I by no
means am a theologian, apologist, or even moderately educated in religion,
however I do have some thoughts on this subject that have consumed by brain on occasion.
And tonight is one of those occasions so for my benefit I am attempting to write
them down. I do this because it consumed by thoughts for a bit this evening and
I want to see if I can expound on them to see if I can make sense of this
madness permeating my thoughts. Also I do feel that general comparison do not
get to the heart of the problem and also really address that if you believe
which is worse.
So to
start some basic definitions or explanations, an agnostic according to one
source (Oxford definition) is a person
who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature
of God or anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith
nor disbelief in God.
And I stress
it is important to note the last sentence. I will come back to this point.
Atheism or
atheists is in some cases broken down into various distinctions. Generally most
people will define atheism has the belief there is no God. One resource not identified
in my internet search says there is implicit atheism and explicit atheism and
goes on to identify positive and negative atheism. This might be much for my
thoughts tonight, yet I did want to mention that some identify more to atheism
than I want to travel through.
And the
definition of agnostic mentioned above is generally how I view it and so my off
and on internal ramblings and arguments have stuck with this approach. Atheism
though I have always viewed as more of an active approach to the belief in God
and that their active approach I treat differently than the viewpoint that
discusses the various distinctions mentioned above.
To me an atheist
believes in God, that person is fighting that belief. Now at what level is
where it gets murky. Or may I should phrase it an atheist is the active disbelief
in God, however to disbelieve are you not denying existence and if you are
denying existence then the act of denial is fighting against acceptance. Now
even to me this argument does appear somewhat circular, however bear with me as
an amateur writer to get to my point. I truly believe this thought and I cannot
think of a better way to phrase it at the moment. Yet to fight against something
means you are fighting it. So if you say no God exists, why does it matter to you
to vocally denounce it. Unless there is something that is driving you to deny
the existence.
I think
people forget the fallen angel, Lucifer, the evil one or however you want to
identify this entity not only believes in God, but is on a campaign to destroy
God. Yet this is not the same as an atheist, but this entity may play a factor
in why an atheist is an atheist or at least for some. Some atheists just may
not want to own up to the fact that if you believe in God you must follow God.
And most people that believe in God or the Judeo Christian world knows how hard
it is to follow God. No small feat to live according to the teachings of God.
Throw in the concept of faith and mysteries and your brain is mush in no time.
Let me get
back on topic. An atheist can be what is described above as an implicit atheist
or “the absence of theistic belief without a conscious rejection of it” (again
there is a reference here, but I don’t have it and it is referencing another
work. My apologies for the lack of thoroughness here). I do not believe though
based on this reference that there is an implicit atheist. To me an atheist may
be a person, but that person is a verb also. Their atheism is an action. They
are creating action or wanting to create an action within someone else. This
exact same argument can be made for a Christian, which tends to put an atheist
as a person trying to convince someone there is no God. And here we are again.
They are denying something, yet you have to believe it to exist to convince
others not to believe in it.
A really
bad example is saying that wonderful t bone steak you want to eat does not
exist. I take the plate away and you no longer see it so why would you think
you are going to eat it. And the way I phrased this sentence is important. To me
atheists are wanting you to not believe in God because you cannot see, feel,
touch, smell etc… God. There is no truth to a physical presence of God or none
that can be identified or ascertained.
I work backwards
here and as a teenager and long before I knew of St. Augustine I had a internal
working knowledge of something St. Augustine said: “what you understand can’t
possibly be God” As a teenager I struggled with religion, yet I believed in
God. I didn’t articulate this as St. Augustine did, however I felt there was
more to God than what I saw on TV from the tele evangelists or some of the
churches I had attended. Church to me kept trying to define something that
couldn’t be held essentially as if it could be held. And they worked hard at
it. Now honestly I wasn’t catching onto the faith based arguments, and or maybe
I couldn’t comprehend them. Which goes back to what you understand can’t possibly
be God because God is beyond our comprehension. You hear God’s word, but until
you realize where it derives or who is God is beyond our imagination. Some people
try to manipulate your imagination and in doing so fail God.
And again
back to topic. So why the big to do about the difference between agnostic and
atheists tonight. For some reason I started thinking about which is worse,
being an agnostic or being an atheist and surprisingly to me at the moment, yet
the more I thought about it the more I felt I am correct. An atheist on the
surface appears to be the worse of the two if you are a believer, however,
remember I said they believe in God, they are trying to convince themselves and
you not to believe. Hence their belief is misguided and can be addressed. I am not
saying it will be easy because atheists can be true believers or in the case
true non believers, so they tend to be entrenched into their believes. Yet, the
argument is already in their brain so once past the entrenchment, another
argument can be presented.
An
agnostic has no belief. There is no argument, there is no denial, there is no
existence or no reason to even contemplate the existence. The thought comes,
the thought goes. Outside of curiosity or moving towards atheism an agnostic
doesn’t care. And the not caring is the more dangerous aspect. Can you change a
true (non) believer, possibly? Can you motivate someone who doesn’t care? Much
harder. If the entity above is lazy then an agnostic is a best friend. An
atheist for this entity takes constant work to keep them in line.
Just what this
madness is about sometimes unsnaps a few synopsis.
And let’s move
onto another topic that drives me mad. God is not liberal or conservative. These
are man made constructs. So it irks the heck out of me when we get into the
discussion of liberalism and conservatism in the Church. Does the Pope teach
the faith, the magisterium, the sacraments, or is the Pope saying Jesus is not
divine, not the Trinity, there is no apostolic tradition or any other tradition
of the Church? That is how you tell if you the Pope is teaching and living the
faith. If you do not agree with the Pope about certain people he is trying to
reach out to and it pushes your acceptance of others, yes the Pope might be
moving socially liberal points, but the Church does not become liberal because
the Pope pushes buttons. If the Pope now says a marriage in the Church between
two people of the same sex is now a sacrament then this Pope has strayed from
the belief and should no longer be Pope. Adam and Eve defined marriage and is
now a sacrament to further your communion with God. The Pope can say certain
people need to be heard as people since it is our role as a Christian to reach
out to those that need God in their lives. It is not our role to define whether
a bishop or Pope is liberal or conservative as teachings of the Faith. Remember
as Christians we are to love, even those that insult us, step on our toes, live
a lifestyle not of our faith, and yes the proverbial enemy. We are not to judge.
One of my favorite points in the Bible is after the people are told those that
have not sinned throw the first stone the next moment is the people leave and the
oldest are the first to leave. Yeah I ain’t young anymore so I can certainly
understand where that is coming from. More importantly we are not God, we
cannot judge. We can hold fast to our believes, our faith, our teaching, yet
being liberal or conservative is not part of the Church. We pray for each
other, not label each other. And if you ask me, if you are labeling either way,
maybe it is time you spent some time with God, not man.
Finally to
Bishop Barron. I have all the respect in the world for you and have enjoyed
what you have done to further my knowledge of our faith. However this certified
yellow check idea is horrible. How can we know the saints if we assume only
certain people know the word of God? Hope you think about it. Goes back to the
argument above, if the Pope loses it, who are we to trust unless we can
identify the Pope or a Bishop has lost their way. And I am not talking about me,
this post is definitely one man’s opinion, yet who is to say one person may
come along that knows more or more specifically taught more than all of us. Would
Moses get a yellow check?
Happy
birthday Mom
No comments:
Post a Comment