Why The Catholic Agnostic instead of The Catholic Atheist?

When thinking about a name for this newsletter site, I debated between The Catholic Agnostic and The Catholic Atheist. Obviously, I decided on the former but not after much internal deliberation. Not on theological or philosophical grounds but on sound. Even after I chose The Catholic Agnostic, I occasionally said "The Catholic Atheist". From a literary perspective, The Catholic Atheist is a better name. The alliteration of the "ath" in both words makes the phrase roll off the tongue. But I stuck with The Catholic Agnostic since it more accurately reflects my beliefs (at least for now).

There was a time when I thought of myself as an atheist. I was influenced by one of the modern British atheists (I don't remember whom), who said something like, "Why only go half way? If you're in doubt, then embrace it" (that's a total paraphrasing on my part). But the message was clear: don't go half-a$$ed. I'm of the school of thought that anything worth doing is worth doing well, so I threw all caution to the wind and identified as an atheist. Well, almost all caution. I'm not fond of the word atheist so I used "nonbeliever" instead. And I'm more or less still in that camp. I'm a nonbeliever, where belief is referring to a deity.

But I cannot completely give myself over to atheism. My hesitancy has nothing to do with Thomas Aquinas' five proofs of the existence of God or standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, mouth agape, eyes scanning, brain trying to understand the power of the Colorado river. No, my hesitancy is based on astronomy and anthropology.

Astronomy

We live in an incredible time of space exploration. NASA launched their first satellite in 1958. Until then, the information we received about the solar system, galaxy, and universe were limited to observations from earth. Since then, we have launched telescopes into space. The images returned tell us what we knew but couldn't see - the universe is immense. In fact, the word "immense" doesn't feel strong enough. And yet, as far as we know, planet Earth is the only place to contain complex life. Simple life at the cellular level may exist. But nothing as biodiverse as planet Earth. To me, that fact is so overwhelming that I want to attribute it to something beyond planet Earth; a deity.

Anthropology

The second obstacle I have with becoming a full-fledge atheist is the diversity of belief. Not just in our time, but as far as our recorded history of human beings (see The Religions Book by DK publishing). And though the different belief systems cannot be distilled into one unified theological composition, it does beg the question: Why do we invent gods and religion? What is it about the human race that apparently has a need to build temples and rituals? A lot of animals have rituals (see Caitlin O'Connell's Wild Rituals: 10 Lessons Animals Can Teach Us About Connection, Community, and Ourselves). But none, as far as we can tell, worship a divine being. So why are we wired to do that?

Astronomy and anthropology keep me from becoming a full-fledge atheist. Thus, The Catholic Agnostic.