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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
Appreciated the thoughts on transcendence and purpose. I thought the Mt.Rainier and Milky Way parts were especially beautiful. The idea of perfection as a dead end and lifeless state was also interesting. After reading, I want to be a more open and honest soul and be more appreciative of each moment of life. So it was a very worthwhile read for me.
I picked this up as an effort to develop myself spiritually. I've identified as agnostic for years and hadn't really explored the label other than knowing it felt right. This book, while not perfect, promoted modes of thinking about life and my role in it that really resonated. It firmed up my identity as an agnostic that I will wear with more confidence, but maybe not pride as that kind of goes against the whole nuance bit. Very easy read, very engaging.
This is a spirited defence of the value of uncertainty, rather than "agnosticism" per se. In it, Hazleton takes issue with the anthropomorphisation of God, as if God were an object that could be seen and proved, rather than a subjective reaching for experience. She also writes movingly of her time in Jerusalem, and the distinction (in her mind) between faith and belief:
Wow - I mean, wow.
These are beautiful words, and ones that will stick with me for a long time. Do they do much to settle the debate on what, if anything, agnosticism actually means?
No, I don't think so.
Here she's touching on an experience that's far bigger than religion, and far more universal. These words are beautiful, and powerful, but they're also so universal that they hardly constitute a manifesto for agnosticism.
Whether it's about our favourite football team, the ending of a TV show, or scientific progress - all of us grapple with this tension between evidence and faith at some point in our lives. To stop doing so would be to stop taking risks, to stop living, to stop hoping.
We don't need to be agnostic (in the religious sense) to feel this way.
On then, to spiritual experiences:
She then paraphrases Virginia Woolf:
I agree, these moments are magical.
But there is nothing to suggest that this kind of experience is limited to those who have a connection with God or consider themselves agnostic. I don't think you need to be a theist (of any stripe) to have this kind of experience - so mentioning them here, as wonderful and profoundly human as these experiences are - doesn't do much to firm up the argument in favour of agnosticism.
If anything, this book is not so much a work on agnosticism as an intellectual position, but rather the right (and delight) of a person not taking one - with God as a leitmotif. In this sense, she could have titled the book "Undecided" or "Open to New Ideas" and be done with it.
Does that render the book uninteresting?
To my mind, no.
While this fails as a manifesto, I really did enjoy Hazleton's meditations on keeping an open mind and our need to feel personally significant in a universe that is so much greater than we are. In the words of Thomas Nagel:
Making sense of this reality - one that is both so much bigger than we can imagine, and at the same time so mundane - is a very human project. And while I am not sure that Hazleton has convinced me of the merits of agnosticism, I very much enjoyed her thoughts on grappling with these distinctions.
Poetry, indeed.
You need belief only when you are not sure. Belief is thus the product not of knowledge, but of uncertainty. It contains within itself the possibility of disbelief.
There is nothing restful about real faith. [...] Where belief tries to expel doubt, faith walks with it, offering no easy answers. Belief insists, while faith hopes and trusts. The one is demanded, the other freely given, and this freedom means that real faith is both difficult and stubborn.
I HAVE FOLLOWED Middle East politics closely ever since my thirteen years in Jerusalem, so I am painfully aware of how absurd I sound when I say that I have faith that peace between Israel and Palestine is possible. Anyone who merely scans the news has to see this as at best naïve, at worst downright delusional. And I have no option but to agree, because I cannot say that I actually believe that such a peace is possible. In fact, I’d have to say that based on everything I know—the weight of which feels far too heavy—I believe it to be impossible. Yet I insist nonetheless on its possibility.
Wow - I mean, wow.
These are beautiful words, and ones that will stick with me for a long time. Do they do much to settle the debate on what, if anything, agnosticism actually means?
No, I don't think so.
Here she's touching on an experience that's far bigger than religion, and far more universal. These words are beautiful, and powerful, but they're also so universal that they hardly constitute a manifesto for agnosticism.
Whether it's about our favourite football team, the ending of a TV show, or scientific progress - all of us grapple with this tension between evidence and faith at some point in our lives. To stop doing so would be to stop taking risks, to stop living, to stop hoping.
We don't need to be agnostic (in the religious sense) to feel this way.
On then, to spiritual experiences:
To be profoundly moved is to move “beyond oneself” (thus the word ecstasy, which comes from the Greek ek-stasis, being out of one’s usual place). It is to experience, however fleetingly, a sense of being that is grander, wiser, more open, more generous, more whole-hearted and connected to everything and everyone around you.
She then paraphrases Virginia Woolf:
most of the day is necessarily buried in a kind of perceptual cotton wool, where routine rules and one thing blurs into another. But then, there are “moments of being”—moments that stand out sharply, flaring to life with almost cinematic clarity and breaking through that cotton wool of the mundane. And while tragic moments stand out this way, so too do profound moments of love, understanding, and connectedness, suffused with a feeling of intense tenderness.
I agree, these moments are magical.
But there is nothing to suggest that this kind of experience is limited to those who have a connection with God or consider themselves agnostic. I don't think you need to be a theist (of any stripe) to have this kind of experience - so mentioning them here, as wonderful and profoundly human as these experiences are - doesn't do much to firm up the argument in favour of agnosticism.
If anything, this book is not so much a work on agnosticism as an intellectual position, but rather the right (and delight) of a person not taking one - with God as a leitmotif. In this sense, she could have titled the book "Undecided" or "Open to New Ideas" and be done with it.
Does that render the book uninteresting?
To my mind, no.
While this fails as a manifesto, I really did enjoy Hazleton's meditations on keeping an open mind and our need to feel personally significant in a universe that is so much greater than we are. In the words of Thomas Nagel:
From far enough outside, my birth seems accidental, my life pointless, and my death insignificant. But from inside, my never having been born seems nearly unimaginable, my life monstrously important, and my death catastrophic.
Making sense of this reality - one that is both so much bigger than we can imagine, and at the same time so mundane - is a very human project. And while I am not sure that Hazleton has convinced me of the merits of agnosticism, I very much enjoyed her thoughts on grappling with these distinctions.
Poetry, indeed.
I had a moment of "soul" today, watching all the kids after working in the garden. A moment of being open to the world with a full heart. This moment came just after I finished reading Agnostic, a series of musings on the nature of faith, belief, conviction, and doubt. Her take on the necessity of doubt to any kind of faith - religious or otherwise - resonated deeply for me.
At first I was turned off a bit by the author's slight condescending tone, but as I continued reading it became clear that she wasn't really having a go at religion, but instead at fundamentalism. It's a fine distinction, but important, and she sharply criticizes dogmatic atheists as well. She hits on topics like death and the afterlife, the reality of doubt in science, and the essence of soul. Every so often she lost me in a lofty swirl of big words and complex concepts, but mostly it provided a lot to think on. Some bits that stuck out for me:
15 "Spare me your labels... Like so many others, I am tired of stale assumptions - of the demand that I choose sides..."
74 "...faith - and the vulnerability and humility that come with it - is the most important thing lacking in fundamentalists of all religious stripes... By insisting on absolute belief, they have found the perfect antidote to thought, and the ideal refuge from the hard demands of faith."
76 "The statements of science are not of what is true and what is not true, but of what is known to different degrees of certainty." (quoting Richard Feynman)
137 "What's wrong with dying?"
145 "By refusing to accept death - by seeing it as failure - both physicians and their patients act out the assumption that death is the enemy... as though being ill were not hard enough, it is often transformed into a trial of moral and physical endurance..."
158 "For myself, I have no intention of only half-living this life in anticipation of a hypothetical next one. I want to live my life as well and as fully as I can - in consciousness, in commitment, in full acknowledgment of its difficulties as well as its pleasures, its absurdities as well as its mysteries."
201 "Soul as a matter of courage? If so, it's not the obvious courage of a lauded hero, but the quieter, everyday kind of courage it takes to be open to the world... To live within fortified walls was to be constantly on the alert for possible attack; what was meant to make you feel safe also made you more conscious of how unsafe you might be."
At first I was turned off a bit by the author's slight condescending tone, but as I continued reading it became clear that she wasn't really having a go at religion, but instead at fundamentalism. It's a fine distinction, but important, and she sharply criticizes dogmatic atheists as well. She hits on topics like death and the afterlife, the reality of doubt in science, and the essence of soul. Every so often she lost me in a lofty swirl of big words and complex concepts, but mostly it provided a lot to think on. Some bits that stuck out for me:
15 "Spare me your labels... Like so many others, I am tired of stale assumptions - of the demand that I choose sides..."
74 "...faith - and the vulnerability and humility that come with it - is the most important thing lacking in fundamentalists of all religious stripes... By insisting on absolute belief, they have found the perfect antidote to thought, and the ideal refuge from the hard demands of faith."
76 "The statements of science are not of what is true and what is not true, but of what is known to different degrees of certainty." (quoting Richard Feynman)
137 "What's wrong with dying?"
145 "By refusing to accept death - by seeing it as failure - both physicians and their patients act out the assumption that death is the enemy... as though being ill were not hard enough, it is often transformed into a trial of moral and physical endurance..."
158 "For myself, I have no intention of only half-living this life in anticipation of a hypothetical next one. I want to live my life as well and as fully as I can - in consciousness, in commitment, in full acknowledgment of its difficulties as well as its pleasures, its absurdities as well as its mysteries."
201 "Soul as a matter of courage? If so, it's not the obvious courage of a lauded hero, but the quieter, everyday kind of courage it takes to be open to the world... To live within fortified walls was to be constantly on the alert for possible attack; what was meant to make you feel safe also made you more conscious of how unsafe you might be."
A refreshing invitation into a middle way between religion and atheism. With experience living in different parts of the world, including over a decade in Jerusalem, and having done extensive research throughout the years, Lesley Hazleton really knows her stuff as a self-proclaimed accidental theologist. She approaches a complex conversation, sometimes all out war, with grace & compassion. A much needed book for an former pastor, exvangelical, like myself as I discover what’s next. I’ll finish with one of my favorite paragraphs, which I think captures the essence of what she goes out to do: “This is the agnostic’s faith: not in answers, but in possibilities. It’s in the way doubt opens up thought instead of closing it off-in the vitality of a mind intrigued, challenged, dancing with uncertainty instead of being plagued by it.” I’m ready to dance!
When a book preaches this must to the choir, it's rare to find "aha moments" or uncover insights I hadn't already arrived at myself. Still, I'm pleased this little book exists, offering to a wide audience reasons to let in a bit more mystery and humility into our lives. The clashes between New Atheists and fundamental theists needs to settle down. They're tried, arthritic, and lacking in utility.
Hazleton's musings offer a middle way between these hardened camps, infusing some humor and personal anecdotes along the path. Pragmatists will appreciate her regular references to William James, reminding us to focus on the usefulness of things, not to get hung up on abstractions or absolutist claims to the cosmos. If a ritual or practice enables more human flourishing, then follow it. Don't let ideology or dogma distract you or hold you prisoner.
Pursue ecstatic experiences and let yourself sit with them.
Yes, it is possible to be passionately agnostic, while remaining humble about one's worldview and enthused by uncertainty.
Hazleton's musings offer a middle way between these hardened camps, infusing some humor and personal anecdotes along the path. Pragmatists will appreciate her regular references to William James, reminding us to focus on the usefulness of things, not to get hung up on abstractions or absolutist claims to the cosmos. If a ritual or practice enables more human flourishing, then follow it. Don't let ideology or dogma distract you or hold you prisoner.
Pursue ecstatic experiences and let yourself sit with them.
Yes, it is possible to be passionately agnostic, while remaining humble about one's worldview and enthused by uncertainty.
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Delightful voice, interesting and at times challenging ideas
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
This book has too many threads and tangents to be a proper manifesto, but semantics aside, this is a challenging but rewarding read about the mindset of an agnostic. Exploring themes such as belief, faith, doubt, death, and the soul, Hazleton illustrates that being agnostic isn't about shying away from picking a side, but rather embracing the mystery of, well, everything. I came away from the book equating agnosticism with a kind of wisdom; it's much easier to lean into certainties than it is to sit with the discomfort of not knowing, of being open to so many possibilities. But it's also incredibly rewarding to learn to exist in that space.
Interesting but j think I needed this more like seven years ago than I need it now. I'm like not really concerned about this topic anymore. I'm okay with my status