Growth is Change
By Dustin
Being raised Mormon in southern Utah, you learn certain things: alcohol and premarital sex are for those who can’t control themselves, swearing is for those who aren’t smart enough to think of appropriate words, and atheists and gay people live their lives fueled by anger with their father in Heaven. I learned these lessons side-by-side with my best friend, a girl I’d known since preschool. Never once did we question these teachings while we walked together.
At seventeen, I found myself having slipped from the church a bit. I worked every Sunday, had sex with my girlfriend any time I could successfully slip in her bedroom window, and swore like a sailor stranded on a dinghy and surrounded by sharks. I had gay friends, and had even pondered what one of the guys in the group could offer as far as a relationship went. I had become a textbook example of a lost sheep, and I decided I had to come back to my shepherd.
By the time I turned nineteen, I had turned around, had been dating a great Mormon girl who was gently and lovingly guiding me back into the fold, and was studying to become a missionary, a full-time warrior of truth on the front lines for my Lord. I finished a cover-to-cover read of the Book of Mormon missing my finish date (my birthday) by only a few days. I had plenty of free time in the mornings to take four institute classes per day, and prayed every day, many times per day. I was training hard for my two years of devotion.
Can Mormonism and Evolution Coexist?
By JR
Understanding of evolution’s place in Mormon doctrine varies greatly from member to member. This is largely due to church officials dodging the question in recent years. Gordon B. Hinckley even admitted that, when pressed about evolution, his response was “I do not worry about it, I passed through that argument long ago” (Evenson and Jeffery 109). That may be the case, but by refusing to answer the question, Mormons are left to determine their own conclusion. Fortunately church authorities didn’t always avoid the issue, and by examining Mormon scripture and official church statements, it is abundantly clear that evolution and Mormonism cannot comfortably coexist.
The creation story, as portrayed in Genesis, is often discounted by Mormons as not being literally true because they “believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly.” What is frequently overlooked is that Joseph Smith received direct revelation from God regarding our creation in the form of the Book of Moses. This is canonized Mormon scripture, and should be free of translation errors. Regarding the contents of the book, God says, “these are the words which I spake unto my servant Moses, and they are true even as I will; and I have spoken them unto you” (Moses 4:32).
Bearing in mind that God assures the information in the book of Moses to be true and not parable or myth, we can conclude that he literally “formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also” (Moses 3:7). It is important to understand that Adam was not only the first flesh upon the earth, but also the first man, because God “created man in mine own image, in the image of mine Only Begotten created I him” (Moses 2:27).
What We Need to Live
By Scott
“I just can’t accept that god doesn’t exist. If he didn’t create us and have a plan for us, then why the hell are we here?” She was having a hard time accepting that she had lost her faith and I started to worry that I was pushing her too hard. “look Kristine, its okay to have doubts about anything, including atheism. I’m not saying you can’t believe in God, I’m just asking why you do.” Kristine had been questioning what she believed in for a while now. She had started to wonder about who God really was after her brother was sent home from his mission for reading “anti-Mormon books” and telling the mission president that he though Joseph smith had lied. The church made her feel like she had to choose between her brother and her God, she didn’t understand why she couldn’t have both.
She handled her issues with the church by pretending they weren’t there. She took a calling in the nursery and enjoyed spending time with the little kids, where she didn’t need to question what someone else was teaching that week and where she didn’t need to take a hard look at the doctrine she believed in. She could just play with little kids for two hours a week and call her religious duties filled. She spent three years in the nursery before the Bishop called her in his office and wanted to release her from her calling. She cried and asked to keep it but he said that “she had other responsibilities she needed to attend to.” What he really meant was she was 24 unmarried and in college and she should be looking for a husband.
So she did what was expected of her, she found a man to take her to the temple, and she married him. She tried to forget getting her endowments, to her it was weird and uncomfortable, but she smiled and told everyone she was so happy to have finally gone through the temple.
Death of an Atheist
By Valerie
“I want to go to God.”
Those words, uttered from my husband while he was on life support in the ICU surrounded by feeding tubes, and IV lines. With kidneys failing, septicemia riddling his body, and his brain short circuiting from all the medications he had been given, he wanted out. He was an atheist, had been all of 42 years of our life together. His mind was of the scientific bent, and his life was based on logic.
Where had this nightmare started? It had begun a mere month prior, with his feeling so bad he went to the local MD. He was in pain; could hardly walk, and felt so miserable he was almost bedridden. He was diagnosed with some sort of immune disorder and sent home on steroids and other medications. He was a diabetic. Did the doctor check his feet? No he didn’t; just presumed he was suffering from some sort of immune disorder.
Over the next few hours, he miserable, the medications having no effect. I gave him a massage to try to help with the pain which was “everywhere.” He said “even my hair hurts.” While massaging his feet, I noted pus oozing out just beneath his little toe. We went to the ER of the hospital in the small community in which we lived. They ran the usual tests on the wound, and sent him home with antibiotics, to check with the doctor the next day. His words were “Oh, well that explains it.” He was to continue with the antibiotics, and check back in a few days. But, within the next few hours at home, his little toe turned black. Immediately, we rushed back the ER. He was admitted, but spent the next week or so lying in bed on a “watchful wait” to see if his toe needed to be amputated, which they finally did, and at the same time, removed a small piece of metal from his foot.
Then the scary part began. His body began to fill up with fluid. He had chest tubes inserted and the fluids poured out. His stomach grew larger, legs grew like elephants, fingers became stubs. In the space of a few days he gained 70 pounds, and kept complaining “I can’t breathe.” He had his lungs checked, but they didn’t hear much. He kept asking me to turn up the nasal oxygen, the nurses kept turning it back down. Finally the day came that he had to call me at home to tell me he was having trouble breathing.
“Did you tell the nurses, I asked?”
“Yes, but they just keep blowing me off.”
When It Ends
By Scott
I don’t know what I feel. It can’t be described as depression, disappointment, or even sadness. It’s not a weak feeling, just a different one. I figured I had another 40 seconds before the water completely filled the cab of my truck.
She started the conversation in the one way that can make a guy sick, “We need to talk.” I knew it would be a bad night when her lips first started to move, the lips I had come to love.
“I think we should see other people.” I looked at her; everything I loved was just ripped out of my hands, and the air was ripped form my lungs. Not wanting to show emotion I simply asked “why?”
“I think we’re moving too fast.”
She and I both knew that was a lie, but I didn’t want to hear the real reasons, even though I knew what they were.
I remember the night when she had first pried my past out of me; something I had left behind not too long before I met her. We weren’t moving too fast, she just wasn’t ready to accept me as I was, like I did her. A week after that she asked me, “do you miss it.” I didn’t know what to say. I used to drink a 12 pack just to start the night. My mouth still missed the unique taste of a good beer running down my tongue, and into my blood stream. “Yeah, I do. I think about drinking every day. I miss partying with my friends, but I gave it up for a reason.” She never asked what my reason was. She knew it was personal, but I would have told her if she’d asked. That’s when the relationship started to fall apart. She could never trust me that I wasn’t going to drink when I was with my friends, always assuming I was getting into trouble. The sins of my past had come back for me.
