Neither viewpoint includes the possibility that they do exist.

Pro-agnostic people arguing that most atheists are really agnostic, for example. I continue to see a very strong difference between being certain that it is not possible to prove or disprove the existence of supernatural entities, and being certain that such entities do not exist. Neither viewpoint includes the possibility that they do exist. It is not accurate to claim that either agnostics should call themselves atheists, or the other way around, but any given individual who thinks they are one of those things, but really thinks it's possible that god might exist, is actually and most assuredly NEITHER of those things.

I have seen (not in this thread yet) lots of believers in gods, joyously proclaiming that they are vindicated every time a self-proclaimed atheist or agnostic allows that if God showed up and proved him/her/it self, that they would accept that new information and change their label. That therefore, none of the rational people who say they are non-believers actually are such, they are really just as-yet-unconvinced believers.

Concerted, intentional irrationality, I say.

The atheist position is basically analogous to science,

If you are without belief that a god exists, you are an atheist.

Atheism is not "without belief". It is the belief that no gods exist.

IgorFrankensteen:

Your entire argument is predicated upon the supposition of the nessesity for belief.

Since there are so many different definitions of each word being supported by various people here already, I'm rapidly losing hope that any agreement even in word definitions will come from this.

Words are slippery things, at the best of times. Definitions evolve and change, often because a new group of people hear a word, misunderstand what the originator of it meant, but they rush off excitedly using it to mean what they THINK it means anyway. After a fairly short time, it no longer matters what the originator of the word meant, the "official" definition is whatever a majority of people think it means. That's what goes into our dictionaries.

It's of historical interest what Huxley meant by Agnostic, but it functionally doesn't matter, if most people now think it means something else.

(these destinations are interchangeable;

Incorect, at least to my knowledge. Atheism does not require science at all. One either believes that no gods exist, based on a severely incomplete lack of knowledge, even by the biblical standard, or one believes gods exist. To my knowledge this constitutes the realm of theism - atheist included. Science most certainly, again to my knowledge, does not concern itself with anyone's beliefs. in fact I would say that one of the major founding goals of science was an attempt to escape the belief system altogether.

What I meant was that atheists operate on the same basis as science. That is, they consider the god hypothesis false based on the lack of evidence

And to divorce science from belief systems is, I think, inaccurate. Many scientists hold a variety of beliefs (those that believe there was life on mars and those that don't, those who believe in Snowball Earth and those who don't, etc). Of course scientists don't dictate what laymen should believe, but within the scientific field itself there are plenty of clashes over different beliefs.

Athieisum is the denial of the existence of a god/gods, or the opsoition to the doterin, cannon and tenets of thiesim ...

When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last, I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain "gnosis,"—had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble...

This was my situation when I had the good fortune to find a place among the members of that remarkable confraternity of antagonists, long since deceased, but of green and pious memory, the Metaphysical Society. Every variety of philosophical and theological opinion was represented there, and expressed itself with entire openness; most of my colleagues were -ists of one sort or another; and, however kind and friendly they might be, I, the man without a rag of a label to cover himself with, could not fail to have some of the uneasy feelings which must have beset the historical fox when, after leaving the trap in which his tail remained, he presented himself to his normally elongated companions. So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of "agnostic." It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the "gnostic" of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our Society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the other foxes. To my great satisfaction, the term took; and when the Spectator had stood godfather to it, any suspicion in the minds of respectable people, that a knowledge of its parentage might have awakened, was, of course, completely lulled.

That is the history of the origin of the terms "agnostic" and "agnosticism"...

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays_upon_some_Controverted_Questions/IX

The people who call themselves "Agnostics" have been charged with doing so because they have not the courage to declare themselves "Infidels." It has been insinuated that they have adopted a new name in order to escape the unpleasantness which attaches to their proper denomination. To this wholly erroneous imputation, I have replied by showing that the term "Agnostic" did, as a matter of fact, arise in a manner which negatives it; and my statement has not been, and cannot be, refuted. Moreover, speaking for myself, and without impugning the right of any other person to use the term in another sense, I further say that Agnosticism is not properly described as a "negative" creed, nor indeed as a creed of any kind, except in so far as it expresses absolute faith in the validity of a principle, which is as much ethical as intellectual. This principle may be stated in various ways, but they all amount to this: that it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what Agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is essential to Agnosticism. 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; and that reprobation ought to attach to the profession of disbelief in such inadequately supported propositions. The justification of the Agnostic principle lies in the success which follows upon its application, whether in the field of natural, or in that of civil, history; and in the fact that, so far as these topics are concerned, no sane man thinks of denying its validity.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays_upon_some_Controverted_Questions/XII

No it isn't. 'Atheism' is just the negative of 'theism'. Theism is 'belief in a god, or gods', a-theism is 'no belief in god, or gods'.
No actions (denial or opposition) are required - it's simply an absence of belief.

To suppose otherwise is exclude everyone who simply lacks belief in deities. The word itself (atheism) says nothing about why the person might lack belief or what they do as a result of it.

Theism is belief in a god, or gods. Atheism is the absence of such beliefs.
There is no common ground.
Either you believe in a supernatural god thing or you don't.

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; and that reprobation ought to attach to the profession of disbelief in such inadequately supported propositions.

Words are slippery things, at the best of times. Definitions evolve and change, often because a new group of people hear a word, misunderstand what the originator of it meant, but they rush off excitedly using it to mean what they THINK it means anyway. After a fairly short time, it no longer matters what the originator of the word meant, the "official" definition is whatever a majority of people think it means. That's what goes into our dictionaries.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Science is a body of knowledge and a method pertaining to the aquisition of knowledge, and as such does not require believe in order to be practically aplyed to the to the physical universe.

I argue that atheists do not posses a "non-belief" but rather a belief in a negative claim.

Posit: can the claim "no gods exist" be made by all atheists?

If yes, then I would refer you back to an earlier statement that I made.

Agnostics are open-ended. Theists and atheists have already decided, are remarkably sure of themselves and, in many cases, want you to be just as sure of their smug beliefs as they are and would happily browbeat you into submission to achieve it.

I find the certainty about things you can never be certain about to be particularly galling.

I never saw an agnostic shouting down anyone else from the rooftops for believing differently.

Why would you say an agnostic is an atheist by default? You could just as easily say they are theists by default and still be just as incorrect. I'm probably an agnostic.

If we substitute 'belief-in-gods' for the term theist, then it follows that the negation of it, a-theism, is 'no-belief-in-gods'. There is no 'claim', simply a lack of belief.

A philatelist is someone who collects stamps. An a-philatelist isn't someone who 'claims' collecting stamps is impossible, or who 'claims' that stamps don't exist. An a-philatelist just doesn't collect stamps, which obviously isn't a variation of stamp collecting.

And I suppose those who don't believe in fairies (afairiests) also have belief in a negative claim? Those who don't believe in astrology also have a belief in a negative claim?