What Do Agnostics Believe? What's Agnosticism?

Answer 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic

Answer 2

Agnosticism: an uncertainty about whether God exists

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 theism and atheism. Understood this way, agnosticism is skepticism 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 fideist, one who believes in God purely on faith. The latter is sometimes accused by theists of having faith in the non-existence of God, but the accusation is absurd and the expression meaningless. The agnostic atheist simply finds no compelling reason to believe in God.

The term 'agnostic' was created by T. H. Huxley (1825-1895), who took his cue from David Hume and Immanuel Kant. Huxley says that he invented the term to describe what he thought made him unique among his fellow thinkers:

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.

'Agnostic' came to mind, he says, because the term was "suggestively antithetic to the 'gnostic' 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 metaphysics is, more or less, bunk. In short, he seems to have agreed with Hume's conclusion at the end of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding:

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.*

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason 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 idea of God is a practical necessity, according to Kant.

Answer 3

I'm an agnostic. I believe there might be a divine power, though I doubt it. Rather than waste ones time on an unprovable question (Does God exist?) we should focus on how to make life better and try to be decent to one another.

Answer 4

Gnosticism
The doctrine of salvation by knowledge. This definition, based on the etymology of the word (gnosis "knowledge", gnostikos, "good at knowing"), is correct as far as it goes, but it gives only one, though perhaps the predominant, characteristic of Gnostic systems of thought. Whereas Judaism and Christianity, and almost all pagan systems, hold that the soul attains its proper end by obedience of mind and will to the Supreme Power, i.e. by faith and works, it is markedly peculiar to Gnosticism that it places the salvation of the soul merely in the possession of a quasi-intuitive knowledge of the mysteries of the universe and of magic formulae indicative of that knowledge. Gnostics were "people who knew", and their knowledge at once constituted them a superior class of beings, whose present and future status was essentially different from that of those who, for whatever reason, did not know. A more complete and historical definition of Gnosticism would be:


A collective name for a large number of greatly-varying and pantheistic-idealistic sects, which flourished from some time before the Christian Era down to the fifth century, and which, while borrowing the phraseology and some of the tenets of the chief religions of the day, and especially of Christianity, held matter to be a deterioration of spirit, and the whole universe a depravation of the Deity, and taught the ultimate end of all being to be the overcoming of the grossness of matter and the return to the Parent-Spirit, which return they held to be inaugurated and facilitated by the appearance of some God-sent Saviour.
However unsatisfactory this definition may be, the obscurity, multiplicity, and wild confusion of Gnostic systems will hardly allow of another. Many scholars, moreover, would hold that every attempt to give a generic description of Gnostic sects is labour lost.

Answer 5

Agnosticism is usually the belief that the existence of a god or gods cannot ever be known one way or the other.

Answer 6

I am agnostice and it means to me, that I feel no one can either prove OR disprove God exists... so basically untill i see or feel proof I am a skeptic

Answer 7

An agnostic is someone is has not yet decided whether or not they believe in God.

Answer 8

This isn't the actual definition, but I'd venture to guess a lot of agnostics just simply don't friggin care...

the actual definition is just "not knowing."


or, ya look at wiki. ; )

Answer 9

A form of atheism where they admit that gods could exist but don't care to think about it much. Kinda an extreme approach if you ask me.

Answer 10

They do not believe in God but believe there is a higher power.