Yes I agree. I believe everyone should be agnostic because no one really knows for sure.

Yes I agree. I believe everyone should be agnostic because no one really knows for sure.

I’ve been an atheist almost my whole life, I’m 61 years old. Somewhere along the line there seems have grown amongst atheists, and many other groups like secular humanists, Freethinkers, etc., a hostility towards agnostics. I started hearing and reading things like, “Agnostics are just fence sitters”. “Agnostics are those kind of people who never can make a decision about anything.” “Agnostics just don’t have the balls to pick a side”. “Agnostics are just afraid of conformations.” On and on. Some of it pretty brutal for a of couple groups who question the same ideas and in many ways are same side of things.

When I was 7 years old I went to Sunday School and Vacation Bible School as did most kids at that time. My parents weren’t church goers nor did they push for me to go. But it did get the kids out of their hair and I think in those days parents figured what the hell, let ‘em learn about being good like Jesus and how not to piss off God. Maybe they aren’t as likely to be little assholes.

Seven years old was also when I became conscious of the fact that a lot of what I was hearing about in these stories was, well magic. Coming back from the dead, turning water to wine, basket loads of fish appear, talking donkeys & bushes, and tons more things that were just not possible. That’s when the seed was planted, magic wasn’t real, everyone knew that. By the time I was eleven, I’d seen enough questionable things in the church (Baptist, in Calif. not southern baptist) to know that the story didn’t go like they made it sound. Skepticism had set in.

But even knowing something was rotten there, it still threw me because all these adults swore that this was the truth. Aren’t adults supposed to be smarter than kids and aren’t they supposed to know the answers to that stuff? Then I fell in love, with Science, that brought to me a whole new reality. Once I heard the term agnostic, which I understood to mean “someone who questions the belief of god or gods”, well that felt like a good fit. I wouldn’t be considered an arrogant kid who think they know everything and I’d have time to ask questions, talk with different religious leaders and people with different beliefs, read about different religions views. All these things I did. I invited Joho’s (Jehovah’s Witnesses) and Mormons into my house to talk. I asked questions. I was in the vicinity of 23 or 24 when I started calling myself an atheist. I have absorbed information like a sponge ever since, but never wavered in my lack of belief.

So, I have a real bitch of a time when someone picks on agnostics. Sure, there are some agnostics who hide behide it and use it to “please everyone”, but there’s a lot of atheists who use atheism to be “rebels” and impress the girls with the “bad boy” image, to be different, to piss off mom and dad, you name it. I called myself an agnostic because I wasn’t sure yet what was true. I was being honest. But I’m not sure what would have been my response if at that time some atheist gave me a hard time about called myself agnostic. Probably something like “Get back dude, we’re damn near on the same side. You should be there for agnostics, answer their questions, help them find facts. Not just be a dick.” Yep, that sounds like me. LOL. I just had to absorb the facts that I was coming across, this is the way it took me. Given everything, I’m 100% positive that there is no supreme being, no magic or supernatural or intelligent design.

Yes, you are a bit off-base.
While there are agnostics who claim, ‘I don’t know, and you can’t either’, being agnostic because you don’t know, says nothing about what others know or what anyone can know.
And while there are atheists who say, ‘there is no god and if you use logic and reason that is the only conclusion you can come to,’ calling yourself atheist because you do not actively believe in any particular god says nothing about what others can or should believe.

Maybe you should start by being specific about what you mean by ‘God’. If you’re having trouble articulating what or whether you know or believe, maybe it’s because the idea you have of god isn’t constant. --Like maybe you don’t think that god can suspend the laws of physics to perform miracles but believe that some higher intelligence had to create those laws since they exist. Some people believe god has done both of those things, some think god is not so mundane that he does things.--
Maybe clarifying what could be believed will help you understand what you do believe and/or know.

You are off base a bit here.

I’m an athiest because I don’t believe that a god exists. I’m not deciding there is no god. Others can disagree and even be correct because they may have more information or my logic may be flawed.

I’m agnostic because the only thing I know is that I exist. It’s entirely possible that someone else knows that god exists for the same reasons as above.

The entire theist-agnostic-atheist spectrum is problematic for several reasons, not the least of which is that they are all meaningless unless you specify which god you're referring to and describe its nature in some detail. A very reasonable person might respond to this by saying, No, they refer to all gods of any description. To which I would probably reply, I don't think it does. I think those words, in popular use, refer only to fundamentalist gods, that is to say, the gods envisioned by religious literalists.

I doubt any rational person would claim that metaphor "doesn't exist." But there is a well established history of believers who take the word "god" to be a metaphor for truth, or reality, etc. If theism only refers to a fundamentalist god, then some of the most famous Christian leaders of all time were atheists.

Another side of this collection of problems is that we rarely use the same agnostic cautions when we refer to concepts we consider to be patently false. Is the jury really still out on whether the Flying Spaghetti Monster might be literally real? Well, just as with God, we can't prove it isn't, so if we use the same reasoning, we should be agnostic about it too.

I see no reason for investing energy in holding the door open for the possibility that a literal god-person might exist. There's no more evidence for it than for the FSM. Why be agnostic about one and not the other?

Plenty of people would say then that I must be a confirmed atheist, which by certain accountings I am, but I see no reason to take up an identity based on something I don't believe, when I very much do believe that the metaphorical god is an indelible part of the human psyche, as well as a useful and enriching, not to mention central, component of human culture, and has been for as long as there have been humans. So does that make me a theist?

I'm undecided.

None of the above. My stance is I don't care. Which classification is that?

Strictly speaking, the agnostic argument is the most "correct", because no one knows for sure if a supreme being does or does not exist therefore it is not scientific to be either because neither position is testable. Your position is perfectly justified and logical.

However, being agnostic has very little pragmatic merit, because admitting that you don't know and in fact can't know implies you lack motivation to gain societal benefits from either belief.

I am atheist because I believe that the benefits of being atheist far outweigh the merits of believing in any religion. For example, killing someone has absolute consequence if there is no afterlife. If there isn't a supreme being directing everything that happens it means you have to take control of your life by exercising your agency to achieve the best outcome possible in the finite time you have been granted. This philosophy provides a much deeper meaning to life than just "to get into heaven" and that alone is more than enough reason to abandon faith altogether.

IMO all three AGNOSTIC ; ATHEIST and UNDECIDED are all logical and strong positions , but at least you are pointing out that there are differences between them as many people think they all (or a pair of them) are the same. I would say that AGNOSTIC is the best position perhaps because it is most flexible - awaiting the discovery of future facts.
Just choose the one you are most comfortable with . Worry does not help choices. and await further developments.

I'm an atheist.
I do not believe ANY gods have EVER existed, anywhere, at any time.
There is no credible, verifiable evidence to convince me otherwise.

I cannot control what other people think, do, or say.
The "debate" over it is completely pointless to me.

Not "there is no god". Instead "there is no evidence to support the existence of god". There's a difference.

I have heard of Atheist, Hard Atheist, Soft Atheist, Agnostic Atheist, Gnostic Atheist, Agnostic, Hard Agnostic, Soft Agnostic, Sceptic, Agnostic Sceptic, Humanist, etc.. Many meant different things when used by different people, and many meant the same things when used by different people. Word soup,. Use what you like, but always explain carefully where you stand before you start to talk about something more important than the usages/meanings of the accidents of cultural history we call words.

Because I reached my atheism by way of science and philosophy, I am a person who reached the decision indirectly and not immediately. Would a religious person who took the same path I did also come to the same conclusion? I am not sure. I was raised in a religious household and only questioned the existence of God after I was taking university courses that fostered skepticism and the need to seek out the answers to the big questions: existence and the meaning of life. And once religion is viewed as a social construct it's difficult if not impossible to put that genie back in the bottle and renew religious faith.

I am agree with atheists in asserting that there is no reasonable evidence or argument for god. Yet I remain agnostic, because as the Bard said "There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy". Human knowledge is limited.

To me the importance of the term is not that important, to me I'm an atheist I have no God or gods or proof there of, for me to think further about it would be a waste of time.
to quote the lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott "the more you over check the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the drain"