I'm a strict, strict agnostic. It's very different from a casual

Host: The night was cold, crisp, and quiet, the kind that wraps the city in a strange stillness. Streetlights cast long shadows over wet pavement, and a distant hum of traffic echoed like a heartbeat under the fog. Inside a dim bar, two figures sat opposite one another — Jack and Jeeny — the amber glow of the lamps painting their faces in half-light.

Host: On the counter, between half-empty glasses and a folded newspaper, a sentence was underlined in red ink:
“I’m a strict, strict agnostic... You cannot present as knowledge something that is not knowledge.”

Jack: (leans back, voice low and gravelly) Margaret Atwood... She had a way of cutting through illusions, didn’t she? No comfort, no certainty. Just the cold discipline of not knowing.

Jeeny: (stirring her drink slowly) Or maybe — the humility of not pretending to know.

Jack: (smirks faintly) That’s just wordplay. Humility sounds softer than ignorance, but it’s the same thing.

Jeeny: No, Jack. It’s not the same. One is an excuse, the other is an honesty.

Host: A draft passed through the room, rattling the bottles behind the bar. The bartender wiped a glass, glancing at them, then moved away, leaving their words to fill the air like smoke.

Jack: (tapping the table) See, that’s the problem with people. They want to believe in things they can’t prove — God, fate, love, whatever keeps the nightmares away. I say, if it’s not knowledge, don’t call it truth.

Jeeny: But then, what’s truth, Jack? Just data? Equations? The universe isn’t only what can be measured. There’s a difference between saying “I know” and saying “I feel.”

Jack: (dry laugh) “Feeling” isn’t knowing, Jeeny. You can “feel” like you’re flying in a dream, but you’ll still wake up on the ground.

Jeeny: (softly) But isn’t that what Atwood meant? You can have faith, you can have belief, but don’t call it fact. She wasn’t denying feeling — she was protecting the truth from arrogance.

Host: Jack’s eyes narrowed, his fingers drumming lightly against the wood. The neon from outside flashed through the window, casting quick bursts of color across his grey eyes.

Jack: Maybe. But the way I see it, agnosticism is just intellectual limbo. You can’t prove, you can’t deny, so you float in the middle — safe, detached, uninvolved.

Jeeny: (leans forward, voice sharpening) Detached? No. It takes courage to admit you don’t know. People cling to beliefs like rafts, afraid to sink into the unknown. The agnostic doesn’t cling — they stand in the dark, and still look.

Host: The sound of a train in the distance. The lights flickered for a moment, then steadied. The conversation deepened, as if the city itself were listening.

Jack: You make it sound noble, but doubt is just a disguise for fear. Faith — even if it’s wrong — gives meaning. That’s what drives humanity, Jeeny. Not endless questions, but the stories we tell to survive them.

Jeeny: (with fire in her tone) But those stories can kill, Jack. History is full of people who believed too much. Wars, inquisitions, crusades — all in the name of truth that couldn’t be proven.

Jack: (grimly) And doubt can paralyze just as much. You keep asking, keep waiting, and life just passes by.

Jeeny: But Atwood’s agnosticism isn’t about waiting, Jack. It’s about integrity. About owning the limits of our knowledge.

Jack: (scoffs) Integrity doesn’t build temples, doesn’t write holy books, doesn’t move nations. Belief does.

Jeeny: And it also burns them down.

Host: A shiver passed through her voice, and for a moment, Jack stopped. The bar’s light caught the glint of a tear that never fell.

Jeeny: You think the world needs more certainty, but it doesn’t. It needs more honesty. People who can say, “I don’t know,” and still care enough to seek.

Jack: (quietly) You sound like a priest of doubt.

Jeeny: Maybe I am. Because doubt, when it’s honest, is an act of faith in truth itself.

Host: The bar grew quieter. Even the music, soft and old, seemed to fade into the background, leaving only the rhythm of their words.

Jack: So you’re saying faith has its place, as long as we label it right?

Jeeny: Exactly. Call it faith when it’s faith. Call it knowledge when it’s proven. Atwood was warning against confusing the two — not against believing.

Jack: (nodding slowly) A strict kind of honesty.

Jeeny: Yes. A discipline of the mind, not a coldness of the heart.

Host: A breeze stirred through the doorway as someone entered, their umbrella dripping onto the floor. For a moment, the smell of rain filled the room — clean, sharp, alive.

Jack: You know… maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ve been too eager to call my doubt knowledge.

Jeeny: (smiles softly) And maybe I’ve been too quick to call my beliefs truth.

Jack: (with a half-laugh) So we’re both agnostic then.

Jeeny: Maybe everyone is — they just don’t want to admit it.

Host: They both laughed then — not loudly, but with that strange quietness that comes after understanding. The rain had stopped, and a thin moonlight was pouring through the window, silvering the table, glinting off their glasses.

Jack: (looking out the window) You know what’s funny? The more we know, the more we realize how much we don’t. Maybe Atwood was right — the real crime isn’t ignorance, it’s pretending we’re not.

Jeeny: (gazing at him) Exactly. Faith is a lantern. Knowledge is a map. But the journey — that’s what we really live for.

Host: A long silence. The lights from the street danced across the wet glass, blurring, as if the world itself were dreaming.

Host: Jack reached for his coat, stood, and for a moment, his reflection in the window seemed almost to blend with hers — two souls, each carrying their own light, neither claiming to know, both daring to seek.

Host: And outside, the fog lifted just a little, as if the night itself had softened, accepting, at last, that not all truths must be found to be felt.