Agnosticism is the view or belief that the
existence of God
The existence of God (or more generally, the existence of deities) is a subject of debate in theology, philosophy of religion and popular culture. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God or deities can be categorize ...
, of the
divine
Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.[divine< ...](_blank)
or the
supernatural is unknown or
unknowable
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
.
[ (page 56 in 1967 edition)] Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist."
The English biologist
Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
The stori ...
coined the word ''agnostic'' in 1869, and said "It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe."
Earlier thinkers, however, had written works that promoted agnostic points of view, such as
Sanjaya Belatthaputta
Sañjaya Belatthiputra (Pali: '; Sanskrit: ''Sañjaya Vairatiputra''; literally, "Sañjaya of the Belattha clan"), was an Indian ascetic philosopher who lived around the 7th-6th century BC in the region of Magadha. He was contemporaneous with ...
, a 5th-century BCE
Indian philosopher
Indian philosophy refers to philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. A traditional Hindu classification divides āstika and nāstika schools of philosophy, depending on one of three alternate criteria: whether it believes the Veda ...
who expressed agnosticism about any
afterlife;
[Bhaskar (1972).] and
Protagoras, a 5th-century BCE
Greek philosopher
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empire ...
who expressed agnosticism about the existence of "the gods".
Defining agnosticism
Being a scientist, above all else,
Huxley presented agnosticism as a form of demarcation. A hypothesis with no supporting, objective, testable evidence is not an objective, scientific claim. As such, there would be no way to test said hypotheses, leaving the results inconclusive. His agnosticism was not compatible with forming a belief as to the truth, or falsehood, of the claim at hand.
Karl Popper would also describe himself as an agnostic.
[Edward Zerin: Karl Popper On God: The Lost Interview. ''Skeptic'' 6:2 (1998)] According to philosopher
William L. Rowe, in this strict sense, agnosticism is the view that human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist.
George H. Smith
George Hamilton Smith (February 10, 1949 – April 8, 2022) was an American author, editor, educator, and speaker, known for his writings on atheism and libertarianism.
Biography
Smith grew up mostly in Tucson, Arizona, and attended the Unive ...
, while admitting that the narrow definition of atheist was the common usage definition of that word, and admitting that the broad definition of agnostic was the common usage definition of that word, promoted broadening the definition of atheist and narrowing the definition of agnostic. Smith rejects agnosticism as a third alternative to
theism
Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities. In common parlance, or when contrasted with '' deism'', the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism (also referred ...
and
atheism and promotes terms such as
agnostic atheism
Agnostic atheism is a philosophical position that encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity, and are agnostic because they claim that the existence of ...
(the view of those who do not hold a belief in the existence of any
deity, but claim that the existence of a deity is unknown or inherently unknowable) and
agnostic theism
Agnostic theism, agnostotheism, or agnostitheism is the philosophical view that encompasses both theism and agnosticism. An agnostic theist believes in the existence of one or more gods, but regards the basis of this proposition as ''unknown or in ...
(the view of those who believe in the existence of a deity(s), but claim that the existence of a deity is unknown or inherently unknowable).
[
][
]
Etymology
''Agnostic'' () was used by Thomas Henry Huxley in a speech at a meeting of the
Metaphysical Society
The Metaphysical Society was a famous British debating society, founded in 1869 by James Knowles, who acted as Secretary. Membership was by invitation only, and was exclusively male. Many of its members were prominent clergymen, philosophers, and ...
in 1869 to describe his philosophy, which rejects all claims of spiritual or mystical knowledge.
[
]
Early
Christian church leaders used the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
word ''
gnosis
Gnosis is the common Greek noun for knowledge ( γνῶσις, ''gnōsis'', f.). The term was used among various Hellenistic religions and philosophies in the Greco-Roman world. It is best known for its implication within Gnosticism, where it ...
'' (knowledge) to describe "spiritual knowledge". Agnosticism is not to be confused with religious views opposing the ancient religious movement of
Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
in particular; Huxley used the term in a broader, more abstract sense.
[
]
Huxley identified agnosticism not as a creed but rather as a method of
skeptical
Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the p ...
, evidence-based inquiry.
The term ''Agnostic'' is also
cognate with the
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
word ''Ajñasi'' which translates literally to "not knowable", and relates to the ancient Indian philosophical school of
Ajñana, which proposes that it is impossible to obtain knowledge of metaphysical nature or ascertain the truth value of philosophical propositions; and even if knowledge was possible, it is useless and disadvantageous for final salvation.
In recent years, scientific literature dealing with neuroscience and psychology has used the word to mean "not knowable".
In technical and marketing literature, "agnostic" can also mean independence from some parameters—for example, "platform agnostic" (referring to
cross-platform software
In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software ...
)
or "
hardware-agnostic".
Qualifying agnosticism
Scottish Enlightenment philosopher
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...
contended that meaningful statements about the universe are always qualified by some degree of doubt. He asserted that the fallibility of human beings means that they cannot obtain absolute certainty except in trivial cases where a statement is true by definition (e.g.
tautologies such as "all bachelors are unmarried" or "all triangles have three corners").
Types
;Strong agnosticism (also called "hard", "closed", "strict", or "permanent agnosticism"): The view that the question of the existence or nonexistence of a deity or deities, and the nature of ultimate reality is unknowable by reason of our natural inability to verify any experience with anything but another subjective experience. A strong agnostic would say, "I cannot know whether a deity exists or not, and neither can you."
[
][
][
]
;Weak agnosticism (also called "soft", "open", "empirical", or "temporal agnosticism"): The view that the existence or nonexistence of any deities is currently unknown but is not necessarily unknowable; therefore, one will withhold judgment until evidence, if any, becomes available. A weak agnostic would say, "I don't know whether any deities exist or not, but maybe one day, if there is evidence, we can find something out."
;Apathetic agnosticism: The view that no amount of debate can prove or disprove the existence of one or more deities, and if one or more deities exist, they do not appear to be concerned about the fate of humans. Therefore, their existence has little to no impact on personal human affairs and should be of little interest. An apathetic agnostic would say, "I don't know whether any deity exists or not, and I don't care if any deity exists or not."
History
Hindu philosophy
Throughout the history of
Hinduism
Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
there has been a strong tradition of philosophic speculation and skepticism.
The
Rig Veda takes an agnostic view on the fundamental question of how the universe and the gods were created.
Nasadiya Sukta
The Nāsadīya Sūkta (after the incipit ', or "not the non-existent"), also known as the Hymn of Creation, is the 129th hymn of the 10th mandala of the Rigveda (10:129). It is concerned with cosmology and the origin of the universe.
Nasadiya Su ...
(''Creation Hymn'') in the tenth chapter of the Rig Veda says:
[
][
][
]
Hume, Kant, and Kierkegaard
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
,
Anselm,
Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known ...
,
[
]
Descartes,
and
Gödel
presented arguments attempting to rationally prove the existence of God. The skeptical empiricism of
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...
, the
antinomies
Antinomy (Greek ἀντί, ''antí'', "against, in opposition to", and νόμος, ''nómos'', "law") refers to a real or apparent mutual incompatibility of two laws. It is a term used in logic and epistemology, particularly in the philosophy of I ...
of
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
, and the existential philosophy of
Søren Kierkegaard convinced many later philosophers to abandon these attempts, regarding it impossible to construct any unassailable proof for the existence or non-existence of God.
In his 1844 book, ''
Philosophical Fragments
''Philosophical Fragments'' ( Danish title: ) is a Christian philosophical work written by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard in 1844. It was the second of three works written under the pseudonym ''Johannes Climacus''; the other two were ''De ...
'', Kierkegaard writes:
Hume was Huxley's favourite philosopher, calling him "the Prince of Agnostics".
Diderot wrote to his mistress, telling of a visit by Hume to the
Baron D'Holbach, and describing how a word for the position that Huxley would later describe as agnosticism did not seem to exist, or at least was not common knowledge, at the time.
United Kingdom
Charles Darwin
![Charles Darwin seated crop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Charles_Darwin_seated_crop.jpg)
Raised in a religious environment,
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...
(1809–1882) studied to be an Anglican clergyman. While eventually doubting parts of his faith, Darwin continued to help in church affairs, even while avoiding church attendance. Darwin stated that it would be "absurd to doubt that a man might be an ardent theist and an evolutionist".
[Letter 12041]
– Darwin, C. R. to Fordyce, John, May 7, 1879
Archived
from the original on June 29, 2014.[Darwin's Complex loss of Faith]
''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' September 17, 2009
Archived
from the original on June 29, 2014 Although reticent about his religious views, in 1879 he wrote that "I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. – I think that generally ... an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."
Thomas Henry Huxley
Agnostic views are as old as philosophical skepticism
Philosophical skepticism ( UK spelling: scepticism; from Greek σκέψις ''skepsis'', "inquiry") is a family of philosophical views that question the possibility of knowledge. It differs from other forms of skepticism in that it even reject ...
, but the terms agnostic and agnosticism were created by Huxley (1825–1895) to sum up his thoughts on contemporary developments of metaphysics about the "unconditioned" ( William Hamilton) and the "unknowable" (Herbert Spencer
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, psychologist, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his hypothesis of social Darwinism. Spencer originated the expression " survival of the fi ...
). Though Huxley began to use the term "agnostic" in 1869, his opinions had taken shape some time before that date. In a letter of September 23, 1860, to Charles Kingsley, Huxley discussed his views extensively:[
][
]
And again, to the same correspondent, May 6, 1863:
Of the origin of the name agnostic to describe this attitude, Huxley gave the following account:
In 1889, Huxley wrote:
William Stewart Ross
William Stewart Ross
William Stewart Ross (20 March 1844 – 30 November 1906) was a Scottish writer and publisher. He was a noted secularist thinker, and used the pseudonym "Saladin". Between 1888 and 1906 he was the editor of the ''Agnostic Journal'', successor to ...
(1844–1906) wrote under the name of Saladin. He was associated with Victorian Freethinkers and the organization the British Secular Union. He edited the '' Secular Review'' from 1882; it was renamed ''Agnostic Journal and Eclectic Review'' and closed in 1907. Ross championed agnosticism in opposition to the atheism of Charles Bradlaugh
Charles Bradlaugh (; 26 September 1833 – 30 January 1891) was an English political activist and atheist. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866, 15 years after George Holyoake had coined the term "secularism" in 1851.
In 1880, Bradl ...
as an open-ended spiritual exploration.
In ''Why I am an Agnostic'' () he claims that agnosticism is "the very reverse of atheism".
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
(1872–1970) declared ''Why I Am Not a Christian
''Why I Am Not a Christian'' is an essay by the British people, British philosophy, philosopher Bertrand Russell. Originally a talk given 6 March 1927 at Battersea Town Hall, under the auspices of the South London Branch of the National Secular ...
'' in 1927, a classic statement of agnosticism.[
]
He calls upon his readers to "stand on their own two feet and look fair and square at the world with a fearless attitude and a free intelligence".
In 1939, Russell gave a lecture on ''The existence and nature of God'', in which he characterized himself as an atheist. He said:
However, later in the same lecture, discussing modern non-anthropomorphic concepts of God, Russell states:
In Russell's 1947 pamphlet, ''Am I An Atheist or an Agnostic?'' (subtitled ''A Plea For Tolerance in the Face of New Dogmas''), he ruminates on the problem of what to call himself:[
]
In his 1953 essay, ''What Is An Agnostic?'' Russell states:[
]
Later in the essay, Russell adds:
Leslie Weatherhead
In 1965, Christian theologian Leslie Weatherhead
Leslie Dixon Weatherhead (14 October 1893 – 5 January 1976) was an English Christian theologian in the liberal Protestant tradition. Weatherhead was noted for his preaching ministry at City Temple in London and for his books, including ' ...
(1893–1976) published ''The Christian Agnostic'', in which he argues:[
]
Although radical and unpalatable to conventional theologians, Weatherhead's ''agnosticism'' falls far short of Huxley's, and short even of ''weak agnosticism'':
United States
Robert G. Ingersoll
Robert G. Ingersoll
Robert Green Ingersoll (; August 11, 1833 – July 21, 1899), nicknamed "the Great Agnostic", was an American lawyer, writer, and orator during the Golden Age of Free Thought, who campaigned in defense of agnosticism.
Personal life
Robert Inge ...
(1833–1899), an Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...
lawyer and politician who evolved into a well-known and sought-after orator in 19th-century America, has been referred to as the "Great Agnostic".
In an 1896 lecture titled ''Why I Am An Agnostic'', Ingersoll related why he was an agnostic:
In the conclusion of the speech he simply sums up the agnostic position as:
In 1885, Ingersoll explained his comparative view of agnosticism and atheism as follows:
Bernard Iddings Bell
Canon Bernard Iddings Bell Bernard Iddings Bell (October 13, 1886 – September 5, 1958) was an American Christian author, Episcopal priest, and conservative cultural commentator. His religious writings, social critiques, and homilies on post-war society were acclaimed in t ...
(1886–1958), a popular cultural commentator, Episcopal priest, and author, lauded the necessity of agnosticism in ''Beyond Agnosticism: A Book for Tired Mechanists'', calling it the foundation of "all intelligent Christianity". Agnosticism was a temporary mindset in which one rigorously questioned the truths of the age, including the way in which one believed God. His view of Robert Ingersoll and Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...
was that they were not denouncing true Christianity but rather "a gross perversion of it". Part of the misunderstanding stemmed from ignorance of the concepts of God and religion. Historically, a god was any real, perceivable force that ruled the lives of humans and inspired admiration, love, fear, and homage; religion was the practice of it. Ancient peoples worshiped gods with real counterparts, such as Mammon
Mammon in the New Testament of the Bible is commonly thought to mean money, material wealth, or any entity that promises wealth, and is associated with the greedy pursuit of gain. The Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke both quote Jesus us ...
(money and material things), Nabu
Nabu ( akk, cuneiform: 𒀭𒀝 Nabû syr, ܢܵܒܼܘܼ\ܢܒܼܘܿ\ܢܵܒܼܘܿ Nāvū or Nvō or Nāvō) is the ancient Mesopotamian patron god of literacy, the rational arts, scribes, and wisdom.
Etymology and meaning
The Akkadian "nab ...
(rationality), or Ba'al
Baal (), or Baal,; phn, , baʿl; hbo, , baʿal, ). ( ''baʿal'') was a title and honorific meaning "owner", "lord" in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied t ...
(violent weather); Bell argued that modern peoples were still paying homage—with their lives and their children's lives—to these old gods of wealth, physical appetites, and self-deification. Thus, if one attempted to be agnostic passively, he or she would incidentally join the worship of the world's gods.
In ''Unfashionable Convictions'' (1931), he criticized the Enlightenment's complete faith in human sensory perception
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
, augmented by scientific instruments, as a means of accurately grasping Reality. Firstly, it was fairly new, an innovation of the Western World, which Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ph ...
invented and Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wit ...
revived among the scientific community. Secondly, the divorce of "pure" science from human experience, as manifested in American Industrialization, had completely altered the environment, often disfiguring it, so as to suggest its insufficiency to human needs. Thirdly, because scientists were constantly producing more data—to the point where no single human could grasp it all at once—it followed that human intelligence was incapable of attaining a complete understanding of universe; therefore, to admit the mysteries of the unobserved universe was to be ''actually'' scientific.
Bell believed that there were two other ways that humans could perceive and interact with the world. ''Artistic experience'' was how one expressed meaning through speaking, writing, painting, gesturing—any sort of communication which shared insight into a human's inner reality. ''Mystical experience'' was how one could "read" people and harmonize with them, being what we commonly call love. In summary, man was a scientist, artist, and lover. Without exercising all three, a person became "lopsided".
Bell considered a humanist
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "human ...
to be a person who cannot rightly ignore the other ways of knowing. However, humanism, like agnosticism, was also temporal, and would eventually lead to either scientific materialism or theism
Theism is broadly defined as the belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities. In common parlance, or when contrasted with '' deism'', the term often describes the classical conception of God that is found in monotheism (also referred ...
. He lays out the following thesis:
# Truth cannot be discovered by reasoning on the evidence of scientific data alone. Modern peoples' dissatisfaction with life is the result of depending on such incomplete data. Our ability to reason is not a way to discover Truth but rather a way to organize our knowledge and experiences somewhat sensibly. Without a full, human perception of the world, one's reason tends to lead them in the wrong direction.
# Beyond what can be measured with scientific tools, there are other types of perception, such as one's ability know another human through loving. One's loves cannot be dissected and logged in a scientific journal, but we know them far better than we know the surface of the sun. They show us an undefinable reality that is nevertheless intimate and personal, and they reveal qualities lovelier and truer than detached facts can provide.
# To be religious, in the Christian sense, is to live for the Whole of Reality (God) rather than for a small part (gods). Only by treating this Whole of Reality as a person—good and true and perfect—rather than an impersonal force, can we come closer to the Truth. An ultimate Person can be loved, but a cosmic force cannot. A scientist can only discover peripheral truths, but a lover is able to get at the Truth.
# There are many reasons to believe in God but they are not sufficient for an agnostic to become a theist. It is not enough to believe in an ancient holy book, even though when it is accurately analyzed without bias, it proves to be more trustworthy and admirable than what we are taught in school. Neither is it enough to realize how probable it is that a personal God would have to show human beings how to live, considering they have so much trouble on their own. Nor is it enough to believe for the reason that, throughout history, millions of people have arrived at this Wholeness of Reality only through religious experience. The aforementioned reasons may warm one toward religion, but they fall short of convincing. However, if one presupposes that God is in fact a knowable, loving person, as an experiment, and then lives according that religion, he or she will suddenly come face to face with experiences previously unknown. One's life becomes full, meaningful, and fearless in the face of death. It does not defy reason but ''exceeds'' it.
# Because God has been experienced through love, the orders of prayer, fellowship, and devotion now matter. They create order within one's life, continually renewing the "missing piece" that had previously felt lost. They empower one to be compassionate and humble, not small-minded or arrogant.
# No truth should be denied outright, but all should be questioned. Science reveals an ever-growing vision of our universe that should not be discounted due to bias toward older understandings. Reason is to be trusted and cultivated. To believe in God is not to forego reason or to deny scientific facts, but to step into the unknown and discover the fullness of life.
Demographics
Demographic research services normally do not differentiate between various types of non-religious respondents, so agnostics are often classified in the same category as atheists or other non-religious
Irreligion or nonreligion is the absence or rejection of religion, or indifference to it. Irreligion takes many forms, ranging from the casual and unaware to full-fledged philosophies such as atheism and agnosticism, secular humanism and ant ...
people.
A 2010 survey published in ''Encyclopædia Britannica
The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...
'' found that the non-religious people or the agnostics made up about 9.6% of the world's population.[
]
A November–December 2006 poll published in the ''Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Ni ...
'' gives rates for the United States and five European countries. The rates of agnosticism in the United States were at 14%, while the rates of agnosticism in the European countries surveyed were considerably higher: Italy (20%), Spain (30%), Great Britain (35%), Germany (25%), and France (32%).
A study conducted by the Pew Research Center found that about 16% of the world's people, the third largest group after Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
and Islam, have no religious affiliation.
According to a 2012 report by the Pew Research Center, agnostics made up 3.3% of the US adult population.
In the ''U.S. Religious Landscape Survey'', conducted by the Pew Research Center, 55% of agnostic respondents expressed "a belief in God or a universal spirit",[
]
whereas 41% stated that they thought that they felt a tension "being non-religious in a society where most people are religious".
According to the 2011 Australian Bureau of Statistics, 22% of Australians
Australians, colloquially known as Aussies, are the citizens, nationals and individuals associated with the country of Australia. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or ethno-cultural. For most Australians, several (or all) ...
have "no religion", a category that includes agnostics.[
]
Between 64% and 65%[
]
of Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
and up to 81%[
]
of Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia
** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam.
* Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam
** Overse ...
are atheists, agnostics, or do not believe in a god. An official European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
survey reported that 3% of the EU population is unsure about their belief in a god or spirit.
Criticism
Agnosticism is criticized from a variety of standpoints. Some atheists criticize the use of the term agnosticism as functionally indistinguishable from atheism; this results in frequent criticisms of those who adopt the term as avoiding the atheist label.
Theistic
Theistic critics claim that agnosticism is impossible in practice, since a person can live only either as if God did not exist (''etsi deus non-daretur''), or as if God did exist (''etsi deus daretur'').[
][
]
Christian
According to Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the soverei ...
, strong agnosticism in particular contradicts itself in affirming the power of reason to know scientific truth
Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belie ...
.[ He blames the exclusion of reasoning from religion and ethics for dangerous pathologies such as crimes against humanity and ecological disasters.][
]
"Agnosticism", said Benedict, "is always the fruit of a refusal of that knowledge which is in fact offered to man ... The knowledge of God has always existed".[ He asserted that agnosticism is a choice of comfort, pride, dominion, and utility over truth, and is opposed by the following attitudes: the keenest ]self-criticism
Self-criticism involves how an individual evaluates oneself. Self-criticism in psychology is typically studied and discussed as a negative personality trait in which a person has a disrupted self-identity. The opposite of self-criticism would be ...
, humble listening to the whole of existence, the persistent patience and self-correction of the scientific method
The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific ...
, a readiness to be purified by the truth.[
The ]Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
sees merit in examining what it calls "partial agnosticism", specifically those systems that "do not aim at constructing a complete philosophy of the unknowable, but at excluding special kinds of truth, notably religious, from the domain of knowledge".[
] However, the Church is historically opposed to a full denial of the capacity of human reason to know God. The Council of the Vatican declares, "God, the beginning and end of all, can, by the natural light of human reason, be known with certainty from the works of creation".
Blaise Pascal argued that even if there were truly no evidence for God, agnostics should consider what is now known as Pascal's Wager: the infinite
Infinite may refer to:
Mathematics
* Infinite set, a set that is not a finite set
*Infinity, an abstract concept describing something without any limit
Music
*Infinite (group), a South Korean boy band
*''Infinite'' (EP), debut EP of American m ...
expected value of acknowledging God is always greater than the finite expected value of not acknowledging his existence, and thus it is a safer "bet" to choose God.
Atheistic
According to Richard Dawkins, a distinction between agnosticism and atheism is unwieldy and depends on how close to zero a person is willing to rate the probability of existence for any given god-like entity. About himself, Dawkins continues, "I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden." Dawkins also identifies two categories of agnostics; "Temporary Agnostics in Practice" (TAPs), and "Permanent Agnostics in Principle" (PAPs). He states that "agnosticism about the existence of God belongs firmly in the temporary or TAP category. Either he exists or he doesn't. It is a scientific question; one day we may know the answer, and meanwhile we can say something pretty strong about the probability" and considers PAP a "deeply inescapable kind of fence-sitting".
Ignosticism
A related concept is ignosticism
Ignosticism or igtheism is the idea that the question of the existence of God is meaningless because the word "God" has no coherent and unambiguous definition.
Terminology
The term ''ignosticism'' was coined in 1964 by Sherwin Wine, a rabbi and ...
, the view that a coherent definition of a deity must be put forward before the question of the existence of a deity can be meaningfully discussed. If the chosen definition is not coherent, the ignostic holds the noncognitivist view that the existence of a deity is meaningless or empirically untestable. A. J. Ayer, Theodore Drange
Theodore "Ted" Michael Drange (born 1934) is a philosopher of religion and Professor Emeritus at West Virginia University, where he taught philosophy from 1966 to 2001.
Life
After graduating from Fort Hamilton High School, he received a B.A. ...
, and other philosophers see both atheism and agnosticism as incompatible with ignosticism on the grounds that atheism and agnosticism accept the statement "a deity exists" as a meaningful proposition that can be argued for or against.[Ayer, ''Language'', 115: "There can be no way of proving that the existence of a God ... is even probable. ... For if the existence of such a god were probable, then the proposition that he existed would be an empirical hypothesis. And in that case it would be possible to deduce from it, and other empirical hypotheses, certain experimental propositions which were not deducible from those other hypotheses alone. But in fact this is not possible."][Drange, ''Atheism'']
See also
References
Further reading
*
* Alexander, Nathan G
"An Atheist with a Tall Hat On: The Forgotten History of Agnosticism."
''The Humanist'', February 19, 2019.
* Annan, Noel. ''Leslie Stephen: The Godless Victorian'' (U of Chicago Press, 1984)
* Cockshut, A.O.J. ''The Unbelievers, English Thought, 1840–1890'' (1966).
* Dawkins, Richard. "The poverty of agnosticism", in '' The God Delusion'', Black Swan, 2007 ().
*
*
*
*
* Lightman, Bernard. ''The Origins of Agnosticism'' (1987).
* Royle, Edward. ''Radicals, Secularists, and Republicans: Popular Freethought in Britain, 1866–1915'' (Manchester UP, 1980).
*
External links
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Albert Einstein on Religion
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* Fides et Ratiobr>'' – the relationship between faith and reason''
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