Creative Nonfiction - Fall 2017

CREATIVE NONFICTION 51

small for my ambitions, and I began to chafe under
rigid gender expectations.
Still, science conveniently seemed to confirm
many of my religious beliefs. When new studies
showed that beams of light could physically move
small particles of matter, I considered it “proof ”
that Joseph Smith’s many heavenly visitors, who
were often described as arriving in glowing pillars
of light, knew how to ride the light rail, too.
(Among these visitors were Adam, Abraham,
Moses, Elijah, and Elias from the Old Testament;
Peter, James, John, and Paul from the New
Testament; Nephi, Mormon, Alma, and Moroni
from the Book of Mormon; and, in the 1820 vision
that started it all, God the Father and Jesus Christ.)
My Sunday School teacher, a chemist, once said,
“Of course Jesus could walk on water! He knew
how to manipulate surface tension. If he wanted
to, he could walk through walls by rearranging the
empty space in atoms.” In 1992, scientists detected
the pulsar Lich; it was not the first pulsar ever
discovered, but it was the first observed instance of
Earth-sized exoplanets orbiting another star. Maybe
we weren’t crazy after all for believing in the planet
Kolob or believing that God would eventually give
to the righteous, as gods themselves in the afterlife,
the power to create their own stars and planets. The
first planet I would create, I decided one Sunday,
would have variable gravity so I could hike up the
highest mountain, throw myself off the top, and
float gently back to the ground. I didn’t see my
projected ascension to godhood and the creation
of these new worlds as greedy, blasphemous, or
delusional; I saw it as the natural birthright of God’s
children, like a son inheriting his father’s business. It
was a promise extended to anyone willing to come
unto Christ—even women and (after 1978) anyone
of any skin color.
Science and religion went hand in hand in many
other ways. One of Joseph Smith’s revelations
said that the elements are eternal, which meant
Mormons had no quarrel with the law of conserva-
tion of energy and generally rejected the ex nihilo
creation doctrine many other Christians believed.
(We were flexible on the definition of a “day,” too,
in the creation story, so the accepted geological
age of the Earth, as defined by isotope-studying
geologists, never clashed with Genesis; seven
“days” might mean 4.5 billion years.) Neither did

Mormons object to a universe filled with increasing

disorder, as defined by the second law of thermody-

namics, which says that any ordered system tends to

dissolve into chaos over time. Hugh Nibley testified

in Temple and Cosmos that it was only through

Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection that we

could ultimately be saved from this degenerative

process of entropy. God was the Creator, but he

had to live by his own laws, too, so the idea of

science opposing our religion seemed laughable.

And if non-Mormon archeologists hadn’t

found incontrovertible evidence proving that the

Book of Mormon was a true record from ancient

American inhabitants, that was okay—maybe the

archeologists were looking in the wrong places,

or maybe God wanted us to live by faith and not

evidence. The Book of Mormon itself contained

multiple warnings for those who questioned God

and demanded proof of gospel truths. In one epic

confrontation, Korihor, an anti-Christ, goads the

prophet Alma:

And now Korihor said unto Alma: If thou wilt show

me a sign, that I may be convinced that there is a God,

yea, show unto me that he hath power, and then will I

be convinced of the truth of thy words.

But Alma said unto him: Thou hast had signs

enough; will ye tempt your God? Will ye say, Show

unto me a sign, when ye have the testimony of all

these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The

scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote

there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that

are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and

also all the planets which move in their regular form

do witness that there is a Supreme Creator. (Alma

30:43–44)

The very grandeur and complexity of the

cosmos—despite its degenerative and destructive

nature—bore witness of God’s power, before I had

ever heard anything about teleological arguments,

watchmakers, or David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning

Natural Religion. Any argument against the existence

of God meant that someone was looking for

trouble and an excuse to sin. Doubt was the foil of

faith, sent from the devil to weaken and confuse us.

Already struck mute by Alma’s God-given power,

Korihor goes begging for food and is trampled to