Meh.
I'm an atheist. Unless and until there is credible and verifiable evidence to prove the existence of any god, I'm going to continue to live my life without believing in any of them.
Saying, "I don't know", is absurd.

For me, it's no different than saying, "I don't know if unicorns and leprechauns exist, so I'm going to leave the door open for that."
All gods are myths, just like unicorns and leprechauns.
All "holy" books are fiction as well.
All. Of. Them.

Examine the evidence...that is how we evaluate anything prior to concluding whether or not we believe it to be true. In these present times of so called alternative facts, it still holds as true as ever...there is no alternative to facts, alternative facts are fiction at best and downright lies at worst. This has always been true, and after 13.8 billion years of known existence of our universe, there is not one shred of evidence of the existence of a creator. Logic tells me that on laws of probability therefore, that the likelihood of one existing is nil. Evil and suffering are sadly part of the human condition, along with a propensity to believe in a non-existent and wholly manmade god.

Why does one feel the need to create an invisible, imaginary being in order to create the universe? Why is it difficult to understand and accept that Nature and the laws that govern it has the same abilities of creation that any god(s) have? Nature is real, you can experience Nature with all your senses, can observe it, can test it, make predictions based on it. You do not have to imagine it.

Why is this important to you? Maybe try thinking about real things you could do that would improve the actual world we inhabit?

Many do not share my opinions but I find "agnostic theist" to be an oxymoron. A person is either a believer or they are not. If one ever did believe (as I once did) it is also crazy for others to assert that you must try all the religions before you decide. Why do we want an entity to be a first cause? Equally on this, I do not know if there was a big bang. Having not been there I cannot tell you about noise. For me, Kalam does not make sense as I cannot tell you when the universe began to exist. Nothing written in religious books of any kind help me with this. I'm also not convinced of a "brain in a vat" or simulation arguments. People go out of their way to convince you that ancients had these ideas. It simply is not so. The arguments made it mainstream today as our technology allowed our brain to do progressive thinking on these subject.

So, what is it about and where did we come from? IDK and any person going by the facts alone will have the same answer.

The beginning of wisdom is not knowing . . . . it is understanding just how little you really know. And as Spock once said, logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is magnificent in its absurdity: it makes unwarranted assumptions about the nature of time and the nature of causality.

No, no, no, no and no.

"Not knowing" and "having doubts" makes you wiser than all the televangelists combined. If you question your beliefs sincerely, examine the evidence rigorously, and then at the end of it, you still hold those beliefs and find they're consistent with the evidence, more power to you. It's those who hold a blind faith in the face of all evidence to the contrary that drive me batshit.

Let me assuage your doubts. Supernatural beings aren't real...ever, under any circumstances. They don't exist and neither do the magical realms they supposedly inhabit. The only thing that keeps them around is the irrational faith of all the people who have talked themselves into believing it by citing bullsh-t like the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

Two useful points to remember:

First, the universe didn't come from nothing, it came from something we can't explain because before the Big Bang, reality as we understand it didn't exist. How can anyone explain pre-reality? That's why theists think they can shoehorn their unproven God into it. Don't let them.

Second, the bottom line of ALL arguments in favor of God is that in order to believe any of them, you have to accept that they're trying to validate the notion that there's an invisible magical superbeing who reigns from his kingdom in the sky. That's fine in a game of D&D or in a movie or a book but otherwise it's just effing ridiculous and should not be taken seriously by anyone with an IQ higher than room temperature.

The whole "first cause" argument is based out of the "argument from incredulity" logical fallacy. You can't imagine the universe existing without a creator (first cause).

So the idea then is to "make up" a first cause. The problem and fallacy of that, is if everything must have a first cause, what caused the first cause, then what caused that, then what caused that .... ad nauseum. It really falls apart when the claim is made "The first cause was without cause." .... well if the first cause could be without cause, then so could the second cause .... and maybe there was never a need for a first cause at all!!!

It just unravels all by itself. It can't stand on it's own merit.

As for "evil" .... good and evil are subjective judgments ...... For example .... Most would consider it "good" if a successful hunter were to share his killed deer with his starving neighbor ..... But few stop to consider how the deer would feel about that.

For me the problem does not lie on the characteristics of the deity. It could be the best deity the mind can conjure; that is not the problem. I can come up with the best god in the universe. The problem or flaw is in the believer. The problem is to have a mind that relies in magical thinking and on unproven beings to solve everyday problems. Magical thinking is the problem. It takes us away from reality, it supports flawed reasoning, it arrives to erroneous conclusions, and reduces the logical and moral standing of the bearer.

Does it not strike you as somewhat odd that all of those who believe in a heaven and hell have managed to create one for themselves and nearly everybody around them. If someone believes that there is a heaven or hell which one enters after death then I wonder why they are waiting, surely they should be making all haste to get there. However, they may find as Nietzsche said: "In heaven all the interesting people are missing."

Most of us are free thinkers who dispassionately look at evidence

I think it’s great that you’re considering possibilities. Having given god away with Santa and the Tooth Fairy as mythical, it worries me that people still think that a reasonable/ good all powerful being could allow this level of inhumanity in the world. At best such a being would be a bit sadistic, from my point of view.
All the best with making sense of it, from your view point.

Regarding Kalam, you might be interested in this:

The Epicurean dilemma was a prime motivating factor in my eventual dismissal of a personal, albeit capricious god, who, it is said, occasionally interferes with the natural chain of cause and effect. Having abandoned the notion of a personal, interactive deity, I retreated to the god of my avatar.

Deism advances the idea that an all-powerful being created the universe and its laws, then moved on to other more pressing matters, never to be heard from or seen. To the Deist, by the time human beings evolved, this supreme being had been completely absent for the better part of 13.7 billion years!

But even this idea is unsatisfying. Prior to the creation of the universe, what was this deity doing? How long had it existed in the nothingness of a non-existent universe? And what possible benefit do we gain by believing in something that can in no way be proven to exist and has zero impact on our own existence?

Nobody “knows”. Anybody who says they do “know” is either mis-communicating or lying.

Nothing works like skepticism and inquiry.
I couldn't ask more from anyone.

If you don't know something to be true, then the default position is to assume it isn't.
You do not KNOW there is not a nun's habit wearing purple invisible intangible giant hedgehog shitting invisible, intangible big macs all over your front room carpet, but I am pretty damn sure you are not agnostic about that.
You do not know that Leonard Nimoy was not the second coming of Christ who instead of saving the world decided to make sci fi movies instead and just never told anyone and refrained from performing miracles becaus they gave him chronic IBS, but I am pretty damn sure you are not agnostic about that either.
What makes the ridiculous claims of Christianity any less bull shit, than any other bull shit claim?
Nothing, so why make a special pleading claim for ir?

I refer to Occam's Razor: * "the principle (attributed to William of Occam) that in explaining a thing no more assumptions should be made than are necessary." Or, in other words, the simplest explanation is more likely to be correct.

The simplest explanation is that potential energy/energy has always existed. We know that energy becomes matter and that matter returns to an energy state. Sometimes that matter becomes life; sometimes life becomes sentient and sometimes it becomes self-aware. But, in the end, everything is energy in some form or another.

Science shows us that no creator being is necessary for the universe to behave as it does. So, if no god/universal consciousness, holding everything in its place, is necessary-- why insert one?

Adding a consciousness to this energy, or making it a god, adds an unnecessary layer of complexity; and especially so if one gives human attributes to this being and makes claims that it is involved in human affairs etc.

[google.com]

Maybe this helps.

"Evil and suffering" good and bad? Which party gets to judge what is good and bad? The eagle or the mouse.

The kalam doesn't prove their is a first cause. The kalam doesn't prove there is a god either.