FAITHFULLY AGNOSTIC

What does it mean to be a faithful agnostic?    

When I began this blog, my definition of a faithful agnostic was one who remained faithful to the Christian faith I belonged to as I questioned certain aspects of its teachings.  It comes as no surprise that  I have come to understand that Christianity does not lend itself to being questioned. 

While some theologians claim that doubt is a path to faith, as an agnostic I can only respond paradoxically by saying, "Perhaps but perhaps not."   Both theists and atheists dislike that sort of answer.   For Christians, doubt is tolerable as long as it doesn't result in denial of its main tenets.  On the other hand, atheists are frustrated with someone who doubts but holds that there might be some meaning to a long-held beliefs that have no factual backing.  Humans are uncomfortable with the grayness of ambiguity.  "Either be for something or be against it."    

There is a Christian (and thus a cultural) bias against being non-committal which I grew up with and is expressed in the third chapter of the Book of Revelation where its author writes:  

"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:  ... I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth."   That's an image that can stick with one. 

What about religion?

When it comes to theistic religion, I have cooled down to the point of being on the cool side of tepid rather than lukewarm.  I get that a good many people feel they need religion in their lives as it gives them a hint of certainty and a modicum of control over the chaos we all fear.  On the other hand, I also know that all religions have their ardent ideologists who have caused much of the chaos we fear and have led to the most violent wars in history.    

I am reticent to discuss the topic of God, which I've done a great deal of in past posts, but I feel compelled to give a brief repost of where I'm at on the topic.  The term God is problematic as it generally personates something as accessible and capable of being appeased or manipulated to do what we ask.  There has never been nor can there ever be any proof that such individuated being exists.  

When I use the term God, I am thinking of a ubiquitous force that permeates the universe, including us.  Hypothetically speaking, we are because it (the universe) is.  That is perhaps the closest one can get to certainty with regard one's existence.  

What about reality?

I have said in past posts, that reality is consensus of perceptions.  In that sense we humans are dealing with a multitude of realities at any given point in our collective history.  Every religion, theistic and secular, creates its perceptions of reality.  All perceptions are malleable.  Those that constitute common shared perceptions of objects are those which have been handed down as a continuous chain of perceptions.  Ultimately, reality is nothing more than  perceptions that have no intrinsic meaning.  

Beyond shared mundane perceptions of objects, reality becomes increasingly diverse as abstract perceptions called ideologies.  Most malleable realties are those that broadly fall under the domains of economics, politics, and religion; realities that have an impact on the welfare of every living creature on our planet home. 

Being an agnostic does not mean I don't care about such ideological realities.  I care very much about them.  My skepticism does not make me ambivalent to them - quite the opposite.  Skepticism leads me to research and understand the ideological realities that we humans create and are dealing with.  

If one wants to study the vastness of the realties we create, art in all of its various forms is a great place to start.   Dance, music, novels, plays, poetry,  paintings, sculptures, all forms of audio, culinary, and visual arts are ways to engage our senses and our variant perceptions of what is real in the world of our making.  In the post that follows, I will ponder with the reader how art projects our perceptions and shapes our sense of reality.

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Norm