And it will be, if you will diligently obey My commandments which I enjoin upon you this day, to love the L‑rd your G‑d and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul: I will give rain for your land at the proper time . . . you will eat and be sated. Take care lest your heart be lured away, and you turn astray and worship alien gods and bow down to them. For then the L‑rd’s wrath will flare up against you . . . (Deuteronomy 11:13–17; recited daily in the second paragraph of the Shema)
Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Alter (1798–1866), founder of the illustrious Gerrer chassidic dynasty, once met a scoffer pushing his wayward agenda.
“The fact that you can ask such a question,” the rebbe responded, “implies that, at the very least, you have once read through the words of Shema?”
“Of course, rabbi, even a sinner like myself has visited a synagogue and prayed once or twice.”
“Then I’ll have you know,” the rebbe continued, “that whatever you have received in life until now is inadequate. Our G‑d is so forgiving and generous, that saying the Shema even once entitles you to rewards and happiness beyond even your wildest dreams.”
Agnostic I can't find anywhere on the internet where I could get a good description of the word, "Agnostic". This cannot be a reliable religion to follow.
Being agnostic means to be not sure weather you believe in g-d or not. It is not a religion more a confussion that some people have. For example some one who say they dont believe in god but the still prey.
I am Jewish, my dad is a lapsed Jew, and my mom is agnostic. She was raised Protestant but no longer has any connection to Christianity. She believes in God or some sort of being and is a spiritual person, but does not belong to any specific faith. To be an atheist is to not believe in a God as a religious person would and to not be spiritual, but to be agnostic is to believe in *something* but not to be quite sure what it is on a personal level. That doesn't mean that you can't be culturally religious and enjoy religious holidays and the community it brings, but often people who identify as agnostic are not tied to a specific religion.
It is human to be curious and to have doubts. So an agnostic attitude can in some respects have greater meaning than one whose belief is based on accepting teachings without questioning them. Similarly is the case of the person who has "returned to the faith" after a period of non-belief.
Scientists who are academically honest express this attitude too, when they are faced with matters for which they find no explanation nor any means for finding one.
As an agnostic myself, I too "sit on the fence" not being certain, yet in my awareness sense of our religion, I occasionally slip off this fence onto the belief side, without properly understanding why!