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Wednesday 7 April 2010

Agnostic - What do you believe?


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I have often been asked why I am an atheist; which never ceases to make me laugh, because in actual fact, I am not an Atheist, I am an Agnostic. Believers and non-believers alike, assume that I am an Atheist based on my views of Christianity, Islam, and any other religious (in the spiritual sense) belief system you care to mention. You see, I don't believe in the existence of any variation of God(s) that mankind has dreamt up; but that does not mean that one or more Gods do not exist. Now, this is where most people seem to find it difficult to understand my stance, so I'll try to elaborate on what I think about the possible existence of a supreme being.


The God I don't believe in
When asked to present evidence of the existence of their God, most people of faith will roll out the same tired arguments. These usually consist of; and this list is by no means exhaustible: quoting their scriptures, talking about feelings of being touched by their god; and in more recent times, claiming parts of their holy books contain scientific knowledge that predates the study of a particular field of science. None of these arguments have any substance in reality; but that doesn't matter to people of faith, because they are blinded by their faith, and only see what they want to see. This is especially evident when people of faith complain that they are being persecuted because the rest of us freely express our own beliefs. How dare we tell them that we don't believe in their God; and then have the gall to explain why, right?

The God that could be
Although I do not believe that there is any evidence of God; I refuse to rule out the possibility of one existing. Mankind is an arrogant species, and we think we have it all figured out; but there is so much that we do not know. Atheists can no more prove that God does not exist, than people of faith can prove he does, yet Atheists are just as secure in their belief as people of faith are. Granted, in terms of actual, tangible evidence, to support their argument, Atheists would appear to have the upper hand. On a basic level, this would also suggest that every one of us should be on one side of the fence or the other, so to speak; but there is another possibility. What if there is a Creator; but they don't actually care if they are worshipped, they have no desire to reveal themselves to us, and they simply brought the universe into existence because they could? Don't get me wrong, I'm not in the process of registering myself as the founder of "The Church of indifference" (although I do own the copyright, so hands off); but it is possible, isn't it?

Of course, unless this God does in fact reveal itself, and there is no room to deny its existence, it will remain no more than a possibility; but a girl can dream, can't she? I don't claim to speak on behalf of all Agnostics either, I just thought that it was time that we stood up and were counted; and if you wait until my next post, I might even introduce you to the other four of us. Thank you for taking the time to read this and if you liked it, please feel free to share it with your friends.

1 comment:

  1. As an atheist, and IMHO only ;-), I simply don't believe in any gods that I'm familiar with. None that I've been made aware of make any real sense to me. But no, I am not sure there is not a "god" however, if there is, I am very very sure that we humans have no idea what it's attributes are. IOW, everything so far, all "gods", are fantasy, imagination and conjecture. Of this, I am very sure.

    To totally rule out the possibility of a creator, yet undefined, would not be reasonable IMHO for the simple reason that we don't know where all this stuff originated. Perhaps one day we will. I don't know.

    I am an atheist to all gods that I know of and I'll bet that won't change as I've been pretty thorough in my journey to this point that I have arrived.

    Good blog! :-)

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