What came first, the atheist or the theist?

[Tiberius]

not believing and denying are exactly the same thing.

definition of believe: to accept as true or real

therefor, the definition of not believing: to not accept as true or real

the definition of deny is: to refuse to believe. so yes, they are one and the same.

How on earth do you even get to a position where "to not accept as true or real" is (and I quote) exactly the same thing as "refusing to believe"?

The first allows for passivity, since not accepting can either be an active step (i.e. someone looking at the evidence and saying "Nope, I don't believe that") or a passive one, by simply not having any acceptance because one does not know about the issue.

Refusing to believe can only be an active step, because refusing something involves it somehow being available to you.

So no, they are not the same thing. The clue being that the definitions are completely different...I'd have thought that was obvious, but hey.

'For any proposition, it is either true or not true' - absolutely. but what if the propostion has not been made yet? before the proposition comes to light, true or not true is neither here nor there.

The proposition has been made though; you made it. You are making it when you ask that very question. You said that people can be in a state of neither believing nor not believing. As I've said, this is a violation of one of the laws of logic. You simply cannot have a position such as that; you either believe or you don't. There is no middle ground.

and i don't follow your stamp collecting analogy. you do not need to know of the concept of collecting stamps in order to not be a stamp collector, but you do need to be aware that people collect stamps in order to react with a 'no they don't' should you wish to deny it.

Yet as I've said, atheism is not the denial of the existence of God. If it was, then I'm certainly not an atheist, and neither are most of the people who claim to be atheists on this forum.

Once you accept the fact that not-believing and denying are not the same thing, you will get the analogy. It is not about denying something, but rather about whether someone believes in it, just as the stamp collector issue isn't about denying stamp collecting, but rather about whether someone collects stamps.

Imagine if you will, that you could look objectively inside someone's mind, and could determine what they believed without having to ask them any questions which might introduce new concepts to them. You can do a simple test to determine what their stance on God is:

1) Do they have a belief in God?
2) If yes, then they are a theist.
3) If no, then they are an atheist.

Simple.