Ok, i class myself as a “hopeful agnostic.” This is somewhat a downgrading from being the good little God-fearing whipper snapper I used to be as a child. This is a brief account of the metamorphosis in an attempt to unravel the mystery of my faith, or lack of it, and my subsequent search for answers in a world filled with dogma and superstition.

Being an agnostic means that you honour the possibility of the existance of a deity, or many deities for that matter. In essence you are sitting on the fence. I hate sitting on the fence. In all honesty i would rather be either a Christian fundamentalist or a die-hard atheist than being stuck on this plateau of pondering. I don’t intend on being here forever, I couldn’t be a life long member of the Church of Maybe, mostly because staying on the fence is just an excuse to piss time away when there is a life to be lived after all.

I was always raised to believe in a God. The Judeo-Christian God for that matter. I have read the bible and used to dedicate many hours and moments of my life in prayer. I had the attitude most Theists have, that God is always watching, always judging, omni-prescent and all of that. Then secondary school came along. My school life involved 5 years of semi-bullying, friendship building, hidden erections and the loss of my innocence. Being that I have had a pretty good social circle I was able to distract myself from all the shitty-shitness of what my personal life involved (the person who introduced me to God, my mother, was diagnosed and killed by cancer) with all the joys that a young adolescent can force upon himself; drink, soft drugs and the (unsuccessful) chase of girls. Of course, my desire to be accepted and liked overruled a lot of what the bible said I could and could not do. Drinking to excess, lusting after girls, watching porno and a lot of other things probably did me little favour in the eyes of the Almighty. I even stopped praying after a while. One thing you quickly learn about God is that regardless of your behaviour on earth, His actions make little to no sense at the time. As the years go on, and you see calamity after calamity happen in your life and the lives of those around you, it becomes more and more difficult to believe in the great Puppet Master. I mean, it makes perfect sense to question why these things happen. It is a common fact, ladies and gentlemen, that bad things happen to good people. This is an incorruptible fact. So this leads an inquisitive mind to ponder the following.

1. There is no God and we are all the result of a Universal accident. Our lives are intertwined by a series of random coincidences that we have no control over, death is the end.

2. There is a God but he is basically a (to semi-quote Richard Dawkins) a misogynistic, homophobic, sado-masochistic bully.

3. There are a number of deities at work in life but the overwhelming popularity of Christianity has ground down, bullied, and murdered out all polytheistic faiths that do not fit in with their doctrine.

4. We’ve got it all wrong.

Being an agnostic you tend to have some degree of faith in God or Gods and Goddesses. I however have ZERO faith in religion. I believe that the best way to describe modern Christianity is basically a 2 millennial long game of Chinese Whispers. Even if there were a set of rules handed down by the teachings of Christ, by now they have been distorted and twisted beyond all recognition and we are left with the mess it is in today. The bible has been wrote and re-wrote, it’s teachings and the name of God twisted and used for selfish gain, blood lust and murder. Examples? Try these:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church

2.Witch Hunting

“God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam [Hussein], which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.”
–Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Abu Mazen quoting George W Bush when they met in Aqaba; reported in The Haaretz Reporter by Arnon Regular

This mess exists mostly because religion was created by man, and man by nature is imperfect and selfish. So how can we in our right minds follow an imperfectly made set of rules to worship a perfect deity? Religion is the reason for the murder of millions, maybe even billions. Following God’s laws as interpreted by man allowed 9/11 to happen. As well as every jihad retaliation. Every murder in the name of God seems justified, well i’m sorry, no it is not. Mankind tends to use God as the reason for every act that otherwise would be judged as an act of lunacy. Therefore, i believe fair readers, that it is time to create a new religion, a personal religion, one free from all the inconsistencies and half-truths and impossible rules that we are supposed to abide in. One thing that really pisses me off about Christianity and Catholicism in general is the suppression of mankind’s basic human needs. “Don’t look at that naked woman”, “Don’t have impure thoughts about that seventeen year old girl next door”, you get the gist. Thoughts are thoughts, and what goes on in my head is nobody’s business but my own.

Lust is not a sin. Lust is an emotion, exactly the same way as fear or happiness are emotions. It is a basic need to have sex for recreation, and a fabulous way to connect with a human being. It should not be suppressed, otherwise bad things happen.

Man should not be told what to put inside it’s body, as long as no other human being is harmed in the process.

Man should seek to harm no-one, except in self defence.

Never, ever take without permission.

Hang on a second, do these basic rules seem familiar? Maybe they do. Do they make sense? Yes they definately do. They are the basic rights for survival that Pagans have lived by for centuries. Hell, even the Church of Satan abides by these ones. When you take away man’s basic primal urges and he acts out, it is perfectly understandable. If you, however, indulge your urges and break the rules up above, they you’re basically a shit person. You can’t blame God for that one.

So where does this lead yours truly? I, much like Nine Inch Nails, are now as free from religion as Trent Reznor is from record label. This allows me to explore the possibility going down any theological path I see fit. I do not hope to be on this road forever, and I expect I will find my own set of rules of belief along the way. For now my eyes are open wide. But i still sit on that god-damned fence.

[Oxking]

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