I'm OK, You're OK (even though I'm an agnostic)

I don't believe in a god, and in all likelihood am incapable of doing so. At least, not that traditional Western-style diety that hears our petitions and has mercy on the oppressed and weak and poor and has punishment in store for those who do wrong by their fellow Earthly denizens. How can I?, I reason to myself; God has never spoken to me or explicity shown His/Herself to me, and there's too much injustice and poverty and pain that goes unheeded in this world to believe otherwise. On the other hand, if you want to suggest there might be some sort of omniscience behind the creation and miraculousness that is all that exists that just doesn't make itself explicity known to us (leaving the implicit as a judgement call), I'd be hard pressed to argue to the contrary; there's no way I am aware of I could disprove this postulation.

You, on the other hand...

If you're like approximately 90% of the American public (and likely of the world population at large), you do believe in a devine entity whose hand can be entreatied to shepherd our kind and our circumstances. Maybe you're a regular church goer, maybe you're a regular prayer, or maybe you just hope you live your life right in accordance with the desires of this deity and it'll all work out for you in the end.

Well, you know what? I'm OK with that. In fact, good on you, I say. If that's how you find your moral compass, if that gives you comfort, then so long as you don't try to convert me or limit my freedom to live in accordance with my own belief of lack thereof, I think it's a good thing. In fact, living as I do in liberal central Seattle, I think it's cool that there are churches in my neighborhood that are by every definition liberal and open -- truly open -- to all, even though I don't attend these churches.

You see, I'm aware that my opinion is in the distinct minority. I'm the oddball. I'm the guy who just doesn't "get it." I'm also aware of how strong the desire to believe is. I'm aware of how our history is replete with people who risked their lives worshipping, whether it be in anti-religious Stalinist Russia, or - more typically - in a society where the majority worship a differently-styled deity and are violently hostile to those who worship otherwise.

I've also read a book, Why Won't God Go Away?, that argues that the brain of the human species is hard-wired to believe in a god or gods. And this book poses this without arguing whether this make-up of our brain merely creates the illusion that there is a God, or was designed by that God to be how we can communicate with that Being. Bottom line is, this facet of our neurological make up isn't going away soon.

Hence, for me, there's no point in trying to argue that religion is destined to be a relic of human society as we move forward in our quest for scientific enlightenment.

I'm also aware that as noble a beast as we humans can be, we are also capable of frightening savagery. And in what little of history and sociology I've read, I've seen that this savagery can take many forms of justification. Yes, religion is one of these justifications. But hardly the only one.

Meanwhile, religion also plays a major role in our nobility. And, really, there isn't any concept humans can come up with that can't used for our betterment or darkly perverted and used against our fellows. That's just our nature.

So, yes, I think I'm OK. And if you're a believer, I think you're OK. And I'm glad so many of you are here on this site, folks like the wonderful  Pastor Dan, to serve as daily reminders that the Jesus-juice-drinking religious quacks propped up by the Right are the abberation, not the norm. I would never deign to insult or belittle you, and appreciate that - to date - none of you have sought to do the same to me because of my lack of faith.

That is all. = )

-Robin Michael