“Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.” – Andre Gide
So why am I an agnostic and not an atheist? Why, when I have no evidence that there is a god, that there is anything magical in this world, do I still hold out a little part of my mind for the existence of a god? Because the moment the concept of a god was given to me, I could not be an atheist. To me, being an atheist is almost the same as believing in god. Indeed you find almost the same arrogance in atheists as you do in religious folk sometimes, and both can be very preachy. There is very little difference between KNOWING that there is a god and KNOWING that there isn’t. How can one be so sure? It is almost unfair, this concept of god. If no one ever said anything about it, I know I wouldn’t believe in it, wouldn’t search it out. But since I know about this concept of god, how can I be sure it isn’t true. This is also why the flying spaghetti monster idea works. How can you be so sure the world wasn’t created by a giant spaghetti monster with its noodly appendage?
Truth be told, just labeling myself as an agnostic is bullshit. If it weren’t for religion, I wouldn’t need this label. It wouldn’t exist. But because there are others in the world that define themselves and others by religion, I am given a label to describe my position on something that should be a non issue. One could go about making all sorts of labels to describe someone that are completely arbitrary. If they got popular enough everyone else would have to define themselves with respect to this made up label. “Are you a whatzit, anti-whatzit, pro-whatzit….” I try to live with as little labels as I can. The fewer labels in the world, the less people will try to make up differences among us to justify the labels. Now, I am not some idealistic prick who thinks that if we get rid of all the labels the whole world will be peachy keen. I just don’t like the affect labels have on people.
