Throwing the local rule book out as needed

Reading quickly in Alma 24 today, I read about the converts among the lamanites who eventually become the sons of Ammon. These are the group of converts who are the ripple effect of Ammon's faith, his preparation and his works that was illustrated by cutting off so many arms, then stacking them like cordwood. That's just twisted - I have to admit it makes me grin. Even hollywood would have some trouble making up a story like that.

But now we have all these new lamanite followers of God. They've abandoned their old ways, which they listed in verses 9 and 0 as various sins and murders. So - side story which is kinda huge by itself - it is possible to be forgiven for murder. God gets to decide what we're forgiven for - us mortals can only be left guessing. I'm suspecting that anyone who purports to know might be ill advised or perhaps thinking he knows more than he actually does. I know some people like that - know it alls - they annoy me greatly.

One more note on that subject, then I'll digress. If you don't know what you're talking about, don't pretend you do. It just makes you look horrible and it provides a huge disservice to those who swallow your lack of information. It's something that happens as a part of human nature and is no single group is without it.

So - back to our regularly scheduled program. These lamanites choose to call themselves anti Nephi Lehi. This is an interesting name. Anti Nephi? Who could be against Nephi? Especially those who are now followers of God?

But having learned another language (spanish) I know that sometimes there just isn't a word in the other language that correlates or translates properly. If you're the translater, you just do as well and the language allows you. As a kid, I assumed that the word translated to anti meant "not". As in not Nephi, Lehies. They were descendants of Lehi but not Nephi. That makes a certain amount of sense.

Another potential answer is that they still didn't like Nephi for whatever reason - maybe stories they had been told about Nephi stealing the birthright - it doesn't matter what the story might have been. But while they were perhaps (that's an important word - I'm guessing about this) not happy about what they thought about Nephi, they were all in with Lehi, their super-great grandfather.

And if that were the case? That's fine. They did know that Laman and Lemuel were not the saints that they had originally thought: verse 7 "...our great God has in goodness sent these our brethren, the Nephites, unto us to preach unto us, and to convince us of the traditions of our wicked fathers."

So where does this put these brothers? They believe in God, they know the true and correct God, and they have dedicated their lives to losing their old vices and serving Him and each other. I think God is thrilled with that. And if it so be that they're still not Nephi fans? That's OK - they're on the path that they need to be on. There is no requirement among God that they accept Nephi as awesome - no excommunication, no punishment for not being a Nephi fan. It's about following God. Their beliefs about Nephi are not that important to getting them to their potential.

Maybe there's a reason why I was prompted to do my "if you don't know what you're talking about..." rant above. Clearly this is a subject where I don't know. I'm guessing. But I'm not proclaiming this as absolute truth. What I am doing is seeing what I can learn from a scenario that I can consider likely.

In many cases, we assume that our traditions and beliefs - the ones we make up - are God's gospel. We interject our own assumptions and intermix it with God's commandments and instructions, then we condemn others who don't buy into the stuff we make up. Clearly if it's God's commandments, it's true and should not be discarded, or we will pay a penalty of some sort for the lack of compliance with God's commands. But - if it's stuff we make up, and often it's hard to identify which is which - then it's perfectly fine to do things differently. Commandments are there to be obeyed for greater happiness. Traditions can be discarded as needed.