[kirant]

Originally Posted by photon

As I mentioned, even Dawkins does depending on the definition of god. In my experience most atheists take the position that some form of god is possible, just that there isn't any evidence, so they do not believe until there is a reason to believe.

Atheism is a statement about belief. Agnosticism is a statement about knowledge. Knowledge and belief are not the same thing. Belief can be informed by knowledge, but it doesn't have to be.

So an atheist agnostic would say that they do not believe there are god(s), and does not know there are god(s) (or thinks the premise of god(s) is inherently unknowable, weak vs strong agnosticism).

An atheist gnostic would say they believe the god of the Bible (for example) does not exist, and they know he does not exist because of whatever reasons they feel inform their knowledge (logical contradictions, positive evidence to the contrary, etc).

A theistic agnostic would say they do believe there are god(s), but that they do not know / do not have knowledge (or cannot know/prove) that god(s) exist.

A theistic gnostic would say they believe there are god(s), and that they know / have knowledge that demonstrates that god(s) exist.

Reading this, I really wish there was a way people would begin to describe themselves on an athiest-theist/agnostic-gnostic scale instead of purely atheism-theism...