Five things: Ⅰ Agnosticism

I am agnostic, for which I must clarify is not atheism, but also not quite theism either. This is the belief that there may or may not be a deity, but nothing is certain because of the lack of indelible evidence.

For example: I don't believe in creationism because there is no proof. Evolution, on the other hand, can be clearly studied in the wild and holds more credibility in my belief. Similarly, while I agree with the Big Bang theory, it still lacks formal proof for me to believe in it entirely; However I don't then believe that a higher being created the universe.

This is a complex subject for some people, and an unmanageable and offensive subject for most. I don't seek to disprove religions, but it is in my nature to be sceptical about anything until concrete evidence can be presented. With regards to religious matters, I'm unable to obtain this evidence, and therefore I cannot make an educated decision.

For me, though, the various religious texts of each religion include large amounts of problematic parables that can be quite open to an individual's interpretation, and have details that have been lost over time. To explain, let's take the works of Shakespeare into consideration — in particular, his tragedies. Because of the time-scale involved between his era and ours, most of the political satire is lost on the literature students forced to study his work.

Since I went to private schools, I had to endure a large dose of Christianity, in particular Anglicanism. I heard the same stories at different schools, or over even the same school, being used to explain completely different morals — the words twisted to fit the particular theme at the time.

The common problem I see with religion is this interpretability. If you look into the known history for the time, you might find yet another meaning to particular parables. It's unfortunate that some religions can appear so peaceful under one man's interpretation, and yet almost war-like under another's. Age, transcription, manual scribes prior to printing technologies, translation (i.e. “virgin”), and even sometimes modern simplification of texts have all contributed to chinese-whispers style problems.

Many of my past and present friends follow a variety of religions. Fortunately these people are very open and willing to discuss their beliefs rather than simply bible-bash. I respect these people not only because of their convictions, but their ability to openly and intelligently debate them with clarity.

Because of these debates, I've taken on many habits and morals from a variety of religions that make common sense, but it's also taught me that most religion is identical. The differences are simply in execution.

Finally, let me just say that modern religions that have been invented for personal gain, such as Scientology, are never going to be considered by me. Xenu can go and get stuffed — at least he could have if he existed. Any religion that requires money for auditing rather than faith should ring alarm bells by its very nature.

Continue reading: parts two, three, four and five.