Conversations without Religion
My eight friends were from various backgrounds. I was living in Hawaii and a few of them were native to the land and culture. Some were from the mainland and each had their own religious beliefs. In my introduction to them - I had refused to identify myself by any formal denomination or branch of theology. I had confessed to being a believer and follower of the 'spirit of truth' - yet - was not partial to any religion. I identified myself as taking an 'agnostic philosophical' approach to religious beliefs. This confused my friends and many people who think 'agnostic' means atheist.
In some senses, agnosticism is a stance about the similarities or differences between belief and knowledge, rather than about any specific claim or belief. Agnosticism is not about belief in god but about knowledge — it was coined originally to describe the position of a person who could not claim to know for sure if any gods exist or not. ~ About.com
To me, knowing something firsthand and believing in something without 'proof' were two different things. I adopted a firm stand to discuss religion from an 'agnostic' point of view after encountering fundamentalists in my past who felt they "knew" the truth from reading a book. I was not agnostic against God in and of itself as much as I was agnostic against 'religion' teaching me anything about God that I couldn't get from God firsthand. I didn't like going through a 'second hand' source when I could go straight to the source for my information. At the heart of me - I was very 'gnostic.' I believed that the truth and knowledge of a 'spiritual matter' couldn't come from a person, book, place or a thing. It had to come directly from a spirit or otherwise - there would be the element of doubt in place.
So after my 'near death experience' when my friends came to me and asked me to give them the truth about my 'experience' on the other side - I laughed. This went against my 'agnostic philosophical approach' to spiritual matters. Any words out of my mouth would be subject to debate and arguments while I was in a human body. I had learned this the hard way through many years of trail and error.
If God was 'green' and was visible by every single human being in the world - there would be no debate or arguments. The problem is - that when it comes to religion - God is many different shades of various colors the world over due to cultures based upon opinion rather than 'direct revelations' of knowledge.
Belief: a mental attitude of acceptance or assent toward a proposition without the full intellectual knowledge required to guarantee its truth. Beliefs have been distinguished according to their degree of certainty: a surmise or suspicion, an opinion, or a conviction. Belief becomes knowledge only when the truth of a proposition becomes evident to the believer. Belief, certainty, conviction refer to acceptance of, or confidence in, an alleged fact or body of facts as true or right without positive knowledge or proof. ~ Dictionary.com
The reason I had developed an 'agnostic' view was based on the fact
that every 'bible thumping' fundamentalist I had met in the past - had
tried to convert me to their 'belief' when I felt they were the
blind
trying to led the blind. I wasn't blind to the
'gnosis' I had
received during my 1978 near death experience so I wasn't pulled into
their pitch. It made me realize that many people were pulled into
that sort of system of belief without any actual direct experience with
the 'spirit' to give them direct 'evidence' of facts pertaining to the
spiritual reality.
I felt the only true source of truth when it came to spiritual matters was "God." I couldn't put that sort of truth in my mouth and have it come out in words to fall on the ears of a person and have him open his inner eyes to the source of truth - or - I would have done that many moons ago when I had my first NDE.
I agreed to talk to my friends individually about my experience as long as they put their 'religious' beliefs aside and didn't try and debate or argue my presentation in parables and metaphors.