It certainly could be...

My husband reads a lot of skeptic movement blogs and websites every day. I read them when he sends me something interesting, but that isn't very often. Yesterday I did look around at atheist/skeptic sites a bit and I noticed that many of them have a symbol to denote their faith in atheism and they link to each other's blogs. They have formed a nice, close community.

Some of you may remember that, on the issue of belief in a deity, I am agnotic. While my husband asserts that he knows that you cannot prove the nonexistence of a deity, his faith is atheist because he believes that the possibility does not exist. I haven't been able to make the leap of faith necessary for either side. So, I looked around online to see if I could find an agnostic movement similar to the atheist/skeptical movement. It doesn't exist separate from the atheist movement. I find that so unfortunate. I can't identify with the atheist movement or world view and I think there are more people like me out there. Are we too agnostic to decide to get together in a community?

Faith is a wonderful thing. However, faith is something else entirely when it isn't supported and founded on reason. It's my opinion that emotions are often nothing more than instinct. When we react out of emotion we are often reacting in a way that is uncontrollable, in a way we would wish not to react. It is inherently instinctual. Once we stop and apply reason to the situation we are hopefully able to overcome our initial instinctual/emotional reaction. This is the place where we demonstrate our humanness and where our mind is able to act for us, rather than our instincts. I think this applies to both the mental and physical pain/joy scale. Even when we are abandoned by a friend or lover, our initial reaction is one of protection of our psyche, the instinctual/emotional push away from the pain. We lash out, we cry, we have some form of that emotional response. Faith can be compared to both instinct and reason in this way.

Faith equals instinct when it isn't based on reason. We seek comfort and in doing so, we seek it instinctively. The need for community and the comfort that it affords might be initially instinctual, but it will remain without substance if we do not seek that community critically. It's easy to remain in the fold of the faith we were raised to believe is correct; that faith is unquestioned and becomes instinctual through habit. But that sort of faith is not capable of depth or truth if it is not reached by using the brain we have that defines our humanity, through using our reason. If you can't answer the question, "why do you believe?" without answering, "because I do," or "because it is true," then the faith you possess is nothing more than raw instinct. It is no better than the faith a cat or dog has acquired through years of habit that they will be fed by their human. That sort of faith is, in the broader sense, meaningless.

I have faith that my kitty Pearl will sleep by my head tonight. I have that faith because it simply always happens and I can expect her to act in a way that is in accordance with her nature. I have faith that Jon will come home tonight because he always comes home and I also expect him to act in a way that is in accordance with his nature. Where I cannot find faith is for something that I can't find in reality or in the opposite of it. There is nothing we can do about the unprovable nature of a deity; there isn't an inkling of proof that may lead us to solidity one day. Nor are there practical considerations to subject the idea to. In other words, we can't have a theory about God and expect to prove it in time (even thousands of years) just as there is nothing in reality that necessitates the idea of God as there are with unprovable things like ethics and love. (I may not be able to prove that it is wrong to rape children, but there are practical reasons why I can make that assertion)

In the end, I am just too much of a rationalist. If it doesn't have practical or theoretical value, I can't find myself leaping toward it with abandon. I am not claiming that there is nothing greater than me, (as that would be a ridiculous assertion) but I am stating that if it exists it must be knowable and/or useful. The ethical ideas we are forced to adhere to are no less important or valid if they are based on practical concerns than if they are based on faith. It isn't a workable paradigm to live in a world where all things are permitted; ethics (an idea of right and wrong) are reasonable in their utility. While I have faith in my ideas of right and wrong, the faith is simply a necessary part of the necessity itself.

I would never assert that faith in the existence or nonexistence of a deity is wrong. My assertion remains that it is unnecessary and therefore must be based on more than a desire to have that faith. It's akin to believing that gang members are murdering women by jumping in their cars while they pay for gas simply because your parents told you it is true. That isn't enough of a reason to believe anything. Yet, we base our faith on that type of "knowledge" every day. It isn't reasonable and it isn't enough; there should be more to our faith than sheer rote.

I hope agnosticism as a movement finds a champion. I'm disturbed by the simple enfolding of it into a faith as that is against its very nature. There's nothing wrong with knowing that you simply do not know and taking that to its logical conclusion of resisting faith. Then again, the agnostic in me must acknowledge that I could be wrong about all of this. Oh, who am I kidding? that's just not likely!