Great comments and I have nothing to add that has not already been said. TY for posting and providing an enjoyable morning with coffee read.

I will say it is more likely just an individual thing. My Dad was raised Catholic, stopped 'believing' at an early age and claim to be atheist. Then decided agnostic was a better way to define things.
Sadly I never really got to sit down and talk with him about all this before he passed as I moved away when I was 20 and well many know how it is when relationships with one or both parents is strained. I think that is my greatest regret, the missed time chatting with a very intelligent human.

Yes, negatives can be proven. In fact, ten of the fifteen valid forms of the classical syllogism have negative conclusions. For example, premises “All A are B” and “No B are C” prove the universal negative, “No A are C”; and premises “Some A are not B” and “All C are B” prove the particular negative, “Some A are not C.” Likewise, in propositional logic, the premises “If A then B” and “It is not the case the B” prove the negative proposition, “It is not the case that A.” What holds in each case it that you can’t prove a negative conclusion without having a negative premise. And the same is the case with the scissors example. That is, from “There are stamps [paper clips, etc., etc.] in the drawer in cannot be concluded that “There are no scissors in the drawer” without the negative understanding that “There is no other place in the drawer where the scissors could be.”

Possibilianism is something I subscribe to overall. Possibilianism is a philosophy which rejects both the diverse claims of traditional theism and the positions of certainty in strong atheism in favor of a middle, exploratory ground.
To quote who came up with the term "Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion. A third position, agnosticism, is often an uninteresting stance in which a person simply questions whether his traditional religious story (say, a man with a beard on a cloud) is true or not true. But with Possibilianism I'm hoping to define a new position — one that emphasizes the exploration of new, unconsidered possibilities. Possibilianism is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind; it is not interested in committing to any particular story."
I apply this not only to religion but everything. Evidence for/against, hell we think we have little left to prove and discover but a picture of a black hole and scientists making vaccines much more expensive, scientists who got past our fear of resistant bacteria by creating, from horoscopes to stardust theory, this disproves things like healing crystals but explores as a species are learning how to use placebo and better understand the effect. Dieties are extremely improbable and forms of atheism have been around as long as religion. Evolution is prov
I think a lot of agnostic people aren't comfortable with either idea. The more I learn the more 'atheist' I become but also the more full of wonder I become. An issue I have is people stay surface level and stops at the first step of no god.

I agree that negative assertions can be proven, but IMO no proof is absolute. If a person is interested in whether or not God exists he should concentrate, not on proof or disproof but on searching. Belief, disbelief and proofs are for people who just want to argue—muddy the water so they don’t have to look at something.

The God concept does not lend itself to proof because we are talking about ultimate reality. Existence at that higher level is beyond our puny little intellects, which are mired in the sensory dreamworld of illusion. The very concept of time is an illusion according to quantum gravity theory, and therefore any question about existence, creation, immortality or selfhood as a body is meaningless.

Besides atheism and agnosticism, someone here has pointed out a third option: ignosticism. Ignostics claim that it is meaningless to argue for or against God because the word can not be defined in a clear and acceptable way.

Wrong type of scissors.

Like I said somewhere else:

Supose you tell me you can lift a truck with your mind. I'm 100% sure you can't, cause this is impossible. Magic is not real.

It's up to you to try to prove me wrong, but until then I give your claim absolutely no value.

Agnosticism is a lack of knowledge that a god exist. Not all agnostic believe there is an afterlife. I'm an agnostic atheist.

I'm an atheist. It means without a god. I don't call myself an agnostic because it often implies uncertainty. Could the Universe be part of a super particle? Sure. But it's not worthy of considering given that the reason to think that there is comes from anything worthy to pursue it.

I don't have a worthy reason to believe that God exists anymore than the super particle. Agnosticism would mean there is a super particle.

i know for sure there are no gods, i am 100% sure about this, why? because all gods that ever existed were and are all man made, and as i have said many times before, i do not give a flying fuck about who chooses to believe in what or not, not my business ergo I don't care

I merely do not claim to know what I can not show to true.
I can not show there are no gods. But I can most definitely show that theists are lying or contracting themselves, which is a very good reason to not believe anything they say about their gods and live my life free of such fantasies.

Your second statement is false to fact.... History and archaeology​ both show that religion is made up and recycled bullshit from previous myths and legends....

Just like organized religion, there are denominations among atheists and agnostics. I was born Roman catholic in France, I have some memory of the nuns with rulers, my family left France before my 4th birthday. Later in life, when I was Jr. High, I made a lot of friends, all religions and those without. Most were actually Christians / Catholics even at our ages then, we were all the same. Most of them went to same high school as me. Their parents changed, my Christian friends parents changed for the worst to the point they would abuse their kids pretty badly for what all teens went through at that age. Some of my best friends were were hospitalized and some did not live. This is when I started literally losing friends nearly annually for the next 25 years of my life, this started me losing whatever faith I had in the concept of God and Christ. These young followers, my friends closer than family, killed so young by their parents worshipers of God and Christ. I was going through suicidal stages every time I lost a friend, I became atheist, but I was this way only at home. I had to change when i was around my friends and others. When conversations about religion, politics with anyone around me (away from home) arouse, I would curse about religion. It wasn't until I was in Jr. College, when someone who came to talk to me when I was crying after losing yet another very close friend. That person stayed with me, others came they were just asking questions about myself, my opinions and so forth I unloaded everything on all of them. No one spoke for no less than 3 minutes, most were shocked, the first one to speak started telling me I'll get through this like before. As an ice breaker someone asked about my bloodline, from birth father I'm from the Moors from mother the Vikings. That started a different conversation of Norse mythology, in which I do believe in, some were confused by my answer, stating Christianity comes from Norse Mythology. After doing some research on that, most sources were saying the same thing creation is in every mythology. Basically agnostics have always been around but not necessarily atheists, they were dealt with. The stereotype of an atheist is the other extreme of evangelicals. I tell people I'm agnostic and I add religion is not for me. I'm 46 yrs old now, I have met some very friendly party like Christians who felt everyone is entitled to believe whatever they want as long it doesn't encroach unto other people's beliefs. I had begun to use that for myself, that's what it's all truly all about.