If credible, verifiable evidence of the existence of any god(s) ever is presented, I'll rethink my position.
Unless and until such time, I remain an unapologetic atheist,

However, even IF any god were ever proved, I'd still remain a staunch anti-theist.
Religion is inherently dishonest.
Intellectually and emotionally.

At age 13, I became an atheist when I realized the Bible is just a book of stories written by men. Like Grimm's Fairy Tales.

I chose rational thought, not magical beliefs.

Michigan had a hard winter when I was 13. Bored and restless, my little brother, 10, and I read the World Book Encyclopedias. I was inspired by rational philosophers Descartes and Spinoza, who were bravely anti-theist (anti-God), anti-church and anti-clergy in the 1600s when heretics were burned at the stake. They had to go into hiding.

Their writings inspired the European Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries. It stressed reason, logic, criticism, and freedom of thought over dogma, blind faith, and superstition.

Many agnostics say this. That seems a bit haughty to me. Do agnostics say this about people who definitely don't believe in the tooth fairy, or baldur, or ganesh, or athena, or just people who definitely don't believe in the abrahamic god?

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I consider myself an atheist, as I see absolutely no evidence of the existence of any gods and little possibility of there ever being any such evidence. No, I do not know that no god exists with absolute certainty. Zero evidence to the contrary of my stance is good enough for me.

No.

And that was a shameless point grab.

I don't see any harm in doubling-down strictly on what's observable. It seems the more intellectually honest way to go, in my opinion. It's not about "what's possible," it's about what's likely or more reasonable.

If you do not believe the scientific method is the only method to determine reality then anything would be possible. There would be no reality. The inside of the sun could be made of pancake batter.

"Atheism on the other hand closes the possibility of the existence of a higher reality only because it does not conforms to the current paradigm of the scientific method of corroboration as the only basis for knowledge."

Face - Palm.

Atheism is simply lacking a belief or not accepting the positive assertion that a god exists.

There is no standard that dictates the why a person lacks a belief in a supernatural (not of the natural/real world) sky-daddy etc.

If a person has not been introduced to a faith (belief without evidence) based religion that asserts one or more gods exists or if that person has not imagined a need for a god, or if he/she simply does not want to waste time on the entire god/religion theater, (no desire to burn time and money on trivial topics), he/she would be an atheist without the necessity to recognize the "intellectual honesty" defined by Wikipedia as "an applied method of problem solving, characterized by an unbiased, honest attitude, which can be demonstrated in a number of different way" that the scientific method requires.

The thing about the label "agnostic" is that it's vague. You can be agnostic about a lot of things. I'm agnostic about faeries existing, but I have no reason to believe they do exist. So I guess you could say I'm an agnostic afaereist in that context....

Atheism is simply the position that no belief about deities can be formed absent data on which to base it.

It is the only intellectually defensible position on ANY topic.

Deities are non-falsifiable by design.

"Atheism on the other hand closes the possibility of the existence of a higher reality only because it does not conforms to the current paradigm of the scientific method of corroboration as the only basis for knowledge."

Right. Atheism is evidence-based. Religions are faith-based.

Faith is believing in things without the benefit of evidence. This is illogical. Faith is what children use to believe in the existence of Santa Claus. Should adults use that same method to believe in gods?

I agree.
Agnosticism is the only honest approach.

Not just scientific method but reason as well. Science is after all a branch of philosophy. I think the big difference between atheists and agnostics is one of probability. Both agree that there is a possibility of a god. It is just that the former view that the odds of it are so huge that it does not bear reasonable discussion.

I thin we have a HUGE bias on this answer XD...
Yes it is possible to be intellectually honest, every religion has millenniums of philosophers writing about it. And a lot of them are amazing, with heavy flaws mainly due to wrong interpretations of nature that there was no way to know at the time.

Plus the argument that most old societies needed religion to keep people together.
Before sec XVII and XIX nationalisms, it would be impossible to have countries or empires without the religion.

After centuries and milenias we can pinpoint the mistakes and their theory crumble, but at the time they were doing as good as they could, and they are amazing, read St. Augustin for example.

And I don't have knowledge of modern thinkers of the big religions to say if they say something good today.

You don't know WHAT you don't know.

Take that as you will.

A higher reality? Does not conform to the scientific method of corroboration? The only basis for knowledge? WTF are you talking about? Where the fuck did you get these illogical and ridiculous ideas that you espouse as if they were true?

I call myself an atheist because I’m trying to be as honest as possible. I have no belief in a deity, so I’m an atheist. Do I know 100 percent for certain there couldn’t be some kind of other world spirit? Of course not, but if there is one, it’s so well hidden that it doesn’t affect me.

I have seen enough evidence to conclude that religion is a scam based on mythology. I have also sought evidence that might confirm religion, but I have always found a lack of evidence and arguments that are illogical. Therefore, I am sure enough that religion is false to call myself an atheist rather than an agnostic. However, the skeptical nature of my mind admits the possibility (not probability) that I may have missed some evidence that might convince me that there is some truth in religion. But until such evidence comes to my attention, I remain an atheist.

I do admit that religion has some good in it. Fellowship is good. Morality is good, though religions tend to base morality on blind faith rather than good ethics. Many churches have wonderful architecture, music and other arts. Charitable activities are good. But all these good things can be had without religion, and are even better without religion.

This is my intellectually honest position, and I am an atheist.

I have often wondered why we need religion in any shape or form...The belief in something higher than yourself, that is better than you, loving, deadly, but I am right and everything else is wrong and if you tell me I am wrong then I will basically kill you...what we need more is this elusive thing called common sense not tracts from a book to keep the masses down..

nope, atheism doesn’t close off any possibilities inherently. you could make the argument that gnostic atheism does, just like gnostic theism. understand the terms you’re using though. not believing in something because there isn’t any evidence for its existence does not equal claiming that it’s impossible and could never be proven.

Make sure you're not mixing your terminology, though. An agnostic-atheist does not deny the possibility of some god, somewhere, existing: they only lack the evidence to believe in such a being. Whereas gnostic-atheists, like gnostic-theists, believe what they believe (although the atheist believes there is no god; the opposite of a theist, but with the exact same amount of evidence).

As an agnostic-atheist, I think I'm intellectually honest about the issue, and if a god or goddess manifests to me, I'll change my outlook- after a battery of brain scans and psych evaluations, of course, as well as checking for trickery on the part of anyone trying to set me up, that sort of thing. (Clarke's Third Law- sufficiently advanced technology could have been mistaken for magic.)

After 20 years of Catholicism I chose agnosticism because I lacked knowledge of the alternatives. For the next 52 years I liked my life and ignored higher and lower realities.

Ten years ago, with about 15 people I knew and who knew me, I was asked what atheists think about what happens after death. Realizing that for 52 years no lightning had struck nearby, I answered the question with “After I die I will become a few chemicals in the ground.”

For ten years an atheist, I’ve have liked my life and no lightning has struck nearby.

In short, if you like your life you won’t need higher or lower realities.

I think you can be intellectually honest while also being an atheist.
People like to compare atheists and theists as two sides of the same coin, but when religious leaders make big predictions/prophecies with a set date and nothing happens, theists respond by believing harder.
Atheists, as far as I know, would consider their position the second there was a reason to do so. The foundation for people's lack of belief is the consistent failure of the theists to make even a single argument in favor their truth claims. it is not intellectually dishonest to draw a conclusion to a hypothesis that fails every time it is put to the test.

The absence of expected evidence is evidence of absence.

Since every religious claim I have ever heard describes not only the nature of god, but the function of that god in the world, and those claims about interaction with the world do not produce the expected evidence of that interaction, I do not find atheism to be "intellectually dishonest". To the degree I find atheists who are individually less intellectually honest than they could be, I still find them far more honest than religious people.

agnosticism and ignosticism seem the most honest positions, but then, there is always a quibble of definitions that I personally find pointless.

taken in the purest sense, "I believe but do not know" is the most honest position materialistically, but materialism is itself subject to agnostic criticism, so...