Agnosticism

Recently I had a conversation with an agnostic. A real agnostic, not a closeted atheist or a deist lost for words. I had to ask her a few leading questions to get to the point where it was clear that she really did think the existence of a deity was more than a conceptual possibility, that it has a very good chance of being true. When I asked her why she estimated the probability so much higher than I do she said it was simply because so many people have religious experiences of various sorts, she can't help but think that the existence of a deity might be a good explanation for most of them. ( I tried to tell her about how this can be induced through electrodes in the brain, making the supernatural an unnecessary hypothesis but we didn't get far as our Catholic friend was trying to eat.)

I'm starting to think that the fact that she's never been very devout helps her come to this position. That seems counter- intuitive so let me spell it out. I think ex believers have a tendency to look at the content of belief and say 'no more than one religious text can be right and even the most plausible is crazy; therefore atheism.' Whereas someone for whom all supernatural beliefs are foreign might consider the form of belief, not insisting that any doctrine be right and thinking that there might be some reality out there that religions apprpximate more or less well.

Itonly now strikes me that this is the same form of argument for all types of scepticism vs realism. But when it comes to realism about science, I think it's more likely to be those with scientific training who take a position like of asymptotic realism. Conversely, a strongly sceptical position only sounds plausible when one plays the outsider, like Latour did in Laboratory Life.
Could it be the other way around with religious beliefs? Well it's too hard to imagine people coming from a culture completely free from any theistic tendencies. The other cultural differences would swamp that one. Could a sceptic from a religious background see all religions as approximating the truth? Doesn't that imply that he's not a real sceptic, wouldn't he then be a Bahai'i or something?

And now Gary Gutting has come out with a brace of articles attacking both sides and claiming that agnosticism wins by default. I still think the evidence clearly leans far enough in one direction that we shouldn't sit on the fence.