Ocean Brave said 9 years, 5 months ago:

I’m not sure if I can be considered an atheist. I don’t believe that there is a higher being in this world that is in charge of things or something like that but does this define atheism, if you don’t believe in a higher power? What do you people think about what it means to be an atheist?

Humanist Hope said 9 years, 3 months ago:

in order to understand atheism versus agnosticism, you have to look at the words themselves.

Theism is to have a belief, gnosticism is to have knowledge. Atheism is to be without a belief, and agnosticism is to be without knowledge.

Atheists are without a belief. Agnostics just say “I don’t know”. Agnostics are commonly referred to as “Atheists with an insurance policy”, because atheists pick on agnostics by joking that they just want to have an excuse in case we’re all wrong and there really is a god when we die.

If you want to better understand atheism and the secular movement, go to dogmadebate.com and listen to their podcasts. They have over 150 episodes and hundreds of hours of free content. They’re highly informative and David Smalley is widely referred to as “The Respectful Atheist” because he doesn’t take the angry atheist approach of attacking Christians and dropping f-bombs.