Quote:
Originally posted by Tala
atheist
\A"the*ist\, n. [Gr. ? without god; 'a priv. + ? god: cf. F. ath['e]iste.] 1. One who disbelieves or denies the existence of a God, or supreme intelligent Being.
agnostic
\Ag*nos"tic\, n. One who professes ignorance, or denies that we have any knowledge, save of phenomena; one who supports agnosticism, neither affirming nor denying the existence of a personal Deity, a future life, etc.
There is a difference. I'm agnostic simply because I can't prove that there is or is not a God. I do not deny that there might be, though, I just can't prove it.
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Although I do agree with the dictionary in this case, using a dictionary in such a debate is a bit odd. Dictionaries are written by people not specialized in such a particular subject and summarize in very few lines things about which whole libraries have been written. They also tend to make obvious mistakes rather often when describing academic or technical matters.