So, I went to check out my own blog and looked up into the little advertisement sign over it. In small yellow letters I read: related articles: storytelling, agnosticism. Intrigued, I clicked the agnosticism button and scrolled down to look at a description of the articles related to my blog. How did I get lumped in agnosticism. I know that when I filed with Blogphiles I had twenty key words I was allowed to punch in. Maybe agnostic was one of the words I punched in, but I don’t think I meant it the way most people think it does.
Talking to people, surfing the web, reading through other blogs I can’t help but notice that the subject of God, (his, her, their) existence or the lack of it is very much in vogue and everyone has an opinion. Some people have very long, very sophisticated explanations to back up their opinion, and they’re usually more wrong than anyone else. Going through these agnostic files I found some people that said an agnostic was someone who said you can’t know for certain if there is a God or not. Others were much more militant including the Church of We Don’t Know And We Don’t Give a… well, you know where I’m headed with this.
When I say agnostic I don’t mean that we don’t know. I mean that we can’t even begin to guess. I grew up a devout Catholic and more about that later. The devotion would have been wonderful if we were taught to be devoted to truth, to love, to honesty, to God. We should have been taught to follow Jesus but instead we were handed a million ways to grovel in front of him and instructions on how many types of sin there were and how they determined our level of unworthiness. I talk about my own growing up, but whatever church you grew up in, or religion, or even if you grew up without religion, the story is more or less the same. We are taught one view and God has to fit inside of this. Woe to the people who don’t believe the same way. Woe to people who call God Krishna. Or him Her, or don’t call him at all, who believe in an inner light or a basic goodness or just are tired of religion.

Let me sign off with this, a description of a scene from a book called Becoming the Enchanter, by Lyn Webster Wilde. In a part of the book her teacher is trying to convey a truth to her by telling her a story. He says, “Close your eyes and listen. I am going to speak you ancient words… they will resonate in your mind at hidden levels, reminding you of what you already know… just listen and let your mind drift. Don’t try to concentrate…”

The best religion will never claim to be dogmatic and final. The ceremony and words are a collection of senses and songs, words and symbols that we can pass through into goodness and grace, two things very much worth believing in.