I feel like I’ve finally officially slipped into the Agnostic zone. While I still feel that I am a spiritual person, I am feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the buffet table approach I’ve been taking in regard to Christianity, just picking up the bits I like, and leaving the rest behind.
At the same time, I don’t think I could ever be a hard-core atheist; to my mind it would just be trading one set of unprovable beliefs for another. I enjoy science, especially cosmology, but am not comfortable with a meaningless, amoral universe, which I still believe is the only logical outcome of strict atheism. I’ve been involved in some long running arguments about that, and even though I cannot call myself a Christian, my position in the debate has not changed.
I don’t feel emancipated by this change; somewhat saddened actually. There is a lot I admire about moderate Christianity and liberal theology, and I am angered when I see strident atheists attack all of Christianity by lumping all denominations in with right-wing American fundamentalists, to score the easy, cheap hit; they are being lazy and intellectually dishonest.
So where to go from here? I will keep an open mind, be open to experience, avoid hubris, and above all, I will do my best to remember that there is so much we don’t know about the universe. For example, dark matter and dark energy make up 95% of the universe and we don’t know what they are. Did the universe have a first cause? So much of what we experience is illusory.
And Christians, indeed all people of faith, haven’t cornered the market on illusion.
