Agnosticism

Agnosticism (from Greek: ἀγνοεῖν a-gnoein "not knowing") refers to an everyday conviction or also well-founded philosophical view that certain assumptions - especially those of a theological nature concerning the existence or non-existence of a higher authority, for example a God - are either unexplained or fundamentally impossible to clarify. The term was coined by the British biologist and anatomist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895).

Agnosticism is a worldview that emphasises in particular the principled limitedness of human knowledge. The possibility of the existence of transcendent beings or principles is not denied. Agnosticism is compatible with both theism and atheism, since belief in God is possible even if one denies the possibility of certainty regarding his existence. Accordingly, agnostics do not answer the question "Is there a God?" with "Yes" or "No", but with "I don't know", "It is not clarified", "It is not answerable" or "It is not relevant".

„By very many people everything religious is categorically rejected. It is all too easy to be categorised as a religious nut, esoteric crush or naïve scofflaw as soon as you start talking about gods and angels. Here, many people are deeply hurt by all that has emanated from the church. And they are rightly disappointed, because either they have been persuaded to believe in untenable things, or they have not been made aware of any of this, so that the natural closeness to the spiritual in the world could not be formed. One can say that the Church has turned many of us into atheists and materialists and has thus caused enormous damage, especially in Central Europe. Countless souls can no longer find the way to the spirit, because church Christianity has driven the unpremeditatedness out of them.“ (Lit.: Hans Bonneval, p. 193)

Literature

• Hans Bonneval: Das Denken als Weg zu einer spirituellen Welterkenntnis, Band I, Occident-Vlg., Rieste 2010