I had a conversation yesterday with at teacher about dealing with sensitive topics in literature. Euthanasia was brought up. I said I would have my students find out what their religion had to say about it. She didn’t think it was a good idea to bring up religion. I told her that my religion would decide it for me. She felt that there were situations where euthanasia might be right and that the students ought to grapple with the question. I wished later that there was a better way to explain the certainty I felt in following prophets.This morning I was reminded of a talk by Elder Faust. In it he quoted President Kimball saying “If pain and sorrow and total punishment immediately followed the doing of evil, no soul would repeat a misdeed. If joy and peace and rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there could be no evil—all would do good and not because of the rightness of doing good. There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers, no free agency. … There would also be an absence of joy, success, resurrection, eternal life, and godhood.”
He also said “Now all this suffering might indeed be unfair if everything ended at death, but it doesn’t. Life is not like a one-act play. It has three acts….”
I felt bad that my friend might never read these words…and that she would bring up problems without connecting students to the peace that would come with real answers. If I had a chance to do it again, I would tell her that this life is a test and that how we endured suffering had a great impact on the final grade. She would probably not pursue my reasoning but she might better understand why I found my answers in my religion. (See Moroni 10:4-5)
(The views written in this post are the views of the author and do not necessarily represent The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
