MILITANT AGNOSTICS UNITE: I DON'T KNOW AND YOU DON'T KNOW EITHER

I tend to be an agnostic for the most part, and I enjoy lurking and reading at a site called "God is For Suckers" at http://gods4suckers.net/ . None of the theists who post there have done anything to convince me that God exists, and the athiests haven’t done a great job in proving to me that God doesn’t exist, although I do tend to lean in that direction.

I was a regular churchgoer until about seven years ago. My family and I attended a liberal Methodist church, the people there were friendly, and there was a genreral atmosphere of tolerance for people regardless of belief, race, gender or sexual preference. I was actually rather comfortable there. So what caused me to leave?

Part of it was my conflict with some of the basic tenets of the faith, including the virgin birth, the resurrection and the concept of salvation. I’ve always been a “show me” guy, and I guess I don’t really believe in miracles… I tend to believe what can be proven to me. My feeling was that if I couldn’t believe Jesus was a supernatural being of sorts who was sent by an omniscient being to save the world, that Jesus died to save the world but rose from the dead, and that if someone believes in Jesus they can live forever… these things stretch the boundaries of science too much for me.

Another major factor was that I had been depressed for years, and I realized some of this was coming from my relgious conflicts. I had always been a chronic worrier, and I was developing some strange behaviors that turned out to be manifestations of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I am OCD to a moderate degree, enough that it was interfering with my quality of life… so I got some counseling and got some medication. I think the old saying “Better living through chemistry” came from the Eisenhower era, didn’t it? At any rate, I think it still applies today. Part of my OCD involved superstitious behaviors, and I realized that, to me, the rituals performed at the weekly church service were very superstitious in nature. Needing to avoid superstitious behavior at all costs, I stopped attending church. I haven’t gone back in nearly seven years, I have come to grips with the fact that I have never really had a “personal relationship” with “God”, and I have stopped worrying about it… and I have never felt better about myself and about my life.

It’s almost like I got off of some bad, mind-bending drugs. I feel like my mind has cleared enough now to see how the GOP has co-opted fundamentalist Christianity in the U.S. for its own nefarious agenda, and it breaks my heart. People who prey on the fears of others? I think it’s reprehensible. I was a moderate Democrat until Bush assumed power. His bull-headed stupidity and stubbornness, combined with his fundamentalist religious beliefs and too much testosterone, has caused me to become a rabid leftist. So, the final straw for me during the past decade has been the way in which people like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed, Dubya, et al have used people’s fundamentalism-generated fears to control vast numbers of voters.

I know a lot of people find comfort in their beliefs, in believing they will never die, that they don’t have to think a whole lot about why things are the way they are in the world… they are the way they are, simply because of God? If that floats a person’s boat and they aren’t pushing me to believe the same thing, and if they aren’t going to talk down to me or pity me because I don’t share their beliefs… I can be as tolerant as anyone. And I do know quite a few believers who fit that description. I even believe most believers in America fit that mold. So why don’t those believers stand up and put some pressure on the fundamentalist control freaks who seem to be always squeaking and who therefore always seem to get the grease? I think Christianity in America is getting taken over by lunatics. And that the ultimate goals of those lunatics are political in nature and have nothing to do with salvation.

I am not a gambler by nature. I cherish life, and the simple fact that I am alive in such a wondrous place as the Earth brings me great joy. Sometimes I find myself feeling like I am part of something much greater but which I could not begin to describe or theorize about. Could this be God? I don't know. I find great joy in the company of other people too. I don’t want to stake my life on something, a belief system, that I find preposterous in many ways. I can’t say for sure that it isn’t all true, because it might be. But if I have a choice, which I do, I’m going to live in what I see and know, which is the here and now, and take things as they come. As I see life, a cookie-cutter approach would only create a tendency for me to use less critical thinking and to be less inclined to see past myself and try to help better the world.

From Ambrose Bierce's "The Devil's Dictionary:

FAITH, n.
Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

That’s just my .02 worth.