Applying These Scriptures to the World I See Around Me

These Latter-day Saints (and, aye, that includes me) have scriptures, and I'm reflecting on one from the Sunday School lesson today, and on ones that relate to it. If you are LDS, depending on where your ward is at, you might have studied Helaman 13-16 today, also.

Samuel the Lamanite, you know. Samuel the Lamanite chastened the Nephites for trusting those who said, Do this thing, for it is not wicked, and do that thing, for you will have no suffering for doing it. Indeed, do whatever thing your little hearts desire. ("Do whatsover your heart desireth," are the exact words in that scripture.)

Now, dear reader of this blog (supposing at least someone might read it), this is very much like what we read in a more famous passage. If you will be so kind, turn all the way back to 2 Nephi 28:7-8, where it says, "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us. . . . there is no harm in this; and do all these things . . . ."

Another scripture I should like to tie into all this is Helaman 5:2-3. We are told the government was established by the voice of the people, and that more people were choosing evil than good, and, as a result, their laws had become corrupted. Then, it says, "They were a stiffnecked people, insomuch that they could not be governed by the law."

Could not be governed by the law? Hmmm. Well, with apologies, that does sound familiar to what I see today. I believe in much of the sentiment of, That government is best that governs least. But, perhaps it can be taken too far.

One more tidbit from these scriptures before we reflect more on them all. Helaman 13:26 says if someone testified of their wickedness, they were angry with him, and called that person a sinner, and said he was of the devil.

Being a political-minded person, I wonder about such scriptures in a political context. I think of those who say, You cannot legislate morality. I think of those who decry what they call the morality police. I think of those who get mad at drugs being illegal, or prostitution, or pornography being illegal. I think of those who say, Let us do what we want. Let us do as our hearts desire. There is no sin in these things, in what we are doing. Who gave you the right to force your morals on us? Government should not be in the business of telling us what to do with own lives, and in their own bedrooms, and with our own bodies. We are not harming anyone, so we should not be made to suffer for these things. You are wicked beyond wicked to take an innocent person off the streets, and jail them for things that cause no harm. You are taking away our rights and freedoms, and are wicked, wicked for doing these things.

They refuse to be governed, even as in the days we read about in the Book of Mormon, where there were more people choosing evil than good. It was a day in which, "they could not be governed by the law."

And, as I look around, at the world I am living in, we are becoming more and more like that today.

Well, this is just my take on these scriptures. Doesn't mean I'm right. It is definitely what I find, though. It is what I see, as I try applying these scriptures to the world around me. But, perhaps those who think differently are right and I am wrong.