If there is one thing I have consistently observed, including in some of my own tendencies, it is that we, as humans, get a little knowledge that we judge to be good and then begin to close off the gates of more knowledge and judge all things based upon the standard we currently have set up in our mind. If we somehow go through the tribulation of learning something new, we immediately begin the process again, only with a new standard of judgement. Condemning things which we consider to be evil.

In Genesis terminology, I believe this to be the false dilemma of a choice between good and evil, the real choice long having been lost to us. Initially there were two trees, one of Life, one of Death. The tree of Death offered us knowledge of what was good and what was evil, giving us the opportunity to judge, and condemn or judge and exalt. But whether we condemn or exalt was not the original choice. The original choice was between Life and judging good and evil (Death).1

This judgment begat enmity, or the struggle between all of them upon whom God sends rain. We *know* what is evil, and we will use the venom of our words against it. We will take it further and pass laws to punish and imprison that which we judge to be evil. We will buy up armies and navies to enforce what we think is “good” and reign2 with blood and horror upon the earth.

There is the rare person that will withhold judgement, that will allow for possibilities that exist beyond their current comprehension, that will allow God to reign.

Any group with any degree of knowledge will judge and condemn others who do not believe the same either in the confines of their own mind or openly with words, anger and war. However, as God is the ultimate source of knowledge, the ultimate expression of choosing the Tree of Death is to go to God, or “God’s authorized servant” and to get ultimate knowledge.

This is the situation the Israelites found themselves in, when they demanded Moses give them God’s commandments. God, an obliging teacher, gave them what they wanted, and the Israelites became the most self-righteous and judgmental people on the planet. The irony is that they had so much knowledge of good and evil, that they used this knowledge to to justify killing God himself.3 When Nephi saw the great and spacious building, the Lord gave him the interpretation. He said “behold the House of Israel”. God spoke to Ezekiel and told him that he gave these religionists “statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live.”

This is the situation I believe any group who believes they have “God’s true commandments” finds themselves in, having rejected Wisdom.


Notes

1. “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2)

2. We reign as Satan, who sits in the throne of our heart where God belongs. “Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.” (2 Thessalonians 2)

3. “Wherefore, as I said unto you, it must needs be expedient that Christ—for in the last night the angel spake unto me that this should be his name—should come among the Jews, among those who are the more wicked part of the world; and they shall crucify him—for thus it behooveth our God, and there is none other nation on earth that would crucify their God.” (2 Nephi 10)