Suppose one believes that there is a higher power, but not that said higher power is in anyway helping or hindering the creatures on Earth. Basically, one believes that the higher power might have been instrumental in the creation of people, but has long since left the room with the cosmic TV on.
This isn’t Agnosticism, since there isn’t doubt that the higher power exists, so…Is there a term to describe believing in a disinterested higher power, but not a relgious belief label like Christian, Jewish or Wican?
“Agnostic” does not mean one who doubts or is uncertain about the existence of God. Rather the term, as originally coined by Thomas Huxley, means one who is very certain there IS a God, but who recognizes that this certainty is not a matter of objective, empirical, scientific proof, but rather an unprovable matter of faith.
Whatever Huxley may have meant by it, what agnostic presently means is:
ag·nos·tic: noun
Etymology: Greek agnOstos unknown, unknowable, from a- + gnOstos known, from gignOskein to know – more at KNOW
Date: 1869
: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and prob. unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god.
de·ism
n.
The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation.
Thanks! Now, when people ask about my religious beliefs, I can do something besides shrug, or give a long-winded explaination.
If I can only figure out how to say it…unfortunately, the pronounciation parts of definitions in dictionaries are gibberish to me.
My understanding is that Huxley did not have a certain belief in God, but rather a belief that humans must inevitably be ignorant of such matters; said Huxley of the term he invented: “It came into my head as suggestively antithetical to the ‘Gnostic’ of Church history who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant.” Agnosticism in this sense is not just a question of doubting the existence of God, but of doubting whether or not we can hope to answer the question at all. See Huxley, T.H. and agnosticism.
What you are describing sounds more like fideism. There is also such a thing as religious agnosticism, which would somewhat resemble what you’re describing, but Huxley apparently was not a religious but a secular or atheistic agnostic.
On the off chance that you haven’t already figured this out, I’ll help. The word is pronounced as follows: dee·izz·um
The emphasis is properly placed on the “dee”.