How many atheists are actually agnostics or deists concerning the nature of the universe...?

The thing about your question is that 'atheism' only refers to what is defined in the first sentence of your question... it only refers to the gods established by religions over the ages. I can't be 'atheist' to the nature of the universe... there's no gods implied. I can't be 'atheist' to paranormal activity... there's no gods invovled there either.

I see your dilemma, but really there isn't one. Modern science (over 70%) of "hard" scientists now believe in the "divine intelligence" Theory of Creation, that "something" had to provide the impulse for the springing into being of the Universe. Science is brutal in this respect. there is no way something can "spontaneously" pop into existence without some act of "creation."

Former atheist and Nobel prize winner, Fred Hoyle, world renown astronomer and mathematician, finally concluded that the chance that the atheist-materialist theory of creation could be correct at 100,000,000,000 to one AGAINST! He went on to say:

"The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way (random accident, as believed by the atheists) is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a workable Boeing 747 from the materials therein."

And in another commentary, Hoyle says: "Indeed, such a theory (that life was assembled by an intelligence) is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific."

Just because you reject the Judeo-Islamic-Christian concept of a God, or the Hindu, Sikh or Zoroaster one does not make you an atheist at all. There are those who consider that there has to have been an "intent" at the beginning and therefore some "purpose" to it all and this group now includes the majority of physysists, astronomers, biologists, mamaticians and other "hard" scientists.

And on the other side, stand the militant atheist-materialists, who deny modern science, especially the most recent discoveries in quantum mechanics and continue the crude 19th century arguement that all is pure random purposeless accident.

You shouldn't get too upset about the weaknesses of humans in their quest for religious answers. You need to look for what is true for YOU! I wish you well on your search........

I prefer the term skeptic myself. I view everything with some skepticism. Give me evidence, replicatable proof, solid facts and I'll say that it appears that the most likely answer is... whatever it is. With the case of the supernatural, the evidence is lacking, there is none. Evidence exists to show that those old books of stories and myths that many people rely on as their "proof", developed over time, were copies of older works that were re-written, and were an ancient cultures best attempt to explain certain events when they did not have the benefit of the scientific process or evidence. Therefore I am not an agnostic, a don't know. I know what is real and what is not. The Universe is real, the supernatural is not. Of course I will always maintain an open mind, it is just not so open my brains fall out.

Not all faiths anthropomorphize God, but those that do are not totally without foundation for doing so; after all, Jesus, the son of God, incarnated on our world as a man of the realm.

However, you make fine insights concerning the childish way God is depicted by the dogma and doctrines of many religions. You seem to intelligently realize that a truer concept of God must embrace a much higher understanding of reality than we currently have; but you seem to ignore the empirical evidence right in front of you.

I suspect much of your difficulty stems from a paltry understanding of "faith." Even so, whatever philosophy of life you have personally settled on at this point in life, most likely utilizes faith to even make sense of reality as you think you know it. For instance, whether you recognize it or not, you have assumed-- on faith-- the validity of at least two important aspects of your reality: the material body; the human mind.

Before you say there is empirical evidence to prove they're real, you'll have to explain how you know what consciousness is and why it's real; if you can prove it, you'd be the first. It's a faith assumption.

Faith then, is a way of knowing. It is not the blind, unquestioning acceptance of some religious dogma or belief system, but an awareness that grows along with knowledge and spiritual insight. But the growth of faith can hardly occur in a mind that insists on material evidence for a spiritual reality. The "scientific method" is merely an intellectual yardstick we use to measure material and physical achievements. But being material and wholly intellectual, it is utterly useless in the evaluation of spiritual realities and religious experiences.

True... I am an "Atheist" primarily in that I don't accept YHVH (Yahveh/Jehovah) as God. There might be some other kind of God, but I don't believe in a God that intervenes in human history, for the simple reason that if God DID, it would be obvious and not look like something that could be explained by natural means... If there was a God that cared about us in a human way, that deity would have prevented the Holocaust, 9/11, and a hundred other horrors I could name...

I don't believe anything is created. What I believe is that ultimately nature is based on mathematics. I have two reasons, why I hold that belief. One is it seems to me to be the only logical way to explain observed complexity. The other is the amazing usefulness of mathematics in physics.

It doesn't make sense to me to try to explain complexity by hypothesizing a greater complexity. This creates a bigger problem, not a solution. The answer must be that reality when taken as a whole is simple.

If this "god" is one big mystery then why call it god? Why should I believe a "god" exists at all if you can't tell me even the littlest bit about what it is? That's like saying "you're really just agnostic towards a smizmar because it is so mysterious and we cannot put human conceived attributes to it". No... I'll just go on without belief in this vague, nonsensical term. I'm not going to sit on the fence about it because what is there to sit on the fence about?

I am agnostic in general to the concept of god - while strongly suspecting there is no god. Although I am 99.9% sure the qualities of the god of the bible (omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent) cannot co-exist and so I would say I am atheist in regard to that particular conception of god.

I'm an atheist who disagrees with religion. I don't believe in a god, but I don't have a problem with the people who do, just moreso their religion.

I don't know the number, but I am a complete and total atheist. ESPECIALLY when it comes to the creation of the universe.