THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF GENOCIDE Pt. 1 – Of Remnants and Remnants of Remnants and Their Role in the Ongoing Plan of Deeming and Redeeming Mankind

THE REMNANT

Remnant:

1. Residue; that which is left after the separation, removal or destruction of a part.

2. A small remaining quantity of something.

The recent post, 1 Nephi 13&14 and its commentary generated much inspiration about the ‘Remnant’. Who is this group known as the ‘Remnant’? What are they a remnant of and where are they to be found? 3 Nephi 5:24 answers some of these questions.

“And as surely as the Lord liveth, will he gather in from the four quarters of the earth all the remnant of the seed of Jacob, who are scattered abroad upon all the face of the earth.”

So we are talking about a remaining part of the seed of Jacob and we find them here, there and everywhere – spread across the globe in a diverse diaspora. When I was young my father explained that America was a ‘melting pot’. The idea fascinated me. I have, since those days, lived in the East, West, Midwest as well as a couple countries in Latin America. I have become acquainted with a variety of people. I’ve been blessed to know people from practically every nation of the earth. There are certain groups who seem to be more widely distributed, like Filipinos and Mexicans. This is due mostly to economic conditions. Poor people feel obligated to leave their homelands and endure the spurn of others, all for the purpose of making a little money – very little money. These days it is the “Dirty Spics” in the past it was the “Dirty Micks”. Others were plucked from the land of their ancestors and brought forcefully to this land in chains. Any way you choose to look at it, all of these groups along with the groups they are removed from are remainders. This paternal splitting reveals a pattern-in-all.

THE CURSE OF ‘CHRISTIANITY’

But in 1 Nephi 13 the Lord specifies one particular portion of the remnant inhabiting the Americas when He interjects “—and this remnant of whom I speak is the seed of thy father— ” in verse 34. Earlier in the chapter Nephi records:

“And it came to pass that the angel said unto me: Behold the wrath of God is upon the seed of thy brethren.”

God’s wrath is mentioned and nowhere at this point is there any mention of the advent of Christianity in the Americas as any kind of blessing – not even in disguise. It should be clear to us that what follows then, is not to be misinterpreted or misrepresented as a blessing but a curse. Nephi looks and beholds a man among the gentiles who was separated from the seed of his [Nephi’s] brethren by the many waters. Even though we are told that the spirit of God comes down and works upon the man before he crosses the many waters to the Promised Land, we need to understand that the man was never moved upon to perform a mission of mercy. Therefore, the spirit is still one of wrath.

In The Devil In The Dust, I asked, “Does the blood of Christ cleanse, condemn or both?” I also spoke about the roles that trace metals and blood play in the devil’s trance-humanist scheme to thoroughly possess the bodies created for Adam and Eve. Eve specifically bears witness to the curse of bloodshed. Under the Iron Fist of tyranny, we see a wrathful element to the element of iron as it combines with oxygen in hemo-goblins to torment Eve and her children with a perpetual cycle of bloodlust and red rust. To many this may not sound like sound science or spirituality but to those with ears to hear they will detect both. Eyes to see will not perceive postulation on my part but will see beneath the pustulation from smallpox on the skin of millions of native inhabitants of this land. Deeper reasons than guns, steel or even germs reveal themselves when the facts are viewed through the microscopic lens of the Holy Spirit. POx (premature oxidation) poisoned the wine of a once pure sacrament. Spanish Conquistadors and Anglo-Catholics drank to their damnation. Drunk with the blood of European Saints, they proceeded to pour the bitter cup of affliction out upon the American Indians.

Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Itallian mariner-for-hire commissioned by the king of France in 1523 to discover whether one could reach Asia by rounding the Americas to the north, wrote the earliest description of the east coast of North America. Sailing north from the Carolinas, he observed that the coastline everywhere was “densely populated,” smoky with Indian bonfires; he could sometimes smell the burning hundreds of miles offshore.

But in the decades between Columbus’ “discovery” of America and the Mayflower landing at Plymouth Rock, the most devastating plague in human history raced up the East Coast of America. Just two years before the pilgrims arrived in Plymouth, smallpox wiped out about 96 percent of the Indians in Massachusetts. Within just a few generations, the continents of the Americas were virtually emptied of their native inhabitants. Some academics estimate that approximately 20 million people may have died in the years following the European invasion – up to 95% of the population of the Americas.

Far from the pious pilgrim we are taught to commemorate every thanksgiving, my direct ancestor, William Bradford, who led the celebrated Mayflower group to Plymouth, wrote in his journal: “The good hand of God favored our beginnings by sweeping away great multitudes of the natives … that he might make room for us.” Bradford’s use of the word ‘sweeping’ reminds us of the divine decree, repeated several times in Ether 2, that inhabitants of this land should serve God or be ‘swept off’ the face of it.Especially in the case of the areas known today as Canada and the U.S.A., there was no need for military occupation. Unfortunate souls who found themselves British colonists in the Americas were actually British or at least European, whereas colonies in India, China and Africa remained populated with the original inhabitants. But frequent and failed attempts at colonization by various expeditions of bewildered European explorers along the Eastern Seaboard ended with far more than mere frustration for the once bustling indigenous population.

Things played out very differently here than in Mexico and South America. The work was literally done for them by the time that Europeans started to arrive en masse to the East Coast of most of North America. Taking a more truthful look at the mysteriously poor timing and utter lack of preparation for the landing of the Mayflower group; evidence points to a scenario where, as the plague spread among the Indians, word must have spread among these first opportunistic pillaging pilgrims. In later written records from early colonial times, you constantly come across “settlers” being shocked at how convenient the American wilderness made things for them. The pilgrims couldn’t believe their luck when they found that American forests just naturally contained “an ecological kaleidoscope of garden plots, blackberry rambles, pine barrens and spacious groves of chestnut, hickory and oak.” The puzzlingly obedient wilderness didn’t stop in New England. Frontiersmen who “settled” what is today Ohio were psyched to find that the forest there naturally grew in a way that “resembled English parks.” You could drive carriages through the untamed frontier without burning a single calorie clearing rocks, trees and shrubbery.

Returning to the text of 1 Nephi 13, we find it testifies to the true American history that was left out of school books. Verse 33 plainly states:

“Wherefore saith the Lamb of God: I will be merciful unto the Gentiles, unto the visiting of the remnant of the house of Israel in great judgment.”

This is why the “stumbling” that the Gentiles are excused for does not include any atrocities committed against the “savage” survivors of God’s wrath. The “plain and precious parts” of the gospel which were left out of the Bible by that “abominable church” never justified murder. The Bible carried forth by those pre-restoration Christ-Shuns was sufficiently clear, with its Ten Commandments. And the conscience of any honest Gentile falling into the category of those fleeing captivity and seeking religious freedom, would not allow for aggression against anyone who was not violent towards them. In fact, we would do well to remember that, the although the word ‘gospel’ can and has been hijacked to mean whatever greedy men want it to, the gospel of Jesus Christ is Truth itself. Indeed we stumble today due to the great and abominable public school system of Babylon holding back many “plain and precious parts” of our history. Many so-called Pilgrims and Puritans are the worst offenders. Remember, that whether colonizers or CEOs, they are not agents of the Lord but false shepherds. As agents of the Church of the Devil they have blinded many to the truth since the inception of European Gentile society in this choice land.

The truth is, defection to join native society was so common that it became a major issue for colonial leaders. Ben Franklin, who never lost the empathy for the Iroquois, with whom he developed his reputation as a diplomat, noted that,
“No European who has tasted Savage Life can afterwards bear to live in our societies.”
Franklin wasn’t pointing this out as a critique of those who defected — he believed that Indian societies provided greater opportunities for happiness than European cultures – and he wasn’t the only Founding Father who thought Europeans could learn a thing or two from their Red Brothers. They didn’t dress up like Indians at the Boston Tea Party ironically. That was common protesting gear during the American revolutions. According to Loewen, “Europeans were always trying to stop the outflow. Hernando De Soto had to post guards to keep his men and women from defecting to Native societies.” Pilgrims were so scared of Indian influence that they outlawed the wearing of long hair. Long hair didn’t fully come back into style until a couple hundred years later when Hippy and Native youth started to catch a bit of Zion Fever once again. (Ironically, even the U.S. Military, during the Viet Nam War, allowed certain Native Americans, who they had recruited specifically for their extraordinary tracking skills, to keep their hair long when it was discovered that their spiritual sensitivity/extra sensory perception suffered greatly if required to get a customary military haircut) These chapters in the Book of 1 Nehpi that we are looking at pronounce great blessings on those who “seek to bring forth Zion” and “publish peace upon the mountains”. But sadly peace treaties as early as colonial times were consistently broken by shameless Gentiles. And the not so beautiful feet of greedy men trampling the Appalachian Mountains left them stained from massacres. Benjamin Franklin wrote of the massacres:
“The Wickedness cannot be Covered, the Guilt will lie on the Whole Land, till Justice is done on the Murderers. THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT WILL CRY TO HEAVEN FOR VENGEANCE!”

Not only were several of the Founding Fathers but also many colonial soldiers were directly inspired by the freedom of the Remnant peoples. Of course neither side was perfect but the ideas to form a “More Perfect Union” were very much based on the tribal ways of the more righteous remaining segments of a languishing Lamanite civilization. Historians think the Iroquois Confederacy had a direct influence on the U.S. Constitution, and the Senate even passed a resolution acknowledging that “the confederation of the original thirteen colonies into one republic was influenced … by the Iroquois Confederacy, as were many of the democratic principles which were incorporated into the constitution itself.” So compliance to the revealed principles of The Doctrine & Covenants, Sections 98: 5-7 and 101: 77-80, in which the Lord justifies us, in “befriending that law which is the constitutional law of the land” – “the laws and constitution of the people, which [God] suffered to be established….for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles” has always and always will be contingent upon peaceful and cooperative relationship with the Remnant and the Land itself.

The land itself bears witness to the fact that a huge sprawling civilization once flourished here. Environmental scientists speculate that they must have cleared mass amounts of trees. Geologists and anthropologist can tell you what evidence they have uncovered from Cahokia, a massive Native American city that was located in modern day East St. Louis. In 1250, it was bigger than London, and featured a sophisticated society with an urban center, satellite villages and thatched-roof houses lining the central plazas. It also featured a gigantic man-made mound larger than the Great Pyramid at Giza. It was constructed with more than 2.16 billion pounds of dirt and brightly decorated with soil of various colors brought from hundreds of miles away. Wile the city was abandoned by the time Europeans reached the area, the evidence they left behind suggests a complex economy with trade routes from the Great Lakes all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. The picture that emerges from the lost civilization of the ancient American mound builder societies meshes with descriptions of Nephite culture in the Book of Mormon and from Joseph Smith’s personal insights from visions.

The truth is that the United States was not really founded on Christian principles at all. Though it could be and is argued by many that this is or at least was at some point, a Christian nation; that is simply not the case. If you want to, you may call it Christian. To me, it is Christ-Shun. What has passed for Christianity here was already so perverted by the time it reached America’s shores that it was a curse to everyone it touched. The Nephite nation was one that was more justly founded on Christian principles but it too fell into devastating cycles of corruption. Approximately 400 miles due west of the ancient site of the aforementioned Cahokia is the place where, presumably, The New Jerusalem will be built in these latter days. And so, it is possibly in that vicinity, where the Resurrected Jesus appeared to the survivors of a much earlier wave of destruction that swept over that same land. The Living Christ has, over all, been rejected more than accepted on this continent. Here we worship the Dead Christ. It brings to mind the words of English trader Thomas Morton upon surveying the scene in the New England woods.

“And the bones and skulls upon the several places of their habitations made such a spectacle that it seemed a new found Golgotha”

E א–D I G-E א Ø Ç – G E א–א Ø-Ç I D E

Genocide is a term invented by Raphael Lemkin in order to put a name to the horrible specter of mass murder that is perpetrated on a scale so huge that it tends to be overlooked, dismissed or disbelieved by the vast majority of humanity. It seems to monstrous to even deal with psychologically. But by putting a name on the demon, we gain power over it, like in the story of ‘Rumplestiltskin’. In sincerely seeking the Lord’s inspiration to come up with a word that would capture the essence of the sin and impress the seriousness of it on the minds of men, Lemkin succeeded, if only subconsciously, in literally capturing the spirit of the evil one himself. The new name, which Lemkin divined through ponderous prayer, revealed the underlying designs of the menace and contains a code that is only decipherable to the wise. If we are wise as serpents and harmless as doves we will discern and apply this knowledge to the service of the Lord. But if after having been shown, we to deny or downplay this truth – be warned – arrogance is not ignorance and neither arrogance nor ignorance is innocence. The separate syllables and the same sounds, which compose the word ‘genocide’ can be rearranged to closely match the phonetics of the word ‘indigenous’

Indigenous is a word we inherit from Latin ‘indigena’ meaning “sprung from the land,”

Aboriginal – from ab origine, literally, “from the beginning.”

Tribal societies in all four quarters of the earth are targeted by genocidal maniacs, possessed of Satan, simply because as residues of the original way, members of the tribes of the earth embody and maintain much of the potency rejected by the larger group. And this power has the potential to be manifested in more miraculous ways due to the compact purity that has come about due to millennia of pressure. They represent the remnant because no matter how small the residue of literal blood of Abraham, according to our definition, that may or may not flow through their veins, they hold true to the Original Spirit of humanity. Even when it comes to detectable DNA, the coveted Cohen Marker which they claim as a sure sign of priestly heritage is typically more prevalent in East Afrikans than in any Khazar or Ashkenaz group of Eastern Europe. If blood is thicker than water, then spirit is vastly more pure and therefore more powerful than both. God is less concerned with Semitism and more involved with sentiment. God is not checking you against some scale of ‘Coheness’ or ‘Choseness’. He has chosen to call everyone to the great work and it is up to us to accept that calling and choose Him in every moment. God does not allow Himself to be tied down by cult-sure and those who obsess over such things usually end up torturing most viciously, themselves in thought and the saints of God in both mind and body.

The etymological pairing of the Greek prefix –Geno– and Latin suffix –Cide– for a literal meaning of “killing a tribe” invokes a chilling perversion of the LDS Article of Faith #10, which states:

“We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.”

Do we believe in the annihilation of the Tribes of Israel? We would deny such a notion. But if we do not wish to support the killing of the tribes then why do we stand aside, look the other way and in some cases act as a willing party to such crimes? Perhaps we do not know how to recognize genocide. The devil has used man’s fear of confronting demons to narrowly define the word genocide in our minds and thereby distract them. Parading Hitler’s Holocaust is advantageous to Satan since one unfamiliar word will establish unfamiliarity with the other. Genocide and Holocaust are practically synonymous terms in our heads. How many give any thought to the fact that the word Holocaust means “Burnt Offering”? How can we say “Never again” if we don’t know what happened? Oh that’s right the battle cry is no longer “Never again” but “Never forget!” so the feeling, thought and strange fruit of genocide may continue indefinitely.

Genocide is – “the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group”

This seems quite straight forward. However, as mentioned earlier, the human tendency to do whatever possible to avoid the issue made it necessary to spell it out in greater detail. Legally defined, it is:

“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

As LDS and as Americans, as members of modern society wherever we live, we have been guilty of every single one of these items listed in the official definition of genocide. The methods by which we have soiled our garments are sundry and were I to just rattle off a few or dive into the task of detailing the diverse ways we take part in these atrocities, neither approach would do much good. He who searches his soul will recognize that sincerity begins with sin and will reconcile with God.

Although God suffers genocide, God does not condone it. Does God’s intervention, somewhere before the point of total destruction is reached, save the victims and perpetrators of genocide alike? Yes, for He is perfect in both mercy and justice. But what does He save each party from respectively? The victimized group is obviously saved from their oppressors. What then are the aggressors are saved from? Is this process a simple dichotomy with justice served on one side and mercy on the other? The Book of Mormon tells us that mercy can not rob justice. (Alma 42:25)  If this is true then the converse is also. So both parties will receive equal parts mercy and justice. Now, what does mercy for the disinherited look like? What form will it take when delivered to the wicked? And as far as justice goes – “What man among you, having twelve sons…. saith unto the one: Be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here; and to the other: Be thou clothed in rags and sit thou there—and looketh upon his sons and saith I am just?” (Doctrine and Covenants 38:26) Why does the Lord commence this parable in the context of 12 Sons (Tribes of Israel), then proceed to mention only 2 (Ephraim & Manasseh), before finally following it up with an admonition to be 1? “If ye are not one ye are not mine.” (D&C 38:27)

To be one is to be complete and whole. Whether in whole or in part – genocide is genocide. Just as reward for righteousness is not withheld when we fall short in our performance, retribution for evil will not be stayed simply because we stop short of some imaginary line in the sand. Thank God, we are not judged for our actions any more than we are for our appearance. Actions are only appearances after all – the appearance or emergence of that which lay beneath the surface. Jesus said “by their fruits shall ye know them” and we often take this to mean that we are safe judging another by their actions or inaction. But Jesus wants us to look deeper than protocol so as to not be fooled by false fruit. He was speaking of the fruits of the spirit. The spirit in which a thing is done, not the action itself must be our indicator. This may seem a foreign concept to many. But herein hides the reason for all of our sin in the first place. Action is not the first place. Jesus tells us that thought precedes all action and this makes us guilty of the sin inwardly before and regardless of whether we ever commit it outwardly. Thought is no more the first place than is action. Feeling precedes thought. Feeling is a vague term to our minds and is still far from the throne of God. But the word feeling is close enough to the source for our purposes, because if we honestly seek to follow the word of the Lord and bridle our passions (Alma38:12) then we will eventually, through experimentation; (Alma34:4) position our selves properly so as to watch (Mosiah4:30) not only our words and thoughts but our feelings. No one who feels good and desires that good reign in his life will ever participate in genocide from any angle, plain and simple.

Adolph Hitler did not feel good inside. He was not a man who bridled his passions. He did venture inside himself but he did not think himself able to change his feeling from bad to good. So he remained an open portal for evil. As a whole, those who were forced into concentration camps did not feel and find good in their selves. Or if they did, they did not hold those good feelings sacred enough to honor above all else. They thought that holiness came as a result of monitoring action alone. They were observing ritual and not thought; much less feeling. Too ‘modest’ to approach the shining Throne of God situated high up on the mountain, they could feel zeal but not much else. Their moderation was not in all things, rather it was a mutation of modesty that left all revealing to a dead Moses while it reveled in the self righteousness of a limited view from within the shadow of the valley of death. The English word ‘martyr’, comes to us from Late Latin – martyros. Martyr literally means “witness,” probably related to mermera “care, trouble,” from mermairein “be anxious or thoughtful,” Modesty makes martyrs. Martyrs make mortar mixed with blood for the building up of the Kingdom of the Devil and the establishment of Traditional Thought. Adolph aligned himself with the swollen thought and deep feelings of millions and Nazis and Jews together hummed the same hymn of human sacrifice:

I prefer peace
Wouldn’t have to have one worldly possession
But essentially I’m an animal
So just what do I do with all the aggression?

Well I’ve tried
Everything but suicide
But it’s crossed my mind

Life is a one-way street, aint it? and if you could paint it
I’d draw myself going in the right direction
So I go all the way – like I really really know
But the truth is I’m only guessin’

And I’ve tried
Everything but suicide
Ooh but it’s crossed my mind
Just a thought

It’s even dark in the daytime
It’s not just good – it’s Great Depression
When I was lost I even found myself
Looking in the gun’s direction

And so I’ve tried
Everything but suicide
But yes – it’s crossed my mind

Just A Thought – Gnarls Barkley

Bartering Currency Pictures

For background on this post, see Introducing a new bartering currency—the first coin: 1/2 Troy oz pure silver .999 fine.

I got my first coins yesterday and thought I’d take some pictures. I’ll update this post with pictures of all the various sizes, as they are made. Feel free to download and use the pictures to tell people about the currency.

1/2-oz Troy, .999 Fine Silver

There was a mistake made to the dies. The Collector’s Mint only deals with collector’s items, so when the die-maker at the American National Mint got the order to make the dies and read “Brilliant Uncirculated” (BU) condition on the order sheet, he figured that it must be wrong and made the dies for “Proof” condition, instead. The first strike run was for 500 coins. However, after they struck the first 134 coins, they had to wait a few more days before striking the rest because not all of the needed planchets had arrived, so they shipped out the 134 coins to The Collector’s Mint. When The Collector’s Mint got the coins and saw that they were in “Proof” condition, they ordered the dies fixed so that all subsequent coins would be in “Brilliant Uncirculated” condition. The dies now only produce coins in BU condition. (The difference between Proof and BU condition is that the Proof coins have a mirrored finish and frosted letters, while BU is a non-numismatic bullion coin.) It was never the intention to produce numismatic coins, but apparently there are now 134 of them. The following pictures are of Proof condition coins.

Obverse of a Proof Condition Silver 1/2-oz Bartering Currency Coin - Contrast Increased

Reverse of a Proof Condition Silver 1/2-oz Bartering Currency Coin - Contrast Increased

A Stack of Proof Condition Silver 1/2-oz Bartering Currency Coins

A Pile of Proof Condition Silver 1/2-oz Bartering Currency Coins

Obverse Close-up of a Pile of Proof Condition Silver 1/2-oz Bartering Currency Coins

Reverse Close-up of a Pile of Proof Condition Silver 1/2-oz Bartering Currency Coins

More to come later…

Next Anarchism/Anarchy article: A sign of the times?

Previous Anarchism/Anarchy article: Introducing a new bartering currency—the first coin: 1/2 Troy oz pure silver .999 fine

Complete List of Articles authored by LDS Anarchist

The Great and Abominable Church

2,575 words

© Anthony E. Larson, 2002

The Great and Abominable Church

Many surprises await the serious student of scripture and ancient history-revelations about our past and the true nature of the world we live in.  Most surprising, however, is the revelation that all is not as it seems in our culture and its most fundamental institutions.

For example, in the Book of Mormon we read about “a great and abominable church” seen by Nephi in his great revelation to emerge after the time of the original apostles and continue on up into the time of the Gentiles.  (Nephi 13:26.)  This vile institution is named disparagingly in both the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine & Covenants.  The natural conclusion is that Latter-day Saints should be able to identify it and thus avoid its dastardly influence.

However, as it turns out, the exact identity of this “church” is a matter of some conjecture and confusion among Latter-day Saints.  Most interpret Nephi’s statements to refer to the Catholic church.  However, that assessment may not be accurate since the great and abominable church was said by him to have “dominion over all the earth,” something well beyond the dominance of the Catholic church.  Others have argued that governments in general fill the bill of the “great and abominable church” for reasons that will become clear further on.

On the one hand, a careful reading of these scriptures indicates that Nephi simply spoke is general terms with the intent of depicting the division between good and evil in the world as churches.  “Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil …”-a point well made and easily understood. (1 Nephi 14:10.)

On the other hand, it appears that Nephi also intended to warn us of a specific institution in the world that would have a recognizable history and agenda.  He indicated that it would evolve as a religion.  Hence, it would be in a position to do considerable spiritual damage so that it would “blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men.”  (See Nephi 13:26.)  Seemingly, any institution with such a history, sweeping influence and a despicable agenda should be easy to spot.  But the confusion among Latter-day Saints regarding this “church” indicates that this is simply not the case.

This begs the following questions:  How are we to guard against the wicked influence of an institution we cannot readily identify?  Is it possible, even likely, that this “church” is working its vile influence among the Saints today?  Does Nephi’s warning to us, the Gentiles, that we should avoid the trap, “that great pit,” that this institution might present to us goes unheeded since we do not seem to know which institution and ideas to defend ourselves against?

Clearly, a more careful analysis is in order so as to determine what this “church” might be and what harmful doctrines it may be imposing upon us.

To begin with, we must go back in history to see if we might thereby learn the nature and origin of this “church” and how it manages to “blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men” in order to understand how it might insinuate its distorted ideas and values into our lives.

Additionally, what the Book of Mormon prophet foresaw as a “church” may appear to be an entirely different institution in our eyes.  Thus, the organization we seek may not appear to us to be a church at all, judging by a reading of all references to it, even though that word used by Nephi to designate it might also be appropriate, given its historical development from the true church. 

Let’s look at history to possibly learn more about this “great and abominable church.”

It is well understood by Latter-day Saints how the primitive church ceased to function in its purity when revelation ceased after the death of the early apostles.  History indicates that what was once the true church metamorphosed into the Catholic church, still preaching some tenets of the true church, but having denied much that is “plain and most precious.”  Hence, many have sought to show that the Catholic is the “great and abominable church,” but that may be an oversimplified, partial truth, as we shall see.

Moving forward in time, we see that the Catholic church grew to dominate Western cultures.  It came to be the universal church that largely governed the Holy Roman Empire.  Thus, it can be correctly argued that the church also became a form of shadow government, ruling all the empires of the West for centuries thru the Papacy.

This condition endured for centuries until a handful of reformers decided to challenge the precepts and practices of the mother church.  The Reformation, as this confrontation and religious schism came to be known, gave rise to numerous protesting groups or churches in Christianity, hence the term Protestant.  These new churches, even when taken together with the Catholic, fall short of the malevolent church we seek since they still fall short of a worldwide institution.

Yet, there was one institution born during the Reformation that deserves our special attention, one that declined to call itself a church yet has all the earmarks of a religion.  The tactic employed by this group was to denounce religion as anathema to logical, rational thinking and investigation.  This group proclaimed that all religion was misguided, that it was a blight on the quest for knowledge since religion employed faith rather than intellect.  Their group, they proclaimed, would avoid any such stigma by distancing itself from religion altogether.

Ironically, this newly born institution, which refused to call itself a church, took on many characteristics of a religion, or church, as we shall see.  As its adherents went about organizing this new institution, it evolved much as the other protesting religions with its own dogma, catechism and priesthood.

This institution is orthodox science.

Naturally, the implication that science might be part of Nephi’s “great and abominable church” might be shocking and outrageous to some.  Nevertheless, as we shall see, such may well be the case.  Normative science, as an institution, fits Nephi’s description in that it pervades all societies and cultures worldwide and it contradicts and disparages all the basic tenets of the true religion, all the while making it difficult for the faithful to understand vital parts of the restored gospel.  And while the search for knowledge is noble and proper, what passes as science, in too many instances, is actually institutionalized ignorance.

More analysis is necessary to establish the case in point.

History reveals that science began in the Renaissance as an alternative philosophy to religion, a reactionary rebellion opposed to the intellectual repression of the dominant orthodox church.  Galileo’s struggle with ecclesiastical authorities to prove that the Earth was not the center of the universe is a quintessential example.  In effect, it can be said that science was simply one of several Protestant movements, born in the Reformation, all of them giving rise to modern religious institutions.

Science, however, sought to convince the world that it was not a religion but a philosophy.  However, in practice, as an institution, science began to operate much like a church.  When one looks closely at science as a belief system and at its satellite institutions, it looks remarkably like a religion.  Hence, Nephi’s decision to call this new institution a “church” was accurate.

The similarities between the science church and normative religion are striking.  Consider, for example, that this new movement ultimately copied the organization it diverged from when it established its education and training arm: universities.  Education had formerly been the responsibility of the church clergy.  One had to be educated to become a clergyman and vice versa.  Today’s universities, the incubators for our young scientists and scholars, began life in the Renaissance as the educational arm of the church-seminaries, in effect-and they still carry remnants of those religious trappings.  Indeed, seen from this perspective, the role of the university is to indoctrinate or inculcate the precepts of the science church. 

As the result of its origins in arcane religious orders, the terminology used in modern universities still hearkens back to its roots.  For example, graduates don the robes, caps and gowns that can be traced back to ancient monastic and sacerdotal orders.  It is for this reason that Dr. Hugh Nibley, a former BYU religion instructor once asked in his opening prayer in a convocation exercise that God might forgive those attending for wearing “the robes of false priesthood.”  Additionally, upon graduation, universities bestow ‘degrees,’ a term still used in many religious orders today, such as Masonry, to designate the rank or status of practitioners.

We call those who teach in these institutions of higher education ‘professors’ rather than teachers because they originally did far more than teach; they professed a belief and faith in things metaphysical or spiritual to the initiates or students.  Those who enroll in universities are said to ‘matriculate,’ the word coming from the Latin ‘mater’ or mother, meaning that initiates had enrolled in the ‘mother’ church.

The science church established its own dogma or doctrine, which it promulgates through the universities.  It found its ‘catechism’ in Uniformity or Gradualism as well as Natural Selection or Evolution.  Its sacrament is Rationalism and Empiricism; the tenets of the Newtonian universe became its articles of faith.

Latter-day Saints should readily recognize that all of the above named theories stand in direct contradiction to many tenets of the restored gospel.

As a further example of science as a church, those who fail to adopt or contradict the science church dogma find themselves shunned or excommunicated from the scientific community, just as in religion, no matter how inspired or workable their theories.  The example of Halton Arp, a Nobel Prize winning astronomer, demonstrates the process.  In spite of his elevated status in the scientific community, when Arp brought forth evidence that contradicted some of the fundamental tenets of astronomy he was systematically denied telescope time and barred from teaching his views in any effective forum.

Oddly, since science rejected the Catastrophism of religion, it had no eschatology until the nuclear age dawned.  The atomic bomb and the nuclear holocaust it foreshadowed became science’s eschatological vision of a world-ending cataclysm and nuclear winter brought on by mankind’s super technology.

Still more odd, the religionists immediately agreed, thus abandoning their historic Catastrophist views, rooted in Holy Scripture, wherein God was said to be the agent of latter-day destructions.

The “Big Bang” hypothesis is simply the science church’s version of creation.  The Unified Field Theory is science’s Holy Grail, which is just as elusive and ephemeral a prize as the religious/mythical grail.

An objective examination of history thus reveals that the religion of science, having spread its influence world-wide, crossing every cultural and ethnic boundary, is clearly a candidate for the scriptural “great and abominable church.”  But the primary reason it qualifies is because it contravenes and contradicts the precepts of the restored gospel at almost every turn-much more so than the tenets of any other religious denomination.  Additionally, as we have seen, it emerged from the Reformation along with most of the other Christian sects.

As alluded to earlier, the basic doctrines of science are badly flawed.  Past Eschatus issues have delved somewhat into these faulty theories.  Catastrophism teaches us that gravity is not a constant, that the sun is not a thermonuclear engine, that there was no ‘big bang’ to start creation, that the galaxy and the universe are organized and powered by electrically charged plasmas, that our solar system did not coalesce out of raw matter circling the sun, that geologic history did not occur over “billions and billions” of years, as we have been taught, and that the world and its heavens have changed dramatically in historic times, just to name a few precepts.  Any Latter-day Saint who fully embraces the fundamental doctrine of the restored gospel knows that Evolution or Natural Selection is a flawed concept.  Thus we see, in summary, that on almost every count the fundamental doctrines of the science church are false.

By holding on like grim death to baldy flawed axioms in the face of mounting evidence against them, orthodox science does great harm to all mankind.  As in Galileo’s case where the Catholic church opposed a truly enlightened view of the evidence, holding on instead to its flawed dogma, now it is orthodox science that impedes progress by creating vacuous, ad hoc theories to explain phenomena that do not fit its doctrine while either utterly ignoring evidence that contravenes its doctrine or summarily dismissing it without consideration.  It is the science church that now stands in the way of progress.  Thus, the science church fulfills the scriptural prediction that it would “pervert the right ways of the Lord” and “blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men,” fully qualifying it as the great and abominable church of which Nephi wrote.

Sadly, modern Mormons have been largely reconciled to science, generally accepting the doctrines of the science church as fact-something that would have horrified early Saints.  Mormons have accommodated the apparent conflict between science and revealed religion by living with a glaring dichotomy to which most turn a blind eye-a clear case of doctrinal denial.  On the one hand Latter-day Saints profess a belief in the gospel while at the same time accepting as fact the dogma of the science church that contradict those beliefs, leaving modern Saints with a kind of intellectual and spiritual schizophrenia that blinds their eyes and hardens their hearts, just as Nephi said it would.  No wonder he warned us so stridently about this “church.”  It has done precisely what he warned us it would do, corrupting the Saints’ understanding of the gospel, causing them to disregard, to one degree or another, the revelations from God.

Make no mistake.  This is not a diatribe against learning or discovery, nor is it a condemnation of the restored gospel and the religion that champions it.  It is a denunciation of Saints who allow themselves to fall into the trap laid by the science church.  This is a harangue against science as an institution, an obdurate organization that enshrines tenure and the status quo which that practice promotes, that uses a peer review system that stifles new approaches to problems and new ideas.  Not only does it not promote the dispassionate inquiry it so mightily proclaims, it works diligently against it by suppressing anything beyond its established, but flawed, paradigm.

That is not the way to enlightenment.

True science can have no conflict with revealed religion, as so many latter-day prophets and apostles have declared.  Yet, orthodox science continues to wage war with the Saints, demeaning and contravening gospel precepts at every turn.  The science church has become as intractable and detrimental as the church from which it disengaged.  It certainly qualifies as Nephi’s “great and abominable church” in every respect.  Clearly it is a fraud perpetrated on the entire world.

So, Nephi was right.

As “children of the light,” Latter-day Saints would do well to heed Nephi’s warning, to oppose the “great and abominable church” now that we have identified it.  We may oppose it by not letting it mould and shape our paradigm, by opposing its dogma and criticism of us.  Rather, we should test all theorems by the standard of the revealed gospel.

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The Keys to Prophecy XI: Prophecy and the Restored Gospel

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© Anthony E. Larson, 2005

The Keys to Prophecy XI:
Prophecy and the Restored Gospel

This series has identified several keys to prophecy in the restored gospel.

When we let our scriptures speak for themselves, without imposing our own ‘modern,’ ‘scientific’ preconceptions upon them, an entirely different picture of the past emerges than the one we’ve been taught.

It was in Earth’s ancient heavens-the Creator’s most spectacular canvas-that all ancient imagery originated.  It is there we must look for the source of all the symbols used by the ancients to depict their gods.

Thus we see that the imagery of the scriptures as well is reflected in the religious, astral icons of the past.  The symbolic icons give meaning to the scriptural imagery, and the scriptural imagery gives meaning to the symbolic icons, as is the case with the Egyptian facsimiles and the Book of Abraham.  They complement and illuminate one another.

With that revised picture, ancient texts become accurate, eyewitness records of marvelous astronomical manifestations that we can only remotely comprehend.  The images carved on the walls of ancient tombs, temples and monuments come alive with meaning.

With this improved perspective, explanations of prophecy, offered by Joseph Smith and all the prophets, turn from metaphorical niceties to accurate, detailed descriptions.

The only way that planets or stars could so profoundly influence peoples of the ancient world-an influence sufficiently strong to give rise to the religious traditions and symbolism of their cultures-is if those orbs were manifestly closer than they are today.  Unlike the mere pinpoints of light we see in our night sky, they must have stood in overwhelming proximity, dominating the ancient sky watchers’ view, giving rise to the primary symbolic themes of those past cultures.

If we allow the traditions, symbols and rituals of the past to speak for themselves, that is the message they convey.

Thus we see that the stories from ancient cultures the world over of astral gods and goddesses who performed marvelous feats and engaged in heaven-spanning battle may have been based in the appearance and movements of these same planets in a near-Earth environment-a concept flatly denied by modern science and rejected by orthodox Christianity, yet supported by Joseph Smith’s observations.

The reason all these images are an enigma to us can be found in relatively recent history when our culture swerved away from their use and adopted a ‘rational’ view of ancient history, as is taught in educational institutions everywhere in the world today.  Cultural, religious traditions that once taught of recent, dramatic changes in the heavens-accounts held sacred by our ancestors-became myths and fairy tales.

We divorced ourselves from our cultural roots.  We cut ourselves off from the message the ancients struggled to convey, the one they assumed would be universally understood: They had seen “marvelous wonders” in the heavens.

The odd thing is that we don’t understand that.  In fact, we believe just the opposite: the heavens have always appeared as they do now.  That flawed, myopic belief prevents us from seeing what the ancients sought mightily to convey.

Also, this is why the imagery of prophecy and mythology are remarkably similar.  They derive from the same source: our early cultural and religious tradition from which we divorced ourselves in the Age of Enlightenment.  It is for this reason that the Bible was rejected by the emerging cult of science and scholasticism.  We really threw the baby out with the bath water!

The oddity in all this is that the guardians of religious traditions fell victims to the same thinking.  They rejected that same imagery, saying it had nothing to do with the proper practice of Christianity.  That left us without the touchstone we need to interpret the imagery of prophecy throughout the scriptures, until Joseph Smith restored that knowledge.

To unravel the mystery that is prophecy, you must first learn the symbolism of antiquity and the cosmological images from which it sprang – prodigious, heaven-spanning displays of awe-inspiring plasma phenomena generated in a neighboring conjunction of planets that produced a monumental sound and light show seen the world over.  This dramatic celestial phantasmagoria dominated Earth’s skies in the earliest epoch of history and indelibly impressed itself on the mind and spirit of all early cultures.

According to Philo Dibble, Joseph Smith’s bodyguard, this is the Prophet’s illustration of the planetary arrangement that existed in Earth’s ancient heavens.  This “stacked” arrangement in common, polar alignment caused them to appear stationary in the heavens.  The Prophet even included the apparent “connections” between planets caused by the plasma phenomenon, as depicted in the adjoining artist’s conception.

These astral events gave rise to the cryptic icons that adorn the walls of ancient monuments, temples and tombs — virtual snapshots, in many cases, of things seen in those ancient skies.  Appropriately, they also decorate modern temples-a testament in stone to the restoration of truth.

The metaphorical language of the prophets also arose from those events.  The rhetorical counterparts of those enigmatic symbols fill the revelations of both ancient and modern prophets.  They are the keys to most scriptural symbolism.

Knowing this makes prophecy plain and easy to understand, as Joseph Smith said.  It also touches on every point of doctrine in the restored gospel revealed through him in these latter days.

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