5. And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently

I always had an interest in religions. My interest in Hinduism began mostly by looking at the strange pictures in the Krishna Books that my brother picked up in college. When I attended BYU I routinely listened to the Krishna station there while sometimes finding humor in the presentation. I didn't act much upon my interest during the 90's as my wife and I were busy becoming established and doing our callings in the church. At some point I became interested in Patristics, or the study of the Early Church Fathers of Christianity. I'm not exactly sure what sparked it. I remember a site created by a fellow LDS author that attempted to connect LDS teachings with the ECF. I distinctly remember downloading the Pre-Nicean documents and storing it on a floppy disk. I also started to look at LDS history. One of the things I remember was finding the text of the Nauvoo Expositor, the newspaper whose destruction eventually landed Joseph Smith in jail. While I hadn't put any analytic energy towards the incident, I remember thinking that there wasn't anything in the Expositor that was untruthful. It must have been that JS didn't want that information out in public. At the time, I couldn't see JS's actions as covering up any sins or misdeeds. I was still enamored of his teachings.

There is a saying in LDS apologetics as "putting things on the shelf". Those are the issues that come up while studying that we can't find a good answer to, or are challenging to one's belief. You "put it on the shelf" hoping that some time later there will be an answer or explanation. I had just started building my shelf. The Expositor and Joseph's reaction were the first issues I distinctly remember setting aside to tackle later.

All this time, I always considered that it was my fault that I didn't enjoy the services of the church. I always put the pressure on myself for these things. The temple wasn't exactly the most spiritual experience for me, and I just didn't understand the underlying ideas. I figured more experience would teach me these things. Indeed, I started to develop some intricate ideas, assuming that these things came from God. Apologetics seemed to help some of my questions.

The more I studied, the more I came to terms with the difficulties that religion posed. The problem of Evil, injustice, the nature of sin, the meaning of inspiration. I tried to understand it all, to make sense of those things that just didn't want to mesh with reality. In many ways, I have always been a humanist or fatalist. I just didn't think that God interacted with humanity all that much. The fingerprints just weren't there. But here I was a member of a church that teaches that God is involved intricately with people's lives. I had some huge issues to try and answer. The shelf kept getting more populated. My studies of other religions helped me see the humanity underlying it all. I started thinking that mankind can convince itself of whatever it wants to. I still didn't see that I was convinced of something that just wasn't true, but I think I was firmly transitioning to Fowler's Stages of Faith stage 3 to stage 4. If you even start to ask questions, you are moving into stage 4.

I started getting more involved with LDS Apologetics. I even found out of my first child's adoption while attending the first conference of FAIR in Utah. I was just starting to get involved in other message boards where I interfaced with members of other faiths. My most active was at Christians Online and I developed some friendships there. I was still firmly LDS, but I was beginning to see the wisdom and points of view of others. I was very devoted at this time to learning as much as I could as my questions were becoming more complex, more informed.