Why I am an agnostic now

[greybeta]

So, recently I’ve changed my religious views on my facebook to “Agnostic.” Dictionary.com defines an agnostic as:

1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
2. a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.

To put it more plainly, I believe in God but I simply cannot acknowledge that Jesus is the only way to know him because I don't believe knowing God is exclusive to Christianity.

Then there must be a question that arises. Why, if I believed in Christianity before, would I be willing to switch to agnosticism now?

Well, it has to do with my time off. I meditated and I realized something heinous about myself. I was one of those people who had faith that the good Lord would take care of anything and everything in my life. All I had to do is sit and wait.

But the more I thought about it, the more irrational it seemed to me. I mean, I’d always wanted to study history but my parents wanted me to be a doctor. Even when I did switch I could never feel their full support. It seemed to me that if I fully pursued my wishes to teach history, I’d fail to meet their expectations. But if I went back to being a doctor, I’d fail at meeting my own expectations.

This is what you call a vicious circle. Or, as one of my electrical engineering professors said, it’s a circuit that just keeps the room warm (before it burns out).

The rational play for me is to resolve this cognitive dissonance. But, to do that, I would have to do the one thing that I thought I would never do. And that would be to become an apostate of something I held very dear.

I had to renounce my faith.

If I came back to Christianity now, I would return to my former state. If I am to quit blaming God for everything that goes wrong in my life, then I have to put that responsibility on myself.

Now, I know many of those who I worked in ministry with might say that is not much different from their faith. Fair enough.

But then if you put a gun to my head and asked me if I believed that claiming Jesus Christ was the Son of God and the only way to heaven, I would say no. I would deny the exclusivity of Christianity (or any religion for that matter).

But…Jesus died for our sins, didn’t he? We’re all the children of God. We can’t store up so many good deeds and commit crimes to balance the ledger. Salvation is a gift, it can only be given, not earned.

And yet, I think about all the terrible things that happen in the world today. God does a lot of good in this world, and yet he allows a lot of evil.

And in that lies the fearful power of Jesus. I mean, my goodness, if people didn’t believe in Jesus then how could so many good things happen in the first place?

Then again, plenty of other religions allow people to cope with reality. What makes Christianity different?

Jesus died for you.

That’s the first thing you have to admit if you are going to be a true believer in Christ. My problem is that I had it backwards.

In other words, Jesus already died for me. I still had to die for him.

In the Baptist Church, believer’s baptism signifies one’s death to be reborn. I had it wrong. I thought that one baptized one’s self to die, but the truth is that you’re already dead before you become baptized.

The belief is that “once saved, always saved.” Then the answer in my case was that I was never saved in the first place. Rather, I claimed to be and followed the outward forms of being saved, but inwardly I had no such intention.

That’s what Christians talk about what they talk about denying themselves. No, they’re not going to starve themselves to death. It’s a denial of who they are, and it’s not a one time thing. Nope, they’ve got pick up their cross and carry it daily.

Or to sum it up more tidily, the exclusive nature of Christianity is irrational to me. I remember Jesus saying that one should be cold or hot because he would spit out the lukewarm people first.

If I am to be a true believer, I can’t just believe in the parts of Christianity that make sense to me. I also have to believe in the parts that make little sense to me.

In that case, the rational thing to do is to reject it in its entirety.

Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that I’m a rather irrational person.

Comments

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

I'm a double ditcher of dogma. First, I pitched the church of my childhood and became Wiccan, then, the nonsense and reality-disconnect of modern Wicca made it a burden on my mind and soul, and I pitched it, too. It was not an easy decision, and like you, I spent some time away from those whom I worshiped and worked with. It was more difficult for me because I was a very experienced and highly respected person in the Craft- a minister and high priestess, in fact. People still ask me when I am going to come back, but they do not apprehend that I have stepped out of that life, and have left it behind permanantly. I dumped the dogma, not what I've learned. I needed that part of my life back, so my journey could continue. It is much easier to walk the path unburdened with unnecessary things- be they physical or spiritual.

There's a freedom to being an agnostic. Freedom from dogma, fear, social control, hate, rote belief... And there is a responsibility in being an agnostic, too: people will no longer spoonfeed you your beliefs. There is no Book of Agnosticism, no "Dummies" manual or instruction book. There are no scriptures, no one book or rede that tells you how to run your life, or gives ministers power over you. All books are scripture- and none. You write the book, then burn it. You have to find and quantify what is signal, and what is noise. You have to decide if there's a divine plan of some sort, or if it's some tool of social control... or if that which might be the Ultimate/All is actually way beyond our means of comprehension.

Being agnostic allows you to be inclusive, and exclusive- but not in a way that makes you 'better' (or inferior) to others. It permits you to sample offerings from believers of all sorts, and turn away from them if they do not suit you. It is difficult to be a zealous agnostic- unlike Atheism and Christianity, agnosticism does not breed unpleasant zealots. We're more 'zen' in our outlook than 'sin'.

Agnosticism permits freedom from imposed guilt, but does not absolve you from being responsible for your actions. You are your own redemption, and you are your own temptation, too. There are no Jesii to come pull you out of any holes you fall into (or snatch you into the sky or stomp on you in wrath). You must find your own way out- the maps you draw are your own. You can permit your inner wisdom to guide you, and build trust in it. There is something to that 'still, small voice' within that the Bible speaks of... And the Bible becomes just another book, not an object of worship or a weapon of religious bullies. It can be read as literature, and its power over you is diminished in a way that makes it a much easier book to read.

You make your own sacrifices, you determine what errors you've made. You atone for them in the present, not in some future paradise or punishment. You are freed from the horrific curses of Revelation and Armageddon, and can now work to derail it. You can make this world a better place, instead of yearning for a world after death that is better.

Life, if you choose to make it so, is good.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I see you've also meditated on this. Birds of a feather...

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

I like what you're saying here, but I'm not sure if I agree with it. Agnosticism doesn't mean that you don't ally with or identify with traditional spiritual labels. I mean, if you pitch Christianity, and then decide what divine plan you believe in, you're not an agnostic anymore, you're something else.

I think the responsibility more falls along the lines of living your life without having an infallible spiritual entity telling you how he/she/it wants you to live it. You get no safety net, no 'follow these rules, and everything will work out for you', or even 'follow these rules, and you will be doing the right thing'. You've got to pretty much figure it out on your own. Or, I guess, put trust in more fallible earthly authorities like parents or teachers, if that's your thing.

You also get no pre-made community of people who have beliefs and a world view generally like your own. But you also don't have to put up with the BS that sometimes goes with those communities, so it's all good.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

Agnostic simply means 'not knowing'- not 'not believing' or 'not spiritual'. I am not tied to any particular divine plan, because I am not sure that there is any Authority out there to enforce it. This is different from Atheism, which postulates that there definitely isn't any Authority or similar being above us. Since the existence of the divine in any form cannot be scientifically or logically proven or disproven (unless you are an un/believer), it stands to reason that we really don't know for sure.

That is fine with me. I take responsibility for my own life, fate, ethics, and actions, and will not foist it upon another: human or divine.

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

I think we're basically saying the same thing here, only using different words. :)