Well, that’s the point of this thread. What exactly is the collective mind and is it really lost? It’s an existentialist argument. What is the cost of self defense? You can take a human life to save your own. It is justified.
But from a relationship with God perspective, is it? It could just be bad law, based on faulty assumptions about mortality. What if we were okay with saying “how about never” and letting the chips fall where they may by the grace of God? Or what basically is a manifestation of the collective mind.
I’m not suggesting letting the psychos run free. Weirdly enough, that seems to be the approach of the rich in America. Gated communities and armed guards. But transcendent living requires transcendent solutions. “Good enough” falls apart for a reason.
I suppose I’m proposing radical trust in the divine. Absolute, unbreakable trust. Enough to be okay with dying. Guys have died on crappier hills. How about the hill of “you can’t kill my love for humanity, ever”? That’s free range living.
I’m willing to admit that for me, Mormonism was a stepping stone to a wider world. It’s good that the “brethren” are further constraining it to encourage people to not stick with it. Beliefs are a contract you have with reality. Mormonism is a shitty contract. Worse than Prince’s recording contract. Mormons are fine with killing. It’s baked into their religion. That’s why you want them in law enforcement because otherwise their first shooting will wreck them. Or maybe not, for the very same reason.
If the coming century is telling us anything, it’s that the self is an illusion. So where do you go with that? The monks die in Tibet and pop up all over the west like so many wild flowers. Bullets, schmoolets, let them come. I know where I stand.