Agnostics

[Excited Penguin]

Again, I refer you to the convenience of language. If you are an atheist most of the time, then that is what you should call yourself. If one a scale from 0 to 100, 0 being you don't believe in (any) God at all, 100 being you completely believe in (a) God, you are under the 50 mark, then you should call yourself an atheist and vice versa.

You are looking to debate language, which is a worthy goal, not one you fulfill by hiding behind the meaningless(by itself) label agnostic though.

"I don't know" is the most meaningful and truthful thing I can say-- about almost any philosophical question.  It doesn't need additional qualifiers or considerations.

If you ask me if I believe Schrodinger's cat is dead, what can I say?  I have a conditional belief-- the cat is alive if X, and dead if not X.  Since I do not know if X (the release of a radioactive particle triggering poison release, I believe it was), then I'm in an ambiguous state-- the cat is alive-dead.  It would be dumb to say I lack a belief that it is alive, OR that I have such a belief.

The same goes for God.  For example, I'd define a pan-psychic Universe as God.  I think, based on what little I know about consciousness and QM, that it's quite possible that the Universe is panpsychic; I believe that the most elemental mental event might be the transmission and absorption of photons, since this represents a combination of state-change, transmission of information, and a kind of persistence of information over time.  However, since mind is subjective, I have no way of knowing whether non-Earth life form systems really experience qualia.  I do not have any way of resolving "X," and therefore hold both positions at the same time.

What if solipsism represents truth?  What if I am the only existent agent, and y'all are figments of my imagination?  In that case, I'd define MYSELF as God.  Again, I cannot resolve "X," cannot establish as confirmed fact whether others exist or do not exist.  I hold both positions at the same time, as a CONDITIONAL BELIEF.

Conversely, what if despite all my sensation of an external physical monist universe, no such thing actually exists?  What if it's an idealistic universe?  If there is some central organizing principle, then I'd define that as God, too, since while ideas themselves aren't mind, whatever makes them might be.  But there's no way to resolve "X," to prove that what I experience really is as it seems.  I can believe so, I can make fun of those who don't believe so, but I cannot actually know for sure.

I've thought about this a lot over the past couple days, and I'd say that at the core of my agnosticism is this issue of conditional belief.  When I say, "I don't know," I really mean "I have a conditional belief, but cannot resolve the condition, and believe that it cannot be resolved."

Except, benny, that I agree with everything you've just said. I, too, would call those things God, can't solve X, believe solipsism is the only position we can hold with certainty. So, you see, we are cut of the same cloth on this issue, I can say that for certain after reading your particular phrasing of those ideas. Phrasing matters. You do not claim to know anything of those things,  id est you do not claim to know of the existence of any Gods, you merely allow for the possibility of their existence - if certain conditions were satisfied you would accept that possibility as truth.

But there are certain things to consider here, nevertheless. The word God(and their equivalents) carries a lot of baggage. So while I did just say I would call certain things God(including those listed by you) if I allowed for their existence - even if just for the sake of the argument, I wouldn't really. Why not? For one, because of the actual definition of a god. It is defined either in the monotheistic sense(which, I'm pretty sure, is something both of us completely reject), or as something you worship. Secondly, for the time being, all these hypothetical "Gods" lack any evidence whatsoever, so I am perfectly content with disbelieving in them just as much as I would be with disbelieving a crazy person can fly just because they might tell me so. 

Benny, you are either a soft atheist, just like me, or a believer/worshipper of a deity. I would respect you very much if you accepted this and took a stand on the matter. Because you clearly cannot be both, by virtue of the respective definitions of the ideas at play here.