General Conference was excellent as always. We are all praying for President Monson and missed his presence. I really liked President Nelson's invitation to study what the Book of Moromon is, affirms, refutes, fulfills, clarifies and reveals. However, I am having a bit of trouble with Elder Ellis talk. I appreciate Elder Ellis going out on a limb and addressing a more risky topic.
I do like the part about cocoons, egg shells, and kids. However, I don't think I'm going to throw my kids out of the house at age 18 like JCPenny, but I understand very well what he's saying about ease producing weakness. I have seen this a lot coming from an affluent neighborhood in SLC, and from a helicopter-parent culture.
After talking about global terrorism; Elder Ellis asks "what do we do? Flee? Fight? ... For evil to prevail it is only necessary for good people to do nothing. And whatever we do we should not decide or act out of a spirit of fear.
The main overall point about not acting out of fear is true. But the choices to "flee", "fight", 1. is a false dichotomy. 2. requires that God reveal His will. 3. "Do nothing" or "hold thy peace" is also viable choice supported by scripture.
Satan's plan according to Korihor was to deny agency by not having any rules "whatever a man did was no sin" and "a man prospered and conquered according to his genius and strength". This "no rules = no sin = no agency = no God" system establishes fear as the primary driver of society.
Without God's commandments we would have no alternative behavior but to be animals and act only based on appetite, and fear. Our agency only comes because of God revealing His (not self-evident) mind and will which provides the alternative to choose God's will out of love for God. If God never had revealed himself to man, man would never have known it wasn't okay to kill each other. Our only motivation to kill or not would be fear. Without God there is no love. Because of God's revealed will we can feel hungry but choose to fast, be offended, but choose to forgive.
What I'm saying is that the Jews knew to fight because God revealed it through Moses and Joshua, the Early Saints knew to flee by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (D&C 136:16). We today can't know whether to flee, fight, or do nothing except our prophet reveal it. Holding our peace is also a viable divine alternative. Christ told many people to "hold their peace".
D&C 98: 16 Therefore, renounce war and proclaim peace, and seek diligently to turn the hearts of the children to their fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to the children;
17 And again, the hearts of the Jews unto the prophets, and the prophets unto the Jews; lest I come and smite the whole earth with a curse, and all flesh be consumed before me.
The truth is, I think some of this quoting platitudes in conference is a consequence of our being asleep to reality and extent of evil in our day. 911 and global terrorism are globalist-sponsored productions that has gotten the US involved in numerous and unending wars. The evidence is plain as day.
Dilyana Gaytandzhiev reports that US Companies (Purple Shovel) shipped Bulgarian and Serbian arms to Syria and Africa terrorist groups via 350 diplomatically-immune Azerbaijani Silkway Airway flights. (1 example out of many)
The World Trade Center Building's 1,2 were absolutely struck by military drone airliners and brought down in controlled demolitions using nanothermite cutter charges and remote explosives (1,2,7). If you believe anything else, you are a victim of a crafty deception and extensive cover-up .
1. This global terrorism business (911) is a fraud and meant to possibly and eventually bring the nations of the Earth against Israel as many key players are so-called "Zionists" but in reality the "synagogue of Satan". The poor Israeli people are getting framed again like they were in Russia and Germany before.
2. We have a lot of military families suffering here in Georgia fighting these never-ending wars: ptsd, health, divorce, abuse, etc
3. I didn't like Elder Ellis inferring that "doing nothing" would result in evil's victory.
4. Peacemaking, "holding our peace", doing nothing is an inspired option. In the movies Wargames and Tron when faced with a lose-lose game set up by their enemies, the only way to win was determined to be "not to play".
5. I think sitting back and doing missionary and temple work and saying nothing publicly about the fraud, the lies, the deception, and watching it all burn down is a difficult but likely the correct road. But that's not my business.
6. Our seers do see things as they really are. But God could permit some shortsightedness if He knew seeing would cause "holding our peace", too difficult.