The Burden of Agnosticism

agnostic |agˈnästik|

noun

a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.

My family is... complicated when it comes to religion. My dad was raised Jewish, but he's an atheist, and my mom was raised Christian, but she is an Avalonian Pagan. (No, she doesn't worship the devil, get your minds out of the medieval gutter.)

My parents raised me and Jayne with science and faeries, and taught us to choose to believe in whatever we think is right. This has proved difficult, as you can imagine.

I don't know what Jayne thinks (I know I didn't even know what I thought when I was eleven), and honestly, I don't have any idea what to believe.

Part of me says that there can't be anything out there, because if nothing was left for us to decide, then what kind of world would it be?

Another part of me says that there shouldn't be anything or anyone, because nothing should be perfect.

Then there's the ever present longing to know that somebody has plans for me, that I'm not just wandering around, that I have a purpose.

I want to believe that I'm a piece on the grand scheme of things.

And I can't. 

Whenever I start thinking things like this, my mind always wanders off to ancient Greece.

They had gods, but their gods were imperfect.

After all, Zeus went around knocking up random women, and chucked his baby off  a mountain because he was ugly.

Athena turned a woman into a spider because she could weave better tapestries than the goddess. 

They were the original dysfunctional family.

And yet, they were worshipped, and turned to for guidance. So many people lived their entire lives religiously, doing all they could to please these gods they knew in their hearts of hearts were looking out for them.

I've actually cried myself to sleep, wishing that I'll know someday what's right.

I have really prayed exactly twice in my life.

When I was younger, every night before falling asleep, I would make three wishes: one for myself, one for someone I knew, and one for the world.

One night I wished that everyone I knew could be safe and unharmed. Less than a week later, hurricane katrina struck. Two houses down the road from my grandparents, the street was practically destroyed.

And they were nearly untouched.

Can you blame me for feeling amazed, and grateful, to whatever was obviously listening to me?

I don't think I'll ever really decide what to believe in. But I do know that, "The universe is big. It's vast and complicated and ridiculous and sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles"