I am not a religious person. I am a spiritual person but religions bother me. They all pretend to have inside information about God or Gods and what they require of humanity. The problem is, all I have is some person’s word that they know what God wants. I don’t buy the argument that I should take them at their word on faith. If God did in fact create me, why would he/she/they give me my senses to perceive the world with and my brain to reason about it if he/she/they didn’t want me to demand proof.
This does not mean that I am an atheist however. I think that atheists are just as radical as fundamentalist. They pretend to know that there is no God. I don’t think that can be known absolutely. If their is a deity or deities, I see no reason why they would bother to make themselves known to man. Do we tell ants what we have planned for them? Do we even have plans for them? Or maybe amoebas would be more apropos.
In any case, as you probably have guessed now, I am an agnostic. A spiritual agnostic, but an agnostic none the less. I don’t know if there is a God or not. I sometimes hope that there is a God and that he or she or it actually cares about me as an individual or even mankind as a race. It seems a long stretch to me though.
I certainly don’t believe that any person has been given exclusive access to the wisdom of a deity. I believe that if a deity were going to reveal a message to mankind, it would be to all mankind. It would be accompanied by some form of evidence sufficient to convince our mortal minds of the veracity of their deity.
But then I am a romantic. I like things that are done with a flare. I may be entirely wrong. I am willing to admit it. I just don’t like anyone preaching at me.
I sometimes think I observe miracles. When I do, I invariably find that there are scientific explanations behind what I have seen. That needn’t reduce the sense of wonder that such things inspire. It just doesn’t seem necessary to give anyone credit for it. The rains come, the crops grow, we are fed for another year. It is miraculous but it doesn’t need a deity to make it so.
Yes, I am a skeptic. That doesn’t mean that I reject all claims of the paranormal. I keep the grain of skepticism at the ready though. If any phenomena is so sensitive to the energy of my skepticism that it can’t exert its effect while I am skeptical, I think it is just a ruse covering up opportunistic exploiters of circumstances or just plain frauds, depending on how charitable I’m feeling at the time.
Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the ones you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.