#Agnosticism

[ao3demographicssurvey2024]

In the AO3 Demographics Survey 2024 - an unofficial demographics survey of 16,131 AO3 users - 17% of respondents identified as Christian, while 69% identified as having no religion.

To see more analysis, including a list of the common write-in answers for this question, please view the full results on AO3.

[its-terf-or-nothin]

[creature-wizard]

Technically, I am agnostic. One thing I feel very certain about is that if it's possible for an infinitely infinite creator to exist all on its own for no special reason, then it's just as possible for our comparatively simple universe to exist all on its own for no special reason.

[thepersonalwords]

Belief is a wonderful way to pass the time until the facts come in.

Carl R White

[positivelyatheist]

Just knowing the truth doesn’t guarantee a person is smarter. It’s how they arrived to their conclusion is what makes them smart. Someone who was raised in a truth and never questioned it isn’t smarter than someone who was raised in a falsehood and never questioned it. They’re both equally trusting the people that raised them.

This is why we MUST give children the freedom to explore different beliefs and views. They’ve got to diversify the ecosystem within their mind. Raising them to have the mind of a monocultured lawn will make them struggle when meeting those of other beliefs, even if you raised them to believe many true things.

[alyceinwonderland777]

The irony of Christians who are convinced that aborting a mass of cells that is not even a human being is "murder" but see nothing wrong in the fact that, according to the Bible, Abraham tried to kill his son because "God asked him to". So let me get this straight, if I get raped and decide not to carry a pregnancy resulting from violence, I am a monster but it's totally fine if I kill my child and justify it by saying that "God asked me to do it"? Got it. 🤡

[9q3]

every year someone on this hellsite invents a new way to dehumanize and trivialize people who do not believe in religion or supernatural things and then it gets hundreds of notes its sooo amazing lmao

[cieldunoir]

More pictures of Tobias that make me weak in the knees 😌

[chainofclovers]

Due to word limits, a few explanations:

"Raised religious" = raised in a home where one or more religions were practiced, with at least one parent or guardian who ascribed to those belief systems and practices and taught them to you.

"Raised without religion" = raised in a home in which no one practiced religion but no one was a convicted atheist, either.

"Raised atheist" = raised in a home where at least one parent or guardian who was an atheist taught you that belief system. "Conviction" = religious conviction that matches the religion you were raised in.

"Rel" = religion.

This poll is specifically for agnostic people as opposed to people who practice a specific religion or people who are atheist. If you consider yourself agnostic, please take the poll! I'm curious to learn more--in a very surface-level tumblr poll sort of way--about the way beliefs change over time, whether gradually or suddenly. Feel free to elaborate on your experience with agnosticism, atheism, and religion in the tags.

[alpaca-clouds]

Rethinking Religion

Let me talk about one thing: Religion. Because, oh boy. Religion has always been a thing that has kinda haunted me. Mainly due to one reason: I was raised by my mother, who was a very, very conservative Catholic. I am not even exaggerating this: She was so conservative, that she considered some decrees by the pope as herasy. Which obviously led to me - the autistic, openly queer kid, who due to autism just did not get why he should hide the queerness - to get into a lot of trouble. Not kidding: My mother tried to have me exorcised for being queer, because she was of the stern opinion that I was being made queer by some sort of demon. It took a darn cardinal to talk her out of it.

Obviously, I also was only allowed by her to visit private Catholic schools. Due to me having gotten the "gifted" stamp, we even got a stipend so we did not need to pay for it (though even private schools in Germany are fairly cheap compared to the US). Though we still could technically not afford some of the additional costs associated with it. (Class trips were a lot more expensive with the private school, than they were with any public school.)

Of course: My mother died when I was 17, and due to this entire context I could not be out of the Catholic church any quicker than that. Because... See, while one priest did a couple of times allow me to stay at his place when my mother was super abusive... nobody in the church - and they all knew I was being abused - ever contacted government agencies over it.

For the next couple of years, when I was living in Austria, I was mainly just very agnostic. I did visit church from time to time (you know, for Easter and Christmas and such), because to me the ritualistic aspect was kinda important. But I also was not really a believer.

And then came my early twenties and... Well, it was the time of new atheism. Hoorray. So, yeah, I watched a lot of content by those goofs that I call crooks now: Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and Krauss mainly. And i really got into being an annoying atheist. You know the kind. I know that you know the kind. And I mean, some of the stuff I do still cling to. I think the main predictor of your religiosity is where you are born and raised. It is not the only predictor, but it is a main predictor. If you are born in a very religious family, chances are you will grow up very religious.

Now, I would say: "But we all know what happened next." But thing is, that I am honestly not sure, because it has been more than 10 years. So, for those who do not know...

Gamer Gate happened. And while Hitchens kinda got away with his name intact, due to having the wisdom to die before it all went down... Pretty much the entire rest of them, who were so loud on being rational and science driven, turned out to be raging misogynists, racists and queerphobes. Even eugenicists in some cases. So... Yeah, that was fun. Obviously all of them showing very strongly that they actually only believed in science if science said the shit they wanted it to say. If science disagreed with them, science was wrong and also informed by ideology.

So, yeah. That was... Fun.

However, it did not really change my general stance on religion. Mainly: It is highly unlikely that any god is real. It is all made up to explain stuff the folks could not explain otherwise. And in the end, religion was used for more harm than good, due to being the excuse for a lot of genocide during history.

At this time I got into most arguments with Christians over it. Especially the kind of Christians, that still annoy me to this day: Folks, who will absolutely hide some horrid opinions behind "but that is part of my faith" (you know, like queerphobia), while at the same time not actually practicing their religion. Like, I am not approving of someone being queerphobic or misogynist if they got to church every week. But if I am talking with someone spouting that stuff, declaring they can do so because of religious freedom, while not having been to church in 6 years, not even for any major holidays... Yeah, those people can fuck right off.

However, at this time I got a lot deeper into the mythological development of religion and how it happened historically. I started to realize, how the Abrahamitic faiths were an off-spring of the other semitic faiths and eventually had great influences from Assyrian, Egyptian and Babylonian mythology. And indeed, that at some points - especially during the old testament - some of those old gods are in fact worshipped and show up. And also how most religious folks try so desperately hard to ignore this stuff.

This is quite interesting at the very least. Though I still was quite angry with religion in general. Because again: I was abused because of it - and because of those "religious people holding together" those people who should have done something (teachers) didn't do shit about it.

And it was just... Well, this was something that was there the entire time.

The thing that changed it was... ironically Castlevania. And I am not even kidding here. Mainly the rendering of Isaac as a character in the show - and me getting kinda obsessed with him as a character. Because...

Well, here is the thing: Usually media very rarely has religious characters, especially not complex characters that are religious. There are some religious characters who have it as a running gag or gimmick (Flanders in Simpsons comes to mind), and at times we sure do have villains who have religion, but good characters? Well, especially western media tends to just not want to touch it, because you cannot do religious characters without someone being offended because of it. And in Japanese media meanwhile? Well, Japan has a very different relation to religion than the west.

And there we got Isaac.

Who was a complex character with a complex relationship to a religion that we normally did not see portrayed in any media. And his entire character arc was very much about him coming clean with his relation to this religion.

Well, in of itself it might not have done so much for me. But eventually, doing research for the fanfics I wrote for him, I eventually found out, that one of the mosques in my city was doing an open evening of religious discussion every second week - and I dared to go there. Only to be met with actually nice people, who were accepting, and actually not queerphobic. Other than most Christians I ever have talked to, I was not screamed at for asking questions about religion. And I cannot tell you how strangely healing that was.

By now, I have kinda mellowed in regards to religion. I would not outright call myself a believer, but I also see one thing: If a lot of people act in the way they act because they believe that some deity is telling them to do that, isn't that deity somehow real? Because that deity does influence what happens in the real world. It does not really matter if there is a physical manifestation of it: If enough people believe in it, it has power. And I by now feel the atheist position of ridiculing this, kinda misses the point.

We humans kinda are biologically pre-programmed to find religion. It is simply a mixture of our brains looking for pattern and also tending to associate a will with anything happening in the real world.

This year I decided to somewhat try fasting for Ramadan. I need to make some adjustments (due to healthreasons, I just cannot not drink for 11 hours). Praying is nothing I really manage. But somehow... Doing some tradition is actually kinda nice?

And at the very least I am a lot less angry than before. Which is most certainly an improvement. And I really gotta say, that due to this I am also still quite thankful to the folks from the Castlevania crew. Because I know that getting a well rounded Muslim character is nothing that is natural in a show. So, yeah.

[the-hearth-and-the-wild]

Being an agnostic means all things are possible, even God, even the Holy Trinity. This world is so strange that anything may happen, or may not happen. Being an agnostic makes me live in a larger, a more fantastic kind of world, almost uncanny. It makes me more tolerant.

Jorge Luis Borges, NY Times Interview, 1971

[thepersonalwords]

My gut instinct is that these heavens and hells exist nowhere else except in our hearts and minds

Bangambiki Habyarimana, Pearls Of Eternity

[positivelyatheist]

Forest Creature: You’re a person who knows everything aren’t you?

Snufkin: Little one, if you worship someone too much, you’ll end up losing your freedom.