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agnostic

   Also found in: Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.03 sec.
ag·nos·tic  (g-nstk)
n.
1.
a. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
b. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
2. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.
adj.
1. Relating to or being an agnostic.
2. Doubtful or noncommittal: "Though I am agnostic on what terms to use, I have no doubt that human infants come with an enormous 'acquisitiveness' for discovering patterns" William H. Calvin.

[a-1 + Gnostic.]

ag·nosti·cal·ly adv.
Word History: An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not they exist. The term agnostic was fittingly coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge. He made up the word from the prefix a-, meaning "without, not," as in amoral, and the noun Gnostic. Gnostic is related to the Greek word gnsis, "knowledge," which was used by early Christian writers to mean "higher, esoteric knowledge of spiritual things"; hence, Gnostic referred to those with such knowledge. In coining the term agnostic, Huxley was considering as "Gnostics" a group of his fellow intellectuals"ists," as he called themwho had eagerly embraced various doctrines or theories that explained the world to their satisfaction. Because he was a "man without a rag of a label to cover himself with," Huxley coined the term agnostic for himself, its first published use being in 1870.

agnostic
Noun
1. a person who believes that it is impossible to know whether God exists
2. a person who claims that the answer to some specific question cannot be known with certainty
Adjective
of or relating to agnostics [a- + gnostic having knowledge]
agnosticism n
ThesaurusLegend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Noun1.agnostic - someone who is doubtful or noncommittal about something
individual, mortal, person, somebody, someone, soul - a human being; "there was too much for one person to do"
2.agnostic - a person who claims that they cannot have true knowledge about the existence of God (but does not deny that God might exist)
religious person - a person who manifests devotion to a deity
Adj.1.agnostic - of or pertaining to an agnostic or agnosticism
2.agnostic - uncertain of all claims to knowledge
gnostic - possessing intellectual or esoteric knowledge of spiritual things
Translations

agnostic [ægˈnɔstɪk] adj, nagnóstico/a m/f
agnostic [ægˈnɔstɪk] nAgnostiker(in) m(f)
agnostic [ægˈnɔstɪk] adj, nagnostico/a

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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
My gay American horizons were bathed in the vast melancholy of the Slav, patient, agnostic, trustful.
He proclaimed him- self an agnostic and was so absorbed in destroying the ideas of God that had crept into the minds of his neighbors that he never saw God manifesting himself in the little child that, half forgotten, lived here and there on the bounty of her dead mother's relatives.
But such reaction was effective only because an age had come--the age of a negative, or agnostic philosophy--in which men's minds must needs be limited to the superficialities of things, with a kind of narrowness amounting to a positive gift.
 
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