Crossword clues for agnosticism
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Agnosticism \Ag*nos"ti*cism\, n. That doctrine which, professing ignorance, neither asserts nor denies. Specifically: (Theol.) The doctrine that the existence of a personal Deity, an unseen world, etc., can be neither proved nor disproved, because of the necessary limits of the human mind (as sometimes charged upon Hamilton and Mansel), or because of the insufficiency of the evidence furnished by physical and physical data, to warrant a positive conclusion (as taught by the school of Herbert Spencer); -- opposed alike dogmatic skepticism and to dogmatic theism. [1913 Webster] ||
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
n. 1 The view that absolute truth or ultimate certainty is unattainable, especially regarding knowledge not based on experience or perceivable phenomena. 2 The view that the existence of God or of all deity is unknown, unknowable, unproven, or unprovable. 3 doubt, uncertainty, or scepticism regarding the existence of a god or gods. 4 (label en by extension) doubt, uncertainty, or scepticism regarding any subject of dispute.
WordNet
n. a religious orientation of doubt; a denial of ultimate knowledge of the existence of God; "agnosticism holds that you can neither prove nor disprove God's existence"
the disbelief in any claims of ultimate knowledge [syn: skepticism, scepticism]
Wikipedia
Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims – especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether God, the divine, or the supernatural exist – are unknown and perhaps unknowable.
According to the philosopher William L. Rowe, "agnosticism 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." Agnosticism is a doctrine or set of tenets rather than a religion as such.
Thomas Henry Huxley, an English biologist, coined the word "agnostic" in 1869. Earlier thinkers, however, had written works that promoted agnostic points of view, such as Sanjaya Belatthaputta, a 5th-century BCE Indian philosopher who expressed agnosticism about any afterlife; and Protagoras, a 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher who expressed agnosticism about "the gods". The Nasadiya Sukta in the Rigveda is agnostic about the origin of the universe.
Usage examples of "agnosticism".
Thomas Aquinas closely resembles the great Professor Huxley, the Agnostic who invented the word Agnosticism.
The best authorities seem to think that though Confucianism is in one sense agnosticism, it does not directly contradict the old theism, precisely because it has become a rather vague theism.
But it runs side by side with an almost cryptic agnosticism about the real nature of the gods to be propitiated.
Atheism, materialism and agnosticism are an old, old trinity, but they had up to our own time been at the mercy of more positive attitudes through their inability to really answer those insurgent questions: Whence?
Christian theism was more sharply challenged by materialism and agnosticism than by a frankly confessed atheism.
As a profoundly mystical and religious mind, he was repulsed by the agnosticism of the radicals.
Some of them stopped at various intermediate stages on the march away from agnosticism and positivism.
An old emeritus professor, Doctoran Hildegard, who was famed for his agnosticism, sipped his and announced that he now had evidence of the existence of the Deity.
More hurtful than agnosticism, because affecting larger masses of people, is the rapid growth of the mercantile spirit during the present century, especially in America.
This had been the one thing needed to make Miriam as intolerant in agnosticism as she formerly was in dogma.
If the Christian Socialists have a right to their God, and monogamists to their eternal marriage, then surely in a revolutionary movement like ours, the complete revolutionists have, to say the least, an equal right to their agnosticism and their free union.
An old emeritus professor, Doctoran Hildegard, who was famed for his agnosticism, sipped his and announced that he now had evidence of the existence of the Deity.
The time when this was feasible is already over, as may be seen from the fact that ever greater masses of men wish to determine their behaviour according to their own ideas, and as they see no alternative in the civilization around them but to form ideas by means of the discursive reason which inevitably leads to agnosticism, they determine their actions accordingly.