If a person thinks he knows something, then he believes. Knowing something to be true doesn't necessitate it being fact - it depends on what a person's beliefs are.

Judging from these lines, you not debating religion doesn't seem like a big loss.

Well that was provocative on purpose, so let me explain: It is not your views, from what I've read your views on this topic seem very close to mine. It is because these lines give me the impression that you have a somewhat strange understanding of what debates (about religion, but it probably applies to other topics as well) that you take part in should be like:

You want to "win" the debate with the religious person, because you're absolutely convinced that they are wrong and your arguments are good. But no matter how great you explain to them, you're usually not going to convince these people, which of course just shows how stupid and irrational these idiots are.

In my language I would call this behaviour "oberlehrerhaft", and I think there is little point in debating with such a person, whatever the topic is. Because when you're going into a debate completely convinced that yours is the one and only truth, you consider everyone who has a different view wrong, and whatever arguments they say, you won't really listen. You are convinced that you are right, so whatever they say, you'll only try to find the logical fallacy that you know must be hidden in there.

I really think you're missing the point of a debate. You seem to consider it an easy competition that you should come out of as a "winner", while the positive effect on the inferior minded that you debated with should be his opportunity to enjoy the fruits of your enlightened mind. But as soon as you realize that it's not as easy as you thought to convince these people, it starts to annoy you.

Maybe I got a wrong impression here, but that is the impression I got from these lines.

The problem isn't with religious people, it's with fundamentalists. Religion is largely only a cultural approach to various philosophies and theologies.

Only, Fundamentalism isn't limited to Religion, it's pretty clear that the vast majority of Fundamentalist Internet Missionaries are of the atheist brand. Many of those atheists often demonstrate prejudice and ignorance against people of different culture.

Their chief missionary strategy is the straw-man argument, essentially they build up a straw man and say "that is what you religious people believe" and then proceed to engage in fisticuffs! against the straw man of their own construction, and then gleefully jump up and down with their atheist friends at their triumphant victory against the straw man they created. Although, they have completely failed to raise a challenge against the actual arguments.

All three terms - atheistic, theistic, agnostic are mutually exclusive. If the video claims it's possible to be both agnostic/theistic, or agnostic/atheistic to the same degree, then it's fudging the issue of belief and non-belief with oxymoronic statements.

To summarize the terms' real meanings...

Atheistic - certain non-belief in a divine creator, supreme being(s), god or gods.

Theistic - certain belief in any of the above (encompasses polytheistic as well as monotheistic faiths)

Agnostic - belief related to anything divine/supernatural is unprovable and unfactual, and therefore limited to subjective experience.

A good case in point. Richard Dawkins when asked in an interview how convinced he was that there isn't a god (any god for that matter), on a scale of 1 to 10, replied with '9'. Therefore it could be said he is 90% atheist, 10% agnostic. The three terms atheist, theist, agnostic can be considered on a sliding scale or pendulum, rather than an on-off switch. They are interchangeable, but not in the way the video described.    

1. Where are you pulling this from? I'm just talking about what it means in a religious debate. Its actually pretty standard stuff if you pick up a philosophy of religion textbook or any academic book dealing with the subject.

2. It really just seems to me that with these definitions, someone is trying to swell the ranks of atheists. I mean people who do not believe in a God are now atheists? That's a standard statement for an agnostic....not an atheists. The agnostic says, "I do not believe God exists, but I also don't believe God does not exists." It seems like your defining atheism way too broadly, and the definitions themselves are very misleading. For example,

"Agnostic Atheist - A person who does not believe in the existance of a deity, OR --more specifically-- believes in the inexistance of a deity, but accepts that they cannot know for certain."

3. The two bolded sections are two completely different claims that are being used to define the same term......which should not be done with any definition. The first claim is compatible with someone also saying, "I do not believe in the nonexistence of a deity." For someone making the second claim, they could not then say "I believe in the existence of a deity" without contradicting themselves.In fact, all these definition are doing is using agnosticism as a synonym for skepticism, which is unneeded given that we already have the word skepticism.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/-a quick read on the subject. I will admit that the definitions are kind of arbitrary, but they are there for a reason....primarily to make discussion easier. The definitions you provided really just serve to complicate things for no reason at all.

As human beings we are wired generally speaking to be followers of something. This could be religion or it may be a political system, and it could even be a person of great charisma. We are all gifted with our own private thought domain which is our conciousness and we make the conscious choice to follow or not follow something. I have no issues with anyone believing anything they want to believe in as long as they do not attempt to force their convictions onto me. And yes this includes both religious extremists and hardcore atheists.

The issue I see is that there are extremists on both sides who are convinced that they are in the right and are trying to prove it which is the ultimate example of engaging in futility . I have had many debates with friends but while we have a lively and interesting debate in the end we generally reach a stalemate and switch topics. It is an interesting debate to have for sure but it's when people start getting emotional or express disrespect that the debate becomes pointless. And this has been fairly well demonstrated in this thread.

1. Yeah, I'm just not buying these definitions. They seem lazy and poorly constructed. The problem is that if someone knows something, they have a belief, however, if they do not know something, this does not mean they don't have a belief. Someone can actually belief something without knowing it to be true...something the video actually got right.  : )

2. I just think it would be easier to use agnosticism for belief and skepticism for knowledge.

3. The problem with definitions is that they are always simplifications of reality. There are so many different "dimensions" to words, but you have to simplify them so you can actually communicate.....kind of the problem with creating your own definitions.....nobody knows what you're talking about.  : )

how is it a waste of time?  you're just unable to support your theory, so like all religious people you're backing down to the "I have my rights" argument.  Which is true, you do, but I did read your posts and nothing was in any way conclusive or even all that compelling.  

so, when are you bringing the real points to the table? 

What other form of PROOF other than quoting historical texts (like the Bible) can you provide to provide that something is true or not? For example, prove to me that Alexander the Great ever existed.