2. Men Are That They Might Have Joy

My reading of the Book of Mormon was done in a very short time. I attacked the book with gusto. I wanted to know about it, more to find out what about it I disagreed with than to determine what I agreed with. About 2/3 of the way through, I thought to myself, "This is the strongest testimony of Christ I've ever read." I was sold, but I was also at a point in my life when I wanted to know more about Christ, more about God.

There were still some things that I had to work out. I didn't like the services. I wasn't sold on the programs of the church. I really didn't have all that much in common with most others in the church. I was more of a logical, geeky guy. I wanted facts, science...and Mormonism very much holds to a magical world view. I did want that too. I wanted miracles. I wanted visions, dreams, etc. The church had them all over. I did want a piece of that. My own prayers on things like that weren't being answered either so perhaps the church could help me with that.

I finished my reading of the Book of Mormon (BoM) and I can't recall ever receiving an answer to Moroni's promise.

3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

 4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

 5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

I didn't do that specifically because I didn't feel that I needed to. I liked the book. Even though I wasn't sold at the time on the culture or church surrounding the book, I did like the book.

I never felt the need to re-read the BoM. I figured out later that it probably had something to do with my memory. I have a decent one and once I read something, I very rarely feel the desire to re-read it. In fact, it kind of annoys me. That was something of a problem when I hit the internet boards in the 2000s because I couldn't stand proof-texting. I just never liked repetition of books or even verses.

My biggest positive take-aways from the book were

• A Fortunate Fall. Adam fell that men might be. Men are that they might have joy. In other words, God didn't have an error when Adam fell. It was part of the story.
• Jesus cared about the whole world and preached accordingly. This painted a much larger picture of the gospel than was had before. 
• "The blood of the saints shall cry from the ground against them". This concept of retribution helped me deal with the injustices of the world, and not just those of the christian faith.
• Angels and visions and the world of magic are part and parcel of faith in God.

My negatives of the time with the book specifically

• No evidence of the events of this book ever really occurring, no location for the events even attempted. I still liked facts, something I could point to.
• All the repeating of the NT and OT teachings. If this was a different culture, why did it have all the same stuff as modern christian culture?
• It was poorly written. Events and thoughts were jumbled and contradictory. The prose was so bad that it more than once failed to keep my attention.
• The church as I knew it didn't quite match up to what was written. It was hard to put my hand on at the time, but the church in the BoM was a bit more evangelistic, outward focused. For a very simple example, perhaps too simple; We are warned against costly apparel, yet we were to wear our finest clothes to church. I know that might not mean much, but I was a very discerning person even then.

I committed myself to this church and I decided to minimize the things I didn't like because I felt it had a good pattern of life for me to lead. I still was wrestling against it in other ways. My brother sent me a few books, "Doctrines of Salvation". I tore into them too. I was greatly disturbed by them. The president of the church that wrote them was clearly against science in any and all forms. The earth was only 7000 years old (no, it is much, much older), Evolution is wrong (while I didn't believe in it and still have issues with it, the evidence is there), and some other issues I cant remember right now. While I liked the teachings of the church, this was craziness. I didn't feel the love of Christ in it's pages. This was written by a president of the church, one of the guys who supposedly talks to God. I had a real problem there.

I also picked up a book called "The Miracle of Forgiveness" which I thought was a horrible book. I never felt so guilty, so unworthy of any consideration after reading that book. Look, I was a 16 year old boy. I had sins. I had sins all over. I had the sin of testosterone pumping into my bloodstream at a good rate. I liked girls and my mind wandered and that was adultery (or fornication) and that is next to murder.....I can't tell you how bad that book made me feel. I actually had to forgive myself for reading it and pretend it never happened because I just couldn't live with what a bad person I was.

As a side note, I do now think that the concept of "sin" is particularly damaging to people. To codify it, measure it and remedy it is a bad thing to do. It separates people. It is damaging to our normal social selves. It was very damaging to me and my relationships of those years. It has colored my thinking since and I am not proud of that. Mistakes are a part of life. We don't need to punish it. We need to get over it.

So there it really was. I started my journey into mormondom. I wasn't all that comfortable, but I was 16. I wasn't comfortable doing anything.