agnosticism - The Skeptic's Dictionary

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<div class="logo"> <img src="_images/logo_01.png" alt="The Skeptic's Dictionary" width="270" height="60" border="0" />           <br /> by <a href="http://skepdic.com/refuge/bio.html">Robert Todd Carroll</a> * est. 1994 </div> <div class="slogan"> <img src="_images/slogan_01.gif" alt="A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions" width="362" height="30" /> </div> </div> <div class="menu"> <ul> <li></li><li><a href="http://skepdic.com/">Home</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/news/">Newsletter</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/feedback.html">Feedback</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/faq.html">FAQ & Interviews</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/tour.html">Site Map</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="middle"> <div class="left"> <h2>Topical Indexes</h2> <ul class="nav_1"> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/tialtmed.html">Alternatives to Medicine</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/ticriticalthinking.html">Critical Thinking</a></li> 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href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#Y">y</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#Z">z</a></li> </ul> <webContent><h1>agnosticism</h1> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Agnosticism is the position of believing that knowledge of the existence or non-existence of god is impossible. It is often put forth as a middle ground between <a href="theist.html">theism</a> and <a href="atheism.html">atheism</a>. Understood this way, agnosticism is <a href="skepticism.html">skepticism</a> regarding all things theological. The agnostic holds that human knowledge is limited to the natural world, that the mind is incapable of knowledge of the supernatural. Understood this way, an agnostic could also be a theist or an atheist. The former is called a <i>fideist</i>, one who believes in god purely on faith. The latter is sometimes accused by theists of having <i>faith in the non-existence of god</i>, but the accusation is absurd and the expression meaningless. The agnostic atheist simply finds no compelling reason to believe in god.</font><p style="text-align: left"> <font face="Arial" size="3">The term 'agnostic' was created by <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0879757493/roberttoddcarrolA/">T. H. Huxley</a> (1825-1895), who took his cue from <a href="http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/h/humereli.htm">David Hume</a> and <a href="http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/k/kantmeta.htm">Immanuel Kant.</a> Huxley says that he invented the term to describe what he thought made him unique among his fellow thinkers:  </font> <blockquote> <p><font face="Arial" size="3">They were quite sure that they had attained a certain "gnosis" -- had more or less successfully solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. </font> </blockquote> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">'Agnostic' came to mind, he says, because the term was "suggestively antithetic to the '<a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/gnostic/">gnostic</a>' of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant...." Huxley seems to have intended the term to mean that <a href="metaphysics.html">metaphysics</a> is, more or less, bunk. In short, he seems to have agreed with Hume's conclusion at the end of  <i>An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding</i>: </font> <blockquote> <p><font face="Arial" size="3">When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.<font color="#800000"><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/8echu10h.htm#section12">*</a></font><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/8echu10h.htm#section12"> </a> </font> </blockquote> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Kant's <i>Critique of Pure Reason</i> resolved some of the main epistemological issues raised by Hume, but at the expense of rejecting the possibility of knowing anything beyond appearances of phenomena. We can't know god but the <i>idea</i> of god is a practical necessity, according to <a href="http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/k/kantmeta.htm">Kant</a>. </font> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"> Finally, there is an argument, popular among some who fancy themselves intellectuals, that agnosticism is the only intellectually honest position to take with regard to gods. According to this viewpoint, theism and atheism are arrogant affirmations of being certain about something that is intrinsically unknowable. It is, of course, true that it is possible there is some unknowable being or entity who creates universes, has unimaginable powers, and is like nothing we have any experience of. No atheist that I know of has ever denied such a possibility, nor have we denied the possibility of an unknowable Easter Bunny who lays eggs on Saturn or any other imaginable epistemic improbability. So what? Atheists and theists do not concern themselves with epistemic improbabilities, but with gods about whom stories have been told for millennia. The more we learn about the universe, the less reason there is for believing that any of these gods were not created by human imagination. Agnosticism regarding Zeus or Abraham's god is not an intellectually honest position, as it can be maintained only by a fatuous and dishonest treatment of the available evidence. That evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt that all gods fashioned thus far in the minds of men are highly improbable. Agnosticism regarding unimaginable, unknowable beings is redundant. </font> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><b>See also</b> <a href="atheism.html">atheism</a>, <a href="brights.html">bright</a>, <a href="gods.html"> gods</a>, <a href="theism.html">theism</a>, and <a href="theist.html"> theist</a>.</font><hr align="left" width="25%"> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><b>further reading</b> </font> <p style="text-align: left"><a href="http://skepdic.com/comments/agnosticom.html"><strong>reader comments </strong></a> <p style="text-align: left"><b><font face="Arial" size="3">books and articles</font></b><p style="text-align: left"> <font face="Arial" size="3"> <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/david_hume/human_understanding.html">Hume, David.<i> An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding </i>(on-line text)</a></font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0879757493/roberttoddcarrolA/">Huxley, Thomas Henry. <i>Agnosticism and Christianity and Other Essays</i> (Great Mind Series)  (Prometheus Books,1992).</a></font><p style="text-align: left"> <font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/why_am_i_agnostic.html">Why Am I An Agnostic?</a> by Robert Green Ingersoll (1889)</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/h_j_blackham/agnostic.html">What Is Agnosticism?</a> (1981) by H. J. Blackham</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><b><font face="Arial" size="3">website</font></b><p style="text-align: left"> <font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.religioustolerance.org/agnostic.htm">agnosticism</a> - Religious Tolerance Page</font></p> <p><a href="http://skepdic.com/refuge/dawkins.html">review of <i>The God Delusion </i>by R. T. Carroll</a></webContent> Last updated 19-Oct-2015 </p> </div> </div> <div class="right"> <div class="right_it"> <div class="search"> <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" target="_top"> <input type="hidden" name="domains" value="skepdic.com" /> <input type="text" name="q" maxlength="255" value="" size="20" /> <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" /> <br /> <div class="search_2"> <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="" /> Web     <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="skepdic.com" checked="checked" /> Skepdic.com <br /> <img src="_images/logo_google.gif" alt="Google" width="48" height="19" /> </div> <input type="hidden" name="client" value="pub-3542920166946725" /> <input type="hidden" name="forid" value="1" /> <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1" /> <input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1" /> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="GALT:#008000;GL:1;DIV:#336699;VLC:663399;AH:center;BGC:FFFFFF;LBGC:336699;ALC:0000FF;LC:0000FF;T:000000;GFNT:0000FF;GIMP:0000FF;FORID:1;" /> <input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en" /> </form> </div> <div class="center"> <p align="right"><a href="http://skepdic.com/authorpage.html"><strong>Books by R. 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agnosticism - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com