Ignosticism
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Ignosticism or igtheism is the idea that the question of 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 categorized ...
is meaningless because the word "
God In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
" has no coherent and unambiguous definition.


Terminology

The term ''ignosticism'' was coined in 1964 by
Sherwin Wine Sherwin Theodore Wine (January 25, 1928 – July 21, 2007), Hebrew name שמעון בן צבי, Shimon ben Tzvi, was an American rabbi and a founding figure of Humanistic Judaism, a movement that emphasizes Jewish culture and history as sou ...
, a
rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...
and a founding figure of
Humanistic Judaism Humanistic Judaism ( ''Yahadut Humanistit'') is a Jewish movement that offers a nontheistic alternative to contemporary branches of Judaism. It defines Judaism as the cultural and historical experience of the Jewish people rather than a religio ...
.


Distinction from theological noncognitivism

Ignosticism and
theological noncognitivism Theological noncognitivism is the non-theist position that religious language, particularly theological terminology such as "God", is not intelligible or meaningful, and thus sentences like "God exists" are cognitively meaningless. It may be co ...
are similar although whereas the ignostic says "every theological position assumes too much about the concept of God", the theological noncognitivist claims to have no concept whatever to label as "a concept of God", but the relationship of ignosticism to other nontheistic views is less clear. While
Paul Kurtz Paul Kurtz (December 21, 1925 – October 20, 2012) was an American scientific skeptic and Secular humanism, secular humanist. He has been called "the father of secular humanism". He was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University at Buff ...
finds the view to be compatible with both
weak atheism Negative atheism, also called weak atheism and soft atheism, is any type of atheism where a person does not believe in the existence of any deities but does not necessarily explicitly assert that there are none. Positive atheism, also called s ...
and agnosticism,Kurtz, ''New Skepticism'', 220: "Both theism and agnosticismare consistent with igtheism, which finds the belief in a metaphysical, transcendent being basically incoherent and unintelligible." other philosophers consider ignosticism to be distinct.


See also

*
Apatheism Apatheism (; a portmanteau of ''apathy'' and ''theism'') is the attitude of apathy towards the existence or non-existence of God(s). It is more of an attitude rather than a belief, claim, or belief system. The term was coined by Robert Nash, theo ...
* Apophatism *
Conceptions of God Conceptions of God in Monotheism, monotheist, Pantheism, pantheist, and Panentheism, panentheist religions – or of the supreme deity in henotheistic religions – can extend to various levels of abstraction: * as a Omnipotence, powe ...
*
Epistemology 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 ...
*
Ietsism Ietsism ( nl, ietsisme () – "somethingism") is an unspecified belief in an undetermined transcendent reality. It is a Dutch term for a range of beliefs held by people who, on the one hand, inwardly suspect – or indeed believe – ...
* Loki's Wager *
Pantheism Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ex ...
*
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 m ...
*
Verificationism Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is the philosophical doctrine which maintains that only statements that are empirically verifiable (i.e. verifiable through the senses) are cogniti ...


References


Sources

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External links

* {{Belief systems Agnosticism Criticism of religion 20th-century neologisms