[WillowTheWhisp]

Originally Posted by steeljack

sorry not Illinos , but Independance, Jackson county Missouri
Basic Beliefs of Mormons - Category: The Garden of Eden

the Native American link has been debunked by DNA testing
Book Review - Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church, by Simon G. Southerton

Well when you think about it in the beginning wasn't there one humumgous land mass? The Garden of Eden would have been part of that and then when the continents drifted apart that part drifted over to what became the Americas.

The second bit about the DNA debunking is flawed because the people of whatever tribes they were that the present Native Americans are now descended from are not actually the Nephites of the Book of Mormon because they were all wiped out by the end of the Book of Mormon. The Lamanites, some of whom were descended from the same parents as the Nephites mingled with other tribes who had gone there earlier. The DNA they are being compared with in the Middle East is of the descendants of the tribes who remained there and who mingled with others there as well. By the time you get down to the Sioux and the Apaches and Navajo they might not have any ancestors who came from Laman. All their ancestors could have come from the earlier bods.

I'm not sure I explained that very well but I know what I mean.

It's odd that people say they wouldn't trust a politician who has strong religious beliefs. I would much rather have a leader who lived by his religious moral code and believed in it strongly enough not to lie or steal or cheat. It wouldn't matter to me whether he was Mormon, Catholic CofE 7th Day Adventist or Jehovah's Witness.