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

[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.