Wiki it.
I started this blog around the time that I was struggling with my parents accepting that I'm no longer a believer. I needed an outlet. I needed a place that allowed me to voice my thoughts without judgment or prejudice. As I started to drift into what I can only call an oblivion of ideas on god, spirituality, nature, the supernatural, etc., I found the possibilities are vast. I'm sure, that I'm no first discoverer of this fact. The possibilities are mind-boggling to say the least.
The "labels" as I call them are varying. Rest assured people, there's a theological -ism out there for each and every one of you! *phew* I'm sure many of you are relieved. Even to some extent, I'm relieved.
I spent quite a bit of time on Wikipedia (the poor man's e-Britannica) reading and pondering over the different theological discussions of human time. I finally figured out that Agnosticism was not what I meant when originally attempting discussion with my parents. I did feel that I had come to a point of relating with Agnosticism, but something still seemed presumptuous about it. Yes, presumptuous, even arrogant. Not to mention that there's five or so different types of Agnosticism, according to Wikipedia. I simply did not feel that to say "there could or could not be a god" was humble enough.
Humility became a factor for me as I felt more and more that nature, or even "mother nature" was something so much more complex and mysterious beyond human comprehension, that I wondered: Could our brains even come close to producing any sort of accurate idea for the definition or characterization of "god"? I felt simply insignificant and gravely minute in the grand scheme of Nature, and everything that encompasses our word that is beyond our current (or permanent) understanding. It seemed obvious to me how meaningless our actions, priorities, and simple concepts (creating god in our own image, etc.) regarding life and the supernatural seemed to be. There are many ways for me to go on and on about how nihilist I felt and still do at times, but for this moment I'll stop with: insignificant. It seemed to me that it was of utmost importance to see myself and the rest of the human race as insignificant. Especially were a 'god' to exist.
That is where I came upon 'Ignosticism'. In my eagerness to humble my human ego, and take a step back so-to-speak, Ignosticism made more sense than any other 'label' I'd come across. To quote Wikipedia, Ignosticism: "the theological position that every other theological position (including agnosticism) assumes too much about the concept of God and many other theological concepts." Hurray! for succinct rejection of millennia of egocentric human history!
"I don't know what you mean when you say 'God exists...'"
And I don't think I ever will.
Ignosticism, in a way, is the only label that seemed to suggest what I'd been feeling, that it's too arrogant of us to assume we could know if there is or isn't a god. However, as that leaves it rather close to Agnosticism, the English Major in me loves where Ignosticism leads to next: (Per Wikipedia)
The first view is that a coherent definition of God must be presented before the question of the existence of God can be meaningfully discussed. Furthermore, if that definition cannot be falsified, the ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the question of the existence of God (per that definition) is meaningless. In this case, the concept of God is not considered meaningless; the term "God" is considered meaningless.
For many with whom I've tried to discuss the topic of faith, and thus introduce my "label", it's simply silly. They feel it's nit picky to put so much significance on the words in order to nullify the entire discussion. Though that's not exactly what I seek to do, as I do enjoy the discussion (and all it's variances) very much, I simply want the significance of definition and characterization of the word 'god' to be acknowledged. The best way I've come to explain it is that if you were to ask one of my Japanese friends what "God" is, she might have a completely different response than what one of my Christian friends might claim. Similarly, if I were to ask a Lutheran some characteristics of God, they might have several that are contrasting, or even in opposition to those that might be put forth by a Southern Baptist. These are the reason why I feel the discussion of it all is rather useless.
Even though I've found this label that allows me a stance that I feel requires others to take pause and to consider another approach, I don't know if I really want an -ism for myself. I want spirituality to be an individual, personal experience. I want religion to be what one makes of it (or what one does not wish to make of it). I want us to all accept that what we do know is that we're all here and involved in the human experience. No one could pin point what that means exactly, but we all know we're living it. I want everyone to let go of 'black and white', 'wrong and right' ideas, and see the world in a more complex, tinted shade that it is, which is more gray. The best thing we could all do is accept that the only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths, and with that, find freedom in our world to explore and accept things that we might not understand. I don't believe we have to understand it all in order to accept that there is something there that's unexplainable. I also don't believe that because we see something as unexplainable is to suggest we shouldn't keep exploring all options with regards to these phenomena.
We all have the world ahead of us to explore and find new and evolving meanings in our lives. I find it acutely frustrating that so many in our society actively choose to not look around, and to not explore. In our human desire for contentedness, we give up on our true spirituality by simply suggesting, "God did it." I believe that is one of the saddest things to witness in my fellow humanoids around me. We could be so much more than the religious doctrines, dogmas, rules, etc. that we've wrapped our selves up in. Surely we would want to accept reason and logic, as opposed to have this extreme trait of faith, which requires a lack of reason and logic altogether. So I suppose I am suggesting,
"Everyone was born with logical and reasoned responses to the world. Everyone."
Where God, Jesus, the Pope, or Mohammed come into it, I will never be sure.
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