Reflections of a Seventh Day Agnostic

Sam Smith – I have largely gotten along with others on religious matters by keeping my mouth shut. The problem is not that I have strongly held beliefs that I don’t want to defend, but rather that I lack the certainty and conviction that characterizes so many around me on such matters. Which is why I call myself a Seventh Day Agnostic.

My fundamental view is that one can believe what one wants as long as it makes you better and helps rather than harms others.  As a college anthropology major I learned that there were a massive number of gods and faiths around the world, which further complicates the arguable validity of any one belief system. Eventually, I came to understand that it was not existence of a god or faith that matters, but what one does believing in it. In short, an existential approach to religion.

As a summary of The Cambridge Companion to Existentialism puts it, “Existentialism is about the urgency of deciding what to do with our lives, more specifically, what to do with my own life. That is why in Plato's Gorgias, Socrates, perhaps the first existentialist philosopher, says to Callicles, ‘For you see, don't you, that our discussion's about … the way we're supposed to live.’”

We have been told by science and modern education to put facts ahead of everything, but one fact is that it is hard to find a collection of humans who have not evolved without believing in part in myths.  The real issue is whether these myths have a positive effect.

Beginning in 7^th grade I was sent to a Quaker school, which included in its curriculum weekly attendance at a Friends meeting. Other than that gathering there was little discussion of religious matters and even at the meetings talk was greatly more about good ways of doing things rather than the belief system behind them.

Friends Journal even puts it this way 

So can an atheist be a Quaker? Sure! Especially if you’re the kind of atheist who specifically doesn’t believe in the Abrahamic God—or, by extension, any personification of the divine. After all, you can believe that there is something more to reality without assigning it a personality or even an identity, and (perhaps more importantly from our perspective) you can believe in ethical principles without requiring them to have a holy source. Even if you are a hardcore materialist, who believes there is nothing more to existence than our physical reality, you can still believe in ethics, as expressed in Quaker testimony.

It’s even easier to be a Quaker if you’re agnostic—if, rather than completely rejecting the possibility of the existence of the divine, you have your doubts, or you simply can’t be sure one way or the other. The Religious Society of Friends recognizes that uncertainty; part of believing that everyone is capable of experiencing the divine is believing that everyone’s journey to that experience is unique, and takes place according to its own timetable. Rather than try to convince you that “God is real,” many Quaker meetings offer a space in which you may, at some point, encounter the continuing revelation for yourself.

As an agnostic I do not force my doubts on others. Rather I say, if I must, that I don’t care what you believe is behind it all;  it’s what you do with it up front that counts.