My complex world of agnosticism

Agnosticism:

ag·nos·ti·cism      (āg-nŏs’tĭ-sĭz’əm)  Pronunciation Key   n.   The doctrine that certainty about first principles or absolute truth is unattainable and that only perceptual phenomena are objects of exact knowledge. The belief that there can be no proof either that God exists or that God does not exist.

My mom said something interesting the other day: that she used to be more of an agnostic, but that as she’s gotten older she’s become more of an atheist.  

I’ve always thought a lot about religion, and our existence, and our universe, and the possible realms beyond death and all that.  I suppose I’ve always been agnostic, but my mom’s comment made me think about my most current stance on religion and all that comes with it.  

I am agnostic in that I believe that the existence of any god or divine creator and the reason we’re all here are unknown and unknowable.  Furthermore, I believe that we needn’t know, and that perhaps we shouldn’t know.  But few things are black and white, especially when you’re dealing with agnosticism, because the definition itself is practically a description of a murky grey area…plus, a lot of agnostics, I’m guessing, have a curious, skeptical, and indecisive nature like I do.  I think the most natural spectrum of agnosticism would be pure agnosticism in the middle, with religiousness on the left (or should it be the right?), and atheism on the right (or should it be the left?).  

Perhaps like my mom, I think I sit somewhere in between pure agnosticism and atheism.  And if there could be some third-plane axis where one side was nothingness (we’re born; we die; we decay; there’s nothing else) and the other was more spiritual and open to “super”natural things beyond our comprehension, I’d be more towards the latter.

Okay.  Really, on that third plane, I’d go back and forth.  It’s entirely possible that there is nothing beyond our physical world, and that when we die we will rot and disappear without leaving any metaphysical evidence of our existence.  But, I sometimes prefer to believe there’s something else out there, things we’ve not proved yet, because while I don’t feel the need for religion, it is still innately disturbing to me to consider the fact that my life and all of human existence is a fluke or some random occurrence that ultimately means nothing and has no bearing on anything beyond our short life experience and the parasitic destruction of our planet.

The thing is, I think it’s entirely possible that there is a spiritual (if I must use that word) aspect to our world and to our existence—but that it’s completely natural rather than supernatural.  Animals can communicate in ways we usually can’t.  Animals can sense things that we usually can’t.  Living things with whom we share our habitat can intuitively respond—often preemptively—to natural events.  Strange psychic connections between human twins have been recorded throughout history.  We can feel someone watching us, even if we can’t see it.  We all experience gravity, the kind that draws us to the earth–why couldn’t there be other kinds of gravity?  Emotional gravity.  Human gravity.  Basically, I believe that our world, our existence, our animals and plants, our earth, and we humans have an incredible energy and life force, phenomena that we’ve not even begun to comprehend or fully uncover.  We are all made of the material that was already here, and when we die, we’ll rejoin all the other particles that have always been here, in some ways leaving a physical mark of our existence—why isn’t it possible that we could leave some sort of energy behind?  

I think it’s entirely possible that these things, if they exist, are completely natural.  That is, that they can exist without any god, without any divine intervention or creation.

It’s unlikely that I will ever call myself an atheist, at least not without following with an explanation, because I believe that pure atheism is no different than religiousness.  Both are absolute assertions regarding something neither proven nor disproved, both involve faith in the unknown, they just differ in their beliefs like any other two religions.  Some could argue that agnostics have faith that these things are unknowable…and maybe that’s true, but agnostics would probably be the first to acknowledge that either side is possible (atheists and the religious are not known for to budge with these issues).  You could also argue that agnostics are like the rest in that we believe that our way is the best, the enlightened, and the only acceptable way.  You’ve got me there.

I don’t claim that a religious world is two-dimensional or simple, nor do I claim that of atheism.  In fact, I know them to be the opposite.  But it seems to me that things are so limited when you adhere to something so major as the existence or inexistence of God.  Really, much like my everyday life as someone who is often too diplomatic and indecisive (and yet stubborn and opinionated…funny how that works), an agnostic existence can be overwhelming.  But I prefer it that way.  For one thing, it’s a lot more fun.  I get to think of all the possible ways that we could have come into existence, and all the possible things that might await me after I die (“nothing”, of course, is included in that).  It’s quite possible that our universe is a science experiment in a petri dish like that episode of The Simpsons.  Or something we’ve never even dreamed of.  

This is what I know: I am agnostic, but with some spiritual and atheistic tendencies.  I think it’s likely that there is a metaphysical element to our existence—a completely natural one—but I think it’s possible that there’s not.  And while I suppose it’s possible that there is some creator, I certainly don’t believe in any creator that humans have conceived of so far.  And in the case that there were such a creator, I highly doubt its infallibility, its omnipotency, its benevolence, its omnipresence, and its divinity.  Humans and our fellow earthlings create a lot of things, and we’ve got plenty of bad parents, corrupt CEOs, and deviant community leaders.  There is only one thing I can think of that so far seems to be infallible, omnipotent, omnipresent, possiblly benevolent and potentially divine: nature.  Other cultures in the world, throughout history, have grasped that, including the ones we destroyed when we colonized the States.  Why don’t we now, particularly in the West, in America, in developed countries, treat nature with the same reverence that we do our gods?

Sluts and Nature

I suppose I must consider myself a feminist, in the most basic and original sense of the word.  But, I cringe when I hear the term (it’s developed, in my opinion, a very skewed and negative connotation), I rarely refer to myself as one (note my hesitation in the previous sentence), and I’m certainly not hardcore like some of my peers, as I do believe that nature makes males and females, of any species, inherently different, regardless of any cultural significance of gender.  

For a long time now, female writers, actors, musicians, and loads of other women–and perhaps some men, too–have complained about the fact that in our culture, men who see a lot of action, date a lot of women, and enjoy playing the field are endearingly referred to as bachelors, and it seems to be accepted that such behavior is simply a man’s nature.  Meanwhile, a woman who behaves similarly is a whore, slutty, skanky, dirty, and a whole lot of other things.  I agree that this is not a healthy double standard (but, for the record, with the amount of rampant STDs and unwanted babies, I think that we should be gearing ourselves toward both sexes using better judgment as opposed to both sexes being promiscuous and everyone being okay with it).   It’s a problem that will take diligent work and attention to fix, as these notions are deeply rooted in our cultures, religions, and languages.  But I have to believe there are other factors in play.

Over the weekend, hanging out with friends, we were having a sort of dog party.  Our good friends have recently added a Chihuahua to the mix–a Brussels Griffon and a Yorkshire Terrier, giving them a total of three great (not yappy and obnoxious) and hilarious lapdogs.  Our other friends have also just adopted a lapdog, a Havanese, and brought her over to join the festivities.  Lucy, the Havanese, took quickly to Miggs, the Yorkie, and they seem to be an item.  Miggs wasted no time before humping her.  Lucy’s cute, but you should know that Miggs humps everything, alive and inanimate.  Jokingly, I called Lucy a slut for giving it up so easily.  Our friend, a woman, casually mentioned the aforementioned prejudice.  The fact that animal behavior sparked both of our comments made me think about the phenomenon in a different way.

Humans differ from other animals in many ways: our brain power, our reason, our logic, our complex social structures, our compassion and remorse, to name just a few.  All of these influence how our race and our societies think and behave, but we remain animals just the same.  Plenty of primordial qualities still rule our existence, like our drive to reproduce, to eat, to survive, to defend our families and our territories.  If you’ve ever taken a biology or a zoology class, you’ll have learned that in most species, it is the male’s primary objective to produce offspring, and the female’s primary objective to choose–discriminatingly–a mate.  Usually the most naturally beautiful (to our eyes) animals are the males, as they use their looks and great displays to attract females.  Females are bombarded with these attempts, and ensure the health and longevity of their bloodline and their species by being painfully choosy.  In part this is because the male role in reproduction is physically easier and less time-consuming than the female’s, and the more females the male impregnates, the greater the odds that the species will survive.  While female humans have plenty of displays and beauty tricks to attract males, the general stereotype–and butt of jokes, plot of TV shows and movies, theme of novels–is that men strive for sex and will have sex with any woman who’s willing, and women are pickier, and in the event that they desire sex, can easily have it because these men are so eager and implicitly desperate.  Of course, this is an exaggeration and exceptions abound, but stereotypes come from truth, and it’s impossible to ignore the primitive foundation of this generalization.

So, could this be, in part, a reason for our cultural double standard?  Males are expected to reproduce, so pursuing many sexual partners is normal, acceptable, and manly.  Females are expected to be choosy in order to produce the most viable kin, so when they aren’t, it is considered abnormal.

Enter the reminder that humans employ birth control and are one of the few species that have sex for pleasure.  A valid point, though I would argue that one of the reasons humans have become the dominant species is because we have sex for pleasure (how much smaller would our population be if there were no unplanned pregnancies?).  Perhaps this argument ultimately boils down to the ratio of unique human traits and primitive animal traits that we carry in our DNA.  I, for one, have never underestimated the animals within us.