To be agnostic, or so I am led to believe, means that on the question of whether a god exists or not, cannot be answered either way. In other words, the agnostic cannot know if God exists, or if God does not exist.
But religion is really about faith -- it's about beliefs. And surely we can be honest about what we believe and don't believe, even though we can't definitively say that we know. I cannot know, definitively, whether small, winged, human-like creatures called fairies exist, but I do know that I don't believe they do. Alchemists did not know whether it was actually possible to turn base metal into gold -- but they knew that they believed it possible, because without believing it, they would not have expended the effort and resources trying to accomplish it.
So I would ask those who think of themselves as agnostic, not "do you know," but rather "do you believe that God exists?" And I'd go further and suggest that anyone (atheist, believer, agnostic) who thinks they believe (not knows) that a God exists that can reward or punish on the basis of behaviours in life, but acts in ways that invite punishment and forego reward, does not, in actual fact, in their heart of hearts, actually believe it at all. Rather, they think that they believe it, without actually doing so.
But religion is really about faith -- it's about beliefs. And surely we can be honest about what we believe and don't believe, even though we can't definitively say that we know. I cannot know, definitively, whether small, winged, human-like creatures called fairies exist, but I do know that I don't believe they do. Alchemists did not know whether it was actually possible to turn base metal into gold -- but they knew that they believed it possible, because without believing it, they would not have expended the effort and resources trying to accomplish it.
So I would ask those who think of themselves as agnostic, not "do you know," but rather "do you believe that God exists?" And I'd go further and suggest that anyone (atheist, believer, agnostic) who thinks they believe (not knows) that a God exists that can reward or punish on the basis of behaviours in life, but acts in ways that invite punishment and forego reward, does not, in actual fact, in their heart of hearts, actually believe it at all. Rather, they think that they believe it, without actually doing so.