Matt, I understand. I had a similar situation with my parents. we all do things out of love and respect for others, especially family. If the only thing that you would accomplish be sharing your true opinion is to hurt the ones you love and dash their hopes, why do it?

I can see being on the fence in regard to the general question of an unknown creator but it should be pretty easy to admit that the chances of any of the existing religions knowing a god and what it wants is pretty unlikely.

The problem that I have with the description "Agnostic" is that they still live their lives as if there are no gods and are therefor Atheists in practice. I know some Agnostics who are snobbish about it; kind of like associating Agnostic with good days and Atheist with bad ones ;)

If there is a god as powerful as some people have been lead to believe, it would be able to achieve the same outcome without the pain and suffering as part of it's plan. To say a god has a grand plan that you do not understand is to say that there is only one way that your god can achieve it's goal. If that is true,…