(no subject)
Agnostic:
1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as god, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
~
I am an agnostic, but I was raised Roman Catholic. I went to an enormous white and blue church called the Church of Mary Immaculate, every Sunday when I was very young. I have many memories as a child of sitting on the floor under the pews with a handful of quiet toys and the comic book bible.
I was baptized as a baby. My mother sent me and my brothers to religious education classes twice a week, at two different churches. I had my first communion, and I was confirmed when I was twelve (or so), because I was told this is what happened. We said grace before every meal, and my mother always ended the night by reading us the bible (first the comic bible, then later the real bible) and getting us to say the Lord's Prayer. As I got older, my mother only insisted we go to church on Christmas, Easter, Ash Wednesday, etc, but it was non-negotiable. I did all these things because my mother told me to.
~
One of my strongest memories of religion was tied to my best friend at the time. She lived across the street from me and was a couple years younger than me, and had hair as pale and gold as wheat.
We were playing in my parents' livingroom once, when her mother called and asked if she wanted to go to church. She decided she would rather go to church than stay and play with me.
"I am a soldier of God," she told me in all seriousness, and then she left.
That was the beginning of the end of our friendship, because that was the first time I thought she was really and truly stupid.
~
One evening when I was...oh, twelve or thirteen, we were saying the Lord's Prayer before going to bed and I wasn't speaking loud enough. My mother sent my brothers to bed and kept me behind, insisting that I repeat the Lord's Prayer so she could hear it.
I can still see her, sitting on the maroon velvet couch, with the huge red leather bible open in her lap, looking at me expectantly.
"Actually, mom," I told her, realizing the words were true even as I said them, "I'm not religious."
"Oh," my mother said, though I don't know what she was thinking. She closed the bible. "Well, then. Go on to bed."
My brothers followed me around for the next couple of days gleefully calling me a heathen, and while my mother shushed them, I could tell she wasn't precisely happy with my decision. I had to go to church on holidays until I moved out ("My house, my rules, Rosie.")
~
I realized I was agnostic even before I knew there was a word for it.
I was always an inquisitive child. When I was a toddler, my mother found me standing at the garden gate, opening and closing it and staring at the hinge. When I was six or seven, I smashed the cover on the toilet tank because I wanted to see how the toilet worked but I wasn't strong enough to hold it up ("The ONLY reason why I didn't MURDER you, Rosie," so says my mother).
The more I looked around me, the more I read, the more I thought, the more I realized that not only did I not understand everything about the universe, I was comfortable in my current state of unknowing. Every day I learned new things, and every day I learned about new things to be learned.
I am agnostic, because I believe in science.
I know! I know that sounds a little bit silly. There is so many associations between science and atheism.
And now I'm going to say something that may make me largely unpopular amongst my friends:
I think atheists are just as foolish as theists.
To blindly believe something doesn't exist without any conclusive proof is just as foolish as blindly believing something does exist without conclusive proof. Any single thing or idea that so much as tickles the tiniest little 'maybe' inside my brain is automatically filed into the 'needs further investigation' file in my brain.
As you can imagine, the existance of god(s) are very, very firmly in the 'needs further investigation' file. I doubt it will ever come out of that file, and I'm okay with that. Shit happens.
~
I need to clarify something: I am not anti-theist. I am not anti-atheist. Each could very easily be the truth, and even that which is not, ultimately, the truth, serves a purpose of its own to those people which believe in it. I cannot even begin to pin what each of these things do for each person. (Bloated super-religions are, I believe, largely useless and out of control, but that's a topic for another day.)
I think about religion and theism a lot, and I have come to a comfortable place in my agnosticism in which I am happy and at peace. This is not everybody's happy place, and I am okay with that too.
I am aware that very few people will agree with my beliefs, but I don't mind. Beliefs are not all about being agreed with.
My name is Rosie, and I am an agnostic.
1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as god, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
~
I am an agnostic, but I was raised Roman Catholic. I went to an enormous white and blue church called the Church of Mary Immaculate, every Sunday when I was very young. I have many memories as a child of sitting on the floor under the pews with a handful of quiet toys and the comic book bible.
I was baptized as a baby. My mother sent me and my brothers to religious education classes twice a week, at two different churches. I had my first communion, and I was confirmed when I was twelve (or so), because I was told this is what happened. We said grace before every meal, and my mother always ended the night by reading us the bible (first the comic bible, then later the real bible) and getting us to say the Lord's Prayer. As I got older, my mother only insisted we go to church on Christmas, Easter, Ash Wednesday, etc, but it was non-negotiable. I did all these things because my mother told me to.
~
One of my strongest memories of religion was tied to my best friend at the time. She lived across the street from me and was a couple years younger than me, and had hair as pale and gold as wheat.
We were playing in my parents' livingroom once, when her mother called and asked if she wanted to go to church. She decided she would rather go to church than stay and play with me.
"I am a soldier of God," she told me in all seriousness, and then she left.
That was the beginning of the end of our friendship, because that was the first time I thought she was really and truly stupid.
~
One evening when I was...oh, twelve or thirteen, we were saying the Lord's Prayer before going to bed and I wasn't speaking loud enough. My mother sent my brothers to bed and kept me behind, insisting that I repeat the Lord's Prayer so she could hear it.
I can still see her, sitting on the maroon velvet couch, with the huge red leather bible open in her lap, looking at me expectantly.
"Actually, mom," I told her, realizing the words were true even as I said them, "I'm not religious."
"Oh," my mother said, though I don't know what she was thinking. She closed the bible. "Well, then. Go on to bed."
My brothers followed me around for the next couple of days gleefully calling me a heathen, and while my mother shushed them, I could tell she wasn't precisely happy with my decision. I had to go to church on holidays until I moved out ("My house, my rules, Rosie.")
~
I realized I was agnostic even before I knew there was a word for it.
I was always an inquisitive child. When I was a toddler, my mother found me standing at the garden gate, opening and closing it and staring at the hinge. When I was six or seven, I smashed the cover on the toilet tank because I wanted to see how the toilet worked but I wasn't strong enough to hold it up ("The ONLY reason why I didn't MURDER you, Rosie," so says my mother).
The more I looked around me, the more I read, the more I thought, the more I realized that not only did I not understand everything about the universe, I was comfortable in my current state of unknowing. Every day I learned new things, and every day I learned about new things to be learned.
I am agnostic, because I believe in science.
I know! I know that sounds a little bit silly. There is so many associations between science and atheism.
And now I'm going to say something that may make me largely unpopular amongst my friends:
I think atheists are just as foolish as theists.
To blindly believe something doesn't exist without any conclusive proof is just as foolish as blindly believing something does exist without conclusive proof. Any single thing or idea that so much as tickles the tiniest little 'maybe' inside my brain is automatically filed into the 'needs further investigation' file in my brain.
As you can imagine, the existance of god(s) are very, very firmly in the 'needs further investigation' file. I doubt it will ever come out of that file, and I'm okay with that. Shit happens.
~
I need to clarify something: I am not anti-theist. I am not anti-atheist. Each could very easily be the truth, and even that which is not, ultimately, the truth, serves a purpose of its own to those people which believe in it. I cannot even begin to pin what each of these things do for each person. (Bloated super-religions are, I believe, largely useless and out of control, but that's a topic for another day.)
I think about religion and theism a lot, and I have come to a comfortable place in my agnosticism in which I am happy and at peace. This is not everybody's happy place, and I am okay with that too.
I am aware that very few people will agree with my beliefs, but I don't mind. Beliefs are not all about being agreed with.
My name is Rosie, and I am an agnostic.