Agnosticism
What is an Agnostic really?
When I first came to AA and put down the alcohol, I was confused about who I was and what I thought about most things. I was certainly confused about what I believed regarding God.
I don’t think I was an atheist, because I always believed in the things that atheists reject. For example, I believed in life after death. As strange as this may sound, I even thought that we had a soul and was fascinated by the idea of reincarnation. At the same time, because of various negative experiences with religion in childhood, I rejected the idea of a monotheistic God.
After a few years in AA, I wanted to find out if I was indeed an agnostic. I decided to look up agnosticism in various dictionaries and saw myself in the following three definitions.
Agnosticism: Three Dictionary Definitions:
1) The view that absolute truth or ultimate certainty is unattainable, especially regarding knowledge not based on experience or perceivable phenomena.
2) The view that the existence of God or of all deities is unknown, unknowable, unproven, or unprovable.
3) Doubt, uncertainty, or skepticism regarding the existence of a god or gods.
If these are accurate definitions of agnosticism, then yes, I qualify as an agnostic.
Bill Wilson, the co-founder of AA, offers us his own interpretation of agnosticism and atheism. In the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, in the chapter on Step Two, Bill writes:
“Religion says the existence of God can be proved; the agnostic says it can’t be proved; and the atheist claims proof of the nonexistence of God.”
12&12 Step Two, p. 28
Agnosticism: Another look as an old-timer
I felt comfortable calling myself an agnostic for 40 years in AA. That said, after more than a decade of relapse in AA, my life depended on giving the twelve steps my best shot. Nothing else had worked to keep me sober, so I had nothing to lose. I was fortunate enough to meet an old-timer in the fellowship who took me through the steps, suggesting I use AA itself as my higher power.
The most liberating aspect of this work was that it helped me to become more honest. Although in my mid-forties, I was still very immature and in a lot of denial about my past life. The steps finally helped me grow up. I stopped seeing the world through the distorted lens of a victim. I blamed my primary caregivers for becoming a drunk and ending up on the streets as a homeless bum.
An attitude adjustment
I had to reexamine my lifelong attitude toward God and religion. With my sponsor’s help, I learned that resentment was just a mistaken and harmful idea I had about someone or something. After steps four and five, I was able to let go of these resentments. In truth, neither of them was the problem. My resentments were towards certain people who were members of the religion of my childhood. The fact that they were religious was just incidental. What I realized was that religion gives millions of people faith and a feeling of belonging. I had clearly thrown the baby out with the bathwater!
After the steps, I was able to make a more honest decision about the direction my spirituality could take. I decided not to get re-involved with religion because I disagreed with most of the dogma. At least now, my decision was no longer grounded in resentment. It wasn’t God that had harmed me. If anything, it was the ignorance of unwell people. With the help of the steps, although still agnostic, I was now neutral on the question of God.
Dave the Pilot
Two and a half years ago, I had a stroke, which left me almost paralyzed down one side. Now at the age of seventy, I was faced with the question of my own mortality. What happens after we die? Is there life after death? Do we have souls? Where do they go? These were questions that kept nagging at me and wouldn’t go away.
Several months after my stroke, an old-timer who used to live in my small town came back to visit. He is known in our AA community as ‘Dave the Pilot.’ Before he retired, he had flown for American Airlines. Dave is a larger-than-life character. As well as being an airline pilot, he is also a country and western singer/songwriter from Tennessee. Dave has been sober for over forty-five years. Everyone in AA respects him. When he shares at a meeting, you can hear a pin drop.
He was my sponsor for a while, and in that time, we got close. He came to my home with his wife, and over a cup of coffee, we talked about the program. The conversation eventually turned to my agnosticism. He knew that I was an avid blogger and had written a book about my journey through the steps as an agnostic. Dave, of course, was a firm believer in God.
Suddenly, he turned to me, looked me straight in the eye, and said:
“What if you’re wrong, Andy, and there is a God? How will you deal with that when you die? Isn’t it more logical to face death believing in God than to face death not believing”?
Were it not for my age and the possibility of another stroke, I would have probably argued the point. Suddenly, I had to face an existential question that I could no longer postpone or avoid.
The existential crisis of an Agnostic
After Dave left, I pondered his question for the rest of the day. In my forty years of AA membership, cracks began to appear in my agnosticism. I kept thinking of one statement that Bill made in the Big Book:
“…..we had to fearlessly face the proposition that God is either everything or else he is nothing. God either is, or He isn’t. What was our choice to be?”
(BB We Agnostics p.53)
Faced with the prospect of my own mortality, regarding the question of God, I realized I had a choice. At the very least, I owed it to myself to discover what God could come to mean to me. Could I make him real enough to use him to remove my fear of dying and the hereafter? I had always been interested in the many diverse spiritual teachings from around the world. Although a recovering Catholic, I was also interested in the life and teachings of Jesus
In the next blog, I will share with you what I have read and the podcasts I have listened to about Jesus. It is a very different Jesus than the one I learned about in the religion of my childhood.
In fellowship
Andy F
