I Just Don’t Know

I thought I should clarify something. I have written a little about religion. I have stated I am no longer Christian. Many might assume that I am an athiest. I am not. I am agnostic.

Now, I have heard many say that agnostics are just fence sitters. That we are wimps afraid to declare. This is not true. See these excerpts from Wikipedia’s “Agnosticism“. (I love Wikipedia! If you have read many of my previous posts, you have probably guessed this by now):

Agnosticism (from the Greek “a,” meaning “without,” and Gnosticism or “gnosis,” meaning knowledge) is the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims—particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of God, gods, deities, or even ultimate reality—is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently unknowable due to the nature of subjective experience.

What this means to me is that I am “without knowledge” or “I just don’t know”.

Agnostics claim either that it is not possible to have absolute or certain knowledge of the existence or nonexistence of God or gods; or, alternatively, that while individual certainty may be possible, they personally have no knowledge. Agnosticism in both cases involves some form of skepticism.

I am down with skepticism!

Demographic research services normally list agnostics in the same category as atheists and non-religious people,^[1] although this can be misleading depending on the number of agnostic theists who identify themselves first as agnostics and second as followers of a particular religion.

I have run into this assumption as well. Agnostics come in a variety of flavors. There are those like me who are quite unconvinced either way. We simply cannot or will not choose atheism or religion. There are those mentioned above that are agnostic first but choose to follow a religion anyway. (I have tried this many times, and it just doesn’t work for me). I am sure there are those who are agnostic, but choose atheism.

In many ways, being agnostic frees me up to explore the various philosophies, religions, etc without prejudice. (Okay, maybe not absolutely without prejudice, but then I don’t believe there is much that is absolute in this world.) In this exploration, I am free to adopt aspects of those philosophies and religions that make sense to me. My beliefs, opinions, perspectives seem to be continually changing as I learn things. This seems to work best for me. Of course, I do stubbornly hang on to certain beliefs and opinions. It is not easy to admit when I am wrong, which is what you must do in order to change a belief or an opinion. The more invested I am in a particular belief, the more my ego fights to hang on to it.