I'm No longer a "Thinking Mormon"

...and I guess I haven't been for awhile now. To better understand where I'm coming from, I guess I should explain what I mean by "thinking" Mormon.

Essentially, it is a Mormon who thinks about Mormonism on a logical, rather than on an emotional or spiritual level.

For example, "Why did Joseph Smith marry such young girls?" or "Why was the priesthood withheld from blacks?"

While the answer might be, "Because God said so," the question then becomes, "Why would God say so?"

For me, it used to be enjoyable to theorize about such things. But I find that as I age, my testimony grows naturally. And believe me, it's not because I'm accepting heavy callings, going to the temple a lot, or attending church all the time. In fact, I haven't been to Elder's Quorum in several months, I skip church altogether regularly simply because I'm not in the mood to go, and I've been to the temple once (two years ago) in about the last 4 or 5 years.

Ever since my conversion (the point at which I received a visitation from the Holy Ghost and gained a real testimony... a "true" knowledge), which happened when I was about 23 years old, my testimony has just grown on its own. Because I put virtually no effort into it, that growth has been quite slow. But it's definitely there nonetheless.

As my testimony grew and grew, I found myself more and more not caring about why things are the way they are. It is becoming enough for me to say, "God said so, and that's what really matters." Antis (anti-Mormons) will tell me that I'm being brainwashed. I find that hard to believe.

I've been through military brainwash sessions, and I have a pretty good idea of when someone or something is attempting to brainwash me. Furthermore, one has to be present for the brainwashing to be fully effective. Since I attend church less now than I did as a teenager (when my mind was far more susceptible to suggestion), I don't buy the anti argument that I'm being brainwashed.

I went to a MySpace.com discussion group about Mormonism. I hadn't been there in a while and I thought I'd pop in and make a comment just to let people know that I'm still around. But as I began reading other comments, looking for a place where I could contribute, I began to realize that I hardly cared anymore.

There were many arguments being made that, at one time, would have held a great interest for me. I would have enjoyed jawing with them about theories, whys, what-hows and so on.

But I started seeing many of the posts become meaningless to me. I didn't care that other people had these huge arguments "proving" or "disproving" points of Mormonism. Other arguments just started to seem plain silly to me. To me, for the first time, it was beginning to be enough that "God said so." So I resigned from all my Mormon discussion groups.

The natural curiosity about how the universe works and why God does some of the things he does shall remain. But a large portion of things that, in the end, don't really matter will have little place in my life anymore.

Rather, since the Holy Ghost is a much smarter character than I, I'll look to him for wisdom and guidance.