Quote:
Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim
The agnostic does not believe in a god. The agnostic is simply unwilling to choose theism or atheism. Many people profess to being an agnostic when they are actually atheists. 'Agnostic' sounds friendlier, but it's often misused.
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True. For a large portion of my life I was agnostic. I didn't believe, but I didn't flat out disbelieve. I simply didn't care enough to bother choosing one side or the other without a lot more empirical evidence.
To add what I hope will be useful information for Sir Heren's study, I was quite a happy Methodist child until I just sort of trailed off out of the church, when I became atheist until I embraced Christ again until such a time that events in my life rendered me agnostic.
I really can't say that Tolkein's books affected my belief or faith, but they did affect my already strong humanistic philosophy toward life. Though the characters are fictional, they're written so realistically that one can read and begin to believe that people aren't so bad after all. Gives you hope, if nothing else, at times.