Ivor, let's look at the dictionary definitions, shall we? After all, "mainstream" is not a reasonable classification, as my impression of mainstream atheism is clearly radically different than yours.
These are taken from the Oxford English Dictionary.
agnostic: n. One who holds that the existence of anything beyond and behind material phenomena is unknown and (so far as can be judged) unknowable, and especially that a First Cause and an unseen world are subjects of which we know nothing.
atheist: n. One who denies or disbelieves the existence of a God.
The very definitions of the words allow for the existence of a kind of 'agnostic atheism', as it were. Not all atheists are of the American Atheists variety, which tends to be the "There is no God and we know better than you do" type with which you appear to have a problem. Most atheists, in my experience, do not fall into this latter category, which I call "hardliner atheism". Rather, atheists tend to simply want proof that there is a God, and in the absence of that proof do not believe. Seems pretty logical to me.
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