Authentic Experience and the Reluctant Agnostic

Matters of religion, faith, and spirituality seem to be things I tend to mull around in my head a lot but never actually say all that much about anymore. I suppose there are reasons for that...

One being that I've always found these matters to be terribly sensitive and personal, and since it tends to be human nature to seek out validation and acceptance, sometimes speaking transparently about the thoughts floating around in your head about how you see the world that you're living in and how you believe you ought to be living your life, and when it seems like people in your life have much stronger convictions than you do, convictions about things that you can't seem to bring yourself to agree with them on... It's frightening to make that leap. No one wants to be judged harshly.

To talk briefly about the labels I've held in my life... I spent my early teenage years identifying as atheist/agnostic, I wasn't quite sure which term fit, so I used both haphazardly. My later teen years and the first two years of my twenties, I was identifying as Christian, a path I ventured down primarily for selfish reasons, I wanted to fit in with my peers. After four years of trying, ultimately there were things about the Christian faith that I could not reconcile with how I perceived reality, and I parted ways with the church. I have a bad habit of tending to dwell on my negative feelings in regard to the church, but in reality... a great deal of what I hold dear to me now philosophically are things I learned while practicing Christianity.

These days, the label I use to identify myself when I need to is the Reluctant Agnostic.

Ultimately, agnostic was the term I most closely identified with. I feel that there's always some degree of doubt that exists in regards to whatever the force or deity or whatever you want to call it that guides the universe. Yet, I use the term reluctant because I find defining myself as agnostic to be limiting and not fully descriptive. All the term agnostic tells you is my position on a higher power, and to be quite truthful whether there is or isn't a higher power doesn't really have any bearing on how I live my life.

I think one of the biggest things I brought out of Christianity was the need for being a part of a community, a part in a larger whole. Like the Old Crow song says, "We're all in this thing together." I was disenfranchised when I left because I felt I was being given conflicting messages... On the one hand, I was getting the sense that one of the most important things that people needed to be was to be open and honest with each other in order to grow into better people over time from what I was reading in the Bible, and it was being reaffirmed at every turn in what I read online, in other books, etc. On the other, when I tried to live up to that ideal, the Christians I had surrounded myself with didn't appreciate it. They did everything to shut me up. In the end, I left because to me... being open, being transparent, and being accepted regardless of my flaws rather than being chaistised was more important.

Overall, my current personal philosophy (I guess you could call it, for a lack of a better term) is this:

1. Sharing is sacred. The stories, experience, and knowledge that others share with us and we share with others is valuable. It's to be treasured, respected and learned from.
2. Be honest with yourself and with others.
3. Question everything. Realize and accept that not every question will have an awswer, and that answers to life's persisant questions may change over time.
4. Love others the way you would like to be loved.
5. Forgive others for the things they have done wrong.
6. Accept and welcome the unexpected, it's probably better than what you planned anyway.

Josh often uses a tag on his posts that has seemed to resonate with me... Authentic Experience... Honesty and authenticity are something I've always put a high value on. There is nothing that can rivet my attention more than someone sharing of themselves honestly, openly with others.