Atheism
The Greek word "a" means without and "theos" means God. In simpler words, those are humans that don't believe in God or Gods. The Greek term was used in various ways since the 5th century. It was approximately 1500 years ago. The word "atheism" itself only started around 400 years ago. This is the era where ideas about free thought and skepticism are being spread. These are beliefs about things based on science and evidence and not just because of tradition or authority. Between those eras, most of the atheists suffered, and some of them are closeted atheists or those who hide their identity of being an atheist or anything about atheism. Some of them publicized themselves and one of those was Lucilio Vanini, an Italian philosopher. When he was proven guilty of being an atheist and committed blasphemy like saying bad things against religion, he was taken and was sentenced to death. His tongue was cut into half and they choked him to death and was burnt in the end.
Those are just examples of how atheists suffer at those times especially in some places in Europe. During the french revolution, atheists' ideas started to rise and were became known because of the spreading influence of having a wider understanding with the help of philosophy, and scientific ideas at that time. Now, although some atheist is safe and are having a good life, in some parts of the world, there are still those who view atheism as something negative, and until now there are some countries where death is being sentenced to the atheist.
Agnosticism
Agnostic or agnosticism has something to do with knowledge. Atheism is a belief while agnosticism is knowledge. The term agnosticism was used by an English biologist Thomas Huxley in 1869. In Greek "a" means without and the word "gnostic" means knowledge. Agnostics are those people who say I don't know or I know nothing about that because they don't have enough evidence or information. Agnosticism is like an undecided position or neutral. Some say it is like playing safe being an agnostic, but in reality, this is the most honest position because God that people are mentioning is supernatural. The problem is that we don't have any means or way to test supernatural things or beings.
So how can we prove those things if we don't have enough power, ability, and knowledge to know those things? I don't know is the correct answer.
I would like to make it clear that the term agnostic and atheist are not mutually exclusive, they can be combined or used continuously. Agnostic theists are those who believe in God but don't have complete or 100% certainty about the God or Gods they believe in. While Gnostic theists are those who believe in God and have complete or 100% certainty about God or Gods that they believe in. The concept is just the same when we apply it to atheists.
I don't know why there are time and space, I don't why we are here and the meaning and purpose of life, how the universe started, and what would happen if we die. I am without knowledge, I am agnostic about those things.
