Reply #88: You're confusing terms, but that's ok.

[laconicsax]

Briefly, I, and almost every other atheist of my acquaintance, don't believe that there's no god, we simply don't believe that there is. The claim that there is a god has been made and we simply don't believe it to be true while saying nothing of whether it is false. While the counterclaim "there is no god" exists, it only exists in opposition to the positive "there is a god" and isn't held as a belief by (most) atheists. We're not saying, "there's no god," but saying "I don't believe you" to those who say there is. I think this is a source of your confusion. Saying "I don't believe you" requires no belief.

Not believing something is different than believing in the negation of it. For example, were I to ask you if you believe that on May 24, 2127, an alien invasion force from the Alnitak system will begin orbital bombardment of the moon in preparation for an invasion of Earth to commence on May 26th, you would probably say no. If I replied, "Aha! You can't prove that it won't happen," you could rightly point out that you don't need to prove that it won't happen to not believe so. You simply don't believe my proposition about an alien invasion even though you have no knowledge of the event. Would I be correct in asserting that you believe the Alnitakan invasion of 2127 won't happen, or is it merely the case that you don't believe that it will happen.

(A)gnosticism deals with knowledge, (a)theism with belief in a god (or gods). They are answers to different questions--"do you believe" and "do you know for certain" (or think it's possible to know). There are four broad groups based on the answers to these questions:

-gnostic theists, who answer yes to both questions,
-agnostic theists, who answer yes to the first and no to the second,
-agnostic atheists, who answer no to both questions, and
-gnostic theists, who answer no to the first and yes to the second.

Agnosticism isn't a sort of middle ground between theism and atheism, but a 'no' answer to an entirely different question. I'd be willing to bet that you're an a-Quetzacoatlist, an a-Amaterasuist, and an a-Baalist--you don't believe in any of those three gods despite not knowing whether they exist.

(BTW: Do you know why it's ag-nosticism instead of a-gnosticism? I've been wondering that while typing this reply)