My Inner Conflict

How often do any of us think about what we are taught?  I’m talking to all of you Mormons, Lutherans, Protestants, Baptists, etc.  When I think about the ’simple’ answers that religion gives us to life’s questions, I am reminded more of an uneducated parent who does not have the answers and makes up a nice fairy-tale of what the answer could be.  For example:

Q: How did all of the animals in the world get their names? Why are dogs called dogs and cats, cats?

A: Adam was the first person on the Earth and lived in the garden of Eden.  In this garden, man and animal lived in harmony. Adam knew them all and gave them names. That is how all of he animals got their names.

Q: But Adam only spoke one language.  There are several names for ‘Dog’ depending on what language you speak. How did all of these languages come about?

A: Once there was a wicket people who wanted to see God, so they built a really big tower. This tower reached into the heavens and called it the tower of Babel.  When God saw what they were doing, he got very angry and cursed them so that they all spoke different languages. That is why we have so many languages today.

Q: Why is Dad head of the household?

A: Because Eve was the first to partake of the fruit, she (and her descendants) would be subject to their husbands. They were told that their husbands would rule over them, and that they were commanded to obey their husband’s law.

Q: Mom, why do we have rainbows after it rains sometimes? Why don’t we ever have rainbows on normal days?

A: After the great flood, God promised Noah that he would never flood the Earth again and made the rainbow as a sign of that promise.  That is why we see rainbows after rainfall.

Q: If he flooded the Earth, didn’t all of the animals die?

A: God had Noah build an ark.  Noah gathered all of the animals in the world in pairs of two and put them on the arc until the flood was over.

Q: Why do some people have black skin?

A: Adam had two sons, Cain and Abel. Abel was a good son, while Cain was very evil.  One day, Cain killed his righteous brother.  God was very angry and decided to curse Cain with a black skin as a sign of his disobedience. The mark of Cain was given to any children Cain and his descendants would have to warn the world of the evil race.

Q: But didn’t the flood wipe out all of Cains children?

A: No. He let a black woman live as well (Ham’s wife) so that ‘the devil should have a representation on the Earth as well as God’. (John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, Volume 22, page 304.)

Q: Why do some people have brown skin, then?

A: This was also a curse given out by God to a group of disobedient people.  A long time ago, there were two groups of people in America, Nephites (good) and Lamanites (bad). The Lamanites were cursed with dark skin so that they would not be found attractive to the Nephites and their races would not intermix.  (2 Nephi 5:21)

Q: Will they always have brown skin, then? What if they turn good?

A: A curse is a curse.  However, if they turn good, their skin will turn whiter slowly.  In fact, “they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised. [...] The children in the home placement program in Utah are often lighter than their brothers and sisters in the hogans on the reservation.” (Spencer W. Kimball, Improvement Era, Dec. 1960, pp.922-3)

Being LDS, I am struggling in knowing for whom I should vote for president of the United States.  I am sick of the spending of George Bush (and fellow Republicans).  Our country is at a critical point when it comes to our national debt and we certainly cannot affort to continue to deficit spend.  Obama is a welcome sign for change, but I feel almost guilty considering voting for him.  My religion has always been very conservative and my family, local church, and friends all support McCain 100%.

I find it interesting that the church hasn’t told us who to vote for when in the past, they made it quite clear.  We should not vote for a black man.  I wonder why they don’t bring that up right now ?

Here is what the prophet Brigham Young preached.  I do not agree with it, but I did find it interesting:

“Again to the subject before us: as to the negro men bearing rule, not one of the children of old Cain have one particle of right to bear rule in government affairs from first to last. They have no business there. This privilege was taken from them by their own transgressions, and I cannot help it.

“I am as much opposed to the principle of slavery as any man in the present acceptation or usage of the term - it is abused. I am opposed to abusing that which God has decreed, to take a blessing, and make a curse of it. It is a great blessing to the seed of Adam to have the seed of Cain for servants…”

“Therefore, I will not consent for one moment to have an African dictate (to) me or my brethren with regard to church or state government…No, it is not right. But say some, is there anything of this kind in the constitution the United States has given us? If you will allow me the privilege of telling it right out, it is none of their damned business what we do or say here. What we do, it is for them to sanction, and then for us to say what we like about it. It is written right in the constitution ‘that every free white male inhabitant above the age of 21 years’, and etc…I have given you the true principle and doctrine.

“What the Gentiles are doing, we are consenting to do [he's referring to the "evil" abolitionist effort going on in the USA at the time]. What we are trying to do today is to make the Negro equal with us in all our privileges. My voice shall be against it all the day long. I shall not consent for one moment.”

(Speech in joint session, Feb. 5, 1852, Brigham Young Papers, Historical Dept. of the Church)