Amazing...i had actually begun to believe in agnosticism before i had even heard of the term "agnosticism".
Read it up on wikipedia (if you don't know what agnosticism is you better read it up as well! >.<) by accident yesterday, and i realised that there are different types of agnosticism that, in a way, matches what i believe about the spiritual world and life after death in general: that of course we don't know anything and can't possibly prove anything either.
Initially, i had misconstrued the meaning of agnosticism back when i had heard of it in secondary school, believing it to be somewhat close to atheism, but actually, agnosticism disagrees with atheism, because no one can prove that there IS no God as well.
But even then, if someone were to ask me what my religion was, i'd hesitate to say aloud that i was agnostic or anything like that. Because i don't
believe in organised religion or religious classifications in the first place.
To me, religious classifications restrict your mind and hinders spiritual discussion and contemplation, something like picking a football team to support and sticking by it through thick and thin. The players may change a little over time, maybe the tactics and the manager too...but boy, it's still the same team, deep down.
It makes people think of religion, or more specifically, "what-you-believe-in", as some kind of identity or group that they belong to, which's exactly what's happening in the world today. The conflicts between different religions are a direct result of all these classifications. These days, if i say that i have no religion, people won't assume that i don't give a damn...they'd just assume that i'm atheist.
So in any case, why should you have to have a name attached to what you believe in? Because that's what people have been doing, not just for religions but for everything in general?
I get the feeling that it makes things easier for those who don't have the time to think about religion; that you can put whatever you believe in into the hands of your priests or whoever to do what they want with it. That your "teachers" can do all the thinking for you and you'd just have to listen. (And, in a way, i really wonder how much these followers truly value their own personal beliefs, experiences and thoughts)
And when people ask you for your religion, your spiritual BELIEFS, you won't really have to think about it. You'll just reply with one short statement. "I'm Christian" or "Oh, i'm Muslim".
Well, maybe religious classifications aren't so bad...you can always swap religions, like swapping to a better football team, if your beliefs change or are found to lean more to one side then another.
Then, if so, why can't i create an All-Star team out of all the football teams in the league?
In a way, the different classifications of agnosticism have provided me with that avenue (just as different classifications of Christianity and other religions provide an avenue for the confused believers). For now, i can say that i'm an agnostic theist.
Which means that i do believe in spirits and ghosts, in life after death. And i believe - and HOPE, with all my heart - that my consciousness, at least, remains intact even as my body turns to dust.
I believe that there are "Gods", that there are omnipotent beings at the centre of Creation...of all that is unknown in this universe. Something to start the Big Bang going, even though it's probably unlike anything any of the religions claim...maybe we're nothing but an experiment to something like a Creator who doesn't exactly give a damn about Earth.
Of course, there is the added tag of agnosticism; what i believe is separate from the truth. I do not claim that what i believe in is the truth. In fact, i claim that what i believe in is unprovable, although i'm rather hoping otherwise. Atheists might ask me how that Creator i mentioned earlier might have come about...from another Creator perhaps? 0_o But then i'd reply that i didn't have proof, couldn't have proof, and i don't think i'd ever have proof.
But even as i change the "Religious Views" description on my facebook account, i hesitate. Not only because, as i said earlier, i don't believe in religious classifications, but also because people will tend to treat agnosticism as my identity, as my "religion".
To me, agnosticism is just a "religious view". In essence, it's just a nice way to put "scepticism"...so why the hell should i put it in the same category as Christianity and Buddhism, to have it interpreted the same way as those religions?
Furthermore, i know that my religious views may change in the future. In fact, i hope they do, and i WANT to make my "religion" flexible to account for that. I hope that, one day, i may have an out-of-this-world experience that may change my beliefs into something more definite. (Does that make me a "free-thinker" then? Or perhaps a "positive-agnostic-theist"? Maybe if people ask me for my religion, i'd just say that i'm a Flexible Believer. Then how the hell would that be able to describe "what i believe in" to them??)
As Bertrand Russell said in his 1953 essay,
What Is An Agnostic,
"
I think that if I heard a voice from the sky predicting all that was going to happen to me during the next twenty-four hours, including events that would have seemed highly improbable, and if all these events then produced to happen, I might perhaps be convinced at least of the existence of some superhuman intelligence."
And who knows? That day may come tomorrow. But until then, i believe that nothing about religion should ever be definite. Not even if your parents say so.
