Agnostics are just atheists without balls.

The line is a deliberately crude, hyperbolic joke that collapses the distinction between agnosticism and atheism by framing agnosticism as atheism lacking the courage to state its conclusion plainly. It plays on a stereotype that agnostics “hedge” or avoid commitment, and it uses macho language (“without balls”) to satirize that perceived timidity. In Colbert’s comedic mode—especially in his earlier persona-driven work—such phrasing often functions less as a serious philosophical claim than as provocation: it forces the audience to notice how identity labels in religion and nonreligion can be socially policed, and how certainty is sometimes rewarded over nuance.