Agnostic Atheism? Your opinions..

[Whateverist]

That means that you do not think that the idea of the existence of god is completely idiotic because you have some evidence on the contrary.

That is the opposite of what I've just said. I don't have any evidence about gods whatsoever. For that reason, and given no personal experience to the contrary, I don't lose any sleep about my atheism. For me the decision about god goes in the same non-urgent basket as the questions regarding unicorns and gnomes. I seriously doubt that there will be any revelation to change my mind, but I'm not putting any more thought into making an air-tight objective argument against the existence of god.

Who would I make the argument to anyhow? Other atheists don't need it anymore than I do. Theists wouldn't be convinced by it anyway. Theists don't believe in god because of how that helps explain the objective world. They believe in god because it helps them make sense of their subjective world.

My agnosticism doesn't inform my epistemic position toward the god question. I've dismissed that question. My agnosticism informs my moral stance towards others. I recognize that my personal subjective perspective is no more objectively valid than that of anyone else. Atheism gives an accounting of the objective world that is more satisfactory and causes me no subjective dissatisfaction. It obviously is not subjectively more satisfactory for everyone. I can't think of any reason that these people should abandon their subjective perspective and adopt mine. I wouldn't respect anyone who tried to foist their personal beliefs on me so why should I be so eager to do the same to them? What I am really agnostic about is the exalted status of my personal subjective perspective: I have no reliable evidence that it is superior to anyone else's.

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What is a god anyway? Can anyone provide a strict definition of the thing?

Nope. Nor can describe what it is to dream in another language, or to play music by ear or to dunk a basketball. But others say they do. There are even people who say they have "experienced god moving in their life". I don't have any reason to think any of them are lying. Perhaps they have just had different life experiences than me.

Now of course I don't believe that anyone has had a close encounter with a god for the simple reason that I don't think those exist. But if it is their reality, what can I really hope to say to them to change that. Perhaps we could push them into a van, deprive them of any contact with friends and family, and perform an intervention to get them out of such cults. Would that be a good thing to do? If so, is the principle generalizable so that if they start doing the same with atheists we would have to admire them for acting on their beliefs in such a stalwart manner? I don't thinks so.

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Agnostic atheism doesn't mean you can't rule anything out.

I agree. There is no permit required for ruling out claims we come upon for which we find insufficient evidence. Absurd or unlikely claims can (and for me, should) be put into the same round file. I just don't see any advantage in labeling the round file "known falsehoods" when I know them to be "unsupported claims". I feel no sense of loss over this. I should feel a greater sense of loss if I misrepresented the truth just to display the kind of flashy certainty that theists are so fond of.

I shouldn't have to bring up my agnosticism, people don't grill me on whether I'm absolutely certain the tooth fairy doesn't exist, except in conversations over semantics like this one.

Here we might disagree, but not in regard to whether agnosticism needs to be brought up in order to answer the question "do you believe in god". There is no need to diminish your confidence in adopting atheism. But neither is there any reason to overstate your case. Otherwise, to what end? I wouldn't trade clarity for the illusion of certainty. When I finished with religion, I finished with mind numbing certainty. No more leaps of faith for me.