Skeptical

One thing that I know sometimes bothers my wife is how much of a skeptic I am.  My first reaction to any new idea or information is skepticism.  I immediately refute it, look for facts that give me cause to disbelieve.  I have been trained in an academic discipline in which negative questioning and searching for counterexamples is held in high regard.  However, if you give me time, new information and ideas do eventually change and shape my worldview.



Mormonism was one of my first big tests.  I would not believe the truth of the church's teachings if I didn't find very good reasons to believe, and although my experiences are rather personal, believe me when I say that I do know that the gospel of Jesus Christ, as taught by the LDS church, is true.

Many ideas within the realm of gay Mormondom raise flags of skepticism for me.  Most of them are argued without logically sound underpinnings, and the data referred to is often biased or insufficient to answer the questions.  This is true of both sides of most discussions on these subjects.  In some sense, that's alright.  I know of nobody that actually makes decisions based on pure logic.  Everybody makes decisions based on desire and gut instinct.  That's how our human brains are wired.  We can't get out of it.  We use logic and reasoning to justify our decisions, not to make them.  (I suspect this is why the Holy Spirit often speaks to us on an emotional or instinctual level, because that is where our decisions really come from.)

My gut instinct is still to reject ideas that I hear.  That's why I question so many commonly held beliefs about homosexuality.  It's my natural reaction.  I need to know why those beliefs are held and be able to question the methodology that was used to draw those conclusions.  I need to examine the biases of the researchers (we all have them, you know) and look into what would have happened if opposite or conflicting questions were asked.  In what other ways could the results be interpreted.

The unfortunate side effect of this is that I sometimes come across as antagonistic, a naysayer, or a pessimist.  I don't think of myself as such, but sometimes it happens.  I had a companion on my mission convinced that I was a wacko liberal, while I had another friend who thought I was a wacko conservative, because I kept challenging their opinions.  Anyway, I hope that I don't put people off with my fairly clinical and challenging manner.  Please know that I'm not trying to offend, nor am I trying to judge people.  I'm just going through my normal process of evaluating information.