Blogmad, Agnosticism, and Invisible Fairies
I know what you’re asking. “How ever will he pull those three together into one post?” Well, I can and will. Indeed, I am a master blogger.
We will start with Blogmad. Blogmad is another blog trafficking site. You browse blogs and, in turn, you get credits which allows others to browse your blog. Really, it’s pretty useless. Most of the people surfing those sites don’t actually stop to read anyone’s blog; they just keep clicking through, racking up as many credits as they can muster.
The few of us who do actually read blogs don’t really expect much from the service in the way of traffic to our own sites. Instead, we use it to find other blogs and bloggers who interest us. I have found quite a few good blogs this way.
Among those, is The Mary Blog. I will spare you the details of who she is because I would rather you find out by actually reading what she says. Suffice it to say, her posts are well written and thought provoking.
For instance, her blog, Agnostic Atheism (read it). In short, it said, “I have no reason to believe or disbelieve, hence agnosticism. However, I am more on the disbelieving side as the default presupposition when faced with reality is that that which I do not perceive likely does not exist.”
While I agree with the effect of this claim, I disagree with the claim itself. You see, if we trust nothing and act in an absolutely and purely scientific manner, we will reject all claims of existence and nonexistence. Even that which we perceive could not be reasonably accepted as our senses are prone to error.
So what do we do? Do we just lie down and wait to die? That is if we are even really alive! Over this question, philosophers - amateur and professional – have fought and died at the hands of kings, warriors, religious fanatics, and even themselves.
Only one word can cure this disease and quench the thirst for direction. The question of how to react to the fact that we truly cannot know anything can be answered with one word which has been heralded as the answer for two thousand years. That word is faith.
Now, now, don’t turn me off, yet. We’re just getting to the good stuff. You see, most agnostics and all atheists find themselves grasping at faith. Only they call it by a more modern name; trust. Even Mary put trust in something. While she held that her senses had just as much chances of deceiving her as they do of representing truth, she chose to trust them, at least a little, and say that since her senses say nothing, she will be more likely to believe nothing.
Even the most well renown Nihilists, even the biggest agnostics of them all, even the great Nietzsche, even the illustrious Kant, Darwin, Mendel, even you…Even you believe. Even you trust in something. Even you have faith.
You see, the only rational way to act is to accept the irrational. As agnostics, our only choice is between acting on faith in every matter and failing to act on any matter.
Now we come to the difference between an atheistic leaning agnostic such as Mary and a theistic believing agnostic such as me. It is simply a matter of how much faith one is comfortable with. Does my computer exist? I trust me senses, though I could never falsify their claims. Does Mexico exist? I trust those who say it does, though I have never seen it. Did Christ perform miracles? I trust many of the first century writings and stories concerning Him, though I was not there. Do miracles happen today? I trust my experience and some portion of the testimonies of the churches of Africa, Asia, and South America (and even on occasion North America and Europe), though some might call that irrational.
Does the invisible fairy in my palm exist? I’m not comfortable trusting you, there.