The false dichotomy between nurture and nature makes us presumptuously deny their synergistic, and inextricable, influences on our worldviews. I believe my musing interaction with religion resembles a process of scientific inquiry. Perhaps it is sacrilegious of me to believe that religion should be a means to an end instead of the end, a one-stop shop for truth. Leaving the irrational and self-defeating premise of altruism aside, I am an opportunistic scholar and what some may term “an effective altruist” spellbound by utilitarianism. The philosophical and social movement that emphasizes the efficiency which results from benefiting others has lulled me in with its enthusiasm for cold, hard rationality. I defer to human reasoning so much that it would be difficult to convince me to practice a single religion exclusively and use the prescribed truth as the sole source of my altruism. I can benefit from critically questioning all religions.

It may seem surprising that I have come to identify as an agnostic, considering that I was doused in a mix of religious traditions and felt the visceral pull of each. I grew up with a delightful blend of Buddhist dharma and Confucius’s virtues. After I moved to the United States, I was introduced to Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and many more. The plethora of monotheistic and pluralistic theologies intrigued me profoundly. Whether it was celebrating a bar mitzvah, tasting wine at Sunday mass, attending a Bible study group, feasting at Diwali, talking with my Syrian friend, or reading Roman and Greek philosophers in Latin, I actively strove to broaden my worldview and sought reconciliation between the various faiths’ disparate lessons on ethics, the ontology of the soul, and metaphysics.

My burning curiosity for knowledge was appropriately channeled toward academia by my mentors, who taught me the fundamental value of critical thinking. As clichéd as the famous quote from Socrates may be, his valid criticism of the “unexamined life” prompts me to read abundantly, think deeply, and evaluate with a critical eye, all in the daring pursuit of truth and virtue. My initial conception of an all-encompassing, objective truth slowly eroded away as I familiarized myself with the immense intellectual difficulty in teasing out the unabridged, undoctored truth from the mere perception of truth, the difficulty in learning a pure truth free from nationalistic furies, impulsive biases, and corrosive rumors. I learned how inadequate our knowledge of certain civilizations is and how we can reconstruct only a silhouette of truth from the meager supply of their records. I learned how power has been used to suppress narratives, and in doing so has committed the injustice of silencing voices essential to the holistic truth. Studying political science in college has reinforced my reservations about adopting a single worldview. Economics, on the other hand, clarified the driving incentives and patterns of human behavior. Equally and perhaps more importantly, I started to slowly observe the economic arguments couched beneath ethnic, religious, and culturally relativistic terms.

Critical thinking serves as our guardian against our biological heuristics, especially in a world of clamor and uncertainty, of falsehood and hostility. My diverse exposure to historiography, biology, economics, computer science, anthropology, linguistics, and political science has taught me to value reasoning and logic instead of authority or tradition. To be clear, I do not aim to say that having a religious belief is misguided or useless. In fact, religious teaching is extremely useful for many, and it has been for me in times of darkness. Ancient wisdom can be a safe harbor that lends shelter to the wandering traveler. But it should be and remain pro tempore on the journey, lest the traveler immersed in comfort forget about his adventure ahead. In order to persuade me to adopt a single religion, one has to appeal to more than faith, piety, and duty. Studying philosophy has beaten into me the need for rigorous use of words and for vigilance in avoiding broad claims without qualifications. I should not assert that I have sufficient evidence, or impeccable reasoning, in rejecting the existence of an omnipotent being. I am always learning, and therefore I am agnostic, not an atheist.

I needed, and still try, to figure out why one adopts one religion over another. In a Socratic manner, I often interrogate my religious friends, not with the intent to judge, but to learn. I listen to their adoption of, conversion to, and relationship with a religion, question them on their rationales and experiences. When I am at a loss for answers to questions about my own beliefs, I often study to inform myself and to formulate a system with which to defend them. I never try to dissuade people from religion. That is not my intention, nor will it ever be. I only attempt to put their beliefs through intellectual trials, because only after that experience can it be said that they truly “own” those beliefs, instead of borrowing words from a stranger’s mouth