Introduction | Types of Agnosticism | Support for Agnosticism

Agnosticism is the belief that the nature and existence of gods is unknown and inherently unknowable due to the nature of subjective experience. Technically, this position is strong agnosticism: in popular usage, an agnostic may just be someone who takes no position, pro or con, on the existence of gods, or who has not yet been able to decide, or who suspends judgment due to lack of evidence one way or the other (weak agnosticism).

Agnosticism maintains that the nature and attributes of God are beyond the grasp of man's finite and limited mind. Agnostics generally claim either that it is not possible to have absolute or certain knowledge of the existence or non-existence of God or gods, or that, while individual certainty may be possible, they personally have no knowledge. In both cases this involves some form of skepticism.

The earliest professed agnostic was Protagoras, although the term itself (from the Greek "agnosis" meaning "without knowledge") was not coined in English until the 1880s by T. H. Huxley.

Some of the most important agnostic philosophers are Protagoras, T. H. Huxley, Robert Ingersoll and Bertrand Russell, but many more public figures have been self-confessed agnostics, including Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Milton Friedman, Carl Sagan and Mark Twain.

The Greek Sophist Protagoras was probably the earliest agnostic. He professed that the existence of the gods was unknowable in the 5th Century B.C.

Huxley was responsible for creating the terms "agnostic" and "agnosticism" to sum up his own position on Metaphysics. His agnosticism was a response to the clerical intolerance of the 1860's as it tried to suppress scientific discoveries which appeared to clash with scripture.

Ingersoll, known as "The Great Agnostic", was an influential American politician in the late 19th Century, and a strong supporter of Freethought (the philosophical viewpoint that holds that beliefs should be formed on the basis of science and logic and not be influenced by emotion, authority, tradition or dogma). He popularized and justified the agnostic position, which he summed up in his 1986 lecture "Why I Am An Agnostic".

Russell's "Why I Am Not a Christian" and "Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?" are considered classic statements of agnosticism. He was careful to distinguish between his atheism as regards certain types of god concepts, and his agnosticism as regards some other types of superhuman intelligence. Though he generally considered himself an agnostic in a purely philosophical context, he said that the label "atheist" conveyed a more accurate understanding of his views in a popular context.

Read more from the original source:
Agnosticism - By Branch / Doctrine - The Basics of Philosophy