Remembering Amalek

"Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt; How he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God...  thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it." (Deuteronomy, 25:17-19)

The Amalekites were a nomadic or semi-nomadic group of tribes that  occupied the Nagev Dessert region and Sinai Peninsula when Israel was being led from Egypt to Canaan. The Amalekites were the first group to attack Israel. Later after the 10 spies gave negative accounts of Canaan and Israel was forbidden to enter into Canaan, a group of Israelites decided to go anyways and were killed by the Amalekites. 

What does God mean when He commands Israel to remember Amalek by blotting out his remembrance?  The Amalekites represent the most debased and savage aspects of human nature. The civilized Nephites called those who defected over to the more savage Lamanites Amalekites. 

Biblical Amalekites like the Book of Mormon became "an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey." (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 5:24)  Instead of being industrious and civilized the Amalekites like the Lamanites became "wild, and ferocious, and a blood-thirsty people, full of idolatry and filthiness; feeding upon beasts of prey; dwelling in tents," (Book of Mormon, Enos 1:20)

In our current day, we are told to appreciate the Noble Savage. Lewis Henry Morgan, an anthropologist, described a ladder of social evolution of man from savage to barbarian to civilized. This atheistic view  assumed man evolved from apes and not from Adam and Eve.  According to the Bible, savage tribes only exist because at some point certain members of the advanced human family decidedly rejected civilization and adopted the savage/ hunter-gatherer lifestyle.  

Morgans views were used to by the United States to conceal the link of the Native American's to the advanced Hopewell/Woodland cultures that once flourished on the North American continent.  This concealment of Native origins was used as a basis and justification to deny Native Americans Constitutional rights according to the policies of Manifest Destiny. 

But what about remembering Amalek by blotting out his remembrance?  This is not talking about genocide, or removing references to Amalek from history books.  Also,  God wasn't necessarily being critical of Amalek's dwelling in tents.  Abraham and Lehi dwelt in tents at certain points. What God is commanding His people to do is to stop thinking and behaving like Amalek. Amalek is a mentality and ideology:  a way of thinking, a way of acting, and a way of seeing the world.

Instead of thinking and acting based on faith, hope, and charity, Amalek lives life based on doubt, fear, and pride.  Amalek is cowardly, unprincipled, and opportunistic.  Amalek attacked Israel's rear killing the elderly and disabled like a pack of Arctic wolves preying herd of caribou. Amalek will lie, cheat, steal and take advantage if he thinks he won't get caught.  Amalek's world is based on scarcity (supply and demand) instead of abundance and consequently he is enticed to take bribes and receiving special privileges above others. 

Korihor sums up the Amalekite ideology when he tells Alma there was no God and no right and wrong "but every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength;" (Book of Mormon, Alma 30:17) Without a knowledge of God there would be no reason to not just adopt the doctrine of Amalek and Korihor and eat, drink, be merry and take advantage of our neighbor a bit until we die, especially if we can take advantage without their realizing it and if it benefits our future posterity by providing them greater social and economic power at the expense of others.

God's people, on the other hand, are to act on the principle of faith, integrity, and seek equality of opportunity for the whole human family. God's people know God and follow His commandments.  God's people enter into covenants with God through the ordinances of baptism and in God's Holy Temple which help man keep God's commandments even when the world's circumstances give them every excuse to be an exception.

Remnant of Jacob

President Monson said in a July Ensign article several years ago that if the US did not repent of our sins of immorality and substance abuse that we would follow the fate of other democracies/republics like Greece and Rome.  Rome was corrupted by the import of drugs via the Silk Road and the immorality of cities like Pompeii. The consequence of these sins was broken families and greater poverty. In response to the poverty problem, the Roman Ceasers came to power promising greater social equality and promising "free bread and circus".  But according to James 1:27 it is the Church's business to elevate poverty and uphold virtue,

 Roman's socialist programs, and trade deficit with China, put the Empire under great economic strain.  Rome was forced to continually be at war with their neighbors to collect tribute to supply their economy with gold which was the liquidity/oil of their economic engine. Unfortunately, Rome began to rely upon hired Germanic Barbarians to supply their Legions with solders. Eventually, those Foeterati troops revolved and divided the Western Roman Empire forever.

 God warns the Gentiles in the Last Days that if we did not repent of our wickedness that a "Remnant of Jacob" would be among us and tear us into pieces like a young lion. Who is the "Remnant of Jacob" (Alma 46:23-24; 3 Nephi, 20:16, 21:22-23; Mormon 5:12; Mormon 7:10; D&C 109:65) and how will the Gentiles be 'tread down and torn in pieces?' (see Micah 5:8, 3 Nephi 21:12).  Alma and Amulek were described as young lions scattering a family of goats when they came forth after being miraculously delivered from the prison.

LDS Politicians

[This is a repost of an old article on my other blog] From Orin Hatch and Mitt Romney to Jon Huntsman Jr in 2012; LDS seek to fully participate in national politics. However, one wonders, if an LDS member were to be elected as POTUS; would anything really change? Looking down the list of high-level LDS politicians, many have been great and inspired servants of God, but less effective politically in changing things for the better.

Elder Reed Smoot (US Senate): Co-Sponsored the National Parks Act which turned over hundreds of thousands of miles of land and control over mineral rights to the Federal Government. The Federal Government with control of those mineral rights is able to deal them out to certain companies or to prohibit companies from mining these resources all together to limit our ability of our country from being self-sufficient. The National Park Act was a major step in the Federalization of America. (This reminds me of the plot of Evan Almighty).

Co-Sponsored the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act. Now this was a good act. But, Senator Smoot allowed FDR and others blame this act for triggering the Great Depression, resulting in a huge shift in Republican politics. Since this time, "FREE TRADE" became a major plank of the Republican Party when it never had been before. Republicans like Lincoln, McKinley, and Hoover where all staunch Protectionists.

President J Ruben Clark (Under Secretary of State): Developed regulations for the Selective Service/Draft during WW1 and amended the Monroe Doctrine to limit US involvement in Latin American politics. However, the US has covertly been responsible for numerous political assassinations, coups, revolutions, and regime changes in Latin and South America.

After working for the State Department, President Clark worked for a New York law firm involved in mergers and acquisitions to buy up any companies that would profit from the US entering into WW1. J Ruben Clark worked to create the first international conglomerate for the ultra elite who were fully intending to drive the US to war all the while Woodrow Wilson was promising the US people otherwise.

President Ezra Taft Benson (Secretary of Agriculture): Criticized Farm subsidies and the spread of Communism and Socialism but never realized like General Patton that President Eisenhower was personally and directly responsible for allowing Communist Russia to take Eastern Europe. I am not sure if he ever realized the real threat to our Constitution were the Globalist power-elites like Eisenhower (member of Bohemian Grove) who sponsored the Communist Revolution and created the Soviet Union. In any event, Secretary Benson's 8 years as Agriculture Secretary did little to slow the spread of Socialism in America or slow the spread of Communism abroad. But he did bravely lift up a warning voice in the face of fierce criticism.

David M Kennedy (Secretary of Treasury): Appointed by President Richard M Nixon right up to the time when Nixon took the dollar forever off the gold standard. But he was replaced just before this happened. He then served as US Ambassador to NATO.

Michael O Leavitt (Secretary of Health and Human Services): Spent several years flying all over the country on a government jet campaigning for Obama Care and the idea that Doctor
reimbursement should be determined by an arbitrary Quality Factor, which gives Federal Bureaucrats total control over medicine. You do it their way exactly, or you don't get paid. I attended his presentation here where I live.

Harry Reid (US Senate Majority Leader) and Senator Orin Hatch (President Pro Tempore): Overseen the greatest expansion of the federal government since FDRs New Deal and LBJs Great Society.

George W. Romney (Secretary of HUD): Worked as CEO of AMC, then served as Michigan Governor after which he served as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Pres Nixon. Bro. Romney wanted to expand low-income housing projects into suburban areas but was opposed by Nixon. Romney was unsuccessful in seeing the creation of ghettos in US inner-cities and did not recognize the HUD/HFA amortized mortgage as a major driver of inflation in this country.

I am sure the only thing the Globalist would like more that to have the US collapse under a Black President would be to have the US collapse under an LDS President. I don't see how an LDS member in politics could effectively defend the Constitution unless they were awake to the reality of the Great Global Conspiracy. It is too easy for the elites to get naïve Mormons to follow along because of our ambition, trusting nature, desire to please, tendency to blindly follow orders, befriend mammon, and desire for the mainstream to respect us, etc.

I should put a disclaimer here that I am not saying LDS shouldn't be involved in politics and I am not saying that anyone could have done better. I appreciate LDS willingness and sacrifice to serve this country. What I am saying, is that having an LDS member at the top is not going to change the scriptures any more than Mormon's final stand at Cumorah changed what Nephi had seen in vision a thousand years earlier. That being said, it was still important to make that final stand.

President N. Eldon Tanner (Canadian Minister of Lands and Mines): There is one LDS politician who I feel did a great job of fighting the New World Order. President Tanner was in a banker, oilman, and politician in Alberta Canada. President Tanner served as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly from 1936 to 1937 and as a cabinet minister as the Minister of Lands and Mines in the governments of William Aberhart and Ernest Manning from 1937 to 1952. President Tanner was able to take back mineral rights from Canada for Alberta and used those mineral and oil rights to benefit the citizens of Alberta.

Of all LDS politicians, I think President Tanner was the most effective against the agenda of the latter-day Gadiantons.


Brent Scowcroft (National Security Advisor for President's Ford and George H W Bush): Calling for the liberalization of the "disastrous" Westphalia System (source of western religious freedom) in favor of a globalist New World Order.

Evan McMullin: I am adding Evan to this list because I am a bit disappointed with him.  I am sure he a super nice guy and I understand the "never-Trump" movement.  Evan is LDS, returned missionary, 40 years old, single, BYU grad, worked for the CIA in Syria where the US sent support (guns and Toyotas) for the "so-called" moderate rebels which predictably (CIA itself predicted this outcome in their own reports) ended up falling into the hands of the more radical ISIS which has resulted in the destruction of Orthodox Christian Aleppo and Russia coming in to defend their fellow Orthodox (among other reasons), and Putin looking  really good and NATO looking really bad.  

Evan also has an MBA from Wharton,  worked for Goldman Sachs, and is a CFR member (advisors to the POTUS for 100 years responsible for our bad policy) and worked on House committees developing GOP economic and foreign policy. Evan says his experience fighting ISIS qualifies him to be POTUS  yet when it comes to questions of same-gender marriage he says its "settled law".  This response over all others demonstrates how absolutely clueless he is on the morality factors that empower extremisms. 

Scripture, modern prophets, and friends who have worked in Afghanistan and Iraq have told me that US immorality empowers the extremism. It is crazy, but nontheless true, that as extremists rape and pillage,  they justify their atrocities because of western social inequality, immoral pop-culture, and western atrocities of abortion and same-gender marriage.   My friend says that pop-icon like Madonna, Brittany Spears, and Miley Cyrus are among the best radical recruiters because the extremists recruit to fight against NATO by saying "do you want your daughers to grow up to become like Brittany Spears?"

Also, I do not agree with Evan's support of TPP which gives considerable US sovereignty to an super-governmental entity. Frankly, Evan needs to "wake-up" and get married. 

Israeli Ashtoreth Figurines

Dr. Daniel C. Peterson gives a lecture on the ancient Israeli worship of Ashtoreth. He is kinda trying to legitimize it but at the same time making a distinction between a "sanitized" Isreali conception of Ashtoreth as the "nursing mother" referred to in Isaiah  vs. a purely pagan fertility version.  However, in my mind, I wonder if the conception of Asthoreth in ancient times is not unlike our current conception of Santa Clause or the Christmas tree.



The reality is, that wherever you dig in Israel, north or south,  you will find Ashtoreth figurines.  Israel was supposed to only worship Jehovah, their "one true God".  So, why all the pagan figurines?  Israeli Ashtoreth figurines may be akin to modern Santa Clause or the Christmas tree. Future generations will no doubt dig up Santa representations among future Christian ruins.  Santa is a complex symbol that ultimately detracts from Christ, who should be the central figure of Christmas.  Many Christians and even LDS try to sanitize Santa as much as can focusing on the St. Nicholas Santa vs. the North Pole conception.  Could the Israeli "nursing mother" be a sanitized version of Ashtoreth.  Could Israeli leadership, who had previously failed to remove the conception of Asthtoreth from Israeli culture, decided to sanitize her instead?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CYqCti5rQM