Hello all,

I stumbled across this site through listening to Point of Inquiry, which I’ve found to be thoroughly entertaining.

I am a secular Mormon who was raised by goodly parents who taught me some things of their God. I graduated from BYU, served a mission for the LDS church to Panama and was healed of cancer while there through a Priesthood blessing. I reached the office of Elder and served in many leadership positions before beginning to question the claims of my childhood religion. My questioning lasted about half a year until I just couldn’t explain away the mountain of evidence against the claims of the church. My belief in God and all things Jesus discontinued about 2 months after that.

I’m now a non-believer in things religious but I still feel there is a spiritual part of us that can truly appreciate the beauty of nature and how lucky we are to even exist. My approach to the religion issue is that we should allow them their time in the sun and that the light of reason will continually reduce its power over the minds of men. Making religious discussions an unacceptable social behavior only helps religion, in that it is then immune from questioning except for those who are portrayed as attacking it. My experience with the LDS church reinforces my view since its approach is to discourage public discourse or scrutiny of its teachings and doctrines. I don’t think free thinkers should buy into this.

Finally, I’m a Civil Engineer, I like to ride my Suzuki DRZ 400S on Sundays, and most everyone I know and associate with are believers in the prophet Joseph Smith. I’ve got a beautiful wife and three crazy kids that I really enjoy.

Welcome to the forum, AntSlice. Good to have you here. It would be interesting to get more info on just precisely what went on while you were told you were being “healed of cancer” by words; as I expect you are aware now, there is no evidence for the effect of intercessionary prayer. Some cancers, however, do go into spontaneous remission.

Welcome AntSlice.  Glad to have you here.  Jump right in and join us. 

Well, welcome antslice (it is an unusual nick, isn’t it? I would have guessed you were a biologist or something around it, after all, they are the ones slicing everything to fit under their microscopes).
Anyway, I see well where you’re coming from. I came from a family creed almost as bad. Baltic Catholics. St. Kazymierz (Casimir) et al. Teutonic Knights, you name it,… including some skeletons in the closet, companions of Henry de Bruys and the heretic movements in Southern France and Pyrenean Spain. Anyway, my family was always in friendly terms with the Catholic Hierarchy. I mean real friendly. Sharing dinners et al. You could find a Bishop or two lurking in the corridors when I was growing up.
Interestingly, you and I share Engineering (I worked for some contracts with Hercules re MX missiles and was a usual visitor in SLC) as a background. I wonder what makes us to dwell so often in these subjects of spirituality. I see what you mean, no belief in gods, but feeling that there is much more than a mechanical relation between functions of our biological being. Then we are off in a search that gets blasted both ways, theists and atheists turn their aim against us.
Furthermore, I healed from a cancer. By natural means, no treatment. Searching within for the cause of it and working to change the conditions that produced it. It went in remission in 1987. In 2005 a complete check up pronounced me still free of any recurrence. I just use the memory to keep me vigilant about my own destructive tendencies, but there is very little worry, as the conditions aren’t there anymore. However, an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.
Again, I am looking forward to find more about your thoughts.
Frank

Sounds like the cancer healing was of interest...here’s some additional details.

I had been diagnosed with a certainty of about 80% based on tests performed at a modern hospital in Panama City (Hospital Paitilla). The tests included blood work, bone marrow extraction, and an x-ray of my lymph system after pumping my lymph system full on some substance that would allow the x-ray. My doctor said the next step was to get a biopsy of my liver or kidney, I don’t remember which. However, since this proceedure had an additional element of risk, and me being in a foreign country, it was decided (my parents, the mission president, the LDS church) that I would return to Utah to finish up the tests.

Before I left my mission president gave me a priesthood blessing and rebuked the cancer.

I felt at the time that I really wanted him to heal me in a strong and powerful way. What I remember from the experience was a very strong and focused desire on my part to be healed but I didn’t experience anything extraordinary beyond that.

I returned to Utah not knowing what would happen and I went to a local cancer specialist who did some blood work and took more marrow (not a fun thing). He also tried to get a bone chip from my hip but my bones were too hard and the nerve stimulation that happens during this proceedure was too intense and so that was it. His opinion based on what he did test was that I did not have cancer.

I don’t know if I had cancer before or not. It has been over 20 years so I’m assuming I don’t have cancer now. My guess is that I never had cancer but that I was fatigued and jaundiced due to lack of sleep, not enough fruits and vegetables, and too much stress. I personally don’t feel that I was healed by any supernatural power...I had my doubts even before I left my religious beliefs behind.

AntSlice