Agnostics - Do you feel as if you don't know where you belong?

[Father Heathen]

I like feeling like being a part of something bigger. I had a built in community as a Christian.

We're all a part of humanity.

 

[Sand Dancer]

Does not believing prevent you from being with the believers you still love?

I moved a few years ago so my friends are 1-1 1/2 hours away. I have joined a local freethinker group but I may just do some religious searching on my own.

 

[Daemon Sophic]

In answer to the OP … No, I’ve never felt like I didn’t belong.
In fact, in my early teen years, while trying to conform to the Catholic Christian beliefs of my father, I felt completely out of place. While the community in the church was overall friendly, I constantly felt that they were naïve and superficial in their philosophical outlooks.

Ever since I realized that I was agnostic, I have felt perfectly at home.

As far as feeling outside of any given community also, the answer is No.
I’m not a jerk about my philosophical beliefs, and therefore I don’t shove them down anyone else’s throat. Here in this forum, I am much more implacable in my declarations of my agnosticism, and how, as my signature states, everyone here and across the planet is truly agnostic whether they recognize this fact or not. In the real world, while I remain honest, I only discuss it if I’m asked about it.
My dad remains a devout Catholic, and I know many other Religious people, and we all get along just fine. Though I must say, I generally don’t travel in circles of people who make religion their first and foremost, defining feature.

To answer the title question first: as I've never been a believer, I have never felt "lost". I always felt OK in my skin even when there was no "tribe" to belong to. And I've always been the odd one out in any group that allowed to have me in it, on all levels not only philosophically.
Even within the agnostic group, that is small enough, I'm an outsider as I'm a philosophical Agnostic, not merely a colloquial one. On RF we are a group of two. There's at least one additional Agnostic but he identifies as an Ignostic.

I’m not Ignostic.


@Sand Dancer - You’re always welcome here in the RF.

 

[Heyo]

I’m not Ignostic.

@blü 2 is. Who did you think was the second Agnostic I mentioned if not you?

 

[Sand Dancer]

In answer to the OP … No, I’ve never felt like I didn’t belong.
In fact, in my early teen years, while trying to conform to the Catholic Christian beliefs of my father, I felt completely out of place. While the community in the church was overall friendly, I constantly felt that they were naïve and superficial in their philosophical outlooks.

Ever since I realized that I was agnostic, I have felt perfectly at home.

As far as feeling outside of any given community also, the answer is No.
I’m not a jerk about my philosophical beliefs, and therefore I don’t shove them down anyone else’s throat. Here in this forum, I am much more implacable in my declarations of my agnosticism, and how, as my signature states, everyone here and across the planet is truly agnostic whether they recognize this fact or not. In the real world, while I remain honest, I only discuss it if I’m asked about it.
My dad remains a devout Catholic, and I know many other Religious people, and we all get along just fine. Though I must say, I generally don’t travel in circles of people who make religion their first and foremost, defining feature.


I’m not Ignostic.


@Sand Dancer - You’re always welcome here in the RF.

Aw, thank you!!!

 

[Daemon Sophic]

@blü 2 is. Who did you think was the second Agnostic I mentioned if not you?

You said, "On RF we are a group of two." and you felt the other was an ignostic. Therefore, I figured you were ignoring my presence. **Harumph!!** For unlike God, I have made my presence unmistakably clear here.

Actually, I think there are 3 or 4 agnostic folks here (at least).

 

[Heyo]

You said, "On RF we are a group of two." and you felt the other was an ignostic. Therefore, I figured you were ignoring my presence. **Harumph!!** For unlike God, I have made my presence unmistakably clear here.

I said:

On RF we are a group of two. There's at least one additional Agnostic but he identifies as an Ignostic.

The group of two are you and me. I think that @blü 2 is also an Agnostic by definition but he identifies as an Ignostic.

Actually, I think there are 3 or 4 agnostic folks here (at least).

There are quite a lot who identify as agnostic atheists but they are agnostic in the colloquial sense, not the philosophical. I suspect there might be more of us but I haven't encountered any who openly stated so. (Or my memory malfunctions again.)

 

[blü 2]

I said:

The group of two are you and me. I think that @blü 2 is also an Agnostic by definition but he identifies as an Ignostic.

Hmm. I suspect to be agnostic, by inference you know (at least to your own satisfaction) what a real God is.

Whereas we ignostics find the concept of a real God incoherent, so it's not clear to us what it is that may or may not exist.

 

[Heyo]

Hmm. I suspect to be agnostic, by inference you know (at least to your own satisfaction) what a real God is.

Whereas we ignostics find the concept of a real God incoherent, so it's not clear to us what it is that may or may not exist.

Which is exactly the definition of an Agnostic. I don't know about the existence or nature of any gods - and neither do you.
The important part of "or nature" has been dropped from the colloquial definition of agnostic but it is central to the philosophical.

In answer to the weakened (and maybe in ignorance of the philosophical) definition someone came up with the moniker of "Ignostic". There are slight differences but basically Agnosticism and Ignosticism are the same.

 

[Whateverist]

The Deist concept of god or "higher power," Pantheism, and Pandeism, honestly make the most sense to me. However, for all intents and purposes,
It seems these are basically atheism dressed up nicely, at least in practice

I think the do-you/don't-you metric of God belief is flawed. It isn't whether or not you do that matters but what you think God even refers to. I don't think it is a being apart that thinks and plans as we do but with extra powers. As a pantheist I think of God as something entwined with every creature and everything, ourselves included. Consciousness comes first and our brains permit us to become aware of some but mercifully not all of that as it would be too much. Human existence requires buffering to maintain a wavelength which doesn't blow us out of the water as individuals.

God is nothing like a person. More like the fount of becoming and so the ground of being. We don't need more power; what we need is more balance. The will to power is a trap we can evade by making room for higher consciousness to register with us but not looking to control or utilize it. Instead we should seek to serve the greater unity which includes us.

 

[blü 2]

Which is exactly the definition of an Agnostic. I don't know about the existence or nature of any gods - and neither do you.
The important part of "or nature" has been dropped from the colloquial definition of agnostic but it is central to the philosophical.

In answer to the weakened (and maybe in ignorance of the philosophical) definition someone came up with the moniker of "Ignostic". There are slight differences but basically Agnosticism and Ignosticism are the same.

I came to igtheism (before I knew the word) from agnosticism, and my path was thus from no consideration about what the word "God" denoted, but simply whether such a being existed ─ very much like Bigfoot. Only by a gradual process did I move from the WHETHER to the WHAT of God, and there was indeed a particular occasion when it all fell into igtheist shape for me.

So from my pov, ag and ig are two distinct views. But as our old pal Terence remarked, quot homines, tot sententiae.