I think that in philosophical strictness at the level where one
 doubts the existence of material objects and holds that the world
 may have existed for only five minutes, I ought to call myself an
 agnostic; but, for all practical purposes, I am an atheist. I do
 not think the existence of the Christian God any more probable than
 the existence of the Gods of Olympus or Valhalla. To take another
 illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between Earth and
 Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptic oribt, but nobody
 thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in
 practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely.
                                         -- Bertrand Russell

 ...it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the
 objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence
 which logically justifies that certainty. This is what
 Agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is
 essential to Agnosticism. That which Agnostics deny and
 repudiate, as immoral, is the contrary doctrine, that there are
 propositions which men ought to believe, without logically
 satisfactory evidence; and that reprobation ought to attach to the
 profession of disbelief in such inadequately supported
 propositions.
                                         -- Thomas Huxley

 *Atheism, therefore, is the absence of theistic belief.* One who
 does not believe in the existence of a god or supernatural being is
 properly designated as an atheist.

  Atheism is sometimes defined as "the belief that there is no God
 of any kind," or the claim that a god cannot exist. While these are
 categories of atheism, they do not exhaust the meaning of atheism--
 and are somewhat misleading with respect to the basic nature of
 atheism. *Atheism, in its basic form, is not a belief: it is the
 absence of belief.* An atheist is not primarily a person who
 *believes* that a god does *not* exist, rather he does *not believe*
 in the existence of a god.
                                            -- George Smith

 To state it positively, alt.atheists, through reasoned study of the
 available evidence, have concluded that none of the gods proposed by major
 religions actually exist, to the best of our ability to determine. Beyond
 this disbelief in God[s], and thus in the supernatural authority of
 religious institutions, alt.atheists are as diverse as any other usenet
 population.
                                             -- Jim Perry

 Words mean different things to different people. Just because a person
 claims to be an atheist, agnostic or theist does not mean that that
 person conforms to your opinions of him or to the tendencies delineated
 here.

 In particular, many people believe atheism to be "the belief that no gods
 exist". Most atheists, however, seem to define the term as "absence of
 belief in the existence of gods". (The latter is a definition supported
 by many major dictionaries, such as the Oxford English Dictionary,
 so it is not unreasonable.)

 If you wish to argue against the "strong atheist" position -- "the belief
 that no gods exist" -- it is recommended that you explicitly say so in
 each posting.

                           -- the alt.atheism Frequently Asked
                              Questions (FAQ) file
--