I know this has been discussed before, but once again, for the new members here, how do you see the difference between atheism and agnosticism.
It seems to me that many who claim to be atheists based on the lack of evidence for God really are more like agnostics. Atheism, I always thought, was a more principled position that makes the positive claim "there is no God." It's a principled position in the same way someone might say "I am my own person." There's no real evidence to show whether one is their own person or not (what does that even mean?)...unless you live in a vacuum, yet it is a principled view that tells us about one's perspective about their relationship to the world.
Someone like Richard Dawkins for example strikes me as an atheist. The basis for his atheism can't be just that evolution can explain the diversity of species without God. Dawkins chooses not to believe in God on principle, and the ToE is just a kind of side note that says "See, we didn't come from clay like the Bible says." There are lots of theists who accept the ToE and still see it all belonging to God, what we know and what we don't know. Dawkins sees (I am guessing from his passion and the things I'm familiar with him saying) God as a symbol for something that must be eradicated, whether it be ignorance or obedience, or whatever.
So, if you are an atheist, do you have a principled reason for not believing in God, such as "I am my own person," or is it more just that you don't have evidence that you can trust?
Personally, I use the label "atheist" because it seems to me to be a more accurate representation of how I approach things than "agnostic" would be.
For me, I suppose you could say that I'm agnostic if you were to define atheism as absolute, unequivocable certainty that no deities exist. I don't know for certain that God doesn't exist, much in the same way that there's no such thing as absolute certainty in anything.
I am much less certain that, for example, the grocery store will still be standing when I go to buy bread than I am that God likely does not exist, but I don't say, "Honey, I'll
probably pick up some bread on the way home, assuming the grocery store is still there." I say "I
will pick up bread on the way home"... with certainty, despite knowing of at least one local plaza that was destroyed by a natural gas explosion and one mall in the region that collapsed due to heavy snow loads within my lifetime.
I treat the fact that my local grocery store is still standing as a practical certainty, despite knowing that there is a definite non-zero chance that I am wrong. Why should I do differently for the existence of God, when the chance that I am wrong is undefined, but strongly suspected by me to be very, very small if not actually zero?
While I recognize that there are limitations to the certainty of knowledge, I also recognize that in all practical terms, I treat some things as if they
are certain. I don't consider myself an "agnostic" when it comes to the existence of my local grocery store, so I think it's consistent for me not to consider myself an agnostic when it comes to the existence of God.