Ignosticism
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Ignosticism or igtheism is the idea that the question of the existence of God is meaningless because the word "God" has no coherent and unambiguous definition.
Terminology
[edit]The term ignosticism was coined in 1964 by Sherwin Wine, a rabbi and a founding figure of Humanistic Judaism.
Distinction from theological noncognitivism
[edit]Ignosticism and theological noncognitivism are similar although whereas the ignostic says "every theological position assumes too much about the concept of God",[1] the theological noncognitivist claims to have no concept whatever to label as "a concept of God",[2] but the relationship of ignosticism to other nontheistic views is less clear. While Paul Kurtz finds the view to be compatible with both weak atheism and agnosticism,[3] other philosophers[who?] consider ignosticism to be distinct.
See also
[edit]- Apatheism
- Apophatic theology
- Atheism
- Conceptions of God
- Epistemology
- Ietsism
- Loki's Wager
- Pantheism
- Scientific method
- Verificationism
References
[edit]- ^ Lindsay 2015, p. 73
- ^ Conifer, Theological Noncognitivism: "Theological noncognitivism is usually taken to be the view that the sentence 'God exists' is cognitively meaningless."
- ^ Kurtz, New Skepticism, 220: "Both [atheism and agnosticism] are consistent with igtheism, which finds the belief in a metaphysical, transcendent being basically incoherent and unintelligible."
Sources
[edit]- Conifer, Steven J. (June 2002). "Theological Noncognitivism Examined". The Interlocutor. 4. Archived from the original on January 23, 2004. Retrieved 24 May 2007.
- Drange, Theodore (1998). "Atheism, Agnosticism, Noncognitivism". Internet Infidels. Retrieved 2007-03-26.
- Kurtz, Paul (1992). The New Skepticism: Inquiry and Reliable Knowledge. Buffalo: Prometheus Books. ISBN 0-87975-766-3.
- Lindsay, James A. (2015). Everybody is Wrong About God. Pitchstone Publishing. ISBN 978-1-63431-036-9.
- Rauch, Jonathan (2003). "Let It Be". The Atlantic. Vol. 291, no. 4. Retrieved 2007-05-24.
- Spiegel, Irving (1965-06-20). "Jewish 'Ignostic' Stirs Convention; Dropping of 'God' in Service Deplored and Condoned". New York Times. p. 62.
External links
[edit]
The dictionary definition of ignosticism at Wiktionary
