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Agnosticism

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I say that I am an agnostic. People think that's pusillanimous and covering your bets. But it's not based on any belief or yearning for an afterlife but on the fact that we actually know so little about the cosmos. ~ Martin Amis

Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable.

See also:
Listings of Agnostics

Quotes

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It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is essential to agnosticism. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley
Alphabetized by author
Agnosticism simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that for which he has no grounds for professing to believe. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley
It's important to abolish the unconscious dogmatism that makes people think their way of looking at reality is the only sane way of viewing the world. My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything. ~ Robert Anton Wilson
  • I say that I am an agnostic. People think that's pusillanimous and covering your bets. But it's not based on any belief or yearning for an afterlife but on the fact that we actually know so little about the cosmos. It is a tribute to the complexity and, at our present stage of development, the unknowability of the universe.
    • Martin Amis, in "The New Amis" in The Telegraph (13 May 2000).
  • Belief is otiose; reality is sufficiently awesome as it stands.
    • Martin Amis, "The voice of the lonely crowd", The Guardian (1 June 2002).
  • 'Agnosticism', which is simply and solely the word for a disclaimer, a renunciation of both affirmations and denials about what lies outside the reach of human thought, is usually treated in practice as the ground for a virtual atheism, as by the Victorian agnostics, or for a virtual theism, as (in different ways) by Jaspers, Marcel, and Buber. It is a counsel of perfection to say that this is indefensible, for one has to come to a practical conclusion in order to live. Nevertheless, in all rigour, agnosticism is the only defensible position, and it does not advance anybody one step on the road to atheism or one step on the road to theism.
    • H. J. Blackham, Objections to Humanism (1963), ed. H. J. Blackham, "Introduction". Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965, p. 14.
  • I am a skeptic about everything, including God and atheism. I am not certain about issues of cosmology. Sometimes I believe that our universe is the result of random forces. Other times I believe that there must be some order or purpose, though I do not begin to understand what or who it could be. I do not expect that these cosmic doubts will ever be resolved in my mind. I am more certain that the miraculous stories that form the basis of most religious beliefs are myths. Yet I respect the Bible and enjoy reading and teaching it. Indeed, I find it even more fascinating as a human creation than as a divine revelation. I consider myself a committed Jew, but I do not believe that being a Jew requires belief in the supernatural. When I attend synagogue, as I often do, or conduct Sabbath, Passover, or Chanukah services at home, I recite prayers. I am comfortable with these apparent contradictions. I am part of a long tradition that links to my heritage through the words and melodies of prayer. Indeed, it is while praying that I experience my greatest doubts about God, and it is while looking at the stars that I make the leap of faith. But it is not faith in the empirical truths of religious stories or in the authority of hierarchical religious organizations. If there is a governing force, He (or She or It) is certainly not in touch with those who purport to be speaking on His behalf.
    • Alan Dershowitz, in "Taking Disbelief out of the Closet" in Free Inquiry, Vol. 19, (Summer 1999).
  • I do not know whether there are gods, but there ought to be.
    • Diogenes of Sinope, as quoted in The Home Book of Quotations, Classical and Modern (1937) by Burton Egbert Stevenson.
  • As a matter of fact agnosticism is a theory of knowledge: it is defined as that theory of knowledge which ends in doubt, or disbelief of some or all of the powers of knowing possessed by the human mind. In a word, it is the opposite to gnosticism. Gnosticism attributed to the human mind a greater power of knowing than it actually possessed. Agnosticism denies to the human mind a power of attaining knowledge which it does possess. It is important to remember that agnosticism, as such, is a theory about knowledge and not about religion. This fact is frequently overlooked and the probe of empiric test confined illegitimately to the sphere of religious knowledge.
    • Richard Downey, Critical and Constructive Essays (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1934), p. 5.
  • Strictly speaking, agnosticism is not an interpretation of the universe at all, but a sophisticated re-statement of the question.
    • Richard Downey, Critical and Constructive Essays (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1934), p. 5.
  • One should not have the arrogance to declare that God does not exist.
    • Umberto Eco, quoted in "Belief or Nonbelief? : A Confrontation By Umberto Eco and Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini" in The Los Angeles Times (18 March 2000).
  • I honestly think atheism is inconsistent with the scientific method. What I mean by that is, what is atheism? It’s a statement, a categorical statement that expresses belief in nonbelief. "I don’t believe even though I have no evidence for or against, simply I don’t believe." Period. It’s a declaration. But in science we don’t really do declarations. We say, "Okay, you can have a hypothesis, you have to have some evidence against or for that." And so an agnostic would say, look, I have no evidence for God or any kind of god (What god, first of all? The Maori gods, or the Jewish or Christian or Muslim God? Which god is that?) But on the other hand, an agnostic would acknowledge no right to make a final statement about something he or she doesn’t know about. "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," and all that. This positions me very much against all of the "New Atheist" guys.
  • The very word Agnostic is a nineteenth-century coinage; and, if popular usage identifies it with Sceptic, that was not Huxley's intention when he launched the word. Nor, one may add, was it the idea of the ancient inventors of the term Sceptic that it should imply the dogmatism of the closed book, the affair judged, the case dismissed.
    • T. R. Glover, Progress in Religion to the Christian Era (London: Student Christian Movement, 1922), p. 211.
  • Unbelief was easier than belief, much less demanding and subtly flattering because the agnostic felt himself to be intellectually superior to the believer. And then unbelief haunted by faith, as she knew by experience, produced a rather pleasant nostalgia, while belief haunted by doubt involved real suffering.
    • Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water (1963), Ch. XIII.2; "she" is the novel's protagonist, Mary Lindsay.
  • There are people whose mind would recoil from actual negation, but who have no objection to complete indifference; and it is this that is the most to be feared, for, to deny something, one must think about it to some extent, however little that may be, whereas an attitude of indifference makes it possible not to think about it at all.
  • Agnosticism is a perfectly respectable and tenable philosophical position; it is not dogmatic and makes no pronouncements about the ultimate truths of the universe. It remains open to evidence and persuasion; lacking faith, it nevertheless does not deride faith. Atheism, on the other hand, is as unyielding and dogmatic about religious belief as true believers are about heathens. It tries to use reason to demolish a structure that is not built upon reason; because, though rational argument may take us to the edge of belief, we require a "leap of faith" to jump the chasm.
    • Sydney J. Harris, in "Atheists, Like Fundamentalists, are Dogmatic" in Pieces of Eight (1982).
  • A friend of my own, who was much pressed to say how much of the Athanasian Creed he still accepted, once said that he clung to the idea "that there was a sort of a something." In homely words such as the unlearned can understand,that is precisely what the religion of the Agnostic comes to, "the belief that there is a sort of a something about which we can know nothing."
  • Agnosticism […] is the mere disembodied spirit of dead religion.
    • Frederic Harrison, "The Ghost of Religion", The Nineteenth Century, Vol. XV (March 1884), p. 496.
  • 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, a 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 part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing on which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain "gnosis" — had more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure that I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble.
    • Thomas Huxley, in ''Christianity and Agnosticism: A Controversy (1889).
  • I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title 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.
    • Thomas Huxley, in ''Christianity and Agnosticism: A Controversy (1889).
  • Agnosticism is not properly described as a "negative" creed, nor indeed as a creed of any kind, except in so far as it expresses absolute faith in the validity of a principle which is as much ethical as intellectual. This principle may be stated in various ways, but they all amount to this: that it is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what agnosticism asserts; and, in my opinion, it is all that is essential to agnosticism.
  • Agnosticism simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that for which he has no grounds for professing to believe.
  • Idealism in philosophy is a defence, sometimes extremely elaborate, sometimes less so, of clericalism, of a doctrine that places faith above science, or side by side with science, or in some way or another gives faith a place. Agnosticism (from the Greek words “a” no and “gnosis” knowledge) is vacillation between materialism and idealism, i.e., in practice it is vacillation between materialist science and clericalism.
  • With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.
  • In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limits... In the province of connected minds, what the network believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the network's mind there are no limits.
  • The mistake of agnosticism, so it seems to me, has been that it has said not merely "I do not know," but "I will not consider." Such a position, I think, is hampering, not only to life, but to truth.
    • G. Lowes Dickinson, Religion: A Criticism and a Forecast (New York: McLure, Phillips & Co., 1905), p. x.
  • [P]eople who say, “I am an agnostic,” proudly. From the Greek, “one who doesn’t know.” They do, “I’m an agnostic.” You hear people say that. You know what the Latin word for “agnostic” is? Ignoramus. You hear anybody say, “I am an ignoramus”? Really?
  • You hear people say, “Well, I’m an agnostic.” Really? You shouldn’t be proud to be an agnostic because the Latin equivalent is ignoramus. It’s the same word. I’ve never heard anybody say, “I’m personally an ignoramus.”
  • "Clear views and certain," Mr. Thomas Hardy once wrote of his own agnosticism. Well, we cannot all have the certainty of agnostics.
    • Alfred Noyes, in The Unknown God (1934); London: Sheed & Ward, 1949, p. 6.
    • The Hardy quote is from the last stanza of the poem "He Abjures Love" (1883).
  • The modern Agnostic improves upon the ancient by adding "I don't care" to "I don't know".
    • Coventry Patmore, The Rod, the Root and the Flower (London: George Bell and Sons, 1895), "Aurea Dicta LIV", p. 17.
  • I was much cheered, on my arrival, by the warder at the gate, who had to take particulars about me. He asked my religion and I replied 'agnostic'. He asked how to spell it, and remarked with a sigh: 'Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God.' This remark kept me cheerful for about a week.
  • Agnosticism is the everlasting perhaps.
    • Francis Thompson, in "Paganism: Old and New", A Renegade Poet and Other Essays (Boston: The Ball Publishing Co., 1910), p. 47.
  • The essence of agnosticism is not to be dogmatic. It would be un-agnostic to dictate that people define themselves only in the way that we think they should. We can certainly argue against any position that we believe to be illogical, but there is a significant difference between arguing and dictating. There is a significant difference between "I believe that you are wrong and here is my argument why" and "you cannot think this way." … It's important to remember that Thomas Huxley recognized Socrates as the first agnostic. Socrates very much believed in a God, although his deity was somewhat vague and outside of his people's polytheistic religion. Philosophically Socrates was the very essence of agnosticism.
    • James Kirk Wall, in Agnosticism: The Battle Against Shameless Ignorance (2011), p. 10.

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