[haswell]

In practice, atheists are people who think they know there is no god. Agnostics are people who realize they don’t know much at all about anything related to the origins of things and realize they don’t want to hold unprovable dogmatic beliefs like the religious people do.

I considered myself an atheist for most of my life. As I got older and learned more, this shifted. These days I consider myself agnostic.

If atheism was defined as believing a specific kind of god (e.g. the “father god in the sky that created all things in 6 days”) does not exist, I’d still consider myself an atheist.

But my agnosticism comes from an acknowledgment of our fundamentally limited understanding of certain aspects of existence, and the implications of that specific lack of understanding.

It’s not as if I believe “well maybe the god of Abraham could be real after all but I don’t know” (it seems far more likely that if there’s a god, he/she/it/they are closer to being the stuff of existence than some standalone entity). It’s more that I withhold belief entirely and don’t make absolute claims that are philosophically untenable.

If we figure out how consciousness works or achieve breakthroughs in physics, I could imagine calling myself an atheist again. Until then, agnosticism seems like the most intellectually honest position.

[zargon]

You’re mixing theism/atheism with gnosticism/agnosticism. They’re two separate axes.

> In practice, atheists are people who think they know there is no god.

This is generally labeled “gnostic atheism” or “strong atheism”, and only a teeny tiny fraction of people who identify as atheists take this view.

The way the vast majority of atheists use the term is as the complement set to theism. Theists believe in god(s). Atheists lack belief in gods. We don’t claim to know for certain, we just haven’t seen evidence that leads us to believe. (As you say, certainty level regarding any particular god varies depending on which one is in question.)

https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/about-atheism/

[hollerith]

“Gnostic atheism” is a confusing choice of words because in the context of Christianity, "gnostic" already means something quite different:

>Gnosticism is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among early Christian sects. These diverse groups emphasized personal spiritual knowledge above the teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions.

[zargon]

I shouldn’t have written that so it sounded like both terms were equal. “Strong atheism” became the established term. My understanding is that Huxley’s coining of the term “agnosticism” was based on Christian Gnosticism’s assertion of knowledge (and it’s in the Greek root). So due to the history it’s difficult to use lower-case gnostic in a more general sense. I guess I feel like it makes it easier to understand that agnosticism is orthogonal to theism/atheism. But I should have clarified that.

[kgwxd]

In the context of Christianity, and other works of fiction, many words mean something quite different than their non-fictional use.

[foobar1962]

> In practice, atheists are people who think they know there is no god.

Many atheists find a verdict of "not guilty" on the charge "that god exists". It's the equivalent of saying "I don't believe you." That's about it.

Saying "god does not exist" is a claim that itself has a burden of proof. Most people agree there is no need to provide proof that fairies and unicorns don't exist. If you think they do: show your evidence. The default position is to think they don't exist.