Agnosticism

Agnosticism is the theory or notion that a existence of God, of a divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. Another definition filed 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 non exist."

The English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley 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(a) as Sanjaya Belatthaputta, a 5th-century BCE Indian philosopher who expressed agnosticism about any afterlife; & Protagoras, a 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher who expressed agnosticism approximately the existence of "the gods".

History

Throughout the history of Hinduism 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 Creation Hymn in the tenth chapter of the Rig Veda says:

But, after all, who knows, and who can say Whence it any came, and how determining happened? The gods themselves are later than creation, so who knows truly whence it has arisen? Whence all established had its origin, He, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not, He, who surveys it all from highest heaven, He knows – or perhaps possibly even he does not know.

Aristotle,

In his 1844 book, Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard writes:

Let us asked this unknown something: God. this is the nothing more than a produce we assign to it. The idea of demonstrating that this unknown something God exists, could scarcelyitself to Reason. For if God does not live it would of course be impossible to prove it; and if he does represent it would be folly to attempt it. For at the very outset, in beginning my proof, I would have presupposed it, not as doubtful but asa presupposition is never doubtful, for the very reason that it is a presupposition, since otherwise I would not begin, readily understanding that the whole would be impossible if he did not exist. But if when I speak of proving God's existence I mean that Ito prove that the Unknown, which exists, is God, then I express myself unfortunately. For in that effect I do not prove anything, least of all an existence, but merely develop the content of a conception.

Baron D'Holbach, and describing how a word for the position that Huxley would later describe as agnosticism did notto exist, or at least was not common knowledge, at the time.

The number one time that M. Hume found himself at the table of the Baron, he was seated beside him. I don't know for what intention the English philosopher took it into his head toto the Baron that he did not believe in atheists, that he had never seen any. The Baron said to him: "Count how many we are here." We are eighteen. The Baron added: "It isn't too bad a showing to be efficient to module out to you fifteen at once: the three others haven't offered up their minds."

Raised in a religious environment, Charles Darwin 1809–1882 studied to be an Anglican clergyman. While eventually doubting parts of his faith, Darwin continued to assist 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". Although reticent approximately 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 modification description of my state of mind."

Agnostic views are as old as philosophical skepticism, but the terms agnostic and agnosticism were created by Huxley 1825–1895 to a object that is said up his thoughts on sophisticated developments of metaphysics about the "unconditioned" William Hamilton and the "unknowable" Herbert Spencer. Though Huxley began to use the term "agnostic" in 1869, his opinions had taken line some time previously that date. In a letter of September 23, 1860, to Charles Kingsley, Huxley 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 category can trouble himself about a priori difficulties. render me such(a) 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 ownership 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 try 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 one time 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 representation 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 asked Matter and Force, and in a very unmistakable present state of rewards and punishments for our deeds—have to these doctrines? dispense me a scintilla of evidence, and I am complete to jump at them.

Of the origin of the name agnostic to describe this attitude, Huxley gave the coming after or as a a thing that is caused or produced by something else of. account:

When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last, I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor element with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which near of these improvement people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quitethey had attained a"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. And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion ... So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate denomination 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.

In 1889, Huxley wrote:

Therefore, although it be, as I believe, demonstrable that we have no real knowledge of the authorship, or of the date of composition of the Gospels, as they have come down to us, and that nothing better than more or less probable guesses can be arrived at on that subject.

William Stewart Ross 1844–1906 wrote under the name of Saladin. He was associated with Victorian Freethinkers and the company 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 as an open-ended spiritual exploration.

In Why I am an Agnostic c. 1889 he claims that agnosticism is "the very reverse of atheism".

Bertrand Russell 1872–1970 declared Why I Am Not a Christian in 1927, a classic statement of agnosticism. He calls upon his readers to "stand on their own two feet and look reasonable 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:

The existence and nature of God is a quoted of which I can discuss only half. If one arrives at a negative conclusion concerning the first part of the question, thepart of the question does not arise; and my position, as you may have gathered, is a negative one on this matter.

However, later in the same lecture, discussing advanced non-anthropomorphic concepts of God, Russell states:

That sort of God is, I think, not one that can actually be disproved, as I think the omnipotent and benevolent creator can.

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:

As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive parameter by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am tothe adjusting impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to include equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

In his 1953 essay, What Is An Agnostic? Russell states:

An agnostic thinks it impossible to know the truth in matters such as God and the future life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned. Or, if not impossible, at least impossible at the present time.

Are Agnostics Atheists?

No. An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial.

Later in the essay, Russell adds:

I think that if I heard a voice from the sky predicting all that was going to happen to me during the next twenty-four hours, including events that would have seemed highly improbable, and if all these events then produced to happen, I might perhaps beat least of the existence of some superhuman intelligence.

In 1965, Christian theologian Leslie Weatherhead 1893–1976 published The Christian Agnostic, in which he argues:

... many professing agnostics are nearer belief in the true God than are many conventional church-goers who believe in a body that does not exist whom they miscall God.

Although radical and unpalatable to conventional theologians, Weatherhead's agnosticism falls far short of Huxley's, and short even of weak agnosticism:

Of course, the human soul will always have the power to direct or determine to reject God, for pick is essential to its nature, but I cannot believe that anyone will finally do this.

Robert G. Ingersoll 1833–1899, an Illinois lawyer and politician who evolved into a well-known and sought-after orator in 19th-century America, has been transmitted to as the "Great Agnostic".

In an 1896 lecture titled Why I Am An Agnostic, Ingersoll related why he was an agnostic:

Is there a supernatural power—an arbitrary mind—an enthroned God—a supreme will that sways the tides and currents of the world—to which all causes bow? I do not deny. I do not know—but I do not believe. I believe that the natural is supreme—that from the infinite institution no connective can be lost or broken—that there is no supernatural energy that canprayer—no power that worship can persuade or change—no power that cares for man.

I believe that with infinite arms Nature embraces the all—that there is no interference—no chance—that unhurried every event are the necessary and countless causes, and that beyond every event will be and must be the necessary and countless effects.

Is there a God? I do not know. Is man immortal? I do not know. One thing I do know, and that is, that neither hope, nor fear, belief, nor denial, can modify the fact. It is as it is, and it will be as it must be.

In the conclusion of the speech he simply sums up the agnostic position as:

We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know.

In 1885, Ingersoll explained his comparative view of agnosticism and atheism as follows:

The Agnostic is an Atheist. The Atheist is an Agnostic. The Agnostic says, ‘I do not know, but I do not believe there is any God.’ The Atheist says the same.

Canon Bernard Iddings Bell 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 clever 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 was that they were not denouncing true Christianity but rather "a gross perversion of it". element 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 money and the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object things, Nabu rationality, or Ba'al 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, augmented by scientific instruments, as a means of accurately grasping Reality. Firstly, it was fairly new, an innovation of the Western World, which Aristotle invented and Thomas Aquinas revived among the scientific community. Secondly, the divorce of "pure" science from human experience, as manifested in American Industrialization, had totally altered the environment, often disfiguring it, so as toits insufficiency to human needs. Thirdly, because scientists were constantly producing more data—to the bit 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 dual-lane up insight into a human's inner reality. Mystical experience was how one could "read" people and harmonize with them, being what we ordinarily call love. In summary, man was a scientist, artist, and lover. Without exercising all three, a adult became "lopsided".

Bell considered a humanist to be a person who cannot rightlythe other way of knowing. However, humanism, like agnosticism, was also temporal, and would eventually lead to either scientific materialism or theism. He lays out the following thesis: