Woody Allen joked, “I met a girl & fell in love with her, but couldn’t marry her because of religious reasons — she was an atheist & I was an agnostic.”
I am an agnostic because I find some atheists as dogmatic & intolerant as many religious people. We have no proof god doesn’t exist. You have to take it on faith.
Actually, one can be both an atheist & agnostic.
Agnosticism means someone doesn’t know if god exists or not. In the scientific method, if something can’t be proven or disproven, you keep an open mind.
Atheists say they believe god doesn’t exist. They are referring to their belief, not their knowledge.
We have 2 forms of agnosticism — atheistic agnostics, who say nothing exists outside our physical universe.
Theistic agnostics say something may be happening in this existence, but we don’t know what it is & it may be beyond human understanding.
But it is not the “Tribal Chieftain” god of primitive religion (read Christianity). Many say god was invented as a mechanism for mankind to worship himself & the devil was invented as a mechanism for mankind to worship who he would like to be.
We are really discussing the definition of what can be considered a “higher power”. People ascribe their sense of morality to this supposed power. They want an authority figure or “great policeman in the sky” to maintain order & punish evildoers.
We grew up with authority figures — parents, teachers, government, & instinctively want something in the universe to protect & guide us. It terrifies us to feel nothing stands between us & chaos but the frail humanity of ourselves & others.
We come into life without an owner’s manual but many questions. Where did I come from & where am I going? Does life have meaning & purpose other than what I give it? What happens to my loved ones when they die? What will happen to me?
Primitive people didn’t know about tectonic plates causing earthquakes. When earth trembled, they felt it was “god” punishing them. They didn’t know about microorganisms causing disease, so they attributed it to “divine retribution”.
Science has explained much about the operation of our world, so we realize things are not caused by outside but natural forces. We no longer need the concept of god to explain things.
The concept of “sin” is a comfort to our ancestors. If suffering comes from “sin”, if they could figure out how to stop sinning, they felt they could stop suffering. They felt they had control over an unpredictable existence.
Things are constantly changing, which creates a sense of terror. Primitives felt if they could get on the good side of the higher power by prayer, sacrifice, & following the “rules”, they would be protected from chaotic existence & have control.
God, in their mind, was like their tribal rulers, petty, jealous of his power, demanding constant loyalty & praise, vindictive. Able to give favors if he pleased, but also quick to mete out punishment.
They felt they could pray to this power to protect them from harm & ask for what they wanted.
Isn’t it the height of arrogance to believe god, who religions claim is the infinite creator of this vast universe, gives a damn what you want & think?
Agnostics are not vapid people who sit on the fence & refuse to make a decision, they are seekers of truth. If god means anything, it must be truth.
Truth is our best interpretation of reality, so agnostics are seekers of reality, the “divinity” they hope to know as best they can. Our human understanding remains imperfect, so an agnostic knows this will always be a striving, not a completion.
We also have the issue of theodicy. If god is all good, all powerful, all knowing, as many religions assert, how do we have so much evil in the world?
We also have the issue of consciousness. No one knows what it is. Many religions assert god is infinite, which must mean containing conscious & unconscious. Is our consciousness god?
In the East, they describe this concept as like a drop taken from the ocean. It is one with the ocean. Deepak Chopra has some interesting views on this issue from Vedic philosophy.
Physicists who study things like quantum mechanics & String Theory say physical reality exists only in our perception.
They say all things are energy. Energy is a wave, a vibration in the meme, which is the substratum of physical existence.
Consciousness is not physical but exists, at least in our perception.
Some say it is just the by-product of interaction of neurons in the brain. The brain is destroyed after death. No brain, no continued existence, if this idea is right.
But is consciousness not a byproduct but the substrate of our physical as well as mental being?
If physical being is basically a vibration, is consciousness the basis of this creation, as it is nonphysical & perhaps itself a vibration.