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."

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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."

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

[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.

[mrbalihai.livejournal.com]

We need to move to a point where a difference of opinion doesn't break up our societies.

This isn't going to happen if you tell people that their religion is a "fairy tale". Regardless of whether or not you believe that to be true, you aren't going to accomplish anything by telling that to someone with deeply-held religious beliefs. In fact, you're going to convince them that they are being persecuted, which just tends to reinforce their sense of righteousness.

And just in case you haven't noticed, families and communities break up all the time without any help at all from religion.

[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.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

See, I'm agnostic about God in about the same sense that I'm agnostic about whether I'm really a disembodied brain in a vat. I consider it a logical possibility that the world was created by a sentient being that it makes sense to refer to as a person, but it's not a possibility that is so evident to me in the structure of the world that it makes sense to structure my life around it, or emphasize it in a summary of my own beliefs.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

There's a difference between denial and derision. Also, there are people whose religious faith incorporates all sorts of beliefs, many of which are extremely difficult to accommodate in any sensible worldview. I'm denying a pillar of many people's religious faith when I say that the universe is between 13 and 14 billion years old and people are descended from apes. Am I supposed to avoid saying that for the sake of détente?

[merde.livejournal.com]

why does this have to be adversarial? just because i picked one side of the line to stand on doesn't mean i think everyone on the other side is a jackass. you know, it's sort of like how you listen to Fripp, but i don't run around telling everyone you're a tasteless cretin.

are you deriding my faith when you tell me i can't be an atheist because i'm not a big enough asshole?

[mrbalihai.livejournal.com]

In most of the rich democracies of the world, secular humanism and atheism have competed quite successfully

In what sense? I lived in Europe for many years, and people there didn't seem to be any more connected to their communities, or with each other, than they are here in the US.

[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.

[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...?

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Touché!

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Oh, i know that. But at the same time, i think that it's important that people dissociate the myth from the spirit. It's possible, though, that this notion is wholly wrongheaded, that the idea that a religion can be separated as one would an egg shows how i completely misunderstand it.

Families and communities break up all the time without any help from religion, but religion isn't a mundane thing like alcoholism or "irreconciliable differences". It's about salvation and our purpose on Earth and "important" stuff like that. It's the kind of stuff that makes people go to war (although it's often just a cover for the true cause for war: greed).

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

No, no, see, that's why i said that thing about "labels", and redefined "atheist" within the context of my article. I'm not gonna tell you that you can't call yourself an atheist even if i don't exactly agree with your use of it. I didn't intend what i said to you to be adversarial.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

In the simple sense of numbers. There are very few atheists in the US, but there are relatively many in Europe, especially in the north. I don't get the sense that this has caused a crisis of social cohesion, though I'm sure some religious conservatives disagree.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

There's a difference between denial and derision.

Logically, yes, but we're speaking about faith here. In a very basic sense, someone who isn't, say, a Muslim is through their belief implicitly saying that Allah is not God. Most Muslims are fine with that.

I'm denying a pillar of many people's religious faith when I say that the universe is between 13 and 14 billion years old and people are descended from apes. Am I supposed to avoid saying that for the sake of détente?

Not any more than they have to avoid saying that The Bible Is The Literal Truth Of God™.

It might be the case that by conflating denial and derision, i'm projecting. But i do think there's a kernel of truth in it.

[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.