There’s no better way to put it. Period.
Being agnostic and an atheist in India is tough. I dont have anything against religion or faith or belief, it’s religious fanaticism and extremism that I despise.
I don’t believe in ‘No God’. I just don’t believe that God exists. Big difference.
Amit Varma at the India Uncut blog nails it…
Nonbelief
Some people think that atheism means believing that there is no God.
The conviction that there is no God is irrational because one cannot prove a negative. (How do you prove that something does not exist?) However, it is entirely rational to not believe in something whose existence has not been demonstrated. I don’t believe in dragons or fairies because no one has yet proved to me that they exist. Ditto God.
The Economist published a letter from Chad English of Ottawa a few months ago that summed it up well:
“Atheism is a religion in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby. When you understand why there are no ‘aphilatelist’ conventions, you will understand why atheists don’t congregate.”
Agnosticism
The word ‘agnostic’ is a combination of the Greek α (without) and gnōsis (knowledge), and refers to a person who believes that the truth about something, in this case the existence of God, is unknowable. It has nothing to do with believing or not believing.
Indeed, it is possible to combine agnosticism with either theism or atheism. A believer may choose to believe in God while accepting that some things are fundamentally unknowable. An atheist may agree with that view. I see myself as both an atheist and an agnostic: an atheist because I do not believe in God, as His/Her/Its existence has not been proved; an agnostic because I believe that on this matter, we may never know the truth for sure.
What other people choose to believe in is none of my business, and I respect their right to their beliefs. But the right to religion does not imply the right to force it on others. I object when people try to coerce others into conforming with their beliefs, believing that their religion gives them the license to infringe on the rights of others.
Religion in the private domain and in community settings can be useful, and a force for good, but too often in recent times, it has been used to justify the worst excesses: genocides, riots, terrorism, and all kinds of coercion. We have seen deplorable instances of this from every major religion in the last 100 years (including communism, which relies as much on faith as any God-based belief system).
It is not religion per se that is a problem, but our attitudes towards it.
And here’s what George Carlin has to say about it 
Filed under: Unheard voices..
I love that not collecting stamps is a hobby. I don’t collect them either, but I seem to have a lot of them all the same!
Excellent analogy.
I never liked the labels atheist or agnostic because they gave too much emphasis to something that should instead be relegated to the same corner of our brains that maintains an interest in historic events. I would not introduce myself to strangers, “Hi, I’m a Titanic buff,” unless I was attending a Ship Disaster Convention.
Sam Harris got flack for saying we should call ourselves nothing at all. But I’m inclined to agree with him:
http://humaniststudies.org/enews/?id=317&article=0
The few atheist events I’ve attended bored me to tears. Why not discuss philosophy? Nope! People wanted to use up huge chunks of time complaining about Christmas decorations and mistreatment by nuns.
Atheism may well be spurred on by the refusal of religions to engage in self-criticism. I’ve just read http://deligentia.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/263/ on how foreign self-criticism is to religion, and, moreover, how religion misunderstands itself. You might be interested in it.