I’ve met, in my travels, a number of people who call themselves ‘agnostic.’ In many cases, they contrast this position against my being an atheist, saying that they are not willing to say that there is no god, they just don’t know. They aren’t religious and they just don’t understand why we atheists can think that we know there isn’t a god. Well, I have a message for people who hold this point of view.

Agnostics, you are atheists too.

OK, allow me to clarify. When a person tells me that they don’t know whether a god exists, thus calling themselves an agnostic, they are trying to contrast their perspective with what they think mine–an atheist’s–is. What they do not understand is that in most cases, when someone calls themselves an agnostic, they mean exactly the same thing that I do when I call myself an atheist.

I call myself an agnostic-atheist in these conversations. This usually causes the self-identified ‘agnostic’ to look at me with some confusion. “How can you be both?” they ask, and I say that the terms ‘agnostic’ and ‘atheist’ address different questions and are not mutually exclusive.

Let me break it down for you:

Theist: One who holds a belief in some god or gods.

Atheist: One who lacks belief in any gods (a- = negation or lack)

gnostic: this is a Greek word for knowledge. Not to be confused with the ancient religious traditions generally referred to as the Gnostics. This term simply means knowledge, and in this context it implies that to be a ‘gnostic’ is to know whether or not there is a god.

agnostic: to either claim to not know whether there is a god or not or to believe it to be impossible to know whether there is a god or not.

Thus, if I am an agnostic-atheist, it means that while I do not know with certainty that there is no god of any kind, I do not currently believe there is one. That is, I am not convinced in the existence of a god. I do not claim to know that there are no gods of any kind.

Also, an agnostic-theist is someone who, while not having certainty, believes that a god exists. And while they may claim certainty, I believe that this is impossible. While one cannot deny the experiences they have, they can be skeptical about the interpretation of those experiences. Thus, a person’s ‘experience of god,’ while it may be a real experience, may have another explanation and thus cannot be used as certain knowledge of god, just of some experience that they interpret as god.

So, what would a gnostic-atheist or a gnostic-theist look like? This would be a person who was certain that they knew whether or not there was a god. Does anybody fit this criteria? I don’t think so.

And while an atheist might say that a particular god does not exist, whether due to logical impossibility or for any other reason, this does not address that larger question of whether any gods exist. Thus, ‘gnostic’ seems to be an impossible position to hold, for me, and thus agnostic actually becomes redundant, since everyone is an agnostic.

Agnosticism is not some fence position between atheism and theism. It is not some place where you can sit and feel superior to atheists because you aren’t being judgmental towards belief in god. Rather, it is what you call yourself when you don’t know what an atheist means when they say they don’t believe in god. It is a way to weasel out of answering the question of whether you believe in god or not. The answer “I’m agnostic” is answering a different question, not fence-sitting.

You either believe in some god or you do not. There is no possible middle ground on this issue.

If you are not sure or you are still thinking about it, it means that you don’t currently actually hold a belief in a god, and are, technically, an atheist. Similarly, if you believe but are still questioning, you are a theist. I’m sure that some people waver between being an atheist and a theist many times, perhaps depending on mood, the last argument for or against, and maybe even how their day is going.

But for you ‘agnostics’ who think that calling yourself an ‘agnostic’ because you have bought this BS about atheism being the absurd position of certainty that no god exists have swallowed it whole. You are likely atheists.

Seriously, enough already. It’s time to put away the childish mythologies and join reality. It’s time to stop holding onto bronze-age myths and superstitions. It’s time to challenge yourself to either seriously look at your beliefs with an honest desire for reality.

You want to believe in god, fine. But for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, stop with the silly virgin births, reincarnations, prayer, and sin already. These things are silly and absurd, and we must, as a species, move past them if we are to move forward to make this world better fir all of us.

Prayer does not work, virgin meant “young woman,” and the mind is the product of the brain, and when it dies so do you.

Please, enough already.

I have atheist friends that think I’m a bad atheist.

No, really. I do actually have friends. I also have acquaintances and perhaps an enemy or two. I’ll keep you up to date if any legendary battles ensue that involves any kung fu or car chases.

Now, most of my friends are atheists. OK, I would define them as such, but perhaps they would not self-identify as such; most of them are generally non-religious, at very least. I am close to a few people that are religious and theists as well, and I do get along with them quite well. But what I have come to realize is that people have personalities independent of an opinion about gods or religions. I mean this in the sense that there are certain dispositions towards certain types of issues that have some determination on how they will behave. Now, before I cause your vague-o-meter to explode, allow me to be a bit more specific, if I may.

One’s opinion considering the existence of god is one thing. Another is what one does with this conclusion, assuming they really care at all. Within some Christian circles you will hear criticism about those that are “luke warm” (and I don’t think they mean that they left the New Testament on the radiator), rather than being “on fire for Christ,” or whatever the kids are saying these days. Similarly, there are people who are “luke warm” about their position in our society as atheists, rather than active, outspoken, etc.

I get this. No, really, I do! For them, this activity to criticize and battle against the minority that are trying to maintain some theocratic type of control are wasting our time or, as some have said to me, doing more harm than good. They live in a world, a real world, where progress has moved on. They ignore or are willing to live along side those that they disagree with because they don’t see what people like me are doing as helpful, but rather harmful or merely setting back progress. They have other priorities.

I want to be them, I want to live in the world that they live in. But, frankly, I think that their world has a little bit of fantasy in it as well. I think this because they forget that it was the efforts of people like us, the people “on fire for the lack of god,” (lol) in cooperation with the work of scientists, engineers, inventors, and so forth that we have progressed. They also fail to see what we are really doing. They tend to think that we are creating the problem by putting people on the defensive, when in fact we are generally only responding to the problems we see.

Now, I will grant that there are some that do provoke people, and this may cause defensiveness. I also believe that this is sometimes the only way you will get through to some people. There have been a number of comments sent, for example, to the Rational Response Squad that have said that without their aggressive tactics, they would have never realized their own delusions and moved past their religious convictions. And then there will be some people simply put off by such tactics. Their insecurity about their beliefs are the real issue for those people, I think, the faith itself being a symptom. Criticism of your beliefs should be either shrugged off or taken as a personal challenge, and not be met with defensiveness.

There are many out there that are still swayed by the proclamations of the minority fundamentalists. There are families being torn apart as people discover their lack of belief in some god, people swindled out of their money by televangelists, and there are people that believe that scientists are involved in an evil conspiracy to promote the lie of evolution. In my opinion, there must be a front line in this set of circumstances; their must be people that engage the people that promote and are insidiously duped by these promoters. To do otherwise would be to leave the misinformed, ignorant, and swindled on their own.

And the more people willing to stand up for good science standards in our schools, good sex education, and the freedom to criticize will help ensure that the future will be one that these people already think they are living in. And if they don’t already think we are living in that world, then what harm are we doing? And if we aren’t doing it right, then, by all means, show us how.

Because right now, you (and you know who you are…) are not doing anything but ignoring the undesirable effects of continued religious influence on society except to tell us we are doing it wrong.

So put up or shut up, haters.

‘Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way,…and few there be that find it.’ When a modern religion forgets this saying, it is suffering from an atavistic relapse into primitive barbarism. It is appealing to the psychology of the herd, away from the intuitions of the few.

This is a quote from the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, from his Religion in the Making. To some it might sound like a promotional phrase from a local Christian organization, in that it might be interpreted such that it demonstrates how so many seem to miss God’s word, and only the few will accept it. But, knowing Whitehead a little better than that, I can say that it means something quite different.

Whitehead’s use of the term “few” is interesting and perhaps misleading. He does not mean that few will attain or choose this straight and narrow, but rather that few will comprehend the complexity in order to navigate it. The issue of religion in all of its philosophical, psychological, and sociological factors is much too complex to be comprehended in simplistic dogma handed to us as the “truth.” Thus any religious group that gives answers to the difficult questions of life in a way that hordes of people can understand and try to follow has severely, I believe, oversimplified the matter, and acts as a stumbling block to true wisdom. True understanding takesr genuine effort.

For those that would respond by saying that it is through belief that we will understand, I say bullshit. Our minds are plastic enough to rationalize something nonsensical which we accept, but this does not ean it will stand up to more objective scrutiny. Socrates is credited with saying “I know that I know nothing,” which made him wise in the eyes of many both ancient and contemporary. Many of those you will find preaching the “Word” today might claim a similar ignorance in saying that we only have the wisdom of man, while there is a wisdom of God available to those who choose to accept it.

But how is our “flawed” human wisdom to recognize divine wisdom without a divine point of view on our parts? This would not be a problem for a theoretical God-man, but it is a serious problem for any fully human receiver of that message to be able to recognize that the messenger or the message is legitimate without access to the divine wisdom in question. (Can anyone say circular reasoning?)

Our wisdom is indeed limited, and we each have much to learn in order to understand the vast universe. But this reasoning is not sufficient to conclude that our wisdom is so inferior that we should capitulate to dogmas and doctrines about the universe that offer a simplistic solution to difficult issues. The fact is that most people will never understand the world or themselves sufficiently in order to approach religious notions with serious comprehension. Yet some will. It is for the more rare mind that the social and psychological constructions of religion become clear. Many others, the “herd,” adhere to simplistic ideologies and beliefs in place of truly comprehensive understanding of religion either because they lack the time or energy to do so.

Religion in our culture has become so watered down, so common, that even someone uneducated in critical thinking, religious history, and philosophy can claim the supremacy of the “Word.” This is not to say that religion is without merit or significance, as there is much to religious thinking that is wonderfully deep and philosophical. Unfortunately, most are unable to appreciate this. And when they do appreciate it they utilize religion’s philosophical depth in order to argue that the simplistic notions epiphenomenal to this depth to are valid in themselves. In other words, they use the wisdom hidden behind the superficial myths to validate the myth.

As a Zen master once said, once you have used the finger to point out the moon, you no longer have use for the finger. So, if you find something useful and wise in the depths of religious traditions, wonderful. My suggestion is to throw away the simplistic dogmas that are promulgated as a lure for the masses in order to truly understand what is important in religious thought for the pursuit and love of wisdom. After all, the few are so few only because the masses don’t try hard enough, don’t care, or are too defensive or stubborn about their beliefs to challenge them.

There is a myth about atheists which I hear regularly from people, especially Christians. Basically, the idea is that people want to live a certain way, and knowing that god would not allow such things, they simply reject god in order to live a life of…well, sin. A Christian might say that our desire for sin overpowers our desire for salvation. That’s an interesting way to frame the discussion, but it is not how I would phrase it. I would say that I want to enjoy my life in ways that some would consider wrong, but which I don’t see reasons for them being wrong.

The idea that atheists turn away from god in order to not be subject to god’s laws (no matter the particular set of laws they believe) is based on the assumption that god’s truth is obvious to us, but we reject it. I understand why this line of thought makes sense to believers; the idea of god’s reality is so close to their mind that they have trouble imagining not believing in god. But the conclusion that atheists make concerning their views on gods is not a derivation of the lifestyle they choose. In fact, this conclusion is not a choice at all.

I never chose not to accept god, to reject god, or to not believe in any hods. Atheism is not a choice at all. It is what one concludes upon looking at the reasons, evidence, etc concerning god and finding that they are not convinced that one exists. Of course, one can have good or bad reasons to believe or to lack belief, and if one were to say that they didn’t believe in a god because they want to live their lives without hindrance, that is not a good reason.

So, if someone asks me if I am an atheist so that I can live my life in ways that are not acceptable according to their scripture, I tell them that it is mostly irrelevant what their scripture says because I don’t believe that it is any more than a fairy tale anyway. If a book tells me I can’t drink alcohol, I don’t reject that god and that religion because I want to drink., Rather, I have already found that I don’t believe in the god of that religion and subsequently found that this rule about not drinking to be silly in addition to my pre-existing lack of belief. And even if I think the rule silly before this lack of belief, people don’t actually reject deities solely because they don’t like the rules.

What I think is really going on here, in some cases anyway, is religious folks feel the desire to do things which their religions say they cannot do in good standing with their god. So when they see people outside of their religion doing those things, they project the sting of that desire as well as the guilt they feel at desiring it and place it on the person they see. Thus, they may conclude that the other person, in order to deal with this guilt, has convinced themselves that there is no god so that they can go about their sinning without feeling bad. The theist, for some reason, either cannot or will not understand that the lack of belief is actually derived from the so-called evidence not standing up to scrutiny.

Now, from my point of view, what religion often does is tells you that you cannot do things that are often in our nature, telling followers that these desires are either the work of Satan tempting us, our human pride in our own sinful ways, or some other mythology to explain away why we have desires that lead us towards “evil.” And some of our desires will lead us to do things we should not do, and we need to make sure that we are not controlled by these desires completely. But sometimes our desires are OK to explore, and not doing so will create resentment, guilt, and other long-term harm to ourselves for no good reason at all.

I’ve met too many people in my life who have lived a life of guilt, repression, etc based on religion-based fears to be able to give religion a pass on this. Telling people that their desires are evil is disgusting. Making people live in the closet (Ted Haggard, anyone?), creating a culture that makes cheating more acceptable than polyamory (I can’t tell you how many people will react worse to an open and honest sharing of your loved ones than to doing it behind closed doors in secret) , and to generally convincing people that they are sinners and guilty automatically for some mythological fruit-based sin….

For fuck’s sake, the Original SIn was because someone gained knowledge of good and evil? I won’t even comment…

I live my life according to an ethical view that makes primary honesty, concern for the desires of others, and doing no harm where hard is not wanted. If your scripture (or your interpretation thereof) states that something I’m doing with full consent of all involved, then I find your book silly. I find it silly because I see no reason to accept that any gods exist, let alone your particular interpretation of your particular book of your particular god.

I just had to share this…
Creedocide

Social and cultural training leaves its mark on us. Many new to polyamory will feel some discomfort with some aspects of a non-monogamous lifestyle, but their desire to pursue something less traditional overshadows this in time.

But what about those that don’t choose an alternative lifestyle? No, I don’t mean those coerced, as this is not a part of polyamory. I mean those relatives (and possibly friends) who watch people close to them leave behind tradition and “normal” expectations behind with disapproval and possible scorn?

For some reason, many parents, grandparents, etc are somehow offended and become angry upon finding out that their loved one is breaking with the tradition that they chose for their own lives (assuming that it was not merely assumed, which is often the case). For the most part, this is mere insecurity, close-mindedness, and fear. But there is a legitimate slice of this type of phenomena as well, and that is the unfortunate fact that being polyamorous can be an obstacle towards certain goals, and it is these obstacles that becomes the rub for family and friends.

Especially when conservative religion becomes involved (but certainly not only conservativeness or religiosity), there are many aspects to society that will ostracize and otherwise exclude those that are willing to follow a different path. That is, those with the courage to follow their ideals are squashed for standing out. Why? Well there are too many reasons to list exhaustively, but much of it is not wanting to be associated with the abnormal; being social creatures, people tend to desire fitting in.

And over time, certain abnormal things will become more normal. Interracial dating/marriage was abnormal in much of society in many places and for many years, but now is common. There will hopefully be a day when three, four, or more people in a legally-recognized relationship will not be an example of the result of a slippery slope argument used to scare people from allowing gay marriage.

But before this happens we will need brave people willing to stand in the open in their non-traditional lifestyles and risk the fray. I am willing to be one of those people, and I hope that all of those around me will some day feel the same.

But in the now, there will be the balancing act of how much you allow your family and friends see. There will be those that you trust who will know, and those that you don’t trust. It’s unfortunate, but it happens to atheists too; some of the family you see around their holidays don’t know you reject their religion (or at least lack belief in their god). The real shame of it is that the only way that these things change is through exposure to those that are afraid of change, but doing so comes at personal cost often.

Social good in the long-run at personal cost; a tough struggle.