To be agnostic in the sense of "I don't want to get involved" or "I am sitting on the fence" is not a tenable position. It is incomplete in that it begs for a follow-up. However, most of those claiming an (operational) agnosticism are implicitly pointing out to a (philosophical) atheism.
Otherwise, only "sitting on a fence" would implicitly recognize a certain region bounded by that fence.
But there is no fence.
And here is the zen.
"It is said that men may not be the dreams of the god, but rather that the gods are the dreams of men."
"Belief, monsieur le doctor, is good, but it is not good enough."
Abhay Ashtekar - from Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhay_Ashtekar
Abhay Vasant Ashtekar (born 5 July 1949) is an Indian theoretical physicist. He is the Eberly Professor of Physics and the Director of the Institute for Gravitational Physics and Geometry at Pennsylvania State University. As the creator of Ashtekar variables, he is one of the founders of loop quantum gravity and its subfield loop quantum cosmology. He has also written a number of descriptions of loop quantum gravity that are accessible to non-physicists. In 1999, Ashtekar and his colleagues were able to calculate the entropy for a black hole, matching a legendary 1974 prediction by Hawking. Oxford mathematical physicist Roger Penrose has described Ashtekar's approach to quantum gravity as "The most important of all the attempts at 'quantizing' general relativity." Ashtekar was elected as Member to National Academy of Sciences in May 2016.
Abhay Ashtekar is an atheist, though he enjoys reading on Indian and other eastern philosophy, namely the Tao and the Zen traditions. Furthermore, he believes to be inspired from the Bhagawat Gita as regards his attitude towards work.
“The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.”
Salman Rushdie, “Is nothing sacred?”, Penguin (Non-Classics),1990
I though of a self-assessment in the Schrodinger cat form, where the dead/alive cat gets pair gets replaced by a believer/agnostic pair (as Toma Caragiu was, and with high probability, Carmen as well).
Now I am moving more towards an agnostic/atheist pair (with a mindfulness added flavor), and an increased awareness that the reality under the "believer" category (whatever that is, if any) is very different from what most people usually believe or expect without questioning.
In fact this represents rather well the substance and philosophical tone of my discussions with Carmen in the Summer of 2013, in Ploiesti. It was very interesting, and at some moment will be back with an account.
Since her passing, some concerted effort was made to "benevolently" forge her image as somebody totally committed to the orthodox dogma in the highest sense (which was far from the truth), going as far as burying her (who did not believe in the usual "mandatory sacraments") in a monastery. Knowing her, that's a gross cultural appropriation at a minimum.There is a lot to discover about Carmen, since she was a complex figure (in no case 1D). In any case, approximating reality after the fact is hard.