To be Honest, You have to be Agnostic!

There are really only three positions one can take when considering the existence of God. Faith, atheism or agnosticism. Of these the one which gets the most bad press is agnosticism. But to me this is the most honest of the three. Faith says that you believe in God whatever you perceive him to be. On the other hand atheism takes the same position except it denies the existence of God. Agnostics sit on the fence.

So what is wrong with sitting on the fence? Many say you have to make up your mind and take a decision. But how can I take a decision on something for which there is no evidence either way. But the atheists say there is a 99.9% chance of there being no God. Evolution has put paid to all that superstition. At the beginning of the last century some highly respected physicists said everything that was to be known about the universe was now known, all that remained was the crossing of a few t’s and the dotting of a few i’s. Then relativity and quantum physics came along and blew that idea right out of the water. So how certain is certain? Remember that old joke about bleach killing 99.9% of all known germs? As one comedian so aptly put it, it’s not the 99.9% I’m worried about, what about the 0.1%? Those are the bastards to worry about.

On the other hand those of faith say that they know Jesus. They go further and say that they have met him, have spoken with him. Well fair enough, but they can’t prove this to me. Without meaning to be disrespectful, I could equally say I have met and spoken with the fairies at the end of my garden. I might even believe it, but I reckon I’d have a hell of a job trying to convince you of that. You can ask me to show you the fairies, but I’d tell you that they are invisible. Then you can ask me to show you something that the fairies have done and I’d say they have given me my health. Eventually after detailed questioning I’d get frustrated and tell you that you just don’t have any faith.

None of the above means that there is a God or that there isn’t a God. Neither side can prove it either way. So if somebody wants to say they don’t believe in God, that’s fair enough. They can lead just as moral and good a life as anybody else. You don’t have to be a religious person to be a good person. Similarly if someone says they believe in God, that’s fair enough too. However, they should be strong enough to at least admit there is a chance, no matter how small, that they may be mistaken.

So I sit on the fence, not in judgement of anybody, but because I simply don’t know whether or not there is a God. Which is why I think it is the only honest position for me to take. That does not mean that I’m right or that everybody should have that opinion. After all, I could be mistaken.

Today’s atheists are a militant bunch. Many of them don’t seem content to quietly get on with their lives, content in their disbelief. They have to proselytize and try to get everybody to see their point of view. Some even put advertisements on buses telling the world there probably is no God. I wonder why they included the word probably? However, it seems to me that many of their arguments ring a little hollow. They like to set up straw dogs so that they can easily knock them down. They argue with fundamentalists who are just like themselves, head to head, neither side giving an inch. They like to quote the bible extensively telling us what a bad old egg the old testament God was. Getting his chosen people to kill other peoples so that they could have their land. The promised land. Yes, I agree this particular God was a vengeful, blood thirsty fellow, but surely the atheists don’t believe that this is a realistic God to debate? Where is the God of compassion and love? The God of Francis of Assisi? The God of the poor? The God of the sermon on the mount?

Many of the bible stories were written by humankind to try to make sense of the world they found themselves in. On one hand many of the stories like the killing of heathens etc were a history of the Jewish people who were just as blood thirsty as any other race. On the other hand many of the stories were allegories or parables which tried to teach wisdom. For example, many point to the terrible story of Abraham being asked to kill his son, Isaac and even worse Abraham agreeing to go along with the command without question until an angel stays his hand at the last minute and suggests sacrificing a ram (conveniently entangled in a nearby bush) instead. What sort of a God is that who would try and test his loyal subject in such a way? But this was not a story about loyalty or obedience. In those days people did sacrifice their children to their God. The story was trying to teach the people that child sacrifice was not what God demanded. In fact I don’t believe he even demanded sacrifice, but in those days people believed that he did. So let them sacrifice an animal instead. So the atheists should be a little more thoughtful before condemning the bible stories out of hand.

Many of today’s believers are also a militant bunch. Especially those of a fundamentalist and literalist frame of mind. Take the creationists for example. They will tell you if anything in the bible contradicts hard scientific fact, then the bible takes precedence. It’s not that these guys are stupid, many of them have advanced degrees in their fields. It’s just that they are convinced of the literal truth of every word in the bible. It appears similar in the world of Islam where fundamentalist Muslims believe that their Koran is also literally the word of God. Not all Muslims are like that, of course, there are many moderate Muslims as there are many moderate Christians, Jews, etc. But they can’t all be right. Also take the so called Christians who bomb abortion clinics (killing some) in the USA on one hand and then the fanatical Muslims who carried out the 9/11 attacks. But these are extremists.

Most atheists and believers, however, are not so extreme and are willing to debate their beliefs sensibly and with benefit to both sides of the argument. Similarly with agnostics except they don’t tend to hold extreme views. After all how can a committed agnostic argue with passion on the existence or non existence of God when he has already taken the position of not knowing in the first place? This is not to say agnostics are better people. Many of them simply don’t care either way.

So, I am an agnostic. To be honest, I’d prefer that there is an afterlife and a good God, but maybe that is just because I don’t want to die to nothing. I would rather like there to be a purpose to the universe rather than it just coming into existence and blinking out again. I would like there to be meaning to my life, although many atheists say that there is meaning to life without God or purpose. Just grasp what we have and do the best with it as all we’ll leave behind are our footprints and our children. It is not a bad philosophy, but me being me would prefer more. Maybe that says a lot about me and as the old song says you don’t always get what you want!

The idea of God is crazy! This super being who always existed decided to make a universe with people in it and there it is. Let there be light! And then one day it will all end and we’ll all go to heaven or oblivion (I can’t believe in such a ridiculous place as hell) and that will be it for eternity. Eternity! That’s a concept that nobody can fathom. Try to imagine it. Existing for ever. Surely there has to be an end?

But then again, the idea of a universe popping into existence is also crazy. Whether there was this vacuum of seething particles or absolutely nothing, somehow this universe pops up with all it’s incredible and complex laws eventually leading to humans who are capable of contemplating it. Think about it. What happened before the Big Bang? Was there a previous Big Bang stretching back to when? What started the whole thing off? And then again, why should there be just nothing? Nothing is about as hard to understand as something. Can you imagine nothing? I mean really nothing, not even something for nothing to be in. The mind boggles.

There are those (who we generally refer to as mystics) who after years of contemplation begin to glimpse the reality behind the universe. They suddenly have a flash of understanding which quickly vanishes again. So where does this experience come from? Maybe something deep down in the human psyche? Or maybe something else. In fact, in my opinion assuming that God does exist, the only way we mortals can access him in this life is through deep contemplation (denied probably to most of us).

Which brings me to the “God of the Gaps”. Sufficiently advanced technology will appear as magic to those less technologically advanced. For example imagine showing a caveman electric light. Suddenly you stand up in his cave and click something on the wall, and an electric bulb flashes on in the ceiling above. What else would he think but that it was magic. Or something from the gods. This is similar to ourselves were we to come across a highly advanced technological civilisation hailing from interstellar space. If they have achieved the technology to cross light years of space, they sure as hell won’t be wasting time buzzing aircraft or abducting humans. In fact if they didn’t want us to see them, then you can rest assured that there’s no way we’d see them. In ancient times (and perhaps not so ancient) our ancestors saw gods behind every tree, in every stream, with every gust of wind or downpour of rain, with every crop failure and success. But now we have grown up (or like to think we have) and have a much better explanation for weather and crop failures. So we remove God from those. But then what about the miracles? Like Lourdes for example. Well, these are probably mostly psychological (a strong faith can produce wonders). I often think of the sceptic who said he was surprised that no artificial limbs were to be found among all the crutches left by supposedly healed individuals.

Then the bible takes a bashing. Galileo and others firmly put the sun in the centre of the solar system which many said directly contradicted the good book (for there it says that the sun was stopped in the heavens implying that it revolved around the earth). Probably the most devastating blow was the theory of evolution which said that we didn’t even need God to create us. We evolved from the biochemistry of the earth, which was created from the aftermath of the sun’s formation. Now the scientists tell us that the whole universe was created in the event known as the Big Bang. No need for God at all. And as sciences progresses it gradually pushes out the “God of the Gaps” leaving no room for God to hide.

All of which brings us back to the point I made above that it is just as crazy to think that God created the Universe as it is to think that the Universe created itself. But, you may object, God didn’t create himself. He was always there? Okay, so the universe was always there. Again no proof and the agnostic accepts this. It all boils down to what you personally believe. So if you think that Jesus, or Jehovah, or Allah is the God you worship, that’s fine. I won’t argue with you. But you must also respect my agnosticism and let’s be honest: admit that you ultimately don’t know.

Let’s consider some other crazy ideas. To some the stories religion teach us, for example Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden, the changing of bread and wine to the body and blood of God, are nuts. The idea that God, supposedly omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, would create two people and put them in a garden, and then tell them not to eat of a certain tree is contradictory. God must have known what would happen. If he didn’t he is not omniscient. And then when this pair do exactly what God knew they were going to do anyway, he punishes them. It is like me giving sweets to my kids and telling them not to eat them. What sort of parent would I be if I then punished my kids for doing what I knew they would do.

Now consider the changing of bread and wine to the body and blood of Christ. We are told that after the transformation (or transubstantiation, as it’s more properly known) the bread still looks, feels, and tastes like bread as does the wine still feel, look and taste like wine. But to the believer they are totally transformed into the precious body and blood of their lord and saviour Jesus Christ. Nutty or what?

Okay, now let’s see what the physicists are asking us to believe. The moon is not there when nobody is looking at it. This is seriously considered as reality by some physicists (including Nobel prize winners). Quantum physics exploded onto the world in the early twentieth century and is still the most complete theory of reality we have. We even refer to it as the standard model of physics although it still has it’s problems which remain to be sorted out. Two famous physicists fought over the interpretation of quantum mechanics for years: Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. Unfortunately Niels won (at least for now) and so the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory is with us to this day and many physicists have concluded that human observation of a microscopic event changes the reality of the event. In other words, if nobody is looking at the moon, it could be anywhere!

There are billions and billions of copies of us in the universe. Again coming from quantum theory, in order to account for certain experimental results the many worlds theory was suggested and surprisingly many scientists today would favour that interpretation of reality. This basically says that every time a particle or atom has a choice on what to do next or where to go, it chooses every eventuality. Therefore if a particle has a choice to go in one of two directions, it chooses both, splitting the universe at that point. So now we have two copies of our universe, one in which the particle went one way, the other in which it went a different way. So now we have two universes with two copies of every sun, star, planet, particle in each universe. Two copies of every person! And as every particle has normally many more choices of which direction to go and there are billions of particles in our universe, we now have billions of copies of our universe all slightly different. Nutty or what?

We have taken two examples from religion and science and both are as nutty as each other and it actually seems that the religious ideas are easier to swallow. So what is this all about? I think it is really man trying to find an explanation for his existence. Why he is here. He did it in biblical times with stories just as physicists do today with stories/theories. The more we think we know, the more we know that we know very little.

I would now like to discuss the problem of evil. For me this is the greatest obstacle to belief in God. If God is supposedly infinitely good, then why does he allow evil to exist? If he can’t prevent it, then he is not all powerful; if he can prevent it, he is not all good. The idea that he has to allow evil in order that we can have free will doesn’t wash. At least not with me. You can argue that he also gave us intelligence to see what is good or evil. Surely intelligence shows that fighting and killing each other is not the way to go? But our intelligence doesn’t go far enough as apparently many don’t see the stupidity of not working together. We are too greedy. Too power mad. Too into looking after ourselves to the detriment of others. Whatever you may think of Jesus Christ, he certainly left us some incredibly great lessons in how to deal with each other for the better. We may learn that in time, but why does it take so long?

In fact, some people do not even have a conscience so how can they make a rational choice between evil and good? A sadist who kills feels it is good for him. He likes it, enjoys it and therefore why shouldn’t he? He just doesn’t care or have any empathy with other human beings. So why didn’t God give him a conscience?

Then there is the problem of suffering. As far as I’m concerned suffering is an abomination which is one reason so many scientists and doctors are working towards it’s elimination. I do not believe that God so designed a world that he has to punish every single individual in it just because the first people he put in it disobeyed him. Come on! It’s like me punishing all my kids (I have only two, by the way) just because of what one of them did. Just doesn’t make sense. This whole atonement thing where the son of God arrives on earth and is horribly tortured and put to death so that he can repent for our sins makes no sense. And after that, down through the centuries, the church has decreed that suffering is a good thing. A good thing! If Christ is God and he did come to earth, it was surely to show us that there are better ways to live our lives than the ways we were going about it. His message of love and forgiveness is so powerful that the redemption thing pales beside it. He said the kingdom of god was within us. In order words, get off our lazy asses and seriously begin to work for a better world. Of course a man with a message like that in the Roman occupied Jerusalem of the time was asking for trouble and he was crucified by the Romans. But that was not his message. If anything his message was one of hope. His message was the resurrection. But no, the church had to concentrate on the death bit.

And now they have been shown up in a very bad light. For years they held us in the grip of fear. Even the constitution of Ireland was half written by the church. One couldn’t look sideways but the church heard about it and steps were taken. If you didn’t go to mass, you were hell bound. If you ate meat on Fridays, you were hell bound. The fear they engendered eventually went too far and it is no wonder that young people of my generation rebelled. And now where are they? The churches are empty. The only reason most go to church today is for weddings and funerals.

Also, it was not the evil of child abuse which was the greatest sin, but the cover up. These priests who stood in the pulpit and told us that bad thoughts were sinful, covered up and hid the greatest sin of all. They shunted paedophile priests to different parishes in the hope nobody would find out and realise that priests were human after all and not some kind of higher life form. Instead of being good decent human beings, standing up, admitting what was going on and doing something positive about it, they hid it. And the really sad thing is the thousands of good priests who have been deeply affected by this shame not of their own making.

And still the church can’t see and refuses to change. I think they would continue the cover up if they could. As far as the church is concerned women are second class citizens as are gay people. When are they going to give their priests the option of marriage and stop making marriage a poor second class to celibacy? Why won’t they kill the nonsensical doctrines of hell and purgatory as they did Limbo some years back? Why don’t they get rid of infallibility? The pope underneath all his glitter and power is human and as prone to error as the best of us. Why don’t they scotch Humanae Vitae? Why don’t they open the church to full collegiality, the power of the church should not be held in the hands of one man, the bishops and laity must share in it too.

Sometimes I think that perhaps the Jewish religion is a better one. This was what Jesus was, all his life, he never was a Christian!

So true to my agnosticism, I brought up my own children without forcing religion down their throats like it was mine. I tried to answer their questions as honestly as I could giving both sides of the argument. Now they are free to choose their own religion or none as they see fit. After all, if God is really there, then people find him sooner or later. Further, and maybe more importantly, they are at least free of the fear of hell (something which was drummed into me and I hasten to add, not by my parents). Nuns and Christian Brothers seemed to have a real connection to Satan and hell. What? Did they take tea with him? They sure seemed to know an awful lot about him. The stories we were told in school: people coming back to their loved ones to tell them they were in hell and how they should give up their immoral lifestyle if they wanted to avoid the same fate. Children being shown hell and it’s tortures by apparitions of the virgin Mary. What sort of a twisted mind is that? Hell has no place in the domain of a truly good God. If he has cooked up such a place, then I can tell ya, we’re all in trouble.

Ultimately, if God exists, he is surely so different to us that we cannot even begin to imagine what he may be like. Even the mystics have said they have only ever got glimpses of God, flashes in a great darkness. Of course there are those who say the mystics are deluded.

Finally, if God gave us intelligence, let’s use it and not be led astray by blind faith. If God doesn’t exist, let’s use our intelligence anyway. Maybe it’s all we have to rely on at the end of the day.