Thoughts After Feeling Disconnected

Church was great today. There were some really good testimonies but I just felt disconnected. So instead I read an Ensign article on Mountain Meadows Massacre and kind went through the studies I did allover again. It's incredible how things went all wrong way and caused such a terrifying and long lasting tragedy. As I'm writing this post now, I even think Brigham Young was somewhat responsible for the event, not he was involved on any level.
I remember when I did the study, one discussion was why the saints followed the order to slaughter the defenseless emigrants. And one obvious answer came up: they followed their church leaders. So if President and Governor Young ever felt that appointing the ecclesiastical leaders as local authorities (mayors, militia leaders, and others) would give the saints the impression of whatever those local authorities did was inspired, he might have reconsidered those appointments. I mean John D. Lee, Isaac Haight, William Dame as ecclesiastical leaders didn't have the priesthood key to make the order, but as local authorities they had all powers to command. But since they were both, people automatically assumed they made the order as ecclesiastical leaders when they didn't even take the time to wait for Brigham Young, the prophet, to make the final decision.
We humans can easily give up humanity when there's a higher cause. For religious people, like the saints in Mountain Meadows Massacre, it's easy to justify the injustice when it's under supreme being's name. Atheists are no exceptions, the greater good, like communism or nationalism, does the same thing to them. Depends on our beliefs we interpert such behavior in different ways, but we all agree it's when we give up to take our own responsibilities we give up our humanity. When we yell whatever slogans, for God, for the Third Reich, for communism, or anything, we let the -isms take charge but not our minds and hearts. So here goes back to the very basic: no good comes out when we give up our minds and hearts. This is why Jesus told us to think, ask, and ponder but not just blindfold ourselves and follow during his sermon on the mount.