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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

The term ignosticism was coined in 1964 by Sherwin Wine, a rabbi and a founding figure of Humanistic Judaism.

Distinction from theological noncognitivism

Ignosticism and theological noncognitivism are similar although whereas the ignostic says "every theological position assumes too much about the concept of God", the theological noncognitivist claims to have no concept whatever to label as "a concept of God", 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, other philosophers consider ignosticism to be distinct.

See also

• Apatheism
• Apophatic theology
• Atheism
• Conceptions of God
• Epistemology
• Ietsism
• Loki's Wager
• Pantheism
• Scientific method
• Verificationism

References

1. Lindsay 2015, p. 73
2. Conifer, Theological Noncognitivism: "Theological noncognitivism is usually taken to be the view that the sentence 'God exists' is cognitively meaningless."
3. Kurtz, New Skepticism, 220: "Both are consistent with igtheism, which finds the belief in a metaphysical, transcendent being basically incoherent and unintelligible."

Sources

• 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

• The dictionary definition of ignosticism at Wiktionary

• Agnosticism
• Criticism of religion
• 20th-century neologisms