Can You Be Spiritual And Agnostic

I'll never forget the first time I saw Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait, which was completed in 1434. At first impression, I viewed it as conventional, with stiff and lifeless main characters and a picture devoid of vibrancy or specific meaning. I was quickly put right, and I was taken aback.

It is, in reality, an extraordinary painting with wonderful detail that gives the viewer a completely fresh perspective on what the artist was trying to portray. The mirror behind the people, for example, reflects the entire scenario in minute detail, including the two witnesses to the action (one of whom is the artist himself), with the precision of a modern digital snapshot. Despite this, I absolutely missed it the first time I watched it.

I've come to the conclusion that the same holds true for how we see the world around us, as well as the incredible story that science has found about our cosmos. When I started to really look into it – the cosmology, physics, biochemistry, environmentalism, sociobiology, and spirituality that have brought us here and made us who we are – I realized there were significant nodal points that were easy to overlook but, once identified and understood, shed new light on the entire landscape.

We live in a secular age in the West today, when religious doctrine and unthinking morality have mostly disappeared, replaced by consumer materialism based on riches and celebrity. So I questioned myself, “What am I truly convinced of?” Is our existence merely a rite of passage that fades away with little or no significance, or is there a higher order of things that gives meaning to our species? And, if that's the case, what scientific data supports it?

I haven't had an intense encounter that has left me with an unbreakable inner certainty. My mother, a devout Christian, wanted me to become a priest, but I chose social work as a probation officer before deciding to pursue social change through the political process, a turn that led me to serve in Parliament for the next 40 years.

While this decision provided important opportunities to fight for the principles I believed in, it also left me with no time to ponder the deeper purpose of human life and what it is ultimately for – if it is for anything at all.

I've always had a strong interest in science and have read extensively, particularly about cosmology, and I've often wondered how it all fit together, given that reality must be one single indivisible oneness. It has always struck me as odd that some people claim that modern science has ‘disproved' religion, because this is obviously incorrect — science and religion are simply two different paradigms of experience, and neither can invalidate the other.

I chose to write my book from the perspective of a spiritual agnostic, since that is where I believe the majority of people in current society are: hesitant, sceptical, and unwilling to make any intellectual or emotional commitment without seeing “the evidence.”

My book examines each of the critical dimensions – the universe's origin and evolution over the last 13 billion years, the formation of galaxies and our solar system, the possible origins of life on Earth over the last 4 billion years, and the subsequent proliferation of exotic life forms leading to the human species through a chain of the most unlikely improbabilities.

What can we learn from looking at the sometimes buried detail that lights the entire, bringing it to life, like searching for the minutiae of a van Eyck painting? And I discovered that there are patterns that connect the threads in logical, if often unexpected, ways.

This is a truly remarkable story. Hubble, an American astronomer, discovered less than a century ago that galaxies were not static (as Newtonian physics had assumed), but were traveling away from each other at amazing rates. Using the Hubble constant to reverse this process, it appears that the universe began with a cataclysmic explosion 13.7 billion years ago (the so-called Big Bang). But there is one scientific fact that stands out: the universe was built with incredible precision.

The balance between the original outward explosive power at Big Bang and the gravitational forces pulling the galaxies back is precise to one part in one followed by 60 noughts in order to establish this stable cosmos! Roger Penrose, a mathematician, calculated the probability of the universe being random as one chance in one followed by 123 noughts – a degree of improbability approaching infinity. However, while the scientific evidence clearly shows that the cosmos is designed, a simple ‘jump' from this to a creator God is not warranted, at least not based on the current scientific evidence.

The paradox of design, on the other hand, is that it is entwined with regular periods in which the universe is regenerated with inconceivable ferocity and destructiveness, such as supernova explosions, gamma ray bursts, and galaxy mergers. Massive bombardments pounded the Earth for 200 million years after it was formed 4.5 billion years ago, and there have been at least six, if not 10, catastrophic extinctions throughout its history.

An asteroid the size of Mars collided with the Earth at 25,000 miles per hour, producing a force equivalent to 50,000 trillion Hiroshima atomic bombs. But, strangely, this massive calamity brought with it necessary circumstances for life on Earth: axial tilt, regulated climate, slower rotation (no winds at 200 miles per hour), and a very powerful magnetic field shielding the planet from harmful cosmic rays.

On the other hand, the evolution of living forms on Earth is similarly perplexing. The traditional depiction of primate evolution as a smooth upward linear progression from primitive mammal to modern man could not be further from the truth. Without a slew of unanticipated environmental conditions, including photosynthesis, a massive increase in the incidence of oxygen, and the transition from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, life (however it originated) would never have progressed at all.

The Permian mega-catastrophe 251 million years ago nearly wiped off proto-mammals, the progenitors of humans. They barely made it, losing out to their semi-reptilian adversaries, who were subsequently supplanted by the dinosaurs, who ruled the globe for 165 million years before being killed out by an asteroid strike 65 million years ago off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

This could point to a cosmos that is meaningless and devoid of purpose. However, if you look attentively again, you'll notice a quite different picture. There is much subtler evidence of discernible and positive patterns of activity at the micro level, which is consistent with this free play of natural forces of astounding power and aggression at the macro level. There is mounting evidence of a natural process in which matter and energy are spontaneously transferred into new higher organizational states not derivable from lower-level laws at certain complexity thresholds. This is in contrast to neo-Darwinian theory, which predicts simply gene reshuffling through blind, pitiless chance rather than greater complexity.

This isn't merely a property of biological systems. In cosmic systems, new evidence of this shift to a fundamentally different order of organization is also being discovered. The discovery that spiral galaxies have autocatalytic energy and matter cycles similar to those that underpin the ecology of the biosphere is a spectacular new discovery. It's as if we're gradually waking up to some kind of cosmic pattern.

However, we must be cautious about what all of this entails. The evidence for a created cosmos is overwhelming, yet that does not automatically imply the existence of a personal God. A separate set of criteria is required for this.

The awesome sense of numinous power found almost universally in human societies, the revelations proclaimed by the founders and prophets of the world's great religions, the ineffable witness of the mystics, and the authenticity of overpowering personal experience that transforms lives are all sources that religious experience is validated by. Despite this, the universe's story and its connection to religious experience can appear paradoxical – a riddle we can only scratch the surface of.

For three centuries, science has narrowed the significance of humanity in the face of a nearly infinite universe, and possibly an almost infinite succession of universes. It seems strange to place so much emphasis on a species – ours – that lives on a planet within the solar system of a single main-sequence star in a galaxy with 200 billion other stars within a universe with probably 100 billion galaxies. It also appears strange to create a universe for humans in which the species is absent from the stage until the last 0.0006 percent of the near-14-billion-year (so far) performance.

Nonetheless, the evidence today points to an ultimate reality, not of the human race as the pinnacle of evolution, but of a larger cosmic design in which we may well play a significant role.

Michael Meacher is a Labour MP and the author of The Riddle of Human Existence: Destination of the Species. www.michaelmeacher.info

Do agnostics believe in spirit?

Services for demographic research Because most surveys do not distinguish between different sorts of non-religious respondents, agnostics are frequently included in with atheists and other non-religious people.

According to a 2010 survey published in Encyclopaedia Britannica, non-religious persons, often known as agnostics, make up around 9.6% of the world's population.

The Financial Times reported results from a poll conducted in November–December 2006 that included the United States and five European countries. The United States had a 14 percent rate of agnosticism, whereas the European countries questioned had far higher rates: Italy (20 percent), Spain (30 percent), the United Kingdom (35 percent), Germany (25 percent), and France (20 percent) (32 percent ).

According to a Pew Research Center research, around 16 percent of the world's population has no religious affiliation, making them the third largest group after Christians and Muslims.

According to a Pew Research Center research from 2012, agnostics made up 3.3 percent of the adult population in the United States.

In the Pew Research Center's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 55 percent of agnostic respondents said they “believe in God or a universal spirit,” while 41 percent said they felt “a sense of tension” being “non-religious in a culture where most people are religious.”

According to the 2011 Australian Bureau of Statistics, 22% of Australians identify as “non-religious,” which includes agnostics.

Atheists, agnostics, and those who do not believe in a god account for 64 to 65 percent of Japanese and up to 81 percent of Vietnamese. According to an official European Union survey, 3% of EU citizens are undecided whether or not they believe in a god or spirit.

What is it called when you believe in spirituality but not religion?

“Spiritual but not religious” (SBNR), sometimes known as “spiritual but not affiliated” (SBNA), is a popular phrase and initialism used to describe a spiritual life perspective that does not see organized religion as the only or most valuable source of spiritual growth. Historically, the terms religious and spiritual have been used interchangeably to express all components of the notion of religion, but in modern usage, spirituality has come to be connected with the individual's interior existence, emphasizing the “mind-body-spirit” well-being.

Can you believe in God but not religion?

Agnostic theism, also known as agnostotheism or agnotheism, is a philosophical position that embraces both theism and agnosticism. The existence of a God or Gods is believed by an agnostic theist, but the basis for this belief is uncertain or fundamentally unknowable. The attributes of the God or gods that the agnostic theist believes in may also or alternatively be agnostic.

Do agnostics pray?

Are atheists and agnostics allowed to pray? Yes, absolutely. It turns out, quite a bit. According to the Pew Research Center, 6 percent of them pray every day, according to studies. And 11% pray on a weekly or monthly basis.

Alternatively, theirs could be the types of prayers that don't require a recipient. They could be awe-inspiring. A sensation of the ethereal. Nature has brought about an upwelling of tranquility. In the presence of music or art, a transcendent experience. Or even just a sense of stillness.

Their prayers could also be a manifestation of their thanks. A joyful yell brought on by the fact that one is alive. A brief moment of empathy for another person's suffering.

They could also be screams for help from those who can't stop crying even though they don't think anyone is listening. In the forest, trees are falling. Atheists in foxholes, as the saying goes. Or simply screamers, who must express their grief and give it meaning because that is what people do.

It's less surprising that atheists pray once the options are laid forth. However, this raises another issue. How did I (and they, if my recommendations are what the study's respondents understand by prayer) come to believe that prayer might be expressed in so many different ways?

I didn't grow up with such concepts in my head. I, like with everyone else I knew, felt that prayer was meant to be addressed to God (or Gods). Alternatively, Jesus, who is God. Mary and the saints, in the case of Catholics.

Prayer could be said aloud or silently. Except when delivered publicly, it consisted of praise, supplication, repentance, and thankfulness. Then there can be a lot of telling God what he already knew, as well as a lot of preaching geared at the listeners, who are bowed and captive by the idea that God is present.

But, like so much else in American religion, prayer has gone wayward. It can now contain a wide range of items. Be directed against a wide range of entities. Alternatively, none at all.

How do you know if you're agnostic?

When someone is agnostic, on the other hand, he or she neither believes nor disbelieves in a greater force. In other words, if you answer “I don't know” to the question “Does God exist?” you're probably an agnostic!

Can you be atheist and agnostic?

An atheist is someone who does not believe in God, whereas an agnostic is someone who does not believe it is possible to know for certain whether or not God exists. It's conceivable to be both—an agnostic atheist doesn't believe in God but also doesn't believe we'll ever know.