I’m an atheist. I’m not an agnostic. I’m about to explain why — and this is going to be a very long post, so allow me to apologise beforehand if you fall asleep and end up with a keyboard imprint on your face.

First of all, definitions: By “atheist”, I do not mean “person who thinks they know there are no gods”. An atheist is simply someone who lacks a belief in gods, or who actively believes that there are no gods.

As for “agnostic”, I personally think the best definition is someone who thinks that the question of the existence of gods is impossible to answer.  Thinking something is unknowable is not the same as lacking an opinion on the matter. Either you believe in one or several gods, or you don’t. An agnostic can hence be either an atheist or a theist.

However, there are plenty of people who simply refuse to be categorised this way. They want to call themselves “agnostic” as a way of getting out of answering the question as to what they actually believe. For whatever reason, they prefer claiming to be non-committal.

To explain why I don’t, here are my responses to a few sentiments commonly expressed by agnostics:

You can’t disprove the existence of gods, hence you shouldn’t rule them out.

Well, no. Neither can I disprove the existence of the Loch Ness monster, or unicorns, or Russell’s teapot. It is in fact impossible to prove a negative. If I were to be agnostic about the existence of gods, I would have to be agnostic about the existence of anything anyone could ever come up with. I’m not agnostic about unicorns or celestial teapots, so why should gods — any gods — be treated differently? In the question of the existence of something, the burden of evidence lies on the person making the positive claim. Us non-believers can only point to the complete lack of evidence in favour of the claim.

When it comes to beliefs about the world, I’m a fairly pragmatic person. I’ll happily admit that I can’t actually prove anything at all, not even my own existence. But this isn’t a very helpful position to take. We have to make some assumptions about the world, and my opinion is that materialism so far has been the most useful basis of a worldview. Similarly, I don’t see how leaving the question of whether I believe in gods or not unanswered is helpful to anyone.

Finally, it’s not as if most agnostics are actually agnostic about all the gods that currently exist in the meme pool. I’ve yet to meet someone who is actually agnostic about the ancient pantheons or Hinduism, for instance. It’s only ever the huge, vague monotheistic concepts of god that get the “well, maybe” treatment.

Many people believe in gods and it’s disrespectful to say they’re all wrong.

If you lived in a society where the vast majority of people believe in something obviously crazy — like, say, Santa Claus — would you claim to be agnostic about it, in deference to their collective delusions? Respect is not a human right that everyone is entitled to; when people are wrong in the face of all the evidence (or lack thereof), it doesn’t matter if they’re in the majority. They’re still wrong, and you’re under no obligation to pretend otherwise.

A “respectful agnostic” makes the mistake of thinking that just because something has been around and part of our society for a long time, it can’t be completely wrong and must be respected. An atheist, on the other hand, understands that believing in invisible sky-daddies who help you win Grammys is just as obviously crazy as believing in Santa Claus.

Atheism is inherently arrogant.

Many self-proclaimed agnostics (and many religious people) seem to be under the impression that atheists think they have the definitive answer to 1. the question of whether gods exist, and 2. everything else, too. It’s like they have come up with their own rules of what one is allowed to have opinions on and which questions should be left unanswered. For example: Whether lightning is a natural atmospheric discharge of electricity or comes from a man flying across the sky in a wagon drawn by goats is a question we’re allowed to answer. Whether gods exist or not, for some reason, one should only answer if the answer is “yes” or “I don’t know”. If you answer “no” you’re arrogant and think you know everything.

I hope I have sufficiently demonstrated the complete unfairness and insanity of this position, but just in case I haven’t, I’m going to have to point out what should be obvious: Atheists tend, on average, to be far less committed to their position than religious people.

Whereas for example christians have a personal relationship with Jesus (whom they at some level must know exists, or they’d have to wonder if they’re crazy), most atheists couldn’t care less about him. After all, just like Russell’s teapot, he doesn’t exist — and it’s hard to be particularly passionate about the non-existence of things. And whereas I don’t think any atheist would continue to be one if YHWH descended from the sky and turned the oceans to wine, plenty of christians continue to be christians despite the complete lack of evidence in favour of their claim, and plenty of evidence against it (depending a little on which flavour of christianity they adhere to).

And we’re the arrogant ones?

Well alright. But why should we define ourselves by what we don’t believe? Why should I call myself an atheist, when I don’t call myself an ateapotist?

Because society isn’t full of people who wholeheartedly believe in celestial teapots. People who will try to convert you or in other ways push their worldview into your life. If it was, I’d be first in line to join the ateapotist camp. Religion is prevalent in our society, even in Sweden, and thus it is meaningful for those of us who don’t believe in what religions (with some exceptions) preach to have a word with which to describe ourselves. And yes, there are other words, like non-believer or simply none. But “atheist” is well established and much easier to translate, as well as snappier. Why should we shy away from the word just because it apparently offends some people?

And with that, I’m going to let the argument rest. There are more angles to the agnosticism vs. atheism debate, but as far as I can tell, they tend to mostly be variations on the above themes. If you have any good arguments in favour of agnosticism (and against atheism) that you think I haven’t addressed, please do leave a comment! I leave you with a quote from Isaac Asimov, who basically makes my point but much quicker.

I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I’ve been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn’t have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I’m a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.

–Mel