I can't stand the absolutism inherent in Religion, it's absurd that people take such life and death stands on an idea that they cannot prove to be true or untrue. I tell people I'm an atheist, because it usually stops them from trying to save my soul, or at least scares off the really devout. But truth is, I'm agnostic, because I don't know for certain if there is a deity. I do know he/she/it necer answered any of my childhood prayers, and since I have no evidence either in my own life or through observation, experiment or logical proof, I do not choose to believe. I respect that others do make that choice, though I suspect it has far more to do with how they are raised than anything else, I just wish they'd respect my deciion to not believe. I'm not prepared to make a leap of faith like that. I do however marvel at the wonder of the universe, and I would love to know how it came to be (Big Bang, Big Foam, what was before that, what's beyond it?) and know that no one here has answers for those questions, and the truth may be that there is some higher power or supreme intelligence, hell, the universe may BE god, but no one knows for sure.