Agnostics

[Mister Agenda]

And that I can't believe you before I know what you mean is my point.

Maybe not.  But as it turns out, you DO have a believe about the thing-- you just don't know it, because you haven't learned what the heck I'm talking about yet.  So if you asked ME, "Do you believe in boobledyboo," I'd say, "I don't know. . . what does that word mean to you?"  I don't disregard your stance, of default disbelieving until you are a good enough definition to form a coherent answer.  But I'd rather force the coherent question first before making a statement about beliefs.  If pressed, I'd say, "Dude, step off!  I don't know what you're even talking about," and not "Dude, I don't believe in that. . . but can you tell me what it is?"

Not saying you're wrong.  Just saying that the way I would approach that situation would be different than your way of approaching it.

In general, I'd say I'm agnostic on God in generalfor a variety of reasons.  But as soon as you define what your specific usage of the term "God" means, I have an excellent chance of being able to make a belief statement about it.  And in my experience, I'm either hard atheist or antitheist about almost all the specific God ideas I'm presented with; and the others I generally disagree with on a personal level: "God is love," I would say such a God must be real since I believe love is real, but I don't think much of that definition, and I wouldn't really call that particular thing God.

I don't believe in things before I know what they are. In my opinion I can't believe in things before I know what they are. YMMV. Ask me a yes or no question, and I'll usually give you a yes or no answer. The person asking the question has some responsibility to be clear, don't they?

And with God, people are usually playing games when they define God as something I would accept the existence of. If you define God as the universe, sure, 'God as the universe' exists, but so does 'God as that cat' or 'God as the itch in my crotch'. A word that can mean anything means nothing. I think a very good case can be made for sticking with the dictionary on this one.