Firstly, my father and my step-mother are completely 100% theist, (Christian orientated!), and when I was younger, they took me to their church every Sunday, which was an Evangelical church. It was very "happy-clappy", with lots of "Hallelujah!!" and "Praise Jesus!!" and all the rest of it. That didn't really gel with me. Yes, the music is very good music. -- I particularly liked the guitar parts, which were a mix of soft rock and folk.
However, I have been baptised and confirmed a Christian, but in the last few years, as I have learned more of the theoretical side of the major religions, I have come to the conclusion that maybe traditional Christianity does not answer all my questions, and neither does any other single organised religion.
I think that because my father and step-mother threw me in the deep end of organised religion so to speak, as they "found God", I sort of have a bit of a bad experience as I think that I just wasn't ready to live the life that the Pastor preached and that pressure has darkened my view of Christianity somewhat. I've established that this is the root of my cynicism. I certainly look down my nose sometimes at religion, and sometimes it is simply a cold academic subject for me. But that is too harsh. I do believe in something!
I find that all the major religions have elements within them, that I agree with, the morals of Christianity and Buddhism particularly. But then some of Judaism makes sense to me too. Therefore I must declare that whilst I believe in something, nothing within any religion I have come across has answered everything and therefore I cannot call myself a theist, as I cannot say that I intrinsically believe in a singe god. Well, that rules out any monotheist based religions -- Christianity, Judaism, Islam. But similarly I cannot comprehend the Hindu faith with its hundreds of Gods, a Polytheist religion.
But at the same time, I don't believe that there is simply a void, a nothingness within the celestial planes. Therefore I cannot call myself an atheist, as I do believe in something. If I cannot call myself either a Theist or an Atheist then I must be an agnostic.
(quick little note -- The "a" prefix before a word, making it negative, is of Greek origin. Where an alpha was used as a negative. Therefore Agnosticism, is simply a-gnosticism, and gnosticism derives from the Greek verb gignosko meaning to know, realise or understand. So Agnosticism is simply un-knowing or un-understanding.)
Now, we have established, that I am in fact an Agnostic. I would like to define what sort of agnostic I am. Through research I have established that I am an Apathetic, or Pragmatic Agnostic. This is because as I said, the religions I have studied have not answered my questions, and like many before me, my questions focus on the bad things in the world. Suffering, how can a God allow these things to happen. The arguments, arguing either to prove an existence of God or disprove it, seem to focus around this point. Suffering.
Holocaust theology has shown me many arguments for disproving the existence of God, but it is has also thrown up some theories that seem entirely plausible, such as free will. I won't go into to too much detail, if you wish to read further, here is a link:
In conclusion, the beliefs that I hold, cannot be categorised into a single faith. I suppose in a way my mind holds a strange amalgamation of beliefs. So, maybe I will have to post a post that tries to explains what I am trying to explain here!!
I really hope that some of this made sense....I am trying to put into words, something that I believe in, I find it difficult to express all that I want to express without writing thousands and thousands of words. If you have any questions, I shall answer them, but basically this entire post was to establish that I am not really sure what is out there, but if we are indeed modelled on it, then its temperament will probably not be the all loving God of Christianity, but its moods will be like that of the sea, ever changing sometimes calm, yet sometimes vicious and treacherous.
So. Yeah.
Joey xx
