You’ll have to excuse my lack of writing lately, or rather my missing of days. I’ve been doing the working evenings thing again, but making sure to limit it to about an hour. That’s part of it, but really we’ve just been busy at night – having people over or falling asleep early or just not caring to write. Here goes what I’ve done today, good or bad.
Did you guys know that my daughter is going to be born already equipped with math skillz? That’s right, this story will tell you about it. Half the reason I like the story is because its unabashed use of the word “maths,” as in a plurality of math, or multiple math-like things. I myself like to use the word “math” as a verb in addition to its more accepted noun-form, as in the statements such as, “I need to math that out,” or “Look at you mathin’ it up.” Ahh… I really just wrote this whole paragraph because I could talk about babies and make a “maths” joke.
In the religious-blog world, a recent re-hash of the whole “DNA disproves Mormonism” thing is making for good conversation. Among the many things that non-believers cite to discredit Mormonism, the lack of a DNA link between Native Americans and the Tribes of Israel is a more recent tact. (With things such as Kinderhook Plates, and proven-fake languages reigning as more established fights).
From the time he was a child in Peru, the Mormon Church instilled in Jose A. Loayza the conviction that he and millions of other Native Americans were descended from a lost tribe of Israel that reached the New World more than 2,000 years ago…
A few years ago, Loayza said, his faith was shaken and his identity stripped away by DNA evidence showing that the ancestors of American natives came from Asia, not the Middle East…
For Mormons, the lack of discernible Hebrew blood in Native Americans is no minor collision between faith and science. It burrows into the historical foundations of the Book of Mormon, a 175-year-old transcription that the church regards as literal and without error.
The book’s narrative focuses on a tribe of Jews who sailed from Jerusalem to the New World in 600 BC and split into two main warring factions.
The God-fearing Nephites were “pure” (the word was officially changed from “white” in 1981) and “delightsome.” The idol-worshiping Lamanites received the “curse of blackness,” turning their skin dark.
According to the Book of Mormon, by 385 AD the dark-skinned Lamanites had wiped out other Hebrews. The Mormon church called the victors “the principal ancestors of the American Indians.” If the Lamanites returned to the church, their skin could once again become white.
Not that you really need DNA evidence to question a theory about a lost tribe of Israel finding their way to Central America and producing generations of color-changing Hebrew descendants, one of whom one day would use magic glasses to receive revelations from the Lord… but, y’know, it helps. I want to make a t-shirt with the evil Galactic Overlord Xenu boofing a prostrate Angel Moroni while Jesus looks on from heaven, crying. That would be so money. Oh man, I’m running the risk of going to like three different Hells right now. I need to go to confession, or maybe an audit, or perhaps just wash my Holy Underwear – so, Allah willing, I can be right with Jah again.
I am so not into writing right now. Goodnight.
Also written on this day...
- to grunt & sweat under a weary life - 2011
- i love soup - 2010
- digitizing - 2009
- upgrade - 2005
- the hunter-gatherer part of my brain - 2004