Unknown to most friends and family, I’m agnostic. I attend masses, novenas, and other religious gatherings for formality and respect as a baptized Catholic. (Sometimes, I consider myself a “washed-up” Catholic.) I never volunteered about my beliefs. Unless people ask me, I don’t say anything. Not that, I didn’t want to be challenged. To me, it was this: “Even if I lose in a debate, it won’t change what I believe in. Even if I win, it doesn’t mean I’d converted someone to my belief.” I just didn’t want any conflict. It’s more fun when everyone gets along, despite differences.
One of my atheist classmates once asked me why I chose to stay in the middle, instead of totally disbelieving God. I answered him that science and its branches have no definite answers to anything. I wouldn’t go beyond that by concluding God doesn’t exist just because I don’t see Him. When a religious friend challenged my beliefs, I told him that it wasn’t God that bothered me. It was the concept. If the Bible was written through “the inspiration of God”, it doesn’t mean it’s credible.
In an elaborate sense, I put it: “inspiration” may have facts, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s entirely true. That’s why it’s under “opinion”. Fact bases itself solely on what has been seen or observed. But it doesn’t mean I’m excluding the possibility that God exists. In a world I view as a never-ending domino file, I don’t see the living (or the once-living) being responsible for the push or the creation of it. It had to come from an external force. Hence, my concept of God.
Of course, the domino concept did earn me enemies from both sides. It’s always either you believe or not. There will always be scrutiny for staying in the middle. But there are government laws in believing in God or otherwise. Then I broke no rules in having half of both.
