Most people who say they are agnostic, are in fact atheist. I'm an atheist and I don't claim to know there is no God. Most atheists I know do not claim this either, although there are some ignorant atheists who do. The reason I don't know if there is a God or not is the same reason I don't know if there is an alternate Earth where people wear underwear on their heads, or any other ridiculous notion that can't be disproved. When there is no evidence for something existing, I tend to believe it doesn't exist. Hence, the belief that there is no God. Self-proclaimed agnostics, does this differ from your thought process? If so, how?
Being an agnostic, I don't know if there is a God or if there isn't a God. Traditional atheists believe that there is no god, and that the existence of a god-like entity is impossible. You sound like more of an agnostic than an atheist, IMO. I believe that there could be some sort of supernatural or higher being, but I don't know if there is one, so I don't follow it and I just go about with my life.
absolutely false. in fact from what i've seen the notion that atheists believe there can't be a god usually originates as a straw man argument from christians to shift the burden of proof for their own belief. the VAST majority of people that consider themselves atheists both currently and traditionally do not claim to be certain there is no god of any kind, nor claim that a god-like entity is impossible.
I'm not sure the ironic smiley exists, so it's either ironic or it isn't ironic. Being agnostic has me so confused.
says the all mighty wiki says dictionary.com Those are both definite answers that "god does not exist" There is not room for maybes. I have recently been enlightened that I do not know everything (ironic huh) thus god may exist. I think there are two avenues you can go down, there is no evidence god exists so he can't exist OR there is no evidence god exists, but there is no evidence he doesn't exist so he may or may not exist. BTW agnostic here, basically the same thing as papaG (i don't care and i'll go on with my life) but leaning more towards the "not exist"
I didn't say it was. A lack of belief in God, however, certainly correlates to a lack of acceptance of any moral absolutes that are found in the Bible, Koran, or other religious sources...which of course leads to moral relativism and the assumption that we can all decide what is "right" for ourselves. Pretty tough to keep that world view out of your politics.
moral relativism like "it's wrong to kill anyone except in times of war" i'm pretty sure that's a Christian thing too?
That's not relativism, but rather a lack of understanding on your part of what that commandment means: http://www.biblestudy.org/question/what-does-thou-shall-not-kill-mean.html