Do You Know You Are Or Do You Believe You Are An Atheist?

I don't know. I don't necessarily believe in any "god." But I also can't say with any certainty that some type of supreme being(s) doesn't exist. On one hand, I feel it's pretty common sense stuff at this point in human evolution that the idea of any one particular religion being the truth is outlandish. And if one is wrong, then they would all basically be wrong to me. I mean, who's to say which is truth and which is a pretender? Also, a "god" is supposed to be the divine light, the creator of everything, the ruler of the universe, responsible for all good and bad and in between, etc. However, you have to find the god of your choice. The god really never finds you. Think about people who had no prior knowledge of a religion. A "god" never found them. (Like those people on that island that started to worship American planes, because that was the greatest thing they've ever saw and they had no clue about planes or even life outside of their island.) Therefore, the idea of god or religion doesn't exist to them; and if it did, you would think it would find them all. And not only that, but also fill them in on the deets. "Hey, who are you!?" "Hi, I'm God. Not the fake gods, the _____ God. Worship me and believe my books. Live by my code or suffer for eternity. Oh, by the way, I'm a nice, fair and loving God. Sorry about that suffering stuff, but I gotta get you on board somehow!" After all, if the idea is actually to accept a god as your savior or suffer damnation, it's pretty petty and cruel of a god to not personally visit every single person on the planet and tell them this. Some people are certainly unable to know about a particular god, so that means god doesn't have a plan for some of us. Huh? That's mean. Well, I could go on and on and on about things I find fishy in religion in general. But I'll get to my "on the other hand" part. I find it hard to look around me and into the vast expanse of space and believe that we're all alone. I also find it hard to grasp that we are a complete accident of timed circumstances. So there is a part of me that feels something's behind it, if only in a plant-the-seed kinda way. But I just don't know. So I think I'm more agnostic than atheist, because I can't--or I'm not vain enough to--look anyone in the eye and say that a god doesn't exist with absolute certainty.

I know I am an atheist, and I believe it's unlikely that there's a God. You don't have to "know" there are not gods to be an atheist. You simply have to not believe in them, be it staunch disbelief or a more laid back disbelief.

Hello gewcew, I don't like pointing fingers, but I have found that it tends to be theists asserting that they know God exists. I am an atheist. I don't stop at the agnostic level of saying there is a possibility in God's existence. I need strong evidence to believe something, and atheists aren't the ones making the extraordinary claim. However, we should all be respectful of one another's beliefs, and we all believe those things for a reason. To each their own!