[vhawk01]

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I actually agree with this (although I think points 2 and 3 are the same).

The reason I consider myself an atheist and not an agnostic is because I think the odds are so low for a god that I am perfectly comfortable living my life and assuming there isn't one. Just as I feel comfortable getting in a car or plane and assuming it's not going to crash (and I am actually MUCH more comfortable that there are no such thing as gods).

But people who say they are "certain" are wrong. Unless you know how the universe came to be, you must allow some chance for any possibility. This includes a god or some higher dimensional being sneezing. You just can't know with 100% certainty.

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Right. I honestly can't imagine that anyone who spends any time thinking about this can say they are entirely certain that there are no gods, of any type or of any characteristics, no matter how weak. I think its possible to be an atheist, as the OP means it, with regards to, say, the Christian God, or some other types of God. Perhaps we would need a more rigorous and specific definition of a god, but I don't know that 'god' implies logical contradictions.

But as I said before, people use the term atheist to more clearly convey where they stand. If I tell a bunch of Christians that I am an agnostic, they will say "Oh, well, you should come hear my preacher, maybe you just haven't found the right church for you." They dont really think that I find the chances of there being a God to be ridiculously low and the chance of it being their specific god nearly impossible. But if I tell them I am an atheist, they get the picture much more clearly.