Neurosurgeons Are Going To Hell

In seminary this year, some students are learning about Noah's flood.  One student asked the seminary teacher why God killed all the wicked of Noah's time and told Nephi to kill Laban, but spared genocidal mass murderers?

When Nephi was commanded to kill Laban, that it is better that one man perishes than a whole nation “dwindles” in unbelief, God traded the brain of Laban for the brains of a nation.  You see, God could have, in his omnipotent manner slightly, just perceptibly altered the brain of Laban, when he was drunk on the street, so that he forgot all about Nephi and his brothers coming for the Plates of Brass. God can change brain cells.  Easily.

But no.  Free will—the altercation of a few brain cells—was far more untouchable to God than the actual life of Laban.  Nephi had to kill Laban so that God didn’t have to touch Laban’s brain  Yes, he could have eradicated Laban’s memory in his drunken state.  But tinkering with his memory and free will is apparently a bigger line to cross than murdering Laban and completely eradicating his future free will.  As long as Nephi did it.  God is in the clear!

When Noah asked God to spare humanity, it repented God (or if you’re Joseph Smith, it repented Noah to ask God) of thinking of eradicating a billion humans.  (We can safely assume that if in the 6000 years since Noah we went from 8 persons to almost 8 billion, that in the 2000 years of Adam to Noah, there were probably a billion nomadic, sinful, Sodomy filled humans ripe for destruction.)  God would never tamper with so many free wills, so he had to eliminate them.  Lest they sin more and more and become so intellectually godless that they never allow a soul to be saved.

So God killed them all. 

There is no tampering with free will.  Neurosurgeons be warned.  Don’t tamper with those brains. Alter those personalities. Change those temperaments.

For that matter, psychiatrists, psychologist, psychics, sociologists, and even bishops beware.  Wait, bishops are okay to judge and alter members' thinking.  Bishops, seminary teachers, deacon advisors, Miamaid instructors, primary leaders and the like—you’re all fine.  You can alter free will.  You can dive right in and tell a toddler that Joseph Smith was inspired while hiding his polygamy.  You can exact ten-percent of tithing while not declaring that the LDS church is a corporation.  You can send them on "soul saving" missions while knowing that Africans are starving, bone-thin skeletons.  That kind of brain tampering is okey-dokey.

God, however, cannot cross a line of taking away a memory, such as with Laban.  God cannot tinker with free will, such as with a pre-flood billion of humanity.  He must kill them instead.  Hitler too.  Stalin and Mao as well.  Let them kill the masses if their free will gets out of bounds.  Laban—deserved to die.  Stalin, Mao and Hitler, well, they had free will and God couldn’t supersede to have them killed before nations upon nations dwindled in bloody unbelief.  He couldn't intercede to subtly change the mind of mass genocidal murderers.  You understand his godly omnipotence, I’m sure.

But wait, hasn’t God changed memories already?  Isn’t there a verse that says something about the Holy Ghost helping you to remember all things, to “bring all things to your remembrance” (John 14:26)? 

There’s also that story about the Nephite prisoners held by the Lamanites in Alma 55.  Moroni’s guys brought them wine and “they did take of the wine freely”.  Freely—free will.   Shame shame.  Word of wisdom be damned.  The righteous can tempt the evil.   Then the guards in their drunken stupor and deep sleep were unable to stop the escape.  Laban was drunk. Maybe Nephi hadn’t brought the wine, but he found the sword.  With Moroni’s men, however, “the Nephites could have slain them” yet Moroni didn’t want that. 

So wait, God got Nephites to use wine to get the Lamanites stupid.  Surely there’s some kind of free will breech here.  The Lamanites were pretty forgetful about what happened and never really succeeded in winning against the Nephites who were “slow to remember” their past.  The point being, God helped inebriate Lamanites to free Nephites who were slow to remember God.  WTF?

What about the righteous?  Does God play with their free will and memories?  You bet.  It’s a part of the LDS Doctrine that if you ponder on something false, that’s  “not right you …shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong” (D&C 9:9).  In other words, God makes the righteous stupid.  He plays with the free will of the righteous all the time.

Laban—you’re dead dude because you’ll remember to do bad stuff. 

Nephi—you’ll just forget false stuff.

The saying goes, God doesn't play with dice.  Apparently not with scalpels either.

Neurosurgeons, psychiatrists and psychologists who play with memory, you better be a damned good judge of who’s righteous and who’s evil.  You may end up in hell.  God doesn’t play loosely with this stuff like you do.

Hitler, you’re in the clear, apparently, unlike Laban.  At least, that's the message one student got in seminary.