United We Stand

Stop the Demonizing

Ok, so this has been something I have wanted to really really talk about for a long time with my friends but have had trouble doing it because it is such an emotional and explosive topic: Party Politics. I warn you, if you keep reading I likely will offend you with my bluntness, but that doesn't make my message less true (even if you can find faults with the specific content).

In particular I want to talk about the way we see and treat each other. Over the last year I have as a Republican been accused of being heartless, a hypocrite, a chauvinist, a racist, a bigot, an idiot, stupid, unchristian, and pretty much every accusation you could ever make under the face of the sun. I have seen many Republican friends accuse Democrats of the same things. Now as much as this is a terrible thing: its politics, its media, its crazy people taking advantage of other crazy people.

The problem is how many of my smart, intelligent, and educated friends I see not only saying these things but actually believing them. Some of these friends were members of the other party not long ago and yet suddenly believe the craziest accusations against their former party. The crime and danger here is that once you actually believe the other side is stupid, you start assuming their every action is stupid. Lets stop and be honest. 47% of the nation is democrat and 47% republican. Do you really think that many people are off their rocker? Yes some of their leaders may say crazy things but that doesn't make everything any one of them says stupid. Actually, the only reason the leaders can get away saying crazy things is because we have allowed ourselves to demonize each other so completely that we actually believe what they say or at best feel what they say is better than the opposition.

I mean really, does any one actually think 47% of Americans would support stripping women's rights? No, but I know democrats who will never support anything a republican says because they think Republicans do. Does anyone honestly think 47% of people want the American Government to colapse? No, but I know some Republicans who will never support a democrat for fear of it. Worst as I said before, these are not crazies believing this stuff. These are very educated people many of whom I call friends. So why do they believe it? Why do YOU believe the terrible things about the other side that you do?

I think it is in part because we are so busy defending ourselves we don't stop to empathize with the other side. We don't stop and actually think. I believe another part of it is because there is so much politicking and maneuvering happening designed to deceive us. Are you aware that some bills are proposed that are not meant to pass? They are meant to create a media out cry; To force the other side to say no to something but claim they said no to something else in the bill; They are meant to show the other side the limits of their power; or even just so a feel can be gathered about who supports who and where the swing votes are. Once we are confused and on the defensive, the media then comes in and persuades us like sheep that these leaders are terrible people and everyone who supports them too. Even in politics everyone is just doing the best they can with the limited knowledge they have: presidents, congress, and voters. They aren't trying to rob you, or to destroy the country, and they couldn't get where they are without being fairly smart. If they are doing the best they can then maybe they might have legitimate reason for what they do? Maybe we might have something we can learn from them or do better by paying attention?

No one wants to think about it though and so we demonize each other and vote for representatives who also see the other side as nothing but raving lunatics foaming at the mouth. Is it any wonder there has been so much deadlock? (Democrats you keep screaming the Tea Party is what's done this but that very accusation puts you in the same boat). So now we are stuck seeing red all around and I actually find someone asking me "Wait you are a republican of your own choice?" Really? I find everywhere I turn, the ways we try to persuade each other is through shamming each other, peer-pressuring each other, fast talking each other into confusion, or just plain talking over each other.

I understand the media doing this. I understand this in propaganda. I understand people promoting it on Facebook. I do not understand this in my friends when I see them in person, not because they are my friends but they are educated and they should know better. Yet I still see this and not from only a few. These are the methods of mob rule and result only in bad decisions being made. This is how we end up in situations where democrats are calling republicans unchristian and hypocrites for being afraid to let refugees in and Republicans calling democrats stupid for trying to let terrorists in. Can no one see that these views are not directly opposite? Some people in congress did, but when republicans agreed to let refugees in so long as they were screened the democrats turned them down. Maybe the democrats had a good reason but instead of offering alternate ways to meet the republicans' desire for security the democrats condemn them for not letting through all refugees unconditionally. So we keep shouting insults at each other refusing to see the needs of almost every 2nd person in the country. This can also be applied to the healthcare bill: Republicans "it won't work", Democrats "people shouldn't suffer"; Gun control: Democrats "we need to stop mass killings", Republicans "Guns are our rights"; and plenty more that favor blindness from each side (note these are not the specific arguments but the motives of the arguments). Now there are some arguments that come to a moral line that can't be crossed, but even then more often than not we are hitting each other head on and demanding compromises of 50/50 where there can be none instead of looking for alternate solutions.

Granted most of these issues are being handled way above the ability for most of us to affect in the short run. So why does this matter to us? Because the way we treat each other and how we are seen to approach the issues determines how friends, colleagues, and children will treat issues. It will determine how they view the other side. It will determine who they vote for and who is willing to run for office. If we stop demonizing each other on the personal level - and even on Facebook - and start showing we value each others opinion, even when we disagree (remember 47% of people agree with the person you disagree with) then we can hope for politics to make a change for the better. However, even treating each other with respect won't be enough if we let ourselves believe those who are demonizing the other side and letting that influencing our voting and debates. We each need to stand where we are and try to understand the real reason why people say what they say and stop believing the propaganda we see floating around.

(End Note: I am not suggesting either party is right or better than the other. Nor am I suggesting that one party should roll over whenever the other has an idea. Both parties are fundamentally different philosophies and I will fight tooth and nail to make sure my republican view is understood and would hope any democrat would do the same in turn. However, being different and disagreeing doesn't mean we can't understand each other.)

War in the Book of Mormon: Part III

Fortifying Your Life

So previously we talked about how you can protect yourself by wearing the Armor of God. This included righteous living and everything that goes with it.  We also talked about how armor, while great, is not a perfect defense and that you can still be overcome while wearing it. We also in my first post on the War Chapters discussed how different strategies could overcome us despite armor and a fortified life. I skipped the part where you first need to fortify your life though. I don't think that Mormon would have wasted so much time going into the details about the nephrite fortifications if they weren't important. So this topic centers on Alma chapter 48 through 50 where Moroni fortifies the Nephites' positions.

I admit this topic was hard to puzzle out. Like really hard. Not because its to see the symbolism but the opposite. It is soooo easy to apply and in soooo many ways that keeping it consistent and applicable was hard. So I actually asked several people for help and all of their advice helped steer me in the right direction. To start its important to stay focused on the idea of fortifying our environment to protect us as much as our actions/armor. The second step is to think of what each piece of fortification does by itself and how that adds to what the other pieces do - and its more than it all keeps the bad guys out.

Preparing the Mind

7 Now it came to pass that while Amalickiah had thus been obtaining power by fraud and deceit, Moroni, on the other hand, had been preparing the minds of the people to be faithful unto the Lord their God.

8 Yea, he had been strengthening the armies of the Nephites, and erecting small forts, or places of resort; throwing up banks of earth round about to enclose his armies, and also building walls of stone to encircle them about, round about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all round about the land.

9 And in their weakest fortifications he did place the greater number of men; and thus he did fortify and strengthen the land which was possessed by the Nephites.

These versus have a few things that should be considered before starting to build your fortifications. The first is that the minds of the people were prepared to be faithful. This is particularly important if your environment includes a family because if the family isn't behind you then your defenses won't work and may actually cause conflict. Even personally it is important though, because if you aren't ready to make the commitments then the fortifications are a waste. Another point in the previous versus is that the weakest fortifications were placed the greater number of men. Some areas of your life may not be as easy to fortify as others. In these cases it is important to have more support/people involved in your defense than in others. The last pre-fortification thing he mentions is that he was strengthening the armies. This is a simple one - build more relationships with spiritually strong people and also try to increase your own spiritual strength and those around you. No fortification is any good if there is no one capable of defending it.

Barriers

Now the first defense mentioned above are the banks of earth round about his armies - which are not walls because he also mentions those. These banks of earth and walls are described a little better in Chapter 50 vs 1-2. Here it calls them heaps of earth with works of timbers/walls on top of them. In chapter 49 vs 18 he also mentioned surrounding these with ditches/moats. This is a standard European castle design - castle/walls on high ground with moats around. But the question is how are each of these parts different?

The mounds/banks/heaps of earth serve the purpose of putting the defenses at a higher elevation. Even without any other defenses the high ground is the best place to fight for many reasons. Some of these reasons include: increased range for defenders and decreased for attackers, defenders have a better angle for swinging weapons that allow for more power at more vulnerable places (head/torso) than attackers (feet/legs), able to see opponents from further away, and many others. Most of the advantages gained from being on a hill are also gained while using a wall and then some. So why bother with a hill for your wall? Its because there is one really big advantage to being on top of a hill - your opponent is huffing, puffing, and tired by the time they get to you. This means it is much harder for them to effectively attack you and much easier for you to defend yourself.

Spiritually we can build our own homes and lives so they are more elevated and we are harder to reach. We can do this by filling our lives with good things that keeps our thoughts and actions uplifted - good music, pictures of Christ and Temples around our houses, clean conversation and language, clean houses, and regular habits of gospel discussion, prayer, and scripture study. These things help keep us conscious of our actions and how they bring good things or bad things into our lives. The enemy can still reach us but we will be more rested and their arguments far weaker if we keep our lives and environments on a higher plane.

So we mentioned that Walls and Hills have a lot of the same benefits but what do walls offer that hills don't? Well the wall keeps the enemy from reaching you altogether. In our own lives we should also have actual walls that keep things we don't want out. In a practical sense these can include firewalls and filters on our computers and personal devises that keep out porn, gore, and other unwholesome things. We place our walls on hills so that they are harder to climb over or destroy.

So now we have a big hill to climb and a wall at the top, what is the purpose of a moat? A moat offers the same advantage as the wall in that it keeps the enemy out but where the wall is a barrier, the moat/ditch does this by increasing the distance between the enemy and you without you needing to move. It does this by making them have to go around it, climb down one end and out the other, or if its filled with water - swim across it. A moat can even be enhanced and used as a trap by putting spikes at the bottom of it or carnivores in it. We can think of this as putting distance between us and sin. If you are addicted to alcohol than don't keep it in the house so that you have to travel further to reach it. If you have a spouse maybe add a trap to it by setting up a notification so she knows when you spend money to buy some. The moat is about inconveniencing sin and temptation. Its probably worth while noting that if you go look at castles and fortified walls, most never had moats or no longer do. They are awfully inconvenient and hard to maintain, but that doesn't mean they aren't effective.

In summary. Like Moroni fortified the Nephite cities with dirt mounds, walls, and moats, we too need to fortify our lives by building barriers to sin. We need to elevate our lives by filling them with uplifting things and removing the downgrading. We need to build walls to keep evil and temptation out of our lives. Finally we need to increase the distance between us and temptations and even add traps to make sin as inconvenient as possible.

Security

If we continue reading in chapter 50, after the barriers are all built the next things Moroni worked on was creating security for those barriers by putting pickets (guards) on the walls, building towers and security on the towers, and then securing the area around the fortifications. Barriers are no good without the security to make them work.

Pickets are guards that are placed in regular intervals around a camp/fortification designed to alert in case of attack but not in the same way a watch tower does. A Picket is to alert and defend against the sneak attacks that no one saw coming. They also are supposed to fight to delay the enemy long enough to allow the rest of the fort to mobilize. In our own lives this is like inviting those who share our environment (family and coworkers) to help us be on the look out for sin and temptation. Sometimes we don't even notice when we are walking the line and someone else could alert us. Its important to be willing to listen though even if you don't want to - or like a soldier are asleep and in bed when the alarm rings.

The watch towers I think are really interesting though. So watch towers are designed to let you know when you are being attacked. They are not spies that go find out what the enemy is up to and let you know in advance. They are in a sense alarms to let you know when you are in danger. In our own lives we can think of these as things like For the Strength of Youth, alerts if filters are turned off, accountability with friends when trying to overcome addictions, and any other system you can think of to alert yourself if you are approaching sinning (or failing to recover). The next part is equally important, he built securities for his towers to protect the people in them. This means whatever alerts we set should not expose us to sin. As an example, watching a movie or show to decide if its good for our family to see. This exposes us to the very thing we think our family shouldn't see. Better to look up reviews and ratings instead to determine the content of what you will watch.

Finally Moroni removed all the enemies from the wilderness around the Nephites and sent Nephites to live there/secure the land (vs 7) and then built a network of forts/defenses (vs 10) to protect the land. This I think is pretty straight forward. We should surround ourselves with other people who have also fortified their lives. That way we can go to them and use their fortifications and they can be safe in ours and in general be strengthened by nearby support. We should also get rid of friends that are a bad influence on us. That is not the same as getting rid of all non-righteous friends, but some friends do affect us negatively and those should be removed.

Miscellaneous

So that pretty much covers everything I got on fortifying your life. Sorry if its a little more vague and short than the other portions I wrote. Like I said though it was hard to wrap my head around and in truth I am tired and ready to be done with this. So I am going to just wrap up with some other random tidbits taught in the war chapters.

Alma 53 vs 1-5: Prisoners of war were kept and used to strength the fortifications and they were watched. In our own lives these are people who go to church but don't really want to. They likely view themselves as prisoners. As we reach out to them and work with them we can use those opportunities to strengthen ourselves and our faith through service and charity. However we don't want to let them loose in our lives to influence us and our households to do evil and so they should be watched. Its important to notice in Ch 62 vs 29 all of the Prisoners joined the Nephites. So just because someone is a prisoner now doesn't mean they always will be.

Alma ch 56 vs 16-17: Here a city under siege receives some reinforcements and even though it is not nearly enough they are strengthened and over joyed by it. We can take this as a lesson that trying to reach out and help someone is worth it even if we know it isn't really going to help much.

Alma Ch 56 vs 29: Continuing from the one above, as support is given attacks increase. We should be aware that in ours lives and in the lives of others things will likely become harder in the short run when support is given. This is not to say things were better without it, they still were going to be over run, but that we can expect increased opposition even as we receive help.

Alma ch 60: vs 23: In this Moroni expresses the importance of cleansing the inner vessel then the outer vessel. As when Christ taught this, we need to make sure our own motives and directives are pure before we try to help others.

With that I end my exposition on the War Chapter of Alma. I again would like to say that my interpretation is in no way the only one available nor my examples the limit to which these things apply. Nor am I claiming that there are no other jewels to be gained than the things I have listed. I have just worked to show how all the military aspects of the war chapters, that many people overlook as only story telling, have many very important symbolisms that can be used to help us be the victors in the spiritual war we are fighting on this earth.

If you want to read the other two articles they are the previous two before this one. The ones posted in August and September of 2015.