Why being agnostic didn't work for me

If anyone has been paying attention to the posts flying back and forth between our little blogger community you will have seen a discussion circling around science, religion, reason, athiesm, theism and agnosticism. It's made for some pretty light reading. Throughout the debate we have seen a lot of the discussion focus around reason, and what are logical and illogical stances to take vis-a-vis the origins of the universe and the existence of God, or UFO's. One of the questions posed by the late blogger over at Sublimablogitude has maintained that agnosticism is a logical and credible position to hold on to with respect to God, or god or lack thereof. I can definately relate to feeling attracted to this stance. I flirted with it for a while shortly after graduating university. Ultimately, this position didn't measure up and I promised a post on why - so here it is.



I think what initially led me to window shop at the Agnosis Emporium was my scientific schooling where we are taught the scientific process of searching for answers in the physical world around us. We're taught to look for proof or evidence of the various hypothesis that we are trying to answer and when you can't find proof for one hypothesis, you either keep looking, or you change your hypothesis and start again. This sort of training can lead many, myself included, into a pseudo-reality where you can only ever claim something to be true when you have 100%, unrefutable evidence that it is true. Well, to make a long story short, I think you all know where I go with this. The existence, or non-existence of God clearly falls into the "not 100% proved" category. This is where agnosticism gains it's appeal. I do not have the proof to either prove or disprove that God exists, so I do not take a position either way. Seems like a pretty safe, and a pretty rational place to be, until you start applying this logic to other areas of your life. This is where this position really started to become very non-compelling for me.



Do we really have 100% proof of anything? As I alluded to in a previous post - Can any one of us prove, with 100% certainty that we exist? Can you prove that we are not all plugged into the Matrix. Could I prove that we are? Can you prove to me with 100% certainty that the sun will rise tomorrow? Could you prove to me that the Santa Claus doesn't exist? Nothing is 100% provable. I pulled this paragraph off of this website - I think it sums up the thrust of my point.



"With the question of God's existence we can look at scientific theories and evidence, philosophical and theological arguments, personal experiences, historical records etc and decide where the evidence points. Does the evidence suggest that God exists or not? The Pope obviously believes that there is good evidence for God's existence, whereas I interpret the evidence as indicating that God doesn't exist. We are both so confident in the way we interpret the evidence that we are prepared to say we are sure we are right. In the same way that we are sure the Sun will rise tomorrow. However, as extremely confident each of us is with our respective views, neither of us is prepared to say that we can prove this claim. The suggestion by agnostics is that if we can't get absolute proof, 100% certainty, then we shouldn't accept 99.9999% either or 90% or 75%. This is ridiculous. This is a silly 'all or nothing' mentality. We either prove it conclusively or we say we have no idea. Apart from agnostics nobody in the real world works this way. You examine the evidence for and against a certain claim and make your stand accordingly. You look at the evidence supporting leprechauns and you decide that they don't exist. You look at the evidence supporting DNA and you decide that it does exist. It's the same with God. You look at the evidence and take a stand. You don't claim, "I accept that I will never be able to prove this debate 100% so I'm just not going to bother. As regards God, I have no opinion".



Why is an agnostic not willing to make the call on God without 100% proof either way, but yet has no problem making stands on other issues like leprechauns, or Zeus, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Why do people only describe themselves as being agnostic when it comes to believing in a god as descibed in the Bible, or the Koran, or one the other big religions? To be logically consistent, an agnostic needs to describe him or herself as agnostic about everything. For me, looking at agnosticism this way really showed me that I was willing to believe, or dis-believe in plenty of things without 100% certainty of my position - be them scientific or supernatural. So while I think it is possible to assert that you cannot prove that God exists or not, you either believe or you don't based on the evidence you have. There is not middle ground. Anyway, once I passed that point I knew I could still believe without being 100% sure, it allowed me the freedom to personalize my faith. Suddenly my personal experiences became valid and acceptable things to include in my bucket of "proof". It allowed my emotional side to come into play. News flash - I do have an emotional side, no matter how small it might be :P

This was really the launching point for where I think I am today. I find, moreoften than not, that God speaks to me more profoundly through His creation than he does in the Bible or in Church. Looking for God's presence in nature, or in other people, I find has really helped me take all those words in the Bible or spoken in Church and make them mine. I can't help but wonder that the feeling I get when doing something selfless for someone else, or admiring a beautiful sunset while flyfishing on a river, or hugging my kids isn't my soul resonating at a note that it was made to play. You can't think your way to that kind of experience. You have to be willing and ready to receive it.