Ignosticism?

[CleanShavenJesus]

I just heard the term "ignostic" for the first time.

Ignosticism, according to Wikipedia, is "the theological position that every other theological position assumes too much about the concept of God and many other theological concepts; including (but not limited to) afterlife, damnation, salvation, sin and the soul. Ignosticism is the view that a coherent definition of a given religious term or theological concept must be presented before the question of the existence or nature of said term can be meaningfully discussed. Furthermore, if that definition is unfalsifiable, the ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the question of the existence or nature referred to by the term, for the given definition, is meaningless."

So basically ignosticism says that the concept of God's existence and the probability of God's existence is unverifiable and thus nonsensical? Can anybody shed light on this term? I'm interested.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

Interesting, this is closer to my view of the whole god idea than atheism, which is just the lack of belief. I think it doesn't make sense to even ask because it's unfalsifiable, but more importantly, the god hypothesis is not required.

[NoraBrimstone]

First I've heard of it, tbh.

[Lemonvariable72]

I like, i may use it

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

It seems almost a synonym for 'noncognitivism', in that most theological concepts are incoherent.

Good word, though.

Boru

[Captain Colostomy]

I prefer ignoramist...but then, I would...

[Angrboda]

It seems close to the original notion of agnosticism as advanced by Huxley. I've also heard the term ignosticism to also refer to a sort of "apathy with respect to religious questions," that ignosticism is not so much the position that I don't believe as that I don't care (an ignostic is someone who 'ignores religion'). As to the difference between ignosticism and atheism, at least as defined by Wikipedia, it would seem to be that the atheist says that she does not believe certain claims are true, whereas an ignostic says that certain claims are incoherent, and thus neither true nor false, they are just nonsense statements. (Similar to the distinction in mathematics as to whether or not a function is or is not defined at a certain value of input variables. If a function is defined, we can sensibly say that it takes on some value at that position, even if we don't know what that value is. If a function is undefined over some interval, saying so is asserting that it makes no sense to think of the function as having any specific value at all at that point. [A classic example is the function f(x) = 1/x over the closed interval between 0 and +infinity -- closed meaning that the end points are included in the interval; as the value of x gets closer to zero, the value of f approaches infinity; however at 0 itself, it becomes undefined, because the statement y = f(x) = 1/0 is not true for any possible value of y.])

[Simsim]

It is just another cautious (or friendly) way to say that you are atheist. Exactly like the terms: agnosticism, free thinker, apatheism and, sometimes, secularism.. etc. All agnostics, free thinkers and apatheists turn unmasked atheists when talking to other atheists in the absence of theists. But just when they speak to their societies they become free thinkers and secularists again.

[Whateverist]

It is just another cautious (or friendly) way to say that you are atheist. Exactly like the terms: agnosticism, free thinker, apatheism and, sometimes, secularism.. etc. All agnostics, free thinkers and apatheists turn unmasked atheists when talking to other atheists in the absence of theists. But just when they speak to their societies they become free thinkers and secularists again.

Maybe this is just the way it seems when you find the notion of God straightforward enough and the question of His existence compelling. I don't think even everyone in the same church thinks of God in the same way, let alone between churches, other religions or nontheists. Also I don't find it an urgent matter to decide. Perhaps gods are intrapersonal phenomena like dreams, obsessions and the like. They may be real for some but non-existent for others. I can't report any gods active in my internal life but I don't find that conclusive evidence for negating what others may experience. But gods as objective, interpersonally verifiable beings have not been produced so far as I know, and no first hand testimony can conclusively be shown to be based on objective rather than subjective experience. So until I have my own hallucination, I'll hang out with the skeptically inclined.

[Simsim]

Of course, Whateverist, every believer has his own conception of God which is compatible with his mind and culture. (One day I had my own one ) But at all cases and under all conceptions you still have one comprehensive state which is "a certain belief in a creator" no matter what your conception of the creator or creation is.

Perhaps gods are intrapersonal phenomena like dreams, obsessions and the like. They may be real for some but non-existent for others. I can't report any gods active in my internal life but I don't find that conclusive evidence for negating what others may experience. But gods as objective, interpersonally verifiable beings have not been produced so far as I know, and no first hand testimony can conclusively be shown to be based on objective rather than subjective experience. So until I have my own hallucination, I'll hang out with the skeptically inclined.

Yes. This is, in my opinion, the best of what can be said about an atheist and I think it is the best definition of atheism: The lack of faith for the lack of evidence and for the lack of the emotional state which makes you faithful. Thus you find that all terms like agnosticism, apatheism, "free thinking" and ignosticism .. etc are equivalent to atheism. It is just all about how to tell others about it and how to coexist with them through it. For me I don't say I am atheist in my country but I use words such as: skeptic, rational, secular, questioning and inquisitive Muslim just because I live in a very religious society taking into account that prompting people to think rationally and critically is the aim not to tell them to be atheists.