Three things are possible after we die:
- We go on to some version of an afterlife that may or may not fit any of our innumerable religions, faiths, superstitions, suppositions or other wild imaginings.
- Our flame goes out forever. That’s it.
- A consciousness of some sort we identify as “I” comes into being again on this world or another, in some form.
If applying Pascal’s wager to Abrahamic faith, then, there’s at least a 66.7% chance of making the wrong bet. The odds go quickly to infinitesimal if you’ve selected a specific creed.
As bizarre as reality seems, atheism is as likely as any major or minor religion or the strangest cult to be The Truth. It takes as much faith to disbelieve in a god or gods as to be all in with any of ’em.
The hardest position of all is to be agnostic, able to consider all possibilities and not engage with any.
I’d like to say that’s my position, a true agnostic in all things, knowing that our ears, our eyes, our brains are the dimmest of perceivers. We hear, see, understand almost nothing of what is around us. I’m color blind, for starters.
Humanity’s greatest living genius has no more than a worm’s awareness of the universe, more likely a lot less, even with all of our brilliant enhancements. Not that I’d know, of course. See what I mean?
Yes, I’d like to say I’m completely open-minded, but I knew better going over the falls in big surf, dodging flame fronts on the line, beginning annual budget presentations to C suite execs, whenever our teenager took out the car.
Then, I prayed. Damn right I did.
So I don’t mind at all bowing my head at church, any church — not a believer and not a disbeliever, either. I’ve gone on Sunday tours of services for education as well as edification in the spirit of an editor seeking to learn more of the wider community. Part of the job, in other words.
I expect to do this again once I’m a little more settled here. Besides, I know almost nothing about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
But if I’m open to all the possible answers to what we can’t possibly know, I’m also by nature skeptical, which might actually pair well with agnosticism.
In our secular world, physical reality, I mean, it is possible to know. The great danger here is believing you know more than you really do. I’m thinking about the aphorism about what you know for sure that just ain’t so. (Including who said that in the first place.)
This also fits my calling, trucking in non-fiction narrative based on evidence, ideally from primary sources: first-hand witnesses, documents and the like. This is a lot harder than you might think, this palest form of the scientific method.
People who know don’t necessarily talk. People who don’t really know often are all too willing. Some documents are easy to find. Some we can never see. We overlook plenty in our hurry on deadline. And everyone — everyone! — has an agenda. Oh, oh, that’s nudging toward cynicism, isn’t it?
Just as well. This is the season for cynics with the special demands that elections, especially presidential elections, place on our instinct to believe and our ability to reasonably doubt.
These last weeks to Nov. 5 are a kind of secular crucible, a test of our mettle, as well as that window seat on human nature for better and worse.
That’s what interests me, anyway, not being a particularly partisan soul. There is life after Election Day, though you wouldn’t necessarily believe it right now, depending how caught up you might be.
Still, this drama plays out firmly in the real world, and what is hyped as existential can only be passing. We may or may not like the rules or the rule makers elected to the next term, but we will remain a nation and state governed by them in any case.
Meantime, we’re doing God’s work at the paper. Wait, what? Hear me out. Underneath the political campaigns, the doings of government, the earnest features, the profiles, the trends, the what’s wrongs and the right ons, stirs something of the spirit of this community. What I love about small-fry journalism is that we scratch at understanding life and what it is to live here, specifically, somewhat freed of the breathless trivia so prevalent in our national and social media.
Agnostic, skeptical, or the opposite, we’re still curious beings and compelled to try to make sense of our world. This much is plain.
It’s ultimately why people catch the news, go to church, participate in making the world a better place, and strive for that most ephemeral of personal goals, to make a difference. A few sad souls want to be remembered, ignorant of the fact even Jesus Christ and the Buddha will be forgotten in the fullness of time and the sun’s lifespan, eternal as that may seem from our puny perspective.
We’re moths, after all. Ah, a belief.
Don Rogers is the editor and publisher of The Park Record. He can be reached at [email protected] or (970) 376-0745.