I don't try to talk others out of their faith, no matter how silly (unless they're evil Muslims). Indeed, I envy them. So it makes me a little sad to report on this (via Althouse):
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....
No doubt the Mormons will come up with some gobbledygook to explain it away, or fall back on the old standby -- denial. But the DNA stuff has got to sting a bit. Y'all should go to the main Temple in Salt Lake City and get the introduction to Mormonism lecture from the in-house missionaries there. It's free and it will blow your mind. I took the tour about 10 years ago. As a kid, I was taught that Mormonism is pretty much the same as Presbyterianism; boy was I surprised to learn how wrong that was!
UPDATE: I was completely wrong. No pity necessary.
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