Agnosticism

By Michael Lai

  Generally, agnosticism is believing that the

existence of a god or gods is unknowable. There are seven types of agnosticism such as

weak agnosticism where one thinks the existence of god(s) is currently unknown but is not necessarily unknowable.

For example, a weak agnostic would say, “I don’t know if any god or gods exist, but in the future, we might find evidence to discover the answer.”

Another type of agnosticism is strong agnosticism where one believes that people are incapable of knowing whether a god or gods exist or not.

A strong agnostic might say, “I don’t know if gods exist and neither do you.”

The idea of agnosticism was first thought of in the form of skepticism in Greek philosophy in ancient Greece.

Some of the people who supported this idea were Protagoras, Pyrrho, and Carneades.

The person who created the terms agnostic and agnosticism though was Thomas Henry Huxley. Thomas Henry Huxley

Agnosticism has no traditions to practice as there is no god or gods to worship.

There are no symbols to represent agnosticism.

There are many symbols used to represent atheism though, a religion similar to agnosticism but believes that no god(s) exist at all. Not all the symbols are “appropriate” or make sense though.

letter A in a circle

letter A inside an atom

circle with a diagonal line

through it

To become an agnostic, no initiation or ceremony is required.

The only thing you must do to become an agnostic is to free any commitments to a specific religion such as Judaism, Christianity, or Buddhism.

About 2.3% of the world label themselves as atheists while 11.9% describe themselves as nonreligious.

Based on a book in 2007, the country with the most atheists, agnostics, or nonreligious people was China because of its massive population with over 180,000,000 people following into one of those three categories.

In 2007, the country with the highest percentage of atheists, agnostics, or nonreligious people was Sweden, with its percentage going up to 85%.

Atheism and agnosticism is practiced across the globe, but there are factors that contribute to why some countries have more atheists and agnostics than others.

For example, many African, South American, and Southeast Asian nations have almost no atheists while many European nations contain plenty of nonreligious people.

Some of the factors are food circulation, public health care, and available housing, and the most influential factor is the security in a community.