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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Liberal agnostic finds readers enlightened or repelled

Donald Clegg The Spokesman-Review

I just looked at my day planner – furnace guy this morning, it reminds me – and hey, guess what? I’ve been pleasing and infuriating (or both) folks here in this space for almost exactly two years now.

My liberalism and corresponding political stance appear to be both enlightened and … well, leprosy, as best I can tell. So, too, my secularism and lack of religion.

It may surprise folks who criticize me for being a priggish, morally superior know-it-all, not to mention sanctimonious, insincere, hypocritical goody-two-shoes – lacking Jesus, to boot – that I continually question both what I believe and why I believe it. That is, I try to remain unsure of what I’m sure of.

This is why, as I wrote not long back, I think highly of ambiguity. And why I’m an agnostic. More on that in a bit.

However, I do believe there are many things that we can assume, with a high degree of probability, to be so. I trust, for instance, that the rate of the earth’s rotation is pretty much a given. But it’s worth checking out even facts like this, seemingly set in stone, and I just read a NASA article from a few years ago titled “Changes In The Earth’s Rotation Are In The Wind.”

It indicated that the earth’s rotation might slow during El Niño years by some small fraction of a microsecond. So guess what, Idiot Boy (aka, me)? Wrong again. Even a year isn’t the rock I assumed.

Still, solid enough, as a variable of less than a thousandth of a second is certainly good enough for government work. However, I wasn’t precisely right, either, was I? (Trust me, this is going somewhere.)

It’s a matter of degree, I’d say. And here’s the point: I can be almost totally, absolutely, without a doubt, sure of the Earth’s rotation.

But the key word is “almost.” And as it goes for what I know to be so, so it goes for what I know not to be, and that’s why I’m that aforementioned critter known as an agnostic.

And so considered, by certain folks, a wimp. Without the conviction of my belief on either side, don’t you know.

But I do try to make very clear that I don’t believe in the existence of a theistic god – i.e., one that intervenes in the workings of the universe and who has a personal relationship with the right denizens. I don’t consider that a very soft stance, as it pretty much rules out mainstream Christianity, Islam and Judaism, to name just a few theistic religions.

I’m equally comfortable in opining on other beliefs and other definitions – deism, pantheism, panentheism, animism, polytheism, paganism, humanism and any other “ism” you care to name.

And so, as I begin my third year writing this column, I’ll continue to explore not only the current affairs with which I’ve had an ongoing dalliance, but the perennial ingredients of “faith and values” and the messy-gloppy stew into which these bits cook up.

Judging by the reactions I’ve received, far more of you have found this a delectable daube than not, but some can’t abide it at all. That’s fine; I’ve got my own tastes, too.

My palate is intolerant of atrocities: torture, extraordinary rendition, illegal war, and abandonment of a great Southern city, that sort of thing. But I still contend and hope that a thoroughgoing discussion can find much in common between those with different beliefs. Or the same, just from a different source.

I know that people of all stripes share many of the same views. We’re in almost total agreement, for instance, in declaring the country to be on the wrong track. Now, deciding where the right track is, and what direction to head in once we find it, is another matter.

I think it’s fairly easy to eliminate some choices and directions, though, and there are any number of leprous routes that I won’t go down. Folks riding a train carrying any of the above-mentioned cargo of iniquity can ride it all the way to perdition. So long. “Good night and good luck,” as Edward R. Murrow said.

And for those who are on the right train but arguing bitterly over others’ credentials – got Jesus? – to be on board, I’ll just quote theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s brother, H. Richard Niebuhr: “Religion is a good thing for good people and a bad thing for bad people.”

Religion doesn’t make the man; man makes the religion.