Why I'm Not an Atheist: The Case for Agnosticism

[cascadiance]

241. I really don't believe that religious belief is *binary*...

It's rather simplistic to say that either you "believe in god" or you "don't believe in god".

Some people believe that Christ is the son of god. Some believe in multiple gods. Some people believe that there IS NO god...

And I would contend that many of those agnostics believe that there is no premise based on their life experiences to have a foundation to believe that there is no god, or that there is one and it is well defined for us. Many feel in their guts that their MIGHT be a God, but don't KNOW that there is one, nor do we KNOW that there isn't one either. I guess it is the scientific way of looking at religion for lack of another way of looking at it. There are many unexplained events in the universe for science to still look at and study to build more of a foundation of what IS or ISN'T reality based on what we perceive in the world around us. Some things we are very confident about in defining that order. Some things aren't. Religion in my book is one thing we can't really define. There's really no scientific basis for it to prove a spiritual entity. But there's a question on what made us and what made our complexity work in the way it does to build what we call "life"? Is there a spiritual answer or something else? Science doesn't really explain that well either. I personally don't think it's defined for me yet, and don't want to define it yet before I feel I have more information. Information that I may never get. And that may be OK. As the life experience we go through is a fantastic and wonderful trip for many of us.

In reading your response more carefully here, I feel that some have their way of grouping together those that believe there is no god, with those that DON'T KNOW that there is no god in the same group of people as "atheists". That's just a matter of definition. I just don't feel like I should be lumped in with those that feel they have the basis to believe that there is no god, when I don't share that perspective. My understanding of what so many other people feel as the separation of definitions of atheism and agnosticism is this very difference. Now if you want to include people like me as atheists, then I suppose you have the right to have that belief yourself. But I'm entitled also to believe that I'm not what I consider a defined "atheist" either for the reasons I just gave. Don't judge me and I don't judge you for our different perspective of these definitions. I'm not trying to insult you, and unless you push your definition on to me like I should accept your definition, I won't take your perspective as an insult either.