Thursday, April 19, 2012

A Thing of the Spirit

“Pure religion is a thing of the Spirit and not of the intellect alone."
- Bruce R. McConkie 

     In this book, in the section written by Richard Bushman (a professor at Harvard), he talks about a time when he was being interviewed on the radio. The  conversation ended up being focused on religion, and he was asked, 
"How could an educated, well-informed, modern Mormon accept all the stories that go with Mormon belief?"

Well... what would you say?

Of course... he went on in his essay talking about his belief in the Mormon Church, but I think that the question he was asked is one that we should know how to straight-forward answer. 

     To some people who don't know a lot about our religion, our beliefs may seem a little different. 
     Some people... try to explain everything with science. If they can't have tangible proof of something happening... well, it didn't happen. I happen to know a couple of people that think that way...

Darn skeptical scientists. 

Well... here's an awesome quote from Einstein...

"Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble."
- Albert Einstein 


Isn't that an awesome quote? And it was said by someone that we consider scientifically/mathematically brilliant. 

     I suppose he got it...

You know... some things can be explained completely with science. I mean, leaves are green because that's the only color in the spectrum that they reflect back... okay, I can believe that. Sounds reasonable to me.

BUT... Everything cannot be perfectly described by science. Our earth... and everything in it... didn't just happen on its own. Life didn't happen on its own... especially intelligent life.

Like what Elder Russell M. Nelson said in the last General Conference...
Talking about our amazing physical bodies, he said,


"Yet some people erroneously think that these marvelous physical attributes happened by chance or resulted from a big bang somewhere. Ask yourself, “Could an explosion in a printing shop produce a dictionary?” The likelihood is most remote. But if so, it could never heal its own torn pages or reproduce its own newer editions!"


(Reminds me of this song)


You know what I think is interesting... some scientists/atheists say that their explanations just make more sense... that they're more practical.


Something cool about our gospel... not only do we have manifestations and believe in God... but all of our Church's teachings make perfect sense. If you think about it, the Gospel really explains everything we need to know... and it explains all of those things perfectly. 


It makes sense. And of course, we have the Spirit telling us that what we believe is true. 


That quote at the very top of this post... is one of my favorite quotes of all time. We just... can't always explain things so that they make sense to other people. We know God exists because we have faith. And after putting that faith to the test, we will find that God really is there. And He loves us.


And the Church is true. 






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