@Jasper10,
But if Frank Apisa is any guide, well he basically ruined any chances of me seeing agnosticism as honest.
Lemme put it this way. You can be a committed agnostic. "I dunno. By extension I can't know whether you know." (Here is where Frank Apisa falls flat, he tries to tell other people their faith. That's a bit like telling a plumber his job, there is an inherently personal aspect of faith, and they are certain of it, even if deluded) You can be a committed theist, believing in polytheism, monotheism, or pantheism. You could be wrong, but this isn't relevant. I'll explain why in a second. Finally, you can be a committed anti-theist.
Wait, you ask. Why are there no committed atheists? Because this is an intellectually dishonest position, just as claiming you can know for another person. A person is either unsure of what they believe, devoted to what they believe in, or despises what they believe in. But you cannot prove a negative.
...No, really, you can't. Suppose I wanted to prove there are no faeries. I could prove only that I haven't seen any. They might be outside visible wavelength. They might be underground. Or in high altitude. Or underwater. Or in another dimension. To assert that you know a negative is to assert, "I am God. I know everything in all places, thus I know there are no faeries." You can prove existence, but not nonbeing. Because you are not immortal, omniscient , and able to cross dimensions.
Atheism, then is either a weirdly hard version of agnosticism or in many cases a mask for anti-theism.
Okay, now I told you above that you can be wrong but that doesn't matter, what did I mean? Well, while it is possible to know the existence of God or at least some form of Creator, faith is not a study of what we know.
You see, the word science pertains to "knowing". Faith comes from the same roots as "faithful." In other words faith isn't religion so much as the idea of being faithful. Committed. Most every faith is an opinion, you can be dead-wrong about your faith, but the point of religion is not certainty (knowledge) but having faithfulness. Ultimately, you have a belief (opinion) but unlike a wishy-washy type sitting on fence, you say loudly, "I am absolutely sure that I dunno!" It is not your job to prove your faith, only to defend it. Likewise, it's not for you to undermine the faith of others. At worst, you can correct someone's logical flaws to their faith (i.e. contradictory statements).
