The Agnostic Prayer of Forgiveness

I cannot take credit for the following. Instead, it is a product of that departed talent Roger Zelazny, he who crafted Lord of Light and The Chronicles of Amber. It is his idea of what a priest of agnostics might deliver as a rite of forgiveness before death:

Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness.

Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit.

I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.

This quote is taken from the third chapter of Zelazny's 1969 book, Creatures of Light and Darkness. It conceals in itself many interesting ideas about our relationship with the supernatural.

Creativity

I can't read Sanskrit, but I am grateful for translations. Here is the last part of the Hymn of Creation:

Who really knows? Who here will proclaim it? Whence was it produced?
  Whence is this creation?
  The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
  Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whence this creation has arisen — perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps not — the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows — or perhaps, not.

It is quite interesting to read through old pre-Hindu texts and realise just how much perfected agnosticism there is in them. The Indians have a long tradition of skepticism, both against divine and human authority. Even Hinduism, from an empirical perspective, ranges from heavily supernatural and almost polytheistic to agnostic to atheist. Buddhism, that most agnostic of religions, is part of that tradition too.

The more one reads older texts, the more one realises that the philosophers of the classical world borrowed heavily from the philosophers of the earliest civilisations. One goes back in time, and in returning to one's roots, one finds oneself. From whence did all this come? Nobody really knows — or perhaps, not.