TJBradders
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- Feb 11, 2013
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I'm not sure I love Agnosticism at all...
I have agreed with Thomas Huxley's original Agnosticism for 30+ years, but for me being Agnostic is tough - unlike Theism and Atheism - it offers me nothing when it comes to some very important questions. Agnosticism is not a religion it offers no comfort, no deep endless sleep, no mansion on a street of gold, no 40 virgins - I'm left to face the unknown alone.
Does existence have intention?
If information can't be destroyed then what happens to my memories, my ideas my sense of self and my convictions? Does some part of me live on after death?
Where was I before I was born?
Does karma exist?
What about reincarnation?
I don't know! I only know I can't know, and there's no comfort in ignorance! I'll face my last breaths not knowing what is about to happen to me. You may call us Agnostics cowards as much as you like, but despite my ignorance, I know I'm fundamentally too honest to allow my fear of the unknown motivate me to accept Theist or Atheist assumptions as facts to live by.
The best I can come up with is what Peter Pan said when facing death alone in The Mermaids' Lagoon. I actually have this in my medical records, that if at all possible, this passage be read to me as I die, so I might find the courage to pass with an attitude of excited expectation.
"Good-bye, Wendy," he pushed her from the rock; and in a few minutes she was borne out of his sight. Peter was alone on the lagoon.
The rock was very small now; soon it would be submerged. Pale rays of light tiptoed across the waters; and by and by there was to be heard a sound at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the world: the mermaids calling to the moon.
Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A tremour ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea; but on the sea one shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and Peter felt just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, "To die will be an awfully big adventure."
I suppose, "To die will be an awfully big adventure", is as close to scripture as I get.
I have agreed with Thomas Huxley's original Agnosticism for 30+ years, but for me being Agnostic is tough - unlike Theism and Atheism - it offers me nothing when it comes to some very important questions. Agnosticism is not a religion it offers no comfort, no deep endless sleep, no mansion on a street of gold, no 40 virgins - I'm left to face the unknown alone.
Does existence have intention?
If information can't be destroyed then what happens to my memories, my ideas my sense of self and my convictions? Does some part of me live on after death?
Where was I before I was born?
Does karma exist?
What about reincarnation?
I don't know! I only know I can't know, and there's no comfort in ignorance! I'll face my last breaths not knowing what is about to happen to me. You may call us Agnostics cowards as much as you like, but despite my ignorance, I know I'm fundamentally too honest to allow my fear of the unknown motivate me to accept Theist or Atheist assumptions as facts to live by.
The best I can come up with is what Peter Pan said when facing death alone in The Mermaids' Lagoon. I actually have this in my medical records, that if at all possible, this passage be read to me as I die, so I might find the courage to pass with an attitude of excited expectation.
"Good-bye, Wendy," he pushed her from the rock; and in a few minutes she was borne out of his sight. Peter was alone on the lagoon.
The rock was very small now; soon it would be submerged. Pale rays of light tiptoed across the waters; and by and by there was to be heard a sound at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the world: the mermaids calling to the moon.
Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A tremour ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea; but on the sea one shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and Peter felt just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, "To die will be an awfully big adventure."
I suppose, "To die will be an awfully big adventure", is as close to scripture as I get.