Ponderize this... stripling warrior edition

Well, my stated purpose with this blog never came to fruition.  Although I like kicking around the mysteries of the kingdom as much as the next guy, I also recognize their ultimate, eternal insignificance, at the end of the day, and as it happens, I never really got around to ever talking about any of them after all.

But I did still create this blog, and I would still like to have a good forum on which to write and maybe share "journal entry" type posts, so why not repurpose this one?  After General Conference this last weekend I—like a large number of the members of the church, no doubt—decided to embark on an experiment with the concept of "ponderizing".  While the following scriptures may not really be great for memorization, they are certainly among those that I have pondered in the last small while.  What I've had on my mind lately are the Nephite/Lamanite wars that took place near the end of the Book of Alma.  Today I'd like to talk specifically about the Stripling Warriors; ethnic Lamanites who, on conversion to the gospel, removed themselves from their people due to the constant threat of violence and went to live among the Nephites.  Although they had made a vow of pacificism—fearing lest their pre-conversion violence would come back to deny them exaltation—when the lives and freedom of their people and their brethren among the Nephites was once again threatened, some of their young men banded together and took up arms with Helaman, the son of Alma and the High Priest of the church as it was organized at the time.

It is popular to refer to the Stripling Warriors as having been taught by their mothers.  They are mentioned almost without fail in most congregations of the Church on Mother's Day, I imagine.  While this is a nice observation, I think there is actually considerably more to be said about the characteristics of the stripling warriors in the scriptures.  Here's a sampling, emphasis mine:

Alma 53: 20-21 "And they were all young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all—they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted.  Yea, they were men of truth and soberness, for they had been taught to keep the commandments of God and to walk uprightly before him." 

Alma 57: 21 "Yea, and they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness;" 

Alma 57: 26-27 "And we do justly ascribe it to the miraculous power of God, because of their exceeding faith in that which they had been taught to believe—that there was a just God, and whosoever did not doubt, that they should be preserved by his marvelous power.  Now this was the faith of these of whom I have spoken; they are young, and their minds are firm, and they do put their trust in God continually." 

Alma 58: 39-40 "And those sons of the people of Ammon, of whom I have so highly spoken, are with me in the city of Manti; and the Lord has supported them, yea, and kept them from falling by the sword, insomuch that even one soul has not been slain.  But behold, they have received many wounds; nevertheless they stand fast in that liberty wherewith God has made them free; and they are strict to remember the Lord their God from day to day; yea, they do observe to keep his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments continually; and their faith is strong in the prophecies concerning that which is to come."

Julie​ and I knew many of the same kids as teenagers, and it has always been a source of some surprise, disappointment and lingering melancholy that a rather large percentage of those whom we knew did not maintain activity in the church, in many cases, this happened very quickly upon leaving home.  In the eternal war for the souls of men, they more closely resembled the armies of the Nephites—while standing on the right side, many were yet lost—than the stripling warriors of the Ammonites, of whom not a single one was lost.

And let me be clear; these were not the already inactive kids.  These were the kids that we knew jointly across the stake.  Kids who went to all of the stake activities.  Kids who went to church.  Kids who went to seminary.  Kids who, in my mind, had the foundation laid for a successful life of activity in the church.  But clearly laying the foundation wasn't sufficient.

And although their failure may have surprised me, in some ways, my wife says that to her it was not surprising.  She saw already the patterns of behavior that were clear red flags: the search for loopholes, the looking for justifications and excuses, the fact that many of them were there at the behest of their parents, not because of any indication of clear commitment on their side.

Keeping in mind the scriptures quoted above, can you imagine the stripling warriors looking at the counsel in For the Strength of Youth pamphlet on dating and saying to themselves, "That's all well and good if you live in Utah (or if you don't) but it doesn't really apply here where I live"?  Can you imagine them suggesting that it's OK to take several months of Sundays off from church to pursue a season in Football?  Or that missing Sunday school to go get some doughnuts isn't a big deal, since Sunday school is the least important of the church meetings and those guys at Krispy Kremes are at work anyway, even if it is Sunday?  To use just a few minor examples that I've heard and seen in person over my life?  Does that sound like men who are "true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted?"  Or those for whom obedience to the words of commandment of God through the scriptures and his prophets is interpreted with exactness?  Or those who observe to keep the statutes, judgments and commandments continually?

In addition to this heightened sense of commitment to righteousness, what are some other things that I have seen in those who have been successful; those who's lives more closely resemble that of the stripling warriors than the harrowing experience of the Nephite armies where many were lost?  A few final thoughts:

• The stripling warriors were prepared and ready for adversity.  As Helaman said, they received many wounds, and were subject to a great deal of privation as the central government in Zarahemla was overthrown by a faction that desired to end the war and align with their enemies.  Being prepared to weather adversity is an important skill, and one that any successful, faithful member will need to develop.
• Although it doesn't talk specifically about this with the stripling warriors, in my experience, developing the skill to know how to seek out and recognize inspiration from the Holy Ghost is another skill key to maintaining faithfulness, especially when going through difficult times and adversity.

The scriptural references I picked are probably a little long to attempt to memorize, but are important to provide context for the pondering.  I'd summarize the scripture to "ponderize" here as that portion of verse 21 I quoted above: "Yea, and they did obey and observe to perform every word of command with exactness."  A great motto to keep when tempted to cut corners, make excuses or otherwise not live up to the exacting example set by the stripling warriors.

Let's Get Started

What the heck is this blog?  Remember when you were sitting around in the evening after a day of tracting with your missionary companion, and discussion turned to some esoteric scriptural reference or gospel question, and you enjoyed kicking it around?  Or maybe it was Sunday night with your room mates at BYU.  Either way, you weren’t discussing doctrine, exactly, because there was no revealed or official doctrine; you just had speculative (although hopefully informed) opinions about stuff.  None of it was crucial to your salvation.  But it was fascinating stuff to talk about and speculate about and wonder about nonetheless.

I miss that.  I don’t really have a good forum for those kinds of discussions anymore.  These aren't really appropriate topics for Sunday School or Priesthood lessons, they aren't mentioned (anymore) in General Conference, and I'd really hesitate to allow a home-teaching visit or family home evening drift into topics like this either, because those all have spiritually edifying purposes that shouldn't be compromised by distractions.  So, I decided to set up this blog to roll with some ideas, just for fun.

Let’s get a few things straight first, though, shall we?

•  Needless to say, I don’t speak for the church in any capacity whatsoever.  I am, of course, a member of the church, but everything here is solely my opinion and may well be wildly wrong.  I’m OK with that.  I’d welcome any evidence that suggest that I’m wrong, especially if it suggests some other solution to these thorny questions.
• My faith (nor yours) should never hinge on any of these discussions.  A testimony is based on a personal witness from the Spirit that the Church is true, Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, the Book of Mormon is an inspired work, etc.  Nothing that you can say about evolution or dinosaurs or the age of the earth, or whatever, should make any difference to that.  I have, however, seen people occasionally fall prey to doubt because they felt that they had no answer to these questions.  I think exploring these types of questions and having an answer, even if it’s a provisional, speculative one, can help insulate yourself from falling victim to needless doubt, and insulate you from potential challenges when faced with a well-informed LDS critic who may spring one of these "controversial" topics on you.  But let us be very clear here; I make no claim at coming up with anything other than provisional, speculative opinionated answers to the questions that I will pose.  But that's better than simply being uninformed.  I recall when the article was released recently on plural marriage practices in the Church, that some of my acquaintance were a bit challenged by it.  My stance was that, barring specific personal details of the practice of specific individuals, there wasn't anything in it that I hadn't learned more than twenty five years ago as a teenager.  The whole thing was a bit of a non-event to me personally, because I was already insulated and prepared and sufficiently knowledgeable on the topic that there was no way I was going to feel surprised, betrayed, etc. by the release of new details.
• In the past; in the not even too distant past, it seems members of the church were more literate with questions such as these.  There were discussions about items such as this.  I suspect that it was starting to become a stumbling block to many, so officially the church backed off talking about evolution, for example.  But, as James A. Talmage said, with regards to science and religion, "The accounts cannot be fundamentally opposed; one cannot contradict the other; though man’s interpretation of either may be at fault."  At some point, apparent discrepancies will be resolved.  This will most likely involve direct divine intervention and revelation.  However, in the meantime, we can use the concept of the scientific method to propose models and see how well they hold up to what we know now.
• I don't consider myself any kind of expert on much of anything (although that hasn't stopped me from being extremely opinionated.)  If I'm talking about evolution, for example, well I've got a keen interest in the subject, having been a fan of dinosaurs since I was a little kid.  I've taught myself how to read professional publications and understand what they're talking about, and I follow developments in certain areas with interest.  But I'm not an evolutionary biologist nor a paleontologist, and I lack much of the specialized training necessary to be truly fluent, rather than merely conversant, in those fields.  The same is true for the scriptures and what has been taught by the prophets and apostles.  There may well be some point in either of those fields that I'm unaware of that renders much of what I say completely moot.  If so, feel free to point it out.  However, keep in mind, while not fluent, I certainly am conversant, and consider myself reasonably well read and reasonably well self-educated about subjects that interest me.  If you want me to consider your opinion as equally valid as my own, you'll need to demonstrate that it has an equally sound structural foundation.
• I will occasionally refer to quotations (and assertions) of the Brethren that are, nonetheless, not accepted as doctrine.  We learned recently, if for some reason we didn't already know this, that even the prophet can speak his opinion, and not necessarily everything he says is the LDS equivalent of "ex catedra" in the recently released article Race and the Priesthood.  This is crucial to having any kind of discussion about these types of topics; I consider The Brethren to be highly qualified experts when speaking in this fashion, but of course, they're not necessarily articulating official doctrine.  I'll always try to be very clear to draw a clean line around "doctrine" and "everything else" although for some of these topics, it's not always easy to tell (hence the fact that we've often been warned about being dogmatic about such questions or worrying overmuch about their answers, since our salvation does not, of course, depend on them.)
• Let’s just have fun, shall we?  It’s not my intention to challenge anyone or anything, really.  Rather, I’m interested in just noodling around with ideas, like I said, similar to how members of the church have often done in informal and very casual even discussions about topics that are on the fringe of having gospel relevance.  Nobody take this very seriously, please. It’s not meant to be serious at all, merely something to entertain in a way that’s hopefully more productive than just watching TV.  And I admit, I've always been a sucker for a good mystery.

I expect that in general, I’ll post a new topic once a week or so.  I may speed that up when I get excited about topics.  I may slow it waaaay down when I’m busy with other things.  But that’s my tentative plan, at least. (This plan obviously hasn't even come close to coming true, as I'm reviewing this post in retrospect.)

Here’s a partial list of topics that I’m interested in.  Not meant to be comprehensive, but I thought I’d put down my first ideas so I can refer back to this list when needed to remind myself of things I want to talk about.

• Evolution - also, see the post on the Pre-Adamites, listed below, for a bit more discussion on the topic in the background.
• The Age of the Earth
• Death and the Fall
• Dinosaurs
• Pre-Adamites (including some discussion on the four topics above)
• Ammonite mothers—this one evolved into this post
• The Cain/Bigfoot connection
• Watchers
• Where did the Lost Tribes go?
• Lamanites and Indians
• Book of Mormon geography
• Other people on other planets
• Polygamy
• Antediluvian longevity
• Satan's plan in the pre-existence - discussed in many posts, but not dedicated.  I don't have anything additional to add to this topic beyond what I've already said repeatedly, however.
• Brigham Young's Adam-God theory
• The relationship of modern populations to the sons of Noah
• Apocryphal scriptures
• The White Horse prophecy
• Were the Jaredites black?