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Thursday, January 1, 2009

What being agnostic means to me.

To me being agnostic means that I spend every day of my life learning. Every second I am awake I try to learn something whether it be trivial or essential to living my life. Being agnostic to me means that I am open minded enough to accept that anything is possible, but at the same time be wise enough to use logic and reason to evaluate those things which aren't likely to happen. And if with my conclusions I come to a point of disbelief, not by facts, but with educated intellectual thought process, then I will still be wise enough to admit that my belief could be wrong and be open minded enough to consider others theories and ideas.

There are several dictionaries with various defintions, but they all say about the same thing. They say that an agnostic is a person who neither believes nor disbelieves in a god or gods. It says they simply do not know. In a way the dictionaries are right. The root word of 'agnostic' is 'gnosis', which, is Greek for 'knowledge' or 'to know'. The prefix 'a-' means 'to be against' or a negative like 'to not'. The word 'agnostic simply means 'to not know'. Yet someone, and I don't know who, but at some point in time someone grabbed that word and made it their own meaning, associating it with religion and god when it really has nothing to do with god.  Anyone who is willing to admit that they don't know something is also a person who is willing to learn and better themselves. It is someone who spends their life learning as much as they can to evolve... evolve their minds and spirituality. Evolve whatever part of themselves that needs improvement, and we all need improvement. 

On the subjects that can't be proven like a god/s, heaven and hell, why are we so apt to think we are right? Who knows who is right? If there isn't a definitive proof then why do we force that idea upon others? Why are there so many differents sects of religion and why do most of these sects want to fight each other? Why do we believe so strongly in these things that we have no proof of and get angry or frustrated at others who don't believe the things we do? All this has done through out time is cause difference of opinions which causes arguements which causes feuds and in turn causes wars.

When we can easily admit that we don't know something we can move on past that and learn it instead of holding ourselves back by thinking we know everything; thinking we are right in our beliefs. We can not evolve intellectually, mentally or spiritually when we are closed minded. When we can't accept that we are wrong. 

To me being agnostic means that I am evolving. It means that I am expanding my intellectual capacity and it means that I am accelerating my thought process. It means that I don't waste my time building barriers of disbelief and unreasonableness. When we are flexible we may bend far, but we will never break and we will bounce back stronger than ever. 

This is what being agnostic is to me. This is my mind and my journey and it will continue.....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was born and told that I was Christian, but life chose to make me Agnostic.