28 Jun 2013

Agnosticism, or why can't we all just get along?

We should all be agnostic. That would be a sensible, honest position for humanity to take. Nobody knows there is a God. Nobody knows there is not a God. It is currently impossible to prove either way, so why aren't we all avowedly agnostic?

Few are now happy to admit they do not know, at least publicly, and increasingly fall into two camps - the atheists and the religious.  Both camps use various means to justify their belief, both taking the moral highground. Atheists cite scientific proof as making God improbable, meaning to be religious is to be intellectually inferior. The religious counter with asking for proof that God does not exist, and being smugly comfortable in their moral superiority. Both sides seek to convert, with the atheists implying to believe is to be stupid and offering liberation from religious ideals and constraint, and the religious offering spiritual comfort and acceptance. The religious are viewed with suspicion, as delusional, exploitative, dangerous or merely idiotic.

Religion asks people to suspend their rationale, to have faith. Atheism asks people to suspend belief in a deeper meaning or reason for existence, to be reductionist, and at it's extreme, nihilistic.

Understanding religion is key to understanding culture, history, art, politics. Religion has done much bad and wrong, been corrupted by man for control and gain, but also given people structure, meaning, and identity for thousands of years. Religion is not faith - many people have been religious without believing in God, and many people believe in God without showing allegiance to a particular brand of religion.
Science deals in the concrete, the known. However, I do not believe that faith and science are mutually exclusive. Science has debunked some religious beliefs, but it has not yet managed to disprove the existence of God. Scientists are not all atheists, and not all concerned with trying desperately to disprove God.

Faith is as unique as a fingerprint. No two people believe in an identical God, an identical moral compass, an identical set of ethics. I am becoming increasingly irreligious, disliking being told how to believe, how to behave, how to think. No person has the authority to tell me what God wants of me.
But my faith does not move. I believe there is a God. I don't know if it a benevolent God, I don't know if it's the God of Judaism/Christianity/Islam or some other religion, I don't know if it gives a crap what I do or say, I don't know if it's listening, but I cannot believe there is nothing out there. I cannot believe our world was an accident, that humanity is a coincidence. I've made this point before.

It may be impossible to prove the existence, or lack of existence of a God or Gods. Humanity may search for the answers forever. Faith is a personal matter - whether you have it, or not - and to challenge someone's faith can be to challenge their entire identity. It is no wonder people get so defensive and argumentative.

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