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I just hate interpretation being taught as fact
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I hear you on that. It's funny how a people who are supposed to be seekers of truth are so often not interested in finding truth they don't understand or which does not fit with their personal paradigm. For example: "Evolution is false! Darwin was evil!" (I recently was banned from Cougarboard for a day for posting on a thread that brought up evolution :roll: ) However, many of the principles (as I, admittedly with only a basic knowledge of Darwin's theory of evolution) are valid principles and accurately reflect the natural world. But a lot of LDS people discount evolution entirely and some are part of the group filled with right-wing fundamental Christians who would like the teaching of the theory of evolution banned entirely from schools.
I agree when you say that it's a disservice to lead people to believe that they are descendants of Lehi when we can't really be sure that is so. I'm about 2/3 of the way through
An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon by John L. Sorenson, and it seems to me that his theory that Lehi and his family came to a land already populated is pretty sound. In fact, I would suspect that it would be virtually impossible to find any native Mesoamericans today whose DNA could be traced directly to Lehi.
But this is the story we've grown up with, that the American Indians are the direct descendants of Lehi, and many of us are not comfortable with questioning that view.
Doesn't it make sense that if you truly have a testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, that you would welcome any evidence or facts relating to it, even if they seem to contradict what you believe to be true about it, because you know that they cannot, in the end, disprove it? Instead, many LDS seem to carefully guard against contradictory facts or discoveries, as they may shake the foundations of their testimony.