Hi y'all,
I don't know if agnosticism truly describes my beliefs, or lack thereof, but I know I'm going to enjoy hanging out here!
When I was a child I went to a Protestant church, but had troubles in Sunday school. By the time I was 10 years old I was seriously questioning the idea of a virgin birth. One day I suggested that Jesus probably looked more like Anwar Sadat than the painting of the guy with the blonde highlights that hung on the wall. That pretty much ended my Sunday school career, which was fine with me.
Neither of my parents had much use for organized religion so leaving the church wasn't a big deal. I think they wanted us kids to go to church for the sense of community and the fried chicken dinners more than the religious instruction.
The thing is, I never really bought the whole concept of Christianity. I didn't get the part about how if you sinned you'd go to hell, but the God being promoted was all-forgiving. I didn't believe that the King James version of the bible resembled the original (whatever that was) version. There was a bunch of stuff that I didn't get.
I spent my early adulthood reading up on a lot of different religions. I think I was hoping that I'd find one that fit, but it never happened. I did find Zen Buddism very appealing and get much more of the dogma than I ever got of Christianity. When I'm surrounded by Baptists and in the mood to stir things up I claim to be Buddhist.
Then there is
The Unified Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster -- if there ever was a religion I could get into, this is the one!
I believe in a super intelligence, but it is not a human-like entity and it is certainly not a father figure who is standing around tapping his foot. I believe this super entity is part and parcel of quantum string theory.
I am a huge fan of Dr. Brian Weiss and his theories on reincarnation. I agree with Dr. Weiss that the time we spend here on earth is not the main event, which naturally leads to the question "What is the main event?" This is where agnosticism comes into the picture for me. I'm not quite sure how the main event would be defined. Sometimes I feel like I have a little glimpse of it, but it's not totally clear. Maybe there are human brains out there that are able to understand it. Maybe Jesus and Siddhartha could conceptualize the main event. Maybe Native American healers who meditate for hours on that sacred place between one breath and the next understand the true nature of the main event.
Maybe not.
Whatever the main event is, wherever it is, I feel sure that it has something to do with love and compassion and tolerance. I don't think any sort of religious belief is necessary -- for that matter, I don't believe god is necessary -- for people to
decide to be good to each other. We don't need to be flogged into acting with love, compassion and tolerance. We don't have to fear a god or an eternal, unpleasantly warm afterlife to be good to each other. We can make a conscious choice to treat each other well and if it should happen that we get some karmic brownie points for our efforts that's all the better. If our existence is just some huge biological and physiological accident of evolution then the worst we've done is make the time we are alive more enjoyable and peaceful.
DM
Hello 
Hello 
You goof ball
Nirvana???
Is it to show off smoldering eyes, the mystery of it with the dark wrap you might be hiding weird Al Yancovic hair ... or none at all. It's quiet the enticing 
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