sometimes i feel so strongly (like today, obviously) that if i just read the book of mormon, everything will be okay, i can figure out the church or at least figure out the gospel in such a way that i could do my thing and be a completely faithful member and live my life. i mean, this is a promise made not to mormon people but to the entire world: read the book, pray, experiment upon the word, and you will know that it's true.

BUT WAIT. there's more. if you do this and haven't received an answer, it doesn't mean the church isn't true. it means you have to keep waiting. OR. it means you already knew it was true silly! and eventually you will come full circle and see your failure to recognize this.

there is sarcasm coming in now but this is the biggest catch 22 for me. i can read the book of mormon to know if the church is true. fine good great. despite my potty mouth and my bad attitude and my defensiveness and irreverence, i am 100% willing to honestly do this and do everything right in order to find out if the church is true. but it just doesn't actually work like that, so i don't do it. but how do i know that if i haven't tried it (in my current state)? but if i do it and i don't get an answer, i can't say that i know the church isn't true because -see above-.

the idea of confirmation bias has both strengthened and weakened considerably my testimony. on the one hand, the idea of confirmation bias can be empowering because it essentially means we can teach ourselves to become what we want to become. take for example prayer. in the church they say prayer is a way of aligning our will to god's. i think this is a shitty and overused way of saying that by thinking about god and creating a communication with him/her/them in our mind, we make ourselves more aware of all the moral situations in our lives and are more conscious of how we should do good. so we think god is answering us but we're really answering ourselves based on what we know about god, even if that knowledge is limited, and therefore become more like him/her/them. which is NOT the same thing as "waiting for an answer from god" in my mind. it is an ingenious tool given to faithful people that allows them to fix themselves. this is literally the same as "i teach them correct principles and they govern themselves," which is not something talked about enough in the church.

at the same time, i must admit that i'm not sure how a psychologist could believe in god. it seems to me that religion is humankind's greatest, most grand and destructive instance of confirmation bias. if someone is looking for "a reason" in their life and they want to find it, they will. this especially goes for people who do stupid, asinine things and hold on to traditions and insist that traditions are the gospel but they are missing the ENTIRE point. they have confirmation biased themselves--with good feelings (burning in the bosom, feeling the spirit), false pattern recognition or seeing good things happen because X equals Y, surrounding themselves with like-minded people--into believing that THEY ARE RIGHT. they have to defend these incorrect beliefs, and see it as 100% all or nothing, because if what they believe in is fallible then their guiding star doesn't actually exist and, essentially, their entire lives and every self-esteeming idea they have about themselves are in question and ultimately WRONG.

i don't mean to say that someone can confirmation bias themselves about god. no, not god. i've had experiences i can't deny, and i know god is real. (again, subjectivity of "knowing", but for me, it undeniable.) but one or two experiences that confirm the existence of god for me don't ACTUALLY say ANYTHING about the LDS church, especially when god was notably silent during my time as a believing mormon, most especially when i was trying hard to seek guidance, heed counsel, and listen to heaven (aka i didn't hear a thing). which major should i choose? what should i do with my life? should i marry this person? no answers to any of these, the biggest questions in life. at the time, i took this as a testimony strengthener and was willing to believe: the god i had faith in had faith in ME to choose my path. how empowering is that!

one of the biggest rules in literature and writing is that you have to focus on what the text ACTUALLY says. not what is implied or may or may not be true, but what is actually on the page. so even though i know god exists, it doesn't help me solve my faith crisis in this church because it's a completely logically valid idea that god could exist and the church could not be true.

so i have two choices:

1 - live the gospel and find out it's true (which could possibly be me convincing myself eventually) or else wait for an answer that it's true until the day i die.

2 - somehow give it up or transform it for myself and do what follows.

okay, i have three choices:

3 - go on living like this and have no idea the f about anything and pretending like everything is fine, acting mormon enough to get by.

at the beginning of my faith crisis i went with the "i've forgotten it's true" / "i already know it's true since i once knew it's true so i'm just being a bad person" route. but at what point does a person come out of that? if i can't seek to know if the church is true because i already knew it then how will i ever actually know it's true again, won't i just be convincing myself based on a memory (oh and by the way memories are completely subjective and unreliable)?

again, despite my potty mouth and my bad attitude and my defensiveness and irreverence, i am a person who's EXTREMELY willing to admit what i don't know a la neil degrasse tyson (polygamy, women in the church, all the other issues i don't need to list here) and embrace what i do know (or could know: that the church is true) and let that be enough. mormons and masons? no problem, it can fit in the gospel. science? (ok that is general, but you know what i mean) no problem. completely compatible with the LDS church. and on and on. but what do i do, as a person who is willing to be led, when the church won't lead me?

it seems the obvious answer is to say, "JUST GO FOR IT. if it's true, you'll know. stop worrying about this intellectual stuff and just try it. it's true. try it. just try it." but that, to me, is walking blindly and willingly into very potentially the bad kind of confirmation bias and saying that neither i nor god has any accountability or reason.