Many agnostics are not far off of the same path as Liberal Christians or Buddhists in the quest to rid themselves of idolatries (like political ideologies, fanisms, nationalism, etc...), greed, and other such things; many who identify as Agnostic-theists are on the same path, just with different terminology, and different (or even similar) culture. Liberal Theists (or interfaith practitioners), like Gandhi, saw the same path in multiple faiths (in Gandhi's case; Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism).

100 years ago, the Darwins and the Huxleys of the world believed an agnostic approach to everything was necessary in order to be completely open to scientific truths.

This is again a lot of assumptions presented as fact. This is what the religious zealot does; present assumptions as fact. Sadly, this means you will not even allow me to question your assumptions, because you hold them as immutable as the tree outside your window. But question them I will! God does not exist? Prove this. Heaven and Hell do not exist? Show me your argument. I am a group of atoms that will continue to exist after my consciousness and body fades? Why, then, do I separate THIS group of atoms from THE OTHER group of atoms? What a silly division! And yet, we all divide the world as such, as "me", "you", and "the other".

And then you say we would be better off without it. Please, define "better off". You have subscribed to no religious beliefs. You cannot tell us what it means to be "better off".

First off, there are many intelligent people who can't be rationally talked to because they tend to stick for otherwise irrational beliefs/ideas for other reasons that may not be rational, like emotions or family/peer pressure, etc. Though this is not admirable at all, it is seldom condemnable either.

I'm kind of regretting the rudeness of my post above again, but everytime I read/listen to something like the bolded above, it makes my blood boil (not literally, so please don't ask what I mean by that). Especially the rant about being "better off". We're not discussing semantics here, what he is saying should be obvious and you probably do know what he means like just about any human capable of reading and writing would. Then the only reason you would post something like that is to mock the other person and the conversation itself. It's annoying.

Just to be clear, and there is, I guess, a trivially slim chance that I'm wrong about my interpretation, in which case I must revaluate my understanding of the english language; I think that by being "better off" he meant that not following any religion would imply any one of the following or some combination of them:

A) save time and money by not having to perform religious rituals or pay a church if there is one

B) decrease the likelyhood of complications down the road (and by "down the road" I mean as more time passes)

C) not jeopardize the habit and skill of critical thinking by suspending it during religious stuff

***

Now on the more serious stuff.

Proving God's existence/non-existence: I'm an agnostic, by which I mean that I don't have a belief about God's existence. I also really don't care. However, the assumption "God doesn't exist" is way more justifiable than the assumption "God exists" and is at a way higher level of thought than "God from religion X exists."

At first glance, it sounds arrogant of me to say so, but examine this for a second: Let me imagine a planet that has taken shape in such a way that it is a massive guitar/piano/apple/*insert any object here*. This planet is only in my imagination at the beginning. However, I could then spread the message that the planet exists. The default position is that this planet does not exist. Therefore, saying it doesn't exist is more justifiable than saying it does, regardless of the reality of the case. Of course, this is true as long as the object hasn't been proven to exist. An object such as this planet can never be proven to not exist because the universe expands faster than the speed of light, and furthermore some galaxies are receding away from us. So though this planet *could* exist given some very odd circumstances, it may be impossible to observe it.

First of all, I respect Agnosticism. since you share that view I have no idea why you made that first statement, they doesn't go along.

All you have mentioned is interesting and true, however your first statement is still wrong. if we can prove those things exist now, people couldn't back in time, but thoughts, emotions (.. etc) existed with us all along even before we could prove them.

You need to understand that being religious is merely an attempt to understand this world, religion is NOT the opposite of science. Religion is like the frame of the picture, and science is the picture itself, they complete each other. Religion is not about ignorance and fears, those are empty claims. the last paragraph is a totally different subject.

But then you're telling me that religion is the sum of things we cant yet explain. Thats almost the same as saying a singularity is a religion cause we do not understand it. Yes, i guess you can see it as something that fills the void while we dont have the knowledge to answer something, but its not something thats used that nobly, and just like the singularity term, its just a filler until we can find the real explanation. Sometimes i wonder what the problem is with "i dont know why this happens yet"instead of  "i dont understand this, so its gotta be an almighty god that is responsible for it".

To explain my first statement, i dont believe god exists, but i hope he does. Racionally, there really is no logic reason or proof for him to exist, besides human hopes. Do i hope he does? Oh yes, who wouldnt like salvation and life after death? This hope is completely irrational and unrealistic though. But, i believe in beeing a good and kind person and not going around shooting people just because i believe theres no afterlife.

If I believed for a second that science can understand and explain everything in this world even in the distant future I wouldn't be religious at all. Religion isn't supposed to answer everything we don't know yet (religion encourages science BTW “Allah will exalt in degree those of you who believe, and those who have been granted knowledge"). it the answer for the thing that is beyond our logic.. something not to be answer by science or logic. no matter how many theories we come up with it wouldn't be enough because there must be a point where it all started. that point is god. that's my simple logic to believe.

However, I understand what you're saying. people use their religion to answer everything because they don't want to think themselves or admit that they don't know.

While most people keep the religion of their parents, most religions are in a steep decline. Clearly, some people accept what their parents did (without making a determination for themselves) and some discard it all together. Only a few religions actually see increases these days. I know that Jehovah's Witnesses are one of the few christian religions with a high rate of increase/people converting to it.

@VXIII

While I understand your position. I have to disagree with: " because there must be a point where it all started. that point is god. that's my simple logic to believe."

No there is no logical reason for a starting point. There must be just a fundamental law that sooner or later something happens when there is nothing. And voila we get an infinite successsion of universes being created/destroyed. Ofcourse there are other options like infinite Universes spreading through the Multiverse. That would mean in one of these Universes Allah exists, in another Batman.

Agree to disagree :), law governs things, law doesn't govern nothingness.

Use an MRI scanner. The electrical currents in the brain correspond to thoughts, emotions and feelings and can be predicted and interpreted.

Got anything else supposedly outside science's ability to observe?

OK, let's call that point God. How, then, do you know it has the properties usually ascribed to got - omniscience, omnipotence, goodness, that he cares about the life on Earth, that he wrote and delivered scriptures?

Even if God is outside science's reach, his actions (miracles, scripture) are very real things that can be tested.