Ray Hult, with his engaging personality and sense of humor, spoke about his personal journey from the entrenched world of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to his current agnosticism. For those of us who have traveled a similar road, we could only nod in agreement as Hult related his story.

Beginning with a joke, Hult asked, "What do you get when you combine an insomniac, an agnostic, and a dyslexic? Somebody staying up all night wondering if there is a dog."

Proceeding with how he became agnostic after years with an unshakable belief in God and Joseph Smith, his religious story began early. Born in Colorado, his mother was LDS while his father was from a long line of Swedish Lutherans. At first taking turns every Sunday alternating at each other's church, his father converted to Mormonism. After moving to Salt Lake City, his parents and all the children became immersed in the LDS Church.

Beginning to have doubts about Mormonism during the time he was eligible to become a missionary, Hult stopped attending church. One thought he had during this period was that it did not make sense to him that God wanted to be worshipped, an admonition that seemed egotistical.

Continuing on, Hult said that when he and his wife were married, they were inactive Mormons, but became active and eventually married in an LDS Temple after participating in a six-month program intended to activate inactive people. Even though his family was elated with their temple marriage, Hult recalled how unsettling that temple experience was.

A roller coaster ride after that, he and his wife and children for the next twenty-eight years were also immersed in the LDS Church. With five daughters, a job with the FBI, and demanding positions in the church, Hult did not have much time to linger upon the doubts that popped up from time to time.

After more than twenty years in the FBI that involved working with numerous fraud cases of some of the most charismatic, creative charlatans one could imagine, Hult illustrated with the case of Josepf Papp.

Supposedly having developed an alternative car engine that used inert gases, Papp solicited investors for this invention. But during a demonstration of the engine when an explosion killed an observer, Papp blamed the accident on interference by a pseudo-skeptic, who was in fact physicist Richard Feynman. Although Papp never demonstrated another engine, he continued to accept money from investors.

Most of the time, Hult said, victims of con artists still sing praises of them "even as they were being checked into prison. They had a difficult time admitting they had been fooled and lost their investments."

After his children started leaving home and he was involved in less demanding church positions, Hult began to think more objectively about the claims of Joseph Smith. "It occurred to me for the first time that he might be more like the con men I had been working on than I had been willing to admit," he said.

With doubts also about the temple marriage ceremony, Hult was reluctant to share them with his wife, recalling how as a bishop in the LDS Church, he had witnessed divorces resulting from one spouse becoming an unbeliever and the other fearing not being able to attain the highest place in the hereafter; LDS doctrine espouses that both spouses must be believers to attain the highest place. Hult was terrified of a possible divorce from what he thought was his believing wife.

Luckily, his wife had the same doubts, also afraid of telling him for the same reason. That was a "major relief," said Hult, which marked the start of "a multi-year investigation into the claims of Joseph Smith." While traveling this journey, he decided that the best way to keep track of his research was to contain them in book form.

Hult continued, "I can't remember exactly when it happened, but it suddenly hit me that I may have been brainwashed about the Bible too. I had never even considered that possibility before. I decided to investigate the Bible the same way I had investigated Mormonism and came up with a second book."

The publicist for his books summed it up this way; "Using his twenty-seven years as a FBI special agent as a springboard, the author draws on his experience in deductive reasoning to justify the agnostic point of view."

Still friends with LDS members and still harboring great respect for the LDS culture, Hult concluded in the first book with his ultimate life goal: "I hope to be a good person because I know in the core of my being it's the right thing to do."

For a detailed account of Hult's deductive reasoning process responsible for his becoming an agnostic, refer to his books. The two volumes can be purchased directly from the publisher at Trafford.com where readers can also review several pages of each book. Both books are also available at a number of internet book sites including both Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Agnosticity, volume 1 An Agnostic view of bothersome Christian Doctrine

Agnosticity, volume 2 An Agnostic view of bothersome Mormon Doctrine

--Sarah Smith

Author's note: For fascinating information about the infamous car engine inventor, refer to these two websites.