Monday, August 9, 2010

Agnosticsm

How can we know if there is something we call 'God'?

The second topic to discuss in my religion class was God's existence. The material to be discussed was from God. As you can see in the website, the discussion on whether God exists or not was viewed from Christianity. One student said that her parents taught her to believe in Jesus. She said that at the beginning, she believed in it only because her parents taught her so. However, recently, she said she believes in it wholeheartedly that only in Christianity she feels saved.

Below is a summary written by one student of mine.

In many cultures and religions, God is mentioned many times. God seems to be the entire reason a religion is made. There also many different representation of gods. He has become quite an important figure in the spiritual world.

In the scientific world, however, God's existence is challenged by the requirement of proof. Not many people can claim God does exist just by saying He should. The scientific way of truth is based on disproving lies and proving true physical claims, but cannot see spirituality.

It should be noted that in this world, much more people will believe something that has been proven physically, someone cannot claim a man with double joints once existed without proof.

That is the weakness of religions:: no proof. Therefore, God's existence cannot be truly proven. That is why I say I am slightly agnostic, I am not sure whether he exists.

Does he exist or not? Why doesn't he show himself literally to the entire world? Why the secret? Is he real? Why are there many of him? Too many questions, aren't there? Those are mine. If they all can be answered, I'll choose to be Christian, or atheist, or whatever comes to my mind, although then again, I am too lazy to do much.
When seeing the background of his spiritual life, although only a little -- his mother never seriously teaches him about religions. He claims he reads scientific books and not religious ones. Perhaps as this academic year goes on, I will be able to dig more about him. :)

I am absolutely on the contrary from him. My childhood was full of religious teachings, reciting Alquran, memorizing hadith, learning fiqh, etc. I must say that the teachings I got were very patriarchal; that is why as a child, in fact I got a bit hurt to learn that women were the weaker sex in the so-called truest religion, the most perfect one. My life experience as one victim in patriarchal society, combined with my spiritual experience, plus the readings I chose to read as an adult made me somewhat agnostic.

PT28 20.10 090810

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