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Non-theistic
Nontheism or non-theism is a range of both religious and non-religious attitudes characterized by the absence of espoused belief in the existence of God or gods. Nontheism has generally been used to describe apathy or silence towards the subject of gods and differs from atheism, or active disbelief in any gods. It has been used as an umbrella term for summarizing various distinct and even mutually exclusive positions, such as agnosticism, ignosticism, ietsism, skepticism, pantheism, pandeism, transtheism, atheism ( strong or positive, implicit or explicit), and apatheism. It is in use in the fields of Christian apologetics and general liberal theology. An early usage of the hyphenated term ''non-theism'' is attributed to George Holyoake in 1852. Within the scope of nontheistic agnosticism, philosopher Anthony Kenny distinguishes between agnostics who find the claim "God exists" uncertain and theological noncognitivists who consider all discussion of God to be meaningless ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antitheism
Antitheism, also spelled anti-theism, is the philosophical position that theism should be opposed. The term has had a range of applications. In secular contexts, it typically refers to direct opposition to the belief in any deity. Etymology The word ''antitheism'' (or hyphenated ''anti-theism'') has been recorded in English since 1788. The etymological roots of the word are the Greek '' anti'' and ''theos.'' The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines ''antitheist'' as "One opposed to belief in the existence of a god". The earliest citation given for this meaning dates from 1833. The term was likely coined by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Opposition to theism ''Antitheism'' has been adopted as a label by those who regard theism as dangerous, destructive, or encouraging of harmful behavior. Christopher Hitchens (2001) wrote: Opposition to the idea of God Other definitions of antitheism include that of the French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain (1953), for whom it is "an ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irreligion
Irreligion is the absence or rejection of religious beliefs or practices. It encompasses a wide range of viewpoints drawn from various philosophical and intellectual perspectives, including atheism, agnosticism, religious skepticism, rationalism, secularism, and non-religious spirituality. These perspectives can vary, with individuals who identify as irreligious holding diverse beliefs about religion and its role in their lives. Relatively little scholarly research was published on irreligion until around the year 2010. Overview Over the past several decades, the number of secular persons has increased, with a rapid rise in the early 21st century, in many countries. In virtually every high-income country and many poor countries, religion has declined. Highly secular societies tend to be societally healthy and successful. Social scientists have predicted declines in religious beliefs and their replacement with more scientific/naturalistic outlooks (secularizati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Existence Of God
The existence of God is a subject of debate in the philosophy of religion and theology. A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God (with the same or similar arguments also generally being used when talking about the existence of multiple deities) can be categorized as logical, Empirical research, empirical, Metaphysics, metaphysical, Subjectivity, subjective, or Science, scientific. In Philosophy, philosophical terms, the question of the existence of God involves the disciplines of epistemology (the nature and scope of knowledge) and ontology (study of the nature of being or existence) and the Value theory, theory of value (since some definitions of God include perfection). The Western philosophy, Western tradition of philosophical discussion of the existence of God began with Plato and Aristotle, who made arguments for the existence of a being responsible for fashioning the universe, referred to as the demiurge or the unmoved mover, that today would be c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atheism
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the Existence of God, existence of Deity, deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which is the belief that at least one deity exists. Historically, evidence of atheistic viewpoints can be traced back to classical antiquity and Nāstika, early Indian philosophy. In the Western world, atheism declined after Christianity gained prominence. The 16th century and the Age of Enlightenment marked the resurgence of atheistic thought in Europe. Atheism achieved a significant position worldwide in the 20th century. Estimates of those who have an absence of belief in a god range from 500 million to 1.1 billion people. Atheist organizations have defended the autonomy of science, freedom of thought, secularism, and secular ethics. Arguments for atheism range from p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transtheism
Transtheism refers to a system of thought or religious philosophy that is neither theistic nor atheistic, but is beyond them. The word was coined by either theologian Paul Tillich or Indologist Heinrich Zimmer.In published writings, the term appears in 1952 for Tillich and in 1953 for Zimmer. Since the two men were personally acquainted, it is difficult to say which of them coined the term. Note that the term ''transtheism'' is avoided by both. Zimmer applies the term to Jainism, which is theistic in the limited sense that gods exist but are irrelevant as they are transcended by ''moksha'' (that is, a system that is not non-theistic, but in which the gods are not the highest spiritual instance). Zimmer (1953, p. 182) uses the term to describe the position of the Tirthankaras having passed "beyond the godly governors of the natural order." The Quakers acceptance of Free Quakers irreligion since the antislavery American Civil War, which allowed for the foundation of the Hum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conceptions Of God
Conceptions of God in classical theist, monotheist, pantheist, and panentheist traditions – or of the supreme deity in henotheistic religions – can extend to various levels of abstraction: * as a powerful, personal, supernatural being, or as the deification of an esoteric, mystical or philosophical entity or category; * as the " Ultimate", the ''summum bonum'', the "Absolute Infinite", the " Transcendent", or Existence or Being itself; * as the ground of being, the monistic substrate, that which we cannot understand; and so on. The first recordings that survive of monotheistic conceptions of God, borne out of henotheism and (mostly in Eastern religions) monism, are from the Hellenistic period. Of the many objects and entities that religions and other belief systems across the ages have labeled as divine, the one criterion they share is their acknowledgment as divine by a group or groups of human beings. Hellenistic philosophy and religion Aristoteli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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. This would also imply that sentences like the negation of 'God exists' or 'God does not exist' are likewise meaningless, i.e., neither true nor false. It may be considered synonymous with ignosticism (also called igtheism), a term coined in 1964 by Sherwin Wine, a rabbi and a founding figure of Humanistic Judaism. Arguments Theological noncognitivists argue in different ways, depending on what one considers the " theory of meaning" to be. One argument holds to the claim that definitions of God are irreducible, self-instituting relational, circular. For example, a sentence stating that "God is He who created everything, apart from Himself", is seen as circular rather than an irreducible truth. Michael Martin writing from a verificationist p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agnosticism
Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact. (page 56 in 1967 edition) It can also mean an apathy towards such religious belief and refer to personal limitations rather than a worldview. Another definition 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 said that he originally coined the word ''agnostic'' in 1869 "to denote people who, like imself confess themselves to be hopelessly ignorant concerning a variety of matters ncluding the matter of God's existence about which metaphysicians and theologians, both orthodox and heterodox, dogmatise with the utmost confidence." Earlier thinkers had written works that promoted agnostic points of view, such as Sanjaya Belatthiputta, a 5th-century BCE Indian philosophe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nontheistic Religion
Nontheistic religions (not to be confused with atheism) are traditions of religious belief, thought within a religious context—some otherwise aligned with theism, others not—in which nontheism informs religious beliefs or practices. Nontheism has been applied and plays significant roles in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. While many approaches to religion exclude nontheism by definition, some inclusive definitions of religion show how religious practice and belief do not depend on the presence of a god or gods. For example, Paul James (academic), Paul James and Peter Mandaville distinguish between religion and spirituality, but provide a definition of the term that avoids the usual reduction to "religions of the book": Buddhism Existence of gods The Gautama Buddha, Buddha said that ''Deva (Buddhism), devas'' (translated as "gods") do exist, but they were regarded as still being trapped in ''Samsara (Buddhism), samsara'', and are not necessarily wiser than humans. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first edition in 1884, traces the historical development of the English language, providing a comprehensive resource to scholars and academic researchers, and provides ongoing descriptions of English language usage in its variations around the world. In 1857, work first began on the dictionary, though the first edition was not published until 1884. It began to be published in unbound Serial (literature), fascicles as work continued on the project, under the name of ''A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society''. In 1895, the title ''The Oxford English Dictionary'' was first used unofficially on the covers of the series, and in 1928 the full dictionary was republished in 10 b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Buchanan (minister)
James Buchanan (1804–1870) was a preacher and theological writer. He was born in 1804 at Paisley, Renfrewshire, Paisley, and studied at the University of Glasgow. In 1827 he was ordained Church of Scotland minister of Roslin, near Edinburgh, and in 1828 he was translated to charge of North Leith Parish Church, North Leith. In 1840 Buchanan was translated to the High Church (St Giles Cathedral, St. Giles’), Edinburgh, and in 1843, after Disruption of 1843, the Disruption, he became first minister of St. Stephen's Free Church. In 1845 he was appointed professor of apologetics in the New College, Edinburgh, New College (Free church), Edinburgh, and in 1847, on the death of Dr. Thomas Chalmers, he was transferred to the chair of systematic theology, continuing there till his resignation in 1868. Life James Buchanan was born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Paisley on 14 April 1804 as the eldest son of James Buchanan, a wine merchant. He was educated at Paisley Grammar School. After ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
