Adam Blatner

For a while I was agnostic, which means that I affirm that I don’t know about God. This was around the ages of 13 – 22, and I was influenced in this by the writings of Robert Ingersoll in the 19th century and Thomas Paine in the late 18th. Not that I wasn’t interested in religion; I was, very! Indeed, it was my major in college at the University of California. Then I thought, “What the heck,” and became an atheist, from about 22 to 28, but kept my mind open. The writings of mystics and mediums intrigued me. Gradually I was compelled to realize that we all rest into certain assumptions, and I do—but they’re not common. Nor do I assume they’re ultimately true; it’s just that theses sort of work for me, and even these assumptions continue to be modified and matured.

This cartoon sort of expresses my feelings. I skate through the waves, so to speak (though I admit to having no ability for or interest in surfing per se). I’ve come round to being very much a theist, in the Spinozan sense, and beyond, to include a mind that includes hundreds of billions of galaxies across scores of billions of light years—and that’s only in our 3-D realms… and more. But I expect no one to agree with me, and if any do, not with exactly the same tenor. Spirituality isn’t supposed to be dogmatic; for me it’s just a metaphor of one puny-human-mind (me) trying to open a bit to it all.