Agnosticism or Atheism?

A question that sometimes bothers me is whether I am an Agnostic or an Atheist. I usually describe myself as an atheistic agnostic... which means an agnostic leaning towards atheism. Agnosticism is usually defined as being unsure of the existence of God, but I have always found myself doubting that existence. A better stance would be Atheism, but then, won't I be in the same believing-things-they-don't-know group as theists?

I confess I hadn't given much thought to the issue, and not let my oscillating stance bother me that much, so I am thankful that I found a Richard Dawkins piece about this ambiguity in Forbes Magazine. In it, Dawkins doubts that scientists (like Einstein) who frequently refer to God are doing so with the same God in mind that an ordinary person believes in. But their references get frequently misinterpreted by religious propagandists, who use the mileage of science to get more followers.

Other quotations from Einstein, like "my God is the same as that of Spinoza" are much less widely known. Einstein's God was nature itself, not the God people worship every day. Scientists usually mean "nature" or "laws of nature" (or even "initial conditions") when they say "God". My own stance is similar, except that I call "Nature" as "Nature", and not "God", having developed an aversion to the word (it leads to misunderstandings, especially when people who know I'm an atheist tell me not to take God's name in vain).

The main question Dawkins poses (which comes a little later in the article) is this: can religion and science 'converge'? Is it possible, on one hand, to believe in miracles, and, on the other, to 'believe' in science as the truth? It might be possible for some people but I think that's due to inconsistency on their part. Religion and science are mutually incompatible, atleast if you have a conventional definition of both ;). Praying isn't going to save you from that exam, and if you've studied the physics part of it properly, you should know that. ;)

So let me clarify my stand on God (well, his existence): Atheism. Religion is not equally believable as science. Just like Evolution is much more plausible than "creationism". Religion might step back when the rollcall for scientific theories takes place, but it intrudes into that very territory on most of it's ideas. Like Dawkins, I believe many things are unknown by science, but that doesn't mean they're unknowable.