If you call yourself agnostic, but don't know what a gnostic is...

...you're probably using the word incorrectly.

I admit it. I called myself an agnostic for years, when I fell into the trap of a) not knowing what the word actually meant and b) not wanting to label myself with something confrontational. I eventually decided, "fuck it. I am an atheist, and if people find that unnerving or upsetting, that's their own damn fault."

This post by Camels with Hammers addresses several of the issues I have with the term "agnostic" (which I now regard as largely useless).

I still feel he's a little soft of deism, though:

...one can be a gnostic atheist who even is open to the possibility of various impersonal “god” concepts more properly called deistic than theistic.

This echoes an argument he made earlier, where he argues that while he can know that there are no personal gods, he can't know whether there are any impersonal ones. I disagree. Deism is pretty much on a level with theism when we're speaking of reality. Sure, in terms of evidence against, deism is on stronger footing than any definition I've heard for a personal god, but if there's no evidence for, why bother? We may as well argue about Russell's teapot. I'm as comfortable saying that I know there are no impersonal gods as I am saying that I know there are no personal ones.