Agnosticism is the Correct Religious Stance

It seems to me that we are no longer debating the existence of a theistic God, so from this point forward let's focus on the deistic God. Now our definitions as to what a deistic God is will be crucial for the rest of this debate. The traditional definition of the theistic God is a being who is: 1. All Powerful 2. All Knowing 3. All Good Let our definition of a deistic God be a being who is: 1. All Powerful 2. All Knowing I should also mention that I was first trying to disprove a stronger version of atheism than the one proposed by my opponent. I was disproving the "absolute atheist," whereas it seems that your version of atheism is closer to skepticism, especially since your placing so much emphasis on the word "disbelief." Next, I think it is also important to address the definition of the word "prove." A proof in the context of which I think we're talking about is a conclusion derived from a set of premises that lead to the conclusion. For example, if x implies y, if we're given x we get y. Or the simpler version follows like this: 1. x -> y (Premise) 2. x (Premise) - y (Conclusion) The reason I am agnostic is because, as of yet, we have not been able to logically prove or disprove the existence of a God. However I do not see why one day in the near or distant future we would not be able to prove or disprove God from a logical standpoint, because there is no proof dictating that we cannot. However we cannot assume that the answer to the existence of God will only lie in science. If we rely solely on science to prove or disprove God, then we encounter the problem of external world skepticism. If the world around us does not exist and only our minds and our thoughts exist, then science cannot tell us anything. I believe it is more likely that the world around us is real, but we cannot prove this either. Therefore in order to place the answer to whether or not God exists upon science isn't foolproof because we cannot be certain science is telling us anything. The worst case scenario dictates that science is only reinforcing "our great deception." However let's assume that the world around us is real, and let's address theology from the scientific standpoint in the way your suggesting. If we are trying to prove or disprove the existence of God from the progression of science, the atheist is actually placed at a disadvantage. No matter what kinds of fantastic leaps are made in the scientific field, the atheist cannot be proved correct, since the deist can always respond "God made it that way." For example, we originally thought that things fell to the earth because God willed that they do. Newton then founded the concept of gravity and developed Newtonian Physics, most of which did not require God actively adjusting the way things acted in the universe. However a deist could simply tell Newton "God made it that way," thus the deist cannot be proved wrong using science. I should quickly point out that most of the original concepts of Newtonian physics have actually been disproven by special relativity, electromagnetism, and QM. But the deist can still say "God made it that way." Science has progressed in such a way that the presence of a God is needed less and less to explain most phenomenon. This, from what I gather, is what justifies the atheist's "disbelief.' However I would challenge this disbelief. Just because we gather more and more ways to explain the universe without God does not justify disbelieving in God, it only justifies more and more that we do not have an answer yet. Let's reconsider an equation as an example. x+y=z Let's say that x are a set of physical laws that we understand, y is represents the laws we do not, and z represents reality. y used to be simply explained by just saying y must be God, but we actually discover more about y than we knew before, so we replace y with x1+y1. So our equation becomes x+x1+y1=z Where x represents the laws we already knew, x1 represents the laws we just began to understand, and y1 represents the laws we do not understand yet. The fact that we understand more and more of this equation without referencing God does not rule out the possibility that later on some variables may only be explainable by the existence of a God, nor does it change who wrote the equation in the first place. Because the possibility of the existence of a God is unchanged by the further progress of science, the disbelief garnered by atheists is unjustified. All we can say for certain is that we do not fully understand the equation yet, but one day we may know. Therefore agnosticism is correct.