Sunday, September 22, 2019
After having spent 35 years in religious circles (mostly Evangelical
Christian, but also in recent years Buddhist and non-Evangelical
Christian) and after having earned a Master's degree in Religion,
studied and read and researched extensively, I've ultimately concluded
that the most honest form of religious belief is agnosticism: to humbly
say, "I don't know." Agnosticism doesn't require letting go of beliefs
but it does mean holding those beliefs loosely, knowing they are merely
beliefs--not facts; being cognizent about what is actual and what is
speculative. A danger I've observed in nearly every religion is the
tendency to treat beliefs as facts. From that error flows a tremendous
amount of foolishness and harm.
I can can see the advantage of a seeking, searching agnosticism when it comes to speculative philosophy and cosmology.
ReplyDeleteHumans are such a tiny, brief species in the vast light-yeared reaches of the billions of galaxies in the cosmos (or the multi-verse) that to claim to know the ultimate nature of all that is--does appear to be delusional and arrogant.
On the other hand, since every moment of every day, we humans need to make ethical decisions, we do need to choose a probable hypothesis of reality, even though we don't have conclusive knowledge.