People often tell Stephen Frythat he shouldn’t call himself an atheist, he should call himself an agnostic because he can‘t know there isn’t a God, and therefore he must be agnostic. Bertrand Russell answered this one brilliantly many years ago.
Bertrand Russell said
“Many things are beyond the realm of absolute knowledge in any sense, but let me put it to you that there is a teapot orbiting Venus in such a manner that we will never be able to see it. It is obscured from our vision. Now, if someone were to tell me that there were such a teapot, I could not demonstrate to them that they were wrong, but I would be perfectly within the limits of orthodox practice and sense and, I would say, philosophical rectitude, if I were to base my life, perfectly happy, in the belief and certain ‘knowledge, as certain as .knowledge as can be, that, there is no teapot revolving Venus. And that is why I call myself an atheist.“
Sorry, I couldn’t resist quoting Stephen Fry quoting Bertrand Russell in an interview with the Radio Times, 24-30/08/13, Sort of a “Re-Tweet”!