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Goodbye Jesus

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Defining One's Religious Views


JadedAtheist

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You know, it's getting pretty hard nowadays to pigeonhole myself somewhere. Not that I need to of course but it's nice to be able to identify oneself alongside a group of other people. At the moment the most descriptive label I can think of is an "Agnostic Atheist Spiritualist". It's a mouthful I realize but I think the label needs to be as accurate as possible to ensure there isn't any misunderstandings. I will briefly give an overview of why I feel it's difficult to label myself and then go on to describe what I mean by calling myself and AAS. With no further delays, unto the post we go!

 

The reason I find it difficult to label myself is that I am increasingly finding all religious points of view to be utter bullshit. While I utterly disregard Paganism, Abrahamic Theism and Eastern Religions, I am also finding myself looking at Agnostic Atheism with disgust as well. What I hate is the cockiness people have thinking they're right and others are wrong. It's dangerous and it's delusional, not only in religious people but atheists as well. When John Loftus was describing his struggle over Agnosticism he laid it out with him trying to understand why there were all these different views and how come everyone seemed quite convinced that these views were the best explanation. He then realized if the universe came into being simply by chance, you'd never have an explanation that fits all the pieces. I tend to agree with him.

 

Which leads me to my self description as an "Agnostic Atheist Spiritualist". Since I (at least for the moment) agree with Loftus that are existence is purely by chance and not because of divine intervention, I must call myself and Agnostic Atheist. I call myself an agnostic because I simply do not have the knowledge available at hand to completely dismiss the possibility of a God or Gods to exist (even though I feel it to be extremely unlikely) and an atheist because whilst I cannot outright disprove their existence I nevertheless do not believe in any deities as one may not believe in unicorns though they cannot outright prove they do not exist. This leaves me with my final label: Spiritualist.

 

Now, I was talking about words being important on the other day and that still applies. I use this word simply because it is the most accurate whilst not being completely accurate. Anyways, I will go on to how I define spiritualism and why I would apply that label to myself. The way I personally define spiritualism is an interconnectedness of Earth's living organisms. Not so much the "circle of life" stuff but more like I feel an invisible bond between us all. Picture if you will, strings (or perhaps umbilical cords would be more accurate?) that attach us all together and us to the Earth. It's in this understanding that I label myself a "spiritualist". I see this interconnectedness as indisputable which is ironic as though I have no factual evidence to support this belief it is the one I most strongly believe in. I would more easily give up on my atheism than on our spiritual connection.

 

That of course is a by product of my disdain for our assuredness. I don't think any of us has to the right to say "This is the correct answer". We're all trying to assemble a broken jig-saw puzzle with many broken and missing pieces and how dare we try and tell other people we're right when we're just as clueless as they are. This is where my spirituality comes into play with a secondary meaning. You see, some people are fine with a purely naturalistic and materialistic world-view but most are not. I have a hard time accepting it, but I am not either. As I personally try and wrap my mind around the universe, I see are unique and spiritual bond to be somewhat of an explanation to meaning of life and everything. I don't know how it does yet but I know that for me that's the answer. I'm not sure if I'll ever find out or if I will find out I'm on the wrong track but at the moment I feel so close to "understanding it all" that I can almost taste it. It's on the very tip of my tongue..

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