ag•nos•tic -noun

Definition from Dictionary.com:

1.	a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

2.	a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study

Word History: An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not they exist. The term agnostic was fittingly coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge. He made up the word from the prefix a-, meaning “without, not,” as in amoral, and the noun Gnostic. Gnostic is related to the Greek word gn?sis, “knowledge,” which was used by early Christian writers to mean “higher, esoteric knowledge of spiritual things”; hence, Gnostic referred to those with such knowledge. In coining the term agnostic, Huxley was considering as “Gnostics” a group of his fellow intellectuals—”ists,” as he called them—who had eagerly embraced various doctrines or theories that explained the world to their satisfaction. Because he was a “man without a rag of a label to cover himself with,” Huxley coined the term agnostic for himself, its first published use being in 1870.

a•the•ist -noun

Definition from Dictionary.com:

a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

The difference between the concepts of these two words is subtle but very important. Whereas the atheist declares that God or gods do not exist, and the point of view is specifically focused on religion, the agnostic declares that we simply cannot know one way or another.

Furthermore, the agnostic’s declaration implies uncertainty in the findings of science as well as in religious mythology due to the belief that humans are limited by experience and cannot know what is beyond the realm of human experience. Therefore, both religious mythology and scientific speculation regarding the creation of the universe and man are both speculative. Note that the agnostic does not denounce or deny the possibility of truth in these matters — but holds that we, as humans, cannot know if these are truths.

Beliefs are a strange and powerful thing. Beliefs are not necessarily based on absolute truths. Beliefs are the conviction and placement of confidence or faith in something without positive knowledge or proof.

At this point, we step off into the deep religious belief systems based on faith. The tricky part about faith is that it is based on the premise of believing without proof. Faith tends to close the infinity loop in the catch-22. How can one effectively or conclusively argue against beliefs when beliefs are not based on proof or fact but rather on faith?

Centuries of debate and argument have been passed with believers in religion and science trying to convince one another that one or the other’s set of beliefs are correct and true. The agnostic steps up and says that religion is false and declares disbelief. The agnostic steps up and says that we have an irresolvable inability to know anything beyond the scope of human experience and that anything is possible — so why should we lock ourselves into believing, unquestionably, one theory or another?

And it gets even stickier:

Atheist, agnostic, infidel, skeptic refer to persons not inclined toward religious belief or a particular form of religious belief. An atheist is one who denies the existence of a deity or of divine beings. An agnostic is one who believes it impossible to know anything about God or about the creation of the universe and refrains from commitment to any religious doctrine. Infidel means an unbeliever, especially a nonbeliever in Islam or Christianity. A skeptic doubts and is critical of all accepted doctrines and creeds.

For those who are religious, the situation is extremely polarized. Each of these labels carries varying degrees of negativity from a religious perspective. These degrees of negativity fuel an often dangerous volatility as witnessed by religious persecutions and wars over the centuries. The scientific perspective is usually less emotionally volatile since scientific beliefs place a different emphasis on proof over faith.

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