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User:12.231.81.82 added the following to the article. Am posting it here for record.
[Minority report: As an agnostic I would like to point out that whoever wrote what follows below is operating under a popular misconception of what agnosticism is. The issue is religious belief that an ad hoc hypothetically invisible god might exist (theist) and the absence of that belief (atheist), or the outright denial and repudiation of such religious belief that an ad hoc hypothetically invisible god might exist, on principle (agnostic).
Here is the whole situation in a nutshell:
Theism is characterized by a belief that a magic invisible god might exist.
"Atheism is characterized by an absence of belief in the existence of gods." -- http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/intro.html
Agnostics, also atheist, go one step further to deny and repudiate religious belief in the existence of gods:
"That which Agnostics deny and repudiate, as immoral, is the contrary doctrine, that there are propositions which men ought to believe, without logically satisfactory evidence." -- Thomas Huxley, who coined the term 'agnostic', in his excoriation of the Christian belief, "Agnosticism and Christianity" http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE5/Agn-X.html ]
- Hemanshu 20:01, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Whatever Huxley and even infidels.org said, in modern usage the term "atheist" means denial and repudiation of the existence of a god associated with this universe. Agnosticism is something like non-belief, lack of belief, etc., wrt such a god. Every atheist (quite a few) and atheist organization I know (with the possible exception of infidels.org) defines atheism that way. Agnostics may define themselves any way they please, but that's another topic. Fairandbalanced 01:25, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)
- Actually, it seems to be that most atheists and atheist organizations seem to not claim absolutely that a god does not exist, but instead takes their position on lack of evidence that supports the multiple claims of deities. Since they view such claims as usually as silly as the existence of Santa Claus, Bigfoot, etc, they find the likelihood of a deity existing to be less likely than one existing, thus they are not neutral, but recognize a god could exist outside of their knowledge. - Lord Kenneth 01:57, Jan 11, 2004 (UTC)