Doubt

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
-- Voltaire

This quote rather accurately reflects my attitude toward religion. I am agnostic, which means I don't think there's enough solid evidence to either prove or disprove the existence of a god or gods. And I believe that if there is a God, that the world's religions have largely failed to accurately capture how the deity relates to humanity and how humanity relates to the deity and one another.

I've felt this way since childhood. I can remember a fundamentalist cousin trying to convert me, but even at age ten, my rational mind just couldn't wrap itself around the implausible things recorded in the Bible.

As I grew older, I was able to better verbalize my doubts. For example, why did God have to be intangible? That is, one cannot see, hear, touch, taste, or smell God. Essentially, God can only exist within one's mind -- and how did one separate one's active imagination from the presence of God?

Why did Jesus have to die for humanity, when God could have created people perfect in the first place? It seems to me as if people were intended from the get-go to be imperfect, to make mistakes, to "sin". After all, perfect, static human beings could not learn and grow. How boring that would have been.

These and other doubts about religion brought me to my current position as a skeptic. Unlike Voltaire, I do not find doubt to be an unpleasant condition, but rather the inspiration of questions and beginning of knowledge. To ask why and to seek answers is a good thing.

Thoughts?