Agnosticism is the Correct Religious Stance

Definition of Deistic God First let's walk through the logical process for defining a deistic God. The deistic God usually refers to a grand creator that finely tuned the universe to support life. If we assume, for the sake of argument, that it exists, what would it be like? Well if it created everything in existence, it must be immensely powerful. Nothing else does or could exist which could create or destroy its own existence, therefore the ability to create must equate to power. Next, it must possess knowledge for all of the things it created. If you hammer in 1000 nails into a board, you'll have some knowledge about each nail you hammered (assuming you didn't forget). Therefore if God is a grand creator, it must have been all powerful to create existence and it must possess knowledge about everything it created. We have no clue as to what other characteristics this being may have. If this being accidentally sneezed us into existence, it still had to be a supremely powerful sneeze, and it would know that it sneezed. Just because we may not even possess the language or even comprehension to fully describe this being does not mean we cannot describe certain attributes it may possess. I do not fully comprehend my computer, but I can describe the keyboard I'm typing on to an extent. Empirical School of Evidence I understand I got a little off topic with the references to QM, but the point was to show that the empirical process my opponent was referring to of testing, replicating, and observing is not the only ways from which we can scientifically prove phenomenon. It is a fantastic method, but we do not need to test to discover everything about nature, we do not need to be able to replicate every experiment, and we do not need to directly observe every experiment. Remember the process I went through with the atomic bombs exploding. We know they exploded, where, and how, but given enough information and time we could discover all we know about the explosions without observing them. We do not need to replicate the atomic test to know there was an explosion (similiarly we do not need to create our own "big bang" to know it happened). We would not need to watch the explosion occur, we could observe its effects and make indirect conclusions from other observations. And we definitely do not need to re-test the bomb to see if it would perform the same way again. This is all meant to show that indirect observations and logical conclusions can lead us to accurate scientific answers without resorting to the empirical data collection my opponent has referenced. Similarly, one day we may come across some physical phenomenon that indirectly dictates the existence of God. For example, if something randomly keeps re-introducing usable energy into a system and we have exhausted any other possible causes other than intervention by an outside creator, then we could indirectly conclude that a God exists. Just because the "god of gaps" argument has been disproven over time does not mean that one day we will not need God to explain some phenomenon. If the day comes when we can explain EVERY physical phenomenon without referencing God, then I would become a skeptic. If this happened then we could never know if there was or was not a grand creator, until then we may someday need God to explain a scientific phenomenon and thus I'm agnostic. (This does not mean we should use the God of Gaps argument lightly, it just means we may be forced to one day). Arguments From Destruction re-revisited Agnostics are just as skeptical as atheists, I will not deny that it seems strange that a grand creator would design a universe that would destroy itself. However this could only bring into question whether or not this being is moral or immoral, and it does not prevent a grand creator from designing a flawed universe. Agnosticism is the Answer Agnostics, like atheists, are skeptical. We do not claim that there is sufficient evidence to prove the existence of God. Like my opponent, we do not believe there is sufficient evidence to disprove the existence of God, nor could there ever be. The difference I have set between my opponent and I is that I don't believe we are justified to begin disbelieving in the existence of a grand creator. We are PERFECTLY justified to begin disbelieving in the religious sects and so-called experts on the existence of God, but not whether or not it exists as a grand creator. Given how we do not yet fully understand our universe, I argue that we cannot claim that there may be certain phenomenon that require divine intervention. If this intervention occurs or is proven, then we could definitively say there is a God. It is because this has not happened yet and it MAY happen that I am agnostic, or I do not claim to know the answer but one day we may discover it. If we discovered all the secrets of the universe without needing God to explain any phenomenon, then I would become skeptical because the may STILL be a God, but we will never be able to prove its existence. Either way, atheists are perfectly justified to disbelieve in the theistic God, but not the deistic God.