Please help classify my religious beliefs...

Factual Questions
1

Over the past year or so, my religious beliefs have shifted from athiesm to something similar to agnosticism, but perhaps not quite. I’m hoping that someone can help classify my beliefs so that I can study these beliefs further.

I like to title it “Faith and Acceptance”, but here we go:

A) It is beyond comprehension for humans to definitively know one way or the other about the origins of their existence or the presence of deities.

B) I accept that there may or may not be: a god, no god, or another civilization that created us.

C) If there is no god, then I accept this fact and realize that there is no afterlife.

D) If there is some other civilization that created us, then I have accept that this civilization may or may not have a plan for us after we die. (If this scenario is true, and there is no god, see part C, above. If this scenario is true, and there is a god, see part E, below. If this scenario is not true, see part C or E).

E) If there is a god, I have faith that this god will accept me for the person that I am. I have faith that this god will accept the fact that I am doubting the existence of any god. I have faith that this god is an all-encompassing, all-knowing and all-loving god.

F) If there is a god, then Christian God, Buddah, Vishnu, etc are all the same deity. Isolated regional differences in belief occured due to social changes and lack of outside influence.

Sorry about the rambling… I’m sure I’m missing something. But help me out, will ya? :slight_smile:

2

Lapsed atheist, on your way to becoming a lapsed agnostic.

3

How about fatdavity?

4

Also on your way to becoming a Unitarian-Universalist.

5

Your beliefs sound fairly in line with my brother’s, and he’s agnostic. The difference might be that you care – I once called him an apathetic agnostic, because he don’t know and he don’t care. He liked that. (Though since he’s in AF boot camp right now, he just might find God while he’s there, if only in the form of his TI! He’s even been going to church, because it’s an hour or so where nobody’s yelling at him.)

6

fatdave,

The terms “atheist” and “agnostic” have formal meanings. They also have lots of casual meanings that don’t agree with the formal scholarly definitions. So any time you use those words, recognize you’re probably failing to communicate clearly since whoever you’re talking to may have a very different definition of those terms. All English is a little fuzzy, but those two words are especially overloaded.

IMHO:
Your A) is just about exactly the formal definition of “Agnostic”. The question is undecidable, period. And always was and always will be. Beleivers and non-beleivers are both just guessing. That’s the scholarly formal definition of agnosticisim.

Your B) through D) are properly elaborated logical consequences of A).

Your E) is you beginning to have religion, in violation of what you say in A) through D).

Your F) is Western tolerant liberalism applied to the religious sphere. It’s essentially independent of A) through E).

FWIW

7

You know what Dave? At least you gave it some thought…

And I think if you started that particular non-religion religion, it would sell like hotcakes…

Cause I think A LOT of people think the same thing.

8

Take this quiz and it will tell you which religion or belief system most closely aligns with yours. Pretty accurate (it pegged me at 100% Secular Humanist, which is exactly correct) and kinda entertaining. It also thinks I might be happy as a Reform Jew.

9

Thanks for the quiz! It put me at 100% Unitarian Universalist, so that looks to be the track I’m on (as somebody else previously mentioned). Of course, it also put me as 100% Liberal Quaker… but I think I’ll stick with UU. :slight_smile:

10

Generally, I agree with those who said your positions are agnostic and fit well with UU-ism.

I disagree with LSLGuy about your item (E), because I think this is a reasonable “hedge” position when you aren’t an atheist. Maybe your use of the word “faith” threw him off.

As for this one:

I don’t think there is any necessary connection between a hypothetical “real god” and any of the gods of human religions. It certainly doesn’t follow that all of “our” gods are versions of the “real god”. IMHO, a more purely agnostic view would be:

If there is a “real god”, then the Christian God, Buddha, Vishnu, etc., may or may not be derived from or related to or similar to the “real god”. The “real god” may or may not have communicated his/her/its existence and attributes to anyone and may or may not have intervened in human affairs at any time.

:slight_smile:

11

Remember…
An agnostic is simply an atheist without courage… :wink:

12

You are a heratic but taking on some qualities of an infidel. :wink:

13

Hmm…I took the beliefomatic quiz just now after a couple of years. I used to be Neo Pagan. Now I"m Unitarian Universalist. hehe.

14

Just wanted to say, Buddha isn’t a god. A model, sure, an enlightened being, sure, but not a god.

Carry on!

15

Agnostic Deist