Hi, agnostic here :)

[Erin27]

Welcome!

I want you to one good rule of doubting and it's the most important rule of it without it is useless and detrimental: "The first rule about doubting is to know when to stop doubting".

To know when start doubting without knowing when to end cannot but end in confusion.   It's good also to know when to start to doubt something, but it is useless without knowing when to stop.

Without knowing when to stop, you may start to doubt things you should not have even started to doubt!

And if you know when to stop, you will know when to start as well (ie. when conditions of knowing when to stop are not met).

I pray God guides you to himself and his chosen guides!

Thanks for your reply. But how do you know when to stop doubting?

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I guess I'm currently agnostic, although that sounds like I've decided that we can't know whether God exists, which I haven't!
But I just have a lot of questions for both sides of the theism/atheism debate, and I'm hoping that joining forums like this one will help me find some answers.

For some background: I was raised as a Christian, but there seemed to be a lot of inconsistencies that bugged me, like the whole Trinity thing and the existence of suffering. So now I'm trying to start from the beginning and talk to people with lots of different beliefs on this topic. I also study philosophy, so naturally I'm interested in how far logic supports/undermines religious belief.

So, hi I'm looking forward to some interesting discussions with you all!

Hi, and welcome. 

If you know any history behind the word "agnostic" it was a horribly cobbled together prefix and suffix by Thomas Huxley.

"a" is the Greek prefix meaning "without" and "gnostic" meaning "knowledge" when taken as it really should neither tell you what you are "without knowledge" of. So to be used in a real pragmatic way it really should only be treated as qualifying word. 

"Agnostic theist", is basically someone who isn't sure that a god exists and would not give it a specific name or specific attributes, but lean to the "on" position.

An outright theist would be someone who calls themselves a Christian or Muslim Or Jew or Hindu.

The problem with his bad creation of that word is that he never considered time issues, in past claims, current claims and future possible discoveries. 

My current position is "off" . My "God/god/gods/diety/supernatural light switch is currently "off" on all past and current claims. I see no evidence for anything currently claimed much less anything of the past. I am only semantically or "technically" "agnostic" about the future. I am an atheist in "off" now but cant say if something in the future "might" change my mind, although I see that as fleetingly unlikely in my current lucid state.

I call myself an "agnostic atheist". 

Other than that, welcome. Be sure to barbecue kittens, record the NFL without their permission and rip the tags off of your mattress.

Thanks for the clarification. I'm not really sure what to call it then... I'm just undecided I suppose. There's a conflict between what I believe I have logical support for, and what I've been raised to feel is right