Have y’all seen this? It defines the descriptive terms that we deal with on this site.

I am agnostic and probably always will be, because there is no proof either way. The evidence suggests that there are no gods, but that's not proof. We all know there's no proof of the existence of god...so on the fence I remain.

Maybe some think that atheism is not rational because they think atheists assert "there is no god" even though I do not assert this in the slightest (this definition is mostly pedaled by theists). Most atheists would probably say "lacking belief in any god(s)." You claim gods exists but I do not believe you etc. I say a loving and caring god that happens to favor humans is highly improbable and we should withhold all belief because there is lacking evidence and much to the contrary. I do not believe in god(s) because they have not met their burden of proof and have not been able to be demonstrated for thousands of years. I don't assert 100% certainty nor do I claim to know these things for sure. About 99% sure the god of Abraham is false, about 95% on any god at all, say a deistic god, but withdraw belief even in that because it has not been demonstrated or proven. We may sound more certain because we place god in the same category as leprechauns, unicorns, fairies, because they all lack evidence. The greeks gods have as much evidence to support them as the christian god yet we call the greek gods "myths."

I am atheist, but I can understand people saying they are agnostic.
Semantics, seeing you cannot prove anything does NOT exist, they stay open to the possibility.
I cannot prove there is no god, but is it easy to disprove any of the known gods. So I say atheist.

It's a video essay of a YouTuber fan, Rationality Rules, to David Mitchell (a well known Comedian) who claims to be Agnostic but not Atheist. Mitchell explains that it is more rational to be Agnostic because we could never know for certain.

Jump to 4m 25s of this video.

Rationality Rules, explains that: "...Theism and Atheism address what you believe. Gnosticism and Agnosticism address what you assert to know...."

He makes an example addressing Mitchell directly: "...If I ask you if you believe in a god, and your answer is 'no', then you're an Atheist. And if you answered 'I don't know', then you haven't answered the question. Either you believe or do not believe. That is, either you're a theist or an atheist. And how certain you are in your belief, that is: how Gnostic or Agnostic you are, is a completely different question. And so since you don't believe in a god or gods, you are an Atheist..."

I can be any of these:
a: a non-believer because there's no proof yet of existence of a god - an Agnostic Atheist
b: a non-believer because I know there's no proof - a Gnostic Atheist
c: a believer because there's no proof yet of non-existence of a god - an Agnostic Theist
d: a believer because I know there's proof of a god. (I hear his voice every morning.) - a Gnostic Theist

Theism/atheism is an answer to "Do you believe?" And Gnosticism/Agnosticism is an answer to "How certain are you of that belief?"

(Mostly copied from another of my comment to another post.)

These are different things. Agnostic just acknowledges that we don't know the nature of God. Atheist states that we don't believe in any god. For me both of those things are true. So I am an agnostic, athiest.
Basically, I don't know if there is a God, creator, higher power, kid with a universe erector set, etc. So, I don't know. And I certainly have not seen any evidence to say there is any god, etc so I don't believe in one. That doesn't mean that one absolutely does not exist.

Because of the scientist in me that has a knee jerk reaction to all encompassing statements like: there is no such thing as...

Basically, I can't prove that there can't be a being of sufficient power or advancement that we would consider them a 'god.'

Another example is to consider the possibility that we were 'seeded' here by another race that, way back in the day, was so far advanced that we considered them 'gods' (as above). If they came back for a while, we might have sighted them and thus the various ancient drawings that are unexplainable... is it impossible to think that this could be true? Nope.

So, agnostic. I can't prove that gods exist. I can't prove that they don't exist. And I know that anytime you say "never" or "none" in an argument, some jerk will show up with a counter example.

As Bertrand Russell in his essays pointed out, in effect agnostics are atheist about the thousands of gods that have been dreamt up by people that they don't know, don't care out, or didn't grow up with, and it's usually the one God that they did grow up with that they remain "on the fence" about. As Russell said, realistically agnostics don't go around seriously thinking they are agnostic about ancient gods, like Apollo. Generally I find agnostics say they are agnostic about "God" (singular). In practice, the only difference between an agnostic and atheist is that one God; they agree on the 99.9% of the other Gods. The irony is that monotheists are also atheists about all the Gods they reject, like 99.9% of them, apart from the one God they affirm is true. So, for monotheists, atheists and agnostics, when you get right down to it, it's a difference over one God in thousands.

Well, I kind of equate them to mean the same thing, except that, to me, atheist means end of the road, no equivocation, there's absolutely nothing out there. Whereas, Agnosticism is more open to the possibility of SOMETHING somewhere. Also, I'm still an active member of a church. Been there 25 year's. With my depression, lack of friends and family, I can't leave them when they're the only family I have. They're the ones who truly "live like Jesus" not Bible thumpers who repeatedly tell me I'm going to hell. They all know I don't believe and love me anyway. Only one, an older gentleman, told me a child molester who accepted God before the needle got stuck in his arm would get into heaven before me because I'm a non-believer. Now, that hurt.

I wonder this as well. I guess I have a sense that there is something greater than me. Not that is matters too much but I just feel like somehow we are all connected to this higher power. Not any religion, I just feel there is something deeper.

The view from the fence is great. It demonstrates that everyone else is barely hanging on to any kind of tangible evidence to back their claims.

Not sitting on any fence there actually isnt a fence to sit on both 'agnostic' and 'atheist' mean the same thing 'without a god!' I don't care what I call myself as long as the other person gets the message and doesnt have a go at converting me

Currently the preponderance of evidence points to the high probability that there is no god. But there are enough unanswered questions regarding the origin of the universe to make me wait. Ultimately I won't' believe anything without proof!

Agnostic does not just mean just sitting on a fence for proof of a God, at least not in my book. To me it's looking for proof of anything to do with how the universe and life came to be.

I did this for a while. I think it had to do with not wanting to full on admit what I'd been taught was as dead wrong as any other religion.

To me agnostic means "Someone who doesn't believe in organized religion". (You will find many definitions of agnostic here!).

That being said I eventually figured out nothing was going to become a believable religion - and became Atheist.

I was an atheist and then I developed schizophrenia and believed I was the devil for a few months. I literally believed that I formed an alliance with god to fight against Comcast. I then used critical thinking to determine that none of it was true but I haven't gone back to being fully atheist yet. Just not at that point. Before this all happened I was certain there was no god but now I just don't know.

I don't really see it as sitting on a fence. I see it as not having 100% surety that there is or isn't a creator/divinity/deity or whatever label you put on it. I can't say that there is and I can't say that there isn't one. Therefore, I would be agnostic. In my opinion, atheists cannot say that there isn't a god with absolute 100% accuracy. Just my opinion.

I always considered myself an agnostic until I realized I was given religion a special place in the "I don't know category". Meaning, if someone asked if I believed in unicorns or fairies, I would say no. It doesn't mean that if someone showed me proof of unicorns or whatever I would sit in denial of the evidence. I would update. Same with God. Without evidence, I'm without believe, thus atheist seem more correct.

With that being said, I'm sympathetic with people like Neil deGrasse Tyson, who say they call themselves agnostic to septate themselves from the conduct of some atheist.

I was an agnostic since the age of 15. Became an atheist about five years ago. I am 51. I guess I finally realized that science explains the fact that there is no god.

Great thread, you can put me down as a gnostic theist,which is a minority on here.I have jumped too to the other side of the fence so to speak.

It's all personal whatever we believe(or don't believe) ,we all have little indiosyncracies and superstitions,we are a bundle of mixed up feelings and emotions.I became a believer but I can't tell you what kind of god I believe in,he has no name and no presence we can experience with our 5 senses.I bleive its up to us to experience life as part of the process laid out for us,which will be different for each individual.

I have to use other senses to understand my version of god. It is a kind of deduction process for me.Trying to understand what god is is not easy for sure. Atheism for me is too obtuse and refuses to see anything other than what is right in front of our noses,that is,if they can't see it,touch it, smell it,hear it,or taste it it doesn't exist. That's far too narrow a view on our existence for me,its just not enough. There was a hole in my life before I realised there must be a god,personal relevation helps too of course,but as the saying goes "seek and you shall find," The corollary is of course if you don't seek you won't find.

"Sitting on the fence" (as in indecisive) is a judgmental view of free-thinking people with intellectual modesty. Let's face it: nobody real knows!
Other responses are mostly psychological projective attitudes stemming from personal conscious or sub-conscious lifetime experiences.

Nobody's sitting on the fence. There's still a significant difference between atheists and agnostics.
In fact, I'm not on the fence at all. I'm very much agnostic.