Teaching brings significance and meaning in the sense that one does not become conceited and selfish in life, but to become humble in their knowledge and to pass on that knowledge to the next person. That knowledge will be discussed further upon in my blog, but what constitutes as knowledge in my view goes fars more deeper than the knowledge we are taught in textbooks in our modern day education. The provision of education in my view, is more than the provision of specialized knowledge and specialized skills, but to able to teach a person to utilize this knowledge, in a deeper kind of learning, one that aims at the whole development of a human being.
Education, if looked at beyond its conventional boundaries, forms the very essence of all our actions. What we do is what we know and have learned, either through instructions, or through observation and assimilation. When we are not making an effort to learn, our mind is always processing new information or trying to analyze the similarities as well as the tiny nuances within the context which makes the topic stand out or seem different. If that is the case then the mind definitely holds the potential to learn more, however, it us who stops ourselves from expanding the horizons for our knowledge with self-doubt, stubbornness, or other social, emotional or economic constraints.
The story of the free human spirit from its beginning has been largely the story of the endless struggle between dogma and doubt. We built our systems of thought, set up dogmas and creeds, and we then come to doubt them, finally outgrowing them as we go in search of new truth. Our questioning thus have been among the most powerful, effective allies of the free spirit. Without the persistent acid of the inquiring eating away at the iron chains of belief which have held human minds, spirits, and bodies in captivity, our beliefs would continue to seem eternal and unchangeable, our prejudices would go on masquerading as truth, and our proud dogmatic systems would forever persuade us that we possess the final unquestionable truth about man, life and God.
Agnosticism is often associated with beliefs, knowledge and religion. I'd like to take the context of agnosticism and prescribe in accordance of my philosophical view of what I like to call 'inquisitive agnosticism', which under my definition, is the stance in that philosophical thought dwells in the spheres of possibility, and is a realm that focuses more of a discussion which reaches a deeper level of comprehension, understanding and a philosophical state of mind. Rather than denying the existence and knowledge behind philosophical thought or prescribing to certain philosophical thoughts, an 'inquisitive agnostic' mindset is one that reflects an open-mind that adopts a curious and eager attitude towards learning and discussion in philosophy and pursuits in life.
The inquisitive agnostic is maintaining a humble mindset in that our claims are merely discussion points and not substantiated claims of bodies of knowledge. This philosophical viewpoint is quite similar to the agnostic mystic Zhuangzi who applies his agnosticism as a way of opening his heart to all possibilities, that includes both belief and disbelief. This freed within him the spontaneous arising of natural love for all beings and a non-contingent sense of well-being. Zhuangzi said "I depend on what I don't know", he was willing to go forward into the unknown.
Many mainstream agnostics suggests that philosophical points are possibly unknowable with our current level of understanding, which leads to many agnostics to 'avoid' and deem certain philosophical points as 'pointless' and 'irrelevant', such as within certain Buddhist ideologies. This agnostic view is rather ignorant in my viewpoint, so I'd like to focus on the idea that rather than avoiding philosophical points, an agnostic must adopt an inquisitive and curious mindset reminiscent of many great philosophers of our times. An 'inquisitive agnostic' must not also fall within the trap of following philosophical thought as knowledge, as this perpetuates the idea and notion of righteousness and creates philosophical discussion of a biased manner. Mind you, this philosophical claim itself is contradictory and hypocritical in the sense that if one were to treat it as knowledge, they will not be inquisitive. So answer lies within an 'inquisitive agnostic' to treat this 'claim' as a discussion point to consider, rather than a claim or body of knowledge to guide their lives with. There is a valuable lesson in the story of the agnostic: that when you take even the brightest idea and make a fixed system of it, you soon find yourself in the grip of just another dogmatism.
This philosophy, starting out with a healthy agnostic position as to whether the more dogmatic thinkers really knew what they were talking about, gradually developed into a very different position: not only that we do not know the truth, but that we cannot possibly know it (which the agnostic must reject as another dogma). Soon we find the Skeptic school saying “Nobody knows, and nobody can know anything.” This negative dogma was applied not only to philosophy and cosmology, but to matters of daily life and moral choice. We must not fall into the trap of such dogma, and remain an open-mind, curious and perpetuate meaningful engagement of discussion.
We can now draw upon the notion that an inquisitive agnostic follows the stance that an idea within philosophical thought is neither true or false, and we must also consider that we have limited comprehension of the philosophical realm due to our humanness. The Universe is bound by matter, and it is within our humanness, that we are able to perceive and raise questions about this matter. Without humans, there will be no questions. What is the truth, in the end, will remain as a human perspective of the universe. Hence, this opens the possibility of an inquisitive agnostic to require a 'leap of faith' in the belief that 'God', or a supernatural being or force, has an ultimate comprehension of our universe outside the conventional human perspective, to provide us with the knowledge and truth behind philosophical thought. How can one avoid this 'leap of faith' into the belief of a God is a question I'd like to raise to Christians? How can we avoid including our 'humanness' perspective in comprehending what is the truth? Which religion can we deem as the truth if all of them prescribe the thought that their 'God' has provided them the absolute truth with his almighty and ultimate perception of the universe? Or are these beliefs merely social and traditional conventions of our society which draw us to religion?
This humanness is our limitation and boundary in which we are able to perceive in the world either through observation or science. It is this humanness which keeps us intact and have feelings. If we were not human, then what are we? Our world is held by the nature of social and moral conventions which we usually follow and this very nature is human in it's very essence. Why do we feel gratitude to those who care for us? Why are we respective of our parents? Why do we maintain a level of dignity and respect to those around us? It is our human nature drawn deep from our feelings and emotions, and we can find often similarities across different cultures in maintaining this moral and ethical sphere of influence.
We have now gained a comprehensive understanding of my version of an 'inquisitive agnostic' and we can now link the nature of agnosticism with professionalism and education. The way one conducts themselves, their aims, values and qualities in life characterizes who they are as a person. What we characterize as a person is totally subjective and relative just as Plato describes in the view towards forms and archetypes. I'd rather not drift into the discussion of forms and archetypes, but more into the ideology behind a persons attitude towards learning.
The adoption of a 'learning attitude' or an 'ignorant attitude' reflect one's innate desire towards the values of education, for the foundation behind education is maintaining an open mind and furthering one's understanding in life through learning. If we were to suggest an idea, one with a 'ignorant attitude' will justify their righteousness in their beliefs against that idea, while one with a 'learning attitude' reflects an open mind that will raise questions and query the validity of that idea. The lesson in the end is that one person will effectively 'learn' while the other will stubbornly, and ignorantly hold onto their view which they feel comfortable with. They will justify and defend, no matter what, in a righteous manner, that their belief is right and may even search only for biased evidence which backs up that claim, rather than taking an unbiased, open-minded view towards the idea or point of discussion.
I recently had this discussion and debate with my dad who highlights the importance of an open-mind yet justifies and defends no matter what, in a righteous manner that having an open-mind is appropriate in all circumstances. In this sense, his viewpoint of an open-mind is hypocritical in that his stubbornness and narrow-mindedness has held firmly on the belief of his own doctrine of what constitutes an open-mind, when in fact in reality, it was not really 'open' at all. My point of a view of an open-mind is within the name itself, to maintain a free-mind to allow discussion and allow one to continuously learn. Learning itself is a continual process and begins from the moment we are born to the moment we die. It is the evolution and shifting ideas of thought, and as we become more knowledgeable, our learning and discussion becomes more refined in the sense that we may provide our own discussion points just like I have in this blog. These discussion points are open to criticism and improvement. I have adopted this 'learning attitude' and it feels humble and liberating knowing that we may make mistakes, but it is an attitude that is progressive in the thought that we will learn and reflect, eventually at one point.
It is in this setting of eternal struggle between crusted belief and the fresh outreach of the mind that the inquisitive agnostic can appear to make a lasting contribution to the liberation of the human spirit. The agnostic has not been the only questioner of entrenched dogma - always more numerous and powerful have those like Luther and Calvin have attacked one stony system, during the protestant reformation, only to set up another equally rigid and monolithic. But the way of the agnostic has been along a different path. He has not destroyed one prison-house merely to build another, he has preferred digging away at the foundations of all prison-houses of faith because he has never believed that prison-houses are fit habituations for the human spirit. Belief is not knowledge but merely opinion strengthened by emotional conviction, and that one of our favourite human habits has been claiming to know what we really don't know but merely hope, believe and want to be true.
In the face of the most powerful religions and philosophies, the most and appealing creeds that have promised everything from peace of soul on earth to a golden harp in heaven, the agnostic has had the courage to ask that most uncomfortable of questions: Do we really know? He has gone further and affirmed that many of the things we have been most dogmatically certain of, we are actually in no position to know anything about. Should we honor this spirit as a liberating influence, or guard against it as a danger to our spiritual security and social cohesion? This is certainly as dogmatic an age as any, and what part does the agnostic have to play in it that may be of value?
What I'm identifying here is the sweet point between agnosticism, gnosticism, atheism and theism. There may be a name for this point which I do not know of, but I believe that the closest perspective to the truth, can be found with a mindset that is situated within this 'sweet spot'. I have labelled this spot 'inquisitive agnosticism', but it can be also be labelled as the 'inquisitive gnostic'. It becomes a question of whether the glass is half full or half empty, and your perception of how you see the cup. If we were to find a leap of faith into lets say, in my case back into the belief of Christianity, then I strongly believe that it's a belief that is much more insightful, well-grounded, reasonable, rational and faithful.
Inquisitive agnosticism is well suited to those who are curious of the world, and becomes second nature to them such as myself. Unfortunately I have a very curious mindset, in which I like to see new things, learn new things, touch new things and try new things. It's very uncanny in it's nature but it is who I am and sometimes I laugh as myself how ridiculous I may seem to others. I'd rather make mistakes than to avoid them altogether. It's much like riding a bike, if we never learn to fall, then we will never learn to ride a bike. I still remember reaching out with my index finger and touching a piece of fabric on a poker table in the casino to see what it felt like and then laugh at myself how funny that looked to the onlookers while they laughed as well. It is this nature of humanness and curiosity which I find amazingly beautiful, uncanny and an amusing phenomenon. We often forget this profound curiosity the older we get as our beliefs and thoughts become concreted within the doctrines of our social, cultural, religious and economical spheres of influence. The inquisitive agnostic is the very thing that keeps them open to love and compassion in the moments, to ever-new insights, to endless possibilities of seeing and being in the world.