- "I will remain on the steps and not enter the temple because I've been inside and I know it is a magnificent and beautiful chamber of hypocrisy. Inside is preached the negation of life, the removal of the vital forces of existence, the degrading of the innocent, the veil that covers true holiness,. The great door of the temple is an invitation to enter the sanctum of false security, to relax into the arms of unreason, to join in the celebration of a paradigm of delivery to an unknown source and to emerge cleansed and purged of the need to affirm any responsibility for ignorance and wrong doing."
This caused me to do some thinking, and below are some salient points paraphrased from several websites.
Atheism can be the rejection of theism, or the position that deities do not exist. In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities. Atheists tend to lean towards skepticism regarding supernatural claims, citing a lack of empirical evidence. Common rationales include the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, and the argument from nonbelief.
Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable. Agnosticism can be defined in various ways, and is sometimes used to indicate doubt or a skeptical approach to questions. In some senses, agnosticism is a stance about the differences between belief and knowledge, rather than about any specific claim or belief.
An agnostic is a person who believes that the existence of a greater power, such as a god, cannot be proven or disproved; therefore an agnostic wallows in the complexity of the existence of higher beings. An agnostic uses a more scientific approach to their belief system. An agnostic knows that just because there is no physical proof of the existence of a higher being, it does not automatically mean that one does not exist. An agnostic views an atheist on the same plane as a religious zealot; often because the belief that human beings are the pinnacle of intelligence and there are few things that we do not or have the potential to understand. An agnostic is often thought of as not committing to any beliefs. However, an agnostic can have faith in a god and still maintain that we can not know whether or not said god exists. These people then would be termed agnostic theists. There are also those who believe that we can not know if god exists and believe that he does not exist. These people would be termed agnostic atheists.
Agnostic views can also be termed as strong or weak. Strong agnostics believe that due to our nature we are unable to know the answers to spiritual questions of god's existence. Weak agnostics, on the other hand, believe that we do not currently know whether god exists but that it is possible we may know in the future.
I am a weak agnostic theist. I practice my beliefs, and I do have them, in the privacy of my mind and my home. That is my choice, and I do not believe anyone has the right to judge me. If I have offended you with this entry, I acknowledge that possibility, but make no apologies.
