h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Great entry. A short answer to a long question. If you do want to expand this entry, here are some thoughts to complement the discussion of agnosticism.

Agnosticism is a-gnostic. This does mean "outside of the gnostic belief system" since Gnosticism is a religion. But it might also be a rejection of the spiritual in favour of the purely physical aspects of human existence - gnosticism in reverse. Also the fact that the Gnostic belief is deliberately esoteric, the proportion of western people professing themselves agnostic is a second point of opposition to gnosticism.

Therefore agnosticism is a reliance upon rationalism, science and the empirical world from which one can alone derive meaning for one's life. The atheist shares these charcateristics but a focus on the non-existence of God is a betrayal of these values since if a thing does not exist, why talk about it?

Umberto Eco discusses this (better than I) in Kant and the Platypus "the very fact that God is thinkable demonstrates that he exists" (On Being pp16). Agnosticism is therefore purer than aetheism - rather than "lazy aetheism".

The distinction between gnosis and agnosis can be taken a stage further. One might say that apostolic Christianity, Gnosticism, Theosophy etc. are Platonist (or neoplatonist) systems, whereas agnosticism is closer to Aristotelian thinking. For instance, many agnostics would not even presume to question the possible non-existence of things.

Aristotle deliberately avoided the question "What is being". Pareyson says "Reality is ... a foundation that always denies itself a foundation". We are because we are.

Here is a thought I have been developing which I think is unique (correct me if you seen this before by replying with a reference please):

Everyone is familiar with Descartes "cogito ergo sum". An interesting word is sum (from which, in English, I believe we derive summary, summation and the name for the process of mathematical construction and also its result). Yahweh means "I am"; Jesus Christ said "I AM the way, the truth and the life". Jesus identifies himself as identical with God in the language of the Old Testament and in the language of the New declares that he "is" (i.e. God exists) and also is the totality of things, the sum and the solution. The WAY, TRUTH and LIFE is a description, perhaps, of the characters of the Trinity - The Holy Spirit points the WAY to Christ, the TRUTH, and truth is derived only from the fact that things exist that can say something about other things - i.e. LIFE of which the Father God is the progenitor.

Aristotle describes a notion (LOGOS), its name (ONOMA) and its sign (SEMEION) as a trinity to describe the definition (logical understanding) of essence/beingness/existence. These might form an atheistic trinity. "There are things, they have names and we use those names to describe the world of experience". If the notion of God does not exist, they need not name it or find a way to get to it. (However, the notion of God does exist, is almost unavoidable in human experience). But the agnostic has no problem here - preferring to believe that the existence or non-existence of God simply has no bearing on the fact of his own existence.

Also, interesting that we describe ourselves as "Human Beings". Our name for ourselves is an acknowledgement that one must "be" to be a human being. But as has been said, God exists as a notion - God would not exist as an object except that he is conceivable in the mind of a person (not withstanding the fact that he is conceivable in his own mind - use of "he" and "his" not meant to offend, by the way).

Spinoza says people form universal images of things according to the disposition their bodies - hence it is unsurprising that God is conceived as something that thinks and has arms and legs. The gnostic feels that matter is inherently evil hence God cannot have physical substance such as ownership of an arm. The aetheist also believes there is no substance to God, but also that there is no essence either. The Christian and Muslim must believe that God has both substance and essence. For the agnostic to differ from these 3 views, perhaps they might say that God is only substance - they worship the material and live in it.

As I recall, agnostic, and the Gnostics share a _common_ linguistic root in some word like 'gnosis' or suchlike, meaning knowledge.

So agnostic would just mean 'abscence of knowledge' or some such...

Yes, agnostic means literally "without knowledge." The fact that the Gnostic religion chose the same root word is really nothing more than a semantic coincidence.

Glider, your thoughts are interesting, but they have almost nothing to do with the practical matter of understanding modern agnostics. In fact, I rather worry that your lengthy foray into philosophy will serve to confuse readers. Perhaps your thoughts should be turned into a seperate Guide entry and submitted to the Peer Review system.

Probably right - The guide entry takes longer, but when I open my journal I can never think of anything to say. I find it is in response to others that my own thoughts crystallise. I am basically a reactive thinker.

There's nothing wrong with that.

better than being a reflective thinker...
{that's when you listen to other people's ideas, regurgitate them, and pass them off as your own... }

The Gnostics chose the term because their beliefs center on a series of wisdom teachings that bring them closer to god. As they are initiated into higher levels, they gain more gnosis. Their gnosis is knowledge of god. An agnostic has no knowledge of god. So you can see that both groups use the term in pretty much the same sense.

"Three Cheers for the Colonel" - to the left to the right and to the front in true regimental fashion. ;¬)

Actually, reading back over my own garbled thoughts I am not sure I wasn't delirious at the time - but now I think I may be on to something! Look out for a guide entry on "being and nothingness" sometime in the next 10 years.

Good luck on it.