I would say that I am mostly an agnostic because I do not find theological discussions that interesting. As an atheist you jump right into the sea of scholastic fun, which I also did when I was younger. Now I am mostly interested in analytic philosophy (reading Wittgenstein over and over understanding nothing). I think that if you try to isolate what is special religious from conformism, social submission, power struggles from available power platforms etc. (things you find in connection with all institutionalised world views), you will find something rather harmless, and strange. The human mind running free in the endless questions we are (obviously) bound to ask. I have seen in my two daughters that they both needed a God at kindergarten age, which I accepted. Not without discussing it with them though. Later at about school time they both started to doubt, the eldest, a stone hard rationalist, went the way of her father, agnostic to honour the principle of scepticism, but (as I have understood) for all other reasons practically an atheist. The younger is a relativist of the Protagoras Class, not sure what she actually think about the subject, but I suspect she is a spontaneous animist like her mother :)
Whenever I find people who really believes I find it interesting that they often has some psychological childishness connected to the faith and I think that I can find something similar in my own creative process. Another interesting thing is that such people are mistrusted even by people of the same faith. I think that most people to all times has had very little need for religion and gladly has outsourced it to professionals, making it possible for them to shop around in available rituals whenever the ontological questions come too close.
Discussions about religion is most often with professionals or semi-professionals and I only do that if I really have to :)
I took a look at @blauweranger and added him - I also took the liberty to link to this discussion in my latest post - The morgenseiten of Katharsisdrill 14 - Discussions
Thanks for the link to the discussion, and for the very kind words you said! I have to admit, I'm really enjoying the discussion myself. These days on the internet it seems to be rare for a conversation to go so calmly, and to be simply a couple of people exchanging thoughts and ideas. It all too often descends into yelling and aggression. I'm far more interested in discussion than I am debate. Am very glad you took the time to stop and have a discussion, especially after reading in your post that you don't really do it very often! So thank you for actually stopping and chatting, it's been really stimulating and hopefully we'll have many more.
I don't really blame you for not getting involved in theological discussions. My interest mostly lies in the philosophy of religion side of it all, but theology and philosophy of religion are intertwined enough where there is crossover. I do enjoy a good discussion about the possibility of God with someone who can do more than proselytise or aggressively promote their own opinions. In many ways I think it would be interesting if a god did exist, less interesting if it was the monotheistic God, but still interesting. It would mean that there was 'more' to the universe. It's why I generally seek out discussion about the topic, it's a means of challenging my own thinking and looking at things through a different lens. I find too much 'echo chamber' thought going on in the modern atheist community to be honest, which is a shame.
Analytic philosophy is very interesting! I can understand having to read Wittgenstein a lot, I've had to do the same. Sometimes it's better to read the material about his material, as it helps break into Wittgenstein's thoughts a little more. His work on language is second to none though. I think his 'beetle in a box' analogy is incredibly apt when it comes to describing the idea of God, and is just generally very useful for understanding where communication breakdowns can occur. A.J. Ayer's Language, Truth and Logic had a similar effect on me. I don't agree with all he says about metaphysical truths, but there is a lot of good material in there.
Yeah, the underlying beliefs in a higher power can be quite harmless. There are some elements in various religions that I think are harmful, but religious is a bit of a double edged sword in many cases. People tend to transfer their own beliefs about what God is, or what religion should be, onto the religion or their idea of God. For those that are good people, the apologetics soften the harsher elements of their religion. Like you mention, politcs, conformity, social submission all play a part, along with the transferrance of personal and social biases onto the religon, cause problems. There is huge psychological element to religion, that isn't as easily generalised as many atheists these days seem to think.
Good point about it being a way to ask questions and search for answers, and quite old questions as well. It's one of the reasons why religion will more than likely be with us for a very long time, at least in one form or another. It might possibly be replaced with a form of spirituality, idealism, pantheism or deism, but the desire for a higher being isn't something that's likely to disappear in a hurry. And that's an excellent point about it being outsourced, that's given me some food for thought, thank you!