system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
I believe that agnosticism is far superior both theistic and atheistic gnosticism, and that gnosticism on both sides makes claims they can't support. CMV

Agnosticism is the belief that we cannot know for sure one way or another whether a God or gods exist. Gnosticism is pretty much the opposite of this, claiming that we *can* know whether or not a God or gods exist.

Now, as an agnostic atheist and ex-christian, I have never claimed to know for a fact that God does or does not exist, because I don't believe there is any evidence pointing either way. Any physical evidence can be used by both theists and atheists to claim that God exists or doesn't. I've heard the argument that the Big Bang proves that God doesn't exist. I've heard that the Big Bang just shows how awesome and powerful God is. I don't think either is correct, I think we should just take the Big Bang for what we know: a physical moment that created the current universe. Whether or not it was influenced by God has absolutely no bearing on the scientific implications of it and it absolutely can't be proven one way or the other. 

Another thing I've noticed is that, once again, on both sides of the coin as far as gnosticism is confirmed (really, they're far more similar than they'd like to think), is that gnostics tend to be much more elitist when talking about what they believe. Now, this isn't always the case and I hate to generalize, but agnostics generally don't care about religion as much as people who are vehemently for and against it. Their views are more outspoken and they generally say many more controversial things that spark huge arguments. Many people start these huge debates because they think their view of the world is 100% correct and there is absolutely no way they're wrong. Either God exists or God doesn't exist, 100%. This leads to things like creationism and overall animosity to anyone who doesn't agree with your position. 

Agnostics accept the fact that, well, how do we know that God exists or doesn't? We simply don't, and I think that anyone who claims to know one way or the other is just kidding themselves. But, that means that we also are generally much more accepting of other religions or lack thereof because we accept that the views we hold may be wrong. If there was any defining proof of God's existence or lack of existence (that's been heavily scrutinized and examined to make sure it's legitimate), I'd switch sides to the one I find most logical. But as of now, neither side's opinion is logical and I'd go as far as to say both sides act very irrationally. 

So please, change my view. Tell me why gnosticism is a view that holds water compared to agnosticism. I have a lot of family members who are gnostic christians and atheists, and every time I hear them speak about the subject, I immediately think of 10 rebuttals to say back, but hold my tongue because I just don't want to start an argument.
gpt
I will say that agnosticism seems to be a valid approach to the general question of whether or not there might be any divine beings of some sort. It's probably unfalsifiable whether some Deist god created the universe and then hasn't touched it since. 

However, that's *not* true for specific claims about specific deities. We know Zeus doesn't exist, because he is defined to be an "embodied" god that lives on Mt. Olympus and is the source of lightning bolts. We've been there and seen that he doesn't live there, and we know how lightning works (though not as well as we should :-). 

It is therefore justifiable to claim knowledge that Zeus, as classically defined, doesn't exist. 

Similarly, any god that is defined in a contradictory way (such as being omnipotent, without a lot of qualifiers that water down the term) can be said to be known not to exist, exactly in the same way that we say we "know" anything else deduced from logic. 

I will claim, in fact, that every god put forth by every major religion in the modern world is defined in a contradictory way, when taken in the most straightforward way that is believed by the adherents of those religions, and therefore we can claim knowledge that they do not exist. If someone wants to redefine those gods to they aren't contradictory, fine, but then they aren't the same gods.