Pondering my Agnosticism

Am I looking for converts to Agnosticsm?

I have wondered to myself about that. But on reflection I don't think so. For me, "telling the truth" is liberating, even comforting. And I would want the same for others. But knowing how much "Faith" means to some people, I don't want to be branded as "the bad one" who drew them away from it, either, perhaps to their everlasting regret. Maybe it's "too much responsibility." Once Faith is gone, I don't think it ever comes back.

On the other hand, I find beauty and light in "telling the Truth," especially when it comes to questions of God and The Bible. And the Truth for me is "We do not know." Therefore, those of you who say you DO KNOW are, well, full of crap. I don't mean any disrespect to those who "know." The arrogant "certainty" of many religious people bothers me a bit, but I can live with it. Mostly I'm relieved I'm not among them. The idea of believing in something irrespective of whether it's true or not, but only because "it feels good,"or you were told it was true as a child, or because it's in a "book," just goes against my grain. To me, only the truth matters, not what you or others believe (except when it can affect my life, as in the case of Muslim extremists)

I attended Catholic schools for 16 years and, with just minor exceptions, have only good memories of the nuns and priests. But looking back on the religious part of the instruction . . . it was ALL BULLSHIT. I hate to put it so bluntly (I guess I could say "balderdash" instead), but sometimes a vulgar word drives the point home. Have you read a Baltimore Catechism from the 40's or 50's recently? Some of the moral messages are fine, but the underlying message is as fantastical and far from "truth" as Jack in the Beanstalk. We as gullible children were told exactly "WHO" God is" and what He expects from us. And that if we didn't do as He wanted, we would burn in hell. (I get angry just typing that. They should burn in hell for their despicable lies!)

Don't call me an atheist.

I get defensive about being called an atheist, as I was the other day in an email. An atheist ‘KNOWS’ there’s no God. I don’t know that. I don’t deny the existence of God or a Supreme Power. It’s all very possible that one exists, for all the logical reasons. But when it comes to explaining the nature of this Supreme Power – what He, She or It is like -- on that point I can only defer to my Agnosticism: "I DON'T KNOW!" It's the only intellectually honest answer to the big eternal questions and, damn it, intellectual honesty is refreshing these days.

I even believe in an afterlife! I’ll bet that surprises you. But it’s only because I choose to believe it. I do not know that it’s true. How could I? Nor do I have Faith in a God. Why should I? I have faith in other people to varying degrees (usually depending on the faith they have in themselves). But since My God is "unknown and unknowable," it would be like having faith in a fantastical idea for which there's scant evidence beyond ancient "stories."

Sure, it would be nice to die and move on to some other realm while maintaining the memories of life here on Earth. It would sure be nice to once again meet all the people you knew on Earth (or some of them anyway). It seems logical to me that our “souls” must go somewhere. Doesn't it? Yet I know full well that death could be the final end. I just don’t know. Do you? Nor am I afraid. What comes will come. It's part of being human.

I freely acknowledge that there may indeed be a God of some kind up there -- or out there. But I have no idea of what this God is like, or if He cares about or pays attention to, or even causes, events here on earth (Based on the evidence I rather doubt it). I have no idea if He knows each of us as individuals. For all we know, to Him we’re like a beehive and He’s the beekeeper. Fascinating to watch, yes, but the identities of the bees as individuals are not important to the beekeeper. My observation – and it’s only that, an observation – is that we’re pretty much on our own, subject to the random whims of nature like every other life form, although far more capable it seems of creating our destinies.

Does God want to be worshipped?

Do you suppose that God gives a hoot if we “worship” Him? I mean, that's what it's all about it, isn't it? That's what they call going to church. What a crazy notion, really, that the All-powerful God of This Immense Universe would be vain and insecure enough to care about being worshipped by us puny humans! Let’s say YOU were big and powerful. Would you want people to “worship” you? And if you did actually want to be worshipped, wouldn’t most people think you were a jerk? (I would). The whole "worship" idea goes back to the idea of vengeful God who wants his Divine Ass kissed, which is about as preposterous an idea as one can imagine.

Yet . . . Rick Warren breezily asserts in his super-best-seller The Purpose Driven Life that “God wants to be praised.” Oh really? I would really like to know where the fuck Rick picks up these gems. The Bible, I guess. Voices, perhaps? Rick claims over and over again to know exactly what God thinks -- and what He wants from us. Imagine that! I assert that Rick Warren does not have the remotest idea idea of what God thinks or wants, and that it is downright evil putting such crap out to gullible people.

"Oh, but it's not a Lie," you say. "It's the Truth." That my friends is where we part: I say "No, we do NOT know" when it comes to God. You say, "Yes, we DO know."

I hate religion.

I do not hate the people who believe in it (As an agnostic, will you believe me if I say I love them?). But I do hate the idea of religion and how it's based entirely on a illusion. That those who teach it are well-meaning is irrelevant. All religions claim to know the truth about the nature of God, what God wants, how to find salvation, etc. But I assert that religion does not -- and cannot -- know the Truth about the supernatural and the afterlife.

You say religion does tell the Truth? You can say what you want, but that’s where we differ. I’ll trust science over religion any day, because science is a quest for Truth. And science tells me that “religion” has been bamboozling us big time for thousands of years. For example, for hundreds of years Christianity solemnly decreed that the sun went around the earth. They were wrong about that one and it took them 400 years to admit it (Ever notice how they don’t like to admit they’re wrong?). So why can’t they be wrong about everything else?

Religion was invented by human beings.

What if everyone could accept that ALL religion is an invention of human beings and has nothing remotely to do with God? Or at least no more to do with God than history, philosophy, mathematics or any other body of knowledge. Early religion was a means invented by men to try to communicate with the mysterious Celestial Power that seemed to be up there somewhere. Why is it so hard to accept that human being invented religion? It makes perfect sense if you know anything about how we humans evolved. But for "believers" to accept that “humans made it up" would be to lose the whole raison d'etre for religion -- that is, how to please God and ultimately how save your own ass, er, I mean your soul.

A part of me hates to tell you this (a part of me likes it, too), but once you let yourself admit that religion is man-made, not God-made, you can pretty much say goodbye to "Religious Faith." I found this to be a freeing experience. You're left instead with a philosophy, a way of looking at the world that asks questions about the Supernatural, but DOES NOT EVEN TRY PROVIDE ANSWERS! Spengler called religion "the product of Early Culture," while philosophy is the "intellectual product of Civilization."

The Judeo-Christian religion evolved from a time when humans were unbelievably ignorant of how the physical universe works -- ignorant to a degree that would hard to imagine today. So, for reasons that were rational at that time, people assumed there had to be a God behind the rhythms and uncertainties of life on Earth -- a God to be feared, for sure, given man’s powerlessness before the forces of nature. It all makes perfect sense. If all you knew was what you could observe with your senses, a God up in the clouds makes as much sense as anything. So the fantastical stories were born and were nurtured along by religious leaders with a stake in making it all "dogma," which indeed happened. Remember that the stories in the Old Testament were the oral tradition of the Jewish people long before they were written down.

The Messiah story.

Talk about a story getting blown out of proportion! The Jews, whose "God of the Israelites" designated them as "the chosen people," created in book form this wonderful combination of history, social rules, and folk stories called the Bible (specifically the Old Testament). It described their God in detail. Nothing unusual there. Stories about God were a common theme in other cultures' literature, too.

I mean, do you really believe that God came down to earth and promised Moses that He would send a Messiah to "save the Jewish people"? You don’t think there’s a remote possibility that some enthusiastic Jewish writer-scholar stuck that one in there? It's a good one! It meshes perfectly with "the chosen people" idea. But does it make any sense?

The whole idea that God would send his ""Son" down to earth to get crucified has never made sense to me . . . especially now that we know that the Universe is comprised of at least 100 billion galaxies of 100 billion stars each, and that the furthest star we know of is 16 billion light years away. AND THAT NONE OF THE BIBLE WRITERS KNEW ANY OF THIS. They were great writers, but they exactly zero about how the Universe worked. Then the great ironic twist, and the root cause of 2000 years of anti-Semitism: The Jews rejected Jesus and say He is not the Messiah. The Christians, who were mostly Jews themslves early on, say He is the Messiah and build a new religion around the idea.

(Doesnt' the mere size of the Universe support Agnosticism. Do the numbers yourself: Light travels at 187,000 miles PER SECOND. So how many miles is one light year? And how many in 16 billion light years, which is the distance to the end of the known Universe? Could you ever travel there? Yea, in 16 billion years -- if you could travel at the speed of light!)

Does the Judeo-Christian "ONE TRUE GOD" control it all, even out to the farthest star? There are sure no hints of it in the Bible. Instead we get the poetic "creation story" in Genesis which, astonishingly, is BELIEVED LITERALLY by 44% OF ALL AMERICANS, which I guess says something about "the power of faith." It sure points to the ignorance and intellectual laziness of our electorate

Another question you'll never hear a Christian address: Did Jesus die only for the sins of those on Earth? Or did he die for the sins committed in other worlds, too, worlds that scientists agree MUST EXIST in such a massively huge Universe as ours? (And what if there's more than one Universe, which I know is a contradiction in terms? You'll have to ask Rick Warren or the Pope about that; they'll just say, "You have to have Faith," which sure is a handy little conversation ender!)

Does it make rational sense that God would expect us humans -- to whom He presumably gave brains and judgment -- to believe the fantastical stories in the Bible with absolutely zero evidence to support them, apart from an occasional "miraculous" sighting in a Mexican village? Why would God do that to us? Yes, I know, "it's all a mystery." BUT THAT'S EXACTLY MY POINT!

The Apostle Paul

Paul’s Epistles did as much to kick-start the early Church as the Gospels. But did you know that Paul never saw Jesus? Never met Jesus. Never read one Gospel (because the earliest, Mark, came later). So where did he get his information. Please take your "Faith Cap" off for a moment and put your "Thinking Cap" on and get this:

PAUL SAW JESUS IN A VISION!

Is it just possible that Moses, Paul and Mohammed and the rest of them simply "saw visions" like the Russell Crowe character in "A Beautiful Mind"? Isn't it possible? It’s an historical fact that St. Paul saw Jesus in a vision and that Mohammed “heard voices” and those voices became the Koran. (To hear voices is one thing. To think God is talking to you borders on arrogance).

Tell me, if your boss or spouse told a fact based on a “vision” they had or a "voice" they'd heard in a dream, what would you think? (And if God, Jesus or the Virgin Mary appeared to you in a vision, would you tell anybody? I’m not sure I'd do. I'd probably visit a shrink).

What the big deal about Faith?

Why is the Bible the only book on earth whose content must be "accepted on Faith"? My goodness, to even question it is not only politically incorrect. It would get you fired as a news commentator or lose you an election as a politician. Why is it that "Faith" the one thing you can't question another person about, even a family member? Did you ever notice that, in any other area of life or academics, the sketchy evidence offered in the Bible for its astonishing claim that it's "the Word of God" would be laughed out of the room.

Have you ever wondered why the God of the Universe would set a crazy condition like “Faith” as the sine qua non of salvation? Especially when so much evidence to the contrary points to “Faith” not being particularly relevant. Katrina's an example. Even when lucky survivors say that "God was watching over us," aren't they also saying that God apparently was NOT WATCHING OVER those who were not so lucky?

I had to smile sadly when I heard on the radio a homeless Katrina victim say, regarding their "future," that they were “putting their faith in God” Gee, hadn't they already tried that?

For discussion's sake, let's assume that God "could" affect events here on earth if He wanted to. Then where's the evidence that He ever does? Instead, evidence abounds of a "hands-off" God who doesn't interfere one iota in events here on earth. If ANYTHING, He kick-started the Big Bang, then left it all to "evolve" according to a consistent set of rules and principles, with "supernatural intervention" playing no role at all.

Where is God now?

Remember how God in the Old Testament used to come down to earth all the time and talk to us? Once he visited Moses disguised as a “burning bush.” He talked to Adam and Eve. He told Noah to build an Ark and take two of each animal aboard (Does that include the 250,000 species of beetles, I wonder?). He conferred on Moses the power to part the Red Sea. (I will concede this: If I saw someone “part the sea,” or had evidence that he or she did, It would get my attention! That is for damn sure! Don't you suppose the writers of the Bible knew that, too?)

Did you know that convincing evidence exists that Jesus never existed? I'm not going there now -- I'm no scholar. Nor am asserting anything. Actually, I lean toward believing that a wise and charismatic man (not a god) named Jesus did walk the earth. But it's far from certain, for dozens of good reasons, which perhaps I'll cover in a future posting.

The Bible is an inspired work.

I'll concede that the Bible is an "inspired" work, in the same way a great novel is inspired. We don't know how inspiration works, but we know it when we see it. I believe there is a spirituality beyond the physcial world that engenders what we call inspiration? Look at Mozart. But would you say a great novel or musical composition was "inspired by God?" Then why should we say it about the Bible?

I agree that the writers of Bible were smart men writing about stuff they probably believed. But remember, these men were TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY IGNORANT of how the universe really works. They thought the world was flat, that God made the sun move over it everyday, and that lightening and thunder meant He was pissed off.

To me, the Bible is a treasured piece of Western literature, an amazing work written by mostly well-intentioned men, some ambitious and politically-motivated. God's Secretaries, a recent book about the 50 scholars commissioned by King James to translate and write the King James Bible from 1603 to 1611, attests to the brilliance of their work. Inspired? Absolutely. But the "Word of God"? Only in the sense that Beethoven's Ninth, for example, is the "Song of God". (Who knows, maybe it is. But at least they haven't built a complicated religious dogma around it).

My point is (as I’m sure you’ve gathered): THE BIBLE IS A BOOK! Period. Do you hear me, Rick Warren? A great book, okay. But it’s a book, a work of literature!

And consider this: Without the first part of this book, without the Old Testament, there would be no second part, no New Testament. And without a New Testament there would be no Christianity, no Islam, either. (What a different world that would be).

Morality is independent of religion.

People of Faith often ascribe “goodness” and “morality” to religion. I concede that most of the concepts of love and forgiveness taught by Jesus have had a salutary effect on Western culture (better than the concepts of hatred and revenge that too often are a part of Islam). And it's true that religious groups do good works. But before you ascribe too much “good” and “morality” to religion alone, keep in mind that the Scandinavian countries, the most atheistic countries in Europe, are the most generous donors to poor countries.

Should you teach your kids religion?

A friend of mine once told me that she "regrets" not having brought her children up as Catholics. Her ex-husband, on the other hand, feels as I do, that religion is nothing more than a promulgator of fantasy, illusion and myth. And that to teach it to children as "Truth" not only does a disservice to children and to the adults they will become, but borders on being "evil." I can see telling kids occasional "white lies" if it seems in their best interest at the time, but to lie about something as important as "how to please God" seems unconscionable to me. If I were a parent with young childen, I would make it a point to keep the kids away from such fantasy. Why induce them to believe a Lie, possibly for the rest of their lives? I would, however, teach them "about religion." I would explain to them that millions of people believe the stories told by each religion but that there's only on truth. "WE DO NOT KNOW." It might be nice if we did, BUT WE DON'T.

Why did I name my blog "Agnostic and Loving It"?

My first reason for choosing that name: IT'S TRUE! I do love being an agnostic. Why? Because it's freeing. It's the only honest belief (or non-belief) one can have when it comes to the supernatural and the afterlife. Agnostics believe that God is "unknown and unknowable." simple as that. To disagree with that statement, to say, "No, no, I do know the ultimate truth" is to kid yourself. It may feel good, but is intellectual dishonesty with yourself really a good thing? I don't think so.

I grew up Catholic and still remember the moment 40 years ago (I was 24) when I let it all go. It was liberating. No longer was I required to “believe” things that were becoming more and more difficult to believe. No more guilt – it vanished almost immediately.

My second reason for calling my blog "Agnostic and Loving It" is to let the Faithful out there to know that there can be happiness, satisfaction and peace of mind without believing in Jesus -- or whatever God one chooses to follow. I still recall the daily prayer in parochial school we recited in unison for “fallen away Catholics,” a group we viewed with sadness and pity. Now that I’m one of them, I know it was wrong to view them that way. Yet, whenever I tell a Christian evangelical that I'm agnostic, I never fail to pick up a hint of pity and smugness. "Ha ha, I know the truth and you don't" I hear them thinking. Or, more uncharitably, "You just wait. You'll find out."

Was I ever afraid of my decision to let it all go? Not really. Oh, I occasionally have the fleeting thought, “Gee, what if I’m wrong? What if the Catholic Church’s teachings really are true?” But then the absolute absurdity of it all comes to the rescue and I’m back to reality. Besides, I reasoned at the time, if God did not want us to ask questions or harbor doubt, then why did he give us minds and brains that inexorably lead the intellectually honest among us in that direction? And what is wrong about doubting in the first place? Other than the fact that, once it starts, the whole believe structure can come crashing down (What a relief; try it).

Isn't it obvious that no one can force themselves to believe in something? True, you can pretend to believe, but you can’t make yourself believe. You either believe or you don’t. It’s not a voluntary decision. Isn't it absurd that God would put us in the position of lying to ourselves, of forcing some of us to pretend to believe something that we really can't believe in anymore. I would guess that many Christians are struggling with this one.