How certain would I be if...

Rating belief certainty from 1 to 10.

1. There is no God. Its stupid to think that life was organized by some kind of intelligence. And I feel that I have some kind of proof or extreme logic that demonstrates the "Godlessness" of the universe.

2. between 1 and 3

3. I am reasonably think that there probably is no God. Of course I cant prove this, but I'm pretty sure about it.

4. between 3 and 5

5. I am totally on the fence. I see two conflicting and arguably equal arguments and I see no way to choose between them because I lack evidence or logic that would tip the scales in one way or the other.

6. between 5 and 7

7. I reasonably think that there probably is a God. Of course I cant prove this and I am unsure of the details.

8. between 7 and 9

9. There is a God. I have researched this extensively and have found sufficient evidence from multiple sources to be reasonably sure that God exists.

10. I have seen God face to face and I was awake when it happened.

Okay, now to answer your original question. This is a really tough one to answer. Id like to say, as you would like to say that I would be at a 5 (totally objective and open), but the human mind is not objective and it doesn’t like existing in a state of indecision-- its uncomfortable.

So my answer is this: “It depends”. But its not just one answer, because there have been critical pivot points. In this process, I can see how it all breaks down into stages and at each stage the question you asked could be asked again about that set of events.

So here is the whole answer with questions at each stage:

1). What if *others* who I deeply respected and trusted didn’t make their recommendation?

My original reading of the Book of Mormon was because of the experiences of *others* (my brother Doug, Dad, random people I know from church etc.), who claimed experiences which I could not understand and encouraged me to read the book of Mormon and see what happened. The people that made the recommendation for reading where people who I deeply respected in every way. If they had been sexist, racist, homophobic or hypocritical (for example, had been declaring everything as “satanic” but then frequently doing the same things that they called satanic), or if I perceived them to be close-minded, or not well informed… I probably would have had significantly diminished faith (trust) in their recommendations and likely would not have prayerfully read every day for months.

2). What if I didn’t diligently read with sincere and real intent?

If I did not take their advice seriously, I woudn’t have taken the book I was reading seriously, and if I had not taken the book seriously—(failing to read it with deep intent and purpose), I would not have taken the promptings that came to me as I read seriously.

3). What if I didn’t make those changes I felt instructed/guided to make in my life?

For example, when I read with strong intentions to better my life and seek for God, I started make changes in my life, to seek revelation, to direct my thoughts towards God, to stop entertaining perverted sexual thoughts about girls I was attracted, to abstain from pornography or from sexually intimate relationships with girls I had crushes on; to go out of my way to help everyone I could in every way possible, to publicly share my testimony of what I was experiencing; to seek out people who were in need of friendship etc.

4). What if I did not experience a profound change of life?

I also started experiencing profound peace, love, empathy, joy, patience and all kind of other wonderful feelings. I was so full of happiness, but I also experienced assurances—almost like awareness of the reality of the truth of the things I was reading, but gaining deeper insights beyond the words.

5). What if I did not experience any interactions with God?

After months of following every prompting I could to the best of my ability—I finally had the first of a long string of the most impactful experiences (observations) of my life. Most of these experiences have been too sacred to share, which has been very difficult for me because people come to conclusions that I know are not correct, but there is no way for them to know without information that I am not permitted to share with them. I watched this happen with my cousin, then with my best friend, then with my Brother, now with you.

6). What if I did not try to understand the positions of others?

Because so many of my close loved ones left their faith, I started really trying to understand what they were thinking (my friend close friend was particularly upsetting to me, because he is one of the most good and intelligent people I have ever met and I respect and admire him tremendously).  I wanted to know why and how someone could think this way that was so drastically different from myself. So, I started reading lots of material from websites that are antagonistic about the church and theology in general. What I read presented a completely different paradigm which I had only lightly researched previously in my life. With all of my  research (amounting to uncounted hours and hundreds of pages reading books and websites that most members are encouraged not to read), I discovered (attempting to think from the perspectives of others) that there is a large set of historical accounts in contradiction to the narrative I believed as well as logical reasoning, parallel and confounding sets of witnesses and alternate explanations for “spiritual experiences”  that all together formulated a strong case to conclude that everything about theology was false.

As I read these things, part of me wanted to just reject them because they contradicted my prior experiences, views and research and observations. But I felt morally bound to be open minded and to be as objective as I possibly could be… so I did the opposite-- I assumed them ALL to be true and accurate unless substantially proven otherwise. My entire view of the leaders of the church I grew up in changed. I now had sufficient evidence and logic that, if I wanted, I could leave the church and all of theology—writing off my experiences and observations as delusion. I was in a position of ambivalence. I had a big stack of evidences, logic and witnesses, and then a big stack of opposing evidences, logic and witnesses. This was a hard period of time for me because of the intense uncertainty that I felt. My extreme drive to be open minded and objective and led me to embrace lots of data that contradicted all of the earlier experiences of my life. I became agnostic. I still acted like a believer, but in a deep conversation, I would readily admit that both arguments had equally compelling logic and evidences. I was stuck in a stale mate on the fence of uncertainty. After a 6 hour conversation with an atheist friend, I decided that I needed to be fair and objective. To truly understand a perspective, I needed to try to adopt it. One night, after not attending church for a month, I lay in a bed in Wisconsin, far from my family. I tried to mentally and emotionally embrace atheism. I tried to persuade myself of atheism. I felt like I was swallowing a large object. I put it in my mouth, allowed it to become covered in saliva. I tried to break it down with my teeth, but was unsuccessful to make it any smaller. Finally I engaged the swallowing muscles. It began going down my esophagus—but it got stuck in my throat. My mind could not take it. It offered no nutritional value. It seeped with poison. It contradicted my own observations and the observations of everyone that I knew and trusted. It offered nothing to me and it took everything from me. I required me to throw observations in the garbage because they did not align with the underlying theory, and according to my understanding, this was “bad science”. I could see that adopting atheism would not make me more open minded—it would make me more close minded. I saw nothing virtuous about it, especially since there was no logical way to disprove theology, and in that way, atheism was illogical. It closed doors without opening anything.  Agnosticism was as far as I go with my integrity and sanity intact. But being agnostic isn’t a position. It isn’t something that you can base your life on. It is the absence of a position. I needed more data.

7). What if I had not sought for more information?

I needed to further evaluate the history of the claims that I had grown up with. At this point, I had accepted lists of claims against the church and its leaders as factual. The time it takes to look up and cross check data and sources and then see if these alternate contrary explanations fit into a larger narrative that made sense holistically is MUCH more time consuming than the time it takes to just read a piece of literature. I put in the time. I started reading church history every book I could get my hands on. I started looking up both sides of every argument on the internet. I started trying to place all of these pieces of information into a logical larger narrative: fraud, insanity, or truth… or some kind of combination. When I started trying to fit together the criticisms, some of them fit under one narrative, but didn’t hold up under others. Although some of the criticisms made sense in context to the whole, many of the criticisms which I had previously adopted… no longer fit, and when I did research on the sources of some of these criticisms that did not fit, it became readily apparent that the source itself was highly subject to scrutiny.  An example of pieces not fitting included fitting the Joseph Smith family somewhere. Where they in on the fraud? Where they imbeciles? Where they collectively insane? When I finally read the stacks of books on church history and accounts of Josephs Family members and others, I began to see that the truth was often somewhere between the criticisms and the white-washed history I grew up with. I started to see these people as people, in the context of events and the lives that surrounded them. When all of the history was viewed chronologically, it made sense in context to itself. Even the criticisms started to fit into their place and make sense. This whole experience largely destroyed the fence I was sitting on. Both feet were firmly—logically, intellectually, and spiritually founded on the firm ground of faith. Not the exact faith that I grew up with, with all of its white-washing and ambiguity, but the faith on a reality that was tangible and real. My new faith was a bright fire to me, and it gave me light and warmth. I had gone to that other place, and come back again. Nothing could feel so sweet. But this thirst for knowledge had just given me a taste for more. I still had so many unanswered questions. I now needed to see if my religious upbringing and personal experiences fit into the narrative of the recorded history of the earth.

 8). What if I did not choose to research other theological perspectives?

I started reading lists of books on the subjects of theology and history. I broadened my search as diversely as I could. Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism.  I read as much as I could. Every spare moment I had, I was reading. I have found from my studies that multitudes of individuals, extending over all of recorded history, on nearly every continent have made observations that align with the theory of Theism and also align with my personal observations and experiences as well as the experiences and observations of the people that I know and trust. The bible taught be the gospel of Jesus Christ, but other theologies enriched everything about them and put them in context. The Hindu Bhagavad Gita taught me why it was the gospel, and what that means in ways that I had never imagined. The Buddhist Dhammapada showed me how to practically live that gospel in ways that I had not previously understood. Everything about theology gained greater depth and meaning. That same fire that warmed me and brought me light has been there in so many forms all over the world, in every continent, through all of human history.

So, now the original question is broken up into 8 questions:

1). What if *others* who I deeply respected and trusted didn’t make their recommendation?

Probably would have been atheist. That seems like the default if parents don’t believe these days.

2). What if I didn’t diligently read with sincere and real intent?

Probably between a 2-3

3). What if I didn’t make those changes I felt instructed/guided to make in my life?

Probably between a 3-4

4). What if I did not experience a profound change of life?

Then I probably would have been in the church for social reasons (believed it because the people around me believed it), but never gained any deeper reasoning. I probably would have been somewhat promiscuous and delved into pornography or something like that because the temptation would have been greater than my reasons to resist it. As an adult, depending on my circumstances, I would probably make whatever decision seemed to benefit me the most socially—If I was in a relationship with someone who believed, I would believe. If all of my friends believed, I would believe. But if those social reasons were not there, then I would have probably eventually left.

But sat between a 4-5

5). What if I did not experience any interactions with God?

So we are assuming that I DID have a positive change in my life, but no God-interactions… Id probably stay in the church because it made me happy, but be somewhere between a 5-6 in confidence

6). What if I did not try to understand the positions of others?

So this is assuming that I DID have God-interactions, but never investigated anti-mormon claims… Id probably be a 9—but ignorantly so.

7). What if I had not sought for more information?

So this is assuming that I did investigate anti-mormon stuff, but I did not look up the answers… Id probably be a 5 or 6. Id have known that these beliefs made me happy and that I had experiences, but be in logical conflict about it.

8). What if I did not choose to research other theological perspectives?

So this is assuming that I DID look up all the answers and did all of the church history but did NOT look into other religions to find the confirmations of the observations all over the world throughout history.

Probably a 7-8

Well I did do all of those thing, so I am sitting at about a 8-9