I think the term you're looking for is indifferent. Agnostic relates to not being able to prove god's existence or non-existence. Everyone should be agnostic, as long as they're sane.
lol ilu billy.
Some atheists distinguish between themselves with the concept of (a)gnostic atheism, which perplexes me. I guess I just 'don't get it', since, to me, you are an atheist, or you aren't. Brain summed up my beliefs perfectly: atheism doesn't preclude the marginal possibility of being wrong, it's just cutting the crap. So, I don't see the spectrum that FlareBlitz described as necessitated by the term atheist. God doesn't exist the same way unicorns don't exist, but I can't prove it beyond all reasonable doubt, unfortunately.
I agree everyone should allow for that marginal possibility. Maybe that means you think all sane atheists are agnostic atheists instead of gnostic. /shrug
I was raised in a household that was technically Catholic, but both of my parents, of course, had to be freaks about spirituality. I remember when I was six I claimed something (I think a villain on television) was 'evil' and my father chewed me out, saying 'evil' was 'some Christian concept', and not to say it. So, then I couldn't say evil around him for years. My mom made me apologise to Jesus for using his name in vain when I was three (and just copying what she had done a few minutes ago...), and over the years she's repeatedly expressed her Christian views (usually in conversations with her about science, for example), but I... can't even describe her beliefs. It's like some hybrid religion that she plagiarised from major religions around the world or something. She prays to Judas Iscariot for me, something I find disturbing.
Anyway, I was raised believing in God, which was weird since I pretty much immediately rejected Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and proved to my mother that I knew she was the Tooth Fairy. Being indoctrinated at school didn't help; I don't know if it's just a thing with schools in my town or Australian public primary schools in general (shouldn't they be secular? This has bothered me for a long time), but from the year you start school, one day a week, you do Scripture classes. Which are what they sound like. At the first school I went to, people from the nearby Baptist church came and preached to us and taught us Bible stories and about God for an hour a week, then we'd pray. It
was opt-out, but you needed a signed permission slip, and as five-year-olds we all thought the guy with an atheist father who pulled him out of Scripture was a freak 'cause 'everyone does Scripture', so nobody got theirs signed. Most of the things preached to us were relatively unobjectionable, though I remember them telling us Halloween is a celebration of evil and makes God unhappy. We did not receive any other religious education, just Baptist Scripture.
When I was ten I became severely depressed and began to question a number of things, including God. I realised that when I thought about it and questioned my faith, my faith didn't hold up. It was hard for me to work through everything I was taught, though, and for years, I questioned and struggled. It contributed to my depression, because I began to feel that I was a bad person for questioning God. About when I was thirteen, I wiped my hands of the entire thing and admitted to myself I didn't believe in God, Hell, or divine punishment. Stopping the constant fretting of 'what if' helped a lot. I accepted I couldn't prove God didn't exist any more than I couldn't prove fairies didn't exist, but that didn't mean I needed to be down on myself about it. I was certain enough and punishing myself for that certainty was a leftover from what I had been taught as a child: not to doubt God, not to question God, that doubters are bad people and suffer. Thanks, Scripture.
I went to a Catholic private school, where the mandatory Religious Education (Year 7 & 8) unit was just 'Catholic education', and we had chapel several mornings a week. Fair enough, it was a Catholic school, but then I left for a public school, and... guess what? Scripture continued into high school, but since I'd shaken off the indoctrination, I knew this was absolute rubbish and had my mother sign the permission slip. (I was pissed off it was eating into my classes too...) I actually wrote a few letters to the school, complaining about the availability of only one type of religious education.
I didn't have the permission slip signed in advance of the first Scripture lesson, and they made me go. That was actually the first time I admitted to anyone but myself I didn't believe, since I protested I didn't feel comfortable listening to that stuff anymore (since it had made me feel so bad when I was a child, and I am very against the principle of Scripture lessons for young children in public schools). The lesson was on 'love', and when they said romantic love was between a man and a woman and homosexuality is bad and some other stuff that
disgusted me (especially as a queer person myself), I left. So did my friend. I had my permission slip signed after that, and I wrote a letter of complaint to my school. They said they'd 'look into' the speakers, but my friend, who never had her slip signed fsr, later told me nothing was done about it. We did have a few 'motivational speakers' preach to us as well. Australia, where you aren't safe, even in public schools!
I'll add that I don't mind if other people are religious, but I find this kind of class in public schools really objectionable, and it continues to bother me, even now I'm in uni and obviously nothing of the sort happens. =\
Myzozoa: In response to your question, during my questioning years I thought a bit about other religions, and came to the conclusion I have no more reason to believe in the existence of any kind of deified being than I do in the God I was raised to believe in.
