Why Agnostic?

[Purple Rabbit]

We've moved in the phrasing from "100% certainty" (which Adrian explains as a relative notion) to "to hold that things can conclusively be established". These terms imo are not really accurate enough to describe the most extreme stances that can be taken. To clarify this consider in which setting the establishing of truth statements can take place.

One context is that this is a process of agreement between more than one individual. This group typically would have to agree up front on the conditions on which to acknowledge the existence of a certain god. Another context can be an individual process.

These are very different processes from an epistemological viewpoint. The group process requires a common infrastructure to convey messages between individuals (i.e. language) and a common framework for establishing facts about reality (science, belief). Infrastrucure and framework imply relative truth for all statements considered within the framework. The individual process does not necessarily. One person can claim direct contact with ultimate truth (not relative truth). Indeed there are theists that claim absolute knowledge of god's existence. Individuals that reject all epistemological limits, that reject the gap between noumena and phenomena to phrase it with Kant's terms. Indeed Descartes reasoned that from the one thing of which he could be absolutely certain (cogito ergo sum) the existence of god in absolute terms (note that it is irrelevant is if he indeed believed his inference). They exclude possibilities beyond widely accepted epistemological boundaries like the mind in a jar and Matrix-like nature of existence. Also there are atheists who claim to know in the absolute. Consider for instance the atheistic solipsist who claims that he himself is the sole source of everything that exists.

In short, imo the scale should depict the range of all possible stances taken and not presuppose epistemological boundaries. The term "establishing conclusively" for me primarily points in the direction of a group process which in essence is a relative process leading to relative results ("I am sure that within the boundaries of logic it is true that god exists"). Adrian's explanation on 100% certainty confirms this (imo mixing up what is asserted with what can be asserted). By doing so the extreme stances are left out of the scale.