Jeff,
I guess I take a more grim view of the whole event.
However, I do agree that 99.999% of Mormons now are good-hearted people as I've said before. My wife and children and brother are members of the LDS Church, so I know from experience.
I just can't forgive what happened at Mountain Meadows by a group of people who put what they felt was their religious duty and justification above their own common sense of decency and humanity, and they happened to call themselves Mormons. I think we all need to learn to discern when someone in a religious position of authority (Lee) tells us it's our duty to do something that is against humanity. Critical thinking.
We agree to disagree on that issue.
*** By the way, I just noticed that you are the author of a couple of books. Kudos for those accomplishments! I have a lot of admiration for people who can achieve such things. Writing a good book is an immense challenge and an incredible achievement. It's an honor to speak with you. ***
We do not disagree on this point. As I have said...it was a dispicable and reprenhsible act of deceit and murder, irrespective of the fact that the relatives of many of those people committing it had themselves been raped and murdered by others who also called themselves Christians.
That does not make the LDS Church itself reprehnsible or false in its teaching of Jesus Christ, anymore than trying to take what Judas did and reflect it back on Christ himself. Christ taught the truth, He was and is the truth, irrespective of what weak humans chose to do with that truth.
Those who accept Jesus Christ in their hearts, with sincerity and true conversion, become His disciples and are converted and cleansed through Him and then take upon themselves His name and go about doing good, as He did. In His time, he will lead all of those who so conduct themselves to all truth and they will be with Him and their loved ones who do likewise throughout all eternity.
As to forgiveness...Christ himself told us it was left to us to forgive all men...and that we should love those who deceitfully use us and are our enemies. I believe we can do that...each of us who has His countenance in our hearts...but I also believe we can be wise and forgive and love those individuals...and try to help them...without in the least embracing their evil.
When all is said and done, I sincerely thank you for the compliments...and may God bless you and your family.
My two books can be downloaded for free as professional Adobe ebooks, free to all Freepers at the following links:
Each book, one a fictional techno-thriller about the emergence of Red China and the other non-fiction about actual experiences at Klamath Falls, Oregon, are full of my own efforts to write in good Christian and moral principles into stories that try to warn of the conditions of the day, and do it through embedded stories that emphasize patriotism, constitutionalism, and a way of life in keeping with it all. I hope you get the chance to read them and enjoy them.
How about when someone in governmental authority does it? Are you familiar with Missouri Gov. Boggs' order to exterminate and drive out Mormons? Are those murders, rapes and persecutions equally unforgivable in your eyes?
If so, would you have equal problems in electing a Missourian to the POTUS, due to the association with something which occurred 150+ years ago? How about a Southerner, due to their association with the massacre at Lawrence, Kansas?