well thanks for clarifying, but the implication of your original quote - you don't believe because there is no evidence, is atheistic, not agnostic.
there is a difference between, "I don't believe" and "I believe there is not." That difference is small though.
good for you. among atheists you'd be in a very small minority. you're the one making stuff up here and being pointlessly stubborn about semantics. you should research the origin and history of the word beyond that MMO quote. the defintion of atheism has always been used fluidly by philosophers, and almost every modern reference lists simple lack of belief as a valid definition. in fact if you want to base things on tradition, by lumping everyone who isn't 100% certain the existence of any god is impossible into agnosticism you're using a much too loose defintion. you're confused. atheism isn't a set of beliefs. it's lack of belief.
there's a distinct difference between 100% certain and 50/50, but in between there is a continuously variable range of level of certainty and most non-believers are in the middle somewhere and can't be categorized so easily.
I want to preface this by saying, I tend to dislike how PapaG argues. In this case he's done exactly what you're asking for. He is analyzing the root of both words. He is going to resources that are not his, and I also put in some quotes which I assume he referred to as "another poster." I think you might need to let this one go friend.
obviously he hasn't since he's restricting atheism to only the least used and most impractical of multiple definitions, and applying an essentually incorrect defintion of agnosticism. you mean the post where you quoted wikipedia on atheism - "In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities" telling me i need to let it go doesn't strengthen your argument : )
I would classify myself as a freethinker, too. http://www.ffrf.org/nontracts/freethinker.php What Is A Freethinker? free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth. How do freethinkers know what is true? Clarence Darrow once noted, "I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose." Freethinkers are naturalistic. Truth is the degree to which a statement corresponds with reality. Reality is limited to that which is directly perceivable through our natural senses or indirectly ascertained through the proper use of reason. Reason is a tool of critical thought that limits the truth of a statement according to the strict tests of the scientific method. For a statement to be considered true it must be testable (what evidence or repeatable experiments confirm it?), falsifiable (what, in theory, would disconfirm it, and have all attempts to disprove it failed?), parsimonious (is it the simplest explanation, requiring the fewest assumptions?), and logical (is it free of contradictions, non sequiturs, or irrelevant ad hominem character attacks?).
Do atheists typically meet and express their atheism to each other? Seems pointless to me, based on what atheism actually means. I didn't lump everybody together. You just don't fit the category of "atheist", in its truest sense. Um, no it isn't. It's a belief that there is no possibility of any supernatural entity. A belief that there is no God. You're confusing atheism with being agnostic again. Perhaps you should reevaluate your core beliefs.
Many people who adopt the label of agnostic reject the label of atheist — there is a common perception that agnosticism is a more “reasonable” position while atheism is more “dogmatic,” ultimately indistinguishable from theism except in the details. This is not a valid position to adopt because it misrepresents or misunderstands everything involved: atheism, theism, agnosticism, and the nature of belief itself. It also happens to reinforce popular prejudice against atheists. Agnostics may sincerely believe it and theists may sincerely reinforce it, but it relies upon more than one misunderstanding about both atheism and agnosticism. These misunderstandings are only exacerbated by continual social pressure and prejudice against atheism and atheists. People who are unafraid of stating that they indeed do not believe in any gods are still despised in many places, whereas “agnostic” is perceived as more respectable. Atheists are thought to be closed-minded because they deny the existence of gods, whereas agnostics appear to be open-minded because they do not know for sure. This is a mistake because atheists do not necessarily deny any gods and may indeed be an atheist because they do not know for sure — in other words, they may be an agnostic as well. Once it is understood that atheism is merely the absence of belief in any gods, it becomes evident that agnosticism is not, as many assume, a “third way” between atheism and theism. The presence of a belief in a god and the absence of a belief in a god exhaust all of the possibilities. Agnosticism is not about belief in god but about knowledge — it was coined originally to describe the position of a person who could not claim to know for sure if any gods exist or not. Thus, it is clear that agnosticism is compatible with both theism and atheism. A person can believe in a god (theism) without claiming to know for sure if that god exists; the result is agnostic theism. On the other hand, a person can disbelieve in gods (atheism) without claiming to know for sure that no gods can or do exist; the result is agnostic atheism. It is also worth noting that there is a vicious double standard involved when theists claim that agnosticism is “better” than atheism because it is less dogmatic. If atheists are closed-minded because they are not agnostic, then so are theists. On the other hand, if theism can be open-minded then so can atheism. In the end, the fact of the matter is a person isn’t faced with the necessity of only being either an atheist or an agnostic. Quite the contrary, not only can a person be both, but it is in fact common for people to be both agnostics and atheists. An agnostic atheist won’t claim to know for sure that nothing warranting the label “god” exists or that such cannot exist, but they also don’t actively believe that such an entity does indeed exist. http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutagnosticism/a/atheism.htm Does that clear it up for you PapaG?
I don't reject atheism. You aren't a true atheist though, based on what you've posted in this thread.
You seem to lack the intellectual curiosity to understand the basic difference between atheism and agnosticism (if that's even a word). They are not the same thing, no matter how you want to say that they are the same thing.
