, read it and pray about it. That is what any Latter-day Saint would tell you.

@Arcreonis @Apologetics941 1.) The 2000 years testimony of the Church. 2.) Because I never attempted to present the resurrection and ascension by using scientific evidence, while you and mormons since the inception of the religion have tried to do so for the BoM.

This is the way.

@Awright874 @LadyDemosthenes You mean you disagree with some things the church fathers said? 😱

@Arcreonis @LadyDemosthenes That does not make you a god. Sorry.

@Awright874 @LadyDemosthenes I'm sure you're just as enthusiastic about their statements on apotheosis

@Arcreonis @LadyDemosthenes Nope, it’s pretty clear that they all believed that God created the universe from nothing. Sorry.

@Awright874 @LadyDemosthenes Once again you're reading ex nihilo into that statement by Clement. And we don't really care what post-apostolic people like Irenaeus had to say. You're free to love it yourself, but it's not a persuasive argument.

@Arcreonis @LadyDemosthenes “Men indeed are not able to make something from nothing but only from existing material. God, however, is greater than men first of all in this: that when nothing existed beforehand, he called into existence the very material for his creation.” Irenaeus, Against Heresies

@Awright874 @LadyDemosthenes Yeah, if you read ex nihilo into it, it's pretty clearly ex nihilo. It does tend to work that way. But instead, if you don't start with preconceived ex nihilo notions, you've got the statement "came into being" which can be interpreted in multiple ways.

@Arcreonis @LadyDemosthenes We can try the NASB if you prefer: “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being.” John 1:3, NASB Only God can create the universe from nothing. Sorry, the god of Mormonism isn’t it.

@Awright874 @LadyDemosthenes Nothing was made that has been made? Interesting qualifier

@Arcreonis @LadyDemosthenes 🤷‍♂️ “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” John 1:3, NIV

@LadyDemosthenes The scripture says matter cannot be created or made. Nobody made matter, it just is. Does that hurt the brain to think about? Yeah. But no more than it hurts to think about why God exists in the first place.

@Arcreonis Who made them? Where did the materials that were rearranged come from because whoever made them that’s the true God.

In what sense is creation from pre-existing materials any less a creation? In what way does it lower God's nature that He creates things out of pre-existing material? The latter-day scripture tells us matter cannot be created. It's apparently a logical impossibility. God can't create matter out of nothing in the same way He can't create a square circle. That does not bother me.

@Arcreonis It goes to the nature of who God is.