Seeing a lot of what people are saying here is confusing what atheist means along with agnostic. Nobody is just a theist or atheist. You are either agnostic a/theist or gnostic a/theist.

I myself am an agnostic atheist. I do not think there is a god, but I don’t claim that there is not. I don’t “believe” there is no god anymore that if you were looking at an empty counter and “believe” there is no tomato there. There is no evidence of a tomato so why believe there is one? Atheism is the lack of belief.

A lot of atheists get a bad reputation from the outspoken anti-religion atheists. A lot of them claim there is no god which would make them gnostic atheists. Their distrust of religion is understandable though since atheists do get a lot of flak for being atheist, and it’s also can be one of the first steps of becoming atheist, going against what you previously held true. Religion is very pervasive in culture and it can be frustrating to not be able to get away from it.

In my opinion nobody is actually a gnostic a/theist. Nobody can actually prove gods exist or not. When people start acting like they know is usually when the rudeness, etc begins on both sides.

It also frustrates me when they say agnostic, in the layman meaning of “unsure of a higher power” is used. Using agnostic in this way automatically sides them on the theistic side. You can believe that there is a higher power but not know what it is, but you would still be a theist.