tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68625484346077695762024-03-06T20:02:26.395-05:00Warfare and the Book of MormonThis is where I publish my preliminary research notes and ideas concerning warfare in the Book of Mormon. This is a spot for civilians, military historians, members of the LDS church and anybody else who enjoys studying the military aspects of the Book of Mormon and its impact on the LDS Church, society and the field of military history.Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.comBlogger379125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-61906591032897372632024-03-01T16:36:00.008-05:002024-03-06T20:01:54.602-05:00Parable of the Bad Neighbor: What would you do? For the longest time I wish I could locate one of the worst examples
I had ever read about pre-emptive war. It turns out I had looked in the right
spot, but the website for a long time was defunct. (It’s still a bit funky to
be honest.) The parable was vague, and a poorly written attack on me, but it did
make me think. And after a brief foreword, I’ll provide my own Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-2874037104685268302024-02-06T15:54:00.000-05:002024-02-06T15:54:03.651-05:00Identifying the Heart of a Just Warrior I’ve written a great deal about the primacy of the heart. While
the concept has ample scripture and philosophical support the problem then
becomes, how can one know if some action in war is really a heartfelt policy?
We have some clues in the movie Witness, where an
Amish grandfather tells a young boy who wants to use a gun against bad men that
the young Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-39119816841401059682024-01-02T19:16:00.000-05:002024-01-02T19:16:13.701-05:00Happy 15th Anniversary to Warfare in the Book of Mormon
Take yourself back to January 2009. The fallout from the
housing crisis was ongoing. Barrack Obama was inaugurated. The people loved the
movies Taken and Paul Blart Mall Cop. This new singer, Lady Gaga, topped the
charts. Personally, I was serving in the Virginia National Guard. In fact, my
unit was activated for Obama’s inauguration. That Christmas I got dragged to my
Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-39521601633255397532023-12-01T19:31:00.000-05:002023-12-01T19:31:54.563-05:00Straightening the Warped Wood: A Confucian Reading of 2 Nephi 2:25 The following is my application to the Mormon Theology Seminar. They asked for a creative and close reading of 2 Nephi 2:25. Lehi begins his blessing by telling
his son Jacob that he was born in the wilderness and “suffered afflictions and
much sorrow.” V.1 But, Lehi promised, those afflictions would be “consecrated
for his gain.’ V2 because he was redeemed by his Savior. V.3 This blessing Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-66333961438903050792023-11-02T17:32:00.009-04:002024-02-22T17:28:27.525-05:00Sidelining Jesus: Appraising Mason's Thoughts on Peace and Ukraine Patrick Mason didn’t attend the LDS National Security
Professionals earlier this year but his planned remarks have been published in Public
Square. As with his very poorly argued book,
he thanks a prodigious amount of people for providing feedback and guidance,
but still produced an extremely flawed argument. Mason sidelines Jesus in favor
of his own Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-32341344843613762522023-10-03T17:07:00.002-04:002023-10-15T00:23:33.897-04:00Publishing My Book, One Piece at a Time Most of my regular readers will note that I have a manuscript on just warfare in the Book of Mormon for which I'm trying to find a publisher. I don't have a publisher yet, but I'm proud to say that I have published or presented most of the book already. Only like Johnny Cash, I have done it one piece at a time. Here is the master list of where you can find them. I will Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-28499703578776471712023-09-23T12:19:00.002-04:002023-09-23T12:19:16.151-04:00Defending the Book of Mormon Conference I was all ready to do a big build up and advertisement for this. And I thought about doing a nice follow up similar to the other conferences I went to. But I've been working so hard I forgot to do the first and probably won't do the second. So it might just be best to give the link here and you can watch it live for yourself. Its the anniversary of Moroni first visiting Joseph Smith and Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-28830959160972693002023-08-08T18:55:00.000-04:002023-08-08T18:55:14.737-04:00Moral Clarity on the Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings August 6th marks the dubious day in 1945 where
America became the only power to use a nuclear bomb. This continues to spark
controversy. From 1945 to 2005 American approval of the bombings has dropped
from 85
to 57 percent. And a record low number of Americans are proud
of their country. This is somewhat understandable as societal attitudes
change and there is a great Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-18677277712957670732023-07-06T14:44:00.000-04:002023-07-06T14:44:04.957-04:00From Laban to the Lafferty Brothers: Nephi, Mormon, and Utilitarianism in the Book of Mormon Since I first wrote my manuscript on just warfare in the Book of Mormon, I've been intrigued by the apparent difference between the use of a utilitarian argument that the Lord made to Nephi, and the apparent rejection of the concept by Mormon. The following is the introduction and thesis statement to a draft of a journal Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-36219243898439239932023-06-05T22:09:00.001-04:002023-06-05T22:09:29.620-04:00Debunking the Debunking of Rough Stone Rolling The Stoddards trying to read Rough Stone Rolling The last time I discussed Rough
Stone Rolling on social media I received many thoughtless drive by posts. I ignored
them at the time because I don’t want to reward lazy thinking. But I suspected
at the time that their link contained very poor reasoning and after a bit of
examination I was correct. This post show the many Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-24650910899678624912023-05-03T15:19:00.002-04:002023-05-03T15:19:15.402-04:00Square Two Publication: Kishkumen's Dagger I'm very proud to present my new journal article published at Square Two. It uses the story of Kishkumen's attempted attack on the chief judge to discuss preemptive war. The Iraq war started while I was in college. So I've been thinking about this topic for a long time. Even though its been 20 years, whenever the subject arises we Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-63754827729557038102023-04-14T23:47:00.000-04:002023-04-14T23:47:36.525-04:00Research ResultsA short time ago I mentioned a bunch of cool projects on which I was working. Most of them have very good updates to report. To Stop a Slaughter: The Book of Mormon and Just War- I'm still looking for a publisher. But a by product of all the success below means that I've received a large amount of good feedback that has strengthened the manuscript and will produce buzz. Am I My Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-218360968079306152023-03-08T19:21:00.000-05:002023-03-08T19:21:27.514-05:00Notes from the National Security Conference I just returned from the 2023 LDS National Security Professionals Conference last weekend. I came down with a non covid illness the week before which made it all the more impressive that I could drive to Provo and interact with everyone like it was fine. My presentation went well. I discussed two applications of section 98 Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-2973676250773999062023-02-02T12:03:00.004-05:002023-02-02T15:03:52.498-05:00Mormon Theology Seminar: The Law and the Lord in Alma 34:7 What follows is my 750 word application to this year's Mormon Theology seminar. My job was to provide a creative theological reading of Alma 34:7. It is Amulek beginning his sermon to the Zoramites by saying: My brother has called upon the words of Zenos, that redemption cometh through the Son of God, and also upon the words of Zenock; and also he has appealed unto Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-53432258196686603582023-01-02T17:01:00.005-05:002023-01-04T22:16:52.166-05:00The Nazi's Veto Murray Rothbard was the father of modern libertarianism and
in turn inspires many Latter Day Saint views of war, including this
horrendous reading of the Book of Mormon. But the libertarian’s elevation of
the individual at the expense of the state ends up creating what I call the “Nazi’s
veto” that disallows any state war, and as a result, leaves the state and
individualsMorgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-63539580503858950652022-12-15T15:54:00.000-05:002022-12-15T15:54:58.738-05:00Sunzi and the Moral Low Ground Whenever I'm not working and have some free time I like to
read. I love to engage ideas and usually I engage enough to make a post out of
it. In this case I couldn't make it to page 3 of this book (The
Choice of War: Iraq and the Just War Tradition) before I found a howler.
This author claims that Sunzi "laid great stress on moral aspects of
war" as proof theMorgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-74484876490268327072022-11-30T17:09:00.003-05:002022-11-30T17:09:34.092-05:00Research Update: Isolationism, First Strike, Sacrifice, Ambushes Oh My! Hey everyone. I haven't been able to post here, but that doesn't mean I don't have any great writing out there. Here is a list of current projects in various stages of publication: To Stop a Slaughter: The Book of Mormon and Just War: This is being considered by a publisher right now. I've heard that JK Rowling and Frank Herbert's Dune both went through many publishers before getting picked Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-81203234978629812302022-10-24T17:49:00.000-04:002022-10-24T17:49:30.253-04:00Modern Problems Ancient Solutions I almost named my first
book modern problems to ancient solutions. I’ve also mentioned before that
I find classical Chinese theory some of the most thorough that I’ve seen
outside of maybe Clausewitz. It is all the more amazing because in some cases
these theories were expressed thousands of years ago. I was reading a new book
Just
War Reconsidered: Strategy, Ethics, Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-23286248166165026912022-09-01T12:29:00.000-04:002022-09-01T12:29:00.240-04:00Kishkumen’s Dagger: Helaman 2 and Preemptive Warfare in the Book of Mormon This is part of an ongoing series about preemptive war in
the Book of Mormon. See part
one, part
two, part
three, part
four, part
five, part
six, part
seven, and now part eight.
We read in the second chapter of Helaman:
6 And it came to pass as [Kiskumen] went forth towards the
judgment-seat to destroy Helaman, behold one of the servants of Helaman,Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-21792977548677612692022-08-05T13:52:00.003-04:002022-08-10T20:47:19.106-04:00Moral Clarity on the Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings [Originally posted at Real Clear Defense] August 6th marks the dubious day in 1945 where
America became the only power to use a nuclear bomb. This continues to spark
controversy. From 1945 to 2005 American approval of the bombings has dropped
from 85
to 57 percent. And a record low number of Americans are proud
of their country. This is somewhat understandable as societal Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-89065166064647280632022-07-01T12:16:00.002-04:002022-07-01T12:16:28.100-04:00Outrage and Fighting for Life: Insights from Brad Wilcox to Abortion, via Ukraine When the war in the Ukraine started it was mere weeks after
Brad Wilcox gave a controversial speech. I noted with irony and anger that many
commentors wrote more often and more passionately about the supposed racism and
sexism of Brad Wilcox than the actual deaths in Ukraine. Here you see at least five articles, from
February 8th to the 15th, attacking Wilcox inMorgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-78057096749358654252022-06-20T19:45:00.006-04:002022-06-20T19:45:41.395-04:00Case Closed? On President Nelson's Peace Talk Last April President Nelson commented on matters of war and
peace during his addresses. His words seem authoritative. But if we examine longstanding
issues the church has seen before this is not the case. This post explains his words, the competing
ethics in the scriptures, and the way church leaders apply the gospel during
times of war using historical examples. Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-57231108203406611792022-05-06T15:58:00.000-04:002022-05-06T15:58:10.821-04:00Book Review: Proclaim Peace I'm proud to present my review of Proclaim Peace! The whole thing is too long to repost on this blog but see the whole thing here. The following is a few thoughts I had on its release: What I found is that Latter Day Saints usually don't think about these matters that much. They have some gut reactions and at most, they add some new scriptures to what is a very old debate. But very Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-23470346842740433622022-04-23T12:09:00.000-04:002022-04-23T12:09:15.620-04:00The Gadianton Raid! [An excerpt from my upcoming book on just warfare in the Book of Mormon.] The text contains enough information to recreate the raids
on scattered settlements that made a consolidation so needed and may have made
a defense pact with the Gadiantons more attractive to the people than dying for
the far away Nephite government. The people at this point in Nephite history had
Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6862548434607769576.post-68776672468841287462022-03-03T14:22:00.002-05:002022-03-03T14:22:33.203-05:00Fainted But Not Fallen: Learning From The Stripling Warriors I delivered the following to the unofficial Las Vegas Singles Conference over President's Day Weekend. It's been a busy time for a military analyst but I wanted to post this before too much time had past. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks so much for having me. I attended these conferences for years. Being the geek that I am I mostly attended the classes, and being the guy that Morgan Deanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09480320552458246756noreply@blogger.com0