Agnosticism vs Atheism and Religions

[gnr61]

As Patashu touched upon, the difference between "agnostics" and "atheists" with which you are so fixated is not much more than a semantic hiccup. There is no black and white divide here, it is very rarely a "negative position" versus a "neutral position," at least when dealing with well-thought individuals. To say atheists and religious people are those who take, respectively, absolute negative or absolute positive theistic positions is reductionist, and would confine 99% of intelligent individuals, no matter what their leaning, to being lumped together as agnostics--thereby deadening the labels you put so much stock in.

Okay, we might acknowledge that even the most rigid atheist or theist must allow room for doubt in their position, because their position is ostensibly unfalsifiable: call it the "I don't know" factor. You have to understand that the very presence of this factor does not necessarily indicate agnosticism. No thinking atheist will attempt to absolutely dismiss the possibility of God's existence, any more than he will attempt to absolutely dismiss the possibility of the existence of an invisible green elephant living in his closet; BUT he can assert with some degree of certainty (based on presence or lack of evidence) the likeliness of these things.

A stance of simply "I don't know," the "pure agnostic" position you advocate regarding unfalsifiable claims connotes compromise, neutrality, a middle-of-the-road mindset that lends equal weight to all possible answers; obviously some people favor, based on their assessment of the evidence, one answer over the others. We call these people atheists or theists depending on which, and not agnostics because doing so would render the word meaningless.