Late Nephite Horror

It only now occurs to me that the Lamanite atrocities in Mormon 4 where they sacrifice Nephite women and kids, well, those have the classic flavor of atrocity propaganda.  Mormon never claims to have seen them personally.  There is no reason to think they could not be–atrocity stories about the enemy are pretty nearly a human universal.

On the other hand, Mormon does say that he has personally seen awful scenes (Mormon 5:8-9). And atrocities and even gross atrocities also seem to be a near universal. The Holdomor. The Holocaust. The Mfecane (it has a very similar flavor to the Nephites’ end times).  The grotesque sacrificial practices of the Aztecs were almost unbelievably evil.