I wish I had a tenner (£10 note) for every time I have seen this question posed here on this site since I joined around 18 months ago. I find it unhelpful to put labels on ourselves...we have more in common with each other regardless of our degrees of difference in nomenclature, than we do with any bible believer. Non-believer seems to cover it all, but atheist/agnostic is fine if you must use any descriptors.

Labels get in the way.

Who cares whether you believe in god, don’t believe in god, don’t know if you believe in god or don’t care about belief in god.

We are all more alike than we are different!

Non believer is the term I like to use

I am an agnostic atheist and I see no conflict whatsoever. I am an atheist because I absolutely do not believe that any gods, of any kind, in any possible universe, exist. I am agnostic because I accept that neither I, nor anyone else, can absolutely know this.

This labeling just causes problems.I have noticed on this site how atheists have less of a tolerance to agnostics than the other way around ,especially their disdain towards believers .As far as I am concerned I accept everyone.

The truth for me is that I really don't care what other people do, as long
as what they do doesn't effect me.

You do you, I do me and let's strive to do or cause no harm.

Agnostic Atheist is a position existing on a continuum. I occupy it myself.

Gnostic/ Agnostic distinguishes between whether one claims to know or not know about the subject (generally the existence of god/gods).

Theist/ Atheist distinguishes whether one does or does not believe that god or gods exist.

1. Gnostic Theist- "KNOWS" god exists.

2. Agnostic Theist- does not know, but believes god exists.

3. Agnostic Atheist- does not know, but does not believe god exists.

4. Gnostic Atheist- "KNOWS" god does NOT exist.

Position 1 and 4 are logically inconsistent, as I see it, since we are discussing a subject which is not subject to rational proof. Without direct evidence, it's impossible to know any god or gods exist. It's also impossible to rule out the existence of some type of god/gods, however absurd and irrational the concept.

Also, note that, despite the loud objections of many atheists, position 4, like position 1, is a belief position. There is no rational basis to state "There is no God." The most one can say is, "There is no evidence for God;" and this statement is consistent with position 3, the Agnostic Atheist. It is possible to be 99.9999% certain there is no god (and keep drawing out the 9s as far as you like), but, like the existence of Sasquatch or visitors from other planets, it can't be disproved. We can say there is no real reason to believe, but we can't rule it out completely.

When I first started doubting the religion I was brainwashed in as a child, I was mostly agnostic. Since then, my research has been thorough enough to make me confident that religion is just a hoax -- a scam based on mythology. To the degree of my confidence, I am an atheist rather than an agnostic.

On the other hand, the scientist within me reminds me that my research is limited, and there is a possibility, no matter how slight, that I have not seen all the necessary evidence. To that extent, I am open to the slight possibility that I am wrong, and I have a sliver of agnostic in me. Still, I am 99% sure that gods are mythical beings, so until evidence to the contrary comes to my attention, I call myself an atheist rather than an agnostic.

this topic has been well chewed over on this site so i won't answer at length, but i will quote isaac asimove:

“I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.”

and i will make one comment: i am more interested in separation of church and state than separation of atheist and agnostic. you may quote me (spell my name right: gail m feldman).

g

I'm an agnostic, not because I believe there MIGHT be a "god," but because I have no proof that there is or isn't one. But my agnosticism falls closer the atheist end of the spectrum, because of SCIENCE! While religious BELIEF is simply that. A BELIEF! And please don't point to the bible ("book of books" ) as your proof of a god! Letters, and sermons, and whatever, made by uninformed MEN thousands of years ago proves NOTHING! So I'll go by the term "Agnostic Atheist."

“Here there comes a practical question which has often troubled me. Whenever I go into a foreign country or a prison or any similar place they always ask me what is my religion.

I never know whether I should say "Agnostic" or whether I should say "Atheist". It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.

On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

None of us would seriously consider the possibility that all the gods of homer really exist, and yet if you were to set to work to give a logical demonstration that Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and the rest of them did not exist you would find it an awful job. You could not get such proof.

Therefore, in regard to the Olympic gods, speaking to a purely philosophical audience, I would say that I am an Agnostic. But speaking popularly, I think that all of us would say in regard to those gods that we were Atheists. In regard to the Christian God, I should, I think, take exactly the same line. ”

Bertrand Russell

I'm agnostic but I accept people as they are. My freedom ends where thy one begins. Nobody believes in the exact same thing anyway.

Useless semantic arguments.

Labels are useless.

I thought of myself as Agnostic for a long time, based on the idea I could not conclusively prove there was no God at all. Then it occurred to me that I would also have to be agnostic about everything for which there is no supporting evidence, but can not be proven false, LIKE all the other gods, leprechauns, unicorns, bogeymen, Russell's teapot, fairies, elves, Santa Claus.

At that juncture, I decided I am an atheist.

Technically, I am atheist about both the Jewish God and the Christian God.

Again technically, I am agnostic about all other gods.

But both the above refer to dictionary definitions.

I see the two terms as being quite distinct.

In realistic terms, I am a functional atheist, as nobody has ever demonstrated the existence of any god in the last 5,000 years.

Bullshit argument

Both beliefs are valid....for the people who believe them. Whose to know for certain, right?

I was raised agnostic, but all my life when asked what I believe, I feel it would have been healthier for me to state my honest feelings that in my experience there are no gods, and so I'm atheist. That way I would have known immediately where I stood with others ... whether or not they could accept an authentic me. I could have dispensed with wasted time trying to guess whether each person I met would be compassionate or not toward me. Agnostic leaves a bit of an opening for a religious person to convince the agnostic to change how they think. That seems a waste of time to me. If I had known I could do it, I would have said I was Agnostic Atheist. Similarly, I could have said I was Atheist Buddhist ... how I tended to feel about my belief for a long time.

I would not be here if I cared whether there was a God or not or believed there was one. Debating semantics on the issue is tiresome to me. There are so many other issues that affect our day-to-day lives and I believe thinking people can make a great contribution in that area.

I like to say I'm neither. A lot of the time I'm 1 or the other depending on the day, so neither works best for me.

The Atheist Squirrel Resistance will never merge!

As I identify as agnostic, my theistic or atheistic opinion doesn't really matter as I am expressing what I know (don't know). The theistic part is just opinion, feeling or lack of it. And the fact that I think there are no divinities this is not the main part of my religious identification. The gnosis (knowledcge) is the important part that is why for me to express Agostic Atheist is not relevant.
And for a gnostic atheist, the gnostic part is irrelevant also as when he says atheist the gnosis part is already implied.