Overview of my religious beliefs
Here I intend to put blog posts I make related to religion and spirituality, but for now it will just summarise my beliefs.
Beliefs on divine creation
In short, I'm an agnostic, leaning on the theist side of the spectrum. I lean towards the theist side because:
- I'm more convinced by the arguments for divine creation than the arguments against them
- I believe a lot of the issues with modern society are caused by the decline of religious belief
- All other things being equal, I find the idea of a universe created/shaped by divine intent more compelling than one that hasn't
I realise all these statements are questionable so I intend to elaborate upon them in future blogposts.
Arguments against agnosticism
People from both ends of the belief spectrum get frustrated with people who identify as an agnostic, so below I'll try and address common criticsms:
"You don't believe there is a creator/creators, so you should call yourself an atheist"
It is true that agnostics are all technically atheists, because atheism means lack of belief in a creator, not a belief that there isn't one.
However, it's not how most people understand the word atheism to mean, so to call myself an atheist will cause unneccesary misunderstanding. Most people who identify as atheists do so not because they are unsure on the existence of a creator, but because they believe there is not one and in many cases are anti-theist, believing that theism is harmful. That's the opposite of my position because I find the theist argument both more convincing and more desirable.
"You're a fence-sitter, too cowardly to take a side"
I am not scared of taking a position, just unsure. I would argue it's more cowardly to take a position as a theist or atheist out of peer-pressure to take a side.
"There's little you can be completely certain of in this world, so how do you do trust anything?"
For practicality, it makes little sense to be pedantic over small, inconsequential things. If we were, we wouldn't be able to get anything done. The existence of a creator is the opposite, not only is it big, but it's one of the biggest philisophical questions out there, and the answer to it would have big consquences for better or worse. For that reason it makes sense to be as skeptical as possible of both the atheist and theist position.
Beliefs on religious practice and teachings
As I'm unsure of the existence of a creator, I'm even less sure about more specific questions of religion such as:
- The nature of the creator and other deities
- The nature of the afterlife (or if there even is one)
- How we should live in accordance with the divine, etc.
That does not mean I believe all religions to be equally valid, I simply believe no single religion has the complete truth. What I think is most likely is that if there is a divine truth, then over time different people who have experienced and studied it have come up with their own different interpretations of it. Over time they formalised, canonised and structured their interpretations to create various different organised religions with their own rules, hierarchies and so on.
Many teachings would have gotten lost in translation, or may have never been true to begin with, but rather than completely reject religion on those grounds, I think it is better to approach to study religion and attempt to find those truths. Whilst we can't be completely sure which teachings are true or false, we can weigh up the probabilities of them being true. If a teaching/practice has existed for several centuries, across several different cultures (especially cultures isolated from one another), then it's more likely to be true than a teaching that sprung up in just 1 particular time and place for example.
Even to an atheist I think there is value to studying religion, because things rarely stand the test of time for no reason. Marriage for example has its foundations as a religious practice, and atheists can appreciate the value marriage has to society and individuals without having to agree with the religious explanation around it. By the same logic many other religious practices may be true and good even if the religious explanations around them is false.