What is an Agnostic?

There are those who believe in God and those who don’t. And there are many people who sit on the fence and call themselves agnostic. However, most of these people are not really agnostic, they are procrastinators. They are hoping they can wing it when the time comes.

And yet…

Let us, for the sake of argument, suppose that there is a God, in the traditional, Western understanding of Him. If there really is a being, so powerful that He was capable of creating the entire universe and all life within it, and that on His say, at the end of this life you will spend the rest of forever (which, let’s face it, is a bloody long time), in eternal bliss or eternal damnation, then figuring it out ‘when I get there’ has to be one of the most idiotic forms of procrastination possible.

If you were going to take an exam where if you passed you would have untold riches, but if you failed your life would be doomed to misery, you would make damn sure that you did a bit of revision before you went in. With that much weighing on the outcome, you wouldn’t want to just leave it to chance and just hope for the best, would you?

And yet, this is what the vast majority of us do. It seems that most people I know don’t go to church and don’t let religion worry them too much, but will go there for weddings and funerals. They may even get their child christened, ‘just in case’. Their feeling is that as long as they dip their toe in the water and don’t actually murder anyone then they’ll probably be ok. Most have not read enough of their bible to realise that getting into Heaven is a lot less about “being good” as it is about “being committed to God”. For example, in Christianity, you could be the nicest, kindest, warmest, most helpful person in the whole world, but unless you accept Jesus Christ as your saviour, you ain’t getting in.

Personally, I don’t believe in God. I am an atheist, which means if I am wrong I will burn in hell forever. But if I do end up facing God at the pearly gates, I have my arguments ready for why I think He’s done a lousy job and is nothing more than a con-artist. Does it worry me? Of course not, I don’t believe in it.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t condemn anyone for believing. In fact, I have the greatest respect for anyone who has taken the time to investigate his or her beliefs and come to a conclusion (either way), or is continuing to search for answers. But what I find I have precious little time for is blind faith or procrastinators.

Feel free to open up a debate in the comments section.