
I recently became aware of something: I'm Agnostic.
ag⋅nos⋅tic
/ægˈnɒstɪk/ S[ag-nos-tik]
noun
a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
I know, I love putting crosses in my art and was a very dedicated Christian for a long time. Don't drink, don't smoke weed, stayin' celebit and everything man, but lately I've started to notice the the blank spaces in everything and I guess my religion was next. Life is full of blank spaces that we fill in, and I think I'd be a liar to say that there are some that the Bible left open. I do still believe that there are higher forces out their, namely God/Gods/Godess, what have you. My problem lies in the ethnocentric, propagandistic form that a religious label entails.
Where did this start? About three weeks ago, my mom and I were watching a program on a Christian channel that was talking about Jehova's witnesses and how their holy text is very similar to the Bible but has certain changes to accommodate their views. I thought it was a little strange, but my mom was flat-out angry. I distinctly remember her saying how unfortunate it was that so many people were going to be deceived and not know the REAL God because of this.
When she said this, I got a little bit worried and thought for a sec, "Can it really be that easy to make your own Bible?" and how many different religions, sects and cults there were in the world and how so many of them are pointing fingers at each other. As a matter of fact, there's Christians pointing fingers saying that other Christians of different denominations are going to hell. Another thing that crossed my mind is that the English version of the Bible is a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation, from societies that aren't exactly known for their perfect harmony and trustworthiness. For I knew, the Bible I was reading could be completely different than the original Aramaic texts. That was when it hit me, there are over 6 billion people in the world. 30% claim to be Christian, and I'd assume from person experience that only about a third of them are Christians for more than just Sunday morning tradition. God knows EVERYTHING, so did he really create 90% of the human populace for the purpose of burning in Hell after a century on Earth?
It was a hard pill to swallow, but for once (AND I ALWAYS have an answer, even if I'm just bullshitting) I didn't have an answer. After that, so much more came along with that.
Well, now what?
I had asked my mom (A Biblical scholar, mind you) questions about the translation, God's policy on people who lived in areas where Christianity hadn't made it, and many more, but I always got the same answer. Read the Bible. You can't find out about translations and amendments from inside the book in question, I had read the whole New Testament and 75% of the old, it said nothing about things like this. The rest of the questions, Mom's answers began with "I WOULD THINK THAT..." She, someone who has read the whole Bible multiple times was telling me to do what she did for answers, and she didn't even have them herself.
I didn't wanna admit that I was loosing my faith in my religion, and looked up Agnostic in the dictionary to see the difference between that and Atheist (Atheism is nothing but a Godless religion itself, and I refused to call myself that because I still believe in God) I'm never afraid to speak my mind to parents, teachers, cops, celebrities; but I definitely couldn't tell my Mom, I was afraid she'd fall apart, so I told my best friend Marquil first. He understood, and it made things a hell of a lot easier to swallow, and I managed to tell Mom during the drive to Ohio to look for a new house. Needless to say, we fought all weekend about it, but she understood me on the way back I think. I don't think she really cared what I believed as long as I called myself a Christian and went to church. But I had to tell the truth, I refuse to lie to myself or anybody else about things such as this.
That's it I guess, the story's still going so there's no ending quite yet. I know that probably nobody's going to read that whole thing, but writing it helped me to focus a bit. The final verdict:
I still believe in God, or at least some type of creative force or ultimate good personified. I still refuse to get drunk or high, and I'm gonna find a girl I love before I hit it again, because that's just me. Maybe it's force of habit, I dunno. Pray for me tho, and know that I'm letting go of religion for the sole purpose of LOOKING FOR GOD, not making excuses to act a damn fool or sleep in on Sunday morning. Peace.
There's more 2 say on another day, hope you feel me. I'm cold.