where do i fit in in the spiritual scheme of things?

[rone]

Instead of merely posting the results of that quiz that's making the rounds (which was 40% scientific, 40% reasoning, which classifies me as an Agnostic), i'd rather talk about about why i'm an agnostic.

I moved to agnosticism from atheism because i realized that atheism is an affirmation of the non-existence of something that i can't prove doesn't exist.  Atheism also essentially derides the faith of others (which is something it shares with most religions), and i've spent the last 10 or so years trying to be less of a jerk.

That's a lie.  I love being a jerk, and i clutch my head every day at some of the shit people will believe for the most idiotic reasons, excuses, pretenses, whatever.

No, no, see, that's completely unempathetic.  I can't put myself in the shoes of others; i can only work with my own experiences.  I shouldn't even have any contempt for the faith of others because that would make me contemptuous of my own past as a Catholic.

Wait now, i might have been a Catholic once in name, but (unless i've already rewritten my memories with my own idealized childhood) i can't recall ever truly believing in God, Jesus, etc.  Eucharist was just a wafer.  Confession never made me feel better.  Attending Mass never gave me a fuzzy warm feeling inside.  When i turned away from religion within a year of my Confirmation, i wasn't really rejecting anything i held.  I was on the field, but i never played ball.

OK, now, i was going to talk about why i'm an agnostic.  I don't think i've addressed that at all so far.  Well, maybe i won't.  Fuck it.  What do you care, anyway?  It doesn't make a difference in your life, eh?  I'm not going to tell you that the only way to be saved is to let go of your puny faith and embrace the nothingness in every moment of every day, thus hugging yourself and keeping yourself warm.

Never mind that.  I'm obsessed with the fact that religion and spirituality is a huge shadowplay.  It's inane.  God doesn't matter.  The spiritual world doesn't matter.  They're just metaphors.  As that great humanist Ren Höek once said, "THEY'RE NOT REAL, NOT FLESH AND BLOOD LIKE WEEEEEE!"  The only thing that truly matters is people, how we get along, how we move along into the future.

God matters.  The spiritual world matters.  They are woven into human nature and to dismiss them out of hand is folly.  We cannot progress as a race, we cannot ascend, without détente between religions, between believers and non-believers.

Why are we wasting time on cultivating a lasting and rewarding relationship with God while we barely understand ourselves and each other?  Wouldn't the latter be easier and more practical?  Is that precisely why it doesn't happen?  What the hell is so interesting about God, anyway?  The cosmos is interesting.  Life is interesting.  The human race isn't ready to tackle a real relationship with God, were he to exist.  Let's solve our real problems first.

Let's keep our eyes on the goal, though.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I guess I'd just link to this old post about why I call myself an atheist (http://www.livejournal.com/users/mmcirvin/114481.html), even though I do not claim 100% certain knowledge of the nonexistence of God or go around mocking (most) people's religion.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Upon re-reading that, i must add that i subscribe to the technical definition of agnostic you note. I also think that your nitpicky reason depends on heavy hypotheticals and as such you should be ashamed, ASHAMED I SAY, to cling to it, and it makes you Dr. Wishy-Washy. #2 and #3, well, you're just shying away from the label based on what other people think. Forsooth, sir! You should be above such cheap peer pressure.

But certainly not above my high-quality peer pressure! SUCCUMB. DO IT.

[ptomblin-lj.livejournal.com]

An atheist fervently believes in one fewer God than a monotheist.

(Second try - the first time I screwed it up)

[mrbalihai.livejournal.com]

We cannot progress as a race, we cannot ascend, without détente between religions, between believers and non-believers.

Amen, Brother rone. I was thinking about this while listening to Terry Gross interview Mormon author, Walt Kirn, on Fresh Air (http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13) this afternoon.

Kirn spoke about something that really resonated with me, the need to quit focusing on and criticizing what people believe, and ask instead ask what need that belief fulfills in their lives. Organized religion provides a sense of family, community, purpose, and belonging that modern life often lacks. Secular humanism and atheism simply don't offer a vision compelling enough to compete.

As a former evangelical Christian, I could also go off on a rant about how counter-productive it is for people issue blanket condemnations of fundamentalists as bigots and the moral equivalent of the Taliban, but then I suppose I'd have to get my own 'blog or something.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Bah, but that sense of family, community, purpose and belonging is all based on a fairy tale. A sham. And when the covers are pulled back, the truth wounds and breaks up families and communities. This happens all the damn time! Why do we need some namby-pamby, implausible, yet "compelling" myth to bring us together? Because, at this point in our existence — in our evolution, if you will — we are gullible, superstitious apes. And we need to cope with our gullibility and our superstition. We need to move to a point where a difference of opinion doesn't break up our societies.

"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

In most of the rich democracies of the world, secular humanism and atheism have competed quite successfully; the United States is something of an outlier compared to those societies (though not compared to the rest of the world).

Lots of ink has been spilt concerning why the US is so unusual in this regard among rich countries. I think a large part of it is the unusually strict church/state separation here, which, when combined with the American Protestant tendency to shop around for a sympathetic congregation, keeps any church from ossifying into an arm of the state bureaucracy that people belong to for reasons of convenience.

[frosch.livejournal.com]

Secular humanism and atheism simply don't offer a vision compelling enough to compete.

Basically, atheists don't get to belong to tax-exempt country clubs.

Most of the Protestants (and many of the Catholics) I know don't believe the fundamentals of Christian theology, which really haven't changed since the Council of Nicaea and depend heavily upon a pre-scientific mindset. On the other hand, they spend little enough time thinking about theology that that nonbelief doesn't bother them much; many of them, if challenged, won't admit to their doubts.

For these people, Christianity is merely a means of bonding with the community they live in, and theology is just a way of declaring allegiance to that community.

As an evangelical Christian, I managed to keep my doubt at bay for decades by reassuring myself that there were trained professional theologians who had figured out the answers to all the issues that bothered me, and that enlightened theologians and clergy were dedicated to the philosophical enterprise of harmonizing theology with the real world we live in. I was in my mid-thirties before I figured out that what the church calls mysteries of faith are simply logical paradoxes induced by insistence on the superstitious, logically inconsistent theological axioms of the Middle Ages.

I go so far as to opine that the Gods of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are logical contradictions that cannot exist, but living as I do in Alabama around a lot of religious people, I generally keep those opinions to myself. To me, that's not the same thing as atheism; I have not yet decided conclusively against the existence of an amoral God indifferent to human affairs and consistent with the observable evidence, although it's difficult to see what practical difference there is between such a God's existence or failure to exist, and thus I don't think of the issue as very important any more.

I could almost subscribe to some versions of Buddhism or Taoism, though, had I not developed along the way an aversion to religious organizations as tools for manipulating one's fellow man.

[frosch.livejournal.com]

how counter-productive it is for people issue blanket condemnations of fundamentalists as bigots

This is one of my favorite religious paradoxes. If there's one doctrine that's fundamental to Protestantism, it's justification by faith, or as St. Paul would put it, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved". But I've rarely, if ever, run into a Christian who isn't willing to point the finger at some other believer and avow that that person isn't a "real Christian".

Nonsense. Jerry Falwell is a real Christian. Pat Robertson is a real Christian. George W. Bush is a real Christian. Bill and Hillary Clinton are real Christians. That's what Christianity is. The way I see it, if you don't like it, well, hey, you're the one claiming to be a Christian, not me.

[merde.livejournal.com]

Atheism also essentially derides the faith of others

no, obnoxious atheists do that. there are lots. i don't like those people any more than i like strident, prosletyzing religious people. of any faith or lack thereof.

i am, and have always been, an atheist. that means i don't believe in a higher power. that doesn't mean i have to feel disdain for those who do. i have a lot of respect for the people i know who are religious. they're smart, educated people, and i admire their faith. i envy it. i see the richness it brings to their lives, and the context it gives them in the world.

i don't hate religion. i just don't subscribe to it. it's not important to me. the only reason i care about the religious right is that they're trying to force their beliefs on me, and that's something i won't tolerate. it's the marketing of religion that offends me, the scare tactics these so-called "Christians" use to gain converts.

the transparent hypocrisy, dishonesty, and ambition of the people behind the whole evangelical movement is astounding. it makes me sick to think about what they're trying to do to this country. they want to drag us back in time, take away the rights of women, punish people for enjoying sex, and breed, breed, breed! MAKE.XTIANS.FAST.

that's what i deride. that's what i hate. not religion. not even Christianity. just hypocrisy. which is not, although there seems to be some confusion on the matter, a religion. dammit.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Well, it sounds more to me like you're an agnostic. But let's not quibble over labels. An atheist, someone who denies that someone else's god exists, is effectively deriding that person's faith.

Another problem is that hypocrisy is enshrined in the holy books of many religions. But that's orthogonal to the existence of God, which is what i was addressing.

[dr-strych9.livejournal.com]

I have no joke here. I just like linking to Pragmatism.Org (http://www.pragmatism.org/). I'm an agnostic, but if anyone asks, I say I'm a pragmatist.

[opadit.livejournal.com]

I'm an atheist, not an agnostic. Of course, one can't prove a negative. My conviction is that there isn't a higher power, spirits among us, or an invisible superhero in outer space. Remember that atheism isn't a state of no belief; it's a state of not believing in a deity. I believe that there is no deity.

I don't deride the faith of others. I just don't share their faith. New atheists -- like new vegetarians or new converts to anything -- probably tend to be overbearing and intolerant. Personally, I guess I look upon Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other believers in physical manifestations of a deity or deities with a kind of bemusement. I often wonder at what seems to me must be a lack of critical thinking skills. But I haven't walked a mile in their mocassins so I try really hard not to judge.

Pointing out a lot of evangelicals' hypocrisy is shooting fish in a barrel, not the least of which is recalling Matthew 6:5-7, the part where Jesus tells the assembly that they should pray quietly and in seclusion, not in front of other people or by using "vain repetitions."

[(Anonymous)]

Remember that atheism isn't a state of no belief; it's a state of not believing in a deity.

That's what everyone says atheism is, but if you break the word down -- a- "without" and theism "belief in the existence of a god or gods" -- then atheism means "without belief in the existence of a god or gods," not "belief there is no god or gods."

What most people mean by "atheism" is "antitheism." Alas, common usage prevails, so we are stuck with the less-neutral connotation.

where do i fit in in the spiritual scheme of things?

[lammah.livejournal.com]

I liked the person who referred to himself as an APATHETIST, think I read it in paulp's blog last night as I was clearing out spyware and viruses on my AIM-loving post-teenaged cousin's computer. Gotta love those 10PM "my computer's frozen I have a paper due day after tomorrow PLEASE HELP" calls.

Anyway...while it's fun to bandy that term around, it is indeed slightly glib to dismiss religion out of hand. There is a certain comfort in knowing the customs and traditions are still there even long after your belief in them has passed. To lose that would be a loss to the human condition, even if it also represents slavery, repression, rape, torture, and all the other evil that was committed in the name of the Cross.

--Sam

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

These things will be lost like tears in rain. I'd like to think that we'll find comfort in new customs, new traditions, things based more on tangible events than on mythology. The English days of the week are rooted in Norse mythology, but does that really give anyone comfort?

[samantha2074.livejournal.com]

I moved to agnosticism from atheism because i realized that atheism is an affirmation of the non-existence of something that i can't prove doesn't exist. Atheism also essentially derides the faith of others (which is something it shares with most religions), and i've spent the last 10 or so years trying to be less of a jerk.

I had a conversation a while back with a friend of mine. I forget what the exact subject was, but I remember telling her that if I hold an opinion, the flip side of that is that I believe that other people's opinions are wrong. To me, that seems inherent to the concept of an opinion. I admitted that I knew that sounded arrogant, and she swiftly agreed.

I do like to think of myself as someone who respects others' opinions and beliefs, but I think that a more accurate description is of someone who respects others while often disagreeing with their opinions and beliefs. Of course, there are some people whom I simply can't respect. Unlike Matt, I don't twist myself into mental knots trying to give every opinion equal credence.

I am an atheist. I see no evidence of a god or higher power. If you allow the possible existence of everything that can't be disproved, you'd spend you entire life in a metaphysical muddle. I frankly can't be bothered. I'm too busy being self-absorbed.

That being said, I think religion (or church) brings a lot of comfort to people, and the communal and charitable aspects are beneficial. I would never want to take that away from anyone. I'm a little baffled by your statement that thinking someone's religious beliefs are wrong is necessarily the same thing as deriding them. Yeah, I've probably stepped over the line a time or two, but I don't think disagreement is inherently derisive.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, i like the way you establish the difference, and i think you're right. Derision is in intent, and it's not my fault if my belief is taken as derision or insult by someone on the other side. Thanks.

[tarian.livejournal.com]

I'm a probabilistic atheist.

That is, I believe that the probability of the existence of (the usual omnipotent, omniscient, etc.) God is somewhere down below the probability that the Earth will stop rotating tonight and that therefore the sun will fail to rise.

This is a form of agnosticism, I suppose, in that I admit of the possibility of God. However, I disagree with the notion that we should be attempting to appease the believers and find some sort of middle ground.

The purpose of the God hypothesis in human history has been to supply an explanation for the inexplicable. Don't know why lightning struck your barn? Must've been God. Don't know where we go when we die? God, again. Don't know what created the universe? God. By making the statement "God did it" you are, effectively, saying that the phenomenon in question *cannot be explained through rational enquiry*. This view places religion and science at odds, and leads to things like the mind-boggling evolution vs. creationism debate. Having believers trundling around wouldn't be a problem if they didn't wind up opposed to research, if they didn't stack the deck against children learning the scientific method and rational inquiry. As it is I'm afraid I'm just not going to be very tolerant of their views.

Smullyan versus the Bayesian

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

This is where Raymond Smullyan would say "Oh yeah? Care to give an order-of-magnitude numerical estimate of the probability? Show your work!" and argue that the notion of probability maybe doesn't apply in this case.

At which point a good Bayesian would just happily pick a number out of the air, and say "There's your probability! Priors are subjective."

[sandollar17.livejournal.com]

Why are we wasting time on cultivating a lasting and rewarding relationship with God while we barely understand ourselves and each other?

That was one of the main questions that turned me away from living my life as a "Christian".

I wonder why more people never ask that question. It's amazing, really, how long people ignore what seems to be right in front of them, like, oh yeah, HUMAN BEINGS. If being a literature major has taught me anything, it's that real, live people are way more interesting --- and satisying to spend time with --- than any book. You just have to actually stop long enough to make eye contact and connect.

Where is everyone pretending to go in such a hurry all the time...?

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

My first inclination was that this was bait or a fiction.

Apparently, though, the mind of a ronebofh is just sort of a jumbled chaos heap. You contradict yourself a lot.

It has long seemed to me that other people, far from being the problem or even needful targets of my thoughtful mandates, are merely sort of observed phenomena. I mean, there they are. They do what they like.

I intervene in ways that I see fit, respecting my abilities and talents, and my motivations for doing so, while well-known to me, justly may remain obscure. Why should anyone else mind? Let them do as they wish, especially as long as they don't do great ills.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yes, welcome to my thought processes. FIGHT NIGHT! Tonight's undercard: cork vs. screw caps.

It's definitely bait of some sort (and judging by the results, it caught a fair amount of people, including myself). It isn't fiction, but it is featured to some degree in fiction that i've written.

Observed phenomena, eh? That ties in with Matt McIrvin's brain-in-a-vat theory.

[vatine]

That's all well and good. Myself, I consider faith (be it faith in the existence of no, one or many gods) to be disconnected from reason, so utterly disconnected that trying to connect them is a fallacy. I do believe, from observation, that such a faith can be quite handy to aid subconcious decision-making in a variety of situations, though. Erm, that's a wee bit disconnected. I'll see if I can get something more structured written.

Not to trivialize, but

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

there's a simple expression for pretty much all of what you just wrote: "recovering Catholic." There are lots of you. Some become Protestants or Unitarians after being atheist for a while; others remain agnostic forever.

I don't say this to deride the true believers of Catholicism, or of atheism or agnosticism (which might be said to include Universalist Unitarianism--UUs often joke that their creed is "There is at most one God"). But Catholicism in particular has an awful lot of followers in name only. (In the Northern Midwest, I'd guess Lutheranism does, too.)

And, Matt, I think you underestimate the number of atheists in America. In the rural town of 10,000 where we lived until last year, only about 2,000 are members of any religious organization. Not all the unchurched are necessarily atheist, of course, but plenty of them are apathetic and plenty more are nonpracticing and nonbelieving Catholics who may as well be called atheist.

OK, but what about the Bible Belt? My experience in the large Texas cities, at least, was much like here, that probably half the people I met (outside my church) were unchurched and most of those were atheist or apathetic. The difference isn't so much how many people strong the church is, but how evangelical the prevalent churches are and how public their members are about their faith.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

nonbelieving Catholics who may as well be called atheist.

How many of them would fight against that label to the death, though?

I also wonder if it's really just a recovering Catholic thing, since being a Catholic in South America is somewhat different from being a (white) Catholic in the US.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

Food for thought. Jesse brought up some similar questions last night, after allowing as how in his youth, he went to church mostly to meet girls. Heh.

I can never decide if religion is a method of understanding the universe and humankind's place in it that is (and ought to be) completely separate from science, or if it's an atrophied remnant of a more ignorant stage of our existence. Possibly both. I do not think that religion should be solely about seeking comfort, or finding a replacement for your parents, or numbly mouthing the same words every week because it's your sure ticket to a better afterlife, or blindly refusing to allow any understanding or worldview that is not yours. I think that a religion that cannot be challenged isn't worth much as a system of thought, and that religion should challenge its adherents. I think that if God exists, it is not as a separate transcendent being that exists somewhere outside reality. I think that regardless of all that, how human beings treat each other and the world around them is the best measure we have of what kind of people they are.

And maybe all of the above is a half-assed attempt at justifying what is really a seeking after comfort in something bigger than me, or maybe not. My own thoughts on this are still only half-baked, if that. I will say, though, that the blind adherent seeking comfort and a sense of superiority is counterbalanced in my personal experience by the person who constantly questions, constantly challenges, and constantly reaches out to other people via a framework that may depend on faith but also depends on that person's capacity to be a rational being.

[pennyhill.livejournal.com]

Very nicely said, Rimrunner.

.

[dpk.livejournal.com]

Quite plainly, if there was a God who cared about our lives and what we do, would he really have allowed the eyeball icon on this subject header?

Re: .

[dpk.livejournal.com]

(Can't edit my post, doh)

I wanted to add, I agree with what you're saying. Especially the last paragraph.

I also used to consider myself an athiest, but I had to "change allegiances" to agnostic for the same reasons. Who am I to say there is no higher being? Of course, I still don't care if there is or isn't, but that's a different issue than belief.

[sambushell.livejournal.com]

I love you, jerk.

Externally, I'm at "I respect your right to believe in your imaginary friend(s), but I'm going to require that you respect my right not to."; internally, my inner fantasist would derive comfort from believing in reincarnation, peaceful afterlifes or deeper meaning, but my inner rationalist prevails, menacingly wielding Occam's razor. Not that anyone was asking.

[opadit.livejournal.com]

Same here. I tend to feel that it sure would be nice if I didn't wink out into oblivious nothingness once I'm dead, but I honestly can't believe that anything different will happen. Then I tend to think that maybe I'd be a cheerier person in general if I had faith, but that is dangerously close to derision of those who do have it.

[jackkansas.livejournal.com]

My athiesm doesn't deride the beliefs of others, but it doesn't kowtow to them either. I'm not an agnostic: there's absolutely nothing in my experience that would even hint at the existence of a god or gods, and lots of experience to contradict such a belief. Should my experience change ("Hi, I'm the Big Kahuna, put 'er there, pard"), I'll re-examine my beliefs. Until then, happy trails.

(Of course, there's plenty of derision on tap if provoked....)