Agnosticism and Atheism are mutually exclusive

"Where, I ask my opponent, does it say anything about believing in a deity? The only belief involved in agnosticism is pertaining to the truth values of certain claims. " Right, but it also involves the existence of God as well. Remember I posted the definition of Agnosticism from the Oxford dictionary when pertaining to the existence of God an agnostic is quote: “a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God. [1] The belief is in the truth of the claim; not the claim itself. So, with this in mind, when my opponent says: "If you’re an agnostic then you don’t believe God exists, nor do you disbelieve God exists. " he is actually being very deceptive. Most often, those who describe themselves as agnostics will affirm that they do not believe nor disbelieve in a god, but that is not because they are agnostics! If it was, then it would relate to the definition. ” No, it’s because they’re agnostics that’s why they don’t have a belief or non-belief in God. They are “neutral” in their judgment. I am not sure what my opponent is meaning here… this is somewhat of a non-sequitur. If they’re not agnostics then what are they since they’re keeping with the standard definition? So understood the term that my opponent is using here would encompass agnostics and traditional atheists, along with those who think the question meaningless (verificationists). As Antony Flew confesses, the word ‘atheist’ has in the present context to be construed in an unusual way. Nowadays it is normally taken to mean someone who explicitly denies the existence . . . of God . . . But here it has to be understood not positively but negatively, with the originally Greek prefix ‘a-’ being read in this same way in ‘atheist’ as it customarily is in . . . words as ‘amoral’ . . . . In this interpretation an atheist becomes not someone who positively asserts the non-existence of God, but someone who is simply not a theist. (A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, ed. Philip Quinn and Charles Taliaferro [Oxford: Blackwell, 1997], s. v. “The Presumption of Atheism,” by Antony Flew) Such a re-definition of the word “atheist” trivializes the claim of the presumption of atheism, for on this definition, atheism ceases to be a view. It is merely a psychological state which is shared by people who hold various views or no view at all. [3] 1 - Why does the definition of "agnostic" according to the Oxford Dictionary itself, state the following: "[. .. ]a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God. "[2]? The answer to this lies within the use of the words "faith" and "disbelieve". These are attempting to say: "not gnosticism", in the same sense that you don't want a definition of "red" to say "not blue". Faith is referring to a gnostic theist and disbelief is referring to a gnostic atheist. ” 1) No, the word “Faith” can mean trust or belief in God. They are saying that the agnostic does not believe in God or disbelieve in God. [2] “2 - OK, so what does make the agnostic say that s/he doesn't believe/disbelieve? What makes the agnostic “neutral” is because of a lack of evidence. However, lack of evidence is not a sufficient warrant or reason to be an atheist. “1) I don't know. 2) My conclusion on the existence of a god is that I do not know whether one exist, but I do not accept any "evidence" for one that I have seen, thus far. 2b) I do not know and it appears to be unknowable. It is interesting that you used "or" as if that is contradictory. Belief =/= knowledge. ” 1) So then what my opponent is affirming here is Agnosticism. He doesn’t know if God does or does not exist. 2) This hardly makes any sense at all. My opponent doesn’t know, but doesn’t want to accept evidence for God? 2b) Not necessarily true, a belief = knowledge if the case that the belief is, in fact, true, and the believer must have justification for the belief. A belief is ``justified" if and only if the input to the function is accurately represented in the output. [1] “Not only can I answer these questions, but I just did! :D "My conclusion" cannot be both, true. To say that "God does not exist" is to assume gnosticism, but to say "you don't [and cannot] know" assumes agnosticism. Still, that's a strawman, because I would say: "I believe that a god doesn't exist", which doesn't assume gnosticism and therefore, it is valid to claim both, with the "I believe that" added. Voila! ” So now it sounds as if though my opponent is not really an “Agnostic” per se, but an atheist, for he does not believe in the existence of God. Now my opponent must give some reasons for thinking there is no God. He doesn’t have to be absolute certain that he’s right. All he has to do is show that the existence of God is logically incoherent or impossible. Knowledge and Belief: A statement of belief contains one or more characteristics' values matching in full or in part the values for representandums. The output of a process or set of processes provides a representation of the input to the processes. We can therefore describe a percept as the set of values in this output; it is essentially the information in the output of a process about the input. A perceiving function, f(),provides a percept, f(x), about input x. Belief is thus transmitted through the hierarchy. For a belief to be knowledge, it must be the case that the belief is, in fact, true, and the believer must have justification for the belief. A belief that is true but for which we have no evidence cannot be described as knowledge. So the question still remains: Is my opponent’s belief true or false? If it’s true, then he needs to provide some justification for thinking it’s true. If it’s false, then he takes it by “blind” faith. Conclusion: If my opponent does not believe the proposition “God does not exist”, then he is not an atheist. He’s either a Theist or Agnostic. But there’s no in between because as I said before, his conclusion is inconsistent with his premise, I therefore contend that the proposition “Agnostic Atheist” is logically incoherent and invalid because it does not have a steady conclusion. My opponent has also made some classification errors, as well as wrong distinctions. He hasn’t really verified his position of “Agnostic Atheist” to be true.