So what in the hell does it mean if, for like less than 5 minutes, I am confident that reality isn't a mistake or arbitrary, and then I bounce back to my agnostic position of having no idea? A person is supposed to have a position, but I seem to have at least two and I flip flop between them.
A person does not need to have a position on anything and everything, though. A fool tends to think himself wise, but a wise man tends to admit that he knows nothing. Some awesome quotes from Einstein:
‘The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know.’
‘Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.’
‘We know nothing at all. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of schoolchildren. The real nature of things we shall never know.’
— Albert Einstein
Whether the world or universe was a product of chance or design, or whether God exists or not is something that we, unfortunately, may never be able to be demonstrated with any degree of certainty through science or philosophy. But we should definitely keep looking.
One natural place to look is the historical origin and role of gods and God. Focusing on what I am somewhat familiar with... the earliest civilizations which had ideas of deities were arguably Babylonian/Assyrian. Those deities translate to later Egyptian equivalents very well, just with different names, and the roles of the Egyptian deities evolved over the long reign of the empire (and were sometimes different in different geographic regions). One surprising fact is that many elements of Babylonian and Egyptian deities have parallels in Judaism itself. Perhaps this is not surprising considering Moses, who is purported to have penned the first five books of the Torah (referred to as the Pentateuch), was raised in Egypt. Some scholars credit him with introducing monotheism, integrating and reconciling the many deities into one religion. However, if we look closer into Babylonian and Egyptian stories, the deities may be thought of as representations of natural forces or concepts. This is akin to personification or anthropomorphism - though I think it is a bit more involved. Therefore, they may never have been intended to be thought of as many gods to begin with, and perhaps evolved into that over time. So what was it all about?
At its core, it may be thought that religion has not so much been 'about' gods or God, but the human condition itself. Sometimes this is through metaphor or allegory, and other times more directly. The underlying meaning has too often been completely lost in place of tired traditions and ritual. To me, this is one of the shifts in perspective that is essential to better understanding religions in general. To give one example, consider this passage [relevant considering the context of what is being discussed]:
‘But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.’
— Hebrews 11:6
This quote sounds like it's talking about believing in God, and it is on the surface -- but it's deeper than that. Why is it saying people should have faith in God here? It is to please God. And what does it mean to please God? It may be summed up to say that sometimes human beings are in positions where choices which are morally indecent, that we know are bad, sometimes seem to be the right thing to do at the time. Without believing in God - a perfect judge - we may often fail to do the right thing. It's a philosophical statement about morality which compels people to focus on 'God' in order to do good, instead of on our own selves. In many ways, then, God in the most perfect sense cannot be thought of as a tangible being or thing. However, one attribute of God is almost universally accepted to be present in the conscience, in our innate ability to grow into a knowledge of good and evil. This is what it means to be 'as God'. The mystery of the mysteries, then, is in God incarnate as the 'Son of God', Jesus Christ - the messiah and redeemer of mankind.
I hope this all made some kind of sense, though it was written in some haste.