The range of meanings of the term: "Agnostic:" Agnosticism is a concept, not a full religion. It is a belief related to the existence or non-existence of God. However, many people have started with an Agnosticism, and have added a moral code, rituals and other items to create a belief system with many of the attributes of a religion. When asked what their religion is, many Agnostics will reply "Agnostic." Since so many Agnostics regard this as their religion, we have a policy of capitalizing the term out of respect, as we do for all religions on this web site. This is not often seen on the Internet, but we feel that it is appropriate. Agnosticism implies uncertainty about the existence of God. The basic problem here is that there are many answers to the question "Does God exist?" However there is only this one term available to cover all of the meanings. Some of today's possible overlapping answers to the question are: I don't personally know. I don't know but will lead my life in the assumption that no God exists. I don't know but will lead my life assuming that God does exist. I cannot give an opinion because there is no way that we can prove the existence or non-existence of God given currently available knowledge. I cannot give an opinion because there is no way to know, with certainty, anything about God, now and in the future. Yes, God exists. But we do not know anything about God at this time. Yes, God exists. But we have no possibility of knowing anything about God, now or in the future. Ultimately, the term "Agnostic" is something like "Christianity." Both refer to a wide diversity of belief systems, but in many cases, an individual asserts that their particular definition is the only fully valid one. The one principle linking all meanings of "Agnostic" is that God's existence can neither be proved nor disproved, on the basis of current evidence. Agnostics note that some theologians and philosophers have tried to to prove, for millennia, that God exists. Others have attempted to prove that God does not exist. Agnostics feel that neither side has convincingly succeeded at their task. Evolution of the term "Agnostic" over time: Three main meanings have been associated with "Agnostic" since Thomas H. Huxley invented the term in the mid-19th century Huxley defined agnosticism as follows: "... it is wrong for a man to say he is certain of the objective truth of a proposition unless he can provide evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what agnosticism asserts and in my opinion, is all that is essential to agnosticism." 11 "... an agnostic is someone who not only is undecided concerning the existence of God, but who also thinks that the question of God’s existence is in principle unanswerable. We cannot know whether or not God exists, according to an agnostic, and should therefore neither believe nor disbelieve in him." 12 An agnostic is undecided about whether or not God exists. Are Agnostics Atheists? Agnostics are not Theists. Agnostics do not believe in a God, or a Goddess, or in multiple Gods, or multiple Goddesses or in a pantheon of Gods and Goddesses. However, some Agnostics consider themselves to be Atheists. Dictionary definitions of "Agnostic:" Houghton Mifflin: "One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism." 8 Columbia encyclopedia: "[A belief] that the existence of God cannot be logically proved or disproved. Agnosticism is not to be confused with atheism which asserts that there is no God." 9 Wikipedia: ['A belief] that the (truth) values of certain claims—particularly theological claims regarding the existence of God, gods, or deities—are unknown, inherently unknowable, or incoherent, and therefore, irrelevant to life." 10 Merriam-Webster: "A person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god." 13 Die.net: "One who professes ignorance, or denies that we have any knowledge, save of phenomena; one who supports agnosticism, neither affirming nor denying the existence of a personal Deity, a future life, etc." Famous Agnostics: Charles Darwin, a 19th century British self-taught geologist and writer. He attended a course in theology at Christ's College, Cambridge. Darwin wrote in two places in his book "Life and Letters" about his personal faith: "The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic." "I think an Agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind. The whole subject [of God] is beyond the scope of man's intellect." Thomas H. Huxley, a well known English religious skeptic, invented the term Agnostic in the mid 19th century (sources differ about the exact date). He combined "a" which implies negative, with "gnostic" which is a Greek word meaning knowledge. Francois M. Arouet, the French 18th century author and playwright who worked under the pseudonym Voltaire is often considered the father of Agnosticism. http://www.religioustolerance.org/agnostic.htm Agnosticism is the position of believing that knowledge of the existence or nonexisstenc of God is impossible. It is often put forth as a middle ground between theism and atheism. Understood this way, agnosticism is skepticism regarding all things theological. The agnostic holds that human knowledge is limited to the natural world, that the mind is incapable of knowledge of the supernatural. Understood this way, an agnostic could also be a theist or an atheist. The former is called a fideist, one who believes in God purely on faith. http://skepdic.com/agnosticism.html Etymology: from Greek agnôstos (ignorant), gnosis = knowledge. The word agnosticism was created in 1869 by Thomas Huxley, British naturalist (1825-1895) who took inspiration from the ideas of David Hume and of Emmanuel Kant. Agnosticism is a philosophy that declares absolute, divine, metaphysics, and more generally what cannot be grasp by experiment, is inaccessible to the human mind and to perception. Consequently, the existence of God cannot be proven. Agnosticism professes a complete ignorance about the profound nature, the origin and the destiny of things. It is a form of skepticism applied to metaphysics and theology. Already present in the Ancient Greece, agnosticism developed much in the 18th and 19th centuries because of the progress of science that provided experimental results contradicting the religious dogmas and the Holy Scripture like Bible. God being unknowable, the agnostic cannot come to a conclusion about his existence and consequently considers that it is useless to worship him or to submit to revealed morals that should have been dictated to men. Buddhism and Jainism are agnostic religions. Protagoras, Democritus, Hume, Emmanuel Kant, William James, Herbert Spencer, Albert Einstein were agnostic. http://atheisme.free.fr/Atheisme/Agnosticism.htm