So, I REALLY struggle with something that does not make sense or cannot pass a logic test. My mind can literally be blown until the inconsistency in the logic is either repaired, or thrown out of my belief set.
The command for Laban to have his head lobbed off by God was about as close as I can come to accepting without turning into a sniveling, rocking back and forth in the corner blob of gelatinous goo.... Thankfully, it was caveated with the statement that "it is better for one man to perish, than for an entire nation to dwindle in unbelief". I happen to agree with that statement. Nephi was a dude - because I think, for one, I would have had a hard time lobbing a head off of anybody because I can barely handle a superficial flesh wound and the attendant blood, let alone a major artery spurting blood until the heart went dry sump and seized up.... Gross.... Plus, I am just not good at killing anything. A hunter or chicken harvester, I am not. Thus why I have zero desire to ever go to war. If the cause is actually just (we have not had a just war in at least 80 years, if not 250 years. Only because of statements by modern Prophets, will I even give ear to the notion that the Civil War was a just war (I am a huge State's Rights proponents - easy on the Federal level, heavy on State's Rights). We never were meant to be a cookie cutter homolgamation with the Supreme Court laying down the law in blanket fashion, as it is today in it's dystopian format. Thus the reason I love Texas. They do their own thing, while tolerating the over-reaching Feds and speaking openly of secession if things go a little too far with border policies, abortion and so much else.
Long story short, I like things to be concise and fit into a nice box. The Gospel is PERFECT. When talking with my Muslim and Jewish friends candidly, I ask them how their plan works without a Savior who could intercede on their behalf. Mostly, they just say that God is all-powerful and that a "Jesus" is not needed to get the job done. While that works for them, it does not necessarily work for me. I know the nature of God. I know that through the descriptions given to me by Joseph Smith that I read as a teen and was struggling with the usual teen stuff. I truly believe that were I to meet Him now, I literally would be consumed. I am a wretch - simply not able to endure His presence. He is powerful - and that power comes by cleanliness. I am filthy before Him. I have no part nor parcel in His presence unless I can be made clean. On this Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur I declare my nothingness before Him and before my Savior, Jesus Christ. At the end of last week, I was so excited to get put on a hot assignment to work with a medical device supplier that hails from a Kibbutz in Israel. One last deliverable was due for today (that would allow me to get my project across the finish line) and they could not come through due to them celebrating this High Holy Day. If the temple were intact on this day (today), a High Priest would have sacrificed an unblemished male lamb and taken the blood and sprinkled it on the left side of the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant. When Christ was crucified on the curb of the Roman road passing the bottom of the escarpment at Golgotha, a soldier pierced His side, the Son of God then said it is finished after His atoning blood had trickled through a crack in the curbing and down about 20' and onto the waiting right side of the Mercy Seat. The plan is PERFECT. The Savior's allusions to He being the Lamb of God, the day of Atonement (At One With) and so many other elements come together so perfectly. Ron Wyatt, the discoverer of the Ark of the Covenant in Hezekiah's Cave was so blown away by the implications of that fact that he passed out. I might have, as well, given his knowledge of the Old Testament. The average Latter-Day Saint has NO clue. And if this were brought up as I have tried to in Gospel Doctrine class, you just get blank stares. Hell - if I were in that class and someone brought up that amazing beautiful truth, I would have been chucking people to my sides to get through to talk to the bringer of that amazing fact to light. It would have made my month, not elicited a blank stare or a scowl. But it did not come from SLC, so it is dismissed....
Anyway - yeah, the problem with deconstruction of the existing narrative is that when you go full-on Jengo and start taking a piece out of the Doctrinal Set (like making Baptism just a casual thing - optional - instead of requiring that it be performed by specific authority and under specific guidelines with specific prayers, etc), you are setting yourself up for massive, I mean MASSIVE failure. Because one piece of that puzzle removed, affects EVERY single piece above it, and in the case of baptism, denying that Jesus had to go to a place of much living water, to seek out a guy who still had a line of authority and have the deed performed, just creates a logical traffic jam that is worthy of having the mind blown. I happened on a DoC discussion on the apparent non-need for those essential items and I just about popped a vein. The arrogance and stupidity of it was more than I could bear. Instead of shredding, I just checked out to leave them to themselves to kick against the pricks in their defiance of logic and good principle and sound doctrine.
Here is the problem - many of them feel that the endowment is hogwash. Indeed, the lesser ordinances of the temple such as baptism by proxy - while still stating that they believe Joseph Smith is still a thing (at least for now). Yes, the same guy that was kicking his own arse to get the Nauvoo Temple built - which temple contained a font so that Joseph could make good on his word that they needed to finish said temple so that they could quit baptizing on behalf of their dead in the Mississippi River. I have highlighted the last little bit for the kids at the back of the class that are screwing around instead of paying attention (maybe did not serve a mission and bash with the anti's?!?). Joseph had much to say on that topic. He had a ton to say on the need for the endowment. He either went off the rails by the DoC line of thinking, or he did not. If Joseph went off the rails, then how do you determine that point (from the POV of the logical Lilleputians). That is pretty damned (literally in this case) pompous, if you ask me. I do not have that kind of rank to pull the judgment card out on Joseph - or Jesus. I simply don't have the horsepower to do so. So, for those who assert that Brigham killed Joseph, I will leave you to yourselves - for you have cursed yourselves and will live under that cursing until you fully repent and come to yourselves. I feel for you.
16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is avain; ye are yet in your sins.
18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are aperished.
19 If in this alife only we have bhope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
20 But now is aChrist brisen from the dead, and become the cfirstfruits of them that slept.
21 For since by man came adeath, by man came also the bresurrection of the dead.
22 For as in aAdam all bdie, even so in cChrist shall all be made dalive.
23 But every man in his own aorder: Christ the bfirstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his ccoming.
24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have aput down all brule and all cauthority and dpower.
25 For he must areign, till he hath put all benemies under his cfeet.
26 The last aenemy that shall be bdestroyed is cdeath.
27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is amanifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.
28 And when all things shall be asubdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be bsubject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.
29 Else what shall they do which are abaptized bfor the dead, if the dead crise not at all? why are they then baptized for the ddead?
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