Straha wrote:ADR, did you go Mormon?
eh might as well come out of the closet eventually. yeah i'm LDS, have been for a while now.
yes, that means i've sustained Thomas S. Monson as a prophet, seer, and revelator. no, it does not mean i agree with every political position the church takes, and i've been frank about my leftism with the local folks. on the bright side, i've already been accepted wholeheartedly by the local mormon feminists!
anywho, my superior intellect has yet to fail me on this journey. i've absolutely dominated the gospel principles, i've read much of the material and listened to several discussions so i've indexed over twenty references to use as topics come up (and of course, know the surrounding material quite well. For example, the commandment Nephi got in the area i referenced above was to get the brass plates from Laban... and the way the Lord set up for him to achieve it was... are you ready? to MURDER Laban. Now, we might take this metaphorically and find some other reading in it, but let's just look at it literally right now.
In chapter 3, Nephi and his brothers (Sam, Laman (gotta love those one letter name differences), and Lemuel) attempt to get the plates from Laban. Their first attempt is to simply ask for them, Laman went to Laban's house and talked to him. Laban replied by throwing him out and saying you're a robber and ima kill you.
Laman runs away to his brothers and they decide to try again. Nephi gets the idea to get their father's gold and silver together and offer to buy the plates from Laban. Not a bad plan.
What did Laban do? He sent servants to kill the brothers and take their gold and silver while giving back nothing in return. They abandoned the property and ran away again, successfully evading the death squad by hiding in a cave.
So that's chapter 3 (well, the relevant bits to this discussion), we've established the goal, we saw that Nephi tried a couple honest ways to achieve it and was met with wickedness; Laban isn't a very nice guy and has a small army at his command.
Move on to chapter 4. Nephi, under cover of night (and being led by the spirit on faith), returns to the house of Laban. Outside the house, he finds Laban, passed out in a drunken stupor.
Nephi sees Laban's sword... and was able to take it, apparently without resistance. If Laban was wearing it, he was certainly in no condition to fight if his sword was stolen right from his hip! And if he wasn't wearing it, he was unarmed and Nephi just showed the ability to take items from his house unoppossed.
Either way, there doesn't seem to be a case of self-defense here.
Now, chapter 4, verse 10, the spirit
orders Nephi to kill the defenseless Laban. To his credit, Nephi, who had obeyed other commands without worry (recall he was led by his faith back into the city), refused this order at first. He's not a killer and didn't want to become one.
The spirit at this point repeated the command: he's been delivered right to your own hands. Now,
Nephi starts to justify this: he's a wicked man who tried to kill me earlier and stole my stuff.
Again, the spirit says "kill him" and starts to justify it by saying essentially the ends justify the means: "Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief."
Let me stop them right there: it has already been established that Jerusalem is doomed to be destroyed for their wickedness. Laban is likely to be killed in that battle anyway; Nephi killing him now isn't going to change things. Nope, the nation being saved here are Nephi's father, Lehi's people, who are currently on the road. The brass plates are important because they provide the foundation for a lasting education for those people as they leave - they contain a copy of the old testament, some family history documents, and some other things which can be used to learn to read and write.
OK, I'll buy that written records are a good thing for these people... but is there another way to acquire them without killing?
Let's read on. Nephi again seeks to justify the kill order to himself, thinking about the benefit of the plates and rationalizing that the drunken Laban was delivered to him not by coincidence, but as an integral part of the lord's plan.
Verse 18, Nephi decides to obey, decapitating Laban by his own sword. Let's go over the facts again:
* Laban was no immediate threat, either unarmed or so drunk he couldn't prevent his own sword from being taken.
* Nephi had time to consider his action.
One plus one is murder two.
I'm sorry, but the facts look pretty clear to me. And moreover, consider this story is being written by Nephi himself (it is even written with first person narration). He might have sugar-coated things to make himself look
more favorable! It could have been even more cold-blooded the way it actually happened.
Moving on, let's look at what comes of it. Nephi then takes Laban's clothes and armor and puts them on. He goes to Laban's treasury and mimicing Laban's voice, orders the attendant to unlock the door. (Wouldn't being soaked in Laban's blood give away Nephi's disguise?????)
But, the attendant apparently buys the disguise as they chat a bit as the plates are retrieved.... and Nephi, in Laban's voice, orders him to accompany him back into the woods where his brothers are waiting.
Now, his brothers at first think he is Laban too, but this is a bit more understandable: they are at a distance and it is night. Seeing a big guy wearing Laban's armor and sword with a servant, it makes sense that they'd buy it. Nephi, however, calls out to them and they recognize his voice.
FINALLY, Laban's servant - who was trusted with the keys to the treasury! - realizes Nephi is not who he said he was and decides to run away. Nephi physically restrains him and starts to preach to him.
Nephi offers the servant his word that if he goes with them, he will be freely accepted... but what was his alternative? Nephi is described as a big, strong guy and is currently armed. He has his three brothers with him, and verse 36 makes it pretty clear that they weren't about to let him go, lest he return to Jerusalem and gather an army to persue and destroy them.
So the offer was essentially "join us or die right now".
And he joins them, giving them his word that we won't betray them. They meet back up with their father without further incident.
* * *
So, I think the prosecution has made their case. What about the defense? Did the ends justify the means?
* Well, the disguise might have central to the successful grab. I find it a bit implausible that the servant (again, trusted to attend to the treasury!) didn't recognize Nephi's fake voice (they had a whole conversation wherein Nephi made up a story about why he needed the plates!), face, or bloody armor. Maybe he was wearing a full face covering helmet which also muffled his voice... but shouldn't that raise some red flags too? Why would the boss wear a full covering in his own treasury?
Maybe God did it. But if God could make the disguise this believable (when surely bloodied!), why not just take the clothes off the passed out Laban without killing him and proceed normally?
I'm convinced there was another way.
* Maybe Laban had to die so he wouldn't send an army after them. But, how would he know where to look? The escaped servant could say "i saw the killers, they went south". Laban would be too drunk to know what happened, he's just see missing stuff several hours (at least) later.
Besides, wouldn't a DEAD BODY of a rich and powerful man trigger some kind of manhunt anyway? (Perhaps this is why Nephi commanded the servant to come along, to set him up as the fall guy to throw local detectives off the trail.)
So this doesn't stand up either.
I just don't see any justification for killing this guy. He might have been a dirtbag and killer himself, but the victim is not the one on trial here.
Which leaves us with a tricky question: did God order a
murder? If so, obeying his commands might not be such a good thing... and if not, using the passages here to praise Nephi for obeying the Lord isn't so great because that command must have not actually come from the spirit. Maybe Nephi was conflicted with himself - his dark side wanted revenge and he misinterpeted that as the spirit's promptings. Or maybe it was Satan, the great deceiver.
Either way, I think once you put those verses into a critical context, the typical interpretation of "you might not know why, but God asks you to do the right things and will make it possible" falls apart.
* * *
That said, I can also think of two other defenses of this, if we assume it was indeed god giving the order:
1) "The ends justify the means" is a system I reject primarily because humans are very bad at correctly analyzing consequences. The odds that this is the rare case where killing him in fact leads to a greater good are outweighed by the odds that your analysis is mistaken. Therefore, you ought to follow the generally correct rules as a way to manage that risk.
However, this rebuttal, being founded in human limitations, doesn't necessarily apply to God. God has much more intellect than we do along with much more complete data about current circumstances and historical trends. In short, he is so much better at correctly predicting consequences that the risk of being wrong is lower; he can actually be trusted to do those complex utilitarian analyses.
Perhaps he knew details of Nephi's situation that didn't make its way into the book (or are there and I just missed them).
2) Even allowing God to make such questionable decisions, we still have to be completely on our toes about where the order is coming from. Indeed we can easily mistake our own desires for spiritual promptings, and Satan is adept at telling four truths followed by one lie to manipulate us off the righteous path.
Nephi was visited, in person, by an angel earlier in chapter 3 and his blessings have manifested pretty clearly; he's got pretty good assurances that he is indeed a prophet.
Yet even with these assurances, he
questioned the kill order. He asked God to justify himself when given this extraordinary command.
He ultimately did choose to obey, but if even a faithful man like Nephi, held up as an example of divine obedience who had hard evidence that virtually none of us can claim to have that God is speaking to him clearly and directly (not just subtle promptings in his heart either, direct orders manifested in words), still questioned this.... it really speaks to the importance of us questioning extraordinary commands too.
"What does God need with a starship?" Fair question and we deserve an answer.
So this story isn't about blind obedience. And I think that's an important thing to talk about.)
whoa that might be the longest parenthetical i've ever written
anywho yeah, even the full time missionaries are impressed with my vast intellect and i'm pretty sure they're not just saying that to avoid shattering my fragile self-esteem and driving me away from the baptismal font
they've been letting me tag along on a few meetings each week and there's all kinds of cool stuff. there's amazing stories from church members and investigators alike; a lot of pleasant diversity
and i haven't heard the term 'fucktard' for a long time! though oh my i'd lol so hard if we bumped into a militant internet atheist type
the missionaries tell me they do in fact exist in real life...
* * *
one cool story i wanna relay here is from a long time church member who came to America from Poland in the 80's. she said life was tough in communist poland. they didn't have all that many fancy gadgets, ate a pretty simple diet, lived in a small apartment.
she and her family made it to America looking for a better life..... and did not (immediately) find it.
in communist poland, they had ration cards for food. they could only buy a certain amount of sugar each month and so on.
...in capitalist america, they had
nothing.
(BTW she said this sunday that she thinks growing up there was a blessing as she's not addicted to sugar and meat and so on like so many americans; her life story makes her thankful for everything she has. I completely agree.)
in communist poland, they had a guaranteed job and a small but livable apartment
...in capitalist america, nobody wanted to hire this immigrant who didn't speak english. they lived on the streets and eventually her mother started to get on drugs and her father got abusive.
the family broke up, her life was one of sin, and the only people who took the time to care about her at all was...
you guessed it, a pair of sister missionaries. she didn't even actually join the church for many years, but always found kindness and generosity among mormons. one of the missionary's families took her in to their own home (which she credits with literally saving her life). the students at school in utah finally didn't treat her as a pariah (she says it is a common thing that utah mormons are a judgemental group but insists that couldn't be further from the truth in her experience).
and ultimately, she stopped hating herself
brothers and sisters, that's what the gospel of jesus christ is about.
