I Don't Know

I recently helped a friend put together an online dating profile on Match.com. With the exception of a brief exploration of JDate a number of years ago, I have had very little experience with such things, but I had this feeling that I would be the best one for the job--that I would know exactly how to craft such a profile.

It turns out that knowing, however, is a big problem when it comes to the online dating world. And I'm not talking about knowing what one wants in a mate (or soulmate, as online daters like to say). What I found while scanning hundreds of profiles (both men and women) was that an insane number of people from their late twenties to early forties claim to be agnostic when asked about their religion. Although some would disagree, and argue for a more nuanced understanding of agnosticism, the term essentially means "I don't know." It suggests that the existence of deities is unknown, and that perhaps even ultimate knowledge and realities are unknown--unable to be known.

I found this interesting because I don't really think I've met many people in person who have claimed to be agnostic. Most people I know either believe or they don't. They are either religious or they are not. They believe in God or they don't. In other words, coming from the world of academia, I have plenty of friends who say they are atheists. But because I am close to people in both the Jewish and Christian worlds, I also know many people who say they believe in God. I, myself, believe in God, though I don't always know exactly what that makes me. But rather than look for a term that encapsulates all of the textures of my spiritual impulses, I choose to say rather concretely that I believe in God, perhaps even that I love God. I would never call myself an agnostic.

So what I want to know, is where are all the agnostics hiding? Are they only online? Is it somehow culturally hip to present oneself as the ultimate repository of "I don't know" when creating an online personna? Is it seen as somehow pretentious to presume to know one way or another?

I don't mean to criticize people who call themselves agnostics. I mean, looking back on the twentieth century it's easy to find plenty of historical moments that call into question the existence of God. It's just that I find it curious--the fact that I never meet agnostics in person.

Are we becoming more and more afraid to admit that we know anything (or that we think we know anything)? But I think the more important question is this: At what point is "I don't know" translated as "I don't care"? My sense is that many people who label themselves as agnostic simply don't care to know the answer, and for reasons I can't quite articulate, I find this most troubling.

I suppose I just want to know that someone cares about the answer to such a big question.

I used to know a man who said he hated God. His eyes would tear up as he told me how angry he was at God. For some reason I found this compelling. I loved God, and he hated God, but somehow we were on the same page. I know another man who refuses to use the labels of atheist or agnostic, and when asked what religion he is, suggests that he is nothing in an effort to resist the labels. I can almost understand that impulse as well. It used to bother me that he didn't care enough to ask whether God exists, but now I appreciate the way he has shifted the question to something that has to do with how and why we use the labels we do in order to categorize our spirituality.

Here's what bothers me (I've just figured it out): I wonder if applying the label of "agnostic" to oneself is really just a sneaky way out of being responsible for at least making a shot at figuring it out, for asking the right questions. If certain things are unknowable, then we are off the hook when it comes to trying to figure them out, right? If we will "never know," then we never have to think about it. So there's my conclusion, for now anyway: agnosticism is perhaps the antithesis to responsibility.