“All I Know Is That I Know Nothing.”

— attributed to Socrates by Plato

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The question put to LoCO followers a little more than a week ago was, “To Which Religion Do You Most Adhere?” There was an impressive response: 3,604 readers registered their religious adherence. Here’s the breakdown:

We had, of course, the usual “Buddhism (and/or Atheism) isn’t a religion”…”Yes it is”…”No it isn’t”…back and forth in the comments, and (without mentioning names) a predictable volley of Xtian pros and cons. (You can read it all here — POLL! Faith in Humboldt: To Which Religion Do You Most Adhere? — if you have the patience.) What struck me was the decent showing for the “Atheist-Other-Whatever” camp, i.e. people who don’t adhere to one of the traditional religions. That’s 41% of us.

LoCO respondents seem to be a bit of an outlier compared to the rest of the country. In 2020, the Pew Center, the one that conducts regular polls on these (and many other) matters, estimated that 64% of Americans were Christian (the LoCO poll has only 35% Christian) and that “nones” accounted for 30% compared to our 41%, if you accept the label “none” for our Atheist-Other-Whatever camp.

The times they are a-changing. Pew notes that “Since the 1990s, large numbers of Americans have left Christianity to join the growing ranks of U.S. adults who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.” Note Pew conflates “atheism” and “agnosticism.” The LoCO poll wisely didn’t include “agnostic” in its choices of religion; logically, we’re all agnostics. However fervently you believe in your own brand of religion, however dogmatically you insist, “I know there’s a God,” (or, for that matter, “I know there isn’t a God”), you can’t, in all honestly know beyond all doubt. If for no other reason (there are many) that your brain has a limited capacity for knowledge — eighty-six billion neurons sounds like a lot, but it’s not limitless. We can’t know everything.

It would help if we could clarify what we really mean when we say “I know.” “I know my Redeemer liveth” has a whole different meaning from, “I know I’m conscious, even though I may be a brain in a vat.” Maybe Protestants and Catholics, Hindus and Moslems, Moslems and Jews would then get on a little better with each other. (In my dreams.)

FWIW, I’d probably identify as an atheist if I had the foggiest idea what theists mean when they talk about “God.” (To be an atheist implies you have at least some clue what it is you’re rejecting.) I take comfort in what religious scholar Karen Armstrong wrote on this: “Some of the most eminent Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians and mystics insisted that God was not an objective fact, was not another being, and was not an unseen reality like the atom, whose existence could be empirically demonstrated. Some went so far as to say that it was better to say that God did not exist, because our notion of existence was too limited to apply to God.”

Sounds about right.