I was just going to say this.
There's gnostic atheists and agnostic atheists. Big difference between the two.
This is a terrible explanation. Using the term a/gnostic just confuses when you consider that Agnosticism is iit's own view by itself.
If you're an agnostic then you do not know if there is a God or not. There is not enough proof for either side to definitively say if there is a God or not.
You neither believe nor disbelieve in God.
If you're an "agnostic atheist" then you're not agnostic. To be an atheist means you have to have a disbelief in God, which isn't an agnostic view.
If you're an "agnostic theist" then you're not agnostic. To be a theist means you have to have a belief in God, which isn't an agnostic view.
To be either you have to have a certainty to your belief/disbelief.
The better terms to look for, especially in regards to atheism, are
Negative Atheism and Positive Atheism.
Negative Atheists do not believe in God, because they have never come to consider the possibility of God. Or, it can come from informed debate leading to the view that a belief in God
cannot be justified.
Positive Atheists do not believe in God. It requires a
consience denial of God and requires
satisfactory reasons for that denial. It can't come from a lack of thought/knowledge.
You can't come to be an atheist (at least not a Positive one) and not have a certainty in mind about why you do not believe in God.
Similarly a theist can't believe in God, but not be sure if there is a God or not. Because that is not a belief in God. There is no faith there.
Being an atheist doesn't mean you aren't religious, it just means you don't believe in a god.
There probably are some religions that can be considered atheistic, Buddhism perhaps.
This is also true.
And there are also people who find that Atheism is solely a disbelief in a Theist God.
For those who don't know, a theist God is any God that is active in the world. One which interferes and makes choices. They might be one who is immanent, and therefore involved in everything, in such a way that every single thing that happens is because God is the one doing it.
The
God of Classical Theism (Which is the view of a God who is Omnibenevolent/scient/potent/present, and is the same God that Christians/Jews/Muslims worship) is the God that most people argue about when involved in these sort of religious arguments. He is also a Theist god, and is present in the world.
It is because of this that he can be disagreed with by Atheists, because being a Theist God who has such qualities as noted above, that arguments like the
Problem of Evil can be placed against him and lead to Atheism.
But, the opposite of a theist God, is a deist God.
One who is not involved in the world. A deist God would be one who created the world, possibly set in motion it's laws of physics and let it run by itself.
He cannot and does not interfere with the world, and therefore can't be considered at fault for many problems in the world.
Some Atheists argue only against a theist God, like the God of Classical Theism, and are accepting of deistic gods, as well as religions which focus on the spiritual, but not necessarily the divine.
