I Don’t Know

Growing up in church, testimony meetings or comments were often lead with “I know”. For example, “I know the Book of Mormon is true”, “I know this is the true church”, “I know Joseph Smith was a prophet”, etc etc etc. The definition of knowing something had always been that it’s fact. Like a for sure thing, 100%, it’s provable. Evidence backs it up. Another option is believe, “I believe.” This implies more uncertainty. Almost looked down upon, I noticed very few if any members would use “believe.” My question is what is wrong with not being sure, not knowing. I know uncertainty bothers a lot of people and makes them feel uncomfortable. That’s why we struggle to have deep conversations about the deep questions in life. For example, we don’t talk about death. When someone dies, we just kind of move on, it’s painful. For people that place a lot of certainty of “knowing” what goes on after this life, there sure seems to be a lot of silence. Back to my original though. What’s wrong with stating “I don’t know?” I get a lot of things are walking by faith, but oftentimes there is no or little secular evidence of faith for said thing to be fact. If someone asks if there’s life after this? What’s wrong with saying, “I don’t know, I hope there is, I feel like there should be.” Was Joseph Smith a prophet? “I don’t know, I hope he was. I am putting faith in God that he was, some of his teachings have made my life better, but I am open to the possibility that he wasn’t.” Does this seem a lot more honest than stating that “you know?” I could go on and on about this but I think my thoughts are starting to come across.