The1Guy wrote:madeleine wrote:why would someone teach me that my Navajo friend was a cursed Lamanite? I was certain she wasn't cursed any more than myself. I felt like I had to stick up for her and say, "no".
I have always been troubled by the Mormon teaching that certain people came into this world cursed by God as signified by the color of their skin. And that, because they weren't valiant in the preexistence. Then it became very evident after the Civil Rights movement and the change of divine scripture ("the most perfect book") that the Mormon God is either whimsical or one of his prophets is lying to us, as II Nephi, Chapter 30, Verse 6 went from "...white and delightsome..." to "...pure and delightsome...." And, of course, skin-color became no barrier to receiving the Mormon Priesthood...only gender.
I bet there would be no problem if in the Book of Mormon they could have just said that God chose to 'tweek the DNA' of the Lamanites so that the isolation of a people living on an island would have a better mix for the long term health and vitality of the people.
The Lord has tweeked DNA many times before. The Caannanites before the flood and nearly everyone at the Tower of Babel got zapped. If a sparrow does not fall to the ground without our Father in heaven's notice then no species adapts to originate a new species without God's hand in it tweeking DNA. Just because we are separate from God in this world does not suspend him from doing his own business as he will.
I wonder if there is no legend in the annals of Australian history where evidence of DNA tweeking could be an explanation. Even if the dominant genes prevailed the fact that altered DNA strains were introduced from time to time would keep the mix more robust than the inevitable weakness inherent in mating with your cousins.
Valiance in the pre-existence has nothing to do with it. There is good reason to alter DNA to some small degree which might manifest in skin color. If you happened to wake up some morning with a darker skin color you may in fact wonder why God has cursed you.
As a result I would say that tweeking the DNA of the Lamanites did humble them substantially, and thus they were preserved and not utterly destroyed.
As with most burdens that the Lord puts upon us it works altogether for his name's glory. Regardless what men think of it meanwhile.
