Freedom of Religion

The First Ammendment in the Bill of Rights preserves the Freedom of Religion. But what does that mean.  If we let the opposition redefine freedom, we soon could be trapped in a corner with no freedom. Freedom of Religion preserves 4 things.

1. freedom to believe, free exercise of conscious

2. freedom to share belief, proselyte

3. freedom to form church and association

4. freedom to live (practice or exercize) faith in public and public, to pray privately and let light shine publicly

The immoral demand tolerance of their  immoral behavior. Righteousness should expect equal tolerance for our righteous behavior.   The immoral criticize the moral by claiming we are trying to legislate morality.  In reality, all laws legislate morality. However, government jurisdiction should only cover those who cause harm to other.  This is why alcohol prohibition made the distribution and sale of beverage alcohol illegal and not its consumption. 

The immoral complain that the moral majority are trying to impose their morality on them. Yes, the righteous moral majority has the right, duty, and sacred obligation to decide and impose morality on the immoral minority.  Unfortunately, the complete opposite has happened in America over the last 100.  Instead of the moral majority deciding what is moral, the immoral minority has been imposing their immorality on the moral majority.  

Morality is that behavior which is best for everyone.  Can you trust a government by the majority?  Does the "voice of the people" constitute the "tyranny of the majority?"  Is Democracy two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner?  God says, No. In a just society, there is no such thing as a tryanny of the majority. 

While Representative government is important because many administrative issues are not practical for the general public to decide.  When moral issues arise, the people not only can but must determine what is moral and the decision of the majority should be respected by the courts. 

"Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law—to do your business by the voice of the people"(Book of Mormon, Mosiah 29:26)

I have faith in America; that an informed, moral majority can choose the right.  The adversaries of the American System do not have faith in people and believe that "the unwashed masses" cannot be trusted to govern themselves.  Instead, our adversaries believe that the world can best be governed by an enlightened elite.

http://www.liberty1.org/virtue.htm

Quotes by Founding Fathers expressing the need of moral and virtuous prople to preserve Constitutiinal government. 

The Bitter Fruits of Apostasy

Heber C. Kimball, while serving as a counselor to President Brigham Young, reported: “I will give you a key which Brother Joseph Smith used to give in Nauvoo. He said that the very step of apostasy commenced with losing confidence in the leaders of this church and kingdom, and that whenever you discerned that spirit you might know that it would lead the possessor of it on the road to apostasy.” -TOTPC:JS, Ch 27

 “I will give you a key that will never rust, if you will stay with the majority of the Twelve Apostles, and the records of the Church, you will never be led astray." Joseph Smith Jr. via William G Nelson

I was listening to President Ezra Taft  Benson's talk on the Book of Mormon entitled "The Keystone of Our Religion". I am also reading in 3 Nephi with my children and I was impresses by Pres. Benson's promise that it was Mormon's desire via the Book of Mormon to instruct the Saints on how me could make sure we were standing with Nephi the Lords prophet and the other disciples at the Temple in Bountiful witnessing the coming if Jesus Christ instead of being one of the many otgers that were killed in one of the many other cities that were destroyed in the calamities attendant to Christ's first visitation to America.

I am also reminded of Isaiah's words when he prophecies that the Lord will see "eye to eye" with his watchmen (pleural) when he comes to "bring again Zion".(Isa 52:8)

Also, Isaiah says that the Lord will see eye to eye with His "watchmen". Watchmen is plural and not singular.  So, this seems to clearly suggest we should not be led astray by some individual no matter how "mighty and strong" he may seem by him or herself.  

The Lord has His watchmen and He will be seeing "eye to eye" at His coming. Maybe there is some improvements that can be made, but when the time comes, the Lord will be looking for His watchmen.  The wise were with Nephi at the Temple Bountiful at Christ's visitation to America. Nephi had to be corrected of a few things like on the prophecy of Samuel the Lamanite on the graves being opened. Nephi immediately made those corrections. (3 Nephi 23:11-13)

Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy

"And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." (Old Testament, Genesis 2:2-3)

Today I was teaching primary sharing time. Our congregation's 5th Sunday topic was "keeping the Sabbath Day Holy".  I told the children that our Prophet and Apostles had been praying and discussing this issue and wanted us to be talking about it.  I shared Elder Bednar's instruction that the most critical time in life when we are most at risk of falling away from the gospel path is after our children are baptized and before they are endowed in the temple.  This got the children's attention as they had never before supposed they were an "at risk" population. 

After much pondering and prayer, the Brethern have concluded that if families do better at keeping the Sabbath Day holy, this practice alone would do more than any other to help our children surmount the dangerous period between baptism and temple endowment. This is because parents who keep the Sabbath Day better model and teach gospel principles by word and example.

And that thou mayest more fully keep thyself unspotted from the world, thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day; (Doctrine and Covenants, D&C 59:9)

In addition to keeping ourselves unspotted from the world, I shared with the children 2 more reasons why we are to keep the Sabbath Day. First, Sabbath observance shows God our gratitude for creation. While we express our gratitude to God for creation in prayer and song;  Observing the Sabbath Day demonstrates our gratitude not just by what we say but also by what we do.

Second, proper Sabbath Day observance gives us the proper eternal perspective. While working for mammon is necessary here in mortality, there is no money in heaven.  Every day in heaven is the Sabbath Day where we do Gods will instead of our own. Keeping the Sabbath Day keeps us grounded in the eternal reality of what is of true and lasting value. 

Jesus Christ: The Brazen Serpent

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:14-15)

If the serpent or snake is a symbol of Satan who tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and then was cursed by God; why does Christ also use the symbol of the fiery serpent to represent himself?  All symbols and all creation are Gods. Satan is the one who impersonated, counterfeits, steals and corrupts a symbol. Nothing belongs to Satan as he can not create anything. 

Why is a venemous serpent used as a great symbol of Christ? Christ as a healing serpent is a powerful and suprisingly accurate symbol. Think about how you treat a venomous snake bite-- with antivenom from another venemous snake. Antiserum is created by harvesting and injecting the snake venom into a horse or rabbit forming antibodies against the venom. Then you administer the healing blood or serum containing these antibodies into the envenomated patient.

So, just think about this miraculous metaphor of Christ's Atonement. Like anti-venom, only after taking upon Himself the poison of our sins and death does Christ's blood become the needed healing anti-serum. All those who look to Christ and take upon themselves His blood will be healed and live eternally.

Like antivenom, convelescent serum is the only effective treatment for the most deadly hemorrhagic viruses like Ebola.  The antigen/antibody principle of immunity is also the basis for immunization and vaccination technology.

Jurisdiction of Government and Religion

It is the jurisdiction of government to prosecute and rehabilitate those who cause harm to others such as distributing recreational drugs. Distrubution causes harm to the buyer.  The recreational intent is directly connected to the form in which the substance is being sold. Abusing ourselves with psychoactive chemicals (natural or synthetic) exploits our natural brain-reward systems. Chemical abuse and causal sexual immorality contributes to greater poverty via decreased productivity (idle poor) and illegitimacy (broken families).  Yes, recreational drinking beverage alcohol should not be illegal, but distribution should be.

Religion has the jurisdiction to discipline those who cause harm to themselves.  The jurisdiction of the Church is welfare and virtue (James 1:27).  Government can tax and then write and distribute checks but they cannot inspire personal virtue at the root cause of poverty like religion can.  Only religion can discipline, rehabilitate, and inspire personal virtue.  Only religion can end poverty and realize greater social justice.

Greater private immorality leads to increasing public poverty and greater social injustice. In the setting of social inequality, corrupt and opportunistic individuals swoop in to seize government power promising greater social equality in exchange for our freedom.  In reality, government welfare enables and exploits the poor until there is an absolute consolidation of power and all our freedoms and liberties have been wrested away.

The United States and the rest of the Private Central Banking-Controlled world is bankrupt.  The US alone is 18 Trillion dollars in debt. The US is on fiscal life support with QE adrenaline being main-lined into the economy to keep our heart beating.  Maybe a few vital signs (Dow Jones, inflation, and job creation numbers) are looking okay on the patient  monitor, but that shouldn't get us to overlook the fact that our country is only staying alive thanks to a ventillator and artificial resuscitation.

Donald Trump wants America to be great and prosperous again.  He thinks he can rehabilitate the US and achieve prosperity by builing a wall and cutting a few shrewd business deals.  It won't work.  Failed emigration, economic, financial and military polcies are only symptoms and not the cause of America's problems.  Only a return to virtue will save America and the freedom of all nations. (Ether 8:25)

Brent Skowcroft was the national security advisor for George H W Bush.  In his testimony before a US senate subcommittee, Scowcroft was telling Senator McCain and others how they were responsible for liberalizing the current but "disastrous" Westphalia System in favor of returning to another global system like that which existed during the Dark Ages before the Moravians, Lutherans and Huguenots won their and our religious and political freedom following the 30-Years War.

http://youtu.be/tThnEkCra1Q

http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/2013-fair-conference/2013-mormonism-and-the-new-liberalism-the-inescapability-of-political-apologetics

This Fair article got me thinking on this.