#everyonesagnostic

“There’s not one iota of evidence when it comes the existence/non-existence and nature of God, and yet we NEED to be “in the know” so badly that we will check our instincts and our critical faculties at the door.  At this, the earth cries, anyone with a soul cries, and the solution is as simple as admitting that you don’t know.”   --Cass, Everyone’s Agnostic

I’m still working on the third part of my entries on my Testimony. It’s much more difficult than I initially presumed when I started because there is so much information that I am still trying to process even as I write. It would honestly be much easier if I had some major ‘beef’ with God. There are a lot of people with a much longer list of grievances that could be laid at the feet of a creator than I. Yet here I am. Until I can sit down and give adequate consideration to what I need to write for the third part of my testimony, I will attempt to share other things.

I made a clarification on my Facebook recently that I am not Atheist. I’m not throwing out all possibility of the existence of a higher-power. Instead, I am saying that I don’t have enough external evidence to demonstrate that one exists. I am an agnostic. I don’t know. There is much for me left to learn in this so I ask you to be patient with me.

To be honest, I also haven’t given up on the idea of going to church either. I do miss the time sitting with my family. I miss the camaraderie of a group of people who - in the best of churches - love each other as family. I find that I really miss the music. Being part of a Praise and Worship team for so long means that I have an endless supply of songs that readily come to my mind. 

I think what I’m trying to say is that I believe that there is this concept that someone like me has decided to go off the rails, get cynical and bitter against God and due to this cynicism throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’ve made it my goal in all of this not to get cynical but I do want to be real with you. 

I am angry that in the end of it all the questions got louder than my faith. I’m especially angry at doctrines that encourage disparity between people. I’m angry that for most of Christianity the doctrine of original sin means that we were born evil - that if I were to teach my daughters from a traditional Christian standpoint that I would be telling them that they were worthless apart from Christ. I’m angry at the doctrine of eternal damnation and of a myriad number of other small things but to say I’m cynical about spirituality as a whole is a misnomer. 

Anyway - sorry about that brief soapbox. 

One of the resources that I’ve found that has helped me in my journey is a Podcast called “Everyone’s Agnostic”. It is ran by two people - one who has been an atheist his entire life and the other who was a Christian for many years who also moved away from his faith. They don’t claim to know all of the answers - which is part of the reason that I enjoy listening to the podcast. Instead, they interview a large number of people who have moved away from their faith - trying to discover those connecting points that explain how it happened. They also interview those who are still of the Christian faith who have approached these same concepts but have remained Christian. 

I haven’t listened to a lot of the podcasts as there are over 170 of them but I have enjoyed the ones I’ve listened to. If you’re interested, I’d recommend starting with the first one that I started with - an interview with a guy named Jeff Loken who has a blog called Real, Live, Actual Blog (https://realliveactualblog.wordpress.com/).

You can find all of the Podcasts as well as more information on the Authors at 

http://www.everyonesagnostic.com.

Here’s the Audio from Jeff Lokin’s Interview: