Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?

by rowan 2011

I was reading on this site a thread that dealt with the murder of Laban and just how unbelievable the story is. That got me to wondering...if God told you to kill someone, what would you do? What if it weren't God, but the Prophet or a GA or even a Bishop? Think Mountain Meadow Massacre here.

Do you think that your answer as a no-longer TBM, is different from what your answer would have been as a TBM?

I have given this horrific idea some thought, and I think that I would probably tell God to do his own dirty work. Why would God need me to kill anyone for Him-after all, isn't He God? If He needed someone dead, isn't that easy for Him? Why would He put such a heinous burden onto some poor human? Some kind of proof...of what, blind obedience! Too much convolution of thought! It seems that the God of the OT and the BOM only has bloody solutions to situations...this is a Supreme Being?

I can remember being in BoM study and asking why so much blood and death at God's command? You would have thought that I personally nailed Jesus to the cross the way the teacher rebuked me for "questioning" God's commandments!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/2012 01:21PM by rowan.


guynoirprivateeye
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
after learning how easily people can be deceived, I don't think I would do that.


kolobian
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
It's funny to think about how the god of the bible can never make up his mind.

In one instance he's ordering the genocide of entire races of people at the hands of the hebrew tribalists.

In another he's commanding Noah to build an ark because god himself is going to slaughter millions of folks for doing what he already knew they would do before he ever created them.

Why, in the first case, didn't god give the hebrews a safe place to chill out while god took care of the amalekites, midianites, canaanites, and moabites?

And why, in the second case, didn't god command Noah to kill everybody on the planet? He was certainly old enough to have time to do it...

Hmm....


bezoar
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
I just thought of something. Nephi killed Laban to get the brass plates. Doesn't the BoM say something along the lines that it's better for one man to perish than a whole nation perish in disbelief?

And isn't that what happened anyway? At the end of the BoM the whole civilization has perished in unbelief. And what about the Jews that Nephi escaped from? They're still Jewish in spite of losing the brass plates.

What was the point? (Besides being a somewhat interesting plot twist in an otherwise boring made up book?)

And another thing. Why was God so disorganized in the BoM? Nephi & family leave Jerusalem and then go back for the brass plates. Then they go back again for wives. It seems like a God that commands people to be prepared with a 1 year supply of food would have things planned out a little better, instead of saying "Oh, I forgot, you need the brass plates. And one more thing ... wives. Am I forgetting anything else?"


Lucky
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
Would you kill if God told you to?

Only if it was Joe Smith &/ or Brigham Young that needed to be perished rather than dwindling what ever.


ronas
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
I would only kill someone if:

1) He owned something that legally belonged to him but that I wanted really bad.

2) I asked for it and he ran me off.

3) I tried to buy it but he ran me off.

4) He was laying on the ground drunk.

5) I heard voices in my head telling me to behead him with his own sword. I had the ability to cleanly cut off his head while he was lying on the ground without getting any blood on his clothes. I could do an impression of him so good that I could trick his servant that is trusted enough to have access to his most valuable possession.

6) I believed god didn't have enough power to get me these plates any other way than to have his prophet murder and steal.


peglet
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
Great points!

You gave me a great "ah-ha" & LOL moment of the day.


kimball
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
The killing of Laban is nothing. The ancient Israelites were commanded by God to kill thousands of infidels - men, women and babies. It's all there in the Bible.


Mia
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
If he wants somebody dead, he can he kill them himself. He's done it plenty of times in the bible. I don't think he needs me for that.

I would never, ever, do it for a church leader. I've always thought those guys were a little on the flakey side. They also can do their own killing.

If I did kill someone, they would have to be up to no good, and threatening to me. If someone were coming through a window in my house I would most likely shoot them if they insisted on moving forward. I would shoot anyone who physically attacked me. I actually have been through training to learn how to do that.


Danite
If I told ya, I'd have to kill ya. 


andyb
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
Nope...


kimball
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
God used people like you and me to do most of his killing in the Bible as far as I can tell. I believe Deuteronomy is where most of the Israelite conquests are tabulated, and the purposes were clearly not defensive. The only time where God may have done more killing than that on his own was indescriminately killing the first-born of Egypt, but I don't know enough about Egyptian population to say definitively whether that would have been more or less. Take that out, and there was clearly more killing being done by God through his people than directly.


imalive
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
Yes another thing that goes to show how the Book of Mormon is just fictional s.hit.


deconverted2010
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
Before being a mormon and when, as a young person, I heard the story of the israelites being commanded by God to kill men, women and babies, I was very distraught. Then you heard that some kept some of the baby and the maidens for themselves, I thought that's what I would have done. I felt guilty that I could not have been an obedient servant. I never liked reading the old testament because I always thought I was a rebel because there were things that didn't make sense. And things I wouldn't do.

The story of Laban was also disturbing to me and all other killings in the BoM. As a new member I'd think, why didn't Nephi just throw Laman and Lemuel in the sea, so much bloodshed would have been spared. Or why didn't the angel just smite them dead or something. I learned to reason things differently as a 'grew' in the faith.

D


jaredsotherbrother
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
Well done.


forbiddencokedrinker
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
I believe in justified violence, but not for the sake of imaginary beings. Death is such an extreme solution to a problem, that it should only be applied in the most extreme circumstances. If it is right and justified, there probably won't be a law against it.

Seneca
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
The story of Laban is an excellent litmus test for one's dedication to the church. What if the Stake President came to you as a member and asked you to kill for the church. Would you do it? Of course he would remind you of the covenants you made to give everything to the building up of zion, even your life and freedom. Every endowed "faithful" tbm should say they would kill for the Stake President. Of course every temple recommend bearing member I've discussed this with has said no they wouldn't kill.


Mia
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
I had the flood in mind. God wiped out the whole planet, as the story goes.

dthenonreligious
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
I used the story of Laban's murder by Nephi on Mormon.org's Facebook page (shortly before they banned me). I pointed out that if someone today (never mind that it is all a horrible fairtale) were to use this line as a basis for legal defense, they would be heading to the looney bin.

Man, did I get some angry remarks. To parapharse a few, "I don't have faith", "I don't know what I am talking about", This one made me laugh:" I have never read the Book of Mormon." Really now!


forbiddencokedrinker
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
Yeah, the last time that happened, the church had to purchase a bunch of worthless land in order to cover up the massacre.


sherlock
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
Nice of God to put Nephi through such a thing. Did the image of this murder ever haunt Nephi in those sleepless nights? Did he ever wonder whether he could have just taken Laban hostage and still received the plates? Did he ever sit back and consider the nature and character of a God that can command this? Did his family ever question if this really was a command from God or if Nephi just took advantage and took his revenge for all the hassle he'd been up through.

Of course not! Nephi was just an obedient hero and don't you dare suggest otherwise to a TBM. In kolobianism both God and Nephi come out of this whole episode squeaky clean. How worrying and philosophically dangerous is that?

When the spirit constrains you, just bow your head and say yes.


baura
BOM didn't say "God" told him to
If GOD told me to? The Book of Mormon doesn't say God told Nephi to kill Laban, but that "the Spirit" told him.

Since we are taught that "the Spirit" speaks to us in a "still small voice," it follows that Nephi killed Laban (cut off his head...was that really necessary?) because of the voices in his head.

I find it a bit unsettling to be among people who hold as "the most perfect book" on earth and "the keystone" of their religion, a tome that opens with the hero killing a guy because the voices in his head tell him his religion demands it.


Sorcha
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
Nope. My God(dess) doesn't tell people to kill other people. ;-)

As for that BoM story: we hear JS the con man talking, not God, IMHO.


kimball
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
Dang, you got me there.

ozcrone
I think sherlock nailed it
Big, muscley Nephi killed Laban then thought oops, I'm the journalist, I'll write that God told me to do it

The others don't read reformed Egytian so well.... phew


imaworkinonit
If God told me to kill someone,
I'd check myself into a mental hospital.
rowan
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
baura:

1 Nephi Chapter 4:11
And the Spirit said unto me again: Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hand....

4:12 And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me again: Slay him for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands;

Question: Who tells the "Spirit" what to say and do? The "Spirit" is 1/3 of the Godhead. Since they are one in purpose (that is what I was taught) then the order to kill came from the Lord (God).

4:14 And now, when I, Nephi, had heard these words, I remembered the words of the Lord which he spake unto me in the wilderness, saying that: Inasmuch as thy seed shall keep my commandments, they shall prosper in the land of promise.

4:17 And again, I knew that the Lord had delivered Laban into my hands for this cause--

4:34 ...Surely the Lord hath commanded us to do this thing; and shall we not be diligent in keeping the commandments of the Lord?...

Again, I state that according to the BOM God told Nephi to kill Laban...however and from whomever Nephi got the message, it came from God.

Stumbling
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
No.


sexismyreligion
What's the difference between Nephi killing Laban and Abraham sacrificing Isaac?
Both situations have God commanding someone to kill a defenseless person. Cold-blooded murder. Except Abraham was supposed to kill his own son.
If God told me to do that, I'd say Hasa Diega Eebowai!
yours_truly
Re: Reading about the murder of Laban. Would you kill if God told you to?
That would have been another's God - I don't have any...

"Recovery from Mormonism - www.exmormon.org"