tyreth said:
You could be wrong, you admit, therefore you should be an agnostic. As long as you say you are an atheist, you are being irrational. Of course, the title agnostic usually holds a lot less prestige than the title atheist. At one time in history, I hear, the title atheist was viewed with some disdain in intellectual communities - now unfortunately christianity is.
You seem to be under a misconception as to what the word "atheist" means. Agnostic/gnostic refers to how much you know or believe you *can* know. An agnostic either professes not to know, or believes it is impossible to know, whether a god or gods exist. Atheist/theist, on the other hand, refers to whether you, personally, are of the opinion that a god or gods exist. An atheist is of the opinion that no god(s) exist. A theist is of the opinion that one or more god(s) exist.
Thus, you can be a gnostic atheist, agnostic atheist, gnostic theist, or agnostic theist. Most atheists are agnostic atheists -- that is, they do not profess absolute knowledge of whether god(s) exist, but their reasoned opinion is that there are no such creatures. There are a few gnostic atheists, who claim that they know absolutely that it is not possible for any god(s) to exist.
The *true* agnostic (a person who honestly has no opinion whatsoever on the question of whether or not god(s) exist) is a very rare creature. Most people who call themselves agnostics are actually agnostic atheists who do not like the atheist label.
Interestingly, most theists are *gnostic* theists, who claim that they possess absolute knowledge that one or more god(s) exist. This illustrates a fundamental difference between atheists in general, and theists in general. Atheists tend to be skeptics, and to shy away from any absolute statement of knowledge, as anything one claims to "know" could be false if the person in question does not possess all knowledge. Theists, on the other hand, tend to rely heavily on faith, which does not stand up well to skepticism (since faith is not based on logical analysis in the first place, and therefore requires at least a small measure of unquestioning acceptance, which is the opposite of skepticism). Thus, theists are more likely to consider their beliefs absolute, while atheists are more likely to admit the very real possibility that they could be wrong.
Note: This does *not* make the atheist's position more likely to be wrong! The atheist also knows that the theist could well be wrong, despite the theist's insistence that he or she is positively correct. Note, also, that the theist tends to believe that the atheist considers his or her opinion to be positive and absolute, whether that is the case or not, which is why so many theists have trouble understanding that atheism is not a declaration of absolute knowledge without evidence.
In other words, it is difficult for a gnostic to understand an agnostic, and vice versa. The gnostic, whether atheist or theist, applies a heavy smattering of faith to his or her opinion on the matter, and thus arrives at a powerful, undeniable internal conviction that there is zero possibility that he or she is not correct. The agnostic, on the other hand, whether atheist or theist, refuses to live by faith and will state only what he or she feels is supported by evidence, which does not allow for many positive absolutes.
The agnostic knows that the evidence does not support absolute knowledge, and cannot understand how the gnostic can use subjective feelings, which are known to be entirely unreliable, to "fill in" objective evidence. The gnostic has such a powerful internal conviction, with the sense that true knowledge has perhaps been mystically conveyed, that he or she cannot understand how the agnostic can ignore the inner feelings of certainty -- or how the agnostic can stand to live without certainty (as, in my experience, most gnostics feel a strong need to be *sure* -- they generally cannot handle uncertainty, as it causes them to feel adrift and lacking guidance).
My intention is not to denigrate gnosticism -- if you feel that kind of certainty, and it makes you happy, then that is your personal choice. And who knows, you may be right. Perhaps the universe does have some way to impart absolute knowledge to a conscious observer. The evidence, as far as I can tell, does not bear this out, but that is not proof, as we all know (but I am an agnostic atheist, so it is no surprise that I admit that it is not proof, despite the fact that I agree with what I have not proven absolutely).
But I hope that gnostic theists and atheists can learn to open their minds enough to understand why agnostic theists and atheists profess not to know, and to realize that their subjective evidence is not necessarily convincing to a person who chooses only to state what he or she knows beyond reasonable doubt.
I also hope that agnostic theists and atheists (such as myself) can eventually learn to accept that inner convictions are important to others. We may not agree; but that does not mean we are right, nor that inner convictions *don't* have value to certain people, or that they don't perhaps impart true knowledge by some mechanism we do not yet understand.
