(WARNING: Rant imminent!)
Having long ago found comfort in knowing myself to be a 'hard' agnostic (see below), I feel an urge to make you all the
victims of my explanation of
deeper meanings of agnosticism.
Firstly, there are several
branches of agnosticism, though they are no where near as many as the
religious orders of any given
religion, current or otherwise.
The most interesting distinction is between
hard agnosticism and
soft agnosticism. The soft version is what many seem to view agnostics as: Someone who does not know whether he should believe in
God or not, seeking proof either for or against existence of the Divine. Basically, an unwilling
atheist considering what
faith to pick, if any.
'Hard' agnostics (you are free to joke about the term, if you so desire) not only accept but
embrace lack of knowledge about the Divine, in any shape (agnosticism is not just concerned with
christian views of Divinity,
morality and
ethics,
dogmatic
tradition etc, but also turn this view on
buddhism,
islam,
hinduism and even, yes,
Darwinism (which can be claimed to be the
creationism of
atheists, after all)!). Such a person will, stereotypically, respond to any non-agnostic's claim of what is right/wrong or true/false with a simple "well, you're allowed to belief that if you wish". This is not an act of indifference;
agnosticism openly accepts that its adherents cannot know what is true or false in
divine matters, and thus it is, theoretically, impossible for an agnostic to say or even believe that someone is 'wrong' in matters of
faith, just as the agnostic cannot claim to know what is 'right'.
This is in no way to say that agnostics (I will henceforth use the term to mean predominantly
hard agnostics) cannot be a
royal pain in the rectal areas, hell-bent on 'converting' others. In my early years as self-confessed agnostic, I kept probing people of assorted
faiths with questions like "but how do you
know that you are right?", aiming to make them realize their basic
theological ignorance. Fact is, any
faith, including agnosticism, is not about knowledge or evidence, but about
faith, dammit.
So what '
religious'
ritualism marks an agnostic? For me, the answer is simple: A search for questions rather than answers (yes I know that might seem like a
paradox, since this is 'the simple
answer', but trust me, it is not). I am not agnostic because I dislike the idea of having a
destiny, wanting to 'be in control of my own life' (
atheists also do not always have a loathing of the idea of
destiny; in fact, many grow gloomy and even
nihillistic from their want of it, but lack of believe in it!). I simply accept the fact that I do not know what such a
fate might or might not be, and instead enjoy the
mystery of having to find out. For
religious folk, even those not highly devoted to their
faith, comfort comes from being sure of one's place in
God's masterplan. For me comfort comes from knowing that I will never be sure of what such a place might be, and thus I will always have the option of an unexpected
future. Had I not enjoyed the idea that anything might be around the corner, I would have gone
shopping for religion long ago.
A campy comparison would be a
football match. To the casual eye, there are two groups of people amongst the spectators: Those who hope/belief that Team A will win, and those who hope/belief that Team B will win. These two groups could be any two
religions you wish to insert (including
atheists, though their team might lack a clearly defined coach). Agnostics taking part would, however, form a third type of
spectator: The one who is simply there to enjoy the game.
Agnosticism and
ethics
Religion being such a strong beacon of
morales, defining the notions of right and wrong, people often ask me how an agnostic goes about being a
good person, a.k.a. what morale
beliefs guide agnostics. The crude answer is 'none'; without a fear of
Hell or ambitions of
Heaven through the recipe of specific religious dogma, an agnostic cannot follow a set path to be a
good person. Unlike
atheists, though, agnostics are aware of the fact that
Heaven and
Hell might exist, but in any of a whole range of incarnations: The
mormons could be right, as could
catholics or
protestants, but
shintoism,
hindusim or any of a multitude of isms could be equally true. Heck, the bravest of us may go to
Valhalla by decree of
Odin! While 'soft' agnostics with too much time on their hands can throw
tantrums out of sheer panic when wondering about this, 'hard' agnostics tend to simply take it as
inspiration. I myself believe in kindness towards fellow man (male or female), as preached by
Christianity, while also adhering to values of
courage, as in
nordic mythology. I also take
buddhist concepts of inner
harmony very much to heart. The basic idea, at least in my personal
mosaic of
religious concepts, is to take any good idea and see what it could hold for me and my surroundings. I have no
scripture to ultimately guide me, but I have hundreds to inspire me.
On the very down-to-earth level, agnostic
ethics of
behavior tend to mimic those of
atheists, in that an agnostic will develop his or her own set of
moral codes to treat, and judge, others through. For non-agnostics and non-atheists, this is often misunderstood as either adhering strictly to
secular humanism, or the
legal code of national or other
institutions (
GreenPeace, the
UN Charter or other such
NGOs are common points of
reference, both for external
observers and for agnostics and
atheists themselves). This is not necesarily true. The 'problem', especially when trying to categorize and predict agnostic (and
atheist)
behavior is, that
there is no point of reference. They make it up as they go. My own
ethics are very simple: If it promotes
happiness, it is a
Good Thing. Of course,
morale advocates enjoy setting up
hypothetical scenarios in which making someone happy will make others unhappy, hoping to prove such a simplistic
morale code useless. Well,
life is complex, and the
Bible does not have answers for every single situation either. People are still forced to decide how to interpret situations for themselves, so there. I do, too. Other agnostics (and, again,
atheists) have to react to
life as well, applying or ignoring
morale codes as needed, whatever those may be.
The Sum of it All
While many agnostics enjoy claiming to be 'above
religion',
agnosticism itself is a belief. It is a belief that there might be something
out there, which no one can truly know any serious details about before encountering it. And just like
christians may find comfort or fear in the
belief in
God, an agnostic can feel comfortable or uncomfortable about his/her self-proclaimed ignorance about any
higher truth. An agnostic is not an
atheist in disguise;
atheists believe there is no
God of any kind, and that all we have is each other (if even that;
atheism is a veritable breeding ground for
neogothic nihilists). Agnostics do not deny the existence of anything, feeling an urge to keep wondering. While I am not sure of
chromaticblue's observation that 'many agnostics are
intellectuals', it might have a relation to this inquisitive nature that tends to be strong in agnostics. Since
agnosticism does not necesarily imply
intelligence, it is not an automatic advantage, though, and many
great thinkers have been firm
religious believers of one sort or another (some even
fanatics). As you might have noticed, agnostics also have a tendency to give both-yes-and-no answers :-)
"I don't ask questions in order to get answers, I seek answers in order to ask better questions"
- Some clever remark I heard somewhere...