@Cyran Sorry, that bit about adding to my Hitchens point was more of a tangent than anything, I probably should have just edited my earlier post.
Have you read Bertrand Russell? You might like his work quite a lot.
But onto my reply: I forget who it was (Sam Harris?) saying that agnosticism wasn't an important distinction because theism and atheism were about belief, and agnosticism was about knowledge. But if it was Harris, he would go on to conclude atheism itself wasn't an important distinction simply because you don't have labels for absence of something in other cases, like you don't label someone who doesn't play golf as a non-golfer, the term "golfer" is the only important distinction.
My position would be something like Harris's, but for a different reason. I do think the labels are important, but agnostic stance I take is something like (Agnostic Theist)+(Agnostic Atheist) and then the Atheist/Theist terms just cancel each other out. But, it's deeper than that, because Agnostic Deism, Agnostic Simulation Hypothesist, and other things are labels I could have. Depending on who you talk to, they can be considered theistic, atheistic, or something else. But, the main theme of my position is the lack of knowledge, and that is the essence of my "belief" system/philosophical position.
The common theme between atheism, agnosticism, agnostic atheism, and even deism, is irreligion. And in practicality, I think that I would agree with you on that.
The reason I asked about background is simple curiosity. We are both irreligious, but concluded on two separate paradigms on how we understand this (if it's deeper than just semantical differences). So, I came from the atheist side by default before I approached a position; and, you came from a religious background, and discovered atheism on your own, through reading and rational thought. I don't know if it has much of an influence, but maybe. I didn't begin to really think about it until my late teens when I realized "hey, there are people who actually believe in religion!" and didn't seriously consider the question and its answers until my twenties... probably quite a bit later than most.
On a side note. I read a lot of the same books that you did growing up - Salvatore and Tolkien, that is. And I sort of thought of religion the exact same way you did, probably for similar reasons. I don't quite recall how I came around to a hard agnostic take, but it was probably when I got into the sciences and classics; a mix of Plato, Einstein, and Hawking.
And just to add onto my earlier experiences. I did have an interest in the old cultures when I was a child. Those Roman and Greek ruins, the ancient cathedrals, and I imagined that there was some relationship of culture, that all these figures were part of the same story rather than competing stories... but at the same time, had it in my head "this was before people knew better." - but again, as I noted before, I didn't really know many religious people growing up, and when I met them, I saw religion as something like "these people just have different clothing and different languages/accents" as me, I didn't really consider that they had a fundamental different understanding of reality until probably my late teens.
Anyone else in this thread brought up irreligious or atheist?
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
