Defending Agnosticism

I have been thinking lately, challenging my own agnosticism. I imagine that a religious person might try to tell me that, because I refuse to completely accept the notion of god, that I should call it atheism, while atheists would tell me practically the same thing. The simple answer has always been that I simply do not believe that the existence of god is impossible. A more complex answer will now follow from my (somewhat inebriated) posting.

It reduces in my mind to an analogy to math. It seems evident that 2+2 should equal to 4, but is there a way in which it can equal 5? Yes, there is. In math, numbers are often rounded, so that 2 could actually mean anything from 1 and 1/2 to an infinitely small quantity less than 2 and 1/2. Thus, when there is an expression 2+2, it could mean anything from 1.5 to 2.4 (followed by an infinite amount of 9's). Adding the two maximum possibilities of the expression of 2 would produce a number that rounds to 5, and in fact you do not even have to add the two maximum cases to produce the same rounded result.

When I look at the equation of 2+2, the evident answer is 4. But I can't ignore that the 2's in the equation may represent an amount rounded down. I look at the evident information, and conclude based on the availably symbology that the evidently correct answer is 4. I do not ignore that what is evident may not be exactly what I am looking at, and so I will not state that the answer cannot also be 5.

edit:
I should note here that this analogy falls apart the second you apply it to a different equation, but I chose this particular reasoning to illustrate that the evident meaning in observation isn't necessarily the true meaning. (end edit)

I hold the evident belief, and refuse to reject the notion that the evident elements of the equations may be misrepresented for the sake of simplicity (which would ultimately be the result and purpose of rounding). I would say that what is evident is true until it is shown not to be, and not that it is impossible that it could be shown not to be true.

In a sense, we all "round the numbers" of the facts we deal with. There is a little faith in the process, but we have to remain open to all possibilities. In my mind, the wisest of the religious would say that God might not exist at all, while the wisest of their opposition should also say that God might exist. I often feel compelled to be an atheist, but what usually pulls be back from it is the evident truth that the idea is not localized and is common to humanity regardless of location or culture.

There is no defense for religion, except to say that human beings can choose how to behave and what to believe, and that those who give religion such a bad name were almost universally misguided. Still, as misguided as they might have been, they were inspired... and they were inspired by religion. Speaking as an outsider of even mysticism, the rational truth appears to be that only those touched by god or the universe or whatever mystical entities exist can really speak for divinity. And even in their case, they can only speak for themselves, and that truth contains nothing threatening within it even if it allows the rest of us to doubt.

We can look at the "numbers" as evident as they are, and add them up, and because we might seek to simplify what we have observed we may get the wrong answer. Maybe 2+2 does equal 5. Maybe we should have faith in that outcome. But what sense does it make? If those 2's actually represent quantities rounded down from greater quantities, we are being lied to. Religion would tell us that the evident is not as simple as that, but at the same time it doesnt confirm even whether they might be. It does even not say "your obeservations aren't exact," it does not even say they might not be. It just says they aren't - it generally only tells us "the observations provided in this book are correct."

Numbers, like words, mean specific things. It's perfectly fine to me that some words may contain layers of meanings, but the problem now becomes that everyone will have an interpretation of what is between the lines. Scripture might contain layers of literate meaning, and I would sympathize with those religious who reject the notion of literal interpretations. The problem of personal interpretation remains, however, and two important questions are born from it:

1. If I am literally meant to interpret the scripture for myself, then why does it exist at all, instead of simply allowing god to reveal itself to me personally?
2. Who other than god can confirm whether my interpretation of the scripture is correct?

I open even my standard of certainty to these questions, but in trying to answer them, I find that I require intervention. An intervention that the religious seek to tell me is some kind of blasphemy to ask for. I say, fuck your good news. I don't want to hear from you. I want to hear from your god. I am open to it, I beg for it, I plead for it, and yet it does not present itself.

If I am demanded to answer these questions myself, I will be a mere mortal answering the question, and it can never be a divine truth. The only way to understand it would be to receive the instruction divinely. I have asked, and yet, the divine does not oblige. I was given not only the ability but also the motive to ask, and yet I am not given an answer.

Given all of that, it must seem a wonder to atheists that I do not count myself among them. I can only say that I could not take it from them any easier than I'd take it from the religious. There have always been truths that were not immediately evident and later validated. How am I to recognize such a truth fully until it actually is validated, and the problem with atheism is that it is a negative belief and such beliefs can only be invalidated.

Can anyone show me that atheism is an unfalsifiable belief? If not, I have to reject it. By my own conceit, atheism is a negative belief which cannot be validated, but only invalidated. But that alone won't convince me to believe in a god.

 

You're right, I sought it. I convinced myself I had found it, but found I was lying to myself. I didn't think it was futile, but it turned out to be.

Only when people choose to point at something and assign it a cause other than obvious causes can they say that everywhere they look, there is God. They're already looking for God in everything, so much like the prophecies, it's no suprise that people find what they're looking for when they try to.

It brought me mostly misery. I guess I was reading the wrong book.

How can you understand what God is without seeing what you imagine it to be, unless it shows itself to you?

 

It isn't the morality, I think it's the afterlife mumbo jumbo. I read it a lot, and got a lot out of it, but over time it was slowly dawning on me that I was living a lie. I made myself wait to receive the lord, I told myself all of the cop outs that people say to dismiss God from evil and suffering, I prayed but I didn't ask him to reveal himself to me or even to bless me, only to protect and deliver me to where I should be. This is where it got me.

As all of this was happening, time was going by and my faith was being tested regularly. I was failing God, but partly because in my mind, God was also failing me. I wasn't asking him for much, and I felt that he wasn't asking me for much either. It seemed inevitable that when I was finished suffering my life, I would live another one forever suffering. And then I got to asking myself why.

My faith was wasting away, so here is the first answer. But it was a one-sided relationship to a commitment that was supposed to be two-sided. I began to sense that I was lying to myself, and realized that I was also lying to God. I have no way of knowing when that began, but it did begin at some point before I realized it. Thus I realized, because I was lying to God about my faith that I would have to go to Hell.

But why? The answer: because I gave my heart, made the commitment, felt betrayed by the lack of engagement and lost faith. Then I finally realized: I tried, God failed. I did what everyone asked me to do: I went looking with an open heart. God gave me nothing real, just the lies I kept telling myself. Screw religion, screw Hell, if it is even true I've done my part and don't deserve it. I do right by the world almost every day. If there is a god who will punish me for that when I tried so hard, then fuck that god too.

 

I'm curious if this was post was directed to me. I feel like it shouldn't be, but it's my thread so logically it seems to be. I had the experience where maybe I was trying too hard to know myself, but as I said I didn't ask god to reveal himself - I expected to be touched in some way, and I never felt I was. The longer that went on, the more difficult it became. The experience planted a seed that grew into self-reliance, I let go of the word and the priests and finally even of God, and put my faith in myself.

I was finally free. I didn't know if I would find meaning within, but I had faith that I would (and I still do). I was a little stung, I felt I had wasted a good portion of my life, and I vowed I would not entertain the idea of God again. I put the whole matter away for a long time until college philosophy started me asking serious questions about metaphysical matters, and I found that I was perfectly capable of creating a good sense to help me understand the questions... I had been, the entire time. Nothing changed except the encouragement to examine my life and life in general.

I have broken my vow and reopened my heart, but this time I have promised myself to believe the best truth I can reasonably know and not be tempted by lies and fairy tales. If there is a god and he finally does come looking for me, I will be right here, but it will be a mystical experience and not a religious one.

edit:
See, I just wrote this rambling post about basically holding my arms open if god would like to come to me, so I was confused to have this notion in my head while reading a post suggesting I might be looking too hard. In a way, I am done looking for divine purpose. I cannot discover it on my own.

 

Yeah, I didn't intend to write as much as I did by any stretch, and I didn't even realize I was writing about agnosticism for awhile. I was just in my notepad taking notes of some notions, I had returned to the final thought of my last post (everything you know might be wrong), and I think I had spent some of the weekend in a rather pointless scuffle with an intrepid believer. I had probably been told (or had it hinted at) that I was overly smug, so I did what I think a lot of people never think to do: I proposed that I was overly smug, and began to look at ways in which that was true, criticizing myself, and in the process I ended wanting to see how flexible I could make a seemingly self-evident idea. I guess I wanted to judge the limberness of my thinking.

So I started with the 2+2 idea taking notes, and after awhile I thought "I should write this up and share it with the class," so I started writing and what came out turned out to be not the most humiliating drunkpost for a change.

I was thinking about this on the way home from class today (it's about a 40 minute drive, plenty of time to think). Unless the equation is accompanied by a statement that insists there is no rounding involved, 2+2=5 about 6.25% of the time using really basic probability calculation (basic enough for in my head). That might be wrong, it's been awhile since I did something like figure the probability of a certain coin flip 4 times in a row. If I'm right though, that's 1 in 16 times.

edit:
A response to the Dawkins scale, I am going to put myself around 5.6. And, I'll say that the question isn't nearly as important as most people (including myself, sometimes) make it sound.