Agnosticism

Definitions: Agnosticism

Agnosticism

Noun

1. A religious orientation of doubt; a denial of ultimate knowledge of the existence of God; "agnosticism holds that you can neither prove nor disprove God's existence".

2. The disbelief in any claims of ultimate knowledge.

Date "agnosticism" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1830. (references)

Synonyms: Agnosticism

Synonyms: scepticism (n), skepticism (n). (additional references)

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Specialty Definition: Agnosticism

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The terms agnosticism and agnostic were coined by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1869 to describe the philosophical and theological view that the truth of the unexistence or existence of God, immortality, and the like are inherently unknowable. People can have scientific or real knowledge of phenomena, but when it comes to what lies behind phenomena there can be no evidence that entitles anyone either to deny or affirm anything.

Origin of the term

The word agnostic comes from the Greek a (no) and gnosis (knowledge). Among the most famous agnostics (in the original sense) were Huxley, Charles Darwin, and Bertrand Russell. Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian is considered a classic text about agnosticism. It has been argued from his works, especially Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, that David Hume was an agnostic, this however remains subject to debate.

Agnosticism is not to be confused with a view specifically opposing the doctrine of gnosis and Gnosticism - these are religious concepts that are not directly related to agnosticism.

Modern uses

Most modern uses focus on the question of the existence of God rather than a broad range of metaphysical questions. The term may be applied to the simple failure to hold that God does or does not exist (i.e., not taking a stand). In this sense, the twentieth century logical positivists, such as Rudolph Carnap and A. J. Ayer, who viewed that any talk of God and perforce considerations of whether one can know that God exists are simply nonsense; would count as agnostics. The freethinking tradition of atheism calls "agnosticism," used in this sense, "weak atheism" (or "negative atheism"). However, some critics have pointed out that almost all agnostics live as if there were no God, not as if there were one, which makes agnosticism in their eyes clearly a brand of atheism, not some neutral point of view in-between atheism and religion.

The term has many uses, however, most in fundamental disagreement with the others. One alternative first suggested by Huxley states, "In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable" (Huxley, Agnosticism, 1889). A. W. Momerie has noted that this is nothing but a definition of honesty. Huxley's usual definition went beyond mere honesty, however, and he insisted that these metaphysical issues were fundamentally unknowable.

Some Views Within Agnosticism

empirical agnosticism (aka open agnosticism, weak agnosticism, soft agnosticism)-the view that the question of the existence of gods is knowable but the individual has not seen enough evidence or there is evenly-weighted evidence on both sides of the question of the existence of God or gods.
closed agnosticism (aka strict agnosticism, strong agnosticism, hard agnosticism)-the view that the question of the existence of God or gods is unknowable by nature or that human beings are ill-equipped to judge the evidence
ignosticsm-(aka apatheism)-the view that the question of the existence of God or gods is meaningless because it has no verifiable consequences
model agnosticism - the view that philosophical and metaphysical questions are not ultimately verifiable, but that a model of malleable assumption should be built upon rational thought. Note that this branch of agnosticism differs from others in that it does not focus upon the question of God's existence.

Origins of agnosticism

Agnostic views are as old as philosophical skepticism. But the terms "agnostic" and "agnosticism" were applied by Huxley to sum up his thoughts from that time's contemporary developments of metaphysics about the "unconditioned" (Hamilton) and the "unknowable" (Herbert Spencer). It is important, therefore, to discover Huxley's own views on the matter. Though Huxley began to use the term "agnostic" in 1869, his opinions had taken shape some time before that date. In a letter to Charles Kingsley (September 23, 1860) he discussed his views extensively:

"I neither affirm nor deny the immortality of man. I see no reason for believing it, but, on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it. I have no a priori objections to the doctrine. No man who has to deal daily and hourly with nature can trouble himself about a priori difficulties. Give me such evidence as would justify me in believing in anything else, and I will believe that. Why should I not? It is not half so wonderful as the conservation of force or the indestructibility of matter"..

"It is no use to talk to me of analogies and probabilities. I know what I mean when I say I believe in the law of the inverse squares, and I will not rest my life and my hopes upon weaker convictions"..

"That my personality is the surest thing I know may be true. But the attempt to conceive what it is leads me into mere verbal subtleties. I have champed up all that chaff about the ego and the non-ego, noumena and phenomena, and all the rest of it, too often not to know that in attempting even to think of these questions, the human intellect flounders at once out of its depth."..

And again, to the same correspondent, May 6, 1863:

"I have never had the least sympathy with the a priori reasons against orthodoxy, and I have by nature and disposition the greatest possible antipathy to all the atheistic and infidel school. Nevertheless I know that I am, in spite of myself, exactly what the Christian would call, and, so far as I can see, is justified in calling, atheist and infidel. I cannot see one shadow or tittle of evidence that the great unknown underlying the phenomenon of the universe stands to us in the relation of a Father who loves us and cares for us as Christianity asserts. So with regard to the other great Christian dogmas, immortality of soul and future state of rewards and punishments, what possible objection can I—who am compelled perforce to believe in the immortality of what we call Matter and Force, and in a very unmistakable present state of rewards and punishments for our deeds—have to these doctrines? Give me a scintilla of evidence, and I am ready to jump at them."

Of the origin of the name "agnostic" to cover this attitude, Huxley gave (Coll. Ess. v. pp. 237-239) the following account:

"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. To my great satisfaction the term took."

Huxley's agnosticism is believed to be a natural consequence of the intellectual and philosophical conditions of the 1860s, when clerical intolerance was trying to suppress scientific discoveries which appeared to clash with a literal reading of the Book of Genesis and other established christian doctrines. Agnosticsm should not, however, be confused with deism, pantheism or other science positive forms of theism.

External references

1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. A significant source of this Wikipedia article.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Agnosticism."

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Synonyms within Context: Agnosticism

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Irreligion	Skepticism, doubt; unbelief, disbelief; incredulity, incredulousness; Adjective: want of faith, want of belief; pyrrhonism; bout; agnosticism.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

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Crosswords: Agnosticism

English words defined with "agnosticism": Indifferentism. (references)

Non-English Usage: "Agnosticism" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses.

French (agnosticism), Romanian (agnosticism), Swedish (agnosticism, nescience).

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Commercial Usage: Agnosticism

Domain	Title
Books	Agnosticism and Anecdotes (reference) Agnosticism and Christianity and Other Essays (Great Mind Series) (reference) Agnosticism Is Also Faith (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Familiar Quotations: Agnosticism

Author	Quotation
F. E. Abbot	Agnosticism is the philosophical, ethical, and religious dry-rot of the modern world.
Friedrich Engels	What, indeed, is agnosticism, but, to use an expressive term, "shamefaced" materialism.
Thomas Henry Huxley	Agnosticism simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that for which he has no grounds for professing to believe.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Usage Frequency: Agnosticism

"Agnosticism" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Agnosticism" is used about 30 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	100%	30	63,341

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Agnosticism

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Expression	Frequency per Day
agnosticism	67
agnosticism atheism	3
agnosticism jesus	2
agnosticism assumption life meaning patheism theism	2
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translations: Agnosticism

Language		Translations for "agnosticism"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		agnosticizëm (nescience). (various references)

Arabic		‏اللاأدرية. (various references)

Bulgarian		агностицизъм. (various references)

Chinese		不可知论, 不可知論 . (various references)

Czech		agnosticismus. (various references)

French		agnosticism. (various references)

German		agnostizismus, lehre der agnostiker. (various references)

Greek		αγνωστικισμόσ. (various references)

Hebrew		כפיר�" (apostasy, atheism, denial, disbelief, heresy, unbelief). (various references)

Hungarian		agnoszticizmus, szabadgondolkodás. (various references)

Italian		agnosticismo. (various references)

Japanese Kanji		不可知論 . (various references)

Japanese Katakana		ふかちろ�". (various references)

Korean		불가지� . (various references)

Manx		ourys (distrust, doubt, doubtfulness, misgiving, scepticism, suspicion, suspiciousness), meechredjue (disbelief, faithlessness, incredulity, scepticism, unbelief), meechraueeaght (impiety, ungodliness). (various references)

Pig Latin		agnosticismay

Portuguese		agnosticismo. (various references)

Romanian		agnosticism. (various references)

Russian		агностицизм (nescience). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		agnosticizam. (various references)

Spanish		agnosticismo (nescience). (various references)

Swedish		agnosticism (nescience). (various references)

Turkish		agnostisizm, bilinemezcilik. (various references)

Ukranian		агностицизм (nescience). (various references)

Welsh		anffyddiaeth (atheism, infidelity). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Derivations & Misspellings: Agnosticism

Derivations
	Words beginning with "agnosticism": agnosticisms. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Agnosticism" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: agnosticicm, agnosticisum, agnoticism. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Rhyming with "Agnosticism"

Words rhyming with "agnosticism" (pronounced 'Ag*nos"ti*cism'): Academicism, AEstheticism, Anatocism, Anglicism, Anglo-Catholicism, Arsenicism, Asceticism, Asiaticism, Astaticism, Athleticism, Atomicism, Atticism, Autoecism, Biblicism, Briticism, Catholicism, Celticism, Citicism, Civicism, Classicism, Creticism, Criticism, Cynicism, Demoniacism, Didacticism, Dioecism, Doricism, Ecclesiasticism, Eclecticism, Eleaticism, Electicism, Empiricism, Eroticism, Esotericism, Etacism, Ethnicism, Evangelicism, Exorcism, Exoticism, Fanaticism, Fantasticism, Gallicism, Gnosticism, Gothicism, Grammaticism, Grecism, Hispanicism, Histrionicism, Hypercriticism, Hypochondriacism, Iotacism, Iricism, Itacism, Italicism, laconicism, lambdacism, Lexiphanicism, lyricism, Metacism, Metempiricism, monasticism, Monoecism, Mutacism, Mysticism, Mytacism, Neocriticism, Neo-Scholasticism, Organicism, ostracism, Peripateticism, Phallicism, Physicism, Polsyntheticism, Polysyllabicism, Prosaicism, Rhotacism, romanticism, Rotacism, scholasticism, Scotticism, Seraphicism, Sinicism, skepticism, solecism, stoicism, Suicism, Syriacism, Teutonicism, Turcism, Witticism. (additional references)

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Anagrams: Agnosticism

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-c-g-i-i-m-n-o-s-s-t"
	-1 letter: gnosticism, miscasting.
	-2 letters: actinisms, agnostics, agonistic, atomising, coastings, giantisms, iotacisms, misacting, monastics, mosaicist, simoniacs.
	-3 letters: actinism, agnostic, agonists, amitosis, amniotic, animists, antismog, castings, coamings, coasting, coatings, giantism, gnomists, gnostics, imagists, iotacism, massicot, miscoins, monastic, monistic, nomistic, simoniac, simonist, stasimon, stoicism.
	-4 letters: actings, actions, agonist, amongst, animist, anosmic, atomics, atonics, caisson, camions, casings, casinos, cassino, casting, cations, coaming, coating, comings, comitia, consist, cosigns, cosmist, costing, gascons, gitanos, gnomist, gnostic, imagist, intimas, isatins, maniocs, manitos, mascons, mascots, masonic, massing, mastics, masting, matings, miotics, misacts, miscast, miscoin, missing, mission, misting, mitosis, moating, monists, mosaics, mossing, osmatic, saimins, santimi, santims, scotias, simians, sitcoms, smiting, somatic, somitic, stigmas, stingos, timings, tocsins, tossing.
	-5 letters: acting, actins, action, agisms, agists, agonic, aiming, amigos, aminic, amnios, angsts, animis, anisic, anomic, antics, ascots, assign, atomic, atonic, camion, cansos, cantos, casing, casini, casino, cation, citing, coasts, coatis, coigns, coming, congas, congii, cosign, cotans, coting, gainst, gamins, gascon, giants, gismos, gitano, gnomic, gnosis, gossan, icings, imagos, incogs, ingots, inmost, insist, intima, ionics, isatin, macing, macons, magics, magots, maists, mangos, manics, manioc, manito, mantic, mantis, mascon, mascot, masons, mastic, mating, matins, miosis, miotic, misact, mongst, monist, mosaic, nastic, octans, osmics, saimin, saints, santos, sating, satins, scants, scions, scotia, sigmas, simian, sitcom, siting, socman, sonics, staigs, stains, stangs, stigma, stingo, stings, stoics, stomas, taming, tangos, tigons, timing, tocsin, tomans, tongas, tonics.
	Words containing the letters "a-c-g-i-i-m-n-o-s-s-t"
	+1 letter: agnosticisms.
	+3 letters: disaccustoming, miscegenations.
	+4 letters: compassionating.
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